Man, What Would I Do To Have A Love As Pure, Exciting, And So Sweet As Mitsuaya’s 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

leyendecker study but make it caitvi 🌸

an even less exhaustive list of femme literature

since a made of a list of butch lit, I thought it would be nice to make a list of femme writing by (mostly) femme authors as well. books I've read myself in bold; take the rest with a grain of salt. I'd really appreciate additions, especially of fiction!

fiction:

dykette by jenny fran davis

perfume and pain by anna dorn

trash by dorothy allison

all the pretty girls by chandra mayor

femme confidential by nairne holtz

bottle rocket hearts by zoe whittall

nonfiction:

brazen femme: queering feminity ed chloe brushwood rose and anna camilleri

femme: feminists, lesbians, and bad girls ed laura harris and elizabeth crocker

the femme mystique ed leslea newman

out of the closet and nothing to wear by leslea newman

fierce femmes and notorious liars by kai cheng thom

dirty river by leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

s/he by minnie bruce pratt

naked in the promised land by lillian faderman

a restricted country by joan nestle

rust belt femme by raechel anne jolie

my dangerous desires by amber hollibaugh

odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman

another mother tongue by judy grahn

boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky and madeline davis

the persistent desire ed joan nestle

persistence: all way butch and femme ed ivan coyote and zena sharman

articles/essays:

our own words by rosza daniel lang/levitsky in e-flux

high femme camp antics by jenny fran davis in la review of books

with gratitude and struggle by nan alamilla boyd in autostraddle

that time I went on a lesbian cruise and blew up my life by shannon keating in buzzfeed

femme-inism by paula austin in colonize this!

if being an awkward loser lesbian was illegal id be in prison

this. these two shots right there. this is what gets me. they found each other. they’re finally reunited and nothing comes in between. they defied oil and water.

my glasses are always dirty but it's fine. i've seen enough.

YELLOWJACKETS 308. A Normal, Boring Life

mitsuaya both still getting shy about admitting how long they’ve liked each other even now after they’ve already kissed oh i know years later they’ll be one of those “awww babe you had a crush on me? how embarrassing for you” couples for sure

compulsive heterosexuality is truly one of the worst things you could ever experience not only as a lesbian, but also as a feminine woman. i have been a christian for as long as i have been existing in this planet—raised with catholic knowledge, scriptures, grew up with religious family—therefore, i always thought that women are only meant to be with a man as they are meant to be with a woman. women are meant to submit, to be whoever i am today, while men are meant to protect; to which i do not mind because being feminine is amazing, being feminine is special! it makes me unique, it makes me powerful. i wouldn’t mind being clingy to you, i wouldn’t mind cleaning the dishes for you, i wouldn’t mind being left alone at home for you to come back home with our children, but i always find myself in tears whenever i try to envision myself with a man.

you know this by now but it’s been a year since i assembled the puzzle pieces of my identity and finally figured things out like yes, i am lesbian and i have never been so happier to finally call myself one! i am sending all of my love to all the bisexual people; it is a label that i was once comfortable identifying myself with until i have felt that i know i could be something more than that. most of the time, i am super confident in my skin. sometimes, i feel like throwing up.

the moment i find a man attractive, i get so confused that i start to despise myself ruthlessly. a part of me is terrified, deeply terrified.

will i ever be happy with the decisions i make in my life if i keep on swaying back and forth like what i’m doing today? do i really like girls? am i just playing with their feelings the whole time? are they an experiment all along? am i an experiment? am i actually a lesbian when i end up finding certain men pretty? what if my sacrifices for being bold boils down to the drain and at the end of the day, i’ll settle down with a man? will i actually burn just because i am being who i really am? will i be that kind of a lesbian who will be despised for having this compulsion? maybe i do really like men? will all of this boil back down to me being a christian? will my parents tell me that they told me so and i’ll find myself crying, telling myself that they were right all along? am i meant to suffer from the constant loop that repeats all of these questions again? the moment i find a man attractive and try to envision myself leaning my head against his shoulder, arms wrapped around his; i can never see the same sparkle in my eyes when i love a woman. what am i? who am i, truly? does it ever get better?

this is my biggest fear. you could bring me cockroaches; the insects i always despised since i was a kid, you could take me to the tallest building since i am terrified of heights, but to constantly doubt who i really am and realize that i still haven’t figured it out yet is what would kill me.

I think the way the camera treats Caitlyn in the first act of season 2 is really interesting. It cuts off her eyes at some very key moments.

The eyes are how we connect with someone. Cutting them off cuts off the ability to sympathize with them. And depending on how the mouth is shot it can make the character seem more base or animalistic in a given moment. I think the show did this quite a bit with Silco in season 1, and they do it with Caitlyn in season 2.

The first one is from s2e1 when Caitlyn says about Jinx, "I want to rip that laugh from her throat forever.

Up until this point the viewer has been quite embedded in Caitlyn's POV when she's on-screen. The musical segment was showing her perspective. We witness her fantasy of being able to take down Jinx. The show is making sure that we understand where she's at mentally.

But here, the first time she's expressing violent thoughts, we're decidedly not in her POV. Her eyes are cut off, we don't get that connection with her. But what we do get is Jayce's reaction. And he's concerned. It's the first kind of "uh oh" moment, where you get a sinking feeling about where Caitlyn's headed.

2. After the memorial attack, she calls the attackers "animals" and we get this uncomfortably close shot of her teeth.

She's calling others animals, but she's the one who's shown snarling in this animalistic way. Again, her eyes are cut off, cutting off that avenue for sympathy when she says this, cutting the viewer off from her perspective, distancing her. Instead our attention is directed at this ugly, unsettling expression of hers. The camera is presenting her as something to be worried about rather than someone to feel sympathy for.

3. After interrogating Heenot, when she's gearing up to go after Jinx, and Vi is about to ask to talk to her.

Throughout the preceding scene, we were getting a lot of shots of Vi reacting to Caitlyn's behaviour, with a quite open expression, and a lot of shots of Caitlyn looking hardened and aloof. And then we come to this shot, and though Caitlyn is centre-frame, it's still Vi's POV. We see how Vi is feeling and reacting to things, but Caitlyn's eyes are again cut out of frame. She's distanced from the viewer, just like Vi is feeling distanced from her. Vi's position in the frame communicates how she's feeling, like she's being edged out of Caitlyn's life by Cait's singular focus on revenge.

And just like with that first shot with Jayce, by focusing on the reacting character, the camera is showing the viewer how they should be reacting to Caitlyn too: unsettled, disturbed, alienated.

4. When Cait and Vi are fighting, and Vi grabs Cait's arm, before she jabs Vi with the butt of her gun.

It's a reaction shot, Vi just grabbed her arm and told her she's acting like Jinx, this cut should be showing us how Caitlyn feels about that. But we don't see the reaction in her eyes, we just see her mouth.

In this case, I think it's not just about presenting Caitlyn in a way where she's cut off from the viewer. Because it is a reaction shot, I think this communicates that Caitlyn also feels cut off from herself in a way, cut off from the sympathy she had for others that was such a part of her character in season 1.

And then it's interesting to compare all this to when Vi and Caitlyn cross paths again, and Vi calls Caitlyn "cupcake." And we get this shot:

We get the closeup on her eyes. Whereas before, the audience was repeatedly cut off from having that connection with her, now it's like, boom, big connection. And just as before, I think the shot is not just about the audience being able to connect with her, but Caitlyn being able to connect with herself. That despite everything, she's still the same woman who fell in love with Vi, that part of her is still there. She's been on this whole awful journey, and she's done awful things, and allowed awful things to be done in her name, but she's still the same person, and she can't pretend anymore that it's all fine. She sees clearly again.

there’s something so refreshing dancing along to some songs, especially the ones that openly speak about how much they love women. it’s been two years since i found out that i’m a lesbian all along thanks to my sweet butch and my life has never felt so good—a confusion that is finally understood. i’ve talked to a couple of girls who thinks my sexuality is something that can only exist for pleasure or to replace men who broke their hearts. some of them has also used it for their past time, leaving me thinking that my worth only lies beneath their feet.

it feels so freeing; like a puzzle piece that you have been struggling to find all over the box. it could also be your favorite jewelry that you just couldn’t remember where you placed it. i have been looking for this comfort all along in being a woman and i’m so glad i get to claim this sweet moment by also being a lesbian! i’m so glad such talented and brave artists are also out there today, making silly little lesbian songs for me to sing along and maybe make out with my butch someday. (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)