#Idk I realize that sounds unremarkable. which is also how I feel. and idk what I’m good at or really what makes me happy. so. idk. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

auncyen · 3 years

Note

Haru for the character meme! Unless I asked that before, in which case Kasumi

OTP for them: shuharu is cute BROTP for them: ann & haru because I find it cute that they have an interest in villains and heroes respectively (which makes it even more hilarious that haru’s the one who gets scary with shadows lol--I just imagine them doing some playacting to goof around while in Mementos and then suddenly Haru gets on “let’s make them suffer :)” and Ann’s like w...wait wasn’t I the one pretending to be a villain)

this is also definitely due to headcanon but like Ann & Haru seem like such a great disaster duo like the PT are forced to have them take on a difficult objective on their own while they all do something else and Ann & Haru get the job done ofc but they’re banged up, everything’s been shot, half the background is on fire, and they’re doing magical girl victory poses to celebrate that they did it!!!! while the other PT are like. you two are terrifying and we’re not leaving you on your own again. Other ships: ryuharu is cute too; yusuke/haru also seems interesting romantic or platonic What kind of fic I’d write about them: ... ^ disaster duo Ann & Haru take the Metaverse by storm

or just a fic of Haru treating Yusuke to a meal and perhaps them discussing how restaurants can influence their clientele’s enjoyment of the food through environmental factors like background music, other ambient noise, layout, decor, etc.

or ren coming up to the rooftop garden to just space out for a few minutes and not have to think (or ryuji coming up to calm down--and possibly apologizing and trying to leave when he thinks he might be upsetting Haru with him being worked up and she reassures him it’s ok, it’s not like he’s yelling and she knows he isn’t upset with her)

...haru training makoto’s “fist of justice” on weeding lol A favorite canon moment: even if the whole way she’s introduced isn’t the best, the “Beauty Thief” moment is preeeetty hilarious. I also appreciate her getting some spotlight in Strikers. Color that reminds me of them: soft pink & purple! Song that reminds me of them: Florence + the Machine, “All This and Heaven Too” (I think just in general I like the sound of that band’s songs for Haru but like. if you take that particular song as talking not just about romantic love but all kinds of love, platonic included, I think it’s good for her? as someone who’s very loving but hasn’t had the best luck with good relationships romantic or platonic.) A headcanon about them: I think I’ve said this before but I feel like if it wasn’t for her strict upbringing, she might be a below-average student like Ann & Ryuji (although maybe she’d be just average--both Ann and Ryuji have distinct disadvantages in their background that Haru doesn’t). But Haru was both held to certain standards and had resources to be given tutoring if she ever was struggling with a subject, so she’s maybe in the top third of the class or something, nothing remarkable (she’s never been given much encouragement to be standout) but Respectable enough.

She’d probably do absolutely wonderful if she set out to write about gardening or cooking, though. In college she probably gets average “good enough” marks in her business classes and is unremarkable, and then has a wonderful rapport with her professors in the more agriculture-based classes. A random AU I think up on the spot for them: ...wildcard haru au? Since other students at Shujin have no idea who Haru is it’d be easy for some scene where she has an interaction with Kamoshida and Ryuji gets a little worried he’s gonna try something (though Kamoshida is probably smart enough to leave the Okumura heir alone. probably) and talks to her and between the two of them talking they accidentally complete the keywords

Milady appearing to save Ryuji, or maybe Haru just gets her cognitive grenade launcher LOL, or even something slightly different--since her persona is inspired by a master of disguise and forged identity, maybe it manifests in a way where she can pose as someone Shadow Kamoshida would listen to to get him to let Ryuji go-- but as in canon her awakening is not quite complete until she realizes she’s going to betray her father. It just probably happens much sooner.

This could possibly be Yaldabaoth wagering that a fool!Haru’s rebellion will ultimately be a false one--somewhere down the road she’ll run into a decision that will force her to give up her privilege to do the right thing, and he’s betting she won’t. Anything else: on the note of privilege it is sometimes very noticeable that p5 refuses to ever let the class divide be even remotely a thing. I don’t mean the other PT should resent her or anything but one of them is literally a starving artist and it’s just. never uncomfortable that there’s such a gap, even though it feels like it probably would be? It’s a little thing that bugs me sometimes idk.

#persona 5 #haru okumura #also listen I call haru & ann a disaster duo but I don't mean to single them out #there are a ton of PT combos that are 'do not leave unattended'#it's good futaba is late-game b/c I feel like her mona and ren are a trio of trouble waiting to happen #cateringisalie

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magniloquent-raven · 4 years

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Number 73 "take mine" I'm thinking jacket sharing with Harringrove (either offering the jacket) if you have time!! 💖 💖

so. it’s not jacket sharing, i hope that’s okay!! and it’s actually a sequel to your first prompt? @bambixxblue and i were talking about a fix-it sequel where billy comes back and im weak for fix-its so i ended up with this. it’s. angsty. but also. soft? idk, i hope u like it anyway!!

basically the premise is billy and hopper were both in russia and had to break out together. posted on ao3

—-

Max turned seventeen three weeks ago. It’s hard to keep track of the days sometimes but Billy’s pretty sure he’s right. It’s hard to wrap his brain around Max being seventeen. When he pictures her in his head she’s still a bratty twelve-year-old with skinned knees who doesn’t know when to shut her mouth.

He tells Hop. Tells him about the birthdays he was there for, wonders about the ones he wasn’t. Cries a little too. Funny how easy it is to do that now. It used to be an ordeal, would burn and claw at him until he broke. He’s too exhausted for that nowadays, lets his tears fall unfettered and ignores the shame that still sneaks up on him when he does.

They have to be quiet, always afraid of being caught again. Billy’s constantly looking over his shoulder, jumping at shadows. It’s stupid to risk it, for something so trivial, but he can’t stop the words from spilling out.

“You miss her.” It’s not a question. Hop doesn’t ask that kind of shit, he just knows. Which is why Billy doesn’t respond. Doesn’t have to.

He pats Billy’s shoulder awkwardly. It’s the clumsy kind of affection a father is supposed to offer and it sets Billy off again, tears dripping down his nose and cutting streaks through the dirt smeared on his cheeks.

They’re holed up in an abandoned warehouse this time. Waiting. Always waiting. The plan is to stow away in the next cargo hold with enough space but in the meantime they’re fugitives, laying low wherever they can find empty, forgotten places.

Hop tells him about El while they wait. Billy’s heard most of his stories by now, but he listens anyway. Listens to the wobble in his voice as he talks about teaching El to read, hears the question under it all, about whether he’ll ever see her again.

Billy wishes he had an answer.

The first time Billy set foot in Hawkins, Indiana, he was seventeen, angry and wanting nothing more than to be anywhere else.

It’s three days after his twenty-second birthday the second time. An icy December evening, dark and windy. He’s exhausted. He hasn’t eaten in two days. He’s a patchwork tapestry of scars that weren’t there before, a battered effigy of the person he used to be, cobbled together with scraps of what he could salvage.

Hawkins is the same unremarkable, rinky-dink town it always was. Seeing it again is a relief and a punch in the gut all at once. It’s all he’s wanted for three years, but it’s terrifying.

They end up in Loch Nora, of all places. The Byers’ old house was empty, and going too far into town is risky.

It doesn’t feel real. Standing on Steve Harrington’s front porch, suddenly all too aware of the layer of sweat and grime on his skin. This place is too clean, too quiet. Peaceful, in a way that can’t be true.

Billy chews on his thumbnail, stands behind Hopper while he bangs on the door. There are no cars in the driveway, which means at the very least Steve’s parents won’t answer the door. But there’s no guarantee that Steve even lives here anymore.

He’s getting antsy, glancing around, heart pounding.

Then the door swings open.

Billy is seventeen, half-drunk and stinking like beer, colder than he’ll let on because fucking Indiana and its shitty weather, wiping the drool from his chin when he spots him across a room, already half in love by the time he’s clambered over a couch to get a closer look.

He blinks. He’s twenty-two, pale and shivering, thumbnail still between his teeth, and Steve Harrington’s doe eyes still make him weak in the knees.

Steve’s hair is longer, brushing his shoulders, but other than that he doesn’t look any different. Except that he isn’t looking at Billy with thinly veiled contempt or anger.

“Hey, kid.” Hopper says. “Gonna let us inside, or what?”

Steve is silent. Staring, lips parted. One hand still on the doorknob, the other slack at his side. He sways dangerously, and Billy tenses, prepared to catch him if he falls over. He doesn’t, but Billy’s still itching to touch him.

“Am I dreaming?” Steve blurts, looking dazed, unable to decide who to look at and ending up unfocused and hazy.

Yeah, it’s me, don’t cream your pants. The memory feels like someone else’s. A lifetime ago.

Billy bites down on his lip, battling an inexplicable, and slightly hysterical, urge to laugh.

“Dream about me often, Harrington?” Billy says, because apparently it takes more than nearly dying and spending three years as a fugitive to get over his inability to keep his mouth shut around pretty boys (or one in particular). Though now his voice comes out soft, quiet, betraying genuine sentiment. He’s not sure if that’s better or worse than the armor of taunts he used to cover that shit up with.

Probably worse.

Steve’s looking at him. Only him. Billy had almost forgotten how addictive that is. He watches Steve’s mouth open and close, tracks the way one corner curls up a little when he lets out a little disbelieving huff that isn’t quite a laugh. “More than you’d think,” he murmurs.

And Billy’s brain shuts off. There are a thousand questions stuck up there, but he can’t get a single one of them out because he’s too busy trying to get past, more than you’d think, echoing through his head in surround sound.

He’s startled out of his Steve-induced haze by Hopper’s pointed cough.

It seems like he’s not the only one, because Steve visibly flinches, “Right, shit,” he stammers, “Get—uh, get inside.” He ushers them in, glancing around, checking the street behind them.

The Harrington residence is one of those big fancy houses with more rooms than anyone could possibly need, but that means multiple bathrooms so Steve (as politely as possible) tells them they can both shower whenever they feel like it. And he fusses. A lot. All nervous hands clutching his elbows and teeth worrying at the inside of his cheek, eyes darting between Billy and Hopper like he’s sure they’ll vanish any second and never have been there at all.

Billy isn’t sure how to deal with it, so he avoids his eyes. Then misses looking at him.

An hour later they’re all in the kitchen. Billy keeps plucking at the sleeve of his borrowed sweatshirt, trying to keep calm. It’s too much, all at once. His skin feels raw, weird and tight. The overhead light is too bright, and the smell of Steve on everything is making him lightheaded. The soft detergent scent from his clothes, the shampoo Billy used when he showered (his hair is a lot longer than it used to be, it took forever to detangle it all).

Steve makes some calls. It’s late, too late to be calling people’s houses but he does it anyway.

Not long after, the front door bursts open.

Max is taller than he remembers. Rougher around the edges. Her hair is a choppy mess, auburn waves sticking out in every direction, curling around her ears, and there’s the sharp glimmer of silver in one lobe. She’s wearing a jean jacket with a torn elbow.

And she’s crying, messy and red-eyed, not bothering to wipe the snot from her nose.

“Where. The fuck. Have you been?” she sobs, shoulders shaking, and she practically trips forward in her hurry to throw her arms around Billy’s neck.

He opens his mouth. Closes it again. Feels unsteady, like he’ll fall to pieces if he moves wrong.

“I’m here now,” is all he can manage. She doesn’t need to hear about military hospitals and Russian prisons, about being kept in a cell, wondering if he’d ever see sunlight again… She doesn’t need that right now. Hell, he’s not ready to talk about it. Might never be.

He hugs her back, torn between wanting to squeeze as hard as he can, make sure she’s real, and being terrified of breaking her.

She still uses that shitty coconut-scented soap, and that’s what shatters him. He’s crying into her shoulder, clutching the back of her jacket. He used to dwarf her, remembers her being tiny and fragile, despite her fierceness, yet now she’s supporting his weight while he buckles.

They’ve never actually hugged before, he realizes, and that realization opens a door he wishes he could’ve left closed a little longer.

Guilt. Like undertow, pulling him back to harsh reality, cold steel gripping his heart, weighing it down. He should’ve been better. Treated her better. And now she’s here, crying like she actually missed him, and he doesn’t deserve it.

He pulls away, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes.

She’s still looking at him, hands on his shoulders, a wobbly smile on her face.

Billy is overwhelmed again. It must show, because suddenly Steve is at Max’s side, eyes gentle and his soft mouth pinched in a frown, “Max. Maybe give him some space.”

She clenches her jaw, probably physically holding back an argument, and nods, stepping back despite the reluctance written all over her face.

“I’m sorry,” Billy says, barely louder than a whisper. Then he can’t stop himself from saying it, again and again, gaze fixed on the floor, tears still dripping down his chin. He has to bite his lip hard enough to draw blood to finally stem the tide of apologies. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to will the world away.

“Billy.” Steve’s voice is soft. He has a nice voice, so Billy focuses on it, through all the angry buzzing in his ears. “Billy, I need you to nod if you’re listening.” He doesn’t want to, he wants to curl up and fucking die, anything but be a person right now because everything hurts and there isn’t enough air in this room and— “Billy?”

He bows his head, twitches, it’s barely a nod but it’s all he’s got.

“Okay, good. Can I touch your hand?”

Billy’s heart stutters, aches. He’s having a hard time concentrating through the burn in the back of his throat, the static drowning out his thoughts. He nods again.

Steve’s fingers are gentle, pulling Billy’s hand from where it had tangled in his hair. He hadn’t noticed the fingernails digging into his scalp until Steve took one of his hands away. It ends up pressed against something warm, soft material under his fingers, moving slow—oh. His hand is on Steve’s chest.

“Can you breathe with me? Concentrate on me, okay?”

He does.

Steve’s cradling his hand. He’s got callouses along the top of his palm, barely there but present. He’s breathing deep, calm and steady. But despite his outward demeanour his heart is racing, Billy can feel it through his shirt. He curls his fingers into the sensation, fingertips digging in as far as he can push them.

Billy almost forgets to breathe he’s so fixated on Steve’s heartbeat.

It does its job either way though, because exhaustion is starting to hit him as the static recedes. He sags, relaxes. Every muscle in his body feels leaden.

He opens his eyes, squints against the sudden light.

He’s almost afraid to look up. Afraid of being judged, of triggering another episode, so fucking terrified, all the time—

“Billy?”

His fingers twitch reflexively, tightening his grip on Steve’s polo.

“You good?” His voice is still so soft, and so close it hurts.

It takes several long moments for Billy to collect himself. Then he looks up.

Max is hovering, standing behind Steve with wide eyes, her worry palpable. Hopper looks grim, but then again, he kind of always does. He’s a respectable distance away, watching. And Steve… Steve is right there still, holding Billy’s hand and looking at him like he cares, doe eyes shining, fixed on Billy’s face.

“I’m okay,” Billy says, voice rough. He sounds like hell, but they all visibly relax anyway.

The room is silent for too long after that. It feels tense in a distant way, like it would be awkward if Billy had the energy to care, was awake enough to feel anything but vaguely fuzzy. He’s still got a handful of shirt and doesn’t plan on letting go any time soon. Steve’s the only thing keeping him upright, and he hasn’t let go either.

“Did… did I do something wrong?” Max asks, her voice is small and tremulous and cuts right through Billy.

“No!” he’s quick to cut in, “No. Max. It’s…” Billy trembles, stutters to a stop. He has no idea how to explain, even to himself, let alone Max. Steve squeezes his hand. His stomach flips. “It’s not your fault.”

She doesn’t look like she believes him, but she doesn’t argue. He wishes he could make it better, but he’s got no idea how.

“We should all get some sleep,” Steve says.

And that’s that. His tone brooks no argument, even in a room full of stubborn assholes. Apparently, the past few years have given Steve time to hone his babysitting skills. Or maybe they’re all just as exhausted as Billy is.

There’s some squabbling about sleeping arrangements though.

Everyone insists Hopper take the master bedroom, Steve says his parents won’t know or care, his old friends did worse than sleep in that bed. They all poke at him until he relents and trudges off, bidding them a quiet goodnight.

Then Billy says he’ll take the couch and both Steve and Max yell at him.

Billy rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, guys,” he mutters. He’s not about to make Max sleep on the weird little couch (he’s done enough to her already) and putting Steve out in his own house would be shitty. “It’s not like I haven’t slept on worse.” He winces as he says it, realizing as the words come out of his mouth that it’s probably the wrong thing to say. It was meant as a reassurance, that he would in fact be fine with the couch, because at least it’s clean and warm, but all it does is make Max look sad and put a little wrinkle between Steve’s eyebrows.

“I’ve slept on this couch before,” Max says, a stubborn tilt to her jaw, “I’ll take it.”

Steve scoffs at that, “You complain every time you have to sleep on that couch, Max. Take the guest bed. Billy can take mine.” His fingers tense when he says it, and Billy realizes they’re still holding hands. His hand slipped from Steve’s shirt while they were bullying Hopper into taking the master suite, but Steve has yet to let go.

And… suddenly he wants nothing more than to sleep in Steve’s bed. But. “Only if you come with me,” he blurts.

Which is really not how he should have said that, but it’s out there now.

“Oh my god,” he hears Max mutter.

His whole head feels like it’s on fire. “Shit. I—I mean—”

“Okay,” Steve says hurriedly, then clears his throat, “Yeah. That. That works. Uh. Okay.” He’s glancing at Max awkwardly, nervous, but she just rolls her eyes. Billy barely notices her do it, too busy looking at Steve, his heart hammering.

“Steve, it’s okay. I’m—” It’s her turn to look uncertain, but it’s only for a second. “Me and El are dating. We’ve been trying to figure out how to tell everyone, and—yeah. Anyway. I’m not going to judge you, or whatever.”

Well, that was not at all what Billy was expecting. He takes a moment to worry about both of them, be terrified of what would happen to them if someone found out. Then he remembers that El can kill people with her brain and Max once threatened to castrate him with a spiked bat. The knot of anxiety doesn’t dissipate but he’s freaking out less.

“How long has that been going on?” Steve asks, sounding more bemused than anything.

Max turns pink, and it’s kind of fascinating to watch. She’s flustered. That’s adorable. “Since, um. Since April.”

“Happy for you, kid,” Billy says. And he means it. He barely knows El, in theory, but really. The kid’s been in his head. He could recite every story Hopper’s told him about her from memory. He died protecting her.

He knows her well enough to know she’s good for Max, and he loves Max enough to want her to have good things.

She grins, bright and real. Billy’s fairly certain he’s never seen her that happy before, and his heart clenches.

“I’m not sure who I’m supposed to give the shovel talk to here,” Steve says, more to himself than anything.

Billy snickers, and tugs on Steve’s hand, “Like you could take either of them.”

Steve steps closer, looking faux-offended, “I’ll have you know I won a fight once.”

“Yeah, three years ago. You’re a has-been, Harrington,” Max chimes in.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“I’m seventeen, dingus.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Robin.”

He missed them so much. Missed something he, if he’s being honest with himself, never really had in the first place. They both hated his guts before, and he… he was a mess. Still is. Just a different kind now. But being here, being part of this, is something he always on some level wanted and…

“Oh my god, Billy, are you okay?” Max asks, concern bleeding into her voice.

He’s crying again, smiles through the tears. “Yeah. Yeah I am.”

#steve harrington #billy hargrove #harringrove #harringrove fic #a raven's writing desk #i kind of want more to this #like #el didn't even SHOW P #UP*#but it's almost 2am #rn #and #this is already so long lmao

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alagaisia · 4 years

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Ok I have some thoughts on gender that I’ve been mixing around for a little while and I’d like some input maybe?

Also that this is most likely going to end up being like, every thought I’ve ever had about my gender, and they won’t all fit together nicely and it will not be super cohesive or well organized so if you’re going to read this, prepare yourself for that, I guess. Sorry.

Okay so. Here goes. I was assigned female at birth. I’m mostly pretty comfortable with my body- I recently had a breast reduction, partly (entirely, if you’re the insurance company) to help with my back pain, but partly (unless you’re the insurance company) because I was uncomfortable with the size of my chest for a number of reasons, including just the way it looked and felt? I don’t know if that’s a gender thing, or if that’s because I’m asexual and had to do with like what my chest represented in that sense. I don’t think it was entirely ‘other people might think X’, though, just because I’ve been lucky enough not to have had many experiences with people objectifying me or anything like that in that way. So some of it was internal. I’m not super a big fan of genitalia in general because of the whole asexuality situation so I think that’s not like, any kind of dysphoria thing really, but it is A Thing

I’m a pretty feminine person, in the way I dress and wear makeup and the interests I have and also in the way I conduct myself, in that like ‘women apologize a lot’ and like how being like empathetic and experiencing emotions and stuff is seen as a more feminine trait than a masculine one. I’ve only ever used she/her pronouns, and I’m comfortable with those and with generally being perceived as like, a female person. I wouldn’t be comfortable with he/him pronouns. I’m not sure about they/them, I’ve never tried it, and I think the idea appeals to me? But I don’t have like, a strong feeling about it and like I said I’ve never had any issue with using she/her.

When I was a kid for a while I had like sort of a mild fascination with the archetype of like, feminine guys, like the long hair and the eyeliner and the like, long layers for clothing, with cool boots type- I always sort of associate this aesthetic with the book Thief Lord? Although I have no idea if it’s actually present or that’s just how I imagined it. But I think I’ve worked out that none of that was because I wanted to in any way be a dude (because like... gross? Not men, the idea of me being one) but because their femininity was very clearly A Choice, and I think I want(ed) my femininity to be seen as something I’m doing on purpose. Like rather than just, being completely unremarkable because it’s my default state ~as a woman~. I want(ed) my femininity to also be recognized as a choice I was making. (I know socialization and all of that is obviously a factor and it’s entirely possible I grew to enjoy femininity because of the societal expectation that they’re things I would be doing and all of that, it’s just not the point right now.)

I guess I just don’t know, like, if I *feel* like a woman??? Like, I don’t know what that means, I guess. It can’t be all the feminine stuff I do, because plenty of women don’t present and behave in those ways, obviously, so I don’t know. I’m also not super comfortable with like, identifying myself as a woman??? In a weird way??? Like in very specific circumstances. Like, if I’m in like a sociology class discussion making some point and I say something along the lines of “in my experience as a woman,” like, that feels right. Because I have the experiences that (cis, white, etc.) women experience. But I also think that maybe that’s coming from an external place. Like maybe what I really mean is, ‘in my experience with being seen as and raised as a woman’.

Because in the less common (but weirdly not that infrequent?) situation where someone asks a question about my identity that has to be answered with “I am a woman”, full stop, without any “and that’s relevant because x” or “which means I experience y”, but simply “this is how I identify and feel about myself INTERNALLY”, I like, am very uncomfortable doing that. Like it’s just not a word that I feel super comfortable using or being applied to me in that sense?

In high school I realized this, but was just like, oh, it’s because I’m 16, obviously I’m not a woman, I’m a teenager, women are adults and I am a child and that’s why I’m uncomfortable, but like I’m a senior in college now and while I don’t necessarily feel like, ready in a lot of ways to move into the Being A Grown Up stage of my life, I am inarguably a more mature and developed person than 16 year old me, and yet I don’t feel like I’m any more comfortable with the idea of Being A Woman.

I think maybe ultimately it doesn’t matter? Since I’m completely comfortable with all of the external things, with my presentation matching my assigned gender and being perceived as female and using she/her pronouns and being a sister and a daughter and with the fact that my experiences have been primarily shaped by moving through the world as a woman. But like idk it would be nice I guess to resolve the internal shit a little bit?

I don’t think I’m non-binary exactly, definitely not in the way that means ‘I don’t feel like a woman because I feel like a different gender entirely’. But I saw a post the other day that mentioned being agender, which is not one I’d ever specifically considered, and that sort of got me thinking about the gender stuff again, and I don’t know. I don’t think it would change anything really in how I like, live my life, but idk it would be nice to know if like I have all this weird internal shit with my gender just because I still secretly feel too young to call myself a woman, or if I really am agender or something. Idk. It would just be nice to figure out.

Would love input, if anyone has it, while I go down another internet rabbit hole of doing like the stereotypical queer teenager thing of googling ‘how do I know if I’m x’ and reading a thousand yahoo answers

I guess particularly if anyone has read this far and is trans or gnc or non-binary or agender or anything. and has successfully done the soul searching about your gender and come out on the other side, like, does this make sense at all? Should I look into this more, does it sound like anything in particular to you, or am I just like. Over thinking it. I know that like, telling people what they are or what labels they should use isn’t the done thing, but like, honestly I think I need an outside perspective

#mine #personal #goodness gracious I don’t think I’ve ever written this all down together before #it was weird to do #I don’t really actually know how I feel about putting this out there because I don’t really feel like it’s something I’ve talked about #like it mostly just lives in my head and pops up once in a while as a little thought and then I don’t think about it for a few weeks or w/e #definitely not going to reread it before posting because like then I might lose my nerve #and I do really want advice on this if anyone has it #like I know crowdsourcing you’re identity is not the way to go but like idk I feel like I need an outside perspective on it #seriously if you have an opinion please feel free to diagnose me with a gender #take a guess #tell me I’m being ridiculous #I will not be offended I promise I just want answers and apparently refuse to provide them to myself #gender #gender identity #questioning #nonbinary #agender #ugh I promise I’m not doing this because I’m like a cis girl who wants attention for being ~quirky~#I mean I might be a cis girl #I’m just like I’m not doing it for attention or to be special or whatever #it’s just something I think about sometimes #like in another time or whatever I think I could very easily have gone my whole life without thinking about it #(which isn’t at all true of my asexuality)#but then it was like oh well gender is a social construct and what does that mean #and huh some people feel like a gender? what does it feel like to feel like a gender?#I know what genders I *dont* feel like #but #idk #anyway

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familyvisionis2020 · 4 years

Text

Day 5 - Huntsville

Jeremy’s up the earliest and sends a text to us that he’s getting breakfast with Noah at a place called the Grit. Rather than opt to join I just post up on the porch with Trey and indulge in a long long blog post.The weather is cooler and grayer, joggers and dog-walkers and kids on bikes roll down the streets, slow syrupy sunday morning, humidity and gristle, butter pats wouldn’t melt if you left them out on your plate but they wouldn’t be too taut to sink your teeth into. I feel a fundamental sense of repair from typing, reviving a column of spirit I’d quietly suffocated, knock loose a clot of rust in my clockwork and the machinery is humming along again. Now that I have the link to the blog to share to people I feel like I’m gingerly handing the missing puzzle piece to my patrons and well-wishers and companions, indulging a curiosity and rounding something out to myself that might prove the regard and sensitivity my quietness can bely, might be a kindness or a service to people who find me austere or impenetrable or bristly. I was staring at a picture of a cactus and identifying with it the other day, tall, two arms, tiny head, spiky, full of water, not so bad if you’re careful with them, just like me.

Later tonight I will watch Tired Frontier play the last set of their tiny tour with us and what will end up being our last show of the tour as well. Watching the face of the guys I see things so so different then when I saw them for the first time, when they were complete strangers, tourmates but sight unseen. What I saw in their faces the first time I saw them play: Royal is tall and broad-shouldered and country and active and maybe a little sloppy and expanive and reminds me a ton of my friend Mike, so I have love for him off the bat, also his weird tuning and rococo pedal board setup and heedless mustache and you know, wife, set off little clockworks of insecurity in me and my mind props up baseless criticisms of him sourced solely from my ignorance of him. After three shows we are not friends but I know him much better, have seen him from more angles, have a better sense of him, he loves doing bits and laughs high and loud and chills endlessly, in this way he matches the tone and cadence of Kabir magnificently. Paul is beautiful and has a face like a svelter Jim Carrey and kneads the keyboard effortlessly, digital dough, his fingers are narrow and elegant and move only enough to play the next keys, the same sort of parsimony of motion I used to see from chefs with expert knife skills. I envy his bouny raven thick-sable hair. Trey looks plainly joyful when he plays drums. He extends his crash cymbal hardware to the maximum length so his crash is preposterously high up. I can’t discern a reason other than it’s kind of fun or different. He’s enthusiastic about my writing, I get to share him some other work I’ve done, he says he loves it, I swell with gratitude and we exchange emails.

The morning in Athens goes more or less like the morning before: me and Kabir and John and Paul all go get breakfast at Donderos’ again, drink tea and coffee, pack up our stuff. We take some group photos with both bands outside on the porch with the orbs and they’re cute and silly. Kabir flipped a coin to decide whether me or John drives the next stretch, it’s me, I’m a little apprehensive because I haven’t driven a 15-passenger van in awhile, but once I’m in it’s like riding a bike, I have muscle memory of driving big vehicles from U-Haul trips and, before that, the box truck I drove to transport food donations to the pantry of the Servant Center in Greensboro. I’m a good driver, I check my mirrors, I put on a halloween mix I made in 2015 and I am feeling myself, focused, caffienated, surrounded by friends, there’s some clouds in the sky and drizzles but it’s not bad and we’re making good time. The boys just listen along with me to the DJ mix for awhile then start up a new crossword puzzle and we all 4 do it collaboratively, one person describing the clue, letters, cross-clues, and we brainstorm for answers, between the four of us we’re really good at this, and we’re all laughing and in great spirits as we methodically complete the puzzle. We stop in Marietta Georgia at one point to use the bathroom, we stop at a KFC with a 20-foot mechanized/animatronic chicken head whose eyes roll back in its head and whose giant beak opens and closes in regular time like a campy pendulum. I buy a postcard and a souveneir cup from here because I think my Mom has family from Marietta Georgia but when we’re back in the car I can’t remember if it’s Marietta Georgia or Marietta Ohio, but I figure it will be well-received either way. We get back on the road and now we’re off the highway and onto some more remote state routes and we pass into Alabama and the rain lets up but its still overcast so the light is gentle and diffuse, the hills are rolling, we pass a colony of tiny homes, weird, livestock, bulls with giant horns that when I see them I just say ‘aurochs’ absent mindedly, livestock and cotton fields and when we see police someone will just say ‘ops’ and the whole drive everyone is just in a good mood, making jokes, kind and breezy. I marvel at how these boys do not seem to carry the same sort of darkness I feel I do, or maybe they just don’t wear it on their sleeves, or maybe none of them are neurodivergent or addicted or traumatized, or maybe they are but hide it well, or have coped and healed…something I’m used to is being around people who require a space to talk about extremely serious and heavy and heartbraking things. Maybe it’s a vestige of a lifestyle I’ve left behind. In all the time I’ve spent with Kabir and Jeremy and John and David (our NC bassist who plays home shows when Jeremy is in NY), I’ve never seen anyone come close to losing their temper, yelling, crying, crumbling, whatever. I marvel at the putative stability of my friends. I like having stable friends, I like having a stable life, it’s not how my life has always been. There is a level of tranquility and calm that washes over me while I’m driving through rural Alabama with my stable friends in a well-maintained van in my healthy body wrapped around a heart that is not broken and a mind that feels as clear and capable as it has ever been. Grace is unearned, I’m told.

We make it to Huntsville on time, the venue is called the Salty Nut, kind of a spacious and tidy bar with a kind bartender my height but with a double thick country accent and the show booker is slight and soft spoken and exceedingly kind, he receives us and then points us in the direction of a nearby restaurant called Banditos Burritos. The restaurant is festooned with vaguely southwestern or hispanic decorations and also random camp like a dirty 1990s Bart Simpson doll, a ruined acoustic guitar, a King Khan poster, a garden gnome on an old-fashioned scale with the sliding thing, a skateboard without trucks painted with a sleeping cactus person wearing a sombrero, etc. The people there are so so nice and when we say we are playing the Salty Nut tonight the guy behind the counter explains that menu items with steak and all beers will cost, but otherwise we can order whatever we want for free. We get burritos, nachos, beans, rice, salsa, hot sauce, ice water in a paper cup. We feast, scarf down, all hungrier than we realized, it’s essentially a non-franchise Taco Bell by my appraisal, which is absolutely perfect as far as I’m concerned, the beans and rice feel good and substantial. Tired Frontier shows up a little after us, gets the same stuff basically, we eat and laugh and finish and go back to the venue and wait around for awhile, I join Jeremy and Royal outside skateboarding and act crazy and try to film them doing tricks but my phone dies and and eventually they stop and we go inside and set up and play. The show goes fine, TF sounds as good as they have so far. They’re playing to a crowd of the other two bands and maybe 8 people in the bar sitting at a table eating food they brought over for Banditos Burritos. The show is fine, unremarkable. When we play, I do the usual routine of trying to play my hardest and with my whole body, and end up dropping sticks more than once and missing some snare hits and not being able to keep up on the driving floor tom parts, mostly because I’m not warmed up and maybe not focusing enough, I’m letting myself get a little carried away trying to play hard and fast rather than keep things tight, I worry this may miff the other guys but after the show there is no indication that anyone even noticed it or cared. There was a cool part where I dropped a stick but instead of it falling to the floor it bounced around on top of the snare and tom and I managed to snatch it out of mid air and keep playing and Jeremy noticed that and that made me feel cool. We played hard and to my ear we got good claps between songs, we are pretty live and high energy and I think even if people don’t like our sound they appreciate the energy, but also some of the songs are earworms and catchy and people like that too, I’ve heard. We finish, the other drummer from the other band, Golden Flakes, says great set man, we perch at the merch table but sell nothng. We listen to Golden Flakes play for close to an hour, very jam band vibe, many many guitar solos, kind of sloppy, sort of high energy rock and roll I guess, I by this time am tired and pretty disinterested, get on my phone for most of it. Toward the end of their sets someone who I assume is a townie is drunk and heckling them between songs in a way that they are clearly fine with and they know the guy and to me for some reason he looks the way I imagine the way the protagonist John from Shit Town the podcast would look. We are in Alabama after all. He sounds like John (not from our band, from the podcast). He’s annoying and I’m being judgy in my head about him when I should maybe feel sorry or indifferent, idk. It feels sad to me, I don’t feel like writing more about it. It’s awkward enough, the heckling and banter from Golden Flakes, that by the end of the set we all kind of joke-rush out of there, quietly agreeing that what’s happening is awkward and unpleasant and we should go. We get put up in Thomas’s apartment, and on on the ride home the guys talk about how Huntsville’s claim to fame is being the place where the Nazi engineers taken during Operation Paperclip were taken after WW2, whose skills were put to use developing rockets, and that all manner of testing has taken place in and around the nearby military base, the Redstone Arsenal. Kabir tells a story about how a nuclear warhead was dropped on NC and by freak chance did not detonate. It would have wiped out the population of the entire Southeast. I didn’t believe it but you can read about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash?wprov=sfti1

At the apartment I make a b-line for the couch, get my sleeping stuff out, eat an apple and a banana and a bunch of peanut butter out the jar and go to sleep. At the end of every day I feel so much more irritable and grumpy than I do at other times. I still really treasure a quiet space all to myself to sleep in and so this troubles that. But I just listen to a youtube video on European history, learn nothing, and have no dreams I remember.

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