#who knew I was relevant enough on Tumblr to start receiving hate

[themushroomgoesyeet]

you are more stupid than a bird

??????

I'm so genuinely confused by this it's honestly kinda funny ngl

Get better at insults whoever you are lmfao

#who knew I was relevant enough on Tumblr to start receiving hate #also birds are fucking smart so I'm taking this as a compliment actually

[a-dragons-journal]

My Experiences of Nonhumanity

I get asked about “what makes you/people in general feel you’re/they’re otherkin” a lot, and while the answer is far from simple and my experiences are anything but universal, I figure it deserves a write-up once in a while. A friend asked about it a couple nights ago, so I wrote up a huge long message on Discord, and decided to rewrite it into a Tumblr post for posterity. This’ll be a long one, folks; hit J on desktop to skip.

It’s worth noting ahead of time: none of these things are required to be otherkin, and none of them automatically mean you’re otherkin. In fact, most of them are little more than mildly “weird” quirks when they occur in isolation, and only start to push outside the range of “normal human experiences” when many of them occur together. You can’t look at someone (including yourself) and say “they like collecting things, they must be dragonkin!” It’s not that simple. You have to take the individual as a whole even as you examine each specific experience in more detail - don’t lose the forest while you’re studying the trees. This is just a description of my personal experiences.

Shifts

- Phantom shifts/supernumerary phantom limbs: Probably the most obvious thing and the hardest to brush off, although I still managed to do so for years. Phantom shifts, aka supernumerary phantom limbs, are the experience of feeling limbs or body parts that do not and never have physically existed. In my case, the most common phantom limbs to show up are my wings and tail; other body parts, such as digitigrade legs, horns, snout, and paws/talons, also make appearances less frequently. While my phantom limbs almost never attempt to replicate tactile sensations/interactions with the physical world, they’re often defined by very vivid proprioception (ability to tell where your body is in space, mainly via muscle stretch receptors), and I can tell where each part of the limb is at any given time - it’s not just a shapeless sense of “weight,” or it wouldn’t be phantom limbs. I can also move them at will, typically. My phantom shifts are typically spontaneous and involuntary, but they’ve been induced artificially a couple different ways as well, though I can’t typically do it at will.

- Sensory shifts: Still not something I’m totally sure I experience, but there are definitely times my sense of smell becomes insanely strong compared to usual even for me, which fits the definition of a sensory shift.

- Astral shifts: While I’m far from an adept astral traveler, when visualizing “traveling” within my own mindscape, I shift form fluidly between human and dragon - although I almost always have wings at the very least.

- Cameo shifts: Mentioned only because it’s relevant to my phantom shifts. I realized at some point that the reason I get cameo shifts of canine/feline ears sometimes is because they usually show up when they’re pricking/flattening to express emotion, and the muscles that move to do that action are basically the same as the ones that do those actions with the crest that runs down my neck, and because of my obsession with cats/dogs/horses as a young child and because that’s not a particularly strong phantom shift for me usually, I connected the dots a little wrong and created a false association.

- Self-image: This isn’t technically a shift, but it’s going here anyway because it doesn’t really fit in any other section either. My body image/self-image is weird. I know, consciously, what I physically look like. However, my instinctive self-image is... hmm. What I “expect” to see doesn’t always match up with what’s actually there when I look in the mirror. Teeth are a huge point of fixation for me for some reason; I always expect them to be larger, sharper, stronger. I expect my neck to be longer, my face to be... different. I expect scales in places. I expect claws. Even knowing consciously that of course it won’t be there, it’s still strange sometimes that it’s not. There’s sometimes some mild disconnect when I see myself. (Sometimes not. But sometimes.)

Homesickness

(Or, the sense of missing something you’ve never had - not of “I want/want to be [x], and it makes me sad/upset that I don’t have/am not that,” but of “I should have/be [x], and it is fundamentally wrong that I do/am not.”)

- Flight: I have always wanted to fly, and for a long time I thought everyone ached for the sky the same way I did. Most people don’t, as it turns out. Yes, everyone’s fantasized about flying, but most people don’t feel bones-deep, crushing, physical pain in their chest thinking about it. Most people don’t lift up onto their toes instinctively straining for the sky. I’ve felt that aching longing for it for as long as I can remember.

- Connection to dragons: For as long as I can remember knowing about dragons, I loved the idea of them and even when I was very young, when I’d only really been exposed to media where they were the great evil for the hero to defeat and received no more character development than “evil, destructive, fire-breathing beast,” I was always on the dragon’s side and wanted to learn more about them. That hasn’t faded. I’ll watch an absolutely terrible movie or TV show that I otherwise loathe if it has good enough animation and sound design on the dragons. (Looking at you, Game of Thrones.*) I would commit arson to see one of those Isle-style dragon survival games actually go through and finish production. (Holding out hope for the Dragon Game Project on YouTube; go check them out if you haven’t already.) I’ve also used dragons to represent myself for pretty much as long as I’ve had an online presence - years before I ever heard of otherkin, I was calling myself Dragonheart.

- Dragon-like creatures: Snakes, crocodilians, and dinosaurs all fall into this category - all of them give me a similar heart-and-breathing-pick-up, aching familiarity to dragons. They’re not perfect, but in a snake’s scales and a crocodile’s bellows and a dinosaur’s spectacular reptilian size I see echoes of us and I have always loved them with a passion, even before I quite knew why.

- Dragon/”monster” noises: Sound generators, creature sound design, real animal noises, etc. that are meant to be monstrous and that most people find unsettling or even frightening, I find comforting and relaxing. Alligator bellows, “monster noise” soundscapes, etc. all apply here.

* No shade on anyone who likes Game of Thrones, I’m just not a fan. :P

Behaviors/Instincts/Urges

- Hoarding: I’m still not sure how much of the crystal thing is "monkey brain say Shiney Colorful," how much is a witch thing, and how much is a dragon thing, but some of it is a dragon thing.

- Territorial/possessive nature: I can get... extremely territorial over my stuff and my home. This can extend right into being ridiculously protective of my people too, although I do try to rein that in to a reasonable amount. This also extends into games like Capture the Flag, because put me on defending the border during middle and high school and I got frighteningly territorial. (Fun fact, this extends to spiritual protection stuff and it has almost gotten me in trouble a few times on that front.) The other main side effect is my brain trying to claim completely inappropriate things as “mine,” like every piano I have ever touched or, that one time, the entire city of Portland.

- Prey drive: Going on a walk in the woods with me will always be an exercise in stopping every twenty seconds because I heard a small animal move in the brush and froze instinctively to track it. Prey drive ranges from "okay I can indulge this enough to track-stalk-chase without actually intending to catch-kill-eat" to "this is entirely inappropriate and needs to Stop Right Now" depending on the day and the situation - sometimes it’s fairly low-key and innocent, but sometimes it's also being confronted with the sudden and completely serious/genuine thought of grabbing someone or something by the neck/around the body with your jaws and hunt-prey-kill-devour when it's completely inappropriate and kind of disturbing or even sickening. It’s one of the more annoying things, although it’s not like it’s severe enough that I’m an actual danger to anyone - it’s just a gut thought that gets filtered out at the conscious level without significant problems. This also bleeds into games (I get... maybe a little overenthusiastic during tag) and even watching TV shows or gaming videos - most of the time at least part of me is rooting for the hunter because I relate to them as a fellow predator, even if the audience is supposed to be rooting for the prey - I mean, protagonists.

- Basking/heat-seeking: Probably only partially a dragon thing, but despite the fact that I hate heat in general, radiant/sun heat and heat from a heated surface are both fantastic feelings provided the ambient air temperature isn't too high. I'm guessing this is at least partially a reptile brain thing.

- Height-seeking: Give me a chance to climb up on top of something - a rock, a cliff, a chair, a table, a bunk bed - and look out over everything else, and I'll take it in an instant. Getting to climb up on the roof is the best thing that's happened to me this entire quarantine.

- Flight instinct: Being mildly leery of cliffs not because I am afraid of falling, because I'm really not, but because there's always some part of my brain that goes "jump, fly, this is a perfect takeoff spot" and I have to squash that before I do something particularly stupid. This manifests in other ways, but that's the most dramatic (and annoying) one. This is also one of the things I noticed as definitively not normal long before my awakening. (The Grand Canyon was fun.)  Similarly to the prey drive thing, it's not like I'm actually in danger of throwing myself off cliffs, it’s just - there's a not-insignificant part of my brain that thinks "hey we should go run and jump off and take a quick flight," in the same way I might also casually think "hey I should stroll across to the corner store for a bag of chips" before I consciously decide whether or not to do that. It’s the exact same type of thought process, despite the fact that one of those things is something I might do on any given school day, and the other is, you know, physically impossible.

- Combat instincts: I get in a fight and my pure instinct is to bite or claw, not kick or punch or whatever it is humans do instinctively. I have those reflexes now courtesy of Krav, but I had to train them in - if you’d thrown me into a fight before, I absolutely would have resorted to claws/nails and teeth immediately (and I still will, when pressed into a corner). Sometimes, unfortunately, this goes off completely unwarranted, either in an anger situation that does not deserve a physical response, or for no apparent reason whatsoever. It's one of the more problematic things, but once again - it’s not like it’s a compulsion, just a gut-emotion thought that gets filtered out at the conscious level.

- Scent focus: Who knows how much of this is environmental influence and how much is instinctive, but I always have and still do focus on scent more than most humans seem to. I can identify people by scent, I seem to pay more attention to it than most people do. I also seem less bothered by natural body smells than most people do, but considering the responses when I asked around in the otherkin community once about that, unclear whether or not that's connected.

- Nonhuman noises: I make just a bunch of weird nonhuman noises, and always have. Growls, hisses, croons, hurrs, throat-clicks, chirps, etc. I've never met any human who does them instinctively like I do except my half-sister (whom I didn’t meet until a couple years ago), and she was just as surprised to hear me do it as I was surprised to hear her do it.

- Affection: Face-rubbing, light head-bonking against someone’s shoulder/body/head, and love nips/bites are all perfectly acceptable ways to show platonic affection, to dragon brain. Human society disagrees. The instinct to do these things is so strong that I definitely do give into the first two with people I’m close with, and I have physically had to catch and restrain myself when I was about to unthinkingly bite/nip someone’s skin because I wasn’t paying enough attention.

- Movement: Moving on all fours just feels better than moving on two legs, even though it’s objectively physically uncomfortable because humans aren’t built for that. I also have the instinctive want to be a lot more flexible than I’m capable of being, in ways I’m not capable of being - curling all the way around something or someone to squeeze them tight in the coil of my body, turning my head a hundred eighty degrees because my neck Should Be Longer.

- Expression: Baring one’s teeth when frustrated, irritated, or angry is not a particularly human instinct. I realize it’s something a lot of primates do do, but. *gestures at society* Humans ain’t one of them, at least not anymore. Even in Krav Maga, which is a self-defense style that focuses on being vicious and “dirty fighting” to survive a real street fight, every single time I have a new partner (and most times I have a partner I’ve worked with before) and I get tired enough to get snarly, they respond with some variation of “god that’s scary”. See also: gesturing at things with my nose because it should be long enough to make that a much more dramatic gesture than it ends up being.

- Den/lair/small spaces: I never feel safer than when curled up in a tiny alcove just big enough to comfortably fit my body curled up into it. The only position I’ll prioritize over it is getting up onto a high space.

Past Life Work

Unlike every other bullet point on this list, most of these didn’t apply until I started actively seeking them out, because, you know. Past life memories are like that.

- Past life regressions: I’ve got a tag for these, but tl;dr I take anything I learn from a past life regression or similar meditation/visualization with a whole spoonful of salt, forget “a grain,” because I know for a fact my brain is very good at making stuff up with these types of exercises. Unfortunately, they’re the only way to get information on certain things, like appearance.

- Tarot: Got a tag for that too. I use tarot to ask questions and confirm or reject suspicions.

- Spontaneous memories: I don’t have many, but they’re clear as day when they do appear. I don’t count something as a “true” memory unless it includes senses I can’t reproduce through imagination - smell and touch, mainly. Mostly these are quick flashbulbs, nothing cinematic or anything like that.

- Noemata: Again, I don’t have much in the way of noemata, but what I do have is persistent and consistent. I know things about my wing shape and flight style despite not having really experienced that in detail during past life regressions. That particular set of noemata has been confirmed to fit with real-world physics and bat wing shapes (the closest wing type to mine that exists or has existed on Earth).

#think that about sums it up #otherkin #dragonkin #this got real long #long post #journaling #rani talks #feel free to reblog if you like

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

asks (26)

@spickerzocker​ said:

hey there! just a heads up that i tried to click on the "why i don't ship" explanation link in your faq and it says that there is no post with that url/it's generally broken. also your "a conversation about recovery" thing is beautiful and hurts in the best way and i love it. have a nice day!

Yes, I intentionally took that link down awhile ago, and last night I went and updated some of the tabs on my blog. Here are my basic thoughts:

I wrote that link years and years ago, while I was first navigating the internet and while I was still figuring out important things about my own identity and opinions. I ran my blog differently back then, but by the end of the first few months, I knew I was uncomfortable with shipping. 

As people began to interact with me and my work, I told them over and over again no, I don’t want to talk about that, and I don’t want to write about it, and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think that was a common position to take at the time, so it wasn’t what people expected from me. 

During those years, I felt like I had to justify myself and give a valid explanation. I wrote that post explaining why I had that boundary, and I put it in a place where anyone could find it.

I said no when people asked, let them make jokes about it, and made jokes about it myself in response. As time went on I got more and more exasperated when I had to repeat myself. I wrote definite rules into my ask box, request tab, and FAQ. People still asked. I wrote it into my description. People still asked. 

The truth is yeah, there’s a pretty simple explanation for my discomfort. It makes sense. It’s easy to understand, and most folks think it’s a “good enough” reason to leave me alone. The difference between young-me and current-me is that I no longer feel the need to justify myself. 

None of y’all need to know why I set the boundaries that I set. My explanation isn’t relevant, and I’m not obligated to give it. I said no. That’s enough. 

I think a good number of folks remember my explanation from the past, and I don’t mind that at all. There may be a time where I talk about it again, in a more appropriate context, so I guess we’ll see.

That’s a lot of information in response to a very helpful ask. Thanks! The link is gone now, and I’m so pleased that you enjoyed the fic :)

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Anonymous said:

U suck

Kenza sent this anon as a joke. She’s right, and I thank her. 

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Anonymous said:

I'm a doctor and ive seen it all.....but the milk fic made me gag

Excellent

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@wingedskyes said:

Ah. Wait. I wasn't on anon....uhm. oh well. It's fine. I like milk and am not ashamed. 😆

I don’t think I received another message from you actually, but I too like milk and I’m glad we’re on the same page

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@thelittleredheadedmusician said:

To add to the milk discussions: my best friend from home and best friend from college have each finished a gallon a milk by themselves within 2 days.

I do that too, every once in awhile. When the milk craving hits it’s a gallon a day

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Anonymous said:

"TIM! POUR HIM. A GLASS OF M A L K!"

Hold on I have to google some things

Yeah this is funny

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Anonymous said:

I have read that milk fic three separate times and every time I’m laughing just as hard as Tim and dick by the end it’s just so excellently executed and builds so perfectly that by the time dick cracks I’m ready to go too and I just lose it it’s amazing I love it

Awww anon I’m so pleased :)

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@the-smartass-under-the-mountain said:

Just wanted to drop by and say your recent fic with Tim antagonizing Damian with increasingly outrageous milk concoctions had me giggling. It was so cute and refreshing to see Dick enjoying Tim's little prank. And Bruce's reaction to just... walk away was fantastic!

Thank you! I’m always so thrilled when y’all think the jokes hit

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@njtheboywonder​ said:

I havnt really enjoyed a fic in years, but i stopped to read ur fanfic with tim drinking milk just to fuck w dami amd it made me smile. Thanks, for writing it.

Oh that warms my heart <3

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@bruciewayneisbatman​ said:

Tim Is totally the guy who would drink ridiculous amounts of dalgona coffee to annoy damian, according to that fic.

Had to google that one, but I guess so huh

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Anonymous said:

(diff anon) but that birthday fic was so good oml and you have opened my eyes as to the batfam in quarantine this is such a Concept

We’re all here dying..... together...

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Anonymous said:

Happy birthday! 🎉 or belated! 🎂 thank you for being in the fandom. 😊

&

Anonymous said:

To anon! Sorry. I forgot to add that! Anyway, thanks to them we get a lovely fic. I hope you have many more birthdays! 😊

Message for you anon

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Anonymous said:

Your writing gives off good vibes

Hear that guys I “passed my vibe check.” Is that what the youth say these days? I am an elder now and I do not know

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Anonymous said:

finding your blog while being relatively new to batman fandom is such a bliss. your batfam content especially is *chef's kiss* amazing.

Thank you my darling :) I’m glad you’re here

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Anonymous said:

Best line in a fic? Hard to pick just one, but this particular one from "Just Desserts" by fyeahbatmanandrobin on Tumblr is one of my faves: “Anyone else would be hard-pressed to provide the particular brand of excitement you bring to my life, Dami.”

&

@noisypaintersong​ said:

For the line thing: "I don't doubt it. Bruce Wayne, the unexpectedly normal guy wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a superhero wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a fake socialite wrapped in a businessman wrapped in a secretive billionaire." He paused. "…You're the seven-layer burrito of Gotham," he pondered. - Barry to Bruce in 'Of Friends and Foes' by Paganpunk2 on FFN. It's one of the funniest things I've read someone say to Bruce LOL

& 

@kirakats​ submitted:

&

Anonymous said:

“I do know that according to everyone else, there is no chance, no future, no universe where I stay a hero.” Describes my frustration with the way DC treats Damian so accurately. Let the kid be a hero dammit.

Thanks! That’s really helpful. I’ve got a decent answer to my question now. 

@kurawastaken​ submitted:

So this is Kenza retaliating against me for the milk fic. I very much hate tomatoes and specifically ketchup. This photo (1) is a nightmare and (2) fulfills its intended purpose.

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Anonymous said:

I love your blog!!!

And I love you 

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Anonymous said:

quick question: how do you think jason reconciles with the fam?? i think in the comics they kinda just reboot and now he’s on better terms. but like what conversations happened, yknow??? (you’re doin great work by the way, it rips out my heart but it’s great)

This is an amazing question, and I’ll be thinking about it for the next bit, I think. That would be a really interesting topic to explore in depth

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@angel-gidget​ said:

*hugs you real tight* would you please send this to the first 10 people in your dash? Make sure someone gets a hug today and stay safe!

Oh thank you for the hug <3

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Anonymous said:

I hadn’t been aware of that Memphis petition, but I live in Memphis too (Altho I know you said you just grew up there so you may not be living here currently haha) so ig I just wanted to say thanks for bringing it to my attention!

!!!

I’ve been in Texas for six years now, ever since I started school, but I’m still in and out of Memphis for family purposes. Love the trash heap of my birth 

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@damianwaynerocks​ said:

hey! any chance you know of any other dc heroes around damian’s age?

Sure! You could try Billy Batson, Jon Kent, or Maya Ducard

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Anonymous said:

hi! i don't know if it's okay to leave anons like these but ive been feeling down because my country has passed a bill that deprives us of lots of human rights freedom and i want you to know that i just found your blog through the damian/bruce + justice fic and it comforted me. im slowly going thru your works and so far they are all comforting. i love your stuff, thank you.

Philippines? I’ve heard some things, and I’m real sorry y’all’re going through that. I don’t know that there’s anything I could say about that to help, but I hope you’re finding joy somewhere

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@awesomeness-ofgaybitches​ said:

Tumblr hates you. The links in your bio and to your fic masterlist don't work on mobile. I'm sorry.

FUCK

#I'd like to also take this opportunity to note that at this time #I have blocked 7 people for variations on #okay no ships but what about sailboats?? #but what about the TITANIC #here's a picture of the bat-boat tho #guess what kids it's not creative or funny #and I explicitly said that jokes will get you blocked #I follow through #asks

[ohkimani]

tbh.

Besides the obvious decisions I’ve had to make, the biggest decision I’ve made as an adult is dedicating my time to living and growing as an actual adult as opposed to spending my time fighting an endless fight on Taylor Swift’s behalf like I used to.

Though I would still go to hell and back for her, I just...have better things to do. 

For instance, valuing my career and future over a multimillionaire who has not only her own but her great-grandchildrens’ futures figured out financially just seems far more important to me now.

Taylor has laid the foundation for so many young artists in ANY field to succeed and have their art valued, as it should be. I love the idea that there have already been so many thriving musicians succeeding because they were encouraged and inspired by Taylor's strength.  I love the idea that there are women in different fields who may have at least an extra ounce of strength within themselves to fight for the greatness, rewards, and respect they deserve.

However, in my time, spending countless hours, days, weeks, months, and years fighting for a woman who, in the end, doesn’t need to be fought for feels almost....humiliating?

 I’m grateful for every second I’ve ever gotten to speak to Taylor and even share the same air as her. yet in the back of my head, i have always thought back to how many nights I've sorted through some mean, sometimes racist, threatening, and discouraging messages because a woman made music that i deeply appreciated.

The social media aspect of Taylor's relationship with her fans has always struck me as bittersweet (as it has most of her fans). I made my first Tumblr account about two years before Taylor joined, forgot the password to that account, then made a new account exactly a week BEFORE she began her first bunch of unbelievable interactions with fans. 

I had the privilege of briefly experiencing genuine and warm feelings that came with everything every fan posted. though it was such a brief time, I got to know what it felt like to be a part of a real online fandom. It wouldn't be another 5, almost 6 years until I find this feeling again upon reactivating my twitter account (where Taylor's eye hardly reaches) 

Amidst these 5 years, I would find myself almost collecting badges of approval from Taylor, and finding that these badges would provide me an image of invalid importance in the eyes of numerous people which happenstance would find me in the presence of. 

One blog would continuously be spammed with likes from Taylor which drew me to an entirely different blog. With this blog, I would face the same supportive spam though coupled with (in hindsight, well deserved) anonymous hate and scrutiny. By the time I had settled onto the third blog (which had been there all along, just not as active) I was smart enough to figure out the formula.

I discovered the simplicity of what not only attracts Taylor's heart but her fans/followers. [this part is incredibly blunt and I would very much appreciate if there was just like....understanding about how undiplomatic I could possibly state this] Something short, particularly sweet, relevant, including the word “y’all” at least once, and rapid-fire posting. That was it. It wasn’t self reblogging constantly. It was posting what you knew everyone wanted to read and repost for themselves. That’s not to say it wasn’t what I actually felt. God knows i said these things MULTIPLE times before I actually posted them. I just knew everyone else could relate.

Pretty soon, this all got to my head (if the above paragraph wasn’t obvious enough). My follower count skyrocketed, Taylor herself was a frequent active follower and all I had to do was abandon my sense of self, devote myself to everything she said and did, and i was in her good favor. simple enough-- right?

It wasn’t until after I started paying attention to my own life that I realized where my priorities should be. Not only that, I noticed something incredibly immature, and VERY human about myself: I had abandoned my one source of validity, and in finding others receiving this attention, jealously racked my nerves beyond comprehension. 

Luckily, I didn’t deal with this jealousy in the way most people do where they take it out on others. I, instead, began focusing on what made me who I was beside my passion for Taylor Swift and everything she has ever done in her life. I began to give myself the same love and support I used to give Taylor and when I transferred that energy, I found that valuing the validation her brief moments of attention used to give me wasn’t a bad thing at all. V

aluing the fact that her eyes wandered to my tiny corner of the earth every now and THAT small act giving me new confidence for months to come, didn’t make me less of a person. It made me a lost person.

Embracing the fact that I used to have Taylor's attention--and that this was actually important to me and my self-esteem--became the breaking point I needed to know that I was me before I was a Taylor Swift fan. Embracing this allowed me to love me even more because I knew I had that love to give, I just needed to know where that love belonged.

I’m incredibly drunk and every time I’ve been drunk these last few weeks, I’ve thought about how to formulate these thoughts into something cohesive. I guess this is supposed to serve as a statement to the many anons I’ve received asking why I don’t talk about Taylor as much or even why I’m not as active anymore.

I am well aware no one will read this but I felt it was important for myself (and my blog for that matter) to be laid out as plainly as possible. 

A rich white woman does not need my help living her life any easier and I think she knows that.

I love you and hope you love you as much as I do 

xoxo

#p #taylor swift #taylor #reply #music

[discyours]

Could you make a list of ur opinions?

I can try, but I never really learned how tumblr works so I don’t know how to make this an actual page on my blog. Once I do figure out how I’ll definitely link to this. I’ll go off the top of my head for most frequently asked/what I think is most relevant, but if there’s anything you’re missing feel free to ask. 

Gender: 

Gender is, in short, the roles that are ascribed to sex. This includes the idea that anyone who is born female is bound to be docile, caring, or even just more likely to like pink. But gender identity also falls under this. Defining a woman as someone who wants to be female is referring to something - an action, a personality trait, a feeling, a thought - beyond sex as what “makes” a woman. Gender is not fake, but it is a social construct and in my opinion it’s a harmful one. Whether deliberately created to oppress women (like is the case with women being expected to be submissive) or originated as a relative accident like with certain fashion trends, gender roles end up restricting women’s freedom. Believing in female liberation means being against, or at least critical of that. 

Gender identity: 

Again, falls under gender but I think it deserves its own answer. I don’t think gender identity is necessarily “fake” either. When people say that they “feel like” a woman rather than a man I don’t think that they’re lying. I may take issue with the wording just like I may expect people to be critical of their own reasoning when they explain that their gender identity is male because the idea of being a man feels right to them whereas being a woman doesn’t, but I do understand how they feel. I relate to the feeling myself and I do think that the average trans man feels differently about this than the average cis (meaning non-trans) woman, however I’m not convinced that this feeling is rigid or innate. 

So I don’t think gender identity is “fake” or complete nonsense, but I don’t think it’s a particularly useful category either. There’s no reason I should be sharing bathrooms with people who have an internal sense that they should be male rather than female over people who lack the ability to use urinals and require trash cans to dispose of menstrual products. There’s no reason for me to share changing rooms with people with similar genderfeels rather than people who have similar bodies to mine and are statistically far less likely to sexually assault me than people with a different type of body. 

In the context of feminism we need to recognise that sex is the category in which women are being oppressed when they suffer FGM, when they’re put into menstrual huts, when they’re denied reproductive freedom, when they’re kept out of government positions because of their unreliable, hormone driven female emotions, when they’re missing out on jobs that an equally qualified man would be accepted for because their employer doesn’t want to risk having to deal with them getting pregnant. Sex, not gender identity. 

Egalitarianism: 

I actually don’t get asked about this much which is a shame because I know that people are thinking it; if it’s just about wanting women to have rights then why not be an egalitarian? Why, unless you hate men and want them to be below women rather than being equal? 

There’s multiple reasons. For one, feminism started as a women’s rights movement and women do not owe it to men to change that as soon as they decided they were done fully opposing it. There would be something inherently disgusting to me about denying women their own movement for their own issues regardless of where I stand on egalitarianism. 

But beyond that, I oppose the idea that we just draw a line at men’s current quality of life and decide that that’s the standard women must be judged against. The idea of it is misogynistic but in practice it’s harmful too; we’ve all seen those “if you want equality then women need to join the draft” and “if we’re equal then can I punch you in the face?” statements. This form of “equality” is still just letting men control the standard for women’s lives. Is still forcing women to fit into a system built by men. 

A lot of egalitarians seem hypocritically focused on equal outcome which I also disagree with. The ratio of men to women that die during physically taxing jobs is hardly any more of an issue than the ratio of men to women that die during child birth. There are biological reasons for these discrepancies (one moreso than the other, but there’s still never going to be an effective way to have a 50/50 sex split in every single job) and compensating for them for the sake of some vague concept of “equality” is pointless. The inadequacies in female-specific healthcare are a big reason to have a movement specifically for women’s rights, to have a movement that can advocate for improvement. Likewise if a lack of health and safety regulations in manual labour disproportionately affects men, that’s a good reason for a men’s rights movement to advocate for improvement (not that either of these can replace non-sexspecific advocacy groups which are also very important). I just don’t believe that women have any responsibility to merge with or be involved in men’s rights movements, considering women have historically always been oppressed by men and men still hold the majority of political as well as financial power. 

Liberal feminism: 

Liberal feminism is often what people refer to as mainstream feminism, but I don’t think it’s right to write off liberal feminism as a whole just because I disagree with the direction that mainstream feminism has gone. In simple terms liberal feminism is just feminism which seeks more individual freedom for women within the current system, whereas radical feminism is focused on class freedom and radically changing the system if not creating a new one altogether. I don’t fully disagree with liberal feminism and in fact I don’t believe any form of feminism that doesn’t at times utilise more liberal solutions has any way of succeeding. Getting more women into our current government without actually overhauling our political system and changing the reasons that women are kept out of government positions is liberal; I still only vote for women when I can, and encourage other people to do the same because when we’re unable to change things completely, it’s better than nothing. 

The reason I lean more towards radical feminism is because I ultimately don’t find liberal solutions to be good enough. I don’t want to regulate the porn industry, I want to abolish it. I don’t believe any amount of regulation or “reclamation” can ever make the sex industry ethical and while completely eradicating it is never going to happen, having that as the end goal at least means that you never stop pushing. The same thing goes for just about all other systems which oppress women; I fundamentally disagree with liberal feminists that giving individual women more individual freedom about whether or not to participate in these systems is ever going to be good enough.  

Sex work: 

I don’t believe that consuming or procuring sex work (ie being a john or a pimp) can ever be ethical as I don’t believe that consent can be bought. If somebody would not have sex with you without being paid, I don’t see that as true consent. There is something inherently coercive about having to choose between not having the money you need or having sex with someone. Coerced sex is not consensual and we all know what non-consensual sex is. 

There may be some people who don’t need the money but do it regardless because they enjoy it/want extra cash, especially in “milder” forms of sex work like camming or stripping. But the reality is that the vast majority of people (90% of prostitutes) who do “sex work” do not want to and would be doing something else if they had the option. Their suffering is more important to me than the enjoyment of the select few who do want to be “sex workers”, and that of the johns they “service”. 

That being said, I support the Nordic model which criminalises the consumption and procurement of sex work but decriminalises actually being a sex worker. This model has been shown to reduces trafficking as it reduces demand, and it doesn’t harm sex workers (who are the ones we’re trying to protect). Sidenote, I hate the term “sex work” as it already goes along with the idea that sex can ever be a job and should be held to the same standards as one when it comes to the ethics of being indirectly coerced by a need for money - however I’ll use it when I need to to explain my stance to people who do use the term. 

Surrogacy: 

I view surrogacy similarly to sex work; as an unethical and unnecessary commodification of women’s bodies which puts their health and safety at risk, and is often indirectly coerced through financial needs. Viewing parenthood as being primarily about who “claims” a newborn rather than who actually carried and gave life to it is inherently patriarchal and sets a terrifying precedent. Pregnancy puts a huge strain on women’s physical as well as mental health, and ending the process with a cheque or a sincere thank you rather than a baby can be mentally devastating, even if you knew from the start that you wouldn’t keep it. It is morally inconsistent that surrogacy is often legal in places where it’s illegal to receive money for giving away an organ or your blood; policies that are in place to avoid turning the poor into a class of kidney-suppliers. The idea of consent magically justifying everything falls way short when the same concept hasn’t been applied to blood donations for aforementioned reasons, and when you’re stuck to a contract. If we’ve agreed that consent to sex does not count if it’s irrevocable, why is surrogacy treated differently? 

Much like with sex work, the demand always far outweighs the supply which means that the few women who sincerely and genuinely want to do this don’t just justify the whole thing. I believe a system similar to the Nordic model should be in place, where there’s no legal repercussions to being a surrogate but where attempting to recruit one is illegal. 

Communism: 

I’m definitely a leftist and radical feminism itself has marxist roots. I recognise that capitalism plays quite a big role in women’s oppression through the barriers that women experience to enter many forms of paid labour, and the unpaid labour that is expected of them. Capitalism also leads to the commodification of women’s bodies through sex work or surrogacy. That being said, the inherently authoritarian nature of communism simply can’t be justified in my opinion. People who are corrupted by power exist under every system, which is why authoritarianism can never be safe regardless of the ideology it’s attached to. Even a “benevolent dictator” will die eventually if they don’t get overthrown first. 

Transmedicalism: 

I view transmedicalism as a harmful ideology. The brain sex studies transmedicalists often link are extremely flawed; incredibly small sample sizes used to draw overreaching conclusions, and a failure to account for neuroplasticity (the fact that your brain’s structure can change over time). Their insistence that transition is the only option for dysphoric people is harmful to all dysphoric/trans people, and often worsens dysphoria while also discouraging the development of alternative treatments. Their claims that all detransitioners were never really trans in the first place and every person who transitioned must’ve secretly been dysphoric regardless of their insistence otherwise are based on no actual fact, just a need for their ideology to make sense. 

#anon #my opinions #radfem #gender critical #anti sex work #anti surrogacy #I swear I'm gonna edit this later on bc the last two answers seem kinda half assed #but if I leave this in my drafts any longer it's gonna stay there forever

[greetingfromthedead]

Loki - Even in Death

Reader gender: Neutral

Summary: Thor wasn’t the only one to survive after Thanos’ attack on the ship and now you have just one mission in mind.

Author’s note: Hello! Maybe someone still remembers me… I’m the shitty Marvel writer. It’s been quite a while since I last wrote something. This is somewhat all over the place and is a bit longer than my usual stuff, but it’s just something that got stuck in my head. Plus I just really didn’t want to study for my exams :D

Author’s note 2 (rant): So apparently something has changed in the way Tumblr decides to show tags in searches. I can’t add any pictures to this text (I loved using special dividers + I always added a relevant picture), I also can’t link to anything (like my masterlist or tagging information). Basically Tumblr is just making it harder for me to like it anymore as it just limits my creativity.

***

You still hear the alarm ringing throughout the spaceship as you guide the Asgardians to the escape pod. Women and children are running for their life to get off this ship as something much bigger and very hostile looms over all of you.

The escape pod is filled to the prim, but half of the people are still on the main ship. You look with panic and worry, at the people who won’t fit into the pod and decide to do your best to protect them. You go up to Valkyrie and take her hand.

“Get these people as far away from here as possible, keep them safe.” you say and also look at Korg behind her. “Stay with them, they have to live.”

“Come with us. There aren’t many warriors amongst us, help us keep them safe.” Valkyrie demands, but you just shake your head.

“I have to try and fight here so maybe we get to live another day, these people here don’t deserve to die. Now stop wasting time and go.” your voice ice cold as you let go of her hand and push the release button next to the pod. It closes its doors and prepares to release from the main ship. With a heavy heart you watch them go knowing very well that everyone remaining on this ship is very likely going to die, including you… and Loki.

You draw your black bladed sword and make your way through the crowd who has fallen completely silent. You can hear fighting in the main hall behind the metal doors. You raise your weapon and are ready to strike. Just a moment later the doors open and a strange pale face greets you with the slightest hint of a smile.

“There you are,” the smooth voice says.

You sarge in with full force, but the figure just waves with his hand and metal wires from the ceiling bend and quickly wrap you up even covering your mouth. Your sword falls to the ground as you are pulled against a wall with no hope of escaping.

One by one the figure starts killing the people you swore to protect. You couldn’t watch this blood bath and nobody could hear your muffled screams over the panicked and afraid shouting. You close your eyes, but the noise alone is enough to make you want to vomit.

When the deed is done the figure walk out the door leaving you alone alive. You can hear voices talking somewhere in the distance, but the shouts of the wounded and the afraid are gone, meaning that they are all dead. Your face is wet with tears of grief. You don’t try to listen for the voices, you know everyone’s fate is already sealed.

Suddenly and without warning the wires holding you back loosen and you fall to the ground. You pick up your sword and run out the doors. You see glowing purple cracks appear all around you. Purple flames engulf your surroundings as you make it to the main hall. The last thing you can see before the ship blows to pieces is Thor crying over the body of his brother.

***

The sun shines brightly over the green fields, the river can barely be heard over the sound of blades clashing together.

“You have all your little tricks, but I’m still better than you,” you tease.

“You seem so sure about that,” the says as he pulls out two knives out of thin air and charges at you again, but you deflect his attack and even smack him lightly in the face with your free hand. Suddenly you are surrounded by an army of Lokis and you look around trying to find the real one.

“Your projections can’t hurt me, I just have to stab every single one of them until I find the real you,” you smile.

“Yes, but in the mean time I can sneak up on you,” his voice whispers in your ear as he wraps his arms around you.  You let your sword fall to the ground and you turn around. He places his hands on your neck and kisses you. His lips leave a burning trace down your neck.

Suddenly you knock him over, he loses his balance and falls.

“You fight dirty,” he says with a hint of admiration.

“You already knew that,” you smile.

You push him on his back before sitting on him and kissing him, stroking your fingers through his hair.

***

You wake up on a lumpy bed, your body hurts as you sit up. You look at your damaged armour and everything is covered in ash and blood. You look around and see that you are on a spaceship. Everything starts to flood back to you, the image of your dead love burned into your eyelids.

You get up and limp to the door of the little windowless room. To your surprise it is open and you walk down the hall till you get to a big room. There is no furniture there, but on the floor there are uneven lumps covered with fabric and you realise these must be the fallen Asgardians. You look at the rows of bodies and are reminded of your grief. You can’t bare to look anymore so you turn around and head for the exit, but suddenly there’s a loud whistle. You see a Yaka Arrow hovering in front of your face.

“Who are you?” a voice asks.

“Y/n, an Asgardian warrior,” you say.

“What happened to your people?”

“They were murdered.”

“By who?”

“Thanos,” you almost growl that name.

You turn around and see a scruffy looking man.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Kraglin,” the man answers.

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For giving the dead some decency and for saving me.”

“Well, you did almost join them and I couldn’t just leave them there. I just wish I were closer when I received the distress call.”

He whistles again and the arrow flies to him.

“You’ve already done so much for me, but I have to ask a little more. Do you have an escape pod I could borrow? I will repay you.”

***

“Oh, did I offend you, my prince?” you ask in a serious manner.

“Yes, very much, my dear.” His expression looks stern, but you can see through it, you see the actual joking kindness he has towards you.

“Then I’m very sorry, your highness,” you bow and laugh.

Loki takes your hands and with a smile he pulls you closer. He places his right hand on your waste. His fingers play with yours for a moment before intertwining. Loki leads as the two of you slow dance to a melody sounding from far in the distance.

“I wish it could stay like this forever,” you sigh, “Where our biggest trouble is me stealing the last pastry from under your nose.”

“Why do you think it can’t stay like this?” Loki asks as he looks at your expression.

“Because I can feel a war coming.”

***

You wake up  in the small spacecraft you had stolen after getting denied by the Xandarian. Looking around in the small space you can tell that this was stolen before you got your hands on it.

Your body still aches from your injuries, but there’s no time to lose. You had already set your course and you can see that you are getting close. In just a couple more hours you find the gateway to the Lost Lands and land at the Sinner’s Market. You get out of your spacecraft and venture through the crowded streets. All kinds of creatures are here to sell you their sinister goods, but you had only one goal so you find the little storefront and walk in. You are greeted by all kinds of potions and magical trinkets. The blue skinned storekeeper smiles a toothless grin as he sees you.

“Do you have what we discussed?” you ask in his native tongue.

He takes two small vials from under the table and hands them to you.

“And this will work?” You demand as you look at the little potions.

“Most likely.”

“You are in luck today as “most likely” will have to do,” you say as you place a bag of money on the counter before leaving.

***

You lay in his arms. Loki’s hands holding yours. He moves his head closer till his lips are by your ear.

“I still think we should leave. I still think you should marry me.” he whispers.

You feel your heat ache. This is the second time he has brought this up after the big proposal.

“You know I can’t. You know why,” you say with sadness.

“Because you are part of the Asgardian elite force? There’s a simple solution - leave with me. You are my only light in this life. You hate this hell as much as I do. Let’s just leave, we could concur all of the nine realms and the rest of the multiverse and call it ours if we wanted to.”

“I hate the throne, I hate the politics, but I gave an oath to protect the people. They have done nothing to harm me and if protecting them means I cannot wed, so be it. A big ceremony doesn’t affect my love for you. Does it for you?” you turn your head to look at him.

“No, it doesn’t. I will love you the same. No matter what happens.” He gives you a kiss on the cheek.

***

You let your ship just drift in the fast emptiness of space as you sit on your chair and look at the vial in your hand. You take the cap off before putting it on your lips and drinking the sweet liquid. You feel the poison taking it’s toll on your body. You feel everything in you struggle, but the potion stretches out to every nook and cranny inside you and everything fades to black as it shuts you down.

You find yourself in a field. The long grass swaying in the wind. The sky of Valhalla painted with gold and rose colours. You are alone if it wasn’t for one other person. You take a step closer.

“My love?” you call out to the figure and Loki turns around.

“No, you can’t be here,” he comes closer, “Not so soon, you can’t be dead too.”

You approach him and stretch out your arms to hug him, but there’s a wall between the two of you.

“It’s not your time yet, it cannot be,” he says.

“Don’t worry, it is not. I just had to be sure you’re here,” you smile as you look into his brilliant eyes.

You feel a force pulling you away again, pulling you away from the wall, from your love.

“I will see you again, I promise,” you say before finding yourself back in your spacecraft.

The poison had brought you close enough to death to visit the land of the fallen, but now it retreats again until it is nothing more than just an empty feeling in your stomach.

***

You walk behind your spacecraft and open the storage compartment. You drag out the Asgardian. You push him back down when he tries to stand.

“Why? What have I done to you?” the man says not looking up at you.

“You are a murderer, a thief, and a traitor,” you say.

“Odin pardoned me after I acted as a spy for him,” he says, you hear the terror in his voice.

“Odin is dead, Asgard has fallen, half of our people were killed. Rules don’t apply anymore. And you have not earned forgiveness.”

You take the top of of the other potion you had brought with you from the Sinner’s market and force the criminal to drink it.

“Please, no, let me live,” he begged.

But you simply take your dagger and slit his throat. The man’s lifeless body falls to the ground with a thump and as his body turns into golden shimmer, but it changes colour to be green before disappearing. In it’s place a golden shimmering portal appears. and Loki steps through the gateway back into the realm of the living. He seems aghast as he looks at his hands. Then he turns his attention to you, he reaches out to touch you.

“Is this real?” he strokes your cheek.

“I did give you a promise,” you smile as you place your hand on his.

Loki steps closer and embraces you, kissing the top of your head and then pulling away just to kiss your lips.

“But how?” he asks.

“I damned an Asgardian soul to a eternity in Hel,” you say remembering the man you had killed just moments ago.

“I love you more than anything,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion.

“Then let’s get married,” you smile.

He still holds you, but suddenly it feels as if your stomach dropped, an uneasiness takes over and gives you just enough time to ask:

“My love…?”

You don’t get to finish asking if he feels it too, if he knows what’s happening. You just turn into dust in his arms and all Loki can do is watch in horror as the wind blows your remains away.

***

Sadly I can’t link to my masterlist here or the post won’t show up in search, but you can find it on blog page.

***

Taglist

@spookycatqueen @jdm-is-dad @kbarnes-2001 @thefallenbibliophilequote @honey-anon @chris-evans-teamcap @justaplainfangirl @obsessed--with

#marvel #loki x reader #infinity war #ragnarok #avengers #thor #odinson #fanfiction #endgame #the dark world #mcu #guardianwrites

[ilovereadingandilovebreathing]

The Great Ukulele Caper

Sorry my titles are cheesy lol 

So this was supposed to be cute and funny, but it got out of control, so prepare yourselves for the post-”Moving Forward” feels cuz here. they. are. That video wrecked me and I needed an outlet, okay? Okay. 

So here, and I am actually sorry. 

Also, this is my first time writing a fic with Thomas in it, so sorry if I get him all wrong or step on any toes. I don’t usually write him in, but I felt like maybe it was okay in this case? Either way, I did my best.

Summary: Thomas’s ukulele is missing, and the only place he hasn’t checked yet is the MindScape…

Characters: Thomas, Patton, Roman, Virgil, Logan (no pairings)

Word Count: 3,280 (my longest SS fic yet. oops.)

Warnings: “Fix You” by Coldplay is back, and I’m. Not. Sorry. It’s too #relevant to ignore, and I have a lot of emotions. Other than that, no real warnings that I can think of besides angst. 

Tags will be in the reblog because Tumblr hates me.

ALSO I’m SO sorry the Read More keeps disappearing!! I forget that every time I edit something on mobile, that vanishes. SO sorry to everyone who had to deal with that.  

He’d been searching all afternoon, but he just couldn’t find it anywhere. Not on the couch, in the couch, or under the couch. Not in his bed, on his bed, or under his bed. Not in the laundry room or the kitchen; he’d even checked the stairway! 

Thomas just couldn’t find his ukulele anywhere, so he mustered all the mental power he could spare and transported himself to the MindScape. 

When he appeared in the living room nearly identical to his own, Thomas immediately spotted Patton sitting cross-legged on the floor, happily humming “Winnie the Pooh” while coloring a picture of the same eponymous bear. 

“Hey Patton?” 

The Moral Side’s head jerked up, for he hadn’t heard Thomas enter. Once he had a second to process, a characteristic grin broke out across the Side’s face as he replied, “Yeah, Thomas? What’s up, kiddo?”

“Have you seen my uke anywhere? I thought I left it on the couch in my living room, but I can’t find it.”

“Mmmmm nope, sorry, kiddo, I haven’t seen it! Maybe Roman has it? He’s the one most likely to be involved in a capo’ed kidnapping!”

“True.” Thomas chuckled a bit. “So, which way to Roman’s room?”

“Up the stairs and to the left; his door is the one right there, on the left side! Good luck, kiddo!”

“Thanks, Pat, see you around.” Thomas gave the waving side a two-finger salute as he mounted the staircase. “Weird how this place looks just like my house, but is just different enough…” Thomas mused as he approached the Royal’s door. From behind the thick wood, Thomas heard the smooth tones of a familiar little instrument being strummed to the tune of “Once Upon a Dream.”

“Uh, Roman.” Thomas tapped on the Creative Side’s door, opening it slowly as the music quieted a bit. 

“Greetings, Thomas!” Roman declared, turning to face the doorway with the ukulele strapped around his neck, held in place by a bright red strap. He played the ending notes of the song, gently singing out, “The way you did once…upon…a…dreeeeeam…”

“Roman!” Thomas exclaimed, throwing his arms out. “I’ve been looking for that everywhere! If you want to borrow my ukulele-”

“Whoa, there, my Confidently Confused King,” Roman threw up his arms defensively, keeping Thomas at arms-length from the instrument. “This is my ukulele. I conjured it up after you bought yours. Well, it took a few tries to get it just perfect, but-”

“Wait, Roman, you made this?” Thomas stared in awe.

“Why, yes, I did!” Roman beamed with pride. “I had to study yours first, of course, because I love its tonality and wanted to emulate its sound perfectly! Although, I did make a few design changes…” He gestured to the sides of the instrument, intricately carved into designs of a castle, dragon, shield, and sword. 

“Roman, that’s incredible! It’s beautiful, and it does sound exactly like mine. I thought it was mine when I heard it in the hallway, actually.”

“Delightful!” Roman exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Though, I am sorry yours is missing. Did you ask Patton, perhaps?”

“I did.” Thomas sighed. “He hasn’t seen it; he told me to come talk to you.

“I’m afraid I don’t have it either, compadre.” Roman smiled sadly. “I can’t imagine where it could be. It’s not like Logan could see any use for it…perhaps Virgil? He does love music, even if it’s that Chemical Romance garbage.”

“I guess it’s possible. I have been meaning to check in on him and make sure he’s doing okay more often…” 

“It’s settled then! Thomas’s Quest for his Magical Instrument is underway! Now he will head into the darkest, most dangerous, most-”

“Roman.” Thomas warned.

“Most….enigmatic corner of his mind.” Roman grinned sheepishly. “I apologize. Old habits die hard, and all of that. His room is at the end of this hallway, the final door on the right side!” He gestured grandly before strumming his own ukulele again, the beginning notes of “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana filling the air as Thomas took his leave.

“Best of luck to you, Brave Thomas! I surely hope you find your ukulele before it’s too late.”

“Thanks, Roman.” Thomas smiled, shutting the door. “No need to be so dramatic, though.” 

“There’s always room for flair!” Roman declared. “I’ve been-”

Thomas shook his head slowly as he turned from the Royal’s room and headed toward the end of the hall; the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign attached firmly to the door was an obvious signal that he was in the right place.

“Virgil?” Thomas knocked on the Anxious Side’s door, frowning when he did not receive an answer. “Virgil!” Thomas called louder, knocking harder and turning the door handle. It was unlocked, and for an instant Thomas felt bad for entering Virgil’s room without really getting permission, but that faded when he realized the Anxious Side wasn’t even in his room.

“Hmm, weird.” Thomas thought to himself. “Maybe he went out for some reason…to another part of the MindSpace I can’t get to…” He shrugged and pulled the door shut. Maybe Logan knew where the other Side had gotten off to, so Thomas started toward the opposite hallway, smiling as he passed Roman’s room, the Moana tune still in full swing within.

Thomas approached one door, realizing instantly that it must be Patton’s, if the “Come On In!” sign written in bright marker was any indication. Thomas continued down the hall, coming to a halt outside the door that could only have been Logan’s. Hand on the doorknob, Thomas’s jaw became slack as soft tones slid from beneath the door. A voice, similar to his own but quieter, with a slight rasp to it, was singing the bridge of “Fix You” by Coldplay. The voice cracked on a higher note, and Virgil’s familiar, frustrated tone bit out, “Crap. So close. We made it so far!”

“I apologize. Do I need to transpose the song into a lower key to suit your range?” The Logical Side replied evenly, sounding patient in spite of Virgil’s outburst.

“No, no, it’s fine.” Thomas could hear the bite in Virgil’s tone, even when it was muffled by the door. “I just….Ugh. We’ve been working on this for days, and I really thought we had it by now…”

“We have worked through most of the final bridge, so, comparatively speaking, we are much closer to the end than we were when we started.”

“Of course, Logan…” Virgil grunted. “I just need a second…” 

Thomas suddenly realized Virgil’s voice was closer to him than it had been, but before he could retreat, the door was flung open and Virgil stood there, eyes bulging and mouth slightly agape. 

“H-Hey, there, Virgil.” Thomas waved awkwardly. “I was just looking for my-”

“Your ukulele.” Virgil grumbled out. He quickly turned back to Logan, who held out the instrument toward the Anxious Side, and gently took the ukulele from his hands. Virgil turned back to Thomas, peering through his bangs as he apologized.  “Sorry we took it. We would’ve made our own, but creativity isn’t our department, you know? Roman could make one, but we didn’t want him to get involved and try to steal the show.” He held out the stringed instrument to Thomas. “Sorry, again. We won’t take it again-”

“No, please do!” Thomas held up his hands, refusing to take the ukulele. “You sounded amazing, Virgil. I had no idea you have such a great voice.”

“Well…I mean, I never said I’m not a singer. I just….don’t like to do it around Sir Sing-A-Lot, you know? That’s kind of his thing, and it’d just be….embarrassing.” 

“Well, like I said, I think you have a great voice! And Logan, were you playing the ukulele?”

“Well, though I said I am not much of a singer, that does not mean I am not much of an instrumentalist. There is a lot more than creativity that goes into playing an instrument; certain types of mathematics and precise muscle movements play a large role, as well. It’s a challenge that I quite enjoy, actually.” The Logical Side blushed just a bit while gesturing toward a corner of his room Thomas could not see. “I have tried a few instruments, but the size, shape, and sound of the ukulele are by far the most pleasing to me.” 

“I can tell; you sounded amazing from what I could hear. You’re very good at finger picking!”

“As I stated, the precise muscle movements are enjoyable.”

“So I see.” Thomas smiled, looking back to Virgil whose head was still ducked in embarrassment. “So, why were you two practicing in here? I would assume for fun, but you said you didn’t want Roman involved or he’d ‘steal the show.’”

“Right, well….Obviously, you know Patton’s been a little….off lately, what with the whole…break-up and all.” Virgil swallowed. “We’ve been trying to get him to open up to us. When we’re all in sync and working together, things go a lot smoother, from actual thought stuff to every day stuff, but Patton’s still been hiding from us.”

“He’s down in the sitting room right now.” Thomas remarked.

“Right, but if we were to go down there, he’d start acting too happy or try to do something so that we couldn’t ask him if he’s doing alright. He’s still hurting, Thomas, he’s hurting a lot, and we really want him to know that he can open up to us and be honest with us and that we care about him and want to make sure he’s okay, so….”

“During the last couple of days, Virgil and I have been preparing to perform “Fix You” for Patton.” Logan chimed in, giving a worked up Virgil a second to catch his breath.  

“Right.” Virgil sighed. “We figured the words were pretty perfect for what’s been going on lately, and we hoped maybe it would….I don’t know, break him in a way? Maybe it’d finally get him to break down and be honest with us for once.” 

“That’s actually not a bad idea.” Thomas replied thoughtfully. “Music always makes me really emotional, especially if it’s the right song, and since Patton is my emotional core….this could work. And, if you want, I can teach you a couple of breathing exercises to get you to that high note.” Thomas smiled as Virgil blushed, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “But like I said, you sounded great, Virge. Patton will love it, regardless.”

“I sure hope so.” The Side muttered, turning back to his Logical companion. “Well, we could use all the help we can get, so if you’re willing, I’ll definitely take you up on those breathing exercises.”

“Great.” Thomas walked past Virgil as the Side shut the bedroom door, taking a seat in Logan’s vacant desk chair.

“Alright, Teach.” Virgil sat on Logan’s bed, across from the other Side, and took a deep breath. “Let’s get down to it.”

——-

“Hey, Dad?”

Patton’s head, once again, jerked up when he realized someone else was in the room. “Hey there, Virge, and other kiddos!” The father-figure grinned up at the three standing before him. “What’s up?”

“We, uh….We….Ah, man, guys, this is a stupid idea-”

“We know that you have been struggling as of late.” Logan cut in, placing his empty hand firmly on Virgil’s left forearm. “Made obvious after our last two filming sessions, so Virgil had an idea to try to remedy your emotional condition.” Thomas pulled the ukulele from its hiding place behind his back, handed it to Logan, and moved to take a seat behind Patton on the couch. “Virgil and I have been practicing our own musical rendition of a song we believe might provide a sort of proverbial balm to your…”

“Burned heart.” Virgil finished, breathing deeply before giving Logan a thumbs up. 

The Logical Side slowly began picking the opening chords to “Fix You,” and Virgil breathed out and in again, closing his eyes as he softly began singing, “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed…”

Thomas smiled at the pair, his heart picking up a bit when he looked down and realized how Patton had stiffened on the floor, his coloring book fully abandoned. The Moral Side sat stock still, his eyes fixated on the standing pair as they continued to softly serenade him. 

“When you love someone, but it goes to waste….”

Thomas chanced a glance down at Patton, but the Moral Side remained resolute, a look of what could almost be described as determination glinting in his eyes. He’d caught on, it seemed, to what their plan could be, and was refusing to give in. 

Great. If there was one emotion Thomas didn’t want to be battling right now, it was his own stubbornness. 

Still, Virgil and Logan played on, hoping the fruits of their labor would flourish rather than spoil, wasted. 

Patton made it through the chorus, and Thomas began to lose hope when the Moral Side remained resolute through the second verse. He really thought one of the two would get to him, but he’d apparently underestimated Patton’s ability to repress unwanted feelings. As they reached the bridge, Thomas sighed, accepting defeat and slumping into himself. Well, maybe they didn’t get Patton to break, but at least the other two had grown, in a way. Virgil was singing his heart out, perfectly using the breathing techniques Thomas had taught him to belt out the high notes in the bridge with all the passion he could muster. 

“Tears stream down your face when you lose something you cannot replace-”

Suddenly, Thomas felt something. 

Like the first drops of rain falling after the clouds have hung overhead for days, gathering and gathering their darkness and dew. The first sliver of pain, of sadness, of sorrow, cut right through his heart, and he knew the onslaught was to come. 

Thomas clenched his jaw, feeling the wave of emotions sweeping through Patton overcome him as the painfully relevant lyrics were, as hoped, the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Patton’s shoulders shook violently as he drew his hands over his face, choking back gut-wrenching sobs as the other Sides continued on, steeling themselves against responding to the Moral Side’s emotional outpouring. Slowly, and ever so tenderly, Thomas placed a hand on Patton’s back, and the emotionally-wrought Side collapsed under his touch. Thomas was on the floor in an instant, protectively holding his emotions in his arms as they wept together, finally, blessedly, coming to terms with what the Moral Side had been holding back for so long. 

Virgil and Logan finished out the song, and Thomas looked up through his tears, smiling gratefully at the other two as the bittersweet release of pent up emotions flooded through him. It hurt. It hurt more than anything Thomas had felt in a long time, but he was so grateful for it. He didn’t want to go back to the facade they’d dealt with for too long, and he knew the others didn’t either. Virgil and Logan came and sat behind Thomas and Patton, placing their own hands on the others backs in a sign of comfort and solidarity, and, looking up into their faces, Thomas realized the other two has flushed, wet cheeks, too.

Patton’s anguished cries must have made it up the stairs and past Roman’s own noise somehow, for the Royal was suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, sword drawn and eyes wide at the scene before him. Slowly, he sheathed his weapon, face crumbling with relief and sorrow at seeing his beloved companions in such a state. He moved to sit beside Virgil, leaning his head on the Anxious Side’s shoulder and allowing himself to break, as well, taking the shaking hand that was offered to him as he wept. 

The five remained this way until Patton’s cries subsided, his body slumping against Thomas from exhaustion.

“How you feelin’, buddy?” Thomas asked quietly, rubbing the Side’s back as he followed Virgil’s instruction to breathe. 

“Not great, kiddo. Not too good.” Patton sniffed and ran a hand under his nose. “But….better than before. It’s a process, right? Getting better, m-moving f-forward….it’s a p-process.” He sobbed out, still trying to get control of himself by breathing. 

“It sure is, Padre, but we’ll be here for you every step of the way.” Roman smiled shakily, patting the Moral Side’s shoulder. 

“Definitely.” Logan chimed in, wiping the remnants of moisture from his own eyes. “Whenever you might need us, we are here. We are with you, in solidarity.”

“We wanna help you, Dad.” Virgil mumbled, pulling his hand out of Roman’s death grip to ruffle Patton’s hair as he’d done so many times to the Anxious Side. “So let us. We can take this thing on together. You don’t have to be alone. We got your back.”

The Moral Side breathed in, and whispered, “Thank you all, so much….It’s…it’s been so hard…I just….I didn’t want to bring you all down. I wanted to protect you….from me.”

“Patton.” Thomas released his hold on the Moral Side, prompting him to sit up and look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to protect us. From any part of you. We’re all part of the same unit, and we all have to work together to function at all. We need everyone to be willing to give it all to each other and for each other, and that includes you. Let us help you and work along side you. We’ll get better together. Okay?”

“That….that sounds good.” Patton smiled, wiping a few stray tears from his cheeks. 

“Well, I’m beat.” Virgil sighed, trying to wiggle out from between Logan and Roman. “Glad we finally got you back, Dad.” He stood over Patton and reached out a hand which the other Side took gratefully, shocked when the Anxious Side pulled him into a tight hug that was over before he could process it. “Love you, Dad.” Virgil whispered before vanishing into his own room. 

“I will have to exit, as well.” Logan declared, carefully laying the ukulele on the couch behind Thomas. “I still have much to get done.” The Logical Side rose, placing his hand on Patton’s shoulder before pulling him into a surprisingly not stiff (and longer than Virgil’s) embrace. “Take care of yourself, Patton.” The Logical Side admonished as he released the other. “We only have one you, and we want you at your best. Because we love you.” Logan threw him a final smile before also disappearing into his own realm of the MindScape. 

“Well.” Thomas looked at Roman, still on the couch, and Patton, staring up the stairs toward Virgil and Logan’s rooms. 

“I think I’ll stay down here with Padre, here.” Roman replied softly. “I think some….one-on-one time is in order. Sorting things out for good sounds like a grand idea right about now.” He gestured toward the empty space on the couch, smiling when Patton relented and sat across from him.

“Not a bad idea. Considering everything else…we might as well.” The Moral Side sighed, turning to Thomas.

“We’ll be okay here, kiddo. You can go on home now. Glad you managed to find your ukulele.” The emotional Side sniffed and smiled.

“Yeah, me, too, Pat.” Thomas gave the pair a soft smile and a wave as he picked up his ukulele and vanished out of the MindScape, re-materializing on his own living room couch. Sighing deeply, Thomas laid his little instrument on the coffee table, settled back on the couch, and closed his eyes, willing his mind to do as it pleased as his Creativity and Morality worked themselves out.   

All of my Sanders Sides fanfics

#Sanders Sides #Thomas Sanders #Sanders Sides Fic #Sanders Sides Fanfic #Thomas sanders fanfic #Patton Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #I'm not sorrryyyyyyyy #but i am a little bit #but mostly not #this was supposed to be so cute and fluffy but i rUINED IT with the ANGST #tsfanfics

[obscurelistening]

2017, a year review

‘There was no touching, no love.’

I’d been meaning to write on here for a while, in some sort of ‘nourishing cleanse’, and for someone that rarely reads as I ought to, this quote sprang to mind. It’s from Ian McWean’s Child in Time, and even while I thought it was kind of relevant to this year, before I’d even thought about what I wanted to say, I had to google it to see if I’d remembered it correctly. 

‘Now there was no mutual consolation, no touching, no love. Their old intimacy, their habitual assumption that they were on the same side, was dead.’ 

When I read that, the actual quote, it seemed to strike a chord with events off this year. 

In one year, so much feeling, emotion, hunger, passion, and ‘finalisation’ happened, something I never could’ve imagined it being the case when I was back in 2016. But before delving into so much soulful splendour, I can’t forget where things were going heading into 2017. 

I didn’t have many ‘drastic’ goals or anything crazy. I knew I had this crazy idea in my head of celebrating my 21st on a beach somewhere off a Thai Island, downing cocktails with my mates, and returning home with a glistening beach body. I knew that I just wanted to be happy with how I looked and how my body felt. Relationships, I was really excited by the prospect of moving forward and potentially finding someone, but who knows, who cares. Scrolling through my old Tumblr posts,  I was clearly very concerned about the state of my body, how big I felt I was, and how much I really hated it. 

‘Death and all his friends’ - Coldplay

I consider myself fairly lucky in life. I made it to the age of 20, and didn’t have to witness any significant deaths of family or friends. That, life is a gift within itself. Towards the end of last year, in 2016, was my godfather, and I won’t say much on that because I don’t feel like I could write words that would do him justice enough, compared to the people that have been truly impacted by his passing, but with Aidan, I feel I have more of that privilege. Someone who you grow up with undoubtedly shapes your life in ways you don’t even realise. And that’s exactly, who Aidan was. He was, for much of my life, a best friend. Drawn out of the sand of a broken up friendship group in primary school, Aidan emerged as the guy, caring and crazy enough to just about take my role as best friend. 

I can remember the state of play before Aidan. Aidan came to my primary school later than the others, when we were older, slightly more cohesive snot bags running around screaming. Jack had always been my best friend before Aidan. Aidan was best friends with Gerrard, and Jack was mine. Adam appeared in the interim between the two, he was a friend, but we saw him as ‘weaker’ and abused that. 

The weird thing, looking back on my relationship with Jack, was that it was more ‘intimate’. Now, as a kid, there was no sexual desire, or lust, or even a drive to explore sexually with each other. You’re not capable of that at that age, but we used to cuddle in bed, and do equally as intimate things. It was a very weird friendship, but so sweetly close, so sweetly close. And the odd thing about it, was, I remember, before understanding or realising that we’re all capable of love, was that in an odd way I had some sort of ‘love’ for him. When we ceased to be friends, I remember yearning for that. We were incredibly close in such a weird, intimate way. 

With Aidan, that wasn’t the case. I can remember how the new friendship groups formed. I mean at the end of the day, we’re a bunch of young kids, who change friends and social patterns / circles continually. 

As time was progressing, the social circles were flipping. Jack was becoming best friends with Gerrard, and that put Aidan and I in awkward position. We were both loosing our best friends. So we had to adapt and ‘survive’. Truth is, I never cared for Aidan much at the beginning. I used to love running around being crazy as a kid. But even as a kid I was quite placid in some respects. Jack had this sort of understated placid-ness that meant we both got on so well and were on similar wavelengths. Aidan was never like that. He was mad, all the time. He never stopped. And that took some time to get used to. But over a few years, we were best friends. Jack was gone. Bye. Aidan was now top of the friend chain list. He was my number one, and remained in that position for a number of years. 

Those years, mostly faded to insignificance though. The years I remember the most, the best were the years of young teenage hood, and entering puberty. Which happened scarily early for me. I can’t really dispute how idealised my childhood and early teenage years were - I used to bike to my best friends house in the summer, and we would ride around his village until late at night, and then sleep over at his house. What could have been more fun that as a kid? That was great, and an overarching theme of our friendship. 

In-between that we had his parents. The most friendly bunch you would probably see. We took so many trips away around the UK with Aidan’s parents. That was pretty cool, and sweet, something most parents wouldn’t even stop to consider doing for their kids and their friends.

Then, he just had to move to a more remote village 10 miles away didn’t he? The goalposts were pushed, but by that time, so were other things in our relationship. We still hung out, and did the normal things. But we were becoming teenage boys, our voices deepening, growing taller and slender. But along with growing up, our sexualities began to develop. Aidan forms the foundation of my sexual development as an adolescent. How weird is it looking back on that now? 

What I still find crazy and perplexing to this day, is how all of this developed suddenly from the ground up. I mean, we must’ve been pretty young at this point, no older than 14. I’d been masturbating since I was 11 and had my own laptop. Porn and self-pleasure certainly weren’t alien topics to me. I guess that’s pretty normal for any teenage boy. You might not start at 11 like I did (which was all completely my own doing and self discovery), but I challenge you to find one guy that hasn’t watched porn or masturbated before they’re 16. 

Except, things were a bit different for me, and I soon began to realise I was a bit different. Not only had my sexual development started, I realised I wasn’t watching the kind of online porn that most guys would watch. I was watching gay porn. Literally from the start. There was none of this going to straight porn first, or just focussing on the guy. I went straight in for the gay porn, and to be honest, while I found it weird, I knew I was loving it straight away. 

But out from that grew a desire to experiment. As I was becoming a sexual being, I wanted to share that with someone. Reading stories of circle, jerks, and guys beating each other sent me going wild. For a highly sexualised young teenager this was crazy good stuff. 

Now, with Aidan, like most teenage boys, when I was over we would often go on video chatrooms and like together, and of course, there would be, a lot of dicks. I remember one time this guy (who looked about 18) asked if he wanted to see him suck his own penis. We both looked horrified at each other, and then said yes. The guy started to take off his pants, before I clicked the ‘next cam’ button. 

Hmmm interesting, something had certainly piqued Aidan’s interest there. 

For Christmas one year, I received an iPod Touch. I found a ‘spin the bottle’ app on there, which we decided to use to play truth or dare. This was with another friend, who was far less exploitative or ‘crazy’ than Aidan in every aspect anyway. 

The dares were fairly normal for the most part, but sometimes sexually funny. For example, strip off and run outside somewhere. Now we weren’t quite crazy enough for that, but walking down the stairs of his house naked, or mooning, weren’t out of the question. But I wanted to push things further, I liked where this was slowly heading. I continued to search for other apps, eventually finding one where you could input your own dares. I started off lightly. Things like exposing your penis and getting hard, or giving your friend a reach around. It involved touching, but that was about it. 

About this time though, the other friend lost interesting the newly sexual element of the dares, but for Aidan and I, the sexual element seemed to grow. So what did we do? We started to have sleepovers without the other friend. Just the two of us. Sometime between that time, dares grew to playing with the other person for a number of minutes, and not just seconds. And so too did the tasks, oral sex became the norm, as did extended hand jobs, dry humping, and even one a couple of occasions, penetration, but never full on sex. 

Oddly, no kissing was ever involved, it purely revolved around the sexual aspect. And this included, sometimes playing outside. At first, it was very awkward when we came, he became very awkward, sheepish, withdrawn and shy, and would often exclaim that it wasn’t going to happen again. I got very weird feelings in my stomach, and used to start feeling incredibly guilty and begin thinking about ‘god’. Looking back on it, there was nothing wrong with what we did, it was nothing more than the intense ‘programming’ that you receive from society about not playing with other guys. To top it off, I had a belief in God then, and Aidan was very religious (his house backed onto a church, and his mum was a warden for it!). 

Eventually, that began to decrease as we aged, the ‘I’m never doing that again rhetoric’ depleted, and we began to discuss what was happening ‘Have you ever done this with anyone else? ‘Do any of your friends know’ ‘are you gay or straight’ ‘No, no, I’m straight’ were always the answer to those and similar questions. 

For me, it really was a crazy moment. I’d literally fantasised about playing this sexual games with my friends, and here I was, it was happening right in front of me before my eyes. 

Except there was one glaring change that threatened it all. Girls. Before we’d began to properly have fun, Aidan had been seeing a girl, Bryony or something weird like that. And that all ended. Who knows it was a ‘teenage’ thing. We were very young, and relationships didn’t last long back then. By the time I was 14, I’d ‘dated’ a few girls. Tracey, Jo, Lana, and others, but nothing had happened and I’d never felt as sexual. 

But then something changed, I introduced Aidan to this girl that was a friend of a friend of mine, and they quickly started dating, and when I say they started dating, I mean properly. Within a couple of months they were a couple. And not just a pseudo-teenage couple, they properly fell in love. They were together for at least four years. Meeting at around the age of 14, and continuing right through to the time we were in uni together. 

That was the end of our fun. And I slowly saw Aidan less and less, we’d still hang out as a group of friends occasionally, and I’d go to birthday parties and the like. But the main closeness and sexual exploration was over. For the most part, I was cool with that. I’d experimented on another guy, and lost my full virginity to a guy at 15. I was happy I still got to be friends with him, and sparing some awkward moments where his girlfriend made jokes about us ‘getting freaky’ and us looking sheepish and awkward at each other, it was all good. 

The last proper time I hung out with Aidan was at my school prom. We went to different high schools, but because he was going out with a girl from my school, it meant he got to go to the prom. That was actually an incredibly fun night, and Aidan was as crazy as ever. 

But then it was off to uni. We both had busy summers. I was doing music courses, going on family holidays, and away with mates I went to school with. Aidan was doing similar things and spending time with his girlfriend and church friends. We’d made it to 18, and never spoken once about the our ‘intimate’ growing up. 

There were only a couple of times I saw him after that. Once, when he came to my uni town for a rugby game, with a mate from his uni. We spent an hour or two together with the mate and made some food, and the second was at a gathering for his girlfriend around that Christmas. 

Those were to be the last occasions I ever saw him. 

I think like most, it’s quite difficult to stay in contact with your home friends while at uni. Aidan and I had experienced years of not properly hanging out or seeing each other frequently since our relationships with school friends grew, and he had a relationship. I tried to keep that relationship going, inviting him to my 19th birthday for example, but he couldn’t come as he was feeling ‘heavily depressed’. This was something I thought he’d slowly worked through and gotten over, but apparently not. 

Depression seemed to be a weird underlying current within their family. While I’m not sure about his parents, his sister for sure had suffered depression for a number of years when she was younger, I remember walking into their house, her with bouts of tears, and with Aidan telling me about his sisters previous suicide attempts. For the most part though, as she grew older, her mental health improved. I never spoken to Aidan in detail about his sisters mental health. I never felt it was my place. But I guess, I should’ve focussed more on Aidan in that time. If I could’ve done my part to prevent his passing, just by talking to him, then I would have done. Not that I in one way feb responsible or guilty for his passing. 

26th of April 

Then we skip forward to this year. 2017. A year and a bit later. It should be a normal day, I’m sat on my computer, finishing off some uni work, and lie everything that happens in the 21st century. There’s no phone call or text, but an inbox message waiting from Lana, and as I flick my trackpad down a couple of times, there it is. A stream of messages writing condolences on Aidan’s wall. I couldn’t believe my eyes. And tears were streaming and streaming. That was it, the news had hit. And that was it, a few weeks later I was sat at his funeral, with Lana and other friends. Touching his beautifully Aidan coffin at his funeral, and saying goodbye for the final time. 

I find it so sad that he felt the need to end his life, but I didn’t know him well enough in his later years to speculate or realise just how he’d been feeling. What I’d really looked forward to and wished one day, was that we would finally talk about and laugh over our childhood, talking about all of the crazy things that had happened, girlfriends, our sexualities and the stupid and sexual things we did as a kid. Part of me for a long time, after it happened and now, leaves me wondering his sexuality. Was he bi, curious, gay? I don’t think he was gay, loads of guys mess around with their peers and aren’t gay. But then you have the other friend, who wasn’t even slightly interested in the things that we were doing and the games that we would play. Was that a fairer representation of what heterosexuality is? 

I’ll never know. I hope wherever you are now, that you’re at peace with whatever meant you couldn’t keep going in this world. You were always a great friend to me. 

Pure unadulterated debauchery

In many ways, the closing moments of 2016 were a precursor to some of the larger themes that would filter my life this year. Sure, there were the expected elements like finishing a degree, but something I’d never imagined would have taken an interesting turn in my life would be exploring what it is to have such liberated, free sex. 

At the end of 2016, my interest in perverse kinky sex came to a head, when I attended a fetish new years party, covered in nothing over than a rubber t shirt and a jockstrap. Some boots and rugby socks also permitted. 

I’d never imagined it would become such an important or kinky theme to my sex life. What spouted out as a failed threesome from a guy whose housemates went home, turned into kinky sex with a perverse young lad my age in my uni town. Little did I know his influence for me to install a ‘kinky’ app, would have me meeting so many amazing and colourful people. 

This app was like no, grindr or any other app I had used. The way it worked meant conversation was rarely geared towards instant hooking up, it was about building a connection with that person and discovering their interests before agreeing to meet. And perhaps even then, you wouldn’t even meet for sex. 

See, grindr is selling sex. While I’ve had so much more come out of grindr than just simply sex. It’s introduced me to friends, brought interesting experiences, and amazingly sad experiences, it’s main role is to get you sex. And this is it’s problem, it’s selling sex. But with this fetish app, it’s selling you a community, a lifestyle, and friendly people that share your interest and yearning to do something different in the bedroom. 

Compared to some of the people I’ve met, I’ve never been as ‘mad on it’. Partially that’s because in my uni city you can’t be. When you live with a bunch of people that have little to no understanding of how perverse your sex life can be, and there aren’t a lot of people around you that are into donning rubber, and tying each other up, there isn’t a lot you can do to explore that field. 

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun... While attending a kink/fetish new years party hosted by the app was an incredibly fun experience, I never anticipated that I would be spontaneously booking a train ticket and hotel to Manchester to continue with the kinky fun in April at another event. 

And that wasn’t the only one, there was a whole week of Fetish play in London that summer. Probably one of the most exhausting, challenging and rewarding weeks I’ve had. 

London Fetish Week, was, for the most part a bit mad. It was crazy good fun, and I got to meet a lot of lovely kinky guys, and make plenty of friends. This of course continued right the way through to the very end of this year, where just a few days ago, where in between some club-come railway arches, I was partying  the night away in rubber, and entering rooms lit with smoke to enhance ‘sensory experiences’. I won’t delve too much further. Let’s just say it was a fun night. 

While I hadn’t planned on any of this really happening, what is more surprising to me is the number of people I’ve introduced to my rubber, and got them intrigued / talking about it. Something that could only have happened with me being more open about it. 

From wearing it in a hookup, putting it on for my best friend, or showing a guy I used to have a crush on how I liked to play in the bedroom, I feel like I’ve opened or widened their eyes. Sex doesn’t just have to be vanilla. And while I love both, the annoying thing is, it’s left me massively questioning now if I could ever enter a relationship with a partner that wasn’t as kinky as I, or at least didn’t understand it. 

I don’t think it would matter too much in the short term. But in the longer term, when the ‘honeymoon period’ is settled, and I’m longing to don some rubber and have a dirty sweaty fuck, then who would be there to help me with it? I’d be trapped. In a weird way, I’m hoping it will be one of the problems I face in 2018. In a strange way, it would be nice to meet someone that I’m either going to have this dilemma with. I know it’s a weird thing to say, but it would be quite nice to finally have someone I’m left wanting to share more of myself with. 

‘My son’s not a queer!’ - Dad

I need not rewrite about my life as a non open male. I’ve known for years now that I was different, that I wasn’t straight. And in the process, as time has gone on I’ve questioned more and more what my ‘true’ nature is. I’ve always preferred claiming I was bisexual. It allowed me to have a fundamental connection with ‘the boys’. After all we’re all sexual beings, commenting on girls tits, ‘god what a cracker’, is supposed to be something ‘all guys’ are capable of, and it brings us together. But at the same time, most of the time that just isn’t me. I’ve been left confused - brief moments of intimacy with women (especially compared to my track record with guys), leaves me briefly wondering. But also, massively panicking. Often when I come close to a girl I’m left in a panicky messy sweat. I kid you not, when I say this summer that I started getting off with a lovely girl that I knew, she obviously wanted it to to go further. The friend I was out with also pulled. So what did I do? Panic, claim I need to go back to my friends place place, then go home, get on grindr and have a gay friend over to comfort me and spoon me. He literally had to hug me and tell me to relax and stop worrying about it, because I was shaken with anxiety over it. 

When you make it to 21, and you’re still not sure if you’re even enjoying kissing girls, then you know you have a problem. I know I should be completely aware of what my sexuality is. I’ve known I’ve not been straight for far too long, but just some certainty on if I’m gay, or bisexual would be nice. While I know that maybe those labels don’t actually work the best, it at least allows me to quantify it to myself and explain it to other people. 

I’ve had my moments where I’m left doubting myself, but this year, I’ve enjoyed the most snippets of straight and bisexual porn than I ever have. The ‘fear’ of a vagina has diminished, and I don’t feel ‘repulsed’ by it, like I often did during university. But then I suppose my sexuality has always changed, and had its fluid moments. Before getting to experiment with a girl in my teenage years, there was the time when I must’ve been about 14, and my piano teacher was wearing panties. While I was sat behind her waiting for her previous pupil to finish her lesson, I remember being drawn and unable to take my eyes off her back and her panties. Then more recently, there’s the fact that I’ve been enjoying more ‘straight porn’ than ever before. For once the idea of being a ‘hot guy’ (well maybe not right now) and having sex with an attractive girl kinda actually seems pretty damn appealing to me. 

Okay, so that’s the first bit of ‘reasoning’ I’ve had to try and explain or quantify my sexuality, but what about the other people I know? 

What is bisexual? 

If I’ve realised anything this year, it’s that when it comes to sexuality, it’s never fucking clear. But one thing I’ve really quantified is the number of people around me, that really aren’t actually completely straight. Take my old housemates for example, if you include me, there are three ‘open bisexuals’, two girls that have experimented with other girls and wouldn't say they were ‘completely straight’, a guy that’s definitely playing with guys and girls but in the closet, a girl that’s basically a saint having never done with anyone, but said she would never rule out sexual relations with another girl. And 2 others that I’ve no reason to believe they’re anything other than straight. 

Then take my current house, a house of 6 guys (7 accounting for the one that moved out this year), we have a guy that’s clearly struggling dealing with sexuality and his desires pertaining to experimenting with other guys, one that gets touchy feely and weirdly defensive about other guys touching him when he’s drunk (plus he’s camp and a bit girly), and one that likes to grope me every single time we’re both drunk on a night out. That leaves half of the house to be ‘straight’. So out of 14 people I’ve lived with during university, we have 9 people that aren’t ‘straight’. Does this mean, as I’ve suspected as I became older, that since the Greek and Roman eras, us humans have actually just been fascinatingly brilliant at oppressing our natural sexuality? I think deep down, we’re actually all just a bit gay. But I think there’s more to it than that...

So this gay thing then?

We all know what gay is. I’m not defining gay here. I don’t even think, like I toiled over before with the whole fluid sexuality and people being bi or not completely straight, is necessary, the question is, am I gay? Is my overarching sexuality, being drawn towards men? What does that mean if I’m not bi? 

Well, if I’m honest, look at who I am. On a day to day basis, I don’t think it changes much. Like I’m so scared of uttering those words ‘I’m gay’, that being ‘bi’ like so many gay guys, has been the default go to option. But me saying I’m gay does a coupe of things. I don’t have to worry about kissing girls and getting awkward about it. I mean, it makes it ‘harder’ for me to start getting with girls, but how often am I kissing girls? My day to day lifestyle doesn't change. I’m still gonna be living on grindr, swiping guys on tinder, for the most part watching gay porn, and being the ultimate gay and going to fetish events up and down the country, who knows maybe even abroad. So what’s so different about me uttering the words I’m gay? 

Looking at London Pride this year. That was a fantastic experience. If there’s one way to live London, it’s to do it by living within walking distance to a tube station. I love that i’m so close to London at home, yet so far at the same time. If I could walk to a tube, I’d have the endless possibilities of one of the most amazing places in the world. 

But more importantly, London pride unlocked something in me that was always really there. The ability to go mega camp, and strut my stuff. Every time I’ve done London pride I’ve loved it for different reasons. Whether the first time I went it was ogling hot guys, and then when my soon to be boyfriend turned up, having the most romantic time making out with him in public to crowds cheering, or this year, becoming the campest I think I’ve ever been with friends, enjoying London’s nightlife, and then later realising and loving how natural it felt to be that camp all the time. Was great. 

On balance, being camp doesn’t make me gay. And I could still be that camp as a ‘bisexual’ man, or less likely, a ‘straight’ guy, and while I loved heavily camping it up like that, I don’t think that is my day to do me, and I’m not sure I would want to live like that all of the time. But then, why would I? I’m the person that want’s to cling onto bisexuality so that I can talk about ‘tits with the lads’. At the end of the day, I still panic massively when getting with a girl. 

Is there more to this not liking girls thing? 

Being scared when a girl approaches or is into me, has posed some problems, mostly making me anxious, and knowing theres no way in hell I could perform. I know in my mind I have some very strange conceptions, about women that I can’t seem to shake. In the back of my head, there seems to be this running notion that women have to be treated like these complete beautiful delicate flowers, they must be treated with respect. I’ve never been one of those guys that would go up and grope a girl in a club, or think that was ever acceptable, just because he thinks he can get away with it. But by that same token, I literally don’t care if I’m not shown that same sort of personal respect. And I’m not saying that in a way like, come up to me and touch me, I won’t care, but literally, I’ve been in bloody saunas in London where you have to tell old men to piss off or get their hands away from you after they’ve taken a sneaky grope or too. Plus I’ve had women (and men alike in clubs) grope me, and to be honest I couldn’t really give two shits. 

But I know just because I, and probably a lot of other men don’t care, that women probably wouldn't. I know a helluva lot of women that care about that kinda thing, and to be honest it’s small things like that that scare me. You know its this fear of going from, kissing a girl to going, ‘right well why don't you come back to my place and we can fuck’. I guess part of that stems from the fact that with guys I’m often so used to the fact that sex is so explicit. You want sex you go on grindr, send pics, an hour later they’re at your door. 5 minutes later, your clothes are off. And yes hookups happen with girls on tinder, but I’ve just never had that confidence to exploit that sexually. For someone that’s straighter than I am, it’s not a problem, because you’ll put all your efforts in (especially while younger), into trying it on with girls and you’ll establish what largely works for you. 

I’ve never had that opportunity to establish what works for me in that way, so essentially right now, nothing. My sexual contact with women has been explicitly discussed before it has happened, and that has been something of a massive rarity. 

So basically, like a 13 year old boy - I’m scared to approach girls. And honestly, I don’t think going to a single sex school helped. And on reflection, there’s nothing I can do about that now, other than have to get over it. and the only way to get over it is to try it on with girls. But why do I ned to try it on with girls, when I can get man on man sex so much more easily and conveniently and fulfil my sexual desires that way? Then there’s the added complication of, well how much do I even like girls? Is there enough of a like and an appeal for me to want to actually bother? Like I know what I’m doing with guys, I know how this whole gay sex thing works pretty well by now, and for the most part and other than the fear of an incurable STD or HIV, largely works for me, ya know. 

In addition, being involved in gay sex has given me some fantastic sexual opportunities that if I’m honest, I don’t think I ever could have witnessed at this age and in such depth if was having heterosexual sex. 

‘My sons not a queer’ 

If there’s anything London pride renewed in me, was a sense of campuses and belonging. But not just that, far more important than that, was the rhetoric going on in my head, that I feel safer, freer, and happier being open about my sexuality. I don’t feel ‘straight’ anymore, and struggle massively to fall in line of being ‘completely straight’ especially when I’m at home. I browse grindr at the kitchen table in front of my friends, and comment on fit men, I openly have guys over, and will sometimes even discuss dates. Having lived that lifestyle it’s very difficult to go back, especially when there is one glaring omission. Girlfriends. 

Now, this isn’t so much a problem, at university. My housemates and friends know what Im up to and what I’m into (well, they don’t know the half of it), but my parents, for a 21 year old boy, that’s never had a girlfriend, had a girl over, or shown signs of a relationship, but they who themselves were married from my age, it’s a bit odd to them. 

I don’t think it mattered much when I started university, but I can tell by now they’re having their doubts. And it’s not to say that I’m camp at home, (or even in day to day life), I don’t strut my stuff, I don’t comment on hot accessories or lip balms, butt, I’m not that most masculine thing at home, and I find it awkward when my dad, and even my mum comments on these beautiful women ‘aren’t they?’. That’s the problem, ever time this happens, it makes it harder for me to put up with it, and it just makes me want to shout in their ear that I am, not in fact straight. 

In fact, the biggest hook, line and sinker of the year, had to be when on holiday in September. We were sat in a grill house, and I was feeling pretty ill from my medication that day, queasy and out of it. Somehow, my mum managed to drop in some sort of joke about ‘well then, do you like girls or do you like boys’, other than nearly (subtly I might add), choking on my food, and being stumped for words, I thought to myself (well you didn’t say both, so I guess Il’l just lie about that answer), and managed to back out of it. To which my dad said ‘yeah our sons not gay’. 

No more than a couple of weeks prior at a family do, my parents were dropping off some family in the car, when I asked my dad to drop me off in the gym, my aunt started going on about these gay guys being ‘Muscle Mary’s’ and always being obsessed with the gym, to which I said something along the lines of ‘oh didn’t realise only gay people went to the gym. My dad’s response, ‘our sons not a queer’. 

Now in an ideal world, I like to think my dad isn’t homophobic..., (I think deep down, he would get over / accept the fact that I like men and get over it. It would be a shock, but it’s something he would have to and would deal with. I see the like of pride in his eyes when he talks about me, and is proud of my achievements. I know I’m not the sporting mad son that he’d always wanted me to be, but I’m naturally far more creative than I am sporting, and I was always often too shy to continue following sporting pursuits. It also doesn't largely help that I have one working eye and the hand eye coordination of a bat.) ...but at the end of the day, that’s not the first homophobic remark he’s made, and they used to especially upset me for the first couple of years when I came back from uni, for the holidays, him making these remarks, and me sinking back into the newly lost freedom that I’d had.  

Pull the trigger, come out, I dare you? 

I think in my head, I tend to live in the same closeted world that I did when I was 15 or 16. That is to say, my interactions with guys, especially online were from those who weren’t out, very much coming to terms with their sexuality or had accepted it, and were preparing to. I can safely say that by now, the majority of the gay or bi people that I know, are openly so, including to their parents. And then there’s me, in some open limbo, a halfway house, where coming out seems to be necessary but still feel like such an insanely bitter thing to do to yourself in order to live a happy life. 

My views on being open and coming out have changed dramatically, since I went to uni. Before the belief was always this, go on grindr sleep with guys, never tell the parents, maybe tell a couple of people, but always keep it under wraps, live a secretive lifestyle, and never tell them. But now, when I talk to guys on grindr or online, or guys I’ve met up with, hooking up behind their girlfriends eyes, refusing or denying that they’ll ever come out or tell their parents, I pity them. I question, what sort of existence is that? This is Britain, 2017, there’s no need for that surely? 

But then I remember by my own token, if I hadn’t drunkly outed myself, and then become more used to the process of slowly coming out to people (largely my age), without repercussion, then I probably too would hold similar views. I feel it’s only until you start coming out to people and realising that they don’t care, that you can only truly start to realise how little a deal it is to most people. And to those that do, you can set an example, and show how much diversity there is over your sexuality. There really isn’t one size fits all, gay, lesbian or bi guy. 

I think one thing that has always prevented me from coming out, has been the way my sexuality has been handled in the past. I needn’t go into too many details other than, when someone outs your homosexual activities in school, and people make fun of it, then you’re going to push yourself further back into Narnia than you even knew existed. 

It really is just the question of parents now. I’m open to most people, Im not the person I was in 2014, or 2012. I’ll for the most part, be open about my sexuality. But, it’s my parents, it really is that one thing. 

I’ve been inches away from coming out this year. In February I was having a shit time of it, I felt like my world was coming crashing in, littered with sadness. And I remember being sat at my desk tearing my eyes out, writing a letter. Ready to send to my parents, and drive back home so I could come home, get some comfort and sort myself out for a while. In the end, things changed slightly and I didn’t. 

One important question remains though. I think there is well and truly a need to do it now, that is no longer a question at all. Whatever, it’s going to have to happen, I just think I’m 21 now, there’s no need to be living a lie like this anymore. But... it’s how. I’ve thought about sitting them down and having a chat. But to be honest, I just hate hate hate, the idea of doing that, it seems so forced, so rigid. It’s like saying that, ‘sit down I have some bad news’, ‘the dog is dead’, or ‘I have cancer’ - why should I have to sit them down in such an inorganic way and tell them. I’ve considered telling them while on holidays in the past. Sat on an evening sipping cocktails, relaxed, talking in a way that we don’t usually and sharing things about ourselves. What about then? But no the opportunity rarely arises enough, and there’s just enough of a niggly doubt that leaves to me think it’s a good idea. 

So I think I’m left with one option, and that’s to tell them via a letter and invite them to discuss it with me. But then, I’m not sure it’s something I want them to keep? You know? Once it’s done, it’s not like it’s a letter announcing a prize or a will, I’d kind of just want it to be gone by that point, but they can know that I then did it. At least with a letter I could say what I wanted to say without fluffing up the words, and get the ‘important’ points across. 

All I know is, for 2018, I’m making it my mission to come out. 

End of Part One

#n

[weconqueratdawn]

#fannibalselfrec event - Hannibal season one

Thanks to @hannibalficwriters for organising this, I’m looking forward to checking out everyone’s recs :)

I nearly decided not to take part - I have problems with self-reccing, especially when I think something has received ‘enough’ attention. It just seems greedy. But that’s a) stupid and b) I have a story I want to tell about the writing of this fic.

I have literally only one (1) which qualifies. Others have strayed too far into AU-land to count as taking place in S1. That fic is *drumroll*:

Cathexis

Hannibal/Will ~ 57k words ~ Explicit

A Season 1 BDSM AU

Summary: What if Hannibal's sadistic tendencies only find expression through consensual BDSM relationships? Set in a Season 1 AU where Will is allowed to continue teaching, relatively undisturbed by Jack, and seeks Hannibal's professional help of his own accord.

The story I want to tell is how I went from not even thinking about writing, to writing something which juuussst about qualifies as a short novel (if we go by word count) in the same bound. (And how you can too! No, just kidding - I hate those kinds of terrible advice blogs. But stick with me, there’s things in this story which might be relevant for anyone reading.)

Before this fic, I wasn’t writing. Anything. Not only that, but I wasn’t even a frustrated writer who wanted to write but couldn’t. The idea of writing had never occurred to me. Sure, I was a frustrated creative person - I have been all my life, even since I was a very small child. Just before this fic, I had been studying fine art with a load of other adult learners and trying to engage with the contemporary arts scene in a fairly amateurish but genuine way. I would have described myself as an artist. My creative friends are sculptors and printmakers and painters. We had just finished putting on a group exhibition - just to see if we could - and were thinking vaguely of other things we might do together in the future.

Enter fandom. I had come to Hannibal post-cancellation and watched all three seasons breathlessly, then wandered around Tumblr reading meta and finding great fic and thinking WHY OH GOD WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS in a way which is familiar to anyone who has just Found Hannigram.

My gf is a fandom-savvy individual and we usually talk about our obsessions, whether they're shared or not. We came up with something which we found funny and which you most likely won’t - after steeping ourselves in Hannibal's god-complex we thought it would be hilarious to reduce him down to a common-or-garden bedroom sadist. He would make bad bondage puns and have a dungeon instead of a murder basement. Lololol etc. I even went so far as to refer to this as Fifty Shades of Graham, which if you know me, demonstrates how un-serious I was about it.

I DID NOT INTEND TO WRITE THIS is what I am trying to say. It was a joke, a bad one, and a private one. I never intended to be a writer* at all. 

Because apparently, unbeknown to me, that’s what I’ve been all this time. Secretly, under the surface somewhere. And what I think is this: I just wasn’t ready to be a writer before. I wasn’t ready to discover this about myself. The things that I did before - all the visual art, all my academic studies and crap jobs - all have, in differing and subtle ways, all fed into this part of me which wasn’t ready to come out yet. 

And I also think that this is happening to all of us. It’s just as true for you as it is for me. We all have hidden pockets of potential, things even the most self-aware of us do not know about, or refuse to look too closely at. Those pockets might not lead directly to anything life changing, they may be paths to other, deeper and more difficult to find pockets. Or simply to activities and interests we find enjoyable, a way of doing something just for ourselves or of meeting people we need in our lives.

A wise person on the internet said “follow the rabbit-holes”. They all lead to the same place anyway, and the easiest path there is the one of least resistance. Follow that strange tug, dive in, see where it leads you without worrying about the destination. You might end up being very surprised.

*It took me maybe six months to start to feel I could use the hallowed word Writer when talking about myself, and now I can even tell complete strangers this without blushing and feeling like a fraud.

18 months later and I can't imagine not planning all my not-work time around writing - I think about it constantly. It nags at me when I’m prevented from doing it by other commitments. My weeks and weekends are based squarely around which project I'm working on and how much time I have until that deadline, self-imposed or not. I have so many projects lined up they are constantly being juggled and re-ordered so I can try to maximise my available writing time in the most effective way. I’m even looking beyond fandom and beginning work on an original novel. And it all started with this fic.

For the really curious, here is how Cathexis got written (under the cut):

I read even more fic (really amazing and intimidatingly good fic too) and even more meta and I thought more and more about Hannibal and Will’s complex dynamic. The BDSM AU became less of a joke and more of a place where that could be explored without getting too tangled up in the difficulties of Will’s relationship with Hannibal. I thought about it often. There was so much discussion and activity in the fandom that the idea of putting down your feelings in the form of a story didn’t seem so strange.

But still, it didn’t seem like that was the route for me. Until, one morning after Christmas, I woke up with dialogue in my head (those moments just before and after waking are so good for weird happenings like this). I didn’t move, didn’t do anything at all, before I wrote it down on my phone. It felt like a strange thing to do at the time - trespassing in a place I didn’t quite belong. It was a compulsion. I just knew I had to do it.

I had no idea if more would follow or if I even wanted more to follow. But more did. I wrote that down to, in the same place (which, by the way, was the note app *not* anything as official as a Google Doc - the very idea :0 !!) 

It took me maybe three-four weeks of this to brave the idea of doing something with the snatches of dialogue and scattered notes which had built up. They had become pieces of a puzzle which I needed to solve - until then, I knew I wouldn’t find any peace.

I had been talking with @wraithsonwingsposts​ about the show and had encouraged her to work on a fic idea she had been playing around with. She returned the favour and was so fantastic and supportive all the way through - and therefore, this is all her fault, as she already knows ;)

The rest of the story was the same for anyone undertaking a piece of writing - one word at a time, much time staring at a blinking cursor, a lot of editing. But overall, I think what got this written and completed was keeping my aims simple. The were 1) see it through to the end (i.e. solve the puzzle), and 2) try not to make a complete tit out of myself.

I know for certain I hit one of those goals.

**************************************

Bonus: for the very-very-very curious, here is the original and un-edited version of the I wrote that morning (a version of which appears in Chapter 8), and the first thing I wrote since school:

"What kinds of things do you say when you... afterwards?" "I thought you found it too difficult to hear?" "I want to know. I can catch the odd word, but the way you say it... I like the way you sound." Hannibal hesitated for a tiny moment. Will smiled and said, "I thought it was for my benefit only you don't say it in English." Hannibal sighed and conceded, "Perhaps it's easier, sometimes." He moved closer to Will, made it almost impossible for Will to escape from what Hannibal had to tell him, and to study his face as he spoke. "I call you my darling, my lovely Will, so precious to me. I tell you how beautiful I find you, how complete my desire is and how abandoned you make me. I tell you that you are mine and belong to me, that I shall never leave you, that you have made me yours. I praise you, for being so very good, for indulging me, and for indulging yourself also. I tell you that you deserve it, and more, and I tell you I love you." Will went very quiet, almost not breathing. He had known what to expect but to hear it stated so simply was almost too much. Hannibal continued to look steadily at him, waiting. Will turned over suddenly, so he no longer could watch Hannibal's face, and pressed himself back into his body. Hannibal moved to accommodate, folding him arms around him and holding him tight. He brought his legs up so his thighs pressed into the back of Will's, and his ankles tangled with Will's also. They lay there for a few moments without speaking, bodies perfectly aligned. Will felt safe again. "If you wish to explore these issues, I have a suggestion. There are things you could wear, even in public, which could serve to remind you of my possession. Something more concrete than a bruise or a bite mark." Will considered how it might feel to have such a reminder, one he could feel wherever he was. An image came to him of a collar made of plain but good quality leather. It could be concealed under his shirts, especially if he wore ties. It would be slim but solid, with one heavy buckle to fasten it. He could almost feel it's weight resting on the back of his neck, like Hannibal had placed his hand there. Will opened his mouth to speak and then realised Hannibal was holding and touching his hand gently. The gesture was so soft and specific that Will had to look, to watch Hannibal's hands. Realisation dawned on him. Hannibal was meditatively rubbing small circles up and down in between the second and third knuckles of his third finger on his left hand. Will turned over to catch Hannibal around the shoulders and demanded, "Did you just ask me to marry you?"

Cathexis on ao3

#fannibalselfrec #hannibalficwriters #hannigram #hannigram fic #hannibal #my fic #cathexis #wow that was a lot of words about me #:0 #writing stuff

[unending-happiness]

I'm fairly new to this fandom. There has been so much drama going on, and it kind of worries me that a fandom is so divided. In the past, has the drama ever gotten so bad that certain blogs have been targeted? I've been a part of some fandoms where that has happened.

Hi Nonnie! Welcome! I’m guessing when you say “fandom” that you mean Shadowhunters in general and not just Malec fans, but I’m not sure. Full disclosure, I like to be honest and use lots of words, so lotsa words coming at ya. The truth is that there is no easy answer to this question. I’ll tell you what I know about fandom and drama from my own experience. I’ve been here about a year. I’ll answer this in three parts. (right?! I’m ridiculous)

First: Drama

*sighs* There is ALWAYS drama. Drama Here. Drama In other fandoms. (Which it sounds like you know well) Drama in real life. I know it varies and I have heard some say that SH is way drama heavy while others have said that other fandoms were equal to or worse. Drama happens. People tend to be opinionated. A lot of the time they put stuff out there without thinking of what others will feel about it. People often lack empathy, especially online. My advice on drama both on Tumblr and in life and what I tell my children is this:

You do NOT have to participate in drama. You don’t have to take the bait of someone talking about your favorite character, ship or actor. You don’t have to answer that vile anon. You don’t have to even see any of it. You can unfollow, block, blacklist, whatever it is that you need to do to avoid drama if you so desire. You do not have to give weight and power to negativity. You don’t have to give it oxygen or space. 

That being said, drama and discourse are two different things. I find that I enjoy respectable, well thought out discourse, and so I follow some blogs who are opinionated and I like reading their opinions on how the show could have done some things better, or their character metas. It’s no surprise that a lot of these blogs are writers. Writers, by-in-large, are people who think critically and are careful and measured with their words, because they know the weight and power words can have. Some people don’t like discourse at all, which is fine, so I try to tag mine so it can be avoided if people don’t want to see it. I find that even if I’m not participating in the latest heated argument, I am generally curious and at least want to know why people are carrying on. So I will look things up and see what they are saying. 

For example - yesterday I could see a few people on my dash talking Dom and his Malec comments (intelligently and calmly), but I didn’t know what it was really about, so I wanted read Dom’s interview quotes again. So, (as usually is the case) I knew something was going on, but I saw no real hate or drama on my dash. I searched Dom’s tag looking for his original interview to see what his actual words were. And……I got exactly 4 disgusting posts in before I hit the close button, retreated back to my turtle shell and just messaged a sweet friend asking if she had the interview. So I do SEE it. I know it’s there, but as far as drama on my dash there is pretty much zero. Discourse, about 10%, because I enjoy a good discussion. And what I see I go looking for. Sometimes my curiousity makes my life difficult. But that was my CHOICE to go looking. It’s largely about choices. I choose to follow amazing, kind, sweet, artistic, talented, joyful, loving people. Many of those have followed me back. And my fandom experience is wonderful because of it.

Second: Targeting

I know much less about this than I do about fandom drama. The very definition of targeting is 

a person, object, or place selected as the aim of an attack.

I suppose, based on that definition that, yes, I guess I have in fact seen people targeted in this fandom. Humans can be absolutely terrible and so full of hate. And the SH isn’t in a protective bubble. So, while I have never felt targeted myself, but I have seen my mutuals experience this. Others have indeed selected them to be on the receiving end of their hateful words. Now, what I have seen wasn’t a whole bunch of people attacking one person. It was just one or two attacking one or two. But even that has been very uncommon in my experience. And I don’t know if that is just because of the people I follow or if that is the case with the fandom as a whole. I tend to believe it’s the latter, only because I follow such a wide range of SH blogs with many different personalities, and still don’t see it.

In general the correlation I notice is that the more opinionated you are as a blog and the more discourse you put out, the more opinions you get back. These opinions are frequently in the form of anon asks. The larger blogs also get more nastiness sent their way, because they have a larger audience. I feel like all of this is to be expected.

I’ve had friends delete hateful asks without answering and I’ve had some answer them eloquently and with much more tact and respect than the person doing the attacking deserved. I’ve even known a few who have had turned anon asks off because off temporarily because people were saying terrible things. It all varies based on what the person running the blog can and chooses to do. I’ve followed blogs who get hate spewed their way because they love and defend a certain character, so “fans” of the other character will say nasty things. But, in all of these cases, the hate of a few is largely overpowered by the love of many. All of these people have wonderful friends and people who defend them, support them, and help them. And it is largely diffused because of how they choose to respond. 

Have I seen people attack others? Yes. There are some who will attack others simply because they can. They don’t even need a reason. And is there ever a valid reason for hate anyway? No. Definitely not. And people love the “my thing is better than your thing” drama. Or “your thing is problematic” drama. Do I have strong opinions about my ship? Sure. But I don’t need to hurl them at every person who believes differently. It isn’t necessary or productive. I know nobody could change my mind about my ship, so why would I try to change the opinion of others? Why would I want to?

I personally, have not seen any extreme cases of targeting. Anytime I’ve seen someone get hate, I’ve also seen many come to their defense, and it’s made me proud to be in this fandom. I have heard about extreme targeting happening with blogs who ship a certain less popular ship,  but, I also follow blogs who ship this ship and they seem to have lovely friends and a great support system and I haven’t seen them be attacked. I don’t have much personal experience with this, so it’s hard to answer, but it is my experience that you tend to get back what you put out. If you are confrontational and attack others, then yes, you will get attacked. If you like discourse, you will get discourse. If you wanna just sit on a fluffy marshmallow all day and die of fluff and feels, then you will die of sugary sweetness. I prefer Death by Daddario and Mauled by Malec and I get it daily. It’s fantastic!

THIRD: Tips for a positive fandom experience

This is what I do to make my fandom experience positive. I like kind people. They are my jam. I want nice asks, Tumblr hugs, endless beautiful photos of Matt in my inbox, art and fics from sweet and talented people, all the yelling about Malec greatness, people who support each other, intelligent discussion, empathetic humans.

Full disclosure: I get emotional. I have opinions. I am a serious Malec shipper. I’m on the board of the Alec/Matt Protection Squad. I speak fluent sarcasm. And because of this I’ve gotten the occasionally salty anon. Salt returned. Fair enough. I do make mistakes and I am sure I’ve upset someone before. I also apply this same standard to my friends. I know they aren’t going to be perfect.I know they will have bad days and have a raw emotional response occasionally. They are human and I expect this. Fandom has been a learning curve. But, I try really really hard to be positive and kind. Some hopefully helpful tips.

-Don’t follow just anyone. If I think I might want to follow them, I’ll scroll pretty far down on their blog to see what they post/reblog. If I see hate or negativity, then I’m out of there. I give it 2 posts. If I see even 2 in 50, then I don’t want to be there.

-It’s ok to unfollow anyone. If I do follow someone and I see them posting things hating on other people,  ships, actors, whatever it may be. (not discussions, just words meant to hurt people) then I usually give it about 3 times, and I unfollow. No big deal. I don’t want to see it so I don’t see it. I don’t care if it’s a large blog or a small one or who the person is. It isn’t personal. And NO it is not my responsibility to try and correct the bad behavior of every person who ships the same couple I do. I don’t like when people say that you have a responsibilty to do that. You don’t. I’ll do my part by spreading positivity and light.

-Block anyone who makes you feel unsafe. If I see a person attacking someone on a post or their blog, whatever it may be, I immediately block them as a preventative measure.

-Blacklist anyone/anything. There are times within the fandom that discourse gets to even me,especially if it’s one of the characters I love, So for instance, if a character I love is being heavily criticized after an episode, I will just blacklist either the people saying the things or the relevant tag for a bit. Tumblr savior is your friend. Use it. 

-Keep scrolling. My first reaction to anything that pisses me off or upsets me is to keep scrolling. I don’t need to chime in. I don’t need to start an argument. That person can put whatever they want on their blog and so I Alec level eye roll that shit and move on with my day.

-Talk to trusted friends. If a post just eats at me and I need to discuss it, then i’ll send it to a friend I love and trust. We will discuss it, go back and forth on it, she will talk me down from the “but I really want to set this person straight ledge” and we move on with our days. (my poor bestie is an angel). Amazing friends are so helpful in fandom.

-Think. Before I reblog ANYTHING, I try to think of how it will make my followers feel. If they ship a certain ship or like a certain character, and I post this how will they feel about it. If I think it’ll make someone feel upset or alienated, I scroll on by. If I like and appreciate the humor, sarcasm, sentiment, but I’m a little torn about reblogging it and not sure how people will take it, then I’ll just like it and not reblog.

-Extra think. Same but extra gets applied to posting something of my own. I think about every way that anyone can take it or be hurt by it. And I also think of how I’ll respond if someone reacts badly. I think about my wording, people of other ships, etc. This is original content you are putting out into the world that will get reblogged. You can never get rid of it once it’s out there. Every. Single. Time. that I have said “this will probably get me a salty anon” it has. Every time. I know before I even put something out there what it will most likely bring back. In those cases I have felt that me expressing my opinion on that matter was worth the salty anons. And I’ve never regretted one. I tend to be very sarcastic and opinionated in my tags, because most likely the only people seeing those are my followers and if people follow me they know how I am and they also know where the unfollow button is, so that’s more of a safe space. But, I have gotten anons who specifically referenced my salty tags. 

-Respond carefully. Speaking of salty anons.(I’ve never gotten hate, thankfully) Yeah, you could think of it as this person is coming to your door and being confrontational about what you put on your own damn blog and they are hiding behind anonymity to boot, so really I should be able to say whatever I want back. Right?! No. I push that feeling down and  I respond very carefully. I consider their opinion and their pov. I always tell them I have done as much. I stand by my original opinion, which is easy because I’ve thought it through before I posted, and I am understanding, and tell them that it’s ok if they disagree with me. I do this especially if I think they are trying to bait me. Thanks but no thanks. I’m not about that. I am so extra about this that I have my beta bestie read through a lot of my responses to anons before I post them. Just to be sure I’m not missing anything and I’m giving off the sentiment I want to give off. This formula is pretty good because I’ve never gotten a “level-up” on angry from an anon yet. (knock on wood) I think most often they really just want you to know they were irritated and that you upset them. It’s cool. Message received.

-Tag spoilers and discourse. Maybe not always, but I try really hard. This helps so much. People may follow you but not be able to stand discourse.

-Flood negative with positive. If someone is being mean to someone I follow I block the meanie, and then I yell nice things at the person being attacked. I also send them a sweet ask. I often will also send them a message with support. Light drives out dark. Period. I don’t address the hateful person directly. I do this with the cast and their s/o as well when they get hate. I just send them nice things. It’s easy. Don’t feed the trolls. It only makes them bigger and more angry.

-Spread love. If you love someone’s fic–tell them. If you love someone’s art–tell them.  Reblog the shit out of that with nice tags. If someone’s tags make you happy–tell them. If you think someone is sweet–tell them. Anything nice that goes through your brain. SAY IT LOUD. I cannot stress this enough. If you are shy, just do it on anon. People appreciate that. Love wins, always. 

-Surround yourself with good people. This is the most important thing for a good fandom experience. I have some of the very best friends I’ve ever had in my life because of this fandom. They are amazing people. Some of us are very different and I don’t always agree with them, but I do agree with their methods, their kindness and generosity, with their love and support.

SO, anon. I’m sure you are probably like, wtf is this?! I never asked for a damn novel, crazy!!! And so I’m sorry for this stupid long response. But, this isn’t an easy answer. And I can’t tell you about darkness without telling you how to drive it away. This is all stuff that people around me helped me do when I first started my blog and it’s been such a help. 

I hope this helps and please feel free to send me any more questions you have. Also, I would be more than happy to rec you some positive and kind blogs, if you wish. I follow a lot of Malec, and I’m not sure if you are a Malec fan or not, so I’m not doing that now. But if you tell me what kind of blogs might interest you, I would be happy to rec some! Thanks for asking. I hope you have a beautiful day. I hope your experience in this fandom is fun and wonderful and you don’t get dragged down by the bad side. The good side is so so so so great. Totally worth navigating the shit storms imo. Welcome. I LOVE THIS FANDOM.

:)

#anon #asks #answers #long post #thanks nonnie #i hope this helps #welcome to the fandom! #let me know if I can help in any way #or if you have more questions #sorry for this long ass post #im really passionate about this

[thegoldendemon-blog]

MELODY.

Hi I’m Kayla and I often have considered deletion or AFKing permanently from Tumblr but I also, on occasion, write things anyway.

    Sia Sunrunner might have been portly, round, and had something of a hobble, but he and all of Gildesgrove knew what he could do with his voice.

    He smiled at himself in the mirror, pressing oil into his hair and wiping a blush in his cheeks. The morning ritual before performance day was always the same: hair back, face red, tweaked brows and a wide, open grin. One two three four. Like chambers of a song. A diddy bounced in his head and he hummed, tapping the flab underneath his chin. One two two three four. He liked how it sounded and let out a quiet ah ah. Perhaps he could even incorporate it into the evening’s fanfare: a lead in melody.. or a send-off? 

    The possibilities chunked along as he twisted his cravat through his collar and puffed it out with a pat of his hand. Whichever he chose, he knew tonight would be absolutely magnificent. Could it be anything less with Sunrunner on the headline placard?

    That merry stayed until a shadow came against the light in the mirror.

    “Ser Sia—”

    “What have I told you about interrupting me when I’m preparing?” His head swung around. “I’m not meant to be disturbed.”

    “Ser Sia,” it started again, chewing a lump down its throat. “I know you don’t like to be disturbed, but it’s important. The Duke of Gildesgrove won’t be attending the performance tonight.”

    Tack. His bottle of perfume thocked on the hardwood of the vanity. 

    “What?” A furnace about to bellow.

    The shadow stood still, waiting to catch the fire, but Sia simply hung up his hair and swiveled on his feet. He was a fair deal faster than most thought of him. Pushed it past and harrumphed to no-one in particular.

    “That’s fine,” he said, voice clipped. That’s horrid. “I’ll be there anyway. I’ve prepared this set for weeks.” Weeks of preparing for the Duke, not this riff-raff! But Sia Sunrunner, lord of opera in all of Demacia, had to remain humble. Serene. The departure of the Duke was a sorry affair, but he wouldn’t mention it to either his fellow performers or the audience. He tightened his tunic and aired out his sleeves, lining his nose nicely with the ruby atop his cravat. He would be himself; it would be the Duke’s loss for being a no-show.

    “Get me my ointment.” He raked nails across his cheek. “I think I might be breaking out.” Even if himself wanted to scream.

    In hindsight, the performance was all-right, even with the frustration of an empty seat on the high-rise of the theater where the Duke and his wife would’ve sat. Sia minded not to look over too often and let himself sing over the anger, hitting notes with an uncharacteristic sharpness that was fine for playing an intense lead character. 

    Tragedy, as always. His character was unprepared for the top and careened to the bottom of his own folly, hero to nothing with only the hope of back again. It seemed near all of Gildesgrove sat up for applause when it was over, Sia staring at the stage as he bowed. Maybe a few years ago his belly would be full of exhilaration, awe at his skill and ability to work up the favor of an audience. Now he felt unwhole, drained, as if he’d donated blood. He hated the sensation and almost ran behind the curtains the instant he could.

    He was opening the door to his backstage room when he noticed someone he didn’t recognize speaking to the ribbon-dancers that introduced Sia’s character at the opening arc. They looked inoffensive, perhaps a regular he had never seen until now (a sad probability). He had trouble guessing if they were a stagehand or an orator. They certainly had an aura of some kind. Then the figure laughed with the dancers and turned, tall enough to almost scrape at the lower arch.

    They stared straight at him. No, not at. Through. Through him. Like he had caught the eye of Death and it sized him up.

    The door slammed shut and Sia all but refused to reemerge until well after the fact, calling only for his retainer and a private carriage to his estate.

    Sia was more overjoyed to be dressed down and comfortable in his bed than to receive what he got at the stage. The day was over— he could rest now and fumigate in the morning.

    He made it… for a few minutes.

    The open windows of his bedroom’s balcony whistled with coldness on the wind. Covered well by his blankets, that was scant to bother him, so he turned over and pushed his head further into the pillow. Then his eyes snapped open when the whistling returned, twice as loud. He muttered something profane and glanced at the moon through the balcony, at once too exhausted to get up. Wrinkles crawled onto his forehead as he lied there, inert. His heart was often troubled at night and sleep was sorely necessary for a man concerned with appearance. He was about to doze through it when a new disturbance prickled inside.

    Ah ah ah ah.

    Sia’s eyes were as wide as oversized marbles and his throat went dry.

    His own voice was calling to him.

    Not a exclamation, not a word, not a brow-beat muttering: a song. A practiced tone that sounded nicer than even what Sia himself had done for the performance prior. It hit every note. Bounced on every melody. 

    His hands clammed up and his jowels sagged. 

    “Who’s there?”

    No reply.

    Sia, against his better judgment, sat up to stare at the empty space in the window. “I don’t want trouble from a bastard copycat,” he said, fear belying the words.

    “Whoever you are, leave or I’ll call my guards!”

    The singing stayed.

    Lips trembled and Sia slipped down to the floor, a rush of inertia pulling him to the balcony. He was red as a beet, certain that whomever this was would be chased out at the sight of Demacia’s finest opera singer in his white knickerbockers. He opened his mouth—      —and bit flat on the railing when the blackjack swung.

     It was far from rosy afterward. The first thing Sia noticed when he gurgled back into the land of the living was the mushy morning dew on the grass he was braced against, then the scratchy tree bark that clawed his back— a quick addendum being that his hands were tied and so were his legs.

     “I hate your face,” an indistinguishable voice said, hefting derision. “You’re a pig.”

    Sia had to squint to start to see what was around him, vision blotted half with unconsciousness and half with the darkness. He saw the beginning of… Maroon? Vermilion? Whichever color boots and worked his way up until he was stopped cold by a ghastly visage that shone uncanny in the moonlight. A maw rife with metal teeth and horns watched him as he squirmed to no avail.

    “Who… what…” Sia stuttered. “What is the meaning of this?! Are you holding me for ransom? I’ll have you know, I was a prize soldier in my time, you rat!”

    “And when you talk, it even moves like a hog squealing.” The voice approached him now, coming within mere feet. It leaned down and bent at an uncomfortable angle to cushion Sia’s cheek with a hand best described as a claw.

    “Ugly.” The claw raked him, blood trickling down Sia’s neck. He would’ve cried out if he could manage more than an emaciated wheeze with his heart racing.

    “Always the ugly ones. Always, always, always, always. Did you know that? It’s as if nature bore herself an aberration when she made man. They’re all fetid. Faces don’t work. Limbs are awkward and jarring. She gave me nothing and I’m forced to make something.”

    The silhouette was sharper now. Sia could make out roughly the shape and size. They… it, he, he could be certain now it was a he, was large but thin. He thought maybe a bandit or some other kind of felon, but that felt wrong. He felt wrong. He sounded wrong and moved wrong. Iciness locked Sia’s spine and he seemed frozen in the relevation. He choked on a dirty line of spit and heaved with everything his lungs could offer.

    “I would love to fix you,” the voice said, “But I don’t have to. You have one redeeming quality. One. Not two. Not three. Not four. One. You made me come out and get it.”

    Something else shimmered in the moonlight. 

    Steel. 

    Sia could brace himself only for a moment before he watched his arm ran through, burning instantly with a pain so thorough it left him breathless and bleary. Whimpering, his tongue lolled and his head drifted. Hurt. Hurt. It hurt so absolutely he couldn’t think as much as whine and choke.

    “Good.”

    It wasn’t long until the other arm joined the first. Eventually Sia was reeling, the skips of his heart so loud as to devour every scrap of noise in his ears. The voice said something else, but it was warbled and indistinct. 

    The only thing Sia Sunrunner heard until his heart finally gave was his voice hitting a high note.

#ANOTHER PIECE TO THE LEGEND — DRABBLES #Now I sleep. Again. #Until I write another drabble presumably.

[diviniteceleste-a]

All the red-colored symbols for the salty munday meme :)

lol had to get my mobile to see which were red XD ⚔ ⚔ ⚔  ⧸⧸ @nigellecter

♥ What’s the WORST thing that has happened to you rp wise?

oh gosh. alright so i was ‘part’ of a clique. not entirely but i was known and popular among them and a certain fandom for my grasp on a muse. my muse wasn’t even in the fandom but since he came from a tiny one, i had to seek others in order to roleplay. i had awesome feedback from people i didn’t even know and it was quite a good feeling. little did i know, this little clique of bitches liked to backstab people and spread rumors as their favorite hobby. that and post bitching posts about things they hated from their fandom and make it SO RELEVANT that people got discourage in being part of it. anyways, back then, i roleplay suggestive themes and all that nsfw stuff… and someone who roleplayed the main character of my tiny little fandom SENT me a meme i reblogged so in a sense, they were FULLY aware of what they were asking. that person was also part of the clique but i didn’t know. a few days later as the thread continued (nothing nsfw was going yet), they unfollowed me haha. i asked why and they told me well i’m not really interested in roleplaying that. and people starting saying that all i ever wanted to roleplay was smut. AHEM, people who actually took the time to know me, knew it wasn’t true. anyways, the rumors spread, the little clique called ‘friends’ left and people starting losing interest in me. i deleted my blog and started all over… i tried to come officially back but everytime, it’s hard. at one point there was a duplicate around (part of the clique lol) and stole my first and original URL. i sent them an anon requesting to change the url to something original because who, in the right state of mind, would take an url that was already previously used… imagine searching for your tumblr url… they eventually changed and i saved it back. 

they were basically laughing at me and never could i ever imagined being bullied. they did that to a lot of my friends who all left their muses. it makes me sad because i know that people still want me around. i guess i’m the only one who managed to roleplay the character on point enough to stick around but yeh… it gets hard.

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise?

i’ve been actually pretty lucky otherwise. but i remember… on my wedge antilles blog, i posted a positive message about a certain mun from an ask i’ve received and lost 5 followers in an instance so i asked whatever the fuck i did for posting something nice, you know. someone sent me an anon hate message directing it to that mun specifically. so instead of replying publicly in order to contain the anonymity of that mun, i wrote an entire paragraph. they said that i shouldn’t roleplay with someone who’s trans-phobic since it was clearly stated in their rule page. so i asked them to point me EXACTLY where it was stated in their rule page. i told them that i might be blind but it was said that they didn’t want to roleplay with trans characters. as a person that knows quite a few trans people IRL, i asked for their opinion on that matter and they told me they wouldn’t want to roleplay with a trans character either for many different reasons.  IT’S A CHOICE. doesn’t mean they are trans-phobic at all. so i kindly asked for anyone that didn’t know how to read to unfollow me. i was known to be a very happy, giddy and positive mun around the SW fandom but i was utterly pissed.i never received anon hates… the only one i got was for someone else… like whut. anyways, i told that mun and they made an entire post stating why they chose not to roleplay with trans-characters and it had NOTHING to do with hate.

was kind of weird.people today, so fucking sensitive T_T.

#long post #tw: transphobia #( i'm not the transphobic so don't kill me ) #nigellecter

[discoursecatharsis]

(?/1) Well this is going to be a bit long, but I need to answer it without replying. "you feel like you are your own proof that 16 is old enough to be adult, to be sexual. I felt like this too when I was your age." I'm 21 years old. I never felt sexually ready at 16. I was looking at the NSFW content because I liked it and that's all. I have friends at the age of 15 who already had experience. We are all different and again, in France, 15 years and 3 months can have sex, it's healthy and legal

(?/2) “Between the ages of 18-21 you will change in ways that you can’t imagine yet. Once you leave school and start to have more adult responsibilities and experiences you WILL change.” I am at the same stage of my life as my friends who had 16 and I 18 at the time. Again: it depends on everyone. It depends on the maturity of each and the situation. And for Otayuri: they are at the same stage of their lives. Skate up to suffer, win gold … As said and it is canon: Otabek and Yuri are equal.

(?/3) “Living on your own, being independent” Here proof, for an/s 18 = magically adult. That may be the case, but it’s far from being a majority. To live alone? I knew people from 16 who lived alone. Friends who are almost the same age as me or a little older: they live with their parents. I will repeat often: but it depends on everyone. Some are studying, some don’t have the means to live, some are simply afraid … And yes, a 20 year friend lives alone with her boyfriend. Cuz all cases exist.

(?/4) If they think 18 = house. It’s ridiculous. Imagine, Otabek lives alone, ok, he will continue to grow, ok, anyone knows that Yura too? Which means that, Otabek has 20 and Yura is 18 years old will live directly alone then? So they can live together. Yeah, they are now in the slice “18-20” magic logic an°s. By cons, strangely they will always have the same goals and hoping in their lives, I mean, you know, the world where both live, figure skating and where Yura is the champions and not Beka

(?/5) “looking after yourself, being legally responsible for yourself and (most importantly) discovering that it’s your responsibility to protect other minors now, are all life shaping experiences.” I never felt that when I had 18, 19 … Just that, it was scary to be considered adult, when in my head I was not. And even now it’s not always easy for me, while it’s clear to others: all different. And I still don’t feel like the “responsibility” to protect teenagers.

(?/6) A child of 10 years, if heIshe has problems, I will want to protect himIher, but not by “responsibility”. But because a child cannot defend himself. And there is so much luck that I call an adult more competent than me. I don’t feel responsible for teenagers when I doubt being responsible for myself. It is the parents who are responsible, not me. And, here, Otayuri does nothing wrong to represent the real life.

(?/7) "The moment you hit 18 you have to constantly be looking at your behaviour and making sure you’re keeping the invisible line between yourself and children intact. If you don’t do that then you’ve failed in your responsibility as an adult." The world is then filled with people who have failed. The moment I had 18: realized that it did not change anything and continue the school with my friends of 15/16 and 19/20. My friends are not "kids", they were teenagers and always my friends.

(?/?8?) “Yes, there’s a grey area if you’re 18 and dating someone who is 17 and in the same school/college year as you. But at this time in life the age gap between 15/16 and 18 is massive and it’s not the same as an age gap between 20 and 22, for example.” Hello, anOs. We talk about Otayuri, a relationship 16/18. I exist. Proof that I was at the same standard of living as a 16 when I was 18. Everyone is different, again and not to change: Yura grows too. Also “You’re only 18 yourserlf!!” 

(?/9) “One of the most basic things that you find yourself doing as an adult that you didn’t really do or care about that much as a child is CHECKING HOW OLD SOMEONE IS. I do it all the time. It’s something that comes up casually in conversation between adults all the time. All responsible adults do it.” Thank you for learning teenager in your vocabulary. Then, everyone checked the age? When I was 16, I checked the age, and now also I checked the age and then … I forgot it.

(?/10) And do you know why ? Because the mentality makes someone younger than you will inevitably have less maturity and twists, who does not see “shut up, you’re only 15 years old”? While the 15 to bring more relevant argument than an “adult”. It is an unfair mentality. There is always a limit to everything, context, discussion … but some 15/16 cannot get along with 17/18 cuz too immature, like 15/16 can be friend with 17/18 … We are all different. An age of 2 and a few months is not much.

(I take a little break here: sorry to invade your ask, and also … SORRY for my terrible english!!! It’s just annoying and it needs to go out somewhere …)

(?/11?) “It’s not your responsibility to look after yourself online and to police the content you’re seeing, it’s the responsibility of the adults around you.” That’s their parents. Internet has rules, tools to avoid what you do not like. It is not the creator of content to self-censor for the children (and here we speak of teenager, damn!) Parents pay attention to what their child watching on television, on the internet it should be the same.

(?/12) If a site tolerates something and you can register, the person is considered to be able to protect himself / herself. Otherwise, exit tumblr. Otayuri exists in the world, whether you want it or not @ntis, there are healthy and happy relationships. Denying it doesn’t change the world, denying it doesn’t change people who have become parents and happy with their children, denying it doesn’t change the love between a 16 and an 18 that exists at the moment.

(?/13) “Adults who ship Otayuri should know better, they should know that it’s wrong for them to be imagining and fantasizing about a 15/16 year old boy in sexual, adult situations (especially when they’re with an 18 year old).” Well, well … Another antis who talks about sex more than the shipper! Congratulations for not understanding the ship Otayuri. There are already many posts about this. As always: having a romantic relationship is not equal to having sex.

(?/14) “Think about this. Think about yourself right now and then imagine a 30 year old adult looking at you and thinking about having sex with you. It’s disgusting. It’s terrifying.” 16-30 is not a gap of 2 years. 18-30 is not an age gap of 2 years. (Moreover, it exists in 0ne Piece, Hanc0ck x Luffy,), 21-30 is not an age gap of 2 years. Can we go back to the main topic? You know, Otayuri, a 16 and 18. A normal gap of 2 years and a few months.

(?/16) “So if you’re a minor, just know that we’re not trying to fight you, we’re trying to protect you from being surrounded by irresponsible adults. When I make anti posts saying that I don’t give a fuck about otayuri shippers’ feelings, I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about the adults around you. You’ll always be safe from me.” This is the most hypocritical thing I have seen.

(?/17) Are the “minors” supposed to guess it alone in the antis posts? They are supposed to “oh it doesn’t speak about me even if it says "otayuri shippers”, what I am". Is this a joke? For a person “responsible” and “adult”, it’s the good example of bringing hate rather than a discussion? It’s a good example, to say antis and be proud to bring hate? And the hatred and the harassment that they receive by this movement you contribute, a good thing? It’s responsible, mature?

“So if you feel like any of this applies to you, or you feel upset, or confused, or you don’t know what to do, my inbox is always open and I have anon switched on. I don’t know many other people in this community but I can say that my friend is also safe and okay to talk to about this. Please try to stay safe.” So I will conclude with that too: they would be safe without all this hatred. And it’s no more correct to tell the older shipper to die. This is the worst example to give.

(+) The difference between @nt.s and shippers is that shippers know that for some people it has not been a good experience, ‘cause assholes exist at all ages. This is understandable. But @an.t.s should also realize that good healthy relationships exist, people are there to say it and their words should count as much as people with bad experiences. The Otayuri relationship exists, sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s healthy and in love. Both exist.  

And I’m terribly sorry for invading your ask, again. And again for my awful english. I’m sorry, really sorry, I’ve seen you sometimes on the tag and when I saw that I did not know where to go … And I did not think it would be that long … And it’s hard to be able to speak when it’s not my first language, I’m sorry if it’s horrible to read. Thank you so much for this blog.

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

(I think I got all the parts of your asks. Sorry if I missed any or if I added any that weren’t from you >.

I don’t really have much to add, this is very well said! Like you said: “it depends on everyone. It depends on the maturity of each and the situation.” Ant//s aren’t able to grasp this idea for some reason. They don’t understand that not everyone is the same, not every situation is cut and paste or black and white. Good job calling them out on their ignorance! 👍🏽

#ask #Anonymous

[jamieboywonder]

This is going to be long.

I get uncomfortable when other people watch me Art™, whether it’s writing or drawing. Even my girlfriend, who has seen me at my most vulnerable, makes me nervous when she’s peering over my shoulder.

“It’s very personal to me. It makes me feel more than naked. Some of the stuff I write is very... dark. I wrote a torture scene fer focks sake, and I have another I’m going to write.”

That’s what I said after she assured me she wasn’t judging.

Let me tell you a story. It’s relevant, I promise.

I was taking Drawing II at a community college and I hated the professor. I was also going through a very rough patch in my life; my fiancé, who I had been dating for four years, broke up with me about a week before the class started; I was struggling with my gender identity and exploring the idea that I might be transgender (and figuring out how to tell my staunch Catholic parents); and I already had a depression diagnosis and no medication so far had helped. If you don’t know, finding a medication that works for depression is like playing darts blindfolded. “Hey, this might work, or it might make you cry your eyes out until the stuff wears off. We actually have no idea what you need or how it works.” Wellbutrin and Gabapentin had taken days to wear off, and it was not pretty. Lots of crying. Wild mood swings. I was hesitant to try again.

The professor knew about all this. I complained one day that “my drawing’s all stiff and awkward” and I felt it was because “depression is kicking my ass today.” He looked at my drawing and praised it. Spent a good long time pointing out all the things I had done really well. Then he turned to me and dropped this bombshell:

“This is good. You should come to class depressed more often.”

Pro tip: do not ever tell someone who suffers from a mental illness that their mental illness is a good thing. It will only make you look like a gaping asshole.

Hours before, I had been staring at railroad tracks with nostalgia, contemplating a horrific, bloody end to my wretched life, but hey, at least I make Good Art™. The mediocre grade I got on that drawing was salt in the wound. He had a tendency to do this: if you came to him with a piece that you were proud of, he’d tear you down; if you were critical of it, he’d praise it like it was a masterpiece. The grade you received rarely reflected what he said about the piece to your face, and if it did, it was by coincidence. He also seemed to have a different grading scale for each person. It was like there were secret requirements to each project, and it was up to you to correctly guess what they were.

“I’m about ready to slash my wrists and just bleed on the paper. Will that be hashtag deep enough for him?”

That’s what I said to a classmate about the last project before the final. I was so frustrated by the professor and so was the rest of the class. What I ended up doing was a piece I titled “Pull Yourself Together.” It was a drawing of me, coming apart at the seams. In the picture, I’m running my hand through my hair, which is hanging from my wrist by a few threads. My arms aren’t quite attached to my shoulders. My middle is splitting open. My head is coming off. My legs are in a similar state. I appear to either suspended in space or falling. It wasn’t gory or anything... more like a doll that’s been played with a little too roughly.

Ever since then, I’ve used to term “bleeding on the paper” to mean stuff that I write or draw because of my experiences with depression. For example, writing this long-ass tumblr post is me bleeding on the paper.

In this story I’m working on, a few of the characters felt like stand-ins for me, and I have a fear that Jennifer is merely a female version of me. I couldn’t figure out why for the longest time. I mean, they’re pretty different from each other: one is a young, angry, cis lesbian, another is a 6,000 year old angel who is trying his best to be human, and the third is a trans woman who hung herself in 1782. What could they possibly have in common? Why do I identify with them?

Then I realized These are the characters who have suffered the most.

I have put them all through unimaginable pain. Torture. Falling from heaven. Suicide.

Jennifer isn’t just fem!James. They all are versions of me. Because the only person I truly feel comfortable harming is myself. It’s just more bleeding on the paper.

At least it makes for a good story.

#blood mention #long post #self harm tw #suicide mention #torture mention #story telling #swears

[impossibleleaf]

Why it doesn’t matter anymore whether the lostspecial’s “revelation” is genuine or if there’s a 4th episode

First thing to say is this: I never post anything, I live in the shadows, and enjoy taking part of TJLC behind the anonymous’ face. I have followed several tumblr account from a long time. I have been part of TJLC since the day lsit created her blog, the day after TSoT. In other words, I have seen my fair share of mindfuckery, of blogs I liked receiving hate but I have never taken an active role in this fandom until now.

Like many TJLCers, I decided to watch TFP having high expectations, knowing for sure I was about to witness something groundbreaking.

Well, I wasn’t wrong. Not really.

First came disappointment: so was everything a farce? A pure publicity stunt? Even the lostspecial website is a lie? Are we that desperate for something to be clever?

And then I was thinking… So what if we are? None of this makes sense anyway. Why shouldn’t we ask for a miracle?

Here’s the thing, when you rewatch that fuckery that is TFP, if you start explaining with knowledge you get at the ending, everything falls apart. Oh, this is Eurus, she’s on a plane and needs Sherlock’s helps but also Eurus cuts the communications and uses herself as a bargaining chip. Continuity? What’s that? Sherlock wear the Bellstaff because I say so, even though he didn’t have it when he decided to shoot himself.

That’s the point casuals decide the Sherlock show was that bad and move on. That’s also the point people with a brain and loving puzzles decide to dig deeper. In half a week, TJLC (+ the new TFHC) was back on scene, tearing apart the narrative and saying: that cannot be real, therefore it’s not. But they didn’t use shitty arguments, they didn’t decide to let logic flow out of the window, in fact, they used what the narrative gave us unlike many say, they were the most logical out of everyone actually.

So, there, we’ve proved there’s more at work, we know our show, we know who the bastards behind this are. They’re fans, like us, and what do they want, what do we want?

We want a miracle. We want Sherlock to survive the Final Problem, to escape the Reichenbach’s Falls and let him be true to himself. We want no loose ends and there are so many, we want what others have said for years to come true, we want Sherlock out of the closet, after more than a century. The Final Problem can never be the end, otherwise all is lost. You cannot be allowed to destroy your show there if you’re a fan.

So, people start to look for the Lost Special, an episode TEH proved Mofftiss knew and they found the disaster that was ATY. At that point, I admit, we could have been convinced we were wrong. It wouldn’t have taken much, just a few words from the Powers That Be that they’re sorry to have lead us on, something official, not a tweet dismissing the last years as a ludicrous fantasy. What we got instead was radio silence and another show thinking, let them think what they want, that’s good for us. ATY said no, but it was a little no, one that means, what don’t you try to find it yourself? Who knows what you’re going to see ;)?

So 22/1 wasn’t the right solution, okay. How about 29/1, that’s the day they met, you can’t go wrong with this, right? Apparently yes, but by the time we noticed, we had to bear watching two people with no chemistry fuck within the 7 first minutes and end with a rape while we need to beg a 7 years old show to finally address the elephant in the room and to have the protagonists say they have Feelings™.

That’s roughly the moment I started thinking, maaaybe there’s no 4th episode but then, what about these hundreds of meta confirming my suspicions? People smarter than me have built foundations for these ideas and here’s where it hurts: it makes total sense, it fact it’s so far the only way S4 can make sense and be bearable, even enjoyable.

Yes, what TJLC says is ludicrous at first glance, that’s the most insane thing I’ve heard. I mean, a true conspiracy? A fourth episode hidden in plain sight? Who can even believe in it? How improbable is that?

But once you’ve eliminated the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, how insane it seems, must be the truth.

Here’s what we have deemed as impossible: these two men cannot have made this shitty S4 accidentally. Gatiss is a gay man working for queer people to get representation in medias, Moffat turned Sherlock and John into Vastra and Jenny, two lesbians who kissed on screen on a children show. Moffat is a good writer, Heaven Sent is evidence enough and TAB’s last scenes proved they get what the heart of the show is. We have people who are good at their jobs, writers, actors, and there is no way so many of them fucked up so much at the same time. Not even BBC’s advertising team. Not when the stakes are that high.

Here’s what we have deemed as improbable: Mofftiss wants us to crack, they are two men with enormous egos who want to leave their mark in Sherlock Holmes’ history. Permanently. They love an adaptation who didn’t succeed in making Holmes gay and have decided to get the story right. They want us to cry bitter tears of relief, they want to pull the rug and say after the fact: see? It’s always been a love story, you saw but you never observed. It’s always been a story of love, a story about a detective and his blogger who keeps him right, about two broken men who managed to find happiness together and do great things. To reach that goal these two bastards are willing to play a very long game, to mindfuck everyone and break the fandom before mending it.

Here’s finally what seals the deal: when you start thinking you must add the ‘it’s not real but everything is a metaphor’ and ‘we are the missing piece, we are part of this,’ everything makes sense. In fact, that’s the only way it does. TJLC had predicted every plot point in TAB? They have managed to get back on tracks their deductions, they wobbled but didn’t break. They are nit-picking on details but widely agree on the big things. I dare anyone to give another explanation for S4 without using ‘the writers are that bad’ as a reason for relevant plot points. The more you search, the more you find that goes on that direction.

Now, people had found a website they were wary of but decided to go down the rabbit hole in hope of finding something. The people in charge of this site now say more than a week later: by the way, none of this was real. The codes? Made up. The pictures? Also made up. The lines on the code sources? We wanted to see how desperate you were. Some people even tried to see things that weren’t there in the 27kra video (thanks, but I noticed in the end I was wrong and let it go immediately). Look how stupid TJLC is, how much in denial these people are. There is no 4th episode and there never will be. Carry on, you silly child.

It’s too late.

I’m not saying this explanation isn’t possible. Maybe that website was a fake after all but too much happened. Several blogs received many encrypted messages and reveal that someone is playing with our nerves, someone clever and who has too much time on his hands to be a hater. Sherlock North happened, disturbing codes and messages were sent, thelostspecial.com happened and had things he wasn’t supposed to have on his site, we are 100% convinced at this point that they want to break our faith, nothing now will change our mind. Even if several trolls took part of this, the snowball effect is there and you can’t stop it anymore. And with dymm (who may or may not be a mole) having excited twitter and even causuals non-stop for a month, the idea cannot be banished anymore.

Here’s the truth of this: it doesn’t matter at this point if there is or not a 4th episode. Sherlock’s show has an enormous hole and they need to do something to save it. TJLC managed to give an alternative reading that makes 100% more sense than anything else. Even if (which I doubt) that hadn’t been Mofftiss’ point, they need to take what we have thrown at them to save themselves. Here’s the real Final Problem, what’s it’s always been about from ACD’s time: how is the fandom going to save Sherlock Holmes?

Make history, is what we tell them today. Dazzle us with your cleverness, prove us we were right to believe in Sherlock Holmes. Open the closet you’ve put yourself in, we’ve found the key and got your back. And if, somehow, we are wrong in thinking you are half as clever as we think, then what you did, all that queerbaiting was disgusting and we are going make history anyway. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t belong to you. We, the fandom, is the reason he is still alive and we won’t let you kill him without putting a fight. This isn’t about being in denial anymore. This is us, telling the authors how it’s going to be.

#tjlc #tfhc #the lost special #sherlock #the final problem #thelostspecial.com #queerbaiting #norbury

[blog-optimisticcoffeestuden-blog]

is my employer insurance affordable

"is my employer insurance affordable

is my employer insurance affordable

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://averageinsurancecost.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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What happens after that? I live in California and I couldn't afford insurance then but now I can. Question is will i be able to get my license back if I get insurance immediately or will I have to reapply for a new one and pay back fines which add up daily?

Why won't an insurance company insure me since I had a claim in the last 5 years?

I had a fire claim in the last 6 months ($30,000 claim), and I am not happy with my current insurance company. It has taken them 6 months to pay out. I have been trying to get a quote from different insurance companies and they all say that they cannot give me a quote because I had a significant claim the last 5 years. Does anyone know of an insurance company that doesn't have this policy?""

What auto insurance would be good for a 17 1/2 year old?

So out of all those companies which one is the most affordable??

True or false? I can save money on car insurance by choosing a higher deductible?

True or false? I can save money on car insurance by choosing a higher deductible?

is my employer insurance affordable

is my employer insurance affordable

Health insurance in Colorado?

I just moved to Colorado from California and am looking for a job. My problem is I have to get my vision tested, and I'm going to an optometrist, but I'm pretty sure he'll refer me to a specialist and testing will be required. I really want to go because I've been putting it off forever and it's starting to affect me a lot. I applied for Medicaid and was denied, obviously, since you have to have children or be over a certain age. Is there an insurance plan that's comprehensive and affordable, something that's going to cover doctor visits? I'm not looking for hit-by-a-bus insurance because that won't cover doctor visits or prescriptions. Or is there another public option? Thanks for your help!""

Got in accident. not my fault. will my insurance rates go up?

this is in reference to my other question but basically i got in a minor accident and it was the other drivers fault. i just called my insurance and reported but i have to wait until tuesday to talk to an agent. just to alleviate my nerves i need to know now, is it likely my rates will go up? it's not my fault. also all the damage costs will be taken care of by my insurance company right? or the other drivers..?? thank you.""

Can i have a car without insurance and not drive it ?

hey im gonna get a car soon, so my q is this can i get a car without insurance and keep it outside my house till i get insurance? wont drive it till i get insurance and i havent got a driveway or anythiing so it will beon the road thanks""

State farm car insurance people?

I am writing to find out what my options might be-to see if you guys might have some feedback. Long story short-I was in an accident on 6/28, that was my date of loss, submitted the claim then, my car is in the process of being repaired-and it will be ready 7/23 which is ridiculous. Basically my renewal is up on 7/19-however, I wanted to switch to Geico. I have been with State Farm for 12 years and I am amazed at the service-or lack thereof-and their turn around time requirements. They are charging me $668.00 for the same exact coverage as Geico would for six months however, I've added towing/rental reimbursement with Geico and it's only $303/6 months. I have several policies with them, and should be getting a larger discount IMO. I've heard Geico is awesome with claims and have friends that have used them. I am writing to find out if I can switch during a claim process-has anyone else done this? Thanks!""

How much does your auto insurance go up after you get a speeding ticket?

i got one going 80 in a 55. dont get all high and mighty on me. i was being a dumbass and we know im paying for it now. also i live in MA and im 18 driving for less then a year

Which car insurance company is cheapest for 18 years old?

hi i live in texas and i was wondering which car insurance company is cheapest for me no car accident and no ticket at all if it is possible can you tell me how much you pay

Why is car insurance exhorbitant for 17 year olds and migrant workers run round with insurance thats cheaper?

Why is car insurance exhorbitant for 17 year olds and migrant workers run round with insurance thats cheaper?

Car insurance question?

I recently got into a car accident that was my fault. The total damages is around 2000 dollars. the owner of the car has contacted me and asked if we could resolve it with out involving the insurance Company. What would be better to do? i have had one other accident that was not my fault. how much will my car insurance go up and for how long?

What is the cheapest insurance for an 18 year old driver to get?

i dont have alot of money and need the cheapest insurance possible, that covers things somewhat. thankyou!!!""

What insurance companies will insure a dog in California with a prior bite history?

My two dogs were involved in a fight with another dog last year. All three dogs were bitten, and my homeowners' insurance paid out a claim. They have now sent a notice of non-renewal and I am having trouble finding an insurance company that will write a new policy. Does anyone have any suggestions for an insurance company or broker in California that can help? Thank you!""

Auto Insurance/License Question!?

I am a 19 year old Californian and I need to purchase auto insurance for my car before I take the drivers test for my license, at least that is what I am led to believe, maybe I don't? But the auto insurance companies require me to give my license number before I can buy the insurance. So I can't get insurance without a license and can't get a license without insurance? No, I cannot be put onto my parents auto insurance or anything. I do not live with them, I am not a dependent of them, etc, etc.""

Do you think it far we can't get tags with out car insurance?

car insurance is a good thing to have, but do you think the Govener is going to far....?????""

Should parents buy life insurance policies for their young children?

What do you think? Give good reasoning for your argument...THANKS!!!

How much would the in insurance be on a 1985 CHEVROLET CAMARO Z28?

i just turend 16 and ill get my licenes in about 3 months and i saw a 1985 CHEVROLET CAMARO Z28 the other day that im thinking about buying and i was wondering about how much the ...show more

If i cancel my car insurance will the rate later go up?

If I cancel my current monthly car insurance plan for my car, will getting a new play later down the line increase its premiums? i am wondering a few months down the line, or other time frames. i will not drive my car after this cancellation. currently my annual insurance is around $5,600.00 I am 24, male, live in toronto.""

What is the cheapest car insurance for me?

i am 18, had a DWI in dec 2006 what would be the cheapest liability only car insurance for me? thank you""

Do spoilers raise insurance price?

is it true that having a spoiler on a car will make insurance higher?

Perth; Can I ride a motorcycle without insurance?

And if I am buying motorcycle insurance, how come they ask me how much I want to pay? Please see the link at http://rac.com.au/Insurance/Motor-insurance/Motorcycle-insurance/Motorcycle-insurance-quote.aspx So how much must I pay? I bought my second hand scooter for A$1,000 on bikesales.coml.au""

Coverage characteristics of health insurance?

What are some of the coverage characteristics of health insurance

Car Insurance question about someone hitting my parked car?

Hi guys, well let me start with what happened first. I am a college student and so I live in an apartment and park my car next to a whole bunch of other cars. I parked my car in a completely empty spot with no cars at all, and I saw that it was completely fine. I didn't go out on Sunday, but the next day on Monday when I was about to leave for school I saw a big scratch/gash on the left side of my bumper about 25 inches x 20 inches. I do not know who and when it happened, so I called the police and tried to claim a police report but the police said he couldn't do anything because if I knew who hit it, he would be able to do something. But since I don't know who hit my car, he couldn't give me one. I also called my insurance company (State Farm) and told her what happened and the size and she told me that my deductable is $500 and they'll send out a representative to check out the damage. I didn't give her the green light yet but what should I do? The scratch is bad because I have a black car and you could see white scratches from far away. I mean, if my damage is less than $500, I'm going to have to pay my insurance too right? Will this also increase my insurance too? I'm already broke as is because of school and I don't want to have to pay more for something I didn't do.""

Do you have to have a care to have car insurance?

I am not ready to purchase a car, however I figured if I started paying car insurance now, when I am ready to purchase a car I wont have to pay so much to start the policy. Is this true?""

I dont really have the money to purchase car insurance before i take my driving test?

i dont have the money to get car insurance before i take my driving test. is there anyways possible to get around that? dont just ******* say, get insurance either . its a waste of my damn time. im taking it wednesday and its in urbana ohio.""

It should be illegal for the amount car insurance comanies charge for young drivers!!?

Having my driving test next month and looking at buying a car soon, either a clio or corsa. I have just got some quotes for a clio and a corsa and all i can say is that its ...show more""

Will my auto insurance rate be raised if I have liability only and my car got stolen?

My car got stolen. Will my rates go up? I won't have another car for a few weeks and i'm going to have to get comprehensive. I just wonder if my comprehensive rates will be now more expensive.

Please I Need Help On My Car Insurance?

I just bought a car and i don't want to pay huge car insurance. Anybody care to help me out may be a recommendation of place i can get it a little bit cheap

is my employer insurance affordable

is my employer insurance affordable

Will 4 year old dui affect my car insurance with geico?

Will 4 year old dui affect my car insurance with geico?

Car Insurance For A 17 Year Old Male?

I'm 17 and starting to drive and thinking about getting a car later on when I pass, but I'm sure insurance and fuel costs are going to kill me! Can I get some advice and maybe a rough guide to how much insurance will be? I'm thinking of getting a VW Golf Mk1 or Mk2, or a Peugeot 106 Escapade. Could you also tell me if modifying the interior will affect insurance along with resprays and lowering the vehicle. Thank you""

What is the cheapest van to insure for a young female driver with 2 yrs ncb?

What is the cheapest van to insure for a young female driver with 2 yrs ncb?

Cheap car insurance....?

whats the cheapest car insurance for teens

Do older cars have more expensive insurance?

Such as a 1990 Mazda RX7 FC or a 1993 RX7 FD. I heard the older the car is the more expensive the insurance is. I live in California and thinking of getting one of those two cars for my first car.

Car Insurance and Plate under different names?

I want to put my car's insurance under a relative's name and the Plate tags under my name? Is that possible???? Answers Please!! I want it under a different name because I am young and Insurance costs a lot when you are young.

How Much Is Car Insurance? Please Help?

Ok See im 16 and i have a 1990 Pontiac Firebird and I have a Junior License Year: 1990 Make: Pontiac Model: Firebird Trim: Engine: 6-Cylinder V-6 Trans: Auto Fuel: Gasoline Color: Black Interior: Grey Miles: 170000

Which auto insurence is the cheaper?

i whan insurance may car but which one is cheaper

Ow much does it cost to deliver a baby without health insurance in washington hospital california ??

Ow much does it cost to deliver a baby without health insurance in washington hospital california ??

What can I expect for getting caught without auto insurance?

I recently got caught driving without insurance (stupid I know). The cop was nice enough not to impound my car, so he just gave me a ticket with a court date. I'm assuming I can expect a large fine, but what else? Anything?""

All about Nissan 350z? (Nissan 350z Owners plz)?

Okay, Well I just need to ask a couple question.... I've had my eye at the Nissan 350z for a while.... And I know you have to put premium gas on it in order for it to run smoothly... I just need to know from an owner.... How much do you end up paying... How much was the car? How Much was insurance? Gas? Any other things I should know about it? O.o""

If I'm under my dad's car insurance and I get in an accident...?

I'm under my dad's car insurance though I have a car of my own. My insurance company refuses to give me an insurance card under my name, saying (and I'm paraphrasing here) that they only give out insurance under the name they have under the title (I forgot exactly how they worded it). Even though my insurance card is not under my name and it's under my dad's, can I still get in trouble if I'm in an accident?""

Insurance Group for Cars?

Hi, I am planning to buy a second hand car, I.e., when I search the car through net, it says Insurance Group is 4/5/6 etc. Can any one tell me how the Insurance Group are being defined which Grade enables me to pay less premium? Which Insurance Group car I should look for ideally? Thanks in advance. Regards, Reed.""

How can you get insurance on a car that is not in your name?

What steps should be taking to get insurance on a car in your name that is in a relatives name? But, you are taking over the car payments and paying them the money on a car that is still in there name.""

Do you need insurance on a leased car?

Easy question...do you need insurance on a leased car? I heard that the company you are leasing from takes care of it.

How do I find out my car insurance rates before I get a car?

I haven't bought a car yet because a lot depends on how much insurance will be. I'm a 27 single female living in Boston, I've had a license since 18 but never drove so it expired and I recently renewed it. I don't have anything on my record. I would be the only person on the insurance. I went online but they required the make and year of your car to calculate the rates.""

What is the best type of insurance to buy term or Variable Universal Life? Why?

What is the best type of insurance to buy term or Variable Universal Life? Why?

Low Cost Individual Health Insurance - Is It for Real?

I'm thinking about starting a business but I'm worried about health coverage for myself and my family. At work, our health plan is so expensive (if I had to pay for the whole thing), so I'm cautious about the cheap insurance I see advertised all over the place. Is low cost individual health insurance for real or a scam? What do I have to watch out for in looking for coverage? Thanks.""

""Car insurance decreases, when? 26 yrs old?""

I started driving when I was 22 years old, and never had an accident. Right now, I'm 26. I pay $116/month for insurance, which I think is kinda high. The vehicle I drive is a 2006 Hyundai Eantra. Car insurance is: Erie Insurance http://www.erieinsurance.com/""

Can Geico save you 10% on car insurance?

Bonus question: I have AllState, am I in good hands?""

How much will car insurance be for a sixteen year old girl who lives in California?

My parents don't have the money (plus they don't want to) to pay for my insurance, so even though i'm turning seventeen this year, I still don't have my license. I'm trying to get a job, though, and was wondering if anyone could give me a ballpark for how much it'll cost a year...I get good grades, I know some places will give you discounts if you have good grades...so yeah. :)""

California to Canada Car Insurance?

Hi, my friend just asked me how to get car insurance in Canada when he used to live in California and he has a California license and had California insurance. He asked me about a Driver Abstract, which I have no idea what that is. He really needs help, but he is not available at the moment for me to ask him for more details. Please tell me the details of how to obtain car insurance in Canada when he used to have California insurance & has a California license/ID. Thank you!!""

Is it possible to get different car insurance under the same household?

Hi, So I have a question regarding different car insurance. MY family has allstate for the car insurance. However, I do not want to go under allstate for family reasons. I am trying to get geico for my car. However, my father states that if you were to get geico you would still have to add everyone's name under the insurance policy. I am trying to get my own individual policy without adding anyone under the car insurance policy. I wanted to know if it is possible to get different car insurance under the same household? Thanks :) P.S: I am 23 years old. About to turn 24 years old. I wanted to get my own individual policy without adding anyone on the car. The car was a gift from my parents to me.""

Car insurance question?

Hey and thanks in advance! My car is in my ex name 100% on the loan and the car insurance, but i make the payments to my ex as they take the money from my ex bank account. Im not even on the car as a second driver. Well now my ex wants the insurance in my name, would i be able to obtain insurance in my name (full coverage) for the car without the car being in my name, if i was to show them me and my ex personal contract. and lets say the insurance people is fine with it, would the bank where my ex took out the loan be ok with full coverage in my name over the car? please, this was a lessoned learn and now i need help on how this can be done, my ex no longer want his name on the insurance.""

Classic car for a teenager?

Coming up to my 17th birthday soon and i need to buy a car. The sort of car i like is the plymouth cuda 1970 opel manta 72 ford cortina 72 chevy 69 So that kind of muscle car look. However being a teenager i am limited to what i can drive. What would be a good buy and something i can get insured on. Hope you can help Thanks :)

is my employer insurance affordable

is my employer insurance affordable

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