#(i am genderless and always have been but... calling my younger self she and a girl feels like gentle affection. she was too little)

[slippery-minghus]

huh. so like. transitioning from childhood into adolescence was really really hard for me. hard enough that even stating it like that is novel, rather than just "i was really weird and probably evil when i was 12" lol. but it just occurred to me how... autistic that was. the struggle with change. nevermind that from ages 10-13, my parents' relationship was worse than it ever had been as they approached divorce, and the tension in the house was enough to have set shit on fire but...

before my very eyes, things i enjoyed as a child were suddenly not fun anymore. i'd turn on a show i liked, one of the very few, and an episode i would have enjoyed the day before was mind-meltingly stupid. all of my toys—which because my mom substituted healthy love with giving me things, i had a lot of—dropped one at a time from my very short list of things that were fun. (un-dx'd autism also made playing with toys... boring as shit. could only put barbie in so many outfits. and i was too averse to social things to put her in Situations) what i did to my barbies when i finally couldn't stand them anymore was... it wasnt good.

and looking back at it through this lens though... i finally have an answer to the shocked and disgusted "what the hell was wrong with me??" it was because i was angry. i was scared. my parents were fighting all the time and i knew long before then that i couldn't rely on them for jack shit, so i had absolutely no recourse for dealing with the changes my brain was going through. changes i was going through while trying not to be abused, going through puberty (even as an adult shifts in my hormones make me extremely volatile), being bullied/ostracized by my friends and classmates, struggling for the first time with my grades (even though i was "Gifted"!), and of course, trying to fix my parents' marriage and their mental illnesses. all while having a brain that is particularly averse to change.

no wonder i was angry. no wonder i was scared. i was so alone. it was one of the rare occasions i actually acted out, and with the way i built my psyche to survive, no wonder that memory instills me with immediate shame. it was so unlike me to act out for a reason...

and i think back to another memory... one i hold very close to my heart. not because it was one where i was cared for, it's not even good. i think back to the brief stint when i was ten or so that mother put me in therapy for my "anger issues" (and i went unnoticed as autistic yet again. i know intellectually as an adult my mom just wanted to help... but that stint in therapy only reinforced the blame and the brokenness in me). one day, the therapist had me fill up this sandbox with figurines. she had so many to choose from, and it was so much fun. i'd never played with anything like it before. i remember i built a city, with ins and outs and lots of activity. but in the corner, closest to me, behind a wall where the rest of the city wasn't looking, i placed a little baby and an angry tiger. nobody could see how much danger i was in. nobody wanted to see. it was a quiet death.

#by the time i made it into my teens i'd learned not to act out anymore #i acted *in* #and looked at my past self with shame and disgust #but i see her... she was just a child. drowning. #i feel so angry for her. how she had to learn to eat her anger to survive. how she had to become disgusted by her own emotions to be safe #i feel so angry that she had to control herself in such a way that she would 'save up' acting out... hoping for the right moment #she was a doll onstage—giving the performance of her life. FOR her life—for parents who weren't even watching #(but who made her get back up there and keep going every time she got hurt or let on that she was tired) #that poor little girl #(i am genderless and always have been but... calling my younger self she and a girl feels like gentle affection. she was too little) #(because she only wanted to be good at being what she was told to be—being a girl included) #*takes a breath* i've been working hard on this psych shit lately damn #personal

[writtenonthesubwaywalls]

Library

(part one) (next part) (most recent part)

[A quick note before I begin: I want to thank @heytherefellowsapiens for being my beta for this and encouraging me through it all. It wouldn’t ever have gotten done without them and I am so thankful it did. So, Lords, Ladies, and Genderless Jesters of the courts, may I present to you Library, aka Where The Hell I’ve Been For The Past Forever. I hope you enjoy!!]

One

Alfred stepped into the office quietly, knocking on the door frame to announce himself. “Just a moment!” someone called from a room deeper in the area. He fixed the straps of his book bag on his shoulders to busy his hands while he waited.

The office was neat and clean, from the sleek new desktop computer to the bookshelf behind the desk, even the personal items like pictures or decorations on the shelves. There was a line of windows on the far wall, letting in a flood of sunlight and giving the room’s occupant a pleasant view of the sky and river outside. Whoever’s office this is is lucky, he thought.

Soon, someone emerged from a door near the windows, disrupting his daydreaming, with hands filled precariously with papers and files. Alfred rushed forward, catching the stack before it fell. “Here,” he offered, taking about half of the papers from the top of the stack, “Let me help you there.”

“Thank you,” the man says, giving him a small, grateful smile. He paused, fixing his grip on his portion of papers to make holding them easier. He looked Alfred up and down curiously. “Are you the new graduate we hired?”

Alfred smiled happily at hearing that someone knew where he was from. “Yep! My name’s Alfred! Freshly graduated from Cambridge University.”

“You can call me Toris, and it’s very nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise. I’d shake your hand, but…” he looked pointedly down at the files they were both still holding. They both laughed.

“Here, follow me. I need to take these down to the basement to move them over to the archives,” Toris instructed, leading the way to what Alfred presumed to be the archives.

His imagination presented a picture similar to the basement of his old highschool; poorly lit with one row of lights, water dripping in the corner and echoing through the room, books ruined with paper mold and mildew. He shuddered at the memory, then pushed it to the back of his mind.

Toris glanced over his shoulder at him. “You’re being awfully quiet. Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he answered in a soft voice. He coughed, then continued in a louder tone, “I was just thinking about the basement to the library in my old high school. Creepy place, believe me.”

The two stopped at a door at the end of the hall. Toris shifted the set of papers so that they rested on his hip, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket to unlock the door.

Through the door was a dark stairwell with a metal railing on the right-hand side. There were warm drafts coming from the darkness below, and the air smelled like old paper. Alfred picked his way slowly down the stairs, and Toris turned on the light when they made it to the bottom.

Everything here, just like upstairs, was clean and neat. The floor was carpeted, and the bright fluorescent lights flooded the space. Alfred paused to appreciate the euphoric smell of ancient books, and that particular scent that only old libraries seemed to be able to create. “God, I love libraries,” he muttered. His companion nodded in agreement.

Toris led him to a row of filing cabinets along the adjacent wall, sliding one of them open and filing the papers away carefully in their respective folders. Alfred handed his to him to join the others in the drawer.

“Hey,” Alfred began, looking around the place, “That office we were in; is it yours?”

Toris shook his head. “No, that’s the director’s office.”

“Oh.” Alfred looked down at the floor distractedly. “Is he here? Can I meet with him?”

“Dr. Braginsky is out of the country right now.” Toris ushered him out of the archive, flicking off the light as they passed.

“Where?”

“Visiting family out in Russia. But that’s all he’ll tell any of us about it.” He stopped to re-lock the door. “As much as he tries to make working here feel like having a family, he keeps his home life and his professional life very distant from each other.” His voice petered off towards the end.

Alfred looked around the hall some more, noting the many canvas pictures and paintings, and quoted pinned up on the walls. His gaze caught on a quote from one of his favorite rocketeering influences of all time; “The earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in this cradle forever.” Tsiolkovsky. The pioneer of rocketry and astronautic theory.

“Who chooses the quotes to put on the walls?” Alfred asked him, not looking away from the flowy text. Toris joined him, standing at his right side and mirroring his stance.

“Everyone who works here gets to choose a quote they like and put it up somewhere,” he explained, “Mine’s in the kid’s section, right above the little play area.”

“So who chose this one?” he nodded his head to indicate the wall in front of him.

Toris considered it, then shrugged and turned away, making his way back down the hall and towards the offices. “I don’t remember for sure, but I think that one was Dr. Braginsky’s.”

The blond stared at the wall a few moments longer, then followed Toris back to where they started.

“So,” he said when he caught up to him, “What else can I do for you? Put away books, sort through emails, file more files…?”

Toris thought for a minute, and he bounced on his toes with nervous excitement. “You have a lot of energy to burn, don’t you?” Alfred blushed self consciously and he forced himself to still, fixing his eyes on the floor dejectedly. “That’s not a bad thing!” he added quickly, already feeling guilty for causing the sudden change in the younger. “Not bad at all! I was just going to suggest that you run the returned books and papers and whatnot back and forth between everyone in the building! Especially up and down the stairs that everyone hates so much. Like me and my old-man knees.” He chuckled.

Alfred looked back up at him. “How old are you, anyways? I can’t imagine that you’re that much older than me.”

“I’m only twenty-nine, but sometimes I feel like such an old man.”

He laughed. “I know that feeling all too well, dude.” He was about to depart for his new task when he remembered the backpack he still had on his shoulders. “Hey, could I leave my bookbag in here for the day?” The brunet nodded, so he slipped the straps off and leaned it against the wall near the door on his way out.

As he worked, he worked himself into a rhythm. Grab an armful of books or a handful of documents, run them to wherever they were supposed to be, put them away in their correct place, and repeat. Every so often he was stopped by a library patron asking him where something is or for help for this or that, with which he was always perfectly happy to help with, always present with an easygoing smile. It felt good to be doing something productive again.

About an hour into his work, he was stopped by a man sitting at one of the tables in the foyer, sipping on something hot in one of the library’s paper coffee cups. “You’re new,” the man pointed out when he walked by. Alfred stopped, and he marked the page in his book with a bright red and gold ribbon.

“That’s right, sir, I’m new. But I can still help you out with something if you need it?” He phrased it as a statement, but posed it as an open question.

The man shook his head. “No, but I want to warn you. Everyone here is a top-notch literary arts graduate. If you aren’t cut throat with them, you won’t make it here. It’s an incredibly high standard that you have to meet here.”

Alfred shifted his grip on his books. “Yeah, I know that. I’m no stranger to this kind of thing. I have my masters from Cambridge, after all. I think I’ll be fine here. Besides, I’ve already met a few of the librarians and the communications officer, and they all seem pretty supportive of new faces like me.”

He hummed. “But you don’t know why that is, do you?” Before Alfred could come up with an answer, he continued, “What’s your name? You seem pleasant enough.”

“Oh, I’m Alfred! What’s yours?”

“Yao.”

“Well, I have to get back to work, but it’s nice to meet you, Yao.” He cocked the books up so that their weight was settled on his hip, then offered his hand to shake, which the other man accepted. Alfred waved back to him when he set off again.

He pushed open the glass door leading to the kid’s section of the library with his shoulder, trying to avoid dropping anything. The woman sitting behind the desk called him over to her.

He went over to her station, dropping his books on the counter gently. “What can I do for you, Miss Hedervary?”

“Can you sit here in my place for a few minutes while I go to the bathroom and take care of a few things?” She asked him, patting her belly that was swollen with a child.

He nodded in understanding. “Of course! Take your time, and I’ll cover for you, okay?”

She smiled in thanks, then disappeared through a heavy door next to the glass one he had come in through. While he waited, he played with the pages of the books he was supposed to put back. These were the last ones, Toris had told him, so when he was finished up with putting them away he was to report back for some other task.

A little boy toddled up to the desk holding some brightly colored book or another out for him to check. “Find everything you were looking for?” Alfred asked, taking the library card offered to him and checking out the book.

“Oh yes!” the man answered cheerfully. “Peter wanted me to show him about ships, so we came to the library to find a book about them. Isn’t that right, Petie?” The boy nodded excitedly, and held out his hands expectantly. Alfred handed him the little book.

“I hope you have fun reading, Peter! You know, I love boats, too. My brother designs boats like those ones,” he pointed at the cover of the book, a United States battleship from the eighties, when the book was probably originally published.

“Really?” The boy’s eyes were bright with curiosity and excitement. “What’s it like?”

“I hear it’s a lot of fun making boats. He tells me all the time about getting to go out with them and battle sea monsters!” He made a playful grr sound, making himself look like some kind of silly monster. Peter laughed, hiding his face in his hands.

“Alright, Peter, time to go. We still have to go meet up with your father,” the man he was with said, taking him by the hand and starting to lead him out. “Say thank you, now.”

Peter looked back at him, and he gave a little wave. Peter smiled, and called to him a final “Thank you!” before leaving with his companion.

#aph america #library #hetalia #hetalia au #library au #bookworm alfred #aph china #aph sealand #fluff #future rusame #future na bros #im excited about this

[nonbinary-androids]

SDVA Week Day 4 (I think it’s day four anyways. I’m posting this late.)

1. First things first! Does your farmer believe in true love?

No. Tabby is polyamorous and the entire concept of true love is that there is one person who is absolutely perfect for you and that everyone else isn’t quite right.

2.Who was your farmer’s very first crush? Did they keep that crush, or end up falling for someone else?

Elliott, actually. Tabby’s relationship with him pre-dated her arrival to the Valley, though. Remember, back on Day One, where I mentioned that she had a SO that moved to the Valley? That was actually Elliott! Tabby never really got married, but she didn’t fall out of love with him, so he’s a permanent part of her life now.

3.Did your farmer date the whole town? How do you personally headcanon that turning out for your farmer?

Nope. Tabby is polyfidelous, so she only dates a set group of people. Those people are Sebastian and Elliott. Sebastian is monogamous, so he’s only in one relationship at a time, but Elliott is also polyamorous and dates Leah as well.

4.How do you imagine your farmer’s first date went with their chosen bachelor/bachelorette?

Sebastian: They went on a ‘date’ in the mines. They were both nervous at first but loosened up and had a good time.

Elliott: Their first date was more of a disaster. They had their first date in the city and Tabby had to punch a drunk woman who was trying to seduce Elliott.

5.What made your farmer fall in love with their SO?

Elliott: He was interested in her first. Elliott would tell her grand stories about merfolk at the bottom of the ocean, cat people living in the clouds, beings of genderless flames and the humans of earth. Tabby fell in love with him because he wasn’t afraid to daydream, to be creative or to wish, like most other people she met. At the same time, he wasn’t so in the clouds that he couldn’t take care of himself and others.

Sebastian: Tabby fell in love with Sebastian because he was willing to change. She was perfectly aware that he had adapted his sleeping schedule to be able to spend one day a week with her. Sebastian was also willing to let Tabitha be who she was and be in the relationship that didn’t directly involve him (though he and Elliott do get along well now!). If Elliott was her creativity and her inspiration, then Sebastian was her flexibility, her willingness to change.

6.Where is their favourite place to talk and hang out?

Sebastian: Level sixty of the Mines. They’ll spend a whole bunch of time down there when it’s too hot, but they both also really like the way it looks.

Elliott: At the end of the pier on Tabby’s farm. (She has the “Riverland Farm” layout.) They dangle their feet in. It’s an inspiring place for Elliott and a relaxing place for Tabitha.

7.Was there anything your farmer and their SO fought about?

While they sometimes get into little fights, Tabby and her partners haven’t gotten into any major ones yet.

8.How did your farmer propose?

Tabby didn’t. She asked Sebastian to move in with her, but multi-person marriage is still illegal in Stardew Valley. Elliott still lives in his cabin, but he comes over every day and sometimes Tabitha and Sebastian will go over to the cabin.

9. did your farmer ever have kids? If so, what are their names? What are they like?

Tabby had two children. The oldest was called Lark and she was a girl. The younger child was a boy called Alder. Lark was energetic and inherited the farm from her mother. Alder was more of a recluse, reading and learning with his fathers. He can be a bit grumpy at times as well.

10. How have your farmer and their SO settled into the married life?

Well, thank you for asking! Tabitha’s never been happier. She has two loving children and she knows her partners will always love her.

Bonus: Draw or write a ficlet about your farmer and their SO on their first date or first anniversary!

(This is actually a Feast of the Winter Star celebration from who knows when, but whatever.)

“Dad! Dad, wake up!” Lark smiled. “Papa’s already here and Mum’s been up for hours. Get up so that we can open presents!”

Sebastian groaned. “What time is it?”

“Seven thirty, like you said was okay! Come on, Dad!” Lark tugged on his arm. “Otherwise I’ll make Mum wake you up.”

Sebastian sat up slowly. “Fine. Be a good girl and get me some breakfast.”

Lark scampered off to find something for Sebastian to eat, probably made by Tabby. Sebastian blinked. Then blinked again. It felt early, much too early to be up. Sighing, he heaved himself out of bed. He walked out of the bedroom, already dressed for the day to see Elliott and Tabby sitting on the couch. Tabitha looked much too chipper for someone who had been up since dawn taking care of the farm. Elliott was less energetic than his usual self, but that was the only sign that he had gotten up early than normal.

“Hello, morning birds,” he mumbled as he walked by them to get some coffee.

“Good morning to you too. Did Lark wake you up?” Tabby smiled from the couch. “This is the only time in ages that she and Alder have been up at the same time.”

“Yup. Lark is just like you and Elliott, ever a morning person,” Sebastian stifled a yawn.

“Heh, well if I’m a morning person, then why am I exhausted?” Elliott yawned openly. “I feel like I’m dead on my feet and I’m only awake half an hour earlier than I normally am.”

“You aren’t acting like you’re liable to bite someone’s head off without coffee, that’s a bonus point,” Tabby said thoughtfully. “But either way, I think two people are very eager to open presents. Food’s already here, Seb.”

Sebastian grunted in acknowledgement and grabbed the cup of coffee he was nursing. He then plunked himself down on the other side of Tabby and grabbed his food in his other hand.

Suddenly, Sebastian felt so at peace. This was a world that he had created. He was free from the ties that had bound him. The people around him were his family, the people that had taught him the true meaning of the word.

They were Sebastian’s friends, his partners in life, the people he cared most about and finally, they were the people at the end of the storm that his early life.

They were the people Sebastian loved.

#sdv #stardew valley #stardew valley appreciation week