#i have So Many cousins and somehow none of them are queer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cblgblog · 3 years

Note

Imagine Mildolyn, "Illicit Affair", Modern AU. Where Gwen's campaigning for Congress and all the meet and greets, showing up for charities for publicity, her 'cause'. At one for special needs children and their foundation she meets a very young CNA named Mildred and sort of falls head over heels in the dumbest of ways, both just love struck. Except she's campaigning to be in Congress, she's a politician, she cannot be queer and chasing after 19 year old ex-foster kids whos brothers are set to be the youngest executed on Death Row in California in decades for appalling crimes. But there she is, in hotel rooms her supporters pay for, with someone she shouldn't be with, trying to find ways to overturn cases that turned stomachs with their brutality, because a pretty girl smiled at her and called her 'ma'am' while showing her around the foundation/care home she worked at with children no one else had the time/patience to care for. Of course it goes terribly with 'dirty little secret' vibes, the breast cancer diagnosis announced on twitter before she tells Mildred in person, even if it's such a minor case ('so they say') and caught so early that it'll barely leave a scar, radiation won't be much of a deal at all. She doesn't get to tell Mildred that, she just gets to hear on Fox news about how the democrat's gonna die a horrible death and panic.

Mildred who has no patience for politicians and their fake concern, using patients as photo ops. It’s manipulative, it’s distracting to the staff, it’s awful, okay, she hates it. She is, in fact, a tad bit rude to Gwen when they meet. Gets her a death glare from Betsy Bucket, gets Gwen intrigued.

“Republican?” only half-joking.

“No.”

“Is it the suit? Should I have worn a different suit? I wanted to, but I’ve been told this one tested better.”

“The suit is fine.” It’s more than that, actually, but Mildred will not be saying that aloud, nope, uh-uh. “I don’t much care for politicians.”

“Ah, we have that in common then.”

“I doubt we have much of anything in common. Ma’am.”

And look, Gwen doesn’t usually go in for the chasing, the hard to get. She’s got enough trouble chasing votes. But this woman is so good with the kids on her ward, so patient. She’s got Disney scrubs on and as much as she’s got no time at all for Gwen, she seems to have infinite amounts for those kids. She stays with them individually, longer than any of the other staff Gwen sees, but she still manages to get a dozen things done in half as many minutes. And she’s also gorgeous, there’s that.

And Gwen has no good reason to ask her out for lunch. Honestly, none. Nothing good can come from this. Mildred asks if the citizens of California will be paying for this meal and Gwen swears that isn’t the case, no, absolutely not. Even still, Gwen doesn’t expect Mildred to say yes. She doesn’t think Mildred expected Mildred to say yes.

But she does. Tells herself it’s for Edmund, maybe this’ll be the one politician who listens, who’s willing to look past the surface facts, willing to help. Except she gets there and they don’t talk about Edmund. It’s not because Mildred doesn’t know how to bring it up, she’s made her case dozens of times. She just…they don’t talk about him, and that feels like a betrayal, but Gwen’s kind and funny and fascinating (much to Mildred’s annoyance), and she just…doesn’t feel like getting into it.

Meanwhile Trevor, Gwen’s campaign manager/law school buddy/best friend/lavender marriage soulmate, if they were in a different time, is like bitch, what’re you doing? Yes, everyone knows you’re gay as hell, but you can’t be chasing girls right now, you can’t afford to be distracted. You especially can’t afford to look distracted. And you can’t be robbing the cradle while looking distracted.

“She’s not that young.”

“Uh-huh. She wears Winnie the Pooh clothes.”

“Scrubs, those are scrubs. Scrubs aren’t clothes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She works in a children’s ward, Trevor.”

“Uh-huh. I really wish you wouldn’t do this, but since you care nothing about me and my mental state and all the hours and hours of hard work I’ve put in for you—”

“After badgering me into hiring you over someone more qualified.”

“Hey! More qualified. I resent that. Anyway, if you insist on ruining my day, at least wear that face cream I gave you. Should make you look less like you’re robbing the cradle.”

“Go to hell.”

“And don’t do the oyster thing. Not on a first date, in the middle of the campaign.”

“It’s not a date, it’s just lunch.”

“Uh-huh.”

Gwen doesn’t do the oyster thing. Not on the first date, which neither of them acknowledge as a date, for entirely different reasons. But then there’s a second and a third, and sex, lots of sex, and it’s harder to pass off as just friendly.

And yeah, the sneaking around that Gwen hates. That Mildred says she doesn’t mind, and she actually doesn’t seem to all that much, which Gwen finds slightly concerning. Mildred’s good with secrets though, she’s good with being kept a secret. Mostly. Which again, Gwen finds concerning.

There’s pillow talk and Mildred admitting more about herself than she has to anyone, ever. Which still isn’t nearly as much as what Gwen admits, but it’s a relative thing. And still, Mildred doesn’t talk about Edmund. Gwen finds that one out on her own, stumbles across some old photos, a scrapbook of Edmund’s crimes. Gwen’s briefly concerned that Mildred is one of those people who’re deeply attracted to serial killers, but the truth is…something else.

Mildred tells her things. Some of the deeper, darker stuff, but not much, not yet. Tells her how she’s written to everyone she can think of because he’s a boy, okay? He was in an impossible situation, they both were, no one ever helped them, so Edmund decided he had to die. No one helped them before, no one helps them now. There’s anger and tears and Gwen holding her and she can’t help asking why Mildred didn’t talk to her sooner, if she’s had no problem asking for help from strangers.

“Because you aren’t,” Mildred says in a way that makes it clear she’s figuring this stuff out as she says it. “A stranger, you aren’t. You never were and I couldn’t…I didn’t want to become one to you. I didn’t want you to look at me like that.”

“Oh Mildred…”

Mildred doesn’t actually ask her to help. She doesn’t want Gwen to think that’s what it’s all been about. It was supposed to be, but it isn’t. She doesn’t ask. Gwen digs into things herself, digs into this kid who was barely double-digits when he did these things. Made all the headlines at the time, but that was over a decade ago, he’s been locked up ever since. Most of Mildred’s money goes to him, one way or another.

Gwen hides it from Trevor—the murderer, not the sex, he knew about the sex before she ever said anything—for as log as she can. But he’s always been nosy, and now he has a paid excuse to be nosy, and he nearly has an aneurysm when he hears why it is that Gwen’s suddenly digging into this case instead of kissing the babies of gay couples, like she should be.

Gwen cannot do this. Nope, absolute no. She cannot be sneaking around with the younger sister of the kid they’ve made all the documentaries about. Doesn’t matter that she’s running on a platform of prison reform, especially as it pertains to juveniles, this is not the case to start with, especially when she hasn’t won yet.

And Gwen knows. She knows. She argues with Trevor about it until he decides they both need to stop because Gwen has a speaking engagement tomorrow and she can’t sound hoarse. There are many further arguments, arguments about principles over politics, but Gwen knows he’s right. She cannot, should not, be doing any of this, at least not yet. It’s dangerous, it’s selfish, Mildred deserves better than being someone’s secret again. Gwen should break it off, at least until the election. She’s not being fair to either of them like this. They should stop, at least for a few months.

Except it’s Mildred and she’s totally hijacked Gwen’s everything, and the thought of stopping makes her ill, and everything about this is terrifying, the most terrifying thing ever.

And then there’s the checkup and the routine mammogram. Gwen started those earlier than most because somebody’s aunt on somebody’s side of the family got sick, somebody’s cousin on the other side did too.

Scratch that, there’s a new winner for most terrifying thing ever.

It’s good, they say. She started early, they caught it early, this is good, they have treatments for this. Good, they say, while Gwen damn near passes out. She’s got a campaign to finish, she can see the Too Sick to Serve headlines already. A bald look would not test well, she’s sure it wouldn’t. She talks to Trevor about that, about the campaign, until he tells her to shut the fuck up, yanks her into a crushing hug. He cries, damn him, and that makes her cry.

She’s glad he’s there.

She wishes Mildred was.

She is also relieved as hell that Mildred isn’t, that they’re on opposite sides of the state right now. No point having Mildred see her like this, having her worry. She’s got enough to worry about, enough to hurt about.

Not that Gwen isn’t planning to tell her. She is. It’s only been a few whirlwind months, but Gwen knows enough to realize that a lie of omission would be a bad, bad, bad idea where Mildred’s concerned, regardless of intention. Gwen doesn’t think of hiding it anyway, not really. Mildred deserves better then that. When and how to tell the public…that’s a completely different clusterfuck of a situation, but Mildred, Gwen just wants to tell her in person. That way Mildred can see her face when she promises it’s no big deal (hopefully without seeing how terrified she actually is), and Gwen will have all the paperwork and things she knows Mildred will want to see, and they can hold each other, and it’s just, it’s not phone call news.

Except then it’s headline news, because somehow it’s leaked. Fox News is having a field day, certain corners of the Internet are already gleefully writing her obituary, and she’s missed literally hundreds of calls by the time she gets a look at her phone. At least half of those are from Mildred. Mildred who actually sounds hysterical for the first time since Gwen’s known her, that bastard on the news with the hair, he says you’re dying, why aren’t you answering, how long have you known, please, please pick up the phone, just pick up the phone god dammit.

She’s managed to keep Mildred a secret for months. This? This doesn’t last three days before it’s everywhere. Gwen does get an I love you for the first time ever, but seeing as Mildred’s sobbing over her voicemail when it happens, the joy is somewhat muted.

#Ratched #ratched au #mildred ratched #gwendolyn briggs #mildolyn #Mildred ratched/gwendolyn briggs

38 notes · View notes

andiandyandee · 4 years

Text

We Are Going to Be Friends Pt. 10

I’m not crying, you’re crying, shut up

Words: 1,978

Tag List: @datfearlessfangirl @princemesscharming @illogicalthinking @holliberries

Ask if you want added!

This is part of an Ongoing Parental Logince/ Punk AU. This is a prequel to the main stories, which can be found in several places. You don’t need the rest of the AU to read this, but it will give you some insight.

Here’s a link to the series on Ao3

Here’s a link to the last part, In case you missed it

Here’s a link to the First Part, If you’re new here.

Aaaannnd.... here’s the fic.

Friday sleepovers became just as much of a tradition as Saturdays on the lake or Sundays in the den once the Sanders moved into their new house, but Logan finds himself curled up in Remus’s bay window, watching the stars and listening to Remus talk for hours most nights. Which is why it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise when someone finally asked the question that so many had assumed.

“So, are you two, like, dating now? Should we invest in soundproofing?” Roman asked one night in late March when Logan came stumbling into the kitchen in search of water.

“Who, Remus and I?” Logan was too tired to hide his surprise. He and Remus were close, they spent most days together, and he was really one of the only people Logan referred to as ‘friend’ (best friend, even), but there had never been any inkling towards romance. “Of course not.” Roman did look surprised at that. Logan was trying to deal with both the fact that someone thought that he and Remus were romantically involved and that Roman, who almost always avoided Logan, looking uncomfortable and confused whenever Logan sought him out for conversation, was capable of being a normal human being. “Remus and I are friends, he’s my best friend, but He’s.. not exactly my type.”

“Oh, I, sorry, I guess. I didn’t mean to offend, I just know you said you were queer, I assumed you were into guys.”

“I am.” Roman looked even more confused at that, “just not Remus. One, I Iook for someone who shares important core beliefs with me, but otherwise is an opposition to my personality. Where I am relatively quiet, I prefer someone loud, but not just chaotically, like Remus. I prefer a partner who is confident. Someone who is intelligent, but not necessarily in the same way I am. Remus and I share too many interests to be compatible romantically. The dynamic would just be as it is now, chaos and humor, but not romance.” Logan shrugged. “Why are you awake, anyhow? It’s quite late, Roman. Don’t you have weight training in the morning?”

“I can’t sleep. Too many thoughts for that.”

“Oh? If you want to share, I’m all ears. Figuratively, of course.”

“Would.. would you go to prom with me? If I asked?” Roman blurted out, immediately turning red. “I- oh my god I can’t believe I said that out loud, I’m sorry- I can go”

“ Are you asking?” Logan replied in a voice that was completely neutral.

“Y-yes? If that is.. okay?” Roman squeaked, looking like he might faint.

“I would, er, enjoy that, I believe,” Logan replied, tugging at the collar of his NASA t-shirt. “Though, I am surprised you would ask me of all people. I was under the impression you were not particularly... fond of me.” Logan admitted, his cheeks and ears slightly pink.

“I’ve been hopelessly and all-consumingly in love with you since you came stomping into school in that leather jacket on the first day.” Roman shrugged. “I thought you liked Remus, so I tried to avoid it, which probably just made me sound like a moron most of the time.”

“Only some of the time.” Logan counter-argued.

“That first time you slept over I almost died several times just because you looked at me.” Roman looked faint. “When you and Remus came in I was actually talking about how hopelessly in love with you I was, which is why Elliot almost died laughing, and I nearly died of embarrassment. Then when you were talking about your rebel shit, about music and rioting I actually thought I was gonna pass out because you had this fire in your eyes like you were single-handedly going to fix all the shit that was broken. Every time you answered a question in truth or dare, you answered it like it was the most important thing in the world, and you sang and I thought I would die then .

Then Dahlia did your makeup, and you looked so pretty , and your eyes were sparkling and I wanted to flirt but instead, I choked and dumped soda on myself and then sat in the shower for twenty minutes wishing I would be struck by lightning so I didn’t have to face you and oh my god I’m rambling,”

Logan was smiling. It wasn’t something he did much, but the more Roman talked, the more his face pulled up, his heart rose to his throat, he could practically feel the waves of adoration pouring off of Roman, so open and sincere, and it was only then that Logan realized that the reason he was so disappointed when Roman was awkward around him was that he wanted this, this conversation, so desperately it ached, and he didn’t know what came over him, but he stepped forward, his hands gently cradling Romans like he was the most precious thing in the world, because he was, wasn’t he? He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Roman’s lips, a little beyond ‘gentle’ but he didn’t have the words to express how he felt, so he did his best with what was at his disposal. Roman just let out a breathless laugh when Logan pulled away, staring up at him with his warm, cinnamon eyes just a little glassy. The air around them buzzed, not quite fireworks, but something more than what was there before.

The moment was shattered by Remus, who pretended to gag in the doorway behind them. Logan and Roman jumped, turning to stare at him with identical shocked expressions, but he was beaming. “Thank god you two idiots figured out how talking worked, I was afraid Lo was gonna short circuit. But if you two are done, we need to go back to sleep because we really do have weight training at 4:45 am, Ro, and I am not going to be late again.”

***

Lunch was an endeavor, the two close but previously separated tables now pushed together, Logan’s group and Roman and Remus’s group making awkward small talk, with the exception of October and Kai hitting it off immediately, finding solace in having someone to talk doctors with, finally. The rest were dealing with the others, all of them occasionally laughing at the way Roman and Logan were caught up in flirting. It was a Friday, which meant it was sleepover night, which Roman and Remus’s father had agreed to on the caveat that they stayed in the living room now that Logan and Roman were... whatever they were, which had not been discussed.

“Lo, Toby and I are gonna get tattoos next weekend. You down?” Micheal asked with a grin. “Toby’s cousin got a gun and said he’d do ‘em for free.” Logan instinctively wanted to say no, because that was a horrible idea, why on earth would he want a mediocre tattoo permanently on his skin, but what came out of his mouth was,

“Fuck yeah I am.” Roman and Remus, as well as several others from both groups, looked nervous about that, but none of them said anything. It was a discussion for another time.

***

“Larry! We have to have flowers!” Dot whined, which made Logan chuckle quietly. “I am not getting married and throwing a bouquet of Ferns.”

“You don’t even like flowers! You actually told me, when we started dating, to never buy you flowers. Why would we have them at the wedding if you don’t like them?”

“Well- well because you like them, L.” Dot had that soft expression on her face again, the one that said she would do anything for his happiness. “Maybe we can do some violets or something, and the rest can be foliage. Compromise.”

“If I may interject, and frankly even if you said no I would anyway, I think you’re both the most disgustingly romantic nightmare couple I’ve ever met, and I hate you.” Logan was color coding binders on the floor with seating charts and schedules, pointedly ignoring the way his whole body hurt to move. “Also, are we inviting all of Dot’s brothers? Because if so we’ll have to dedicate them two tables, and I need to know which sets will get along best.” Larry and Dot grinned, both tackling L, pulling his from the binder and into a hug.

“How is it that I have six brothers and somehow my favorite is the one that I have to sign a contract for?” Dot teased, ruffling Logan’s hair. Her hand paused when he flinched and the smile immediately dissolved. “Sorry, sweetheart.”

“No, you don’t need to apologize. You know that.” Logan smiled sadly at her. His brother cut the tension.

“On the subject of disgustingly Roman -tic things, how's that boyfriend of yours?” Larry grinned at the blush.

“We have a wedding to plan. I know you’ve already booked the venue, but the caterer has not been confirmed. You’re getting married in four months and 9 days. We need to make these decisions now, or we’re going to have to learn how to cook and bake.”

“When you and Roman get married, do you think you’ll be older than 21? As your best man, I think I’d like to take you to Vegas.”

“Dot is going to be my best man.” Logan deadpanned, biting back a laugh at Larry’s faux hurt expression. Dot ‘whooped’ beside them.

“Nice, I definitely want to take you to Vegas.”

“Also, who’s to say I’ll marry Roman. Maybe by then I’ll have lost my mind and marry Alex.” Logan shrugged. “Or that new girl, Terra. Though I think she may be interested in Remus, actually.” Larry was loudly laughing now.

“Logan… you know you’re gay, right?” Dot asked with false concern.

“Preposterous. I’ve never had a molecule of serotonin in my life.” Larry laughed at that, but then got a serious look on his face.

“You know, Lo, We’re renting a house right outside of town starting in June.” Dot looked at L with raised eyebrows.

“I thought we were waiting until the paperwork was done to tell him?”

“Tell me what? I already knew you were getting a house, Dot.” L shook his head.

“ We’re getting a house.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“A three-bedroom house.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was so large. Were you planning on having children, then? I thought you were waiting until after you had finished your degrees.”

“One of the rooms is going to be a study, the other is going to be for family.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. Having so many siblings-in-law I assume you two will have regular visitors.” Dot was laughing lightly at L’s expression and the rapid way his hands were flailing.

“Logan, the room isn’t for my side of the family.” Dot was looking at him pointedly. He still did not understand.

“So it...is for you two to have kids? Again- I thought you wanted to wait unti-”

“It’s for you, dumbass!” Larry looked like he was going to explode, and Logan was quite sure he was imploding. “We’re getting a three-bedroom house outside of town because we want you to live there, not because Dot has a big family or because we are going to have kids. We’re going to get you out of here, kiddo.”

Logan couldn’t breathe. He wanted to argue, to tell them it was too much, that he could never accept, but what came out of his mouth, small and broken and just a little bit afraid was, “you are?” Which was all that they needed before the floodgates were broken, and the two brothers were crying and hugging. Despite the height difference, Logan had never felt smaller than when his brother wrapped him in his arms and whispered,

“I’m never going to leave you alone with them again, Logan. I promise.”

#sanders sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #logince #punk au #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #logan is bad at feelings #larry (cartoon therapy)#dot (cartoon therapy)#This chapter made me sad #ask to tag #ask to be tagged //

15 notes · View notes

quaspoch · 4 years

Text

Reflections of a Queer Asian PoC Christian

Growing up in white America, I wanted to erase my heritage. I wished I could’ve been born with fair, white skin, blond hair, blue eyes, the beautiful standard set by America. I hated my black hair, my big nose, everything ethnic about me that made me different. I wished I could be one of the many, and I hated myself and my parents for having me and making me Asian.

It wasn’t only my physical features, it was also my culture. I hated that my dumplings smelled, and often times I would not eat lunch to avoid embarrassment. I now wonder how many dumplings I threw away, how much I wasted, how much privilege I had to waste food to save myself humiliation and questions, when so many others go hungry.

I hated my parents’ accents, it was embarrassing. I never told them about parents day, because then my dirty secret would be exposed. I am not American. I am different. I am not white. I am different. I am unacceptable.

I hated my parents’ values, why didn’t they value freedom and privacy, like my friends’ parents did? Why weren’t they grateful when I finished my homework, and passed my classes? Why did they expect me to excel, to take after-school classes, to learn Chinese, to play piano, to spend what was supposed to be my free time, on miscellaneous things they valued? It felt unfair, and in rebellion, I did my best to learn as little as possible, work as dispassionately as possible, and exert as little effort as possible. Looking back, I recognize that privilege as well. I wasted time and opportunity that my mom worked hard for.

My mom didn’t speak much English, and she didn’t finish school. She often put herself down, saying that she wasn’t very smart and didn’t have the capacity to learn things. She was extremely resourceful and hardworking though. As a Taiwanese mother without English and/or other skills, she strove to provide my sister and I with opportunities she felt would help us in the future. She graded papers for a private math teacher, Tsai Laoshi, so that I could be in the classes. She taught Chinese school so I could attend Chinese school. She learned how to bargain and utilize her skills in ways to benefit her children, even if it didn’t mean financial rewards. Looking back, I can see my mom truly was a hustler.

My dad wanted to be fully assimilated into American culture, and hated that we were attending Chinese school and doing things “non-American” families do. That’s why he didn’t foot the bill for piano classes, Chinese school, or after-school math classes. My mom, who had no job and no degree, somehow was able to provide those opportunities despite the barriers.

My dad loved American football, and I learned from him about the Cowboys, beer, BBQ, and family vacations. In some ways, I internalized his hatred for being outcast, and wanted also to become one of the many here in America. I wished I could blend in, become invisible in a crowd, not different.

I hated family vacations, and yet, it was something my dad felt pride in. He said, no other Chinese families do this, they see vacations as a waste of money, but we do this. Just like the white families. We are more American. So, begrudgingly, we were forced to go on these family vacations together, so that my dad could feel a sense of belonging in the world he had immigrated to.

Growing up, I was surrounded by “family.” Second cousins, once removed, others who I called uncles and aunties, but had no blood relations. I was embarrassed of these gatherings. These gatherings consisted of potluck dinners in which every family brought a dish, all the adults would laugh and sing karaoke together late into the night, and the children would have to figure out how to stay occupied for the entirety of the night (in the other room).

Often, we ended up “sneaking out” to watch movies and other activities. The “cool” ones did at least. I now look back, a bit sad that I didn’t spend more time enjoying these large, raucous gatherings of misfits. I miss these gatherings where adults laugh and let loose, kids are left to spend time with cousins and folks we would never be caught with in public.

Looking back, what I miss are not the “white-passing” things that I pretended to do. It wasn’t the, swimming in the pool, eating hot dogs, watching movies that I miss. I miss the parts of me that were discarded and unvalued. I miss the dumplings my mom would pack. I miss the after-school math classes, in which I was surrounded with other ABCs irritated that we had to be there. I miss being surrounded by Mandarin conversation (when the adults would gather and conversation and laughter would flow freely). I miss Chinese school, I would play hooky less. I miss piano class, I wish I practiced more. I wish I could play piano for fun; I wish I had known that my mom was trying to gift me with a future. But I was too blinded by my fear of being outcast. Different.

All in all, I feel ripped-off. I was sold this American dream by my white peers, by the media, by American society. I paid for it by not engaging in my ancestral culture, by tossing it aside to put on the facade of being “white American.” Now, as an adult, there is nothing more sad, more superficial, more shallow to me than white culture. I cannot stand it. I’m angry that I was swindled, that I was tricked. I was a fool.

How would my life have looked different if society around me sold me a different American dream? One that valued diversity and cultural differences, one that valued immigrants? I would’ve felt proud of being Taiwanese American, I would have seen the opportunities given to me and taken hold. It didn’t happen for me and my generation. Perhaps it can change for future generations. It would be nice, if future generations could feel proud of being Asian American, or ——— American. Indian American, Mexican American, African American, Native American, etc. It would be nice if there isn’t a silent shame that permeates society, telling non-whites that who we are, are less than, and needs to be hidden and disposed of.

I’m glad to be here, and that I got to grow in Americanness and Asianness. I wish that I hadn’t bought into the lie that these were mutually exclusive. It didn’t have to be one or the other. Could it have been both? Could both have been celebrated?

Is this how all children of color feel in this white America? I hope that the TVs shows like Fresh Off the Boat, Never have I ever, Master Of None, etc, will help children to take pride in their identities, which includes ancestry, culture, and values.

#Queer #Asian #racism #self #belonging #PoC #christian #asianamerican #abc

5 notes · View notes

violentviolette · 4 years

Text

@starrystarberry tumblr fucked up and deleted ur ask cause i tried to switch over from mobile to my laptop to answer it so im just making a post lol

also it got a little long so i stuck it under a read more for u guys who arent into seeing fandom stuff on here

oh man okay I'll try to not write a novel for each of these lmfao

Lucio

Why I like them: hes a cocky bastard but also a giant idiot

Why I don’t: theres actually nothing I don't like about him akshsgsj like yea I know he imprisoned Asra's parents and made him an orphan at like 6 and everything but who hasnt made a mistake or two in their life?

Favorite season/movie: from what we have of his route so far I really like book 9: the hermit. it's got a lot of good hurt/comfort and that's my shit

Favorite episode (scene if movie): I'm a sucker for the steamy scenes so probably the makeout session in the winter woods

Favorite line: honestly all of them anything out of lucios mouth is gold

OTP: ME lmfao but no for real the mc in the game i dont think lucio is right for any of the characters even if i do ship him and julien for the angst

Favorite outfit: i actually really love his piratey outfit he wears in the flashbacks before he lost his arm.

Brotp: Julien 100%

Head Canon: i dont really have any for him

Unpopular opinion: Lucio is a switch and a service top the only True Top in this game is Nadia and i will die on that hill

A wish: none really, im happy with his route and where its been going and im excited to see the end of it!

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I really hope his reverse ending is something other than him dying

5 words to best describe them: angry bratty baby boy

My nickname for them: baby boy

Light Yagami

Why I like them: cause he was one of the first really good protagonists whose actually the villian of the story and i love that shit

Why I don’t: Light drinks his own cool aid and is way to arrogant and i cant stand that. hes very much a holden caufield type character and i absoutely hate those

Favorite season/movie: i liked the anime but i only watched it once when it was airing and i never saw any of the movies so i dont know.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): same as above, this is making me think i should toss it in my que and do a rewatch. hmmm

Favorite line:ah man, i dont actually remember any but im sure its something gay

OTP: Light x a therapist

Favorite outfit: doesnt he only have one? that ugly ass tan suit or some variation of? lol

Brotp: light & ryuuk i loved their dynamic

Head Canon: none, i was never super invested enough in death note to have head canons

Unpopular opinion: none that i can think of, tho its probably somthing about misa lol

A wish: none

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: honestly the live action netflix adaptation already exists so like it cant get any worse

5 words to best describe them: someone id never wanna date

My nickname for them: bitch boy

Shaoran Li

Why I like them: omfg i LOVE shaoran cause hes just such a good boy? he tries so hard and he cares so much and he just wants to protect the world and its adorable

Why I don’t: theres genuinely nothing i dont like about Li

Favorite season/movie: while im loving blushy sweet shy Li in the new clear clard arc, i have a soft spot for angry sassy Li who was competing against sakura in season 1

Favorite episode (scene if movie): the episode with the tree and the time card

Favorite line: i dont think i have one

OTP: i mean is this even a question? sakura all the way

Favorite outfit: i lovelovelove his green fighting robes

Brotp: him and tomoyo being #Teamsakura all day every day together is the best thing

Head Canon: none really

Unpopular opinion: what even is an unpopular cardcaptor sakura opinion??

A wish: clear card anime s2 where are u????

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: i dunno, this series never betrays me so i dont have many fears

5 words to best describe them: strong brave and loyal boy

My nickname for them: i like to call him Li tho thats not rly a nickname

Haruka Tennoh

Why I like them: oh man. i was in. fucking. love. with Haruka as a young tiny queer. i love everything about her

Why I don’t: there is nothing not to love

Favorite season/movie: their original appearance arc is my fav so S

Favorite episode (scene if movie): the one in crystal where she kisses Usagi

Favorite line: i mean the obvious one is “does it really matter if im a man or a woman” because enby rights but also i fucking love every bit of sass ridden dialog between her and Seiya

OTP: Uranus and Neptune are soulmates and thats that on that

Favorite outfit: oh man she had so many Iconic Looks but im gonna have to give it to her racing gear.

Brotp: I love her and Mars as brotp’s dont ask me to explain it lol

Head Canon: nothing like substatial or series just stupid/crack personality ones

Unpopular opinion: none i dont think? again i dont even know if ive ever really heard an “unpopular opinion” for her

A wish: more crystal before im 90 pls

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: i mean once again the dub and the cousins sitation already exists so ive lived my nightmare. because framing them as incestuous cousins is somehow better than letting them be gay

5 words to best describe them: a gay enby queen

My nickname for them: my wife

#jack.speaks #thank u so much for these im sorry tumblr is fkn dumb

4 notes · View notes

jinniesmeow · 5 years

Text

good evening. this is a very long rant. if you’ve been tagged in this, it means I have a message for you :’) it’s at the bottom of the post, and that’s the most important part, so dear mutuals, feel free to just go read that part and don’t feel forced to read all that bullcrap I've written. thank you if you do, thank you if you don’t.

if we’re not mutuals and you’re reading this, well I guess thank you because this is hella long and cliché af. I'm sorry to everyone for this. though it kinda has nothing to do with what I'm saying, I was feeling particularly gay tonight and I'm in my feelings right now so yeah. if you’re willing to read, just click, you know how that works.

first of all, hello. thank you if you’re reading this, whether we’re mutuals or not, this isn’t a private post so if you’re reading this, hello to you, I hope you’re having a wonderful night or day and I guess sorry for what you’re about to read if it’s considered TMI. I don’t know everyone on here so I'll start with the basics. I’m zia, aka users jinniesmeow, yunholy, hwangitzy and very recently yuzukhei. I'm (almost) 19, and in case you didn’t know, I'm French. and Italian, fortunately or not, idk. 100% European and white anyway, and my ancestors were all 100% racist and homophobic (I mean Poland and Italy? come on.). My sister, who’s turning 23 this year (she’s not on Tumblr), and myself are the first generation in my family to be queer on whichever side of it it is you’re looking at.

Indeed, (if you didn’t know somehow, now you do) both her and I are pansexual. thankfully, our mom is far from being homophobic and racist and she’s a very open minded person, like really. neither of us have ever had a coming out, and none of us plan on doing it. I totally understand the necessity for some people to come out to their relatives and all that, but here’s why I personally refuse to do it: I don’t get why I have to tell people I'm not straight. I think it only fuels the fact that being straight is seen as the norm, because do straight people ever announce they are straight? exactly. being queer (gay, lesbian, pan, ace, whatever) is not abnormal, it’s not unnatural, so I refuse to have to scream it to everyone, and I don’t mean by that that I'm trying to hide my queerness, because I'm very open and honest about it, and I always have been. I hope one day, we won’t need to come out anymore and that people will stop assuming our sexuality. until then, I'll let people get flustered whenever I imply that I'm not straight without having ever stated it clearly before because fuck that shit.

anygays. so, like I said, I've always been very open and honest about my romantic and sexual orientation. I know lots of bi/pan people “realise” they are queer when they’re a bit older, during their teenage years or early adulthood, but (un)fortunately I am not one of those. I have literally always known I liked girls too (in the first place, I mean). actually, I’ve always thought attraction and romance were about the person, like, I mean it was an evidence to me ever since I was a child, and how can I explain that I got slapped in the face when I discovered that it was not a universal thing, that it was not “the truth”. so there I was, in the middle of elementary school, openly saying I liked girls in front of everyone because I thought it was normal. I mean, it is, but you get what I mean.

on top of that, the term “pansexual” has been occulted and invalidated for years, and most people didn’t even know of it until like maybe 3 years ago. remember, I'm 19, and there I was in middle school at 13 years old telling people I was pansexual when they’d barely even heard of bisexuality (while everyone else was like ‘I'm straight!! ew the gays’ btw). honestly, I cannot count how many times I've been called a pedophile, a necrophile and zoophile. by my very own friends, yes.

same with high school, but I'm not going to repeat myself. just for the precision: no, I have never been physically or mentally bullied for that, however, I was mocked a lot because of how tall I am (I was 1m73/5′7 at 14) and because I can be quite androgynous since I don’t have big boobs. I have large hips though, so those fucking males didn’t miss the chance to pick on me for that too. obviously though if I've never been full on bullied it’s because: 1. I've always had friends and I've never been a ‘loner nerd’, 2. I was tall and intimidating, 3. I was respected for my intelligence and grades and wasn’t being full of myself about being a top student, and 4. because I was neither fat nor a person of colour, obviously, and those are privileges I'm very aware of. I have still been called a ‘woman with a dick’ and other transphobic shit and was often treated as if I were a boy, though.

I still identify as a girl. I have been so, so complexed about so many things about my physical appearance for so long, I can’t count how many hours I have spent looking at my naked reflection in the mirror, feeling disgusted, wishing I had bigger boobs and that I would “look more like a girl” and so on. how much I have hated my body is something I can’t even measure. as of today, I've realised there is no such thing as “looking like a girl” and I've made a lot of progress on liking my overall appearance and accepting my body, sometimes I even think I'm hot™ and definitely think men don’t deserve me but for some fucking reason I can’t choose my sexuality (crazy right) and I still am attracted both romantically and sexually to them :/

anyways. now you know how long I've known that I'm a pansexual and throughout all these years, every time someone talked about the community or when pride came, no one mentioned us pansexuals, and I've seen us being invalidated so many times I really started doubting myself. I was like, “it’s like being bisexual, I'm just being butthurt and pushing it too far” but at the same time I never stopped calling myself pansexual. to some people, it’s just a preference in the choice of words to say you’re bi or pan, but to me there is a difference, even if it’s the smallest ever, and yes. being bi and being pan are “basically the same thing” and both orientations are very close but that very difference means everything to me. I am attracted to people, romantically and sexually, regardless of their gender. that is exactly it. and it’s very important to me.

I'm sorry if this is a mess, it’s hard to say things in the right order when I have so much to say, but I'm going to go back to what I was saying in the beginning about my family. I talked about my mom. my parents have been separated since I was 6 and haven’t spoken to each other in like 12 years btw. so, as for my dad, I know he wouldn’t care. he’s not homophobic, not racist. he does say homophobic and racist things sometimes, without realising it, like a lot of people do, and that doesn’t make him a homophobe. I know he doesn’t care if I'm gay, and I feel good just knowing that. however, remember, my family is italian. everyone around us is 100% straight (except for my cousins, I'm pretty sure one of them is bi-curious and the other is ace, but they aren’t open about this at all and have probably never questioned their sexuality lmao) and then there are my sister and I in the middle of it, and we’re like “yup, we’re the gay cousins”. the italian side of my family is huge. like really, my father has a total of 24 cousins (and I don’t mean the little ones and all that, I mean first degree cousins), so imagine how many of us there are in total when you’re counting everyone’s kids, spouses, grandkids and great-grandkids (you read that well, some of his cousins are old, some are even deceased). and they’re italian. and 100% into their religious set of mind that has them believe their god forbids being gay and that we’ll burn in hell. whatever, would’ve been going there anyway, gay or not so it’s not like I care, all the more reasons to be a fag.

and yes I have proof they are racist and homophobic, I've heard the things they’ve said. so, I, whomst has had depression for basically all her life and also has every existing form of anxiety there is, don’t exactly feel comfortable around these people. and on top of being gay, I listen to “Ching Chong music”!!! how do I have to put into words that I know exactly what they think of me? I even have blue hair now so like, blending in even less than before. so yeah.

to add on to that feeling of worthlessness, when I entered high school, I was still a top student without doing any type of work whatsoever, but then depression got the best of me (like for real this time how am I even still alive tbh) and I fell so hard I could barely stand going to school anymore. my last two years of high school (it lasts 3 years in France) have been disastrous. I barely attended and could barely manage keeping my grades above average, because I had zeros on 99% of my homework since I never did it. still had good enough grades on tests though, and it saved my ass.

honestly, I don’t even want to talk about these years and how I was feeling, because it’s still too fresh for me and I'm stil trying (yes, trying) to heal from it. I can say without a doubt that they were some of the worst years of my life though. however final exams came and my ass managed to get a really good grade without revising anything, this way I could send a big, huge, fuck off to my teachers who had been shitting in my face for years and making me feel like the hugest shit on earth. I hope they choke on their jealousy. then I went to uni for about three months, where I majored in English, but eventually decided to stop because I couldn’t go a day without having a panic attack on the train, because I still couldn’t get my ass to do any work, because I was bored out of my mind and just when I had started feeling better after leaving high school I was sinking further down. I spent months staying home without seeing anyone but my mom and doing nothing but watching Netflix (the French catalogue isn’t as interesting as the American one btw). then, I finally found the guts to go see a therapist. not gonna say it was a mistake, but I'm glad I stopped because this bitch was just here to take my money. I took antidepressants for a few months, and I have stopped really recently, actually. in all honesty, I have gotten much better, thanks to my own doing, I've worked so hard on getting better and I'm proud of how far I've come.

today, I can finally say for the first time ever in my life that I am proud of who I am.

the whole point of saying all of this shit you have (maybe) read is not because I want people to give attention to me or anything like, I don’t want pity or anything and truly don’t think there are any reasons for people to feel any pity towards me. I'm saying this because I want to thank the people around me for just existing, for supporting me, for making me feel validated. because you might not realise it, but (a lot of) you are often talking about your problems, and it makes me realise that I'm not the only one feeling this kind of way. it makes me realise there are people who might understand me, even just a little. and when I see you talking about your sexual/romantic orientation (or lack of so) it also makes me feel accepted. I see you guys reblog such validating things, and then some of you even have pride flags in your layouts, and you have no idea how my heart feels about it. if you weren’t aware, I'm a twitter person. I've spent so much time on there, I have met lots of people, lots of which are part of the community and openly supporting it, and yet I have never felt more validated than since I've been on here.

I've also met the people I consider “the most” as my internet best friends on here, like my best best internet friends, if that makes sense lmao, and not actually on twitter (although I might be pushing it because I have actually gone from IVL to IRL with most of them so like... whatever.) point is: I have met amazing friends I'm so thankful for on here. and all the people I see in my dash, to all of you, thanks for everything too even if we don’t really talk and if we haven’t had actual discussions before. now if you want to, you can always come to me to talk about whatever the fuck you want.

so, here, I want to thank all of you, because today I'm finally starting to think maybe, just maybe, that I want to keep on living and that good things might happen to me. I have no plans for the future, since I never imagined myself getting this far in life, but I'm still willing to give it a try.

please, if after you’re reading this, you’re thinking about telling me cliché things about staying strong and all that, I'm going to ask you not to do it. it just feels like pity to me. or choose your words wisely, I'm begging you, because I can’t stand thinking anyone would pity me. please don’t feel like that, that’s not the point of this.

I'm doing this as a thank you, and as a message to everyone out there who’s read this. I hope my words mean something to you. maybe help you? it’s ok to be confused about who you are. it’s ok not to like yourself, it takes so much work to get better and all that, but just know that you can do it, it is possible to do it. it takes time, it will hurt, but it’s an option. it’s not impossible.

now. I have some people I want to send a quick message to. I guess some of you will be surprised, but just read what I have to say please, and know that from the bottom of my heart, I mean it.

@hwangwhatjin Emily. I don’t even know where to start, and soon I won’t even be able to see what I'm typing anymore because the tears I've been fighting while writing all this crap have started flowing all of a sudden the second I typed your name. you’re the first friend I made on here. we started off nothing, and I was a no one, and yet you still talked to me and all that. you’re honestly one of the most tolerant and kind people I have ever met in my life. you’re the exact opposite of prejudiced, you’re so open minded, so not giving a shit about other people’s quirks (I mean it in the right way) that don’t concern you directly, like people are who they are and you don’t give a damn about it, it’s amazing. I know this doesn’t sound like a compliment, but I can’t find the right way to put this. you’ve also always been there to listen to me whenever I wanted you to, and you have never judged me once. you have no idea how thankful I am for having you in my life. I wouldn’t want to have anyone else hold the title of bro. I love you so, so much, and I'm sorry we haven’t been talking lately. I hope I can help you just like you’ve helped me and support you as much as you need me to in the future, and I want you to know I'll always be there for you, I'll never let you down. you have no idea how much I can’t wait to meet you so I can wrap you in a blanket and give you hot chocolate while I light up a gingerbread scented candle (yes, I remember) and put on some blink-182 and stroke your hair because it’s what you deserve. you’re one of my best friends, like ever, and it’s such a pain we’re so far from each other, fuck this damn channel. one day I'll just swim to you to hear your wonderful accent you say you hate so much. anything to see you. I'm sorry I'm so old, I wish it were less of a problem, but as you grow up this gap will be less and less of an obstacle, so let’s just be patient, yeah? I love you, bro. roach bros to the end of the line.

@pikachulein Laura. ok. where do I start and how do I stop my eyes from sweating so much. you know, I'm just gonna say it. in my opinion, soulmates aren’t the people we’re especially meant to be with in a romantic way, and we might even have several of them. I just think they’re people who just bring you so much, and people who are like another version of you, but different. kind of like I described in my Felix au, actually. when I call you my soulmate, I really mean it, because I'd never thought I'd meet someone who understands me so well because they relate so much, someone who basically shares the same mind because hell, when have we ever had different thoughts on something like... it will never cease to amaze me. it’s only been a few months since we’ve known each other, but I actually think you’re one of my closest friends. hell, on the day we meet, because I'm not taking no for an answer, I don’t even know how I'll be holding up like, I won’t know how to act. so in advance, I'm sorry if I'm so weird at first. you’ve listened to the story of my whole life and you’ve shared your experience back, and you have no idea how thankful I am for that. maybe you haven’t realised, but you’ve been of a huge help to me. thank you for being so understanding, for not judging me, for being so open about everything with me, thank god I have someone with whom I can talk about literally any subject without it feeling uncomfortable or like i’m being judged. I have so many things to say I can’t even find the words, honestly. I’m just so thankful that you exist and that I have you in my life, and that you actually like me as a person too. thanks so much. you’re my best bitch, together we’re the baddest bitches of the pan squad and I can’t wait to travel across Europe with you for real. the world ain’t ready for us.

@hanniesunshine Isabel. you’re just the biggest ray of sunshine ever. everything about you is so pure I'm even scared to be one of the people you talk to because I feel like you don’t deserve to talk to me (I mean like you deserve much better than me) and that I'm way too filthy for you. you’re always so good and kind to me, so, so supportive, and I can’t even thank you enough for that. honestly, every time I see you somewhere, kakaotalk, WhatsApp, Tumblr, I just can’t help but smile because you’re the purest and brightest being the earth has ever seen and I can’t believe you would actually want to talk to someone like me. I'm so sorry for everything. I'm so sorry for being such a cold bitch (and for using this word) sometimes, and for almost never finding the right words. thanks for always being so eager about reading my content. I'll keep supporting you, and I'll do better in everything!! I love you, so, so much. I'll always be there for you if you need me or want me.

@sleepyracha Marie. I'm so, so sorry I'm so inconsistent and that I don’t talk to you as much as I used to, I hope we’re still okay. I just want to thank you for being the open minded person you’ve shown me you are and for supporting me all the time, and for very interesting conversations about literally anything. I promise I'm learning Spanish and that soon we’ll be able to talk together in another language than English. I hope you’re doing well and that you know I'm always there for you, and if Tumblr isn��t the best place for you, tell me where you want me to be for you. congrats on passing this year, you’re someone amazing and you’re so chill, it feels so good to see someone like that. thank you for even talking to me in the first place, thank you so much and I love you.

@lesbianbias Nina. you’re such a soft and pure person, I'm so glad you were my skz anon and that I got to meet a wonderful person like you. you’re always showering me with love, and I always feel like I don’t deserve it. thanks so much for all the support, please, please never change. I love you and you’re amazing. thank you for being so chill as well. I'll make sure I'll return that love to you.

@xiaocity siya. thank you so much for listening to me, you know what I'm referring to. I know you’re one of those who really deeply understands me and I'm thankful we got to talk, even just a bit. I'm always there if you need me, thank you for supporting me and my works, and be more confident in your writing, it’s good!! I think we actually have a lot in common too, so if you ever feel like talking, feel free to drop by in my dms.

@littlefallenrebel Sophie. we haven’t talked that much, but I feel like we should talk more. we have a lot more in common than we think, I'm sure of it. thank you for being you, thank you for the messages you’ve been spreading with your posts and reblogs. you’re an amazing person and I'm happy you’re my mutual because you’re a truly good person.

@visualgiggles sam. thank you for your reblogs, whatever they’re about they never fail to cheer me up, whether they’re about tolerance or just memes, even the latter help me regain faith in humanity. we haven’t talked that much but I would gladly talk some more with you if you ever wanted to. you’re a wonderful person and I'm thankful you’re my mutual.

@dreamypansexual I don’t think we’ve ever talked, I'm not even sure I know your name so I don’t want to say something wrong. but that doesn’t matter, because you’re still one of the people who make me feel the most validated here. hell, you literally have a pan flag as your layout (your user... I mean yeah). your posts are always making me feel so much better because it proves me that there are still such tolerant and open people out there, so thank you.

@cloudyyboii honestly, I think it’s kind of the same as with your friend right above between me and you. it doesn’t matter though, thanks for the validation and the tolerance you’re spreading around. love you.

@jxsng Kylie. I don’t think we’ve ever had a private conversation, but whatever. you’ve shown me lots of supports in every other way and you’re such a sweet and open person, I'm thankful you’re my mutual. I feel small next to people like you because I feel like you hold the whole world in your hands, you’re one of those meant to go places and it shows. I'll always support you too. thank you for everything and I love you.

@ggukksrose shims. you’re definitely one of the people who make me feel validated the most, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I always see you sticking up for others and telling the haters to go fuck off, and you even did that with me. you’re an amazing person, and I admire you for the confidence you’ve managed to achieve and I wish you the best in the future, I hope you’ll only get better and better with your fights and if anyone ever messes with you I'll be throwing hands. just say the word. I love you.

@cypher-yngi Emerson, am I wrong? we’ve never talked though we’ve been mutuals for so long. from what I've seen, we have a lot in common and I'd be more than ok to have even a simple conversation with you, even if you said Orangina was good. you’re also one of those who have helped me feel valid and realise I'm not alone in this world, so if you’re ever feeling alone, and if you want to, let’s be alone together, maybe? gotta love FOB. also, you have amazing music taste. and you're a fellow yoongi stan, and that itself says a lot about the kind of person you are. thanks for existing and I love you.

@wonwonbebe ah... have you ever told me what your name was? I have terrible memory. doesn’t really matter. I love you, I'm so thankful that you were my anon and can’t believe you actually went through all that just to talk to me. you have no idea how thankful I am. you’re a wonderful person, and I'm so, so happy to see that my mutuals are all so amazing and tolerant. thanks for all the positivity.

@psycho-robin-chan robin, right? we’ve talked a bit before. if you read what’s above, you’ll probably find some parts a bit familiar, haha. I actually loved this conversation with you, if that makes sense? it’s always interesting and it feels good to let it out. I also like seeing I'm not alone, and I like to think that when I speak about such things with people I might also be helping them feel better. so thanks, you also make me feel valid with your posts and reblogs, and you’re such a tolerant and open and chill person at such a young age. never change anything! thanks for being here and supporting me.

@mirohell sage! we haven’t been mutuals for long, and I'm not expecting you to read everything I've written, it’s ok if you don’t, really. I just wanted to thank you real quick because you’re already showing me lots of support and I feel like we’ll be getting along well. if you want to read this, I'm sorry for putting so much on your shoulders so quick lmao, you’ll basically be knowing so much about me without having asked for anything. feel free not to read it, I'm repeating myself again but really, the actual important part of this post is this one where I thank you all individually. so thank you!! I'll do my best in supporting you in the future as well, and not only by showing your edits some love haha

@theminho min! we haven’t been mutuals for long either, but thank you for caring about me. thanks for even just following me. thanks for this message you’ve sent, it means a lot really. you don’t have to read all that I've written above either,, don’t feel pressured, I just wanted to thank you personally too for just being here and for the support. feel free to come talk to me whenever you want (if you ever want) and I'll be supporting you always!!

@justlovingkpop my sweetheart, you’re just too cute and so supportive and loving. thank you so, so much for everything and for coming to talk to me!! I'll go reread some of your work soon to because I've missed it. thanks for existing, and know that I'm always there for you. love you lots.

@strawb-milk-tea my babyyyy I'm going to repeat it but thank you and I love you and you’re so cute and you’re NOT a potato ok, you’re so, so pretty like I knew I was gay but phew... I feel valid too when I see you. long live the gays.

@five-pence hey there! it’s been a while. hope you’re doing well. thank you for supporting me, thank you for making me feel valid as well, and I love you very much. I'm here whenever.

@jooheonenthusiast yo. we’ve basically only talked bc of that one post I made, and it’s been enough to show me that you’re an amazing person and a bad bitch. thanks for your support and fuck the homophobes. I love you.

@marriael adellum. you’re a really kind person. you’re so pure. and you make me me feel very much valid, love your profile pics from the last days by the way. thanks for existing and I'm glad you’ve joined us on the network, it’s a pleasure to have someone like you around. hope I'm not too much of a pain in the ass.

@channiiebby gryphon. we’ve never talked privately, but you’re a sweetheart. thanks for being you. you’re valid and you know it, and that makes me feel valid too, so thanks for showing me it’s okay to be who you are. I love you.

that’s it. I'm out of words. I've been at this for like 2 hours now. if I think of anyone else, I'll just reblog and add them. but right now I feel totally empty because of all the emotion hive poured into all this and I need to recharge, so good night and I love you all. thank you for your time and attention.

happy pride month everyone,

your friendly neighbourhood pansexual, zia.

#on this note #good night everyone #I love y'all #rants #personal #<33 #sorry for bothering you all with this

36 notes · View notes

tellthemhowihope · 5 years

Note

1, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, and 50!

Thanks for the ask! (Sorry for the long response ahaha I hope I don’t bore you!)

ask game!

(1) There were definitely some ups (getting into college!) and downs (Wayward Sisters not getting picked up, the entire existence of the Cheeto in Chief), but a lot of things worked out so much better than I ever could have hoped for. I made some great friends and saw some amazing places. All in all, a pretty great year!

(6) I traveled a TON this year, and it was amazing. In order so I don’t forget anything:

- New York (college visits)

- Pennsylvania (college visits)

- Massachusetts (college visits)

- Massachusetts again (my family friend’s graduation)

- Iceland (vacation with my best friend @poorlybakedcake and her family!)

- Massachusetts again (more college visits)

- New Jersey (a wedding!)

- Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Ireland (vacation with my family!)

- Massachusetts AGAIN (college interviews)

- New York again (college interview)

- Florida (vacation with my whole extended family - including one of my favorite humans @dishasterzone!)

I think that was everything! Wow, that was a lot...

(10) Oh, wow... there were so many! “Brave” by Zayde Wølf and “Whatever it Takes” by Imagine Dragons are definitely up there, though.

(11) Origins by Imagine Dragons!

(12) I didn’t get to watch a ton of movies this year even though there were so many great ones that I wanted to see, but of the ones I saw, here are my top 5 (in no particular order)!

- Black Panther

- Love, Simon

- Avengers: Infinity War

- To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I know there was one more I wanted to add to this list but I’M BLANKING RIGHT NOW

(14) These aren’t necessarily new, but I only discovered them this year: Brooklyn 99 and Queer Eye!

(17) Well, I decided where I was gonna go to college! I also decided to use social media, so there’s that. (Those aren’t technically permanent, but whatever.)

(18) I’d like to think I was a good friend? Just, like... in general? I don’t know....

I consulted my friends because I felt like a bad person but also science brain reminded me that depression makes you forget things sometimes.

Here are some nice things they reminded me of doing:

- I helped my cousin with his project at school on environmental policy by giving him advice on source to research.

- I made sure my family didn’t drown because they all decided to go to a swim resort but none of them can actually swim.

- I edited/helped with college essays?

- I helped people study and tutored a lot.

- I tried to help people who were having a hard time.

- I bought my friends’ a lot of donuts.

(19) I tried really hard to give myself something to look forward to at all times. I also fixed my relationship with someone I really missed having in my life.

(20) I get obsessed with stuff really easily, so I actually tried to be healthier about that this year. Still, some stuff slipped through the cracks and I am now obsessed with Brooklyn 99, John Mulaney, Hasan Minhaj, and Alana King.

(27) I’m gonna interpret this differently than I think it was meant to be, but I think I scared myself in a lot of ways because I did a lot of things that made me realize that I’m not nearly as good a person as I thought I was and I have a lot work to do to be better.

I also yelled at a self-proclaimed Nazi, which was scary, but he deserved it.

(38) The best moments of the year were when I got into my college (though it really still hasn’t sunk in), when people said they liked my art during Inktober, every time Cas was amazing, and every time Jared Padalecki smiled.

(39) The worst moments were when I was fighting with one of my best friends and I didn’t know how to fix it, when the Cheeto in Chief was a complete and utter dick, and that stupid squirrel fight in 13x23 between Michael and Lucifer.

[squirrel fight not pictured to protect you all from rehashing that trauma]

(42) I GOT INTO COLLEGE! Also, a project I worked on in the summer of 2017 was implemented at the beginning of 2018. I think it had a lot of potential to help some people, and it inspired my own research later in the year to continue solving fundamental problems in the American healthcare system. That was pretty cool.

(43) I am so, so, so v e r y bi... and I somehow didn’t know it until this year.

(44) I realized how lucky I am to have some of the teachers that I didn’t like all that much before.

(50) in 2019, I hope I learn to be a better person, but I also hope I become a little more comfortable with myself. (Also, I really, really hope I meet Jared Padalecki.)

Happy New Year, anon! 💜

#ask game #personal #anon #2019

5 notes · View notes

brianwilly · 6 years

Text

I'd like to talk about Call Me By Your Name for bit.

If you're not aware -- and I gotta say I'm kinda envious if you're not -- there's been a wee bit of discourse surrounding this film. Not an overwhelming amount, and even then thankfully very little of which has reached mine dashboards, obviously because everyone I follow is such a boss! or whatever

But it’s still there, and because I’m such a nosy prick who lives in tags, I’ve had the opportunity to glean a lot of the dispute on both ends. And so, I’d like to talk about it, this thing that...by essence is going to be very controversial to try to talk about. Especially on here, this site so known for being so very, ah, passionate and implacable about the issues it has taken to heart, mostly for the good, sometimes less so.

Specifically, for anyone still unaware, the issue is that the film’s story is about a romance between a seventeen year-old boy and a twenty-four year-old grad student who visits his house for the summer.

And the first thing I'd say, which is what most people would also probably say first, is to please watch the film (or read the book) before forming any strong proclamations about it one way or another. And try not to watch it with a...miserly eye, being on the constant alert for any ammo you can use to fuel whatever blog post you're gonna write after the fact. I've done this myself before, and it's an inept, feeble method of critique; confirmation bias is a thing that exists, and if you're going in with the sole intent of finding every bit of toxicity and harmfulness you can in this storyline, then that's truly all you'll end up finding. Instead, try to watch it for the simple fact of watching a story unfold, of wanting to know what happens, of allowing yourself to experience what these filmmakers and actors are trying to convey. After which, if you still dislike what you've seen? At least you'll be better able to articulate why without having to rely solely on sound and fury. And then you can call the cops on me, ‘cuz they’ll obviously prefer well-reasoned allegations of pedophilia-apologism as opposed to half-baked ones!

The next thing I say is going to be a bit of a...melodramatic diatribe about queer experiences. Bear with, please.

When you're a queer person living in certain situations -- whether you're a child, teenager, or adult -- much of your entire identity is based on the need for repression, for secrecy, for hiding. Every bit of affection, desire, or attachment you have to someone of the same gender, which is something that'll happen near every day of your life, is something else you'll have to learn to smother. Everything about what you're feeling is confusing and yet you don't believe for a second that there is anyone you can trust to share these confusions with or to experience these desires with. This pain of repression and confusion is something that the film version of CMBYN does hint at, but that the original book actually explores in broad, vivid detail, some of which I'm going to quote mostly verbatim for just how truthfully it paints these anxieties.

"What never crossed my mind was [...] that someone else in my immediate world might like what I liked, want what I wanted, be who I was. It would never have entered my mind because I was still under the illusion that, barring what I’d read in books, inferred from rumors, and overheard in bawdy talk all over, no one my age had ever wanted to be both man and woman— with men and women. I had wanted other men my age before and had slept with women. But before he’d stepped out of the cab and walked into our home, it would never have seemed remotely possible that someone so thoroughly okay with himself might want me to share his body as much as I ached to yield up mine." *** "Perhaps the very least I wanted was for him to tell me that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was no less human than any other young man my age. I would have been satisfied and asked for nothing else than if he’d bent down and picked up the dignity I could so effortlessly have thrown at his feet." *** "They worried for me. I knew they were right to worry. I just hoped they’d never know how far things stood beyond their ordinary worries now. I knew they didn’t suspect a thing, and it bothered me— though I wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. It told me that if I were no longer transparent and could disguise so much of my life, then I was finally safe from them, and from him— but at what price, and did I want to be so safe from anyone?

There was no one to speak to. Whom could I tell? Mafalda? She’d leave the house. My aunt? She’d probably tell everyone. Marzia, Chiara, my friends? They’d desert me in a second. My cousins when they came? Never. My father held the most liberal views— but on this? Who else? Write to one of my teachers? See a doctor? Say I needed a shrink? Tell Oliver?

Tell Oliver. There is no one else to tell, Oliver, so I’m afraid it’s going to have to be you…" *** "[...] another part of me knew that if he showed up tonight and I disliked the start of whatever was in store for me, I’d still go through with it, go with it all the way, because better to find out once and for all than to spend the rest of the summer, or my life perhaps, arguing with my body."

Now, I'm not saying this stuff to grind for sympathy points or to be needlessly depressing, and I should probably sidebar here to make it clear that, in spite of the quoted passages above, neither the film or the book are as remotely fixated on these sorts of oppressive life experiences as it might seem; quite the opposite, in many ways. But I'm still saying this stuff to contextualize a lot of peoples' mindsets and experiences going into a story like this, and of the social foundations from which this story was conceived. Because the fact remains that when you're a queer person living in certain situations, this repression and confusion is your reality as you know it.

And this sort of reality...a disease, really...is something that will eat away at you day after day, week after week, month after month after year. This is the sort of toxicity that can actually scar someone's identity, if not ruin them outright. And as for romance? It's not even just a matter of your options being limited, it's as drastic as you never being able to show your affections, and no one will ever return those affections even if you show it, and you'll probably never be able to tell anyone any of this. It's not simply a matter of not having someone in town that you can get your rocks off with, it is a matter of having to hide so many important parts of yourself, a matter of feeling so alone in many of the ways that matter most. And none of that is even going into the shame you feel in yourself, in your own body, for just being wrong somehow.

Queer Tumblr is such a place of liberation and celebration for the most part, and that's a good thing, but I feel like it's easy to forget that this liberation and celebration comes about specifically as a shelter against the repression and shame out there in our real lifetimes. And I feel like we can be so fiercely, indiscriminately protective of our younger generations -- precisely because there is so much genuine danger out there to have to protect them from -- that we might miss the danger in seeing only danger and scandal and malice where there might instead be something important and cathartic and affirming in this story for anyone -- queer or straight, young or old -- to experience.

Bluntly: I'm not saying that seventeen year-olds should be pursuing twenty-four year-olds, and certainly not vice-versa. But given all that above, is it really so difficult to imagine why many viewers might not be so quick to disapprove of the relationship depicted in CMBYN? Is it so hard to imagine why it is not so vile or perverse for a seventeen year-old to have someone who understands his loneliness and alienation to assuage those vicious anxieties? That this seventeen year-old deserves the chance to explore and express his identity with someone in a caring, compassionate manner? That any sort of inherent harm that a difference of seven years might potentially do them might indeed be more than balanced out by the virtues of getting to experience the sort of love and companionship that only comes from total honesty and understanding between partners...something that they as queer people in their situation might have never thought possible. That the freedom to love and be loved in this safety of this validation is a gift and not an onus. That the appeal of this story is not about how cool or sexy it is for seventeen year-olds to be sleeping with twenty-four year-olds, but about how both of these boys -- and by inference every boy like them, every girl like them -- deserve the chance to not be repressed, to not be shamed.

And if I may be a bit of an asshole for a second. I look at the culture of Tumblr and I am persistently inundated with favored pairings that are born out of animosity, out of antagonism and toxicity if not outright violence. I have seen so many instances of fictional characters wholesale harming other characters both physically and verbally and having those things be called romantic by scores of thousands of likes and reblogs. Look up maybe any fandom in the search bar and chances are good that some of the most popular pairings are gonna be the ones most shrouded in dysfunctionality. Heck...even the ones that are ostensibly "the good examples" of healthy functional vanilla romances tend to be constantly punctuated by stretches of jealousy or dishonesty or manipulativeness or other such sorts of crass relationship issues in order to drive drama. So many creators' ideas of what make a fictional relationship appealing -- or even a non-fictional one -- often feel like trying to air all the dirtiest laundry you can find in that household and calling that romance. And let's not even venture for now into the dark boiling abyss that is the queerbaiting issue.

Now...'nother sidebar...I'm not saying that the romance of CMBYN is a perfect one; there are certainly issues of insecurities and miscommunications that afflict this relationship as well, and all that these sorts of things entail. I also don't wanna blow this whole film out of the water like it's some sort of immaculate remedy to all the ills of film and literature and the evils of the world or whatever, which is just gonna lead to disappointment if you do watch it. I definitely do not want to undermine anyone’s legitimate concerns over the issues inherent in age-gap relationships. Liberation is nice, naiveté is not.

But, again...is it really so difficult to imagine how people can look at this story, borne so thoroughly out of care and validation and respect between two people for whom those things are not readily-available, and be engaged by its content instead of repulsed by it, finding it vastly preferable to what usually passes for steamy pairings nowadays? Is it so unbelievable for people to be engaged by the goodness depicted in Elio and Oliver's courtship with each other, to not throw complaints of harmfulness and toxicity at something so marked by its distinct lack of harm, even with the seven years’ difference between them?

I'm not saying that seventeen year-olds should be pursuing twenty-four year-olds and vice versa.

But man, do I ever wish that more stories ought to be taking more cues from the way that this one does it.

#Call Me By Your Name #CMBYN #André Aciman #Timothée Chalamet #Armie Hammer #Luca Guadagnino #and so on #and so forth #long post #REALLY long post goddamn #Overthinking #LGBT #stuffs and things

169 notes · View notes

shirlleycoyle · 3 years

Text

Meet The Genetic Sleuths Solving Decades-Old Trans Murders

On the blustery morning of November 26, 1983, a beachgoer spotted a still-warm body in Half Moon Bay, California. The victim, who looked about 20 years old, had been stabbed more than 20 times and left in the sands near Pillar Point Bluff. Their wrists were slashed, their face bruised and swollen. (Out of respect for the victim’s unknown gender identity, Motherboard is using they/them as a pronoun.)

At their time of death, the person was presenting as a stylish, slender woman. They were 5-foot-10 inches tall, wearing an auburn pixie cut and casual clothes: yellow capri pants and a turtleneck over a foam-form bra, fishnet hose, and two pairs of feminine underwear. A Madonna-style white metal crucifix hung around their neck.

When taken to a medical examiner, the victim's body was misidentified as male, and nobody ever came to claim it. In an effort to identify the individual, cops dubbed them “John Doe #83-26” and released a crime sketch depicting a man. It failed to convey their gender identity or expression, including that they were likely wearing makeup and going by a woman’s name.

The case of Pillar Point Doe soon went cold and their identity remained a mystery for 35 years—until two genealogy sleuths recently cracked the case. The trans couple, who specialize in cold cases involving trans and gender non-conforming people, found the forgotten victim’s birth name through an online DNA database, reviving the hunt for their killer.

“I would work until I passed out”

Lee and Anthony Redgrave traced Pillar Point Doe’s relatives from Wales to Utah using the family history site GEDmatch, known for its role in finding the notorious Golden State Killer. The search was close to home for the Redgraves, who toiled obsessively for months without pay.

“I would work until I passed out. I’d cry myself to sleep at night, and have dreams where I was woken up thinking that [the victim] was telling me their name,” said Anthony, who along with Lee, ran a small team for the DNA Doe Project, a non-profit that identifies deceased people through forensic genealogy.

Lee added: “There are a lot of factors—and homicide detectives have absolutely no idea how to do this.”

The Redgraves were inspired by personal tragedy to help solve the case. In January 2018, a transgender friend of theirs, Christa Steele-Knudslien—a beauty pageant organizer and trans activist—was beaten and stabbed to death. The attack, which came after another friend’s suicide, sent Lee spiraling into a depression.

“It really tore my brain up,” said Lee, 41, a non-binary night owl with arms full of tattoos. “I got depressed, and when that happens I usually throw myself into a project.”

Anthony and Lee Redgrave

When a true crime-loving friend recommended they volunteer for the DNA Doe Project, it seemed like a good distraction.“Partially, I’m sure, it was her being like, ‘You have to stop being in a funk,’” Lee said. “We both felt really helpless about Christa—and this was something we actually could help with.”

They had plenty of experience with genetic genealogy, but they knew the limits of DNA and family tree matches for transgender victims. Database searches often lead to “dead names”—birth names victims no longer use, and aren’t known by in their communities. And most law enforcement systems don’t allow searches across sex marker categories, blinding them to some gender non-conforming folks.

A “trans-informed” perspective could shed some light, considering trans people are more likely to be the target of violent, unresolved crime. “Being a trans person, I know I’ve been incredibly fortunate not to have had a bunch of horrible things happen to me,” said Anthony, 38, a soft-spoken Civil War buff with a long ginger beard. “That was a driving force.”

When the Redgraves first heard about the Pillar Point Doe case in July 2018, they knew almost immediately it was ripe for a genetic gumshoeing.

An Unlikely Partnership

The victim, who was carrying no identification, had been found only two hours after they were stabbed in the neck and chest, allowing cops to collect a piece of blood-soaked blotter paper known as a “blood card.” This meant Pillar Point Doe’s DNA didn’t have to be extracted from bone, a longer and more expensive process. And yet it would likely show a complete picture of the victim’s entire genetic makeup, one that could be extracted in a lab and uploaded to GEDmatch, they said.

But the couple still had to convince the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office to hand over the blood sample—and to team up with them on the investigation.

The Redgraves had a hunch cops would be willing. Their request came on the heels of the Golden State Killer’s arrest a few counties away, and in a section of northern California that tends to be queer-friendly.

“The thought was it was a good case because it was the Bay Area. We expected there would be more friendly law enforcement and a LBGTQ liaison in the Bay Area,” said Anthony. “We had to give an elevator pitch to the department, like, ‘This is why we want this specific case, and this is how it will benefit you.’”

The cops, it turned out, were game. The Redgraves signed non-disclosure agreements and— in a rare move—police released Pillar Point Doe’s private case files, including the blood card along with crime scene and coroner photos.

The Redgraves agreed to do the genetic sleuthing, then pass off next of kin matches to police, who would talk to relatives, collect DNA samples and handle the investigation from there.

It was an unlikely partnership. Many trans people refuse to work with cops since law enforcement has routinely targeted the community, trans activists and experts said. According to a 2015 survey, at least 57 percent of trans respondents said they would be afraid or uncomfortable going to police for help.

“It comes from being abused or not taken seriously by officers who historically have been disrespectful or dismissive of trans people,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, a policy expert for the National Center for Transgender Equality. “There’s a real stigma. Sometimes just being visibly trans in public is enough to get stopped or harassed by police on suspicion of being a sex worker—whether or not you actually are.”

Cases with trans victims have long been de-prioritized by cops, who assume victims are sex workers, living a “high risk” lifestyle or are “disowned” by their families, Heng-Lehtinen said.

But a lack of trans awareness is bad for police, too. Detectives who are ignorant about the community are more likely to use a transgender person’s dead name because it was printed on a government-issued ID, or to seek outdated information from estranged family members who knew them pre-transition, he said. It keeps those investigators from understanding the whole picture.

“If you’re an officer who’s asking around for Mark Smith and everybody in the neighborhood knows her as Marcia, that’s not helping anybody,” Heng-Lehtinen said.

Lee chalks it up to lack of education and training. “If you look at popular media over the past 20 years, the characters that are dressing opposite of what they’re ‘supposed to be’ are usually trying to trick somebody or get away with something—the end of ‘Ace Ventura’ is a classic example, or ‘The Crying Game,’” Lee said. “You get a lot of that mentality still in law enforcement, just because they haven’t had an alternate education.”

Identifying Doe

The Redgraves quickly got to work on creating a more gender-accurate forensic sketch of Pillar Point Doe. In the 80s and 90s, at least three drawings had been made of them, all wildly different.

One showed a “partially-Asian goth” guy with boxy slicked-back black hair, Lee said. Another depicted a shaggy-haired Val Kilmer look-alike with almond eyes. All were of men, and none were quite right.

“It seemed like [police artists] were trying to make this person look male,” Lee said. “Considering they had natural hair, not a wig, and were wearing pants with multiple layers of hose and underwear, it’s likely that they were tucking to have a more female appearance,” Lee said, citing details about the victim's outfit.

“They were probably attempting to pass as female as opposed to someone who was [a] drag performer or engaging in prostitution while cross-dressing.”

Based on those clues, the male sketch on fliers would have likely been lost on Pillar Point Doe’s queer “chosen family”—or anyone who saw them the night of the murder, the couple said. So using crime scene and coroner photos, the Redgraves and an artist came up with a new sketch that depicts the victim with a more feminine look, a yellow outfit and natural-style makeup.

In March 2019, Pillar Point’s blood card came back from the lab. It showed Pillar Point Doe’s entire genome sequence on a huge hard drive.

From their cozy home office in central Massachusetts, the Redgraves and a small team plugged those chunks of genetic code into GEDmatch, which compares DNA from testing sites like 23andMe and ancestry.com to find possible relatives with similar genetic makeups. Unlike law enforcement’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the site can pinpoint distant ancestors, not just immediate family members.

It works like this: Say you find a painting in a park with no signature and you want to learn the name of the artist. If you could somehow scan the piece’s complex colors and brush strokes into a massive database of art, you might be able to match it to the person who made it. Other paintings by the artist with similar patterns—a distant cousin, in this analogy—may also pop up.

In general, DNA evidence is only as accurate as the people who collect and analyze it. Technicians have been known to misinterpret samples, and police have submitted tainted or mixed genetic material. But Pillar Point’s blood card appeared to be a solid sample, the couple said.

The search led the Redgraves to a small town in Wales, where Pillar Point Doe’s distant relatives once worked at a glove factory. “We kept finding people who descended from this really specific family, but then finding the right branch turned out to be really hard,” Lee said.

Scores of unwed mothers hailed from the town for unknown reasons, leading to frustrating genealogy dead-ends. “It happened over and over again in this one little town,” Lee said.

The couple built a massive family tree and cross-referenced names with public records. They traced that to a group of relatives to a Utah pioneer community with roots in the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “When you work on someone’s genealogy, you get to know them in a really intimate way through their ancestors,” Lee said. “You know you’re getting close when they start looking like who you’re looking for.”

The couple soon discovered Pillar Point’s cousins belonged to an intermarried clan of families. Some men had multiple wives and children, amounting to a genealogy headache. “It’s a problem that’s common in isolated religious communities. The fancy word is endogamy,” Lee said. “You end up with a whole lot of half-relations and unreliable predictions.”

Setbacks

Then a fiasco unfolded. The arrest of the Golden State Killer in 2018 had sparked privacy fears from critics who claimed GEDMatch could be used for nefarious reasons. When a criminal case centering on a minor stirred up more controversy on the site the next year, the owners abruptly purged the “law enforcement matching” section of it in May 2019, according to the Redgraves.

With no warning, it left the couple with only about 20 percent of the genetic clues they’d had before. “Think of it as the number of letters turned around on your ‘Wheel of Fortune’ puzzle. [Afterwards] there were 80 percent less letters, and we still had to guess the phrase,” Lee said.

The setback forced them to get creative. They sought uploads from people who descended from early settlers in Utah, along with the Mormon church, and mapped out “clusters” of potential relatives.

Anthony spent hours tinkering with DNA Painter, a tool that helps genealogists make sense of matches. Eventually, it led to Pillar Point’s possible great grandfather.

During an all-nighter in October 2019, they had a breakthrough. When they got to one of the possible great grandfather’s relatives, they checked records for proof of the person’s life after 1983, and found none. Lee pulled out Pillar Point’s crime scene photo and checked it against a high school yearbook photo of the grandchild.

It all added up: Here was the long-forgotten face of Pillar Point Doe.

They both burst into tears. “There were periods of crying and shaking for a few days afterwards. It was really intense,” Lee said.

The team then sent Pillar Point’s birth name to cops, who collected DNA from a relative to confirm the match, reinvigorating the investigation.

San Mateo County police have since declined to release Pillar Point Doe’s birth name—or to allow the couple to—saying it could hurt their hunt for the killer. “This homicide is actively being investigated. Unfortunately, disclosing information about the details may hinder our investigation,” Sergeant William Young, from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, told Motherboard.

Cold Case, Close To Home

Now, the Redgraves want more answers. “Ideally, police will find the perpetrator,” Lee said. “[Cops] definitely want to tell us something but they can’t. It makes us feel hopeful.”

Not long ago, Lee got a tattoo of poppies in Pillar Point Doe’s honor. It was inspired by the California flower bloom that could be seen from space in March 2019, the week the couple began searching for the victim's identity. “I am absolutely forever changed from working on this case,” Lee said.

Ultimately, the Redgraves hope Pillar Point Doe will be remembered for who they were—a complex and loved person, not a forgotten John Doe. “Hopefully someone who loved them will carry on their memory,” Lee said.

The couple now runs the Trans Doe Task Force, a research group that helps police and medical examiners with transgender and gender-expansive cold cases. Recently, they launched a database that allows for DNA comparisons across sex marker categories. They also founded their own firm, Redgrave Research Forensic Services, and Anthony has helped train law enforcement departments on five continents.

These days, the couple has a small framed high school photo of Pillar Point Doe in their home, near portraits of other people from cases close to their hearts.

“Pillar Point has become part of our family. I feel like we are basically like their foster parents,” Anthony said. “I’m going to feel that way until I know exactly how this case ends.”

Meet The Genetic Sleuths Solving Decades-Old Trans Murders syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

1 note · View note

lostinamazon · 7 years

Link

You can't say you hadn't see that coming. You're not surprised. You saw the signs maybe even before Kara did. Hell, even before Maggie and that's saying something. She's your little sister, after all. Your best best friend, your family, your hero. You know Kara like the back of your hand, she always wore her heart on her sleeve, her emotions easily readable through her facial expressions and body language. And she can't hide the fact that she's completely in love with Lena Luthor. Not anymore. But of course, you already knew that. . "Clark's in National City!" You look up just in time to see Kara sliding inside your lab, her red cape flowing graciously behind her and you try to stifle a laugh when you notice she's trying her best to not start jumping up and down in excitement. "Yeah, I know, I just saw him outside remember?" You respond with a light chuckle. "And I still think he s-" "Stop talking about my cousin's smell!" Kara quickly cuts you. "He asked me to help him, can you believe that? I'll visit Lena Luthor with him later to see if she had anything to do with the Venture explosion." You frown at that because... well, you don't exactly trust the Luthors. You were there when Lex tried to kill Superman for the last time almost three years ago with the blade made of kryptonite, his war suit making him almost as strong as Clark. Fortunately, the DEO was there and they managed to get him in jail for the rest of his miserable life. But still, your sister was Supergirl and there was a Luthor in the city. Of course you were worried. "Just be careful, okay?" Kara smiled and kissed your cheek. "Always." Then she walked out. Later that evening she texted you saying that apparently Lena was clear, and she had a feeling the young woman was really just looking for a fresh start for herself and her company. Plus, she was really pretty. Agent Danvers [18:46]: And how does that make her innocent? Lil' Sis [18:47]: It doesn't! It was just a comment, Rao... You only roll your eyes at your sister. . Lena Luthor shot Corben to save your life. So not a villain. Maybe. Kara decided to become a reporter and you're very happy for your sister, because you know she can't be a superhero 24/7, and the whole gang celebrates her first article about the Luthor alien detection device with a special Game Night. "She talked about Lex today." Kara says after you both start to clean her kitchen. "What?" You raise your eyebrow at Kara from your spot at the sink. "Lena. I went to visit her at her office." You see the way she bites her bottom lip nervously, as if waiting for you to yell at her for going there, but when you don't, she keeps saying, "She was adopted too. She said Lex was such a good brother and now... she looks so lonely." You don't say anything because you don't now what to say. Kara has always taken people's burdens as her own, but this time you realize it hits very close to home. Then she smiles and suprises you with a tight hug. "Thank you for being such a incredible big sister!" . For the next couple of weeks you don't have too much time to think about Lena Luthor, and about how Kara was right when she said she was very pretty, because you already have too much in your hands trying to get the alien fight club down with another pretty girl. Wait. You didn't mean that. Detective Maggie Sawyer was insufferable! Completely insufferable... and okay maybe a little pretty, but only a little! You're surprised when Kara says she asked for Lena's help to get the next fight club location, because you still don't know how to feel about Lex's sister. You don't think she's a threat but she's still a Luthor. But then again, you have all those new feelings inside you and you need to talk with your sister about how lost you are and about how you think you're in lo- And Lena Luthor gets in your way. Again. And... maybe you're not as straight as you think you were, but did you just spot the gay in Lena's eyes as she glared at you? "She's my sister." Kara says and Lena visibly relaxes when she looks back at your sister with soft eyes. You're so silly. Just because you realized you're a lesbian it doesn't mean every woman you'll meet is too. After that, you're very glad to hear from Winn that Lena saved everyone's asses (including Kara's) with her field generator. He and Kara keep gushing on and on about how smart and brave and pretty she was in that black dress and you pretend you didn't see the way they blushed after agreeing to that. You also pretend you're not heartbroken because you didn't get the girl, but that's just life. . You totally get girl. You're here and you're queer and you've never felt so happy in your entire life because you have a girlfriend! A very hot and very badass girlfriend. You walk in Kara's apartment without knocking like you usually do to give her the news, but she's not expecting you like she usually is after hearing your familiar heartbeat from the corner of the street. She's distracted as she types away a text on her phone, giggling when she reads the response. "Kara?" She suddenly looks at you with widen eyes. "Alex! I didn't hear you coming." She pats the spot beside her and you move to sit there as Kara types something quick in her phone with a small smile, before leaving it on the coffee table. "Who were you texting?" You ask with a smirk because you know your sister and her silly smiles. "Oh! No one!" She replies too quickly and too loudly for you to believe that. "You're a horrible liar." You say with a chuckle and she blushes. "Was that Mon-El?" You know that not too long ago Kara finally got over James and you're happy they're still good friends. (You're happy you didn't have to punch his face.) You see the way the dexamite keeps staring longingly at your sister and how she sometimes stares back, as if thinking about the possibility that that could be something, that she could have what Clark has. Maybe Mon-El wouldn't be your first choice for someone you'd want your sister to fall for, actually you don't think there's anyone worthy of Kara, your precious innocent baby sister, but you're in love and you want her to have it too. "What?! No! That's not Mon-El!" Kara says, scrunching up her nose. "Okay..." you bite your lip. "James then?" "What are yo- no! It's not James. It's Lena." Oh. Unexpected. "Lena Luthor?" "Yes." She admits. "We traded numbers after the police sent her mother to jail. I wanted to thank her for saving the entire alien population in National City. I mean... I told her Supergirl told me that, because... you know." You nod. You were ready to tell Kara 'I told you' when Lena surprised all of you, including J'onn, by betraying her mother. She saved hundreds of innocent lives and Kara was the one with a smug smile after everything. "How is she?" "She has been better. She sent her mother to jail, so it wasn't easy, but she told me she's glad no one died because of a Luthor this time." You notice Kara's very proud of Lena for that, if the smile she's trying to hold back it's any indication, and after everything Lena did for the the past few months, you decide to give her a chance from now on, after all, Kara trusts her. "Anyway, you wanted to talk to me about something?" You smile. "Guess who got the girl?" She squeals and wraps you in a hug. . All of the evidences tell Lena's guilty. But Kara is having none of that. You've never seen your sister defend someone so much to the point of going against everyone, punching cement blocks all over the training room. And that's how you find her. "Kara." She's breathing heavily and you approach her slowly, looking down at her hands closed in fists. "I don't want to talk right now, Alex." You cross your arms over your chest, but you don't leave. And she's not pushing you away either, so that's something. "You need to calm down." She smiles bitterly, surprising you, because the last time Kara acted like that she was under the influence of Red-K. "You want me to calm down? Lena is inocent and now she's stuck in a cell all alone because your girlfriend arrested her without even letting her explain and you want me to calm down?!" Kara yells, pointing a finger a you. "Hey!" You yell back. "Maggie was only doing her job, she has nothing to do with it! "She has everything to do with it!" "Kara!" She shakes her head, moving to sit on a bench, elbows on her knees as she rubs her face with her hands. "She's innocent, I know she is." Kara whispers. You sit next to your sister, trying to calm down too, before wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Everything's gonna be fine." But you don't know that. Not when later Kara flies after Lena without even considering Metallo might explode everything around him. Of course she succeeds and carries and injured Lena in for the DEO doctors to check on her. Through the infirmary's glass you see the way your sister's running her hands carefully through Lena's hair and how she caresses the CEO's cheek with the tips of her fingers, before walking away with a pained expression, probably so Lena couldn't see Supergirl if she woke up. You're not sure why you feel like you're intruding in a very intimate moment. (In the back of your mind, you know why.) When you visit Kara the next day after reading the amazing article she wrote about Lena being innocent, it feels like you just stepped inside a flower shop. There are so many flowers. You're very confused when Kara tells you later she kissed Mon-El. . Game Night was full of tension that week. Kara still refused to share a full sentence with Maggie since the day she arrested Lena, and both of them were too proud to be the one to say sorry first. Mon-El had been all over Kara and yet, somehow, she didn't seem all that interested anymore. You remember seeing him move to kiss her mouth and she quickly using her superspeed to turn her head and laughing at something Winn had said, the dexamite planting a kiss on her cheek instead. When you're alone in your apartment with Maggie after everyone leaves, you feel your girlfriend poking your ribs to get your attention. "Babe, I have a theory I want to share with you... but brace yourself because it might come as a shock." You frown. "O...kay?" Maggie took a deep breath for the drama effect and you can only smile at your girlfriend's antics. "I think little Danvers has the hots for little Luthor!" She says quickly. You blink. "Oh. That." "What do you mean 'that'? It's a big deal, right? Wait..." Maggie gasps. "You knew already!" "I had a feeling." You confess. "But she's with Mon-El, so... I'm confused." Maggie chuckles. "I'm not. You Danvers girls and the gay panic walk hand in hand apparently." "Hey!" You shove her away playfully and Maggie gives one of those laughs that shows off her dimples, making your heart melt deliciously. "Seriously, though. She wants nothing to do with that outer space man child and I still feel like she might split me in two with her laser eyes. And I'm pretty sure I managed to see her planning a date with Lena through a text." "They're trying something called kombucha." "It's a lesbian drink, honey." You laugh, leaning in against Maggie and letting her wrap her arms around your body. "I just want her to be happy." "I know, baby." You're both not surprised when Kara sends you text not even ten minutes later saying she broke things off with Mon-El. . Your head moves from side to side as you follow Kara pacing around the training room. "She has a boyfriend!" Kara grumbles. "Ex-boyfriend." You say. "They were together for five years!" She whines. "But only dated for two." "They made science together!" "Are we talking about science or se-" "I don't like him!" Kara interrupts you. "And I don't trust him! I know he's up to something and I'll find out what it is." She started to pace again. "He won't fool me with that beard of that hair or those eyebrows. Lena deserves better... but the way she looks at him..." You can't stand it anymore. "Kara, do you want to tell me something?" She looks surprised at you, like only now she understands her own words and how she just spilled them out for you. "I-I... No." Then she walks out of the room, bumping against J'onn on her way out. You've never seen him uncomfortable, not even when he had to pretend to be Kara as Cat's assistant, but the way blushes all the way to the tips of his ears when he looked in shock at Kara's back... You're just so grateful you're not psychic. . Getting kidnapped and almost dying wasn't in your plans. But you can't help but feel happy when your sister and your girlfriend join forces to save you. You really have the best family. It takes a week for you to fully recover and go home, and all of your friends celebrate with Game Night, like always. Only this time, Lena Luthor is there too. "Agent Danvers." She greets you after walking inside your apartment, offering you a beautiful bouquet of flowers. "Oh, I'll give Kara those..." "No, please... these are for you." She says, cheeks turning pink. "Kara told me you got injured on one of your missions, I'm glad to see you're okay." You can't say you're not surprised, but before you open your mouth you feel Maggie's hand on your waist. "Trying to steal my girl, little Luthor?" Maggie says and you're glad Lena smiling, raising her hands in surrender. "Wouldn't think of that." "Get a Danvers to yourself." Maggie winks at her and this time Lena doesn't say anything. "Lena!" Kara walks out of the bathroom and quickly wraps her arms around the CEO tightly. "I'm so glad you came!" "That's what she says." Maggie mumbles feigning a cough. "Maggie! Behave." You say, pointing at finger at her. "Yes, ma'am." You observe Lena through the night. She surprises everyone by paying for the food (the best pizzas from the most expensive Italian restaurant in National City), and you giggle as you watch James and Kara teaching her how to eat her slice with her bare hands and not with a fork and knife. Maggie loves the vegan flavored ones the CEO bought specially for the two of them, saying they could be best friends forever, and you almost choke when Kara accepts a piece of the spinach pizza Lena offered her. (Kara and healthy food? Yeah, right.) You notice your sister's hand touching Lena's tentatively as they eat in silence and how they talk in soft whispers, smiling brightly as they look into each other's eyes. You've never seen Kara this happy. "Babe..." Maggie mumbles after you're both under the covers. "What?" "I ship it." "Go to sleep, Maggie." You say with a smile. "Yes, ma'am." . "Do you want to get lunch together?" You ask Kara after a training session. She offers you an apologetic look, already taking off her cape. "I'm so sorry, Alex. Lena's finally free today, since she's been busy with this new project, so I'm having lunch with her. But we can totally have a sister night, if you're up to it?" You nod. "Yeah, sure." Kara folds her cape slowly and carefully, and you recognize the famous crinkle between your sister's eyebrows. You know Kara wants to tell you something but she keeps chickening out in the last moment and changing the topic, and you don't want to pressure her. You don't want he to admit something she's not ready to. Kara sighs loudly, and you pretend you're busy checking your gun. "Alex." She finally says. "Yes?" Kara folds her arms over her chest, approaching you nervously. "I... I just wanted to... I-I mean, there's this thing..." You can't help but smile and touch your sister's shoulder, before pulling her into a gentle hug. She's such a baby sometimes. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" You say, holding her tightly. "Relax." "I'm scared." She mumbles against your shoulder. "Scared of what?" You ask, pulling away to look into her blue eyes. "I think I'm in love with Lena." Finally. "You think?" You say with a small smile, and she relaxes, clearly relieved you're not biting her head off. "I am in love with Lena." "Well, you just won me fifty bucks. Maggie was betting it would take you much longer to admit it." She gasps. "You knew?" "Kara, when Lena's around you, you're not very subtle." You laugh. "You stare at her boobs like... a lot." Kara has the decency to blush brightly at that. "I do not!" "You do, and I don't blame you. Maggie thinks she has amazing boobs too." "Hey!" Kara points a finger at you, but she's smiling. "But they really are amazing..." "And she makes you eat kale." "It tastes disgusting." "She listens N'Sync with you." "She's amazing at lip sync." "And she's in love with you too." She blinks. "You think so?" She asked, eyes shining with hope. "I know, Kara. The way she looks at you sometimes..." You smile. "Wanna tell me about her?" Kara offers you a lovesick smile. "She's so beautiful, Alex! And so smart... when she talks about science it's so full of passion! But she also loves poetry, classic music, and kids, oh Rao she loves kids! She says they're curious and honest and have the brightest minds, and I'm so in love with her!" You laugh when she finishes almost out of breath, because you're very happy for your sister. "I think its time for you to get the girl." . Clark and J'onn are holding Kara back using all of their strength as she screams loudly, trying to get away from them, trying to fly straight to Rhea's ship consequences be damned. Lena is up there. "GET OFF OF ME!" "Supergirl, you need to calm down!" J'onn screams back. You see Clark squeezing her arms tightly as he makes her look into his eyes. "Kara, listen to me! We're getting Lena back, I promise you!" She groans loudly, the veins around her eyes making themselves visible before she's hitting Superman with her laser eyes, throwing him away against the DEO's wall and managing to get away from J'onn's grip. Clark shakes his head from his spot on the floor, before standing up and superspeeding towards Kara, breaking through the wall to the other side of the bulding. They're hitting each other so fast you only see blurs of red and blue, a glimpse of a punch here and there, flashes of quick heat vision, Kara kicking Clark in the chest so hard that the vibrations sends everyone to the ground. Including you. Before you know what's happening, Clark has Kara on her knees, trapped in his arms as he holds her from behind, and you run to your sister when you realize she's crying. "Kara..." You whisper. Superman finally releases her from his grip and Kara falls with her hands against the ground, tears running down her cheeks. "Lillian was right... she'll hate me, Alex... she'll hate me when she finds out..." And you finally understand. You understand what she meant when she told you she was scared. She was scared Lena wouldn't love her back after realizing Kara was in fact Supergirl. "She won't. You're her hero, remember? She won't hate you, sweetheart." . Clark brings Lena back as promised. And Lena saves the world with Lillian's help. The city is destroyed, but you can't go another day without making sure Maggie is yours and you're hers, so you ask her to marry you. That's your happy ending. But not Kara's. Mon-El was a man child, but he was still their friend and she let him go. And she's been avoiding Lena since Clark carried the CEO back safely to the ground. You're not sure she should be alone right now, so you pay your sister a visit, but someone's already there. "Lena, please..." you hear Kara's voice through her door. "So you lied to me?" Oh shit. "N-No... I-I'm sorry..." "You've been lying to me since the day we met and now you're sorry?" Lena spits out, her voice trembling. "You made me feel like I could trust you, like I meant more to you than just my name but you were the one who couldn't trust a Luthor!" "Lena, you got it all wrong, of course I trust you, please, believe me!" "And why would I believe you?" "Because I love you!" You gasp. "Well, now is too late." The door opens and suddenly a teary-eyed Lena is standing in front of you, before she briskly walks past you towards the elevator. You walk inside Kara's apartment and she's sitting in her couch. "Kara..." "Just.. don't." . Maggie tells you it's better to wait for them to figure things out on their own, and you agree to wait. You wait for three months. And then you're walking inside Lena's new office. She doesn't take her eyes away from her computer screen until you're standing right in font of her desk, but apparently she's not surprised to see you there. "Agent Danvers." Lena greets you, sitting up straighter in her chair, one of her eyebrows raised. "Lena." You say back. "I don't remember seeing you on my schedule." "There are some perks of being a federal agent." You smile smugly. "Except you're not a federal agent, right?" Lena asks defiantly. You sigh and decide to make yourself comfortable on the chair in front of Lena's desk, before looking right into those green eyes that seemed to have the power to scan her like Kara did. "I'll be honest here, Lena." She scoffs and you ignore her. "Kara lied to you. I lied to you. We all lied to you." She looks away but you keep going. "But we also cared about you. I still care about you." "Then why did you lie to me?" She asks in a small voice, vulnerable. "To protect you!" You say. "And it is lame, I know, but Kara..." Lena's eyes flicker to yours at the mention of your sister's name. "I got kidnapped for being Supergirl's sister. I was tortured and almost died because of Kara. And to this day she still hates herself for it. And I know she wonders sometimes how my life would've been be if she wasn't here. She wouldn't be able to forgive herself if something happened to you for the same reason." Lena closes her eyes for a moment and you reach over her desk to rest your hand on top of hers, and you're surprised when she holds your hand back. "But I'll tell you how my life would've been if Kara wasn't in it: it would've been be miserable." A single tear runs down Lena's cheek. "I said awful things to her." You smile. "She understands why you were angry. But you still can make things right." "How?" You reach inside your pocket and offers Lena your first wedding invitation. . Your wedding was amazing. Your wife is amazing. The honeymoon... amazing. You're almost sad to come back from Italy, but you want to see your sister. And Lena. You remember seeing the CEO finally approaching Kara by the end of the party and both of them slow dancing together, sharing a few whispered words every now and then. But you were too busy thinking about the honeymoon. (And how someone anonymously gave you a full paid honeymoon in Italy as a wedding gift.) You share a kiss with your wife before walking inside Kara's apartment only to immediately step back, tripping against Maggie and making her scream in pain. "ALEX!" Kara screams, quickly sitting up from her spot under Lena and covering their very naked bodies with a blanket. "Jesus FUCKING Christ!" You yell, covering your eyes. "Where are your clothes?" "Oh my God..." Lena mumbles, hiding her red face behind Kara's back. "Don't you know how to knock?" Maggie looks at them over your shoulder. "Thank you for the wedding gift, little Luthor." You want to punch Maggie because now it's so not the time. "And add amazing ass to that list, by the way." "Hey!" Kara yells. "Let's go home." You grab Maggie's hand and drags her out of Kara's apartment, because your job's clearly done here. "Yes, ma'am." ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ORIGINAL ON AO3! ENJOY!

#supercorp #karlena #supercorp fanfic #supercorp fic rec #supercorp fandom

89 notes · View notes