#i think she had an 'expirimenting phase' when we were like 12

[maaaxx]

rant

(i havent overshared on here in a while and i think its about time i do that)

tw/ homophobia and transphobia

being queer in a rural area / area where theres not a lot out other gay people is really weird and really isolating.

yeah its the homophobes and terfs and people telling me about *how the gays are going to hell* and talking about us like we're subhuman without realizing im gay.

but its also the other gay people i've met.

theres this guy that ive been friends with for going on 11 years now (on and off) and he came out to me a year ago just by going "hey did you ever think that i might be gay" and i answered and that was that

months later i came out to him by telling him nonchalantly about my first girlfriend when i was like 13. he tells me about this girlfriend he had a few years prior. he then proceeds to go on this rant about how he's still "completely gay" thought since "she wasn't a real girl". and he goes on about how he thinks that if you date a trans person it automatically makes you pansexual since they "have the parts of a boy/girl even if they aren't one" (talking about how straight men cant date trans girls and still be straight and vise versa and how lesbians "cant" date trans girls and still call them lesbians)

last time i talked to him he was going on about "how women are nowadays" and calling them sluts and being really degrading.

There was a gay bi gender kid who rode my bus who constantly talked about the same stuff.

The first person I've ever came out to irl is one of my best friends recently told me she just "doesnt understand aromanticism" and doesnt think it's a real thing.

I came out to her as asexual about two years ago now and explained to her that i find a lot of aspects of my sexuality confusing but i still really wanted a label and she's the one who suggested i use the label 'queer'

but when i messaged her and told her that i also think im on the aromantic spectrum a few days ago she asked me to explain why and i sent her a whole essay explaining my experiences with romantic attraction for her to tell me she doesnt understand it and doesnt think that that makes me gay.

(like she's fine with asexuality but draws the line at aromanticism)

I also have this cousin whose a lesbian and only shows up like once every five years because of our family. but when she was home for christmas she and her sister went on a tirade about how being gay is fine but trans people are 'imposing on the community'.

i wasnt planning on coming out to her (i dont think ill ever come out to anyone in my family) but i was still sort of excited to see her because i havent talked to her since i came to terms with my sexuality and it just felt nice not being the only gay person in my family (even if i am closeted)

and its really isolating because this is my community. these are the people i have access to that have the most simular experiences and not one is fully accepting of other peoples identities.

every single gay friend i have that isnt aropohobic or transphobic or a misogynist (how tf are you going to be gay and sexist??? make it make sense) is online and my actual community is completely parasocial. i dont think thats healthy.

#tw homophobia #tw transphobia #arophobia #i have this one friend who doesnt know shit about the lgbt community #she doesnt understand sexuality #and shes like this with me being autistic too #like she doesnt understand it in the least bit but she does accept everything with it. #i have never talked to her about the specifics of my sexuality but i have made a backhanded comment about me being confused by it before #and she didnt address it for a while she just kind of dismissed it #but it got brought up really casually in conversation like a month later #idk how to explain it but thats just like what happened #i think she had an 'expirimenting phase' when we were like 12 #but nothing came of it #anywho #i think its really disappointing that the only person i can rely on to not invalidate my sexuality or anyone elses for that matter #doesnt know anything about sexuality #like you would think that the people who go through the same type of unacceptance would be more willing to understand and accept people #but apparently not #if i mentioned anything about asexuality or aromanticism to this one friend she would stare at me like a dear and headlights #i know for a fact shes never heard those terms before #but if id explain them to her she would just be like 'oh okay' and not think more about it

[hugotontheonbiquiffinarians]

Melancholy As A Gib Cat

A/N: Stream of consciousness, abstract, allegorical writing; dialogue and narrative never seem to harmonise in my style because they’re still stuck in the honeymoon phase, so if it reads with a surrealist, philosophical tone, it’s probably intentional lol (probably...)

One lone susurration of pending concern braids the air with tension.

“Sir…?”

The hour is a quarter past midnight. Clocks, sedated in circumduction. Stood before a hunched and forlorn figure, the nurse is toilworn. Yet again stricken by travails entailed by working an additional night shift, she sighs interminably, mechanically, at the returning absence of reply.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we need you to vacate the premises. You’ve been lounging here since noon and have yet to provide any reasoning as to why you’re here.”

She’s confused by the jarring decibel of sudden laughter ejected from his throat. An abrupt propulsion of hilarity expectorates from the phlegm-encrusted pharynx, leaving her briefly disoriented. Did he really think this was... funny?

“Orderlies must not be so great at their job if 12 hours have passed and the ‘homeless’ man hasn’t been escorted to that slate of solid air you call an exit.”

Beyond the delicate tenor of his voice, oddly enticing in its fluctuation, the nurse pretends to lend a deaf ear to this retort, turning a blind eye to the lopsided grin that falters upon his painted features. Feigning nescience, her own facade of draconian necessity is adjusted accordingly, despite expressing unspoken agreement to her colleagues’ chronic apathy and incompetence.

Nevertheless, while Mondays had always been particularly hellsent in the realm of corporate captivity, this Stygian Monday seemed to be wrapped especially by the Dark Prince himself. The fact that it was the night of All Hallows’ Eve made her consider this disheveled man’s appearance as no mere coincidence. When he had first arrived on the scene, stumbling through the Exit as Entrance, mildly disoriented, she had failed to recognise precisely what had compelled her brows to arch in amusement. What source of strange attraction had magnetised the warm cocoa of her irises to that broad brush of porcelain white masking his face. 

Lest she forget how evocative his complexion illustrated. The outline of his form was unusually thin. Frighteningly so. As obscure compensation, he was dressed to the nines in a trio of lurid colours, both appealing yet tawdry to the mind’s eye. An edible arrangement of all primary colours, somehow satisfied in discordant harmony. A fitting description for her peculiar taste. An ode of testament to the otherwise concrete depiction of malnutrition evincing as aesthetically pleasing.

Initially, she had surmised the cartoonish outfit as being his choice of costume in adherence to that festive day of tricks and treats. Either that, or his profession happened to choreograph the motions of an actual clown. A number of employees had conceded in arriving to work cosplaying as their fulsome, fictional fancies. As such, any flux of odd characters roaming about was to be expected. Anthropomorphic pumpkins, animated skeletons and ragamuffin children included.

In any case, this curious visitor of afternoon and eventide had been given to staking a claim of extended residence to the reception area. When he wasn’t loafing about, casually, if not at self-conscious moments, modestly dancing about the floor, before an Argus-eyed crowd of perplexed patrons, his lissome limbs could be observed sprawled along the expanse of four chairs, lackadaisical and gay in demeanour, the peeling paint of a white ceiling providing him jocose entertainment for the lees of an unproductive evening.

He was a man of average height, to be sure, but his gangling structure gave the illusion of a taller stature. This eccentric coalition of artistic elements: tousled mop of head, saturated by acid green, highlighted punctuation of avian beak, which was further accented by the occasional creeping of a queried smile riddled with snaggleteeth. Summarily, a sort of misshapen handsomeness. She could only wonder if he had silently observed her as she did him with such unprecedented intensity.

“Do you need medication? Any health complications you want to identify?” Insouciant as the gait that waltzed him through in absurd performance, Arthur takes a neutral drag from the burning cylinder of his self-prescribed medicine, effectively substituting any verbalised answer. Perhaps this poor soul was just like the others. Solicitous, only by social mandate. It needn’t be repeated ad nauseam, but, indeed, he thinks. Indeed, humans were vapid, egocentric creatures; born and bred without the guidance of a tender leash. Without the scourge of humility as a redolent scar to sear inveterate marks of mediocrity.

“I’ll be more than happy to help.” Regardless of station or influence, the individual was little more than a fractured reflection, rife with lacerations, knifed and bludgeoned by nameless enemies. Bereaved and forgotten to tuneless threnodies.

“Unfortunately, at this late an hour, we can’t accept regular clients if the situation isn’t exigent. To endure the best possible assessment for your proposed infirmity, I recommend you return first thing tomorrow.”

The nameless anonymity of selfhood guided by severed fibers of the optic nerve. To heedless vision does refractive frame reveal a bruised and battered mosaic.

“What’s your name?” Arthur’s sharp intake of nicotine precedes the inquiry.

“Pardon?”

Arthur flits his weary gaze to the empty patch of fabric where a tag of nomination should be.

“I see you neglected to wear a name tag.” The humour in this sardonic intimation is diluted. Drowned to expiry by the egregore of predetermined comedy. Straightening ever so slightly in his seat, Arthur relaxes against the sterile, leather cushion of the hospital’s waiting room decor. It was unprofessional. “It’s a lovely costume.” Sincerely, it was. That blatant disregard to identity, presumptive though it was, could never have gone unnoticed, if not wholly unappreciated.

Before the innominate nurse can voice a rebuttal, Arthur accentuates his commanding tone by procuring a twin cigarette from the hard pack nestled in his left jacket pocket, swiftly and effortlessly lighting it with the old school dexterity exampled by that of a seasoned smoker, rich with the prescription of addicting tales from a turbulent history. It is this expression of confidence and appealing manner which has the nurse’s bosom palpitating with a sense of unrealised sexual awakening. A sense of sapid scent to the olfaction that was as fleeting in arrival as it was in departure. Yet, clinging in anticipation. Lingering in a recess of orphaned emotions.

“How are the patient and physician expected to establish a relationship built on trust if names aren’t exchanged?”

The nurse couldn’t decide whether or not to be annoyed at his inquiries. He was beginning to give off the vibe of a man victimised by premature senility, lonely and isolated. Struggling to connect with others due to both variables being broiled in longevity. By no means was the presumption intended as derogatory. Harmless scrutiny of the human condition was often easily misconstrued for criticism and pejorative nuance. However, as it stands, the nurse couldn’t eschew assertion in her isle of employment not advertising specialised treatment to the elderly. Moreover, it was plain to see that the man was nowhere near elderly, in spite of gaunt and debilitating appearance. Nor was he gallivanting in a glorified convalescent home.

“Firstly, I’m a nurse.” Securing her hands in her pockets, she can’t help mimicking the man’s neurotic actions, fiddling with the fraying threads of that orangish shade of red. His, admittedly nice, hands, if not fastened to his habit, were havering in exploration, gliding across sparse thighs to grasp and release at various areas, hovering above his face with gentle, reluctant pressure, memorising every pore and facial quirk, patently emotive in expression. If nothing else, his presence was innocuous, at best. Still... one could never be too safe.

“Secondly, you haven’t been registered as a patient.” Fingers start drumming with sentience against a contrast of more replete thighs, concealed from perusal by the deep ivory pockets of her lab coat. “After midnight, we have to start shifting focus to emergencies only.” If she were uncomfortable, it didn’t register in her voice. Unbeknownst to her, the gentleman sat before her possessed quite a flair for spatial awareness. This, alone, registers with dormant reflex. Only her body language conveys an increasing touch of unease to the brand of his indelible presence.

“Seeing as you aren’t in need of intensive care, I won’t be able to assist you properly unless you make a morning appointment.” Even whilst perusing the distance, there was something strangely intimidating about his gaze. Flecks of numbing pain sparkle across his sclera, contrary to the deadly evergreens of his remaining anatomy, pupils fixated on a full lunar radiance knocking at the entry, dilated in aspiration.

The following response of chest pangs are null in sympathy as the nurse suppresses an aberrant impulse to embrace the man who seems to have embodied the spirit of Atlas and Sisyphus in solidarity. Still, her empathy relents to portray as tone deaf.

“My apologies, but I really do have to ask you to lea-“

“Who are you to decide that?” Visible offense erases the scenic tranquility of his physiognomy. He was affected by Weltschmerz. Thoroughly distressed. Nervously anchoring his cancer stick to rouge-stained purse of lips. “That I’m ‘not in need of intensive care’?” Anxious knees begin to bounce of their own volition, gradually elevating intensity with each tapping force of urgency against polished tile. “Are injuries only examined as skin-deep to be considered treatable? What if I were bleeding internally with no apparent symptoms on the surface?”

Arthur frowns in contemplation, appearing struck by a gold mine of memory, extracting a weighted ore of recognition from the farrago of his musings.

“What did you mean by ‘we’?” Cocking his head like that of a cat bedevilled by the spirited tick of inquisitiveness, those piercing, ocean eyes of his flicker and fix in a way that makes the nurse delirious, for a brief spell. “Do you not exist alone?”

There was no ‘best course of action’ in this scenario. The man was clearly a clown. A delusional joker. In every sense of etymology. As those fabricated brows of crimson patiently await a verdict, she peers down at him, an owner, sapped of vim and vigour, siphoning their fuel reserve of energy to an eager pet, imbibed by a perpetual battery of endurance.

Decisive is she in her aim to play along. Any choice of dialogue that ultimately resulted in the man’s resolute departure was in direct correlation with her supporting role as the damsel in distress. There’s only one thing she wants to know before she ushers away this creepy, (cute) clown herself.

The instantaneous display of misplaced intimacy is not telling of an absent mind. Where this surge of impulse to touch strangers derived, she had no desire to ponder. Sans any ounce of shame, she had longed to get a feel for the enchanting canvas of his suit. And here, it is unclear as to whether Arthur or the nurse relaxes beneath this foreign caress. Of trust, a test, to anyone’s guess. An inviting hug of hands in silent greeting. A polarised streak of magnetism, mesmerising her idealistic heart to him. Therein, begs another question to the insatiate bird of passage. Was she merely attracted to the idea of him, as a means to evade capitalist oppression? Or, was it instead an insisting tug of fate? Kismet? Predestination? Searching earnestly, perhaps even desperately, for any signs of transparency shielded beneath that striking hue of sorrowed blue.

“I wonder…”

How she fantasised about running away to the freak show. The one that wasn’t christened ‘society’.

“Who’s the man behind the clown?”

Unconsciously, the filter slips from his ruddy mouth, reduced to embers with the spreading fervor of his crooked smile.

Maybe he could be her one-way ticket to dream town.

#arthur fleck #joker #joker 2019 #w

[mvssmallow]

Cloudy With A Chance

Part 19: …of storms (part I of II)

Masterlist

It starts like he thought it might, with a broken door handle, a blown light bulb, a deleted chapter, a torn shirt. He knew something was coming, could feel the great wave of wrongness washing over him as he wakes up at 6:30 to make Jiwon breakfast. The sky is still grey, the air still quiet and he shivers in the thin Disneyland t-shirt he stole from Jiwon’s side of their wardrobe.

But he’s a survivor, he’s good at pretending. He’ll deal with broken door handles, blown light bulbs and whatever else is coming. He won’t let it’s toxic fingers touch Jiwon’s life. It’s the one promise he made to himself and the only one he will go to the end to keep. He’d sooner leave then let his darkness creep in again.

So he smiles and laughs in all the right places, returns the hug and accepts all the goodbye kisses as Jiwon walks out their door to go to work.

But then he’s alone again. Everything is still grey, like Jiwon took all the noise and colour with him when he left. He tries to write but there’s a writer’s block so large that he can’t get around it, no matter how many times he starts over or how much research he throws at it. He tries tidying their apartment instead, fixes the broken door handle and lights, but there’s only so much to do before it’s bordering on obsessive and his hands go red and raw.

And because rational thought has never been his strong suit when things get weird, he decides to drive to the supermarket to do their grocery shopping a day early. He expected it to rain, expected the world somehow to reflect his mood, but it doesn’t. It’s still grey and quiet.

He buys all of Jiwon’s favourite snacks, extra milk, all the fruit he’ll eat and none of the ones he won’t. He buys too much. It’s only later, when he’s stacking their pantry, that he realises what he’s done.

He’s not re-stocking.

He’s preparing to leave.

But where would he go? This was his apartment. It made no sense.

He slams the pantry door shut in irritation, shaking his head to get rid of the black voices that he hasn’t heard in a long time. He’s been so riding high for so long that he almost forgot to look down and watch for signs of the incoming storm. When it rolls in he knows there won’t be anything left untouched by it.

Maybe that’s why he just stares at the caller ID on his phone for five full rings before answering with a shaky hand and a shakier heart.

“Hi mum.”

“Who is he? The boy they saw you with?”

He always knew it was coming and even though he tried to prepare for it, it didn’t change a damm thing when the moment arrived. He still didn’t know what to say and he still reverted back to the 12 year old child who was scared of his parents.

He says what they rehearsed.

“He’s just my roommate.”

But the apple never fell very far from the tree. His mother is intuitive and clever. She never suffered fools and could cut through months of bullshit with the type of clinical precision he would be in awe of, if not for the fact that she was doing it to him. And that hurt him him in more ways that he wanted it to- that she was doing this to him.

“So you’re going to lie about it? Is that it?”

He sits down at their dining table, heavy and exhausted even thought it was only 12:30 in the afternoon. But that’s the thing people always underestimate, how mental fatigue can knock a person down faster and for longer than anything physical. Unless they’re dead. Then it’s just a moot point.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” He murmurs quietly, carefully, defeated. “I just got a roommate.”

His mother scoffs on the other end, like she knew he would say that, she probably did. “They’ve been talking about you. Did you know? You’ve been running around having fun and I’ve had to hear about it. You’re lucky your father is still away on business. I don’t want him hearing about this.”

He listens to the reports, the long list of sightings and questionable behaviour he and Jiwon have been seen doing. He listens as his criminal record is dragged out all over again and worst of all, he listens to her unsolicited, unwanted and incorrect conclusions about who he is, what he is and what Jiwon means.

“It’s not real Hanbin. You get in these phases but it’s not real, is it? It can’t go anywhere. You need to think about what people will say about our family, what they will say about your father’s company when it all comes out. Do you know how hard he’s worked to get to where he is? It’s already bad enough that you refused to take over the business.”

He doesn’t know why he lets it continue. All it does is get him more and more angry and feel more and more guilty. He wants to hang up so many times but curiosity gets the better of him so he listens and watches as his knuckles get more white and his nails dig into his palms. And maybe driving everything is some kind of sick feeling that he just wants to know the damage and let it completely break him apart.

“Are you listening? I want this whole….phase you’re going through sorted out by the time your father is back. I know you’re different, you always have been, but society isn’t kind and it’s time to grow up and stop thinking so selfishly. Think about your sister. Do you really want her growing up with a brother like….like…”

At the mention of his sister, he snaps.

“Like what?” He demands quietly, voice now devoid of any 12 year old fears. No, now he just sounds like a 25 year old who is backed into a corner and baring all his teeth.

“Don’t take that tone with me.” His mother snaps back, just as venomous and sharp. They were alike in so many ways. Except one.

“Like what? A brother like what? Why don’t you just say it? If you already know?”

“Like you’re sick! Like you’re one of those people!”

But just as 25 years of rage threatens to boil to the surface, he hears a small anguished sob on the other end of the phone. He knows it’s manipulative in some ways but she was still his mother and just as quickly as he wanted to blow up he finds himself simmering right down again.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore. Do you know what that’s like? To hear all these things about you and not even know if they’re true or not? Do you know what it’s like listening to people saying all those terrible things about you and having to defend it? I’m your mother! I should know these things first.” She says in between sobs.

“You already know them.” He whispers. “You’ve always known.”

“So that’s just it, is it?” She asks, cries coming to an end and mask back on. “You’re just going to throw your life away for that boy? Is that it?”

And he could so easily lie. With one word he could fix his family, fix his broken relationship with his parents, fix everything….but he can’t.

“Yes.”

She hangs up.

He knows it isn’t over. This is just the calm before the storm.

****

He doesn’t want to leave the house but he knows his mother will visit and call again. She’d find him, find them, find Jiwon.

So he drives. Downtown. Uptown. Near the coast. He sits in his car for hours and hours, staring at the sea and wondering if anyone would truly miss him if he wasn’t there tomorrow.

But there was Jiwon.

Jiwon will expect him to come home, to wake up and be there.

And really, even as all the lights go dim in his head and everything is faded and hollow, he thinks about Jiwon waiting for him with a confused look on his face when he finds the apartment empty. It surprises him, how much the thought of it makes him want to cry.

So that’s what he does every day, just waits for Jiwon to leave for work before driving to the coast and watching the waves roll and crash over and over again until he can blink back enough tears to see. Then he drives home, cleans himself up and pretends it never happened.

As their dinner simmers on the stove, he wanders into their bedroom and tries to write again but for some reason nothing comes out when he sits with his laptop. There are old notebooks that he unearths from his over zealous cleaning and after pages of random disjointed thoughts, his fingers start forming sentences. Everything is coloured grey and nihilistic and he’s just writing in circles but at least there are words coming out. At least something decent has come out of this whole thing.

He writes about how everyone is wrong about life; how it’s not short but long. How a short life is a blessing in some ways because if you make a mistake, you don’t have to live with it for as long. Humans have no real concept of time anyway, not really. It’s as abstract as the word and colour orange. Time only means something when you put a number with it. Take away clocks and calendars and sundials and we’d all be lost.

Or maybe we’d live more focused lives if we knew our own expiry dates. Would any of us live better lives if we knew when the end was coming? Would we be more brave, more true, more kind, more reckless? How hard would he fight for what he wants?

He stops writing when his hand cramps and he can hear the jingle of keys outside their apartment door. The notebook gets wedged under their mattress and he puts his best neutral face on before walking out. 

“Hey, how was your day?”

#Cloudy With A Chance #there will be a part II don't worry #double b #hanbin #ikon #bobby #text #fic