#man right now.’ and it’s difficult because he *wants* to be cis. he wishes he were just a cis woman instead of transmasc to make it easier

[marimitozpen]

how to find a family and yourself, too

Summary: He supposes he becomes a man somewhere along the way, begrudgingly accepting the role as if it was some new expectation he needed to rise to. He never questioned why it was that way, just that it was. It's just some truth of the world: the sea is blue, his hair is green, and men just have to pretend to know what being a man is.

Or, Zoro realizes he is not as cis as he thinks he is, and that the crew doesn’t care, and that he really loves his family.

★★★★★★★★★★

Hi! This fic was originally uploaded to ao3 exactly two years ago today, and in honor of its second birthday I wanted to crosspost to tumblr. This is the only fic I've ever uploaded, and I wrote it as a way to process the fact that I am agender. A lot of Zoro's thoughts and feelings are based on my own. I know there's not a market for agender Zoro, but I know that this fic helped people from my ao3 comments. The original fic is under a different name, and I went through and edited this one before crossposting, because I have improved over the past two years. Anyways, enjoy!

*slight spoilers up to and including fishman island*

★★★★★★★★★★

The first time it happens, Zoro is ten years old.

The day isn’t going well, anyways. Zoro has been training tirelessly at the Isshin Dojo for an entire year already, dedicating all he has into finally defeating Kuina. She is his last obstacle, and just that day, she had beaten him in their 2,000th match. 2,000 times, Zoro had taken up the bamboo swords, and 2,000 times Kuina had struck him down. She’s still so far away, this unreachable pillar that Zoro just can’t defeat, no matter how hard he tries. Zoro is at his wits end, trying to understand how he is ever going to get out of this dojo, how he is ever going to move forward.

It’s hopeless, really. How could Zoro ever hope to become the greatest when he can’t even defeat the girl in front of him?

So, he takes up his swords, real ones made of steel and sharp enough to slice anything, and challenges Kuina. He finds her outside, sitting by the side of the road, and starts yelling. “I plan to make this our last fight, I’m going to end this! Fight me with a real sword!”

It is exhilarating , the most exciting thing in Zoro’s short life up to this point. Bamboo swords and sparring do not compare to the thrill of putting your life on the line, the danger of getting hurt for real, the scent of steel and sparks in the air. Kuina is just as difficult to defeat as ever, always faster or stronger than him. Zoro’s arms ache from the weight of the swords, and Kuina teases him, and she still manages to toss him in the air like a ragdoll. Their 2,001st match; Zoro’s 2,001st loss. The weight of the defeat is crushing, and as much as Zoro doesn’t want to, he starts to tear up.

But then, for reasons Zoro just can not understand, Kuina tells him that he shouldn’t cry. She tells him that eventually, just because she is a girl, she will start to get weaker. That she won’t be taken seriously. That just because of her gender, she can never be the strongest .

It makes Zoro feel a lot of emotions, a lot of which he can’t really decipher right now. If Kuina is giving up on being the greatest for some stupid reason like being a girl, where does that leave Zoro? All of his training so far has been just to defeat her, and here she is, saying she was just going to lose someday. What about all of this strength I’ve worked for? Zoro thinks. What about the strength you worked for? Does it all just disappear, because you grew up and that makes you weaker?

There was something else, too, something a lot harder to put words to. Just as Kuina is accepting defeat because she was a girl, she’s basically telling Zoro that he’s destined to win because he was a man. He’s everything she wishes she was, born to be stronger and faster and naturally more talented, and Zoro just can’t stand it. It feels like an unbelievable weight on his shoulders, just another thing he has to work for and grow into. Who says I have to be a man like that? Why does it matter? None of this matters, just our training!

Zoro finally gives Kuina a piece of his mind, yelling about the things that were easier for him to understand. He tells her that when the day comes that he finally beats her, it will be because he worked for it and earned his own strength, not because of her gender. And that she can’t just give up on being the greatest, because he is going to surpass her. Kuina smiles at him, and under the moonlight, they make a promise. One of us will become the world’s greatest swordsman.

Zoro gets everything out that night, but he still goes to bed feeling like something was wrong. But how could he explain the sinking feeling in his stomach, the gut instinct that Kuina was wrong? He’s already gotten her to agree that her strength and training were more important than something like her gender, so why does he still feel so odd?

She just… told me I was a man. I never thought about it until now, but am I? What does that mean? Does that mean beating Kuina, becoming the strongest? Zoro’s thoughts run wild for a minute, and he lets them, before he thinks about how swordsmanship was mind as well as body. Whatever was happening, it didn’t matter, it was just a bump in the road. He just decides that Kuina was what made a man, that if gender matters so much, he’ll just earn his when he beats her. It’s simple enough, and Zoro finally drifts to sleep.

He never gets the chance to beat Kuina. The next day, his world comes crashing down. Kuina had died, slipped down the stairs and away. Forever out of Zoro’s reach.

It was really, really hard to accept for a long, long time. Zoro throws himself into his training, trying to ignore the way he could still see her out of the corners of his eyes, focused only on becoming stronger so that he could live up to their promise. Zoro never settles for anything less than the best, and now he has to carry Kuina’s dream, too.

Kuina’s father hands over her sword, and it feels heavy with expectation but perfectly balanced in Zoro’s small hands. Carrying along Kuina’s legacy was still difficult sometimes, but sometimes he feels like having someone there with him makes it easier. Zoro pushes forward, both striving to surpass Kuina and to bring her along with him.

Zoro doesn’t think about his weird feelings from that night again for a long time. It’s easy to ignore in the monotony of the dojo – he doesn’t stand out from the other kids in anything but strength. They all wear the same uniforms, sleep in piles on the floor, train and live and fight together. Zoro pushes himself a little beyond what was reasonable sometimes, but that’s all just training to become the strongest. Some days, the pressure he feels is so overwhelming that every “he” he hears stings, but that’s okay. He can ignore it.

He supposes he becomes a man somewhere along the way, begrudgingly accepting the role as if it was some new expectation he needed to rise to. He never questioned why it was that way, just that it was. It's just some truth of the world: the sea is blue, his hair is green, and men just have to pretend to know what being a man is. He doesn’t get to seriously question it again until nine years later, when Zoro finds himself as one member of a two-member pirate crew, sailing away from a Marine base and on to something new.

----------

Zoro wakes up to Luffy singing, loud and bright and right in Zoro’s ear. Zoro doesn’t regret joining up, because he can tell this kid is going to take him far, but he also really wants to sleep right now. He’s not made of rubber, he can’t just bounce back into place after being injured the way his new captain can. Zoro cracks one eye open and turns his head in Luffy’s direction, intent on giving the younger boy a piece of his mind.

Instead, his eyes fall on Luffy’s chest. Luffy’s vest is open, and there are two long, thin cuts on either side of his chest. They look old, already healed, but Zoro still panics.

“Luffy, your chest! Did you get hurt back at the Marine base? Why didn’t you tell anyone!” he shouts, sitting up as quickly as he can.

Luffy just cocks his head, looking terribly confused. Then, as if a lightbulb has gone off in his head, he smiles. “Oh, are you talking about my scars?”

Zoro nods, swallowing. Those scars look painful , and Zoro is kinda shocked that Luffy is being so nonchalant about all of this. He is pulled out of his thoughts by laughter.

“I got surgery a year ago! Pretty cool, right? I told Gramps I wouldn’t become a Marine unless I got it, so he paid for me to have surgery, then I became a pirate anyways. I sure showed him, huh?”

Zoro’s head is spinning. He doesn’t know who Gramps is or why he wanted Luffy to become a Marine, and he still doesn’t know why Luffy got this surgery. His confusion must be clear on his face, because Luffy starts explaining again.

“Are you confused on why I got the surgery?” he asks gently. Zoro nods.

“It’s cause I’m trans!” Luffy announces with a grin. “Do you know what that is?”

Zoro shakes his head at that. Is this something I should know? he thinks, but Luffy is quick to dispel his worry.

“Don’t worry, lots of people don’t know! I didn’t even know for a long time. Basically, it means I wasn’t born as a boy. My brain and my heart always said I was a boy, even though my body didn’t. So I had to change my body to match.”

Luffy’s explanation makes sense to Zoro, but he still feels confused, although for a different reason. Not born as a boy…  Zoro just didn’t know that was something that could happen. He is silent for a long time, and Luffy just starts humming beside him. Zoro thinks he might recognize the tune.

After a long time, Luffy finally speaks up again. “Zoro, you’re… okay with it, right?”

Zoro startles a bit, then processes Luffy’s question. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”

Luffy shrugs, one hand playing with the brim of his straw hat. “I dunno… it’s just that some people aren’t. You went all silent on me, I didn’t know what you were thinking.”

Zoro smiles at Luffy. It’s weird, because smiles used to be rare for Zoro, but it seems like his captain is able to draw them out of him so easily. “It’s okay, captain. I was just thinking about something else.”

Luffy laughs again. The sun is dipping lower on the horizon, washing their boat in shades of orange and purple, but Luffy’s face is as bright as the sun. “That’s good, cause I would’ve had to fight you if you weren’t okay with it.” He sways a little where he sits, coming to rest with his head on Zoro’s shoulder. “I don’t wanna fight my crew. That’s not what nakama’s for.”

Zoro just looks ahead, still deep in thought. He is vaguely aware of Luffy falling asleep on his shoulder, but for some reason, he doesn’t push the boy off. He just sits, thinking. Not born as a man… so how did you know, then? Did someone tell you that you were a man, just like Kuina told me?

What does all of this mean? I never just… felt like a man, I had to make myself feel like one. So am I a woman, then? Is that an option? Zoro’s racing mind halts for a second as he considers this train of thought. He snorts as he realizes how stupid it is. Okay, definitely not a woman. I guess this is what Luffy felt, then. Just not a woman.

It all starts to make a little more sense to Zoro. If all it takes to be a man is just not being a woman, then Zoro has that down pat. The rest will be easy. And yet, Zoro still feels strange. It feels like a door is opening up to him. Something is starting to change, and he can’t tell what yet.

----------

Zoro hates Sanji the moment he sets eyes on him. The cook is pretentious, starting a fight with a Marine over some soup, and Zoro can’t stand how preachy Sanji is. Then, he starts getting all flirty with Nami, which also pisses Zoro off. This Sanji guy is a real idiot, and if Zoro didn’t respect Luffy so much, he would be really worried about this guy joining the crew.

But there’s something else about Sanji that irks Zoro, something he can’t quite put his finger on. He could go on for days about how Sanji is loud, and rude, and stuck-up, and stupid; but it feels like Zoro is skirting around some other issue. Luffy and Zoro are just as loud and rude, and according to Nami they’re even dumber than Sanji. Most of these qualities don’t even bother Zoro, so why does Sanji just have this way of pushing all of Zoro’s buttons?

After a few weeks and a few run-ins with death (and a very valuable reality check for Zoro), Zoro begrudgingly accepts Sanji’s presence on the crew. He has to admit, the other man is damn good in a fight, both as an ally and as an opponent. He’s also a very, very good cook, but Zoro would never tell him that. He doesn’t need Sanji’s ego getting any bigger, the thing is already threatening to sink the Merry. 

But Sanji still pisses Zoro off to no end.

The two of them get along like a house on fire. They will argue about anything and everything, much to Luffy’s amusement and Nami and Usopp’s chagrin. Zoro will insult the cook’s stupid eyebrows and Sanji will insult Zoro’s unusual hair color, and they will exchange blows just as often as they have each other’s backs. It makes things slightly tense, but still interesting.

Sanji is everything Zoro hates about men, Zoro realizes one day. He is cocky and rude and he pushes himself onto women, he is over-the-top and annoying and oh so performative. Zoro can’t stand him, because he’s everything Zoro’s not and he’s everything Zoro doesn’t ever want to be and he’s so damn loud about it.

This realization does absolutely nothing to remedy Zoro and Sanji’s relationship. Zoro is not only mad at Sanji at this point, he’s just as mad at himself for realizing what Sanji is and what he’s doing and feeling threatened by it. Seriously, Zoro has no reason to be questioning himself right now, and yet Sanji just manages to get under his skin and make him actually think. Zoro doesn’t like thinking all that much, he much prefers actions.

It makes Zoro wonder why Sanji is like this and how exactly his masculinity or whatever has the power to make Zoro so mad. It has Zoro questioning his own masculinity, because he is so different from Sanji so how can he be sure he’s doing it right? It makes Zoro think about his place on the crew, because it used to be easy; there was Luffy, the captain; then Zoro, then Usopp and Nami. Now there’s Sanji, and he has the potential to be Zoro’s equal in terms of strength, and Zoro just feels so strange about all of this. 

Zoro deals with it the way he deals with all of his non-physical problems: he ignores it. If Zoro can’t slice through a problem, it simply can’t be solved, from his point of view. Not that he doesn’t try slicing through Sanji, but the cook is quick enough to put up a fight. And besides, Luffy would probably be pretty upset if Zoro hurt or killed his beloved cook. 

The two of them continue to fight, and Zoro might even be starting more fights on purpose now, because he’s just angry with himself and Sanji and what better way to take it out? Eventually Nami puts some sort of stop on it and gives them both a stern talking-to, but that’s only because Sanji can’t say no to her and she’s threatening to raise Zoro’s debt if he keeps starting unnecessary fights. This doesn’t end the fighting entirely, not by a long shot, but at least some semblance of peace returns to their small ship. If Sanji were gone , Zoro thinks, peace could return entirely. But unfortunately, Sanji is there to stay, and he is there to be a thorn in Zoro’s side for the entire rest of their journey.

----------

Zoro did not expect to be literally facing his past when he woke up this morning and departed the ship to explore Loguetown, but here he is. Staring into the face of a dead girl who is shouting words at him that he hasn’t heard in almost a decade, and Zoro just feels so many things he might not be able to handle it.

Tashigi has been popping up around Zoro all day; he saw her on the street and accidentally broke her glasses, she dragged him to the Marine base for chores, he escaped but met her again at the swords shop, she finally recognized him and chased him down. And here they are, standing in the rain, as she taunts him.

As if it weren’t bad enough that she’s forcing her stupid ideal of justice on him, insulting his bond with his sword because he’s a “criminal” or whatever, Tashigi starts repeating the words that Kuina shouted that day all those years ago. She seems insulted that Zoro isn’t taking her seriously, interprets it not as an offense to her own skill, but an attack on her gender. Kuina’s face and Kuina’s words… it’s all too much for Zoro.

“Is it because I’m a woman?” Tashigi screams. “You view me as weak, you won’t finish me off! Take me seriously! You don’t understand what it’s like, to wish you were born a boy!” She’s so loud and so pushy and Zoro finally just snaps. He whirls around and starts yelling back, even though he knows it’s childish.

“Everything about you pisses me off! You have the same face as my close friend who died years ago, and then you start shouting the same things as she does! Give me a break, you copycat!” Zoro breathes in, and Tashigi starts arguing back, but Zoro continues. “I’ll tell you what I told her; your gender has nothing to do with it, only your skill and mine. And if I didn’t take you seriously, take that as an offense to your skill, because I held back because you were weak! Don’t blame it on gender!”

Tashigi just stands there, staring at him. It’s clear she’s never been talked to like this; her jaw is hanging open and Zoro is pretty sure that there’s tears mixing in with the rain on her cheeks. He scowls at her, then turns back to go find his captain, leaving her in the dust.

Later, when Zoro is back on the ship, he starts to think a bit more about what Tashigi said. It brings back everything from the night of Kuina’s death; the confusion and the anger and the weird, unplaceable feeling that Zoro was sure he suppressed but is coming back to rear its ugly head. What is it about swordswomen and their ability to shake me up like this? Zoro thinks to himself, allowing himself to just wallow in his confusion for a few seconds. He then stands up, shakes himself off, and decides he must become stronger, so he can get past this stupid gender stuff.

Of course, he can’t fully relax yet, because Nami is approaching. “Thinking over there, Zoro? I don’t see you doing that often,” she teases. Zoro flips her off. 

“Awww, c’mon, don’t be like that. Tell me everything! I’m a great problem solver, you know.” She encourages as she sits down on the deck and pulls Zoro down next to her. And Zoro really doesn’t want to tell her anything, but… they’re cooped up on a ship and Nami is the only woman here so maybe she will at least have some perspective on this whole thing?

“I just got in a really weird fight today, with one of the Marines. After I defeated her she started yelling about how I wasn’t taking her seriously just because she’s a woman. It reminded me of my childhood friend, she used to say the same thing. It’s strange, because I don’t think about who my opponent is when I fight them, only their skill.” Zoro explains. His voice sounds weak and it hits Zoro that this is really stupid, but he’s already said it so there’s not much he can do now.

Nami hums as she thinks. “Well, she’s probably feeling insecure a little bit. All women are used to being underestimated. Some of us, like me,” Nami accentuates her statement by pointing to herself, “like to use it to our advantage. I’ve got Sanji-kun wrapped around my finger, you know? Just because I’m a girl.” She pauses, then looks at Zoro before starting her next point.

“Well, I guess some women don’t view it the same way. They want to be seen as equals, instead of having to constantly prove themselves by exceeding expectations. I guess that Marine and your friend are both like that, they see that you’re not taking them seriously and they think it’s because you’re underestimating them. But if it’s just because of their skill, like you say, then there’s not much you can do other than ignore them.” Nami pats his shoulder. “Got that, stupid?”

“Yeah,” Zoro grumbles, not rising to the bait for once. “Although Kuina, my friend… I never underestimated her. She was always stronger than me. I never once beat her in a fight.”

If Nami notices the use of past tense, she doesn’t comment on it. “I’m sure I would’ve liked her, if she could take you down a peg,” Nami laughs. She leaves a little while later, and Zoro is kinda glad he had this talk. He’s still a bit swamped by the weird feelings, but at least the other things are starting to make a little more sense.

----------

“Hey Robin, whatcha readin?”

The response from the crew is instantaneous. Everyone who is on deck, Zoro included, falls silent and stares. Zoro himself sits up from where he was sprawled across the deck to watch as his captain leans over Robin’s shoulder to inspect the book she has laying open on the table.

He thinks he heard about this happening once before, of Luffy showing an interest in Robin’s books, and that the crew had been just as shocked then. It’s just that books and Luffy… they don’t really go together. Luffy has been listening in to some of Robin’s story times and she is more than happy to read out loud for some of her younger crewmates, but it’s rare that Luffy is the one to show interest.

“Oh, it’s a book about different identities. It’s rather interesting, do you want me to read it to you?” Robin hardly seems phased by Luffy’s sudden interest, taking it in stride. She’s always happy to indulge her captain on his more tame shenanigans.

Luffy shakes his head. “Nah, the pictures just caught my attention.” At this, most of the crew lets out a collective sigh. Nami goes back to watering her flowers, and Usopp and Chopper start making noise on the upper deck again. Sanji prattles away in the kitchen and Franky stays below deck, neither of them having heard the initial question. Zoro wants to keep watching, for some reason. Luffy hooks his arm over Robin’s shoulder, fingers running across the page. “Like this one! The colors are pretty. What’s it mean?”

Robin smiles, and it is unlike the smiles Zoro has seen from her up to this point. “That flag represents transgender people, Captain. Do you know what that is?”

Now it is Luffy’s turn to smile, the toothy grin taking up his whole face. “Like me!” he exclaims cheerfully.

Robin looks shocked for a second before she reigns her expression in. Zoro thinks this is the first time he’s seen her smile with teeth. “I’m like that too, Captain,” she replies. “How funny that we should meet on this broad sea.”

Luffy is positively beaming at this point. He finally pulls up a chair and sits across from Robin. He is gesturing excitedly as he speaks, telling Robin it is so cool that they met and that he’s never met another person like himself before. Zoro smiles a little, in spite of himself. It’s nice to hear his captain so happy, and seeing Robin smiling fondly isn’t so bad either. He is about to drift back to sleep when Luffy is suddenly calling to him.

“Zoro, hey Zoro! You should come look too! This book is so cool, they have a flag for everything!” Zoro cracks one eye open to glare at his captain. Robin is giggling from behind her hand.

Zoro sighs. Yes, it’s nice that his captain is taking interest in a somewhat quiet activity, and that Robin is opening up a little too. But to be honest, Zoro has no interest in the book himself. He figures that nothing in there is going to apply to him, since he already realized he’s not like his captain or Robin.

“I think that the swordsman wants to sleep, Captain.” Oh, nice save Robin! Zoro makes a mental note to thank her later. Luffy protests a little, grumbling something about how all Zoro does is sleep, but he’s drawn back into the book when Robin flips the page.

“Robin, look, this one looks like Zoro,” Luffy comments. Robin agrees, telling him that those colors do look a lot like Zoro’s hair color and outfit. Zoro can still feel Luffy’s gaze on him, but he ignores it. He closes his eyes and lets himself drift off to sleep for real, this time.

----------

Zoro wakes up in a bed in a room he does not recognize. Not that he’s never done that before, but it seems different this time. Zoro shouldn’t be here.

The last thing he remembers is running for his life. Zoro had been gravely injured, and there was an admiral and all these robots, and they really stood no chance…

The weird, spongy, not-earth of the Sabaody Archipelago is making it hard to run. Zoro’s legs ache and he’s sure he’s reopened several of his wounds. It took a serious joint effort just to take down that one Kuma robot, and Zoro isn’t honestly sure he has it in him to take on any more. He hates feeling so weak, but of course he couldn’t have changed the outcome of Thriller Bark. Zoro would gladly do it again to save his captain.

Still, this is a very bad situation, and no time for reminiscing. Zoro has crewmates to protect, and he has robots to escape. Of course, it is then that the real Kuma shows up. He quips about Zoro still being alive, and Zoro gives him the best answer he can in the moment. Of course, he does owe Kuma in a way, but the man still poses a huge threat.

Zoro’s lungs ache and his legs are about to give out. His arms are weak, he can’t do anything to save himself. He is aware of people yelling, trying to save him, but it’s too late. Kuma raises one huge, ungloved paw and swings it. Zoro’s world fades away immediately.

That’s the last thing Zoro remembers, so how the hell did he get here? He can feel bandages covering his skin, but they are not wrapped with the professionalism and care that Chopper’s usually are, which tells him that he’s no longer with his crewmates. He wonders what happened to them and starts panicking, bolting out of bed to start taking in his surroundings.

Then, he sees her out of the corner of his eye. The weird ghost girl from Thriller Bark, what was her name again? Perfume, or something?

“It’s Perona, you dumbass!” she shouts. Oh, so Zoro said that out loud then.

She explains to him that he came down in a bubble and how it was part of Kuma’s power. She doesn’t know where they are, but she bandaged him up the best she could, and he really needs to wait and rest before he does anything stupid. 

Zoro doesn’t listen, of course. He’s not so weak and helpless that he can just lay in bed when his crew probably needs him, when his captain probably needs him. He just keeps going out and getting into fights with the weird monkeys that inhabit the island, pissing Perona off and injuring himself further.

A few days later, Mihawk shows up to tell Zoro about the war, and this is probably the worst Zoro has ever felt. To think, while he was out here unable to defeat some stupid baboons, his captain was fighting in a war and losing his only brother in such a horrific way. Zoro is useless, useless, useless, and he’s so weak it hurts.

Then he gets the orders: stay where you are. You have two years. Get stronger. It’s painful, but it’s simple and it’s what needs to be done. It makes Zoro’s heart ache that he can’t be there to comfort his captain, but he quickly decides that he will spend these two years getting stronger so that he won’t miss this kind of situation again. Better yet, there won’t be one at all. After some begging, Mihawk agrees to take him in, and Zoro throws himself into his training. 

It is slightly reminiscent of his time at the dojo. At the time, Zoro’s need to become the strongest was so that he could carry on Kuina’s will and achieve their dream. But now, Zoro has people, a family , he wants to protect. The training is grueling and bloody and mind-numbing, and Zoro wouldn’t have it any other way. He loses sight of everything other than his goal and his crew, the two things he is doing everything for. Two years, and Zoro will be strong enough so that nothing has to happen to hurt the Straw Hats again.

----------

Zoro has to admit, being back with the crew after two years of separation is really, really nice. Two years apart was far too long. He had missed everyone, even that stupid cook, and he missed being on the ocean. He understands why they spent two years apart, and everyone is much stronger for it, but he is glad that those years are behind them.

Just making it off of Sabaody was an ordeal. Luffy manages to attract trouble everywhere he goes, though, so the crew is used to this. Zoro almost missed the nonstop action and the daily near-death experiences, but action is not the only part of a pirate’s life. Zoro loves just being on the Sunny, surrounded by his crew – his family – exchanging stories about their training over the past two years.

Zoro learns where everyone spent their two years: Luffy trained with Rayleigh, Chopper mastered all of his forms and learned a lot about medicine, Brook went on tour but still managed to strengthen his skills. Robin mentions something about staying with Luffy’s family in the Revolutionary Army, and it seems innocent enough except for the fact that Robin is wearing her “I know something you don’t” smile. It’s easily brushed off though, because Robin says she can’t share classified information. 

Zoro is not really one to give praise, but he does compliment Usopp for surviving two years on an island that was literally trying to eat him. Seriously, Usopp has developed a lot since Zoro last saw him, and he seems a lot more confident than the insecure liar they picked up in Syrup Village so long ago.

Everyone seems a lot more confident, actually. Robin is smiling much more, Chopper is so much more enthusiastic than he’s ever been, and the cook seems weirdly relaxed for once. Zoro hadn’t noticed it much in Sabaody, but the cook seems… different, somehow. He isn’t quite as pushy as he had been in the past, and his mere presence isn’t aggravating Zoro the way it used to. 

Zoro gets his explanation soon enough. Sanji is second to last to share his adventures from the last two years, and he takes a shaky breath before doing so. Robin, sitting next to Sanji, places one hand on his back and gives him an encouraging nod.

“I spent my two years on Momoiro Island.” Sanji starts. He is met with mostly blank stares, except from Nami, who raises her eyebrows. Sanji scans their reactions before he continues.

“So the island is home to a huge community of LGBT people, who wanted to create a place where they could exist without judgement. They’re led by Emporio Ivankov of the Revolutionary Army. I actually got to see Robin a few times over those years, because she visited the island on business once or twice. Ah, but that’s besides the point…”

Sanji trails off, still acting nervous. Luckily for him, Luffy interrupts. “I remember Iva-chan! He was so nice! Did he train you, Sanji?”

Sanji whips his head in Luffy’s direction so quickly that Zoro thinks it might fly off. “You think he was nice?”

“Yeah, he saved my life,” Luffy says matter-of-factly.

Sanji shakes his head. “That… doesn’t matter right now. Yes, he trained my cooking and my fighting abilities, but he also made me learn a lot more about myself. Like, that my views on the world and people in the LGBT community were really outdated. And… that I’m genderfluid.”

“Great for you, bro!” Franky congratulates, tears already forming in his eyes. “What does that mean, though?”

Sanji laughs, Franky’s antics lightening the mood for all of them. “I just don’t feel like a man all the time. Sometimes, I feel like a woman, or sometimes I feel like I’m somewhere in between. It changes all the time. Oh, and I use any pronouns now.”

Franky nods, and Usopp also nods along with one hand on his chin. “Right, I get it, but what are pronouns?” Usopp asks.

“It’s like he, she, they. You can use any of them to refer to me, just make sure to use all of them at different points. It’s not great if I’m hearing only ‘he’ all the time.”

Zoro can practically see the steam coming from Luffy’s ears as he processes this. Finally, Luffy speaks. “So, is it like, ‘this is Sanji, they are my cook, and they make the best food ever?’” he asks before looking between Sanji and Robin with an expectant look on his face. Robin giggles softly, and Sanji smiles.

“Yeah, just like that. Or ‘Sanji is my cook, she makes the best food ever.’ You can use any of them,” they assure their captain.

Luffy smiles wide and laughs. “Okay, I get it now! Thank you Sanji!”

After Luffy, everyone else offers thei support and congratulations. Nami, Robin, and Chopper each wrap Sanji up in a tight hug, while Brook and Usopp remind Sanji that he’s always a valued member of the crew. Franky continues crying because of how much strength it must have taken for Sanji to come out. 

Zoro… Zoro doesn’t really react. He nods at the cook when she looks his way, but Zoro doesn’t really know what to say. He’s confused, too, because he doesn’t really know what feeling like a man or woman is like, and he’s never even heard about that “somewhere in between” that Sanji was talking about earlier.

The rest of the crew moves on quickly. Zoro is the only one left who hasn’t shared his whereabouts, and he knows the crew will enjoy this. Not only was Zoro staying with and training under his greatest rival, but that ghost girl too. As expected, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper get a kick out of that. Zoro pushes his worries about Sanji’s coming out to the back of his mind and focuses on enjoying his time with his family before Luffy inevitably drags them into some mess again.

The descent to Sabaody takes forever; long enough for Sanji to prepare and serve dinner. It’s actually quite a meal, featuring each of the Straw Hats’ favorite dishes – meat on the bone, cheeseburgers, sandwiches, even rice balls for Zoro. It is great to be home, defending his food from Luffy’s sticky hands and dodging the peas that Usopp has been launching across the table. Dinners on the Sunny are no calm event, but Zoro loves it. He loves the chaos of it all.

Normally, Zoro is one of the first few out of the kitchen. He usually has something better to be doing like training, napping, or getting pulled into playing tag with Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper. But Zoro has questions, about Sanji’s whole gender thing, and he can’t just ask that in front of everyone. Hell, it’s embarrassing enough to ask the cook about it. 

Zoro sits at the table long after he’s finished his dinner, even after everyone has left. He watches as the cook cleans up and washes dishes, ignoring Zoro’s stare the whole time. She doesn’t even try to start a fight, which is unusual, because usually if Zoro stares for that long it’s like asking for a shoe to the face.

Finally, Sanji has apparently had enough. The dishes are washed, dried, and put away. There is nothing else to do in the kitchen, so they turn to Zoro, planting their hands on the island bar and leaning over.

“I’ll bite, is there a reason why you’re watching me, marimo?” He starts. It carries the usual tone of annoyance, but maybe a little more. “This ain’t about earlier, is it? Better not be, cause I will–”

Zoro interrupts by shaking his head. “It’s not… Well, it’s not what you’re thinking. I just. I don’t get it,” he mumbles, staring down at the table in front of him, one hand coming up to play with his earrings the way he does when he’s stressed. He can still feel Sanji staring at him, and he waves his hand, gesturing at nothing. “The, uh, the gender thing. I’m having trouble understanding it. I want to understand it.” He looks up, meeting Sanji’s eyes. Sanji sighs.

“Ok, well which part don’t you get? I don’t really know how else to explain it, other than what I said earlier. Sometimes I feel like a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes in between.” Sanji starts. He speaks slowly, as if he were explaining this to a baby or something. Slightly annoying, but Zoro doesn’t push it.

Zoro furrows his brow, frustrated about the explanation, because it doesn’t really explain anything . At least, not the way Zoro needs. “That’s the thing! What the hell does feeling like a man feel like?”

Sanji falls quiet. “The hell do you mean?” Zoro can hear the usual burning edge to her words, the fight he’s used to. He doesn’t want to make Sanji mad, goddamnit, he wants to understand! Sanji takes an angry hit of their cigarette, blowing smoke in Zoro’s direction. Zoro glares back.

“I mean, how do you know when you’re a man? Since you’re other things sometimes, how do you tell the difference?”

“What’s this about, marimo?”

“Just.. Just answer the question! My reason doesn’t matter!”

“Okay, just… give me a minute, okay? It’s a weird ass question, you caught me off guard.” Zoro nods and leans back on the bench, satisfied for now. Sanji sits down on one of the barstools, spinning slowly as they think.

“I mean, to start off, did you know all this gender thing is fake?” Sanji speaks up after a moment, stopping so he is facing Zoro. “One of my, uh, friends? Yeah, one of my friends back in Kamabakka told me that everything we know about gender is just gender roles. It’s what we tell each gender they’re supposed to do or feel, not what gender actually is. Like, some people think women are just supposed to cook and clean and be quiet while men are supposed to go off and make money for the family. The way my old geezer raised me, women are better than men, and we’re supposed to protect and serve them in any way we can. It’s really different from person to person.”

Sanji pauses to take another hit as she continues. “Let's see… To me, being a man still feels more like responsibility. But there's more, too. Masculinity is loud and brash, it’s like a jungle or like the sea during a storm. The way my legs heat up when I do Diable Jambe, that feels manly too. But it’s different from when I feel like a woman; that’s all light and airy and stuff. It’s like helping Nami-san take care of her tangerines, or laughing with my crew and getting compliments on my food. Femininity is like caring for people, while masculinity is taking responsibility. And then there’s some times when it’s more than that… when I feel charged up and everything is uncertain but it doesn’t need to make sense. It’s like the early mornings when I’m the only one awake, or the moment before lightning strikes.” Sanji pauses, smiling, clearly patting themself on the back. “Eh, I’ve never had to think about how to describe it all before. I think Iva-san would be proud. That help at all, marimo?”

Zoro sits silent for a while, trying to take it all in. He’s never felt like… like a forest, or a storm, or like his legs are heating up. He had taken responsibility for things plenty of times, but it wasn’t related to his gender or anything, it was just what he had to do. There’s one thing that definitely stands out about Sanji’s descriptions, though.

“So, being a man, it doesn’t ever feel like you’re just performing it? It’s not like a job?” 

Sanji just… blinks at Zoro, then they stand up and start moving around the kitchen again. He pulls down a mug and starts brewing some tea. Zoro isn’t a big tea person, but he still understands the gesture.

“No, it doesn’t feel like a job.” Sanji finally says after filling the kettle and placing it on the stove. “It used to, though. Before I discovered all of this, and the possibility that I could just not be a man. You feel like it is?”

Zoro ignores Sanji’s gaze, suddenly very interested in the top of the dinner table. He knows Sanji understands, though, as she continues to talk. “I won’t press you, cause god knows I hated it when Iva-san did that to me. But just think about it, okay? There’s a lot out there, and the crew won’t care, you saw them today.” Sanji pauses to place the mug of tea in front of Zoro. “I won’t tell anyone either. But don’t start expecting me to be nice to you or anything! We’re still enemies!” 

Zoro grins. He knows that he and Sanji aren’t really enemies, they haven’t been in a long time. Sanji learning to accept themself had helped the both of them a lot, and they’re closer to friends at this point. Sanji knows it too, but they have reputations to keep! Still, it’s pretty nice. Sanji doesn’t treat Zoro like it’s anything weird or shameful, he just understands and explains and lets it be. She nods at Zoro, straightening up to leave the kitchen. “Oh, and you’re washing your own mug! Don’t get lost on the way to the cabinets, marimo!” she adds as an afterthought, ducking out of the doorway before Zoro can send him a glare. 

----------

 Zoro stands outside the door to Robin’s library, mug of tea in hand, for about ten minutes, just trying to work up the courage to enter. He feels so stupid, being scared to ask his crewmate to borrow a book. While talking with Sanji had helped, just a little, Zoro still has a lot of questions.

He is staring into his mug weighing his options and thinking that he might just come back tomorrow when Robin opens the door. She seems surprised to see him, almost dropping the book in her hands. As usual, she recovers gracefully, donning her usual closed-eye smile.

“My, it’s certainly rare to see you here, Swordsman-san. Is there something I can help you with?” she greets, holding the door open and beckoning Zoro inside.

“Uh, yeah, but if you were leaving–” Zoro tries to deflect. I’m not ready for this, he thinks. He hasn’t felt so uncertain in a long time.

“Oh, I insist!” Robin asserts. “It’s no trouble at all. What can I help you with?”

Zoro looks up at her, at her kind eyes and non-judgemental smile. He knows that Sanji was right last night when they told him that the crew wouldn’t mind if Zoro ended up not being a man. He knows that Robin, especially, wouldn’t mind. He recalls a day from two years ago, when Luffy had suddenly found interest in the book Robin was reading and she had confessed she was transgender as well. That moment had felt so inconsequential back then; it was just another instance of Zoro’s captain and crew bonding. But today, it feels like a lifeline.

Zoro takes a deep breath to steady himself. “Yeah, actually, I was looking for a book. I don’t know the name though.”

“That’s no problem at all. Do you know what kind of book it is?” Robin asks. 

Zoro scratches at the back of his head. “Uh, yeah. Do you remember that book you and Luffy were reading a couple years ago? He just wanted to look at the pictures, though, I think.”

Robin brings one hand up to hide her lips as she takes a tiny gasp. “Yes, I know exactly which book you’re talking about. Let me go pull it down for you.” Robin pats Zoro’s shoulders as she walks away, gesturing at the benches that surround the library. “You can take a seat, if you want. I can leave you alone, too. I’ll just continue my own reading.”

Zoro sits and nods, feeling a little overwhelmed. He hadn’t planned on telling Robin why he was here, exactly, but Robin knows everything anyways and he does find her company to be very comforting. Robin is something like what Zoro imagines an older sister might be like.

“I, uh. I think I would like that, but…” Zoro is unsure of what he’s asking, letting his voice drop out as he continues thinking.

“I’ll stay down here the whole time, if that’s what you want. And you can always ask for help.” Robin pats Zoro’s shoulder again as she passes him the book. “I’m just across the room, okay?”

Zoro is grateful, so grateful for Robin’s easy going nature. He shudders a bit as he opens the book, looking for the chapter on gender identities.

The first thing Zoro notices is just how many there are. There’s like, a thousand, each one with a different name and flag and description. It’s a lot for him to take in at once.

Breathe, Zoro, something in the back of his mind tells him. Just go through it one at a time. Zoro sighs. He already knows he isn’t trans the way that Luffy and Robin are, and he’s pretty sure he’s not genderfluid the way the cook is either. That narrows down his search, at least a little.

As Zoro flips through the pages, he just finds himself feeling more and more lost and frustrated. All these terms are swimming around in his head. And to make matters worse, a lot of them seem to rely on what a person is already feeling. Zoro… Zoro doesn’t actually know what he’s feeling. He’s had this vague notion that he wasn’t quite a man for a long time, but he’s also been acting as one for long enough that it still feels like part of him. He’s getting tempted to just slam the book closed and call it a night, but he really doesn’t want to find out what happens if he mistreats Robin’s books. He has a feeling it won’t be pretty.

“Are you doing alright over there, Swordsman-san?” Robin calls, momentarily stirring Zoro from his thoughts. She has worry written all over her face. “You seem a bit frustrated.”

“I am, but I’m okay.” Zoro reassures her as he continues reading. Then, he hits upon the definition.

Agender , the book reads. A person who feels a lack of a gender identity, or does not feel a strong relation to any gender identity. An absence of gender.

There is a second paragraph below, from an agender person describing how they feel about their own identity. It was really hard for me to figure out for a long time, the author starts , because I just didn’t want to face it. I was comfortable enough living with my own assigned gender. But whenever I think of myself and the words I would use to describe myself, my gender isn’t one of them. I was raised one way, sure, but that is as far as the connection goes. I don’t feel like a man or a woman, I just feel like me.

Zoro chokes on his breath. He studies the image of the flag next to it, and another memory from two years ago pops up in his head. “This flag looks like Zoro,” Luffy had said, and Robin agreed because of the colors. The agender flag has green, white, and black stripes. This is the flag that matched him two years ago, and now with the definition…

Zoro breathes in quickly. His heart is racing, hammering against his ribcage like a drum. He thinks back to what Sanji told him earlier, about sometimes feeling like more than a man or a woman. Zoro hadn’t understood it then, still doesn’t really grasp it. But he knows that he doesn’t feel what Sanji was describing. But if nothing is an option…

When Zoro tries to think about his gender identity, it is just his role as a man. He does what men do because that’s how he was raised, that’s what everyone told him to be. That’s his only connection to it. If he thinks any further than that… there’s nothing. He’s always just felt like Zoro , not Zoro the man or Zoro the woman or Zoro the anything else. Just Zoro, nothing more.

Agender. It certainly seems to fit.

And that thought is so world-changing, so scary, so new that Zoro doesn’t know how to handle it. Consequences be damned, he shuts the book quickly and tosses it onto the table, rushing out of the library. Robin stands up and calls after him, but Zoro just ignores her. All he wants to do is run, run away to when things were simpler, when he didn’t have to think about being different. He hurries into the boy’s room and huddles in his bunk, ignoring his crew for the rest of the night.

----------

Fishman Island is a disaster, of course, complete with princesses, some of Arlong’s disciples, and some very valuable revelations about the Poneglyphs for Robin. Zoro does his best to turn his brain off and focus on drinking the castle dry, eating delicious food prepared by the royal staff, and fighting. He ignores the whole gender issue. It wasn’t important for the first twenty-one years of Zoro’s life, so it can’t be that important now.

Sure, the realization that Zoro didn’t have to be a man was a weight off his shoulders. He didn’t have to “perform” if he wasn’t a man. But Zoro had almost gotten comfortable in the performance. He pretty much knew how to be a man. Why try to change things if they were working out already?

It becomes much harder to ignore after they resurface. Out on the open ocean, Zoro can’t rely on enemies to take his frustrations out on. He has to actually face this himself.

He’s especially irritable that day, mostly hiding in the bunk room and trying to nap. Zoro is usually very good at napping, but he can’t seem to calm his mind. No matter how much he tries to avoid thinking about it, the question of Zoro’s gender identity never leaves his mind.

He spots Robin and Sanji having a hushed discussion in the kitchen that afternoon. He just wanted a beer, because maybe the alcohol could push his thoughts back, but as soon as he enters the kitchen Robin and Sanji jump apart. Zoro doesn’t hear any of their discussion, but he has a pretty good idea what it might be about.

Luffy is the one to finally approach Zoro. He does it at night, when most of the crew has already gone to bed, except for Brook keeping watch in the crow’s nest. Zoro is leaning over the rail, flicking bottle caps over Sunny’s edge so he can watch them hit the water far below.

Luffy doesn’t say anything at first, just slowly walks up to Zoro and stands next to him. Zoro knows Luffy is watching him, analyzing him in that weird way he does. Luffy somehow knows things about people that they don’t yet know about themselves just from watching them, and usually Zoro really admires that, but he doesn’t want that knowing gaze turned on him. Especially not now.

But at the same time, it’s Luffy. Luffy who would never even dream of doing anything that might hurt his crew. Luffy, who sees the best in people, who has never judged his friends. Not when Nami claimed she was one of Arlong’s pirates, not when Robin was framed for shooting Iceburg, not when Usopp almost let his insecurities separate him from the crew. Luffy had nothing bad to say to Robin or Sanji when they came out, and he wouldn’t have anything bad to say to Zoro, either.

Zoro throws the last of his bottle caps overboard. There’s no way to avoid this. He sighs and sits down, back against the railing, and Luffy follows him down.

“What’s up, Zoro? Has something been on your mind?” Luffy starts.

“Luffy, how did you know you were a boy?” Zoro deflects. It doesn’t begin to address Zoro’s own issues, but he just needs to ease in for now.

Luffy looks a little surprised, but doesn’t push Zoro. “I actually always thought I was a boy. I didn’t know that my body was different to the other boys I knew, and I didn’t understand why people treated me differently when they met me. Everyone in the village called me a tomboy, so I thought I was a boy.” Luffy’s face softens for a moment, and he lets out a small laugh. “I really surprised Dadan and Ace the first time she tried to give us a bath. But when I told them I was a boy just like Ace, they didn’t push it, and they let me grow up as a boy.” Luffy trails off a little, but nods when he finishes his thought. He looks at Zoro again, and Zoro swears those eyes are seeing right through him. “Are you… questioning? Do you think you might not be a boy?” He asks, cutting straight through the bullshit and right to the core of Zoro’s problem.

All Zoro can do is nod weakly and stare at the floor. “I asked Sanji for help and she helped me a little, and I asked Robin to look at her books but it all just made me more frustrated. I don’t want to face myself, right now. It all just feels wrong.” Zoro’s face feels hot, he isn’t used to this kind of heart-to-heart and he’s starting to feel really embarrassed and–

Luffy reaches out, crossing the divide between them, and places his hand on Zoro’s. “You’re still the same Zoro you were before, right? Nothing’s gonna change, we’re just gonna see you as you.”

Zoro lifts his head up and stares at Luffy. He knows his jaw is hanging open, and he can’t bring himself to close it. Still the same Zoro… how does Luffy always know just the right thing to say?

“Do you want me to go get Robin’s book? We can look at it again, maybe I can help–”

Zoro shakes his head and smiles at Luffy. “No, it’s okay. I think I know which one I am. I was scared, though, about what it might change. I don’t want to change.”

Luffy laughs. “Nothing is going to change, Zoro. Well, hopefully you feel happier, cause you get to be who you really are. But that’s not scary, that’s a good thing!” Luffy’s eyes are bright and his hand is warm on Zoro’s.

“Yeah… happier, huh.” Zoro breathes out. He never really thought about what comes after his realization, but happiness… well that always sounds nice. Under the moonlight, with Luffy holding his hand and watching over him, Zoro is a little less scared to face himself and the truth that he has probably known this whole time.

“Well, Captain…” Zoro stops himself, clears his throat, and starts again. Right now, this is a conversation between friends, not captain and crew. “Well, Luffy… I’m not a boy. I’m agender.”

Luffy is on him in a second, wrapping him in a tight hug and threatening to knock them both overboard. Luffy is laughing and so is Zoro as they rearrange themselves to sit side-by-side, now looking out over the water.

“I’m proud of you, Zoro.” Luffy whispers, and Zoro feels warm in spite of himself. “So, do you know what this means from now on? Are you gonna change how we refer to you, like Sanji did?”

Zoro stills. He has been so caught up in denying everything, he never thought about what comes next. Slowly, he shakes his head. “I… I haven’t thought about it yet.”

“That’s okay! You can think about it now.” Luffy swings his legs over the side of the ship and leans into Zoro’s side. “Are you feeling better now? Do you wanna tell everyone soon?”

Zoro ponders it for a minute. He is feeling better, a lot better than when Luffy had found him. He knows the crew will be accepting, just like they were for Luffy and Robin and Sanji. If telling everyone can finally get this weight off of Zoro’s chest, he’s ready. He leans into Luffy, feeling the rough texture of the straw hat tickle his cheek. “Yeah, I think I’ll be ready soon. Thank you, Luffy.”

“It’s no problem, Zoro.”

Even after his talk with Luffy, the idea of coming out is still terrifying. Normally, the words “Zoro” and “scared” don’t even go in the same sentence. But there is something so much more real, more personal, about this. Zoro’s gender isn’t some enemy he can cut up. It’s him. And he’s trying to adjust to this new view of himself.

He talks to Robin first. He thanks her for letting him use her book, and apologizes for slamming it shut. He tells her how he knew that the term agender fit him, but that it freaked him out, and he tells her about his talk with Luffy. Robin is a patient listener, and she tells Zoro that she doesn’t blame him. “I figured that you saw something that fit you. I also had a hard time accepting myself. It’s normal to be unsure and afraid, but thank you for telling me.” She reassures.

His talk with Sanji isn’t as calm or patient, but it gets the job done. He thanks Sanji for helping him figure things out, using as few words as he can. Sanji teases back, but nothing she says is hurtful. They just acknowledge that Zoro feels differently, but there’s nothing to say about it, really. Zoro appreciates that sort of understanding.

Nami tells the crew that their next island is about three days away, provided that nothing gets in their way. Slim chance of nothing getting in their way, but Zoro is thankful to know. He spends three days getting comfortable. He tries out different pronouns in secret with Robin, Luffy, and Sanji, and he is pleased to realize that being referred to as “they” doesn’t feel as weird as he thought it would. 

Zoro finally tells the crew over dinner on the third day. Sanji made rice bowls; a giant pot of rice and three different kinds of meat as well as tons of veggies for the crew to choose from. Zoro loves rice bowls almost as much as rice balls, but he’s sure he never told Sanji that. Sanji doesn’t mention it, so Zoro doesn’t either.

Zoro had already told Luffy and Robin he was going to do it tonight, so they are sitting on either side of him. Luffy is playing with Zoro’s free hand under the table, waiting for Zoro’s signal to call attention to him.

Zoro nods at Luffy, signaling that he’s ready. Well, he’s not, but it’s now or never. Time to take the leap.

Luffy sets his silverware down and addresses the rest of the table. “Hey, everyone, Zoro has something to say. He’s nervous, so be nice.” The last sentence is teasing, and everyone knows it. They aren’t going to be mean to Zoro, and considering how similar his nervous energy was to Sanji’s just a few weeks ago, they have an inkling of what Zoro might need to tell them.

“I don’t know how to start this,” Zoro admits. Luffy takes off his hat and plops it down on Zoro’s head, and the gesture is so meaningful , it gives Zoro the push he needs. Zoro forges on ahead.

“Ok, uh, I guess it starts with the cook. A few days ago, when they came out, it uh… it kinda impacted me a lot too. I didn’t actually know that there was anything other than just man and woman, so it made me question a lot of things.” Sanji’s face looks weird; it’s red like she’s embarrassed but there’s a hint of… happiness? somewhere in there. Robin rubs Zoro’s back to encourage him.

“Well, once I knew I wasn’t just limited to being a man, it made a lot of things from my past make sense. I’ve never exactly felt like a man, I just did it because I thought it’s what I had to do. So what I’m saying is I’m not a man, I’m not really anything, in fact. I’m agender. No gender, just me.”

Luffy is smiling next to him and Robin and Chopper are both wrapping him in a hug. Nami teases Zoro about how emotional he’s become, but she’s proud of him too. So is everyone else. It’s a lot… but it’s still nice. Sanji just nods approvingly, and it reminds Zoro of how he reacted to Sanji’s coming out.

Before anyone else can ask Zoro, he speaks up again. “Oh, and for the pronoun thing. It’s he/they. Kinda like the cook’s, but no she.” Everyone nods and accepts it.

Zoro really, really loves their crew. They never thought they would reach this level of happiness, of acceptance. He supposes he should have known when Luffy accepted his dream without any argument, accepted everyone’s dreams no matter how crazy they were. Once Luffy declares someone as nakama , he is never letting go, and Zoro is so grateful that he chose to follow someone like that. They couldn’t dream of a life that was any different.

Zoro is feeling a bit awkward, so he’s glad when other conversations pick back up and dinner resumes. Usopp asks Zoro if this means they’re gonna be the world’s greatest swords person , and Zoro says that’s stupid, and the table fills with laughter. The night is still young and Zoro is surrounded by people they love and nothing has ever felt better.

#one piece #one piece fic #roronoa zoro #zoro #monkey d luffy #luffy #sanji #nico robin #nami #tony tony chopper #straw hat pirates #agender character #genderfluid character #trans male character #trans female character #introspection #questioning #lgbtq #zolu can be platonic or romantic #agender zoro

[multigenderswag]

I actually hate being multigendered. I lay awake at night debating on whether I should just re-closet myself or lie and say “I was wrong, I’m just a cis girl!” so I can have an easier time navigating both queer spaces and romance. I’ve always felt that I’d have a hard time in terms of dating because everyone’s views of man and woman are so black and white.

The only thing stopping me from this is that some days I’m so undeniably uncomfortable with she/her (I’m bigender/fluid), and other days the thought of not being able to be called “he” or perceived as a man or a boygirl upsets me. I get so much joy from people using mismatched terms for me- like “she’s a guy who’s….” or “this lady thinks he’s…” etc. and i the thought of that not being able to have that happen makes me sad. It leaves me feeling hollow.

But I’m just so tired of arguing with terfs and exorsexists and transmultiphobes. So tired of being ignored and invalidated and degendered. So tired of spending time and enjoying myself with the guy I’m interested in and holding back the urge to confess because if he found out that I was also guy I’d feel like a liar or a predator.

Being multigender often times feels like a curse.

Do you have any words of encouragement?

I'm aromantic, so I haven't had the experience of difficulty being multigender in terms of dating, but I definitely relate to the urge to re-closet myself and just pretend I'm cisgender. But I try to just remind myself of how dysphoric and alone I felt when I was fully closeted, and how much happier I am now that I have some friends using my pronouns and name. That helps me realize I don't want to go back to how I used to feel.

The thing about being multigender is, I don't have a choice in the matter. I am who I am, and I can't change that. Really my only option is to live with this identity, so I might as well learn to like who I am.

As far as arguing with terfs and exorsexists and transmultiphobes, you don't owe them shit. You're not obligated to engage with them. Some advice my friend gave me that I try to keep in mind is "I will not engage with people who want me dead." Walk away, or block them. Their bigotry is not worth your time.

Something that really helps me have hope is just... seeing or hearing about other multigender people living their lives. Seeing posts about multigender people feeling euphoria, or finding multigender art or poetry or music, or reading about multigender history. There are other people like me, expressing themselves or finding joy in their identities or just existing.

There are going to be people who accept you, anon. Maybe you're in a position where your irl friends will be supportive, in which case, being able to be yourself around them could be immensely helpful. Or maybe you're not safe to come out right now, but someday you will be. Being multigender may feel like a curse right now, but it won't feel that way forever. Once you make it through this difficult part you will find support and euphoria and pride in your identity, okay? I wish you the best of luck, anon.

#asks #advice #encouragement

[astoriaroleplay]

MEET JACKSON “J” CASSIDY

AGE: 29 years old

BIRTHDAY: February 13, 1993

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis Man — he/him

OCCUPATION:  Mechanic

PLACE OF BIRTH:  California, USA

NEIGHBORHOOD:  North Valley

HAS LIVED IN ASTORIA FOR: 2 months

CHARACTER INTERVIEW

What are your reasons to move to Astoria? Will you be moving by yourself or with someone else?

“The main reason is to get a new start. I worry that I wore out my welcome in other towns just by not connecting, so it’s difficult to find a place that truly seems to stick. I really just want to find a place to belong where I can figure out who I am and maybe what I’ve been missing all this time. I don’t expect to find all the answers to what I’m looking for here, but I’ve never grown up with a sense of community, let alone been with a pack that felt like home and I think that’s honestly what I’ve been needing to get out of this hole I’ve been. I didn’t have much in the way of family growing up; honestly I have no idea who any of them other than they weren't good people and abandoned me so I really just want to find somewhere to stop hiding “ Jackson replied realizing he had been rambling quite a bit. It had been far too long that someone had asked about his wants and needs. He also didn’t want to talk too much about family either “ I’ll be on my own here. I don’t have any other attachments left in the previous places I’ve lived which is also part of the reason to come here. I didn’t have anyone to keep me sticking around and it was nine out of ten times my own fault.”

What’s something about your personality that you’re proud of? And what would you like to change?

“ It’s not the easiest to talk about myself in such a way but I guess what I am most proud of is my ability to adapt and accept anything. Nothing really scares me anymore and it won’t send me running if someone was trying to open up to me about something terrible. I wasn't the most reliable person in the past but if someone needed me, I would never turn from them just because of the information I’ve been let in on. I’m very loyal and despite not having many friends I would literally go to the ends of the earth for them just to make sure they were going to be alright. I wish I could change everything else. “ Jackson stops himself knowing he was going to be too hard on himself. He tried to keep his hands still, due to how nervous he was becoming, placing them on his knees to stop them from moving too much. “I spent a bit too much time on my own; even when in a pack. I’m not the most social of beings, I like to keep to myself and enjoy the silence and I know that isn’t how people make friends and I wish I could change that but I sometimes don’t know how to talk to others. It’s just easier to avoid trouble by staying by myself. It's a hard habit to break.”

Please elaborate on any violent circumstances you may have been involved with in the past.

The werewolf let out a sigh, worried this was going to be the thing that truly cost him a chance at a new start. He bit the inside of his cheek trying to find the right words. There was no way he was going to be able to fight the nervous energy he had while describing the incident. “ There was one thing,” Jackson admitted, not wanting to seem like he was hiding anymore. “ My parents had abandoned me when I was really young and I was living in foster care for most of my life. Some of the places were good and some of them I hated but the last one, before I turned 18, had been both. I didn't get along with my foster brother but his sister was the only friend I had in a long time. He wasn’t a great person. He was a bully and needlessly cruel to both her and me and eventually I couldn’t take it after he hurt her I fought back. I tried to protect her, but in doing so, he ended up in the hospital and I ran. I don't know what happened after that. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I don’t know. It’s why I keep my head down a lot now."

Your thoughts about supernatural beings.

“Jackson swallowed the lump in his throat at hearing the question so out there in the open, he was so used to secrets and this was new for him. “ I don’t have a problem with them at all. I am one which I’ve had to do a lot of work on my own with. I didn’t know for a long time that there were more than just what I am out there, but I think it’s cool. It is definitely why I want to be somewhere more like this where there is more than just what I am used to. I’ve hid for so much of my life and I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want any of us to ever have to feel like we have to hide to survive, cause we all deserve the same things. Pride, safety and a place to call home.

FACECLAIM: Joseph Quinn PLAYED BY: Rach

#joseph quinn fc #all #cis man #werewolf #north valley #violence tw

[uhhbeans]

thinking about,,,,,ladder n dusk again :]

(tag rant moments//)

#mack shut the fuck <3 #oc// dusk #oc// ladder #i designed them to be both foils and parallels and i think that’s very sexy of me #okay i’m making playlists for them atm (it’s. HARD) butttt a song i put on both of theirs was #our word from 36..questions/ and mama by m/.cr #because they both hold different parts of the song #like the line ‘you should’ve raised a baby girl/i could’ve been a better son’ applies to ladder first and dusk second #because ladder’s main issues regarding their identity are apart of this philosophy of ‘i should’ve been raised different. i should’ve had my #father there with me. i should’ve believed my grandmother/mother’s capitalistic values and continued in the med field’ #he’s heavily tied to this part of his identity being based on what could’ve happened if he were different #if he wasn’t ashamed of being non-binary and feeling foolish for even Wanting to be taken seriously. essentially it’s #‘if i was raised attached to womanhood and christianity like my guardians wanted i could’ve been better off instead of being this mess of a #man right now.’ and it’s difficult because he *wants* to be cis. he wishes he were just a cis woman instead of transmasc to make it easier #on himself. he’s still a ‘man’ and he can’t get rid of that but it hurts that he has to hide his real identity even moreso than before #while on dusks side: #she was raised in an environment that would’ve accepted her wholeheartedly if she’d come out earlier and accepted herself #but she went into the stem field to uphold the model minority myth and to make her family ‘proud’. she didn’t transition until 34 because #she wanted to make sure her father wasn’t disappointed in not having as many sons as before. #her entire life was based on pleasing others who wouldn’t be hurt either way if she didn’t. and it left a mark on her #‘i should’ve been a better son’ is a line reflecting how she wished she didn’t feel like she fucked up by transitioning. even if that’s not #the case at all. #can you tell i’m projecting onto both of them lmao #our word is the other one i mentioned where it directly relates to the terms ‘she’ being used in different ways #the line ‘she’s always been so goddamn independent’ relates to the both of them (ladder’s guardians in scorning/dusks in pride) #ladder’s transition was seen as a problem while dusks is seen as a virtue. #ANYWAY long rant over sorry have fun #ok to rb idk why u would but you can!!

[barbaricpoetic]

In honor of Trans Day of Visibility, have my Adam Parrish Is Trans Actually rant

To be clear, I don’t think Adam was written as trans, or with any great intention for him to be read and coded as trans. I just think the idea of magic being related to sexuality and gender is something that plays an interesting role in The Raven Cycle as a whole, and as someone who relates a lot to Adam, I can see a lot of my own journey as a ftm demiboy in his character arc.

For this post, I'm speaking as if he is clearly, unequivocally, ftm transmasc.

Spoilers ahead for the entire Raven Cycle series

Adam starts the books off really trying to appeal to this height of masculinity. He goes to an all boys school, the jobs he works are typically male-dominated fields (factory and mechanic work), and he dresses not only economically for his station, but like a trans guy trying to pass as cis, despite that not being the way he’d like to present himself. He’s also described over and over as pretty, elegant, delicate, like a girl, but in a masculine way.

“And the third was — elegant. It was not the right word for him, but it was close. He was fine boned and a little fragile looking, with blue eyes pretty enough for a girl.” - TRB

Adam also puts a lot of effort into changing his voice to remove his accent, so it’s not unrealistic to imagine that that also comes with him trying to deepen his tones and drop his voicebox in order to pass better.

“The voice was careful, masculine, and local; the vowels had all the edges sanded off.” - TRB

“He even sounded different. There was no trace at all of his subtle Virginia accent. He’d endlessly practiced erasing it in high school but never pulled it off. Now it was completely hidden. A stranger’s voice.” - CDTH

Throughout The Raven Boys, Adam is questioning everything, but is being propelled by his desire to be like Gansey and the other Aglionby boys, because they feel closer to everything that he’s always known and hated, but at the same time feel unattainable.

“Adam felt the familiar pang. Not jealousy, just wanting. One day, he’d have enough money to have a place like this. A place that looked on the outside like Adam looked on the inside.

“A small voice within Adam asked whether he would ever look this grand on the inside, or if it was something you had to be born into. Gansey was the way he was because he had lived with money when he was small, like a virtuoso placed at a piano bench as soon as he could sit. Adam, a latecomer, a usurper, still stumbled over his clumsy Henrietta accent and kept his change in a cereal box under his bed.” - TRB

This battle with his masculinity comes to a head when his father (the most significant male force in his life) beats the living shit out of him and deafens him in one ear.

Driven by this stress and this feeling that he can’t belong anywhere, he goes to wake the ley line to find Glendower because he wants everything Gansey has, seeing Gansey as the perfect ideal man. Gansey has not just wealth, privilege, security, respect, but safety and comfort in his own gender (at least how Adam perceives Gansey, who, on the other hand, has some envy for Adam), which something Adam desperately wants and feels broken because he doesn't have.

“Gansey thought of one hundred things that he could say to Adam about how it would be all right, how it was for the best, how Adam Parrish had been his own man before he’d met Gansey and there was no way he’d stop being his own man just by changing the roof over his head, how some days Gansey wished that he could be him, because Adam was so very real and true in a way that Gansey couldn’t ever seem to be.” - TRB

Adam's waking of the ley line is almost metaphorical, or an analogy for what happens when you realize you're trans. You can either know it and go forward, walk that long difficult path, or you can hide it away, but either way, you're never going to be the same.

“Adam was different since making the bargain with Cabeswater. Stronger, stranger, farther away. It was hard not to stare at the odd and elegant lines of his face.” -TDT

The world around Adam is also experiencing a huge shift, as everything around Adam feels more strange and surreal and strangely right, which is a fairly common experience many trans people have upon realizing that they’re trans. 

“He swallowed his ginger ale. He wasn’t sure it hadn’t actually been champagne, now, all along. The party had become a devil’s feast: will-o’-the-wisps caught in brass hunting lamps, impossibly bright meats presented on ivy-filagreed platters, men in black, women jeweled in green and red. The painted trees of the ceiling bent low overhead. Adam was wired and exhausted, here and somewhere else. Nothing was real but him and Gansey.” - TDT

Adam views this change, this magic from Cabeswater as something from outside of him, kind of in a 'this is being done to me' sense.

“It had been a little over a month since he’d offered his sacrifice to Cabeswater in order to wake Gansey’s ley line. The entire ritual felt swimmy and surreal in his mind, like he’d been watching himself perform it on a television screen. Adam had gone fully prepared to make a sacrifice. But he wasn’t quite sure how the specific one he’d eventually made had come to him: I will be your hands. I will be your eyes.” - TDT

So far, nothing had happened, not really. Which was almost worse. He was a patient with a diagnosis that he couldn’t understand.” - TDT

He spends the next book in a kind of conflicted agony as he wrestles with what Cabeswater asks him to do vs what he thinks he should do, and this chaotic agony of deep seated repression coming to the surface, he goes towards what feels safe, more specifically, the hyper-masculine.

He’s dating Blue and really wants to kiss her despite her growing away from him, he experiences a lot more uncontrollable rage and frustration (like his father, who he fears he's becoming as he leans more towards the masculine).

“He calmed enough to remember that if he waited long enough, carefully analyzing how it felt, the emotion would lose its inertia. It was the same as physical pain. The more he tried to mentally decide what made pain hurt, the less his brain seemed able to remember the pain at all.” TDT

This comes to a head at Gansey’s mom's party, when he's acting out the part of a perfect young man with the world before him. The party puts him into a near-drunk stupor, as he realizes that even though he's closer to the gender he wants to be it's still an act that he's putting on for cis people around him. 

“With a jolt, he realized that he intimidated her. Standing there in his impervious suit with its red-knotted tie, young and straight-shouldered and clean, he had pulled off whatever strange alchemy Gansey performed. For perhaps the first time in his life, someone was looking at him and seeing power.” - TDT

His gender in this scene isn’t his, it’s a performance of what a man his age should be and it breaks him so much that he rages.

“’Oh, what?” Adam demanded. “You’re afraid someone will hear? They’ll know everything isn’t perfect in the land of Dick Gansey? A dose of reality could only help those people!’ With a sudden twist, he swept all of the figurines from the Queen Anne table. Foxes in breeches and terriers seized in midflight. They all plunged to the floor with a satisfying and diseased smash. He raised his voice. ‘World’s ending, folks!’” - TDT

So he finally goes to Persephone (a (transfemme queen no I will not be taking suggestions) and through her guidance into exploring this bond with Cabeswater, he realizes that his call to gender is not outside him, not defined by society's expectation of what it is to be male, what it is to be Adam, but that it comes from within him and it always has.

“Adam was once again retreating inside himself, most interested, as always, in the thing that remained unknowable to him: his own mind.” - BLLB

“He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things.” - TRK

Adam’s gender is closer to male, but it isn’t quite all the way there.

“Adam narrowed his eyes. There was something different about him. Or maybe there was just something different between him and Henry. Henry was a boy. Adam was a —

Gansey didn’t know.”

But Adam learns that, and he accepts it. And as he eases into his role as a magician, he becomes safer and more comfortable in himself, in his own body, separate from the paralizing stasis that came with his character in The Raven Boys and the agonizing turmoil that came in The Dream Thieves. He learns how to grow and restructure his priorities and to walk away from the hyper-masculine in order to be himself. He still desires things, but he wants them for him as he is now, not who he has always wanted to be

And in the end, the unknowable boy gets to be known and loved, not just by his friends and his crush, but by himself.

(and then it all goes tits up in The Dreamer Trilogy, but I have a feeling we haven’t seen all of Adam there yet)

I feel very passionate about this, as you can see.

#adam parrish #the magician #adam parrish magician #the raven cycle #trc #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king #the dreamer trilogy #tdt #call down the hawk #mister impossible #greywaren #maggie stiefvater #pynch #ronan lynch #ronan x adam #adam x ronan #gansey #richard campbell gansey iii #blue sargent #trans #trans headcanon #trans!adam #trans!adam parrish #trans adam parrish

[duckprintspress]

Advice for Writing Trans Male Characters

Hi everyone, and welcome to our second guest post! We approached a trans man, and fellow writer, to put together a list of suggestions for cis people who want to write trans male characters! He has chosen to remain anonymous. Always remember, there is no one trans experience, and no one trans person’s knowledge will reflect the range of ways that trans people live. Our post author writes from his perspective, based on his knowledge and research, and much of this is relatively specific to the modern United States. Always use multiple sources when writing a character with an identity or identities that you don’t share!

*

So, you want to write a trans male character but you're not a trans man yourself. Good! We need more trans male characters out there in the world. There are a few things to consider, however. This is not a perfect list (I would never claim to be perfect), but here are some thoughts from a trans man about writing people like me.

Trans men are men. They talk like men, think like men, and walk like men, except where socialization as women has forced otherwise. By this I mean that descriptions should not include things like “he walked delicately, like a woman”. However he walks, it's like a man, because he’s a man. Other characters should not note that he “thinks like a woman” or that he “acts like a woman.” If you talk about a trans man transitioning and you mention that he is working on ways to masculinize his speech patterns or walking, that's fine, but make sure it's done from his perspective, e.g. “Michael tried to lower his voice, attempting to sound more like his father.” Do not use “Michael tried to lower his voice, not wanting to sound like a woman.” It's his voice and he sounds like a man. Also, many woman have deeper registers and many men have higher registers, and there's honestly not that much difference between a woman who speaks in a low alto and a man who speaks in a high tenor. Avoid gendering voices, mannerisms, and other things. A good rule of thumb is that if it's a concept, idea, or an inanimate or non-sentient thing, it is physically and/or emotionally incapable of having a gender and you should not assign one to it.

1. A trans man who has decided that all he needs to do is come out to be a man is still a man, with a man's body and male genitals, because he says he's a man. Even if he is not out, he is a man. He can be uncomfortable with his body, or with how others perceive his body, but it should not be described in terms of “womanly” aspects.

EX: David's breasts made him uncomfortable, reminding him that others looked at him differently than how he would have liked.

2. 72% of trans men do not ever want full gender reassignment surgery, and this doesn’t make them “less of a man.” The surgeries are expensive, invasive, and don’t always result in a fully functional genital apparatus. Also, there are a lot of them. A trans man, to have a full semi-working penis (one that will not be useful for sex but will at least be useful for urination), is looking at at least three surgeries: to remove the labia, to 'bulk up' the clitoris, and to move the urethra. There are also surgeries to remove the cervix and/or the uterus, to create a scrotum, and to add a pump inside the scrotum attached to a surgical implant in the penis to assist with arousal. Even if a man has all these surgeries, the penis he gets loses most of its sensitivity and won’t become physically aroused (as in, achieve erection) without medical intervention. He may also need electrolysis to remove pubic hair. Ultimately, many trans men opt not to deal with it. Many still want top surgery, or a hysterectomy, or both, and often testosterone is used to help deepen their voice and change their body shape (but, again, gendering a trans man's voice by suggesting it's “feminine” because he's not on testosterone or because his voice hasn't dropped yet is not a great idea). It depends on the type and amount of dysphoria a person experiences, versus their financial and mental ability to deal with the different choices. Some trans men are happy with no hormones and only top surgery. Others want or need everything. There is no “correct” way to be trans.

3. Unless your story revolves around their transition (which, as a cis person, maybe it's best you don't do, honestly), there’s no reason to go into detail about your trans male character's surgeries. If it’s not plot relevant, it's probably not necessary.

4. If you’re writing porn, make sure to always use male pronouns for him, even if he has chosen not to go through surgery. If he has gone through surgery, what he has will be indistinguishable from a cis male penis except that he may need viagra or a surgical pump.

5. Reactions to testosterone are different for every trans man. Some men never have their voices drop, never grow a beard, and/or never bulk up and get all muscle-y. Some men are on testosterone for two weeks and have a Gandalf beard with a voice low enough to sing bass. It just depends, mostly on genetics. If your character's father is a super hairy mountain man who sings bass in his lumberjack quartet, then your character is more likely to end up similar. If your character's father is basically an elf, then he's likely to be similar to that. Also, for a number of reasons, a trans man may choose not to or may be incapable of taking testosterone. Most doctors won’t prescribe it if the man wants to carry his own children in the future, for example.

6. Keep in mind that the order in which testosterone produces effects on a man’s body isn’t predictable, so don't worry too hard about 'getting it right.' Even trans men can't predict what they'll look like after being on testosterone for a while.

7. Also, a note: If your character is transmasculine and nonbinary, and taking testosterone, it's likely they will be on a lower dose than a trans man. That's not always true, but testosterone can be given at a few different doses, depending on how drastic a change a person wants and how quickly they want that change to occur. There’s still no guarantee: a trans man may never be able to grow a beard on a full dose, while a transmasculine nonbinary person might be on a very low dose and have a beard within the first month. But, generally, lower doses are meant to bring out smaller changes over a longer period of time, while higher doses are meant to bring out larger changes over a shorter period of time.

8. A non-fluid trans man is going to consider himself a man at all times, and always use he/him pronouns for himself, whether or not everyone else does. If you're writing a trans man point-of-view piece where he's not out or where he's not fully accepted, make sure he or the narrator always uses the right pronouns when others don't. That helps remind your audience that he's not the person other people think he is.

EX: Daniel was frustrated. His grandmother insisted on calling him “Sarah” no matter how many times he corrected her.

9. Menstruation is a difficult topic for a lot of trans men. Some men lose their ability to menstruate when they take testosterone, while others continue to menstruate. If they retain their uterus, however, the possibility of a menstrual cycle is always there. If/when menstruation happens for a trans man, it's often a time of major dysphoria. A trans man may have a lot of issues surrounding menstruation. Having a cervix also means yearly Pap smears, which can also be uncomfortable or dysphoria-inducing. Dysphoria can also happen during ovulation, when a person is most fertile. The body during this time is “getting ready for a baby” and the changes can be very triggering.

10. Testosterone may stop menstruation, but it doesn't necessarily stop pregnancy. Also, some trans men will go off their testosterone in order to carry their own child. During their pregnancy, it is important that they are still referred to as men. A trans man will generally prefer to be called “father” even if he carried the child, but some may prefer the term “mother.” If a cis person wishes to write a pregnant trans character, it would be better to err on the side of caution and use “father.” A trans man who has gone through top surgery will not likely be able to nurse his own children, but a man who has chosen to use a binder instead will be able to (probably - some people don’t/can’t lactate for other reasons). Whether or not he chooses to will be up to him.

11. Gender Dysphoria is the medical diagnosis given to trans people who want to do any form of medical transitioning. Being transgender is not in and of itself a diagnosis. A person can be transgender and choose never to transition medically. Dysphoria is generally most clearly understood as a form of discomfort in the body you possess. Sometimes a person experiencing dysphoria is uncomfortable with their body no matter what. He doesn't like his breasts, for example, unless they are bound, no matter what his setting is, who is looking at him, etc. His dysphoria takes the form of nausea at the mere sight of them. Alternatively, some people only experience dysphoria relating to how others see them. For example, a man may not mind his breasts when he's alone, and he doesn't usually bind, but on a specific day while he wasn't binding someone glance at his breasts before calling him 'ma'am' and now he can't uncross his arms in case someone else looks his way. For some people dysphoria comes and goes, and they have good days and bad days. Also, images can be dysphoria-inducing. For example, seeing a pregnant person might remind a man that he has a uterus, and make him extremely uncomfortable all day. Other people may go several days, or weeks or months, without experiencing dysphoria, but when it hits it affects them for a long time or very severely. Or a person might experience dysphoria every day, as kind of a low-level mental fog they can't shake.

12. Gender Euphoria is as valid as Gender Dysphoria. Gender Euphoria is the idea that a person might be content in the body given to them, but will never be truly happy unless they make a change. These people can live their whole lives as the gender assigned to them at birth without severe mental issues or physical problems, but it's like living a life without color. They can do it, but if there's a way to get color back, why wouldn't they?

13. Changing names is complicated and takes time. It also differs in every state/country, and may need to be re-done when a trans man moves. In some states, all they need to change their name legally is a court order. In other areas, a trans man needs to have lived using their new name for a period of time, or have doctor’s notes and authorizations. Once the character has changed their name legally through the courts, they need to change their driver's license, banking information, insurance, work papers, social security information, passport, birth certificate, and any other documentation bearing their name. It can take anywhere from a month to a year or more, and is expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. It's okay to have a trans male character who goes by “Mark” but whose parents or grandparents refer to as “Melissa.” The important thing is to make sure narratively you are confirming that those people are wrong.

EX: “Melissa! It's nice to see you come to visit!” Mark's mom said. Mark cringed, hating the sound of his deadname, but he hadn't yet been able to convince his mother to use the right one.

14. Do not portray a character binding for more than eight hours or with unsafe binders in a positive light. Just don’t. Binding, even with professional/high-end binders, is not safe. It's a stopgap - safer than not binding at all for some people whose dysphoria is really bad. It constricts the lungs and can break ribs if not done properly. It can permanently alter a person's chest cage if done for an extensive period of time. It's a necessary evil for people who are waiting to get their surgery done, in order to keep them alive to have that surgery. It's not a permanent cure-all. Binding also can cause dysphoria. A person who doesn't have dysphoria surrounding his chest can develop it after wearing a binder. So, have your character bind safely, or discuss the issues surrounding unsafe binding. (And yes, this applies even in a fantasy setting or world where the technology may be different. A story is a story, but the impact it could have on a real trans man is potentially dangerous, so write with consideration, and if you do introduce a magical or technological solution to this, maintain awareness of the reality.)

15. Transitioning without an in-person support group is one of the most common factors in transitioning regret. Give your character someone to go to the doctor with them, someone to hold their hand when they get scared, someone to talk them through moments when they're unsure. No one who goes under the knife is always completely 100% sure all the time. They need a community. Surgery and hormones are scary, even if a trans man knows he wants them, and trying to go it alone can spell disaster.

16. Given that a trans man will consider himself a man, it can be challenging to make it clear to a reader that he’s trans. If he's the main/POV character, you can write him dealing with some dysphoria. For example, if you decide your character binds, mention that his breasts are bothering him particularly badly one day. Have him adjust his binder. Describe putting a binder on. That kind of thing. If he's a minor character, it can be more challenging, but you can still have him do things like adjust a binder. You could also mention surgical scars, if a character takes off their shirt. Another thing you can do is just have the main character remember a time “before Mark went by Mark” (for example). Another way is to have the character mention some way in which they are fighting for trans rights, and acknowledge that the issue is personal to them. Try not to use the deadname unless he’s facing an actual microaggression by another character. The narrative or narrator character should never deadname the character.

17. FTM is not an accepted term anymore, as it implies that a person was one thing and changed. Generally speaking, if a trans man is not genderfluid, then he was never female or a woman. Likewise, the phrase “born in the wrong body” is not acceptable for use by cis people. The only real use it has is to explain dysphoria by transgender characters to cisgender characters who aren't inclined to listen or try to understand. The accepted term is AFAB, or Assigned Female At Birth. Keep in mind that terms and labels change with time, so do your research. For example, if you’re writing a historical piece, different terms may be more appropriate, and if you’re writing a modern current-day piece, understand that in ten or twenty years the terminology you use will likely have grown outdated.

18. The proper way to write the term is always “trans man” and never “transman”. Trans is an adjective describing a type of man, just like you might say an Asian man or a muscled man or a gay man. This comes back to the idea that a trans man is always a man, first and foremost.

19. An easy pitfall to avoid if your trans male character's setting is modern or modernesque is: Don't make the story all about their oppression. We are aware of the many ways in which the modern world is trying to oppress and harm the trans community, but trans men can still be happy and interesting people. They can have dysphoria without being depressed. They aren’t necessarily the “down in the dumps” character. Also, trans men have a long history of being activists, and are often erased in history, so don't be afraid to make your trans men an out-and-loud activist. Yes, terrible things have happened and continue to happen to trans men, and any trans man who has done any research into trans history will know about individuals like Brandon Teena. Trans men know the dangers they face. Knowing that bad things can and are happening doesn't mean a trans man can't find his own joy in life, despite things not being perfect.

20. Keep in mind when writing in historical settings that trans men have existed for as long as people have existed. Many trans men were able to go through life completely “undetected” until they died and those around them conducted culturally-common burial practices. It’s not unreasonable to have a trans man in Regency England, Yuan China, or Roman times. If you're writing about non-European-centric history, many cultures acknowledged those who didn’t present the way their AGAB (assigned gender at birth) would suggest, and do your research. Also, keep intersectionality in mind, and tread especially carefully when writing a trans man from a culture and period other than your own. This post is mostly applicable to trans men in the modern era, and especially in the United States. The trans male experience will be different in other places in the world, for people of different ages and of different religions and ethnicities and races, so the more traits your trans man has that are outside your own experience as a cis writer, the more you should consider if it’s wise for you write the story you have in mind, or if it might not be better to allow in-group members to tell those stories. And never forget - trans men can and are all things - all races, all religions, abled and disabled, etc. People have nuanced identities and multiple identifiers and trans is always only one of many.

21. In fantastical or science fiction settings, please always ask yourself if oppression of trans people or bigotry against them is even needed. Maybe a society doesn't assign gender at birth, but waits until a child is old enough to tell the society where they belong. Maybe a society reveres those who are under the transgender umbrella. Maybe children are considered genderless until they reach puberty. You have a million and one options; why limit yourself to what modern predominantly Western white Christian society says? If you do make a society that doesn't look anything like the modern world, for example they assign gender at age five, think about how that would affect society as a whole. What kind of pronouns would be used for children under five? Are young children genderless, or are they seen as genderfluid? What about people who age past five and are still genderless or genderfluid? What are the naming conventions for children?

22. There are mixed feelings regarding how a science fiction or fantasy setting should treat transitioning. Should it be an easy fix, with magic or advance science doing it instantly or nearly so? Or should it be difficult, reflecting the modern situation where the process often years before a person can feel “finished?” That's up to you. Trans people themselves are split on this, so there’s no pleasing everyone. Do your best, and whichever way you choose, make sure to tag it accurately or, for original fiction, be clear up front what approaches you’ve chosen, so people can choose not to read something that may make them uncomfortable at best or trigger them and profoundly harm them at worst.

Ultimately, your trans man is your character and you can do with him as you wish. Write responsibly, and do your research, and if you can, get a sensitivity reader or a beta who is a trans man.

So, go, diversify those stories, write the things, and present good representation! Happy writing!

#duck prints press #original content #writing advice #guest blogger #trans characters #trans men

[just-here-for-the-moment]

For the DIFFERENT POV GAME:

I want Javi’s POV on this whole adorable scene.

Okay, my Queen @quica-quica-quica, I want you to know that I suuuuucked in a huge breath when I saw this Ask, because I was entirely unsure if I could do this. It seemed like a really hard challenge, but FOR YOU I’ll try anything.

I dug in to see what I could do, and of course because I can’t just write succinctly I had to start waaaaaay back in the beginning of the story to get Javier where I needed him for the phone number scene… hope that’s okay!!

Thank you for challenging me this way! This went from scary to amazing in just a few days! I love you so much, my friend!!!

---

Coffee Shop Girl (a companion piece to “For Now” told from Javier’s point of view)

Word count: 3000+

Rating: mature, 18+ only

Outline: Javier Peña x “You” (Austin coffee shop barista; cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: slow-burn; references to previous hiring of sex workers; cigarette smoking; Javier masturbating

Javier Peña felt like he was at loose ends. Not for the first time in his life, but it’s different feeling ‘lost’ as a young man than feeling ‘lost’ when you’re on the wrong side of 40. At least a teenager can still expect their whole life ahead of them. Since leaving the DEA and the fight in Colombia behind, he had been feeling directionless.

Spending some time at his dad’s ranch in Laredo had helped, the way that hard labor and sweat always does. It left him too tired to ruminate, to sink into the blues and feel sorry for himself. He had lined up a teaching job at a university in D.C. but it didn’t start until the fall semester, and Javier wasn’t looking forward to an entire blazing-hot summer on the ranch. So when his friend Bill called from Austin and offered a short contract job doing consulting for one of the state agencies, he jumped at the chance.

Javier landed at Mueller Airport at 2:00 in the afternoon on the second Saturday in June. He made his way out of luggage pickup to the Hertz desk and signed for a rental car. It didn’t take him long to find the apartment complex where Bill had arranged for him to stay. Bill’s coworker’s son had graduated from UT Austin in May, and the lease wasn’t up until August, so everything worked out perfectly. Javi could sublet for the remainder of the summer, and the apartment complex was close enough to the office that he could take the bus, meaning he wouldn’t have to put too many miles on the rental car or pay for parking downtown. A small, blandly furnished one-bedroom apartment near work was perfect. He could make it work for two months, and he had certainly lived in much worse places during his years traveling.

On Monday Javier was introduced around the office and given his portfolio of cases to consult on. He also found out that the coffee in the office was total shit. He had spent too many years drinking government-grade slop at the DEA and other agencies to put up with it now. He wasn’t one to complain, or to order any of the frilly new designer coffee drinks that seemed to be making the rounds among the ladies in the secretarial pool, but he had noticed a coffee shop between here and the bus stop. Some local place, one of those Austin things where they boasted about fair trade and locally roasted beans. If they made a decent cup of black coffee he could splurge, buy a cup on his way into the office each day.

The bus dropped him off at the corner at 7:45, so he could grab a coffee and still be on time to work at 8:00. Punctuality wasn’t always his strong suit, but Javier wanted to at least make a good impression while he was consulting. You never knew who might be a network contact to something good, and he didn’t want to screw Bill over after he had recommended him for the contract.

Tuesday Javier tried the coffee shop and found out that their coffee was not only decent for the price, it was actually good. Wednesday he went back again, this time brushing fingers with the pretty barista by accident. He offered her a “thanks” and then went on his way. Thursday he walked in and stood patiently in line behind two stoner kids trying to make up their minds between breakfast tacos and blueberry muffins. The pretty barista was there again, and she waved him over with a smile, indicating he could skip to the counter and leave the hippie kids in line.

“Black coffee, right?” Her smile actually reached her eyes, and for a moment Javier was very glad for all of the body language and psychology classes he had ever had to sit through. It was nice having a pretty lady smile at you to start your morning, and even better that this one already knew his order. She was quick, he figured, and good at her job if she had his order memorized after only two days as a customer. Not that ‘black coffee, to go’ was a difficult order, but he hadn’t expected to become a regular so quickly.

He smiled and nodded, “That’s right. Thank you.” He looked for a wedding ring and then for a nametag on her black apron, but didn’t see either one. He slid a rumpled $5 bill across the counter, larger than the singles he had paid with the previous two days, but she was nice. “Keep the change.”

He thought he saw her bite her lip as she turned away, and while she was fixing his cup he took a moment to check her out. He wasn’t some kind of pervert who would goose her from over the counter, but from what he could see she was attractive. Hell, most women were attractive to Javier. He suddenly realized it had been a while since he’d gotten laid. His last relationship was years past, and he no longer visited prostitutes regularly. Javier wasn’t a ‘reformed man’ by any means, it was just that that habit had been limited to a specific time and place in his life where he wasn’t stable enough to have a long-term relationship, and it had the added bonus of gathering intelligence.

The barista turned back to him with the cup and when she handed it off their eyes locked and their fingers touched again. He saw her pupils dilate and recognized the little spark that turned over in his own gut. Damn, she really was attractive. But Javier didn’t want to be the kind of lecherous guy who hit on a woman while she was working. Too many men mistook the minimum of customer service friendliness for a sexual invitation. Or worse, like the men who hit on waitresses on purpose since they couldn’t be outright rude to stop them. Javier suppressed a smile and took the cup from her, nodding his thanks.

On Friday when he breezed into the coffee shop he saw the pretty barista smile from behind the counter, and she immediately turned and started pouring his to-go cup. She turned back and gave him the ‘what’s up’ chin nod while holding his cup up. Javier walked up and he slid a few singles across the counter to her.

Javier gave her a warm, “Thanks,” and winked at her. That was at least a harmless bit of flirting, in line with her bright smiles and her friendliness so far. If she liked it, great; and if not, then at least he hadn’t made her uncomfortable by asking for her number or hitting on her directly. When he said, “See you next week,” she smiled that bright smile back. Javier noticed that it again reached her eyes, lighting them up just a bit more than last time. A good sign.

The weekend dragged but Javier filled it up with errands: a run to HEB for groceries and to Highland Mall for a new shirt. If there was the possibility of a date sometime in the next few weeks he at least wanted to wear something other than his work clothes. Saturday night he ordered pizza and watched a movie on TV, some lame action movie with giant muscled guys shooting way too many bullets, and of course all the curse words and a sex scene edited out for network TV. Can’t let the kiddies hear the word ‘shit’ while they’re flipping channels, but watching Stallone blow a guy’s head off is good for their growing brains. He finished his pizza and a cigarette and then felt that tug, the loose ends, a little bored.

Javier took a shower and his mind went to the pretty barista, that smile, the sparkly eyes. He thought about those eyes looking up at him through her lashes, or down at him from on top. He wondered what her skin felt like, imagining the rest of her naked, spread out, touching him all over. He felt a little bit creepy touching himself to the thought of her, hoping it didn’t make him a bad person, hoping he would see her again on Monday. But fuck it, he needed the release. Javier came, spurting hot in the steamy shower as he leaned his head on his forearm and groaned into the cold tile wall. He wished he at least knew her name.

Sunday Javier slept in and then did laundry, tidied up the apartment, and took a jog around the neighborhood. He tried to talk himself out of a repeat of Saturday’s shower. It didn’t work.

On Monday Javier lit up as soon as he stepped off the bus. The first week of the consulting gig had gone well, but today was a big meeting and he knew the agency was not going to like his recommendations. He was constantly trying to quit, but at least he had cut back recently. He was down to a pack a day and only one cup of coffee. That had to count for something, right? Maybe his doctor would finally get off his back about that.

He smoked as rapidly as he could on his way to the coffee shop, and stubbed the cigarette out as soon as he reached the big window that overlooked the street corner. He tucked his sunglasses into the top pocket of his blazer and opened the door to the coffee shop.

The pretty barista was smiling, looking right at him and already holding up his cup of coffee like a game show model holding a prize. Javier felt his heart give a little squeeze, and he smiled and winked at her again as he approached the counter.

“You psychic or something? Or am I just that predictable?”

“Both, maybe.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him and gave him a toothy grin.

Javier opened his wallet and saw that his smallest bill was a $10, but he decided not to ask for change back. She was attentive to her customers, she had surprised him by having coffee ready, and she was cute. “Great service, keep the change.”

Her face lit up and she turned to put the money in the register. Javier turned and exited the front door, and then decided to look back through the big plate glass window. She was looking at him, and Javier realized that meant that she had watched him leave. He hoped he wouldn’t have to tip $10 every time to get that look. He lifted his cup, nodded at her, and then made his way to the office.

Tuesday she had his coffee ready again, so he gave her another wink with his smile, and he thought that she purposely put her fingers in a spot to touch his as she handed the cup over. He paid with a $5 bill again, and then thought about her smile and her touch all the way to the office a few blocks north. He didn’t want her to think that the overtipping was him trying to come on to her; it really was nice to have his order ready to go every day.

On Wednesday she had his coffee ready again as soon as he walked in, but Javier supposed that was a testament to the bus schedule more than his own punctuality. This time he paid with singles. But he didn’t want her to think the smaller tip was because of anything wrong with her customer service, so he smiled a little more warmly, turning the charm up as much as he dared without just outright hitting on her. He noticed she was looking again through the glass as he left. But of course the only reason he knew that was because he had looked, too.

On Thursday Javier decided that it wouldn’t hurt to flirt a little more obviously, but to give her an out in case she wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable or fuck up his supply of good coffee, so he decided to take it a little slow. When he got to the corner he glanced into the window of the coffee shop and saw the pretty barista looking right at him. He took that as a good sign that she might be receptive to his flirting. He opened the door and let someone exit, then walked up to the counter. She pointed at his cup sitting on the counter in front of her, smiling that bright smile.

He arched an eyebrow up. “You trying to get rid of me? In and out so quickly?”

She grinned at him. “Depends on how long you were planning to stay. We close at 1:00 a.m. after open mic tonight. After that you gotta go somewhere else.” That was the most that she’d spoken to him yet. Javier decided to take his chance.

“And what time do you get off, after the morning shift?”

“Depends on who’s asking.” She winked and then bit the inside of her lips, like she had said something she shouldn’t have.

Javier decided to be direct. At least that would give her the chance to say ‘no’ if she wasn’t interested. He locked eyes with her and said, “I am.”

He was relieved to see her flash that big smile, all pretty soft lips and sparkly eyes. “I finish at 1:00, after the lunch rush.”

“Good to know.” He stuck his hand out to shake. “I’m Javier, by the way.” She continued to smile as she gave him her name. When she took his hand she gave a good firm shake, not like one of those women who went limp as soon as they shook a man’s hand. Javier liked her even more.

He fished a few bills out of his wallet. “Can I maybe stop by after your shift, take you to lunch sometime?”

“You can do me one better than that.” She reached down to grip the lid and spun the cup. He saw her name and seven digits scribbled in Sharpie. “My phone number’s on the cup.”

Javier gave her the eyebrows, very much enjoying how direct she was. It was nice to get a clear signal from a pretty lady, instead of having to play guessing games and worry about overstepping. He pursed his lips and nodded in approval.

“You do that for all your customers?”

“Just the best tippers.” And there was her pretty smile and her wink again, so soon after the first one.

Javier decided to give her both barrels. He put his hand out again, palm up instead of a handshake. When she put her hand in his he lifted her knuckles to his lips and pressed a soft kiss, giving her a look from under his eyelashes before he let go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Javier picked up the cup and left, and gave her a warm smile through the glass as he walked away. As soon as he got to the office he jotted her name and the number on a scrap of paper and tucked it into his wallet. He felt hopeful in a way that he hadn’t for a long time, and he rolled the cup endlessly between his palms while he considered his options. Options. Something he sometimes had taken for granted in life, until those moments where they suddenly ran out.

Javier drained the last of the coffee and then scribbled over her number with a Sharpie before tossing the cup in the trash. No sense in letting her number out into the world where some creep might find it. He smoked his third cigarette of the day out on the plaza and thought about her smile, the brush of her fingers on his, the way she approached him directly. He could use a friend in town, one who wasn’t a guy at the agency or an old college buddy. One who was soft and sweet and might be open to a date… or more. He checked his watch and calculated the hours until 1:00 p.m.

Normally he wouldn’t go back to the coffee shop until tomorrow morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to pop back over there today at the end of her shift, see if she wanted to grab lunch, right? He hoped it wouldn’t scare her off, going back so quickly. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray by the lobby door and jogged back up to his office, taking the stairs two at a time. He wanted to finish up, get this meeting over with, see if he could get over to the coffee shop before she left. He sat in the meeting, watching the clock hands spin slowly, listening to someone drone on about a budget issue that didn’t impact his work, and which could have been a memo in the first place. He felt his irritation creep up the longer the meeting went on.

Finally the meeting closed and Javier hopped to his feet. He told Bill he was headed to lunch and then jogged back down the stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator. He walked the few blocks to the coffee shop, keeping an eye on his watch. He hoped he wouldn’t miss her.

When he got to the coffee shop he opened the door and let his eyes adjust to the dim light for a moment. And then he saw her, slinging her bag over one shoulder and coming out from behind the counter. Javier smiled.

She stopped a foot away and smiled softly, “Hey.”

Javier realized he was still wearing his sunglasses, no wonder it was so dark. He took them off and slipped them into his blazer pocket. He really hoped she wouldn’t think it was weird, him coming back so soon.

“Hey, I’m glad I caught you. Are you busy, or can I take you to lunch today?”

Her face lit up. Good sign. “No, I’m not busy. I’d love to go.”

She gestured out the big window, “There’s a sandwich place around the corner, and a park we can go sit in.”

Javier felt his face split into a wide grin. “That’s perfect.”

---

Just-here-for-the-moment’s masterlist

The only tag list I have: @quica-quica-quica @anaaaispunk @justanotherblonde23 @gracie7209 @nicolethered @honestly-shite @driedgreentomatoes @dihra-vesa @1800-fight-me @the-queen-of-fools @juletheghoul @kesskirata @honeymandos @silverwolf319 @mourningbirds1 @greeneyedblondie44 @spacedilf @maxwell–lord @anxiousandboujee @cevvie @sherala007 @writeforfandoms @libellule2001 @deadhumourist @mandoalorian @javierpinme @eri16 @mandocrasis

#pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal fanfic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #javier peña x reader #javier pena x reader #javier peña x you #javier pena x you #narcos fic #narcos fanfic #narcos fanfiction #pedrostories #pedro stories

[lesbiansforboromir]

"Yet even so it was Gondor that brought about its own decay, falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep, who was only banished not destroyed. 

 'Death was ever present, because the Numenoreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. 

  Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anarion had no heir." 

Faramir's explanation for Gondor's ‘decline’ is... incoherent.. what the hell are you on about m’love?

The way this reads is so completely misleading when looking at the actual history and reasons for Gondor's receding borders and the loss of the watch on Mordor. Faramir puts the onus on Gondorian Kings wanting to live longer and not having kids... babe? Did you forget... the plague? Gondor WAS watching for activity in Mordor. For 1640 years! And then there was a plague so devastating that it turned the country’s most populous city into a near ghost town. It took 200 years for Gondor to recover, and even then it never truly reached the population levels it had maintained before. Osgiliath was never the same! And by then Mordor had taken the fortresses at the Morannon! 

There is absolutely no mention of Kings or Stewards who were desperately seeking to extend their life in Gondor’s history. Where are these tombs more splendid than the houses of the living? All the Kings not buried in Osgiliath are buried in the Silent Street... There is no mention of achingly elaborate tombs anywhere! 

There WERE however some Kings who did not marry or have children! ... Two, there were just two of them... out of thirty three. Narmacil I was Atanatar's son and reigned in the HEIGHT of Gondor's wealth. He essentially allowed his nephew Minalcar to run the country whilst he had a great time writing poetry and kissing men. And Minalcar did a really good job! He fought wars, he made alliances, he built the Argonath and when it actually came around to his time to be King, he had a nice and peaceful reign! And when his son Valacar wanted to marry a Northern Princess? Even though the worry in Gondor was that that would ‘weaken’ the King’s line and reduce their lifespan? He supported him! Gave his blessing! 

The other King who never married or had any children was Earnur! You all remember Earnur? Oh sure, he desperately wanted to extend HIS life past its natural limits! Fighting in two wars and then riding off into an obvious trap just because he'd been challenged really gives me a whole 'old man in his dotage fears death' vibe. And that was the ‘last king of the line of Anarion who had no heir’. You know WHY he was the last king? Because the King before his father Earnil II (King Ondoher) and his two sons had died! In a massive fuckall war with the Balchoth that nearly saw Gondor destroyed! PRINCE Faramir was TOLD to stay behind! But he was so anxious for his family and so wished to not simply sit and wait for death that he HID amongst the ranks of the Eotheod and went to war anyway!! AND DIED!! Asking questions of the stars??? Making strange elixirs?? Mused uselessly on heraldry??? WHEN? FARAMIR?? Was Ondoher daydreaming about stars and heraldry as he was cut down by a chariot??? Was Artamir brewing potions mid-battle?? WHAT are you talking about!!!

Where are these men fearing death who brought Gondor into it's decline that Faramir is talking about? Is he lying? No, I actually believe Faramir when he says he would not even snare an orc in a falsehood. The things Faramir says are things he believes. But then how, when he is so well known for his loremastership, can he be so misleading and plain wrong about something so basic to Gondorian history? Well I have a suggestion but it means Faramir’s at least a little homophobic so bear with me and I promise this is relevant.

So, obviously, the ups and downs of Gondor society in terms of queer liberation would be complex and rely upon a diverse number of factors. However, I’d say that, if you looked at an overall trend, it goes up in times of peace and takes a hit during times of strife. The basic reasoning for this is that one of the fundamentals of Gondorian society is the concept of doom and fate. This can give both correct and erroneous impressions of cause and effect throughout history. Gondorians tend to believe everything happens for a reason. And due to the (sometimes quiet but always present) elf-and-faithful-numenorean-ruled thinkers, who push ideas of proper marriage, celebacy, romance-superiority and other cis-het-normative agendas, the ‘reason’ that bad things happen is often blamed on the queer liberation of the times. The populace is open to being given reasons for bad things happening and Academia in Gondor is very much elf-revering, so it is often respected scholars who are pushing that narrative. 

HOWEVER, the queerness is rarely what is actually remembered or recorded in history, the wording of records are often bound up in the faithful numenorean rhetoric of ‘heretical kings’ and ‘they fell into the trap of king’s men ideology’ and so on and so forth. Scholars might understand what this means at the time, but it gets muddled further down the road and even academics in the future have trouble finding the intended emphasis. So! By the time we reach 3018 TA, the academic community as a whole has reached a general consensus that ‘the old sins of our past’ are to blame and that, whilst queerness was a part of it, it was more a symptom than a direct cause. 

So! The thought process I’m proposing for Faramir should be easy to guess at now, but I’m going to go more specific for the sake of... me uwu. 

GONDOR has not known peace for the last 500 years, not since Steward Denethor the first’s reign wherein the so called ‘watchful peace’ ended and Sauron returned to Mordor. NOW, before Denethor, his uncle Dior was the Steward and, as you’ve probably guessed, he had no children and nor did he marry. I would suggest that Dior lived through one of the most tolerant and open portions of Gondor’s history. I think he not only was open about his choice not to marry, but he also had a socially accepted partner and lived with him all his life with only a small, vocal minority voicing their objections. 

But then Sauron returned! And it was brutal, bloody and horrific. And that vocal minority saw an opportunity to use Dior’s life as a method to push Gondor once again into it’s regular crisis of conscience, faith and purpose. ‘We betrayed our founder’s’ and ‘We should have been ruled by Dior’s son but because of his weakness against his ill-fate we are doomed, he abandoned his duty! A pitiful fate but pitiful for us as well!’ And so on and so forth, there are reems of academic works written about it.

Now, this doesn’t have an immediate crushing effect on queer rights that one might fear. Denethor I loved his uncle dearly and would not hear a bad word about him, as did Boromir I! And Cirion? Cirion was almost more alternative than Dior. He sold off portions of land when the Stewards had been told to keep them IN TRUST for the king’s return. He made enduring and reciprocal alliances with the Eotheod ‘middle men’, he was very much anti-traditionalist! However, it was after his reign that Gondor truly felt the backlash of all this, spurred on by Cirion’s very alternative views, actions and methods. Because whilst he may have been an effective and charismatic Steward, Cirion had not found so much time to be a good father. And Hallas had been fifteen when his father had left him behind and ridden to war. He had a frightening and lonely childhood and was very open to the idea that his father was wrong, had gone too far, that things should be ‘brought back to normal’. Stability being key and all. The vocal minority had his ear. 

And since then, whilst opinion has still fluctuated, the constant unrest and simmering crisis of Gondor’s day to day has made progress against such concepts difficult and slow going. And it’s informed the opinion of history too, a lot more academic writing has compared Dior to Narmacil I (the first unwed and unmarried King) and has tried to find parallels between them and Earnur. Any explicit discussion of queerness has been relegated to Sindarin scripts (the language only really understood by academics and the upper classes), but the underlying tone is there HENCE! 

“falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep“ = Dior ‘abandoned his duty’ and Narmacil I ‘was indolent’.

“the Numenoreans still [-] hungered after endless life unchanging.” = A melding of heretical beliefs that occurred over centuries into one monolith that applied longing for endless life automatically.

“Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; [-] compounded strong elixirs, [-] asked questions of the stars.” = This is all both reaching back to heretical practices in Numenor, whilst also harkening back to the periods of time in which Dior and Narmacil lived, peaceful times where more introspective and experimental pursuits could be indulged. 

SO! This is where Faramir’s erroneous and misleading opinions come from. And why he is at least a little homophobic. There, I told you all I’d get there. 

#soap operas in mannish sindarin #gondor #tolkien #lotr #erran vs tolkien #do I fucking dare put this in faramir's tag... no #no one in there will want to hear this #lotr meta #tolkien meta

[crhinge]

Breaking Down The Classic Rom-Com

I feel like I haven’t written a fun post in a hot sec so lets talk about one of my favorite subjects: Rom Coms

According to wikipedia, a Rom Com, also known as Romantic Comedy, is “a subgenre of comedy and slice-of-life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles.” In the past, Romantic Comedies have also been called “Chick Flicks” but I think this is devaluing of both women and  the romantic comedy genre. 

The other day, I woke up to find that the most wholesome rom-com couple of all time reunited: Matty & Jenna (Aka Mark Ruffalo & Jennifer Garner). This got me thinking about the beauty of the Rom-Com and how unappreciated they can be. It has been years since we have seen a rom-com with the cultural impact of 13 Going on 30, and I would like to petition for more of them after a sad and painful year. 

I can already hear the millions (in my head this blog is extremely popular) of comments “What about To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before?!?” “What about The Kissing Booth?!?” And too that I say, "Good Riddance!” If you’re rating your rom coms on a TATBILB scale, or even WORSE The Kissing booth, I feel sorry for you. Truly I do. So let's dive into the best Rom Coms of all time, but first... 

What makes a Rom-Com good? Well let's start with a relatable as hell main character. I am talking a girl (sometimes guy), who has many flaws, but the audience can see themselves within her/him. Let's use Jenna Rink from 13 Going On 30 as an example. Well, she's literally a 13 year old in a 30 year olds body, but don’t we all still have a preteen hiding inside of all of us? She is 100% willing to be herself at every step, even if that means dancing thriller all alone. She touches on all of our insecurities, while teaching us how to break down our walls. 

Rom-Coms also need characters to make realistic choices. This does not mean that the movie itself is realistic, but rather than you can understand the choices the characters make. Again, 13 going on 30 does a fabulous job of this. Obviously, Jenna traveling in time because of wishing powder is not realistic, but the choices that her and her past self make are. Due to the insecurities of her childhood and a need to feel included, relevant, and powerful Jenna pushes important people out of her life, which happens to so many people in the real world. These decisions force her to miss out on the love of her life, and ultimately, the story ends sadly: the love of her life marries someone else and she is left with tears, wishing powder, and an old doll house. That is until she is able to travel back in time and change the course of her life. 

Lastly, Every classic Rom-Com couple needs to have chemistry. There. I said it. Hollywood loves just casting random famous actors without giving them a proper chemistry read. One great example of this is Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel in Safe Haven. Both fun, famous, Hollywood actors who have zero chemistry. Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner had more chemistry throwing back Razzles than those two did during an intimate sex scene. 

Alright, now that we have broken down the requirements of a Romantic Comedy, let's jump into the best and worst of all time.

Best: When Harry Met Sally. 9/10. A classic. A tale as old as time. Both Sally & Harry are very flawed, yet relatable characters. Sally is too picky and particular, while Harry is a player. They both suck at relationships, but make rational decisions based on their motivations. We all have friends like these two and their chemistry is on point, both on a friendship and romantic level. They bounce off of one another splendidly. 

Worst: Sleepless in Seattle. 1/10 I know, this is a strong take, but this is a terrible movie about a stalker. Meg Ryan (I don’t even remember her character's name) is the stupidest most unrelatable character I have seen in a long time. She is extremely unlovable, cheats on her SO emotionally, and flies across the country to stalk a man that she has never met before. And then you’re telling me that Tom hanks FALLS FOR HER? Nope. No. I refuse to except this. Plus, their chemistry in this is pretty mediocre (You’ve Got Mail is Way Better) and we only get to see them together once. 

Best: 10 Things I Hate About You. 8/10. I was tempted to leave all high School Rom-Coms off this list, but Heath Ledger is my exception. Talk about likability. Kat is a strong, powerful, independent woman who learns how to be more vulnerable while still being a feminist badass. We all wanted to be Kat growing up. Meanwhile Heath Ledger is the classic bad boy with a soft side, and who wasn’’t into that? Both characters grow into new people throughout the movie making them relatable, complex, and realistic. Not to mention the angel that is Joseph Gordon Levitt, who keeps the audience up beat and smiling throughout the course of this Shakespeare tale

Best: My Big fat Greek Wedding. 10/10.  Have you seen this film recently? Because it is an absolute DELIGHT and so relatable. It dives into the difficulty of family expectation and cultures merging. It also has the cutest proposal of all time with a realistic couple that fights for one another on a daily basis. You laugh. You cry. You get a dynamic cast with wonderful chemistry. You feel invested in the family and the relationship. Just a joyful wonderful film.

Worst: Something Borrowed. 0/10. If you’ve never seen this movie, don’t. Ginnifer Goodwin sleeps with her best friends fiancé and we’re supposed to be okay with it because she liked him first. Hard pass. And she ignores John Krazinski who is right in front of her. She is unlikable, unreliable, and makes dumb decisions that no one else would. 

Best: He’s just not that into you. 9/10  I will go to bat for this movie. It follows several realistic storylines in a Love Actually manor, except they actual seem legit. A woman realizing her boyfriend is never going to marry her. A girl facing the fact that maybe some guys just aren’t that into her, and she isn’t an exception to the rule. A man slowly making the decision to cheat on his wife as they are growing apart. A woman realizing that she is worth way more than her bastard husband. A woman realizing that the person she’s sleeping with will never leave his wife for her. It's compelling, has realistic characters that we can relate to, and still warms your heart in the end. 

Best: The Big Sick. 8/10. Okay to be fair, this is based on a true story so it automatically has realistic characters and decisions. Maybe I should leave this off of the list, but I wish this film got the recognition it deserves. Two lovable main characters who make mistakes that are understandable. Wonderful chemistry between Kumail and his girlfriend as well as her family. 

Best: About Time. 11/10 This is hands down the best Rom-Com of all time and Potentially the best film of all time as well. If you don’t cry in this movie you do not have a heart or soul. The characters are SO insanely likable and adorable.It touches on the importance of family and valuing time and how little of it we have. The chemistry within the whole cast is palpable, and we can all relate to at least one character, whether it is the protagonist Tim, his wife Mary, his sister Kit-Kat, or his father. 

Well it is important to point out the obvious here: this list is lacking diversity in a huge way. All but one of these movies follow a cis, straight, white couple, and that is extremely concerning. People have attempted to make more diverse rom-coms over the past few years, but they all seem to be lacking one of the three core components of what makes a rom-com great: Relatable, realistic, and great chemistry. For example. Crazy Rich Asians was a fantastic film, but the high level of wealth that Nick Young comes from, made his character difficult to relate to, and I’m sorry but the chemistry just wasn’t there for me. Always Be My Maybe’s characters fell flat and it’s not a film I would want to watch more than once. Love Simon made some huge waves for LGBTQ representation in the media, but that ending kiss was unrealistic along with his friends reaction to fining out he was lying, which left the movie anti-climactic by the end. 

Now, the most recent film on this list was made in 2017. And before that 2013. So where have all the Rom Coms gone? Why don’t we see more of them. There are a few Rom Coms that could be contenders on the “Best” list from the last couple of years that include a small amount of diversity: 

Yesterday 7/10. The big question here is does this count as a romantic comedy? The love story isn’t the main plot, but is definitely a large sub-plot. This movie features an interracial couple and is highly re-watchable. The main characters are entertaining, relatable, and have pretty good chemistry. We will see if it stands the test of time. 

The Broken Hearts Gallery 7/10. This movie has gotten NO recognition. The main character, Lucy, is an extremely likable 20 something, not unlike our Ginnifer Goodwin in He’s Just not that Into You. The plot is fun and predictable but keeps you watching. I don’t know if this one will stay on my list long, but it’s definitely up there. 

But here is my challenge to Hollywood: create some new, beautiful Rom Coms that celebrate diversity but that don’t throw away the relatable, realistic, and high chemistry characters that we are just waiting to fall in love with. It’s got like 16 ideas up my sleeve, so just give me a call Hollywood. 

#rom com #romantic comedy #13 going on 30 #when harry met sally #sleepless in seattle #my big fat greek wedding #10 things i hate about you #something borrowed #he's just not that into you #the big sick #about time #yesterday #The broken hearts gallery

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Playlist Feels: SHORT SERIES PART 1

Member: stripper LEE JUYEON

Genre: angst, smut, exes to lovers because why the fuck not lmao and it fits the song anyw

A/N: at the point of writing this I WAS TIRED AND SLIGHTLY DRUNK BUT LETS GO. also, NOT part of the GEN Z series, i have racer juyeon in stall for you in gen z ;) also i told V that i was never going to write a stripper au for jy until he goes shirtless or grinds on a prop like kim kai did in artificial love... but when i saw this video, i thought of nothing BUT kim jongin. their styles are pretty similar... not to mention kai had an undercut phase too... conclusion: dana is in a mess and she’s drunk

“i know it hurts to smile but you try to.”

what is a story?

a story has a start, an arc, an ending. 

is it pages of cream colored sheets stacked atop one another, word after word after word printed in ink?

is it the lyrics that your neighbour sings in the shower because he associates the beauty of the lyrics with some heartbreak he’s been through, regardless of when he experienced it?

is it the way someone walks in the room and steals everybody’s attention with the sheer amount of confidence and intimidation he was radiating?

so, what is a story?

ups-and-downs. friendship. love. heartbreak. faults.

‘it was my fault, and it always will be.’

god wouldn’t have allowed you to forget that face even if you were dead, even if you had your skull cracked open and your brain was being eaten out in bits like Hannibal Lecter savouring the flesh of his victim. 

it feels like a witch’s long, untamed nails were being dragged across your skin, and she was breathing down your ear, whispering secrets of potions and words to curses like they were part of a song. 

he who is inked in your heart made of stone will never be removed.

blood that runs thick in the color of love forbids a stake foretold.

bones crumble to dust like fine sand in the wind,

for you will never forget that you have sinned.

the scars on your heart slowly tears apart like a wound that never healed, and every step he makes on the space makes you wish that he was stepping on your soul instead. 

not because you were sexually frustrated, but because you deserved it.

“y/n, lighten up! we’re here to have fun, not watch your mopey ass sulk!”

“yeah, you’ve been so stressed lately, don’t you think it’s time to loosen up?”

“for the record,” the music starts to thump in your stomach and the lights dim into a dark shade of red. “i didn’t want to come to a strip club.”

blood has covered the light, for his soul cries over your misdoings. 

“ugh, you’re such a party pooper,” she huffs, visibly frustrated when her forehead creases into lines under her makeup. 

the memory of you aggressively avoiding being dragged to a strip club rings in your ears like a fire alarm. sometimes, you would’ve loved nothing more besides throw a chair when she acts like that; making it seem like you wanted to do something when you’ve clearly stated you didn’t.

unfortunately, you were used to her shitty little habit. 

coercion sprints itself across your arm when she suddenly grabs it, violently shaking you when the music starts. 

dread washes over you like wildfire when he starts to move, and he suddenly becomes one with the music. 

the whiteness of his skin grabs you by the neck and sticks an ice-cold popsicle down your throat. you could still taste the sourness of the lemon flavoured one he would always give you, even though he liked it too.

the shiny, glittery, loose clothes hanging around his physical existence freezes your muscles the way medusa could turn people into stone. the hairs on your arms stand when you remember how small you looked in his clothes.

and his eyes. they hold a dagger at your heart, tip already sinking into the skin on your chest. 

black, sticky, dense tears flood out every hole of your soul’s mouth.

it takes a massive amount of effort to keep every dollop of excruciatingly painful memories to yourself, for you would’ve thrown up your dinner if you didn’t invest that kind of effort.

in your head, you were a demon coated in tears and smudged ink. 

stuck in time like a statue, your eyes were hollow and your voice was no longer. 

red, the color of blood mixed with poison was spewing out every hole from your face, your knees hitting the ground where the a bed of thorns were laid out carelessly.

the same way you laid out the bed of roses for him, only to become his thorns.

the start of the story began when you first locked eyes with him first in the neighbourhood library near your school. 

you never really liked studying in school, not when there were always noisy kids tossing a ball around or someone loudly crunching on chips next to you.

it doesn’t take long for you to notice that he’s been watching you, resulting in you warily turning around to look behind you to see if he was looking at someone else.

a soft chime in the hall pulls your attention to the old clock hanging above the entrance of the library, and an announcement rings through the PA system.

“dear visitors, the time now is 11pm. kindly exit the library and dispose of any litter you may have with you. we hope you’ve enjoyed your time here and we hope to see you soon.”

it was exactly because it was so late, that there was nobody left in the library.

carefully, you return your attention back to him, music still playing softly in your earpieces.

his eyes were glued to his books as he clears them off the table, and you remain seated, taking your time to pack your things as well.

you were hoping he doesn’t come over, so naturally, you panic when he does.

feigning the mindless scrolling on your phone doesn’t do much when he presses his palm flat on to the surface of the table, robbing you of an option to ignore him.

well, you could, but you recognise him. 

how could anybody not recognise him?

his eyes meet yours and intimidation fills you like you were drowning, but he suddenly squats with the support of his hand gripping onto the edge of the table, eyes darting away.

a frown finds itself on your face and you watch cautiously when he stands up again, placing a pen and a candy wrapper on the table before you.

“planning on hiding in the bathroom and staying overnight?”

“i... uh-- no...”

“okay,” releasing the edge of the table, he grips the two straps over his shoulders by the sides of his chest and nods towards the exit. “time to go then.”

lee juyeon had always been a rather mysterious character in school. he was two years your senior but it wasn’t surprising to know that he was friends with three of your classmates, one of them being your closest friends. 

when he wasn’t smiling, he looked like he could kill someone; drive a knife through their faces and not feel a pinch of guilt.

but when he does, it’s like setting off a billion firecrackers at once.

and by firecrackers, you mean the girls in school swooning over him.

if you had to choose a word to describe the way you looked at him, it had to be ‘indifferent’. you couldn’t deny that he was a great painting to look at and pretend ‘ugliness’ wasn’t a thing, but you’ve never really bothered to invest your emotions on anybody you deemed too far to reach.

so when he offers to walk you back to your place because of how late it was, it surprises you. 

“why do you study in the community library and not the school library? i thought i’d see you with sunwoo or eric or hyunjun in school.”

“uh... i stay for awhile just to watch them mess around until they lose their stamina... the school library is filled with idiots who eat and make a fool of themselves which make it not-conducive... so i thought the community library is a better idea. besides, the school library closes at 7pm.”

“ah,” he laughs, and you could hear the swooning in the back of your head. “why am i not surprised?”

silence. 

the awkward atmosphere was killing you, and it was difficult to swallow the fact that you could not think of anything to say.

luckily, you stay just about a ten minute walk from the library, so juyeon walks right past your residence without noticing you’ve stopped.

“uh-- juyeon...”

“huh? oh,” he halts in his tracks and turns around, sheepishly taking large steps back to you. 

“thank you for walking me back.”

“it’s alright.”

silence, again.

“...goodnight.”

“goodnight, y/n.”

you purse your lips and offer him a polite smile, slightly surprised that he knows your name. 

then again, he knows three of your classmates, and you were good friends with hyunjun. 

he doesn’t leave until the lift takes you away from the lobby, the view of him waving to you with his unwaxed, tousled hair makes you smile to yourself once out of sight.

the arc of the story comes when you start to find candy under your desk a few weeks later. 

you had stopped visiting the library because you were cooped up at home working on projects you needing your laptop for. 

the sugar left on your desk seemed to be some kind of coaxing to get you to go back to the library.

the candy on the desk was the same one that you ate at the library, the one with the wrapper that juyeon picked up--

“hyunjun,” you call out to the boy who was passed out on the table, walking towards him. 

“go away, i want to sleep--”

“you’ll sleep in class anyway,” grabbing his shoulders, it takes you some effort to peel him off the desk and make him sit upright. “you know who left this and i want to know who.”

hyunjun looks at you with bloodshot eyes, brows furrowing as he messes up his own hair.

“you sound like you already know who, so why do i need to bother telling you?”

the plastic of the candy wrapper crinkles in your hold as hyunjun’s head meets the table again.

again, it doesn’t take long for you to find out that juyeon might have a crush on you, and neither does it take long for you to reciprocate. 

being with juyeon was like sitting on a car and going on a long road trip. 

not many bumps, not many surprises, frankly, you were more than happy he was such an easy man to be with. 

when juyeon graduates, he gets admitted into a performing arts academy in another city, leaving you in school where you still had to wear school uniform and wake up even before the sun rose.

but he makes an effort to come back to visit you, knowing that he was the older one with more freedom. 

this long road trip, however, turns into a rollercoaster without warning, without your realisation.

the institute you enroll yourself into after graduation was located further away from the academy than your old school, but juyeon promises that he’d be with you whenever you could, and you promised the same.

distance becomes the first problem, when you realise how taxing it is to spend two hours travelling across the country to see him, and spend more time sitting on a bus or a train than actually being with him.

it starts to wear you away at the edges, fire burning the corners of ivory sheets with mandarin colored flames and leaving ashes the shade of coal on the floor.

then when juyeon was in his final year and you were halfway through your four year course, it was almost like he vanishes off the face of earth.

it worried you at first, that it felt like he was treating this four year relationship like he mattress he could fall back on anytime he wanted to. 

you didn’t blame him, but it stings in the wounds that draw on your heart after a considerable amount of time. 

was this what a long-distance-relationship encapsulated? how do couples who don’t even stay in the same country get through it?

you miss his scent, his arms around you, the way he smiles at you whenever you say something stupid or when he doesn’t get a joke and you had to explain it to him. 

it feels like he has forgotten you, and it rips you apart that you knew why, that you understand he has his own responsibilities as a student in a prestigious performing arts academy. 

but you can’t help but to think: if i could find time that i wanted to provide him, then why couldn’t he?

there was an expectation, and he didn’t meet it. naturally, it becomes a parasite in your love for juyeon. not only had you not seen him in months, his replies begin to spread out across days. 

he doesn’t reply until more than 24 hours later, and even when he does, they are short. they are dry.

you start to wonder why he was being so irresponsible with a relationship, especially one that he initiated four years ago. your thoughts start to run wild in your head, and you worry if he had just been playing with you the entire time, and now he was probably kissing someone else in some dance studio in another city.

no, juyeon would never.

then the day came that he appears on social media after a long time. the light that filled you was so intense that you smiled just by noticing he’s finally not dead.

yet, you would’ve much preferred death over seeing another girl on his social media. 

he didn’t have the time to respond to you, but he has the time to go out with another girl?

you leave him a text, trying to keep your cool and convince yourself that she was just a friend, and that he’d reply you as soon as possible if he knew you were feeling upset about him spending time with another girl.

hurt converts itself into something physical when he doesn’t reply. 

one day passes, then two. 

and soon, the whole week flies past. 

calls don’t get through, much less messages.

just what was he doing?

you worry and wonder that he no longer loved you and he was merely running from you in hopes you’d leave him alone.

where had you gone wrong? were you a bad partner?

your grades started to take a toll, and memories of juyeon started to clog up in your head as if you weren’t already trying to tear your heart out of your chest.

juyeon no longer loves you. 

he’s just having the time of his life in another city, with another girl, probably kissing her in the dance studio and running his hands all over her.

the mere thought kills you, so being able to actually imagine it in your head peels your skin off your body, leaving you in a wrecked mess on the floor with tissues used to wipe your tears. 

then, sangyeon came along.

the fresh graduate was flustered when he sees a second-year student fallen apart in a tutorial room on his trips back to the university. but he recognises you from a branching out event you attended a month ago.

it lasted two weeks, and sangyeon was your teammate as a senior, so he was more than aware of your life and existence. 

sang yeon stays a safe distance away from you while you try with way too much effort to calm your sobs down. 

it’s not a surprise when it fails though, and you break down even harder with the force of someone beating you up

sangyeon doesn’t hesitate to scoot over to your side and pull you into his arms.

it was tricky, trying to recall what exactly you told him. your eyes were swollen and your face must’ve looked like a plum while your tears stained his shirt. 

having someone’s shoulder to cry on was so comforting. it fills a gaping hole in your chest that shouldn’t be there in the first place. 

sangyeon’s voice runs through your head like honey, honey that soothes the scalding burns juyeon left on your skin. 

you knew it was dangerous, and there was a thin line to cross if you chose to let sangyeon through the doors of your heart. 

most your friends weren’t truly aware of the status of the relationship, thus telling sangyeon everything at one go combusts you even further. 

the urge to have someone’s skin pressed against yours, promising you that you were safe whenever they were around becomes painful to reject. 

you will never forget the look in sangyeon’s eyes when you kiss him mid-sentence. 

sangyeon tastes exactly his voice sounded, sweet and soft. his eyes were wide open the second you ram your lips into his. 

his reluctance slips across your arm, feeling a small amount of force being applies to your elbow when he realises what was happening.

but that pressure softens, and he lets you treat him like juyeon, in attempt to cure your own broken heart.

you will make the biggest mistake you will ever make in your life that night, and that was letting yourself pretend sangyeon was juyeon.

not only were you the one who initiated the kiss in attempt to redeem the lack of affection you were none but craving, you chose to pretend juyeon was the one who spent the night leaving fluttering kisses all over your skin. to whisper words of comfort into your ears and kiss your tears away.

when you wake up and see a pair of eyes that shouldn’t be in such close proximity to yours, it feels like a sword has been driven through your stomach.

then you hear hell knocking on your door, but he sounds like love and missing.

it is a crack, then a rip and a complete separation of your body into two when juyeon realises the door of your dorm room is not locked, and he has that bright smile on his face when he walks into the room, thinking you were asleep.

everything happens under a minute, and sangyeon wasn’t even fully awake by the time juyeon was in the room, seeing you in bed with another man.

the memory of a fight the magnitude of tremendous proportions etches itself in your brain like a parasite. 

juyeon literally hurls sangyeon out the door, the only piece of clothing on him being his underwear. 

there was an effort to stop juyeon, because you knew it for yourself that it was not sangyeon’s fault.

it was yours, and it always will be.

juyeon has the man’s clothes thrown out the door and he slams it shut in his face before you could say anything to sangyeon, locking both himself and you in the room.

have you ever seen the eyes of someone who has absolutely no clue what he did wrong?

they are broken, confused, hurt, angry. juyeon’s were coveted with a layer of tears just seconds away from billowing over his lower lids when he sees that your face was reddening from shame as well. 

there was a heavy silence that could’ve killed you, and you wished it did. 

“are you waiting for me to ask--”

“no.”

“so what’s your explanation?”

you dump yourself on the edge of your bed, fingers pressing into your temples. if you pressed hard enough, maybe you could drill your fingers into your skull and rip out your brain.

“y/n.”

why did your own name sound so threatening when it comes from his lips?

“why did you do it? the fact that we were saving it so we could be each other’s first after marriage but you go ahead and do it with someone else--”

“oh, is that the only thing you care about? sex?”

“no, that’s not what i meant--”

“i thought you’d be pissed off over the fact that i have another guy in the picture regardless of our relationship--”

“which is exactly what i’m asking right now!”

the skin on your forehead gets pulled back when your palms hold back your hair. being interrogated by juyeon in just a bra and home shorts felt so humiliating, so degrading, but you can’t help but to have that pang of hatred for juyeon.

he was the one who incited this. all you did was react in a way disproportionate to your feelings.

“why’d you do it, y/n?”

his voice is shaky, and you were terrified to look up at him because you knew he was already crying. 

it shatters your heart; you were angry.

with him. 

with yourself.

his feet shuffles against the floor and he kneels before you, eyes desperately searching yours for any sign of remorse. his hands wrap around yours but you pull away with resentment, and you can’t help but to feel like he was guilt tripping you into apologising. 

it was my fault, but he incited it. 

“y/n--”

“stop, don’t touch me--”

“tell me what’s wrong, we’ll figure i--”

“tell you ‘what’s wrong’?” it takes alot of courage to shove him off and you lose sight of what was fuelling your emotions. “i’ll tell you what’s wrong, lee juyeon.”

he is shocked and you could almost hear something crack when he hears his name come off your tongue like you were regurgitating poison.

“you disappear off the face of earth for god knows how long and then when you finally show up again, it’s with another girl?”

it takes you awhile to notice you were now standing, and he was leaning back with his palms flat on the floor behind him. 

tears were streaming down the corners of his eyes and you know it was solely from the fact that he’s caught you red-handed but you weren’t showing signs of regret or remorse. 

it eats you that he thinks this is not his fault.

“look me in the eye and tell me confidently that you’ve been a responsible partner.”

gut-wrenching surprise writes itself across his face when the demand leaves your lips like venom. 

your eyes finally give in, hiccups starting to form in the back of your throat when the still silence gives you some kind of hint that this relationship was as good as gone. 

“i wait for you to reply for three days, sometimes more, and all you do is say ‘okay’ or ‘alright’ or ‘nah’-- how am i supposed to be convinced you are invested in this relationship? i haven’t seen you in like, what? four months?! not a proper text, no proper calls, you don’t bother to visit me though you know i can’t because of my work--”

the breathlessness in your chest is a cage with loosened screws and nails, an angry, uncontrollable beast inside waiting to lash out and give juyeon a tight slap across the face.

“ask yourself, lee juyeon,” the sobs become one with the hiccups, and droplets of agonising reality falls off the point of your chin. “who was that girl and why did you not bother to text me back? call me?”

his face falls as if he wasn’t already in a million pieces. the silence feels like a dozen paper cuts on your fingers and your lips cracking in the cold. it sounds like a the car on a roadtrip screeching to a violent stop, and it hurls both of you through the windshield.

your soul is bleeding when you see a muscle in his face twitch, because you now know he is as guilty as you are, even if he didn’t sleep with her. 

heartbreak forms a hand on the crown of your head and pushes you to nod. the tears along your jawline get wiped away with the back of your hand, the mucus running down your philtrum is a mess on your bare chest and your face is not recovered from the excessive crying in the last twelve hours. 

juyeon is quiet, but screaming in pain through his eyes. 

the weight of how broken the both of you were slams down on both your shoulders without warning, and you find enough energy to gulp and clear your throat.

“get out.”

the scene looks like a freeze-frame, and you shake your head at the sight of his unwillingness.

“get out, juyeon.”

it feels like a knife is being dragged across your throat when you say the last words you thought you’d ever say to him.

“we are through.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART 2

#lee juyeon #juyeon #the boyz #the boyz juyeon #juyeon smut #juyeon fanfic #the boyz smut #the boyz fanfic #the boyz angst #angst

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

(tone indicators — lh + gen; i too am limited on the right words to use, but i hope this makes sense) just wanted to say i appreciate what your anon said about jensen, gender performance, and how far the fandom takes that, and i hope they know they’re valid in their feelings about it. there are moments where i see people (typically queer, typically trans) draw or hc about dean and tone down toxic aspects of performative masculinity, and have him embrace activities and hobbies that are considered feminine/considered emasculating, and it’s clear they don’t show it as emasculating — like dean cooking! it’s out of love and celebration. he’s not acting as a woman; he’s a man who loves to cook for his loved ones. otherwise it reverts back to sexism and stereotyping. it’s about dean’s self-acceptance and comfort without sacrificing the masculinity he enjoys, like fixing up baby or whatever isn’t always a performance or toxic masculinity. but there are (typically queer, typically cis) people who veer into areas that come across trans-/homophobic and joke at the expense of a marginalized community they aren’t a part of. the lines blur A LOT and i’m sure i’ve rb’d something i regret now that i have more clarity, and everyone’s opinion varies depending on personal comfort/experience, but it’s difficult to read sometimes. especially the sub/bottom stuff. (omega stuff i don’t see much, but i’m sure it’s there.) i won’t speak for misha’s thing because his relationship with jensen is personal and who knows how jensen really feels, but i do know the shitposting snowballs in a bad way around here from people who don’t know him in a way that allows for some of the stuff i’ve seen written. i’m not talking about gunshots and the more vague, lighthearted stuff, but the painting subbing and bottoming into a degrading corner and almost mocking it? if that makes sense? and the straight up calling him a girl thing is genuinely uncomfortable, i’ll say that truthfully. you’re right irena, he’s a multidimensional human. he’s a masculine guy and i think he enjoys that. i’m sure some toxicity is embedded, but it’s not a bad thing for him to enjoy it, especially when i’ve heard stories of how he also likes dressing up and wearing wigs for fun (i.e. clothing shop photos with danneel) and isn’t afraid to behave in typically “feminine” ways. and if the bottom/sub stuff is at all true, the two don’t necessarily need to correlate. he’s still a man, he’s still masculine, and that’s great. better yet, he’s comfortable in his skin, which is awesome. of course dean can’t get hurt by any of this, but it is uncomfortable seeing it rub off onto jensen too, which i agree with your anon about as well. i wish it was less “levi jeans vs denim shorts” and more “hot dog pants.” that’s how i see dean, and i don’t know jensen but i get similar vibes. rather than making him hyperfeminine to erase the hyper-masculinity, it’s more about the layers of him. what he (dean) likes, which isn’t one or the other but a whole range. and pulling away from giving a real life person the same treatment, or at least the worst of it. but yeah, that anon’s message really resonated. i’m sorry, wherever you are, that it happened and you were negatively affected by it. also, if i’ve at all overstepped or said something wrong, please let me know.

this is wonderfully put :) thank you for sharing it. other anon, I hope you can see these lovely words and the beginnings of truly needed conversation your ask has already inspired.

no one fits into a one single box, we have many things within us, some compartmentalized like drawers and others rolling around like spilled ink, jumping from one corner to another and changing direction without notice (sometimes the walls of the drawers liquefy to join the ink, at other times they remain rigid). it's about embracing that, for ourselves and fictional characters as well as the actors that play them. remembering that even in our joking is highly important.

also yes to hot dog pants. <3

#you-cant-spell-subtext-without-asks #nonnie

[honeyandbloodpoetry]

Abuse and Gender Expression - Gender Thoughts Part Three

Huuuuuge trigger warnings for peer abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, religious abuse, a murder attempt and mentions of self harm, suicidal ideation and an eating disorder. 18+ talk of sexual activity also included. Discretion advised!

.

I feel like the first time I realized I needed to perform high femininity to be accepted was in sixth grade. I was slotted into a rotating elective class, and the first one was a careers class. That careers class was utter hell for me. Every single day, I was tormented by an entire classroom of about twenty of my peers. I was bullied, no, abused for being fat and ugly and weird. I was called a whore, and told the only way I could ever be loved was someone raping me. Things were thrown at me, I was shoved down and tripped. I was bullied for my special interest in Transformers. I was told I was so fat and ugly I should be killed and be made into meat and cheese and fed to starving people because that was my only worth. Every single day I was told I should kill myself in varying ways. And all of that is just a quick summary. It was intense and brutal abuse for an entire semester, and I distinctly remember a day where there was a literal pool of tears on my desk. I couldn’t understand. I reached out to the teacher for help, and genuinely can’t remember exactly what he said. All I know is that he simply watched, and sometimes even joined in with “jokes” of his own. This was also the year abuse from my mother amped up, and home was a warzone--we were constantly arguing, and she became a professional at gaslighting and poking and prodding me until I exploded so I could be blamed for fighting back. My father would vacantly stand by and remind me not to fight back. This was also the year I began to self harm as a way of release. 

I remember thinking that if I looked more like the girls in my class, I wouldn’t be bullied so much. I was told I was ugly and unlovable, so I thought that if I performed more femininely, maybe I could be like those who tormented me and therefore not be a target. I thought there was something inherently wrong with the way I presented myself. I convinced my mother to take me to the store, and I bought wedge heels and gaudy jewelry I did not like to wear with my uniform--replacing my autobot necklace and sweatband. In another class I was teased for not shaving and for having ugly feet, so I learned to paint my nails, file my heels, and shave every bit of hair on my body--the echo of my father saying that since I grew pubic hair, I was now a woman and held accountable for all of my sins an echo on the cusp of my mind. I did everything in my power to be more pretty and girly. I used to be loud and rambunctious, and began to go silent and demure.

I remember walking up to the class in the new get-up that was certainly not me. I felt that I would be accepted but as I walked up...I fell flat on my ass. I couldn’t walk in the heels. They all pointed and laughed at me, and the abuse continued in even higher intensity. It was until the next semester that I fought back by throwing a desk at two of my abusers who followed me to the next rotating elective, screaming and snarling at them to leave me alone. Those two in particular stopped, but abuse from others continued for many years in many instances. I developed an eating disorder, continued self harming, and began to try and form femininity and “attractiveness” to the best of my ability. I added things like bows and kitty ears and flower crowns to my wardrobe--sure they were cute, and I did like them in a way, but it felt like putting on a costume or some sort of womanly obligation. It didn’t feel like me. Years later, I was told by someone I trusted that I was “too fat to wear pants”, which I internalized and began to only wear dresses--same thing with feeling like I was wearing a costume. I tried to be beautiful. I wanted to be butch, be myself, but I felt that if I was a cute and girly girl, demure and sweet, I wouldn’t be a target. I would be loved. 

And so I locked myself away. 

My relationship with my mother was a rocky one. She is definitely a sick and broken person, but I doubt she will ever get help. She swings between extremes, and I was always her doll and punching bag. She had a habit of pushing and pushing, finding all the littles holes in me that triggered autistic meltdowns and despair. She criticized everything about me, from my weight and height to my blaming me for how tangled my hair was. She entered me in sports and spelling bees with gentle but insisting prodding about how good I would be when I would rather be reading or playing, and when I got frustrated she would say it was my choice...when in reality I just wanted her approval. When I got older, and especially after my father killed himself, I began to fight back and question her authority though--sometimes violently. She didn’t like that, and was violent right back, and oftentimes first. I struggled my whole life with blaming myself for my outbursts and reactions, but through therapy I have learned I was a child being gaslit and abused, shown that violence was the only answer… And through therapy, I have learned to do better and grow. The worst instance of abuse was me having an autistic meltdown where I said that we should both just die and her response was to pull out a gun and point it at me--I collapsed down into our trash covered room (I was forced to share a bed with her) and pleaded with her to stop. She threatened to kill me and help me out since I was so suicidal, then turned the gun on herself and threatened to kill herself, in which I had to talk her down. When the gun was down, I fled in a flurry of tears and barely contained screams. It was truly the most horrible moment of my life, and I still struggle with the ptsd of that moment to this day. I was only fourteen.

All that background to say, my mother was extremely possessive of my body. She seemed to love to touch my breasts and butt, jerk me around, slap my butt, watch me get dressed. When I begged her to stop, she would tell me that she made that body and could do whatever she wanted to it. I found messages on her phone of her talking to guys about having sex with me and stealing my panties. She wouldn’t let me do my own hair because I couldn’t do it right. She wouldn’t let me bathe alone until I was over ten years old. I didn’t ever have my own room until I was 18 and shared it with my partner. She never let me play with my hair and kept a close eye on what I wore. This combined with my very religious Christian father, who said things like “if you know more song lyrics than bible verses when you die, you’ll go to hell” and the aforementioned accountability, along with things like letting me know he loved God more than me and always seeming to walk in while I was changing… I always felt owned by something. I never felt like my body or my identity belonged to me alone. And so it was extremely difficult to explore myself.

Sexual exploration became an outlet. I was asexual and didn’t possess sexual attraction or a desire for coital sex (still don’t), but I enjoyed kink play with my partner and playing with myself. I enjoyed porn, mostly stories. I always felt drawn to mlm porn, but never understood why. I saw myself in the big, fat men of the stories. I wished it could be me, wished I was a big hairy man like that. Wished I could be loved like that. Reading those types of erotica always got me off and made me feel relaxed and fulfilled, no matter what kink it regarded. Of course my mom would slutshame me without even knowing what I got up to, but sexual activity and pornography helped me find solace and ownership of my body. When I was aroused and taking care of myself, being taken care of, or taking care of someone else, I felt like I was finally in control of my body and my happiness. I had been sexually abused in different ways by different people throughout my life, and finding a certain safety and security in the kind of sexual activity I explored made me feel like...me. I found myself in those big men, but still didn’t make the connection that I was not cis. 

It wasn’t until many years that I began to question my gender. First nonbinary, then agender, then genderfluid, then bigender, then nonbinary again, now finally transmasc. I am autistic and struggle with a resistance to change. I have struggled with shifting my name because it feels like a betrayal to become something new. So I have become Charis instead of Charissa...but I think I may be Myles instead. Since I have struggled with abuse and feeling owned my whole life, it is scary to take my self creation into my own hands. People I am close to have expressed concern and dislike for my transition--especially my mother. I came out to her two days ago over the phone when she guessed I was transgender--or “wanted a sex change” as she put it. She outed me to her anti-lgbt boyfriend without my consent, and now they want to have a discussion. She cried and told me it was too much and she couldn’t talk yet. I am still unsure of what to do about it. I know my mother is broken, and has come far from the cruelty she was once capable of--but she still swings. I see those shattered pieces and their sharp edges and know they have the ability to cut. It is terrifying. 

Coming out, especially after so many years of abuse, has been absolutely terrifying and difficult. I am still navigating how to do it, especially with a name change. The clinic I am going to for hrt screwed up with their scheduling and had to reschedule me for later this month, a frustrating thing. I am looking forward to starting hrt, but also scared how people will treat me once those changes begin happening. Even with these fears and struggling with my interpersonal relationships...this is the greatest choice I have ever made. It is my truth and my freedom, and I will fight against that fear to become my most authentic self. I have an incredible partner by my side, and with their support and my own self love, I can do anything. 

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #transmasc #ftm #ftx #nonbinary #transman #writing #writerscreed #writers on tumblr #twcpoetry #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #abuse #ptsd #cptsd #trauma #actuallytraumatized #peer abuse #bullying #performative femininity #gender #gender identity #butch #bisexual #mlm #nblm #nblw

[snarkesthour]

Happy St George's Day!

· In the midst of a pandemic when schools are all closed, the government votes to not allow free school meals to schoolchildren during school holidays, despite this being the only meal many of them have each day

· Marcus Rashford, a footballer, led the drive to feed the nation’s children, 49% of which live in poverty, and forced the government to provide food for them during the school holidays

· Instead of previous years when vouchers were given to parents that can only be spent on nutritious food, members of government give contracts to friends to provide a week’s work of food costing £5 to schoolchildren for a price of £30. Food is unhealthy and would not last a week

· Parcels also expect parents to cook two tablespoons of rice at a time in the oven and bake their own bread every day, ignoring poverty-stricken families possible lack of access to such equipment

· Wife of conservative MP attacks poor families for eating unhealthy food when healthy food is cheaper, ignoring the fact that not all families have access to equipment needed to store and cook it

· Nigel Farage, head of the Brexit party came out strongly against the government for their stance on starving schoolchildren. Not a good look.

· Another MP came out and said that poor families should not receive government assistance because the money would be going direct to brothels and crackhouses and the parents would spend it on drink and drugs instead of feeding their kids, a dangerous and persistent stereotype of working class people

· For the first time in its history, UNICEF is feeding kids in the UK – the 5th richest country in the world – and the head of the House of Commons accused them of “playing politics” and said they should “be ashamed of themselves”

· J.K. Rowling came out hard as a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), writing a book about a serial killer that dresses up as a Muslim woman, which isn’t subtle when you look at her history of transphobia and other “-isms”

She also publicly supported an author who wrote a book about the destruction of Europe by waves of Muslim immigration

· Speaking of J.K. Rowling, the government’s response to the Gender Recognition Act.

· It is now impossible for under 16s to receive reversible puberty blockers

· Wait times at NHS Gender Clinics, of which there are only 7 in the country, have doubled, with wait times now up to 60+ months (5+ years)

· Keir Starmer, head of the Labour (left wing) party says he doesn’t want to get involved in trans issues

· With the loss of Labour, no major party supports trans rights

· Self ID is no longer allowed, meaning every step of transition is medicalised and involves the trans person having to prove that they are “trans enough” at every stage to panels of cis people

· Government wants to invalidate non-enrolled deed polls, essentially making available a public list of every trans person in the UK

· Hate crimes have quadrupled

· Anti-trans campaigners are now setting their sights on trans adults’ access to hormones

· A petition was formed to counter this and was reviewed by the government, who determined that nothing was wrong with the GRA except that it might have been a bit lax.

· The Guardian newspaper ran child labour and child starvation supporting stories

· Internal border now along the border of Kent and lorry drivers must produce travel papers (Brexit Passport) to cross it, placing the county of Kent in a state of “no man’s land”

· Government fails to lockdown on time, every time

· Government refuses to ban conversion therapy in the UK

· Scotland adopts Human Rights of Children, which requires the government to better support children and families, especially those who are poor, disabled, minorities or young carers. England does not

· The government declared that sleeping rough is now grounds for deportation

· Schools reopened several times despite being warned not safe to do so

· The government banned NHS workers from speaking out about COVID

· Do Not Resuscitate orders proposed for those in care homes, with learning disabilities and who are autistic

· The government cut pensions as the COVID death toll rose

· The government learnt about new South-East COVID strain in September and didn’t come forwards until December

· New COVID strain targets kids, teens, and young adults, and yet none of those groups are allowed vaccination unless a serious pre-existing condition is had, even if they are key workers

· Downing Street says UK should be model of racial equality because government report says no institutional racism in the UK

· Report also says young people are young and foolish for thinking it exists and that minorities are superstitious and irrational and are sabotaging themselves out of success

· It came out that the government was given the independent report and rewrote it to the version that was released to the public – the version that says racism doesn’t exist in the UK

· The rewritten report also refers to the slave trade as the “Caribbean experience”, like those enslaved were on holiday

· Woman in London abducted, murdered and dismembered by off-duty cop and when socially distanced vigil goes ahead, police wait until dark before trapping women, arresting them, using excessive force on them, and also destroying memorial

· Bill passed in government that allows undercover officers to commit serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape

· Plainclothes police to now patrol nightclubs and bars due to aforementioned murder by police officer

· Bill passed that bans any protest at all, no matter how quiet, unobstructive or small it is, including single-person protests. Bill also includes a 10 year sentence for damaging a statue, which is a longer sentence than for rape

· TV programmes critical of the government have been cancelled

· Universities have been told what to platform and schools have been told what to teach, including banning material speaking about BLM and calling for “overthrow” of capitalism

· Voting has been supressed, mainly those who are working class or POC

· During protests in Bristol, press was assaulted and pepper sprayed by police and two legal observers were arrested

· Being Roma/Traveller and living the traditional Roma/Traveller lifestyle is now illegal under that same bill that bans protests. They also have to register as such and receive a licence or risk losing their vehicles

· Hours before Eid, lockdown across the UK with no warning whatsoever, meaning people woke up the next morning after visiting relatives to find themselves “criminals”. The country was opened up specifically for Christmas though

· Conservative (right wing) party blamed BAME (Black And Minority Ethnic) communities for dying of COVID more than white people

· Landlords have been protected extensively and renters blamed for living in close quarters or having to take public transport to work

· Conservatives have launched investigation into possible corruption in Liverpool Council. Liverpool is a Labour stronghold and if corruption is found then the Conservatives can seize control of the council. No evidence of corruption is present as of yet

· Military threatened to stage a coup if Corbyn (then head of the labour party) became Prime Minister

· Government orders all government buildings in England, Wales and Scotland to fly the Union Flag every day to boost patriotism

· MPs call for the curriculum to require teaching the history of the Union Flag rather than Britain’s many atrocities

· The first fortnight of April saw a mini heatwave with temperatures up to 20°C immediately followed by snow, and this is ignored in favour of debating “vaccine passports” in order to visit the pub

· UK allows for international summer holidays despite being warned it will cause a third wave, such as the situation in Germany

· Government placed asylum seekers arriving in the UK in army barracks where they were to sleep 24 to a room with no open windows or air circulation, and when COVID inevitably ran rampant, the Home Secretary accused the asylum seekers of not following COVID protocol, such as social distancing

· Several accounts of self-harm and suicide attempts were reported from the asylum barracks and were dismissed

· UK to deport unaccompanied minor asylum seekers

· UK refuses entry into the UK for radicalised teen failed by system who joined ISIS. Case is difficult and controversial because teen wishes to return to the UK temporarily to fight for her citizenship after the UK broke international law by stripping it from her, despite her not having dual citizenship. Argument given was that her parents were from Bangladesh and so she could apply for citizenship there. Bangladesh refused. Teen is now stateless and living in a refugee camp after losing several children, unable to fight for her citizenship to be reinstated.

· Rioting in Northern Ireland, which included the first use of water cannons in 6 years, a bus being hijacked and burnt, a press photographer attacked, and people throwing bricks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police, not to mention some of the clashes happening over a peace wall in west Belfast, completely ignored in British media and then later drowned out by non-stop news of Prince Phillip’s death, obscuring any important news from being heard. Riots were over Northern Ireland’s being a part of the UK

· MPs take vote on whether China’s treatment of Uighurs constitutes genocide. They decide it does, but that it isn’t their job to do anything further

· Home Office released their spending for the 2020 fiscal year. It’s a mess, including over £77,000 at an eyebrow salon in March alone, and £6,000+ in Pollyanna Restaurant which doesn't appear to exist.

· When people started questioning the spending, the Home Office sent a tweet fact checking themselves

· Country reopened over the summer for Eat Out To Help Out, a scheme to boost the economy. COVID cases rose sharply and the government then blamed people, but mostly working class people, for not following restrictions such as only leaving the house when absolutely necessary, after telling them it was safe

· Foreign NHS workers denied COVID vaccinations

· GCSEs and A-Levels were cancelled due to COVID-19 and expected exam grades were to be used instead. Private school students received grades much higher than they were expecting, and state school students received grades much lower, some grades falling as far as an A to an E. This was because the government couldn’t imagine state school students being smart enough to receive the high grades they were predicted to get; after much uproar the grades were scrapped, and a new method was introduced

· BBC offered staff grief counselling following Prince Philip’s death, but not after having to report on the ever-rising COVID death toll

· The COVID-19 Infection Survey closed in mourning for Prince Philip, with workers to contact participants to reschedule visits for “as soon as possible” when they return to work

· Census workers told to pack up and go home and were placed on immediate unpaid leave due to the death of Prince Philip, but told they must make up the hours later

· Conservative MPs lobbied for a new royal yacht after voting to keep schoolchildren hungry (see first points)

· The BBC’s complaint page crashed over the amount of complaints they got of their coverage of Prince Philip’s death. It was covered non-stop for over 24 hours and the page came in at over 100,000 complaints before going down

· BBC also fast becoming politically biased despite their requirement to be apolitical, after cutting out the audience laughing at Boris Johnson on Question Time, displaying Corbyn as a communist figure in front of a prominent piece of Russian architecture, and providing a platform for a Conservative MP to tell a stage 4 bowl cancer patient that her life wasn’t valuable on live television

· On the COVID-19 pandemic, the BMJ, (British Medical Journal) said about the government that “science was being suppressed for political and financial gain” by “some of history’s worst autocrats and dictators”

· Not only did Boris Johnson launch Eat Out To Help Out when he was warned it was dangerous, lifted lockdowns too early when he was warned it was too dangerous, reopened schools when he was warned it was too dangerous, but when scientists said the second COVID jab should be delivered within 3 weeks he decided that was too tall an order and it should be within 12 weeks – after a period of radio silence, suddenly the science fit his plan. No scientists came forwards to defend it

· The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, blamed protestors for protests that became violent from police attacking protestors, bullied staff members under her, bought members of staff in her department, said it was “disgraceful” to topple the statue of Edward Colson, a slave trader, in Brighton because it undermined anti-racism protests, held treasonous meetings with Israel with the plan to divert aid money, and threatened to starve Ireland in order to get them to agree to Brexit

· She also wants to set up Australian-style asylum processing centres on British islands, but the islands she wants are in the Atlantic ocean and over 4000 miles away from the UK. This is because she wants to help asylum seekers enter the UK legally, completed ignoring or oblivious to all the reasons that asylum seekers might not be able to do that, and for the fact that to seek asylum you must essentially walk up the border and ask for it

· The bungling of the Track and Trace system – the government spent £10bn on a system to track and trace the spread of COVID-19. All data was stored on an Excel spreadsheet which developed a technical glitch and many results were lost before the system was scrapped

· As Autism Acceptance month began, the BBC ran a story saying the autism causes fascism, and that an autistic person who had chosen to embrace the ideology was incapable of seeing that a neo-Nazi group he joined was morally bad because he was autistic

#st george's day #uk politics

[lazywriter7]

Cap-Ironman Rec Week - What-If Wednesday

It’s time to rec some Steve/Tony AUs for @cap-ironman​‘s What If Wednesday! If you loved these stories half as much as I did, please shower the authors with kudos and comments <3 

Underground by Margo_Kim:

Five years ago, Thor's Chitauri army decimated the Earth. Now what's left of humanity lives in bases under the Earth's surface, safe from the toxic atmosphere. Tony likes to think that humanity's adapted pretty well. After all, they have movie nights and dances; they're doing better than could be expected. But when he learns that the little world of safety and stability they've carved out is about to be slowly but surely destroyed, the New York Underground is left with only two options--fight or flight. Tony knows which one he wants. If only Steve weren't on the exact opposite side. Meanwhile, Natasha wants whatever option will save Clint, Pepper wants whatever option will save the base, Maria Hill wants whatever option will save everybody, and nobody's exactly sure who Loki's trying to save, but everyone's hoping it's more than just himself.

~ Apocalypse!AU. This fic reads like a movie, with all of the dramatic tension, an excellent ensemble cast, beautiful Steve/Tony moments and a breathtaking climax that’s everything you could ever want from a story like this. (With bonus phenomenal Loki moments, if that’s your kind of thing ;) )

ceaselessly into the past by shepherd:

Edge of Tomorrow/Live.Die.Repeat AU, following the movie. After earth is invaded by the Chitauri, Tony Stark is forcefully drafted into the military for a suicide mission. It ends up with him being inexplicably caught in a time loop that always seems to end with him dying horrifically. And, of course, the day was a Thursday- he had never gotten the hang of Thursdays.

~ Movie AUs/fusions are the Best Thing, especially if they’re half as well written as this one! I hadn’t watched the movie before reading the fic, and goddamn if it didn’t stun me with it’s excellent character-driven writing. Even after watching the movie, I can attest that none of it feels forced, but like Steve and Tony were meant to live, die and fall in love in this manner <3

Pulse and Beat series by sineala:

Cassino, Italy, December 1943. Special Agent Tony Stark, former Marvels adventurer, is sent to investigate a Cosmic Cube found by the Invaders -- and it's the perfect opportunity for him to rekindle his secret romance with Steve Rogers. But when Hydra attempts to steal the Cube, an inadvertent wish for help leads to the appearance of a Tony from the future of another world: Director Stark of SHIELD. This Tony is a man with a lot on his mind. He refuses to tell them anything about the future, but he seems to know much more than he should about Captain America. And something's happened that's clearly killing him inside, but he's not talking. When Director Stark's failed attempt to return home leads to the unexpected appearance of another visitor from his universe, all the lies come undone. Now there are two wars to fight, and the second one could ruin all of them.

~ If you’re thinking that no one needs to be told to read Sineala’s fics - well let me just say that this is one of my absolute favourite of their works and it hasn’t gotten nearly as much acclaim as it deserves! A fantastic canon-divergence Noir/616 crossover AU for the ages, with a sprinkling of 616 Civil War fix-it to really get you going.

strays by theappleppielifestyle:

Tony will take whatever he can get from Steve, which is pathetic, because he’s not even really friends with him.

Or, the highschool!AU where Pepper is Tony's much-needed therapist, Darcy is his parter in crime, Bruce needs to go through puberty, Clint shows up to school with bruises and Steve just wants everyone to get through this intact.

~ Highschool AUs are my secret Kryptonite - there’s just something about the emotional vulnerability of characters that age that get me sniffling. Again, no one needs to be told to read theappleppielifestyle‘s fics, but this is another one of those soft, sweet, poignant reads that deserves all of the attention in the world.

The Idiot Box by Margo_Kim:

Stephanie Rogers isn't happy to be in the 21st century, but she's even less thrilled to be on a team with Antonia Stark who seems as spoiled and self-centered as people come. She and Tony do their best to ignore each other, until their mutual insomnia causes them to bond over the new American pastime: late night television watching.

~ this author’s AU’s are just *chef’s kiss*. Featuring cis!female Steph and Tony, with some touching dynamics and laugh-out-loud moments, this is an MCU fic written pre-Avengers, which is a bit of a lovely rarity all by itself.

I’ve got you under my skin by sirona:

Five times Beijing 2008 Olympics Gold Medalist Tony Stark thinks it's going to be no more difficult a job to get ready for London 2012, than what he has just achieved. That is, of course, before Coach Fury comes to visit, and offers him a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a part of something much bigger than himself. Swimming AU. 

~ No AU reclist is complete without a Sports!AU :D The characters here read as authentic to their canon selves, even as they’re participating in competitive sports rather than beating up bad guys - Tony’s arc in particular is really heartwarming <3

Look here, look back, look ahead by marinarusalka:

September, 1941: Returning from a mission as Iron Man, Tony Stark crash-lands in the Carpathian Mountains and is rescued by Captain America. The two heroes team up to investigate Nazi activity at a mysterious castle. But Captain America is keeping secrets that could destroy their new partnership before it has a chance to begin.

~ Some lovely, lovely IM Noir canon divergence AU <3 It also comes bundled with identity porn, and Noir verse is just such a delightful verse to soak in that you all should really go read this at once.

And finally a self-rec or two-

Even Though We Know Love’s Landscape:

But at the core, he’s the same brand of poor little rich guy that dot the shadowed corners of every charity gala, every award function. Sure, maybe it comes in a ‘genius billionaire playboy philanthropist’ package… but his mettle is common iron. A drop of sea water, a dash of air, and he’d rust right through.

She, on the other hand, is made of better stuff.

In which Tony compares people to weird things, Steph recites poetry and two dorks fall in love.

~ AU with cis!female Steve, with all the team living in the Tower and a bunch of feels, fluff and poetry thrown in for good measure :D 

Swing City:

“Of all the places you could go to on holiday, you had to pick the one where everything can possibly kill you.”

“I’m here on exchange, actually.” Steve returned primly. "And I’m pretty sure nothing can kill me in a gallery.”

“That’s the tragic bit. You’re in a gallery.” Sam’s tone was impressively flat, even for him. “You’re in Australia. Go hiking in the bush with the poisonous snakes. Surfing with the murderous jellyfish.”

Spoiler alert: Tony's in Australia too. And he's a swing dancer.

~ Is this a kind-of college!AU+Dancer!AU set in Australia, with Steve still as Cap? Yes, yes it is. I had a rollicking good time writing it, plus all of Steve’s Man Out of Time feels, so you’ll get no apologies from this quarter :D

#capimrecweek #stony #stevetony #fic recs #steve rogers #tony stark #mcu stony #marvel 616 #marvel noir #canon divergence #alternate universe

[arockefellers]

⌠ 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙤𝙣, twenty-two, cis gendered man, he/him/his ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, 𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 ! according to their records, they’re a SECOND year, specializing in THREAT ELIMINATION; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of ( battered skin, a half burnt cigarette dangling between chapped lips, the lingering taste of cherry flavored lip gloss, + waking up in a drunken stupor with your face in a snowbank  ). when it’s the (virgo)’s birthday on 9/15/1998, they always request their PASTRAMI SANDWICH from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. @gallagherintro

PINTEREST  ,  STATS  ,  CONNECTIONS.

hello there ! i’m lia, i’m 23 and i have recently begun using she and they pronouns ! i reside in the est which is so basic of me i know. i’m currently out of school trying to figure out my life but will be going to school in the fall, and that’s all that’s exciting about me at this moment in time. my life lacks excitement right now but at least i have wine. all i have to offer right now for an about is his stats & pinterest & this brief TL;DR because i’m in desperate need of a nap since i am hashtag hungover luv x

warnings for criminal activity, violence, abuse, guns, death.

family background.

okay so basically this is a revamp on a character i wrote like seven years ago and i miss dearly but also rp seven years ago was a lot different so we are fixing a lot of things. but anyway, the manfredini’s are a family similar to the cody’s from animal kingdom ??? sort of ?? each member plays their part and they’re all assholes. 

they run a chain of hotels across the eastern united states that they operated out of, laundering their money through their various business transactions and using these hotels as a place to make trades and deals, etc etc etc. ace is the brains of the entire operation once he’s old enough to have critical thought, and it would later be his role in the family that got him into gallagher — only after the entire family came crashing down though.

tl;dr they all suck and they want your money. just a coupla burdens on society. 

about ace.

on september 15, 1998 when the sun was at it’s highest in the sky, the manfredini family welcomed their last born son — wallace pietro manfredini. there were three before him and with a large gap between he and the rest, but they were still all as close as a family of their nature could be.  

ace demonstrated a high mental aptitude from a young age and because of this, he would go on to play a massive role in the family business once he was the right age. despite this though, he was conditioned to be just like the others in his family — cold, violent, deceiving, and crafty. ace always knew how to keep his family one step ahead of the competition and the authorities, preserving their public image and pristine reputation. ace was a bit of a jack of all trades and could perform the tasks that his siblings struggled with. they were all tougher on him than they were on each other, using extreme discipline to keep him motivated and arduous physical training to prepare him for the future. it was all way too much for him to handle at his young age. it also meant that he took on more and more of the responsibility and with the weight of this world on his shoulders, it was only a matter of time before it all came crumbling down.

when ace was seventeen, his family had grown obsessive with the idea of robbing an old friend — one who had recently wronged them. vengeance was the only thing guiding their plans, and despite ace’s protests and lectures about why it was a horrible idea, they moved forward with it anyway. all had been going smoothly and they had nearly cracked the safe when the man returned home despite ace’s reassurances that he’d be gone for nearly three hours. the situation grew dire and so his eldest brother made the sacrifice and charged the man, but was shot before he could reach him. and even though he desperately wished to stay and help his brother, ace was dragged away by the others to avoid having their identities revealed as well.

for months the family passed under the radar as they dealt with the shocking news that a member from their family had been shot during a breaking and entering. people were suspicious though — there were others in the home at the time it occurred and the numbers of the other surviving siblings added up. this is where the story takes it’s turn. ace couldn’t get the image out of his mind. he couldn’t understand why his family handled this loss like it had meant nothing. so, ace did the only thing he knew how to do — he planned.

ace presents this plan to his family once it’s done but they all refuse — it’s time to move on, kid. but he couldn’t let it go, he was lost on sleep for months and the hours and hours spent in front of a punching bag simply wasn’t enough. but what ace hadn’t planned for, was the people who had been watching him and his family since it had happened. the private investigators that wanted to take the manfredini family down — they just needed that one slip up. they found it in ace.

ace leaves his home with his well thought out plan, one that he executed perfectly on his path back to where it all happened. he avoided cameras and had set up several alibis along the way but anger was guiding him still, otherwise he would’ve caught his tail before he left the home that evening. and just like it had happened all those months ago, the man stood outside his home exactly where he wasn’t meant to be — ace does not remember what came next but he rests easier now knowing that he never took a life that night, because his actions were intercepted before it was taken too far.

he’s recruited to attend gallagher following high school because of the events of that night, and the promise he showed throughout his life until that moment. however, this offer was only allowed under the condition he turn in his family and, quite frankly, ace was tired enough to oblige. he adopts his grandmother’s maiden name and legally changes his first name to ace.

for the summer leading up to and for the duration of his first year, ace is heavily monitored and forced to take anger management courses. he is also required to perform so many hours of volunteer work to keep him occupied during his studies and training.

other information.

his positive traits are charismatic, perceptive, and gallant. he has a very energetic and playful air to him, and many of his comments and actions are confident and brave. he also notices things and pays close attention to detail, having a ready understanding into most things.

his negative traits are obstinate, arrogant, and truculent. when his mind is made up on something, it is very difficult to change his opinion. he’s very cocky and rude. used to have anger management issues and those still linger beneath the surface, so he’s a bit of a ticking time bomb really. quick to argue and quick to turn to violence if he can’t manage to back himself out of those tense situations.

#this is one giant mess look away while you can #death tw #violence tw #guns tw #crime tw #gallagher:intro

[drake-the-incubus]

This is a gift for @striderhell from the Homestuck Secret Santa 2020 (@homestuckss). I was aiming for 3000 words but uh, Dirk as a muse didn’t want to continue exploring the concept of gender given his rigid but philosophical nature.

I hope this was good, and if not just gimme a shout and I’ll try and come up with something better. 

Word Count: 1521 Fandom: Homestuck Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde Relationships: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde (Platonic/Friends)

Additional Notes: Roxy uses He/Him and They/Them, I’ve never finished the epilogues but I love NB Rox. Dirk uses no pronouns in this, as I wanted to try that out. 

Please enjoy Dirk exploring his gender. 

Sometimes in an effort to define ourselves, we feel trapped to conform to some rigid aspect or label in hopes to reach an understanding of who we are. At times this process can be frustrating and dissatisfying. Other people take weeks or days, and some of them take years or never figure it out. 

Perhaps gender, as a construct, can’t be fully understood, but we can understand ourselves as people without it. The tale before you, is only a short of someone who wishes to take a journey many end up doing, and most have never encountered.

Dirk was sitting in a cafe on Earth-C, sipping on a coffee in between tinkering with another pair of shades. The goal was updating and adding a better set of graphics, hoping to add some additional features to make things easier.

It had been a while since the Prince of Heart had seen the rest of the gods. Jake would visit once in a while, and they would have a friendly spar or talk. Roxy would message once in a while, letting Dirk know any spicy news about the rest.

Dave would randomly show up, they would stare each other down before both Striders would give a thumbs up and go their separate ways.

Rose would often come by, trading witty banter and wisdom. Both of them struggled with the massive impact of their god tiers and would often talk about it to one another.

Today though, Dirk decided a change of area would suit this project best, specifically needing to leave the workshop and enjoy some caffeine. Recently a problem developed that would continue to nag at the Prince even through the night. Lack of sleep was the reason why Dirk had picked a coffee shop. It made the most sense.

Gender did not.

Dirk had been going through a lot lately, and when Roxy had come out as trans, it had been taken pretty well by most of them. Not that it would be different if Dirk came out either, but rather that would take knowing what was going on.

This was a laughable moment, since they all had beaten the game, made it out and enjoyed their own little home in the midst of nothing. Creating entire worlds and civilizations with the help of their space and time players, but Dirk was sitting there, in a cafe, trying to figure out what gender even was and how it related to the god’s own identity.

Pronouns were hard, but so was even figuring this shit out. Making a copy of your brain at thirteen was much easier than figuring out if you’re cis or not, and Dirk didn’t know.

The more it was thought about, the more the thought cropped up, what if it turned out the being Cis wasn’t the result. Dirk was absolutely sure about not being a chick, nothing really appealed about that, but then again there was a very similar feeling over the current gender.

Man, agender or woman. Those were the categories that presented themselves currently. Working harder to connect the shades to the newly built chip, Dirk jolted when suddenly Roxy sat down across the table.

“I called out to you, but you didn’t answer.” He said leaning over and looking over the project. “I was wondering what made you change location, you’re pretty adamant to work in your workshop Dirkie.”

“I needed to think, which I was doing when you were calling out to me. Thinking so hard about creating a new line of orange pop with more caffeine than this cup of coffee that the world died out and I was left to only the one set of thoughts for once.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms. “Really now? You think that I can’t tell something bigger is going on in that Strider head of yours? You’ve come up with projects while having a philosophical discussion with Rose and texting Dave a rap battle. You’re the king of multi-tasking, which also means your attention is usually divided more, and you’re attempting to put a wire on the wrong side of that.”

Dirk frowned and sighed, putting the project down. “Well, I can’t get nothing past you I suppose. I guess one thing that’s on my mind is how much I miss AR, since he was a good source of introspection, then again I have no idea if that would have helped in the first place.” Tapping fingers filled the space between them as the Prince looked outside at the billions of humans and trolls walking over the streets.

“I’ve been contemplating what gender is and how I relate to it since you came out as nonbinary. It’s been making me think about what is my gender, and I’ve come to the conclusion none of them really fit, but that’s also something to worry about since that means I don’t relate to any of the options-“

“Before you go on a long tangent, I want to ask, what are the options?” He interrupted Dirk while cocking his head.

“Agender, man and woman.” Dirk said bluntly, staring at Roxy. The laughter that resulted made the god tip the iconic shades down to stare at Roxy with deadpan orange eyes.

“I get greeted by your eye colour, score! But no, you got it all wrong, gender isn’t rigid categories, it’s a spectrum. You can’t define it by strict labels and there’s too many to count. So you don’t fit in three, there’s millions of genders. Some might not have a word for it right now. I’m nonbinary, but that’s because I’m not a man or a woman completely, I’m somewhere in the middle, closer to a man if I were to describe it as like, a sliding scale. So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t worry if you don’t figure it out.”

“I need to. Not knowing makes things difficult. I know it might be unhealthy to obsess over, but ever since I made Auto Responder, I had the need to understand myself fully and everything about myself.” With an elbow on the table, Dirk took a hand and raked it through the mess of hair. Having done so more than a hundred times earlier, the Prince was sure it was a complete and utter mess at this point, and would need to be taken care of at home.

“Well, I have a list of some of the other more known ones, maybe one of them check out for you?” He offered a tablet.

Dirk took it, and looked over the list of options and each description of it, mumbling under breath before placing the tablet back down with a definite, “I’m going to use Genderless for now and see what happens.” It looked interesting, the excerpt specifically outlined not having a gender at all due to neurodivergence, rather than lacking a gender or having no gender, different from agender. It didn’t feel much different from everything else, but nothing did. Having several of the entries be defined by one’s neurodivergence was weird, but the more thought placed into the concept, the more it felt real to Dirk. Rather it meant that the Prince would have to take Rose up on her offer to get a fully evaluation soon, even if both of them came to the conclusion Dirk was probably neurodivergent and that it wasn’t impactful with how the god had lived life before the game. 

“Are there any pronouns I should use for you?”

Pursing lips, Dirk gave a shake of the head. “None preferably. I think I need more time to actually think everything over. I have no positive or negative feelings for anything on there, and so I’m debating on if I’m everything or not. I can figure out how to make an exact replica of my own brain as a teenager, create robots, plot out the exact way I can kiss Jake and even save everyone's lives getting into the game. I’ve designed complex interactions to lead to the outcome I desire, and I can’t even pick a gender. This is quite frankly, ridiculous.”

“You don’t gotta. Dirk, it’s not about just picking a gender, it’s about figuring out a big part of yourself, and something most people don’t do for yours. You figured out you’re gay, now you’re figuring out what else you could be.” He placed a hand on Dirk’s and gave him a smile. “Whatever your result, I’m here for you. Even if you later think you’re a Cis man I’ll still be here for you. We might be siblings but we were friends first and that matters the most to me.”

Dirk gave a snort. “This is so fucking corny, but thanks Rox. I appreciate the love and support. Maybe I can treat you to another coffee since I feel like if I don’t buy one soon I’m going to be kicked out for making a mess of a window table.” Motioning towards the table, and standing up, the god stretched out. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Caramel Macchiato please.”

“Gotcha.”

#homestuck secret santa 2020 #striderhell #I fucking was gonna make this christmas eve but I got busy the past two days #Glad I waited because this Idea was much better #trans nonbinary characters #dirk is amab