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pridepages · 1 year

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Silenced: Ninth House

I just finished Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I have thoughts...

Here there be spoilers!

Ah, Dark Academia. The elusive genre. What is it, really? What does it require? A university setting? Studies into/around the arcane? Dabbling in evil? Whatever the recipe may be, all are present in Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House. But the evil worth discussing here has less to do with the ghosts, demons, or black magic running wild in this fictional Yale’s underworld and much more to do with the very real systemic and cultural injustices that women--particularly queer women--struggle against in the shadows.

Bardugo is no stranger to writing fantasy, but Ninth House is both her first new adult and her first foray into what might be known as ‘urban fantasy,’ the kind set against a very real, contemporary backdrop. As a real Yale alum, Bardugo would have been familiar with the very real ‘secret societies’ (aka ‘The Ancient Eight’) of the university. With that knowledge, Bardugo’s imagination ran to answer the question that all outsiders instinctively ask: what unsavory secrets hide behind these walls safeguarding power and privilege?

In Ninth House’s world, the answer is that the eight houses: Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Manuscript, Wolf’s Head, Book and Snake, Berzelius, St. Elmo, Aurelian, are all specialists in different kinds of dark magic that keep the students--and by networking the alums--in power forever. But leaving a supernatural arsenal in the hands of a bunch of rich, privileged college kids? A rather dangerous idea. So, a secret Ninth house--Lethe--was invented as a kind of watchmen.

Enter Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern, a girl with an unusual gift: she can see--and at times commune with--the dead. This is no miracle, the torment of contact with the uncanny drove teenage Alex to seek oblivion when no one believed her. Shunned as crazy, she leans into it: disappearing into a life of drugs and consorting with criminals just as a way to survive the burdens she cannot share. But when tragedy strikes, leaving Alex the lone survivor of a supernatural mass-murder, Yale and Lethe step forward and ask her to join their team: Detective Abel Turner (codename Centurian), Pamela Dawes (codename Occulus), Daniel ‘Darlington’ Arlington (codename Virgil), and now Alex (codename Dante).

Alex agrees, entering into training alongside Darlington about the ways of the societies, the history of New Haven, and the kinds of occult crime that Lethe stands against. But when Darlington disappears and the murder of a girl outside the university starts raising some questions...Alex is forced to question what it means to serve the Ninth House.

Arriving at Yale, Alex is an outsider in every sense. She’s a poor, biracial woman who has been repeatedly written off as an addict or crazy. Alex has experienced repeated abandonment by the Great and the Good who represent authority and regulation. Fully aware that her free ride to Yale is a gift, Alex doesn’t hesitate to take it. But Alex refuses to allow that gift to blind her to the nature of the givers. “Where were you? All you wise men of Lethe with your spells and your chalk and your books? Where were you when the dead were following me home?” The only reason that Alex gets to be ‘special’ now is because she has become useful to the people in power. This is what ‘trickle-down’ looks like in practice.

Even the hallowed halls of sterling academia cannot protect some of the most vulnerable people in society. Over the course of her investigation, Alex uncovers misuse of magical drugs that enable--and consequently cover up--a series of sexual assaults against women. When the murderer Alex is pursuing sets an invisible demon to attack her, Alex knows that the ultimate goal of the attack is to discredit her: “Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn’t make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.” If Alex’s demise can be written off, then her suspicions will also be dismissed and the investigation into an innocent’s death will die with her.

The silencing of women lies at the heart of the novel. Some of the examples are lurid and obvious. A drug that compels people to serve makes it appear that the students who were assaulted were actually willing participants in their degradation. Therefore, they can’t possibly have been hurt, right? Nothing to ruin promising young men’s life over…The metaphor is about as subtle as a sledgehammer blow.

The Yalie girls who are victimized by men with this literal and figurative power deserve protection, but they already have some in the form of the credentials and the societies that they can fall back on. Girls like Alex, like the victim, Tara, or like Alex’s lost love, Hellie...they also deserve protection, but they can’t get it. They are dismissed by the powerful as unworthy, as easy to sacrifice because no one will need or miss them. In the eyes of privilege, some lives just mean more than others. And at the top of the pyramid are men, money, and memory--all of which are given priority over living women.

Some examples are more cunning. In a telling scene, Alex goes to report on her attack by the invisible demon during the course of her investigation. The dean she is reporting to refuses to hear Alex’s concerns or explanations. He neatly ties Alex’s unusual powers to the cause, that her nature must have drawn out something evil and unusual. Dawes steps up to challenge this approach:

“That sounds a lot like she was asking for it…Alex has indicated her own concerns regarding her assault, and instead of hearing her out, you’ve chosen to question her credibility. You may not have meant to imply anything, but the intent and effect were to silence her, so it’s not hard to think this stinks of victim blaming.”

This kind of silencing is particularly insidious. It’s easy to for your hackles to raise when someone tells you to shut up, stop talking, be quiet. But when someone tries to get in your head with a plausible explanation...one that overwrites ill intent...one that circles back and seems to reasonably place the blame on you? That’s an easier spell to fall under. It’s one I certainly fell under when I was younger. I didn’t have a Dawes. Instead, I folded in, and I internalized the words. Of course it was my fault. Of course I was asking for it. And that narrative became one of the barriers along the way to my self-discovery as a queer woman. I became so consumed by the idea of needing to reclaim my memories of intimacy with men that I never stopped to question whether intimacy with men was something I even wanted.

Violence against women, particularly sexual violence, has become so common that it’s actually a default explanation for the bad things that happen to us. The easy solution to Alex’s case would be that Tara’s boyfriend killed her. It’s literally so common that no one thought to push harder without Alex, a kindred spirit, to demand justice be served. But even then, the institutions designed to mete out justice often let us down. The hint for us as readers was in the name...Lethe. The river designed to induce forgetfulness, to erase memories. Instead of punishment being publicly enforced, the deans speak of fines, of slaps on the wrist, of burying the truth in order to keep funneling alumni money and keep the magic flowing through the Ancient Eight. Despairingly, Alex wonders: “Had Lethe ever really been intended to protect anyone? Or were they just supposed to maintain the status quo, to make it look like the Houses of the Veil were being monitored, that some standard was being kept to without ever really checking the societies’ power?”

I think that question is why we as readers are repeatedly bludgeoned with horrors against women. Some readers may be exhausted by the fact that pretty much every bad thing that happens to a woman in this novel involves violence against her by a man. It has been described as shock value, as excess, but I read it more as a kind of purging: this is the pain we see around us, the kind we carry inside, the kind we are told to bottle up and bury deep as it poisons us slowly over time. This is the pain that both makes us helpless victims (’oh no, poor girl’) and blameworthy harlots (’what was she wearing? who was she with? she should have known better. she was asking for it’). When we do ask for help, we are frequently silenced, internally and externally, told that we need to protect everyone else from the shame. Warned that if we don’t toe the line, we will be the ones to suffer more and more. So many of us, isolated and ashamed, lock that grief up inside ourselves and make ourselves a tomb. Bardugo has brought all the anguish, rage, and fear bubbling up, forcing us to see this phenomenon in every iteration. Whether the violence is against a princess of a private school or a poor, lonely, abandoned soul: none of us ever deserved it. All of us deserve to be heard.

But there is one bit of silencing that I have to lay at Bardugo’s door. Full disclosure: this was a re-read for me. I first read the novel when it was released in 2019, and when I did, I left without a single doubt that Alex Stern was a queer woman. I read it in her professed love for Helen “Hellie” Watson. Alex remembers Hellie as “golden...the girl she loved” with a “warm laugh, her easy way of looping her arm around Alex, the way she’d pluck a paperback from Alex’s shelf of thrillers and old sci-fi and say, “Read to me.” Hellie had made this life bearable.” On the day of Hellie’s death, Alex went out of her way to try and prevent Hellie from entering the den of a man Alex knew liked violent sex. Hellie went anyway, and ended up dying beside Alex due to some combination of injury and overdose. In the end, Alex sees her ghost and begs Hellie to stay. Possessed by Hellie, fueled by her rage, Alex is the one who commits mass murder against the men who killed Hellie and were preparing to get away with it. This deviation from Alex’s survivalist character, choosing fight over flight out of devotion to Hellie, to me translated instinctively as queer love. To my mind, Alex was a canonically queer woman. This time I realized: that’s never explicitly said.

Some might argue that it shouldn’t have to be. That’s art, readers need to do some interpretive lifting. Unfortunately, the reality is that we live in a culture where women who love women are constantly dismissed: ‘they’re just friends! Sisters. Girls are just like that. Can’t anything just be platonic anymore? Why does everything have to be gay?’ We hear this cant over and over. To claim a woman as a queer character, their orientation has to be spelled out. It’s particularly a struggle when that character, like Alex, has also been connected romantically or sexually to men. A bi or pansexual woman has to all but scream out her queerness in capital letters to be acknowledged.

Well, Alex, I think Bardugo did you a disservice by not spelling it out. But I want you to know: from one queer woman to another, from one survivor to another, I see you. And I hear you: loud and clear.

#ninth house #leigh bardguo #queer lit #bisexual #pansexual #sapphic #wlw #queer #lgbtq characters #feminism #misogyny #tw sa

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zztheditchzz · 7 months

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i really can't stand the majority of queer americans. like, americans in general of all flavors get the fuck on my nerves, but i think queer americans deserve some special attention because it is obviously contentious.

there is nothing wrong with queerness. i am queer. queer people, even trans people, have existed for millenia in every human culture. its fine. theres nothing inherently good or bad about being queer.

but holy fuck the cia has steered them to essentially be so annoying and insufferable and counter productive petit bourgeois with no skills or morals or aspirations. they are completely self obsessed and spend their majority of their political advocacy just suck their own dicks about increasingly minute, repetitive, incestuous issues. i am obviously generalizing, and this has strong intersection with other statuses, namely wealth and whiteness, it is a thing and nobody criticizes it, not even internally. or, at least, very rarely. because the only people eager to criticize are fascists, who can't even properly digest what theyre seeing and where it comes from. its just another red herring courtesy of the ultimate lying brigade. they gave social progressivism to the most wicked people that ultimately serve as half of the pro-war, pro-corporate backbone, and then gave the majority of communist-adjacent outrage free reign only in fascist controlled spaces. we have fascists criticizing the military industrial complex (even if incompletely or incorrectly) and queers who literally cannot make it one single day in their lives without exhuastively making reference to the fact they are trans or that trans acceptance is the single most important issue in the world. these people represent 1, maybe 2% of the USA population. this is insane. stop thinking about your gender, who cares. surprise surprise you transitioned because you had a identity crisis goaded on by your squishy narcissist loser e-friends and now youre transitioned and still broken and miserable, whoop de doo. none of this is going to change until capitalism is destroyed. none of the waters will clear until capitalism is destroyed. people who were meant to be trans will die buried underneath their self hatred and people who were meant to be cis will question themselves into oblivion because of this false binary between Extremely, Performatively Masculine/Feminine and Extremely, Performatively Queer. yeah yeah yeah the straight side of things is no better, and despite being so awful its invisible even to the likes of i just because it is so normalized, but just...i guess i wish people would practice actual praxis, which at this point means decolonizing your own mind, forget about anybody else yaall get your own batshit bullshit straight first, thats how bad things are, we are literally in a battle for our souls, this is the last frontier before usa civilians are the perfect slave race

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hollyhomburg · 3 years

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(Cw: trans main character, trans jimin, gay shit, heavy flirting)

OKAY BUT- what about a very queer au in which the m/c is a trans man but he’s not like passing yet and knows it. He’s very well aware that everyone looks at him and sees a girl but soon-soon they’ll fully transition. All in all- dating and queer bars are a pretty terrible experience and he’s decided to give up on dating in general until he’s more passing when his friends invite him out to a bar. Enter vmin who like- make the effort to persue the reader, and maybe they flirted togeather heavily in the past and vmin finally think that tonight’s the night.

But the m/c- he’s having sort of a depressive night, he totally tries to fend them off with non-comital shrugs and slightly jabs but they don’t really give up. He’s just so tired of these boys looking at him and seeing- woman and feminine and pretty and he doesn’t want to compromise his identity for another fucking hook up.

And of course when he leaves he decides to try and play it cool, and it goes something like this, “okay I’m gonna head out,” “can we come with baby?” Jimin replies, tae matches it with a “your place or ours?” and he laughs it off, falling into the practiced presentation of feminine and female that he knows will discourage these guys from thinking he’s not cis, because at the end of the day being trans is a bit of a nightmare, and he never knows when it’s gonna make him unsafe.

He thinks he’s got them, “Oh I’m sorry I thought you where both gay, my bad” most straight men he knows would take it as an insult, because while this m/c has a pussy, he’s Definitly not into men who like girls. Imagine his surprise when tae pulls him close by his waist. “I am, we both are- and that’s exactly why we want you babyboy”

And of course, the m/c is kinda stunned, and blushing at the pet name and maybe he decides that yeah he does wanna go home with them. But they don’t hook up no- he and jimin get absolutly waisted talking about gender presentation and compulsory femininity/masculinity on taes kitchen floor, and by the end of the night they’re both so drunk that tae tucks them both in and kisses them on the forehead saying “who knew I’d end tonight with two pretty boys in my bed hmm? I must have done something good in my last life”

And anyway, later it comes out that jimin is also a trans man and that’s why he was able to spot the m/c a mile away and tae gets fuck wrecks both of them on the regular (maybe he’s always had a super high sex drive and jimin uses it to his advantage by making tae fuck the m/c into oblivion) and also tad gets fucked with their impressive collection of strap ons (dirty thought Of the day is that they make a mold of taes cock and then fuck him with it so that he knows what it feels like to take his monster cock)

and yeah just 🥰 non-passing trans man m/c and gay couple vmin who help him with his presentation and call him babyboy all the time.

#bts #bts fluff #park jimin #kim taehyung #vmin x reader #vmin #trans bts

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undercookeddaichi · 4 years

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all the queer kids join the volleyball club

[ kageyama being soft and hinata being baby, and me being a slut for them both ]

pairing: kageyama tobio x hinata shoyo

warnings: smut, nsfw, first-time

word count: 6.5k

xxx

“Hinata, is everything okay?”

Suga jogs over to the heap of orange hair and nerves quivering at the bench and chugging his water bottle so quickly Suga worries he might choke. Hinata’s entire body flinches as Suga’s soft hand comes down on his shoulder.

“Yes! I-I’m fine! I’m sorry!”

He drops his water bottle and practically shrieks as he dives after it.

Suga runs a doubtful hand through his silky grey hair. Hinata’s not acting normal, especially on a Friday afternoon practice when the prelims aren’t for a while and there’s no upcoming practice match to be stressing over. He hasn’t acted like this since their first match with Aoba Johsai a while back. Letting out a sweet and breathy sigh, Suga shakes his head as he reaches for his own water bottle.

“That was a perfect toss, dumbass. Why didn’t you hit it?” Kageyama growls, pointing at Hinata but dropping his hand when he sees how scrunched Shoyo’s expression is. The blush etched into Hinata’s pale face and the way his small fingers tense around the ball make Kageyama’s heart drop.

This was going to be worse than he could have ever imagined.

“I’m sorry!” Hinata yelps.

He smacks his palms against his cheeks, somehow making them redder than they already are. Only Kageyema can tell that Hinata’s on the verge of tears.

Fuck.

Kageyama grinds his teeth together as he rips his eyes away from his boyfriend to give Asahi a toss. He’ll have to worry about Hinata after practice.

Fuck.

“Why don’t you sit down for a while, Hinata. There’s no use practicing spikes with your nerves this high.” Daichi pats Hinata’s shoulder and nearly sends him into a panic attack at the touch.

“Right!” Hinata nods immediately.

The rest of the team stares. Hinata would never agree to sit out so eagerly during a practice.

Annoyance boils over inside Kageyama’s chest, and he resists the urge to drag his boyfriend by his sleeve back onto the court and call him a dumbass and tell him to get control of himself and make him keep spiking and remind him it’s only a few more hours now… But the annoyance bubbles into a gentle sympathy as he watches the anxiety rippling through Hinata’s body. He can’t help but feel guilty.

No matter how he looks at it, this is sort of Kageyama’s fault to begin with.

The rest of practice passes agonizingly slow, Kageyama managing to make perfect tosses despite the adrenaline in his blood and thoughts on his mind and Hinata doing all sorts of push-ups and jumping jacks and stretches in the corner of the gym to try to calm himself.

Kageyama swallows as his gaze wanders to Hinata’s ass. He cusses at the heat that trickles into his stomach.

Not yet.

Daichi claps his hands together. “Alright! Nice work today! Let’s clean up!”

Kageyama heads to the storage closet to grab a mop, but as he steps through the door, Hinata slams into him.

“I-I’m sorry! I was-” Hinata stutters when he looks up and realizes it’s Kageyama he accidentally ran into. “I w-was getting a mop…”

“I’ve got it.” Kageyama mutters.

Hinata looks away, down at his feet and squeezes his hands into fists.

Kageyama doesn’t think as he wraps his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders and pulls him against his chest. He nuzzles his nose against Hinata soft curls, inhaling the sweet smell of tangerines and sweat and spice that he’s grown to love.

“K-Kageyama..?” Hinata whimpers against his chest.

Kageyama rubs his thumbs into Hinata’s stiff shoulders, coaxing his boyfriend’s body to relax. “I’m going to take care of you tonight, Shoyo.”

Kageyama feels Hinata’s body freeze for a moment as if he stopped breathing, but the tension abruptly drops from his shoulders and he melts into Kageyama’s arms, inhaling deeply as he burrows his face into the comfort that is Kageyama.

“Come on, let’s go finish up. I’ll meet you in the clubroom.” Kageyama says quietly against Hinata’s ear, squeezing his boyfriend one last time before letting him go.

Hinata looks up at him with soft cheeks reddened by a different kind of blush and bright eyes that burn with all sorts of emotions Kageyama can’t exactly put his finger on.

He jerks his head away at the swelling in his chest that he still hasn’t completely gotten used to, swelling caused by how fucking cute Shoyo is, how it makes his breath hot and his heart feel like it’s on fire. He’s still not used to how fucking gay he is, either.

“C-Cutie,” Kageyama mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Hm? If it’s nothing, then don’t say it.”

Hinata takes the mop and goes out to join the rest of them in cleaning up.

At least he’s back to normal. Kageyama thinks, trying to rub the blush out of his face.

It’s almost frightening how easy it is for Kageyama to calm his boyfriend, though it’s not for lack of practice. He’s been responsible for keeping Hinata’s nerves under control since their first match before they had even voiced their feelings for one another.

It was harder then, finding the right words to say or thing to do that might make Hinata stop fucking shaking, but after Hinata leapt into his arms and kissed him in the empty clubroom the night they defeated Aoba Johsai, Kageyama learned that physical touch was the quickest way to alleviate Hinata’s anxiety. Physical touch that involves rubbing his hands against Hinata’s soft back, playing with his orange hair, kissing the top of his head, holding him close enough that nothing in the entire fucking world could penetrate Kageyama’s hold on the one person who has been his reason since he first saw him in junior high.

Hinata has always been Kageyama’s reason. For everything. Why Kageyama went to Karasuno, why Kageyama changed so drastically as a setter, why Kageyama realized he was gay, why Kageyama gets out of bed in the morning, why Kageyama learned how equally fucking shitty and spectacular falling in love is.

He’s never liked the idea of having to come out, because it’s Hinata and it’s only Hinata and it will only ever be Hinata, and being gay is just a minor detail that people have way too many unnecessary feelings about. Kageyama’s in love with Hinata. That’s all anyone will ever need to know.

And now, the night before Hinata’s birthday, Kageyama’s present is fucking Hinata into oblivion.

It’s what Hinata’s been asking for, every time he’d go down on Kageyama and every time Kageyama’s fingers were in his ass and when he was straddling Kageyama’s waist as they made out for what seemed like hours, tasting each other’s lips until the sun went down and all that was left was the sound of cicadas and warm air at the window and rich yellow sunlight casting shadows on the sheets they laid on. He would beg for his boyfriend to be inside him, widening his eyes and licking his lips with the same look he uses when silently asking for a toss, a look that Kageyama wanted to give into more than anything. But he wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not until now. And it’s why Hinata’s drenched in anxiety today, even though he’s the one who’s been insisting.

Even after weeks of looking up articles and watching videos and reading forums with the fear of accidentally hurting Hinata in mind, Kageyama’s nervous as hell, too, but Hinata is supposed to be excited. Shouldn’t he be?

Kageyama’s gaze doesn’t wander far from his boyfriend while they put everything away.

Tsukki starts to say something snarky about Hinata needing to throw up, but Kageyama steps between them and glares up before he can, gripping Hinata’s shoulders behind him. With a smirk, Tsukki adjusts his glasses but lets it go.

“The king is a little overbearing today, don’t you think?” He mumbles to Yamaguchi.

As they gather in the clubroom to change, Nishinoya throws himself onto Hinata’s shoulders, Tanaka appearing close behind.

“Shoyo!!!” Noya yells, punching Hinata’s shoulder in succession. “Happy early birthday!!! Tanaka and I got you something!”

“W-what?! Y-you did?!!” Hinata flinches but his face lights up at the sparkle in Noya’s eyes. No one could resist smiling at that.

“Yea!! Here!!”

He hands Hinata a slightly crinkled gift bag with tissue paper and bits of newspaper stuffed into it to hide whatever the present is. Hinata shakes it next to his ear, quivering with excitement when he hears something sliding around.

“You can’t tell what it is by shaking the bag, dumbass.” Kageyama grumbles.

Hinata ignores his boyfriend, instead jumping up and down to expel some of his pent-up excitement and proclaiming, “It’s a volleyball! I can tell, it’s definitely a volleyball!”

Noya and Tanaka burst out in laughter. Suga leans into Daichi’s shoulder to suppress his own chuckle, and Tsukki and Yamaguchi hold back tears.

“Dumbass! A volleyball couldn’t fit in that!” Kageyama yells.

“It could! You don’t know, Bakageyama!”

Hinata furrows his eyebrows at his boyfriend in defiance before turning his attention back to his gift. Kageyama makes sure to maintain the scowl on his face so no one can tell how fucking cute he thinks that was.

“Go on, open it,” Tanaka slaps his hand against Hinata’s back, hard.

“Okay!”

Hinata doesn’t hesitate to tear the tissue paper and toss it on the floor, yanking his gift out of the bag for everyone to see with a smile that makes Kageyama have to physically restrain himself from scooping up his boyfriend and smothering him with kisses.

“Oooh!! It’s a shirt! A volleyball shirt!” Hinata unfolds the blue fabric so he can read what the characters say on the front.

Great talents mature late.

“It’s so cool! Nishinoya senpai, Tanaka senpai, thank you!”

Noya and Tanaka throw themselves onto Hinata once again, punching him lightly and ruffling his soft hair and laughing, beaming with the pride that comes from seniority.

Suga and Daichi pat Hinata’s shoulder and wish him a happy birthday as they leave together holding hands, Fridays being their date nights. Yamaguchi gives Hinata a small container of home-made rice balls before Tsukki drags them out, probably to play video games at Yamaguchi’s house, and Noya gives Hinata a high-five from atop Asahi’s back as they leave together, as well.

Ukai explicitly warned them about relationships among teammates, but here they are, managing to have four couples on one team. Noya always jokes that all the queer kids join the volleyball club, and given the number of couples they know on other teams, he’s not wrong. Oikawa and Iwaizumi, Bokuto and Akaashi, Kuroo and Kenma, Lev and Yaku, Ushijima and Tendou. Asahi and Nishinoya, Tsukki and Yamaguchi, Daichi and Suga, even Kiyoko and Yachi. And now Kageyama and Hinata.

Unlike the others, though, Kageyama and Hinata decided they didn’t want the rest of the team to know when they started dating and took precautions to keep it that way. Except it backfired when the fighting and insults and perceived annoyance with one another got worse, worse to the point that Suga knew there was something else going on. But they don’t know that.

“Oi, Kageyama,” Tanaka whispers loudly, pulling Kageyama aside once it’s just them and Hinata left in the clubroom. “Consider this your early birthday present.”

“What?”

Before Kageyama can object, Tanaka shoves a small box into his hand and smirks as he leaves, waving a final goodbye to Hinata. Kageyama nearly has a heart attack when he looks down at the box of condoms in his palm.

“Kageyama,” Hinata adjusts the strap of his bag and pops up behind his boyfriend trying to see what Tanaka gave him, but Kageyama stuffs it into his pocket before he can.

“I-It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

“It’s not nothing! What is it? What did Tanaka give you?” Hinata reaches for Kageyama’s pocket but he steps out of reach.

“Nothing.”

“Let me see!”

Despite his best effort to dodge him, Hinata sneaks in between Kageyama’s arms and snags the small box in his pocket. The blush on his cheeks is brighter than his hair when realization sets in.

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

They stand for a moment in silence, neither wanting to verbalize what they’re both thinking. Kageyama steps forward and starts to say something, anything to end the silence and make the blushes on their cheeks fade, but Hinata slips the box into his own bag and puts his hands against Kageyama’s chest to stop him. Kageyama freezes as his boyfriend rests his head against him.

“Kageyama,” he says softly. “Your heart’s beating too fast.”

For a long time, they stay just like this. Kageyama rests his hand against Hinata’s hair with as much tenderness as if he were worried about waking him up. Hinata wraps his arms around Kageyama’s waist and drinks in his scent. Just like this.

At some point, Hinata lets go but only to intertwine their fingers as they finally leave the clubroom.

The sun is low in the sky, drenching their skin in golden light and making Hinata’s caramel eyes sparkle brighter than anything Kageyama’s ever seen before.

“You’re… beautiful.” He says as coherently as he can.

Hinata looks up at him with wide eyes. He squeezes Kageyama’s hand tighter.

“N-no, you are.” He looks away.

They’re still really bad at complimenting one another, even though Kageyama’s sure he could come up with a thousand things that he absolutely adores about his boyfriend.

“Do you wanna get something to eat before we go back to my house?” Kageyama asks.

Hinata nods, and that’s that.

Anything, Shoyo. Do you know that? Anything for you.

They slide into a booth at a place that’s only five minutes from Kageyama’s house and order enough food for five people knowing that it still won’t be enough for them.

Feeling more at ease, Hinata starts filling in his boyfriend on all the news with Kenma and the Nekoma team and even Bokuto (who texted him a few days ago), and his younger sister’s junior volleyball team and how he thinks his Mom is making him his favorite meal for his birthday.

Maybe on the outside, it doesn’t look like Kageyama is paying any attention with his occasional nods and grunts as he sips the glass of strawberry milk he got, but he is. He really is. He eats up every perfect word that comes out of Hinata’s perfect mouth and stores it away to cherish and remember, because what’s important to Hinata is important to him.

“So,” Hinata swallows and shifts in his seat. “D-Did you tell Tanaka? About, you know, us?”

Kageyama goes rigid in his seat.

“No, I have no clue why he… Why he…” He trails off, but they both know what he’s trying to say.

“It’s because you’re always staring at me at practice.”

“No, I’m not. And besides, I have to watch you when we’re practicing. How else am I supposed to toss to you, dumbass.”

“Well I didn’t tell him!”

“Maybe- Maybe we’re being too obvious.” Kageyama says, a little bit of heat tinting his face.

“Hm? How? I’ve even started glaring at you when you’re not looking.”

“Dumbass! That’s unnecessary. We’re definitely being too obvious.”

“Do you think everyone else knows, too?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Hinata stares at his hands on the table and Kageyama looks at a street sign through the window.

“H-How did he know about... tonight.” Hinata mumbles.

Kageyama looks back at his boyfriend, his heart swelling in a familiar way at his furrowed eyebrows and the pink on his nose. He puts his hand over Hinata’s and moves his thumb in a gentle, circular motion against his skin.

“I don’t think he does. He probably just assumed we would…” He swallows. “It’s okay, Hinata. They were going to find out anyway.”

Hinata nods but doesn’t look at Kageyama.

“That’s why you were nervous today, right?” Kageyama says.

But then their food finally comes and they’re distracted for a few minutes as they eat, though neither of them eat as quickly as they usually do. Hinata sips a little bit of tea and clears his throat.

“Yeah,” is all he says.

Kageyama nods.

“You don’t have anything to be nervous about. I, um, I did my research.” He sounds like such a fucking nerd when he says it that way.

“It isn’t like volleyball, Bakageyama!”

Kageyama gets distracted by how Hinata’s hair bounces as he speaks.

“I know that! But I just- wanted to be prepared.”

Hinata’s grumbles something (and it’s cute as fuck) but continues to eat.

“Hinata,” Kageyama starts. “You know we don’t have to do this. We can wait until you’re-”

“No. I’m ready. I want you. Tonight.”

For a moment, Kageyama watches for any sign of hesitation on his boyfriend’s face, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hinata look so resolute about anything. Maybe he looks like this when he’s about to spike… Kageyema nods once. He thinks about how badly he wants to lean over and kiss the top of Hinata’s perfect nose.

They finish all of the food they bought as expected, gather their things, and start off to Kageyama’s house. Despite being in a somewhat angsty mood, Hinata grabs Kageyama’s hand the moment they step out onto the sidewalk. Kageyama presses a kiss against the top of his head. They’re both anxious, that’s all.

“Let’s watch a movie!” Hinata decides as they put their things down and take off their shoes at the door. Kageyama’s mom is traveling this weekend so they have the house to themselves.

While Hinata looks for something to put on the TV, Kageyama changes into a black t-shirt and the sweatpants that Hinata once told him he looked “really good” in.

He just likes it because he can see my dick. Kageyama thinks.

He doesn’t wear anything underneath them and Hinata seems to notice when Kageyama comes back into the living room by the way he licks his lips.

As the movie starts playing, Hinata takes up his favorite position against Kageyama’s lap, with his boyfriend’s arms around his neck and his cheek against his chest. Kageyama assumes it’s his favorite position because he’s in perfect view of his dick and can hear Kagayama’s heartbeat in his ear.

They only ever watch about thirty minutes before getting occupied with other things, but today it takes longer and Hinata only starts brushing his lips against Kageyama’s neck and jaw once the movie is almost over. Hinata places soft kisses along his boyfriend’s collarbone and starts nibbling, too, leaving small red marks along Kageyama’s skin. He kisses and bites up his neck until he gets to his lips. Kageyama accepts Hinata’s mouth against his hungrily and lets his boyfriend’s tongue run along his own and against his teeth, shuddering as Hinata’s fingers find the edge of his t-shirt.

Hinata traces Kageyama’s v-line and drags his hands up Kageyama’s torso, over his muscles and around to his back and across his belly button and up to his chest where he gently squeezes his boyfriend’s nipples.

Kageyama doesn’t like to moan, he doesn’t like the feeling of needing to moan, but Hinata makes it impossible not to. He’s never even dated someone before Kageyama, and yet Hinata knows exactly how to move his fingers over his body in just the right way, in just the right fucking places.

As Hinata climbs onto Kageyama’s lap fully, straddling him in a dangerous way, Kageyama fits his hands on either side of Hinata’s waist. He presses his fingertips into his boyfriend’s soft flesh to hold him in place. That simple touch alone elicits a breathy moan from Hinata. Kageyama can’t help the way those sounds make his dick hot below his waistband, and Hinata knows that, too.

Their kiss becomes rougher and Hinata’s hands more frantic and Kageyama’s grip tighter, but he doesn’t stop Hinata when he starts to grind his ass against his sweatpants. Kageyama lets out a low groan at that, biting down on Hinata’s lip and making him moan even louder. The sound makes Kageyama’s length fully hard, and he can feel Hinata’s dick pressing against his own.

He stops Hinata from grinding into him anymore and breaks from the kiss, putting his lips roughly against Hinata’s neck and leaving his own marks. He lets every moment at practice today that he wanted to slam Hinata against a wall and kiss him until he was breathless control his body, as he tastes every inch of his boyfriend that he can and cherishes the desperate noises in his ear. Hinata tries to hump into Kageyama again, but he’s stopped by Kageyama’s grip.

Instead, he reaches for Kageyama’s waistband and slides his hand down until he feels Kageyama’s deliciously long length against his skin. Kageyama can’t suppress the moan that bubbles out of his throat as Hinata delicately runs his fingers up and down him, somehow making him even harder in the most painful yet fucking amazing way.

“S-Shoyo…” He whispers, tossing his head back against the couch and enjoying the feeling of his boyfriend’s skin on his.

But when Hinata tries to remove his sweatpants completely, he grabs his hands by his wrists, puts them around his neck, and hitches his legs around his waist before standing up.

“Not here,” he whispers into Hinata’s ear.

He turns off the TV on his way to the staircase, neither of them having paid any attention to the movie from the start. From the corner of his eye, he vaguely registers that it’s about 11:15 PM.

Hinata doesn’t resist as Kageyama carries him like that upstairs to his bedroom, all the while biting and kissing Kageyama’s neck and scraping his nails against the back of his t-shirt until Kageyama rests him on the bed.

“It’s your birthday, dumbass. I’m supposed to be making you feel good.” Kageyama mutters.

He turns the lamp next to his bed on, and then reaches for another switch. A vine of fairy lights around his bed shine to life. Hinata gasps softly, his whole face brightening with the decorations, and that look alone gives Kageyama enough dopamine for the rest of his fucking life.

He cups Hinata’s chin as he crawls onto the bed beside him, and slides Hinata’s sweatshirt up and over his body, tossing it onto the floor. Climbing over him, Kageyama can feel the bulge in Hinata’s pants against his own. Hinata moans at the feeling, but he’s silenced by Kageyama’s lips on his.

Kissing is one of the best fucking things in the world according to Kageyama. Specifically kissing Hinata. If he let him, Kageyama could lose himself in the feeling of Hinata’s soft lips moving against his own, the taste of his sweet mouth, the quiet gasps that blossom from his throat when Kageyama pulls back for a moment for hours and hours and hours, and he usually does. But he knows Hinata’s desperate for more tonight.

He gazes down at Hinata’s bare abdomen, greedily taking in all of his pale, well-muscled build and feeling pride bubbling in his chest knowing that Hinata is his. Anything, everything, beyond everything for Shoyo. In this life and the next life and the life after. Shoyo, Shoyo, Shoyo.

He takes Hinata’s nipples in his fingers and relishes in the borderline scream that erupts from Hinata as the smaller boy arches his back and bites his lip at the sensation. He smirks at how sensitive Hinata is today. That’s a good sign.

“K-Kageyama, that- feels so… g-good,” he manages to say.

“It’s supposed to.”

Kageyama’s smirk widens and he pushes his mouth down against Hinata’s once again. His hands wander over Hinata’s quivering body, feeling his boyfriend turn into a mess beneath him already and loving every moment of it.

Kageyama pulls back from the kiss and stops torturing Hinata’s nipples, resulting in a groan from Hinata, before yanking his own shirt off. He starts pulling Hinata’s shorts off, but Hinata puts his hand on Kagayama’s chest.

“I-It’s my turn,” he says, somewhat out of breath.

Kageyama doesn’t have time to react before Hinata scrambles out from under him and latches his fingers onto Kageyama’s waistband. The look he gives Kageyama screams Off without needing to say it.

Kageyama slides off the bed and faces Hinata as he pulls his sweatpants down, kicking them off completely. Hinata’s eyes glaze over as the way Kageyama’s dick springs up entrances him. (Kageyama sort of did that on purpose because he likes the way Hinata’s mesmerized by his length, but he would never say it out loud.)

As soon as he climbs back onto the bed, Hinata pounces on him with such eagerness that Kageyama falls flat onto his back. Hinata positions himself with his mouth just above Kageyama’s dick and his ass up in the air, his hot breath brushing against Kageyama’s length.

“Please.” He murmurs.

Kageyama’s eyes are wide as he nods.

He doesn’t have enough time to even blink before Hinata’s tongue is against his shaft, leaving a wet trail from his base to his head and eliciting a sinful noise from his throat. Hinata’s small fingers close around the base and pump him slowly while his lips close around his head. Kageyama resists the urge to throw his head back and squeeze his eyes shut, instead forcing himself to watch his boyfriend. Hinata gazes back at him through his eyelashes.

Soon after they started dating, they learned they shared the desire to maintain eye contact. Always.

Hinata’s tongue swirls around his head in the most illegal fucking ways, mixing his pre-cum with his saliva and sucking him like his entire life’s purpose to suck Kageyama Tobio dry, all the while his hands feeling up the rest of his length. Kageyama’s fingers find Hinata’s hair and he tugs him wildly, desperate for more.

“Fuck.” Kageyama groans.

His hips fuck up into Hinata’s mouth, and Hinata takes him so fucking well as his dick slams into the back of his throat.

“Y-you’re… so… fucking good, Shoyo. You’re so good for me.”

Hinata whimpers, gagging on Kageyama’s length but continuing to run his tongue along whatever skin he can find and pumping his base with his hands.

Kageyama’s too close for comfort, he knows, but as much as he wants to cum right here and right now and let himself explode into Hinata’s throat, that’s not Hinata’s birthday present. He relaxes his hips and pushes Hinata’s shoulders back gently.

He can’t help but groan at how beautiful Hinata looks with his dick sliding out of his mouth, gleaming with his saliva.

Hinata breathes raggedly and wipes his mouth with his arm. He shakily pulls his shorts and briefs down, discarding them off the bed and climbs over his boyfriend. Kageyama runs a finger up Hinata’s dick, and while the smaller boy lets out a high-pitched moan, he guides Kageyama’s hand away.

“I d-don’t wanna wait anymore.” He breathes. “I want my birthday present. I want you inside me, Kageyama. Now.”

Kageyama watches Hinata closely again, and he only finds pure want in his brown eyes. They’re really doing this.

“Do you have lube? I brought my own, but it’s in my bag downstairs.”

“No, yes, I have some. Hold on,” Kageyama pulls open the drawer of his nightstand and nearly drops the small bottle as he pulls it out. “Um, it’s strawberry. I hope that’s okay. It sort of reminded me of you...”

“Bakageyama. Of course it’s okay.”

“R-Right. How do you, um, how do you wanna do this?”

Hinata answers instantly, like he’s been waiting for someone to ask. “I wanna ride you.”

Kageyama swallows, his dick twitching at the words. He nods.

Struggling to open the cap at first, he finally pops it open and lets a generous amount fall into his palm. He lathers his hands in it, making sure that his index, middle, and ring fingers on his right hand are drenched the most.

“Like this,” Hinata says. He pulls Kageyama up into a sitting position with his legs wide and moves himself so that he’s sitting with his back resting against Kageyama’s chest, his head draped over Kageyama’s shoulder. He spreads his knees and shivers at the feeling of Kageyama’s wet dick pushing against his ass.

Guiding Kageyama’s fingers down to his entrance, he gives him a slight nod.

Kageyama feels around the area for a moment, getting used to the feeling of the lube on his fingers and watching Hinata’s reactions carefully as he pushes a fingertip against his hole. He slides a hesitant finger about a centimeter inside of him.

Hinata grimaces, letting out a painful moan, but nods again after a moment. Kageyama slides in deeper and then stops. Hinata moans and breathes, nodding when he’s ready for more. They continue like this until his finger is fully submerged into Hinata.

“A-Another,” Hinata groans.

Kageyama gently pushes his middle finger up into his boyfriend, making sure to be just as cautious as with the first finger even though he’s taking this one better. When he starts to move them, Hinata snaps his eyes shut and seethes through his teeth, but he bites against Kageyama’s neck when Kageyama stops.

“K-Keep going… It feels… so good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Y-Yes. I’m just g-getting used t-to it. Don’t s-stop, Tobio...”

Kageyama growls softly hearing his name in Hinata’s breathy voice, and he immediately begins to pump his fingers inside his boyfriend. Hinata makes all sorts of amazing noises right into Kageyama’s ears as he stretches him out. Adding a third finger makes Hinata’s body convulse, and he cries out, but Kageyama can tell it’s a sound of pleasure. His patience doesn’t run out as he preps Hinata, but his dick becomes more and more prevalent in his mind as he wishes he could be inside him rather than his fingers.

Finally, Hinata breathes at him to stop.

“I’m ready,” He says.

His body stutters at how empty he feels once Kageyama pulls his hand away, and he struggles to readjust so his hips are straddling Kageyama.

Kageyama cups Hinata’s face again. He brushes his thumb along his boyfriend’s bottom lip, pushing into his mouth so he can feel Hinata’s tongue against his fingertip.

“Do you want to use a condom?”

Hinata pauses for a moment, but then shakes his head.

Kageyama brushes a wisp of orange hair away from Hinata’s forehead.

As he adjusts so that he’s flat on his back again, dick stiff and leaking onto his stomach, Hinata picks up the bottle of lube and pours some into his hand. He spits into it and onto the tip of Kageyama’s dick. Kageyama inhales sharply as Hinata rubs the chilly fluid up and down his length, swirling the tip of his thumb onto Kageyama’s head and loving the sigh that escapes his boyfriend’s mouth.

“A-Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I am, babe. Are you?”

Hinata nods. A small droplet of sweat glitters against his forehead, making its way down Hinata’s flushed cheeks and past his swollen lips that glisten pink from Kageyama’s kisses, his orange hair slightly damp but still light and tousled from Kageyama’s fingers, and Kageyama finds himself absolutely fucking useless beneath the ethereal beauty that is his boyfriend.

“I love you, Shoyo.” Kageyama blurts out.

Oh, shit. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck me.

Neither of them have ever said it before, and he definitely never imagined saying it while they’re on top of each other naked with his dick pushing up into Hinata’s ass.

Hinata blushes and his eyes go wide.

He stares at Kageyama.

Kageyama stares back at him.

“I love you more.”

Hinata says it simply, with the nonchalance that comes with saying a universal truth anyone and everyone should already know.

“That’s impossible, dumbass.”

“No, it’s not, because I love you more than volleyball and there’s no way you could love me even more than that.”

Kageyama just watches him. And then he throws his arms around Hinata and pulls him down to squeeze against his chest because there are no words for how fucking dorky his boyfriend is or how much that makes him burst with love for him. Since when did he fall in love with such a nerd, God.

“Dumbass,” he whispers.

Hinata smiles against his chest and pulls himself out of Kageyama’s grip back into his position straddling him.

“Please.” He begs.

Kageyama places his hands securely on Hinata’s waist.

With a shaky breath at his lips, Hinata picks up his hips and takes Kageyama’s dick into his hand, guiding it to his entrance and getting used to the sensation of his tip applying pressure against him. He holds Kageyama’s length steady as he rolls his ass down ever so fucking slowly. Centimeter by centimeter, letting out a long, pitchy moan as Kageyama’s dick stretches him out more than he could have ever imagined.

Every vein and nerve in Kageyama’s length boils with the tightness of Hinata around him, and it takes all of his resolve to keep his body unmoving while Hinata adjusts to him. He lets out a string of expletives once Hinata finally bottoms out. The feeling is unreal.

They stay still for a moment, regaining their composure and inhaling raggedly.

“God, fuck, Shoyo, you’re so fucking tight.”

“Y-You’re j-just so… big,” Hinata retorts in between gasps.

Kageyama nearly loses it when Hinata swivels his ass against him. He throws his arm across his face, shading his eyes, but Hinata pulls it away. Eye contact.

“O-Okay. I’m gonna m-move now,” Hinata says.

“Take your t-time. I want you to feel comfortable, okay? I want you to f-feel so fucking good, Shoyo.”

Hinata whimpers and bites his lip at that. And then, he pushes himself up, letting Kageyama almost slide out of him with a wet sound that should be repulsive but only makes Kageyama’s pupils dilate. Just when his dick is about to slip out of his ass completely, Hinata lowers himself back down with a moan. Kageyama digs his fingers into Hinata’s flesh.

Hinata raises himself again and falls back down, over and over and over at an agonizing pace. Kageyama can tell he’s in pain, but the way his face scrunches up every time he slides back down against Kageyama’s dick and the pitiful noises he’s making tell otherwise. After several minutes, he leans back and puts his hands down on Kageyama’s thighs, swivelling his hips once more.

And then he starts to fucking bounce.

Kageyama loses his restraint, and he starts to buck up into his ass while his hands push Hinata down onto him, harder and harder. Hinata cries out at the sensation, but he only speeds up his movements.

“S-Shoyo…. So good.... S-So good for me, Shoyo…. You’re t-taking me so w-well…” Kageyama pants.

Each time Kageyama’s dick slams into his core, Hinata’s head falls back limply and he moans out Tobio’s name. Tobio Tobio Tobio. He chants it like his life depends on that name, like he can’t live without that sweet name on his tongue, and he really can’t.

On one particular thrust, Hinata shrieks with pleasure as Kageyama hits there. He almost loses his balance but Kageyama’s grip holds him in place.

“There, there, there, there, Kageyama, there, please, Tobio, there!” Hinata shouts as Kageyama bucks up into the same spot again. “Fuck me, Tobio. F-Fuck me.”

Kageyama growls and easily flips them so Hinata is pinned beneath him, his dick still plenty deep inside his ass. He places his hands on either side of him, Hinata wrapping his arms around his neck and legs around his waist, and he begins to thrust into Hinata as hard as he fucking can.

It’s easy for him to pinpoint Hinata’s prostate again, with how fucking desperate Hinata acts when he does. He half-grunts, half-moans every time he slams into Hinata, letting his instincts take over his body entirely.

“T-Tobio, I’m-”

“I know, I know babe. Come for me.”

Kageyama keeps hitting the spot that makes Hinata cry out and scrape against his back and quiver violently until Hinata lets out his loudest moan yet, loud enough the whole fucking country can probably hear it. Kageyama’s vaguely aware of hot, white liquid splashing against his abdomen as Hinata arches his back.

Kageyama picks up his pace even more knowing that Hinata already came, torturing Hinata’s prostate as he continues to pound his dick into it. His orgasm washes over him before he realizes it. He lets out a deep groan, his hips stuttering into Hinata a few more times. It’s like electricity shooting through his body as he has the best fucking orgasm of his life. He fills Hinata completely and then some.

There’s just the sound of gasping in the dim bedroom for a long time.

Kageyama tilts his head to look at Hinata. The smaller boy lies with his arms extended out on either side of him and his eyes focused on the fairy lights above them, his chest rising and falling and his body shivering slightly, not from cold, but from the intensity of his first orgasm. If this is what Hinata’s always going to look like post-sex, Kageyama wants to fuck him every night.

“Shoyo. Talk to me.”

“Hm? About what?”

He might look absolutely fucked, but he has the same naive tone that he always does.

“Are you happy?” Kageyama asks.

Hinata snuggles closer to his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around Kageyama’s chest and hitching his leg over Kageyama’s thighs. Kageyama mindlessly brings his hand up to play with Hinata’s hair.

“Of course I’m happy. That was… Better than I thought it would be.”

“Did you think it would be that bad?”

“No. I thought it would be perfect. But it was better than perfect.”

He kisses Kageyama’s collarbone, and Kageyama kisses the top of his head. The digital clock next to his bed flashes in his peripheral vision. 12:01 AM.

“Look, it’s midnight. Happy birthday, Shoyo.”

“Let’s do this again for my next birthday. And on holidays, too!”

Kageyama’s heart quite literally skips a beat.

“Your next birthday… You m-mean… Next year?”

“Yeah. What else would I mean?”

“You wanna be with me for another year?”

Hinata perks his head up at the dread on Kageyama’s face. It’s Hinata and it’s only Hinata and it will only ever be Hinata, but that’s just how Kageyama feels. Hinata’s too good to be his. He doesn’t deserve him, he knows that, so he always focuses on the time they have together now, and not their inevitable departure when they go to different schools and join different teams and lead different lives. That’s what Kageyama always feared in the back of his mind.

But Hinata gives him a puzzled look as he sits up on his elbows.

“I want to be with you for a lot longer than another year. Only if you want to, but I thought you did. Don’t you?”

Kageyama cups Hinata’s face with both of his hands.

“Shoyo. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“Good. Me, too.”

Kageyama wonders if Hinata can hear the chaos his heart is in as Hinata rests his head back down against his chest.

Lacing their fingers together, Kageyama feels contentment wash over his body and mind. He’ll never want anything else. He already has everything.

For your next birthday, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. Whatever you want.

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu smut #kagehina #kageyama #hinata #kagehina smut #daichi #sugawara #asahi #nishinoya #tanaka #tsukishima #yamaguchi #kageyama x hinata

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tief-lings · 3 years

Text

@illuminati-by-nature you asked so here it is

I think I gotta preface this by saying that it’s 2am here but god I cannot be stopped from talking about my wisdom dump stat wizard and his presence in the Mighty Nein’s Story. That, and that I think that the CA is gonna have a big link with the BBEG of the campaign, if not directly providing the person.

So the post you made highlighted that Yussa’s timeline and circumstance matches up pretty well with the CA being formed and him being less than willing to go to them despite his pretty good relationship with Oremid Hass.

Now Yussa’s old like if you’ve been practicing magic alone for over 200 years you’re super duper old, even for an elfo. If Matt follows the whole Elves are adults when they hit 100 then oh boy. You know who else is old and elfy and probably doesn’t like our boy Yussa very much? Ludinus Da’leth. (Being involved with the Mage war and perhaps the Eve of Crimson Midnight itself. I’d also throw in that this might be why Yussa hates authority but honest, queer experience so... but it’s a pretty solid contender)

Now, I don’t think Ludinus is going to be the BBEG but he is one seedy motherfucker and I cannot be convinced otherwise. He’s got an (indirect) link to the Chained Oblivion, Vess didn’t trust him one bit - not that those mages trust each other anyway - and overall big evil wizard vibes.

Anyway to summarise down because collecting thoughts has gotten very difficult. I think that the war might play a bit more into the story than we thought, oh yeah Yussa might be involved and dragging him out of the clutches of the Somnovem (M9 pls go save ur wizard dad) might reveal some info that he knows that he has kept from them because why would he tell them as to what they were actually fighting over. Alternatively I’m over thinking this but having it be Yussa who they have to go get...idk, man knows some shit I think.

#askdhfdaksfhjdshf this is so badly explained #anything I say you want me to clarify tell me I think this is just waffle

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komoryriku · 4 years

Text

Queering KH: Part 2

How to Queer this Anime Game? By me, an American nerd lol

Pictured: Dream. Drop. Distance. Sequel. 8)))

What is Queering

I’m so excited to talk about this okay this is literally the only fun thing I get to do as an English major anymore lmao.

“Queering a text” is the academic term for taking a given text and extracting the queer subtext of it, or applying a queer reading to it. It is taking a piece of literature, film, or art and reading into it for the gay coding. It is an especially important tool for reading old literature written during periods of extreme homosexual oppression, wherein the author would be forced to hide hints of homosexuality under layers and layers of superficial text.

Pictured: Sora and Riku battling Ursula as she means to wreck their ship, mirroring the disaster that Sora’s friends Eric and Ariel (lovers) faced at sea.

As a post-structuralist, I am also here to inform you that every text is made up of intertextual influence. This means whether the JK Rowlings of the world intended it or not, their characters may well be queer coded because of the unconscious influence of homoerotic customs in our culture that have permeated the text. It’s why people speculated that Newt Scamander was gay, because he showed little interest in Tina and preferred to focus on his beasts, which is not normative for a male protagonist in straight media. People likewise considered that Merida from Pixar’s Brave might be gay, because she had no interest in dating men and wanted to live a wild lifestyle traditionally associated with masuculinity, things that are pretty in line with lesbian coding. And let me tell you, lgbt claimed Queen Elsa IMMEDIATELY for very good reason. Pretty much everything about her journey, purposefully or not, makes for an strikingly overt gay metaphor. Let it Go is a coming out song for a woman suffocating under normativity all her life, deal with it.

Same, Elsa.

Oh whoops I accidentally pasted this picture of Riku here.

Keep Cultural Distinctions in Mind

Something else important I want to point out is that different cultures are- different lol. They are going to vary. What is queer coding here is not necessarily queer coding in Japan. A man presenting femininely in American media would certainly get him coded as gay. A bishonen in an anime though? Not so much. Men bathing together in Japan is common practice so that would mean nothing gay over there. In America however, you have things like this vine.

In which 2 dudes are chilling as far away as possible from each other in a hot tub to prove they are not gay lol.

So when I say the male members of Organization XIII bathe together, it means literally nothing in a Japanese context.

But let me tell you this: homosexual mlm tend to enjoy bathing with other dudes. Sexual attraction is sexual attraction no matter where you go. So how would you queer code a Japanese character as gay in a hot tub context?

By American logic, if the straight thing to do is sit 5 feet apart in a hot tub, then the inverse, the gay thing to do, would be 2 men sitting very close together in a hot tub. So if I were to code 2 American male characters as gay in a hot tub context, that is what I would do. But if I really wanted to hammer it home, I would ALSO have them blushing so there is no straight explanation for their closeness.

And for a Japanese character, for whom bathing with men might well mean nothing, I’d definitely have them physically blush, so that you know it does NOT just “mean nothing” to him...

Oh look at that. Amano went out of her way to draw Roxas blushing at the concept of bathing with men. So when I say “the members of Orginization XIII bathe together”, you know that means something to Roxas, cuz the coding tells us so. There are indeed certain ways you can depict a shonen being either interested in or at least affected by that idea. You just have to mind those codes telling you what the character really feels, especially when they can’t really say it.

Speaking of blushes, Amano uses them a lot.

They’re a pretty effective tool for hiding gay coding into your characters cuz an anime character might blush for any number of reasons, from being flustered by their crush,

to being flustered because they don’t have a crush.

If you’ve ever translated Japanese media, (I haven’t, but I have friends who do), you know that Japanese is very vague which means you need the whole context to properly understand a scene. It’s a similar situation with queer coding. Consider this scene of Roxas blushing.

If Roxas felt positively about the insinuation that he and Xion are holding hands, how might one code this? Well, if he’s feeling really excited about it in a positive way, you might draw him smiling or expressing flattery on his blushing face. However, Roxas reacts negatively, with a frown on his blushing face. This insinuates he does not like this idea at all, especially since he also shuts it down right away in his dialogue.

But you might say “Well how do we know he isn’t just shy?” to which I say- well we can’t know. That’s the whole point of queer coding in literature. It is to say a character is queer but without actually saying it, to give plausible deniability for safety. It is to suggest a character is queer but without any confirmation. It does not mean that the character isn’t queer, however. It just means it cannot be confirmed by the text alone. However, a bold text that is very determined to have hidden queer characters without any straight explanations, will provide coding that has very little or no straight explanation.

Back to the Roxas and Xion dialogue^. This scene alone cannot confirm or deny anything. As I explained however, the suggestion that Roxas is not straight IS there. Considering the whole context, also, this scene is another piece of “evidence” to add to the pile of suggestions that Roxas isn’t straight. This coupled with the bathing panel, and this panel of him admiring Axel, his male mentor, with deep flattery during his first day of adventuring, all exist.

Roxas does not express negative sentiments in his blushing at men, nor does he say anything dismissive to them. When he blushes at Xion’s comment, however, it is with a negative reaction. Consider also that if the author wanted Roxas to appear straight, she would present them in ways that allude to straightness and NOT in ways that allude to queerness. Roxas would not do suggestively queer things like blush in flattery at Axel calling him special and then dismiss Xion’s suggestion that they are holding hands if he were simply coded as straight. Queering a text sometimes requires a lot of critical thought like this. This is because again, these things are hidden, and sometimes hidden really well so that unsuspecting straight people will not even consider the queer suggestions. This is one of the advantages Nomura has in his favor with Kingdom Hearts: by making it so convoluted, the gay text can be forward, strong, and blatant but remain undetected by straight powers. This keeps the series safe from oppressive scrutiny. Characters like Namine and Xion can exist as literal illustrations of compulsory-heterosexuality. And people will still think Sora and Riku are straight.

Even if I don’t know all the queer codes Japanese culture might specifically have, (and I do not, I do not live in Japan nor have any semblance of what that is like beyond what my friends who have lived there can tell me, and what I can research while sitting in my pajamas in Kentucky lol), there are certain things that are rather universal. Blushing, physical contact, lingering gazes, etc etc. Attraction is attraction and certain body language and other physical symbols will translate and will travel. So that’s the majority of what I will have to focus on.

But I do want you to know that rainbows are still gay in Japan.

Finally I also want to express that cultural intermingling is a thing. We do not live in bubbles, especially with the internet. Our cultures affect each other ALL the time. Although Kingdom Hearts is primarily a Japanese series, it is consciously tailored to appeal to both America and Japan. This is by design given the idea was to marry a Japanese hit like Final Fantasy with an American phenomenon like Disney’s media. This is why they take special care in minding the English translations and dubbing of the KH games (when they are able to do so, mistakes are still very often made and i hate it cuz they’re usually heterosexual-agenda-pushing “mistakes” =~=). The games are so intimately tied to both the Japanese and American cultures they are derived from which is part of why accurate translations are so important. And given what they would mean for queer audiences, what they represent for queer people makes accurate translations even MORE important. Some things get quite lost in translation, and some things are grossly added in translation. We will discuss that down the line...

A brief aside that I implore you to ignore:

On the subject of Roxas not being straight, I have heard of one really fun queer motif in Japanese media which is ”ryoutoutsukai (両刀使い)”, “the two sword fencer”: the dual wielding bisexual. Now- I do not necessarily think this is a means of coding Roxas as bisexual, and beyond that, from what I’ve heard in my research on bisexuality in Japan, certain age groups don’t even believe in bisexuality there. However, a love of more than one gender exists no matter who is willing to acknowledge it or not, and this motif is there. And Promisekeeper and Oblivion do rather fit the bill of representing homosexuality (Oblivion/Soriku) and heteronormativity (Promisekeeper/Sora and his childhood friend Kairi). So- while i don’t think it means anything, this fun idea is there~ I will say, however, that as far as I can tell, Nomura and his staff know exactly what they’re doing with their queer coding and are well connected to it in both cultures. So I mean- if any anime team would know bisexuality exists and how to code it, I firmly believe the KH team would, so. There is some food for thought for you~

Get ready for part 3, I hope you like TWEWY~ B)

#kingdom hearts #kh #soriku #sora kh #roxas #riku kh

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secret-blacklight-domain777 · 3 years

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Drew McDowall speaks to Chloé Lula about new solo album Agalma and the reissue of Coil’s 1999 opus Musick To Play In The Dark

21 years after its initial release, Coil’s Musick To Play In The Dark is being remastered and reissued by US label Dais. The release coincides with ex-member Drew McDowall’s fourth solo album Agalma – which he describes as an extension of the ritualistic practices that were “woven into Coil’s DNA”. Like the industrial group’s later work Agalma drips with spectral textures, angelic backing vocals and glitchy cinematic sweeps formed from warped field recordings and modular processing. Here, he reflects on finding inspiration in solitude, the insidiousness of the patriarchy and the power of synchronicity in music and in life.

Chloé Lula: Musick To Play In The Dark has been hailed as the point at which Coil pivoted from “sun music” to “moon music”. According to Jhonn Balance, it was motivated by a desire to “let in things you had shut out before: the feminine. The tidal. The cyclical”.

Drew McDowall: Musick To Play In The Dark kind of put the stamp on a process that was happening for a couple of years with Coil. Balance and Sleazy’s music was considered kind of solar as it related to an album like Scatology with a queer, male energy. During the period that I was involved as an official member, from about ‘94 or ‘95, we began investigating lunar energies, like with Moon’s Milk or Under An Unquiet Skull, one of the Solstice/Equinox 7"s, I think the driver behind this shift was our distaste and distrust of the patriarchy, both from a cultural point of view and from an occult point of view. Musick was a conscious effort to tap into lunar, traditionally feminine energies. And in an occult sense, to move away from the ostensibly solar, patriarchal, hierarchical Crowleyian aspect of the occult into the more fluid, chaotic, unconscious practices of Austin Osman Spare.

Not a lot of people know this, but Balance and Sleazy would always say grace before a meal, and they would always give thanks to the Goddess. They did that almost as long as I knew them. I kind of liked that. So it was about those energies that only really come out in the dark, that are less blatant and present and in your face. It was a process, it wasn’t a sharp delineation. But Musick was when that crystallised, and in that sense it was an album that was completely moon music.

What were your specific contributions to the album?

It was really fragmented. I’d moved to New York after living in London for 15 years, and was dealing with a lot of chemical issues, drug issues, whatever. I went back to work on Musick, but my imbalance had gotten so extreme that I could only be awake during the nighttime hours and was asleep during the daytime. Their studio was in Weston-super-Mare, this decrepit seaside town. They’d gotten sick of London, and they wanted to get Balance away from all of the temptations that he was prey to. It was kind of an attempt to save his life, really. They had this huge Victorian mansion on a hillside overlooking this wonderful bay, the River Severn.

Balance, Sleazy, and Thighpaulsandra worked in the studio on the bones and the structure and the stratum of these tracks during the day, and I would stagger out of whatever comatose stupor I was in in the evening and just take what they’d done and process it and rework it. It was a way I wasn't used to working with Coil, but I think it added something – some kind of psychosis or strange pathology to the recordings. Back then – this was ‘99 – granular synthesis wasn’t really readily available. We’d gotten a hold of some prototype stuff that was really not very easy to use. They didn’t have the nice interface that you have now. But that was part of the fun. I was also taking things and running the material through different filters and synths that we had in the studio. I would leave the files on one of the computer desktops and go to bed. We’d cross each other’s paths in the morning, have breakfast and chat for a bit, and then I’d go to sleep while they worked for the rest of the day.

I’ve read that what you generated through granular synthesis was intended to sound like a fire. What was the idea behind that?

It was almost a kind of ritual aspect, like being around a ritual fire, or a primitive fire, and tapping into what we were and where we came from. If memory serves me right, those were some of the conversations that we had, fire being this idea of being in a glade or an opening in the forest around a fire, and having that sound, the smell and the sight of it. We could only really capture the sound of it, but hopefully we managed to create the effect of the whole experience.

You’ve mentioned to me that you like to go to upstate New York when you want to work on your solo material now. How do isolated settings, like the Catskills or Weston-super-Mare, impact your ability to tap into highly creative states?

We [Coil] loved to get out of the city and go to places like Avebury. We would take day trips or trips for a couple of days and visit stone circles. Back then, in the mid- to late-90s, they weren’t quite the Instagrammable tourist hellholes that they are now. So you could really get to these places that you weren’t allowed to be in, and you’d either cut through a fence or just walk into these places that weren’t even fenced off, for the most part. Getting out like that was a lot of our inspiration prior to doing any recording. Especially when we all lived in London, it was so vital to get out and get into the forests and connect with Pan. That was part of Coil’s methodology, and I kind of carried it over into the way that I work now. If I’m not recording upstate, I’m doing a lot of the pre-recording meditation there and getting myself ready, either psychedelically or mentally or physically or whatever. Or even doing some of the recording if not the whole album. The album that Nicky [Hiro Kone] and I did [The Ghost of George Bataille] was recorded entirely upstate in the Catskills.

You helped remaster both volumes of Musick. Is there anything notably different about these reissues?

We remade Musick into a double album and added a really beautiful etching on one side. All of the Dais reissues sound even better than the originals, thanks to Josh Bonati who remastered them. Corners were cut a little bit in some of the original packaging, and the print quality wasn't as good back then. So not only does Musick sound better, but it looks absolutely gorgeous because we got all of the original files for the artwork and gave them the kind of high-resolution, beautifully packaged reissue that it deserves.

What was it like to revisit the material? Are the guiding principles behind it still relevant 20 years later?

I think they might be even more relevant today, if anything. There’s this massive pushback into this really regressive patriarchal state worldwide. Obviously we see it here in the USA, but in Poland, Hungary – all of those places. It feels like patriarchy’s last death spasm. Unfortunately, as we all know with male rage and white rage, the death spasm can take everything down with it. And while it’s unquestionably a good thing that it feels like its death spasm, we should be aware that it will try to destroy the planet in its desire to not give up power. I think that’s in the nature of patriarchy. It would rather burn the planet to cinders than cede its position. Patriarchy and white supremacy both being intermeshed in the same thing. Things felt apocalyptic back then too, do you know what I mean? But now there is no hiding from as it really feels like everything’s spiraling and whiplashing into oblivion.

I really hadn’t listened to Musick very much, because the process of making it was often very traumatic. And dramatic. I didn’t hear it until about two years after it was released. So when we were listening to what we had during the process of having it remastered, it was kind of mind-blowing. There are moments of darkness, but there are moments of really delicate sweetness, like “Broccoli”, where Sleazy is singing in his soft and sort of adorable voice about vegetables.

I hear similarities between songs like “Are You Shivering?” on Musick and “Agalma II” on your new album. There’s so much going on in their sense of depth, space, and evolution, and their allusions to familiar instruments combined with granular glitch.

That wasn’t deliberate, but it’s kind of inevitable. I added to Coil’s DNA, but Coil added to my DNA as well. There’s something we tapped into that I want to keep exploring. That never changes – this feeling that the work is never done, the mission is never complete. You can always go deeper or explore more, or take it in different directions.

In past interviews, you’ve talked about how your music as part of Coil and as a solo artist has aimed to trace various dissociative states.

I disassociate very easily. And rather than fighting it, I try to use it as a wellspring – as fertile ground for the work that I do. That’s always been a process, and always been part of the work or part of the inspiration for the work. I took my inspiration from those states that we all experience, that we can’t really put a name to. There are moments that fall short of language, and when we try and pin these moments down, it feels like we’re trying to hold water in our hands and it’s slipping out, and we feel adrift. So the idea with Agalma was to try and capture those moments. I guess the closest that I could come to putting a word on it was trying to capture the feeling of the sublime. Not just beauty, but joy, terror, dread. It was partly that. And the working title of the album was Ritual Music. That’s another thing that’s kind of been woven into my DNA from being with Coil. All of the music that we did was ritual music, and everything I’ve done since then has been a form of ritual music.

Agalma feels improvisational in its sense of chaos, but controlled enough to indicate planning, arrangement, and methodology. How did you put it together?

I’m not a very rigorous conceptualist. For me, it’s really trial and error and serendipity. Some of the inspirations or methodology might be that I’ll take the particular architecture of a dream and translate that sonically. Or it might just be a process of iteration, which is really my main workflow: manipulating what I’m doing to the point that something else is revealed in it, something that was trying to get out – that I was consciously cajoling or persuading to speak to me – or else something that just pops up unexpectedly, and I’m like, “This is where this piece is trying to take me”. I might take something through the modular and put it through different processes on the computer, then send it back into the modular. A lot of what I find really rewarding is field recordings. There are a lot of field recordings in my work that don’t even sound like field recordings. I kind of like that, where it’s not immediately apparent what something is.

What were some of the field recordings you used on this album?

I was in Naples a couple of years ago staying in this incredible apartment building that was carved into the side of a hill. I spent hours just recording in the marbled hallways. I got a ton of really good field recordings that I then shaped using the modular. You can’t really listen to it and say, “Oh, that sounds like a voice”. It just sounds like traces and resonances of something. But it’s really hard to pinpoint what it is you’re listening to.

Eight out of nine tracks on Agalma feature contributions from other artists. How did you choose who to work with?

This album started to take shape in my head last year, before I started recording. I really wanted to work with people that inspired me. I wanted to work with people I had that sense of trust with. I didn’t give anyone any guidelines, but everything just gelled in a way that felt really magical and weird.

We’ve talked quite a bit about subverting the patriarchy and being an outsider. Are your collaborations motivated by a desire to mine that feeling of operating from the margins?

That’s interesting. All the collaborators on the record are friends. That was one of the important things. My personal connections with people are always predicated on the idea of this affinity of outsiderness. Alterity. When I meet someone I like, I get the sense that they’re also kind of an outsider. Even if it’s not, like, explicit, there’s always a strand. For this record, it just felt that those were the voices who I really felt a presence with.

One of the feelings that I was also trying to explore and skirt around the edges of, or have in some way in my brain, was the sense of the sacred, and to really reconnect with that idea. And not in any religious terms. That’s something that was very, very much part of Coil. Even though their focus changed for me, I still see it as going back to the albums that preceded my involvement. Coil always had a strong sense of the sacred, and it wasn’t in any Sky God sense. It was in the sense of a sacred materiality. Like “sacred” in the Bataille sense of the word. That’s always been part of my work, but with this I wanted to make it more up-front.

It’s powerful when the act of following a kind of altered, oneiric logic leads to moments of synchronicity.

Those moments have to be valued and not just dismissed as coincidence or something mundane. There are moments of just huge resonance that we’re often not aware of at the time – like the moment feels loaded in a way that we can’t immediately put our finger on. But sometimes months or even years later, we see them as points where our life changed and we started on a different path. We do ourselves a huge disservice to just write them off to chance or happenstance or accidents. What they are I don’t know, but I think they’re much more meaningful than just randomness.

Agalma is available via Dais now. Musick To Play In The Dark is released on 27 November

By Chloé Lula

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barberwitch · 5 years

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Hi there! I recently performed a fiancially-focused spell to get me out of a tough situation and it worked! Now I'd like to show my gratitude but I don't worship any deities so I'm not sure how I can do that.

So, this may go over controversialy...but worship yourself.

I want to bring attention to something that I KNOW has come across other’s paths, but may not have come across certain people’s.

There’s a huge mentality that you just thank every plant, and every gust of wind, and every grain of salt that’s passed your altar, or...even the palms of your hands (because let’s be real, most of my followers are younger. Budget bound and not able to dedicate anything significant and may feel bad about not having an altar blah blah blah).

If you want to thank each individual item, then do it. Animism can be a very fulfilling practice, but it’s not for everyone.

If you want to thank a deity or spirit, do it.

If you want to pay homage to the archetype of each item once a year (“BLESSINGS TO YOU GREAT SPIRIT OF PINK HIMILAYAN SALT! THAT YOU CLEANSE AND MINERALIZE MY LIFE AND COUNTLESS OTHERS WHO DO NOT HAIL FROM THE LAND OF YOUR HARVEST!”) then do it.

But, if you worship no deities, work with no spirits, or...did not include them in a specific working...then thank yourself.

If through your workings you flexed your power, did your thing, pulled those strings and mixed that fucking mud...then give yourself the pat on the back.

Sometimes, yes it’s due to a bigger power that we called forth. Thank them then, pour some honey, sing a song, leave some wine. Sometimes they come uninvited vocally, but are invited subconsciously.

But...if you made no such request. You did not invoke anything or anyone and did it by the skin of your back, the scape of your teeth, the sweat of your brow...then take the wine yourself. Bathe in the honey yourself. Adorn yourself in gold and stones.

It’s more than fine to embrace the fire within yourself. Careen into oblivion with the witchfire inhand, and sing songs of your own success.

Let’s be real for a second. If someone came to a party and purposely avoided your attention, then that’s on them. So you do you boo.

Thank yourself. And if you want to thank something else, then thank the candle you lit to thank the herbs you burnt and the crystals you used then thank that candle you burnt for the other candle and so on and so forth.

Stop the cycle and by selfish enough to stop the glorified circle of social and magical justices to reduce it to a “If anyone helped, thanks. I feel good, so here’s a cigarette for me, and some tea for you. Cheers Queers 💚 ” sometimes, that enough.

🦋Cheers, Barberwitch

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possibilistfanfiction · 6 years

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a shelter from oblivion (we will be in history)

[so this is a new years gift for @turnandchasethewind bc i shes my best pal but also bc we are sluts for teen vogue & the new 21 under 21 issue is SO LIT so heres some ridiculous fun queer fluff for u:

lexa & clarke are both activists featured in 21 under 21. they might fall in love a little.]

a shelter from oblivion (we will be in history)

queers are intimately familiar with the costs of being queer—that, as much as anything, makes us queer. the question really is not whether feelings such as grief, regret, and despair have a place in transformative politics; nor is it how to cultivate hope in the face of despair. rather, the question that faces us is how to make a future enough that even the most reluctant among us might want to live there.

—heather love, feeling backward: loss and the politics of queer history

you know a lot about lexa woods: a queer, trans activist who argued legislature when she was 15, started a non profit for lgbtq+ youth and legal aid in brooklyn when she was 16, spoke at the women’s march in new york, is now 19 and a sophomore at harvard studying political science and queer theory. also, notably—because you admire her and also because, honestly, she’s hot as hell—has walked the past two fashion weeks in both paris and new york and is the new face of mac.

so, whatever. you know a lot.

you’d expected her to be intense, which she is, and professional, which she definitely is, letting like five people in front of her in line at craft services during your shoot and sitting down for her interview after literally shutting off her iphone, smiling gently, and leaning forward like those next twenty minutes were the most important of her life.

what you hadn’t expected, though, is how she’s funny, and kind of silly, even, and actually honest to god giggled at a stupid joke you made when you were talking to her after you finished your interview.

and now, now, you’re at some vegan diner in the middle of east williamsburg, because she’d started talking to you about your art and you’d talked to her about how you always want to be more inclusive—both in your subjects and what your art is conversing with itself—and then she was grabbing your coats and leading you to the L train. she’s sneaking a little whiskey into your milkshakes with the sexiest, cutest wink you’ve ever seen, and, just.

‘i’m sure you get this all the time,’ you say, trying to let the milkshake cool you the fuck down, because your cheeks are burning, ‘but you’re the prettiest girl i have ever met.’

her smile is small, bashful, radiant, and you want to see it for your entire life, you think, in that moment. which is dramatic and young but whatever. she’s beautiful.

‘i don’t, actually,’ she says, and it’s full of a little sadness and the sort of bitterness—in a different way, but not too dissimilar—also know.

‘well,’ you say, ‘that’s dumb. because like—’ you gesture at her, and she looks down, blushing, ‘wow.’

‘i’ve thought similarly of you,’ she says, ‘since i saw some of your art two years ago.’

your heart pounds at the confession but before you can say anything, or reach under the booth and grab her hand, your server comes by with the bill, flushed cheeks and stammering at lexa, or maybe at the two of you, who knows. that’d be cool.

you climb out of the booth and it’s cute, the way lexa methodically pulls on her scarf, then her jacket, a little beanie, gloves, before she heads to the door. you think distantly that your mom would admire that kind of precision, that carefulness, and then you have to reel that in because, really, meeting your mom?

lexa smiles at you, turns a little in the chill under the streetlamp. ‘i’m afraid i have to go back to boston tonight.’

‘that’s cool,’ you say, ‘i have class tomorrow too.’

she nods, seemingly hesitant, and you think she might kiss you, which would be so fucking awesome, but then she shrugs. ‘i would love to work with you, if you wanted? i always need more designers and artists for events for my non profit, and i can commission you.’

you smile, and it’s gentle, because she’s nervous and swallowing a lot and her eyes are really green, and maybe she’s not nearly as put-together as she seems. ‘that’d be cool as fuck,’ you say, and she grins with a laugh, then nods.

‘you can take the L all the way back to your school,’ she says, and it’s sweet and not condescending at all.

‘i know, you say, elbow her good naturedly when she blushes. ‘i come down to bushwick a lot.’

‘right,’ she says, almost to herself. ‘artist.’

‘and the parties.’

there’s silence—like she doesn’t quite know what to say, or even how to say anything, but then she nods and says, ‘my ride is here,’ and points to a black town car.

‘it was nice to finally meet you, clarke griffin,’ she says, offers her hand very formally.

you shake it with a roll of your eyes—but you don’t want to invade her space without asking or anything. ‘it was nice to finally meet you too, lexa woods.’

she smiles with a single nod of her head and turns to walk toward her car.

‘wait,’ you say, jog a few steps.

she looks surprised, embarrassed, a little turned on, and you hand her your phone.

‘i need your number,’ you say, ‘if we’re gonna work together.’

‘of course,’ she says, and types it into your phone with thin, agile fingers and jesus fucking christ your mind thinks of some Things quickly. you have to swallow when she hands it back to you.

‘i’ll text you.’

‘goodnight, clarke,’ she says, walking to her car with a little wave.

one thing’s for sure: you know a lot of things about lexa woods, but you sure want to know more.

clarke griffin has had art in the MoMA and the tate, and in so many galleries you voluntarily lost track. she goes to the new school, has worked alongside multiple sexual assault support organizations, and primarily focuses on the female form—in all its varieties—and consent. she paints, sculpts, photographs.

she’s exquisite, you think, and undoubtedly brilliant, and then you’d met her and everything you’d accomplished in your life somehow seemed very small when her eyes were so blue and she was talking so openly about art, and her own work, and how she wants to be more inclusive and contemplative.

she, also, has been texting you for 12 days, which has been really great other than the fact your heart almost leaps out of your fucking chest each time you get a message, which is a lot because clarke is somehow able to produce incredible art at almost a superhuman rate and also text you back about the most random, mundane shit, like how dirty manhattan snow is, and her dad’s mild obsession with still trying to take her to the batting cages—she complains but she loves it, you can tell.

you wait a few days before mentioning that you’re going to be in the city over the weekend; you think modeling is not really where you should be devoting your time but anya insists that it’s making a difference and you get it, representation matters and all that, but you don’t want to do casting calls because you’re tired and have a 12 page paper on willa cather due tuesday, but whatever. it’s fun and you get the prettiest clothes you’ve ever seen and people fawn over your hair. you can handle a weekend.

when you tell clarke—finally, the wednesday before you head down on a friday—she’s casual and relaxed when she responds, asks you if you want to come by her studio if you have time on saturday night because there’s some friends coming for drinks and stuff. you have to snag anya from the library and talk it over first, not because you’re hesitant but because you’re nervous, but anya rolls her eyes and slings her arm over your shoulder and tells you to be safe and come back with details.

you go about your casting calls—some of which are really awesome, some of which are not, but nothing horrendous—before you’re outside the address clarke gave you, some huge building in bushwick with industrial doors and gigantic windows. you want to laugh because, of course, bushwick, but you do the breathing techniques you’ve practiced with your therapist. you used to have to do them a lot when you were really dysphoric, or when people would call you names or shove you into lockers, but now you’re on the cover of a magazine and maybe a pretty girl will kiss you tonight so.

there’s that, a great big fuck you to everyone who was shitty, you think, and it makes you smile.

the door buzzes and you walk up, bottle of really expensive champagne in hand—you’d been given it today, so that’s convenient—and then it’s loud and fantastic, a loft full of paintings and strings of fairy lights and a lot of queer people. you feel happy, and safe, and then clarke sees you and smiles, leaves the group of friends she was talking to and walks over.

she hesitates for a moment but then you pull her in for a hug, and she sinks into it. she smells so good, and her breath is warm against your neck.

she backs up and kind of sucks in a breath when she looks at you, and you do the same because wow, her lips are so pink and, whatever, sue you, that dress is doing heavenly things to her boobs.

‘i’m glad you made it,’ she says, after a few seconds of just staring, and you nod, then take off your coat and hand her the champagne. she looks at the label and then whistles. ‘you were with miu miu today, i guess.’

‘why would i lie about that?’ you ask with a laugh, following her to the kitchen to get two glasses.

‘to impress me,’ she says with a shrug, handing the bottle to you to pop. you do, carefully because it’s good champagne and it’s not worth wasting for flair, and she takes it back and pours.

‘i think my track record is already impressive enough.’

clarke laughs and hands you a glass. she clinks her with it and says, ‘it’s not terrible, i’ll give you that.’

you know a lot about lexa woods but now you know this: she is absolutely splendid beneath you, full of the kinds of dips and curves you’ve dreamt of sculpting your whole life. her lips are swollen and her eyes are hooded and green and her pupils are blown and her hair is fanned out all around her, and, like. she’s an actual goddess, topless in your bed, heaving with this smug little expression.

you’d kissed at the party, and then the next day after brunch while you walked through central park, and you’ve kissed a few times since.

but tonight it was just the two of you, after dinner near your apartment, quietly and you’d laughed as she’d fumbled with the button on your jeans, and your heart is pounding when your hands are above her waistband.

‘is this okay?’ you ask, softly, because the lights are soft and she’s soft and so beautiful.

she nods, then says, ‘yeah,’ then says, ‘yes,’ and you kiss her because, like, you’re a little bit in love with her.

you take her jeans off reverently, her underwear off slowly, and you catch yourself staring while she swallows. ‘is everything—are you—’

‘everything is perfect,’ you say, and the look of relief on her face is wonderful and kind of heartbreaking. ‘you’re perfect.’ she kisses you, pulls you toward her. you break it, though, because she’s about to cry and you really don’t want that. ‘also, i’m perfect, as you’ve told me a number of times now, so let’s not ruin that, okay?’

she laughs and sniffles but she nods, and you touch her, and she touches you, and, like, whatever.

it’s perfect.

it’s not the first time you’ve woken up in clarke’s bed, and it’s much the same: she’s awake, over by a huge canvas, in one of her dad’s old t-shirts, hair in a messy bun and usually barefoot, even in the winter. you put on your glasses and watch her contemplate which stroke to make next, which oil to press to the surface, what to bring to life.

she paints you, more than anything, especially this early. you watch her paint for a while, watch her get the green of your eyes right, watch her think carefully about your shoulders. she’s beautiful and she makes you feel venerated, seen, and you want to give that back to her, even though sometimes you don’t think you really know how.

you sigh and stretch and get out of bed, in a pair of her sleep shorts and a sweatshirt because she always runs warmer, and you’re always cold, and you kiss her forehead.

‘i’m really glad we’re incredible people,’ you say, to make her laugh, ‘so we met.’

‘i’m glad we met too, goof.’

‘i’m going to go get some bagels,’ you say, because you’re overwhelmed with the way she’s smiling at you.

‘okay,’ she says.

you get ready quickly, in comfortable quiet, while she paints.

‘lex?’ she says, as you’re grabbing your keys from the counter.

‘yeah?’

she looks at you, tilts her head like you’ve seen her do when she takes in rembrandt, or van gogh, or hadid.

‘i love you.’

you don’t know if you’ve literally ever been this happy. you stay rooted in place, because what else can you do? if you touch her right now you think you might explode.

you can tell her, though: ‘i love you too.’

you know a lot about lexa woods, including the way she says i love you, bathed in sunlight in your doorway, hair gathered on top of her head, wrists still in their panic and in their comfort.

she says it back again, laughing, and, whatever.

this is probably the coolest thing yet.

#here olivia happy new year karmas got its kiss for u ilovia u #possibilist #possibilistfanfiction #listen yall gotta read the 21 under 21 issue lol #clexa fanfiction #trans lexa #anyway if ur shitty abt trans lexa i will block u so yknow dont be #:)

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