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boy-gender · 5 months

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Hi! You can answer this publicly or privately, but I figured maybe someone else might have a similar question? I just wanted to ask about your personal reasons for using it/its pronouns.

I ask bc I've come across two different characters, now, in media I enjoy, that use it/its pronouns. And I've enjoyed seeing it! They're both two of my favorite characters in their respective media. And i think im kinda questioning whether or not my excitement for these characters (particularly when pronouns are discussed bc they're both great characters outside of that fact) is just bc it's nice to see representation, even beyond they/them pronouns, or if maybe I should consider it/its for myself? I'm not sure, I just thought hearing other people's experiences could potentially help me figure that out. Thank you for your time!

Happy to answer!

First of all, whatever pronouns you want to use is entirely up to you! Nobody gets to tell you what to use and what not to use, or what to try out and change later if you don't like it. If you feel like you want to try a set of pronouns, try it! If it doesn't jive, just change it again. There is no limit to how many pronouns or labels you can use, try, drop, pick up again, or how many times you change it. If it sounds like it/its makes you happy, go for it, even if it just "just" because of characters you like. There's nothing wrong with being influenced by the stories that are important to you.

My reason for using it is mostly trauma-based. All my life I've felt a significant disconnect from my own body, but I didn't realize I had a dissociative disorder until I was like 24. A combination of child abuse causing the disorder, where I never felt like my body was/is me, just that I'm a thing inhabiting the body, possessing it like a spirit- and also lifelong bullying and ostracizing by my peers both contributed to it. There are many times I don't feel like a man or a woman, or a nonbinary person, or any type of person at all. I was dehumanized; I had my humanity stripped from me, including my gender. Fat autistic weird 'girls' aren't treated like girls, intersex tomboys aren't treated like boys, we're treated like monsters. Like kicked dogs. I existed only to be abused by the people around me- my parents and teachers who were supposed to protect me, and the peers who should have been my friends and community. Freaks don't have genders, those are for people. And I was constantly reminded that I did not count as a person.

I very much associate the bullying I endured with my gender nonconformity. I was an afab intersex person- I was a girl of age like 13 with a moustache and beard growing in. I was fat, and my fat never distributed to the 'desired' places for a girl (also, this was like 2008. There was no 'desired place' for fat on girls). Other kids knew or sensed things were different about me- that I was queer in multiple ways, that I had several mental illnesses, that I was fat and ugly and was friends only with other rejects, meaning nobody gave a shit what happened to us. There would be no one to come to our defense no matter how severely we were harmed. We didn't matter.

When I found out I was a system, it put a lot into perspective. The disconnect from the body, from my identity, from my own memories (which are all in third person) made more sense. My other is not human. At first I assumed the "it-ness" was because of this, but actually he doesn't like to be called it at all. It hurts him. It doesn't fit. The it-ness is from me. It's an expression of the gender experience I was denied, a reclamation of the othering I suffered. I don't count as human. I will never be worth being human, or having typical human experiences. I will never be allowed into the club. But it turns out there are other clubs out here- humanity and the cisgender binary are not the only options. I no longer see my othering as "be human or just die," but as "not human? Cool, come try one of these other myriad things." There are so many more things you can be besides human.

This makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Firstly, good. People should be uncomfortable with the cruelty I endured and the marks it left. People should be uncomfortable that they probably participated in othering people as children, and maybe even still do it as adults, and they should be uncomfortable that society is raising their children to continue to do this. It is, in a way, a little bit like my pronouns being fuck/you, or examine/yourselves. Some of it's shock value, and I like that.

Secondly, the shit I get the most is from other trans people, saying I'm somehow harming the trans community because other people call us "its" as an insult. If someone were to call me a she, that is incorrect, and could be used as an insult- they're misgendering me, they're trying to hurt me. This is not the fault of the word "she" and I'm not going to go up to a trans woman and say "this word hurts me, so you cant use it. No more she/her pronouns for you." We are not all going to have the same comfort level with words. I don't like being called a dyke, but dykes do. Some people don't like being called queer, but lots of us do. Some people don't like being called it, but I do. Either way, I get to decide what I am called, and other people get to decide what they are called, and nobody else gets to veto someone's identity. If someone doesn't like calling me it? Then they don't have to talk to me. If they won't respect my pronouns, they're not any better than people who would call me she or her. I don't need their input or validation.

If you do decide to try out it pronouns, I would say be prepared for backlash, but also don't let it effect you. Block people liberally, joyously even. Don't argue. Don't bother. You do not have to justify who you are. And, consider "soft launching" your pronouns! Maybe tell a couple close friends, or just the internet, and if it goes well, expand to other people, and then other people. Roll it out in stages while you get comfortable and try things and assess. You don't owe anyone a coming out; you can decide if, when, how, and to whom you explain yourself, if you ever do it at all.

As an aside, I want to make a distinction here- I'm not otherkin. I don't say I don't count as human because I am some other type of creature just in a human body this reincarnation. This is not a spiritual belief, or even a psych-kin thing. This is purely a product of trauma, something that was foisted upon me that I am now reclaiming, not something innate to my identity. I don't want people to conflate my experience with that of otherkin and be like "see? you're not really [whatever], you're just traumatized!" I hope people will not use my experience to police other people's identities. I am speaking only for myself.

Hope this helps. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to reach out!

#it pronouns #it its pronouns #pronouns #neopronouns #xenogender #queer #transgender #trans #trans men #trans man #trans masc #transmasc #ftm #og #transblr

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hoardingpuffin · 4 months

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I am bored so I am gonna rank my DND and other RPG characters I've played thus far from 1 to 10.

Maria the Mafia Bride - 2/10

First ever RPG character I played, and I didn't create her, because that game we all got a randomized character from our GM. Liked the campaign (we were all time travellers from different eras - one other character was a knight from the crusades named Melvin who, through a series of happenstances, ended up wearing one bright red stiletto heel, and another other character was a Dutch ballerina who one-hitted Billy the Kid with her dance skill. Iconic shit), but the character wasn't really my thing.

Jacen, the Troubled Kid - 2/10

This was the second campaign I played and it was sort-of-but-not-really superpowers themed? We all had powers but the universe was kinda weird and nobody really got to do much, especially with our powers? So I kind of never got to explore him in RP and I still am slightly salty about it.

The Nerd - 3/10

I do not remember her name anymore but this was for a Halloween oneshot where we all played American High School archetypes (except for one of our players who chose to be the janitor? Who for some reason hung out with all the teens?). I remember nothing about this oneshot except that everyone was dead at the end and that my character lugged around a huge encyklopedia that she ended up throwing at someone, which I think is neat.

Plush Octopus - 5/10

This was for a super chaotic Toy Story themed oneshot that somehow ended up in bloodshed? I still am not sure how exactly that happened but there was a stint where a toy dragon was being chased into a goldfish tank by the family cat.

Aevetia - 8/10

We played a WoW themed campaign, which was certainly challenging seeing that most of us knew zilch about World of Warcraft. Aevetia was a draenai huntress who was literally incapable of negative emotions, and she was so much fun to play. I think this was the first time I played a character that was somewhat able to hold herself in a battle and I definitely loved that. Plus, first time I felt like we actually had a more roleplay and improv based campaign which is what I prefer over just-combat. She did also get whacked in the face with the Doomhammer twice thanks to another player failing their rolls. Docking points because when playing a character who cannot feel anger that limits a lot of what you can do, plus it was hard to navigate a setting I knew zilch about.

Eiorna the Giant Magpie - 9/10

MY GIRL! I love her so much, I wanna play her again so bad. She's a 7 foot tall avian woman whose wings got burnt off, leaving her with only sceleton remains so she's creepy as hell visually, but her personality is about as intimidating as candy floss. Also she had a bag of shiny stuff she lugged around called The Trashbag and she would occasionally just reach in there and pull out shinies to tie them to her wingbones - oblivious to the fact that that was highkey horrifying to anyone around her. Docking one point because when I played her she was really really ditzy and I think I'd probably revise her a it before playing her again.

Gwyn the Rabbitfolk Barbarian - 8/10

I only played her for one session before the campaign was abandoned but she was so fun! The whole concept of a two foot white fluffy bunny with a slingshot raging in a tavern was fantastic, I wish I could have played her more. Docking points for my choice of making her Scottish (I cannot do a Scottish accent to save my arse and I think she just kept drifting off into Russian somehow).

Bex the Stablemaster - 10/10

My first ever tank, and the first time I ever played a queer character around my friends. This was for a Victorian era vibe Halloween oneshot and Bex was a strong she/they lesbian. Need I say more?

Tancred the Weather Witch - 9/10

This was for like, a sort of Eldritch entity cultist themed oneshot? My character was maybe the only one who actually dealt damage and he was soooo fun. Now, did I essentially steal him from the Charlie Bone series? Yes. But for a oneshot it was fine, plus storm powers >

Zami - 10/10

If Tramp from Lady and the Tramp was a red tiefling who adopted about fifty kids. No notes, love him, he is perfect.

Veera Match - 9/10

My current Star Wars campaign character, a mother who is an ex-empirial soldier who is hunting down the man who killed her wife and stole her force sensitive child. Absolutely adore her but the campaign is just kinda not it. Might very well recycle her at some point though.

Nikolai Ortsev the Vampirist - 7/10

Made him for what was supposed to be a Halloween oneshot set in our GMs homebrew world. Nikolai's a self-obsessed anthropologist who believes he is the one who can singlehandedly unite the vampire and human societies... by becoming a vampire. Listen, he's my vain, slightly stupid gay scientist man and I love him - however I think he would have been better suited for a long-term campaign than a oneshot. We're not through with that story so we'll see where it goes with him.

The Toy Soldier - 10/10

Exactly what it sounds like: I played the Toy Soldier of The Mechanisms for another Halloween oneshot and IT WAS A BLAST. Easily the silliest and yet most damage-dealing character I have played to date. So so much fun. I love it, it's brilliant.

Vikesh Joiko - 10/10

He is my baby - purple tiefling cleric of a light deity, certified pretty boy, looks gorgeous in a ballgown, can and will flirt with any handsome man who seems willing, and his weapon of choice are dual axes. Also he is not above tearing out another tiefling's fangs and wearing them as jewellery when that other person is acting like a major creep. Love him, love him so much.

#dnd #dnd character #dnd campaign #my dnd characters #ttrpg #ttrpg character #the toy soldier #character ranking #pen and paper rpg

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mrsfrecklesmarauders · 9 months

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Happy Birthday Grant Chapman! :

Grant knew he didn't deserve love. He had seen real love once. He didn't remember how old he was, he was probably little. He didn't know where was this. And he certainly didn't remember the faces of the lovers. There were a boy and a girl discussing about something on the street. Grant didn't recall what they were saying but they spoke, yelled, cried. But then Grant remembered that before the girl left, the boy stopped her. He screamed 'I love you' many times. The way they kissed, they way they cried into each other's shoulders. The way they looked at each other. The way he grabbed her face it was from out of this world.

Grant knew he would never have that kind of love. For starters because he was queer and queer folks didn't get that. And second of all he was nothing. Not even his parents wanted him. Margot, the woman who raised him, didn't want him. Who would? Who would genuinely love this piece of nothing?

Grant didn't have beauty. Grant didn't have money. He didn't have a great personality. He spoke funny and he was full of shit. He didn't even have proper clothes.

So Grant accepted meaningless sex and encounters with different men. The minute the moment of passion was over, they left. Maybe they called him for a rebound. Because perhaps Grant was good on the shag and that was all.

Grant didn't mind. Love wasn't for him. He didn't deserve it. Grant thought lots of shitty people didn't deserve it. Like Fen and the lads.

Remus was very of the few people who deserved love. Remus was Grant's best friend. Grant could tell anything to that little kid. He always put that face of surprise. He was constantly smiling with Grant's shit. Remus was the only one that actually gave a damn about Grant. It surprised Grant everytime. Why did he care so much? Nobody had.

But Grant never saw Remus as more than a friend. It wasn't until that summer.

After Remus left for his posh school, Fen was restless. He didn't like that Remus just disappeared.

"I was getting used to that little lad..." he said "I can't believe you don't know where your little boyfriend is..."

Grant couldn't tell him where Remus was. Fen would want to take advantage of it. Make Remus steal from the posh kids. So he pretended he didn't know.

"I don't think I'll ever see 'im again" he shrugged.

But Remus was back that summer. And the first time Grant saw him, his heart did something funny. And he felt something moving on his tummy. Little Remus had grown. He looked more and more like a man. His hair was shorter and messier, with lots of curls. He was better dressed. He smelled nice. His voice was deeper. Something Grant had been noticed on the phone but it sounded so much different in person. Grant felt attracted to his best friend. He even swallowed.

"Grant..."

Grant's started beating faster when Remus smiled like that. Bloody hell what was wrong with him?

Grant didn't smile.

"Wha'chu doing here?" he asked.

Remus' smile dropped.

"I came to see you..."

Grant shook his head.

"You shouldn't have... I..."

"Guess who is back from the death, eh lads?" Fen said from behind "Our little, not so little Remus..." he put an arm around Grant's shoulder.

Grant was scared Fen would do something to Remus. That he would drag him back to his layer. Grant used to adore and admire Fen. But lately, he had been realizing Remus was better without him, without them. Grant had been lying and hiding to protect Remus from Fen.

"Where the fuck were you?"

Remus crossed eyes with Grant. And Grant begged him not to spill out the truth.

"My dad sent me to another school..." Remus answered "As shitty as the last one"

Remus' return was rather odd for the gang. The rest of the lads accepted Remus back. But Fen was no stupid. He suspected something.

"I thought you would be glad to see me" Remus told Grant later that night.

They decided to go to some parking lot and drink in celebration for Remus' return.

Grant had been trying to drown his worry and the new feelings he had for Remus with alcohol. Like he always did.

"I am happy to see you, sweetheart"

Fen and the lads were doing stupid drinking games. They were probably doing some drugs. They were nasty people.

Remus nodded and hugged his knees. Grant wanted to hug him. Grant wanted to warm his body with kisses and touches... God! He shook that thought away. This was Remus. Not some random hot lad.

"I am sorry, love" Grant said "I'm just worried that Fen would find out about you posh school and your posh friends..."

Remus shrugged "They are not really my friends... You guys are... This place, the gang is more familiar for me..." he sighed "Perhaps I should stay here with you and don't come back to school..."

Grant turned to him.

"Are you joking?" he raised his voice because he was angry.

Grant was almost nineteen now. He met Remus in the same shitty school. But Grant never graduated. He failed his exams. He was stupid like that. But Remus was the intelligent one. He got into that posh school with a scholarship. Remus was so amazing he could get into Uni and find nice decent jobs. Something none of the lads could.

Remus looked down embarrassed.

"What happened, love?" Grant asked.

Remus sighed.

"I kissed Sirius... And he bloody detested it"

Remus cried. And Grant hugged him. It wasn't silly because Sirius wasn't simply Remus' crush. He was properly in love with him. He had been for a long time. The way he used to see his pictures on Facebook. The way he spoke about him.

So Grant heard as Remus told him about the kiss. Remus wasn't sure if he had misread the signs. But sometimes Sirius made him feel special. And Sirius flirted with him. And Sirius looked at him in a particular way. Remus thought Sirius could feel the same. He let himself go. But after the kiss, Sirius panicked and was disgusted. And everything was wrong and awkward between them.

"You should've seen his face" Remus sighed "He was disgusted of me"

"I don't see it as lost cause" Grant smiled

"Oh it is very lost" Remus shook his head "I've ruined our friendship"

"Maybe he is just panicking for kissing a bloke for the first time.... I've had a few of those..."

Remus snorted.

"He is the straightest person I know.."

"Remus..." Grant swallowed "Don't ya dare leave that school only for Sirius... Yeah know? You didn't go there only for him, did you?"

"One of the main reasons was him"

"Well... You've made other friends... You've learned lots of things..." Grant smirked "Probably that brain of yours is getting bigger..."

Grant rubbed his hair. Remus laughed. Grant felt something warm on his chest with that sound.

"I am not the best of my class" Remus smiled "That's definitely Lily"

"Yeh deserve better than this, sweetheart" Grant said after a while "Yeh deserve better than Fen"

Remus looked curiously at him.

"Has he done something to you?"

Grant faked a smile. He was good at that.

"Nah... Fen is a twat. But he is good with meh"

Fen had become nastier and nastier. Sometimes Grant felt disgusted with all the stealing and the businesses. And selling drugs to posh kids that looked so lost. But Grant didn't know better. He would always be trapped.

Remus didn't look convinced. He had admired Fen once. But perhaps he had seen how nasty he was.

"I missed you so much" Remus said "You have no idea how much"

Grant felt like he couldn't breath for a second.

"Me too, sweetheart" he said "Me too"

For the rest of the night, they drank more. And they laughed more. With alcohol in his system, Grant stopped worrying. He had the lads and he had Remus. Just like before. Back when all of them were a weird family.

Fen took Grant and Remus to his flat after that. He said he wouldn't leave drunk assholes on the street like that. Anyway, Grant had been living there momentarily because he had been kicked out from his own dorm for missing rent. Bullshit.

"The boyfriends wouldn't mind sharing a bed, eh?" Fen told them, putting his arms around them. He was waisted "Mah boys..."

Remus and Grant giggled.

Later, the sounds of Fen banging his new girlfriend kept them awake. Fen was always loud. But the girl was worse.

Grant looked at Remus. And Remus looked at him. They laughed in the dark.

"Ar'ya drunk, love?"

"Tipsy. You?"

Grant sneered "You sound so posh now"

"Shut up" Remus hit his arm playfully.

Grant giggled.

"Yer dad isn't gonna be worried?"

Remus was silent for a second.

"He only cares about his new wife and his new daughter now... Sandra is expecting"

"Blimey!"

"Yeah"

Grant was restless. He was sweating. And the moans on the next room made him kind of horny. Remus was lying next to him. And Grant could feel the heat emanating from him.

Grant turned to face Remus. Remus did the same. They looked at each other for a second.

"If Sirius doesn't want'cha, he is a total twat, love"

Remus smiled at that. Then he shook his head.

"I've wanted him for so long... I've fantizised about how our first kiss would go..." he chuckled "But perhaps things doesn't go the way I want"

Grant giggled because he was starting to get nervous and that was stupid. Because this was Remus. Grant didn't get nervous in front of the boys he shagged. This was silly.

Remus smiled.

"What?" he asked "What is it?"

Grant scooped a little closer.

"I'm glad yer ma best friend, sweetheart"

Remus scooped closer as well.

"I am glad you are my best friend too"

Grant leaned in. Remus closed his eyes.

Grant kissed Remus before. Back when they met. It had been a silly friendly kiss because Remus had never kissed anyone and Grant thought that was adorable. But right now it was different. Grant actually wanted Remus so badly, that when Remus opened his mouth for him, it gave him a shot of pleasure.

They shared a long passionate kiss. When they broke apart, they both laughed. And Grant was glad. He didn't want to mess things with Remus. They were friends. Best friends. And Grant didn't fall in love. And Remus was in love with someone else.

They kissed again. And again. And again. Just because they could.

They snogged for the rest of the summer. The best weeks for Grant. Sadly trying not to think about the day Remus would go back to school.

But that day came sooner. As Remus left to his mate's house because something happened with Sirius. And Remus ran after him. Of course he did. They were mates after all.

In the fall, Grant missed Remus like hell. Confused about what he was feeling for his best friend.

Until he received the call.

"Sirius and I kissed... Kind of snogged last night..." Remus had said "I think he feels the same for me?"

Remus sounded so happy when he told Grant everything about him and Sirius. Their tiny love story. So Grant was obviously happy for his friend. The boy he had loved for so long, finally loved him back.

Grant didn't see Remus again until now. Grant had had a fight with Fen and the others. It all had become nasty. They bit the shit out of him. And then Grant had wanted to drown his problems again with alcohol.

Grant never intended to call Remus or worry him. But his drunk self hadn't care about that. He had wanted to hear his voice.

Grant didn't expect for him to pop up and never with Sirius. But here they were. And they the way they were looking at each other, the way they were talking, it reminded Grant of that couple from years ago.

For a moment he doubted it. He thought or maybe wished Sirius was just another asshole that would break Remus' heart. But Grant was wrong.

Sirius and Remus were two people so perfect for each other and so in love with each other that it hurt.

When they finally shared a kiss, Grant looked away. And he kept smoking.

It was okay. Grant wasn't meant for love. He didn't deserve it. Remus did. And God he fitted so much better with his prince charming. He was handsome, rich and perfect. He could make Remus happy. Grant was sure of that.

So Grant smiled. Because he was happy for his best friend. He deserved to be happy.

#marauders #maraudersera #muggleau #marauders muggle au #grant chapman #remus lupin #wolfstar #grant x remus #atyd

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idiotcurls · 1 year

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The Woods of Indiana ficlet

I love to think about the “outsider perspective” of what happened in Hawkins. This sort of covers the first 2 Seasons.

It’s very general and I added a headcanon of a hunter who got attacked by a demodog in Season 2. I love how eery the whole thing must be from the outside. 800 words. xo

The woods of Indiana were vast. Old trees on old hills, rivers parting them. Lakes embedded, like scattered silver pearls. The wind brushing through the tree lines felt like the forest was breathing. Sometimes it whispered, sometimes it's breath rattled, like the last breaths of a dying deer. One could only wonder, what the trees witnessed over the years. They’re standing tall and dark. During storms the forest seemed to shout, the rain coming down on it soft but relentless, as if to appease the anger it displayed. During the day, especially in the spring months, the forests were a popular spot to hike and enjoy the bird songs and the reverent elegance of the forest.

But at one point other, strange noises filled the woods during the nights. Screams echoing. And sounds that didn't quite seem human. There was barking, snarling, screeching. Low rumbles. They sounded like a big predator. But not quite animal either. It sounded like things hunting and things dying.

At some points, the birds would just stop singing, residents of the trailer park noticed. It became silent. Eerily so. Like the calm before a storm, but there was no storm.

Some residents of Hawkins had an uneasy feeling about the woods. It wasn't strictly because of that young girl who vanished. It also wasn't the kid who died and came back. It was more like some sort of raw instinct, that clawed its way into their bellies and left shivers on their spine. A feeling, like something wasn’t quite right.

They had a funeral for the boy who vanished, back then in autumn. His body was found in the quarry one night in 83′. Yet, the boy somehow returned to the living, after people cried at his grave. He was pale and disturbed and just...different. “Mistakes like this can happen.”, said a police statement.

It was another kid's body they found in the quarry, or so they say. Another kid, dead. Nobody ever found out who the other dead kid was. The Byer's kid got lost in the woods and found his way home, all by himself, they said. The kids a queer, they also said. And afterwards he became more weird. His mother and brother always on the edge. Father a deadbeat.

Some people joked, that he really looks like he came back from the dead. The jokes were usually followed by uncomfortable silence. The mother lost her marbles somewhere in the process of grieving and regaining her youngest. But some say, she never was quite alright anyway. The good people of Hawkins followed that statement with “but who am I to judge.”

The way the news reported, made sense, at first. Everyone likes to learn about a tragedy but then go back to their own uneventful lives. Poor Holland's. Poor Byer's kid, all pale. A tragedy.

Apparently Macy Anderson's husband, who was a dedicated hunter, came back from the woods one night, trembling and stuttering. He had a peculiar bite wound on his right foot. Whatever he was hunting, hunted him right back. And he also knew, it wasn't an animal. He'd recognize any bitemark. When someone asked him about it, he'd shake his head, his voice was trembling. “Nah, that's aint no mountain lion bite or nothing...it was different. And I’ve been in these woods all my life.” He'd stare into the middle distance while talking.

In the beginning Mr.Anderson said, demon dogs ascended from hell, came home to haunt him, for what he did in the war. But he changed that answer, after people started laughing at him. He started staring into the middle distance more often. Haunted. Eyes empty.

“I’ve seen awful things. Terrible things, in the war. But this is something else.”, he’d say.

His wife said, something changed about her loving husband. He had this incredible fear, every noise made him twitch. His eyes looked like he was a deer in the headlights, about to get hit. When his wife tried to talk to him nothing made sense. Dogs from hell. In the end he was obsessed with the thought, that the hell hounds were the cause of all the pumpkins rotting, drawing in thousands of flies. Healthy, living trees decaying out of nowhere. The stench filled the air. He was hell bent on it.

“That wasn’t Eugene poisoning Merrill’s farm. No human could do something so sinister.”, he’d tell everyone who would listen. People laughed.

In the end Mr. Anderson took his own life, with his rifle. That was a tragedy too.

Soon after, a story broke the news. There was a chemical spill from Hawkin's lab. It killed the Holland's daughter. Apparently they tried to cover it up. That also explained the change in the environment. The news made sense. The police statements made sense. Maybe Mr.Anderson, had a dose of that aswell. It was no consolation to the widow. The Holland’s were crushed. The cold certainty of death drowned every bit of hope they worked so hard to keep up during the last months, looking for their daughter. In the end they even fell for a Quack called Baumann, who pulled money out of their pockets, promising to find Barbara.

Most residents were shocked, but somehow relieved about the news of the chemical leak. It was something easy to understand. But the eery feeling about the wood stayed.

After all of that, an urban myth started to make the rounds through young people. About tunnels under Hawkins, that were a direct gateway to hell. Mr.Anderson didn’t kill himself. One of the hellhounds came back and ate him alive.

Later, people wouldn't laugh about it anymore. Something was happening in that town. In 85′ the stench of death filled out the town once again. This time around it was harder to ignore. And it became harder to ignore after that.

#strangerthings #stranger things #stranger things headcanon #stranger things ficlet #st season1 #st season 2 #fanfiction #stfanfic #hawkins #hawkins indiana #hawkinslab #will byers #mind flayer #joyce byers #barbara holland #murray bauman #the duffer brothers

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pascalishere · 11 months

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My experience with therianthropy (so far)

Long rambling post ahead, protracted discussion of growing up autistic, queer, therian, and possibly traumatized. Nothing like, triggering up ahead, it’s just weird and way-too-personal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about myself, as per usual. I mean, what else do people do? I do wonder if I think about myself more than everyone else does, but that’s for another day. Main thing is, I wanna put my experience i writing somewhere. With the side goal of having something for other therians to relate to, and for non-therians to get a perspective of.

Basically, I’ve always felt a very strong connection to dogs. Not in the “Aw, cute dog, serotonin released” kind of way, but in a “god I wish that were me” way. I didn’t notice for a long time, but I get the exact same feeling in my chest looking at dogs as I do people I want to look like, in the GNC sense. There’s that, and a lot of the autistic traits I display are very dog-like! I do the autism t-rex hands, I go nonverbal, I’m easily startled by sudden noise, the list goes on.

So that’s the background. Obviously, being a dog is tangled up in my identity as an autistic person. I think the reason why it took so long for me to grasp my dogginess is because of the semi-unique circumstances in which I was raised. Because for a long while, I forgot I wasn’t human.

From first grade to eighth grade, I was enrolled in Social Skills classes. Which if you don’t know, is where the autistic kids who aren’t “disruptive” enough for Special Education go to learn how to “be normal”. Every other day would be training and developing skills in human communication. This sounds good on paper, but what those classes functionally were was the insistent messaging that “You are not Normal, and that needs to be Corrected.” Having all your disruptive problematic inconvenient natural quirks trained out of you does wonders for your identity and self-esteem. People-pleaser that I am, I tried my best in these courses, and I was actually pretty okay at it. I didn’t realize I was hurting myself. I don’t really remember any of the specific skills or tips that were taught to me back then. All I remember is the distinct feeling that nothing I said or did mattered. The feeling that I could only ever be worth something if I said and did exactly what people wanted.

It took me until last year to start unlearning all that bullshit.

For the majority of my life (first grade to freshman year of college), I hated myself for not being normal. I had no reason to be so weird and off-putting, why was I having such a hard time existing as myself? (The reason was autism, but nobody was willing to admit that) This also extended into my late-bloom realization of being trans, but honestly that’s a story for another day. But still, in regards to both of those aspects, it felt like I was missing something fundamental for a very long time.

But for a brief moment, I liked what I was. Before first grade, I was a puppy. I lived for comfort, play, and being Myself. And there was happiness there. The biggest thing I had to worry about tripping over my own paws (and tonsillitis, but that got squared away). From what glimpses I can remember, there was a carefree separation from people, even back then. I was content to Live. When I entered school, I was still a puppy. When I left, I had been bent and twisted in the shape of a Boy. And I didn’t even know. It’s weird, but I don’t really blame anyone for how things shook out. Nobody knew any better, we all though I was just fine, including me! It was admittedly nice to have a script to fall back on in social settings, but I can’t help but wonder where I’d be if I hadn’t been enrolled in those classes.

And now, through a Rube Goldbergian series of events, I’ve remembered that I was a dog this whole time. And as frustrating as dealing with life is, I think I finally love what I am again.

My head keeps coming back to a much more fantastical interpretation of events, so I might as well spell out that here too.

When I was a child, there was a dog I always played with. It was a husky, with brown and white fur, tiny triangle ears, and my eyes. They were with me every moment, our joy a self-sustaining cycle. We saw ourselves in each other.

But I had to let go, apparently. I remember trying to explain that I didn’t yip and trot and love to be funny, but because it was natural.

So I grew up, I learned how to be human. After a while, my friend didn’t recognize me. She couldn’t understand me anymore, and he cried at me, begging me to listen. But I had learned that their existence was shameful, and caused great distress to those I loved. So I ignored it.

She ran away.

Without him, the weight of living crashed on me. I could sense the utter disdain my peers had for me, the patronizing tone every adult used on me alone. I could feel the dread in my heart clawing from the inside of my chest, where my friend once was.

In time, I forgot about that dog. The shame and anxiety stopped me from inquiring any deeper about my origin.

But one night, too many years later, I noticed something weird. I had spent the corresponding day ruminating on furries, queerness, and neurodiversity. My heart screamed at me all day to stop this line of questioning. Fortunately, I had learned to ignore this feeling most of the time. I had accepted that I fell into all three categories.

And then I looked in the mirror for a moment, just a moment. And I saw a dog. With brown and white fur, tiny triangle ears, and my eyes. I was her, they were me, we were each other in one body. What I was physically seeing did not change, just my interpretation of it. But for the first time in over a decade, my heart stopped pummeling itself. I knew that they came back, and that it would never leave again. I was myself, finally.

Strangely enough, living as a “human” doesn’t seem so impossible anymore. But yeah, I’m happy to be Pascal, the husky. Bark bark woof woof, bitch.

#pascal barks #therian #dogkin #my writing #autism #queer #lgbtqia+#nonbinary #trans #long post #no seriously LONG post

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avo-kat · 2 years

Text

i’m non-binary.

i realized this last year, when i was 30.

i knew about the term before and even though i am queer, very tolerant and very leftist, i always, silently, thought to myself “ok thats something the kids are doing. i dont get it but good for them.”

i remember struggling with my gender identity a lot in my teens. i thought it was a natural consequence of being born female in our current world.

i was wrong.

what changed?

people started talking about it more and more. it wasnt just “the kids” being non-binary and using those “silly” neo-pronouns, it was people of all ages and all classes talking about being non-binary.

my story is a bit silly, honestly. i discovered a new song and listened to it for hours on end, like many of us do. except, i could not look away from the singer. i kept staring at him. i was feeling something i never felt before.

the man is attractive, but that was not it. i was not attracted to him, not at all.

but there was... longing.

it was a sudden and fierce kind of longing. my soul was screaming and i cried, not knowing whether from joy or pain.

i printed out his pictures and kept staring and staring and staring and not understanding. what was it about him? what was going on with me?

so i braved the stormy waters and researched what it meant to be trans. for if this was not attraction, then it must be linked with gender.

and i searched. and i questioned. i was so very, very afraid. was i trans? did i want to be a man?

just a few months ago i went from bisexual to lesbian, this could not happen! i could not put down my queer love for woman! this could not be happening!

i did not want to be trans. that would be a very scary thing indeed, but i did not stop, i did not turn back. i had to know.

i read stone butch blues by leslie feinberg and i understood.

at the end of the day:

it should not matter.

it does, unfortunately. it matters a whole fucking lot.

i still have to put on a gender that my workplace understands, i still have to present a gender that strangers can accept, i have to wear a gender to protect myself and to live without a great amount of work.

its not easy and it sucks and i do doubt myself. but this is my doubt. not anybody elses. its private, it belongs to me. it sucks that other people look at me and see a cis woman, it sucks that this needs to be thing at all, that we made rules in such a way that most of us have to be one or the other, even though its completely pointless.

my cis ex didnt see me as non-binary, and while i understand, it really sucked.

im tired and a bit sad and i do doubt myself, but im also very much sure and nobody is allowed to doubt me. its mine. not anybody elses.

im non-binary. or maybe im nothing, maybe im both, maybe im ten genders, maybe im one thing one day, maybe another thing the next day. does it matter? it shouldnt.

i just wanna exist in peace. i wanna wear eyeliner and present my hairy legs and not worry about rejection or worse.

i dont want to doubt myself any longer, i wish things would be different, i wish any of this would not be necessary and we all could be who we are, no questions, no doubts, just being ourselves.

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yikesharringrove · 3 years

Text

We’re Us

A little commishy for my bxtch @thinger-strang.

Read on Ao3

This shit is SOFT

“Dustin, we all saw that fireball hit you,” Will said accusatorily, gesturing to the red bean bag on the ground at Dustin’s feet.

“Okay, first of all, you’re supposed to call a pause of play before using my real name,” Dustin said, all in one breath. “And second of all, the fireball only hit my lute, therefore I sustained no physical damage.” Dustin gestured to the cereal box that was taped to a jump rope, slung over his shoulder like it was a prized instrument.

“No, it didn’t. We all saw it hit your shoulder. You’d lose that arm at least, and take probably, like, fifty damage points.” Lucas pretended to aim a bow and arrow at Dustin while he spoke.

Dustin was getting dangerously close to huffy territory.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll take the stupid damage points. Can we resume play yet?”

Everyone nodded, and they fell right back into battle.

It wasn’t often they took the game off the DnD board, but the weather was perfect, summer beginning to make itself known a little earlier than usual, giving them April days that were clear and perfect and made for the best LARP sessions known to Indiana.

Will aimed a fireball at Max, and launched it right as she darted out of the way. It sailed past her, missing her left hand by less than an inch, and she laughed wildly, raising her pool noodle sword and aiming blow after blow at him.

The bean bag hit the fence and went spiraling awkwardly into the small alley between the house and the old wooden fence

It was Will’s last fireball, and he hurried to retrieve any he could reach, dodging as best as he could around Max’s wild sword-wielding.

She tended to wallop them as hard as she could, somehow knocking the wind out of them with her soft excuse for a sword.

Will scrambled to pick up his bean bag from the overgrown grass and curling weeds, catching his breath quickly in the alley where he couldn’t be seen.

And then a sound drew his attention away from the battle.

It was a soft sound. He wouldn’t have heard it if the rest of the party had been so quietly focused on battling one another less than twenty feet away.

But he did hear it, and his head whipped around to find the source of it.

Steve and Billy.

Against the house.

Kissing.

It was like time stood still.

Like Will had been hit by one of Mage El’s freezing bombs.

Steve had Billy pushed up against the side of the house, their bodies pressed flush together.

Steve was clearly propping up Billy with his body, Billy’s mobility cane, the one he had let them cover in stickers, was laying forgotten on the ground.

Billy’s arms were wrapped around Steve’s shoulders, his hands curled in the fabric of Steve’s t-shirt. Steve had his arms wrapped around Billy’s waist, half holding him close, half not letting him fall without his cane.

They were kissing like they were trying to devour one another, and Will realized that the sound he had heard was a moan.

It wasn’t like seeing Lucas and Max kiss, or Mike or El, or even Nancy and Jonathan.

Seeing Billy and Steve,

Will knew he shouldn’t be seeing them.

He knew this was wrong, and people said two boys kissing was foul and bad.

But this didn’t look anything but, well, loving.

The way Steve was making sure Billy didn’t fall while they kissed, the way sometimes they would pull back and smile, their faces never moving more than a few inches away from one another.

One of Billy’s rough hands left its place clawed in Steve’s t-shirt, reaching forward to brush one thumb clumsily down his cheek.

They pulled back from one another, smiling stupidly, still staring into each other’s eyes.

Billy brushed his thumb down Steve’s cheek again, and Steve moved like he was nuzzling into the touch, turning his head to the right, pressing a kiss to Billy’s rough, scarred palm.

It made Will feel like he was floating in space with nothing keeping him down.

Steve pressed a kiss to Billy’s cheek, then his nose, then his other cheek, and Billy’s cheeks flushed and he giggled, a sound that was so foreign to Billy Hargrove it almost made Will rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing the right person.

And Billy smiled, so calmly and easily.

It made his whole face change. He looked like a completely different person.

And Will realized, he’s never actually seen Billy smile like this.

The only times he’d come close, we tight tiny things that never reached his eyes and were dropped within a second or two.

This was a genuine smile, full of genuine happiness, and god -

They’re in love.

They’re two boys, and they’re standing right in front of Will and they’re in love.

They went back to kissing, moving their heads slowly side to side, their mouths opening and closing and Will was so aware of having never kissed anyone before.

“Will, seriously! I’ve been yelling for you-”

Mike stopped talking the second he rounded the house.

He was stalk still, his mouth hanging open like a dead fish at what he saw.

Will’s heart was thundering against his ribcage, and he tried to push Mike back towards the game, pleading quietly at him to move.

And then the rest of the group was joining them. Faces mirroring Mike’s dead fish expression as they stared, open-mouthed, at Steve and Billy.

Will had his back to them, but in the quiet, he could hear. He could hear the soft sounds and the moans, and even the giggles that made his face go hot and his stomach do a whole gymnastics routine inside of him.

Will was staring at each of his friends in turn, pleading with them to just turn right around, and continue on with play as nothing had ever interrupted their battle.

Like they haven’t just stumbled on a huge and dangerous secret.

He went as far as to push Lucas, gently shoving him backward saying go! Go! Under his breath.

The last thing he needed was for Steve and Billy to notice them here. To realize what they had seen. What they know.

And then-

“What the fuck?”

Billy and Steve broke apart, looking towards the entrance of the alley, and seeing all six of the party, staring at them.

Max had been the one to speak, and she was looking at Billy oddly, almost like she didn’t know who he was.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, her voice quavering slightly.

Billy looked like he wanted to ground to swallow him right up.

Steve scrambled for the forgotten cane, keeping one hand on Billy’s elbow as he crouched down.

The movement made Will’s stomach flop over.

It was practiced.

Once Billy was standing on his own with the cane, Steve approached the kids calmly, his hands raised up like they were all wild animals that might attack at any moment.

“Look, I know how this looks, and you guys can’t-”

“It looks like, you guys were making out .” Dustin’s tone was hollow, and he looked as struck dumb as the rest of them.

“I know, and I mean, yeah. We were, but you need to listen -”

“Steve.”

Steve whipped right around when he heard the murmur.

Billy was standing slumped over against the house, one scarred, shaking hand covering his face, the other clutched so tightly to his cane his knuckles were white.

“Bill, I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. You’re okay.” Steve rushed to Billy’s side, holding onto his elbow again, brushing his fingers softly through Billy’s short hair, winding his fingers through the wild curls that were just long enough to form. “I’ll deal with this. It’s okay. They’re not going to tell.” Steve glared at the kids when he said that, as if daring them to argue.

Billy kinda, fell forward, leaning against Steve once again, his face going into Steve’s neck.

Steve didn’t react, still brushing his fingers through sandy blond curls.

“You all know what could happen to us if people found out?”

Nobody answered him.

Truth is, they did know.

They knew the stories about young men being beaten nearly to death. Being run out of town or put in the hospital over nothing but a rumor.

Being gay wasn’t something that was tolerated in Hawkins.

Hell, Will himself has been pushed around and called queer as long as he could remember.

Even by his own father.

“We won’t tell anyone.” Will felt like how Billy looked. Like he was shaking apart right in front of them. “I promise. We won’t. Not anyone.” He could barely get the words out. It was like his jaw had locked up with the rest of his bones.

He thinks it would kill him if anything happened to Billy and Steve over this. They needed to keep them safe.

He needed to keep them safe.

“Yeah. I promise,” El parroted. Steve beamed at them.

Will knew El had been very confused the first time she heard about Ryan Anderson, the high school sophomore that had been humiliated and beaten so badly his family had to leave town six years ago.

She didn’t understand how a boy that liked to kiss other boys was something that merited violence.

Hopper had surprised them all by saying that it didn’t, but some people felt like it did.

Who you kiss doesn’t matter as much as who you are. If you’re a good person, it’s all just extra fodder. But some people like to they’re better than anyone that’s different than they are.

El had called those people bad and that was the end of it.

“Billy, I won’t tell.” Max didn’t take her eyes off Billy while she spoke. “I swear. I’ll never tell anyone. Not even mom.”

Billy’s hand flexed on the handle of the cane, and his knees gave a wobble. Steve kept him upright, leaning over to murmur into his ear.

Will could just barely make out the words I’ve got you.

“I promise, too.” Dustin’s cereal box/lute was forgotten on the grass at his feet. “The party protects each other. It’s one of our laws.”

“Yeah, we stick together. This isn’t different.” Max gave Lucas a watery smile when he spoke up in turn.

Mike was quiet.

It was well-known how much he disliked both Steve and Billy.

All of the kids had some trouble trusting Billy after everything that had happened last summer. Billy didn’t seem to blame them. He kept to himself, even when he moved from his cold room in the military hospital into the Byers’ spare bedroom seven months ago, he was like a ghost moving through the house.

Only Steve could make him come out of his shell in those early days. Only Steve could make Billy join them for dinner and movie nights, take slow walks around the yard with his walker, and later with his cane. Only Steve could make Billy’s shoulders relax from their defensive position up around his ears, and now, it was finally dawning on everyone why.

The kids mostly left him alone, only Max and El bridging the gap and actually speaking to him. Max had been determined to see Billy through his recovery, glaring at him and watching like a ginger hawk while he did his physical therapy, practicing his grip and moving buttons from one bowl to another.

El would sometimes talk to Billy in a hushed voice. She would get him on his own and hush words like Papa and Mama and bad and Billy would have to retreat to his bedroom for slowly decreasing amounts of time.

Nobody but Joyce and Hopper knew what she saw in Billy’s head. They were just informed that he wouldn't be returning home after his two-month stint in the military hospital. Max hard clenched her jaw and nodded jerkily and nobody dared ask any further questions.

He and Will traded a lot of good mornings and tended to generally avoid eye contact when they came across one another in the house.

But none of them hated him, they were just a little weary.

Mike, on the other hand, had some unexplained vendetta against both Billy and Steve and Will found himself willing Mike to be kind in this moment. To not see this as some power over them, or something.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Dustin’s right. We protect each other.”

Steve gave them a smile that was so dazzling and bright, it almost gave off its own light.

His eyes were shining and he gave a watery laugh.

“They really meant it when they said children are the future.”

“Who said?” El asked him.

“I don’t know, actually. Just people, I guess.” Steve shrugged, jostling Billy who was still nestled in his shoulder. “Look, seriously guys, thank you. I can’t even imagine how I would’ve felt if-nevermind.” He cut himself off quickly, shaking his head. “It just means a lot. To both of us.” Steve smiled at them one last time, this time much softer and thoughtful. “You’re good kids.”

Nobody said anything else. They didn’t know what to say to Steve.

“I came back here to get my fireballs. I, uh, I got ‘em.”

Everyone looked back at Will, and, almost like they were coming out of a trance, began picking their makeshift weapons back off the grass, and chattering idly as they went back to the yard in order to continue their battle.

Will lingered for a second, looking over his shoulder at Steve and Billy, who were still wound together.

They were talking softly, and Will was pleased to see Billy lift his head back up, still looking pale and nervous, but smiling at Steve.

He leaned back down and planted a kiss on Steve’s neck, right above the edge of his t-shirt.

Will felt his face go hot, and tugged himself away, going back to the game.

It wasn’t until well after dinner, when everyone else had gone home, that they spoke about it again.

Will. Will! Do you copy? Over.

The static rasping of Mike’s voice through the walkie-talkie was coming from under Will’s bed where he had stashed it.

He quickly turned down the volume dial on the side before answering.

“Yeah, Mike. I copy. Over.”

“We need to talk about today,” Mike said through the walkie. “I mean, did you have any idea? Over.”

“No. I didn’t,” Will said, truthfully. Finding out had made a lot of things clunk into place, but that doesn’t mean Will knew. “Over.”

“It’s just, neither of them seem the type. You know? Over.”

Something about that statement didn’t sit too right with Will.

Before he could respond another voice crackled through the channel.

“This is gold leader joining the conversation to let Mike know he’s being a dick. Over.”

Will laughed. Trust Dustin to listen in on the conversation and come forward to defend Steve.

“Lucas, do you copy, too? Over.” Will waited a moment after he asked.

“Yeah, I copy. I wanted to hear what you all were saying first. I don’t really know what to think about all this. Over.”

“I don’t think there’s much to think about. Steve seems happy. Billy too, I guess. Over,” said Dustin.

Will’s heart swelled with a pride he didn’t quite understand at Dustin’s words.

Outside in the hall, the phone rang.

Will heard his mom scramble to pick it up, calling softly down the hall for Billy, and the unmistakable thumping of Billy and his cane coming to take the call.

He heard his mom scrape a chair over for him and retreat to her room, giving him some privacy.

“It’s just scary, you know? Like, something really bad could happen to them if anyone else found out.” Will thought for a second. “You think anyone else knows? Over.”

“Robin. She was making comments to Steve a few days ago about his secret relationship and I kept asking him about it until he punched me in the arm. She knows. Over.”

“I’m just confused,” Mike sighed down the line. “Steve dated my sister for like, a year. And Billy is always disgusting and flirting with my mom. Or at least, he would do that. You know, before. Over.”

“Yeah, that’s just Billy being Billy,” Max chimed in.

“You have to say over when you’re finished. Over.”

“ Fine, dickheads. Over.”

“That makes sense, but Steve and Nancy doesn’t. Over.”

“Lucas, it doesn’t have to make sense. David Bowie says he likes guys and girls. Billy has, like, three different magazines where he says that. Over.”

“Max is right. We don’t have to understand any of this. They seem happy, and good together, and that doesn’t really concern us. Over.” Will was hoping he could speed through the rest of this conversation. He could hear Billy in the hall, shifting and murmuring something Will couldn’t make out but was dying to overhear.

He had a feeling he knew who was calling.

“But, now it does concern us. We know. And as we’ve previously established, the more people that know, the more danger they could be in. Over .” Dustin almost sounded as though he might cry.

“Then, we can’t talk about it. Not unless we know for a fact that we aren’t going to be overheard. And maybe we should give them codenames. Only call them something like Han and Leia when there’s a chance of someone listening in. Over.”

“I like Lucas’s codename idea, but I’d rather die than call them Han and Leia. Over.”

“Okay, Mike, it was the first thing that came into my head! What, you think you have a better idea? Over.”

“I don’t know. Harold and Maude? Over.”

“That’s stupid, Mike. Clearly, they’re Bert and Ernie. Over.”

Will snorted at Max’s suggestion. He heard Billy coughing wildly in the hall. He listened carefully to him until it died down and he knew it wasn’t a bad one.

“I think we’ve come to an agreement. If we need further discussion, codenames: Bert and Ernie. Okay, my mom wants me to spend time with her tonight. So this is gold leader, signing off. Over and out.”

“I’m going too. Over and out,” Mike said.

“Over and out,” said El, not surprising any of them that she was listening in. She did that a lot. Simply listen to her own walkie, and when asked why she didn’t say anything would shrug and go nothing to add. They only asked that she sign off so that they knew she got whatever information they had discussed.

Everyone followed with their own sign-offs, and Will twisted the top knob on his walkie, shutting it off.

There was a moment of silence out in the hall, and then three beats on Will’s door.

He found Billy on the other side, slumped in the chair under the phone, his cheeks going red.

“Can’t get up,” he grunted. “Can’t reach the hook.”

Will didn’t say anything, nodding quickly and avoiding eye contact as he took the phone, placing it carefully back on the hook.

Billy got stuck in chairs fairly often.

His core muscles had been slashed up worse than anything else, and sometimes he just needed a good pull up.

Will took hold of his wrist, leaning his body weight backward to yank Billy to standing.

Billy kept his weight heavily on his cane, patting Will once on the upper arm in thanks.

“You guys know Steve has one of your little walkie-talkies, right?”

“ What ?”

Will genuinely didn’t know that.

“Dustin gave him one. I don’t know when, but he’s got it.”

“So, uh, so he heard. Everything.”

“And relayed it all to me through an embarrassing amount of tears, by the sounds of it.”

But Will could see that Billy’s eyes were brighter than usual in the dark, and suddenly Will remembered that there had been a wet spot on Billy’s sleeve.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I mean, well, you’re good kids. All of you.” Billy patted him on the shoulder again. “I was shitting myself out there when you found us. Thought for sure one a’ yous would go squealing.”

“Maybe we would’ve. Before.”

“Never thought I’d be grateful for nearly being turned inside-out.”

“And I never thought I’d be grateful for being found dead in the water, but here we are.”

“Yeah, shit’s pretty weird if you stop and think about it for a few minutes. Near-death experiences really put your sexuality in perspective.”

“Is that why you two started dating? Perspective?”

Billy huffed a breath, looking up towards the ceiling. He coughed twice, and Will could pretty much hear his lungs rattle and crackle.

“Yeah. ‘S why we started dating. Both of us kinda realized there’s no sense in feeling like shit about the things that can actually make you feel not like shit.”

“So, you’re in love? Both of you?”

Billy’s cheeks were flooded with color, the deep red spreading all the way back to the tips of his ears.

“I think so. We’re both a little too fucked in the head to say it, but,” he shrugged lamely, not bothering to finish his thought, and looking anywhere but at Will.

He gets it, though.

Fucked up parents make for fucked up kids.

Will considered himself the luckiest person on Earth, and any kinda parallel universe, that he had his mom to stop, and later heal, all the damage his dad had caused.

“Well, I’m glad that you have it. Both of you. I mean, we saw you guys. And after everything, it's good that you’re happy.” And Will meant it.

Even before last summer, he had never seen Billy look the way he did when he was kissing Steve. Look that calm, and relaxed, and that goddamn happy. It really meant something.

Especially to Will.

Because he had never thought of someone looking that happy when they kissed someone else.

He had never thought of a boy looking that happy when he kissed another boy.

Billy surveyed Will for a moment, still leaning heavily on his cane in the hallway.

Will had the suspicion that Billy could see right through him.

“He came to visit me a lot when I was in the hospital. Steve, I mean. I don’t know why he did. It’s not like we were friends or anything. But one of those days, when I was barely awake he started talking about everything that happened those couple days.” Billy shifted closer to the wall, bracing himself with one hand as he lowered himself back into the chair. “The Russians. I don’t know what he’s told you kids, but it wasn’t pretty.”

“He hasn’t said anything. I mean, we all saw how he looked after, so we figured maybe he got in a fight.”

Billy chewed on his bottom lip.

“Look, you gotta swear not to tell any of the others this, but, uh, it was a bit more than a fight.”

Billy was giving him a meaningful look and something churned around in Will’s stomach.

“Torture?”

Billy gave a tiny, shaky nod.

“He started talking about it. Said after that, he started thinkin’ about shit different. Said he thought he was gonna die down there and that nothing would change without him. It was heavy, and I was mostly feeling the same way, and I think that’s why he told me. Knew that I could get it. After that he kept visiting, and I noticed that I didn’t hurt as much when he was there. Or maybe I did, but having him there, squinting at the t.v. ‘cause he can’t see worth a’ shit, or making some stupid comment about a nurse on the floor just made it easier. He makes a lotta shit easier.”

“I think that’s what it should be like. I don’t think love should make things harder.” Will thought of his mom and dad, and how different she acted with Hopper.

Like she didn’t hurt as much when he was there.

“It was hard in the beginning. I mean, before we got together. I thought that he didn’t feel the same way, you know? That I was just being an idiot, feeling like that for my best friend. But then he told me. He’s always been a lot braver than people give him credit for. Anyway, he told me, and it should’ve been fucking terrifying. And I was scared of people finding out. Still am, but it’s like, even if we get run outta town, and everyone we care about turns against us, it’ll be fine because we’re not just me an’ him, we’re us .”

Billy blinked quickly, almost as if he was surprised by his own words.

They clanged around in Will’s head.

We’re not just me an’ him, we’re us.

“You don’t have to be scared, though. I mean, of people finding out. Of turning against you both. We won’t let that happen. Not about something like this.”

Billy gave him a weak smile.

“I guess it makes sense. I mean, you all took me in after killing half the town. Tracks that you wouldn’t throw me out for. Being gay.”

“There are worse things to be than gay.”

“Psycho killer not one of them?”

Will gave Billy as unimpressed of a stare as he could muster.

“That wasn’t you. You forget, I know what it was like to have him controlling me. I know what it’s like to not do anything to stop him, even when you are fighting with everything you’ve got. I nearly killed my mom. I even might have, if I’d been stronger. You fought against him, and in the end, you won. I never could’ve done that.”

Billy just stared at the wall slightly above Will’s left shoulder.

“I killed people, too. When he had me. Led a whole group of people right into a trap. And it still scares me what he did. But I know that it wasn’t me that did it. It wasn’t you that did any of that, Billy.”

“I tell myself that. Hell, Steve tells me that about every five minutes. Just hard to watch yourself doing that awful shit and not be able to tell your body to knock it off.”

Will didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t.

Billy was right. It was a nightmare watching yourself hurt people around you, feeling like you were in the backseat, screaming at yourself to stop.

But Billy had done what Will couldn’t’ve.

Right at that last moment, he stood up to the thing controlling his every move.

Stood up to that horrific flesh monster, adn died rather than let it kill El.

El, who he didn’t even know.

And then Billy’s bedroom door down the hall opened slowly, and Steve poked his head into the hall, swearing under his breath when he saw someone in the hall with Billy and trying to duck out of sight, knocking the back of his head into the doorframe and swearing again.

Billy laughed, a low wheezy laugh that ended in a short coughing fit.

“Real fuckin’ subtle, Harrington,” he choked out.

The door opened once more and Steve stepped out into the hallway, trying to look casual.

“I didn’t realize it was you there, Will. How’s it goin’?”

Billy laughed again, and gestured for Steve to come and help him stand up.

Steve did so quickly, smiling warmly at Billy when he had righted him on his feet, and keeping hold of Billy’s arm.

“Why are you sneakin’ in my window like some kinda perv?”

“Because I wanted to talk. I have a lot of emotions today.” Steve turned to address Will. “You kids are gonna be the death of me. And I mean that in the nicest way I possibly can.”

“Yeah, well. You guys are family.” Will shrugged, feeling very awkward when both Steve and Billy. Looked as though their eyes were overbright. Will panicked, trying to think of an exit strategy before he saw either of them cry.

He had seen them both in too many intimate moments today.

“Um, I’m pretty tired, so I think I’m gonna go to bed. Let me know if you need, uh, help tomorrow. You know, heading of my mom or anything.”

Will turned on his heel and slipped back into his own bedroom.

“Alright, Bert. It’s been a long day and I’m gonna need some help getting into bed. My legs have gone totally stiff.”

“Oh, in no way am I Bert! I’m totally Ernie. You’re Bert. Think about it: you’re surly, and rude, and-”

“Gonna dump you if you don’t shut up and help me go to bed.”

“Spoken like a true Bert.”

#the big schmoop #yikes writes #steve harrington #billy hargrove #harringrove #i thinkg this was for #harringrove for palestine #but i really can't remember #idk merlin donated some money somehweere and i wrote this 💕

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starlightinhumanform · 3 years

Text

Nothing Sweeter

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ship: Romantic Moxiety, Platonic Analoceit (only mentioned)

Summary: When Virgil agreed to work a cashier shift at the bakery, Logan had assured him that they never get customers that late. Instead, Virgil comes face to face with the cutest customer he’s ever seen.

Warnings: None! (please tell me if anything needs to be added)

Genre: Bakery AU, Tooth-rotting Fluff

A/N: This was written for a request for @catemons-blog ! I haven’t written these babies in such a long time and to was so nice to write them again!! All reblogs and replies are greatly appreciated <3 Love you all 🖤✨

Ao3 Fic Masterpost Fic Request Info

Virgil could feel flour beneath his nails, the warm dough under his hands, his arms moving automatically in the comforting, repetitive shifts of kneading bread. The bakery was like a second home to him but, more specifically, he loved the kitchen. He loved the whole cafe but the front wasn’t where he belonged— Logan and Janus took care of that— but this world of warmth and sweetness and soft scents, that was his.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like people, they just didn’t seem to click. It seemed like he was always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or missing some social cue that was apparently obvious to everyone else but invisible to him. No, Virgil loved people and he loved to share what he made with them; it was just a lot lower stress to work behind the scenes.

So he surprised even himself when he agreed to run both the front and the back of the cafe for the night. Maybe it was Logan’s promise that nobody came in on a weekday in the late evening. Maybe it was Janus’ bribe that he would make Virgil an extra special mocha coffee tomorrow. Maybe it was the combined power of their pleading eyes. Whatever the case, Virgil found himself alone in the cafe on a late Wednesday evening, with nothing but his hands and his work for company.

Logan had been right— Virgil hadn’t seen a customer since his shift started at 7:00 and as the time stretched forward, it began to seem less and less likely that some would order a coffee this late at night.

When the door chime ran at 10 pm, Virgil was half-expecting it to be Logan or Janus stopping by to see how he was doing (and probably to steal a jam-filled cookie or two).

Virgil walked into the front of the store to say hello but was instead faced by a stranger. They had a round face with large blue eyes and a mop of curly blond hair sweeping down their forehead— their face wasn’t ringing any bells. But Virgil didn’t really know the customer’s; he knew their orders .

He quirked an eyebrow as went down the list of regular customers this stranger could be and began taking guesses, “A dozen maple doughnut bars?”

“Um, no actually I want—” Their voice was soft but had a gravely quality that bite at the ends of their words. The voice was unfamiliar to Virgil but for some reason, he wanted to hear it more.

“Hmm, a ciabatta loaf and three everything bagels?”

“No… I was hoping you had—”

“Oh, I know! A loaf of rye, a loaf of pumpernickel, and a loaf of sourdough?”

The stranger began laughing. It was a nice laugh, Virgil guessed, but he couldn’t figure out what was so funny. He could feel his cheeks beginning to turn red; he had said something wrong again, hadn’t he?

They stopped laughing long enough to flash Virgil a bright, amused smile, “Are you going to keep guessing the entire night until you get my order right?”

The customer didn’t seem mad, he wasn’t even laughing at Virgil; he was laughing… because of Virgil? Virgil had made them laugh and that felt very very different than being laughed at. Their laughs ran through the empty little dining area and bounced off the display case, almost entirely empty by this time of day. Their laughs made Virgil feel good, even if he didn’t quite understand what was so funny.

Virgil let himself take another look at the person in front of him. There was a warm, sweet sensation beginning to flutter in his stomach and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

The customer was cute, no doubt about it. They were wearing large, round-framed glasses, nearly as gold as their hair. Behind the glasses, their eyes were one of the bluest blue Virgil had ever seen— like water drawn in a saturated kid’s cartoon. They were wearing a blue top tucked into a white pleated skirt and white mary-jane shoes. The skirt had attached suspender straps, one of which had a small pin on it. Looking closer, Virgil realized the pin was a small transgender pride flag with the pronouns “he/him” stamped over it. Ok, so the customer was a he ; and he was really, really cute.

Virgil tried to snap his mind back on focus. The man in front of him had stopped laughing but was still looking at him with a soft, somewhat lopsided smile.

Virgil looked down at his hands, feeling like making eye contact with this person was just a little too much right now. He cleared his throat, “So, uh, do you want to order something?”

“No, I actually was just planning on standing here for the rest of the night.”

“Really?” Virgil could feel his eyebrows furrowing together.

“No, no,” He stepped closer to the counter Virgil was behind, “I was just joking, sweetheart.”

Sometimes Virgil had a hard time catching social cues but the way he said “sweetheart” held too much kindness and sincerity for Virgil to miss its meaning. Virgil’s blush grew to a deep crimson.

He walked all the way to the counter so he and Virgil were only a foot apart. Virgil wasn’t sure if he wanted to flirt with him or run away to the kitchen. Somehow, putting a stove fire out seemed easier than talking to this customer.

Virgil shook his hands below the counter, hoping stimming would help release all of the energy and feelings bouncing around in his body. He tried to remember what Logan had told him in case customers did come in; there were specifically steps Logan was very particular about, “Could I get a name for your order?”

“Of course! My name’s Patton!”

God, even his name is cute.

“Your name’s Virgil?”

Virgil glanced down at his name tag as if he needed reminding of what it said. He nodded in confirmation of Patton’s question.

“That’s such a pretty name,” Patton’s smile reminded him of opening an oven door on a cold day, the warmth and sweetness rolling over him in waves. He felt like he was melting.

Patton’s eyes wandered over the menu board, licking his lips absentmindedly as he tried to make a decision. Virgil wished he could stop looking at his lips.

Finally he looked back over at Virgil, “Could I get three muffins—”

“Uh huh,” Virgil nodded as he jotted the words down on the receipt the way Logan had asked him to.

“—and, uh,” Patton leaned forward even a little closer, “Could I get your number?”

Virgil forgot how to talk in that moment, feelings of happiness practically vibrating through him. He wouldn’t be surprised if he just exploded, just nodding his head to answer Patton like his life depended on it.

Virgil moved as if he were in a dream, packaging the muffins as Patton paid. He felt like the planet’s gravity had suddenly been turned down and he was floating a few inches off the ground. He quickly scribbled his phone number on the bag before handing it to Patton.

“Oh! I almost forgot something!”

Virgil quirked an eyebrow at Patton’s exclamation, “You did?”

“Yeah! Your tip for such great service.”

“No, no you already gave a tip. See, it’s on your receipt beneath—”

Virgil froze as Patton leaned forward and planted a kiss on Virgil’s cheek.

“There! Extra tip for being so cute,” Patton gave him that lovely, warm smile before turning with a wave and walking out of the bakery.

Virgil sank to the floor, disregarding whether or not that was a health code violation. He didn’t care about that right now. His face was tingling and his heart was racing and he felt out of breath. He clapped his hands together, happy stims taking over for a moment as he processed the interaction he had just had with the cutest boy he had ever seen. Maybe working in the front of the bakery had its own benefits…

Virgil couldn’t stop smiling.

If you want to be added to my Sanders Sides fic taglist just send me an ask or reply to this post :)

General Sanders Sides Taglist: ~ @centimeter-tries-to-communicate @bee-syndrome @fandomfan315 @cas-is-a-hunter @reggieleigh07 @mossdeemo @im-actually-ok@softnic @catolicabuena @queer-disaster106 @lunawolf89 ~

#moxiety #romantic moxiety #virgil sanders #patton sanders #virgil x patton #moxiety fluff #moxiety bakery au #moxiety fanfic #sanders sides #sanders sides fluff #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides bakery au #tooth rotting fluff #moxiety meet cute #platonic analoceit #autistic!virgil #trans!patton #my fics #starlight writes

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pitviperofdoom · 3 years

Text

I wrote something for Aspec Archives Week!

Prompt: Wish/Pride

Warning for internalized aphobia, some elements of exclusion

(AO3)

He had a test the following day on a unit that had been giving him trouble, so he was too absorbed in his lecture notes to notice the growing gathering until someone brushed past him to join it.

Jon glanced up, faintly irritated. He didn’t have much of a right to complain; he was in a student lounge, not a library, and there were no rules limiting chatting and gathering here. There was only one of him, after all, tucked away at a corner table where no one was paying him any mind. He could always move.

His memory tugged at him. He’d heard something about a club meeting here today, hadn’t he? Someone had announced it, at some point…

Halfway across the room, one of the other students glanced up and noticed him staring. A tentative smile broke out on her face, and she jerked her head at the others settling down on the couches and armchairs. “You here for the meeting?”

“The…” Jon hesitated. “What was it, again?”

“LGBT coalition,” she answered. “We meet here every other week?”

“Oh! Oh, I…” Embarrassment stalled his tongue—his presence now felt like an intrusion.

She was still looking at him, polite and open and welcoming even though what she was offering wasn’t—it didn’t have a place for him, he didn’t need it, and they certainly didn’t need him taking up their time and space—

“I’m just ace,” he blurted out, lamely. The word felt odd on his own tongue. He’d never spoken it out loud before, much less to describe himself, and the moment it was out, he was seized in the grip of sudden doubt. He longed to take it back—what if he was wrong, what if he just wanted the attention that came of stepping outside the norm—? “I’m not really…”

The girl shrugged, still polite. “That’s okay. Everybody’s welcome, if you want to join us.”

It wasn’t—he didn’t really count—

“Thank you,” he said, and turned back to the notes in front of him. The girl must have turned her attention back to the group, because she didn’t press him, and neither did anyone else.

The meeting went on, but Jon had a test coming up and only one day left to study for it, so he tuned them out.

That was fine. It had nothing to do with him anyway.

***

Jon wasn’t altogether sure when his mind made the switch. There was no spark, no grand epiphany, anymore than there had been when he first understood himself at all. It was a gradual process, full of maybes lingering in the back of his mind, testing it like ice beneath his feet, until one day he simply understood it to be true.

He thought about that day from time to time, that quiet afternoon he’d spent in the student lounge, surrounded by notes, with possibility blooming just within reach.

He hadn’t reached. And now here he was, his school days well behind him, smarting from the missed opportunity.

The button was a small victory, but it felt like a hollow one. The point of these things was to share them with someone, to show them off to those who understood, and now…

It was with quiet resignation that he fixed it to the strap of his bag. Too little, too late—the time to show these things off was long past him. All he could do now was wear it and imagine a world in which he’d been a little less pathetic.

***

“Nice button.”

Jon’s eyes were beginning to smart from the screen. He’d missed his required break again, too absorbed in the project in front of him to acknowledge the promise of a tension headache in his forehead. He looked up reluctantly, and did a double-take when he realized that Tim was sitting on his desk, on top of his accumulating stack of printed articles.

“I beg your pardon?” Jon blinked hard, several times. Tears welled up from strain, and he wiped them away on the heel of his palm. The research office was drafty, and his hands were cold enough to soothe his aching forehead, as well.

“On your bag,” Tim explained, pointing. “Spotted it from across the room and thought, thank God, you know? Last place I worked was a bit stuffier, you’d never see people showing off.”

“I’m not—I’m not showing off,” Jon spluttered. Truth be told, he’d forgotten the button was even there.

“Right, wrong choice of words,” Tim said, wincing. “Think I’ll get yelled at if I swap my mouse pad out for one of my own? It’s got bi colors.”

Jon relaxed, just a little. Tim was older than him by a few years, but he’d only started at the institute last month, and the idea of having any sort of seniority on him was… odd, to say the least. “I doubt anyone would mind,” he answered. “No one’s said anything to me.”

“Fantastic!” Tim beamed. “Reminds me of my uni days. We should start a club.”

Jon laughed humorlessly. “Now that might catch Elias’s attention.”

“Might be a good thing. You do anything for Pride around here?”

Jon paused, wracking his brain for a moment. “What month is that, again?”

“Take that as a no, then.”

“I’ve never had anyone to do it with,” Jon replied, which wasn’t quite true. He’d had Georgie, once. But that had been a long time ago, and they’d never…

It’d just been too new to him. Too much like a gray area between two sides of a binary, before he’d known better.

“Seriously?” Tim went on, oblivious to what was going on in his head. “Where’d you go to school? Nobody does pride like university kids.”

Instinctively, Jon glanced around at the rest of the office. The other desks were unoccupied, which was odd considering how sure he was that someone had been around to overhear this. Where was everyone…? Oh. It was lunch already. Where had the time gone?

“Just never had the chance,” he said. It came out unexpectedly bitter. “At the time, I was…”

His voice trailed off. He’d never told anyone about this. Georgie had already been out of his life, and he’d just… never had anyone else to tell. But here was Tim, looking at him without a trace of judgment, open and expectant like he was actually interested in what Jon was saying.

“I knew I was ace at the time, but I didn’t realize I was anything else, yet,” he finished. “So I just… never joined any of the…” He gestured vaguely.

The expression on Tim’s face shifted. It was the first time Jon had ever seen him look cautious. “You know ace counts as queer, right?”

“Oh, yes,” Jon replied. “I know that now.” He shrugged, easing a page out from under Tim. Obligingly, Tim got off his desk to let him. “But I didn’t then, and… well, that’s that. Missed my chance, I suppose.”

Tim snorted. “Jon, you can’t miss your chance to make friends.”

You can if you’re me, Jon thought. Out loud, he said, “Still wish I’d known better, back then.”

“Ah, well. Least you do now.”

“I suppose.” Jon finished neatening his research notes. “Was there something else you wanted?”

“Yeah,” Tim said brightly. “I’m still a bit new to the area. Where are the good lunch places?”

“There’s a cafe just down—” Jon began, before Tim waved him off.

“That won’t work, I’m afraid, I’m useless with verbal directions,” he said airily. “In one ear, out the other. You’ll have to lead the way.”

Jon stared at him. Tim stared back.

“I have work…” The protest withered on his tongue. “Fine. But I won’t be making a habit of this.”

“Sure,” Tim said brightly.

It was not the first time Jon had ever been wrong about himself. It would not be the last.

#AspecArchives #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #tim stoker #tma fic #fanfiction #tales from the pit

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mccall-me-maurice · 3 years

Text

LOTF Drabbles for every single one of my ships based on songs on my playlist while I wait for the movers to finish

Jalph [Boom Clap - Charli XCX]: “You’re the glitter in the darkness of my world.”

Jack glances at the fair boy’s face from across the classroom. Somehow, even with the disgusting lights the school provides for their students, Ralph manages to make them appear as if they’re worth $100. It’s probably just the way that the redhead views him, only knowing portions about the boy, as if he was glancing through a keyhole. The feelings that boil under Jack’s skin - froth spilling over the edge of the pot and into the fire - consume his every waking day, plague every thought that rushes through his skull. But he has to place a glass lid on top of the water because god forbid anyone figure out that he was in love with Ralph Allebach. God forbid anyone figure out he was queer. Because in the end, he was just a fucked up kid drunk on the love he had for his nemesis. A kid the real world would tear apart, limb by limb.

Rogermon [Walk Away - The Script]: “(S)he finds colour in the darkest places, (S)he finds beauty in the saddest of faces.”

A flower bud sprouts in the garden of Eden, without even knowing that it had just entered paradise. It sinks its roots into perfect soil, the plant itself never realising that it had found a home where other’s didn’t even know of its existence. Simon Cortés was like Roger Volkov’s garden of Eden. Every time the boy created a scar or slashed open a mental wound, Simon was there to heal it. He would administer the pill, absorb the bad things with his own light, stitch every laceration that used to leave Roger doubled over and overflowing with rage. Simon Cortés was an angel trying his hardest to turn a devil to the right side of the coin.

Mauram [The Other Side - Jason DeRulo]: “This could be perfect, but we won’t know unless we try.”

Maurice always felt like there was nothing in the world to fight for. No matter who came in and out of the house inside of his brain, nobody would stay for very long. Nobody could stay for very long. He never made room for anyone in the four walls, knowing that he had enough space for himself and that was good enough. Or, it used to be good enough. But one can only live in a house all alone for so long before they start to long for someone there with them. At the very least a neighbourhood surrounding him, so maybe he wouldn’t be all alone. Which is exactly what Sam Pinch did. He slowly found the materials and built his own residence right next to Maurice’s. A boy who the brunette never wanted to talk to, who he actively avoided at the beginnings of their friendship, had opened the front door and never swung it shut. Because, in the end, Maurice couldn’t call anything home if he didn’t have Sam.

Robric [Capital Letters - Hailee Steinfeld]: “When we lie so still, but you’re taking me places.”

Robert was honestly bored with his life before he met the twins. It was the same daily routine, get up, get ready, go to school, attend choir practice then rinse and repeat. Falling into something familiar did feel nice at times, knowing that every hour of the day was used to it’s fullest and that he could predict when things would get done or when he’d have free time. But the twins brought a specific spice in his life, one that everyone else had failed to do. In the end, it was mostly Eric who forced Robert up and out of his comfort zone, aiding him in more mischievous tasks and generally becoming the brunette’s backbone. Eric was there, in the hospital, when Robert sprained his wrist, apologising profusely about ever making him try to climb a tree to grab an apple. And even in the immense pain shooting through his wrist, he blamed himself for ever doing. It occurred to him then, in the hospital waiting room, that no matter what happened to the two of them, Robert would always find a way to defend Eric. Even if the boy was clearly in the wrong. When all was said and all was done, Eric was the most important thing in Robert’s life. And he was oddly okay with that.

Billiggy [Breaking Your Own Heart - Kelly Clarkson]: “The very thing you’ve been the most afraid of, you’ve been doing from the start.”

Bill can’t remember ever apologising to anyone. For anything. His pride has always been greater than that, never letting the blonde stoop so low as to get on his knees and beg someone for forgiveness. In all honesty, he’s never done anything bad enough to need to beg someone to just let him have another chance. If you really wanted to look at it through a kaleidoscope lens, then one could assume Bill was petrified of hurting someone’s feelings and then needing to apologise. But that heart gripping sensation was something he had to conquer upon apologising to Peter Curtis for past mistakes. He’d known he was probably in the wrong at the time and convinced himself that he was right in some sick, twisted manner. So when he stuttered out the words to try and excuse his behaviour, Bill knew that they didn’t sound as genuine as he wanted them too. But Peter just chuckled and claimed that he had known for a while that Bill didn’t mean it, and out of everyone in the choir to forgive, he was more than willing to part on good terms with the blonde. And that’s how Bill Borg found himself in an unusual friendship with the boy he once called Piggy.

Wilrold [Jet Black Heart - 5 Seconds of Summer]: “But these chemicals moving between us are the reason to start again.”

Of all the people in the world to fall in love with, Wilfred Lucio chose his childhood best friend. And he’s almost certain that Harold Miracle has fallen in love with him too. Between the way he spends every waking hour with Wilfred and how he clings to the boy as if they’re attracting sides of magnets. He’s never that way with anyone else, in fact, Harold gives most people serious attitude when they ask him innocent enough questions. It is almost as if nobody else in this world matters to him quite like Wilfred does. Which is probably why the two do everything together, they’re practically conjoined at the hip. And that’s why nothing hurts the teal haired boy more than watching Harold run off and be free on his own, blind to the fact that his own best friend was drowning in an unconditional love for him that couldn’t be stopped, no matter how many barricades were built.

Perciberry [This Town - Niall Horan]: “And I know that it’s wrong, That I can’t move on.”

Max’s worst fear was always losing Percival. It was always watching the soft smile that breaks out on his face dissipate like sugar in boiling water. So when the brunette comes to Max, tears streaming down his cheeks and nose tinged red from the crying he’s still doing, the boy assumes the worst. For once, his intuition is right. Percival doesn’t give a reason, doesn’t let the other have any insight. Just sobs out a break up and retreats, broken cries still ringing in Max’s ears. Weeks and weeks pass and the boy knows that he’s still in love with Percival, he still loves the way he laughs as if everything is the funniest thing he’s ever heard, he still loves how Percival insists people call him “Percy” because it’s easier for the boy himself to remember. Despite every path Max taking leading him directly to the feet of Percival Wemys Maddison, he knows that deep down in the base of his heart, something made him unloveable. He was the one who tore them apart, he was the thorn in their side. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but he’d lost the one person who swore to love him until death. And Max would still take Percival’s hand and grip it tight if he asked.

Jalter [Use Somebody - Kings of Leon]: “You know that I could use somebody, someone like you, and all you know and how you speak.”

Johnny is one of the only people in Walter’s life who doesn’t judge any of the choices he makes. He tries to advise the boy in the right direction; steer him on the right path, but he will never tell Walter what he can and cannot do. This fact is endearing in a way, making the dark haired boy want to wrap his friend up in a tight hug and spin him around until they couldn’t stand anymore. Everlasting support was something Walter always lacked from others, so getting it from the strawberry blonde just boosted his self confidence and the image he chose to paint himself as. It takes him years upon years of being Johnny’s friend before he realises that the boy was always by his side not because he just wanted to be there for Walter. But because he couldn’t stand to watch the boy do it alone. Johnny has made Walter the centre of his galaxy subconsciously, just letting the raven haired boy become the sun and letting himself revolve around him. But to Walter, Johnny was the sun and he was the moon. The boy would light him up no matter what happened, always shedding the pure radiance of joy onto Walter. He wouldn’t trade anything in the world for the feeling.

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naivesilver · 3 years

Note

top 5 adaptations of the Fairy from Pinocchio? (or maybe top 5 best AND 5 worst?)

I spent so long staring at this and wondering if I even KNEW five good Fairies, but it turns out I do, albeit mostly for asinine reasons. Anyway AHFAKKJKFHAHJKJA thank you <3

Ask me my top 5 anything

Obviously under the cut because I couldn't resist and did BOTH

The salt AKA the worst of the worst first:

1) Piccolino No Bouken

Surprised? I suppose most would have expected me to put the Disney Fairy first, and I did, too, for a while, but as I was sitting in my car pondering this ranking I realized I was SEETHING with rage about this one, so I had to rearrange things a bit. This, guys, is where my Fairy hate begins - not the book, not the Mouse's interference. This woman.

I hate her. I hate her SO MUCH, for all that I love this adaptation more than most things in the world, and that the choices made about her characterization were a huge inspiration for me. Not only does she not send Pinocchio to school, instead teaching him on her own, she is the only one to actively keep Pinocchio from his father - indeed, she makes the choice for them, saying to Geppetto's face that it would be best for the boy to be taught something before he goes back home. Who the hell are you to make this call, uh? You have known him for a day at most! You left him hanging from a fucking tree all night! I wouldn't trust you with a bloody lapdog, nevermind a child!

Also she lets Pinocchio believe she's dead UNTIL THE VERY END. She turns into a bird while he cries at her tomb. Are we fucking serious now? Leave him alone.

(Yes, this is elementary school me howling for revenge. I've been mad about this longer than reason would let me. Sue me.)

2) Disney's Pinocchio

Bane of my existence. I don't know if anyone remembers that pic of me at the Pinocchio theme park I posted a while ago, but basically in that moment they were putting up a little show to tell children a little bit of the OG story, and they asked the audience if they knew what color the Fairy's hair was - a few said blonde, and I, being on stage next to her, distinctly heard her mutter "dammit, Disney". I've been living with that mantra since then.

Nobody asked you to make that puppet sentient, ma'am. He doesn't owe you shit. Aside from that, just like Jiminy Cricket, she ruined her character in a good two thirds of future adaptation. And while we're speaking of Jiminy, WHY did she think it would be a good idea to entrust a little boy to a slime ball such as him? He's too horny to have an ounce of sense. Conscience, my ass.

Basically...begone, asshole.

3) Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night

This film is so horrible, the Fairy had no chance to be decent at all. A cheap copy of the Disney one, with the addendum that she turns MULTIPLE toys into living beings while holding them responsible for whatever they do after. Basically Victor Frankenstein, but make it a poorly dressed woman from a direct-to-TV movie that shouldn't have existed at all.

-100/10, at least you're pretty, but by God, SHUT UP.

4) Once Upon a Time

Honest to God if she doesn't keep her filthy hands off my faves she's gonna get a slap across the face so strong her Wish Realm self ought to feel it sting. I am not exaggerating.

Seven seasons in, she hasn't done ANYTHING useful that I can remember. She's not even good at her own fucking job! Not only that, she's traumatized and guilt-tripped a good chunk of the population of Storybrooke, including first and foremost my beloved son August. The Pavlovian reaction I had every time she appeared on screen can't be described in coherent words, only in eagle screeches.

She's wrong. On principle, she's wrong. Let's move on.

5) Luigi Comencini's Le Avventure di Pinocchio

Doesn't rank higher only because she's played by Gina Lollobrigida (my beloved). She's book accurate, which means she'd be annoying as fuck as it is, but what little they added only makes her worse.

She has the gall to tell Pinocchio she'd like to see him happier. Like, apart from the fact that the ghost of his father's deceased wife isn't exactly the most reassuring person to hear it from...Said father has been swallowed by a giant fish. You told that boy he's only going to see his father if he studies hard. You keep turning him into a puppet anytime he misbehaves. What did you expect, that he would do the Macarena every time he entered your house? I am honestly too shocked to say any more. What the fuck.

Okay, I've been enraged enough for a single night. Let's move onto brighter shores!

1) Enzo D'Alò's Pinocchio

Enzo D'Alò knows what the fuck is UP!!! The only one with the courage to let the Fairy be a weird little girl - not only for a short time, but up until the end of the movie! That takes guts! Balls of steel!

I've said before that this movie has nothing memorable to it, and it's true, but also...Pinocchio wanted a sister so bad, and the movie gave him one. And they even explained the plot hole of the medallion with Pinocchio's face in it! That's twice as good as the fact that they cut out the most awful parts of her story, which is already delightful.

Thank you, Mr D'Alò. You have my trust until the end of days.

2) The Adventures of Buratino

Speaking of weird girls, this one is officially balls to the walls enough to gain my respect. She's bothersome to Pinocchio, but she's bothersome to everyone and everything, so I'll let it pass. Her role is exclusively to appear out of nowhere and do batshit insane stuff for no good reason at all. A star.

Plus, other than having an handwashing obsession that I've felt very keenly in the past year and a half, she also has a boyfriend - her and Pierrot are the original girlboss and malewife, I'm not accepting any criticism on the matter.

(Fun fact: when I was a young kid I once dreamt that the Piccolino No Bouken Fairy was dating a big, buff and blonde farmhand. He wooed her by gifting Pinocchio a dog. Apparently I've always been very interested in Fairies getting a love life and staying the fuck away from my specialest little boy.)

3) Pinocchio miniseries

"Serena, but you said you were disappointed in this adaptation so many times!" True. But consider: I am also very, very queer, and Violante Placido being motherly and wearing wispy dresses stirred SOMETHING in 11yo me that I can't very well ignore.

In hindsight, she and the Cricket probably had something going on behind the scenes, which is a shame. Miss Fairy, I swear, you could do better than Luciana Littizzetto in an ill-fitting green suit. She's gonna break your heart and lose your puppet charge in a crowd of little idiots. Do me instead.

4) Pinocchio Vampire Slayer

This woman kills monsters - and she's damn good at it! Honestly, so badass, and such a good mother figure too, even in trying times. I don't want to spoil the comic much to those who haven't read it, but she and Cherry are the highlight of the first volume and I am very fond of them. A+.

5) Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio

This one's book accurate, too, but Garrone did something with her that almost burst in tears in a crowded theater. She's awful, and irritating, but she's...she's so human, too. I can't rage against a Fairy that's so impossibly human even during the smallest of scenes. It breaks me over and over again.

Look at her SMILING, for pity's sake, am I supposed to think there's some warmth in the dead lady? Fuck you, Matteo, what did you do to me? I am an honored Fairy hater. You're going to ruin my reputation if you keep this up.

#ask meme #bewilderemoth #pinocchio #the tag needed some more bullshit from yours truly didn't it

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bisluthq · 3 years

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*WARNING Domestic violence topic* Could you explain to me why seven could sound queer?, Like I can see how many Taylor songs can be interpreted in a queer way, but with seven I can't see it, like for me it's clearly about domestic violence and the only possible queer thing I can hear it's the closet part...but in this particular case I do not think it refers to sexuality but to literally hiding form your abusive parents. Sorry if this was asked before or if it's disrespectful to ask.

So firstly let me just say that victims of abuse who hear that in the song are so valid. And I’m not here to “take away” a song that speaks to that experience. If it brings you comfort and relief, that’s amazing.

Do I think Taylor meant it as a song about domestic violence or escaping from that? Honestly, no. Because she described herself in LPSS as longing for that time in her life and talked about how she misses being able to throw tantrums and feel more freely and without judgement; in her head she’s thinking about this period in her life very fondly. Now, this is one of those death of the author moments because if you’re an abuse survivor who found comfort in this you... shouldn’t care wtf Taylor meant by it, what matters is what it means to you. Same as how if betty speaks to your sapphic teenage love triangle, it shouldn’t matter that Taylor imagined James as a boy.

But yeah, so for Taylor it was not meant to be about abuse. It was about feeling stuff more freely. And let’s take a look and examine at why it feels so fucking gay to... like... basically every queer woman.

Please picture me

In the trees

I hit my peak at seven

Okay so Taylor is setting up a narrator - presumably herself. Especially in the context of her hyperconfessional marketing and the LPSS explanation we’re literally meant to picture Tay. But tbh that doesn’t matter so much - it could be any little girl. This little girl is “in the trees”... which isn’t really where little girls are supposed to be. In these very first lines Tay is setting up a little tomboy character.... and then she says “I hit my peak at seven” - ergo this rugrat period of abandon, where I was free to play in the trees, is “my peak”. It was the best time in “my” life.

Lots of people feel that, it’s not inherently gay, but for queer women - I don’t know about other shades of queer but suspect yes - childhood often represents even greater freedom than to hets because it’s before we felt deviant. There was nothing to compare ourselves to. Sure, we might’ve played families in het couples like heteronormativity is felt by children too, but that kind of thing was largely asexual and we didn’t know yet that other people felt differently about it all.

Like I only realized I was different in late middle school and I didn’t have the word for it for ages tbh. Like I just knew I didn’t get the fuss about boys. When I was a little kid? I didn’t know what the fuss was really. It was a kind of “peak” so yeah, I feel that in my bones.

Feet

In the swing

Over the creek

I was too scared to jump in, but I, I was high

In the sky

Here we have her playing, once again with reckless abandon - she’s standing on a swing (naughty!) and swinging high over a creek. But she’s slightly nervous. I relate to that too, it’s not a gay thought it’s a little kid thought I think - because while she’s enjoying her freedom and the chance to play, there’s an awareness of the risk. That’s a lot of childhood and what makes her such a greater songwriter is how she’s able to capture these feelings we’ve all had before, in this case the rumbunctious nature of free play paired with the cautious nervousness of knowing you can fall.

With Pennsylvania under me

I mean this simple makes it more autobiographical for her, like if we didn’t know her was her that was the me , now we really do.

Are there still beautiful things?

This is speaks to her nostalgia for this time period and serves to highlight how much she misses it. She wishes she was young and innocent and had that freedom of playing in the trees and above the creek and feeling like she’s flying just because she’s standing upright on the swing. This is meant to be her “peak”.

Sweet tea in the summer

Cross your heart, won't tell no other

The first line is setting up mood again, it’s innocence and suburbia and freedom and the hot days of summer vacation. The second is a common English phrase - for the ESL folks - that means “let’s keep a secret”. It’s extremely common for little girls especially to have secrets with each other. “You’re my best friend and I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone else before but cross your heart you won’t tell anyone else” is the kind of thing that has probably happened at a sleepover for every woman (gay or straight). So Tay’s whispering and telling secrets to her best friend aged seven in the heat of the summer and the neat rhymes kinda remind me of those clapping games you play as a kid.

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

Again, I think this isn’t specific to gay kids necessarily - it’s that idea of having lifelong affection for your first best friend even when you don’t know where they are, can’t imagine them in adulthood, maybe can’t even remember their surname and frankly don’t really want to or care... but you still have warm feelings towards them.

Your braids like a pattern

Love you to the moon and to Saturn

So the friend is a girl. And here’s where the non wlw readers will have to work with me a little bit because as I’ve explained before a very common, enteral part of the queer female experience is obsession with other girls’ femininities. We notice things like hair and clothes and makeup on girls far more than straight girls seem to and waaay more than het guys do. A friend of mine who is v butch noticed like minor shit that any of us change in our appearance. Describing in detail a girl’s appearance feels - on a gut level - pretty gay. Now this isn’t a detailed description, but she links this physical trait - this pretty, braided hair her friend has - to loving her.

Now, she is a child in this story. This isn’t a sexual kind of thing in the child’s mind. She’s obviously not “in love” with her friend aged seven. But she is saying her deep, overwhelming love for her friend is inextricably linked - via rhyme scheme - to her feminine appearance.

This incredibly close, quasi homoerotic friendship is a near universal wlw experience and I’m sorry but it differs from straight girls’ close friendships because it’s... a lot. It is “love you to the moon and to Saturn” and obsessing over her clothes and hair and little habits.

And there’s no vocab for this, nothing to prepare you for it and nobody bats an eye because little girls are supposed to be friends with one another but like... you’re way overinvested and often that other girl isn’t and starts to drift away because she isn’t having this language free connection and it’s legit heartbreaking.

Passed down like folk songs

The love lasts so long

This childhood friendship becomes an anecdote, a moment of folkloric storytelling, but it never completely fades away and tapping into this first - not quite sexual but very sapphic - experience is super easy.

And I've been meaning to tell you

I think your house is haunted

Your dad is always mad and that must be why

And I think you should come live with

Me and we can be pirates

This sets up the narrative some people - I understand where y’all are coming from and I am here for it - hear of domestic abuse. The thing is, it’s not Tay’s character who is getting abused. Tay is a small child - and she’s envious of and nostalgic for that era of her life, when she thought that her best best best friend’s asshole dad was simply reacting to ghosts. It speaks to an innocence her character has which may not be shared by her friend, the girl with the braids.

But Tay is innocent and she says “come with me” and run away so we can be pirates together. Now, on a very basic and superficial pop culture level it’s worth noting Keira Knightley in POTC is pretty fundamental to any queer millennial woman’s sexual awakening. However, that’s not what Tay’s referencing here. She’s saying, at least on some level, let’s run away and be gender nonconforming. Again, she’s a small child. She doesn’t know why she wants that. But she doesn’t tell her friend “let’s run away and be princesses” - she wants to be a pirate. It links to the first scene in the song of her being a tomboy in the trees and on the swing, honestly. There were also a number of cross dressing female pirates, many of whom were gay back in the day so it’s a subtle nod to how a lot of childhood fantasies actually are rooted in possible historical fact.

But also come on, every queer girl wanted to be a pirate idk why really we just did. Like I say I can explain it as a desire not to conform to gender norms but it’s also just... another weirdly common fantasy that she’s tapping into.

Like idk this song is so fucking gay and it’s not trying to be but every line is just... felt in my bones. Like little me is seen by this song.

Then you won't have to cry

Or hide in the closet

This is obvi the line people go on about and look. The friend’s dad is clearly an asshole like that’s established. But the line has a double meaning. She’s saying if you run away with me to be a pirate on the high seas you won’t have to cry anymore and you won’t hide in the closet. It’s an innocent thought but it’s also a double meaning, right? You won’t be abused, you won’t be sad. And you’ll be with me out of the closet. It could’ve been “hide under the bed” or “behind the curtains”. But she picked closet. And that word gives this verse a second meaning, which is particularly palpable given as I say this is a very gay song from a thematic standpoint.

And just like a folk song

Our love will be passed on

Again, this is a deeeeep love. This is someone she wants to run away with. And she probably doesn’t know why, she probably doesn’t have the words. She’s a little kid. But this friend of hers is the person she wants to rescue and run away with and be together with even though she - Tay - is pretty content otherwise. In fact, she longs for this time in her life. It was full of beautiful things. And yet despite being happy, she was willing to drop it all for her little female friend she was clearly preoccupied with.

Please picture me

In the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream

Ferociously

Any time I wanted

I, I

Again, this reiterates she is nostalgic for this time period. It was a good time in Taylor’s life. It was a time when she could be herself, before she had learned civility and what was expected from her by society. Which ties back to that thing I said right in the beginning, about how this first quasi sapphic friendship is cherished by queer women because we didn’t know it was weird. We hadn’t “learned civility” yet. We could scream, we could run around and climb trees, and we could ask our friends to run away with us not knowing those thoughts didn’t occur to them with the same intensity.

Sweet tea in the summer

Cross my heart, won't tell no other

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

We’ve discussed this already. It’s still queer coded to me.

Pack your dolls and a sweater

We'll move to India forever

Passed down like folk songs

Our love lasts so long

So she’s once again cementing the fact that this is a little female friend with the dolls, and again suggests running away together and says even though none of that happened and she grew up and realized this... was actually a fairly specific experience not a universal universal one and she learned civility and heteronormativity but this foundational, pure, innocent gay love... will always remain in its complete innocuous harmlessness but immense power.

And so, yeah. This song is probably Taylor’s gayest shortly followed by Treacherous.

But if it means something else to you, I’m by no means taking it away. Anyone can enjoy her music in any way they like.

It’s just weird that most queer women feel their childhood selves are completely seen by this song if it was a complete accident 🤷🏻‍♀️

#tw domestic violence #tw domestic abuse #sapphic themes in tay’s music

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pochapal · 3 years

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I hate doctor 11 but ive never been able to explain why in like words lmao. He feels like such a mary sue character imo and like theres something about his characterisation that was always just really ineffective (like the stuff about fishfingers and custard or whatever it was). Imo i'd love to hear you give top 5 worst things about the 11 era because i rlly just love when it gets torn apart

i hold nothing but a seething contempt and loathing for that man. every time he appeared on screen i felt ready to snap like a riled up chimpanzee in my enclosure. i am frothing at the mouth and overcome with a desire to start flinging heavy objects. this might be incoherent and inconsistent but i started this rewatch in feb 2020 and only finished this week so i got through 11′s episodes last august/september time and i refuse to revisit it to jog my memory or fact check anything i’m saying here because this man does not deserve the space in my mind for that.

the first thing is i can’t fucking STAND the quirky whimsy timey wimey bit he has going on all of the time. i can’t even say this is because this is a kids show and i was a teen and then adult when i first properly watched him but actually!! when i was eleven years old i’d sleep over at a friend’s house most weekends and it always coincided with the airing of a new season 5 episode and i remember we watched the finale with the dumb time hopping to get out of the box prison that was never explained and didn’t make sense and i thought at the time “this is really stupid”. and before that my only other doctor who exposure was watching the david tennant christmas specials with another friend and throughout childhood my only opinion on doctor who was “this is a tv show that is not for me but is one that all the boys i am friends with like so i will put up with it to maintain our friendships” but at least those episodes were both suspenseful and engaging enough to keep me watching all the way through. like who the fuck does an end of the world sci fi plot and approaches it with an “oopsy woopsy i am a funny little alien man who is going to stop you all by making you do a hecking silly” like it’s unneeded and self-parodies an already cheesy show to the point where it becomes unwatchable and makes it impossible to ever take this man seriously.

next thing that downright sucks ass so badly is the stupid fucking overwritten constantly escalating plotlines. like everything from season 5 up until his regeneration at the end of season 7 is meant to be this grand interconnected cosmic plot about how...the doctor trying to bring back his planet will end the universe or something so all the top powers across all of reality tried again and again to stop him from doing that except he doesn’t know what’s going on so he keeps thwarting these people who supposedly mean good?? i mean i sure don’t fucking know what they were trying to say!! like for some reason we never get the doctor suddenly becomes this superdemon that threatens everything so these people (whoever they are) decide to, in sequence: suck him through a time rift to erase him from existence, trap him in a prison and remake a universe without him, take his companion’s baby and turn her into a perfectly trained doctor killer, form two(!!) secret societies to hunt him throughout history that are only stopped by his companion splintering herself across his personal timeline to protect him, and repeatedly cause reality collapsing events because it’s a kinder outcome for the universe than what he will do. this grand and terrible event turns out to be...he spends a few hundred years chilling by a rift that leads to his home planet and protects a few generations of children from monsters which convinces them to give him infinite regeneration power then fuck off back to their pocket universe. and it’s like!! what is the point of anything that happens in this man’s era when everything is always “the darkest moment” or whatever the fuck!! i don’t care!! we never get a compelling reason to believe this bumbling clown of a man could ever be a universal threat!! the whole thing is so dumb i hate it!!!

thing number three i hate is how the eleventh doctor is ALSO characterised as this abrasive egotistic male supergenius to the point where he becomes genuinely indistinguishable from bbc sherlock. genuinely who enjoyed seeing this guy constantly tell people their tiny human minds can’t comprehend what he’s doing and then basically just wave his magic wand to solve whatever problem each episode is facing. 2012 is the year of human sin because this fucking shitsmear character archetype somehow became both a redditor role model AND a tumblr sexyman and it’s like!! nobody is enjoying this stop making this seem cool! him saying timey wimey thing any time he does anything is frustrating and dumb and locks the viewer out of giving a fuck about anything that is happening! smartest man in the room syndrome is a disease and the eleventh doctor is terminal with it. like remember how they established river as an accomplished scientist (when she wasn’t being a child soldier or a time paradox or whatever the fuck) and every time that came up mr doctor eleven man was like “oh this thing is obvious because i’m a genius and you didn’t realise because your brain is tiny so get out of the way and let the grownups think” or that time it turned out amy had been replaced with a slime clone for half the season and the doctor chewed rory (audience surrogate) out for somehow not realising this fact we didn’t know right from the start and like. this served no purpose other than to draw into severe question why the doctor is also this super beloved magical figure implicitly trusted by all children everywhere like. mr steven moffat is totally allergic to writing and solving mysteries in his tv show and fuck you for wanting to figure things out as you go along based on the new evidence you uncover at strategic plot intervals just let this asshole man use magical thinking to reveal he knew the answer all along and you’re a fucking idiot for not also realising this thing which had no basis or precedent anywhere else in the show.

speaking of dumb things let us not forget the absolute shitshow that was minority representation in this era. i’m not even talking about the low hanging fruit of how genuinely unironically sexist amy and clara were written where each episode moffat either seemed to loathe them or was incredibly horny over them and they had no character growth or arc or fucking anything. i’m talking about how fucking shit terrible the incidental representation was. god remember how every single fucking gay person who appeared in this era was written as one incredibly fucking stupid joke and how the women were all either sexy dominatrix, feeble girl in love, or Mother (or all three in some really terrible cases) and i’m not qualified to talk about this but also how incredibly white this era was and how on two separate occasions we had monarchs reimagined as sexy girlbosses with a gun played by black women who the doctor leched over. nothing about any of this was good ESPECIALLY coming off the back of rtd who was surprisingly forward thinking for 2005 and did a really good job of positing travel with the doctor as queer allegory. in comparison moffat gave us THE MOST heterosexual shlock i’ve ever had to endure. amy and rory could have been interesting characters were they not hemmed into this domestic bickering young straight married couple bullshit that was in no way changed or altered by traveling with the doctor except for the quasi incestuous river song reveal that was dumb and bad and stupid.

the last major mega gripe i have with the series is moffat’s fucking jingoistic boner for british military aesthetics. this carried over throughout his entire tenure as showrunner but was super terrible vomit inducing in eleven’s era. the unironic admiration for ww2 britain and winston churchill is downright wretched. are you incapable of telling a second world war story outside of churchill’s london and plucky blitz fighters. shit gives me hives so badly. and then!!! that weird church owned army that features in the future that end up being bad not for the concept of what basically amounts to an imperialistic intergalactic rendition of the fucking crusades but because they’re part of the nonsense go nowhere puzzlebox narrative that says the doctor is a not good man who will do bad things to the universe :(. remember how rtd’s doctor was a freshly traumatised man hot off the war criminal press who time and time again vehemently refuses to engage in military violence, but who tragically inadvertently turns every one of his companions into soldiers in his own personal army, and he has this moment of complete horror at the realisation and it is this which causes the downward spiral that ends in 10′s regeneration. and then how there’s this cringe line about how there’s a force of people who are “the doctor’s army, always ready to fight his battles when he’s not around” or some shit and then it turns out this is actually massive literal military operation and we’re meant to celebrate this. fuck off.

bonus round because this needs to be said but i have never hated anything like i hated that fucking human tardis episode. everything about it induced violent anger in me from the sickening overindulgence of that softgoth dark whimsy helena bonham carter tim burton aesthetic to the bafflingly terrible evil carny stereotype of those junk scavengers to the overblown sudden tragic shipbait romance of human tardis and the doctor. every word out of her mouth was trite shit and the fact that the death of her body was presented as this super emotional dramatic scene despite there being no buy in or incentive to care and the fact that every single person on tumblr in 2012 ate that shit up like it was fucking gourmet. i loathe every single thing about that episode so much.

#Anonymous #hi bestie here's 1500 words of me getting mad about the worst television experience i had in my life #why the FUCK was this man tumblr's favourite back in the day. what the fuck did anyone see in any of this shit #i never want to think about dr whom ever again

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leebrontide · 4 years

Text

A true, 30 year, tropetastic, queer love story. (Part 1)

Pls open the link if you'd like to read a 30 year, trope-tastic true queer romance featuring pining, instalove, swords, childhood-friends-to-lovers and a happy ending.

We THINK the story begins in 1991. We know it starts at theatre day-camp for kids, a summer when we were both in elementary school.

The earliest memories are vague- I remembered a super cool kid from the older class with dark eyes who I was desperate to eat lunch with every day.

It's taken us years to reconstruct the timeline. We have figured out I did go to her house outside of camp that first year, because I remember her bird that tried to bite me. We can only guess at years based on camp themes.

Because we were little kids. I was 7. So we lost touch.

But here's the thing- we kept going to the same camp. She was always in a class ahead of me, because I'm a year and a half younger.

And every year- apparently without remembering we'd met before? We became summer best friends. Drawn together over and over.

But, being disorganized kids in a world of lesser tech, every year, when camp ended, we lost phone numbers- we lived a good 30 minutes away from each other, so I have to imagine our parent's weren't exactly heartbroken at the loss. It was a lot of driving.

In 4th grade, when I was 9, I made a new best friend, named Meredith. My parents heartily recommended the summer theatre camp to hers, and she was sent with me, the next year.

She, was older than me, so she was in Ty's class. & having excellent taste, also made friends with her.

The three of us played together all summer.

Then came the fall, and the inevitable lost contact. I remember being sad about that much more clearly, that year.

BUT, the big change happened when I was 10.

Again, sent to camp. Again, my friend Meredith was there to.

At lunch, I found them playing together. I went to introduce myself to the obviously cool older girl.

For some reason I tried to shake her hand? Little weirdo.

Ty reacts to me the same way- oh hey! Cool new person! I want to be friends!

Meredith looks at us both like we're out of our minds.

"You know each other. We played all last summer."

And suddenly, the spell of childhood amnesia was broken.

I DID know her. We were FRIENDS.

We HAD BEEN FRIENDS for years.

She LIKED ME.

SHE LIKED ME.

(love with memory disabilities is a trip, folks. And her lil ADHD kid brain was struggling right alongside mine)

We were elated.

But that wasn't the last shock to my little 10 year old heart that 5 week summer camp would bring.

Meredith was, and is, a poet. Somehow she had a habit, at 11 years old, of making up poems about people's eyes.

Weird stuff. I remember a pair of green eyes being compared to a deep sea, were the bones of drunken drowned sailors floated.

Very Anne of Green Gables.

And- I remember this part with perfect clarity. She turned to me and said, do you know who has pretty eyes? Ty.

We were crossing the stage, Ty was carrying a box of props like 15 feet ahead of us.

I said "does she?"

And then, ever the romantic I screamed "HEY TY TURN AROUND I WANNA SEE SOMETHING!"

She did.

And for the first time, I looked into the dark eyes I'd been drawn to for all those years, and saw them anew.

There's a reason cupid's supposed to have arrows.

I swear to you that this is true. It felt like an actual blow to my chest. Like a physical blow.

I was stunned. My little heart was hammering out of control.

I have no idea what I said, or did, or looked like after that.

But I figured out pretty quickly what that was. It was not subtle, even to a prepubescent nearly 6th grader.

But I was a pragmatic little almost-6th-grader.

This was a crush. Middle schoolers have crushes.

And they're supposed to fade over time.

I don't remember if I was worried that my crush was on a girl. I just remember the certainty that this was just a child's crush, and therefor nothing that would last or cause problems.

And when fall came, I lost her number again.

But this time I was devastated.

But, this time a hero saved the day! Meredith, sweet, wonderful, more-organized-than-either-of-us Meredith, still had the number.

And this time, I held on to it.

We became year round besties.

For the first year of adoring her year-round, I didn't worry about my little crush. It'd go away in time.

By 7th grade, it started to be a problem.

We were having sleep overs, and I started to feel guilty about how much I wanted to look at her and cuddle her all the time.

I don't think I told anyone right away. But Meredith was always the smartest of us three.

She's the one who proposed we play "wedding". She presided over the ceremony herself, and her little sister was our wedding photographer.

Oddly, even though I didn't know about this photo till years later, this is a game both of us remember playing.

It meant... something.

Image

I started to feel guilty. We were having sleep overs, talking every day on the phone. I wanted to look at her all the time- I wanted to be with her all the time. I wanted to kiss her, and started to realize she might be bothered by that.

I never wanted to hide anything from her.

So, I confessed my love. I didn't think of this as being especially radical or brave, but in retrospect, I'm impressed by 12 year old Lee's behavior.

She smiled brightly, and said she loved me to!

As her best friend.

I clarified my position.

She repeated that she loved me as her very best friend.

And these feelings were a bit scary and BIG, so that was all good. She still wanted to hang out all the time. Life was good.

By 8th grade, I was starting to worry. The crush hadn't worn off yet. Everyone told me these things wore off.

But I was more in love with her than ever.

And when Meredith moved to Nashville, we got even closer.

We joined the MN sword club. Made new friends. In the way of these things, a whole lot of them turned out to be some evolving variety of queer. Friends started coming out.

I barely needed to, my crush was horrifyingly obvious to all our friends.

Image

I promised you swords. The swords don't feature prominently, but the club was a major connection for us for years, and this detail has always struck me.

I'm not an especially good fencer. Especially then. I was constructed out of raw spaghetti noodles and moved like creaky budget claymation most of the time. I was calculating, but slow.

She was fast, and brash, and more skilled than me. She eventually beat some nationally recognized fencers. We called her "fiery Tybalt" because we're a bunch of big ol nerds who wanted to sound smart. She eventually took her name from that nickname.

Even at only 5ft tall, she should have beaten me handily and reliably. She could hold her own against much better fencers.

But we actually got BANNED from sparring together, because we were so evenly matched we could never get enough points for a win.

My one and only expertise in fencing was knowing her. But she knew me just as well, so there was a stalemate.

Our friends laughed at us.

I confessed my love again in 8th grade.

And 9th.

10th.

11th.

I never wanted to lie to her. It was important to me that she knew what I was thinking and feeling, but it was also important that I not burden her with it.

She always gave me the same answer. She loved me. She loved me SO MUCH.

What a shame she was straight.

Now, readers, let me remind you we're looking at two queer kids in the 90s at this point.

There were pressures at play.

When I was in 11th grade, she left for college. And she was far enough away that long distance calls were expensive. I couldn't call her every day.

What I remember most about senior year was being depressed and lonely.

But also, that after years of my family despairing of my ever learning to type, and eventually getting me the (then very expensive) dragon speech-to-type program so I could type my homework and not fail school- my contact with her was suddenly all in text. AOL messenger.

People have commented at all my workplaces about my typing speed. I type 120 words per minute now.

Specifically because it was the only way to talk to her most days.

I went to college the following year. We both got boyfriends. Both nice boys who liked and admired us.

BOTH broke up with us because we so obviously preferred each other over them. To an embarrassing degree.

The boy I was dating- bless him he only lasted 3 months- specifically told me "if I go out with you any more I'm going to fall in love with you. And you're in love with her."

Slick bastard.

He was right tho.

I couldn't be mad at him.

But this is when I started to really panic.

It'd been 6 years. My first crush was still absolutely roaring. Nobody else came close to tempting me.

And nobody else wanted to, when it became obvious they couldn't compete with her.

And she was still my best friend, so of course I told her. I told her I was miserable, because I was going to be single forever because nobody else would want me, because I was so in love with her.

She felt bad. She loved me so much. So much she'd been dumped to.

Such a shame she was straight.

I wouldn't find out till much later that that conversation had started something on her side, that, for once, she knew to keep from me.

She spent the next 6 months in intense contemplation.

She DID prefer me to all the other boys (and girls) who were chasing her in college.

And there were a lot of them.

She did think I was pretty, and she did love me. And she did want to be with me forever.

She'd been as dedicated to me as I was to her through this whole time. As caring, as invested, as, frankly, obsessed. Everyone could see it.

But she wasn't straight. She was bi.

And ace.

We wouldn't learn that word for many more years. All she knew was that the story of falling in love didn't match the love she was feeling.

But then she realized- she'd never felt the feelings she was "supposed" to feel for her boyfriend, either. She was not more attracted to him than to me. And he was a good looking guy. A catch by most any standard.

And she also hadn't loved him.

But she did love me.

So, my sophomore year of college (her junior year), we were preparing our trip to the Renaissance festival. A bunch of her friends were driving into town for it, and we'd see each other again at last. (we'd been back at school like 2 weeks, so naturally were desperate to meet up)

I am still flabbergasted as the next series of events.

She asked me out. On AOL instant messenger. After over 7 years of my pining, and adoration. After 7 years of choosing the pain of being near her and not being able to kiss her, over the desolation of not having her beside me

She very logically explained her reasoning.

I had a meltdown.

My poor room mate walked into our room to find me crying and throwing things at the computer screen.

I was convinced she was offering to date me because she felt bad for me. Because she loved me and wanted me to stop hurting and feeling alone.

So I turned her down.

That, friends, was HARD. REALLY HARD.

Thankfully, she was having none of it. She insisted it only made sense for us to date. I tried to stay firm. I refused repeatedly, all in that damned AOL messenger.

We reached a compromise- one date, at the Ren Fest, as a test.

And if it failed we'd never speak of it again.

Because the prospect of dating and breaking up was terrifying to us both.

If we were going to be together, we'd be defacto engaged. Neither of us could tolerate breaking up.

The weekend came- my college friends all knew, and accompanied me, made sure I was decked out in the best fair garb we could cobble together.

She drove up with her friends- including the ex- who had no idea what was happening. She had on her finest cape & boots & a swishy dress.

We could not manage to be alone together. Like it was a proper rom-com ridiculousness. All damn day.

But at least we were together.

She came back to my dorm that night, to spend the night, and drive back the next day.

Shout out to my room mate who stayed at her boyfriend's house that night. Love you, Lindsay.

We finally managed to kiss.

She abruptly decided kissing wasn't some weird thing people only pretended to like because it was normal, and was in fact an amazing wonderful thing we should do frequently.

I don't actually remember us deciding that the experiment was successful, and we'd be a romantic couple from then on.

Pretty sure the kissing melted my brain.

It was not like kissing my old boyfriend at all.

She went back to college the next day.

I do remember, that, MORE THAN ONCE, I nervously asked my roomy if this had all really happened. I was truly and genuinely concerned that I'd dreamed or fantasized the whole thing. I'd done both enough times before.

I couldn't just ask outright so I'd say something like. "Hey did anything- important happen yesterday?"

And she'd look at me like I was speaking some alien language, and tell me I was dating Ty now.

I wandered around in a dream-like stupor for a WEEK.

This is a good place to stop for now. More tonight. I need to go snuggle my baby and help my wife with lunch. 💖

Popping in briefly for the next installment.

All our friends knew immediately. Some of them- the newer ones, were confused because they had assumed we were always dating, on account of how blatantly in love we were all the damn time.

We decided tho, to hold off on telling our families. We decided to date a year first, to show that it was serious, and that we meant it.

It was a good year, full of the kind of pining that is regularly rewarded by happy weekends and spring breaks and summers.

The next august, before we went back to school, we each sat down our own parents. Hers were sort of "yeah ok whatever." I was not there for that conversation.

I went to my favorite restaurant with my own parents, and told them I was seeing someone. Dad was enthused. Wanted to meet him.

Well. I said. You have.

Because it's Ty.

#gay love #gay romance #romance tropes #ace love #nonbinary romance #romance tropes tropes love #coming out day 2020

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