#( I KNOW I WROTE THIS BUT I'M SAD NOW )

[keeps-ache]

i think i'm starting to really like writing again :D this will have consequences

[ilgaksu]

the reason you should talk to writers you like if you like them is because i found out a headcanon i created is now commonly accepted fanon by accident, and i've found this out years after i created it, because nobody ever thought to tell me, despite actively still writing for it, because why would they? i'm repeatedly just torn between finding this hilarious and being genuinely sad that apparently there was no reason for me to know??? i would have loved to know people loved the idea i put all that work and my own love into.

[smolmakerel]

"You can't leave me! I won't let you!"

"Christina, lo juro por Dios [I swear to God], get the fuck out of my way or -"

"Or what? You'll hit me? Hit me then! Give me a reason to call the cops!"

"Mamá?!"

"You're fucking crazy! Just like that bastard's father!"

"Don't talk about him like that!"

Tara curled up under the kitchen table, one of her favorite hide-and-seek spots because of the table cloth. She couldn't understand what her parents were screaming about, Sammy piping in every once in a while, but she knew she didn't like it.

It sounded scary.

With caution, Tara lifted the cream table cloth and peaked up.

Mamá was beating her fists against Papi's chest, face creased in rage. Sammy was fighting to place herself between the two, but neither of the two noticed.

Tara flinched when Sammy was shoved out of the way by their papá. She scrambled out from beneath the table and stood, unsure, behind her mamá.

"¿Mamá? ¿Papá?" Tara uttered. Both of her padres² stopped arguing and turned to her, and she shifted awkwardly. "¿Esta todo bien?" [Mom? Dad? Is everything ok?]

Papi's eyes softened while his shoulders sagged. "Sí, no te preocupes. Me quedaré con mis padres por el momento si quieres venir conmigo." [Yes, don't worry. I'm going to stay with my parents for the time being if you want to come with me.]

Tara blinked in confusion. Why was her papi leaving? Why did it sound like he didn't want to take Mamá or Sammy with them?

Before Tara could ask, Mamá was screaming again. She slammed her palms over her ears with a whimper. She never did like whenever they fought.

"Stop fighting!" Sammy cried out. "Can't you see that Tara's scared?!"

Papi narrowed his eyes. "Shut your bastard mouth!"

Sammy took a wounded step backwards.

Papi's eyes then went wide. He looked between Mamá and Sammy, then he turned his eyes to Tara.

"Is she even mine?"

"Listen -"

"Tell me the fucking truth for once in your miserable fucking life, ¡puta!" Papi roared out, and it shook the house into silence.

Mamá looked away. "Of course she is."

"... I don't believe you."

Tara stumbled out of the way when Papi shoved her out of the way. She followed behind the small group and gasped when she saw Papi's business suitcase full of clothes sitting on his leather recliner.

"¡Papi!" Tara began to cry, finally realizing what was happening. "¡Por favor no te vayas!" [Please don't go!]

Papi continued to pack up despite Mamás furious threats of calling the police, Sam's panic at the escalating situation, and Tara's full-blown meltdown.

Tara was close to hyperventilating as she threw her body at her papá and clung to his leg. He tried to shake her off, but she held tightly to his gray slacks.

She was the last person he was with when they both heard yelling coming from the master bedroom. Papi had begged her to clean her room and get ready for bed, going as far as to bribe her with a homemade caramel flan. But then he abruptly left.

The yelling only increased in volume, and, after an hour, Tara crept downstairs to hide out.

Was this her fault somehow?

"P-Papi, por favor -" she wheezed, chest constricting. She could barely breathe, let alone get her words out properly.

Hands roughly shoved her away, and Tara stared up at her Papi in horror. He stared back with an equally distraught expression.

"Tara," he gasped. "Lo lamento -" [I'm sorry -]

Mamá burst into a fit of rage.

Tara sat on the floor for the rest of the night. She blocked out the rest of her parents' argument and sat there. She sat there while her Papi left them.

He slammed the door. He never slammed the door.

Sammy tried to help her. Tara took the inhaler but remained on the floor by the stairs, watching the door for when Papi would come back.

He never did.

[kithj]

Hey sorry for more talking, but since the conversation was happening about gender stuff, reminded me about my own and thought, "hm Kit would probably appreciate hearing this". So, wanted to say that you've helped me further figure out my own gender shit, like categorically have helped me a lot there. When Blood Choke first dropped I was still IDing as soft butch (and not as a gender), but that plus more specifically Lea have helped me figure out I'm genuinely butch (gender). Lea, you locking them in a way, was a huge huge help for me, particularly the partial transition (? dunno better wording) she/her Lea has. Had been stressing a ton at the time about my hormone levels, T specifically, and even crying because I know I couldn't do injections which would help keep it low without an antiandrogen, but seeing the idea of what Lea did, yeah if I didn't make my own T I would absolutely do that it sounds great. So, like has helped me further refine my identity, get more comfortable with my hormone levels and body (at least in some ways; now I have the unfortunate opposite worries about not being masc enough 🙃), and has just been a big help and made me understand myself and my butchness a lot better. Sorry if this is unwanted and TMI and so on, but wanted to say in hopes that it would make you happy to hear, that you've helped, with your characters and lesbian gender posts on the Blood Choke blog, a butch work through its imposter syndrome and shit :)

this is lovely to hear 🥺💕reasons like this are exactly why i chose to keep Lea written that way (there are a lot of butches out there that do exactly what she did, and there are others that continuously take T just because they want to and like it) and also why i eventually gravitated towards a project like Blood Choke.

it took me a long time to kind of "settle" in my butch identity as well, and it wasn't until i started reading older lesbian literature, where butchness is actually openly discussed and celebrated, that i really had that moment of realization. i wish i could read more, especially about transfem butches, but a lot of that stuff is just not easy to access, being out of print, never been digitized, etc etc.

the most well-known piece is probably Xanthra Philippa's "Don't call me mister, 'Cause I'm a TS Butch" from gendertrash from hell, in 1995.

i do think for a lot of people there's that initial hurdle of thinking butch = aesthetic, rather than an actual identity, which leads people to thinking they can't be butch, that they're not "allowed" because they don't look a certain way (aka skinny and white and perfectly androgynous at all times). and with trans women and transfems specifically, there's also this expectation for you to be highly feminine and to conform to cishetero ideals when you transition, and that pressure confines you into a very small box that, imo, takes a lot of courage to finally step out of.

i hope that in the future there will be more of us writing and being loud and visible for other people to see and realize they can be butch too :-)

[ikram1909]

I cannot tell y'all how many times I've watched this clip 😭😭😭

[tls123]

i know wei wuxian is first pick as god/personification of death etc. etc. (duh, perfect choice, so sexy) but i would like to propose jiang cheng for the part. in the same way elizabeth swann is death from that one post about her kisses damning the men she loves

in the way everything he touches and everything he loves seems to be doomed (sect, parents, sister, brother)

wei wuxian as life!!! as god of life!!! coming back, unkillable. life giving (core transfer, wen ning, etc.)*

jin ling doesn't die because at the end of the story, at the guanyin temple, wei wuxian is there too. to protect him the same way he protected jiang cheng

and this is why he (wei wuxian) has to go back to being yunmeng jiang's head disciple, in this essay i will—

*i'm not saying he lives well, but he lives! he fucking claws and crawls and fights his way out of the burial mounds, he just doesn't fucking quit** you know what i mean

**until he does, but that's a choice he makes.

[eddiemunsonsmum]

Just saw this comment on a story posted a month ago.

*cries in Eddie Munson Solo Series no one wanted to read, interact with or request for*

No shade to the person that commented this on their own fic if you recognize it. It's not their fault. I'm not mad at them. More crying in the tags.

[chebepowder]

😭 Incredible start to this very good article.

[bumblegumprincess]

I'm not okay.

I just watched pride and prejudice for the 15th time and I started crying at the end because I remembered that the Ineffables aren't going to be canonically happy until the third season, unless they decide to turn around the happiness (God forbid) of Crowley and Aziraphale.

[milkyspine]

—the heart that flees and the heart that bites

[dootznbootz]

I'm moody and grumpy and sick so I'm going to be a freak about writing for a bit.

I fucking love writing PEOPLE. like as a whole. I love writing little imperfect messy living moments. People aren't perfect. Never will be. Never SHOULD be. And I fucking LOVE writing that. Even the "unnecessary details" feel necessary to me because they're HUMAN.

Spilling food on yourself. Getting food stuck in your teeth and maybe making funny faces while you're trying to get it out. Mentioning a silly moment from their youth in teasing. A disagreement. Putting on clothes and getting your arm stuck in your sleeve at first. "Ugly laughter". Losing your train of thought and saying nonsense while snapping fingers to try and get your thoughts back. Hugging someone taller than you and maybe having to change how you stand to fit together. Accidentally stepping on someone's foot. Bedhead, fixing someone's clothes, double chins, clumsy moments, Shifting, fidgeting, having someone mimic another's voice to make someone laugh, LIVING THINGS lksjdf ldskjf THINGS THAT MAKE US HUMAN!!!

And like?? A small thing, as I said I love just writing PEOPLE. But I see posts sometimes about how people "have a hard time writing women" and I'm just sitting here like??? "She's a person?? You've met another person before, right? Write the same way." and just get boggled and even, I don't know, disappointed? Even if she's not part of the main "cast" have her be, idk human?? Not just cardboard you know?? Don't "girlboss" her but also just?? simply have her have life!

Or then I've seen people literally admit "Well with canon there's not much to work with the women" WELL THEN MAKE STUFF UP!!! Use your big brain and have headcanons for her! See the potential she already has and fly with it!!! :D

How many times has she spilled food on her clothes and groaned because it's her favorite? How many times has she had snarled hair? She's probably had something in her eye at some point. She's probably tripped and skinned her knee once or twice. Does she swear? How would she react in this situation?

And sometimes I'll see people use history as an excuse or whatever but like??? Even IF systematically women weren't treated well, that wasn't the rule for ALL. For example, in the USA, Women usually couldn't go out in public in pants during certain periods. Yet I have photos of family from the 1930s where there are women in pants. Little girls and their mothers literally using a two-person saw and on the farm in pants. Just because the system is sexist doesn't mean that men in women's lives always enforce it. Just like nowadays. Reproductive rights. That's systematic. Daily life? I feel plenty safe with a lot of regular ass dudes. SAME BACK THEN MOST LIKELY!!!

Idk y'all. I'm just... disappointed by how many times I come across this type of stuff :/

[milkybishop]

i need to be clear, because the anime has caused alot of new and old people to the series to not be able to appreciate the actual story and just having shipping wars, or think the story is just farcille-powered, or that cause laios is autisitic it means he's not sexual at all and that his character is just 'Autism™️'....if i reblog ship stuff and laios autism funny stuff, i am doing it while also understanding their more 3D complexities from the source material, as i do with disco elysium etc....so if its me reblogging it, its ok

[simgerale]

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ; 3/3

TRANSCRIPT:

Present Day

magdalena: This is undoubtedly selfish, but... I do not believe I would make it very long without seeing you every day. "Ridiculous," you would say. "Only logical," I would reply.

. . .

m: Perhaps Olette is right. Perhaps I care for you more than I would like to admit. [takes a shaky breath] No… I care for you more than I ever thought possible. The Seam chose us, Luca. After a thousand years of silence, it bonded us. As an Empress, I have to believe that there is a grander scheme than love. But as a woman, I... I cannot help but to wonder...

[she envelops his sleeping lips in hers, but only for a devastating moment]

m: …if what you called fate was simply the Seam, roping us together all along.

[companionwolf]

I was trying to figure out ideas for a zine (I guess me, CL, P2, and Wolf make them now?) but, uh, just kinda ended up drawing myself... whoops.

[cookies-over-yonder]

12

The dads take a rest at another inn after Darryl obtains his anchor, and Grant has a rough night.

ao3

Darryl wakes with a start. Something is wrong. He can feel it.

The sound of quick and staggered breaths beside him is enough to confirm that suspicion.

Despite the dark, Darryl can still make out Grant's shaking figure, turned away from him.

"Grant?"

Darryl hears a sharp inhale followed by silence.

His hand makes its way to the still shaking shoulder of the figure in front of him, and he gingerly shakes it. "Kid?"

Grant lets out a large sigh, only for it to be cut off by a sob.

"Kiddo, what's wrong?" Darryl asks, soft and sincere.

No response.

"Come on, talk to me."

After a moment, Grant sits up, frantically wiping his tears, and Darryl follows, sitting beside him.

The kid looks a lot less out of it, but a lot more distressed.

"Um—" he clears his throat. "You know—you know how I said, uh, Yeet told me about how he was, like, feeling—err, not feeling anything?"

Grant is breathing shakily.

"Yeah," Darryl says, pushing down the part of him that wants to immediately soothe his son. He needs to listen first.

"It—it—it's scary… and, um, he'd been having, uh, nightmares too, and even when he wasn't having those, he would still lay awake thinking about them, and thinking about the memories…" Grant pulls his knees up to his chest and clutches them, staring straight ahead. "And it… it wasn't… I don't know… I…"

Grant's eyes are wide, and the words are briefly stuck in his throat. "Just. Scared. For him."

And without a second to spare, Grant buries his head in his knees, with his arms gripping himself tightly.

He shakes his head.

"I—I'll be fine, Dad, don't worry about it," Grant mumbles into his knees.

Darryl wraps his arms around Grant, and he tenses up for a moment. While debating whether to let go, Darryl's decision is made when the grip Grant has on himself loosens a little.

Grant's arms make their way around Darryl, and his fingers clutch the fabric of his shirt. The kid is trembling violently against him.

"Of course I'm worried about you, kid. I love you."

"I—"

Rapid breaths cut off whatever Grant would have said, and all that comes out is a panicked squeak.

"Grant, hey," Darryl pulls away and looks at him, holding onto his arms to keep him grounded.

Another panicked squeak is all Grant can muster. His eyes are shut tight, and his cheeks are flushed and stained with tears. His breaths are quick and shallow and out of control, as far as Darryl can tell.

" Dad— " he forces out. It's so small, and so hurt, and so scared, and so broken. Then, he opens his eyes. They're wide, and locked straight ahead. Grant is fully hyperventilating now. Whatever mask of 'I'm okay, I'm fine' he had on before has completely shattered by now.

"Hey, hey, hey," Darryl brushes Grant's hair away from his eyes.The kid's forehead is wet with sweat. "I'm right here, it's okay, you're gonna be okay, kid… we're gonna do a breathing exercise, alright?"

Grant jerks his head in a gesture that Darryl understands as a nod of affirmation.

"Okay, okay, breathe in with me."

Darryl takes in a long, loud, and exaggerated breath.

He can see Grant struggle to obtain control over his lungs.

"God—I—sorry," Grant stutters, "I'm sorry, sorry, I—"

A sob wracks Grant's body, and the heels of his hands press into his eyes.

Darryl feels his own heart break. Grant is in front of him, muttering apologies through what looks like an anxiety attack.

It dawns on Darryl that Grant thinks this is something he should apologize for.

Grant's hands make their way up to his hair and he starts tugging at it until his knuckles turn white.

"Kiddo, don't do that," Darryl places his hands over Grant's and the tight grip he has on his hair goes slack—like a surrender. While pulling Grant's hands away from his hair and holding them in his own, Darryl looks him in the eyes."You'll hurt yourself."

For a second, Grant just stares back, wide-eyed. Darryl thinks he can briefly see Grant shift into the apathetic shell of himself he'd been for the past little while, but then he breaks down into sobs more hysterical than before.

Somehow, he thinks his words made this worse, but he doesn't want to think about why.

"Kid, kid, kid, hey, it's oka—"

"It's—it's not , Dad," Grant snaps. He's still gasping for air, but he is loud .

"It's not okay!" he shouts, gripping Darryl's hands hard. "I'm…"

He deflates. His voice is small and weak and devoid of any and all fervor it had a second ago.

" I'm not…" he trails off.

"Come here," Darryl says softly, slipping his hands out of Grant's grasp and wrapping his arms around the kid. He's still gasping for air as he melts into the hug.

"Breathe, just breathe. Follow me."

Grant presses himself against Darryl's chest. Darryl isn't sure whether it was to follow the rise and fall of his breathing or… another reason, but it warms his heart either way.

Eventually, he takes a slightly slower breath in.

"Now breathe out."

Darryl lets out a long exhale ending with a whistle.

Grant's exhale is more like a sigh from someone who'd just been rescued from drowning, taking in and letting out air like they thought they'd never see it again. Quick and shallow, but alive.

"We're gonna do it again now," Darryl scrambles to say when Grant's breathing picks up once more.

This time is still rough. Grant is still gasping, but he seems to be gaining a little more control.

Darryl finds himself quickly blinking away his own wave of fresh tears.

After a few more rounds of guided breathing, Grant finally calms a little.

He's gripping onto Darryl's shirt with his face pressed against it, breathing softer.

Darryl places one hand on his back and another on the back of his head, and he plants a small kiss on the top of it.

"It's gonna be okay, kiddo."

☆

Henry lightly knocks on the door to Darryl's room before opening it quietly.

"Darryl? Everything okay? I thought I heard something," he whispers, but then he lays his eyes on what appears to be Grant sleeping soundly against Darryl's chest. His face is red and blotchy, and his fingers are curled around the fabric of Darryl's shirt.

"Think he woke up and started panicking. That or he didn't sleep," Darryl whispers back. "Shaking, crying, and started breathing too fast. I, uh, did a breathing exercise with him, just like you would…"

Henry feels a warmth wash over him at the words. "I'm proud of you Darryl, that's great."

"Thanks, man," Darryl rubs circles into Grant's back as he sleeps, "I'm scared for him," he whispers, quieter than before.

"Well, we're all here to support him, aren't we? I'm sure he'll be alright."

"I think I messed up, Henry."

"What?"

"Kid's ashamed of himself. And, and he uh, I don't think he knows he can come to me."

"Well, you can make it known now, can't you?"

"Henry I… I'd never seen him break like that before. And, and, I got the feeling that it wasn't the first time."

[misslisamiray]

Oh, hi. I uploaded Chapter 11 of Down With the Rickness over a week ago on Ao3, ff dot net, and of course here on Tumblr, but I just realized today I didn't post the links. Sorry - between work at pays-the-bills-job being crazy more often than not, having four posts to work on for the social media part of my volunteer job, and then me getting sick, It. Has. Been. A. Week.

Anyway, here's the Ao3 link for Chapter 11! Ff dot net link will be up in a few minutes. Chapter 12 is mostly typed out and should be posted in a few days (barring real life throwing some bullshit at me to delay that happening).

Also, here -have this picture of me and Rick Bear from a few nights ago.