#(although she is also one of the few people who doesn’t realize I’m bi lol

[the-gamer-blog-for-anyone]

My mom: reads something out loud off Facebook about not exposing kids to horror bc it could hurt them

Me, who watched horror almost every day from the beginning of middle school:

[cae-ruleam]

some trans!danny headcanons just because

or more like lgbt because this dude's definitely bi you cannot sway my mind. i need to dump these hcs somewhere people.

kind of a long blog i'm sorry.

i think danny realized his stance on gender quite early. probably early years of elementary school or smth. what i'm trying to get to with this is that his classmates could literally not care less and most probably didn't even realize the change. danny just became the standard instead of dani very soon.

jazz helped him most with his transition when he was a tween and helped him come out to their parents some years prior.

i like an idea i read just recently how jack goes "oh, danny-boy sounds great, son!" i love jack. he would definitely be like this.

jazz is definitely also the one who did the research on transitioning. danny knew she would help him with those things and he can't be bothered with them if she's already up for it anyway so he never told her to stop lol.

he probably eventually does some research on his own, though. both because some things are hard to ask/explain and because jazz didn't want to invade his privacy too much, especially as they got older.

the first time they go out to buy "boys' clothes" danny was so excited he probably throws all applicable aisles upside down ngl. they get told off for it by some store clerks later but they humor the kids all the way anyway. it's just what they have to say according to the rules.

when dash finds out, he will threatens to "stuff you into a locker just like i do fenton if you misgender him". it works really well and dash stays the only one to stuff him into lockers and hang him to flagpoles, just because "he's a loser".

very little changes between their dynamic which danny is honestly grateful for. although he could've gone without the bullying, but it's just whatever. however, down the line danny does notice that dash will be more careful with him and rarely has his hands near his chest.

literally every ghost understands him. even the most violent and evil of ghosts will beat up people who dare misgender him.

danny insists to both dash and ghosts that he can definitely handle himself though. but both threats already keep people enough at bay so he really doesn't have to anyway.

that, and amity park's small. there's very few people who had to be intimidated at all.

after years of being a half ghost and getting more used to and knowledgeable on ghost culture and practices, he'd probably reconsider his gender identity. this because i firmly believe most ghosts don't have a perception of gender. no one judges based on physical appearance considering there's so many ways people can die resulting in vastly different ghostly appearances.

that, and c'mon. they're dead. gender is the least of their afterlife concerns.

he'll still feel more masculine than anything, but the way no other ghosts ever judge him based on, well, literally anything a human would he starts feeling a bit of detachment from the concept of gender in general.

sooo what im trying to say is, demiboy danny? yes, demiboy danny all the way.

he might vibe with he/they because of this realization hmm.

looking back on when dash threatens people for danny's sake, he realizes that's probably when he found out he has a thing for other dudes too. something about him being so caring struck his heartstrings, much to his dismay. not like he'll ever admit this to anyone willingly.

i think jazz is definitely also sapphic. all girls are sapphic, they definitely give that vibe. anyway, the fenton siblings will often talk about their (celebrity) crushes together during their puberty years when hormones run amock.

while jazz is the one who does the research, sam probably helps him with all binder related stuff. she teaches him how to bind safely and reminds him at school to not wear it for too long after school or else it'll be dangerous.

idk why but i feel like sam would have some experience or at least knowledge on binders.

i think he's very confident in his identity and with himself. he may care about what people think of him sometimes, but his gender identity is not one of the things he cares about what others' opinions are.

he probably goes on T when he start's high school? he becomes more of a beanpole than he already was.

"you think you have it hard? im trans, gay and most of all DEAD. the universe didn't even let me pick a struggle." (/s) - is probably something he would say.

edit: i forgot this but i think danielle will decide to go by elle instead of dani to avoid verbal confusion but also because she knows that's what danny went by in the past. she respects this part of him a lot and decided against going by dani partially because of that.

[thatsamericano]

Some Sexuality Headcanons for this Story

Since Alfred trying to figure out his sexuality has become a bigger part of this story, there will be at least some brief mentions of the sexualities of some other characters in this story. So here are the headcanons I’m using.

Matthew: straight, and he hasn’t looked into it much, but I think if he did, he might realize he’s on the ace or aro spectrums too. He hasn’t been interested in that many girls other than Katya, but I don’t think it was quite as extreme as Alfred’s fixation on Savino and no one else.

Katya: bisexual, and she’s really happy about her boyfriend wearing his ally shirt to school even though he was doing it for his brother after he got bullied because it feels like a statement of support for her as well. Her boyfriend is straight, but she feels comfortable talking about her attraction to girls with him because he’s a secure, supportive straight guy.

Magnus: gay, and his type is dudes that are smaller/skinnier than him (so his boyfriend Lukas, and Savino just a little, although Alfred is completely oblivious about the Savino part, LOL)

Tolys: bi, and his boyfriend Feliks is pan. They’re fine with each other using the terms that make them most comfortable.

Emma: lesbian, and right now Savino and Katya are the only ones who know. Savino because he’s Emma’s ex-boyfriend and their breakup did have to do with the fact that she’s a lesbian, and Katya because she asked why Emma had been avoiding eating lunch with everyone even after getting back in touch with Savino. They become closer after Emma comes out to her because they’re both WLW, but in a friendship way since Katya just wants to be with Matthew and Emma is fine being friends too after she gets over her one-sided crush.

Kiku: I’m leaning towards making him ace/aro since I haven’t given him a boyfriend or girlfriend, but I’m not sure if he has officially labeled himself yet. This factors into the plot because Kiku senses that Alfred is like him in this respect and just doesn’t like people that way (which was true before Savino showed up in his life). He’s known Alfred since the third grade, and Alfred has never had a crush on anyone or even mentioned finding a celebrity attractive. When Savino asks him about Alfred soon after he starts sitting at their lunch table, Kiku basically says Alfred is ace/aro without using that exact terminology since he doesn’t want to label Alfred without his permission. It also factors into why he’s so awkward when he runs into Alfred and Savino in the library, because they were making out in a very heated way. Even if Kiku could be romantically interested in people, I don’t think he’d feel comfortable making out with them like that even behind closed doors, so he felt very uncomfortable seeing his friends like that in a semi-public setting.

Antonio, Augusto, Savino, and Feliciano: All bi, and Chiara is in the midst of figuring herself out, but I think she’ll end up calling herself bi too. For Savino and Feliciano, part of the reason they go with bi rather than other terms is that Antonio and their nonno call themselves bi, so they like the family connection. Savino also isn’t a fan of explaining his sexuality to people, so he doesn’t want to use some term and then get a “what’s that?” in response. With Savino specifically, he’s more frequently attracted to girls or woman-aligned people, so he can’t say gender isn’t a factor for him, and pansexual is not a good fit. I think Chiara will end up using bi for all the reasons Savino does (liking a girl is new for her, she doesn’t want to explain it to people, and she likes calling herself bi the way some people in her family do).

Arthur: gay as the day is long, and he was particularly loud about it back in high school when he was dealing with his homophobic parents (hence stuff like rainbow glitter jeans). He can still be loud about it as an adult, like with his Elton John Halloween costume he wore a few years before the story starts.

Francis: pansexual, though for most of his life he would have used the term bisexual since that’s been around longer. When he found the term pansexual, it really resonated for him, so he mostly switched over to using that. He doesn’t mind explaining it to people, though he does get tired of the jokes about being attracted to pans (but he thinks if people are being that shitty about it, they wouldn’t be much better if he said he was bi).

Alfred: At this point, he definitely knows he is capable of being attracted to Savino and gender-variant versions of his boyfriend. Pansexual might fit him, but he isn’t sure about using that as a label since his sexuality is so confusing to him already that he doesn’t want to get more questions about it and would be more sensitive to jokes about him being attracted to pans than Francis is. Before this story, he basically thought he was ace/aro but didn’t have the words for it. He’s definitely not completely ace or aro because of Savino, but he’s on both spectrums, and I think he might settle on calling himself gray-romantic and gray-sexual eventually. Demisexual is sort of close too, because he only realized he was attracted to Savino that way after knowing him for months but may have had unrecognized sexual attraction before that, but demiromantic doesn’t because he definitely fell in love with Savino at first sight even if he didn’t get that’s what was happening to him at the time. He avoids discussing his sexuality with specific terminology most of the time because it’s not anyone’s business and he’s insecure about the fact that it seems weird and complicated compared to everyone else’s. He might use the bi/pan label and then follow it up with the ace and aro spec labels because the ace and aro spec part is just as important to him as the gender thing if not more so. But he’d only do that with someone he’s close to who he feels he can trust and who will believe him when he says he’s bi but really only attracted to his boyfriend and imaginary gender-variant versions of him.

[cto10121]

Does R&J Play With Gender Stereotypes?

So I came across this piece of meta by @hamliet that rather intrigued me:

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

Let’s break this down.

“the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine.”

Romeo does indeed call Juliet the sun, but Juliet never calls Romeo the moon—or likens him with anything symbolically feminine, come to think of it. The closest she or the play gets is a small but clear association with night: Romeo has “night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes” and Juliet implores “loving, black-browed” night to give her her Romeo. Even then it is so that he can “make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Instead, Juliet consistently uses the same love language of authority as Romeo does with her, calling him her lord, husband, knight, “day-in-night,” “mansion of a love,” “god of my idolatry,” and, (my particular favorite), “tassel-gentle” or “falcon.” “Pilgrim” is the lowest social rank she uses, but of course she is following Romeo’s pilgrim-and-saints flirtation and its wink-wink bilingual allusion to his name. Romeo’s use of “sun,” then, could be viewed in the context of both lovers conferring cosmic/earthly authority, beauty, ownership, and sovereignty to each other—the Elizabethan equivalent of calling each other wife/husband. And of course they begin doing that immediately after they marry.

Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one.

Definitely not. Romeo is plenty decisive and bold—making the first move in wooing Juliet, climbing the orchard wall, showing himself to Juliet, immediately agreeing to marry her, nearly killing himself when he thinks Juliet might not take him back and, er, actually killing himself for her. I wouldn’t say he is impulsive, either—though he makes decisions fairly quickly, it is almost always with some deliberation beforehand (“Can I go forward when my heart is here?” “Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?” and his monologue after Mercutio’s exit) and of course there are instances in which he restrains himself (“I am too bold” and his monologue after Mercutio’s death). The most accurate description of Romeo is that he is a risk taker—at least when he is well and truly motivated. And even then it does not rob his deliberation or even his wits.

He is also not flighty. In fact, he proves just as loyal as Juliet—as soon as he meets her, he forgets about Rosaline and leaves her clear behind. He doesn’t once waver in his conviction that Juliet is for him and makes plans to die with her (and does!). His love for Rosaline is clearly framed by the narrative as shallow, performative, and passive, and the verse bears this out. He was never in any kind of relationship with Rosaline—his love was an unrequited crush that he was at perfectly liberty to have ditched, frankly. After that, it’s Juliet, Juliet, Juliet until he dies.

Also, once more, Romeo is no crybaby. He explicitly cries a total of two times—one even before the events of the play, when he pines over Rosaline under a grove of sycamore, and another when he’s 1) seen Mercutio get mortally wounded, 2) killed Tybalt, 3) learned that he is banished from the city, and 4) mistakenly believed that Juliet no longer wants him (the Nurse’s reply is vague enough to be misinterpreted); at the very least he is devastated to have been the cause of her pain. Anyone would break down in those circumstances. Juliet herself breaks down on hearing the news and arguably is more verbally vehement than Romeo—namely, that even the words “Romeo is banishèd” are worse than if herself, Romeo, her parents, and Tybalt were dead. She ends that monologue with a passive suicide threat: “And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” How anyone can argue Juliet isn’t as lovestruck as Romeo is beyond me.

What Shakespeare was most likely aiming for was showing the mutuality of R&J’s love with parallel scenes and even language. Both have chances to act strong, decisive, and bold, both show vulnerability and great emotion and passion, both are lovestruck. Both demonstrate so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits, which is almost always culturally-and time-based, anyway. There are only a few key differences between the two—almost all of the above traits, however, they both share. It’s almost as if…Shakespeare understood that no man or woman had all masculine or all feminine traits.

Moving on to the conclusion:

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit).

You just opened up 200+ years of fandom wank, OP. I’ll just do a quick sum-up.

The Sonnets are a complete mess. They are contradictory as hell, there is clearly more than one persona speaking, there is evidence that Shakespeare edited and revised them, evidence they were published with his permission, quite a few sonnets are based on pre-existing sources, and, most damnably of all, none of the most likely candidates for the so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady fit the narrative of the Sonnets perfectly or even satisfactorily—if there is even a clear narrative to these things to begin with. Sonnets were artificial works whose clichés and conventions were heavily satirized in Shakespeare’s own works—Berowne’s own rant-y sonnet swearing he would never believe in love sonnets comes most readily to mind. They were usually not meant to denote an actual real-life relationship, although there was a kind of “game” in trying to figure out which parts are true and which ones fiction. At least one sonnet sequence had a completely fictional addressee (Fulke Greville, I think).

Shakespeare’s sonnets do break a lot of these rules and conventions, and radically, and as they seem to have been compiled over many years, they lend themselves to autobiographical speculation. But, as a bit of a poet myself, I feel this: No one writes 154 sonnets—plus a whole narrative poem!—to one lover or even multiple lovers. Poetry is much less personal than laypeople think. Outside the sonnets, Shakespeare is not linked to any man romantically, and, besides his wife, only to two women (unnamed citizen’s wife and Jane Devanant).

Even if we assume Shakespeare’s bi, though, that doesn’t mean R&J is a queer narrative, which brings us to…

It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society.

A queer narrative that has its lovers express their love through the language of heterosexual marriage (husband, lord, wife, lady, pilgrim/saint), and commit suicide by a chalice-and-blade symbolism that mimics heterosexual sex (Romeo drinking a “cup” of poison and Juliet stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Freud couldn’t have done it better). If Shakespeare was thinking “gay allegory!!!” he would have had to at least change or erase the symbolism (straight coding?) of the double suicide, or have Juliet attribute to Romeo explicitly feminine imagery. He would have to have done some major plot rejiggering. He would have had to, in short, change the whole story.

(Unless by “queer narrative” you mean “anything that has an emotionally constipated male lead who doesn’t growl sexily and a female lead who doesn’t cry/faint at the drop of a hat.” That’d be most every narrative, lol.)

Also, I’m hard-pressed to think of love romances that are 100% patriarchal narratives, and those that do (Casablanca, maybe?) are not really true ones, anyway. Patriarchy inherently opposes all romances of love and sex, including heterosexual. It demands that men be raised as soldiers to kill enemies, slaughtered, and discarded, and women as chattel and land to be bought and sold. Marriage was that transferral of property. Having children is necessary, not out of love and care for them, but to propagate the species and create even more future warriors and womb incubators. It grudgingly accepts only (mostly straight and like maybe 1 or 2 gay) love narratives that can be subsumed into this narrow paradigm, but the tension of interpretation is always present. Ideally, it prefers to ignore, diminish, scorn and mock, or even suppress them. I suspect most people’s problems and discomfort with R&J stem from this pathology, this deep-seated unease over anything that touches on human experience patriarchy can’t quite control or subsume.

Shakespeare was obviously no lover of patriarchy (in his personal life, though…well, it’s debatable). His plays resist it greatly to various degrees, and R&J is no exception. R&J hews much closer to the reality of heterosexual love and love in general, which are informed by, though are not inherently tied to, patriarchy (as are gay relationships, sadly). Shakespeare is just being a good writer in throwing most of that rotten apple away; it doesn’t apply to what he was trying to do, anyway. R&J’s challenge to patriarchy, though, is heterosexual in nature.

And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

True dat.

[punkenglishnerd]

Was it hard for you to accept the fact that you weren’t straight? I’m 90% sure i’m bi too but I’ve considered myself straight all my life so now I feel a little lost and afraid of others finding out (particularly my family). Sorry if this is not the time with everything going on

Okay anon, prepare for a long answer! I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible, but sexuality is a complicated topic as you know, so my response will probably be pretty lengthy.

Realizing I was bi was a bit of a process. I always liked boys and constantly had crushes on them since I was four years old. But it wasn’t until high school that I started “noticing” girls. I didn’t know bisexuality was a thing back then because I had never met or heard of anyone who was bisexual. I remember sometimes thinking, “I wish I was a lesbian” because I was somewhat aware that I liked girls but I didn’t realize that I could like both. Then I started going on the internet more, got a tumblr (not this account but my old cringy fandom account) and I realized what bisexuality was. I still wasn’t really certain about it because the only girls I ever liked were celebrities, but then my senior year of high school I developed a crush on a girl in my class and that’s when I really came out to myself as bisexual. I was 17, so compared to many other people I was a “late bloomer” in terms of discovering my sexuality. But there are plenty of people like me who don’t realize they’re not straight until their late teens, or even later.

My best advice is this: Take your time with your sexuality. Coming out to yourself is a process, so don’t feel pressured or rushed to have things figured out right away. It is fine to question, to be unsure, and it’s even okay to think you’re a certain sexuality and then maybe realize that it’s something different later on. I’ve gone through my fair share of questioning, of thinking maybe one label fits and then realizing that a different label fits better. And sometimes no labels feel right, and that’s okay too. My second piece of advice is also super important!! Do NOT feel pressured to come out before you’re ready, and do NOT feel pressured to come out if it feels unsafe of uncomfortable to do so. It doesn’t matter if it’s physically or emotionally unsafe/uncomfortable; both are extremely valid, and please do not come out if you feel that way.

If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable to come out to certain people, you can always just come out to a few people you trust. The way I did it, I came out to my sister first because she’s the person I trust the most. Then I came out to my parents, and then my best friend. It was a slow process of coming out to each individual when I felt ready to do so with that person, and I didn’t come out “in general” to everybody until a year later. Keep reading below the cut if you’re interesting in hearing the specifics of my coming out:

The first person I came out to was my sister. I knew she would be accepting, but it was scary simply because I had never come out to anyone before and I wasn’t really sure how to do it. But I did it in a really roundabout way, and once I told her she said that she had a feeling but didn’t want to say in case she was wrong. So I guess it wasn’t that much of a surprise to her :) I decided to come out to my parents next, and that was a lot scarier. They’re both devout Catholics so I was really nervous about how they would feel. They’re such kind and loving people so I knew that they would most likely accept me, but I still felt scared. I remember casually asking them one time, “Don’t you think Jesus would’ve been okay with gay people because he loved everyone?” and they didn’t really think so. But I decided to come out to them anyway, and me being bi actually changed their whole perspective. They accepted me instantly, and they immediately started putting an effort into learning and informing themselves on lgbtq+ rights and how to be good allies. They’re both still devout Catholics, but they are super accepting and loving of everyone of all sexualities and they’re both huge allies to the lgbtq+ community.

After that, my next order of business was to come out to my best friend. I was so nervous!! I knew that she would accept me, but I was afraid that she would treat me differently. I’m the type of person who loves giving hugs or holding hands with my friends, and I was so afraid that she would be uncomfortable with that after I came out to her. When I finally came out to her, I told her that I hope she won’t be uncomfortable with hugs or anything like that, but that I understood if she was and I would respect her boundaries. But she didn’t care at all! She gave me a huge hug and I cried with relief. Our friendship didn’t change one bit after I came out to her, and I am forever grateful to her for that. We went our separate ways after high school so I don’t see her or hear from her much anymore, but whenever we do occasionally see each other it’s like we’ve never been apart. She was the best friend and biggest support I could ever ask for (aside from my sister lol).

As for coming out in general/to everybody, I didn’t do that until a year later when I was in college. I was too afraid to come out in high school because I went to a small Catholic school and it was scary af to come out in that environment. I went to a Catholic college (by that point I wasn’t Catholic anymore but I had only applied to Catholic colleges so I didn’t really have a choice but to go to one), but it was easier to come out there because college kids tend to be a lot more liberal-minded (although my school also had its fair share of closed-minded conservatives). The point is that I didn’t come out in general to everyone until I felt ready and safe to do so. And I’m honestly super glad I waited that year and only came out to a few trusted people until I was truly ready to come out to everyone.

I hope my answer helps anon! I’m sorry I’m so long-winded lol :) If you have any other questions or just need someone to talk to, I am always here to give advice or to just lend a listening ear.

[molsno]

I’m skipping the middleman on that trans ask game and just answering all the questions myself <3

this is long so it’s under a read more

1. How did you choose your name?

in senior year of high school, while I was in french class, I was thinking about the word vivre, to live, and how it conjugated. I forget what tense it is, but one way of conjugating it is “nous vivions”, and it dawned on me that the name vivian is based on the word vivre (or its latin origin). of course, I already liked the name due to the character from paper mario ttyd, but knowing that it means life really spoke to me, as I think the ability to live is a precious thing that shouldn’t be wasted. I decided pretty much then and there that I would name my daughter vivian some day. well... then I got the chance to play a character in my friend’s danganronpa killing game, and I thought playing a girl would be interesting. granted, I also already knew I was an egg and saw this as an opportunity to try out my favorite name, so I created vivian tamochi. as you might have guessed, I loved being her so much that I made vivian my actual name

2. What gives you the most dysphoria?

um, hearing recordings of my own voice probably. I always think that I sound very feminine but then I hear a recording of myself and it sounds like a bad impression

3. Do you have more physical dysphoria or more social dysphoria?

more social I guess? actually yeah I think all of the dysphoria-induced breakdowns I’ve had have been because of social things

4. What do you do to perform self-care when you’re feeling dysphoric?

something that helps a lot is shaving, especially when it’s a fullbody shave

5. What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?

this is a bit embarrassing but it was honestly christmas eve 2018. I saw my little cousin (I think she was 8 at the time) wearing a pretty dress and I felt sort of jealous that I never got to do that when I was her age. I was so confused about this feeling that I told my trans friend kyra about it and after asking me to clarify what I meant she linked me to the egg_irl subreddit. that was the first time I seriously considered it

6. When did you realize you were transgender?

I told my friend amanda how I’d been confused about my gender and she offered to take me to goodwill to try on some clothes. I was extremely nervous about it while we were there and I really had to work up the courage to not only pick out some clothes to try, but also take them to the fitting room with me. but once I put on a skirt for the first time I stood there for like a solid 5 minutes just looking at myself in the mirror with the biggest happiest smile on my face. in that moment I finally understood what gender euphoria was. I couldn’t deny I was trans any longer, it was just a matter of working up the courage to tell people

7. What is your favorite part of being transgender?

um, probably that I feel like a person now. also the little things, like seeing my hips get bigger or looking at how long my hair has gotten. just little things to smile about!

8. How would you explain your gender identity to others?

um, I’m girl <3

9. How did you come out? If you didn’t come out, why do you stay in the closet? Or what happened when you were outed?

I mean it depends on who, but I decided to do it on national coming out day 2019, in my discord server with friends. basically I commented on it being national coming out day and reposted my intro in the introductions channel with my new name and pronouns. everyone there sorta saw it coming I’m pretty sure

10. What have your experiences been with packing or tucking?

I’ve tucked a few times in public. it’s uncomfortable for sure, but not terrible once you get used to it. the idea of it made me squeamish at first, I’ll admit. but since I haven’t had much excuse to go out in girlmode the past year or so, I haven’t tucked much

11. What are your experiences with binding or wearing breast forms?

the closest I’ve ever gotten to wearing breast forms is wearing a bra every day for..... almost a year now? it doesn’t serve much purpose other than letting me feel something there, though that is changing since I’ve been on hrt for several months

12. Do you pass?

I mean... probably not? I feel like I’m very visibly trans. there have been like two times where I’ve been gendered correctly in public (one in girlmode, one not) but those are extremely rare

13. What (if any) steps do you want to take to medically transition?

well I’ve been on hrt for 8 months now so that’s one thing. I want to get laser hair removal for my facial hair because that’s one of the biggest sources of dysphoria for me, but yknow. that’s expensive! according to my understanding my insurance supposedly should cover bottom surgery, but I’m honestly in no rush to get that. I don’t really have much bottom dysphoria, but it would be nice to get surgery some day

14. How long have you been out?

it’s been about a year and two months now...... time flies

15. What labels have you used before you’ve settled on your current set?

up until I was like 17 I was incredibly insistent on being cis and straight despite very obvious (in retrospect) signs to the contrary. around 18 I was very confused why all my friends were lgbt in some form and also I kinda started realizing I don’t mind dick, and I thought it would all make sense if I was bi. I identified as cis and bi for like 4 years or so but the longer it went on the more wrong it felt considering I had never once during that time been attracted to a man

16. Have you ever experienced transphobia?

surprisingly not really? the most transphobia I’ve experienced has been a result of automated processes like proctored testing or emails. of course, I’ve seen all the nasty shit that terfs say about people like me, but I’ve never been a victim of it directly

17. What do you do when you have to go to the bathroom in public?

if there is a universal restroom that I can lock from inside then I use that. if not, I sigh dramatically and sadly use the men’s room

18. How does your family feel about your trans identity?

truthfully I don’t know. my mom seems accepting enough, but with the pandemic going on I haven’t talked to her much. I know my sister is aware, and shockingly she seems supportive too, but we haven’t talked about it in depth

19. Would you ever go stealth, and if you are stealth, why do you choose to be stealth?

if I could go stealth I would. I’m sorry but I don’t want to be visibly trans

20. What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?

the sooner you start transitioning the happier you’ll be. by denying this part of yourself you’re just making yourself miserable

21. Why do you use the pronouns you use?

she/her makes me happiest. I’ve (against my will, mind you) used they/them and been called molsno in a group that I wasn’t out in, and..... it made me feel..... distant, I guess? it was better than he/him, but it felt much less personal

22. Do your neurodivergencies and/or disabilities affect your gender?

I mean...... yeah? as a trans lesbian it’s very easy for me to hate masculinity given how it’s instilled nothing but negative feelings in me literally my entire life, and being autistic makes it harder to understand how the things I say about gender negatively impact the people around me

23. What’s your biggest trans-related fear?

the fear that I may never be able to believe I can be loved as a woman, probably

24. What medical, social, or personal steps have you already taken to start your transition?

coming out nearly everywhere and getting on hrt!

25. What do you wish cis people understood?

I desperately wish cis people understood even the basics of trans issues. still to this day many cis people don’t even know the right terminology to use for trans people. they think “trans man” and “trans woman” mean the opposite of what they actually mean and that’s just so goddamn frustrating. many of them think transitioning is just bottom surgery and that’s it. like, they don’t know anything about hrt. cis people please educate yourselves on trans issues I’m begging you

26. What impact has being trans had on your life?

it’s affected many aspects of my life but I think the biggest one is that I feel like a person now. I always felt like a robot, or like someone putting on a performance before, but I feel like a human being now

27. What do you do to validate yourself?

ummm... not much really. I guess one thing that has helped is making my character astrid trans? because if I ever think something bad about myself I can stop myself and ask if I would think the same thing about her, and of course the answer is no.

28. How do you feel about trans representation in media?

it’s bad. trans women very rarely get any positive representation. like the only transfem characters that come to mind that I think were handled well were lily hoshikawa from zombieland saga and vivian from paper mario (although even that’s debatable given the english censorship about her gender and the way beldam abuses her in japanese). meanwhile nonbinary representation consists almost exclusively of aliens, shapeshifters, robots, etc. and trans men get literally nothing. like. trans representation is just so abysmal it’s not even funny

29. Who is your favorite trans celebrity?

umm....... I don’t really care about celebrities lol. if I were to answer this question it would be “oh yes I’ve heard of these people”

30. Who is the transgender person who has influenced you the most?

gosh, how could I ever decide? most of my friends are trans so it’s hard to say but if I had to answer.... my friends kyra and modeus were probably the most helpful when I was figuring myself out

31. How are you involved with the trans community, IRL or online?

mostly online

32. How do you see yourself identifying and presenting in 5 years?

I’ll almost certainly still be a woman, and hopefully my transition will have gone well enough that I’ll be able to pass

33. What trans issue are you most passionate about?

healthcare. the difficulty so many people face with getting access to trans healthcare is ridiculous and discriminatory. I’ve written essays for school about this topic and they were the easiest essays I’ve had to write because of how passionate I am about this

34. What advice would you give to other trans people, or what message would you like to share with them?

pick your head up queen/king/royal, your cat ears are falling down

35. How do you feel your gender interacts with your race, disability, class, weight, etc. from the perspective of intersectionality?

well I’m white, able bodied, average weight, and I’m about to get a degree in computer science, so I have a lot of privilege that other trans people don’t have. I fully recognize that. it breaks my heart that so many less privileged trans people, particularly trans women of color, are murdered and never even get the justice they deserve. I wish there was more I could do to stop it, but privileged as I am, I’m only one person. I want everyone to be aware of who the major victims of transphobia are. look out for black trans women especially, they need your protection and support most of all

36. What, if any, is the difference between your gender identity and your gender expression?

not much. I’m a woman with a very feminine gender expression, when I’m free to be. the biggest feminine thing that I don’t do is makeup, but that’s more due to dysphoria rather than a distaste for it

37. Do you feel more masculine, feminine, or neither?

feminine uwu

38. What is your sexual and romantic orientation, and what are your thoughts on it?

I am a lesbian and that is very epic of me. I love girls and seeing girls in love makes me happy and imagining myself as a girl in love with another girl makes me even happier

39. Is your ideal partner also trans, or do you not have a preference?

I always hate admitting this, but due to personal reasons, my ideal partner is cis. this is mostly because I very much want to have biological children, and that’s simply not possible with another trans woman. I wouldn’t rule out an afab nonbinary person entirely, it just really depends on how comfortable said person is with femininity and also how they feel about dating a lesbian. if not for my desire to have kids (which is not something I’m willing to compromise on since it has been my lifelong dream) I would have a lot more options. truth be told, cis women kind of scare me, and it would be so much easier to date someone who fundamentally understands what it’s like to be trans. but biology is cruel unfortunately

40. How did/do you manage waiting to transition?

it was incredibly difficult. thankfully, it didn’t last very long. I only had to wait about 6 months, and most of that time was spent waiting until I was able to bank sperm because I didn’t want to risk becoming permanently infertile after starting hrt

41. What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?

ngl...... reddit. the trans boards have many, many helpful resources for transfem people. I don’t really go there anymore but it was immensely helpful in the early stages

42. Do you interact with other trans people IRL?

I mean..... yeah, but not very much anymore on account of the pandemic. I made a few trans friends junior year of college and we still talk occasionally, but it’s been several months since I last saw them all

43. Are you involved in any trans-related activism?

not really 😔

44. Free space! Answer any question you want, or make up your own question to answer.

“Wow Vivi how come you’re so epic?”

I was born this way <3

[strawberry-sundaze]

Hello! May i please have a MHA matchup? I’m a bi 18 year old 5’9 thin girl with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. I’m antisocial, and closed off to most people. I have a sarcastic and dirty sense of humor, and i’m childish. I love to playfully tease people. I’m a gryffindor, and quite stubborn. I’m very independent. I get jealous easily. My hobbies are shopping, singing, exercising, reading, and baking. I love anything to do with horror. I also wear sweaters 24/7. Thanks in advance!!

YES, of course you may!!  ^ω^ I like that you included your Hogwarts house~ also I picked up slight Yaoyorozu vibes from you, which I love love love. Thank you for asking!

Your (aged up!) UA student match is...

Shoto Todoroki!

This is SUCH a good boy!! Your independence and stubbornness would drive him insane, but in the best ways possible. He would think you are so gorgeous. Your dark hair and hazel eyes reel him in. Sho also loves that you’re pretty tall! You + Shoto would be...

Unstoppable. For someone as talented and beautiful as Todoroki is, he certainly doesn’t act like he knows it most of the time. He likes people, but he isn’t the most social person, so he’d understand not wanting to be around them all the time. Although he is tough to read on the outside, Shoto would probably share his thoughts if you asked, making him the perfect blend of quiet and communicative. I imagine that you got along so well because you both would sit/stand away from the crowds and action when in public places. You empower him, excite him, keep him relaxed; it’s so perfect and more than he could wish for. Shoto would do his absolute best to return the happiness you give him tenfold. 

Super active! Shoto would always want to do things with you! He’d love to take you shopping or out for soba. Since you like exercising, Shoto would also ask you out on workout dates! Go cycling, jogging, swimming, to the gym to lift weights with him, whatever type of exercise you enjoy doing most! If you like yoga, he’d even be willing to try it out with you. He’d love to curl up with a book with you. If you’re down, Sho may even love to start a little book club, just you and him, of course. PLEASE wear sweaters with him, thank you,, He wouldn’t always get your dirty jokes, but some of them are bound to land. Sho would BLUSH. Secretly likes being teased

The “it” couple. Every girl knows that Shoto is the most attractive boy at UA, even if he has no idea. Many would be supportive, many would be jealous, but neither of you really care. You’re just there for each other. Todoroki would be oblivious to your jealous streak at first, but once you told him, he would be almost painfully blunt with all the other girls. He is so loyal though, you honestly have nothing to worry about.

Some UA simp: “Hi Shoto~, I have some studying to do, I was hop-”

Sho: “No. (Y/n) doesn’t appreciate you asking to hang out with me one on one. I can’t tell if you are flirting. If so, please don’t. Thanks.” 

Lol okay have a pro hero. Please take her! It is...

Ms. Joke! (Emi Fukukado)

I know, I know, she most definitely isn’t an introvert, BUT! My favorite couples have personalities that complement each other rather than ones that are exactly alike, so here is why I see this being a match:

Although Ms. Joke is a happy-go-lucky, somewhat obnoxious, very enthusiastic lady, she obviously takes a liking to those who are challenging to get a laugh out of. She can be childish as well, so there would be plenty of room for playful banter between you two. Joke would have so much fun being poked fun at, and she’d tease you right back! One of the most interesting things to find out about her is how she would react to your sarcasm and dirty jokes. Would she laugh? Would she be surprised but still try to play it off? A speechless, blushing mess beyond all recovery? I like that one because not many people can catch her off guard.

Emi would be so affectionate! She would live for your hugs, hold your hand, anything you’d be comfortable with. She’d pull you off the couch, twirl you around, and suggest a fun date for the two of you! Joke has odd taste in fashion, but you can’t tell me she wouldn’t enjoy shopping with you. Emi would beg you to sing. She loves to hear your voice, and music brings her joy! Oh! Also, please bake with/for her. Sometimes she’d take it seriously, other times... good luck. Emi would be trying to throw flour at you or dab batter on your face. She would always help you clean up, though and sample anything you made.

Joke would take pride in getting to know you. All giggles aside, she knows you don’t open up easily. It makes her feel so special that you chose her back. She adores everything about you from your stubbornness to your sweaters. Emi may even go as far as to read/watch something scary with you! Honestly, she’d probably laugh at herself getting scared (or you if you were scared) before cuddling up close to you, silently thankful that she ended up with someone so wonderful.

And finally, your MHA villain match. For you, I picked...

Twice! (Jin Bubaigawara)

I ~love~ Jin. He can often be confusing; his words and actions lead others to misunderstand him or his messages, but Twice really, REALLY has a big heart. He has quite a few struggles, but who doesn’t? On good days, Jin is so much fun to be around. On bad days, just show him some extra compassion, be gentle and patient, and he will proceed fall head over heels for you. 

Wow, he did not realize he had a thing for you until it smacked him in the face. Seriously. You were casually playing volleyball with Toga in the LoV lair when Twice arrived. At first, he was alert, seeing as there was a volleyball flying around the lair, but then he let his guard down after watching a few clean passes. Shigaraki told you not to play inside, but he left to do something else...of course neither you or Toga listened. Toga being the devil she is decided to spike the ball. “AH!” The volleyball awkwardly caught the side of your arm as you shanked it. You watched in terror as it flew through the air and smack into Jin’s forehead. 

Twice: “Hey!” 

Y/n: “Toga!! Ugh. I’m so sorry, Twice. Are you okay?”

Twice: “Uh... yeah, I’m fine--not one bit!”

*Y/n goes to examine his head and Jin is just  s t a r i n g  at y/n because they are so close and wow have they always been this beautiful??*

Although he wouldn’t admit it, Jin likes when you are jealous. It makes him feel desired. Don’t get him wrong! He wouldn’t ever intentionally do anything to make you jealous, but if you did ever act possessive of him, he would melt on the spot. Twice hasn’t really ever had anyone want him like that... of course he’d treasure it. Every little thing you say gets locked in his head. He will never forget the compliments or sweet nothings meant for him. Your dirty jokes and sarcasm? Jin would think you’re hilarious! If you decided to tease him, he would probably pretend to be wounded by your words. Truthfully, however, he thinks it’s so much fun to play around with you.

Jin loves that you always wear sweaters. You make them look so good! And sweaters with those curls of yours? Ooh! He could just eat you up. Jin would hug you from behind and give you many, many forehead kisses please kiss his stitched up forehead, too. Twice would constantly daydream about you and come up with things to say to you for when he sees you next. He loves hard and is extremely devoted. Oh, I almost forgot! Jin would ask you to bake for him whenever you had free time. He mostly just wants to sit down and watch you work your magic, but the end result is pretty fantastic, too. 

I hope you liked it!! Glad you asked <3

[skylights422]

@ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity created a Q&A for aspec authors/writers, and as an aspec author, I am excited to participate and answer as many of their questions as I can. Under a cut since it became really outrageously long.

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

Typically I’d say my characters are a mix of general inspiration from other stories/characters and then bits and pieces taken from myself. I try not to make any of them like a clone of myself or another character, try to mix it up, possibly with mixed success but that is the goal.

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Oh wow, okay I have characters I still use from grade school and middle school, and those characters have changed/grown a lot. Most notoriously (to me) though are my two fellas Euphranor and Kadri. I created them while daydreaming in middle school while watching those science videos in class about how I could make a more parody-like version of said videos, Kadri being the energetic and comically sadistic teacher and Euphranor being the constantly irritated and foul-tempered student. The core of their designs and personalities haven’t totally changed (Euph is still a hot-head and Kadri still likes to troll him), but they’ve become far more nuanced as characters as their story become more involved and serious. They’ve also become softer characters, with Euph having a Heart of Gold and Kadri being a bit morally grey but generally compassionate and friendly. I think the cause of this change and others comes from a mix of things, for one I simply got older and what I wanted out my characters changed a bit. But also I think it’s because I spent so much time with those characters in my head that I couldn’t help but develop them more fully, which in turn made me want to give them a good story. Also, everyone is definitely more queer now then how they started, largely because I became more aware and comfortable with my own queer identity and spent more time in queer spaces (though with Euph I actually just realized he had to be gay because I every het relationship I envisioned for him fell totally flat and yet imagining him as having crushes on guys just seemed to work better/make more sense, and that was an earlier decision).

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

I definitely do! I have many, many stories I want to publish, as books or comics or tv shows or films. I’ve always wanted to publish some of writing since it’s one of my main passions and have always taken inspiration from the stories I consumed. I just love writing and would want to be able to do it as my main career, the key will just be figuring out how to focus on one project long enough to finish it. xD

5. Surprise fact! Give a random fact about your character(s), whether it’s their favorite color, food, or even song!

Euphranor loves to sing! He hums to calm himself down and even full on sings to vent his feelings sometimes. Kadri loves literature and video games, and blackberry pie is his favorite food.

6. Admit it, you have a folder on your computer of the various types of picrews you’ve created for your character(s). Would you mind posting a few (or five)?

*VIBRATES* MY TIME HAS COME. I absolutely have way too many picrews of my fellas so I won’t post them all, just two each for the core four of my main novel project. First, Euphranor:

(yes he is a Hufflepuff)

Kadri:

(also since I dragged the Hogwarts houses into this Kadri is Ravenclaw)

Ena:

(I put her in Gryffindor)

And finally, Fiera:

(Right now I have her in Slytherin. She could also be in Ravenclaw though)

7. Time to get serious for a bit. There’s been heavy debate on having non-human characters identify as ace, aro, non-binary, etc., but never actual humans. As someone who’s aspec, how would you explain to someone who’s allo why this can be and is seen as hurtful?

I mean, as a sci-fi fan I definitely love if the non-human characters are queer coded, but it’s definitely important to include human representation as well, and I think there are a few simple reasons for that. One is that queer people are, in fact, humans, and therefore our stories deserve to be told as they are in reality as well as how they could be in fiction. The other is only writing us as inhuman implies you consider our identities as fictitious or too strange for a human to have, and queer people already have to deal with other forms of erasure and invalidation in real life. (Also, not everyone is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and they should still be able to read stories where they can see themselves)

8. It’s a sad reality that many stories in mainstream media don’t have characters that are aspec, not to mention without resorting to harmful stereotypes. Besides there being nothing wrong with IDing as aspec, why did you choose to have your character ID as such? What would you tell other authors who’re interested in writing characters that are aspec, but are afraid of offending the community?

I have a huge list of aspec characters, which definitely started happening more once I was aware of my own asexuality (and later, aromanticism), since I realized that I could make my own aro and ace characters and then just went wild with it lol. It’s also easier for me to write since I can actually draw from personal experience somewhat for it. Beyond representation having aro and ace characters also allows you to explore more facets of human emotions/the human experience, so that’s always fun.

As for how I would advise allies looking to write a-spec characters, my main advice would be to remember that we are an incredibly diverse group of people, and so while no one a-spec character will resonate with every a-spec reader, an a-spec character written in good faith will definitely speak to some of us. Write them as an character first, and when it comes to things like how their attraction does or doesn’t work and what they want out of relationships, figure out what works best for them. Really, if you’re concerned your character would be offensive in some way you can always make a post asking about it, many of us are happy to offer constructive advice and appreciate that someone is wanting to put in the effort to write about our experiences. Reading or listening to anecdotes from an array of a-spec people is also a good way of getting ideas of how to portray us, and there are various resources for that (the tags, AUREA collects anecdotes from arospec individuals, and probably more than I can think of offhand)

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Unsurprisingly I have many characters who are aroace (Fiera is one of them), and Ena is bisexual and gray-aromantic. Kadri was originally supposed to just be bi/pan but has become increasingly aspec, will they end up gray-aro as well as grey-ace? Will they end up as a pan oriented aroace? I don’t know yet, but they sure are a pan a-spec. My most recent project has exclusively aro-spec protagonists, Valentine is aroace, Cedar is demiromantic, Raelene is cupioromantic, and then Clematis and Hadyn are presently just Aro and might stay that way. My aroace characters are often styled after my own aroace experiences, while other a-spec characters aren’t as much.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Well, I think there are a few ways to make ‘good rep’. There is the ‘this character helps bring awareness/educate about the community’ and then there’s ‘this character just resonates with certain a-spec people a lot’, and the main reason I think it’s important is because rep should be for the people they’re representing. So if rep hurts the community or totally fails to be relatable to anyone who’s actually a-spec, then it missed the whole point and is doing just as much to leave the community feeling left in the dust as no rep. Of course things do get complicated when the community is divided on whether the rep is good or not, which I imagine will be a common occurrence, and many examples of rep probably fall into the grey area between Good and Bad, but generally people should aim to tell stories that will help more than hinder the people you are telling your story about. (Although I also think that the long term end goal is to get to the point where there is enough representation that it doesn’t matter if some of it is ‘bad’ or not, since I feel like that is the true state of normalization, but that is sadly not yet the case)

12. What’s the genre of your most recent story? Do you always write in this genre? If so, what other works do you have? If not, why did you pick it?

My most recent story (with Valentine) is fantasy, inspired by shoujo style anime series like Cardcaptor Sakura, while Euph’s story is more dystopian urban fantasy? His exact genre has shifted around a lot and will probably continue to do so. In general, most of my works are fantasy in some way or another. A few are more sci-fi or horror based, but definitely the majority are fantasy whether that be magical girl type stories, urban fantasy, superheroes, or dark fantasy.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

I’m going to go with Fiera here. The short version of her backstory is that she and her older brother were born to neglectful parents, and while their grandmother was attentive emotionally she also lived far away. Her brother discovered magic, long thought forgotten, but killed himself shortly after, leaving Fiera alone and confused. She then made a point to dedicate herself to studying the theory and history of magic in the hope that she may someday understand why her brother would take his own life so suddenly like that. She has a down to earth personality and is very observant, and has a great deal of ambition and focus for tasks. She naturally has a more lighthearted and curious personality, but has become more somber since the death of her brother. While she always struggled with sustaining personal relationships, it’s only recently she started using her power of observation to be more manipulative and always keep a cool, pleasant demeanor. She has a love for fashion and sewing, as well as an interest in chemistry.

She isn’t really based on me at all backstory or appearance wise, and only slightly takes after me personality wise. Our main similarity is that we both can be quietly observant and don’t tend to get outwardly angry very often, and that we are both aroace. But I am nowhere near as focused as her, am terrible at lies/manipulation, and have different interests. I’m also way more prone to energetic rants and blunt statements than she is.

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

The tone of Euph’s story is kind of all over the place due to how often I’ve tweaked it, but there are certainly oceans of angst for all the protagonists. There’s just also decided remnants of the wacky humor from when the story was predominantly a comedy, and a lot more scenes of the characters just relaxing or goofing off than might be typical in a high tension drama adventure. My story with Valentine is generally much more lighthearted, though there will be some deeper moments for character development (and also because I want it to have a slightly gothic vibe, just Because)

16. How long have you been writing? Has your style changed from when you first began to now? What are some tips you’d give to those who’re interested in writing a story of their own, be it professionally or as a hobby?

I’ve been writing in some capacity just about as long as I can remember, and so my style has definitely taken various shifts depending on how old I was and what I was taking as my main inspiration at the time. Sometimes I went for more sarcastic and whimsical narration regardless of the events happening of the story, sometimes I went for a more quick modern-ish style, sometimes I would focus more or less on descriptions or dialogue. I don’t really know where I’m at right now though.

What I would advise to anyone wanting to sit down and write is to be patient and kind with yourself. Nine times out of ten what sounds epic in your head will come out at first as clunky and all over the place. But that is pretty much the whole purpose of first drafts; the clunky first draft crawls so the second draft may walk so the third draft may walk a little faster so the final draft may run. The other thing I would advise is to absolutely experiment, and see what works best for you. There is every kind of writing advice out there imaginable, much of it contradictory, so really you just have to mess around with styles and perspective and dialogue and see what happens, which stuff you liked and which stuff you didn’t.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

My writing process is pretty much a mishmash of writing whatever comes to me, then planning, then writing, then using a bunch of character building exercises to have fun but make no progress in the plot, then neglect the project for months, then write some more or maybe plan. I don’t know how much this would help others, though I have found when I set goals with deadlines and some external pressure (nanowrimo, reward system implanted by friends, etc) I am far more productive, so perhaps that is something others could try if they struggle with staying on track?

18. Your book’s become quite popular, easily reaching the New York Times Bookseller list, and now, you’ve been picked to lead a writing workshop. It goes swimmingly, and afterward, someone comes and tells you that your book not only inspired them to write a story of their own, but also helped them discover and accept their identity. What’s your reaction?

Mostly I would just be flabbergasted, but also extremely pleased and honored to have been able to provide any kind of help or assistance to my readers.And I would feel very happy for the person, since that sort of inspiration is great to come by.

19. Are there any published stories out there that feature aspec characters that you also read? Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately not that I can think of! I am peripherally aware of some ace characters, but they aren’t in stories I personally consume. I hope to find more though!

20. Just for fun, write down a paragraph of your most recent writing. It can be an action-packed scene, some witty dialogue, or a colorful description that you really enjoyed. (Be sure to properly tag any possible triggers!)

Well, my most recent finished work would be the clunky first draft of my novel. So, here’s a silly conversation that entertained me to write:

Once they had bought the food, they went back to the park to eat. 

“You know, Fiera, I have come to a realization.” Kadri said.

“Oh? What’s that?” Fiera asked.

“Store snacks are not as filling as restaurant food, nor as refined, but they are decidedly addictive.” he said, munching on Twizzlers.

“Yep. That’s what makes them store snacks. Plus, I couldn’t get any really nice stuff. I’m not made of money.” Fiera explained.

“Which brings me to my next question, how exactly are you financing our meals? You don’t seem to work a job of any kind.” Kadri said. Fiera was almost surprised that he knew about jobs, but decided not to ask about it. 

“You’re right, I don’t. But my parents leave me about sixty bucks a week so that they can do what they want without me starving to death in their absence. After yesterday and just now, I’m down to like eight bucks, and the next payment comes in three days, so after this stash goes it's dollar store snacks only.” Fiera explained.

“I see. Fascinating. And these drinks you bought us, why are they vitamin drinks?” Kadri said,looking over a vitamin water curiously.

“Because we definitely aren’t going to get any vitamins from chips and candy.”  Fiera said simply.

“There is logic to that, I suppose.” he said. There was silence for a few moments.

“Um… Kadri?” Fiera said after a while.

“Yes, Fiera?” Kadri said.

“You know you can’t eat a whole bag of Twizzlers in one go, right?”  Fiera said.

“I don’t see why not. If it is not going to give me the nutrients I need, it may as well provide me with the maximum level of pleasure it is capable of.” Kadri said.

“Yeah, but you’ll get sick. And we have limited supplies.” Fiera countered. Kadri looked at the bag of Twizzlers in alarm.

“These are poisonous in large doses!?” he exclaimed.

“What? No, not poisonous, they just make you sick because they’re candy. All candy does that if you keep eating it.” Fiera said.

“Commoners lead dangerous lives, it would seem. I shall never forget this betrayal.” He said to the bag of Twizzlers, putting it down and taking the vitamin water instead. 

[bugaboosandbees]

Rally to the Queen

Okay. I know that I shouldn’t be starting anything else new, and I definitely won’t start actually writing this until I finish with my Reine Ruse AU, but I ended up getting so attached to my Bee!Kagami design (and so salty about Onichan!Kagami) that I ended up with a whole slew of headcanons about a post-Riposte Bee!Kagami Kagaminette AU.

I call it Rally to the Queen.

Here’s what goes down.

This takes place immediately after Riposte.

Marinette still feels really bad about judging the point wrong. She talks to Adrien to ask how Kagami is doing. He says that he thinks that she’s okay now, but Kagami was totally exhibiting some behaviors that he recognized as the son of a largely absent parent with absurd standards. He doesn’t have the time he’d like to have to check in on Kagami, so he also tells Marinette that it sounded like Kagami was under a lot of pressure at home and was afraid of her mother judging her for losing the fight.

Marinette, of course, feels terrible and her patented Dupain-Cheng-family we-must-adopt-everyone genes kick in, so she decides to track down Kagami’s home address to apologize formally and to make sure that Kagami’s mom knows what really went down.

When she gets there, she’s flustered and awkward as usual but good-hearted and although Kagami’s mom initially is not thrilled about the weird intrusion, she doesn’t hate Marinette.

Since she’s there, she and Kagami end up chatting either that day or some other time. Marinette mentions that she’s looking forward to trying out for the fencing team again the following year to learn aside Adrien and Kagami.

Kagami realizes that she took the only spot on the team. She’s not the sort to feel bad about this and wouldn’t normally, but Marinette was being so kind and she’d actually tried to stand up to her mother for her, so she offers to give her fencing lessons. (Maybe she covers it up as extra practice for her as she’s not really much of a touchy-feely person.)

Anyway, Marinette starts going to Kagami’s house once a week for fencing practice. She always brings fresh baked goods. I don’t think Kagami has many friends, especially with how intense we’ve seen her family to be and being so new to Paris, so she might not really know how to deal with Marinette’s brand of friendship at first.

They become really good friends. I actually think they really would if they spent any sort of time together in canon without misunderstandings and Adrien and sometimes somewhat suspect writing in the way. They are both determined, powerful young women with hearts of steel and an unstoppable drive towards something that they’re very passionate about. They’re both straightforward and value honesty and dislike liars. They would be an UNSTOPPABLE team.

I don’t think Sapotis happens in this AU. There’s no salt against Alya here, but I think it would be reasonable for Marinette avoid giving a miraculous to her best friend no matter how much she’d like to share being superheroes with her. This is because Alya is shown in season one especially to be very adamant about revealing Ladybug’s identity. This was even the main goal of her akumatized form, Lady Wifi. Marinette loves Alya deeply, but I think that there would be reasonable doubt there about whether or not Alya would be able to keep her own secret or if she would use her position as a sometimes-superhero to discover more about Ladybug. We’ve seen in canon that Marinette obviously hates lying to her best friend, so I think it’s reasonable to think that she wouldn’t manufacture a situation where she had to do so even more.

Also, even though Anasai technically took place before Queen’s Battle, just go with me here and assume it didn’t and that Style Queen was the first akuma that Ladybug needed help with. We know that she picked the Bee miraculous in Style Queen and, as Marinette is good friends with Kagami already in this AU, she definitely sees how much this miraculous would play to her friend’s strengths. They also fence together all the time, so Marinette knows how Kagami fights and wouldn’t have to learn a new teammate’s style in the middle of an already complicated fight. Since Kagami isn’t Alya, she wouldn’t already be at the Effiel tower and wouldn’t be turned to glitter by Style Queen, so Marinette would be able to safely get the Bee miraculous to her.

Ladybug and Mitsubachi are a deadly combination. Style Queen never stood a chance. Everything goes pretty smoothly and Ladybug is able to get the Bee miraculous back from Kagami without incident. (That being said, Marinette is a flustered bi mess and totally fumbled once or twice in the fight because damn, Kagami makes a deadly and attractive superhero.)

And because I’m a sucker for redeeming Chloe I am physically incapable of leaving her out of this AU. Oops, lol. Without Queen Bee, the Queen’s Battle arc would definitely have some pretty substantial changes. Chloe’s mom would still be being pretty awful and Chloe wouldn’t have gotten her hands on the Bee miraculous. She’d still have to be upset enough to get akumatized over her mom (so Gabe wouldn’t give up being Hawkmoth (also, he’d have only just learned that the Guardian was in Paris so that might be another incentive)) but she wouldn’t become Queen Wasp because she was never Queen Bee in the first place.

Instead, she becomes a different sort of version of @imthepunchlord ‘s Princess Amour akumanette concept. She just really wants to be loved. Maybe instead of having a Chat Noir “knight” as the akumanette had, some ladybug merch of her’s would hold the akuma and turn into a version of Ladybug that would help and protect and validate Chloe as her knight. After LB beats this akuma, she has an honest talk with Chloe that night because she could see that Chloe was really struggling and, despite their very checkered past couldn’t help but wanting to help.

Ladybug gives Chloe some advice and Chloe does her level best to live up to it in her day to day life. It’s a long hard road and it doesn’t come easily, but every once in awhile Ladybug will drop by and knowing that her heroine is proud of her gives Chloe the push she needs to change for the better.

I should also mention that I’m switching the places of the fox and peacock miraculouses in this AU. If we’re still working with the headcanon that Mr. and Mrs. Agreste used the miraculouses that Gabe has, it makes sense that they’d have the butterfly because everything we’ve been lead to believe indicates that it was a good fit for Mrs. Agreste. That being said, what we know of the Peacock makes no effing sense for Gabe. He’s creative, crafty, and not above playing dirty. That man is a fox through and through, you can’t change my mind. Therefore, Fu has the peacock and the fox is the damaged miraculous sitting in the Agreste safe.

This is relevant, I promise.

So, Ladybug and Chat Noir have worked with Mitsubachi quite a few times. She fits pretty effortlessly into the team dynamic but is definitely with Ladybug in taking the job super seriously and not always being down with Chat’s attitude.

Kagami and Marinette are still hanging out. Kagami is falling for Marinette and Marinette is falling for Kagami, but Marinette had confided in Kagami earlier about her crush on Adrien, so Kagami thinks that Mari is still in love with Adrien and Marinette doesn’t think Kagami would be interested in her, so there’s an awful lot of mutual pining going on.

Hawkmoth is escalating and Fu approves of Kagami after testing her himself, so she gets the Bee miraculous on a permanent basis.

With the extra help, it’s a while before Ladybug’s lucky charm calls for another hero, but, when it does, she needs the peacock. Maybe she was going for Alya with this one, but, being the Ladyblogger, Alya has already gotten herself into the conflict and trapped by the akuma. As she’s looking around, Ladybug spots (lol, get it?) Chloe trying to get Sabrina and some other people to safety, consequently getting trapped or something. She goes to save Chloe, and when Chloe thanks her, she starts to wonder. Chloe has taken a good, hard look at herself and really improved in the past few months. She’s not perfect yet, but no one is. And, you know what? Getting the Ladybug miraculous went a long way towards making her a better Marinette. Mind made up, she offers the Peacock to Chloe and a new hero appears. (I’m thinking of naming Chloe’s peacock form Tirisi or Vindex -- Greek or Latin for (roughly) defender/protector/champion. See my rant on why the peacock miraculous’ powers make sense for my reasoning.)

Chloe gives the miraculous back when Ladybug asks and keeps working to improve herself so that her heroine might someday trust her again. (She loved being able to have the power and agency to connect with and help others -- she really loved feeling strong enough to save others and is starting to feel more confident that she can save herself.) She doesn’t spill her identity and becomes a reliable second-string hero when Ladybug’s lucky charm demands her presence.

Eventually turtle!Sabrina will also come into this AU because she really, really deserves her own character development. (And @mystery-vixen ‘ s design and art and @pyrepyro ‘s art for Turtle!Sabrina is the cutest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.) Maybe it’s some sort of Anasasi situation where Chloe’s in trouble and Sabrina is doing her level best to rescue her as a civilian, idk. (For turtle!Sabrina I was thinking Bouclier or Jadeite, unless you guys have ideas?)

Anyway, eventually, everyone has their miraculouses permanently. (This probably happens after Gabe and Natalie break out the fox.) Endgame is Kagaminette and Chlobrina, two sets of deadly wlw protecting Paris along with the bi disaster Chat Noir who is 100% willing to THROW THE FUCK DOWN with anyone who doesn’t respect the ladies of the superhero team. Chat Noir totally gets along with the whole squad, by the way. Between the four of them, the ladies are great friends and life coaches to our cat boi and help him work through what unhealthy attitudes he has in a respectful and caring way. They adopt him and are always hugging Chat or even just lightly resting a hand on his shoulder since they discovered he was touch-starved. (Especially Ladybug and Tirisi. All four would cut a bitch for that boy, but they’re the most touchy-feely.)

(Eventually snake!Luka joins the squad and he and Chat Noir get together and it’s just a giant group of badass queer superheroes kicking ass and protecting Paris.)

They eventually beat Hawkmoth and Adrien and Luka become the next Guardians (They’d do a great job, fight me). Marinette and Kagami are too busy for that anyway. They got married and Marinette started the world’s most successful fashion line while Kagami set some sort of ridiculous record for the number of gold medals a single person can win in fencing. Chloe and Sabrina get married and (because of Chloe) end up adopting a ridiculous amount of kids that they care for and love unconditionally.

Happily Ever After and The End. :)

Thanks for listening to my rant!

[vecna]

Oohh for the fandom meme! Dragon Age?

Send me a fandom!

Oh boy, this is going to be spicy.

It’s also very Anders-negative, so apologies up front.

The character(s) I first fell in love with:

I’m actually not sure which was the FIRST, but it’s a tie between Morrigan and Alistair. I saw fanart of them going around at the time Origins first released, and that’s what got me to try the game! 

Alistair was a breath of fresh air, because at the time, I was used to warrior men in games being all Edgy and Rough, and he was the total opposite and a sweetheart.

And Morrigan was just instantly my goth wife, and had Claudia Black as a VA, so I was sold immediately.

Both still hold a special place for me!

The character(s) I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Loghain is the main one. He does a lot of truly reprehensible shit in the first game. But once I sat down and read the prequel novels about young Loghain, plus saw what he’s like if you recruit him, he grew on me A LOT and now he’s a top fave.

Nathaniel I expected to hate as soon as I saw his name + who his father was, but then the expansion came out and I ended up loving that dude almost immediately. I really wish he was around more after Awakening, and also really wish he’d been a romance option, especially for a Cousland haha.

Merrill is a weird one because she was totally uninteresting to me in DA:O, so when they announced her as a companion in DA2 I was like, “Ehhhh.” Then they punked me by making her adorable and sweet and now I love her.

Plus a bunch of side-characters like The Architect? I liked him a bunch in the novel + Awakening – although I found his Plan in the novel much more appealing. But as the years have gone by, I keep surprising myself at just HOW disappointed I am he’s never appeared again haha.

The character(s) everyone else loves that I don’t:

There’s a few, and all of them will get me yelled at, but here we go.

First: Isabela. This one’s a bit complicated, but it really just boils down to her attitude towards how you play your character. I actively dislike characters who are super sexual – regardless of gender. But Isabela in particular bothers me because she’s constantly pushing her lewdness and sexual humor on you, and when you try to discourage it, she admonishes you with, “Well, you’re no fun.” Her whole character is just… like that for me. Super pushy, overly lewd, gets uppity when you don’t have the same ~liberated~ opinions she does, and this is all played up in the writing like she’s this Empowered Woman the player absolutely must love, especially if they’re playing a male character lol. I hate her for the same reasons a lot of people hate Liara in Mass Effect, but with the addition of pushy lewd jokey characters always rubbing me the wrong way.

Second: Iron Bull. I’ve written a lot about why he makes me more uncomfortable than any fictional character I’ve ever encountered, and I just outright hate him, he makes my skin crawl. If you want details, feel free to DM me, I don’t really want to rant about it again publicly.

Third: Anders. Again, I’ve written a lot about him before, but. I hated him in Awakening, for a lot of the same reasons I hate Isabela in DA2. But the changes they made to him in DA2 are just kinda :/. While I absolutely agree with him about Mage Rights, the level of preachiness they added to him drove me nuts, and the fact that you’re painted as a Bad Guy if you don’t like him blowing up the chantry. And from a purely OOC standpoint: He’s become a figurehead for all the aggressive Discourse people in the fandom, and if I see someone list Anders in their sidebar bio, I know pre-emptively that their blog is going to be full of 6 page long essays of meta about how everything is Problematic, and no thanks.

To a lesser extent, I’m also not fond of Zevran. But in his case, it’s not anything major like the others, I’m just tired of Bioware’s habit of making the bisexual characters overly lewd sex-focused rogues/deviants.

The character(s) I love that everyone else hates:

Loghain, lol.

But also Sebastian Vael? There’s so much about him that I find genuinely fascinating, especially regarding his backstory, and his struggles between his feelings of responsibility to his family vs his dedication to the Chantry and bettering himself. He’s such a dear character to me, and such a pivotal part of any playthrough, I’m always blown away when I remember he’s a DLC character and many people don’t have him.

HOWEVER Anders being the fandom darling means that people tend to unfairly shit on Sebastian for reacting poorly to the Chantry explosion. People also like to label him as a poster child of a White Straight Church Boy, while refusing to acknowledge he’s… not straight, and not exactly a church boy either lol.

Also Vivienne, but I think that one’s really self-explanatory. I love her, and she gives a really needed perspective on the Circle, since most of the mage companions previously were apostates. But of course, she gets written off as a Chantry apologist, and an uppity bitch, when people would def love her for the same traits if she was not black lol.

The character(s) I used to love but don’t any longer:

Justice. And by extension, Anders. A lot of people like to rant about how Justice ruined Anders, but I always saw it the other way around.Justice was my favorite character in Awakening. The whole concept around him, that he was a Fade spirit who took human form and was experiencing life for the first time was SO fascinating. I felt like there was so much to explore there with his character.

Buuuut then they had him merge with Anders. With the narrative being that he WAS a spirit of Justice, but the moment he connected with Anders, it corrupted his entire spirit into something he wasn’t anymore. So essentially, the character I used to love no longer exists, thanks to Anders. And it reminds me of that phrase recently, about how the destination is so terrible you can no longer enjoy the journey? I can’t even appreciate Justice in Awakening anymore, knowing what happens to him.

To a lesser extent, Corypheus. He was SO COOL and the premise of him was AMAZING when he first appeared in the DA2 DLC, but then Inquisition had to go and turn him into a weird shallow mustache twirl villain.

The character(s) I would totally smooch:

None? Idk I don’t really have the Smooch Fictional Character gene.

The character(s) I’d want to be like:

MAEVARIS TILANI. May I one day finally have the confidence in my identity that she does, and also marry a sweet bear man who adores me.

The character(s) I’d slap:

Too many to list, really. Probably Anders.

The pairing(s) that I love:

THERE’S SO MANY. And most of them are with the PC, because I generally don’t ship NPCs together. But my top 3 are:

M!Hawke / Fenris is my ultimate OTP in the Dragon Age series, by a long-shot. Not even sure where to start on how much I love it, but two damaged guys leaning on each other to work through their respective loneliness and trauma is MY JAM. And lmao I love silver-sideburned Hawke chillin in retirement somewhere but being a supportive husband while Fenris goes off hunting the Bad Guys, it’s great.

Solas / Lavellan is a close second, with the caveat that I increasingly prefer it with a male Lavellan. Having the Inquisitor in love with Solas just changes the entire tone of the game for me, for the better, and him actually being the villain trying to end the world while in love with this normie elf is just (chef kiss). Too bad I’m burned out by how overly spammed it is.

Dorian / Inquisitor is in third, I will just always be fond of how it’s a story of the Inquisitor helping Dorian be happy with who he is, escape an abusive family, and realize that he’s allowed to be loved. Good shit good shit.

Some others:

Warden / Morrigan is probably my favorite Origins ship, and that only intensified with the way she talks about the Warden in Inquisition, esp if they’re Kieran’s other parent. What a cute goth family, regardless of the Warden’s gender, cause you can pry Bi Morrigan from my cold dead fingers.

Cassandra / Inquisitor might have a lot of Romance Cliches, but I adore it – although, similar others, I increasingly prefer it with a female Inquisitor. I actively dislike the weird no-homo rejection with her, and come on, a lady Inquisitor being her Knight In Shining Armor is just good storytelling.

Cullen / Inquisitor, for a lot of the same reasons as Cassandra. I love me a cliche romance, but I’m also fond of the narrative w/ him of someone he loves helping him heal through the lyrium withdrawals and take time to rest.

Josephine / F!Inquisitor is just adorable all around, and wholesome, and great.

Varric / Hawke COME ON HOW WAS THIS NOT AN OPTION.

On the rarepair end:

Sebastian / Hawke doesn’t seem like it would be a rarepair – you’d think everyone who loves Cullen/Inquisitor would love this one too. I do! But alas. That said, I’m also pretty aggro about this one with a male Hawke because SEBASTIAN IS CANON BI. WHY WAS HIS ROMANCE STRAIGHT.

Maric / Loghain is a rarepair I will take with me to my grave LOL. Never forget the scene where Maric thought Loghain was leaving, and bolted across the camp with almost no clothes on to beg Loghain to stay. Come on.

Nathaniel / Cousland is dear to me, and I love it so much more than Alistair / Cousland haha.

Greagoir / Wynne, I can’t believe this got validated in canon ahhhh.

The pairing(s) that I despise:

Again: THERE’S SO MANY.

Iron Bull / Dorian is my least fave by a longshot. Again, I have written about why I hate this pairing a great many times, but it’s awful and toxic and makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing anything about it ever again. Please keep poor Dorian away from that man. He deserves someone that doesn’t sexually harass him until he’s finally worn down into dubious consent (while drunk) and then outted to everyone about it.

Isabela / Fenris. Sorry, but it’s just bad writing that Fenris bails on Hawke because the physical intimacy triggered his PTSD and he needs space to process, but then will turn around and have a casual sex relationship with Isabela instead. Yikes.

Anders / Fenris. Aveline / Isabela. Alistair / Morrigan. All of the DA2 Hawke/companion rivalmances. I don’t enjoy “these two people hate and antagonize and want to kill each other… but they fuck” in any form.

Cullen / Amell. Yikes.

And basically ALL of the canon wlw pairings in this series suffer from the fact they have men writing them, and as a result they’re almost always some kind of abusive or racist, and skeeve me out. See: Celene / Briala, Leliana / Marjolaine, Branka / Hespith, etc. Please Bioware, I’m begging you to consult some actual queer women. It’s insane how badly they’re treated compared to how the canon mlm couples are written.

FINALLY, I recognize this will be the most unpopular of all, but. As much as I love M!Hawke/Fenris, I just honestly cannot stand seeing F!Hawke/Fenris. There are some pairings where I’m so attached to the m/m or f/f version, I cannot deal with the m/f version anymore, and that’s one of them. (The others are mainly non-Bioware.)

[shaydixons]

wlw survey results

thank you so much to everyone who participated in mine and @aliciqvikander ’s survey! we ended up getting 221 responses. below is a breakdown of each question.

disclaimer: there were a couple of responses that we considered to be disrespectful or homophobic that we decided to delete from the survey pool. the idea of this survey was to gauge the feelings & opinions of wlw skam fans regarding lgbt representation in the show; it was made with wlw fans in mind, and there were some skam fans who decided to take the survey and give disrespectful/homophobic answers, which was not the point of the survey.

part 1: demographics

what is your sexuality?

the most common were lesbians (83 people)  and bisexuals (74 people), followed by 22 pan people and 17 questioning, only 4 straight people (whose answers we didn’t delete bc they weren’t disrespectful). there were also several people who identified as gay (4), queer (2), sapphic (2), asexual (5), or other sexualities (lesbian ace, demisexual pansexual, biromantic with a preference towards women, panromantic ace, biromantic asexual)

what is your gender?

the most common answers were female/woman/girl/cis girl, with many nb people (19), as well as several questioning people (5), and just 2 men.

what is your age?

the most common answer was 17-19 (90), with many 20-24 year olds (62) and 14-16 year olds (51), as well as 9 25-30 year olds and 7 people over 30, and just 2 under 14.

where are you from?

there were people from all over who took the survey, but the most common answers were the US, Sweden, France, UK, Brazil, Finland, and Norway.

when did you start watching Skam?

the most common answer by far was season 3 (155), followed by season 4 (32), then season 1 (23), then season 2 (10).

part 2: opinions

what is your favorite season?

the most common answer was season 3 (141), then season 1 (65), then season 4 (10) and just 2 people favored season 2.

what fandoms are you a part of?

the most common answer to this was obviously tumblr (212) seeing as we posted the survey on tumblr. Other popular answers were twitter (34) and instagram (42), other than that we have some sprinkled answers such as discord, jodel and facebook. Plus some people who said they were not really active in any fandom.

who are your top 3 characters?

the most favored characters in order are Sana (158), Isak (117), Eva (104), Even (94), Noora (59), Vilde (53), Jonas (33), Chris (16), Elias (14), Yousef (8), a tie between Magnus and Mahdi (5), Eskild (3), 2 people wanted to specify that they liked season 1 Noora, and one vote for Dr. Skrulle! (specifically: that fierce school nurse lady whose name i don't remember but she's really cool”) Nobody picked Wilhelm.

who is your favorite canon ship?

the most picked ship was evak (166), after that we have yousana (44) and then joneva (6). four people also replied that they dont really care for any ship and there was one vote for noorhelm (although it’s worth noting that the one vote came from one of the only two men who took the survey). not one person chose vagnus.

[edit: the person who chose noorhelm messaged me to tell me that they clicked noorhelm by mistake and meant to choose yousana!]

who are your favorite non-canon ships?

The most common answers were Nooreva (170), Evilde (156), Evana (58) and Sanoora (39). Other popular ones were Noorvilde (31), Johdi (26), Noorevilde (24), Joora (15), Chrisana and Chrilde both had 10, Mohnstad had 8, Sana x Vilde had 7, Jonas x PChris and Mikael x Jonas both had 4, and there were other assorted ships including Vilde x Some hipster girl that could have been introduced in her season (3), Vilde x The soft butch lesbian she would have dated in her season (1), Isak x PChris (2), Elias/Eskild (2), Eva/Iben (1), Noora/Mari (1), Adam x Mutta (1), Vilde x Ingrid (1)

What is Vilde’s sexuality?

this was one of the most unified questions with a total of 204 out of 221 saying shes a lesbian! the other answers were bi (13) and pan (4)

What is Noora’s sexuality?

the most common answer was lesbian (110), followed by bisexual (61), then straight (29), then pan (18). i think it’s worth noting that we saw a pattern that bisexual was often put by bisexuals and pansexual was also put by a lot of pansexuals, so maybe people just see themselves in Noora.

What’s Eva’s sexuality?

This question was, as Vilde’s, very unified with 209 out of 220 answering bisexual then there were 6 people who answered pan, 4 people who answered straight, and 1 who answered lesbian.

What is Sana’s sexuality?

this one was pretty split! the most common answer was bi (104), followed by straight (81), then pan (28), then lesbian (2).

What is Chris’s sexuality?

this one was also pretty split! the most common answer is pan (117), followed by straight (65), then bi (22), then lesbian (11)

Opinion on queerbaiting & Vilde?

the overwhelmingly popular opinion is that queerbaiting did happen. 109 people said there was explicit queerbaiting, 81 people said they originally meant to make Vilde a lesbian then decided not to, only 3 people said there was no queerbaiting, and there were also an array of answers, most of which say queerbaiting did happen. (“I'm super torn bc I feel Vilde is a lesbian but she doesn't realize it yet. Like I believe she would figure it out in college (and I think her dating Magnus is important in her self discovery) and ugh I wish we could get an epilogue of some sort with her a canon lesbian. Unfortunately if that doesn't happen, I feel like it is queerbaiting.”) (“julie treats lesbians like were a fucking joke”) (“i will be on my deathbed telling everyone that vilde lien hellerud was a lesbian and showing them my powerpoint on all the signs throughout the seasons but honestly idk if they really meant for her to be gay or not. she is in my heart tho.”)

opinion on noorhelm?

the most popular answer by far was “wilhelm is an abuser who can rot in hell and Noora deserved better” (161). 27 people say they were a bad couple, 13 people say they were okay but not as bad as people say, ZERO people said they were cute, there were also an array of write-in answers, mostly negative. (“Some parts of their relationships were good, the rest - pure trash on wilhelm's part”)  (“classic romance novel damage, gaslighting & emotional manipulation”)  (“I swear to christ, WillHELL does not deserve Noora - only Eva does, duh - and their whole relationship didn't make any sense from a character point of view! Also I hate that they had to take this beautiful, strong woman's season and make it about a guy! An emotional ABUSER at that!! Like whyyyyy???????????”) (“DICKHELM NEEDS TO JUST GET OUT. PRISON. SOMEWHERE SECLUDED. NO ONE DESERVES TO LAY THEIR EYES ON HIM. i hate him with a passion i swear to fucking god I HAD TO MOTIVATE MYSELF TO WATCH S2 and i was in complete pain whenever dickhelm was on screen i hate him and NOORA IS A LIPSTICK LESBIAN DONT TELL ME OTHERWISE SHE DESERVES BETTER”)

opinion on nooreva?

this one was pretty evenly split! the most popular answer is that they were set up as a couple (85), followed by they would be a cute couple but they were platonic in canon (80), followed by they were in love in canon (54), and only 2 people said they were just friends.

what do you think of the skam fandom?

most people think it’s fine as far as fandoms go (126), then it was a tie between a great fandom and mostly demonic, each with 47.

for wlw: could you relate to vilde’s behavior?

i’ll be honest with you guys, we probably should have made this a write-in question rather than multiple choice because the results were not very conclusive. 75 lesbians could see themselves in her, 64 bisexuals could see themselves in her, 13 pansexuals could see themselves in her, and 30 people said no.

part 3: long-answer questions

why do you think julie didn’t want to include wlw in the show?

the consensus was that either she’s lesbophobic, the show is written with straight people in mind, or she wanted to but ended up not finding the time to write it in. every answer was wonderful and i wish we could include them all, but here are a couple ones that i like:

bc she's a classic lesbophobic piece of shit and believes wlw can't exist except for punchlines and ridicule

probably because she thought it wouldn't sell as well as an mlm couple. i mean you gotta please those straight girls

She Is Bad at Writing and forgets wtf she is doing and hates logically developing characters

"we did one storyline about exploring sexuality so that's all we need! anything else would be overkill :)))" and also trying to appeal/relate to straight teenage girls. also noora should have been a lesbian but julie used her as a self insert character. also just generally media doesn't take wlw seriously our perceive our relationships/feelings as legitimate

cause she's a typical straight girl who thinks wlw are icky/she's actually a closeted lesbian who hasn't realised yet

are you disappointed with the lgbt representation in skam? please elaborate.

the consensus is that isak, even, and eskild are all wonderful and they’re great for what they are, which is 2 white gays and 1 white pan boy. it would have been great to have some diversity, especially by adding a wlw, specifically vilde or eva. here are a few i like:

For a show that was originally made for teenage girls and to accurately represent them its unbelievable they didnt include a single wlw character. Evak was nice but in s4 turned into complete fanservice and they lost a lot of the development they made in s3. WHERE ARE THE LESBIANS JULIE

definitely like dude evak was cute and all, and powerful and moving, and I was infinitely glad that was represented onscreen. but on the other hand—that wasn't me? and for a show that claimed to be so progressive, it seemed to mock the concept of bi girls and lesbians at every single turn. fuck, when i think about how noora's response to vilde's er du lesbisk question I still get so pissed

lol yeah julie andem treats lesbian existence as a literal joke and yet she still gets all this praise for the great lgbt rep on her show because of isak and even (and s3 was good but in s4 they didn't even feel like they're own characters anymore just a couple with all these weird nods to evak fans)

Yes, in a show meant for teenage girls the only LGBT representation was with a gay boy and a pan boy, and that's because straight girls love to fetishize and obsess over gay boys for some reason. The fact that Julie only wrote about LGBT boys indicates to me that she is writing the show not for all teenage girls, but for the straight teenage girls that she used to be.

yessss. how can we have three mlm but no wlw??? its like whooo we have a canon pan guy, but if i remember correctly he never actually says the word? and eskild is obviously written as gay, but im pretty sure we see eva and vilde kiss more times than we see eskild kiss a guy, and still they're both supposed to be straight?? and like eva, noora and vilde all have so many characteristics of lesbians/bi girls, yet NONE of them turned out to be wlw in canon?? thats so fucking unrealistic!! in my whole friend circle of about 15 girls, there's maybe three who identify as 100% straight, and multiple who have come out as bi or pan, so how come skam has none?

what did you think of season 4?

the general consensus is that it was rushed and messy, that wilhelm ruined it, and that sana was sidelined in her own season. there were a few people who said they liked it, and some pros that were written were that iman was wonderful, the balloon squad was great, the los losers scene, and that they liked yousana. here are a few great ones:

horribly written, with subtle racism and islamophobia to boot. sana deserved so much better. also, bringing back william and p-chris was so unnecessary. they were making progress with noora realizing that william never loved her and was an abuser, and then it's like they backtracked on all of that just for...what purpose? completely unnecessary. noora, vilde, and eva don't need any men in their lives, and any tying of loose ends of their stories in season 4 should have been about that.

pandering to women who fetishize evak/queer male relationships!!! also some major other bullshit!!! (why is william back wtf, why is p chris still around, why tf are evak living together theyre children, vilde needed season 6 to #come #out though so im not too mad)

I think it suffered from weak writing more than anything else. The story totally stalled out at the hiatus and Julie seemed to be unable to get it going again and then found herself without enough time to tell the whole story. She is saved as usual by the strength of her characters-- I think she's great at character building but very over-rated as a storyteller.

(this one is really long but i thought it was eloquent and great)

HAHAHAHA where to start. It’s almost my least favorite season, nearly tied with S2, though my burning hatred of William edges out. But I will say that from a writing perspective, as much as I despise Noorhelm, their relationship kept S2 anchored and prevented the season from losing focus too often. I do think S2 was messier and more bloated than S1 and S3, but it still feels like a more cohesive narrative than S4, which was so sloppy that I can’t believe the same person wrote something as tight as S3. The criticisms seem almost endless and I’ll probably forget something but here are a few off the top of my head: -TERRIBLE SEASON FOR GIRL SQUAD. This is what really surprised me about S4. It was the last chance to enjoy them as a friendship unit and most of the season they were unbearable. I’m not saying they had to have a perfect friendship, I was expecting some conflict and I was fine with that but it was almost all unpleasant moments with no good moments to balance them out. Sana having to apologize for everything but the rest of the girls never apologizing for their ignorance or hurtfulness. Eva and Chris doing nothing but partying most of the time. Vilde being an annoying caricature. Noora … I’ll get to Noora. The los losers clip is a good moment in itself but doesn’t make sense in the larger context, there are several plot holes, and we never ever hear the girls talk about their issues afterwards. -Noora was overused at the expense of the other girls, including Sana, and I couldn’t even enjoy her and Sana’s relationship because I felt like it wasn’t there to explore their friendship, but to give an excuse for Noorhelm to rise again and to get Noora involved in the stupid Sana/Yousef/Noora triangle. I loved Noora but it felt like all the other girls were unfavorably compared to her, like of course Noora got to be Sana’s ally and Vilde/Chris/Eva were just off being drunk and terrible somewhere. It got ridiculous in episode 9 when we started getting texts about Noora’s living situation, of course it’s Noora who Sana’s mom thinks is beautiful with her red lipstick, of course it was Noora who gets to give Sana detailed advice in Maghrib and the other girls have less to contribute. There were a few moments with Chris, maybe. But we got better material from Vilde, Chris, and Eva in the last episode than we’d gotten all season. -Sana taking a backseat to Noorhelm drama at the climax of her own season, enough said. -Even’s plotline being dropped … after what was widely considered a respectful portrayal of mental illness in S3, Julie hugely messed up with Even in S4. Yeah, it was Sana’s season, but maybe don’t introduce a character’s suicide attempt if you’re not going to address it properly? The utter shittiness of having a mentally ill character who says he’s tired of people trying to tell him how he feels, and never letting him give his own side of the story, only hearing it from other people. -A fight that makes no sense, a love triangle that makes no sense, characters not talking to each other just to prolong the drama, characters acting OOC, characters acting like the worst versions of themselves.   -Bad pacing, subplots being juggled and dropped and picked up and abandoned at whim, so much filler and wasted time. I've seen people say Sana was out of focus because Julie had to wrap up loose ends but like, she didn't? She spent time on bullshit no one cared about and ignored actual dangling plot threads. Why are we spending so much time on racist Pepsi Max girls and what's up with Noora and Yousef or Noora and William when we could be addressing Vilde's mysterious home life, giving Chris depth other than funny fat girl, getting into this Even sad backstory that Julie chose to introduce in Sana's season, exploring why Elias got so drunk he could barely stand... the list goes on? Not to mention, you know, focusing on SANA. I’m going to stop now because I’ll be here all day, lol. The thing is, as messed-up as this season is, I’d still rather have this than nothing, sadly, because Iman is wonderful and I enjoyed seeing her show off her acting chops. I wish she could have had a better season but I’m happy such an awesome human being got to be so visible; even if the season was disappointing, Iman being in the public eye meant a lot to Muslim girls around the world. And I’ll always be thankful to Julie for Evak, because their relationship was one aspect of canon that was consistently well-handled. Their story resonated with me and meant a lot to me. I just wish everything else in the show was treated with as much care as the Evak romance, and that S4 was as carefully and thoughtfully written as S3.

CONCLUSION: wlw skam fans were disappointed in the lack of representation, as well as the last season of the show. evak was great, but it would have meant the world to many of us to make one of the female characters not straight, especially after all of the queerbaiting. the VAST majority of people think that vilde was a lesbian, which is very telling. also wlw love sana and hate wilhelm.

bonus: some of my favorite nicknames for william: willdevil, willdick, woldemort, willhellfuck, willfickle, willhellanusfuckingdickface, also @cosa-fea who called him a “sinewy man toe”

thank you all SO MUCH for taking the survey and for giving such wonderful answers. i’m glad we can all agree on some things, like william being terrible and vilde being a lesbian.

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to The Old Guard

She Is Not In Any Way Playing

The Setup: It’s our first Reaction to a comic book! And it’s not from the Big Two! Written by Greg Rucka (Wonder Woman, Gotham Central, Black Magick) and drawn by Leandro Fernandez (Punisher MAX, The Incredible Hulk, Deadpool & Cable) -- a duo who previously collaborated on Wolverine and Queen & Country -- The Old Guard is about (mostly) immortal warriors who can trace their lives back through Napoleon’s attempted invasion of Russia, the Crusades, and the conquests of Alexander the Great. They’re led by Andromache of Scythia, but you can call her Andy.

Andy’s fought and fucked, loved and loathed her way across thousands of years and at least six continents, and she is tired. So when a seemingly routine rescue mission goes way off the rails, and just a few hours later her team learns that -- contrary to what they’ve believed for a century or two -- they’re not the last immortals left after all, Andy has to find out if she can still surprise a world that she didn’t realize could still surprise her.

Kris, who briefly studied ancient military history in college, really liked Rucka’s Batwoman: Elegy and his webcomic Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, so when he learned about The Old Guard he asked Marchae -- a BIG fan of Rucka’s Lazarus -- if she’d want to react to it.

Two spoiler notices below, but until the jump it’s just first-issue stuff.

KRIS: So we’ve both read some Greg Rucka before

I don’t think I’m an expert, but I’m fairly aware of at least the range of his work

MARCHAE: I am a HUGE fan of at least one of his comics!!!

KRIS: And he seems to be One of the Good Ones re: male feminist writers

MARCHAE: YES I absolutely agree and spent even more time thinking about that as I read The Old Guard

and this notion that I have about “super heros”

but also I like some of the things he examines in his works, at least what I’ve read

KRIS: Oh good I think we’ve all wanted to hear more from you about your theory of superheroes, so definitely feel free to get into that when it’s relevant

MARCHAE: LOL

I definitely will talk more that’s for sure - and especially since I’m reading Jessica Jones at the moment

KRIS: Also I really like how distinctive most of the faces in this are, just wanted to say that upfront although I am not super qualified to discuss the art

MARCHAE: So I’ve spent some time making connections between what I’m currently reading , a traditional comic, versus the indie books

Neither am I - but the art is gorgeous

KRIS: OH and for our readers who may not be super into comics (yet), maybe we should say how we’re reading

I’m using the Comixology reader on their website, in Guided View mode

MARCHAE: And I use an app from my public library called Hoopla

I also use  a guided view mode - however I definitely prefer hardcopies

KRIS: I like Guided View a lot, although occasionally you lose some of the impact of splash pages, and there are very rarely (but especially with older comics) sequencing errors

ANYWAY sorry tangent

MARCHAE: I am reading newer ones mostly, it definitely feels more cinematic to me reading it electronically.

I like it a lot especially for fast paced ones like The Old Guard

like an action film

KRIS: But I wanted to just get it out there that there are good accessible digital ways to read comics, which is often more affordable, and also for some reason Amazon is selling a bunch of Marvel comics at massive discounts

Yes! Thank you for getting us back on track -- the action layouts here are great

MARCHAE: Affordable and FREE!

and you’re welcome!

I am a newbie to comics- I’ve only been reading them for a year maybe less - and I am obsessed with how much I can relate to them from a screenwriting perspective in terms of sequencing and layout. In this weird abstract way. This was one of the best one’s I’ve read in a while in terms of the pacing with layout - and I love it. I actually started re-reading the book just to gawk at the art etc

KRIS: Oh you should check out Rucka’s web comic Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether [see above] -- it was like the equivalent of a page or so twice a week, and Rucka’s script for each entry was included

MARCHAE: **GASPS**

KRIS: I always mean to really break down and study a comic book or two but just like with studying TV, I end up being too lazy, and just hoping I’ll absorb lessons through sheer osmosis

MARCHAE: LOL -

I have studied the dialogue

I think more closely than anything

although I really need to study their structure

KRIS: That’s interesting

I would not guess that most comics writers do dialogue as well as Rucka

MARCHAE: It’s something about these short bursts of dialogue that kind of flow with the quick images we get that makes sense to me… I’ve read a couple that I really prefer

KRIS: I’m interested in how comics people obviously think in “shots”

MARCHAE: Revival is good and so is Alex and Ada … it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are super character driven

KRIS: and I think a lot of screenwriters don’t

MARCHAE: YEAH

KRIS: or aren’t necessarily really well trained to

MARCHAE: It is fascinating when you think about because there are SO MANY correlations between the two

because as screenwriters and movie makers we end up having to think like comic writers when we get to the storyboarding portion of the work

which i guess is more of a production function

but

KRIS: Right, it should be super obvious, and we do get TOLD to think in shots but there’s still such a division (at least in our film school experience) between learning to write and learning to tell stories visually

MARCHAE: I feel like with comics the action - even  in some of the not as good ones I’ve read is all about taking you to that next shot

EXACTLY!!!

KRIS: Honestly this is one of my very favorite parts in the whole book, just as a visual storytelling beat:

MARCHAE: I was grateful that I had the experience of reading comics at least near the end of my time in school… i did take a lot of lessons from the comics

OHHH

tell me why

KRIS: I think a lot of the impact for me was in the guided view

The panel before this is Booker trying to talk Andy into the mission: “He says there are kids involved, Andy. Kids.”

Then in GV you get everyone looking at Booker, and you can linger on that panel

MARCHAE: The guided view makes a tremendous difference!

it feels like a moving image

KRIS: Then the next panel makes you sort of realize that it’s not really “everyone” looking at one person, but Joe and Nico looking back and forth between the new guy and the boss

although I guess you don’t get the “new guy” information until later

MARCHAE: Exactly

KRIS: Yes! The movement is there, and can have this weird interaction with how long you can linger in a single shot

But I guess what I like about this page is how the visuals help establish the relationships even without Andy’s exposition

MARCHAE: And i feel like you should be able to tell the story without the words

some of my favorites were the panels without words period

I especially love the first few pages

KRIS: Yeah, and in a nutshell that’s what comics writers are trained to do and what a lot of screenwriters (including me!) are often too precious about their own dialogue to internalize

MARCHAE: its just a few bits of inner dialogue

(side note your dialogue is beautiful!!!)

KRIS: Yeah but I didn’t become a playwright

MARCHAE: YESSSSSS

KRIS: ^That spread is so amazing and efficient

MARCHAE: YESSS  and YESSS

those were my favorites

oh my word and its just pretty

KRIS: It’s not even a really dense two-page spread by any means and there are only like 30 words on it

But it tells us so much about Andy

MARCHAE: I’m looking at it now on my device and its in guided view - so it shows up as each individual panel

YES!

KRIS: Right

MARCHAE: and I’m hooked from the beginning and that’s what I think makes this story effective and invests you in it

Rucka does this with my favorite comic - Lazarus

also

KRIS: She’s a warrior, she’s been around forever, she’s bi, she’s tired, she doesn’t have a lot of meaningful human connection in her life

MARCHAE: And we get that quickly

and efficiently

KRIS: and obviously the sense of repetition

in her day-to-day (century-to-century)

MARCHAE: thats been going on for centuries

[SPOILERS throughout below]

KRIS: Oh sorry did you want to say more about Lazarus

MARCHAE: It’s okay -

I was just going to say that there are some definite similarties between the two books

Specifically just the idea of strong female protagonists who are capable and leaders

and also the notion of these women dodging death

All. the. time!

I thought it was interesting to have read and to be a HUGE fan of both books now

and think critically about what he means to demonstrate and also why i consider the woman he portrays more heroic than other “heroes”

that was a long rant LOL

sorry

KRIS: And there’s a quietly great line in chapter 2 about how everyone just defaulted to Andy being the leader because she was the oldest, so it was obvious

MARCHAE: Yes I remember that

KRIS: And I haven’t really thought about this, but it’s interesting and I’m assuming very deliberate that the oldest and the youngest leads are the women

But so matter-of-factly

MARCHAE: Yes - I did note that and remember being worried for Andy and what it meant later on in the series

and also the conflicts that we could expect to see in the future books

I think it’s smart  honestly and kind of this mentorship that also gets to happen between the two women

we know that historically women have a difficult time finding mentors so I guess it is great to see it demonstrated in this medium

I think we’ll eventually see some bickering between the two , but ultimately a respect which is also not often depicted in other medium as much as I feel like it should be

KRIS: I’ll save it for a little later but I did screenshot that great (affectionate) bickering toward the end

MARCHAE: YES!

KRIS: We often write these in a way that sort of assumes the reader knows at least generally what we’re talking about but maybe we should try explaining a little about at least the main character relationships here

MARCHAE: That’s true - especially considering this is our first time reacting to a comic book

KRIS: Oh my god wait I just want to show this page transition I didn’t pick up on in Guided View

MARCHAE: I was trying to find a good article that listed the main concept with characters (mostly because I need to know how to spell andy’s real name)

KRIS: The color palette!

MARCHAE: It’s beautiful I liked these panels

KRIS: They only say Andy’s whole name twice but it’s not the same both times!

MARCHAE: I have this weird way that I read them… 1. for story. 2. art with story 3. only with art

KRIS: Oh interesting

MARCHAE: even the layout is nice

KRIS: I’m not much of a re-reader (or re-watcher) but I should be

MARCHAE: I don’t generally - but because I am so used to reading “regular books” I have to almost get the story then go back so I can appreciate the art with the story

then just the art cause #pretty

KRIS: Oh man I sidetracked us again

OK so

Andy!

MARCHAE: its okay really theres is a lot here to talk about actually!!!

Yes, Andy short for Andromeda?

I think

KRIS: I THINK Andromache is what her name is supposed to be, since that’s what the Comixology store “logline” uses

MARCHAE: YES

KRIS: and that’s what Booker calls her

MARCHAE: I was all off LOL

KRIS: but when she tells Nile an issue or two earlier, she says Andronika

which I’m assuming is just a continuity mistake on someone’s part

MARCHAE: I am now curious if it changes with the time

KRIS: and maybe a reprint will correct it

MARCHAE: like each century she modifies it?

yes but she’s centuries old

and most important

KRIS: But I got the sense that we were given everyone’s “true” name at least once

MARCHAE: Immortal - she can’t die - at least she’s not able to right now

KRIS: So “Andy” is her modern day shorthand and maybe in the 1800s it was something else, but Andromache is her birth name

MARCHAE: yeah! that’s my deduction at least

KRIS: So Andromache means “battle of a man”

(I think Andronika would mean something like victory of a man?)

MARCHAE: I love your to the minute, on the spot research!

KRIS: Well Andromache I knew because I briefly studied Greek in undergrad and have always been a little bit of an Ancient Greek Stuff nerd

What I’m not sure of is in what sense “battle” is being used

MARCHAE: are the names from the same era?

I guess it could be two fold

KRIS: Like, is it a battle as in an event, or is it in the sense of “she’s got fight like a man”

MARCHAE: Oh i was going in a different direction!!!

wow

yours is probably more appropriate LOL

KRIS: Andromache is at least as old as the Odyssey

MARCHAE: I was thinking more of “battle of a man” - as in battle against one’s self

KRIS: Oh interesting

MARCHAE: like man against man conflict which i suppose is fitting considering that she’s somewhat immortal

KRIS: oh I meant the Iliad -- Andromache is the wife of Hektor

MARCHAE: OH YEAH

Also thinking of “battle of a man” to mean battle of time and life

we always want to live longer, better, never die

KRIS: I don’t know much at all about Arabic so I don’t know how old Joe’s real name is, etymologically speaking

MARCHAE: and here Andy is wanting to be done

I loved that scene where introducing himself

KRIS: Yeah, that’s pretty classic

MARCHAE: and we get to Joe!

So I am checking an article and [the Newsarama interviewer] says Andy’s real name is Andronika

https://www.newsarama.com/33272-rucka-joins-the-old-guard-with-queen-country-artist-fernandez.html

(also side note I feel redeemed and a bit smart that he mentions some of the themes I pointed out and made similar comparisons! )

KRIS: OK skimming now

“John Wick meets Highlander”

That’s pretty great

MARCHAE: Truth!!

KRIS: Oh Black Magick I should link to that [see above]

MARCHAE: I haven’t read that one

KRIS: Anyway where were we?

MARCHAE: Ok we have digressed again! I guess a brief synopsis of the main characters

KRIS: Right right

So we have this 4-person mercenary team

MARCHAE: Right and they’ve been connected FOREVER it seems like

KRIS: Led by [Andronika/Andromache?] Andy, who is literally biblically old

MARCHAE: Well it doesn’t seem like - they have been together for ever

KRIS: Then Nico and Joe (Nicolo and Yusuf) who met during the First Crusade, so 1090s

And presumably they linked up with Andy sometime between the Crusades and the Napoleonic Wars, when we get Booker

MARCHAE: There is a lot of history here

KRIS: And there’s this stuff about how when a new immortal dies for the first time, other immortals (maybe within a certain range?) start having dreams about them

MARCHAE: and that’s how they are introduced or at least made aware that they will be meeting someone new? did I read that correctly

KRIS: Yeah

MARCHAE: HA - I misread your text LOL

I literally rephrased what you said LOL

KRIS: Andy had to figure it out the first time it happened, like the dream doesn’t spell anything out for them

MARCHAE: They are often killed or incredibly injured during their battles and they heal themselves which is how they discover ultimately that they are immortal

for a spell at least

KRIS: Oh there are some GREAT “match cuts” in this

There’s a really good one in the Nico/Joe origin story

MARCHAE: OH YEAHHHHHH

KRIS: 

But that whole sequence is great

MARCHAE: I loved the twist there

KRIS: So yeah sorry for our readers my mental leap isn’t obvious, but this is preceded by a couple pages of Joe and Nico during the Crusades repeatedly killing each other

MARCHAE: I sent over a few screen shots hopefully they will come through…

The book definitely has a distinct aesthetic that’s for sure

KRIS: It’s mostly serious but lightly comic, like they just don’t question it, like okay yeah I guess I’ll just kill you again

Oh getting your screenshots now

Yes the faces (again)! You can see the modern Nico and Joe even under all the facial hair

MARCHAE: you mentioned my idea of hero

KRIS: Yes

MARCHAE: and your point “it’s mostly serious but lightly comic”

that’s the thing… saving lives/the world is a serious thing

these people have real problems that are connected usually to slightly dystopia ideas of our current world

I feel like with more mainstream comics we are in some alternate reality all together and the people are trying to be funny and trying to save the world and trying to be cool…

I feel like in Rucka’s books (and also a few other’s I read) it’s rooted in something that i can grasp and their problems are real

so in this text it’s when does my suffering end

in a book like lazarus it’s why won’t my family love me

and it’s not in this over the top let me fly all over the place and shoot missiles out of my hands kind of way

it’s serious

it’s business

KRIS: But I think tonal variation is a good thing

for the genre and the industry

Like a lot of the recent DC movies are SUPER SERIOUS on a surface level, but they’re not necessarily handling ideas in an intellectually rigorous way

MARCHAE: I absolutely agree I guess in a world I could see myself being saved by someone who is more similar to Andy than say Captain America

I think that’s the thing I like is that it is this exploration of more complex ideas in these types of comics and I feel more connected to the work

it’s more accessible

KRIS: And even though the Marvel movies are lighter, and not SUPER thematically driven, they’re relatively smart about the thematics they do include

See I think most people would say Marvel’s tone is more accessible

But I think you might mean accessible in a different way

MARCHAE: LOL hence the mega fafillion dollar industry

KRIS: Like you’re looking for something concrete to latch onto

MARCHAE: I think I agree with you there - I want a take-away

KRIS: And I think the Iron Man tone is more “here is a world that speaks the language you speak with your friends” in a generalized sense

MARCHAE: I can give you that…

the more mainstream comics make the business of saving the world seem less serious

I also am a lover of drama and heavy topics so I think there is also the attraction - these people don’t always feel like they have be “on” to me

they are trying to make it

and that I can relate to!

KRIS: I think that’s because “saving the world” isn’t REALLY what they’re about, though, to the extent that they’re about something

I think at some point, maybe with all four of us, I do want to talk more about the difficulty you have with comedy

MARCHAE: It’s like an intervention LOL

KRIS: No! Well maybe a little. But it’s so ingrained for you that I think I also just want to understand

Maybe when we eventually return to Sweet/Vicious, which I still really want to do

MARCHAE: comedy is truly a challenge for me with the exception of a few - but even those make a larger statement in my opinion!

we do need to finish S/V

KRIS: I’d also like to see you and Keely talk about comedy

ANYWAY

We should talk about Nile

MARCHAE: that might be fun - Keely and I have talked about why I like her brand of comedy best…

OK NILE

KRIS: So Nile is an American Marine

in a Female Engagement Team in Afghanistan

MARCHAE: I absolutely adore her

she’s the “youngest” immortal

KRIS: So at first I didn’t realize she didn’t know she was immortal

For some reason I assumed she had abandoned the team at some point

MARCHAE: OHHHH

KRIS: But then she becomes our (great) audience surrogate

MARCHAE: Which is why I like her - she’s new- but it’s clear she’s competent

and is legit just trying to understand “what the heck is going on here”

KRIS: Yeah, and she gets to push back a lot when Andy is like “don’t worry about it”

But never in a way that sells out either of their characters

I feel like so often the “new one” is obnoxious

or the “old one” is a tired “Asshole with a Heart of Gold” trope

MARCHAE: Agreed! it is very organic and you can believe in them… but also it establishes what the relationship can be

I also think that because we know that eventually these people run out of “changes” to live - I almost felt like we are operating on a clock

ticking clock*

it ramped up the tension for me when reading  - my mind was legit going a mile a min.

KRIS: And it’s this female friendship that never really leans on “the women! they are alike and get along because they are women!” but also doesn’t completely pretend gender doesn’t matter

Oh man that freaked me out when Andy shot herself to convince Nile

I was like “WHAT IF THIS IS THE ONE, ANDY WHAT ARE YOU DOING”

MARCHAE: YESSS

Because she doesn’t know when the one will be

that’s what makes me nervous about this entire series …

KRIS: The moment when they find Booker [temporarily] dead was amazing to me

MARCHAE: like antsy and I like the characters so it’s worse LOL

KRIS: Andy’s narration is like “he’s the youngest, if he’s really dead it would be so unfair”

And we’re trained to THINK that means “unfair because he was so young”

But then there’s the reversal of “unfair to ME (Andy)”

MARCHAE: Right! But he isn’t young at all - none of them are except for Nile

it kind of plays with your mind when you put into context that one of them is 5000 years old? did I read that or am I making that up - either way it’s insane

But there is also this entertainment of how in real life we all want to live forever, Andy is ready to kick the can

KRIS: Yeah in the last issue Andy says she’s over 6000

so the others are ALL babies compared to her

MARCHAE: yet they don’t ACTUALLY live forever at all

geesh i was off by 1000 years

good googley-moogley

KRIS: haha

So we get what becomes, by a little bit, our central relationship between the oldest woman in the world and the youngest woman on the team

MARCHAE: I love that! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

KRIS: although the book really does manage to make all the relationships pretty robust

Nico and Joe are our romance, and where a lot of our humor comes from

MARCHAE: The majority of it actually… and they are some deep relationships

KRIS: Andy and Booker obviously have a lot going on because of her dependence on his tech savvy and then The Twist

MARCHAE: (but this isn’t unusual for Rucka which is why I’m #obsessed and why he was my entrance into comics)

KRIS: I loved how the running joke of Andy’s inability to learn new tech ends up becoming a totally serious, really important story detail

MARCHAE: It actually does and it runs through the entire story

it’s smart and well thought out and incredibly problematic in our current world

KRIS: Only tangentially related but I really like how well the body language is rendered in this panel:

MARCHAE: and intentional on the writers part and what I’d imagine- if I were a 6000 years old hero - a real real problem

KRIS: Here’s a better one for the “joke” aspect

MARCHAE: LOL

KRIS: If you had that panel out of context it would be totally relatable for a lot of people

MARCHAE: she is so clueless - and it’s funny

KRIS: Although maybe with relatives who don’t look as young as Andy does

MARCHAE: Oh god I know all too well!!!

It’s also funny because she’s so on top of it in every other area of the job

I want more of her backstory too - I am so curious - I’ve already downloaded the other book

KRIS: which other book?

I love her

MARCHAE: I misread - I just looked and it doesn’t exist LOL

😟 sad face

I was curious about what your thought were about the exploration of being immortal

or mostly immortal

KRIS: I mean personally I still find the idea of death terrifying, maybe because I’ve never really dealt with it yet

So I’m kind of in the “yes we should try to become immortal” camp most days

And I tend to feel that the idea that immortality would ultimately be boring or soul-crushing is kind of a self-serving one, to make us feel better about mortality

BUT

I think this is a really good exploration of it

MARCHAE: interesting!

KRIS: The speech Booker gives to Nile about why she shouldn’t contact her family is really really good

MARCHAE: and kind of sad I loved it (not because it was sad, but because it was good)

KRIS: And Andy’s ultimate epiphany -- she doesn’t want to die, she wants something to live for again -- is really simple in the best way

And it’s also really sad, and I think mostly unremarked upon, that it takes Booker betraying the team for Andy to realize that the team is what she has to live for

MARCHAE: yeah…. she’s incredibly melancholy to me and I like that she’s wanting to push again

they are her family

KRIS: And it’s great that part of how Nile pushes the change in Andy’s mindset is very specifically “millennial” -- she’s always hustled, she’s worked a bunch of jobs briefly and picked up a bunch of random skills

in a way that’s convenient to the plot but doesn’t feel TOO Convenient

MARCHAE: Exactly - I could believe and buy into each and every single character

KRIS: Everything about Nile is like, That’s So Real

MARCHAE: I wanted to be on the team by the end of it

even the emotions that Andy experiences

there is a lot of hurt …maybe that imitates from the page

A lot of it is in her inner dialogue, the panel placement and the colors

but you feel for her

and you want her to win and win hard

KRIS: So hard

It was amazing to me that they actually fit a Booker redemption arc into this

and it works because of Andy’s feelings

MARCHAE: they do! A lot rides on the protagonist here - And what I think is amazing is that she carries so much of the tone for what we experience over the story - because of her we are able to buy the rest of them

I think if we had been led by anyone else it might not have been as effective

KRIS: It’s very successful at being clearly led by one character but still having a really strong “ensemble” feel

And that first issue and a half have to do so much heavy lifting to establish the team relationships so we buy the motivations when they spend most of the rest of the story separated

MARCHAE: It really is amazing from a storytelling standpoint

I could see the movie adaptation as I was reading it

Its so well crafted

KRIS: I think this arc could actually work as a feature

MARCHAE: (have you read lazarus?)

KRIS: and not lose much detail

Not yet

MARCHAE: (KRIS!!!!!! THAT IS A FEATURE WAITING TO BE MADE)

(BUT KRIS READ IT STAT!!!)

And it would be beautiful to shoot those period scenes

KRIS: It would

(I just love the face drawing so much in this book)

MARCHAE: they are much more expressive than others  - I feel like other books Ive read are more sketch like

?

KRIS: This sequence was VERY cinematic too

Not in a spectacle way but just in a general visual storytelling way

with the elevator door

I feel like a lot of superhero books don’t bother making faces distinctive

MARCHAE: That bugs me too - I think it’s why i started reading them three times

KRIS: It can get especially ridiculous when people don’t bother drawing Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne differently from each other

The one issue I can think of in The Old Guard is that in the first issue, it wasn’t super clear to me that Joe was a man of color

And I feel like Andy’s skin tone was also a little variable, but it’s more or less obvious that she’s supposed to be from Somewhere In the Mediterranean

MARCHAE: I  didn’t entirely register that either until he said his name

I can agree with that too

I also get the impression that Nile is also likely a POC as well

KRIS: Nile for sure read to me as a black (or possibly multiracial) woman, I guess the color was just off in the first chapter

MARCHAE: it was refreshing to see a more diverse group of characters that’s for sure

KRIS: Oh shit my mistake I guess the Scythians (Andy) are of Iranian/Central Asian descent

Yes! Which was why I was so glad Joe turned out not to be white -- at first I was like “hmmm this is an oddly white book for someone as woke as Greg Rucka”

MARCHAE: OH NO WAY!! (Re Andy)

KRIS: I really should have known that from like freshman year classics courses

MARCHAE: You are much more well versed than I am in historical references  and I definitely don’t have a tremendous breath of the classics

KRIS: I guess we should talk about the action

It’s almost funny that we haven’t, much

This is very much an action story

MARCHAE: There is so much action that’s for certain and I LOVE IT

KRIS: And all of the set pieces are distinct

MARCHAE: I love seeing it on the page, the pacing of it, how the panels are set up and YES the set pieces!!!!

KRIS: Which is definitely something superhero comics struggle with

Guided View is GREAT for these layouts

MARCHAE: It works beautifully and makes the work fly

KRIS: There have to be some good interviews out there with comic artists about how that’s influenced their approach in the last several years

MARCHAE: like the action legitimately in this comic soared off the page in my opinion I wanted to be in it

that’s really interesting I’ll have to take a gander

KRIS: I do have to say, I wished Andy’s axe had come back

MARCHAE: YES! She’s fierce!

theres a cover where she’s flailing that axe

She’s powerful

the look on her face

even and her posture

I LOVE THIS IMAGE

KRIS: For our readers, that variant cover is by Nicola Scott, Greg Rucka’s collaborator on Wonder Woman: Year One

Yeah even though I’ll tag this as a spoiler post I won’t include the axe sequence, everyone should have to go read the book to see it

It’s short but awesome

MARCHAE: Its so unapologetic and that makes me happy as a woman!

(re the axe photo)

but to talk about action

I really liked this and how it looked!

KRIS: so good

The other standout for me was the Crusade battle -- the use of silhouettes in the night scene

MARCHAE: it reminded me of the old school batman TV show but also has this frantic feel to it like if you are in the room - the images move almost

KRIS: And the use of the BANGs in the background instead of within most of the panels is really interesting

MARCHAE: OHHHHH that’s a great one too

KRIS: literal background noise

MARCHAE: it reminds me of sound

AHHHH YESSSS!!!!

visual cacaphony

which i suppose is a bizarre pairing of words but the best i could come up with

KRIS: It conveys the chaos but also leaves the actual action layouts clear

MARCHAE: nothing is left to confuse the reader - which when I was a newer reader of comics was always confusing

KRIS: Oh here’s that great banter scene:

MARCHAE: these comics are new user friendly

KRIS: Definitely an advantage of indie books

MARCHAE: I like that one - laughed a few time reading this book like legit noise came out which doesn’t happen terribly often

KRIS: I mean I get it, if you’re writing Big Two characters, you want to reference the stuff you grew up with, it can’t be an easy balance to make it accessible to new readers and rich for longtime readers, but still, you can’t blame people for having trouble getting into most recent Marvel or DC stuff

Yeah I guess a way to describe how humor works best for you is that in a scene like this it’s like, cathartic?

Or it’s a release valve

You like it as punctuation, not as the baseline

MARCHAE: I can read it now but I tried starting with Hellboy and was like ABSOLUTELY NOT!

KRIS: Oh that’s interesting because isn’t Hellboy indie? Was it that you jumped into a late story arc?

MARCHAE: I am not sure… if it is… All i know is that it was a challenged to follow on the page

I think I started at the beginning?

Also YES! in regards to humor!!! It’s kind of like a sigh 😊

KRIS: I only know the movies but I’d believe it’s just a weird-ass book as a first comic

MARCHAE: I do not love humor as a baseline - ever generally

LOLOl

it was not a good first jaunt I didn’t finish it and sold it back and the comic book store owner was like what do you like - we chatted and he handled me Lazarus

and I’ve been hooked on the comics since and they all have the same tone save one that I like called Alex and Ada

We’ve digressed again

KRIS: yep

I’m just grabbing a link for Alex and Ada to put into the post [see above]

MARCHAE: yeah its drastically different in tone from what I generally read - but the characters and story were pretty good!

Also an Image comic if I’m not mistaking

KRIS: Yes

MARCHAE: Yup!

KRIS: (For readers: Image is a publishing house like DC and Marvel, but all of its books are creator-owned and independent of each other, rather than company-owned characters in a shared universe)

MARCHAE: Correct! The ones I’ve read seem incredibly character driven to me and tend to be more focused on themes and ideas

What else are we missing - I feel like we’ve covered so much with this one trade!

?

KRIS: I was just gonna ask you that

We haven’t really talked about the villain but I think that’s okay

Don’t want to spoil everything

We really want you to read it yourselves, everyone!

MARCHAE: I really hope people read this one!

Along with the others we’ve recommended!

KRIS: It’s very accessible if you’re new to comics, the art is clean and you won’t have trouble following it, and Greg Rucka is arguably one of the most acclaimed writers in comics right now so I promise it’s not a risky buy

although MM did you get it from the library, you said?

MARCHAE: I did using the Hoopla App but I will probably eventually buy it for my collection (I do have a comic collection and I keep them in plastic!)

KRIS: Should we talk about the ending? I can add another FOR REAL MAJOR SPOILERS warning around here

[the VERY END is briefly discussed below]

MARCHAE: Can i just say I was absolutely sad when it ended

I was mad indeed

but yes let’s

KRIS: I really liked it

MARCHAE: I think I just wanted the book to keep going LOL

KRIS: Oh for sure

But there’s just a lot of great storytelling in those few pages

Even just that first page in Malta

MARCHAE: And it really is a hero saves the day type deal and shows Nile and Andy working collaboratively

again the art is beautiful (I just sent another image let me know if you get it)

KRIS: Just got it

Yeah it’s such a hero shot

MARCHAE: The entire team really comes together!

KRIS: And the use of light is great

MARCHAE: (sent over another one)

KRIS: Yeah I don’t think I’ll include that in the post for spoilers’ sake but it’s a great page

I think the “zoom out” makes it

MARCHAE: but even the quote at the end is amazing: “ Soldiers live and wonder why”

and it perfectly encapsulates what this story is about thematically

why do they - survivors guilt

the desire to move forward and be better

the desire to end something peacefully and in your own time

KRIS: Glen Cook is a fantasy author you might like -- maybe check out The Black Company

MARCHAE: but you do want this story to keep going and be with these characters for much longer than the trade allows

I WILL!!!

KRIS: Someone’s adapting that series for TV, I forget who but I think for one of the premium cable channels

More great body language:

MARCHAE: http://deadline.com/2017/04/eliza-dushku-star-the-black-company-series-adaptation-david-goyer-im-global-1202076367/

There are so many interpersonal nuances in this book it was fun to look at

KRIS: I like that Nico is very clearly ignoring Joe here -- no word balloons, but it’s obvious that this is heated

and classic Andy not wanting to deal

MARCHAE: he’s turned away from him entirely

KRIS: (I love that I can say “classic Andy” after just five issues)

MARCHAE: LOLOLOL

she’s so unimpressed by the entire situation

probably mentally sighing

KRIS: So what do you think of the punishment?

MARCHAE: its kind of devastating I think for Booker - It also makes me curious about what time feels like for these people

KRIS: Yeah

MARCHAE: What does 100 years feel like when you’ve lived a fafillion years already

KRIS: They have no friends besides each other

You don’t even really get the sense that Booker sleeps around the way Andy does because the team is a liiiiittle bit judgey about it in #1

MARCHAE: LOL they kind of are!

and it would just be complicated - we see that with Andy and her relationship

it reminds me of the first book of a series i like called the discovery of witches

just that idea of engaging in a relationship with someone who is mortal you’re constantly reminded that you are too much - and that the person you are with will never be enough for you because they will perish

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8667848-a-discovery-of-witches

(the text is now being turned into a major television show)

KRIS: I really love that the last two pages have no dialogue

It’s not a long epilogue at all but it also doesn’t feel too abrupt because those last two pages are a really well done kind of fade-out

MARCHAE: it’s incredibly effective - just as much as the opening which had very little dialogue

KRIS: I mean, just to really drive this home for everyone, not that I think anyone missed this, but THE LAST LINE OF THE BOOK IS “you’re alone”

And it’s so simple, it’s not a Dramatic! scene at all, it’s so understated, and that’s why it lands so hard

Andy’s not a Dramatic! person

MARCHAE: and you absolutely know she means it and is not in any way playing with this man

KRIS: ANDY DOES NOT PLAY

MARCHAE: Almost like I’ve worked to hard to get us here  - I’m disappointed and i hate to do this but it has to be done

KRIS: It’s so good

This will probably not be our last comic Reaction. Marchae really hopes you read not just this but other Rucka work. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter!

[lenucciagreco]

the loved ones

an anon sent me a prompt a hot minute ago to the effect of “Richard is a total know-it-all, but especially about Jared.” this is... sort of about that but mostly tries to answer some other questions i had about their relationship, Jared’s life offscreen and outside of the Pied Piper bubble, and also how “normal people” would feasibly treat the both of them.

that said, this is VERY MUCH lighthearted wish fulfillment, so, pretty average stuff from me LOL.

words: 3,096

content: Richard is bi and bad at communicating, a lot of Jared headcanons that probably contradict the writing, some OCs i was forced to make up to properly tell this story that also definitely contradict the writing.

He has elderly friends. He actually has elderly friends. This is fine.

Richard tries not to visibly claw at the armrest of the tiny wing chair in the corner, a thousand afghans and granny-square blankets draped over its back. He wouldn’t usually picture a house like this as belonging to people named Muriel and Eloise, but as he always has to remind himself, this is Northern California, and the tiny, dour church ladies he’s used to are few and far between.

“So, what was it you said you did again, dear?” this unsettlingly kind woman with the oxygen tank asks him, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of herbal tea. “I know Donald said something about—”   

“Richard and I met through work, Muriel,” Jared cuts in, his expression growing more tense. Maybe that’s just in his imagination. “Actually—well, I’ll embarrass him if I say this, but he inadvertently rescued me from the bad situation I was in before. At Hooli.” 

Muriel pauses, and then her face suddenly lights up: “Of course, of course. He’s told us all about you.”   

The other woman (her wife, who he’d first introduced to Muriel years ago, as Jared explained in the car) steps away from the cutting board she’s been zeroed in on for the last fifteen minutes, and leans against the kitchen island. She’s younger than Muriel—maybe in her late sixties—and hair is cropped and dyed black, almost auburn in parts, the sleeves of her denim shirt rolled to her elbows.   

“This is that Richard?” she asks, regarding him with a stiff smile—as if to show him she isn’t hostile, but not much more. His stomach turns. “Donald, you two haven't—”

Muriel reaches for her walker and stands up, unwavering in her cheeriness. “Eloise, won’t you help me pick out something from the cellar? And we should really start getting the table ready. Can you two finish with the salad?" 

“Of course,” Jared says. His face is calm again, but he can tell he’s close to yanking him from the seat by the arm, already preemptively apologizing for bringing him here. Richard stands up and smiles at him in a way he hopes is reassuring, and goes to the kitchen. 

His last date before all of this, what feels like ages before he willingly got in a car headed to a ranch in Sonoma, was also his all-time worst. It was an actual get-your-number-and-go-to-dinner type date. It was with some girl named Hannah; a freelance web designer who used to work at Hooli, too, although they’d never met before. It had been going well on the whole, until his mind jumped to the worst possible thing mid-conversation, something stupid like right, gastronomy just means the study of food and culture—my friend Jared actually knows a lot about— 

“You mean Jared Dunn? That guy always kind of gave me the creeps.” 

“What?” Richard picked at his dessert, trying to look casual. “I mean—why’s that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “something about his demeanor always just bothered me.”   

“That’s funny,” he said, then caught himself. "Or—well, it’s not that funny, but I understand. He really is a great guy if you get to know him. It’s just that people don’t always, um…respond well to him?” 

“He seemed nice”—she repeated this word as an afterthought, free of any actual meaning—“just not very good at picking up on social cues.”   

“God, you just described everyone I know.” It was meant to be a joke, but he was the only one who laughed. He sloshed the wine in his glass, a tiny purple stain dotting his thumb. 

“And the oversharing,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Some people are okay with it, but for me it was just—it’s too much.”   

“It’s not for the attention, though,” he says, his tongue starting to feel heavy from the wine. “Not like everybody else. It’s like—he thinks he needs to give a disclaimer to everyone he meets, 'hey, I’m kinda fucked up and have a lot of trauma but I’m fine!’ Don’t get me wrong, some of the stuff he tells me, just offhand, is insane. But he’s a literal genius. Like Jesus Christ, he’s a walking encyclopedia on naval history, 19th century American poets, the DSM—” 

“You know a lot about Jared,” Hannah said, quietly.   

“Um.” Richard put his glass down. "Yeah, I guess I do.”   

He saw the waiter come down with two more drinks and, mercifully, the check.

“I’m so sorry,” Jared starts, the second they’re alone. “I didn’t tell you everything when we were in the car.”   

“It’s okay,” he says, “just—what did you tell her about me that made her hate me?”   

“Eloise doesn’t hate you. She’s just a little protective of me. Really, she’s like this with everyone I bring over.” 

“Jared.” He leans both elbows onto the counter and looks him in the eye. “What does that mean.”   

“It means,” Jared says, absurdly calm, “that she's like this with everyone I bring over, Richard. We do this dinner every year, and she always has something to say about my guests. It has nothing to do with us.”   

Richard notices the tips of his ears are red. He decides not to prod anymore, even if the answer just makes him feel worse.   

Instead he steals a sliver of cucumber off the cutting board and chews it. He feels the urge to make himself useful in the kitchen, but Jared’s stonewalling him by standing at the counter, shoulders squared, slicing the tomatoes at a worrying pace. He can’t help but think he looks just like Eloise minutes ago, right down to the posture. 

When he sees a person he cares about in pain, he mirrors them. Richard knows that. He also knows she can’t be his birth mother, because she died when he was twelve. When he told him this, at four a.m. lying face to face in a bunk bed, Richard reached out his hand and pulled it to his chest.   

This is not good. It’s fine. They’re going to be fine.   

A huge, bony cat butts his head against Richard’s ankle and slides past him. He’s counted three. It yowls up at the counter, probably well aware of the biggest pushover in the room. But Jared doesn’t fold. 

“It’s not for you, Bartleby.” He scoops it up in his arms, a heap of gray fur and flailing paws, and attempts to hand it off to Richard. “Can you take him outside? Please?”   

He can’t really say no, so he gets a good grip on the cat and heads out the screen door. When he gets outside, Eloise is standing on the patio, uncorking a bottle of wine.   

“He doesn’t let everybody hold him like that,” she says, nonplussed. As she says it, Bartleby slips out of Richard’s arms. (What an awful name.) “He’s a little anxious.”   

“Me too,” Richard says. It’s a joke, but not really.   

“So how did you meet Donald?” she asks, cutting through whatever fifteen layers of bullshit he was operating on. “Why do you call him that other name?”   

“Um.” He stops, realizing he’s never had to even really confront the issue. “When I met him, that’s what he told me his name was, and it just stuck—I mean, he’s never asked me to switch. Are you saying that I should?”  

“I don’t have any opinion on what you should do,” she says, and he physically feels himself get knocked down a peg or two realizing this is far from the first time she’s had this conversation. "I just expect you to treat Donald well. He has a knack for getting manipulated by other people who don’t actually value him.”  

“I’m not one of those people,” he says. “He’s really helped me. Through a lot of awful shit. And—he’s told me, you know, things about himself—”   

“He tells everyone his things,” Eloise says. “Anyone who’s willing to listen.”   

“Like—the real things.”   

“Like what?”   

Jared steps out onto the patio, salad bowl in his hands. “Everything’s ready. Where should I put it?” 

The first thing he did after the worst date of his life, after climbing apologetically out of a Lyft, was make a beeline to the garage. Jared was there, and awake—he almost always was at that hour, back then. He was under the cheap duvet, on his laptop, leaning against some milk crates.

“How did it go?”   

“Jared,” he said, staggering to the air mattress and kneeling at the edge. “I fucked up.”   

“Oh.” He shut his laptop and sat up straight, watching him crawl closer. Richard was sure he was trying not to touch him, not to physically engage at all, expertly restrained. Always so respectful of his boundaries, always Richard’s needs before his own. “What happened? Did something go wrong with Hannah?”   

(In hindsight, he seemed a little too eager to ask.)   

“I—just realized I need to stop fucking kidding myself,” he blurted, feeling blindly for Jared’s knee. Was he crying already? It felt like it, on his face. He was pretty loaded. “I need to stop. Stop pretending.”   

“Pretending what?”   

“That—you’re not the person. The person I want to be with.” He could barely understand himself, he was sobbing so loudly, probably sounding ridiculous. “But it’s so stupid and impossible that I have to lie to myself about it.”

“Richard,” he said, hands suddenly on his shoulders, dead calm. “You’re very drunk.”   

He saw right through him. Something about his placid denial, the insistence that nothing was wrong, enraged him in that moment. “I see you looking at me all the time. I notice everything, dude, so don’t just fucking pretend you don’t want this—”   

“Richard.”   

He tried to lean in, writing checks he can’t cash. “Please. Just tell me it’s possible.”   

In some far-off fantasy world Jared could have just dropped his scruples and they could have fucked right there, on that awful air mattress, with his head two inches from the concrete. But instead he just grabbed both his wrists and held onto them, forcing Richard to go still.   

“I do. I do want it.” He looked him square in the eye. “But I don’t really think it should happen like this. Do you?”   

It wasn't a rhetorical question. Richard pulled his hands away—he wasn’t holding on that hard—and considered his options. Then he shook his head.   

“Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”   

“No.”   

He cleared his throat and put his head down, on the corner of the pillow. Because there’s some fucking good left in the world, Jared slipped his arm around his shoulder and pressed his lips to a spot beneath his eyebrow, and neither of them had to say a word. 

More people start to trickle in, some of them names Richard actually recognizes—Muriel’s daughter and tiny blonde grandchild, aunts and distant friends that seem oddly excited once they find out who he is. Jared does a lot of the talking for him, anyway, and lays it on thick (probably to apologize without ever having to say anything.) Richard’s a Stanford-educated engineer; Richard’s got a brilliant mind; you two would find a lot to talk about. But before he even scratches the surface with anybody he gets whisked off to someone else.  

Which is just as well, really. He’s never good with strangers, and as usual, Jared took steps to circumvent it, steps Richard wouldn’t even think to take. Maybe he is like every other schlubby boyfriend he’s brought over.   

Muriel rings some kind of New Age dinner bell, loud and clangy, and everyone gathers around the outdoor table. It’s beautiful, actually—the backyard stretches out for what looks like forever, a wooded path not far down the hill. Once Richard finds his seat, he glances up and suddenly sees Jared pouring him a glass of wine. 

Something about the whole image is just weird. The only thing that comes out of his mouth is: “Oh. It’s white?”   

“Red wouldn’t go with this meal,” Jared says, “technically. You’re at a table of oenophiles that would say so.” 

“Right.” He already feels a little disoriented.   

“Not a big wine drinker?” Muriel asks.   

“I like it, just—” 

“That’s quite alright. It’s meant to be enjoyed with food,” she says. “This is from our vinery. We only serve what we make to friends.”   

“And Trader Joe’s,” Eloise says.   

“And Trader Joe’s. But that’s just to keep the lights on. Should we have a toast?”

The wine goes down light and easy, perfect for an amateur like himself. Eloise, spearing a few pieces of vegan gnocchi, addresses him from the other side of the table: “What were we talking about before, Richard?” 

“Whatever it was,” Jared pipes in, “I’m sure the rest of the table wouldn’t find it very interesting.”   

Of course, everyone but the three of them are caught up in other conversations. Richard looks around for some other kind of lifeline that he knows does not exist.   

“It was about you, Donald,” she says, perfectly genteel. “Just—that you two had gotten to know each other quite well in the last few months.”   

Jared knits his brow, his voice pitching up the way it does when he’s upset: “We’ve known each other about four years.”   

“I know,” Eloise says, “but this development is recent?”   

He turns to Richard, but it seems like he’s already made up his mind by the time he looks at him. “About six weeks. I don’t know why it’s so important.”   

Even she backs off after that, but Richard can tell it’s with great restraint. “Forgive me. I was just curious. Especially after the conversations we’ve had before.”  

“Eloise, it feels—really unnecessary to bring that up,” Jared says (easily the harshest thing Richard's heard him say to someone he cares for.) “Of course I forgive you. But I—” 

“No, you’re right, this is total bullshit.” Richard pushes his wine glass away from him, a little stunned at the words coming out of him—but he feels stone-cold sober and fed up with watching this same scene play out. “Jared’s a grown adult. He can make his own decisions about who he wants to date without screening them for you.”   

“Richard,” he says, his hand suddenly clasping the top of his arm, “it’s not that. She’s talking about something I said before—” 

“It doesn’t matter what you said, like, upwards of a year ago. I was probably a massive dick to you back then.” He feels eyes on him, but keeps going anyway: “She’s just using your words against you. It’s manipulative as shit and I’m not playing along with it.”   

Suddenly the table is quiet. Muriel asks, slowly: “Is everything alright, dear?”   

Richard shakes his head, pushing his chair out and standing up. “No. Sorry, I should—I should go. Sorry, everyone.” 

He hears Jared say his name, but it’s too late. He makes a break for it into the woods.

Somehow he managed to steal the rest of the wine from the ice bucket, too. He’s already made enough of a prick of himself that he figures it can’t hurt. So there he is, wandering on someone else’s property with a bottle of Sauvignon blanc. At the bottom of the hill is a tiny river, snaking a few miles down—he finds a swing chair hanging from a tree and falls back into it, just now noticing he’s half in the bag.   

Jared’s not far behind, of course. He secretly hopes he’ll turn around and prolong this conversation for as much time as possible, but the sound of his voice, his footsteps get closer until it’s unavoidable.   

Then he’s standing behind him, hand on the back of the chair, steadying the rope. “Are you okay?” 

“Why are you asking if I’m okay? I just fucked up twenty people’s evening when I was supposed to impress them.” 

“I don’t care about impressing anyone,” Jared says. “Eloise—helped me a lot. I owed it to her, for you two to meet. That’s all.”   

“Well, she met me,” Richard says, mustering a completely inappropriate laugh. “What did you say about me before that was so bad?”   

He sits down beside him. “Just that I—talk a lot and I wasn’t sure if you listened, always. But I know that’s not true now—”   

“Of course it’s not true.” Richard turns to him. “Jared, I remember everything you tell me. Like how you’re a Pisces and prefer regular Cheerios to fucking honey nut. Like—how in the tenth grade you had to memorize 'O Captain, My Captain' and it stuck with you forever. You used to daydream about sailing away from wherever you were but you were in landlocked Pennsylvania so you didn’t even see a boat in a harbor until you were nineteen and took a bus to the Jersey shore, but you kept saying you were going to the shore because that was the only thing you heard people call it, you didn’t even know it was in New Jersey until you got there. You love children. And animals. And anyone who listens to you which means a ton of shitty people take advantage of you, or they treat you like shit because they don’t get it. 

"Your favorite book is Moby Dick because you like stories about the ocean and—I don’t know, you probably relate to the whole thing of chasing something aimlessly and having it haunt you every day of your life until it kills you, but I don’t want it to kill you, Jared, I just want you to be well-adjusted and fucking happy—”   

He stops him. “I am happy. I’m happier than ever with you. Always.” 

“I’m sorry,” Richard says. “I shouldn’t have said all that. I made a prick of myself in front of people you really wanted me to meet. And you worked so hard to try to make them like me—I fucked up whatever chance we had.”

“I don’t care what they think.” Jared reaches for his hand, looking strangely giddy about all of this. “I mean—I do, but I care more about you. About us.” 

“There’s an ‘us’ now.” He doesn’t say it out of skepticism—it’s something closer to relief. 

“Yeah.” There’s a pause as he slips his arm around his waist, a troubled expression when Richard doesn’t answer, even as he leans heavily into his side. “You do know that. Right?” 

“I know.” He stares out in front of him, at the dappled sunlight and soft grass, in this place he knows he’s no longer welcome in, and squeezes Jared’s hand. “Is it okay if we go home?” 

“Of course,” Jared says. They do not move.