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anyroads · 8 days ago

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How to actually support small businesses on Etsy

With Christmas approaching and people starting to look for gifts, I thought it might be useful to let people know how to best support Etsy sellers, since we get a lot of sales this time of year! Etsy has a lot of policies that affect sellers which they don't really disclose to customers, and often there's a communication gap that can be damaging to sellers without customers intending them to. Hopefully this post helps more people avoid this kind of thing.

A while ago Etsy implemented the Star Seller program. When you go to an Etsy store, you can see badges at the top of the page, denoting if the seller has done well in three main categories:

Speedy replies

On time dispatch with tracking

Good reviews

If you clear the bar for all three as a seller, you're a Star Seller. This is an important badge for sellers, which I'll get to in a bit. Etsy evaluates your stats monthly, and bases them on three months' worth of data:

Each has specific determining factors, which also advantage large operations like dropshippers over small businesses, but we'll get to that too:

As you can see, the criteria is really demanding. You have to respond to 95% of first messages (ie. the first time someone contacts you) within 24 hours or you lose your Star Seller status. This can be really damaging to a small store.

You also have to dispatch 95% of orders on time, ie. within the set timeline you've chosen for an item listed, and you have to give tracking info. This, by the way, is frustrating and disingenuous; I ship my product in envelopes because they're small and thin, but the mail service in my country doesn't offer tracking for envelopes. I'm not going to spend up to 3x as much on shipping just to have a tracking number (shipping would cost half the price of my product if I did), but if I don't include tracking info I don't get a Star Seller badge even if I ship all my orders on time. I get around this by writing "unavailable" in the field where tracking info goes, but this still poses a transparency issue to customers and rightly so. I end up compensating by issuing a lot of replacements for delayed orders, which I can recoup costs of through my mail service which is a lot of extra work and time.

You also must have an average of 4.8 star reviews or higher. There are no adjustments made for small stores, and this is a big one where dropshippers have an advantage.

As you can see in my stats here, I had 11 reviews in 3 months. That means if just one person gives me a 4 or 3 star review, I lose my Star Seller status for 3 months unless I get a ton more reviews quickly. A dropshipper who makes hundreds of sales a week won't be affected by one middling review. And you'd be surprised how often people who leave 3 or 4 star reviews actually meant to leave better ones but clicked the wrong button without noticing, or just don't understand how the system works.

Because Etsy doesn't explain this to customers. So people will leave a damaging review in perfectly good faith. The number of times I've gotten an "excellent product, would buy again!" review with 3 stars is astounding. I always message customers to ask what I could do better and explain the system, and the response is almost always that there was nothing wrong, they just usually don't give anything higher than 3 out of 5 stars unless the product radically improved their lives or was transformative (and to their credit, most customers change their reviews after this exchange but again, it takes time and effort).

3 stars is average, and what customers rate is their experience receiving and using a product. What Etsy uses these ratings to gauge, however, is whether a customer was satisfied dispatch timelines, craftsmanship, and if a product met the expectations set in the listing.

As an added bonus, Etsy hoses money off sellers by offering to advertise for them. The way this works is that if a seller opts in, Etsy will advertise their store in relevant searches on search engines like Google, and in exchange they take a percentage from any sales made from clicks on these links. And then some. Because if a customer clicked an advertising link once, then Etsy will keep taking that cut from any further purchases from that IP address. So if you click a Google link to an Etsy store and then purchase from that store, and then bookmark that store and go back six months later to get another item, Etsy will keep taking their advertising cut with each purchase you make.

Depending on whether or not you opt in to advertising, Etsy can take up to 30% of your earnings in fees alone. That means if I sell, say, bookmarks for $10, I only get to keep $7. Hopefully that covers my operating costs, but if I charge more for an item that takes me a lot of time and work to make, I have to factor in that Etsy offers free shipping on orders over $35 whether or not sellers agree to give it. So if I sell a product that costs $35, not only do I only get to keep $24.50 of what I was paid after Etsy takes fees, I also have to cover the cost of shipping. And if I'm selling a product for that much, it's likely shipping will cost $5-10, so now my profit is down to $15-20 for an item I sold for $35.

Why is the Star Seller status so important? Because it's the main way the average Etsy store gets onto the algorithm and has visibility, and without visibility you don't have sales. Drop shippers can afford to purchase advertising space, so they'll always show up in searches. They can also afford to have a variety of products, high-end professional photos of their products, and because they have a lot of sales, the occasional bad review or delayed shipment won't cause a blip on their rating system. In comparison, the average Etsy store who makes, let's say, 50 sales a month (and that's a small store that's doing well), is going to feel the impact of a handful of 4 star reviews and one day of delayed orders/message replies due to a family emergency. If you contact Etsy customer service to explain your legitimate reason for having a delay, they're unable to intervene. They can't give you back your Star Seller status, which means you're dropped from the algorithm for the three months it takes for those delays to stop counting towards your averages, and you then have to work your way back up into the algorithm once that time passes, which is even harder to do. (And while you can put up an auto-reply, there's a time limit on how long it'll be up, which is usually 24-48 hours. Which may not work if you have a personal emergency that the average small business would understand and give you time off for in ways Etsy refuses to accommodate.)

So what can you do to support Etsy sellers?

- Give good reviews. If you have problems with a product, message the seller and give them the opportunity to fix the problem or send a replacement/refund. Unless you feel the need to leave a scathing 1 star review, don't leave one unless it's a 5 star. Etsy counts anything under 5 stars the same as it does one star. (This goes for Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo, etc. too. Review kindly.)

- Message sellers during the week. It's harder to get to messages during the weekend, and not everyone remembers to put on their auto-reply.

- Don't click advertising links. If someone promos their Etsy store on their own social media account, it's fine. So if you click a link from an instagram profile or a tumblr post, that's fine. But if you see a link on Google or in a dedicated advertising space, even if it's a sponsored spot on Etsy, don't click on it. Instead, search the shop name on Etsy and go to it through that search. This way the seller won't lose more fees to Etsy.

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ckret2 · 4 months ago

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Chapter 63 of human Bill Cipher trying to debate his way out of still being the Mystery Shack's prisoner. Soos has found the stolen Journal 4 in Bill's possession and has to decide what to do about it in light of everything else he's learned about Bill lately.

[*you may notice chapter 61 is missing! This plot was done sooner, so I'll be posting chapter 61 sometime after 64. It's not chronological so you're not missing anything!]

Soos stared dumbfounded at the journal with a 4 on the cover that he'd pulled from Bill's hiding place. Ford had lost Journal 4 last fall—he'd said gnomes had stolen it. How in the world had Bill gotten it?

Soos sat in the attic window seat and flipped through it. The first few pages were Ford's journal entries—his observations of the dimensional rips they were glueing shut in Gravity Falls post-Weirdmageddon, a hand-drawn map highlighting various places around the globe he wanted to investigate, a few drawings and observations of paranormal beings he hadn't seen his first time in town, half a sketch of a gnome that ended with a jagged scribble across the page followed by a page that said "Shmebulock" over and over.

And then a page that said, in an unfamiliar handwriting of jagged, narrow gray letters: "CURSED BOOK! If your name is Mabon Mason Pines, STOP READING NOW or ENJOY YOUR HEX!"

Bill had written page after page of some weird code of gray and yellow-green dots and dashes. A few sentences in English—every one of them was a threatening message to Ford. "Everything would have been fantastic if you'd just helped me finish, Fordsy." "You'll regret not siding with me when you had the chance." "You should have known better than to let your idiot brother turn you against me." "Sixer, you're lying to yourself every time you say you never worshiped me, and you know it. You spent the first third of your life running away from the god you were raised with and the second third chasing after me. Don't waste your last third denying it. YOU'RE MINE." A small, worrying diagram of what looked like the interdimensional portal. And a sticker.

Wait, hold on.

A sticker. One of Mabel's. The rest of the page was the same as the others, the two-tone dots and dashes, except for the sticker, and an arrow drawn from one paragraph to the sticker.

A yellow smiley, its round edges filled in with black marker to make a triangle, over the words "Good job!"

Soos stared at the sticker.

####

A couple of weeks ago, Melody had texted to let Soos know that there was a mess in the upstairs bathroom, and the kids said they'd been fighting a werewolf ghost.

When Soos had gotten home the next morning, Melody had pulled him aside and quietly told him she hadn't wanted to worry him and the Stans, but she did not think it was a werewolf ghost.

When Soos saw the bathroom, he didn't think it was a werewolf ghost either.

It was a scene from a horror movie. Menacing magical sigils painted all over the walls in blood and toothpaste, Bill's zodiac painted on one mirror, the other mirror broken, glass and water all over the floor. It looked like the site of a really wet demon summoning. This contained none of the hallmarks of ghostly or werewolfish activity. Why would Bill do this?

Soos was kind of reluctant to ask Bill. Bill still sorta scared him sometimes. Sure, he looked like a lost 18-year-old, but Soos knew what teens were like in a fight. So he asked Mabel instead.

Mabel pursed her lips uncomfortably. "Ask Dipper."

So Soos asked Dipper.

Dipper winced and. "Promise you won't get mad."

Soos considered that. "Yeah, I guess that's a fair deal."

Dipper confessed that Bill got accidentally locked in the upstairs bathroom for like a whole day, because he and Mabel didn't hear him yelling. Not because they were out of the house when they shouldn't have been. They were just... somewhere else in the house. Doing something loud. For the whole day.

While Bill was trapped alone.

####

Soos had vented to Abuelita about cleaning the bathroom. Like sure, he got Bill was annoyed about being stuck, but that seemed excessive.

Abuelita had made the observation that sometimes people in profoundly bleak and oppressive situations would just... destroy whatever was around them. Like punching a hole in the wall or snapping a pencil when you were angry, but much more so. Not because they wanted their surroundings to be destroyed, but because that was the last and only thing they had power over, and they needed to feel like they were in control of something. Even if that thing was merely changing their environment from ordered to chaotic.

Bill didn't have control over very much. He probably hadn't since he died. Soos didn't know what kind of space triangle afterlife Bill had been in before he showed up as Toga Lady, but it couldn't have been great if he'd come straight back here.

Soos could remember the one time weeks ago he'd let Bill into the bathroom to shower and forgotten to come back and let him out. How Bill had screamed so all the Mystery Shack's tourists could hear; how he'd seethed in Soos's face, how he'd said he'd rather blow their collective cover and throw them all on the mercy of the town's law enforcement than remain locked in the bathroom a second longer than they'd agreed upon. Soos had thought Bill was just impatient and hotheaded.

Standing in the bathroom, looking at the material evidence of Bill's claustrophobic terror—the broken glass, the spilled blood—he wondered.

####

The same day, he had felt a breeze in the gift shop and found the trap doors to the roof left open. He'd climbed up, shut them, and in between tours he'd visited his office to check yesterday's security tapes.

He saw Wendy coming into the shack to hang out the morning before. That was fine. Soos had discovered she did that from time to time on days the shack was closed, but she wasn't doing anything bad and she hadn't brought it up yet, so Soos didn't bring it up either. Maybe she just needed a private place to hang. Teen stuff. He was just glad Wendy felt that safe at the Mystery Shack. Maybe she'd just gone up to hang out on the roof and forgot to shut the trap doors...

And then, right there on screen, Soos saw Bill letting himself into the gift shop, through the door, which he shouldn't be able to open. A chill shot up Soos's back. The door curse was their only real means of containing Bill. If he could use doors now, he was out, there was no way they could trap him without doing something crazy like locking him in the bunker and hoping he didn't kill himself.

Or could he use doors? Soos thought back to the frantic messages on the bathroom wall, written in Bill's own blood—his desperation over being unable to escape. Maybe he could use doors but not doorknobs. That was okay, maybe?

On tape, he saw Wendy run into Bill. He saw Wendy take Bill onto the roof. Out in the open air, where he could just... do whatever. But he didn't do whatever. Soos fast-forwarded the tape until Wendy and Bill came back down, and Bill simply returned to the living room.

He'd had the perfect opportunity to shove Wendy off the roof or escape. He didn't take it.

If all Bill was using his new door skills for was ducking into the gift shop and hanging out on the roof with Wendy, Soos thought maybe it would be kinda mean to take that away from him. There weren't a lot of other places Bill could go in the shack. (Soos kept seeing the blood on the bathroom wall. He kept trying to imagine what kind of helplessness would drive someone that far.) Maybe Bill needed the open air.

So Soos had put the security tape on his desk, not sure what to do about it.

####

A couple of day after that, while Soos was restocking the gift shop in between waves of tourists, he'd seen Wendy reading an oddly dull-looking booklet instead of one of her usual magazines. He tilted his head to glance at the cover. The Oregon state driving manual. "Aw dude, gonna get your learner's permit?"

"Think so," Wendy said. "Don't tell my dad."

Soos remembered Wendy groaning about her dad wrangling her into doing errands if she ever got her license. "Your secret is safe with me."

"Thanks."

"What made you change your mind? You were totally against getting a license a week ago."

"It's probably those stupid Gleeful Auto commercials that have been worming into my dreams." Wendy laughed. "I'm just waking up in the morning like, neeeed caaar."

"Oh yeah! Heh, funny coincidence, Melody says she had a dream like that too. Sometimes she gets these like, dreams about monsters watching her in bed? But one time, the monster was Bud Gleeful, whispering in her ear about a big car sale. She totally woke up laughing!"

"Ha! Annoying car commercials should be banned, man. Why do we need to be told multiple times a day to spend thousands of dollars?"

"You make a salient point."

They fell silent for a moment as Wendy read a couple more paragraphs. Then she said, "That, plus... I was talking to Goldie the other day."

Soos looked up from the t-shirt he'd been putting on a clothes hanger. "Oh. Yeah?"

"About where we wanna go when we get out of town."

"Huh." Very casually, Soos asked, "What did Goldie say?"

"He wants to go on some big vacation. Like a world cruise or something, I dunno."

"Huh." Soos wondered if that was true. He tried to imagine Bill Cipher as a tourist. Floating triangle in a Hawaiian shirt with a camera hanging from a strap and a fanny pack. What kind of places would he even visit? Soos bet he wanted to visit the pyramids. Heh. (Was that stereotyping? Maybe that was stereotyping.)

"And I told him I'm moving to Portland for college."

"Oh, hey, I didn't know you were thinking about college."

"I... actually, never told anybody else before," Wendy said. "I've been thinking about it for years, but part of me felt like it's just a fantasy? But Goldie said when he got out of high school, he did the same thing—moved to another town, made a new group of friends, all that. And... I don't know, actually talking to him out loud about it just... made it feel real, you know? So I thought, if I'm gonna move to Portland, I should probably start planning for it. Starting with how I'm getting there." She held up the driving manual.

Soos nodded slowly. "Huh. Yeah. That's a pretty mature way to look at it."

And that was what Bill was talking to Wendy about on the roof? Just... listening to a teen vent and helping her figure out her future?

And so, Soos took the security tape off his desk and put it in a drawer.

####

A few days later, Soos had heard the downstairs bathroom sink running for several minutes, assumed someone had forgotten to turn it off, and went to turn it off himself—and had caught Bill, in the dark, half undressed, washing himself in the sink.

After Soos had backed out and profusely apologized, he'd asked, "But—how come you're washing in the sink? I can let you in the upstairs bathroom if you need—"

"Worry about your own grooming habits and leave mine alone," Bill snapped. "As long as I don't smell, what do you humans care how I do it. Soap is soap and water is water."

It took Soos several days to realize he didn't think Bill had had a shower since he got locked in the bathroom. And nobody had noticed, because Bill made sure nobody noticed, because he'd been keeping himself clean in the bathroom he couldn't get locked in.

####

Dipper would go all summer without showering if he could get away with it; Stan showered like once a week and had constant old man smell; Abuelita also showered weekly and had a more refined old lady smell; Soos didn't know when Ford showered, but he'd never caught him doing it and Ford always smelled weirdly like burned hair. Soos showered almost daily during tourist season—that Mr. Mystery suit was hot—but outside that might go three days at a time. Mabel showered near daily.

From what Soos had observed, Bill was showering like, at least twice a week. He didn't know how often Bill cleaned himself in the sink in between.

That meant he was showering more often than two-thirds of the house.

Yet he was the only one in the house living under the threat of being thrown in the tub at 3 a.m. if someone decided he hadn't bathed enough for their tastes.

The reason Bill had refused to shower during his first week of imprisonment was so he could use the condition of his body as a bargaining chip—with no physical possessions in the world, his own body was the only bargaining chip he had—to try to buy a little more dignity. In return, his captors had taken more dignity away. They permitted Bill less autonomy over how to take care of his body than the household's children had.

Dipper had never gotten forced into a bathroom he couldn't let himself out of.

####

The day after the eclipse, Ford had pulled Soos aside and said quietly, "Soos, as soon as you have some time—could you repair the door to the kids' room? Before the end of the day? The latch has been broken since the tooth fairy's attack."

"Uh, sure, I can probably do that," Soos said. "How come?" The latch had been broken for a couple weeks, and the Pines hadn't been worried about it before.

"Right now, the door can swing freely with just a push," Ford said. "I think Bill's figured out how to use that to get in. Which is worrisome, since he shouldn't be able to use any doors..."

"O-oh." Soos thought about the swinging door into the gift shop. "Yeah, uh... sounds bad. Byyy the way—how'd you figure out he knows how to use the door?"

"Dipper says Bill somehow got in and out of the room last night," Ford said. "Mabel fell asleep in the living room and Bill carried her upstairs. I really don't like the thought of Bill being able to get his hands on the kids while they're asleep and defenseless."

Ford was mad at Bill for tucking a kid into bed? That was the big red flag? "No problem! I'll fix the door right after work."

The next time Soos visited his office, he took the security tape out of his drawer, rewound it, stuck it back into the tape recorder, and let that day's security camera footage overwrite and erase the evidence of Bill's visit to the gift shop.

####

And now, today, carrying Journal 4 in both hands, Soos trudged downstairs, trying to figure out what to do with it. He had to return it to Ford, obviously—but Bill and the Stans were already in the middle of a discussion that sounded a lot more like an argument. Flinging a stolen journal into the middle of the proceedings would just make it worse. Maybe he should wait until they were finished and everyone had cooled down a little—?

While Soos was upstairs, the discussion had apparently moved into the kitchen. He hovered awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs, watching.

"What do you mean, you need kitchen access," Stan was asking, "you already have kitchen access. It's never been off-limits! Even after you peed in the sink!"

"It's not kitchen access if I need to ask someone else for permission to eat anything but snacks."

"No one's making you ask for permission! You can take what you want!"

"Okay, fine. So what can I eat?" Bill gestures at the shelves. "Go on. List anything you can think of. Anything."

Stan grimaced, and glanced at Ford to see if he was willing to walk into the obvious trap first.

Ford looked at the nearby shelves. "Cereal."

"One point for Stanford Pines! Cereal! So am I supposed to eat dry cereal for every single meal, or—?"

"No, of course not."

"All right, then what else?"

"Brown meat," Stan said. "We've got plenty of brown meat. It's good for you!"

"You didn't give me can opener rights," Bill said.

"Huh."

"So no brown meat," Bill said. "No canned soup, no canned chili, no canned fruit, no canned vegetables—"

Ford cut in, "Some of the cans have pull tabs, you don't need a can opener for those."

"Terrific observation! As soon as you realized I could open those cans myself, you moved them all under the counter because you thought I'd use the sharp edges as weapons!"

"It's... possible to open cans without a can opener, I did it sometimes while roughing it in other dimensions—"

"Yeah, wearing off the metal rim with a rock, right? Lemme just go outside and grab a rock—oh wait." Bill crossed his arms.

Ford sighed, and turned to Stan to suggest something else.

Stan surveyed the available supplies, spotted the bread, and said, "You could make sandwiches!"

"With what filling?"

"Uh..." Stan kept looking.

Meats and cheeses, of course, were kept in the fridge. Along with jelly, condiments, most vegetables... tuna or spam weren't options, they were canned... "Hey, we leave out some meats that don't need refrigeration. Sausages and stuff."

"Right, right. The ones that don't need refrigeration because they're wrapped in plastic you need a knife to cut," Bill said. "Sometimes I bite the plastic open with my teeth and rip off chunks of sausage with my fingernails, that's always fun! Then you put the leftovers in the fridge, and I'm out of luck until we buy another sausage."

"You could put... peanut butter on your sandwiches?" Ford tried. "Peanut butter's nutritious."

Bill fixed him with a hard look. "For the past five weeks, every time I've gotten a meal without asking someone else to help feed me like a baby, I've had nothing but peanut butter and banana sandwiches, peanut butter and jerky sandwiches, peanut butter and raisin sandwiches, and peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches. And we're out of bananas, jerky, and raisins." He pointed at the tortillas. "Once I decided to get creative and made myself a cold peanut butter quesadilla! I can't even add spices, because guess where the breakable glass spice jars are kept?"

"Pasta," Ford tried. "We could keep the pasta out."

"Oh, wow, that'd be great! I just love pasta! But I can't open the microwave and I can't turn on the stove! How do I heat the water, Stanford?"

Ford frowned. "Hm."

"I can cook, you know—not that any of you bothered to ask! It might not suit your tastes, but it suits mine! I wouldn't need your help to eat if you didn't make me need help! I am sick to death—" his voice went thick and took on an uncharacteristic waver, "—of having to beg to... eat." He cleared his throat, squeezed his eyes shut, and rubbed his eyelids with one hand. "Sh-shouldn't even—need to eat." He clenched his jaw to keep it from trembling.

Stan and Ford exchanged a guilty look. Stan said, "You don't have to beg— I mean, we know the, uh... position you're in..."

Bill was silent for a moment as he tried to get a tough face back on. His voice came out as a rough whisper—too thick to get any louder without breaking. "I had to negotiate to get burnt eggs."

Ford winced.

Soos was dumbfounded.

When had Bill had to negotiate for food? He could all too easily understand how it might have happened—Bill was an annoying guy, sometimes they had to pull out dumb bargains to get him to do stuff. But bargaining for food should never be on that list. Meeting Bill's basic nutritional needs couldn't be dependent on whether he was annoying that day. If it was, he'd starve.

It sounded like he was starving. Right under Soos's roof. He hadn't even noticed.

He thought about the piles of junk food trash upstairs and the bag of chips Bill had hurled across the room.

Ford said, "We'll... discuss it."

"We'll figure something out," Stan said. "I mean it."

Bill nodded silently. Head down, without uncovering his eyes, he hurried out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.

He nearly bumped into Soos's chest without noticing him. Soos backed up a step, tucking Journal 4 under his arm. "Whoa, hey!"

Bill froze, head jerking up. "You." His voice was thick and his glare was watery and poisonous. "Don't you have anything better to do than eavesdrop?" He tried to elbow past Soos, smacking his leg with his umbrella. "Move."

Soos realized uneasily that Bill's face looked a little slimmer than it had when he'd arrived.

He stepped in Bill's way. "Can't go upstairs right now. Attic's being cleaned."

"I didn't ask you to clean!"

"I'm not cleaning for you, dawg. It's just gotta be cleaned."

"Fine! Whatever!" Bill veered around the staircase and stomped down the hall, muttering, "Can't decide when I eat, can't decide when I shower, why should I get to choose when my hovel's swept..."

Soos's leg hurt where Bill had smacked it. (Bill couldn't even control whether or not he cried; all he had control over was making someone else hurt.)

In the kitchen, Stan murmured, "Didn't even realize we don't keep anything decent out on the counters. They're so crowded..."

"Chip bags take up a lot of space." Ford sighed. "I assumed he'd get a serving with everyone else whenever Mrs. Ramirez cooks."

"He does, but she only does dinners. And he'll only eat it if he watched her cook it. I've seen him get lunch with Mabel, but I don't know what he does when she's not..." Stan spotted Soos on the stairs. He tiredly called, "Soos? You need something?"

"Uhhh..." Soos hid the journal behind his back. "Nope! I just thought I'd come downstairs! For no reason." He awkwardly walked up the stairs backwards, journal still tucked behind him. "And—and now I'm going up again." He stopped at the landing and scooted sideways up the next flight of stairs. "See ya."

He pressed the journal to his chest and returned to the attic.

####

When Soos and Abuelita moved into the shack, the first thing Soos had done was turn Ford's ground-floor study into a bedroom for Abuelita. Because she was a little old lady, and not quite as steady as she used to be, so Soos didn't want her constantly going up and down the stairs—because falling once, just ONCE, could send her to the hospital or worse. That was how serious it was! You don't mess around with that!

Bill tripped and fell on the stairs so often that they could use it to tell when he was awake. And nobody had thought to offer him a cane? Did anybody even ask if he was alright?

When Bill first arrived and tried to murder everyone, naturally, he came out of it pretty banged up and bruised. That was to be expected. It was self-defense. They'd gotten used to seeing Bill with scrapes on his arms and legs, rope burns around his ankles, and the angry purple-black bruises of chain links over his arms. But in all the weeks since then, Soos hadn't seen Bill bruise-free once. Bruises on his shins and arms, scrapes on his elbows and knees. Soos had seen him with a four-inch burn on his forearm. Bill had brushed it off.

In Bill's first few days in the shack, he'd resorted to peeing in the kitchen sink because nobody had bothered to give a guy who couldn't open doors a way to use the bathroom. And they were the reason he couldn't open doors in the first place!

He threw up in the living room in the middle of the night and went upstairs to sleep on couch cushions on the floor and nobody had talked about it.

He burned off all his hair and was so upset about it that he stole Soos's zodiac blanket and hid under it for half a week, and everyone but Mabel just ignored him.

In less than a month in the Mystery Shack, Bill had lost a tooth.

He had been dragged out of the house during a weird weather phenomenon while terrified out of his mind. Soos had seen Bill cowering on the ground in fear, Ford looming over him, grabbing him by the collar and snarling in rage. Bill had been pleading with everyone in hearing range not to make him go, and had come back in such a state of shock he could hardly walk.

And yet, he'd protected the whole town from getting hurt in zero gravity—and he'd brought a pet for Soos.

They'd tried to execute Bill two days later.

####

Soos sat in the window seat, flipping through the remaining filled-in pages in Journal 4. The last few pages were packed with stickers. A cat that said PURRFECT! A smiling fish that said A REEL PAL! Bill had started a little collection of pizza slice stickers for some reason. A couple of holographic rainbows, a smiling scratch-and-sniff sun. (Apparently, the sun smelled like lemons and oranges. Astronomy facts!)

Soos reached the current page. Bill was using several pieces of paper—regular printer paper and notebook paper, folded in half—like a bookmark. Soos unfolded them. A list of animals ranked by fuzziness. (Soos was satisfied that he'd been placed under the "smooth and squishy" category, but wondered whether he should be bothered by the fact that he shared the category with pigs and slugs.) A drawing of Bill riding a looping rocket ship and waving a fishbowl helmet above him. A drawing of a blue house with a couple of kids and a pig in the window. Several drawings of shape people kinda like Bill: a pink heart person labeled "Me in Flatworld," a stern-looking red stop sign wearing sunglasses labeled "Bill's parole officer," Bill dancing, the pink heart protecting Bill from some villainous-looking shapes—all clearly Mabel's art.

Several notebook pages in someone else's handwriting detailing names, addresses, and contact information, with statements Soos couldn't make sense of—as if maybe someone had been asking somebody else questions and writing down their answers. He thought the questions might be about how some people had reacted to the end of Weirdmageddon. He got the impression the people being discussed had known that Weirdmageddon was coming. He got the impression they were disappointed it hadn't happened. There were several questions at the end: How will we rendes-vouz? (Whoever was writing didn't know how to spell rendezvous, but to be fair Soos wasn't 100% sure either.) What supplies do you need? What are your interim orders?

Soos stared at the notebook papers.

He flipped back through the journal again, looking at each page more closely.

Sometimes the two-tone dot-and-dash segments had a stray human word: a few characters he recognized from his Teach Yourself Japanese workbooks, sometimes words Soos thought might be Arabic but honestly he didn't have a clue. At one point he listed half a dozen human names that Soos didn't recognize. The most common character was a stretched-out letter M (Mabel?), followed by a 6 knocked on its side (Sixer?).

The dot-and-dash segments had occasional amateurish illustrations. Sometimes they were human stick figures; sometimes the stick figures' heads had symbols off of Bill's zodiac wheel. He saw Stan's fish symbol, Gideon's star symbol, and Mabel's shooting star symbol. Ford's stick figures were the only ones with hands; Bill consistently gave them six fingers. The doodles were like particularly esoteric cave drawings; they were so bad that Soos couldn't tell what most of them were supposed to illustrate.

Except for one featuring Bill (as a triangle) and Mabel and some other inscrutable figures in a really awesome car with flames on the side, its coolness limited only by the fact that it was all in gray and yellow-green crayon. When Soos had been in high school, there had always been a couple of kids who didn't know how to draw anything except expensive cars or name-brand sports shoes, but they drew them in extreme realistic detail. Apparently, Bill was that kind of artist. Nothing but stick figures and the sickest crayon car Soos had ever seen.

It didn't do anything to dispel Soos's impression of Bill as a lost alien 18-year-old.

On one page, in sloppy lines of handwriting that meandered drunkenly up and down the paper, Bill had written, "I don't get why you won't give me a second shot. I asked you to join my gang. I serenaded you in a pyramid. I got a fantastic makeover. I offered you godhood. I showed you my dimension. I didn't torture you until I had to. I even made you a skin couch! I know how much you've always wanted a leather furniture set! I've given you everything from chicken zombification magic to jelly beans, what does it take? What am I missing?"

Soos reread Bill's other messages to Ford. All that "you'll regret not siding with me" junk wasn't threats. It was the impotent rage of a socially inept teenager who didn't understand his own creepiness had driven his friends away. It was the whiny moan of some guy going "Why doesn't she like me anymore" about an ex-girlfriend who had told him five times she didn't like him anymore because he didn't listen to her. Like that guy Wendy dated last summer. So like, a jerk, but not a terrifying world-ending monster jerk, just an annoying creep jerk. A regular jerk. A human jerk.

Soos stood, gave one last look at this journal—clearly stolen, definitely a violation of Bill's "no writing materials" restriction, completely stuffed full of mysterious messages to outsiders and some kind of weird alien code that could say anything at all and might have been super dangerous—and he slid it back into the ripped seam in the attic seat cushion where he'd found it.

He finished vacuuming up the potato chips Bill had flung across the room, thinking about how offended Bill had been that Soos had given him any food except what he'd asked for, remembering what Abuelita had said about people who destroy the things around them when they feel like that's the last and only thing they still have power over.

Enough was enough.

####

(Hope y'all enjoyed! Next week we may interrupt our regularly-scheduled programming to post a TBOB-based chapter I'm inserting early into the fic—it depends on if I get it done by next Friday. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts on this chapter!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #soos ramirez #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 2 days ago

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can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 16

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14 || PART 15

Aside from bathroom breaks, Eddie doesn’t leave his room for two days. Friday bleeds into Saturday, bleeds into Sunday, and Eddie wallows in it. Wayne knows him well enough to not bother him, but Wayne also knows him well enough to barge into Eddie’s room Sunday morning without even knocking.

“Up, boy,” he says gruffly, turning Eddie’s overhead light on. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

Eddie groans, and tries to roll over to bury his face back into his pillow, but Wayne grabs him by the ankle and yanks until he goes tumbling out of the bed.

“Wayne!”

“I ain’t asking,” Wayne says, storming out of Eddie’s room without closing the door.

As is his right, Eddie whines and rolls around on his floor for a minute until he can finally find the will to get up. Clearly knowing that it would take Eddie a minute, Wayne’s just plating eggs and potatoes as Eddie walks into the kitchen, still clothed in only his boxers and the same shirt he’d been wearing when Carver’d kicked his ass on Thursday.

They settle across from each other at their dingy table, Wayne letting him get a few bites of breakfast in him before the interrogation he knows is coming begins.

“What happened?” Wayne asks, pushing his own plate away so he can focus on staring Eddie down.

Eddie swallows his bite of potatoes, throat suddenly dry. But, he wants to tell someone, he wants to tell Wayne, who, no matter how Eddie fucks up, is always in his corner.

“I’ve been getting these letters,” Eddie starts, using his fork to play with his food so he doesn’t have to meet his Uncle’s eyes as the whole sordid tale comes out.

He tells it like he experienced it: thinking it was a joke at first before getting wrapped up in the letters, finding out it was Chrissy, trying to connect the living, breathing girl to the words on the page.

And then, Harrington, strong and sure as he defended him from Carver, taking care of his wounds in the aftermath, lying to him for months until he couldn't get away with it anymore.

Wayne just listens without interruption while Eddie talks about Jeff’s betrayal, the fear in Chrissy’s eyes, the defeated slope of Harrington’s back as he’d walked out the door, going god knows where with his car still at the quarry where he’d left it.

When Eddie’s finally done, Wayne hums and pulls his now-cold food back in front of him, picks up his fork and starts to eat. Eddie watches him, gobsmacked.

“Wayne?” Eddie asks, moving his hand up and down in front of his Uncle’s eyes, checking to see if the old man can even still see him. “That’s all you’re going to say? Hmm, and then back to breakfast?”

Eddie scowls as he forks another potato into his mouth, chewing as he continues his tirade. “Where are your wise words, old man? Why the hell’d you even make me get up if this is all I was going to get?”

Wayne hums again, clearly just to piss Eddie off, then finally answers, “you needed to eat.”

Eddie stares at him, mouth hanging open half-masticated potatoes on full display for anyone to see. Not that anyone’s going to because Wayne’s gone back to polishing off his breakfast.

“That’s it?” Eddie demands, throwing his fork down in a huff.

Wayne sighs, like Eddie’s the one being unreasonable here and finally puts his fork down to meet his nephew’s eyes.

“Finish your breakfast, and we can talk.”

Eddie whines, but dutifully scarfs down his plate, never breaking eye contact with his uncle, like they’re in a stand-off. And in a way, they are.

Once done, Eddie tosses his fork across the room into the sink just to prove a point, leans across the table and glares at Wayne. Because he’s an asshole, Wayne takes another sip of his coffee, maintaining eye contact, before finally opening his mouth to speak.

“You like this boy?” Wayne asks.

Eddie sputters and stalls out. “You—I—what?” Eddie asks, fisting his hands into his greasy hair.

“It ain’t an unreasonable question,” he replies. “You’re talking about the kid like he’s a knight in one of those little games you like so much.”

“I—no I wasn’t!” Eddie cries, cheeks burning at the implication.

“Mmmhmm,” Wayne replies, eyebrow raised as he drinks more of his coffee like what he’s saying is of no importance at all.

“Wayne,” Eddie says, leaning over the table to clutch at his shoulders, ribs protesting at the pull. “I’m not gay.”

And that, out of everything, is what gets Wayne to put his mug back down and take Eddie seriously. “You ain’t?” Wayne asks, eyebrow raised. Eddie shakes his head, eyes wide. “You sure? There’s an awful lot of men in leather on your walls.”

Eddie squawks, sinking painfully back into his seat. “That’s Metallica.”

Wayne squints at him. “Is that one of them code words y’all use to stay safe?”

Eddie stands up, chair screeching against the linoleum floor. “It’s a band, Wayne!” Eddie cries, at a loss for what the fuck is happening. “I’m not gay!”

Wayne looks up at him, both eyebrows raised enough to scrunch up his forehead, wrinkling his mostly-bald head. “Well, alright then.”

Eddie stares at him, brain buzzing with even more questions than he’d had before. How long had Wayne thought he was gay? Why? What did he do?

Was he really okay with it?

Eddie turns on his heel and marches out of the kitchen and back to his bedroom without another word. He slams the door and collapses onto his bed, gut squirming with all the thoughts churning in his head.

***

Chrissy isn’t surprised when Eddie doesn’t come to school on Monday; she is surprised when Steve does. He’s got bags under his eyes and Robin Buckley super-glued to his side, but he’s still there.

She can’t help the way she runs into his arms, leaving Jeff behind without thought. Steve catches her—he always does, pushing his hands beneath his letterman jacket to grab at her waist and pull her in. They sway there in the middle of the hallway, all their classmates jeering around them.

Chrissy doesn’t care; she’s spent the entire weekend thinking about the crushed look in his eyes as he walked out of the Munson trailer without a backwards glance

“You’re okay?” she asks, face pressed into the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

He runs his hand up and down her back as he responds, “I will be.”

She pulls back to smile up at him and reaches up to brush a floppier-than-usual lock of hair behind his ear. “Walk me to class?”

He links their elbows, and does just that, Jeff and Robin falling into line behind them, Robin prattling on about some movie marathon her and Steve had had at her house over the weekend.

Chrissy’s just glad he wasn’t alone.

Steve sighs, shoulders slumping as he says, “I’m sorry, Chris,” he says, not looking her way. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into my mess.”

She stops abruptly enough that Robin stumbles into them and bounces back, cutting off her stream of words mid-babble to squawk at them. Chrissy doesn’t acknowledge her, too busy standing on her tippy toes so she can grab Steve’s shoulders and yank him down to her level.

“You listen to me, Steve Harrington,” she demands, looking into his big, bewildered eyes. “Your mess is my mess, okay?”

He’s still just staring at her, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, so she digs her nails in hard and says, “forever,” with as much finality as she can muster.

He keeps staring at her, looking like he’s about ready to burst into tears in the middle of the hallway. Finally, he says, “come over tonight?” more a demand than a question.

She drops her grip on him and nods, content.

Chrissy doesn’t ask questions when Steve leads her over to Robin in the cafeteria. It’s easy to take that last, final step into social suicide with him at her side.

They fall into their usual routine that night—they watch trashy TV neither would admit to liking to another living soul, and paint each other’s nails.

The lack of letter writing sits like a dead body between them.

“He won’t tell anyone,” Chrissy says, tightening her grip on his hand when he jerks. Chrissy keeps carefully painting his nails, her favorite pink, not looking up at his face. The color suits him—it’s not fair, but everything does. “He promised.”

Steve doesn’t ask for clarification, they both know who she’s talking about. “You believe him?”

She thinks about that torn, guilty look on Eddie’s face and replies, “I do.”

She finishes his pinkie and settles his hand down on her own knee to dry, knowing from previous experience that if she gives it back, he’ll ruin all her work running his hand through his hair.

“That’s good,” he mutters, looking down at his own hand, tilted so far forward that even when she looks up, his hair’s flopped too far into his face to see his eyes. “It still hurts.”

Chrissy sighs. She’d seen this coming all those months ago when she’d helped pen the first letter. Had seen the writing on the wall like it was she herself that was writing it. But, she’d helped him anyway, hoping to salvage his safety, if not his dignity.

She can only hope she has.

“I know,” she replies, biting her lip against apologies he won’t accept. “But, we’re in this together, okay?”

Steve’s fingers twitch on her leg, but he doesn’t pull away. “Even with you and Jeff?”

“You figured that out, huh?” she asks, and that’s what finally gets him to look up at her with a raised brow, making her laugh.

“I mean, you told me you were going to ask him out,” he starts, before leering over at her. “And you two aren’t exactly subtle.”

“Tell that to Eddie,” she replies, wanting to swallow the name back down once it comes out of her mouth, but it’s too late—it’s already been said.

Steve smiles wryly as he says, “well, he’s not exactly the most observant, is he?”

He has her there. Steve himself, no matter how hard he tried, wasn’t subtle with his affections: the compliments, the stuttering over his words, the blushing. But none of it had done more than make Eddie give Steve suspicious looks, like there was some sort of game he wasn’t in on.

There was, but even without knowing he was playing, he’d still beaten Steve.

“No, he’s really not.”

Steve hums, picking up his hand to check if it’s dry before moving onto painting her nails. He picks his favorite yellow for her, even though he knows it washes her out. She holds out her hand and doesn’t complain.

“I really like him,” Steve says, quietly enough that it’s barely audible over the murmur of voices coming from the TV.

“I know,” she whispers, watching the flickering sadness on his face by the illumination of the Harrington’s big television screen. “I love you. You know that, right?”

He pauses in painting her nails to meet her eyes, smiling for real now. “I know,” he says, stroking the skin on her wrist with the free fingers not holding the nail polish applicator. “And you know what? This was all worth it if I got you out of it.”

And then he just goes back to painting her nails like that wasn’t the most romantic thing anyone has ever said. Eddie Munson can fuck himself; Chrissy’s going to be buried in Steve’s letterman jacket and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

***

Eddie doesn’t go to school on Monday. He’s too busy rereading the secret admirer notes—the notes Steve Harrington left him—like if he reads them in the right order, it’ll all snap together in his brain in a way that makes fucking sense.

And it does, sort of. It’s like sorting out a bunch of puzzle pieces after finally knowing what the shape of the puzzle even is. Some parts of the letters just jump out of the page, the longer he looks. In the end, he processes this the way he processes everything: he makes a list.

Proof that Steve Harrington is my Secret Admirer:

1. I’m not trying to bully you.

2. I wish I was brave enough to tell you. Brave like you.

3. I know you don’t like them, but I like sports.

4. My favorite color is yellow, like the sun, and sunflowers, and all those happy, bright colors.

5. But my eyes? They’re brown, but nowhere near as pretty as yours.

6. I tried playing the piano again, and I’m a little rusty.

7. Do you hate all of them, or just the bullies?

8. You laughed, but it wasn’t your real laugh like when Mr. Danver accidentally said ‘orgasm’ instead of ‘organism’.

A jock afraid of Eddie labeling them as a bully? Check. Favorite color, the same one Steve Harrington had painted his nails all those weeks ago? Check. Rich enough to have a piano that’s just not played? Check. But the most damning part of all: Chrissy was never in Mr. Danver’s class with him last year, but Harrington was. And Chrissy? Her eyes are bright, translucent blue.

The longer he looks at those two incriminating bits of evidence, the stupider he feels. It was never her, and from the looks of it, they hadn’t put much effort into pretending it was. It was always Harrington from that first, forever-lost letter that they’d stuffed in his locker.

And the longer he pours over the letters, the less he can picture Chrissy sprawled on her bed, writing each letter with a shy flourish before spraying it with a puff of her favored scent. No. It’s Harrington, frowning down at the page because words have never come easy to him; it’s Harrington sleeping with Eddie’s letter placed gently beneath his pillow; it’s Harrington who’d made Eddie smile like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

And now that he thinks about it, wasn’t it Harrington whose eye he kept catching from across the cafeteria? Harrington who’d stutter over his words around Eddie, but still told him he was a good storyteller?

Harrington who wanted to go to his show. Chrissy hadn’t even remembered Corroded Coffin’s name.

Harrington had–of course he had.

And he can picture that, too now. Harrington in the crowd in his stupid polo with his bright yellow nail polish, sticking out like a sore thumb in the gruff crowd at the Hideout, beautiful brown eyes trained solely on Eddie.

He can still feel the way his pulse had ratcheted up when they were in the bathroom, Harrington between his spread thighs, palms warm against his tender ribs, sucking all the oxygen out of Eddie’s lungs with how close he was.

It’s too much.

“Hello?” Jeff’s mom sounds curt over the phone, already fed up with Eddie calling before he’s even said anything. Eddie doesn’t care; he can’t when he needs Jeff this badly.

“Can I talk to Jeff?” he cries out, hand shaking around the receiver as he listens to her grumble, but she still shouts for her son to come pick up the goddamn phone.

“Hello?”

Eddie should wait until he’s sure Jeff’s mom is no longer in hearing vicinity, but he can’t, too wound up tight to keep from blurting out, “am I gay?”

There’s a moment of silence that Eddie can barely breathe through before Jeff says, “uhh, Eddie?” in such a bewildered voice that Eddie sort of wants to punch him.

“Yes, yes, it’s me,” he says, words spilling out over each other. “And I’m sorry about what I said, and you’re sorry that you kept secrets from me—we can do that later, Jeff!”

“Uh, oka—”

“Now, am I gay?” he’s panting by the time he’s done, not having taken a single breath during his tirade. He’s waiting for Jeff’s confirmation or denial, but all that comes down the line is his quiet breathing. “Jeff?”

“Uh, shit, we’re doing this? Okay.” Eddie can almost picture the fed-up palm Jeff’s rubbing against his face, as if it’s somehow Eddie’s fault that Jeff is taking so long explaining the squirmy nebulous feeling in Eddie’s gut. “I don’t know man, why do you think you’re gay?”

Then, Eddie does what he should have done all along, and spills everything to Jeff, from the first letter all the way up to Steve Harrington’s bitchy little speech in the quarry as he put himself bodily between Eddie and Jason Carver.

“—and then he kneeled between my knees like that’s a normal, straight guy thing to do and just like, put his hands in my shirt!” Eddie whines, long since having settled onto the cold linoleum of his kitchen floor. “I mean, what the hell?”

“I think you’re forgetting one important fact, dude: Steve’s not straight.”

“Which brings me back to my question!” Eddie replies, trying for breezy and landing on whiny. “Am I gay?”

Jeff hums down the line like he’s really thinking about it this time. “Well, when he was touching you,” he starts, like that already doesn’t have Eddie’s face flaming, “what did you feel?”

Eddie puts himself back into that moment, thighs splayed pressed open by the heavy weight of Harrington’s body, Harrington’s big, warm hands running over his skin, his worried golden brown eyes roving over Eddie’s face.

“I felt like I was on fire,” Eddie whispers, feeling that same heat now pooling lower in his gut.

“…in a good way?” Jeff asks.

Eddie’s brain goes static, full of too much to differentiate good from bad, if that’s a distinction that ever existed at all. Eddie makes a questioning noise in his throat, knees twitching restlessly where they’re crossed in front of him.

“Okay, okay, uhh—hmm,” Jeff hums across the line. “Did you want to move closer or away?”

Eddie closes his eyes and thinks, imagining that trapped, warm, overwhelming feeling of being caged in by Harrington’s body. “Both?”

Jeff hmms again, clearly trying to think it through. Eddie can’t blame him—this is the most confused he’s been in his entire life, and Jeff doesn’t even have an all-access pass to his brain to try to pick answers out of–not that it’s currently doing Eddie much good.

“Do you want to try kissing a guy?” Jeff asks. “I’d do it, if it was for you, dude.”

Eddie’s nose wrinkles, lips puckering in disgust, “ew, you’re like my brother.”

Jeff laughs at him and replies, “so you don’t want to, not because I’m a guy, but because we’re like brothers? Sounds pretty gay, dude.”

“Oh.”

Jeff doesn’t say anything; he’s always been good at sensing when Eddie just needs a minute to think. But this time, he doesn’t think a minute will cut it, so he continues with a, “hey Jeff?”

“Hmm?”

“I really did mean it, you know.” He squeezes the phone tighter against the side of his face, like that will help his sincerity ring down the line. “I am sorry, and we should talk about it, but I can’t yet.”

Jeff still doesn’t reply, but his breathing is steady and sure down the line, settling Eddie’s anxious heart down to a little flutter.

“Is that okay?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah, dude,” Jeff replies gruffly. “So, you’ll still call me?”

Eddie smiles. He’s missed Jeff, is the thing. They’ve been so distant lately, and no matter how well Eddie and Gareth get along, he’s no Jeff. “Or accost you at school, whichever comes first.”

That makes Jeff laugh; Eddie lets the sound warm him. “Okay, but I’m serious about the kissing thing!” Jeff replies, “Come over and I can plant one right on y—”

Eddie hangs up on his friend, feeling more himself than he has in days. No matter what happens, he has Jeff.

PART 17

#koko's steddie secret admirer au #steddie #my fic #jeff is the real mvp here putting up with all of eddie's issues #well. him and wayne

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zipper-neck · 9 months ago

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Trans Rules of Engagement

By Florence Ashley

Strong communities make us all safer. As anti-trans movements gain in power and influence, holding space for each other through our flaws remains critical. Yet the very conditions that create our need for community care make it hard for us to care for each other. We are raw, wounded, traumatized, and hypervigilant. We make mistakes brought on by fear and hurt. We lash out at each other when we do wrong, often partaking in pile-ons facilitated by the synchronous nature of online interactions. Whether we realize it or not, we often exclude trans people from community when they need it most.

I have lost count of the number of trans people I have seen cast out of online trans spaces for misdeeds both major and minor—far too often with my help. I sometimes find myself wondering where they are now and whether they are still alive. Because, as Kai Cheng Thom has taught us, social death often means real death for trans people. Trans communities are life-sustaining in a world that hates us so, so much. In a world that wants us dead. We have lost too many people not to stop and think about how we can foster life among each other.

This goal I have for myself—that of fostering life—motivates the following principles and rules for engaging in online intra-community conflicts while preserving the life-sustaining spirit of our communities. Countless times have I failed to heed these principles and ignored these rules. This failure, which many of us share, is precisely why I now want to lay these principles and rules down on paper. If only as a reminder of my aspirations. The principles and rules are meant to be adopted for oneself, not imposed onto others. Their purpose is to foster productive engagement, not create even more conflict and rigidity. I hope that this will be a living document, and invite you to make your own version if you would like. Borrow what is useful, supplement with what is needed, alter what can be improved.

Some, and perhaps all, of the principles I acknowledge are false, hence the need for a living document. Each of my suggested rules have exceptions. In setting them out, I am staking a claim as to the sort of myths and half-truths that are necessary to sustain life in a world that wants us dead. We must treat them as true if we wish to foster life-sustaining communities and survive the hellscape we belabor.

Principles

1. We are all flawed, traumatized humans at the end of their rope. Many of our actions say more about the conditions we live under than who we are as people.

2. No one is disposable. No one is unsalvageable.

3. Life holds greater value than being right or comfortable. Hurt is preferable to death.

4. No one should be deprived of community.

5. Harm does not require further harm. Punishment does not equate protection or healing.

Rules

1. Do not depart from these rules, unless you have to.

2. Morgan M. Page’s Rule: Try to avoid criticizing other trans people in public. The world does it enough already.

3. Favor in person or private conversations: Addressing someone’s comments or actions in person or privately is typically more constructive and effective. It allows you to communicate more cogently and with more nuance problems in someone’s actions or words and because it is less likely to make them react defensively from a place of trauma or fear.

4. Take your time: Few things require an immediate response. Responding while caught in a surge of thoughts and feelings is often unproductive. Ask yourself how much harm was done, versus how much we are reminded of an earlier harm. Ask whether your response is rooted in misperception or potential biases towards the person due to race, disability, gender, or other marginalized identities. Consider whether their words or actions reflect a different kind of thinking or communication style, a lack of access to education, or limited access to progressive communities and norms. You can respond tomorrow, once you have collected your thoughts, talked to others, and gained perspective.

5. Don’t mob: Be aware of group dynamics. Ask yourself if you are connected to this person and in community with them. Avoid jumping into the fray when others are already criticizing the person. Do not invite others to join in and mob them. Withdraw if others join in, and kindly ask people to stay conscious of mobbing dynamics. Mobbing rapidly grows out of proportion.

6. De-escalate: Focus on de-escalating conflicts. Ask what people mean or want, and why. Ask them for clarification or elaboration if needed. Ask yourself if you know enough about the context of the situation. Distinguish the action from the person, and acknowledge that it is normal to respond defensively or aggressively to public criticism and mobbing. People are traumatized, mentally ill, and are scared of losing the little social support they have. As a result, conflict can trigger a fight-or-flight response in both those who are criticized and who criticize, which leads to escalating conflict and ends in a loss of community. Dropping the conversation to return at a later date is preferable to escalation. Often, I find it best to limit myself to three replies in conversations that aren’t constructive.

7. Respond proportionately: Responses to words and behaviours should be proportionate to their harm, and reflect a need for healing and protection rather than punishment. When we speak from a place of hurt, we can understandably but unfortunately forget the measure and impact of our response. Use language that reflects the nuances and gradations of harm rather than a coarse good and evil binary. Cutting all social support and community banishment are rarely a proportionate response, even for someone who doubles down and does not apologize. Responding proportionately is asking first and foremost what response sustains rather than dissolves life. Especially when it comes to words, it is better to under-react than to over-react.

8. Ensure support for everyone: Check in on those who are criticized and those who criticize them. Remind people that we are all in this together, and that banishment is not how we work as a community. Everyone deserves to have their needs met. Do not shun or reproach people who offer support to those who were criticized or called out. Distinguish supporting a person from enabling their behavior.

9. Hold space for people to grow: Allow space for people to be accountable, change, and move on from previous conflicts. Do not hold past behavior over people’s head, nor dig up past misdeeds to fuel present conflicts.

10. Resolve conflict and harm as a community: We must ask how our communities enable and cause hurt and harm, and find ways to transform the conditions that create them. Holding accountable, problem-solving, and conflict resolution are functions that should be taken up by the collective, not isolated and unsupported individuals.

11. Center those most hurt or harmed: Focus on supporting and empowering people who are hurt and harmed rather than on punishment. Ask what they need to be safe and integrated in our communities, while committing to support for everyone; what they need to repair their relationship to the person who hurt or harmed them. Focus your involvement on bringing people together, fostering dialogue and mutual understanding, and restoring a sense of community togetherness, rather than deciding who is right or wrong.♦

#florence ashley #trans rules of engagement #trans #community #article #ethics

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crowdsourcedgender · 6 months ago

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My zine, 'Label Coining as an Artform', is finally done! Transcript/Image ID underneath (warning: it's long). Printed version in a reblog.

[Image ID: A series of pages in a zine. The text is handwritten, and all figures described are simplified stick figures.

Page 1: ‘LABEL COINING as an ARTFORM in large text. Below is the multicolored MOGAI wheel, with three figures taking pieces of the colors and using them for art: sculpting, cutting a piece of paper, and painting. Below is ‘a MOGAI (& LIOM!) zine by Elliot/Hesper aka @ crowdsourcedgender on tumblr. Under the text are five pride flags: aro-spec, veldian, alterhuman, xenoman, and schooldoodlic.

Page 2: ‘Label Coining’ in large pink text. ‘(in this context) is the act of creating a word (and usually flag) for a certain experience!’. Next to this text is a figure filled in with pink with a speech bubble full of pink shapes, talking to someone using a cane holding out a hand and expressing a question mark. Below reads ‘generally a queer experience, but does often include or incorporate disability, neurodivergence etc.’ A figure asks ‘Why?’ and the text reads ‘I would say these are the ‘core tenets’:’. In a cloud next to this text is a blue and purple pride flag with purple text reading: ‘like this cool prosopagnosia flag I made!’.

The bottom half of the page is split into two columns: ‘Understanding’ and ‘Community’. The first column has a purple arm amputee explaining a purple rectangle to another purple person who is thinking ‘that’s me!!’. Next to them another purple person is explaining the same rectangle to a blank person, who has a purple-filled thought bubble with a white exclamation mark. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by question marks: ‘Labels help people understand what they are experiencing, and communicate this to others. It’s easier to explain something when it’s already been written down!” The second column has a purple person holding a purple umbrella. They are waving to a purple person in a wheelchair. A purple person is leading another one to the group. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by connected dots: ‘People can unite under a shared label whether this group is big or small! Whether for practical purposes (like advice) or just for fun, having people like you is nice.

Page 3: ‘And these are just as important as ever! But I’ve noticed what I like to call COINING for the sake of CREATION’. This last phrase is in large, dark and light blue text. Two sun symbols are on either side. Below is the text: ‘Vexillology is very clearly an artform, but label coining has become something more (not to mention that not all new labels have flags!). It’s composed of multiple skills has become more than the sum of its parts. Any art captures an experience, but label coining is much more explicit about it. And not just people’s experience of their identity! Part of the art of label coining is incorporating other concepts too, e.g. Schooldoodlic A gender related to doodling on school work papers and/or your homework. By spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr.’ The text about Schooldoodlic is small and light teal. Next to the text is its flag.

Page 4: ‘Elements of Label Coining’. The text on this page is separated into four green boxes.

‘Naming: Coming up with the actual word can be tricky. Generally, labels with lots of elements get more leeway with length. It’s important to check that a label isn’t already a word as well.’ Next to this text is more rough, dark green text reading ‘Premade suffixes + prefixes help! And latin (for some languages) as it’s possible to intuit meaning!’ Around the text is a few examples: ‘-vesil’ ‘-musica’ ‘an-’ ‘quoi-’

‘Flag making: Also known as vexillology, this is a pretty big deal. It’s also the most fun for me! You develop a really good sense of color from spending so much recoloring the same three stripes.’ Next to the text is 6 versions of the same pride flag, each with slightly different colors, with a 7th final version with a symbol.

‘Symbol making: Most flags don’t have symbols, but they’re good for groups of labels under a certain umbrella, or just if you have a really good idea.’ Next to this is rough, dark green text reading: ‘I drew three semirealistic flowers for a flag and ended up only using one’ with sad face. Under it is a drawing of a daisy, a pink coneflower, and lavender, which is circled.

‘Descriptions/formatting: Explanations can be artistic in their own right, and formatting is fun to mess with: many people have their own style. Make sure it’s accessible: add image IDs and plain text where applicable. There are a lot of good resources online!’ In dark green text is the phrase ‘Accessibility over Aesthetics’ with an image of a key on top and sparkles below.

Underneath the boxes in light green text is ‘Note: in the right context, any of these can be optional!’

Page 5: ‘If it wasn’t clear, I think this is AWESOME’. Awesome is in large text with yellow radiating lines. Underneath is ‘I’m a MOGAI coiner myself (generally) with about 65 coins at time of drawing. Using something I made, I wanted to demonstrate what a label coining might look like!’ Underneath is four versions of the same pride flag as well as a description, with ‘flag!’ ‘stripe meanings (I don’t normally do these)’ ‘symbol’ ‘name’ ‘pre-existing format’ and ‘experience’ labelled. The description reads ‘[Image ID was here] Human non-conforming (HNC). Human non-conforming (HNC, similar to gender non-conforming) is an umbrella label encompassing all identities and subcultures that somehow incorporate nonhuman elements in any way.’

Page 6: ‘The thing I love most about the label coining community is just that- the community! The way coiners and users interact, as well as how coiners can work together, is wonderful. There are 5 large words each with an associated doodle.

‘Requesting’: A figure leaning on forearm crutches has a speech bubble with yellow shapes exploding out of it. Another figure is taking shapes down from the bubble and forming it into a ball.

‘Collecting’: A figure is pulling a yellow cart with a large cloth bag labelled ‘LABELS’. They have stars in their eyes, and are looking at another person who is gesturing to a yellow rectangle.

‘Collaborating’: Two figures, one with orange speech and one with yellow speech and an AAC tablet are discussing, with many shapes and lines intermingling to make a fragmented rectangle.

‘Combining’: A figure in a grey hijab pulls down a lever. They are standing next to a large blender mixing orange and yellow liquids. On either side is bright yellow lightning.

‘Redesiging’: A small star with four radial lines coming out of it becomes more and more complex, indicated by black arrows.

Under the words is the text: ‘I’ve never participated, but there’s this amazing event called: COINFIGHT. Hosted by @ kiruliom on Tumblr. It’s inspired by artfight, and it involves coining labels for other people- but competitive-ish!’ Coinfight is in large, text with a crescent moon with stars at the top right corner, and a star at the bottom left.

Page 7: ‘I don’t think there’s anything like finding a label that finally fits you, or hearing that something you made did that for someone else.’ Under is a figure looking at an orange flower with light lines, then forming elements of the flower into a bubble, then showing an orange rectangle to another figure, with orange tendrils reaching towards them, forming the shape of a heart. Below is the text ‘There are a lot of things like pouring out your heart- or just having fun- while making or collecting label. I coin in the same mind I sketch and color and shade.’ On each side is a pen drawing an orange figure with a red shirt, and a tablet with an orange and red flag. Under this is ‘Label coining is an artform both like and unlike any other, and I’m proud to participate in it. I hope that if you want to, you can join me. And if that’s not your thing- thanks for reading!’ There is a drawing of a figure with dark grey wings holding up two fingers. Next is a ‘<2’ heart and ‘elliot’ as a signature. In smaller text next to these is ‘Thank you to the creators whose work is featured in this zine! Credit on the next page. Remember to keep this wonderful community and artform accessible to all!’

Page 8: ‘Credit’: This section has a pride flag next to each label. ‘Aromantic-spectum, @ theflagarchive on Tumblr. Turian, @ kenochoric on Tumblr. Schooldoodlic, @ spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr. Xenoman, @ ryanyflags on Tumblr. MOGAI symbol, Pride-Flags on DeviantArt. Alterhuman, @ vaestra on Tumblr. (the flag on pg. 4 is Wildflowergender). ‘About making this zine’: ‘I really, really regret handwriting this. Drawing over Helvetica Neue for so long might change my actual handwriting, [more rough:] which looks like this! According to Artstudio Pro, I took 14 hours! I barely planned this before starting, the color wheel theme and the people doodles. /End ID]

#mogai #microlabels #mogai coining #lgbtq #lgbtqia #zine #art zine #lgbtq zine #queer zine #label coining #queer vexillology #queer #queer community #long post #described #image described #image id #not coining

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deadhands69 · 2 months ago

Text

Something More [than a hangover]

Katsuki Bakugo x gn reader

MDNI + eventual smut/afab

Setting: fuckboy!Bakugo, mid-time skip, Senior Year of College. Reader did not attend UA high, just joined for university. Enemies to lovers (with a lot in between.)

Warnings, etc: series contains eventual smut, slight angst, light violence/injuries, mentions of drinking/intoxication, swearing.

part 1 - this is part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7 - part 8

“Oh my god, what was I thinking,” you grumble into Jiro’s bed. You’d been lying there face down for twenty minutes after waking up, remembering your night, and stumbling down the hall to her dorm.

“It’s not that bad, right?” she reassures you, lightly untangling the knots in your hair with her fingers. “I’ve known him since high school. He definitely takes things too far sometimes, but he can be a good friend. He seems to have changed a lot in some ways since then though. But still, it’s not like you did anything with him…?”

“I don’t think so��” you trail off, “I think I’d remember that.”

Last night. You remember being in a closet with Katsuki Bakugo, which for some reason unknown to you now, you enjoyed more than you should have. You remember drinking with him, talking all night, and - that’s about where your memory ends. Checking your texts, it looks like you wanted to kiss him. Did you? You’d remember that right?

Then there’s the photo you sent Mina and Jiro. Blurry and underexposed but you could definitely make out the situation. His arm around you as you lean into his neck, glossy eyes half closed but focused on him. His huge smile as he leans into you. You looked close. A wave of nausea hit again, sending you running to her bathroom.

It’s Katsuki Bakugo, what the fuck were you thinking?

After pulling your hair back, Jiro leaves to grab you a cup of water.

“Hey, uh,” she hesitantly starts, “maybe not the best timing but Bakugo just texted you to make sure you’re still on for the library today.”

“Ughh I do not want to deal with him,” your voice echoes through the bathroom.

“I can tell him you need to reschedule?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll have to meet up with him eventually. Might as well rip the bandaid off.”

An hour later, you’d showered as well as you could after taking off your bandages (or what was left of them, it looked like you snagged them in the brush on the walk home.) The cold water helped the nausea and some of the pain. Dehydration made the remaining burns feel much worse so you try to drink as much water as you can keep down. Your raw and slightly blistered skin looks brutal but it’ll be better when you can visit Recovery Girl again on Monday. A few tylenol for your headache and pain, that was about all you could do for now.

Choosing an outfit, you put on basically what he made you change out of last night - skinny jeans and a huge hoodie, this time with cute sneakers in your favorite color. No makeup today, you throw on some oversized sunglasses instead. Grabbing an extra cup of coffee and your backpack, you head to the library.

Bakugo is already there. Leaning against a pillar, looking way too put together for the amount you saw him drink last night.

“Aww, you look great,” he says sarcastically as you half drag yourself to meet him.

“Ughh. How are you alive right now?” you groan back.

“I threw up twice, ate a lot, and slept it off. Looks like you didn’t.”

No words come to mind so you flip him off.

“You’re sweet when you’re hungover, this will be so fun,” he gestures towards the entrance, “come on, I already reserved a study room.”

In spite of being an asshole, he proceeds to hold doors for you.

The study room is small but quiet. There’s enough room for the two of you to sit on one side of the table with the notes and writings you’ve done on each other’s quirks, it’s not much. Each of the pages is crinkled from some combination of being passed back and forth between being on the receiving end of outbursts. Various colors of ink have crossed out each other’s writing, adding corrections. At least the quirk descriptions are done. You’d love to say the rest has been easier to work on in person but an hour and a half has dragged by without much progress. Still hungover, you wish you would have stayed in bed.

His phone sits on the table, buzzing with a new message. Glancing down, you notice five unchecked messages from three different girls' names.

You laugh and he silences his phone before setting it back on the table, this time face-down.

“Didn’t learn from last night, huh?”

“Eh, I dealt with it this morning when she was sober. Plus, it was an isolated incident,” he grumbles while you notice the tips of his ears turning red.

“Sure it was. Well,” you continue, ”when it happens next time, and I’m sure it will, I won’t be so nice and let you in my hiding spot.”

“Oh, your spot? Because if I remember correctly, I got there first. And I let you stay.”

“Aren’t you sooo sweet,” you lay on the phony niceness, batting your eyelashes at him before he throws it back.

“I really am,” his fake smile makes your heart flutter.

What. The. Fuck.

Back to our regularly scheduled sarcasm.

“Is that so? I’ll bet your mom must be really proud of you.”

“She is,” he asserts, “really. My mom is so fucking proud of me. Want me to call her and ask?” He picks his phone up to start dialing and you swear she’s saved as ‘Hag.’

“No, I take your word for it.”

Part of you is curious who raised the monster next to you, but most of you would like to be out of this room as fast as possible to figure your shit out. You really can’t tell if you’re annoyed, disgusted, or trying to flirt with him. All of the feelings blur together into one big mess while you helplessly watch your own reactions. You need to get through this.

Pulling your pen from behind your ear and grabbing one of the papers in front of you, you get back to work.

“So,” you begin before rolling your sleeves up, “right here you said your quirk works with...” but you realize quickly that your words fall on deaf ears. He’s staring at your arms, seeing your damaged skin for the first time. Awkwardly, you move to cover your wrists again before he grabs your hands to stop you. His mouth opens to speak but the words don’t come. Licking his lips, he tries again.

“I- uh, fuck,” he squeezes your hands a bit harder, “I really meant it when I said I’m sorry. I owe you. More than opening doors and walking you places and stuff.”

Recovery Girl is convinced you’ll make a full recovery with minimal scarring. You don’t say this though, staring at your hands in his instead. There’s nothing romantic about the way he’s holding onto you. More desperate and uncomfortable, but you can’t say the closeness doesn’t do something as his huge fists completely engulf your own. It leaves you speechless.

“I uhm…” you pull your hands away from his and pause to think.

You can’t let yourself get this distracted by him. He’s Katsuki Bakugo, your natural enemy. And on top of that, how long will he be nice to make-up for hurting you before he goes back to being his asshole self? If you let him get under your skin too much, you won’t be able to handle that when the time comes.

“I know why you’re being nice,” you start, “but two days ago you were being a total dick to me. I appreciate you trying to make up for everything, but it feels more confusing than friendly.”

“Two days ago, you weren’t exactly nice to me either. I know we never really became friends,” he hesitates for a moment and you cringe thinking of how you slapped him, “but you don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“Go on.”

“Yeah, at first it’s because I felt bad, but Racoon Eyes and Shitty Hair said we have a lot in common. And they’re right. I’m trying to be nicer because I don’t absolutely hate being around you, you’re kind of cool when you’re not going off on me.”

“You do deserve it sometimes,” you add.

Bakugo says nothing, instead he just nods. Sucking on the inside of his lip, he considers your comment before continuing, “If you don’t wanna be my friend it’s fine, just fucking say it,” you stare silently and he continues, “but with the way you’re acting I think that’s what you want too. And even if it’s not, we still have to find some way to work together because we have all this shit to do,” he says gesturing to the table of scribbled notes.

That’s it.

“Wait,” you nearly whisper while reviewing the papers in front of you, “no, that’s totally it.”

“Uh, care to explain?” he furrows his brows at you, his vivid eyes searching your face for an answer.

“That’s why this has been so hard to finish. We’ve never worked together. I know what your quirk does but every time I’ve ever seen it, we’ve been so busy trying to beat each other we don’t actually have time to observe. We need to work together.”

The rest of the hour went by quickly, mostly planning where and when to meet next. ‘Where’ was easy. You want to train together and the forest near campus works great. ‘When’ was harder. It has to be after you’re healed but before a huge storm rolls in early on Tuesday. Bakugo is leaving today to visit family and won’t be back until Monday afternoon anyways, so it has to be that night. You think you can sleep enough to recover after your appointment. You hope you can, at least. Parting ways at the library doors, you agree to text him Monday when you wake up.

On the walk back, you consider the last few days. Your biggest enemy now wants something like a friendship. A chill runs down your spine when the winter wind picks up, blowing air straight through your hoodie - making you wish you’d worn more layers. You walk faster.

Can you even be friends with Bakugo? Bickering with him has been a lot more fun without a bite under your words, but it almost feels too flirtatious considering who’s on the other end. And, as much as you hate to admit it, he’s hot. Too hot for his own stupid good.

You nearly trip over a curb in a rush to get back to your dorm.

Fuck, you need to sleep.

part 3

m.list

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