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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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I Don't Know How I Know (But I Know) (Taywhora) - Ortega

fic summary: Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and the joke around school is that they’re joined at the hip. They started working there at the same time and they were both given the year two classes, so they planned together, filled out their assessment folders together and prepped for parent’s evenings together.

Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and Tayce has been a little bit in love with her for two of them.

(in which Tayce teaches year five, A'whora teaches Reception, Tayce hates Valentine’s day, and A'whora has a plan to change that.)

a/n: with thanks to my co-author, Lawrence Chaney. title from Intuition by LIZ, please listen to it it’s a vibe. happy valentine’s day everyone xo

***

Tayce has heard people say that teaching is a form of acting. She thinks this is true, for the most part. After all, there’s no way in hell she teaches her year fives the same way she would act around her friends.

She pretends she doesn’t know the TikTok dance to Savage Love and fakes ignorance at the memes her kids all communicate in. She’s impatient with her class when they run in the corridor and chew gum (because they’re almost the oldest in the school, and they should know better) but she’s patient when they struggle with area and perimeter and brings her chair over to sit beside whoever’s confused to explain it all again. She’s strict- she gets the girls passing notes to each other into trouble as if she didn’t do the exact same with her friends at the age of ten- and she’s built up a reputation for being one of the teachers that doesn’t take any shit. She expects a lot from the children she teaches, knows they’re a blank canvas and that they’ve got the potential to understand things that some adults struggle with, so she teaches them about racism, homophobia and transphobia, makes it part of her everyday teaching as opposed to one milquetoast lesson about Martin Luther King per year.

Some of the parents fucking hate her for it. She’d be lying if she said that wasn’t one of her favourite parts of the job.

It takes a lot for her not to drop that persona sometimes. When she has to tear through one of her boys for muttering “ah shit, here we go again” as she hands out a worksheet on direct and indirect speech instead of bursting out laughing as if it’s one of the funniest things she’s heard in years, which it is. It’s times like that when she wishes she could be more like A’whora.

A’whora with the blonde hair and the Disney-princess smile who teaches Reception. A’whora who does silly voices for all the characters when she’s reading picture books to her class and who sits and does colouring-in with them when they’re playing. A’whora who’s too nice to them all because she thinks they’re too cute to discipline, but her class love her so their behaviour is good regardless.

(A’whora with the completely inappropriate nickname only disclosed to Tayce five mojitos deep on the staff Christmas night out, which she’d earned herself at uni via her reputation. Tayce hadn’t asked for any further details.)

Tayce has never seen a teacher better suited to the youngest class in the school than A’whora. She’s constantly got specks of glitter on her face from the crafts she completes with them, she hums the silly little songs she uses to teach them their sounds when she’s at the photocopier without even realising. She turns up to work in immaculate outfits and finishes the day with them covered in glue, marker pen, and even (horrifically) a child’s snot once, but she doesn’t even mind, simply zips them up into little bodybags and puts them in for dry cleaning.

Tayce is never done telling her how she could never do what she does, she could never teach the little ones; her patience would snap, she’s too mean for them, she’d get bored having to teach the most basic of basic stuff. A’whora only ever brushes her off and says how she couldn’t teach Tayce’s year group either; they’d eat her alive, they’d walk all over her, she wouldn’t even be able to do the complicated maths she’d have to teach. Besides, she argues, drawing a glare from Tayce every time, she’s definitely goofy enough for the Reception kids.

Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and the joke around school is that they’re joined at the hip. They started working there at the same time and they were both given the year two classes, so they planned together, filled out their assessment folders together and prepped for parent’s evenings together. They worked well together, so when their headteacher sent them to opposite ends of the school Tayce almost had a meltdown. Still, they sit next to each other in the staffroom and at every staff meeting. They take turns making each other lunch every day and walk to the roll shop to get toasties every Friday. Tayce walks down from her classroom to come and sit in A’whora’s at the end of every day and they chat and bitch and sometimes cry and get absolutely nothing done for at least forty minutes. A’whora picks her up on the way to work every morning and terrifies Tayce with her bad driving and the way she almost causes road traffic accidents with only a “whoopsie!” of acknowledgement, but she’ll make up for it by taking them through the Starbucks drive-thru if they’ve got a meeting after school that night. She blasts songs by artists Tayce has never heard of but are all in the same energetic, poppy, Y2K-esque genre that A’whora seems to love.

Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and Tayce has been a little bit in love with her for two of them.

***

A’whora’s friends tease her and tell her that teaching five year olds must be the easiest job in the world. A’whora loves her friends, but she fucking resents them when they come out with that shite.

A’whora knows that she herself is not the brightest crayon in the box. She had known that she’d never be one of the girls in her year at high school that went off to study medicine or law, and she’d known she’d never graduate uni with a first class degree or write an award-winning dissertation.

(When she’s having a bad day she comforts herself with the fact that at least she’s not joined a multi-level-marketing scheme under the guise of being a “businesswoman”, and this helps her feel a little better.)

But what she lacks in academic ability she makes up for in spadeloads by being a damn good teacher. She’s big-hearted and silly and patient. She always picks up crisps and KitKats when she’s at the shops and keeps them in a drawer under her desk to sneak to the kids who come to school without a snack. She sits in the construction corner with her kids when they’re playing and asks them about the models they make, and pretends to die a gruesome, slow death when they shoot her with their little lego guns instead of trying to get them to make something less violent like she knows she should do. She reads books about unicorns that captivate the little shy girls in her class who come up to her afterwards and whisper in their tiny voices that they think unicorns are real, and A’whora agrees with them and watches their faces light up. She makes every day fun for her little ones; because the beauty of teaching is having the control to plan what happens every hour, so she makes sure that none of the six they have to spend in her care are boring.

The key to being a good Reception teacher is to essentially make a fool of yourself every day for the benefit of twenty-two four and five year olds, which A’whora has no problem doing. She doesn’t care what her pupil support worker thinks of her when she acts out The Gruffalo with soft toy puppets she borrowed from the library. She doesn’t care what the management team think of her when she turns up for World Book Day dressed as The Tiger Who Came To Tea. The only person’s opinion she does maybe care a tiny, ever-so-slight amount about, is Tayce’s.

Tayce is that teacher. Tayce is the cool teacher. Tayce is the teacher that all the children want to be taught by. A’whora hears the year fours whisper to each other in the corridors every June and watch as they cross their fingers and close their eyes before they open the envelope addressed to their parents, then give a screech of excitement and joy when they see the name Miss Szura-Radix on their class allocation letter. She wears heels all day without so much as a grunt of complaint and jumps in A’whora’s car each morning with a full face of makeup on at half past seven (while A’whora paints her face at quarter past eight at her desk in between shovelling a croissant down her throat in an attempt at ��breakfast’ and sorting handwriting worksheets). The year five and six girls straighten their hair to a flattened crisp in an attempt to emulate Tayce’s endless shiny locks and she’s the only teacher that the rogue group of year six boys addresses with respect. She has the discipline of Miss Trunchbull with the heart of Miss Honey, and A’whora thinks she’s the best teacher she’s ever seen.

A’whora’s been friends with Tayce since she started working at the school but her heart still flutters in its chest whenever she sweeps in to her classroom to chat after work, or sits herself down next to her before a cluster meeting with two cups of tea in polystyrene mugs and two biscuits, or whenever A’whora mysteriously finds a packet of Percy Pigs on her desk hidden under a pile of marking with a post-it note stuck to it that says “u are a pig (but i love u)”.

She wonders if that feeling will ever go away. She kind of doesn’t want it to.

It’s that feeling that made her volunteer to help out at the year five camp last March. Tayce was complaining about having to go to a remote outdoor centre and supervise ten year olds completing various death-defying tasks for a week all in the name of character building, and A’whora had said she’d go with her. The smile it had put on Tayce’s face was worth every minute spent up to her knees in mud. Similarly every second she spent waist deep in freezing water was worth the moment Tayce fell asleep on her shoulder on the coach trip back to school on the last day.

(And she still hasn’t told anyone else about the moment she thought her heart might explode; on the last night of the week when temperatures had unexpectedly plummeted and A’whora had been trying to get to sleep but all she had been able to do was shiver and chatter her teeth and toss and turn, and Tayce had sighed dramatically, rolled her eyes, thrown off her duvet cover and patted the space in the bed beside her, with a “just get in quick, before it gets cold”. A’whora had spent the following hours until morning with Tayce’s body tangled around hers, in the most blissful sleepless night she’d ever experienced.)

There’s so many things that endear Tayce to A’whora. Her smile, her secretly chaotic funny side, the way she never, ever makes A’whora feel like an idiot. The way she’ll ask the questions A’whora’s too scared to ask in staff meetings. The way she cares so deeply and passionately about the futures of the kids she teaches to the extent where sometimes she’ll develop a little crease at her brow in front of her attainment spreadsheet and A’whora will have to gently pry her away from her monitor to reassure her that she can’t control the way her children’s lives pan out. The way she’ll sometimes call her Rory, which makes A’whora’s heart expand at least three sizes.

Something else that makes her heart expand three sizes is the way Tayce acts with the Reception kids, despite her insisting she could never teach that year group. It happens one day when A’whora’s marking literacy while letting her kids play and Tayce swings by her classroom without so much as a knock. They’ll do this to each other sometimes when one’s in class and the other has planning time; just drop by and check in to make sure the other isn’t having a meltdown.

“Hey bitchtits,” she murmurs quietly, smirking as she leans onto A’whora’s desk. “How’s your day going?”

“Terrible since you decided to show up,” A’whora cocks an eyebrow back, then jerks her head towards her distracted kids. “This lot are like sponges, y’know. You can’t be dropping that kind of language in this class, even if you think you’re out of earshot.”

Tayce sticks her tongue out at her. “Aw what, you gonna report me to management?”

“Report you to management and say you’re in my class annoying me during teaching time!”

“Piss off! I’m the highlight of your day and you know it.”

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“No. Just some very lucky ladies,” Tayce bites back with a smile, instantly rendering A’whora’s cheeks beetroot red as if she’s been slapped.

“You’re horrendous. You’re an actual deviant. Olly Murs without the Pringles can,” she rolls her eyes, trying to style out how flustered she’s become. She can see Tayce open her mouth to shoot a comeback her way, which is why she’s glad when one of her boys appears beside her desk holding a crumpled piece of paper covered in crayon blobs which are clearly meant to represent objects.

“Hi Archie! You okay?” she smiles brightly, turning all her attention to the little boy and trying not to cringe at Tayce getting full view of her Cbeebies-presenter voice.

“I made a picture for you,” he says, showing her the piece of paper and pointing out all the features of his drawing with a chubby little finger. “It’s a dragon that breathes fire and bombs, and he’s called Squish.”

“Wow! Thank you, Archie, I love it!” A’whora keeps smiling, blinking at the drawing the boy’s still holding. She points at some shaky rectangles with a pink acrylic. “And I can see he must be really tall because those buildings are tiny underneath him!”

Archie’s no longer interested in her or the drawing, though, as he’s looking up at Tayce through his glasses. “You’re my brother’s teacher.”

“Am I?” Tayce says, surprised that the attention is suddenly on her. “Who’s your brother?”

“Joshua. Joshua White.”

Tayce’s face instantly lights up in recognition. “Of course, you’re Josh’s brother! I should’ve known, you look so alike.”

“He’s ten and I’m five,” Archie adds, somewhat unnecessarily.

“See, I think you might be taller than him, though,” Tayce deadpans. A’whora watches affectionately as Archie’s entire body crumples up in a laugh and he splutters out a “nooooo!”. Tayce’s face breaks out into a smile- warm and genuine with her nose wrinkling up. It’s maybe the most adorable thing A’whora has ever seen.

“Josh is good at art as well. He’s not quite as good as you, but he’s good,” Tayce smiles, and as Archie smiles back A’whora feels her heart melting.

Archie turns to Tayce suddenly with the drawing still in his hand, and holds it out for her to take. “This is actually for you.”

A’whora gives a snort of outrage and amusement, which she quickly turns into a cough. She watches as Tayce accepts the drawing gratefully, giving Archie a little squeeze on his shoulder as she says thank you and Archie scuttles away back to his friends all bashful. There’s a second where Tayce smiles after him then looks down at the drawing with fondness, and A’whora’s feelings for her hit her like a tidal wave.

Tayce doesn’t notice (because of course she doesn’t) and as she straightens up she grins triumphantly at A’whora, holding the drawing in her face proudly. “Well. Guess Archie’s got a new favourite teacher then, doesn’t he?”

“He wouldn’t last five minutes in your classroom,” A’whora smirks, lying. The image of big-hearted Tayce with a class full of the littlest kids drying their tears and helping them get all organised for the day ahead is so unbelievably cute it makes A’whora want to squeal like an embarrassing teenager. She doesn’t, though. Instead she holds out a hand expectantly, raises her eyebrows at Tayce as if she’s one of her students. “Am I getting my drawing back or what?”

“Easy come, easy go,” Tayce winks at her, flouncing out of her classroom door just as the bell rings for break.

***

Tayce doesn’t really flirt with A’whora. Well, no, that’s a lie. She flirts and then immediately laughs it off, brushes it off as a joke or banter even though maybe if she’d taken flirting with A’whora a little more seriously she wouldn’t still be in this position two-bloody-years in.

Because she knows A’whora flirts sometimes. She’s positive she isn’t making it up. The way she’ll deadpan a “well, you look like shit” as she hops into her car in the mornings, the way she’ll sit close to her under her fluffy pink blanket if she’s round at Tayce’s for a movie day (because yeah, they hang out outside of work, because that’s what friends do). It’s always a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it raised eyebrow here, a laugh there, a touch of her arm and a squeeze of her hand and a smirk that bites back a thousand words Tayce wishes A’whora would just say.

So Tayce will flirt back because that’s probably just what A’whora does with her friends, and that’s all Tayce is to her. Maybe. Tayce is never sure if A’whora likes her back or not, and the risk of completely wrecking what is her only workplace friendship is too great to actually do something about it, so she’s happy being her friend for now. Every second she gets to spend with A’whora is a treat, so she can’t complain.

It would be easier if she was still labouring under the delusion that A’whora was straight, which was the whole reason it took Tayce so long to start slowly falling for her. A’whora had had a boyfriend for roughly the first six months Tayce had known her, so she hadn’t even thought of her friend in that capacity at all. Then one day on a rainy January she’d thudded her bag down on Tayce’s desk and told her they were going for drinks after work that night because her boyfriend was a cheating piece of shit and she’d broken up with him.

Tayce’s fate had further been sealed when they’d been sitting together for an inservice day on LGBT training and A’whora had turned to her and rolled her eyes.

“We don’t really need to be here, do we? We could just piss off to McDonalds.”

Tayce had laughed softly, fixing A’whora with a slightly confused glance. “Huh?”

“Well, I feel like we probably have enough lived experience of the whole thing to not need training. Still, we could always duck back in in time for the transgender part. But I mean we probably don’t really need to be told how to support kids struggling with their sexuality, do we?”

Tayce still remembers how A’whora had snorted at her, her face obviously looking as if she was searching for the last puzzle piece in the world’s most confusing jigsaw. “What is it?”

“I don’t get…what?” Tayce had said awkwardly, still unsure of what A’whora had meant.

A’whora had pulled a face, giggling a little. “Are you telling me that rainbow flag is on your desk for shits and gigs?”

“No…” Tayce said slowly, the pieces slowly falling together. “So…”

A’whora gave another funny little snort. “Tayce, did you not know I was bi? I’m sure I’ve told you this before.”

Tayce still thinks she deserves an Oscar for still being able to keep the conversation going despite the fact her entire world had been flipped on its head like a globe made of hourglass. “You’ve not! You’ve never. I mean, like, why would you need to? It’s not something that matters. I mean obviously it matters to you, but it doesn’t matter to me. You’re my friend either way. I mean it just never occurred to me because…your ex, and uh…you can drive.”

Mercifully, their headteacher had started speaking before A’whora could respond to her beyond a single raised eyebrow and a smirk on her face.

It’s been ever since then that Tayce has been looking at A’whora in a different light. How gorgeous she is at the start of the day with nothing but her laminated brows and lash extensions to pass for makeup and how gorgeous she still is at the end of the day with her mascara and eyeliner smudged a little at the edges and her lipstick all rubbed off. How she’s generous and patient and how she’ll go out of her way to help Tayce understand the new flavour-of-the-month resource their headteacher makes them use, pulling one of her kid’s chairs over to sit close beside her to see the monitor and bumping her knee against Tayce’s every so often.

It’s how she acts around her kids, though, that really highlights everything Tayce completely adores about A’whora. Tayce is on her way up to the staffroom with two tubs of chicken shawarma salad in her hands (one for her and one for A’whora, of course) and she makes it up one flight of stairs when she suddenly hears a cry like an air raid siren pierce the air, as well as a gentle, soothing voice muttering quiet consolations.

It’s the sheer hysterical nature of the crying that catches Tayce’s attention at first, and she looks over the bannister to see A’whora on the level below, sitting a little boy who’s bawling his eyes out down on the red squashy chairs outside the office. With a stab to her heart Tayce realises that it’s Archie, the boy who’d given her the picture all those weeks ago. Both his knees and the palms of his hands are torn to ribbons; he’s obviously had a fight with the tarmac and emerged the loser. Tayce knows he’ll be okay if an adult’s seeing to him, especially if that adult’s A’whora, so she knows she can leave. She doesn’t need to stay and watch the situation play out.

But she does. She watches as one of the ladies from the office comes out and reassures A’whora that she can take over, and as A’whora waves her away kindly and says it won’t take her two minutes. She watches as A’whora puts her hands on the boy’s shoulders and directs his breathing, talking to him calmly and softly. She watches A’whora rip into a packet of sterile wipes with grim determination, telling Archie how brave he’s being and that she knows it stings as she wipes quickly and carefully over his little cut hands. She watches A’whora peel the wrapping off four plasters, making it seem effortless even with her long acrylics, and the way she makes a joke about Archie being bandaged up like a mummy which brings a smile to his little tear-stained face and a smile to Tayce’s too. The other staff don’t get to see A’whora’s caring nature very often (given how often she whispers judgemental comments to Tayce during meetings) but Tayce sees it all the time. A’whora has the biggest heart of anyone she’s ever known, and the whole scene makes Tayce feel so endeared towards her that it almost frightens her.

It’s at that point when Archie looks up at Tayce on the bannister and makes eye contact with her. He flicks his eyes back down to his teacher.

“Uh, Miss Boyle? I think Miss Szura-Radix wants to talk to you, because she’s been there a long time.”

Tayce’s heart freezes solid at the same time A’whora turns around, who fixes her with a sort of funny smile, confused but not exactly unhappy to see her.

“Uh. Coming to the staffroom?” Tayce shouts down, under pressure to explain herself but simultaneously not having any explanation.

“Two seconds!” A’whora yells up apologetically.

“I’ll wait,” Tayce yells down, reassuring her.

Tayce is used to waiting for A’whora. She supposes another minute or so won’t make a difference.

***

This is the third Valentine’s day A’whora has spent with Tayce.

The first fell on a Monday and had been an abject disaster (or success, depending on how she looked at it). A’whora was still getting over her ex and Tayce had confided in her that she hated Valentine’s day and all its commercialised, capitalist tat with a burning passion, so they’d gone to the pub after work and got so outrageously drunk that the two of them were so hungover the next day A’whora drove them to McDonalds for lunch.

The second had been last year- a Tuesday, where Tayce had been subdued and a little down until A’whora had forced her into helping her choose new clothes for the roleplay area for her kids and the pair of them had collapsed into endless breathless giggles as they both tried on costumes made for five-year-olds, the memory of Tayce in a hi-vis vest, safety goggles and a tiny hard hat one that still makes A’whora laugh if she thinks about it.

Really she’s lucky that she gets to be one of the few people who’s spent the 14th of February with their crush for three years in a row, but not for the reasons she might want. Still, she can live in the delusional daydream she’s taunted herself with many times; how maybe today Tayce will turn up at her classroom door with helium balloons and a teddy, how she’ll say she’s been secretly in love with her for years and how she’s booked them a table at that fancy seafood restaurant in town that just opened up for an actual proper date (not a mate date and not some gal-entines or pal-entines bullshit).

And then Tayce hops into her car in a foul mood with her hair drenched from waiting for A’whora in the rain with no umbrella and a face like a cow’s backside.

A’whora tries to cheer her up. She blasts the R&B that Tayce loves but Tayce just asks her to turn it off, telling her that Kiana Ledé, Mahalia and Ella Mai are exactly what she doesn’t need to hear on Valentine’s Day, endless songs about being in and out of love. So A’whora blasts Charli XCX instead, which works well until shuffle puts on Forever, and then Tayce is in the huff again.

Teaching the year fives doesn’t exactly help her feel much better, A’whora thinks, as they both sit down to lunch together and Tayce turns to her with an incredulous scowl on her face.

“They’ve all got bloody boyfriends and girlfriends!”

A’whora stops eating the pasta salad Tayce has made for her and narrows her eyes inquisitively. “Who does?”

“All the kids in my class. They’ve been going around all day telling me who they’ve paired up with, who’s snogging who, the detailed dating history of these bloody ten year olds. They keep asking me what we’re doing for Valentine’s Day. ‘Are we making cards?’ No! We’re doing more work on decimals because none of you bloody understood it the first three times I explained it to you. Make a card in your own damn time,” Tayce rolls her eyes while A’whora snorts with laughter. Tayce side-eyes her, unimpressed as A’whora tries to defend herself.

“Oh come on, Tayce, you’ve got to admit it’s a bit funny.”

“Is it? Is it though? Is it funny that a ten year old boy can get himself a girlfriend but I can’t?”

Tayce’s words make A’whora’s heart jump a hurdle. She plays it off with a joke. “Yeah, but he’s got a ten year old girlfriend, Tayce. I’m assuming you don’t want that.”

“No, funnily enough!” Tayce shakes her head. She pouts uncharacteristically, tilting her head to the ceiling. “I just…I don’t know, I just want someone that’s there for me. Who’ll always listen to all my shit, someone that makes me smile when I feel like crap. Someone I can just be myself around and have a laugh with whatever the hell we’re doing.”

A’whora nods and doesn’t say what she wants to. We do that. We do all of that together already.

“But I don’t want all the shit of having to actually get to know people, having to go on dates and do the whole talking stage and get my hopes up only to have them let down. I wish I could just…” Tayce sighs, and A’whora’s on tenterhooks wondering what’s coming next. “…I wish I just already had that person, you know?”

You do have that person. I’m that person.

A’whora nods silently and the bell rings signalling the end of their lunch break.

Since she’s not as enraged by Valentine’s day as Tayce, A’whora has planned to get the sequins and glue out and get the kids to make Valentine’s cards. She loves planning tasks like this, mainly because five year olds don’t need much help when faced with a glue stick and a shaker full of glitter, so it means she can put her feet up and have a chilled afternoon. She explains to her class what they’re going to be doing, feels her heart burst with affection as they all get outrageously excited at the very notion of using glitter. She shows them how to fold their piece of paper carefully to make a card shape, and shows them the array of colours they can choose from (and has to explain to some disappointed boys that no, she doesn’t have any blue card so no, their Valentine’s Day card can’t be the colour of Crystal Palace football club).

She’s giving out the different colours of card to her kids and cutting them to size when one of her girls stops, peers carefully at the selection of colours, then looks at A’whora thoughtfully.

“Miss Boyle, are you going to give a Valentine’s card to Miss Szura-Radix?”

A’whora almost slices through her own hand in shock. She looks with incredulity at the little girl in front of her. “Bella! No, of course not. Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re best friends and you love her,” Bella shrugs, A’whora’s attempts to shame her into silence obviously having no effect. A’whora tries to scowl, tries to do her best ‘cross face’ despite the fact that the thought of giving Tayce a Valentine’s card sets her heart racing so fast it makes her genuinely think about driving to A&E.

“I don’t…” she starts, until Bella speaks again.

“You told us before that girls can fall in love with girls and you said that we can make our Valentine’s cards for our friends too,” she insists innocently. A’whora finally musters up a frown, thrusts a pink piece of card into her hand.

“Why am I even entertaining this conversation- go and get on with your work, madam!” she says firmly, and Bella walks away with her blank card in her hand, nonplussed.

But as her kids all begin to make their cards and they’re all too caught up in glitter and painting their hands with PVA glue to even need her help with anything, A’whora begins absent-mindedly folding a spare piece of pink card in half. She draws one, two, three love hearts on it, then takes one of the little glue sticks and carefully, neatly, fills them in with splodges of clear glue. She asks one of the little boys sitting at the table opposite her if she can borrow the red glitter when he’s finished with it and he nods his head, A’whora’s heart involuntarily swelling with pride at how good her children are at sharing. She tap-tap-taps the glitter shaker over the hearts on the paper, making sure each one is covered completely before standing the card upright and watching the excess fall off like sparkly snow. Opening the card, she takes the gold shiny gel pen from her desk and writes without really thinking it through.

Maybe if Tayce isn’t going to magically read A’whora’s mind and figure out what she’s been yearning for, A’whora just has to give her a little nudge in the right direction.

When she’s done she folds it back over, stands up, crosses the room to her empty yellow message folder and slides it inside. She asks her class if anyone knows where the year five classroom is because she’s got a message to send there. Fifteen tiny hands fly up and A’whora basically has to whittle the volunteers down to the only two kids who actually know where they’re going, and she gives them the folder and tells them to take it up to Tayce’s classroom.

She doesn’t think about the reality or the implication of what she’s just done, because if she does then she’ll start hyperventilating and not stop until perhaps June of next year. Instead she catches the eye of Julia, the little girl who moved from Poland in January. She can’t speak or write a word of English yet, but the way she’s looking at A’whora with a little smile on her face makes her genuinely wonder if she knows. Sometimes kids can pick up on these sorts of things. She shoots her a little wink and puts her finger to her lips in a “shhh” just in case, and the little girl breaks into a grin that shows two missing front teeth.

The thing about teaching is that it’s a great job for providing a distraction. A’whora can’t think about the card she made for Tayce when she’s cleaning up an entire pot of glitter that Jared spilt all over the carpet, nor can she think about what she’s written in it when she’s comforting Angelica because she didn’t get to finish her card in time for hometime. But the moment she’s waved the kids off and dropped them off to their parents she walks up the stairs from the front entrance with an impending sense of dread which only increases with every new step she takes.

“What the fuck have you done,” she mutters under her breath, earning her a weird look from one of the ladies at the office.

When she gets back to her classroom to find Tayce sitting on one of the tiny tables waiting for her, A’whora feels her heart freeze in her chest and the blood rush to her face, blushing just from seeing her there. Tayce looks in a better mood than she was at lunchtime, though, which is a good start. Maybe she never even read the card. Maybe A’whora’s reception kids took it to the entirely wrong class. Christ, that would be even more embarrassing.

“Hey, boo boo,” Tayce smiles gently at her, as A’whora crosses the room and elects to sit on the desk opposite her so they’re face to face and not too far away. “How’d your afternoon go?”

“Oh, uh, y’know,” A’whora stammers out, blundering her words in the world’s worst attempt at appearing nonchalant. “Lots of glitter, lots of PVA. In fact I’m probably sitting in a massive glittery splodge of it, as are you.”

Tayce laughs, checks the table comedically.

“How was yours? You seem a bit more cheerful,” A’whora continues, looking to the floor and not darling to meet her eyes. “Did decimals finally click with your lot, or…?”

“I am a bit more cheerful,” Tayce smiles, A’whora’s heart racing and soaring in anticipation at the same time. “But not really anything to do with decimals. More to do with the fact somebody made me a really very lovely Valentine’s card.”

Tayce reaches behind her back and produces her card- A’whora’s card- from the table behind her, and A’whora feels her pulse race at her wrists and her heart leap into her mouth to the extent that she’s rendered almost too shy to speak. What the fuck was she thinking? Tayce is probably about to rip the piss out of her for it, it was a huge mistake, and she’s probably thrown their whole friendship away for nothing.

However. There’s a little something in Tayce’s eyes, a little sparkle that makes the grey shine silver. So A’whora shrugs, fixing a carefree smile on her face even though she feels anything but.

“Well, I know you hate Valentine’s day, so…I thought maybe if I gave you a card you’d stop being so mardy about it.”

When she looks at Tayce again she can see there’s a little crack in her perfect armour, the sparkle in her eyes dulled slightly. When she speaks her voice is quiet and nervous, so stripped of its usual hyperactivity and energy that A’whora wonders if it’s even Tayce’s voice at all. “Is that, uh. Is that the only reason you made it?”

A’whora can practically feel herself clam up. She has no idea where Tayce is going with this; to clarify that it was a joke or to clarify that it was serious, and A’whora doesn’t know which one Tayce wants it to be.

“What you wrote,” Tayce continues, her gaze fixed on the glitter-covered carpet and making it even more impossible to figure out her intention. “Was that, like…some girly besties chat, or was it…did you mean it…like that?”

“Yeah, I did,” A’whora says instantly. It’s out before she knows it, a terrifying leap into a freezing cold conversational plunge pool with no life raft to help her climb out. There’s only one way out and it’s Tayce’s reaction, whatever the hell that might be. She snapped her head up the moment the words left A’whora’s mouth, and her eyes are wide in what could be shock but could quite easily be horror.

A’whora doesn’t think she’s ever been more hopeful and frightened all at once. The seconds tick by and Tayce is still frozen in position, and A’whora can literally feel herself inching closer to the edge of the desk in terrified anticipation.

“Jesus Christ say something, Tayce, before I cringe myself to death,” she says breathlessly, her blood feeling almost electric as it races in her veins.

Tayce leans forward, not giving much away as she brings a thumb up to A’whora’s cheek.

“You’ve got a bit of glitter on your face,” she murmurs.

When she leans in and closes the gap between them, A’whora feels herself melt against Tayce’s lips with relief. They’re in the middle of her classroom at quarter part three with the door open and she’s very well aware that anyone could walk in at a moments’ notice, but A’whora doesn’t care. A’whora only cares about the fact that Tayce is kissing her and she’s kissing back, and it’s so hard to believe it’s actually real and not some daydream come to life, and it’s happening on Valentine’s day which makes it even more far-fetched. But every time A’whora starts to think that maybe she’s dreaming she feels Tayce’s thumb stroke her cheek, or their knees bump together, or she brings a hand up to rest at Tayce’s jaw just to make sure it’s all real.

When Tayce pulls away and they smile at each other, giggling and blushing like one of Tayce’s year fives, A’whora only allows herself to properly believe it’s all actually happening when Tayce presses their foreheads together, takes both of A’whora’s hands in her own and murmurs quietly to her what A’whora’s wanted to hear for entirely too long.

“I love you too.”

#rpdr fanfiction #rpdr uk #uk2 #i don’t know how i know (but I know)#ortega #taywhora #tayce #a'whora #british au #lesbian au #teachers au #fluff

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jesuisgourde · 3 years ago

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Hi! I know some time ago you've mentioned that you're not too keen on The Manic's newer albums. I have only listened to their earlier stuff, so would you mind specifying if it's worth it to delve into their newer ones?

Thanks!

For sure! Their first three albums and their 2009 album Journal For Plague Lovers are my favorite. Pretty much all their albums are very good. The ones I'm not too keen on are Send Away The Tigers (all very for-radio pop. The b sides are top but the actual album isn't great) , Postcards For A Young Man (just some more boring decisions musically and lyrically) and the most recent two albums, Resistance Is Futile and Ultra Vivid Lament (both flat and boring, except for Sequels of Forgotten Wars and Broken Algorithms from RIF). The rest are pretty good. I love Futurology because it's very prog rock and I love Lifeblood because it's so icy and weird. Everything Must Go and This Is Mh Trith Tell Me Yours are both classics albums. Know Your Enemy has some great tracks. I think it does depend on your music taste. I like the albums I like best because I prefer their punk/industrial side. But if you like pop or acoustic stuff you might prefer Send Away The Tigers or Rewind The Film.

If you want more specific recs or explanations or whatever, just let me know!

Edit: holy hell I just realized I fully read your question wrong! I'm not on my lunch break anymore but I will answer correctly in a few hours when I'm home!

Okay REAL EDIT because I’m stupid and can’t read apparently lol.

It’s worth it to delve into some of their newer ones! Their two most recent, I’m less a fan of. Their newest album, TUVL, I find extremely boring. Their 2018 album, Resistance Is Futile, has some good songs on it. I really liked Broken Algorithms, Sequels Of Forgotten Wars, and Vivian. The rest are pretty take-it-or-leave-it for me. Like I said above, I really like Futurology because I like prog rock, but I understand why other people might not like it (except for Between The Clock And The Bed, which I literally deleted from my laptop because Green Gartside’s voice is so grating to me). I definitely prefer their more punk/industrial/hard stuff, or (like Lifeblood or Futurology) stuff that isn’t just straight pop and is more experimental or weird.

Rewind The Film is more acoustic, but it has some good songs, namely Builder Of Routines and 30 Year War. (By the way, Don’t Let The Night Divide Us from TUVL is basically a worse version of 30 Year War, lyrically.) Postcards From A Young Man is sort of a fandom meme for its boring badness, but Golden Platitudes and A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun are pretty good, and if you like Nicky’s vocals (which I do) then The Future Has Been Here 4Ever is good too. Also it’s b-side Red Rubber is a fucking banger that should not have been left off the album proper. Journal For Plague Lovers is (you may already know) Richey’s lyrics that he left them when he died. The lyrics are brilliant, the music is brilliant, it’s a fantastic album and I love it very very much.

I may be an outlier in that I’m not a fan of Send Away The Tigers, which amusingly was their successful 2008 comeback album after their flop of Lifeblood (which I adore). SATT is mostly just too radio friendly pop for me, except for Imperial Bodybags. However, all of its b-sides are also bangers, especially Anorexic Rodin. I love Lifeblood because it’s so weird and icy, but so intensely emotional, but I know a lot of people don’t like it. Know Your Enemy was them kind of experimenting with a bunch of different ideas so it’s kind of like a song collage style and lyric-wise but I like most of the tracks on it. I assume when you say “earlier albums” you mean up to This Is My Truth, so I’ll stop there.

(Note that even when I criticize the albums, I do genuinely listen to the majority of songs on most albums, except for SATT, PFAYM, and the last 2 albums.)

But yeah, I think their more recent stuff up to Futurology is usually pretty good. Its the past 2 albums where they’ve really gone wrong somehow, at least in my opinion. If you want me to do more in-depth criticism or analysis etc of any album or anything else, just let me know! I love doing that sort of stuff.

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ihave-noideawhatimdoing · 7 years ago

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This week’s learnings.

Turns out I am exceptionally bad at packing.

I’ve known this for a while (like since I was 22 and scarred my shoulders by dragging a non-rolling bodybag full of clothes, 70% of which I didn’t wear, across Europe for a month), but turns out I’m still crap at it. To make matters worse, it’s winter (i.e. bulkier clothes).

Though I’ve fooled myself into thinking I was getting better at it, this fact was presented when I initially arrived in Amsterdam and pulled my (one) giant bag up not one, but two, 3rd-floor walkups in two days. Today provided me with an even bigger reminder of my packing ineptitude – or maybe my poor ability to choose apartments that accomodate my packing style? Regardless, I left my bright, colorful apartment in Bos en Lommer and hauled my 50lb suitcase across town on the 12 tram and schlepped it up five extra-vertical flights to my new, cozy penthouse apartment in ‘de Pijp’ neighborhood. (Okay – full disclosure: I pulled that beast up from the street to the 1st floor, and the husband of the air b&b host brought it up the next 3 flights. But I carried my newly purchased SECOND suitcase all the way up.)

Also, holiday markets are fun!

I walked through the Albert Cuypmarkt this afternoon, once I was settled in at the new apartment. De Pijp is a neighborhood that blew up a few years ago, so it’s a lot more established and lively than where I have been living for the past couple of weeks.

Albert Cuypmarkt is a daily market, but at this time of year you can buy a cup of mulled wine to keep warm while you stroll the stalls and ponder your purchases. I bought a glühwhein and wandered down the street for a bit until I thought I needed a late lunch. Lucky for me, these handsome dudes were available to join me.

#amsterdam #christmas #market #baggage

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floggingink · 7 years ago

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Riverdale: “Chapter Thirteen: The Sweet Hereafter”

six seconds in, we’re hit with the pun “cliffhanger,” which meant I had to pause the recording immediately after it began and brew a very strong tea

“Life’s not an Agatha Christie novel,” Jughead mumbles, reminding himself, standing in line at Stumptown for Betty’s latte

Jason “I’ll Sell These Drugs But Not These Drugs” Blossom, killed for his moral relativism

is there quite a business for heroin in Montreal? is Montreal the hub of heroin in Canada, the Philly of Canada? I tell you, I have heard more mentionings of Montreal on Riverdale than I have my entire life before it (what I’m calling “Phase One” of my life, or maybe “B.R.”)

where did the Hiram Lodge leather satchel come from to be planted at Mustang’s? didn’t Hermione give one stuffed full of cash to the Mayor?

what, if anything, did Clifford think of Jughead Jones, to spew at FP while threatening his life? (write this fic for me)

FP tossing his Sabrina comic to the side becomes Pop sliding Jughead’s coffee across the counter: LEE TOLAND KRIEGER. this is going to be one of THOSE episodes

is Jughead’s dream to be a sort of Alice, drinking coffee and writing his scoop in a real newspaper office?

“75 MORE YEARS OF PEP!”

“last vestiges of corruption crushed”—ma’am, you took a BRIBE

can we get FP some new clothes in there, in holding? maybe a DVD player? is there so little other crime in Riverdale that FP has been free to lounge in solitary relaxation there for days?

I don’t know why Jughead was allowed to sit in on the meeting between FP and Sheriff Keller, but it means he gets to lounge against a wall in the blue prison lighting without himself being detained, which is always welcome

the Serpents only deal in “dime bags of weed,” so whatever else they do to be a Scary Gang is up in the air, menacing public spaces

FP is SO COOL AND COLLECTED in the face of a 20-years-to-life threat, truly an inspiration for those in tight corners with authority: smirk at your legs, chin pointed down, show off your cheekbones, reveal nothing

not enough column inches devoted to Archie’s waistline. while not the coveted martini glass Chuck Clayton sported, Archie’s waistline is instead a gently tapered pilsner glass, deceptive in its easy concealment under a heavy letterman jacket or zipped-up hoodie, until, draped only in a grey T-shirt, it shows its full force and effect

(Jughead is a hand-blown lead crystal sommeliers champagne flute, designed with a thin rim to heighten the effect of the bubbles on the nose)

you know LEE TOLAND KRIEGER has Fred Andrews brooding in the steamy sunbeams of his kitchen window!

there’s a rose gold French press and a porcelain green tea kettle on the counter behind him

Maturing Friend points to Archie for acknowledging that his “dealing” is different from Jughead, Betty, and Veronica still being in the thick of it

I’d give $30 to know what huge book Veronica is reading

“He’s your father, not the Godfather”: Godfather reference #1

Betty is unbelievably self-possessed at the breakfast table that she looks that calm while ripping up her palm

difference between telling Jughead your problems and telling Archie your problems: Betty’s like, My family’s acting happy, and Archie’s like, That’s great, babe!

Archie laughs at Betty’s “Greek suburban tragedy,” which she gives him a look for, but this is just what Archie has been conditioned to do. he doesn’t totally understand everything, so he’s learned to just laugh gamely

Archie doesn’t understand Veronica’s “pas de deux”

Mayor McCoy is doing some frantic PR, looping Archie and Betty into the Jubilee

“What about Jughead?” GOD I LOVE THIS ARCHIE

Mayor McCoy “likes” Jughead. will we ever learn how Jug wrangled his way into a meeting with her about the drive-in?

along with baby showers and birthday parties, jubilees aren’t Jughead’s “thing”

Jughead doubts it: “Kevin, relax. This isn’t The Wire.” Jughead is doubtlessly one of those people who think The Wire is the greatest TV show ever made (which it is), and I want to say he might also be one of those people who sits down their SO and makes them watch it from beginning to end (which he should)

throughout this incredible West Wing circle-around of Sad Breakfast Club eating lunch, Kevin tersely bounces an orange on his tray, Veronica has a salad, Betty has assorted fruit, Jughead has a sandwich, Archie appears to be drinking apple juice (MY MAN)

Veronica, and this happened, stood up to deliver the news about her and Archie. it’s because she knows how important it is!

Archie, mouthing: Don’t. No. No. No. No. What’re you doing.

Please protect Betty: Betty’s like, And this is coming from me, I’m telling you to relax.

“Instead he was buried like a pauper.” I’m picturing the burial in Amadeus, where Mozart’s body is dumped out of a reusable coffin into a heap of bodybags, blessed in the rain by the priest on duty, dusted with lime, and walked away from, already forgotten

“Why are you crying? You hated him.” I really have difficulty conceptualizing or putting into words the particular scariness of Penelope Blossom, like the quiet venom things she does, the way she sneers and her subzero motionless rage stewing, like how she was staring into the fireplace last episode? DAMN. Penelope Blossom is like an 80’s psychological thriller villain transplanted into a 2010’s teen soap, and she begat Riverdale’s greatest thematic creation, Cheryl Blossom, who lives her life as if every moment is the dramatic bombshell scene before cutting to commercial

Penelope...just...unambiguously endorses hanging yourself instead of “this awful limbo,” “living,” “being alive,” “reality”

Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides: Archie double-checking with Betty is sweet, Betty stopping Archie before he gets started on his “But I always thought…” is ESSENTIAL

he’s still thinking about it! COME ON ARCHIE. his little yeeaahhhh... microexpression

the 2001 Josie and the Pussycats movie was a masterpiece: Josie: Oh...we’re not going to sing it. Oh, did you think we were going to sing it?

I will give Hal Cooper credit for smiling proudly at Betty while her mom compliments her article

but ONLY FOR THAT

Betty’s heavily structured trench coat is righteous

Cheryl “abdicates” as the Vixens’ “directoress,” like she’s the tsar

she could be, with that choker!

“I’ve shed my tears for the Blossom men.” and now she’s in grim business mode, sooooo

Betty wasn’t allowed to publish in her mother’s newspaper so she published in her own damn newspaper

thank you Veronica for telling me how to pronounce “Bechdel”

“Swear on the September issue?” “And on my copy of Forever by Judy Blume.”

Fred Andrews had a fast, serious talk with the social worker: “You gotta call him ‘Jughead.’ I know his name is Forsythe. You gotta call him Jughead or he’s not going anywhere with you.”

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: Archie and Jughead coming back from doing who knows what together, Archie tosses his jacket onto the staircase, Jug is like, NICE

this is a new jacket from Jug! the boy loves a fleece lining!

Certified pedigree: Fred is juuuust on this side of too poor and sad to be able to house Jughead

Jughead’s “It doesn’t sound completely horrible” is a radical concession from him, perhaps has been waiting for this moment for months, for Children’s Services to catch up to him

Archie runs to FP to save Jughead. is there a revolving door to FP’s cellblock?

“It tears me up, red, but the Serpents are my tribe.”

FP calls his son “scrappy, a survivor,” which is what everyone wants their father to know for a fact about them

“He’ll try and pull away inside himself. . . He’s got some darkness in him.” he will! he does! cut to: the burger

a one-on-one Jughead and Veronica scene? I’ve not only already signed up, I’m standing at the entrance with a clipboard waving down passersby on the street for more signatures

“You and I have a lot in common”: Jughead goes straight for the superficial prison thing, and Veronica counters with the superficial dating-the-best-friends ergo thrown-into-each-other’s-company thing, but what else could we mention here? fixation on “truth”? fixation on outer appearance as social armor? fixation on father’s legacy as relates to nature-versus-nurture destiny of self? fixation on Betty Cooper as a means to salvation? so many options

I would appreciate an explanation for why sometimes Jughead has lunch with the rest of the gang and sometimes he’s not there. and now he’s at lunch and no one else is there with him except Veronica. do high schools have two lunches now? is one like an extended breakfast before homeroom, or a free period? what different electives do they have that their schedules are slightly different? for instance Archie still presumably has his MUSIC THEORY

Cheryl’s pins: blue cherry pin on her soft cornflower blue wrap top

it’s validating to know Cheryl considers her Bakelite spider pin to be as fantastic as I do

also I love the word “recompense,” so Cheryl is skyrocketing

Veronica recognizes this, the second instance of Cheryl giving away a treasured possession, as the red flag it is (plus making amends!), while Jughead, NOTABLY, pockets the pin as advised

the hanged Betty doll strung up on her locker with twine is like something Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s nieces would have played with out in the woods in Mama

the phrase “Go to hell, Serpent slut” is so, SUCH a mix of high and low art, the plebeian and proletarian, “GO TO HELL” is so bourgeois and chill and indignant and after that they still have enough pig’s blood to call her a slut, which is like SO trashy Draco Malfoy?

what is FP Jones innocent OF in Betty’s article? he’s not being charged WITH murder, and he IS guilty of some murder-adjacent villainy, so I assume Betty’s article is more about his character assassination

Betty’s already in the dazed later stages of absorbing and/or filing this under “emotionally deal with later,” Polly is about to cry

Jughead, who watches Carrie every Wednesday, is always ready to tell Betty the ugly truth, the viscera of the truth

BUT he like whispers it as she, SLIGHTLY in denial to herself while knowing she’s slightly in denial, attempts to tear it down and he’s like mmmmmmmm standing in front of it to redirect her attention and he GETS HER OUT OF THERE, he’s like Agent Toscano in the back kitchens at Georgetown with Zoey

Archie doesn’t know where you could get pig’s blood and this ENRAGES HIM

Betty and Jughead appear to be strolling home together through a graveyard, because Betty and Jughead

Jughead is so coded as an outsider that I’m afraid for his peace of mind once he relocates to his southside pied-à-terre and feels like he’s among kith and kin. the multiverse indeed

there have never been two people more devoted to touching each other’s faces, with the possible exception of Bella and Edward in Dan Bergstein’s Blogging Twilight, than Betty and Jughead. their heaven would be a night at the Ritz-Carlton by Central Park, eating three-egg omelettes and scrubbing each other with Lush face masks. Betty is Rosy Cheeks, Jughead is Cup o’ Coffee

Betty doesn’t let Jughead “Sure babe” his way out of resolving their conversation

plus then he gazes at her like she is the only source of light in his life

Veronica was rich: Hiram Lodge is partial to black orchids? did Hermione get it from the Blossoms’ ORCHID ROOM?

These students are legally children: “Sure, mom, I’ll just sexually manipulate Archie into doing my bidding.” “As long as you’re in control.” WHOA!

Hermione, to be clear, as gone full dark side, while not bitterly sanctioning suicide in front of her emotionally shattered daughter but in a fallen-1%, Madame du Barry sort of way

I like how the show is setting up Hiram Lodge as a scary cloak of paternal/paternalistic/patriarchal malevolence, wherein at the beginning of the series Hermione was at least fronting to distance herself from Hiram’s name and influence and history, and now that he’s “coming back,” she is getting ready for his return left and right through her turning away from Town Upright Fred Andrews, her business loyalties, her aesthetic choices, and her hypothetical manipulation of, of all people, Archie

Betty could run the Iditarod in that trench coat

my man LEE TOLAND KRIEGER coming in with Alice Cooper and the reflection of Alice Cooper flanking Betty while they fight in the kitchen!

“It’s so hard, Mommy. Pretending every—” “I. Don’t. Care.” there has never BEEN a daytime soap, Lifetime Original, Ryan Murphy production, or Sharon Stone exploitation period piece as GOOD as the scenes between Cheryl and Penelope

Cheryl is wearing this drapey see-through black lingerie robe while she dashes around her haunted mansion like sexy Bertha Antoinetta Mason

Mädchen Amick, MÄDCHEN AMICK: you know shit is about to get a confessional when Alice walks into Betty’s room with no eye makeup on and a cardigan that covers her hands

“I have a secret brother out there in the world.” for half a second, I was terrified, in a fabulous lurid way, that the secret brother was Jughead, because I would not put that past Riverdale, before, you know, he’s gotta be like ten years older than Betty

but I mean, he’s got to be FP’s child. right? like—RIGHT?

Fifth period is AP English: “Positively Dickensian.” does Archie know Dickens? surely he knows CHARLES DICKENS

“A blond Adonis, no doubt.” or a sloe-eyed greaser with a DEEP VOICE and Alice’s cheekbones???

WITNESS ME: it is at this point, 21 minutes in, that Ep. 13 starts moving at 10,000 mph

“GO TO THE DARK SIDE”!!!!! like Southside High is MOS EISLEY

the music in the background picking up like some shit is about to happen, like they’re about to BREAK HIM OUT OF PRISON!!!!

What damn high school in America: our boy LEE TOLAND KRIEGER INDEED had Archie, Betty, and Veronica do the Breakfast Club hallway slide, because—BECAUSE WHY NOT! why not just LEAVE SCHOOL to go to a different school to get your friend out of school!

Veronica is in like a black sable stole, because SHE IS!

it is impossible to see what book Jughead is reading, and this haunts me!

Gay.: this is our first viewing of SOUTHSIDE TEEN, taking one of Jughead’s fries, wearing a very conservative white tee and blue jean jacket with a simple side part/2-setting shave down haircut!

honestly Southside High looks fantastic for Jughead in the sense that everyone is wearing a flannel and everyone’s hair is rebelliously long or styled archaically

Cheryl’s sheaths: local hero LEE TOLAND KRIEGER has those white-cold sunbeams coming down over the back of Cheryl’s Gothic grand duchess bed as she lays out her Jason dress!

“Where would he be?” “...cafeteria.”

if you look, there is literally just a female Jughead sitting on the table to Jughead’s right, she’s in black skinny jeans, black Chuck hightops, a DARK BLUE JEAN JACKET WITH A FLEECE COLLAR, and a soft stretchy beanie! she is right, like, hit me up! I cook!

it’s been one afternoon and already Jughead has more friends at Southside High than he had the entirety of his life in the northside school system

Betty, Archie, and Veronica just reaching the table with Jughead surrounded by ne’er-do-wells about to beat him up but it turns out Jughead is merely the beloved communal focal point IS the scene in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes when Jude Law’s Watson shows up at the prison and makes his way through the circle of Victorian roughs about to massacre Robert Downey, Jr., just as Holmes delivers the punchline to a ribald joke to the delight of the motley ruffians and it turns out he’s basically their king

Jughead is technically like Serpent royalty, so it makes sense all these Slytherins would at least make the gesture to seek him out and adore him

awww, Betty Cooper embodying the north side, Jughead embodying the south side, hugging each other, nothing shall tear them asunder, YET

Jughead says something to make her laugh while Archie and Veronica look on

it might not be a stole. it might be the collar of her jacket. is that her Homecoming jacket? I wouldn’t put it past her to have a black sable stole

Veronica getting Cheryl’s text and being like, “We have to go!” is literally the third or fourth time THIS EPISODE someone has been like, “WE HAVE TO GO!”

I could not believe we were actually getting a scene with these guys running through THE FOREST to stop CHERYL BLOSSOM from KILLING HERSELF—just—pause to reflect???

first there’s some sort of bonkers Titanic ice splintering under their feet

and Cheryl is beating her way through the ice with her hands and the power of grief? like—my god. Emily Brontë is like, He’s dead, girl, let it go

Summer + Blair = Veronica: Veronica is truly, as she has been in the past, embodying her true self, with is to reach out with her haughty, beautiful, self-aware, compulsive love and connect with everyone she sees: “WE’LL FIGURE THIS OUT TOGETHER OKAY.”

Cheryl is of course in her all-white mourning dress, her hair down, her spidery mascara, her lips turning purple, bathed in the BLUE FILTER OF HORROR as she sinks into the ice, the ice claims her like the blood sacrifice it demands each year to keep the maple syrup flowing

Archie barrels across the frozen river like a ginger Balto

pretty sick underwater shot looking up at Archie from below the ice!!!!

remember when Veronica told him to be careful with that hand, that his hand was going to be worth millions someday and he needed to be gentle with it during football or he couldn’t play guitar, and now he’s punching through a frozen river? ARCHIE?

the Blossom corpse: okay…..okay…..Cheryl seeing Jason’s corpse reach out to take her like Frodo being dragged underwater by the ghosts of the soldiers claimed by the Dead Marshes

the bloody juice milkshake on top of the water as Archie finally beats his way through by the power of his ripped bod

Archie > Dawson: you know Archie knows CPR!!! how delicately he pinches Cheryl’s nose shut!

however cold Cheryl was upon being thrust into the winter air as Archie & the Gang brought her to A HOSPITAL was not half as cold as Hermione regarding her in front of the fireplace and saying, “What is she doing here?”

Betty starting to cry immediately after putting on mascara is real-life drama

Archie, bullheadedly warming up to perform with his hand in a cast after he saved someone’s life, doesn’t know the word “wistfully,” and I think this encapsulates everything great about Archie Andrews

again, again, AGAIN, I want to JUST POINT OUT that Veronica-noticing-Archie staring “longingly” at Betty-plus-Jughead and wondering if this meant Archie secretly liked Betty is a plot point that would have been stretched out over the course of at least one entire episode, if not the undercurrent of an entire relationship arc of a season, on a lesser teen show, AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN, but Riverdale does not have time! we have to get everyone to the scene where Reggie is threatening to run Principal Weatherbee through with an epee on top of Veronica’s apartment building by the end of the episode!

for the Jubilee performance, Melanie has a shiny white skirt and big hoop earrings, Valerie is in some sort of phenomenal Sgt. Pepper blazer, and Josie is in a studded bustier

the drinking game of listening to Mayor McCoy’s speeches for the phrase “my daughter Josie and her Pussycats”

Jughead and FP have what might be their healthiest, most productive conversation in years on either side of the prison bars

Archie, clearly having the time of his life performing his song, strumming his guitar with two fingers

GOD KNOWS JUGHEAD SHOWED UP WITH HIS JACKET OVER HIS SHOULDER TO HEAR HER SPEECH

some first grader is a big fan of Archie

it seems like Betty’s speech is a rerouted, condensed version of her “FP JONES INNOCENT” article imploring Riverdale to embrace its pain, rebirth itself, and get a new town motto

Jughead listening to Betty call him “the very soul of Riverdale” is probably the moment, you know, he was like, The trailer is empty...

oh Jesus he starts the slow clap

can you imagine being an everyday going-about-your-business Riverdale resident without a kid attending high school, only tangentially paying attention to the news, being like, Who is Veronica Lodge? Does Betty Cooper know Jughead? Why is he called Jughead? What?

Fred is damn right about Hermione being at a damn crossroads

Betty, who signed in pink, Veronica, who signed in purple, and Jughead, who signed in black with his crown, are the only signatures on Archie’s cast yet

Veronica and Archie appear to have chocolate milkshakes, while Betty got a vanilla, and Jughead has Betty’s usual strawberry, with her arm slung around his leg

I know you had forgotten about Penelope!!!!!!!!!

Cheryl’s a psychopath: there are no words in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men to describe the sight of Cheryl Blossom standing at the fireplace holding a candelabra with a tub of gasoline at the floor, (helpfully labeled “Gasoline”) in a white Super Sailor Moon dress, about to burn down her house

Jughead really did clean that shit up!

in the annals of sexy cinematic history, where Rear Window, Secretary, The Handmaiden, and the 2005 Pride & Prejudice all reside, there is a little shelf space saved for the shot of Jughead, out of focus, pulling his hat off behind Betty’s back and throwing it onto the couch

there were only five minutes left in the whole episode when the heavy percussion started and Jughead LIFTS Betty off the ground by her waist. YOU KNOW!!! SOME PEOPLE ARE ABOUT TO GET LAID!!!!

Veronica and Archie slip into her apartment, her mother is passed out on tranquilizers. THEY’RE REALLY DOING IT THIS TIME, THIS TIME I’M NOT DELUSIONAL

Veronica truly did make a Prince Valiant reference

you know I loved Veronica’s beautiful tiny stockinged feet coming off the ground!

the little shot of Veronica exploring Archie’s chest in the dark, by silhouette, whispering to him, was all I really needed from a sexy Riverdale scene, you know? I was sated. all the happy couples were making out and heading for great things, their first happy nights in so long. like, “We’ve had this date with each other,” etc., everything is finally good. I thought that was THE END. I thought that was the end! I WAS ALREADY HAPPY. I DIDN’T KNOW WE WOULD GET JUGHEAD SLAMMING BETTY INTO THE KITCHEN CABINET. I DIDN’T KNOW!!!!!

only, ONLY Betty and Jughead, even with all that chest exposed between the two of them, they still go for each other’s faces, in, dare I say, a clever reprisal of Archie’s mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, kissing like they want to consume each other

it really has to be seen to be believed, how up in there Jughead is between Betty’s legs, the dimple of his back muscles while he’s kissing her like he’s going to push her through the wall

NO ONE EXPECTED Jughead to hold his hand to the side of Betty’s neck and go down to like BITE her collarbone ONSCREEN, what, like, what the fuck, who blocked this? YOU, LEE TOLAND KRIEGER? A MASTERPIECE

Jughead eats: he brought her to the kitchen. “The cafeteria.” he was planning on eating

poor things Betty and Jughead conditioned to assume it’s Alice Cooper interrupting their heavy petting

Jughead’s hair twanging around his forehead cracks me up

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: TIME Person of the Year LEE TOLAND KRIEGER giving us one last rack focus of the line of lights on top of the trailer, dripping with rain, what else could possible happen in the last two minutes of this episode??? stay tuned bitches!!!

Gay?!: Jughead Devotee Southside Teen is back! WITH SCRAGGLY CANON SHEEPDOG HOT DOG. Jughead is like…...hi…...

mangy gruff Serpent daddy has a nose ring, which is always cool

Best costume bit: though it looks like various interviews has RAS saying otherwise, I didn’t read Jughead putting the Serpent jacket on as an unambiguous, wholehearted, instantaneous joining and acceptance of the Serpents on Jughead’s part, for me it was more a mix of A) a thank-you B) “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad” C) a “trying on” of what it might feel like to maybe live this life D) indulging in a moment of being sought out, validated as a member of a community (complicated! because Betty just called him the soul of Riverdale!) F) Cady slowly realizing she’s the new Queen Bee E) a bomb-ass jacket

of course we know Jughead must be incredibly important to the Serpents, whether he knows it or not, so is this them coming to him and being like, The king is dead, long live the king!, or is he a sideways, sometimes-Serpent, or does he even have to “BE” a “Serpent” for them to still take him a bit under wing and protect him—from whom?—while FP is gone? did FP tell them to leave him alone, what was understood, what was ordered, WHAT IS JUGHEAD? what are any of us? who am I? aren’t we all just going to die? (write this fic for me)

the point is that Jughead looks REAL good shrugging the leather jacket on

Fwoopy hair is the best hair: in the silence, in the rain, and the curl of his bangs on his forehead, YYEEEEESSSSSSSS

with a BOOM shot of the Dark Mark taut on his shoulders, like in the fourth episode when FP walked into frame

Sixth period is Intro to Film: Betty’s “Juggie” from behind the door, and he looks back at her? Godfather reference #2

I KNOW YOU FORGOT CHERYL WAS BURNING DOWN THORNHILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheryl’s hair: all of Jughead’s surprise sexual dexterity aside, the greatest moment is the slow-motion shot of Cheryl and Penelope. Cheryl is staring at her work, entranced, okay, having finally been able to take irreversible action to cleanse herself, but Penelope behind her is, understandably, going berserk, and repeat Nobel Laureate LEE TOLAND KRIEGER has her lash out to strike Cheryl, but she’s one step too far back, and there’s an explosion of Cheryl’s hair over her shoulder and it’s got to be one of the most beautiful things ever to be on television

of course Veronica slept in Archie’s dress shirt

the female gaze: Archie’s back is always, always worth it

“Damn good coffee”: oh, he’s so happy in the bathroom mirror

WITH LITERALLY THIRTY SECONDS LEFT IN THE EPISODE, THERE IS AN ARMED ROBBERY OF THE DINER

who would rob Pop’s? is this a hit on Fred Andrews? DID SOMEONE ORDER A HIT ON FRED? JUGHEAD SAID IT WAS “ANYTHING BUT RANDOM,” WHO WOULD KILL FRED ANDREWS????

are you going to sit there and tell me fucking Riverdale hired Luke fucking Perry and then it KILLED OFF LUKE FUCKING PERRY? when the fucking blue neon “RIVERDALE” came up after that, I lost my SHIT. FUCKING RIVERDALE LIKE JESUS CHRIST

next season: full-time student Veronica Lodge finds herself in the midst of a viciously civil power struggle with her father, freed felon Hiram Lodge, over ownership of Andrews Construction, the Pembrooke apartment, half of the town, and the love of her mother. while investigating the true extent of her best friend’s father’s illegal activities for her next exposé, Betty Cooper starts receiving death threats, political pressure to “let the story go,” and mysterious late-night voicemail tips concerning the business dealings of her gangster boyfriend which “might be interesting” to her should she choose to “look closer,” all of which she documents and files in alphabetical order in a fireproof safe beneath her bed (the tips are from her secret brother). Archie Andrews, who is now Batman, must hunt down the masked bandit who killed his father, helped by his best friend Jughead Jones, who, unbeknownst to Archie, has taken his father’s place as the leader of the biggest criminal empire in Riverdale and masterminded a coup for control of the Canadian heroin cartel in Clifford Blossom’s absence to buy Betty as many structured jackets as her heart desires (write this fic for me)

#riverdale #commentary #i say #tropes

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millenniumfae · 8 years ago

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Asexual Sex-Ed: The Dom

When it comes to aces and sex, there’s these huge discussions going left and right. Every ace has their own feelings about sex, and having sex with other people in any context. I’ve talked to many aces (and partners of aces), and I’ve often said that being in a ‘dom’ role can really help reduce sex repulsion and anxiety while also offering sexual stimulation.

Asexual sex-ed is virtually non-existent, which means that aces are often left with limited information, and therefore limited options. But options exist. BDSM with aces may seem like a surprising match, but when you think about it, it really isn’t.

Aces being active in BDSM isn’t without precedent. Kink is especially alive and kicking in the lgbt+ community as a whole, and BDSM in particular is known for being therapeutic. It’s common for those who’re living with trauma to pursue BDSM as a way to cope. And for aces who are sex-repulsed, and/or struggling with their sexuality and libido, BDSM can be an excellent choice.

So I’ve written a BDSM post about asexuality and doms, which is almost completely based off of my own experience of being a dom. I encourage everyone to pursue this information, regardless of their own sexuality or feelings on sex. This is information that needs to be more readily available to the community.

You can also check out my other asexual sex-eds - on masturbating, consent, sexual health, and mental self care. I’m no licensed doctor - I’m writing based solely on my own experience. My words are just one voice in what hopefully will soon be a menagerie of ace sex ed.

(Be warned, pictures to explicit imagery will be linked. This text post contains no explicit imagery.)

What Is A Dom?

Short answer; a ‘dom’ is the other half of a dominant-subservient sex powerplay. It’s a heavily narrative role that uses acting to make a fake scenario of someone being under the ‘control’ of the other.

A BDSM coupling can manifest in several different ways, depending on the party. For some, it’s just their normal sex routine, except with a few ‘yes, mistress’’s thrown in. For others, it’s being encased in a latex bodybag, and left to lie still for several hours while your dom does their laundry and buys their groceries.

That diversity exists amongst aces, too. As you meditate and practice your sexuality, you’ll learn what works for you, and what doesn’t. For allosexuals, their preference for BSDM is heavily dependent on what gets them off. For us, it’s more about what makes us feel safest.

Setting Up For The Dom Role

Every sub/dom session starts with words. A lot of them. If you want to play the dom role in a sexual situation, you can’t just bring it up in a casual conversation, and then leave it at that. Even if you’ve done it before. Even if they’ve done it before. Even if you’ve known each other for years. Even if you feel like they’ve ‘got’ it. A BDSM session requires a lot of planning and consent beforehand.

A good, solid script for a sub/dom session goes something like this;

Asking whether your partner interested, or willing, to partake in a submission role.

Exchanging possibilities and scenarios that you’re both interested in.

Exchanging limitations and no-nos.

Exchanging aftercare methods (more on aftercare below).

Laying down a plan, or a schedule, for the session. AKA, you begin with (this), then continue to (this), and end with (this). The more thorough the plan, the better and safer (and smoother!) the session will be.

As a sex-repulsed ace, I only take booty calls from dating sites or from acquaintance referrals. And since I insist on only allowing BDSM sex, I have gone through multiple versions of these scripts throughout my dating experience. And no one has ever reacted as if I was being too finicky, or particular, with this consent process.

Even with some random Okcupid date, I will insist on a Skype call or a facetime, so the sub will see my face outside the domspace (more on domspaces and subspaces down below) as we lay down the rules.

For example; I got a message from someone that literally only said; “will u beat me up sometime pls thx sorry”. This message was from someone who was a) my age, b) also trans, and c) was a 97% match. So of course, I responded with a solid; “are u looking for a dom? (being serious)”.

And as the conversation continued, my date went on to describe in several paragraphs what they wanted.

someone who can stuff me into a hole intellectually {...} and is good with manipulating power dynamics. not necessarily trying to fuck, mostly looking for the psych bit and some nonsexual physical stuff / seems like there'd be a lot to work with given your lack of interest in sex generally if you decided intercourse was appropriate. what's really important for me (turns out, maybe this is where i've self sabotaged before) is not having to tell the person how specifically to force my submission. very much would prefer dom to be able to figure that bit out given whatever volunteered biographical-type information was exchanged beforehand.

In the BDSM community, you’re much more likely to find people who will gladly write pages upon pages of what they want, in explicit (and often poetic) detail. Which can be very annoying if you attract the attention of white cis men in their 40′s who want to be the next Christian Grey.

But that’s good news for you lovelies. As an ace dom, you’ll have very little trouble with bluntly listing your limits and desires, or finding partners willing to partake. I’ve never met a willing sub that was put off, or unaccepting of my asexuality.

Tools, Toys, And Tricks - For The Asexual

You’ve probably seen the wooden paddles and braided ropes and satin blindfolds. Many of them have been carefully designed to minimize injury while also maximizing physical sensation. Spanking with a paddle, for example, will often start with a soft, small model before continuing into using a hard wooden one. This is to make sure there’s adequate bloodflow to the buttcheeks to increase sensitivity, while also reducing the pain.

But to an ace perspective, those leather handcuffs aren’t just to tie up your partner and excite them, it’s also a good way to constrain their hands so you don’t have to deal with their touch on your body. A blindfold will give you privacy. Mouth gags will prevent any intrusive dialogue that might make you uncomfortable.

As with all things involved in the bedroom, you first need to make sure that the tools are body safe. There’s no government regulation on sex toy materials, which means you could potentially end up with bacteria-laden silicon, or toxin-infected plastics. Buy from trusted brands, or reputable suppliers.

Especially useful bondage tools include restraints that go under the bed, flexible velcro cloth handcuffs, and ropes made out of soft, natural cotton (instead of itchier polyester).

Another BDSM tool that is particularly helpful for the ace are chasity toys. The chasity BDSM subculture is essentially orgasm denial with powerplay. And to an ace, it’s a good way to limit the use of sexual organs. Chasity toys are usually geared towards penises, in the form of cages that prevent erections. Vagina equivalent are usually belts that block the entire pelvis.

Like with all sex, toys and tools aren’t limited to one niche. Instead of buying brand-name fluffy handcuffs, you can very well make do with a random piece of fabric tied loosely around the wrists. In my experience, using bondage tools are a reliable way of reducing sexual contact while also pleasing your sub partner.

Your Relationship With The Sub - What Is ‘Power?’

At its core, a BDSM session is mostly for the sub’s benefit. While there’s real elements of control, ultimately a sub/dom coupling is done to please the sub primarily, rather than the dom. That’s why people hire dominatrixes - some white-collar lawyer may not even be touched throughout the entire session, but they’re really into being whipped and verbally degraded during their lunch break. Meanwhile, the dominatrix is thinking about which curtains they should use for the living room.

The same goes for ace BDSM. Regardless of your reason for partaking in a scene, the sub is your center of attention. This means you can’t, like, just go through a BDSM session and come out feeling like you mastered your repulsion once and for all. And no amount of amazing sex will ‘cure’ you of asexuality.

For aces, the appeal of being a dom is a way to partake in sexual activity while minimizing discomfort. Even if you aren’t sex repulsed, aces often struggle with our ability to consent to sex. Being a dom is a way to have power over the situation.

But as said, the sub/dom relationship doesn’t involve complete power. The idea of a dominant sexual partner is a facade. That’s why BDSM is enjoyable - the sub’s wrists may actually be tied up and cemented to the bedpost under lock and key, but a dom is completely under the will of a sub’s consent. If that sub decides to release their hands from those shackles, you have no power to overrule that.

Being a dom isn’t about envisioning your repulsion as tied up and subdued, and going through this therapeutic night of whipping your problems into shape. Most of the time, being an asexual dom just means that you have a good excuse for leaving all your clothes on, and not allowing yourself to be sexually stimulated.

We all have our reasons for wanting to have sex. Perhaps, as a sex-repulsed ace, you actually do enjoy sex but experience anxiety afterwards. Or perhaps you’re struggling with hypersexuality. Regardless the reason, you can’t expect BDSM to be a fix-all anymore than you can expect any possible method of therapy or socialization to be a wondercure.

Sub/Dom ‘Space’ - For The Ace

Entering a ‘subspace’ is basically shorthand for ‘entering a heightened state of emotions due to getting really into the scene’. When you Google ‘subspace’, you’ll get a diverse collection of descriptions of what it means to enter subspace. Everyone’s subspace is different - for some people, subspace is when your body is over-stimulated, leaving you cloudy-headed and weak. For others, subspace is a very psychological sensation that’s akin to dissociation, or a hypnotic trance.

On the other end, there’s ‘domspace’. Like subspace, it’s an altered state of mind where you experience yourself differently. Some describe their domspace as like an emotional high, or heightened emotions. Some describe it as a spiritual experience that channels a reservoir of power.

For those familiar with BDSM practices, subspace and domspace are words to describe what might happen during a scene. Some people trigger their space with practice and with enthusiasm, some never experience a state that they’d describe as either.

For the ace dom, experiencing domspace is a real possibility. But it’s more dangerous for us; a lot of the time, having sex as an ace means consenting to a language that you don’t share with your partner, and therefore the laws of consent are bent. In that scenario, entering an altered state of mind isn’t an ideal state to be in.

An ace’s domspace wouldn’t be something to retreat towards, it’s something to closely reign and keep in check to make sure you reduce any confusion. You don’t want to lose your sense of self while in a dangerous situation.

I’ve personally never experienced anything like a ‘domspace’, but the idea alone has made me think long and hard about my asexuality and its relationship to being a dom. It’s something you should think about to, if you chose to pursue it.

Aftercare And Self-Care

‘Aftercare’ is big in the BDSM community. And in the sex world in general. Aftercare is the term to describe ‘caring’ for your partner after a sex scene is over and done with, to ensure good mental health and physical wellbeing. Sometimes, that just means snuggling and soft words of comfort. For BDSM, that could mean bandages, ice packs, and so on.

Aftercare is essential in a sub/dom scenario, and its common for the aftercare to last longer than the session. Without aftercare, all parties risk huge health risks, not limited to physical injuries, mental trauma, and emotional stress. You can’t go overboard with aftercare.

For a basic rundown of aftercare;

The first thing people usually need is water. Often, people will drink water throughout the session, but sometimes people get so into it, they don’t realize that their throat is actually parched until it ends.

Give yourselves time to retreat from sub/dom space, and back into your social selves. You drop the tone of voice you’ve been using, you relax your acting postures, you quiet down from shouting so much, you remove all restraints and tools, and so on. Conversation shifts back to normal, and you get a rest from any physical exertion.

Check yourselves and each other for injuries. You may have been aware of some bruises or rashes being formed during the session, and here’s the chance to take a good, closer look. Small things like cuts and abrasions can get nasty infections, bruises and chapped lips can be irritable and painful. Any pelvic pains should be noted and examined when you have the chance. It’s better to give medical attention to chafed nipples or stubbed toes now rather than later.

Keep up conversation. When you ask, ‘how are you feeling?’ The answer might change by the minute. Keep an eye on everyone’s feelings, including your own. Rising stress can be leveled by removing yourself from the space and otherwise preoccupying yourself. Tensions between partners best be addressed before things grow out of control.

Take part in other enjoyable, stress-free activities. For some, it’s taking a bath together. Or cooking a meal. Or getting some drinks and watching funny cat videos in bed. Having a happy aftercare will do wonders to reduce any discomfort and anxiety.

Aftercare extends beyond the bedroom. It’s common to drive your sub home, to ensure that they won’t get into any accidents due to a distracting subspace. And someone still woozy from BDSM might forget their jewelry, or their bag. It’d do no harm to dote on each other, so to speak.

The Aftermath: Recovery And Healing

Unfortunately, good aftercare can’t ‘solve’ everything. No amount of cuddling can solve a bad BDSM session. And for those who are sex-repulsed, the situation is even more aggravated. Asexual people are very susceptible to sex-borne trauma, which means that our self-care goes beyond most.

Any anxiety from the sex probably won’t go away the next morning. And it might lie dormant until your next date, in which you’re hit underhand with a reminder of why you actually don’t like sex. And it’s normal to have enjoyed the sex, but dread it at the same time.

It can be very confusing to feel lost and hurt from a situation that wasn’t harmful at all. But that’s part of sex-repulsion, and part of asexuality in general. Being a dom means minimizing any triggers for this kind of anxiety, but it probably won’t avoid all of it.

As with any trauma aftercare, it’s important to maintain a sense of pride regardless of any intrusive thoughts. You’re not weak or broken for feeling the way you do. You’re a brave and brilliant individual, who faces the things you face. It’s not about eliminating or ‘curing’ this part of yourself, it’s about coming to terms with them.

A lot of the time, I don’t contact any dates ever again. It’d be too difficult to repeat the events. And that’s ok, that’s one of the ways I take care of myself and make sure I minimize trauma. And it definitely helps to document your feelings as time goes on, and also to share your feelings with a trusted friend. Going at it alone is one thing, with support it’s much easier.

I almost never go on dates knowing that I have plans the day after. It’s important that I have several hours to meditate and calm myself down after a dom session, away from my partners. I enter asexual spaces and remind myself that I am valid and strong.

Remember; the power of being a dom might be fictional, but your power as an ace is forever.

#asexual sex ed #sex education #asexuality #asexual #actuallyasexual

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