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justagalwhowrites · 13 days ago

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Joyeux Noël - A Lavender AU Christmas Story

Joel and your daughters plan something special for you for the holidays. A Christmas one shot set in the Lavender AU Universe.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Smut. No outbreak AU. Fluff fluff fluff. Christmas fluff. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ only

Length: 3.6k

A/N: JOEL AND DOC ARE BACK FOR THE HOLIDAYS BECAUSE I MISSED THEM (and hopefully some of you did, too.) This can be read as a stand alone fic with the understanding that Joel and reader are a married couple with a shared biological daughter as well as Ellie and Sarah. I hope you enjoy this tooth rotting-ly sweet fic!

AO3 | Lavender Masterlist | Lavender AU Masterlist | Full Masterlist

December 24, 2024

“You’re sure you’ve got everything?” Sarah asked, her son, Carson, squealing in the background.

“Pretty sure,” Joel said, frowning a little.

“Put me on FaceTime,” she said. “Show me.”

Joel sighed and fussed with his phone until it became a video call, Sarah on the other end with a smudge of flour on her nose.

“Busy over there, baby girl?” He teased.

“Your grandson got me in the face when we were making sugar cookies,” she said. “I haven’t had the chance to get cleaned up yet, the kitchen is a disaster but that’s beside the point, show me Mom’s suitcase.”

Joel fussed with the phone again - having to search for the little button that let him do it, not a fan of figuring out technology without the help of any of his girls - and got the camera to flip around.

“So I put in some of the sweaters she wears a lot,” he said, showing Sarah the stacks. “Some of the pants she likes, too. Got this one dress she looks real good in, real good…”

“Ew,” Sarah said.

“Shut it, kid,” he said. She laughed. “Got the shoes she says are comfortable, some that are pretty, too…”

“Do you have a bag for her?” She asked.

“What do you think you’re lookin’ at?”

“Not that kind of bag,” she rolled her eyes. “I mean a purse.”

“Wouldn’t she just bring the one she uses all the time?” He asked.

“Dad, you’re going to be walking around Paris,” Sarah said. “Spending hours in museums and in stores and lounging at chic cafes, she’s not going to want to carry that giant thing around. In her closet, in one of the dust bags at the top is a smaller bag that Ellie, Evie and I went in on for Mother's Day, grab that one. It’s cross body so she can just wear it, she likes that when she’s walking around a lot. Also, do you have her hair stuff?”

“Hair stuff?” Joel frowned. “Don’t they have that in the room?”

She sighed.

“See, this is why I make you show me,” Sarah said. “Yes, there’s shampoo and stuff but she uses serums and oils and things, she needs those. Bathroom next.”

Joel obeyed his oldest daughter’s instructions, thankful that the two of you were so close that she’d know these kinds of things. He got what she told him from the bathroom and packed it.

“Alright,” she said. “I think you’re all good! Just let her get a book or five at the airport and you’ll be golden, old man.”

“Thanks, kiddo,” he smiled a little. “You still good to take your sister for a while?”

“Of course,” she smiled back. “I love Ellie and Evie can stay as long as she wants until she wants to go back to school. Plus Brandon could use someone to give him a run for his money on this new video game, he’s getting over confident.”

“Thank you for keeping an eye on Ellie,” Joel said. “We’d like to get all you girls on a trip like this with us sometime but for the first one…”

“It should just be the two of you,” Sarah finished for him with a smile. “She’s going to love it, Dad.”

He sure hoped so.

Joel had been planning this for a while. Decades, really.

Back when the two of you were young and flat broke, a trip to Paris had been a pipe dream. You talked about it that way, the same way Ellie talked about going to the moon now, something that you dreamed about but didn’t expect to ever have.

Then Evie came along. Then you were in med school and then you were an intern and resident and attending and Sarah got married and Ellie joined the family and life had just gotten in the way, as it always seemed to.

But it had been a beautiful life and you’d never even come close to complaining about not getting to visit France the way you’d dreamed. As you’d always done, you put everyone else’s needs and wants before your own, constantly looking for a way to make Joel or your daughters’ lives better before thinking of yourself.

But the Paris trip was possible now. The two of you had made more money than Joel had ever dreamed of making, Sarah and Evie were off on their own and Ellie was in a good enough place that she could spend a few weeks with her sister. Things were even calm at work for both of you - Tommy could run the business for a few weeks and Joel had coordinated with your boss to get you time off. It was the perfect time to finally give you something you’d been dreaming of as long as Joel had known you.

Joel didn’t want to put more work on your plate, though, so he worked with Sarah, Evie and Ellie to plan everything. Sarah traveled a lot - she’d made it to Europe long before Joel ever had - and knew how to find a good hotel. Ellie told Joel about the different museums to visit, her passion for art coming in handy as he was planning. Evie - who had even taken after your knack for language - helped Joel learn a few phrases in French (though he was going to be pretty dependent on you to get around.) But that was fine. As long as you were happy, he didn’t care if everyone around him was speaking gibberish.

“Dad!” Ellie yelled from down the hall. “Mom just texted, she’s almost home!”

“Shit,” Joel said, zipping the suitcase quickly. “Stall her for me, will ya?”

“Can do!” She yelled back and he heard her pounding down the stairs to intercept you.

Joel hauled the luggage downstairs the best he could, stashing the packed bags in a room just off the garage so he could wrestle them into the trunk later. He finished just as the garage door opened and Ellie went racing past him to catch you in the car, giving him a chance to slip into the living room unnoticed. You joined him just a minute after he got there, flopping on the couch next to him.

“Tough day?” He asked, putting his arm up so you could snuggle into him.

“Just long,” you sighed. “That early start the day before a holiday made this shift feel like 20 hours, not 12. But at least I have Christmas off to spend with you and the girls before I’m back in on Thursday.”

Joel tried to keep from smiling at the fact that you didn’t know that, by this time on Thursday, you’d be across the world.

“Want to watch a movie?” He asked. “Your pick.”

“Sure,” you snuggled closer. “But let’s see what Ellie and Evie want to watch, I’ll be happy as long as I’m with you guys.”

He kissed your forehead and called the girls down, the two of them settling on Elf followed by Die Hard and you not even putting in a vote for your favorite because you never tried to put yourself first in anything. That’s why Joel was doing all this, to make sure it happened at least now and then. He made you a plate of Chinese food and you fell asleep against him when you finished it, still wearing the Christmas-themed sweater and earrings you’d worn that day to the hospital.

“Alright, girls,” Joel said quietly. “Upstairs, Santa can’t come ’til you’re in bed.”

Evie and Ellie shared a look before looking back to Joel.

“Goodnight, Dad,” Evie said, getting up and helping Ellie to her feet, too. “I hope Santa can get Mom upstairs OK…”

He snorted and watched the girls go to their rooms before laying you gently on the couch. He went and got the presents out of your closet and stashed the suitcases in the back of the car. He stuffed the stockings - you sleeping peacefully the whole time - and set up the living room the same way he’d done since Sarah was little before gently rousing you from your long winter’s nap.

“C’mon, baby,” he said softly, cupping your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone. “Bed time.”

“But…” you sat up, groggy. “We gotta set up Christmas and…”

“Already done,” he smiled. “Let’s go, sleepyhead.”

You sighed contentedly as he looped an arm around your waist and guided you groggily to your room.

“You’re the best husband in the world, you know that?” You said as you burrowed against his chest once you were both in bed.

He smiled.

“Doin’ my best, baby.”

***

You definitely missed having little kids on Christmas morning but having older ones had its perks.

You woke up before Joel, your unreasonably early day - and bed time - on Christmas Eve rousing you before the sun.

Your husband was still snoring gently and you just watched him for a moment, a peaceful look on his face in the red and green glow of the lights on the eaves outside. You smiled. There was something so damn beautiful about the man you’d married more than 20 years ago, just getting to look at him while he slept made you feel unreasonably lucky, like you were getting away with something you shouldn’t.

You ran your fingers through his hair, slow and gentle, and he stirred, smiling every so slightly before delicately catching your wrist and bringing it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to your pulse.

“Merry Christmas,” you whispered.

He smiled broader, his eyes still closed.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Want one of your presents now?” You asked and he opened one eye so fast it made you giggle. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

You leaned in close and kissed him softly, almost chastely, before moving down his body and nudging him onto his back as you went. Your lips went over the firm expanse of his chest, the soft warmth of his stomach, down to the top of his pajama pants where his thick length was already hardening for you.

You tugged the pants down enough that you could get at his cock. You licked the tip of him, tongue circling his head before you wrapped your lips around just the very end, sucking softly at his precome.

“Goddamn baby,” he said, already breathless, his hand coming to the back of your head as you took the whole of him slowly, tantalizingly into your mouth.

Once you swallowed him into your throat, you moaned and held him there, sucking and savoring him before starting to move over him. You pressed your tongue against the thick vein that ran along the underside of his cock, making his head run along the roof of your mouth as he started to move in shallow, gentle thrusts, working himself deeper, groaning as he did.

“Can I have that soft little pussy, too?” He asked eventually, sounding desperate, his grip tightening on your head. “Because goddamn baby if I don’t need you right now.”

You sucked him all the way to the tip before releasing him from your mouth.

“You can have as much of me as you want,” you said, breathless yourself. “I’m all yours.”

Before you had the chance to start sucking him again, he tugged you back up his body, laying you beside him before rolling to face you. He gripped your thigh, tugging your leg over his hip and tucking your panties to the side before petting at your leaking entrance.

“Good,” he whispered. “Just the way I want you.”

The tip of his cock replaced his fingers and he thrust just the head of himself inside of you, stretching you enough that you had to press your face into his chest to muffle your moan.

“How do you always feel so goddamn good, baby?” He asked, tugging you closer as he pushed inside. He tucked your head below his chin, one arm below you and around you, his fingers spread wide between your shoulders, his other on the small of your back holding you in just the right place. You were completely enveloped by him as he filled you to the root, everything about your husband completely surrounding you. “Don’t deserve something as good as you.”

You just groaned in protest, not really able to form words, too overwhelmed by the way Joel was completing you.

Instead, you rocked your hips against him and he responded in kind, the two of you moving slowly, firmly against each other. Heat drew low inside you, concentrated on where Joel was shaping you to him and you grew tighter and tighter around him, your orgasm growing sure and steady.

“You gonna come for me?” He whispered in your ear. You moaned and nodded against him. “Good, want you to come for me, let me feel it baby, milk me dry, c’mon.”

You let out a strangled little sob as you obeyed, your channel fluttering and rippling around him.

“There she is,” he breathed, keeping his pace inside you, the tip of his cock pressing into the soft place within you that made your back arch and toes curl as he ground himself deep. “That’s it, baby, keep coming, come on my cock. Fuck, you take it so well, come so pretty for me, just keep… keep…”

He squeezed you tighter, thrust impossibly deeper and you felt him come apart inside you with a needy grunt, throbbing deep and hard as he filled you, drawing your orgasm out as he did.

You went limp in his arms as your climax eased and his hold on you loosened just enough that he could kiss you, his lips gentle on yours as both of you came back down to earth.

“Dunno that anything’ll top that present,” he teased lightly and you laughed.

“One of the upsides to not having little kids running in here at six in the morning,” you smiled before kissing his chest and snuggling closer. His cock was softening inside you, the combination of his come and yours starting to drip from you. “Can we just stay like this for a while? I miss you when you’re not inside me.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, his fingers trailing over your spine.

“Course baby,” he said softly. “Think we got a bit before the girls start moving.”

You luxuriated in the slow start to the morning, drifting in and out of consciousness with Joel’s cock nestled inside you, your husband thrusting slowly and gently now and then so he stayed deep. The sun had just started to peek through the blinds when you heard a toilet flush down the hall and you kissed Joel one last time before slipping him from you, adjusting his pants and your panties before the girls were knocking on your door.

You loved Christmas morning with your family, loved the sense of joy and closeness as you watched your daughters open presents while you sat on the couch, snuggled up to Joel with a cup of coffee in your hands. You’d never had a holiday quite like this one growing up, always just you and your grandmother making the best of it. You treasured that, too, but it was different now, when you were surrounded by the people you loved more than anything else who loved you in return.

Ellie was super excited about a set of really nice markers you’d asked Andrew for help in researching, Evie shrieked with glee over concert tickets for her and her girlfriend and Joel kissed you so deep when he opened the fancy coffee maker you got him the aching place between your thighs throbbed again.

After cinnamon rolls and bacon and coffee made with Joel’s new toy, the four of you headed to Sarah’s, laughing as Carson showed you everything Santa brought him and giving Joel a look when he gave his grandson candy behind his daughter’s back.

“Well,” Joel said, downing the last of his beer as your entire family sat around Sarah’s table after dinner and dessert, you tucked contentedly against his side. “I’m afraid we gotta hit the road.”

You frowned, twisting to look at him.

“What?” You asked, looking down at your watch. It was barely five. “No we don’t, I don’t need to be in until tomorrow afternoon, we can hang out and…”

“No, Mom, you do really need to go,” Sarah said, a serious look on her face.

“Yeah,” Ellie nodded. “Don’t wanna be late.”

“Late for what?” You said.

Evie looked up from her phone.

“I just checked and everything is on time,” she said.

You laughed, looking around at your husband and daughters.

“What are you talking about?” You asked. “What’s on time, everything is closed. Are we going to a movie?”

“I mean, we can when we get there if that’s what you wanna do,” Joel shrugged. “But you’d have to translate for me the whole time.”

You frowned, looking around again, all your children looking like they were about to burst with excitement.

“Can someone clue me in?” You laughed again. “Because I’m at a loss…”

“Oh, right,” Evie said, going into her purse, pulling out an envelope and handing it over. “Guess you’ll need that.”

Joel was trying to hide his grin but you knew him too well for that and you just raised your brows at him as you opened the envelope. He just shrugged a little, his smile getting harder and harder to conceal.

“What are you all up to?” You teased as you opened the envelope, unfolding the papers that were inside.

“Guess you’ll have to look,” Joel shrugged.

You rolled your eyes good naturedly before looking at the pages in your hands.

It took you a second to realize what you were holding: a flight itinerary.

You frowned.

“Joel?” You asked looking over at him.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Joel, this…” you looked back at the paper, your heart racing. “Joel, this is a plane ticket.”

“Is it?” He asked, smile apparent in his voice.

“Joel,” you looked at him again. “This is a plane ticket to Paris. And it leaves in four hours.”

“Technically, I think it’s two plane tickets,” Joel said, sitting up to look over your shoulder. “First class, in case you wanted some room to sleep on your first overseas flight.”

“But…” Your eyes ranged over the ticket before looking around, all your daughters grinning like the cats who ate the canaries. “I have work!”

“Well, see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Joel smirked. “Talked with your boss back in October, you’re not due back to the hospital for a few weeks.”

“I…” you looked down and back up again. “I need to pack!”

“Wrong again, Mom,” Sarah smiled. “Dad took care of that. And I checked his work, you’re good.”

“We need to plan…”

“I gave him a list of all the coolest museums,” Ellie said proudly, cutting you off.

“And I helped Dad be a little less totally useless in French,” Evie added.

You looked around at all of them, tears stinging at your eyes.

“You all planned this?” You asked, a lump in your throat. “For me?”

“Been a long time coming, baby,” Joel smiled, his large hand cradling your elbow, thumb rubbing gentle circles over you. “You deserve it. Have for a while.”

“He’s right, Mom,” Sarah smiled, too. “After taking care of all of us over the years, it’s about damn time.”

“You’re the best mom in the world,” Ellie agreed. “Figured it was time that you see some of it.”

“You always do everything for all of us,” Evie said. “We really should return the favor now and then.”

You looked back at the tickets, covering your mouth with one hand, giving up on trying to keep from crying.

“I…” you sniffed. “I don’t know what to say!”

“How about we just say bon voyage,” Evie said. “Because you need to get on the road or you’re going to be late for your flight!”

You let your children usher you and Joel to the car and you gave everyone hugs as Evie and Ellie got their bags from the trunk so they could stay with Sarah. You hugged them all goodbye, having to dry your tears every time you realized exactly what was happening: You were finally going to Paris, a place you’d always wanted to go, on a trip planned by the people you loved most.

Joel drove the two of you to the airport, you practically glowing the entire way. Joel didn’t let you carry your own bags and you were still in disbelief as you settled into your seat on the plane, a glass of champagne in your hand as you waited to take off.

“So,” Joel smiled, watching you. “You excited?”

“I can’t believe it,” you said, laughing a little. “I can’t… You really shouldn’t have done all this, not for me!”

“Oh baby,” Joel reached out and cupped your cheek. “You’ve done nothin’ but take care of everyone else as long as I’ve known you. Don’t think I can ever do enough to repay you for that but you gotta let me try, at least at Christmas.”

You smiled and leaned over to kiss him.

“I think I can handle that.”

He smiled.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” he said. “Or should I say… joyeux noël? That right?”

You laughed, his accent comically bad but so charming you had to love it.

“That’s right,” you said. “Joyeux noël.”

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #lavender #joel miller x oc #joel miller smut #christmas fic

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bixbiboom · 7 months ago

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So. Life update.

Today (technically yesterday now) was the first day of my final year of my fourth decade. Happy birthday to me.

I take my duties (even self-assigned ones) way, way too seriously, and running this blog was killing me. Literally. I was given doctor’s orders to cut back on social media (actually she wanted me to cut out social media, but we compromised), and a very beloved friend actually paid me to take the month off. So I did. I turned off all my social media notifications, unfollowed a lot of ppl, muted a bunch of servers, and told my source suppliers I was going on hiatus.

Since the beginning of May, my daily average time actually using my phone has gone from over 17 hours to just seven hours, my blood pressure has gone from the 150s/90s range to the 130s/70s range, and I’ve stopped having nightly nightmares and daily coughing fits. I’m also walking 19% more than I did last month, and every doc appt shows I’ve lost more weight since the last one. I’ve also started writing again for the first time in months, and I’ve churned out over 10k words this month.

So I’m cutting way, way back on the CR content. Still a critter, still watching every week, ask box is still open for chatting, you can tag me in on questions if you want. I’m still actively participating in the fandom and keeping up with the goings-on. But I’m not referring to myself as a source blog anymore. Back to a mixed bag of whatever grabs my fancy, like a normal human person, while I try to become one of those again.

In other news, I’m getting a new kitten at the end of next month! A friend rescued a pregnant cat and I’ll be taking one of the litter when they’re old enough to leave their mama.

I don’t know which one I’ll be picking yet (I haven’t actually met them in person, mama’s a nervous kitty and still settling in to her new home and I don’t want to stress her out by showing up out of nowhere and handling her babies), but odds are good it’ll be one of the torties.

If anyone is so inclined, I’ve got »an Amazon wish list« for supplies for both the new kitten and a few things for my older cats, and »my ko-fi jar« is always around. (Also I’m down for suggestions for things the list is missing; my youngest cat is 11 years old, I’ve been out of the kitten game for a while.)

Love you guys, see you on Thursday!

#blogkeeping

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bellshazes · 3 months ago

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Taxonomy, like adultery, is a sin - but since it doesn't stop the Bdubs Patented Third Wheel Effect, we won't let it stop our categorizing its manifestations either.

The Third Wheel Effect

Bdubs has been engineering partnership and love triangles since his first SMP over a decade ago. In fact it's the consistency across such a long time that obscures the pattern's specifics: it's easy to tell he likes to play on jealousy and cast himself as a villain, but harder to look past the variations of who is pulled into what role obscures the fact that there's truly a small group of overlapping tropes where the players of each role may change, but fundamentally, it's the Third Wheel Effect all the way down.

The Tropes

WELCOME HOME, CHEATER: The earliest, but also the most flexible, as Bdubs is just as happy to have the B-Team in jeopardy because Genny caught him shacked up with Etho as he is to confront Doc for making out with Ren in his absence. As long as someone's mad with cause, it's good fun.

I NEVER LIKED HIM ANYWAY: In contrast to Welcome Home, Cheater, in this subset it's revealed the presumed original pair was a lie, and the third person has had his heart all along. The willingness of the surprised third party is mostly irrelevant to the high drama unfolding, probably under duress in a death game. In a certain light, the crumbling of Team BEST is not not this.

iS THIS A HAPPY COUPLE?: If you read the last description and thought it was missing handcuffs, you know where this is going. For some reason, partners are shaken up and new ones are established on the threat of death if they don't work together. Whether there's still lingering longing for the new third wheel is an open question. Oddly, tends to backfire with a karmic kind of irony, like Impulse and Bdubs' death in Double Life, or dying to your own bear trap anyway in Survival of the Fittest.

POWER STRUGGLE: Bdubs has a habit of appointing heads of state and then somehow acting affronted when he transitions from election champion to one of many civic advisors. Suddenly the subtext turns sharply toward not just governance but government affairs. The threatening third(s) may be or act oblivious to their alleged love triangle, like Cub's nonchalance at Bdubs' rage while they both worked for Mayor Scar.

THEY DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE I DO: Most often instigated directly by Bdubs, the triangle becomes a game of tug-o-war - or at least Bdubs sees it that way. This is especially likely as a result of a Power Struggle, although Etho gets a less angry, more angsty flavor of this in some Life seasons. Also plays very well with Welcome Home Cheater.

Conclusion

Although Etho is a focal point of many past and present love triangles, sometimes even instigating conflict related to them himself, Bdubs' pattern of needing a third wheel to flesh out relationship dynamics is both broader and more predictable than it might appear. Any combination of players who will yes-and him and let him be a little stupidly vindictive or encourage interpersonal drama is a valid combination. It's Etho happily playing into Bdubs' natural wheelhouse and drawing it out of him pre-emptively that adds to them being a pair with no set configuration but that is more enduring than any other alliances they've made over the years.

#game shows DO touch our lives #the grand unified theory of ethubs #<- to come. this is an outtake/appendix to it #bdoubleo100 #ethubs #the grand unified theory

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wisteriagoesvroom · 4 months ago

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LOL I can imagine for vampire au Lando starting to third wheel Carcar and so even though turning Franco is a complete accident he can’t feel too guilty bc he uses it as an excuse to hang around someone else, and somehow he learns more about vampirism lore through a human grad student than he’s learned in his whole life (he’s lived a long time, lots of info to absorb). Then also, if you don’t mind my ask, what do they all do for jobs/how do they get money and would Franco keep studying ?

HELP this is so cute. ok. norpinto-frando vampire au for those who aren't up to speed...

Lando starting to third wheel Carcar and so even though turning Franco is a complete accident, [Lando] can’t feel too guilty bc he uses it as an excuse to hang around someone else -> screaming cus, absolutely. random associated headcanons for this... i'll rewind a bit:

carlos is the oldest vampire, like, moorish/medieval era. he met lando while they were both at a masquerade ball in the early 1600s and smelled each other right away (carlos like wood and ink, lando like gas lamps and wet stone).

lando is an tudor era vampire. like he actually knew shakespeare and said he was one of the best viral marketers of the era

oscar was turned in the early days of the australian penal colony, he's like first or second generation white australian but he refuses to be called british. he moved in to the house because the rent was cheap and he doesn't feel the need to live extravagantly -- even though he, too, is $$ loaded $$

oscar didn't move in until about two decades ago - very short by vampire standards, to them it feels like yesterday - but carlos and oscar are basically They Were Roommates atp even though they squabble con-stant-ly

their neighbours think they are a new age-y polyam group but because the people who live opposite them are students, nobody ever hangs around longer than a year to remember them or dig deeper

so franco definitely brings a fun funky fresh dynamic

he learns more about vampirism lore through a human grad student than he’s learned in his whole life (he’s lived a long time, lots of info to absorb) -> things that baby vamp!franco teaches lando include

tiktok trends, like how to make ur teeth comically large in photos. lando finds this hilarious

how to use venmo

creating a roster on google docs for who needs to do what house chores

jailbreaking an apple watch so it doesn't read their pulses (they don't have any), but it will remind them of the moon phases and when they might be extra hungry to feed

at one point franco actually puts his academic skills to use and helps lando hunt down some of his family tree, because since lando was turned and it's been so long, he doesn't remember much about them : ( so one of franco's little gifts to lando is helping him trace his heritage

what do they all do for jobs/how do they get money and would Franco keep studying ? -> i love how practical-minded you are. um well let's say this fictional supernatural creatures' market mostly runs on barter trades and goodwill agreements. the entire house sometimes just gets lazy tbh so lando or carlos will just dig into one of the old chests of random shit and pull out an antique and go: "do we think this is worth anything?" then they take it to an antiques dealer who is also a mage (alex albon) and there is a 1 in 25 chance that the antique is actually is worth something, so that bankrolls them for another half a year or whatever.

carlos makes a lot of noise about being "an art dealer" just because he sold a goya painting to a museum once.

oscar is a man of industry, of the "newer" world (australia) etc etc so he spent the 80s and 90s learning C++ and Java and Python so he legit just codes for a living. or when he feels like it. oscar has helped launch at least a dozen startups under various pseudonyms and one of them is even a blue chip company by now. he doesn't do it for money tho. he just does it cus he likes a challenge, and otherwise fights with carlos too much. when he isn't coding he likes to tinker and fix things just for fun. like, he legit knows how to fix a boiler and stuff. his familiar is definitely a grumpy orange neighbourhood cat.

franco keeps studying!! he is such a nerd that he's like "i can totally learn everything about anything now, and i could in theory do like 20 masters degrees, and nobody can stop me"!! then lando is like, "well you might get bored of it after a while or burn out". but franco insists he will not. in fact with his enhanced neurological abilities he goes on an academic bender trying to fast forward through an entire harvard's undergrad degree's worth of material in a week, and he ends up faceplanting on his desk. and then poor lando has to go and find a fresh chicken or something to kill and revive franco 'cus franco wore himself out too fast being a bb vampire with accelerated mind powers.

franco promises never to do that again (but of course he will continue to do it once in a while, and everyone still looks after him in his lil study hangovers because he is so very nice. also he taught them how to use venmo.)

and. one time. franco is like. "i can't find this rare sonnet do you know what library i could maybe locate it in" and lando is like "wait i know that one" and pulls out an honest to god original copy that he at some point got laminated in the early 80s. and franco is like. "um i think this should be in a museum??" and lando is like "yeah but i gave them a copy of this, cus i spilled ink on the corner of this in 1603 after a really good night out" and franco is like "???? ok ????"

then lando swans off to moodily stare at the moon or some shit.

#norpinto #frando #vampire AU #wiz.HCs #i could keep going but i probably should NAWT #q

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drchucktingle · 2 years ago

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mr. dr. chuck, i'm a few months ago i told a doc of mine that i believe i'm on the spectrum (after yeeeears of considering all the reasons why i thought so) and she agreed with me. then i came to some conclusions about members of my family. then i started melting down and haven't really recovered.

i'm in my 30's, but my life feels like it's been the mistake-addled 24th year for over a decade. people, choices, wants, they feel like things that were silly blips and not of much substance. i'm tired and my body hurts, so it feels harder to get to things i need. doctors don't seem like they can be trusted because of all the other ways i show up in the world.

i'm worried about my life and my future, and it feels like my magic is gone (or that i can't touch it right now). do you have any words of wisdom for someone who found out this really big thing about themselves kind of late?

thank you.

hello buckaroo thank you for writing. first of all i will say MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is that it is okay and valid to FEEL the way that you feel. your reaction to this news or any news really is not wrong. that does not mean you cant wish for another reaction or WORK TOWARDS another reaction, but in grand cosmic sense this is just your way. YOUR TROT IS VALID and we all have our own unique way. sometimes that path is an easy path with sunny days and smiles and a glorious view, and sometimes it is through the darkness of shadows or crawling through the old bog. we can PREFER one path over the other, but neither is WRONG.

when giving advice old chuck tries to not PROJECT what i think YOU should do because that is not really the point. this is your trot to trot and i do not think it is my place to act like some authority of your way. what chuck can do is tell you MY story of diagnosis and how it made ME feel and maybe you can take little pieces of that for yourself.

chuck learned of way on autism spectrum when i was in early twenties by doctor who said 'yes this is your way'. when i learned of my spectrum way my reaction was: wow this is very very cool i am so lucky because all of my heroes are autistic and now i am in this RADICAL CLUB. we are special and unique and DANG what a treat wish i could have a membership card in my wallet to show all my buds.

now obviously this is not everyones reaction, but as starting off point i wonder what it would have meant to my future if the news would have HIT ME IN A BAD WAY. if i would have felt let a dang robot alien who didnt belong. maybe id be swimmin through the bog ever since.

thing is I LIKE ROBOT ALIENS they are very cool. doctor did not MAKE me different, i was different already, our talks just popped a nice little name on it for me to take or leave. i took the name proudly because DATA from stars trek (certified robot alien) is exactly how i already felt and dang what a cool character and dang what a great life. so was DAVID BYRNE. so was every cool buckaroo artist that i liked. cowboys are OUTSIDER HEROES and that is how my autism makes me feel.

so like i said, i do not know about YOUR way, but MY WAY of hearing this news was heaps of joy and excitement. i will also say that it is very DIFFICULT to find this reaction later if your first leap is feeling in a sad way about it. so maybe if you want to trot back in your mind to those first few steps it would be helpful. maybe mentally trot to where you were pushed off a dang cliff and think "well was i pushed off a cliff or was i just told 'hey bud youve been floating this whole time?"'

because if youve been floating then DANG thats a lot of power. thats not falling. you can float up, you can float down, you can float side to side.

the next thing i will say AS AND ARTIST is that years of toiling and feeling aimless are NEVER actually aimless when it comes to creation. and to LIVE in a human body is to be an artist, because you are CONSTANTLY CREATING the future. when i am writing and i dont have an idea for my next book that can be frustrating, but it is also PART of the process. if i walk to the store to rustle up my mind, or wander around the park, or spend a whole WEEK feeling weird because of writers block THAT IS ALL PART OF MAKING GREAT ART. that is not wasted time. in other words, your years of toiling are not wasted time, that is just the process we all have when we are creating a future masterpiece.

#love is real #autistic #tingleverse

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elioslover · 11 months ago

Text

Green-Eyed Monster- Harry Styles x Reader (kiss prompt).

[Premise: Harry has been pining over his best friend's older sister for as long as he can recall. Here's some angst when the band goes on hiatus].

Prompts: "You're jealous, just admit it, you want to be the one kissing me." // “If you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask.”

Word count: 2.6k.

More Grapejuice / Other Writing

🍷 the guest 🍷

There is no reason for you to feel as bent out of shape as you are in this very moment, zoned out of a conversation with an old friend because standing behind her is the man himself- leaning against the balcony with a collection of adoring guests gathering near, Harry Styles.

Harry Styles; whose boyband had just announced a hiatus. Harry Styles; is properly back in his hometown for the first time in half a decade. Acting- as you deem- far too nonchalant for someone as global as he seemed to be. He had simply slipped back into his old groove as if no time had passed at all.

But all you can think about is how much time has passed. Harry seems almost unrecognizable- hair and tattoos only increasing in length and number. It’s only when his face takes intervals to crinkle with glee- smile cheesing, eyes squinting with joy- that you see the Harry you’ve known so long it feels as if life never existed before him.

Even as his life is about to change completely- a whole new chapter challenging his past and now his future- Harry seems to have little reservation about embracing happiness. Perhaps his nonchalance is the reason your observation stirs into frustration and confusion, causing a sort of panic you were sure to have never felt prior. Who is Harry Styles now?

Then again, your sudden distaste may also be attributed to the adoring attention he has been receiving all night- particularly that of the beautiful people who were visibly blessed with the chance to praise and pet him… And they were indulgently taking advantage of the opportunity.

Harry, by the looks of it was eagerly lapping it up, happily reciprocating touches and even looking at some of them with a gaze you had once noticed when it was dedicated to yours truly.

He definitely isn't a teenager anymore, and it dawns on you how impactful and influential his introduction to stardom had been.

Where were these thoughts even coming from? Your mind never wavered to the thought of Harry unless a One Direction song came on in public or Jack dropped him in conversation.

All the questions you had never pondered were causing your brain to swell, your body stuck in a frozen frenzy of how much has changed- for all of you- starting with the obscene and sudden assessment of his features- had you ever considered him as anything other than just… Harry? Has he always been so pretty?

All of those thoughts shatter as you raise your glass for a sip and across the room, Harry’s arm wraps around an unknown auburn-headed woman’s waist- which, at the least, makes your stomach clench and at the most, has you tilting your head back to empty the glass in one desperate swallow.

Without consideration, you hastily dismiss the person still animatedly engaging in a one-sided conversation and turn your back on the oddly upsetting scene happening against the balcony railings.

Ignoring the high possibility of tripping, agitation carries you to the kitchen- abandoned and almost silent in contrast to the party vibing merely meters away- and you immediately get ahold of the nearest bottle of chilled champagne, filling your flute to the brim and have a hearty sip before finally settling, taking a deep breath, trying to untangle your thoughts- hopefully rid yourself of them for good.

A couple minutes- what sounds like the length of a song- pass before you feel grounded and sane enough to rejoin the festivities. So, with a deep breath and a final sip for good luck, your faithful docs exit the kitchen and trail into the chatty confinements of the living room.

Lo and behold, Harry Styles is everywhere you go, practically blocking your path with his body pressing up against Auburn from outside, and he looks mere moments away from engaging her in a kiss.

That silly sickly feeling threatens to return if you stay a moment longer, so your stare meets the floor and your feet pick up their pace, heading directly for the barricade that is Harry.

His eyes bore into your own with a fervour that you will never forget and for a moment he has you pondering how such a magnificent emerald forest, framed by the wispiest of lashes, could have gone unnoticed for so long- how had you granted his adoring gaze such little attention?

🍷 the host 🍷

Harry is in two minds about this evening- he can’t help but indulge in the praises and doting that showers him from each and every direction, his pulse is racing with ecstatic at the relief of finally being home again.

His fears of everything changing have long passed, leaving his worries at the door as he is embraced with excited and excessive welcomes from anyone and everyone who looks his way.

With his oldest and best friend, Jack, by his side once more, Harry feels no different than he did at that farewell party at least five years prior, enthusiastically greeting familiar faces, accepting each praise with a gracious humbleness.

But Harry can’t tell if humble is even an accurate definition anymore and it isn't long before he feels his social battery starting to stutter and it’s clearly time for a drink.

By the end of drink number two, his body is as relaxed as his mind, and Harry is now encouraging the constant vying for his attention- his supposed importance- especially when it includes an array of beautiful people stroking his extremely inflated ego.

Leaning against the balcony railing, Harry cradles a whisky in one hand and the waist of a dazzling woman in his other. He hasn't actually been listening to a word said around him, nodding every so often as the small group around him eagerly bantered on.

He’s just happy to be here and doesn't think it could get any better until he spots the only thing on earth that could permanently put him on cloud nine- his greatest dream all wrapped up in the gorgeous physical being that is yours truly- and suddenly Harry feels as if all of the happiness he currently feels is merely an appetizer to the type of joy he could be feeling if he were only across the room staring into your eyes.

Oddly enough, your eyes are already set on him, suspiciously staring him down with an unreadable gaze that fills his stomach with an odd sense of unease. You look older- the same, but older- and something about that freaks Harry out and reminds him of his own age, how different things actually are now, even if it doesn't feel that way.

And as if he were seeing you for the very first time, Harry cannot stop staring with bewildered admiration- his eyes darting from your trusty Docs to the extremely fashionable clothing you donned, sternly studying the dips and curves of your body before settling back on your grumpy, but heinously beautiful face.

He felt it unreasonable- borderline evil- how much better you seemed to get with each interaction, how the hell was he to garner your attention now when he was already hardly capable of doing so for the last decade?

After you disappear into the sanctuary of the kitchen, Harry is too antsy to keep it together any longer and he finds his legs blindly following after you.

He’s hardly in the hallway by the time his female company comes from outside- he didn’t bother learning her name. Her auburn hair was identification enough- and she caught up and captured his bicep between her cold hand.

She ascends to her tippy toes, puckered lips finding their place just below Harry’s earlobe, her breath fanning over his sharp jawline as she seductively slips sensual suggestions his way, her free hand trailing up along his torso, fingernails tapping his chest.

For a good moment, Harry truly does start to forget what he had gone on the hunt for, easily distracted by the shower of affection drizzling all along his body by the unknown woman.

But, with a sudden shock, the kitchen door violently swings open to reveal your rigid figure, eyes furrowed and lips trapped fearfully between your gritted teeth.

You are the spitting image of a deer in headlights, staring up at Harry with a look that has him stopping in his tracks, realizing that fate has struck again and he has his elusive person right where he wants you.

Except, his plan to finally confront you had not included a third party and Harry could feel his face swelling with red blotches of blushy embarrassment.

For a reason he can’t pinpoint, shame creeps its way into the pit of his stomach, fists clenched as his body turns to brick, and Auburn, still semi-latched on, is becoming so suffocating he feels like a lobster about to boil inside out.

Rudely, and far too obviously, Harry disarms himself, shrugging his body from beneath Auburn’s grip and muttering some dismissive promise of meeting up with her later on- praying that his words are muffled enough that you don’t hear them.

You aren't stupid though, and by the height your brow manages to raise in suspicion, Harry confirms that his words did not go unnoticed.

His dismissal of Auburn seems fine by her as she smiles hopefully, giving him a swift kiss on his cheek before slipping past Harry and disappearing back into the party.

Unfortunately, he isn’t surprised as you attempt to pretend this interaction was even occurring by disconnecting your shared stares, glancing your focus to the living room, and planning an escape route. But there is no choice other than to pass Harry and there is zero chance he will let you get away with it.

Harry steps and then tilts his body closer, hoping to encourage you to do the same, but you stay put and only glare up at him expectantly and impatiently. He ignores your frigidity as if it were just a farce- it is- instead his smile turns to a full-on grin, reaching his eyes and crinkling cutely at the corners, and it spreads along his features with a fondness so fierce that you find yourself working overtime to avoid your face from breaking out into the same smile.

“Avoiding me, hm?” He muses with a precious pout, “Y’know that hurts my feelings, klutz.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. You do it every single time.”

Arms folding across your chest, face frowning with the preparation of upping your defensiveness in the name of dismissing Harry- just like old times,

“I see you enjoy lying for fun now.”

Harry nearly scoffs but it projects as a sly smirk and points it at your painful scowl,

“Y’do. Dipping in and out of patios… kitchens… Yet you always meet me in the hallway.”

The stomach-knotting realisation that this is factual- how many times had this happened before? How many times would it happen again? Have it your way, and this will be the last time,

“Meeting and cornering are not the same thing.”

“Stop tryna be smart.” Harry slightly, but softly snaps as his lips smack together.

“You’re ruder than I remember.”

All snippiness leaves as soon as it comes, Harry sinks back into a swell of adoring amusement,

“You rate?”

“Ignoring your guests is a party fowl.” Definite diversion on your part.

“Avoiding the host is a party fowl.” He counters.

Weakly attempting to walk past him, only renders your back pressed up against the red abstract wallpaper. He remains put- which, to you, is rather unnerving- and upset is racing along your prickling skin,

“I told you, I’m not avoiding you.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” He edges closer with curiosity.

“Just because you’re used to people throwing themselves at you doesn't mean I'm avoidant." You spit and suddenly, he’s so close.

“They don’t all do that.”

“Sure, Harry.”

Have you two ever been this near before? Most certainly, but you could always chalk that up to intoxicated confusion- at least on your end had it ever felt this… intense? Is there any worldly justification for the suspicious stirring of curiosity now that he has so calmly and tenderly crossed the threshold of your personal space.

Harry knows he has never felt as satisfied as he does whenever your bodies threaten to blend into one, but for perhaps the first time, he thinks you may consider this palpitating chemistry as something more than a silly game.

But, he does so fondly enjoy the game, and if he pushes even a moment longer, Harry knows your patience will wither and guide you away from him for good. He uses a tried and true tactic,

“I like your hair.” He does.

“Yours is like longer than mine.” It is.

“D’you like it?” Harry is deep within your space.

“It’s alright.” You shrug, lying through your damn teeth. And you could leave it at that, but the bitterness has clearly taken over, “I’m sure the groupies are creaming, though.”

Hell, Harry has missed the pleasure of being in your preference, how electric and alive his body expels excitement and the anticipatory flames you will surely attack him with. He loves it- hates how much he does, can’t help but prod and provoke,

“I can tell you’re agitated.”

“Does that make you feel special?”

“Can’t put my finger on why…” He ponders- Harry’s missing context, the type you are unwilling to confess- the only evidence he has is your pointed stare flickering with fury- wait, envy? “Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“Oh, you’re jealous.”

Your throat chokes on your stomach as you croak out a spluttered, “What?” as Harry’s chest brushes your shoulder blade and his spearmint-scented breath fans across your neck,

“I think you heard me just fine.”

“You are delusional.”

Is he, though? Has jealousy been the reason for your distaste and discomfort this evening? Are you as delusional as you believe Harry to be? He seriously thinks so, skin tickling your own,

“Maybe… Still think I’m right.”

“Fuck off, Harry.”

He won’t though. Hand coming up to play with a strand of your hair, twirling it around his finger as his righteous gaze bores into your own- frozen and wide with bewilderment- and finally, his lips threaten to brush the back of your ear,

"You're jealous. Just admit it. You want to be the one kissing me."

“No-”

“Never looked at me like this before..”

You know, and you hate that he kdoes too. You should leave. Now. But with a compulsion too fierce to fight off, a culmination of fascination that ignores your conviction of moving away,

“I don’t-”

“If you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask.”

Harry says it so matter-of-factly that it shocks your body, and brain, into returning to reality and those succulent tingles swirling in your stomach twist sourly, threatening to suffocate you inside out.

With disappointment that is mostly directed at yourself, your sudden enamourment switches to the act of pressing your palm to Harry’s sternum and pushing sternly until he stumbles back in surprise. You cannot risk leaving without gifting him a cruel and crushing tongue-lashing,

“You’re a frat boy in the body of a former pop star. I would never want to kiss someone like you.”

You slip past him with zero resistance, no consideration for confirming his reaction as your back turns to Harry.

Well, Harry thinks he’s glad you grant him some privacy because the guttural disappointment melting his face into a frown is shameful enough.

He doesn’t understand the sudden stinging of his tear ducts, the shrill ringing in his ears. Suddenly, Harry doesn’t quite feel like celebrating his return.

Head bows as he carries his hurt and frustration to the confinements of the kitchen. It’s about time to spiral.

🍷

You can send me a couple numbers and a trope/dynamic to write about! (18, 26, 31, 32, 35,) em. Xo 💞

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multiheadcanons · 6 days ago

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BABYS FIRST RESPAWN

aka tf2 mercs and the first time they died and respawned

tw: death, murder, marginal gore?

spy: it’s embarrassing, he hates to say it… he fell out of his smoking room window in the middle of the night. he was taking in the view, sitting in the feeling of new. he didn’t know whether he maybe leaned too far out the window, or if something or someone had pushed him, he didn’t see anything but the ground approaching. it was swift, and virtually painless. he squeezed his eyes shut before he hit; and before he realized the pain his eyes opened to the infirmary. he sat there in shock for a moment; confirming he was actually alive. he felt his body for any trace of ache, and felt his heart drop when there was none. that fucked him up. he quit thinking too much about it after the first few dozen times he encountered the respawn machine. he does not want to think about whether he’s actually him or a perfect clone or— never mind.

sniper: it’s also embarrassing and he hates to talk about it. he would consider it a case of murphy’s law. he was actually having a really good day! it was his first day on the job, and he made it out alive. he didn’t think much about the fact that the same guys were showing up between his crosshairs. he didn’t think much about it until he was cleaning his rifle. and as he finished, and inspected it, he’s pretty sure it misfired. he’s the one who didn’t put the safety on before he inspected the barrel. he doesn’t know. he knows he was staring down the barrel and a loud, a familiar crack rang through his ears for a fraction of a second before he saw the white of the infirmary. he immediately jumped to his feet; dazed. and, without really thinking about it, other than his eyes making out a red cross, yelled for the medic. the medic who took his time coming to reassure him. he also quit thinking about it the first few dozen times because he didn’t want to think about whether or not he was himself. he had enough on his plate as is.

medic: okay, technically it was his fault. he pushed heavy, who was a stranger at this point, verbally. he made a couple off handed comments, a few too many underhanded insults on their first day of work. and the worst part was, he would laugh about them. loudly. and when heavy would confront him, he would immediately back down. and heavy hates cowards. the final time he was given the opportunity to do this was in the infirmary; heavy simply…. picked him up. arms pinned against his own rib cage, which was trapped between heavy’s hands. he was still laughing when heavy started to squeeze. and said nothing more. he continued to laugh until he felt a painful snap. and after the pain, he almost felt…. a relief. a glorious relief in his back he hadn’t felt in years, no… decades. he sighed, and found he could not breathe in again. a final, firm grasp and squeeze around his neck sent him staring at the white wall of the room next door. and his back hurt again. there was a whisper of wind, almost like someone was also taking their first breaths; and turned to see demo; who was staring at the wall in shock. a slow turn revealed his one eye to be wide, pupils resizing as he attempted to focus it in the brilliant white room. “what the fuck just happened.”

“well… i see we must both still be alive.”

demo: tavish…….. poor guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. he happened to be entering the infirmary, a few drinks in, with a small cut. he literally just wanted a bandaid. he didn’t expect to walk in to the heavy weapons expert holding a…. very clearly dead doctor. well, maybe he was just giving like a fucked up chiropractic lesson, but doc’s back was bent at an unusual angle, and his eyes were not moving, and his lungs looked like they collapsed, and he was not making any sound... yeah. that’s a dead medic. he didn’t register that, or the doctor’s falling body, before he felt a palm encase his entire face, and something that he could swear was steel made contact with his temple. and his vision came back to him being in the room next door. next to the very much alive medic, who also seemed a little dazed, but at least was at the correct angle and breathing and making noises. after regaining his bearings, he actually didn’t hold it against heavy. nobody knew what it meant when they were told that they would come back, and nobody needs to mention it. emotions got hot and things just happen that way sometimes. medic should take the lesson in stride and stop pushing buttons. but he held no ill will. it actually makes him incredibly confident to know that he can go through anything and still come back. and he’s bolstered with more confidence to have a guy like heavy on his side. drives him through battle.

heavy: heavy had apologized to the doctor immediately after he (and demo) entered the main infirmary room from a set of double doors to the side. demo said all was well. medic said all was well. all was not well. medic did not forgive him for murdering him in what medic considered to be cold blood. and played the slow game about it. medic let their other teammates die in favor of making sure heavy did not see the inside of that infirmary for months, past minor to moderate damage. medic carefully cradled heavy’s life in his hands, and never dared to disrespect it again. medic never babied him, but was clearly better than had he… not snapped the man’s spine in half and crushed his rib cage. he had never truly seen what the others began to call “the respawn room”. he had sat in there a few times, pondering the feeling of it. heavy did not consider that medic’s intense intensive care could be a ruse. he didn’t consider that as they made their usual idle chatter on the field as they sped into the heat of battle; he didn’t think about it as he reminisced on that moment. he only thought about it as he mentioned medic’s grace and kindness for his outburst. how he actually quite liked the doctor. how he couldn’t believe he could get that worked up. “over a silly joke, no less.” was actually the last thing medic hissed in his ear as he shut off his medigun and stepped away from him, ubercharge wasted, as heavy rounded the corner to heavy fire. and he had never felt a burn like it to date. the medigun truly made bullets feel like nothing. what a medical wonder, he thought briefly. he turned his head, his final action, and watched medic make direct eye contact with him, before offering him a smile, a wave, and walking away. that was the first time he had seen the walls of the respawn room without his express permission. he decided then that he did not like that doctor. they’re fine now though. they can laugh about it.

engineer: it’s embarrassing, he hates talking about it. having family that worked in Mann Co, he generally knew and understood the workings of the respawn machine. he was a couple beers in, there was an outage. he felt confident enough to do it. he thought “i shouldn’t let the outage sit and wait for me to sober up, something might happen and we’ll need full electricity!” and he was haphazard. he didn’t give enough time and care to practice safety and paid that price. he felt a shock begin in his ungloved fingers and reach his chest, fast. but at that point he couldn’t let go. he woke up in the ward with his hand still clenched in a tight fist. he didn’t like that feeling much. but he’s glad the price wasn’t his life…. permanently.

pyro: pyro willingly jumped off a cliff on a question from scout; “do ya wanna know what it feels like to die?” and five dollars and seventy two cents. they returned, seemingly unfazed, and took scouts money, and pushed him off the edge in return. they both made a point from then on to never get too close to the edge, and pyro makes it a personal mission to warn others of the fall. they know what pain feels like. it bothers them more to not actually know what death feels like. they don’t like opening their eyes to the infirmary. and they wonder when it’ll be the last time they open their eyes to that sight. however, they’ll regularly air blast enemies off the cliff. they take every opportunity to show them that they shouldn’t be that close to the edge!

scout: scout…. honestly didn’t remember the first time. he remembers driving into teufort, and he was being kinda reckless, but he didn’t really care. there was nobody on the road for miles in either direction but him, he felt like he should be able to cut loose a little, even though he knows safety on the roads is paramount. if he died, at least he would just take himself out, right? and then the wheels popped on his dogshit car. he panicked, he couldn’t get the car under control, and the last thing he remembers is seeing a sign saying “welcome to teufort!” before he woke up in an infirmary. he didn’t put two and two together until pyro pushed him off the cliff he had just dared them to jump moments prior. and he screamed. he screamed until he hit the floor and shot up in the respawn room screaming. and seeing that infirmary again… he realized what had happened that first day. he now takes road safety very seriously. he can’t believe he is an actual story for road safety. he can’t believe he’s dying, or dead most of the times he sees that room. it bugs him. he would like to die permanently. not any time soon, but he does wonder when he’ll die permanently.

soldier:

pauling: “alright soldier, so you get how to rocket jump, right? you want to practice with the—“

soldier: “i got it ms pauling! shoot at your feet then jump!”

pauling: “no soldier it’s— no soldier WAIT—!”

soldier promptly blows himself to bits and returns to the training ground from the respawn room. takes approximately two and a half minutes.

soldier: “I DID IT! I JUMPED ALL THE WAY TO THE INFIRMARY!”

#team fortress 2 #team fortress two #tf2 soldier #tf2 demo #tf2 heavy #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 sniper #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 spy #tf2 scout

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voxofthevoid · 1 month ago

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I just saw the new plot in the list (65), plssss tell me how the dynamic gonna be like. I really know ahhhh ❤️❤️

Ah, the new bunny! That one started out as just one(1) stay piece of dialogue that popped into my head sans context. I shared it with @nearalways and thus dug my own grave because we built context around it, which then found its way into my docs. You'd think I'd learn by now...

65: Soon after Suguru’s defection, seventeen-year-old Satoru time travels over a decade into the future, where he takes a dim view of his older self and the boy who claims to love him.

The dynamic is meant to be ✨ angsty ✨, at least on Gojou's end. Basically, teen!Gojou (henceforth "Satoru") is hurting from Getou's betrayal when he lands in the future, and he learns that (a) Getou's dead by his own adult self's (henceforth "Gojou") hand and (b) said adult self is in a relationship with his teen student who seems like the embodiment of sunshine and rainbows. Not only is he unimpressed, he also doesn't believe Yuuji will stay: Why would he, when any and all versions of Gojou Satoru is what he is?

Gojou doesn't disagree.

Here are a few choice lines from the outline that'll illustrate the general tone better than a summary can:

Getou leaves. That story's written. But Satoru (and even Gojou) is turning that into every story.

Yuuji's good and kind and burningly young. Satoru would see what he himself has grown into. He'd call Gojou a fool for ever thinking Yuuji would stay, and Gojou wouldn't even disagree.

Gojou had his halcyon days once. He knows they'll end. This, too, will end. Satoru's fresh off from that first end, and it'd be unfathomable to him, how Gojou's content to just love this boy and wait for the boy to stop loving him

(Yuuji obviously won't leave. He's got double the usual number of Gojous. He's living. It'll just...take a while to sink in for the other two.)

#goyuu #i love my anons #anon #fic: a really good dog #my fic #happy bday satoru; i'm tormenting you but with love

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1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt · 2 years ago

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I woke up this morning and saw I had a message in my inbox on AO3, presumably about by new fic, and was excited to see the feedback.

When I read what they wrote it was a small comment that said "stop using sudowrite".

Had no idea what that even means, so I had to look it up and found out it's some form of a writing AI.

Absolutely fuming.

I want to make something abundantly clear right now:

I have not been hand writing and editing all of my own stories, hundreds of pages worth of personally hand written or hand typed content for the past 16 years, only to get accused of using any form of lazy ass writing AI now.

This is what I love to do. For fun.

I put in a lot of unpaid time, creativity and energy into my writing and editing. The only thing I ask for in return is participation from the fandoms I love, be it via thoughtful feedback or valid criticisms.

But this is neither of those things. This is just an outright, baseless lie against the art that I have worked so hard to make myself, and I won't be undermined or discredited.

There's anger, and then there's whatever space I am occupying well past it right now.

It's infuriating to pour hours of my love, thought and creativity into original content only to have someone come out of nowhere and try to tell me I've been having an AI do it, especially 16 years deep.

Bitch please.

I also found out that app came out in 2020 . . . As I mentioned, I published my first K/S story in 2008 as Ruby JW on the K/S archives, and my first fanfic on fanfic.net was published in 2007 as luigi_is_stellar.

I invite anyone to peruse my decades-long collection of independent content that I have single-handedly accomplished well before such an app even existed, then come back to me and try to tell me that what I do here isn't authentic.

I don't usually get spicy, but when it comes to the art I spend hours writing and drawing independently with my own blood sweat and tears, yeah. I'm going to get spicy.

I do far too much unpaid work out of passion and love for this fandom to have such a serious accusation flung my way out of nowhere.

It's the first time in my 16 years of writing for this fandom that I've ever been accused of plagiarism, and you best trust and believe that I don't take that accusation lightly. I work too damn hard to let someone discredit the work I do personally in such a baseless manner.

Anyway, that was discouraging AF. I am boggled to learn that AI writing is even a thing, no less someone coming out of the woodwork to try to accuse me of using it 16 years into story publishing when I literally teach academic honesty and writing ethics in my line of paid work as an English professional.

Genuinely: Do you know who you're talking to?

A bit of background on me:

I come from a not-so-wealthy family who could not afford to pay to put me through school -- I paid for that all on my own. I had to earn my University English degree, one of four University degrees I hold on my own work and pay alone, without so much as a tutoring session or handout from home.

Not once would I have jeopardized everything I worked so hard and paid for out of my own pocket as a poor ass uni student working two jobs and doing night classes just to phone it in plagiarizing, not on one ounce of my work.

That was all me.

I've handwritten 3 MLA essays in under three hour exams BACK TO BACK, immediately followed by back-to-back Biology exams & a final lab where I ALSO had to write multiple essays and switch from MLA to APA mode within the span of 6 hours.

Those were all bound in handwritten yellow booklets well before we ever had Google Docs, Grammarly, formatting suggestions, or even regularly brought/had access to laptops in UNI. I did my work by hand.

I earned my degrees in English and Biology AT THE SAME TIME before I even turned 24. I earned a double major handwriting my own work papers like my life depended on it, and you actually think I'm about to phone it in now?

Step to me like that again, young blood. I ain't the one.😂

Anyway, I digress.

Ya girl ain't here to fight BC y'all know I tend to be very easygoing, full of humour, and I love to joke around in the fandom. I'm pretty wide open to opposing opinions or even criticisms. But this is unfounded slander, and I won't be taking that on the chin.

When it comes to my work, I take that very seriously, and I don't play around. My late father once told me that "The work you do and the degrees you earn are yours and yours alone, they can never take that education from you." I live by that sentiment, and have done so by putting forth honest work.

Be it paid or unpaid work, it's my work. Periodt.

It is an unfathomably disheartening and insulting message to receive as someone who writes all their own stuff themselves, draws all their own fanart themselves, does their own photo edits themselves, edits their writing themselves, and has never even used so much as a single outside beta reader/editor for my work. Not once. The art, the writing, the editing -- It's all me.

Bottom line:

Say you do or don't like my work, that's cash money and we good, whether it's your cup of tea or not.

Butt know that it is my work.

I will not put all of this free time, effort and love into my work only to be accused of lazily ripping the content that I have spent hours writing and personally editing from somewhere else.

And on that note, consider my PSA rant ended.

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elderberries-and-honey · 4 months ago

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𝙈𝙮 𝘾𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 & 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜

A while back I received this question asking if I'd mind explaining what my creative process is like and some wanted further explanation about what goes into planning multiple generations & arcs. I do apologize that this is so overdue, and it's literally taken me months to get to. My process is always changing, and I'm constantly adding in pieces that help make the process easier. Because of this, the way I answered the question back then is also quite outdated, at least in terms of how I plan each shoot/post, and I'll hopefully provide further clarification below the cut.

However, first and foremost, I want to say I am by no means an expert and different processes work for different people. Your creative process might look totally different than mine, and that's okay! Whatever keeps you coming back and sharing your work is always going to be the best & most efficient way of doing things.

But I do think it's helpful to get insight into what works for others when you have no clue how to plan things like this, or where to even begin. So, without further ado, here is my process.

Mainly, I use a website called Milanote. It's super helpful for organization purposes, and it's mostly free. They have free templates you can use, or you can make your own. The only downside to it is you're limited on the number of "cards" that are available to you. They do have a promo that you can use where if you get someone else to sign up, you get more cards, which is what I did.

My main folder basically looks like this:

𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙍𝙀𝙎𝙀𝘼𝙍𝘾𝙃

The research folder is an unorganized, organized mess and basically just looks like this:

This is where I keep all my resources, and all of the things I've researched for my story. As you can see, this includes various sources like YouTube videos, various articles, quotes, photos and even some music as well. I like having this all in one place so it's easily accessible for me, but you could just easily keep all of this in a Google or Word doc if you're low on 'cards'.

𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘼𝙍𝘾𝙎

Next we have these two sections. Obviously, I had to cover them up to avoid spoilers but I did label them to hopefully provide insight. Essentially, for this decade in particular, there are going to be various arcs happening at once, especially since the children will be growing into adults and laying their foundation is going to become crucial to the story. However, I'm trying to limit myself from having too much going on at once, which is why I try to limit myself to only four arcs playing out at once.

I will also say that Plot's A through C are interconnected, or at least they will be eventually, while Plot D concerns one of the children and will impact things later down the line. This is super important for really tying different ideas together, and making sure random plots don't seem to just pop up out of the blue.

The table for myself helps a lot with this, so that I can easily see what arcs have been started, and how many 'scenes' each one has. I find this to be useful because then I know that none of the arcs are stretching too long, which ones might need more fine tuning and which ones have yet to flourish or even begin.

Each arc basically has something like this going from beginning to end, essentially following the classic three act structure. Not all of them have five components, some more or less, but generally it ends up being five. Now, this doesn't mean every plot is only five posts or anything like that. Most of the time, the timeline of events needs to be broken off into bite sized pieces and that's okay.

The resolution doesn't always mean a happy ending, and can also serve as a way for me to introduce any new arcs for a specific character, which would then start the process over. You can kind of think about this when watching a lot of television shows. We watch all this build up starting on episode one, and things get more and more intense until we finally reach the season finale. And then woah, with two minutes left of the episode, we see that the character they just thought was dead is actually alive?! Which then leads us into season two.

I do think planning this way could feel really tedious for some, but I like to map things out before I start introducing any arcs so I at least know it isn't a quick "one shot" plot, something without actual purpose or an arc that doesn't really seem to have any sort of end goal that makes logical sense. It also just helps me remember what everyone's up to, especially when there are so many characters to keep track of.

𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙊𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙎𝘾𝙀𝙉𝙀

Before I go into the game, I basically write out a "rough draft" of sorts. This includes dialogue, any background noises (things like a clock ticking or the tapping of a pencil), a brief description of each shot/photo (including any post-editing things like adding blur effect), and a summary of what's happening in each panel.

Because I only use one document for this, and clear it out once I complete a scene, I do not have any examples to show from The Baudelaire Legacy, so I created a mock-up scenario in which Ozzy flunks a difficult test at school, as seen below.

Once I have that written, I plug it into my 'scene planning' board. However, I only include the shot/photos, and the short summary. On Milanote, I also plug in the location, time of day, attire and any pose accessories I might need (so that I remember to create an extra outfit for it). This ends up looking like the example below.

I typically will only have this open on my second monitor while I'm shooting the scene, and I just tick the boxes as I go along. This is really nice if you have to stop mid-shoot, and helps me pick up where I left off without getting confused.

I do also edit each panel in-between shooting to make sure I'm getting the shots I want, however, I don't encourage everyone to have Photoshop and Sims 4 open at the same time.

𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙍𝘼𝘾𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙎

Then we have the character sheets for each of our characters. Right now, I'm only focusing on Lawrence & Winifred (though, the children's arcs are in a 'idea dump' document).

For me, this is the most important piece of the story. One of the reasons shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are considered some of the best writing in television history, is mostly due to the fact that, in my opinion, they prioritize this as well. It's always good to have a strong character in mind before you begin, and this is because you don't want them to step outside themselves.

Of course, your character can change and bend within their environment or plots happening around them, and they certainly should, but you also need to ask yourself if it's being done logically. Asking yourself, 'Why did they end up this way?', 'How did we get here?' and 'How would this character specifically react to an intense situation, stress or hardship?' is crucial when writing a character that feels alive.

Having something like this helps me build their "character arc" and map it out so no one ends up being left in the dust and makes sure that everyone is important in some way. Each of the children will have a sheet created for them once they reach the teen life state as well.

I also use this page as a way to record any quirks, or habits they have. These don't have to be major or super important either. So for example, on Lawrence's character sheet, I have it written down that he wears glasses to read; a very small thing casual readers probably wouldn't even pay attention to, so it feels like an important detail to me.

𝙈𝙔 𝙎𝙋𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙎𝙃𝙀𝙀𝙏𝙎

In addition to Milanote, I also Google Sheets/Docs. This is where I keep my spreadsheet and write / keep a hard copy of my story.

My spreadsheet is basically broken up into four different tabs - one for the main sims information (the Baudelaire's), side household information, my story posts and my ageing table.

My information tables look something like this:

For story posts, I use @aheathen-conceivably's method of tracking, which you can read about here. The only thing I have added in addition to what she has is a "notes" section, and this where I include any sort of post that doesn't specifically fit into any arc but is still important - things like birthdays, marriages, holidays, etc.

𝙈𝙄𝙎𝘾𝙀𝙇𝙇𝘼𝙉𝙀𝙊𝙐𝙎 𝙄𝙉𝙁𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

In addition to all of these things, I also use Pinterest to create moodboards for each decade, as well as each character. I like to include all sorts of things like any inspiration I'm drawing from (so, things like Greta Gerwig's Little Women or HBO's Gilded Age), photos, quotes, etc.

Annnnd that's basically it! I'm hoping this provides some good insight, and is helpful in some way. I know it seems like a lot, but the more you do it, and the more you plan, the more natural it will start to feel. Again, I am not an expert in any way, and it's always difficult to explain your process in this way (and probably why I put off trying to do so for such a long time). So, please feel free to ask for clarification in regards to any part of the above.

Happy Simming ‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃

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samfosho · 6 months ago

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I hate to do this, but not asking for help is how I ended up with tens of thousands in medical debt to begin with and I'm getting desperate.

So, hi. I'm Sam. I'm a queer, autistic & ADHD living with mountains of medical debt that has accrued after working a decade at a job I believed in for just pennies, with nothing to show for it but burnout and depression. (Yes, I know there are charities that buy medical debt. I did not know about them before I took advice from An Adult That I Trusted and Thought Was Smart years ago now, who said just put it on a credit card. I have learned and suffered for that mistake)

Fortunately, I've got a good job now. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve all my problems overnight. Currently, I have about $36 to my name, which isn't even mine if you think about it (see: debt), and I don't get paid for a week. I'm working on the Big Shit, but there are two things I really need help with:

Immediate: I have a car payment coming out today for $156 that I can't cover

Less Immediate, but still looming: I NEED to have my wisdom teeth out. I've put them off for a long time, and I'm currently dealing with a lot of pain as I wait for the appointment next month. Insurance came back with them covering half, but that still leaves $1400 out of pocket.

I thought I had everything budgeted a little better this month, and all I had to worry about was the upcoming wisdom teeth appointment. I had a small car issue (tires needed replaced) and I forgot my rent went up this month and not next.

This is a huge ask, and I know we're all struggling, so I'm not asking for that full amount.

That dental appointment is the soonest I can get in, at the least expensive office that takes my insurance, so moving to a different doc isn't an option. They DO offer payment plans, however they only offer 6 months, and the full amount is too much of a monthly payment for me to make and still pay rent/make car payments/feed my cats.

If I can make that first payment on the day as big as I can, and cut the monthly payments, that would be an immense relief.

SO, my goal is $600, if at all possible, in the long run, so I don't lose everything

But my immediate, PLEASE if you can, so I don't lose my car or miss rent or get hit with overdraft fees that will just hit me even harder goal is:

$200

This would get my car payment and a little extra to get as many cheap, non perishable groceries as I can so I don't have to worry about what I'll eating the next few months.

If possible, literally anything is a huge help and amazing. If not possible, a little boost would be amazing.

If you would like to receive an actual, physical thing—like, say, a cussy piece of embroidery—you can go buy something from my Etsy store. Stock is limited, cuz I have been working enough that I haven't had time to make a lot of things or get new supplies, but I have some stupid mushroom earrings I can add to the shop, too, when I get a moment, and some stone jewelry that I made and have been meaning to sell for YEARS.

I also have a comic that I haven't updated in forever, because of the aforementioned busyness, burnout and stress. So I will draw you a little robot or something if you donate if you want

Here is a pic of my cats, they would also appreciate eating

Thanks for taking the time to read, I greatly appreciate that, too 💚

I put my links under the cut, so they're not just out there in case this post travels past my need of it

Venmo @ SamFoShoBro

cashapp $SamFoShoBro

Message for paypal. I have it, I just don't like using it.

#help #mutual aid #mutual assistance #donations #queer business #queer artist

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variousqueerthings · 1 year ago

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A Smallish Masterpost On The Doctor And Asexuality/Aromanticism

Back in 2019 I apparently made this post about The Doctor and asexuality and aromanticism on my other blog and I have nooo memory of it. so, updated version that's got a bit more going for it:

A small masterpost of various people talking about The Doctor's "Asexuality" - feat. asexuality, aromanticism, demisexuality, demiromanticism, allosexuality, alloromanticism, and a whole squiggly set of queer concepts, as well as discussions about sexism

NOTE: additions are welcome, and forgive the rambles

So classic!who presented the Doctor as a type of asexual, in which the asexuality was a facet of alienness, rather than necessarily based in any community identification of the label -- in the real world, there's documentation of the word asexual since at least the early 1900s (so in tandem with the increasing use of homo, bi, and heterosexual, if not as widespread), as well as overlaps with other communities and labels, such as bisexual and lesbian communities (which both include/d ace people), dandyism, etc. -- so a rich, complex history bubbling beneath all of this (the most famous coining of asexual is in I believe a manifesto from 1978 off the top of my head)

this real world stuff was not what was going on in the world of Doctor Who when it was called Asexual as far as I'm aware - although, I mean... I'm sure there were actual ace and aro fans...? - but it's interesting to know that it was definitely going on, and so no matter what the intent was (alienness, the doctor intended as patriarchal/teacher-like, the doctor intended as for children, etcetc) there is some real overlap with actual asexuality at the time, including within the word itself

and then a bunch of people got really pissed off when the Eighth Doctor broke the rule that the Doctor must always be totally disconnected from romance- waaait but that's not asexuality. And yeah, that's the other thing. Asexuality is used interchangeably as being both aromanticism and asexuality and aroaceness, because people just don't know better- we'll try to make distinctions, but it can be difficult, with how others were conflating, so be Prepared for that in below

in Nu!Who the doctor seemingly got a bit friskier, so let's take a look at that as well

1. First some general Doctor Who – the first asexual Doctors:

The question of the Doctor's sexuality was a controversial one. It was fanon for decades that he was asexual; fans used the Fourth Doctor's line in City of Death that Countess Scarlioni was "probably" beautiful as proof. Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker agreed with this theory, saying, "Love is a human emotion and the Doctor isn't human." (REF: The Television Companion) Both Matt Smith[6] and Tom Baker (DOC: Getting Blood from the Stones) have identified that their respective Doctors are asexual and clueless to human sexuality; both exploited this for visual humour

(note: Steven Moffat made the comment that the eighth doctor “hit puberty” which were very controversial, but Moffat has often made controversial statements in regards to asexuality, suggesting that he finds it “boring” to write in relation to Sherlock Holmest:

It’s the choice of a monk, not the choice of an asexual. If he was asexual, there would be no tension in that, no fun in that – it’s someone who abstains who’s interesting

(it's ironic that Sherlock Holmes is his other show considering Holmes himself as an asexual icon being sexualised more and more in recent iterations -- but also that arguably Elementary's Sherlock was kind of aromantic and allosexual, which is a Very Very Rare Thing To Write)

These gifs of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy pretty much sum up the idea of classic!who smooching People

CB: He's an alien, so what's he doing messing around with human women for? For heavens sake SM: You know Doctor Who had been very successful for 30 year without canoodling anywhere

Both of these have a tad of the "asexuality is for aliens" + "allosexuality as a whole is not for this show" (which isn't quiiite true, considering the objectification of several of the companions, who did canoodle with some people... just not the doctor)

youtube

This video is a great little rundown of the queer history of Doctor Who and includes this nugget from Steven Moffat back in the day of Discourse around the Eighth Doctor being a bit less Asexual than previous incarnations:

"What on Earth (or elsewhere) is the fuss about the Dr snogging his companion? Nowhere in the series does it *ever* state that the Doc is asexual (it's purely an assumption on the part of the fans) and the fact that he has a a grandaughter might lead the pedants among us to conclude otherwise (and no it wasn't a term of affection - that's just another assumption and an entirely baseless one at that.) We know that humans and Time Lords are mutually sexually attracted (Susan and Whats-his-name, Leela and Thingummy, The Doctor and that-Aztec-woman) and that the Dr favours bimbos in mini-skirts (what, you think he was choosing them for their brains?) The most you could conclude from watching the show is that he's a little reticent about involvement (not surprising when your inability for commitment extends to your entire home planet!) So if the Doc's vow of celibacy is a fan assumption which flies directly in the face of the established continuity, why would you think a new series would pay any heed to it? Steven Moffat P.S. I mean, the guy has one snog in thirty years of saving our planet and you're all complaining! You utter, utter bastards!!

I think what's also interesting about this comment is the inevitable link between allosexuality and sexism that also exists in Steven Moffat's tenure as showrunner. how does one show a [man] into a [woman?] By making her wear short skirts and having the dude make comments about it of course

Also very funny it actually hits upon a very good point -- there are allosexual Timelords (I'd disagree about the Doctor and that-Aztec-woman) (second note here about how even in this message it's kind of clear how secondary romance was for DW, the romantic partners are Not memorable characters), so if the Doctor is sort of... not like the other Timelords, then the asexuality and aromanticism is not alien... it's the Doctor

2. A bit about the show's attitude towards writing the Doctor as asexual and how that interest has waned over the years:

But that was then and this is now, and the discussion over whether or not the Doctor is still an asexual character has certainly become very heated. Many fans have asked whether or not the Doctor can still be considered asexual, given the nature of the current show. John Richards, in a brilliant and surprisingly funny essay for Queers Dig Time Lords titled “The Heterosexual Agenda,” lamented the aggressive assertion of the Doctor’s heterosexuality

youtube

This is the Confidential episode around The Girl In The Fireplace around the Doctor and "snogging" and ways in which fans might read it (fans can "explain it away" as "she kissed him")

In it we get a bit more about Moffat's whole... deal... around women and the Doctor. It's interesting because he argues that it works because Madame de Pompadour is a "match" for the Doctor due to being well-educated and civilised and multi-talented... "if the Doctor was going to settle down, it would be a girl like this," in the season in which one might argue the main romance is with Rose, a working-class woman who never finished highschool

so a bit about the ways sexism, classism, and heteronormativity also play into the writing of a "more allosexual" Doctor...

It also includes DT saying they had an extraordinary relationship that was over before it began -- I just like how he refers to it without attempting to label it

the framing of the confidential episode is very romantic, just so you're prepared. It also has more unintentional framing of the Doctor's potentially "falling in love" as a more "human" emotion (in contrast to alien emotions of not falling in love)

as you can hear, it conflates allosexuality and alloromanticism throughout

3. Eleven, He's A Little Confused But He's.... kinda? Got the Spirit (and an unfortunate slice of sexism/heteronormativity):

One thing has been a constant, though — the Doctor himself has been entirely asexual, save for the notorious on-screen kiss during Paul McGann’s performance as the Eighth Doctor in the one-off special made during the show’s wilderness years, a kiss that had fans outraged precisely because it was so out of character and proved that the producers behind the telemovie had no idea what they were doing.

It’s interesting how recent Doctor Who has, if anything, emphasized this idea of the Doctor’s asexuality; Matt Smith said earlier this year that his version of the character was “more asexual than some of the others,” and in 2011 he answered a question about whether his version of the Doctor is at all interested in sex as follows: “No. The Doc’s idea of an orgy is playing chess with an ostrich. His brain doesn’t work in that way. He would find it weird and peculiar. He finds women peculiar. He is quite asexual.”

The idea that the Doctor “finds women peculiar” is probably one that says more about Matt Smith than it does about the Doctor’s character — 30 years of Doctor Who history rather contradict the idea that the Doctor finds women any stranger than men, and in general he has been characterized by his enduring affection for humanity in general, regardless of gender.

In general the way people talk about Matt Smith’s doctor to me, often has a bit of infantilisation along with it - of course we can read him as ace, because he’s boyish, hyperactive, and distracted... he's weird and alien

youtube

There's also this cute little fan-video that has some Nine, Ten, and Twelve but is mainly focusing on Eleven's asexual Vibes in a couple of scenes, which actually is something I've always struggled a little more with, because Moffat had Eleven doing sexist shit occasionally and was also soooo male-gazey, but it's also got one of my favourite ace moments for the Doctor period ("I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS!????")

(the scenes with Amy in this exemplifies so much of what I dislike about Moffat, but it's also fascinatingly The Tightrope Of Asexuality -- Amy is essentially violating the Doctor's consent over and over, but it's fine because "he's" a "bloke" -- she then goes on to show the Doctor's former companions on screen.... but notably only the women, and making a biiig mistake in including I think both Zoe and Ace, who were teenagers when they travelled with the Doctor... implying that that was... idek......)

I will also acknowledge here that while I don't think Moffat ever got... super comfortable writing queerness, he did get much, much better and stopped constantly referring to the doctor as a "bloke," who does bloke-y things (like objectify women, care too much about machinery/the TARDIS, and be a playboy who whisks away young girls in order to seduce them, I guess?)

and I personally think that the gender component plays into the Doctor's increased asexual vibes in his run (which is ironic considering where Moffat started lol), but I'd have to do wa-HAY more of a deep dive to actually confirm that... just a theory.... but also interesting that asexuality and aromanticism is more fine, because the Doctor is not a bloke......

it's complicated

4. Ten, The Jessica Rabbit Effect (just because you think they're hot doesn't mean they want to fuck)

[Patrick Troughton and Sylvester McCoy] would hardly have been much cop as Casanova; the 2005 TV role for which Tennant won much praise. Perhaps that's why the Times christened him "the first Timephwoard". "That's the Times?" he boggles. "It's, er, quite surprising..." Or why the Pink Paper voted him the Sexiest Man In The Universe, above Brad Pitt and David Beckham.

in general, it seems unequivocal to me that ten doesn’t like getting hit on, even playfully [...] not only does he seem consistently uninterested in these advances, but in most cases, a bit confused and/or unsettled by the idea of being hit on by anyone. contrary to the ‘space casanova’ narrative frequently espoused by magazines and interviewers, in reality ten is no stud. far from it. apart from with rose, he never reciprocates flirtatious behavior, nor does he ever seem pleased to be on the receiving end of it.

https://tenscupcake.tumblr.com/post/126914939560/dunderklumpen-that-smug-face-needs-to-be

[Link to a gifset in which The Witch in The Shakespeare Code tries to seduce the Doctor and he answers “now that’s one form of magic that definitely won’t work on me.

the second/third/fourth gifs are of David T saying: “she nearly kisses me. I don’t nearly kiss her. It’s an important distinction.”

youtube

This interview is around the time the final RTD/DT episodes were beginning to air

Interviewer: Lots of snogging you've done, there was- DT: Not lots Interviewer: More- I'm trying to think now I don't remember any of the previous doctors- DT: More than Jon Pertwee did, yes Interviewer: Yes a lot more than Jon Pertwee... what-how come...? DT: I can't help it if the ladies of the Universe are flinging themselves at me, you know? Its not, you know, it's just part of the job I have- It's- usually it's not a sexual thing with the Doctor. He's a fairly asexual character. Interviewer: So what's with the kissing then? DT: Well, I don't think- there's a genetic transfer as it was once... or, and you know these women just can't help themselves, I don't know-

5. 12, Too Old To Be Romantic?

Capaldi talking about his relationship with Clara, noting the age-difference as reasons why they would never be a romantic couple (the subtext here is non-sexual as well, although it conflates the two).

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/15/doctor-who-needs-lots-more-kissing-according-to-peter-capaldi

[Capaldi] said there was “no romance, but deep love” between the Doctor and Clara, played by Jenna Coleman.

“It would have been completely creepy,” the star told the Radio Times. “It’s fine if you have handsome young men like Matt [Smith] and David Tennant, but as a father I felt it would be inappropriate.

Capaldi laughed off complaints that his first full episode last year was promoting a gay agenda after it featured a kiss between a lizard woman and her human wife. “I think it was good,” he said.

“Actually it’s not just lesbian. It’s across species, which is even worse, presumably. It’s crazy if people get up in arms about it. There should be lots more kissing in Doctor Who. So long as it’s not the Doctor and Clara.”

Honestly I wonder how much the hype died down because he was no longer young and "hot." Skill issue honestly

6. The Doctor and The Master/Missy

I feel like I don't have enough on this, and that's also a facet of the whole "is the Doctor now allosexual and alloromantic." It seems to only really come up in relation to the [seemingly] het relationships

I don't really see much in relation to the Doctor and Jack (who's canonically in love with the Doctor) or the Doctor and Simm's Master -- I mean, fanfic, yes, but not bigger article-worthy discussion...

(and Jamie and the Doctor and Adric and the Doctor and Alan Turing and the Doctor......)

so if anyone has a bit to add on that

Most of it is in relation to... Moffat's sexier "Missy." (sigh). However very interested in what Michelle Gomez (who was excellent as the character!) had to say about it:

She added a female time lord "blows open all these new possibilities for different relationship that couldn't have happened before" but denied the idea of sexual chemistry between Missy and the Doctor.

"You're reading into it something I've never even thought of," she said.

The Scottish star added: "With [the Doctor’s young companion] Clara, it would have been straight away, ‘What is the romantic connection, does the Master fancy her?’ No. We can move past that, into something much more interesting, much more detailed, which is life. That’s what life is. It’s not all black and white."

Idk, she seems to get something intrinsic about the possibilities of all this that many others don't

Gifset of The Mistress (being questioned by Clara on the nature of Missy’s/the Doctor’s relationship): Try, nanobrain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain and contemplate friendship.

I find the whole post quite charming actually, it's a small moment in Doctor Who fandom from a specific person. I don't even remember how I originally found it

7. Misc

I don't really have anything on Thirteen currently, because I haven't seen all of those seasons yet. I know Yaz/Thirteen is very shipped, I assume I'll prooobably feel similarly to all the other Doctor/Companion ships in that I'll be going at it from an aromantic lens

I have seen discussions about how the Doctor’s perceived romantic and/or sexual relationship with this person or other (insert your preferred person here, Rose, Madame de Pompadour, River…) has made him too human, too normal. Discussions that assume that romantic and sexual attraction is an inherent part of human experience, so removing them from a character makes him alien.

This is about the way "Asexuality" (meaning aroaceness) applied purely to alien creatures isn't... great... for aroace people

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard fans discuss wanting a more alien “asexual Doctor”, which is generally taken to mean “no romance in the Tardis.”

It often goes back to the same questions: is the Doctor's "Asexuality" (that is, asexuality and aromanticism) purely used to indicate the alien? When John Smith is human he falls in love and asks "what sort of a man" the Doctor is that falling in love didn't occur to him. Many classic actors (whom I have a great deal of affection for) tend to use alien as the reason for the so-called Asexuality, and that seems to lie at a lot of the fans discomfort with a more "sexy" Doctor of nu!who, rather than anything to do with character or portraying asexuality and aromanticism in sci-fi

and on the flipside, people who very much like an alloromantic and allosexual Doctor dismiss aroace Doctor reads because of things that are absolutely within the purview of an aroace experience (I've seen anything from having a grandkid to being hot to caring about others to knowing what sex is)

I wonder if actually consciously writing an aroace Doctor would make people really uncomfortable as well, since it would remove the "alienness" from the idea of it... also it would make people who really really like allosexual and alloromantic Doctor angry too... so no winning I guess

I wonder how Ncuti Gatwa alongside RTD's queerness will redefine the subtext of it all once again...

#doctor who #dw #the doctor #david tennant #matt smith #peter capaldi #nu!who #classic!who #aphobia #asexual doctor #aromantic doctor #aroace doctor #the tenth doctor #the eleventh doctor #the twelfth doctor #aspec doctor

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camisoledadparis · 2 months ago

Text

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 11

1872 – David I Walsh (d.1947) US Senator for Massachusetts, was named in 1942 by the New York Post as implicated in a sensational Nazi spy sex scandal.

It was alleged that he was a frequent visitor to a male brothel patronized by US Navy personnel, that had been infiltrated by Nazi spies. The brothel owner, Gustave Beekman, was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 20 years for sodomy, and three Nazi agents arrested and convicted.

Senator Walsh predictably protested his innocence, insisting that he had never been near the place. However, in statements to police, Beekman and others identified Walsh as a regular patron. President Roosevelt, in conversations with his vice-president and with the Senate majority leader, said "everybody knew" that Walsh was homosexual.

The scandal was complex in that it implicated the Senator as a homosexual, as a patron of a male bordello, and as a possible dupe of enemy agents. Homosexuality was a taboo subject for public discourse, so the Post referred to a "house of degradation." At one point a sub-headline in the New York Times called it a "Resort." In the Daily Mirror, columnist Walter Winchell mentioned "Brooklyn's spy nest, also known as the swastika swishery." The Post first suggested a scandal. Over the course of several weeks it hinted an important person was involved, then named "Senator X", and finally identified Walsh by name. Its sensational treatment of the story detracted from the seriousness of its charges.

The brothel's owner and several others arrested in a police raid identified Walsh to the police as "Doc," a regular client, whose visits ended just before police surveillance began. Some furnished intimate physical details.

On May 20, 1942, with a full report from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in hand, Senator Alben W. Barkley, the Senate majority leader, addressed the Senate at length on the irresponsibility of the New York Post, the laudable restraint of the rest of the press, the details of the FBI's report, and the Senate's affirmation of Walsh's "unsullied" reputation.

He declined to insert the FBI report in the Congressional Record, he said, "because it contains disgusting and unprintable things." Without addressing Walsh's sexuality, he said the report contained no evidence that Walsh ever "visited a 'house of degradation' to connive or to consort with, or to converse with, or to conspire with anyone who is the enemy of the United States." He denied the charges related to espionage. He provided no specifics about the sexual activity at issue and said the details of the charges were "too loathsome to mention in the Senate or in any group of ladies and gentlemen."The press treated the charges in a similar way. For example, the New York Times report of Barkley's speech said that the FBI reported that "there is not the 'slightest foundation' for charges that Senator Walsh, 69-year-old chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, visited a 'house of degradation' in Brooklyn and was seen talking to Nazi agents there."

In other words, while outwardly saying the charges were untrue, they reiterated them.

1939-1945 – Canadian Gays at war find a new identity.

While there was a well-documented purge of gay servicemen during the '60s, '70s and '80s, the realities of gay life in the military a couple of decades earlier were quite different. During the Second World War, some gays were turfed, while others were tolerated. Often, getting kicked out of the military for being gay had to do with circumstance — when Canada's troop levels ran low, gays were far less likely to be discharged.

But for a generation of young men and women, the Second World War was both their coming of age experience and their opportunity to come out. The war changed the world of gay life indelibly. Several years of war helped thousands of young men and women explore their sexuality.

Montreal writer Paul Jackson has found that the war not only showed soldiers a world they had never seen before, it also revealed a way of life that was equally foreign.

"For many queer servicemen, the transfer overseas represented a break with heterocentric Canadian social structures," he wrote in One of the Boys, a book that chronicles the wartime experiences of Canadian gay men. "Many found new opportunities for sexual self-discovery."

During World War II, military bases (which were already homoerotically charged) became brazen cruising zones. So it's not surprising that one of the most prominent wartime hotspots for gays developed in one of central Canada's traditional military strongholds — Kingston, Ontario.

Marney McDiarmid, who wrote about Kingston's queer history, says the war transformed the city's relatively quiet gay community. She wrote that, during the conflict, "the sheer presence of so many young men, far from home, transformed city streets into sites of sexual possibility."

For years after the war, the Kingston garrison remained quite large. Six thousand men were stationed in town as late as the 1960s. McDiarmid detailed the experience of one man, identified only as Earl, whom she interviewed about that period of time.

"One of the great hobbies was to get in your car and drive the La Salle Causeway," he said, referring to the road that bridges the Cataraqui River between downtown and the army base.

"[Soldiers] were short of money — naturally, in the military, they weren't paid too well — and they were always walking up the hill," he said. "So you'd stop and offer a lift — and they'd get back a lot later than they should have."

But even though the Canadian conscription crisis interrupted the homosexual witch-hunt that was, until then, being carried out by commanding officers, psychiatrists and snitches at home and abroad, being discovered as gay was still something that earned a soldier a dishonourable discharge.

Jackson wrote that military officials argued — and in some cases, still argue — that "the presence of openly homosexual soldiers would disrupt unit cohesion. Queer soldiers would be a disturbing influence, weakening the bonds that hold a group together and making it less effective."

But, outside the context of outright discovery, gay presence and gay activity was often simply ignored.

Gay sex and intimacy were often tolerated by soldiers on the ground. Solidarity among men on the front lines — both gay and straight — often trumped any pre-war prejudice or bigotry that might otherwise have caused divisions.

"There were secrets everywhere, and soldiers protected each other from [their superiors] in the army, navy and air force. It was to everyone's benefit to protect the unit," Jackson said.

After the war, Jackson said, Canadian society embraced a return to pre-war normalcy. There was a sense that Canadians needed "to put society back together again," he said. But for that simple, gay farm boy from Upper Buttfuck, Saskatchewan, there was no going back.

- (Adapted from Xtra! Jan 20, 2010)

An early Mattachine meeting

1950 – The Mattachine Society – the organization founded by Harry Hay along with a small group of Los Angeles male friends, first met on this date. The met in Los Angeles with Hay, Rudi Gernreich, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland, and Dale Jennings in attendance, but was not incorporated until 1954 when a different group assumed leadership positions.

Because of concerns for secrecy and the founders' leftist ideology, they adopted the cell organization being used by the Communist Party. In the anti-Communist atmosphere of the 1950s, the Society's growing membership replaced the group's early Communist model with a more traditional ameliorative civil rights leadership style and agenda. Then, as branches formed in other cities, the Society splintered in regional groups by 1961.

Harry Hay conceived of the idea of a homosexual activist group in 1948. After signing a petition for Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace, Hay spoke with other gay men at a party about forming a gay support organization for him called "Bachelors for Wallace". Encouraged by the response he received, Hay wrote the organizing principles that night, a document he referred to as "The Call".

He planned to call this organization "Bachelors Anonymous" and envisioned it serving a similar function and purpose as Alcoholics Anonymous. Hay met Rudi Gernreich in July 1950. The two became lovers, and Hay showed Gernreich The Call. Gernreich, declaring the document "the most dangerous thing [he had] ever read", became an enthusiastic financial supporter of the venture, although he did not lend his name to it (going instead by the initial "R".

Finally on November 11, 1950, Hay, along with Gernreich and friends Dale Jennings and lovers Bob Hull and Chuck Rowland, held the first meeting of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles, under the name "Society of Fools".

James Gruber and Konrad Stevens joined the Society in April 1951 and they are generally considered to be original members. Also that month the group changed its name to Mattachine Society, a name suggested by Gruber and chosen by Hay, after Medieval French secret societies of masked men who, through their anonymity, were empowered to criticize ruling monarchs with impunity.

A largely amicable split within the Society in 1952 resulted in a new organization called ONE, Inc. ONE admitted women and, together with Mattachine, provided vital help to the Daughters of Bilitis in the launching of that group's magazine, The Ladder, in 1956.

Ray Boltz with Franco Sperduti

1953 – Ray Boltz, born in Muncie, Indiana, is a singer-songwriter who first came to wide notice in contemporary Christian music. Many of his songs tell stories of faith and inspiration.Boltz is the middle child of his parents' three children (a fourth child died shortly after birth). He was married to his wife Carol for 33 years, and they have four children.

Boltz was virtually unknown when he wrote "Thank You", which won the Song of the Year prize at the 1990 GMA Dove Awards. His song "I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb" also won a Dove Award for Inspirational Recorded Song of the Year at the 25th GMA Dove Awards in 1994. After the release of Songs from the Potter's Field in 2002, and his last tour in 2004, Boltz retired from the music industry. He separated from his wife in 2005 before moving to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with their divorce being finalized in early 2008.

On Friday, September 12, 2008, during an interview with the Washington Blade, Boltz disclosed that he was gay. Since then, Boltz has performed at several churches of the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay-affirming Christian denomination. His songs often tell stories of faith and inspiration. He travels the world in the group of Michael English, Michael W Smith with Gaithers Group.In 2010, he released the album True, which won Album of the Year at the OUTMusic Awards. Boltz currently lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his partner Franco Sperduti, who is also his talent agent.

1966 – Todd Verow, born in Bangor, Maine, is an American film director who now resides in New York City, New York. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design and the AFI Conservatory. Together with his creative partner, James Derek Dwyer, he formed Bangor Films in 1995. He was also the cinematographer for Jon Moritsugu's film Terminal USA (1993).

After a string of widely screened and praised short films he shot his first feature film, Frisk (Sundance, Berlin, Toronto ’96) a hyper-controversial adaptation of the novel of the same name. Featuring PXL vision, video, and super 8, the film assaulted audiences. Praised and reviled, it more importantly proved that Verow was an original voice that could not be ignored.

In late 1996, Verow shifted creative gears. It was while searching for a more intimate film language with his new improvisational acting troupe that he happened to experiment with digital video technology. This led to the award winning films of his Addiction Trilogy; Little Shots of Happiness (Berlin 97, SXSW 97, Mill Valley ’97), Shucking the Curve (SF IndieFest 99, No Dance ’99.) and The Trouble With Perpetual Deja Vu (Singapore ’99, Chicago Underground ‘99, Vancouver International 99). Verow and producing/writing partner James Derek Dwyer created Bangor Films to support their prolific film output, (Verow vowed ten features by the year 2000.)

Verow’s twisted Anti-Bush/Dangerous Liasons political drama, Bulldog in the White House won the Best Film Prize at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

His most autobiographical pic to-date, Vacationland greeted the world with a multi-city film fest tour, a limited domestic and international theatrical engagement and a DVD release on Water Bearer Films in October 2007.

He has been called a veteran of the New Queer Cinema, and his numerous productions on digital video have led to his being called "once and future king of DV" by Film Threat.

Verow is openly gay.

1975 – Two members of Gays of Ottawa lay a wreath at the National War Memorial. It is the first time a gay group is allowed to participate in the Remembrance Day ceremony.

1983 – Philipp Lahm is a German footballer who has played for and captained both Bayern Munich and the Germany national football team. He is a staunch supporter of gay causes, evn though he is heterosexual.Lahm is considered one of the best full backs in the world, and was included in the World Cup team of the tournament in 2006 and 2010, the UEFA Team of the Tournament in 2008 and 2012 and in the FIFA Team of the Year 2008. Although Lahm is right-footed, he is able to play on both sides of the pitch. He often cuts from the flank to the inside of the pitch to either shoot or pass. He is well known for his pace, dribbling and precise tackling abilities as well as his small stature, giving him the nickname the "Magic Dwarf".

Lahm has established a foundation, Philipp Lahm-Stiftung, to support underprivileged children and is also an official ambassador representing "FIFA for SOS Children's Villages". In addition he was an ambassador of the 2007, 2008 and 2009 World AIDS Day. He has also taken part in a campaign against speeding and various others such as Bündnis für Kinder, a campaign against child abuse.

Lahm was awarded a Tolerantia-Preis on 20 September 2008, due to his outstanding contribution against intolerance and homophobia in sports, particularly in football. He also stated that it's a "pity that being gay in football is still a taboo subject" and he would have no problem with a homosexual teammate and is "not afraid of homosexuals". However, Lahm doesn't advise footballers to publicly admit to being homosexual, because of the abuse they would suffer. He alluded to the tragic death of homosexual footballer Justin Fashanu.

1985 – After a year of cold feet, "An Early Frost" airs on NBC. Writers Dan Lipman and Ron Cowen (later to produce "Sisters" and "Queer as Folk") attempt to create the first TV movie to deal with both homosexuality and the impact of AIDS on a beleaguered community of Gay men.

In the film, the suburban Pierson family not only deals with closeted workaholic son Nick's dual secret (along with the unfaithfulness of his partner Peter), but also the anger, resentment and frustrations of mother Kate and sister Susan.

While it draws an amazing ⅓ of the viewing audience, the daring broadcast loses NBC about a half million dollars in ad revenue. And while many consider the broadcast a success, others feel the film's directness stalls nationwide discussion of AIDS, "because it achieved its narrative and informational goals so well."

1986 – Rafael de la Fuente is a Venezuelan actor and singer. He is known for his roles in the fantasy television series Grachi (2011-2013) and the soap opera reboot Dynasty (2017-present). His other notable role was in the first and second seasons of the drama series Empire (2015-2016).

De la Fuente was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He started his acting career in 2009 with the role of Jorge Giraldo in the Telemundo telenovela, Más sabe el diablo. In 2011, de la Fuente appeared as Max in the telenovela Aurora. This was followed by the recurring role of Diego Forlán in the Nickelodeon Latin America fantasy series, Grachi, which became a main role in the second season. In 2014, de la Fuente appeared as Coach Julio on Every Witch Way, an English-language remake of Grachi.

In 2015 and 2016, de la Fuente appeared in the recurring role of Michael Sanchez, the boyfriend of Jamal Lyon, in the Fox musical prime time soap opera, Empire. In 2017, he appeared as Cleve Jones' boyfriend Ricardo Canto in the ABC miniseries When We Rise. In March 2017, de la Fuente was cast in The CW's Dynasty reboot as Sam Jones, a gay male version of the original series' Sammy Jo Carrington (Heather Locklear).

In December 2019, de la Fuente publicly acknowledged his sexuality, as a gay male.

1989 – Yanis Marshall is a French dancer and choreographer. He was born in Grasse, France. He specializes in a style of dance choreography in which dancers of all genders wear high-heeled shoes.

In 2014, he auditioned for Britain's Got Talent with two backup male dancers and ended up becoming a finalist. Marshall also has spent time working as a coach and choreographer on Dancing with the Stars and the Ukraine's version of So You Think You Can Dance. He is also the choreographer for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas Zumanity show.

In 2018, he appeared as the dancing Deadpool in Céline Dion's video "Ashes", while Ryan Reynolds appeared as Deadpool in the speaking part. In 2019, he appeared in the 4th episode of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 11 "Trump: The Rusical".

Marshall is openly gay and has spoken about the role dancing plays in the coming out of people.

guess the 2 who are gay

1992 – Australia removes its restrictions on gays and lesbians serving in the military.

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