#and her final acceptance of that + having a group of ppl that probably feel/have felt similarly. yeah.

[chisatowo]

Rotates Wendy gender moments in my head at rapid speeds

[bogboy420]

ok so i hav THOUGHTS and FEELINGS abt ep 4 of tadc that r honestly kinda difficult 2 put into words? but im gonna try

so i actually genuinely liked this episode even tho it was kinda difficult 2 watch (in a good way!!) but then after watching it i immediately went into the tags 4 tadc and specifically tadc ep 4 2 c what every1 else was saying abt it and tbh i think that was a mistake? like now tbh the problems i hav w the fandom r kinda almost overshadowing the actual content of the episode 4 me which is rly sad bc the episode was a rly good 1

okay so i may as well get this out of the way and accept that im probably gonna get hate 4 it but i gotta say smth that ik basically no1 else is gonna agree w me on,,,

GANGLE WAS NOT THE VICTIM OF EPISODE 4!

and i don't just mean that in the "she wasn't a victim of jax's antics this episode" way i mean like,,, i keep seeing ppl still doing the "oh no poor baby" thing w gangle even w this episode and like? it's tiring!? tbh i honestly thought this episode was the 1 that would get ppl 2 c in gangle what i was seeing in gangle the whole time tbh which is that gangle is the embodiment of weaponised "im just a girl" white woman tears

also 2 get this out of the way since ik the fandom is kinda split on this 1 yes i hc gangle as white, i feel like her character would b different if she was asian both in how she interacts w anime and in her design

so okay 2 explain that, if gangle was japanese i don't think her design would include the european comedy and tragedy masks so heavily and it would be more likely that her design would instead be modelled after japanese kabuki masks since she wouldn't hav the same connection 2 the european comedy and tragedy masks as a european person would and we see that cultural signifiers do in fact change in the character designs with pomni who i think likely is supposed to be asian, her jester costume is more similar to asian styles of clothing than european and her hair is in a style that's very popular with asian working women, now because im not asian and i don't know a lot about cultural signifiers in asian culture aside from what i've heard i could be wrong about some things here and if there are any asian people who would like to correct me please feel free to, just to be clear bc i keep having this problem across my blogs WHEN I SAY IF U R IN A MINORITY GROUP IM TALKING ABT U CAN CORRECT ME THIS DOES NOT EXTEND 2 PPL OUTSIDE OF THAT MINORITY GROUP WHO WANNA START BEEF W ME OVER NOTHING!

so okay in my head gangle is a white girl, this is relevant 2 how she weaponises toxic positivity and then weaponises her crying, white women hav been doing this 4ever and it's how i was able 2 c her being like this from a mile away, i knew she was gonna b like this the whole time but it feels like every1 else in the fandom keeps falling 4 it idk, like at least 4 me this episode rly highlighted how gangle and jax r narrative foils of each other

jax is abrasive and rude and wants ppl 2 think he's just an asshole bc he doesn't know how 2 connect w ppl on a deeper lvl but realistically all he would do if he had a bit of power over some1 would b 2 mess w them a bit bc of him being chronically bored

gangle if she had even a tiny bit of power over some1 would literally b micromanaging them and incredibly controlling and abusive but wants every1 2 think she's harmless

jax when he bullies the others it's clear that it's him lashing out bc of a lack of control in his life so he acts as a bully 2 try 2 feel like he has a dagree of control over his environment

gangle when she starts treating the others badly it's when she's finally in a position of power

gangle is literally being an abusive manager this episode but every1 is more focused on the fact that jax was a bully in the previous episodes 2 notice! hell even some ppl r glorifying gangle's actions! like wtf!?

like okay, early in the episode jax throws ragatha into the deep fryer, that's bad we all know it is, w that being said we also know that physical damage in this world is not permanent and that ragatha will b fine even tho she's having a bad time of it, jax is very clearly doing this as a way of lashing out bc he doesn't like that the adventure they r doing 2day is working at a fast food place

gangle,, seemingly doesn't care abt what's happening 2 ragatha? and is more focused on punishing jax's behaviour, telling him off and then having a conversation w caine who is "upper management" 4 the adventure abt how she wants a punishment 2 b awaiting jax 4 his behaviour at the end of the day, she then also delights in holding this power over jax the entire episode, it's worth pointing out i think that gangle never bothers 2 get ragatha out of the deep fryer and is even shown walking away from ragatha still in the deep fryer showing that she really doesn't actually care about the fact that ragatha is being hurt

later gangle consistently keeps piling work onto jax throughout the episode and seems to delight in holding this power over him, jax gets more and more tired and depressed throughout the episode and eventually stands up for himself but in a way that is less violent than usual, gangle tries to get him to do a job that isn't in his job description, jax then points out that that should be handled by the people who's job it is to do that, gangle then asks jax "doesn't he want to be a team player?" and other office buzzwords that managers often use 2 coerce employees into doing work that isn't in their job description, jax then says no and that he doesn't care abt any of this which is a very normal attitude 4 a fast food employee 2 hav and that's when (if i remember correctly) gangle sends him 2 the brainwashing room also this bitch has a brainwashing room where she tries 2 brainwash jax but no1 cares bc every1 is still defending her 4 some reason!?

another thing that i think is relevant is that i hc jax as having ASPD bc i hav ASPD myself and i relate 2 jax a lot bc of this and hav noticed ways in which jax's behaviour is very similar at times 2 how my ASPD symptoms show up, there r some differences obviously since jax is living in a video game simulation where physically harming ppl leaves no permanent effect and i don't live in that situation but the cycle of messing w ppl around u 4 entertainment, lashing out when things don't go ur way and then not being able 2 connect w those around u thus making u less able 2 control these behaviours in the future and making u lash out more is very real, the chronic boredom is there, the irritability is there, jax using messing w ppl as a primary source of entertainment and also a primary way of trying 2 connect w those around him is there

this is relevant because this would mean that jax is being punished by gangle for showing symptoms of ASPD, smth that he can't control not just that but while gangle is the main villain every1 is kinda a dick 2 jax in this episode, pomni assumes that jax must hav an ulterior motive when he asks how she's doing, zooble basically tells jax that his actions r making it more likely 4 caine 2 kill them all (which i don't think caine would do but zooble seems 2 think he would) and ragatha says that she hates jax but doesn't want jax 2 hate her and basically confesses that being the actual reason why she pretends 2 b nice 2 him, (also yes i say pretends and not tries since she gets mad at jax earlier in the episode 4 smth that jax points out "was actually a mistake that time") and the thing is? jax isn't even surprised, he knows that ragatha hates him already he just also knows she wouldn't say that if she was sober

also side note i rly need ppl 2 stop saying that gangle's brain washing was successful and that's the only reason jax was more friendly/agreeable/less of a bully this episode like no, it's bc he's depressed af this episode also pls stop saying that gangle brainwashing jax would b a good thing if it made him act differently that's legit such an ableist thing 2 say omg

anyway i think im gonna leave this here 4 now bc i woke up not long ago and this post is getting long so idk lemme know if any of this is coherent ig? lol fr tho i hate gangle and i don't understand y u guys like her and hate jax so much

edit: seems like i may not hav made it super clear but i hc jax as being a black queer man as a black queer man myself, i didn't make that very clear initially bc i legit 4get that not every1 sees him that way, idk man 4 me as a black queer guy the coding was there and gangle picking on him in the workplace i think was definitely partly motivated by her doing that white woman thing of seeing a man who doesn't hav as much power as her in society and then leaping at the opportunity 2 abuse that power in the work environment as a perceived "revenge" thing

[callmedylan]

Idea I had for a Dungeon Meshi swap AU

(Farcille and Chilaios fans why are we yet to make a swap AU where Laios x Chilchuck and Falin x Marcille swap.)

(P.S I only recently got into dungeon meshi like a month ago + I’m going off the anime and a bit of character facts from the manga so beware I might get some stuff wrong 💔)

Recently I’ve been cooking up (pun intended) this idea for a swap AU, ofc I love when ppl swap Falin and laios’s places but I wish they’d swap more characters and their stories, so it got me thinking about different possibilities.

what if Chilchuck and Laios were the ones that met in Magic school and become good friends? (for the sake of the AU let’s just say half foots live a bit longer so they age more similarly to humans). Chilchuck learned magic cause he didn’t want to be seen as weak or greedy for his race, which led him to getting miraculously accepted into a prestigious College for magic (which leads him to later learn Dark magic). It’s not his fault he befriended the “weirdo” human boy from said school and now has to save him (he’s worried sick he’s just emotionally constipated as hell).

Along with all this, after being saved from that spirit as a child, Laios realizes he has a love for monsters and what not; which later leads to his love for magic. When hes able to work with his little sister in their group as a Cleric, he was super excited to travel with friends and see all the monsters they come across, it’s too bad he ends up getting munched on by the red dragon.

Meanwhile Marcille is a half Elf for hire who was never able to master magic; And since elf’s aren’t known for their physical strength, she learned to disarm and detect traps. Ofc she probably had trouble with business because of this, but Falin and Laios found her situation super intriguing and hired her almost instantly.

Finally theres Falin, maybe after saving laios from that spirit as a child she realized she enjoyed combat and instead of going on to do magic she instead took a similar path as Canon laios and left home around 12 and later became the leader of their group. Of course while shes much more “mature” than Laios and is better at picking up social cues, she still has that weird fascination with eating monsters; she’s just way less extreme about it (guess it runs in the family).

Senshi could probably stay the same, but I could see him and namari swapping places (still deciding)

Some other roles that would be swapped (there’s more but I’m too lazy to list all of them):

Shuro <—> Maizuru

Kabru <—> Rin

Izutsumi <—> Kuro

dandan <—> Mickbell

(Note I’ll most likely make Farcille and Chilaios canon in this AU)

In this AU Marcille and Falin would actually get to develop their relationship some more and I think it’d be rlly fun for them to have this kinda awkward little Romance, like “hey ik your brother (and our friend) is getting digested rn but you’re rlly cute…”

Meanwhile Chilchuck is annoyed cause his best friend could possibly not be saved and die if they don’t hurry up and stop worrying about eating monsters and forming relationships (as he totally pushes down his feelings for Laios).

I really need to draw something for this AU, I think it’d be rlly fun.

Anyways hope y’all enjoyed my stupid little idea ramble.

[tmaismyhyperfixation]

A message for my fellow trans ppl <3

A few years ago, while trying to track down an old friend of my dad's, we realized she was trans. I was obviously ecstatic to find out that my dad had an old trans friend, who he thought was simply gay and in drag for their college years, because I thought he might finally try to understand how awful it can be sometimes. But, no, and he continued to call the old friend by her deadname and use he/him pronouns for her. When I told him that he should probably stop deadnaming her (he wasn't actually talking *to* her, as we have no idea what her phone number or address is, but he was talking *about* her) but when I mentioned the term, 'deadname' he laughed. It shocked me that he could so easily dismiss something we find so sacred in the trans community. I told him, 'yes, its called a deadname, because the person who used to use it is dead.' He simply dismissed me. I felt so violated, but it was one of the first times I realized just how disconnected cis, and many sexuality-wise queer ppl are from the trans experience. My parents strongly believe trans women are ugly and rapists. Which is not only a disgusting opinion, but shows just how little they know. In the trans community, we hold each other's hands and hearts, both of which have been peeled of their outer skins, and have had their nerves pinched and prodded. We caress the wounds of our siblings, avoiding the abused nerves, spreading love on their scarred flesh. No cis person can relate to that feeling, of being completely unknown by those around you, but finding someone who can know exactly what you are feeling with just a look. When a trans person stares down at their own chest, we know exactly what they are feeling, down to the marrow in their bones. But a cis person might simply think they are checking for stains, or at the most, register that the person is uncomfortable.

No matter how much we teach the cis community, they will never completely understand what dysphoria is like. However, we can still accept the small victories. If an opportunity where you are able to educate ever arises, please take it. Together, we will create a new world. One where not so many of our siblings are killed by themselves or others. Remember, there will always be the community to come back to, no matter how bad it gets. TRANS PPL ARE BEATIFUL. Period. Remember that. Please. We are an endangered group fighting for our lives, but we are always beautiful. Every act of loving yourself is a piece of the revolution. Stay alive. Having you here is more important than ever. STAY SAFE <333

[schoenht]

NVM I FOUND IT

Background I'm in a group and we are trying to pick a song for a performance that we hv to do but everyone is dead inside and my only friend there is basically a younger girl

So I finally make the suggestion after the YOUNGER girl had to lowkey signal to her to STFU by like gesturing towards me when my ex friend had stopped talking. My suggestion was to reuse the song we did last year because it was not as cringe and it was a good song. My suggestion was shot down. AFTER THAT THOUGH, NOBODY makes suggestions they all stay quiet. And MY EX FRIEND GUESS WHAT she decides to do. Try to act high and mighty again by 'taking initiative' again to tell them to speak up now or we would end up with the 💩💩 song. And THIS is where she made her mistake. (More context coz I'm bad at telling stories:earlier when my senior was playing the 💩💩 song me and the younger girl were shaking our heads at each other like this is not it ain't no way we r gonna sing this poo poo garbage) My toxic friend TURNS TO ME AND THE YOUNGER GIRL and says something along the lines of, "You two were shaking your heads at each other earlier, what suggestions do you have? " I can't remember the exact words because she was SO appalling but it was definitely a least a tinge more aggressive and offensive than that.ALSO because of her all the attention was on us, embarrassing.(this lowkey added to my anger) At that point my anger had already been building up to the point where I DIDN'T FEEL ANGER. Only when she said that 💩💩 it's like she broke a dam and my blood pressure spiked up I kid u not. I calmly, but also ppl could probably detect the heavy undertone of pure anger underneath or maybe I sound dumb idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯but essentially I spoke very formally and said something along the lines of I have already made a suggestion(I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO DID AND SHE TARGETS ME AND THE YOUNGER GIRL⁉️), It was not accepted. I have no further suggestions. What do you want from me? What would you like me to say, genuinely is there anything YOU want ME to suggest? I don't have much of an opinion of the music because I don't listen to music often(when I do it's usually not in English either🧍‍♀️) . Anyway that 🐶 shut up because like why the heck was she picking to fight a losing battle?? And she did not face the embarrassment of ppl staring at her coz my other senior spoke up about another song

Yay end of story was it dramatic or good tea LOL idk what counts also idk if I was cringe coz reading back I might come off as toxic 🤡😅

Bro. What. WHAT. ALL BC OF. A SONG ????

[pinkhysteria]

happy.marina.mp3

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

[stargatelov3r]

That is true. I feel like Ford is almost a blank. You probably noticed he gets like zero backstory and is never really the main focus until the enzyme. His character literally conforms to the situation, that’s why he comes off as goofy sometimes and hard others because he’s a sounding board for the other characters. His entire point is to just move the plot along, someone to be there with A character when B or C characters are somewhere else. 

He’s just slightly above a redshirt and somehow a main.

This is why I choose to ignore most of canon Aiden >_>  Because he is a sweet baby who has done no wrong (because the writers did him dirty) and I will softly rock him in my arms until people forget the enzyme ever existed.

NGL though Carson was being a little whiny bitch in The Storm/Eye so I kinda get it in that instance.

Ohhh, when I said own team I meant like she’s on a team that isn’t AR-1, because I def agree they would not trust her quickly and she is quite young. She would kick as in training though, those marines would be droppin like flies.

I’m trying to think of other younger ppl on Atlantis they could hang out with but I am drawing a blank. Kinda want to make some OCs for Aiden’s friend group now XD

Hmm… I think that the only people who can drink Sora under the table are Radek, Ronon, and Teyla in that order. 

ASDFGHJKL Sora using social media!? That would be hilarious. Just imagining her trying to navigate it, her face pushed up close to the tablet asking so many questions, using one finger to type as she squints.

Like:

“But Aiden, why must I inform the others of my current mood?”

“Aiden, what is the meaning of this green creature sipping tea?”

“I am quite worried Aiden. Miko said she would die for some person called Spock and I do not wish for her demise.”

Also:

Sora: Aiden! What is this whiskered animal and why can I not stop looking at it?

Aiden: *trying not to laugh* It’s a cat.

Sora: I see. Well, in the words of Miko, I would die for this cat.

Hmm… I wonder what Sora’s favorite emoji/meme would be?

Love, Ship Anon <3

it has been ages since i received this ask but i finally find the time (15 minutes before my exam starts) to answer, my dear ship anon

this post is about Aiden and Sora btw...

yes, I did notice that Aiden didn't get any backstory until... Letters from Pegasus I believe? There we learn that he is very close to his grandparents, but that's about it. I've been wondering what happened to his parents and why he doesn't gsend them a message.

you are so right, they really pushed Aiden around and made him the character that they needed in that instance. It's gotten so bad that I have kinda forgotten that he was part of the main team? Like... he is *in the intro* and he still feels more like a Carson or a Radek if you know what I mean... kinda like he is part of the B-team. The more I think about this the sadder I get about his character and the way he (and Rainbow) where treated.

Have we settled on a bit of a Aiden/Sora frienship now btw? idk... I think they could be great friends, if Sora did make the turn to Atlantis.

Miko is a Star Trek fan, headcanon accepted...

all those little snippets of Sora trying to figure out social media are hilarious!!! also... she's gonna be so confused the first time someone sends her an eggplant emoji and when she shows it to Aiden he's gonna look for the guy who sent it to her and beat him up have a talk with him

her favorite emoji... maybe the ninja? meme? no clue...

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Re: misogyny in atla fandom post. I’m a butch/gnc woman and there’s so few representation for women like me. I really relate to toph and admire her for being androgynous and masculine but still being a woman. She shows that there’s no “wrong” way to be a woman and that you can reject gendered expectations and still be female. She’s the only character I’ve ever been able to relate to for this. I feel like it’s kind of misogynistic when people HC her as a trans guy or non binary with they/them pronouns. I’m all for HCing characters as trans, but with toph it feels weird.

She’s constrained by the expectations put upon her for being a girl in a patriarchal society and also being disabled, and how those two intersect. But her acceptance of being disabled & and a girl and breaking the stereotypes pushed upon her for those facets of her identity is the whole point! And as a disabled gnc woman, I feel like stripping her of her womanhood bc she’s masculine/androgynous is the same as stripping her of her disability because she’s strong. Idk

This is a really interesting perspective, anon! Outside of tumblr, I’m a prospective gender studies minor, and in my gender studies classes we have this practice called situating. Basically, I explain who I am, so you know where I’m coming from. Esp wrt things like race, gender, and sexuality, you can read and learn and listen to other people, but you’ll only ever truly know your own experience, and it’s important for people to know that’s where your perspective on a certain debate is coming from. So, hi, I’m Arthur, I’m an afab nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns, my gender expression is very much in a period of flux because I don’t have the ability to socially or medically transition as much as I’d like, so, at least for right now, most people interpret me as a sometimes gnc cis woman. Because I’m most often interpreted as a cis girl, even though that is not who I am at all, I experience misogyny, and that is unfortunately part of my trans experience. That doesn’t give me the authority to speak over women at all, but I do think it was a large part of me noticing the misogyny in this fandom and deciding to write what I did (and I’m so glad it resonated with you!) All of that colors the way I view gnc characters, as well as trans/nonbinary characters, and misogyny, within fandom and without. 

So, now that you understand where my thoughts are coming from, here they are. I definitely think it’s transphobic to hc Toph as a trans guy if you are not transmasc yourself. I’ve never seen trans guy hcs for Toph, but the idea of cis ppl equating this canonically cis girl character to someone who is unequivocally, indisputably, a guy, makes me super uncomfy. If there’s a trans guy out there who really relates to Toph and wants to create and develop that hc in a way that works for you, be my guest, but I do not have the authority or the desire to make trans guy Toph hcs. 

As for the nonbinary thing... I will admit, they/them Toph hcs make me feel seen, probably the same way you feel seen by Toph as an unapologetically androgynous/masculine cis girl. I answered some asks a couple weeks ago about lesbian hcs, and in that I talked about how since both lesbians and bi girls are underrepresented in media, hcs that might make one group feel seen and valued are gonna make another group feel erased, and I’m not really sure how to resolve that. The same goes for hcs around androgynous afab characters: butch women and afab* nby folks have so little representation that hcs that make one group feel seen are going to make another group feel erased. As a afab nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns, who has never connected with any concept of womanhood despite sometimes having a pretty femme gender expression, I do relate to Toph a whole lot. I’ve also had to navigate (and am still navigating!) a minefield of gendered expectations in a patriarchal society, and talking and listening to and reading about other trans people, it seems to be a pretty integral part of the trans experience (not that there is one sole trans experience, we’re all very different, but that’s a topic for another time). The gender binary is, after all, a central feature of Western white supremacist patriarchal constructions of gender, and if you deviate in any way, whether it’s through being gender nonconforming, or through being trans/nonbinary, you’re probably going to have to fight really hard to exist and survive and feel confident in your body and your expression, because society is constantly sending you the message that you are deviant and thus not worthy. And it’s nice to think of your favorite character as having some of the same experiences you do. 

I will say, I see they/them Toph headcanons more often than I see they/them Katara or they/them Yue, and I’d encourage people to really dig deep and think about why they’re more comfortable hcing an androgynous character as being nonbinary than they would be a more obviously feminine character (especially since nonbinary folk come in all gender expressions). I also would just love to see more transfem hcs! People for whatever reason seem way more comfortable hcing male characters as trans guys than they do hcing female characters as trans girls (and the reason is transmisogyny--Mae @transtenzin made a post about this a couple months ago about how most transfem atla hcs are characters like Smellerbee, while transmasc hcs can center around more major characters like Zuko or Sokka--a wonderful post that I would link to if tumblr’s search function weren’t absolute shit.) 

But at the end of the day, I am going to have to disagree with you on thinking of nonbinary Toph hcs as misogynistic, because I know as a disabled afab nonbinary person myself, I’ve dealt with a lot of the same struggles that Toph deals with in the show, and I’m sure there are a lot of other afab nonbinary folks who feel the same way. However, I understand feeling frustrated by people hcing a canonically androgynous female character as nonbinary. I hope what I’ve said here can offer you a little insight into the other side of this, and I so appreciate you offering me insight into your side. 

Another thing to note: while I haven’t seen trans guy Toph hcs, I have seen people hc Toph as a he/him lesbian. He/him lesbians are of course a valued part of our community, and I applaud any and all he/him lesbian Toph hcs. Pronouns =/= gender. 

Tl;dr don’t hc Toph as a trans guy unless you are a trans guy and even then I would tread lightly, gender and transness and representation is complicated and I’m not entirely sure how to resolve conflicts between different groups of marginalized people who are trying to find rep in opposing hcs of the same character, and imo hcing Toph as nonbinary is not misogynistic (but my opinion is not the final word on any subject!) Also, we stan he/him lesbians. 

*amab nby folks of course also receive very little rep, probably even less than afab nby folks, and that is a very important conversation to have, but seeing as 1) this ask was about hcs for an afab character, and 2) I am not amab and therefore very unqualified to lead a conversation about hcing certain characters as amab or the larger field of amab nby rep, I thought it best to focus on afab nonbinary people in this post. 

[babycracker]

HELLO 🙌🏽 pls can we have a jordam kith with celebration + in a bar

THANK YOU BECKY!! sorry this took me so bloody long to get to, but i’m killing 2 birds with one stone this month and answering some of my waiting asks for some prompts, i hope this is ok!!

kissing prompt list (always accepting)

--

Luck Of The Unit - Day 5 prompt from @wayhavenmonthly​: Bar

Rating: teen & up Pairing: adam du mortain/f!detective (jordan mills) Word Count: 1147 Warnings: alcohol consumption A/N: i’m so late omfg. but i’m getting started on catching up, so i might spam ppl over the next couple of days until i’m back on track. i have no excuse, just haven’t been motivated, sorry!

--

Jordan can't pretend that she doesn't care that Adam won't be here to celebrate her birthday. Of course she wants him here, of course she's upset that she's not going to get to see him until she goes into the warehouse tomorrow. But at the same time, she knew with certainty what she was getting into when she started a relationship with him, so she probably doesn't have a reason to dwell on it too much.

"Jordie!"

She can't help but push the thoughts of Adam out of her head when she hears Felix's cheery voice booming out over the noise of the crowd, and she turns just in time for the young vampire to barrel into her, the tight bear hug he wraps her up in the only thing that keeps her from falling over.

She returns the hug, grinning over his shoulder at Nate who is watching the exchange with a smile. At least some of Unit Bravo bothered.

She can't stop herself from casting a quick glance around the room though, just in case Adam changed his mind. Evidently not, though. Felix follows her gaze around the room, then gives her a shrug and a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

"His loss, babe," he reassures her, and she waves his concern away dismissively, despite the fact that she knows he's not buying her nonchalance.

She manages to have a decent night, despite Adam and Mason not making an appearance, largely thanks to the amount of alcohol Tina keeps practically pouring down her throat.

Her eyes are somewhat blurry as she stands at the bar, waiting for the rowdy group of guys at the other end to finish ordering drinks for their table, so she sits up on one of the stools to wait, one elbow on the bar and her chin in her hand.

"You bummed that Adam didn't show?" Tina appears beside her, a look of sympathy on her face. If Jordan wasn't already tipsy she might make fun of the way her words are slurring together. But as it is, she barely notices.

"A little," she answers slowly, letting her head fall down onto the bar and pretending not to notice the sticky something that she feels on her cheek. "I'm happy that everyone else is here though."

Tina's barely paying attention, her eyes fixed on something behind Jordan for a moment before leaning over to kiss her cheek and give her a light pat on the back.

"Spoke too soon," she says with a grin before moving away. Jordan rolls her eyes at the weirdness, turning back towards the bar and resting her chin on her hand again, her hand now laid out flat on the surface of the bar.

She startles when a familiar hand rests on the bar beside her, and she eyes it for a moment as she tries to muster the strength to turn and look at who's behind her. Before she can, another hand slides lightly up her back and while she's still trying to decide how to react, she feels Adam's breath on her ear.

"Happy birthday, Jordan."

She grins, but fights the expression away before spinning around atop her bar stool to face him.

"I think I'm annoyed with you," she states, trying to narrow her eyes at him but the amused expression with which he's fixed her is making it difficult to remember why she's annoyed.

"Why is that?"

She thinks for a moment, then lifts a hand to poke him in the chest as his other rests on the bar, boxing her between it and the bench.

"Because you weren't here."

"I am here now. And you are intoxicated."

"Maybe I wouldn't be if you'd been here earlier."

He raises an eyebrow disbelievingly, "wouldn't you?"

They both know it's an outright lie and while she feels significantly less drunk now that he's standing in front of her, she still can't be bothered maintaining the ruse.

"Why are you here, anyway?" she asks instead, and he glances at the crowd around them before leaning in to speak in her ear.

"It was pointed out to me that if I am to be your… partner, I should make more of an effort to be with you on occasions such as this one. Even if the setting is less than ideal."

He is still yet to call her his girlfriend, and she doubts that he ever will. But "partner" is something that he's only recently started, so she's running with it. It probably describes them better anyway. Partners are equal, partners make a choice every day to remain in a partnership, it's not done out of perceived obligation.

"Pointed out to you by who?" She asks, genuinely confused. Felix and Nate have been here for hours already.

"Mason," he answers shortly, and her eyes widen a fraction in surprise before she scans the bar behind Adam.

"So where is he?"

He chuckles and shifts closer to her, coming to stand between her legs, and if she wasn't still feeling a little buzzed she might be surprised by the proximity in such a public place. "Being that he is not your partner he didn't see it as necessary to show the same level of support."

She shrugs dismissively, forgetting about Mason just as quickly as she'd thought of him now that she has Adam here.

"Well thank you for coming."

He doesn't answer, just ducks his head down to press his lips lightly to hers. This time she is surprised by the public display of affection. So surprised that she almost forgets to kiss him back until one of his hands moves from the bar to the back of her neck.

She's vaguely aware of hearing the bartender finally reaching her side of the bar behind her but she doesn't acknowledge her, far less interested in drinking than taking in the fact that Adam is tonight disregarding his own rules around being around a mass of humans socially and publicly being with her, seemingly just to make her happy.

She grabs the lapels of his jacket and uses them to pull herself up closer to him as she deepens the kiss, groaning softly when his tongue slips into her mouth.

"You taste of vodka and… flavoured sugar," he points out, and she shrugs and raises an eyebrow at him.

"Maybe you should have gotten here earlier, then."

He chuckles, not bothering to answer her and instead just kissing her once more, light and quick before straightening back up away from her. She turns to begin her wait for service again, his hands coming to rest on her waist as he remains behind her.

"Happy birthday," he repeats in a murmur against her neck, and she brings a hand up to rest on the side of his face before turning to kiss his cheek.

"Thank you, Adam."

--

tags (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @admdmrtn @masonsfangs @oxjenayxo @mmerengue @agentsunshine @bravomckenzie @freckles-spangledvampire @mistyeyedbi @kelseaaa @detectivewiseman @amlovelies @forestcreatures @maraudern05​ @adamdumorpain​ @zevorah​

[adorpheus]

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

[simonsrosebud]

heyyyyyyy

so basically this week has been v stressful for me (this post is mainly so i can rant and get it out of my system).... 

ab 5 days ago i saw my 3 friends from home (i go to college in west virginia but im from new jersey hehe) did an xmas gift exchange without me and i don't care for getting gifts bc im not like that but i was just a lil upset that i wasn’t involved or invited in general (which is smth that has happened often) so i told my one friend (fake names) sydney how i felt left out and sometimes unwanted or whatever just in general bc i know they talk & have a chat without me for no reason.  and i said u know i get it im at school away from u guys but i’ve said before u know i like hearing what’s going on w u guys idc if u talk ab hometown stuff in a chat with me.  

sydney basically disregarded my message and misunderstood it as me being mad that we don’t hang out a lot during a pandemic which, uh, is not true.  it was just ab a chat and how i wished they reached out more while im away bc i reached out and didn't get that in return.  so then she brought up “and u have a large family and i can't keep track of them so don't get pissed for not wanting to hang w u” which- woah.  don't bring my family into this when u have no idea what they do, and also bc it's just not what i’m talking ab.  dude, we were just talking ab a group chat on our phones.

granted, if she'd told me this as a heads up when i came home for the winter i would’ve taken it better, but the way she used it was kinda as an excuse and it was just irrelevant anyway.

she got mad and i said “okay i’m done” and she told me im reckless about covid and that “none of us talked with each other u weren't special”.  girl, i’m far from special i know that.  but don’t lie to me bc i see u post pics hanging with (more fake names) julie and carly often.  i didn't say this bc it wasn’t worth my time, i let it go and accepted that we now weren't friends bc once sydney has a minor argument with someone they’re dead to her.

so then there’s carly, who was my best friend but had also not talked w me a lot since i went to college in august.  i knew in the back of my mind that carly would follow sydney and that i’d probably lose the whole group from one argument bc that's how sydney works.  but i kept my hopes up and today i texted her just ab something random just like oh haha i saw this the other day, and she was all like “how r u gonna do all this and txt me like nothing happened?”.  and i explain that yes me and sydney had a fight but not u and i.  my sister apparently blocked them all on instagram but i literally only found out when she told me so i was v taken back and apologized for that, and when she said “it doesn't matter she still did it” i was like really?  ur gonna blame me for something im not in control of or didn't even know of until right now?  and finally i txt u like nothing happened bc i don't want to put u in an awk position in the middle of it.  we go back and forth, me explaining that i was talking ab a chat in the first place and she eventually tells me how well its also hard for them to interact with someone who said that hanging w us is a chore.

yes, i did say this once.  but i said it to only her only ab the first time we hung out (socially distanced outside) when i came home for the winter.  i called her a few days after to tell her how i was confused when i saw her w ppl inside a friend’s house when she told me she couldn’t do that.  i explained that it was hard to go somewhere new knowing no one and to have radio silence from them when i’d put the effort in and not get it back, so seeing them that day when i came home almost felt like a chore bc i didn't know how they felt ab me and bc it felt weird to see them after that silence.  she was sympathetic and said u know yes i understand that and all- but here she is using it against me when i told her that while crying on the phone.

i tell her this- that that doesn't make sense or add up (im sparing lots of details) and that for her to take something i told her in a state of such vulnerability and use it against me was not okay and not an excuse she can make esp when this all started ab a group chat, it just didn't FIT.  and her response was well “all we do is argue ab this stuff.  at this point it is clear that this just isn’t working out anymore”

imagine someone saying that about your 6 years of friendship just because you tried telling another friend that sometimes you felt left out and like u were outcasted from the group.  that's why she said “all we do is argue ab this”, bc i’ve had the will to bring up the fact that they quite frankly treat me like nothing multiple times.  we don’t argue, i told u how i felt and u think i’m attacking u.  imagine your best friend telling you “good luck at school but we can’t be friends anymore bc u and sydney had an argument and i don't feel like putting in the effort to be a better friend to u”

idk that's just what it’s felt like.

so today has been quite the day for me.  or the week, rather.

if anyone got this far into this post, kudos and give me a quick kalton prompt to do in reward for reading it all LOL.

[curiosityjams]

re: iz*one

first of all, i wanted to say i didn’t plan on writing something about the disbandment. the past few months have been incredibly rough on my mental state to the point where i feel as if i’ve lost all sense of self. shit has been so rough for me, their disbandment being confirmed made that even worse for me. however, i realized i need to learn how to be okay with like...being open about my own emotions in a time of uncertainty and writing them out helps me in a way even if a lot of those emotions i’d rather keep private. i’ve also been going thru a time where i’m currently reevaluating this past year and everything i’ve done/felt in the past few yrs (2.5 of those years being izone’s run), so i thought i’d write something about the disbandment and what iz*one means to me, esp during this point in my life. i’d write more about what led me to this point, but if i did, i’d end up writing a whole novel, so i’m just going to keep this as short as possible.

also if this is a jumbled mess, i’m sorry!!!!

since we’re here to talk about the inevitable, i just wanted to say that i’ve probably had a harder time accepting them being gone than i thought. i knew they were gonna disband eventually bc lol produce group, but also, knowing what happened with the voting scandal and the panasonic, it makes it even worse for me. i hate that they didn’t even bother to handle their disbandment in a way that wasn’t complete horseshit. i hate how the pandora screwed everything up. i hate how we didn’t even get a proper goodbye from the girls. i knew that this was going to happen, but i fucking hate how it all turned out. i can’t say i’m 100% happy with the ending and honestly, don’t think i’ll ever be able to fully accept that they’re no longer a group. 

that said, i’m not here to vent.

while i’m obviously upset that they’re gone, the fact that they were ever a group to begin with--i’ll forever be grateful. i avoided getting into them for the longest time because of my own trauma from being involved in the 48 fandom (smth i’ll talk about at a later time bc it’s a lot), but the moment i decided to watch their “up” performance and actually give them a chance beyond looping la vie en rose, that’s when i fell in love. i fell in love with the music. i fell in love with the visuals. i fell in love with the bond between the girls. most of all, i fell in love with the fact that during a weird transitional period in my 20s, i found a group that gave me the closure i needed in a time where it felt like the world was against me while also giving me the strength i need to move on. 

while we’re on that topic, let’s talk about kwon eunbi.

as you already know from my url, eunbi is obviously my bias. she’s the leader of the group, under the company my ult group, lovelyz, is also in, and THE absolute all-rounder. she’s extremely talented, super fucking funny, a babe of THE highest order, and the best single mom you could ever ask for. every time i watch a video of iz*one’s or look at any of their pics, i’m always in absolute awe of her. while i love all of the girls (j-line has a very special place in my heart bc of my time in 48 fandom) and do consider the entire group to be one full of bias wreckers, it’s eunbi that instantly caught my eye and the one i’m incredibly proud to call my ult.

“now, drea, why is it that you’re taking so much time with talking about how special this group and that girl are to you?” well, it’s mainly because that eunbi and i are the same age (both 95-liners, but i’m older by 2 months) that i’m so drawn to not only her, but the group as well. yeah, it’s normal to be drawn to members born in your birth year, but for me and esp in this case, it’s far more complex than it seems.

around the time i got into the group, i was (still am) going thru a quarter life crisis. i had just finished my a.a., was a few months away from turning 24, and had pretty much decided i was going to take an indefinite hiatus from twitter due to the amount of harm its done to my mental health over 10 years. i felt like shit knowing that so many people my age were living their lives, getting married, having kids, etc all that shit while i felt as if i was frozen in time and like i could never accomplish any of those things because according to society, my time was up. as a woman on the autism spectrum, i never felt like anything i did was enough and knowing that even after years of trauma, the feeling that if i don’t have my entire life sorted out by 24/25 scared the living shit out of me. knowing that a panini happened made those feelings even worse. 

i know it’s weird to like...feel so many emotions over this esp since 23-25 is young and starting your career out at that age is normal. that said, knowing how eunbi was already in a group prior to joining iz*one that ended up disbanding months after they debuted, the road she took to get to where she is now, and the fact that she’s 25/26 and will get so many chances to start over is what gives me hope after such a shit year. i can finally get to where i want to be, i’ll graduate from university, i’ll hopefully get a job that will earn me enough money to move out of my mom’s house, i’ll find love, etc who the fuck knows what’s going to happen? i hate that after years of hating myself and being afraid of getting older because people often have this mentality that you should abandon all sense of yourself once you hit your mid 20s, it’s taken me THIS long to actually start accepting myself for who i am and living my life for myself, but i’m excited to see where the fuck life takes me after years of self-hatred, trauma, and trying too hard to please ppl that don’t give a shit. seeing eunbi just have a fucking blast on stage, take care of her members, and overall be the amazing person she is gave me the strength i desperately needed to actually get to the path i want to be on as someone that’s a few years away from turning 30.

as i said earlier, i’m not ready to just outright accept iz*one being gone. i’ll probably spend the entire month of may just watching their content since there’s still a shitton of stuff i have yet to watch and i’m lowkey embarrassed that as a fan, i’m admitting this, but also: there’s no time limit. i can always watch that video at another time, i’ll like that pic later, etc. i wish iz*one was one of those things that had no time limit because i’ll always cherish them, but in the 2.5 years of their existance, i achieved some big things and survived a pandemic. i left twitter, got closure in chapters i needed closure in, finished my a.a., etc among many other things during that time and it’s partly because of iz*one that i’ve pushed myself to do all of those things. it’s hard esp since it’s easier to just write smth like this on tumblr than actually do it, but the girls and their music were part of the reason why 2020 wasn’t a complete dumpster fire for me. 

most of all, i wanted to write this because i wanted to shout-out the amazing folks at @izonetwork​. i joined super late in the game, but the convos i’ve had, the laughs we’ve had on discord/among us, etc i’ll never forget it. meeting all of you was one of THE highlights of an otherwise shitty year and i’ll always credit you as one of the reasons why i wasn’t completely emotionally distant during such a dark time. all of you keep me grounded and i’m forever grateful. super honored to call you guys my friends. <3

so yeah, thank you iz*one. thank you, eunbi, sakura, hyewon, yena, chaeyeon, chaewon, minju, nako, hitomi, yuri, yujin, and wonyoung. i don’t speak korean or japanese, but know i’m eternally grateful for all the joy, strength and bops you gave me in the past 2.5 years. i’m even more grateful for the friends i’ve met thru my own fandom of the group. i’m excited to see what every single one of you does next regardless of what it may be. 

now if you’ll excuse me, i have to go catch up on all the enozis i’ve missed. 

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

[2ndblogg]

Hey! Just read your hot take on novel!wangxian and I absolutely agree. I'm gonna have to say here that I believe it boils down to the fetishization of homosexual men in a lot of the fandom culture that surrounds mlm shipping, as you said it's a space for a lot of women to experiment with their desires and whatnot, but I think therein lies the breaking points between reading novel!wangxian as a good, healthy relationship vs. reading it as a very flawed and toxic one. As an LGBT person, reading the way the author dealt with their relationship made me extremely uncomfortable, it just really feels like something that is written by someone who is more invested in using her queer characters for satisfying her and her reader's own pleasure than a well-built, strong relationship between two characters. Not to take away from the novel in some other aspects, I believe that novel!wwx is a much better, much more nuanced character than what he is in cql, but when it comes to wangxian, I think the intentions are very different for each of them. To each their own, I guess, but I do find it very troubling that some people in the fandom have a really hard time admitting that novel wangxian is not even remotely healthy.

Absolutely.

And can I just say how glad it makes me to see that not everyone is praising this book for it’s lgbt representation...

But I guess that’s also why I just occasionally feel the need to scream my frustrations into the void or try to make sense of the novel.

And why I try to be understanding and accepting of people’s opinion of the novel and not take it ‘personally’ (in the sense of sitting there thinking “holy shit this is how they view ME, this is what they think of ME” etc).

I was in fandoms back when they were really a place dominated by straight (homophobic) women and realism or lgbt representation wasn’t on anyone’s mind (and the occasional dude butting in to say that’s not how sex works or bottoming is experienced was ignored or told to get out). I experienced this change to fandoms being more of a lgbt space, of people becoming aware that media can shape your views of groups of people, of people becoming aware of their fetishizing of fictional gays vs. their prejudice against real life lgbt people etc.

And tbh MXTX just writes like one of those, she writes wangxian like everyone wrote their gay relationships around 2005 and earlier; clear power imbalance, clear roles and attributes that are divided into ‘manly’ and ‘feminine’, certain physical attributes (like the female self insert character aka the bottom being pretty and slight and weaker and shorter), men/the penetrating partner can’t really be raped so anything the woman/bottom tries isn’t really ‘bad’, the male love interest is forceful and self centered but ONLY because he’s so in love and since he’s emotionally stunted he has to express that through sex, men/tops NEED sex and it’s rude/mean to deny them that, the girl/bottom isn’t THAT horny or in charge of their own sexuality but wants to please their partner and what they really get out of it is the emotional aspect, decisions need to be made for them because the dude/top just knows better, the girl/bottom is childish and flirty and the guy/top suffers through it until he finally snaps and shows the girl/bottom who'sboss etc etc. (honestly homophobia and misogyny is so tightly knit in this kind of fiction, if it wasn’t so frustrating it would be very interesting).

Tbh I disagree with novel!wwx being more nuanced (despite a lot of ppl whose opinions I really respect also feeling this way), because I simply cannot seperate him from the wangxian relationship. All I see are tropes and stereotypes applied to make him ‘work’ in the context of the wangxian relationship instead of an actual personality...

To me, in CQL WWX is clearly the main character and you love his interactions with LWJ and want more of them and value them, wheras in the novel most of the time WWX plays second fiddle even when a scene should technically be about him and LWJ’s presence is incredibly suffocating, because he’s always being controlling or at the very least influencing WWX.

I also don’t feel like WWX has much of a character arc/growth. We’re essentially told he had one but the only thing that really actually changes is him hating himself a bit more and letting LWJ smash..., and I guess: he’s less independent than ever, he’s more isolated that ever...

I’ve called novel!wangxian a relationship between an abuser and his victim, because you can find evidence of that in the text. Not because I think the author wanted to portray an unhealthy gay relationship. Like you said, she was fetishizing and wrote for a similar crowd. But to me that ‘realization’ helped...I still don’t see how people can call it a masterpiece but I can at least understand hyping something you like up...

And like, badly written gay relationship or not; gay/straight,man/women, I see how people can find it hot. Exploring your sexuality through fictional characters isn’t necessarily a strictly straight girl phenomena. I probably have read fic that was exactly like this, I can’t judge anyone for it. But no one prints out the last PWP they read and goes, “this is ideal lgbt representation and nothing will ever be this good, the fact that it includes rape makes it so realistic” like????

(Is that part or an effect of the woke and purety culture? you can’t say ‘i like this book but it has flaws’ or ‘i’ve enjoyed this but it’s not up the feminism or lgbt acceptance that i preach/live’ so you have to pretend it’s flawless?)

And like, I do think novel!wangxian is a nightmare when it comes to lgbt representation and I do believe this is largely due to a cishet woman writing about gay men and fetishizing them (the fact that a lot of peoples arguments why novel!wangxian ‘is better’ boils down to ‘there’s kissing and sex’ is also pretty telling). And I am frightend and worried by some peoples response to it.

But is it really fair to see it as just that? It’s a problem sure, but that same thing happens in straight media (which I am admittedly not well versed in). Stephanie Meyer didn’t set out to write Edward Cullen to be a creep and non of the teenage girls that went crazy over him viewed it as such...Reylo fans (aside from some of them proclaiming Finn to be the real villain and saying it’s racist and misogynistic to not find Kylo Ren hot) found a way to view him threatening her as romantic and sexy, Loki fans that didn’t ship him with Thor usually fell into the camp of “he would be a perfect boyfriend” or “what if this OFC was his slave and he raped her everyday <3″... like ignoring/glorifying/romanticizing behaviours or exploring what kinks you might have through the safety of fictional characters and fictional settings isn’t JUST happening when it comes to ‘the gays’...

And not just specifically in fandom spaces either, a lot of ‘romantic’ movies include inappropriate touching, the boy/guy knowing better than the girl what she wants etc. And I absolutely do believe that that’s something that normalized these things for a lot of young girls and guys (I don’t want to get into this too much, I’ve really seen a change in the past few years, but before that it was pretty common for young boys to believe they need to keep pursuing and pressuring a girl that has said no, girls truly thought boys could die of blue balls, girls thought it was their duty as good girlfriends to let their boyfriends fuck them even when they weren’t in the mood, that they couldn’t talk about what they want in bed or what they don’t find enjoyable because ‘sex is for boys and girls get a relationship in exchange’ etc.).

And in much the same way movies have only relatively recently begun being called out for that, it’s also still pretty recently that they’re being called out for having their one queer coded character be a pedophile and a murder or whatever...Like, society as a whole becoming aware of these issues.

But do authors that publish their work with a specific target audience in mind have a responsibility to think about the effect it might have on them? (And I can already hear loud screams of ‘no way, it’s not your fault if your audience isn’t smart enough to understand that this bad thing is bad’, but I actually do believe in a way they do. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t write whatever you want, just maybe take a look at HOW you bring your point across. (We do KNOW people are influenced by what propaganda they’re consistantly fed. I mean, you wouldn’t write a pro-drugs childrens book...) )

What if the author isn’t aware of their bias and prejudices? Or their target audience isn’t their actual audience?

And do we, society and media, judge female and male authors differently when it comes to romance and sex in fiction? (The answer is yes btw) But also, where do we draw the line at calling something ‘badly written’ and calling it toxic? Can it be both? As I’ve said before, a lot of people claim that only the physical intimacy scenes of novel!wangxian are bad, because they’re badly written and OOC, some say the book as amazingly written and only the wangxian relationship is bad because the author doesn’t know how to write gay men. In my ‘hot take’ I essentially said that’s not necessarily bad writing so much as it’s simply an (okay, unintentional) toxic relationship. And would this relationship still come across as toxic (or badly written, whichever you want) if we didn’t know the author to be a cishet woman? Or if a gay man had written it? (my personal, eloquent answer for this is: yes, but differently.)

Which was really all just a rambly way to get to my point of: it’s not just fetishizing of gay men, it’s also the homophobia and self-inserting in a safe situation.

You can literally replace WWX in the novel with a female character and it wouldn’t change a thing. The author takes such an effort into building up this power imbalance in every aspect of their life that if WWX were a heroine nothing would change in this (sexist/ancient society) setting.

(And clearly this is something that appeals to people if you look at the amount of female!WWX fics...)

Not even the sex scenes. There are maybe two allusions in all of them combined that WWX might also have a dick but like, you can’t be sure and it sure as hell doesn’t need stimulation.

(and again, that could be written as a kink...but it’s just not.)

CQL is a gay love story. MDZS at it’s core is none of that.

But I also very much agree with your ‘to each their own’, like here I am criticizing and trying to find explanations and whatever, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter why someone might like (or write) a book like this, I vastly prefer CQL!wangxian but people have their own reasons for not doing so.

The ‘problem’ really only lies in, as you said, people not being able to accept that it’s not a healthy relationship. Or claiming it to be perfect lgbt rep.

And because my brain can’t shut up today:

I also can’t stop thinking that the way some people ‘glorify’ the book as due to their age and ‘inexperience’.

When I was a pretty young kid and got into fanfiction, there was nothing but completely OOC!whump to be found in the first two fandoms I was in. And I loved it. It was YEARS later that I thought I might like to read something with the characters being...in character. What I’m trying to say, in different stages and phases of your life you might enjoy different things, for different reasons...and obviously, in that moment, you won’t think about ‘what appeals to me here/should this appeal to me/etc’.

I don’t mean inexperience as ‘sexual inexperience’ here, though of course that could be part of it, but also like, inexperience with this genre (is this the first book like this you read, or did you just read 50 in a row that all had the same unhealthy vibes?), with lgbt people and issues (do you know any lgbt people or is your only image of them either the cute boy you can’t have and don’t want to see with another girl or grown men in full kink gear in front of children during CSD? and also: do you think ‘i like this’ and that’s the end of it or do you notice how many people idolize this objectively unhealthy relationship and won’t allow critique on it...)  

I...just wanted to say thanks really.

I just can’t stop rambling apparently and I know I mostly just repeated what you said or what I already said but in longer... I just really do feel very strongly about novel!wangxian and the perception of them and have actually at times felt very personally...worried/affected, by people’s acceptance and love of them and I just... have to try and make sense of it...

[smarti-at-smogwarts]

Belated Birthday Present for the lovely Teddy Ellison ( @cursebreakerfarrier​ ) sorry I couldn’t do it on his birthday proper, work and other things  kinda stole all my spoons ;;;

I also wanted to add some headcanons to Theo and Teddy’s friendships

HPHL verse

Theo first has the same opinion of Teddy as Taghd did at the beginning because she was friends with Taghd first and is bit “wait we like him now?” when they ( Taghd and Teddy) become friends. 

She’s a bit afraid she’ll lose her best friend but Teddy’s wonderful  and she can’t keep her defenses around him long. And he accepts her for who she is and that’s...that’s that. Gryffindor loyalty. Thick as thieves after that ( He’s the third person to do so after Lu and Taghd. She learns that friend groups much like families can only grow. )

The moment they find out they both write it’s like a spark and they talk about it constantly. Theo tells him about the stories she wants to write, and listens raptly when he goes on his own tangent. ( she doesn’t get to talk about it a lot so it becomes something she treasures a lot and before long she’s searching for him in the halls with a smile every time she has an idea for a plot or a new book she found)

Theo prefers stories/prose to poetry while Teddy prefers poetry to stories and sometimes they have friendly debates on them.

They pass notes about plot ideas in class.

Listen the moment Teddy performs poetry at midnight Theo’s joining him. 

Like all her friends/everyone else in the squad anyone that hurts Teddy or so much as looks at him crooked goes on her shit list. ( she is very much not a fan of his father or his brother and is known to go “okay but what if we just ...punch them...really hard.” and curse em out when/if Teddy complains about them)

If Teddy’s in a fight and Theo’s within seeing distance you kinda just...feel the air shift in the spot she was standing and ..yup..there she is. Right into the fray. 

She doesn’t steal his clothes like she does Taghd’s but he does influence her experimenting with male fashion. 

She tends to seek out Teddy when there’s any kind of pureblood event because he’s a pureblood and a boy and it makes her mother leave her alone and makes other boys not bother her. ( there might or might not be a signal involved for when she wants him to get her away from boys and unwanted advances) 

Would be over the moon if Teddy and Adelia dated and is 100% “Of course she’d love you you dolt, who wouldn’t” levels of supportive.

but also is happy when he finds his wife and just...loves seeing him happy tbh. 

In the verse where Taghd dies she moves closer to where he lives and grieves with him. He becomes one of the few people who see her actually break down And might or might not join him in the auror sitch for a bit. 

This is also somewhat mirrored in the Taghd Lives AU because Theo swears up and down she’s gonna kill Cillian but Taghd is telling her not to that it’s his family and it’s not like she can argue with her very injured friend so she  holds it in as far as it takes for her to exit the room and then the dam breaks because “he almost died Teddy.” ( either way Teddy’s one of the few few people that have seen Theo cry.) 

In the modern verse AU 

She sometimes tells people they’re twins and their parents had them share one name when they comment on their names being outright variations of each other and thinks it’s hilarious when ppl believe it and are confused. ( she actually convinced a teacher once and was ungodly proud of herself Teddy just shook his head but laughed Theo outright Cackled because she thrives in the chaos)

She kinda wishes it was true 

Has friendly debates about how Outer Limits is under rated as a sci fi show while Teddy prefers Star Wars and both geek out about sci fi in general plenty.

She was a bit nervous about his parents not liking her.

Teddy’s actually really nice about it though it throws him because she’s usually the opposite of caring about what people think about her. 

When she meets his mom she legit goes -jokingly she swears up and down- “can she be my mom too?” and then abruptly changes the subject to how they should probably start studying for that final or whatever they were talking about. 

Also talk a lot about writing. Usually until someone else from the squad calls time ( sometimes its Adelia because “you guys have to actually eat your lunch put the notebooks away.” and they do bc like..she...she’ll throw apples at them. )

Pretty much in every verse they’re writing friends and talk about writing extensively 

Yes she got him the mug in the aesthetic for his collection for one of his actual birthdays . “told you I’d find a Bear” “....” “You love me, remember that”

Med School AU

Theo’s there to become a neurologists ( a bit reluctantly because I can easily see this coming from her parents “writing isn’t a career pick something else”) 

Teddy being so nice and eager about helping people in medicine is part of what gets her defenses down though she worries about him being too nice and gets ( as is her wont) protective of him. 

Like in every verse they bond over writing. ( and like in every verse it means the world to her that she has someone to talk about it with )

She tends to stare at him when he tries to parent-friend her because “...and how much coffee have you had?” And also he’s just as impulsive soooo.

Which....so much coffee...the two of them basically camp at a coffee place and bond over that too. 

Just...disaster friends together. So much college dumb shit happens when you get these two ( and Taghd) together.

One of Teddy’s birthdays while in medschool he’s hitting that point in studying where the words sorta all meld together and he doesn’t know what time/day/month/season of Doctor Who it is ( let alone that it’s his birthday ) he hears “shave and a haircut, two bits” rapping on his door

 Theo  smiles and hands him a present and a starbucks gift card.

“Happy Birthday Teddy”

Tahd belongs to @unfortunate-arrow​ Adelia belongs to @that-ravenpuff-witch​and Lu belongs to @rosievixen​

[gottlem]

summer fl(in)g. gigi/crystal

a/n i made crystal sad about 3/4 through and im SORRY i was projecting. anyways theres a tiny tiny bit of angst but MOST of this is just dumb gays in l*ve. im still getting used to writing fics so be nice pls !!!! also if u want a pt2 be sure to let me know!

summary: lockdown in summer can be lonely, but Crystal and Gigi make sure they never feel alone. thank god they have good service. (3.8k words)

When lockdown was announced, Crystal wasn’t surprised. The pandemic was taking the world by storm and yeah, it fucking terrified her. But she had to look on the bright side. So that's what she did. Just as the announcement came to an end, Crystal’s phone pinged from her pocket and she smiled to see her friends' names light up on the screen.

JANtastic: well its official

miss cox: Yeah I’m gonna miss u guys!!!

goodegirl: you say that as if u won’t be spending lockdown with jan. i’ll be ALONE thanks for asking

CRYstal: hey i’ll be alone too !!! I’ll text u everyday to keep u company :-))

goodegirl: i’m gonna hold u up to that

And Gigi did hold her up to that. The country was two days into lockdown when Crystal received her first message.

goodegirl: ugh we are how many days into lockdown? And ive already had A MILLION people hit me up with “hows quarantine treating u ;)” i am SICK.

When Crystal read the text, an odd feeling bubbled in her stomach. She told herself it was because she wasn’t used to out-of-the-blue messages from Gigi yet, they just didn’t talk that much, but looking back she admits there was probably (definitely) more to it than that. Of course the girls had already been friends, but Crystal had never found it in herself to speak to Gigi that much because, well, she was intimidatingly gorgeous. They got on well in groups, where Crystal could try to focus her attention on someone who didn’t make her face red every time she looked at her, but she knew if she invited Gigi out by themselves, she would make a fool of herself. It was stupid really, it wasn’t even like she had feelings for her - she was just too pretty, and Crystal didn’t know how to handle herself around someone who looked like they belonged in a vogue magazine. A ping shook her from her thoughts.

goodegirl: like i get that ppl are thirsty rn. i get it. i am too. but is that really the BEST they can come up with?

Crystal needed to reply. But what could she even say to that?

CRYstal: at least u have people trying to hit you up ://

goodegirl: omg what??? ur telling me not ONE person has tried to slide into those dms? they need to get on that! ur a catch

Crystal felt her face flush at the comment. Did Gigi really think she was a catch? Or maybe she’s just being nice? That was probably it. Just friendly banter. 

CRYstal: nope haha! ANYWAYS. hows quarantine treating u ;-)

goodegirl: very funny. bitch.

From then on, the texts flowed easily between the two and Crystal started to ask herself why she hadn’t done this earlier. So what if Gigi was offensively attractive? They clicked so easily - Gigi was smart, quick witted, and didn’t take anything too seriously. So really, she was Crystal's perfect match. As a friend. Platonically. That night, they texted until Crystal was struggling to even keep her eyes open. It was a conversation that felt natural to them, bringing up anything that came into their heads and letting eachother start stupid tangents without fear of judgement. Gigi found Crystal's ability to ramble on about any random subject impossibly endearing, but she wouldn’t admit that out loud. Not yet, anyways.

--

After three days of almost constant texting, Crystal facetimed Gigi for the first time. She picked up within seconds with wide eyes and a grin on her face. 

“Hey you” If Crystal couldn’t see her smile (which she absolutely could) then she could definitely hear it. Gigi’s voice was soft and she hadn’t realised how much she missed it until she was reminded of it. The best thing was that Gigi sounded genuinely happy to speak to Crystal, it made her ecstatic. Crystal had called in the late afternoon, just before the sun had started to set, so she could see golden light shining gently onto Gigi’s features. It left her speechless for a second. How many times was Gigi going to leave her completely unable to reply by merely talking to her? This girl was going to be the death of her. When Crystal finally came to, she managed out a soft, but casual, reply, hoping that she had covered up the embarrassing amount of time it took for her to speak. If Gigi noticed, she didn’t mention it. 

It took them a while to get into the rhythm of actually talking to each other - texts made it easy to think over before you send, and Gigi had never really been one to think before she spoke aloud anyway. She didn’t want to scare Crystal off with how blunt she could be, but after some awkward laughs and stuttered jokes, the pair slowly fell into a rhythm they felt surprisingly comfortable in; they bounced off each other's jokes and soon enough their cheeks hurt from smiling. A few hours into the call, Crystal was sitting comfortably on her bed, her phone propped up with pillows so she and Gigi could still see each other. She caught herself staring again. It started off as small glances that lingered a bit longer than they should, but it was easy to do that and quickly cover it up, especially on facetime. Soon enough, Crystal would completely daze off for minutes, just staring at the girl on her screen. She figured out she really liked looking at Gigi, and Gigi didn’t seem to mind.

Gigi thinks Crystal’s voice is her favourite sound. After about 5 minutes of hearing run on sentences about god knows what, she had already decided she could listen to her talk forever. About anything. She really didn’t care as long as it was Crystal and she was talking to her. As the call progressed into the late hours of the night, the pair had started to get giggly - the tiredness they were feeling was starting to take effect, but it made them anything but sleepy. At 11:56pm, Gigi decided Crystal’s laugh was her second favourite sound. She would sometimes giggle, sometimes she’d shake with silent laughter, but her favourite was when she gave into a full-belly laugh. The kind of laugh that substitutes for a full core workout. That was Gigi’s favourite. 

Crystal was obsessed with Gigi’s smile. It softened Gigi, showed a side of her that Crystal hadn’t been acquainted to previously, but she was so glad she knew now. Gigi could be harsh sometimes, she had learned this years ago and had just accepted it as who Gigi was, but after seeing that damn smile, it was hard to think that Gigi was even capable of hurting a fly. Crystal was quick to realise the mean girl facade (which had only made her scarier to talk to, and somehow more attractive) was just that - a facade. Walls she had built up. Crystal was eager to break them down, and she felt like she was making a good start everytime Gigi smiled like that.

They hung up when Gigi started yawning more than she was talking, she insisted it was just because she was tired, and Crystal wholeheartedly believed her. When Gigi’s face disappeared from her screen, Crystal was still smiling. Her cheeks hurt and she felt whole. She took a deep breath and took in the silence for a moment - she was alone again. She didn’t feel lonely. Despite her ever-growing fatigue, Crystal just couldn’t fall asleep, her head was buzzing with Gigi’s voice, and her laugh, and her smile, and her eyes, and- Crystal was in deep shit. She was all too familiar with the feeling of butterflies manifesting in her stomach, the thoughts of a particular person on her mind constantly. To be completely honest, she hated it. Falling for anyone had never ended well for her, and falling for someone she was already friends with? Even worse. There was no way this would end without somebody getting hurt, and that somebody would probably be Crystal. And yet, being stuck in isolation, she thought the idea of possibly having a girlfriend didn’t sound too bad, but that might have been the lack of human contact talking. 

Gigi let her thoughts wonder as she drifted off into sleep. She wasn’t one to get crushes, but when she fell, she fell hard. And willingly. There was just something about the drama of having such strong feelings for someone, and playing guessing games on how they felt. And by the way Crystal had been staring at her all night, Gigi felt like she was on the right tracks. She liked the way her cheeks would flush if she thought too hard about the girl, or how butterflies would dance around in her stomach, making her feel lighter than a feather. Maybe she was just a hopeless romantic, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She allowed herself to dream up scenarios of herself and Crystal being together once this whole situation was over. She quite liked how it looked in her head. 

--

As the days passed, Gigi and Crystal found themselves spending more of their waking hours talking to each other over facetime than they did doing anything else. They were both falling quickly, only mildly aware of each other's adoration. It didn’t take very long for the casual flirting to start. Everytime Gigi gave an off-handed compliment about how Crystal sounded “really pretty today” or how her laugh is “the prettiest thing”, the other girl would turn bright red and freeze up. Gigi would tease her about it, which only made her more and more flustered. She thought she’d eventually get used to it, but she never did. Crystal tried to flirt back,really tried,  she wanted more than anything to make Gigi stumble over her words like she does to her so often, but she would always be completely unfazed by every compliment Crystal could think of. Crystal found her ability to keep her composure so easily both irritating and compelling. 

It took Crystal a few days to find something that would finally, finally break Gigi down. Pet names. When she had casually let ‘babe’ slip in the middle of a sentence, she could practically see the breath that got stuck in Gigi’s throat before she started to choke on nothing but air. When Crystal asked if she was ok, she answered with a question.

“Did you just call me babe?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem?” Crystal genuinely wanted to make sure that it was ok, but the comment came off as less of a question, and more as straight up flirting. 

“No. Nope. Not a problem at all. What were we talking about?”

Crystal doesn’t press further, taking pride in being able to make the girl so speechless, and continues what she was saying as if nothing had stopped her in the first place. She watched as Gigi’s blush died down very, very slowly, only to watch it burn up again every time Crystal repeated the pet name. She absolutely adored it. 

“You’re cute when you blush, babe” Gigi made a noise at this. Crystal made a note of that before deciding that this would never get old.

--

Soon enough, the girls were in a comfortable routine - talking every day until one of them would give in to sleep. It was usually Crystal. Gigi would stay on the call for a bit, just to listen to the girl’s breathing, it provided an unexpected comfort to her. Plus Crystal was adorable when she slept. The routine was broken one day about a month into the lockdown, though nobody was really paying attention to what day it was anyway. Gigi had been awake for no more than an hour when she started to miss Crystal, so she gave her a call. Crystal didn’t pick up. Gigi called again, just in case Crystal had her phone on silent, but she was met with no answer. Instead, she was sent a text, a text which really didn’t explain anything. At all.

CRYstal: hey !!! sorry can’t pick up rn but i promise u i will call in like an hour or two ???? speak to u soon love !!!! <3

It was unusual for Crystal to miss out on a call - she was usually the one to be ringing Gigi. What could she even be doing? Gigi needed a distraction, something to pass the time instead of sitting and waiting. That was when she realised she hadn’t worn any makeup in weeks, so she sat herself down and started on a full face - the process of doing her makeup always calmed her down, so it was a welcome distraction. Just as she finished, her phone began ringing. She didn’t have to check to see who it was. 

“Hi! Sorry I didn’t answer before I was kinda busy” Gigi was speechless. A pixelated Crystal was beaming at her from her phone screen. And she had green hair now. This is why she didn’t pick up? The bitch was dyeing her hair? It did look really pretty though. Like, really, really pretty.

“Quarantines really getting to you that much huh?” Gigi decided against gushing about Crystal’s new hair - that would be giving her what she wanted.

“Do you like it?” She loved it. Adored it. 

“It’s nice” 

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Needy are we?” That shut her up. She changed the topic in an instant. 

“So... you look really pretty today!”

That night, the girls fell back into their easy routine. It had been hours since she first saw it, but Gigi couldn’t keep her eyes off of Crystal and her new look. It really suited her. It just felt so utterly Crystal. The green haired girl was in the middle of a long rant about how One DIrection “are definitely planning a reunion really really soon” when Gigi had to stop her.

“I fucking love your hair, Crys” She blushed at the out-of-the-blue compliment.

“Really? I thought it was just nice?” Gigi shook her head.

“I was teasing, of course I love it. It suits you so much, you look beautiful” She was smiling ear to ear. Crystal loved it when Gigi gushed over her like this. It made her feel like there could be something there, like this was more than friends bored in quarantine.

“Thanks,” Crystal paused for just a moment before her face lit up “Oh my God, you should do something to your hair too!” Gigi hated that idea, and shook her head affectionately at the girl's adorable excitement. She felt slightly bad when she told her that she would be caught dead before doing anything to her hair - she loved the deep brown colour it had always been, and was happy with how the length framed her face. Crystal however, was incessant. Gigi was surprised when she found herself telling Crystal that she’d “think about” changing her hair up. 

Saying this was a huge mistake. Crystal reminded her every other hour that she had to dye it or cut it or just do something, and it drove Gigi insane. It took her all but two days to finally cave in - it irked her that Crystal had this much power over her. She wanted to do something shocking, something that would shut Crystal up about her damn hair for good. So she shaved it. 

She did it when Crystal fell asleep after a particularly heated debate about her hair (the second of the night) and Gigi hung up to get to work on it. To call it an impulse decision wasn’t perhaps the most accurate, seeing as though she had been bugged about it for a solid 48 hours, but waking up that morning, Gigi hadn’t expected that all her hair would be gone by the time she went to sleep. Once she had finally bitten the bullet, it took her an hour to admit that she actually kind of liked the look - plus it was fun to touch. 

When Crystal called her that morning, Gigi took a moment to herself before answering. She hadn’t told her about the change in her appearance and hoped she would like it, or at least be pleased that Gigi finally listened to her. She took a breath and picked up, feigning confidence with a casual “morning!”. She watched Crystal’s eyes go wide and her hands cover her mouth. Gigi acted oblivious.

“What's up? Is there someone behind me or something?” She looked at her screen and patiently waited until Crystal composed herself - she was used to her staring anyway. When Crystal finally spoke, she was practically squealing out a string of compliments. Apparently, she loved it. 

“Are you keeping it like that? Please say you’re keeping it like that, it's so hot” Gigi wasn’t sure if she would grow it out, but after Crystal had said that, it was an easy decision.

“I guess I’ll keep it then. Just for you”

--

Crystal loved being so open with Gigi, and she really appreciated how close they had gotten during lockdown - but she really just needed today off. She had woken up one morning with a feeling of dread that she couldn’t quite place, and a persistent headache. This was going to be a bad day, but she was used to bad days. She ignored Gigi’s calls and sent no follow up text. She could speak to Gigi later. Right now, she was just going to go back to sleep. 

So that's what she did. She woke up in the late afternoon and finally dragged herself out of bed to make some food in the evening. When she got back to the safety of her bed, she was still tired. And she kind of felt like crying. So she cried. Sometimes, especially on bad days, Crystal’s mind could get the best of her, she had learned to just let herself get all her feelings out when she got like this - bottling them up had only ever made them worse. This was when Gigi called for the millionth time that day, her texts had become concerned, then angry, then concerned again. Crystal felt like she owed an explanation, so with bloodshot eyes and a puffy red face, Crystal finally picked up.

“Ugh finally! You haven’t spoken to me all day I- what’s wrong?” Crystal felt a ping of guilt at Gigi’s initial response to her answering. Had she really kept her waiting all day? It felt silly, like an unreasonable excuse, but deep down Crystal knew what was good for her. She also didn’t know how to answer Gigi’s question. She was starting to regret picking up, having Gigi see her like this - god, she must have looked a mess.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have picked up. I'm probably bringing the mood down” She saw Gigi’s features become impossibly softer at that.

“Hey, no, it's ok. We don’t have to talk about it, but we can if you want to. But you’re not hanging up. And neither am I. If it means I sit in complete silence with you for the next few hours then so be it” 

This was when Crystal knew Gigi was a keeper. Whether whatever they had going on would continue, or whether they would return to strictly just friends, Gigi was someone she needed to keep in her life. They eventually started talking, first it was about how Gigi’s day went - Crystal didn’t feel like speaking much, but once she warmed up to seeing that all-familiar smile, she felt comfortable enough to start to open up. They talked for hours. Crystal cried. Gigi cried (though not as much). 

“I just wish I could be there to help, or at least give you a hug or something, god this sucks” Crystal saw this as an opportunity to lighten the mood.

“As if you would settle for just a hug” Crystal winked pitifully and Gigi laughed, but didn’t disagree. 

Of course one chat didn’t fix Crystal’s problems, but at least now she had someone in her corner - and that was half the battle.

--

It didn’t take the pair very long to fall back into their rhythm, feeling closer and more comfortable with each other, their feelings getting stronger as each day passed on. Crystal found herself falling back into the habit of sitting silent, and admiring the girl on her screen.

“You’re staring.” Gigi told her. Crystal hummened in agreement.

“You’re pretty”

It was normal for the pair to bounce words like pretty, and beautiful, and gorgeous between them. It was as if they both knew exactly how the other felt - like it was completely unspoken and yet so obvious. And maybe it was.

Two months into lockdown, Gigi was really starting to miss physical contact - she was starting to feel a thrill when she made eye contact with strangers on her way to her weekly shop, she was getting desperate. It was brought up with Crystal.

“I just miss human contact. I want to hold a hand. I want someone to hug me. I want a kiss! Oh my god I miss kissing.” Crystal felt herself blushing at the mention of kissing (kissing Gigi, nonetheless). She would give anything to see Gigi right now, to be close to her.

“When this is over, I’ll kiss you, don’t even worry about it” Crystal was only half joking. GIgi went red, but tried to act as if the thought of Crystal kissing her didn’t phase her at all.

“Oh will you now?”

“I’m not kidding”

“Well. I’d very much like that Miss Methyd” Gigi gave in, she refused to play hard to get with someone who she had fallen so hard for. She just hoped Crystal would stick to her word.

--

Summer was halfway through when lockdown was lifted. The instant the announcement was made, Crystal phone pinged - it wasJan, and she suddenly felt a wave of deja vu from when the lockdown started.

JANtastic: GUYSSSSSS i’ve missed you so much PLEASE say y’all are free to meet? Like right now?!?! 

JANtatsic: Jackie’s already with me so, she’s down too :))

CRYstal: i’ve missed you too !!! i’m free to meet!

goodegirl: me too !!

The group reunited within an hour, Crystal shed some happy tears, and Gigi laughed as she wiped them for her. It was nice to be with her, to be able to stand next to each other. But it also felt odd - like something had shifted now that they were right in front of each other. So for the rest of summer, the girls shared lingering glances and awkward smiles, too scared to make an official move.