#anyway this make my blood boil it feels so sexist

[femrobespierre]

what. the actual fuck i cannot describe how much I despise this concept. "the lady who, to you, best exemplifies feminine dignity, grace and loveliness" so we're doing 19th century medievalist revival gender essentialism now. we're doing this. with mostly ladies from asoiaf which is set on depicting the flaws of chivalry as a system. okay awesome have fun

[haleyhunwritess]

Caged Bird

Warnings: Stalking, Mentions of Blood and Murder, dark!bucky x reader

A/N: Hiii, so i’m currently working on the next part for broken promises. I keep rewriting it for some reason, feel like i’m kinda stuck. anyways hopefully i’ll figure it out soon. please like and reblog this fic if you like it🥺🥺 and again my dms and asks are always open<33

"Don't worry, I can fix this. I'll fix this for us."

"There is nothing left for you to fix! You're fucking insane!"

"You don't mean that."

"Yes I do. I fucking mean it, you're a psychopath. God, how did I not see this? How could I have been such an idiot..." Your loud sobs filled the room, and it pained him to see you like this. All he wanted to do was scoop you up in his arms and comfort you. He hated seeing you upset but he wasn't going to let you out anytime soon. He couldn't. Not yet. No, you couldn't be trusted yet. You needed time to think, time to accept him and realize that everything he did was for your own good. He brought balance in your life and you might deny it but deep down even you know that without his help you wouldn't be this happy.

He wasn't afraid to take matters into his own hands, especially when it came to protecting you. All he ever wanted was to keep you safe and happy.

One time he came home early from work, hoping to surprise you, however his smile quickly faded as soon as he entered your shared bedroom and heard you crying in the bathroom. He opened the bathroom door and noticed you were curled up into a ball on the floor, sobbing loudly as the hot water scalded your skin. You were hoping the water would mask your cries because you weren't ready to tell him why you were so upset. Of course he was able to coax the answer out of you eventually as you cried on his shoulder while he held you tightly in his arms. It turned out A member at the golf club couldn't take no for an answer. You worked there as a beverage cart girl during summer to pay for school. Although it was good pay, you had to deal with a very disrespectful and sexist member at the club. Usually, you tried your best to ignore the countless inappropriate and lewd comments, however, that day when you were unloading your cart, he got a little too close for your liking and in a not-so-subtle manner brushed his hand against your ass. You pushed him away angrily and finally found the courage to report him to your manager. He refused to listen to you, and mentioned that Mr. Hamming is a very important member to the club and accused you of lying before firing you.

At the time, Bucky couldn't decide if he was more upset that you were trying to hide this from him or that you believed he wouldn't have been able to help you with your situation. He couldn't believe that somebody had been hurting you for such a long time and he had to practically beg you to tell him. His blood was boiling at the thought of somebody else touching you in such a manner. However, he knew he couldn't be mad at you for not telling him sooner. If anything this was his fault, ever since you began dating he slowly stopped following you to work everyday. He wanted to be able to trust you to make good decisions, however, it was clear that he was wrong when he thought he could trust you to make your own decisions. You were making careless mistakes and letting yourself get hurt constantly, it was nothing but a cry for help. You just wanted his help this whole time and he was more than happy to provide it.

Granted, it might have been easier to hide the body if you had bothered to mention that Mr. Hamming had a large family and was one of the richest members of the club; he wouldn't have had to deal with so many people searching for him, he could've set it up to look like an accidental death instead of torturing him for days before finally letting him bleed to death before disposing of the body. Although, if he was being honest, even if you had told him more about Mr. Hamming and his family, he would’ve still done the same thing.

The truth was he enjoyed every second of it. He could feel his blood rushing as he heard the screams coming out of Mr. Hamming’s mouth as his blood spilled all over the floor. He felt powerful in that moment, and couldn't help but crave more of that feeling. He was almost disappointed when Mr. Hamming died, however, he quickly regained his smile when he came home that night and saw how relieved you were that Mr. Hamming had been declared missing. In that moment he knew he had done the right thing. He knew there would always be somebody else out there who would try to hurt you, but this time he'd make sure they wouldn't be able to touch one hair on your head with him by your side.

Fuck, if only Arya kept her mouth shut.

Your sister, Arya, never liked him, and she didn't even try to hide her hatred for him. She never had a real reason to hate him but ever since she met him, she got a bad vibe from him. She couldn’t help but feel like there was something off, she just knew there was something wrong. He knew he should've gotten rid of her the second he met her but for your sake he decided to leave her alone.

After your mum died, she was the one who took care of you. You were only two years younger than her, however, you were only in your junior year of highschool when you had lost your mum to a careless drunk driver. Ever since that day, Arya had become overly protective of you, and though it annoyed you at times, you still loved her for it. You missed her terribly right now, still unsure whether or not she's alive.

You hadn't seen her since she'd shown you the photos she found in his old apartment. She needed a place to stay while her apartment was being renovated. You offered her your guest bedroom, however, she quickly denied the offer, stating that she couldn't stand to be around Bucky for that long. You offered her his old apartment, and even though she protested at first, she knew it was better than having to stay at a hotel for a week. You knew he'd be upset if you told him you were giving her the key to his apartment but you didn't think there would be a problem. He never used the apartment since you moved in together anyways. When you moved in together, you were confused why he wouldn't sell the apartment or at least rent the place out, however, when you asked him, he told you he couldn't say goodbye to that place because it was filled with so many memories.

You didn't realize that by memories he meant evidence of all the dark things he's done that he justified as protecting you in his sick twisted mind. The place was fairly clean except for this weird stench of bleach coming out of the locked door next to the bedroom. The minute Arya stepped foot in that place, she knew something was up. According to him, he hadn't been in the apartment for weeks now but from the looks of it, it seemed like somebody had just been in there. She decided to take a look around, and when she opened his desk drawer, photos of you spilled out of there. These weren’t ordinary photos, which might’ve actually been sweet, these were photos he'd taken of you while following you to campus, to work, to clubs, and even to your home. She could tell by looking at the photos that you had no idea he took those photos of you. In fact one of the photos was from an event you both attended a few years ago, when you didn't even know him.

When she showed you those photos, you lost it and told her to stop trying to mess with your head. You yelled at her for trying to plant ideas into your head just because she didn't like the guy you were dating. The conversation quickly turned into one of the biggest arguments you've ever had. It ended with her storming off to get you more proof so that you would realize that she was only trying to protect you. She went back to his place and attempted to break the lock on the locked door next to the bedroom. She knew there was something in that room that would give her more answers and hopefully some proof to show you he isn't who he says he is.

"You know it's impolite to go snooping around in a place that doesn't belong to you." She turned around and noticed he was standing right behind her, making her panic slightly.

"I wasn't snooping, I just can't stand that horrible stench anymore." She rolled her eyes and tried her best to look calm.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that. If your sister had told me that you'd be staying here I would've done something about that. It's just easier to clean bloodstains with bleach, you know?" He shrugged before reaching over to unlock the room with his key. He chuckled slightly at her terrified expression before shoving her into the room and shutting the door behind her. She quickly turned the doorknob only to find the door locked. She started to scream for help, making him grimace in annoyance.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you yet. I just need to figure out if your sister believed you or not. If she did then I know she'll be here soon, and for your sake I hope she didn't because then I might let you go. Now shut the fuck up, or I won't hesitate to torture your sister infront of you"

And that was when you fucked up by going to his place to find out for yourself what was going on. You knocked on the door and waited for your sister, only to be greeted by him instead.

"What are you doing here, love?" He smiled and hugged you tightly before ushering you inside the apartment. He grabbed your hand and led you over to the couch, forcing you to sit in his lap. You anxiously looked around the apartment for any signs of Arya, before turning to face him again. He looked at you with a sad smile before shaking his head and getting up from the couch and leading you over to the locked door. At first you were confused and a bit freaked out at the stench, but then you realized you could hear someone sobbing on the other side of the door.

"Is...Is my sister in there?"

"Yes, love." He nodded before leaning against the wall.

"Open this door right fucking now. Bucky stop smiling like that, I'm not fucking kidding. I swear to god if you don't open-" He cut you off by wrapping his hand around your neck and squeezing tightly to choke you before pushing you up against a wall. Suddenly, he covered your mouth with a damp wash cloth, and before you knew it your vision started to fade.

"Shhh it's okay love, it's all gonna be okay now. I'll fix this I promise. I know I should've gotten rid of her before, I just didn't wanna upset you. Don't worry, I'll take care of it now. I'm done playing nice."

[sheyshocked]

Not the Best Place for a Love Confession

Summary: During an interview with a reporter who has a bad habit of saying the most offensive thing possible at the moment, Markus talks about his new budding relationship with Simon and teaches the public that just because he’s the respected leader of the revolution, his partner doesn’t have to be some fainting maiden waiting for him to come home. Simon’s reaction surprises him. Second day of Simarkus Week 2022, prompt Confession.

Ship: Simon/Markus (Detroit: Become Human)

Warnings: (Slightly) Sexist Language

Tags: Fluff, Public Love Confessions, Making Out, Markus Loves Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Switch Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Switch Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Interviews, Markus Being Sassy, Secret Relationship

Wordcount: 1,781

A/N: Look, it’s my event, my rules. And when I say I’m gonna post fics for Simarkus Week a month late, then so be it (anyone can do that, btw, so if you still wanna join, go crazy). Anyway, hope you enjoy reading!

You can also read it on ao3!

Only a few things were sure to make Markus’ blood boil in rage. Injustice was one of them. Ignorance the other. But pretentious interviews with reporters who couldn’t give a damn about their cause and were only looking for a sensation happened to be high on the list, too. The people there were as bad as the gabbers at the Museum of Modern Art, if not worse.

Unfortunately, just like those cocktail parties Carl used to despise so much, these events were a necessary evil from time to time, so Markus forced himself to smile as he answered questions that were borderline offensive.

The acceptance of androids as a new living species was still quite a novelty, and most people meant no harm, just didn’t know how to communicate with them after everything that happened. That’s why he was here. To make them see that they were no different from them. If only some of the remarks didn’t feel like they were pulling his teeth out! At least the reporter, Joyce, always made an effort to correct herself when he let her know what she was saying was getting out of hand. But still...

“So... there is word on the street that someone had managed to capture the heart of the famous deviant leader! Is there any truth to it?”

Markus froze in shock. How did they know? His eyes wandered in the general direction where he assumed his friends and Simon were waiting for him to finish the interview, keeping their fingers crossed for him. Sadly, the studio lights were shining right into his eyes, so he couldn’t make out their expressions. They were probably as shocked as he was.

“This is bullshit,” North stated via their wireless connection. “Don’t reply, Markus. They are just digging for dirt. What you do with Simon in privacy is no one's business.”

Josh was next to chime in. “For once, I have to agree. They should focus on the things that matter, not this.”

Although Markus agreed with them wholeheartedly, he was still waiting for the one person who had the biggest say in this. Simon. The thing between them was still too fragile, and he didn’t want to squander it by making him uncomfortable.

“What do you think I should say, Simon? I don’t want to keep you a secret, but I won’t put you in the spotlight if you don’t wish so.”

At first, he was met with silence on the other end. Simon was obviously as torn at this as him. Then he responded, voice wavering: “I don’t think it would do us any good at this point to give any names. Maybe keep the details? Other than that, I’m fine with whatever you decide would be the best.” He went silent for a moment, before admitting: “Don’t wanna keep you a secret too.”

Markus nodded out of instinct, before turning back at the reporter. Thank god their communication was fast as a bolt of lightning, otherwise, the awkward pause might get even worse. “I hope you do realize this is a very personal question, Joyce. But yes. You could say that.”

“Oooh, lucky them, then! There’s no shortage of people who would jump at the opportunity to date someone like you.”

Were they now? He didn’t know and, honestly, he did not care. They weren’t his beautiful, radiant Simon. “I’m sure there are some fans or admirers, and I appreciate the attention,” not really, “even though I think people should focus more on what I say rather than on how I look.” He glanced down at the ground, suddenly abashed, before he picked up where he ended. “Back during the revolution, there was no time for romance. We all fought to survive. Now I found what I’ve been missing and I’m happy. It’s a tremendous success that our kind can finally experience love without having to fear the reaction of people around us.”

The crowd, mostly present androids, cheered at that. He overheard even one loud “aww” from backstage. Joyce giggled. It was a weird cacophony of sounds. One he was still getting used to, months after giving speeches. “You sound smitten with that mysterious person! I’m sure our viewers are dying to know whether it was a human or another android who rocked your world.”

That gave him pause. Simon said to keep it as ambiguous as possible. “Android. Former domestic assistant. And that’s all I will say.”

There were dozens of models that were considered domestic, both male and female. Small chance they would immediately figure out it was a PL600 with sky blue eyes and a gentle smile. And if they did? Well, people speculate all the time. They didn’t have to confirm it. Or they could. It was up to them to decide whether they would make it official, once they got more comfortable with the situation.

“Ah, I see. So you swept them off their feet and now they keep the house warm while you are here, changing the world.”

What. The. Hell.

At first, he thought – hoped – he heard her wrong. But no. She did say that. His heart picked up speed and he could feel his cheeks heating up as he fought the urge to scream: Just because I’m the leader doesn’t mean my partner has to be some submissive, meek flower who stays at home and takes care of the household!

Out of instinct, his eyes wandered to where he thought Simon stood. He could imagine his sad expression as he took the insult and said nothing, keeping it all bottled up. No way. Markus can’t let this slide.

“We are no longer slaves of our programming, Joyce,” he had to try very hard to keep his voice calm. “We can choose to be anyone we want to be now, and my partner chose to fight for our cause side by side with me ever since the beginning. Never passes a day when I wouldn’t admire their dedication, strength, and voice of reason. So stop belittling their worth just because of their past.”

The whole studio went silent. Joyce in particular looked like she wished the ground would swallow her whole. Although she had a lot of makeup on, he could see her face was getting a radiant shade of red. Good. Maybe she will think next time before she spouts something like this.

Joyce apologized in the end, but it was clear as day she was no longer comfortable. As was he. He couldn’t wait for the interview to be over. But before he could say his goodbyes and leave, who knows what possessed him that he turned at Joyce and smirk, even adding a small wink just to drive the point across. “Oh, and just so you know – it was them who ‘swept me off my feet’, not the other way around.”

If there was one thing he was sure about, it was that Joyce never gonna invite him to the studio again. And he was fine with that. What worried him more was the way Simon stayed quiet the entire ride home, eyes glossy, and lips in a thin line. He tried asking him if he was all right (after all, he realized the ending, no matter how true, could have been a step way too far), but was always brushed off with a forced smile and whispered: “At home.”

Oh, rA9. He wasn’t gonna forgive him, was he? Did he accidentally screw up the best thing that ever happened to him?

When the door of Carl’s mansion closed behind them, he opened the mouth to apologize – perhaps he could still save what was left of their relationship – but was instantly silenced by Simon cornering him against the wall, during which he knocked over the coat hanger. Markus had never seen so much fire burning in his eyes before. It was a little intimidating. Not that he would ever let himself get intimidated by others. Not anymore.

He half expected him to start yelling at him for violating their privacy (it sounded out of character for such a soft-spoken man that Simon was, but on the second thought, he would also never foresee him pushing him with so much strength his back collided with the wall). What he didn’t see coming were the wet kisses that were suddenly peppered all over his face, lips, neck. Anywhere Simon could reach.

The surprised yelp that left Markus’ lips was anything but dignified, but there was currently no space for shame left in him. Everything was overtaken by the heat Simon was radiating. Hunger.

“Did you mean it? What you said at the interview?” he asked, voice sounding strangely breathless, even though androids didn’t require oxygen to function as his teeth ghosted over the copper nape of Markus’ neck. That was all warning he got before the same teeth gently sunk into his skin, nibbling on it to draw a moan out of Markus’ lips.

Somehow, he found his legs wrapped around his slim waist, and once the fog on his mind prevented him from thinking clearly withdrawn, he worried they might end tumbling onto the ground. After all, Simon wasn’t the strongest of androids and he was built to withstand even a hit by a truck. But then he felt Simon’s arms around his waist and bottom and knew he was secure. Safe.

So much for who’s “wearing the trousers in this relationship” right now, as Joyce would elegantly put it, and Markus’ rolled his eyes at the thought.

They often switched roles, one leading the other or submitting when they felt like it (or when one needed the comfort of arms wrapped tightly around him, taking care of every need and shielding him from the outside world that still wasn’t kind to them). It suited them better than having a dynamic set in stone. Like this, both would get what they required at the moment. But Simon was usually too reserved to initiate such contact, much less like this. His complete loss of control sent Markus straight on cloud nine.

“I did,” he breathed into his golden hair. He tried his hardest to keep up, repaying Simon’s passionate touches by showering him with love and affection neither of them knew before. “Every single word. You are my world, Si. I won’t let anyone ridicule you.”

Simon responded with a groan that rumbled from the depth of his chest (Markus could feel it against his body like a purr) before he resumed the venture of his lips across the planes of his copper skin, littered with countless freckles like stars.

Well. Seems like he said the right thing after all.

[slutauthority]

“Bi-Femme: On Being a Traitor and/or a Revolutionary.” by Leah Lilith Albrecht-Samarasinha

Anything That Moves, Fall 1996. Issue 12, pp. 37-39

(google drive link to scan of print.) courtesy of @anythingthatmovesarchive​

(TW for: NSFW, d slur, f slur, q slur, LGBTphobia, nazi mention, racism, misogyny)

“My mama is a very smart woman. When I was 12 years old and I told her I was bisexual, all she said was, “Fine. As long as they don’t look like truck drivers.” I don’t mean that she was smart because she didn’t want me to date butch girls. She was smart because I think she knew that I was going to do it anyway. I was going to grow up to be a femme. “

Right at that moment I had bulbous acne, thick glasses with brown plastic frames and Latin-South Asian hair that my white mom tried to brush straight every day, resulting in a huge, frizzed-out ‘fro. But I also loved to swirl around in long hippie skirts and sneak on makeup and her Chanel Number 5 every chance I got. I had moments, hormone-filled ones, where I would sway and sigh and think how much I liked being a girl. As should be no surprise, I also didn’t shave my legs, was the smartest kid in my class as well as a budding lesbian-separatist, and beat up the boys who tried to feel me up on my way to homeroom. I wasn’t anybody’s stupid little girl, and we both knew it.

Mom and I both dimly knew that I wasn’t a classic, short-haired babydyke, and that there was something weird about me saying I was queer but not playing baseball. When I grew up and became a pro-sex feminist, I tried to recast it all in terms of being a classic example of young femme-dykiness. 

Thing was, much as I wanted to be a true-blue Virgin Mother of the Amazon nation when I was 12 due to all the lesbian feminist theory I was reading (yes, at 12, I even had a subscription to off our backs), I knew I was still attracted to some boys, and that it was too strong to just go away. And as I got into my teens, I dated a lot of boys. All of them identified as bisexual or gay. Most of them were very, very femme. People regularly thought we were both women when we kissed on the sidewalk. At the same time, I fell and stayed deeply in love with my first girlfriend, for three-and-a-half years. I got involved in anarcho-punk for four years for a lot of reasons, but a big one I didn’t want to admit to most people was that the punk warehouse in my town where I got into the scene was the first place I encountered butch girls. My queer, feminist blood was making itself present. 

I’ve defined myself as femme for the past two years, since I moved to New York and borrowed my roommate’s copies of The Persistent Desire and Stone Butch Blues and everything fell into place (thank you, Ananda LaVita). I am a feminist, woman-centered and identified woman who generally feels at my most powerful and confident when I have my eyeliner and lipstick on and am dressed in my own homemade Brooklyn-Asian-vintage-ex-punk-grrrl femme aesthetic. But throughout those two years of coming out, I kept on fucking femmy queer boys. And even though right now I’m thinking about ceasing to sleep with boys, as a period of “separatism for health”, I doubt my desire for anti-racist, anti-sexist queer boys of color, at least, will go away. So what I want to know is, am I still allowed to call myself a femme if I’m bi? Am I a traitor to the Lesbian Nation, flying in the face of all the work women have done to reclaim and celebrate femme-butch desire?

Being (and being very forceful about saying) that I am bisexual, femme, pro-sex and queer, has gotten me quite a lot of attitude. This is what it boils down to: I am really a straight girl wannabe. It’s bad enough that I wear eyeliner and say I’m a dyke. But fucking boys, too? Please, how much more of a traitor to the lesbian nation could you be? I must be one of those flaky “bi-curious” girls whose boyfriend wants to watch. Besides, goes a voice that is slightly more tolerant, femme women are supposed to stand by their butches – hell, femmes really don’t exist apart from butches. Femmes want real butches, definitely not men. Femmes are not bisexual; all the many, many femme girls who started out by fucking boys had horrible experiences with them and just didn’t know what they were missing and once they discovered girls, switched loyalties and never went back. Femininity in women is radical only when it is broken loose of men. I should simplify my life because the revolution hasn’t happened yet. I’m a freak, a slut, my head is in my pussy, woe be unto me – which isn’t too different from being called a slutty badgirl by Ralph Reed. But hey – maybe there’s something to this coalition building between puritan feminists and the radical right after all!

Basically, I could only be a success as a femme if I was as “penis-pure and proud” as a Dworkin clone. And in pro-sex discourse about pre-Stonewall North American lesbian existence, “femme” has been overwhelmingly defined as meaning a lesbian, woman-only existence. Pat Califia, in her poem “Diagnostic Tests,” says “You can tell she’s a femme/Because no man will ever/lay a hand on her again/Now that she’s with another woman.” This sentiment is repeated endlessly throughout The Femme Mystique. Activists and writers have fought for the past 15 years to reclaim butch-femme from the garbage heap lesbian feminism threw it in, to reclaim it as a “deeply lesbian language of stance, dress, gesture, loving, courage and autonomy.” In a lot of ways, I feel like a traitor pushing the boundaries they have struggled so hard (and still do) to gain acceptance for. It’s a typical second-generation anything – immigrant, pro-sex queer activist – thang. 

I’m going to do it anyway because it’s not a betrayal. Joan Nestle, Madeleine Davis and Amber Hollibaugh, all queens of high femme who came out before Stonewall, have spoken of femme desire as a love for “that combination of toughness and softness, that combination of masculinity and femininity.” As Davis put it in their article “The Femme Tapes.” Davis, Hollibaugh and Nestle include both male and female gender rebels within this definition. Femme, they say, seems perhaps to originate in a feminine love of queer sexual deviance, in general, of, as I’ve put it, “the boys inside my girls, and the girls inside my boys.” In Davis’s sexual history as a femme, “some of my partners were very feminine men…Even when I was coming out, I went back and forth some. I went out with a couple of guys who were faggots, who were effeminate.” Joan Nestle affirms, “The first adult person I loved and lusted after was a gay man.”

Femme-dyke sexuality as experienced with a man is far from a neutral category. It exists often as a place full of more conflict and danger than pleasure. For me and many other femmes, the core of femme sexuality lies in femme hunger, in a particularly femme strength of sexual openness, vulnerability and need. For me, it can be summed up by the image of “her fist/slams into my cunt up through my cervix/and grabs my heart/I don’t mind.” Femme sexuality lies in “that desperate need to be fucked senseless…(which) we have and would put up with some incredible shit to get.”

“There is no place she cannot touch me. My body is literally open to any way she infers her sexual need… My body is completely in sync with her, but I’m not deciding where she’s gonna touch me.” When I have sex, I need to feel the touching burn through the layers of numbness I have wrapped around myself. I need intensity; I need to get filled up and fed. To open up, give it all up and be loved, not hated for my intensity, for how much pleasure I can feel and how vulnerable it makes me. And I am doing this as a cultural woman. It is vulnerability that can be both incredibly powerful and incredibly terrifying. I should be hated for this.

Giving this deep vulnerability to a man is not an easy or uncomplicated act in a society of patriarchy where men, to various degrees mediated by their race, class, disability and sexuality, hold the power of sexual violence over women and attempt to deny the power of sexual self-determination over us. In a world where the slut, the whore and the shameless hussy are pissed on, it is in many, many ways much saner to give that gift of womanhood to a butch woman who won’t hate me for it than to give it to a man I may never be as sure of. Davis, Hollibaugh and Nestle speak of desiring faggots and butch women equally, at first, but coming to realize that this vulnerability was only safe with women. They went on to live, by all accounts I have been able to find, exclusively lesbian lives. Did the potential remain? 

I do not believe that in  all cases these women’s desires was “just a bisexual phase”. Some of them probably did just wake up one day and not want boys any more. But I think many might have needed to make a bargain among limited choices. Many might have still retained a desire for sexually rebellious men, but needed to assert total loyalty to butch women to help them survive.

A lot of that bargain centers around issues of visibility and the privilege of passing. The argument goes that no one seeing me or another femme on the street (long hair, nails, vintage dresses and combat boots and all), holding hands with my boyfriend (even if he’s a lisping faggot wearing a Tribe 8 t-shirt and magenta fishnets) will know that we’re queer. All the passerby will see is a boy and a girl.

The argument goes on to say that my femininity allows me the privilege of passing as heterosexual in general, at all times in which I am not with butch women or in queer spaces defined by their presence. These people defined queer as butch women or femme men – people who they saw as gender rebels, whose gender choice was an inversion of hegemonic standards.

I have problems with this argument. First of all, it equates “dyke” with “butch” and “queer,” something that’s as common as mud in queer communities. “In the lesbian community, butches are our image of dykes,” writes Arlene Istar in her article “Femme-dyke.” 

“Lesbians are never described as women who wear dresses and high heels, or have long nails or hair…Oh, we all know there are lesbians like that, but somehow they are different, not like “us”, somehow not authentic.”

But butchness and femmeness, is and of themselves, have nothing to do with how many women a girl’s fucked, how much she prioritizes men over women in her life or how “good a feminist” (however you want to define that) she is. This ideology of dykeness conflates “femme” with “heterosexual feminine,” and “not really queer.” Well, I’m sure as hell nobody’s “spritzhead girlfriend,” as Hothead Paisan would put it. And femme is queer. Drop a femme into a straight bridal shower and she’ll stand out, believe me. I walk the streets with dyke attitude, scanning faces, staying alert, able to face harassment and give it back. 

Second, at the core of this argument lies the idea, put forth by writer like Michaelangelo Signorile, that being “out” is the strategy to end all strategies of fighting homophobia. This idea doesn’t cut it for me. It’s an idea that comes from a place of unexamined privilege, where one can be shielded from knowing the limits of individual, personal strategies for change. I agree that those strategies are important. But I also believe in the necessity of talking to people, and doing mass political organization to counter their homophobia. 

And I want to ask: What about myriad ways of being? What about the fact that “the standard of queerness” I’m most aware of – shaved head, leather jacket, big boots – can read as “Nazi skin” and is also an overwhelmingly white aesthetic? I believe in outness as a politic of asserting the right to walk down the street looking like what one is as a gender rebel – no matter what that is. And I am part of that.

I want a world liberated from the blood and shackles of imposed, false sexes and genders and the differences in power and privilege awarded those genders. People would play with gender there, but one could choose one’s own gender  switch after a while, make it up as s/he went along. What sexual organs one had would be very little, if anything, to do with one’s gender expression. In that world, I could fuck partners who might have penises they were born with, might have ones they’d gotten surgery for, might have bought, or might not have at all.

People tell me that we’re here – we’re not in that world, and I should take what is allowed me by the queer hegemony. But I say that the revolution isn’t gonna come in a big, one-shot, dramatic confrontation with “the enemy”. It’s being birthed out of the struggles we do right here, right now. It’s specific, personal and dirt. And it’s not going to be helped into existence by anything less than the raw, honest, specific truth of what we need and desire. 

The truth I have discovered of my desire, in this Asian mutt’s middle-class passing slut 1996 New York body, is that femme is an attraction to queerness in any form that satisfies hunger. I believe that understanding this is crucial to opening up femme identity to independence from butch identity – as standing separate from our more visible partners. Butch girls can fuck boys casually, without threatening their dyke identities? Well, I want that right too, as well as the right to define what that sex means to me. Butches have historically written and spoken the stories of their identities and desires much more than femmes. Femmes have written too few of our own stories and when we have, our loyalty to women has pressured us to simplify and lie. 

So this is the beginning of a new story. It starts like this: me saying that no, honey-girl, fucking girls and boys in silver platform heels and liquid eyeliner doesn’t make me a traitor. It means I’m continuing in the tradition, taking the sexual and gender rebellion of my femme foremothers one step further, to what I need it be.

-- Leah Lilith Albrecht-Samarasinha is a student, writer, anarcho-feminist, student activist and all around fantabulous babe. Her work has appeared in Riot Grrrl NYC, Notes on the City, Release and various xines. She lives in Brooklyn. “BI-Femme” has been accepted for publication in an upcoming anthology entitled “Femme: Generations/Histories/Visions.

[vivithefolle]

I just wanna ask, and don’t get mad at me cause I’m genuinely curious, how do you stan Ron? Like, I like him, but he is definitely misogynistic (slut shaming Ginny, treating hermione like she owes him something and being mad that she kissed someone years before, always objectifying Fleur, and acting like girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much). Like, by DH I feel like he definitely has mostly grown out of it, but still 6/7 books he’s kinda unbearable IMO

how do you stan Ron? 

Like this:

OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN. HAVE YOU SEEN HIM DID YOU SEE MY BABY OH MY GOD. WHEN HARRY’S ARM HAD GONE KABLOOIE BECAUSE OF LOCKHART AND HE. RON. HE WAS. HELPING HIM GET DRESSED???? OH MY GOD BABY???? HHHHNNNNGGGG. AND. AND. AND ALSO WHEN HE. OMG. WHEN HE WAS PUTTING FOOD ON HIS FRIENDS’ PLATES LIKE. MOM FRIEND ALERT MOM FRIEND ALERT MOM FRIEND ALERT. AND THE WAY HE’S ALWAYS BLUSHING AND BEING EMBARRASSED AT THE SLIGHTEST PRAISE BUT ALSO HE’S SO DESPERATELY SEEKING IT BUT HE KNOWS HE CAN’T TAKE IT AND EEK EEK EEK THAT’S SO CUTE SOMEONE HOLD ME IT’S ADORABLE RONALD WEASLEY YOU ARE SO GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME IT’S ILLEGAL TO BE THIS CUTE!!!!

Ok and then.

he is definitely misogynistic 

No. And here’s why.

slut shaming Ginny 

Yes, that was wrong. And guess what, that’s also something he probably - scratch that, definitely - picked up from his mother. And also his brothers, recall how Fred and George too don’t like to see Ginny go around with boys. There’s also something to recall: Ron was there when Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets and learned later that it was because she had trusted an older guy. You seriously wouldn’t be paranoid about who your sister dates after that? It was wrong. Yeah. And he more than learned his lesson when Ginny clapped back by virgin-shaming him and basically told him that he was childish because he hadn’t have a relationship yet. So would that make Ginny sexist too? Or is it just for Ron?

treating hermione like she owes him something 

..................... uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh... when? When the fuck did anything like that happen?

He made a prat of himself at the Yule Ball, that much is obvious. But he didn’t tell her anything like “you should be with me” or didn’t insinuate anything of the sort. He was a jealous bitch but kept attacking Krum, not Hermione.

If you mean in sixth year when he treated her with “icy, sneering indifference” for the course of two weeks, yeah that was bad but that’s not “treating her like she owes him something”, the fuck?

being mad that she kissed someone years before 

Yeah. I know. And that was bad, ooooh you got me to admit Ron did bad stuff, that’s what you want to see, right? And I reckon he was also mad that she hid it from him, and that he had to learn it from his sister of all people. We see Ron handles what he considers betrayals terribly. I have some meta discussing the possibility that he has a form of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.

always objectifying Fleur 

Um... no, he doesn’t. He makes a stupid comment about her once in GOF then stops. Let’s also fucking remember that Fleur is a Veela, she literally makes guys stare at her as part of her powers!! I’m not blaming her because she’s literally born that way, but you can’t blame someone who is under magical compulsion either.

acting like girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much 

So tell me why he was friends with Hermione then?

Because Hermione wasn’t Emma Watson the super hawt sexy model goddess. Hermione was Mrs Generic. Until this once at the Yule Ball when she got the pretty princess perfect Mary Sue makeover but then stopped because she had to remain ~relatable uwu~.

Again. Ron made stupid sexist comments. But it’s actively shown that he doesn’t follow up on them. If he did indeed live by the motto “girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much”, explain to me why he wasn’t simping and drooling all over Padma Patil who is explicitly stated to be one of the prettiest girls at school when she was his date? Why exactly did he ignore her and was a miserable twat the whole evening instead of basking in the joy of having snagging a girl that was “worth it”? Well surprise, it’s because HE ACTUALLY ISN’T LIKE THAT AND WHAT HE SAYS IS MAYBE SHIT HIS “COOL OLDER BROTHERS” SAY AND HE THINKS THAT BY EXTENSION IT WOULD MAKE HIM COOL TO REPEAT IT. MIMETISM, THAT'S BASIC FUCKING HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY FOR FUCKING TODDLERS MY FUCKING GOD.

Like, by DH I feel like he definitely has mostly grown out of it, 

............

...................................

...............................................................

so. so why. so why wouldn’t you. use that. as a reason. to stan him.

like.

fuck all the “hurr durr ron weasley the boy who made it out of the friendzone!!!!” bullshit, let’s start going with “Ron Weasley, the Boy who became a Man, and not one of those 'uugghh im such an alpha male’ ones but one that’s got the balls to say ‘hey love, I’ve got an idea, what if you kept doing that job you love and feel passionate about while I support you and do the majority of the childcare while also working a smaller job on the side so we’re never short on money’“

Why you people gotta be “yeah I like Ron BUTT” when you know full-well this fucking awful fandom will rake him over hot coals over the slightest mistake he does - worse, will actively go out of their way to interpret his positive moments in the most negative way possible??? Fuck off with that bullshit. Ron dared to say bad stuff omygah big deal, he was forgiven for it all and you’re just all cowards looking to feel “pure” by telling yourself “oh yeah but he was problematic once uwu”. FUCK. THAT. NOISE.

but still 6/7 books he’s kinda unbearable IMO 

And IMO he’s not, funny how that works

So.

I guess it’s impossible to stan Ron because he was problematic uwu.

Ok.

Then I hereby decree that it’s impossible to stan Hermione Granger because:

“I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up Divination now, don’t you, Hermione?” asked Parvati, smirking. [...] “Not  really,”  said  Hermione  indifferently,  who  was  reading  the  Daily Prophet. “I’ve never really liked horses.” She turned a page of the newspaper, scanning its columns. “He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!” said Lavender, sounding shocked. “A gorgeous centaur . . .” sighed Parvati. “Either  way,  he’s  still  got  four  legs,”  said  Hermione  coolly.  “Any-way, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?” - Order of the Phoenix, ch 27

wow casual use of a racial slur yay!!! A+

And it’s also forbidden to stan Harry Potter either since:

It was raining hard now, and she was nowhere to be seen. He simply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine. “Women!”  he  muttered  angrily,  sloshing  down  the  rain-washed  street with his hands in his pockets. “What did she want to talk about Cedric  for  anyway?  Why  does  she  always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?” - Order of the Phoenix, ch 25

and

“Harry! There you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”  “What’s  happened  to  you?”  asked  Harry,  for  Hermione  looked  distinctly  disheveled,  rather  as  though she had just fought her way out of a thicket of Devil’s Snare.  “Oh,  I’ve  just  escaped  —  I  mean,  I’ve  just  left  Cormac,”  she  said.  “Under  the  mistletoe,”  she  added in explanation, as Harry continued to look questioningly at her.  “Serves you right for coming with him,” he told her severely.  “I thought he’d annoy Ron most,” said Hermione dispassionately. “I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole —”  “You considered Smith?” said Harry, revoked. - Half-Blood Prince

Victim-blaming! Nice Harry, nice. Always classy.

Ok, Ginny stanning is already cancelled because she virgin-shamed Ron, right, so who’s left, who’s left... ah yeah:

“There you go,” said Fred proudly. “Best range of love potions you’ll find anywhere.” - Half-Blood Prince

Selling date rape drugs proudly ouh là là. Bye Fred.

"Do they work?” she asked.  “Certainly they work, for up to twenty-four hours at a time depending on the weight of the boy in question...”  “...and the attractiveness of the girl,” said George, reappearing suddenly at their side. “But we’re not  selling  them  to  our  sister,”  he  added,  becoming  suddenly  stern,  “not  when  she’s  already  got  about five boys on the go from what we’ve...”  “Whatever you’ve heard from Ron is a big fat lie,” said Ginny calmly, leaning forward to take a small pink pot off the shelf.

Assuming that only girls use love potions, and only on boys. Men never rape in JKR’s world, only women do, you heard it from George Weasley here folks, I’m just passing on the message. Ah and I hope you’re also starting the Fred And George Hate Club given how he’s also slut-shaming Ginny.

“What’s this?”  “Guaranteed  ten-second  pimple  vanisher,”  said  Fred.  “Excellent  on  everything  from  boils  to  blackheads,  but  don’t  change  the  subject.  Are  you  or  are  you  not  currently  going  out  with  a  boy  called Dean Thomas?” “Yes, I am,” said Ginny. “And last time I looked, he was definitely one boy, not five. What are those?”  She  was  pointing  at  a  number  of  round  balls  of  fluff  in  shades  of  pink  and  purple,  all  rolling  around the bottom of a cage and emitting high-pitched squeaks.  “Pygmy  Puffs,”  said  George.  “Miniature  puffskeins,  we  can’t  breed  them  fast  enough.  So  what  about Michael Corner?”  “I  dumped  him,  he  was  a  bad  loser,”  said  Ginny,  putting  a  finger  through  the  bars  of  the  cage  and watching the Pygmy Puffs crowd around it. “They’re really cute!”  “They’re  fairly  cuddly,  yes,”  conceded  Fred.  “But  you’re  moving  through  boyfriends  a  bit  fast,  aren’t you?”  Ginny turned to look at him, her hands on her hips. There was such a Mrs. Weasley-ish glare on her face that Harry was surprised Fred didn’t recoil.  “It’s none of your business. And I’ll thank you” she added angrily to Ron, who had just appeared at George’s elbow, laden with merchandise, “not to tell tales about me to these two!”

Ah, good on you for defending yourself, Ginny, but remember, Ginny stanning is prohibited because she’s been problematic in the past and is gonna be problematic in the future and that’s baaaaaaad. Careful kids, don’t get ideas. It’s problematic to like people who’ve done problematic things.

So I guess nobody can like anything or anyone now. Sorry guys. Liking things is evil, what if the thing you liked had, OR USED TO HAVE, *gasp* flaws, can’t take that risk, ohmygah.

[therealtsk]

tsk i’m DYING to hear your play-by-play on which worm characters have dumb fanon interpretations

UH OH YOU JUST OPENED THE FLOODGATES so the short answer is pretty much every major character but I am a high-effort bitch so let's do this: Taylor Hebert: jfc, I could probably hit a word count limit talking about Taylor alone. First you have the dumb as shit TINO (Taylor In Name Only) phenomenon where people just straight up SI as Taylor but pretend it's her and she's basically a different person wearing Taylor's skin like an ill-fitting suit. Then there's the Memetic Escalator Taylor interpretation where Taylor's Warlord era characterization is flanderized so hard that she turns into her world's version of Doomguy where her response to literally everything is ultra violence, mutilation and torture and she can totally beat up anyone you guys hahah coin sock goes brrrrr you go brutalize those totally deserving victims queen. And then there's shy, stuttering, soft spoken "useless lesbian" Taylor which is not as common but still, fuckin straight men and the way they infantize gay women. Taylor is perhaps the most consistently inconsistent characterization I've seen in fandom, it's fucking wild Lisa Wilbourn: Has two fanon settings. Taylor's best friend who exists solely to give exposition and get the "Stop Coil" subplot rolling (occasional gay subtext will be added in a way that feels fetishy) Or, the evil bitchy blonde who is first target of the SI. I constantly wonder if the people who write the frankly masturbatory SI's are aware that we can tell they're still bitter about girls not dating them in highschool. Brian: basically does not exist in fic aside from the occasional joke cause racism and also because of how popular wlw ships are in Worm fandom. you deserve better dude Alec: has a few token appearances in wormfic fandom that usually have him as the comic relief alongside Aisha, which might actually be for the best considering he's a rapist and the Worm fandom's uhhhh tendencies. Moving on- Aisha: prankster girl that alt!Taylor will adopt as a younger sibling. hopefully is not part of the totally-not-a-harem considering she's even younger then the rest of these teens Bitch: Another girl to fall into alt!Taylor's definitely-not-a-harem, but with more butch tendencies. Basically has no personality in fanon outside of her dogs Parian: SHE DOESN'T HAVE A SHOP FFS also another member of Taylor's totally-not-a-harem Flechette: yeah it's a harem Sophia: holy shit you think Brian's bad? The racism in pretty much every fanon depiction of Sophia is off the charts. Hyper-violent, super edgy, "predator/prey" speech inbound, will get humilated/killed in some new, supposedly satisfying but actually just deeply uncomfortable way, probably throw in some E88 shit too just because Emma: again, do the writers know we can tell they're still malding over the fact that the pretty girls in highschool didn't date them? fanon emma is pretty much a cardboard cut out of whoever was mean to the author. something something bitches three Madison: in fanon has a C53 fetish, occasionally is also Browbeat. don't ask why Victoria: gets hit with the blonde stereotypes even harder then Lisa, "Collateral Damage Barbie" is one of the phrases that activates my flight or fight responses. she basically is an entirely different character in fanon. bubbly dumb blonde girl with a massive temper and well other sexist bullshiit Amy: I hate even touching this character with a ten foot pole but basically is hit with the "soft useless lesbian" trope hard enough to make her into a completely separate person from her canon self. whether or not this is a good thing is still up for debate Carol: in fanon, an evil bitch who exists solely to bully Amy Mark: who? The rest of New Wave: cannon fodder for Leviathan Danny Hebert: literally stale milk instead of a personality, will probably die before the fic is over but we won't care because the author did not care either Armsmaster: hahaha robotman go brrrr or is an arrogant self-aggrandizing shit, can't interact with people without Dragon helping him 24/7 Miss Militia: fanon bat'd into team mom,

idk where this came from considering her first instinct upon seeing children is to pull out a gun holy shit wait is she actually Taylor's true mom- Velocity: canon fodder for levi Battery & Assault: sitcom wife, sitcom husband! please ignore how fucked up this relationship is if you look at it for more than two seconds Dauntless: haha armsy is JEALOUS also cannon fodder for levi Triumph: who? The BB wards in general tend to be incredibly bland, the only ones who have fanon personalities of note are Clockblocker and Vista. The former being such a huge prankster that every other line is a joke- or him complaining about how BULLSHIT Alt!Taylor's powers are. Vista is an angry kiddo who says that Shadow Stalker doesn't count as being a girl on the team The E88: no personality for any of them except that Kaiser is noble and really isn't that bad and also Purity did nothing wrong totally she's just a hot mom trying to do her best, please ignore how she exclusively targets characters of color and literally calls white criminals more civilized than miniorities- the worm fandom has something of a nazi problem i hate it here The ABB: racism and honorable samurai lung even though that has no canon basis so again, racist stereotypes The Slaughterhouse 9: This one makes me just as sad as the Lisa shit because dear god this is such a good cast of villains that fanon completely flattens to bowling pins for the Alt!Taylor of the week to mow down, why does this fandom suck so much. Anyway Jack is just the Joker, Crawler is masochistic, etc i'm moving on now The PRT/Protectorate as a whole: They are an evil paramilitary organization that pressgangs kids into signing up to become child soldiers, and somehow at the same time, they are a bunch of idiots who listen to the PR department and have stupid things like RULES that prevent capes from COMMITTING VIOLENCE. Being called "the biggest gang of all" is common and some shit like "at least the criminals are honest" is a likely statement. Cauldron: whoo boy this one really boils my blood but fanon Cauldron are just a bunch of evil idiots who can't even tie their shoelaces. basically a bunch of dudebros are upset that women run the world and that two of them essentially have "I win" powers so they have to make them lose to their SI- er, Taylor in fics so they can assuage their masculinity, which totally isn't pathetic Scion: Is at once the end all be all of worm you can't write a wormfic without scion or else it's TOTALLY MEANINGLESS because what is the point of a story if all the characters are going to DIE in a few years anyway, and at the same time is incredibly easy to defeat- this ties into how Cauldron is stupid. Scion Truthers pls shut up and go read something else okay I think that's everyone I would apologize but the only thing I'm sorry for is how messy this is

[mermaidenisaacs]

isaac went to college and became a fratboy, part 2

the aftermath of hooking up with isaac lahey at a frat party includes: shame, regret, and the stupid thrill of leaving him on read 

TW: sexual language, sexist language, some impure thoughts

I finally saw Isaac again. 

After a fire alarm interrupted my study session at the library (some idiot burned Poptarts in the microwave again), I was forced to evacuate to a nearby dining hall. I was annoyed by the whole ordeal until the hunger pangs kicked in. 

I was waiting in line for tacos when I saw him. He was sitting at a table by the windows, laughing with his head thrown back while another guy, presumably one of his frat bros, playfully shoved his shoulder and laughed along. He was surrounded by three attractive boys, one of which I recognized from my political science class last semester. I remembered him because he was unnaturally attractive, with swooped brown hair and warm chocolate eyes, and also because he had saved me from the embarrassment of forgetting to bring a scantron for the midterm by offering me one of his extras. His fratboy status aside, he was surprisingly decent. His name may have started with an ‘S.’ Steven maybe? Sam? 

I couldn’t focus on him for long, not when Isaac suddenly turned in my direction and met my gaze. I froze, caught in the act of staring. The corner of Isaac’s mouth tilted upwards into a smirk, and his gaze dropped shamelessly to my legs and drifted slowly back up, and in that moment, all the memories of our night together came rushing back. 

It was the first time I’d seen him since that night he had invited me to a party at his frat house, where he unceremoniously fucked me head-first into his bedroom door, then kicked me out, leaving me to retreat with my hair disheveled, makeup smudged, traces of him between my thighs. Anyone who wasn’t too drunk or high could piece together why I looked absolutely wrecked. I’m sure many girls had been seen doing the walk of shame out of Isaac’s room, and now I really was just one of the many, another notch on his bedpost. 

Isaac succeeded in living up to his fuckboy reputation. After that party, he texted almost every other midnight, snapchatted borderline nude selfies of his shirtless chest or his hand palming his erection over his sweatpants, with captions like “wyd,” “you up,” or “miss this?” That last one always sent waves of arousal, tainted with shame, reminders of the way I let Isaac degrade me and use my body, the way I loved every second of it and craved to feel it again. 

So far, I hadn’t texted him back, but I couldn’t resist leaving him on read. I smirked at the thought that Isaac might feel the sting of my cold indifference. It wasn’t much, and it was stupid, but it was the only power I could salvage back for myself. I avoided him in class too, and nearly gave myself leg cramps every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to sprint across campus and get to class early so I could choose a seat far away from our usual spots. I sat towards the front, an area I knew he wouldn’t encroach in fear that the professor would see him dozing off during lecture. He even texted me dirty things during class to get my attention. It was taxing to ignore the distraction, but I ignored the buzzing on my desk, letting Isaac’s stare burn a hole into the back of my head. 

Eventually he got the hint and the texts stopped, and it left me with the somewhat bittersweet realization that we had reached the end of our… whatever it was. 

Or so I thought. Three weeks and one burnt poptart later, there he was, staring back at me with the knowing glint in his eyes that only comes when you’ve seen someone naked. 

The only available table in the dining hall was one near the windows, and I would have to walk past Isaac’s table to get there. With my tray in hand and my bag hanging off one shoulder, I steeled myself and walked in his direction. 

I hung my head, letting my hair drape my face from his view, but my attempt at hiding was useless. He called out my name anyway. I tried to continue in my path and pretend I hadn’t heard him, but he called my name louder. Begrudgingly, I stopped and turned around. 

“Isaac.” I said.

“So, she lives. I was starting to get worried. You never responded to my messages,” he said, subtly referencing his obscene attempts at luring me back into his bed. 

I rolled my eyes and smiled back tight-lipped. “I was hoping you’d take the hint and leave me alone, but clearly you’re too dense.” 

One of Isaac’s friends snorted loudly at my remark, the one I recognized from last semester. Isaac glared at him. “Sorry,” the boy said. “First time seeing a girl call you on your bullshit. I like her.” 

I smiled at him, bashfully tucking my hair behind my ear. “Um, I remember you, but I’m blanking on your name. Sorry,” I said to him. 

“No worries! I don’t think we were ever properly introduced. I’m Scott. We had political science last semester, right?” I nodded. “Yeah, you were the girl who forgot a scantron.” 

“Yes.” I chuckled in slight embarrassment. “Thanks for that, by the way. You really saved my ass.”

“Of course! I was happy to have an excuse to talk to the pretty girl who sat next to me all semester, even if it was just for a few seconds,” he said charmingly, flashing an adorable smile. I scoffed playfully at the compliment. His gentle flirting was a welcomed change from the texts I’d been receiving from Isaac, who I noticed was suddenly glaring daggers at me. “Hey,” Scott said, “since you’re here and you know Isaac, and now you know me too, why don’t you join us?” 

My eyes went wide and my mind blanked. I stuttered for an excuse. “Oh, th-that’s okay, I don’t want to intrude. Besides, there aren’t even any empty seats--” 

“Oh no worries, I got you.” Scott stood up and looked around, then approached a nearby table. He spoke a few words to the group of girls studying there, who giggled at something he said and nodded. Scott picked up an empty chair at their table and brought it over, proudly presenting his contribution. “There! Please, sit.” He gestured towards the seat and smiled at me so sweetly, I felt it would be rude to reject his offer. I nodded and gingerly perched on the seat. I set down my bag and my food, and cordially gave a tiny wave to all the other boys at the table, who exchanged knowing grins. 

~*~*~*~

Isaac couldn’t believe you actually accepted Scott’s offer to take a seat. 

Not that Scott had left you much of a choice. He had these big brown eyes that girls usually fell for. And then there was the way he so valiantly brought a chair over for you. Isaac chewed on the flesh inside his cheek, unable to plaster on his usual easy grin. He couldn’t help it, especially now that you were sitting with him and his friends, acting all cute and polite, playing the act of the good girl again. 

Normally, his pride would swell if he saw you act all prim and proper. He could bask in the satisfaction of being the only one who knew who you really were, what you really were. He knew your ticks, your kinks, what you looked like when you were coming apart all over his cock and begging him for more. 

He couldn’t enjoy that knowledge today, not when his friends were staring at you like that. To any outsider, they just looked three boys engrossed in chit chat, but Isaac knew better. Behind their friendly, clean cut facade, they were all thinking the same thing, and it was far from clean. Isaac didn’t care who his friends slept with, and on occasion they even passed around the same girls, those special ones who didn’t care who they fucked as long as they had a good time. 

But for some reason, the thought that any one of them, Theo or Liam, or especially Scott, laying a finger on you, made Isaac’s blood boil. Isaac tried to extract this ugly feeling, this primal possesiveness he couldn’t seem to shake when he saw another guy looking at you.  

Isaac somehow managed to keep his expression neutral as you giggled at something Liam just said. The kid had managed to endear himself to you already. He was young, and in the newest pledge class, but he was a quick learner. Isaac had taken a fondness to him and decided to mentor him, taken him under his wing and transformed him into his image. Liam’s arrogance and eagerness to prove himself was something Isaac remembered from his freshman year. What he didn’t expect was that Liam would hone Isaac’s techniques to make girls fall at his feet and use them on you.

You giggled again. “Oh my god, Liam, I can’t believe you did that!” Liam had just finished telling a story about the time he knocked over a TV trying to do a drunken keg stand. “You could’ve broken your arm or something. What were you thinking?” 

Liam shrugged sheepishly and grinned. “I don’t know. There was a girl I wanted to impress and she was older than me, so I just went for it ya know?” 

You smiled fondly at him. “That is adorable. How much older was she? And what year are you?” 

“She’s a senior and… I’m a freshman.” Liam looked down shyly and rubbed the back of his head, just like Isaac had taught him to. The lesson was to use your age to your advantage. Girls loved that cute shit. 

“Aww, Liam you’re so cute! And I’m sure she thought so too.” 

“You think so? That’s good. I’m kinda into older girls.” Liam bowed his head again and smiled, and Isaac would’ve been proud of how well he’d taught him, if only you weren’t on the receiving end of his little performance. 

Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be working. You hummed casually in response. “Hm, I know what you mean. My philosophy professor last semester was so hot. She was maybe in her late 30s, and I still have no clue what she went on and on about, but it was my favorite lecture of the day.” 

Isaac inwardly grinned at the way Liam’s accomplished smile faded at your unaffected response. 

Theo snorted. “You had a crush on your female professor?” he drawled. “That’s kinda hot.” 

“Is it? It’s not really that big of a deal. Haven’t you ever found any of your male professors attractive? I feel like the place is swarming with hot male professors.” 

Theo looked at you in amusement, with a twinkle in his eyes that Isaac was all too familiar with. It was clear now Theo had his sights set on you, and usually when that happened, Theo got exactly what he wanted. “Can’t say I’ve had time to think about the men around here. I’ve been a bit too distracted with the girls.” 

When Liam flirted with you, Isaac could manage his jealousy, since the kid was still mostly innocent, all talk and no real game. With Theo, all bets were off. He didn’t have an innocent bone in his body and he wasn’t afraid to let girls know, and they were always very happy to know. Isaac knew he himself had strayed far from purity a long time ago, but Theo was something else. Isaac preferred you choose anyone over Theo, maybe even Scott, who was Isaac’s closest friend, if it meant you would stay away from Theo. 

“So, I’m curious,” Theo continued. “How exactly do you know Isaac?” 

Isaac noticed the way your eyes widened the tiniest bit. “Oh, uh, we um, have a class together,” you said. Isaac could hear the nervous wobble in your voice as you spoke, and his lip curled up in amusement at the realization that you were nervous because you were thinking about him.

*

author’s note: i came across a google doc of a draft i wrote 3 years ago. a continuation of a fratboy!isaac fic that made people feel some kinda way. the fic, along with all my other fics, got zapped when my old blog got terminated. but since i found the draft and remembered how many requests i got for a part 2, here it is (kinda). 3 years later. i’m sorry. 

[asteriismos]

politics - jacob thrombey

authors note : pls listen to ‘tear you apart’ by she wants revenge while reading this literally. I hope this is at least consistent i did not proofread.

warning(s) : smut, swearing, degrading stuff

words : 3.4k

summary : you’re the liberal, bernie sanders lover at your prep school and jacob is the conservative nazi. the day of your schools political rally each of you finally get rid of that underlaying tension between you two. 

“and oh my god he does this thing with his tongue and it just-”

“jesus, holly, we’re supposed to be talking about the rally,” you said to your friend, giving her daggers when you glanced at her. it was a day until the rally your private school, buxton prep, had every four years for the presidency. 

in usual democratic, liberal fasion, you were rallying for bernie sanders. since you were a senior this year you got to run the whole project, which was obviously more work than you thought it would be, but then again it would look good on college applications. it also got you out of going to the boring classes you didn’t want to go to. all you had to do was raise your hand and say you needed to do something for the rally, and the teacher would dismiss you like it was nothing. 

when you were a little freshman four years ago during the previous election, you were a part of the democratic team as well. though at that time you were just a little fourteen year old, so the seniors and juniors basically made you their lackey. you got coffee for them, baked so many cookies, and went on too many food runs you lost track of the number. you also made so many signs your fingers bled from the amount of paper cuts you got. 

overall, you were very happy that you didn’t have to do that this year. call it hazing, but it made sense that the freshman were tasked with doing all that stuff. 

at your school, which was too preppy it made rival schools want to throw up, the freshman were at the bottom of the food chain. and you had worked really hard to be the senior that you were now. you were popular, always having a group of lackeys, and had one of the best grades in your entire class. 

“. . . sorry y/n, but i am working, look at these signs,” holly said, holding up the sign she was working on. it was a nice sign. holly was purposely tasked with doing the designs because she wanted to be an art major, and she was just a sophomore so you didn’t feel bad about telling her she needed to make fifty. 

you gave her a feigning proud smile, nodding your head. “okay, whatever you say. who are you talking about anyways?”

holly looked up from her work, a blush splaying across her face. “no one, don’t worry about it, it was a one time thing.” 

her eyes, however, gave it away. they looked past you and right at the group of boys who you despised. well, some of them were good, but they were led by someone who you fucking hated it made your blood boil.

dressed in the boys uniform of your school, a dark blue sweater with a white collar popped out and black dress pants, was jacob thrombey. he was talking to some of the other boys in the senior class, motioning with his hands while he talked expressively. you looked back at holly with wide eyes, realizing that jacob was the person that she had been talking about. 

“you did not sleep with jacob thrombey,” you said, mouth agape with shock. 

holly laughed nervously. “like i said, it was a one time thing! it was at that party you said you were going to go with the group to and you never showed up. i was horny i don’t know.” 

“oh, that party, right,” you said with a shrug. you said that you would meet your group of friends at the party that colin ( another boy of the thrombey group ) was hosting this past weekend. but then the more you thought about it, the more you didn’t want to go because getting wasted on a saturday night and possibly ending up in bed with anyone from that group did not sound like a fun time. plus you wanted to take a bath and watch netflix, have a little relaxing night. “still . . . sleeping with the enemy?”

you tuned out holly’s excuses, instead searching your bag for the flyers that you thought you had put in there that you printed in the library earlier. they weren’t there, you probably just forgot to take them and left them in the library by the printer. you groaned, excusing yourself from the group and walking out of the cafeteria. 

your black dress shoes clanked against the smooth tile of the hallway. you anxiously pulled down your dark blue and black checkered skirt so that nothing you didn’t want showing was showing. the skirts were already short enough, which was a little sexist on the schools part, but it was your uniform. there was nothing that you could really do about it. 

the library was unlocked, thank god. you turned the lights on and walked in, making your way to the back to the printers. once you got there you saw your flyers sitting there where they had been left by you in second period. 

soft footsteps echoed closer to you and you turned around, seeing jacob walking over to the printers, phone in hand. suddenly the other printer next to you started up, signaling that he was printing something too. probably his own posters. 

“hey y/n,” he greeted, glancing at you and then leaning against the table, fingers tapping against the wood. 

you scoffed. “thrombey. following me?”

“no, I know this is going to be a dent in your little rich girl complex, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. i’m printing stuff for the rally,” he replied. of course he was.

jacob was running the donald trump campaign for the rally. making you hate him even more than you already did. the way that he acted like no one else in the world mattered except himself made you want to rip your hair out, and the fact that he had the audacity to act like you were the entitled one. 

instead of getting political with him ( because that would be happening all day tomorrow ), you looked at him and said, “could you maybe stop fucking my friends?”

jacob looked at you quizzically. “what do you mean?”

“holly said you hooked up with her at that party, could you maybe not fuck my friends? or if you’re going to hook up with them at least stop hooking up with sophomores. i know they’re easy and can’t see how much of an asshole you are but seriously. gross,” you scoffed. 

“are you jealous?”

you squinted at him. “no, i’m not fucking jealous. i just don’t want you to hook up with her again and then she comes crying to me because you wanted to do knife play or something.” 

jacob only laughed, taking the pile of flyers that finished printing. “why do you think i’m such a sadist?”

“because we all know those hand marks on carissa’s neck last year weren’t just a coincidence after you hooked up with her.”

he didn’t answer, instead shrugging his shoulders and watching away. you sighed, realizing that you were never going to get him to listen to anything you said ever. he was too much of an ass, luckily soon enough you never would have to see him again after you graduate. 

-

today was the day of the rally, and you were more than excited. the only problem was that you were stressed out of your mind trying to get everything set up in your large booth. everyone was either setting up the blue cookies that had been baked or getting the pins ready to hand out with sanders printed on them in large blue letters. 

“where are the shirts?” you asked one of your helpers, giving her a condescending look. “don’t tell me you left them in mrs. prescott’s classroom.”

she had. fucking god. 

you shook your head and turned on your heel, walking away from your booth and leaving someone else in charge while you were gone. you turned the corner and made your way into the big classroom. 

“what the hell are you going here?” a male voice asked. it was jacob, who was looking in a box that had your name on it. it was the box with the shirts. 

you walked over to where he was and grabbed the box away from him. “what are you doing with my shirts?”

“just looking, shitty design,” he said. 

you scoffed. “you’re an ass you know that? no one actually likes you, you have no respect from anyone but your little meathead jocks.” you meant to get him mad, but the look he gave you realized that he was in a more angry mood than he usually is.

“you think you’re such a tough bitch,” jacob yelled at you, pushing you back with such force you felt your stomach drop. his hands came to your shoulders and pushed you again, until you were pressed all the way up against the wall. your shoulder blades dug against the cold concrete, back of your head hitting against it. “you think that you’re so fucking entitled,” he went on, his body capturing yours in a hold so you couldn’t squirm out. 

your hands came to his chest, trying your best to push him away from him. his arms were pressed against the wall, still trapping you. in a leap of faith, you looked up into his piercing green eyes and gave him a smirk. “yeah? and what are you going to do about it, thrombey? teach me a lesson?” 

a sadistic smile came across his face, which made you instinctively press your thighs together, realizing how wet you actually were just looking at him, just feeling how close he was to your body. 

“you’d like that wouldn’t you? for me to teach you a lesson, fuck you until you can’t stand,” he hissed, his head ducked down and pressed hot kisses against your neck. his teeth grazed along that sweet spot and you gasped, your hands now balling up into fists on his chest. jacob laughed against your neck, using his tongue to lick a clean stripe all the way up your neck to the edge of your jaw. “amazing how much of a needy bitch you actually are. not really that tough, are we?”

“fuck you,” you said in a weak voice, feeling his hips grind against your own. he laughed again at your weak attempts to savor the last bit of dignity you had left in you, even though your own body was betraying your mind. your brain was going haywire, not knowing if you were going to push him all the way off of you and leave, or if you were going to give into the temptation. 

the latter ended up winning and you succumbed into his touch, pulling him by his shirt to kiss you. the second his lips landed on yours his tongue slipped into your mouth, fighting with your own and ultimately winning in the little power play you had going on with him. 

he pulled off your shirt, leaving you in nothing but your bra and skirt that was being hiked up by his other hand. you worked aimlessly on his own clothing, pulling off the dark blue blazer and only being left with his white collared button up undershirt to be in between the skin of both of your chests. your hands came up to take off his tie and get the buttons undone, but his own hands grabbed your wrists, tutting condescendingly. 

“that’s not how this is going to go, princess,” jacob said, pulling your hands to his belt of his black dress pants. “did you really think that i was going to let you be in control? i know that you’re a brat, but i didn’t think that you were dumb.”

you whined at his words, hating that his degrading words turned you on even more. his eyes motioned down to the ground and you quickly realized what he wanted. jacob stepped away from you enough to make you slink to your knees, hands still connected to the waistband of his pants. 

deciding to play the brat card with him, you looked up at him and said, “what do you want me to do, jacob?” it was in the most innocent tone you had ever made in your life and the look that he gave you almost made you cum in your pants right then and there. 

your hands came to palm him through his pants, keeping your eyes on him to see jacob’s head throw back with a low groan. his hands found their way to your hair, while you gave his growing bulge a light kiss. you continued to do this until his head came back to look down at you, hand moving to hold you by your jaw. “enough of this,” he spat, undoing his belt and watching as you unzipped his pants and pull them down to the ground. he took himself into his hands and pumped lazily a few times, until letting it rest on your closed lips. 

precum wiped against your kiss swollen lips as you opened your mouth, tongue falling out, waiting for him to do anything. he tutted again, other hand gripping your hair, finally pushing his dick into your mouth. he went as far as he could, hitting the back of your throat and watching you gag around it. you didn’t let yourself gag too much though, just enough to get remotely comfortable as he stilled in your throat. 

then he started moving your head up and down his cock, finding a steady rhythm that had you breathing in and out rapidly through your nose, spit dripping off his shaft and down your chin. the lewd noise that came out of your mouth made you moan, the vibrations enough to make him groan himself. 

he pulled you off of him, spit falling and getting everywhere on your face. “at least your pretty while i face fuck you, unlike your little friend holly. she just kept gagging and choking, which was hot at first, then a little sad,” he mentioned, wiping some of the spit off your chin with his thumb. 

you were about to talk to him again, until he was pushing right back into your mouth, to which you hollowed your cheeks out as much as you could to fit all of him in there. 

the sounds of his noises sent pressure right to your core, and you needed to alleviate the hot pressure that was building. sneakily ( or what you thought was sneakily ), your hands came to play with your clit, making you groan out against his dick. this caught his attention, and he pulled all the way out of you to give you a frown.

“are you actually touching yourself without my permission?” he asked, his voice teasing you and making you feel like a little girl.

your eyes widened, feeling stupid from his words and scared about what he was going to do about you getting caught in the act. he was silent, only looking at you with those dark green eyes that made you squirm under his gaze. without speaking, he pulled off the tie he was wearing and grabbed your hands, pushing your wrists together behind you. 

you couldn’t see what he was going to do until you felt the fabric bite into your skin, hearing the fabric fold into a tight knot. you tried to move your hands away from the tie and you couldn’t, they were tied together, unable to do anything. you were completely in his control now. 

“i'm sorry jacob . . . please i want to touch you,” you whined, though your voice was breaking from him ruining your throat.

he just laughed. “no, you wanted to touch yourself. don’t lie y/n, or i’ll just keep you like this and make you watch me finish myself off.” 

you hated that you found how cruel he was being hot, that it made you even more wet at the thought of him doing anything he wanted to you now that you were completely in his control. 

“get up,” he ordered, grabbing you under your arms and helping you onto your feet. it took you a moment to steady yourself since you didn’t have much balance, though you weren’t standing for long when he pulled you over a few feet away and bent you over the closest desk. your chest pressed against the cold surface, he pushed your head down too, cheek against the wood. 

he pulled you by the hair to hold you up, feeling his cock press up against you. “suck on these real quick for me princess,” jacob muttered, pushing two fingers into your mouth. you moaned against them, wiping your tongue all around them, letting your spit catch along his long digits. “good girl,” he praised, pulling them out of your mouth, pulling away your panties and inserting both of them into your aching hole. 

you yelped at the sudden pleasure, but pushed your hips against his hand, feeling him pump them in and out over and over again at an unforgiving pace. “is this what you wanted? just to be touched by someone you claim you hate,” his fingers pulled out of you, his hand landing to steady your hips. 

you heard him fumble a little bit, pushing into you after a few seconds went by. he was so big, and didn’t waste any time to let you adjust. when he bottomed out, he pulled all the way out and then back in roughly. you clenched around him, gasping breath in and out in a desperate attempt to adjust to him. 

even though he was going at an already fast pace, you could tell he was holding back. so you smirked, saying, “you said you’d fuck me till i can’t stand, but here i am standing.” jacob laughed, pulling you up by the hair again. you felt his hot breath fan against the shell of your ear as he whispered, “whatever you say.” 

his hips began rutting against you at an unbelievable pace, making you almost scream, head still being held up only by his hand in your hair. his lips kissed the skin below your ear, all the way down to the back of your neck, making you shiver and lean into his touch. 

your legs were already feeling tired, especially since your hands were still tied behind you by his tie and you couldn’t use them to hold yourself up. you felt like a limp rag doll against the desk while he pounded relentlessly into you. 

you were already so worked up that you knew you weren’t going to last very long, and surprisingly enough the way that the edge of the desk was digging into your hip bones the more you reached closer and closer to that edge. 

“fuck jacob i’m going to cum,” you yelled out, fingernails clenching into the palms of your hands. “please, please let me cum.”

“well since you asked so nicely,” jacob said. “cum then.”

you yelped out, squeezing around him and hitting your high like hitting a hard brick wall. the impact of him still rutting relentlessly and animal like into you made it hard for you to stand, riding out your high. his arm came to wrap around your waist, holding you against the desk while he chased his own high. 

the sensitivity you felt was enough to make your eyes water. jacob was not that far behind you though, giving you one last good thrust then spilling inside of you. you felt the cum enter you and fill you up, and when he pulled out you felt the liquid run down your inner thighs. 

the sounds of each of your breaths filled the room. your wrists were undone and you leaned against the desk, turning around and looking at them. there were deep purple bruises in a ring along them, and you knew those were going to be impossible to cover up with makeup to make your skin look natural.

each of you were silent while he got dressed and you cleaned him off of your thighs with a kleenex, getting dressed yourself. until you said, “you’re lucky i’m on birth control, asshole. you didn’t even ask me if you could come inside.”

“I figured you were, seemed like you,” he retorted. 

“you’re still unbelievable,” you answered, deciding to pin up your hair because there was no way you would be able to make it look normal while it was down. 

jacob tied his tie and gave himself a once over. “yeah, and you’re still a brat. see you at the rally, hopefully your voice recovers or else you’ll have to explain to all of your liberal bitches about how you got on your knees for me.”

asshole.

[girlsgonemildblog]

It’s Sexist. The Commercial, The People, All of It. - Emily in Paris, Episode 3 Recap (Spoilers!!)

Poster from IMDB

Let’s begin with the obvious; Sexy or Sexist sounds like the title of a “think-piece” written for a college newspaper by a freshman who is just starting to learn about feminist critique and has yet to take any actual journalism courses. This terrible title isn’t helped by the fact that the characters say it no less than four times in the episode. Roll credits, and your eyes.

The amazing Kate Walsh reappears after being missing since the first scene of the first episode. Emily brags to Madeline about how amazing it is to work in Paris -- you know, the job Emily lowkey stole from her? Kind of rude, but not that I wouldn’t expect it from her. Also, apparently, they have urinals in the middle of the streets of Paris? I can’t imagine that’s correct, but I also don’t care enough to look it up. Feel free to let me know in the replies. 

As Emily makes her way home after her run (Why is she always running? Who runs this much?), she stops to take a picture of three women smoking outside a gym. At this point, 90% of her Instagram feed is just her shaming people who are just living their lives. Mind your own business, Emily.

Emily’s water goes out, and we are once again reminded that she is a Karen because she yells at her super, despite the woman not speaking any English. Instant karma comes through, though, as she then has to wash her hair in her bidet. After that, she goes to a French class (which isn’t a very good one) and wears her worst, most touristy outfit yet -- a red beret and a handbag with the Mona Lisa on it. I shit you not.

After class, she runs into Sylvie on her way to work. Just as I was thinking that I need a Sylvie hair tutorial, Sylvie roasts Emily’s hair, as well as her shitty Instagram account. I’m beginning to stan Sylvie.

At work, her coworkers have been sent the “commandments” of her company back in Chicago, and they are rightfully angry about them. Imagine if your boss was like, “you can never be negative ever, no matter what.” That’s some bullshit. Especially when they phrase it in a kitschy, condescending tone of “thou shall not” or whatever. Fuck off.

Emily and Sylvie head to a commercial shoot, and the actual plot of the episode begins. Yes, it has taken this long to get to the plot, but don’t worry, it won’t last long. Somehow, Emily has gotten all the way to the actual shoot without knowing the concept of the commercial - a naked woman walking down the street as men ogle her. Thus begins a conversation between Sylvie, Emily, and Antoine about the male gaze and sexism versus sexiness. The entire premise of this episode is dumb because Paris exists in the same world as America and has the same internet that we do. They even had their own version of #MeToo, which is referenced in the episode, Balance Ton Porc, or “reveal your pig”. Nonetheless, the writers decided it would be believable that this commercial was being made in 2020.

During the conversation, Sylvie reveals that she doesn’t consider herself a feminist, making me like her a lot less. Also, Antoine basically gets Emily to give in by saying that desire is a sign of respect, and women wish for a look of desire from men, which made my blood boil. I promise, when I am walking down the streets of New York and some creepy man whistles at me, it feels a lot more like a nightmare than a dream.

Anyway, back at her apartment, Emily’s maintenance man cannot fix her shower and does not speak English, so Emily decides to make this Gabriel’s problem, despite barely knowing him. Because the maintenance man does not have the right part, she has to shower in Gabriel’s apartment. For some reason, she brings only a skimpy bathrobe and not a change of clothes for when she finishes, as one does when showering in a stranger’s apartment.

Later in the episode, the commercial is previewed for the team, and it sucks, sexist or not. It was like stock-footage vomit turned into a perfume ad. The group cannot decide if the commercial is sexist or not (it is), so they decide they’ll tweet it out with a poll and let their consumers decide. This may be the dumbest marketing strategy of all time, possibly topping the vaccine one from the previous episode. Why would you even suggest to your customers that your company is sexist? Like, where is the positive in that?

After work, Emily goes to a “dinner party” that Mindy is throwing in her employer’s apartment, without their permission. This is a ridiculously dumb thing to do, but it’s even dumber to throw an actual party party, which is, in fact, what Mindy does. Based on this show’s vibe so far, though, I doubt her actions will have consequences.

Emily arrives at the party carrying the same ugly bag from the last episode, only in a different color (colors?). She meets a man named Fabien, who I think we’re supposed to find attractive, but he’s not, and they leave the party together. The conversation between the two is horrible and awkward, even before Fabien tells her that he “likes American pussy.” Because pussy is unarguably the worst term for the vagina, Emily gets disgusted and leaves.

In the final scene, I was shocked to see Emily was wearing an actually cute outfitinstead of her usual monstrosity. To close the episode, in what seems to be an attempt to prove he isn’t sexist, Adrien sends Emily, a woman who works for him, lingerie. I sincerely hope the next episode starts with her suing him, but somehow, I doubt it.

[cait-with-luv]

J.JK Soul Ink - Chapter 12

Previous | Next

¬ Walk The Line - Halsey

For hours you and Jimin sat in the living room catching up on the years you had missed with each other.  Jimin had told you that an old woman had took him when she noticed him wandering the streets with silent tears streaming down his face. She had held him in her arms reassuring he was safe with her and she will keep him safe until he was able to care for himself. He still visits her when he has the time.

There was a lot of tears and a lot of laughter. But your hearts were heavy as you realised you both had lost the chance to grow up together and that you had lost your parents. You were each others only blood family and you intended of protecting each other.

"So what was life like for you?" Jimin asked as your laughter settled. The smile fell of your face and Jimin knew it wasn't easy. The atmosphere filled with tension. You looked down nervously and shrugged playing with your fingers.

"The first what? 5 years I think, Beom-Seok would just ignore me, give me the cold shoulder, I was a kid I didn't know what I had done. At first I thought it was because he was mourning Mom but then it progressively got worse as I got older and I just knew he had a problem with me. By the time I was 15 I was arguing back, it'd earn me a hit and the same saying, 'don't talk back to your superior bitch'. Made me realize how very sexist he was. Thought women were and should be maids, stay at home and look after kids and follow orders of men. The typical old fashioned kinda dickhead." You explained still not looking up.

You feel Jimin place a hand on your shoulder and you look up and he gives you a small smile and you continue,

"As soon as I turned 18 that was it, abuse got worse, the control got worse, choosing the way my life should be to satisfy him like who I should marry, when I should have kids, making sure it was a boy once I was pregnant. I always turned it into an argument, rebelling A LOT some things to piss him off, some to just feel some control over my own life. I felt like a marionette and he was the marionettist. I was slowly losing my mind. Irene was the only thing keeping me grounded."

You let out a laugh as you remember how you met Irene.

"I met Irene when were 19, I'll never forget it, that's a story for another day."  You chuckle.

"I know it's been 3 days since I met you all b-but I feel like meeting you all kind of saved my life and I don't know how to thank you for that. I-I'm so scared of him Jimin" You say nervously.

Jimin pulls you into him and hugs you tightly and shakes his head.

"You don't have to thank us Butterfly. We were planning on taking Beom-Seok out for ages, we would of met eventually. The rest may not show much but they about you a lot. You're bangtan now, whether you want to stay with us after everything calms down or not. We're always gonna have your back. Besides you're stuck with me for the rest of your life, I have a lot of years of big brother responsibility to catch up on." He teases.

"Oh yeah? And what might the big brother responsibility be?" You say raising an eyebrow and crossing your arms and he chuckles ruffling your hair making you whine in protest.

"Being annoying as possible. Protecting you from dickheads, making sure you never get laid again." Jimin smirks. You gasp and shove his shoulder making him laugh out and throw his head back almost falling off his seat making you burst out laughing.

The laughter settles and he places both of his hands on your head, leaning it down and pressing a kiss to your head making you smile. You look back and he's smiling back at you.

"I love you Butterfly, don't ever forget that okay?" He says softly. You nod and hug him tightly.

"I love you too Mochi."

You both sit in silence until you break as realization sinks in. Your eyes widen and you struggle to get out of your brothers hold.

"Wha-"

"Jungkook! Oh my god he confessed that he cared for me, I need to talk to him!" You say quickly cutting Jimin off, trying to get off the couch but Jimin stops you shaking his head.

"No not yet. I know that kid. He needs to cool of for a while. And he's not great with confrontation. He'll lose his shit as soon as he sees you. He'll be in the gym anyway he ignores everyone that goes in. I have to speak to him too kid." Jimin says. You nod slowly and sit back down reluctantly before glaring at him realizing what he had called you.

"I'm not a kid, I'm a year younger than you." You saying glaring at him. He shakes his head and smirks,

"Don't care still a kid to me."

"Jimin, does Jungkook mean what he meant or was it a spur of a moment kind of thing?" You ask beginning to feel insecure. Jimin purses his lips and shrugs. You pout and nod sadly making Jimin sigh and run a hand through his hair.

"The thing with Jungkook is, he has a lot and I mean a lot of penned up anger so he basically has anger issues and is a ticking time bomb. It makes him unpredictable and impulsive. He'll spew a shit ton of words and the leave you clueless as to if he actually meant them or not but the thing is after he calms down and goes over what he has said, he doesn't even know himself if he meant it or not which knocks him back into a temper tantrum out of frustration which is why I told you to leave him so he can gather his own thoughts and try and realize if he meant them or not. You kind of just learn not to take anything to heart and laugh it off. Jungkook may be 23 but the guy is still a kid in some ways. His childhood was took away from him, he's making up for it in some ways. He was so young when he lost his family. He's had it worse than us all. I can't tell you his story, it's not my place to but he's really sensitive to it. If tells anyone about it, he trusts you with his whole heart that's how we know we can trust a certain person. He's like a little fake or no detector" Jimin explains.

Your heart feels heavy hearing how much turmoil Jungkook has within himself, it makes you slightly guilty that you sometimes pushed him to flip. You bite your lip and nod guiltily.

"He's never been angry at you, you know? Irritated yeah but never angry. You'll know when that kid is angry. It's mostly bantering for him with you. May not feel like it because he takes it too far sometimes but he's really trying. He panics with his emotions, he never knows if he has the right emotion at the right time, like if someone is hurt and he's sad, he wouldn't think that was normal. He has his reasons and we're trying to teach him feeling any emotion is normal. I can assure you though he feels something for you. Whether that be an urge to protect you or he genuinely thinks of you as someone he sees himself with, I don't know. He probably doesn't even know." Jimin says with a small smile. You smile slightly feeling like some weight has been took of your shoulders.

"I guess that's why we can clash. I'm always angry and I can take things too far." You laugh humorlessly.

"Do you care for him?" Jimin blurts out taking you back and blink rapidly.

"What?" You ask in confusion.

"Jungkook? Do you care for him?" Jimin elaborates.

You sigh and shrug.

"I don't know Chim. I look at him and sometimes I'm like, god, I could just strangle the fucker." You laugh shaking your head making Jimin snicker and then you turn back serious.

"But then sometimes I look at him and my heart flutters and I feel warm and really nervous and all I can think is, god I just want to kiss him. Then I remember I've known him for 3 days. I can't like him that fast, there's no way. This guy has tried nothing but to piss me off, I should hate him. B-But I can't." You explain lying your head on Jimin's lap and he begins to play with your hair.

"Ever heard of fate? Love at first sight? You love that brat don't you?" Jimin says smiling.

"I've never believed in love at first sight but I might start having to b-because I think I might love him." You say mostly to yourself but Jimin hears and smiles.

Your conversation ended and you sat in silence just enjoying each others presence, eventually both falling asleep. But little did you both know...

The focus of the conversation was stood right outside the door listening to every word.

He slides down the wall, his hands covering his face, knees to check and he whispers to himself finally letting his denial go,

I love her.

------------

A week.

A whole week Jeon Jungkook had been avoiding you. At first you thought it was him gathering his thoughts just like your brother had told you but now you were beginning to doubt that. In fact you knew he was just avoiding you on purpose, you had noticed he had very quickly solved things with Jimin and your anger was slowly boiling. Each time he'd see you, he'd walk the opposite way, if you called out his name, he'd pretend he didn't hear you.

You had done nothing wrong that day for him to avoid you this long. Sure may feel embarrassed about the sudden words he spoke but leaving the situation to build worse ones was a stupid idea. You needed to talk to him and solve things. Even if it means locking in him a room.

And that's exactly what you were going to do. You were done being ignored and left questioning yourself. The boys had noticed the peace in the house and the tension between you both. They had refused to get involved in fear they'd lose their lives to you or the maknae. Maybe even both of you. And as weird as it sounds, you were kinda missing your bickering with Jungkook.

It was late and you lay in bed unable to sleep. You sit up and check your phone,

3:26 am

You groan and fall back down. You lie silently staring up at the ceiling until you remember Jimin mentioning a gym that was downstairs. You sit up and put on some shoes, grabbing your water bottle, before silently walking out your room hoping you don't wake anyone.

Once you found the gym you look around in awe. It was like any normal gym except there was a target practice in the corner. You find a punching bag and some hand wraps lying next to it untidily. You pick them up and wrap your hands just like your coach in kickboxing hand taught you. Once they felt tight enough you throw a practice punch at the bag before progressively making them quicker then more effort.

You were bouncing on your feet and then you began to kick it making sure to use all your strength. You were so concentrated you didn't notice you had company until you span to do a reverse roundhouse kick. You gasp and hold a hand to your hand to your heart.

"Jungkook." You say panting. He stares for a minute before trying to silently walk out but you stop him. You weren't letting him get away.

"Jeon Jungkook you better turn your ass back around and talk to me because next time I have to try talk to you, I'm not gonna be as nice." You say firmly and he freezes before slowly turning back to you and not looking up.

"We need to talk." You say taking a sip from you water wiping some sweat from your face. He nods and mumbles,

"I know..."

You toss your water aside and cross your arms staring at him waiting to talk but he doesn't say anything so you sigh.

"I'll start then shall I?" You say and Jungkook shakes his head rapidly.

"N-Not here, come with me to one of our rooms? There's cameras in here and I don't trust my hyungs."  

You nod and pull the hand wraps off and grab your water before following him back upstairs and he walks into your room making you realize he wanted to talk as private as possible since the boys rarely come in your room. You shut your door silently and then turn to Jungkook who sat on the edge of your bed. You take him and your cheeks redden slightly as you finally realize he's sat with just shorts and sneakers on. No shirt. You try your best not to check him out but Jungkook notices and smirks.

"Take a picture it'll last longer."

You glare at him and he clears his throat and looks down.

"I didn't mean to upset you by avoiding you. I-I was just, I didn't know how to approach you and mainly because I'm shit with facing stuff like this head on." He says nervously and you nod.

"I understand I just wished you actually spoke to me. I thought I'd done something wrong." You sigh and he nods.

"I don't handle emotions well if you didn't notice. I-I don't know what to do half the time. I wanted to talk I did but I thought I was doing what was best for us. It pisses me off so much that I don't realize until last minute that I'm wrong." Jungkook says growing frustrated and you try to calm him down not wanting him to wake up the other and break something.

"It's okay, we're talking now right?" You say softly taking a seat next to him.

He nods gulping and looks down to his hands.

"W-when Jimin hyung and I was arguing last week I could feel my anger rising and I just blurted it out. I didn't know I said what I said until Jin hyung called me out on it, that's when I realized what I had said. I didn't  even know if what I had said was true. I always force myself into denial for ages because I'm stubborn and don't know if what I feel is true or a spur of the moment thing." Jungkook says.

"I feel this kind of love hate towards you, some days I just wanna piss you off and then some days I just want to pin you against the wall and kiss you." He says biting his lip ring. Your breath hitches and you look down cheeks going rosy.

"I get conflicted and I end up pissing us both off and nearly kissing you. I'm surprised you haven't punched me yet from my mood swings." Jungkook laughs dryly.

"I-I heard you and Jimin hyung talking last week about me. Not intentionally, I was getting myself some water and I heard the two of you. It made me finally realize," Jungkook says nervously turning to you. He looks into your eyes and your chest tightens.

"I do care for you. So much. I think that's why it pisses me off because I've never felt like this towards someone before. Y/N I-I think I love you." He says nervously his doe eyes staring at you. Despite exterior being tough from the tattoos and piercings you could tell is interior he was just this big ball of fluff who's innocence was ripped away from him to young.

You both sat in silence for a minute and Jungkook begins to get nervous thinking he had took her love for him the wrong way. He goes to speak but his eyes widen when he feels your soft lips on his. His heart flutters and lets out a sigh of relief against your lips. His lip ring cold against your bottom lip. His eyes flutter shut and he pulls you onto his lap, legs wrapping around his small waist, arms wrapped around the back of his neck tugging his hair lightly making him groan.

His hands rest on your hips and he squeezes them making you gasp. He takes this opportunity and slips his tongue into your mouth and you both fight for dominance. You got a little surprised when he let you win you expected him to win. He slides his hands up your body making you shiver as he made contact with your bare skin. His hands then begins to slip under your crop top and you arch your back moaning at the feeling of his calloused hands. His grip tightens as he feels you push your chest against his.

His hands go back to the edge of your crop top and he tugs it, wanting you he wanted it off. He pulls it up and you lift your arms up so he can pull it off. He throws it to the floor and stares at you in awe. His begins to kiss down your neck, he stops at the base of your neck and begins to nip and suck on the sensitive skin making you let out a small wince from the pain. He stops when he satisfied and continues to kiss down to your collarbone making you gasp and tighten your grip on his hair making him stop and let out a whine. Okay so he likes his being pulled you thought to yourself.

He starts to sniffle and then you feel your skin of you shoulder getting wet. Your eyes widen as you realized he was crying. You grab the sides of his face and your heart melts at the sight of his red nose and eyes. You caress his cheek and he leans into your touch still sniffling.

"Jungkookie..." You coo placing your forehead against his and he sighs in content, his arms wrapping around you, wanting to hold you close.

"I-I'm sorry, I'm just overwhelmed. I-I haven't felt this loved in a long time and I-I've never really loved anyone before." He stutters. You pout and shake your head.

"Hey it's okay, don't apologize, I understand you baby." You say softly. His eyes lighten at the sound of the nickname you had called him.

"You called me baby." He says smiling making you giggle and nod. You felt honored that he was showing you this side to him.

"I've not had an easy life and I still have demons that haunt me to this day and I hope you accept me for that." He says quietly and you press a kiss to his forehead.

"We all have our demons Kook, it's okay."

"I-I want you to know me better if we're gonna be together Y/N. I want your trust." He says. You give him a small smile and shake your head,

"You already have it."

He smiles and nods but continues and the smiles fade off your faces when the conversation became serious.

"I was only 5 when I lost my parents. I didn't have an family to go to, I-I got chucked into an orphanage and then took in by my estranged uncle a year later when he found out my mother and father had died. I thought that now I had family to go to I'd be okay but boy was I so wrong. From day one he tried turning me into a stone hearted killer. Feel nothing but anger and pleasure of killing. That's why I'm so shit with emotions I was taught to not feel, to switch them off. It almost worked too." Jungkook says tears welling up in his eyes.

"Beom-Seok had locked us up for ages. He'd beat my father making us all watch. Then he'd turn on my mother, then me. I thought I was gonna die. One day though he had really beaten me up, I couldn't move, it hurt to breathe. I remember my mom holding me and my dad holding us both, they thought I was going to die that night. My mom was crying telling me take small breaths instead of big ones. My dad hand on my head saying everything was going to be okay, that he was going to get me out of there. My mom and dad knew they were going to die. They didn't want the same fate for me. They told me to play dead and once I had the chance run. When the one of the workers came in, I lay so still in my moms arms as she cried. She was pretending to mourn me but I knew she was crying because it would be the last time she'd see me." Jungkook whimpers.

Your eyes begin to tear up hearing his voice strain and break as he reminisced. He tries to avoid eye contact but you hold his face in your hands and mumble,

"You don't have to carry on if it upsets you too much."

He shakes his head and carries on,

"My mum and dad were mumbling they loved me so much and that they hope I stay safe. I remember being ripped out of my moms arms. I felt sick. Once I felt the breeze and cold breathe the fresh air, I elbowed the worker in the stomach and ran as fast as I could a-and you know the rest." He croaks and fresh tears streaming down his face. You sit in silence as you let him calm down. He stares at you and whimpers out,

"Please don't leave me. I've lost to much. No matter how much of a dick I'll be, please don't leave me."

You shake your head biting your lip to stop yourself crying. You pull him into a hug and he lays his head on your chest and kiss the top of his head and rub his back and whisper to him,

"I'm not going anywhere."

[duhragonball]

Describing Stuff

I’ve had this rattling around in my brain for a while, and I’ve got the day off and I’m trying to get used to this ergonomic keyboard I bought, so I figure I’ll write about this for a while.

Recently, I’ve been seeing more examples of really terrible writing where a male author describes a female character, and they seem to go out of their way to make it awkward and creepy and weird.   I don’t really feel like quoting any excerpts here, but you can find all sorts of examples on Twitter @men_write_women .

I feel like the common thread with all the ones I’ve seen is this compulsion to describe a woman in exhausting detail.  It always seems to boil down to how sexy the woman is, and why exactly she’s sexy, or what flaws she has that disqualify her from being sexy.   It’s sexist, because the emphasis is on the character as a sex fantasy for the author, and presumably the reader.   If the character has any other purpose in the story, it’s going to be undermined by a 500-word treatise on what her boobs look like.  It also insults and dismisses a sizable portion of the audience that, you know, may not be that into boobs.  

Writing is about setting priorities.  People talk about unlimited creative freedom and building entire universes at the point of their humble quills, and that’s horseshit.   Writing is all about deciding which parts of your daydream to keep and which to leave out.  You can’t capture every tiny detail of a character, or and object, or a scene.   Even if you could, it would take too long to document it all, and the reality is that the reader’s not going to parse that much information anyway.   So you have to decide which parts are important and which ones aren’t.    And if you blow 1,000 words trying to explain why breasts are cool, you’re sending a message to the reader about what your priorities are.    The message is: “I’m horny right now, and my libido is more important to me than this character or your enjoyment of the story.”   I don’t think that’s the message authors want to send.  

There’s also probably some ego bound up in this.   Every excerpt I see on @men_write_women seems to be completely unaware of any of the others.  It’s like each writer has deluded himself into thinking he’s the first person to try to describe sexy ladies in print.  That, or they think it’s been done before, but never quite right.  I sense such an enthusiasm whenever I read these things, like the author is going to pull out all the stops and come up with this literary salute to badonkadonk.  And it always ends up looking absurd, because they overthink it.    How can they not overthink it?   They're trying to come up with an extra-special description of something people see all the time.   I’m pretty sure that’s how the word “badonkadonk” was invented, because no existing words were sufficient.   

I’m going to talk about professional wrestling here in a minute, but first, let’s class the joint up by looking at the poem “Trees” by Alfred Joyce Kilmer.

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

It’s that last line that made me think of the poem just now, because Kilmer recognized that he could never hope to recreate the beauty of a tree in mere words.  At best, he could only string together a few lines to remind people of how nice trees look, which is an achievement in itself, but it’s never going to be as good as the real thing.   If poems about trees can be beautiful, then how much more beautiful a poem is the tree itself?

But look at all the stuff he leaves out.   He doesn’t mention the trunk at all, or the rough texture of the bark, or the way the leaves turn color in the fall.   That’s because Kilmer wasn’t writing a monograph about the appearance of a tree for space aliens who’ve never seen one.     He was making the assumption that his readers were already familiar with trees and referencing imagery they might have seen before.

I think the same trick can be applied to women (or any humans for that matter), since readers can be trusted to know what they look like.    I also think it’s safe to assume that the inherent beauty of humans is comparable to that of trees, so a quick, simple description can be plenty.  

That’s kind of my approach to this sort of thing.   I’ve always struggled with describing things in stories, mainly because I would see these lengthy, detailed descriptions in books, and I thought I was supposed to imitate that and couldn’t really pull it off.  But eventually I realized that I didn’t need to, and maybe I’m better off if I don’t even try.   One of the stories that clinched this for me was “Gold” by Isaac Asimov.   The main character is contracted to make a movie adaptation out of a book, which happens to resemble another Asimov story, The Gods Themselves.   The problem is that the aliens in the book are sparingly described, so the guy has no idea where to begin.   Through the author character, Asimov defends his own writing style, opting to keep things fairly abstract, and relying on the reader to fill in the gaps. 

I could relate to this, because when I read Les Miserables in high school,  I couldn’t get past Jean Valjean’s name, because it reminded me of Jean Paul-Valley, the DC Comics character who filled in as Batman while Bruce Wayne was injured in 1993-1994.   Try as I might, I could not shake the image of Valjean trudging through the novel in an armored Batman costume.    So eventually I stopped trying, and ran with it.   I have no idea what Valjean was supposed to have looked like.   Victor Hugo might have described him, but I only ever imagined a young man with long blond hair and glasses.    Wearing an armored Batman costume.  

I’m not sure exactly when I put it all together, but eventually I realized that it’s all theater of the mind, and ultimately the reader is going to imagine whatever the reader wants, regardless of what you put on the page.  If you say this guy wore blue and the reader likes red better, they’ll just start imagining it’s red.   They may know factually that it’s blue, but you can’t stop them from making that switch.    Now, knowing that, doesn’t it seem a bit futile to describe exactly what shade of blue it is?    You can pontificate about the profundity of the color blue, and how the guy’s shirt was the color of the ocean on a blustery afternoon off the shore of Maine, but your reader is like “Nah, mate, I like red better”, then you’re probably wasting words.

I’m not saying it’s pointless to specify details.  If a reader was completely unwilling to cooperate with your story, then they’re probably not reading it in the first place.   But I think writers need to make peace with the fact that readers are looking for cues and stage directions for their imaginations, not immutable details.   That’s why it’s so important to prioritize.   Take the most important details and get them out there up front, when the reader is most receptive to them.   Boob size is not important.    If boob size is one of the top three details for your character, then you either haven’t finished creating the character, or you probably don’t actually have any use for the character.

Just to demonstrate what I mean, I’m going to try to write a description of AEW referee Aubrey Edwards, as if she were a fictional character in a story.   I wasn’t sure what to use for an example, but I watched All Out Saturday and she officiated the main event, so I decided to go with her.     That’s her on the left, but I probably didn’t need to tell you that, since I think we all know how to spot a referee.

Now, first and foremost, if I were writing a story about a wrestling match, I probably wouldn’t bother mentioning the referee much at all.   Their whole role in these events is to be as inconspicuous as possible.   They just enforce the rules; it’s the wrestlers who are supposed to be the main attraction.   I’d probably just keep it simple.  

“The referee was a woman, but Dirk Hardcastle paid little mind to her.   His main concern lay in the competitors, and which of them, if either was his archnemesis, Tad Plowshare, in disguise.”    

Or I might not even go that far, and just use “she/her” pronouns whenever the referee is mentioned.  I want the reader to think about where Tad Plowshare is, not the referee.

Of course, if the big twist is that the ref is important, then I have to go into a little more detail, because now she’s in the spotlight. 

“It couldn’t be.   Dirk knew it had to be true from the way she looked directly at him and smiled deviously.   He would recognize that sinister grin on a thousand different faces.    But he had already ruled out the officials and production staff as suspects.   He had been so certain of this that he had ignored the referee completely, but she was definitely the one.   And now that it was too late, Tad Plowshare dropped the act entirely.  She pulled off the tie that held her brunette ponytail in place, and removed the black nitrile gloves from her hands.    Only moments ago, her expressions and movements had been those of a consummate professional, focused entirely upon adjudicating the match.   Her bright red lipstick had been the only sign that she had any sort of personal life outside of her work.    Now, as she laughed in triumph, the red on her lips only reminded Hardcastle of the blood of thousands of innocents, which would soon be spilled as a consequence of his failure.”

Maybe I’m laying this on too thick, but the core things I’m trying to convey about Edwards are her no-nonsense attitude, the way she wears her hair in a ponytail, and the red lipstick she wears, which seems to contradict her serious demeanor.   I wouldn’t even bother describing her referee uniform, because everyone has a general idea of what those look like.      The other night, I found it kind of odd how the stripes on AEW’s refs look wider than what I’m used to seeing, but a lot of wrestling refs don’t even wear stripes at all, so it really doesn’t matter a lot.   I’d probably only bring it up if there was a need to mention variations in uniform.    Like if she was officiating water polo instead.

What I don’t need to spend a lot of time on is her figure.  I don’t see much point in talking about how fat or thin she is unless I plan to have her crawl through a ventilation shaft, and then I could just confine it to “She fit”.   And that doesn’t tell you anything because you don’t know how big the ductwork is.  

Physical attractiveness is something I try to shy away from, because I figure that’s a subjective thing, and I don’t see much point in trying to cram my own standards down anyone’s throat.   I don’t think it does much good to just declare that such-and-such character is attractive; it’s better to have another character do it instead, and that way it says something about both characters. This one finds the other one to be hot.   If I want examples of what they find so hot in the other character, I’ll try to keep it vague.    “Well, Dirk Hardcastle has a cute chin.   What’s cute about it?  Who knows?   Who cares?   The character who’s admiring his chin, that’s who.   But why should it need to be explained in greater depth than that.  

The handy thing about this approach is that it leaves large swaths of Dirk’s body open to interpretation.    He could look like a troll doll and still have a “cute chin”.  He could have chest hair or not, be chubby or skinny, and so forth.   So if you want to join in the notion that he’s attractive, you can rule in your own type, whatever that is.    

I don’t know if that’s making any sense, but that’s how I try to approach it.   When I read these long things about knife-like boobs or gentle slopes of buttcracks or whatever, it annoys me because it feels like whoever wrote that was losing a game they never should have bothered trying to play.   All they needed to do was have the character who’s looking at this woman be like “Wow, this is the hottest lady I’ve ever seen” or something like that, describe whatever sexy dress she’s got on (briefly), and you’re done.     And only do that when you need to.   Dirk Hardcastle doesn’t have time to size up all the ladies, not while that bastard Tad Plowshare’s running loose.

[lykegenia]

The Things We Hide Ch. 27

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

With the six of them, Appa’s saddle was crowded. True, the avatar sat on the beast’s head to guide him, but the rest had to be squashed among their supplies, which after the first day had been stacked up at the front of the saddle to offer them some protection from the wind. It was closer quarters than Zuko would have liked. He was all but buried between Sokka and Toph, whose nausea had yet to settle. Katara sat at the corner of his eye with her hair loose and blown back by the wind, with the chain of sea-wolf teeth braided into it like a coronet. She hugged her knees for most of the trip, and aside from the odd petty exchange with her brother, during the day with very little to do, she mostly kept her thoughts to herself. 

At first, he thought it a facade employed so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but after a few days of watching her easy cheeriness in camp, he detected a forced note in her manners towards the others, as if she were humouring them – and none of them seemed to notice. Or perhaps, he decided as they swooped low over the countryside, they were so used to seeing this version of Katara that they didn’t realise it was an act. In the fire nation she had been clever, and cultured, and determined, and even though she had turned those talents against him – his blood still boiled to think about it – seeing her hide those parts of herself away left something unsettled in him, like seeing a delicate silk painting left out in the rain. 

Not that it mattered. She had avoided him ever since he had joined the group by the campfire. Her behaviour was fine with him, really, when there were so many other things to think about, such as his impending reunion with the Fire Lord, or how the combined weight of their group and their provisions meant the sky bison was flying slower than he should be on the winding, circuitous route they were taking towards the coast. 

The avatar, at least, seemed to agree with him.

“Guys, I don’t think Appa can take another day of flying like this,” he announced when they landed that night. “Not if we want to make it across the ocean.” 

“And we’re all so looking forward to that,” Toph grumbled as she carefully felt her way down the beast’s leg. “And eugh, we’re on sand. Of-sodding-course. Excuse me while I go and throw up.” 

The others climbed down from the saddle with varying degrees of stiffness after the long, cramped hours of flying. They had stopped on a crescent beach of greyish sand, surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs obscured at the top by vegetation. The dying light shone through the waves that curled onto the shore, and birds called to each other as they settled down to roost. 

Sokka rubbed feeling back into his legs. “If we dump most of the gear can we make up the time? We’re already three days behind schedule.” 

“Appa’s an animal, not a ship,” Aang replied. “You can’t just unload him and make him go faster. He gets tired.” 

“So do the rest of us, but if we don’t defeat the Fire Lord –” 

“Better to get to the Fire Nation late than not at all,” Suki interrupted. “And we might as well leave the camping stuff here anyway. There aren’t many places in the middle of the ocean to pitch a tent.” 

Sokka flashed her a goofy grin. “Good point. You’re so smart.” 

“I know,” she replied, brushing her fingers over the carved necklace at her throat. 

“I might go and join Toph in throwing up,” Katara muttered. 

“I’ll remember you said that when you start fawning over some brawny jerkbender,” her brother teased. “And then I’d have to knock him out, since you’re my sister and everything.” 

“You couldn’t knock out your back,” she snapped, cheeks darkening. She did not look at Zuko. “I’m going to catch us some dinner. If someone else could unload Appa and get a fire started that would be lovely.” 

A stunned silence fell as she marched away. 

“Hey Sokka, I think you said something,” Aang joked, when still nobody spoke. 

Sokka huffed. “Waterbenders. It’s probably something to do with the moon – ow! What was that for?” 

“Being a sexist pig-chicken,” Suki retorted, as she batted him on the arm. “‘I’ll have to knock him out’ – honestly. And that was before you started bringing moon cycles into it.” 

“Hey, it’s a big brother’s duty to defend a little sister’s honour. Prince Hothead!” he called, looking for support. “You’ve got a sister, right? Tell the mean lady it’s our job to be protective.” 

Zuko, who had already climbed back into Appa’s saddle and started untying the guide ropes, kept his voice carefully neutral as he answered. “If I ever tried to ‘protect’ Azula like that, she’d probably set me on fire. You should count yourself lucky.” 

“Yeesh. Your family has problems, buddy.” 

With a frown, Zuko turned back to his task. The light was nearly gone now, and though he could probably use his bending to see, the knots would be awkward to undo with only one hand. He paused to try and work out if he could approach them from another angle, but when he glanced up to shake his hair out of his eyes, all thought of knots and ropes went out of his head at the sight of Katara.  

She stood almost hip-deep in the sea, poised in a starting stance while the waves broke around her. As he watched, she lifted her hands and raised a column of water, then in a graceful turn drew a stream out from the mass that contained a sinuous, glittering mass – a young elephant koi, he realised. The creature struggled, twisting on itself to get back to the safety of the sea floor, but her power held it absolutely, and as she turned and brought it back to shore, the water flowed away from her legs like the falling petals of a flower. 

Someone shifted beside him; he hadn’t even heard Suki approach. 

“You were staring,” she said, offering a bland smile. 

He swallowed, and hoped the failing light hid the burn in his cheeks. “The first time I saw her bend, she sank three of my father’s warships by herself.” He glanced at the warrior as she let out an appreciative whistle. “I’ve never seen someone with that much control over their element, not even Azula. I was taught that firebending is superior to other kinds of bending, which was why we deserved to win the war, why we were winning. But it’s not true.” 

Until the words were spoken, he hadn’t recognised them. His frown deepened, thinking back to the past weeks at the temple, and the training sessions with his uncle in the early morning where nobody could see. The old man had chided him for forgetting his root, his breath, and had sighed at the predictability of his form. 

It is good to take wisdom from many different places, he had said. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. It is not the use of the four elements that makes the avatar so powerful, but his understanding of them.  

“I’ve found people from the Water Tribe tend to have that effect,” Suki replied, with a fond look over her shoulder. “Help me with this.” She set her hands to the knots, and Zuko, catching the idea, ignited a small flame in his palm to help her see. For a moment they worked in silence, until the main ropes holding their supplies went slack. Beneath them, Appa had started snoring. 

“When Sokka’s fleet first arrived in my village, we were neutral in the war. Avatar Kyoshi separated us from the mainland so we wouldn’t have to suffer outside conflict, and we tried our best to follow her example.” She smiled. “And then this young, hotheaded warrior limped his ship into my harbour, and I realised that by isolating ourselves, we were only waiting for the war to come to us, and the longer we waited, the worse it would be. Kyoshi would have kept the peace, and we dishonoured her memory by not trying to help, so we decided to leave the island and join the avatar.” 

“Our people think of honour differently,” he replied, scowling.  

“How so?” 

For an instant, he considered telling her everything, about his banishment and his cut hair and the sting of betrayal, but it would be an admission too far, a tenuous lie while the idea still churned in his mind that by bringing the avatar to the Fire Nation, his father’s approval was in his grasp. 

“We should have Toph bury what we don’t need,” he said instead. “The Fire Nation sends patrols out in airships and they’d spot it otherwise.” 

He was quiet for most of the next morning as they set out across the ocean. They had left everything on the beach but their weapons and just enough bundles of dried food to sustain them for the two days it would take to cross to the tail-tip of the Fire Nation archipelago, and with Appa fed on alfalfa mixed with high energy seeds, they were making good time. By early afternoon they saw the first Fire Navy ships low on the horizon, outliers for the main blockade. 

“We should’ve called in some of ours for a diversion,” Sokka grumbled as they passed overhead. “Do you think they saw us?” 

“Better to assume they have and expect the worst,” Zuko answered. 

Toph sighed from her place clinging to the edge of the saddle. “Excellent advice from the ray of sunshine. Can someone tell me what’s going on?” 

“We’re at the blockade,” Katara supplied. “And we have a plan. Take us down.” 

“Down?” 

But Aang only nodded. “Way ahead of you, Katara – Appa, yip-yip!” 

Groaning, the sky bison dipped towards the sea as the blockade appeared as a line of specks on the horizon. He gained momentum with broad sweeps of his tail until the wind streamed in their eyes. Behind them, a rocket screeched into the sky, exploding in a shower of sparks. The Fire Nation had seen them after all. 

“Uh, Katara...” 

“I’ve got this.” 

As Appa levelled out, pulling up just in time for his toes to skim the waves, Katara rose to her feet in a bending stance, twisting her feet so they rooted to the saddle, encased to the calf in ice. She reached out behind her, scooping mist from the surface of the water and fanning it so it billowed out before them, until only the lap of the water beneath Appa gave them any orientation at all. 

Zuko turned to Sokka, his expression grim. “The navy knows waterbenders use fog to hide their approach. They’ll know we’re coming.” 

As if on cue, a fireball exploded over their heads, lighting the fog with a flare of orange. Appa roared and swerved to dodge the missile, and scuffed up spray as his forequarter collided with a wave. 

“They would’ve seen us coming anyway,” Sokka replied, clinging to the saddle. Another fireball detonated, closer this time. “But this way, they won’t see where we’re going.” 

“Look out!” 

Suki’s shout came almost too late. The fog parted for a ball of flame headed straight for them. Katara twisted and threw an arm up with a spike of ice to catch it and the fireball smashed into it. The force of the impact broke her stance and sent her to her knees with a snarl.  

“Katara –” 

Shouts echoed through the fog, a whip-crack orders accompanied by the turning of gears and the soft whoosh of pitch igniting. Appa bellowed again and an instant later, he was drowned out by the telltale crunch of trebuchets being launched. 

“Katara, we have to dive!” Sokka yelled. 

“We can’t,” she shot back. “We won’t have enough air, and we can’t afford to surface too close in case they spot us.” 

“That won’t matter if we’re dead!” 

“Too late!”  

She braced herself as the fireballs tore through the air. Aang struggled to steer Appa with one hand, while his staff waited in the other like a bat ready to swing. Even with two of them, they could never hope to repel every one. Zuko saw this in slow motion, just like he saw the fog dissipating as Katara’s focus shifted to defence, sweat on her brow, and he saw the water swirling beneath them, and Toph’s blind eyes wide with fear knowing there was a threat and no way to react to it. He wasn’t aware of moving, of sliding into a stance, of summoning fire – not until it burst from his fists and shattered the oncoming projectiles like confetti. 

Katara stared at him. 

“Focus on keeping our cover,” he barked. “I’ll shoot any that come too close while the av– Aang steers us through the worst of it.” 

“I...” She blinked. “Right.” 

He turned away, scanning the air above them as she rooted herself once more, and then the mist drew in, enclosing them utterly. Aang wove a serpentine path just above the water, non-direct like his element, and without a clear target the Fire Nation ships floundered, spitting fireballs into the air at random more with the hope of hitting something than anything else. Only a few veered close enough to do damage, but Zuko shot them down. The foreign shouts grew louder. 

Something reared on their left side, a hulking shadow behind a wall of white, close enough that Appa had to roll sideways to avoid it. The movement was too steep, however, and he crashed into the water with an impact that rattled everyone aboard to their teeth. 

“Did we get something?” a nervous voice called from above. 

“I heard a splash!” 

Katara let go of the fog. “Now, Aang!” 

The avatar nodded and stood, matching her movements. Together, they swept arcs of water overhead, weaving it like a cocoon. Appa panicked as they sank, struggling at the unfamiliar suck on his limbs, and for an instant it seemed the bubble would burst. 

“Keep him calm,” Katara ground out, holding the weight of the water on one arm. 

“Easy, buddy. Everything’s going to be alright.” 

They went under. The world around them dimmed to murky shadows pressing close, distorted and silent through the screen of water as they passed under the blockade. Above them, the churn of rotor blades throbbed like a heartbeat until Katara, with a grim, satisfied smile, reached up and froze them solid. 

“Congratulations, Sweetness,” Toph groaned. “You’ve managed to make flying worse.” 

They kept on for what seemed like ages. Both Katara and Aang used their bending to help Appa power through the water, though they struggled to keep his natural buoyancy in check. The light filtering through from above painted shafts of crystalline blue onto the void around them, and into the occasional flash of scales as shoals of fish darted past. To look down was to be filled with an ominous sense of vertigo, but not in the same way as flying through the air. Then, at least, the eye had reference points and perspective to make sense of what it saw, but here there was nothing but a void of ever increasing darkness that loomed up to swallow anyone who stared at it for too long. Zuko pulled his eyes away, lightheaded, itching under the weight of it. 

“Katara...” he breathed. 

“Not now.” 

He shook his head. “Your nose is bleeding.” 

“I can handle it,” she snapped. 

But the others were drawing in too, their concern far more welcome than his alarm. 

Sokka placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “We should be far enough away now. As long as we don’t take off, we shouldn’t be seen.” 

“Appa’s fur is pretty waterlogged by now, I’m not sure he could take off,” Aang offered. 

“Who cares if we can fly?” Toph interrupted. “Has anyone else noticed we’re running out of air?” 

Faced with agreement from all sides, Katara nodded and changed her movements. At first there was little change, but gradually the water around them brightened, with rippled shadows taking definition as light became sky and the ocean fell away. Then, about ten feet from the surface, Appa realised what was happening and threw off Aang’s steady hand on the reins. He bellowed and surged upward with a stroke of his tail. The sudden movement was too much for Katara’s shaking legs. She collapsed to her knees, losing her hold on the bubble of air, and the weight of the water met the smack of force as they surfaced – it swept them away like leaves before a storm – and then the ringing in their ears bled into the disorienting screech of seabirds and a rough breeze that stung their faces like sandpaper. 

“Is everyone alright?” Sokka asked. 

There were murmurs of assent from various corners of the saddle, and a groan from Appa, shaking his head to clear the water from his eyes. 

“No sign of the Fire Nation,” Suki supplied. “We did it.” 

“Not until we reach land, we haven’t,” Toph reminded her. “Is Katara alright?” 

Sokka turned to find his sister sprawled with her legs stretched out in front of her, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers, with the clotted blood from her nosebleed still lingering on her upper lip. 

“I’m fine,” she said.  

Aang settled next to her. “That was almost avatar-level bending. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.” 

“You were busy with Appa,” she replied. “We all saw how well it went when he panicked.” 

“He’s sorry too. Hey – you know what you need? One of the cinnamon buns Sifu Hotman packed for us! They should be –” He trailed off to find Zuko already handing him the waxed packet containing the sweet treats, and with a grin he turned back to Katara. 

“Thanks, Aang, but I’m feeling a little dizzy right now.” 

“That’s why you need to eat.” He rocked back on his heels and contorted his face into a scholarly, old-man expression complete with a stroke of an imaginary beard. “A master knows to master themselves before they can master the mastery of their element,” he told her in a wheezy but recognisable impression of Iroh. “And the most masterful way to master the self is to master your hunger, master Katara!” 

“If I didn’t know you better I’d swear you practiced that,” she managed, relenting as he waved the basket under her nose. The buns did smell delicious. “Fine. But you have to tell Appa to keep swimming.” 

“Deal!” 

“Thank you.” She glanced aside as she said this, but Zuko was facing away from her, towards the horizon ahead, and didn’t appear to notice her regard. 

[hangjie]

secrets. [ richie tozier ]

summary: richie and reader (who is the older twin of eddie) is in a secret relationship, but her family gets in the way

warnings: swearing (from me and the imagine lmao) and some sexist comments. plus, soft richie moments huhu

word count: 1687

author's note: the gif of richie relates to me on a personal level idk lmao. idk what the intro is lmao my mind went blank. i use the pet name "babygirl" all the time bc that's what my friends and family call me lmao (i'm short as fuck, even though i'm the craziest and the loudest in my group HAHAHAHA). there isn't much eddie x sister!reader interaction huhu sorryyy

(y/f/n) - your first name

(y/s/n) - your second name (if you have one)

─── • ° *｡✧ ───

'be in a secretive relationship,' they said. 'it will be fun,' they said.

that's what most people said about secret relationships and now that i'm in one, that phrase is absolute bullshit.

being in a secret relationship is hard as fuck and not to mention, my boyfriend is in my group of friends. you may think that it's not a big deal, but is a big deal if your twin brother is also in that group and if your family is always telling you off that he's not right for you and that he's a bad influence.

after hanging out at the quarry with my friends, we all bid each other goodbye and then some went their separate ways. before eddie and i left, richie pulled me close to him and kissed me on the cheek when everyone was focusing their attention elsewhere.

"see you soon, babygirl," he whispers, making me smile and smack him on the arm. he winces and rubs his arm. "what was that for?" i shrug. "nothing. i just wanted to hit on you." i winked at him and he rolls his eyes, chuckling.

before the others could turn to our direction, i quickly kiss him on the cheek and wave him goodbye, him waving back. i approach eddie and he bids the others one last goodbye before we get on our bikes and cycle back home.

when we were finally home, we leave our bikes on the front lawn and enter the house, immediately seeing mom on the couch, watching tv. "hey mom," we greet her, putting my bag on the ground. "hi babies," she greets back, but doesn't look at us because her eyes were glued to the tv. eddie and i approach mom, kissing her on the cheek and then the landline rings.

i walk to the landline before eddie could, making him huff in annoyance. "come on, sis!" i laugh and stick my tongue out at him. "rotten egg!" he crosses his arms and rolls his eyes at me. "i fucking swear to god, you're like a little kid."

"you're just jealous that i'm the older twin!"

eddie throws his hands up in annoyance. "by five minutes!" i put up a 'l' with my hands and eddie stutters, frustratedly. "you're a loser too!" i then flip him off and he groans, walking away to his room.

the landline continues to ring and i pick it up, greeting the caller with a "hello, kaspbrak household."

"wow. i never heard you be so formal and proper," i hear richie say on the other line and i can imagine the smirk on his face. "don't worry, it's fucking hot." i chuckle.

"hey richie. what's up?"

"nothing much. i just wanted to check if you got home safe." i smile and my heart melts at how caring and sweet richie is, despite his 'bad boy' and 'trashmouth' demeanor. "well, you can hear my voice loud and clear. so, yeah, i'm fine."

"good. i don't want you to be hurt," he says in a soft and calming voice. when he realizes, he clears his throat then goes back to normal. "anyways, you up for the arcade? i'm gonna fucking die of boredom if i stay at home." i groan. "i just got home and we saw each other 5 minutes ago!"

"that's why i called if you got home safely." i cross my arms and huff in annoyance. "you're such an asshole."

"please, (y/n)!" he pleaded. "i'll treat you to some ice cream, if you go with me." i sigh and thought about it for a while.

arcade + ice cream + alone time with your boyfriend? sounds like a deal.

i groan out loud and say, "fine. make it two rounds of ice cream though." i hear richie cheer, making me laugh. "see you in 5 minutes, babygirl." i bid him goodbye and a 'see you' before hanging up.

i grab my bag from the ground and was about to go out, before i hear my mom call for me from the living room. i approach mom, who is still watching tv on the couch and ask her what's wrong. "where are you going?" she asks. "i'm going to the arcade, mom."

"who is with you?"

"no one. it's just me," i lied. "(y/n), who is with you?" mom asks again, but in a much more stern voice. "i told you! it's just me!"

"(y/n), i know that you're lying!" she grabs my arm and pulls me closer to her with a glare on her face. "let me ask you again. who is with you?" i sigh in defeat and look at the ground, whispering, "richie."

"i knew it." she lets go of me harshly, making me stumble on my feet a bit. "so what if i'm hanging out with richie?! he's my best friend!"

"he's not a good boy, (y/n). you know that. plus, he's a boy and you're a girl." she then turns her attention back to the tv. "boys and girls shouldn't be allowed to hang out with each other."

i freeze as my mouth hangs open in shock. i could feel my blood boiling and my irritation grow larger. i tried to hold back my frustration and the temptations to talk back to my mom, but before i knew it, i snapped at her.

"okay, that's enough." i grab the remote control of the tv from mom's hands and turned the tv off. mom gasps in shock and yells angrily, "(y/n) kaspbrak, turn the tv back on right now!" i throw the remote away and cross my arms across my chest.

before mom could say anything next, i angrily say, "first of all, richie is not a bad influence and he's my best friend. second, i am not a slut, if that's what you're implying. third, people can hang out with whoever they want because they have the right to. plus, eddie is a boy and you let me hang out with him!”

“that’s because he’s your brother.”

“who also hangs out with beverly! what makes me hanging out with richie different from hanging out with eddie and the rest of the guys in our group?!” i huff, catching my breath. “just because i don’t have a stick up my ass and i’m not a ‘mommy’s girl’, like eddie, doesn’t mean that you have to treat me like shit.”

before she could say anything next, i turn away from her and adjust the strap of my bag on my shoulder.. “i’m going to the arcade with richie and that’ final.” i began walking away from mom as she calls for me and tries to hold me back.

i quickly dart for my bike and cycle away before mom could get me. i sigh then continued making my way to the arcade.

when i arrived at the arcade, i immediately spotted richie waiting for me beside our favorite game. when he spots me, he waves and was about to say something, but i grab a hold of him and without any hesitation, kissed him. he freezes, but eventually kisses me back, snaking his hands to my waist.

when we pull away, richie looks at me weirdly. “look, you and i both know that i enjoyed that kiss, but mind to tell me why the sudden kiss?” i sigh and open my arms out for a hug. richie coos and pulls me in a tight and comforting hug.

i pressed my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as he rubs my back. “it’s okay, (y/n). it’s okay. you’re okay.”

“just because i don’t kiss her ass, she has to make things harder than it is,” i say, my voice cracking.

richie pulls me away from him and places his hands on the sides of my face. “(y/n), believe me when i say this. you’re one of the most strongest people i’ve ever met and i know that you don’t believe that, but let me say this and i hope that you remember this everyday,”

richie takes a deep breath before confidently saying, “i love you.” i gasp. “i know that we’ve only been together for a couple of months and you don’t have to say it back but-”

“i love you too, richie.”

richie smiles widely then pecks my lips softly. “plus i want to finally show the world that you’re my hot ass girlfriend.”

“then it’s one down and the rest to go,” we hear someone say, making me and richie jump and pull away from each other. we turn to the direction of the voice to see my twin brother. out of all the people in the world, it had to be him.

i groaned. “what is it now?!” i snap, thinking that mom told eddie to go to the arcade to spy on me. “did mom tell you to go here?”

“yeah, but-”

“then tell her that i’m done dealing with her shit.”

“(y/n), i-”

“i’m sorry, eddie. i really am. i just-”

“for fuck’s sake, (y/n). listen to me!” eddie snaps, making me fall silent. “yes, mom did tell me to go here to spy on you and richie, but i’m not telling her shit.” i raise an eyebrow at him and he continues. “when i got here, i noticed that you and richie really care for each other and you both really care for each other. you both make each other happy and i can’t get in the way of your happiness.” eddie approaches me and pulls me in a tight hug. “you’re my sister, my twin and all i want for you is to be happy.”

i feel a tear run down my cheek and i squeeze eddie in my arms. “thank you,” i softly say, smiling..

when we pull away, eddie turns to richie and high fives him. “treat my sister right or else i’m going to beat the shit out of you.” he points a threatening finger at richie who laughs at his attempt to be tough. “you’ll beat me with what? with your fanny pack?” eddie flips him off and bids us goodbye before walking out of the arcade.

once eddie was out of sight, richie turns to me and bows his head down exaggeratedly whilst holding out his hand. “m’lady?” i chuckle and take his hand, approaching our favorite game, hand in hand.

MASTERLIST

[centerofstupidity]

A Walk to Remember Chapter 1 Snark

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Interested in reading the previous A Walk to Remember chapter snarks? They can be found here. 

Next Nicholas Sparks Book Snark: The Rescue 

Chapter summary: We meet a Bible-thumping minister and Landon is a terrible person. Also, the designated love interest is an Angel of the House: innocent, perfect, and pure.

The story is set in Beaufort, North Carolina in 1958.

Landon says that the humidity is so hot in the summer that “walking out to get the mail made a person feel as if he needed a shower.”

People waved from their cars whenever they saw someone on the street whether they knew him or not,

In a Nicholas Sparks, everyone is friendly, good, and God-fearing Christians. (The villain is always one-dimensional.)

They know each other’s business and have lived in town for their entire lives. And news always travels fast in the small town.

Landon says for many people fishing and crabbing is a way of life.

Only three channels came in on the television, though television was never important to those of us who grew up there. Instead our lives were centered around the churches, of which there were eighteen within the town limits alone.

1. Yes, I know that Americans were more religious in the 1950’s. 2. But they still had a life outside of a church and weren’t thinking about Jesus 24/7. 3. People went camping and fishing. They also went to bowling alleys, sock hops, and drive-in movie theaters. 4. For most of the story, Landon isn’t very religious. He goes to church but that’s it. And Landon regards a girl who reads the Bible every day as a weirdo. 5. The only time Landon became religious is when he supposedly fell in love with Jamie. 6. It is important to remember that Nicholas Sparks has writing rules that he won’t break like all of his characters must go to church.  7. And he has said that people without faith are alone, thinking they are the center of the universe. 

Landon rattles off the names and types of Baptist churches in the area.

The big event of the year is a Christmas play sponsored by the Baptist church downtown and the local high school.

The play is written by Hegbert Sullivan, “a minister who’d been with the church since Moses parted the Red Sea."

Okay, maybe he wasn’t that old, but he was old enough that you could almost see through the guy’s skin. It was sort of clammy all the time, and translucent—kids would swear they actually saw the blood flowing through his veins—

Translucent skin… Translu…

“His skin was translucently white, like onionskin, and it looked just as delicate—” New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

So Hegbert is a sparklepire? Good to know.

and his hair was as white as those bunnies you see in pet stores around Easter.

Wow. Just wow. The prose is so boring and bland.

And Nicholas Sparks thinks he writes like Ernest Hemingway…

Also, what seventeen-year-old boy would say “bunnies”?

Hebert wrote the play The Christmas Angel because he hates A Christmas Carol.

In his mind, Scrooge was a heathen, who came to his redemption only because he saw ghosts, not angels—and who was to say whether they’d been sent by God, anyway?

I hate to break it to ya but both ghosts and angels are spirits.

The only difference is that a ghost is a human spirit that has not properly passed over to the other side and they remain on earth while angels are spiritual beings of light.

And who was to say he wouldn’t revert to his sinful ways if they hadn’t been sent directly from heaven?

Um… If the ghosts weren’t sent from Heaven, then where did they come from?

Baptists don’t believe in purgatory. After death, they believe that there are only two places where people can go: Heaven or Hell.

Unless the minister thinks the ghosts are demons in disguise.

It won’t make any sense because the three spirits are trying to get Scrooge to repent and be a better person.

The play didn’t exactly tell you in the end—it sort of plays into faith and all—

Maybe Charles Dickens didn’t think he had to spell it out in 72 pt Times New Roman font.

but Hegbert didn’t trust ghosts if they weren’t actually sent by God, which wasn’t explained in plain language, and this was his big problem with it.

1. And where is the proof that they are not sent by God? 2. Faith is about believing without seeing and not demanding proof. 3. And Christians who deepen their faith learn how to discern between the voice of God, the voice of Satan, and one’s ego. 4. Is Hegbert pissed off at Charles Dickens because the ghosts didn’t say ”I am the ghost of Christmas (past/present/future) and I was sent by God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth"? 5. Because following that logic, the Archangel Raphael was not sent by God. 6. In The Book of Tobit, the Archangel Raphael didn’t reveal his identity until Tobit cures his father’s blindness. For most of the story, Tobit knew the Archangel Raphael as Azariah the son of Hananiah the great.

A few years back he’d changed the end of the play—sort of followed it up with his own version, complete with old man Scrooge becoming a preacher and all, heading off to Jerusalem to find the place where Jesus once taught the scribes.

Unsurprisingly, nobody liked the play so Hegbert decided to write his own play.

He’d written his own sermons his whole life, and some of them, we had to admit, were actually interesting, especially when he talked about the “wrath of God coming down on the fornicators” and all that good stuff.

A fire and brimstone minister.

N. Sparks will claim later on that he has a great sense of humor and we are supposed to see him as a great guy.

Because we all know fire and brimstone ministers are not anti-semitic, homophobic, islamophobic, misogynistic, racist, sexist and xenophobic pieces of shit.

That really got his blood boiling, I’ll tell you, when he talked about the fornicators. That was his real hot spot.

“And don’t get him started on those Commies and sodomites."

So Landon and his friends hid behind trees and shouting that Hegbert is a fornicator before walking down the street.

We’d giggle like idiots, like we were the wittiest creatures ever to inhabit the planet.

Landon is following Anita Blake's logic: If you do something wrong, just say you feel bad about it, and continue being a terrible person. And nobody will dare tell you to STOP being an asshole.

Old Hegbert, he’d stop dead in his tracks and his ears would perk up—I swear to God, they actually moved—and he’d turn this bright shade of red, like he’d just drunk gasoline, and the big green veins in his neck would start sticking out all over, like those maps of the Amazon River that you see in National Geographic.

1. So Hegbert is a mog too? (Virtual cupcake to anyone who gets that reference.) 2. I know that some people can wiggle their ears. Because humans can't perk their ears up like a dog.

Hegbert is pissed off and he is looking for them.

Boy, it was something to watch, that’s for sure.

"Being an asshole is a lot of fun!"

So the assholes are hiding behind a tree. Landon sneers "what kind of parents name their kid Hegbert, anyway?" and Hegbert is standing there, waiting for them to "to give ourselves up, as if he thought we’d be that stupid."

They cover their mouths with their hands and Hegbert always knows where to find them.

Hegbert tells them that he along with the Lord knows "who you are". And a minute later, Hegbert walks away.

During the sermon that weekend he’d stare right at us and say something like “God is merciful to children, but the children must be worthy as well.”

"But subject you to pain, unpleasantness -- suffering -- and you will take notice, you will fight to overcome, to earn your redemption. That is when you're at your best." Gabriel from Constantine 2005.

I think Gabriel and Hegbert should go bowling.

The assholes lower themselves in seats "not from embarrassment, but to hide a new round of giggles."

Landon says that Hegbert didn't understand us "didn’t understand us at all, which was really sort of strange, being that he had a kid and all."

But then again, she was a girl. More on that, though, later.

"Girls are ladylike and only like cute and pretty things. And tomboys don't exist."

Landon repeats the fact that Hegbert is the one who wrote The Christmas Angel and decided to put on the play.

He says that the play isn't bad and this surprised everyone the first year it was performed.

I am putting on my jeweled turban and gaze into my crystal ball.

It's about Hegbert Tom Thorton who had lost his wife in childbirth and is raising a daughter all on his own.

It will also be sappy like a Hallmark movie. Aren't I awesome?

He hasn't been the greatest father and his daughter wants a special music box for Christmas. He can't find the box and meets an angel disguised as a woman on Christmas Eve.

The angel promises to help him to get the gift for his daughter. Along the way, they help a homeless person and Landon is quick to say that "back then they were called bums".

Tom tells the angel that he wants his wife back for Christmas. The angel tells him to look into the city fountain and he'll find what he is looking for.

Tom cries after seeing the face of his daughter. The angel is MIA and Tom heads home.

He realizes he hasn't been a good father and that his daughter is all he has left of his wife.

The story ends with the music box underneath the tree and the angel on the box looks exactly like the mysterious woman.

Landon repeats that the play "wasn't that bad".

Apparently, the play sold out every year and people "cried buckets" every time they saw it.

Hegbert wants seniors in high school to perform the play and not the theater group.

I reckon he thought it would be a good learning experience before the seniors headed off to college and came face-to-face with all the fornicators.

Unless these seniors want to become actors, how is performing a play count as "good learning experience"? 

And how does performing a Christmas give the students the information to deal with "fornicators"? 

I'm getting the impression that Nicholas Sparks thinks that men and women in the past were BOTH expected to stay celibate before marriage.

But that's not the case. Men weren't expected to remain virgins.

Men could have extramarital affairs, have longtime mistresses, and even have sex with other men. And guys would get away with it as long as they didn't flaunt them in public.

Women were expected to celibate until they were married. It took an unchaperoned visit or ONE sexual affair for a woman to be considered a whore. 

He was that kind of guy, you know, always wanting to save us from temptation.

"Remember boys and girls: premarital sex is wrong!"

He wanted us to know that God is out there watching you, even when you’re away from home, and that if you put your trust in God, you’ll be all right in the end.

Riiight.

Because the same minister who gives fire and brimstone sermons would be the sort of person that would talk about God watching over you and if you trust Him, then things will be all right.

I think the minister would most likely say "God is always watching your every move. If you are bad, He will smite you. And your soul will burn in Hell for all eternity."

It was a lesson that I would eventually learn in time, though it wasn’t Hegbert who taught me.

"It would be my designated love interest."

Landon says that Beaufort is a typical southern town but it has an interesting history.

He talks about how Blackbeard owned a house in town and recently his ship might have been found by "some archaeologists or oceanographers or whoever looks for stuff like that."

Landon, they are called marine archaeologists.

Being that it sank over 250 years ago and you can’t exactly reach into the glove compartment and check the registration.

Because a pirate ship would have a glove box.

I think that comment sounded wittier in Nicholas Spark’s head than it does on paper.

Beaufort’s come a long way since the 1950s, but it’s still not exactly a major metropolis or anything.

We get it, Landon. Beaufort is a quaint and small southern town.

Beaufort was, and always will be, on the smallish side, but when I was growing up, it barely warranted a place on the map.

For the love of all that is holy, will you please stop talking about the same thing over and over again?

Landon keeps talking about how Beaufort is a small town and how "the congressional district that included Beaufort covered the entire eastern part of the state—some twenty thousand square miles—and there wasn’t a single town with more than twenty-five thousand people."

It turns out that Landon's father is a congressman.

I suppose you’ve heard of him. He’s sort of a legend, even now.

If he was a legend, then you wouldn't be telling us who he is.

Landon's father is Worth Carter and he was a congressman for almost thirty years.

Worth's election slogan is “Worth Carter represents ———” and people are supposed to fill in the city name where they lived.

I can remember, driving on trips when me and Mom had to make our appearances to show the people he was a true family man

I call bullshit on Landon's dad being a "true family man".

Landon's father is gone nine months out of the year and is living in Washington D.C. while his mother is taking care of him.

Landon talks about how his father election slogan "was fairly sophisticated publicity."

He says that nowadays people would put foul language in the blank space but in the good ol' days  "we never saw it once."

Landon quickly backpedals and says "okay, maybe once."

A farmer from Duplin County once wrote the word shit in the blank space, and when my mom saw it, she covered my eyes and said a prayer asking for forgiveness for the poor ignorant bastard.

Nicholas Sparks is still trying to persuade me that 1950's was a wholesome utopia.

But I'm not convinced.

Every era of human history, no matter how fascinating or glamorous, has a dark side that people don't want to acknowledge. 

And I find it very hard to believe that Landon has never seen or heard foul language before. 

For instance, in middle school, I heard people say things that would make even a sailor blush. 

Since Landon's mother is ladylike, she "didn’t say exactly those words."

So my father, Mr. Congressman, was a big-wig, and everyone but everyone knew it, including old man Hegbert.

Landon claimed that daddy dearest was a "legend."

And Merriam-Webster defines a bigwig as "an important person"

So the words "everyone but everyone knew it" is redundant.

Worth Carter and Hegbert don't get along. But Worth still goes to Hegbert's church whenever he was in town.

Hegbert, in addition to his belief that fornicators were destined to clean the urinals in hell, also believed that communism was “a sickness that doomed mankind to heathenhood.”

I will bring this up if anyone claims that Hegbert is a good guy. 

One of the biggest problems with A Walk to Remember is plot mixing. 

What is plot mixing, you may ask?

Plot mixing is a term that I have coined. Plot mixing is when an artist takes at least two contradictory plots and they mix it together haphazardly, resulting in a ghastly mess. 

For instance, Hegbert is supposed to be a wonderful guy with a great sense of humor. But he is acting like a Bible-thumping minister. 

They also knew that he was directing his words specifically to my father, who would sit with his eyes closed and pretend not to listen.

I have just a quick question: why would Landon's dad go to a church where the minister despises him and makes pointed sermons?  

According to Landon, there are other churches in the area. So, why hasn't Worth Carter left Hegbert's church and joined another church?

It turns out that Landon's father belongs to the House of Un-American Activities Committee.

My father had consistently looked for facts, which were irrelevant to people like Hegbert.

IRL, I hate it when people think they are the gatekeepers of knowledge, truth, and wisdom.

They also claim that they have "facts" that support their worldviews.

If anyone who disagrees with them, then they are dumb sheep and a racist bigot.

Are we seriously supposed to see HUAC as the good guys? 

HUAC ruined people's lives and careers. And their actions violated the 1st and 5th Amendments of the Bill of Rights. 

Every time Landon's father would come home after the church service, he would complain about Reverend Sullivan.

My father tried to defuse situations whenever possible. I think that’s why he stayed in Congress for so long.

Like any politician, a congressperson gives people in high places verbal blowjobs and make promises that they have no intentions of keeping along with having goons to cover up their crimes.

The guy could kiss the ugliest babies known to mankind and still come up with something nice to say.

Are we supposed to applaud Landon's dad being nice to the "ugly" people?

“He’s such a gentle child,” he’d say when a baby had a giant head, or, “I’ll bet she’s the sweetest girl in the world,” if she had a birthmark over her entire face. One time a lady showed up with a kid in a wheelchair. My father took one look at him and said, “I’ll bet you ten to one that you’re smartest kid in your class.”

Fuck this book with a rusty screwdriver!

And he wasn’t such a bad guy, not really, especially if you consider the fact that he didn’t beat me or anything.

A parent is not supposed to abuse their children, you twat!

But he wasn’t there for me growing up.

In a better story, Landon being estranged from his father would be a source of conflict. 

And throughout the story, Landon would fix his broken relationship with his father.

But this is a shitty story, Landon will meet his designated one tru luv who is purer than Sir Galahad. 

Landon spends time with this girl and his relationship with Dad is magically mended. 

I hate to say that because nowadays people claim that sort of stuff even if their parent was around and use it to excuse their behavior. I’m not using it to excuse the person I’ve become, I’m simply saying it as a fact.

No, you did. 

You even said it "made me become something of a rebel."

My mother didn’t go with him because both of them wanted me to grow up “the same way they had.”

So they were raised by one parent?

Wait a tick... I think what Landon means is that his parents wanted him to grow up in a small town. 

And small towns tend to be politically conservative. 

As a member of HUAC, a married man living alone would raise more than a few eyebrows.

Especially since the nuclear family was considered the "ideal" family in 1950's.

Also during this time period, people wanted to uphold traditional family roles and values.   

I'm sure Worth Carter's political opponents would have a field day if they knew he wasn't a family man. 

And you can't tell me that in a Southern small-town that people won't gossip about a married woman raising a child all by herself and her husband is rarely home. 

Landon says that his grandfather spent time with his father and how that "adds up to quite a bit before adulthood."

Landon talks about how his father was "a stranger" and someone he "barely knew at all."

He also used to think that "all fathers lived somewhere else."

Landon says that one day his best friend Eric Hunter asks him "who that guy was who showed up at my house".

Landon replies that the man was his father "proudly."

“Oh,” Eric said as he rifled through my lunchbox, looking for my Milky Way, “I didn’t know you had a father.”

"People around town were saying that your mamma was a whore and has a beau."

Landon repeats the fact that he was raised by his mother.

Now she was a nice lady, sweet and gentle, the kind of mother most people dream about.

Because most people want their mother to be a cold-hearted bitch.

Does Landon seriously think that his mother deserves a medal for not being an asshole? 

And I'm getting the feeling that dear old mom is going to be a submissive housewife who never speaks her mind, makes sure the house is always immaculate and treats her husband like a king. 

But she wasn’t, nor could she ever be, a manly influence in my life, and that fact, coupled with my growing disillusionment with my father, made me become something of a rebel, even at a young age.

Where do I even begin?

According to Landon, women are incapable of doing/liking "manly" activities. 

Butch women or tomboys don't exist. ALL women love feminine things and are ladylike. 

And it takes a MAN to raise a "real" man.

The father is supposed to do "manly" activities with his son on a regular basis. And boys are supposed to do and like "manly" activities.

If the boy doesn't and becomes a delinquent, then he is a sissy and his mother is to blame.

Not a bad one, mind you.

This is a Nicholas Sparks novel.

He would never have a "protagonist" do bad things. He has a wholesome image to uphold.

They must be good as gold or be mildly delinquent.

Me and my friends might sneak out late and soap up car windows now and then or eat boiled peanuts in the graveyard behind the church, but in the fifties that was the kind of thing that made other parents shake their heads and whisper to their children, “You don’t want to be like that Carter boy. He’s on the fast track to prison.”

Contrary to what Nicholas Sparks might believe, the 1950's wasn't Leave it to Beaver.

For instance, people did phone pranks, threw cherry bombs or were stealing statues.

Me. A bad boy. For eating boiled peanuts in the graveyard. Go figure.

Landon repeats the fact that his father and Hegbert don't get along. But he says "it wasn’t only because of politics."

And then it happens.

It turns out that Worth Carter and Hegbert knew each other for a long time.

And Hegbert is twenty years older than Daddy Dearest and used to work for Landon's grandfather.

My grandfather— even though he spent lots of time with my father —was a true bastard if there ever was one.

I have a question, Landon. Does your grandfather only wears black clothing and has an evil laugh?

He was the one, by the way, who made the family fortune, but I don’t want you to imagine him as the sort of man who slaved over his business, working diligently and watching it grow, prospering slowly over time.

We get it, Nicholas Sparks. Landon's grandpa is more evil and greedy than all the robber barons.

Next, you'll be telling us that grandpa was a pedophile or kicked puppies for fun.

His grandfather was a bootlegger during the Prohibition, started buying land and then hired sharecroppers to work it.

Grandpa also took ninety percent of the money the sharecroppers made and loaned them money whenever they needed it at high-interest rates.

Grandpa is so EVIL he forecloses on any equipment or land they happen to own. Evil Grandpa...

No. From now on, I'm calling him Grandpa Beelzebub or GB.

GB started a bank called "Carter Banking and Loan."

The only other bank in a two-county radius had mysteriously burned down, and with the onset of the Depression, it never reopened.

The other bank didn't "mysteriously" burn down, you twit. GB had his goons torch the place.

Though everyone knew what had really happened, not a word was ever spoken for fear of retribution, and their fear was well placed.

So even the police were shaking in their boots?

The bank wasn't the only building that burned down.

Landon repeats the fact that Grandpa Beelzebub's interest rates "were outrageous." As time progresses, GB amasses more land and property.

He gets the original owners to continue working and pays them just enough money to "to keep them where they were, because they had nowhere else to go."

He told them that when the economy improved, he’d sell their business back to them, and people always believed him.

The townspeople know that GB used fear and intimidation to get what he wanted along with his shady business practices.

And they ALL believed that he would honor his promises. 

Never once, however, did he keep his promise. In the end he controlled a vast portion of the county’s economy, and he abused his clout in every way imaginable.

Ya know what?

There are so many times I can point out how Grandpa Beelzebub is cartoonishly evil so I'll let this gif speak for itself.

Grandpa Beelzebub died while having sex with his mistress on his yacht in the Cayman Islands. GB was also an old man.

He’d outlived both his wives and his only son.

If Daddy Dearest died before GB, he wouldn't be a prominent congressman.

And Landon would have never met his father. 

He would be visiting Daddy's grave and be raised by a widow. 

Life, I’ve learned, is never fair.

Marvel at how deep he is! No one has ever made such a wise statement.

Landon whines that it should be taught in school.

Hegbert, once he realized what a bastard my grandfather really was,

You mean arson and usury are not legal and moral? I never knew that!

Thanks for letting me know, Nicholas Sparks!

So, Hegbert quit working for GB and went into the ministry. Then he started ministering in the same church that Landon's family attended.

Hegbert spent some time "perfecting his fire-and brimstone act", giving monthly sermons on the evils of greed.

He was so busy Bible thumping that he had "scant time for anything else."

Hegbert was forty-three when he was married and his daughter Jamie was born when he was fifty-five.

Hegbert's wife was twenty-three years old and had six miscarriages before Jamie was born. She also died in childbirth.

Hence, of course, the story behind the play.

I love it when I'm right. And Hegbert is so arrogant if he thinks that everyone would want to see a play that is his thinly veiled life story.

People knew the story even before the play was first performed.

If it was any more obvious, the character Tom would be called Hegbert and be a minister.

It was one of those stories that made its rounds whenever Hegbert had to baptize a baby or attend a funeral.

Baptists don't baptize babies. They believe that only believers should be baptized and be fully immersed in the water.

Landon repeats the fact that everyone knew about Hegbert's story and says it is why people "got emotional" when they saw the play.

They knew it was based on something that happened in real life, which gave it special meaning.

So if a story isn't based on something that happened in real life, then it isn't special? Fuck you, Landon.

Jamie Sullivan was a senior in high school, just like me, and she’d already been chosen to play the angel, not that anyone else even had a chance.

I would be very surprised if Jamie WASN'T in the play.

After all, the play was written by her father and is a thinly veiled story about her dad losing her mom.

And real subtle, Nicholas Sparks.

A saintly girl is going to play an angel. 

Thank God, Jamie isn't named Sunshine Goodness. 

Jamie playing the angel is going to make the play "extra special" and how it is going to be a "big deal" especially for Miss Garber.

Miss Garber is the drama teacher and she was excited "the first time I met her in class."

Landon admits that he really didn't want to take drama class but it was "either that or chemistry II."  

No papers, no tests, no tables where I’d have to memorize protons and neutrons and combine elements in their proper formulas … what could possibly be better for a high school senior?

How about lunch? All you have to do is eat and socialize.

It seemed like a sure thing, and when I signed up for it, I thought I’d just be able to sleep through most every class, which, considering my late night peanut eating, was fairly important at the time.

Why am I getting the feeling that "late night peanut eating" is a euphemism for sex? Because eating peanuts is not a strenuous thing to do...

Landon arrives before the bell rang and sits in the back of the room.

Miss Garber had her back turned to the class, and she was busy writing her name in big cursive letters, as if we didn’t know who she was.

You just said that you met Miss Garber for the first time in class.

Now you are saying that you already knew her.

Which is it, Landon? 

All these contradictions are giving me a headache. 

Everyone knew her—it was impossible not to.

"She was bludgeoned with the ugly stick."

Am I the only one who thinks this comment is catty?

She was big, at least six feet two, with flaming red hair and pale skin that showed her freckles well into her forties.

The word "tall" seems like a better fit. 

Big is used to describe the size of something.

While "tall" refers to the height of something.

I seriously hope that Landon isn't saying that this woman is "ugly". 

She was also overweight—I’d say honestly she pushed two fifty—and she had a fondness for wearing flower patterned muumuus. She had thick, dark, horn-rimmed glasses, and she greeted everyone with, “Helloooooo,” sort of singing the last syllable.

Translation: she's a fat Julia Child who wears glasses.  

From now on, I shall call Miss Garber Julia Child.

Miss Garber was one of a kind, that’s for sure, and she was single, which made it even worse.

Stop! Do not pass go! Do not collect $200!

A guy, no matter how old, couldn’t help but feel sorry for a gal like her.

Because after all, beauty on the outside is the only thing that matters. 

Being a good human being and having a nice personality is overrated. 

Later on, Landon complains that "the pickings were getting pretty slim" and how he doesn't want to be stuck bringing an "ugly" girl to the homecoming dance (i.e.  girls who have thick glasses or have lisps.)

People praise Nicholas Sparks for writing wholesome fiction that has life lessons and good morals. 

But I would rather read a story that has swearing (Ow! My virgin ears!) or graphic sex (gasp!) than a story with shitty messages and it is written by a pretentious writer who believes that they write literary masterpieces. 

Julia Child writes the three goals that she wants to accomplish: self-confidence, self-awareness, and self-fulfillment.

Landon remarks that she was "into the 'self' stuff."

Maybe it had something to do with the way she looked; maybe she was just trying to feel better about herself. But I digress.

It wasn’t until the class started that I noticed something unusual.

"Everyone wore black cloaks and pledged their allegiance to Satan."

Landon is surprised that the class is "at least ninety percent female" because he "knew for a fact" that school is split 50/50 between boys and girls.

There was only one other male in the class, which to my thinking was a good thing, and for a moment I felt flush with a “look out world, here I come” kind of feeling.

The schools in Beaufort NC have excellent math programs...

I don't feel like spending hours trying to look up the average high school class size in North Carolina during the 1950's.

So I'll be using the current average high school class size in North Carolina.

According to this, the average class size for secondary school (high school) in North Carolina is 25.8 students.

Let's say there are twenty-six students in the drama class. 

91% of 26 would be 23.66

Approximately, there would be 23 girls and 3 boys. 

Besides Landon, there would be two other boys in the classroom.

Girls, girls, girls … I couldn’t help but think. Girls and girls and no tests in sight.

It is good to know that Landon is thinking with his head and not with his dick.

Okay, so I wasn’t the most forward-thinking guy on the block.

Anita Blake Logic # 2: If you say something wrong, act like you are feeling guilty.

You DON'T try to be a better person and APOLOGIZE to the person/people that you have hurt. No one EVER calls you out on your shit.

So Julia Child talks about the play and tells everyone that Jamie is going to play the angel.

She starts clapping and it turns out that she is a member of Landon's church.

And there were a lot of people who thought she was gunning for Hegbert in a romantic sort of way. The first time I heard it, I remember thinking that it was a good thing they were too old to have children, if they ever did get together. Imagine—translucent with freckles?

The very thought gave everyone shudders, but of course, no one ever said anything about it, at least within hearing distance of Miss Garber and Hegbert.

So everyone is an asshole and gossips like fishwives?

Gossip is one thing, hurtful gossip is completely another, and even in high school we weren’t that mean.

"Like Duloc, the South is a perfect place!"

I'm sorry but I don't believe that a high school with no cliques and everyone is nice exists. 

Landon is a douchebag and so are his friends. 

Also, how is gossiping about Thank God Hegbert and Julia Child can't reproduce count as not being "mean"?

And the townspeople talk about Hegbert's wife having multiple miscarriages and dying in childbirth...

And for a novel that is so friggin' preachy by constantly talking about God's plan/the Lord's plan and quoting Bible verses...

It doesn't realize that the Good Book doesn't view gossip as a venial sin while "hurtful" gossip is a mortal sin.

The Bible denounces it.

Julia Child keeps on clapping until everyone finally joined in. She orders Jamie to stand up.

Jamie stands up and turns around. Julia Child is clapping even faster to which Landon snidely remarks "as if she were standing in the presence of a bona fide movie star."

Now Jamie Sullivan was a nice girl. She really was.

Translation: It's a pleasant way to say that she isn't attractive.

Landon talks about the town only has one elementary school so everyone has been "in the same classes our entire lives."

He admits to having a "few conversations" with Jamie.

Who I saw in school was one thing; who I saw after school was something completely different, and Jamie had never been on my social calendar.

"She is not worthy to stand before me!"

It’s not that Jamie was unattractive— don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t hideous or anything like that.

"Inner beauty is overrated!"

Landon reluctantly admits that Jamie "wasn't half-bad." But he doesn't consider her to be attractive.

Despite the fact that she was thin, with honey blond hair and soft blue eyes, most of the time she looked sort of … plain, and that was when you noticed her at all.

Because having fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes were NEVER considered to be signs of beauty.

And I really hate it when a character is "TV ugly".

Especially when it is combined with this. 

Jamie didn’t care much about outward appearances, because she was always looking for things like “inner beauty,” and I suppose that’s part of the reason she looked the way she did.

I love how inner beauty is put in quotes. As if the concept is absolute horse shit.

For as long as I’d known her—and this was going way back, remember— she’d always worn her hair in a tight bun, almost like a spinster, without a stitch of makeup on her face.

This statement is obnoxious because later on in the story Jamie will be described as beautiful even when she is dying of a terminal illness.

Jamie wears frumpy clothes and everyone thought it was "just a phase".

But it wasn’t just the way Jamie looked that made her different; it was also the way she acted.

"She acted like an Angel of the House: innocent, perfect, and pure."

Jamie never went to slumber parties or had a boyfriend.

Old Hegbert would probably have had a heart attack if she had.

Hegbert would have denounced his daughter as a harlot before killing her.

Jamie carried her Bible wherever she went, and if her looks and Hegbert didn’t keep the boys away, the Bible sure as heck did.

"It couldn't possibly be that her father is a Bible-thumping asshat."

Now, I liked the Bible as much as the next teenage boy,

Translation: not at all.

but Jamie seemed to enjoy it in a way that was completely foreign to me.

"She reads it from cover to cover."

Not only did she go to vacation Bible school every August, but she would read the Bible during lunch break at school.

This is Nicholas Spark's "subtle" way of telling us that Jamie is a good person. Because she reads the Bible.

Landon thinks Jamie is abby normal. How romantic.

No matter how you sliced it, reading Paul’s letters to the Ephesians wasn’t nearly as much fun as flirting, if you know what I mean.

Because flirting is a lot of fun!

If I didn't know any better, I'd say flirting is a code word for sex... 

But one of Nicholas Sparks' writing rules is that his teenage characters never have premarital sex. 

But Jamie didn’t stop there. I knew she volunteered at the orphanage in Morehead City, but for her that simply wasn’t enough.

Let me guess. Jamie is SO good that she is going to help baby animals and solve world hunger.

She was always in charge of one fund-raiser or another, helping everyone from the Boy Scouts to the Indian Princesses, and I know that when she was fourteen, she spent part of her summer painting the outside of an elderly neighbor’s house. Jamie was the kind of girl who would pull weeds in someone’s garden without being asked or stop traffic to help little kids cross the road. She’d save her allowance to buy a new basketball for the orphans, or she’d turn around and drop the money into the church basket on Sunday.

Ho-lee fuck! Where do I even begin?

There is no such thing as a Native American princess.

Nobody is perfect. But according to Nicholas Sparks Landon, Jamie is practically perfect in every way. 

Jamie is NEVER depicted as having any flaws. She is always nice to everyone and always never does anything wrong.

She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn’t help but feel guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

You are a douchebag who makes snide comments.

Nor did Jamie limit her good deeds to people. If she ever came across a wounded animal, for instance, she’d try to help it, too. Opossums, squirrels, dogs, cats, frogs … it didn’t matter to her.

We get it, Sparks. Jamie is a paragon of virtue. Stop talking.

With Jamie, everything was in the Lord’s plan. That was another thing. She always mentioned the Lord’s plan whenever you talked to her, no matter what the subject.

I get it, Sparks.

Jamie is a saintly person. 

And Jesus is love, Jesus is life.

Landon tells us that Jamie thinks she is "so blessed to have a father like mine."

He thinks "what planet she actually came from."

Despite all these other strikes, though, the one thing that really drove me crazy about her was the fact that she was always so damn cheerful, no matter what was happening around her.

In real life, a person who is ALWAYS cheerful is depressed.

But this is a Nicholas Sparks novel. 

So Jamie is cheerful like a Disney princess. 

Thank God, Jamie doesn't break into song.

I swear, that girl never said a bad thing about anything or anyone, even to those of us who weren’t that nice to her.

Translation: Jamie is a female version of Jesus Christ.

Landon keeps going on about how nice Jamie is.

All the adults "adored" her and ladies would "come running out of their house" if they see Jamie walking by.

I was thinking about all this while Jamie stood in front of us on the first day of drama class, and I admit that I wasn’t much interested in seeing her.

For a girl that Landon despises, he won't stop talking about her.

But strangely, when Jamie turned to face us, I kind of got a shock, like I was sitting on a loose wire or something.

It is bad enough that Nicholas Sparks is forcing a romance between two characters and will claim that they are soulmates...

Now he has them feeling an instant electric connection.  

What’s next? Will fireworks go off? Will cherubs start to sing?

She wore a plaid skirt with a white blouse under the same brown cardigan sweater I’d seen a million times, but there were two new bumps on her chest that the sweater couldn’t hide that I swore hadn’t been there just three months earlier.

I'll give three guesses and the first two don't count. 

It isn't surprising since a lot of Nicholas Sparks' novels are renowned for having contrived "tragic" endings in which someone (usually the love interest) dies.

She’d never worn makeup and she still didn’t, but she had a tan, probably from Bible school, and for the first time she looked—well, almost pretty.

If "almost pretty" isn't a backhanded compliment, I don't know what is.

Landon quickly "dismissed" the thought.

But as she looked around the room, she stopped and smiled right at me, obviously glad to see that I was in the class.

Smiling is an expression that shows happiness, affection, etc. 

She shouldn't be happy to see him. 

The guy mocks her and avoids her like the plague. 

But Sparks told us that Jamie is made up of sugar, spice, and everything nice.

It wasn’t until later that I would learn the reason why.

[feministangertranslator]

Spaceygate

Out with the pedo, in with the perennially beloved Christopher Plummer. Image: Reuters

I’m re-posting this post I wrote on my corresponding feministangertranslator Facebook page last month. I think it needs to live here on my blog. 

Argh. I can't help but feel mixed feelings over SpaceyGate and this BBC article talking about it. He seems to have been hit the hardest second to Weinstein.

A few men (and women) have accused Spacey of sexual assault and he has now been ERASED from a movie, stripped of accolades and awards, outcast from the entertainment community, and his career is over just like that? And there is a video circulating of a mom talking about how disappointed she is in Spacey for violating her son?

I WANT TO SEE CLIPS OF MOTHERS TALKING ABOUT ALL THE MEN IN POSITIONS OF POWER WHO VIOLATED THEIR DAUGHTERS AND HOW DISAPPOINTED THEY ARE IN THE MAN'S ACTIONS. WHY ISN'T THAT ALL OVER THE INTERNET?

I want every sexual predator stopped. However, it seems to me that the strongest and most extreme reaction in this movement has happened to Spacey at this moment, and it still gives me pause. I get this feeling I can't shake that the huge reaction to him is bigger than the others for many reasons:

Firstly, I think society wants to protect men, particularly young ones, over....well, any woman. And it was men who mainly came out against Spacey. We already knew how much society (especially Hollywood) cares about older women - only slightly less than they do not about protecting young women's sexuality from exploitation. It took SO EFFIN LONG for any movement when it was mainly women FOR EONS complaining of sexual abuse. I truly think most of our society still values men more than women. We have not had legal rights for very long; it takes a long time for those who hold outdated sexist views, and the people who they passed them onto, to die out. They are by no means extinct.

Secondly, I wonder if because we can't actually impeach our ACTUAL president (the anger at whom I can say with certainty in my gut started the changing of the tide by the time Weinstein came along), we are trying to hold Spacey as tv president more accountable? WTF?! This seems absurd to me. And at a minimum, he didn't go around bragging about grabbing women by the pussies, get caught on tape, and then be proud of it AND THEN BECOME OUR REAL PRESIDENT.

Thirdly, I can't help it; I am sympathetic to Spacey. And it is very different from how I feel about all the other people accused. I like Spacey as an actor, he is gay, wanted to keep his private life out of the public eye, and I've read he had an abusive upbringing. Ditto for me being historically very private about being queer (when I first went to law school and became a lawyer I went back into the closet and was always with most of my family until recently) and having come from an abusive family thing. I guess I feel sorry for him that he had to be outed that way. He was clearly not OK with being out.

And even if our society's negative reaction to Spacey is fueled by a huge awful and damaging gay panic and misguided association with sexual abuse, and the LGBT community's reaction was I kind of think it just a huge offense to that, also showing its fear, I hate to admit as a woman I feel another stab in the back from society as opposed to the excitement of forward progress that Spacey seems to have been hit harder than those accused of assaulting women.

Yes, what he did was reprehensible, condemn that. But don't condemn that he came out as gay. Yeah, "choosing to live as gay" as any gay person knows is a BS line. One can't "choose" sexual orientation; one can only choose to be true to it and honest and open about it. But he logically HAD to come out right then. He was essentially outed by his own heinous actions publicly. He wasn't out before this. Ergo he had to address at least that. I think a lot of that reaction was fear from other gay folks who don't want homosexuality being associated with sexual assault or abuse. I don't either. I hate that when I was younger and told that I was bisexual because there was something wrong with me and that it came out of being sexually abused, I internalized it and felt awful for so long and even some of that sticks with me still. I have to work through that. Also, in the vein of equality, I think it's actually a good thing that men assaulted by other men are speaking out. The truth is there is assault and domestic violence in EVERY community and sexual orientation.

And on another quasi-related note to this article: Weinstein, Spacey, et al. are getting what they deserved, but what about Cosby, Polanski, and the countless other men who have systematically exploited and abused mostly or exclusively women? Which brings me to...

WOODY ALLEN IS MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE. WOODY EFFIN ALLEN. WHY? BECAUSE HE IS THE EXAMPLE GIVEN OF A DIRECTOR WHO RESHOT A WHOLE MOVIE FROM SCRATCH. THAT'S IT. NOT BECAUSE HIS MARRIAGE TO MIA FARROW CRUMBLED WHEN SHE DISCOVERED HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH HER ADOPTED DAUGHTER WHEN SHE FOUND NAKED PICTURES HE TOOK OF HER, WHO AT THE TIME WAS 21, AND IS 35 YEARS YOUNGER THAN HIM, AND GOD KNOWS FOR HOW LONG HE MAY HAVE BEEN GROOMING HER FOR THAT RELATIONSHIP.

It's not even the age difference that bothers me the most about that relationship. Age differences, as with other differences in relationships, happen a lot and can be attractive and mutually beneficial. It is generally accepted by society that younger women and older men-even much much older than the women-couple up. We barely bat an eye. Well, I want to see more women of a certain age dating younger people. What happened to cougars? Let's bring equality there, too. Men tend to have their sexual peaks young and women when they are older, and men tend to die at a younger age than women. All things considered, that is at a minimum an interesting fact, if not worth considering and looking into further.

What's creepy to me, and most of America, about Allen is how he went about it; it smacks of exploitation and abuse. It's that they first had a familial relationship, the fact that he hid it and it was an affair, that he sometimes calls himself "paternal" and focuses on how "helpful" he has been for her, all simply which seems to highlight a power imblanace. And people go "yuck," but they never blacklisted him, said outright that what he is doing is wrong, just that he is "creepy AF." Well, I think it's wrong and we should talk about this, too. NOW. It's never too late. This guy is writing and making movies at a rate of one a year and I don't see anyone bringing out the torches to stop them.

This article was written by Neil Smith, an entertainment reporter for the BBC. When talking about how "virtually unprecedented" it is to remove a living performer from a completed movie and reshoot it, he simply brings Allen into the analysis of the decision to reshoot the Spacey film and says:"Yes, Woody Allen once reshot an entire film - 1987's September - with some recast actors."

I can't help but hope that there is an undisclosed reason for mentioning Allen. It doesn't matter though. I am going to take his "Yes, Woody Allen" as a symbolic answer to my question of whether we are going to make a decision to also stop supporting directors and total creeps like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski who took advantage of young women. I believe in signs, and this is a big one for me. I've been thinking about Allen recently and lo and behold, he gets brought up in this article on Spacey. It feels like the universe answered a prayer of mine on what do to with my feelings of anger that we let Allen slip by. My blood has been boiling about him and all the other offenders who walk around free since Cosby went free and then Weinstein went down.

I used to love Woody Allen's work and put his "personal life aside." F*ck that noise. I won't, and we can't, afford to do that anymore. If no one is doing that for Spacey, I say we start boycotting films and works of all the other creepy mofos. Those dead and alive. Let's bring awareness to incestuous and statutory rape, too. And let's keep the focus on the actual president who is a dangerous and offensive violator. Society has decided we don't need a court and a trial for Spacey, Trump was still electable, and it didn't help any of Cosby's victims, So let's use our voices, dollars, and entertainment choices to cause social and financial consequences, if not outright justice, in all these counts. Hollywood seems like the place to keep the revolution going. They're America's royalty and dictators of culture anyway.