#been seeing a lot of negativity towards feminine two and honestly that makes me feel really sad

[twosnails4eva]

ramble in tags

[mikaze-discord]

Quartet Night: Love letters

Annnnnd these are the love letters written for Quartet Night!!!

Please enjoy under the cut~

REIJI KOTOBUKI

From Anon:

I've always been drawn to characters with complex (and fairly dark) personalities, so liking Rei-chan was honestly inevitable for me.

He looks like a very bright and cheerful character at first, which he is, but sometimes that part of him is a little misleading because, in actuality, he's a character that holds a lot of negative feelings about himself due to a past that he can't seem to move on from. He holds a lot of those feelings to himself because he doesn't want to burden anyone else with them. He's a reliable, cunning, and ultimately selfless character that chooses to shoulder a lot on his own out of his infinite care for others, and perhaps a secret sense of atonement, all hidden behind his bright demeanor and goofy smile, and it's endlessly interesting to me.

Besides the duality of his personality, he has a lot of other endearing quirks to love about him. He loves his mom a lot and is a mama's boy. His old-man jargon and catchphrases never fail to amuse (I still can't get over the way he says "my girl"). His obsession with anything even remotely British is something my APH England phase can relate to. His style of music brings a lot of pleasant feelings of nostalgia for me, and his pretty voice suits them a lot. And most of all he's just a very good boy overall. I rate 99999 out of 10 would love and support him and also maybe pay for his therapy because god knows he needs it. Happy anniversary!!

From another anon: 

Would you like to hear a story? You do? Very well then, may this story be one you enjoy.

What do I like about Reiji kotobuki? A Lot of things actually!

Well, I've always really liked Reiji as a character as he seemed to be one of the more interesting characters to me, due to how complex he is with his backstory and general just personality.

I have always really enjoyed how Reiji just solves problems too? Like he is just such an outgoing person who deserves all the support!!!

Like the best word I can use for Reiji is just, unique. Everything about him is just so Reiji. From the way he talks, to his nicknames or even his texting style. Like have you seen how many people use emoticons when texting as Reiji? It's just so him.

I like his way of thinking too! I feel like some of the interactions in the games are just so interesting, just seeing Reiji’s point of view. How he deals with a sort of survivor’s guilt and all of that.

Personally, some of my most memorable roleplaying moments were watching a Reiji rper in action, like just seeing them interact and flow so seamlessly with the other characters was just so fascinating to wee baby rper me. Such a large part of playing Reiji is just how you flow with the people around you and comedic timing. I have so many funny moments where Reiji was just interacting with people and it was just so inspirational (?) like I couldn't stop the smile on my face. I had learnt alot from them. I still consider them my roleplaying senpai almost! I don't talk to them anymore but I really had an amazing time just seeing their spin on the character.

I don't find him to be a romantic partner towards me nor do I see any of the characters in that light, but I've always found Reiji as such a personal character. Not even just towards me, like even with other utapri stans. The most relatable character always seems to be Reiji.

I've always been pretty similar in many aspects to him and I often find myself relating to him in numerous ways like his vibe is just relatable! I have often found myself trying to make other people laugh and have fun that many times I'm spreading myself thin and feel unappreciated...Reiji really helped with that.

This is where i start getting into the really personal stuff LOL feel free to skip if you dont wanna hear the angsty backstory.

I had really come to love Reiji when I had just...hit a low. I had a group of friends who I enjoyed hanging out with and just talking to, but they weren't very good friends per say. I often had to schedule every activity we did and I spent days and nights trying to think of concepts that might be fun. They took it for granted.. I had spent 4 months trying to make a game for them, and they had constantly pushed back times that we would play it. Using excuses to not play it, without telling me out right what they did not like or even why. The site I used was later taken down without notice and thus I had lost all my progress. Later, they had mentioned how they would like to play it except that later ended up being two years later. I really wish I could've solved things with that friend group like Quartet Night did but that didn't happen. That is when I started seeing things Reiji’s way? Not to say that it was the same or similar scenario to Reiji but I had just associated it with him.

RANMARU KUROSAKI

From Anon:

Ran is such a fun character! He sounds like a "rough outside, soft inside" kind of character, but his roughness is more like an integral part of him and it's through it that he shows he cares rather than setting it aside. That's what made me want to rp him. I also like how he is such a strong guy who's always determined to do his best in everything he does despite so much having gone wrong in his past. And it's very satisfying to see him form bonds and start to trust people.

From @mikaze-san:

Originally, my favourite Utapri boy was Ai, and it had been the robot boy for several years upon entering the fandom. In fact, it only switched to Ranmaru sometime late last year but regardless, I would still die for this man. Part of the reason why I switched is because I’ve always been a fan of Suzuki Tatsuhisa and I have a huge bias towards any man who wears nail polish without fearing being “feminine” because fuck gender roles.

As someone who studies fashion, I think Ranmaru is very coordinated and confident when it comes to portraying himself that way. He knows he’s not very good at expressing his emotions and utilises his passion for rock and playing the bass to portray those feelings through his songs. It’s also incredibly inspiring to know that he bounces back from pretty much anything considering his backstory and the stuff he deals with in the game/anime.

But my main reason for loving Ranmaru so much stems from the fact that I admire him a lot and want to be more like him. For a long time last year, I got to roleplay as Ranmaru in a few Utapri groups and through those experiences, I gained a better understanding and appreciation of the characters that I wrote for. In some weird way, by highlighting his flaws, character progression and how he dealt with different emotions, I ended up providing insight into how I dealt with similar issues by looking at them from a 3rd person perspective.

I used to be very shy and was very shut off from friends and family, and due to this I’ve always admired people in my life or fictional characters that are so confident in being who they are. Ranmaru particularly struck that chord in me because his bluntness knows no end. He’s very opinionated and doesn’t fear confrontation, in most cases being the one to provoke it. He speaks his mind openly without being overly anxious of the consequences. This is something that I feel is especially relevant today with being your authentic/unapologetic self is such a trend.

It’s something I’ve also noticed with having met people in or outside of this fandom, the notion of idolising a fictional character containing traits that we want to see in ourselves. Which made me think about a lot of my favourite kinds of characters which at the end of the day all boil down to sharing one similar trait: Being a bitch.

And in Utapri, Ranmaru embodies that. So naturally it’s very easy for me to idolise him.

(Tldr: I like his bitchy attitude.)

AI MIKAZE 

From Arashi:

It's hard to put into words why I love Ai Mikaze, perhaps it's because I'm subconsciously drawn to him, maybe it's because his hair and eyes are my favorite color, maybe it's because his voice is that of an angels, there are many reasons why I love him. I couldn't tell you a definite, "These one or two reasons are the entire reason I love him", but I'll try to sum it up.

I grew to love him by admiring his personality, his smile, his determination to reach his goals, everything about him made me happy. He's strict and a little scary at times, but when he sees people caring for him, he becomes happy and in a way, sentimental. He's not sure how to explain the way he feels, but he tries. I think I admire how he holds all the little things precious to his heart as he learns about them, and he wants to understand how to care for others and how they care for them in return. Even after six years, he still remains the most dear to me. I think that he now has a sentimental value to me, because even if I 'loved' another character more for a while, I will always come back to Ai. Ai deserves the world, and I'd give it to him if I could. He'll always be special to me, and I think that he very much deserves that.

From Maronda: 

My love for Ai started after I found Shining Live by chance and started to play. At first I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters and decided to go back and watch the anime to maybe remember some context other than who Starish was. When I got to the episode focused on Ai and his "secret" I was absolutely thrown off by it all. I ended up feeling like I had so many questions and I knew that the anime would give me little to no answers, so I frequently turned to rambling on the internet about it. Eventually, this fixation on weird things about him seemed to turn into a clear fondness for him, and friends made me realize just how much I liked him. Knowing the cold and often strange aspects of his personality was due to something out of his control was something I resonated with as someone on the autism spectrum. He reminded me of some of the ways I used to think and behave.

I also began to notice other things I loved about him. Things like how soothing I found his voice, the pleasant shade of light blue in his hair and eyes, how ridiculously pretty he is... but the best things are the endearing parts of his personality. Though he's somewhat harsh, he's still entirely genuine. His curiosity is absolutely precious and his occasional awkwardness in expressing emotion or understanding the emotions of others made me empathize with him. And if you look at the Ai in Shining Live and compare it to the Ai in the anime and games... he really has changed a lot and grown as a person. He now seems so much gentler and understanding, and he clearly values the friendships he has now too! I think he's a wonderful character and ever since friends of mine encouraged me to selfship I've essentially been in love with him, but it also makes me happy to see other people appreciate him for other reasons as well. He's just so lovable!

CAMUS

From @uta-no-fakku-sama:

At the very beginning of my UtaPri interest, Camus never really caught my attention. That is until he became my first My Only Prince UR. I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more ever since, and now he’s become my favorite QUARTET NIGHT member! Along the way, I learned more about him and realized he’s one of the more complicated characters to understand. Nonetheless, I absolutely adore him. I tend to tease and make fun of him a lot, but deep down I truly do like him a whole bunch!

From @/waddamaloooon on twt: 

A little Camus appreciation post

(alternatively known as; how this guy managed to harshly take my heart and step on it like the gumin I am.)

Hello, this is Suikamaru, here to share a tiny story of why I, and eventually you, love Camus Rondo Cryzard.

At first glance, his looks appealed to me, but not his behavior (and ironically enough, his voice) so I didn't bat an eye on him. I've always been on a neutral leaning to dislike opinion on Camus, which is quite understandable because have you SEEN the way he acts. Unfathomable.

…..To a Young Suikamaru, that is.

I've grown, so naturally I've changed preferences regarding characters, ikemen, and who to stan and who to avoid like the plague. I will lie if I said that I expected to like that blonde confectionery devouring machine at any point of my life.

But it did happen so who are we fooling here.

It dawned on me that Camus is the type of character that you cannot appreciate unless you go in depth into his lore, backstory, and see him for who he really is. Because then everything else will make sense. And that never happened in my case until I started roleplaying as him.

I realized that he's not just a two faced, sweet toothed mean man. He's a perfectionist, someone who's always been raised since his childhood days to be nothing less than complete, who has locked on his heart and emotions to devote himself completely to the purpose given to him. He has the looks and brains for what though? He should be a little stupid honestly.

But his intelligence gave him the complexity that he just needed for his characteristics. Because as aforementioned, he's not someone to easily like or fall in love with. And I think that's quite rare in characters, and very much appreciated due to the fact it gives the fans a chance to not actually stay on a flat level of knowledge regarding their favorite characters.

I've slowly started to see myself in some aspects of him, which was the number one factor of liking him. Then came the Maeno magic when I realized Camus shares the same VA as another character that I love as well. (Hamelin, from SinoAlice.) From then, everything went downhill.

In a good way. I think..

Well, that is all from me, please read about this handsome man and appreciate his hard work both as an individual and as an idol. There is SO much to him that's p much overlooked and I'm getting broke from spending my money on his living expenses rent free in my head. Take him off my head.

[twstedrabbithole]

Dorm Leaders With A Chubby S/o Hcs

This boy wouldn't really care about your looks honestly. Though I will say that it's most likely that his mother has set up standards in his mind about his partners.

That said, he very much would try to not have what his mother drilled in his head to influence him. He may make a mistake or two when on the subject of weight and looks but he tries very hard.

If he does say something, tell him immediately. Help him see the error of his and his mother's views. With time he will unlearn what his mother has taught him. He truly does love you.

If someone does make a comment about your looks or weight, Riddle will immediately go all red in anger. He will not tolerate anyone, not even his mother, saying such comments about you.

If you do want to lose weight or not sure how, this guys will go through many books and websites just for the sake of helping you. He has said he's wanted to be a doctor before, so this research will help him for his future.

You think this guy would care how you look? No, he doesn't. He also wouldn't let anyone "talk shit" either.

But I will say there is a slight difference if your feminine or masculine. If your more feminine or female, he's way more protective. He was taught to respect woman because of how powerful and strong they are in the Afterglow.

If you're more masculine or male, he won't be as protective honestly. But if he sees it's affecting you then he'll be the shoulder for you to cry on.

He may not understand fully on how much flack chubby people get. But he can greatly sympathize because of how he was treated because of his unique magic.

If you want to lose weight, Leona isn't the greatest for advice. He can give support, that's not a problem. But he mostly would want to sleep then work out with you. You have a better chance with Jack for advice on both diets and workouts.

Like Leona, Azul would not care at all how you look. But dare I say, he would have a preference for someone with a bit more meat to them. After all a restaurant owner has to know what food lovers like huh? I jest, he knows how you look doesn't have to be correlated to how you eat.

He's the most supportive one, in rival to Kalim that is, towards you. You don't have to prove anything to him that's related to your weight or looks, he loves you for you.

If you're confident in how you look that gives him more confidence actually, enough to where he might even openly eat his favorite foods if your with him and encourage him.

If he even hears a scoff in your direction, he's already scheming in his head. Even if it has nothing to do with your weight or looks, he already has a plan to doom any negative student. He's very, very, protective of you. Even the tweels actually, since they see how much Azul cares and loves for you, it would be a shame if someone decided to use you as a way to get back at him.

If you wish to lose weight, Azul is very much supportive. He may not be fully happy, but he will try his hardest to help you. He'll make meal plans, have vegan or vegetarian options on Monstro Lounge's menu, even count your calories if you ask. While he may do this, he'll allow you to have a cheat day with him. After all everyone deserves something fatty once in awhile.

Another boy who absolutely does not care about how you look! He only ever sees how you are as a person than how you look. Honestly he wouldn't even notice you're chunkier than most until you point it out. Well actually he would know, it just never registered.

He would most definitely spend so much money on tailored clothing for you, if most clothes didn't fit. Anything you want, he'll get, that doesn't change.

This includes the parties he hold, they're the same in the terms of having your favorite foods and activities. Jamil will practically have known all your favorite foods by heart because of Kalim requests.

He actually does get very defensive, but not in the way you would think. If he hears anything negative about you, he'll immediately but into the conversation and have compliments leave his mouth at a fast pace.

Kalim doesn't fully understand if you want to lose weight. But he'll still be supportive and ask Jamil for advice on what you and him need to do. He'll workout and go on a diet with you as well! Because it's more fun if you're not alone!

I'll be honest, this guy will care. But hear me out, it's not how you think. Yes he'll make a few subtle comments, but he believes it's to make sure you're in your top form and your most beautiful self.

If you're happy the way you are then he'll promptly be quiet, he would never actively hurt someone with words about their appearance. He knows everyone is different, everyone has their own qualities that make them beautiful. And as time goes on, he'll see that your extra weight is what makes you beautiful.

If say, your weight is do to something you can't control. He'll be very supportive and understanding, we all can't control how we look after all. If you feel sad over it he'll be there to be your shoulder to cry on and even give you a comforting spa day.

If he hears others talk negatively about you, then they have angered Pomefiore's queen. He won't tolerate anyone harassing nor belittling you. He may have been harsh with you at first, but he learned his own way and so he'll make sure others know better as well.

If you want to lose weight, Vil is the perfect person to ask for help! He may be harsh and tough on you, but it's to help you and motivate you. If you do need someone more comforting and soft Rook will be there to compliment and encourage you as well. It's very...contrasting, but it'll get the job done so you can be you're most beautiful self!

I'd say he doesn't care either, maybe also someone who prefers someone with more meat to cuddle. After all, I can see him actually having a cold body temperature even with the fire hair. Those with larger bodies are warmer actually, so you're perfect for cuddles!

He would want to give you loads of compliments, but his extreme shyness gets the better of him. So instead he plays games with you and even makes mods that let's you have your character be as chubby as you!!

Surprisingly Idia always cuddles you. You're just so warm and plush he can't help himself! Don't point it out though, or his hair will turn red and may cause another fire in his room.

When he or Ortho hears anything negative about you they immediately come to your defense, Ortho more often than Idia. Ortho sees you as another big sibling, so he defends you just like he does for Idia. Idia usually hacks his way into any naysayers phone to mess with them for a day, not usually anything too bad but something to make sure they don't say anything hurtful again.

If you want to lose weight, Idia will scour the internet for any info on how to help. He even would go outside to help you! Ortho will also be there so you have someone to workout with, meanwhile Idia is playing on his switch...he may also make exercise and active games at some point so you two can play together while working out!

This man also wouldn't care how you look. He may say one thing about how "humans have always looked so different from each other" in a way to comfort you.

He wouldn't really treat you differently, but he would give you all the support and compliments you need if you're insecure about your body.

You two do have lots of ice cream together, but if you ask for the sake of any medical reasons he's happy to get you your own sugar free or low calorie frozen treats!

If anyone in Diasomnia hears word of someone making negative comments about you, you have a whole dormitory behind you. The faes of the dormitory just can't understand why humans turn against each other over something as small as having a different body type.

If you wish to lose weight, Malleus won't know exactly what to do to help. He'll ask his dormmates for help, which will lead to Lilia trying to make home cooked diet meals. And for Sebek and Silver to have you join in their duels. Great Seven have mercy on them when Malleus finds out.

[femmefoxbeast]

I’ve been thinking a lot about body positivity and self-image and how to deal with that as a trans man.

This is a long post. The rest is under a read more because of this. It’s a bit rambling too. I’m just working through my thoughts.

CW: surgery mention, abuse mention, unhealthy eating/thoughts about eating mention, lots of discussion of social beauty ideals and how people are treated poorly for not meeting them. Nothing graphic though.

The pressure to transition into an ‘ideal man’

So - in September I had top surgery. It was definitely the right decision and (combined with starting testosterone in July 2019) it’s had a huge positive impact on my mental health. I look at myself in the mirror and finally see myself looking back. I feel like life is full of possibility at the moment. It’s pretty great honestly.

Here’s the thing - I’m chubby - I was in an abusive family situation for a while and ended up with some food issues which resulted in me losing a fair bit of weight and then putting a bunch back on.

Because I’m a bigger guy I’ve got dog-ears (excess skin and fat) at the ends of my top surgery scars. I feel mostly okay about them and am not planning to get a surgical revision. But I feel weirdly guilty about being okay with them.

I feel like there’s this pressure and expectation that if I want to look like a man (and I do because that’s what I am) then I should look like society’s ideal of a man. People seem to think I should want to be thin and muscular and to have a sharp jawline and just the right amount of body hair.

But to be honest I don’t want that. And I feel guilty about not wanting that.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this - on one hand, I have this feeling that I’m doing something wrong or wasting my transition somehow? Logically I know those thoughts aren’t mine - I know that this external pressure I’ve experienced has put these thoughts into my head. But the idea has bedded itself surprisingly deep into my brain so I haven’t been able to get rid of the nagging voice going ‘you’re doing it wrong’.

On the other hand, I’m pretty repulsed by this expectation that I should conform even more strictly to societal beauty standards because I’m trans. I shouldn’t have to thin, I shouldn’t have to work out unless I feel like it, I shouldn’t have to try and look cis. I want to look like a man yes. But I want to look like a queer trans man because that’s what I am and if I look like a cis dude then I’ll start seeing a stranger when I look in the mirror again.

It doesn’t help that the pressure to conform isn’t just interpersonal but structural - for example, trans people often have to be below a certain BMI to access surgery on the NHS and even in some private hospitals. Because of this, every time I’ve had to interact with the clinic that prescribes my hormones they’ve made some pretty yikes remarks about my weight.

I still remember, in our first meeting, how the person assessing me commented that if I could lose some weight then I’d be very handsome due to being fairly tall and broad-shouldered for a trans guy. It made me feel like they saw me as an object that could be shaped and moulded into whatever they wanted - into a symbol of their mastery over medicine.

It was dehumanising as hell.

Femininity, fatness and autism

Being overweight and a man who is slowly starting to present in a more authentically femme manner is interesting.

It makes me feel like some kind of horrible pervert a lot of the time.

I think we’ve got this image of a fat, effeminate, creepy dude so embedded in our collective consciousness that it’s poisoning my self-image a little. It doesn’t help that this collective caricature has a lot of autistic traits and well - I’m autistic.

It sucks because I try very hard to be respectful and non-creepy. I don’t think other people perceive me that way, from what I can tell.

But my brain keeps insisting that if I wore a dress or lipstick or high heels then I’ll transform into some Silence of the Lambs-type figure.

So I’ve been restricting myself to just painting my nails and wearing necklaces sometimes.

But I don’t want to do that any more. I want to be myself as hard and joyfully and authentically as I can all of the time. I feel like I’ve spent so long repressing myself - first because I was in the closet about being queer and trans and then because I was trying my hardest to pass due to not being about to handle social and physical dysphoria at the same time.

I guess it’s something I need to work through... but I’m not going to give up and hide away again. I won’t do that.

Transandrophobia

The other thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is how the sex characteristics primarily associated with men - for example, facial and body hair - are seen in a negative light. Largely in social justice spaces and communities but in the wider world to some extent also.

In social justice spaces, there is a lot of fear and dislike of maleness and masculinity. I can understand why but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with as a man who is marginalised due to his gender. I don’t feel very safe or comfortable outside of these spaces but it’s often a pretty tough experience to exist in them too.

This dislike of male things extends to physical traits that are seen as male also. Even in supposedly trans-inclusive spaces, I’ve seen this vocal repulsion to things like body hair and facial hair. Disgust towards traits like this is harmful to pretty much everyone who doesn’t fit cis, perisex, white beauty standards.

People who express this disgust in trans inclusive spaces often seem to think that their words will only hurt white, straight, able-bodied, perisex cis men and that it’s therefore fine.

However, I don’t think it’s okay to talk about cis guy’s bodies like that - for one because it’s just a mean thing to do and for two because even if you want to go out of your way to hurt cis men’s feelings then there’s still no way for you to prevent unintended collateral damage if you say horrible things about someone else’s body in a public place.

So if it’s wrong to make comments like that towards relatively privileged people then it’s very, very wrong to say such things about the bodies of trans people, intersex people and people of colour.

Another factor that harms trans men and other transmasculine people specifically is how people tend to react towards our bodies at varying times during medical transitioning. People (especially cis women) tend to react very positively towards us having feminine physical features - being soft and hairless and pretty-looking. Then we receive backlash if we choose to transition - we run into this idea that we’re “ruining” our “precious, sacred, feminine bodies”.

This nasty, entitled rhetoric tends to crop up strongest among TERFs but I’ve come across less explicit, less obviously transphobic variations in trans inclusive communities also.

This demonisation of “male” traits messed with my head when my hormones started to take effect. I was really happy to feel my dysphoria decreasing but at the same time, I had to come to terms with looking well, ugly. At least - ugly according to the spaces and communities I am a part of.

[mesmusae]

Severus: Lily

I know what Fandom says and thinks for the most part. And I know what Rowling has said. Both of which I reject. I don’t like this narrative that Severus was stalkery obsessed with Lily. I am disgusted at the “it’s a good thing harry wasn’t a girl who looked just like his mother” discussions. So let’s break down how I view their friendship.

Let’s start with them meeting. A lot of people take him watching Lily and Petunia at the park as creepy but here’s a few reasons why it’s not. 1) People watching. Literally everyone does this some. If you’re in a public place, you’re going to watch the other people there, see what they’re doing. 2) Shyness. Severus is clearly not a social person. He’s very introverted. Plus, we know he and his family are quite the social pariahs in the neighborhood. They’re looked down upon for being poor, and it seems that perhaps their family life isn’t so private either. He’s not just going to feel comfortable or safe approaching two girls who are from a much better off family. 3) Lily was doing magic in a public setting, in broad daylight. On purpose. For Severus, that’s quite impressive. And likely what caught his attention as well as being how he built up the courage to talk to her. He was like her, and it was clear he had answers that her family didn’t.

And that is how their friendship is born. It is born of this mutual thing they have in common. And Severus is getting to tell Lily everything he knows. She listens, she talks with him, asks him questions, everything. This is likely everything he doesn’t get at home. Lily has become a refuge. Which is perhaps unhealthy, but at this stage, she’s his friend. 

Their first obstacle comes at the sorting. It’s clear that Severus wants Slytherin. He is starting to believe the toxic pureblood rhetoric at a young age. But then again, two thirds of his interactions with muggles are extremely negative. You have his father, who resents Severus and Eileen for what they are. He punishes them for it. And then there’s Petunia. Who is envious of Lily (and likely Snape on the magic front if nothing else) and lashes out because of it. There’s also the muggles around him, in which he gets only pity and a blind eye from as well as sneers and jdugement. And he knows he’s more powerful than them. But he can’t do a damn thing with that. So unlike most prejudice against muggles wizards, his prejudice lies in his real life experiences as opposed to people like Draco who are just raised to believe that muggles are scum and wizards are the elite but have likely never even interacted with a muggle. 

He also wants Lily to come with him. Because he thinks she’s different. (Not a healthy mindset at all. But to him, she is the exception to the rule). Slytherin would not be a safe place for Lily (nor the safe place that he is expecting it to be for him). Though, I think if she’d been in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff it would have gone over better to him than Gryffindor. 

The rift here begins, I think for a couple of reasons. 1) James and his group are now trying to interact with lily. With James of course later in the years growing romantically interested as well. And while we know that Lily is rejecting James’ friendship and romantic advances throughout school, Severus has a lot of mental health issues. Thus, I think his issues stem more from jealousy and fear. Fear that Lily will one day decide that he isn’t worth her time. Maybe she’ll think that James and his gang are in fact better. And that would leave him alone again because 2) Slytherin is not the Sanctuary he thought it would be. Slytherin was supposed to be his home away from “home”. He’d be amongst his kind. Except that Slytherin is a pureblood and very rich house. Most of the purebloods come from Old Money. Classism is a massive part of that. So not only is Severus not a pureblood, but his family is poor. He wears hand-me-downs that are often described as feminine blouses, meaning they’re probably coming from his mother. Add to that, his only friend is a muggle-born. Which he is obviously judged and mocked for. But he’s loyal to Lily. To a fault, honestly. 

So he’s not only severely separated from his only friend from the start, but bullied by both the marauders AND his own housemates in Slytherin. And unfortunately, Lily is the cause to some degree on both sides. (that is not to say it is her fault. IT IS NOT HER FAULT. James’s decisions were his own, as well as the actions of those in Slytherin around Severus. And Severus’s actions in response are his own). 

Now at some point, his feelings turned romantic. And unfortunately, Severus did not have many sources to look at for what it really means to love someone. Because his parents certainly aren’t the answer. And everything else would be at a distant. Also, again because he has so little and because of those fears of losing her, he is slightly possessive about that. He sees James as a threat.

And he’s having to find some way to fit in when it comes to Slytherin. And he finds that with potions. A particularly difficult class, but he didn’t struggle. And he was quite adept at defensive magic as well as dark magic, thus starting to give him value to his peers. And he of course starts to fall into the classic “bullies are often people bullied themselves.” He starts to partake in bullying the muggleborns, using the word, mudblood, etc. just to fit in amongst his own peers. And Severus is not stupid. He’s also not blind (well, in some ways he is). He is bound to see that pureblood rhetoric against muggleborns is bullshit. His issues lies with muggles themselves more so. And still a lot of wizards. At this point in his life, he’s become bitter, quick to anger and defense. Anyone who does him the slightest wrong is against him. He’s learned not to really forgive. 

So let’s talk about the event. Snape’s worst memory. Where James is tormenting Severus, yet again. When Lily comes to his defense, and James tried to blackmail Lily into a date by using tormenting Severus, in a moment of weakness he lashed out at her. He used the term mudblood in regards to her. (And was then publically humiliated and shamed for it by James and the group). 

Yes. He waited in the hallway all night for her outside the Dormitory. To apologize. Regardless of anything, he did not want to hurt her. So he apologized. And when she rejected him (Which i think had less to do with him using the word against her and rather the fact that there had been a rift growing for years and this was just he last straw). But he accepted that. I think he knew their friendship was over and had been for quite some time. He left her alone, and thus was completely intergrated into Slytherin and those who were molding him and shaping him.

Now. Just because they stopped being friends, doesn’t mean the caring stopped. They had their childhood memories they formed together. Severus was always going to have those feelings for Lily. It does not make it obsession. And I think of it like this.

I have a friend, who was more the Snape to my Lily. She was kind of an awful person, awful friend, and there came a point we cut each other out. (I’m not saying i’m entirely innocent in the destruction of that friendship. But I do view her actions as far more Severus’s toxic side than my own. But that’s besides the point). I did not stop caring about her altogether. Especially not immediately. Especially not right out of school. I still think of our friendship often. I think that if she came to me needing something, I would likely help her, even if I have a feeling she wouldn’t do the same for me. 

So that is what I view Severus’s feelings towards Lily. Except stronger. Because Lily was the only light in his life. She was the only good thing. The only positive influence he really had. Adults were never on his side. His peers were rarely on his side. So losing Lily, he clung to what little he had. The death eaters who took him in under their wings over the years. Those who were promising him power and control, something he rarely had in his life. 

But that care is what got him. He heard that part of the prophecy, and of course he kept track of his friend. Wizarding circles are small anyway. It probably spread without intent. He was scared for her. So he did his job, reporting the prophecy. But begged for her life. In his fear he didn’t think about James. The man that ruined his life and tormented him every chance he got. And he didn’t think about her child, not born yet. Because his reactions were emotional in knowing that Lily’s life was in danger. 

So he went to Dumbledore to have her protected. And yes. Then her family was brought to his attention. And he did not hesitate to agree to keep them safe too. Listen. If Snape really wanted Lily for himself. If he really didn’t care about her at all, it would have been a fight to protect, at the very least, James. He would have argued against it. He instantly agreed because someone reached to the logic in him. And he agreed to risk his life to be Dumbledore’s spy. He signed on to do that for the rest of his life. He signed on to do whatever it took to protect Lily and her Family. So when it was just Harry left, he did everything he could. (that doesn’t mean he went about it right. But he did do his best to protect Harry). Until his very last breath. If it was just about Lily, he would have stopped the moment she died. 

None of this was about sleeping with her. None of this was about winning her over or having her. He accepted that he fucked those things up. He accepted he had no place in her life. This was about making up for his mistakes. Or at least, trying to feel like he could. I don’t think even if he lived to see Harry win and everything, that he would think he had. But he certainly seemed to be trying to show he knew he was wrong, and trying to do the right thing. Total change was never possible for Severus. But the fact that he was even able to admit he was wrong in joining Voldemort and turn to the right side, is a massive step for him.

[tweedfrog]

Hi! Just wanted to pop in and say how much I adore your fics. The Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon tags are nearly impossible to get through. 95% of the fics don’t even feature them prominently and of the remaining 5%, either they’re horrible people bullying faultless Lyanna and Jon 😒 or wonderful angels (unlike that awful witch Catelyn Stark 🙄) who exist to be Jon and Lyanna’s cheerleaders and absolve them of any guilt.

Also I wanted to commend you on your Rhaenys and Elia characterization. Especially Rhaenys! I think a trend I sometimes see is that female characters are only allowed to be happy after they’ve rejected any femininity and taken up weapons and become brash and daring and loudly opinionated. And those girls deserve happiness for sure! But it’s so nice to see a Rhaenys who does lean towards soft power. Who isn’t only a horse and weapons and wild sex enthusiast because she happens to be Dornish. Because that kind of characterization doesn’t really ring true to me for someone like Rhaenys who is in the spotlight a lot. Who’s actions and personality are going to reflect on her abandoned mother who lost out on the throne. I’m so glad characters like her and Elia and Rhaella get to be the heroes of a story while still performing femininity (and frankly using that as their weapons).

And I think you handle the Lyanna situation very well. Personally I’m ambivalent towards Jon and am not fond of Lyanna. But I also don’t like overblown animosity that feels cartoonish. There might be negative feelings directed at them by certain characters, but they aren’t acted upon in any uncharacteristic way. Those two feel more like afterthoughts to Elia and Rhaenys. And while I very much lean into the drama of it all (because it’s so rare for Elia to win this much) I can very much appreciate the reality that Elia and Rhaenys aren’t spending every waking moment thinking about Jon and Lyanna. They have lives to lead and it’s pointless keeping a scoreboard of who got what win over the other. There’s no need to compete, but there’s also no need to be friendly and accommodating is the vibe I’m getting from your story and I really love that. (But I also like that negative feelings exist because let them be human and relatable!!!!!)

Sorry for the word vomit 😅 but I really love your writing and it’s one of the only things I look forward to in this fandom anymore tbh. Thank you so much!

this is so sweet oh my goodness and I’m in a crappy mood today because of uni stress so this really made my day thank you for sending me this

I’m glad you find Rhaenys and Rhaella exercising soft power interesting. I think you’ve got the right take on Rhaenys! She is someone who would love to be able to be loud and brash and is quite opinionated (see: her outright telling her father she would marry anyone to get away from him) but in the red keep where her every move is scrutinized she doesn’t have the option to do that. She has a complicated relationship with the way she presents herself which is also heavily tied up in the fact that she is the only visibly non-white member of her family and she faces scorn for obviously being half-Dornish.

I think the whole “I’m not like other girls” vibe of only letting girl characters be cool and better when they dislike girls who behave in “traditionally feminine” ways is just as shitty as painting girls who don’t behave in traditionally feminine ways as “masculine” (and trying to say they have male privilege – like what?). The truth is that even though some traits are ascribed by society to one gender or the other – there aren’t any traits that are more inherent to one gender than the other. And quite frankly in a society like Westeros women are going to have a complicated relationship with their performance of gender regardless of how they perform it.   

I also really enjoy women in old stories using the small tools available to them as women to undermine a system that disregards them because it’s fun!

Thank you for saying that my handling of the Jon/Lyanna situation is realistic! I once got accused of bashing - which I don’t want to do so that was a bit of a blow. But I don’t think I’m bashing them to have my characters think negatively of them or disliking them. I did some investigation (mainly by reading r/relationships lmao) into how people feel when their parents break up due to affairs and the common thread I saw was a LOT of pain and resentment and yeah some jealousy and dislike of half siblings who resulted from those new relationships. And that’s in our society where we have stuff like divorce and no one’s starting wars over kidnapped fiancées. Imagine how much more resentment there would be in a situation where not only did your father leave you but that also 1. Put your life in jeopardy 2. Put your inheritance rights in jeopardy 3. You can’t just leave and tell him to fuck himself because in this society the family you have grants you saftey and power. Honestly Rhaegar’s lucky someone hasn’t snapped and stabbed him yet.

You're right to say they aren't accommodating or friendly, saying that Lyanna and Jon are an afterthought is probably right. Rhaenys Rhaella and Elia have approached something like tolerance with Lyanna – they’ll leave her alone if she leaves them alone and that’s the way everyone likes it. In an everyone lived situation I simply don’t think it would be realistic to approach it in any other way. And because Elia and Rhaenys are more on the “winning” side of this I dont think they would spend every waking moment dwelling and brooding on Lyanna.

I think this tendency to have Elia and Rhaenys approve whole-heartedly of Lyanna and Jon is caused by 4 factors

1.     The misguided need to have them be good or to “give them agency”. Making a character a flat nobody who doesn’t have any emotions towards a situation that would be dangerous and deeply personally humiliating to them isn’t making them good or giving them agency its making them boring and unrealistic.

2. Not wanting to “pit girls against one another”. Look i hate this trope of 2 girls catfighting over a guy as much as anyone else but I have noticed that sometimes people say “don’t pit women against each other” when....2 girl characters don’t like each other for totally legitimate reasons. Elia doesn’t dislike Lyanna because she loves Rhaegar and Lyanna was a homewrecker who stole him. Elia is understandably angry because the whole realm is destabilized, her children’s lives and futures are in danger, and she’s been nationally humiliated. Let female characters be as complex as the male ones. No one bats an eye that Ned and Jaime despise one another because they’re men and we don’t expect male characters to be beautiful angels who never have a bad thought about anyone.

3.     To have them be good to contrast “bitchy” Catelyn. Cat isn’t a bitch and I will die on this hill. If you want to look at who was primarily responsible for the whole Jon situation Rhaegar and Ned are right there.

4.     Being unable to conceptualize non-white characters as having motivations (and negative emotions) that are either directed towards or separate from a (usually white) fandom fav character like Lyanna or Jon.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

You said we can ask you questions so here goes( hope they arent invasive)

-at what age did u realise u were lesbian?was it easy/hard to accept?

-how was your coming out like? How did your family and friends react?

-were you ever/are you religious?do u believe one can balance between being homosexual and religious?

- were you always masc or is it something that came with accepting your sexuality?

-do you call yourself a stud?

- how hard/easy has it been being an out and proud black lesbian?

- thoughts on the stigma against stud4stud/butch4butch lesbians

-were you ever a TRA/libfem? If yes, what made you peak?

-ive had ppl talk about how masc lesbians being touch-me-nots is problematic/toxic and how its more about upholding a "status" than it is about preference. What do you make of that?

Not invasive at all! I'm happy to answer and thank you for asking :).

- I realized I was a lesbian at age 12 when I developed a HUGE crush on my gorgeous English teacher. I also got a small crush on a girl in one of my classes. I didn't grow up around much homophobia so it wasn't hard for me to accept that I was gay but what was hard was the absolute intensity of my feelings towards my teacher. I used to pray to god to have my feelings for her taken away because they were just so intense and I didn't know how to handle them (she was my teacher so I clearly wasn't going to ask her out. There was literally no outlet for what I was feeling so I kept it bottled.). My parents never brought up gay people in any positive or negative way and the kids I grew up around didn't really either. So me being gay wasn't something I beat myself up over. Once I accepted that I wasn't an overly invested straight ally, the road to acceptance was a peace of cake tbh.

-My coming out was... Well. I first started coming out to my friends when I was 13 and they were accepting of it. It honestly wasn't that interesting to tell you the truth 😅. All the peers that I gave a shit about never gave me shit for being gay. I never lost a friend for being gay. Coming out to my parents took me until I was 16 and the reason for that is because I genuinely didn't know how they'd react. Like I said, they never said anything about gay people point blank period. However, I was kind of forced to come out one particular night because my heart had been fucking shattered by a girl I was strongly crushing on at the time. I was pacing up and down my house, my best friend wasn't answering me, I could hear my dad's TV playing, it was late, I was tired, I couldn't sleep, I had school tomorrow, I was freaking out, I was devastated... I wanted to be comforted so I went to my father, threw my head into his arm and started telling him how my heart felt broken. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and when I said "nope" there was some silence and he was like "it's okay, I've known for a long time". I never actually said the words "gay" or "lesbian" during my coming out but I guess I didn't need to. The next morning, my father asked if it was okay if he could go tell my mom and I said yes. Long story short, my mom was even less surprised than my dad and she's the more progressive of the two so it wasn't really an issue (though she did tell me to keep an open mind in terms of liking men 😅 she seems to think I'm bisexual which is whatever because she never bothers me about it).

-Hmm. I don't like to completely cut out religion from my life. My father was extremely religious and now that he's gone, I feel it's disrespectful for me to say God doesn't exist. Like, "dad, you spent practically your whole life believing wholeheartedly in God but guess what! It was a waste and the thing you dedicated your life is something I think is a fairytale!" that doesn't sit right with me at all. I've been baptized and I used to go to church when I was younger. I think that there's no reason to shake my head at the possibility of a God. In terms of being gay and believing in God, I once watched a video by a devout Christian gay man who went through all the homophobic stuff Christians love to quote from the bible and gave the actual meaning behind them. I, personally, do not think that God is homophobic. I think that God's love is not something we have the capacity to understand. So, I, personally, think Christian gay people are perfectly fine and are already balanced. Here's to hoping that they stay away from homophobic churches!

-No, I wasn't always masc. As a child I was a huge girly girl. Like, legit, I wasn't a tomboy in the slightest lmao. I'm not sure when I started being masc. But what I do know is that I've grown far more masc over the years. I used to not want to dress too manly (no tuxedo's and no clothes from the men's section and no boxers) but nowadays I love all of those things and that's genuinely what I want in my wardrobe so I have no problem going into the men's section for my clothes.

-No, I don't call myself a stud. Love those guys though. The label I feel that's most accurate for me is masc.

-Um, I'm not sure how to answer this since I don't have experience being any other kind of lesbian. I guess it's just kind of tiring. I'm black, female, and homosexual. That's a LOT of different topics to give my attention to. The hardest part of being a black lesbian is knowing who to give my camaraderie to. Do I give it to black women? Black women AND black men? Lesbians? Only black lesbians? The lgb community as a whole? It's just a lot to think about. I will say, though, I think that it's a lot harder to be a masc black lesbian than a white one. Black women are already perceived as manly just based off of our skin color. So for me to willingly present masc can often be... A non-pretty picture in the eyes of society and I'm hyper-aware of that which is why I often have trouble going all out with the wardrobe I truly desire. That's my biggest challenge navigating the world as the black lesbian that I am. On a more positive note though, it's great being a black lesbian because I can have an opinion on everything and nobody can tell me I'm being racist/homophobic/sexist or stepping outside of my lane 😂. I'm on a three-lane road motherfucker and I'm not afraid to use all of them.

-my thoughts are that you should leave people alone. I will say though, I once read something that was like "if you call yourself a femme but the idea of being with a butch disgusts you, you're not a femme, you're just a feminine lesbian" and that rang true to me so it feels hypothetical (and nonsensical) if the reverse wasn't true as well. If a butch/stud shits on femmes and assumes they can't be as feminine as they are and ACTUALLY gay then I do have a problem. Butches and femmes have a history that's damn near inseparable from each other so for a butch to shit on femmes... I'd argue that they're probably not butch but instead just masculine lesbians. However, I don't care if two butches or studs want to date lmao. All the power to them, I hope they're happy.

-I definitely used to support trans rights more than I do now. I would correct people who misgendered others. I thought trans women were women. I was in support of bathroom laws. I never made posts about it, but I very much did believe it. Magdalen berns made me peak. I started realizing that gender makes no sense. I did some research and came to the conclusions I hold today. Even when I want to go back to my ignorance, I can't because I've seen too much by now.

-I honestly don't know. I think that some masc lesbians don't want to be put in that "feminine" position of being touched by their partner. It could stem from upholding a status but at the end of the day, sexual boundaries are sexual boundaries. What are you gonna do? Force your touch on to them? Yikes. Leave them be. If you're upset about your partner not wanting to be touched by you then get a new one. Clearly you're not sexually happy so leave. I don't think it's necessarily toxic unless they think there's something inherently demeaning in being touched by their partner or they do want to be touched but won't allow themselves due to trauma or feeling like there's a certain persona they must uplift. Other than that though, I don't see the issue.

Thanks for the questions, buddy ❤️

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 6-Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Hey ho person reading this blog. I am continuing my journey through Ranma 1/2, this week on the sixth episode. This one looks to be the end of this little two-part story arc, something I knew without having to look at the episode guide because I’ve never forgotten what happens in episode seven. I...legitimately don’t know what’s going to happen with this one, aside from Ranma learning about Tofu’s thing for Kasumi, and getting to see the two interact. Next paragraph, I’ll have rewatched the episodes and will be ready to regale you with what occurred.

As expected, this episode starts right where the last one ended. Though unlike I was expecting, Akane just flat out tells Ranma it’s Kasumi that Dr. Tofu likes rather than drawing it out further. Ranma isn’t sure how she knows that, but then the doctor himself shows up and starts helping Ranma with the baseball injury that sent him there. Dr. Tofu jokes about the injury clearly being from Akane, only for her to say something to confirm the idea. She’s clearly bothered by the implication of it, that she isn’t a very feminine person, but Dr. Tofu clearly doesn’t mind that she’s more of a tomboy.

Then Kasumi shows up, and the old lady waiting her turn in the lobby books it. As she leaves, she runs into an old man who was going to see Dr. Tofu, and tells him that Kasumi is there. It’s clear that Kasumi’s effects on Dr. Tofu are common knowledge to his patients. What are those effects? Well, she enters the room with him, Ranma, and Akane to give him back that book mentioned last episode and to give him a present.

In a millisecond, Dr. Tofu goes from being a kind, seemingly wise doctor to an utter buffoon. Any iota of good sense in him vanishes when Kasumi is in his presence, causing him to do things like addressing his panda assistant as Ranma or mistaking a present’s wrapping for being a mask. Akane leaves right away, and Ranma ends up following, but not until the silly version of Dr. Tofu has bent Ranma’s neck in a weird direction.

Akane is out on the edge of the water of a...river? Stream? Reservoir? I never know what to call those things. Anyway, she’s tossing rocks when Ranma shows up, and he’s clearly trying to cheer her up, following her around to try and help. It’s then that Akane perks up, asking Ranma if he actually likes her. He denies it, but she seems to be in better spirits, tricking Ranma into activating his curse by abusing the fact he tends to leap without looking where he’ll land. There’s a moment when he sees her laughing that the show focuses on, something Ranma really takes notice of.

Instead of heading home, Akane asks Ranma to lend her money for food, and they get some fast food together. Not long after sitting in a park to eat it, Akane’s mood sours again. She can’t help comparing herself negatively to Kasumi, and tells Ranma more details about how badly Dr. Tofu loves her, how it makes him act. This is when Ranma says the wrong thing, making an idle remark about her heart being broken, and that is it for Akane. They start arguing, Akane clearly hurt by Ranma’s cavalier words, but after Akane shuts down his attempts to offer comfort, Ranma bluntly tells Akane she’s going to have to get over it. She tells him that he has no clue what she’s going through, which seems to strike a nerve for Ranma, who asks how she knows that’s the case. Akane leaves, telling Ranma not to follow her.

Ranma goes to see his dad for hot water, and he uncurses himself with it as well, asking what’s gone on between Ranma and Akane. Genma makes it clear that the problem at hand is that sometimes one of them says something that hurts the other without them realizing it, and that he knows that pain. For an example, he tells a story about some girl who he was dating when he was young, who he broke up with. In the process, younger Genma talked on and on about how much better his new girlfriend was, getting him conked in the head in the past and the present.

Still, with that idea in mind, Ranma heads home. Akane is training, trying to settle her mood, when Ranma starts lightly sparring with her. When she gets annoyed he isn’t taking it seriously, and defending the fact that she likes to be angry sometimes, Ranma tells her she’s actually really cute when she smiles. This stuns her enough for him to poke her, and we cut from her getting annoyed in the moment to her ruminating on it all afterwards, in the bath. Akane seems surprised at the idea that anyone would find her attractive, or that smiling helps, even smiling in a mirror afterwards in her room. Ranma appears in the window, makes a snarky comment, Akane punches his lights out, end of episode.

This episode was a lot better than I expected going into it. I hadn’t forgotten any of the Dr. Tofu stuff, which I’ll just say right now I’m not a huge fan of, but the Ranma/Akane aspects of the episode were very strong, at least for me. I feel like there’s definitely a lot of Ship Teasing, though considering the rest of Ranma’s harem hasn’t been introduced yet, that’s to be expected.

This was the second time so far, that I can remember, where Ranma jumped without looking, only to realize he’d be landing in water. It’s a gag, sure, but it reinforces the character trait of Ranma’s that he’s a literally ‘leap before he looks’ kind of guy. It’s easy to then tie that in to his behavior that makes their argument worse, the same thing he often does to set Akane off: he leaps without looking. Ranma has a tendency to just say things without thinking through how the other person might feel about it first, and that often leads to him touching other people’s vulnerable spots without realizing it.

There’s also a bit of symmetry between the two of them: Ranma taking in that moment of the happy, smiling Akane, and Akane thinking back to Ranma telling her she looked really pretty when she smiled. Even as it becomes clear they have a lot to get past, there are more hints that each is starting to grow to like the other.

More fodder in that department can be seen when Ranma gets annoyed that Akane assumes he has no clue how she’s feeling. While one can read it as general indignation, it can also be seen as him getting annoyed that she has noticed he is feeling the same kind of thing. Namely, that Akane is so in love with Dr. Tofu that she isn’t really noticing him. I could be pulling that interpretation out of my shipping ass, but it’s just something I saw this time around. Sorry that most of my content for this one was about Ranma/Akane stuff, I can’t really control my inner shipper.

For this week’s character spotlight, I decided I might as well get Dr. Tofu out of the way now. I feel like I’ve kind of made it clear already, but I don’t really care about Dr. Tofu that much. He’s a fairly bland character, especially for this show, and the fact that, as far as I can recall, he basically slowly fades from the anime over time makes sense to me. I get what they were going for, and he does elicit some interesting development from Akane, but as a guy in his own right, he doesn’t do anything for me.

Still, this is his spotlight, so let me look into his voice actors. In the English Dub, his voiced by Ian James Corlett, who...did a lot of 90’s stuff? Honestly, not a lot there that peaks my interest. Oh, wait, what? His daughter Claire Corlett, who is a voice actress, is Sweetie Belle? ...that is pretty cool. Technically speaking, he was only the voice of Dr. Tofu for the first six and a half seasons, after that someone else took over, but I genuinely don’t recall that happening so we can discuss that when we get to it. In the original Japanese, he’s played by Yūji Mitsuya. In contrast to his American counterpart, Yūji has been in a billion things, including once again Japanese dubs of American media. In Yūji’s case, he was Marty in Back to the Future, Jack in Will & Grace, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Amadeus.

What are they like as this character? Well, to compare and contrast, Ian plays Dr. Tofu as more warm and kind, but otherwise normal sounding, even when he’s in Kasumi-induced silliness. Yūji instead gives him a higher voice, and when he’s being ridiculous, that adds a lot to the idea that he’s now just a blundering buffoon. Their performances actually do feel rather distinct, and trend that character towards slightly different readings. I’d say I mostly prefer Ian’s, but that’s just because I don’t get a lot out of the humor of Dr. Tofu anyway, so the more silly Yūji performance doesn’t do a lot for me.

I should also say here that, to my amazement, Tofu is not his last name. His name is apparently Tofu Ono. This kind of baffles me. When people, at least here in America, talk about a doctor, they use the last name after the Dr. prefix. And in the Japanese version, I thought they were calling him ‘Tofu’ a lot, but as his personal name rather than his family name, wouldn’t they be more likely to call him ‘Ono’, since that’s generally what people do in Japan? Am I missing something? I’m probably missing something.

Name issues aside, the thing I will say I appreciate about Dr. Tofu is that, well, I get why Akane likes him. Aside from being a marital artist (though that quality of his remains mostly told and not shown), he helps people, and he doesn’t try to tell Akane she’s wrong for being who she is. As much as Akane is down on the fact that she has more masculine hobbies and doesn’t always act ladylike, Dr. Tofu calls her ‘spirited’ and compliments those aspects of her personality. The very fact Akane’s oldest sister is the ultimate picture of traditional femininity probably hasn’t helped her, and Dr. Tofu’s overt affection for Kasumi probably just makes that worse. Nonetheless, the doctor appreciates Akane for who she is, rather than who she could be.

Going into this episode, I was expecting to set it down at the bottom of the pack, but I’m such a sucker for the chemistry between Ranma and Akane that I have to put it higher. How high? Well, I’d say it’s the second best episode so far, only topped by the second episode because that one was just so dang delightful. That puts the current rankings as:

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

The odd numbered episodes haven’t been faring as well, that’s for sure. I don’t think that streak will continue though, because next week is episode seven, “Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’”, and oh boy I cannot wait for that! See you all then!

[zuzuslastbraincell]

Katara!

KATARA KATARA KATARA

why I like them

oh god where do i even start. katara just contains so many multitudes - she's sweet and feminine and caring and attentive but she's never reduced to just that, she's never just 'the girl', she's also allowed to get mad, to be petty, to laugh at her brother, to be headstrong and stubborn, to express vulnerability, to cry and to laugh, to make ridiculous facial expressions and *be* very expressive. she's dealing with a lot of trauma not simply from the loss of her mother but that loss represents also how her tribe have been decimated by the fire nation, how she's the last waterbender, how all this pressure exists on her shoulders (but also pride, but also determination, to bring it back) and that is expressed subtly throughout the series with the same depth and love that male characters are afforded with regard to their respective traumatic experiences. and despite all this she never tries to stop making the world good? She's always pushing for change, she's always wanting to make things better, she's relentless and doesn't give up when it comes to her vision for a better world... she has such a big heart. and that coexists with a deep anger in her, and deep hurt. Not to make an ocean metaphor so early on but she's as deadly and deep as the ocean but she chooses to be kind and warm and that's so powerful.

why i don't

honnestly while katara's instincts to mother people are a sad symptom of how she was forced to grow up to soon and automaically asigns herself a role of emotional responsibility she has mixed feelings about, i know that if katara tried to mother me, i would be annoyed. but that sounds more like a me problem.

favourite episode

oh it's either the episode where she beats the fucking shit out of pakku or it's the southern raiders. the first one because it's so gratifying to see how she's grown and developed as a bender and really come into her own. the second because... god i love how *messy* the southern raiders is, and it really taps into what i love about katara - she's flawed, she runs off on an ill-thought out revenge mission with zuko, she's got a great capability for darkness as she quite seriously considers murdering a man she has every right to loathe and to kill - but she chooses against it, in the end. it would not be right for her, if not him. she chooses what's right for her in the end.

favourite season

I'm gonna be a wee bit controversial and say book 1 had the best conception of katara's arc from student to master and really saw her grow and flourish, from someone yelling at her brother' oafish prejudice to a real master, that really solidified her as an idealist and presented that as the strength that is, that showed her struggling with petty jealousy of aang's progress and had her stumble in ways that made her character comeplling and interesting - like what an introduction to her character! book 2 had some fantastic moments but i can't think of anything particularly remarkable about hee character arc - largely because it tied into aang's romantic arc i think at this point. book 3 had some absolutely fantastic moments (scam queens katara and toph!! painted lady!! southern raiders!! the final agni kai) that really shone but also book 3 lays a lot of groundwork for fanon i hate (e.g. katara as the mom friend - wish that headcanon would die tbh)

favourite line

fuck there's a lot of good ones but my underrated fave is when sokka says he's kissed a girl before but she's never met her and katara says 'Who? Gran-gran? I've met gran-gran' and it's bruuutaaall

but my favourite serious line is 'I will never ever give up on people who need me'. powerful.

favourite outfit

water tribe anything!! and i actually think her book one/book two braids are her best hair. underrated katara hair. personally she looks just adorable in her parka in the flashback to when she was like. eight.

OTP

katara/personal fulfilment

katara/happiness

katara/fulfilling her goals and dreams

katara/loving minor background character who is never named

there's some ships i like in AU situations - yuetara is actually one i lov, especially with waterbender yue, i just love the whole sea/moon thing as well as katara and yue rebelling in loud/quiet ways, being girlfriends who refuse to have their lives defined by the expectations of older men, who have a great sense of duty towards their nations and won’t let gendered expectations stop them.

and most of you know i like the messy drama of katara/azula in a lighter AU situation where they're like, school or academic rivals, and the legacy of imperialism isn’t quite so personal (and azula makes better choices, obviously), but it’s not as much as i “ship” them as i just find the potential dynamic interesting, they’re both driven by a sense of duty for their home, it’s just that means *very* different things depending if you’re SWT or FN.

none of them are OTPs though - they’re more just fun thought experiments

brotp

katara & sokka - absolutely love their sibling dynamic its amazing. both have been impacted negatively by the shit in their lives and are not always dealing with it in functional ways but theyre there for each other, through thick and thin, always have each other's backs, they roast each other and bicker and sometimes make stupid decisions and sometimes lash out but at the end of the day their love pulls through, they’re able to work past those conflicts.

katara & aang - honestly while i feel kataang was just so poorly executed in the show (listen guys I just can’t after ember island players, i know that was a bad episode, but i can’t) & i cant imagine katara wanting to leave the south pole after the war for long spells (it would have to be long distance love, lots of profound and heartfelt letters and occasional visits, if anything, but i dont know if that’s what katara wants or needs? so maybe it wouldn’t pan out?), but regardless, i really do think these two had a life-changing friendship where each really represented hope for each other, that's at the core of it, they both truly believe in each other, and inspired each other. katara & aang good.

a headcanon

chief katara anyone?? chief katara?!?! 

oh oh OH i also think that katara, while primarily a combat bender during the war, actually takes to healing a lot more after the show and gets proper healing training at some point with the help of a trained medical expert and maybe yugoda. tbh i feel like the show was a bit dismissive of healing as an ability - i feel like having that is *extremely* useful in any combat situation, you always have a medic on hand - but i understand why katara, who wanted to be recognised as powerful regardless of her gender, and wanted to hold herself in a fight alongside sokka & aang, pushed for combat waterbending training because that is what 'powerful' looks like to her in the moment. obviously katara is capable of incredible healing feats (see: saving aang) but i think given we see her as a healer in lok (not a decision i necessarily disagree with) would mean a shift in focus. i think katara actually comes to realise she likes healing a great deal, but really she excels in all aspects of waterbending and is the south’s most respected master who helped rejuvenate southern style waterbending  

unpopular opinion

the main reason people think katara is straight is because we see her have very few meaningful interactions with other girls outside of toph. ATLA as a show is a bit romance obsessed, and very heteronormative in that regard, and so interactions with minor characters almost always line up with a potential crush for sokka or katara, and later, zuko (suki, haru, jet, yue, song, jin....). we rarely see katara build friendships with other girls and it’s such a damn shame.

(anyway bi katara for life)

a wish

the version of the puppetmaster we saw was actually fire nation propaganda, i feel like katara would have felt deep compassion for a prisoner of war and after maybe some clashes, would have agreed to help smuggle her out of the fire nation and secure passage home for hama, and tried to assure her that she still has a place there. the treatment of hama in that episode was awful (but also hama was written to be almost cartoonishly evil, very much an evil witch in her cottage in the spooky woods? like the whole horror movie / spooky story opening was such a big tell) and tbh i reject the thesis that we saw ‘katara’s dark potential’ in that episode completely, or that bloodbending as a power is inherently dark, or katara’s use of it to stop hama ‘corrupted’ her. I feel like katara might feel this way as a teenager perhaps but with time (she can be a little black and white at times), and especially with more training as a healer, i think she might realise that’s not the case, she’ll realise that she was right to try and oppose hama, her elder (she was lashing out rather than really trying to oppose the fire nation), and it wasn’t a betrayal of her or her beliefs, but also her use of bloodbending wasn’t wrong or evil inherently at all? and maybe she’d find ways to use it for healing purposes? anyway my wish is that, i like the idea that they meet again, speak about their differences, reconcile a little / come to an understanding, and katara learns more from hama again

an oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen

anything where katara’s character is reduced to a comforter or a healing device for a man and his trauma. particularly zuko. (they don’t have that dynamic in canon thankfully, zuko would never, zuko respects her too much)

5 words to describe them:

idealistic, hard-working, powerful, headstrong, kind

my nickname for them:

chief. or comrade. :^)

[wuvbug-kny]

too late — kamado tanjirou

↬ tw!! suicidal thoughts

↬ tanjirou x fem!reader x inosuke

↬ genre: angst

“i-i really do like you..um, it wasnt easy to confess b-but..yeah..”

my body shook. my head ached. my anxiety was over the roof. what was i thinking, why would i confess to him?! oh god. im going insane. what was i thinking..

i felt tears in my eyes start to form as my body got hotter by the second. my fists were clenches togethee tightly, nails digging into my palms as my heart raced at an unsteady pace. i gulped. why wasnt he saying anything? why is he just standing there? oh no.. my eyes remained stuck onto the ground as the knot in my throat got tighter. the tears that had formed in my eyes began to fall to the ground, and out of embarassment i lowered my head even more hoping he wouldnt notice.

tanjirou, please dont break me more than i already am broken.

“(y/n)..”

“y-yes?”

“im sorry.

i cant reciprocate your feelings.”

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈•ﾟ｡

i felt numb. i felt like complete, utter trash.

i felt worthless. i feel worthless.

of course it turned out that way.

why did i get my hopes up? why was i so dumb? to think someone like him would love such a lonely, miserable girl like me.

my heart ached. ever since i felt like the hole in my chest had gotten the biggest its ever been. it hurt, the pain was incredibly painful, i felt like i seeped even more into darkness than the darkness i was emorsed in before.

god, why am i so miserable? what is this life you’ve given me? what is my purpose?

sometimes, no, at all times i just want to disappear.

the knock on my door startled me, causing me to jump up from my laying position on my bed, in result of getting up too fast i had landed on my floor painfully. i grunted in pain as more tears began to spilled out from my eyes.

im miserable..

quickly sitting up, i wiped the tears from my tomato reddened face before sucking everything up as best as i could.

“y-yes?” i replied to the knocking coming from my door.

the knocking got even louder.

confused, i called out again. “y-yes??”

i jumped, shrieking slightly as the door was kicked open. am i under attack? but this is the butterfly estate! scrambling to my bed like the coward i was, i quickly pulled out my blade, pointing it towards the now beaten down door.

“w-who is it??” i shivered.

“(y/n), you bird brain! training has started and everyone is still waiting on you!!”

in came inosuke, wearing his boar mask as usual.

i lowered my blade and sighed shakily, before putting it away. “i-inosuke..you scared me. you could of just answered to me instead of kicking my door open..” i said, getting up from the bed.

“whatever! you should be at training! you’re holding everyone up, you stupid hag!” he huffed, crossing his arms.

i forcefully made myself laugh, even though i was in now way amused by his words.

hes right.

im a burden to everybody.

i shouldnt be here.

i should just die.

im so worthless.

everyone would be better off without me.

without realizing, i felt the warmness of my tears flowing down my face. i felt my heart ache so badly, my body shaking.

unable to hold my stance, i fall to the floor. sobbing.

because im so pathetic.

taking my bruised up hands, i quickly try to wipe the tears away but they just keep coming, and coming. i cant stop. i cant stop. my bubble has bursted, i have no more energy, i have no energy to keep it all in anymore, i cant control myself.

as i was too busy drowning in my negative, self killing thoughts, i was interrupted when my hands were pulled away from my face.

a little taken aback, but still having tears flowing down my face, i looked up.

inosuke..

“what are you, a baby? stop it.” he grumbled as he wiped my tears away with his thumb. his thumb glided across my cheek, flicking my tears away as gently as ever. for a moment i felt my heart warm. this is the first time ive ever been carressed so gently. i loved the feeling, but at the same time surprised as to who i was recieving it from.

“dont cry anymore. i dont like it.” his hands gently carressed my face now as his emerald eyes looked into mine. i felt my heart skip a beat, the empty deep feeling in my chest being forgotten at the very moment. i couldnt look away from his eyes.

for the first time ever, i felt like. i was okay.

i teared up again, but before i could let the tears spill i engulfed inosuke in a hug. an endearing, loving, grateful hug. i sobbed as i buried my face into his chest.

“t-thank you. thank you so much.”

i felt his arms wrap around my shaking figure gently, as he at the same time patted my head.

i was honestly surprised as to what was going on right now. out of all people, inosuke.

you’ve made me so happy. you’ve made me feel safe, okay, and wanted.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈•ﾟ｡

two months had passed ever since tanjirou had turned me down.

honestly, i had nothing against tanjirou. i never expected him to like me, heck, love me back even. i never expected him to reciprocate my feelings. but at the same time, i felt like i still had a chance. i dont know what was going through my mind at the time.

i still loved tanjirou. maybe not as much as before, but i knew i still had the slightesy feelings for him. i try my best to talk to him as if nothing had ever happened. i really just want to move on from it.

as much as i hate myself for it, seeing him and talking to him makes me feel worthless. i hate myself for feeling that way. if i could go back in time and redo everything, i most certainly would.

what hurt me even more was to see how close he had gotten himself with kanao. it was no surprise to me, honestly. kanao is a very pretty girl, and she’s just way better than me in general in regards to demon slaying and skill wise.

no wonder tanjirou would take interest in her.

i was happy for him, i really was. i held no resent towards kanao at all. afterall, it would be petty and childish.

kanao was a dear friend to me and if they really did have chemistry between one another, i do really wish them the best.

i just cant help but pity myself.

“(y/n)!”

i squeaked in surprise as i was suddenly lifted off the ground by a pair of arms around my waste and twirled around. it took me a moment to realize that it was nobody but inosuke, before having a giggling fit.

“i-inosuke! put me down!” i laughed as he started to make plane noises. i felt myself blush as his eyes locked itself with mine, before averting my gaze to block him from noticing my face had turned into a tomato red.

ever since i broke down in front of inosuke and had him comfort me, we’ve gotten a lot closer. not much has changed between us personality wise, but he associated with me way more and always seemed ready whenever id ask him a favor, etc. he also now liked to pick me up and pretend to toss me, or making plane noises as he twirled me around.

he’s honestly like my best friend now. i can actually talk to him about how i feel deep down inside. he listens but doesnt really give much input on it, but i dont mind. its inosuke afterall, what can i expect? all im grateful for is that he listens.

inosuke grinned before setting me back down on the floor. he patted my hat before literally collapsing onto the grass covered ground, yawning and using his arms to rest his head on.

“im tired, (y/n). take a nap with me.” he grunted, patting the spot next to him. i smiled before laying down too, as i looked up at the sky.

“hey, inosu-“ i cut myself off after i had looked at him and noticed he was already out like a light. i giggled a bit. hes such a baby, honestly.

i stared at his face a bit more and noticed how pretty and feminine his features were. his eyelashes were curled and at a beautiful length, his lips slightly parted making him look angelic. his fair skin with no scars made him look like an angel.

jeez, god really do be picking favorites.

i sighed before laying back down on the grass, closing my eyes as i rested my head on inosuke’s chest. i felt myself sleeping into sleep and just let it happen.

this was one of the many times i felt at peace, always with inosuke.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈•ﾟ｡

“im telling you, inosuke and (y/n) have a thing going on! have you seen how they are with each other?!” falling onto the floor, zenitsu started to sob. “why, out of all people, him?! a pretty girl like (y/n) deserves better! eUUugGNnN!!”

“what are you guys talking about?” tanjirou asked as he walked into the room, a smile worn on his face as he laughed at zenitsu obviously being overdramatic about whatever it was.

aoi and the other three girls sighed as they continued on eating their lunch.

“zenitsu thinks (y/n) and inosuke are dating and hes freaking out about it because he knows he’ll never get someone as pretty as (y/n).” aoi said, laughing at the last part.

tanjirou froze, before laughing nervously. “aaah, dont say that, im sure zenitsu will find someone one day!”

aoi shrugged, followed on by more giggles coming from sumi and the two others.

“are (y/n) and inosuke really dating?” tanjirou asked, sitting down.

“dont even mention it! agh!” zenitsu cried from his laying position on the ground, before burying his face in his arms again.

aoi rolled her eyes before moving onto answering tanjirou. “well..no, actually yeah, no, we dont know. i mean it looks like it. they’ve gotten a lot of closer and inosuke is always up on (y/n) now. i mean, they’d make a really cute couple! i see the way (y/n) lights up when shes around him.”

“a-ah. i see.” tanjirou said, letting out a slight laugh. “well, im gonna head out to train now. ill see you all at dinner.”

aoi and the three girls said goodbye to him as he made his exit.

tanjirou walked down the halls of the butterfly estate, before stumbling upon the garden. he sighed, walking out with the intention to take a look at the peaceful view of the garden meadow and for some fresh air.

his peace was interrupted, however, as his eyes locked upon two well known people cuddled up on the garden grass, taking a peaceful nap.

his fists clenched, and so did his teeth.

he felt jealousy over power him. he did not realize it, but it was there and he felt it. he just didnt know what it was.

but what he knew, was regret.

that he had let (y/n) slip past him.

[mermaidxatxheart]

It’s Always You

This is a sneak peek of something that I’m working on and really debating on posting. I’d love feedback, whether positive or negative. Something you didn’t like, something that didn’t make sense. If it doesn’t get a lot of feedback, then I guess that’s also my answer, as well. *Edit. I forgot the Keep Reading bar. I will get better.

Pairing: Bucky X OFC

Warnings: descriptions of car accidents, being in the hospital, angst, I maintain that I know absolutely nothing. Heavy sarcasm. There’s seriously so much snark in this story, I almost ran out.

Word count: 1112

Summary: Ava is in a car accident and wakes up in the hospital with Captain America asking her questions. Before she can remember anything, she slips into a coma. Will she be able to help Steve figure out what’s going on in time?

Disclaimer, since we apparently have to do this now: I only own my original characters. The ideas are mine, the Marvel characters belong to Marvel. This story was inspired by @shreddedparchment‘s You’re My Mission, but as far as we’re both aware (I believe) they’re not similar.

The last thing I remember is the set of headlights coming directly at the left side of my car. The screeching of metal twisting, the hollow pops as the door panels crack and the shattering of glass are the last noises I hear. 

 Silence.

 Blissful. 

 Pain-free.

 Silence. 

 The next sound I become slowly aware of is a quiet beeping. A steady rhythm. Even. 

 It almost lulls me back to sleep. But then I’m aware that something isn’t right. I try to roll over but my whole body is immobilized, held down and I begin to panic. That quiet beeping becomes frantic, picks up speed. I can’t breathe, something is blocking my airway, something hard forced down my throat. 

 “She’s awake!” A voice yells and there’s more noise. People talking over people, hands touching me and my panic ratchets up another notch. 

 The hard plastic something is pulled out of my throat, leaving it burning and raw, but at least I can breathe. I gasp for air and my throat feels like it’s on fire.

 “If you can hear me, you need to calm down. You’re safe, you’re in a hospital.” A voice says gently, a hand pressing on my shoulder.

 I struggle to open my eyes, but for the first time I realize I can’t, they’re being held shut. 

 I try to lift my arms but they feel like dead weight and won’t move.

 “Easy, now. Just relax.” The voice says again and I feel fingers against my eyes, but there’s a gap in the sensation. It takes me a long minute to realize that it’s because I can’t feel all of the fingertip. 

 Something like tape is pulled off my eye and I wince as pain flares. But now I can open my eyes. One only opens a little, it’s mostly swollen shut, which is probably why they only had tape on one.

 “Your eye kept popping open, it was unnerving some of the staff.” The voice says again. Her voice is gentle, feminine. 

 I try to turn my head to look at her, but my neck won’t turn. “What happened to me?” I croak. My voice is painfully rough and speaking even that much hurts like a bitch. 

 “Don’t try to move. You’re very lucky to be alive. Can you tell me what you remember?” She asks, stepping into your view. She’s very pretty, A dark-skinned beauty with obvious Western Asian features and a British accent. 

 “I,” I try to think back before waking up just a moment ago, but it’s just a big black void. Faces appear, my parents, my sisters, people I used to know, my boyfriend. “I was talking to my boyfriend... on the phone, I think.” I start, my good eye drifting over my body. 

 It looks like the entire thing is in a cast. My legs are elevated, the left one in a complicated looking brace and the right one in red plaster. My arms are suspended in front of me, needles stuck along the fingers and thick bandages wrapped from my palms up to the middle of my forearms. My right arm is in a cast up to the middle of my bicep and I can feel the massive bandage over my right shoulder.

 “And what were you doing at the time?” The doctor asks. Her face is kind and I want to answer, but thinking back that far hurts my head. 

 “I don’t remember.” I close your eyes, trying to calm down. 

 “That’s alright. Maybe with a little rest, it will come back to you. Can you tell me your name?”

 “Ava. Ava Fonesca.”

 “That’s really good. I’m Doctor Haskin. If you need anything or have any questions for me, you can always have a nurse page me.”

 “Can’t you tell me what’s the matter with me?” I ask.

 She glances towards the door for a moment. “Someone is here to see you. We can discuss your injuries later after you’ve had more time to heal.” She says, stepping outside.

 I nearly choke at the man who enters the now-empty hospital room. He’s tall, he’s blond and those baby blue eyes seem to look right through me.

 Captain America.

 “Hi,” He says once his eyes meet mine. They roamed over my injuries at first, only a natural instinct.

 “Hi,” I reply, feeling insanely stupid. 

 “Do you know who I am?” He asks.

 “Don’t tell me you have amnesia, too. The whole world will fall apart if Captain Steve Rogers can’t remember who he is.” I reply, my jaw aches so I’m careful to keep it mostly shut.

 He grins. “Finally, a sense of humor I can get along with.”

 “You get along with everybody.” A female voice says, coming into the room. 

 Wanda Maximoff.

 “Don’t let him lie to you like that.” She says with a friendly smile at me. 

 I don’t respond, mostly because I’m trying to keep my panic under control.

 “How are you feeling?” Steve asks.

 “Like an elephant is sitting on my chest,” I admit.

 He gives a small chuckle. “I’ve been there. It will go away.” He stalls for a minute and I can tell the small talk is over.

 “What are you doing here?” I ask.

 “Direct, to the point. I like her.” Wanda says, turning a little to Steve. 

 “We need to talk about what happened to you.” 

 “I don’t know anything,” I answer honestly.

 “Okay. So, let’s talk about what you do know.” He pulls a chair close to the side of my bed.

 “Nothing.”

 “I’m sure that’s not true. You’re one of the best biochemical scientists in the world, from what I hear.” He smiles and I have to try hard to resist rolling my eyes.

 “Well, sure, I know stuff. But you’re not referring to what I know like that. You want to know what got me here and honestly-I have no idea.”

 Wanda snorts in a very unladylike way behind Steve.

 “Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “So, do you remember going to work?”

 I close my eyes, trying to focus. “I remember a conversation.” I want to rub my face. It’s frustrating to not have the mobility I should.

 “With your boyfriend?” Steve asks. 

 “No, with... with a friend. I think I sent him something.” I frown. 

 “Was this friend Michael Chambers?” Steve asks gently.

 I try to nod, but can’t. “Yes. We went to Harvard together.” It dawns on me that I never said Michael’s name. “How did you know it was him?” I ask, my eye trained on Steve.

 “He was found dead in his apartment two weeks ago. The same night you had your accident.”

 Everything Tag List:

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[protectwoc]

thots on little women (2019)

or, y’all are giving greta gerwig too much credit (part two)

The character arc that was changed the least from the source material, but that still manages to personally offend me the most, is, of course, Amy’s. It’s no secret that Gerwig is an Amy stan, or at least more of a fan of her than most people. I am as well, which is why I am so disappointed with this particular arc.

It’s honestly more disappointing because Gerwig handled parts of Amy’s arc extremely well, namely, her relationship with Laurie. Gerwig did an excellent job of making Amy and Laurie’s relationship feel less like a consolation prize since Laurie did not end up marrying Jo and more like a fully realized and reciprocal relationship, arguably more so than Alcott herself. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, the Amy/Laurie relationship is not the only important part of Amy’s characterization in the novel, and unfortunately, it is in the movie.

Amy starts out the novel as a selfish twelve year old girl, which is evidenced in no other but the infamous book-burning scene. However, throughout the novel, she grows out of that selfishness and into a more selfless, self aware woman. (Again, whatever your thoughts on “learning to be selfless” as a trope in women’s narratives are not necessarily relevant.)

For example, in the first half of the novel, one of Amy’s most notable chapters deals with pickled limes. For anyone who only watched the movie or doesn’t quite remember the book, a short summary:

Amy, the only one of the March girls who attends school, is upset because the girls in her school have been trading pickled limes. The limes are seen as a status symbol, which can be traded for little trinkets, bestowed upon favorites, or indulged in in front of your enemies. The pickled limes trend has become so popular that the teacher, Mr. Davis, has banned them in the classroom, which has done nothing to curb their popularity. Amy, who is relatively popular among her classmates regardless of her relatively lower class status, has been gifted several limes but had no way to return them, is greatly “in debt.” When Meg gives Amy enough money to buy a whopping twenty-five pickled limes, she flaunts and preens her way around the classroom until a girl she snubbed tattles to the teacher and gets all twenty five limes taken away.

This scene is a good example of the beginning of Amy’s arc of overcoming her one major personality flaw. It shows how her selfish nature is really just immature behavior, and as she ages, she matures out of that childishness. Another good example of this arc happens when Beth contracts scarlet fever. At first, she complains, saying that she would rather contract the deadly disease than to go to her Aunt’s house, but as she remains there, we see her mature and even grow fond of Aunt March. Her personal arc independent of Laurie was a big part of Amy’s plotline, and it was unfortunately left out of the movie.

The most glaring example of this is the omission of one of the most important scenes of Amy’s arc in the book: the occurrences at the fair. Again, indulge me in a brief summary for those who won’t know exactly what I am talking about:

The mother of one of Amy’s friends, Mrs. Chester, holds a three day fair for all of the girls in Amy’s social circle. As Amy is the most talented and most well-liked of the girls, she has the best table at the fair, at the very front, where she is to sell her beautiful artistic creations. However, her friend, May Chester, is jealous of her, and seeing this, Ms. Chester takes the table from Amy and gives it to May, relegating Amy to the back corner to sell flowers. At first, Amy is incredibly upset, and takes all of her art back to the table with her, however, after talking with her family, who are properly indignant on her behalf, she resolves to be gracious and humble and gives her own drawings to May to sell. Seeing this, Jo tells Laurie to take all of his handsome, college-aged bachelor friends to Amy’s table, which he does, and they spend the entire next day of the fair flirting with her and buying every one of the flowers from Amy. On the final day of the fair Amy, who has entirely overcome her own selfish wishes, tells Laurie and his friends to go do the same to May. This string of selfless acts is seen by Aunt March and Aunt Carrol (who in the novel has half of Aunt March’s role in the movie) and is the premier reason behind Aunt Carrol deciding to take Amy to Europe instead of Jo.

Leaving this scene out of Amy’s narrative in the movie is, I think, unforgivable. The inclusion of this scene would have exponentially improved Amy’s arc, for three major reasons:

This scene is the culmination of Amy’s “selfish to selfless arc”. Again, regardless of your opinions on whether this is a good lesson for her to learn, it is an arc, and as the movie stands currently, she simply doesn’t have one. The occurrences at the fair show her finally growing out of her childhood vices into the mature woman we see in Europe, and to exclude this scene does her a disservice.

Prior to her trip to Europe, this is one of the only scenes in the novel where Laurie and Amy have any sort of interaction. If Gerwig wanted to more fully develop the Amy/Laurie romance I cannot imagine the logic behind leaving this scene out. It would make the romance seem less rushed, which has been a common critique of their love story since the book came out, and would even  provide context for Amy’s “Not when I have spent my entire life loving you” line which Gerwig added to the narrative.

As previously mentioned, this scene is one of the main reasons behind Amy being allowed to travel to Europe with Aunt March/Aunt Carrol. Within the movie, this reasoning is less obvious, especially given the fact that Aunt March had already told Jo she would take her to Europe, and the inclusion of this scene would have made the trip feel more earned for Amy.

Greta Gerwig has made no secret of the fact that she both a feminist and a fan of Amy March. I am both of those things as well, which is why I cannot understand her logic behind robbing Amy of a complete arc. In the movie, the most important parts of Amy’s arc are all tied to a man. Even that arc is not as fully developed as it could be. Gerwig did a magnificent job with Amy’s overall likability, but that is not the same thing as writing a fully realized arc for her.

But even though Amy is my personal favorite character, and I am more personally invested in her arc, Gerwig’s mishandling of Amy is not the most egregious sin committed in this movie. That honor is reserved for Jo’s arc.

Part Two: Jo

A Buzzfeed article entitled “The New ‘Little Women’ Makes Space for Jo’s Queerness” claims that “Gerwig’s adaptation, without being too explicit about it, does gorgeous justice to that [queer] reading.” An Advocate magazine article called “Greta Gerwig Brings Out the Inherent Queerness of Little Women” makes the bold claim that the 2019 Little Women “offers the queerest and most feminist reading yet.” An even bolder declaration by them magazine says that “The New Little Women Basically Proves Jo is Queer”. Gerwig has been lauded both by critics and by her own actors for creating an explicitly queer narrative for Jo March. 

As previously mentioned, I do not generally read Alcott’s Jo as queer. However, upon my first encounter with this headcanon, I could immediately see why so many people did see her this way, and why this interpretation is so beloved. Jo has a lot of non-stereotypically straight traits that have made her something of a queer icon in many progressive literary circles. Both the way she bemoans being “born a woman” and her intense desire not to marry spoke to a lot of queer or non-cis readers, many of whom were excited to see her portrayed this way on the silver screen. And though I am not particularly attached to this headcanon, as a bi woman, I too was excited to see her that way.

And then… I didn’t.

Look, I hate to burst y’alls bubble, but there is literally not a single second in the movie where Jo is anything resembling queer. At best, she could be read as aromantic/asexual, but that’s about it. (Note: Obviously I don’t intend to imply that being aro/ace is somehow “lesser than” being L G B or T, but obviously the form of queerness people were expecting is one in which Jo is explicitly attracted to women.) There are no subtle looks in the direction of another woman, no scenes in which Jo expresses any negative emotion towards the idea of marrying a man specifically. She doesn’t even have a single female friend outside of her sisters.

One of the reasons the 2019 Jo (and by extension, Laurie), have been hailed as queer icons is their relative gender fluidity. Jo and Laurie exchange clothes throughout the movie, which was intended to display their “gender fluidity”. I knew about this particular facet of the movie before going to watch it in theaters, so I was looking for these occasions specifically, and I still couldn’t tell that they were supposed to be gender neutral. Maybe that’s just me, because I don’t know a lot about civil war era clothing, but whatever.

The other reason that Jo is considered queer in the movie is her rejection of traditional Civil War era femininity. She doesn’t want to get married, and she has no interest in “girly” things like dresses or parties. But neither of those things are specifically queer. Being “not like other girls” as your premier personality trait is not queer, it’s just garden-variety misogyny.

Even Jo’s big scene where she laments her competing desire to stay unmarried and her intense loneliness, has nothing marking it as explicitly queer. “I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for,” she bursts out. Love. Not love for a man. Not even marriage. She is decrying the entire concept of love.

“But Rae,” I can hear you asking, “what about the ending, where it’s implied she doesn’t marry Professor Bhaer and gets to publish her novel?” To that, there are two important things to consider. One: the ending is intentionally portrayed as optional. Even though it is heavily implied that Jo did not go off and get heterosexual married at the end, it is possible to ignore that ending or do some light mental gymnastics to make the two versions of Jo’s ending coincide. And I’m not just saying this as a worst-case-scenario, I actually have seen people do this, in fandom and my own life.

Secondly, even if you take the ending as completely factual, we still have all the scenes involving Bhaer previous to the ending to give some hint of Jo’s sexuality. We never see her even look at another woman, but she flirts with Bhaer and blushes when he looks at her and asks for his opinion on her work. Even ignoring the straight-as-default setting of most casual viewers, canonically, Jo has only ever shown interest in men. One man specifically, but still.

“But she could still be bi/pansexual, or suffering from compulsory heterosexuality,” I hear. And this is basically the crux of my argument. In fandom, you don’t have to assume straight as the default, and it's probably better not to. Bi/pan headcanons for “straight” characters are a good, positive way of adding to a fandom culture. However, when it comes to canonical representation, the opposite is true. Representation is not representation if it is not explicit.

I’m not saying that queer viewers cannot feel represented by Jo in this movie. I personally  feel represented by Hermoine Granger as a black woman, due to her “wild, bushy hair” and her penchant for social activism (SPEW). However, I cannot give JK Rowling credit for that representation because she had nothing to do with it. She did not do any of the hard work to actually make Hermoine a black woman. In the same way, we cannot credit Gerwig with adding queer representation to Little Women, because she didn’t.

Conclusion: The Response

I know reading this essay probably makes me seem like a Greta Gerwig-hater or like I disliked the movie. Both of those things are untrue. As previously mentioned, I loved the movie. I’ve watched the Amy/Laurie scenes of the movie like a hundred times already. I also don’t hate Greta Gerwig. This is the only movie of hers that I’ve seen, but I heard all about Lady Bird and its popularity, and I think the directing of Little Women was excellent. The fact that Greta Gerwig is a very talented filmmaker is not necessarily an arguable point.

I don’t believe that Gerwig had to fully develop any of the sisters. I don’t even think that Gerwig is required to add queer representation (or racial diversity for that matter) to her movies. Greta Gerwig decided to adapt an extremely white, cishet Civil War era book into an extremely white, cishet Civil War era movie. Hot take time: she is entirely in her rights to do that.

BUT. The thing that bugs me the most about the movie, and is basically the impetus behind me writing this essay, is the response to the movie. For whatever reason, Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation has been deemed more “woke” than it actually is. Little Women (2019) has been lauded for its strong female presence (even though there are only white, cis, straight women), for it’s development of the other, non-Jo sisters (even though it doesn’t), and for giving its lead space to be queer (even though she isn’t).

Greta Gerwig made an excellent film, but she did not do anything that has never been done before. I liked the movie, but I’m not about to go campaign for Greta Gerwig or the movie to win an Oscar. In general, we need to be less willing to acclaim those who do the bare minimum.

Again, I’m not good at writing conclusions. At a certain point I’m going to just start repeating myself, so I’m going to go ahead and cut myself off now. Again, if anybody has any opinions on this, agree or disagree, please come talk to me about it! I’d love to hear any other thoughts.

[guilianafms]

            new  york’s  very  own  guiliana  rasananda  was  spotted  on  broadway  street  in  gucci  marmont  logo - embellished  leather  sandals  .  your  resemblance  to  lalisa  manoban  is  unreal  .  according  to  tmz  ,  you  just  had  your  twenty  third  birthday  bash  .  while  living  in  nyc  ,  you’ve  been  labeled  as  being  doctrinaire  ,  but  also  pragmatic  .  i  guess  being  an  aquarius  explains  that .  three  things  that  would  paint  a  better  picture  of  you  would  be  the  lingering  scent  of  her  perfume  after  she’s  long  gone  ,  a  fenty  beauty  gloss  bomb  as  her  staple  to  any  makeup  look  ,  and  the  glitter  of  diamond  encrusted  jewelry  on  tanned  skin  .

            hello  ladies  ,  gents  ,  and  nonbinary  pals  !  my  name’s  jin  and  i’m  super  stoked  to  be  here  !  i’ve  seen  this  group  in  the  tags  over  the  years  ,  and  i  decided  that  it  was  high  time  for  me  to  slide  in  (  and  now  that  my  school’s  closed  ....  indefinitely  ....  i’ve  got  the  time  )  .  giuliana  is  fairly  new  so  i’m  still  working  out  some  kinks  that  may  arise  ,  but  i  have  a  pretty  good  idea  of  the  direction  i  want  her  to  go  in  !  i  can’t  believe  that  this  is  my  first  time  playing  lalisa  in  a  couple  of  years  ,  but  since  the  chance  arose  ,  i  decided  to  take  it  .  i  won’t  chat  too  much  ,  and  i  need  to  make  a  new  d.iscord  since  i  forgot  the  password  to  my  old  one  but  if  anyone  wants  to  plot  ,  feel  free  to  slide  into  my  dms  (  or  i’ll  slide  into  yours  !  )

basic  information  .

FULL  NAME  :  guiliana  kanya  rasananda  .

NICKNAME(S)  :  gigi  ,  lia  ,  liana  ,  ana  .

BIRTHDATE  +  AGE  :  february  12th  +  23  .

ZODIAC  :  aquarius  .

HOMETOWN  :  new  york  ,  ny  .

GENDER  :  cis  female  .

NATIONALITY  :  thai - american  .

ETHNICITY  :  thai  .

HEIGHT  :  5′6″  .

LABEL(S)  :  the  amaranth  ,  the  vixen  ,  the  trust  fund  baby  ,  and  the  princess  .

ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION  :  biromantic  .

SEXUAL  ORIENTATION  :  bisexual  .

LANGUAGE(S)  SPOKEN  :  english  ,  thai  ,  japanese  ,  and  learning  spanish  .

OCCUPATION  :  socialite  ,  ‘  model  ’  ,  and  youtuber  /  social  media  influencer  .

POSITIVES  :  clear - headed  ,  assiduous  ,  self - reliant  ,  pragmatic  ,  and  cosmopolitan  .

NEGATIVES  :  disputatious  ,  exigent  ,  doctrinaire  ,  selfish  ,  and  unscrupulous  .

PLAYLIST  :  roxanne  /  arizona  zervas  ,  bad  guy  /  billie  eilish  ,  body  /  loud  luxury  ft.  brando  ,  nasa  /  ariana  grande  ,  mother’s  daughter  /  miley  cyrus  ,  sway  with  me  /  saweetie  w.  galxara  ,  say  so  /  doja  cat  ,  mad  at  me.  /  kiana  ledé  ,  apeshit  /  the  carters  ,  elastic  /  joey  purp  ,  watermelon  sugar  /  harry  styles  ,  ain’t  my  fault  /  zara  larsson  ,  lemon  /  n.e.r.d.  ft.  rihanna  /  nice  for  what  /  drake  ,  sugar  /  brockhampton  ,  icon  /  jaden  smith  ,  zimzalabim  /  red  velvet  ,  come  thru  /  joji  ,  in  my  head  /  ariana  grande  ,  broke  bitch  /  tiny  meat  gang  ,  honey  /  lay  ,  deserve  /  kris  wu  ft.  travis  scott  .

biography  .

let’s  see  if  we  can  keep  this  short  ,  am  i  right  ladies  ?

ratana  saelim  has  humble  beginnings  in  bangkok  .  her  parents  owned  a  small  restaurant  in  their  neighborhood  ,  and  they  lived  comfortably  ,  but ratana  still  had  to  work  hard  to  ensure  that  she  got  into  college  and  could  stay  in   college  .  she  often  did  her  homework  behind  the  counter  of  the  restaurant  ,  and  eventually  went  on  to  attend  bangkok  university  .

she  met  her  future  husband  at  bangkok  university  ,  a  fellow  student  named  kamnan  rasananda  .  he  was  studying  business  while  she  was  studying  law  .  in  contrast  to  ratana  ,  kamnan  grew  up  in  an  extremely  affluent  home  and  was  set  to  inherit  his  family’s  company  .  he  was  a  year  older  than  ratana  ,  and  the  two  got  married  after  her  graduation  with  her  master’s  degree  .  they  settled  in  bangkok  following  their  wedding  .

the  years  passed  ,  and  the  couple  established  themselves  in  their  respective  fields  .  kamnan  started  his  own  business  in  real  estate  and  construction  ,  so  they  decided  to  expand  out  of  asia  and  into  the  states  .  they  made  their  home  new  york  city  ,  and  settled  easily  into  a  multi - million  dollar  penthouse  on  the  upper  east  side  .  since  they  were  to  focused  on  their  careers  ,  it  wasn’t  until  they  reached  their  mid - thirties  when  they  had  their  first  and  only  child  ,  a  daughter  they  named  guiliana  .

guiliana  was  a  beautiful  little  baby  who  has  an  infectious  personality  while  growing  up  .  ratana  and  kamnan  may  have  been  busy  people  ,  but  they  never  had  an  issue  with  putting  work  on  pause  to  spend  time  with  their  daughter  .  the  couple  supported  their  daughter  in  everything  that  she  did  ,  and  that  even  included  when  she  turned  fourteen  and  decided  that  she  wanted  to  start  doing  youtube  videos  . 

going  through  high  school  ,  guiliana  had  been  a  member  of  the  photography  and  yearbook  clubs  ,  and  this  was  at  the  same  time  that  she  started  to  truly  focus  on  her  channel  .  of  course  ,  her  content  at  the  time  was  quite  cringy  (  shoutout  to  that  one  song  that  everyone  used  in  morning  routines  )  .  as  the  years  passed  ,  she  obtained  the  right  equipment  to  make  her  content  better  .

by  her  senior  year  of  high  school  ,  her  channel  grew  to  massive  numbers  .  she  dropped  the  makeup  videos  since  she  found  that  she  was  more  interested  in  fashion  than  makeup  ,  and  was  comfortable  with  sharing  her  personal  style  .  she  got  a  lot  of  backlash  because  she  grew  up  rich  and  people  often  felt  that  she  was  ‘  flaunting  ’  her  lifestyle  ,  but  really  ,  most  of  her  clothes  from  the  places  that  were  often  the  rage  at  the  time  (  urban  outfitters  ,  brandy  ,  etc  )  with  the  occasional  luxury  piece  like  a  purse  or  something  .

now  ,   she  isn’t  that  active  on  youtube  anymore  since  she’s  grown  into  more  of  a  socialite  ,  but  she’ll  still  do  weekly  vlogs  ,  catching  up  videos  ,  and  her  fashion  videos  .  despite  not  being  that  active  ,  her  channel  is  still  growing  and  has  now  amassed  five  million  subscribers  .

personality  .

guiliana  has  been  a  part  of  youtube  since  she  was  a  fourteen  year  old  ,  so  she’s  been  able  to  start  ignoring  the  haters  !  quite  honestly  has  the  most  idgaf  attitude  towards  people  who  have  anything  to  say  about  her  only  showing  luxury  outfits  and  such  on  her  channel  .  that’s  all  she  knows  since  she  grew  up  in  that  ,  but  quite  frankly  she  doesn’t  care  !

out  of  all  of  her  labels  ,  i’d  say  she  mostly  resonates  with  the  trust  fund  baby  .  outside  of  her  youtube  channel  ,  guiliana  doesn’t  do  much  other  than  spend  money  and  sleep  until  eleven  so  don’t  expect  her  to  be  out  there  making  businesswoman  moves  .

don’t  give  her  a  compliment  because  what’s  the  saying  ...  give  her  an  inch  and  she’ll  take  a  mile  ?  that’s  guiliana  to  a  T  !  she  knows  that  she’s  cute  and  her  parents  have  only  ever  praised  her  ,  so  she’s  got  something  of  an  over  inflated  ego  at  times  .  she  can  go  on  and  on  ,  so  please  tell  her  ass  to  shut  up  if  she  starts  taking  it too  far  !

headcanons  .

a  born  and  bred  new  yorker  ,  guiliana  doesn’t  possess  a  driver’s  license  .  she  gets  driven  around  in  a  bentley  bentayga  and  when  her  driver’s  not  available  ,  she  exclusively  uses  uber  black to  get  around  the  city  .

her  style  is  pretty  similar  to  lisa’s  where  one  day  she’s  exclusively  wearing  streetwear  ,  another  day  she’s  a  bit  more  feminine  ,  and  then  sometimes  she’s  wearing  pieces  straight  off  the  runway  !  when  it  comes  to  her  more  feminine  style  i  think  of  the  youtuber  kerina  wang  .

she’s  most  comfortable  when  she’s  in  her  apartment  .  usually  ,  she’s  only  wearing  a  lingerie  set  (  not  the  entire  thing  )  and  lounging  around  .  she’ll  throw  on  a  robe  or  something  to  answer  the  door  ,  so  just  call  her  ahead  of  time  .

i  can’t  make  up  my  mind  on  how  guiliana  usually  has  her  hair  (  since  lisa  switches  between  long  and  short  )  so  we’ll  just  say  that  she  gets  extensions  a  lot  !  currently  ,  i  love  her  long  brown  hair  so  click  for  reference  here  .

she  has  no  real  plans  for  the  future  ?  she’s  kinda  of  taking  it  day  by  day  and  enjoying  her  twenties  while  she  has  them  .  right  now  her  main  focus  is  her  instagram  and  her  youtube  ,  and  she  has  no  real  aspirations  to  do  anything  outside  of  that  at  the  moment  .

never  leaves  the  house  without  wearing  a  pair  of  heels  ?  even  when  it’s  cold  outside  ,  she’s  wearing  ankle  boots  with  a  heel  or  the  ever  elegant  over - the - knee  boots  .  

her  go - to  drink  from  starbucks  is  a  cold  brew  with  vanilla  sweet  cream  .  she  doesn’t  drink  coffee  with  sugar  .

wanted  connections  .

            i’ll  more  than  likely  end  up  reblogging  things  into  the  tag  i  made  for  these  ,  but  since  there’s  nothing  there  right  now  ,  i’ll  just  list  off  some  specifics  that  i’d  love  to  have  !  if  none  of  these  are  to  your  taste  ,  we  could  always  brainstorm  ,  work  off  chemistry  ,  or  let  me  know  if  there’s  something  that  you  think  guiliana  could  fill  !

i  might  end  up  sending  this  in  to  the  main  ,  but  i’d  love  to  have  the  fiancé  that  she  left  at  the  altar  !  truth  be  told  ,  i  kind  of  feel  as  though  she  may  have  done  it  simply  because  she  finally  realized  that  things  were  moving  too  fast  and  she  kinda  of  needed  to  pump  the  breaks  ?  she  definitely  didn’t  do  it  in  the  best  way  ,  but  it  could  be  an  interesting  relationship  /  dynamic  to  explore  .

she’s  been  in  new  york  since  forever  so  i  just  imagine  there  being  a  slew  of  connections  stemming  from  that  ?  friendships  ,  rivalries  ,  and  romantic  connections  !  idk  why  i  love  them  so  much  ,  but  i’d  really  love  for  her  to  have  an  ex  best  friend  .  we  can  determine  why  their  friendship  ended  ,  but  i  really  love  exploring  the  demise  of  relationships  .

my  brain  is  blanking  so  🤠  .

[kyberphilosopher]

Seven: Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

“What happened to the Exception?” Adelicia questions. Her voice is smooth and low as usual, but underneath is a layer of malice and anger and accusing. Even with her back to me, I can feel this.

          “He killed himself,” I say. I meant for my own voice to come out flat, but it cracks a little somewhere in the middle, much to my annoyance.

          “It,” Adelicia corrects. “It self-destructed.”

          “Yes,” I say with a little dip of my head. “It self-destructed.”

          Adelicia turns around to face me. Her stern face is kept strict and together. Her blond hair is curled professionally towards the ends, right by her chin. Today, her suit is a bright white. It matches the walls of the room and the other modern architecture of the place. “Why did it do that? Hmm?”

          I fiddle with my fingers behind my back. I’ve never done that before, but it feels natural to do. “Exceptions have unpredictable behavior.”

          “So you’re saying there was nothing you could’ve done?”

          This accusation makes something prick in my circuits. Adelicia must know what she’s playing at. She is the type of person to do so. To berate people for disappointing her no matter the circumstances. I just never considered the possibility that I would disappoint her. I was designed specifically to not do that. “Maybe,” I say, even though I don’t really think so.

          Adelicia inhales and slowly turns around, seemingly composing herself. “And how would you say your first day was overall?”

          I don’t actually have the time to answer because as soon as I open my mouth, she’s asking a new question. “How would you define Callan Kennedy?”

          That’s a good question, actually. My circuits whir for a moment as I think about my answer. “I think it’s an added… challenge, working with him,” I say honestly. “He clearly has some issues he needs to sort out. But he’s unpredictable. He’s not so bad.”

          I can practically hear the frown gracing the older woman’s lips. “And your relationship with him?”  

          He showed me how to curse in the car today. He laughed about it. I kind of wanted to laugh too. There is some kind of rapport developing between us, it seems. Though for now it’s mostly negative. “I’m not sure there is a relationship, yet. Though that is less important to me than the mission.”

          I add the last part quickly. Maybe that is what eased the tension in Adelicia’s shoulders. “If it’s so important to you,” she begins. “Then go do it.”

          Then she kicks me out of her program.

          I open my eyes slowly, my led yellow before going white. It is no longer Thursday, October 14th. It is now Friday, October 15th. It is 9 am. Detective Kennedy will be here soon. Or he should be, at least. Whether or not he actually does that is up for debate.

          I look around, moving only my head. I can see Officer Shovelman and Ho-Kim in a corner, sipping coffee and talking casually. Officer Blackwell disappears into a door with stairs on it. Celeste emerges from the meeting room with a huff, adjusting her navy blue cap. Captain Ericson is in his office, typing away at something. Everyone else bustles about, a quite hum of talking and phone calls filling up the place.

          Something sinks into my biocomponents. A kind of comfort. I’m not sure from what. Maybe it’s because the environment.

          A new objective appears in front of me where only I can see.

Make Yourself Presentable

     One step forward, I fiddle with my cuffs on my jacket. Moving to the side of the room so I can go down the hallway to the bathroom. I don’t have to do my hair or brush my teeth or anything, but I quickly straighten out my clothes and tighten my black tie. When that’s finished, I tilt my head in different directions to observe my face.

          I would look completely human, if not for the led by my eyebrow. You can see the fake pores in my skin. The individual strands of soft brown hair. The little cracks in my lips like they’re slightly chapped. Despite that, I am feminine and soft and calm and nice to look at. This is a stark contrast to Cal, I think, because he is obviously more masculine and rough around the edges. Very hard boiled, too.

          I finish observing myself and turn back around. Two other women in the bathroom shuffle in their stalls. Their heels click and scratch across the floor. I’ve never had to use the bathroom. Not like a real girl.

          I leave the bathroom. Even when I come back, Cal isn’t there. I don’t know what to do without him. I already understand the layout of the precinct, so there’s no need to explore anything. Well… maybe there is. I could explore Cal’s desk.

          My feet take me to the left, into the break room. It’s not overtly large, but it has a few vending machines and a counter with coffee making materials. At one of the tables is Shovelman and Ho-Kim, which makes me feel a little better. They’re familiar faces. I don’t think it’s likely they’ll attack me or berate me.

          “Hello,” I greet, putting my hands behind my back and smiling politely. The two officers jump and look up to me, anxiety rushing through the both of them. “I’m Aleksandra, but you can call me Aleks.”

          “I-uh…” Shovelman begins.

          “I detect an increase in your heart rate that indicates fear, or anxiety. This happens when I come near you… I hope I don’t frighten you.”

          Both of their heartrates relax slightly. Officer Ho-Kim’s shoulders sink as a sort of tension leaves him. “No,” Shovelman says. “Of course not… I’m Blaise. This is Tom.”

          “Nice to meet you,” I dip my head with a smile, pretending like I didn’t already analyze them and know all this information already. “I hope we can work harmoniously together.”

          “Yeah,” Tom says dryly, swallowing nervously.

          “So, uh, you’re working with Kennedy,” Blaise says, still anxious but trying.

          “Yes,” I tell him.

          “And what do you think about that?”

          “Well,” I lower my head, my fingers dancing against each other behind me. “He doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

          Tom lets out a quick laugh, but then seems to realize whose company he’s in and he clears it off with a cough. It makes my mouth twitch into a small smile before disappearing too. “He doesn’t really seem to like anybody. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

          “Bet Celeste has been giving you a lot of shit though,” Blaise says, raising his eyebrows and sipping from his coffee cup.

          “Correct,” I tell them. “Did I do something wrong?”

          “No, no. It’s not your fault. I mean, being a… you know… doesn’t help, but it’s about Kennedy. Not you.”

          “You’d think they were married, the way she’s around him,” I mutter. There’s silence for a few seconds before the two officers in front of me let out a series of giggles that makes me want to join too.

S0ftware 1nStability ^

          “She’s not so bad, is she?” Tom says through his chuckles.

S0ftware 1nStability ^

     I smile a little. The officers return to their conversation, still laughing a bit. I decide to leave as they’re distracted, but I don’t mind so much. Our interaction was pleasant. Certainly better than the other interactions I’ve had with the humans so far.

          Upon leaving the break room, I make my way over to Cal’s desk. Unlike the others, he has no pictures on his desk at all. There are only a few trinkets- a rubber band ball, several broken pencils, an overflowing garbage can next to his desk. A flower pot sits there. I recognize the seeds to be one of a sunflower. Cal has completely neglected the plant, however. It is shriveled up, dying, turning brown and crumpling in on itself.

          “Oh, fuck,” I hear behind me. I turn around and a warm smile appears on my face.

          “Hello, Cal,” I greet.

          The man in front of me, however, is not as hospitable as I am. He rolls his eyes without subtlety. In his hand is a coffee cup, which he clutches to him closely. His shirt is dark red today instead of green, but other than that his outfit is the same. “Jesus Christ, so it wasn’t a bad dream.”

          “I’m afraid not,” I tell him.

          Cal groans and rolls his head. “Did I tell you I don’t like you?”        

          “Yes.”

          “Move please,” he orders tiredly. I sidestep and watch him take his chair out from his desk, setting himself in it.

          I don’t think he realized it, or even cares at all, but he said ‘please’ to me. He used manners. It was still an order he gave me, but it was… kinder. More polite, I guess. “Did you get enough sleep last night, Detective?”

          Cal rubs the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. “Guess not. Not that I ever do…”

          My Social Relations program tells me to stop hanging around him just standing, so I do. Instead I move around to the other desk I sat in yesterday, plopping myself in the chair. To my surprise, it immediately zips down from my weight. Not because I’m extraordinarily heavy, but because of a loose screw or something.

          Cal looks over his desk to catch my eyeline. Out of something like embarrassment, I put my hand under the chair and to the little pump, raising the chair back up and into position. “That was funny,” Cal says without emotion.

          “Thank you.”

          “Hey, did you really spend the night here?”

          I nod once to him. “Correct.”

          Cal shrugs mockingly. “Was it… comfortable?”

          Was it? “I powered myself down standing up. It would be uncomfortable for humans.”

          “Heh,” Cal turns his attention from me and to his computer. I can see his fingers type ‘fuckingpassword!’ in again. “Androids don’t know what they’re missing.”

          “What are we missing?” I ask curiously. My led flickers yellow.

          “You know, warmth. Like, from a bed.”

          A few minutes of silence go by. Cal continues clicking away, his grumpy face stuck in a frown.

          “I was wondering…” I lean forward. “Is there a method to your madness?”

          “Madness?” Cal says with one eyebrow raised.

          “Your desk,” I explain quickly. “It’s filthy.”

          Cal doesn’t answer immediately. His mouth curls into a light smile. “Whatever,” he says. Even through his nonchalant response, I can tell our relationship has shifted ever so slightly at that. It feels like it’s for the better. Maybe. Just maybe.

          A few more minutes go by before our next line of dialogue.

          “Your birthday is in less than a week,” I tell him. “Do you have any plans.”

          Cal’s face goes still. He squints at his computer. I fear I’ve touched a nerve. “I’m seeing my father and brother.”

          “I don’t have a father or brother,” I think out loud. Cal’s eyes shift to me now. “Or a mother.”

          “I know about the mother bit,” the Detective mutters. “Wish I knew about the father and brother.”

          I want to ask what he means. He meets my eyes in a piercing gaze. My led runs yellow. In real time, I can confirm that, yes, his mother died a while ago. His father and brother are alive. His brother is younger than him.

          Cal Kennedy is no Android. He can’t analyze like I can. But the way his eyes flit left and right makes me think he’s searching me for something. I can’t possibly imagine what.

          “Hey, listen to this,” Cal snaps suddenly, turning away from me. “We got a serial killer on the loose. We think it’s an Android going after humans. That’s pretty saucy, eh?”

          “Yes. It sounds very sauce like.”

                      “You fucking coming?”

          I snap my eyes open, then turn my head to the left and towards the drivers seat. Cal stares at me with his eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer. Have I been silent the whole car ride? No. I couldn’t have been. I don’t remember even closing my eyes.

          “Yes,” I say. “Of course.”

          Cal rolls his eyes for about the millionth time. “So fucking annoying…” he grumbles as he opens the door and steps out.

          I glance out the window. We’re in what seems to be an abandoned parking lot, with a brick building laced with graffiti. This is surely the more industrial, less modern part of Seattle. Could’ve been an old apartment building.

          Rain falls much lighter than yesterday. The clouds are gray still but closer to white. Almost heavenly. Sunlight doesn’t stream through them like I thought it would, but I don’t mind. As long as there’s rain, I’m content with it.

          I open the car door and step outside. My boots land in a little puddle that splashes quietly. I pay no mind and close the door.

          Looking up at the building now makes me feel something. Something different and unsettling in my gears and biocomponents. The insides of my system grinds and whirs around like thousands of little bullets trying to stop or slow something.

          “I have a bad feeling about this,” I say, forgetting for a second that I’m with a hard boiled, angsty cop. “Something feels wrong.”

          “Bad feeling?” Cal questions, keeping his pace in front of me. He doesn’t have to turn around and let me see his face for me to detect some level of sarcasm. “You sure you’re not becoming an Exception on me now? You almost sound like a real person.”

          I don’t answer him, because something inside of me clicks. He certainly has a point. Another stupid thing to say on my part. Maybe from now on I just shouldn’t say anything to anyone, including myself. Adelicia will be furious if she finds out what I said. I would hate to disappoint her. I can imagine the look of disdain on her face now.

          I follow Cal into the building and into a lobby. Nobody is inside but a bunch of birds, bugs, and most likely rats. My partner observes a sign hanging in front of the elevator. A simple, bright yellow one with the words “OUT OF ORDER” written on it boldly. He sighs and flicks it with his hand before sauntering over to the stairs on the right and starting up them. I follow shortly, the feeling in my abdominal biocomponent only increasing.

          “So here’s what we know, Robocop,” Cal says as we round a flight of stairs. “For the past few weeks, three different people have been found dead.”

          “Humans?”

          “Yep. At first we thought it was just any other serial killer. We’ve had plenty of them here already. But then we found out all the stab marks were too perfect, ya know? Like a fucking painting or something.”

          Paintings aren’t perfect. That’s why so many people like them. The flaws inside of them reflect a certain kind of humanity Androids such as myself just wouldn’t understand. Still, the comment makes me wonder if maybe Cal likes to paint or simply look at art. Although Cal really doesn’t seem the type, the image of the gruff man holding a dainty little paintbrush enters into my circuits.

          “We think it’s an Android,” he continues explaining as we reach the top of the stairs. “A while ago we thought we cracked a code with this address, but we couldn’t check it out for whatever shitty reason.”

          “Anything else?” I question, absorbing all the information I can with my yellow led.

          “Yeah,” he says. We walk down a grimy hallway. Cal stops next to a dirty, tan door with a dark brown stain smeared against it. A quick analyzation tells me that this is simply dried blood. Matches up with the serial killer story described to me. “This is the door.”

          I glance between Cal and the entrance to the apartment. The feeling of discomfort and anguish only grows in the pit of me. I do not like this. I do not like this at all. Still, I reach a hand forward to knock on the door, but the slightest touch from my plastic hand makes the door creak and push open.

          I look to Cal with wide eyes. His expression mirrors my own. In a flash, he draws his gun and holds it firmly in both hands. “Get back,” he orders.

Softwa!e !Instabilit!! ^

          “Got it.”

          Cal enters the door cautiously, one foot in front of the other slowly and quietly. I follow suit, heightening my senses so no sound or movement can slip past me.

          We stand in a large, open room with a few windows and one door. Against one of the walls is a small kitchenette. A torn up mattress is on the floor, nearly deflated. The walls are all scuffed up. I see a few knives missing from the knife rack over the sink. I see by the mattress, dried and crystalized against the floor, a puddle of urine.

          “There’s urine on the floor,” I say.

          “Where?” Cal questions, snapping his head around wildly.

          “By the mattress. There.”

          Cal moves over to the side, still alert. “I can’t see it.”

          “It’s my visual programming,” I tell him, glancing around. “I can see things you can’t.”

          Cal glances over to me. I expect an angry look, but there’s only a determined and curious one. “Can you search around for anything else then?”

          “Yeah,” I say, moving to the left. Cal’s gun clicks as he moves, observing the area.

          We know the suspect took a knife. The urine by the bed is human. The suspect could’ve scared or kept a victim there. I don’t think anyone was killed there, because there’s no traces of blood. Only urine.

          On the wall by the mattress is a shoeprint. This makes me scrunch my eyebrows. How would that get there? Did someone kick the wall? No. It’s not in the right position to do that, unless the leg was put on backwards. I consider the possibility that maybe this Android’s leg was put on wrong or bent, but I rule that out. The Android wouldn’t be in working order at all if that was the case.

          The dent in the deflated mattress though… what if the suspect used it to climb on the wall? Like something to jump off to? But then if we leveraged himself onto the wall, where could he have gone?

          I raise my head up to the ceiling. Question answered. There’s a hole in the ceiling that would take you to some kind of attic.

Calculating Route…

          “Cal, can you give me a hand?”

          Cal turns to me. “What? You got something?”

          “I think so,” I say. “Could you find the pump for this bed?”

          Cal looks around for a few seconds, then leans down and throws me a little black cord. “Thank you,” I mutter. The mattress inflates slowly but surely. My heightened hearing picks up on some shuffling in the attic above me.

          “You have a lead?” Cal asks, nudging the door on the other side of the apartment open.

          I don’t answer him. I place the pump down because the air mattress is at the peak of being full of air. If I want to have this done right the first time, I have to be careful. I can’t step down on the mattress too hard, or too lightly.

Calculating Route…

Route Calculated

          I quickly mash my feet against the floor. I jump onto the mattress, sinking down momentarily before launching one foot against the wall. My right foot presses down against it, then pushing me off and into the air. My fingers spread out as my hands reach for some part of the hole to grab onto.

          I reach it. Pieces of wood slide into my synthetic skin. I feel them enter but no pain comes. Androids don’t feel pain. I clamber myself up and onto the ceiling, one leg at the time. It’s a bit of struggle against my abdomen, but I make it work.

          Crouching on the unsteady ‘floor’ beneath me, I observe my surroundings. There is darkness all around except for one, small, swirling led light in the distance.

          I stand up slowly, my eyes fixed on the led. My own goes yellow, then green when I confirm what I’m seeing. I narrow my eyes, letting my Android vision clear the way for me in the dark.

          “You’re on their side,” he says in the dark.

          His pale, Android skin stands out against his dark cap. I can see tufts of black hair underneath. Warm brown eyes swirl around with intelligence. Thin lips, a stocky build. I recognize the model: SK300. An Android designed for sex clubs.

          “Did you kill those people?” I question out to him. His led runs red. Then it goes yellow. Then green, back to red, and finally white.

          “I never killed anybody who didn’t deserve it.”

          My eyebrow twitches. “Androids are not permitted to endanger a human life under any circumstances. You have violated the law.”

          The Android swallows, almost nervously. I can see how uncomfortable he is. This Exception is remaining calm though, unlike Robin.

          “They deserved it,” he says hoarsely. “I promise you they deserved it. Don’t tell the humans.”

          I open my mouth to call for Cal, but then something in me stops. My lips close and my circuits spark. Led turns crimson in some type of alarm or active feeling.

          “What did they do…?” I ask. “What did they do to deserve it?”

          The Android’s led goes red, then returns to white. “The first one was abusing another Android in a club.”

          “You killed them?”           “He was gonna kill her. I had to. The second was a woman who spiked several men’s drinks. The third was a-”

          “Stop,” I say. “Stop right there.”

          I don’t know what to do. I am supposed to detain him. I have to detain him. I should detain him. So why am I not detaining him? I’m not calling for my partner. I’m not yelling or fighting or tackling him.

          Instead, I back away. I don’t break eye contact. I identify him as Bryan, an Android reported missing a month ago by a sex club.

          I lower myself down the hole I entered through. When I drop down, I land in the air mattress standing up. Bryan’s figure fades into the darkness above me, his led the only sign of his presence.

          “Did you find anything?” Cal asks, his hands still wrapped firmly around his handgun.

          “No,” I answer him, not even looking. “There’s nothing there. Our man is gone.”

[ginnranger]

A Strange New Student

Summary: 

Ginn is a new student in a prestigious London private school. It’s pretty obvious she is not the type to be in private school, but is that going to stop her? Honestly, she doesn’t even know the answer to that one. 

But she does have a pretty good guess, when she meets Alex, Martin, George, Louise, and Elsie. They are pretty different from her. They seem nice enough, but will her past lessons allow her let them in? Another good question. 

Word count: 6542

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

The large, stone hallways of Churchill high school were a lot less busy than Ginn’s old public school back in Liverpool. She guessed that was because barely anyone was able to afford the tuition to actually attend this school. How she got in was a complete miracle, sparked by some pretty unfortunate events.

The biggest understatement of her life.

Ginn was not used to anything that she had already faced in this new school at all, and she had only been in the building ten minutes. The students hanging around in the hallway before class were well behaved, milling around and chatting instead of running and fighting. The floors and lockers were clean, free of graffiti and chewing gum. The uniforms were the weirdest part; everyone wore it neat and proper, the boys’ ties being evenly tied, their shirts neatly tucked into their trousers, which were not sagging halfway down their butts, and their blazers free of burn holes and glue stains. The girls’ skirts were closer to the knee than the butt, their blouses also neatly tucked, and their cardigans neatly buttoned. Everyone’s shoes were perfectly shined, not a scuff in sight.

Every student had neatly styled hair, not a strand out of place. They all had perfect posture, shoulders squared and backs straight, the girls tending to keep their feet touching each other. Their faces shone with happy, satisfied smiles. There was no anger, hunger, or sadness in these people’s lives. Very different to what Ginn saw back in Liverpool. It was obvious these teenagers knew their place in the world. So did Ginn, and it was not surrounded by these people. They made that clear with their odd looks.

She stood out for many reasons around these people. For one, she was the only girl wearing trousers and a tie. Ginn flat out refused to wear a skirt, and the rules said trousers could not be worn without a tie, so she was stuck in the unflattering, unfitted, too big boy’s uniform. Her tie was relatively neat, but she had not buttoned the top of her shirt, and pulled the tie down slightly to accommodate the room the lack of a top button provided. her blazer sleeves had been rolled up slightly to accommodate her shorter arms. Her shirt was tucked in, but it was not neat. the sides of the shirt were bunched up, as she had tried to angle it in a way it was more fitted to her feminine frame. It was not working, but she felt comfortable. When Ginn stood, she leant on one leg, arms crossed, and her feet obviously not touching. Her shoulders slumped, and her hands folded into fists, no matter whether she was walking or standing. When she walked, her back curved forwards slightly, and her eyes shifted between everything that moved, glaring into every pair of eyes she met. Ginn had to be aware of everything that was happening around her. Just a little compulsion of hers. Her hair was cut short, mostly jar length, with layers getting shorter as they went up, and a fringe cut in line with her eyes, parted favouring the left side, and whilst that was not abnormal for girl, it was expected that she would make an attempt to calm and style her messy mop of ginger hair. But she didn’t. She liked it messy. It gave her an excuse to have her fringe covering her left eye. You see, Ginn had heterochromia. Her right eye was a bright, electric blue, whilst her left eye was a shining light brown, almost orange when the light hit it just right. Ginn preferred to cover her left eye with her hair, as it blended in with the orange strands better than the blue did. That, and the brown colour was not the genetic colour. Her mother had blue eyes, and her father had green eyes, so brown was definitely not a family eye colour.

Ginn could tell people were looking at her as she wondered the fancy hallways towards the administration office, though she couldn’t tell if this was because of her rough, stand-offish appearance, or the fact that it was early November, and she was a new student entering year 10. Honestly, Ginn didn’t care which one it was. She didn’t expect to form relationships with these people.

She managed to reach the administration office, where she was expected to pick up her time table and ID card, after a few minutes of cluelessly wondering around, following strange signs written in the worst font for someone like her; cursive. How is that acceptable, you may ask? It honestly isn’t, but this school had an aesthetic to stick to. Ginn was dyslexic, so anything that wasn’t block letters or her own handwriting was torture to read. As she reached the old looking, oak wood door, she straightened her back and readjusted her backpack, forcing her face to change from confrontational to neutral. This was the face she preferred to show in front of adults, as they could never figure out what emotion she was feeling so they struggled to ask her questions. She opened the door and walked up to the desk, waiting for the old woman sitting, typing on her computer, to look up at her. She did quickly, luckily.

“Hello there! What can I do for you today?” Her voice was far too perky and high pitched. It irritated Ginn’s ears. Ginn forced her face to remain neutral, pushing down her natural, uncomfortable reaction, so she could respond as quick as possible.

“I’m the new student. I was told to pick up my stuff here.”

“Ahh, yes! Ginn Ranger, am I correct?” The woman squeaked, smile never faltering.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Ginn avoided eye contact, uncomfortable with her full name being announced.

The woman rooted around the organised mess that sat on her desk, until she found the right envelope that held Ginn’s ID card and timetable. She handed it to Ginn and asked her to sit down for a moment, as the headmaster wished to speak to her before classes started. Ginn forced herself to swallow a groan as she nodded and took a seat next to the desk, facing the door to the headmaster’s office. Her leg bounced quickly as she stared into space, trying to concentrate on her thoughts rather than the loud world she lived in. She slouched in her seat after finding a comfortable place in her imagination to rest. Sadly, it only took two minutes for her to be called into Headmaster Windsor’s office.

“Hello, Miss Ranger.” Mr Windsor was far more serious. much more pleasant to Ginn’s ears. “It is a pleasure to finally have you here.”

Ginn only forced a smile as she sat awkwardly in the chair. Her eyes quickly scanned the room, taking in every detail she could. the shelves behind Mr Windsor mostly held the textbooks this school studied. Two of the four shelves held the textbooks. one held a collection of frames, some holding pictures of what Ginn assumed to be Windsor’s family, other holding certificates. One was a certification of first aid, one an inclusivity certificate, another being Windsor’s degree in teaching. The inclusivity certificate intrigued Ginn, as she knew for a fact that this school was pretty exclusive.

‘Guess it’s for everything except class.’ She thought to herself.

The final shelf held folders, ordered by category. The first was labelled ‘Enrolment’. The second was labelled ‘Disciplinary Reports’. The third was ‘Human Resources’. The fourth one was what Mr Windsor pulled off the shelf and flicked through. It was labelled ‘Inclusive Support’. Yay.

“So, Miss Ranger-” Ginn interrupted Windsor.

“Call me Ginn.” She said quickly and sheepishly, shoving her hands under her legs to avoid her usually gesturing that annoyed so many adults. “I prefer just Ginn.”

“Ok then.” Mr Windsor peered over the top on his reading glasses, unhappy with the interruption. “Ginn. Your old school transferred us your files and records last week, and I feel we must discuss some things before you head to classes.”

Ginn bit her lip and nodded. She had always gotten pretty good scores in lessons, but she was by far the favourite student to any teacher she ever had. She had a tendency to speak her mind, even when out of terms. Especially then, actually. She also did not have the best track record when it came to peer relations. Most of her past incidents were not her fault, but she had to claim some as her own doing. What could she say? She knows how to stick up for herself.

“These records say you are a very smart young girl, you could thrive in an academic environment, if provided with the right resources. This is why our scholarship program chose you to be our first representative of the… less fortunate.” Windsor hesitated with that last part. He really needed to brush up on his appropriate language book.

‘Just say I’m poor and move on.’ Ginn thought to herself.

“However,” the dreaded sentence conjunctive. “You do have a worrying amount of negative peer relations reports. I must tell you, Ginn. Fighting is strictly prohibited on the campus of this school.”

Ginn let her voice take the lead. “What’s your stance on fighting in self-defence? Mine is that is fine to fight, as long as you don’t start it. Pretty sure those records say that’s what I did.”

Oh dear. She really should have thought before speaking.

Windsor looked exasperated. Ginn was clearly not the first wise crack he had dealt with. “I believe anything can be sorted with the right words. As long as it is reported, it will be dealt with.”

“What about the times it can’t be reported?” Ginn’s voice deepened as she became serious. “That’s what happened in my experience. I couldn’t report it, and if I could, nothing happened, so I sorted it myself. Sure you wont have to worry though. This doesn’t exactly seem like the place where fights happen.”

Windsor chuckled and nodded. “You are an interesting young lady, miss- Ginn. I’m sure you will fit in with the class I have placed you in. All of your teachers have been informed of your mental heath and learning difficulties, as per your request.”

Ginn hated how that was phrased, but she thanked him anyway. ‘Gotta try and be polite’, after all.

“I have assigned a young man to help guide you around school as you settle in.” Oh no. forced interaction. “He should be outside now.”

as Windsor finished his sentence, the phone device on his desk beeped, and the voice of the receptionist through the door sounded out, saying ‘a Mr Peterson was here to see Headmaster Windsor.’ Windsor told the receptionist to send him in, and the device buzzed, causing Ginn to cringe. That sound was horrible!

Before she could fully recover, the door opened behind her and a boy around her age walked in. He had pale white skin, with bright blond hair, shaved at the sides and combed over, the parting favouring the right side of his head. His eyes were cornflower blue, shining and bright. He had a small, wonky smile on his face as he greeted the headmaster and took a seat on Ginn’s right side.

“This is Alex Peterson. He will be, what we call, your class escort.” Windsor introduced the boy to Ginn, and the boy turned to Ginn and smiled, offering his hand to shake, which she just looked at nodded to him. Windsor broke the awkward tension between the two and continued. “He will show you around until you are comfortable with your surroundings.”

Ginn hated this idea. She could see why they implemented it, many people would want it, but she was not one of those people. She would much rather just figure it out on her own, even if it meant being late to all her classes.

“The bell is about to ring. You two should head off now.” Windsor gestured to the door, and the two teens picked up their bags and walked out.

 “So…” The boy, Alex, said, drawing out the ‘O’ sound. “Can I see your schedule? Just so I know for sure where you are?”

Ginn wordlessly shoved the piece of paper into Alex’s hand, still avoiding eye contact with him. Alex shot her a strange look, realising this was going to be so much harder than he originally thought. He did think she would be quiet, being new and all, but dang.

“Cool, you’re in mine and my friend’s form.” he handed back the paper to the new girl and started walking, being closely followed by her. “You’ll like Mr Caxton, he’s fun.”

Ginn hummed in response. God, she was not making it easy for Alex.

The bell rang and Ginn tensed, her shoulders squaring, and her fists clenching. Another loud, irritating noise. This school was just made to make her uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, Alex had noticed her reaction to the sound. “You ok? It’s just the bell, no need to worry.” he chuckled.

“Fine.” Ginn grumbled through gritted teeth. She started storming off down the corridor without a plan, and luckily Alex jogged to catch up to her before she reached the turning point.

Alex desperately wanted to break the awkward air between them, but did not know how. This girl seemed tense, understandably, as she seemed quite strange to the standards of this school, so he did not know how to approach anything with her.

“So… where you from?” Alex asked, trying to study her body language. She walked like she was trying to look tough, as well as be silent in her steps. She succeeded on both aspects as she definitely looked intimidating, and her steps barely echoed around the halls.

Ginn subtly looked Alex up and down, figuring out his motive, in both the question and with helping her. He stood straight and proud, taller than her by a good few inches. Although, that wasn’t hard, as Ginn was only 5”3’. She estimated him to be about 5”9’, and she guessed he still had room to grow. He was looking at her expectantly with a small smile, his blue eyes shining in curiosity. She could see no malice in his wonderment, so she answered.

“Liverpool.” She said, bluntly. To be exact, she lived in a small terrace house, in Roscoe Street, very close to her primary school, Pleasant Street Primary. Ginn had hopped around several high schools in the past four years, so she couldn’t say how far she lived from them. She did not live in a great area, but it was close to the city centre, and she always felt safe there with her parents. She missed Liverpool.

Alex nodded, biting the inside of his mouth in mild frustration at Ginn’s refusal so converse. “Cool. Good city. What brought you to London then?”

“Family stuff.”

The two sighed, knowing that conversation was not going to happen right now.

 The two arrived at the classroom after everyone else had arrived and sat down. Alex greeted the teacher with a cheerful ‘good morning’ and he sat down on a table for four, with two other boys, whom he greeted and immediately started chatting and laughing with. The boy sitting next to him had slightly more tanned skin than Alex, but he was still quite pale. He had neat, honey brown hair, with a full fringe that was cut just under his eyebrows, the top of head was thick with hair facing forwards, and what Ginn estimated as one inch clipped shaving around the rest of his head. His eyes were forest green, thoughtfully staring at Alex as he spoke, but also at someone on the other side of the room Ginn couldn’t locate. The other boy had his back to Ginn, but from what she could see, he had dark, sun kissed skin, and the only messy head of mahogany brown hair she had seen in this school. Well, there was an order to this mess, unlike the mess that sat on her own head. His hair was methodically spiked up, then brushed forward. He appeared to have every portion of his hair cut to a similar length, apart from the front.

Ginn heard her name and she turned, seeing the teacher beckoning her towards his desk. she walked over, head down.

“You must be Miss Ranger!” Oh god, he was perky. “Now, I like to ask before I start teaching new students, if you don’t mind, what would you like me to call you, and what pronouns shall I use for you? And are they the same in class, privately, and in front of other adults?”

Ginn blinked at the sudden questions as she let her mind catch up with her ears. “Just Ginn, thanks. Female pronouns, all the time.” She said quietly.

“Perfect.” Mr Caxton smiled softly at Ginn, then continued. “I have been told of the support you require, so don’t be afraid to approach me any time!”

Ginn felt extremely awkward, biting her lower lip, and nodding, avoiding eye contact. She always hated it when her personal stuff was brought up by other people. She knew they were only trying to help, but it never helped Ginn. all she did was nod.

“Ok, so everyone in this class has their seat. I had everyone choose to sit somewhere at the beginning of the year and that is where they sit for the rest of the year. The only available seat is across from your guide, Alex. Go sit down, and we’ll start up, ok?”

Ginn glanced over at the table of three boys. She would be sitting next to the dark-skinned boy. He looked like the more energetic person in the trio. Freaking fabulous. At least the seat was on the left side, so she wouldn’t be bumping elbows with the seemingly right-handed boy.

Ginn had nothing against boys. Truly, she didn’t. She was just very insular, and teenage boys tended to be pretty rambunctious. She also didn’t exactly have a perfect track record with relations. Not just with boys, girls too. But, well, Ginn’s short, slim stature was not a good match up when she fought with boys. Luckily, she is quick, so at least she has that going for her.

She sighed and walked over to the table, unslinging her bag off her shoulder and sat down, immediately leaning on her hand and staring at the floor. She dazed, and started thinking about what she could draw. She thought of characters from tales she enjoyed, and she started moving her finger on one spot of the table, mimicking drawing. This was something she did when uncomfortable. Actually drawing is much better, but she hated showing others her stuff, so rarely drew when sitting at a table with strangers. Or classmates, as she should call them.

the three boys had noticed Ginn sitting down, and turned to her to smile and greet her, but she was avoiding all eye contact. Alex shrugged, realising this was going to be his week. Boy to Ginn’s right decided to break the awkward silence by introducing himself.

He went to speak, nudging her first to get he attention, but before he could speak, she jumped at the sudden touch, tensing her shoulders and clenched her fists, straightening her back and gasping lightly. Her duel coloured eyes stayed locked staring forwards, and she took a few breaths before she snapped her head to look at the boy and growl, “What?”

Now she could see his face, she took in his features. He looked nervous, likely due to Ginn’s aggressive nature. He had warm, russet brown eyes that where currently wide in shock. He was handsome, with a square jaw, and strong cheekbones. His mouth was tight in shock at her reaction. Luckily for him, he recovered quickly. His eyes softened into a more relaxed form, and his tight mouth morphed into a cool side smile.

“Hey,” his voice was smooth and joyous. Enjoyable to Ginn’s ears. Wait what? “I’m Martin Williams. This is George Groden, and you’ve met Alex. It seems like we’re desk mates!”

Ginn struggled to relax her muscles from the sudden touch. She swallowed and forced her hands to open as she shoved them under her thighs. Her voice was failing her, so she just looked back at the table and nodded, humming ‘mm hmm’.

The boy, Martin, made eye contact with the other two, concerned by the reaction. He decided to pry a little, tying to get Ginn out of her shell. “Ginn, right? Interesting name, never heard it before. Where’s it come from?”

Ginn was shocked by the question. Usually when people found out about her name, they made a joke about alcoholic parents, or threw out guesses as to what it was short for. Her name was Ginn. Not Ginera, or Ginevra, or even Geneva, shockingly. This question made Ginn happy, and her vocal cords decided to work.

“It’s a combination of Gill and Finn.” Ginn kept her head down but was smiling lightly for the first time in a while. “Gill was my mum’s mum, and Finn was dad’s dad. They wanted to honour both of them, so it was either Ginn or Fill, and Ginn was pretty gender neutral.”

She huffed in amusement at that last bit. the story of her naming was always interesting to her, especially when you think of the whole story of a young pregnant woman and her husband staring at each other, trying to make the other back down, until they came to the compromise of combining the names.

“That’s cool!” Martin said, enthusiastically. “You have such an interesting story! I’m just names after my grandad!”

Ginn smiled, amused by the boy’s excitement.

Before they could continue, the teacher cleared his throat and started the lesson. It was English. This was not the best subject for Ginn due to her dyslexia, but she had a creative mind, and enjoyed story telling, so it wasn’t so bad. Well, unless they were reading old stuff, like Shakespeare or Jane Austen, they were utter torture for Ginn’s brain. Sadly, that is exactly what they were doing. Romeo and Juliet, to be exact. They started the lesson reading the play, the characters being assigned to a random assortment of students. Ginn struggled to follow along as they worked, not understanding anything they were saying. The words were floating around the page, lines and letters flipping and swapping place, it was giving her a headache. It didn’t help that the most dramatic character in the play, Mercutio, was being voiced by Martin, who was slowly becoming more and more dramatic in his reading, his movements rocking the table, making reading even harder for her.

After they had finished the first four scenes, Mr Caxton instructed the class to discuss them as a table. Ginn was thankful for this as she could finally rest her eyes for a minute. She rubbed her eyes and led her hands up to brush her hair up out of her face, letting it fall how it wanted, which was apparently not in front of her eyes. She looked at the trio of boys expectantly, waiting for a conversation to start, when she noticed they were all staring at her. Alex looked shocked, staring curiously, eyes switching between each of her eyes. George seemed curious, one eyebrow raised, and a small smile spread on his lips. Martin was far too excited for Ginn’s taste.

“Woah!! You have heterochromia?!” He said far too loud. “That’s so cool!”

Ginn quickly dipped her head and brushed her fringe over her brown eye, feeling her face flush red.

“If you say so...” She muttered under her breath.

This conversation was clearly going nowhere, much to the dismay of the three boys. Ginn was obviously not a conversation person, and the boys were not interested in discussing Shakespeare, so decided to further press.

“You don’t think so?” George questioned.

“Let’s just say it’s not my favourite thing about myself.” Ginn grumbled, shooting them a sarcastic and awkward smile. The boys shared a look, all expressing different thoughts and emotions. Martin locked eyes with his friends, then looked at Ginn quickly, and back at them, wiggling his eyebrows and smirking. The boys shot him warning looks, but he ignored it, turning around to look at Ginn, leaning his elbow on the table and putting his head on his hand, wearing his flirtatious, lopsided smirk.

“Well,” He said, making Ginn look us at him. Once she saw his face, she huffed, rolling her eyes, and looked back down at her work. “I think they are beautiful, completing the gorgeous image you hold all over.”

Ginn felt panic rise in her chest. She had never been complimented like that before from the mouth of someone who... had little to no obvious ill intentions. This boy did not seem to be particularly threatening, but still, Ginn could not be help but be wary. She clenched her fist around her pen in panic, as her defence mechanisms snapped into position.

“Say anything like that again,” She turned and glared at Martin through her hair. “And I break your hand.”

Martin tensed up, squeaking in fear as his arm slipped off the table in surprise. Ginn did not break eye contact, however, needing to maintain her tough exterior.

“Well ok then.” He squeaked. Pleased with herself, Ginn looked back down at her work, deciding to do the work herself. The boys fell silent and just did the work, quietly discussing Shakespeare out of fear for their hands.

At the end of the class, after a long lesson of awkward silence between the four tablemates, the boys packed up and met with Elsie and Louise. Ginn had rushed out of the classroom a lot quicker that the others, so Alex had already failed at his job of making sure she was ok. This was going to be a rough day.

 The final class of the day was P.E. Luckily for Ginn, sport was something she excelled in. Unluckily for Ginn, she had to get changed in front of other people, which was less than ideal.

Alex instructed her to follow Louise and Elsie to the girls’ changing rooms. Ginn kept her head down and shuffled along with the other girls as they chatted, complaining about the lesson they were going into.

“P.E. sucks, I hate it so much!” Louise groaned, dramatically. “I mean, I like exercise, but the structure of P.E. is so messy, and its so boring!”

“I know!” Agreed Elsie. “It’s even worse right now, doing those weird drill things.”

Ginn perked up at that comment. If they were anything like the ones she used to do in Cadets, she was golden! She didn’t look at the other girls, but she did smile and huff in satisfaction.

“You like P.E., Ginn?” Said Louise, sounding surprised. The girl looked Ginn up and down quizzically. She did not exactly fit the typical description of a fit girl. She looked very skinny, but Louise guessed that was mainly due to her oversized uniform.

Ginn hesitated with her answer, wondering how to answer without sounding weird. “Yeah, kind of. I like exercise, and I’m used to pretty strict sessions, so nothing really bothers me much anymore.”

The other girls seemed satisfied with her answer luckily.

After only moments, the three girls had reached the girls’ changing room. As the tried to find a free section of bench to place their bags and clothes, Ginn was silently praying that no one would pay attention to her so she could change and slip out unnoticed. She utterly hated changing in public. Sadly, her prayers were not answered, as the only available space was on a bench in the middle of the room, with a group of chatty girls surrounding it. Perfect. The three set down their bags and started undressing, quickly swapping from blouse to P.E. polo shirt. Ginn was particularly mad about their easy method of swapping from skirt to shorts without presenting their underwear; slipping the shorts on under their skirts, then taking off the skirt from above. Ginn, wearing trousers, had no such luxury, so had to take advantage of her too big shirt and take off her trousers, hoping they would cover her behind as she slipped the shorts on. Now for the bit she dreaded: changing from shirt to polo. She wanted to do this as quickly as possible, but struggled due to her ever growing anxiety. She slipped off her tie and unbuttoned her shirt, then readied her polo shirt to be the correct way to slip on as soon as she rid her back of it’s professional cotton attire. Quickly, she took off the shirt, and immediately heard what she feared.

Louise and Elsie had gasped, quietly. They had finished changing and lacing up their trainers, and were waiting for Ginn to finish changing so they could walk out together, and happened to glance up when they saw her take off her shirt. The two girls were sitting on Ginn’s right, so they could see what Ginn was worried about clear as day. Right across her back, from the bottom of her shoulder blade, creeping up to the top curve of her right shoulder, were two long, pale, jagged, and bumpy scars. They looked awful, and the two girls were certain that they were from a horrible incident from a long time ago. This scared them, as they worried about Ginn’s safety and current situation.

Before they could say anything, Ginn tugged her polo shirt over her head, hiding the scars before anyone could ask questions, or, god forbid, anyone else saw them. Louise opened her mouth to speak. She was not sure what she would say, but it was instinct. Before she could make a sound, however, Ginn shot her a warning glare, her blue eye shining like a lightning storm, her amber eye shimmering like a raging fire. Her lips were tight and eyebrows knitted in a tight V-shape. Her ginger hair had fallen before her face, blocking the light from reaching her face, only making the looming pit of aggression in Ginn’s aura stronger. Her fists were tight. Louise only just realised the new girl’s flat and scarred knuckles. Louise immediately shut her mouth. She offered an awkward, slightly scared smile, but Ginn just straightened her back, slipped on her battered old trainers, and started towards the door. Louise and Elsie shared a concerned look, then darted up and dashed to keep up with Ginn, who had suddenly developed a quick, strong stride.

Once all of the students had gathered in the sports hall, the P.E. teacher, Mr Dullan, called registration and introduced the aim of today’s class. The class knew they would not like this lesson. Mr Dullen was clearly in a bad mood, he was completely stiff and glaring at everyone who made eye contact with him. Ginn was not happy when he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to face him when she marched into the hall, so he could interrogate her about who she was. He seemed satisfied after a full 30 seconds of comparing her to the ID picture that was on his register. But, this was a respectable school that definitely would not accept her doing what she wanted to do at that moment, and tuition was far too expensive for her to be kicked out on her first day, so she let it go.

“Ok, everyone!” Mr Dullen shouted, making a huge, distracting echo ring around the room. Ginn knew she would barely be able to understand him immediately. “I don’t want to deal with teaching you all today, so you’re just going to do run laps around the school grounds all lesson.”

The entire class groaned and started quietly complaining to themselves and their friends. Well, all except Ginn, who enjoyed running. Also, the echo in this room was getting to her, and she was finding it hard to concentrate. She silently thanked every deity she knew of that the run was outside.

“Alright, alright, quit the complaining!” Mr Dullen yelled, making Ginn bunch up the hem of her polo shirt in her hand to squeeze. She found early on that this was a better coping mechanism than her automatic reaction, which was covering her ears and gripping locks of hair and pulling. Distractions from bad noises are always oh so fun. Mr Dullen carried on, interrupting Ginn’s thoughts, “Everyone get your butts outside!”

The crowd of grumbling students headed towards the doors leading to the yard so they could start the run. Before Ginn could disappear into the crowd and go off to enjoy her run, Louise had grabbed her wrist and started to speak.

“Hey, are you ok? We should talk abo—”

“Do not touch me!” Ginn growled, ripping her hand away from Louise, immediately marching off in a strong, quick pace.

As soon as she set foot on the outside area of the school grounds and witnessed part of the crowd all heading in the same direction, she started her rounds of the school with a light jog, preparing her body and lungs for a long, pleasant run. She really needed to calm her mind, after everything that had happened today, especially in the last few minutes.

 Louise was incredibly confused by that reaction. She had noticed Ginn tense up and ball her shirt in her fist, and she knew Ginn had not calmed down from whatever emotion she was feeling after presenting those scars in the changing rooms.

“What was that about?” George said, the four friends walking up to Louise so they could walk the laps of the grounds together.

“She’s seemed pretty tense all day.” Alex offered. “Maybe you just scared her and she reacted.”

She definitely has something she’s hiding.” Elsie said, as the group wondered outside and started walking. “She had two huge scars on her back. She got real tense, more than usual, when we saw them.”

“Let’s go find out what’s up with her.” Louise said, determination in her voice. Then, she sounded unsure. “If we can catch up to her...”

Ginn was no where to be seen as they walked their round. They knew this because Ginn was extremely noticeable in the crowd of students, being one of the only people in the school with ginger hair. She was even more noticeable because her hair was messy and choppily cut short, and her P.E. kit, like her uniform, was too big and looked it. They walked quickly around the grounds, talking and looking around. Ginn was nowhere to be seen.

“She must actually be running.” Martin shrugged. “That girl is an enigma.”

“An enigma you’re crushing on!” Alex said teasingly, elbowing his friend in the side and laughing.

“Shut up!” Martin pushed Alex to the side, a crimson blush rising in his cheeks. “I am not!”

“Then what was that comment in the changing room about?” George smirked and raised and eyebrow.

“Ok!” Martin’s dramatic flare revealed itself as dramatically waved his hand in the air and pointing at nothing in particular. “You have to admit, she is quite pretty!”

Martin stared a the group, waiting expectantly for their response, to which he got a couple nods, but mostly just looks of ‘my dear boy, calm yourself’.

The group continued to walk around the school grounds, giving up on searching for the strange new girl, she was far gone and they could not see her at all. The lesson went by relatively quickly, the group only lapping the school once and only going another 20 yards before Mr Dullen blew his whistle and called everyone into the changing rooms five minutes before the final bell rang. The five friends wondered back into the school, avoiding the stares of disapproval from Mr Dullen.

Louise and Elsie were slowly changing out of their kits when Ginn finally appeared by their side. She was sweating slightly, despite the November chill outside, and her breaths were long, quick, and laboured. As expected, she did not greet the girls, she just started changing, first preparing her shirt to be quickly thrown on after she removed her polo. Louise and Elsie tried not to look at her, feeling her haste and discomfort with being around people after what happened earlier. However, Louise is a pretty stubborn girl, so waited for Ginn to finish changing before she confronted her.

“Hey, where were you all class?” Louise tried to keep her voice perky and welcoming, rather than the interrogating tone she almost used. “we were looking for you when you ran off.”

Ginn let out a small growl of annoyance. “Ahead of everyone. Just needed to run.”

She removed her shorts, her shirt covering her underwear, and slipped on her trousers, then sat down to put on her school shoes. She never looked at Louise. Not that that was expected. This girl is so strange.

“You must be quick then!” Louise laughed lightly. Ginn just hummed. “It’s pretty impressive, running is pretty hard.”

This made Ginn’s head snap up, shooting Louise a confused look. “How is it hard?”

Louise and Elsie shared an amused look. Elsie laughed lightly and said, “You know, keeping pace without losing your breath, stuff like that.”

Ginn hummed thoughtfully whilst finishing up lacing her shoes. Once she was done, she stood and picked up her bag, just in time for the final bell to ring. Ginn attempted to supress her cringe at the sound, but her efforts were in vane, as the other two girls noticed. Luckily for Ginn, all they did was share a look and stand with their bags.

“Not sure I follow, but ok.” Ginn broke the silence, starting to walk out alone. However, Louise and Elise had other plans, both speeding to catch up to her and standing on either side.

“You’re a real enigma, you know?” Louise chuckled. That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Ginn glared at her, a quiet and low growl echoing from the bottom of her throat. Her eyes raged, like a fearsome lightning storm and a blazing fire. Even though she is a very small person, Ginn knew how to make herself look large and terrifying.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Erm... well, I... I just meant that you, well,” Louise stuttered and squeaked, as if she were learning how to speak again. “I just mean that you’re, you know, pretty mysterious...”

Ginn grunted and said something like ‘that’s the point’ as she stormed off, out of the building and around the corner towards the front gates, not to be seen again that day.

“Well, you kinda fucked that one up, huh?” Elsie chortled anxiously.

“Thanks for helping there Els. Come on, let’s just go find the boys.”

Alex, George, and Martin exited the boys changing room a few minutes later. The girls explained what happened as they walked out of the school and back home. The only thing they could all agree on when it came to Ginn: She would be very difficult to befriend.

[rosedavid]

Nowhere I’d Rather Be

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It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since Andi’s party, three weeks since TJ and Cyrus subtly confessed their feelings for one another, and three weeks since they interlaced their fingers together with exhilarated grins. In that moment, TJ remembers how all his jumbled, never-ending thoughts and worries about the future got momentarily pushed to the side so he could focus on one single thing: the boy holding his hand. Cyrus.

Three weeks later, and the giddy feeling that blossoms inside TJ’ s chest when he thinks about Cyrus still hasn’t faded. He supposes that’s a good sign, as the feeling continues to prove how crazy he is about the boy. There’s also a significant downside to TJ’s constant racing heart, sweaty palms, and flushed cheeks; he’s terrified. Relationships in general are new to TJ, let alone a relationship with a boy who also happens to be one of his best friends. He doesn’t want to screw this up because not only does he really likes Cyrus, but because he knows that Cyrus deserves the world and more. TJ doesn’t want to be a disappointment. 

Despite all of Cyrus’s reassurances, TJ still feels guilty about taking their relationship so slow. They haven’t done much besides occasionally hold hands in private, linger longer than usual during hugs, and send soft smiles at each other. Even though it seems like it’s enough for Cyrus, TJ notices the longing look he gets while watching Buffy and Marty be all coupley together in public. And the worst part is that TJ wants nothing more than to be just like that. He wants to be able to lock hands in the halls. He wants to drape an arm casually around Cyrus during lunch. He wants to kiss him goodbye at the end of the day. 

But then the fear drops in. Sometimes, it arrives because he spots Kira wandering through the halls one day. Other days, it might be an offhanded comment he hears. A lot of days, though, TJ has no idea where this terror originates from, and that’s what scares him the most. 

Today, TJ is determined. He’s going to take Cyrus out on a proper date. No staying in watching movies. TJ wants to give Cyrus the most memorable date of his life. He wants to see Cyrus’s nose scrunch up when he gets really excited and his hands flail about at an even faster pace. He wants to hold Cyrus’s hand the entire time and never let go. 

He has the perfect date planned. He’s going to take Cyrus to a reptile sanctuary, where Cyrus can see all of his favorite lizards he always rambles on about as well as know that they will be released later because he knows how much Cyrus hates seeing animals in cages. 

So, this brings them to the car. TJ sits with Cyrus in the backseat while his mother drives. Cyrus can’t sit still. He constantly shifts his legs and taps his fingers on the armrests with a curious expression on his face. 

“Is it The Spoon?” Cyrus wonders.

TJ shakes his head, “We always go there!”

“The movies?”

“Nope.”

“A football game?”

TJ stares at him incredulously. “You really think I’d make you suffer through an entire football game?”

“I hoped not, but I had to make sure!” Cyrus defends.

Laughing, TJ almost reaches over to grab his hand but decides against it last minute. His mother may know that he’s gay now, but she doesn’t officially know he’s dating Cyrus (although she definitely suspects it). Not only does TJ want to avoid outing Cyrus to his mother, but he also worries about Cyrus’s reaction. What if he doesn’t want to hold TJ’s hand? What if he thinks it’s super gross that TJ’s hand is so sweaty? 

What if’s have always been TJ’s enemy, but they’ve been especially detrimental to him recently. He just wants to be able to be Cyrus’s boyfriend without worrying about what others may think. He wants to be able to give Cyrus everything he deserves but worries that he’ll never be able to do that. He worries that he’s holding Cyrus back from happiness. 

But he has to make today different. He has to push those worries aside again and take a risk, just like that night on the bench with their hands inching closer while he held his breath. 

When they arrive at the reptile sanctuary, a beam lights up Cyrus’s entire face. His joy is contagious, causing TJ to smile himself. Cyrus looks at him in hopeful confirmation.

“A reptile sanctuary?” Cyrus squeals. “I didn’t even know they had one this close by!”

“So you like it then?” TJ asks, ducking his head. 

“I love it!”

With a promise of picking them up in an hour and half, TJ’s mother drives off and leaves them alone. They walk up toward the entrance to pay the donation fee before getting inside. The instant they head in and Cyrus spots the first reptile, he practically runs over to get a closer look. Even though TJ is honestly kind of terrified of reptiles, dealing with seeing them is worth it as long as he can see the excitement on Cyrus’s face. 

He looks adorable standing on his tiptoes to get a better look into the large, open area. Flecks of gold sparkle in his dark eyes every so often. He spews out the most random facts, yet TJ has never found something so interesting. Of course, if he occasionally zones out to focus on Cyrus’s lips, could anyone blame him?

As they walk through different areas of the sanctuary, TJ becomes hyperaware of how close together their hands are to touching. If he just adjusted his position a little, he could strategically brush his hand with Cyrus’s--

“Cyrus?!” A feminine voice calls out in surprise. 

“Iris!”

TJ yanks his hand away like he’s been burned. At his side, a flash of disappointment crosses Cyrus’s face, but it’s gone as soon is it arrives. 

In front of them, a girl with short brown hair and a cheery smile waves enthusasitcally. Cyrus waves back, sporting a similar face. She comes over to them, giving Cyrus a quick hug. 

“It’s been so long!” Iris comments, looking up at him. “You’ve gotten so tall!”

“And you cut your hair. It looks great!” Cyrus notices. 

“Thanks! Fancy seeing you here, fellow lizard lover!”

“I know, this place is amazing! I can’t believe I’ve never been here before.”

Abruptly, TJ clears his throat, catching both of their attention. Iris smiles politely at him. 

“Oh, this is TJ!” Cyrus introduces. “TJ, Iris. TJ is my bo--best friend. My best friend. He’s actually the one who discovered this place.”

Man, does that correction hurt to hear. TJ feels awful. Cyrus has to lie to his friends about them just because TJ is scared. He hates this. 

“Nice to meet you TJ.”

He nods, “You too. So how do you two know each other?”

Despite the hot sun blaring down on them, Cyrus visibly pales. Iris doesn’t seem quite as taken aback, but she tucks her hair behind her ear before stammering out an awkward explanation. 

“We used to date,” Iris says. 

Of course Cyrus has dated someone. How could he not have? After all, not only is he adorable, but he has a great personality and a kind heart. And this girl seems super great, as far as TJ can tell. Cyrus deserves someone who is actually willing to admit how they feel about each other. 

“But that was a long time ago,” Cyrus adds on hurridly, sneaking a glance at TJ. 

TJ supposes he should be jealous of Iris. Maybe at first he is, but afterwards just comes a sense of guilt and regret. He doesn’t want to make Cyrus feel like he’s being put in an awkward position. Just the other day, Cyrus’s mom (who he’s also out to) asked Cyrus if he’s dating anyone. Again, Cyrus was forced to lie on TJ’s behalf. 

“Oh,” TJ replies, not sure what else to say. 

“Well, I think Teej and I are gonna finish up here. It was great seeing you again, though!”

Iris smiles, “You too! We’ll have to catch up some time.”

“For sure.”

When she walks away, Cyrus turns toward him, concern knitting his brow. TJ sighs, dropping his shoulders. 

“TJ? Are you alright?” he wonders. “I know that was probably super awkward for you.”

“No, it’s fine,” TJ promises. “She seemed really cool. I just...I feel bad.”

Cyrus tugs him over to a nearby bench, and TJ almost laughs out loud at the irony. They sit together, knees knocking against one another. The position they’re in reminds TJ so much of that night that he has to swallow back his emotions to keep himself in check. 

“Why do you feel bad?” Cyrus asks in a whisper. 

TJ shrugs. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it’s something that’s affecting you negatively.”

TJ picks at a string on his shirt, avoiding eye contact. 

“I feel like I’m holding you back.”

“Why would you think that, Teej?”

He glances up to see Cyrus reach for his hand. Before he can, though, a shadow of a family walks past, and Cyrus tugs his hand back. 

“See, that’s why!” TJ explains. “I want to be open with our relationship so badly. I want to hold hands in public and hug and kiss, but I just can’t. I’m so scared, Cyrus. But I can tell that you’re ready, and I’m just not, and I hate it because you deserve much better-”

“Hey,” Cyrus shushes. “It’s okay. I’m okay with this. I don’t care if we’re taking things slow. I care about you being comfortable, and if you’re not ready to be public or to kiss, then I’m not either.”

“But-”

“Thelonious Jagger Kippen, you are not holding me back. I like you, and I’m going to stay with you, even if we go public for another year.”

TJ feels his eyes begin to water. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do. I’ll always be here for you, I promise.”

He holds out a pinky, causing TJ to smirk. There’s many reasons he likes Cyrus, but quirks such as these just make him fall harder. He intertwines his pinky with Cyrus’s, shaking them once. 

“That’s legally binding,” Cyrus declares, “so now you’re stuck with me.”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”