#but basically was just discussing how much i hated school purchases

[3-aem]

yall ever make an online purchase where buyers remorse hits u before u even click the button truly one of the decisions of all time

[mimicofmodes]

“The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 1780 (NGS NG2171)

I’ve complained before about two very big pet peeves of mine - corset stuff and Regency women being dressed in 1770s-1780s clothes - but one that may dwarf them because of how frequently it comes up in historical and fantasy fiction is the oppression of embroidery.

That’s probably putting it a bit too strongly. It’s more like ... the annoyance of embroidery. Every character worth reading about knows instinctively that sewing is a) boring, b) difficult, c) mindless, and d) pointless. The author doesn’t have to say anything more than “Belinda threw down her needlework and looked out the window, sighing,” to signal that this is an independent woman whose values align with the modern reader, who’s probably not really understood by her mother or mother figure, and who probably will find an extraordinary man to “match” her rather than settling for someone ordinary. To look at an example from fantasy, GRRM uses embroidery in the very beginning of A Game of Thrones to show that the Stark sister who dislikes it is sympathetic and interesting, while the Stark sister who is competent at it is boring and conventional and obviously not deserving of a PoV (until later books, when her attention gets turned to higher matters); further into the book, of course, the pro-needlework sister proves to be weak-willed and naïve.

Rozsika Parker, in the groundbreaking 1996 work The Subversive Stitch, noted that “embroidery has become indelibly associated with stereotypes of femininity,” which is the core of the issue. "Instead embroidery and a stereotype of femininity have become collapsed into one another, characterised as mindless, decorative and delicate; like the icing on the cake, good to look at, adding taste and status, but devoid of significant content.” 

Parker also points out that the stereotype isn’t just one that was invented in the present day by feminists who hated the idea of being forced to do a certain craft. “The association between women and embroidery, craft and femininity, has meant that writers concerned with the status of women have often turned their attention towards this tangled, puzzling relationship. Feminists who have scorned embroidery tend to blame it for whatever constraint on women's lives they are committed to combat. Thus, for example, eighteenth-century critical commentators held embroidery responsible for the ill health which was claimed as evidence of women's natural weakness and inferiority.”

There are two basic problems I have with the trope, beyond the issue of it being incredibly cliché:

First: needlework was not just busywork

A big part of what drives the stereotype is the impression that what women were embroidering was either a sampler:

sampler embroidered by Jane Wilson, 14, in 1791 (MMA 2010.47)

or a picture:

unfinished embroidery of David and Abigail, British, 1640s-50s (MMA 64.101.1325)

That is, something meant to hang on the wall for no real purpose.

These are forms of schoolwork, basically. Samplers were made by young girls up to their early teens, and needlework pictures were usually something done while at school or under a governess as a showpiece of what was being learned - not just the stitching itself, but also often watercolors (which could be worked into the design), artistic sensibility, and the literature, history, or art that might be alluded to. And many needlework pictures made in schools were also done as mourning pieces, sometimes blank, for future use, and sometimes to commemorate a recent death in the family. A lot of them are awkward, clearly just done to pass the class, but others are really artwork.

Many schools for middle- and upper-class girls taught the making of these objects (and other “ornamental” subjects) alongside a more rigorous curriculum - geography, Latin, chemistry, etc. At some, sewing was also always accompanied by serious reading and discussion. (And it would often be done while someone read aloud or made conversation later in life, too.)

Once done with their education, women generally didn’t bother with purely decorative work. Some things that fabric could be embroidered for included:

Jackets 

Bed coverings and bedcurtains

Collars and undersleeves 

Pelerines 

Neck handkerchiefs and sleeve ruffles 

Screens

Upholstery

Handkerchiefs

Purses, wallets, and reticules

Boxes

Book covers

Plus other articles of clothing like waistcoats, caps, slippers, gown hems, chemises, etc. Women’s magazines of the nineteenth century often gave patterns and alphabets for personal use.

(Not to mention late nineteenth century female artists who worked in embroidery, but that’s something else.)

You could purchase all of these pre-embroidered, but many, many women chose to do it themselves. There are a number of reasons why: maybe they wanted something to do, maybe they felt like they should be doing needlework for moral/gender reasons, maybe they couldn’t afford to buy anything - and maybe they enjoyed it or wanted to give something they made to a person they loved. That firescreen above was embroidered by Marie Antoinette, someone who had any number of other activities to choose from. It’s no different than people today who like to knit their own hats and gloves or bake their own bread, except that it was way more mainstream.

embroidery patterns from Ackermann’s Repository in 1827 - they could be used on dresses, collars, handkerchiefs, etc.

Second: needlework wasn’t the only “useless” thing women were expected to do

Ignoring the bulk of point one for now and the value of embroidery - I mentioned “ornamental subjects” above. As many people know, young women of the upper and middle classes were expected to be “accomplished” in order to be seen as marriageable. This could include skills like embroidery, drawing, painting, singing, playing the piano (as well as other instruments, like the harp or the mandolin), speaking French (if not also Italian and/or German), as well as broader knowledge and abilities like being well-versed in music, literature, and poetry, dancing and walking gracefully, writing good letters in an elegant hand, and being able to read out loud expressively and smoothly.

This wasn’t a checklist. As the famous discussion in Pride and Prejudice shows, individuals could have different views on what actually made a woman accomplished:

“How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.”

“It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”

“All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?”

“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”

“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”

“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.

“Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.”

“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Mr. Bingley feels that a woman is accomplished if she has the ability to do a number of different arts and crafts. Miss Bingley feels (or says she feels) that it goes beyond specific skills and into branches of artistic attainment, plus broader personal qualities that could be imparted by well-bred governesses or mothers. And Mr. Darcy, of course, agrees with that but adds an academic angle as well.

But what ties all of these accomplishments together is their lack of value on the labor market. A woman could earn a living with any one accomplishment, if she worked hard enough at it to become a professional, but young ladies weren’t supposed to be professional-level good because they by definition weren’t going to earn a living. All together, they trained a woman for the social and domestic role of a married woman of the upper middle or upper class, or, if she couldn’t get married, a governess or teacher who would share her accomplishments with the next generation.

(To be fair, almost none of the trappings of an upper-middle/upper class male education had anything to do with the kind of career training that college frequently is today, either. Men were educated to know the cultural touchpoints of their class and fit in with their peers.)

There are reasons that an individual person/character might specifically object to embroidery, but it was far from the only “useless” thing that an unconventional heroine would be required to do against her inclination by her conventional mother/grandmother/aunt/chaperone. Embroidery stands out to modern audiences because most of the other accomplishments are now valued as gender-neutral arts and skills.

“The Embroidery Frame”, by Mathilde Weil, ca. 1900 (LOC 98501309)

So, some thoughts for writers of historical fiction (or fantasy that’s supposed to be just like the 19th/18th/17th/etc century):

- If your heroine doesn’t like embroidery, she probably doesn’t like a number of other things she’s expected to do. Don’t pull out embroidery as either more expected or more onerous than them. Does she hate to sit still? I’d imagine she also dislikes drawing and practicing the piano. Would she prefer to do academic subjects? She probably also resents learning French instead of Latin, and music and dancing. Does she hate enforced femininity? Then she’d most likely have a problem with all of the accomplishments.

- If your heroine just and specifically doesn’t like embroidery, try to show in the narrative that that’s not because it’s objectively bad, and only able to be liked by the boring. Have another sympathetic character do it while talking to the heroine. Note that the hero carries a flame-stitched wallet that’s his sister’s work. Emphasize the heroine’s emotional connection to her deceased or absent mother through her affection for clothing or upholstery that her mother embroidered - or through a mourning picture commemorating her. There are all kinds of things you can do to show that it’s a personal preference rather than a stupid craft that doesn’t take talent and skill!

mourning picture for Daniel Goodman, probably embroidered by a Miss Goodman, 1803 (MMA 56.66)

[fukurodaze]

five stars: part 2 | two hands

IT’S EMBARRASSING: a third year cheerleader!reader x second year athlete!suna au

wc: 3.7k warnings: cursing

prev | m.list | next

a/n: happy birthday to suna rintarou <3

"i’m just saying, the tail just has you dive into the good bits first.”

your close friend, nakamatsu honoka, replies to you in a serious manner. the two of you are in a highly solemn discussion regarding which part of fish bread is to be eaten first, all because you had purchased some fish bread right before your student council meeting and honoka had just happened to catch you on your first bite after practice. now, honoka argues for tail, and you argue for the head. 

“yeah, but it just feels... wrong. i mean-”

you don’t finish your sentence, because there’s a high-pitched voice calling your name.

your head turns and the empty hallway reveals ueno momo, the student council’s treasurer, free of her usual budget papers in hand. she brisk walks in a little bit of a frenzy, and as she catches up with the two of you, she asks, “hey, you’re dating that second year right?”

suna? you want to answer.

“what second year?” is what you say.

honoka almost audibly rolls her eyes at your denial, knowing too well of your recent time spent with the second year middle blocker. he’s cute, honoka remembers assuring you, having seen you curled up into a ball at her house, repeating the phrases why and “uegrh” after the mention of suna’s name.

ueno lightly slaps your shoulder, “c’mon. you know what i mean.” she gives you the same smile she gives everyone.

“now, you’re going to the boys’ volleyball gym right?” ueno asks, keen.

“i mean i guess i could stop by, why?”

“i’ll come with you,” ueno adjusts her backpack, “it’s been a while.”

the gym is as loud as you remember it, even louder than the basketball team. it seemed like practice had just been at its peak intensity, and though you’re greeted with stoic eye contact from the coach and the sound of rubber balls hitting strong palms, there’s the unmistakably firm sound of a ball being spiked to the ground right in front of your face.

you would’ve shouted out a good “holy shit!” if it weren’t for ueno grabbing you by the hand and sitting you down on the bench near the coach.

you hear cheering next, and a bunch of glances towards you. it puzzles you how their faces, though smiling, seemed to possess a little glint in all their eyes at the spiker. 

of course, when it came down to everything, suna rintarou had to be the one who spiked the ball.

you glance at ueno, who’s fixated on the court, on someone on court, but you’re not sure who. still, you’re curious, “are you the manager of the volleyball team, or something?”

ueno doesn’t take her eyes off the court, “oh, no, i’m just close to the players. i like watching them play.”

you’re pleasantly surprised at the revelation, having not really known any members of the volleyball club except for a handful of the third years and suna, the boy who had found you sleeping like a rooster two mornings ago. he had even walked you to class for that day, and you’re not sure how to feel.

safe to say he had “ran into you” the next morning, and had walked you to class again.

you almost refrain from looking, because every time your eyes are on the court they somehow trace his figure instead of anyone else’s. he’s fast, and clever, and flexible, and sometimes even frustrating to watch because of how successfully he blocks. still, his face stays nonchalant, and though he looks in your direction from time to time, he always seems so unfazed.

his hand runs through his hair, shirt lifting up to wipe some of the sweat on his face, voice deep and loud when he congratulates his teammates.

shit.

his voice rings with every spike from his side, whether it be him or someone else’s. it sends chills down your spine, when someone serves the ball with a nasty spin, or when someone receives it so well that it makes an echoing sound. 

when the whistle blows and the players begin to run to the benches to retrieve their water bottles, you catch sight of ueno picking up a water bottle and coming back to her seat, watching as ojiro aran comes up to her and takes the bottle with a thank you, fingers brushing ever so slightly.

“are you two close?”

ueno only looks at you blankly, “i’m busy. i don’t date.”

suspicious, you furrow your eyebrows and lean back onto the wall of the gym, “the question wasn’t about dating.”

“what?” ueno defends, “ar- ojiro-kun is just a friend.”

“i never said anything about ojiro-san.”

“uh, yes you did. look, i’m not dating aran.”

you sigh in defeat, but pick up on the ‘aran’. it’s a matter of seconds before the coach calls the team over to the whiteboard rolling in from the storage room, numerous plays in hand for the interhigh. the coach’s and players’ voices are drowned out by your and ueno’s conversation, however, and it’s only when the coach gestures towards your bench with a shushing motion that you purse your lips and begin whispering to each other.

you hate to wish for a lingering pair of eyes on you.

when practice eventually ends, you and ueno keep sitting on the bench, talking idly as the boys get changed. just before the entire team goes back to the changing rooms, a solid glance from ojiro aran has ueno jump up and race herself to the entrance first. she tells you to stay “for a little bit”.

in the locker rooms, there is cheering.

“suna rintarou, everybody!” miya atsumu is the most entertained by seeing his friend, who is usually the one that makes fun of him, harbour something as small and harmless like a crush - on a third year, no less.

“dude, suna’s beast mode fucking sends.” ginjima adds.

“yeah, did you see how he lifted up his shirt there?”

a round of laughs, even from kita.

“and don’t forget the way he went,” atsumu bends his knees, mimicking suna’s posture in court, voice deepening, “nice one, oomimi!”

oomimi snorts, “didn’t know he had it in him.”

there is another round of laughter.

“ay, it works, though!” osamu chimes in, “if she comes to interhigh with us we might as well win with suna like this.”

atsumu, shirtless, has his arm around suna’s neck, still in his practice gear, voice so loud that it’s almost a direct scream to the ear. suna sees the first years giggling, the second years cheering, and the third years stifling their smirks.

this has been going nonstop for weeks.

“hey, have you even talked to her though?” ginjima comes up to suna as atsumu puts his uniform back on.

suna raises a finger, “why am i supposed to tell you everything that happens between me and her?”

“so you did talk to her?” his voice is loud, and half of the room pans to suna.

“we were just walking-”

“shit, you walked her home?” osamu slides himself back into the conversation.

“not home. we just walk and talk or whatever.”

atsumu has his backpack on already, “hey, progress is progress. don’t you wanna date her?”

suna groans. he finally opens his locker.

“are ya actually serious about dating y/n-san?” aran mutters to suna from the locker beside him, and he almost nods. aran takes it as a yes.

“oh shit. good luck with that. don’t take it personally if she’s too busy for you.” aran shrugs, buttoning up his uniform. 

suna squints at the boy, “and how would you know?”

aran smirks, though it seems like he freezes for a split second, “nah. yer right. i wouldn’t.”

one by one, the boys exit the changing room. the twins had decided to go home together, aran by himself for unknown reasons, akagi with oomimi, kita back to the gym, and ginjima waiting for suna.

conversation unrelated to suna’s love life begins to fill the room, and suna is grateful for it. is it his fault for not wanting to talk about you? he’s eager towards you, yes, but that doesn’t help the fact that he’s practically always an internal hurricane whenever you’re near. it even surprises him how he’s gotten to walk you to school for two days now.

“our cheer team is fucking insane though. have you seen their basketball routines? sucks that they’re only on the bleachers for the interhigh.”

“yeah. the marching band doesn’t have as much time to play as well. and the cheer team can’t do any of those basic shoulder sits or basket tosses.”

ginjima raises an eyebrow, “right, and you would know what a basket toss is.”

“i don’t,” suna opens his mouth, before closing it again. you had told him about a basket toss. 

“y’know, you should just ask her out.”

“why?” suna has his backpack on, hands gripping the straps.

“whaddya mean, ‘why’? suna, she’s known in school for all these things. what if someone asks her out before you get to?”

suna tsks, and the grip on the straps of his backpack tighten. there’s a tiny sinking feeling in his gut that tells him he’s not good enough - at least, not for you.

the two walk out of the locker rooms and into the now empty gym. ginjima spots you first, still on the benches, looking through your phone, and he elbows suna in the rib before running to the entrance of the gym.

suna is left confused, slightly surprised, and makes eye contact with you. he comes over.

“hey.” he has his hands - three fingers, actually - in his trouser pockets.

you look up from your phone and stand up, “hey.”

“were you waiting for someone?” suna hates how the question comes out.

“well-” you’re not sure what to say, so you pull up your phone, “i was scrolling through food menus and seeing which ones were the best ones to get delivery. nobody’s going to be home, so i figured delivery would be good.”

“there’s this obaa-san nearby that sells fish cake soup and rice balls. we could get that.” he leads you out of the gym, and the two of you walk together.

“we... yeah. we could.” you try to quicken your walking pace to keep up with him.

(he slows down for you.)

the obaa-san’s place is almost like a hut with a few benches and a table behind the school. suna orders the food with a wave and receives a ‘have a good meal, rin-chan’.

“how do you know the obaa-san?” you cross your legs as the two of you settle on the school’s entrance stairs.

“she works as my landlord. the school kind of pays her for me and other recruited athletes to stay there.” he unpacks the fish soup in high-quality plastic containers and passes one container to you along with two rice balls. you tell him thanks.

you chuckle when he takes a tiny bite into his rice balls, “so, rin-chan?”

suna almost chokes. it makes you laugh.

“it’s, like, such a cute name for...”

suna waits for your answer. you finish lowly, with a cheeky smile, “a person like you.”

“you saying i’m not cute?”

there’s a bright look on your face, teeth showing and eyes crinkled. you swat your hand that’s not holding your rice ball, “that’s not it!”

“i’m going this way,” you motion. suna waves his hand as he stops on the roundabout where you turn, watching as you bid him goodbye. your frame, even from the back, is pretty, suna thinks, and he stays on the corner to see you off until you disappear into the other street.

but you don’t - your phone buzzes and it’s a message from the cheer team’s vice captain, kouno yuki, reminding you that the new cheer uniforms are still in the principal’s office, and that the principal’s good for nothing preference for their hundred-thousands yen school band over the ten-thousands yen cheer team would only result in the uniforms being stored in some absurd corner of the large school - again.

you make a whole 180 degree spin back to the direction of the school, finding suna still in the same spot he was before. he asks you as you jog towards the school, “what’s going on?”

“i need to go to principal’s office.”

“is she even still at school at,” he checks his phone, “seven?”

“i’m going to cross my fingers and hope she is.” you walk past him, and he follows you.

“you don’t have to follow me, just go home. i know you’re tired and all after practice,” you protest.

suna only shakes his head. it’s true that he’s tired, yet he finds that energy is the last of his worries whenever he’s with you - rather, his problem is having too much energy around you. 

suna stays behind you, brisk walking while you begin to jog with your backpack swaying up and down on your back. there’s one expression you make that burns itself in his mind; much like worry and concern, slight panic laced in your eyes and cheeks. he watches as you look at him once, and then straight ahead, because you never know how much an additional second might cost you. 

you’re going fast. but you need faster.

so suna begins to run. he runs, and the gap between his previous fast walk and your light jog is enclosed because he holds your arm gently as he guides you faster along the school’s walkways. the principal’s office is in building A, first floor. ten minute walk, five minute jog, two minute sprint - he estimates (he actually doesn’t know). but right now, you need to be there as soon as possible.

and suna can definitely do as soon as possible.

it takes longer for you to realise that the boy has your wrist in his large hand, taking you along with his speed. you make a sound of exclamation, noting how fast he is, and he mumbles a sorry that drifts behind him through the air and into your ears. it’s funny.

the summer air is cool and warm, and the sky finally gets darker. you see the outline of the moon as you try not to trip on the speed, and you concentrate on how it reflects itself on the current view you have of his back profile, tracing the small breaks and lines of his figure. when he stops, your eyes still linger on him.

“y/n-senpai?”

suna glances up at the sign on the door, and you’re snapped out of your daze, “ah, we’re here.”

he lets go of your arm, and there’s a small emptiness that momentarily plagues the area.

“the principal’s still in there.”

you straighten up your posture, hand combing through hair as you use the front camera of your phone to fix yourself. you turn to suna, “how do i look?”

he gives you an awkward thumbs up and a ghost of a smile. “thanks,” you respond.

you give a knock on the door, and you hear a “come in!”. the door slides open.

you bow respectfully, and suna towers behind you, bowing as well. “just in time. i was about to throw away all these uniforms after they piled up in my room. there are lots of cheerleaders, it seems?”

you force a laugh, “yes, there’s around twenty. we usually split up for different routines with different teams throughout the year.”

“right. now that the badminton team is starting practice, where are you practicing again?” the principal is stern, yet her voice is high-pitched and gentle. it scares you sometimes.

“we’re alternating between the volleyball and basketball gyms, ma’am.”

“are you sure you’re not disturbing the teams? basketball and volleyball seasons are very close together. even the volleyball interhighs are,” she squints at her desk calendar, flipping from the july page to august, “about three weeks away. isn’t that right, suna-kun?”

your head turns when she mentions suna. he nods promptly, but then adds, “the cheerleaders bring lots of energy to the gyms, ma’am.”

the principal raises her eyebrows, “well, if you say so. i still think the band works just as fine. the band makes a rhythm. all cheerleaders do is follow it with their... pompoms, or whatever.”

there is a silence that you don’t know how to break. you freeze unresponsively.

“so, can we pick up the uniforms?” suna says, gathering his guts. you perk up, and so does the principal.

“right, the boxes are on that corner. the person told me you ordered ten medium, five large, five small?”

you nod, and before you know it, you’re carrying a box of ten medium-sized uniforms while suna carries the other ten. the two of you bow again to the principal and she gives an absentminded wave as the two of you exit the room, and eventually the building, in silence.

once out, you start, “what the fuck does she have against cheerleaders?”

suna lets out a laugh he’s been holding the second he heard the principal talk. he adds, “i wasn’t sure if she was joking when she said that thing about throwing the uniforms out.”

“did you hear what she said? the whole fucking, ‘their... pompoms, or whatever.’ or whatever? bitch doesn’t want to acknowledge that cheerleading is a sport and for what!”

you continue, “not only that, the way she went like, ‘are you sure you’re not disturbing’? um, excuse me? of course we’re goddamn sure because we’re on opposite sides of the gym! and all of us know how to focus at least!”

you go on and on about all the things that the principal had said, only fuelling your anger at the principal’s passive-aggressive distaste towards the cheerleading team. you’re thankful that suna supplies your thread of complaints with laughter and agreements at least.

when you finish your rant, you take a deep breath and turn to the boy, stopping just short of a few steps before the cheerleaders’ club room. “thank you for being there with me, suna.”

just suna? without honorifics? suna wants to ask. he brushes it off, “yeah. no problem.”

“oh, and just thank you again for saying that thing. you know, about us bringing energy,” you trail off, but then pick yourself back up, “do we, really?”

suna, of course, knows from past experience that having you around a five-meter radius does some interesting things to his plays, but he makes sure to tell you sincerely and genuinely that the teams - or, the volleyball team, at least - appreciates the added warmth every monday and friday.

the two of you put down the boxes of uniforms inside the club room. you open your box out of impulse and a wave of excitement washes by, “oh my god, do you want to see me in uniform?”

suna flushes bright red - and it’s really obvious.

“you don’t have to get like that! okay, now shoo, imma change.” you swat your hands out, motioning for him to get out of the clubroom to change. it makes his palms sweat just slightly.

outside, suna tries to conjure up the image of last year’s summer uniforms, remembering their short sleeves and skirts, mostly white appearance with maroon accents.

his own mental image was proven wrong when you step out of the club room wearing a completely different uniform. this time it’s black with white and maroon details, ‘inarizaki’ in capital letters plastered over the back and front of your top. you do a little twirl, letting the wind sway your pleated skirt and rush slightly underneath your sleeveless v-neck top, smiling, “how is it?”

“i like y- it.” suna’s eyes widen as soon as he hears himself say it, so he tries to rewrite his words loudly, “it’s- it’s really nice. you look really nice, y/n-senpai.”

“thank you,” you look at him, “and you can call me y/n.”

“right. i’m suna.”

you chuckle, “you know, i designed this myself- okay, not really myself, but yuki helped me with it too. i thought the white got a bit tiring, especially since it doesn’t match with the rest of the school.”

“that’s good,” suna begins, but he doesn’t know how to continue, “yeah, that’s really good.”

suna finds that the night shines in your eyes better than any mirror reflects light; and seeing you, standing before him, smiling wide and eager to show him something you’re proud of, he only feels his heart soften and his harsh demeanour falter. somehow, he feels the urge to keep you close. 

when you come back with your school uniform on, the two of you walk again for what seems like the umpteenth time through school. still, neither of you complain - walking takes time, yet time spent with each other is always a good time spent.

“hey, suna,” you ask as the entrance gate comes near.

“yeah,” suna swallows, “y/n?”

“you live around here, right?”

he hums in reply, “just around the back.”

“oh. right.”

“why?”

his question catches you off-guard, “no, we just go in different directions. i’m at the bus stop.”

“my place passes the bus stop from here, so. i can keep walking.”

you glance at him to find his eyes on you first. “okay.”

suna’s mind comes back to earlier in the afternoon, when osamu had reacted with wide eyes at the concept of walking you home and atsumu edged on the idea of dating you. he remembers ginjima the most: ask her out, before anybody else does.

but suna knows he can’t do that - at least not yet.

for now, the back of his hand only hovers over yours, unsure and fleeting, wondering how it would feel like to have your hands intertwined.

taglist: @maitenight​ @natszoo​ @ssuna​​ @erens-piss-cleaner​​ @osamus-onigiri​​ @volleybloop @etherealiwa​​ @agaashesmilktea​​ @bicchaan​​ @anngelllla​​ @tycrackculture​​ @sins-over-tragedy​​​ @tsumuluv​​ @daichibrainrot​​ @underratedmage @sunasexual @kenmei​​ (if your url is bolded, it means i couldn’t tag you)

send an ask to be added to the taglist!

special thanks to roo @yooroomi​, as always, for beta reading this series!

[docholligay]

Please rant/rave (well, we already know which one it will be here) about Harry Potter!

GEE I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH WAITING FOR

OH MY GOD. The level of hatred I have for Harry Fucking Goddamn Potter, the culture around Harry Fucking Potter, extending its poisonous tentacles even to the concept of young adult fiction, fantasy, and the United Kingdom as a country and people. 

When you being on this, you may think, “Oh, Doc will explain that Harry Potter sucks because JKR hates trans women” and I will say, oh no, dear reader, that is a fantastic reason to hate the author, and I really suggest we all continue to hate her, and perhaps not purchase the QUEEN’S TONNES of officially licensed merchandise and movies and theme parks that give her stupid little fucking hands all that cash, but no, that is not why I hate the work. There are a number of great works done by terrible people, and the further out the lens of history gets the truer this is. 

I hate Harry Potter because it fucking sucks, and mentally stifled an entire fucking generation. 

“Well, Doc, Harry Potter was really there for me when--” Oh my god I could not fucking care LESS about your personal emotion connection to “orphan wizard boy turns out to be a rich aristocrat yet somehow less woke than Cinderella though” I have personally emotional connections to hot fucking garbage pails of media properties, and if someone came barreling through talking about the myriad ways in which they were horrible, I would be like, “Oh, you aren’t fucking wrong, pal” 

Harry Potter gained wild ass popularity in part due to its magnificent sorting system of Smart, Brave, Evil, and Other, because there’s nothing liberals like more than being able to put everyone’s personality into an easily labeled box, which is why astrology is so popular, or for the intellectuals, Myers-Briggs, which is just as fake but with the veneer of science. This allowed people to give into the tribalism they so desperately liked to pretend they did not possess, and also allow them to write thinkpieces about “The misunderstood Hufflepuff” or “Slytherins aren’t all bad!” or really anything that allows them to write a very real piece about their very imagined oppression for being a part of a totally fake house in a children’s book. Excellent use of your sociology degree, Kai, I thought the addition of phrases like, ‘Content of socialization” and “axes of oppression” really spoke to the struggles you face when wearing a green and silver scarf. 

The other reason it became popular is that it’s essentially wallpaper paste formed into characters. I have read all of the books, and I could not tell you even remotely what Harry’s defining personality traits are other than “protagonist”. In American, at least, a large part of it was the fascination with all things British, with the idea of boarding school and prefects and uniforms that aren’t inexplicably chinos and polo shirts for nine year olds. It allowed children to project onto something so bland that it could be anything. And for children, THAT’S FINE. There is a great deal of bland media made for children, but what I’m speaking to is the fandom, which is largely well over the age of 18. 

Because if we look at the books, are they...actually good? Was it good, or did I experience it as a child? I mean, honestly, on a literary level, are they, or was it just like we all watched Friends, we did it because everyone else was doing it, because I have a distinct memory of a series that involves such greats as “magical geegaws with poorly defined rules that are quickly forgotten despite being able to solve later problems quickly” or “Everyone loves Harry or is a bad guy, or secretly loved Harry all along” 

Oh, speaking of, man, if this was an actual well-written book, wouldn’t it have been wild to have Snape’s whole thing be to teach us that sometimes people do good things for the wrong reasons? Instead of naming your fucking child after the guy who ‘protected you’ because he still wanted to bone your mom? “After all this time” “Always.” 

While all this could have been explained, we have Quidditch added into the mix instead because 20 pages of the goddamn Puppy Bowl is exactly what I was looking for while I was waiting for JK to move the goddamn ball on literally any of these actual magical concepts. 

Harry Potter is a fucking trust fund baby, star quarterback, who grows up to be a cop and marries his high school sweetheart. (Speaking of, why were we shocked that JKR turned out to be a piece of shit when this was and always has been the conclusion of Harry Potter? Why are liberals so fucking into this series that upholds structures like it ain’t no one’s business? It’s a series that opines that those beneath us “Muggles” should be kept in the dark from us) Literally, he finds out he is a wizard and has a dragon-guarded fucking VAULT OF CASH. At 11. It’s such a series for little tyrants, you are special from birth and need do nothing to prove it, here is a letter certifying as such. Oh, not only are you rich and the greatest seeker and have excellent quips, but also your parents were not only rebels, but the best of rebels, and so deeply involved that your parents were killed by the big bad personally, again, because you are so special. His mother’s love literally saves his ass over and over again, because he was SO SPECIAL. He fought Voldemort FROM THE BEGINNING, and WON.  It’s literally the most privilege baby fantasy in the world. 

“But Doooooooooooc, it’s for chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren” 

A) Yeah, and you’re 32, you’re making my fucking point about Harry Potter setting an entire generation up for intellectual failure to launch. 

B) Okay, and? I can think of a bunch of kids’ books off the top of my head that in no way require specialness to be given by birth so as to roll out the red carpet for master protagonist. The Hunger Games. Watership Down. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Chronicles of FUCKING NARNIA, about which I have only a small handful of particularly kind things to say. I’ve never read Percy Jackson, but it’s my understanding that despite his being a literal demigod, the attitudes of the supporting cast are allowed to fall between the extremes of “Appreciates Percy” and “naughty or will learn” Harry does nothing to improve himself even after knowing that he is HUNTED BY THE BIG BAD! “I won’t do this because I don’t like Snape”. So There” which, again, if this series were written with the slightest bit of care or know-how, could be a humbling fucking plot point! BUT NO THAT WOULD BE NAUGHTY. 

But the real reason I hate Harry Potter so much has everything to do with the fandom surrounding it, and how it intellectually stunted a generation of adults. The promise of Harry Potter was that it was supposed to make a new generation of readers, and so the popularity of them was pushed, and so there was discussion of teaching them in schools, but I tell you fucking what, I know a whole lot more folks who grew up reading Harry Potter that never advanced beyond reading YA, or even just rereading the entire series every year and that’s pretty much them done and dusted. 

In the attempt to recapture whatever it was about Harry Potter that attracted children (A lot of it was your peers doing it. I read them all as they came out, and it was literally the equivalent of watching the game so you could talk at the water cooler. That was never going to be recaptured) people, who by this time were likely in their teens, kept getting recommended stuff at the same and same level. No one ever felt pushed to read things that are challenging, to read things that have some of the concepts or themes of Harry Potter but maybe complicate. I know FAR more adults who read adult books that aren’t into Harry Potter, even if they were as children, than the reverse. 

But Doc, why is reading only books meant for 14 year olds a problem??? I mean I suppose I can’t convince you that comfort is not the job of literature or of life, it is the job of an easy chair, because Americans especially are decadent as fuck about being comfy cozy all the time and if anything causes them distress or pain it should be immediately avoided. But Maybe I can convince you that you’re fucking up these books for actual ass children who deserve to have their own writing section without adults bringing their fucking asses into it. They deserve their own spaces. There’s a number of YA editors who have talked about the difficult space YA now occupies because since Potter’s blowup, it’s no longer a niche category, but basically “adult easy reads” and so they have been buying books that are more about the tastes of adult buyers than of literal 14 year olds. 

Is that not...sad? To anyone else? Honestly, and this is not part of the essay because it’s a broader reaching problem, but CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS FOR FUCKING CHILDREN. The fucking 40-23 set really needs to get their shit together and grow up a little bit and engage in some fucking adult media, and maybe, if we support what we’re actually looking for FOR ADULTS, it will come to us. No one is saying you can’t read Harry Potter or watch some Cartoon Network show, but like, search your heart and come the fuck on. Engage in something more complex. If not for yourselves, for the kids getting shoved into simplified adult stories. It should not be about us. 

ANYWAY, my larger point is that it was Harry Potter, a badly written series about a magical boy who was chosen and magic and also rich and also a favorite of the headmaster and also more clever than most adults and also spoke the same magical snake language as the big bad and was also star quarterback, but at least there was a system in which you could buy a scarf in block colors and feel like you belonged to a team. 

(But not a sports team! lol handegg! I’m cool I don’t get into sports! Except Quidditch.) 

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Hi Em✨

I absolutely love your writing and your posts and I’ve been following you for a while now💕

I’m not sure about you but I feel quite uneasy/conflicted with the current rhetoric on book tok. I understand people not liking certain books but it’s been hard to see people slander books and the people that like those books/characters/stories,etc. I get that criticism is needed for certain themes or values that appear in books but reading is loosing some of its escapism for me:(

Reading in context (fictionally and in the real world) is always needed but sometimes I just like a book because of the characters or it’s story and not necessarily that it checks all the boxes for being perfect.

Tbh, as much as I love certain books, some of them have become tainted for me and I genuinely wish I didn’t I read other people’s opinions on them.

Book tok is great for reccs but I can’t even filter it out of my feed at this point. I kinda wish toxic fandoms also looked inwardly because as much fun it is to engage with fans and people that are apart of that fandom, some people take it way too far such as sending hateful anons to creators (such as you🥺) or calling books trash when they’ve been super influential or important to people.

I guess my little rant is over but I was wondering if you had any opinions on this or have any sort of guidance. Is there a place I could get reccs or how can avoid all of this rhetoric that can affect my view of a book.”?

Stay safe and have a good day✨💐

hi there, nonnie! thank you so much for the kind words, i really appreciate you 🥺❤️❤️

first off, i want to say that i 100% understand this. i never really got into booktok specifically because i had a feeling it was basically going to be book twitter 2.0 where everyone is just ripping into each other constantly. i don't like being influenced by other people's opinions either, and the drama that seems to be obligatory baggage for most fandoms these days (with the exception of TFOTA, cos for some reason we are extraordinarily chill) just isn't for me.

it is, of course, essential that we continue to think critically when it comes to media. it's the only way we can affect change in a positive direction. but this also must be balanced with a willingness to be humble with our opinions, understand that they are just opinions, and accept that everyone consumes media for different reasons.

this also means we'll all hold different boundaries about what we're willing to consume, and where we draw the line for things we won't consume. granted, books might be the mirror through which we see life reflected, but they are not reality itself. to a certain extent, fiction is fiction. and different boundaries does not a bad person make.

speaking of drawing lines, i'm going to direct you to this post by @bookofmirth , which is mainly about ACOTAR/SJM/Palestine but some of what they have to say there is very applicable to this topic, and eloquently put:

"Some people can separate art from artist. Some can't. It's up to all of us as individuals to draw that line where we are comfortable."

i agree with this statement wholeheartedly. it is not up to randomgal4549 on tiktok/twitter to decide what eye should or should not read. the unmitigated gall of anyone to think their opinion should dictate other people's choices is highly presumptuous and quite frankly exhausting.

apart from maybe the bible/other religious texts, what a person reads is not a reflection of who they are or what beliefs they hold. we need to learn not to conflate the two, and start regarding each other once more as humans with complex thoughts and feelings, capable of introspection and growth, instead of little icons on our phone screens with immovable and absolute beliefs.

so that's my opinion on that. my main advice to you would be KEEP THINGS ORGANISED. what i mean by that is this:

curate your social media experience! it is YOUR responsibility as an owner of any social media account (including tumblr) to customise your space to fit YOUR needs. if you don't like someone's opinion/content? unfollow. if someone is rude/you don't like their vibe? block. if you find the things someone shares to their socials offensive? unfriend. this is setting boundaries, and the people who take any of these things as a personal offence are the exact people you want to keep a healthy distance away from. you decide who you follow and what you see on your dash. be protective of your space and who you allow to have access to your energy.

keep personal feelings separate from the public! i honestly can't stress this point enough. if you feel the need to rant about something that irks you about a specific book/author/person's opinion, keep these discussions in the DMs with a trusted circle of friends. it is psychologically proven that when someone feels attacked, they will double down on their og opinion, no matter if they realise they're wrong. thus, projecting high-strung emotions into public spaces such as twitter, while understandable in some cases, will only serve to further polarise people and hurt the very movement you're likely trying to bolster. blow off steam with people you can entrust with your emotions. NOT strangers on the internet.

designate time to learning about issues that are important to you! i strongly advise against turning to any fictional medium for moral lessons or life advice. if you can dedicate some time outside of your escapism to inform yourself about important subjects through educational resources that are specifically designed to Teach/Impart Knowledge, instead of giving an ounce of thought to Intrinsically Biased Information Received Second Hand, i promise you you'll feel a whole lot less obligated to other people's opinions.

if you're unsure about a particular book/author, consider borrowing from your local library, purchasing the book second hand, or finding an ePub copy.

for recs, consider booktube. i know it's probably seen as a bit old school by now, but the great thing about youtube is that you're not randomly/unexpectedly subjected to other people's shit opinions like on other social platforms. you have to click a link to watch the video, which gives you more autonomy in regards to what opinions you consume. my personal favourite youtuber is Khadija Mbowe. she's not a booktuber, per se, but her content focuses on in-depth critical analysis of media/society through the lense of WOC (specifically Black women), and i find her channel compelling as well as informative.

goodreads is also a great place to find book recs without the constant influx of opinions. if you can find yourself a circle of trusted friends to follow on there, you can't go wrong. my goodreads is linked in my bio under "connect" and you're welcome to follow me there. or not! it's your choice.

–Em 🖤🗡

[andromedasstarship]

faceless, nameless - the prologue

gif credit - @kylos 

pairing - kylo ren x reader 

warnings - canon-typical star wars violence, depictions of death/violence, fighting (verbal + physical), loosely implied physical intimacy (really up for interpretation here), angst, tension, implied mild love triangle, kylo ren betrays you 

summary - For four years, Kylo Ren considered you to be many things: his right hand, his confidant, an irreplaceable strategist, a friend and most importantly his equal. It all ended when he left you with a blaster shot to the stomach on a near deserted planet. On the brink of death, a rather dashing Resistance Pilot stumbled upon you, saving your life.  

Donning a mask to hide your identity, you’ve grown to become the most fearsome Resistance fighter they have; bewildering the First Order as to how you always seem to ruin their plans and avoid capture. Kylo Ren is a different man from when he left you two years ago, so how will he react when he accidentally finds you alive and well in Poe’s memories?

masterlist // series masterlist // read it on ao3 here 

next chapter 

-----

the prologue - the sun 

On Starkiller Base, there were plenty of rumors as to why Kylo Ren kept you around. Some said it was because of your extensive training in hundreds of different languages, both spoken and signed. Others were sure it was due to your diplomatic upbringing that came with countless connections and near endless wealth. Or, maybe it was due to your more than adequate ability in battle that served him the most. Even some people thought you were a kept woman, who only existed as a way for Kylo Ren to blow off steam behind closed doors. Your favorite rumor was that you were actually a high-ranking Resistance spy who was tasked with infiltrating the First Order at the highest level and that Kylo Ren had become weak because of you. Had it not made you laugh so much the first time you heard it, Kylo would’ve crushed the windpipe of the lowly officer who created the elaborate lie. 

Of course, there were some truths in all the rumors, but none of them exciting. You were in fact trained in hundreds of languages and that training was a product of your diplomatic upbringing. You were exceptionally trained in various forms of combat, but that was something that came after you met Kylo; he had always been afraid of you not being able to properly defend yourself. You were most certainly not a kept woman, not that you and Kylo weren’t intimate, but certainly not in the type of dynamic people thought. You absolutely were not a Resistance spy, but even though neither of you said it aloud, Kylo Ren was definitely weak for you. 

How it actually happened is quite boring. The two of you met when Kylo had just turned 24, still more Ben Solo than Kylo Ren. You were recently 23 at the time, head of a diplomatic welcoming committee that met with Kylo as part of his first official diplomatic endeavor as ‘Kylo Ren’ the soon to be Commander of the entire First Order. He quickly became enamored with you and the way you commanded a team full of older men who clearly didn’t approve of your position- whether it was due to your age or gender he didn’t know- but still treated you with respect; in short, you radiated a confidence and power he desired. For you, it was quite the opposite, Kylo Ren still wasn’t sure of himself and at times still acted like the awkward lanky Jedi boy who had never spoken to a girl outside of school purposes. He was a fresh and welcomed change from all the annoyingly rich and cocky men you met with on a daily basis. 

Him and his team stayed on your home planet for nearly three months. Countless delegates from various planets flocked there for balls, meetings, conferences, and more. Your connections ran deep and you directly aided in the First Order’s successes during those three months. For the first few weeks, you and Kylo skirted around the obvious pull between the two of you. He wasn’t exactly sure how to ‘woo’ a girl, nor was he even sure if he was allowed to. His lack of action caused you to regularly doubt if he also felt the spark, or if it was completely one sided on your end. Weeks of longing gazes and accidental brushes of fingertips finally came to an end when the two of you were sitting on your private balcony, overlooking the well kept grounds, discussing the conference that had just ended. It was a roaring success for your planet as well as the First Order, both of you securing mining resources at an exceptional locked rate for a minimum of fifty basic years. You made the first move, he was irresistible under the moonlight, closing the space between you on your bench and pressing your lips directly on his. In his hesitation you thought you had completely misread the past month, but it was only a moment later that his hands found purchase in your hair, pulling you closer. The two of you were nearly inseparable for the rest of his trip. 

It was difficult, when he finally had to return to his new master and some massive ship that would be lightyears away from you. Unspoken promises were made the night before he left, declarations of love and devotion made behind closed doors. He was still far from truly becoming Kylo Ren, had copious amounts of training to finish before he would see himself be fitting for someone like you. If he was nothing else, Kylo was desperate for loyalty and when you watched his ship leave you had no doubts he would come back. 

And he did, nearly an entire standard year later. You almost didn’t recognize him when he stepped off his personal ship. All broad shoulders and shrouded in layers of black, with that intimidating mask covering his face. He was proving to be quite the warrior, the tales of him and the Knights he commanded reaching the farest edges of the galaxy. When the welcoming festivities had ended and he removed his mask in the privacy of your room, you found a mature face that had lost the softness you once knew. It was no matter to you, flinging yourself into his arms and vowing to never let go. 

This time, when he left, you went with him of course. Kylo had been shocked when Snoke approved it, but Snoke, ever the manipulator, knew the growing attachment between the two of you would inevitably prove to be valuable in controlling Kylo Ren. 

Moving into a giant spaceship wasn’t easy for you. The dark, cold and everlasting expanse of space was a sharp contrast to your warm ocean planet. You missed the sun on your face and your people, but when you vowed to never let him go, you meant it. As time went on, you grew accustomed to the ship and then eventually Starkiller- which was an entirely different battle, that piece of ice had you complaining for months-, and soon enough you couldn’t imagine a life not in space. 

Most of your days were monotonous, not that you minded. From the first day you stepped foot onto base, Kylo began training you himself. He never wanted you to feel as hopeless and afraid as he did when he woke up to his uncle ready to kill him in his sleep. So he trained you, and he trained you hard. You could wield a lightsaber well enough, as he argued that should anything ever happen to him- a thought you hated entertaining-, his saber would be the best weapon you had available. You were smaller than him, so close combat was a challenge but you learned to use your size and agility as an advantage. What you specialized in, was the staff. It allowed you to give a larger opponent at a safe range until it was possible to take them down. Kylo had a special one created just for you, with double edged electrical ends that you could easily turn on or off. It was rare that he actually let you on a battlefield with him, but when he did you were unstoppable. Not that you minded, you quite enjoyed working behind the scenes, forming battle plans and leading diplomatic endeavors for the First Order. 

Other than Snoke, no one out ranked you, not even Ren; a fact he had been extremely particular about after a visiting diplomat made the excuse of outright ignoring and belittling your presence in a meeting. You were equals in everything, even going as far as taking on the ‘Ren’ moniker. 

Among First Order subordinates, you were fairly well liked, and not just because it was unspoken that anyone who thought badly of you would probably die at Ren’s hand. The people actually liked you. Ren was cold, you were warm. When he was sharp, you were soft. It worked well, his ability to command troops and fuel the fires of war was complimented perfectly by your ability to talk nearly anyone to your side. 

You never wavered in your support for him, ever loyal by his side no matter what he did or who he killed or how many villages he burned to the ground. You stood next to him, never behind, when new planets presented themselves as potential allies. You watched from above when he burned villages, that dared aid the Resistance, to the ground. You cleaned and healed every single wound he received from Snoke’s brutal training. You held him together when the pull to the light made him feel weak and undeserving. 

Anyone could see that you were the sun that Kylo Ren revolved around.  

So, when he came back to Starkiller on that fateful day, covered in blood- your blood-, announcing that you were dead- and he was the one who killed you-, and that your name was never to be uttered on his base or by any First Order subordinate ever again, no one knew what to do. 

-----

 a/n - hi!!! im so excited for this story, ive never written star wars before and my lore knowledge isnt the best ill admit, so please excuse any minor bits of pieces i may get wrong! comments/likes/reblogs always appreciated. if you wanna be added to the taglist, just ask and ill make one! :D 

no permission is given to copy or republish my writing on any other platform or account. if you see this story outside of my blog or my ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own nor claim to own star wars or any of the character involved in it. 

[cloveroctobers]

What would Marisol and Rocco be like if they actually got the chance to couple up? Would they actually last? Definitely slightly curious.

This maybe or may not be a unpopular opinion but I feel like they would if given the chance!

I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong if you find that a relationship isn’t doing it for you and want to move on from it but I DO think it’s questionable about how you go on about things, meaning your actions afterwards...

Marisol has been defined as someone who gets bored of relationships but it’s not just that, you can tell the girl was surely getting anxious during the show when she couldn’t find a true connection with anyone and a little (not much? I don’t really remember oops) unsure if she wanted to go through with giving Rocco a chance and fishman due to other factors

When Marisol is so sure about situations or when it comes to men she’s confident and going after what she wants

And Rocco was it for her

they found a connection and sure Rocco was playing the flirting route but I do think he genuinely has/had feelings for Marisol and mc

He’s a different person outside of the cameras, more in his natural state than ever + Marisol gets to see that

some may say they’re opposites? But not really Rocco is focusing his energy on being a better person and living a better life, basically following the bohemian/hippie lifestyle

He thinks: gypsies, tramps, and thieves by Cher is one of the most powerful songs he’s ever heard, “so raw, emotional, painful, and brilliant isn’t it?”

“You just love Cher. It’s horrible, the storyline of the song. Let’s listen again so I can pick the song piece by piece.”

Always makes sure that they do something positive after they’re done watching one of marisol’s crime documentaries or shows or listening to one of his questionable song choices to “cleanse their mental energies”

He sends positive affirmation texts to her if they’re not together because he’s most likely saying it—some usually find it corny but that’s just them not being open and Marisol is very open and challenging/opinionated/ viewing things in a different perspective

They love PDA but not over the top like others we know

Pressing their foreheads together is a common thing for them

He’s got her into yoga and transitioning her to tea, “because coffee is not great for the body”

specifically Turkish tea but it’s all about baby steps with the Latina

They’re both truly themselves with each other and glow different while together

Have no issues teaching/guiding each other

Always talking to each other and listening intently

Shares his books of Buddhism for her to borrow and actually brightens up when she discusses certain passages when they grab dinner one night

Marisol loves to read and she has to do a lot of reading being a law major and everything but makes time to look at rocco’s interests

As does he, even tho he hates school! He’s not afraid to ask her questions whereas with anyone else he might be

They’re patient with each other

In my hc on Rocco I imagined him as having a food truck and doing a tour with Marisol supporting from afar and then surprising him as one of his customers in France and then again in California

Gave her a citrine crystal for her birthday which she never takes off and even made it a mental note that she wants a ring with that same crystal...not a wedding ring just a ring guys!

“It’s for revitalizing and cleansing. Made for energy, providing happiness, courage, hope and warmth. Only the sun can hold that energy which is why I’m giving that to you.”

They genuinely make each other happy and somehow find patience with each other with Rocco’s food truck business booming and on the verge of purchasing a tiny home in Ireland to marisol passing the bar in London they still find time for each other through it all they’re still connected

I do think they have a higher chance of making it than her with graham tbh

They’re in a long distance relationship and it works for them? It gives them the time to focus on themselves and what they want while also just thriving in their romantic relationship when they’re in each other’s space

[la5t-res0rt]

Wanted to ask about beetlelyds, sorry, I thought it was technically cannon? Like in the old comics after the show ended she grew up and married him. Sorry I’m an old school fan and have no idea why this whole thing is such a big deal. Wasn’t the actor like 20 too? I’m sorry if I sound very dumb. I’m not used to this new tumblr.

youre fine you are one hundred percent allowed to especially when you do it civilly as you have done here

first of all the biggest issue faced in the whole what is and is not canon debate is the fact that there are three (four if you count the limited comics run) publicized iterations of my media

i will go over each very briefly just kidding this is going to a long answer so i will spare the dashboard with a readmore

there is the movie which im sure you dont need me to explain the plot since youre an old school fan but basically the climax is that yes beetlejuice does go for the marriage angle in exchange for stopping the exorcism of adam and barbara and his motive for this is so that he can cause as much chaos as he wants on the mortal coil but his plan is thwarted when barbara rides a sandworm into the house which promptly eats beetlejuice sending him to bureaucratic death limbo

the end of the movie features the deetz and the maitlands happily living together with lydia havign a new appreciation for her situation and beetlejuice gets his head made real small which is very funny haha 

so no in the movie they are not canon editors note the actress who played lydia winona ryder was a teenager while filming the movie she turned 17 the year it released 

the next is the cartoon which i will admit has the most grounds for being considered canon but in the end the show is about a middle schooler and her best friend who is a ghost which in itself is a pretty iffy gray area sort of thing but for a childrens cartoon to work a friendship is better than the obvious enemy status they held in the movie

anyway in the cartoon they are potrayed to be very close friends with lydia being the person beetlejuice cares about the most and honestly if you were to watch it with no prior knowledge of the media and if you ignored their massive and obvious age difference than yeah you probably would read it as a romantic relationship 

however lydia is a middle schooler and that is simply immoral

there have been writers for the cartoon who have been credited to say that a relationship is what they were trying to invoke but for obvious reasons they couldnt exactly move forward with that angle with them establishing that lydia is a child in middle school and a fully grown adult man dating a child who is in middle school is immoral and also illegal in the united states and in canada 

this isnt a good argument for whether or not something is canon and i will tell you why with one simple name and that is luke weber

if you dont know who luke weber is he was a storyboard artist on the cartoon steven universe he is known for making a lot of self ship artwork of him and the character pearl

he worked on the show isnt his material canon no of course it isnt it wasnt put in the actual publication and also if memory serves he was eventually asked to leave the project after he drew art of the shows creator giving him permission to date pearl and calling them her otp and a lot of fans hated this because the most generally accepted interpretation of pearls character is that she is sapphic so a lot of people took issue however that again is just a widely perceived headcanon it is never stated what her actual sexuality is no one in that show is because it isnt a show about that its about wait im getting off topic sorry

what im saying is what can truly be considered canon is what you see on the screen and with the cartoon they are definitely the most friendly with each other and that is why so many people in the beetlebabe shipping community take so much stock in the cartoon because it is the easiest to read the relationship between the mas romantic although that is not what the show actually provides in black and white terms

interpretation does not equal canon and in this case no matter what anyone says the fact remains that in the cartoon itself they are friends good friends yes but friends all the same

it is definitely not a show about a grown man grooming an adult and if it were you definitely shouldn’t be stanning it the extreme because grooming a minor is wrong and it is apparently a problem in the fandom

anyway if the cartoon and the movie are both products of their time and there was more leniency on content bear in mind this was the same era as notorious animation powerhouse and known predator john k who was a showrunner on ren and stimpy and he maintained a relationship with a teenager which was an open secret that nobody really took issue with because in that time being a woman in the animation industry was tricky business and your career could be ended easily if you rejected advances luckily time has moved forward and the animation industry although still full of problems of a similar nature at least people are getting called out and punished for it

you can look more into that yourself its really upsetting though

as for comics i havent been able to find good scans of them and im not willing to purchase them but in my search i never found anything about the two of them ever being married in the cartoon again because she is a child i did find a cover where he appears to be getting married and hes asking lydia to get him out of it but im not sure where the comic actually goes all i know is she is standing off to the side shrugging and looking like she doesnt really care

anyway that brings us to the musical which is set in the modern day 

in the original libretto lydia is described as thirteen but since they got an actress who was older in the updated librettos she is listed as 15 and the story is pretty similar to the movie the young girl befriends ghosts and they try to scare her family out etc etc

the major difference between the film and the musical are that lydia and beetlejuice are more like friends like in the cartoon 

she summons him to help scare after the maitlands attempt doesnt really work so he shows up and they have fun terrorizing people together however she drops him for the opportunity to perhaps get her mom back but when no one will help she goes back to beetlejuice who tricks her into almost exorcising barbara

she agrees to marry him in order to stop the exorcism and he only wants to get married so he can be alive again and cause problems on the mortal coil like in the movie in the musical he states several times its a green card thing whihc obviously doesnt make it okay but still

anyway lydia tricks him and runs off into the underworld before the wedding can happen blah blah blah she goes back blah blah and she agrees to go through with the wedding to save her friends and family with a plan to make him go away for good

theres a very tongue and cheek song called creepy old guy which points out how wrong the whole thing is but everyone is going along with it in a very comedic matter and it includes the line 

i cant believe some cultures think this kind of things alright

basically saying yeah this is very very wrong anyway they do get married and beeltjeuice is alive for like 6 seconds before lydia stabs him to death with bad art and he dies thus nullifying the marriage because death do you part etc

so in the musical no at the end of the show they are not canon because he is dead their marriage is nullified and they go their separate ways

anyway sorry about that i just need to make it very clear that these three properties are all very distinct from each other and basically all three are indeed canon since they are publicized material and arguing the validity of which one is pointless editors note all actresses who played with the exception of dana steingold were minors for the majority of their runs as lydia with sophia ann caruso the originator of the role turning 18 during the run and dana being in her late twenties presley ryan however was a minor the whole time and still is one

tldr no they aren’t canon but to the credit of some people in this fandom their interpretation isnt too far of a stretch thanks to the era and some of the writers wishing to imply a relationship between an adult and a child

i also need to address how this is all a big deal and i suggest you take a peak through my discourse tag and check out @leedia‘s blog to see some of the more harmful things done by beetlebabe shippers

the beetlejuice fandom is home to many minors after the musical came out since musical fandom is vast and the ages of its members varies and normalizing pedophilia is harmful to them not to mention the people who have been effected by sexual harassment at the hands of adults

both sides have victims of csa but one side continues to perpetuate the cycle by showing time and time again that this behavior is normal and easily romanticized in the name of coping and literally anyone who has ever been to a good and credible therapist could tell you that posting cp even if it is simulated cp isnt a really good way to cope and you can get mad at me for saying that its totally fine but and im going to remove my character veil here for just a second as a csa survivor myself i think its harmful to not only myself but many others ok the veil is back down

tldr again there is a lot of bullying and harassment going on with both sides having their own issues but there is one side whos issues run a bit deeper in my humble opinion 

thank you for your question it allowed me to talk a lot you are welcome to discuss further with me in dms if you wish i honestly recommend giving the musical a listen because it is very fun and despite what some people say its very clever and if you get a chance to see a boot of it its visually stunning

one last note that i couldnt really fit in here but a large portion of the beetlebabes shipping community ignore the musical because it openly condemns the idea of beeltejuice and lydia having a relationship and a lot of the antis take issue with much of the writing and characterizations of the cartoon just a note that i think is important since were talking about canon

[artificialqueens]

End of the Day (Crystal x Gigi) - Ashley

A/N: The plan was simple. All Crystal had to do was pretend to be her twin for one week: sit silently in seminars, only leave her room for her basic necessities and stick closely to the set of rules she was left with. Only the rule that stated she “mustn’t bother the bitch from downstairs” became a lot harder for Crystal to follow once she had laid eyes on Gigi Goode.

Hope you guys like this!! Think of it as Breakfast at Tiffany’s meets She’s the Man only at a Russell Group where there’s a stereotype around every corner. Sending infinite thank you’s to Meggie for being a fab beta. p.s thanks so much for all the lovely feedback for Everything Has Changed (I could have cried reading some of it)…xoxo Ashley.

“No way.” Crystal dropped the pencil she toyed with, a laugh squeaking out of her throat at her sister’s audacity.

“It’s only a week,” she pleaded over the phone, the voice that had convinced Crystal to do stupid things since they were children making its reappearance.

“You seriously want me to pretend to be you just so you can jet off to Majorca to see that creep?” 

“Yes!” Elle ignored Crystal’s clear disdain. “That is exactly what I want. We used to do it all the time in school.”

“You’re crazy, actually insane.”

Crystal was used to her sister’s wild antics, but this plot may have been a step too far.

“But you love me.”

“I hate you.”

“It’s not like you have any plans.” Elle held no hesitation in poking the bear - the boundaries between the two twins almost non-existent.

“I have Depop orders actually,” Crystal snapped back, a tiny part of resentment that her sister was attending one of the best universities in the country whilst she was sitting at home making jewellery rising inside of her body but not quite breaking the surface.

“£200.”

Crystal stopped in her tracks - now she was listening.

“It won’t work anyway, people will notice!”

“They won’t. I don’t speak to anyone in my college anyway and my course friends won’t say anything, just stay in bed all day once you’ve been to my seminars. I’ll even give you my Disney+ password.”

A hint of worry rose in Crystal’s mind; she wondered how her more outgoing other half had managed to go to university and not make friends in her accommodation. Where Crystal was shy and nervous throughout the entirety of her education, Elle had never been afraid to put herself out there, always surrounded by one group of pretty girls or another. “So what am I supposed to do in these seminars then? It’s not like I have an extensive knowledge of anthropology is it?”

“All you have to do is sign in and sit there pretending to type - they don’t even pick on you I swear. And it’s the last week before we break up so everyone will be really chill.”

“£300,” Crystal responded, the idea of escaping the four walls of her bedroom whilst making three months of her usual income beginning to tempt her, cursing internally at how easily convinced she was.

“I can’t give you £300.” Crystal could hear that her sister was talking through a grin despite not being able to see her face, the grin that meant she’d won.

“Well, you can’t go to Majorca then.”

“Three hundred pounds it is,” Elle agreed. “But you better get me a decent Christmas present.”

“Deal,” Crystal responded, knowing she had already purchased her sister’s gift two months prior. “Now, tell me absolutely everything I need to know about collegiate life.”

“It’s a good job. I knew you’d say yes and already planned this part out.” Elle beamed, proud at her ability to convince her timid younger-by-ten-minutes sister to do almost anything.

***

If secondary school was supposed to be a jungle of cliques, then Elle’s college may as well have been the Amazon rainforest.

Walking through the incredibly hard to find dining hall for breakfast, Crystal could make out almost every university stereotype she could think of, each confined to their own special hold.

From the druggies to the athletes, to the Oxbridge rejects, to the girls who borrowed daddy’s credit card - they were all there and thriving. A small part of Crystal wanted to go and sit with who she decided were the artsy girls despite knowing her sister wouldn’t be caught dead doing so.

Trying not to draw attention to herself, she kept her head down as she made it to the front of the queue, Elle’s clear step-by-step of how she approached meals playing through her head on repeat, the weeks of planning for this moment all coming into play.

Only at that moment, she panicked, the child’s paint by numbers that were her instructions started to turn into a set of IKEA diagrams without captions in her brain. Wishing she’d stuck to eating a pot noodle in her sister’s room, Crystal’s body froze in a state of fear after dolloping a ladle of baked beans onto her toast. A tonne (or maybe ten tonnes) of bricks smacked her right between the eyes. She knew she wouldn’t be able to pull this off. The lack of self-confidence she always battled with ran thick through her veins, her thoughts turning to ways she could go home and return to the comfort of her hometown, willing to sacrifice her sister’s already flagged attendance and the three hundred pounds to be watching Bake Off with her mam in the kitchen.

It almost happened in slow motion, time losing its speed as the boy behind her walked into Crystal’s back, propelling her tray forward onto an unsuspecting blonde. An unsuspecting blonde who seemed the opposite of dumb.

“What the fuck?” She snapped her head around to Crystal, thick brows furrowed and pink lips pursed.

“I’m sorr-” Crystal started, beating herself up internally at how she had managed to do the exact opposite of laying low despite being only one night into her weeklong mission.

“This won’t come out!” The girl started turning her neck frantically to the back of her shirt, the white satin stained bright orange.

Her mouth opening but no words coming out, Crystal didn’t have a chance to apologise again before the girl had a swarm of minions dabbing her back with tissues.

“It’ll be okay, G.” One of them took her hand.  Crystal wanted to burst out in tears like she usually did at the smallest sign of conflict, pinching the skin on the back of her hand and looking at the white ceiling lights to stop herself.

“So long as people look where they’re going.” The girl, G, cast a terrifying yet beautiful scowl in Crystal’s direction before sauntering away.

So much for laying low, she sighed before leaving the queue herself, her body tingling as if she’d hit her funny bone over a dozen times. The girl’s stare still imprinted in the back of her eyes.

Having narrowly avoided a panic attack, Crystal thought hard about her old coping mechanisms and tried her best to remain positive as she did after these situations, sitting down at an empty table and giving herself a pat on the back that she had at least passed as Elle without any doubts, ready to take the rest of her day by storm (also known as sitting in silence and occasionally nodding her head as a bunch of middle ages men discuss human evolution and diversity).

***

Having achieved three B grades by the end of sixth form and the award for ‘most creative’ in their final assembly, Crystal always thought of herself as somewhat intelligent and capable of living in the real world despite her decision not to go to university like her sister.

Yet there she stood, her face in a scowl and her fist in a ball, completely and utterly perplexed by the laundry system.

After sleeping in her sister’s dirty sheets the night before, she had arrived back to the college with hopes of resting her head on a pillow that wasn’t mascara stained and washing her face with a flannel sans toothpaste blobs (which was basic hygiene in Crystal’s opinion, but she hadn’t expected anything more from her twin). Only those dreams were temporarily dashed as she spent an entire thirty minutes pressing buttons and swiping the card Elle had left her manically against an aged machine. 

Thirty-six internet searches and two desperate phone calls to her sister later, Crystal was beaming at the sheets swirling around, not a care in the world at how much of a psychopath she would look to anyone entering the room, the stress she had previously faced in getting the machine to work inducing her to stay and wait for the clothes to wash instead of leaving them like normal practice. 

Elle had seemed happy on the phone, gushing to Crystal about how tanned she’d gotten in such a short space of time and how delicious all the food was - Crystal shutting her down quickly by reminding her that such a tan would only alert their mother to the fact she’d spent a week abroad visiting the sleazy holiday rep she’d fallen in love with that summer rather than in the brown-bricked, straight from a horror movie, sixties’ style complex that Crystal was currently residing in.

Crystal made a mental note to text her mam later and tell her how much she was enjoying her time “visiting her sister” - knowing fine well that talking to her on the phone would probably cause her to crumble and confess their scheme.

She had always been a family orientated person, always choosing a night in the house watching movies over playing out with friends, crying buckets the day her sister moved out and started a new chapter of her life without her. It was clear her mother wanted her to get out into the world, knowing she was capable of more than selling jewellery online, but unlike her sister, Crystal wasn’t quite ready to leave her home yet, needing that extra push to get her feet moving that just hadn’t come her way yet.

She figured that spending a week pretending to be her sister may actually be a good start.

Lost away with her head in the clouds like usual, Crystal was snapped back to surface level as her phone chimed to signal the end of the cycle, only to find herself even more frustrated when she realised that no dryers were free.

Today really hadn’t been her day. 

She personally blamed the lack of lucky necklace around her neck (Elle telling her specifically during their planning stages that she would never wear such a monstrosity and Crystal following suit despite knowing it was only entrenched in their rules because her sister thought it was ugly). Her secret superstitious side kicking in, she thanked herself for bringing some of her jewellery making gadgets with her, figuring she’d have to make her own version of it, for now, it wasn’t as if she had any better way to spend her evening.

Seeing a dryer with two minutes left until it timed out, Crystal figured she’d simply wait until it had been emptied to use it, allowing her brain to return back to Pinterest for a short period of time.

But ten minutes passed and no one came to empty the machine.

She glanced at the other piles of clothes that lay on top of the machines, figuring it was normal to remove other people’s when none were free, the thought of her sheets staying wet and crinkled making her feel uneasy.

Opening the dryer, she was hit immediately by a waft of lavender, reassuring herself that it was okay to move the clothes and feeling almost proud of herself for making a leap the old Crystal would have ran from in fear of awkwardness. 

Being her most careful, she picked the clothes one by one and started to fold them, her brain subconsciously admiring the mystery tartan-wearer’s sense of fashion and wishing she had the confidence to wear some of the outfits. That was when her hands met a satin blouse, a familiar satin blouse with an orange tinge on its white back.

Before she had time to process that the clothes she was moving belonged to the pretty girl from breakfast, Crystal’s train of thought was interrupted by the devil herself.

“Admiring your handiwork?” She strutted over and snatched the shirt back from Crystal’s hands.

Crystal couldn’t quite place her accent but she knew it was Southern. Her overactive imagination hearing the girl whisper dirty thoughts to her in that posh voice without being able to stop herself.

Oh, fuck.

“I’m sorry.” Crystal turned to her, not even attempting to act like anything other than the soft wimp she was inside. “I didn’t mean to.”

Crystal looked into the girl’s eyes, almost seeing her melt a little before her.

She felt the tension between them, dense and heavy in the air.

“It’s fine,” the blonde responded, losing the passive-aggressive tone she’d carried beforehand but still not sounding entirely sincere as she began to throw her clothes into her hamper. 

Crystal couldn’t help but gawk a little as she began to strut away, her body swishing like a model’s as she made her way out of the room, pausing for a second at the door.

“Can you do me a favour, though?” the girl called back to Crystal.

‘I think I’d give both of my kidneys to you’ Crystal thought. Only it instead came out as an awkwardly stuttered, “Erm, sure.”

“Turn your music down, please.” She shot a sarcastic smile in Crystal’s direction. Crystal felt it burrow straight through her chest cavity and into her fast-beating heart. “I know that anthropology may be a bit simpler than most degrees, but some of us really struggle to work when all they can hear is your shit music directly above them.”

Her mouth dropping open to catch flies as the girl left the room for good, a pang of realisation hit Crystal.

Opening her phone and flicking through the dramatic guide to her sister’s university life that was now saved at the top of her notes, she found what she’d been looking for:

“12. DO NOT, under any circumstances, bother the bitch downstairs.”

Too late, Crystal thought to herself, wondering how many more of her sister’s rules she would have broken by the end of the week.

***

Crystal would be lying if she said she hadn’t been watching out for the blonde that week, whose name she had figured out (after an intensive Facebook stalking session) to be Gigi. 

Yes, she was lying low, not leaving Elle’s room other than for seminars and to eat - but that didn’t stop her from taking stolen glances at the girl across the dining hall or walking up that second flight of stairs to the room just a fraction slower than she did the first flight.

Three days at university and she’d somehow turned back into a fourteen-year-old girl fantasising about the most popular girl in the class.

Except this time, the popular girl didn’t even know her real name.

She felt like Tracy from Hairspray - one look and she could hear the wedding bells playing in the back of her head. 

But at the same time, Crystal knew what was at stake - leaving their interactions to intense eye contact and mumbled “excuse mes,” knowing that even speaking to Gigi again could blow her entire cover.

Yet, she somehow managed to do exactly that on Wednesday night. Or, technically, the early hours of Thursday morning.

At first, Crystal tried to ignore the argument below her, drowning out their voices with her headphones (partly because she felt like she was intruding and partly because listening to people screaming at each other, like a lot of things, made her cry). However, as the war below was still awaiting a cease-fire, snippets of conversation slid their way into the room.

“Why do you have to do this on every night out?”

“I just want what’s best for you.”

“You don’t know what’s best for me.”

She could hear the pain in Gigi’s voice heighten right before her door slammed, Crystal wincing in bed at the sound.

Expecting to hear male footsteps stomp away, Crystal was surprised to instead hear lighter ones, making their way up the stairs and past her landing, a muffled sob travelling through her door.

Looking out of the window, she squinted in the dark until she saw the red glow of a cigarette from their fire escape, the hum of an unfamiliar tune making its way through the thin walls.

She knew it was a risk, but it was one that Crystal couldn’t help but take when she thought of the beautiful girl from the laundry room freezing in the cold.

Grabbing her sister’s spare dressing gown, she made her way onto the landing, taking a deep breath before going out onto the fire escape.

Logic and speech pushed to the back part of her mind, Crystal simply made her way over to the other girl and sat down beside her, placing the dressing gown over her slim shoulders.

Even in the dark, she could see how perfect Gigi was.

The mole on the side of her cheek.

The soft pout on her lips.

Despite the mascara smudged down her face and her eyes stinging red, Crystal thought she looked like an angel.

“Hi,” Gigi spoke to her, dropping the cigarette she smoked on the floor and pressing it out with her trainers. 

“Hi,” Crystal spoke back, unsure of what to say to the girl, blood rushing through her at a rate of knots, nervous filling her body and bursting through her head like she was some sort of human kettle.

“I guess you know what I mean about the music now.”

“Yeah.” Crystal nodded in the dark. “It’s noted.”

“I’m sorry about Karl…” Gigi trailed off, taking some time before speaking again. “He just gets like that sometimes when he’s had a drink. I know he doesn’t mean it. I guess you know that.”

Unsure of who Karl was, or why she was supposed to know that, Crystal began to feel like she was drowning. Only instead of jumping on the next lifeboat, she swam down deeper for Gigi.

A part of her was afraid, afraid she’d read the aura surrounding the other girl so wrong, afraid that Karl was her boyfriend.

“Mmhmm,” Crystal responded, maybe a bit more high pitched than she naturally would have.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s my best friend. But sometimes a part of me thinks that he just doesn’t have any idea who I really am if you get me.” 

Crystal couldn’t have understood any better at that moment.

All she wanted to do was tell her. To tell her how hard it was when everyone expected you to be the same as another person. How awful it felt when they never knew the real you, only a shell of the more outgoing sister.

Only she couldn’t, so she did the next best thing and placed her hand on the girl’s forearm, instantly getting a shock at how cold she felt.

“Do you wanna go inside? We can make hot chocolate,” she suggested, noting how Gigi’s body relaxed under her touch.

“He’s still in my room.” Gigi rolled her eyes. “I just can’t deal with him right now, it needs to be left for the morning.”

“You can stay in mine,” Crystal asked, squeezing her grip ever so slightly.

What was she doing?

This wasn’t part of the plan.

And it was certainly breaking some of the rules.

Potentially all of them combined.

This was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

But nothing filled her with greater relief then when Gigi finally responded: “If you don’t mind, thank you.”

***

At first, she felt awkward as she let Gigi into the room, especially considering the fact it wasn’t hers. But after two hot chocolates each she had felt the most comfortable and at peace as she had since masquerading as her sister.

She watched as Gigi’s eyes made their way around the room, a kid in a sweetie shop, gawking at the treasures around her.

“What’s that?” she spoke between sips, pointing towards Crystal’s craft box that had been haphazardly set up on her sister’s desk.

“Oh.” Crystal went to pick it up, a flutter of warmth rushing through her at the thought of someone, let alone Gigi, being interested in her jewellery. “Just some bits and bobs I make.”

“These are so cool.” Gigi held a pair of scarlet earrings up and examined them closer, her mouth opening slightly as she focused. “Like the ones you had in the other day.”

Crystal’s face turned a deeper red than the earrings, the thought of Gigi remembering what she wore sending shivers down her spine - her head telling her heart on an auto loop that no matter what she thought about Gigi, all of Gigi’s returned thoughts were instead about Elle.

“Yeah,” she choked out, nipping her skin to bring herself back to reality.

“You should sell these!” Gigi gasped as she rooted through more of Crystal’s collection. “I sell the clothes I make on Depop, we’d make a great team.”

Crystal didn’t get a chance to respond. She was too busy picking the pieces of her exploding heart from the carpet and trying to put it back together again.

“In fact.” Gigi grabbed her phone and began to search.

Crystal decided that her thinking face was even cuter than her regular face.

She was in deep. Too deep.

 “I think I follow an account that does stuff like this, let me think, something to do with crystals…”

Way, way too deep.

“I’m feeling a bit tired.” Crystal blurted awkwardly, getting mad at her mother for never placing her in acting lessons as a child, ready for the inevitable week that she’d have to pretend to be her twin sister or else she’d be kicked out of university and murdered by their family. Seeing the almost defeated look on Gigi’s face, she tried again. “But you can show me in the morning?”

“I’d love that.” Gigi smiled.

Crystal wanted to rewind time just to hear that sentence again. She wouldn’t be too greedy, she’d only listen to it one more time. Two at a push.

Making sure to go into the en suite as Gigi got changed, Crystal returned to find her in bed, already asleep, her hair a sprawl of honey against the pink pillows.

She waited a second before turning off the light and getting into bed beside her, something about lying next Gigi sending Crystal into a sleepy haze despite the way her heart had been beating so fast just moments before.

She could hear Gigi breathing, snoring just a little, finding her own breathing starting to sync along.

Sleep was only minutes away from taking over her body when she heard it, the muffled cry coming from the other side of the bed.

“No.” She heard Gigi mumble as she tossed from one side to the other. “Don’t go.”

Crystal placed a reassuring hand on her arm without thought. “Are you alright?”

Gigi woke startled, her eyes beaming at Crystal like a young deer caught in the middle of the road.

“I’m fine.” She realised her surroundings and threw the quilt to one side, moving her body down to the bottom end of the bed. “I best be off.”

“Hey.” Crystal sat up, flicking the lamp on by her bedside. “It’s alright, we can-”

But before she could finish, Gigi was gone. Nothing more than the faint smell of lavender on the pillows and the dark ring of hot chocolate in the bottom of her sister’s mug.

***

Making her way back into the college that evening, Crystal waited by the entrance for a few moments, wondering if she could manage to get to Elle’s room without passing the drinks and shenanigans that were currently taking place in front of her, wondering if she could manage to make it without passing Gigi, more precisely.

Tesco carrier bags full to the brim of every comfort food she could gorge on (salami, cheese, salt and vinegar crisps and three different bars of dairy milk to be precise) as she watched her sister’s Disney+ alone, Crystal concluded that the coast was clear and made her way to the bottom of her stairs without passing Gigi.

The words of the note she had posted under Elle’s door the day beforehand were still dancing around Crystal’s mind like a puzzle that even Professor Layton couldn’t solve:

“Elle, please forgive me for this morning. I don’t know what happens when I get like that..we’re all having drinks at around 8 tomorrow if you wanna join? - Gigi.”

As much as she longed to join Gigi for a drink, Crystal knew that she couldn’t. She’d already put too much on the line, allowed herself to get too close, too emotionally invested. A short text from Elle asking if everything was okay scared her straight, there was too much at stake. Yes, she wanted more than anything to be the one who comforted Gigi the next time she had a nightmare, to make jewellery for her and kiss her forehead whenever she looked stressed. But family meant everything to her, and she knew if anyone were to find out what they’d done, the consequences wouldn’t be worth it. 

About to make her way up the stairs, Crystal felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Let me help with those,” the boy motioned to her bags, his voice familiar.

With dark hair slicked back, and skin the colour of caramel, it took Crystal a second to realise where she knew the boy from, remembering his face next to Gigi’s in their corner of the dining hall.

“I’m fine, they’re not heavy.” Crystal tried to walk away but was stopped by his voice, yet again.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come help? It’s been a little while, Elle.” He grinned, a smirk in his eyes that Crystal couldn’t quite trace.

“I’m sorry, I’ll have to catch up with you later,” Crystal responded, trying to remain calm on the outside as her insides reached peak panic mode, her brain mentally scanning her notes for anything mentioning this boy. Her search found no results.

“Oh I get it,” he laughed. “It’s one of your games.  Sure, you wanna catch up later.”

That’s when the realisation hit Crystal. Her sister was having sex with this boy. And she completely failed to mention it.

Trying to think of something to say, a heavy silence lingered between them. Broken by a familiar tone that managed to scare her half to death and turn her on at the same time.

“Karl.” Gigi shook her head as she made her way down the staircase, carrying what looked like a sippy cup of vodka red bull in her hands. “Do you mind not trying to shag every girl in college for five seconds?”

“I’ll see you later, Elle.” He muttered before strutting away with Gigi, Crystal making out the word ‘cockblock’ in their hushed conversation as they left.

She knew that Elle didn’t tell her everything.

Just because they were twins they didn’t have to know every detail of each other’s lives, even though they spoke every day. Crystal always knew that. But a part of her heart stung at the thought of her sister not even telling her about a boy she was sleeping with. Is that how far apart they’d grown since Elle came to uni? 

Fighting back tears, she made her way up the stairs and tried to call her sister. She knew she was being silly; a part of her had just thought she’d know when her sister was sleeping with someone. So many questions ran through her mind. Was Elle safe? Did she love him? Why didn’t anyone know? 

She tried to call again, no answer.

Gigi must have known, Crystal figured - slotting together their interaction the night before with the one they’d just had. Is that why Elle didn’t like her? Why they weren’t friends? Why she’d told Crystal to avoid her?

She answered on the fifth call.

“Hey, babe, I really can’t talk right now.” 

Crystal ignored her sister’s words, dropping her shopping outside the door and moving out onto the fire escape, the cold breeze hitting her face harshly.

“Who’s Karl?” 

“Oh.” She heard her other half’s surprise, she could see the look on her face, high definition in Crystal’s mind. “I told you not to speak to people, for fuck sake, Crystal.”

“Who’s Karl?”

“I can’t speak about this now.” Her tone lowered, clearly someone else was in her company.

“Who’s Karl?” Crystal asked again, not even stopping to think about how dramatic she was being.

Only her sister had hung up before she could get an answer.

Crystal didn’t know how long she’d been out there when she heard the door open, she didn’t even know if she was still crying or not.

“Hi,” Gigi spoke, almost a whisper, as she approached her. “We gotta stop meeting like this, hey?”

Crystal watched Gigi’s face drop a little at the sight of her, looking hurt the second she got close enough to see her tears.

“Yeah, I-” Crystal started but was swiftly interrupted.

Normally in films, it happened after a moment. 

The pair would talk, get deep about their issues, reach a comforting solution then sit for a moment in an all-knowing silence.

Then they’d look into each other’s eyes, letting them flicker down once or twice before meeting again, that lock not leaving until they were shut.

Next came the strand of hair, pushed away and tucked neatly behind the ear.

Finally, the kiss, slow at first then growing in passion.

Only Gigi had no patience.

It took Crystal a second to react, to realise what was happening, to press her lips back against Gigi’s, to race her hand through the other girl’s hair.

It was unexpected.

Yet it felt nothing but natural.

And right.

“I’m sorry.” Gigi pulled away, pausing to bite her tongue between her teeth, a nervous side of her appearing that Crystal had not yet seen. “I know that’s like the last thing you’re meant to do when someone’s upset but, I don’t know, you just looked so sad and-”

This time Crystal wasn’t going to let her finish.

She felt Gigi’s hands wipe the stray tears from her face before moving right down her body to her waist. Moving her body closer so she was almost straddling the other girl, Gigi pulled away for just a second to let out a breath. 

Crystal moved her hands round to Gigi’s back, further and further down until she was granted a nod of permission, letting them slide over the silky fabric of her skirt.

Before Crystal knew it she was being pushed back to the ground, Gigi’s long and beautiful body towering over her, as she got to her knees and began to kiss Crystal all over.

Gently, methodically, slowly. 

Crystal’s mind was carried away, far from reality and refusing to take away from the moment in front of her.

“I knew you wanted me.” She felt Gigi’s breath tickle her ear, sending hot flushes down her entire body, reaching her hands out to touch the other girl’s breasts.

“Fuck, Elle.” Gigi grinned, flicking a switch in Crystal’s body as she pushed herself backwards away from her touch.

She’d almost forgotten that part.

Looking at the other girl’s confused face, she was lost for words, pulling the strap of her vest top back in its place. She knew she couldn’t do it anymore, she couldn’t keep lying. She would have let Gigi sleep with her thinking that she was someone else. She’d become a monster. She had to tell the truth.

“What the fuck?” A voice came from the door behind them, Karl’s confused face flicking between the pair of them. “Is this a joke?”

“Shit,” Gigi muttered and stood up, but Crystal was frozen in place, her hands and feet turning numb with anxiety, the sky around them warping in time. “I can explain.”

Crystal watched as Gigi chased her friend back into the building, listening to her tell him she was sorry and she just got carried away. Listening to Karl ask if that was why she’d told him to stop sleeping with her. Listening to Gigi explain that it wasn’t it, that something had just changed recently. Listening to her life crumble around her.

And then she heard nothing at all.

Even when she knocked on Gigi’s door later that night, ready to give her the explanation she needed, Crystal heard nothing at all - eventually giving in and retreating to the cave of Elle’s room, with no plans to leave it until their train pulled in at the station. 

***

Looking up at the hideous brown bricks in front of her, Elle Barge never thought she’d be so relieved to see the college in her life.

One day earlier than she was supposed to return, she hoped that Crystal would forgive her for withholding some of the stuff she’d been doing at university, thinking that they could have one fun night together before getting the train home the next day, giving at least a hint of truth to their family when they arrived back.

Besides, her holiday romance meet-up hadn’t exactly gone the way she had planned when she accidentally met up with his wife. Hence her early departure.

She figured she’d just have to chalk this one up to being a good story to tell, throwing away her sadness at the thought of having a best-selling novel about her awful love life someday. 

Heck, she’d probably already have half of it written with just stories about Karl.

Walking up the stairs to her room, she rolled her eyes at the sight in front of her.

One thing she certainly had not missed was Gigi Goode braying on her door to tell her to turn her music down.

Surely, Crystal wasn’t irritating her, Elle thought to herself. The only music Crystal ever played was One Direction and she hardly blasted it.

“Ahem.” Elle coughed loudly enough for Crystal to hear from inside the room, praying she’d understand with her magic twin sense not to come out (also quickly texting her not to incase the magic twin sense failed them. Elle did not want a repeat of that time in year nine when Jackie Cox asked if they could read each other’s minds).

“Hey.” Gigi turned to face her, a strange look on her face that Elle couldn’t quite decode. Tension started to seep through the stained carpet and up the walls like lava.

“Hi?” Elle raised an eyebrow to her, more of a question than a greeting. 

“I’m sorry for ignoring you before,” Gigi started, nodding her head as she got into the rhythm of her speech. “I was just scared and I didn’t know how to say it but I can now. Please just listen and wait ‘til I’m done, I have to explain.”

Minefields began exploding inside Elle’s brain.

She simply nodded.

“I’ve been fucked over in the past. And it still scares me today. You know the other night? That was it, I haven’t felt myself get close to anyone in a while. And I know it’s bad because of Karl and I’m a shitty friend to him but honestly, I think that this is something bigger than that, cause I’ve not felt it for a while. And I think you feel it too. Look, I’m really shit at this but something changed this week, I saw you in this light I’d never caught you in. I might sound mad but I think that I need you.”

Looking back at the girl in front of her with dismay, Elle spoke back the only three words that rang through her brain at that moment.

“What the fuck.”

And then her door opened, her sister’s face peeking out around the corner, clad in the same expression she used to have whenever she’d spilt juice on the carpet or smashed plate. Her hair matted and eyes puffy, Elle immediately moved to her side.

And then Gigi uttered the three words as well - only adding a “fucking” in there too for good measure.

Killing the silence that lingered for some time, Crystal spoke the fastest sentence Elle had ever heard all in one breath: “I’ve been pretending to be my sister so she could go get fucked by a Spanish guy.”

“Wow.” Elle looked back and forth between the pair, recognising a glint in her sister’s eyes that was certainly not there before.

Crystal prepared herself and walked up to Gigi, placing her hand on her arm. “I wanted to tell you so bad. I was going to but then Karl came and everything got messy. I know you probably can’t forgive me, but I saw that bigger thing too and I let myself get carried away in it.”

Gigi looked between the pair and raised a hand to her mouth, letting out a hearty laugh. 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Elle pleaded, fear rising inside her.

Silence filled the landing again, the twins standing sheepishly as they gave time for Gigi to process.

“If I’m honest I think I’m less confused now.” Gigi turned to face Crystal and grinned, showing an emotion Elle didn’t think the Barbie doll was even capable of showing. “This makes a lot more sense.”

Elle watched as her sister grinned back, seeing the genuine happiness on her face and throwing away all thoughts about whether or not she’d get in trouble.

“I think I might just be able to forgive you.” Gigi looked her up and down, pouting her lips in a joking manner. “If you let me take you out so we can talk this through over dinner?”

“Yes,” Crystal responded without hesitation.

“But first, could you tell me your name?”

“Crystal.” Elle watched as her sister reached out and shook the other girl’s hand, proud of the growth in confidence she could see - happy to see the return of the happy-go-lucky Crystal who wasn’t too scared to try anything new that she knew as a child.

“Crystal,” Gigi repeated, smiling to herself. “So Crystal, do you go to uni or just hang around at other people’s?”

“Maybe next year.” Crystal smiled back a sense of optimism in her voice. “Are we going for this dinner or what?”

Although it took her a minute to take in what she’d seen, a strange feeling inside of her as she waved her sister goodbye for a date with her bitchy downstairs neighbour, Elle couldn’t help but think that her disaster vacation had all happened for a good reason. In fact, she found herself almost shedding a tear as she heard her sister laughing at something Gigi said on their way downstairs, figuring that she might just see more of her sister than usual next term (and being nothing but happy about it).

[firelord-frowny]

also i haven’t talked about it on here much just bc the situation was fucking embarrassing for me, but like. 

Basically, I tell this dude straight up that there is 0 chance of me even considering staying even Just Friends with him as long as he’s married, bc he already demonstrated that he’s someone who’s capable of infidelity, and I’m not about to be anywhere near that shit. So, I was basically like: If you find yourself single at some point, feel free to hit me up, but otherwise I’m not touching this shit with a 2.5 million lightyear long pole. 

THEN he texts me a few days later with a bunch of very convenient bullshit about how he ~talked things over~ with his wife and ~she confessed that she has feelings for someone else, too~ and ~we’ve decided to separate and prepare to start the divorce process.~ 

I’m like: Ok, cool, good luck with that. you know how to contact me when that’s all said and done, bye! 

and THEN he’s like, “oh, also, we’ve both agreed it’s okay if we see other people.” 

So i’m like!!! “That’s nice. I’m still not going to have a relationship with you.” 

And like... every time I drew a line, he’d come up with some lie that would conveniently provide a bridge over that line. So I’d replace that line with a NEW line, and here comes ANOTHER lie to try to get around it. At this time I didn’t know they were lies bc I was stoopid enough to believe him, but even though I did think he was telling the truth, I still held my ground that I wasn’t going to discuss a ~relationship~ with someone who’s married, point blank period. 

then MCR announces their world tour, and i bought two tickets. and this lil asshole really assumed that i was going to go with him LMFAOOOOO he’s like ~i can’t wait, we’re gonna have so much fun~ i’m like!!! “who’s we? you’re not invited.” 

and he’s all *surprised pikachu* 

i’m like! if you buy your own ticket and you see me there, feel free to wave at me before going on about your business. 

By this time, most of the ~official~ tickets were sold out, and additional tickets could only be purchased at HELLA higher rates from 2nd party retailers. so he’s like, “well, can i buy your second ticket?” and i’m like! No! You can’t! 

AND THEN literally just hours later, he texts me again like, “oh, we’ve finally started the divorce process, we’re filling out the paperwork.” 

I’m like, good for you, I guess! 

AND THEN HE’S LIKE “so can i buy your ticket now?” 

AND I’M LIKE!!! sure, when you’re fucking single!!! and not a second sooner! now stop asking! 

and then it was a few days after this that i discover that he’d actually had 0 conversations with his wife about aaaAAANY of this, and like??? i’m SO glad i at least had the common sense to refuse to have or even discuss ~relations~ with him even if it had been true that they were both okay with seeing other people. I mean, I see now that it was fucking stupid of me to even communicate with him at all, and that I should have just blocked his number and his social media from the jump, but like. Wow. 

I look back on it and just see these blatant efforts he made to circumvent or bypass my boundaries. All these efforts to tell me whatever he thought I needed to hear that would allow him to get what he wanted out of me. 

And like. Because I’m totally at peace with myself and my singleness, it’s literally Not Possible for me to be heartbroken anymore lmao so like, I was not devastated at all by this situation. I was fucking annoyed, and I was super disappointed and offended that somebody who used to be one of my only genuine friends back in high school would turn around and try to play me (and his fucking wife!!!) like that, but like. I so tremendously hate the fact that he really thought that shit would work on me. Like he really thought he was soooo important to me that I’d compromise my values over him. Ew.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I was invited the other day to join a community as a Creative Advisor from a survey I filled out for Adobe.  I made the choice last November to purchase Creative Cloud for an entire year at a discount.  When I worked at an art school I had all those applications free.  Anybody in the arts community will tell you that software is expensive.  I don’t necessarily feel too connected to the local arts community these days.  But being a Creative Advisor basically means I participate in focus groups and offer my opinions in writing.  It’s a not a bad way to stay active as a creator.  I bought a drone basically so I had 4k footage to mess around with in Premiere.  I am a YouTube Creator by definition.  Yesterday after posting a video of the stream there was another survey in the right hand corner.  I cautiously opened it and read through it.  It was an inclusion survey.  YouTube wanted information to help with their community.  The first question was what race I identify as.  I can’t really argue I’m not white.  The next question was if I identified as part of the LGBTQ community.  I don’t so I answered no.  The third question was what gender I identified as.  I said male because I’m cis.  I completed the survey and went on about my business.  A few minutes later another popup asked me how satisfied I was with the YouTube community after all this.  I answered Very Satisfied and closed the window.  I’m also part of a larger community here in Chicago.  This can be drilled down so far that you can find yourself standing in a lonely circle with a thousand fingers pointed back at you.  My immediate neighbors identify.  I wouldn’t know what specifically or why so I don’t ever really pry.  I live on a pretty diverse property when it comes to tenants.  That expands into a pretty diverse neighborhood with a pretty diverse set of issues when it comes to power sharing.  I live the mad max sort of mentality these days.  Think more Fury Road than Road Warrior.  Where he helps out then silently fades away to focus on his own car wreck of a life.  One winter while shoveling snow I discovered somebody had written something in front of one of my neighbor’s doorstep.  It said “gay people live here.”  I processed it, shrugged and shoveled it away.  I couldn’t tell if my landlord was supposed to discover it, if my neighbors actually wrote it, or if it was somebody being hateful.  I made a judgement call on the account of safety and made a mental note of it then made it disappear.  I cared enough to think about it no matter how much this entire process exhausts me.  People join communities for connection.  People seek out authentic communities for safety, pride and respect.  And people in America should be able to do this freely without being exploited, judged, watched, or compared.  Communities overlap and the geopolitics therein get a little tricky.  When you live in a city with so many different influences, cultures, and hang ups the fog of the ideological war muddles up everyone’s intentions.  I think we retreat to the sanctity of our own communities because they understand the narrative and context best.  I’ve been welcomed into many communities that aren’t my own.  But my circle is pretty small these days.  Mostly because for all the care and attention I apply to the concept of community, I’m often left out to fend for myself here in my bachelor Castle of Doom.  Communities do consolidate power for better or for worse.  Just like rich people hoard money and dodge taxes.  Communities have their own cultural queues and signifiers.  Communities in America have increasingly become more like tribes in the economic desert.  Impenetrable communes at war with myopic definitions and hidden rules that are meant to keep people out for resource sake.  So much so that the Road Warrior doesn’t seem like science fiction to me from personal experience.  

It was the great poet Lord Humungus who may have set it best.  Just walk away.  Safe passage in the wasteland they said.  Be your own boss.  Own your sexuality and answer for your horny crimes.  Shit, I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to where I belong in all of this.  For me things have become equally obfuscated and easy to understand at the same time.  I’m more of an anarchist these days than I would like to admit.  I don’t really want to be on Tucker Carlson’s radar.  Simply because everyone is looking for something to label you as so they can pass an easier judgement on you.  People want you to identify so they can fit you into whatever conversational hole they wish to project at you.  I run into my neighbors all the time.  I treat people like people.  Simply because I’ve been treated enough like shit to know I don’t want anyone else to experience that.  I don’t really want revenge.  I want all this nonsense to stop getting in the way of my pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.  And the constant arguing and debate team every step of the way is troubling.  It’s people with a beaten down sense of self confidence proving themselves in the arena of mob rule.  For all the chest beating online on twitter or facebook people are kind of shook in the streets.  It is a winner take all mentality.  And even the more valid sides of the fight have taken to dirty tactics leaving some of us in the middle of an absolute shit show.  Par for the course if you ask me.  There are plenty of opportunities to be the hero these days.  Not many to be acknowledged as one.  You can be you and still support people that think differently.  I had a dream about guns last night.  I don’t own a gun.  That’s not the right choice for a person like me.  It doesn’t mean I can make a sweeping generalization for the rest of America.  Neither do I actually care to.  I’m cis.  I don’t spend my time psychoanalyzing or judging gender or sexuality other than my own biases towards it.  This is to treat people better and learn respectful communication.  Communication is a two way street.  And some communication is blocked, obfuscated or hidden for it’s own protection.  It can also be self serving.  Some of my closest friends are behind infinite onion layers of identities.  Layers of firewalls that I pirouette through like a whirling dervish just to show I still care deeply.  We take the time to show love.  We take the time to understand the obstacles.  And we have patience to understand that we have to sacrifice things sometimes for the sake of change.  Make no mistake the way I see things on my own is fucked.  I am part of a community here on Tumblr.  A much wider community.  There are times when I don’t fit in.  When it’s not about me or you or whoever behind the screen.  It’s what we connect to and how we learn to respect each other as human beings first.  Not as names.  Or fame.  Who we really are behind all of this doesn’t really matter as much as the content and ideas we share.  Community has it’s own memory and it’s own duty to hold things sacred.  Some larger communities do a totally shitty job of understanding the needs of their ideological neighbors.  And passion, pride, and lack of patience can burn bridges more quickly than building them.  There are times when you realize you are part of a community that doesn’t honor your identity at the core.  Sometimes it’s worse.  You find you aren’t welcome in a community for whatever reason.  If you are an abuser this is a safety issue and not really up for argument or discussion.  But sometimes its far less deserving.  And it’s a game of musical chairs to understand where you fit in and where you aren’t welcome.  For me I’m part Swedish and also a minimalist in nature.  Just look at Ikea and my habit of rearranging furniture.  I grew more inward this year in terms of who I trust.  Now it’s just me and a small percentage of screen names that might be owned by the same person or people.  I identify them as my closest friends.  

The thing about community I’ve learned over the years is that it can always be infiltrated.  Trust can always be broken.  We find we don’t belong to the bigger picture because motives are out of place.  We long to just be normal and accepted for that.  It’s exhausting to have to identify every time you walk out the door.  I identify as human.  Mostly I identify as Tim.  Freedom in America is best summed up by a quote by my favorite person in the world.  She’s from China.  She said once she loved New York because it was the only place where she felt free to cry in public without anybody prying into why.  I’m paraphrasing.  But that shit has stuck with me like a knife for years.  That isn’t what America is about right now.  It’s almost like it’s looking for victims.  Looking for signs of weakness to trick into a confidence game.  It’s a setup on every corner.  A prank waiting to happen.  A constant obstacle to your main quest.  And this isn’t what America is about.  At least not the way I live it.  I don’t think I solve the situation with more policing.  I don’t think I solve it by doing anything other than continuing to live free. The challenge here in America is constantly evolving as it is around the world.  America’s idea of free isn’t always well thought out.  It’s riddled with paradoxes.  And yet this is all I really have.  I’ve seen enough people stalking me in the streets with shirts emblazoned with messages.  Freedom isn’t free.  Penetrate the world.  Blue lives matter.  Make seven up yours.  I’ve made statements too and found myself more and more alone.  And then I’ve started to realize geographically what’s worth fighting for.  I’m tied to an address.  That’s the address where the government sends my ballots and rejects my state taxes at.  That’s the address where the utilities are in my name and I pay my rent on time.  Sometimes even a month ahead.  I’m fiscally responsible for once in my life.  I’ve conquered years of societal glue that held me to mediocre and half assed standards.  I’m a diamond in the rough except I’m not really all the rough.  I’ve stood up for people who aren’t like me so much that I feel more isolated and weird every day.  And I learn that sometimes it’s better to shy away from places where you aren’t welcome than to make a scene.  I am stuck in my little hole here.  If the answer were getting out there and networking, I’d ask people to look at my passport.  It’s not good enough for the state to acknowledge as proof of my identity.  But I spent a lot of money going back and forth to Asia trying to do just that.  And I paid off all that debt awhile ago.  I know the world is bigger than me.  And I believe sometimes people think they’ve travelled the world in their computer.  They’re the authority on everything.  And here is the problem with freedom in America.  The authority isn’t always right.  This is why we seek out communities.  For democracy.  For peer review.  To have our narrative understood and respected.  And we need communities to be more about democracy and less about autocratic reactions to a zero sum game.  I think it’s okay to not be part of something you don’t belong.  And I also think it’s okay to respect people’s wishes to seek out where they do.  But we have to learn to live together in America despite of this.  And well this would require us as Americans to really look the beast in the eye.  And doing that alone is scary.  I should know.  I do it every day.  So much so that I’m literally not fucking around with much of anything other than what’s easy enough to read.  Even when it’s easy to read it doesn’t mean it’s done in earnest.  I can only really worry about the things I hold intimate and secret.  The creative culture I’ve salvaged with my bare hands.  I really don’t care if you don’t get who I am.  But I want you to know I care about the world being free.  At least for the people I care about.  If you ever catch yourself crying in public just remember I’m right there over your shoulder cheering you on.  I’ll fight for your right to cry about it and scare off anybody who interferes.  That’s just who I am and nobody will know or even acknowledge me by name.  Sometimes I do feel like a ghost.  I’m not trying to walk through walls people set up for protection.  But I will break down the barriers people put up to keep us from living together.  <3 Tim

[theawkwardterrier]

These Bricks and Beams

Steggy Week 2k19, day 5 Prompt: Domestic Bliss

Summary: On the house hunt. Frustratingly.

AO3 link here.

Peggy has a plan. She does for most things, after all, and buying her first house as a newlywed is no exception. She and Steve have stayed in the familiar flat they love several months past its being strictly comfortable. It’s always been a small place, and it was already becoming cramped with two of them living there. Steve’s clothes hang in the front closet because the bedroom wardrobe is too small for them to share, and now they’re stepping around wedding gifts when they just want to make some toast in the morning.

So one Monday Peggy puts the plan into motion, calling up a Realtor and requesting that they be shown some scaled up residential properties on the market. She and Steve have agreed on their basic qualifications for size, location, price range, and amenities, and Hank Farmer (Number 1 seller three years running! - according to whom, she wonders) gives her every indication that he’ll be able to find some good options for them to see by next week.

Farmer is just as toothily smiling in person as he sounds over the phone. She and Steve exchange a look, but he does come highly recommended (Steve had actually called the local Realtors Bureau, and apparently it is they who keep statistics on who has sold the most in the area) so they push onward, schooling their faces into welcoming blankness.

They see four properties on the first day, flats larger than their current one but with prices that push at the upper boundary of their budget and perhaps even overflow. Steve widens his eyes and shakes his head behind Hank's back when he tells them how much the third floor walkup costs, and she isn't entirely certain the serum will protect her husband from giving himself a stroke at the thought of writing the monthly rent check.

Hank shows them some houses at their next outing, which do have the advantage of price and space, although she'll have a slightly longer commute.

"These units are just sprouting up like weeds," Hank enthuses as they walk through their third such identical house. "Got plenty of young couples set up in ones just like this, and they love them! All the latest: garage for the tinkering gentleman, fresh new linoleum and appliances for the missus." No matter how many times they've mentioned that Steve plans to stay home, Hank refuses to actually absorb the information, handling his discomfort over the arrangement by ignoring it completely and carrying on as if they haven't said anything at all.

His information is accurate, at least. "I think the first kitchen is a bit bigger, and the fourth had lovely exposure if you'd actually like to start that garden, but they all seem in order and they tick the boxes that we'd discussed," Peggy says on the way home.

Steve makes a little sound of acknowledgement, although it's so absent that it almost sounds like one of his sleeping noises. He doesn't speak for a while, and when he says, "I'm not sure that I could see us in any of them. Maybe we should keep looking," he sounds oddly tentative.

She looks over at him in the dim light. She doesn’t know what the purpose would be exactly, but she loves her husband and he has good judgment in his own way. "Certainly we can," she agrees readily.

A month later she is regretting her easy acquiescence. They have gone out with Hank Farmer twice more and seen a dozen other options in the growing suburban communities surrounding the city, and Steve has nodded through each tour, shaken Hank's hand politely, and on the way home said that he couldn't picture them in any of them. Finally Hank told them that perhaps they needed a break to recalculate what they were looking for, and even he looked exhausted, his smile just about ready to melt off his face.

Peggy tells herself that it's fine. She has a backup plan, too, and each morning she and Steve sit in their kitchen which seems increasingly tiny and circle likely listings in the paper. Once a week, they go see them in person. The novelty of shopping for such a major purchase, of getting to see inside all different homes, has long worn off for Peggy. On the way up each front walk, she thrusts her purse over her shoulder with a grimness once reserved for warfare.

And yet Steve continues to reject each house with equally flimsy logic each time: the front door of this one opened right into the kitchen, their current furniture wouldn't coordinate well with the wallpaper in that one. Once or twice, Peggy wonders dully whether he is tormenting her on purpose for some reason, but of course that’s not his nature and, anyway, he is too open for such deception. His face would show any such ridiculous thing in an instant.

Finally one Saturday morning he brings the newspaper over and starts to open it to the classified section and she snaps.

"I don't expect to find anything promising in there," she tells him tartly, buttering her toast so violently she wonders if the bread will be entirely crumbs before she is done. "We've likely seen all that's on offer at least once before, and if we haven't, you'll no doubt discount any new options with ever more minor explanations. Tell me, is there a particular reason that we haven't seen a single property where you can apparently imagine us living?"

"I know," he says, his voice softly miserable. He folds the paper and sets it on the table with that care that she admires and loves so much. She softens a bit despite herself.

"Can you at least try to explain it to me?" she asks, but he shakes his head.

"I can't even explain it to myself. All those places we've seen, they look fine. They all look nearly the same, as a matter of fact - I’m sure I'm just torturing you, making you go tour each one when if you've seen one you've seen them all. But I don't know, Peg. They just don't feel like our house." He steps away from her, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I'm going to take a walk, okay?"

He is gone for so long that she is called into the office before seeing him again. She's distracted all day, her thoughts returning to him at each open moment, always an undercurrent of wondering and worrying even as she takes care of the problems that she can.

He's made shepherd's pie, she realizes as she returns home that evening, and she softens toward him even more. She'd only mentioned once that she used to beg her mother for it at every occasion and she still considers it such a comforting dish.

He kisses her gently as she comes into the kitchen and dishes her out a portion. She starts in on it immediately - apparently worrying over one's husband builds an appetite - and it is a minute before she realizes that his still remains untouched.

Swallowing, she asks, "Did your walk help?"

"It did." He looks down at the table and then back up at her again. "I hate all the places that we've seen. They're just copies of each other, and more than that, we don’t know whether they’ll last."

"They've all been inspected," Peggy feels obligated to point out, poking a fork tine through a single pea rolling on the edge of her plate.

"I don't mean that they're going to fall to pieces tomorrow. But they haven’t been tested at all. In twenty years, in fifty, are they going to just be identical pasteboard wrecks? The place we buy is going to be where we live our lives. We're going to bring kids there, and maybe grandkids." He presses his hands together. "I want our home to be something more, Peg."

She doesn't entirely understand - all of the houses had looked fine to her, decently built if modern, not exactly what she was accustomed to from England, and an older house certainly had its own likelihood of falling to pieces or becoming a nuisance to keep patched together - but she touches his hand, closing her fingers around his and squeezing.

"We can keep looking," she says, and she finds in his smile the strength she needs to make it true.

It's not a newspaper advertisement that finally leads them to the place, but Rita Langforth from down the street who mentions that her great-uncle and -aunt are selling their house to move where it's warmer. Peggy and Steve go to look the next afternoon.

"It’s a bit small, but we never really considered leaving. We moved in here the day after we were married, all the way back in ‘06," Anna Moss tells them as she takes them through each room, a fond sadness on her face as she looks about at everything. "Joe carried me over that threshold, and carried each of our babies out for baptism after they were born upstairs."

"She weighed about the same as the babies, though she was about a thousand times prettier," Joe Moss jokes in his craggy tenor and Anna blushes and says, "Don't lie to the children, Joey."

"Are you truly certain you can part with a place like this, with so many memories?" Peggy asks gently. Anna keeps touching the solid wood doorframes, and Joe has pointed out a half dozen spots with particular imperfections or stories in a way that Peggy understands to mean that he has several hundred more to share.

"Oh, it's getting to be a little too much for us," Joe says with peaceful regret.

"We'd like to pass it on to someone who will love it as much as we have," Anna adds earnestly. She peers at Peggy through her small eyeglasses. "I would be happy to give it to the two of you."

"Steve?" Peggy looks over to where he is standing in a shaft of sunlight, taking in the place with a slightly distant look in his eyes. Until he looks at her, and he focuses, and smiles.

"I can picture us here," he says. “Can’t you?”

And although she'll never admit it, she's happy he made them keep looking, because she can picture them here in a way she couldn't entirely in the other places they had seen. There it had been the vague shadow of a Steve chopping vegetables at the counter, or a version of herself taking advantage of the fireplace: images which were almost functional, as if she were posing paper dolls or extending a measuring tape to make sure that the two of them were the right size for the interior. But here it is a whole life she can see, a vivid array of board games and reading together in this parlor, a Christmas tree which will stand in that corner, of dancing in full view of the windows for no reason at all, waving to neighbors from the front porch, of children who will bicker over who has the bedroom with the window seat and challenge each other to climb the shade tree in the front yard.

Peggy turns to the Mosses and asks, "Where can we sign?"

Three weeks later they stand in the middle of their new front hallway. Their old loveseat is already in place, as are the kitchen table and chairs, and the new bed they bought. Otherwise they are accompanied only by three suitcases and five boxes. Neither of them has been particularly accustomed to permanency or the acquisition that comes with it.

“How in the world are we to fill this place?” Peggy asks, turning this way and that with hands on her hips.

Steve rests his hands on top of hers. He kisses her until she twines her fingers with his, then pulls back and looks at her so he can say, “We already have.”

[areyougettingenoughoxygen]

Don’t Listen to the Nay-Sayers, I’ve Got a Love for Pokemon Sword/Shield

As I was trying to figure out something to post about this week, I was also trying to get a Grookey egg for a friend. That turned into me getting off the computer, laying down, and just playing Pokemon Shield. It may have been a good idea: not only did I hatch a shiny Grookey for myself after only 21 eggs as well as found a shiny Gigantamax Hatterene online, but I also found something I wanted to write about.

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this the day before the Direct came out talking about the new Expansions, so those will not be discussed in this write-up.

I’m presenting at the Pop Culture Association’s National Conference in April, with my topic being about how Pokemon’s fanbase refuses to evolve alongside the games. My research over winter break from school was supposed to be playing through all 8 gens of games, but I keep finding myself just playing Pokemon Shield. It may just be because I’m procrastinating, but I have Pokemon Red up on my 3DS just sleeping while I’m actively playing Pokemon Shield. Sorry Charmander, but the Galarian region is calling to me.

Before I got Pokemon Shield, I was one of the people who was in disbelief over what was deemed “Dex-It,” a term given to the fact that not all previous Pokemon would enter the region of Galar. Even more soured on the Pokemon Sword/Shield hype train, once reviews for Sword/Shield came out giving the game extreme praise, I began having almost resentment towards the title. How could a game with half the Pokemon and graphics looking like they came out of a Nintendo 64 rank better on IGN than any game since Black 2/White 2 (including the infamous Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire “7.8 - too much water” ranking)?

Regardless, I decided that I wanted it near release, and it’d be unfair of me to judge a game based on what people said rather than what I felt about it. The weekend that Pokemon Sword/Shield came out, I worked Friday and then doubles on Saturday and Sunday so that I could use the tip money that I accumulated towards Pokemon Shield. That Sunday, I walked over to my local Gamestop and picked up my copy, took it home, and started up the game. I was so exhausted that I only got to the starter selection portion of the game before falling asleep, but once I had my energy back, I went to work with my Pokemon buddies.

I almost always choose the Grass starter (except for lieking Mudkips in Gen 3), so Grookey was a natural choice for me. Besides, just look at that face. How could I NOT choose Grookey? Something that Pokemon Sword/Shield did better than any Pokemon game before it though is giving each and every starter a distinct personality. When Leon (the champion of the Galar region and your rival Hop’s brother) sends out the three Pokemon for you to select between, you’re treated to a cutscene of Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble interacting with one another. My heartstrings were tugged as I chose Grookey and Hop chose Sobble, leaving Scorbunny all alone. Leon assured Scorbunny that it could come with him and Charizard though, and I found myself elated that all three starters had homes. I hadn’t even had a Pokemon battle yet, and I was already invested in what would happen to the three starters in the game.

Hop won’t be the only rival you encounter throughout the game though, as many trainers are looking to advance in the challenge to become Pokemon Master. Marnie, alongside her faithful Morpeko, is also fighting to be the best like no one ever was. Cheering her on are Team Yell, which take on the roles of redeemable baddies much like Team Skull of Sun/Moon rather than outright baddies like Team Rocket. Both Marnie as well as Team Yell favor Dark type Pokemon, with the new Galarian form of Zigzagoon being a favorite of Team Yell. While Marnie has a competitive nature, she never is outright rude to the player, making her a more favorable rival to encounter during your journey. Contrasting Dark type trainer Marnie and her helpful attitude is Bede, a pastel trainer with a bad attitude who favors Psychic and Fairy types. While his interior is cold and ruthless, his relationships with Chairman Rose and Gym Leader Opal make him more endearing as the game goes on. Each rival you encounter has a satisfying end to their journey, showing that even if you don’t achieve your dream of becoming Pokemon Master, you can achieve a different dream.

I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone reading this who hasn’t played Pokemon Sword/Shield yet, but I would venture to say that it’s the best story out of any game in recent memory. Of course, it follows the routine of start your journey, earn badges, challenge the champion, become Pokemon Master, but there are many surprises alongside the way. Just when I thought the game was over, a few hours of more content strung itself along before I was able to claim my title of Pokemon Master and beat up Leon’s Charizard.

I’m not sure how other people play the game, but the Pokemon Camp feature of the game really connected me to the Pokemon that I had in my party along the way. It’s similar to the Pokemon Amie and such of yesteryear, but with a few changes. Your Pokemon can actually interact with one another, for starters. My Pokemon would chat with each other, race against each other, and sometimes even fight each other (which I had to break up). You can create curry dishes for them, and they joyfully gobble up your food if you cook it well enough. Seriously, one of my favorite parts of the 125+ hours I’ve put into the game so far was when after cooking curry, a stray Hippopotas came to my camp and wanted to be in my party, alongside a ribbon he received for being a Curry Connoisseur. I gave him competitive stats and an Everstone, and I named him Roux after his love for curry.

The main story itself only took me around 35 hours to complete, and the postgame only took a few more hours, but as I said above, I’ve put 125+ hours into the game thus far. One of the reasons for this is the Wild Area, which is a welcome addition to the game for people who like exploration. After you’re thrown into the Wild Area, you learn after a period of time which areas you’re supposed to be in and which ones you need to get out of as soon as possible. Rather than having a sign saying DON’T GO HERE, you’ll encounter Pokemon impossible to beat. I myself used Pokedolls for the first time ever in a Pokemon game to allow myself to get away from Pokemon who were 20+ levels above me just so that my team wouldn’t black out.

My only critique of the Wild Area is that there are admittedly portions of it that look as though they came out of a Nintendo 64 game, specifically the graphics of the trees in the game. Before a friend got the game, I walked up to one of the berry trees and showed him how they would become see-thru and comprise of green dots where the treetops were supposed to be. We both laughed at how bad it looked. However, as bad as these graphical errors are, they never took away from my enjoyment of the game.

As a competitive player, I like how much simpler it is in the game to make your Pokemon in fighting shape. Instead of every single Pokemon having to be products of Daycare Eugenics, you’re able to use readily available berries to reset your Pokemon’s EVs, give them purchasable vitamins to give them desired EVs, use Bottle Caps to max out IVs, and even use new mechanics found in Mints to change the nature of your Pokemon to something viable. I was able to take the Grookey that I started the game with and make him competitive just using the post-game mechanics available. This also makes it so that you can use the shiny Pokemon that you find, rather than hoping and praying that you get the exact stats you want for one. My original Grookey-turned-Rillaboom, Lucio, is able to compete alongside his daughter, shiny Grookey-turned Rillaboom, Lucia.

I have a love/hate relationship with the online play in Pokemon Sword/Shield though, which could be attributed to how online play works in any Switch game period. I’ve grown to enjoy joining Pokemon Raids with people online, but I hate how you basically have to be actively trading to find any new Raids, especially with how frequently Raids fill up. I’ve got a box filled with baby Grookeys to mystery trade to people while I wait to battle Gigantamax Pokemon and eventually curse to myself while throwing out a Pokeball and failing to capture it. The trade off for the wait rarely pays off.

For my criticism of online play and the graphics of Pokemon Sword/Shield though, there’s so much more to appreciate about the game than that. I don’t know if I’d throw out “best Pokemon game ever,” but I definitely agree that it’s the best Pokemon game since Black 2/White 2. Damn you IGN for having me agree with you.

If any of you reading this happen to be interested in my future presentation of Pokemon info at the 2020 Pop Culture Association National Conference, be sure to watch out for future info. I’ll let y’all know when I’m presenting the closer it is.

[caitsbooks]

6 Summer YA Romances!

Click here to view the full post on my blog, or read more to find out more about these books!

Summer is the perfect time to dive into a nice, lighthearted romance. What’s better than reading a cute contemporary on the beach?

So I’ve compiled a list of 6 YA romances that are perfect for the beach or pool!

Read more for descriptions of each book, plus check out my blog to see 6 Adult Romances that are perfect for summer!

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MY LIFE NEXT DOOR BY HUNTLEY FITZPATRICK

Page Count: 394 pages Publisher: Dial Books For Young Readers Release Date: June 14th, 2012 Purchase Options: Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble

“The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, messy, affectionate. And every day from her rooftop perch, Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them . . . until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs up next to her and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely for each other, stumbling through the awkwardness and awesomeness of first love, Jase’s family embraces Samantha – even as she keeps him a secret from her own. Then something unthinkable happens, and the bottom drops out of Samantha’s world. She’s suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?”

This book was one of the first books that got me into contemporaries. I just loved it so much, and I’m hoping to reread it soon. With themes of family, first love, and friendship, how can you not want this as a part of your summer reading list?

THE SUMMER OF CHASING MERMAIDS BY SARAH OCKLER

Page Count: 416 pages Publisher: Simon Pulse Release Date: June 2nd, 2015 Purchase Options: Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble

“The youngest of six talented sisters, Elyse d’Abreau was destined for stardom – until a boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful singer in Tobago can’t sing. She can’t even speak. Seeking quiet solitude, Elyse accepts a friend’s invitation to Atargatis Cove[…]Christian Kane is a notorious playboy – insolent, arrogant, and completely charming. He’s also the only person in Atargatis Cove who doesn’t treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother, Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life.When Christian needs a first mate for the Cove’s high-stakes Pirate Regatta, Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The ocean isn’t the only thing making waves, though – swept up in Christian’s seductive tide and entranced by the Cove’s charms, Elyse begins to wonder if a life of solitude isn’t what she needs. But changing course again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who’s best known for breaking them…”

This book is the epitome of a beach read. Cute romance, strong (and diverse!) characters, and that must-have beach aesthetic!

ALEX, APPROXIMATELY BY JENN BENNETT

Page Count: 388 pages Publisher: Simon Pulse Release Date: April 4th, 2017 Purchase Options: Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble [ Click Here For My Full Review ]

“Classic movie fan Bailey “Mink” Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online as Alex. Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush. Faced with doubts (what if he’s a creep in real life—or worse?), Bailey doesn’t tell Alex she’s moved to his hometown. Or that she’s landed a job at the local tourist-trap museum. Or that she’s being heckled daily by the irritatingly hot museum security guard, Porter Roth—a.k.a. her new archnemesis. But life is a whole lot messier than the movies, especially when Bailey discovers that tricky fine line between hate, love, and whatever it is she’s starting to feel for Porter. And as the summer months go by, Bailey must choose whether to cling to a dreamy online fantasy in Alex or take a risk on an imperfect reality with Porter. “

Jenn Bennett has become one of my all-time favorite YA contemporary writers. Her books are cute, fun, but realistic and not completely lighthearted. I honestly could have included any of her books here, but Alex, Approximately is definitely the most “summer romance”-y of the bunch. However, if you’ve already read it and haven’t picked up any of her other books, I highly recommend them!

SMALL TOWN HEARTS BY LILLIE VALE

Page Count: 336 pages Publisher: Swoon Reads Release Date: March 19th, 2019 Purchase Options: Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble [ Click Here For My Full Review ]

“Fresh out of high school, Babe Vogel should be thrilled to have the whole summer at her fingertips. She loves living in her lighthouse home in the sleepy Maine beach town of Oar’s Rest and being a barista at the Busy Bean, but she’s totally freaking out about how her life will change when her two best friends go to college in the fall. And when a reckless kiss causes all three of them to break up, she may lose them a lot sooner. On top of that, her ex-girlfriend is back in town, bringing with her a slew of memories, both good and bad. And then there’s Levi Keller, the cute artist who’s spending all his free time at the coffee shop where she works. Levi’s from out of town, and even though Babe knows better than to fall for a tourist who will leave when summer ends, she can’t stop herself from wanting to know him. Can Babe keep her distance, or will she break the one rule she’s always had – to never fall for a summer boy?“

I know I talk about this book a lot, but there’s a reason for it!! It’s an LGBTQ+ contemporary romance dealing with friendships and friendship-break-ups, all in a small beach town. It’s basically everything I ever wanted in a book, so of course, I won’t stop talking about it! You really need to read this one. Trust me.

[ Related: Interview with Lillie Vale, Author of Small Town Hearts ]

YOU’D BE MINE BY ERIN HAHN

Page Count: 304 pages Publisher: Wednesday Books Release Date: April 2nd, 2019 Purchase Options: Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble [ Click Here For My Full Review ]

“Annie Mathers is America’s sweetheart and heir to a country music legacy full of all the things her Gran warned her about. Superstar Clay Coolidge is most definitely going to end up one of those things. But unfortunately for Clay, if he can’t convince Annie to join his summer tour, his music label is going to drop him. That’s what happens when your bad boy image turns into bad boy reality. Annie has been avoiding the spotlight after her parents’ tragic death, except on her skyrocketing YouTube channel. Clay’s label wants to land Annie, and Clay has to make it happen. Swayed by Clay’s undeniable charm and good looks, Annie and her band agree to join the tour. From the start fans want them to be more than just tour mates, and Annie and Clay can’t help but wonder if the fans are right. But if there’s one part of fame Annie wants nothing to do with, it’s a high-profile relationship. She had a front row seat to her parents’ volatile marriage and isn’t interested in repeating history. If only she could convince her heart that Clay, with his painful past and head over heels inducing tenor, isn’t worth the risk.“

This book is so good. I will warn you- it’s definitely the least summery of the bunch, but that’s mostly because it’s not quite as lighthearted. There are some heavier topics discussed in this book, but trust me when I say it handles them so well. This is the perfect book to pick up if you’re looking for something a little darker to break up your lighter reads!

DON’T DATE ROSA SANTOS BY NINA MORENO

Page Count: 336 pages Publisher: Disney-Hyperion Release Date: May 14th, 2019 Purchase Options: Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble

“Rosa Santos is cursed by the sea-at least, that’s what they say. Dating her is bad news, especially if you’re a boy with a boat. But Rosa feels more caught than cursed. Caught between cultures and choices. Between her abuela, a beloved healer and pillar of their community, and her mother, an artist who crashes in and out of her life like a hurricane. Between Port Coral, the quirky South Florida town they call home, and Cuba, the island her abuela refuses to talk about. As her college decision looms, Rosa collides – literally – with Alex Aquino, the mysterious boy with tattoos of the ocean whose family owns the marina. With her heart, her family, and her future on the line, can Rosa break a curse and find her place beyond the horizon?”

Confession Time! I haven’t actually read this book yet. I know, I’m ashamed, but it is on my summer TBR!!! Because everyone has said wonderful things about this book, and it seems like such a perfect beach read, I had to include it on this list. I mean, look at that cover? Does that not scream summer??

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Have you read any of these books? What’s your favorite YA summer romance novel?

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[photographynotes]

About: A natural woman

An article published in The Guardian in 2011., by Suzanne Moore seems more relevant as the time goes by. The article doesn’t argue the position of a wild woman who uses no make up, has hair to her knees etc., it rather questions ways to become a woman in Western society. The key thought behind the article could be best describe by one of Moore’s sentences: “To become a woman is to become a female impersonator.”

Here is the entire article with favorite parts marked in bold:

Why does nobody want to feel like a natural woman any more?

Suzanne Moore

Falsies have become my preoccupation. But clearly not just mine. I could buy a mascara called Falsies to give myself "the ultimate false lash glam look". But why do that when I could just wear enormous false eyelashes? Or, better still, spend a small fortune on lash extensions, which hopefully wouldn't fall off for a few weeks if tended lovingly. It all seems a lot of time and energy, really.

On the train or at the supermarket I see many young girls with long, spidery, glittery lashes, even when in their uniforms. I quite like this overalls-and-drag-queen look. I like the lack of pretence that this is real. But how did we get here, I wonder – to this new aesthetic of femininity where everything is meant to look as fake as possible? Hair, nails, tan, teeth, tits. Sure, I know the rules: that we are born naked, and "the rest is just drag". Sure, I get the hyper-femininity of the big queens and the game old birds such as Dolly Parton and Cher. What is strange is that a parody of femininity is now what many ordinary women are aspiring to.

There was time when falsies were the pads shoved down your bra to make your breasts seem bigger, a kind of comedy stuffing. Now the stuffing is put directly inside the flesh, in the form of silicon implants. While not as cheap as chips, false breasts are certainly becoming as common as them.

The "boob job" industry is massive. Boom boom. And everyday. Cosmetic surgery was once only the province of the rich, famous and deluded. It was surely another era when I was ferried to an American TV studio to debate with the legendary Betty Friedan and some daft woman who was claiming that her breast enlargement was a political act. A grouchy Freidan keep shouting into my ear: "So she thinks she can buy big bazookas, right?" It was a struggle to explain I was on Friedan's side, and now I wonder if anyone would even bother with this discussion. The political language of empowerment about reproductive rights and equality in the workplace has itself been given a makeover. Gok Wan makes women feel better not by giving them more actual control, but by giving them control pants.

As the inimitable satire website The Onion once wrote, women "are now empowered by everything that the typical woman does". From driving the kids to school to eating energy bars! "Owning and wearing dozens of pairs of shoes is a compelling way for a woman to announce that she is strong and independent and can shoe herself without the help of a man." This is satire? Only just, says this humourless feminist.

Buying stuff is the way our culture encourages us to believe we have some kind of power. When it all goes wrong and we have bought the wrong stuff, then we discuss the morality of it all. The woman who died recently after having industrial silicone injected into her buttocks was a sad case of someone buying the wrong stuff. The moral of this story seems to be: next time you are having buttock implants, get a reputable surgeon.

It's the same with Botox, liposuction , tummy tucks and all the rest of it. People get "work done". Most discussion centres on whether that work has been done well, not whether it should have been done at all. The kind of feminism that espoused looking "natural" has pretty much lost the argument about body image. It was hardly ever going to be a fair match: some activist women against an entire military-industrial-cosmetic complex geared up towards getting us to commodify our own bodies. That's right. I am not saying that men do not objectify the female body, but now the gaze we direct at ourselves, at each other and in the mirror is a harsh one, too. It is sexualised in that we see what the body could become, as well as what it is. It is the gaze of search and destroy, and it certainly affects the inner lives of those who are not perfect. Which is a fair few of us.

Heath, happiness and relationships are secondary to what Catherine Hakim provocatively calls "erotic capital". This is the basic "if you've got it, flaunt it" model to wave in the face of feminism. It doesn't wind me up particularly. What is key here is who defines erotic capital, and how. Today's templates of beauty for women are very samey, but they rarely occur in nature. The tall, slim-hipped figure with huge, pert breasts – basically the body of a Brazilian transsexual – was sought after for a while. Now we are told bottoms are making a comeback (where HAVE they been all these years?). These things are spoken about it in vacuum, as if we are not allowed to talk about the racial aspects of "the bootylicious".

Increasingly, surgery cuts across race, gender and age alike. The girl in Miami has a nose job just as the woman in Tehran does. Signs of ethnicity can be erased, other signifiers or "capital" can be purchased. And once you have made a purchase, you want people to see that you have. The fashion – or indeed fetish – for fakery means women are actually asking surgeons to make their implants look as fake as their tans. Certainly, the way to counter what is going on here has to be strategic.

One way is to promote a diversity of body shapes and all kinds of beauty. Susie Orbach is launching an Endangered Species International Summit. The purpose of this is to "challenge the culture that teaches girls and women to hate their own bodies". Who could argue with that? For it is the entire culture, not a male conspiracy, that is making impossible demands. Yet none of this is simple.

Artificially enhanced femininity is on display everywhere. Older women pay to look younger. Young women start altering themselves very early on. One result is a kind of glazed uniformity. You see it in porn. You see it in all those late-30s, Botoxed faces that look neither old nor young, just done.

Somehow, though, something else is going on that is blowing apart any idea of "the natural". Some women are not saying, "this is what I really look like", rather they are saying, "enjoy the performance". Just as a drag queen would. The media then scrutinises this performance of femininity entirely as a construction. This radical idea – that gender is constructed – is being acted out in all this fakery. But as an aesthetic, depoliticised "style".

Lady Gaga may sing Born This Way, while clearly demonstrating with her hard body – complete with internal shoulder pads/prosthesis/spare ectoplasm – that she wasn't, that this is all an act.

A look that has comes to us via porn, ladyboys, transsexuals, queer culture and high fashion is a look I now see on the bus. This excess of femininity may compensate for endless anxiety about appearances. There is nothing natural going on here, and some women are not hiding that fact. To become a woman is to become a female impersonator. How, in such a world, can we say to any young girl: "You are fine just as you are"?

[krisdoesart]

Close to the chest - Sanders Sides AU

Logan - part 2

Summary: Logan and Virgil experience their first day at their new school.

Warnings: swearing, sympathetic Deceit, bullying, slightly (?) homophobic jokes, divorce mention

Ships: none

Word count: 1750

August, 2012

Logan

First day at the new school.

Logan Bowman adjusted his tie, looking himself over in the reflection on the inside of the car window. He sat on the right side of the car, behind his older brother, Virgil, who sat in the passenger seat. Their father, D, was driving them to school.

D and Mother had gotten divorced almost 3 months prior. Once divorced, D brought Virgil and Logan up with him to Michigan, where he'd recently purchased a house for them. The house was giant and fancy, much larger of a house than a family of 3 needed. D had already enrolled Virgil and Logan into an expensive private school in the area. Unless you were lucky enough to win an annual raffle for your child to be entered in, it cost a lot of money to get in.

Once they'd moved in, Logan had decided that he was going to change himself. He began dressing and speaking in a more formal matter than one would expect from an 11 year old boy. He kept himself and his living space neat at all times. He stopped expressing much emotion. He turned his focus more to himself than towards everyone else and what they felt. As D had told him, it wasn't Logan's job to make other people happy. Logan was the only person he needed to worry about.

Logan glanced down towards his outfit. Black polo, blue jeans, a matching blue tie. He'd chosen his glasses with black frames for his first day. The school website had said there was no uniform or strict dress code, although students were encouraged to wear dressier clothes than, say, a T-shirt and sweats.

Virgil had paid very little attention to the suggestion. He wore a black hoodie over a gray shirt and black jeans. His black sneakers had purple laces. D had done his very best to convince Virgil to change into something nicer, but Virgil had ignored him. Virgil often disregarded D nowadays. Logan assumed he was still upset about the divorce.

D stopped the car at the curb in front of the school. Virgil opened his door and stepped out, waiting for his brother. Logan grabbed his and Virgil's bags from the other back seat and exited the car. D drove away before they could say goodbye.

Virgil took his bag. "Ready, Lo?"

Logan looked at him. Virgil looked incredibly anxious about the new setting. "I am ready to go inside. Are you?"

Virgil nodded stiffly. "Yep," he said quickly.

Logan's expression softened slightly. "Just remember to breathe. First days are always the hardest. You just need to make it through the day. You can do it, Virge."

Virgil nodded again, more genuinely this time. He took a deep breath, and the two walked up to the school.

According to their schedules, the 8th grade wing was on the second floor. Virgil waved to Logan nervously before heading up the stairs. Logan continued to the right towards the 6th grade wing.

The morning started out okay. The school required each student to take up a language, so Logan had chosen Spanish as it was supposedly a straightforward and easy language to learn. He had Spanish 1 during first hour, which was spent discussing the year's syllabus. At the end they learned a couple basic words and phrases like Hello, Goodbye, and My Name Is.

Logan's second class was study hall, which took place in the library. Seeing as he hadn't received any homework to work on, Logan used his library card given to him during advisory to check out several books to read.

Once his study hall was over, Logan had science. Once again, the class was spent going over the class syllabus. Everyone was asked to introduce themselves and say something about themselves, which no one seemed eager to do. Logan wondered briefly why these exercises existed, since nobody enjoyed them or remembered anything anyone said.

Lunch was worse.

Logan deliberately arrived near the end of the group in order to avoid doing the wrong thing or accidentally sitting in someone's spot. First Lunch included 6th, 7th and 8th graders, so the first thing Logan did was look for Virgil.

Near the back of the dining hall sat a small group of open tables. Virgil sat at one of them, keeping his head down. He looked really distressed. When he saw Logan approach, he appeared visibly relieved.

Logan sat down with a vaguely serious expression on his face. "Hello, Virgil. How has your morning been?"

Virgil tugged on one of his sleeves, a nervous habit of his. "This place sucks. Everyone's looking down on me. They're judging me. They hate me. I don't even know what I fucking did but they hate me—"

"Virgil! Calm down." Logan saw the tears in his eyes that were threatening to pour out. He kept tissues in his bag. He pulled them out and handed one to Virgil. "I can assure you that no one hates you. They'd have no reason to hate you."

Virgil clutched the tissue but didn't wipe his eyes. He took a few deep, shaking breaths, palms pressed against the table, before he regained his composure. He wiped his eyes before Logan took the tissue and brought it to the garbage. After sitting back down, Logan asked in a more gentle tone, "Are you alright, Virgil?"

"I don't- I don't know, Lo." He took a few more shaking breaths.

"It appears that we are allowed to get our lunch at any point during First Lunch. Would you like to get food?"

"Not hungry," Virgil replied. "You go ahead, I'm just gonna wait here."

Logan nodded and got up to get in line. On his way there, a boy who was most likely in 8th grade but looked like he should've been in 10th stuck his foot out to trip Logan, but he hopped around it. He'd dealt with enough bullies to know how not to fall for things like that.

"Hey, Four Eyes, you think you're better than me or something?" The boy stood up in his seat.

Logan ignored him and got in line for lunch.

Suddenly his shoulder was being whipped around. The kid, a head taller than Logan, was standing in his face. "Hey, dumbass, I asked you a question. You think you're better than me or something?"

Logan just stared at him with the same serious, bored expression on his face. He tried to shrug out from under the boy's grip on his shoulder to no effect.

"Answer me, ya little shit!"

"Just chill out, Remus," someone called from behind him. The boy (Remus?) turned around.

"Butt out, Ro."

"No, seriously. You're holding up the lunch line!"

The other boy (Ro?) pointed to the kids waiting behind Remus. Logan managed to pull out of Remus's grasp and turn around to see that the lunch line had moved forward significantly while Logan had been preoccupied.

"Fine," Remus snarled, whacking Logan in the back of the head for reasons unknown to him before stalking back to his table. Logan readjusted his glasses and glared after him for a second before moving ahead and getting his lunch.

Virgil freaked when Logan got back. "What the hell was that?!" he cried, looking frantically between Logan and Remus's table across the dining hall. "Why'd he pick you out like that?!"

Logan simply sighed and set down his tray. "That is called a bully. I don't know if you've noticed them before, but I am forced to deal with them quite often. That is one of the reasons why I didn't enjoy leaving our old dwelling– bullies always ensue. There's nothing I can do about them."

"God, Lo, I've never seen you actually get picked on like that. I got really scared for a second there." Virgil tugged on his sleeves some more.

"Virgil, take deep breaths. I am alright. There is no sense in worrying about me. The event is over." Logan started eating his lunch, Chicken Alfredo with a side salad. The food was better than the food at the previous school had been.

"Hey, Four Eyes!" Logan sighed as he watched Remus approach their table. He stopped behind Virgil. "Who's this Emo Nightmare? Your boyfriend?"

Homophobia. How charming. "He's my brother—" Logan started, but Virgil cut him off.

"Hey, how about you just go shove it up your ass. Oh wait, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Logan heard a couple "ooooh's" from the tables around him.

"Oh boy, you're just asking to get your nose broken, punk." Remus's smirk had melted into a snarl.

Virgil stood up. Remus was still a couple inches taller than he was. "Do it. My father would ruin you and your family. Do it, I dare you."

Remus glared. "Watch your back, ass hat. I'm coming for you." And with that he turned around and walked away.

"What a moron," Virgil muttered, sitting back down.

"You should not have gotten involved, Virgil. He's just going to pick on both of us now."

"Good. It'd give me a reason to rat him out to D. He'd ruin that guy's whole family in a day."

Logan furrowed his brow but didn't say anything. The two spent the rest of their lunch period in silence.

Social studies, Math, English, Phy Ed. The rest of the day went by in a blur. Logan excited the school building at 3:06, 6 minutes after seventh hour had ended, and began looking for D's car.

Once insider the car in his seat behind Virgil, D asked them both, "How was your first day?"

Virgil grunted. "Definitely coulda gone better. I just wanna go home."

D frowned down at him as he pulled out onto the street. "Is it a bad school? I paid quite a bit for you two to get in."

"It's the people, not the school," Virgil clarified, looking out the window. "Everyone at that school is an ass."

"Do not use that kind of language, Virgil," D scolded. "Are you being bullied?"

"No," Logan and Virgil replied at once. D glanced back at Logan in the mirror before looking back down at the road.

"If you're being bullied, I wouldn't hesitate to take action against whoever's bugging you, you know," D reminded them both.

"I am almost certain that Virgil scared the boy away," Logan said. "There's no need for intervention."

D nodded. "Just let me know. No one messes with a Bowman."