#butch is one of those words that starts to look weird when you see it a lot

[mazumi]

All I want is for a muscular Dom butch to strap me stupid and call me her good girl in her wood paneled office inside of the haunted library she works at like

[genderqueerdykes]

I stumbled across someone who calls themself 'gender critical', a 'hater of all things male', AND a 'transguy butchdyke'.

we've finally done it, everyone. a gender crit who is the very thing their peers despise: someone who's transmasc. I'm starting to think people are this stupid on purpose

this happens soooooooooooo often it's really painful. i'll try to explain, i do agree with you that it's just willful stupidity in the sense that they're riding the high of being a jackass. like inside of troll communities like this all they really do is ride the high of pissing people off. also, unfortunately, a lot of these people are extremely vulnerable and deal with very low self esteem and use these kinds of violent, angry, exclusive communities as a way to self soothe and it never works out. its an echo chamber and they stay miserable and all that's left to do is ride the adrenaline rush you get from pissing someone off

generally what happens in this case can be one of a few things. the first is that they tend to be trans mascs or men who watch fucked up trans creators on YouTube like Kalvin Garrah or Buck Angel who tell them that non binary people aren't trans and that trans men can never be feminine ever. but then they also interact with rad fems and get suckered in because the rad fem community tolerates butch transmasc people to an extent in order to increase their numbers. they don't really care all that much if you're transmasc as long as you're suckering other people into their cult, they're happy as can be.

unfortunately this also stems from people who detransitioned and felt completely disenfranchised from their trans identity and time spent as being trans so they take it out on other trans people. they didn't end up being trans and they're pissed off because trans people "tricked" them into doing it too. usually what it is is that person is either genuinely curious or has low self esteem and does something because someone they look up to does, only to find out its not for them, so they take it out on the group they didn't fit into instead of moving along. it just realy sucks because there's nothing wrong with detransitioning at all whatsoever, but its the people who become bitter and jaded from their experiences and take it out on other trans people that really need to sort their shit out.

anyone who's proud to be a man hater is a rad fem there's no other reason to be like that. and it's just weird as hell when i see rad fems trying to "reclaim" certain genderqueer lesbian terms when they don't even fit into those categories to begin with. if you hate and reject manhood how are you a man? suffering is not righteous, you will not gain anything by allowing yourself to suffer for someone else. if you hate manhood and are a man: that means you hate yourself. that is your cross to bear. you need to sort that out with yourself, not take it out on other people.

it's just dumb. i agree with you it's some sort of willful stupidity in order to troll and fuck with people. they get a kick out of it because it pisses people off. that's really all it is. they think they're counterculture, but they're edgelords. they're not making any bold statements by using terms that are heavily used by trans people (including detrans btw) and then somehow saying its now a rad fem or gender crit thing. you're doing that for shock value.

i stopped seeing that kind of behavior lately fortunately but it's all over this website. there are so many people on here who have just completely willingly walked right into rad feminism and brag about it. like they're somehow these cool punks who don't follow the rules. like they're somehow making a statement, like they're somehow breaking societal norms in a productive way. theres literally 0 critical thinking involved in rad feminism. all they do is actively oppress women and trans people, how is that "counter culture"? that's fascism. you're just a jackass fucking around with words on the internet to piss people off. that's just troll behavior. nobody cares, we have shit to do off of our phones and computers

[simplysedusa]

How do you think the girls and boys will make/maintain friendships? The relationships they have outside of each other intrigues me. Like the girls are instantly popular due to their heroic status but might have a hard time making friendships that don’t feel surface level. You mentioned before that Townsville’s acceptance for them is very conditional and I can see them developing a sort of trust issues as they catch on to this. Probably very few like Robin make their way inside their core group and know them outside of their superhero identities. The boys have it rough and they are aware that their reputation didn’t come out of nowhere and isn’t exactly unwarranted. All they’ve known is to rely on each other for all their lives and letting someone else in was never an option. Like the girls they trust each other unconditionally but still they wonder, one more than the other, about a connection that isn’t familial. A few of the school delinquents might feel bold enough to start talking to them but the boys have this thing about feeling used by people, so these losers trying to hire them to be their sort sort of super powered hitmen kind of rubs them the wrong way. One kid remarks ‘wow that was awesome how you handled [name of random bully] and they’re like ‘yeah it was.’

Asks like these always make me giddy, but I find it very difficult for me to formulate my thoughts because I have a lot to say and I wanna seem coherent, so bare with me, lol. 😁

Elementary school is easy for the Powerpuff Girls, everyone is friends with everyone so long as you're nice (for the most part). And when you're the city's beloved superheroes, making friends is as easy as breathing. Just look at how many girls they invited to their sleepover in "Slumbering With The Enemy".

Meanwhile, for the Rowdyruff Boys, making friends for them isn't even on their radar yet. There's a 50/50 chance they can't even define the word, "friend". Remember how I said Butch had the most codependent tendencies? All these three know are each other, and honestly, to them, they're all they need. I could see the boys "making allies" with those they believe to be on their level but given the current roster of Townsville villains, no one makes the cut. The Gangreen Gang (and my version of the Powerpunks) comes close, but they're frenemies at best. For my WIPs, the Powerpunks and Rowdyruffs (prior to being adopted by Ms. Keane), temporarily bond over some criminal activity until the Ruffs say some misogynistic shit and get their teeth kicked in.

Middle school age is where things get interesting. While I also feel that the Puffs have a few codependent tendencies amongst themselves, all three girls have strived to be individuals in their own right (as in "The Bare Facts", "Super Zeroes", "Three Girls and a Monster", etc.), so I'd imagine this to be the starting point of where their specific, individual friendship circles start to form. While attending school with superheroes would probably lose its appeal with middle schoolers, they'd still find the girls to be cool. Buttercup and Mitch would still be friends alongside the Floyjoydson Twins and whoever the athletes are. Blossom could be friends with Elmer, Clara, and others who are more studious. Bubbles would be the clique hopper who's still clinging on to her elementary school days, but her main clique could consist of the artists or the "weird kids". MTH has her main friend group be the kids from "Mojo Jonesin'" and I think that's perfect. Their only shared friend, and closest friend, would be Robin (and for my WIPs, Elmer and Mitch as well). The Puffs are still pretty young around this age, but they're also becoming teenagers (and that means, middle school drama *shudders*). This would be where the girls start to develop some edge to them. They don't seem as enthusiastic or peppy as they once were. They're not smiling as often as they used to. Perhaps they're a bit wittier. While the girls wouldn't mind saving the city and are still happy to do so, a few citizens of Townsville would see the differences between the 12-13 year old Puffs and the 5 year old Puffs and start complaining. For one specific WIP, the girls are homeschooled during this time so they're starving for social interaction. They've still managed to maintain their friendship with Robin, Elmer, and Mitch since Robin's their next door neighbor, Mitch sometimes stays the night when needed, and Elmer gets examined by the Professor due to his new glue abilities.

12-13 year old Ruffs would definitely get bored with each other and would want to start seeking social interaction elsewhere. Butch would be the least willing of the three to do so and start to stick to his brothers (mostly Brick) like glue. However, since the three get placed in a foster care group home for a few years, their opportunities to make friends are very, very limited and temporary. And again, no one really knows or understands what these three have gone through, so what would be the point? They'd definitely push people away with empty threats.

Now they're high schoolers. They've matured, but they're still teenagers. By this point, the rose tinted glasses are off and ineffective. The girls see how certain people react when Buttercup's caught sneaking out to go party at night. Or how annoyed certain people get with Bubbles' activism (protesting for animal rights, BLM, LGBT+, against genocides being committed across the globe (😉), etc). Or how others will see a clip of Blossom politely correcting an interviewer on robotic engineering and suddenly think of her as a pompous, arrogant know-it-all who needs to be humbled. How Townsville would see them at this point would be synonymous to how people view child stars who are maturing in the public eye. The girls have realized that Townsville's opinion of them could change at a blink of an eye, and that they had before (In "Major Competition" the girls are replaced by Major Man and are seen as less than. In "Down 'n' Dirty", an angry mob chases after a 5 year old for not bathing. In "The Rowdyruff Boys", the girls immediately assume that the city doesn't want them to defend them anymore after losing to the Ruffs. In the movie, the city (and the world) deems the girls to be bug eyed monsters. In "Save Mojo", animal rights activists interfere and temporarily stop the girls from fighting Mojo, deeming their actions to be cruel despite the evil schemes Mojo has attempted in the past). So, for the average peer, the girls would be friendly but cautious.

Another concern I see the Puffs running into would be clout chasers. Even if they're not as beloved as they once were as kindergarteners, these girls are still well known, they're practically famous. And anyone looking to better their social standing would see the girls as a perfect opportunity. Both Blossom and Buttercup are usually pretty good with sussing out acquaintances with ulterior motives (or at least Blossom, I could see Buttercup being manipulated somewhat easily), while Bubbles on the other hand gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, and often time gets manipulated for it.

I could see Buttercup having the most friends, I think she'd be the most popular of the three in a high school setting, but she wouldn't necessarily have many that she'd be able to be vulnerable with. It'd be pretty easy to make friends if you're partaking in sports, especially team sports in school. I'd imagine a few athletes get jealous and accuse Buttercup of cheating (despite the fact that in my WIPs, Professor Utonium invents a Chemical X tracker that shows when Chemical X is being used so people know when the Puffs or Ruffs are using their powers against other normies).

Blossom, to me, feels like she'd struggle the most individually in the friend-making department; I think she'd have the hardest time differentiating between when to be a superhero and when to just be a girl. She'd be popular in the sense that everyone knows her, and she's that smart girl you wanna pair up with for school projects, but not many would know her on a personal level. She'd be a bit of an enigma, and most would already believe her to be a narc (and simultaneously a hypocrite considering all of the crimes the Puffs had committed in the past).

Bubbles, on the other hand, would be the one throwing herself at others platonically and just casually trauma dumping about how she has the weight of the town's (and subsequently, the world's) safety on her shoulders, and how she feels that her childhood was essentially stolen from her. Somehow though, she'd have the most friends who know her outside of the superhero persona, but still less friends than Buttercup overall (or at least, real friends anyway).

In my HS WIP, the girls finally go back to public school during their sophomore year, so they might be a bit more naive, but you get the picture.

High school aged Rowdyruffs wouldn't be as hostile as their younger counterparts, but they're every bit as guarded. Any idiot who'd try to condemn them will be made into an example. Even so, there would be moments where they'd feel alienated, and perhaps this time around, they'd be much more honest about it.

Individually, Boomer might have it the easiest out of the three, since he looks like he'd be the least intimidating one and would be the most popular one as a star athlete of several sports teams. Even so, his reputation precedes him.

Butch, again being the most codependent brother, would be somewhat of a loner without his brothers around. He plays sports like Buttercup and Boomer, but his are individual based such as swimming, wrestling, and gymnastics. While both of these are great social outlets, I doubt many would go out of their way to talk to him. Butch (or Brick, maybe all three of them, idk) gives me the vibes of someone who'd sit beside you if you're all alone in a school library, the cafeteria, or a pep assembly (basically some place you can't easily escape) and just sit there in silence and see how you react. They'd see it as a challenge, filtering out who the pussies in school are and who passes the vibe check.

Brick's the most infamous of his brothers since he's the leader, so on one hand, he's the most feared. On the other hand, those who may not be the biggest fans of the Puffs might seek him out and attempt to befriend him through what they'd assume to be their mutual dislike/hatred of the girls (these people would piss him off, his past with the Puffs would be the last thing he'd want to talk about). Since Brick wouldn't be as involved in extracurriculars like Boomer or Butch, he wouldn't have as much of an opportunity. Brick's circle would be small, like two to three people tops. Most of his friends would probably be the kids he met in detention. Much like how he treated Bubbles in "Bubble Boy", I'd see Brick talking about the crimes he'd committed as some sort of vibe check.

In my HS WIP, most would steer clear until they've officially made up and befriended the girls. It'd be much harder for the boys to find friendships that aren't just surface-level (and that aren't the Puffs). At this point in their lives, I'd like to think they'd officially befriended the Gangreen Gang though, so that's something.

Adult Puffs and Ruffs would just cling on to whatever close friends they made in the past since befriending other adults is a challenge in itself.

[reel-fear]

Wow, so umm... This looks bad, not only is it inaccurate due to using the wrong ink demon design [unless this is confirmation BATIM Ink Demon has been outright retconned... Which would make me pissed enough to make a new post just about THAT] but from an art standpoint this is just... Confusing and poorly done.

I wouldn't care if this was fanart, of course you should support young, indie artists... But for a Graphic Novel making sure your cover doesn't look like something Butch Hartman shat out in an afternoon is kind of important. Remember they're going to be asking us to give money to them to read this. The artist likely won't see any of that money and neither do the authors most of the time, not to mention this art screams of the artist being underpaid and overworked.

Like they Had to get something on someone's desk and their boss said 'good enough'. A concept Joey Drew Studios is very familiar with considering the allegations of poor working environments that Kindly Beast. Not to mention Mike Mood admitting in a Reddit AMA that they did in fact rush projects like Showdown Bandit. [Which they sold at full price]

He also says they can in fact say no or yes to designs involving their IP. Either Mike or Meatly had to say yes to this cover, according to his own damn words.

And do you really think this company in particular would care enough about its fanbase to not sell them garbage? They have done exactly that on several occasions. It's not like they care particularly about art either, considering their previous use of AI Art. There was no apology or even posts addressing it... Instead, they just rushed out an archives update to their game to get people to stop talking about it... Even forgetting an entire character in it. Again

This company is [or at least SHOULD BE] on thin ice when it comes to being suspected of misleading their fans or rushing out crappy products to them.

So with all that context in mind, I'm gonna talk about why this cover sucks ass.

The light sources are all over the place? Why does it look like someone put maces or knight armor on his shoulders but it's just flesh?? It looks both gross and weird [not in a good way either]

To explain more I'm going on a rant below but sadly this seems to have been confirmed to not just be a rough pass but the final cover and man... I am not excited about this graphic novel just at all. This felt like it really drained any possibility of it turning out good for me and I already had expectations low.

Okay first point, the light sources?? And there is no consistency here with the shadows or lighting, it looks like there's a hundred light sources all at once but none of them are even consistent!

the arrows here represent all the different light sources I can make out and yet the the shadow clearly implies there's only one. I understand wanting to use highlights to give the character a more clear shape but then just give him one or two lights behind him or in front of him? No matter how u follow the light sources, the highlights make no sense and the shadows make even less sense.

Why are the shoulders like that? Like on the legs it's a little understandable, at least those are clearly very heavily affected by perspective, for me I think they are so exaggerated it makes it look like one of the legs is either huge or one is small but that's maybe subjective.

However, the shoulders are unjustifiable, what happened there, what did they do??

I could pick on so much more honestly, how the color choices of piss yellow with no other colors being used, and the harsh pitch black being used for every part of his body is weird. How it looks straight out of Butch Hartman's recent crappy art. But to put bluntly bad start! Also what the HELL is going on with this background??

Seems once again the Bendy team is fine with sending out stuff thinking it's "Good Enough" for Bendy fans and honestly the people trying to tell me to "Be Grateful" for this are just proving that no matter how many times you betray your audience some of em will defend you!

Which is sad tbh. If anything we should be putting MORE pressure on the Bendy team to do better. Cause we deserve better than this, honestly we do. There are amazing artists in the bendy community who could do so much better for a cover. They've employed their fan artists before... Wouldn't it be great to do that for such a lore important book? The book that gives us the identity of one of the main characters in BATIM? The character you spend the entirety of Chapter 4 fighting to save? Not to mention will give several major characters their human designs?

But I guess this is... Good enough...

[murdockmeta]

Two Mike Murdock lines I've been rotating in my head

The "I'm not the best at being genuine" line (that might not be the exact wording but I don't wanna look it up) he says to Kirsten when she gets angry at him (while he's pretending to be Matt) for brushing her off and acting weird.

That line, when I first read that scene, came outta nowhere to me and when he said it it almost felt like he broke "character" for a second. Not just in this facade he was throwing up while pretending to be Matt but also the general facade he's throws up while... well, while he's being him.

Like you can tell having to be around Kirsten as Matt after her and Matt broke up so recently really bothers him. Makes him uncomfortable. He's constantly trying to play it cool and more or less avoid her because he doesn't wanna fuck things up. And he makes that so apparent with the "being genuine" line because he's trying to communicate in his own way that he's trying. The major roadblock is that Kirsten has no idea how hard Mike's trying because she doesn't know it's Mike.

She just sees Matt being an asshole and being cold to her after a breakup. She sees him being bad at his job seemingly on purpose. It's not fair to Mike because he knows nothing about being a lawyer and he's doesn't wanna make things worse but he also has no idea how to make things better. It's not fair to Kirsten either but that's getting off topic.

I'm still angry Matt didn't tell Mike everything while Mike was pretending to be him and honestly if Mike does come back to life, I hope he finds out and he's gets really pissed off anyway

That line just hurts because you can see how much Mike's struggling. And after Kirsten reacts positively he just throws up another smoke screen by asking to take her for a drink which of course pisses her off. Mike's just trying to throw back on his mask as quickly as possible so he probably doesn't even think about what he's saying. He just has no idea how to deal with all those complex emotions and honestly he shouldn't have to and I don't blame him for acting the way he does.

Now, the other line. The "I'm not real" line he says to Butch. This one hurts me because again, its this glimpse we get of Mike. Like, his-walls-are-down and he's-trying-to-open-up Mike. This line hurts more, though, because Butch is his friend. His best friend.

Mike's finally coming clean about everything that happened, Butch is the first person he's told. And then, Butch just gets angry. Mike's not only telling him really personal information but he's also trying to help Butch by giving him a solution to his problem and Butch just tells Mike to leave. He acts like Mike's betrayed him or something because he's oh-so-tired of magic rocks and superheroes.

Buddy, you're tired of magic rocks and superheroes?? You live in the magic rocks and superheroes universe.

But it just makes me wanna bite down on something and whip it back and forth like a feral dog. Mike's trying to help, not just help, he's legitimately offering a fix-all magic solution that he could've used for anything else, and Butch just tells him to fuck off.

All this to say, the "I'm not real" line sticks out the most because it's what Mike starts with. He starts with that even though it really has nothing to do with any of the other stuff he's talking about. He could've just skipped that and said he stole the stone but he wants to be completely honest, he wants someone to know the truth, he wants someone to understand everything he's been going through.

[madmaru2010]

"Baby Gay."

Someone who has recently come out of the closet. A period of 1 to 2 years is the time span in which someone could be labeled as a baby gay. Baby gays generally instantly love everything rainbow related and generally have that innocent joy of just coming out. We have to protect them.

I was about 11 or 12 the first time it happened to me. We were in a locker room after spending a field day with my friends from the nun school I went to. I know, such a cliché, but it's the truth.

I didn't know why I got so anxious when my friends changed in front of me.

One of them, with whom I had a particularly lousy relationship, I would have said that she bullied me if I had known that word at the time, undressed completely in front of me. I remember as if it were today that I was petrified staring at the reflection of her tits in the mirror. Bully or not Bully, without clothes the girl had her thing.

I remember as if it were now: the electricity that ran through my whole body, how the words, which in my mind sounded normal (they always sound better in my mind!) took my mouth by storm and at gunpoint forced my tongue to tell her: "You have European tits". She was facing away from me, but I could see the reflection of her body, her face and mine in the mirror. One of my friends laughed and said to me " What would it be like to have European tits?" A red fire took over my face and I pulled out my nerdy, piggy, bookworm badge and gave an explanation that no one understood, fortunately. Or unfortunately. I was always the weird girl, the one who talked difficult, didn't know how to fit in well, and passed for eccentric and nobody gave too much importance to that fact.

Or at least that's what I remember, what I know.

At that young age I already had in my head, always in my head, a kind of Bestiary of Boobs.

In medieval literature, a Bestiary was a collection of stories, descriptions and images of real or fantastic animals.

When I was 12 years old, I had already catalogued women's breasts according to the continent they came from: European, Asian, Latin. And still, when I undress a woman, those categories jump laughingly in my head to see who is playing on that occasion.

I wonder now if the mother of one of my friends, a close friend of my mother's and not one to mince words, ever suspected my sexuality and commented on it. This anecdote actually happened in a country house where she was taking us. The Bully was her niece.

There were signs. Big neon signs.

My early passion for skateboards and menswear. My tomboy tendency, Butch, butch as they call it in the neighborhood.

The question "What if I'm a lesbian? bounced around in my head for as long as I can remember. The answer was always no, that I was flashing. Because I didn't know women like me. I had never heard stories like mine. Much later, I understood that when we ask ourselves for a long time the same question, the question itself is the answer.

I remember how I forced myself to look for guys I liked because you had to have a crush. I remember choosing a few, especially a boy I admired.

I didn't like boys, I wanted to be like them. It wasn't crush, it was identification.

It took me 24 more years to come across a fiction in which a woman accepted her sexuality by falling passionately in love with a colleague. They were scientists, daring, intelligent, funny, very feminine both and at the age of 36 I could no longer live in Narnia and I started, step by step, softly, softly, as the song says, to look for the exit door of the closet.

Traducido con DeepL https://www.deepl.com/app/?utm_source=android&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=share-translation

[homenecromancer]

been having an attack of The Genders recently and i have created a visual aid to describe my feelings

it’s all a horrible little tangle of half-baked thoughts but it’s like.

i think i’ve mentioned before -- feeling “too butch for the girls, too fem for the guys” when i’m at work around all the, uh, squares. i have a handful of queer coworkers, but i don’t see them on a regular basis.

the specifics of my living situation -- ongoing pandemic, live with my chronically-ill parents and am paranoid about getting them sick -- mean that “driving to the city to attend queer social events” is not something i can really do. (also, everything, always, is scheduled at times where i’m at work.) like, Pride is my one “meet queer strangers socially” event. per year. so... yes, logging off, touching grass, meeting other queers in person would help, but is not super tenable for me.

(also i feel like my job is slowly burning me out on meeting strangers at all, because when you work at the customer-service factory, most of your really memorable interactions with strangers are bad ones. would love to have a larger IRL friend group. super fucking nervous about seeking people out on my own; i don’t trust my judgment in meeting new people, and i don’t have a lot of trust in people who haven’t been “vetted” by people i already know.)

no matter which way i look, i feel like identifying as something specific would be Stealing Gender Valor in some way. the only thing i’m solid on is that i do not identify as a woman. (well, ok, there are two other things i’m solid on -- “transmasculine” and “transsexual” are comfortable words for me, but for me those are... adjectives in search of a noun to be attached to.)

anything else is like. idk. i have found things by butch writers that resonate with me, but it makes me feel like a traitor and a cheat because i lived cheerfully and vocally for years under the label “trans man”. but i don’t really connect with being “a man” right now, so i don’t really feel at home under that umbrella either.

it is by no means a healthy way to live, but i do walk around with a lot of internalized self-loathing (that i am... very... slowly... attempting to unpick). i just kind of feel like, even if i found a label i really liked and identified with... nobody’s gonna want me in their community. because i’m awkward and severely undersocialized, and there are a lot of things wrong with me. because i am a human being with a not-entirely-good past.

“well... what kind of people are you attracted to? that’s a starting point, maybe” i dunno. i’ve spent so long just sort of living with the belief that no one’s gonna find me attractive, paired with the wish to not overstep someone else’s boundaries by finding them attractive (when i’m not someone they would be attracted to), that i just... don’t know. like i kind of accidentally conditioned myself out of finding anyone particularly appealing. i look at myself in the mirror and i can believe that someone might find me physically attractive -- but, ah, what a shame if they did, because they would inevitably find out something weird about me and lose interest.

very probably this is all shaded by my adolescent experiences with “having someone have a crush on you” -- i was completely oblivious and hurt someone’s feelings without meaning to, and with time this has sort of solidified into low-grade paranoia over accidentally saying something someone might interpret as romantic. (this is why i publish asks i answer, and why i don’t participate in one-on-one discord chats -- i feel okay talking with another person in a public discord channel, because everything is visible to other members, who may show up at any time.)

this does not mix well with the vague irrational feelings i have that any romantic overture i might choose to make would be predatory in some way -- whether it’s because of my heart, or my body. until you get my underwear off, i pass as a “weird,  within normal limits [people are more willing to write off me-looking-weird as a disability thing]” cis guy... but i’m not interested in further bottom surgery. so i feel like i’m somehow cheating no matter which way i look; the specter of “oh you’re just falsely claiming an identity to get into someone’s pants” weighs real fucking heavy on me no matter what. even though i’m not interested in getting into anyone’s pants right now.

basically i just don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings or be a creep without meaning to, so even though i feel lonely and isolated and i really wish i had more IRL queer friends, i just sort of resign myself to living day-by-day by myself. lmao.

[softlyapocalytpic]

Felt like I was in a mood to think about how Amy would feel about the growing romance between Butch & Lainey in our LW wanderer AU <3 @persephotea take this small silly treat

Amy was bouncing her leg hard enough that her desk was starting to rattle. Mr. Brotch looked back at her a couple times with an arch brow, but something on her face made him keep his thoughts to himself. Amata - and Freddie - didn't feel so charitable. She tried to stop, really, she did, but anytime she saw Butch giving Lainey those big ol' doe eyes when he thought no one was looking it made her want to snap her pencil.

When Lainey had started tutoring him she'd been worried. Not the Butch would try anything weird, but that he'd be a dipshit. Now Lainey was looking at him like blushy cheeks and baby doll eyes and- and she wasn't saying a word to Amy about it. Both her and Amata kept asking, but Lainey's lips were sealed.

Amy dug her pencil onto the page of the essay and tried really really hard to not be pissed off about it. What Lainey did on her own time was none of her damn business and Lainey wanted to keep secrets now than whoop-di-fucking doo. Good for her.

Someone tapped her shoulder and Amy turned to fund a marker being handed to her, big brown eyes that smiled at the corners. Lainey had leaned over, smelling like cinnamon & coffee, and her heart skipped a bit Amy looked at it warily.

"Brotch still hasn't given you the colors back?"

Amy was scowling back (she knew she shouldn't, she could hear her Dad reprimanding her) but took the marker anyway, "I'm on a two-week probation. Apparently 'the bard's work isn't for doodling'." Amy rolled her eyes, "I don't get what's so great about Romeo and Juliet anyway-"

A ruler rapped against her desk, "Lockhart, Watson. Care to share with the class?"

They both straightened up in their seat instinctively, but Amy's mouth was faster than her brain, "I mean I could, but I don't think you'd like it." She bit her tongue.

'Damn it.' She could hear Butch and the other snakes snickering on the other side of class and it made her want to punch something.

"Please, go ahead."

If it had been any other day she would've shut her mouth and apologized (probably), but having all these eyes on her made her skin crawl and she was so tired of Butch's shit. "I don't see what's so great about Romeo and Juliet."

"Lockhart-"

"Why is the best love story ever written? They don't love each other- they barely know each other! Romeo was in love with someone else at the start of the story, whose to say he would've been any better to Juliet had they actually lived? It's just sad, not romantic. It shouldn't be seen as a love story, but instead what happens when-"

Brotch cut her off, "I'm glad to see you were actually paying attention to some of the lecture, but next time-" he plucked the marker out of her hand, "-try applying that to your behavior, please."

Amy slumped into her seat and propped her chin in her hand feeling all of those hot sparks flying and nowhere to put it. She zoned out the rest of the lecture feeling like moments from flying off the handle, and was going to stalk off to practice when a warm hand grabbed hers.

"Amy! Wait up!"

Cinnamon and coffee.

She felt her cheeks ignite.

[river-witchery]

I posted 998 times in 2022

That's 142 more posts than 2021!

201 posts created (20%)

797 posts reblogged (80%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@river-witchery

@cephalopodvictorious

@slavicafire

@cipheramnesia

@borinquenaqueer

I tagged 407 of my posts in 2022

#riverwitch - 61 posts

#witchcraft - 29 posts

#for the group chat - 24 posts

#magic - 19 posts

#witch - 19 posts

#freyja the cat - 9 posts

#selfie - 7 posts

#yeah - 7 posts

#divination - 6 posts

#ask game - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 92 characters

#i don't necessarily think this is the fault of the people who are writing these posts either

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Me after lighting one (1) candle-

41 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

#4

"With each pin that falls, bring with it those who allow [this suffering] to happen."

In Remembrance To All Those Who Have Suffered The Pains Of War & Imperialism; Excerpt from my Grimoire.

41 notes - Posted April 19, 2022

#3

The amount of people who nonchalantly decide to regularly eat foods that they are allergic/intolerant to, stresses me out.

Like hun, your "mild" allergy to that fruit you like could very easily to into an anaphylactic reaction and have you dead.

That food you're intolerant to that fucks up your stomach every time you eat it, that you still decide to eat every day, is raising your risk for digestive cancers and malnutrition issues so much.

Like, if you know this and decide to keep doing it, more power to you. You make your own decisions my friend. But please... make informed ones.

77 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

#2

I wish more people would grapple with the idea that you can be scared of something without hating it. You can be scared of wasps without hating them. You can be scared of spiders without hating them. Just like you can be scared of drowning without hating the ocean.

131 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I've known I that I'm nonbinary for a while. Started figuring that out in college, which feels like a lifetime ago. I hadn't known my entire life, but that was more of a pebble than a pothole on my road to self-discovery. I went through a moment of "am I trans enough to call myself trans?" What a funny thought, looking back on it.

Coming to terms with being transmasc though? That was an entirely different thing. My gender felt weird. It felt queer. But masculine? No. I had no connection with masculinity. I felt just as uncomfortable with masculinity as I did femininity.

Or so I told myself—and others occassionally, when I wanted to emphasize my gender's queerness, its otherness, its void-like ambiguity; when I wanted to make sure they didn't just swap out one half of the binary for the other.

Looking back, I can tell something wasn't sitting right, something was nagging at the peripheral of my self-understanding. I remember finding a lot of comfort in butchness at this time. I am so thankful for butches for that safety in exploration, and the gentle nudging into queer masculinity.

But it wasn't really until dear friend of mine, new to my nonbinary-ness, began swapping the more feminine-coded compliments and titles for distinctly masculine ones—it wasn't really until then that my transmasculinity took root to blossom in me.

And you can spare me the essay; I can read my own words. "I wanted to make sure they didn't just swap out one half of the binary for the other." Hear me when I say that I could feel it in my soul that they did not do that. I could tell—and I know I am not the only one who can—when "handsome" was said queerly.

It is not a coincidence that I only give my full set of pronouns to those who I can trust to see the queerness in "he/him." I withhold those for my own safety, though in the process, I feel like I am withholding part of myself. Because the euphoria I get when I can be nonbinary, genderqueer, transmasculine, is like no other I have felt before.

182 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[werexcat]

His best friend ... ? That was surprising. He'd heard that word before once from a passing pair a few months ago that were just walking around the park late one night. He remembered those words--could hear it now, even, but that wasn't even important right now. They'd done everything together--were best friends--and now Butch was alone for whatever reason that woman had decided that she was going to leave Butch behind.

But ... it was so strange. It felt so strange in a way. Gabriel didn't know why he couldn't run from the feeling. Could being someone best friend hurt them this deeply? Butch didn't sound right. He--

The laugh confused him even more, but what was really shocking was the fact that water, tears--actual tears--were falling from Butch's eyes; his eyes looked even brighter, shinier because of it, but he looked so sad... sadder than he'd ever seen another people. It was then that an anger began to well up inside Gabriel as his mind began to flashback to happier times.

This wasn't right.

Butch wasn't supposed to be like this. He should be happy. He should be smiling. He should be acting all annoying and--a - and ... !!

What surfaced next in the forefront of his mind was a really weird moment in the bathroom--probably a private moment now that Gabriel was thinking about it. One guy was talking to another in a stall who was apparently crying in the bathroom over some GUY. Gabriel hadn't understood it, but the guy had been suffering from his heart breaking--or something like that--which couldn't have been true because hearts couldn't break.

But ... but maybe it had been true ... maybe that guy's heart was broken ... and ... maybe Butch's was too. They sure were crying pretty awfully...

Smothering the anger for now--really, he wanted to punch that woman in the face, whoever she was--he slowly, carefully made his way back towards the blonde. It ... hurt ... to see Butch like this, and he'd never felt that before. How was he really supposed to help ... ? His arms wrapped around Butch--not in lust, for once, but because he wanted to comfort him.

She'd broken him all up ... and his heart, too, that bitch.

"And when you do change, I won't go anywhere. No matter what you become, you'll still be the Butch I want to be around--the one I want to--to kiss and ... laugh with... and eat with a - and sit next to and ... !"

Gabriel was sure how it happened, but somehow, during his little speech, he'd started crumbling too. His own face was flushing hot, especially around the eyes and nose as the first set of tears began to prick his own eyes. Ah, shit, what the fuck... He wasn't supposed to be crying too!!

"Damnit Butch, don't be sad! It-- it hurts!!" God-fucking-damnit!!

Butch remains on the ground though he looks up when Gabriel stands suddenly, a little surprised… he almost thinks he’s going to walk away until he speaks up once more and stares in his direction.

What a question… why did he keep making excuses? And to follow it up, Gabriel seemed honed in the bit about the length of time they had known each other. It was small in comparison to all that time he had been trapped in that book now that he thinks about it…

Butch looks up at him from where he sits, feeling small and pathetic. “We were partners, Gabe… she was my best friend.” And that was the truth, though he leaves out the part about her being the first person he had ever loved. The feelings were unrequited anyway and besides, he had found that he had developed feelings for another (something he never expected to happen again). He just hadn’t the courage to say anything to him about it just yet for fear of a similar outcome.

“I dunno… it’s just…we did everythin’ together… we always had each others backs.” Butch feels betrayed at the mere thought that his long time companion would do something so evil intentionally. “S’hard t’believe someone who saved my life so many times would try to end it… I dunno.” He shakes his head, eyes cast downward. He can feel a lump developing in his throat but he’s fighting it—blinking back some tears threatening to escape him. This was his first time talking about it since it had happened and it was with Gabriel who, all things considered with their differing experiences, wasn’t doing too bad of a job listening.

“That… she’d knowin’ly let me…become one’a the monsters we used to fight against…and…” He continues, a forced laugh following his words just because he’s uncomfortable with the amount of grief he’s feeling at the moment. Tears fall and he wipes them away but when they don’t stop, he covers his flushed face instead, embarrassed to be crying in front of him of all people.

Still, words fall out of his mouth in sobs. “I-I’m stuck like this an’ there’s nothin’ I can do about it! I'm gonna keep changin’ til’ I ain’t even the same person anymore an’ I don’t even know how long I got—like this! An—a-and I don’t know what I did to deserve it!” He cries. So maybe it was her fault... he just wanted to know why. Why HIM.

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[plus-size-reader]

Creep pt.2

Victor Criss x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 2424 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Victor finally gets the date he was so desperate for

Part 1 

—————————————————————————————————

He’d figured it out.

It took him all week, and he’d nearly burst a blood vessel while trying to figure out what it was he wanted to do, but Victor knew now.  

You specified that you wanted him to take you to dinner. That was what you wanted if you were going to believe that he had feelings for you, and he definitely did.

So, all he had to do was figure out was where to take a girl like you, a girl he really liked, without his friends ever finding out that the dinner date happened.

It was a tall order, but after all this time, he had an idea.

All he had to do was make sure that the guys were busy, and he would be free to take you anywhere he wanted. Then, as far as wooing you went, he already had a whole dinner date set up in the form of a picnic in the quarry.

There weren’t a lot of first date level restaurants around here that were any good, and the ones that were around, he certainly couldn’t afford or wasn’t allowed back into.

Most of the business owners in Derry were wary of the Bower’s gang, and they had been banned from most of the fancier establishments.

Hell, even the milkshake bar on the other side of town had threatened to have them arrested if they ever went back. Though, he sort of understood where they were coming from, after Henry spray painted some really obscene things on the side of their building.

Victor just hoped the saying was right, and the thought behind his evening with you would be enough to show you just how much you meant to him because the picnic he’d planned was pretty extensive.

He had gone out and picked up everything you could have wanted, aside from the burgers he was going to pick up right before picking you up at your house, so they wouldn’t get cold.

He had a blanket that he could spread out over the edge of the rock quarry, looking down over the water, and he even got these tiny little cakes from the bakery down the street that he figured you’d like.

Girls liked those kinds of things, he’d asked Belch.

All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty good date. The only thing Vic still had to do was figure out how to get the guys out of his hair for the night.

The worst thing he could possibly imagine happening would be Henry, Patrick, and to a lesser extent Belch, crashing your picnic and ruining his chances with you completely.

The blonde was already well aware that he was on thin ice with you, which was why this probationary date had to go well. He wanted to show you that he was capable of this.

That he was more than just some thug who made fun of pretty girls for their extra weight and relationship status, two things Henry went pretty hard at you for.

Henry and Patrick both liked to comment on how you would never have a boyfriend because of your size, and how you would probably die a virgin cause nobody would hit that.

In fact, there were very few things about you that the more alpha of his friends wouldn’t torment you for, something that, the more he thought about it, made Victor upset.

You had a point that day in the hall.

He had never really said anything nasty about you to your face, but he hadn’t stopped them from doing it either. He just stood back and let his friends treat you like the dirt beneath their boots.

It was hardly the foundation for a functional relationship, but he wanted to try. For now, all he could do was hope that he’d planned such an amazing date that it would make up for all those terrible things.

Thankfully, before Victor could further drive himself crazy, his three best, and only, friends came around the corner and made a B-line for him. This was it, if this went well, he would be home free for his date tonight.

...But if it didn’t, he had no idea how he was going to explain it to you.

There was no way you would give him a second chance if he cancelled your date to spend the night riding around in Belch’s Trans Am, listening to hair metal.

It had to happen tonight.

“Where have you been?” Belch asked, the only one of the three to even address him once they’d made it to his side.

Henry and Patrick continued to talk about whatever it was that had them so enthralled.

It wasn’t new, and didn’t even really bother Vic, but it was something he had never realized before. They didn’t even really seem to care if he was there or not, which he never would have noticed before talking to you.

Somehow you had managed to turn everything Victor knew upside down and he wasn't sure that he liked it. He wasn’t blind to the fact that his friends weren’t the best people before, but it had never hurt him to be around them.

They were the only friends he had, even if they weren’t the greatest guys of all time.

They were what he had.

“I had to run a few errands, no big deal” the blonde shrugged, hoping he’d done a good enough job at hiding his true intentions so that Belch wouldn’t ask any questions.

He wouldn’t have any answers for him if he did.

This whole thing was new to Vic, who had never really liked a girl this much in the first place, but he was doing what he thought would work. Lying, thankfully, wasn’t new to him.

At the very least, he could rely on his quick wit and the fact that two of the three of his friends couldn’t have been more oblivious to what he was doing and the third wasn’t the brightest to begin with.

It was starting to look like his little scheme would actually work.

Belch didn’t pry any further, something that Victor was glad for, and before it could get any more awkward or he gave himself a stroke, he asked what he’d been trying to ask for days, but didn’t have the nerve to.

“So, what’s the plan for tonight?”

He tried to make it as nonchalant and casual as he could, as if he was just inquiring about the plans he knew they had indefinitely.

Even if the four of them were just going to walk around Henry’s property, or terrorize kids in the park, they always did something together. It wasn’t the sort of question that should have roused any suspicion.

Still, Vic couldn’t help but feel like his entire plot was unraveling at the seams and it was only a matter of time before the gang found out what he was doing and slaughtered him.

It wouldn't go over well. “Nothing, I gotta take care of some things for my pop, so you three girls are on your own” Henry shrugged, not offering any more explanation than that. Whatever it was, if Butch was involved, they knew not to press it.

Though, Victor already felt a little better knowing that Henry wouldn’t be skulking around, potentially finding the two of you in the woods.

Henry already had it out for you more than anyone else because of that time he asked you to see a movie with him and you said no. That rejection had really stuck a bur in his side, and it surely had something to do with his cruelty toward you now.

He wasn’t used to hearing no, after all.

Patrick and Belch had other plans too, it seemed, not really interested in hanging out with any of the others of them without Henry. If it wasn’t the whole gang, it was weird for them.

So, it seemed like Victor was in the clear.

All he had to do now was show you the time of your life and hope that you actually gave him a chance. A girl like you should have never even agreed to go out with him in the first place, so he wasn’t going to ruin it.

You deserved the best, and he was doing all he could to provide it.

~

Vic was sure he’d never been this nervous in his entire life.

Before now, he’d been so preoccupied worrying about the threat of the gang finding out what he was doing, or you changing your mind and rejecting him that he hadn’t given any thought at all to how this would feel.

Waiting for you to get here was going to kill him.

All Victor could think about was whether or not you were coming, or if something had happened to you on the way here. Maybe you decided that this wasn’t a good idea and were staying home, or worse, maybe you had another date.

Whatever it was, it was taking you way too long to get here and every second that passed by, he was sure you weren’t going to show.

You had stopped him in the hallway after the last bell rang, signalling the end of the day, and told him that you would meet him in the Quarry, because he didn’t drive, which didn’t seem like that big of a deal at first.

No good first date had even begun by walking awkwardly in silence through the woods, and it was smart to meet up for the more romantic parts of the evening. However, now that it was here, Vic had to wonder if it was all some clever ploy to leave him in the quarry alone.

It seemed cruel, but after everything he and the guys had done to you, it would be a lie to say that he didn’t deserve it.

He couldn’t have blamed you if you hated him.

Thankfully though, as the sun began creeping down and the air cooled that much more under the waterfront’s influence, you came walking up the path.

You had to admit that when he first suggested coming to the Quarry this late in the evening, you weren’t sure. It still seemed like this whole thing could be some joke, or something put on by Henry to humiliate you.

After all, Victor was the most unassuming of the four of them and if you were going to agree to go out with any of the Bower’s gang, it would have been him.

You just weren’t sure how to feel.

...but you were relieved to see Victor, right where he said he’d been, sitting on a beach towel or something.

It didn’t seem like a set up for a prank, but you weren’t fully convinced until you reached his side and saw the huge set up he’d spread out for you, right on the edge of the cliff.

You were far enough back to avoid falling off or dropping anything into the water below but close enough to see how pretty it was up here. You had never been here before, which had only solidified Victor’s plans to bring you.

The quarry was one of the only things in Derry that was worth seeing, and the fact that you’d lived here this long and still hadn’t come up here was blasphemous to him.

“Hey, I was getting worried you wouldn’t come” Vic called, the first to speak between the two of you. He did his best to play it off like a joke but it seemed like you knew how nervous he was.

Of course you did.

You were nervous to do this too.

Putting yourself out there wasn’t really something you did often or were good at, and you felt like you had taken a huge risk in agreeing to do this with him. However, as far as dates went, this really was worth the risk.

No one had ever gone through so much trouble just to impress you.

“You get stood up often?” you teased, sitting down on the spot across from him which you assumed was meant for you. It would have been sort of strange if he was waiting on someone else too.

It was a joke of course, but what you didn’t know was that he had. In general, Vic didn’t date too often just because he didn’t have a great history with this sort of thing.

He wasn’t exactly a ladies man after all.

“Sometimes” he shrugged, hoping that wouldn’t scare you off. It was much more honest than he was used to being, with anyone, but for some reason, you brought it out of him.

The two of you seemed to bring something different out of each other and as strange as it was for both of you, it was nice.

Victor, for one, felt like he could be who he was around you. It didn’t matter how vulnerable or goofy he wanted to be, there wasn’t going to be any awful consequences like there would be with the gang.

You didn’t seem to care if he wanted to be a geek.

“That’s okay. Me too” you shrugged, grabbing one of the cans of soda he offered you.

Your admission made him laugh, of course, because he assumed that you were joking, but after a few seconds of silence, he realized just how wrong he’d been.

You were completely serious, but that didn’t make any sense to him. You were beautiful and the fact that you had been stood up on a date didn’t compute for him.

Who in their right mind would have skipped out on a date with you? Victor certainly wouldn’t have, even considering how difficult you had made getting here for him.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad they were so stupid because now you’re here with me” he sighed, doing his best to keep from looking you in the face after saying something like that but you were happy he had.

That was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever said to you and as shocked as you were that he was the one saying it, you weren’t going to argue.

“I’m glad too. You’re surprisingly sweet, Vic” you allowed, taking a sip of your drink without much more between the two of you. This was hardly where you saw the evening going, but it was for the better.

Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

[fierceawakening]

re this post

I'm thinking about one thing she says that struck me:

"when I was in the gender community and chanted TWAW under every post"

Which is interesting. It's meant to imply that you just sort of... learn that people think trans women are women by osmosis and shrug and go with it. The use of the word "chanting" suggests that it's a habit, a mindless thing one is just sort of expected to say without any thought behind it.

And... why would that be?

(fair warning, I'm going to talk about changing thoughts on sex and gender and about some older trans terminology that was the big thing when I first learned it, and some of this is stuff that has fallen out of favor, ostensibly because it can cause some people to feel dysphoric. Take care of yourselves, as I intend to say it anyway.)

Like, the one thing terfs are RIGHT about is that the vast majority of us are taught that male and female are sexes we are born with, that everybody is one or the other, and that we know what our gender is by knowing our sex, because our gender just is a set of social expectations that go with our sex. They can fluctuate over time, and especially do when feminism and antifeminism lash and backlash against one another over what is acceptable, but there never stops being a social expectation and you never stop knowing what it is, or that you didn't get to pick it because of your chromosomes and your penis or vagina.

If you're taught anything MORE nuanced than this it's usually "some people are born with unusual defects," and maybe if our family is VERY progressive there's a "and these people should get to pick a role for themselves, because they're a special case" in there.

But like... even I, who have been gender nonconforming all my life, learned that this was how it worked, and so when I started to have cross-gender thoughts they didn't pop into my brain as "am I a boy?" Obviously I couldn't be! You're born a boy or a girl, and you know which by what you look like naked! So my thoughts were, "was I SUPPOSED TO BE a boy?" As in, was there some reason I kept having these thoughts when the truth is something I didn't choose, in the same way I didn't choose my disability?

Which is why when I first met someone who called herself "a transsexual," I actually DID doubt whether she was making sense. I ddin't say this to her--she was a person talking to me about something she cared about--but the idea that I didn't wonder if it was REALLY possible for her to be a woman, given what I understood a woman to be, is just strange.

What happened wasn't some chanty parroting of a new gender paradigm I immediately took on to be nice. It was: what is this person telling me? Does it make sense? She seems nice, and I wouldn't have called her he if she hadn't just told me she used to be a boy. I don't think I'm gonna call her he--that seems mean, like I'm deciding she's wrong without getting to know what she did and why--but huh. Weird.

I don't know that I would have said "trans women are women" at this point. But I probably had the thought "this person is a little like me. Except she decided that if she SHOULD HAVE been a girl, why not TRY TO BECOME a girl? I mean now that she's pointed it out I can tell she was born male but I would have just thought she's tall and butch? Hm, does that mean I can become a boy? I decided no years ago because people said I would have INSISTED I already was a boy before, but... maybe that's not right. Why would I insist I was a boy if I knew what 'female' is and could see that I am that thing? That would seem not factual. But maybe 'I should've been' is... the same thing? Hmm."

So then I encountered "Male-to-Female" and "Female-to-Male," and THOSE made perfect sense to me. I'm female now, but I feel weird about it. Maybe I'd be happier if I became male! But that's a lot of changes to my body. Hmm, I don't know.

But it made sense... taking raw material you were given by chance and altering it so you'd be happier.

And that's kind of still how I feel. I get why people dislike "Trans women are male women and trans men are female men," but back in the day some people I met talked about themselves in exactly that way. The raw material can't be completely altered, but the result is not what one began with, and one can more easily shift social role if one looks the part. And likely hates one's body less.

So the question then becomes, does physical transition alter a human ENOUGH that they can be considered to now be a different sex? And THAT seems to me to just be a matter of consensus, and... you know, if someone tells me "I changed my hormone balance and am growing breasts. I don't consider myself male any more." I'm just going to go "great," because it's no actual skin off my back where that line is. Same if they say "I'm still male, but a woman" which most don't--it's just about where a line is, and I don't care about that line enough to decide.

So... yeah. The whole idea that this process led me to "it makes more sense to consider a trans woman a woman and a trans man a man than to assert that their social role is as unchangeable as their sex, especially when SOME ASPECTS OF sex ARE changeable too" by... rote parroting is weird.

There are some aspects of the way the trans community talks now that I don't get. Like people will say "I'm not FTM, I was always male" and this confuses me, because I never re-mapped what "male" means in my head--it's the raw material. If you don't need to alter that, how are you trans? Like, you can just change your social role without changing your body if you want, but then my brain considers you "female man." I'm not going to SAY this in front of you because it sounds like I might mean it as an insult, but I'm technically going to think it. Unaltered sex, new gender role.

But, again... that ALSO supports the idea that I'm thinking for myself. OTher people's self-conception and terminology changed based on what they felt worked for them; mine didn't because, again, I think it sounds counterfactual and get uncomfortable.

So... yeah, the idea that most of us are just... copying things people are saying, rather than meeting someone we know and like and then questioning the boundaries of a simple story for kids assumed to all be cis, is BAFFLING to me.

[trsilvers]

What is your favourite quote for each Team Rocket character?

Good question. This took me a hot minute but was really fun to think about.

Jessie - “Thank badness we’re alive!!!” I actually don’t remember which episode this is from, I tried to google it, but I specifically remember it because I used to quote it all the time. I just thought the idea that villains would actually say “thank badness” was hilarious.

James - Zero is a gross exaggeration, we are at least two to three percent worthwhile! (Talkin’ Bout an Evolution) James has like a million great quotes but I always loved this one. You have to appreciate his candid self-awareness 😂 A lot of my favorite Jessie and James moments are where they happily admit they are failures but remain totally undeterred. Also - literally ANYTHING he says in the Flaming Moltres episode 😂

Meowth - “Maybe if we started lookin at what’s the same instead of what’s different…well, who knows?” This is part of his little monologue in the first movie when he’s talking to the clone Meowth, I always loved this quote. I mean, what a great sentiment, delivered in a touching way that only Meowth could do.

Cassidy - “Oh I’m still shaking like a leaf officer thank goodness you were here to stop them before they hurt the Pokémon ~ oh!” (The Breeding Center Secret) Butch and Cassidy have a lot of great quotes, especially from chronicles where they started getting played for laughs, but I really love this one because it highlights Cassidy’s ability to turn on and off this fake persona she’s created totally effortlessly. The delivery of this line is just 10/10. No other episode has really showcased her ability to do that as well as their first appearance, but I always loved that about her. She deserves an award for that performance lmao 😂😂

Butch - “I am, but I like dry socks.” (Showdown at the Oak Corral) I’m sorry, there are also a lot of better Butch quotes than this but I have to pick this one because it made me laugh like no other. The man likes dry socks, ok? 😂 Also I think I just like it because it’s a little glimpse into Butch as a person, he seems like he can be a little particular about stuff.

Domino - “I’m like a totally off the hook fan of yours! I wanna be just like you when I get old!” (Mewtwo Returns) Domino, like Cassidy, has the ability to adopt a fake persona and do a REALLY good job at pretending she’s somebody she’s not. I love her ditzy voice she uses when she’s undercover, but this quote in particular because even when she’s trying to be cute and sweet, this was a pretty backhanded compliment to throw at that doctor. (I forget her name, but she wasn’t even old 😂) It was pretty funny.

Wendy - “Revenge is sweet, my dear Jessie.” (Dues and Don’ts) I mean, you have to love a good long grudge. The fact that Team Rocket even has an HR department is hilarious on its own, but the fact that it seems to be led by a woman who held onto a personal vendetta against a fellow employee for YEARS, all because of a fruit smoothie, is even better.

Attila - “I used to collect them, they’re very sweet creatures.” (Legend of Thunder) I’m pretty sure this is a dub only fact about Attila, but I absolutely love the way they dubbed Attila and the idea of someone like him with a soft spot for Caterpie is just…I love it 😂 Seriously though Attila has a whole score of cheesy dialogue, and I love almost every single thing he says. Yippie Yi Yay 😂

Hun- “You don’t get to run the world by being fair; you get to run the world by being nasty!” (Legend of Thunder) Hun…who hurt you? 😂😂😂 Do you need a hug? This was tough because there are multiple times in LoT that Hun has to try and keep Attila on task, which I love, but I picked this quote as my fav because I like that little glimpse into Hun’s sinister personal ideals.

Tyson - “You look a little…tied up! BAHAHAHAHAJSJFGSHKJAFLSNWSA” (Talkin Bout an Evolution) I’m sorry, I love bad puns, and that exaggerated laugh he does at the end, I love it so much 😂😂😂 There are lots of bad puns in the Pokémon anime, but this one…it’s the laughing at his own joke for me 🤣 And the fact that none of the grunts with him are laughing at all, dub or original. You can tell this is a frequent occurrence and they’re just over it. 😂😂😂

Pierce - “Then we’ll just have to see how good you are. *laugh*” - this might seem like a weird quote, but I picked it solely because of that little laugh he does at the end. Pierce unfortunately didn’t get that much screen time, so he’s not super quotable :( Which is a shame because he really, REALLY has a nice voice. It might actually be my second or third favorite, behind Sebastian and *maybe* Attila (only because I think it suits him so well)

Professor Namba - (singing) “Rage, rage, bring out your raaaaage!” (One of the Lugia episodes, I forget which one) 11/10 beautiful vocals, clearly should have been a singer and not a scientist. Seriously though the fact that Namba can be in the midst of such a cruel experiment and stand there and sing a song about it really highlights his insanity and I love it.

Dr Zager - “CURSES!!” (I forget the episode title, I’m so sorry) Again, someone who sadly didn’t get that much screen time, BUT we do at least have this quote. He’s overall a pretty serious character and doesn’t have any especially memorable lines…except this one. 😂 I love it. Very old-fashioned villain, Old Man Yells At Cloud energy here 😂😂😂

Professor Sebastian - “If you’ll kindly follow me, I believe you’ll find this…electrifying.” (Legend of Thunder) this is REALLY hard because I love everything he says, but once again my appreciation for bad puns wins out in the end. Also the confirmation that Sebastian does have a sense of humor, however bad, makes me very happy. 😂 Would watch an entire episode of Sebastian and Tyson making terrible puns. No, actually, an entire feature length film.

Giovanni - “I haven’t had any repairs done to those old blimps for decades. They’re completely unfit to fly. About the only thing I have maintained on those blimps are their insurance policies.” (A Scare in the Air) this is not only my favorite Gio quote but one of my favorite moments in the entire anime because it’s so dark. I even posted about it recently. Giovanni actually tries to have three of his employees killed and profit off of their deaths via insurance fraud. AND HE DOES IT IN SUCH A CAVALIER WAY YOU KNOW IT’S NOT HIS FIRST TIME DOING IT. Also you really have to just appreciate the confirmation that insurance - an evil greater than Team Rocket- exists in the Pokémon world.

(I’m sorry if some of these quotes are not exact word for word, I tried to google to confirm I’m remembering it correctly, but it’s not as easy to find some of these as you might think 😂)

[megan-is-mia]

(Yandere! Vil Schoenheit x Peahen! S/o) (Oh Vil my beloved pretty man, how you make my heart go doki-doki! Anyways heads up that the Y/n in this fic is butch, so she looks more like a male peafowl with bright and long feathers than a female peafowl with shorter, duller feathers) 

“Love, your eyes are wandering again” Vil said, nudging (Y/n)’s leg with his foot as the peafowl-beastwoman stared out the window of his bedroom. His patience with the peahen-girl was running short as she continued to ignore and disregard his words to her. Why did she insist on being so unpleasant when he was only trying to be pleasant towards her? He blamed his own appreciation of beauty for making him so tolerant of her blatant disrespect of him. (Y/n) wasn’t like most peafowl-beastwomen, she presented rather masculinity with long elegant feathers making up her tail and dragged so beautifully behind her when she walked. She also held herself with a stubborn dignity that made it clear she was proud of the way she looked even if it was unconventional and unusual. With those factors in mind how could he have not fallen head over heels for her? Why there was no reason he could see in resisting her innate magnetism. Which is why he saw nothing wrong in kidnapping the peahen-girl and bringing her back to his dorm to be his girlfriend. Everything was going smoothly except for one thing, (Y/n) was proving to be as stubborn as a mule. She refused to even try and see things his way, instead insisting that he let her go right now or she’d escape then press charges against him just for good measure. Of  course Vil couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen so he made sure to keep his darling compliant with sedatives in all her meals. The sedatives were only a temporary solution, something to keep (Y/n) from doing anything stupid while Vil put the finishing details on his permanent solution to keep the peafowl-beastwoman by his side, permanently by his side that is. He’d had the final solution ready for a few days now but hadn’t used it yet, wanting to wait for the right moment for maximum effect. Today however that moment had finally come…  What made today the right one for his scheme? Well it was his birthday of course. There was no way that the peahen-girl would be cruel enough to refuse him a humble request on today of all days. However Vil still needed to proceed with caution, (Y/n) was smarter than she looked and if he messed up now by showing his hand too quickly he might never get a second opportunity for his plan to come to fruition. Giving up on his efforts to get her to look at him, he carefully picked up a slice of cake, stabbed it with a fork and offered a bite of it to his dear darling. “Come on Love, just one bite? Can’t you give me just this one thing and take a bite of this cake?” Vil crooned poking the corner of (Y/n)’s mouth with the fork. The peafowl-beastwoman glared at the bite of cake like it had personally offended her and did nothing else for a long moment before reluctantly opening her mouth so the bit of cake could go in and she’d have to chew on it before swallowing. She had to admit it was pretty good and she did not fight being feed another two, three, four bites of cake. However as the last bite went down her stomach started to feel weird and her insides started to heat up like she’d been standing out in the sun. (Y/n) looked up at Vil with a questioning look that he answered with a knowing smirk. Of course he’d poisoned her, the drama queen. Couldn’t settle for plain old murder like a normal person. However… it didn’t feel like she was dying, she wasn't feeling any pain. She just felt unusually hot, and for some reason she couldn't stop looking at the blonde sitting beside her. “What do you think Love? Did my love potion cake taste good?” Vil said, still smirking as the peahen-girl’s eyes widened with alarm. “Don’t worry the love potion wont turn you dumb with love for me. It’ll just make you absolutely miserable when we’re apart. After all, absence makes the heart fonder does it not? So this will help you learn to love me naturally and when you do, i’ll give you an antidote to the potion” Vil finished his explanation by pecking (Y/n)’s forehead affectionately. “And when i do, you’ll thank me for what i’ve done...” THE END

[friendofhayley]

I’m back after my hiatus from fanfiction, to give y’all the best multifandom recs of the fics I read this month. Shoutout to all content creators who helped us live to see the close of this year. This fic includes 15 fics for Sterek, Larry, Winteriron, and Geraskier. The starred ones put me through heaven and hell *chef’s kiss*.

Sterek (Teen Wolf)

1. Six Letter Word for Romance by @troubleiwant | domestic kink - omg there’s only one bed - soft Derek - oblivious idiots in love - 6k

Stiles definitely starts off thinking it’s fucking hilarious that Derek-sourwolf-Hale does crosswords and cares about scuffs on his furniture.

But at a certain point, and he can’t pinpoint exactly when, “fully functional adult couple” somehow becomes a massive fetish of his. Derek in sweats and bare feet, nudging his glasses up his nose while he does the Sunday crossword? Unff. Derek filling out forms to get some renovations on his property approved? Oh God, yes. Derek putting away groceries and bitching that the corner store was out of the right type of Greek yogurt? Take me now, Stiles thinks, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth.

This can’t be normal.

2. *Dirty Little Secret* by @isthatbloodonhisshirt | Cora & Stiles bffs - no one can resist the Stilinski charm - celebrity Derek - human au - 91k

“Holy shit, this is a date!” he blurted out, turning back to Derek wide-eyed. “This is a date! You intended for this to be a date, this was supposed to be a date!” He figured if he said it enough times, maybe he would believe it, but so far, no dice.

Derek was scowling again—seriously, did he want wrinkles?—but he just reached into one of the bags and pulled out a burger, checking what was written on the foil in sharpie before handing it over to Stiles.

“Of course it’s a date, what did you think this was?”

3. Can You Feel A Whole New Part of Your World? by @isthatbloodonhisshirt | i genuinely don’t look at authors names i just click i am sorry for spamming you but you write too good - neighbors Sterek - emotionally mature Stiles - the ideal fluffy world you’d want to live in - 53k

Can you hear me singing in the shower?” Stiles blurted out, because he had to know, now. If one of his neighbours had slid that note under his door, then it meant Parrish as another neighbour could hear him, too! He had to know if this was all a huge joke and one person had walked by and overheard him and decided to fuck with him.

Parrish gave him a weird look at the question, but answered anyway, making Stiles’ plans to leave the country speed up in his mind.

“Of course I can. You’re actually not bad. Though you have been singing a lot of Frozen lately, getting kind of tired of the soundtrack.”

4. Theory of Overprotective Canines by @petals42 | derek can turn into wolf - oblivious Stiles - future fic - mutual pining - 11k

Stiles is totally looking forward to living alone in his super cool apartment off-campus. He is. He is also very excited to bike to school every day, ready to set up an awesome game room, and definitely over his crush on Derek Hale. Completely over it.

Or at least he is until Derek decides he's moving in with him. And then turns out to be the perfect roommate. And then starts attending all his classes. As a wolf.

This is not going according to plan.

Larry (One Direction)

5. **The Changer and the Changed** by @homosociallyyours | literally the best fic of all time i want to live in there - girl direction - NYC ‘70s au - trans Zayn - the girls are so lovely - 59k

It’s the spring of 1977 and Harry Styles has just moved to New York City after graduating college. She knows she’s a lesbian. She just needs to figure out how to meet other lesbians.

Louis Tomlinson works at a popular women’s bookstore in the Lower East Side, Womon’s Direction, where she spends her days reading feminist literature, writing poetry, exchanging friendly barbs with her boss Niall, and dreaming of finding someone to love.

When Harry and Louis meet, their connection is instantaneous. Slowly but surely, Louis welcomes Harry into her community of women. Stonewall veteran and old school butch Niall; Liam, a land dyke who’s moved to the city for love; and Zayn, a lesbian musician who’s been ostracized by a vocal part of women’s community for being trans, welcome Harry with open arms, ready to help her find her place in New York City’s bustling lesbian scene.

6. others i’ve seen might never be mean (but they would never do) by @cherrylouvol6 | aaaaaaaa it’s lesbian When Harry Met Sally !!! - rom com - girl direction - coming out and first times - really great sex - 20k

Louis sighs.

“Do you remember what I said to you the first time we met?”

“That I’m naive and neurotic and would be hard pressed to ever find someone who could put up with me?” Harry snaps.

7. some things fade (some never do) by @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed | aaaaaa this story took me apart and back together again just like Louis and Harry - urban fantasy au - second chances - exes to friends to lovers - hurt/comfort - 25k

Matching tattoos. He’d never thought he’d be the type for tattoos to begin with, let alone matching or magical ones, but once Harry had put the idea in his mind it had never quite managed to disappear. And it had made sense. With their relationship a long distance one, this was simply another way of feeling close to one another. Of knowing where the other was, how they felt. It had made so much sense.

Back then.

8. we can take the long way home by @eleadore | i usually don’t rec my porn but there’s so much feels in this one - canon-divergent - kink discovery - friends to lovers - this was written in 2015 as a future fic but it felt like it was taking place now so good job - 27k

“Fertile,” Louis says, and then laughs because it sounds stupid to say out loud. He hasn’t ever really thought of himself in those terms. Baby-making terms. It’s just one of those things his body can do, like exercise, or go without tea. Doesn’t mean he will.

Winteriron (MCU)

9. **Dig No Graves** by @missaphelion | Tony finds out about his parents right after winter soldier au - Tony Stark has a heart - Bucky heals with bots and lots of sugar - slow burn - 142k

"I'm here to kill you, Terminator," Tony said slowly, "does that compute?"

The soldier looked up at him with wide blue eyes and no expression. "Okay."

Tony froze. "Okay," he echoed. "I tell you I came here to kill you and your response is 'okay'?"

10. A Rifling Matter by Penndragon27 | Winter Soldier has such a big crush on Tony’s weapons, he escapes Hydra au - identity porn - pining Bucky - fluff and angst - Winter Soldier is a fanboy and it’s cute - 37k

All the Asset knows is fighting, killing.

He also knows a good weapon when he sees one and Stark Industries... they make some great weapons.

11. *Winter is Coming (aka Fifty First Avengers Dates)* by @tisfan & @everyworldneedslove | enemies to friends to lovers to 50 first dates - pining Bucky - Tony gets amnesia - no Steve bashing but he’s a little bit of an ass - mental health issues - 109k

Bucky Barnes is still mostly The Asset, and he's pretty sure Hydra is going to come back for him soon, so in the meantime he's just going to keep an eye on the Avengers for them. But then Clint spotted him hiding in the shadows, so Tony came out and dragged Bucky back to the Tower, threw him in the shower, and fed him cheeseburgers.

Now The Asset is having anomalous feelings. In his pants.

Geraskier (The Witcher)

12. *no reason to run* by @yoursummerfrost | different meeting au - only one bed but camping - cursed Jaskier - soft Geralt!!!! - poly negotiations - 61k

"You'll change your mind one day," says the innkeep. "The road can't love you back."

What a strange way to flatten something so beautiful, Jaskier thinks. What a small way to love.

13. *He Fell into a Faerie Ring* by @geraltnoises | Jaskier gets bardnapped after the fight au - non-human Jaskier - soft Geralt - Jaskier encourages people to be kind and becomes a god - emotionally mature Geralt - 57k

Traders are a gossiping sort. If there was a scandal within the noble houses of Posada, you’d hear about it in Cretegor by the end of the week. So, the quick spread of a rumor about a little village in the Kestrel Mountain range was not at all surprising. What was surprising was the story that the traders wove. They said that Luibhtorrach, a sad, ghost of a farming town, had miraculously become a hub for trade, as if overnight. Their lands unbelievably fertile and brimming with crop. Even stranger, each and every one of Luibhtorrach’s people professed that their good fortune was the work of a mysterious beast they’d claimed as their personal deity. Most recent news foretold of their plans to throw a midsummer festival celebrating this newfound god. In preparation, silken blue banners were erected in every corner of the town, each bearing the symbol of their new patron: A delicate dandelion wrapping around a golden sun.

14. Barking Up the Wrong Tree by KHansen | 5+1 things - I’m worried about Geralt’s skills - non-human Jaskier - monsterfucker Geralt - crack treated seriously - 11k

Geralt is 100% certain that Jaskier is a vampire.

He's 100% proven wrong.

15. Bardic Idyll by Lisztful | fake relationship - Geralt is soft and oblivious - pining - fluff and angst - Jaskier you can’t show your emotions mainly through song! - 13k

Jaskier is certain he can win the Continent's annual bardic competition, but he needs to be accompanied by a dashing romantic companion in order to enter. Enter Geralt, who is definitely, for sure, only interested in the free food, and not at all in staring lovingly into Jaskier's eyes.