#fun fact: this was how i found out that shes apparently christian

[realredbanana]

Totally random thing that I’m just so confused and flabbergasted that I have to tell someone. Apparently, my nana doesn’t believe in evolution???? Like, on some level, I totally get why my “technically, in terms of clades, fish either don’t exist as a category, or humans (and most, if not all, other mammals) are fish” thing sounds ridiculous (hence why I didn’t bring it up with her), but to deny evolution as a whole??????? what???????????

[amirasainz]

Can you please do driver reader is literally the absolute Angel of the paddock and everyone adores her, she’s the cutest sweetest little bean that you can’t help but love, she’s a Redbull driver and Christian always fawns over her and talks about his ‘daughter’ ( it’s clear she’s the favourite ). Even the older drivers love her e.g kimi, jenson, Seb, mark. Platonic pleaseeee

Omg, that is such a sweet idea. I did the format a bit differently, hope you don't mind.

Enjoy reading and send me some requests!!!

-XoXo

The Redbull Princess

YN YLN was a known name in the motor sport world. Not only was she the youngest driver currently on the grid - only 19 years - but she is the first female to ever drive for RedBull. Not oy that, but also the only woman on the grid.

Despite having a different gender, the other drivers never treated her bad. In fact, one could say that YN got the whole "Princess Treatment" from the drivers and teams. Each driver has taken a special place in her life.

Exhibit A: The protective one

The paddock was buzzing with energy, reporters swarming like bees near the Red Bull garage. YN was prepping for her media rounds, already feeling the weight of the spotlight on her. As she stepped into the press pen, a group of journalists immediately approached, firing off questions.

"YN, how do you feel about the pressure of being the youngest driver? Do you think it affects your performance?"

Before she could answer, Max appeared out of nowhere, slipping between her and the reporters with a grin that was anything but friendly. "I think that's enough for now," Max said, his blue eyes narrowing. "She’s got a race to focus on. Back off."

The reporters, visibly intimidated by the reigning World Champion, quickly shuffled away. YN let out a breath of relief, nudging Max with her elbow.

"You know, I can handle them."

Max chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, steering her away from the crowd. "Yeah, but why would I let them bother you when I can have fun scaring them off?"

"You're impossible," she laughed. "But thanks."

Exhibit B: The gossip King

YN walked into the Ferrari garage, still buzzing from practice. She found Charles leaning against his car, drinking water. His face lit up when he saw her.

"Charlie! Did you see that move I pulled in turn 9?" she said, excitedly plopping down next to him.

Charles grinned, instantly slipping into gossip mode. "I did! Smooth as butter. But did you hear about Fernando's radio message? He was furious about the tire degradation. Drama!"

YN's eyes widened. "No way! Spill all the tea, Leclerc."

Charles leaned in, whispering. "Apparently, his engineer told him to manage his tires better, and Nando snapped, saying, ‘I am managing them!’" He mimicked Fernando’s accent, making YN burst into laughter.

Exhibit C: The helping hand

The young RedBull driver just exited her car, when she felt someone grabbing her Birking Bag. When she quickly turned her head, she was meat with the sight of Carlos not only caring her bag in his hands and her coat on his arm, but carring his own stuff as well.

"Carlito, what are you doing? You don’t have to carry all my stuff for me." she told him, after they started walking towards the entrance.

Carlos mate an irritated sound, before responding to her. "Nonsense, hermana. Your job is to win this weekend. So let me help you with all the other things, comprende?"

Before Carlos could get an answer, she threw her arms around him, whispering a small thank you in his ear.

Exhibit D: The personal chef

YN sat in the Red Bull hospitality area, poking at her plate of food with a discontented look. Yuki walked over, noticing her lack of enthusiasm.

"Not good enough for you, huh?" Yuki teased, sliding into the seat across from her.

YN scrunched up her nose. "I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t eat this."

Without missing a beat, Yuki stood up. "I’ll make you something. What do you want?"

Her eyes brightened. "Yuki, really? You don’t have to!"

He waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, you’re picky. I know that. What do you want? Miso soup? Onigiri?"

YN tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Onigiri sounds perfect."

Within minutes, Yuki was back, placing a plate of freshly made onigiri in front of her. YN took a bite and sighed contentedly. "You're the best, Yuki."

He grinned. "I know."

Exhibit E: The "annoying" prankster

YN was busy trying to make sure her helmet and gear were ready when suddenly, her entire backpack fell off the counter with a loud thud, spilling everything.

"Lando!" she yelled, spinning around, catching the British driver grinning like a mischievous child.

"What?" Lando said, feigning innocence, hands up. "It slipped."

YN gave him a look but couldn’t help the smile creeping on her face. Lando always knew how to lift her spirits, even if it was through relentless pranks.

"One day, Norris, one day!" she warned, pointing a finger at him.

"I’ll be waiting," Lando chuckled, before helping her pick up her things

Exhibit F: The shoulder to cry on

"I just can't believe it. I was so close. How did I manage to bin the car into the wall on the last corner" muttered the 19 year old. Her face pressed in Oscars neck, who was busy stroking her hair. He knew better than to interrupt her during her rant. Knowing it would help her when she got everything of her chest.

After a moment, she shakily breathed out. Oscar knew that the only thing he could do now was to let her fall apart while he would catch every piece of her.

And that's what he did. While she cried her heart out, Oscar held her close to him, rocking them slowly in a soothing matter. It felt like nothing could happen to her in Oscars arms. He would protect her from the outside world as long as she needed

Sometimes actions speak louder than words

Exhabit G: The fashionista

Lewis stood beside YN, eyeing her racing suit critically before smirking. "That’s not gonna work."

"What do you mean?" she asked, confused.

He pointed at her boots. "Those shoes? No way. They don’t match the rest of the suit."

YN raised an eyebrow. "I'm not trying to walk the runway, Lewis. I’m racing."

Lewis rolled his eyes. "You can do both. Come on, let’s get you a new pair of shoes. You’ll thank me later."

And true to his words, YN received a new pair of racing shoes only a few hours later. They certainly looked better than her old pair.

Exhibit H: The mother-hen

George was hovering near the buffet in the paddock, watching YN closely as she piled food onto her plate. He narrowed his eyes as she bypassed the salad section.

"YN, you need to eat more greens. And have you had any water today?" George asked, his tone dangerously close to motherly.

YN groaned. "George, I’m fine. I had water this morning."

"That’s not enough," he replied sternly, filling a glass and handing it to her. "Drink. Now."

She pouted but took the glass. "Okay, Mom."

Exhibit I: The proud dad

During a press conference, Christian Horner stood beside YN, smiling at the reporters. "You all know my daughter here is the star of the show," he said, gesturing towards YN.

YN blushed at the comment. "Christian!"

The reporters laughed, but YN knew Christian wasn’t entirely joking. He had taken her under his wing from day one, treating her like family. And she couldn’t have been more grateful.

Exhibit J: Bwoah

In a rare quiet moment, YN had somehow convinced Kimi Räikkönen — the Iceman himself — to do a TikTok trend with her. As the camera rolled, Kimi deadpanned his way through the trend, barely moving but somehow nailing it.

"Thanks for doing this, Kimi," YN said, grinning as they finished.

Kimi shrugged. "Bwoah, don’t mention it, kid. But don’t tell the other drivers that you are my favourite"

YN laughed. "Deal."

[azuresins]

Kuroshitsuji is not queer-coded. You are not as smart as you think you are. Your opinions about the series, are not factual. The manga has no canon queer ships at all.

I don't know why you're so obsessed with me or why you're trolling me this hard, this feels personal. But just in case. I am beginning to think people have completely forgotten what subtext is. Kuroshitsuji started out in 2006... Kuroshitsuji as a manga is attracting a queer audience, absolutely. I'm going to assume you don't know the difference between Queer-bait, Queer-coded, and Representation... and that's super unfortunate, for you. None of those, are the same thing. It's not scandalous to say that you don't need a ship, in order for a story to be queer-coded and meant to attract a queer audience. The Found Family trope? Queer-Coded. The Non-human/Monster interaction with humans trope? Queer-Coded. Going against Christian hegemony? Queer-coded. Crossdressing? Queer-coded. Gender nonconformity? Queer-coded. Shapeshifting? Queer-coded. Complete transformation of identity? Queer-coded. Even if Kuroshitsuji only had but ONE, of those tropes I mentioned (and I suspect I missed some, these are just the ones off the top of my head). It would still be Queer-coded, and Queer people will gather toward it. Yana knows this. But even if she didn't...? If this story and it's construction was all just one huuuge coincidence...? It doesn't make the story less queer-coded. All that aside. It doesn't actually matter if a creator of any media at all, intended to attract a queer audience or not, if they write with any of those tropes in mind-- queer people will still be drawn to it. A creator can declare their work wasn't intended to attract queer people, or for queer people to be drawn to it, and scream how much they don't like it... if they want to. It wont end well for them, though. They'll alienate a huge portion of their fanbase and also get made fun of, a lot. People will, undoubtedly, ask the question, 'If you didn't mean for queer people to read this, then why did you write about these themes that are queer-tropes and resonate so strongly with queer people?' And, the author usually responds in kind, by showing a steadily decline of quality of their work, and tries to write-in a lot of strange rules and stipulations after-the-fact to try to 'unqueer' their story as much as they can. Or else, they try to write something else and either way, what they write, ends up being a pile a of shit. Because surprise-surprise ... it's actually very difficult to write a good story without ANY queer tropes and queer themes. Look at what happened to the Wizard Author (that's exactly what happened, in case you were wondering). But apparently, I'm not very smart. So believe whatever you want.

[thevoidstaredback]

Tonight's movie is gonna be Venom.

Mostly because I found something out about Eddie that I can guarantee I could've lived without, but what's done is done.

....I'm never gonna be able to watch any movie with Venom in it the same....

Apparently, Eddie is aroused by Venom.

I could've lived without that knowledge (I've never read the comics)

You all probably could've lived without that knowledge

Anyway, I'll be back to share my thoughts on the movie once I get it up and playing after dinner.

Space. The final frontier. These are the-

Wrong movie.

Spaceship crashed in East Malaysia.

At least it wasn't New York

Let's go inside it!

Venom's so dramatic! I love him.

He's like s husky.

The movie score only adds to this point.

Eddie's a mood.

"Meeting? Oh, shot, yeah. My meeting."

Eddie and Peter would get on like a house on fucking Fire.

Eddie would hate Tony, no matter the fact that he no longer makes weapons.

Oooooo! He snoopin'!

Kitty!🖤🖤

He snoopin'!

Eddie's gone off script. He's revealed info he's not supposed to be privy to.

Oops

There goes his job.

There goes his girl

Poor Annie.

Poor Eddie.

Subtle, Venom. Very subtle.

Eddie's sloched.

Homeless lady is absolutely awesome. What a deal she ran.

The store clerk is also a queen. She doesn't deserve the gun to the face.

Eddie's a good guy.

Poor Eddie. Can't even hear his own scream of frustration at his shitty neighbor.

Also, Drake is giving Supervillain vibes.

"No need to be frightened," my ass.

Starting human trials the minute a single animal trial is successful.

And now he's twisting the Christian Bible to suit his needs. Just like Christans

Poor Issac was not prepared to be possessed by a symbiote.

Ope, now he's dead.

Doris! She's cool.

Eddie won't even give her the time of day.

It's kinda funny. If we ignore the context of why she's approached Eddie.

I love Eddie.

Doris is having none of his shit.

It's funny.

Maria!🙀🙀😿

Hi Venom.

Eddie is suddenly a lot stronger than he remembers and is very confused.

He's also very thirsty and very hungry.

I wonder how much fun Tom Hardy had with this role.

Venom: "Eddie."

Eddie: "Wtf?!!"

Basically their first meeting: Venom: Oogily Boogily Bitch!!

I mistook the other symbiote as Venom. Forgive me. Either way, I maintain that Venom is a dramatic bitch.

Poor Eddie did not sign up for this.

Dan is chill.

Poor Venom does not like the MRI.

Poor Eddie.

I love Venom. He's a little murder puppy.

Don't do it, Doris! Don't trust him!

Damn it.

I told ya not to.

I know Eddie's from NYC, living in LA, but he's such a Midwesterner

Is being restrained to a wall, I foot in the air: "You have a brain tumor, Eddie."

I love him so much.

I also love his bike.

Look at Venom keeping Eddie alive!

Venom!!! Look who's come out to play!

Venom has no lips. Hos smile is literally all teeth

Also, him threatening Eddie to cooperate or die as if they don't become best friends (friends with benefits in the comics.....kinda) is based.

I'm literally Eddie, dude!! ���🤣

"Jump." doesn't jump. "Pussy."

Also, Eddie and Venom working in tandem after only knowing each other for two hours at most is amazing. I wish I had a friend like that.

DC reference!!

Venom is an anti hero.

I'm sending a pattern with some of my favorite characters. Deadpool, Red Hood, Venom.... they're all anti heros.

I love Venom and Eddie. They're besties already.

Drake just got a symbiote.

Venom doesn't like Dan. He likes Anne, though.

"What happened to 'we'?" "We're done."

Eddie, you sound like you just broke up with him.

Venom, do nOT-! And he's possessed the dog.

Smh.

Comic Book Eddie is a monster fucker!!🤣🤣

Drake, stfu.

Your symbiote said "I" before you corrected him to "We". You are expendable to him, Drake.

Anne as Venom!!

Venom made Anne and Eddie kiss!

.........I can see how similar comic and movie Eddie are.........whether on purpose or on accident.

"What made you change your mind?"

"You did, Eddie."

They are in love, your honor!

Or they could just be besties to the end. Either way, they have a great relationship and I love them.

Eddie!🙀

Venom, hurry and save him!!

Yay!!!!

I think he's angy...

You can't just save the world and peace out like that, Venom!! That's not how that works.

I can't wait for Along Came A Spider to come out.

Venom's playing wingman for Eddie. He's failing, but he's trying and it's based.

Stan Lee Cameo!!!

Eddie setting ground rules?

Venom following them?

Eddie allowing Venom to eat bad people?

Amazing.

"Bad guy?"

"Yep."

Venom threatening Bad Guy™ by calling him a turd and then eating him is so funny.

"We are Venom."

I love it.

[bigmack2go]

(Ridiculous-)

-Things that i think the newsies would get cancelled for if it were modern era:

Crutchie

His name. He blew up in quarantine and only streamed gameplay and sat down. He only ever explained his name like,,, once or so and that was way back, the succes came slowly and so he never felt the need to explain it again. After a while some pointed out his name and i like,,, blew up! He was on the twitter trending page for a whole week! But he was only cancelled for a day or two(?) before he uploaded a video laughing tears. The mother fucker probably used it as clickbait on the preview banner pannel thingy (wtf are those called??) and in the title. I mena,,,, imagine!! “!SPEAKING UP about the recent ALLEGATIONS! (EMOTIONAL) (CW: CRYING)” and probably ant like “(real) (not fake!)(fuck clickbait)” or something. He would troll the shit out of social media for it

Ike

Probably like queerbaiting or some shit. Like he’ll go “holy shit, i’m so gay!” And people will go “I THOUGHT HE HAS A GF” and hotshot is just watching the whole thing, making fun of him for D A Y S while he’s cancled and she’s like “hOw dArE yOu bE bIsExUAl?!”

Hotshot

That exact thing i just said. Because she wasn’t including pan people, poly people and all the other sexuality’s when she was making that joke.

Race

Cheating. On Spot. (See also-> my spralbert fic) ofc he didn’t actually cheat but some people foubd and old clip of when he was still less known and didn’t know he would blow up like that and people pretend that poly people dont exist. He probably had a big thing and then he “cancelled them back” (his words not mine) or something like that.

Spot

For staying with Race even after he found out he “cheated”. People said he was only with Race for the money.

Albert

For being the person that Race “cheated” with

Jack

For saying “i wanna kiss you so bad right now” to a guy and apparently making fun of gay people with it. That shit was just like an hour or so tho at the highest.

Katherine

For her father lmao

York

Having a problematic mod. People say shit like he’s just ignoring that fact. But he legitimately just did not now. He wasn’t online for a solid two days and when he was it was to stream so he had to find out by chat, but he thought chat was joking and so one thing led to another and uh yeah. By the time hotshot called him asking why he was joking about that sort of stuff and he realised that it was true, the tag was already trending.

Romeo

Let’s be honest, the fucker prolly said something like “you’ find the right person eventually” or be like really penetrant like a Karen that refuses to acknowledge aro/ace people exist. But like for fun. Like,,, jokingly. This guy is literally aroace. It prolly went pretty much the same as for Crutchie.

Tommyboy

Cheating.(but like at a game) Come on lets be honest . This mf would have the whole dream sCaNdAl procedure and you know it. He acedentally cheated and then get death threats for it (which, just to be clear, even if dream had cheated is just— like,,, idek)

Myron

Tried to kill a pigeon once when he was like seven or something

Elmer

Being involved in a russian spying scandal or some shit. Dont even ask! The best prt is that this is the only one where the internet was being justified. Not only dod all the evidence ACTUALLY lead to him (and it wasn’t something little like cheating) butthe reason for that is that it was actually him. Now obv it wasn’t on purpose bla bla, someone put a wrong server adress or what-not idek but like,,,, it was fair for people to want to cancel him…

Buttons

Capitalism. He probably told someone they had to pay if they wanted him to make them a piece of cloth or whatever. (Obv this is exeragated. The internet is not actually that bad… mostly. And he probably did go about it a little worse and people probably didn’t actually cancel-cancel him as in like,, career threatening but yk. It was still a little ridiculous)

Davey

Defending church. He’s like “GUYS IM NOT EVEN A CHRISTIAN WTF!? Im just saying, let people believe what they wanna believe. unless that specific person uses their faith as an excuse to disrespect, discredit or discriminate you, they are not a bad person for their faith”

In case you’re wondering, this happened in the same context as-

-Jojo

Jojo told his coming-out-to-the-nuns story and how he wasn’t too scared (and some other stuff) and then people said that he was pretending the church never was problematic. (Ive never phrased a sentence to say less of what i meant than this one but im tired and i have the excuse that English isn’t my first language so gimme a break)

[calicowithwings]

Hello, I know nobody is gonna really see this, but today marks two years since I met someone extremely important to me. And if she somehow sees this, I don't think she'll know it's about her actually. I think it's a good idea to at least write down this short story length yap session.

So, it's June 28th, 2022. I'm at my dad's house, on Picnic, which I had just downloaded. If you don't know what that is, it's basically just a tiktok knockoff with a bunch of gacha kids (/pos). I'm just scrolling, when I see a video. It's just someone's oc, and they're saying they're new here.

I decided to DM her, I said, "hey, I'm new here. I'm trying to make some friends." I copy and pasted this to a good 3 other people, she's the only one who responded though.

We had a nice conversation for a while, I found out her name was Ash, she lives 8000 miles away from me (in South Africa), and her favorite colors were neon green and black.

We talked for a while, and my mentally ill ass almost immediately caught feelings. So, after a good month or so of knowing her, I genuinely said, "I lowkey wanna date you-" (yes ik it's stupid, leave me alone I was young and extremely dumb 😭)

She was in a (somewhat abusive, now that I think about it 😰) relationship at the time though, so we didn't date. We did kinda flirt a bit though, playfully.

About a week after I said that monstrosity of a sentence, I went on vacation to a different state. This is kinda irrelevant, all you rly need to know is that I moved immediately after I came back

So, she was my only friend while I was in this new place, too far into summer break to meet people, so we just talk. Constantly.

At some point, I'm not really sure when, we start actually dating. Not exactly clear when, it was more of a, "are we together" "sure man" type thing.

Also, we made this gc with some of our friends, Kay, Alex, Elliot, Liam, and Pip are the main ones, in case I mention them later on

Anyways, school started, and we talked as much as we could, which wasn't too often, considering the 8 hour time zone different.

But we still talked as much as we could, and the group chat was going strong. It was a nice group of friends.

So, Ash always listened to my ramblings about my hyperfixations, as confused as she always was, but she never could remember them fully. She's always had kinda bad memory issues.

At some point, around late December 2022 or Early January 2023, we moved to WhatsApp because Picnic had a stupid update that ruined like, everything.

We continued to talk on WhatsApp for a while, before one day we got into an argument about neopronouns. Dear god, I wish we didn't have that fight. Basically, she didn't rly understand nor support them, and I was kinda upset about it.

We started talking a lot less, like.. from all day every day, to sometimes maybe once a day.

And, as ironic as it was, one day as I was leaving school, genuinely thinking, "I'm so glad I have a girlfriend to talk to as soon as I get off of school every day."

Yeah, she had sent a breakup text while I was at school.

She wanted to focus on herself more, which I totally get. We tried to stay friends, but we just kept talking less and less, until one dreadful day.

She messaged me, about a life update. Apparently she was now more focused on her religion (Christianity) and couldn't support lgbt anymore, which, for the fact, she sent a quote that literally went against what she was saying???

Anyways, this obviously turned me off of her a bit. We talked even less, until one day in July of 2023, when I messaged her, saying I wanted to cut contact for the time being. I needed to get myself together.

Anyways, for the main thing that fucked with me in this entire thing

One day, in September 2023, I reached out to her. Here, you can just read the texts.

So uh, yeah. She doesn't remember me. How fun, right?

It wasn't even romantic at this point, this person that I cared most about and though about constantly while we didn't talk, doesn't remember me. She forgot. I knew I should've been worried about those fucking memory problems, honestly.

Anyways, that's basically it. I should probably get some sleep now, it's almost 3am as I'm writing this 💔

Goodbye now 👍

ALSO PLEASE IGNORE THE ANNOYING REPETITION 💔

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: The Only Way Is Up by Heidi Stephens

I love a good romance novel, particularly if there’s some kind of celebrity aspect. I think it might add to the escapism aspect of why I love rom-coms. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from this book but I was excited to find out!

Daisy Crawford has spent 25 years in TV and is delighted when she finally wins TV Presenter of the Year at the NTAs. However, as she makes her way up to the stage to collect her award, she trips and reveals much more than she ever wanted to on live TV. Then her boyfriend announces their engagement to the world without consulting her. To escape the shame, she retreats to a cottage in the Cotswolds that she used to own with her ex husband. Although it hasn’t got the glitz and glam of the city, at least Daisy is close to her teen daughter Ruby now. But it soon becomes apparent that someone in the village is selling stories about Daisy to the press, spreading rumours about her and hunky headmaster Tom.

I really enjoyed the reference to the TV Presenter of the Year award going to the same winner every year. It’s a running thing at the UK NTAs that Ant and Dec win it every year and I suppose it’s only a matter of time before someone else is finally deemed better than them. How awesome would it be if it were a woman who has put the work in over many years?

Daisy’s fiance Christian made my skin crawl. After Daisy ran away (notably without him), he kept showing up and I found myself shouting at him to just go away. I don’t know why the book tried to redeem him by claiming he had a sex addiction because he was clearly just your regular, run-of-the-mill, arrogant creep.

The fact that Daisy hates Tom on her first meeting with him was an instant clue that he would become a love interest. I loved seeing them together because it was a slow burn romance and yet the initial attraction was definitely there for both of them. I loved Tom and thought he’d be a good match for Daisy. I just wanted her to see Christian for what he was and clear the way for a romance with Tom to develop.

I really enjoyed the little Wagatha Christie inspired mystery towards the end. It was all very low stakes but it was a very clever element to throw into the book. I think it would have been great to have this thread start earlier in the book and have the slow reveal, so that I could have spent more time picking up clues, but it was a really fun, unexpected way for the book to come to a close.

The Only Way Is Up is a fun, romantic rom-com with some really lovely characters. I think I would have enjoyed more laugh-out-loud comedy rather than warm smiles but the romance was cute, the friendships were lovely and the conclusion was really satisfactory.

[rosewoodshortstories]

Jason Carver: An 80′s Homosexual

Head-canon that Jason Carver is actually a repressed gay man, who raised in a very strict, christian, wealthy, ‘perfect’ family, had absolutely no chance in acceptance of his homosexuality, by himself or those close to him. And so just like the rest of us, when met with outspoken, unapologetically himself, Eddie Munson finds himself attracted to the boy, quickly becoming frustrated with both his own thoughts and how Eddie can be himself and proud while Jason locks himself even deeper in the closet. Not only do we see Jason almost always picking on Eddie in particular, ignoring the rest of the ‘freaks’ of hellfire for the most part, we also see an odd almost out of character moment for him in the cafeteria scene when both him and Eddie, plus their dynamic,  are first introduced. 

After Eddie’s big speech Jason calls out to him calling him a freak and asking if he wants something, causing Eddie to Stick his fingers to the top of his head in mock devil horns and tongue out flicking around, some would say almost seductively. And no, Jason doesn’t immediately snap back with a comment or degrading name, he stops and stares at Eddie, not even mad at the fact, or maybe not noticing, that the rest of hellfire is staring at him amused and laughing at him. No, this boy stares at Eddie, presumably not breaking eye contact until finally Eddie lowers his hands, puts his tongue in his mouth and gives him a playful impish smile. Jason, I swear to you, if you slow down the video has a very noticeable blush, and quickly averts his eyes turning his head away and his posture just slightly falters, making himself a little smaller, If that makes sense. He mutters out a very quiet ‘prick’, which is seen throughout the show to not be like him, usually almost as outspoken as Eddie, especially in-front of his gremlins of basketball followers, bar Lucas of course (who I still love even though he joined the ‘dark side’ as Eddie put it.) Anyway, it is in my opinion as an avid fan that Jason would usually stand his ground longer in a confrontation such as this, yet basically retreats with his tail between his legs once Eddie’s undivided attention shifted to only him, whether it be to make fun of him or not. (Picture evidence on the bottom of post). On top of this, his relationship with Chrissy can be seen as a huge indicator of his sexual repression. For one, out of all the girls he could of chosen he, of course, went for the the ‘queen’ of Hawkins high, head cheerleader, and probably prom queen at some point. The ‘perfect’ girl and the ‘perfect’ relationship. Except, as we well know, it's not. When Eddie meets Chrissy in the woods, it is quite obvious to both him and the viewers that she is not okay, and quite frankly in terrible distress, enough so to seek out her boyfriends sworn enemy to buy drugs. While, we only really see Chrissy and Jason’s dynamic in the prep-rally scene, very very briefly, it can be noted that he just doesn’t take notice to her pain. Even-though they’re apparently in a ‘happy’  and ‘healthy’ high school relationship. This can be viewed as a man refusing to acknowledge his sexuality trying to prove not only to himself but those around him that he is ‘perfect’, ‘the best’, ‘a man’,and so he ‘deserves’ and is expected to have ‘the best’, the ‘perfect’ girl, i.e. Chrissy Cunningham. Either not being invested enough in the relationship to notice her pain, or simply ignoring it to keep up an appearance of perfection. Once Chrissy is found unfortunately dead at Eddie’s trailer it is like a huge slap to the face, on top of a knife to the heart, as while I do believe he never really loved Chrissy romantically, still cared for her in his own Jason Carver way. Not only was his ‘perfect’ girl taken from him, not being able to protect her further hurting his ego, but was suspected to be killed by none other than Eddie ‘the unfortunately for Jason, Attractive’ Munson, the boy who caused so much of his frustration to begin with. Now this is when he snaps, Chrissy is gone, Eddie is missing, and there are no definite answers. But to Jason there are. In his mind it was simple. He ‘loved’ Chrissy and it would only make sense for his frustrated, repressed, grieving mind to try to come up with a logical explanation for his pain. And so his mind spun the story as such, his ‘perfect’ girl gets killed by the very person he tried so very desperately to hate and ignore his feelings for, an odd and somewhat too coincidental occurrence seeing as Jason most likely never even heard Chrissy mention Eddie, let alone mention wanting to buy drugs off of him. The whole situation was sinful to him. As if God did this to punish him for being gay and having those thoughts about Eddie. As if God made Eddie kill Chrissy just to make him pay for not actually being the ‘perfect’ he so strived for. The fact that Eddie was rumored to be a ‘cult leader’, ‘satanist’, and leader of Hellfire, last one not a rumor but still, didn’t help with Jason’s train of thought. It all made sense to him, and he shared this story with the entire town. Immediately calling the killings ritual scarifies, exclaiming how ‘satanic cults’ were spreading along the county ‘like a disease’. Sound familiar? Because to me it is reminiscent of how people would talk about homosexuality at that time. And IMMEDIATELY after mentioning this ‘disease’ brings Eddie’s name into the conversation. Claiming he is the leader of  a satanic cult right in Hawkins. Following his description of the ‘hellfire cult’ and Erica’s short exclamation of it just being a club for nerds, which as she said is just the facts, he goes to quote the Bible saying he was feeling a deep ‘hopelessness’, stopping to find the right word first Quoting: ‘do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’ going on that ‘God knows there is ‘good’ in this town, there is ‘good’ in this room. Which to me sounds an awful like him saying there is ‘normal’ people in the town and ‘normal’ people in the town hall meeting currently, himself included. Meaning homosexuals and anything other than the cookie cutter standard is ‘bad’. Which is highlighted further in the scene wear Eddie speaks with Robin about how those cookie cutter ‘normal’ people  ‘hunt the freak’. Jason, trying again desperately to sell himself as a ‘God fearing good ol’ Christian’ boy who is going to ‘save them’ form the ‘satanist’ that is ‘responsible’ for not only Chrissy and the recent killings, but according to him every single bad thing to happen in the ’cursed’ town over the past however many years. Really stretching it. From there on Jason is just trying pretty much to kill Eddie, hoping to ‘kill’ his feelings as well. trying to prove to himself, to God, and to everyone in town that he is ‘good’, ‘normal’, ‘perfect’, and definitely not a gay man crushing on the suspected ‘cult leader’ metalhead. All in all Jason Carver, in my opinion, is just a confused, repressed, while still assholeish, gay man with a crush on Eddie Munson, trying until the very end of his life to prove his thoughts and feelings wrong, ultimately leading to his demise. 

I like to think that maybe him and Eddie are up in Heaven  finally talking like civilized adults about themselves and how they feel, Jason opening up about his feelings, not like it matters now that he’s dead, and Eddie explaining himself and his style better to Jason, and maybe expressing how his constant torture of the metalhead actually had a negative effect on him even if he never let it show. Both finally just getting along, still with snarky banter, but more friendly and teasing now. But hey that’s just wishful thinking, plus my love for enemies to lovers, and my yearning for redemption arcs for characters I hate definitely influencing my thought process on this. 

Again this is just my interpretation of the show and characters included. Most of this evidence is circumstantial at best I just really like to think there's more to Jason than him just being a blonde meathead. Lazy character writing just doesn’t seem to be a thing for the Duffer Brothers, and so it makes you wonder what the subtext is telling us. I mean look at Eddie himself, the man has no more than twenty minutes of screen time his entire existence, and yet he quickly became a fan favorite, and for great reason. His character is detailed and unique and absolutely lovable. Again all fitting into only twenty minutes of screen time. For a character they just made for season four and killed off just as quickly they still made his character have depth and meaning. And that can be said for all the minor characters, Erica, Alexie, Murray, Barb, Bob, Season one Steve, before her became a main character, and even sweet sweet Chrissy who we get all about three scenes of, one being her death. And yet, Jason Carver, when looked at on the surface level, is shallow and underdeveloped. I just can’t think that a character who drives the plot of the season so much would be written so lazily by the Duffer’s who are known for their attention to detail. Perhaps, it was a purposeful shallowness to make the audience hate him and love Eddie all the more, but even that feels a bit lazy and unoriginal. But I have faith in the writers and doubt the Duffer Brothers would ever play us that dirty.

So to conclude; Jason Carver is the stereotypical repressed 80′s homosexual with a huge crush on our beloved Eddie ‘The Hero’ Munson.

Picture Evidence: 

S4 E1 Eddie’The Hero’Munson and Jason‘The Meathead’Carver

[bvnga-aprikot]

types of books i think wmmap characters would read

this is my personal interpretation so if i got anything wrong feel free to address them. without further ado!

Athanasia

I think we all agree that Athy's a big fan of Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, I'm pretty sure it's been referenced in the novel but i'm sure I probably missed it. But in general I think she'd love fantasy stories, specifically those with an escapist and whimsical feel to it, added with an air of mystery or even some politics mixed in. Athy also likes stories sprinkled in with a bit of romance as well.

Fun fact, I actually found out through some of my mutuals that apparently, Athy wrote some raunchy adult novels at some point? I don't know the legitimacy of this information but i've seen it being thrown around here on Tumblr, so do with that information as you will.

Continuing on, I think a book series I could see her probably liking is La Passe-miroir by Christille Dabos. It's a French book series following a a girl named Ophelia who can read and communicate with the souls of objects, and has the power to travel through mirrors. I'll leave it at that for now but so far I think it's very interesting. The thing I could see Athy not liking about it though is probably the love interest, idk I think she'll make fun of him every time he shows up.

Jennette

Now, I think it's safe to assume that Jennette would love stories involving some sort of found family or stories that follows a group of friends doing what friends do. Like Athanasia I could see her being in love with fantasy, maybe as a way to endorse herself while being cooped up in the Alpheus' mansion.

Okay don't get me wrong, I love making fun of christians as much as others, but i can see Jenny liking the Chronicles of Narnia. I can see her looking up to characters like Susan and Lucy at a young age because she'd see them as role models for being queen. Also it has a lot of family elements.

Personal Opinion, I think Jennette has a big disinterest for most YA stories. Not that she'd hate them, I just think she's less interested with it and doesn't pay attention to them at all. If she weren't so... naive or easily sensitive to most things, I'd think she'd enjoy Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Her favorite will hands down be Wylan as I can see her relating to him on a personal level.

Ezekiel

This one is a bit hard, as I see him as a person who's open to reading all kinds of books. You know, for knowledge and experience. I can see him enjoy reading autobiographies or memoirs about peoples lives since i think he'd be interested in how people reflect on their lives and the events that they experienced.

If we're talking about fictional, then that's a tough one. I think he'd typically read a lot of classical or older literature, such as books written by Jane Austen or Agatha Christie, but if i were to add more to this, maybe gothic literature as well. Idk but something about it just exudes something Kiel would be interested in to me. (if you think otherwise, leave your response below, i'd like to see what you think)

Lucas

Lucas doesn't read. He just listens to Athy reading her favorite books and decide if they're interesting or not.

I'M KIDDING, I'M KIDDING! To be precise I think he'd enjoy gothic literature, specifically the horror kinds. He's just one pretentious bitch and I love that. Honestly if he and Kiel didn't have a rivalry, they could bond over their interests in gothic literature...

[persepholline]

I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

[xpeachesncream]

please could you make taehyung jealous for the next perfectly wrong drabbles? 👉👈

perfectly wrong | drabble [3]: if it’s one thing taehyung truly has a love-hate relationship with, it’s the fact that you have such a sweet, kind and warm demeanor towards everything and everyone.

word count: 1.8k

warnings: pretty fluffy, implied sexual content, cussing, tae is petty but also pouty

notes: feel free to send requests like this to my inbox and i will get to them! it may not be right away but i promise i’ll take a look. it can be for anyone in the perfectly wrong series. same thing goes for off the grid. however, please note that there are certain things i won’t write about - extreme mental/physical/verbal abuse (we’re all about fun, lighthearted pettiness here and nothing serious), threesomes, orgies, any extreme, intense smut because i’m still not used to writing smut like that. basically anything that you might be uncomfortable with or wouldn’t do in real life, i most likely will feel uncomfortable too and will not write about it! pls keep that in mind, thank you! love you all tons! 💗

Taehyung will not hesitate to let people know that he's your man and your man only. You thought he might have learned from the entire Jungkook situation, in which in a sense he has; he no longer acts weird about how close you and Jungkook are, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get jealous outside of that bubble.

He was the campus fuckboy, after all. He knows the capabilities of the boys here. He knows the intentions of the majority. He's familiar with the stupid little games boys play. If anything, he helped play a role in the stupidity of many boys on campus. He was a champion, the walking fuckboy 101 bible - they wanted to be Taehyung and they did everything to follow his ways.

So, when he's ordering coffee and sees a guy trying to lay his sweetness on you, getting all googly-eyed and licking his lips like you're his last meal on Earth, he doesn't like it one bit because he knows that look. He's been there before, especially with you. It doesn't help that you're super approachable, welcoming anything and anyone into your arms like you're some kind of saint.

The anonymous dude [Taehyung can't tell from afar] apparently cracks a joke, because you're entertaining it and playfully shoving him aside. You're beaming from ear to ear, tears almost streaming down from whatever joke he's telling you.

You hadn't laughed like that with him in awhile, nor has he seen you smile so big like that. Obviously, it's the jealousy talking. You loved Taehyung more than anything, and he was the only one who could make you feel the way that you do.

"The fuck?" He mumbles to himself.

"Here's your coffee, Tae." The barista says softly behind the counter, her gaze going between him and the scene. He can't keep his eyes off of this interaction, praying to the heavenly being above that the boy will get the hint and leave before Taehyung can get there. But he doesn't. He continues to crack jokes or whatever the hell he's doing to make you laugh the way that you're laughing. You rest your chin on your palm as you look at the dude in front of you, head tilted, looking all cute and shit and you don't even know it. Tae's eyes widen when he sees you place a hand on his shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze.

"T-thanks, could you actually just toss it in a to go cup, please? I think we're gonna head out instead." He dug his hands in his pockets as he keeps watch, the barista silently doing as asked. Taehyung quickly grabs the coffee and heads out to where you're seated, the dude still all up on his woman like he had been waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on her ass all day.

"Wow, are you serious? Christian that's hilarious, I'm sorry. Maybe you should have gone for that installment instead. Either way, I think it'll look amazing. It'll look so good when you finish it." He hears you reassuring ol' dude. You look up to see Taehyung slowly approaching, his forehead furrowed like some kind of angry, old man waiting for kids to get off of his porch. Curls all defined and fluffy, he didn't look intimidating to you one bit - but Christian squirms in his seat, finally catching the hint that Taehyung was not happy about him sitting that close to you with his arm brushing up against yours. Taehyung's eyes were piercing right through him, colored lenses intensifying the look.

"S-sorry, I was about to—"

"No, please stay. Let's all gather around and talk about each other's day." Taehyung sarcastically scrunches his nose and does a shimmy to show that he's actually not fucking playing right now and Christian better know what's good for him.

"I was just asking her for some advice on art class." He stands to nervously dust himself off. Now, if it's one thing you know too well, it's how petty Taehyung gets when he's jealous. You quietly sit there, a little hot and bothered with how Taehyung is acting, but you also want to laugh at how people really find Taehyung so intimidating. If you all only knew how much of a baby bear he was behind closed doors.

"Cute. You do know the fucking art room is two steps behind you, right? You know, where the professor usually is at." He steps forward, jaw slightly clenching.

"Look man, I really didn't mean any harm." Taehyung nods. "I was just about to leave."

"Don't forget to pick up your googly eyes from the floor." Taehyung shoots him a finger gun and clicks his teeth. "Wouldn't wanna misplace those for the next time you try and use them on my girlfriend again." Christian leaves without saying anything else, causing you to snort.

"What was that about?" You chuckle.

"Let's go." He sternly says, handing you the cup of coffee.

"I thought we were gonna sit and drink this here?"

"Or we can just sit and drink this at home." You hurriedly get up to follow him as he starts walking towards the car.

"Are you really that upset?"

"Are you really that upset?" He mocks your tone as he continues to walk to the car.

"Real mature, Kim Taehyung." He looks over his shoulder to glance at you with those eyes before looking back at the car. He silently opens the door for you, avoiding all contact. You silently giggle to yourself because even though he could get annoyingly petty like this, he still found ways to be a gentleman and cater to you. You watch as he plops into the driver's seat, sipping his coffee as he stares out at the campus. "Tae, what are we doing?"

"You wanted to sit and drink this here, right?"

"You're annoying." You roll your eyes and sit back. Was he really doing this right now? Taking your ass to the car to enjoy your coffee, away from people?

"Says the one who was all it'll look so good when you finish it. Ouuuu, either way it'll look amazing." He mocks your tone. "If anything, you're the annoying one, acting all cute when you know these dudes have it out for you. Since when do you shower people with compliments like that? I thought I was the only one."

"No, they don't, Christian is just a good friend from class and I was just trying to help give him some solid advice."

"Oh, so he's a good friend now?" He raises his eyebrow. "Jungkookie is a good friend. Hoseok is a good friend. Yoongi is a good friend." He counts on his hand, showing you the three fingers he has up. "Where's Christian at? I don't see him on that list. Christian is not a good friend." He puts his hand out as if he's waiting for your response. "Wooooow, it's quiet, no back talk, ey?" You put his hand down. Did I tell you he was also a comedian at best?

"Babe, stop." You pout, but he shakes his head. "Why are you acting so jealous right now?"

"Cause! The way you were all smiley and laughing with him. Praising him. Playfully pushing him and shit. You barely do that with me."

"You have got to be kidding. I've done that with you time and time again, I barely spend time with anyone else but you. You always make me laugh and you always make me smile, much more than anyone else."

"A-and you were like squeezing his shoulder so sweetly. You had this soft touch when it came to him even though he was looking at you like he was thinking some foul shit. You just— You just give it so easily."

"Baby." You chuckle. "Okay, that's just way too far."

"I know it all too well. I know a boy's brain like the back of my hand. So yeah, we're enjoying this coffee in here whether you like it or not." He furrows his eyebrows. You give him a moment to calm down before you reach over and caress his cheek. He welcomes your touch and you can instantly feel him relaxing as you continue to touch him gently.

"You're too cute."

"No." He pouts.

"Taehyung, you know I love you. And you know you're the only one who can make me feel all sorts of ways - one being happy and incredibly giddy from your lame jokes."

"They're not lame."

"They're lame." You joke as you scrunch your nose. "But that's what makes them unique to you. I wouldn't have it any other way. And on top of that, you know I can never stop smiling around you no matter the circumstance. Like now." You smile at him because honestly, he was being too fucking cute and you wanted nothing but to cuddle him at home. He had such a jealous side to him that little things ticked him off, but you knew he cared and just wanted you to himself. You couldn't help but feel the same, hence the girl at the mall being all flirty with him.

"Honestly, you're gonna be the death of me." He looks at you, his cheek falling deeper into your touch while you giggle. "Seriously, it's not funny. You had me experiencing heart palpitations when you touched him like that, it's not a joke."

"Relax." You chuckle. "You're dramatic."

"You wanna talk dramatic?" He looks at you. "She got all flirty with you when she walked off and you didn't even say anything!"

"Okay, I get it!"

"Mhm." He wiggles an eyebrow. He begins to start the car and pull off, the ride pretty silent. You knew he just needed a moment to get over himself, so as soon as you step into your apartment, you put your things aside and throw your arms around him.

"Babe." You plant kisses all over his face.

"Mmm, no—" He says in between kisses. "You— don't— get to do that—- and expect to— win me over— just like that."

"Uh huh. Yet, you're still kissing back." You say, pushing him towards your room. All you had planned was just to cradle your big baby and cuddle him until he felt better. You've learned that's how Taehyung gets over most things. Truly.

"Y/N, I'm not joking." He lays on his side after tossing his keys and phone on your night stand. He throws his hood over his head, while you throw yourself onto him, being the bigger spoon.

"Hey." You forcefully turn him around to make him face you. He does nothing look at you, allowing you to place a soft, passionate kiss on his plump lips. He gives into it, deepening it while tugging you closer to him. "You know I only have eyes for this handsome guy right here, right?" You boop the mole on his nose.

"Good, cause I want you all to myself. Stop being such a fucking saint. Be mean for once. I know you can do it, since you always catch an attitude with me." You laugh.

"Whatever, Taehyung. If that makes you feel better."

"Good." He smirks. "Come here. I'm trying to show you that you're mine and only mine." He wraps his arms around you and snuggles tightly against your body until you hear him softly snoring into your chest.

[maliciouslycreative]

How I played damage control to an anti in a small anime fandom and may have led to her ultimate downfall

I know I had a really nice write up of this at one point but oh well. I’ll spill more of the tea in this one because honestly the tea was so hot.

There are a few things that I have to give context to first. Gaia online was like THE mega forum of the 2000s, you made a little avatar and through posting and doing other activities on the forum you made money to buy clothes for your avatar. There were forums for everything but the fannish portions were really what drew in most of the people. The anime I was into was Beyblade. It was a shonen anime about fighting with tops that were possessed by the spirits of magical creatures. The story was honestly pretty average but the characters were fantastic and the fandom is to this day still one of my favourites. The series had a primarily male cast and didn’t even have a female lead until the second season. This led to the fanfic for the English fandom being about 70% canon/OC, 10 % canon m/f, and 20% slash. The most popular character in the English fandom was by far Kai Hiwatari, the loner badboy of the team.

Also before we get started I would like to add that one of my best friends was neck deep in this and the two of us were more or less fandom married. This is the same friend that I fake dated, had feelings for, and she nearly got me into kpop in 2011 so like if you haven’t read that story please read it too because it will give you a good idea of how stupid I am and how much of a fanfic I have truly lived. 

To set the stage I was 16, soon to be 17 when I joined the fandom and it was 2004. In September of that year I wrote a humour longfic that became an absolute smash hit and I found myself somehow fandom famous. It was around this time that I joined Gaia online. I made my little avatar and immediately went looking for the beyblade thread so that I could make new friends. I found the main thread, made my little introduction and at the end of it mentioned that I was a slash writer but I supported all ships. This is where I met C. She had declared herself the authority on Beyblade in these parts and I had just committed the crime of mentioning slash which was very obviously not canon and we did not discuss in this thread because we only discussed canon things. I was like well that’s a bit severe but like sure whatever I just want to hang out and have fun. 

Oh boy did I have no idea what I was in for. 

C was a year older than me and unfortunately that made her older than the majority of the fans at the time. Her favourite character was Kai, and she was not shy about talking about this fact. She stanned Kai above all other characters, and often at their expense. She was also a fanfic writer of a popular canon/OC series. Actually, she was so full of herself that she didn’t even call herself a fanfic writer, no her stories were in fact novels and were apparently very good. I never read them. But more on that later. 

Eventually the slash fans got tired of her being rude to us in the general thread so we made a Beyblade slash thread. There was a core of like 8 or so of us and we honestly had sooo much fun. When C would be too unbearable in the main thread the people from there used to come over to our thread and we’d chat with them about non slash stuff because we were honestly all multishippers and just wanted to have fun. We’d get comments like “wow, I’ve had more pleasant canon het ship discussions in the slash thread than the regular thread”. We never worried about C coming over and getting upset about comments like this because she refused to be associated with anything related with slash lmao. 

I tried my best to keep the peace between C, myself, and the rest of the fandom because ultimately I hate being in fandom drama. I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m a people pleaser. Unfortunately my newfound fame put me in the awkward position of being the most fandom popular person in our small community aside from C. Virtually every fan that read fanfics that came into our thread knew one of us or the other by reputation and C HATED this. Especially because people would come in to the thread, recognise me and go “oh my goodness I love your fanfics!” and I’d be super sweet with them and it’d lead into “I can’t believe how nice you are, I love you” which would lead to us crying at each other. This was not the kind of fan interaction that C got, no her fans were more kind that were there to praise her and worship her like a deity that had blessed them with some gift. Rarely did they tell her how kind she was. 

Back in the mid 2000s there were really commonly those commercials (usually by Christian organisations) asking people to sponsor say children in Africa or to help build schools or provide drinking water. You all probably know the ones; know the language that they used in those commercials. My fandom wife, who I suppose I shall call wifey because yes we were THAT couple back then, once said that C described her fics like those people described donating money to save the lives of Children in Africa. So we used to joke that her fics were so good they’d save lives in Africa. Looking back at it all, she almost had a very fundamentalist Christian approach to bringing people into her fanfics. She of course tried to get all the slash people into reading it. None of us read canon/oc fic mostly due to our poor treatment at the hands of their fans and creators. Getting fed up I one day told her that if she would read any one of my fanfics that I would read the entirety of her novels. Yes, I was willing to commit to read a couple 100k of canon/oc fanfic that I’d never touch normally if she would even read one of my 1k 1 shots. Heck, I had a fic even that shipped 2 minor characters so she didn’t even have to sully herself reading about one of the main characters. It was honestly a good deal in her favour. I kept this up until the day we all left the fandom. Sometimes I do wonder if her fics were even ¼ as good as she claimed, but I will never know because she refused to read my fics. 

She wasn’t all bad and a tyrant all the time. As long as people kept the conversations on track and didn’t come in to the thread saying things like “KAI IS SO HOT ND T3H BEST N I AM GUN 2 MARRY HIM” she stayed mostly civil. It was always hilarious watching InuYahsa or Naruto fans try to come in and bad mouth Beyblade because they’d unleash the dragon and C was great at chasing off undesirables in the thread. 

The real apex of goings on though on Gaia was the guild drama. So guilds were like exclusive themed mini forums within Gaia. Anyone could buy one and run it however they want, as long as it still adhered to Gaia’s ToS. C of course was the owner of the only Beyblade guild. The fandom wasn’t really big enough to support 2 guilds so we just kind of let it go. Technically she allowed people to post slash fanfics but like everything had to be explicitly tagged and there was absolutely no slash RP. Wifey and I controlled a handful of minor characters together in the forum RP and definitely used to try to push the boundaries a little bit. Some ambiguous flirting here, a stray comment there. It was such a fragile balance though because C was heavy on the ban button. The active portion of the guild was just people that were in the cult of C and worshipped her writing. 

Understandably the other slash fans and myself were getting disheartened by this. So we pooled our funds together and decided that we’d open a second guild that though it was run by slash fans we would welcome anyone into our ranks. We just wanted to have a fun place for everyone to hang out, and to hopefully run a few events out of. In hindsight, we should have seen what would happen. When we opened the guild, with me as the guild leader, it was like somebody blew up the whole dam protecting the delicate ecosystem we had cultivated. Every single person in the Gaia fandom that was not a zealous follower of C applied to be in our guild and left her guild. We of course figured that we’d attract some of the gen population but we did not expect to accidentally poach all of it. All of the moderators were getting messages from people thanking us for giving them a place where they could say whatever they wanted without fear of getting their faces ripped off or banned. 

C lost her shit. She was so mad that we went behind her back to ruin her guild. We literally had to show her posts in the very public slash thread that we had been planning this in public and that it was not to ruin her life. We just wanted a place where we could freely post slash. The two of us had some spicy comments back and forth and then she dropped an absolute bombshell on me. Since Gaia’s mail system is terrible I unfortunately no longer have exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of “Ok, you win. I’m going to close my guild.”. Us slash fans had never been doing this to win anything. We had never been competing. We just wanted a safe space to be ourselves. 

C never joined our guild. The fandom slowly faded out within the next year anyway. We weren’t getting new content so naturally people just drifted into other fandoms. C kept up with the main Beyblade thread for a lot longer than most of us but eventually that eventually faded into obscurity too. 

I learned a lot about fandom bullies from those days. But honestly the thing that stuck with me the most out of everything was that if you provide a positive safe space for people they will flock to it. It may seem like there are so many hostile people out there, but there really aren't. They're the minority but they just make sure that their voice is the loudest. The best way is to ignore them and just do your own thing. The bullies just want attention and if you don’t give it to them and prove to them that their opinion doesn’t matter to you then they’ll move in and find something else to yell at. 

[heavenaintaniceplace]

so i found my mother’s copy of the jw (new world translation) bible and i decided to yoink that shit for disposal but not before i realized there is a lot of lines highlighted in the book from when she was being manipulated by the jw lady that convinced her to do “bible study” for years. and what do you know if the lines the lady had my mother highlight weren’t the same lines that jws use to justify their cult beliefs! all the lines are cherry picked, no actual study, just the lady manipulating and priming her to accept their beliefs by presenting so called “biblical proof.” so here is some of the things that stand out before i finally rip this thing to shreds and through it away.

literally the whole book replaces every instance of the tetagrammaton with “jehovah” because they want people to believe its been “removed from the bible thousands of times because they don’t want you to know the true name of god”. the whole thing is translated with an agenda to make them look right and everyone else wrong and to make people believe they have some secret hidden knowledge (they don’t they’re liars). putting this under a read more because its very long.

heavy TW for everything related ro religious trauma, the jehovah’s witnesses, bible passages and christianity. incredibly long post. i plan on burning the jehovah’s witness copy of the bible, no joke.

the imago dei part of genesis to try and convince her that humans were super special to god

genesis chapter 3, the serpent convincing eve to eat the fruit of knowledge so that she would accept their version of the original sin doctrine and that women are cursed

chapter where cain kills abel to convince her that this was the first murder in human history (obviously incorrect)

highlighted the part where god kills everything on earth with a flood to groom her into expecting god to do it again later and seen as fair and just and part where god “gives” noah every living creature (because fuck other organisms apparently)

part of leviticus where (in their version) theyre like “no soul must eat blood” (what the fuck) to justify not allowing life saving blood transfusions

deuteronomy part about “jehovah being one” to justify being non trinitarian (they don’t believe jesus is god or that the holy spirit is god, this is meant to lure people who are already christians away from their denoms and into theirs)

“thou shall not kill” is highlighted for some reason and i don’t know why

highlighted job 1:12 to emphasize that they believe satan is in control of the world because god allows it and job 26:7 that has a note saying “the earth hangs there” when talking about sheol to convince her of where earth is relative to “heaven” and using a bunch of “face of the waters” creationist language to make it vague as possible. job 27:5 to make her believe that “no one is righteous” and that saying so is sinful

part in psalms that assures that “wicked people will be no more if you just wait a little while longer” (this is the apocalypse imminent narrative they use to groom people with fear of dying or leaving but also to get them warmed up to the idea of mass death). “the righteous will inherit the earth and live forever” narrative so they believe that jws will live on earth forever after being resurrected while everyone else (whos not a jw) is killed by god

psalms 91 to drive home the fact that these people think theyre invincible in every meaning of the word, to natural disasters and disease etc

proverbs 6 part about “false witnesses”. jws believe that three jehovah’s witnesses have to be present to verify that a crime (like domestic or sexual abuse) actually happened or the governing body and elders don’t care. literally. the “false witness” narrative is used against survivors and people they want to silence in their organization and emphasizes how much jehovah hates “false witnesses” aka people brave enough to talk and victims

proverbs 12:18 about “wise and unwise tongues”, basically anyone that speaks out against the jws are “unwise” and harmful

proverbs 22 about raising children (”train up a child”, if you don’t know it already this is a child abuser dog whistle) that implies that indoctrination will last until adulthood if done right. this is especially bad because this copy is from the early 2000s when i was in kindergarten. this woman had been lurking on us since i was an infant.

proverbs 27 about how neighbors near is better than brothers far away. the implication here is that fundamentally family who aren’t jws don’t matter

ecclesiates 5. i genuinely think its warning people to not ask too much of god or risk his anger, thats the vibe im getting here because the wording is confusing as fuck

isiah 40:22 trying to hammer in the notion that god is greater than anything especially “worldly” governments (except the governing body ofc /s). isiah 43:10 the “you are my witnesses” to justify the name “jehovah’s witnesses” and shoehorn the idea in

daniel 2:40, the idea of an indescribable kingdom, the whole kingdoms in the “last days” conspiracy they use to convince people the “last days” are coming

matthew 4:8 where jesus is persuaded by satan by offering every kingdom on earth. the point in text is “don’t worship anyone except god” but the point of the jws is that nothing on earth actually matters

matthew 6:9 (nice), the our father, meant to make the reader to ask god to hasten the kingdom of god or as we ex-jws know hasten the apocalypse and the death of people they dont like

matthew 16:24, meant to convince people to leave everything behind and join the jws, “disown yourself” aka “die to yourself” toxic bullshit repackaged

matthew 19:9, to convince people that divorce even in instances of domestic abuse is wrong because the governing body won’t allow it and loves to control women

matthew 24:4-14, “anyone who doesnt speak for the jws is a false prophet” and warms people up to the notion that war is necessary; also that evidence of war is a sign of the “last days” and that this is supposed to be good news. ongoing war and the hope for global genocide is “good news” to them.

matthew 24:21. this one is meant to make people feel the apocalypse could happen at any time and to be afraid of it, a great war is coming and only the “chosen ones” (jehovah’s witnesses) will survive when everyone else dies. there’s a paper bookmark on this page. makes me wonder.

mark 8:34. the “die to yourself” bullshit, the idea that the cross was a “torture stake” because jws believe that wearing crosses is idolatry and they want other people to believe their quirky beliefs so they accept heavier things

matthew 10:28, “anyone who follows jehovah and jesus will literally live forever!” but also that “no one is prepared to leave their family for jesus and thats shameful because you should want to sacrifice your entire family!”

mark 11:24 “anything you pray for earnestly you get”. this is spiritual bypassing btw. and :25 “ask for forgiveness and be automatically forgiven no matter what you did” is also fucked

matthew 15-23: jesus (almost) gets wasted while being crucified etc, not sure why this one is highlighted unless im missing some jw bullshit here

luke 20:27. don’t understand this one but they’re threatening “heavier judgement” on people

john 5:28, promising resurrection through jesus after people die but only for the Good tm people (the jws)

john 6:15. how jesus is about to be arrested but goes to a mountain. dunno why this on is underlined

john 11:24. bringing home the same “jesus will save you from dying if youre a jw” bullshit. john 14:6 “jesus is the ONLY way ever! there can’t be anything else except jesus” indoctrination tailored to make you co-dependent. john 17:3, hook line and sinker of promising resurrection and “eternal life” again

john 17:15. here is the “we aren’t of the World tm” shit meant to make you feel outcast from everyone else who isnt a jw, setting up “the world” (everyone else) as other

acts 15:25. “follow the jw rules because the holy spirit you to”

romans 10:10, spread jw beliefs and witness as much as possible. romans 12:9 “hate everything jehovah hates so you’re not a hypocrite” basically means hate other people the jws don’t approve of

corinthians 6:9 (nice but not so nice this time) “anyone we don’t like won’t inherit the earth” translation: anyone we don’t like won’t survive the apocalypse thats definitely happening soon so always be afraid. “homosexuals” are changed to “men kept for unnatural purposes for this one.” still homophobic.

corinthians 7:6, the idea that everyone has a gift that needs to be exploited and used by the jws

corinthians 15:33. “don’t participate in any activities with any outsiders because it will lead you away from jehovah!! fun is ‘drunkenness’, you’ll loose your resurrection if you do!! non jw people are bad influences!!”

2 corinthians 7:1. your body and flesh is defiled, you need to be cleansed in order to be good

galatians 5:20. “having human emotions is sinful! struggling is sinful! being angry is sinful! having a bad day is sinful!” basically that being human is inherently wrong or something

ephesians  3:14. tries to make people believe everything is owed to god only and that obedience is good so they fall for cult power structures later. 4:28 here is just the top of the page being labeled “new personality” and thats all we need to know about indoctrination and cult personality vs actual personality. also “let not the sun set with you in a provoked state” being used against people still angry about being wronged and hurt by others and its been used against me a lot of times

ephesians 6:4. make sure the jw fathers provide the most discipline to children, literally uses the phrase “mental regulating of jehovah”. it couldn’t be more cult like at this point.

timothy 5:8 makes people believe that men alone are expected to provide and if they don’t they’re worse than “those without faith”. no pressure though!

timothy 6:19. wants people to neglect everything actually happening in favor of the “real life” (”eternal life”) instead and to constantly prepare for that instead of actually living life. dedicate your whole life to jw activities

titus 2. women need to be subjects to their husbands but also homemakers, live to glorify their husband, chaste and definitely not mentally ill or showing any symptoms. what the fuck is titus i never heard of this shit until today.

hebrews 1:7-14, trying to convince people that angels live to serve god but also has some superseccsionist/replacement theology (antisemitism) vibes going on

james 2:23, wants people to believe that god “putting people to the test” is actually a way to become “jehovah’s friend” and that being put to the test (read: suffering) is actually a good thing because it primes them to accept suffering as their fault later on. james 4:7 “everything evil will vanish if you rebuke it long enough!!”

peter 3:9 the “god’s timing is always right” gospel bs and encourages people not to do things themselves but to wait and also that jehovah will be on time when its time to start another global genocide. how encouraging! peter 3:13, the same “end of world near” scare tactic, “new heavens new earth” promise to eradicate everyone the jws dont like as that is jehvoah’s “promise” to the witnesses

1 john 3:8, their version of the original sin doctrine, the devil is the source of all evil scare tactic etc

short detour: every instance of “servant” is replaced with “slave” in this version. it makes me feel ill.

revelations 7:16, wants people to believe that god will take away all their pain and that they won’t need food or water to survive anymore (bullshit). also the jehovah’s witness 144,000 chosen people bullshit is here too but not highlighted

revelations 12:7-13, a depiction fo michael drop kicking satan and the implication that satan has always been in charge and not god because they want people to believe that. also that the devil will fall to earth and try to eat jws

revalations 14-4: virgins get dibs on heaven and god i guess. i dont know what the fuck is going on. 14:6 an angel yelling fear god from above, probably where the jws get most of their apocalyptic imagery from that they use to scare children into believing they could die at any minute

so now that we finally got to the end of that mess, their version of revalations ends with jesus saying “yes, i am coming quickly” and “may the undeserved kindness of jesus christ be with the holy ones.”

joking aside, everything highlighted in this copy of this book has been used against me and my mother for years and is a huge part of the reason i have religious trauma now. everything she was told or encouraged to highlight aided jehovah’s witness indoctrination and propaganda, her own indoctrination and eventually mine which apparently started even earlier than i thought.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 06 (first part)

(Masterpost)(Episode 05)

Warning: This contains spoilers for All 50 Episodes

Bad Boys Bad Boys What You Gonna Do

Nie Huasang’s brought his nuts, and someone’s brought wine, so the boys are drinking in Wei Wuxian’s guest house. Finally he gets to drink some of the Emperor’s Smile wine that he’s been doing all those product placements for.

Boys, get a bowl or something for your shells, were you raised in a barn?

Wei Wuxian hits on waxes poetic about the wine, and Jiang Cheng tells him to shut up. 

Wang Zhuocheng’s raw-fish-eating face may have failed him, but his drunk faces do not disappoint.

Wei Wuxian teases Jiang Cheng about his list of standards for a chick: She should have natural beauty, be virtuous and caring, from a good family, not too talkative, with a gentle voice, and not too capable. Also she should not spend too much money. Drunken running ensues.

Cue Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin

(more behind the cut)

Much of the fandom has decided this list is a good fit for Nie Huaisang himself, and it sorta is. But he is both talkative and unvirtuous, what with all the current sneakiness, and all the eventual murders. 

This also definitely doesn't fit Wen Qing because she's capable as hell.  

This list is, however, a 100% a match for Jiang Yanli. Not in a weird, Jin Guangyao way--a lot of men want to marry a woman like their sister.  In a gender-divided and generation-divided society, a man’s sister might be the only woman he’s ever known well. Jiang Cheng adores Yanli and she’s his ideal model of a woman, as opposed to his mother, who...isnt.  

All these robes and talismans over the door do nothing to stop Lan Wangji from strolling in.  

Okay so - Lan Wangji is the senior disciple of the Lan Clan, yea? There is no way that patrolling the guest area is in any way his job. He is just walking around here at night specifically to see what Wei Wuxian is doing.

I already did a gifpost of the boys and their totally nonsexual horseplay, over here. I’ll just add, for sad factor, that Jiang Cheng is play-choking Wei Wuxian when they’re all on the bed, and later in the running-and-crying episode he is gonna for-real choke him. Foreshadowing! or maybe just coincidence!

One fun thread running through the young-cultivators episodes is that Nie Huaisang is legit terrified of Lan Wangji while also having a major aesthetic crush on him. Look at how flustered he is here, trying to act sober while also checking him out. 

Lan Wangji is shocked and visibly upset - what are you guys doing? This is not his busting face, this is, for a moment, his vulnerable and disillusioned face. He is super not used to what normal people are like. 

Wei Wuxian doesn't lie or otherwise try to get off the hook, which has got to have Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang grinding their teeth in frustration. He invites Lan Wangji to join them for a drink. LWJ cites a the “no drinking on campus” rule and WWX tries to convince him to chill. 

Then we have this lovely coordinated faint by the boys, to get out of going to get punished. Nie Huaisang has been practicing fainting in front of a mirror just in case he ever needs a skill like that in the future. 

Wei Wuxian keeps trying to turn this into a date. Eventually Lan Wangji is so upset he admits he can’t take all three of them by himself. 

Then the boys run away fake-barfing and Wei Wuxian hits Lan Wangji with a talisman. 

Steal His Agency That’s What You’re Gonna Do

What Wei Wuxian does to Lan Wanji here is definitely wrong. But it's not entirely a disaster.  It allows some crucial information to be shared between them, and it results in Wei Wuxian getting the utter shit beat out of him and never doing this again. I mean, he continues to mind-control his enemies and their eventual corpses, but he doesn't intentionally violate a friend or ally's autonomy in the future. Uhh not counting that whole golden core surgery-without-consent situation. And probably some other situations I’ve forgotten. He improves slightly, okay? 

It’s important to note, incidentally, that the Lan rules about drinking and other “vices” should not be viewed through a Christian lens. The Lans are neither puritans nor ascetics (look at their clothes, furniture, and jewelry, for starters). Being drunk is forbidden probably because it’s a loss of self-control. 

Speaking of self-control, mad props to Wang Yibo for being able to have zero physical reaction to fingers snapping in his face.

Drunk Lan Wangji

Under duress, Lan Wangji knocks back a cup of wine and promptly passes most of the way out. 

Wei Wuxian puts Lan Wangji into bed not unkindly, but pretty much like a sack of potatoes. Compare this to how tenderly he handles Lan Wangji the next time he’s drunk. 

WWX tells LWJ to call him Wei Gege, and giggles. Is this a term of endearment in this context? So far the various boys are calling each other -xiong, not -ge or gege.  In Western media, men calling each other “bro” is basically saying “no homo,” but brotherhood and sisterhood in C-Drama is often a way of indicating stronger love than friendship, without saying whether it's sexual or not. 

They finally start to have a conversation, and when Lan Wangji explains that no-one can touch his headband except, etc etc, Wei Wuxian stops trying to touch it. So at least he's not a handsy bastard in addition to all his other faults. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that his clan is boring and women won't want to marry him. Lan Wangji says that's fine. On one level this is the show acknowledging that he's gay, but I think he's responding in a gender-neutral way; he doesn't want to marry anyone. Marriage, from his perspective, is the literal worst. 

We don't know how he felt about his father, but he definitely loved his mother deeply, and she had a profoundly unhappy marriage, in which her husband did not provide companionship and her children were taken from her.

A note about all that: The dynamics of heterosexual marriages in The Untamed are not based on contemporary companionate marriage. Sex and reproduction is a wife's job in this world, and giving a gentry woman the option to choose her husband is radical. Wei Wuxian is the only one who dares say that Jiang Yanli should have a choice when Jin Guangshan casually tries to give her to his son in front of everyone.  

OP made this today but will totally reuse it when episode 23 rolls around

So Lan Wangji’s parents' marriage was extremely problematic but not necessarily for the reasons it would be in contemporary terms. Having signed on to marry Lan Dad, Mom would have expected to live together and get laid regularly (important for health, in some traditional views, regardless of love/no love) and to have the company of her children. Instead, she was isolated. Lan Dad wanted to have it both ways and so even though he loved her and apparently hooked up with her sometimes, he didn't do his duty by her. She didn't love him but she did her duty. 

Wei Wuxian continues to not get it, calling Lan Wangji dull and babbling about Lan Wangji’s parents until he realizes that LWJ is an orphan like him. 

A nice shift happens here. Once the penny drops, Wei Wuxian doesn't ask a single additional question - he just sees - by reading Lan Wangji’s face - what the deal is, and shares his own story to show he understands. 

This is the first time Wei Wuxian mentions being chased by dogs, which is kind of a big deal, because why was he left all alone when his parents died? 

Why didn't anyone take him in before Jiang Fengmian found him? How isolated are independent cultivators in this world? 

Tea Time

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen are having tea, and the Lan Clan is so uptight they don't touch each other's teacups. I don't know what this thing is called so I'm going to call it a tea speculum. 

Lan Qiren is back from the cultivation conference and says the red crack plague is happening over in Qinghe where the Nie clan lives.  Lan Xichen fills him in on the water demon, specifically saying Wei Wuxian figured out the connection to the red crack dudes, and explaining who WWX is, as if Lan QIren hadn't already thrown stuff at him and threatened to eventually kill him. 

Fun fact that I just noticed this week so didn't make it into earlier posts: In Episode 46, when Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are in the Jiang ancestral hall, WWX says he was often punished to kneel there, and LWJ said that they heard about this in Gusu.  

So when WWX came to Gusu he already had a reputation as a troublemaker, and the Lan brothers were aware of it.   

Busted and Beaten

A Lan snitch comes in to say that Wei Wuxian has successfully corrupted Lan Wangji, which really shouldn’t cause as much surprise as it does.

“Wei Wuxian got drunk”

“Lan Wangji got drunk”

Lan Xichen takes a moment to consider carefully whether Wei Wuxian is a good friend for his little brother and whether perhaps he was too hasty in throwing them together. Ha ha ha no he doesn’t. 

On the punishment porch, Lan Xichen tries to lecture Lan Wangji in a calm way, but Lan Qiren wants to beat him and Lan Wangji wants to get beat. Wei Wuxian can’t understand why Lan Wangji doesn’t let him take the blame for the drinking. 

Lan Qiren goes way the fuck overboard with this punishment because he's angry--losing control and losing his sense of proportion--and Lan Xichen is shocked. The drone camera watching from above is also shocked.  

Lan Qiren has a few (very few) redeeming qualities, but his extreme rigidity and chronic resentment of anyone he perceives as bad are serious problems. His nephews are both struggling with complex moral quandaries as they get older, and he is absolutely no help to them in resolving their conflicts.

This is definitely...a style of parenting & teaching, but you can see how poorly it works, with Lan Wangji straight up saying “fuck it” after many years of conformity.  Lan Xichen is devoted to the middle path and tries to be obedient. But he is actually not walking anywhere near the middle path, as he gets pulled into colluding with a murderer at the same time as getting dragged onto his brother’s carnival ride. These men need parenting that isn’t so, uh, fucking stupid. (Yes, grown adults still need good parenting; watch Go Ahead if you doubt me) 

Wei Wuxian initially yells and falls down when he gets hit, but then he sees Lan Wangji is taking the beating without any reaction and he tries to do the same. 

Aftermath

Jiang Yanli gently lectures the boys, blaming Jiang Cheng for Wei Wuxian's drinking.  Jesus Christ, he's the younger sibling, could you just NOT, Yanli?  

Both boys ask Yanli not to tell their parents. The boys bicker about who's at fault and then Wei Wuxian shifts to baby voice and starts whining to Yanli about the pain. 

Yanli tells him to suck it up, and says after school she'll -- ok and I know this will be a surprise for everyone -- make soup for them. The boys immediately get back on the same team, which is team Please Put Meat In the Soup.

There's a nice character building moment for Wei Wuxian here. When he sees Lan Xichen he initially turns away to avoid running into him, but then he adults-up and goes to face him and greet him, giving him a half of a bow because of the pain, the pain. Rather than complaining about his punishment he meekly asks if he's broken another rule. 

Lan Xichen tells him that he did wrong but that Lan Qiren’s punishment was too harsh, and then in what is one of my favorite Lan Xichen moments, invites Wei Wuxian to use the cold spring to heal, but doesn't invite Jiang Cheng to go with him even though Jiang Cheng also was beaten. Lan Xichen, Matchmaker Auntie Extraordinaire. 

Then he answers Wei Wuxian’s question about his mom by saying she was just like Wei Wuxian and drove Lan Qiran up the wall. Jiang Cheng's reaction to that is really sweet. He does enjoy Wei Wuxian at the same time as being constantly irritated by him. 

Lan Xichen does his patented “breaking off in the middle of saying something and leaving out a chunk of the story” maneuver, although this time he doesn't include a flute solo. 

OP is mildly obsessed with Xuan Lu’s shoulders in this outfit. Also Yanli has an interesting sword, that's got some wood carving similar to Subian, but without the organic look, which OP only noticed because of screen capping Xuan Lu’s shoulders.  

Club Ruohan

Wen Qing continues to be pretty and slightly evil at this stage, sending magic fire notes to her boss using this talisman that is definitely floating in the air and not just hanging from a string. 

Wen Ruohan is in the mosh pit with his zombie groupies while he reads Wen Qing’s extremely vague status update and says "it all makes sense." 

Reach out and touch faith

Soundtrack

Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode

Writing Prompt

How did Wei Wuxian’s parents die?

Admin Notes

I’m going to start spacing out my “first part” and “second part” posts by a few days.  I’ll update this post to link up the second part once I post it, and my masterpost is always up to date. 

Also: if you want more of my original content but don’t want to follow my whole blog (not following is fine!), I keep a pinboard of fun stuff at the top of my blog. I try to post original content at least once a week.

Continued in the second part later this week!

[tanoraqui]

okay I have to do this today because even I wouldn’t do it after the godforsaken finale airs, and it’s basically my specialty and I did spend like an hour thinking about it last night while washing dishes. Definitely partly inspired by @words-writ-in-starlight​‘s insightful post on everything Supernatural did wrong, and apologies in advance to all the characters for dragging them into anything related to Christian mythology:

Wei Wuxian’s parents die in a house fire when he’s 6(? I refuse to look anything up) months old

Jiangs are a hunter family I guess? That whole disaster of a family dynamic, except WWX dips out at some point to be idk an environmental activist bc at the time, that seems like the larger threat to the whole world. “Mom and Dad went on a hunting trip and they haven’t come back”, “bitch” “jerk”, 2 brothers in a beat-up old car, you know the drill

Jins are also an old hunting family, but more Men of Letters energy - they have a fancy bunker and do research and avoid getting their actual hands dirty. Jiang Yanli ducked out of the active hunting life a few years ago to be happily married to her peacock and settled down with a baby and she’s fine. We’re not going to bother Yanli. She’s safe and happy and doesn’t need to involved in any of this

so, WWX is the demon blood child developing exciting new abilities like telekinesis, mind control, exorcising demons by sheer force of will...etc, and Jiang Cheng is the Righteous Man. Lucifer, Michael, etc.

s1-3 probably proceeds more or less as spn canon...which I more or less remember...by the time they find their parents at the end of s1, Jiang Fengmian is...ugh, we probably shouldn’t kill him offscreen, I mean, we should probably meet him before he dies. I guess. Madam Yu lasts longer because I’m way more interested in her. But we do know that both Jiang parents are totally inclined to fling the boys into a metaphorical or literal escape boat and go hold the line for as long as possible, so...that’s spn energy...

Xue Yang is the one who’s like “fuck yeah, demon powers” and opens the gates of Hell, because I want him to have nice* things

*nice for Xue Yang

from characterization rather than memory, I’m 90% sure that Dean tried to hide his crossroads deal from Sam, but Jiang Cheng does it...better. I think it does come out, though. Right before the hellhounds do.

here’s where it starts to go farther off from spn canon. Jiang Cheng crawls his way out of the grave, gets stalked by a menacing presence that explodes windows for an episode, incidentally can’t find WWX...*Lan Wangji voice* “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition” (a baller line then and a baller line now)...and then the next episode starts with them all awkwardly standing around, and JC is like, “ok well let’s go find my brother then”, and you think there’s going to be an mdzs-riffing JC+LWJ Roadtrip To Find WWX...and they’re immediately attacked by like a dozen demons

in fact, the first time we see WWX in s4 is here, wherein he goes toe to toe with an angel and...holds his own. that’s new and terrifying! also is leading a squad of demons??

because here’s the thing: for the last 3(?) months, there’s been war in hell

because unlike Some People Mooses, upon finding out that his brother’s soul was legally nearly-owned by a crossroads demon, heir-apparent-to-Satan!WWX went, “actually fuck that” and kicked open the door of Hell (metaphorically, not loosing any demons this time) and was like, “who do I have to beat the shit out of to get a specific crossroads contract around here”

this did not work, obv. He didn’t know until it was too late, Lilith had already snapped up the contract, etc. etc.

obviously he also tried to offer himself instead, and got rejected for some reason

Since Jiang Cheng died, however, there’s been a war for control of Hell. Leading one side, Lilith, the Original Babe, who wants to break all 666(?) seals keeping Lucifer bound and in the meantime, break the Righteous Man so Heaven won’t even have Michael’s destined host ready for the Final Battle. Leading the other side, Wei Wuxian, infamous upstart, who wants to rescue the Righteous Man and restore him to life, tear Lilith’s guts out through her nose, and also stop her from doing the Lucifer thing because Wen Qing explained that yes, that’s a Thing, and it’s Bad.

Wen Qing! I’ve decided to combine Bela and Ruby’s roles and let WQ be both the cool badass example of how demon deals can go Bad and the demon deliberately leading our heroes astray for most of s3-4. Wen Qing is a very new demon; she used to be some sort of herbalist/witch but then she sold her soul in a crossroads deal to cure her brother of some lingering illness. 10 years of happiness and then boom, hellhounds. WQ is so obviously competent, though, that they (Lilith, I guess?) immediately offers her a job, with the promise threat that gee, that’s a nice brother you’ve got there, even with his Designated Chronic Health Condition getting all relapse-y. It’d be such a shame if something were to...happen to him...

we find this out at some point in last s3 I guess? some Monster of the Week case involves WN as a witness or something, or possible next victim, and WQ shows up to be A Normal Amount Of Invested In This, while desperately trying to avoid actually interacting with her brother (who thinks she’s dead). YES, the truth comes out; YES there’s a tearful reunion

now in s4, Wen Ning is fine actually, health-wise, bc he maybe made a crossroads deal with Wei Wuxian personally, and Wen Qing may or may not have admitted that she’s supposed to be working for Lilith to get WWX ready to host Lucifer? Or potentially that comes out later, idk. Either way, she’s 100% his top lieutenant in this exciting Hell War they’re waging

[insert whatever the hell (ha) happened plot-wise in s4 of supernatural]

we obviously mix up the relationships, too, bc it’s like, *LWJ internal monologue* I’m too young to remember my brother Lucifer as he was before he Fell, but surely Wei Wuxian is his Heir and Destined Vessel in truth, for he is Charismatic and Charming and Makes Me Feel Things, with his Clearly Feigned Righteous Drive and Compassion for All God’s Creatures and - why does heat keep pooling in the lower abdomen of my vessel when I look at his lips, which I am definitely doing a Normal and Not-Weird Amount - I’m just keeping an eye out for the famed Silver Tongue, and not in any way wondering how it would feel in my own mouth -

it’s actually DEFINITELY plausible for Lucifer to still be released even if our designated Heir Apparent is using his demon powers to his full potential and no one’s lying to each other about their motives. You just need to let Lilith be more scary too, and especially bc by “no one” I mostly mean Wen Qing; the angels are still totally hiding the fact that they, too, want to jumpstart the shit out of this apocalypse.  LWJ decides at the last minute that that’s a bad idea actually, gets himself discorporated to send JC to intercept WWX because he accidentally releases Lucifer, etc. etc. Oh yeah, the boys were def fighting before this, bc JC has actually fairly reasonable concerns about the sort of things WWX is getting up to in his quest to become King of Hell...

SO

...I neither know nor care what happens in s5

it does end with both Lucifer and Michael locked in the cage probably, bc I rather liked that solution. Fuck both of ‘em, basically.

I was toying with the idea that WWX also found Madam Yu in whatever hellish torment she was suffering after making a deal so her idiot son(s) would survive, and she was leading forces for him in the war against Lilith as well. If she came back to life somehow, body and all, it’d probably be compelling if she offered her own body to Michael - bc it’s her lineage! - and we’re all led to believe that she’s, uh, being a bitch and actually wants to risk destroying the world in order to destroy all demons...but then she seizes back control and flings herself/Michael and Lucifer into the Pit, because she’s just That Hardcore?

which means we’d actually have had her around and having characterization for most of s4-5, too, which would be fun

More importantly, it ends with newly crowned King of Hell Wei Wuxian appointing Wen Qing as Queen-Regent and ditching to go on an indefinite honeymoon with his new angel boyfriend (they’re going to fuck for like three weeks straight, then roll up their sleeves and go conquer Heaven in the name of free will), and Jiang Cheng gets to live out his hitherto-unknown-to-himself life’s ambition to be the sugar baby of the Queen of Hell. It’s very Hades/Persephone, except he goes back down to the underworld at least once a month. He gets his own demon squad whom he trains up in all the hunting techniques and it’s gr9. Wen Qing is reforming the crossroads deal process to make it more fair to the humans.

the end

Addenda:

it should go without saying but Jiang Yanli is definitely a recurring character, like, at least once a season there’s a filler episode where they go to Jiang Yanli’s for dinner and have to get along as a family, and also do the much easier job of defeating some sort of terrible demon that gets loose in the bunker and turns the evening into a horror movie. She’s their main research/emotional check-in person, a la Bobby, more often appearing in later seasons when there’s, uhhh, more to emotionally check in about.

Jin Zixuan is actually a perfectly competent hunter; he’s just a priss and we don’t Like him

we like Mianmian, though. Oh, I guess the official Hunter’s Guild or w/e tries to declare WWX a public enemy on account of the whole “King of Hell” thing and she’s like “actually what if you’re morons and assholes?” and joins hte team in s4 or 5? Yeah.

idk how the 3zun disaster happens in this ‘verse but I do encourage it to be happening in slow motion as a recurring subplot for several seasons. NMJ is a hunter, LXC is obv an angel, and JGY is...I wanna say one of the more human monsters, like a vampire? Or, you know, something that could be born from JGS sleeping with someone/something he shouldn’t have

[bestnoncannonship]

I'm drowning in the gender sandbox guys.

I am agender. At least....I think I am. It's the closest to what I'm feeling. In that I really do not have an attachment to any gender and cannot conceive how people identify with a gender. Like....they just FEEL a gender? All the time? No matter what they look like and what they're wearing they FEEL a gender?? Whaaaa??? Sounds hella fake but okay.

And now I'm gonna talk about that and my experience for a while, in a series of ways that's probably gonna get the gender and sexuality neo-puritans to come yell at me for not being ritually pure enough in the way I talk but.....I'm talking from my own brain, baby. This is the toolkit I'm packing right now and the world I live in and I just need to spit it out. Maybe see if it resonates with people who know more than me. I don't know. Help.

I didn't question being a woman for the longest time. I grew up in a rural area culturally dominated by "Christians" (Not Catholics. I was Catholic. That comes with a whole different set of religious traumas pre-installed. I mean the ScAaRy protestent and nondenom Christians.) You didn't question anything. Not an adults orders. Not authority. Certainly not straightness. Gender was biological. I'd never heard of a trans person. There were rumors of Gays™. For most of my life it was just "Gender is the meat suit you got stuck with, right? I got stuck with this meat suit so it's my gender, I guess." And when I finally left the middle-o-nowhere for Le Citè and I met some (mostly bianary) trans people I was like "OH! OKAY!! Having strong feelings about being in the wrong meat suit can make a gender!" And the non bianaries that I met were still playing on that bianary scale. The "bit of boths" and the "different genders for different days" varieties. They has strange attachments to genders. And the whole retoric of "Questioning your gender and feeling things about you gender is the indicator that you might be trans!!" Just furthered my feeling that I must just be female by default cause like.....I didn't question anything. I didn't think about gender. I had a COMPLETE lack of feelings about gender whatsoever and that was normal, right?? Just meat suit gender. I certainly didn't have a strong feeling about wanting to be the opposite: *gag* a man?? A straight white man? Nope! I have no desire to be a bianary man and frankly I find 99 percent of men and male culture traumatic. So I must just be meat-suit gender.

And yes, I wanted to scrape my breasts and hips and thighs off with a cheese grater. But I wrote that off as a symptom of having started putting a finger down my throat after meals when I was 6 and having a family that forced hour upon hour exercise with their thighs and tummies wrapped in saran wrap and sang "I don't love her! She's too fat for me!" to a literal toddler and put that same toddler in oversized clothes to hide the healthy baby squish that toddlers HAVE. OF COURSE I wanted to die when my breasts grew in and my hips and thighs filled out. They were evil fat deposits. And they meant nothing but unwanted attention from yucky men. (Lesbianism to be discovered some 15 years later. My comphets we're almost as bad as my compgenders.) It had nothing to do with gender. Gender is just the meat suit ....and I already hated the meat suit by the time I had breast buds, they just enhanced a disgust that I thought was normal by then. Everyone kind of hates their meat suit, right?? Yes I wanted to look like men sometimes.....but they were skinny heroin chic men. I also wanted to look like kate moss. I wanted to look like a sideways door but my family is Italian and we have hips and thighs. It's just the meat suit I was assigned. Just have to learn to deal with it and dress it in the way that it looks most socially acceptable and get on with life. And my meat suit had a very gendered look, even in the deepest throws of my illness. "All woman." "The curves of a real woman." So that was just the hand I was dealt. Like having a hard to match foundation undertone. You don't gotta like it, it's just reality. Yes, I wanted to wear nothing but waistcoats and gay vampire clothes but they weren't cut for my body type so *shrug*.

Did I start to have way too much fun cosplaying and embodying male characters? Yes. But that was just identifying with characters. I'd always identified with characters. Did I still distinctly identify with the character's gender, even when I femmed the costume to avoid the hellish pain of binding? Yes. Did it make me feel weird when people referred to my Thor as a woman, even though it was technically a femme? Yes. But that was just feminism. Heroes don't need to be called girl heroes. No gender issues here!! Besides it's not weird in fandom circles to stongly identify with people across gender lines. The fact that I found the gendernope option if there was one available in the fandom and *attached* was surely just coincidental. Right??

Did I absolutely loose my mcfreaking mind when the gyno started talking about having to take my uterus away because the amount of blood it was loosing was doing irreparable harm to my body? Yes. My gender is my meat suit. When you take it away....what am I???? A *gag* man??? Nothing at all?? Am I still even human?? If I am not *gag* male and you take away the female part of the meat suit am I an aphid? A plant? A chair? But I was comforted by a chorus of voices saying "No!! You're a WOMAN. Infertility doesn't make you not a woman! You still have a woman's body!! Because you're a woman!!! Just look at you in your skirts and with your long hair!! You're a woman!!!" So.....still a woman, I guess. Because I still LOOKED like one. Gender = the PRESENTATION of the meat suit. That made sense. The structure of my meat suit made me limited to woman-presentation. So I was woman.

Then, it was the stupidest thing, I was talking to the other half of my life on the 4/5 train on the way to a friend's house about HER issues with gender presentation and the amount of attention to detail it takes to be socially acceptable as female and she said "You just know you're a girl. Like if they just picked you up and put you in a robot body you'd be a girl?" And I was like "......no? I'd be a robot?????" "But you'd still feel like a girl???" "No.....I'd feel like a ROBOT." "BUT you'd still like hear she/her and identify with those???" "No. I'd probably identify more with It/it's because that's what I'd be. A ROBOT!" And she's like "But what if your brain got transplanted into a boy body???" "Then I'd be a boy." "But what would you feel like?" "A BOY?" "Okay but what if you had a very neutral body with like no genitals? What would you feel like then??" "I mean....then it would depend on how I'm dressed. I'd feel like what I was dressed like." And we went around like this till she surmised that my entire relationship to gender was basically "You are what you look like." Which is apparently NOT how people relate to their own gender. They "feel" it somehow?? (I genuinely thought "FEELING" like a gender was what made trans people.) I feel nothing. I identify with a lot of things and ZERO of them are a gender. I thought that was normal. I thought that was the default. Apparently it's not. And then if you ask me what I want to be.....I can't answer. I really don't want to be a gender. I guess I want to be able to put different genders on at my will, like outfits, for societal convenience. But I don't "identify" with any of them. Hell, I have sweaters I identify with more than any particular gender. But there aren't really systems in place for describing and portraying that.

Gender.exe was not installed.

I did a lot of research. Agender felt closest. I actually felt closest to a Good Omens meme about Aziraphale describing his gender as "No, thank you!" That's what I feel like. But all the agender folks were vibing that moment. So I joined 'em. I am aware that puts me under the trans umbrella, but I don't really identify with that word. I don't feel like there's any transition. Any changing. Can't change what was never there. Also I feel like it's for people who....CAN present as their gender. I would be seen as an invader in those spaces. Its not bad enough to justify being in those spaces. I can live with being gendered. I just don't have one.

In the society we live in one cannot present as "not a gender". Someone with MY body definitely cannot present as "not a gender". The clothes that they make in size "giant human with planet tits" are agressively gendered. And even in a binder.....they're still REALLY there. (Yes, a reduction is desirable but I don't have reduction money.....and you can't reduce the fact that I'm the bowl shaped robust extreme female hipbone they use in Forensic Anthropology textbooks.) It is what it is. My body will always be perceived the way it's perceived. And frankly a lot of what we perceive as genderless is just "skinny body in masc style with short hair and makeup". That's not really want I want. I don't want to cut off my hair. It's my one really good feature and I've worked hard to grow out these Valkyrie worthy lengths. Mens clothes are so limiting. And there are no gender: no thank you clothes. (One well meaning friend kept trying to send me "genderless" clothes......but it was all rail thin afabs in mens clothes with short hair and heavy makeup. That's not looking genderless. That's just being skinny.) Gender no thank you presentation is very tied to short hair and thin bodies. So I've accepted that I don't get to play in the gender sandbox outside of the privacy of my own mind. It's a societal flaw. But whatever.

But pronouns are starting to really bother me. Everyone is so into them and identifying with them. And like.....I don't get it. I don't get the joy. I don't think I've found the one. Like.....I'm used to she. I will always be read as she. I will always be Miss and Ma'am in stores and restraunts. So I just kind of roll with it. I don't hate it. I don't like it. It's just a thing that I have to have to exist in society. Like a social security number. I actually think I identify with my social security number more. There's no point in making myself uncomfortable with something that's just going to be a part of my life. And I don't want to be the kind of person who expects people to address me by a pronoun they can't see and aren't used to. It's too much to ask of the average citizen of a gendered society to go through that much gender theory for just me. So "she" is an inevitable part of my life. And He....well ......I don't hate it. I dont like it. It's just there. I certainly don't get called it. And I'm not capable of presenting it well enough for this to be relevant. Now they......fuck I HATE they. I hate that it's the acceptable pronoun for anyone not bianary male or female. It just rubs me the wrong way. When people refer to me as they, I feel like they're referring to me and the host of mental illnesses I carry around and you don't have permission to address those troops thank you very much. They causes a genuine squick. But it's kinda the only widely acceptable option. I kinda like "it". I VIBE with it. It feels good. Unfortunately the people in my life have a certain reluctance about calling me it as they believe that happy vibe around a traditionally dehumanizing pronoun may be a trauma symptom. They might be right so I'm tabling "it" till I find a good therapist. Also...I cannot ask strangers to call me it. I don't have the confidence it takes to explain why and I frankly don't want to be faced with the criticism and questions I would face because I am unable to make my body be perceived as Nonbinary. I don't have the confidence or conviction to face that every day forever. Ditto neopronouns. I also haven't found one that I vibe with at all yet.

And queer labels get harder when you pull away from gender entirely. Like ... I am a Lesbian. I am solely attracted to women. But now I'm getting a lot of "You can't be a lesbian if you don't have a gender!!!" And like ...can I??? I like being a lesbian. It feels right. It conveys what I want it to convey. I like the exclusion of men entirely, after being taught to structure my life around men. I have a kinship with womanhood. It's where I was raised. It's how people see me. I just don't identify with it. It's not how I see myself. I guess that can kind of exclude me from the label? All of our terms are defined by being attracted to "your own gender" or "the opposite gender" or "both your own gender and other genders" and like ... I don't have a gender. And the opposite of nothing is....?? Fuck if I know? So what term am I allowed to use? I love queer for exactly this reason. But it just doesn't have the same clarity that lesbian does.

So I'm just kind of in a hole rn. Grappling with the fact that I really don't have a gender in a gendered world, and dealing with the fact that so much of our understanding and acceptance of gender is about presentation, a door closed to my body. I don't have the confidence or the spoons or the knowledge or the experience to fight this fight. The path of least resistance is sticking my head back into the sand and going with straightforward womanhood....but now it feels like I'm lying. I feel like an intruder in woman's spaces. And I can't go in men's spaces, they see me as....well...a woman. Lesser.

Someone out there who's better at the genders please help.