#i am gay and Tired

[crispyjenkins]

(AC wip) The Savage Price of Piety

it's desmond's deathday and i wrote like. 9,000 more words to this wip (first two parts here) last week and i want to brag about it, so happy deathday you wet bastard (mostly gen but with a surprise rarepair, time travel/reincarnation, found family, william miles’ a+ parenting, accidental subterfuge, desmond goes by miles mostly, inspired by study of flight by @esamastation but with a twist!, only somewhat historically accurate swears by which i mean probably not at all but leonardo had some Opinions alright) have some (three) chronological but scattered bits of scenes

  “Oh,” Claudia says as soon as she opens the door, seeing Ezio’s rather wretched expression, “you’ve figured it out, then.”

  “You could have told me,” he growls, following her into the entryway and closing the door behind himself. 

  Claudia scoffs, spinning on heel to lead the way further into the building for the kitchens. “I had one conversation with the boy, brother, I was hardly sure of it myself. Wait,” she halts and points a finger at him accusingly, “how did you figure it out?”

  Ezio, quite graciously he thinks, ignores the subtle insult to his intelligence. Sighing, he pushes back his hood before their mother sees him with it on indoors, and runs a hand over his beard. “I had Leonardo visit.”

  Claudia’s face slackens, before twisting into a rage that has Ezio stepping away warily.

  But she punches the wall instead of her brother, a shouted “Gods damn it!” echoing in the narrow space. Then she spins on her heel and hollers further into the residential part of the bordello, “Mother! We forgot about Leonardo!”

  Horrified by his sister and concerned for his mother’s current mental state, Ezio reaches out to put a hand on Claudia’s arm, but he doesn’t get the chance before Maria de' Auditore is shouting right back, “God damn it!”

  Grumbling, Claudia stomps down the hall and leaves a very confused Ezio hurrying to follow; she ignores all his pleas for explanation until she’s stomped into the kitchen, where their mother is pouring two very large glasses of wine, with very little water to cut down the potency. She passes one to Claudia silently, and then they both drink, though luckily they aren’t attempting to down it all at once.

  “I can’t believe we forgot the Maestro,” their mother mutters to herself as she comes over to kiss Ezio on both cheeks, before shoving the still mostly-full glass into his hands.

  “Forgot him for what?” Ezio wants to know, clutching the glass like a mother clutches a babe.

  “To test if Miles really is an Auditore.” It’s said so flippantly, like it doesn’t affect Claudia at all, but she also collapses into one of two chairs at the little tea table under the largest window. Their mother takes the other, massaging her forehead and looking like she’s grieving their family all over again.

  It occurs to Ezio, as he moves to stand next to the table, that she probably is.

--

“It’s all up to you now, Seventeen.”

  Desmond opens his eyes to the dark of the dormitory, faint moonlight cutting over the floor between his bed and Nino’s, and he can’t bring himself to move — even to roll off his arm that is very much still asleep. 

  Clay still haunts him.

  Five hundred fucking years, and his current twenty-four besides, and that fucker still won’t leave him alone. If Desmond were not so familiar with what an actual Bleed feels like, he’d almost think Clay is stuck in his brain the same way as his ancestors. Thank fuck he stopped Bleeding Ezio’s memories and feelings, while still retaining much of the training.

  Fuck, time travel is so weird.

  Or, reincarnation? He’s not sure of much, but he’s sure he was dead, he’s sure he burned, and he’s sure that though his 15th century mother had affectionately called him [redacted], his name is Desmond Miles.

  Or just Miles, he supposes. Sue him, he panicked when Adele first approached him, and the best aliases are ones you know you’ll respond to, right? If only he’d have had the forethought to divorce himself from his... future family’s surname.

  It sounds different enough with an Italian accent that it hasn’t caused any problems, yet. Like making him flinch. Or snapping that he hasn’t been a Miles since he was sixteen.

  Granted, he still has no idea what he would go by instead. Altaïr and Conner would feel weird, while Sef or Darim are just a bit on the nose, and does he look like an Edward? Malik, maybe. His grandmother here, now, is actually from the Levant, so his skin is certainly dark enough that people wouldn’t be surprised by the name.

Except that feels almost akin to naming himself Leonardo.

--

  So instead, Leonardo spends every spare moment with his best friend, sometimes to brainstorm, sometimes to simply be there for him. It’s during one of these visits, he and Ezio once again observing the youngest assassins in the training ring, that he hears Miles laugh for the first time, and it’s as if ice water has been poured directly into his veins.

  Oh fuck. Oh Saints, oh Holy Father, oh fuck.

  “Leonardo?” Ezio asks quietly, head tilted towards him in concern, but Leonardo ignores him to stumble for the bannister to lean over it and stare down at Miles learning a little jig from Tullio, laughing all the while.

  He had only heard it once, truth be told, and it had been Salaí that had caused it, but even three years later, Leonardo remembers the laugh of Rodrigo Borgia’s sinister little shadow.

  Below, Miles doesn’t stop smiling, but his golden brown gaze yanks up towards Leonardo as if knowing his thoughts are about him. His eyes narrow, then widen slightly in realisation, and then he winces and looks away, which is all the confirmation Leonardo needs.

  Turning around, Leonardo grabs a confused Ezio by the arm and drags him from the training room, ignoring his protests until they find the nearest empty room.

  “Leonardo, what—?”

  “Romulus.”

-

[idolomantises]

I think one of the more unfortunate consequences to creators being more interactive with fans is that a lot of fans/fandoms normalized this idea that creators have to explain/validate every headcanon they have.

[angry-kid-with-no-money]

"Nora doesn't know anything about the things she writes about" "aftg is terrible queer rep" "the queer characters in aftg are so problematic"

Idk guys maybe the book series abt problematic ppl set in 2006 and written in the mid 2010s shouldn't be expected to hold up against scrutiny of what we consider to be moral and correct now, in 2024

Idk tho, idk

[stormsbourne]

one brief comment, and yes I know the zeitgeist on this has passed, but when I see people saying "somerton calling himself an achillean boy to disguise himself is the most peak gay man thing I've ever seen* my eyes roll right out of my head. why do you still not get it. you're doing the same thing he does about women but about gay men, which tumblr decides to do every once in a while because they've decided gay men don't really count as lgbt. it is not a peak gay man thing. trying to act like all gay men do this kind of thing and it's typical is not woke and it's not praxis! do I need to get hbomb here to tell you that you're doing a homophobia? the same way tumblr eagerly does james' exact brand of misogyny (qualifying it with straight/white/cis to prove it's "allowed")

he is in fact doing it because he's a grifter. that is not a gay man thing, it's a grifter thing. and he's figured out (correctly, in my opinion) that using the "correct" tumblr terms for his identity is an easy way to grift more people. regardless of how mean or bigoted or racist individual gay men are, regardless of their widespread misogyny (and boy could I talk about that), regardless of all of that stuff people like to whip out before "gay" to prove that he deserves it, gay men are still oppressed and seen as disgusting by the mainstream and you're not actually doing a social justice by joining in on it. sorry! maybe you should examine why you think these things or if there is a better way to criticize him than "wow I'm sooooooo shocked a [insert qualifier] gay man would do this just like all other [insert qualifier] gay men." it's not because he's gay! it's because he's a grifter and, like all grifters, he's good at using existing venues to get people not to look too hard at him!

[square-with-a-mouth]

Blurrwave :,]

[paper-cities]

your electric love

[live-from-flaturn]

American Television after 5 years of pushing for queer representation: I hope you wanted unnecessary drama, angst with a maybe resolution, and three unfulfilling seasons of questionably written flirtation. And that all comes before anything is half-confirmed with a singular lukewarm kissing scene between two conventionally attractive, white bisexual women!

Thai Television .3 seconds after they figured out queer content is marketable: Did you want something kinky, soft, or stupid? Did you want cat ears? We’ve got cat ears! We’ve got safe/sane/consensual OR off-the-charts bad etiquette BDSM. We’ve got college students out the ass! As long as they’re an engineer or architect, choose your flavor. Do you want an age gap or classmates? Something for adults? Teens? Everyone was childhood besties, how about that??? This is a short order restaurant and I will flip you some gays like they’re hotcakes, just tell me what you want.

[thehealingsystem]

It's so wild to me that as a community we're still so hostile to multigender and genderfluid people existing in gay and lesbian spaces.

You...are aware that people who are both men and women are allowed to be gay, right? And lesbian? Their other genders doesn't cancel their connection to womanhood, or manhood, or whatever else they id with. They are allowed to be gay despite their fem-alignment, and they are allowed to be lesbian despite their masc-alignment.

It comes from these weird online spaces that the standard to be gay or lesbian is to be a "non-woman" or a "non-man," which is inherently transmultiphobic and...extremely ahistorical. And completely misunderstands nonbinary identity. So if you're both then you just don't belong anywhere I suppose.

[theythemmer]

phinktober day 11: ur fav AU

i dont rlly do AUs so i just drew them how i wish they would dress xo

(dan’s tats r carnations and snowdrops and phil’s r roses and honeysuckle. for no reason 🤗)

ALSO bonus version w makeup bc i couldn’t pick <3

[f4gwithf4ngs]

yknow im starting to think that one (1!) two-hours-long-makeout-session would fix me and my problems

[squalamander]

he's not a kin or a comfort character but a secret third thing (my worksona)

[crispyjenkins]

savage price of piety "crispy has lost control of their life again" celebration sneak peek

okay here's one from one of my favorite things i've ever written, which isn't actually posted yet, but everything for it so far is tagged with #savage price and is linked on my fic masterlist, which is my pinned post! (mostly gen but with a surprise rarepair, time travel/reincarnation, found family, william miles’ a+ parenting, accidental subterfuge, desmond goes by miles mostly, inspired by study of flight by @esamastation but with a twist!, only somewhat historically accurate swears)

  But it’s Ezio that broaches the subject, Leonardo having had to return to his studio so as not to upset said city’s patrons,

  “Were you raised in Castello Tarazed?”

  ... What.

  Desmond stares at him in bemusement, wondering how the fuck he knew anything about that, and also why that’s the first thing he’s asking him. Isn’t he curious about Desmond’s father? Don’t he and Leonardo already have a theory on his relation to the Auditore?

  Ezio doesn’t elaborate, crossing his arms as he leans against the support of the rooftop loggia Desmond had been taking a break in, rough-spun sheeting pulled aside to let the sunlight in. Back-lit as he is, Ezio’s expression is even harder to see with the hood, though Desmond isn’t sure he’d have been able to actually read it even if he could.

  After another minute of blinking at each other, Desmond slowly asks, “What?” and no, he isn’t thrilled when it gets a fond little uptick of Ezio’s mouth, pulling at their shared scar.

  “Castello Tarazed,” he repeats, with a nod upriver towards the area of Rome it’s in, the rione that’s been known as Borga for... a very long time. It was even still called that in the 21st century, if Desmond is remembering one of Shaun’s rambling info-dumps right.

  They can almost see it from the Island, situated right at the bend of the Tiber that stretches between the Vatican and the Castel Sant’Angelo, and though they can see said castel from where they are right now, they are too far away to pick Desmond’s old home out from the skyline.

  Desmond licks his dry lips and glances away, before forcing himself to look back. “It’s been abandoned for years,” is what he says, though he isn’t sure why. His time in the Castel Sant’Angelo wasn’t great, he’ll admit, but the years before that with a man that raised his sons like Bill Miles did...

  When he’s thought about revealing everything to the remaining Auditore, of explaining his life in the future, he’d never once considered telling them about this.

  Standing over him, Ezio hums thoughtfully and unpins Desmond from his gaze, surely aware of his discomfort. “Eight years, yes. Locals say it’s haunted.”

  Suddenly Desmond can’t feel his fingers. His right arm. The back of his head where it used to be cradled by the Animus.

  “The tenders of the nearby Frisian Schola who were around that long ago claim everyone on the grounds of Tarazed was killed in a single night, but someone powerful covered it all up to avoid the scandal, and then never sold or gave the property away.”  

Why is he asking this, why is he phrasing it like this, why doesn’t he just accuse Desmond like everyone else—?

-

[lav3nder-bees]

happy february to them and absolutely nobody else

[amelia-yap]

through the heart!

[dragon-spaghetti]

Have some huskerdust doodles from my lunch break in work 💖

[moxymaxing]

only 40 minutes into the first episode :/