#i made this post today btw and i have other bits and bobs to share

[aurorangen]

I keep thinking back to those times

Transcript:

[Vincent thought his teddy bear had come to life, but it was Harvey squirming around. He can't believe he is a Dad now; the warmth of his son reminded him of his own Dad, to a time when it all seemed normal]

Renee: [holding Harvey in her arms] Hey how is everythi-…are you sweating Vince? Vincent: [lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding in, his eyes are still closed] Hmm?

Renee: I'll keep an eye on our boys. You should go rest. [Having heard Renee's gentle voice amid all the painful memories put his mind at ease and back to reality again. Although, he can't help but think back to the time when the Reichmanns changed his life]

[monstersandmaw]

Male changeling (Dunnock) x female reader - Part Two (sfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

I had not intended for this to get so long, and the story is now three chapters in total! The last part just needs a bit more adding (it's nsfw btw) and some editing, so it shouldn't be as long between this and the last part as it was between the first and second. It’s been up on Patreon for a while, since folks there get it on early release as usual.

Catch up with Part One (sfw) here (Tumblr link | Patreon link)

Content: more fluffy bonding and memories with our childhood friend, a bit of talk about the reader's father, and of Dunnock's origins/background, and preparations for the little village's Spring Equinox Festival...... Wordcount: 2886

As dawn filtered through the thin, light-degraded fabric of the hut’s old curtains, you became gradually aware of the warm, solid presence of Dunnock’s body behind you. After sharing the evening and your food with him for supper, you’d fallen asleep on the soft hearthrug beside him, and apparently he had dozed off as well. Over the course of the night, as the fire had died down to little more than ashy, red embers, he had shifted to tuck you tightly against his chest. One massive arm dangled over your waist, clawed hand resting limp and relaxed in the space beside your stomach, the other arm pillowing his strange head.

In the moments before he stirred too, you stared at him. The monumentality of just what his existence meant stunned you for a second, and you swallowed thickly. He was every bit as real as the solid floor beneath you, and yet your mind screamed at you that he was impossible. The smoky grey fur swirled around his closed eyes in a pattern that made you ache to trace your finger along it, just to feel the contours of his face, the strange plains and angles that weren’t quite wolf and weren’t quite bear; they weren’t quite anything that you could relate to, and yet there he was.

Perhaps sensing the shift in your breathing as you slid from sleep to wakefulness, perhaps sensing nothing at all, Dunnock inhaled more deeply and blinked himself awake. His long-lashed eyelids fluttered for a moment before they revealed the deep, cornflower blue of his eyes and you smiled. He, however, appeared to crash back to reality with a jolt. The moment he realised where his arm had been lying, he retracted it with the speed of a striking viper, ears flattening and eyes widening.

“Sorry,” he murmured, voice rough and thick with sleep. “I… I didn’t… I didn’t mean…”

“It was nice,” you smiled honestly, half rolling and half shuffling to look at him a little better. More than one part of you felt bruised and sore from your night on the hard floor, and you probably had makeup smudged under your eyes or something, but there was a look in his steady eyes that made you not want to care at all. They really were spectacular eyes after all - the brightest and most vibrant blue.

He blinked slowly, left eye closing fractionally before the right, and you grinned as you recognised it as something that the little barefoot boy in the woods had done too. In a flash, you saw him standing in a glade and beaming at you with a handful of dirt and a tiny hazelnut that had clearly been stashed by a squirrel and subsequently forgotten and left to sprout. His freckles had enchanted you as much as his eyes had, and you found yourself tumbling unbidden down the verdant banks of memory lane in an instant.  

“What?” he rumbled.

With a chuckle, you reached a hand up to his cheek and trailed your fingertips over the impossibly downy fur there. A quiet, almost wheezing rumble left him, and those eyes, so clear and intense, disappeared again as his eyelids fluttered down, unable to look at you as you touched him with such tenderness.

“What?” he repeated in a hoarse whisper without opening his eyes.

“Just remembering the little things, is all…” you said. “You really are the same, you know?” you added a moment later as you dropped your hand again.

At that, he did look at you, surprise evident in the set of his cervine ears.

“I mean… sure, you’re about as different as it’s possible to get, physically, but you’re just the same otherwise.”

His lips tugged into a wonky smile that revealed sharp canines, and he rolled onto his back to stretch. He lay there for a while with his hands resting lightly on his chest and his legs stretched out like a hound luxuriating by a fire.

“How’s your leg?” you asked as your eyes travelled down the length of his strange and beautiful body.

Flexing his foot experimentally, the pads of his paws spreading rather sweetly, he grunted and nodded. “Fine. All healed.” Shooting you a cheeky sidelong look, he added, “Told you.”

Breakfast was bacon butties, something that Dunnock hadn’t had since your father had died, and he clearly relished them.

“He used to bring me one sometimes,” Dunnock confessed after practically inhaling two soft white rolls filled with hot, crispy bacon that you’d offered him. “I’d always smell them when he made them on Saturdays, and sometimes he’d see me between the trees and make me an extra one too.”

Something ached at the thought of Dunnock knowing your father almost better than you had.

As if he’d spotted the thought on your face, the changeling looked away and then added, “He used to talk about you a lot.”

“Really?”

“Mn. If he’d recently come back from visiting you when I saw him, he’d tell me about how you were getting on. I think he knew I missed you too.”

Guilt twisted your gut and you felt your breakfast curdle as you stood by the kitchen window and gazed out at the empty bird feeder on the edge of the clearing near your car. “I should have come back here, but I just never seemed to find the time… between studying and taking care of mum - at least to start with - and then juggling work experience and a part time job to pay the rent…”

“He understood,” Dunnock supplied quietly from behind you, and you sensed that he wasn’t just speaking for your father.

“That… That doesn’t make it easier,” you said. “I’m glad he did though.” After another pause you said, “I loved him a lot.”

Dunnock bobbed his head and grunted softly. “You’re a lot like him.”

“Mum always said I’d end up working for the wildlife service or something. Speaking of… I’d planned to take a hike today. You don’t know of any good trails, do you?” you asked with a grin.

“Oh, I can think of a few nice routes,” he chuckled, heaving himself onto all fours and shaking his dense fur out. “I’ll let you get ready and meet you just up that little trail where you found me yesterday.”

The hike with Dunnock brought back a relentless flood of memories.

He led you down the network of endless paths that the two of you had forged together as children, taking in all the old haunts from the Neolithic quarry nestled between tall mossy pines, to the small bog at the edge of the forest where the heath drained down into a treacherous, peaty swamp, dark and stinking and full of tannins. Here there were butterflies and glittering dragonflies that made crazy loops through the reeds, and rabbits with twitching noses snuffling through the underbrush. Further out, you saw stocky, bristle-brush ponies on the moor, and the larks burbling above, and although the walk drained you, physically, it began to recharge something mentally that had been empty for so long that you’d failed to notice it any more. Even your boss had seen it, but it had evaded you for the longest time.

That evening, Dunnock stayed with you again, and he remarked on the life returning to your eyes, which made you blush and thump him on the shoulder. In turn, he just rumbled another chuckle.

“Dun… Tell me about the Fae then?” you asked after you'd both eaten. With Dunnock tucking into your food as well, you were almost out of the modest supply you’d bought on your way in, and the next day you’d have to go to the store in Iska’s Well.

A ripple of tension shuddered almost imperceptibly up his spine, and he seemed to have braced for an impact that you couldn’t see. Sitting beside the fire that you’d decided to let die down early that night, he then sighed and half shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know much about it. I’ve never lived with them.”

“But… how do you know what you are?” you pressed carefully.

Taking another huge lungful of air, he shifted slightly and gave another noncommittal shrug. “The family - whose human baby my parents stole to bring up as Fae - raised me until I was about five I think, and I must have shifted for the first time around then. I don’t really remember them very well, but I remember that they were frightened of me. The woman was… she… I think she knew about the Fae in some way because the moment she saw what I was, she drove me to the forest and left me there. I won’t repeat what she said, but she knew that I wasn’t human. I don’t know what the man thought of what she did, but no one ever came for me.”

He didn’t seem particularly upset by any of what he’d just revealed to you - just awkward - but you sat there with your mouth hanging open in horror. “Dunnock…”

“What?” he asked, blue eyes searing with a frank confusion that stunned you.

When you blurted, “You were abandoned twice?”

He just snorted. “I suppose so, but the forest took care of the rest. And I include your father in that. He knew I was different when he found me riding the wild ponies across the heath. I must have been six or so, completely naked and thoroughly wild… I think he gave me some of my earliest clothes…”

It was your turn to snort. “I can’t believe he didn’t try to take you to a hospital or a police station like any sane person would have done.”

“I shifted in response to what I thought was a threat,” Dunnock laughed, shaking his head as he fondly recalled the events of his first meeting with your father.

“And he just… accepted it?” you asked, amazed. From what you recalled of your father he had been a patient man, but not very… imaginative. He’d entertained no ideas of religion or of a world beyond. For him to accept that Dunnock wasn’t from this world painted him in a new light. You wished you could talk to him about it now, and that thought brought unexpected tears to your eyes.

Dunnock startled at the change in you and surged silently to his feet, nuzzling his head and cheek against your neck where you sat on the floor with your back to the moth-eaten couch behind. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Shaking your head, you told him it was fine. “Being here - and learning all this - it’s just… stirring up old feelings, you know?”

“I know. How about you tell me more about the animals you care for? I’d like to hear what happened to the Rottweiler that wouldn’t be adopted without the rabbit…”

You knew he was distracting you, but you were only too happy to tell him that one.

Yet again, Dunnock stayed the night, but this time you both curled up on the mattress in the corner of the room. There was no need for a sleeping bag with the warmth that Dunnock’s body threw off, and you curled gratefully into the curve of his body while he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around you this time.

As you drifted on the shores of sleep some time near midnight, having talked each other hoarse again, he gave a cavernous sigh and tugged you a little tighter, murmuring in your ear, “I missed you…”

The next day you woke late and headed into Iska’s Well in the car while Dunnock returned to the woods alone. “I’ll know when you’re back,” he said quietly. “That infernal jay will probably come tattling to me first.”

“Really? Do they actually… you know… speak?” you’d asked, cheeks hot with embarrassment.

He shook his head. “Not with words like we are now, but they have their own way. I got pretty good at listening, besides… I can… feel when you’re in this part of the wood.”

You’d petted him gently between his ears and listened to his brief but happy rumble before he’d risen onto his hind legs and brought his finger to the underside of your chin. Leaving with an obviously affectionate little stroke there, he disappeared into the shadows in a mere few paces, and you blinked in surprise. It was as if he’d vanished completely and you swayed on the spot.

“Dunnock?” you whispered.

“Mn?” came his curious response from the depths of the trees. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah… don’t worry. See you later,” you breezed. He really was something Fae about him after all.

Iska’s Well was busy that lunchtime, which was to say that there were all of three people in the general store, and they were all talking animatedly about the Spring Equinox Festival. The owner of the shop, a portly woman in her early sixties with soft grey hair and a motherly look to her, glanced away from their little huddle as the brass bell above the door tinkled a welcome, and she smiled at you. “Hello dear!” she called. “How’s the old cabin treating you? No squirrels in the roof?”

“Nothing of the sort, thank you,” you replied, warily eyeing the other three women who had suddenly taken a very keen interest in you.

“Oh that’s good,” the shop owner exhaled dramatically. “I was wondering after you left last time if we’d have to send Steve down to help you out with anything. I’m pleased to hear that your father’s place is being lived in again.” She turned to the other three gathered conspiratorially at the end of the counter and added, “You remember our dear ranger? Well, this is his daughter. She’s only up here for a short while though, is that right?” she asked you and you nodded.

One of the women brightened visibly, her initial suspicion of an outsider evaporating now that she had a context for you, and she said, “Oh! How long are you here for then? You should come to the Equinox Festival tomorrow. It’s the highlight of the spring! Isn’t that right, Martha?”

The shopkeeper nodded. “Our Sam is going to be playing with his little band, and there’s a hog roast and dancing… You’ll never want to leave, I promise!”

“Sounds ominous,” you quipped, but the women only laughed.

“We’ll see you there then?” the second asked.

She looked like the kind of woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer where hospitality was concerned - in fact they all did - so you just nodded and smiled and said you’d probably be there. That seemed to do the trick and you were allowed to continue your shopping in peace, leaving fifteen minutes later and heading back to the cabin.

Dunnock wasn’t there when you drew up in the little gravel parking area in front of the house, and he didn’t reappear until sunset which saw you sitting on the porch step, idly watching the birds flit back and forth from the pines to the bird feeder.

“No wonder everyone’s here,” came Dunnock's deep, rough voice from between the rough trunks of the nearby trees. “Sunflower seeds at this time of year - what a treat, eh?”

You couldn’t help smiling, and in a heartbeat you found yourself on your feet and walking towards him. It felt as though he were reeling you in, pulling you closer by the sheer force of his presence. Everything about this felt natural and right and you didn’t pause to think. He leaned his tall body against the last of the trees and waited for you to join him, watching you approach with his steady, forget-me-not blue gaze.

Hanging on the branch beside him you noticed two fresh trout, and you raised an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. “You’ve been feeding me since you got here. Thought I should return the favour. Do you not like fish?”

“Oh, they’re fine,” you grinned. “You’re lucky my dad taught me how to deal with them though. Not everyone knows how to gut and bone a fish…”

Something flashed across his face but he hid it behind a chuckle.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was definitely a ‘something’,” you pressed playfully.

Dunnock just shook his head stubbornly and took the fish off the branch with a claw and into the cabin for you.

As you ate that night, Dunnock easily lounging on the floor and you at the little scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen, you were reminded of the equinox festival. “Have you ever been?” you asked when you brought it up.

Dunnock shook his shaggy head. “No,” he said, easing back a little and leaning a fraction closer to the wood burning stove. Apparently, despite the thickness of his pelt, he really enjoyed the heat it threw off. “I’ve heard it going on most years though. Sounds like it could be fun.”

“You think I should go?” you asked and he grinned.

“If you want,” he shrugged. “I think most of Iska’s Well show up for it. You’ll have no shortage of dance partners, that’s for sure.”

With a snort, you inhaled deeply with the satisfaction of a full stomach and easy company and murmured, “Maybe I will go after all…”

Part Three

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[hellagaypokemon]

there’s something I really need to get off my chest, regarding someone I once considered my fave youtuber and the way he seems to view gay people..

I’ve been watching Mark’s videos for about 3 years now. I first found his videos through finding Yomimash while looking for good Slender Man LPs to watch, and found Mark when they played that gory cat multiplayer game together. I decided to watch his videos more regularly after watching his unfair Mario and cat Mario videos which were absolutely hysterical, and have been watching his content regularly ever since.

but there’s a pattern I’ve noticed that’s really made me uncomfortable lately.

I’m really starting to think that Mark is homophobic.

now, not the kind that’s obvious, where someone actually has hate in their heart (think: mike pence, the westburrow baptist church, ext) but the kind that doesn’t bother to check all the tiny biases that one accumulates in a bigoted society (the kind of thing that causes people to think there’s nothing wrong with things like this, or not seeing what’s wrong with things like constantly calling video game enemies b*tches/sons of b*tches/wh*res/ext and talking about how a player or enemy that got swiftly/dramatically killed “got raped”) because both are harmful, but I’d argue the smaller things even more-so, as no one takes the WBC seriously, but the microaggressions are so ingrained in our society, no one but those harmed actually notice, and when we attempt to call them out, we’re told we’re just being overly sensitive and to lighten up/not take things so seriously, or even that we have a victim complex.

in all the years I’ve watched him, the only time he refers to us, it’s as a joke. he and his friends love joking about “suckin’ dick” and each other’s and just general constant dick jokes (makes you wonder why he was so shocked he got a 7 for his mental maturity test) and specifically joking about gay people, which in and of itself is homophobic when you realize that type of humor is what’s called a “punch down” which in and of itself is harmful, but on top of that, specifically straight people thinking of gay people/same-sex affection as a punchline is in itself a microaggression (and if you want sources, look at the latest Golden Globes, or one of many of Stephen Colbert’s skits, just to start)

but, dick jokes in and of themselves aren’t that bad. I mean, I don’t find them funny, and the amount with which he uses them seems more like a crutch than anything, but w/e. I don’t have to find everything he says funny, but it just gets worse from there.

like for instance that pirate prop hunt video where Bob ignorantly comments about how “the whole gay thing is not real cool with pirates”, because pirates are cool and the only way he could view a pirate being gay was if he was like Smee from Peter Pan, even though most pirates were gay, to the point that the word “mate”/”matey” (the word that first comes to mind when one thinks of pirates) actually comes from a French word that more or less translated to ‘significant other’. (also, to top all that off, he’s just also not comfortable being alone with a gay man when there’s only men around, and the idea of being checked out by another man, aka treated by a gay man how straight men treat women, which he made very clear makes him very uncomfortable)

which, in and of itself is absolutely awful, and I really wish more people would have called him out on how absolutely overwhelmingly homophobic that is, but as it stands, even Mark thought it was ok enough to post.

because while Mark did say that he’s “ok” with gay people/pirates, he never really truly called Bob out or pointed out how hurtful such comments are. instead he turned it into yet another dick joke, and decided he’d put a generic “trigger warning” in the front of the video (without actually telling us what the trigger was for, making it completely useless, only succeeding on making me feel on edge the entire video because I had no idea what to expect)

he never called out Bob on his comments outside of personal minor disagreement, which clearly did not phase him since he kept going. I understand wanting to keep things lighthearted for the video, which could explain the very minor disagreeing and turning it into a joke, but there was no reason he couldn’t cut that bit out (as the prop hunt videos are always full of cuts so we the viewer only see the parts they deem funny enough to show us) and just leave it out of the video entirely, which tells me he found the homophobia from Bob and the subsequent dick jokes and everything else around it entertaining enough to leave in, even though he KNEW it would be upsetting enough to need a warning.

this hurt, but I chucked it up to not wanting to ruin the fun mood they had going, since they seemed to be playing for a few hours, and simply decided to not watch any more videos including Bob and hope that Mark talked to him after the fact. it still sat in the back of my mind though, and I was never able to fully forgive ether of them.

I’ve also yet to hear of any of his charity live streams focusing on LGBT charities ether general or focusing on a specific subset, nor has he really made any effort to actually acknowledge us (unless to joke about us).

when same-sex marriage was legalized I looked damn near daily on all the social media accounts of his that I was aware of, but I never managed to find anything. I’ve since been told he simply posted on facebook an image of the rainbow flag and “today’s a good day”, but...I still feel like my original feelings stand, as I never found it myself (and have yet to actually see it, so for all I know that post could have been completely made up in an attempt to shut me down) and for something so important, for someone who will go on a tearful 30 minute monologue about the importance of love and being kind to each other and so-on at the drop of a hat, it really feels strange that when #lovewon, after all these years of fighting and hate and death, all he had to say was “today is a good day”.

and then when Orlando happened, I was sure he’d say something. I mean, with that much loss of life and so much hate surrounding it, I thought surely he’d have something to say. I mean, he talks about death and suicide and great losses of life and how important it is that we all stick together and love and protect one another all the time. there’s no way he could just gloss over this one, right?

and yet, he still managed to. he did make a statement, but it was what, almost a week later? and just a generic “love each other” sort of post that never actually referenced anything. I’m not even sure he mentioned the shooting specifically, just saying “with everything going on right now” or something and we all knew what he meant, because there really wasn’t anything else he could be talking about. but he never once mentioned anything specifically. it was a racial and homophobic hate crime, the worst mass shooting of our time, and all he could offer to his fans was a general “be good to each other”, which he says all the time, only this time much shorter than normal.

just a little two paragraph post, a general statement, for the worst mass killing of modern time on US soil.

and if I recall, within a week of it he had another charity livestream, and it wasn’t for Orlando. nor was the next one, or the next one. he “doesn’t feel it’s his place” to say anything, and apparently he doesn’t feel it’s “his place” to send help for people literally dying ether. well, unless they’re children dying of cancer, or people trying to kill themselves. they’re the only people dying that he seems worthy enough and “his place” to send money to and bring awareness about.

but the thing that hurt me the most personally, was his comment just a few days ago in his blooper video, not two minuets in (all of which had been literally nothing but dick jokes btw) he tells two of his buddies to act like they’d just realized they’re lesbians, and they immediately recreated a porn scene, and then they all laughed at just how funny that was.

I couldn’t finish the video.

I was too hurt. never before had his homophobia been so obvious, and directed at my community specifically. nothing had hurt me quite like this does.

I’m still floored to be completely honest. I had been giving him the benefit of the doubt for so long, thinking he just really likes making dick jokes and he’s secure enough in his sexuality to be able to make jokes like that (which is a privilege in and of itself btw) but I thought surely, surely someone who’s so passionate about doing the right thing and being good to people and who actively talks about being ok with us and not uncomfortable around us at all (unlike Bob) and who actively jokes about the fanfiction and art he knows about that depict him and his male friends as lovers, surely he himself would never partake in dehumanizing anyone, surely he couldn’t be homophobic.

but when you look at him and how he treats us compared to say, HarshyCritical, you can see the difference. (especially since after making this post it was brought to my attention that just a minute into the latest video he made with Bob, the one posted the same day I write this, they laugh at the use of a violently homophobic slur)

especially since the person whom John seems closest to and colabs the most with is himself a gay man. they even share a channel together where all they post is multiplayer colabs.

I don’t know if John’s done any LGBT-centric charity streams, but the fact that his good or possibly even best friend is a gay man and how he treats the narrative and characters in a game where the story is all about dealing with homophobia and being yourself says a lot more in his favor that anything Mark has done. (which is also very ironic since John lives in the very homophobic state of Texas and Mark now lives in the very liberal state of California)

I honestly can’t find a single thing he’s said about us specifically that wasn’t a joke, and he’s made it painfully clear that in the end that’s all he sees us as.

inherently sexual, a porn category, something to laugh at, something other.

and the thing that hurts the most, is no one cares. he just got 16 million subscribers. most of his fans are homophobic fangirls who treat homosexuality as a fetish for them to enjoy, and everyone else is too much of a stan to think critically of his actions. no one will want to call him out. he’s too much of a “good person”, since everyone’s expectations of men and male gamers is so low, with the bar being fuckin buried in the dirt, that someone like Mark who cares about sick kids and depression and preventing suicide and all of his talking about caring about each and every one of us as individuals, he looks like a damn angel just by walking over that bar, so anyone wanting to call him out will be blown off as someone who just wants to bring him down because of jealousy or some bullshit like that.

so at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. he could be as openly homophobic as he wants, and every non-straight fan could up and drop him on the spot, and I doubt it would really affect him much.

and I think that’s what hurts more than anything he’s actually said or done.