#i should go to bed and read some yaoi and think about literally anything else

[floorpancakes]

crashing out crashing out crashing out crashing out crashing out crashing out crashing out crashing out

[danfanciesphil]

Give Me A Try (New Chapter)

Gay Instagram Model/Bartender Phan AU Part 3

(Part One)

(Part Two)

(Read on Ao3!)

Dan’s in the middle of his break, scrolling through his phone, when a text notification appears at the top of his screen. He drops his bagel into his lap, cursing.

The text is from Phil. He doesn’t know any other Phil’s, so it has to be AmazingPhil, texting him, inexplicably.

He clicks the notification, eyes wide, simultaneously scooping up the bagel bits that have fallen onto his knees.

From: Phil To: Dan im in makeup for a weird photoshoot for some korean clothing brand and they just put loads of silver goo in my hair to make it chromey

As Dan is reading the message, searching between the lines for a reason Phil might be telling him this information, another text pings through.

From: Phil To: Dan whoops, i kinda meant to send that to PJ. but hey, if you’re interested, here’s a pic of me with ‘Kpop Idol Silver Hair Paste’ in lol xx

From: Phil To: Dan [image]

The phone slips from Dan’s fingers, clattering through his legs to the floor of the staff room. Phil has sent him a selfie. An un-edited, un-Instagrammed photo of his breathtaking face, up close. Sure, there’s a weird silvery goop in his usually raven hair, but still. Gingerly, Dan retrieves the phone, a small, strangled sound escaping from his throat as he surveys the image in front of him.

It makes a little more sense now that Phil has informed him that he had actually mistakenly texted the original message, but did the guy really have to follow up with a photo? He must, surely, be aware of Dan’s crush. He witnessed the brunt of Dan’s obsessive stalking in person on his phone, after all.

Bagel entirely forgotten, Dan just stares down into the pixelated blue of Phil Lester’s eyes, wondering how to respond, and if he even should. Deciding eventually that it would be rude not to, Dan shakily types out something he hopes is vaguely witty.

From: Dan To: Phil hahaha wow :’) kpop? more like kpoop. (it looks like bird poop, sorry dude.) x

From: Phil To: Dan hahaha it does ur so right. and if you think thats bad you should see the outfits… xx

Settling back into his chair, Dan bites his lip. As he thinks of a potential response, his eyes wander over to the spot, just to the right of him, where he and Phil had stood not long ago, when it had seemed like maybe, possibly, Phil might’ve…

But obviously that’s absurd. 

Dan’s wishful thinking had clearly driven him to the point of hallucination, because the very notion that Phil Lester, AmazingPhil, the famous Instagram model, would ever have looked at Dan as anything more than a random bartender, is laughable.

Dan sighs to himself, then smirks. Well, just because he has no chance, doesn’t mean he can’t utilise his semi-connection to the celebrity to get some behind-the-scenes footage of his fave.

From: Dan To: Phil well now i have to see x

There’s a noticeable pause, and Dan wonders, panicking vaguely, if he may have pushed too far. Is it a little much to ask this of Phil? Maybe he just won’t respond, and Dan will have to quit his job forever, or maybe just spend his shifts on red alert that Phil will wander into the bar, and hide from him if he does-

He texts back.

From: Phil To: Dan [image]

From: Phil To: Dan hot, right? xx

For two long, uninterrupted minutes, Dan is frozen. Then, he lets out a muffled groan of frustration. The photo Phil sent is a full body shot taken by someone else; he’s dressed in an asymmetrical long white t-shirt with several long rips through the chest, some bright pink camouflage trousers, and a shiny silver puffer jacket with a black fur-lined hood. The outfit is a complete disaster, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. His chest is visible through the slits in the tee; having seen it twice now IRL, Dan is drawn to the slivers he can see. The trousers make his eyes pop, and the jacket matches the silver streaked through his hair.

His pose is casual, feet apart, smirking at the camera, with his hands gesturing to his body as if to say ‘see what i mean?’. If he’d posted this on his Instagram, Dan gets the feeling he’d have saved it to his camera roll anyway, maybe even made it his phone background.

Dan’s done that with a few of his favourite photos of Phil in the past. He won’t even dwell on the time when Phil posted a photo of himself in the bath and Dan, in a semi-sleep-deprived fit of insanity, printed the photo out and stuck it on his wall.

Tyler came over once, weeks later, saw the photo taped above Dan’s bed, and tore the thing down. He’d told Dan, quite rightly, to stop being such a creep and keep his crazed obsessive behaviour to social media like everyone else.

“Who even has physical photos these days?? You’re like a fucking serial killer!”

Dan chuckles at this memory. He’s glad for Tyler, sometimes, even if he’s only good for keeping Dan’s stalkerish behaviour within the realms of normalcy.

Belatedly, he realises it’s been over five minutes and he still hasn’t responded to Phil. Also, his break is close to being over.

From: Dan To: Phil woww. please, phil of the future, tell me what life is like in 2087 x

From: Phil To: Dan stawwp. i keep laughing out loud at what ur saying and now the designer is sending me death glares :’’’D xx

Trying hard to ignore the fact that his dorky jokes are apparently literally making Phil ‘lol’, Dan checks the time, and sighs, typing out another message.

From: Dan To: Phil is the designer a martian? or maybe secretly one of those reptile-people? maybe skin him just to be safe. also my break is over so i gtg. have fun on set of NASA’s moonlanding recreation x

From: Phil To: Dan aww ur at work too? that sux. i forgot that u work at night lol. hope u stay dry this evening ;) xx

From: Dan To: Phil speaking of… why are u at work? isnt it kind of late for a photoshoot? x

From: Phil To: Dan well its 8am here so no haha xx

From: Dan To: Phil where are you? x

From: Phil To: Dan seoul :) hence the… unusual fashion lol xx

Dan’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. He stands from his chair, throws his half eaten bagel in the trash, and looks around himself. He’s in the staff room - a small, dusty space with a row of falling apart lockers, a couple of chairs and a small table. There’s a hook on the wall which holds a load of unused aprons, and a rusty heater for when it’s especially cold.

He’s about to go back out to serve a load of rowdy customers some overpriced cocktails, then mop a dancefloor sticky with sweat, alcohol, and whatever other liquids might have found their way there. Then, he’s going to go back to his crummy flat way across in Kemptown, unfold his sofabed, and fall asleep to Netflix.

Phil, on the other side of the world in Korea, is having his hair, makeup and wardrobe done by professionals. He’s being treated like a celebrity, no doubt, and pampered excessively. Later, he’ll receive high-definition, professional photographs of himself looking gorgeous, and post them to his Instagram, where millions of people will tell him how stunning he looks.

Dan sighs to himself. How the other half lives.

*

The following day, Dan wakes up to find that Phil has updated his Instagram story, and posted the photo with the silver goo in his hair. The same one he’d sent to Dan. The caption reads:

Not sure silver hair was a good idea! The designer was going for Kpop, but ended up with Kpoop… can’t wait to show you guys the photos from this shoot! xx

Two things cross Dan’s mind.

First, Dan can now officially state that he had a sneak-peek at an official AmazingPhil photo before it was posted.

Second, the bitch totally stole his joke.

He smiles to himself ruefully, then decides to leave a comment. There’s no way that Phil will even see it - he’s never seen any of Dan’s others, or at least Dan sincerely hopes he hasn’t, as they’re mostly things like ‘choke me’ or ‘slap me round the face with your yaoi hands dad’.

Okay, maybe he tends to leave those sorts of comments when he’s less than sober.

This time, Dan just taps out a simple:

danisnotonfire: joke stealing is a low form of theft phil smh ;)

Still smiling to himself, Dan rolls over onto his side, and settles in to watch Phil’s story. The stories are usually long, silly, and full of adorable clips of Phil being clumsy and cute. As expected, this one is no exception. It’s a tour of Phil’s hotel room in Seoul, which is very posh.

Phil exclaims over the origami hand towels on his bed, the robe provided for him in the wardrobe, and the multiple options on the ‘disco shower’ as he calls it. Just as Dan is marvelling at the panoramic shot Phil has filmed of his view from the balcony, a notification pings at the top of his screen.

amazingphil replied to your comment: joke stealing is…

Dan sits bolt upright in bed, the sheets falling off him. He runs a hand through his messy hair, eyes wide. He clicks the notification before it disappears, heart pounding.

Oh no, oh no, oh no. Dan hadn’t intended for him to actually see. What if Phil thinks he’s being rude? He doesn’t actually mind Phil stealing his stupid joke about the hair goo. It’s an honour, if anything, that Phil finds his dumb joke good enough to post as a caption millions of people will read.

Heart thrumming, Dan finds the response Phil left.

danisnotonfire: joke stealing is a low form of theft phil smh ;)

amazingphil: @danisnotonfire aha i was kinda hoping you wouldn’t see ;D

Another notification pings at the top of his screen.

amazingphil started following you

“Holy shit,” Dan says to nobody.

amazingphil liked your photo

“Fuck,” Dan squeaks, clutching his pillow for support. “Stop it Phil, I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

Curious, Dan clicks the last notification, wondering which photo it was that Phil pressed the little heart for. To his surprise, it’s a selfie, one he took at work around a month ago. He took it during a lull between serving, if he remembers correctly. The lighting hadn’t been awful when he was doing his hourly fringe check in his phone camera, so he’d snapped a pic. It’s nothing special, just a moody expression and a wash of pink lighting across one half of his face.

amazingphil commented on your photo

amazingphil: nice pout ;) xx

Dan falls back into the pillows, mind obliterating itself into a thousand, tiny pieces.

*

Over the next few weeks, Dan has several text conversations with Phil. They’re usually started by Phil himself, who will - out of what Dan assumes is boredom - sometimes send him a random meme, a musing about his surroundings, or a selfie. For obvious reasons, Dan prefers the latter.

No matter how many times Phil reaches out via text, the surreality of it never fails to send Dan’s mind freewheeling. It always knocks the wind out of his lungs, it always makes him stop dead in his tracks, and it always leaves him struggling to recover for the next few hours. Whenever this happens at work, Tyler never fails to tease him mercilessly.

“Whoops! Please excuse him, sir, his mind has been blended by a single text from his crush,” Tyler tells a customer the fifth time Dan drops a glass behind the bar.

Dan scowls at his friend, but doesn’t try to defend himself. It’s true, after all. One text from Phil has him behaving like a moron. He becomes physically inept, unable to make the simplest drink.

One night, after the bar has closed, Dan and Tyler are cleaning up.

“So when’s he gonna stop torturing you over text and come sweep you off your beer-drenched tootsies?”

Dan rolls his eyes at this. “He’s not, Ty. He’s a rich and famous superstar, and I’m clearing up puke for the third day in a row.”

Dan wrinkles his nose as he continues mopping up the patch of vomit. He’s suspicious at this point; three days in a row is unusual. Is the same person coming in each night and spewing their guts all over the dance floor out of spite? Perhaps it’s some sort of hate crime.

“It’s like a Cinderella story!” Ty exclaims, pirouetting around his broom. “Except it’s gay, which makes it even better.”

Dan scoffs at him. “I’m pretty sure fairytales don’t involve stalking someone over social media and having them find out. He’s just taking pity on me because he saw that first night that I’m a fan.” Dan dunks the mop back in the bucket, turning to Tyler. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he has a boyfriend.”

Tyler sucks in a scandalised breath. “What! Who?”

Dragging the mop back to the supply closet, Dan laughs. “Remember the drunk guy he came with? The one who gave me a lovely Rainforest shower?”

“Him?”

Dan sighs, locks the cupboard, and nods. He digs into his pocket for his phone, and brings it over to show Tyler the photo of Phil and Charlie kissing. Matt, the security guard wanders over to see as well, letting out a low whistle.

“He’s a nonce if he thinks that guy’s behaviour was attractive,” Matt says. “He puked ‘soon as I got him out the door that night. All over the pavement.”

Dan looks at Matt, tilting his head in interest. “He did?”

Tyler plucks the phone out of Dan’s hand, zooming into the photo to have a better look, a frown on his face.

“Yep, your friend there came out, called him an Uber and sent him off,” Matt says. “Doubt pukey there would’ve made it home without him.”

“Nice guy,” Dan mutters, cheeks warm.

“This is staged,” Tyler announces abruptly.

“What?”

“Look,” he says, bringing the phone back over for Dan to see.

He zooms in on the crux of the kiss, right onto Phil’s face. Dan grimaces.

“Ty, I don’t want to see-”

“Shut up and look at his face,” Tyler interrupts, grabbing Dan’s chin and angling it towards the phone. “See how his lips are puckered? All stiff and pointed, like he’s kissing his grandma. And his eyes are open.”

“He’s looking at the camera!”

“Nah, Tyler’s right mate,” Matt says. The gum he’s chewing is making gross squishy sounds right in Dan’s ear as he leans over to look. “He looks awkward as hell.”

Dan narrows his eyes at the photo, trying to see what the others see.

“Besides, didn’t you say he hated that guy?” Tyler asks, clicking off the photo.

Dan tuts, snatching his phone back. “Well, apparently he was just being nice to compensate for the fact his kissing buddy covered me in sugary cocktail.”

He makes the smart decision to step away from this preposterous conversation before he does something stupid. Like allow either of these morons to give him hope that Phil is actually single.

Not that Phil being single would even matter.

“Or he was making it clear that he’s available!” Tyler calls after him as Dan stalks over to the staff room. “He whipped his shirt off for you twice and gave you his number. Do you think he’d do that if he had a boyfriend?”

“Drop it, Ty!” Dan calls back, shutting the staff room door behind him.

He will not let himself fall into the trap of daring to believe he could get someone as gorgeous, as hilarious, as pure and… amazing, as Phil Lester. 

He won’t.

*

This is a good philosophy, in theory.

In practise, it turns out to be a lot more difficult. Dan finds this out to his cost when Phil strolls into Habenero the following Friday with Charlie Hickory at his side. Dan’s stomach sinks as soon as he sees the pair, the butterflies that appear each time Phil so much as acknowledges exploding into dust the moment he registers who Phil is here with.

Phil makes a beeline for the bar, a big smile on his face as he sees Dan. Warily, Dan smiles back, very aware that he is not exactly Charlie’s biggest fan.

“Dan!” Phil sings, chipper as ever.

Blushing already, Dan waves an awkward hand. He will never, he’s sure, get used to hearing his name on Phil Lester’s lips. “Hi. You’re back.”

“Of course! This is my local hangout now,” Phil says, winking. “Great cocktails, cute bar staff, crazy Bingo nights… this place has got it all.”

“Some people might not agree with you about the cocktails,” Dan can’t help himself saying, glancing at Charlie.

Charlie shuffles awkwardly on the spot. “Right,” he says, casting a look at Phil. They share a look that seems loaded with something Dan is not privy to, and then Charlie sighs, turning to Dan. “I wanted to, uh, apologise. About last time. Totally not cool of me to… tell you off like that. I was wasted.”

For an awkward moment, Dan waits for the actual word ‘sorry’ to leave Charlie’s mouth. It becomes obvious fairly swiftly that the dude feels he’s already said enough, so Dan just gives him a tight smile, and clears his throat.

“Oh, yeah man,” he says. “Let’s just… move on, I guess.”

If Charlie won’t say sorry, then Dan’s sure as hell not going to say he forgives him.

“So, drinks?” Phil asks, seeming to sense the taut atmosphere. “Maybe not cocktails?”

Dan can’t help the splutter of laughter, but Charlie shoots a dagger-like glare Phil’s way. It makes Dan’s lip curl; how could anyone be angry with Phil, of all people?

“Maybe some beers?” Dan suggests, teeth clenched. “We have a load of craft beers, or if you’re more into spirits I could make you guys a-”

“I’ll have a vodka and light tonic, no ice,” Charlie interrupts. “A double. If you use regular tonic, I will know.”

“Charlie,” Phil hisses under his breath.

They exchange another loaded look, and again Charlie sighs, turning to Dan with a fake smile. “Please.”

Swallowing the urge to roll his eyes, Dan nods, then gladly turns his attention to Phil. “And for you?”

“Oh,” Phil says, like it’s only just occurred to him that he needs to order as well. “God, I’m so bad at deciding, err…”

As he’s dithering, Charlie sighs. “Are you cool to get these, Phil? I’m gonna go find us a table.”

“You don’t wanna dance?”

“Not in the mood.”

Phil nods, obviously disappointed. “Okay, yeah, I’ll meet you in the back.”

With that, Charlie is gone, slipping into the crowd. The look of distaste must be more evident on Dan’s face than he thinks, because Phil laughs at it.

“I know,” Phil says. “But he does have a few… marginally amiable qualities.”

‘Why have you chosen to be with someone that’s marginally amiable when you’re so great,’ is what Dan wants to ask. Instead, he simply shrugs, deciding to change the subject.

“Have you decided on a drink yet? I’d better get on with making his low-cal dishwater.”

Phil laughs a little, then leans forwards, his smile deepening as he leans across the bar. “Surprise me.”

Something sparks a roman candle in Dan’s stomach, and his skin prickles with the heat it creates. He drags his eyes free of Phil’s with some difficulty, nodding, and turns to make the drinks.

He prepares Phil a ‘PopQueen’ cocktail, which is one of their most popular. It’s inspired by popcorn, along with the trio of Pop Queens that rule the gay music scene: Gaga, RiRi, and Bey. The moscato vodka base is made from Italian grapes to represent Gaga’s heritage, the spiced rum is a shoutout to Bey’s favourite drink, and Riri comes in in the form of a smoky splash of passion fruit bitter. The rest is topped up with popcorn syrup, lemonade, a sprinkle of caramel popcorn kernels, and as many sparkly cocktail sticks as Dan can fit in.

He explains the whole concoction to Phil as he presents it, a little smug because he knows this is an impressive looking cocktail. It’s probably his favourite one to make; the Viniq shimmery moscato vodka makes the drink swirl and shimmer - always exceptionally pretty.

Sure enough, Phil’s mouth drops open at the sight of it. “Okay wow,” Phil says, chuckling. “I’m gonna get drunk tonight, aren’t I?”

“If that’s your plan, this should definitely help you on your way,” Dan says, laughing too. “I wouldn’t recommend having a second if you want to remember your evening.”

Phil leans forwards to take a sip of the PopQueen, moaning around the straw, much to Dan’s dismay. He plucks one of the popcorn pieces off and eats it, eyes closed. In related news, Dan struggles not to fall to the floor. “Dan, you are an artiste,” Phil says. “Popcorn is my all time favourite food.”

“Oh, wow, that’s... lucky, I guess,” Dan stammers, a swell of pride surging up into his chest. “Glad you like it.”

“So, how much?”

“Oh, on the house.” Dan smiles, sliding the cocktail across the bar along with Charlie’s vodka tonic. “I feel bad for not letting you in on the forfeit for Bingo last time.”

The look on Phil’s face softens into something so sweet Dan can taste sugar on his tongue. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Phil says softly.

“It’s fine, really,” Dan assures him, all but sliding his elbows across the bar towards him. “I insist.”

A twitch in the corner of Phil’s mouth, and then he’s leaning across the bar. It happens slowly, but Dan still manages to be caught off guard. One moment, he’s watching, bemused, as Phil inches towards him, and the next there’s a light press of paper-soft lips to his cheek. A scratch of stubble grazes over Dan’s skin as Phil leans away.

“Thanks,” Phil tells him, smiling. “You’re sweet, Dan.”

And then he’s turning away, drinks in hand, slipping into the mass of people.

*

For the next few hours, Dan hopes for Phil to return to the bar for another round. He waits, eagerly, for this moment to come. Instead, Charlie is the one who brings his and Phil’s glasses back over, and waves to flag down Dan’s attention.

He nods in acknowledgement, finishing up the drinks order he’s in the middle of, and sidling over to Charlie. He forces a strained smile.

“Same again?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says, digging out his phone. “And a couple of vodka shots.”

He says nothing else, eyes glued to his phone screen. Dan waits for a moment before moving off, eyes stuck to Charlie’s face. He’s the kind of gorgeous that shouldn’t exist in real life. Unblemished, tanned skin. Clean, dark stubble, lacing his perfect, razorblade jawline. His hair is a swoop of glossy mahogany; even the cut of it looks expensive.

Charlie’s eyes flick up to Dan’s, obviously questioning why he’s staring, so Dan nods, embarrassed, and hurries to make the drinks. From a superficial standpoint, it’s obvious why Phil is with Charlie. Obviously, in Dan’s eyes, Phil is the most attractive man on the planet, but that’s just because he’s Dan’s type. Even he can tell that Charlie is objectively a beautiful human being.

It’s just a shame about everything below the surface level.

Dan pours the two shots Charlie ordered. “All together it’s twenty pounds, please.”

Charlie snorts, then pockets his phone at last. “Figures you’d give Phil the discount.”

He pulls out a twenty and slaps it on the counter.

“Sorry, I can’t give you guys free drinks all night.”

Charlie just stares back at him, a faint, knowing smile caught on his dusty pink lips. One of this thick eyebrows is slightly quirked, sliding an irritation under Dan’s skin. “Listen, Danny, is it?”

“Dan,” he grits.

“Dan,” Charlie says, leaning across the bar. “A little advice, yeah? Don’t be so transparent. It just comes across as pathetic.”

He downs both the shots in quick succession, baffling Dan, who is frozen, mortified, to the spot. Before his brain can thaw enough to stammer out some witty rebuttal, Charlie has swept the drinks off the counter, and is moving away.

Cheeks burning, Dan turns around, trying to calm his boiling blood. He squeezes his fists together, counting to ten, the way he makes himself after all encounters with dickhead customers.

“Hey, sweetcheeks, can we get some drinks over here, please?”

With a deep sigh, Dan unclenches his fists, and turns to the next customer.

*

At around one in the morning, Dan runs to the bathroom for a minute, and on his way, he sees Charlie. He’s against the wall of the club, near the DJ booth. There’s a muscular, dark-skinned man pressing him there; their faces are close. Dan can’t stop, he’s left Tyler and Dodie to the mercy of the drunks in their worst state - things get rowdy an hour before closing - and he needs to get back there. So, instead, he simply tucks the image away in his mind, to think about later on.

That man, leant against Charlie in a less-than-innocent seeming stance, was certainly not Phil, after all. As he exits the bathroom, he notices that Charlie is gone, as is whoever was with him.

*

At 1:55am, the lights come on. As usual, an enormous groan chants out of the crowd of patrons on the dance floor, followed by a few pairs awkwardly stepping out of the shadows, some squinting and eye-covering, and the slow, jelly-legged walk to the coat-check area.

“I think I just saw some guy getting up off his knees in the corner,” Tyler says despondently. “Shotgun not mopping the floor tonight.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Dan sighs. “On the dance floor? Really? Why can’t they suck each other off in the bathroom like normal people?”

“Oh, there were definitely people doing that in one of the stalls about an hour ago,” someone says to Dan’s right. The voice, for some reason, sends the hairs up on the back of Dan’s neck.

He turns, wondering when Matt’s voice got so low, only to find that Phil has perched himself on one of the bar stools, the dregs of his cocktail still in a glass in front of him. For a moment, Dan is too stunned at the sight of him to reply. Then, he registers that the lights are on, and cringes, knowing he likely looks frightful. Phil, of course, looks radiant as ever even under the harsh fluorescents, apart from a faint tiredness, visible in the dark circles underneath his eyes.

“You’re still here,” Dan comments. “I thought you guys had gone.”

“Charlie left,” Phil says, looking away from Dan. “Or I assume he did.”

Out of sight, Tyler catches Dan’s eye, making an obscene gesture with his hands before snickering and running off in the direction of the supply closet. Dan just glares after him, pink-cheeked, and turns back to Phil.

“Wait, he left without telling you?”

One of Phil’s shoulders moves towards his neck, then falls. “He does that.”

“Wow that’s… kind of shitty.”

As soon as the words are out, Dan regrets them. He can’t help but think of Charlie’s comment from earlier; it rings in his ears as if the guy had screamed it at him.

Don’t be so transparent. It just comes across as pathetic.

He was right, probably, though Dan had hated hearing it. He should stop being such a suck-up. It must be awkward and cringey for Phil to see Dan so obviously smitten.

Still, Phil throws him a faint smile. “It’s cool. He’s just a flaky guy. A bit of a princess. He grew up rich, so he’s always been a bit superficial. I’m trying to wring the bourgeoisie out of his blue blood.”

Dan snorts with laughter. “In my experience, you can’t filter the dickishness out of people very easily.”

There’s a silence, then. Phil regards him with a faintly curious expression.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Dan says once the silence gets too uncomfortable. He shrugs, grabbing the rag from his back pocket and starting to wipe down the bar. “I don’t know the guy, really. I’ve just had a couple of unfortunate experiences with him.”

“Oh no,” Phil says, face falling. “What did he do this time?”

Dan laughs, bitterly. “Don’t worry about it. He’s just a little mouthy, is all.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“So, when do you get to leave this place?” Phil asks, playing with his glass. He still hasn’t drunk the remainder of his cocktail. “Or do you sleep here?”

“On weekdays, the bar closes at two, so I get out of here at around two-thirty.”

“Christ,” Phil mutters. “And I thought my job was long hours.”

A laugh bursts out of Dan’s throat, but he covers it as best he can with a cough, turning away. Busying himself with ‘dusting’ some liquor bottles, Dan tries to compose a straight face. Is Phil honestly going to try and argue that his job is difficult? When was the last time that guy ever grabbed a broom, or handled someone’s sticky change?

In a minute, Dan is going to go into the corner of the dance floor, get down on his knees, and clean up some randomer’s come. A few weeks ago he saw Phil swanning about a five-star hotel in Korea. If AmazingPhil’s worst complaint is that he had to have a few questionable outfit choices put on him, and some silvery goo in his hair, then he needs a reality check.

Nevertheless, Dan knows that he can’t say any of this. Not only would he never dream of insulting Phil Lester, but it’s pointless to try and explain the differences between classes to someone in a privileged position. They’ve usually forgotten how to understand.

“Are you close by, at least?” Phil asks, interrupting Dan’s thoughts.

Dan turns back to him. “Kemptown. It’s half an hour’s walk, more or less.”

“You walk?” Phil asks, eyebrows skyrocketing towards his quiff. “At two in the morning?”

“Five in the morning on weekends,” Dan confirms, hiding a smile at Phil’s surprise. “It’s okay, you get used to it. Besides, it’s mostly just drunk idiots chugging cans of cider and threatening to run into the sea. Not too scary.”

Despite Dan’s reassurance, the look of pity and concern on Phil’s face doesn’t subside. After a while, Dan turns from it, feeling awkward. He busies himself with clearing away the last of the empty glasses, yawning into the crook of his elbow. Tonight was rough.

“You should crash at mine,” Phil blurts.

Sure he must have misheard, Dan faces Phil slowly. “Um, what?”

“If you’re exhausted, I mean.” Phil fidgets, fingers tapping against his glass. “Like, on the nights you can’t face walking all the way home, you can totally just sleep on my sofa.”

Speechless, Dan simply stares.

“The couch is pretty comfy,” Phil continues in a ramble, not meeting Dan’s eye. “And my flat is just up the road, literally like a minute away. I’m not saying, y’know, come over every night, ‘cause obviously… that might be an issue, but you can absolutely stay round on, say, Saturday nights when you finish later. That wouldn’t be a problem.”

He’s just being nice. That’s Dan’s only explanation. Phil Lester is a sweetheart of a person, and he got so worried about the hypothetical danger involved in Dan’s walks home, that he offered something big, even though he didn’t really mean it.

Dan is a stranger to him. He needs to decline the polite offer, and let Phil off the hook he accidentally created to string himself up on.

So, Dan forces out a small chuckle, and says: “Oh, no, it’s really fine. Thanks for the offer, that’s really good of you, but I quite like the walk. It’s a nice come down after a busy night.”

Phil nods, chewing his lip. He looks unconvinced. “I’m not just saying it, though.” His voice has dropped to a lower tone. “Like tonight… you’re so tired, I can see it. Just grab some sleep at mine before you head back across town.”

As soon as Phil mentions it, the quilt of his own exhaustion flops around his shoulders, dragging Dan’s bones towards the floor. He tries to picture the stumble back to his crummy flat in Kemptown, loathing each imaginary step.

“You barely know me,” Dan says - one last attempt at refusal.

Sensing he’s won, Phil smiles very slightly, then downs the rest of his cocktail at last. “I don’t know if it’s just me, Dan, but I have this feeling that we’re going to be good friends.”

(Part 4!)

[cctaehyung]

vi. first snow.

2016 on december fourth. taehyung recognized the date all too well.

the first time he had experienced the date, he had just gotten a job on this day. after a difficult time cooperating with the father of the ceo, he was able to get the job that he has had until the event happened. but as of now, according to kento, he had gotten the job ever since june 20 of 2016. strange date, he thinks to himself. he doesn’t question it any further, though. in this timeline, he just learns to go with the flow. in order to get by, he just had to question everything only to himself since it was obvious he wasn’t going to get any answers from others.

surprisingly, though, he has a day off today. kento and his family are off on some vacation, so that gives taehyung about a week off from work since standing by kento was pretty much his only job. his job was to make sure that the boy doesn’t get himself kidnapped and to not let his father know that kento was watching some hardcore yaoi porn. in those times, taehyung feels the most stress because if he fails to do his job, not only will he get fired but he’ll be disliked by mr. yamazaki even more. he’s already got plenty of reasons to dislike ricky, but the redhead was not going to let his actual boss believe that he converted kento into anime boys with tremendously large hands. taehyung doesn’t even watch anime anymore! he didn’t want to be slandered!

he’s not used to thinking this week when he means that week of 2016. when he wants to refer to a time in his journal that he has kept since then, he used to debate whether he should write one or the other. eventually, he settled for “this week the first time i experienced it” with a sky blue pen to match his magical outfit that he has worn to this day.

surprising as it is, he’s writing in it now. with a color switching ballpoint pen that he stole from danny’s room, taehyung writes a new entry with december fourth as the date, drawing a number two in parenthesis next to the 2016 that begins the date. he begins with “this day the first time i experienced it, i got a job that i have kept even up to this time.” he writes about how in eight days from now in that time, he would experience a life changing experience after he reminisces the past. it would earn him the color of sky blue, as well as the blue flower on his index finger.

in this timeline, he never does go to a hospital. he never stays in a coma for three weeks with a possibility of dying because why would he? according to other special class heroes, they have already destroyed the tantalus in the summer. it’s strange to know that even though he’s experienced time already, he feels as if he’s missed out on so much already because everything else is different now.

taehyung hopes march sixth stays the same.

he writes about life. there’s no one in mind but himself as he moves the pen across the paper. usually, he would write pages about specific people he’s seen. he’s written about yoongi, obviously. there was an entry dedicated to taeyong and another dedicated to envy. he’s received a glare from kana, once. he briefly wrote about that.

though he had thought about kento and his father while writing it, he didn’t write anything about them besides the fact that they got him the job. just that sentence. “they gave me the job.” of course, he feels a little bad about writing it, but it cannot be helped since there’s not much thought into them. perhaps, maybe in the future, he will go more in depth on his relationship with them even if he’ll be the only person reading the entries.

once he finishes writing, he puts his journal away in a box in his closet. after he tops the box with its lid and leaves the closet, he sees danny burst into his room with excitement on his face.

“ricky! it’s snowing!” it’s another thing that differs from the past timeline. he doesn’t remember it snowing last year on this day. right behind his youngest triplet is soonshim who also seemed to be happy over the weather outside.

“snow is normal in december, danny,” he says, hiding the fact that he was slightly impressed by it.

“don’t you want to come outside? it’s super pretty!” danny smiles. “you can even contemplate it while i wrestle soonshim to the ground in it.”

taehyung frowns. “please don’t wrestle my dog.”

“no promises,” the other replies with a grin. “come on!! get dressed! i don’t mind you turning into an ice cube, but you help pay rent and we can’t lose you!”

“who says i’m going out with you?”

“i do! now get your emo ass out here or i’m going to call the police.”

“fine, fine,” ricky sighs before going back into his closet to search for a coat.

“we’ll meet you out there, okay?” danny shouts while ricky was still searching. “and i’ll try not to wrestle her. but if you find the both of us on the ground, it’s her fault. not mine.” he hears hurried footsteps fading away from his room after that.

he finds one, eventually. it’s red with some fur on the hood. it’s puffy, but he knows it will keep him warm. he wears it to match it with danny’s purple one that looks exactly the same. it’s kind of cheesy to go jacket shopping with his brothers only to get matching ones. he’s just glad he didn’t have to get matching ugly christmas sweaters along with it.

putting it on and zipping it up, he makes his way out of his room and the apartment before making it to the open front door where he sees his brother along with soonshim playing in the snow together. even with the sight in front of him, he doesn’t feel left out from their shenanigans (in fact, he didn’t want to partake in them in the first place). rather, he pays attention to how the snow falls and he thinks to himself silently while they do. due to the fact that it was the season of his birthday and of his favorite holiday, winter had always been his favorite out of the four. the feeling stepping on snow with shoes felt satisfying as he ruins a perfect, untouched bed of white with one footstep. it was all the power of such, small flakes. but if they’re all piled up on each other, they can become something beautiful yet dangerous at the same time. it was quite fascinating.

in fact, the longer he thought about that philosophy, the more he thought about the league. it all started with aku, but as more heroes joined, they became a league. perhaps that’s why taehyung feels as if he was apart of something big whenever he remembers his position as a special class hero. when he looks at his brothers who are apart of the same league as him, he can’t help but feel a bit of pride for not only being higher than them (of course he would), but for the fact that they were apart of something big. with him. that was the only thing that could prevent them from being killed more,

it was the only thing that could have prevented the apocalypse.

that was the reason why it started, after all. everyone parted ways and the league was losing members quickly. even if the majority of the league didn’t survive, most of the resistance members were apart of it.

but with the fact that he was looking at the snow and the thought of the apocalypse came to mind, his thoughts eventually lost themselves. rather than thinking properly, he looks at the perfect snow white world and sees gray all over. no longer was it the winter of 2016, but rather the colorless summer of 2020 of that time. he sees gray around himself with only small blotches of red in random spots of the scenery. no longer does he hear his brother’s laughter and the happy, high barks of his card. sounds of happiness are suddenly replaced by the sound of taehyung’s heavy breathing.

in a week from today at that time, he would experience a life changing experience. in four years from this year in that time, he would live through the nightmare he sees now. no one is with him at this point. all of his family has left him. no one was with him to make him feel all better. even with the resistance by his side, he felt so alone with noone to lean on or turn to.

the moment he realizes all of this, his knees go weak and he feels himself fall to the floor, feeling the scenery around him change once again. he’s in a different place, but he’s still in the same time. the whole world was in gray and red once again, but with him is the familiar boy who he held in his arms during his last few moments.

“taehyung,” the boy says with a weak smile. “y-you need to go on without me. you need to protect everybody and, and-” he interrupts his own sentence with a cough, more blood leaving from his mouth.

taehyung wants to shout. he does. he wants to shout at yoongi for being so careless and for getting himself hurt. taehyung does not even remember his intentions for doing so. all he could even think about at that exact moment was that he was losing someone. he was losing someone so important to him that he had dated for three years and he could do nothing about it. when he sees yoongi’s eyes that were quickly losing light, he sees memories from the past and expectations for the future fade away. all the memories full of smiles and laughter and the future with even more vanish in the literal blink of his eyes.

“ricky, ricky,” he calls out silently to get his attention.

“why are you crying?” another voice asks to bring him back to reality.

time suddenly comes back to ricky and he is brought back to 2016 with snowflakes falling from the sky, not helping with the fact that taehyung was shedding tears now. it was easy to recognize which one was a snowflake on his cheek and which one was a teardrop.

danny’s in front of him now. he’s full of so much excitement and life that the longer he looks at his brother, the more sadness he feels.

he couldn’t be out here. he couldn’t be with other people now. he needed to be alone.

“i need to go back inside,” taehyung says, using his sleeve to wipe his nose and his cold, shaking hands to wipe his eyes. “i’m sorry.”

he turns away, walking back into the apartment complex in silence.

[pixelatedlenses]

“You Can’t Have Black Faeries”: Black Magic, Representation, And Fantastical Reads and Writing , or How I Started Writing Black Characters on Tumblr and Never Looked Back

So I’m going to preface this with the fact that this is a veritable essay that kind of winds: it’s not really organized and would never be published on a formal news site. It’s just my story, all of what I remember, and clocks in around 6ish pages. It was important for me to write this during Black History Month because over the last year, I’ve undergone a lot of changes, and my writing has changed with it. I hope that you’ll read this and ask questions, and continue to support me as I change even more. I love my blackness, I love my writing, and I love sharing it with you all. I suppose here’s the roots of how I got to be Spencer Avery, my pen name that I use for my core writing, outside of beng Tomi for art and light novels. 

It’s my story, and is more stream of consciousness than anything else. Basically: enjoy, is what I’m trying to say. Also, this is, of course, one of the supplimental pieces I mentioned in my post about writing about BHM in Japan. I hope you come to understand another part of me, and see why my black is beautiful. .

I can honestly say that at 24, I love writing black characters.

I stick representations of myself –my culture, fat black folxs, nerdy black folxs, magical black folxs– into whatever I can, whether it’s a mundane romance tale set in a perfectly normal world or a princess stuck in a tower. It became important to me about… eh, three years ago that I start to normalize those kinds of worlds, that Black folxs were just as magic as a Tolkien elf or a Harry Potter wizard. We belonged in those worlds alongside European styled magics too.

But it wasn’t always like that.

I started writing fanfiction at age 13. I was confused about a lot of things: I felt wrong in my black skin, about liking girls over boys and flowers, felt at odds with the black girls that teased me and bullied me into buying them snacks. (And also called my mother fat to my face, which yeah, we both are, but you don’t get to call her that, you know? Geez.) Most of all, I think feeling a sense of nothingness prevailed: I was a black girl playing at being good enough to be white, playing at stepping outside my ethnic roots to somehow feel capital-N Normal.

Video games, thus, became a home for me: I found myself in Naruto, felt at home in the vast worlds of Kingdom Hearts, was brave and empowered in Pokemon was somebodies hero in the countless rpgs stacked next to my bed. I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that I spent more time connected to a set of double a’s or a charger than I did reflecting on myself. I think now, a lot of Blerds –black nerds – often do: we’re pushed out with anti-blackness from our own black folx, and left to imagine ourselves as meaningful in somebody else’s world. It’s quite sad, and perhaps why now, I write so much fantasy and fiction featuring a black character overcoming: it’s a message that still needs to be heard and echoed.

Nevertheless, I was a lonely kid. It was the height of MySpace, I was a digital roleplayer under the all too ridiculous name Naruko Fai Uzamachi –I literally just let out the most pitiful Regret Groan – and I was still on the hunt for that last, little taste of acceptance.

Hence writing.

I put up my first fic on Fanfiction.net sometime in 2007, most likely May. It was a hot mess, but I’m saying that millions of words later in 2017. At the time, it was a release: I was deep into the 801 –that’s Yaoi for the uninitiated, taking from the alternative pronunciations for 8, 0, and 1 in Japanese – community, having found a weird, hypersexualized acceptance amongst likeminded women who felt pushed to Western society’s fringes. I was everywhere I could on MySpace, Aarinfantasy, and any board I could find to somehow make my 14-year-old heart ache less. Fanfiction was there as another balm: I have memories of sneaking onto the computer at midnight, trying to turn the brightness down just so to not wake my mother, and clacking out my feelings about depression, hurt, growing up, and wanting desperately to belong to something.

(As I’m currently at work, I won’t like it: it’s explicit, and I don’t’ look at things like that on my on hours. I can tell you it’s called “Land and Sky” and was a SasuNaru fic, a hot pairing even in 2017.  You can look it up on my Fanfiction.net account, and for fun, do a live reading with your friends. I’ve tried to rewrite it multiple times, and may try this year as it’s the anniversary and my writing is hopefully better. I think perhaps that’s my penance for teenage me’s horribly written yaoi: rewrite a SasuNaru fic every ten years for the rest of my life. Of course, it’s funny now: at the time, I was Ride or Die about that fic.)

This led to me often seeking solace in Asian characters: they were the closes analog to me. Brown and black faces didn’t match me in terms of how I felt; they reminded me of the same mocking laughter, harsh hands, and hurtful words that were hurled at me daily. I didn’t want to like them, but perhaps a part of me also realized I needed something. Asian person –specifically Japanese character – offered that something. They were ethnic enough in my young eyes, and were close enough. Sometimes, characters were a tanned brown, many shades away from my dark skin, but felt cousin to my desire for acceptance.

(Now, of course, I realize that wasn’t the answer and that Japanese-Americans are often ridiculed for their own desire to enjoy their culture, while Westerners  –predominantly Americans of European descent – often police fan culture within Anime and Manga or general Japanese pop, and that has often led to exclusion. That’s not to say there aren’t black folxs out there policing Japanese-American consumption of their own culture too: there certainly are, and they’re just as wrong.)

Writing, thus, developed into a series of long worded fanfiction pieces that I posted all across the web, primarily on FF.net, which was my stomping ground for a very long time. I can still google my many pen names –Syrus Gardenia Fuze, which apparently I asked to be called, dozens of Japanese names with African-esque sounds, and eventually, Nagone, which I took kanji –immaturely and without any knowledge of the language, as I was studying Spanish and not even Chinese yet to understand characters and radicals– to mix together to form “a strong sounding name” which I still use today, but hope to change this year actually– and find my pieces. I get hits daily from kids going through the same growth I did: kids who message me asking questions about the fictional worlds I built, kids who express the same sadness, heartache, and loneliness of being classed as different. PoC kids who tell me that they’re looking for themselves and found it in my writing.

Growing up certainly hasn’t changed in a decade, you know?

However, by the time that college rolled around, fed-up, still black, now queer me was tired, and fanfiction wasn’t always doing the same things it had. I was sick of school, wanted desperately out and to move to Missouri for college, but was stuck in a mundane year. After a blow up at my bullies which resulted in me getting kicked out the band hall and nearly breaking a bass clarinet from dropping it on the ground, I stopped writing: I just flat out gave it up. It felt like it was putting away childish things, tucking away the past, and would let me move on.

Of course, at this point, you’re realizing that I didn’t stop as I’m talking about writing. Let’s continue.

I came back to it in college after my father died because I need Home again. I was still focused on Japan and Japanese media because Japan was cool: I hadn’t had the realization that Japan was a country, and hadn’t really delved into my studies that would lead me to a degree in History and Asian Studies focused on Japan and on showing a 360 view of the nation rather than “it’s got pop culture!” I was still hiding from being black: high school had brow beat me with “Why do we need Black History Month?” gorilla masks when Obama got into office –with friends remarking that I should be proud on of my people made if at 17 and 18– and general Southern Fried Racism that I was more than willing to reject being black. My pool of genuine black friends had grown from two to six: I added a few men into the mix -almost all are college friends I still love- and was steadily working towards some awareness that I was black and not secretly a white girl beneath.

Home was in writing more fics: still primarily yaoi, though I had dabbled in yuri and girl’s love with the arrival of my first partner. I was a bit more brazen and brave about what I wrote, and started showing PoC women together instead of solely Japanese men. It was a radical change, and made me feel a little bit better between regretting being queer and loving college. But there was still a stark absence of anyone black: in fact, I honestly can’t remember ever writing a black character for most of my early writing life.

So, I bet you’re wondering when that black part will come in?

Well, it starts probably in 2013ish when I made my writing Tumblr.

I’d heard about Tumblr through my fourth partner, an asexual with a penchant for wanting a mixed child because they were “cute” and wanting a boy despite being agender and stating that no one should choose gender.

(I should add that they often remarked they wanted to spin the sperm of their donor to increase the rate of a boy, and would be sad to not have their child come out how they wanted. It made me feel very gross, and I was not at all sad to break up with them. It was for the best, and I hope that they realize now that it’s kind of gross to want a mixed child for their aesthetic and not because you wouldn’t mind having a child with multiple cultures. They were a nice person, but it’s alright to accept that nice people -even me- have microaggresions that we must constnatly work at.)

I started with a cosplay tumblr: it was dedicated to my costuming which I did often enough, and was made with the mindset of being a black cosplayer. This was a huge change, and it came solely because of an event the year before: namely, the murder-death killing of Trayvon Martin, a boy who was sent to rest by a man who is, simply put, a racist and hated him for his skin.

That changed my world: it was like I’d been literally seeing black and white, and suddenly, there was an entire spectrum of Brown that I fit into. I was a black person, ahd the potential to get killed for my skin, for not being submissive, for being a perceived threat, and that was scary. It was the kind of thing that, for months, kept me awake. I saw, for the first time, the ugly face of kind racism: I had white friends remark that President Obama wouldn’t know how it felt to lose a child like that because he was only half-black, and he was the President, one of the good ones. I saw that perhaps, I was perceived like that: that my intellect, my quiet nature, my bookish ways, and my gentleness were only Right because they were White, that a percentage of people around me where trading Me for being Good, and a Good Black.

(Insert another groan.)

So my writing changed with that: it became more active, more constant, and eventually in 2014, solidified into this blog with all the meager beginnings I could offer. I remember my first posts were from a roleplay senior year: they focused on the characters of our werewolf campaign. I think after that came some reposts from FictionPress  –I really want to start utilizing that again this year, alongside Wattpad and other sns for writing–  and then… well, then I started writing for myself. It started with fae –I’ve always like fae since I first read Holly Black’s Modern Fae series, specifically Valiant, sophomore year of high school– and so I started to transplant black features onto them. My fae ranged from sweet to scary, were villains, heroes, lovers, and friends. They were varied like I felt I was: black had stopped having a singular identity or word bubble of terms that were solely “ethnic” and was a mass of very difficult faces, all living very different lives. I mirrored that onto the supernatural, and it worked: I started to gain ground and felt that I was doing something right. It felt good, and that momentum carried into grad school, picking me up when I was down, giving me a place to escape, but also critically write about big feelings.

Simply put, writing was good.

(I also got into Legend of Korra heavy and started writing fic again. I’ve been on a two year fic break, but plan to pick it up soon, after I finish my current project which I still can’t talk about.)

You’d think that after nearly a decade of writing, I’d have written for myself, but I always think I was writing for others: it’s a habit I still struggle with because I’m a people pleaser and want to make folxs happy, but writing for myself was the most freeing thing I could ever reward myself with.

Now, I’d love to tell you I remember my first black girl, but the one I remember most –and the one that’s fairly well-known and recent– is Cobalt “Colby” Johnson, a college-aged, plump, chubby black girl from my novella Gelid. She’s from 2015, her story written in a month in a cast of all non-white characters. Colby is probably one of the dearest characters to my heart, and when I get a chance, I will rewrite her purposely quickly written story into something bigger, seal up her plot holes and give her more body.

Colby, as a character, was not originally meant to be an analog of me: I never set out thinking, “Yeah, this is me, but if I ended up in a crazy, month long adventure”. At the time, I was writing her as a challenge: finish one thing, and it would mean I could finish anything I set my mind to. Surprisingly, when I did finish, it gave me the strength to do just that: finish things, even if it took time.

Colby was the culmination of all the things I felt that big black girls needed: adventure, an acceptance of self. She was my swan song to the me that hated being fat, to the me that hated being fat and black, to the me that thought other black girls also wanted adventure. It was important to me that I give that adventure and have the black girl win: I gave her winnings in the form of a solid relationship with her mother that was genuinely healthy, a good friend, and the power of being a diety essentially. Certainly, thinking now about the story, there’s massive plot holes to how that all happened, but that wasn’t the point: it was getting that story out of me and out for people to engage with.

Regardless, Colby became me because writing is a part of me: every character takes from their owner, right? Colby was no different. But she was magical because she did something special to me, and made me crave writing again.

(Please search the Gelid tag on the blog. I really love this story because it changed me, and once I wrote it, I finally stopped looking back to my mistakes and started to change my writing to be more self-serving. And hey, if there’s enough interest, Gelid will receive a published rewrite and maybe even an ebook form like I had formerly planned.)

After that, a cork was popped, and I’ve been writing a lot more black girls since. Black folxs I should say as most range from AFAB persons to trans and genderqueer, genderfluid and fully other: dragons who take female form but are just them, otherworldly entities, fae who don’t need human gender roles. Honestly, I feel the momentum is still here even though I had to step back from writing to transition my life to Japan. I’m still writing black girls, though now, my life is influenced by half-Japanese and African-American folxs, writing for an often underserved part of Japanese society.

The fantastical is a powerful thing, you know, and when a pen is your sword, you can do a lot of great things. I wish that younger me had the ability to see that would be our reality one day: yet I’m glad I didn’t because realizing that was sweet, if not hard fought for, and makes writing even more valuable to me.

This year, of course, will bring more black girls, along with Japanese writing, largely because of my new environment. I have plans for many stories with all black fae communities, returns to old characters like Colby (Gelid) and Flavia and Sorrell (Polychromatic (18+), a piece from the wonderful SSBB, which was a dream come true!), a magical girl series called end game that contains black duotagonists, and lots of other stuff. I won’t reveal my entire hand: I want to keep some things close to my chest, but I can say that 2017 –and perhaps the rest of my life– will be the Year of Black Magic, of celebrating my skin through writing, of realizing worlds where real society is tossed out and equality, fairness, and mutuality reign.

I’m going to end this telling you that I’m still a work in progress: a decade of actualized self-hate is not cured by writing some pretty badass black folx overnight, or even in a few years. Loving my blackness, writing my blackness, and living both of those things are a daily effort, and sometimes, it gets beaten down and I feel worthless because ultimately I am a human. I’m not invincible. Yet I still find the ability, day by day, to rise up and be proud of me.

I’m but one of many black writers, but I’ll say that I’m proud: a decade of writing, a decade of The Struggle, and I’ve arrived. I love my life, and especially love my writing. I hope to share it for as long as I can on here, and everywhere for the rest of my life.

Say it loud: Spencer Avery’s Black and Proud!

tl;dr: I won’t ever have an all white story again, and honestly, probably never a story without 96% POC characters. It may be the case that I’m that one writer with the Token White Person in the future: I often wonder if that’ll be true. I don’t mean that in a negative way either: I love writing characters, but I also think it’s important that little black girls and black folxs can see themselves succeed not through strife, but through living in other worlds and engaging with life without having to always Overcome. Strife is not a Black Descriptor: it’s not all we are meant to do. Once I write black, I sure ain’t going back: ugh, that’s the wrong tense, but you get the point. I love writing representation for people who look like me, who are dark brown, darkly toasted, and proud. I don’t know if I ever could stop: the thought makes me rather sad. I hope that 14-year-old me who sought representation in tidbits, in girls like Tally Youngblood who I desperately hoped had an inkling of actual melanin, would be proud: that me would love to know that there are fae and witches, princesses in towers and deities that look like me: black, curled hair, big-brained, and adventurous in whatever they do.