#i wrote most of this at work

[chyuyuuz]

I finished my first prompt for the SVSSSAction Gotcha For Gaza! This work is for Otno ^-^

I hope you enjoy!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[irate-iguana]

We need more weird historian rep in Doctor Who. The companions are too normal when faced with the prospect of time travel. I want a companion who makes a list of super specific historical destinations related to their dissertation. I want somebody whose first reaction to finding out that the Doctor is a time travelling alien is to create a Microsoft Word document and ask, “What caused the Late Bronze Age collapse?”

[feelo-fick]

it can't be too hard right?

it's easy not to think about things, he tells me i don't think all the time! wait...

—

a scene from a fic that i have no clue if ill finish, let alone post, but look i made fanart of my own thing that doesnt even exist :D

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[bluerosefox]

"Daddy! Mommy's is having Ellie!"

Everyone in the Batfam knows Jason keeps secrets.

Secrets he'd take to his grave a second time if he had to.

But to think one of those secrets would be about the fact he had a secret family.

And the only reason the Batfam found out was because apparently their secret (grand)daughter/sister-in-law Jazz/Jasmine was in labor and their (great)grandson/nephews Danny (Daniel) and Dan (Dante) called him while on a Red Hood job with the rest of the Batfam to panicky tell him their baby sister Ellie was on the way early.

Red Hood books it away from the fam to his bike while asking to put Kori or Roy on the phone.

Oh boy.

[iyohme]

and i know that you mean so well;

but i am not a vessel for your good intent!

("Tongues and Teeth," - The Crane Wives)

my serotonin got jetpack bursted into the stratosphere with this blurb by OP. Your brain is so juicy and moist and wrinkly OP. Godspeed. I'm not even into DC but the whole "Burnt out and neglected, and now a bunch of people driven by guilt guilt guilt want me back so they can feel less guilty?" just made the racoon in me rub its hands menacingly hoho

Just imagine not even living your best life; just a shadow in the lives of the illustrious Waynes, a ghost in a castle, visible only to the loyal servant and the occasional curious paparazzi who shrugs and looks away--after all, there was no mention of you in any occasion: must be the kid of in-house staff. How nice of Brucie Wayne to allow even the children of in-house staff the opportunity to study at such a high-end college! (The reporters chortle and snicker at your barely-passing marks, sighing at such a wasted opportunity. Oh well. And then they move on to the tabloid topic of the week, after the strutting socialites and the rich and the arrested Rogues.)

You gather things.

You gather pieces of a cracked dream, a single plastic teacup you had brought into the cavernous mansion the day you held Alfred's old, gnarled hand. Ears ringing and slippers still stained with your parent's blood as they were gunned down before your very eyes. You gather your things, what made you before you were "Wayne," so to say. Your mother's old cigarette box, smuggled from the crime scene, your one memento of the woman who you could not forget but never forgive.

A juxtaposition of love and hate, forever crucified. The image of the Virgin Mary inside the tin box seems to be a mockery of faith, across from her image lying cheap cigarettes.

You gather test papers, all barely passing and with more reds than blacks, and grind them up into strips with the shredder you had brought; just one time the black card Wayne had given you, and it left the bitterest, sourest aftertaste in your mouth. They burn so cozily on the school Bunsen burners, especially when sprayed with alcohol, immediately immolating like timelapse sparkler videos. You gather your name before the Incident, you cherish it, and you repeat the syllables in the dead of night, spilling past your mouth. Even if it was the name of a child-abusing monster, it was still yours, and it was still of use.

And use it, you would.

While they go and be a family, you work to begin yours.

You gather funds: it's easy to take on odd jobs when people do not suspect you. You tuck away that black card at the bottom of your study table drawers, forgotten there like scribbled-out pages of an essay, an unfinished drawing, and leftover candy wrappers. It's a bit-by-bit work, but you know the Waynes wouldn't even see it happening. Your brothers and sisters (an absurdly alien concept, as they don't even acknowledge you exist ninety-five percent of the time) are prodigies paraded around at every event. You are the unseen ghost flitting through their shadows.

Graduation comes and goes. It's laughably easy to falsify having lost your social security number and other documents--Gotham is that much of a shithole, you suppose. The man in the cowl notwithstanding. His efforts are admirable, but weak. Recidivism is common in this place, as if there were some sort of pull that incited the people in Gotham to cruelty, to madness.

It's absurdly Lovecraftian, in its own way.

You are not even living your best life, and yet you are free. Alfred knows; he always knows. If you are The Ghost, then the aged butler is a man one step between the doors of death, and he sees you every time you move. Your room is empty, and he raises an eyebrow at your satchel: all your items already stored elsewhere or given away.

("I suppose this was a long time coming, Little Master."

Tap tap tap. Footsteps on marble floors, setting sun.

You shrug. "Eh. The Waynes gave me a roof and education. It's all good."

You grunt. "Well, people change. Like you know, how kids being gifted stop being gifted when they grow older." You say, instead of 'Well, if a child doesn't get any praise or attention if they do good and probably even less if they were bad, why even bother?')

A pause. "Your academics were not so lackluster when you were younger."

You promise to try and stay in touch. (You crossed your fingers behind your back.) You leave, sunset on your face.

The nap you had in a dingy hotel with far too many odd stains and not enough locks you could put on was the soundest you've ever slept in years.

Freedom smells like summer air and the last rays of sun, followed by the cold blue hour.

It takes three months for an out-of-state college to accept you. It's far from Gotham. It has a dormitory. Excellent. While you were indeed a mediocre academic student, you had banked everything on band scholarships.

Who knew more than a hundred clarinet players had unclaimed scholarships yearly? Packing up your small life in bags, you take a train upwards to another state.

(Meanwhile, in Gotham, there is an odd sense of unease as Bruce Wayne stops by an inconspicuous door. It's relatively clean, as expected of his manor, but the worn out brass on the handle suggests that someone had lived there before. He opens the door. Steps in. A bed, a dresser, a study table. Bare bones.

The unease intensifies. But who?)

Someone had lived in here, yes.

[milfzatannaz]

lamentation of the goth girl

[marzipanandminutiae]

Average historian denies all gay relationships statistic false!

No-Lesbians Ruth Franklin, who lives in an archive and denies any possible sapphic interpretation of Shirley Jackson’s work 50 times a day, is an outlier adn should not be counted

[naiad-lagoon]

tyty for the tag, @emelkae!

rules: post the last seven sentences you've written, then tag seven people.

this was actually never supposed to see the light of day (didn't even make it out of my notes to a doc lmao) so no title for this

How long until he himself is slain in the name of peace across the nation and finally laid to rest in waters marred by his own blood and for once not that of others? Surely the blood should be gone by now. But he can feel it, splashing up to his shoulders. Pouring down his lungs. He is wading in it. How much blood is on his hands? Too much.

open tag ofc!! buuuut for the challenge rules i'm tagging: @perpetualcynicism, @minhxiao, @frankenjoly, @legend-of-cupcake, @thirdleaflogic, @cocrante, @airbluest

[tabellae-rex-in-sui]

Please tell us more about Bordel Patriotique?? 👀

Bordel Patriotique is that one political porn pamphlet from 1791 that features a bunch of political figures of the time. The author claims to be Marie Antoinette opening a "Patriotic Brothel" meaning a brothel that embraces the revolution and serves the people. It's all very satirical. There's a few pages about the importance of fucking in a Republic-honoring way or whatever, usual porn pamphlet stuff, but at the end there's a few scenes of dialogue (and sex) between real public figures. Here's the cast of featured characters and their roles:

Danton fucks Marat at one point. Also whoever wrote this REALLY hates Marat.

You can read it here

[hawkwidows]

I like when people make will a sleepy boy in their content, I think it’s sweet that he gives off that energy. like yes he gets warm and toasty and falls asleep easily you’re right. he’ll curl up against whoever’s closest and they don’t mind. sometimes he misses parts of movies on movie nights but it’s okay he’s usually seen them. he’ll nod off in the passenger seat on a longer drive and the radio volume gets turned down. he loooves sleeping safely wrapped in mikes’s arms. if lazy kissing turns into a make out he still might fall asleep bc his eyes are already closed, sue him. his plushies make good pillows and he doesn’t care (mostly) if you think he’s too old for them. don’t disturb him bc given his occasional nightmares he needs all the rest he can get! he wakes up with flushed pink cheeks and blinks those doe eyes open. just a sleepy angel

[shiongenkai]

Ghouls as Retail Workers Headcanon

If I have to work retail hell, so do they!!!! I kinda imagined they'd work at like. a retail chain. I dont know. Imagine a Walmart. If you don't have a Walmart where you live. Imagine what you would describe as Retail Hell.

This is an incredibly stupid post on how I think they'd survive working a retail job off campus. This certainly applies to on campus jobs too though. Please don't take any of this seriously.

Frostheim

If you ignore the fact that none of them (with the exception of like, Kaito? Maybe?) would ever need to work retail to begin with, you will discover that most of them do not have the constitution and social moxxy to survive in retail anyway.

Jin

I think we all need to be honest here. He'd be dogshit at it. He's the coworker who acts like the manager even if he's not, and he's terrible with customers and other employees. You could not rely on him to cover your shift, but you can always rely on him calling out and requiring you to come in on your day off. Absolute retail bastard. 1/10 but only because if a customer gives you shit, he'll defend you and take the heat for it. You win one, lose every other one.

Tohma

Out of everyone in Frostheim I think Tohma is the only one who could possibly win at retail. He's got it all. Perfect model employee. Literally the Company's Dream which means he's every employee's nightmare. But it's fine. He's dependable and never calls out, and he's good with the customers, even if his stocking is lacking. Born to cashier. Forced to be rich. Would be perfect but customers find him minorly off-putting. 9/10

Kaito

He would be good at it but you get the constant impression he's one bad customer away from a mental break. And it's sad. watching a shaking chihuahua tell someone you're out of stock of something and there's none in the back. And he'd probably hate it all too, and try to flirt with the women, and it'd just be best for everyone if he seeks other employment opportunities. Let it be known to everyone though that he was the best informed on trends and was best at figuring out what people wanted though. Solid 8/10

Luca

You want to root for him so bad, which is why it's so sad when he's fired. He's not bad at his job! He's diligent and does tasks perfectly. But he's terrible on the customer side, because he jumps to too many conclusions and gets into too many tiffs with shoplifters. He's also constantly asking for the manager and holding up lines and interfering with others. Nightmare. But he's so likeable.... but also he catches you taking 20 minutes instead of 15 for your break and he tells your manager on you so you do kinda resent him for that. 6/10

Vagastrom

Born to be freight forced to be freight. Leo is the exception. He's Vagastrom's pretty little princess who could do it if he wanted to but he doesn't want to. SOMEONE has to be the floor man in this house...

Alan

He would be banger at unloading freight and stocking shelves but the moment you ask him to talk to a customer or do register it's all over. He's basically that one coworker you Heard works there but you never see because he's always on truck and awake at like. 4 am. and not ever on the floor. And it's for the best really, because he'd be too awkward and silent and the energy of the store would become strange real quickly. One time he goes in on his day off to shop and a customer reports him to management for being a 'suspicious person' and he thinks about that every time he clocks in from then on. 6/10.

Leo

Hot Take but I think he'd be fine. Like I think he'd be good at it even. He would definitely one hundred percent quit, but while he's there he becomes the store favorite. Workers love him. Customers love him. Management loves him. The only people who don't love him are customers that annoyed him and the one bitch coworker everyone hates and that's because he's a demon to them in private and nobody believes them. He's so good at being dead inside levels of cheerful. 7/10 because after he quits you'll realize he's made you do like all of his work the entire time and that'd piss you off.

Sho

Okay. Okay. He'd be fine. But his constitution is that of a food service worker. And though food service workers are our brothers in arms our battles are different beasts and he would not understand the retail one. I still think he'd be solid, genuinely an average worker, but I don't think he'd last long at all. It's just Different. He can handle people being bitches but Stupid Bitches make his head hurt too much. Not worth it. He'll never go back again, and you will miss him despite his average-ness. The freight team mourns him every day. 5/10

Jabberwock

Despite statistics saying Jabberwock has an incredible retail worker value it should be known that Haru 'Freak of Nature' Sagara is an exception and should not be counted. It should also be noted that I would pay to put Ren and Towa in a Walmart and watch them do their jobs.

Haru

Haru Sagara was born in a shitty retail store and he will die in a shitty retail store and the store will die with him. And from his ashes another store will rise again. I cannot express enough how much this man exudes 'Made in the retail store clone lab' vibes. You would see him in the store and you would squint and think of a time where he didn't work and find none. He picks up all the extra shifts. He never calls out. He knows where everything is all the time. He's great with customers and great at upselling. He is perfect except for the fact that making everyone else look really bad in comparison. Because he's a freak of nature. Everyone would resent him a little (including managers and other employees) but he's too valuable to get rid of. There's a rumor he sleeps in the store. It may very well be true. 11/10 please get help.

Towa

Good news. He's a body that can be put on the schedule. Bad news. That's probably about all you can count on. I cannot express how bad he would be as a coworker. I do not envy the man who has to get him to do work he doesn't want to do at times he doesn't want to work. You could not count on him to do shit unless he likes you, and even then he is still prone to his own whims. Terrible with customers for the most part. By and large he's loved to bits but he's also.... Towa. Could you imagine encountering Towa at a store? Genuinely and truly? What would you do. What could you do? 2/10 because evening shifts are marginally better but not by much

Ren

Great news is that he's better than Towa. Terrible news is that he definitely wants to die the entire time and he makes sure everyone knows it. He would be okay on stocking and okay on register but he would never last long. He will miss the diner every day of his life and he'll quit suddenly and without notice. At the very least, he'd probably never call out. He may even pick up a shift or two, but it'll be unpleasant for most everyone involved. He'd probably find stocking fun but the moment someone comes to talk to him it's ruined. They'd ask him to do freight and he'd claim it's harassment. 4/10

Sinostra

A casino is not retail and these men will never in a million years survive the winter. I want to put them all on shift on Black Friday and watch as everything burns to the ground forever.

Taiga

I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me that he would not be fired literally immediately for no call no showing every single shift for like. a week and a half. You cannot get a hold of him. He shows up one time for a shift, does the shittiest job imaginable, and then is never seen again. He definitely shoplifted something but you don't know what. He ate someone's lunch in the break room. He is banned for life and nobody is sure how he got in in the first place. Absolutely the worst possible employee imaginable. It is a wonder he ever got hired in the first place. 0/10

Romeo

He does not pass the background check but if he did I think he'd be a great worker. I think he'd be really good at it even if he hated it. I think he'd be so scarily good at it he would become manager and everyone would quit because they hate him. Unfortunately I feel like he'd never stay long enough for that to happen, because he'd get so mad on his first day at all the customers and coworkers that he'd throw something at someone and be fired on the spot. And honestly it would probably have been deserved. But retail hell is unforgiving and Fico is not fit to survive. 8/10 I'd throw something too. I forgive him.

Ritsu

He's the worlds most average retail worker alive. Because on one hand he is worker's rights advocate king. But on the other hand he is so By The Letter Rules that if you take too long on your break or do something incorrectly as per the manual (but easier and better as per experience) he'll flip his shit on you. So everyone really wants to hate him but he calls the boss out the same way he calls everyone else out. So they can't hate him. But they can. So bad. He'd also never pick up your shifts unless you did something for him in return and it's annoying as all hell. He could never be fired bc he'd definitely sue the shit out of the company. But I can't imagine he'd ever quit either. He is retail hell and retail heaven. And for that. 5/10

Hotarubi

These poor, poor souls, who are not built for retail but are built like people who are forced to do it anyway. They could all survive. They could. But at what cost.

Subaru

Okay, he's fine. He's fine but he's so nervous all the time, and he's constantly asking for manager approval, and if he ever gets a promotion he'll be like let me ask the boss for approval (nervous smile) and everyone will be like YOU ARE THE BOSS... but it's okay. He's a good floor man and customers adore him. He cannot do register but they forgive him for that. Shifts exhaust him so bad he can't do anything else that day. But he'd probably come in if you need him. 9/10 please quit.

Haku

Haku is fascinating because he would both be The Best Ever and The Worst Ever. Unlike Ritsu who is a black hole of retail wherein nobody ever escapes, Haku is like a merciful assistant of divinity who does his job properly and quickly and without much outward complaint, but on breaks he's always insistent he can't do anything, and even though he'd help if you asked, he exudes an aura telling you not to ask. He's good. He'd want to quit pretty quickly though. He probably would quit pretty quickly! And it would be a tragic parting, but one you have all made peace with. 9/10 take subaru with you

Zenji

Ghosts are bad at retail. Hope this helps. ... Kidding. Mostly. Zenji would be a demon. He would be really good at the people portion of it, I guess, like chatting with customers and helping them find what they need. But he's loud, for one, and nosy, for two, and if you put him on register he'll get through 1 customer every 10 minutes because he needs to make everyone a song based on their products they're buying. So he's terrible. He's really so bad. But he's the moodmaker of the store and everyone is afraid that if you fire him every employee will drop dead from despair Immediately. So he lives on. Forever. 6/10

Obscuary

Obscuary is perhaps the funniest one to imagine in a retail store. I need you to sit and imagine what it would be like if you walked into Walmart or something and the workers you see are Ed, Rui, and Lyca. Think not as a fan of those characters. Think solely as a customer in this random retail store. Think about it for a long time.

Edward

I think he would last less time than Taiga, which is an achievement we should all celebrate. I don't know how he'd ever get hired, ever. At all. Even once. His background check would never pass. He would never get to the interview. He would never go to the store in general. All around a terrible idea, but if by some miracle he is hired, I cannot fathom what he would do. He was born to sit in the breakroom and eat everyone's snacks. He would not stock shelves well. He would not clean up the store. He would be the Worst cashier. If you put him on freight his old man bones would break and turn into dust and you would discover a brand new way to kill vampires that gothic romance novels will write about for centuries to come. Sorry old man. Your time has come. 0/10

Rui

He would be good at it but he personally would hate it so much you'd wonder if it was even worth it. Great with customers, great at checking things out quickly on register. He could probably do freight if you asked but he wouldn't prefer it. Only problem is that there's so many people and so many times where people will bump into him that he'll need like, a hazmat suit. And that's not part of the uniform. So he'd probably quit, or never get in the door to begin with, because it's so not worth it. Mass murder should be kept as inside thoughts as an employee, and he does not, in fact, want to live the dream. 8/10 in heart, 0/10 in reality

Lyca

Store pet....... Lyca would be fine. He's basically like, your youngest coworker who is really, really trying, and they're not good at their job, and they're super combative with customers, but they're so cute! So cute!! And most customers agree with that, even if they still leave complaints. He'd try his best with shelves and be bad. He'd try his best at register and be bad. He'd be good at freight for sure but he'd always insist on shifts during the day so he could get more human skills. And you can't fault him for trying. But you can fault him for being bad at the job and causing more problems than what it's worth. 4/10 if you put him on shift with Subaru

Mortkranken

We've done it. We've found the worst dorm to put in a retail environment imaginable. It is a good thing that they have a niche, because if their funding goes down, it will be a terrible, terrible day for Mortkranken. May your money never run out and may you always have advil on hand if it doesn't.

Yuri

This poor, poor man. He just can't do it. He just couldn't. More specifically, he wouldn't. It'd be a nightmare for him, constantly, forever. Sho could deal with stupid people to a certain degree, but the first time someone comes up to Yuri with a candle marked $4.99 and asks how much this candle is, Yuri will instantly pass away. He can't do it. He won't do it!! And that's fair, honestly. He'd be good at putting things where they belong. He'd be okay at cleaning up. He'd be bad on register and even worse on freight. Retail has introduced him into the field of lobotomies. 3/10

Jiro

Marginally better than Yuri because he would be good with helping with freight, but retail is unkind to people with chronic illness and he would not make it through his shifts most of the time. He is off-putting to customers and would not be allowed on the floor or register, and though the freight team would adore him, the bosses would like his output to be better. If Yuri can figure out a way to get him through his full shifts, they're golden. Until then, they are unemployed. 5/10 to retail, 10/10 to the truck team.

[morgaseus]

Sunday has you wrapped around his finger.

You love the man too much to even second guess him. Yet it is not him that you swore your oath to but to the family and the harmony. To harbor something other than disgust to a traitor, a follower of the Order at that, is tantamount to a sin, borderline blasphemous. He's always been virtuous, dedicated in upholding his duties for the family and the whole of penacony. You feel a dull aching emanating from the cavity of your chest; You'd never guessed he was the traitor all along. 

When you caught him in the middle of escaping from his cell, along with the wine purple haired woman- Kafka, a stellaron hunter, you surmised, you've seen her posters plastered in walls enough for you to recognize her anywhere. They’re recruiting him, you think. They're taking him away. Your mind tells you to uphold your duties as a member of the family. He’s a traitor to the family- to the harmony. He tried to usurped Lord Xipe! Your heart (aches to see him go, to leave you) tells you to let him go. To let him live, to experience everything for himself. 

You've always been the family's dog, always following their orders as if you were merely born for them and not for yourself. But this time, you decided to choose for yourself.

You let the halovian go. You clenched your hand, crescent shapes left at its wake. You don’t want him to leave, you never want him to leave because that would mean you would no longer see him. But if he were to stay here.. If he were to stay here, the family will capture him, hand him over to the IPC for trial (he will most likely be found guilty), imprison him until he rots in prison, until he serves his sentence. You don’t want that, you will never want that for him. Sunday has been nothing but kind to you. He treats you as if you were the most precious and fragile thing in the whole asdana system. He makes you feel, wanted, needed, loved. Even if you think his words were lies. So, you think, that is the best possible outcome.

He lived his whole life believing the sickly sweet poison instilled to him by the dreammaster (You’ve always thought there was something wrong with Mr. Gopher Wood). Nobody really sees how his left hand, that he always keeps at his back, would clench his right arm. Nobody sees how many nights he had to stay up, worrying, wondering, who could've killed his sister, why they killed her. Nobody- nobody sees his struggles. All they know is that he's sunday- the perfect, meticulous oak family leader. Sunday the traitor. Sunday the order’s remnant. He needs this. He needs another chance. So, you decided to let him go. Maybe then, he would learn to live for his sake. 

[milkbreadtoast]

Oh my god.......

[ranticore]

Can you talk more about homosocial bonding in Ironwall, I'm curious to know how that works. If there are women's only dance clubs, are their clubs for men too?

Yes but it did work differently for men

The womens clubs are a social holdover from pre-Florian times. A herd is always led by a mare (read: a mother), who would be the leader of their entire social group, enforcing a rather strict hierarchy among subordinate mares and younger women. Young colts and geldings (yes babey we have eunuchs too) have their place in this herd so long as they are related to one of the established female members (a son, a nephew, etc), though colts would have been expected to go their own way once they reach maturity.

What happened at the time (traditional era, pre-Florian, middle ages) was that the colts would stick together when they left their group/town/hold/etc and form little roving bands of 17-25 yr olds. They'd prepare themselves for their proper adult life by play-fighting over literally everything, being gay, and caring for the youngest members of their bachelor band. But it was not acceptable to stay in this roaming, half-wild state forever. They would peel off one by one to try their luck in the settlements they passed, arriving as a potential stallion, not a young boy. They were treated henceforth as ticking time bombs ready to go off, as all stallions are (just because it was pre-Florian doesn't mean it was some egalitarian paradise. you know me better than that and i love it when things suck), and allowed to lead 'from the rear' (a protector role vs the boss mare leading from the front, the one who was truly in charge). In a small herd, the stallion would be the only guy fathering kids. In large complex towns and settlements, herds could merge and separate on a daily basis, and a small number of adult men could claim (with the boss mare's permission) the wives who wanted him.

So in their adulthood, men were never expected to seek out male social groups, because those other men were now rivals (for sex, for dominance, for their place in the herd, etc). Why are you as a man seeking friendship with other men? etc

For the young women in the herd, things can be grim. You're not expected to strike out on your own, but you are expected to find your place in the hierarchy and that means going head to head with the other women. And being gay. Friendships were always made complicated by the friends' unbalanced social status, and the fact that your social status was in part decided by the boss mare (so not something you have the ability to change if her mind is set), and your own willingness to fight (sometimes physically) for your place. Not everyone has the guts to assert themselves, but also a lower social status was not always doom and gloom, usually it just meant others dictating your movement by cutting across your path. Social status in a herd was entirely unrelated to material wealth, it was a separate axis kept track of by everyone around you at all times. Unlike the boys, young girls would be expected to grow up in the same herd, living their entire lives among the same social group, and it also meant that acting outside that expectation was discouraged and disrespected; a woman leaving the herd to find another, without the boss mare's blessing, was considered to be acting either "like a man" or like someone who just couldn't hack it in the often very stressful life of a low-status woman.

BUT! That was hundreds of years ago. Following the foundation of Ironwall, the most common herd structure (small groups of subsistence crop-farmers) began to die a slow death. The concentration of a large population in a small area caused a clash that could not easily be accounted for by the new laws and human-style social norms. Early Ironwall was plagued by gangs of unruly feral teenage boys roaming the streets, so a new law was added to the rest. Boys of the right age range would be conscripted into military service during their bachelor era (great for wartime). Homosexual behaviour might have been tolerated as a quirk of youth, and inherently immature, but the governors and lawmakers saw it as obscenity, and cracked down hard on it. It was impossible to impose the nuclear family on Ironwall citizens, but something like it was enforced; emphasising greater parental control, smaller social groups usually limited to one's workplace (hard work was purifying, so people were less likely to be gay at work... maybe...). The herd structure was sublimated into the overall puritan work ethic of Ironwall and evolved.

In later centuries, womens' clubs like the one I talked about briefly became very common. Homosocial activity among women was more acceptable as they were expected to, like, have friends of the same sex, so they frequently made spaces where they could hang out together. Social clubs reached their peak in the Victorian era, becoming so popular that you could almost find one on every street, and they were almost a prerequisite for a lady, but getting into one involved an interview process with the club's matriarch, the contemporary boss mare. Dancing was only one of the activities they were permitted behind closed doors. They could also play cards (gambling was immodest for women and illegal in clubs, so they would play with game tokens and chips instead, and then leave the club with their chips to go to a second location to turn them into money so technically they were not gambling at the club...), they could drink, and they could take occasional tours out to the local sportsgrounds to engage in Womanly Exercise (aforementioned hard as fuck centaur polo, racing, tennis). The invocation of the traditional herd structure was a feature of the clubs, and its proponents believed that imitating the 'natural' way of life for a centaur was good for your health, but it was mostly artifice, and the role of the boss mare was vastly overstated, practically inflated into a Queen-like rulership over her subordinates. homosexual activity in clubs was kiiiiiind of common, but on a club-by-club basis. you had to find the ones in which you could be openly gay.

because of the other laws about immodesty and women needing chaperones, men and humans were strictly forbidden from the clubs. if any men showed up, suddenly it became a mixed social event, and those women had better be chaperoned so help me god

At this time, specifically centaur social clubs for men were not nearly as common, due to the factors i mentioned above. Why are you, as a man, seeking the company of other men? But boys had to gamble somewhere and they ended up doing it in social spaces which did not have such tight security. Any random guy could stroll into a men's social club, even humans. there was not so much of an air of revivalism there, or any fetishisation of the past, but still it was and has never been considered healthy to be gay past a certain age and for men, friendships were part of that. The gay clubs were few and far between and kept secret.

In the 20th century Ironwall saw a cycle of recession, housing market crash, collapse, migration, and unprecedented homogenisation between human and centaur populations. Romanticising the herd structure was old-fashioned and socially regressive. Dance clubs became mixed-sex, and progressive attitudes started to become predominant. There was a backslide in the 90s, however, when Natural Life (tm) became glamourised once again, a backlash in response to increasingly heterosocial spaces and relationships, particularly against young women who (according to natural life proponents), were only going through a rebellious phase by choosing to be friends with men. Human-derived society was seen as the culprit here, a corrupting influence. Rather than "we are half animal and thus we should be ashamed and try to make up for it", the natural movement's tagline was "we are half animal and thus we should not go against Nature". They were quite well-funded and spawned several popular political parties, differing only by whatever parochial bullshit the individual councillors can do for rando citizens, which have been passing around power without letting their opponents get a word in edgeways for about twenty years now.

For people who really take their Back To Nature movement seriously, they have left Ironwall entirely, ironically seeing it as a den of sin for very different reasons than the ones that led to its founding, and tried to revive herd-based societies in their own homesteading communities, creating a hundred tiny little cults perfectly designed to abuse basically everyone in them. But you can be gay there, so long as you're under 25. still gotta dress modest though