#i’ve been questioning if i am trans or not but i’m avoiding actually thinking about it bc im scared
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lolwhosalex · 1 year ago
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i just broke down crying bc my hair wasn’t going right and i want to cut it but i know it won’t look good. my mom came in and asked me what’s wrong and i let it slip that i didn’t want long hair but i was scared short hair wouldn’t look good. she started saying how she wished i could look at myself through her eyes and how pretty i was. i said something about how i would never feel comfortable in my body bc i was born a girl and i hate myself for it
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am-i-the-asshole-official · 11 months ago
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wibta for asking to be included in my partner’s messages with his gf? (sorry, this one’s long.)
i (23f) have been with my partner “finn” (22m) for roughly four years, on and off. we’ve hit some rough patches over the years for a variety of reasons, including that my partner is trans and only recently realised this and we both live in very conservative areas with unsupportive parents. i broke up with him because my parents gave me an ultimatum of break up or move out; he once broke up with me because of a controlling friend who thought i didn’t believe he was trans (i still identify as a lesbian even though i’m dating a man and i’m not interested in label discoursing over it). etc. so yes, we’ve been rocky, but i love him and we now live together with our two cats and are very happy.
now. enter “mia,” (20f), my partner’s new girlfriend.
finn and i have been theoretically polyamorous for six months since i came out to him as aromantic and told him i’m fine with him dating other people if they feel he wants more “romance” in his life (we still do romantic things, but it’s definitely more of a performance on my end and not something i really feel. i’ve been open and honest about this, and i’m genuinely not hurt that finn has taken up this offer and started to date mia. i was happy they got together, actually, because mia and i have been friends for awhile and i knew she had a (poorly hidden) crush on finn for awhile. i never told her we were polyamorous because i didn’t want to get her hopes up regarding finn, but it seemed like it all worked out happily when they started dating about six weeks ago.
except… finn has had a COMPLETE change in how he treats me in those weeks. he barely speaks to me when we’re both home outside of necessity, often avoids being in the same room as me (especially if he’s calling or texting mia, he will completely leave the room if i walk in), and he cancelled our weekly date night this week for a flimsy reason. he then spent most of the night texting mia.
i’ve been doing my best to ignore this, chalking it up to the butterflies stage of a new relationship, letting them have their fun, etc, but after more than a month, it’s really starting to grate on me. finn and i have been through so much to be together, and it suddenly feels as if he doesn’t give a shit about our relationship anymore and has tossed it aside for mia. (who, by the way, doesn’t speak to me at ALL anymore about anything but finn. our friendship has completely disappeared since they started dating.)
of course, dear tumblr, i am an adult and i know basic relationship skills. i sat finn down the other night and explained how i was feeling. i asked if we could extend our weekly date nights to him having a no-mia bubble so he could focus on me specifically just for that on evening. i also suggested we have a “double date” with all three of us every now and then, because mia and i are (or…used to be?) friends too, and it would be fun for all of us to be together. finn first said he agreed with me, and then he said a few things that set off major alarm bells. he said mia seems insecure in their relationship right now compared to his relationship with me, so he’s been devoting extra time to her so she stops feeling jealous. i asked if mia was jealous of me specifically, and he dodged the question, but i think it’s kind of obvious now. so i asked if mia wanted him to break up with me and be with just her instead - which, admittedly, was maybe a reach, and that’s where i think i might be the asshole. but i can’t shake the feeling that it’s true, especially after finn’s repeated non-answers.
at this point, i feel like the only way i could convince myself that mia isn’t trying to break up me and finn so she can date him solely is to be more included in their relationship. on one hand, i think that’s fair - i HAVE been dating finn much longer, we live together, etc. i’m his life partner. we agreed on polyamory IF everyone felt loved in it, and quite frankly i’m not feeling the love anymore. however, i don’t want to overreact or overreach. the last thing i want to do is try to control his relationship with mia, and i’m worried maybe i’m just being too jealous and i’m the one who needs to chill out.
you let me know, tumblr. TLDR: my polyamorous partner is ignoring me to spend time with his new girlfriend. wibta if i asked him to start including me in his texts/dates/etc with her because i think she wants the two of us to break up?
What are these acronyms?
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nothorses · 6 months ago
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hi! u can ignore this of course but I’ve just decided i’m trans again (long journey) and I had some questions and idk who to ask!!! again you can totally ignore this if you want!!! like i literally rediscovered i might (probably am) a trans guy last night and i’m sort of freaking out as for now. when i first thought i was trans i didn’t really like myself so this was easier but now i do and it’s sort of a totally different experience than what i was used to.
A big worry is, I like my face. like, I really like it and really care about being pretty and I don’t dislike myself generally just think i’d make more sense as a guy and that I’d be happier like that. i’d like to look a bit more masculine but just enough to look like a really pretty guy instead of a woman. can i still be trans or like should i look into my feelings being about something else ? and is there any chance i could achieve what i want with my face while still taking T (I really want the fat redistribution)? I’m also absolutely terrified about losing my hair and i’d heard it depends on my father? but i took the hair gene from mom? i don’t know.
I’m also really worried about dating? I’m bisexual but I’ll probably just date men (i like masc women but have never really met any that aren’t lesbians). I’m not mourning being able to be with straight men bc i’ve really always avoided them (no shade i just never could stand the thought of dating them which is actually one of the reasons i figured out i was probably not comfortable being a girl). Still I’m worried that queer guys won’t look at me twice?
I’m also going to be in a new, big city in september and should i just start by telling people i’m a guy? since i’m long-haired and don’t plan on changing that and i definitely won’t be on hormones or anything by then, I certainly will not be passing. I can do some voice training but I’m not sure to what degree that will help. I’m thin and have no curves that can be seen through most clothes so i don’t think that when clothed anything will be just outright obvious but i think if i speak to people it will definitely be obvious. should i specify i’m trans or just introduce myself with my very obvious male name and give no more explanation? I’m also autistic and was already terrified of never making friends (i have a good group now and tbh there’s no chance they’re going to be cool about this and i’m already mourning them lmao) and now the fear is worse.
If I had to weigh pros and cons i’d definitely say there are no pros to this thing that i’m thinking of doing, but i can’t imagine any future as a woman, (maybe not really as a man either but if i had to choose). I have trouble imagining myself with a straight man or in a wedding dress at this point or things like that, and there’s just been this disconnect lately. i like myself when i look in the mirror but maybe i’m just excited about being conventionally attractive. Still when I imagine myself it’s a flat-chested person. I’ve also been fighting for my life to not be trans so that might mean something. I’m afraid on wasting another two years on thinking i’m trans when i’m not, but the more i’ve grown comfortable and comfortable with myself the more i realized i couldn’t relate to women. Now that I’ve figured out i’m wondering about how to get through the summer w people that don’t know me and wearing a certain kind of clothes. I’m so worried.
Sorry for the vent or whatever this is. you can ignore and i do realize i sound absolutely crazy i’m just freaking out atm.
First off- congratulations on the gender journey! I know how hard it can be to go through something like this, but coming to understand yourself better is such a wonderful, rewarding, relieving experience, and I'm so glad you're taking steps towards what feels good for you.
And second- it's normal for that to be scary, too. It's normal to feel some fear and hesitation when you start to unravel who you are, and what that might mean. You're not alone!
It sounds like you might be feeling some time pressure around this, and my first piece of advice is that if you are feeling like there's a deadline and you need to rush to a conclusion or action before then, that's a really good sign that you need to take a step back, slow down, and breathe. It's normal to feel some urgency with this sort of thing, but ask yourself where that's coming from. It's one thing to want to "stop wasting time" because you know what you want & you don't want to keep waiting for it, but it's another entirely to feel like you have to make a decision to meet some kind of arbitrary deadline.
If you aren't sure what you want but you feel pressured to make a decision anyway, you should slow down. If that deadline is being imposed by some external force, ask yourself what it might look like (and feel like) to slow down and miss that deadline anyways. I really love the phrase "slow down to speed up": most of the time, trying to rush something causes complications and missteps that make the whole thing take a lot longer than if you'd just slowed down and done it right in the first place! If you're not ready, you're not ready. Let yourself be ready at your own pace.
That aside, I'll try to answer your other questions:
"can i still be trans or like should i look into my feelings being about something else?"
You can do whatever you want forever! There's no benchmark you need to meet in order to be trans, and nobody else can tell you if you're trans or not. Honestly, I recommend setting that whole label aside for a while, if you feel bogged down by this kind of question. Who cares if you "count" as trans or not? What matters is what you want, who you want to be, and what feels good to you. Labels should be used to describe what you already know about yourself, not the other way around.
Lots of trans people want the exact same thing you've expressed here, so you wouldn't be alone! And some cis people want that, too.
"is there any chance i could achieve what i want with my face while still taking T (I really want the fat redistribution)?"
Yes, there's a chance! How T impacts you is super dependent on genetics, so you may end up looking the way you want to... and you might not! I also personally found that what I wanted from T actually changed after I went on it; I ended up loving a lot of the changes that I thought I wouldn't like so much. Ultimately, my decision to go on T was mostly based around the knowledge that I was not happy with my body as it was, I did want a lot of the effects of T, and I decided I would be happier rolling the dice and trading off what I didn't like then for what I might not like later. I also decided that I could go off T at any time if I decided that I didn't want those changes anymore, and that I would be making the decision to be on T each time I took it, rather than once and forever.
"I’m also absolutely terrified about losing my hair and i’d heard it depends on my father? but i took the hair gene from mom?"
Male pattern baldness (MPB) comes through the X chromosome. If you have XY chromosomes (like most people who are AMAB), you inherit one X chromosome from your mother, and one Y chromosome from your father. If you have XX chromosomes (like most people who are AFAB), you get one X chromosome from each parent, so you can inherit MPB from either parent.
MPB is also treatable; if your hair starts to thin an abnormal amount, or if you're just worried about it (or have MPB on both sides of your family) you can ask your doctor about treatment options. There are topical options as well as oral medications, and while I have heard it's much harder to reverse, it's actually fairly easy to prevent.
"I’m worried that queer guys won’t look at me twice"
My boyfriend is a cis queer man... many such cases. Queer guys will absolutely look at you twice. Some will look at you thrice. Many will look at you twice entirely because you are trans, and some of those will be doing so because trans people are hot and they see us as people (and not just sex objects for their own benefit).
Also, I really recommend basing your transition on your personal happiness with your body and self first; if the people around you can't be happy for you, they genuinely are not worth keeping around. People who care about you in a real and healthy way will be happy for your happiness!
I'm so serious about this, anon. My dad changed his whole opinion on trans people when I came out because he a) did not want to lose me, and b) saw that it made me happy. The man was conservative (and maybe still is...?), but he cares about me enough that he reconsidered his whole worldview for me. You deserve that kind of love. Everyone does.
"I’m also going to be in a new, big city in september and should i just start by telling people i’m a guy?"
I like your idea of just telling folks you're a guy with no further explanation! This also really depends on where you're going, if you think you'll be safe in doing this, how long you'll be there, if you'll be starting T/expect to see changes.... etc. If you were, for example, going to Seattle for a few months and wanted to try the "guy" hat on for a bit just to see how it feels, I'd say go for it! If you feel like you'll be reasonably safe and you think this is the way you'll want to continue to be perceived for some time, that would also probably be a solid choice. But it's context-dependent, and I think you might need to feel it out for yourself and ask some folks with more context!
I also want to challenge the "girl/guy" binary I think I'm reading in your ask: you don't have to choose one or the other! Nonbinary people exist, and there is such an incredible range of experiences and genders outside of the male/female binary. So many people relate to so many of them, in so many different ways! Infinite gender experiences! If you feel comfortable as a man, that's awesome; if you feel like you might be something else entirely, or both, or one of them and some other stuff, that's also great! If this is all new to you, please take some time to learn more about nonbinary genders & experiences from nonbinary people. I promise it's more than worth it.
You are not alone, there are so many people who will love you for whoever you are, and good luck!
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alangdorf · 2 years ago
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Aaaaand next off the checklist is Manager Magolor, it seems! I feel the need to clarify this is a while post-RtDL and most likely post-Star Allies too (and probably post-much-needed-therapy) given the temporally anomalous nature of Merry Magoland.
I also feel the need to clarify something weird I said in the initial theory post, even though it most likely goes without saying given some of the design decisions I made here and the sheer power of saying “you know what I mean”, but I think I finally have my thoughts coherently together about The Discourse. Going under the cut given that it is about The Discourse, and also about my personal experience with gender, transition, and internalized misogyny.
First off, if you don’t know what I mean by The Discourse, or why the heck I’m drawing Magolor as a Doomer and not a catboy, in the latter case see my previous posts, and in the former case, there was a line added in Return to Dream Land Deluxe for 100%ing the game where Magolor says he was lying about being from Halcandra. Now I’m not particularly entrenched in the Kirby fandom and generally avoid discourse, but even I’ve seen a lot of people say they think this lore addition was bad and stupid. I totally understand wanting to ignore it, given that the fanbase at large is full of Magolor likers that have elaborate headcanons about Magolor as a Halcandran, and various worldbuilding about Halcandra and the Ancients as informed by the concept. Personally, I had no previous stake in this given that the lore addition was actually the catalyst that got me to really care about Magolor in the first place, and obviously I think it’s interesting to extrapolate from.
Now, the ostensible gut reaction to finding out that Magolor has just been dressing up as an Ancient this whole time is to get really nervous about cultural appropriation. I personally think it’s likely to be more nuanced than a cut-and-dry case of an oppressor stealing from the culture of the oppressed, but given how little we actually know about the Ancients’ place in the Kirby universe both at their height and in the present day, and the fact that I myself am a white American, I’ll just cite Metal General’s RtDLdx pause screen lore, whatever the heck Grand Doomer has going on, and the short story Passing by Nella Larsen (Ok hi! Anxiety-ridden Kit from a week and a half later coming in to clarify that I’m not trying to equate funny little video game aliens to the severity of real life race struggles. As with everything please give me the benefit of the doubt in believing that I have good intentions and understand that there’s nuance but am just not the greatest at talking or thinking and I’m fighting for my life in here[my brain] ok thx bye) that I read in high school as sources for my personal thoughts, and leave the discussion on that subject there. (Oh, I also do like to think about the fact that he said he’s been studying the remnants of the Ancient civilization in Halcandra, for years, alone. Not much of anything with a concrete point to say about that though)
When I last talked about this in my theory post I said I saw it “more like uhhhh trans coding, kinda” and of course drawing this design forced me to confront the question of: now what the heck did I mean I mean by that, exactly?? Well, I thought about it more, and I realized that the much simpler thing to compare it to would be any teen coming-of-age movie where the protagonist dresses up as someone they aren’t because they don’t like who they are until they learn to accept and express themself for who they really are, though this message’s impact is often obfuscated somewhat in practice by Hollywood’s double gut-punch of beauty standards and misogyny. But as for what I was more closely reminded of when I called it trans coding, it was, as it often is, my own complicated journey with gender.
Speaking of, I realize I haven’t been very talkative on tumblr in several years, preferring to talk with close friends on discord rather than with the wider internet and you all know me as afab nb, so I suppose this is the time to come out as… cis, actually. Or rather, uh, transgender/cisgender/genderqueer/nonbinary/female. (Perhaps you can tell why I generally talk about this with people who already know me.) You know how it starts. I never really felt like I fit in with girls growing up, I held disdain for people who were “too girly”, I generally only made friends with nerdy guys, avoided wearing makeup, didn’t care overly much about how I dressed.
Then, five years ago, I discovered that being referred to as “they” made me really happy. I never experienced body dysphoria, but I liked to be able to have a flat chest sometimes. These are things that are still true about me. But feeling decoupled from the concept of womanhood, and, of course, simply growing as a person over time, allowed me to reassess my feelings and internal biases on it. I discovered I have very particular aesthetic preferences, some of which are traditionally very feminine. I started getting into fashion and sewing and started to be happy rather than ambivalent about the way I present myself. (I still don’t wear makeup barely at all.) I realized that what gender you are doesn’t have to mean anything about your particular gender presentation, and that your particular gender presentation doesn’t have to mean anything about what gender you are. I’m still addressing my own internalized misogyny every day, though I like to think I’ve gotten better about it. I’ve learned more about being queer and I’ve learned more about myself.
Over the years I’ve been slowly swinging back around to being comfortable identifying as a woman, and I’m not 100% there yet (I still have a bit of a dysphoric gut reaction to other people referring to me as female, I’ll likely always prefer they/them on the internet at least, and man oh man don’t even get me started on the religion thing. It’s even more complicated somehow and I have trouble talking about it even with close friends and family. I often feel caught between sides on a lot of things just because there’s just very few people who understand wholly where I’m coming from. For one thing, do you know how many weird reactions I’ve gotten to telling people I’m aroace and also getting married in two months? From all kinds of folks), but yeah. That’s how it is. Definitely genderqueer regardless what happens.
So uh, what the heck does any of this have to do with Maggie? I just have a relatively similar thought process regarding him. Uh, metaphorically, I mean; not necessarily with regards to gender. His gijinka designs have definitely turned out really genderqueer but as I’ve said before, this is just what happens whenever I get my little baby hands on new favorite male characters, especially given my penchant for selectively feminine aesthetics and the fact that I’ve never really learned how to draw cis men all that well. He’s also just really hard to put in pants & I wanna show the legs off, I paid money for those
Now for the million dollar question. Do I think any of my interpretation is how HAL actually intended it? Perhaps, but they seem to often leave deep lore things like this deliberately open-ended. So do I think they’re gonna actually do anything with it and make Magolor stop dressing up like an Ancient? Probably not, especially given that the lore bit is a reward for 100%ing the game, practically an easter egg at that point. Magolor is probably the one character who they’re most willing to give new outfits to, but I don’t see that extending to his mainline canon appearance. I think Kirby is a bit too much of a mascot-based franchise to comfortably depart from iconic aspects of their characters for that. They still haven’t given poor Taranza his own theme that isn’t a remix of Dedede’s, for crying out loud.
End of thoughts. Usual disclaimer that I am just one person with limited knowledge and judgement. I wanted to write out this clarification because I was worried my previous comments might look weird in isolation and because I know my Magolor headcanons are very intrinsically tied to The Discourse. It honestly kinda sucks a bit cause while it has been nice to be drawing again, I’ve also been relentlessly serotonin-seeking and I’m way too hungry for interaction & engagement on this, especially given how niche its particular appeal is. Ask box is always open but be warned I have no qualms about setting boundaries and won’t answer anything I don’t want to. Thanks for reading! - Love, Catboy “🪺” Discourse
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ferretzdiary · 6 months ago
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Saying I love you to my parents feels so weird. It’s not that I don’t love them- it’s complicated really. I kind of hate them too. They aren’t exactly good people, but they aren’t exactly bad either?
It’s weird to say I love you to people who don’t actually love you. They love the idea of you, what they want of you and expect, and feel the need to love you because you’re their dna, but they don’t love you as you. Other than being white as paper, I’m nearly everything they hate. I’m queer, I’m trans, I’m autistic, I’m alt, I’m a punk, I hate things they worship, I’m a witch, etc. list keeps going.
They don’t like my personality. Over the years I’ve learned I get in trouble with them less if I dull myself down, if everything including my emotions are concealed. This is very difficult for someone who’s autistic, has depression, ptsd, and anxiety that affects my heart; but I have to bottle it of fear if it’s the wrong emotion I’ll get in trouble. Specifically negative ones. Negative ones are usually met with yelling, belittling, scolding, etc. anger. I literally have gotten in trouble for being on high suicide risk. I can’t help that. I wasn’t even honest on most of the questions at the damn hospital because I’m scared of them. When they find out I’m harming myself they get mad at me because I have no reason to be sad, scolding me about how good I have it. I know my life is better than a lot of peoples but that doesn’t make everything magically go away. I don’t understand why they think it does.
Not to mention they’re aware I was raped and beat by my cousin for years. They don’t care, when they found out they said and did nothing, he’s still the family favorite, and the cherry on top is life is going way better for him. He’s got a sweet girlfriend, an apartment, a good paying job, everything. I can’t even get my damn license bc for some reason I’m terrified of cars.
Back to being a faggot; when I was outed (not consensual, I begged not to be because I knew what was to come, I was already struggling to understand what was going on with myself and condemning myself) I came home to being told I’d be hung on our Barb wire fence with allll the other queers if I didn’t by my father (I had just started middle school). No exaggeration. They still tell me I can tell them anything and they don’t care but continue to spit threats, slurs and whatever the fuck else towards the lgbt, a lot of the time it feels aimed at me wether they mean it or not.
I literally have struggled to keep myself together while my heart was giving me trouble because I was so damn terrified they’d be pissed. Unfortunately this is a common occurrence because I literally Tweek out just being in a damn Walmart half the time.
I don’t have friends outside of my phone, the one irl friend I got to see moved to NY, my other one I just never see and is always sick, and everyone else is online. I’d make friends, but my parents kinda prevent that too bc I don’t want them bitching because someone looks a certain way or isn’t white. I literally avoided a black girl I wanted to be friends with because I knew she wouldn’t be safe as my friend. Not to mention I work at my dad’s food truck and other than my house and grandmas that’s all I ever go, I work full time, so how am I meant to even make friends? I’m so isolated, I’m as isolated as I was when my cousin beat me if I talked to other kids, hell I might be MORE isolated now. I’m in a tight box!!
And I’m trapped. I can’t drive, I can hardly cook, I can hardly take care of myself at all, I’m stupid as hell, need help to get through college, etc. I’m stuck. I can’t take this anymore. It’s so fucking hard not to attempt again but I don’t want to let mfs win, I want to survive for my friends, my grandma, and so I can have a future where I die as myself not the stranger I see in the mirror. My self harm has been so bad lately, I keep blanking out and relapsing, I have no one to go to. I don’t know what to do. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know what to do. I almost wish I could go back to the hospital and dump everything but I’m turning twenty, what can they fuckin do? Not to mention how badly I want to get my bachelors and become a zoologist, I can’t loose my college opportunity.
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sparklingtapwater · 2 years ago
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Hi! You're one of the only active tattoo artists I follow on here and I wanted your opinion on a couple of things,
What's your opinion on tattooing pieces on first timers, is it annoying if they choose intricate or larger piece you know would be difficult to sit thru for a first tattoo?
How do you feel about tattoo tickets, paying a nontattoo artist for a design and taking it in to a tattoo artist do tattoo
Are previous flashes (think halloween or Friday the 13th) off the table once that event is done?
Thanks in advance.
howdy !! i appreciate you asking because i know sometimes when you ask artists questions like this they get pissy and are kinda egotistical ! but i am very happy to answer your questions !!
when it comes to giving people their first tattoo, i think it can be a very fun experience. i will almost always advise a first timer to avoid extremely painful spots, like ribs, calves, and bony places like the ankles. i always recommend getting something small to see how your body handles pain ! that’s the best way to advocate for your pain tolerance and have an idea of how you’ll do with bigger pieces ! as for “difficult to sit through” pieces, i think that topic comes with an edge of ableism. this is no fault on your part obviously! but i’ll explain why i think so.
being able to “sit well” has always been a pet peeve of artists throughout the community, it’s something we encounter in our careers daily. however, penalizing a client because they can’t sit well is ableist. you as an artist simply have to adapt. i’ve tattooed disabled clients, people with chronic illnesses, people who need to take multiple breaks and who need to be provided snacks and water and lots of time to rest in between parts of the tattoo, and none of that bothers me. because implying that you will blacklist someone or simply not tattoo them because they “can’t sit well” is just ableist. there are artists out there who can tattoo everyone from people who have parkinson’s to people with things as minor as anxiety fidgeting. the tattoo game is changing and more trans, queer, poc and disabled people are pioneering a new and more inclusive era of tattooing.
but yes to wrap up that very long tangent, it’s not that i find it annoying ! it’s that i will always recommend taking a small bite before making yourself a huge plate. just to make sure you like it 🖤
as for tattoo tickets, i love them ! i think they are a very cool concept. i sold them all throughout my apprenticeship. now that i can tattoo them myself if it’s a design i haven’t had the chance to do yet then i won’t sell tattoo tickets for it ! however, the flip side is that you will have artists who know nothing about the intricacies of tattooing, or how to draw something in a way that is tattooable, making art and selling it as though it is. this does make our job harder because we more often than not will have to redraw and redesign an entire piece and that could piss off the original artist and the client. they can but fun, but i’d steer clear of purchasing tattoo tickets from anyone who isn’t a tattoo apprentice ✨
now for the flash event pieces, i’d say it’s usually up to the artist ! i know for myself personally they are available to be tattooed year round, however they will not be offered for the special event day price. the whole point of an event day is the reduced price ! so usually artists will still tattoo them but they will adjust the price to either their shop minimum or their personal hourly minimum !! this is something that it doesn’t hurt to actually ask the artist a few days before the event just to make sure you don’t miss out !!
i hope this was helpful ! i’m here to gladly spread information and knowledge on a better and more inclusive world of tattooing, so let me know if you have any more questions !
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whenyouarethesun · 6 months ago
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Good afternoon! (Or whatever time it is for you 😄) I’ve been sort of asking around various polyamorous people about being poly, as I’ve been questioning if I might be poly myself. In particular I notice that you have poly and in a relationship in your pinned, does that mean you have a sort of primary partner? And in which case, how do you balance your main relationship and then other secondary partners/relationships/etc? (Given that you have other partners of course) 
Sorry this is so lengthy, I just really like hearing actual peoples experience, it helps me understand better versus just a google search, if that makes sense. Again, if this is too invasive/just too much feel free to ignore! I’m not sure if this is out of place to ask an NSFW account, haha. Side note, love your account!
omg hi! this is actually a very thoughtful ask. i think everyone has a different comfort level of the kinds of asks/personal info they want to share or answer on a blog like this-- i happen to be a pretty open book. and i'm also a firm believer in queer people talking with other queer people to support each other and learn together.
i wouldn't be nearly as aware of my likes, dislikes, sexual preferences, etc. if it hadn't been for the conversations and experiences i've had with other queer people in my life irl and online.
all that being said, i'm definitely no expert but it seems like you're aware of that and just want some real people experiences to gather info from.
when it comes to my partner: i've been with my gf for about 5 years now, living together for about 3. we're both trans and both started hormones together last year. she's my whole world and the woman i want to marry one day. i discovered my polyamory preferences by just basically blurting out one day that i think i may experience attraction and romantic love with other people but that it definitely did not detract or interfere with my love and attraction to her. at the time i had a best friend who i fell for and she could tell and was respectful and cautious because she didn't want me to feel bad for having my obvious feelings for this person. she actually said she felt the same way too about other people and we just had a very long (and still ongoing, the conversation never ends when you are honest and open about sex and love) discussion about what kinds of boundaries, feelings, and other things we want or felt.
that was about 2 years ago and since then we have both slept with and dated other people. it hasn't always been smooth--there have been boundaries (accidentally) crossed and some hurt feelings while i try to balance my priorities.
i am constantly learning how to prioritize her in ways that make her feel loved and wanted by me while i still have my experiences. i will be honest, i am not perfect and have definitely gotten carried away before with forgetting to check in with her. i struggle with a lot of different things and communication has always been one thing i enjoy but am not always great at. i tend to be avoidant, so being in an open relationship has really forced me to reckon with that aspect of myself and develop better communication skills.
people often ask us how we stay together and the answer is we talk about everything. e v e r y t h i n g. we're also madly in love, she excited me every fucking day. but i cannot stress this enough. if something feels weird, we talk about it, if it feels good we talk about it, if my heart is broken by someone who isn't her i talk about it and she does the same. we talk about how other people treat us to learn about how we want to treat each other while still respecting personal privacy of our other partners/dates/etc.
as for the term "primary" partner... i have never liked that. by traditional definitions, yes she is my "primary". but it feels weird to me. a term i have found i really like is nesting partner. she and i have built a life, family (our kitty), and home together. she is my home, she holds my heart and takes priority over other people i am seeing in the sense that she is my family. however, she and i both know we are capable of falling in love with others; she had another boyfriend for about 8 months last year and they told each other that they loved each other. i didn't feel like i was less important or taking "first place" in her heart either.
as for myself, i haven't really had a solid second partner...i have had about two or three friends over the past couple years that i have gone out with, slept with, and dated but never called it anything other than hanging out and never confessed any romantic feelings for each other. there was one boy i really fell for and he broke my heart, very recently. my girlfriend was extremely supportive and let me talk through everything i needed and still does when it comes up.
one of my more consistent fwb (friend with benefits-- old term but reliable) is someone that i help out with cleaning, groceries, and other household tasks because that's how i care for her specifically. sometimes we make out and we've talked about fucking eventually but we mostly just cuddle and fantasize and i take care of her in a lot of ways. but the first conversation we had was "hey you're hot but i don't think i want to or will fall in love with you or anyone else right now but let's still care about each other". and it's been refreshing-- i have no expectations of her and she doesn't of me either; other than respect and fun.
so i guess that's what it boils down to: identify how you care about other people. think about how you love and who you love. have you ever honestly been attracted to more than one person at a time? does that attraction go as far as sex? or is it an admiration of a pretty person. do you want to have a consistent partner and only hook up with others or do you want more than one partner that you live with? do you want to love two people separately or do you want to be in love with multiple people who are also in love and you all sleep with each other? as long as you are honest, safe, and respectful, there is no wrong way to be polyamorous.
thanks again for the ask and congratulations if you read this whole thing. i hope you have a great day and feel free to ask anything else you'd like!
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lazy-crazy-misfit · 5 months ago
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Specific Examples for Weaponized Femininity
Heads up- Not all of these may work for everyone. Not everyone will be comfortable in doing all of these. This list is trans-inclusive, but it is based on ‘traditional gender roles’ as described in guides from the 40s-60s.
If it’s not clear already- of course I don’t actually believe in traditional gender roles. I am using them as a tool.
This is not an exhaustive list. Many of these things are based in using the societal perception of femininity against those who seek to harm marginalized communities. Feel free to share your ideas.
Please use common sense safety when you do this- buddy systems, location sharing, etc.
1. Find your style. Nothing is more dangerous than someone being absolutely confident in fashion that is otherwise considered “ugly” or “tacky”. Even if you lean more conventional, confidence is key.
2. Being feminine is often seen as being weak/inferior, especially by older people. Some of these older people hold power. Do not fear this. These small interactions build and can be used for good. Femininity is disarming. Small talk while waiting tables can be more powerful than you know. I’ve managed to slowly convince some family members to vote outside of their ‘red echo chamber’.
3. If asked for assistance from your gnc friends, do your best to aid them. Hell, help your enemies too if they need it. Your presence can often be a safety net in unfamiliar places. Stand outside the dressing room. Speak up for them if needed. Be the one to pump the gas at night in an unfamiliar place.
4. In a social setting, call attention if someone is being a bigot. The best way to do this is with faux confusion at their statement. Think Elle Woods. “Wait, I didn’t get it. What was the funny part?” “What does _____ mean?” (Yes- it’s ok to want to scream and yell and react, but this is about weaponized femininity.) Keep in mind, there are people who may not fully understand why certain jokes are so terrible. Avoid using language that sounds overly academic to make the issue clear for all those listening.
5. When you attend public meetings/events that take audience questions, dress as “basic” as you can stand. I have been called on to speak/ask questions way more often when dressed more “traditional”. You will likely be chosen because they think you will be a softball question. When choosing a seat, sit away from visible protestors.
Step up to the mic, and ask them the question everyone actually wants to know the answer to. Be courteous but firm.
Plan in advance to leave with a group.
To be clear- doing these things isn’t going to change the world overnight. The world already views femininity as weak or fickle. You are neither of those things. If you don’t want to “act the part”- good. I’m genuinely happy for you. I’m glad you’ve found other ways to be an advocate, and I support your efforts. For me, this is the best way to help my community in a deeply conservative region.
Stay safe, y’all!
Femmes- Being feminine is normally seen as soft and sweet.
Don’t be fooled. Femininity is a weapon that can be your greatest tool.
Loudly ask your ngc friends if they have a tampon to keep them safe in the bathroom. Bat your lashes at that homophobic asshat and sweetly ask them to explain why that joke was funny in front of a group. Throw strangely specific compliments around like candy: “Your smile looks like honey.” “You are such a ray of sunshine.” “You look like a woodland fairy.” Smile and wave at little kids who think you’re a princess.
Not all battles are fought in an arena.
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slothgiirl · 3 years ago
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the medic (keith x reader)
17k. something weird’s going on with keith, like alien weird. as the team medic, you’re concerned.
“So he is avoiding me,” you muse aloud, grabbing one of the pink alien food biscuits that were Hank’s latest experiment. Though it had been hours since Voltron had taken out the Galra Empire’s presence on this Balmera, you’d only just seen the last of your patients. Altean medical equipment did wonders.
After a battle, you were hardly surprised to find Hank in the kitchen, grounding himself as he cooked. You were surprised to run into Keith.
“Yeah,” Hank nods, “Probably trying to avoid another dental exam.”
You flush bright red, “His teeth fell out! Sorry for being concerned.” Between you and Lance, you’d managed to get a look at Keith. A fist fight with some alien species that was cooperating with the Galra had not gone Keith’s way, knocking out two of his teeth.
Shiro, predictably, had waved it off and accepted Keith’s insane explanation that his teeth would grow back on their own without question: given his hand waving of the red paladin’s eyes glowing slightly in the dark, more than any human’s should (human eyes didn’t glow at all!). Hindsight was twenty twenty.
The yellow paladin shrugs as he mixes orange noodle-esque things in a bowl.
Team Voltron was full of strong personalities. Add in Lotor and his friends dropping in, there was always something going on.
Hank just wanted to unwind from spending the past few hours destroying heavy duty mining equipment without hurting the planet. “So how are the biscuits?”
You chew on one, still bothered by Keith. Maybe Hank was right and he was trying to hide something from your keen gaze. You hoped not. Knowing the red paladin, and after two years in space, you certainly did, he’d rather suffer in silence until there was no other option than get medical attention. Back on earth with needles and scalpels, you understood, but in the Castle of Lions…
“Kind of like a rice cracker,” you tell Hank helpfully. “In a good got snacks at H-Mart way, not the sad quaker oats rice snacks.”
“Oh H-Mart,” Hunk smiles, “they don’t have those in space. They do have salt though. Found that at the last market we went to.”
“As long as alien food doesn’t poison us,” you comment. It was lucky that hadn’t happened. It was alien food. But not one negative reaction which either made humans some of the most hardy species or you were just lucky.
“Yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing what’s edible and not. I know Pidge said there’s some books, but my Altean is pretty bad.”
“Languages are hard.”
“Wish there was a space version of google translate.”
“Hunk-”
“Yeah.”
“That’s genius!” You look at the yellow paladin, wondering how a universe with speech translators never thought to do the same for written language.
“I know,” Hunk smiles while popping another tray into the oven.
—————
Lance finishes painting your toenails. It was a rare day when there were no space battles or rebel meetings. “Pidge,” the blue paladin whines, “let me paint your-”
“Don’t even think about it!”
“It’s supposed to be team bonding night,” Lance counters.
“Lance,” Allaura frowns from where she’s sitting with Shiro, “the castle’s night cycle has not started.”
“Well we can change it,” he counters, “there’s no up or down in space. OR day or night.”
“You can paint my nails,” Hunk offers. “Won’t last long though between the cooking and the vents I’ve been cleaning. This is a 10,000 year old castle. No offence,” he glances at Allura.
“No offence at all. The battles have taken their toll and I’m sure Coran appreciates the help. He is only one man.” She lets out a sigh. The only other remaining Altean was a bittersweet subject for her.
Hunk kicks off his shoes. “My pleasure. Literally. This Castle is so cool. The artificial gravity alone!”
You watch the paint dry on your toes. Only your big toes had actual drawings on them, strange alien creatures you’d all encountered over your time in space. The others were clear with green and blue swirls. “You’re a good artist Lance.”
The blue paladin winks, “I’m a regular old Michaelangelo.”
You laugh, “of course you are.”
“And I’m not just good with a brush,” he wiggles his eyebrows, more boyish flirting than anything serious.
You roll your eyes.
Pidge throws a cushion at Lance. “Oh please like you’ve got past the first date!”
“I have! Vivian Tran from Calculus.”
“Can you focus on my nails,” Hunk asks, but Lance is busy waving the thin brush in hand as he argues with Pidge.
“And Atticus from Cantonese.”
“Didn’t you drop that class,” Hank asks.
“Well, the hindi teacher was way nicer and didn’t hate me. I was good at drawing the characters though.”
“Can you speak hindi,” you ask, having taken French for your language fulfillment.
“Eh-” Lance shrugs.
“Can you flirt in Hindi is the real question,” you ask with a grin.
“He can’t even flirt in English,” Pidge points out scathingly.
“Hey!”
“My nails Lance,” Hunk grumbles.
“Right. Right,” Lance focuses back on his task, going with a yellow that matches Shay. “What language did you take Shiro?”
“English.”
“How many dialects does Earth have,” Allura asks.
“A lot,” Shiro tells the alien princess. “The Garrison pushes being multilingual in its program. Most cadets were already bilingual to start with, generally covering major languages.”
“Ah.”
“Got bored of the training room,” Pidge asks Keith as he walks in, flopping down on an empty sofa.
“It timed out.”
“Sure,” Lance immediately starts, a dog with a bone, “not like you couldn’t beat it or anything.”  
“You can’t even get past level 9!” Keith growls back, sitting up with a jolt, skin still slick from sweat and his cheeks were flushed with exertion.
Lance gets up, puffing out his chest. Oh boy, here they go again. The rivalry thing they had going on got old fast to everyone around them. While it did push them to be better paladins, it was annoying to hear. “Oh like you’re any better.”
Hunk takes the brush from Lance, finishing off his last toe on his own.
“I am,” Keith bites back, a growl still audible from his chest.
“Only because you cheat!”
“It’s not cheating!”
“How is it not-” Lance stops, furrows his brow, then grins. “You got a little something there.” And like a thirteen year old, Lance points and laughs.
Keith frowns, his hand coming up to his cheek.
Sure enough, Lance was right. Keith had a couple of angry red blemishes on his cheek.
“You have adult acne,” Lance giggles, immature as ever. He was always able to find an angle to everything. It was what made him such an excellent strategist.
“It’s not adult acne!” Keith scowls, scratching at the blemishes.
“Its been three years,” Lance retorts smugly.
You frown. “No. It’s been like two.” You look over at Pidge to confirm, “Right?” You were like ninety percent sure you were twenty.
“Two and a half,” Pidge answers.
“Ha! You’re twenty! Adult-”
“I don’t have adult acne!”
They’d fought over more meaningless things before.
If it was two and a half years, maybe you were twenty one? You frown. How old would you be before you ever saw your family again?
Stashing that depressing thought away, you focus on Keith and the red marks on his cheek like a line coming down to his jaw. “It could be a rash,” you utter thoughtfully. Pidge and you had already encountered a very itchy plant before. “Or space ringworm-ring line?”
For the first time in days, Keith looks at you, meeting your gaze. “It’s not a rash!”
You lift your hands up, “okay. Okay. Geez.” When it came to Keith, you didn’t push too hard. He was too stubborn for it to work.
Lance, however, “hey, it’s okay Keith-buddy, just use toothpaste.”
“Toothpaste makes it worse,” Hunk counters. “Not great for your skin either.”
“It always worked for me,” Lance counters. “Or a clay skin mask.”
“Clay? You mean that green mud,” Keith clarifies.
“It’s clay!”
“Clay would work,” you agree with Lance. “Hey it could be like a spa day!”
“I could go for a spa,” Hunk nods.
Pidge shakes her head, “right. I’m going to try and see if I can get a signal back home.”
Shiro looks over at you, “do you really think it could be something serious?”
You shrug. “No clue.”
Keith huffs, “Just drop it,” he states dramatically, headed for the door. He was over being the center of attention.
“So face masks?”
You nod, “want to try it Allura?”
“I would love to try the clay mask,” she smiles brightly.
——————
Te-Osh’s rebels had sent for Voltron, less fighting than rebuilding.
While you were no paladin, you had spent the majority of the day helping Allura take stock and synthesizing medicine, everything from serums to numbing gels. Just your luck the machine had overheated and given out on the last batch. It was a pretty large machine.
You stick your head inside, waving off the smoke. With your nails, you pry open the hutch and take stock. You were no Pidge or Hunk, still unsure how the thing even worked, but it was clear it needed a new regulator and starter. “Plenty of those lying around,” you utter, scrunching your face at the awful burnt hair smell. Your finger finds the ventilator button on your wrist controls, and there-the smell gets sucked out of the room.
“Is this a bad time,” Keith asks behind you.
Startled, you bang your head on the mental. “Keith,” flushing hotly when you look back and realize you were ass up in front of him.
He doesn’t even notice, grimacing, hand rubbing his nose bridge.
“What’s wrong?” You hurry to wash your hands.
Keith sits down at one of the medbay tables. “My skull feels like it’s being cracked open,” he explains flatly.
You look him over closely, standing right in front of him. “Where exactly,” you ask, frowning when you notice the blemishes had grown to a full blown rash, hot angry skin peeling and cracking like twin marks down his cheeks. You should have pressed. What if it was a parasite? Keith was half galra.
It was easily forgotten given how human he looked. Sure, the signs were there: his unhuman night vision, more strength than he should have, good ears and nose, nails that had torn through metal, but it all faded into the background.
“Does it itch,” you ask, raising your hand, fingertips hovering over the marks on his cheeks.
“Yes,” Keith nods, averting his eyes from your gaze, “mostly it’s hot. And my sinuses…all the way down to my neck. Hurt.”
“Hm,” you turn, reaching for the medical scanner. There was no way you could ever go back to being a medical officer at the galaxy garrison. Earth’s technology was ancient in comparison. “Hold still.”
“Alright,” he says seriously. Keith holds his breath.
You look up at him, in his violet eyes, and smile before laughing. “Keith!”
“You said to hold still,” he points out sincerely, before the corners of his lips turn up. Keith was an expressive guy, his smile lit up his entire being, a lightness in his eyes that made you smile wider.
“Let’s try this again,” you giggle, clicking the scanner and aiming right at his rash first. “Pew.”
He rolls his eyes, snorting. “You too?”
“Mine’s the only right one,” you wink, then look over the reading.
“Not even close.” He scratches at his cheek listlessly.
Whatever reason he had for avoiding you had worked itself out. You’d missed his company.
“Oh yeah,” you challenge, “then what’s the sound?” The readings came up clear. Keith was in perfect health. So not a parasite…space allergies? Those wouldn’t come up on the scanner.
“What is it,” Keith asks, noticing your pensive expression.
“How’s your sense of smell? Stuffy nose?”
He looks up, then takes a deep breath, “now that you mention it…I can’t smell your soap anymore.”
“What?” This was news to you. “You can smell my soap?”
“And whatever planet we’ve been on,” Keith fidgets, blushing as he ducks his head, bangs falling over his eyes, “the soil. It’s all different. But I can’t right now.”
That was worrying. But if the scanner said nothing was wrong…you had to wait and see. It might clear up on its own. You’d give it a day or two.
“Nothing came up on the scanner,” you tell him, “so it should go away on its own. It might just be allergic to something out here.”  
He nods, accepting your diagnosis.
“Let me get the medicine.”
“Mhm.”
You pass him a tube of gel and add that to the list of medication you need to synthesize once you fix the machine. Then grab a weekly supply of pain tabs. “Here.”
Keith pops one in immediately.
“Let me know if it doesn’t clear up in two days,” you tell him.
“Worried?”
“Eh, I can always set Lance on you again,” you snort. Shiro was a pushover when it came to Keith. He was no help.
Keith laughs, looking a little more himself. “I could take him.”
“You could,” you agree, “but don’t tell him I said that.”
He tilts his head, smiling. “Coming? Shay got food for us.”
“I’ve got to fix this machine first.”
“Need help?”
“Might ask Hunk or Coran,” you admit.
“I could-”
“No,” you cut him off, placing your hand on his shoulder, “go eat and rest. That’s an order.”
Keith leans into you. “Are you going to write me a doctor’s note too,” he asks, his delivery always so earnest you had to do a double take to figure out if he was joking or not.
“If I have too,” you stick your nose in the air. “I’ll even send one to Zarkon.”
Keith laughs easily. “Why didn’t Lotor think of that.”
You snort. “I’m going to check your lymph nodes,” you tell him, taking a step towards him again. “That okay?”
Keith tilts his head back, “Go for it.”
“Wow,” you chuckle, “who are you and what did you do with Keith Kogane.” You brush his hair out of his face.
“What?”
“Remember when you broke your arm,” you point out, gently pressing your fingers over the side of his throat, feeling the swelled bean shaped lymph nodes under his ears, behind his jaw. “And said nothing for like a week?” It had been your first year at the Galaxy Garrison.
“It was only a sprain,” Keith grumbles.
“Still!” You laugh, “I’m glad you asked for help.” Because this was still Keith and you didn’t want him to think you were laughing at him.
“Mm,” he closes his eyes as you trail your fingers lower, making sure it wasn’t too bad.
The fact they were inflamed at all worried you. You had no clue what was the space equivalent of antihistamines.
Keith’s breath tickles your shoulder, deepening and evening out like he’d finally relaxed. That was most of your patients once you gave them answers and they knew they’d be getting care and treatment. You liked helping people.
You pull your fingers back, ever the consummate professional. It was like the ghost of your garrison advisor was hovering over your shoulder. “They’re not too swollen if you can still eat. Can you still chew?”
“Hm?”
Keith opens his eyes. His expression is glazed and feverish.
“Keith,” you utter, worried.
“Yeah?” His gaze is heavy as it meets yours.
Your skin warms up because he wouldn’t stop looking at you like that.
“Any jaw pain,” you ask, focusing on the task at hand. You bring your hand up to his forehead. He was warm.
Keith leans into your touch, “no.”
“Good.” You bite your lip. Could it be some weird galra thing? Wouldn’t it have come up? You feel your own forehead. He was for sure warmer.
You were going to have to corner Coran about it.
Keith lets his eyes fall shut again and honest to god purrs, leaning into you.
Add cornering Lotor to your list.
You don’t pull away, figuring it was harmless. Lance, Hunk, and Allura were more prone to random hugs. You were more than happy to indulge Keith as well. He already wasn’t feeling well.
You wrap your arms around the red paladin’s shoulders, hugging him, “I’m looking forward to a break from Coran’s post mission food goo once I get done with the machine.”
“Mm.”
He was completely out of it.
His breath tickles your cheek.
“Though I’m not sure there’ll be any left if I don’t go there? Maybe I should grab a plate and then come back here,” you ramble. Keith had never sought you out for comfort. It was touching that he trusted you now. You’d been friends with the others before, with Keith and Shiro and the Alteans, you had skipped right over friendship and gone right to family.
“Oh.”
You look behind you.
Te-Osh takes a step back, “forgive my intrusion. I was unaware-”
Keith snaps out of whatever was going on with him. Bolting off the exam table. “It’s fine. We’re done here.” He hunches his shoulders and beelines for the door.
You frown, still processing.
“I can come back,” Te-Osh tells you, glancing between you and the door Keith had just escaped through.
You shrug. “No. I’ve got time. What do you need?”
“If you’re sure?”
Nodding, you smile, “yeah, what can I help you with?”
———————
“Here is where we will focus the blunt of the attack on. Keith, Lance, engage the fighters. Hunk,” Shiro explains, “you’ll be with me taking out the communications towers. We want to keep the damage to the minimum. The resistance leaders want the factory intact. Pidge-”
Pidge waves the Black Paladin off, “I’ve got the code written.”
“It really does come in handy,” Lance observes, “all those vents are Pidge size.”
The green paladin grumbles, “easy for you to say when you’re not the one crawling around in there. It’s not your knees getting banging up.”
“Well the galra are all like nine feet tall,” Hunk points out, “the vents probably aren’t that small from their perspective.”
Lance unsubtly glances over at Keith.
His rash had cleared up, but not before spreading. In its place were two purple slash marks running from his cheek to jaw, galra markings. No one had pressed…yet.
You were just glad it wasn’t some weird space parasite.
Her brother ruffles her hair, “Pidge sized! A micro pidge,” Matt jokes to himself.
She smacks his hand away, “five feet is a perfectly reasonable size.’
“She could still have a growth spurt,” you add, though it was highly unlikely.
“No,” Matt’s eyes go comically wide as he hugs his sister, “not my hobbit,” relishing in her embarrassment.
“Matt!”
“In summation,” Allura calls you all back to attention, “the paladins will take out Galra forces and Pidge will open the weapons factory up to Vexuin rebels to take over. I will be manning the Castle to ensure no fighters target the work camps and coordinating communications with the rebels.” She turns to look at you, “Matt and you will take down the sentries, freeing the people from the work camps.”
“No!”
Everyone looks over at Keith. The horror on his face is easy to read.
What had brought this on?
Shiro clears his throat.
Keith ducks his head, letting his bangs obscure his features.
“Why not,” Pidge asks grumpily, time was running out. You were all just ironing out the details, “your plans suck.”
“Pidge,” Shiro chastises.
The green paladin was right.
Keith fought the same way you played video games, caring about nothing but reducing the enemies stats to zero. He’d gotten great at teamwork, but he was hardly a strategist.
“Keith,” Allura asks, “do you have any legitimate reasons why Matt should go on his own?” And when she phrased it like that…
The red paladin crosses his arms over his shoulders.
Pidge taps her foot on the floor.
“Okay then,” Shiro takes over, “let’s get to our lions.”
“Coms. Come in earthlings!,” Coran chimes in over the system, “remember this planet’s atmosphere is toxic to breath, too much sulfur in the air, not to mention the heat will give you all a taste of the slipperies. And worse! So keep those space suits on Vol-”
“-Tron,” Lance grins back, having taken a liking to having a kooky space alien uncle.
You lock your helmet in place as Matt pilots the pod towards the work camps. They were just as grim as the first time you’d seen them. It was the same all over in many of the Empire’s work planets. They were at the bottom of the totem pole. There were some planets where the native species and Galra coexisted more or less peacefully, this was not one of them.
“So what’s up with Keith,” Matt asks you.
You shrug. “No clue. I keep waiting for Lotor or one of the Blades to drop in so I can corner them but he’s a picture of perfect health so I’m not worried.”
“But the,” he takes a hand off the wheel, motioning to his face.
You frown, arching a brow. You’d never looked at Allura quite the same after the way she had treated Keith upon learning about his heritage. It’s not like he’d been a completely different person, she’d known him for over a year.
Matt might be Pidge’s brother, but you weren’t about to let anyone get away with giving someone you loved shit. Especially not Keith who would just silently take it.
It made your chest ache, thinking about how sweet he looked when he smiled. He didn’t deserve any of it.
“What about it?” You stare back at him cooly.
Matt focuses back on landing the pod just beyond the sentires line of sight. “Nothing. Pidge figured it was nothing, didn’t even seem curious. I figured you might know, you two are pretty close.” He glances over at you meaningfully.
“We’ve known eachother since the garrison,” though you hadn’t really been friends. Keith had been kind of a loner. You’d tried to include him, having shared a couple classes with him here and there, but he’d never taken you up on any offer.
“Right.” He doesn’t sound all that convinced. “Glad to hear it’s all good. I caught the sneazles while in the work camp,” Matt makes a face.
You laugh.
“It was horrible! But also like an episode of spongebob somehow?”
“Space is weird.” You had way bigger problems and had seen stranger things by now. For fucks sake, you were saving dragon looking aliens from the Galra right now. This planet was like a silent hill game!
Thick fog obscured the rocky landscape. Even from within your suit you could smell the stench of rotten eggs. Yet this was home to the Vexuin.
Shiro gives the signal.
You take the safety off the taser gun Pidge had built for you. Anything pilfered off the Galra was too large for your small stature, just a hair shorter than Keith. The gun packed a punch, with enough voltage to take out the robots.
Matt and you get to work.
“Almost got it,” Matt mutters as you take aim and shoot.
Stupid damn biolocks.
“Hurry the fuck up,” you tell him, dodging a shot from another sentry before frying it with your own weapon. One shot, one sentry. You needed to take them down before they got close. The robots were durable and strong. You knew better than to think you could go hand to hand with one, you were a medic not a fighter.
“I am, I am,” Matt insists. “Ah there,” he grabs a taser flash bomb out of his pocket and tosses inside the sentry outpost.
You shoot again, trying to keep your hands steady. It was easy when it was just programmed machines. Nothing to feel bad about.
Matt and you rush inside, stepping over more fried sentries. You take position at the entrance, gunning down anything that makes its way towards the two of you.
“You in,” you ask him.
“Patience my young apprentice,” Matt says, laughing at his own joke, “it’ll take a moment for my worm to work its way through the software and give me complete control.”
The ground shakes as the main part of the battle takes place outside, at a monsterous factory that’s gray, chimney shooting out smoke. You can only see hints of lions shooting and Galra fighter ships lighting up the sky.
The sulfuric fog coats everything.
You taste rotten eggs on your breath.
Inside your suit, sweat runs down your back.
“Okay,” Matt chimes into the coms, “I’ve hacked the camps. Ready to open the gates.”
The rolling low grutal voices of the Vexuin rebel leaders fill your coms, “Good.”
“Go ahead Matt,” Allura gives the order, “Voltron?”
Pidge answers, “dropping in, should override their” static, “ticks.” Then an explosion reverberates in your ear where the communications device is.
“Pidge,” Keith yells out.
“Keith cover Lance,” Shiro grunts out, blasts audible from here. “Pidge?”
Nothing.
Matt’s face goes ghostly white.
“Pidge, come in Pidge?” Allura asks. “Paladins? Are you able to reach Pidge?”
“Negative,” Shiro replies, “Hunk, take the main gate! Time to land.”
“On it.”
“Guys,” Lance yells, “the shield’s down. Pidge hacked them.”
“Keith,” Shiro yells, “wait!”
“Fine.”
You decide to hope for the best. There was nothing you could do for any of the paladins all the way from here. “Turn it off,” you tell Matt.
He steals himself. “Right.”
The lights of the compound go out. Sentries power down where they stand, puppets with their strings cut. Locks disengage, and for the first time in decades, the Vexuin are free to leave the barracks free from Galra supervision.
You and Matt go out to meet them.
“I could get used to this,”  Pidge calls out as everyone meets on the planet’s surface. Rebels come in from the forest slowly, making sure this is for real, before sniffing the air and calling out to their loved ones lingering around the liberated camp complex.  Their vision worked in the infrared, all the better to see on this planet. You’d need at least three showers to get the smell out of your hair.
Keith carries Pidge, careful not to jolt the youngest member of Voltron. She holds a leg stiffly, a sprain or fracture.
Matt rushes to his sister, “Katie!”
She waves him off, “I’m fine.” Then snaps her fingers, “Down.”
There’s a small smile on Keith’s mouth as he places her down on the ground gently.
Lance comes up behind Keith, ruffling his hair, and being every bit himself as he comments with a smirk, “good boy.”
The shorter paladin smacks Lance’s hand away, but it’s too late, Lance is already smothering Keith in a hug that turns into a competition, like always with those two. Keith shoves at Lance’s face while Lance tightens his grip on Keith.
Shiro clears his throat, “paladins.”
“A dobesh in the pod,” you ask Pidge as Matt gets his turn to fuss over her.
“Yeah. Landed right as an explosion went off,” Pidge frowns. “Not my best moment, but my program still did it’s job and,” she pats her bayard, “I took them out.”
“Can’t be that bad if you can stand,” you agree. Nothing serious but you’d be keeping an eye on her all the same. The faster she got into the pod and took weight off her injury the better. You didn’t want to exacerbate the sprain.
“The jet pack helped,” Pidge points out.
“Lucky you,” you grin.
Shiro and Allura are consummate professionals as they go over the last of the logistics with the Vexuin, “It would be wise to stay until your people have situated themselves in case the Galra Empire retaliates,” Allura states, ending her sentiment in a question, “but it is ultimately up to you.”
The Vexuin chatter among themselves for a moment before one speaks up, “we would not turn down Voltron’s help. A few quintants should be enough time.”
“Then we will make ourselves of service to you,” Shiro nods. “Please, let us know anything we can help with.”
A red scaled one smiles, showing off her many sharp and jagged teeth, “our people long to see the camp destroyed.”
Hunk offers, “I could help rig a controlled explosion.”
“Very good.”
“The system inside the weapons factory is down,” Pidge tells them, “but I can reprogram it to keep the Galra out so that you can decide what to do with the place.”
“Oh no you don’t,” you cut in, “Matt can take care of that. You’re going in a pod first.”
“Pod person,” Matt mutters under his breath with a snort.
“Then let us get to work,” Allura dismisses everyone.
Pidge tries to take a step, and almost falls over.
You grab her.
Her face goes crimson from the pain.
The adrenalin must have been keeping the bulk of the pain away.
Keith picks her up.
It’s not until you’ve loaded Pidge in for three vargas that you pull off your helmet, savoring the crisp clean air of the Castleship.
“I can still smell the sulfur,” you comment, wrinkling your nose.
Keith shakes his hair out.
You look at him thoughtfully, “must be worse for you though.”
“Why,” he asks, genuinely puzzled.
“Because your nose,” you point out, then frown, “your sinuses did clear up yeah?” He never said anything about it so you figured they had and he could smell fine again, but you weren’t sure.
“Oh. Yeah. They did.”
You smile fondly, “very convincing Keith,” you tell him, reaching out to him. He lets you run your fingers right under his ears, behind his jaw. Everything was in order.
A knot of anxiety dissolves in your chest.
“Well,” he asks, “satisfied?”
“Mhm.” You look at the purple markings on his skin.
Keith’s breath hitches. His gaze is trained on you, watching carefully.
“So if not rotten eggs,” you ask, slowly bringing your fingertips over the marks on the sides of his face, giving him every opportunity to pull away, “what do you smell?” You couldn’t help it. It was that scientific curiosity. Everyone at the garrison had ended up there because they were nerdy in some way: devoting themselves to some STEM field while other kids were watching cartoons. You’d had a stutter as a kid, self conscious about it too, so instead of trying to make friends you read your textbooks under your desk, racing ahead.
Keith’s eyes meet yours. There’s a level of vulnerability in his gaze that worms its way into your chest and all of a sudden you’re incredibly aware of how close you two are, the lack of space between your bodies, your fingers caressing his skin.
You look away, focusing on the marks. They were purple, which was obvious. His skin itself had grown purple, perfectly delineated.
“Like wet soil,” Keith explains finally, “when they just added fertilizer.” You wince, remembering the smell of the horticulture center wafting through the garrison’s campus during the spring. “And garlic.”
“I like garlic. I’d kill for some,” you tell him, sounding very much like Hank. You hadn’t expected to be homesick for food. “Best food they served at the cafeteria.”
“That’s not saying much,” Keith mutters, amused.
You chuckle, pulling your hands away from his face.
He leans forward, asking for physical comfort in a very Keith way: unsubtle and wordlessly, putting the onus on you to get the hint.
Pidge must have freaked him out more than he was willing to discuss.
You wrap your arms around his waist, hugging Keith. “Pidge’ll be fine.” Sure, she was younger and short, but she was more than capable of handling herself. “I’m more concerned about how she left the other guys,” you comment lightly resting your chin on Keith’s shoulder.
His shoulders shake as he laughs easily. “They asked to surrender to her personally.”
“That’s Pidge all right.” You glance over at the pod. She’d be back on her feet in no time.
Keith’s breath against your skin feels nice. Your heart flutters in your chest and you find yourself blushing and pulling away, thoughts racing as you realize just how much you liked this boy. You pull away, unsure what to do and suddenly finding it too awkward to be around him at all.
The start of a whine escapes his throat before he smothers it, looking away, as he lets his bangs fall over his eyes, effectively hiding his easy to read features.
“Let’s go help the others,” you say, fumbling to grab a med kit and click your helmet back in place, your face too warm and it must be obvious. You didn’t want to make things weird. You didn’t. But-
“I’m going to stay here until Pidge wakes up,” Keith tells you.
“Oh. Okay.” You nod. “That’s a great idea. It’s always confusing as hell to get out of the pods.” It was akin to waking up from a midday nap: completely confused and exhausted instead of rested.
Your skills would be more useful with the Vexuim than fussing over Pidge at the moment. And having something to do would keep your mind off Keith.
—————
“You know,” Lance comments, sliding up to you as you watch Lotor strut away from you after another failed attempt to talk to him. “If we bottled up whatever galra repellant you have going on, we could defeat Zarkon with perfume.”
You look over at Lance, trying to suppress a smile. “What would you call it?”
“Starlight.”
“That’s-that’s actually pretty great,” you tell Lance.
“I know,” he grins. Then the latino boy sobers up, “trying to find out what’s going on with mullet?”
You nod. “I even tried to corner Acxa,” you admit. For an eight foot tall purple alien, boy could she make herself scarce.
Lance’s eyes widened in delight, “like could and should peg me Acxa?”
You groan. “Lance, sometimes it’s okay to keep things to yourself.”
“I’m just saying,” he laughs, “the ship’s not that big…”
“It’s designed for six thousand people.” You’d learned that fun tidbit while practicing your Altean with Pidge.
“Like for real!”
“Yeah.”
“Ay dios mio,” Lance utters, “you’re screwed.”
You finally hit the motherlode.
Lotor and his generals are in a stately room that reminds you of the socratic lecture halls at the garrison, sofa arranged in a half circle, with Shiro and Allura. The former Prince had shown up for a reason beyond making a nuisance of himself. Allura looks at her wits end with him, as he smiles like a douche, her eye twitching.
She invites you in without hesitation, “take a seat next to me,” and effectively uses you as a human shield against Lotor.
Literally since you and Shiro were the only humans here.
“Everything has been thoroughly discussed,” Lotor comments dryly, snubbing you once more. Normally, you wouldn’t have cared but you were trying to get information out of the man. “Unless either of you have further questions?”
Shiro hums, rubbing his chin, “I know saddling you with a rebel ship or two will slow you down but I don’t see another way around it. A display of size on their part will go a long way to show it is an alliance and not the Galra Empire hy another name.”
Allura nods, a small smile on her lips as she looks over at Shiro, “The black paladin is right. It will be a steep hill to climb to show that you are not the Galra Empire. Their fears would be alleviated with the presence of the rebel alliance.”
Zethrid sucks in a sharp breath, “So that’s it then. We will always be scorned and merely tolerated.”
“Time,” Shiro sighs with a look of gentle understanding at the muscular woman, “they need time. You can’t erase 10,000 years of history. It is hard to extend trust after being imprisoned and enslaved.”
“The alliance has started coordinating with you and the Blade directly have they not,” Allura asks stiltedly. It was by the necessity of time that they had stopped going through Voltron first. Lotor might be too smug for his own good, but his team was effective at sabotaging warships and infiltrating Galra ranks to liberate prisons and cities, enough to turn the tide for the rebels.
Her feelings towards Lotor and the Blade were still tinged with suspicion, her treatment of them lukewarm at best.
Still, Lotor brushed it off and continued to help. “Well then, Princess, Shiro, we have a long journey ahead of us.”
Shiro nods.
They shake hands.
You stand up, ready to corner Lotor.
“But first a word Shiro, it is a private matter.”
“Yeah, sure,” Shiro leads Lotor away.
Your eye twitches.
That snake!
Zethrid and Narti walk purposefully away as Allura pushes in her chair, ignoring the last two of Lotor’s team. “Princess,” Acxa, tries. “Until next time.” She nods at you, “stay safe.”
Allura gives the woman a strained smile, hooking her arm with yours. Human shield.
“You too,” you tell her. She doesn’t wait, already halfway out the door. You sigh.
Ezor giggles, by far the friendliest and easiest to get along with of Lotor’s team. “Stashing food and water will cut down the embarrassment by half.”
“What?”
“Oh,” she shrugs, “I guess Lotor was right. Darn it! Now I owe him one hundred GAC.”
“Wait-”
But she scurries off.
“Ugh,” you kick the wall, tired of everyone being weird. The usual frustration with being caught up in a space war was just the salt on the wound.
Your toe throbs, “fuck,” you hiss.
“They are rather tiring to deal with,” Allura agrees, reading the situation wrong, “but it hardly calls for assaulting the Castle.”
“Sorry,” you flush red with embarrassment. “I just had a question for Lotor and he seems intent on never being in the same room as me.”
“Ah-,” Allura smiles easily, “Lance did mention that you were in possession of a Galra repellent.” The twinkle in her eyes lets you know she was in on the joke.
“Come, let us work our frustrations out with some introspection.” Which was just Altean for weird breathing exercises that supposedly helped you do alchemy. She had managed to rope you into practicing with her before.
“Anything to spare the wall,” you joke.
——————
You walk back from the library. It was a cozy room, especially when you dimmed the lights. The Castle was always so bright, designed with the Alteans sight needs in mind.
Sometimes you just needed some time away from everyone. You loved them, but spending years with the same people while floating through space…you had no clue how Shiro had managed it.
Getting a walk around the ship was also nice. It was easy to forget how big the Castle was when you mainly stayed on the same three floors. Just a couple months ago Coran had rediscovered the greenhouse. The plants were a little piece of Altea, and had quickly become one of Allura’s favorite spots.
The windows were wide portholes. It unnerved you still, looking out and not recognizing any star, any constellations.
A lump of homesickness lodges itself in your throat. It had been over two years, your siblings would have grown so much in that time. You certainly had. The last vestiges of childhood had gone from your face.
Acne cleared up even without Lance’s ten step routine.
You walk across the bridge, trying not to look down. The viewing platform was clear glass in space, you could lay on it. It freaked you out a little.
It was the only constantly dark place in the castle.
You still yelp when you spot Keith, his eyes luminous violet like a glow in the dark t-shirt. That should have tipped all of you off, but alien was not the first thing that came to mind when you previously believed aliens had never visited earth.
He whimpers, curling up further.
“Keith,” you gulp, focusing on him and not the glass separating you from the void of space. “What’s wrong?”
He looks up at you miserably, blinking sluggishly. “I have the worst migraine.”
“And you’re down here instead of getting painkillers?”
Keith shrugs. “It’s not as bad, quiet. Dark.”
You sit down next to him. “I can go get you something,” you offer, your cheeks warming up and it was ridiculous how you can’t even manage to act normal around him anymore.
“Coran already gave me a dose.”
“Oh.” You were hurt. You were supposed to be the medic. That was your role on Team Voltron.
You hug your knees to your chest, and look down at space. It was darker than the photographs back on earth. Not so purple and blue.
You weren’t Matt who was just as good as Pidge with technology or Allura who was the leader and a princess to boot, you’d just planned on having a late dinner with Hunk once he got over the motion sickness before Lance roped you into following Pidge. You weren’t a paladin.
Keith shuts his eyes. “You were with Allura. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother.” You swallow thickly, letting silence fall over you both.
You listen to Keith breathing, looking around the darkness of space for any familiar stars. You knew the space around Shay’s Balmerra, and Arus was at least a little familiar. But the universe was so vast and wide.
There were planets you’d only ever been to once, each with a different night sky. Some of them never even had a night, with multiple suns staving off a night cycle.
“Do you think Allura minds?”
“Mind what,” you ask.
Keith clenches his jaw, rubbing his temples. “That I look more Galra.”
Allura has always been harder on the Galra. For her, it had been such a short time since Zarkon had destroyed her world and her people. You didn’t agree, but you could understand where she was coming from, the pain still there as she continuously wore Altean mourning pink.
You look over at him, the outline of his body against the glass. “I think your marks look cool.”
“Bullshit.”
“I do,” you whisper gently, considerate of his migraine. Those were the worst. “They frame your face. You look nice,” you finish lamely, looking away. You look nice. Lance might say stupid things but at least he tried.
“What if I looked even more Galra?”
“Like completely purple and tall?” You couldn’t really wrap your head around it. It also seemed incredibly unlikely. Could his phenotype change so drastically? On earth the answer was no, but who knows how the Galra work. It was fascinating to see such a wide range of traits in one species.
He was also half human.
You worried if his body would even tolerate such a drastic change.
“Yes,” he says, not waiting for you as he rants in agitation, “the rebels hate the Blade and Allura doesn’t trust them at all and that’s not even mentioning Lotor.”
“That’s not true. Te-Osh likes Acza and Ezor. Lotor’s kind of annoying if we’re being honest, and I’m sure his being Zarkon’s son makes it a little hard to believe he’s on our side,” you try to reason. “And don’t write off the Galra who have changed sides or were in the camps right alongside other aliens.”
Keith says nothing in response, mouth a thin line as he thinks.
You wonder how long it’s been bugging him.
You want to reach out and hug him, but he isn’t Hunk. You’re not sure he’d want to if he’s not initiating the contact. So you don’t.
“Everyone knows how the last Galra paladin worked out.” A low growl in the back of his throat is enough to clue you in to how distressing this was for him.
Your heart hurts. “And everyone knows you’re not Zarkon,” you state evenly back. “We already know you’re Galra.”
Keith snorts humorlessly. You can’t see his eyes; they’re hidden by his bangs.
“The glowing eyes are not exactly subtle dude,” you point out, “not to mention your hair does the poof thing guinea pigs do when they’re eating, but not when you’re eating, more like when you get annoyed.”
“I-what!” His eyes go comically wide as he sits up. His dark hair does the thing, making him look like a character from those old Japanese kids movies.
You giggle, “you’re doing it.”
Keith tries to look at his reflection in the glass.
You blush, grateful that it’s too dark to see, and then realize that wasn’t true for him, so you look away, hoping he didn’t notice. “Yeah. I’m the medic, it’s my job to know these things. Like how Pidge has two webbed digits on her foot and Lance is allergic to flax seeds and bees.”
“That…makes sense.” Then he smiles, “still didn’t put two and two together.”
“Don’t be a smartass.” Reason number three thousand Iverson had it out for him back at the harrison. “And if anyone has a problem with you I’ll kick their ass.”
“You?” Keith snorts. “You wouldn’t even flip me during self defense.”
“You remember that?” You run a hand over your face, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” you always took forever to practice on your partner. And your weak arms didn’t help.
“That’s what the mats were for.”
“Still!”
Keith laughs at your expense.
You smile, taking delight in watching him smile and laugh and you wish it could always be like this and the war would just end.
Then you sober up. “You’re going to be okay, right?”
He doesn’t answer you right away.
“Keith-” you reach out, voice cracking. “You’re going to be okay, giant purple space cat or not, right?”
He takes your hand, squeezing it firmly. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”
“Good,” you utter, but tears bead up in your eyes anyway. It was terrifying watching someone go through something unknown that you couldn’t help them through for all your medical training. You knew how to set bones and run a pod…not whatever this was.
You trusted Keith.
He knew himself better than anyone. After all, he’d been right about his teeth growing back.
“You really are worried,” he whispers in disbelief.
“Duh.”
“I can smell it on you,” then he seems to realize what he said, and pulls away, ducking his head. Like he hadn’t meant to say so much.
“Really?” Learning about anything alien biology was pretty cool, you had to admit. Allura had once described colours that you couldn’t perceive. It was a fun talk. And then she’d made you meditate for alchemy stuff or so she claimed. It might have just been payback. “Is that new?”
“Yeah,” Keith admits, still drawn into himself. “Can we not-I already feel like enough of a freak already without,” he waves aggressively at himself.
You bite your lip, nodding. You wanted to say something, to get it through his head how you saw him, incredibly kind and fiercely loyal (to the point of taking on Zarkon by himself) and an endearing smile you never got tired of seeing.
You liked him.
The universe was lucky to have him as a paladin.
But you don’t know how to say it in a way he’d accept. And he asked you to drop it, so you do. “Right, I’ll just go then.” He’d been here first, and the glass made you nervous.
Could it withstand a hit from a galra battleship?
Keith opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but he just nods, then winces, “Argh,” he groans as he curls up on his side, covering his ears with his hands.
You rush to his side, kneeling next to him, “Keith,” you utter softly, not wanting to make it worse.
His eyes are pressed close and for all your medical know-how, you’re at a loss.
So you running your fingers through his hair soothingly and wait for the pain to pass.
He shifts, laying his head in your lap as he whimpers.
You can’t stand to watch him and do nothing. You press your com, pinging Shiro and Coran. This was beyond you. He’d trust Shiro with whatever was going on and he’d gone to Coran. You respected that even if it did sting.
Your pride meant little so long as Keith felt comfortable and sought help.
“Shh, shh,” you whisper gently.
Sweat beads on his brow.
Whines escape his throat.
“Fuck,” he grunts, clenching his teeth.
He’s warm to your touch and that rouses another bout of worries. At this temperature it’s a fever, but he didn’t have the symptoms, the flushed cheeks and chills.
Keith curls up further, muscles stiff.
You’re helpless.
After what feels like ages, Shiro and Coran finally appear.
“Number four, Number five,” Coran claps his hands.
You hold out your hand, motioning them to shut the fuck up as Keith winces at the sound.
His hair is damp near his ears.
“Keith,” Shiro utters much more gently, kneeling down on his other side, “I’m here, I’ve got you.”
He raises his head, blinking groggily at Shiro, trying to concentrate through the pain, “Shiro,” he reaches for his brother who easily pulls him against his chest. Keith buries his head in the crook of Shiro’s neck.
You sit back, trying to get out of the way. Your hands are wet.
You look down and realize it’s blood. His ears-
Oh god.
“Number five,” Coran says gently, helping you up, “I’ll take great care of our Paladin. Why don’t you go get cleaned up.”
You don’t get any sleep that night.
——————
You were always struck with cognitive dissonance walking around colonized planets like Rahiri where the natives and Galra lived side by side. This was not a planet ravaged by the empire. The flora-like aliens in all shades of green with rootish limbs and leaves and petals for hair had assimilated into the Empire, achieving citizenship over generations. 10,000 years deca-phoebs was a long time. That was a huge source of tension in the Alliance, what to do with the world who neither wanted or wished to leave the Empire.
It was also a source of dark humor that no one spared the four of you a second glance despite two paladins of Voltron walking around.
Hunk holds Shay’s hand in front of you as they point and awe and drag their feet on the way to the space port.
“You could always stay with,” Hunk says hopefully, “we could just drop you off. Personal taxi service.”
Shay smiles back kindly, “that would be wonderful but I have been away from home for too long. I am, as you say, a homebody.”
“Aw, yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I feel that. I like the ground. And dirt. Piloting is overrated.”
“Don’t let yellow here you say that,” Keith comments so dry, you think he’s serious for a second. Allura and Pidge had gone shopping for supplies. That was an advantage of a planet that had not seen war.
Hunk glances back, clearly having forgotten we had tagged along in case anything went down. “Yeah well, she’d like a small moon. Or an asteroid. There’s colonies on those.”
“Very true,” Shay laughs. “I think my balmerra is also like a moon. A beautiful creature. We have learned how to ask for crystals so we do not need to cut them.”
“That’s impressive. Did the books from Allura help,” Hunk asks.
As much as you liked getting to stretch your legs, seeing a different planet where the threat was not imminent, you didn’t like being a third wheel, or fourth wheel if you went according to Coran’s favorite numbering pattern. That inch difference between you and Keith mocked you.
You glance over at the red paladin.
His gaze kept flickering back and forth, around the street. The occasional loud noise of crates being unloaded made him jump.
“You good,” you ask Keith, cracking a joke so he’d know you weren’t judging him. “You see la llorona or Davy Jones?”
“Hm?”
“You know…a famous ghost? Do they have ghosts in space?”
Keith snorts, cottoning on. “They don’t even have ghosts on earth.”
You pull a face, “well that’s no fun. Seriously, you okay? Or have we been made?”
He shakes his head, glancing around again just to be sure. “So much for Zarkon’s finest.”
You laugh, following Hank and Shay into the space port. Shuttles were departing pretty consistently. Everything was in orderly fashion. You especially liked how no one was shooting at you.
“It takes some getting used to.”
“What does?” You watch as Keith shakes his head, making his hair fall back from his face.
Shay and Hunk go to the ticket counter, but you decide to find somewhere off to the side, wanting to give them privacy.
“Stuff.”
You roll your eyes at Keith, “you suck.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, looking anywhere but at you. “Lotor explained it to me and Shiro…what’s happening.”
“Oh.” You swallow, looking at Hunk and Shay hugging and saying their goodbyes yet again. They’d said them last night at dinner, this morning in the pod, and again when you’d split from Allura and Pidge. It was cute. They were adorable.
“Sorry.”
“Hm,” you glance over at Keith, not sure why he would be sorry about anything. He was the one getting screwed over by half of his heritage.
“You’re hurt.”
“You can smell that too,” you ask him, holding his deep gaze. There was an intense commitment to everything Keith did; it was reflected in the depth of his violet gaze. He didn’t do things in halves.
“Now I can.” He looks at his shoes, red dusting his cheeks. The red didn’t tinge the purple marks on his skin.
“So this is all,” you’re not sure how to put it, “nothing to worry about?”
“He said it was normal. But because I’m half there’s no way to know what to expect.” He looks away as he says it, stiff as he glances around.
The anxiety that had settled into your jaw since you’d had to wash his blood off your hands eases up. “Giant purple space cat,” you joke, nudging his side.
“Oh fuck no,” Keith grumbles. Even that furrowed expression that crossed his chiselled features made you feel all giddy inside.
Bad timing.
“I’m not hurt I-I just wish you trusted me,” you finally admit. It was silly. You felt selfish, so you tack on, “You know I’m here for you if you need me. We all are. I know Shiro’s your brother, but we’re your friends.”
“I know,” he sighs wistfully, “I do trust you…it’s just-it’s been hard. I don’t know how to feel about any of it and I’m not used to it either.”
“It’s fine,” you tell him, “I’m being silly, making this about me. As long as you know I’m here for you…I’m not trying to force you to tell me anything…” you cringe internally at yourself. The galaxy garrison had been made up of nerds, so it followed everyone was a character. It hadn’t helped anyone’s social skills.
You wish you could just go, I worry about you because I love you instead of stumbling through word vomit.
“Come on,” Keith brings you out of your thoughts, grabbing your hand and pushing through the crowd of people coming and going to different boarding gates, “I think Hunk’s going to need some comfort food.”
You glance around, finding Hunk’s form making it’s way to you both. He was wiping his eyes, bittersweet smile, making no move to really hide that he was crying.
“Let’s get back to Allura yeah,” he tells you both.
“Or,” you go with Keith’s idea, “we can get something to eat. Allura gave us a good hour or so.”
“Varga,” Keith supplies.
“Yeah, that.”
Hunk nods, “that sounds nice. It’s just,” he looks back at the departing shuttle, “it’s hard. It’s war and you never know when your going to see each other again but it’s not like she can just drop everything and I wouldn’t ask her too, if anything I’d like to retire there. Nice and quiet. Maybe open a restaurant…”
“Vrepit Sal two,” Keith offers.
“Could make it a chain,” you add with a smile. Hunk, like you, was not such a gung ho pilot. You had landed the flight simulation without crashing exactly once, for your final emergency protocol exam.
“Thanks guys,” Hunk grins, “but I think I’ll bring some earth out here. Give these people a taste of traditional earthlign cuisine.”
“So your menu’s going to be as long as Cheesecake Factory’s,” you ask with a silly grin.
“Maybe not that long. A burger, ramen, scratch that, pizza instead of a burger.” Hunk rubs his chin thoughtfully sniffing the air and following his nose to a food stand. You trusted him for food. He had a knack for combining goo and exotically colored food that screamed fake and poisonous into pretty great meals.
Keith was still holding your hand, not as a loose afterthought: every now and then he’d rub his thumb against the back of your hand and it sent a thrill down your spine.
You don’t pull away, wanting to savor the feel of his skin against yours even if it wasn’t that deep. You’d hugged and napped with everyone at least once, grabbing each other’s hands in the confusing crowded hovels of swamp malls (actual swamp malls and not places Coran thought of as a swamp mall).
You nab a table outside the stand.
Everything was in Galra which none of you could read. “Damn,” you mutter looking over.
Hunk glances at Keith without subtlety.
You were starting to think only Allura and Shiro could do subtly.
Keith raises a brow.
“Nothing,” Hunk looks down at his screen.
“Point and hope for the best it is,” you shrug.
“I love a good surprise,” Hunk nods, then looks down at his hands, “we’ll see each other again right? Shay…they’re pretty safe. And well…yellow’s got thick armour.” He sighs, resting his cheek against his fist, elbows on the table.
“Shay’s a badass,” you confort Hunk, “she figured out how to communicate with the Balmera and through the Balmera. She’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty freaking amazing,” Hunk blushes.
You order from an alien that somewhat resembles Ezor, all cotton candy color, and twiddle your thumbs, enjoying the rare moment of rest and relaxation.
“I could get used to this,” Hunk comments, savoring the strange dish he’d been served.
“Get a travel food show,” you tease, “I’d watch it.”
“It could be like this all the time,” Keith muses hopefully, “aren’t planets like this proof we could all get along.” He bites into the glowing blue lotus root shaped meal, and blinks widely.
“What,” you ask, looking over at him.
Keith grabs a napkin and spits out his food. “I think I just lost another tooth.”
“You think,” Hunk raises a brow, “how could you not notice a missing tooth?”
“Smile,” you nudge Keith sitting next to you.
He rolls his eyes, before fake smiling which was always so undeniably forced when he did it. You laugh, nodding, “yup, missing tooth.”
Keith frowns for a second, before continuing to eat.
“Oh,” Hunk utters, before he kicks your leg lightly.
You look up, meeting the yellow paladin’s searching gaze.
He looks at you with a knowing smile.
Heat rushes to your cheeks, the tip of your nose burning hotly, you look down, shoving a questionable sticky black slice into your mouth. It was easy to chew despite the sticky-ness, the flavor starchy and nutty.
There was no way this wouldn’t get back to everyone else in the Castle. No way.
They were all so nosy.
Oh fuck.
——————
“It sure is hot in here,” Lance says with a challenging smirk at Keith.
You roll your eyes.
Lance stretches, resting his arms against the back of the sofa, his hand tapping annoyingly against your shoulder.
Keith is unmoved. Or more accurately, Keith’s mouth twists as he tries hard to ignore Lance’s latest attempts to get him to remove his hat, a lime green thing that clashed perfectly as was his fashion sense, or lack of any fashion sense.
Pidge smacks her head, then peaks curiously at Keith: at Keith’s hat.
You flick Lance’s cheek. “Hey hot shot, don’t hug me when you’ve set the thermostat to ninety degrees.”
“Ninety five actually,” he winks, hugging you towards him. Ugh, you couldn’t do it. You’d already done away with your afghan coat, tied your lavender flannel around your waist, what more could you do. You didn’t have shorts in space. The skirts stored in the castle were breezy, but made you feel at risk of tripping over the hem with each step.
“Hm,” Keith voices, taking a seat, “reminds me of home.”
Hunk snorts, “really thought that through,” he tells Lance.
Lance is undeterred. “Could go higher.”
“I don’t think your cow would like that very much,” you point out.
The blue paladin sulks, looking down at you, “you’re just saying that because you like-”
You jab your elbow into his side.
“Ow! What ever happened to do no harm?”
“Technically,” you tell Lance, “I never graduated.”
“She’s got you there,” Pidge smirks from beside Keith. She was taking apart yet another radio. The signal had yet to reach earth.
“Thank you Pidge.”
She shrugs, “It’s true.” Then turns on Keith, “The hat, explain.”
He looks like he wishes he could merge with the sofa at that, slumping in his seat.
You decide to step in, “I’m going to turn the thermo down.”
Lance is quick to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you back onto the sofa, “come on, relax. Like mullet said, it’s homey.”
You throw him a dirty look.
“Keith?” Pidge side-eyes her fellow paladin. He’s sat up, gripping the sofa cushion so tightly he’s ripping hole into the ten thousand year upholstery.
“You okay there buddy,” Hunk asks.
“No.”
“Oh.”
Keith sucks in a breath, and with deliberate motion, pulls the hat from his head.
Oh.
Your eyes widen.
OH.
His ears had changed.
They weren’t nearly as alien as Allura’s, but no one would mistake their shape for human. Keith’s ears tapered up and out, portrudding, but it was more than just a pointed tip, the entire shape of his ears had transformed, resembling a butterfly’s wing. It was still human in color, but…
Hunk breaks the stunned silence first, “so are you going to like to end up purple?”
Keith ducks his head, wrapping his arms around himself.
No one else gets the chance to further interrogate Keith, or hear his own thoughts, because Allura calls everyone up to the bridge.
Lotor hailed the Castle of Lions. Everyone stands around the bridge while Shiro and Allura take the lead as usual. They might as well be twins given how well they got on, communicating differing ideas without undermining the other.
“There are nine warships in the system,” Lotor acknowledges, “I would be much indebted if you would do me the favor of sending Voltron for the aerial battle.”
“The Empire’s presence is still in its early stages,” Acza explains, “but their terraforming development for the planet will cause the destruction of the Talpidae living there.”
“Then we have no choice,” Allura clenches her fist, never one to sit back while there was something she could do about it, “we will provide air support. Sent me the coordinates so that I may Teleduv there.”
Lance is still obviously eyeing Keith’s latest development. It was readily visible, and you were fighting the urge to do the same.
But you weren’t also trying to flick his ears.
Keith growls lowly.
Lance sniggers.
Pidge offers Lance a piece of paper to make paper balls with.
Hunk sighs long sufferingly, having resigned himself to the more childish side of his two friends. They were terrors. Put Pidge and Lance together, and they were gremlins out of a horror movie made for elementary school teachers.
You slip your hand into Keith’s, squeezing reassuringly. It would take some getting used to like anytime someone got a new haircut, but you would. Like his atrocious boots, they’d become an endearing part of him.
Keith squeezes your hand back.
Shiro nods, agreeing with Allura, “have the Talpidae been contacted.”
“Very much so,” Ezor chimes in, “they’re funny little people. And their sensory-”
“The point Ezor,” Lotor sighs, rubbing his nose bridge.
“They sent for help to the rebels. We were closest to their system,” Exor elaborates with a shrug, “they do not have the background to fight head on, and will evacuate most of their people into bunkers, but they have been digging under the new construction and weakening the structural integrity of the Galra outposts.”
“Very well,” Shiro accepts, “Princess Allura and our chief medic will meet with the Talpidae as a show of goodwill.”
“Our only medic,” Hunk points out.
Keith growls, his hand squeezing yours hard.
You all look over at him.
“Red Paladin,” Allura says, trying to look as professional as possible in front of her least favorite of Voltron’s allies, “is something the matter.” She shares a look with Shiro, but otherwise looks unsurprised at Keith’s less than human ears.
Or maybe she’d make a great poker played.
“Can’t you meet with the Talpidae after the battle,” Keith utters harshly.
“They may need immediate tactical support,” Allura reasons, “we should be there in person to provide it.”
“It’ll be fine Keith,” Shiro adds.
Their words do little to calm Keith down. His dark silky hair puffs up. His grip on your hand tightens and you feel miffed. You’d been on the ground working triage before. You might not be a fighter or pilot but you could look after yourself.
You pull your hand out of his. “I really don’t see what the problem is,” you tell Keith pointedly.
“I’ll watch Allura’s back and she’ll have mine.”
Allura nods. “Our chief medic is correct-”
His ears twitch, “You’re not exactly a fighter.”
Shiro covers his face with a hand.
Your brows furrow. You’re livid. “So! I won’t be fighting. We’ll be in the bunkers with the Talpidae. It’ll be safe so it doesn’t even matter.”
“If it’s perfectly safe then you don’t need to be there,” Keith’s voice breaks, a whine escaping his chest but you don’t care, done with the conversation.
“Yikes,” is Ezor’s quiet whisper.
You’re not a paladin so you don’t care, you just stalk off the bridge ready to go scream into your pillow in frustration. Or better yet, go for a swim and scream underwater.
“Wait-” Keith follows you.
You ignore him.
“I just-,” he keeps trying as you stalk down the stairs, deciding your room was better after all if only because you could lock Keith out.
“Listen-,” he whines.
“I didn’t mean-”
“You didn’t mean what,” you round on him, hands on your hips, pissed off and maybe some of its was from being stuck on this stupid ship all the damn time but like eighty percent was earned. You might not be taking on a squad of Galra soldiers, but you could take one on if it came to it.
Keith at least has the decency to look miserable, sad chirrups in his throat as he crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the ground.
“Well?” You tap your foot on the ground.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he finally manages. “Especially if you don’t need to be there.”
“But I do,” you counter, “There’ll be people running into those bunkers having escaped soldiers and sentries and the faster they get treated the better chance they have.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Keith repeats himself. “You-you can hold your own.” He looks up at you through his bangs, still hunched in on himself.
“Obviously.” There’s no heat, the anger having deflated already. It was just white hot ache in your chest, hurt at the idea that Keith thought you would get in the way, that you had nothing of value to add to the Alliance and Voltron.
You bite your lip.
Don’t cry, you think to yourself.
You were being dumb.
He was just being plain stupid.
“I mean it,” Keith repeats, “I’m sorry. I was just looking for an excuse to make sure you were safe.”
“Right, because Allura can handle herself but I can’t.” Your voice cracks.
“No,” Keith says in a rush, “it’s not the same.”
“Because I can’t fight?”
“That’s not,” Keith runs a hand through his hair, “It’s me okay. I’m-I’ve always jumped into things without thinking, but I decided to go for it, like breaking Shiro out but now I’m doing things before I even notice and it’s all these stupid Galra instincts!”
You swallow.
“I’m sorry,” he tells you once more. “I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry. No one thinks you can’t handle yourself. That’s why Shiro paired you up with Allura, because he knows you’re capable of watching her back.”
Your smile is fragile as you look over at him, “yeah?”
“Yeah.” Keith holds your gaze, looking as skittish as a stray dog. Another whine escapes his throat.
What the heck.
You hug him, “you’re such a dumbass.” You understood why he’d worry. This was war. Pidge was on a two man campaign with Shiro to get Matt to stay on the Castle, both scared witless that Matt might die on a mission with the rebels. Ulaz had died so everyone could get away.
You’d had patients in the last decaphoebs you could do nothing but ease their pain. You’d had patients that you couldn’t even administer anything for the pain because of how torn apart they were: guts spilling out, charred people shapes that you were surprised to still find breathing.
The images would never leave you as long as you lived.
“I’m sorry.” Keith buries his head in the crook of your neck, his breath tickling your skin sent shivers down your spine.
You hug him tightly, aware that every battle could be your last: the last time you saw him. “You’ve said that already,” you tease, memorizing the smell of him, stale sweat and something cloying that you had wanted to bottle up from the moment you’d met him and had never found on anyone else. As embarrassing as it was to admit to anyone other than yourself, Keith smelled good. Really good.
Most people smelled like nothing at all.
He stiffens.
“But it’s nice to hear again.”
Keith smothers a laugh.
You kiss his hair. Boys were so dumb.
He purrs.
You smile goofily, warmth building under your skin, and toes curling up in your shoes. You should say something. Right?
At some point?
Or maybe it shouldn’t be said under the looming threat of an upcoming battle.
Fuck.
You can’t decide, so you say nothing at all.
——————
Bombs still pelt the surface.
Your teeth chatter as the ground shakes even deep underground. Even more soil falls onto you. Your spacesuit was more oche than white at this point as you carry an injured Talpidae in your arms. It’s arm had been completely blown off. Sluggish blue blood oozed out.
Allura was last, tailing the group.
You reach the bunker.
The sentries had followed some of the feeling Talpidae into the tunnels, but they’d been sorted out.
The people here were strange, russet in fur colouring, with no discernable eye, just strange pink flagella protruding from their nose and large claws for digging. They stood at about Pidge’s height.
The bunker seals and you get to work.
Tourniquet here, pain patch there. There were so many of them banged up.
The fight continued on the surface.
The paladins had to form Voltron.
You and Allura work as a team, she takes the bruises and broken bones with no immediate risk of death. You triage the worst of the Talpidae, giving away your precious stash of painkillers to those you can’t save and are not in for a quick death, a Talpidae lies twitching, it’s nose blown off but alive. Another holds it’s hand, but shakes their head when they look at you. They weren’t going to make it.
Training kicks in and you focus on saving those you can.
Your hands stain blue from the blood.
Allura works alongside you.
You cauterize a Talpidae named Soedob’s hand, the claws on their right limb were gone, but most of it was spared.
“You smell Galra,” Soedob utters, blinking out of the pain induced haze as the painkiller kicked in.
You half hear, half don’t, so focused on the task at hand. It was easier to not stop until you were finished and could curl up and sleep and not think about blood and war and Zarkon.
“We have Galra allies,” Allura answers diplomatically, leaving the issue of the half Galra paladin alone.
It irked you.
“No, not them,” Soedob notes. “Those had a different aura.”
“Smell,” you guess, finishing off. You hoped the fighting ended soon. You supply was not unlimited. The castle had better facilities.
“Is that what you call it?”
“Our primary sense is sight,” Allura explains, giving you a long look.
You shrug. You hadn’t even seen any of Lotor and his team. There hadn’t been time. It had all been relayed over coms, over video.
“Another then?”
You swallow thickly, flushing with embarrassment because you both spent time around Keith but Soedob was only smelling him on you and it’s not like you had been doing anything intimate…well, it had felt intimate, hugging Keith, but it wasn’t anything like when cadets snuck into each others dorm room, shoving a sock on the door handle in the universal symbol of don’t bother us. “The red paladin is part Galra.” Mercifully, your voice doesn’t shake from the embarrassment, but you can’t look at Allura.
“Ah,” Soedob nods, neither outraged nor pleased.
Then there’s no more time, you have more Talpidaes waiting for medical aid. You give their own healers some of your supplies, freeing up Allura to find the clan leaders.
You can feel Allura’s questioning glance on you.
——————
“Team meeting in the mess hall,” Shiro calls over the coms system.
“Mess hall,” Pidge rolls her eyes, “it’s the dining room.”
You snort.
“I like to think of it as the dining room too,” Hunk offers. “I mean there’s only eight of us. It’s sort of like being home again.”
“Mess hall makes me think of the garrison,” you admit, falling into step besides them. “and the food.”
“Ugh,” Pidge groans. “That was the worst. Matt wasn’t kidding.”
“It does make the space packs easier to digest,” you muse, “maybe that was the point.” It took the garrison two years to get to Mars. It was funny, once you’d thought that was a long way from home.
“I liked the cheese garlic bread,” Hunk allows.
“Food goo,” Pidge grins, “or the garrison space food?”
“Food goo.” Hunk doesn’t even have to think.
“Food goo,” you agree. “Though not Coran’s paladin special.”
“You don’t even eat that,” Hunk huffs, half outraged half amused, “you’re always like well I’m not a paladin so…”
You laugh. “Seeing it is more than enough.”
The rest of the ship’s inhabitants are already there waiting for you. Lance is trying to teach Coran how to play slide, moving very slow as he claps their hands together.
Shiro and Allura are in easy conversation. Her mice scamper around her feet.
Keith looks absolutely miserable next to Shiro, folding himself into the smallest possible size, trying to disappear. It was hard to reconcile the Keith that was quiet with the Red Paladin that shot first and asked questions later.
You smile at him, excited to see him, but also figuring he could use some reassurance, whatever it was going through his head. Keith meets your gaze and the corners of his mouth turn up, before he ducks away.
You know better than to take it personally.
It was Keith.
Your toes curl inside your shoes and you bite back your smile, suddenly aware of how much you might be revealing and not wanting Lance of all people to start a meeting by commenting on it. For him, it might be all fun and games, but you weren’t sure what to do with these newfound warm and fuzzy feelings. You sure as fuck didn’t want to be called out on it.
You weren’t sure what to do about liking Keith so your current plan of action was: nothing.
“Thank you everyone for being here,” Shiro claps his hands together, his leader impression defaulted at awkward dad. He thought he always had to be on. Despite being the most trained out of us, he’d only just started his career during the Kerberos mission.
You wonder if he’d picked up his leadership style partly from Pidge’s dad.
“Where else would we be,” Pidge shrugs, never one to miss a shot.
“All the same,” the older man smiles.
“Yeah, no problem my dude, bro,” Lance flashes finger guns at Shiro.
You snort, taking a seat between him and Hunk.
“But seriously, what’s up,” Lance leans forward. “Or is this some lowkey way to keep us on our toes,” he winks at Allura who smiles indulgently.
“I await the news alongside you paladins,” Allura answers, hands resting in her lap. She looks over at Shiro.
The whole room turns to look at Shiro.
He had called the meeting.
Meetings tended to be informational in nature: updates about the expansive war, rebels hailing Voltron for intervention, the Blade passing on the rare bit of information, and the always popular distress signals. But Shiro and Allura both looked too calm for that.
Keith goes rigid, a spring wound up too tight.
Hm.
You wondered if the elephant in the room would finally be addressed.
Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder, smiling encouragingly the way a parent dropping their child off for their first day of school would, “go ahead Keith.”
The red paladin focuses his gaze on Shiro, his expression more sour than it’s been in a long time.
The past few years had done a lot to get him to open up to everyone on board, but right now, he looks exactly like the stubborn closed off cadet he had been back on Earth.
His ears twitch slightly. He manages to look even more taunt, and you wonder if he’s going to wave this off. Then, he lets out a breath.
His body is stiff, but Keith no longer pulls away from Shiro. He looks down at his hands pensively, nails cut to the quick. “Right.”
You can feel the nervous energy of the rest of the room, leaning in, waiting to see what Keith wants to say.
“Mhm, go on,” Lance says, chin in hand.
Hunk elbows him in the side.
“Hey!” Lance is about to start in on Hunk.
“Guys,” you snap, shoving Lance’s shoulder.
“Okay, okay,” Lance zips his mouth and throws away the key, “shutting up.”
“Looks like that didn’t work,” Pidge snarks.
“Paladins,” Allura’s clear commanding voice rings out. When everyone shuts up again, she nods at Keith, “you may continue.”
He looks up at everyone through his bangs, “I’m going through Galra settling.”
Hunk looks over at Allura, who was far more familiar with all this alien mumble jumble than anyone else.
Shiro squeezes Keith’s shoulder.
“And that is,” you prompt gently, before Keith hastily decided that was all he needed to say and left.
He meets your waiting gaze. Under the ship’s bright rooms, his eyes were obviously violet, heavy on the purple. He’s chewing his bottom lip like he isn’t sure he wants to go through with saying any of this and you wonder if he must be thinking of how weird things were between everyone when he learned of the alien part of his heritage.
Your mouth quirks up into a smile.
You were more than willing to stuff someone into a cryopod if they bothered Keith. He may be part of Voltron, tasked with defending the universe, but you’d make sure there was someone to defend him.
An embarrassing rush of heat bubbles under your skin. You look away, nervous.
“Shiro,” Keith asks.
Shiro nods, wrapping his arms fully around Keith’s shoulder. “Galra settling is when Galra,” he looked like he was trying to figure out exactly what he was talking about as he said it. Aliens were weird. “When Galra reach a certain age their appearance locks in.” Even Shiro looks a little puzzled. He was a pilot, not a biologist. You knew organisms back on earth who could manipulate their genotypes, generally sex changes with the right environmental conditions, but you weren’t sure there was anything comparable to whatever this was. “The Galra are apparently very adaptable in individuals. That’s why there’s such a range of them.”
Huh.
That explained the fur, range of tails, more reptilian looking once, and the eyes.
You wanted a Galra biology course, a full semester long one. What exactly caused such a plasticity in their phenotype? Did the trait have to be encoded in their genotype to appear or was there something freakier, Allura’s space magic, going on?
“-because he’s half human and we don’t go through anything like this it’s more painful than it would be. Lotor said the chameleonic abilities of Alteans helped him when he went through this,” Shiro finishes without a satisfying or thorough explanation.
At least Keith wasn’t dying.
Thank god.
Thank whatever freaky Altean magic existed in the universe.
“So,” Lance starts, “it’s Galra puberty.”
In a split second Keith loses any self consciousness about the situation, “it’s not Galra puberty!” His hair puffs up and you have to fight the urge to laugh, covering your face with your hands.
“There’s…” Shiro glances at Keith, before Lance and Keith could really get into it, “there’s more.”
Keith looks mullish, but ultimately gives Shiro the go ahead.
“Part of these..changes,” the black paladin explains, “have brought out some Galra instincts.” Clearly he was having as much trouble grappling with what this meant as Keith was. Your body suddenly deciding to change was no fun when you had no context for it. “Among them, the need to scent family…”
Pidge tilts her head, “is this like the most convoluted and emotionally constipated way of asking for a hug,” she asks Keith.
Keith smiles wryly, “pretty much.”
“Oh come here dude,” Hunk grins, engulfing Keith and Shiro in a hug.
“Ah number four,” Coran points up in the air, “I am now just recalling the galra that lived on Altea having explained this once, of course it didn’t occur to me because of the apparent dominance of your human genes.”
“So they’re actually co-dominant,” you muse as Lance drags Pidge along for a “group hug!”
“No.no,” Pidge makes a half-hearted effort to wiggle out, being a younger sibling herself, was used to being subjected to affection. She smiles even as she struggles.
“It would seem so,” Coran nods, “though not every gene.”
“Just these.” You wonder if there’s a space equivalent of the human genome project.
“Lance,” Keith yelps, “that’s my foot.”
“Buddy, I am not feeling the love here.”
“Is it working,” Hunk asks, peering at Keith, “are you going to turn purple now?”
“No one turns purple from hugs,” Keith replies, annoyed but makes no move to pull away.
“Thank you for trusting us with this Keith,” Allura smiles, her eyes crinkling.
“Get in on this too Princess,” Shiro motions over, before catching your gaze, “you too. Don’t think you can get out of this. You’re part of Voltron too.”
You snort, and join the group hug.
Pidge’s elbow is a bony thorn in your side and there’s the slight hum from Shiro’s prosthetic, but it’s a good mix of warmth and intimacy with the people you were closest to in the entire universe. Allura’s shoulder presses into you back and it’s sort of ballooned to ridiculous proportions, Keith somewhere in the center of it all, his hair barely visible to you.
“Add cuddling Keith to the chore wheel,” Pidge proposes.
Keith groans.
“How about we let Keith decide,” Shiro proposes.
You snort, knowing him too well. “Are you willing to take that risk? Died-from lack of hugs.”
Lance laughs.
Shiro looks convinced by your stellar argument.
“I’m not that bad,” Keith grumbles.
“You’re a terrible hugger,” Lance argues back. “You’re all stiff, like you’re enduring one of Iverson’s paradox sims. Not as bad as my abuelo but still.”
Keith lunges for Lance.
Someone topples over.
Everyone falls.
You laugh, smothered by limps and someone’s hair in your mouth…maybe Hunk’s? You don’t move, worried about kicking someone’s head.
From somewhere, Keith does that low rumbling chest noise that reminds you of a cat purring happily.
No one makes fun of him for it.
——————
“You should comb your hair before we take the pod down,” you tell Keith. You’d spent your free time before this alliance dinner scrolling through a datapad, trying to learn names, where they hailed from, species, things that may prove useful.
Half a varga ago, Keith had found you balled up on a sofa, and sat next to you, his way of asking for physical comfort. You’d obliged him readily, throwing an arm over his shoulders and spooning him as you both laid on the sofa. He was already in the paladin uniforms that Allura had dug out once the alliance became a reality instead of a loose string of rebel groups fighting the Galra empire.
You’re both short and slight, fitting together perfectly.
You squash any feelings you have, this wasn’t about you, it was about him. You’d done it a thousand times with Hunk or Lance, fallen asleep listening to Allura, why should Keith be any different? (You know why.)
He’s reading the screen with you.
“I doubt they’d notice,” he remarks as you scroll to a particularly vivid color alien race with sensory appendages sprouting from their heads.
“You have a point desert bum,” you tease, “I’d rather be a bum by a beach town. All surfer bro.”
“Can you even surf,” he asks flatly.
“No. Learned how to swim at the garrison,” you admit. “But tanning by the water has to be more appealing than roasting under the Texas sun.”
“I like the desert.”
“I know.” You were pretty sure everyone just liked their homes.
“It’s quiet,” he admits, “and watching how the sunlight transforms the landscape…”
“It’s too big and wide,” you admit, thinking of space. Flat land that went on forever…empty dark space that went on forever.
“Good for driving,” Keith smirks.
You laugh. Or course that’s where his mind went. “Sure, but it all looks the same, everywhere you turn.” It was disorienting. To be fair, you were a city girl. Your background noise was cars honking and people yelling even at four in the morning. The garrison had been a big adjustment.
“It’s really not. You just have to look.”
“I’ll trust my gps,” you counter, “not my sense of direction. I’d probably end up one of those cautionary tales about mirages and deserts.”
“You can’t really get a good signal,” Keith replies lazily, his body slack against yours, “out there. It’s best to mark a trail with chalk if you don’t know the area.”
“But you do, know it I mean?”
“Out past the Garrison? Mhm. All of it. We used to go hiking…before,” he trails off.
You press your lips to his hair lightly, before shifting, “my arms asleep.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t mind.” You sit up, “it’s nice. I used to put my sister to sleep this one year she had nightmares almost every night.”
“You miss her,” Keith states, sitting up, looking at you with his intense expression. Having someone focused one hundred percent on you was a new experience. He wasn’t thinking of a thousand other things, just you.
“I do. I miss everyone, but,” you shrug, “I’ll see them again. Meanwhile you’re stuck with me.” You smile fondly at Keith. “I’m going to change before we have to go to dinner.”
“I’d take fighting Zarkon anyday,” Keith mutters, cringing at the upcoming show of diplomacy. There was so much smiling and hand shaking. It was exhausting to be that extroverted with a roomful of strangers.
Even Lance zonked out after these things.
“Knock on wood,” you laugh.
_____________
Treaties have been signed. A wrecked Galra fleet floats in space above the planet your on today, but today’s battle is won.
One of Lotor’s General’s is here, Acza. She’s wary, and surprised at the warm reception she’d received. She might be Galra, but she’d been crucial in taking down the Galra base’s shields. Biolocks, Zarkon should really rethink those.
You sip at your thick drink, warm and flavored like cinnamon oatmeal, that chases off the chill of the night. The idea had been to sleep, your hands still ached from all the sutures and stitches you’d woven, but Allura refused to hear it, dragging you along. There would be time for sleep on the Castle, she’d claimed, joyous to have helped another besieged planet.
“My congratulations,” a Blade utters from behind their glowing mask.
You jump, not having known there was even a Blade here. They were allies, yet their anonymity that made them so useful in information gathering, created a gap between you. You had no way of knowing who this person was. Their suit obscuring any details, the mask a rank.
You couldn’t even see their eyes.
“For what,” you ask, puzzled. You hadn’t fought. Your skills made you most useful after the battle, trying to save lives and patch up wounds. It was important and emotional draining work, but you hardly won battles.
Because of the mask, you can’t get a read on their reaction. Blades. Spies. Maybe if you could see their eyes…
They nod, and walk off without explanation.
You watch them go, still confused until they disappear among the bodies loitering around, celebrating liberation.
It was a feat to disappear when you were eight feet tall.
First the Galra had avoided you like the plague, the black plague, now they were being cryptic as fuck.
You lean your head down, trying to sniff your armpits without making it too obvious. Was it the blood? Or the space bleach? That tended to linger.
You didn’t smell that bad. Certainly like bleach and rubbing alcohol…
You take another sip of your drink, looking around for a place to sit. You’d been on your feet for too long. You wanted to sleep.
Someone would find you.
You wander around. Smiling when someone notices you, and thanks you and you hurry to get away before they ask you a hundred questions. There were only eight humans in space. Well, seven and a half. You stood out.
They wanted Voltron, but you would do.
“There’s space here,” Acxa calls out.
“Thanks,” you plop down next to her, sagging into the seat. Oh, yeah, you were so freaking tired.
“Of course. You look dead.”
“Yeah,” you look around the rebel camp, “I’ve no clue how they have the energy.”
“It’s like that everywhere. This is their home,” Acza offers, “people fight hard for their homes.”
You nod, before looking over at the alien woman, “not avoiding me anymore then?”
She shrugs, not disputing the allegation. “No need anymore, now that you and Keith sorted yourselves out.” She’s so blunt about it. “Galra are so sensitive when settling. We didn’t want to cause any incidents.”
“Is this about the scenting?” You still hadn’t had time to read through the information you’d gotten your grubby little hands on.
She nods.
You put your drink down on the mossy ground. “Yeah, Keith explained it. Well, Shiro did, really. Lance is over the moon about having an excuse to bother Keith.” Now you really all were a family. You’d named it outloud.
Acxa’s brows furrow, “Lance?”
“I think he just misses his family a lot,” you offer. “We all do and while we’re family too, it’d be nice to see our family back on earth too.”
She frowns. “Keith and you are not,” she asks slowly.
“Me and Keith,” you flush, ducking away from her. “No-I, no. We’re not.” You should’ve gone back to the Castle the moment Allura turned her back. She would’ve never known.
Acxa’s frown becomes tinged with anger and worry, her hand grabs your wrist. “Galra have more than one type of scenting, between families, and between partners.”
“Oh.”
You try to connect the dots but your brain gets stuck between ideas. Scenting. Keith. You. You and Keith. It was right there but-
“Keith isn’t marking you as family,” she explains slowly, “he’s marking you as his partner.” Acxa waits until her words sink in before adding, “to do so without letting the other know…” She makes it clear what a social taboo that is.
But you’re one step behind her.
Did Keith like you?
You think back to all the times you’d been with him in the past few vargas, trying to pinpoint any hint: he’d smiled at you but he was happier now in general so it could be a coincidence…
“If you need,” Acxa offers, “I will help clarify the situation.” It’s an awfully kind gesture.
“No,” you say in a rush. “no. It’s-I think I need to go talk to Keith.” He’d known what he was doing…you could draw a thousand conclusions but nothing would be better than confronting him about it.
“If you’re sure.”
“I am,” you stand up, glancing around. During parties, Keith tended to find a quiet corner out of the way. He’d opened up, but he was still more of an introvert.
You find Keith lying stretched out in the shadow of a makeshift building, looking up at the stars. It’s his eyes that give him away, reflecting the light enough to be inhuman, nocturnal vision.
“We need to talk,” you wrap your arms around your body. You weren’t angry, just confused. Didn’t he know he could just come talk to you about it by now?  
Keith looks up, startled, then stands. “Alright.” He sounds resigned, a man sentenced to detention for a month which was janitorial duties at the garrison. It kept even the most smartass cadets humble.
You look around.
No one was really here. You could hear the music and people a bit further into the heart of the camp. Here was good enough.
“I talked to Acxa,” you start, “she said-” you look down at the trampled vegetation underfoot. It was embarrassing to your human preconceptions to even think, let alone say, which was why you were pretty sure Keith didn’t mean any harm. Scenting meant nothing on earth, where he’d grown up. “She said you’ve been scenting me, which like I know but not that way?” You look up at him as realization sets in and he ducks his head, looking away. “Is it true?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I-,” he takes a deep breath before ranting, the agitation and months of buried emotions flooding out, “I hate this. I hate that I can hear the conversation outside and smell which direction  Shiro’s in and how much my eyes hurt on the Castle from how bright it is but I don’t-I can’t say anything because I’m already enough of a freak. Before I was just the weird kid but now I’m just a fucking alien freak! There’s always so much going on and I don’t even know what’s next!”
You wait, wondering if there was more.
It was a lot of changes.
You couldn’t understand, there was nothing in your life comparable to your biology deciding to be a little more Galra after twenty years.
“And I tried not to-,” he admits, meeting your waiting gaze, “I tried to leave everyone alone so you wouldn’t,” Keith swallows, forcing himself to continue with an obvious disgust at himself, “you wouldn’t smell like me or whatever Lotor explained but I couldn’t-it was driving me crazy like this itch, this buzzing under my skull and seeing you guys with others-I thought I was going crazy until Lotor explained. And then when Lance would ruffle my hair or you would check that I wasn’t about to fall over and die and-,” he waves his hands in the air, “I would just zone out.”
“Oh,” you utter, recalling past events with a newfound understanding. Keith had been reaching out, all instinct even when he was trying not to be a bother. It broke your heart, how he always came from the perspective that he was an inconvenience.
“I did know,” he says in a small voice. “That-you…but I don’t know if it’s me or this, or all these things happening to me.”
Your expression wobbles. You bite your lower lip, trying to get a handle on it. How silly to worry about a crush when Keith was going through it.
“I like you, but I don’t know if I like you or if it’s just these stupid Galra instincts messing with my head.” Keith deflates, drawing into himself. “Everything
s…it’s been a lot.”
“I get it,” you utter, “maybe not the situation but I’m not mad. Though Acxa was ready to kick your ass and she totally could,” you try teasing.
But Keith flinches, looking away guiltily.
“I’m joking. I-I get why. It makes sense. It’s a lot to get used to.” You swallow, not sure what to do about anything either.
“Its a huge offence,” Keith utters, “that’s why she was pissed. Made worse because you can’t even tell…I-I couldn’t think straight and I…it took the edge off.”
“Scenting me?”
He nods.
You take a step towards him.
“I-,” Keith’s eyes meet yours, his attention entirely captivated by you. It sends a thrill down your spine. You’d seen how he could be when laser focused: on piloting, on training. “I know they say it’s wrong but you and Lance do stuff like that all the time. And I thought…I figured I could figure out how much of what I’m feeling is me and how much of it are these new instincts.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” you tell him. “I-you’re right, it’s whatever to me. Like, a Blade congratulated me earlier which was weird but fuck them you know? I can ‘smile and nod’,” you smile as fakely as possible to show what you mean, “through it so long as you’re okay.” He’d bled in your lap.
Keith looks a little unsteady, unsure what to do with your lack of anger. “You don’t-”
“So is it like galra marriage then?” You were curious as to what exactly the Blades were going to gossip about you and Keith.
He makes a choked sound. “Sort of. They bond. It can be broken but that generally means someone killed the other.”
“Let me guess,” you reply, “Zarkon fucked even that up.”
Keith nods.
“That guy’s the worst.” Your voice is light.
Keith snorts, smiling for a split second. “I won’t anymore. I’ll-”
“Keith,” your voice cracks as you out your hand on his arm to keep him from rubbing off, “if its really causing you all this additional confusion in too of everything…you can…” the words were too intimate to say, too charged with a sensuality that he clearly was figuring out. You were willing to wait. For him.
He was conflicted enough without you dumping your feelings on him.
“You don’t-”
You raise your hand, caressing the side of his face with the back of your hand, ghosting over the purple mark on his cheek, “I don’t mind.” Sure, you had a crush on him, you could admit that much, but more simply, you loved him.
This was a small ask.
Your gaze flickers to the tips of his ears.
You had washed his blood off your hands.
“Besides, shit’s hard enough. My arm falling asleep is a small price to pay if I can help you.”
Keith’s mouth quirks up in a smile.
You laugh, “come here.”
It finally sinks in that you weren’t just talking bs. You meant it, as you hug Keith, wrapping your arms around his middle. He smelled good in spite of the battle he’d been through earlier.
Without really thinking, you breathe in the scent of him.
Keith hugs you back, cuddling you against his chest, resting his chin on your shoulder.
You yawn. “want to sneak back into the castle?”
“Only if you tell Allura you’re the one who wanted to leave,” he deadpans dazedly.
You laugh.
——————
“Come,” Allura motions as you stand from one of the Castle’s weapons systems, “we must meet with the rebel leadership on planet.”
The planet was a farming camp.
The slaves were overworked and underfed and they had still revolted when they learned Voltron was near. Now, they were free.
“Princess,” Coran calls out, “it appears that number four is heading back to the ship.”
A pained expression crosses Allura’s broad features, her full mouth frowning, before she decides to pick her battles for the day. “I am sure Keith has a good reason for his actions.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.
You don’t want to go down there either.
This entire last week had been spent synthesizing medicine and treating thousands of people made harder by the range of species. The garrison better give you that medical degree immediately.
“I’ll go check on him,” you say automatically, “he might need me to prep a pod.”
“Fantastic idea number five,” Coran believes your excuse.
“Let us know if anything happens,” Allura says, giving you a long look, before heading for the exit.
The central Galra soldiers had been taken out, but small bands of fighters were still fighting to their last breath. It’s why Voltron has remained on the planet.
The lions had roamed the landscape answering calls for aid and hunting down the last of Zarkon’s forces here.
You meet Keith in the red lion’s hanger.
He’s popping his helmet off, running a hand through his flattened hair. “I thought you were headed out with Allura?”
You shrug, suddenly feeling awkward. “I was, but I wanted to check on you first.” That was a normal thing to do for your friends. There was no reason to overthink things.
“I’m fine.”
He sets the helmet aside, working on undoing the armor off. There was dirt and dust but thankfully no blood to speak of, his or otherwise.
“Then I’ll see you there,” you ask.
Keith looks over, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, his smile slight when he replies, “I’m not heading there.” Blunt. Concise.
“It is depressing,” you admit. There was so much resource allocation and need planet-wide.
He raises a brow. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Keith?” Now you’re wondering what the real problem was. “What is it?”
“Does it matter. I don’t need to be there. Shiro and Allura can handle it.” He looks away, suddenly very interested in the wall. Unlike the rest of the ship, the red lion’s hanger was dim, in a permanent night cycle.
Pidge’s work.
“I think the people would like all of Voltron present.” Then you make a face, “oh god, I sound just like Allura don’t I?”
Keith laughs, “just a bit. As long as you don’t make us all meditate…”
“It’s so boring. I fall asleep.” You smile softly, “Seriously, go down for a moment. Then you can hide out here.”
“I-I’d rather not.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Four out of five is is fine.”
“I’m sure they’ll understand,” you agree.
“I’m sure they’ll be glad.”
“Keith-” you start, knowing he already felt hyper aware of how his appearance had changed. Before, it hadn’t really ever come up outside of the team. No one would tell and if Keith wasn’t vocal about it…now everyone in the entire universe probably knew.
There were rebel Galra, mostly in prisons and work camps. Feelings varied.
“That’s not true,” you say, not sure if it was true, “you helped free them.” You shift your weight onto your other foot, “there’s a few assholes everywhere.”
He gives you a long look. “The Galra enslaved all these people.”
“Pfft,” you wave off, “you look like one sixteenth Galra. And-”
“They stare.”
“Because you’re a paladin,” you reason. “Pidge is also cranky about the attention.”
Keith sighs.
The paladin armor lies in a discarded pile.
You step forward to him, “anyone would be lucky to have you as a pilot. And Voltron sort of lucked out when the red lion chose you.”
Keith’s eyes widen as he looks at you, pink dusting his cheeks.
In for a penny, in for a pound, you lean forward and kiss his cheek, ghosting over his skin, “face marks and all.” You can’t meet his gaze when you pull away, blushing fiercely.
Why did you do that!
God, you were so dumb-
He cups your cheeks and brushes his lips over yours.
Oh! Oh.
“Is-is this okay-,” Keith starts asking.
You feel giddy, smiling before kissing him. Yeah, it was okay.
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nightowlwriting · 3 years ago
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summary: steve is acting weird. avoiding you, being snippy and mean, leaving the room when you enter. all you want is your boyfriend back, but all he wants is to pretend you don't exist. when he's almost hurt on a mission, you do what you're made to do.
word count: 11k
reader specifics: no race/gender/sexuality/body type mentioned, no pronouns for reader used, powered!reader, insecure!reader
warnings: steve is mean to the reader in the beginning, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, canon-level violence, brief ptsd symptoms, slight description of blood, brief mention of racism in the '30s & '40s
brief mentions of: reader's parents being toxic, homelessness, past accidents, ableism in the past & present
note: this one hurt me lmfao. idk why this went the way it did but i'm not mad at it // also i am a queer, trans, disabled american. i have fundamental disagreements with things that marvel/the mcu as it stands for and some of the more nuanced things that you might not notice unless you're looking for it. this will take place in my writing because i cannot separate myself from the lens in which i consume/create content.
title credit: lil nas x
mobile masterlist - request - support my work? - ao3
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Falling in love with Steve Rogers went against every instinct you had. You knew that he was going to hurt you from the first moment your lips touched his. Sure - he’s clever, righteous, courteous… You can’t forget he’s also drop-dead gorgeous because every trashy gossip magazine in a three-state radius of New York doesn’t let you forget. Neither does the sight of him waking up in your bed every morning. (Well, actually, maybe that would remind you if he was still fucking doing that.)
But lately, you’ve had to rely on the fucking tabloids to catch a glimpse of your super-hero boyfriend. The university class you had picked up on a whim at the end of the summer - Life & Times of the ‘30s and ‘40s - avoids any mention of Steve Rogers and the Howling Commandos. Not that your classmates do because, Christ on a bike, those magazines manage to catch pictures of you and Steve in moments that you don’t even remember. Plus, you’re an Avenger too. It’s bound to catch some attention when you waltz into a college classroom.
You’re sure if you were an undergrad trying to fill a gen-ed requirement and were sitting next to someone who could kill you without blinking but also dating Captain Rogers you’d be a little distracted too. You try not to blame your classmates too much, but they do make it hard to concentrate with their -really dating Captain America?- and -wonder if I could get an autograph- whispers. None of that matters because you’re learning, really studying, in between missions and missing Steve and believing that maybe the gossip reporters are right.
Maybe he’s forgotten about you.
You grit your teeth and push the thought away. It does you no good right now, while you’re training with Peter. He’s working his way up to bona fide missions and, because you’re the only one on the team who has experience with real-life teenagers outside of saving their lives, it’s up to you to get him to the level that he needs to be. Plus, the mission where he’s going to get his gills wet is just you, Tony, Steve, Nat, and Bucky. You’d much rather be the one to train him because you won’t traumatize him.
Right now, though, you’re just kicking his ass to try and get rid of some of the tension in your body. You feel a little bad about it, but when you started as his mentor you told him point-blank that you’d never go easy on him. That meant if you were having a bad day he either needed to up his game or he’d have a bad day too. It appears he’s taken that to heart as he struggles to dodge the hits you’re throwing his way. He lunges out of the way when you try to land a right hook but practically walks into the leg sweep that sends him crashing to the ground.
“Awe,” Peter groans, letting his guard down. You take the momentary lapse of focus to grab him by the collar of the hoodie he’s wearing and haul him to his feet, jerking one fist back to cold-clock him but he beats you to it. You hear the sound of your nose cracking before you feel it but then the pain rushes you all at once. You’ve had worse but coming from Peter, the move surprises you. You don’t yell out but he does when you push him away from you and call the fight off. Peter practically yelps your name, hands up by his head as he watches you bend at the waist, both hands over where your nose is absolutely gushing blood. “I am so sorry, I just reacted-!”
“It’s fine, Pete,” You shake your head and stand straight again, the blood beginning to leak through your fingers, “Just go get me a towel, okay?” Peter practically trips over his feet to get something for your nose and as you track him on his way into the locker rooms, you see Steve, Bucky, and Nat. The latter are looking your way, eyebrows raised like they’re asking you if you’re okay. Steve hasn’t even broken stride in his conversation so you wave them off with a bloody hand. Peter’s back in a flash, pressing a wet towel into your grasp and snapping you out of your self-pity party. “It was a good hit,” You compliment as you wipe your face off, “I just wasn’t expecting it. Prob’ly wouldn't have landed it if I had.”
He wrings his hands, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m sorry-”
“It’s a good thing, Peter, means you’re getting better.” You deadpan, checking to see if your nose has stopped bleeding yet, “I don’t think you actually broke it, but I’ll go down to medical to check later.” You do your best to clean up your hands with the wet towel, but it’s so soaked with your blood that it mostly just smears it around. You grimace and shake your head. “Well, I should go now before our sparring match ends up looking like I murdered you.”
“I’ll go with,” He offers, “I’m the one who broke your nose.” You let Peter walk you down to medical even though you were originally going to refuse. Perhaps petty, but it was the way that Steve didn’t even look your way as you left that made you let the teenager walk you the two floors to where you’d be able to clean yourself up. He hums in the elevator and you know that he wants to ask you something - it’s the way he holds his mouth when he’s prying for information or keeping a secret that tips you off. Finally, just before the elevator opens, you sigh and turn to him.
“What, Peter?” He grins but then it falls when he has to skitter after you down the hall. Maybe that’s why it falls - the question he asks next nearly sends you to your ass.
“Is everything okay with you and Captain Rogers?” He easily catches up to you when you stop in your tracks, ignoring that you’re still bleeding a little bit down your face and you might be dripping blood everywhere from where it’s run down your arms.
“What?” You do your best to look confused like everything is fine, but Peter is perceptive. He may fumble around and be pretty awkward, but those are really just teenager things that he’ll hopefully outgrow. You should have known that when someone caught onto how bad things are on your end, it would be Peter. (You wonder if Nat or Bucky has brought it up with Steve, considering he’s spent more time with them in the past week than he’s seen you in the past month.) “We’re fine.” Your words are stilted as you begin walking to the medical wing much faster than before.
“I just thought I’d ask, well, because I’ve sort of noticed… Something just seems off, you know? Like, you two used to spend a lot of time together, and maybe it’s the recon mission coming up, but I was just thinking that you two really barely look at each other even when you’re in the same -”
“Peter!” You say his name much louder than either of you expected and both of you jump. “Peter,” You say softer, looking at the glass door to the medical wing instead of him, “Just leave it, okay? It’s nothing you have to worry about, kid.” Peter ducks around to open the door, forcing you to look at him. “He’s just focused on his stuff and I’m focused on getting you whipped into shape for this mission. We only have two days.” Once you’re inside and surrounded by the medical crew Tony keeps on staff, he thankfully drops it. You love Peter, you do, but it’s a lot like having a little brother. You can only love them so much before you want to fucking strangle them. Eventually, as the doctor checks to make sure he hasn’t broken your nose, you have to order him away to go study or something. “I’ll join you later,” You promise him as the doctor prods at your tender flesh, “I have an essay due soon.”
That’s another thing that’s been bugging you that Peter surely picked up on. Nearly everybody knew you were taking a course at the local community college, but nobody knew what it was about. You’d wanted to keep it a secret until you told Steve, but the day you had registered he’d flown out for a two-week mission without telling you or saying goodbye. After that, you decided it didn’t really matter if anyone knew what class you were taking, and keeping it a secret sort of spiraled from there. If they wanted to know they could look it up. Maybe it was petty, but you just wanted the class to be over and done with so you could forget that you really only picked it up so you relate to your boyfriend more.
If you can even call Steve your boyfriend anymore. You’re not so sure where you stand and, honestly, you’re really close to giving up on the relationship as a whole but you can’t do that. Before you were dating, you were friends, and Steve… He never gave up on you. Not once. How could you repay him by giving up on your relationship? The one that you thought was The One? Even if it hurts, even if you’re unsure more than sure these days, how could you? Somewhere, though, you know you deserve better. You don’t deserve the sinking, dark feeling that lingers in your gut for most of your days now or the way that you second-guess every move you make - even in the field. It’s dangerous but you can’t do anything to fix it.
You’re too scared. You know that eventually, it will happen, he’ll break up with you, but you’d like to put that day off for as long as possible. To relish in the love he once had for you, how pure and powerful it was. You’re sure that you’ll never experience anything like that again.
Hell, you might never fall in love again.
Those thoughts don’t do anything to help you, though, so you try not to have them. You get clearance from the doctor and get cleaned up as much as you can without taking a full body shower. The idea to go back to your room and take one crosses your mind but you know that Steve’s probably done training, probably heading back for his own shower, and you don’t want to open that can of worms. Instead, you go to the common room and drop into the couch between Peter and Tony. They’re talking about something something science something something, but you pull your stack of books and notebooks out from the shelf underneath the coffee table and continue outlining your essay from where you left off. The assignment was focused on how the end of WW1 changed American life and then how life changed leading up to and during WW2 but that had hit a little too close to home for you, so you’re writing about the racial tension and overall racism of the times. Tony and Peter keep talking over your back and then you hear footsteps heading toward the common room.
You barely look up when they enter - Nat and Bucky - because it’s fine. It’s normal. They’re just two of Steve’s best friends, that’s all, nothing to be jumpy about. You don’t even register that emotional pain that hits when you realize that, yeah, you’re not one of his best friends anymore. You doubt you’re even considered a friend in his book.
You groan and lean back into the couch, bringing your study materials with you. Peter glances over, skimming over your page and a half of shorthand, and gags. “Jesus, can you write like a normal person?”
“Oh, sorry,” You say lazily, not looking up as you continue to scribble in your incomprehensible code, “I do forget that some of us had privacy at home.” You lift your lips just a little bit to let Peter know you’re kidding, looking up at him through your lashes as you slouch next to him. He looks red in the face. “Besides, once you have to start doing mission reports you’ll be begging me to learn my shorthand and use my stenography machine.”
“I keep telling you that I can update that ol’ thing,” Tony draws your attention. For the first time, you realize that Nat and Bucky are on the loveseat looking at you expectantly. Steve is standing in the corner over their shoulder reading a book from the bookshelf in front of him. His back is tense and he looks like he’s not reading, just listening. You force your eyes back to Tony on your right and shake your head.
“No, because then you’d know my shorthand and it makes me too happy to see you spend hours trying to decipher it.” His eyes wander to your essay again, trying to find any patterns that he can use to figure out what the hell you’re writing on anything ever. He’s opening his mouth to make a smart-ass remark that will no doubt lift some of the weight off of your shoulders when another voice speaks up.
“Wow,” Steve doesn’t even look at you even as he says your name sardonically, “Way to be a team player.” Your mind comes to a screeching halt, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s playing at. Even Bucky and Nat look surprised at the cold way he spoke to you, Tony and Peter both gasping from your side. You can’t say anything, throat tight and burning with tears as you stare at your boyfriend with raised eyebrows. What do you say to that? How do you respond? You know it wasn’t a joke because he’s not laughing, not smiling, not even looking up from that fucking book in his hands. You can’t tell if you’re more hurt or embarrassed, but either way, you don’t want to stick around for someone to get the nerve to say something.
Instead of replying, you slam your textbooks shut and bundle everything into your arms. You doubt Steve even notices that you’re making such a hasty retreat but if he does, he doesn’t say a fucking thing. You feel like you’re in high school - practically running through an empty hallway with your notebooks and textbooks pressed to your chest, trying not to cry. It’s ridiculous. You’re a trained assassin, you’re an Avenger, you are strong and powerful and yet… And yet. You’ve given so much of your heart and soul to Steve Rogers that he can knock you down eight pegs without even trying. Without even looking at you. You can’t wait to go on this fucking recon mission, where you can put all of your focus on making sure Peter is doing okay and gathering the intel. Where you can stop thinking about how easily Steve Rogers seems to be pushing you to the side.
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You spend the next two days writing your essay, ignoring almost everyone, and working on your essay. On the day of the recon mission, you’re running out the door for your eight a.m lecture, printed essay in hand, and reminding Tony that he promised to pick you up on campus after class for the mission.
You’re lucky that you went, too. You hadn’t counted on the professor making everyone stand up and tell the class the subject of their essays - didn’t realize that it would be twenty-five percent of the grade on the paper. You’ll never understand college professors and the weird shit they do, but the class is informative and entertaining. He goes around the room, starting on the opposite side of you, so you’ll be last. Great.
Several students did their papers on the propaganda of the time, one student was brave and did her essay on the ethical dilemma of the super-soldier serum and eugenics, and most of the other students focused on pop culture and how it changed. When your professor looks at you it’s almost like he’s expecting you to have done nothing but fawn over Steve and Bucky, considering you know them personally. He looks surprised when you clear your throat, stand and say: “I focused on the casual and institutional racism that faced non-white Americans at the time.” You almost preen when he looks impressed and then the shame fills you. It’s just… You want Steve to be proud of you. You want him to congratulate you on going back to school, even if it’s just for one class. You want him to be happy and surprised that he was the inspiration for taking the class.
Though, lately, the class has been more for you than for him. You like learning new things, pushing the boundaries of assignments, making people uncomfortable with the truth of the times you’re studying as told to you by two people who lived it. It’s nice. Normal.
Everyone needs a little bit of normal.
But, honestly, normal is fucking boring. By the time your class is over and you’re handing in your essay it’s like ants are crawling over your skin. A combination of nerves from the upcoming mission, a head full of fog from whatever is happening with Steve, and a little bit of fear at the thought of taking Peter into the field has you bolting for the door the moment your essay is taken from you. You’d worn your tac-suit underneath a pair of baggy sweats and a loose hoodie, so you don’t even bother slowing down as you head toward the car that Tony has waiting for you. He’s in the front seat, grinning at you from underneath his aviators and Peter is driving.
You slip into the backseat without thinking or looking at who’s there, tossing your bag in the back and peeling your hoodie off. “God, Tone, we’re goin’ to die before we even get to the mission with Petey driving.” You toss your hoodie back to join your bag and finally see who’s sitting next to you.
Of course, it’s Steve. He’s looking at you - but not really. He’s looking through you, like he can’t stand that you’re both crammed in the backseat of Tony’s electric car. His gaze catches you and holds you in place. Everything around you goes cold and fuzzy, making you miss Peter’s indignant complaining that he has his license so he should be able to drive… And then Steve scoffs and looks out his window, ignoring you. It stings but you have a job to do. You make some witty retort back to Peter, but it falls flat as you struggle out of your sweats. This is what life is, you think. Relationships aren’t meant to be forever - you learned that at a young age.
Until your accident at fifteen, you had watched your parents run out of helium, their relationship expanding and cooling in arguments, in days spent not talking, in trips to your grandparents without the other, in passive-aggressive computer searches for divorce attorneys left open for anyone to see. Then, after you were trapped between those machines - after you spent hour after agonizing hour with electricity pressing between your atoms, being torn apart and rebuilt as a young god - after that day you watched them expand against each other before the neutron core of their relationship collapsed on itself and the resulting supernova sent you to the streets. But then Fury found you. Then Tony, then Nat, then Steve.
Your parents exploded out from each other and the shockwaves ruined your life. At least now, your relationship with Steve is ending silently. There’s no explosion, no collapse, no rapid expansion to take over your cosmos. Your relationship with Steve is simply approaching the event horizon, where it will hang in the air until one of you takes the final step and you both become frozen, two collapsing objects on opposite sides of the universe. Maybe that’s what you already are. You feel so far away from him in the back of Tony’s car - like he’s eons and light-years away from you - and you feel so cold. Frozen, down to the bone. It makes you stiff in your replies to Tony and Peter, slow on the uptake when the car pulls up to the quinjet, nearing stasis and unable to respond when Nat asks if you’re okay.
Finally, you turn to look at her, nodding. “Fine,” You clear your throat, “Been a rough day.” You do your best to smile at her, but your face feels heavy. Your chest feels cold and tight, making you worry about your performance on the upcoming mission. When Peter shakes his head next to you, discreetly telling Nat not to press, you’re focused on Steve and the electricity humming in the most base part of your body.
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. You turn away and force yourself to smile, throwing a weak and numb arm over Peter’s shoulders. “Are you ready for this, Pete?” You jostle him back and forth, leading him toward the sitting area behind the cockpit. “Gonna get your ass kicked?”
“Please,” He shoves you off, nervously laughing, “Not with the skills you’ve taught me.” He mimics throwing webs, making hissing noises under his breath, and you bark out a laugh, shaking your head.
“You’re payin’ my medical bills when I have to save your ass, Spidey.” You shake your head and strap in next to the wall, Peter taking the seat to your right. Tony, from the aisle across from you, points a thick finger your way.
“You don’t pay medical bills anymore,” He waggles his finger, “So you’ll just have to make him do your homework for a week.”
“Mister Stark!”
“He’ll have to earn shorthand to do your essays,” Nat chimes in from between Bucky and Steve, who are both doing their best to not look at you - or anyone really. “You willing to share that with him?”
You lean back in your seat and jab at Peter with your elbow. “Hell no, so I guess Spider-Boy better do his best.” The arachnid in question grumbles, crossing his arms and slouching in his seat.
“No pressure, right?” He complains, “Not like I’m already nervous or anything.”
“You’ll do fine, kid,” Bucky pipes up, drawing your eyes back to Steve, “It’s goin’ to be a cakewalk.”
“Don’t jinx it, Barnes,” You warn half-heartedly, tucking in on yourself, “We need this to be easy.” From the look on his face - everyone’s face, really - you know that they heard you loud and clear when you were really saying I need this to be easy.
After an uneasy laugh from Bucky, a claustrophobic silence settles over you all as the jet begins to take off. You’re in for an hour ride and plan to spend it going over battle plans with Peter when harsh whispering catches your ear. It’s Bucky and Steve nearly crushing Nat between them until she gets up and sits across from Peter, rolling her eyes. Still, you try your best to run him through the actions you both had planned - the names, the setups you needed to execute them, everything. If something happens to Peter, you’ll never forgive yourself.
And then, cutting through your soft promptings to Peter and his equally soft replies, Bucky’s voice. “Leave it, Steve. Until after this mission.” Even Tony looks up from his tablet, curiosity piqued. Their faces are both red, set hard and angry at each other and your stomach drops. What the hell is going on that Steve ‘Till The End Of The Line Rogers is fighting with Bucky You And Me, Pal Barnes? You must shift, or lean too far into Steve’s eyesight, because for the first time in what feels like years he is looking directly at you - and seeing you, too. It makes your pulse jump and, almost instinctively, you want to reach out and ground yourself on the rubber of the seat underneath you.
You don’t get the chance, though, because Steve speaks. “No, why should I? This is clearly affecting the team.” He’s still looking - glaring - at you like you’ve done something wrong. “What’s the point of waiting? I’ve been waiting to talk about this.”
“Bo, I don’t think this is the time,” Bucky looks over his shoulder at you, then, and you know what’s coming. You know that it’s time, that Steve is about to break up with you in front of your teammates. Your friends. Your family. You steel yourself for the anguish you’re about to feel and then jerk your chin out, hardening your resolve.
“Buck, it’s fine. If Steve wants to address something, he can.”
Natasha says your name, a low warning over the hum of the quinjet. “I think he should wait.”
“Well, I’m not goin’ to wait!” Steve unbuckles himself and stands, “I have tried waiting, and look at where that has gotten me.” He puts his hands on his hips and puffs out a breath. You unbuckle and stand, too, unsure of where this is going. “You need to,” He holds one hand out, pointing at you while his voice shakes. You notice his hand is shaking, too, but fractionally. If you didn’t know Steve as well as you do you may have never noticed it. “You need to get it together.”
“I need to get it together?” You question, eyebrows nearly hitting the ceiling with how fast they shoot up. You’re not totally sure you’ve heard him right because what do you have to get together? The broken shards of your relationship? The information and research for your final paper? The awful way you’ve let yourself be treated for what seems like forever?
“You heard me,” Steve says, at the same time Bucky leans his head back and groans deep in his chest. “What? Someone had to say it.”
“We should wait for this,” Nat speaks up again, but lifelessly. She knows now that you and Steve are both on the warpath, neither of you are going to stop. (That’s also why the two of you work together as a couple so well. Very rarely are you both so worked up about something that you can’t back down, so the other is always there to meet you halfway and get you back to earth.)
“No, no, no,” You say, near hysterically, “No, he wants to do this now? Before a mission? Instead of the fuckin’ weeks we had to hash whatever crawled up his ass and died out? Be my guest. He’s already dragged everyone into this by treating me like a pariah.” You’re not sneering, but your teeth are gritted so tightly together you can hear them scraping and feel a tension headache beginning to bloom in your temples. Bucky looks… Almost incredulous at your statement. Like putting the blame on Steve is a dick move or something.
“Oh, so I’m the bad guy here?” Steve is curling his lip, glaring at you. There’s something behind his eyes, but he’s buried it so deep that you can’t reach it and figure out what it is. “I’m the bad guy, right. Right, right, right.” He scoffs, shakes his head, and then he’s running his fingers through his hair like he really can’t believe what you’re saying to him.
“Well, what else am I supposed to think?” You throw your hands out to the side and let them slap back down on your thighs. “You ignore me, you make me feel like shit, you talk down to me like I’m some insignificant foot soldier. How else am I supposed to take that, Steve?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe ask me what’s wrong? Maybe ask me why I’m acting like this, instead of ignoring all of your problems like a child?” He mirrors your moments, but the sound his hands make when they hit the outside of his suit is more powerful than yours. Fueled by anger, you think. Anger and whatever the hell was in the serum Erskine pumped into Steve.
“Ask you?” You repeat, near-hysterical, “Ask you? Oh yeah, let me get right on that. Hey, Mister Rogers? Mister Captain America? Mister Ignores-His-Partner-For-God-Knows-Why? Hey, just why are you doin’ that?” You’re surprised that you’ve said something so snotty, but you don’t back down. (Steve looks surprised, too, and Bucky has stood up next to his friend like he’s about to start berating you as well. At least he looks more cautious about it, like he’s not totally sure that this fight should be happening.)
The more surprising part of your fight is how fast it’s shut down. Tony and Nat stand at the same time and exchange a glance like they’ve surprised each other. “That’s enough,” Tony starts.
Nat cuts him off. “I don’t care if you fight this one out instead of talking, but if you do it before this recon mission you two are going to blow it. Do you understand me?” She looks dangerous, the sharp edge of a knife spiraling through the air. You force yourself to look away from her, from Tony, from Bucky, from Steve. She’s right. You know she’s right - especially on this mission. Peter is there, going to be in real danger even though there’s not supposed to be one Hydra agent in a four-mile radius. You have to clear your mind and focus on protecting him.
Steve seems to think the same thing because he stands down. When you watch him collapse in on himself, Bucky’s arms around his shoulders, into the little quinjet seats your everything aches. Heart, lungs, eyes - everything. Even though you don’t know what’s going on, what could have possibly happened to make your relationship sink this quickly and out of the blue, you still love him. He’s still The One for you. You still want to be the one to comfort him and make him feel whole when he’s struggling.
But you can’t. You can’t and it kills you.
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The heat of battle makes a lot of things fade into the background. Important things like why the fuck are there Hydra agents here? and Steve is going to break up with you when you get back on the jet and Tony swore on the fucking limited edition AC/DC vintage tour poster he has in his office that this would be an easy in/easy out information mission. None of that matters, though, because you’re in deep shit. There are seventeen of them, all primed to the teeth with weapons made to take your team down permanently.
You’re practically glued to Peter, calling out commands and plans for him to initiate. It’s when all of your plans fall through that you take a hit from a heavy fist on purpose, hitting the ground hard. “Plan F, Spidey, Plan F!” You cover the instruction with a groan and then you’re back on your feet, working your way toward him.
“Plan F?” Tony says, somewhere above you in his suit. Your comms crackle ominously as another heat-seeking grenade is launched, interfering with the radio waves your tech relies on. You don’t worry about it, because you know Tony is on it. He’s your eyes in the sky.
Peter is the one who answers his question, watching your close hand-to-hand tilt out of your favor briefly. “Plan Fuck It, Mister Stark.” He grunts as he webs up a Hydra agent, jerking him away from where he was about to slip a knife up and under Natasha’s kevlar. You finally drop the guy in front of you, ignoring Steve’s disappointed Language! and toss one of your knives toward Nat for her to use. Tony is still laughing in your ear, wheezing as he drops down and snags the rifle from one of the snipers and then takes back off.
What your little protégé failed to mention about Plan F is that it’s not just chaos, but controlled chaos. You let loose, letting a soft current cover every inch of your skin as Peter switches to his conductive webbing and takes special care to not web any of his allies. Except for you - if you’re in the way and he catches you in a web it doesn’t matter because you’re you, alive with electricity that drops the men that get caught in the web, too. You rip out of the webs and turn the current off when one of your teammates gets too close.
More Hydra agents are pouring out of the woods, topping out their numbers around twenty-five. That’s twenty-five too many in your opinion, especially when you can see Peter getting tired, his anxiety spiking, his moves having more and more hesitation behind them. You need to get this over with quickly, but you don’t have the options to do that. Steve, Bucky, and Nat are really the heavy-hitters - you, Pete, and Tony are the only ones without serums despite all of your individual abilities. Desperately you reach out for a web that’s still connected to Peter’s arms, pulling him out of the way of a baton that’s about to come down on the back of his neck.
The baton the agent is wielding glints in the coming dusk, freezing you as Peter scrambles past you with a quick apology. You’ve seen that before - seen it, felt it, know it like the back of your hand. There’s no way that you could ever forget that weapon. The man stumbles when his hit doesn’t connect but then rights himself and searches for a new target.
A long, black baton that splits into two prongs at the end is heavy in his hand. Electricity crackles between the bulbs at the end, flashing in the setting sun and your memories. The man only has one, but if it was hooked up to a machine, spinning. If there were four, five, six. If you were pinned between them, screaming in the pain as they rewrote your DNA… You’ve only felt it once, but you’ll never forget it.
And now, you’ll taste it again. On purpose this time. The man holding the stun baton is going for Steve’s back - his strong back, the one that protects people, the one that holds the weight of the world, the one that lays in your bed, the one you see whipping out of rooms as you’re entering just so that he doesn’t have to look at you - and you can’t let that happen. It only takes ten amps to kill a regular human, but you know those things are cranked up to twenty minimum. You don’t want to see how many amps of current it will take to stop Steve’s heart. You’re between the baton and Steve before you can think about what you’re doing or what comes next, the hard bulbs settling unyielding into your side and cranking out maximum power for maximum damage as soon as the current is connected and able to flow from one bulb to the other.
The pain hits you and your throat catches on it. It burns through your body, setting everything on fire - your chest hurts as your heart protests the electrons and then your powers kick in, sweeping them into your very atoms and cells. You’re a live wire now, ears humming and body thrumming with power you’ve only dreamed of. It hurts, and it burns, and you feel tears rising in your eyes because you’re back there - back begging for death or for life or for God and god at the same time - but then it’s over. The man sees that you’re not seizing up, not dropping dead in front of him, and he takes three steps back.
It’s not far enough.
You’ve only felt like this once before - right after you were unhooked from the machine that changed your life and brought you to your new family. You remember how you looked when you were put in front of a mirror with all of the pent up electricity circling your body - how your eyes were filled to the brim and dripping with bright and blue electricity, the way it was jumping across your body, how you didn’t need to breathe because your body was fully saturated with pure, unadulterated power. You wonder if you look like that now and assume you do because you can see the bright blue reflecting in the terrified eyes of the Hydra agent.
Your suit, unlike everyone else’s, is not grounded. It’s metal, metal, metal. You’re made to conduct, born for it, and the earth beneath you comes alive with bright white as you release all of the energy, the power, surges down and out. You’re practiced. You can reach out and feel the synapses and neurons of every human being in the clearing, know exactly where your teammates are standing, and know exactly how to target everything but them and the pitiful amount of electricity their brains carry. You grin, something truly feral and unhinged, and you can see the fear in the Hydra agent. Then, you let go.
You know that everyone is going to be pissed. (Maybe not everyone.) You’re not built for this, not made to take down nearly twenty fucking people at once. As you let go, you feel what they feel. The seizing muscles, the stopping of their hearts, the inside of their bodies crisping against their bones. At that moment, that delicious moment, you see the universe.
You become God. You become everything - your mother and your father and God and god and anyone else who’s watching your life from the ether. You become the judge, jury, and executioner of souls that you don’t know from Adam. You become lightning, and thunder, and exposed nerves of the cosmos at the same time. The world bends to your will and you relish in it, taking that power in your fist and wielding it to protect the man you’ll love for the rest of your life and the family that you’ve made. You will stop at nothing to end this, even if it means turning yourself inside out to do it.
You damn near do turn yourself inside out too, but that doesn’t matter, does it? The blood spilling from your ears, nose, and eyes feels like heaven. It’s hot, and thick, and it’s proof of the power that your body holds. You’re a temple and a sanctuary, a war-room and a bunker, a field of flowers and a sun-dry desert. It does not matter if Steve doesn’t love you at that moment, because you are love and hate wrapped into one package. You are everything and nothing, spread thin at the beginning and the end of time.
And then none of that is true. You are just… You. Standing in a clearing, surrounded by twenty-something dead Hydra agents and your terrified, terrified family. It hurts to breathe and you can taste blood in your mouth, but that’s an afterthought. Steve is still standing behind you, but he is alive. That is what matters.
This is what love is, you think.
Pain and pleasure.
Even if he leaves you, you will always love him.
Pain and pleasure.
You’re weak at the knees when he finally turns to see you - and you’re a sight. Struggling to stand, fingertips blackened with soot but not burnt, blood pouring from your nose, ears, eyes… You look like death, but you feel like life. Someone says something behind you - Peter, maybe? Or maybe Tony, in your comms? - but you don’t hear it. Everything tunnels out, your weak knees finally collapsing as you keel backward.
Steve bears down upon you almost immediately. You’re halfway to unconsciousness when he wraps you up in his arms, keeping you from falling in with the pile of bodies around you. He’s saying your name, harsh and soft and then in a voice like he’s ordering you to wake up. You loll about as he drops you down onto a patch of clear grass, hands searching your body for wounds. When he skims over your side, where the baton has burnt through your suit and your flesh, you surge back toward being able to have cohesive thoughts. The pain brings you back, hands wrapping around Steve’s arm and calling out his name. “Steve! Fuck, that hurts!”
“Honey,” He breathes, “Fuck, we have to get you back to the jet.” His jaw ticks, hair dirty and loose from its normal style. “Why’d you do that?” Steve doesn’t wait for an answer from you, ordering Peter to web something up to carry you over your protests.
“I’m fine,” You argue, only slurring slightly, “I feel fine.” But you’re going to let Nat and Bucky load you up on the webbed stretcher anyway because it’s the first time Steve has cared for you in a long time. You want to relish in this moment, the way that he didn't say your name but called you honey.
Well, and because Natasha slides a thumb across her neck over Steve’s shoulder in a silent threat.
You groan when Bucky accidentally grabs your calf where there is an absolutely awful stab wound, but you wave off his apology. “How could you have known?” To be honest, you hadn’t even known it was there until his Vibranium hand was slipping against it and sending shockwaves of pain through you. Peter is next to you the whole time that you’re being carried back to the jet - Tony staying back to begin scanning the bodies of the Hydra agents for the information you need and any other information they may be carrying. The poor kid is nearly at a breakdown, so you reach out to him and shake his arm when his fingers twine with yours. “Chill out, kid, I don’t know how you got it into your head that this is your fault, but it sure isn’t.” He sniffles, but hands back with Steve as Bucky and Nat get you situated in the small medical room of the jet. They transfer you and then make to leave, only Bucky hesitating near the door.
“Stevie’s goin’ to be here soon and… I don’t know what made you do what you did but you have’t explain it to him. He’s bendin’ over backwards to figure it out, and we don’t have’a clue. Came out’a nowhere.” He looks at you for another moment before shaking his head and stepping out of the room. Your head is spinning, partially from what Bucky just said and partially from the pain and stimulus of electricity. You wait there, then, because this is it. This is the event horizon. You wait there, eyes closed, until you hear footsteps approach the med room, and then the door slowly opens. Steve says your name, holding all the finality and weight of an atomic bomb. You don’t open your eyes until he swings a chair next to the stretcher and lays a hand on your calf.
“You don’t have to do this,” You finally say, pushing yourself up onto your elbows to watch him. “I know that you don’t want to.” Steve only scoffs and begins to wash the stab wound using a packet of soap and a water bottle. You say his name twice before he looks at you, something between hate and hurt curdling into a glaze over his eyes that stops you in your tracks.
“Just let me do this. It is the least that you can do.” His words are painful and stilted, like it’s taking force to push them past his teeth. You lay back down and close your eyes, content to just feel the pain of Steve beginning to stitch you up and then dress the wound before you feel the pain of Steve leaving you like you knew he always would. (Falling in love with Steve Rogers went against every instinct you had. You knew that he was going to hurt you from the first moment your lips touched his.)
When he’s done he sits back and puts his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He heaves a heavy sigh and then shakes it off, “I’ll dress your burn, and then we’ll talk.” And normally, yes, you would agree but this is too important. You want to get it over with so you can lick your wounds metaphorically and dress them literally - and then you want to go home, you want to pack your bags, and you want to disappear and remake your life somewhere else.
Some far-off place where everyone you know won’t take one look at your face and know that you’re still painfully, deeply in love with Steve Rogers, end of your semester be damned. Family you’ve made be damned. You can’t sit around and be in love with him like a neon sign on a dark highway while it’s painfully clear that he hasn’t had a sign on his highway in a long time.
So instead of agreeing, you swing your legs over the stretcher and swallow your flinch when the burn pulls tight. Steve opens his mouth to argue but you give him a tight-lipped shake of your head and his jaw snaps shut. “No,” You say, voice not giving in to the emotion swirling in your chest. “I have let this go on long enough.”
It’s the wrong thing to say because Steve fucking scoffs again and looks away from you. “One day was long enough.” He says, cutting straight to your core. Okay, ouch. You take a deep breath and shake your head to try and bite back the tears that are inevitably rising in your eyes. If one day was long enough for him to realize he doesn’t want to be with you, why did he let it go on for nearly a full year? Why did he spend so long leading you on, pulling you by a thread before garroting your heart with it? What was the point?
“If you want to leave me, just say that,” You reply harshly, standing and wobbling away from him. He just watches you go, watches the way you struggle past the lead weights your muscles have become, the way you’re starting to feel the stab wound on your leg, the way the skin on your burn is beginning to blister and only just now losing its heat. He just watches you, where the Steve that loved you once upon a time might have helped. You turn your back on him, hands on your hips so that you can hide the way that you’re crying and your hands are shaking.
“If I want to leave you? If?” He says. You hear the scrape of his chair as he stands, “I think after what you’ve done, it’s not an if, sweetheart.” The way he says it tastes like iron. Steve never calls you sweetheart like he never calls you by your name. It’s always honey, lover, dovie. You don’t turn to face him because you’re struggling to keep yourself above water. “I spent so long thinkin’, wonderin’, askin’ myself - God damnit, will you look at me?” You turn slowly, not because you’ve never heard Steve speak like that but because his voice is desperate and raw. When you turn, you’re not sure what to expect. Maybe him, standing in front of you, broad-shouldered and disappointed like in those PSA’s he had to film once. Maybe he’d be angry, hands clenched at his sides and eyes narrowed like he gets in meetings when he doesn’t agree with something but he’s out-voted. But you never expect to see him crying, lip wobbling, folded in on himself like a young boy instead of the strong, invincible man you’ve come to love.
He looks so different.
It hits you, then, that you’re not looking at Steve Rogers. Not really. He's not Steve Rogers, not Captain America, not even Captain Rogers. You see him as he was - before America spat it’s untruths all over him and injected him with a serum that changed who he was, is, will be. He’s not the able-bodied man that you know, not strong and unreachable, not the heartthrob that overshadows the team during press events. He’s not America’s Darling, not really. Not where it counts.
You’re looking at Stevie Rogers. Stevie Rogers who, for all intents and purposes, was supposed to die before he made it out of toddlerhood or soon thereafter. Stevie Rogers who the doctors said wasn’t supposed to survive. Stevie Rogers who grew up sickly, rattling painful breaths and never playing ball with the neighborhood boys. Who couldn’t walk until middle school when he got his braces off. Who never had a partner because Bucky, strong and handsome and tall Bucky, was always deemed the better option. Who believed in his country so much that he tried to sneak into the second world war, subjected himself to a painful medical procedure so that he could change his very DNA to be what the world wanted him to be.
Captain Steve Rogers. Captain America. Strong, blond, patriotic, resilient.
You’re sure that if men don’t want to go to therapy now, in the modern age, they certainly didn’t want to go in the ‘40s. So where did that leave Steve, your Steve, standing in front of you and looking small, and broken, and sad, and alone? Did they expect him to take his new, taller, working body and run with it? Did they not think about how he would lose a part of himself in the process? How did they expect him to go from disabled to abled without some disconnect?
You think about the You That You Were Before and the You That You Are Now, and how you lost a part of yourself when the accident gave you your powers and how you’d lose yourself if someone figured out a way to take them away. You Before formed your identity around being normal - living in a shitty home with shitty parents, sure, but normal - and You Now form your identity around your powers, your team, your job, your love. If you lost those things, what did you have left? Who would you be?
When Steve lost his identity and became everything that America wanted everyone to think that America was, what did he have left? Sure, he could tell himself that he represents America - strong and patriotic and just - but it must have conflicted with everything he knew about himself before that. You know that disabled people now know that American society is unjust, unfit for them with abled people not willing to make room to allow them to thrive. You can only imagine what it was really like for Steve in the ‘20s and ‘30s and ‘40s. What he had to do just to survive. (Medical experimentation, you remind yourself. Did they know it wouldn’t kill him? Did they know his body wouldn’t rip itself apart with the new sinewy muscle they were packing on? Did they care? Or was he just a body they saw as broken? A project to fix? To turn him into something more like them and call it patriotism?)
You shake your head at him, still filled with despair, and try to figure out what he’s talking about. “Stevie,” You start, pet name easily replacing what you had been calling him because it’s not fair to shoe-horn him into a body that doesn’t feel like his own. You wonder if he still expects the bone-grinding pain that he used to tell you would happen when it rains. He raises a hand, a strong and family hand, shaking his head.
“I just need to know why I wasn’t enough for you,” Steve looks sad, slouching in on himself like he’s expecting to get his ass handed to him in another alleyway and hope Bucky is there to save him. “I need to know why you wouldn’t just break up with me if you wanted to see other people so badly.” You suck in a shocked breath because, okay, that’s not what you were expecting. Between that and the paradigm shift you’ve had on how Steve must view his identity, body, and self, you’re stunned. Steve continues like he doesn’t even register that you look shocked and pale and now you’re crying because he thinks you’re cheating on him? “And I get it. I get it. You have no idea how much I understand. If I were you, I wouldn’t want me either, okay?”
You cut him off there because what the actual God damn fuck is he talking about? “No, Stevie, I’m not cheating on you.” You shake your head again and this, your statement, lights a fire in him. He still looks like Stevie rather than Steve, but there’s anger there. You imagine that’s what it might have looked like moments before he got himself in trouble back before he was serumed. “I’m not.”
“Oh, yeah?” He challenges, jaw ticking and chin jerking up, “Oh, yeah? You can’t lie to me. I know, okay? The act is up, it’s over, I know, okay? You can stop pretending.”
“Steve, I do not fucking know what you’re talking about but I”m not cheating on you!” You raise your voice, not really angry but more out of necessity. You need to get it out of his head that he is anything less than everything you want - that you could possibly love anyone more than you love him.
“I wanted to clarify something for you,” Steve says like he’s reading an old script from when he was just a beefy, red/white/blue stage prop for the American military, “I am excited to meet with you, but there are some rules. Do not talk about Captain Steve Rogers. I don’t want to hear about him,” As he continues to recite something that has clearly hurt him, you go lax. You know exactly what’s happened - your fists unclench, your jaw drops a little bit, and it feels like someone has gutted you, “I think it is wise to keep work and pleasure separate, and it’s a rule I will enforce heavily. I look forward to seeing you again.” He’s sneering at the end, tears falling down his ruddy cheeks.
“Steve,” You try again, but he cuts you off.
“Am I just work for you?” His voice is shaking more than you thought possible, and so are his hands. You’ve never seen Steve so off-kilter, so thrown, and it breaks your heart that yes, technically, you’re the cause of this. Before this, before this horrible misunderstanding, your relationship with Steve was the paragon of trust so neither of you cared if the other read emails or texts. You remember the email - the email from your fucking college professor - because it had made you so angry that he’d referred to your relationship with Steve as something as simple and base as just pleasure - like you could even put words to the galaxy of a relationship you had with Steve - that you’d gone to the gym to work off some of that irritation. You hadn’t wanted to take it out on anyone accidentally. When you came back from the gym, Steve was gone on that two-week mission that he’d left on without saying goodbye.
Oh, God. You feel sick to your stomach as the paradigm of the way that Steve’s been treating you shifts violently to the left. You have to physically hold yourself up and try to speak past the lump in your throat. Steve looks… Brokenly smug. Like he knows he’s right, but he’d rather gnaw his own legs off than be right.
“No,” You croak, “No, Steve, you’ve got it all wrong.” You want to reach for him, but it feels like the room is closing in on you. You’re second-guessing everything now - especially what you’ve just said. How many people said the exact same thing to him pre-serum because they said something meant for Bucky to him? How many times did he hear that when he was getting a new diagnosis, hoping for the best? How many times had his own mother said it to him when he told her something someone had said, fresh-faced and not yet used to the way that abled people sometimes treated disabled people? You think you might be sick. “That email was from my professor, Steve. I’m not cheating on you, I’d never.” He laughs darkly and sits back down in his chair, head in his hands again. You try to gather the strength to move toward him when you see his shoulders shaking, a telltale sign that he’s crying.
“A professor,” He says with a watery laugh, “Right.”
Finally, you realize that he needs you, needs to know you love him, that you’d do anything for him. You can iron out the kinks later - figure out why he didn’t want to come to talk to you past the original hurt, why he treated you so coldly, why he didn’t trust that you wouldn’t do this to him - but now, you need to show him that you’re here. That you choose him. That you’ll always choose him.
You make your way to him and set a shaking hand on his shoulder. For a brief second you think he’s going to shake you off but then Steve’s hand shoots up and latches onto where your hand is resting, dipping his head to press against your arm. “Stevie, please,” You say, unsure of what you’re asking him to do, “I picked up a class, just one, and it’s… I picked it up for you, it’s about the ‘30s and ‘40s and…” He looks up at you and he looks so broken - face ruddy and wet with tears, lip wobbling, chest heaving as he tries to not sob. His brows are knit and he looks confused, “I just wanted to be able to understand you better. You had to leave so much of yourself at the door when you joined the Avengers, had to leave so much of yourself in the ice… In Erskine’s lab… Stevie, I just wanted you to be able to be you when you’re with me. I wanted to know the you that you were before you became Captain America.” Your voice is shaking, knees knocking together, and honestly? You feel like you might blackout.
“What?” He rasps, “What?”
“He sent that email because too many kids signed up for his class thinking that they’d be able to look at pictures of you and Buck for a semester. Emailed me directly because he knows we’re…” You choke on your words, shaking your head because you’re not even sure there’s a we anymore, “Because he knows I’m on the team. Didn’t want me walking in and making his class about just a few years in the ‘30s and ‘40s rather than the culture of the time.” You don’t know how else to explain it to him, but Steve isn’t saying anything - practically isn’t moving or breathing- so you continue to try and explain what’s really happening as best as you can, “And - and that email made me so angry because he singled me out, didn’t email anyone else about it, and I left to try and work some of that out; I didn’t want to take it out on you, or let it spoil - let it spoil… But when I came back from the gym, you were gone. You were gone for two weeks and I didn’t know why.” You’re crying harder now and pretty sure that within the next sixty seconds you’re going to collapse if you don’t sit down.
Steve shakes his head, still looking like he doesn’t understand. “What?” He says for a third time, “A class? A college class?”
“I just wanted to feel closer to you,” You confess, “Just wanted to understand a fraction of your life without making you do the heavy liftin’ and teachin’ me. Shouldn’t have’t do that,” You’re sobbing, barely biting out your words as you realize that something you’ve done to strengthen your relationship with Steve has destroyed it, “Shouldn’t have to explain a whole different time just to feel loved, Stevie. Should be able to be with someone who understands without you havin’ to explain.” You’re not sure you can say Peggy’s name out loud, and you hope he understands what you’re saying without making you actually say it, “Should’a been able to have love with someone who knew, and I know I’m nothin’ compared to what you should’a had, but I want to be. I want to be in the same ballpark instead’a watchin’ from the stands.” You wipe your face with your free hand and look away from Steve when he stands in front of you. You don’t want to see the look on his face - what he’s thinking about what you’ve said.
He says your name and you glance at him, but his expression stops him in your tracks. Where Steve looked broken and hurt and fuming with anger to hide the anguish, now he looks stricken. You shake your head, “No, no. I didn’t say that to make you feel guilty-”
“You think that I care about whether or not you can understand the ‘40s?” He cuts you off, hands moving to curl around your biceps, “You think that I care whether or not you can relate to a time in history when you weren’t even thought of?”
“Of course I love you. I love you more than anything in this world, but you shouldn’t have to not care, Steve,” You argue, shaking your head, “That’s what I’m trying to say. You should be with someone who understands without explanation. I just wanted to give that to you - didn’t know that this would happen.”
“I should be with someone who loves me,” He argues back, “If you love me, that’s all that matters. My past be damned.”
“But your past is you!” You try to pull away from Steve, but he anchors you there. You’re dizzy from being so close to him after this long, but also because of how many different twists this situation has taken. You can barely keep up with how bad your communication with Steve has become - barely keep up with how you need to fix it, or how to fix it. “Your past is you,” You repeat when you realize that Steve isn’t going to let you go. “And you shouldn’t have to give that up so that someone will love you.”
“But you love me,” He says desperately, ducking his head so that he’s nearly nose to nose with you, “You love me, right?”
“More than anything,” You say, closing your eyes and relishing in the feeling of being so close to Steve, “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I don’t care about what anyone else thinks, or anyone else. I’ll even stop goin’ to class if you want me to - Steve, I just can’t do this anymore. Can’t do this thing where you don’t talk to me about what’s botherin’ you.” You’re choking up, barely whispering, but you know he hears you. YOu can feel his warm breath on your face, “Nearly fuckin’ killed me.”
“I thought it was goin’ to be easier,” He breathes, nose bumping yours, “When you eventually decided to leave me for him. Thought I was savin’ myself some trouble.” You can practically taste his tears as they fall again, “Buck and Nat tried to tell me that you weren’t - that you wouldn’t - but I just couldn’t believe them.”
When you open your eyes, his are closed. This close to him you can see the soft freckles that are blooming over his eyelids, his soft eyelashes kissing his cheekbones. You can feel him breathing, feel him nearly pressed against you in a way that feels hauntingly nostalgic and terrifyingly fleeting; like you’ll be able to feel his warmth for years to come, but he’s about to disappear. “That’s okay,” You finally whisper, “It’s okay that you didn’t believe them. That you thought what you thought. It’s okay.” He shakes his head against yours, opening his mouth to protest, but you refuse to let him feel guilty about feeling this way - you have plenty of time to sit him down and talk to him candidly about the way he acted because of these feelings, anyway. “If I would have been in your place I’m not sure I would have believed them.”
“I treated you so badly…” He shifts and wraps his arms around you. It’s almost immediate - you relax into his arms and wind yours around his waist, keeping him pulled against you as he presses his face into your neck and you press your cheek against his chest. “So awfully.”
“We’ll talk about that, okay? But later. Right now you just need to know that I love you, Steve. I love you more than I can tell you - more than I can express.” You want to kiss him, but you can’t. Can’t kiss him, you need to wait for him to kiss you, for him to close that gap and show you that he still loves you like you love him. “We’ll have to have a talk, a long and hard conversation about this, Stevie, but for now… For now, I’m just content to be with you, okay? MIssed you so much.”
He sighs, nose pressing against yours again. “Missed you too, dovie. Missed you more than I can even say,” His voice breaks as his lips brush yours. Your relationship is not without its flaws and problems - Steve’s actions when he thought you were cheating on him are proof of that and, well, the fact that you didn’t realize what was happening, why it was happening, or a large part of your boyfriend’s psychological makeup having an impact on your relationship while it went unknown by you… There is a lot of work for the two of you to do, a lot of work to do, a lot of communication to be done… But you’d do it all for Steve, over and over again.
When he presses forward and presses his lips gently to yours, you know that he’ll do it all for you, over and over again, too.
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olderthannetfic · 2 years ago
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I’ve been lurking here for a while now and I just gotta say this. There’s this constant undercurrent argument about lgbtq/cis harassment. LGBTQ anons and commenters describing how they’re harassed for their lgbtq headcanons, and cis anons and commenters describing how they’re harassed for their cis headcanons and it often seems neither side fully accepts the reality of the other.
Let me start by saying that historically, of course it is the lgbtq side that has had it much worse in terms of suppression and harassment. There’s no question about that and anyone denying that is dreaming.
The thing is, in this current climate, no one has it better. Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. It all depends where you choose to share your headcanons and content. On Reddit for example, lgbtq headcanons and fan content will get a lot of abuse, on Tumblr, cis headcanons and content gets harassment and let’s not pretend otherwise. Both sides face unwanted interactions and bullying and saying that getting shit for cis headcanons and content doesn’t matter because historically they’ve had it too good…excuse me, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
The ones harassing lgbtq members of fandom are toxic, conservative and incel types. The ones harassing cis members are the militant, vocal minority of the lgbtq community. Let’s not pretend that the average teenage girl/boy who just wants to doodle their favourite ship after school is the one hurling abuse. It’s coming from people with extreme views and they’re present on both sides.
The problem comes from two things. Firstly, where you post about your headcanons. I post m/f fan content and on some platforms it’s very well received, on others not so much. Secondly, there are many people who, either through plain ignorance or wilful stupidity, equate people not explicitly agreeing with their headcanons or content as a moral failing.
Antis do it. But proshippers do it too. I’ve seen plenty of subtle and not so subtle examples from anons and commenters here.
Let me be frank. Many cis people are not interested in lgbtq headcanons. They just aren’t. It is not their experience. They can’t relate to it. It isn't a sign of phobia or hate. Just like I’m sure many lgbtq people are not particularly interested cis/hetero headcanons. And let me very clear I am talking about HEADCANONS ONLY here. Personally, I’m not interested in seeing posts describing in detail why a character from X anime is gay/lesbian/bi/trans/pan/ace etc when it has never been officially confirmed. I am not interested in reading HEADCANONED m/m, f/f or other lgbtq fanfic or seeing that fanart. If you like that sort of thing, fantastic. You do you. I, personally, do not care about or spend time thinking about characters' sexualities beyond canon. Conor and Oliver from ‘How To Get Away With Murder’? Adorable. Soojong and Taehoon from ‘An Innocent Sin’? Compelling. Deku and Bakugo? Nope. Sherlock and Watson? No thanks. I’ll never see that as anything more than a wonderful friendship.
And the thing is, I’m sure there are people who will get really, really irrationally aggressive about me saying this. Who think that because I quietly have zero interest in and avoid lgbtq headcanons that that somehow makes me phobic or hateful towards the lgbtq community. And I have to say, what I enjoy in my fandom space has absolutely no bearing on what I do and how I treat people in real life, as hard as that is to believe for many active in fandom spaces. For some reason, it’s fiction is not the same as reality until you don’t engage with or produce fan content in the ‘right’ way.
Someone not interested in engaging with or supporting or even liking particular headcanons, no matter how popular they are, has nothing to say about their actual morals. Not being interested in and not hyping up this or that headcanon and instead producing content that's the opposite of a popular headcanon is not the same as actively hating a real life group of people. And I’m surprised I have to say this but I do.
I will march with and stand with whatever group is being unfairly treated, whether it’s based on class, sex, race or other and campaign for social and political change FOR REAL PEOPLE because that’s what actually matters. Just because I mute and block the m/m tag in my fandom doesn’t make me homophobic or hateful. You know why I block it? Because m/m does absolutely nothing for me, but more importantly, I’m in love with one of the main characters and seeing him romantically involved with anyone, girl or guy, makes me upset. So I block all romantic and shippy tags related to the character. Sometimes it’s just like that. It has nothing to do with being against the lgbtq community but for very strange and personal reasons. Or very benign reasons. Maybe people just don’t want to deal with sexuality discourse in their fandom space because it’s where they come to relax and forget about all political and social stuff and just shitpost memes.
Your headcanons are your headcanons and no one will take them away from you. Both cis and lgbtq sides get shit for their content from a vocal, toxic minority on different platforms these days and everyone needs to remember the old ‘Don’t like, don’t read.’ The more we keep going on about who has it worse, the more divisive fandom spaces will become, even worse than they are now.
--
I loathe headcanon posts in general, though I like well-supported meta essays.
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danggerine · 4 years ago
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i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up
• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”
you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.
• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”
here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.
p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.
and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!
• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”
like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE
in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.
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variousqueerthings · 2 years ago
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I was tagged by @oh2e for some books and texts I’ve been reading recently
Before We Were Trans (Kit Heyam): I finished this last night and I am so happy that this exists. A challenge to the existing frameworks of what we call Trans History, purposefully intersectional and broad in its exploration
Brand New Ancients (Kae Tempest): This came out before Kae did, so ignore the name there. A beautiful story in poetic form, you can see it was intended to be read out loud. Reconsidering mythologies and gods
Shikhandi And Other Tales They Don’t Tell You (Devdutt Pattanaik): A queer exploration of Indian mythologies and religious stories. I have a lot to learn here, and I’m so glad this perspective exists
I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter (Isabel Fall): A short story that sparked a lot of conversation about how we forcibly out creatives, genuinely an interesting set of questions about what happens when queer gender rights are appropriated by militaristic society
The Prophets (Robert Jones Jr.): Rethreading queer lines that were broken under slavery, centres two enslaved men on a plantation, while creating queer cultural roots through space and time
Detransition Baby (Torrey Peters): A story about a detransitioned trans woman (now cis man) who accidentally gets a woman pregnant and tries to find a way to queer parenthood. I’m pleased I read it and definitely recommend, but there were elements that I struggled with. The detransitioned character was so worth following
Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer): Recommended to anyone who’s feeling climate doom, especially to get us out of an individualistic headspace and into anti-colonialist allyship with one another. Also plants. Remember to thank them
A Bright Room Called Day (Tony Kushner): Can’t believe I never read (or watched) this play before, considering it’s Kushner and I was a baby theatre gay, but I found it very healing in our times + Kushner’s musings in the 1994 afterword, thank you @mimsyaf
Between The World And Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates): A letter to his son. I don’t even know what else to say, go read it
Thanks again for the tag, I feel like if there’s one thing I actually have had the energy to do it’s read a lot (ngl it’s been a coping mechanism/avoidance tactic at times) and I always want to !!!! about it. I noticed with this list I’m currently drawn to books about creating/recreating threads; historical, mythological, political, communal. I’m very much feeling the potential power of finding similarities, allyship, and family, rather than cutting ourselves off into individual causes and clear-cut hierarchical identities. Some of these books were for me to find myself in and some of them were about listening. I think that’s an important balance too.
hon mention: The Peregrine, JA Baker
tagging (and no pressure whatsoever, I don’t know if you’ve had the spoons for books): @hunkydorkling , @le-red-queen , @an-sceal , @elsonambulo , @pohjanneito , @likethegardensofbabylonn
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scriptlgbt · 3 years ago
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Meaning of LGBTQ+ labels in an extremely accepting world with magical transition
Question
Hey, I’m currently working in a fantasy world where that is accepting, and I’m thinking that even if transitioning via magic is widely available, would some trans people still not want to  - I’m not sure how to put this sorry if it comes out wrong - transition to exactly what their body would be had they been cis? And what might be some of their reasoning for this? I looked through your magical transition tag and the biggest problem seemed to be that transitioning via magic leaves out a pretty big chunk of experiences that would be valuable to trans readers today, and yeah, I’m not sure how to avoid that, considering in this world 1) wouldn’t be prejudiced - so I can’t do what, for example, Dreadnought by April Daniels does showing the parts of being trans outside of transitions (nor do I think I should, really, since I’m cis and it’s not up to me) and 2) the magic system I’ve made would definitely be able to help trans people transition so I’m not quite sure what to do with that.
Currently, I’m thinking that, since bodies wouldn’t really be gendered, most would alter(would that be a good word? It’s the best I currently thought of but it doesn’t sound right?) parts of their body that causes them dysphoria but otherwise just live their lives. There’s also this bit about me being unsure as to how to define ‘gay’ if nonbinary people are normalised but and also if people stopped defining gender by genitals, what childhood would look like in that world but. I do wonder if I’ve cast the concept a bit too far and if I should just rein it in a bit and have it maybe a bit less, for lack of a better word, ‘like that’? I guess my biggest question is how a world like that would look like and function, and since I’m cis I thought it’d be better if I asked some trans people their thoughts?
Also there’s two parts that didn’t quite fit about first same sex political marriages and a bit about how trans people tend to be better at medical magic, since something that makes practitioners of medical magic more effective is being able to mentally separate the concept of the body from the concept of the person and I wonder your thoughts on it.
Sorry that this turned out really rambly or sounds kind of half baked lol. I started this out just wanting to ask about magical transitions but then the fact that I’m sending an ask made my socially anxious self question parts of my logic, haha. So uh- yeah-
Answer
So, I’m going to try and segment this one out, in order of what’s easiest for me to answer. I realize you’ve looked through our blog a bit, so I apologize for the things I inevitably repeat, but I do feel they are important to address.
How to define gay with trans people (esp nonbinary people) normalized
Being gay is not currently defined by genitalia, contrary to what T*RFs seem to believe. To get to what it actually is, I’ll explain how orientation labels tend to be used in the trans community. To me, being gay means that I am interested in people who identify similarly to me in some way in terms of queerness. For some people, it’s trans lesbians who date women regardless of them being cis or trans. Whether nonbinary people are automatically part of that depends on the individuals. I’ve dated lesbians before (who were trans - I would not feel comf dating a cis lesbian) who used the older definition of it that means what we use the word “sapphic” to mean today. I also know people who use the term gay as shorthand for “I’m a man who is generally attracted to people in the vicinity of manhood” or even masculinity (even though masculinity and manhood are different - it’s complicated, people are complicated).
The point of labels is that they are a shorthand to communicate complex topics. They aren’t meant to replace those longer explanations, they are only to make communication referring to those complex identities easier. Labels are descriptive and not prescriptive, and every gay person has slightly different feelings.
I’m not going to tap into this too much because it only gets more complicated, but there’s also people who may feel differently about their orientation based on if they are attracted to androgynous people who may identify as the same gender to them, vs agender people who may not. I have to be honest that I haven’t actually heard anyone take this all too seriously or account that into the labels they ultimately choose to give, but it’s something sometimes that people talk about. I don’t think you need to go into it in your story, or even that you should per se, I just would feel remiss to not mention it as a thing people think about. I would generally say this is more of the binary variant folks who tend to wonder about it though, I don’t think cis people who date us worry about it. It’s not something that has a conclusion or universal answer. It’s just something people question the technicalities of sometimes in extended conversations.
My assumption for the future is that people will probably be taking to account community culture and history when using labels. This is already kind of a thing and it’s why a lot more people tend to identify with bi than pan, in part. There are a lot of people who identify as transsexual these days also because of the specific history of the community and what that means in relation to how they see themselves. This isn’t a flawless thing and there’s always a lot of intra-community discourse about the validity of weighing this vs your actual felt experience, and whether there is a prescription experience for every label that people using it should meet. (Again, this is So Dicey, I am not doing justice to the immensity of how much has been said about it. But it’s a thing people talk about in-community sometimes.)
Would trans people all want to look cis if they could? Why/why not?
I absolutely do not want to look cis. Being trans is an integral part of who I am, and people cannot know who I am without knowing that I am trans. I’d say that the majority of trans people who stay community-involved/connected to other trans people skew towards preferring to be visibly trans in some way. At least in a way that other trans people recognize us. But I also know a lot of trans people who love their bodies and don’t want to change anything. And no one does need to change anything to be a different gender than they were assigned. That’s all being trans means. (Add nuance for cultures outside of the colonial one I’m speaking from, who may have different ways of doing gender stuff.)
I think a lot of people with marginalized bodies, regardless of transness, can probably relate to being more concerned with how other people view our bodies than how we do. I’m perfectly content to let myself be fat and cozy and stim in the comfort of my own home, but I do feel like I have to put my guard up in public to get respect. I’m put in a position where I basically have to assume people expect me to apologize for my body. (Especially as a person who uses a rollator, and constantly needs accommodations from the public to open doors, move aside, etc.)
That isn’t to say that none of us would want to change a thing if we all had the equal chance and freedom to do so. But it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, and we would have more freedom to pick and choose the stuff we want. It is not that I want to be any particular gender, it is that I want to be myself, I want to make my body something I’m comfortable with. There’s some explaination of what dysphoria is here which might help parse out the particulars. (For the love of all that is good: please do not use the DSM to tell you what gender dysphoria is. That’s not what it is to the community, and the DSM should not have transness in it to begin with.)
But in an ideal world I would also have a lot of retractable body parts. And to be frank, I think there are cis people who would also probably find utility in such a thing. I’m going out on a limb here but I bet there are cis perisex women who would probably like to be able to retract their breasts while running down the stairs. And there are probably cis perisex men who would want to turn off boners at will too. There already are cis people who take HRT for a variety of reasons and who get surgeries of all kind. Trans people are not all that unique in any way besides our oppression in this particular regard. The main thing that defines us is that we identify outside how we were assigned, gender-wise.
Ethics of magical transition in your specific world
Note: This section has been tweaked a bit since original posting thanks to helpful comments in the notes! Thanks @kalu-chan for the added perspective. I rec folks read those replies as well since editing in nuance is not the same as reading it directly from who you learned it from. I want you to investigate your purpose for your story. Do you want representation or do you just want to write a whimsical story?
I generally give advice on writing good representation, including in a fantasy context. I feel that it nullifies representation when the audience of that demographic is… well… not represented.
Transitioning via magic would not just leave out “a chunk” of trans experiences today - they would literally leave all of us out. We don’t have magic to transition. BUT there are trans people who would want to see that anyway, and for whom magical insta-transition doesn’t compromise how they feel represented. But if you do this, I would strongly advise finding more ways to make the character relatable to a trans audience. This isn’t a good trope to apply to a periphery or throwaway character, because you won’t get to actually make them substantial enough to be good representation regardless. And if you do a one-and-done magical transition, you absolutely need to be aware of the fact that magical transition where a binary trans person goes from being called “female bodied” to “male bodied” and vice-versa is overrepresented as things are, and usually done with stereotypes of what cis people think trans people want. (I’m specifically thinking of the example explained in this post.)
There are aspects of the way transition can be written in a magical context to replicate real-world hormones and procedures, and that’s generally what I recommend to people. You can even enhance it and make it so that you can customize the formula for what you want. (Like having something that changes height, etc.) I don’t think you need to have a character taking any of these potions forever for it to be relatable. (I think some past askers have maybe assumed these potions should be taken forever? Which is fine, but not necessary.) A lot of trans people who take hormones go off hormones or lower the dose once they have the desired effect. (I’m to the impression this is the minority, but still a sizeable chunk do this.) Surgeries generally have a set number of procedures expected.
Another option you could do is to make a one-and-done magical transition something with a lot more involved with it. Like with some big magic chrysalis they meditate in for a very long time and then they… idk, hatch?? Out how they want. Or maybe there’s some kind of specific ceremony that involves herbs to be burned in a certain order and tea made with water from a waterfall collected on a full moon. It doesn’t need to be something difficult like that or anything, I’m just giving some options.
Just: please don’t use insta-transition as a means of compromising on writing a trans character as trans. We need to see ourselves in trans characters, and there’s more to that than simply transition.
Trans people being better at medical magic because of better ability to separate concept of body + person
I don’t personally like this because the idea of us not being our body is a narrative used to take away our bodily autonomy. Here’s an article I wrote about it in 2018 and here’s some stuff we’ve written before going into the issues with the “born in the wrong body” narrative. It isn’t our body as the fundamental difference here. My body is mine, tits or not. There are definitely trans people who resonate with this, but it’s more complicated.
You could also probably talk about this lens when it comes to disabled people. As a disabled person, my worth is often seen as what kind of labour I can put forth in order to give somebody else a profit. My worth is seen as limited, because my body is limited. That’s ridiculous.
But I think it’s reasonable that a person who is disabled would be better at medical magic because we’re more likely to know how different parts of the body work in order to problem-solve when possible. I’ve learned WAY more about how pain is experienced, what different bones, joints are, how collagen and cartilage works, different tests to figure out where an endocrine tumour is and what the risks associated are, etc etc from disabled people, than I have ever learned from a doctor or even a first aid course. I’ve also learned a lot about how to adjust and make accommodations for specific contexts and ways my body doesn’t work, and what kinds of help I need for that. That might be something to work with instead of trans people specifically.
I would honestly just try and frame it away from the person vs body thing. I think you could definitely write it in a way that works, but I think there’s a lot of work that would be needed to do it properly. You would need to understand the level of subhumanization implied when it comes to separating people from their bodies. You need to be able to acknowledge that even if we may be separate from our bodies in some regard, like if we have souls or whatever, we still have ownership of our bodies, some kind of tethered bond, at least as long as we are alive.
What this world would look like, if written well
I hope I’ve gotten to most of what you were wondering about, feel free to send a message when we can open the ask box again if there’s something I’ve left out. (Or reply, etc.)
I’d say that ultimately it’s okay if your story is not wholly utopian, and I think even if you go for that (at least in terms of Acceptance), it probably isn’t a good idea to label it that way because there might be more to the situation.
There are also ways to acknowledge trans experience in a world where questioning is totally normal. I mean, we already question who we are in so many other regards as people when we grow up. And for the rest of our lives even. Existing in a living body is an act of constant creation and regeneration until we die, and even then, we decay into an earth which grows things.
Have characters who are still figuring it our or who aren’t sure. Or who are, and change their presentation or transition-related stuff more often than those who aren’t, because fluidity is part of their nature. (I go on and off testosterone all the time! That’s totally fine and normal and doesn’t mean I am insecure about what I want at any given time.) (I don’t even identify as genderfluid, sometimes I like estrogen more than testosterone and vice versa. Though my gender has evolved a bit over time.)
I think there’s a lot of different and cool possibilities for what the future may hold and what fantasy can hold when it comes to trans people. I would also say that you don’t need to go in depth with this stuff, it’s just extremely helpful to know as much as you can. It makes it easier to write and to know where to step for representation that truly makes us feel seen, or like kin to a character.
It’s important to keep in mind that even if your story is super accepting, your audience is still living in a world that isn’t exactly that. How a character in a very accepting world may feel about magical transition, is obviously going to be different than how it lands with your audience. The trick to good representation is writing a world that reaches enough out to us to pull us in, and makes us want to keep reading. Seeing fully 3 dimensional trans characters is part of that. Even if we can’t see ourselves as a 1:1 parallel, it is nice to see data points that we might relate to our see our community members in.
This may not be for your story, but I also want to put it out there that it’s okay to have minor characters having their own problems and conflicts and not addressing that onscreen. A lot of cis people are understandably steering away from making huge complicated coming-out-went-awry (as the main focus) stories about trans people. But that doesn’t mean you should only ever represent trans people who were always completely accepted. Tbh, even trans people who are now accepted may have had roadbumps in that or lost a friend or several. It’s not always 100% good or 100% bad. And you absolutely Do Not need to make that part of the plot in order to write trans people who have been through that kind of thing. It can be in the past or offscreen, it can be just something that shows in your trans character’s decisions about who to trust or whatever. Not every obstacle we’ve been through is death, and not every acceptance we’ve had was easy or unfought for. Our lives are complicated and nuanced and there is room along the gradients. Develop your characters’ internal and external lives far beyond what goes on in the scenes you write, and your audience will recognize the difference.
- mod nat
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vaspider · 3 years ago
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I have a question, and you seem to be very good at explaining things. My understanding is that transfemme/transwoman/femme? are all the same, and mean someone who was assigned male at birth, and currently identifies as transgender. And the same for transmasc/transman/masc. Just, yknow, the other way around. Is that correct? Or am I getting my terminology wrong? I've always been kinda shakey on that, but wasn't sure who to ask without seeming rude, or like I was mocking them.
"Femme" is a word with multiple meanings. It can mean:
"Woman" - since it's just the word 'woman' in French, and this is where all of the other meanings come from.
"A femme lesbian, that is, someone who fits the 'femme' dynamic or presentation within a butch/femme relationship, or simply on their own." - This is regardless of actual gender, pronouns, cis, trans, whatever. Butch and femme in this context come to us from Polari, which is a theater cant from the UK commonly used by Travellers, theater people, sex workers, and queer folx (and all the intersections thereof). The butch/femme dynamic in lesbian (and gay!) relationships and communities goes back at least seventy-five years. This has way more context to it than I can cover in this, but, like, if you look at movies like Paris Is Burning or read any of the older lesbian zines, you'll see many many examples.
"A transfeminine person, that is, someone who was assigned male at birth and is moving in a feminine direction with their transition, or presents feminine rather than masculine OR a person who presents feminine regardless of gender." - 'Femme' is often used as a catch-all term for anyone who is "femme of center" when discussing gendered issues. This can include cis women, femme non-binary people regardless of gender at birth, binary trans women, and many other varieties as well.
You'll sometimes see "women and femmes" used to describe who belongs in a particular space, but this is falling out of favor, thankfully, as it was often used as a low-key misgendering of AFAB non-binary people and trans men. What people usually meant by that is "people with vaginas and also trans women I guess," and it ended up with a sort of 'woman lite' implication for the word 'non-binary' and excluding non-binary people who didn't present feminine enough (usually meaning 'they have a dick and are non-binary'). The whole phrase is a mess and I'm glad we're moving more toward talking about "marginalized genders."
My wording on this may not be perfect, and it may not match every single use of femme as other people understand it -- and I'm sure I've forgotten some usages of it. The point is that it's a contextual word. What it means often depends on the conversation at hand, who's having the conversation, what community they're part of (whether that's the lesbian community, the queer community, the trans community, what region or country they're from... ), etc. If you're confused by someone's use of 'femme' contextually, it doesn't hurt to ask for more information. (Though I would avoid saying things like 'define femme' bc that's often the sort of thing that TERFs and the baby-TERF exclusionists do, and you may come off unintentionally as one of them. Asking 'hey, I know this word has lots of contextual different meanings, would you mind clarifying for me' is probably better.)
That's one thing, honestly, I think we need to get a lot better at as a community -- and here I know I'm going on a tangent -- recognizing that a lot of our words are contextual, lots of them don't have single, fixed, universally-recognized meanings, that the US isn't the single defining experience of queerness and other countries use other terms which are as correct as ours, and that even regionally there are lots of different terms or slightly different definitions. This sort of dogmatic 'there is absolutely only one definition, and it's mine, and I'm going to redefine your experience and your identity if it doesn't fit my definition' is something I've seen far too much of lately, especially from younger queer folx.
I know it's like, really tempting to want to have singular rigid definitions for every word, but that doesn't fit people's experiences of gender or sexuality, and the trend I've seen toward literally telling people "you are not X, your experience doesn't fit X, you are Y," is some nasty-ass stuff and it really needs to stop. I've seen it most often with younger lesbians telling older (in some cases decades older) lesbians "you're wrong, you're bisexual/pansexual, you're not a lesbian," but I've also seen it with gender, people telling others what their gender is, and that's the shit that TERFs and other transphobes do, we can't be doing that to each other.
Anyway, femme means a lot of things, depending on context. Ask people if you're not sure. And before I hit post on this, let me make clear that I don't tolerate discourse around whether butch and femme are "lesbian exclusive" terms. They are not, they never have been, and if someone comes into my notes trying to start that old bullshit up again, they will not get the serotonin of a reply from me. They will get blocked without response.
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dathen · 4 years ago
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Saw a truly vile taker earlier so I have to write about the differences between asexuality and desexualization or I WILL explode on a molecular level.  This is gonna be long because I’ve been angry about this for Many Years and can’t take it anymore so BUCKLE IN.
There’s a popular attitude that asexuality + any other marginalized identity or experience is a sort of Forbidden Combination because it inherently “desexualizes” that identity.  This is a viewpoint that has drawn language from some genuine discussions of desexualization, but has been twisted and hyped by acephobes and exclusionists to the point where even people within those groups are afraid to write or headcanon characters that are asexual + disabled, female, a person of color, neurodivergent, mentally ill, trans, etc.
First and most importantly:  I cannot even put into words how damaging and stifling this is to those of us who are one of these “forbidden combinations.”  There’s this level of shame that often comes with the territory that often walls us off from more generalized positivity and support.  Acting like imagining or writing a character that resembles us is a Sin (tm) makes this SO much worse.  
For example, I am ADHD, most likely autistic, and asexual.  The first time I ever felt free to explore the idea of a character who is both asexual and neurodivergent was with a canonically asexual character, and it was the most remarkably freeing and exciting experience.  In my experience, having an ace headcanon for a character that even hinted at neurodivergence would get you dogpiled with accusations of ableism, so I avoided it for years and years out of fear--but I could FINALLY write about someone who resembled me!  I could finally explore how those two sides of me interact and interconnect!  I hate knowing that the reason why it’s more accepted to start with the ace character and add other headcanons was because of this idea that asexuality is a demeaning identity (conflating it with desexualization, which I’ll get into later), but regardless it’s been a great time.
...And now I’m seeing people insisting that, no, even if you’re starting with a canonically ace character, adding a headcanon for another marginalized identity is also bad and “desexualizes” that identity.  Now it’s a “these two things are never allowed near each other” rather than just “ace headcanons are bad for anything but a white, able-bodied, neurotypical, able-bodied, cishet man.”
All of the above completely disregards the actual execution of the writing for a harmful and lazy attitude of “never allow these two identities near each other.”  But execution matters.  Learning what desexualization actually is, and not treating it as a synonym with asexuality, is vital for undoing these attitudes.
Why is desexualization harmful?
This is highly summarized, but the gist is: 
- Infantilizing the person, treating them like they can’t be a consenting adult in a sexual situation.
- Depriving the person of agency, which ties into the above issue of treating them like they can’t consent.  This is also an overlapping issue with oversexualization, which treats a person like a sexual object regardless of their input.
- Treating the person as undesirable; the disgust reaction of “I hate imagining this person in a sexual/romantic situation, so let’s just wall them off from the possibility completely”
- In fandom, a character being dismissed or sidelined in circles that focus on romantic/sexual content.
These are also terrible things to portray about asexual people.  If the execution of an asexual character or headcanon includes the above, it’s demeaning and acephobic!  But if an asexual depiction does not include these elements, it is not desexualization.  
I want to keep this post fandom nonspecific since this is an issue EVERYWHERE I went, but the character in question for the “you can’t headcanon him as anything but white or it’s desexualization” accusation I saw (ironically written by a white person) a) is an adult, b) has confidently set boundaries for sexual activity, c) is unabashedly portrayed as receiving romantic interest & desire for the entire course of the show, and d) is the main character and almost always centered in fanworks.  It’s practically a checklist for why the above wouldn’t apply.  But with this lazy, harmful approach of “asexuality can’t be combined with any other marginalized identity,” it still gets the “problematic” label slapped on it.  And let me tell you, the asexual PoC in the discords I’m in were NOT happy with that post telling them “just :) think about why this is wrong :))”
TLDR: Before you accuse people of “desexualizing” a character by combining asexuality + another marginalized identity/experience, learn what desexualization actually is.  Learn how those elements also harm asexual people.  Embrace the reality that asexual people of many backgrounds and experiences exist, and we deserve the right to be portrayed and portray ourselves.  Learn the difference between a positive portrayal and one done to dismiss or demean a character.  And SUPPORT ASEXUAL PEOPLE instead of treating us like a demeaning identity.
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