#in fact i think she might be queer herself and only lets the doctor get queer companions

[huntressofartemis001]

Twelfth Doctor saying a man fancied him the minute Bill stepped foot in the Tardis so she would know she wasn’t the only queer in there

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Personal Lies

A/N: Like I said, getting into the hellcheer headspace. Had to make a quick one-shot. Based on my past internal conflict from when I was figuring things out. I called myself many things: straight, lesbian, nothing at all. . .I still don't have it all figured out, and things could always change, but I'm a bisexual. Here's to the other bisexuals who have sometimes not felt quite queer enough because you're dating the opposite sex. . .whether it's because of how other people made you feel or how you made yourself feel.

Eddie sighed as he watched her dance with El. It wasn't possible. And yet. . .He watched Chrissy dance with pure joy and enthusiasm, not caring how she looked for once. She was going absolutely mad to the beat of the music, letting out her frustrations with El, showing her how to do it herself. They were all gathered at Steve's house for a movie, but the tape they were supposed to watch somehow got ruined. It ended up turning into a dance party. Chrissy was absolutely beautiful.

"There's no way," he muttered underneath his breath.

He watched the way Chrissy's strawberry blonde hair flew around her, her smile lighting up the room as her skirt slapped against her legs. Her denim skirt. . .the way it moved with her. . .it went well with her pink top. Pink looked good on her, maybe because it was her favorite color, and she always seemed happier when she was wearing it. Eddie shouldn't like this. And yet. . .

"You ever going to tell her?" Steve asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

"Tell who what?" Eddie asked.

"Chrissy, man. It's so obvious that you like her," Steve said.

"What? No, I don't," Eddie scoffed. "Maybe you like her."

"No, I don't, man," Steve laughed. "I mean, maybe in another life. You've got your eyes locked on her. You never stop talking about her, and you're always in each other's orbit."

"I could say the same thing about you and Robin," Eddie said.

"You could, but you know that's different," Steve said.

"Why are you so interested in my love life?" Eddie asked, with a scowl.

"You meddled in mine. It's only fair that I return the favor," he replied.

"Look, man, I can't like Chrissy. It's just not possible," he said.

"Why? Because she's a cheerleader?" Steve asked.

"That has nothing to do with it. I'm not so judgemental about it anymore," Eddie said.

"So, why can't you like her?" Steve asked.

"Because I'm gay, Steve," Eddie replied.

Steve stared at him in surprise, his eyes blinking rapidly at him. He wasn't moving away from him, though.

"Well," Steve said thoughtfully. "I totally appreciate you telling me that, but you know it's possible to like - "

"You know what?! I think I'm going to go dance!" Eddie grinned and bounced away.

He wasn't about to let Steve Harrington tell him who he was, despite the fact that they were practically best friends now. Eddie knew who he was. . .right? Chrissy turned on him as soon as he stepped out on the dance floor. Shit, this might have been a bad idea. She beamed at the sight of him, her cheeks flushed and her hair a mess. It was doing something to his heart. Maybe it was time to see a doctor. It didn't appear as though he had much choice as Chrissy pulled him into dancing with her. He didn't put up a fight at all.

"Fuck."

A couple of weeks later, Eddie bent over the hood of the van, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. He knew what was wrong with her. She was a piece of junk, and that hadn't changed since his dad had given him the van. They had enough money now, he could get a new van. Eddie wasn't sure why he was trying to save her, but he could guess that it was the stupid part of himself that was still trying to hang on to his asshole of a father.

"Eddie?" A familiar sweet voice called out.

Eddie cursed as he banged his head on the hood of the van. He turned around around to find Chrissy standing there, looking beautiful as always. Jesus, can she stop looking like an angel for five fucking seconds? It's not fair, and it certainly wasn't fair that the sun happened to cast that beam of light over them right at that moment. Goddamnit, the sun was an asshole. That same funny feeling was back in his chest again, the same feeling he first felt when they had their moment at the picnic table. He wanted it to go away.

"Hey, Chrissy," Eddie groaned as he clutched the back of his head.

"Are you okay?" She asked in concern as she moved closer.

Eddie stepped back, away from her and the van. In his peripheral, he could see Max looking at him from her porch steps. When they were both offered new places to live, it was a no-brainer for both of them to continue living across from each other. It had become like a habit. The truth was that they imprinted on each other like baby ducks after the spring break break from hell. It was an unspoken agreement that they thought of each other like brother and sister. Much like Max thought of Steve, Nancy, Robin, and even Jonathan as well as Argyle. Although, the last one. . .she still wasn't sure what to think of him. It was still an adjustment for both Eddie and Max to go back to living in a house again. Eddie gave Max a thumbs up, and she turned back to her comic book, pushing her glasses back up her face.

"Yeah, I'm bitching," Eddie grinned. "What brings Lady Cunningham here today?"

"Well, I was hoping to see you," Chrissy said and crossed her arms. "I feel like you've been ignoring me."

"Just been busy, is all," Eddie said, turning away from her.

"Did I do something wrong?" Chrissy asked.

Eddie whirled around, his eyes wide.

"Of course not!" Eddie yelled.

"Well, you've been trying hard not to look at me, and every time I try to get closer to you," Chrissy said and walked over to him, causing him to back away. "You pull away. If I'm being too much, just tell me. I can handle it."

Eddie cursed himself as Chrissy stuck her bottom lip out in a pout, her eyes growing wider than usual. He moved closer to her and gently grabbed her arms.

"Chrissy Cunningham, you can never be too much," Eddie said.

"Then what's the problem?" She asked softly.

"I like you," he whispered, feeling like he was betraying himself. "A lot more than I should."

Chrissy beamed, and he could practically feel his skin burn as though she really was the sun. He was going to need sunscreen around her.

"I like you, too," she whispered.

Chrissy wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Eddie sighed and melted into her arms. He buried his face into her shoulder, breathing in her scent and her perfume. God, she was intoxicating. Chrissy didn't let go of him, but she did pull her head back. Her face was inches away from his, and he could feel her breath on his lips. She moved to kiss him, and he moved without thinking, inching closer to her lips. That's when he remembered. Eddie jerked back and stumbled out of her arms.

"Eddie?"

"I'm sorry! Nope!" Eddie yelped.

"I thought you said you liked me," Chrissy said and he hated how hurt she looked.

"I did say that! I do! I shouldn't!" He panicked.

"Why shouldn't you? Are you really still bothered by me being a jock?" She asked. "I can't change who I am nor do I want to. I did that enough with my mother, and I am not going to do that with you, Eddie Munson!"

"That's not - I don't have a problem with it anymore!" Eddie yelled. "I swear."

"I don't believe you," Chrissy sniffled, tears welling up in her eyes. "Don't you want to kiss me?"

"I don't!" Eddie yelled in frustration.

"But you like me?" She asked.

"Yes!"

"So then kiss me!" Chrissy yelled.

"I can't!"

"Call me when you figure things out!" She screamed in frustration and stormed off towards her car.

Eddie watched her drive away, running his hands through his hair and yanking on it as he did so. His eyes caught sight of Max. At some point, she had gone inside to grab a bag of chips.

"You're a dingus!" Max yelled.

"Stop hanging out with Robin!" Eddie shrieked and stormed inside.

Later that evening, Steve and Robin walked into his living room to find him sitting on the couch crying and eating ice cream while watching a movie.

"You know he doesn't have to be with her just because she's a woman!" Eddie yelled at the screen. "Emilio Estevez is right there!"

"Well, you don't look good, buddy," Robin frowned.

"Aren't you lactose intolerant?" Steve asked.

"Why are you here?" Eddie asked with a heavy sigh.

Eddie was pretty sure he already knew what he looked like. Dressed in ratty pajamas, his hair a mess, and chocolate ice cream staining his mouth. . .He was definitely a mess.

"Well, Max called us and said you were in distress," Steve said.

"Then Chrissy called and said you being a dick," Robin said.

"Chrissy called me a dick?" Eddie asked quietly, looking at her with his wide brown doe eyes.

"No, I added that part. The word she used was confusing," Robin said. "She is hurt, though."

"I didn't mean to hurt her, I swear!" Eddie exclaimed and burst into tears.

"It's that time again, isn't it?" Steve asked sympathetically.

Eddie collapsed on the couch and curled up into a ball.

"Stupid bat bites," Eddie muttered.

"One of these days, you two are going to have it at the same time, and I'll be conveniently out of town," Robin said.

Steve and Robin sat down next to the couch.

"I didn't tell her what you told me, by the way," Steve said.

"Why not?" Eddie asked.

"Because it wasn't for me to say," Steve replied.

"I can't like Chrissy," Eddie said.

"Why?" Robin asked.

"Because I'm gay," Eddie said.

"Oh," Robin said in surprised. "Well, uh, thank you for telling me. Steve, I think this might be your department."

"Aren't you the lesbian in this relationship?" Eddie asked, confused.

"Dingus," Robin said and plopped down on her butt.

"I just - ," Eddie sighed. "I have been with women, but I never really liked them the way that I wanted to. Well, I thought I wanted to. I'm not sure the first one counts because she slept with me on a dare. But Paige, I only ever saw her as my way out of here. I think she actually liked me, but she was using me too, which is why I told myself that it was okay to treat her like she was a plane ticket. It wasn't okay to treat her like that even if I was hurting, and Chrissy doesn't deserve that. She deserves someone who's interested in her, not someone who's trying to force themselves to."

"Is that what you think?" Steve asked.

"It's what I know, man," Eddie sniffled. "I always preach about forced conformity, but I can't even accept that I'm gay. I feel like I have to like women because that's what guys are supposed to do, right? I spent so much time pretending that I like women, and I started to believe the lie."

"You ever masturbated to the image of a naked woman?" Steve asked.

"Steve!" Robin exclaimed.

"I mean, yeah, but that's only because her ass was hanging out. As you very well know, I am an ass man," Eddie sniffled.

"Yeah, I know," Steve muttered. "Look, Eddie, if you didn't have to think about her as a man, then you were probably attracted to her."

"I know who am I," he muttered.

"I'm not trying to tell you who you are. I'm trying to give you advice, and that it's okay," Steve said and stroked Eddie's hair. "I will tell you who I am. I'm bisexual."

"What?" Eddie asked, confused.

"I like men, I like women," Steve said. "I never knew that until Nancy Wheeler came along. I didn't think women were for me, either."

"All those girls. . .," Eddie said in shock.

"Rumors that made it easy to pretend like they were true," Steve said. "I didn't sleep with other women until things ended with Nancy."

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm not gay?" Eddie asked and then muttered. "I didn't even know you could do that."

"I'm not trying to tell you anything except that what you decide. . .it's okay. . .it's okay if you like more than one gender. It's okay to like women and like men," Steve said. "It's okay to like whatever you like. . .I mean, within reason. Liking women as well as men doesn't make you any less queer."

Eddie let out a sob and nudged his head further into his hand.

"I think I knew that," Eddie whispered. "I don't know why I was so hard on myself."

"Because forced conformity can be scary, the idea that anyone can force you to be anyone other than yourself and it can, like, scare you so much that you end up doing it to yourself," Steve said. "A lot times, our own worst enemy is ourselves."

"I still don't know," Eddie mumbled.

"Well, just because we're technically legally adults, it doesn't mean we have to have it all figured it out right now," Stege said. "I still don't know what I want to do career wise."

"Thanks, Steve," Eddie sniffled.

"But you should be honest with Chrissy and tell her you don't know how you feel. You don't have to tell her everything but you should tell her that, at least. You both deserve it," Robin said.

"Yeah, I will," Eddie sniffled. "Thanks, you guys."

"Do you need me to pick up something bloody?" Steve asked as he continued to stroke his hair.

"I've got a steak defrosting," Eddie replied.

"Ew. Gross," Robin said, scrunching up her nose.

"You'd think she'd sympathize," Eddie scowled.

"Yeah, well, she made the mistake of watching me down a raw steak when it was my time," Steve said.

"It was disgusting," Robin said, and Eddie snorted with laughter.

"Freaks," Robin said affectionately.

Eddie decided to wait until his time of the month was over with to talk with Chrissy. A decision both Robin and Steve thought was wise. Over the last few days, his thoughts wirled around in his head like a category five hurricane. That's the worst one, right? His wrestling thoughts resulted in him acting even more erratic than usual. Not even Wayne could untangle his thoughts. It didn't come to a head until the night before he decided to talk to Chrissy. He had tossed and turned that night, his thoughts just as restless. Finally, Eddie managed to fall asleep, hoping he didn't loose Chrissy forever.

"CHRISSY! CHRISSY, WAKE UP! I DON'T LIKE THIS!"

Eddie was in the woods, the very woods where Chrissy had come to buy drugs from him. Chrissy was sitting at the table like usual. Across from her, however, was not Eddie but Jason Carver. Chrissy looked over her shoulder at him.

"I got tired of waiting for you, Eddie," Chrissy said.

"You think you actually love her?" Jason asked, spitting at him. "You're just using her. What makes you any different than anyone else in her life?"

The sky above them turned a dark red, and lightening flashed angrily. Eddie looked back to find that both of them were gone.

"Freak!" He heard Jason's voice yell.

"Chrissy, this is for you."

They were in the Upside Down version of the gym, and Jason had just thrown a ball into the broken hoop. Except that it wasn't a ball. It was Eddie's decapitated head. The worst part was that Chrissy was on the sidelines, cheering Jason on. Eddie tried to scream, but no sound came out. Suddenly, Eddie was sitting on the catwalk in the theater room, above the stage, and watching as Chrissy dangled from it.

"EDDIE!"

Eddie tried to grab her, but it was like her hand wasn't really there. Suddenly, Chrissy was falling, and then she disappeared into the darkness. Suddenly, it was Eddie pinning Jason up against the lockers while Chrissy tried to pull him off of him. No, that's not how that happened. It was Jason and his friends who had attacked him. . .it was Chrissy who begged for them to stop. Fake Eddie's eyes were red and dripping with blood.

"FREAK!" Chrissy screamed.

Suddenly, they were back in Eddie's trailer. Chrissy was being pinned to the ceiling again, and he was watching as her body was crushed, her eyes bursting. . .just like the illusion that Vecna had shown him. Eddie was screaming. Suddenly, he was in complete darkness. There was nothing. No Chrissy, no trailer. . .nothing. . . .Eddie was utterly alone.

"CHRISSY!"

Eddie sat up in bed with a gasp. His legs were being strangled, and he yelped as he tried to escape the creature's gasp. He pulled himself free, falling face first off the bed. Oh, it wasn't a monster. The things that had him were his sheets. He laid there for a moment as the memory of the illusion that Henry had planted in his mind over spring break imprinted itself behind his eyelids, and then he remembered the darkness from the nightmare. . .Chrissy was dead. No, she wasn't. She was alive, and she was here. All of the memories of their time together flooded his mind. . .and suddenly, it was all falling into place. Oh, God. He was in love with Chrissy. Suddenly, Wayne burst into the room.

"I heard you fall, you okay, son?" Wayne asked, breathing heavily.

"Yeah, more than okay," Eddie laughed.

The next day, Eddie wore the outfit that he knew Chrissy loved on him and picked up her favorite flowers. Potted, of course. Eddie drove slow for once, his heart pounding with each mile. Finally, though, he pulled up to Chrissy's new house. She now lived with her cousin, Vickie, who also happened to be Robin's girlfriend. Eddie smoothed his hair down and straightened his vest. He grabbed the flowers and jumped out of the van. He walked up to the door and knocked. Vickie answered. She smiled at him. Boy, she does not have a mean bone in her body. Shouldn't she be mad at him?

"Hi, Eddie," Vickie said brightly. "Chrissy! Eddie's here!"

It took a while for Chrissy to come to the door, something Eddie was sure she had done on purpose. He didn't blame her. Vickie took the flowers for Chrissy and disappeared when she finally came to the door.

"Hi," Chrissy said.

"Hi."

"Are you just going to stand there and stare at me?" Chrissy asked.

"I'm an idiot," Eddie blurted out. "Although, Robin pointed out that I was more clueless than an idiot. I don't know what the difference is."

"Well, one sounds nicer," Chrissy said.

"Yeah, I suppose. Can we go for a walk?" Eddie asked. "I don't want to be overheard."

Chrissy nodded and closed the front door behind her. They walked off down the sidewalk. It was silent for a while as Eddie tried to gather his thoughts. Chrissy was about to open her mouth to say something when Eddie beat her to it. It started to come out all at once. Everything he had been feeling, all the confusing thoughts he's had about others and himself. He was saying it all at such Robin and Vickie like speed that he felt like he had surpassed them. They would be proud.

" - and it turns out that I'm a fucking bicycle and I know that's no excuse but I'm so fucking sorry," Eddie gasped for breath.

Chrissy stared at him, her mouth open as she blinked rapidly. Her hand was on her chest, looking at him like he had vomited all over her, which he practically did.

"I'm sorry, you're a bicycle?!" She asked.

"What? No? Where are you getting bicycle?" Eddie asked.

"You said that you're a fucking bicycle!" Chrissy exclaimed, trying not to laugh.

"No, I didn't!"

"You did!"

"Did not!"

"Eddie!"

"I'm a bisexual," he sighed. "That's what I meant."

"Okay, it all makes sense now," Chrissy said, laughing, and she cupped his face. "Thank you so much for telling me, Eddie."

"Thank you for listening," Eddie said.

"I totally forgive you," Chrissy said, smiling in sympathy. You must have been giving yourself a lot of hell."

"Just a little bit," Eddie said and flashed his dimples. "I feel pretty great about myself."

"Well, it always feels great when you finally accept all of you," Chrissy said. "Trust me, I know a thing or two about lying to myself."

"You do?" He asked.

"You said it yourself, Eddie," she replied. "I'm a freak. . .just like you."

"Yeah?" Eddie asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah," Chrissy beamed again, and once more, it was like his face was on fire. She was the goddamn sun.

Eddie moved closer to her, ready to kiss her this time. However, he was surprised when Chrissy jumped back.

"What?"

"Sorry! Nope!"

Eddie blinked rapidly and then he realized what she was doing.

"Cunningham!"

"Sorry," she laughed. "I couldn't resist."

"I deserved that," Eddie said.

Chrissy launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips against his. Eddie grinned as he kissed her back. Yeah, this felt right. Chrissy deepened the kiss, gripping the back of his neck. Suddenly, she was climbing him like he was a tree. She definitely wanted to kiss him for a while now. She wrapped her legs around him and then her arms. She was harsh but soft, and she tasted like strawberries. Eddie eagerly kissed her, more enthusiastic than any of the two girls he had kissed, but just as much as the one boy in his freshman year. Eddie gripped her thighs, holding onto her tightly as she held on just the same. They broke the kiss with a gasp, Chrissy leaning her forehead against his.

"That nightmare sounded awful," Chrissy muttered.

"It was," Eddie said, and his voice got choked up. "I never want to see that again - I'm just - I'm absolutely in love with you."

"I'm in love with you, too, Eddie," Chrissy replied.

"I'm sorry about all of it, I swear," he whispered.

"Oh, Eddie, you really couldn't help it, you were in the closet - hm, I'm sorry, it's just usually it's the other way around with that," Chrissy said and Eddie laughed.

"Well, I'm an odd - well, you know the word," Eddie said, blanching. "Okay, I'm officially your chariot. Where would you like to go, milady? Preferably somewhere within walking distant."

"Ooh, there's a nice little pond not too far from here," Chrissy said and jumped out of his arms. "Let me get a blanket!"

Chrissy scurried off back to the house. She came back just as quick with a blanket stuffed in her arms. She took Eddie's hand and led him towards the pond, crossing a line of trees to get there. It was almost magical this place that Chrissy had brought him to. Surrounded by trees, the pond was small but glittered from the light coming through the gap in the said trees. Eddie could almost imagine gems at the bottom of the pond. Chrissy, as usual, looked beautiful underneath the sunlight. God, it really was like she was the sun, and he was the moon. It shouldn't make sense that they were together. Yet, here they were. Chrissy Cunningham loved him, and now he could freely admit that he loved her, too. He was no longer lying to himself. Eddie happily helped her unravel the blanket, and he stretched out next to her.

"You know, now that I'm no longer lying to myself, now that I'm here with you, I feel like there's nothing that can bring me down. I have nothing to fear or feel anxious - " Eddie froze and looked Chrissy in horror. "Chrissy. . .what usually goes in ponds?"

"Well, I mean, there's - oh, Eddie! I'm sorry, I completely forgot. If we hurry, we can leave before they come back!" Chrissy exclaimed.

QUACK!

"It's too late," Eddie swallowed. "It's right behind me, isn't it?"

Chrissy nodded, and Eddie looked over his shoulder.

"It's a duck," Chrissy whispered.

"It's brought friends," he whimpered.

Well, okay, so he's got one thing he needs to work on. Chrissy grabbed his hand, squeezing it supportively.

"If you want to run, I'll run with you," Chrissy whispered.

Eddie pulled her up. Together, they ran, leaving the ducks and the blankets behind.

[kaypeace21]

Stranger things is about mental health & trauma- deal with it!

I’ve seen a lot of people claim anyone who mentioned this topic immediately be gaslit and told they’re “just crazy” and “rudely projecting their own issues on to the characters.��� Like- no you don’t have to believe my  Will DID/Lonnie theory ( I could be wrong). But to claim one of the show’s central themes isn’t about mental health/trauma (screams either complete lack of lit comprehension or denial cause you have your own negative biases towards such people). So let’s just go into what’s literal text-not subtext/symbolism. Just the super blatant stuff.  RIGHT IN THE SHOW!

S1

-We have El when she first appears on screen  asked by Benny if her parents starved and hurt her and if that’s why she ran away. Benny then calls CPS to say El “may have been ab*sed or something.” After this Lucas says there is “seriously something wrong with her-wrong in the head. She’s probably from the NUT-HOUSE in curly county.penthurst” We also see El  cannonically has PTSD-all of s1 she’ll see something benign (a cat, a coke commercial, a closet) and is triggered to see a traumatic flashback. That’s literally ptsd.  There’s also hints throughout the seasons she’s developmentally behind in both language, telling time etc (neglect like El’s irl can cause an intellectual disability-analysis on El/that subject here).The real pethurst in pensylvannia (not the one in stranger things/ Curly county)  closed in 1986-  it was a facility for people and mostly  kids with intellectual disabilities (it wasn’t technically a psych facility like the one in st)-but it was infamous for it’s abuse of these intellectually disabled patients kept there. We also have Brenner be a ab*sive psychiatrist.

- Hopper after suffering from the loss of his daughter. Is popping pills like candy, drinking and smoking constantly. He later says he used to hallucinate and forgot what was real -seeing and hearing sarah and says if he didn’t confront the pain he’d “fall down a black hole he couldn’t get out of.” NO... subtext here about what the void represents nope.

- Both mothers (Terry & Joyce) are dismissed as being mentally ill and simply grieving the loss of their kids . But both end up being right about the supernatural.

- “Terry pretends Jane is real. i mean it’s all make believe. you know the doctors all say it’s a coping mechanism.”

- While with Joyce the whole town pre s1 already questioned her mental health. Jonathan says “She used to have anxiety problems (pre s1).” And Jonathan, Hopper, and Lonnie all assume she’s hallucinating: talking to Will via lights, seeing a man without a face, saying Will’s body is fake -due to grief. Plus Lonnie mentions the fact Joyce’s aunt Darlene also used to hallucinate as a possible reason  (terry’s aunt also had mental health issues mentioned in s2 by Becky). Lonnie even says everything Joyce is seeing  is “all in her head.”  Hopper and Jon both say she needs to sleep and accept reality and Lonnie says she needs to see a “shrink”.  Hopper “i’m not saying that you’re crazy”. Joyce : “no, you are.” Joyce also says to Lonnie “Stop looking at me like that... like everyone else like i’m out of my damn mind.” Hopper also says about Joyce she’s “on the edge”. Callahan says in response , “she’s been on the edge for a while now” (referring to her mental health- even before Will’s dissappearance)”. While Lonnie says Jonathan is “feeding into her hallucinations ... you’re going to push her right over the edge.” In s2 Hopper says “ I think everyone is on edge- you, me, Will most of all. (when talking about Will’s ptsd/trauma)” 

- in s1 They claim Will just “fell” over the edge of the quarry’s cliff. Later the only other queer coded character (Mike) jumps off the quarry cliff (where Will’s body was found) cause the homophobic troy forced him too jump. Troy even says earlier dead-Will is “flying with all the other fairies all happy and gay” (to Mike). And Troy says to Hopper El made Mike “fly” after jumping off the cliff. Friendship saved him from jumping off the edge metaphorically ( and he’ll prob eventually be happy and gay too).

s2/3

-Will is seeing a therapist . And we are told he has ptsd and will experience the anniversary effect, personality changes,nightmares, having episodes, etc. And things “will get worse before they get better”.  Mike also asks if what Will is seeing is “real or like the doctors say all in your head?” And Will continues to see hallucinations of the mf/upsidedown that only he can see initially.

-Hopper also agrees with owens mentioning how he knew guys with ptsd . joyce : “it’s not like he’s describing a nightmare. He talks about them like they’re real.” Hopper: “Yeah, because they’re not nightmares they’re flashbacks.I think he’s right about trauma.I think everyone is on edge (bringing that s1 ref back), Me you, Will, most of all.Nothing’s gonna go back to the way that it was. But it’ll get better.In time.”

-Nancy suffers from survivor’s guilt and drunkingly says she killed Barb. Jonathan says like Nancy he has “a weight that you that carry all the time . i feel it too.” (cough depression). He also says he tries to be there for Will but says about Will “he’s not the same. maybe things can’t go back to the way they were. (mirroring Hopper’s words earlier that season)”

-Jonathan said in s1 Joyce had “anxiety issues” than Nancy says in s3 “you really are your mother’s son... you worry too much.” Then we see him look worried after the comment.

- in s2, Axel & a scientist both call El and Will “schizos” because of their powers. In s3 mrs driscoll isn’t believed about the supernatural cause she’s schizophrenic-but like Joyce/Terry was right.

- Kali saves a woman named Dottie (a british slang term for crazy)  from a mental hospital and then compares herself and El to dottie. saying her non-powered gang is “Like us ...outsiders... society discarded them.”  In graphitti we even see the title “obedlam” a british poem about discarding the mentally ill and leaving them homeless.  El before this sees a mentally ill man screaming “we’re all dead!” Kali’s friend says to El, after this encounter they were “dead all of us” until kali “saved them here” (points to head) “and here” (points to heart). Pointing to the theme of love and friendship helping those with such issues. Similar to the cliff analogy.

-The cycle of ab*se. Max in s2 says she’s afraid of becoming like Billy (her ab*ser). We see Billy mimic his ab*ser neil and inflict pain on max. In s3 we see the roots of his behavior are linked to mimicking Neil- Neil in a flashback says  about baseball “what are you scared?”  “ did i raise a p*ssy for a son”. So young Billy later in a fight says to a boy “ what are you scared to fight me? fight me p*ssy. (as he beats the boy)” Deflecting his anger of his father on to someone else. In s3, We see as a kid he used to say to Neil “don’t hurt her” (his mom)-specifically after  Neil backhand slaps her -but we later see possessed Billy backhand slap Max (just like neil).  The resentment to his mother leaving - festered into how he views women and max negatively . And his attraction to mrs wheeler prob is linked to him subconsciously missing his mother. Max in s2 even says  he can’t take it out on her mother so he does so to her instead (we even have Billy hallucinate hurting mrs wheeler).We see in s2 the cycle of abuse is there- Billy mimics Neil, and then Max mimics Billy. Billy harrasses Max and yells “SAY IT!” (mimicking Neil).  Max like Billy later  yells “SAY IT” and uses a bat /violence to stand up for herself against Billy- which earlier she said she was trying to combat … explaining she can be angry like Billy sometimes but she never wants to be like him (her nickname symbolizing this: aka ‘mad max’).  Billy’s last dying words were an apology to Max- for becoming her neil. And we hopefully will see Max break this cycle.

- Will says his now memories (that he describes like dreams) are “growing “, “spreading “,and “killing”. While Kali says they need to face their father and (as Brenner) says El has to confront her “wound” or else it’ll “grow”, “spread” and “eventually it’ll kill her.” Kali says she used to be like El . She used to bottle her pain away and it “spread.” But she then says  “I confronted my pain and I finally began to heal (from those wounds).” We also see with jonathan and nancy when describing “shared trauma” zoom in onto the scars on their hands. The wound heeled into a scar so to speak.

S2 & 3 ENDINGS

both have Hopper do a speech that delves into dealing with trauma/depression but still finding good along the way.

-s2 Hopper outside the snowball: “how are you holding up? Yeah, that feeling never goes away. It is true what they say, you know. Everyday it does get easier.”

-s3 Hopper monolouge : “ Feelings jesus. For so long, i’d forgotten what those even were. I’ve been stuck in one place,in a cave you might say , a deep dark cave (cough s2 supernatural cave). For the first time in a long time, i started to feel things again. I started to feel happy. Life... yeah sometimes it’s painful .sometimes it’s sad, and sometimes it’s suprising... happy.. And when life hurts you, because it will .remember the hurt . The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave.”

BUT YES- St has nothing to do with mental health/trauma, we’re just “crazy” and “projecting”. It’s not like some of ya’ll  act pompous when you just have a bias and get pissy at the idea of relating to characters you “other” as “crazy” or “damaged” irl or anything (so attack people for pointing it out). Or (benefit of the doubt) you are just like.... oblivious... or just a kid who doesn’t know better XD

[haro-whumps]

Group Whumpees 14: Headway

CW: slavery, multiple whumpees, aftermath of abuse, property destruction, migraine, actually a pretty fluffy chapter all things considered

Tag List: @bleeding-demon-teeth​ @theycomeinthrees​‌  @redwingedwhump​ @whimperwoods​ @inpainandsuffering​ @whole-and-apart-and-between​ @whump-whump-whump-it-up​ @whumpingupastorm​ @newandfiguringitout​ @lonesome--hunter​ @looptheloup​ @icannotweave​  @deluxewhump​ @whumping-every-day​ @yeet-me-out-a-window​ @what-a-whumpy-world​ @burtlederp​ @swordkallya​ @finder-of-rings​ @fairybean101​ @adventuresofacreesty​ @arlennil​ @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight​ @lumpofwhump​ @thatsthewhump​ @pinkdiamondprince​ @shameless-whumper​  @whump-only​  @kiretto-laorentze​ @eatyourdamnpears​ @whumpzone​ @bluebadgerwhump​  @fanastywhump @jo-castle @muffindaddy @whumpsy-daisies

Please let me know if you were not alerted or if you asked to be added to the tag list and I missed you, tumblr’s been messing up badly lately.

Masterlist

Nyla was… conflicted.��

But it didn’t do her any good to be conflicted, so she put on her smile, fastened her shoes, and got to work. 

Master had been very generous the day before, giving them a truly absurd amount of time to just sit and relax--threat of ghosts notwithstanding. But now it was time for her to resume her routine, as much of it as she still had.

And, since they’d been preoccupied with ghosts, or non-ghosts, or whatever it was Greyson had seen and Master Galo had dealt with, that meant Master Galo’s “crash course on queerness” needed to happen this afternoon. Which, hm, well, it was rather unreasonable to be nervous about it, right? Master was kind, and the last gathering had been a net positive. Maybe it was just because it was something to look forward to, and Nyla was nervous about things to look forward to.

Also there was that dumpster out front and Nyla wasn’t sure what it was for (perhaps another volley with the art pieces?), but she would deal with that when Master ordered her to.

She was passing by the front door when it opened and her heart leapt into her throat. She whirled, stepping back, but a familiarly massive outline stepped in and she relaxed, smile turning a little less forced.

“Welcome home, Master,” she greeted, kneeling as she took his extended hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. He was damp with sweat and smelled like cut grass and warm air. “Did you enjoy your volunteer service?”

“Yeah; it’s gorgeous out. Partly cloudy and kinda hot, perfect early summer day.” Master Galo pushed his wet hair away from his face, Nyla watching the way his arms flexed and moved and observing her own lack of fear response.

Don’t think about it.

“I’m starving though; any idea when lunch is?”

“Apologies, Master, but it won’t be ready for another half-hour yet,” Nyla said, knowing Sasha had only just gotten it in the oven. Her smile tugged at the corners of her eyes, face tight.

“Sweet! Enough time for a shower then,” Master Galo said with a bright smile, loosening some of Nyla’s nerves.

Nyla gave a short bow, hands clasped in the folds of her apron skirt, and took a deep breath as she rose back up, watching Master Galo’s back as he climbed the steps two at a time. Alright then. (He really did have a nice back) Alright then.

Do your job, Nyla, focus.

It’d be easier if she had anything to focus on. She almost wished Master Galo would host something, bring over guests or Guests of his own. Something Nyla could be active for, something that would require planning and management and preparation. 

But it wasn’t her place. Master Galo would do as Master Galo pleased and she would facilitate where she could and be good and patient and pleasant and useless if Master wanted her to be because it was fine, it was fine.

“You were right,” Nyla said, voice quiet and weirdly flat for her. Evan looked up at her inquisitively, a winter boot balanced on his good thigh and a polishing rag in hand. “We’re entirely out of things to do.”

Evan snorted. “Told you.” He waved the boot good-naturedly, though smug as a cat,” I mean, c’mon Nyla, it’s barely even summer.”

“I’m bored--I’m, stir-crazy,” she whispered, ridiculously daring but if she didn’t complain to somebody she was probably going to explode. 

“I think Greyson is the only one who isn’t--or, well, I mean, there was that whole thing yesterday…” Evan trailed off, and Nyla chanced a small, barely-audible groan. 

“What am I supposed to do?” she lamented, and Evan carefully scooted himself sideways, making room for her on the boot bench. 

“Come sit and be bored with me. I’m always down to complain about things, and hearing you go at it is pretty new.” He patted next to him, and Nyla glowered at the clean, unassuming wood before plopping down next to him. She huffed, lifting up the hem of her dress and pulling a loose threat taut so she could snap it.

“I just wish he would give us tasks. I wish we’d had the… talk, this morning.”

“Yeah.” Evan handed her the matching boot to his own and she diligently started polishing, feeling instant relief at having something to do with her hands. “Waiting for it… sucks.”

Nyla felt a strange little curl of emotion in her and nudged him with her elbow. “Well, you would know better than I.”

“Hey!” Evan gasped, looking at her in honest shock before laughing, open mouthed and still surprised, and Nyla smiled. “So now little miss perfect is going to scorekeep?”

“Little Miss Perfect, I like the sound of that.”

“We should bore you shitless more often,” Evan said, leaning forward with playful curiosity dancing across his features.

“Don’t get used to this,” Nyla said, turning up her nose and deliberately sitting with pristine posture. “I’m just having a psychotic break real quick and then I’ll be back to normal.”

Evan laughed, and she smiled, a pang of pain shooting behind her eyes as she did but she was having a nice time, so she smothered any wince before she made it. “Well I better take advantage of it while I can, then.”

The sound of the water shutting off had both their heads snapping upwards, despite the fact that neither of them could see through the ceiling, and Nyla’s perfect smile was back in place, tension in her temples. “...It seems you may have to wait,” Nyla stated, setting down the boot and brushing out her apron, gathering herself. She quickly finger combed her hair, smoothed down her apron once again, and Evan caught her around the wrist.

“You okay?” he asked. Ah, she’d fiddled too much.

“Just nervous, I suppose. Nothing that won’t be resolved after lunch.”

Evan nodded slowly, letting her go, and she changed her perfect slave smile to her “don’t worry the family, I’m fine” smile. Like usual, he seemed to buy it, and Nyla slipped her perfect smile back in place with a whirl of skirts and went to serve Master Galo lunch.

He’d demanded that Grey ‘take it easy’ yet again, and Nyla decided, rather selfishly, that that meant she would take his duties as butler from him that day. But then, was it truly selfish, when Sasha would just as likely faint if she was asked to, and Evan couldn’t walk on that leg of his? Lilah was able to do it, sure, but old habits die hard and Nyla couldn’t help but want to keep their littlest as far away from their owner as often as possible. Even though this one was kind.

Then the five of them were crowded together on a couch, Master Galo standing with his laptop hooked up to the TV in front of them. Nyla subtly covered Sasha’s hand with her own, where it gripped her sleeve, and Lilah leaned against Greyson with her legs hooked over Evan’s good one.

“Alright, so, queer shit 101,” Master Galo said with a bright smile to the group, hands propped on his hips. “I am going to attempt to keep things basic while still covering the bases, but please ask questions if you have them. In the great words of someone older than me, I don’t know what you don’t know. And I also don’t know what misconceptions you might have, though given Auntie Bethany, I can make some more or less solid guesses. So, without further ado.” 

Master Galo hit a key on his keyboard and the slide changed, “Queer! Our first term, the word used for the entire community of people who are neither cis nor straight. In recent years people who wish to gatekeep, meaning to exclude people from our community, have voiced backlash against the word ‘queer’ as being ‘too-inclusive’ and have recruited well-intentioned but ultimately inexperienced youths to cycle their rhetoric. That is bullshit. Queer is our word, it is a good word, just because ignorant and hateful people are bigoted against us does not mean it isn’t our word, and it’s an all-inclusive label for anyone and everyone who finds their home among us.”

Lilah tentatively leaned forward, hand extended, and Master Galo pointed to her with arched eyebrows. It wasn’t as threatening as Nyla might have once considered it. “What’s ‘cis,’ sir?”

“That is on my next slide, I promise. For right this current moment, just know that queer is the big main umbrella word for everyone. It covers all the bases, all your base are belong to us.” Lilah nodded as Master Galo chuckled at his own joke. Nyla didn’t get the reference, but she recognized that he’d made one. 

“Cool, so, you will see many squares with lots of stripes throughout this presentation. You don’t have to memorize anything, I just think they spruce up the slides, but for reference this one is the queer flag. You may or may not be familiar with the rainbow flag, that one’s a little different, we’ll get to that.”

Master Galo flipped slides. “Transgender!” he announced happily, a blue, pink, and white flag on the TV behind him. “You have seen this flag on various articles of clothing and buttons I own. And stickers. In general I have this flag around a lot, but! That is because, I am trans. You know this,” he said, making a broad gesture towards their group. 

“The word ‘transgender’ effectively means ‘anyone who isn’t cis,’ and yes I will explain. So! Say there is a little baby, and the midwife or doctor lifts the little newborn body up to examine, and says ‘she’s a girl!’ Now, say, years down the road, that person thinks of herself and says ‘yeah sure I’m a girl.’ That is what’s called ‘cisgender,’ when the gender you were assigned at birth matches up with your own sense of self. Now, say that same baby grows up, but says ‘actually, I’m not a girl.’ That would make that person transgender.

“I am what’s called ‘binary trans;’ I was assigned female at birth, grew up, discovered I was actually a dude, and here we are. Thus, I am called a transman. The same thing happens for transwomen, but in the opposite direction. Transmen are men, transwomen are women, but some people are neither a guy or a girl. They are what is called,” Master Galo switched the slide.

“Nonbinary!” Nyla squinted, tentatively raising her hand, which Evan and Lilah were also doing. “Okay wow, lots of questions, Nyla?”

“I… apologize, sir, but I’m not sure I understand. They’re not a man or a woman?”

“Correct.”

Nyla shared a quick, anxious glance with the rest of her family.

“Okay, don’t worry,” Master Galo said, holding up his hands with a small chuckle, “I will explain. First, Evan and Lilah, was that your question too? Yeah, figured as much, okay. So, I have found the easiest way to visualize nonbinary genders is like this: Say men are blue, and women are red. Or pink, but that’s just a light shade of red, so, anyway, color theory is not today’s presentation. Back on track! If you’re imagining gender like a color wheel, that means some people are gonna be purple, right?”

Nyla nodded slowly. Okay, that made sense. A combination of traits both male and female. 

“But, on that same vein, not all other colors are purple. Sometimes colors are green, or yellow, or orange. Men and women do make up the majority of the human population, but not all of it. There’s lot of ways to have a gender, and none of them are wrong.” Lilah raised her hand again and Master Galo pointed.

“How does that--I mean, if you have a vagina or a penis, shouldn’t that be, I mean, hard? To…”

“Okay, okay, good point. Very good point Lilah, I jumped the gun a little. Backing up a bit!”

Master Galo clapped his hands lightly, no force or noise to the motion, and Nyla had the brief thought that the gesture made him look somewhat teacherly. Which made sense, given… everything happening, but there was something distinctive and pleasant about that thought. Hm.

She wasn’t gonna worry about that. Focus.

“So, biological sex and a person’s gender are two seperate things. Often, they go hand in hand. That’s where cis people come from. However, while biological sex is, y’know, biological, gender is a social construct. Which means, it has more to do with perception and sense of self, and nothing to do with your actual physical body. So, since this is the 100 level course, I could frame it as, gender’s in your head and sex is in your genitals, make sense?”

Another round of slow, wary nods. 

“It’s technically a little more complicated than that, but we’re not gonna get into that today.”

Evan raised his hand again, and Master Galo pointed at him with a smile.

“So… Sir, do you, have a dick?”

Master Galo’s lips instantly folded in and he raised a hand to cover his mouth, his shoulders shaking a little, and Nyla felt a spike of anxiety, crown of her head feeling taut. But it was laughter, a wheezing chuckle escaping her master when he said, “Uhm.”

He took a deep breath, “So, no. I do not. I don’t really want or need bottom surgery and am comfortable with my genitals the way they are. Bottom surgery is not a necessary component of transitioning, and some people, like myself, don’t have it done. However,” Master Galo continued with a rush of air, “it is generally considered extremely rude to ask a trans person about their genital structure unless you have the explicit intention of sleeping with them. I am aware you meant nothing by it!” Master Galo rushed, hands held up as Evan began to flounder. “You weren’t intentionally being rude, it’s chill. Just, for future reference, if you ever meet another trans person, that’s on the list of questions you don’t ask.”

Master Galo cleared his throat, looking a little red, but in good humor about it. He turned back to his screen with a, “Now, Lilah, you bring up an interesting point.” Master Galo flipped forward a few slides, to a screen with a yellow square that had a purple circle in the middle of it.

“Intersex! Sex, like gender, is not actually straightforward. There are many ways to be intersex, ranging from genital structure to chromosomes to secondary sex characteristics. But ultimately sex, like gender, is on a spectrum. Just because the majority of people fall easily into little categories of, urg, ‘biologically male’ or ‘biologically female,’ which for the record are not phrases you should… use, but since this is an intro to queer shit I’m making this as understandable as I can. Anyway.” Master Galo seemed to gather his thoughts. “Right! People fall into one category or the other most of the time, but not all of the time! And the ‘not all of the time’ people are intersex. Some intersex people do not feel that their biology automatically makes them queer, and do not percieve themselves to be part of the queer community. Others take comfort and community among us, so it’s always up to the person.

“Anyway, flipping back a few slides, nonbinary! This is the umbrella term for everyone who does not fall completely into ‘100% a man’ or ‘100% a woman.’ There are many ways to be nonbinary, but for the record, many nonbinary people prefer to be referred to with they/them pronouns. Not all! But, like how men use he/him, or women use she/her, many nonbinary people are referred to with a singular ‘they.’ I am aware my aunt may have had grammar-based arguments complaining about nonbinary people and gender neutral language, but I promise the singular ‘they’ predates my aunt by multiple centuries.

“Genderqueer,” Master Galo said with another slide, “This one goes hand in hand with nonbinary. Effectively, it means ‘neither fully masculine nor fully feminine,’ and is, as the word ‘queer’ might suggest, an inclusive, broad term for people who don’t have a particularly hard line definition for their gender.

“Genderfluid, meaning that a person will shift between genders depending on the day. So like, some days this person would wake up and say ‘I’m a girl today,’ and other days ‘I’m a boy,’ and maybe some days they wouldn’t feel like either of those at all. Again, this varies from person to person, but the general idea is that they flow between genders.

“Agender, meaning they have no gender at all.”

Again, Nyla, Lilah, and Evan’s hands rose. Nyla was surprised to see that even Greyson’s hand lifted, if only a little, on that. Master Galo smiled with a huff, but Nyla didn’t feel threatened. “Let’s go with Greyson, yeah?”

“How would someone simply not have a gender, sir?”

“So, if we’re imagining genders as like a color wheel, agender would be like, white, blank. No color. No gender. People ask them ‘are you a guy or a girl’ and their answer is a flat out ‘no.’”

Nyla was struggling with that. Nyla was struggling with that one pretty hard. Her brain felt tight. She got the concept, but…

“Master?”

“Yes Nyla?”

“Would it be alright if we understood in theory but not in practice?”

“Yeah, this can be hard for people to wrap their heads around, mostly I just want to introduce you to the concepts. That’s perfectly reasonable Nyla.”

Nyla dipped her head in thanks, her family nodding as well. Master Galo flipped the slide.

“Neutrois. Hand in hand with agender, if we’re using the color thing then, like. If agender is white, then neutrois would be black. People who are neutrois might describe their gender as ‘null’ or ‘void’ and other descriptors of the like. Again, I just want to introduce you to the concept, you don’t need to be able to conceptualize it perfectly.

“Okay last one under the trans umbrella,” Master Galo said, “Bigender. Someone who is multiple genders simultaneously. So, for simplicity’s sake, you could say someone who is both a man and a woman at the same time.” Master Galo smiled at them. “There are many other genders people have, but again with this being the introductory course, I just wanted to hit the big ones. Any gender questions?”

Nyla tentatively raised her hand. Master Galo smiled at her, and his expression took the edge off her anxiety.

“So, we know you, had surgery on your chest, sir,” Nyla said, hoping she wasn’t being rude by bringing it up, “do nonbinary people also engage in,” she floundered, not sure what the word for it was, but she wasn’t going to ‘um’ or stutter (even if he’d said it was okay, she could do better, and she would). 

“Some do,” Master Galo mercifully cut her off. “Some people are fine looking the way they do, or use cosmetics to accentuate certain features, and some receive surgeries. It all depends on personal comfort. And also sometimes to alter others’ perceptions, I knew someone who had no real issue with their chest but other people would assume they were a girl because of it and surgery was affirming and helpful with other people’s way of viewing them, which in turn lowered their discomfort.”

“And, sir?” Master nodded. “If a person’s name is, very feminine or masculine?”

“Most of us change our names!” he said brightly, “Like how I picked Galo for myself. Many nonbinary people will also change their names to something a little more ‘neutral.’ Again, not all though.”

Evan raised his hand that time. “You picked your own name, sir?”

“Yup! When I started to transition I changed my name. I should show you all the movie it came from sometime; it’s real fun you might enjoy it.”

“Sir?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“What was your name before Galo, sir?” Evan asked. Master Galo made an unidentifiable noise, but Nyla didn’t think that it was good. Her spine lengthened and her hand left Sasha’s on her arm to clench neatly in her lap.

“Sooo, you don’t get to know that,” Master Galo said, ducking his head with a slow gesture of his open palm towards Evan. “The name I had before Galo is what is called a ‘deadname,’ the name a trans person was assigned at birth that has since been put to rest. Again, I know you are being curious and I would definitely like to encourage you to continue asking questions, but, that’s another one of those questions you should not ask anyone who is not me. Asking for someone’s deadname is considered rude, and referring to someone by their deadname is extremely rude and actively malicious.”

“Sir, I wasn’t--”

“Easy, Evan, I know,” Master Galo said with a patient smile. “It’s good that you ask me these questions, and not someone else, because you’re learning, and I know you don’t mean any harm. But, in sum, the name I had before is not relevant, and it is not something to be shared. Any other questions at the moment? We’ve had good ones.”

A brief bout of silence, and Master Galo flipped the screen to the only flag Nyla did recognize.

“Onto sexual orientations! Sexualities, they’re called. You will probably recognize the gay flag, this is another one of those umbrella terms meaning ‘anyone who isn’t straight’ while also having the capacity to mean ‘someone who is exclusively attracted to their own gender.’ It is a term meant for everyone in the community, much the same way queer is. Yes, Evan?”

“Are you gay?”

“No, actually, I’m pretty much straight. I’m aware that men can be attractive but don’t really feel attraction to them.” Master Galo cocked his head. “You worded that kind of intensely there, you alright buddy?”

Evan was already stiff, and Nyla recognized the way his mouth twitched when he was biting down a snarl. “I’m fine.”

The lack of an honorific made the family tense, eyes on Evan because he was, like a moth to flame, doing something stupid again, but Master Galo either ignored it or didn’t notice. 

“Cool. So, along with ‘queer community’ and ‘gay community,’ you may or may not have heard the phrase ‘LGBT.’ This stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, and is sort of the most widely-in-use acronym for the queer community.

“Lesbians! What would the world do without them,” Master Galo said, flipping to a slide with lots of pinks and oranges. “Nowadays, lesbian is the word for women who are exclusively interested in other women, but historically it was used to describe any queer woman at all, back before bisexual really entered into people’s vocabularies. For the record: nonbinary people can be and often are lesbians. Anyone who has literally any ties to femininity and is attracted, more or less exclusively, to women and people with ties to femininity, counts as a lesbian. 

“Bisexual! People who are attracted to 1. their own gender and 2. other genders. Sometimes it’s phrased as ‘attraction to men and women,’ which, for the record, is a fine way for you to conceptualize it here in the introductory course, but I want to be clear that bisexuality does and always has included nonbinary peeps.” Master Galo smiled. “Bixesual is a perfectly good and normal thing to be; there’s nothing wrong with it,” he said, and if Nyla had to guess she’d say he was deliberately not looking directly at any of them in particular.

“Pansexual! Hand in hand with bisexuality, pansexual people are attracted to others regardless of their gender. It can be difficult to distinguish between the two, but for some people the differences between sexualities are important. For some people, not so much, and they identify as bi and pan simultaneously. Again, we fall back on the ‘it all depends on the person’ idea. I will state that pansexuals are not attracted to everyone, they’re just attracted to every gender. Just because someone is of a certain gender doesn’t mean others won’t still find them ugly.

“Asexual! The umbrella term for people who don’t really feel attraction to other people, no matter the gender. We love respect cherish and support asexual people,” Master Galo said, oddly firm on that one. Lilah raised her hand.

“So, they just, don’t? Anybody? Sir?”

“Yeah, so, like, a straight man would only feel attraction towards women, and no attraction to men. A gay man would feel attraction to men, and no attraction to women. A bisexual man would feel attraction to men and women. And an asexual man would not feel attraction to either.”

Lilah nodded. “Okay, thank you sir.”

“However, ace--asexual--is an umbrella term. There are multiple ways to be asexual.”

Nyla frowned minutely, but then her smile was back in place. She wasn’t really sure how there could be multiple ways to not feel attraction to someone.

“There’s the spectrum of sex-positive, sex-neutral, and sex-repulsed asexuals. Sex-positive asexuals enjoy sex, the action, they just don’t think anybody’s hot. The activity is fun, but no one they look at hits that ‘oh hot I wanna have sex with them’ vibe. Sex-neutral asexuals don’t find anyone attractive, and don’t have any particularly strong feelings towards sex. It’s on par to like, going for a jog or having dinner together. Sort of a bland ‘whatever’ feeling. Sex-repulsed asexuals don’t find anyone attractive and do not, under any circumstances, want to have sex with anyone, ever. All of these are good and well! There’s no ‘wrong’ way to be asexual.”

“Next up we have grey-ace. 99% of the time, they don’t find anyone attractive, but every once in a blue moon they’ll see a person and go ‘oh hot.’ They are still asexual, they just have occassional feelings of attraction to seemingly random people. Or maybe they have a highly specific type! Again, depends on the person.”

“Last up for the ace umbrella, demisexual. Demisexual people are capable of feeling physical attraction, but only after a strong, meaningful, romantic bond has been formed. This is different than waiting in a relationship until you’re close. The person does not feel attraction, at all, until a committed bond has been formed.” Master Galo paused, letting them turn that over in their heads, but when no one asked any questions he flipped the slide once more.

“And wrapping up our crash-course on queer terminology, aromantic. Aromantic is similar to asexuality in all aspects, except that instead of talking about physical attraction, it’s about romance. Some people just do not feel the inclination to form romantic bonds with others. They still might, depending on the person, just like an asexual person still might engage in sexual activity, but the attraction isn’t there. They don’t see people and go ‘I’d like to see if this could work out as a romantic relationship’ they’re just in it for friends. Grey-romantic and demiromantic people are, again, much the same, but with romance, feeling that 99% or only gaining the capacity for a romantic relationship after a strong, meaningful, committed bond of friendship has been formed.”

Master Galo took a big breath. “Any questions?” he asked with a proud smile. 

Nyla honestly felt like she had too much information rattling around in her brain to even begin formulating a question, but Evan raised his hand.

“I don’t mean to be rude, sir,” Evan said, sounding like he was struggling not to grit his teeth.

“I know. Go ahead.”

“So, since you’re a transman, and you’re straight, then you’re only attracted to women..?”

“Yep!”

“And then, if a woman is attracted to you..?” Evan trailed off.

“That would still be considered ‘straight’ attraction, yep. The woman in question might be straight, or bi, or pan, or maybe ace! It’s all up to her. But her attraction to me would be ‘opposite-sex attraction’ yeah.”

“Was that rude sir?”

“No, no, you’re good, bud. And now you know!”

“Thank you sir.”

“Of course! I’m glad you’re asking questions. Anyone else?”

Another beat of silence.

“Alright, cool, good talk team. To wrap it all up, there are all sorts of ways people can experience gender and attraction, and none of them are wrong. Everything I talked about today is good, natural, and worthy of respect. Go ahead and let me know if you ever have questions in the future, I’m perfectly willing to talk about it.”

He took in a deep breath.

“The queer community has long faced oppression on a global scale. However, many cultures saw queerness as natural and didn’t much question it until, ah, interlopers became involved, and rerouted the course of history. But regardless of acceptance or ostricization, all cultures have their own queer histories, their own words and perceptions. 

“In recent years, and I mean really recent, queer people have started making great strides in changing legislation and public opinion of us towards the positive, though we still face a number of obstacles. You have probably noted that I am not fond of police. This is in no small part due to the fact that I am transgender. And then of course people like my aunt and various religious institutions will also condemn myself and my peers, due to malicious misconceptions or just straight up bigotry. 

“So I understand why you all may… struggle, with this information, for a bit. But I assure you, nothing is as bad as my aunt made it out to be, and if you ever want to know more I’m happy to talk with you about it.” Master Galo beamed and propped his hands on his hips. “Which about wraps this up.”

The doorbell rang. Everyone, including Master Galo, tensed.

“I think I’ll answer that,” he said. “Uh, dismissed? No, wait, wait here, we’ve got a group project I wanna work on this afternoon.”

Nyla was not in a habit of thanking god for much of anything, but she thanked god for that. Finally, a task.

Master Galo made a pleased noise and a bit of chatter Nyla could identify as friendly, there was the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, then the door swinging closed.

She was on her feet and smiling when he returned, leaning his big arm on the doorway and looking happy. “Sweet, so, the stuff we ordered has started to arrive, which leads me to another thing I wanted to talk about!”

Master Galo rounded back in front of the couch where he’d been, clapping his hands together and smiling. Nyla tentatively sat back down. ‘So! I would first like to establish that I am not suggesting you break up your current sleeping arrangement. However, you’re not gonna be able to fit all the stuff you collectively ordered into that one room without it turning into a nightmare, so I’ve thought about it and it’s my idea that you all should have rooms that are your own space. Not to sleep in, obviously, just rooms that you can use to store your stuff and you can decorate them to your own interests and you’ll have a private area you can go to if you need alone time. Sound good?” Master Galo asked, looking to Nyla, to Lilah, scanning over the group.

“You are quite generous, Master,” Nyla said, but no, no, that wasn’t quite right, for him. “Thank you,” she tried again, simpler, far too rude for Mistress, but for Master…

He smiled at her, pat her on the head far too briefly, and said, “You’re welcome. Let’s go check out what arrived, yeah?”

All of Nyla’s dresses, the skirts and top Sasha had ordered from that company, and a couple of Lilah’s things were in the first two boxes, and Evan’s t-shirts and jeans were in the third. “Sorry Greyson, looks like your stuff isn’t here yet.”

Greyson nodded, outwardly impassive, and given that it had barely been his idea to order anything at all that made sense. Nyla and the others followed Master Galo to the basement, their Master helping Evan down and hastening the process, and showed them the rooms he’d selected for them. Nyla hesitantly stepped into “hers.” 

It felt wrong. She’d cleaned and examined this room countless times before, but now, standing inside it felt incorrect. 

The bed had been folded up into a couch, which was standard for the beds housed in the series of apartments in the basement. The sitting area and kitchenette that existed in the middle of these rooms were indicative that these were for long-term guests, not, not slaves. The closet, filled with more hangars than she remembered, the dresser, the small desk, they were for people, not Nyla. 

Except, apparently, they were for Nyla now. 

“Oh, shoot, that lock is totally broken,” Master Galo’s voice came from elsewhere in the apartments, “Here, go for this room, then, sorry I totally hadn’t noticed that earlier.”

A broken lock? It was something Nyla had failed to notice, too. Her heart rate accelerated and her head felt tight; Mistress would cane her for missing something so obvious, but she deliberately swallowed and took a deep breath. Master Galo was not Mistress. She couldn’t keep expecting him to act like her.

He was so much kinder. Gentle, and careful, with a sweet voice and warm hands that only ever touched her--

Nyla yanked a hangar off the closet’s bar with far too much force, utterly graceless, and it caused all the other hangars to clatter together and make a right ruckus. Her heart picked back up again, because she was clumsy, noisy, a fumbling little blushing nuisance! She unfolded her first dress and willed herself to remember that making noise was okay, it was allowed now, she could make noise and still be perfect, no one was mad at her, no one was going to come hurt her.

And where was her smile!?

She really was falling to pieces, she thought to herself, pulling another hangar off the rod properly and fitting another dress onto it. Smiling. She was smiling, she was grateful for this unexpected and unasked for privilege (weren’t they supposed to ask for things? Why was this happening unprompted?!), she was graceful and perfect and, fine. She was fine. Her temples felt tight, but she was smiling and composed and fine.

It really was satisfying to see her dresses hung up all neatly, though. When her skirts and sweaters and undershirts arrived, she’d be able to finish filling the closet, and it would look so neat and it would be hers and it was selfish, to be so vain and materialistic, but maybe since Master Galo had ordered it, that meant it was okay?

She rubbed at her right eye and stroked her hand down the material of the first dress, admiring the ruffles around the neckline and the neat, black stripes of the sewn-in green vest. She would get to wear that. She would get to wear all of them, with their pretty patterns and their pleated skirts and their ruffles and lace and bows.

It felt far too pretty for the likes of her.

She wished she knew how to properly show her Master gratitude.

She wanted, she--wanted. She didn’t want to be caned or cut or bleed or cry, but she wanted to do something, something physical, something to show just how much she appreciated everything he was doing for them, to make him happy, like he’d made her happy.

But what did a slave have to give, except her body and her service? He’d already made it clear that he didn’t want either of those, aside from her now mind-numbing chores, and that was hardly something to make him happy. More of just an expected base behavior out of her, out of all of them.

She didn’t know his favorite foods; Greyson never reported any particular signs of delight no matter what Sasha tried, at least nothing that stood out from his regular compliments. She didn’t have any way to engage with his hobbies. She couldn’t kneel at his feet and beg him to hurt her with her lips on his shoe. His base state of friendly and cheery made it impossible to tell what he liked best. The only real, solid thing she knew he liked was when they asked him for things, and it was the receiving of things that Nyla wanted to express gratitude for!

It was the weirdest, strangest, most unfamiliar form of frustration she’d ever felt. Maybe--maybe it wouldn’t count as Attending him if she offered a massage? Greyson was better at it than her, and she hadn’t had much practice in the last decade and a half aside from occasionally working a knot out of Sasha’s shoulder or soothing the nerves out of Evan or Lilah. But she’d been trained properly, and she could quickly skim an internet article sometime to refresh herself.

Oh but if Master Galo figured out she was trying to Attend him, even just a little, he might get mad, and she wouldn’t be able to handle that. She would just have to be extra-perfect for him. Sit and not kneel, smile, be unobtrusive but able to fulfil his every whim or need, maybe ask him for things? But what else could she possibly want that he hadn’t already given her?

She brushed down her apron and left “her room,” walking primly to the family bedroom and pulling out all the clothes from her drawer, which were smaller in number now that her other dress had been sliced open. She went ahead and grabbed Evan’s clothes too, and Master Galo was in the sitting area in the middle of “their rooms” when she walked back. She nodded to him, and he smiled at her before tilting his head and gesturing at the clothes in her arms.

“What’s that?”

“My clothes, as well as Evan’s, sir, from the shared dresser.”

“Oh, good memory,” he praised before returning to his phone, and she couldn’t help but flush faintly under his casual approval. She went into “Evan’s room” and found him sitting on the couch, elbow on his good knee and hands pressed together in front of his face. He looked mad.

“Are you alright?” she asked quietly, so faint ideally their Master would be unable to hear. He looked up at her, dark eyes glinting with what she just knew meant trouble, and hauled himself up onto his crutches. He made as though to walk past her, and Nyla turned in confused alarm, which morphed into full alarm when he closed the door.

“Evan! Master Galo is--”

“Right there, yeah I know,” Evan said, voice mercifully quiet even though he flipped the lock. Nyla could scream if she wasn’t rooted to the spot in shock. Evan took the clothes that were his and gave her a brief “thanks” before he threw them on the floor.

“Evan,” Nyla hissed in bubbling horror, staring at the rumpled fabric. 

“Hey, it’s ‘my’ room, right?” Evan sneered as he sat back down with a heavy thump, wincing when he jostled his wound. “Which means I can make a mess of it if I want, right?!”

“Evan, these rooms are gifts--”

“That we didn’t fucking ask for. We’re supposed to ask, right?”

“He told us, it’s because we don’t have space in the main room for the things we did ask for!” Nyla hissed, “And keep your voice down!” She didn’t mention that she’d been having the same doubts. She was trembling, clutching her clothes to her chest. “I--I need to go. I need to finish putting my things away.”

She stepped away from him, needing to pause at the door to summon her smile, to suppress her wild shivers, to take a deep breath and gather herself, and when she flipped the lock she heard Evan call after her, “I’m sorry.”

She turned back again, carefully crafted smile slipping, and Evan had his face in his hand, the other clutching the edge of the cushion. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just--sorry. I’m sorry Nyla.” He ran his fingers back into his hair and gripped, hard, pulling at his roots. “I’m sorry.”

Her shoulders dropped, chest squeezing, and she swaned over to him, dropping to her knees in front of him. He startled, letting go of his hair, and she reached up her free hand to cup his face. He closed his eyes as she leaned up and kissed his cheek, and nuzzled his face against hers as he pet a hand down her hair.

“Just try to work through whatever this is before you leave the room, okay?” she asked softly, trying to be gentle with him, to not get scared and frustrated like she normally felt when he got like this. Master Galo wouldn’t hurt him like Mistress did; she didn’t need to be scared, didn’t need to be frustrated with Evan because he had more time now. “Master Galo’s in the sitting area.”

“Yeah,” Evan answered her, finger combing his bangs to the side. “Yeah. Sorry. I will.”

She kissed his forehead as she stood, and was able to summon her smile much easier this time. She rubbed at her right eye, brushed down her skirt, and went back to “her room” to finish hanging up her clothes and arranging her underthings in the drawers. 

When she finished, she skimmed her fingers over the dustless wood of the dresser. “Her” dresser. Pink with floral designs, old fashioned and expensive, an ‘antique’ that was as good as new. It was… surreal. She left the room, crossed to her Master, and slipped to her knees, then rump, to sit next to his feet. Her hands folded neatly in her lap, and she blinked away the weird feeling in her eye.

“Thank you, Master,” she said again, wishing she could say it better, express it better.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” he said gently, leaning forward in his seat and petting his fingers through her hair. She allowed herself to tilt her head, eyes slipping closed, and she savored the touch. His knee was right there, it would be all too easy for her to lean in and lay her head against it. But no, no, she was better than that. He hadn’t expressed a desire for her to submit to him in that way and she was going to be perfect for him.

“Master,” she started, reminding herself that he liked questions, that technically all times were good times and she couldn’t pester him with too many, “is there a way you would like to be thanked? I am grateful, and want to show it to you properly.”

“No, Nyla, you don’t need to,” he said gently, and he sounded almost sad. “Just saying ‘thank you’ is enough.”

She tried not to feel disappointed. At the very least, she wouldn’t show it. “As you like, sir.”

The others joined them, Sasha sitting as close to Nyla as she dared, Greyson kneeling at Master Galo’s other side, Lilah sitting on the couch in a way that made them all panic slightly but reaped no consequences. When Evan joined them, a noticeable stretch of time later, Master Galo made no comment on his late appearance, only smiled and put his phone away.

“Great, you’re all here. So, about the project I mentioned. You may have noticed the dumpster out front. I would like everyone to please work together and move all of my aunt’s canes, chains, whips, restraints, muzzles, cages, knives, and the like into the dumpster. Anything she used with the purpose of hurting or humiliating you, I would like to see go. I’ve got a power drill and I’m gonna work on her, uh, dungeon, and rip up those D rings in the den and music room, but just, like. Anything you can think of. Anything used with the purpose of you guys’ pain. Get rid of it, please.”

Someday, Nyla would stop being surprised by all of Master Galo’s many surprises.

Even so, an order was an order, and like many of Master Galo’s commands she found this one easy enough to obey. Nyla rose with all her grace, curtsied, and walked a direct path up two flights of stairs to the fireplace in Mistress’s boudoir.

Mistress had never used the fire pokers on Nyla. Lilah, sure, Evan, occasionally, but Nyla had kept herself perfect, too perfect to burn. But the fear, the ever present knowledge that she could burn, at any moment, at her Mistress’s slightest whim, the moment she stopped being flawlessly, untouchably perfect, had kept her tense as a coiled wire. She stopped by the main floor’s fireplace and grabbed those pokers too, one set in each fist, and all too gleefully hoisted them into the dumpster out front. 

She diligently visited every fireplace in the house, after that, removing everything that could and would have burned her, had she not kept herself perfectly poised on her self-made pedestal. Evan was in Mistress’s room, Lilah the den, Sasha the music room. Greyson, Nyla wasn’t sure where he’d gone, but wasn’t going to get bent out of shape over it. She rubbed her right eye, then temple, and returned to the basement.

Master Galo’s power drill was loud, making her wince and the space behind her eyes sting, but she entered the Punishment Room regardless. He’d collected a small pile near the door: the shackles he’d removed from their anchors in the wall, the thin mats Nyla was pretty sure were intended for yoga that had served as sleeping pallets to the two cells, the oil and wax sconces and dishes that had hung from the walls and ceiling. The wooden horse. All of the tools, the whips and floggers and knives. Nyla gathered up an armful, and Master Galo paused in his drilling to smile at her. 

“Hey, thanks.”

“Of course, Master. Do you require any other assistance?”

“No, I think I’m good. Dismantling my evil aunt’s evil shit is kinda cathartic, really.”

Nyla bowed, and trotted back up the steps with her load of chains and whips and manacles. It was satisfying to hear them clatter down into the dumpster. She felt weird. Good?? Strange.

“Oh, are you hauling stuff for Master Galo?” Evan asked. Nyla nodded with an affirming noise. “Great, so he’ll stay down there. Lilah, hand me that cane, Grey, don’t throw that in yet.”

Nyla looked and saw that Greyson had brought the dog cages up from the utility room. Greyson cocked his head at Evan, but set them down on the drive. Evan, crutch under one arm and heavy, metal cane in his dominant hand, proceeded to beat the shit out of the cages.

The family mostly just stood there, and watched, as he reduced the cages to little more than messy heaps of broken wire. He was panting, hard, by the end of it, and tossed the cane into the dumpster.

“Did you reopen your--” Lilah asked, cut off by Evan’s, “I’m fine.”

“Okay, it just looks like you might’ve ripped a stitch out, from all’a that.”

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t have done any differently,” Evan said, laughing a little and pulling Lilah in for a hug. “Fuck, that felt really good. You guys should try that.”

“I think th-that’s a y-you thing,” Sasha remarked, and Nyla chuckled. Then giggled. She rubbed at her eye, and headed back inside to grab another armload from the basement. She got the wooden horse up under her arm and shimmy-stepped her way up, the thing large and cumbersome but she couldn’t wait to get it out of the house. Greyson helped her lift it into the dumpster, and Nyla grabbed a third round.

It was on her way back down to grab a fourth armful that the pain struck her, right as her foot came down on the top step. She recognized it instantly for what it was. Ordinary pain was, in a rather hard to describe manner, very different from migraine pain. It was impossible to confuse the two.

A migraine. She was having a migraine. Oh of course, her head had felt tight all day! And her eye, that was her aura, oh, she was so stupid! How could she not have seen this coming?

Oh, god, the pain was settling in fast this time, too. It never set in all at once, but the speed was less gradual than usual, right then. She whimpered. The basement would be no good. Master Galo was using power tools down there, right across the hall from the family bedroom. Her normal migraine spot, under her nice, dark, quiet bed, wouldn’t work this time.

Think, she had a limited amount of time before the pain got bad. Where should she go? The butterfly room? That was nice and dark, no windows, but would it be quiet? She naturally gravitated towards the idea of a bathroom, where the tile would feel cool against her forehead and she could turn off the lights. Upstairs, probably, she went upstairs, hoping to escape the noise of things landing in the dumpster and her family moving and talking around her. Near the back of the house, not the front, not near the driveway. The bathroom off the lilac bedroom? She went straight for it, closing her right eye since she couldn’t really see all that well out of it.

God, it hurt so bad. She closed the door, plunging the bathroom into merciful blackness. It was quiet, just what she needed, her family and Master would be busy for a while yet, they wouldn’t need to come looking for her. She could just stay where she was, curled up against the bathroom floor, in the dark, in the silence.

God, god it hurt.

And she knew it was only going to get worse.

--

Galo had the bars unscrewed and the dungeon stripped down to nothing more than walls, the floor, and an archaic looking chandelier that he did not have the electrical expertise to deal with. He needed someone with, like, training to deal with that.

Nyla hadn’t come back for a while yet.

Which, okay, it was a big house and she probably had plenty of grudges to act out against inanimate objects, but it was weird that Nyla of all people would start helping haul away the stuff he piled up and then stop midway through. It wasn’t like her.

And when Galo’s brain told him to worry, he was starting to come to terms with the fact that it was usually right. Did it count as anxiety when it was true?

He hauled up a load after scanning the basement, and finding no one there. He got rid of the evil library books as he paced through the first floor, as well as the armchair from the den. He found Greyson and Evan, but no Nyla. Hrm. He asked if Greyson would please take care of the D rings in the den and Evan volunteered himself, which, whatever worked. Upstairs he ran into Sasha in the music room, and he pried up the D rings like he said he would since she didn’t exactly seem like the type for power tools, and was glad to hand the task over to Lilah when she gravitated towards him, leaving the drill in her capable hands.

But where was Nyla?

It was ridiculous to think that she’d been kidnapped by Barbra but Galo couldn’t help but jump to that conclusion. He stalked through the second floor, trying not to be visibly distressed lest he upset the other slaves, but running out of places to look. He opened the door of a guest bathroom, if only for the reason that it was closed, and his eyes widened with horror to see his girl lying in the fetal position on the floor.

“Nyla!” he shouted, rushing forward and dropping to his knees. She flinched, worse than he’d ever seen her jump, and curled in tighter, a muted scream passing her lips, and Galo’s panic bubbled over.

“Nyla, Nyla what’s wrong, what happened?!”

“Please!” she begged, sounding so small. “Please, please no, migraine, Master, please stop!”

Oh--oh. Oh, and his yelling would only have made it worse.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, guilt consuming him as he bent and caught sight of her silent tears. “What do you need, what helps?”

Galo didn’t know anything about migraines, other than “head hurt.” He knew they were awful, horrible things, and Nyla deserved to never ever have one. But he didn’t know--would medicine help? Was this one of those things that nothing helped, and she’d just have to wait it out? How long did they last? An hour? Should he touch her?

“Painkillers. Dark. Quiet. W--” she choked on a sob, high and pained and Galo’s heart broke into a thousand pieces. “Water, please, cold.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll go get painkillers and a glass of ice water? Do you--is the bathroom good? Is this a good place for you to be?”

“My bed,” she whined, hands over her eyes and body trembling faintly.

“Okay,” Galo said, mindful of each word, keeping his voice as quiet as possible. “Can--can you walk? Should I carry you? Should I touch you at all?”

“Just, don’t rattle me, please, don’t--hit my head, please, Master--”

“Never,” Galo breathed, and his heart broke all over again, to know that she still feared him so much, that Nyla had so little trust that she thought he would ever hurt her, much less when she was like this. “Never, Nyla, please, please believe that. I will never hit you.”

Nyla’s breath hitched, a little gaspy inhale, and then she slowly reached one hand out, and gripped Galo by the pant leg. Galo froze, standing on the edge of a brand new precipice, and tried to make his brain work, tried to think fast for once in his goddamn life, but his brain continued its sloth impression and he couldn’t process what this meant, though he felt its importance.

“Help me,” she begged, though it felt more like an admission than a plea. 

“Please, I don’t want the others to see me like this; I hate it when they see me like this,” she continued, and that felt closer to normal.

“Okay, okay, I can’t promise we’ll be able to avoid them but I’ll try my best. I’m going to pick you up now, alright?”

“Okay,” she whispered, barely moving her lips, but he understood why she wouldn’t want to nod her head, right then. Carefully, he gathered her up in his arms and stood. She curled in immediately, pressing her face into the crook of his neck, and he felt like he was holding the most breakable, easily-shattered entity in the universe. He felt a surge of protectiveness, a bone-deep need to take care of her, to make it better in any way he could. 

When they passed by the music room, its door open and Lilah inside with the drill, Nyla whimpered and pressed her hands hard against her ears. She wasn’t just pressing her face into his shoulder at that point, it was like she was actively trying to burrow into him, curled up so tight and stiff against him he felt she might shatter. He moved away from there as fast as he could, wanting to spare her everything he was able to. He tried to keep his gait smooth as he walked, slow on the stairs, and he actually did manage to avoid running into any of the others slaves.

He settled her down onto the cool sheets of her bed, wishing the slaves had softer pillows and wondering if he could get them any without them freaking out about it, and settled a palm between her shoulderblades.

“I’m gonna get that glass of water and those painkillers. Do you need anything else?”

“The blinds,” Nyla gasped softly, and Galo shut the blinds of the tiny skylight tightly, angled up so practically no light filtered in at all. He moved quickly, giving Greyson a probably-unconvincing smile as he passed him, but Nyla had asked that the others not know, so Galo wasn’t going to say anything. When he returned, he helped her sit up and handed her the medicine and the cup. The cool water seemed to help. 

Galo knelt by the bedside, elbows and forearms laid out in front of him on the mattress and his chin on the sheets. He stared worriedly at Nyla’s face, and wasn’t even thinking when he reached out and stroked a hand over her hair.

Realizing halfway through what he’d done, he snatched his hand back with a quietly hissed, “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to touch your head.”

“T--” Nyla swallowed, “Touch is fine, Master. Just, no… patting, or, percussion. Touch feels, good sir.”

“Yeah?” Galo whispered, no more than a breath. “Would you like me to stay with you?” he asked quietly, stroking a gentle palm down from the back of her head to mid-spine. 

“...Yes,” she admitted tremulously. “But--they last a while, Master.”

“Shhh,” Galo hushed, “I’ll stay. The others are busy and they’ll be fine, just focus on you for a little while, shh.”

Galo pet gently at Nyla’s hair, her shoulders, her back, needing to reposition a couple different times as certain parts of his body got tired or sore or lost blood flow. By the end of the first hour, Galo’s anxious concern had burned itself out, and the mild worry that remained was going to bat pretty hard with his boredom. By the end of the second hour, he’d fallen into a light doze and had been there for a while, his hand covering Nyla’s much smaller one, his thumb stroking very, very slowly over the skin on the back of her hand. He was fully asleep by hour three, Nyla’s fingers curled around his tighter than she’d ever dared before, so what a shame that he was asleep for it.

His impromptu nap came to an abrupt end when Nyla shifted, eyes flicking open but otherwise staying exactly where he was. Oh his neck was gonna have a SERIOUS crick in it.

“Nyla?” he asked softly, “Do you need anything?”

She shook her head slowly, and he perked up to see her voluntarily moving it. “It’s mostly gone now, Master.” She sat up very, very slowly, rubbing at her neck, and Galo mirrored her from his spot on the floor. 

“Okay, that’s good,” Galo said, still speaking quietly, “Is it like, a fade-out kind of thing?”

“Yes sir,” she said, slowly stretching out her legs and wincing a little.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Sore, sir. And hungry, and--exhausted.”

She sounded tired. Galo was pretty sure he’d never heard her sound quite this tired. Carefully, watching her face for any sign of a negative reaction, he reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. 

“I’ll get you something to eat, yeah?” he offered softly. “You can stay here and rest.”

Nyla shook her head again. 

“I can get up, sir. I don’t want to trouble you and the others will have noticed our absence and I need to walk out the stiffness and eating here would get crumbs in the bed, Master.”

Well, Galo could only really argue with one of those, but doubted Nyla would buy that she wasn’t causing him any trouble anyway. He stood, his own body protesting the movement, and stretched his arms up high above his head.

“Thank you.”

Galo glanced down, letting his arms drop, and smiled kindly when Nyla didn’t continue.

“Of course, Nyla, I’m here for you if you ever need me.” Then, because Galo was allergic to Emotional Moments, “Sooo, are we telling your friends we got abducted by aliens for the last,” he glanced at the time, “three and a half hours, or?”

Nyla giggled weakly, which, ten points to Gryffindor!

“I don’t mind them knowing, sir. It’s just when I have the migraine that I…”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Galo said. Not wanting to be seen while vulnerable.

So what does that mean that she let me? he thought with a flip in his stomach, but pushed the thought from his head.

Sasha seemed anxious when they entered the kitchen, but interestingly enough that anxiety did not seem to spike when she caught sight of Galo. Though that might have been because she simultaneously caught sight of Nyla, who was, as near as Galo could tell, Sasha’s main comfort in life. Best friend? Were they best friends? They might be best friends.

Galo wished he knew more about the lives of the people he Literally Lived With. 

“Migraine,” Nyla said with a tight smile, by way of explanation, “Master Galo helped me.”

That did successfully key Sasha up, and Galo smiled, lips pressed thin. He should leave. His presence was an intrusion and would only make them feel like they couldn’t talk freely. 

“I’ll leave you to it, then?” Galo offered, moving away from Nyla and sliding his hands into his pockets. Open. Nonthreatening. He knew when he wasn’t wanted.

“You don’t have to, Master.” Or maybe he didn’t. “I’m sure you’re hungry too, sir.”

Nyla sounded uncharacteristically nervous, but that also made sense. She was vulnerable, at the moment, fresh off a migraine and not at her absolute best.

So why was she asking him to stay, then? He wished he knew what she was thinking.

“Yeah?” he asked, searching her face and then Sasha’s, who seemed more shocked than anything. “Okay, cool. We can eat together.”

It was stiff. 

Which, yeah, expected. Nyla apparently got peanut butter cravings post-migraine, which, huh! Who knew people got cravings after demon headaches, not Galo!

Sasha did not like that Galo was there. Galo did not fault her for that one bit. Nyla was coming down off a migraine and Galo was preventing Sasha from fussing over her, and Sasha really only seemed to know what to do about him in the mornings because they’d had their nice routine and Galo really didn’t hang out in the kitchen beyond that. He should, like, dedicate some time to Sasha. Lock himself in the bathroom and let her sniff him through the door, he thought with a private chuckle to himself.

He now understood why Lilah had asked for extra kitchen stools, since there was quite literally only the one. Galo had the closest thing to an argument that he’d had, with Nyla, firmly insisting that she be the one to seat herself, then awkwardly stooped over the counter with all his bulk and height.

“Ahaha,” Galo ‘laughed’ self-consciously with a rub to the back of his head. Maybe he should’a sat after all. “Sorry, don’t mean to loom imposingly. Really, I can just… head out.”

Sasha looked away, lips thin, but Nyla’s eyes remained on him. 

“You, are not all that imposing. Sir.”

Galo blinked, and was peripherally aware that Sasha was now also looking at Nyla like she’d spouted a second head. Nyla was flushed, and staring at Galo’s shoulder rather than his face, but swallowed and continued.

“When you first arrived, the size of you was frightening, sir,” she said, her voice quiet but Galo was far too enraptured to have missed even a single word. “But you kept Barbara from stealing me, and rescued Evan, and yesterday you gave Greyson both comfort and lenience.”

Nyla reached out her hand and placed it, very delicately, on top of Galo’s on the counter, Galo’s eyes tracking the movement in a fashion that might be described as gobsmacked.

“You have always been kind to us, Master. Stay.”

“Oh,” he said, as something important clicked in place.

[princess-of-the-worlds]

Torchwood and the (Mis)treatment of its Characters of Color

Let’s be honest; despite its decent track record with queer characters, Torchwood has a problem with how it treats its characters of colors, and I say this as a South Asian, bisexual fan of the show. 

For the purposes of this post, I will only be looking at the Torchwood television series (so spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2, Children of Earth, and Miracle Day), and not as Big Finish Torchwood releases since I do not believe myself to be well-versed enough in them to be able to make an accurate post. And also, as much as I love Big Finish for eveything they’re doing, on-screen POC representation is very different from audio POC representation. (And for the purposes of this post, I will not be addressing the mistreatment of Martha Jones, which really, if you think about it, stems from Doctor Who and not Torchwood.)

TLDR; Torchwood has neglected or mistreated its characters of color, given them little or no background, and brutally killed them off, often for shock value.

Let’s start with Suzie Costello. 

Suzie Costello, played by Indira Varma who is a British actress of Indian descent, was promoted alongside the regular cast members in publicity material before “Everything Changes” aired, giving the impression that she would be sticking around for a while or would be a main character. Instead, she was unceremoniously killed off at the end of the first episode and only pops up once more in “They Keep Killing Suzie.” At no point was Suzie acknowledged as a woman of color or given much more background beyond her tumultuous, most likely abusive, relationship with her father.

Next, we get to Toshiko Sato, left as the only person of color on the team after Suzie’s death. 

Wonderful, gorgeous, caring Tosh who, for all intents and purposes, is essentially a walking stereotype. She’s an Asian (Japanese specifically) technology genius who is unlucky at love. Need I say more? (Check out this Teen Vogue article if you’re wondering why that’s a bad thing, or, honestly, just quickly search Google.) And all three of the Tosh-heavy episodes (”Greeks Bearing Gifts,” “To the Last Man,” and “Adam”) feature her being unlucky in love (Mary betraying her, Tommy dying, and Adam manipulating her). Plus, there’s everything with Owen where she pines after him for years only for him to finally recognize that before he dies, and then he, well, dies; that plot arc only ends in death and sadness.

Additionally, we only have limited background for Tosh in comparison to Jack and Gwen (who I guess you could kind of say are the main characters) but even in comparison to Ianto (for whom more background was revealed only because he became a more prominent character in COE.) We know she was born in London, moved to Japan as a child, and at some point moved back before growing up in the United Kingdom. She had a younger brother (mentioned in a deleted scene in “Captain Jack Harkness”) and a grandfather who worked at Bletchley Park (mentioned in “Greeks Bearing Gifts” and “Captain Jack Harkness.”) She also very much loved her family, or at least her mother, enough to commit treason for her, despite her mother only being seen in “End of Days” and “Fragments.” But that’s about it. 

There was so much more Torchwood could have done with Tosh. We could have seen more about her family or her education. We certainly could have seen more about her bisexuality; everything that happened with Mary was not a satisfying resolution. Instead, she was killed off alongside Owen in “Exit Wounds.” Torchwood used the death of a woman of color for shock value, and no matter how effective or emotional that was, it was not excusable. There was so much story left to be told with Toshiko Sato. 

Tosh’s death brought the racial diversity in Torchwood down to zilch.

Next, we have Lisa Hallett.

Now, Lisa Hallett...what do we actually know about her? She worked at Torchwood One, dated Ianto Jones, and loved him enough to maybe fight cyberprogramming for him - this part might be subjective to your own interpretation of “Cyberwoman.” We don’t know anything about her, really, apart from how she is defined and described for a white male main character, which...is problematic enough. I mean, would it have been too much to ask the writers for maybe some further description? I mean, I don’t know. Maybe where exactly she worked in Torchwood London? How she joined? How she met Ianto? If she had any family, any other friends? Why she loved Torchwood and worked there? Heck, a flashback scene featuring a non-cyberized Lisa and Ianto would have been brilliant. Is that too much to have asked of the Torchwood writers? I don’t know.

Then there’s the entire fact that Lisa was turned into a Cyberwoman. Now, I have many problems with how Doctor Who and Torchwood uses its Cybermen, especially regarding its continuous brutalization of black and brown bodies for emotional and shock value (Lisa, Danny Pink, and Bill Potts are only some examples.) It sends a very, very nasty message to these shows’ viewers of color, especially if they’re younger and more impressionable. Plus, the depiction of Lisa in “Cyberwoman” was uncomfortable and unnecessarily sexualized, but this is a whole different essay. But in the end, Lisa Hallett was pumped with bullets many, many times, and her death only added to the emotional pain of a white man.

Now, we come to more minor characters.

Beth Halloran was a human who did not know her true identity as an alien sleeper agent. She had a very interesting and action-packed story arc in “Sleeper” before ending up dead at the hands of Torchwood. She had an emotional struggle between her human identity and her truth as an alien sleeper and chose to help save the world, intentionally ending up dead at the hands of Torchwood. That being said, she was still another character of color who Torchwood had bothered fleshing out who ended up dead.

Next, there’s Dr. Rupesh Patanjali. 

Introduced in COE, he’s a medical doctor who catches Jack and Ianto working on a case and ends up piquing their interest after he makes some shit up. Spoiler alert: he’s an MI-5 plant. We see Gwen attempt to conduct orientation and recruitment with him. He has a fun setup to be a potential new Torchwood member and inside spy, but instead, he lures Jack to the hospital where Jack’s implanted with a bomb. And despite doing his job as requested and doing it rather well, Rupesh Patanjali is shot dead by Agent Johnson that very episode, just like Beth.

Then we have Lois Habiba, arguably the most interesting and fun character introduced in COE. 

She’s a naive newcomer, almost like Gwen, but during her first week working in the Home Office, she finds herself committing treason, conspiring against her boss Frobisher, and helping save the world from an alien invasion. She’s smart, resourceful, and principled, very much like Ianto. Like with a lot of the characters on this list, we know next-to-nothing about her background, which is odd considering her rather major role in COE. And despite being seemingly set up to become a member of Torchwood, we never see her again.

Finally, we come to Miracle Day and its two new characters of color, Rex Matheson and Dr. Vera Juarez. I won’t be getting into too much detail here, especially since MD has its own problems.

Ah, Rex.

Torchwood finally has a man of color for a main character who seems like he could be an interesting foil to Jack (a high-ranking CIA agent with a high bullshit meter), and what do they do...they kill him in his first scene. Oh, and they make him “lightly” homophobic, because that’s always fun. And then he ends up immortal in some kind of bullshit plot hole...I have enough to say there.

Vera, however, was quite interesting. Again, little to no background besides the basic (from San Antonio, had an ex-husband, is a surgeon), but she was still a Latina medical doctor. She had morals and was very stubborn and determined to save people, which is why she insisted into helping Torchwood sneak into the overflow camp. And what did she get for that? She ended up brutually shot in front of her lover Rex, which traumatized them both, and then literally burnt alive. Thrown on top of that? In a quite meta move really, the death of another woman of color was used to incite outrage around the country, and the world, and expose the wrongdoings of the United States government regarding the Miracle. Good stuff? Either way, it came at the cost of the death of one strong woman of color and the further trauma of another man of color.

Plus, there’s everything about how unnecessarily violent and graphic some of the deaths of these characters of color. To put it into perspective, think about how Owen or Ianto or Esther died. (I’m not trying to reduce the values of their deaths; I’m just trying to get you to think about it.)

So yeah, that’s all I have to say about that. Torchwood, you could have done better with your characters of color. (And thank you if you stuck all this way with me.)

TLDR; Torchwood has neglected or mistreated its characters of color, given them little or no background, and brutally killed them off, often for shock value.

[pochapal]

I hate doctor 11 but ive never been able to explain why in like words lmao. He feels like such a mary sue character imo and like theres something about his characterisation that was always just really ineffective (like the stuff about fishfingers and custard or whatever it was). Imo i'd love to hear you give top 5 worst things about the 11 era because i rlly just love when it gets torn apart

i hold nothing but a seething contempt and loathing for that man. every time he appeared on screen i felt ready to snap like a riled up chimpanzee in my enclosure. i am frothing at the mouth and overcome with a desire to start flinging heavy objects. this might be incoherent and inconsistent but i started this rewatch in feb 2020 and only finished this week so i got through 11′s episodes last august/september time and i refuse to revisit it to jog my memory or fact check anything i’m saying here because this man does not deserve the space in my mind for that.

the first thing is i can’t fucking STAND the quirky whimsy timey wimey bit he has going on all of the time. i can’t even say this is because this is a kids show and i was a teen and then adult when i first properly watched him but actually!! when i was eleven years old i’d sleep over at a friend’s house most weekends and it always coincided with the airing of a new season 5 episode and i remember we watched the finale with the dumb time hopping to get out of the box prison that was never explained and didn’t make sense and i thought at the time “this is really stupid”. and before that my only other doctor who exposure was watching the david tennant christmas specials with another friend and throughout childhood my only opinion on doctor who was “this is a tv show that is not for me but is one that all the boys i am friends with like so i will put up with it to maintain our friendships” but at least those episodes were both suspenseful and engaging enough to keep me watching all the way through. like who the fuck does an end of the world sci fi plot and approaches it with an “oopsy woopsy i am a funny little alien man who is going to stop you all by making you do a hecking silly” like it’s unneeded and self-parodies an already cheesy show to the point where it becomes unwatchable and makes it impossible to ever take this man seriously.

next thing that downright sucks ass so badly is the stupid fucking overwritten constantly escalating plotlines. like everything from season 5 up until his regeneration at the end of season 7 is meant to be this grand interconnected cosmic plot about how...the doctor trying to bring back his planet will end the universe or something so all the top powers across all of reality tried again and again to stop him from doing that except he doesn’t know what’s going on so he keeps thwarting these people who supposedly mean good?? i mean i sure don’t fucking know what they were trying to say!! like for some reason we never get the doctor suddenly becomes this superdemon that threatens everything so these people (whoever they are) decide to, in sequence: suck him through a time rift to erase him from existence, trap him in a prison and remake a universe without him, take his companion’s baby and turn her into a perfectly trained doctor killer, form two(!!) secret societies to hunt him throughout history that are only stopped by his companion splintering herself across his personal timeline to protect him, and repeatedly cause reality collapsing events because it’s a kinder outcome for the universe than what he will do. this grand and terrible event turns out to be...he spends a few hundred years chilling by a rift that leads to his home planet and protects a few generations of children from monsters which convinces them to give him infinite regeneration power then fuck off back to their pocket universe. and it’s like!! what is the point of anything that happens in this man’s era when everything is always “the darkest moment” or whatever the fuck!! i don’t care!! we never get a compelling reason to believe this bumbling clown of a man could ever be a universal threat!! the whole thing is so dumb i hate it!!!

thing number three i hate is how the eleventh doctor is ALSO characterised as this abrasive egotistic male supergenius to the point where he becomes genuinely indistinguishable from bbc sherlock. genuinely who enjoyed seeing this guy constantly tell people their tiny human minds can’t comprehend what he’s doing and then basically just wave his magic wand to solve whatever problem each episode is facing. 2012 is the year of human sin because this fucking shitsmear character archetype somehow became both a redditor role model AND a tumblr sexyman and it’s like!! nobody is enjoying this stop making this seem cool! him saying timey wimey thing any time he does anything is frustrating and dumb and locks the viewer out of giving a fuck about anything that is happening! smartest man in the room syndrome is a disease and the eleventh doctor is terminal with it. like remember how they established river as an accomplished scientist (when she wasn’t being a child soldier or a time paradox or whatever the fuck) and every time that came up mr doctor eleven man was like “oh this thing is obvious because i’m a genius and you didn’t realise because your brain is tiny so get out of the way and let the grownups think” or that time it turned out amy had been replaced with a slime clone for half the season and the doctor chewed rory (audience surrogate) out for somehow not realising this fact we didn’t know right from the start and like. this served no purpose other than to draw into severe question why the doctor is also this super beloved magical figure implicitly trusted by all children everywhere like. mr steven moffat is totally allergic to writing and solving mysteries in his tv show and fuck you for wanting to figure things out as you go along based on the new evidence you uncover at strategic plot intervals just let this asshole man use magical thinking to reveal he knew the answer all along and you’re a fucking idiot for not also realising this thing which had no basis or precedent anywhere else in the show.

speaking of dumb things let us not forget the absolute shitshow that was minority representation in this era. i’m not even talking about the low hanging fruit of how genuinely unironically sexist amy and clara were written where each episode moffat either seemed to loathe them or was incredibly horny over them and they had no character growth or arc or fucking anything. i’m talking about how fucking shit terrible the incidental representation was. god remember how every single fucking gay person who appeared in this era was written as one incredibly fucking stupid joke and how the women were all either sexy dominatrix, feeble girl in love, or Mother (or all three in some really terrible cases) and i’m not qualified to talk about this but also how incredibly white this era was and how on two separate occasions we had monarchs reimagined as sexy girlbosses with a gun played by black women who the doctor leched over. nothing about any of this was good ESPECIALLY coming off the back of rtd who was surprisingly forward thinking for 2005 and did a really good job of positing travel with the doctor as queer allegory. in comparison moffat gave us THE MOST heterosexual shlock i’ve ever had to endure. amy and rory could have been interesting characters were they not hemmed into this domestic bickering young straight married couple bullshit that was in no way changed or altered by traveling with the doctor except for the quasi incestuous river song reveal that was dumb and bad and stupid.

the last major mega gripe i have with the series is moffat’s fucking jingoistic boner for british military aesthetics. this carried over throughout his entire tenure as showrunner but was super terrible vomit inducing in eleven’s era. the unironic admiration for ww2 britain and winston churchill is downright wretched. are you incapable of telling a second world war story outside of churchill’s london and plucky blitz fighters. shit gives me hives so badly. and then!!! that weird church owned army that features in the future that end up being bad not for the concept of what basically amounts to an imperialistic intergalactic rendition of the fucking crusades but because they’re part of the nonsense go nowhere puzzlebox narrative that says the doctor is a not good man who will do bad things to the universe :(. remember how rtd’s doctor was a freshly traumatised man hot off the war criminal press who time and time again vehemently refuses to engage in military violence, but who tragically inadvertently turns every one of his companions into soldiers in his own personal army, and he has this moment of complete horror at the realisation and it is this which causes the downward spiral that ends in 10′s regeneration. and then how there’s this cringe line about how there’s a force of people who are “the doctor’s army, always ready to fight his battles when he’s not around” or some shit and then it turns out this is actually massive literal military operation and we’re meant to celebrate this. fuck off.

bonus round because this needs to be said but i have never hated anything like i hated that fucking human tardis episode. everything about it induced violent anger in me from the sickening overindulgence of that softgoth dark whimsy helena bonham carter tim burton aesthetic to the bafflingly terrible evil carny stereotype of those junk scavengers to the overblown sudden tragic shipbait romance of human tardis and the doctor. every word out of her mouth was trite shit and the fact that the death of her body was presented as this super emotional dramatic scene despite there being no buy in or incentive to care and the fact that every single person on tumblr in 2012 ate that shit up like it was fucking gourmet. i loathe every single thing about that episode so much.

[ferylcheryl]

Three-Time

“Come, I’ll show you.” His hand extended.

“I don’t care to learn.”

“You just don’t want me to lead.” A quirked eyebrow, an incremental lift of the lips beneath his thick, neat mustache. How his eyes soften imperceptibly from sharpness to sly warmth. Cornelius rises to his feet.

“Once you learn,” Billy continues, “you can lead. Now, put your hand up on my shoulder—there—good. The waltz is a simple dance.”

“Where did you learn, then?”

“Never you mind. Now, this—”

“You’ll tell me one day.”

“Jesus, Cornelius. I may as well tell you now, else you’ll dog me to death about it.”

“Oh, I was just curious.”

“Please. I can see you turning green, ridiculous man. ‘Twas a neighbor girl. Taught me to amuse herself.”

“It’s certainly stuck well.”

“It’s—a nice, neat thing to know. I’d practice when I was alone.” This is true. In a hazy shaft of light in his garret bedroom, stooped so as not to strike his head, he’d sometimes trot a methodical box-step. It was neither the romance nor the grace of the thing, but its order; the mercy of its repetition. One might enter a space outside of time; each turn twin to the one before. It was as though there was always, somewhere, a room in which he might be found waltzing and he only had to step into it to meet himself there. (His mother characterized him as a lonely child, but she was wrong: he was a solitary one.)

“And when you weren’t alone?”

“Jealousy is unbecoming of you, Cornelius. You get a face like a kicked pup. All stung-looking and wide-eyed.”

“I’ll show you a kicked pup—I know a fine long greyhound could use a swift boot to the ribs.”

“Oh, darling. I’m not in the mood. And anyway, there’s no one else now, is there?”

“Is there?”

“As though you’d not trade me for that roustabout marine in a moment.”

“Not a bit, Billy. Truly.” He pauses, and then, his eyes dancing, “I do like a head of curls though.”

“The waltz,” Billy says sharply, sliding his hand down into the shallow tuck of Cornelius’ waist. “I step forward, like so—my left foot. And you, with your right, step back. Good. We move in three-time.”

“We’ve no music.”

“We’ll make the best of it. Three-time.”

———

Cornelius kisses the inside of his thigh, his knee, the freckled hillock of his shoulder, but nearly never his mouth. It’s not a gesture Billy misses until it’s Cornelius who doesn’t do it. Cornelius who talks of making him his bride when he’s hilt-deep in him, Cornelius who promises him wedding rings. It feels like so many coins thrown into a well.

Not that he doesn’t think he means it: but he’s a hard little man, and no matter what he wishes for it comes back to him as an echo, a splash.

Three-time. Their breath falls into three-time when they fuck, and Billy likes to imagine it as a kind of waltz. Parquet floor, heavy velvet curtains tied back with gold cord. A quartet playing. We’ll make do, he’d said, but to tell the truth he misses music terribly. He’d not heard it often but when one dances one should have it. He did not like things done in parts: when one fucks, one should kiss. When one kisses, it should be the upon the lips. And if men are to know each other they should do so wholly; they should be naked together. They should know one another’s bodies so they don’t mistake one another other for beasts. All Billy knows of Cornelius is his neat pink prick, its coppery nest, the luminous, dwarf-like handsomeness of his face. His hand, his boot.

Later, when he’s stripped for his lashing, Billy is astonished by Cornelius’ dense, clustered musculature. He’d thought he was all skin and bone under there, all rib and rope. Belly like a tea saucer. Instead, he’s compactly strong—sleek and rippling and certain, like a dog with a cruel master.

“Shh,” Cornelius hisses now, slowing the neat, hard pistoning of his hips. He’s got his hands spanned over the taut dip of Billy’s waist and now, as though to give teeth to his words, he clenches in with his nails. “Someone’s coming.”

There’s a shuffling step on the ladder, and then here’s Lt. Irving, peering into the dark with eyes smothered hot, like candles just blown out.

———

Lieutenant Irving has his hand on Billy’s knee as he tells him all about Cornelius Hickey, the devious seducer. What he says is not altogether true and it’s not quite false; like all fated things there was a compulsion to it that transcends blame. From the moment they met, Cornelius striking up conversation over a shared cigarette above board one of the fair, early days, it was clear what would happen. Yes, Cornelius had this way of looking at him, a gaze warm and sly and inviting, but Billy—Billy recalls moments of looking back at him the same way, heat in his cheek and his gaze (which he normally kept studiously shuttered) softening. He knew even as he gestured at resisting him that it would happen.

He’d dreamed, in those early days, of standing in a high open window, the wind singing at his knees and nose, tipping forward, forward. Or like this: the thing about waltzing in three-time is that the beat falls an eyelash short of time enough to execute the steps, so between the two partners vibrates this small, bouncing pull and if one will waltz at all one must move in this broken surging beat, even as, to untrained eye, it seems a stately and slow dance. It seems clear who is leading. But the dancers know better.

Not that any of this would matter to Irving. Irving asks what, exactly, they do together; how it works. He starts to sweat, leans in closer. His hand weighs heavy on his knee.

———

Tozer’s many things Billy’s not: muscular in a proto-masculine kind of way, one evolutionary step from pounding his chest in a jungle somewhere; he’s commanding in the grunting, stomping way of a beast too. His attractiveness is of the conventional kind—broad, milk-fed. A whiff of the rustic about him, as though despite his evident vanity one might faintly scent manure in the nooks of his body.

He’s also dumb. It pains Billy to think that that’s what Cornelius wanted all along, somebody lovely and stupid and easily cowed, for as much as he adores him he’d not be any of those things—especially the lattermost. Most infuriating are Tozer’s attempts to fake being the one holding the leash. One should not deceive oneself about the kind of man one is. Like out there alongside the boat, preparing for the walk-out. You’ve just given me permission for a good shove. Idiot. Billy nearly laughs aloud. But then Cornelius gives Tozer that disgusting up-and-down, charting the bulky sullen fact of him as he french inhales. Peacock. He never tried to court Billy so.

False, Billy chastises himself. Only after it was over between them did Cornelius slip that mysterious ring onto his finger, his eyes all dancing.

Later, huddled against one another in a tent beneath one blanket, Cornelius sees the ring around his neck. He lifts it to the light of the guttering candle, turns it in his fingertips. He can feel the scant, damp warmth of Cornelius breath on his lips and it is very nearly a kiss.

“I meant it when I gave you this, you know.”

“What, exactly, did you mean by it?” He makes his voice as glacial as he can manage for the roar of his blood.

“Well, for one thing, I’m sure Sol’d be a terrible dancer.”

“It’s too late for this.” <I>Too late. If you kissed me now you’d taste copper in my teeth.</I>

Cornelius cocks his head, smiles softly, lifts his mouth to Billy’s. A single, chaste glide of the lips.

“Dance with me, Billy,” he says, standing up and extending his hand.”

Billy thinks for a very long time before he drops his gaze to his knees. “Don’t be stupid, Cornelius,” he says. “We haven’t room.”

“We’ll make the best of it.”

Billy stands, stooping so his mouth grazes Cornelius’ hair. He lets Cornelius lead, and is touched he remembers the steps. They waltz a few tight rings, Cornelius humming off-key. Then he kisses him again and leaves the tent.

(In the morning, there’s a new bruise on Tozer’s neck, a plummy, amorphous shadow in the shape of an open mouth.)

———

In the dream they cling together tightly, their bones interlocked like key’s teeth and lock tumblers, and he can’t tell if they are in flagrante or in a mortal struggle or just pressed together against the cold, or maybe they’re just dancing in a crowded room: yes, that’s what they’re doing. They’ve got their quartet at last, their curtains with braided cord. But from the far end of the room comes dark like seeping watercolor, a rolling streaky blackness, and when he wakes it is not darkness at all but pain, pain, pain. A crystalline pinching in his knees and elbows. He goes to see Goodsir.

Rather, he goes to see the man he understands to be Goodsir. This man in their camp is not the awkward, genial stammerer who gave him his physical; not he who enthused over crustaceans with carapaces no man had seen before: he recalls him once pulling him aside to show him, waving one over-sized claw angrily, a crab with a shell the speckled cream and red of some kind of yardbird. Showed <I>him,</I> Billy, because he was there and he was brimming with love for it, this new quick thing caught in a bucket. (Billy had given him a tight smile and walked on, Irving’s bedding wadded and wet from the wash on his hip.)

Now with a gaze immeasurably indifferent, and a queer trace of pleasure in his voice, Goodsir delineates to Billy the agonies of his imminent death. Billy doesn’t mind. He deserves it because he did not love the crab, perhaps, or because he did love and choose badly, or because—his brain is fevered, his thoughts like: he can think of nothing. He stares emptily past the good doctor. He has never been vain, exactly (though he was once—it feels a lifetime ago—possessed of a certain fastidiousness that might be mistaken for vanity) but now he wonders if he looks as wretched as he feels. Carved, hollow: once he saw an egret’s ribcage predators and the wind had picked clean. For a moment he mouths at something, but then Cornelius is there.

He thinks of nothing as he gazes down at him, his eyes the color of surf, except perhaps—how lovely you are, little and glittering. And, I wish I’d kept you. Easy to say, now that Irving’s gone, one hopes, to his gracious and beloved maker. His bones turned up like broken china beneath the shale. Billy wonders, not for the first time if it wasn’t, in part, an act of vengeance—did Hickey care enough for such a thing? Then: Hickey’s eyes swim as he peers up at him, like, like: it feels like—dizzy, he feels, as Hickey disappears, for just a moment; when he returns it is with a knife neat through his ribs—what was it he felt when he looked in his swimming eyes that last time? It was pain, it was love, it was pain.

[enkelimagnus]

Raised Jewish

Bucky Barnes Gen, 2709 words, rated M for Hydra shit

Jewish Bucky Barnes, pre TFATWS, post Endgame

Bucky's therapy session with Dr Raynor takes a turn for the worse when Raynor starts asking him about his identity.

TW: queer used as a slur, mention of Bucky's 1945 "death", Raynor being the worst therapist

Read on AO3

Part 5 of Making a Home - the Jewish Bucky series

--------------

Dr Raynor isn’t nice.

She’s not kind, or sweet. She doesn’t speak the way Sam does when he’s trying to figure out if Bucky’s okay. She’s harsher, more commanding. She seems more used to orders than to niceties, and so is he.

Yet, he can’t stand it.

He can’t stand her. He can’t stand the way she looks at him, with her notebook and her pencil clicking. He can’t stand her questions, and the fact she knows everything he’s talking about. She has access to all his files, the Hydra ones, the Army ones, everything. She knows everything about him.

Why is she asking all these questions? Why is she even pretending to give a fuck? She’s here for a paycheck, and he’s here because he has to be. He suffers through this shit because he doesn’t want to go back to prison.

He spent one month in the Raft after Stark’s funeral. They put him in custody the day after Steve left, and he was there until his trial. It was hell. Claustrophobic and silent and… he has to breathe in deeply whenever he thinks about the absolute despair of that month.

The whole prison smelled like seawater and cleaning products, there was a heavy, unmistakably nefarious bracelet around his left wrist, and the cell was too small. Way too small.

Bucky closes his eyes and inhales deeply, trying to chase the phantom of the Raft’s smell from his nostrils. He gets drying flowers and washed out perfume instead, coming from the vase on the table by Dr Raynor’s chair and from the woman herself. It’s not unpleasant, as far as smells go.

He’s stopped paying attention for a moment, and when his eyes refocus, she’s staring at him with that pinched look that says she’s expecting him to explain what he was thinking about, what pulled him from the session and made him lose focus. She hates when he’s not focused.

He sets his jaw and shifts his fingers in his gloves, hearing leather creak over his left knuckles, and stares right back at her, silent. He doesn’t like talking to her about the things in his head. He’s fought for them too long and too hard to give them to the first person he’s told to give them to.

She’s the closest to a handler he’s had since Colonel Helmut Zemo in Berlin. Or, as he introduced himself back then, Doctor Theo Broussard. What is it with Bucky and shrinks?

“I see our usual conversation isn’t enough to keep your attention, James,” she says. It feels like a reprimand. She says ‘James’ the way handlers said ‘Soldier’. Like it’s a threat.

He stays stubbornly silent. He’s always been the stubborn kind. Hard to get through, hard to break. Much stronger people than Dr Christina Raynor have attempted to break their way into his mind. They had to torture him to do so.

“Let’s change subjects then,” she nods, and pulls her notebook out. Bucky wants to scream. It’s not red, but it feels red.

“I think it’s time we dive deeper into your identity.”

Alarm bells go off in his mind and he freezes. Your identity . What is she referring to? What does she know? There are things that Bucky prays aren’t in the files. Things he never wants anyone to ever find out, especially her. Old instinctual fears of teenagehood suddenly rise and the leather creaks harder, the sound mixing with the wiring noises of the arm. It’s a quiet threat wrapped in a sound, like a wolf’s warning growl.

“Please remember to control yourself, James.”

She’s so very good at reminding him he’s only free because she wants him to be. The second he shows any sort of aggression, he’ll be put back in that tiny cell, with that bracelet and won’t see the sun for the rest of his overly long life. He knows it. He can feel it.

His obedience is part of the deal he made with the government. He has to comply with their demands. And that includes humoring Dr Raynor.

“What do you want to dive into?” He asks, letting his irritation obviously show. She can’t take that from him. He will comply, but fuck them if they believe he’ll do it without attitude.

If she starts asking about his relationships and Steve, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He can’t escape. He’s trapped in this room, with this woman, until she decides that their session is over. This is the price of his freedom.

He can’t tell her, or anyone, about Steve. He can’t do that to him, to his name, to his legacy. He just can’t stain him this way. It’s the kind of secret that has to die with him. Captain America can’t be a queer.

He forces himself to stay still, to not let nervous motions betray his emotional state, and he just waits to see what Dr Raynor knows. The other shoe will drop. He’s just trying to prepare for it.

She drums her pencil against the side of the horrible notebook and exhales through her nose, obviously irritated by his attitude. He just stares back at her.

“I’ve read your files, James,” Dr Raynor starts, the way she does so often. “And you’ve mentioned the word shul some time ago. I’m guessing you did not use it to mean school. You don’t have German ancestry.”

Bucky relaxes a little at that. Alright, it’s not about Steve. He silently thanks anyone who might be listening.

“My mother spoke a little German,” he replies conversationally. From what he remembers, it was only bits and pieces, picked up from growing up in a large city. It was probably mostly Yiddish.

“You were raised Jewish.”

Bucky can’t help the full body shift at that. He bristles. It feels like an attack, like an accusation. It feels ugly and menacing coming from that woman who knows too much. It feels disgusting in her mouth.

What does she want him to answer to that? What does she want from him?

He knows he’s not much of a Jew anymore. He knows what he’s done is too much, too ugly, too against everything he was ever taught. He was taught to save lives even if it breaks religious rules, to take care of people, to be kind and helpful and make sure to do good in the world and all he’ll ever be remembered for is ugly disgusting acts of horror.

He knows all of what he was raised to be is gone. He’s pretty sure it was gone the instant his hand slid on the train railing and he felt himself pulled down by gravity.

That moment where he saw the horror and anguish written all over Steve’s beautiful face. That moment where he knew he’d never see his mother again. His sisters. That moment he screamed in fear but tried to drink in Steve’s face for the last time. As if it could make it less terrifying and painful and lonely.

There was too much time during the fall. Too much time for him to think and feel. I’m going to die alone. He’d wanted to die old with his loved ones or the Chevra Kadisha with him. No one’s supposed to die alone.

The pain had been blinding. Some nights, he can hear his own wails again. Life and death have that in common. The screams.

“James.” Dr Raynor’s voice snaps him back to the present and she still looks pissed at him.

Bucky exhales and his breath is shaky. Panic curls into his bones. He can feel something inside of him tremble and he looks at the window. He could jump through it. Escape it that way. There are no bars on the window, it’s just glass, and it’s only two levels high. It’s doable, easy even. It won’t hurt that badly. He inhales, deep. Ayo taught him that one. Breathing. Focus on your body rather than on the storm in your mind, White Wolf.  

He focuses on his body, but mostly on Ayo. The memory of her is strong and firm in his mind, in the same way she talks and walks. Ayo’s eyes always have weight. The kind of weight - smothering or comforting - depend on how he behaves. He’s trying to be good. He’s trying to be good for Wakanda, for Ayo, and for Princess Shuri and for King T’Challa.

Dr Raynor should be the one helping him, not the memory of Ayo.

He calms down, eventually, and sighs deeply, closing his eyes for a second. There’s a clock ticking loudly. It’s a wonderful sort of noise for him in this moment. It’s rhythmic and predictable.

“I was,” Bucky replies to Raynor’s earlier comment. He was raised Jewish.

In all truth, he was born Jewish more than he was raised Jewish. At least that’s what his father would say. That he was born into a legacy, born into a community. Born to sing songs in age-old tongues. Born with knowledge and strength in his soul.

He hasn’t thought about those words in years.

“You don’t talk about it.”

Why would he? There’s nothing to say. Words and experiences that he’s half-forgotten over the time, that he doesn’t have anyone to share with anymore. Community and family were such important parts of every ritual, and now he’s alone. Completely and utterly alone.

“There’s nothing to say,” he says out loud.

Raynor crosses her legs and leans back in her seat, watching him. “I would expect there’s a lot. You worked for an organisation that was born from Hitler’s government. You spent seventy years furthering nazi ideology and agenda.”

Bucky wants to scream. It’s salt in an open wound. It’s violent. He closes his eyes and tries to keep his cool. He can’t lose it here. He has work to do still, amends to make still, in the free world, and he is so desperate to stay out of prison.

“I know,” he replies. His voice is so tight it might break any second.

He knows. He’s very intimately aware of what he did, what it meant, who he was for seventy godforsaken years. He’s aware that it means he can’t possibly claim that part of his life back. He can’t be a Jew anymore. Not after being a Nazi agent for so long.

Even if he wasn’t actually one, even if he had no choice. He killed people and said ‘Hail Hydra’ and made the world a worse place every day of his existence. His actions are why fascism has such a prominent place in today’s political landscape. He’s responsible for it, for putting people in power, for killing good people. It’s on him. It isn’t his fault. It’s still on him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he tells Dr Raynor, and now his voice is quiet. “Not to you. Not to anyone. Ever.”

How can this part of his life possibly be of interest to the government? Do they think his jewish upbringing means he’s less likely to go back to Hydra and their neo-nazi friends? Do they see him reclaiming that part of his identity one more reason to keep him free? Is it a ploy? Is this going to be used against him, again? Can’t he have one thing in his life that isn’t used by someone else for their gain?

“It could be a way for you to form connections.” As if she gives a flying fuck if he has friends and family. As long as he doesn’t start killing people, comes to his appointments and does whatever the government tells him like a good fucking dog, he can pretty much go fuck himself.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever felt this angry with her before.

How dare she touch this part of his life? How dare she prod him about it, let him know she knows? How dare she take that one thing that no one has been able to touch before?

Even Hydra didn’t know.

They never asked, his dog tags had P on them, and there are a lot of other Americans that were circumcised. They didn’t know.

But she does. The US government does. And he can’t have it be his secret anymore.

“Stop,” he asks, louder than he expected. “Stop, I said no.”

As if that has ever stopped anyone. As if those words have ever brought him anything but renewed suffering.

He doesn’t see her anymore. His eyes are open but he can’t see anything, and he’s panicking and he wants to run so far away. He wants to leave Brooklyn, and leave the US, and disappear and never come back. Fuck his pardon, fuck Sam, fuck everything and everyone, and he can go back to living in Romania and having no name and no handlers and no one.

He stands up suddenly and she flinches. She’s scared of him. Of course she is.

“The session’s not over,” Raynor tells him quietly, calmly, despite her earlier flinch. “Sit back down.”

“No,” he bites back.

He’s trapped, and he can’t actually leave because they’ll put him in prison for it, and he can’t do anything but stand there and shake with barely controlled emotion and try to wait it out. But he doesn’t have to take her orders, and he doesn’t have to be happy about it, all he has to do is be here and answer with more than a grunt.

He can say no. She can’t make him sit down. She’s not strong enough. Physically, anyway.

It takes on average three expertly-trained soldiers to take him down, and that’s when he’s half-starved and in pain. He’s been eating well, he’s clear of any sedative, and he’s not in physical pain. There is no way she can take him down, unless she has a gun. But in this room, if she makes a move for a gun; he’ll snap her wrist before she manages to touch it. She can’t do shit.

“Alright then,” she nods.

He narrows his eyes. She should be mad at him.

She looks down at her notebook and back at him. He stares at her, glares at her, trying to convey that if she starts writing in that fucking book, shit is going to happen. So she doesn’t.

“Why is this upsetting to you?” She asks him, back to her bullshit questions, and it makes Bucky want to punch something, anything. But he can’t.

Everything he has is devoted to controlling himself. His gloves creak again, with the exertion of containing his fists. The prosthetic is loud in the silence, threatening. At least it’s loud to him.

“I said no.”

“So it’s all off limits?”

He nods. “Yes.”

Boundaries, that’s what they’re called. And that part of his identity is behind the line. He thought he was ready to talk about everything that’s in the files, but he was wrong. Not that. Never that.

Dr Raynor sighs heavily, looking away from him. He can tell she’s only pretending, trying to make him feel a little more at ease.

“I need to know about these things, James.”

He huffs. “I’m doing the work you want me to do. I have a quiet life.”

“You’ve told me about the shul already,” Dr Raynor points out.

“Yeah. I did.” And it was a mistake.

He just wants to be left alone. He wants to do his job and be left alone. And she doesn’t get that. She scoffs when he tells her he wants peace and serenity, she needles him about the things he’s not ready to say. He’s pretty sure she’s not a good therapist, and he literally doesn’t have any other experience.

Dr Raynor sighs heavily again, parading her irritation out to him. He doesn’t move.

“Well. We won’t get anywhere today. You’ve won. The session’s over, you can go home.”

You’ve won. He tastes something sour.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and nods at her. There’s no use in dignifying her with much of anything. He mumbles ‘goodbye’ because he was raised right by his ma and calls it a fucking day.

He’s pretty sure he finishes his pack of cigarettes by the time he gets home.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Hit Or Miss || Morgan & Bex

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @inbextween & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan tries to get to know Bex over a game of Battleship. Explosions may or may not ensue.

CONTAINS: brief references to transphobia

There were a few things that death couldn’t take away from Morgan: love, the view of a January day, and board games. She had never been much of a fan as a kid, they were bulky, hard to pack in a hurry, and as soon as you lost a couple pieces, all that mess became worthless. But at Karen’s house a lifetime ago, the novelty special editions of Monopoly and Life and the varnished wood sets of checkers and parcheesi had seemed like treasures from another world; one where the ground was steady beneath your feet and it never occurred to you that the nice things you loved would fall apart. Today, she ran her fingers over a battered edition of Battleship: Classic (was there a Battleship: passé somewhere?) and brought it down to the table by the window she was bogarting at Board to Death, grinning affectionately at the scuffed pegs and stained ships hiding under the lid. It was the only coffee shop in town that anything to offer besides food she couldn’t taste. Her triple espresso had a soothing bitter taste, but all the icing in the world on the danishes or dipped vegan scones couldn’t bring back her old sense of taste.

She sipped the just-below-boiling mixture and watched the living world shuffle by in their puffy coats and bright scarves. When she saw a nervous looking girl approach the window she smiled, nodding in case it was her. When she entered the cafe, Morgan held out her hand. “Hey, you’re Bex, right?”

The strangest part about being back in White Crest was that it felt so nice. There was something about this place that felt enough like home that Bex almost didn’t altogether mind her overbearing parents controlling her every move. Almost. They’d delighted in the fact that she was being scouted by a professor already, and she’d opted to not mention the part where said professor was gay and also recommended by someone who thought they were a witch. For some reason, Bex trusted Nell’s judgement, and Professor Beck seemed really nice. And, well, Bex couldn’t help but leap at the idea of meeting a real life queer person. Especially a woman. Who was out! And open! Even if she couldn’t really ask her about it today. The concept was novel. And so Bex really wanted this meeting to be good.

Therefore, she kept an excited demeanor about herself as she made her way to Board to Death, trying to push the anxiety away. Put on a smile when she opened the door, and glanced around for Professor Beck, seeing her through the window. She scooted herself over, taking her hand. “Hey! Hi, yes! That’s me! I’m Bex! That makes you Professor Beck, then! Unless you’re not, which would make this very awkward,” she chuckled, then stopped, clearing her throat. “S-sorry. Um, hi, thanks for meeting with me!” Glanced down to look at her refreshments on the table, then back up. “I never really knew Board to Death had food! I’ve only been here a few times. Do you come here a lot?”

“I am Professor Beck, yes, but you can just call me Morgan. Pretty much everyone does.” Morgan took another sip of her espresso and gestured for the girl to sit. It wasn’t every day she could tell someone she’d spoken with online just from their demeanor, but Bex was nearly vibrating out of her skin with anxiety. It was an excited kind of anxious, like her face might hurt from smiling so much, but it still gave Morgan some pause. This was a girl who had wrecked a whole computer lab with just the force of her emotions. Even if she couldn’t accept magic yet, some kind emotional release would probably be good for her. “I don’t come here much, no. Coffee tastes pretty much the same to me anywhere, and at least here it comes with something fun to do. You’ve played Battleship before, right? It’s only one of a couple of two player games I’m familiar with that doesn’t make you think too much.” Grinning at her, Morgan lifted the top from the game and started assembling her board.

“Oh, um--” Bex started, feeling that anxiousness already bubbling in her throat again, “-- I’ll try, but no promises. My parents sort of drilled it into me that it’s ‘Mister’ and ‘Misses’, or ‘Doctor’ and ‘Professor’ only!” Her face scrunched, as if she were trying to be angry and she lifted a finger to waggle. A poor imitation of her father. “You are a child, Odelia, and you will address your elders properly!” Not realizing she’d let slip her real name, she looked back across the table at Professor Be-- er, Morgan. “Oh, yeah, I’m much more of a tea person, myself. Coffee makes me jittery and anxious and I think I’m plenty of that all on my own, you know?” She watched as Morgan began assembling the game, not saying too much. Her father had made her play old strategy games like Risk and Chess for hours on end as a child, but Battleship had never seemed to reach their table. “Um, once, at school. You just kinda guess coordinates, right?”

Morgan couldn’t hide the arch in her brow as Bex gave a different name as she impersonated her parents. Did they not address her the way she asked to be? Did she keep the name she gave out to acquaintances as a secret? Still, she snorted kindly and finished setting up her board. “It’s good that you know yourself at least. I’m not sure if the world is ready for a caffeinated Bex just yet.” She finished setting up her board and started on her ships, keeping them mostly spread out from each other. “And yeah, it’s just a fun guessing game! If you know your opponent well, you can try and guess their methodology, but it’s, you know--” She held up the box lid, “Ages 6 and up.” With everything set aside on her end, she could lean back and relax. “So, I do hope you’ll take one of my seminars. My syllabus is way more fun than the other professors’, not to knock my colleagues, because they’re amazing, but I hand out movies and, occasionally, video games too. We look at what speculative and fantastical stories tell us about humanity, how we see ourselves and each other and why changes in those perceptions matter. And, you know, with all the writing homework, you’ll probably get a leg up on your fellow pre-law students. Anyone can have an idea or a feeling, but it takes work to give voice to it. But, that’s my one and only pitch. I’d much rather get to know you. Sometimes strangers can be easier to open up to than others.”

“Oh, it’s definitely not,” Bex agreed with a chuckle. She watched Morgan set up her side-- without peeking, of course!-- before working to set her own side up. She didn’t entirely know the best strategy for Battleship, but she decided she wanted to go for an out there one, sticking all of her ships right in a square in the middle of the map. “Well, I’m definitely six and up, so, I think we’re all good. Who goes first?” She looked across the table to Morgan as she continued to fuss with her pieces, wondering which formation was better, listening to her description of her course. “It sounds like a great class,” she said when the older woman was done speaking, but there was something vibrating inside of her. Something about the description, something about how free and open the course sounded, made her realize something else was going on here. Bex might have been closed off and insecure, but she was observant as well. It was one of the qualities that made her an actual decent law student. Her gaze dropped to her board and she pulled her hands away. “I’m ready to start, then,” she said, lifting her eyes just enough to gaze over the top of the board, the double meaning of her sentence not lost on either of them.

Morgan watched Bex thoughtfully, from the tightness in her shoulders to the shrill chirp of her voice. She was trying, eagerly, desperately, but for what? Morgan wanted to tell her to relax, there were no quizzes or grades handed out at the end of this meet-up. But having been that anxious herself more than once, she knew drawing attention directly didn’t always have the desired effect. “A-10?” She called. “Why don’t you tell me about why you like it here? I thought I saw you mention something about ‘coming back’ on main and I gotta say, I haven’t heard of too many people returning after they’d left. Well, not often by choice anyway.”

“Miss,” Bex said quietly, sticking a peg into A-10. “E-6?” she tried, waiting for the response. She chewed on her lip at the question, thinking a moment. It wasn’t that she really liked it here, but White Crest was home and she knew she had a place here. And even if she hadn’t gone to school here, or grown up with the other kids, or become a regular at all the diners-- she still felt like she fit in here. More so than at Penn State, where the kids looked at her with those eyes, and whispered behind their hands, and posted her private life online. “It just...feels like home, I guess. I went to private school as a kid, so it’s not like I really have any sort of connection to the town, but I just feel right here,” she explained softly, neither smiling nor frowning. She stuck a peg into the missed slot. “I came back because I had to.” Where she really wanted to be was far away from the East coast, maybe in Oregon or Washington or California. Somewhere she could start over brand new and be whoever she wanted to be. She cleared her throat. “How um-- how long have you been in White Crest?”

“Miss,” Morgan called. She let a round pass unremarked, taking in as much as she could. She was just bundled up so tight, it was no wonder she’d exploded in front of Nell. That much repression might do the same even to someone without magic. “Private school, huh? Like boarding school? I didn’t realize those were still a thing in this country.” She made another call, D-6, and took another sip of espresso. “I’ve been here for a year now. I’m starting to see how somebody could feel like they belonged here, even with all the terribleness. It’s not an easy fit, but I don’t think I could leave on a dime, not by myself anyway. But what--is it okay if I ask what made you have to come back? Or if not, maybe tell me about someplace else you dream of being. Those are good ideas to hold onto. The future, I mean.”

“Yep,” Bex said dismissively, “I went to a private boarding school. And they definitely still exist here.” And they suck, she wanted to add, but held her tongue. Uniforms and strict schedules and forced rules. Secrets and hush money and skirting around the fact that Bex was not born a girl. “My parents paid good money for it, it was a Jewish Orthodox school, a really good one, too,” she went on, swallowing down the hard feelings. They didn’t matter anymore. “The town certainly has a charm to it, doesn’t it?” She stuck a peg right between two of her ships as a miss. “Miss. Um...H-7?” She looked up again, contemplating which question she wanted to answer. They both would give away too much, and she was bad at lying. “There was an incident at my old school,” she finally said, the waver in her voice coming through, “my parents thought it best I come back home.”

“It’s okay, Bex,” Morgan said softly. “I want to know you, but you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t really want to. But I am sorry about whatever happened to you over there. It doesn’t seem like something easy.” She tilted her head, trying to meet the girl’s eyes. There was something there, something awful. Bullies, maybe? Did kids chase Bex and lock her in storage cabinets and call her names like they had Morgan? Or was there some kind of accident with her magic? “What do you want, Bex? However important your parents are to your life, however close you might be, your life is still yours. Your future should look like what you hope for. Why don’t you tell me more about that, huh? Or how the law firm fits into that idea.” Another sip of espresso. “Miss, by the way.” She scanned her grid and made a guess toward the middle. “F-6?”

Bexley swallowed hard, trying to make the worble that was building in her throat go away. “It’s okay, it’s kind of public information, anyway,” she stated matter of factly, moving away from the topic enough to not feel too overwhelmed, and thankful for Morgan’s offer. But the next question felt even harder, and Bex could feel the anxiety building in her stomach again. Her hand shook as she went to plug in the peg next to her ship, one hole away and she had to grip it with her other to make it stop. “I want to make my parents proud,” she stated, as if reading from a script, “I’m the sole heir to our business and fortune. That’s all there is to it. M-my future. That’s all I want. To be the perfect daughter for them.” And stop messing up. Since she couldn’t be their son. Since she couldn’t be the best. “Miss,” she said and her voice cracked. “F-5?”

“Miss,” Morgan replied. “And you don’t have to be perfect. No one is perfect. Perfect in terms of being flawless and incapable of improvement isn’t even a real thing. And your parents--” Morgan frowned. She had a lot of fairy tales about what parents should be like, but the more people she met, the more she wondered where she had cooked that one up. “The best way to love someone is to enable them to be the most themselves. The best, freest version of themself. And asking yourself those questions is the best way to find yourself loved better. I don’t know what your situation is, Bex, but you shouldn’t live to be an object in someone else’s story. You’re more than that. What is it that really excites you? What do you hope for?” Morgan waited, peering at this small glimpse of Bex’s pain with growing concern. Then, suddenly remembering that she had yet to call a move, she distractedly mumbled something a few spaces out from her last one. “E-5?”

Bex didn’t like this anymore. Morgan was saying things she already knew, but she also already knew that they were things she couldn’t have, so what was the point in thinking about them? In talking about them? She didn’t even bother putting a peg in this time. This was supposed to be a fun, easy meeting, not a deep dive into her extremely painful situation. “Please stop,” was all she said, hands folded tightly into her lap, “just...please?” Fingers began to pick at nail beds, still red and raw from every other time she’d done it. “All I hope for right now is to make it through each day without messing up or embarrassing someone,” she admitted quietly, but her voice was stern, an anger stewing inside of her that she rarely let to the surface, “And I just hope that I can make it through the week without some shit happening. And I hope that one day I’ll be able to look back on all this and put it behind me, but that’s not feasible right now so I really need to just not think about it and keep trying my best for my parents because they’re all I have.” And she owed them everything. Shakily, she lifted the peg and placed it on one of her ships. “Hit.” A loud whistle behind the cafe counter signaled steaming water and Bex startled. She let out a long sigh. “A-2.”

“I’m sorry,” Morgan said quickly. “I don’t mean to-- I am being sincere in what I am saying and whatever me or my life looks like to you or anyone else peeking on main apparently, it’s-- I do know what it’s like to feel like your life isn’t yours and what you want doesn’t matter and keeping your head down and being small and left alone is the best you’re gonna get. I am deeply, intimately familiar with that feeling. I can only imagine what kind of suffering you’ve been through, but you were meant for more than that, and I’m sorry. I’ll stop, okay? Do you--” Morgan stopped as another kettle trilled, glowing with sudden heat. She made a note of the hit, but didn’t put the red peg on the board. Flustered and desperate to recover the afternoon, she pawed her pockets for her phone. “I have cats. Three of them. Do you want to see pictures of the cats? Or ask me something? This isn’t an interview. If there’s something you want to know you can--” The phone clattered onto the table. Deirdre and Anya’s faces bloomed on the lock screen. “You can do whatever you want, Bex, you don’t even have to stay.”

Everything Morgan was saying just made Bex tense up more and more. Kettle’s started shouting, left and right, even the baristas were beginning to panic, running around and removing them, but finding them still screaming, louder and louder, despite the lack of heat. A crack formed in the window next to Bex as she screwed her eyes shut and clenched her entire body. She didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her or tell her how much they understood or tell her how sad it was-- she wanted to pretend like how she was living was okay and fine and that one day she’d make it through and suddenly everything would feel okay. And just be okay. She unclenched and the whistles seemed to die down. Looked at the phone that had fallen to the table and saw the happy woman on it, smiling and beautiful. And the cat, so peaceful looking. Tears welled in her eyes. “I have to go,” she said suddenly, standing up. The chair scooted back and toppled over. People turned around to look at them. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat and the mug on the table shattered. “I’m sorry! I have to--” took a step back and all the teapots wailed again. Bex looked around frantically. “It-- It was nice to meet you, Professor Beck, but I--” she didn’t get to finish her sentence as one of the pistons on the espresso machine shot off and shattered a nearby tower of cups. Bex turned and ran before anyone had a chance to ask her anything.

“Bex, wait! You need to--!” Whatever half-assed plea Morgan was working on fizzled out under the crash of falling furniture and screaming machinery. Someone’s baby started wailing, the window buckled like it had been gut-punched, and the steam whirred louder. Morgan grabbed her coat and bag and phone. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen to downtown with Bex like this, if she could talk her down or if following would only make things worse. Shit, probably worse, right? But by the time she stumbled out the door, the girl was long gone and all Morgan had left were more questions. At least she would be able to tell Nell one thing for certain: Bexley was not okay, and under her nerves lay a sadness too deep for her to contain, especially in White Crest.

[gendercensus]

Gender Census 2018 - The Full Report (UK)

This report is long! You can read a summary of the three regular questions here.

~

In 2018 I spaced out work on the survey into several smaller blog posts throughout the year, in the hope that it would be less exhausting, and I think it has worked! In this article I will combine all the UK data into one report, and compare it with the worldwide data.

The survey took place between 1st February and 25th March 2018, and there were 11,278 respondents, of which 1,535 said they were living in the UK (compared to 1,357 UK participants last year).

The spreadsheets are split this year. Links: questions one, two, three, four, and the original spreadsheet of all responses.

~

Q1: THE SPELLING OF NON-BINARY

The first question in the survey was: How do you think this word should be spelled? The options were:

nonbinary

non-binary

non binary

I don’t know/I don’t care

Other [text box]

The first three options, bolded, were randomised. I asked this question first because there was also a question about how people identify, and I had to choose a spelling for the checkbox option for nonbinary, and I didn’t want my choice for the survey to sway the results of this question. I also avoided using the word nonbinary in all promotional materials.

You can see and download the Google Sheet of the results here and you can see a more in-depth report here.

So what we can see is that people who identified as nonbinary were consistently more likely to prefer no hyphen than those who didn’t identify as nonbinary.

But we also see that UK participants overall spelled it with a hyphen, whereas worldwide participants (mostly USA, I’d guess) preferred no hyphen. That makes sense, because the British English conventions tend towards including hyphens.

Since the international preference is for no hyphen, and it’s an international survey, I’ll be spelling it nonbinary in future surveys.

~

Q2. IDENTITY WORDS

I asked, Which of the following best describe(s) in English how you think of yourself?

There were 23 checkbox options, and participants could check as many boxes as they wanted. You can see the spreadsheet of all 11,000+ responses for this question, as well as the graphs in more detail, here on Google Sheets and you can see the report about identity words only here.

The top five identity words in the UK were:

nonbinary - 57% (down 7.6%)

trans - 34% (up 1.7%)

transgender - 28% (up 1.8%)

genderqueer - 28% (down 5.5%)

agender - 23% (down 4.8%)

Nonbinary and genderqueer have dipped significantly this year, which I think is at least in part due to my efforts to make the promotional materials more inclusive and less biased. I didn’t use those words in promotional blog posts or as tags or in the introductory text on the survey itself, and I changed the title of the survey from Nonbinary/Genderqueer Survey to Gender Census.

Here’s everything that got over 1% worldwide, comparing the UK results to the worldwide results:

You can see a larger version of this chart by clicking through to the Google Sheet linked above.

All the top ten words were chosen less often in the UK, but we in the UK are apparently more comfortable with the words transgender, woman, and transfeminine - and we’re also more likely to not describe our genders at all.

I think the reason for this striking difference is that UK participants used fewer words to describe themselves on average - worldwide participants most often used 3 words, whereas UK participants used only 1.

In all there were 379 unique write-ins, of which two were words that were entered by over 1% of UK participants, which means next year the following words will be added to the survey’s checkbox options:

queer - 2.9% (2.8% UK)

genderless - 1.1% (0.8% UK)

demiboy - 1.1% (1.2% UK)

demigirl - 1.1% (0.9% UK)

gender non-conforming - 1.1% (0.3% UK)

People seem to want to specify demiboy or demigirl even when demigender is an option, so I think it might be wise to remove demigender from the list and see what happens. It might be that over 1% of participants will write in demigender, in which case I will re-add it to the checkbox list.

Gender non-conforming was a tricky one to count. I had sorted the list of write-ins alphabetically and I noticed that it was being entered many times but being spelled in a lot of different ways, and therefore wasn’t being counted properly. When I searched the worldwide list for “conform” I found 23 unique spellings, 15 of which had been entered only once. When they were combined there were 122 participants entering some variation, with “gender non-conforming” being the most popular, so I will be adding that to the next survey.

Fun UK facts:

73% of write-ins were entered only once, and 109 words were written in more than once.

38% of participants used the write-in box.

When the write-in boxes were used, on average people wrote in 1.6 new terms each (high compared to the 1.4 average worldwide).

14 people, or 0.9%, used all five boxes.

The mean number of identity words (including the checkboxes) was 3.8 each, and the most common number of identity words chosen/written was 1.

92% of UK participants chose 1-7 words.

~

Q3. THE TITLE QUESTION

I asked, Supposing all title fields on forms were optional and write-your-own, what would you want yours to be in English? I also clarified that participants should be currently entitled to use it, so they should have a doctorate if they choose Dr, etc.

There were 5 specific titles to choose from, plus a few options like “I choose on the day” and “a non-gendered professional or academic title”. Participants could choose only one, with the goal of finding out what, when pressed, people enter on official records forms and ID. You can see the spreadsheet of all 11,000+ responses for this question, as well as the graphs in more detail, here on Google Sheets.

The top 5 were:

Mx - 38.6% (up 1%)

No title at all - 27.4% (up 0.2%)

Mr - 8.1% (up 2.3%)

Ms - 7.8% (up 4.7%)

Miss - 5.5% (up 1.3%)

As is fairly consistent with previous years, we’re more likely to favour Mx and less likely to favour no title at all compared to worldwide participants generally. Anecdotally speaking I do hear that British systems and organisations are more insistent on titles than for example American ones, so perhaps we’ve collectively found that picking a neutral title will be less hassle for us than fighting for a titleless existence.

Of the 23 people (1.5%) who said that in an ideal world they prefer a gender-exclusive title, only 3 used the text box provided. The text box asked people to specify what that gender-exclusive title would be, and only one person gave a specific title: Pr.

So I’d say that we do not currently have a gender-exclusive nonbinary title yet in the UK, and the picture is very similar worldwide.

(By “gender-exclusive nonbinary title”, I mean a title that denotes a nonbinary gender, as generally speaking Ms denotes a female gender and Mr denotes a male gender.)

~

Q4. PRONOUNS

The fourth question was actually a complex set of questions, which started with Supposing all pronouns were accepted by everyone without question and were easy to learn, which pronouns are you happy for people to use for you? This was accompanied by a list of pre-written checkbox options. It included “a pronoun set not listed here”. and if you chose that it took you to a separate set of questions that let you enter up to five pronoun sets in detail.

You can see the spreadsheet of results for just the pronouns question here, and a more detailed report here.

Everything that was a pre-written checkbox option got over 1%.

Here’s the top 5 for the UK:

Singular they - they/them/their/theirs/themself - 73.6% (down 4.9%)

She - she/her/her/hers/herself - 31.7% (up 3.8%)

He - he/him/his/his/himself - 26.9% (down 2.9%)

Mix it up - 11.3% (down 0.6%)

None/avoid pronouns - 9.9% (down 0.4%)

It’s the same five as last year, but in a slightly different order - he/him and she/her have swapped places. Here’s the sets that were chosen by UK participants over 1% of the time:

As with identity words, we in the UK were more likely to use fewer pronouns each:

Neopronouns

Even when you only count the first form of each neopronoun set (xe, or ae, or ne), the most any neopronoun set got was 0.5%.

Here’s the top 5:

ze (singular verbs) - 0.52%

they (plural verbs) - 0.39%

ve (singular verbs) - 0.39%

ey (singular verbs) - 0.33%

ae (singular verbs) - 0.20%

In the end, the most popular neopronoun sets were in the checklist options, which makes sense - being able to check a box is much easier than having to enter five forms for each neopronoun set that you’re happy for people to use for you, as is remembering sets that you’re happy for people to use when talking about you. The popular neopronouns from the checklist options were:

Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself - 7.9% (122 people)

Ze - ze/hir/hir/hirs/hirself - 5.7%

Spivak - e/em/eir/eirs/emself - 4.5%

Fae - fae/faer/faer/faers/faeself - 3.2%

In the UK we were slightly less likely to use neopronouns than participants worldwide.

I am extremely happy with the improvements to this question. It’s great to get more complete information about neopronoun sets, and to be able to say with certainty exactly how each neopronoun set is most commonly composed. Next year I would like to expand this question to collect data about how people tend to gender their neopronoun sets, as I did a few months back when I ran the pronoun-specific survey that helped inform this question.

If you’re not super familiar with neopronouns, you can see the more popular ones from the worldwide results in use here.

Here’s some fun statistics:

25 unique pronouns were typed into the “other” box more than once.

50 pronouns were typed into the “other” box only once. This is much higher than last year because we’re collecting more accurate information about variants now.

Including the checkbox options that’s 71 pronoun sets in total.

People chose on average 1.6 acceptable pronouns each, lower than the worldwide average of 2.

Most people (45%) chose only one pronoun, slightly less than last year.

About 76% of people were happy with only one or two pronouns - higher than last year’s 72%.

~

THE QUESTIONS I ASK

What should the third gender option on forms be called? - Still no consensus in that area. Nonbinary is consistently most popular, is at 57% this year, and is still twice as popular as the next specific word (genderqueer), so it’s promising. But there’s still almost half of UK respondents not identifying as nonbinary, so I don’t feel comfortable jumping to that conclusion just yet.

Is there a standard neutral title yet? - Not yet. Mx is still consistently far more popular than all other titles, but almost as many UK-based nonbinary people want no title at all. It’s really important that activists campaigning for greater acceptance of gender diversity remember to fight for titles to be optional, too.

Is there a pronoun that every nonbinary person is happy with? - No. The closest we have to a standard is singular they, and it’s important for journalists and anyone else with a style guide to allow it. But around a quarter of us are not happy with singular they, and 10.6% of us don’t like he, she or they pronouns.

Are any of the neopronouns gaining ground in a way that competes with singular they? - No. This year the closest is “Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself” (7.9% compared to singular they’s 73.6%). Users of these neopronouns will probably not reach consensus for many years - language and especially pronouns can be very slow to settle and gain ground. Even if one neopronoun does become very commonly used, many will continue to use other neopronouns for a long time to come.

~

THIS YEAR IN REVIEW

The survey hasn’t changed much, but the way I approach working on it has.

Being disabled and moving house meant my energy levels were pretty unreliable. I took a bit-by-bit approach, processing the results for one question at a time and then writing up a report, before compiling everything into one large report. That’s why each question has its own Google Sheet! (Questions one, two, three, four, and the original spreadsheet of responses.)

And the number of people involved in the survey has increased such that I’ve needed to start paying for more stuff.

I crowdfunded for the survey fees again, but I included fees for the domain name and the email server so I can use proper mailing list, because Gmail wouldn’t let me email everyone about the results last year. There are just too many of you.

What I’ll do differently next year

I will make the wording in the promotional materials more inclusive. This year I made an image for the tweets and blog posts that had the words “male” and “female” on and there was some confusion over whether I meant gender or sex. (I meant both.) Next year I will refrain from using these words, and possibly use a non-text way to convey what I mean, so that potential participants aren’t put off by language that they feel excludes them.

I’m actually pretty happy with how I handled most of it. I think the software is probably the best I’m going to find, the site and domain and mailing list set-up is a big improvement, the wording of the questions and the answer responses seem to be working.

I think if I ask a one-off question in 2019 it’ll be family words, such as neutral words for aunt/uncle, nephew/niece, etc.

Closing thoughts

I continue to be a little overwhelmed when the responses start rolling in at hundreds per hour. I love mashing the numbers about and getting something informative and interesting out of them, and I really hope other people enjoy reading the results! You’re all fab for trusting me with your answers too. Thank you.

See also

A list of links to all results, including UK and worldwide, and including previous years

The mailing list for being notified of next year’s survey

~

SUPPORT ME!

I do this basically for free (the crowdfunded money went entirely on survey software and domain fees), so if you happened to stumble onto my Amazon wishlist and accidentally fall on an Add To Cart button… well, I would be immensely grateful. ;) If you wanted to go and check out Starfriends.org too I reckon Andréa would be pretty chuffed!

[swainlake]

Hello! So now that got has ended I'm looking for some tv shows that I could watch after I'm done with my exams. Do you have any suggestions? I'm not looking for anything specific, although if you have watched some good period dramas, I'd love some recommendations. Also wanted to add how much I love your blog, it's really beautiful

tysm that’s so sweet!! i love giving recs so i’ve got a bunch that you might like under the cut; i’ve put a ♡ next to my favs

period dramas:

NEW WORLDS (2014)this one is a mini series, only 4 episodes long, but please don’t let that stop you! it’s about anti-monarchism and rebellion and forbidden love in the 1600′s & is set in both england and america. i cried more than once but the ending is so bittersweet and hopeful!! 

POLDARK (2015—)i have a love/hate relationship with this one tbh. i started watching because of the main relationship but i ended up really into it for the side relationships instead?? the actual political plot doesn’t interest me but i love the drama between the family members. also i adore the women in this show, every single female character is well-written and realistic and you’ll love them all (even if at times you hate them). the men tho? the men are pretty much collectively the worst. “what’s wrong with the women in this family?” “the men.”

SPARTACUS (2010—2013) ♡i started watching this before i ever got into game of thrones but if you like the fight scenes in got, you’ll enjoy this! great characters, great fight scenes, great friendships. this one is based on gladiators who are fighting for their freedom.

THE WHITE PRINCESS (2017) ♡okay firstly and most importantly: jodie comer stars in this so you know it’s good. it’s also got michelle fairly (catelyn stark) in it though tbh she wasn’t my favourite character in this and i didn’t find her likeable at all. it’s not very historically accurate ofc but the relationship between henry/elizabeth is honestly the perfect enemies to lovers rep & always lowkey reminds me of book!sansa/jon possibilities

PAN AM (2011—2012)this one isn’t like game of thrones at all but it’s only one season and it’s super cute and has a lot of famous actresses in it like christina ricci & margot robbie. based on the adventures of a crew of pan am stewardesses, this is a good combination of lighthearted fun and chilling cold-war drama. an old favourite. 

THE MUSKETEERS (2014—2016) ♡i’ll be gushing over this for years to come tbh it’s really just that perfect. the relationship between the musketeers is so lovely, the personification of ‘brotherhood’ really, but also the romantic relationships are really good too?? which for some reason i personally hadn’t expected. my fav couple is aramis/anne (anne is played by the actress who played roslin frey!) because the forbidden love & the respect and adoration between those two is just perfect but really every relationship (even the ones that don’t become endgame) are written very well

OUTLANDER (2014—)i haven’t watched every single episode of this one but from what i have seen it’s very good, and has some similar themes to game of thrones!! the sex scenes are epic, the main relationship is lovely, and overall its a very realistic show that features supernatural elements!

THE LAST KINGDOM (2015—) ♡i’m not going to lie: i started this series by skipping straight to 2x7 because i’d seen gifs of the relationship between aethelflaed and erik but it was so good i ended up going back and starting from the beginning! this show reminds me of ‘vikings’ more tham game of thrones but it’s not as gory and the characters aren’t all assholes. side note: if you love sansa stark as much as i do you’re gonna love aethelflaed, lady of mercia! she’s actually a real person but this show is based on a book series that looks super interesting! honestly the main character also kind of reminds me of jon snow

HARLOTS (2017—) ♡oh my gosh how do i describe this show?? the family dynamics are so! intricate! and! beautiful! honestly just stunning. everything about this show is s t u n n i n g. the costumes are colourful and vivid and honestly i’d recommend watching just for that but the storyline really does keep you hooked!! also: liv tyler and jessica brown findlay are love interests in this which is honestly a dream come true

BLACK SAILS (2015—2017)okay full disclosure; i haven’t actually seen this but i’ve heard very good things and it’s on my list!! it’s about pirates, i think there’s some queer rep (can anybody confirm??), and there’s lots of amazing women. again, allegedly. 

dramas:

THE SOCIETY (2018—)i literally watched the entire first season in a single night so it must be alright, right? basically all you need to know about this is that a town full of teenagers go on a field trip & then return to find all their parents mysteriously missing and their town closed off from the outside world. it’s basically lord of the flies but modern! with some kick-ass friendships! and amazing young women (one literally teaches herself to be a doctor can you believe?)! 

SHARP OBJECTS (2018)if you haven’t heard about this one yet idk what rock you’ve been living under but welcome back! this one is a m a z i n g but also hella chilling and the ending is such a shocker if it hasn’t been spoiled for you yet!

THE BOLD TYPE (2017—) ♡i always describe this one as ‘sex and the city for millennials’ but i’ve never watched a single sex and the city episode in my life so i honestly don’t know how accurate that is?? but it’s about a group of 20-something year old women who are best friends and work mates and they love each other so much?? the relationship between the girls is my favourite thing about the show but the show honestly tackles a lot of relevant issues; trump, age gaps, queer rep, immigration, racism, etc. i can’t recommend this enough!

CODE BLACK (2015—2018) ♡you know those episodes in greys anatomy where everything is life-or-death and you’re on edge for the whole episode? that’s basically every single episode of code black. this is hands-down one of my most rewatched shows ever. i love medical dramas and this one balances well written characters with action-packed medical miracles so honestly what’s not to like?? 

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES (2018—)okay admittedly the only reason i watch this show is because of the main couple but i can’t help it when they’re just so gosh-darn cute!! they love each other so god damned much! i wasn’t completely sold on this straight away but by ep 3 i was HOOKED. if you like supernatural romances/dramas that are more mature than your usual cw show, this one is a good choice!

THE OA (2016—) ♡i can’t even put into words how much i adore this?? but also: it will confuse THE SHIT out of you. no matter how smart you are, this one will leave you scratching your head. basically: a group of people who’ve had near-death experiences get kidnapped and experimented on. it’s not as brutal as it sounds, in fact the show is exceptionally beautiful, but it does deal with some hard themes and the good guys don’t always win. 

12 MONKEYS (2015—2018)do you like time travel? do you like forbidden and yet totally-still-devoted-to-one-another-anyway love? then this is the show for you! this one is dark and gritty and deals pretty realistically with the concept of time travel & self-sacrifice and what people will give up to create a better world. it’s got a happy ending & you wont regret watching!

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018)oh this one will make you cry. in a good way though! long story short a family grows up in a haunted house and it affects them in ways they cannot imagine. it’s hauntingly beautiful and poetic and everybody should watch it at least once imo

comedies:

THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL (2017—)okay so this one counts as a period drama as well but it’s about a COMEDIAN so i put it in the comedy section lol. okay so long story short, a woman is left by her husband, she’s worth 1000 of him & everybody else knows it because you seriously can’t help falling in love with this woman but ofc there’s period-typical sexism she has to face as she struggles with being a single woman, a single mother, and an up-and-coming comedian. def recommend.

SANTA CLARITA DIET (2017—2019)drew barrymore is a zombie!! who lives a normal life but also eats people!! it’s only weird for the first couple of eps. the family dynamics are snarky and witty and they manage to make gore funny?? honestly this entire show is legit laugh-out-loud darkly hilarious.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Ruby Rose

This is a reposting from Sept. 22nd, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps onto tumblr. Thanks!

I am combat ready! Or at least writing ready. For ages now I've wanted to tackle a comprehensive recap/analysis of each RWBY webisode and what better time to start then a few weeks before Volume 5? Though I'll mostly be sticking to plot points as they occur chronologically, any new RWBY viewers should be aware that recaps will include spoilers, mostly in the form of referencing foreshadowing and parallels. Read at your own risk. 

Let's get started.

Our series technically opens with four trailers (which you can no more skip than Doctor Who fans can skip Nine), but for the purposes of this recap we're saying that we start the show off with an origin tale. A fairy tale, if you will. Our very first shot is of a high tower decked out in green, beacon-like lights that I'm sure are in no way symbolic standing atop it.

Our narrator, an unknown woman, begins with a cryptic message:

“Legends, stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts of a forgotten past.”

Obviously not everyone has forgotten these legends, considering that she's the one telling us them, but right from the start there's a dichotomy set up. There are people, humans, who view the past as something that inherently includes them. Any myths that are passed down are about humans--they're the "exploits of heroes and villains." However, this woman reminds us that there was an existence long before mankind was created; that the world, its history, and its power is far more vast than we're willing to acknowledge. Or able to. 

We're small in comparison. We're just "remnants" of something far larger.

(Also, interestingly, note the "we" in "we are remnants." We learn a lot about Salem later on and no matter how she might look or act, she seems to view herself as human.)

From there on we're given the story of man's creation. Born from dust into an "unforgiving world" already populated by monsters, were it not for their discovery of certain elements--a power that they named "dust" after their own origins--they never would have survived, let alone flourished. Power allowed for civilization. As the story supposedly resolves, we get a change in animation style, moving from the story-book imagery to the real world. The focus on a shattered moon suggests that, despite humanity’s success, things are not all peachy-keen.

Also, enter these guys.

This is Roman and I just love his entrance. RWBY is a show that is very overt in its tropes and homages, and though there's complexity later on, for now Roman and his goons are pretty straight-forward. They're Bad. How do we know they're Bad? Because they're creeping out of the shadows late at night. We've got this guy smoking in an age where the habit is thoroughly demonized. All his goons are pretty identical in true, gangster fashion and Roman himself is the most flamboyantly dressed, drawing on a long (and very problematic) tradition of queer-coding villains. He's wearing a bowler hat for heaven's sake, which is basically just a step up from a fedora.

He's also a redhead. That'll be important.... later.

For now, Roman struts down the street (giving us a hilarious first-look at RWBY's silhouette background characters) and Salem changes her tone, suddenly sounding far more menacing as she lays out humanity's inevitable destruction. All lights "flicker and die" and we're warned that "there will be no victory in strength." The only thing that keeps the scene from becoming depression central is the introduction of a new voice, a man's that--if you're paying attention--you'll recognize later in the episode:

"But perhaps victory is in the smaller things that you've long forgotten. Things that require a smaller, more honest soul."

Pan down to this cutie.

Wow! I wonder who the small, honest soul could be? 

(Also take note of the ad on the back of the magazine: the Schnee logo with the tagline "The Finest of them All." Weiss, based off of Snow White, is therefore "the fairest of them all." Or at least she thinks she is.)

Roman barges in and starts talking about how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late which... raises a number of questions for me? Like why they're looking for a dust shop that's open at all. Why not just wait until everything is closed down and then rob the place? It certainly wouldn't be hard to break in. Given what we know of the villains' larger plans in Volume 3, it could be that they want to sow fear in the people of Vale by committing robberies in plain sight (recall the horrified background characters as Roman walks by), but if so why not actually attack in broad daylight? Overall it just seems like a strange comment.

We're given our first glimpse of Roman as an ambivalent villain as he refuses the shopkeeper's money. He's here only to complete his mission of stealing dust, not entirely wipe the guy out so... yay, I guess?

One of the goons notices our little red riding hood and pulls a sword on her, which is kind of hilarious. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's because right after that a different goon pulls out a gun which is obviously the more logical weapon here. But no. Goon #1 needs his massive, red sword to threaten the small child with.

Small Child is not impressed.

"Are you robbing me?"

"Yes!"

"Ooooh."

And she proceeds to kick him from the back of the store all the way into the far wall.

Let's take a moment to appreciate Roman's dafaq face here:

This is a technique nearly two decades old. Everyone knows the story of how Buffy got started. Whedon wanted a stereotypical heroine--small, cute, blonde--but who, rather than getting killed by the monster in the alleyway, ends up being the very thing that the monster should fear. It's an oldie now, but a goodie. We're presented with this tiny, adorable girl who is characterized as a victim, only to find that she's the one with the most power. Not only can she kick a full-grown man across a room, she's got some crazy weaponry tucked away too.

This is, by definition, a badass moment.

As we see in the ensuing fight this little girl is very proficient with her scythe. There's a great moment as her headphones play "This Will Be the Day" diegetically, only for the song to move into non-diegetic soundtrack, and then back to diegetic music as she turns off her headphones and... they disappear? Presumably she has pockets.

Iffy animation aside, RWBY seems like the kind of world that would give its girls pockets.

Roman: "Okay... get her."

That little moment of confusion--Roman's disbelieving "Okay?"--seems a little like inconsistent world-building. Certainly he knows that Signal and Beacon aren't too far from here, meaning that there are lots of teenagers around, Huntsmen and Huntresses in training that are capable of kicking his henchmen's ass. Is he just thrown off guard by this girl's (even younger) age? Who can say.

Regardless, she handles all the goons with ease. Ruby (yeah, let's just use all names for simplicity's sake) has a direct and efficient fighting style. This is our first glimpse into the maturity hiding behind a seemingly immature outer shell. Ruby doesn't take the time to taunt the goons or get all flashy with her fighting, she just takes them out, pure and simple, something that young and confident heroes often struggle with. Roman proves a little harder though when his cane turns out to be a gun.

Lesson One: pretty much everything in RWBY is a gun. Cane? Gun. Scythe? Gun. Thermos? Gun! That lamp? Probably also a gun.  

As Roman escapes we get another glimpse of Ruby's priorities when she asks the storekeeper, "Are you okay if I go after him?" It's a small but wonderful moment that tells us Ruby isn't a hero who wants to fight for the sake of fighting, at least outside of friendly competitions. Had the storekeeper been injured or needed her for some other reason, Ruby would have held his needs above just catching the bad guys. That's important.

So, having gotten the a-okay, Ruby chases Roman up to the rooftops and we hear his annoyed (yet impressed?) mutter of, "Persistent." Just as they're about to duke it out again an airship arrives that Roman boards, throwing out a dust crystal that explodes when he shoots it. It looks like Ruby might have been caught in the blast, but at the last possible second Glynda Mother-F***ing Goodwitch arrives to save the day.

Why was she out in town this late at night? How did she feel seeing some tiny child fighting a notoriously wanted criminal up on the rooftop? These are questions only fanfic can answer. The point is that Glynda saves Ruby not once, but twice, all while exhibiting a truly impressive amount of power. It's here that we first get to see not just fantasy weapons, but what we might term magic (in what will quickly become a fairly convoluted magical system). It isn’t until later that we realize others don’t consider Glynda’s abilities to be magic, though given what we now know about semblances and their assumed connection to Humanity 1.0, it’s perhaps no coincidence that the audience is meant to think this is magic at first glance. But telekinesis--the ability to manipulate anything from objects to the weather itself--is staggering nonetheless and the show should really give Glynda something else to do with her power besides fixing craters and broken buildings. Or just bring her back, period. 

Glynda even makes a little "Humph" sound when she blocks the blast like, "Please. You'll have to try harder than that."

They do.

Roman yells to the pilot that they have a "Huntress" to deal with and we're given glimpses of a more important villain: fancy dress, high heels, strange tattoo on her back, and an affinity for fire. She's deemed important simply by the fact that the 'camera' always keeps her face hidden from view, inviting speculation as to who she is and what her motives are. Though she and Glynda seem pretty evenly matched (with Ruby joining in to help), Roman flies them out of there before things get more heated. Pun intended.

As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that, in retrospect, we did just see magic with Cinder... which we then assume for a very long stretch was her semblance given what we quickly learn about Glynda. You can see why this stuff gets muddled. The fact that Ruby, a bright and fighting obsessed girl, doesn’t seem to think it odd that someone can shoot fire just hammers home how not magic-y these abilities read to characters in world. Until the plot suddenly wants them to. AKA bird anger. 

Regardless, as the viewer cheers at the rarity of three women dominating a fight scene, Ruby has bigger things to think about. Like the fact that Glynda is a Huntress and Ruby just has to have an autograph.

Cut from this:

To this:

Humor aside, this actually does a lot for situating what a Huntress is in the viewer's mind. We might not have an exact definition yet, but we know two important things: they're on the side of our small hero (Glynda protects Ruby) and they're regarded as at least minor celebrities. In short, they're the Big Good to the mysterious Big Bad.

They’re also, as we’re about to see, subject to the law. 

But back to Ruby. See that spotlight? Glynda has this 15yo girl in an interrogation room, prowling about while lecturing that she "put herself and others in grave danger." Interesting. What others were in danger? Civilians? Looks like everyone else cleared the streets once Roman showed up. The shopkeeper? As said, Ruby was very careful about making sure he was okay. Normally I’d be 100% on Glynda’s side here, but I think Ruby actually acted very maturely given the circumstances. Especially considering that she’s right: they started it. Glynda’s generic reprimands might imply that there are many non-Huntsmen trained fighters out there making a mess of things (at least by Glynda's standards). Certainly we later see conflict between trained Huntsmen/Huntresses and those who learned to fight "outside the kingdom." 

Also... just reminding everyone... that Glynda uses a riding crop. Rooster Teeth had to know the can of worms they were opening with that little choice. If you don't want porn of the deputy headmistress and various other characters, don't dress her like a dominatrix and give her lines like, "I'd have sent you home with a pat on the back... and a slap on the wrist!"

Glynda is very serious that Ruby would be in big trouble if it weren't for the fact that a certain someone wants to meet her. Enter my trash fave:

Ozpin.

He's basically Dumbledore if he actually had better justifications for his iffy decisions and looked like a hot 30yo. My priorities aside, more fascinating questions start cropping up. How long has Ruby been held in this room? What was that conversation between Glynda and Ozpin like--Hey, I found this random child who nearly took out a whole criminal gang, that seems like your kind of thing? Why does Ozpin arrive with a full plate of chocolate chip cookies? Did he bake them himself? Does Ruby ever get Glynda’s autography?

These kinds of questions are the lifeblood of fandom.

As an aside, I'm a complete animation snob. I've been spoiled by too many great artists to immediately accept just anything you throw up on screen. When I first watched this episode and saw Crunchy Roll's review that RWBY is "lovely to look at" my response was, "...seriously?" This moment, when Ozpin gives Ruby the cookies and they proceed to just disappear as they approach her mouth was my breaking point for a while. I had to be talked into watching more... and I'm so glad I was. Now, after years with these characters, I have a much deeper appreciation for the art style and the beauty that RWBY contains. Now the cookie scene is just straight up funny to me.

Back to plot though. Ozpin introduces himself by introducing Ruby. We get her name for the first time and as Ozpin peers down at her he says, "You have... silver eyes," which confuses Ruby and has the viewer nodding sagely. Yep. That'll come back later.

Ozpin reviews Ruby's fight and wants to know where she learned all that. More specifically, he wants to know who taught her to use "one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed," which is another fascinating moment that I think is largely overlooked by the fandom. Ruby is living in a world chock-full of crazy dangerous weaponry. Already we've seen a gun-cane and a riding crop used as a wand. The fact that Ozpin labels Ruby's sniper-scythe as one of the most dangerous not only re-emphasizes her skill, but hints that the scythe may be a particularly powerful weapon... one even he might favor. Though we later get to see Ozpin fight with his cane and he clearly prefers that form, we've yet to get a full explanation for those gears in it:

In retrospect after Volume 6, there’s little evidence that his cane turns into a full other weapon, but it was an cool theory for a while. 

Ruby says proudly that her Uncle Qrow taught her everything and that she's currently a student at Signal Academy.

Ozpin: "And what's an adorable girl like you doing at a school designed to train warriors?"

Ruby: "Well... I want to be a Huntress."

Ozpin: "You want to slay monsters?"

Ruby: "Yeah."

Ruby launches into an excited speech about following in her big sister's footsteps, looking for a career that's more "romantic" than the police, and above all getting to help people. Watching Ozpin in this scene gives us a pretty clear view into his thoughts: his shock at Ruby's proficiency with the scythe, making sure he's reading the situation correctly (this small, adorable child wants to fight evil?), his look of approval as Ruby tries to explain her thinking. There's even what I read as a little test. "You want to slay monsters?" A major theme in RWBY is that people are the real monster, the biggest threat, and it takes Ruby a long time to learn that. To semi-quote Sirius, the world isn't split into good people and Grimm. Though Ruby doesn't realize this yet--she just implies that she wants to fight Grimm--her skill and pure intentions (which will come into play later during "Mountain Glenn") are enough for Ozpin to offer her a place at Beacon two years early. As we learn later, as an added bonus this also helps keep her safe. Those with silver eyes are hunted and Ruby has not been keeping a low profile. 

"You want to come to my school? Well... okay."

One of these teachers is happier about this situation than the other.

It’s pretty amazing though.

Yang thinks it's amazing too. We jump ahead an unspecified amount of time to meet Ruby's half-sister on the airship to Beacon. I adore their interaction here because so often media limits sibling relationships to arguing and competition. Not so with these two. Yang isn't at all jealous that her little sister is getting special treatment. Ruby is the only one with issues:

Ruby: "I got moved ahead two years... I just don't want people to think I'm special or anything."

Yang: "But you are special."

Ruby just wants to be a normal girl with normal knees. No bee's knees allowed.

As Ruby begins struggling with her new situation we get Roman's name in a news bulletin, along with a hilariously different art style.

We also get reference to people called "Faunus" who possess animal traits, their civil rights movement, and the violent organization called the White Fang that recently interfered in a peaceful protest. The bulletin is cut off by a holographic Glynda's welcome.

Yang: "Who's that?"

Glynda's hologram introduces herself immediately after, but I find it funny that Ruby doesn't even look like she's going to try and answer. As if she hadn't met and fought alongside Glynda just a little while ago. Also. Ruby knew exactly who Ozpin was. Didn't have a clue about Glynda. Poor Professor Goodwitch does all the work around Beacon and receives none of the credit lol.  

I actually really like Glynda's speech here though. She's welcoming to the students without coddling them. Like other shows with children entering combat, RWBY lets the viewer know that we can't always apply our real-world morality to these situations. These kids might be young--17 years old and 15 in Ruby's case--but they're going to be treated like adults for as long as that’s logical. As we’ll see later though, there’s a distinct difference between responsibility inside school and out... 

Right before our pilot ends we're introduced to Jaune, or the name we know him by so far, "Vomit Boy." The webisode ends on a light note with Jaune getting puke on Yang's shoes and the two sisters freaking out about it. We're also given our first, gorgeous look at Beacon:

Now that’s animation I can get behind. Everything is light and happy. Ah, they have no idea the horror that's coming for them. Just wait until Volume 3.

Until then, 💚

[ssironstrange]

buckle in, i have some Personal Shit to get off my chest and fling into the void. might as well before i’m Purged, right? lots of triggery stuff ahead. 

so last week i got a job. it isn’t a spectacular job. the pay is shit and it’s extremely physically taxing. but it’s a job. i’ve been unemployed since july having put countless resumes out and done a handful of interviews with absolutely no luck. so we’re just happy i’m employed and going to have some income again.

on my very first day of orientation last week, my mom texts me asking me about christmas plans and i tell her i’m unsure what my schedule will look like while my brother is in town because i literally just started and don’t actually have any sort of schedule yet, obviously.

she proceeds to get pissed. starts calling me selfish for getting a job right before christmas. blames me for messing up plans because now she’s gonna have to work around my schedule. says i did this on purpose because i could have easily gotten a job like this at any time. i’m floored.

like, my mom is a grade A special class cunt, but she took it to new levels. i couldn’t even think of anything to say. i was so appalled and upset by the fact this woman couldn’t even say a simple “congrats” to her own daughter, knowing the troubling financial situation we’ve been in. eventually my s/o took my phone from me to text her himself because he was Done with her shit. i proceeded to have a mini-breakdown. i thought she had finally changed. like, i went without speaking to her at all for two years before because of bullshit like this she pulled on me in the past and told her if she wanted me in her life she needed to take a hard look at herself and change some shit. and she did. for a long while there she really did. she stopped drinking (she’s a raging alcoholic who will deny that until her dying breath) unless it was a special occasion and even then it was only like one glass. she started being nicer, friendlier, and a lot more grateful for the things we help her with. she stopped complaining and bitching about every possible thing. hell, she even started finding some social events to get out and go to. For a while she was actually kinda nice to be around for a change.

and then she did that and it made me realize nothing about her has actually changed. she can’t change. she has so many unchecked mental problems she refuses to see a doctor about. she’s in denial about 90% of them. she is sick, needs treatment, but refuses it at all. refuses to even acknowledge she’s sick. she’s extremely narcissistic. her selfishness knows no bounds. she honestly believes that giving $50 to someone in need while dropping $2k on herself(on shit she doesn’t need at ALL) is being generous. she has no concept of saving money. she has to spend it. she’s a hoarder and shopaholic. she’s paranoid of everyone and everything; everyone is out to get her, conspiring against her. any time her phone acts up she’s convinced someone is trying to hack her. a company accidentally overcharging her and she thinks someone within that company is personally trying to steal from her. she believes her doctors are trying to fuck with her when they’re literally just trying to obey the law. no matter what it is, its always about her. it doesn’t even fucking cross her mind even once what another person might be going through or dealing with or that accidents happen. she believes because a waitress working a double shift on thanksgiving didn’t bring her napkins in 5 seconds when she asked that she doesn’t deserve a tip. she feels personally attacked when i talk about her generation as a whole. she can’t ever be wrong. she believes because she’s older that she knows everything. she believes because she has had an encounter with something that it makes her an expert on it, or because she read 1 book or 1 unsourced article on the internet that she knows more. she believes, in her mind, that i am still 13 years old. honestly. she continuously pulls up weird shit from that time. thinks i still dress the same, still have the same preferences about everything no matter how many times i have told her “i haven’t like that since i was 12/13/whatever age.” hell she even talks to me like i’m a child half the time. She hasn’t worked a job since she was in her 30s and lies to live off the government, mooches from literally anyone she can, and gets oil royalties that she didn’t even do anything to invest in, she just inherited them. but then has the gall to bitch at me about jobs when i’ve been working since i was barely 15. she believes the world owes her. she believes that we kids owe her for being a mother and frequently tries to hold that over me as if that weren’t her fucking duty anyway when she decided to keep us. she is always angry and negative and prone to violence - especially while drunk. she has literally pointed a loaded, cocked gun at my chest, thrown glass dishes at me (which ended with glass shards in my hands and feet), dragged me by my hair, and has done ten times that in emotional abuse. she’s called the cops on my brother over an argument, and has thrown a computer monitor at me (one of those old CRT ones) because i said she was acting crazy. she would get so nasty with me my brother would have to step in and tell her to shut the fuck up. she didn’t even try to get me into counselling or therapy or even talk to me when she found out i was being sexually assaulted as a young child. all she did was remove me from the situation, which ultimately removed me from half of my family and didn’t explain why. she never told me is wasn’t my fault. she never talked to me about what sex actually was and how it’s supposed to be. she never told me about consent. she did nothing for me to cope with and process the years of physical and mental trauma i had endured, and i am still fucked up from it to this day because it defined my view of everything sexual. it created deep and strong neural pathways i’ll be lucky to ever be able to change. she went through my mail and read a letter to a long distance friend, finding out i was queer and genderfluid and outed me to the rest of the family, called me a disgrace and disgusting. she would go through chat logs and shame me about everything she could. she’s racist as fuck, still uses the N word, and has told me several times if i ever dated a black person she would disown me. she has always played favorites with my brother because he is the smart one, the one who graduated at 16 and got into university on full scholarship at 17, the one who has always been a social butterfly, extroverted with lots of friends, neurotypical by most standards, handsome and always had good taste in girls, successful in everything he does, and has a great career as an environmental engineer that pays well enough for him to take multiple overseas trips, pay off student loans(when he decided to switch majors and stay in college longer) and is just over all the perfect son (he and i have always gotten along fantastically. i love him immensely, but it’s no secret to either of us who she has always favored),and she’s an opioid addict - another thing she will deny until she’s dead. and thats just everything i can think of at the moment. theres more. theres always more.

so she texted me a couple days ago apologizing without actually apologizing. blaming her attitude on the fact her pain meds are being reduced (not once did she actually say sorry) and she’s been in a bad mood because of it. today she texted me, still without a real apology, just saying how she’s wondering how my job is going. but the truth is, i know she doesn’t give a fuck. she only wants to feel better about herself. she wants to believe she’s forgiven so she can have things her way again. she doesn’t actually give a shit about my feelings, about what she’s done to me, or about how this is the same cycle of bullshit we’ve been through countless times. she doesn’t care. 

and yet, i still find myself feeling guilty to cut her out like the tumor she is. despite everything she has done to me. i can’t help it and i wish i could. she has manipulated me so much throughout my life that i have an almost pavlovian response to feel like its my fault, that i’m the failure she’s always said i am, that i’m the one letting her down. i know i’m not. i know that isn’t the truth but it’s still there and i hate it. but still, i’m trying my best to just fucking ignore her. she doesn’t get to have the satisfaction of thinking all is well and forgiven. i’ve been through this too many times and frankly i’m just so fucking tired of it.

[la-knight]

Books I Read in 2018: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

“Maybe that's why superheroes wore capes. Maybe they weren't capes at all, but safety blankets, like the one Aru kept at the bottom of her bed and pulled up under her chin before she went to sleep. Maybe superheroes just tied their blankies around their necks so they'd have a little bit of comfort wherever they went. Because honestly? Saving the world was scary. No harm admitting that.”

“It is not failure to fail.”

“This is what we get for thinking that scaley orange skin and fake hair could keep that former demon out of elected office.

“You are the Daughter of Death," hissed Aru. "You don't walk into a telephone pole because of a boy.”

“Aru was twelve years old. Even she knew that half the time she didn't know what she was doing.”

Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur? One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again. But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them. The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that

------------

I first heard about Roshani Chokshi when her novel The Star-Touched Queen debuted back in like 2016. The elevator pitch I’d heard for it was “Hades and Persephone but with Indian mythology.” I’m a HUGE sucker for Hades & Persephone, always have been. So of course I snatched that up, and fell in love with Maya, with the beautifully lyrical and poetic prose, and with Roshani Chokshi’s way of painting her different worlds. Out of the four books she has out right now, I only have one left to read (A Crown of Wishes). She’s brilliant, and when I found out she was expanding to Middle-Grade, I knew I had to see what was up with her newest book

So what can I say about Aru-Shah and the End of Time? Well, some people might compare it to Percy Jackson - it’s a somewhat similar concept, the children of gods fighting monsters to save the world. Probably why Aru Shah is the first book from Rick Riordan’s new imprint from Disney Hyperion (the man is doing the Lord’s work, not gonna lie). But if I were to compare Aru Shah and the End of Time to Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief...it’s better. It’s SO MUCH better (no offense, Rick).

See, I like Percy. I like the series and I like him. But the first book was a bit shallow. To be fair, it came out at a time when middle-grade was still fighting to be allowed to hold the same depths as some of the “more risque” YA of the time, like having queer characters, or characters with mental health issues, or what have you. At the time PJ:LT came out, most middle-grade fantasies weren’t allowed to have that kind of stuff. Thankfully Rick Riordan helped pave the way for publishers to realize, oh, shoot, middle-grade can have a lot of the same depth as YA, holy gosh (other helpers in the cause are Tahereh Mafi and JK Rowling, although more points go to Ms. Mafi). So why is Aru Shah better than Percy Jackson?

It’s deeper. It’s richer. It’s more diverse. Some of you might think, well of course it’s more diverse, it’s Indian mythology. No, no, no. You don’t understand. It’s amazing. We have two Indian girls teaming up to save the world, one with extreme anxiety and OCD who wants to be a doctor, who casually mentions her gay hero brother without it being a big deal. We have a series set up to put together a team of five young Indian women who fight monsters and save the world. 

There’s a former villain who learns to love, who does honor to the two female leads. The tasks and challenges are clever and fun, with a touch of whimsy but still as action-packed and engaging as any adventure in Artemis Fowl or Harry Potter. We have a girl from a single-parent home who’s always wanted more of a family, and she gets one - as soon as Aru meets Mini, one of the other reborn Pandavas, they start calling each other “sister” and vow never to turn their backs on each other. There’s a brief moment where this is put to the test, but the girls get over it and reconcile easily.

One of the best things about Aru, the character, is how accepting she is of Mini after they meet. Mini can be a little high-maintenance, and at first Aru’s a little exasperated, but it doesn’t take long for her to realize Mini has severe OCD (instead of high-fives, they bump elbows) and anxiety. In fact, Mini’s a lot like me. And while sometimes Mini will say something and Aru will be like, “Wait, really?” after a minute she’s just like, “Okay, sure. If that’s what you need.” 

When they pull off some daring-dos near the end of the book, Aru offers her elbow for a bump without having to be reminded of the no-hands rule. Even better, Mini doesn’t just decide to high-five Aru at the end. She’s still OCD, still freaks out over germs, and Aru doesn’t mind. And while Mini does sometimes panic, Aru is mostly very understanding and helps her get through her panic attacks. When Mini expresses fear that Aru will abandon her because of her anxiety and “other flaws,” Aru not only promises she won’t, but puts a spin on it that helps sooth Mini’s fears (Aru gets hung up about this and wonders if she’s lying; I’ll touch on that near the end).

The villains were interesting, the mythology is fairly new which means explanations can be provided in a fun way and it’s not stuff we readers have been told ten million times. I was honestly surprised by the identity of Aru and Mini’s fathers (who aren’t their biological fathers; these Indian gods imbued the girls’ souls with...soul DNA? That’s not what they call it, I just don’t know if I can explain it any other way). Also, as a fan of The Star-Touched Queen, I had to wonder - did Maya have anything to do with Mini’s powers?

You know how in Percy Jackson the kids get neat doo-dads that turn into magical stuff? Like a pen into a sword, Thalia’s bracelet into that one shield, Luke’s winged sneakers, blah blah? Aru gets a golden tennis ball and Mini gets a purple compact. Not a big deal? Ah ha, au contraire. Those items are the glamoured belongings of the god of thunder and the god of death, and they’re actually pretty cool - but also pretty!

This book is just...fun. It’s SO FUN. The monsters are new, the tasks are original, the characters are cute, and I loved it.

Let’s talk about the thing I love most: Aru Shah. Roshani Chokshi has the interesting ability to create characters that are basically me. Not physically, not according to age or race, but with Night, with Maya, and now with Aru, she creates female leads who speak to me on a fundamental level. 

This time, it’s Aru, who’s basically Loki from Loki: Agent of Asgard except female instead of genderfluid, 12 years old, and Indian. In L:AoA, there’s a scene in the final bindup where Loki indentifies themself (first in femme-presenting form, then in masc-presenting form) as the moon goddess, the god of stories. Aru is the personification of that. 

Something that gets said a lot in the book is, “You’re a liar, Aru Shah.” But she’s not. She’s a storyteller, a world-changer, someone who refuses to view the world as bleak and terrible and uses the gift of words to make it better for herself and the people she’s loves. She’s an optimist who fights with words and thinks fast on her feet. She’s a daughter of Lord Indra the Thunderer and a reincarnation of the greatest of the Pandava Brothers. She’s the moon goddess, the god of stories, someone I would’ve idolized (or possibly gotten a crush on) if I’d read this as a kid, and I love her. I will follow her to the end.

Also she better get as many books as Percy did (so like...15 books).

There were only two complaints, really. One, Aru was rather preoccupied with boogers (it came up like 5 times). I mean, I know she’s a tween, but still. Two, I saw the plot twist with her dad coming from a mile away.

Plot: ¾ star Characterization: 1 star World Building: 1 star Word Choice: ¾ star Realism: 1 star 

- ¼ star for copious snot (ew)

+ ¼ star for positive portrayal of a character with anxiety and OCD

+ ¼ star for having a 12-year-old girl in Spider-Man pajamas saving the world, okay? 

In total: 4.75/5 stars

Would I Buy It: I did! Now I need the next one!

Would I Recommend It: READ THIS BOOK, PEOPLE!!! It’s so cute, seriously.

I was asked to tag @magic-in-every-book so here’s my Aru review! :)

All pics were stock photos manipulated by me in Photoshop or in the public domain. Except the painting of the Pandavas. That’s from Wikipedia.

[faithandfairies]

Thelma

So...I just watched Thelma. First off, it’s a really good movie.

Secondly, if you have epilepsy or are triggered by flashing lights, don’t watch it. Really, SPOILER ALERT: they try to trigger a seizure live in the main character in the movie using flashing lights. It was unpleasant for me, a non-epileptic person. I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone who has epilepsy or something similar.

I feel like there are so many interpretations to this movie. So let’s get into all the layers.

Layer 1

On the surface it seems to be about a Christian girl who goes to college and falls in love with a girl. When this girl first sits next to her in class a bird separates itself from the flock, flies against the class window and dies. Oh, and it also triggers a seizure that keeps repeating itself any time she seems to feel stressed out or overwhelmed by some kind of emotion. 

She tries smoking and drinking and kissing this girl and it’s clearly associated with sin. Which, personally, always annoys me when movies do that. Piling lesbianism in with smoking and drinking and being all, it’s the work of the devil. In this case there are snakes in her bed and coming out of her body. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

She goes to a clinic that tests the origin of her seizures and the doctor comes to the conclusion that they’re non-epileptic and most likely caused by repressed trauma. Which makes me think her body basically goes into some kind of shock whenever she’s remembering traumatic memories. When something, an experience or a feeling, triggers a traumatic memory.  This is going to be important for layer 2.

Anyway, it seems that every time Thelma has a seizure she can make something happen. She’ll get a hallucination that has some bearings on reality. And she can make people disappear, never to be seen again.

There are flashbacks in which it seems like Thelma had a baby brother when she was about 6. One she was jealous of, enough to make him disappear. First by hiding him underneath a couch which their father pulls him underneath of, but then by moving him underneath a frozen lake. The baby disappears when the mother leaves him alone in the bath for a minute and asks the father to watch him. Which he doesn’t seem to do. Mind you, at this moment 6 year old Thelma is sleeping and her father violently wakes her to ask her if she disappeared her baby brother and where to. He basically tells her “Say you did it.”  and she says “No. I didn’t.” We also see a flashback of Thelma’s mother getting on a ledge to jump off of, indicating that’s how she ended up in a wheelchair. And that her father takes her out into the snow under the guise of hunting only to turn the shotgun on her when she’s not looking. Only to refrain from killing her.

When in the clinic, the doctor triggers a seizure that makes Thelma disappear the girl she loves. At this point she’s had seizures every time she’s thought about this girl, specifically sex with this girl. And once she got a seizure in the pool and almost drowned herself.

The doctor from the clinic pulls up her family’s records and tells her she has a grandmother with mental illness that was admitted to a mental hospital a few years ago. The nurse there tells her the woman believed she’d made her husband disappear off a boat. She also tells Thelma that her father was keeping this woman heavily drugged and wasn’t concerned that he was doing so.

When Thelma starts to think she made the girl she loves disappear she phones home in a panic and asks to come home. When she gets there her parents lace her tea with something. And from then on she’s locked up in her room and only let out to pray and for baths. Ones her father gives her. Mostly she’s kept in a drug induced state.

The mother says Thelma’s treatment isn’t working and basically suggests murder suicide for all of them. There is also the involvement of what looks like insulin that is drawn but not administered to anyone by the father. And Thelma often looks like she’s having night sweats.

While she’s asleep her father gets on a boat, sees Thelma standing on the shore and spontaneously combusts.

We see Thelma wake up and smile as we’re taken to Thelma’s phone that’s in a dresser, going off with a call from her girlfriend that had been missing and therefore stopped calling her and answering Thelma’s calls. We see Thelma leave her before locked room, go to the lake and get into the lake water to look for her dad and reappear in the pool water at her school where her girlfriend is waiting for her. 

She then wakes up on the lake shore at her parents’ where she throws up a dead bird that then wakes up and flies away. We see her go home and heal her mother’s legs. After which she leaves and goes back to school, her mother shouting after her not to leave.

She comes back to the school where she meets up with her girlfriend. She’s basically now a reborn out and proud queer person that isn’t afraid to publicly compliment the woman she loves.

Layer 2 

Trigger Warning: Rape/Sexual abuse

I think that Thelma is a sexual abuse survivor that has blocked out those memories. She tells the clinic doctor that her childhood wasn’t great but that she doesn’t remember much of it. And we physically see her basically block out a stressful situation. This is supposed to be her first seizure.

When the doctor asks if there’s a new boy in her life to trigger a seizure  it stresses her out, making her think about the girl she likes.

Her first seizure in the movie is triggered by the girl sitting next to her and her reaction to it. I imagine that this girl is causing her to feel things she’s either never felt before and/or that she associates with painful memories. Triggering painful long forgotten memories resulting in seizures because her system can’t handle those memories flooding back all at once.

It’s probably some sexual awakening shit that brings back bad childhood memories associated with sex. On the surface you get the sense that she wants to sleep with this girl but that her religion/her beliefs are keeping her from giving in. The thing is that her reaction is way too violent to be just that. She literally goes into complete stress/panic attack mode any time this girl touches her. Full shaking hands, sweating, everything. That is the reaction of an abuse/rape survivor. 

The father bathing a grown woman for no real reason is also an indicator. Not to mention that a baby is left alone in the bath and told to behave, which is irresponsible and makes me wonder if it was a baby at all or maybe 6 year old Thelma. The fact that the baby dies in the bath actually makes me wonder if Thelma had an actual baby brother at all or if its more about the loss of innocence. Thelma’s, that is. The first time the baby starts screaming its head of, then is suddenly silent. It has disappeared from its bed and then suddenly after a while reappears underneath the couch, still screaming its head of. Which could be Thelma running and hiding from her father the first time he tries to hurt her, retaining her innocence. The second time the baby disappears from the bath and ends up underneath the frozen lake. You know it can’t have survived. Which could signify Thelma’s no longer existing innocence. And/or her frozen, numb emotional state that thaws once she meets Anja, her girlfriend.

There are other things. The father sends her away but then she’s expected to call every night by a certain hour. Or else it’s a problem. She’s also supposed to report to him anything that “isn’t allowed”. She seems genuinely scared of her father. Bursting into tears when reporting to him that she had some alcohol with friends while thinking about the fact that she kissed the girl she likes.

There is also the suicide attempt by the mother after the baby dies and her subsequent immobility. Not to mention the fact that Thelma’s grandmother is immobile in bed in a mental hospital. And she supposedly disappeared her husband from a boat. And the fact that the first time Thelma and her girlfriend meet she’s having a seizure and peeing herself. And it leads to this woman asking her how she’s feeling the next time they meet. You get the impression at first that she may influencing this woman to fall for her and show up for her. That’s what her father tells her. But there are moments where she clearly doesn’t want to see her that she still shows up.

So I have my own theories about all of it.

First off, I think Thelma, her mother and her grandmother are most likely the same person. The mom represents the most mobile Thelma can be while on the strong meds. And the grandmother the least mobile.

I think it’s possible that Thelma also had diabetes and that the father withheld insulin from her, causing night sweats, hallucinations and seizures when her blood sugar got low.

He might have even put Thelma in a mental hospital so she wouldn’t out what he’d done to her. If she’s believed to be crazy or confused then nothing coming out of her mouth can be true or at least won’t be taken seriously. The nurse at the mental hospital tells Thelma the grandma’s meds are too strong. I think that the nurse might have taken down the dosage against doctor’s orders. Thelma’s father is a doctor. I also think that the nurse may be the woman Thelma falls in love with. Which may also be partly why she’s often present when Thelma has her seizures and she is the only one to ask how Thelma is doing after the first one we see. It would also explain how the girlfriend knows where Thelma lives at the college without having been told by Thelma. And how she shows up in the middle of the night when Thelma has a seizure. 

This would also make the real setting a mental hospital, not a college. Thelma’s girlfriend is supposed to be studying Chemistry while Thelma studies Biology. 

The movie starts with the bird dying I think because it’s Thelma’s past (self) resurfacing. The traumatized little girl she repressed. Triggered by her feelings for this girl.

Her almost drowning in the pool water is the result of the memories coming back all at once I believe and overwhelming her.

And her starting to swim both in the lake and the pool (going from inky black to light) only to end up on the lake shore and throw up a dead bird that comes back to life and flies away I think is Thelma reclaiming her life and sexuality. She’s made peace with her past. She’s no longer cripple and tied to a wheelchair and house filled with bad memories. She can walk again and start a real future.

I also think there’s a good chance she killed her father to gain her freedom, given she seems to have disappeared her father while the grandmother disappeared her husband. There’s also that the first run in we have with the snake seems to be it slithering over wrinkly, older skin only for Thelma to wake up from a night mare in her bed. Another indicator that Thelma and her grandmother are the same person. It is possible Thelma had a baby by her father that died. But if it did I think Thelma killed it in postpartum depression or the father killed it because it was proof of what he’d done. Hiding a live baby that keeps growing is a lot harder to hide than just a pregnant belly.

The only thing I don’t completely understand is the disappearance and reappearance of the girlfriend.

Did the father kill the girl for falling in love with his daughter and helping her? She did disappear from her apartment after doing laundry.

Does that mean that Thelma dies too and that’s how she’s reunited with her girlfriend? It would explain how she escaped a locked room. And why a dead bird leaves her body and comes back to life only to fly away.

The poster for the movie also reminds of the one for “The Silence of the Lambs” also coincidentally starring one of the most famous lesbians of all time, Jodie Foster.

Let’s compare:

(x)

(x)

The thing about “The Silence of the Lambs” was that it had two important angles to it. Both trauma themed.

The first was the trauma of Jodie Foster’s character Clarice Starling. And the second was the trauma of the killer. 

Clarice once woke up in the middle of the night to the screaming of lambs, innocent, defenseless creatures, that were about to be slaughtered at the farm where she lived. She tried to save one, but failed. As a result she could still hear their screaming in her nightmares. Hence, The Silence of the Lambs. Because that’s what she was trying to achieve through her job, through saving as many victims as she could.

The other trauma was that of the killer. Abused as a child, leaving them with a negative self -image. a lot of self-hate. And making them want to change. As a result they placed rare pupa/caterpillars in their victims’ mouths, signifying what their victims were meant for. To facilitate that change from a man that hated himself into a women worth loving.

It stands to reason that Thelma then too is about abuse and change.

But yeah, that’s my analysis.

Also, again, really good movie.

[turnertimeline]

‘Verse Headcanons (2)

Collection: Tim and Annie

Year: multiple

Characters: Timothy Turner, Annette Thompson

Content Warnings: Discussions of abuse

Rating: T

Style: Chat fic

Summary: some bits and bobs about Tim and Annie, headcanons, ideas we had, somethings we used, others we didn’t. A lot of it delves into Annie’s thoughts early on.

Maybe her parents didn't want her to go away to university in the first place - unbecoming of a woman, to be living alone in a strange place, it didn't seem right, unaccompanied with all those men around. Who needs a degree when you'll be a housewife anyway, etc.

Yes. They saw it as a waste, but maybe at least just for her to get her MRS? They /love/ Kenneth the first time they're introduced. Thinks he's quite wonderful and will keep their Annette close to home. The fact that she didn't want to live in the dorms either was a blow to them.

Her getting pregnant just makes it all worse. And they go off on her about not marrying Kenneth. Even though she tells them he won't even acknowledge that the baby is his.

Kenneth can turn on the charm, when he wants. Says the right things, brings them flowers and a drink, he's rather upper class and scrubs up nice and can talk about stocks and he comes across as quite well, and he says things that makes them think he's traditional too, but it's just his possessiveness and controlling nature.

They tell her she should go away to one of those mother and baby homes and give it up if he won't take her

She flat out refuses. She had talked to Tim about that possibility. And he told her, in all honesty, what goes on in them. And she's horrified. She can't stand the thought. And what if she gives her baby up and it's not adopted by a family as wonderful as Tim's?

Her parents just won't listen to reason. Tim even tries to help. But they've never approved of her friendship with him. They  know his father is a doctor, but they know he's from /Poplar/. And being snooty assholes, they don't think he's even good enough to be at University.

She doesn't *want* to give it up, she wants this baby, however hard it's going to be and however lonely it might be. And those mother and baby homes sound horrible, even the one Chummy reformed, and there's no guarantees, and just - no. She can do this.

Her parents just don't want to see reason. Tim goes, he even wears the clothes he thinks of as his Doctor clothes, dresses like Patrick going to see a parent or a patient, even write himself notes and then feels embarrassed about it. He has information about the things available to help new and single mothers, and their babies, and has a neat list of her appointments and when the clinics are and the like. But he's from Poplar, and they know Shelagh is his step-Mum and they have an adopted child and that he married an ex-nun and they disapprove of his *ahem* opinion on things. It doesn't go especially well. They're also half convinced she's sleeping with him but the time they leave After they leave, they're more than half convinced the baby is not Kenneth's. Because why is Tim so invested. It's not right for a boy to be so interested in someone else's baby.

But it's not just about the baby for Tim. Annette is the best friend he's ever had, next to Jack. And he will do anything he can to help her. He won't let her go through this alone.

And neither will Shelagh and Patrick. Shelagh is smol and full of rage.

Tim is invested in Annette, and hence her baby, and he's invested in the sense that she needs help and it would be the right thing to do. He's not used to limiting the circle of people he cares about.

_ Her interactions with the Turners makes her wonder what it would have been like if Kenneth wasn't horrible. If his family would have been welcoming. She doesn't really miss him, she misses the idea of him. She misses what he was supposed to be. She always assumed that when she had children, their father would be her husband. Not someone who was willing to hurt her to make her end the pregnancy.

She sees him around the University. She keeps going to class as long as she can. Before someone from the dean's office requests a meeting with her. And suggests that maybe it's time to take some time off. Annette argues that there's only a few weeks left of term and she's still months from being due. Tim tries to help, talks to whoever he can, but it's not the "image" that the university wants of its students.

Which sends Tim in a rage. What about the poor excuse of a human being who got her pregnant and not only denies being the father but threatened her with violence to end the pregnancy. Which is still illegal. Annette had a bruise on her arm for nearly two weeks from where Kenneth grabbed her, the one on her face thankfully faded after a few days. He was charming enough at first, and she liked the attention, but she was scared too, especially once they'd been dating for a while and he started getting possessive. But she does miss the feeling of knowing someone's there for her, and the thought of a family, of a little house and someone to cook for and someone to help take care of her children...

Oh man, Tim is SO angry about that. You're okay with the image of your university being the bruise on her jaw? With the racist shit I know goes on? With the girls too drunk to remember? You're okay with *that* being the image of you university, but this young woman who is still turning her assignments in one time somehow ISN'T? It hurts Patrick's heart a little, when he gets the letter, to hear their wonderful, passionate son they raised so well come up against this stuff he's been dealing with his whole career for the first time, the hopeless fury in his voice. He sounds so much like Shelagh, too. She's kind of willfully blind about Tim being right there. Being the one she can build a family with. Because she's still waiting for him to leave. Because he has no ties to her or her child. She's waiting for him to find a girl who's not pregnant with someone else's baby to catch his eye.

So much has happened in just the first few months of her pregnancy. She's lost her family, she's lost Kenneth (which she's not really broken up about). She nearly lost her flat, and now her education. At just five months along she's being told she can't continue her education.

She tells Tim to let it go. She can go back to school after the baby, though she's not convinced she'll ever have the time. She's doesn't want to keep fighting at every turn. Her anger is much quieter than Tim's and she's internalized so much, that she blames herself. Where Tim blames the society they live in, she sees it falling on herself. She's the one who was stupid enough to get pregnant, stupid enough to have sex with Kenneth (although "no" was never an answer he accepted from her), stupid for not giving her baby up.

Tim and Annie can rent a house as a couple for Tim's third year and Annie didn't realise how much the stress of uncertain living arrangements was upsetting her. Like, she knew Tim wouldn't throw her out, and he still could, but ... she feels more settled now.

Even after they're engaged she's afraid he's just going to decide she's not worth it anymore. That he doesn't want to be with someone who already has a child. And Tim tries so hard to convince her that that won't happen.

Engagements can be broken off. Maybe this will be what finally convinces him he's better off with someone else, or that he can't spend the rest of his life looking after a baby already. And Tim is so determined to show that he loves her, and baby Daniel, and will *always* love baby Daniel whatever happens between them.

------

Tim just wants so much to be Daniel's father and Annette's husband. He felt a sense of duty towards her at first, doing the right thing even though he's not Daniel's biological father. Even as her friend, he loved her enough to step up and offer marriage. But Annette doesn't trust, not after Kenneth. Not after her parents. She kind of starts pushing him away after they're engaged. Almost as if she's testing to see if there's a point where he'll leave her. Tim gets super frustrated but knows what she's doing. He makes her sit down and talk with him. And they hash it out. Tim is big on talking. Because communication is key. He learned that from his parents. Saw what happened before Angela was adopted, what their breakdown in communication did. Annette isn't used to that. She can't recall knowing about her parents just talking to each other. Their discussions are usually loud and end with a slammed door.

Tim tells her that he's not going anywhere. They're engaged, living together, and raising Daniel. Why would he even be there if he wasn't planning on making it a forever thing? And he tells her that even if something happens, and their marriage doesn't work out, he will never disappear. He will always be there for her, and for Daniel.

Tim is so big on talking about their feelings, saw what happened when Shelagh and Patrick didn't talk (even if it was just the tension over the dinner table and barely audible conversations when he was supposed to be asleep but straining to hear what was going on, worried he was going to lose them. And also his Dad's breakdown after the brittle bones case, how Patrick pushed everyone away but it was the words of his patients and his friends that helped to bring him back. It's frustrating, when Annette pushes him away or tries to antagonise him but he understands her trust was broken and it's not about him.

He's in this for the long haul. Always. Daniel is his son as surely as he is Shelagh's. ____ half the girls think he's queer he ends up hanging out almost exclusively with girls by the end of first year lol yes

Annette does at first too but then he talks to her about liking someone and she helps him ask her out he's sweet he's like, none of the usual ways of asking girls out are nice!! and like, my dad proposed to my mum an hour after she stopped being a nun

and ugh it takes them AGES to admit they like each other more than platonically *so* long especially because Tim proposes, if that's what she wants, and she turns him down then because they both deserve more than that and fuck what anyone thinks of her, etc.

like, before she starts showing even and she /loves/ that he's willing to do that but she can't ask him to tie himself to her because of a baby a baby that's not even his yes and like ... he exists surely there will be another man willing to love and marry her even with a child? they both deserve that And she sees his parents, she knows that Shelagh is Patrick's second wife, and that Tim is her stepson so she knows that it's possible to love another person's child as your own but she doesn't want Tim to resent her even though he tries telling her that he won't yes she just - no so she turns him down when he asks that first time he holds on to the ring tho

keeps it safe it takes her a long time to admit to herself to really likes him and even longer to accept he doesn't just feel obliged

she realizes he's in her life for the long haul after the baby is born he's all but living with her, goes to classes and goes back to her flat at night, sleeps on the couch he goes to her appointments with her, has a row with the midwives when the baby comes because she's insisting she wants him in the room

she's frightened and alone and he feels safe and the midwives are super judgy he argues that he's 1) a med student 2) the child of a doctor and a midwife 3) the closest thing she has to family and is like, also i assisted with a birth when i was 17

and heck, if a nun can let his dad in when his brother was born the midwife can certainly let him when his....Annie....is giving birth

afterwards they have to grudgingly admit he coped better than most first time trainees and Annie is a lot calmer with him there of course he coped, he's been hearing about the worst births possible growing up as the son of a district dr and midwife in Poplar and reading the Lancet since he was like ten birth was just part of his life experience it takes a lot to make him squeamish hearing Annie in pain is worse it wasn't necessarily *easy* it never is Annie was in pain, and the potential for something to go wrong (and he is doubtful of the midwives in the way he's doubtful of doctors not his Dad - like loyalty) but the actual birth itself, the logistics and stuff, that didn't phase him

Annie tells the few friends she still has that Tim was with her and it gets back to Kenneth and he tries to go all macho and possessive like it's suddenly his kid or like Annie is his property still and Tim is like i fuckin dare you to try that Uncle Tim is more of a presence in that baby's life than Kenneth ever will be

It's a little boy and his middle name is Timothy

______

Annette sometimes feels that she still doesn't deserve everything the Turners have done for her. She doesn't feel like she's contributing anything at all. Tim works and does med school, she's home with the baby. His parents help out a lot. She want's to maybe work part time, to feel like she's doing something

Skinny Tim who she watched play tea parties with Angela and then lay on the floor so she could play Doctors and then helped cook dinner in Shelagh's apron because it makes Annie laugh. She's glad someone laid a punch on him, at least, and that Annie has other people in her corner who would throw down. The memory of Shelagh's steely gaze back at her parents is a memory she cherishes. She hasn't met Trixie but she likes the sound of her.

Yes - she feels like a burden, and a fairly boring one at that, with all Tim and the Turners do for her, when she's just at home. Hell, most of the time Tim cooks, when he can get home in time. I think maybe she asks Barbara - she doesn't want Shelagh to feel like she's being ungrateful or like she isn't happy in their home.

Barbara helps her look for a part time job, something that's only a few hours a week. Maybe talks to Violet about taking her on at the shop? She has been saying how she's getting too old to be on her feet all day. Shelagh happily watches Danny while Annette works. They coordinate so that the days Shelagh is at clinic Annette watches Danny and Teddy. And they switch. It helps make Annette feel like less of a burden. She's doing something and there's extra money coming in. So Tim doesn't have to work as hard.

Oh yes, working with Violet would be lovely. And she finds there are still some uses for the things her mother taught her about appearances and looking the part, the girls love her knowledge about colours and materials and she can show them how to put ribbons in and the like. Shelagh is more than happy to have Danny while she works, and Angela and Teddy like having their friend around, and staying with Annette some days too, so it all works out. And Janie helps when Shelagh has them.

I think for Annette she also starts making friends. Friends who aren't Tim's friends and family. Girls who come in every day to have a chat with her over Violet's new shipment of embellishments and the new mothers she can have a gossip with, and regular invitations to the pictures or the pub that she starts accepting when Shelagh assures her she can cope a couple of evenings a week. It's nice. She can build her own little community