#like ITS PASSABLE. just not what i had in my brain ... whatever im posting it and moving on ive spent too much time on it

[xxplastic-cubexx]

pov: you are charles xavier and you have been invited onto asteroid m

bonus:

[3liza]

talking about flters and real beauty vs fake beauty and cultural standards etc always makes me think about all the victorian and edwardian novels i read, where the things that people thought about beauty were recorded at length. recently ive been reading a lot of Thomas Hardy (best known for Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure) and there’s so much discussion of the beauty of people, particularly love interests, both men and women. and these writers, and their eras, and the culture of the eras, was of course obsessed with beauty and youth and also artificial beauty (being the eras of the really transformative corsets, not to mention some of the earliest industrialized or modernized beauty products or processes), as all human societies are to a greater or lesser extent in their own ways, but the thing that sticks out to me in reading these books is how beauty is not the singular or even the most important aspect of a person’s overall attraction. if someone has a beautiful face or figure, it is mentioned, but never to the obsessive, fixated extent that physical beauty is isolated from and elevated over all other features in modern american/western culture. there are plenty of protagonists or love interests in these books who are described as not young, or not remarkable, or not pretty, or even ugly or frightening, but nevertheless compellingly sexy and attractive, or simply interesting, or worthy in some way. 

its weird that the cultural consciousness has become seemingly ignorant of non-physical attraction. like that anon that was in my inbox talking about how they were “normal looking’ and therefore “needed” filters in order to “compete” with attractive people. it’s a weirdly mercenary and capitalist view of the social economy, first of all, which absolutely is not zero-sum no matter how badly the social networks want to convince us that it is. but there was never a single mention from that person about their ability to charm or entertain or attract using anything except a fake photo of themselves. wild. im fuckin worried about them! im worried about every young person how has brain worms

when i was about 4 and starting to become aware of how much adults were obsessed with my appearance because i was dainty and blonde and could do a passable shirley temple imitation, my parents gave me a very serious lecture about what physical beauty actually meant: i didn’t work for it (yet, i mean i do a lot of work now as an adult), it was given to me genetically. and someday, maybe sooner or more suddenly than anyone could predict, it would be gone. if accident, illness, or hardship didnt get me, old age eventually would. so with that being a certainty, i had better build a life and a personality on something other than my looks. and i said, ok. every day i get older im more grateful for that advice and the fact i decided to take it to heart instead of trying to gamble on Being Hot for long enough to get job security. which is also a valid career choice but it’s a risky one. always better to have a fallback just in case.

im of an age rn where a lot of women in my peer group are starting to get a very hunted vibe about the impending end of their youth, which is valid. theres nothing foolish about it, its not their fault, theyre not stupid or somehow lacking because this is an issue in their lives. but im noticing that i am significantly less freaked out by, idk, how long ago the 90s were or whatever, because i have been expecting to get old since i was in kindergarten. and i had adults around me who were just like “hey this is what old people look like and what bodies do over time. its not a big deal. everything on tv is fake btw”. i didnt get out unscathed, ive had eating disorders and all sort of weird brain-body problems. 

my advice i guess if i have any is to go outside and really look around you. notice how almost every single woman, and most men, has at least some cellulite, even if its just when theyre sitting down or whatever. notice how everyone has blemishes and zits. most people have some dandruff. if someone is wearing makeup, it’ll be cakey or balled up or smeared or uneven or clumpy even if it’s just a bit. everyone over the age of about 20 will have stretch marks somewhere, even if they aren’t visible except in certain light. i was under the impression i didnt have many until one time seeing a picture of my butt in FULL natural light and finally saw the entire surface of both cheeks was covered in straitions, they just were hard to see most of the time because im the color of drywall and scars tend to be light. it’s really easy to spot hair extensions and wigs and fake nails and fake tans and shapewear once you figure out how to see it. and none of these things take away from someone’s character. 

there’s a strong argument to be made that when corsetry was the norm, no woman was expected to simply be the shape of the corset unless she was actually wearing it. photographs and drawings of women in the 19th and early 20th century were retouched a bit as all photos have been, yes, but they were not retouched to make naked women appear to be corset-shaped. THAT is new. people are now getting surgery to be corset-shaped. and like, i dont think anyone should not be able to look however they want if they want to have that surgery. that is one meaning of cyborg feminism, probably. what i dont want, is for anyone to ever think that’s a normal way to look (except for veryvery tiny mathematical outliers, the Barbie Hips Georg of instagram) WITHOUT surgery or shapewear. which i see a lot now. i saw an instagram fashion designer with a very obviously surgically-altered body answer a question in her inbox about how she maintained her figure with some nonsense about diet and exercise. so now some (probably young) person out there is thinking that if they just do intermittent fasting enough, theyll look like a woman with butt and boob implants, a BBL, fillers, etc. that person probably thinks that if they arent able to diet and exercise good enough, they will fail at looking that way through their own laziness and lack of work ethic or whatever. i see that mindset constantly, especially in young women.

the surgery isnt the issue. the look itself isnt the issue. the filters themselves arent the issue. the issue is that on none of these images, is there an indication of what has been changed or how. the brain damage effect of filters would be lessened, i think, if everyone KNEW which images had been altered and how. so maybe thats the answer? mandatory labeling? i dont know. what’s terrifying is that the average adult human in america cant tell from a glance what has been altered in a photograph, no matter how clumsily, because they simply dont have a template for what a real human looks like anymore. the false images have supplanted the real images, the actual memories of alive humans that you know and have met or lived with. 

if you go into any of the shittier men’s spaces online you will find threads for posting pictures of “beautiful girls”, and it is page after page after page of teenagers in full makeup, hair extensions or wigs, circle lenses, facetuned, bodytuned, surgery, etc, and then hundreds of men yearning and fanning themselves over her “natural beauty”. dont go looking for this stuff, it will permanently fuck you up to know what a basic guy on the bus is thinking about women every day. dont do it

but i also seriously predict a backlash into “natural” looks after this current madness, similarly to how the 1960s saw the rise of the hippie girl with swingin titties, pit hair and no high heels after the consumer beauty madness of the 50s. of course the 60s beauty ideals were in some ways just as fake, but there was some authentic yearning towards a freedom from capitalist bodies as well. so when that happens send me $20: paypal.me/3liza. should be in like the next 4 years or so. thanks

[madfantasy]

I haven't seen you post in a while, I hope you've been doing okay? How is everything? Hope it's been a good year so far for you 💕💕

You're too kind, u & everyone who made inquiries, bless ur hearts.. im sorry for disappearing, but yeah, I don't have net— using my phone credit and hope this posts..

I tried to record my voice answering this, like I sometimes did on tik, suddenly ended up trying to muffle the floods of my burning tears, so now I have an awkward vid of me talking then weeping out of nowhere, which a good reason for me to keep up the no cry habit, heh.. but seriously, I suppose I'm fine till I be conscious of it.. its much easier for not to talk .. even tho I'm aching to be back in thy company, lonely in my foresight to catch on to the present that joins us, hand held out to reach like minded souls but shying from the fear of forgetfulness occurring..

I'm fine tho, did few new stuff, merely drowning in too muchness and nothingness as usual, this month I guess you could say I took an act of mad fury in search of any happy source because the echoing silence and the swarm of sadness nipping on my brain cells thickened, and the reasoning merged with the obscene. So instead of giving my guardians the usual of 3/4 of my earnings last month for net and groceries, I spent it all. Ya know, as it was told to me it mine to do as I please? As being prevented any chance of work if it was possible, 't was supposed to be spent on art supplies & measly delights craved for years ?

Before hand, I've been begging them to take me for months to get any clothing or whatever, be it the first time I ever see a shop, then just to drive around, then just me peaking to the outside when the front door is open, merely seeking change I suppose. They kept vaguely promising me until they refused point blank— getting tired of my nagging, then their car just stopped working till this day. Its in the workshop rn..

Anyway, befouled by despair, needing the mere basics of life and not granted, I was delighted when i found a site to buy from cheap & pretty, I pressed buy without any further considerations, or taking their permission and thrilled to be able get gifts for my siblings too. I say gifts but really they are deprived necessities too and not even much just one each cuz well, they are 5 of my babies and to start with the top of priorities; we all draw

I could already see it, they can't help themselves; heck seeped through the clenched gates of their mouths, trying desperately to poison me with undirect attempts this time, cuz I bought for my sibs they're out of the option of calling me selfish. I was upping the same trance like state of vague existence dealing with them, absorbing their insults and degrading just to make sure my shi arrives safe.

Unfortunate for me, the site chose the worst carrier in this country

I did everything in my power to make it into their convenience, by embarrassingly messaging the carrier daily, they took a week of promising to deliver and flanking so my guardians reached a heated level of threatening, waving their hands nd almost tossing shi at mE saying that they don't care if they came and if i dared to order something again they'll do this and that. Not allowing me to open the door for the delivery guy when he comes, blaming me for missing vaccination dates (they kept missing them even before)& missing going to important places(again, they just didn't go to for ages), made them loose sleep, etc etc— in turn, I seen red and regretfully blew up.

I screamed at them its literally the only time I ever did this, it BECAUSE it easier on them & I'll do what I want whatever anyway, & to stop interrupting me while I try to explain things , then they suddnly back done and be like I'm not mad at u I'm mad at the delivery ppl, that they are proud of me for being able to do all this, and such sort. I left them to cool in my room, Idk how I did it but must have slam-gripped something so hard it chipped most of my short nails & cracked one, was glad I didn't hurt my drawing hand but yeah, goofy mani

They robbed me of the joy of anticipation & the dissipation of apathy, I started to lose sleep again and my liberating dreams left me and I don't think I remember leaving bed.

But still, If not force myself to do things.. there'll be nothing for me if I don't.. at least I know im able of that

I got my guardians happy tho after another tiresome refusal, by trying out one of those Uber-eat like local apps here, since they have no car and being disabled & ill, I ordered McDonald's for the first time. Slythry behind their backs per habit, told them someone coming and they had that look again, but thankfully the guy came through and didn't steal my money, heh. For a big 1800 calories meal I suppose it was passable, the happy fam faces I got was the real treat..

Oh with that thing with the credit card stating I owe them money, waited weeks & nobody got back to us? They started taking from my guardian's account directly to pay it, saying oh we did send you warnings--- TO THE SHADOWY LINES OF THEIR POSTERIOR A.K.A NOWHERE. Thankfully the account is mostly empty nd just for random transactions, i alerted my guardians not to use it. And again, my god, another round of endless calls and promises started, and we wait again so they just don't act as if we owe them a frking 17k dollars that we don't have.. was panicking cuz I have nothing and but my guardians were weirdly comforting about it and told me not to worry

One thing good bout no net is it made me stop thinking about life in general, and stop the tiny unnoticeable prick of misery when I have no input to share, trying not to helplessly compare people just living, in inflated style or not, in media, to my isolated-most-of-my-life style and missing much of that organic "life experiences and chances", heh. At least, my situation would be favorable to me if it was ever possible for it to let me have peace, or have the simple knowledge I'm not virtually imprisoned and have never familiarised with nothing of this world but the surrounding walls.. its nice to have more time to be consumed by muse and day dreaming that flutters life through my dull being and sing chorus of inspiring means for art to flow and finds its way delicately onto my realised canvas.. but no, I continued drawing whilst sight blurred with salty droplets contradicting that happy tintin dance on tiktok I worked so long on just cuz I couldn't stop, not the tears or the mad scribbles of determined intention to visualise the mourned excitement I need, hating everything I make

Somehow the lilac dream still intrudes, visualising me friends, living, in a quaint home, maybe we roommate, arm in arm we go to make every fracture of fate's encounters a disgusting adventurous thrill, like building a maze of cardboard or chasing each other in the dark.. maybe getting that half bleached head and endless ear pericings ... then it dies and I totally forget it..

But what those awesome headphones helped me do, literally blocks all their voices listening to Sev losing it and I can Waltz around not feeling gutted to go and interfere or play the referee each time. But I can't wear them forever, gives me a bad headache, and honestly; I can't be too neglectful.. my sibs hates me for it already hehe

At least these clothing came true to their measurements, felt the new sensations on how everything I wore hugs me & learnt the baffling ways on how "gender" and region plays different tunes on the same measurements. Getting fitting things felt like suddenly there's hope to be, for myself to be me, and ease this severe disassociation between who I am, and what my body is .. from how little I see myself nd consider it worthy of anything because of how long it been living like a phantom among people.. to numb this dysphoria until it be gone one day

Saddened that the only site I can't order from again if they keep using that awful carrier

...

I missed our country's 91 national day, too. They made sales everything 91 riyal so.. but knowing the sellers here, I don't think most of em went true with their offers.. Horrible news tho on the celebrations, sigh

I turned this into a dear diary, guess bothered you enough today, sorry

So thankful to yous, Idk if I can be back, but I'll remain creating, and will keep the thought alive of being tickled when sharing my creations with your viewing pleasure somehow

'till then my precious dears, take care 💛🙏

26.9.2021, 8 pm, sleeping

[mystt]

im watching this video, its a round table political discussion, with 3 men and 2 women. and only LITERALLY an hour in, and only because the guy mentioned it, did i understand that one of those dudes is a trans guy. and this has prompted an entire line of thinking in my brain that i think ive touched on before? but im a bit inebriated rn and i just need to vent about this. 

i fucking love my trans brothers. really. yall are fucking. incredible. you put up with so much bullshit from society, completely separate from the bullshit that trans girls have to put up with, and you take that shit in stride. i love yall. but. when it comes to the nitty gritty of transitioning, like the actual biological process, yall are on easy street. and it makes me, so fucking jealous.

unless a trans woman is post op, has had cosmetic surgery on top of that, and is wearing 10 pounds of makeup, you can often Tell. or at least, i can, being a judgmental asshole and being transfemme myself. a good portion of that is that T is just a stronger chemical that makes much more drastic changes on the body. ofc it takes time, and it varies a lot between people. but, take a trans man whose been on T for 5 years vs a trans woman whose been on E for 5 years, and the appearance of the trans guy has changed much more drastically than the appearance of the trans woman. its just. not fuckin fair dude. 

and another, much larger part of this is that our societys idea of what a ‘man’ can look like is so much broader than that of a woman. theres a HUGE list of boxes that a woman has to check for her to look acceptable in public. thats why it often seems like trans women are ‘hperfeminine’ or ‘reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes.’ because if they dont, they just get accused of being a man in a dress. there is no ‘woman in a dress shirt and slacks.’ that isnt just a thing. i mean, it kind of is, especially when terfs accuse trans men of ‘rejecting their womynhood’ or whatever the fuck. and that is a huge problem within the feminist/lgbt community. i really dont want to diminish that. but us trans femmes? we have this shit so fucking rough dude. it really feels like all of the cards are stacked against us. i feel like thats why you see so many stone butch trans women (who, can i just say, are all fucking queens who deserve everything we have to give them). because, for many of us, theres just no fucking way in hell we will EVER be seen as ‘passable’ by society no matter how hard we try. so why bother at all? why not just take comfort in knowing that you are who you are and theres nothing anyone can do to stop you???

[ladyofpurple]

GIRL ITS BEEN MONTHS SINCE YOU UPDATED TPOY!! please tell me you haven’t given up on it )-:

I KNOW IM REALLY SORRY OMG

This took a bit longer to answer than it should have because I was trying to figure out how to reply, I guess?? The short answer is basically that writing bits of fic during my exams when I didn’t actually have the time to was super productive, mainly because I Didn’t Want To Do The Thing but my entire future hinged on Doing The Thing and anxiety-driven avoidance is excellent creative fuel, apparently. The problem is, of course, that once I finished and started getting my results back and actually had time to breathe again my brain kinda fizzled out and I never wanted to look at a Word document ever again in my life. Writing is really hard right now, for some reason. And not just TPoy — everything I try to write either gives me a headache, makes every idea I’ve ever had go flying out the window like magic, or looks like absolute garbage to me. (I’ve been trying, though, I promise!!!) There is more TPoY, though!! I swear to God!! It’s just coming along a little slower than anticipated.

The long answer is... a little more complicated and probably more than you’re interested in, and the main reason is the short one anyway. But I’ll put a long answer under a cut just in case (aka the entire history of TPoY lol), since I’ve lowkey wanted to post about it for a while now but didn’t quite know how to? May get a little very personal, I suppose.

Basically, TPoY is and always has been a garbage fic. I don’t say that to disparage my own writing or attempt to elicit praise from anyone: I have always considered it a glorious dumpster fire of experimentation, a ridiculous Frankenstein’s monster of all my favorite ML tropes as a practice run, since it had been so long since attempting to write anything at all. I’m thrilled that people like it, of course! Whenever people send me asks about it my answers always involve a lot of exclamation points and variations on “I AM CURRENTLY SOBBING ON THE FLOOR IN GRATITUDE” because I honestly have no idea how to express how genuinely teary-eyed I get when someone tells me how much they like it, or post a comment. That being said, it was always intended for my own amusement and/or therapy, and that it’s gotten so many bookmarks and kudos and comments is incredibly surreal, even after a whole year.

When I started writing it, I was working through a lot of stuff. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, and as we lived together in his hometown I was stuck there on my own for another year before I could move back home. 2016 was filled with a lot of horrifying shit that kept happening one after the other and I eventually almost had to drop out of school because I couldn’t handle it all. The relationship was pretty toxic but all I knew at the time was that I was scared and alone and heartbroken. 

When I started writing, it was after 8 months of the worst bout of depression I’ve ever experienced, and I still wasn’t well, but I functioned passably enough to start hyperfocusing on things. I had an idea about a fic I suddenly wanted to write, and it would have a happy ending and all, but I could work through my feelings in a way I hadn’t tried to since before my ex and I got together. I pulled a lot of the start of the fic (the rejection, the miscommunication, the avoidance) from my recent breakup, yes, but also from my first rejection, aka the only other boy I’d liked enough to confess my feelings to. We were 17, and he admitted that he knew, and then suddenly we weren’t friends anymore. A year and a half later, I got together with my ex, and suddenly after three years of dedicating my life to “us” on his whims he was ghosting me without explanation.

I see a lot of myself in Marinette at that age. The awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the incredibly obvious lovesick obsession with a cute boy who’s nice to you. I wondered if maybe she would react the same, if put into similar circumstances as I had been. Focus on the self-doubt that would follow, based on insecurities she’s already shown in the show — coupled with your standard teenage hormone-fest —and you’d have a fabulous starter for angstfic and a free therapy session all in one.

The problem with that is nobody knows this backstory but me. People focusing on Marinette’s insecurities is nothing new. Other people are annoyed it’s such a popular trope. And the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on certain aspects of the main characters’ identities for the purposes of a story I started on a whim has been making me insecure for a long time because people in the fandom are tired of those characterizations. I’ve never gotten hate comments —I don’t even remember ever getting constructive criticism on TPoY. But I’m well aware that the plot is far from original and definitely lacking in certain places, and as the comments roll in and the hits go up my anxiety mounts because oh my God I’m that guy in the fandom.

I always intended on focusing on different aspects of their characterizations in different fics to suit the plot, y’know? Not ignoring parts of their personalities, but just... emphasizing other parts. But TPoY is the one most people have read. I have a couple one-shots where I tried to do something like that, with different aspects of their characters, but short one-shots can’t really compare to a 100,000+ word WIP, even if they even slightly compared in popularity (they don’t). So my only notable contribution to the fandom is TPoY. And that makes me anxious.

Then there’s the Frankenstein-like obsession with adding every trope I’ve ever wanted to write in a fic like this. I’ve mentioned before that the original plan for this was, like, 10-15 chapters at most. But every chapter I write I’m like, “But what if I did this???” Like I said, I never intended it to be even remotely popular. The only other fandoms I’ve written for are microscopic in comparison. I had no frame of reference for a pairing this big — all my previous experience was from Fanfiction.net, for Christ’s sake. I assumed I wouldn’t finish it, and even getting to chapter 6 was a surprise. But that hyperfocus somehow held on for dear life and I was banging out chapters like nobody’s business. And people were responding to it. And I think that kind of went to my head a little? Not like in an “I deserve all this attention” kind of way, but more like a “People like?? This thing I’m doing??? I cannot squander this opportunity, I must give them m o r e” kind of way. It was the best I’d felt since the breakup and I didn’t really think I deserved it, so I kind of wanted to... prove I did, I guess, by writing everything I’d ever wanted in a lovesquare fic in hopes that people would keep liking it and me and I’d keep feeling nice. (I mean, I’d planned to add in a ridiculous amount of tropes anyway, I just ended up adding a lot more than I’d planned.)

On the one hand, people go nuts for that shit. On the other, it’s getting harder and harder to justify cramming all this shit into the same fic. This compulsion keeps fucking me over by giving me spur-of-the-moment ideas for sub-plots I never wanted and certainly didn’t properly think through before posting the foreshadowing or setup for — yet at the same time they’re usually thought of and integrated several chapters in advance so I can’t just... leave them out? And part of me kind of doesn’t want to?? And I’m trying with every fiber in my being not to rewrite just the first 3 chapters, let alone the entire fic. A side-effect of my FF.net history at 13 was Never Edit Anything. Yeah, I’ll do some spell-check. Maybe some rewording here and there. Sometimes I’ll post a chapter and come back sporadically over the next few days to change out some punctuation or whatever. But if I don’t like a section after writing for a while? Throw the Whole Ass Chapter out. After it’s posted? This Is Your Life Now.

let’s not talk about how everything after chapter 27 was supposed to go very differently

Never mind that, after writing a hundred thousand goddamn words in a year, one’s writing skill tends to evolve and increase over time. Not just in regards to vocabulary, but with consistency and pacing and structure. This means, of course, that I can’t ever reread my own writing without the Evil Writing Goblin in my brain telling me to start the whole thing over from scratch. It’s fine.

I suppose I could get a beta, but I’m very bad at taking critique and as I’m even worse at talking to people than I am at posting on time I don’t think that would work out very well.

The point of this goddamn novel is that TPoY means a lot to me, probably a lot more than people realize. It’s kinda dumb and very cheesy and absurdly long, but it was the first real thing I did for myself after my whole life fell apart. I will finish it!!

But it’s hard to write it right now. I’m trying— I’m writing four chapters at the same time right now (a bit less than 10,000 words combined at current count). I don’t want to try to rewrite the whole fic or keep “mischaracterizing” the characters or lose the suspense I’ve tried to build (or, God forbid, try to keep interest so hard it hurts the rest of the fic) and risk alienating readers. I can’t stress enough how much these supportive comments mean to me, even on something as silly as a fanfic. But I also don’t want to force myself to write it or write something just because other people might or might not like it and risk alienating me. So I’m stuck at a kind of anxiety-induced impasse with myself that’s just made worse by the fact that I’m having trouble writing anything at all at the moment.

Jesus Christ this was longer than I meant it to be. Please don’t take this as a pity-party or anything. I don’t want sympathy or, I don’t know, reassurance or anything, I just wanted everything to be Out There because it really is the most in-depth response I could give and y’all deserve an honest answer. Some of you guys have been reading since the beginning and I can’t express how much that means to me. I feel really bad when I haven’t updated in a long time, because I know my fic makes some people really happy!

And PLEASE don’t take this as a “STOP ASKING ME ABOUT TPOY GODDAMMIT” because this is the opposite of that. I FUCKING LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME ABOUT TPOY. I L I V E FOR IT. But it sucks when the only answer I have is “I don’t know when it’ll be up, sorry :( ”

I mean, that’ll probably still be the answer I give, unless I by some miraculous (heh) stroke of luck) start hyperfocusing on writing again.

But at least y’all kinda know why now.

[strangcrdoctor]

I want the K (this comes as a shock im sure)

You’ll Have To Take My Word For It: 5, Firm Kiss.

“Come on, Stephen!”

“No, Christine. That is not how this works.”

She put her hands on her hips, barring him from leaving the study. He’d been avoiding her all morning, puttering around the house under the guise of looking for something. She’d realized relatively quickly that he was just avoiding her, avoiding what she was there for, and was making valiant efforts to make it look like he had something else going on. The problem was, Stephen had always been a terrible liar. He put enough energy into his lies that those who didn’t now better would find them passable, but she had known him for so long that she wasn’t fooled.

Additionally, she had known for many years how much he despised his birthday. He’d often teased her about having post traumatic stress from the scenes she used to make of his parties at the hospital. She used to recruit the nurses and Stephen’s research interns, along with West and a considerable amount of the senior staff who also liked to make Strange squirm, corner him like she was doing now in the cantina when he inevitably had to stop in for coffee, and instigate the loudest most obnoxious renditions of Happy Birthday possible. Accompanied purposefully by the cheapest, gaudiest supermarket cupcakes she could find. 

Now, there was no birthday committee. No promise of terrible, tasteless cupcakes with frosting that would dye the teeth of half the staff for three days straight, or of seeing him walk around the hospital for a day with glitter on his scrubs from when they would dump it on him on his way in the cantina door. Even though he hated those parties, it was arguably the best humor he showed toward the rest of the staff, in that he put up with it with comparatively mild complaining.

There was only her, now. Because for as big as his world had gotten with all of his magic and mysticism, there were times when she was reminded that in its own way, it had contracted. Contracted all the way down to one final friend, the only person who still knew to show up and make him shove a bit of birthday cheer up his tightwad ass.

“Quit pulling excuses out of your ass, Strange. I’ve seen you freeze time to take a house-call in Midtown. I’ve seen you grant the wishes of kids playing at fountains. You’re a magician. One of the most powerful ones in the world.” The sigh and the eye roll that followed weren’t much of a surprise, but the tension in his face and shoulders made her wonder just why he was resisting so staunchly, and if it weren’t because of something else other than his typical birthday aversion. “How bad can it be that I give you permission to grant your own biggest wish for a day?”

She leveled him with a salacious smirk when he still seemed to be hesitating. “Come on, Stephen. I know you.” She settled her hands at his waist, knowing that the come-hither tone wouldn’t be lost on him. “You’ve got to have all kinds of kinky things cooked up in that head of yours. I’m essentially giving you a free pass for whatever it is that’s on the top of your bucket list. Give me something to work with - I can’t buy you anything, and I don’t know where you would want me to take you if I took you anywhere. So spill it. Give yourself that one thing you’ve been dying for, with a little “with love from Christine” sprinkled in, hm?”

It wasn’t a staged withering sigh he gave after her little appeal, which continued to baffle her. She was trying to work with him, damn it. Literally to give him what he wanted most and now suddenly he seemed to have cold feet? He was either egregiously ill, an impostor, or had much more dangerous kinks that even she expected of him, because the Stephen Strange she knew was hardly a man to shy away from an opportunity to humor his downstairs brain.

Still, when he looked down at her to meet her gaze it was the resignation of someone who knew they were beaten. Someone who felt their defeat. He settled a hand on her cheek, brushing his thumb over the curve of her cheekbone, and for a moment she couldn’t quantify why he looked so torn. A spike of worry settled in, making her second-guess what had been meant to be a kind gesture.

That thought made her realize that the gesture, his gesture, the same one he gave her so often when she did something to remind him of his fondness of her, felt strange. Something about it was off, and she reached up and held his hand, more out of instinct than cognition. But when her hands captured his, the realization hit her like a thunderbolt.

When his pristine, scar-less fingers wove perfectly around her own, she realized why he’d been so reticent, so ashamed to give himself her gift. And in the rush of emotions she felt - embarrassment, sorrow, affection, confusion - only one clear thought rang through.

He was breaking the laws of time, destiny, and being, because all he wanted to do was hold her in the hands he’d once had.

These immaculate hands which had belonged to a lesser man, a man who had forsaken sentiment and wisdom for pride and valor. These hands that had been the price of re-birthing the man he had become since, and it was a price he paid over and over again, living out every day with the pain and discomfort and never once lamenting the exchange.

Except today. Because she had given him permission, coaxed him into this one selfish act. But even being selfish, the gentility of who Stephen had become bled through. The cocksure neurosurgeon knew how to handle himself, his partners, and his work with those hands which had been in their own way magic. The magician, now, held a different kind of surety when he used those anomalously functional hands to cradle her face and brush the tears from the corner of her eyes. 

Now, Stephen held her with the kind of surety which could only come from a man who would never again miss out on the opportunity to not only do good with those hands, but to have them reflect the desire to be good. And his reluctance, his shame, came from feeling that even with that concession, this gift was too much to have asked, and more than certainly too much to have taken even with permission.

“When did you turn into such a sap?” she breathed, and realized, mortified, that she’d said that aloud through a feeble little noise that was somewhere between a hiccup and a sob. The blind were leading the blind, apparently. But the comment got him to laugh, pulled that shy farmer’s son smile out to combat the glassiness in his eyes.

“Turns out that it’s in the fine print when you have to believe in magic for a living,” he answered dutifully, and one of his hands carded back through her hair. And she couldn’t imagine how that must have felt, how the dexterity and the texture and the temperature all must have felt to those reformed nerves. 

The spell wouldn’t last forever - she knew that he couldn’t live with that on his conscience - but while it did last, she would be damned if she wasn’t going to help him not miss any chances to make use of it.

She pulled him down, pressing her lips to his in an attempt to express what would never come out in words. Because of all the choices he could have made, of all the gifts he could have given himself which she would have gladly abided, she was proud of him, heartbreakingly so, for having chosen this.

“You and I are going to have a very good day,” she said when she pulled away, prodding him gently in the chest. “Okay?” Her words were still watery, but there was conviction behind them, the same conviction that had delivered this little miracle to both of them in the first place.

“Already done.” 

“Oh no you don’t.” She curled her fingers into the lapels of his tunic, letting the cloying poetry of it all settle in her heart like a ray of sunshine so that she might focus on the other feelings she was bent on giving him that day. Make hay while the sun shines, as they always said.

Or have a romp in it, which was very rapidly becoming her plan. Because if there was one thing she was very sure he was dying to do with these hands, it was to use them wisely. 

She released his shirt after giving him another quick peck before taking one of his hands in hers. She found herself missing the scars, missing their character. But she knew she would have them forever. These hands, these gentle hands, she could only love for a short while, and she fully intended to do so. 

“Come on, Christine. We don’t have to do this right now.”

“Oh yes, Stephen, we do,” she said, tugging him playfully along while she had the chance. She vaguely cast a prayer and an apology to Wong, because for that particular day, nowhere in the house was going to be safe. “That’s how this works.”