#literally anything that puts you in actual real life contact with other queer people

[sentient-carrot]

Tumblr goes mantis shrimp about ways to divide the queer community and in-fight.

[duuhrayliegh]

social media

warnings: none? maybe a smidgen of language? fluffy bucky, bad description of dancing? idk, there really isn’t anything in this one to be warned about it just super wholesome

word count: 2437 

a/n: okay so this came out longer than i meant it to, but i’m not mad at it. there’s mention of he/they pronouns and gender identity, if i didn’t do the subject justice please let me know. also tiktok mentions and all creators are tagged accordingly so please go appreciate their wonderfulness :) 

p.s.: my requests and tag lists are open!! 

if you want to know where these characters are coming from, check out the other parts! you don’t have to read them in any particular order!

ray’s m.list

******************************

Being from the 1940’s, Bucky didn’t have much education in the world of smartphones and social media. When he came out of cryo in Wakanda, Shuri wasted no time showing him the ways of the iPhone. Honestly, he was stunned because there were so many things you could do with it. So much information was available at the touch of his fingers.

Shuri taught him the ins and outs of the phone. He had gotten pretty good at it, if he did say so himself. She had just begun to teach Bucky about social media when Steve pulled him back to the Big Apple. When he returned to New York, he was able to easily contact Steve, who was not as proficient as Bucky was. So when he met the fantastical group of four friends, they began to teach him. This was one of those things that they were incredibly excited to teach Bucky about.

“So you don’t have an account on anything?” Freddie held his hand out for Bucky’s phone.

“No, I have one on something. I think Instant Graham? My friend set it up for me, but she never taught me how to use it.” Freddie smiled and shook his head, dark curls bouncing back and forth.

“It’s Instagram, bubs and that’s a good jumping off point.” He opened the black iPhone and swiped through the pages on the homescreen. Coming across the sunset colored icon, he hovered his finger over it. The screen changed, opening to a white screen with the words, WELCOME to INSTAGRAM, whitewolf. Bucky smiled at the name displayed and Freddie scrunched his brows.

“What is a White Wolf?”

“I’m the White Wolf. It’s Wakandan. We can change it if we need to.” Freddie looked over at Bucky and saw the happiness on his face at the name.

“No, it’s good we can leave it.” He clicked on the profile button in the bottom right corner of the screen. “Okay, so this is your personal profile.” In the top left corner whitewolf was written with a little arrow next to it facing downward. Freddie opened the edit profile section.

“Do you have a favorite picture of yourself? You have to set a profile picture so people know that it’s you.” Bucky nodded in understanding, and then took his phone back to scroll through his pictures. He didn’t have many, just the ones that he took recently. There was hardly any of just him, but he eventually found one he deemed good enough.

“Alright, now what do you want to put in your bio?” Shrugging his shoulders, Bucky leaned back into Cassie’s plush couch.

“What does yours say?” Freddie pulled his own phone out of his pocket. The pale lilac color seemed to shine through the clear case that it wore. Opening his own Instagram, Freddie leaned the phone towards Bucky.

|| he/they || activist || va te faire voir ||

“What does ‘he slash they’ mean?”

“Oh, those are my pronouns.” Freddie received a head tilt from Bucky, so he decided to elaborate. “So, I identify as a non-binary who is comfortable with you using he/him pronouns or they/them pronouns. If you’re talking about me to someone else, you can say ‘he is at the store,’ or ‘they are at the store.’” Bucky nodded, still a bit confused on the subject.

“When do you use each one? Like is there a certain time that you say he and him and another time for they and them?” Bucky was trying to get some clarification on the topic.

“Not necessarily. Usually, when you’re first talking to someone, it’s common practice nowadays to use they/them pronouns so as to not misgender anyone. I know it probably sounds a bit excessive and a small bit over sensitive to you, but to a queer or non-binary person it makes a whole hell of a lot of difference when someone tries to be inclusive.”

“Okay, so like if I just meet someone on the street, I should use the they/them pronouns until told otherwise?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to include your pronouns in your bio?” Bucky smiled and nodded, happy with himself that he was able to understand that so well.

“So, what does it mean to be non-binary and still use the he/him pronouns? Don’t those two contradict each other?”

“Not really. Gender is a spectrum, as is sexuality, but for someone to identify as non-binary and use he/they pronouns, means that I feel that not everything about manhood accurately describes my truth. On that same hand, I still do identify as a male.”

“Right, right.” Throughout Freddie’s lesson about gender identity, he was able to finish Bucky’s profile and begin to follow the three girls. After clicking the blue follow button on all three of the girls profiles, the group chat between them started blowing up, that was a new phrase Bucky learned last week.

Evie: um, i just got the weirdest insta notif

Penny: me too???

Cassie: I did too.

Cassie: Wait, who is Bucky with right now?

Evie: DANG IT FREDERICK I WANTED TO HELP HIM SET IT UP

Bucky: My name isn’t Frederick, Evie

Incoming Call from Evie

“What do you want, spaz?” Freddie answered on speakerphone. An indignant scoff  came from the other end.

“I thought we were all going to help him with that, Frederick.”

“Um, I don’t remember us talking about that.” He laughed as the door to Cassie’s apartment opened, allowing Penny to walk in and smile at the two men on the couch. “Also, when were we going to have time to do that with you being at school and all?”

“We were going to wait until the weekend!”

“Eves, you’ve been saying that for the past like three weeks.”

“Oh my gosh, fine.” Her end of the phone got real quiet, “I’ll be home in like ten minutes. I call dibs on helping him set up a TikTok.” Three beeps signalled to the room that Evie had hung up the phone. Bucky turned to Penny and began to ask about her day.

“Ya know, the usual. Rude customers, bratty co-workers, life’s a dream at the bank.” She slipped out of her nude heels and made her way to the sofa. “What have you boys been up to?”

“We have been setting Buck up with some social media and learning about gender identity and respecting pronouns.” Freddie said proudly as he handed Bucky his phone back.

“Sick! Which ones did you do?”

“All the classics, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook just for PR though because hardly anyone uses it anymore.”

“Right, and can’t do TikTok until Evie gets here. Um, did you set up a Spotify for him?” Bucky recognized the name and the memories of Shuri helping him floated in his head.

“Oh, I have one of those. That was actually the first thing that Shuri helped me set up whenever I got this thing.” He opened the app quickly to prove what he was saying. Penny smiled and gave a small thumbs up. “I do have one question.” The two of them gave Bucky their undivided attention. “What is a TikTok?”

“Right, so it’s just short videos. It’s really pretty cool and a really good way to waste time.” Freddie answered while pulling up his own page on the app.

“Yeah, and the thing that shows you videos is curated to your tastes because it’s based on your likes and people you follow.”

“I’m almost positive that Evie is going to teach you a dance and do a TikTok with you, if you agree to it.” Penny laughed at the thought of Bucky doing one of the dances that she saw on her For You page. The door to the apartment swung open a second time, revealing a winded Evie.

She dropped her school bag on the floor, hunching over while gripping the side of the granite countertop. Evie held a finger up and the group on the couch waited for her to speak.

“I ran--” deep inhale, “I ran from the subway.” Another deep breath as she lifted her upper half, stretching out her back with her hands on the back of her hips. “You haven’t done TikTok yet right?”

“No, your Highness, we haven’t done TikTok.” She smiled big and then plopped herself on Bucky’s left side. She thrust her hand toward him, wiggling her fingers. Bucky cautiously placed his phone in the center of her palm.

“This is going to be good. Okay so since your name on Instagram is whitewolf, we can’t use that for TikTok. It’s gotta be something snappy.”

“I don’t know, I think you can use the same one for both, Eve.” Penny remarked as Evie downloaded TikTok onto Bucky’s phone.

“Well, of course you can, but we’re not going to.” She giggled as the app opened. She looked over at Bucky with wrinkled brows. “Do you have any nicknames?”

“Um, Bucky is my nickname.” He said in a duh tone.

“Well, obviously, but do you have any other ones? Like, what do your friends call you?”

“Bucky or Buck, I don’t really have nicknames.” Evie groaned and threw her head back.

“Okay, well let’s think. You’re a Sergeant. Your real name is James Buchanan Barnes. Superhero name is Winter Soldier or White Wolf. You have a metal arm.”

“You’re literally just stating facts, Evie.” Freddie said from the other side of Bucky, who was nodding along in confirmation to Evie’s statements.

“I know! I’m processing. What about vibraniumjames?”

“That’s disgusting.” “Mm, yeah that’s a no from me.” Penny and Freddie talked at the same time.

“metallicsergeant? jamesbby? Any of those tickle our fancy?”

“The first one isn’t terrible, but it’s not great. Why don’t you just use whitewolf like his Instagram? Or you could do iambuckybarnes.”

“Yeah, I’m with Freddie. I like whitewolf or iambuckybarnes, it’s simple. And I am the White Wolf, so yeah.” Bucky said to a disgruntled Evie.

“Oh my gosh, fine. We can always change it later, but this is fine for now.” She set up his profile, making it match the other ones that Freddie had made. Once she was finished with her work, she turned to Bucky and smiled big again. “Now, I can teach you a dance and if you’re cool with it we can post it on your profile.” Bucky shook his head and pulled himself off of the comfy couch beneath him.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it right, so don’t hold back on me.” He smiled as Evie squealed in excitement.

“You know, my school friends were just dying to see the day that you got social media.” This statement confused Bucky.

“And why would that be?” Evie laughed as she scrolled through her TikTok feed, searching for the right dance to do with Bucky.

“Well, for one, they think you’re hot and they’re thirsty hoes.” She clicked on the original dance video, showing the screen to Bucky. “And, for two, they love you. Everyone does.” Bucky shook his head at that. He did too many bad things for everyone to love him.

“Hey, remember what we talked about?” Penny said from across the room. “We don’t downgrade our progress. Most of the general public is more forgiving than we give them credit for.” Bucky nodded then focused his attention on the video.

“This is Cardi B’s song Up. People on TikTok have made a challenge of doing this dance to the song. I think it originated with a girl named Mya Nicole. Anyway! We’re going to do this one, if you’re up for it.” Bucky looked at Evie with one brow quirked. There was so much shaking in this. Nonetheless, he shrugged his shoulders., it clearly was making Evie happy so he wasn’t going to take that away.

“Sickening! Okay, let’s start learning it.” It took a good hour and a half to help Bucky move his body in the way that the dance required. By the time they were ready to start filming the actual video, Cassie had walked in.

“What is happening here?” A large smile spread across her face as she watched Bucky and Evie practice one last time. A breathless Evie turned to Cassie.

“Bucky agreed to do the Cardi B Up dance with me.” She then turned to Bucky, “You ready to do this for real?” The tall man beside her shook his head while laughing.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” From the safety of the couch, Freddie, Penny and Cassie were watching the scene before them unfold. Both Bucky and Evie jumped into frame, with their legs spread wide. Throwing their fists in front of them and then behind their legs in time with the music. Bringing their hands above their head to clap and then jumping again, throwing just one hand up at a time.

Shifting to the side, the pair brought the leg closest to the camera up to their waist while hitting it back down with their fist. They both remained facing sideways as they shook the leg they just hit and ran their hands down their torso. The pair did another vertical jump, bringing their knees up to their fists. Once their feet hit the floor, they folded at the waist, slamming their palms flat on the ground.

Smiles were plastered on both their faces as they finished out the dance, knees bent, bouncing their legs back and forth while tossing their hands above their heads. Loud laughter rang out from the three friends in the living room as Bucky and Evie dropped to their butts. The video ended with Bucky and Evie yelling at the other three in the room.

“You’re definitely going to go viral with that one, Buck!”

“Like an infection?” He asked with wide eyes of concern, more peels of laughter rang out.

“No, like famous, lots of people are going to see it.” That relieved and scared Bucky at the same time. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, but he knows that his friends wouldn’t steer him wrong.

“Now we can caption it something cute!” Evie breathed out as she leaned over the couch next to Cassie, who was now curled up beneath a fluffy white blanket.

“Don’t forget to tag the original creator, I hate it when people don’t do that.”

The video was posted with the caption,

iambuckybarnes: am i doing the tiktok right realpokemonevie? dance cr: theemyanicole

And it wasn’t long after posting that Bucky got a call from Steve that he needed to come into the tower.

***************************

@mishaandthebrits

[firelxdykatara]

Hello! I say this in the kindest way possible, but can you please provide evidence that theowelspeaks is a terf? I'm a black zutara shipper and for years have really felt shoved by the fandom and it hasn't been my safe space. But YOUR blog and you made me feel better. I'm not in your discord but you're being accused of racism. I don't follow the owlspeaks and wanna support you but if you're being accused of racism why are you calling someone a terf?

Can you please show where they are a terf? I'm only asking this because I really REALLY love you and I support you. And if they are a terf, you need to provide evidence. It is heavily suspicious when a person of color calls out a white woman on racism and you don't address the accusations but just call them a terf. I want to support you I really do because you made me feel comfortable in the fandom, but I need to see concrete evidence that they're a terf. Never mind, I saw the whole situation and honestly I'm disgusted I ever follow or looked up to you. You're literally no different from other racist white shippers. I think there went my love for zutara.

I'm going to take this at face value--not that, on any real level, I actually believe you were a follower of mine or did anything close to due diligence, because if you were or had then you would know that I never actually called that blogger a terf--and answer as respectfully as I can. Mostly because I want anyone who has genuine issues with anything I've said or done to know that despite whatever's going around about me right now, I am willing to listen to criticism if it comes from a place of good faith.

(You can think whatever you want about my insistence on 'good faith', but the fact is that I have weathered being slammed with accusations of pedophilia and other horrible things over differences in headcanon of shit like character ages or writing a fic set years post-canon because I felt like it, right down to the insistence that I'm a horrible racist because of my url, so no. I'm not going to listen to someone slinging slurs and buzzwords in my inbox just because they claim to be a poc. And before that sets anyone off, the slurs I'm talking about are aimed at my queerness. I do not consider being called racist or a white bitch or whatever slurs, because they aren't.)

First of all, once again, I never called that blogger a terf. You can easily read my post about them for yourself and see that--ctrl+F for the term 'terf', and you will not find it. Why? Because I called them out on peddling radfem rhetoric, (which they are) not for being a terf. All terfs are radfems--it's in the name--but not all radfems are terfs, although all radfem rhetoric is exceptionally harmful to queer people in general, and queer poc more than most, as is the nature of intersectionality.

Anti-kink rhetoric, and the insistence that some kink is inherently harmful and that no one could legitimately have these kinks or fetishes without being mentally ill or traumatized, is radfem rhetoric. That's where it comes from, that's where it leads to, and I'll be honest here, 'radfem' is not an identity label. It's an ideology. You do not get to parrot core tenets of that ideology and then claim to not be a radfem. That simply isn't how this works.

Furthermore, I have no idea who the person behind theowlspeaks blog is. I will take them at their word that they are not white, but that doesn't exactly narrow things down--and considering the fact that they chose to put me on blast for their small but dedicated ring of followers rather than actually coming to me personally first about any of this (their blog is very obviously a burner, and it wouldn't have been that difficult to approach me since I've only ever turned anon off once, for one night to give myself some breathing room, and otherwise my asks and DMs have always been open), I have no reason to actually care about what they're saying. But I point out the lack of knowledge of their identity because a) they didn't even reveal themselves as not white until.... yesterday? or something, when they were directly asked about it, and b) trying to frame this as 'white woman accused of racism calls person of color a terf' is... disingenuous at best given the fact that I have been calling them a radfem (which they are) since well before they posted that screenshot and my name wound up on their blog, so you got the order of events just a little backwards.

I blocked them initially because of the radfem rhetoric they were peddling about kink and fetishes, and I have the right to establish that boundary. This blog is for me, it is my space, and I do not have to expose myself to views I find gross or harmful just because they dress it up in faux-woke terminology and try to pretend they actually care.

If they cared about real people more than the fictional characters they are so adamantly 'protecting', then they wouldn't have brushed off the actual racism (from one of their followers--they're more than happy to blast me without any evidence, but that's hardly out of the ordinary for people like that) that was brought to their attention by refocusing the discussion on the fake people who literally can't be hurt by any of this because they don't exist. They wouldn't be ignoring the two woc who chose to contact them and tell them why they made the choices they did regarding both the discord and the smut week event, while being perfectly happy to platform anons who may or may not be who or what they say they are.

I, for one, am not going to apologize for caring more about real people than fictional characters. I'm not going to apologize for thinking it's absolutely ludicrous to pretend that fiction is somehow harmful just by existing, especially when it's appropriately tagged so that anyone who finds the content harmful can avoid it. I'm not going to back down from these opinions just because a handful of people have apparently decided I'm a horrible person because of it. And I'm certainly not going to apologize for thinking it's despicable that someone who was not involved in the conversation chose to leak out of context screenshots rather than privately contacting any of the people involved or even going to any of the mods, before going right to an anonymous blog. You may not care about me or my mental health, but I had panic attacks because of that leak--not because I said anything untoward in that screenshot, not because I've ever said anything in that discord that I wouldn't happily stand behind on my blog, but because I no longer felt safe. And I am not going to bare my trauma to a complete stranger to justify that lmfao.

So, like, think what you want to. I'm pretty sure that blogger is getting high off of the drama they are creating, none of which would actually have happened or been any real issue if more people were able to think, gee, maybe this work that is tagged with things I don't want to read about is not for me! Maybe I shouldn't read this piece, since it would probably upset me, and there's plenty others around for me to consume! I do not trust that blogger's intentions. I do not trust that they actually give a shit about any real people, or they wouldn't have posted an out of context screenshot of... literally nothing tbh, when they had no right to and are now protecting the identity of the person who leaked them instead of giving a shit about any of the real people in that space who no longer feel safe because we aren't sure who we can't trust.

But you've already made up your mind, and I can't change that. I genuinely hope you have a nice life, and find fandom spaces more suited to your tastes.

[ateezaligned]

How OnlyOneOf portrayed queer relationships and dynamics in libidO, w a hint of good ol’ yearning

(disclaimer: this strictly about the mv and in no way I’m implying these dynamics are translated to real life and their friendships if u suggest that ill kick you, don’t ship real ppl romantically pls)

The storyline of Instinct pt. 1 tell us this album is focused on self-discovery and how young people repress their “urges”, but the way all three subplots play with this concept is super fascinating!

The KB/Yoojung situation (which is my favorite subplot!!): From my point of view, Yoojung and KB show a relationship that is just blossoming. The song starts with tying up Yoojung’s hands, he is being contained, and his lyrics are literally “I’m attracted for no reason”, now I looked up other translations besides the original and it also has to do with being ‘pulled’, like Yoojung is being pulled into this relationship for ‘no reason’, he thinks he needs one to fall in love with another man. Rationalizing your feelings is a way to separate yourself from them. Therefore, Yoojung plays the more hesitant part, he overthinks, his super ego policing strongly what he feels.

On the other hand, KB is seen initiating most of the physical contact between them, and he does it in a way that makes it easy for Yoojung to pull back if he doesn’t want it. KB is also always at least an arm away, inside a comfortable space for Yoojung to reach for him if he wants to. In their first scene of close contact, Yoojung is the one laying his head on KB’s shoulder, and he keeps control of their closeness throughout the whole video, despite KB breaking it with the soft touches we see, such as fixing Yoojung’s hair or putting his hand on his shoulder in the beach scene. And all this gentle-ness contrasts so well, bc we also see KB’s character initiating contact with others! He pulls Junji for a hug when both of them are shirtless and he does it so nonchalantly! It’s obvious he is okay with /more/, but he respects Yoojung’s boundaries and never pushes.

The scooter scene is great, bc we can see Yoojung hugging and pressing their thighs and putting his hands in the air, he feels more carefree, he was able to get past his own inhibitions and it’s so great to see.

So Yoojung and KB's is like a first relationship: you are stepping on eggshells, you don’t know what you’re doing or looking for. A lot of queer people start dating into adulthood, and even with previous ‘straight’ dating experience, everything is so incredibly new! And it’s great but also anxiety inducing and frustrating.

Then, there’s Rie and Junji. A thing I found incredibly interesting is that in every scene of them (except two) they’re already in contact. In the car they’re holding hands, and when they’re hugging and eating lollipops, and back to back in the basketball court, we don’t know who started it, but it doesn’t matter because Junji and Rie are equals and stand on the same ground of mutual love, respect and experience, they’re having fun and smiling at one another, even when they’re playing basketball face to face, their eyes are on each other and its playful and great. Rie has one of the best lyrics in the song that is “I trust youand I accept it”. Junji and Rie don’t need to fight their instincts, really, because they know everything is reciprocated and their libido (not as in sexual drive but as in life energy) is matched in the other, they have trust over everything else, and this can also be shown in the only scene where Rie lays his head on Junji’s back, he’s supporting himself on his partner and Junji accepts it because relationships aren’t only fun but also healing and giving someone a place to rest. And Junji does his part and bandages Rie’s wounds, which @henlex pointed out as a Achilles and Patroclus reference, being these basically the top tier of gay love and companionship, when Patroclus died (represented by Rie), Achilles dies avenging him, asking for their ashes to be mixed so they could be forever one. So yeah, let’s yearn for something like this gays.

Finally, the trio. They’re the first ones to have their solo scenes, and you can see Love in the bathtub, he is naked and exposed, playing with some rosemary leaves (yeah I went to someone and asked them if they recognised the plant leave me alone). Rosemary used to be given to Aphrodite bc it was used as an aphrodisiac. It also represents fidelity. Yeah. So Love is playing with fidelity, basically. Many thoughts were thought.

Then, Nine and Mill are a continuous contrast throughout the mv. While Nine is inside and laying on the floor, cozy and reading, Mill stands outside in the garden looking at the window. I’ve said it before but I think it’s really important the way Mill’s character portrays one of the harsher parts of queerness that is that “other-ness”. You’re just an observant, and you want in and to be yourself with your friends and participate in those rituals, but something inside you doesn’t allow you to. In here, though, is not just ‘I want to identify with my straight friends’ but ‘I want to be free like these other gays, why can’t I do it?’.

Nine and Love’s relationship doesn’t really show a lot of romantic moments, in fact, I can’t really think about something between them that was, intimate and sensual? yes, but not romantic. Which is completely okay. Sex is not something bad, and gay sex is constantly demonized. Casual sex is okay and sex with friends and whatever, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, sex is okay. So to me, Love and Nine are friends, the arm around the neck seemed casual and natural, they’re comfortable with each other, and they’re also comfortable with mill, as shown in the creek scene. They didn’t mind the audience (yeah this sounds kinky ik), both nine and love are pushing the boundaries, unlike kb. But pushing isn’t always wrong, per se.

Nine starts with the lyrics “leave it, libido, we’re like roots (…) mixing together with no rules”, while Love sings “don’t suppress it just accept it”. Both nine and love are clear with their intentions and instincts, their subconscious is not their enemy in any way, since both of them accept the relationship they have.

Meanwhile, Mill battles with his libido, but it’s not like Yoojung who has a partner that actually loves him, if Mill takes the chance and jumps, he doesn’t know where he is going to land. In the whole video, not even once Mill touches someone else, even if he desperately wants to (Yongsoo did a great acting work I’m still so amazed!!). The yearning and pining over Love, who pulls him in and gazes at him, is such a good concept, because even if Love is giving him all the signals that there is (he is with another boy openly, allows close contact and shows himself in front of mill), Mill will still doubt himself and what he is doing. Hesitation and all, he takes a leap of faith in that one scene where he approaches Nine and Love, and keeps eye contact.

Now here is where the controversial crotch grabbing scene comes, and both Love and Nine sing. They say they’re walking over shallow water, so it’s not risky, they’re not gonna drown, and there’s no one around and they just “keep walking”. They do their thing with no care of what others may think. But also, Nine asks “what you need?” And “why can’t you see the light over there?” now, maybe after the whole no compromises he did catch feelings for Love, but Love, playing with fidelity as previously stated, answers “I’m gonna go where I feel like going”.

And then we have Mill’s rap. He talks about how this ‘experience’ can’t be compared to anything else but it’s an experiment. Now I know a thing or two about downplaying queer experiences, it isn’t unusual for gay ppl to look at things our younger selves did and think ‘how did I even passed as straight?’. Mill, even after saying it was just this experiment, says “you’re already putting a period, that doesn’t end things”. So, my guess, since after that we don’t see them directly interacting unlike the other couples, is that it all fell apart. Love, having the upper hand in the whole dynamic, didn’t have actual romantic feelings for any of the other boys, and he left them hanging.

While a bit heartbreaking, I think it’s important to point out that queer relationships are just like straight ones, and sometimes they end up in ruins, and it’s okay and its part of growing and discovering oneself!

So yeah, that’s my interpretation. This is like 1500 words. A whole essay. Hyperfixation is a bitch. I need a girlfriend.

[normal-thoughts-official]

Ur take on a malec beauty and the beast au please

ugh you got me in a difficult position here because on the one hand, i do love the idea of a beauty and the beast malec au. i just think the idea of a socially isolated person who thinks themself/is perceived as monstruous and who has locked away their heart and doesn't believe they could ever be loved fits magnus like a glove. but on the other hand, i don't want to make magnus, a brown character, animalistic, for obvious reasons. and i can't really think of a way to make him monstruous that doesn't fall into animalization/beastification (both racist tropes) or ableist tropes

so i'm thinking... maybe the spell is just that people are repulsed by him/fear him automatically? like it just creates this horrible almost impossible to ignore repulsive/fear/"fight or flight activating" aura around him for absolutely no reason and makes ppl be repulsed and/or hate him. even if it doesn't change his appearance at all. it's not really a changing or shifting spell, more like a spell of hatred

which like.... i know doesn't sound like anything poc/queer people don't already go through but there is a main difference which is that it makes it impossible to find a community. like even other brown and queer people look at him and feel this... huge disgust and even fear and might even hide and so the isolation is absolutely total and it fucking hurts. and besides it is one thing (a very bad thing) to walk around and have to be on constant alert because you never know if someone is going to be violent, and have to deal with occasional comments and disgusted reactions... it's another to consistently have like, children screaming and people cowering 100% of the time without exception, you know? he's basically living the life ppl with social anxiety think they live and he has nowhere to turn to, no one who understands or who's more likely to actually want to talk to him because of his differences. there's no one to lean on. even the people who love him aren't immune to it, even if of course they are not turning their backs on him

so anyway here are my thoughts: this was totally done by camille lol beacuse the whole backstory about being mean to an elderly lady doesn't fit magnus anyway and also i just like sprinkling camille angst where i can. so after magnus finally got himself free of her and her stupid claws she hexxed him back into isolation. both as punishment (a kinda "if you don't want me, then you have no one" logic) and just to make him more vulnerable because again, abusers want you alone and isolated and away from a support network so you are more dependant on them and more likely to buy into their thwarped logic if they can immerse you in it. so she's just trying to manipulate him into getting back with her, because she wants him and most of all his power

and basically you know the drill, if he doesn't find anyone who will love him romantically until the rose withers yada yada he will die. and again she just wants to make the spell so it constantly drives home how alone he is and how he can't find anyone who will love him (except for her), and make it so he's more and more likely to come back to her as time goes by because then the spell will be broken

(sidenote: camille obviously doesn't actually love him, because anyone who does that to someone doesn't love them. but as the one who cast the spell, she can lift it whenever she wants. so all she has to do is kiss him and lift the spell and be like "see, magnus? who else would love you like this, but me? even after all these years?". and honestly if it had come to that magnus would know she was lying because there is no way this is love, none. but anyway it doesn't come to that, that's just what her plan is)

anyway it still doesn't work because magnus is done and he won't get back to her, and he particularly doesn't want to get back with her after, you know, all this trashfire. and he just sets his jaw and is like "fine" and accepts that he will live however long he still has with his friends and people he loves and away from her, basically

and like gosh sidenote but this would have been so painful for his friends. camille very deliberately made it romantic love because she knows magnus has so many fucking people who love him, but him and the immortal squad have found family dynamics, not romantic ones. so there is nothing they can do even though their love for magnus is just... so real and pure and they hate to see him like this, hate to know that right when he finally got rid of her she made sure he still couldn't go out in the world. especially since magnus has always been so damn sociable, loved to be surrounded by people and to meet them and care for them. but here he is, walking as hidden as he can and with his head down avoiding eye contact because he knows the horror is there and some children run away screaming when they see him

and i just picture this desperate little scene with raphael in particular where he's just like.... "i'll try to kiss you. we have to try" and magnus is all, "my boy, you don't even like kissing, and she was very adamant that it had to be romantic" and raphael is almost in tears like "but i do love you, goddamn it! i should be able to undo this spell" and it's so sweet that he's trying and willing to be in this really awkward position where he kisses (yikes) magnus (which is just weird especially since magnus is kind of a father figure to him) because he's just... so desperate to have him free of her, finally, once and for all, you know?

but obviously it doesn't work, not even with dot, who had a kinda fling with him in the past but doesn't really feel Romantic Love™ for him even though she does love him, it's just... not what the spell requires. and it's unfair as hell and there are lots of tears but just the fact that magnus falls asleep surrounded in a teary cuddle pile after some of the absolute worst kisses of his life because his friends/family love him enough to put themselves in such an uncomfortable position in the hopes of making him free, is enough to make him feel a little better. and the fact that they are still there for him and obviously still love him so fiercely even though looking at him now literally evokes fight or flight instincts in them is already more than anything camille could ever give him. if anything, she's proven how loved magnus is

and that helps him get through it that day and is something he tries to hold unto in the worst days, but still, it's hard and it just... sucks. it's tiring to go out in the street and always have people staring at you and to see the horror in their faces and be so isolated and never really know what might happen, if he will be attacked or harrassed or what exactly will happen. so he isolates himself more and more and soon the only people who ever see him or visit him are his friends. and fuck, do they hate seeing him like this

things settle in a weird kind of way. magnus is still living his life and working as a wizard and etc and in a way the spell even helps him have some more credibility because you know, isolated scary person is kinda what ppl expect from wizards. but he avoids having contact at all costs and mostly sends the potions they request and stuff their way, and the only ppl he sees are his friends unless he absolutely can't avoid going outside. and he's fucking miserable. and every once in a while camille will come back to be like "so, magnus, are you ready to stop with this little tantrum of yours and come back to me now? how is the rose doing, by the way?" because god forbid he catches a break

also it turns out that magnus' adoptive streak becomes even stronger because he is 1- extra lonely; and 2- empathizing more than ever with the outcasts. don't get me wrong, he always has, he's a fucking brown, bi trans man for fuck's sake. we all see ourselves in the stray dogs and lonely people one way or another. but now this is turned up to a thousand, so, you know

so he has one (1) extra kind of contact in his life which is basically with stray animals (particularly cats cuz u know, this is magnus) that he finds around in need of help. they can all leave if they want, but a lot of them stay, particularly the black cats, disabled animals, and others that have a particularly hostile environment outside. you know

(not me again with my very specific hcs about deaf pitbulls who fall in love with my faves but LOOK pitbulls are very sweet and caring animals who don't deserve the fame of monsters that they have and if the idea of one being best friend's with magnus and them having a loving and caring relationship doesn't appeal to you then idk what the fuck to tell you)

this of course doesn't help his image cuz this guy is just going there and collecting black cats and snakes and has a huge pitbull around with him at all times but it's not like it can get any worse so magnus doesn't care, and besides, he can't just leave them out to die in the cold and harrassment of middle ages white ppl who think black cats are the worst possible thing but rats carrying deadly diseases are fine (and look, i know rats are also animals that get a lot of shit and persecution, but like, seriously, clean the streets)

and every once in a while there will be a person in need too, like a homeless person in need of a place to stay or some sick person who has been abandoned or something of the sort, so magnus brings them in as well and cares for them as well as he can, but also tries to maintain minimal contact because he's been burned too many times, okay

so like, cue alec! i know in the original BATB belle ended up with the beast to save her father's life but fuck that. i lowkey consider making it "izzy ran away from home so alec comes after her and they both end up staying with magnus" but i think i like it better if it's just alec who decided to leave. like he's done with the abuse both towards him and his sister and he wants to be able to live his life even if he's gonna have to start over in some other village all alone. anywhere but here and all that

and of course alec used to be plenty rich and he has a lot of skills that help him pass by - he's a good archer and hunter, he's a good leader and organizer so he could do wonders for a failing business, he's smart and cunning - but he also has, like, 2 gold coins to his name. maybe some more from stuff he took from home and sold, but still

initially he is living at a tavern and i guess i'm making simon, raphael, and maia tavern owners again! i don't even care anymore, it suits them. rapha is the cook and the three of them run the business and simon also makes musical appearances during dinners every once in a while, and they are living the happy queer polyamorous life of their dreams. we have no choice but to stan

anyway alec is staying with them and he becomes friends with i think maia in particular since, you know, she is the one with the most contact with the customers since rapha is in the kitchen and simon is up the stage most of the time. plus they are both the same brand of bastard and they have an easy understanding between them that just works

and look! simon, raphael, and maia are 3 trans, non-christian/non-white (unnecessary addendum: the concept of whiteness didn't exist until around the 17th century, but whiteness as a concept came basically as a substitute for christianity [link to source], so i'm counting the fact that simon is jewish and raphael and maia are not culturally european as equivalent to non-whiteness in this context) people, so it's not like they would ever kick a gay man running from an abusive home out. but you know what they also are? magnus' friends. and after a while of talking to him maia thinks he is trustworthy enough for them to send magnus' way, because magnus needs as many friends as possible. plus, he wouldn't kick a person in need out, so unlike with them magnus can't really push this newcomer away so he'd have more company. plus, the possibility that he might fall in love with magnus and undo the stupid spell is there, i'm just saying! i'm not saying it WILL happen but why not give it a fucking shot?

raphael in particular is of course super protective of magnus and he swears to god that if this guy gives him half a bad look raphael will end him, which earns him some pats on the shoulder for his troubles and "rapha, we don't want magnus to be hurt either"s. maia says that she's been assessing him for quite a while now and she's pretty positive that he won't be terrible to magnus, but if she's wrong, she'll kill him personally too. and rapha trusts maia. how could he not? she's maia

so, they send alec magnus' way. "i'm sorry alec, but we are struggling to make ends meet *hides gigantic gold stash* and the tavern is packed *raphael upstairs stomps at maximum speed to make it seem like their 13 empty rooms upstairs actually have people* and we really need your room to give to this customer *simon in a wig* BUT we have a friend who we're sure will give you shelter if you ask, it's not very far away, and once we have a free room we will let you know". and alec is just like, okay, because he's been staying there for free or considerably less than the usual fee/in exchange for some stuff he hunts for quite a while now, and they are nice, so it's not like he can complain

and they don't tell him about the spell exactly because it is not their story to tell but they do let him know what to expect re: magnus' vibes and say it's a spell. and alec's like ok i guess. alec's very practical, he doesn't really care, and it's not like it's the guy's fault anyway. which is exactly why maia is sending alec there

so they send magnus a heads up ("magnus this guy is HOMELESS and we are SOOOOO packed can you please give him shelter for a little while thx xoxo"). alec arrives there a while later carrying like 3 prime rabbits he has hunted as a thank you gift because he hates being dependant on people but it's not like jobs abound in the middle ages, and he is actually a little embarrassed to go in and ask this guy he doesn't know for shelter but he IS kinda desperate. for now

anyway he is standing there with his 3 rabbits debating whether or not to knock on the door and magnus just opens it magically like "i know you're there, dear, just come in" so alec does and awkwardly presents him the rabbits and shit and is all "thanks for letting me stay, uh. i can help you with food and taking care of the house and stuff" even though, you know, magnus has magic and doesn't need it

(and magnus appreciates it deeply, because it is tiring to do it all magically on his own but most non-magical people don't even consider that)

and like... it is very awkward at first because magnus does NOT trust at all and he mostly just wants to keep away from anyone who can... look at him. but they ARE living together (oh my god they were roommates!! just kidding they each have their own room but you get it) so it's inevitable. but like magnus' insecurity makes him keep to himself for long times and makes things awkward, kinda like how the initial days with the beast and belle the beast was rude and kinda shitty except magnus is not shitty, just... private

and maybe the subject even comes up like "thanks for the meal alec. i'll go eat it in my room" "i mean, you could eat here if you want" "and ruin your appetite? no thank you" and alec is just like "*shrug* it won't ruin my appetite. unless you are my parents, the concept of failure, or some girl wanting me to marry her, i don't think there's a lot the spell can do to make me scared. besides, you literally have a kitten on top of your head right now and you refuse to remove it and are using a spell to keep her from jostling when you move" "her name is Fluffy, and she is sleeping!" "right, my bad" "wait did you say the concept of failure?" "yea"

it's not that the spell doesn't work on alec; it does, just like it works on his friends. but he is willing to go beyond that initial repulsive reaction that he knows is illogical anyway (and alec is the kind of guy who is just like "if my feelings aren't logical, i don't listen to them" which in this case is useful lmao). and the thing is that once you get to know magnus there is nothing about him that is scary, and the feeling just becomes completely ignorable, because humans are nothing if not adaptable. but most people don't want to go through the trouble to try, and magnus himself doesn't want to let himself be vulnerable enough to give them a chance because there IS a great chance that he will be met with some level of aggression, even if it's an unintentional microaggression

and eventually they grow closer and build trust. i think this happens particularly when camille steps in for one of her regularly schedule shoving-it-in-magnus'-face visits and alec is just like. "hey why don't you just use magic to keep her away?" and magnus realizes that he never even THOUGHT of that and like, jesus, how much has he been unconsciously torturing himself? so he does it, and he ends up telling alec about the story of the spell, which might be the first time he's told someone that didn't know him before the spell was cast

(alec: "so she's basically just killing you slowly?" magnus: "don't be silly, alexander. torturing me first is the most important part". and he sounds self deprecating and almost resigned and god alec feels murderous)

ohh but wait bonus: magnus says that she will only undo the spell if he gets back with her, he doesn't mention that it technically can be undone by romantic love or whatever bullshit's going on because he doesn't believe it can happen anyway, so, who cares

anyway! time goes by. fun fact: alec and magnus get along really fucking well. magnus is so so smart and knowledgeable and he shows alec many of his inventions that never got to see the light of day or that were stolen by someone else who wasn't cursed and took all the credit. he also fascinates alec with his magic, but mostly with his personality. there's something just endlessly endearing about this guy who is so fucking proud of his puns and so so nice and gentle to every creature he encounters, be it a kitten or a pitbull, who's letting alec stay with him for no reason other than that alec needs it

and alec is so goddamn appreciative of it because like he IS and we stan! and he's always trying to give back to magnus which is kind of a rarity, but most of all he's also extremely funny beneath the whole no-bullshit attitude, he's caring and fierce and resourceful and strong (so's magnus) and they click so well. they can also talk about their similar experiences with like, abuse and trauma without making it super heavy and they're just,,, so supportive of each other. so like yeah surprise surprise they fall in love

but they don't really say anything because (on magnus' part) that's just fucking ridiculous, he's a monster; and (on alec's part) he will put magnus is a way too uncomfortable position if magnus doesn't like him that way and they will just... be living together. and magnus will feel like he has to compensate to alec somehow and alec doesn't want that. it's just complicated when one of them is dependant on the other, and besides, alec has had very little to offer magnus so far

(no, he has no idea how much his company means to magnus and has brighted his depressed ass life. he is stupid)

sometimes magnus' friends visit and they're always just so happy for him, to see how he's hanging out more and let someone into his life after so long. it earns him a lot of forehead kisses and "i'm so happy to see you like this". and over time he starts to invite them over more as well as just open up back to the people in his life :')

angsty but also kind of fluffy sidenote: i picture that every time they kiss his forehead or cheek or whatever they linger for a little while and then open their eyes slowly and sigh like "i had been hoping that it would work this time. magnus, you know i love you, right?" and magnus is all like "i know just from you saying that, darling. it's just not how the spell works" and aaa

and like to be extra clear im not saying that alec fixes him or romantic love heals him or whatever, just that having let someone in, someone who didn't know him before the spell, and have them completely accept him and realize how much he had been missing out re: touch and human contact helps him realize how much he misses his friends and how pushing them away is stupid when they've never been anything if not supportive of him. they don't care that he's cursed. and obviously magnus was already on the way to that if he even managed to let alec in anyway

anyway! dramatic healing scene. LOOK. usually i'd be all for "they don't change back actually because people don't have to look beautiful to be lovable". like the original BATB disappointed me sooo badly because i had just been hoping that he'd stay the same way and still be loved. but in this case it's not that magnus doesn't look beautiful! it's that the spell has made him be hated by people for no reason other than existing. and breaking the spell is not changing magnus himself, it's changing that hatred. so, yeah. i'm not saying it's a deep metaphor or anything, just, you know daudhasdja it's different from the usual monster thing

and i'm torn here because on the one hand i LOVE the drama of the original BATB where everyone decides to gather to kill the beast and belle saves him and shit, but idk if it fits with the vibe ive been building here. no actually @ me shut the fuck up. you know how i mentioned that they kick camille out with magic finally? i actually had no intentions of following through with this in any way but like of COURSE she would be absolutely pissed out of her mind and want to get back in some way, we already know she's vindictive. so i'm gonna use that. this is what neil gailman meant when he said that writing is just making a rough draft and then writing it again but like it's on purpose this time

anyway! so after they yeet her camille is obviously furious and fuming and it might have finally dawned on her that magnus will NOT fucking cave and she is losing power over him, not gaining it. so she decides to play a last card and get him to almost die so he kind of HAS to take her bid, you know? so she makes up some shit about how magnus has kidnapped the lightwood heir and she's only now hearing about it, and no one else is safe and yada yada. and she has "proof" because alec IS indeed there and again the spell just helps everyone easily agree with her that magnus is That Kind Of Guy or whatever, and middle ages ppl weren't exactly waiting for a good enough reason to grab their pitchforks. and they don't even KNOW about the spell, really. all they know is that he's very powerful, secluded, and they all fear and almost hate him just from one look

so camille makes up some bullshit story about how he made a deal with the devil to become extra powerful, and that the source of his powers is the rose, so they have to get rid of the rose to kill him. (sidenote: i never understood why the hell the rose was never used as a weakness against the beast. like was he keeping it super guarded and safe just for the fucking shits?) so they devise an attack so someone can sneak up and get the rose, and camille makes up some bullshit story about how they have to destroy the rose a specific way so it takes longer and she has time to manipulate magnus before he dies. man, it's easy to be a villain when your target is secluded

anyway! big attack at magnus' house. magnus' friends don't hear about it until it's too late because camille knows exactly who they are and warned them that they were on "the witch's" side. alec is maybe away hunting when it happens? camille obviously has magic in this AU so she can check for that information. maybe she even says that she will be the one responsible for finding the lightwood heir so there is minimal risk of him revealing that she lied lmao

oh no, violence! they battle and yada yada. catarina is probably the first one to realize what is happening because i figure she, madzie, and dot are the ones who live closest to magnus'. they send fire messages and get ragnor, simon, maia, raphael, and meliorn to help. oh yeah, and alec i genuinely forgot trust me to forget about romance in a romance-focused au. but alec is the only one of them without any magical resources and he's far away and on foot, so he's gonna be the last to get there, which camille had been counting on

but alec or no alec, they can keep the attackers at bay because they're all powerful and smart and shit and a lot of them have magic as opposed to the mundanes who don't, but of course that's mostly because they are holding off on attacking and the invasion is mostly a distraction because their PLAN is to use the rose. and camille tells them all to leave once the petal puckering starts so she can "protect them from any lashouts" (have her big villain speech). and it's not like any of magnus' friends is gonna leave to go after them when magnus is dying, bUT they also won't attack camille because she's his only hope. and they won't be able to get to stop the rose plucking in time because that's in another room and while she made it slower than something that the person can use to kill him in a second it's also not slow enough for them to get there on time (maybe there's a spell against magic use near where magnus keeps the rose? just for extra safety, so the ones with magic can't portal there or whatever)

anyway. big villain speech. magnus screams in pain every time a new petal is plucked. his friends are either running to the rose thing desperately or trying to get camille to stop this madness, she's going to kill him for fuck's sake. i don't know which chooses to do what so you can figure that out i guess. and for that extra drama, right when the last petal was going to be plucked, wee woo alec lightwood arrives! and he went straight for the rose because magnus had told him about it and he figured that there was a good chance the attackers might go for it. so he shoots the person's leg or something and gets them away from the rose and yay, day saved! mostly. because now there is only one petal left to fall before magnus dies, so at the very least, his lifespan has been shortened considerably. also, he is still in pain

i'm torn about what happens to camille then. on the one hand, i love killing camille! bonding activities for the whole family. on the other, she kinda is the only one who can save him now. they all know magnus won't want to get back with her, but hey, it's not like camille wants a relationship! she wants magnus to be her asset. a relationship was just the best way to get him to do that she had initially. but magnus doesn't want to cave and be dependant of her, so, you know. but maybe they can try to convince her to stop this fucking madness, god knows how

so okay yeah no camille-killing yet because they don't want to jeopardize magnus' safety, so she just leaves convinced that either way, she wins, and this might be the best possible scenario actually because magnus will have lots of times to think it over and be real desperate and come to her and strike a deal. so, yay her! she just needs to lie to the mundanes that the mission was successful or whatever, and it's not like that's gonna be hard because magnus won't want to be seen there again, so

we are all running to check up on magnus now. he's kinda like, on the ground coughing blood, but he'll live for as long as the last rose doesn't fall. still, they all settle on trying to help him, getting him in bed, tending to his wounds, etc. and thinking about what the fuck they are all going to do now. so you have raphael and maia making magnus soup, simon running his mouth as he throws around ideas on how they can fix this, ragnor, cat, dot, and madzie (who is here now that the danger is over ofc) checking and rechecking magnus' vitals for the billionth time and trying to figure out how much time they have, meliorn using their fae powers to stop his pain. and madzie is all snuggled in bed with magnus holding his hand and asking if he wants her to tell him a bedtime story, and magnus just... feels cared for and loved

alec meanwhile i think would tell what ACTUALLY happened to the person who was doing the rose thing - i actually have thought about it and think it might make sense for it to be luke. just because i love him and it kinda fits the whole "initially sided with shadowhunters, lately became a downworlder" thing. and like luke genuinely believed he was saving a person/people so alec brings him in too and magnus is all "catarina, dear, can you help heal his leg? i would, but i don't think i have enough magic right now" because he is the sweetest man immediately wanting to help the guy who almost killed him. and luke is in awe

(and alec brings him on purpose, too, because he knows that anyone who actually talks to magnus for a little while will see what an amazing person he is. and he hopes that luke, as a mundane, can tell the others that and turn them against camille)

and after that, of course, alec sits down by magnus' side and Does Not Leave. he's just there holding his hand and talking to him and magnus' friends, who are all also kind of. sitting there, trying to snuggle up in a gigantic pile of like 10 ppl to cuddle close to magnus and make sure he feels loved and cared for and that they know he is real. madzie gets special privileges in that sense because she's smaller and also a kid, so she gets to be kinda snuggled up with him. so alec has to be content with holding magnus' hand lmao (which he is, he's just happy that he's alive and okay. and he has a whole plan to get camille to undo the spell, mostly involving getting the mundanes against her and telling her that she is only safe for as long as magnus lives, because once he dies, she will have a bunch of ppl who will hunt her down to the faces of the earth to make her pay for what she did to him. the only reason they didn't do that yet is because she can still save magnus' live, so is she really going to let him die knowing that she will be next?)

so alec takes his hand and tells magnus that they will fix this, he promises, and give a little kiss on magnus' hand. just a little peck, no deep intentions, but magnus gasps a little because he feels something, and his eyes water a little bit because he's so touch starved and tired and hurt and alec kissed his hand and he can feel this kind of ache inside him, somehow a good ache, but he just can't explain it. and so alec notices his watery eyes and he very tenderly wipes his tears away and tells him that they're all on his side, will always be, and kisses him on the forehead. and this kiss? this kiss is full of adoration and love and purpose, and magnus gasps and the wounds that hadn't been healed suddenly mend together, and the petals that had fallen go back to the rose before it disappears in a beautiful flash of light, and suddenly magnus' magic is back full force and he just looks at himself for a second, and everyone erupts into joy because holy shit, the spell is broken

and alec is so confused because again! he didn't kNOW about the whole true love's kiss thing or he would have asked magnus to let him kiss him as soon as he learnt about his feelings, because even if magnus didn't feel the same way, alec could undo the spell. and he's like "why the hell didn't you tell me?? we could have fixed this months ago" and magnus is like "i didn't think it would make a difference. wait, you're in love with me? have been for months?" and alec is like "first of all, yes. second of all, i have nothing else to say, i just said 'first of all' because i was so indignant"

and magnus laughs and jumps on him and kisses him on the mouth this time and they are both smiling and laughing into it and so so happy. and raphael is kind of just peppering kisses on maia's face too, like, "you were right, he undid the spell, thank you" and maia was never sure that this would happen but she will take the credit actually please and thank you

and they all live happily ever after and kill camille together the end i guess. god this post was so long i'm so sorry

[coureirsix]

ty for everything youve discussed tonight and the sheer amount of support u give for poc i cant even begin to know how insane it must be to have been literally in contact with the person who perpetrated everything and have your advice and WORDS just taken out of context and ignored. this whole thing reminded me how isolated i used to feel long ago when i actually used to attend spn cons as like a baby in middle/high school and was just surrounded by a largely white crowd. im egyptian and from toronto and it's super diverse here in reality, but when i would attend the cons id feel so insanely alone every time (id go alone, my friends arent spn fans LMAO). i would watch SO MANY girls make brand new friends within the weekend and i could count on one hand the amount of woc id actually pick out in the crowd and i always noticed how ALONE we were. it's very hard to put into words, like the cons were fun during events but the whole exp really put into perspective how much it fucking sucks when ur surrounded by people that cant rly help but look down on u ?? like there was this feeling otherness i always felt being there despite how dorky the whole event actually is and how much of a loser we all were lol. i hadnt attended in years at this point and i actually ended up being part of the crowd that stopped watching circa 2017/2018 bc the queer-baiting and mistreatment of poc was just overwhelming to me within canon and came back for nov 5 🤡. anyway im RAMBLING but i just wanted to say since coming back ive found so many amazing poc creators and hilarious, smart people i can actually relate to and have had similar experiences and backgrounds as me. i never used to see people discussing the insane amount of racism+transphobia within the fanbase when i was in high school and it sucks (and is exhausting) that it's the people affected by it that actually engage in the discourse repeatedly but it's still a comfort to see people care similarly about the same things as i do. so ty for that<3 i'm finally having the fan community experience i wish i had back then.

listen i get that, too!! i have never been to an spn con but im a big fan of like, big bands with a huge white following so showing up to a place FILLED with hundreds if white faces absolutely makes you feel small. i have been there, friend. i understand.

and i agree! thankfully people are like, actually more willing to talk about this because ive BEEN there where you even begin to talk about racism and white people IMMEDIATELY get uncomfortable and now you’re the bad guy for even bringing the subject up. especially in fandom spaces where you couldn’t say anything or else you’d get bombarded with white “fandom is a place to have fun!!” and “ugh im in fandom to get AWAY with real life politics!!” like ok, Ashleighayy-Muhriey let me just take off my brown skin and features then. 

and im GLAD... im SO glad you’re having a good time this second time around. it is what you deserve! (we are all clowns that came back after nov 5  🤡) 

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy Season 8: Review

It’s bad. It’s just... really... bad. That’s the TL;DR of this review. There was one (1) good thing about this season and that was the return of Oz. So if you’re looking for something that hypes season 8? This is not it. If you are confused, angry or salty about season 8? Hi, yes, me too.

Starting at the beginning. At first, I was really happy that they introduced more characters of color, with Renee and Satsu. And when Renee was then even “promoted” to Xander’s love interest? Nice. The two were even cute.

But no. That was all just the set-up to fridge her. Which, I am so very tired of that trope. And that is what that was. That wasn’t just a slayer dying during a fight. The entire issue of her death focused on her and Xander, building up to their relationship, setting them up for their first date, having her be prominently featured, just to then kill her off and have Xander avenge her.

What made it feel even worse - worse than just the fridging - was that they really had to fridge one of their very few women of color. And, to top it off, spend the entire issue in which she dies having her subjected to racism. Just great. Really, you managed to make an already shitty trope even worse. That’s impressive.

The racism itself too. Dracula. They just decided to make Dracula totally racist now, huh? and it doesn’t get a pass just because Xander points out in the comic that he doesn’t remember Dracula being this racist. Because he wasn’t. This Dracula just throws around slurs left and right in a way that feels more like the writers just really wanted to use slurs. Because the character? He was suave, charming, heck he charmed the straight men and the lesbians too when he was on the show. He was a smooth talker. This Dracula? He just... He was just racist and rude in general. Why.

Moving on from the racism to the next failure in rep. The gays. At this point in time I am simply convinced that Joss Whedon is entirely unfamiliar with the concept of bisexuality.

I know I’ve already made a separate post complaining about this, but it needs mentioning in the review of the season too. Having Buffy hook up with a lesbian twice, but #NoHomo, just a straight girl in her “experimental phase”. That’s just cringey and also offensive. Just... make her... come out as a bisexual? It’s not like the writing in the show hadn’t already set her up with quite the bi vibes.

Instead, the narrative made it sound like the only options would be to be straight or to now suddenly turn “into” a lesbian. Which is also offensive on itself, because - as this very show had proven on screen - lesbians can come out later in life and genuinely, I adore Willow’s arc. For her narrative, it fit to have her come out as a lesbian, the circumstances and her life fit for that. I absolutely agree that it would have been weird for Buffy to have a sudden coming out as a lesbian at that point in her life and after everything, but referring to it as turning into a dyke was just not great.

And lesbian wasn’t the only option. Though, I’m unsure Whedon knows that, considering that 6/6 canon queer characters are homosexual and 4/4 wlw are lesbians. They just keep introducing more lesbians - which, as a lesbian I am always in favor of more lesbians. However, when you have a very small number (2) of queer characters, it figures you can not cover all the sexualities and it’s even fair that even with two, you still choose to have them both be the same sexuality. But... the more you add? The more questionable it becomes that you limit it to one sexuality only.

This arc would have so beautifully set up for Buffy to come out as bi. But no.

And while we’re on the wlw; one of the things I always loved about Buffy was that the lesbians weren’t just there for the male gaze, they weren’t oversexualized. They desired each other, they even had sex. But... in a normal frame work, to a normal amount, meaning equal to how the straights were handled. I always liked that, because especially in early days, lesbians were usually just there to look really hot and have hot sex that straight men could get off to. Well, consider me very unimpressed with the comics, because... man are lesbians sexualized now. Willow gets a hot constantly naked snake goddess girlfriend whom she can only contact by - and I am not making this up - having an orgasm. So we prelude the trip by her having sex with Kennedy, before waking up all nude in snake goddess’ realm and usually having am makeout session or sex with her too while doing whatever business she has with her. So much nakedness, so much oversexualization. Really... disappointing.

Staying on the romance but turning to the other Summers sister, I truly can’t believe they made Xander/Dawn canon. Like, I can not comprehend they decided to make that a canon ship.

Sure, Dawnie’s had a crush on Xander since the literal beginning of Dawn. And that was... cute, honestly. Fifteen year old girls have crushes on cute older guys who are nice to them. Figures. Adorable. But she kind of... grew out of that over the course of the show? Or so it seemed...

And Xander. One of the things I loved about Xander was that Dawn was always a total no go. She was Buffy’s sister, heck, she was kind of every Scoobie’s little sister. He had always had brotherly advise for her. Heck, in this comic he points out that it’s weird since he’s known her since she was little - and yeah it is. It’s not weird when two people were both little together, but when one was sixteen when the other was eleven and one has babysat the other? That’s weird.

Getting infinitely more disturbing by the fact that she... literally... just turned eighteen. If they had put this into a rather later season, or a bigger time skip, had Dawn been A WomanTM for a few years now and Xander had gotten around to separating the idea of kiddo!Dawnie from the woman she has become, but Dawn is only eighteen, she hasn’t become a woman yet. She just turned legal to bang and thus, a switch was flipped in Xander’s mind, putting her on his radar. And just... no. Why.

And even beyond this decision; Dawn spends the first third of this season being slut-shamed in ridiculous ways. Which is also tiresome. I am the last person to defend cheaters, but there’s a difference between “You cheated and are being held accountable for it” and “You cheated so now you are cursed to be a giant, a centaur and then a porcellain doll for weeks at a time, being publicly humiliated and having control over your body taken away from you”. That was... sure a choice.

Moving on to the actual main problem of this season. The plot.

Starting with the incomprehensibly dumb idea of “hey let’s retreat to Tibet, put a huge target on Oz’s new home and get rid of all of our magic. surely that will not come to bite us in the arse when the bad guys find us”. Naturally, it came back to bite them in their collective asses. This was just... No one objected or pointed out how dumb that plan was? Really? No one? Really?

Anyway, let’s talk villains. And work our way up there. The return of Amy and Warren. Once again, I ask why. I’m still salty about the 180° Amy did from sweet Wiccan to wicked bitch after her stint as a rat, but having her now... hook up with Warren, the second biggest misogynist on this show, who is also skinless. She used a spell to keep him alive but she couldn’t... give the spell a color? Anything? Anything to not make him look flayed? Because this was just unnecessarily gross body-horror.

Not to mention the... lack of reaction? Sure, some spoke grumpily against working with Warren. But... this is Warren. The guy who killed Tara when he was trying to kill Buffy. There really should have been more breather-scenes of the Scoobies talking about this, digesting the fact that the guy was still alive and more so when they worked with him.

But nevermind them, because they’re working for Angel. Because Angel’s the villain behind this season. I mean, he was manipulated into that by Twilight, but manipulated means he still chose to do it.

Now let me preface that I might not ship Angel/Buffy, but that really only factors marginally in here, because this plot would be bullshit even if it were my OTP.

We now retcon the creation of the Slayers as not just being something dirty old men did in a cave, it was now all the greater plan of the universe. Which. Might have worked had Slayers been... naturally occuring. And not created by men, forcing this upon a young woman. Sure, what people do can be seen as the greater plan of the universe too if you will, but that seems like a cop-out that absolves bad people of their bad choices and deeds.

Anyway. The universe created Slayers and vampires and the ““balance”“ between them (which is bullshit anyway because 1 Slayer vs thousands of vampires... not balanced at all), including the now supposedly destined romance between Angel and Buffy.

Both get rewarded with super-powers now so they can super-fuck and thus give birth to a new universe. That universe is called Twilight and manifests as a burning, winged, green lion who can talk (because that sure is how I always headcanoned Angel/Buffy’s children to look like /s) and who, through time-travel shenannigans, has been manipulating Angel into his own creation.

The magic pull between them is so strong that it overrides the “Angel just caused the death of over two-hundred Slayers” so Buffy fucks him.

At which point I just... this season was flat-out character assassination of Angel? He was manipulated by the bad guy. Not controlled, manipulated. He caused the death of hundreds. He threw everything he stood for and believed in out the window for the promise of a paradise where he could be with Buffy, when the real Angel has chosen other things, higher goals, over being with Buffy over and over again, because that’s what they do. That is their whole thing, they choose the good of the world over being together. They have always been a “will they/won’t they?” where the answer is they won’t, because they know they are needed elsewhere, by others. But now Angel just... doesn’t care about all that anymore, or heck about his own son and his friends, ready to abandon everything for this.

And then when Twilight is born and consequently abandoned by Buffy, who still prioritizes her friends, family and the world over being with Angel, Angel actually... needs convincing in the abandoning? Because, again, character assassination. Ultimately, Angel gets controlled by Twilight and used to kill Giles and try to kill Buffy.

But thanks to the Deus Ex Machina of Spike dropping in in the final arc, they know how to stop this. He hasn’t been in this season so far, because - truly in line with this season - he was off being the king of a race of alien bugs, traveling in their space-ship.

To stop this all, they go back to Sunnydale, where of course the “heart of the Earth” is located, the seed that contains all magic, and destroy it, and with it all magic. Also, the Master was apparently always just there to guard that seed. He is now back from the dead!

Let me summarize that once more, just for emphasis: The universe wanted Buffy and Angel to fuck so they can give birth to a new universe that personifies as a green, winged, burning lion but before it can destroy our universe, Spike, now king of an alien bug race, delivers the solution to go back to Sunnydale and destroy the seed of all magic that is being guarded by a resurrected Master.

How do you read that with a straight face? How do you pitch that? This is just so incomprehensibly stupid.

We end the comic with Buffy as a waitress, hated by many, Xander and Dawn now have an apartment and are playing house, Willow broke up with Kennedy because she realized she is in love with the snake goddess she will now never get to see again, Giles is dead, Faith somehow inherited everything from Giles and she is also the designated Angel-sitter now.

[wherevermyway]

i just want you to know who i am. // binchan // oneshot // 18+

pairing: bang chan x seo changbin | bang chan x hwang hyunjin (mentioned) rating: explicit | 18+ ⚠ POTENTIAL TW: READ WITH CAUTION! ⚠ tags/warnings: graphic depictions of violence, transphobia/misgendering, trans male character, internalised homophobia, implied rape / non-con mention, suicidal thoughts, unhealthy relationships, explicit sexual content, slurs (like, two). word count: 8,229 also on AO3!

originally published: 31 october 2020

Bang Chan forced himself through almost three decades of shoving himself into the wrong box, being uncomfortably forced into whatever roles society deemed worthy for him. It doesn't surprise most people when he comes out as trans, but it bothers his boyfriend, Hwang Hyunjin, the most. Hyunjin is outwardly outspoken about Chan, too afraid of being labelled as gay when his boyfriend comes out, and he constantly lets Chan know this: talking down to him, misgendering him, calling him slurs, and deadnaming him. One day, Chan has enough. If nobody was going to accept him, what was the fucking point? He fully intends on taking his life one night as he angrily, desperately rushes to the bridge that overlooks the Han River.

He plans on it, that is, until a complete stranger comes up and saves his life. Literally.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.

“I’m not gonna be fucking gay, alright?” A lanky blond man says with a scoff, aggressively carding his fingers through his hair as he nervously paces back and forth. “Look, Chun-hwa, I—“

“It’s Chan. Please, Hyunjin, I keep telling you, stop calling me that name. It’s not who I am.”

“Whatever,” the man grumbles. “You know what it’s gonna be like if the guys find out? If they think my girlfriend suddenly thinks she’s a dude?”

The brunette on the couch sighs, dipping his head into his hands. “Hyunjin, you knew. You’ve known for years. I don’t know why, all of a sudden, the medication is what’s causing problems. You handled my top surgery.” His voice breaks as he curls into himself, trying to hide from the situation at hand, make himself small. “I’ve tried to start this so many times, to tell you I was finally starting the medication, but I was afraid you’d react this way.”

“Chun-hwa, this is bullshit.” Hyunjin gritted through his teeth, deliberately using the wrong name again, which called Chan to wince. “I told you,” he threw his hands in the air and raised his voice, “I’m not gonna be labelled as some stupid homo for dating a fucking tranny. The guys are gonna fuckin’ kill me if they find out you’re not just a tomboy or some shit.”

Chan bites his lip back, his face scowling into a frown. “Hyunjin!” He shouts, finally snapping. “Why the fuck do you care more about what they think, versus how I feel? This isn’t something I can choose. If I could just live my life as a normal, heterosexual woman, I totally would. Trust me.” A deep sigh escapes his lips as he shakes his head. “Life isn’t that easy, though. I’m never gonna be that woman you want me to be, because I was never a woman to begin with.”

Hyunjin rolls his eyes and pads off into the kitchen, digging around the refrigerator. He pulls out a bottle of soju and chugs nearly half of it in one go. Chan gets up, following him into the kitchen. He stands in the entryway, folding his arms as he watches Hyunjin. “Stuffing this down with alcohol isn’t gonna make you feel better in the long run. It won’t make it go away, even temporarily.”

“Fuck you,” Hyunjin grumbles, taking another swig from the bottle, and another one, until the bottle is totally empty. His face winces and he tosses the bottle into the sink, causing it to crash and chip, a couple shards of green glass flying upwards, some ricocheting and landing on the floor. He angrily opens the fridge again, grabbing a can of beer and chugging it. “I just want my friends to think I’m normal, that I’m fine, that I’m not stuck with some…”

Hyunjin pauses and the air grows tense. He nervously looks at Chan, then quickly darts his eyes to the wall, looking as if he was desperately trying to bore a hole into it. Hyunjin was about to say something he knew that Chan would hate, and he still had some semblance of respect to stop himself. Some, but not much.

“Say it.” Chan’s voice is dark, but calm. He knew he wasn’t going to like whatever Hyunjin was going to say, but he knew it was coming. Chan didn’t expect Hyunjin to actually say anything horribly offensive, but he tensed as Hyunjin took a long swig from the can in his hands. The blond man took a couple steps closer to Chan, his boozy breath nauseatingly permeating the air as he sticks his bony finger into Chan’s shoulder.

“Stuck with a fucking queer.” Hyunjin sneers, his voice quiet, but colder than ice. He gets closer into Chan’s face, staring him down, then moves back a bit and spits on his feet.

Chan sarcastically scoffs, turning on his heel and making his way towards the front door. “I can’t believe I’ve dealt with you for so goddamned long, Hyunjin.” There was no way he could handle such shitty behaviour anymore. He couldn’t do it, he wouldn’t. Hyunjin was the last person he had, and he just broke the last straw that was keeping Chan sane.

“Where are you going?” Hyunjin slurs after Chan, arms wide open in the air, beer sloshing to the floor from his open can.

“I’m done.” He lets out a nervous chuckle and grabs his keys from off of the wall rack, slipping a pair of flat trainers on. “I’m done with you, I’m done with this, I’m done with everything.”

“Chun-hwa—“

“Stop calling me that!” Chan shouts, grabbing a thick, heavy boot off of the shoe rack and angrily tossing it directly at Hyunjin’s head, the heel hitting him square in the forehead. The collision causes him to lose the grip from his can of beer, making it topple to the ground and spill its remnants all over the floor, the echoing ringing loudly in the apartment. “I’m not gonna be a fucking problem for you anymore, so just be happy for fucking once. You’ll never have to see me again, alright? Go meet some woman who won’t be just another ‘fucking queer’.”

Hyunjin grabs his forehead, staring at Chan for a moment, his face dumbstruck and mouth agape.

“Are you going to say something? Anything at all? Are you going to think about anyone but yourself and your shitty fucking friends? Think about your fucking boyfriend for once?” Chan shakes his head, but Hyunjin offers nothing in response. Chan desperately wanted his boyfriend to say something, but, like always, nothing came to fruition. He was always the one that had to put in the effort, and when things got tough, Hyunjin did nothing. He never did anything. “Fine,” the older man scoffs, grumbling under his breath and opening the door, letting it practically fly off of the hinge. “I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, honestly hope you die alone, Hyunjin. Alone, cold, and in a bed of regret.”

Hyunjin continues to say nothing as Chan slams the door shut and runs down the stairwell, tears spilling from his eyes. Why nobody accepted him was beyond him. He told his parents two years ago, and he hasn’t heard from them since. He told his close friends, and they treated him like a leper, like he carried some sort of terrifying, incurable, transmittable disease. To be dismissed by someone like his boyfriend after all of these years hurt the most, honestly. Hyunjin was the only person he had left, even though their relationship was nothing more than toxic sludge.

None of this mattered. Soon, none of it would matter anymore, not to Chan, not to anyone. Nothing fucking mattered.

Tears sting, burning like battery acid, as they roll down Chan’s face involuntarily. He gazes far down the Han River, watching the city lights dance on the lapping waves, wiping the tears off of his cheeks. He takes in a deep, long sniffle, and digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands. A small tremble kept coursing through his veins, causing him to lightly shake as he stared. He just needed a little bit more courage. He could do this. He would drift his way down the Han River, and then he wouldn’t be anyone’s problem anymore, he just needed the courage to fucking do it.

The soft scent of acrid mint and floral tobacco pulls Chan from his thoughts. A shorter man with neatly trimmed, dark black hair is suddenly standing next to him, offering him a burning white stick. “You look like you could use this,” the man exhales, a puff of smoke escaping his lungs, deliberately rolling up through his nose. They didn’t make eye contact, but there was a form of nonverbal exchange going on between them. “Nobody comes out to the Seongsu Bridge at three in the morning with good intentions. Wanna talk about it?”

Chan gasps, a bit flabbergasted. He eyes the cigarette, then mutters a hushed “fuck it” under his breath, taking it and pulling a long drag off of it. “Oh, shit,” he sputters through coughs. “God, that’s bad.”

“Sorry,” the other man scoffs, sticking another cigarette between his lips. He pulls out a black lighter, flicking the flimsy metal dial a few times until white smoke billowed up from his mouth. “I was in your shoes once — well, maybe not exactly where you are, but close enough — a couple years ago. I sat on the handrail and waited. Not sure what I was waiting for, exactly, but I was waiting.” He sighs and scratches his forehead, turning to look towards, but not directly at, Chan. “There was a guy that came up and saved my life. He just came to talk to me, and I realized that this was a stupid, permanent way to fix a temporary problem. My job, and losing it, wasn’t my entire personality, even though society made it seem that way.”

Chan lets the cigarette burn between his fingers, transfixed in the way the white smoke softly danced its way up into the sky, eventually completely evaporating and disappearing. “My existence is a mistake.” He didn’t mean to be so blunt about it, but it fell from his lips before he could really think about it. “My family hates me, my friends think I’m diseased, and my boyfriend,” he scoffs, bringing the cigarette to his mouth and takes in a deep inhale, “I guess he’s my ex-boyfriend, now. He’s more concerned about his appearance to his friends and what they think about him compared to what I actually think and feel.”

The mysterious man cocks his head to the side briefly and offers a noncommittal grunt. “Sounds like ‘ex’ is a good title for him, then.”

A soft chuckle puffs out from Chan’s lips. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s not a good person for a lot of shitty reasons; should’ve left him years ago.” They sit there for a few minutes, letting their cigarettes burn between their fingertips and eventually die out. “I don’t get it, man.” Chan tosses the end of his cigarette over the railing, watching it fall down towards the river, slowly getting smaller and smaller, until it’s completely invisible. Gone. Lost forever.

“Get what?”

Chan’s eyes glimmer as he looks up towards the sky, letting his hands drape over the fencing of the bridge, dancing so close to where the promise of eternal comfort lie ahead of him. “Why do people have such a fucking problem with what makes someone else happy if it doesn’t affect them, you know?” He finally turns his head to look at the man next to him. They make eye contact and just stare at each other for a moment, letting their emotions communicate nonverbally.

There was a layer of pain behind the stranger’s eyes, almost like he understood the pain and helplessness that Chan was feeling, all without saying a word. The man sticks an arm out, presenting an open hand. “Seo Changbin. I don’t have the answer to your question, but I suppose you’d at least wanna know my name.”

Chan looks down, then back up to Changbin’s eyes, grabbing his hand with a firm grasp. “Bang Chan. Nice to meet you, Changbin.”

The two men smile at each other warmly, keeping their hands grasped together for a moment too long, but neither of them react negatively. “I know we just met, but,” Changbin says, softly tugging at Chan’s hand, “there’s a coffee shop not too far from here that I love going to early in the morning, since there’s never anyone there and the coffee actually tastes good.”

Chan doesn’t stop the man from pulling him along, doesn’t let go of his soft, warm hand. A gentle smile slowly grows upon his face. When was the last time someone was so nice to him, anyways? “Alright, that sounds like a plan.” He might have come here to die, but he was walking away feeling, ironically, more alive than ever.

The two guys sit at a dimly lit table near the entrance of the cafe, inhaling the aroma of freshly-brewed pour over coffee. Everything suddenly seemed more vibrant since Changbin literally pulled Chan away from the brink of death. Colours were vividly radiant, scents were more prominent, the lights were brighter, uncomfortably so.

“Hey, Chan,” Changbin says, bringing the clear mug up to his face and taking a soft sip of the warm coffee, steam enveloping his face. “I wanna ask you something, if that’s alright.”

Chan drops a cube of sugar into his coffee and aimlessly stirs it around with a tiny spoon, gently breaking up the cube and watching it slowly dissolve. “Sure, sure, what’s up?” He never liked coffee. Should’ve ordered the tea, he briefly pondered, watching the liquid swirl.

Changbin looks away, staring out the window, watching the morning passersby move with purpose down the sidewalk. “You said your existence is a mistake.” The words cause Chan to look up at Changbin, whose eyes flit back from the window to make eye contact. He dips his head down and to the side a bit. “Why is that? Why do you think you’re a mistake?”

“Oh,” the older man bites his cheek, breaking eye contact and clearing his throat. “I just…” He wasn’t sure how to answer that, grazing his thumb against the indentations of the spoon’s handle. “I wasn’t born right,” he sighs, but doesn’t elaborate.

“You weren’t ‘born right’?” Changbin presses, setting his mug down on the saucer in front of him, folding his hands together and resting his chin on his fingers. “I know it’s probably a heavily-detailed, incredibly personal question, but, if you don’t mind elaborating, what do you mean by that?”

Chan brings the cup of coffee to his lips with his right hand, taking a long, deep drink of the lightly bitter, vanilla-scented liquid. For not liking coffee, he had to admit that it wasn’t actually bad. He sets the glass back down and looks directly at Changbin, taking in a long, deep inhale, and makes sure to speak in a hushed voice. “I was born a woman, biologically speaking. ‘Assigned female at birth’ is the more correct term, that’s what people keep telling me.” Chan studies Changbin’s face, which doesn’t falter, so he continues. “Neither my family, nor my friends really tried to understand it. They all abandoned me immediately. My ex, though, was the hardest hit by it. He tried to care for a while, but then he started to call me these terrible things, only worried about how my expression and appearance would affect him and his new friends.” Chan scoffed. “It’s stupid. Not fair. So, I always figured I was a mistake. Everyone treated me like I was a mistake.”

Changbin eyes Chan’s free hand and takes in a deep breath, letting his hand fall directly onto the hand on the table, loosely gripping it. “Chan,” he softly says, soothingly, deliberately looking the older man in the eyes, “you’re not a mistake. Nobody is born a mistake.” The two of them lock eyes and stare at each other, exchanging glances of pain, misery, and understanding. “We just blossom into who we really are, and sometimes, people can’t handle the real, true us. If they can’t handle who we really are, then what’s the fucking point? Why keep them around if it only ends in misery for us, and they lose nothing?”

It had been so long since someone looked at Chan with empathy instead of resentment, and the realization of that caused his stomach to burn uncomfortably. The strange warmth spread across Chan’s abdomen, and he glanced down to Changbin’s hand, then back up to his face. The way they exchanged glances was oddly calming, like Chan could be comfortable telling this stranger almost anything, and he wouldn’t be judged. Changbin made Chan feel alive for the first time in months. Years, actually. For the first time, he didn’t have to try to put on a façade of who he really was; it felt like Changbin accepted him for who he was with a single glance.

“Changbin,” Chan breathed out, knitting his brows together and mustering up the courage to grasp the younger man’s hand a little tighter. “You’re completely right.” The two of them exchanged a glance that spoke more than words could tell. It was an exchange that said ‘I’m broken, but thank you for listening, for trying to understand.’ His eyes started to water, tears threatening to spill from the corners of his eyelids. It hurt, but it was paradoxically relieving for him to feel this way.

“I’ve got a lot of problems, too,” Changbin sighed, but deliberately grabbed Chan’s hand a bit tighter. “It’s hard enough to come out as gay here. The guy that saved me? We became close friends, but he quickly regretted it when I misinterpreted the signals he gave off and I told him I had feelings for him.” His eyes rolled down to an insignificant stain on the table. “It’s been nearly a year, and I still haven’t heard from him, even though he saved my life. I thought he really cared, but he showed his true colours and then he was gone.” The younger man took a long sip from his mug, and stared into the ripples of the coffee as he set it back down.

“I’m sorry, man,” Chan sighed with sincerity, rubbing the back of Changbin’s bony hand with his thumb, but he did not relent. “Fuck him. Fuck him for not accepting you. Fuck him for not being a good person when you needed him most, not respecting you enough to at least politely turn you down.”

Changbin met Chan’s eyes again, this time with more determination, and he let out a quick huff before finishing the warm beverage in his mug. They stared at each other for a few moments, and it was like there was a silent agreement between them.

“Are you done with your coffee?” Changbin asked, but the true meaning of his question sounded more like “do you want to go home with me?”

The ‘yes’ that Chan whispered was a double entendre: it was a ‘yes’ to the question about his coffee, and a ‘yes’ to Changbin’s unspoken question.

“Honestly,” Chan muttered, inanely scratching the handle of the mug with his thumbnail, “I’m not a huge fan of coffee. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, I just didn’t wanna say no.”

Changbin pulls Chan up by the hand as he makes his way to his feet. He steps around the table and stops right up next to Chan’s ear and whispers. “Don’t make yourself smaller or less than for anyone. Ever.”

It doesn’t take long for them to make their way back to Changbin’s apartment, only a block and a half away from the cafe. In fact, if Chan had actually looked out the living room window, he’d be able to see the streetlight of the cafe and the spot where Changbin saved him. Instead, he was too busy letting Changbin pin him up against the kitchen wall. The soft light of the start of daybreak illuminated the kitchen, spilling rays of orange and purple onto both of them.

“You look incredible,” Changbin whined, biting at Chan’s bottom lip. “Handsome. Gorgeous.” He panted, whined, dragged his fingers through Chan’s hair. “I want to drown myself in you, Chan, drown myself in you if you’ll let me.”

Chan forgets how to breathe for a moment, the tightness in his abdomen causing him to feel lightheaded. He was nervous, but the burning feeling of desire overwhelmed the nervousness. “Changbin,” he whines, allowing his teeth to graze against the bottom lip of the man in front of him.

“I only want to do what you’re comfortable with,” Changbin whispers, trailing his right hand down from Chan’s neck to his waist, finger hooking in the tip of his hipbone, causing the older man to buck into him involuntarily. “I want you to tell me to stop if you need me to. But I also want to hear you long for me tonight, to cry out my name, to piss off the neighbours.”

Something about Changbin’s words drove Chan insane. “I trust you,” he whines. He shouldn’t be so trusting after knowing someone for maybe a couple of hours, but there was something about this stranger that made Chan feel more comfortable in his own skin than his ex-boyfriend of several years did. He did, after all, save him from jumping off of a bridge. All bets were off for now; Chan had nothing to lose. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I want you, Changbin. Please.”

That’s all it takes. Changbin brings both of his hands to Chan’s hips and effortlessly, somehow, lifts Chan up off of the the wall. Chan wraps his legs around Changbin’s waist, dragging his tongue against Changbin’s bottom lip. The two of them haphazardly make their way towards Changbin’s bedroom together, lazily pressing their lips together.

“I want you, Bin,” Chan whines, peeling his hoodie and shirt off as soon as he hits the plush of the comforter. “Changbin. Please, please, please. I need you.” The pitch black enveloping him in darkness gave him an extra air of confidence, making him feel like he could fully lose himself within the moment as he ran his fingers down his torso, taking an extra moment to scan his fingertips against the scars on his chest, hoping Changbin wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t linger too long on his imperfections.

Changbin grumbles as he straddles the older man, pressing his lips against Chan’s neck. “Patience, baby,” he whispers, peeling his own shirt off, then quickly returning his teeth to Chan’s soft flesh. He lets his hands run up against Chan’s abdomen, paying special attention to how exactly Chan responded to each soft, gentle touch Changbin offered. He was so attentive, making sure that nothing was too out of place, making sure that nothing was too uncomfortable.

“Ah, wait, Changbin.” There it was, the tone of Chan’s voice. That was the protest that the younger man was waiting for. “Are you sure you want to do something like this with me? I’m not really…” Chan’s voice trailed off in discouragement. “I’m not a real—“

“Shut up,” Changbin counter-protested, his voice breathy and slightly annoyed, pressing his lips against Chan’s. “Don’t you dare try to tell me you’re ‘not a real man’ or some dumb shit like that.”

“But,” Chan whined, subconsciously rutting his hips up into Changbin’s pelvis. “It’s true, I’m not.”

“Chan,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes, “please, just shut up. You’re as real of a man as you identify yourself to be.” He pressed a soft kiss up against the older man’s warm cheek, then nuzzled his forehead against it. “Don’t invalidate yourself like that, because it’s just going to make you feel like shit. If you don’t want to do this, then tell me. If you’re just going to invalidate yourself, I don’t want to hear it and I won’t do this.”

The brunette swallowed hard, his eyes nervously scanning the ceiling as he felt the younger man’s breath on his neck. “I don’t want you to stop,” he whispers, “I’m just nervous. It’s been so long, and I don’t like…” His voice trails off and he sighs. “Honestly, if we’re gonna do this, can you just, fuck — wow, this is awkward to ask — but, can you just fuck me like a normal dude? Pretend that all of the frontal anatomy just doesn’t exist? I don’t want to even think about it.” He shakes his head. “It’s too much.”

Changbin pulls back, bringing his hands to the sides of Chan’s face and deliberately making eye contact with him. “Of course. I told you, anything to make you comfortable. I’ll go slowly. I’ll admit,” Chan sees the whites of his eyes shift, as if he was looking away for a moment, “I’ve never been with someone that’s trans. So if I do something wrong, tell me.”

Chan sighs, not out of irritation, but relief. “Of course. Can we do this now?”

Changbin reaches over Chan, pulling his nightstand’s drawer open. He grabs a condom and a bottle of lube, then sits back on his heels. “Have you ever done this before?”

Finally, a bit of confidence, likely from the darkness of the room hiding his body, rushes through Chan, and he offers a bit of a cocky smirk. “I ride dick like it’s my last day on earth, every time. Trust me,” he sits up and grabs Changbin by the waist, “I’ve done this before. I’ve done a handful of freaky things before. You’d be surprised to know what I haven’t done, honestly.”

A breathy gasp leaves Changbin’s lips and he swallows hard. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting, not in the slightest. “You w-what?”

After some careful preparation and stretching, it doesn’t take long for Chan to take Changbin fully inside of him, causing the younger man beneath him to let out a small whine. “Fucking tight,” he whimpers, digging his fingernails into Chan’s hips. “You feel incredible. So good.”

Chan smirks. “I told you.” He puts both hands on the bed, on either side of Changbin’s neck, allowing him to roll his hips up and down slowly, in controlled movements. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I can, ah,” Changbin tightly closes his eyes and rolls his head into the pillow behind him, “fuck, Chan, I can feel that.”

The brunette dips his head down, pressing his lips to the younger man’s. Changbin responds by grabbing the back of Chan’s neck, pulling him in closer, and he aggressively jams his tongue in between his lips. They explore each others’ mouths with purpose, both of them still faintly tasting like coffee and menthol cigarettes.

“Changbin,” Chan whines, drawling out the last syllable of his name.

A grin is painted upon the younger man’s face at the sound of his name. “Say it again. It sounds so fucking good when you say my name like that.”

Chan complies. He complies repeatedly, grinding up against Changbin’s pelvis, his length filling him and causing all of the nerves in his body to light up. He’d never fucked like this before, nothing so passionate or romantic in his life. All of his experiences were lacklustre with Hyunjin, who never fucked him the way he wanted to be fucked. It was all about Hyunjin.

Tonight, it was all about Chan. It was all about how well he and Changbin blended together, and Chan couldn’t get enough of it.

A week and a half passes, and Chan can’t bring himself to leave Changbin’s apartment. The younger man doesn’t mind, of course, he’s happy to give Chan as much time as he needs to figure out what exactly he needs to do.

It was a bit awkward at first, since Changbin’s apartment only has one bedroom, and Changbin doesn’t keep a large enough couch for either of them to sleep on. “We’ve already slept with each other,” Chan pondered aloud one day while he was scrubbing some dishes in the sink, “why bother not sleeping in the same bed?”

Their relationship dynamic was strange, but it worked. They had spent several nights staying up far too late, going for walks downtown and talking about the complexities that life had to offer. Chan would link arms with Changbin, they would share a cigarette with each other, and all of Chan’s problems would just come spilling out.

Things came so naturally to both of them. They would usually get to the well-lit touristy spot in Cheonggyecheon, staring down the river, watching people meander about and the lights illuminating the ripples in the water. That’s where Chan would open up more and more about himself and the horrible experiences he had with his family, friends, and Hyunjin.

“You know,” Changbin took a long pull from the cigarette in his fingertips, then let the smoke lazily escape his lips, “if I ever meet this guy, I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”

“Changbin,” Chan pressed, half-serious.

“I’m not kidding, dude,” the black-haired man cocked his head, looking up at Chan over the rim of his glasses. “He has the balls to constantly misgender you, treat you as less-than, and now you’re telling me he would get drunk and beat you for fun? What the fuck is wrong with this guy?”

Chan sighed, taking the cigarette from between Changbin’s fingers and putting it between his lips. “I know, I know. It’s bad timing, but,” his voice trails off, and he turns his head to look down the river, “I need to go back and get my stuff from his apartment. My legal paperwork and some clothes and stuff.”

“I’m going with you.” It’s a statement. Changbin doesn’t bother asking. He grips the handrail with both hands, his knuckles turning white. “I’m not letting you be there alone.”

“He’ll be at work, Bin.”

“I don’t care,” he spits out, a bit harsher than he intended. “He’s violent. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone in a space where you can’t easily get away from him.”

Chan bites back a retort; he knew that Changbin was right. The two of them stare off into the dark water for a few moments, until Chan deeply sighs. “Fine. We can go tomorrow around noon. I’ll text him tomorrow and tell him we’re coming over before we show up, just so he knows.”

“That’s a stupid idea, Chan.” Changbin grits his teeth and scowls.

“I know. But it’s the right thing to do.”

Changbin scoffs. “That’s typical of you, dove, always looking out for the greater good before taking yourself into consideration.”

Chan squints his eyes in confusion. “‘Dove’?”

“Oh,” Changbin chews on his cheek. “I didn’t even think about that, it just slipped out. Anyway, you know how there’s tales in the West about how seeing a dove with an olive branch is a symbol of peace?”

“Yeah, what’s that gotta do with me?”

Changbin turns his head towards Chan and smiles softly, light reflecting off of his glasses. “You’re too good for people like me, and especially Hyunjin. You’re calming, peaceful. Besides,” he reaches over and grabs Chan’s hand, interlacing their fingers together, “it sounds cooler than ‘baby’ or some other overused pet name, yeah?”

Chan chuckled and smiled, looking down at their hands, how well they fit together, how right it seemed. It had only been a week and a half, but he was starting to fall for this man.

Changbin grips the steering wheel of Chan’s car tightly with his left hand, softly grabbing Chan’s leg with his right hand. “Are you sure about this?”

“I need my belongings, Changbin.” Chan tried to sound confident as he stared at the car parked in front of them, but his voice wavers a bit. “I can’t keep wearing the same things and I can’t keep living off of you. It’s been nearly two weeks.”

Changbin sighs as he turns to look at Chan. “I’m going in there with you.”

“I can do this myself, Changbin, I promise.”

“I told you yesterday and I’m not changing my mind. He’s hurt you before, Chan.”

Chan bites his lip and looks down to his knees, subconsciously grabbing Changbin’s hand. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not asking. He could be there, react poorly, and try and kill you.”

Chan sighs, looking up at Changbin with tears in his eyes. “Fine, fine,” he relents, “just be careful. If he’s here, Hyunjin has a temper and he’s not gonna like this.”

“To be frank,” Changbin lets go of the steering wheel, undoing his seatbelt. “I don’t give a shit what he thinks, dove. I don’t know if this is the real thing or not, but I’m gonna protect you.” He lifts himself up off of the seat a bit, grabbing Chan’s face and pulling him in closely. He brushes his lips softly up against the older man’s, only for a brief moment, before pulling back and staring at him with purpose. “You deserve to be happy and safe.”

Chan furrows his brows as he stares at Changbin. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I care.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know, dude, it’s a gut feeling.” The two of them sit there and stare at each other for a second, then Chan softly laughs.

“I’ll let you have that. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t even be here.”

“I certainly hope not.”

Chan turned his key in the door, unlocking it and pushing it open. Unfortunately for them, Hyunjin was there, and he was furious. The blond hastily undoes his necktie and lackadaisically discards it on the floor, reeling as he scowls at Chan, glowering at him.

“Chun-hwa, I had to leave work early for this shit.” Hyunjin’s voice was laden with venom. He took a couple of heavy footsteps towards Chan, gripping his fist tightly, until he saw Changbin step in to the side of Chan and he froze in his tracks. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He scoffs, his face wrinkling up in disbelief. “Who the fuck is this? You think you can just bring some manwhore into my house?”

“Back off,” Changbin dryly says, stepping in front of Chan and adjusting his shoulders, rolling them back. Posturing. “Chan is here to collect his things. You give him any problems, and you’ll be answering to my fists.”

Hyunjin looks at both of them and lets out a throaty laugh. “Are you fucking kidding, shortie? I could kick your ass just by looking at you funny.”

Changbin cocks an eyebrow up, placing his hands on his hips. A faint smirk curls up on the right side of his face as he slightly turns his head towards Chan, not breaking eye contact with Hyunjin. “Go grab your things. Don’t worry about this string bean-looking asshole.”

“He looks thin, Changbin, but Hyunjin is tough. And fast.” Chan takes a hand and places it on Changbin’s shoulder, but the younger man doesn’t react. He leans in closer, right up to Changbin’s ear, and whispers. “I told you, he’s beaten me senseless before. He’s more of a threat than you’d think.”

“Not worried about it. Go, Chan.” Changbin pops the knuckles of his fingers and rolls his neck around. “Ready to teach this motherfucker a lesson.”

Changbin’s quip causes Hyunjin to roll his eyes and dismissively shake his head. “Yeah, believe it when I see it, shithead.”

Chan takes a moment, contemplating if he should intervene, but he decides against it. He figures that Changbin is a grown adult, and he can make decisions for himself, even if that meant he was potentially going to get his face rearranged. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he whispers, then moves towards the back of the apartment, towards his old bedroom. The bedroom he shared with Hyunjin. The bedroom that caused his heart to drop into the pit of his stomach with every step he took closer and closer to it; old, negative memories resurfacing.

Hyunjin eyes Chan as he walks past. “You’re not just gonna walk past me and pretend like I don’t exist, Chun-hwa.” Changbin’s eyes roll down to Hyunjin’s feet, watching the micro-movements his toes were making. As soon as the side of his right foot twitched, his toes turning towards Chan, Changbin stopped paying attention to whatever nonsense Hyunjin was sputtering off. It was time to move.

He swiftly rushed forward, reaching his left hand out to grab Hyunjin’s collar, winding his right hand back in a tight fist. “What the fuck?” Hyunjin barely had enough time to react before Changbin’s fist collided into his cheekbone, causing the younger man to let out a strained groan. The blond regained his composure, then kneed the black-haired man in the stomach in response, causing him to curl into himself a bit, but he refused to falter.

Changbin’s grip on Hyunjin’s collar loosened only briefly. He reoriented himself upright and grabbed the other side of his collar with his right hand and threw him into the kitchen table just off to the right-hand side. The paraphernalia intricately placed on the table went flying, including a glass vase that clattered to the floor and shattered into what looked like a thousand pieces.

“You fucking dweeb,” Hyunjin grunts against the table, “you can’t do shit to me with those tiny arms.”

“You wanna fucking bet?” Changbin lifts Hyunjin up and rams him back into the table. “Looks like you’re the one in a compromising position here, dude.”

Hyunjin scowls, kicking the older man in the shin to distract him, then reaches up to his hair, grabbing a fistful of it and throwing his free fist into his cheek. “I’m gonna rearrange your fucking face, you prick.”

Chan sucked in some air through his teeth, physically cringing as he heard the men roll around, grumbling and shouting, their fists colliding into each other. He tried so hard to just ignore what was happening behind him. He shakes his head a couple of times before he starts haphazardly throwing his important belongings into some bags.

Hyunjin and Changbin wrestle around a bit more, a couple of fists to the face, a couple of knees to the stomach. Chan tries so hard to ignore the throaty grunts and the sharp cries coming from both of them. He just needed his important documents, his favourite sweatshirt, some clothing. He compromised: the photos of the family and friends that rejected him could stay behind. It would slow him down and he didn’t need that kind of negativity in his life. Not anymore. Not when he knew they weren’t worth the mental energy, when he could fill that negative void with new people that accepted him and loved him for who he was.

Chun-hwa had finally died at the Seongsu Bridge the night he was saved, and a new, revitalized Chan was born from the ashes of the person he used to be. It was time to leave the negativity behind, once and for all. Let it all die in this shitty apartment with the remnants of the relationship with his shitty ex-boyfriend.

“Wait a minute. I’ve seen you before, I remember your name now.” Changbin wipes some blood off from under his lip, stumbling backwards a bit. “I finally realized who you are.” He punctuates his sentence with a sharp, sarcastic laugh. “How ironic.”

Hyunjin’s eyes grow wide as he holds the back of his hand up against his bleeding nose.

“That gay bar down in Itaewon. You hit on my friend, who was very much taken, and so were you.” A nervous scoff comes from Hyunjin. “Felix wanted nothing to do with you, but you kept hitting on him. Unlike you, Felix was, and still is, happily committed and out to his partner. Yet, you treat your ex-boyfriend like shit because you didn’t like him identifying as a man. If I recall correctly, it was because you didn’t want your friends to think you were gay. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Chan steps out of the bedroom, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. “What did you just say? Did I just hear you correctly?” His voice sounds pained and confused. Changbin turns around for a moment, surprised to hear Chan come up from behind him.

This was his opportunity. Hyunjin grabs a thin, hardcover book off of the table from behind him, blood spilling down from his nose, and he runs up to Changbin and brings the book crashing into the side of his face. There was enough force to cause the older man to fall to the ground with a sharp cry. Hyunjin angrily throws the book at the wall in front of him and stares over at Chan as Changbin brings a hand to his face and whines.

“I’m not letting you leave this fucking place alive. You hear me?” Hyunjin’s voice is dark, but flat. All of the light in his eyes had evaporated, and Chan froze in place. He had been here before, seen that look in Hyunjin’s eyes. He so desperately wanted to run, hide in the washroom or the bedroom, but he was frozen in place, like someone had glued his feet to the floor.

“Hyunjin,” Chan softly whines, bringing his hands up to cover his face, to hide away from the impending attack he was about to receive, “Hyunjin, please, don’t do this.”

“Shut up, you stupid cunt.” Hyunjin spits out, taking a slow, deliberate step towards Chan. “Cheating on me with some stupid gay dude. Running away from me for almost two weeks. How fucking dare you bring another man into my house?”

Changbin shakes his head and snaps back to reality, managing to grab Hyunjin’s ankle before he walks out of reach.

“The fuck?” The blond stops, looking down to Changbin and he shakes his leg, but is unable to free himself from the smaller man’s grasp.

“I’m stronger than you. You’re going to regret treating Chan like shit.” That’s all Changbin says before he musters all of his strength to pull Hyunjin to the ground. The younger man loses his footing, colliding down to the ground with a thick thud. Chan pulls his hands away from his face, and his mouth drops as he watches the two of them.

Hyunjin may have been terrifying to Chan when he was angry, but seeing Changbin like this was petrifying. The black-haired man’s expression was flat, calculated, and a deep bruise was starting to form where Hyunjin crashed the book into his face. He crawled over Hyunjin, lifting his head up by his blond hair with both of his hands, then rapidly brought it down to the floor, a loud thud echoing throughout the room.

Hyunjin cries out as he rolls his head around on the floor. “Stop it,” he sputters out, “just fucking stop!”

“How many times did Chan say that when you beat the shit out of him?” Changbin’s voice is quiet, calm. Too calm for this situation.

“W-what?”

Changbin lets out an irritated huff and raises his voice. “How many times did Chan beg for you to stop? Every time you beat him? Every time you assaulted him? Wait a second.” He lifts his head to look at Chan, his eyes piercing him with a strategic glance. “You mentioned something a few days ago that concerned me, but I never pressed the issue. Did this fucking prick ever rape you, Chan?”

Chan’s eyes widen and he looks down at the floor. “I…” His voice trails off, clearly avoiding the question.

“Chan.”

“Fuck you.” Hyunjin’s voice is garbled and he spits some blood into Changbin’s face. “She’s a fucking slut and isn’t worth your time.”

Changbin somehow ignores Hyunjin’s prodding, letting the bloody saliva drip down his cheek. “Chan. Answer me.”

A tear slips down Chan’s face as he shrinks into himself. Memories started to come flooding back of nights where Hyunjin got too drunk. The nights where Chan would try and correct Hyunjin’s terrible behaviour, how he’d quietly plead with him to refer to him as the correct name and gender. The nights where he’d wake up and Hyunjin would be there, hovering over him, clearly frustrated with Chan not wanting to sleep with him and —

“Chan!” Changbin’s voice is angry, loud. It’s distracting enough to bring Chan back to the situation at hand.

He slowly looks up, scanning every detail on the floor, trailing his way up to Hyunjin. There was no emotion on Chan’s face, nothing in his eyes, as he stared at the bloodied blond. “Don’t kill him, Changbin.” His voice is soft.

Weak.

Tired.

A beat passes and the implication of Chan’s words causes Changbin’s nostrils to flare in fury, and Hyunjin’s eyes grow wide, staring at Chan as if he were betrayed. “You fucking—“ Hyunjin tries to speak, but Changbin brings his fist against the younger man’s face. He does this several times, before Hyunjin goes limp, and blood spills from his nose and his face.

Changbin breathes heavily as he stares down at the bloodied man beneath him. His entire torso trembles from adrenalin, fear, anger, and shock.

“Is he alive?” Chan manages to squeak out.

“I…” Changbin shakes his head rapidly, trying to bring himself back to the moment. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. I think. He’s still breathing.”

Chan’s hands shake as he anxiously wrings his hands. “What the fuck was that, Changbin? That was more than a fist fight. More than protection.”

“He hurt you.” Changbin looks up at Chan, his expression no longer confident. Strangely enough, he looked terrified. “Chan, he abused you. He raped you, for fuck's sake. What else was I supposed to do?”

Chan bit his lip and folded his arms, not in irritation, but as if he was trying to comfort himself. “Have you done this before?”

“This badly?” Changbin looks down to Hyunjin and brings himself to his feet. “Only once. I had to defend myself against a few guys behind a bar once. I had to protect Felix. You learn to protect yourself against a world that doesn’t want you to exist. Against people that want you dead just because you’re happy. It’s why I’m so adamant about working out.” He looks up to Chan, but doesn’t advance towards him.

Chan is aggressively chewing on his lips, pulling dead skin off of them and causing his lips to drip blood. He watches Hyunjin’s head tilt to the side, blood dripping down his face, his lips and eyes starting to swell. “Changbin, that was fucking terrifying.”

“I’m so sorry, Chan. I didn’t mean to make this situation worse.”

Chan breathes in deeply, then gets enough courage to to look up at Changbin. “No, no,” his voice is shaky, “Hyunjin deserved it. Just, please, promise me you’ll never do that again unless you absolutely have to.”

Changbin sarcastically huffs. “I don’t like doing this, Chan. I just get protective over people I care about.” His eyes soften, tears starting to well up. “I’ll do anything to protect you, dove.”

Chan doesn’t say anything. He takes a shaky step forward, then another, his feet shuffling forward enough until he collides against Changbin’s chest. “Don’t hug me back,” he says as the younger man lifts his arms, “you’ve got blood all over your hands.”

The men stand in front of the kitchen sink, hastily cleaning most the blood off of their arms and faces. Chan gives Changbin a loose hoodie to cover his bloodied shirt. “Guess it’s a good thing I wore black pants today, huh?” Changbin’s quip causes Chan to roll his eyes.

They grab the hastily packed bags and two boxes and bring them down to Chan’s car.

“Is that everything you want?” Changbin slams the back door of the car a bit harder than he intended to.

“Yeah. I just wanna get out of here and shower. Get out of here before Hyunjin wakes up. Well, hopefully he wakes up.” Chan shakes his arms, trying to rid the nerves that were built up inside of them. “I want to go home with you and curl up in bed and forget all about this.”

Changbin says nothing as he walks up to Chan, he brings a hand up to his face, softly stroking his cheek with his thumb. They tiredly, longingly gaze into each others’ eyes for a few moments. “‘Home’, dove?”

“What?” Chan cocks his head to the side in confusion.

“You said you want to go home with me.”

“Oh,” Chan bites his sore lip and softly smiles. “I suppose I did, didn’t I?” Changbin smiles in response and nods his head once. “We’re doing this backwards, you know. We’re not even dating, and we’ve already fucked. You beat the shit out of my ex, rightfully so. And now I’m going to be staying with you, almost like I’m moving in with you. You even have a cutesy pet name for me.”

Changbin lifts himself up on to his toes and gently, briefly presses his lips against Chan’s. He pulls back, bouncing back on to his heels. “I just want you to be safe and comfortable. Even if we’re just roommates. Even if it ends in heartbreak. Just knowing I got you out of such a horrible place is good enough for me. Knowing I saved your life and helped give you a second chance, a chance to actually breathe, to be comfortable with who you are. That’s all I need.”

A deeper smile slowly creeps up on Chan’s face as he blushes and looks away from Changbin. He sucks in a quick breath, then shyly, quickly gives the black-haired man’s forehead a soft kiss. “You’re my nightlight.”

“What?” Changbin cocks his head to the side and his eyebrows pull together in confusion.

“I’m your dove, your sign of peace. You’re my nightlight: guiding me through the darkness. Keeping me safe from the unknown.” Chan bends down and quietly whispers something in Changbin’s ear, and it causes his eyes to grow wide.

“Did you just…?” The younger man stutters, his words barely coherent.

Chan smiles, pulling his key fob out of his front pocket. “Let’s go home, Binnie.”

[b0ttl3d-up-st4rs]

Well I'm gonna do what I do best and self reflect to an insane amount. This is probably gonna be a long post so buckle up.

To be honest my behavior for nearly the past year now is concerning to say the least. There's this little voice in my head that just desperately wants to get more and more hurt, more and more traumatized. Why is that? At first glance the negative approach could be to say its some sort of masochistic behavior and any negative repercussions as a result of this behavior is deserved, but I don't really think thats the case.

Self sabotage is a characteristic that can be exhibited in many mentally ill people and I am no exception. I think this behavior, of seeking to be hurt by grown men on the internet is partially self sabotage.

And I remember when I first started this shit show, I just wanted attention. Sounds mean to say, but craving attention is something the human soul desperately wants. And I was starting to feel some sense of self beauty but I didn't feel as though anyone around me was appreciating it so I tried to get attention from grown men because being showered in compliments and attention felt so good when my whole life I've never gotten any of that.

I think there's more too it, though. Looking back my whole life it's almost as if I've wanted to get hurt. In books I liked to sit around with the pain the characters felt. And its almost like I wanted to get traumatized. I've heard that people with trauma that they don't acknowledge is trauma or think its bad enough to be traumatizing seek put worse forms of trauma, in order to feel that pain is valid. And I think that's part of my issue too.

I do have unaddressed and repressed childhood trauma. I was given unrestricted internet at a young age and was exposed to the horrors of the internet. Nothing like straight up porn, but a lot of suggestive content. And in general being exposed to that caused me a lot of catholic guilt as I was raised catholic. I remember feeling like knowing these things were my fault. Many days I felt so guilty that I would pray to god to let me not wake up in the morning.

As a child I also questioned my religion a lot, which i think was traumatic in itself. Religion is a big thing. And as a kid I had a big issue knowing reality from fiction. Heck I still do. I remember as a kid my friend telling me that we were all demigods and one day we were going to run away to camp half blood. That the percy jackson books were real. It sounds stupid now, but I processed that as real and it was so stressful for me.

And I remember being 12 coming out as trans and as a part of the lgbtq community to my parents. They didnt react well. They said I was confused. My mom said I was both too young and too old to know. I fought a lot with my mom. And in general have a lot of unhappy memories from then. I was outed multiple times in my life.

My relationship with my parents still isnt good. My mom has a tendency to be toxic. I hate that I have to stay in the closet around my family its so painful. Like a month ago I mentioned the lgbtq community for the first time in years, asking my mom her opinions on it and if it changed since 2017, and it turned into her yelling at me and making herself a victim. It really hurt. I forgot how much it hurt.

I don't really have much of a relationship with my dad. We barely talk. Hes very emotionally distant. When I'm at my dad's house I sort of fend for myself. Its the exact opposite at my moms house. She's overbearing and never leaves you alone. It's like going between to extremes.

And honestly I can't wait to move out. My mom and I have arguments a lot. But hey at least I have some relationship with her, I don't really have a relationship with my dad.

I remember one time this year, I was during the end of a school semester. I needed to catch up on work because after talking to my abuser for like 5 months and then unlocking him I was left in shambles and fell into a really bad depression to where my motivation for school just disapeared. Im still dealing with that tbh. Anyways I had to go to a online meeting to choose my classes and I didn't get to choose the classes I thought I would be able to, and that made me really upset. But after the meeting I had to go to do am act of kindness (I chose picking up litter at a graveyard cause i like graveyards) for my school project but I was still distraught. If I was given some time to myself I probably wouldve been able to go without issue, but my mom wanted to go immediately. We argued. And when I got there I refused to leave the car because I felt so much like shit. We argued more. It was the worst argument I ever had. She even swore at me. Which she's never done before. And she ended up playing victim again. She does that a lot I guess. And doesn't really listen to my feelings. Whenever I try to communicate about my feelings with her it turns into an argument and she makes it about herself. So yeah our relationship isn't the greatest. And I think having mommy and daddy issues is a trauma in itself. Ppl deserve to have happy healthy supportive families.

Oh right and another trauma I completely forgot (funny how that happens) is when I was 14 and admitted to a mental hospital because I tried to off myself. It was so surreal and they forced me to learn how to make eye contact with people cause apparently thats "how they know im doing ok". Which is kinda fucked considering the fact I recently realized I might be autistic. And eye contact is literally so painful for me. It especially was back then. Anyways the place itself wasnt too bad but the feeling of being trapped overall sucks and being disconnected from the rest of the world isnt fun either. Also I dissociate all the time but I especially dissociated hard thru the whole experience. And sort of made myself into the perfect patient, repeating all their bs and literally lying to myself to convince myself that I was ok so they would let me go. So that was kind of weird.

Anyways I know I have it better than others. And honestly sometimes it's hard to tell what exactly was traumatic in my childhood. I probably forgot and repressed other parts of it too and am forgetting things. But needless to say these unaddressed traumas didn't help my mental state. And i do think that's a big part of the voice in my head begging me to just get hurt more.

Overall my mental state is fucked, It's been really hard for me not to be taken advantage of by another internet pedo. Heck the only reason that isn't happening rn is because no ones dmed me yet. Also I unblocked my old abuser and we are talking again now so thats fun. It definitely doesnt help the cognitive dissonance in my brain of him being actually a nice and supportive dude. I think thats also a part of me wanting to get more traumatized. Since my abuser is a nice person that should counteract all the fucked up sexual things he said to me in the past right? I mean others have it worse, had worse abusers that were actively cruel. That's part of the bitch in my subconscious brain talking. It sucks tbh.

Anyways yeah I probably need therapy but I don't feel comfortable talking about this to my current counselor and honestly its really hard to say out loud. I can talk forever about it by writing it down but the moment I speak words from my dumbass mouth I break down in tears and can't do it. Plus idk, I'm scared if I say anything she'll have to tell my parents and that my phone might be taken away or I'll have less privacy and for a closeted queer where my only current life line is the internet and my online friends: that is a terrifying idea. Idk. I'm fucked basically.

[snorlaxlovesme]

This is just uh. A thing. A long thing. I actually drafted it back in July during Pride Month but chickened out before I could post it. But then I discovered that Ace Week exists and what better time to rant about the quintessential Ace Experience(TM) amiright?

.

I’ve struggled to define my sexuality since I was like 17. I can remember me and some of my girl friends going to the mall and talking about boys. I was currently teetering around a relationship with one of our male friends and they asked me to define why I was attracted to him and I couldn’t. They didn’t really think anything of it, moved along in the conversation and said “well X isn’t my type, so I guess I wouldn’t get it.” But the conversation stuck with me.

1. Because I never really thought the idea of a “type” was real. I didn’t think people ACTUALLY arbitrarily decided who wasn’t worthy of their affection based on a random set of archetypes. I thought they were shallow for saying that about him. I thought it was a mean concept to not let someone be “your type.”

2. Not being able to identify what I DID find attractive about him was....off. Like sure, he looked fine, but tbh he looked like an average teenage white boy and I couldn’t really pick out a physical identifier that made me want him. That seemed like a bad thought to have about one’s significant other.

Needless to say, that non-relationship went nowhere and I eventually told him I wasn’t feeling it. I thought I just wasn’t mature enough for relationships yet.

At age 18 I had my first kiss. Another male friend of ours. Another relationship I’d been teetering around. I had told him multiple times that I didn’t like the idea of dating him so soon after I had broken things off with X. It felt weird, too soon, let’s hold off. But part of me also didn’t like the fact that I was 18 and had never been kissed. It wasn’t at the forethought of my mind all the time, but it lingered back there. Maybe it was because, puberty-wise, I was a late bloomer. Maybe it was because, in my friend group, I was always somehow dubbed “the innocent one.” I didn’t want to continue being late for every major marker in life, so when Y took me up on a hill at sunset and said “I’m going to kiss you now” I let him.

It was not what I thought it would be. All the magical descriptions of kisses in YA books were drastically over-selling the experience. The first one was nice enough, but I couldn’t help but thinking “this feels exactly like kissing a relative” and being a little relieved and little disappointment that the sensation was exactly the same. The second kiss was much worse because he put his tongue in my mouth and I quickly discovered I hateddd that.

I thought that maybe it was Y’s fault. I didn’t like him the way he liked me, so there was no magic. No spark. But also maybe I was just doing it wrong? He did kind of imply that I wasn’t the best kisser (god, how romantic) and so maybe the more we did it the more I would like it?

We went on one more date after that, and almost every time we made eye contact he tried to kiss me. It was horrible. I spent the better part of the day actively trying to not look at him because I didn’t know how to tell him I didn’t want to do it anymore. That seemed like a bad thought to have about one’s significant other.

Needless to say, it didn’t work out. I’d like to say I handled the situation as maturely as with X, but in reality I ghosted this kid for like 2.5 months and eventually sent him a facebook message saying I wasn’t feeling it. I figured I wasn’t mature enough for relationships yet.

College I had no time for relationships, or so I told myself. Maybe I didn’t have the mental capacity for them because I was too busy wishing I would get hit by a bus (higher education did not go great for someone with undiagnosed ADHD). I kind of assumed everyone also felt the same way, but people were coupling up around me left and right. Everyone had the same stressors I had, maybe even more so, and yet they had time to form new relationships and have noisy sex in the dorm room next to mine. I didn’t have time, though.

My roommate asked me in those first few years if maybe I was asexual. I actually got mad at her for even implying it. Asexuals were emotionless robots who were so repulsed by sex they didn’t even want to THINK about it. I talked about sex with my friends all the time! I masturbated when she wasn’t around like every other day! How dare she even insinuate that I might be one of those people. I just wasn’t ready to be in a relationship yet.

And sure, I’d been on tumblr for years at that point. I’d been relatively educated about the LGBT community and its various factions. But nothing about it screamed ME. All those people seemed to have the same shared experience of knowing who they were since forever, of experiencing some form of discrimination based on who they were. I had always been straight, right? And no one’s ever discriminated me for who I liked. 

It was weird, though. Getting older and hearing more and more people talking about sex and just like, NOT feeling the same way. Was talking to my friends in a group chat one day, and one of them was head over heels for one of her coworkers. Not in love, but I-wanna-rip-off-your-McDonald’s-uniform-and-fuck-you-right-here-in-the-break-room (do McD’s even have break rooms? whatever) lust. She’s like, “you know that electricity you feel when you’re next to someone you really, really like. where every time you get close to them you feel this MAGNETISM and your entire body feels hot--”

--and all I could think of was how that sounded EXACTLY how Bella described her feeling towards Edward in Twilight, and just how ridiculous it sounded. That’s some YA bullshit, that’s not real.

And then our other friend in the chat was like “yeah.”

Oh. Well I guess I just have a lower sex-drive than you guys. That’s whatever.

I didn’t really identify as asexual until I saw a post about an aspec identity called autochorissexuality. 

The term autochorissexual describes a subset of asexuality which is defined as: a disconnection between oneself and a sexual target/object of arousal; may involve sexual fantasies or arousal in response to erotica or pornography, but lacking any desire to be a participant in the sexual activities therein.

That...kinda sounded like me....

Like I said, I masturbated and all that jazz so I assumed I couldn’t be asexual. I literally loved orgasms. I read smut and watched porn to get off like I assumed the rest of the world did, not even really realizing that a lot of people...get off...thinking about people doing stuff....to THEM.

I do not think about people I know when I masturbate. It feels incredibly weird for them to pop up in any of my fantasies, and I kinda just assumed that meant I wasn’t attracted to any of them (which I’m not), so it was fine. It didn’t really occur to me that I literally NEVER fantasize about myself when I get off. If I read smut I’m thinking of the characters. If I watch porn I’m thinking of the actors. Never am I imagining someone hot and sexy doing hot and sexy things to me. I’m not even very good at getting off based on my imagination alone, unless I’m basically writing my own smut in my head and imagining what THEY enjoy. The thought of imagining things being done to ME feels weirdly...embarrassing? I don’t know. I don’t dig it, so I don’t think it. 

Again, it did NOT even occur to me that that might not be how other people operated.

I also didn’t know that asexuality COULD have subcategories like that, other than aromanticism, which was an identity I toyed with for a while and ultimately am still unsure about.

But learning that liking orgasms =/= allosexual was kind of a wake-up for me. 

After learning about autochorissexuality (which, while I am incredibly, infinitely grateful that someone coined that term so I could learn more about myself, I will never identify as because it is a mouthful and I honestly don’t know how to pronounce it), I began identifying as asexual. I was 21 at the time. I’m almost 26 now.

A couple people know. Mostly people who follow me on tumblr that I also know in real life. I never really had to “come out” to them per se because they saw my posts and rolled with it. Wasn’t a big deal. I think that I actually had a conversation and TOLD those friends in that group chat, but that didn’t feel like coming out, more like all of us finally coming to a realization about me we should have figured out a lot earlier. Also, they’re friends from tumblr, so they’re not the types to make a big deal out of that stuff either.

Even though I have a couple of tumblr friends that I skype with regularly, I don’t really bring it up in conversation that much. Like two of my irl friends (who, again, follow me on tumblr) know, and we don’t really talk about it much either. It’s there, we all know, but if I don’t bring it up, they don’t either.

I’ve never really “come out” before. Had to sit someone down and have the conversation. Part of me thinks it’s kind of pointless, because whether or not I’m sexually attracted to others isn’t any anyone else’s business, really. It doesn’t super impact my work life or my life with my friends or family, so why does it need to be said? If I decided I liked women and wanted to date one, that would be a big change that I’d have to address to someone. But me being asexual is just me continuing to not have sex with anyone, the way I always have. Seems like a weird thing to cause a fuss about.

But it’s part of me. And I want to talk about it sometimes. 

But I don’t even know how that conversation would go. Asexuality is a relatively invisible subset of the LGBTQIA+ community. Like, it’s the last letter, the one that often gets cut off. And when people do bring up the A, it’s for Ally. I’m not gonna get into the discussion about that, I don’t know enough queer history to form a hot take, but the point still stands that many people don’t know about asexuality. And while it seems relatively easy to explain, I guess--

”I don’t experience sexual attraction”

--it also feels way more complex than that. And I’m not very good at articulating why I’m NOT something else when I have a hard time identifying what that something even IS. I was the kid who thought having a “type” was shallow and mean! It didn’t occur to me that people’s sexual fantasies INCLUDE THEMSELVES AS PARTICIPANTS. So how do I explain my lack of attraction to people?

But maybe I’m being too reductive of the masses. Like, I’m not the brightest bulb in the bunch but *I* was able to learn what was asexuality was on my own. Who’s to say others haven’t? Maybe I won’t need to give an informative slideshow every time I come out to someone.

...But what if I’m wrong? What if I get into a relationship one day and I find myself INCREDIBLY attracted to my partner? What if I get into a relationship with a WOMAN one day and realize that I was les/bi/pan this whole time? I know that demisexuality exists, I know that sexuality is a spectrum and people are constantly learning about themselves and evolving. I don’t want to downplay that or..or...invalidate that. I know. But I’m an idiot. And I can’t help feeling that if I come out and commit to fun new adjective about myself and then all of a sudden that adjective doesn’t fit me anymore I’ll be labelled as fraud for forever and ever. 

I know that’s probably unlikely for the most part. But it’s still something that’s there in my mind that I feel every time I think about talking about it.

I don’t know. Part of me doesn’t know why I’m writing this post because there isn’t some grand conclusion to my narrative or sweeping answer to my problems. My story continues for as long as I live and maybe things will change and maybe they won’t. I’d like to be able to come out one day and say it. To my sisters. To my coworkers. To some random dude hitting on me who seems kind enough to understand there’s a reason I’m reluctant to flirt back. Probably not to my parents. I don’t know if I want to present the slideshow to them about my lack of sex life, nor do I think they would handle my act of vulnerability with grace or tact (boomers, y’know).

I guess I can end this post by saying that it’s not all bad. Not being “out” kinda sucks, but right now, knowing is enough. There are a hundred other micro situations from my past similar to the ones I spelled out above that made me wonder what was wrong with me. I wanted to be able to like someone the way other people did, to have a normal relationship, but I couldn’t force myself to do it and I didn’t know what was stopping me. The whole am I just broken  conversation whirled through my head many a night in college when insomnia prevented me from sleeping and depression stopped me from giving myself a fucking break. It sucked, and maybe it’s a little grim to think of asexuality as a diagnosis to a lifetime of symptoms, but that’s kind of what it felt like.

And that’s not bad! Why? Because i know that I’m not alone and that this is NORMAL . Being asexual is not being broken! It’s something that many people identify with! And honestly that thought alone thrills me enough to make this whole ridiculous narrative worth it. There’s a whole world of people out there feeling the exact same way as me, and none of us are wrong for feeling that way. It is unreal the kind of confidence that gives you.

My friend from earlier, the one who desperately wanted to bang her co-worker, she said something to me the other day that struck me with how far I’ve come in terms of my identity. I was sobbing to her on the phone about a shitty thing in my life, as one does, and she pointed out how the strangest things will get to you while others don’t even have an effect. If someone mentions how I don’t have my drivers license at the ripe old age of 25 I legitimately have a breakdown on the phone with her about it, but if people make jokes about me being a virgin I don’t even bat an eye. 

And it IS weird. If someone would have made a virgin joke at me at age 20 I probably would have spiralled into one of my late-night, crying-into-my-pillow sessions about how much I fucking SUCK at being a human, but at age 25 it’s just...whatever. As someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction, why WOULD I have had sex already? If I don’t seek it out, don’t want it, it’s not gonna be a part of my life, you know? And I don’t care. Past me, without this identifier, would have cared deeply. Current me could go her entire life without having sex and I don’t think it would drastically effect her mood. 

It’s weird how one little word can turn things around for you like that.

[reallyverynormal]

hey im a proshipper, but i have a friend who isnt either proship or anti. she wants to know more about the anti side of things, if you dont mind could you tell me why you are anti ship? and why you believe others should be? i wanna let her make this decision on her own, but idk how anti shippers think and i cant find informational posts on it

this ended up getting kind of long so i’m just going to put it under a readmore but basically anti shippers are people who say this: don’t fetishize minorities, abuse and abuse survivors and also don’t write paedophilic porn and act like that’s a normal thing for cishet women to get off to.

-don’t fetishize abuse and act like it’s hot or cute. by that i mean don’t take a character that is canonically abusive to another character and write some romanticized tortured love story about it, or act like victims have to or can forgive their abusers for abusing them (not saying they can’t, but perpetuating the idea that they can/have to is bad, actually). just fucking don’t -don’t fetishize paedophilia and act like it’s hot or cute. by that i mean don’t write porn of children, don’t write porn of ‘aged up’ children, don’t write porn of adults raping/being in sexual contact with children and act like it’s hot or cute or something normal to get off to -don’t dehumanize gay men, lesbians, trans people--basically the entire LGBT community--by fetishizing them, calling porn of us “sin”, only writing smut fics about us and nothing else, trying to constantly find ways to ship two men in every piece of media, hate literally any female character that could potentially be a love interest just because she gets in the way of your ship. don’t fucking fetishize us, actually! -don’t act like rape/sexual abuse/sexual assault is hot. period. -also don’t write porn about real life fuckin people without their permission, especially, in the cases of people like dan and phil, when they are very clearly deeply uncomfortable with it and the abuse/harassment they have received from this, (tomska and tord from the eddsworld team and 1direction as a whole are also good examples of this shit affecting real life people).

and by these things, i don’t mean that you can’t write about these subjects ever or portray characters involving some of these subjects ever, i’m saying don’t fetishize them. don’t act like fiction doesn’t affect reality, because it does, (look up the jaws affect, as a huge example), and don’t act like you are above the law, because even the law (in the US and canada, at least), can and will punish you for drawing and writing porn about children. 

fetishizing minorities is, you guessed it, dehumanizing and wrong! black people, asian people and the LGBT community especially get this kind of treatment, and if you go around agreeing with the black and asian people who are talking about the fetishization of their races by white people, and you don’t agree with actual LGBT people talking about the fetishization of their gender/sexuality, you’re a fucking hypocrite*. fetishizing any fucking minority is bad, even in fiction.

note that there is also a difference between LGBT people going out of their way to ship two characters together in a queer/gay/etc ship and a cishet girl going out of their way to constantly ship two men together in every piece of media no matter what, especially if those two characters are white/light-skinned, skinny, conventionally attractive cis men. in the case of LGBT people, we’re doing it to create the representation we don’t get in media. for a cishet girl to go out of their way to ship two men in every fandom they join is just fetishization and it’s dehumanizing because we are not your fetish, we are not here to entertain you, we have lives to live outside of entertaining you and getting you off and often times we have spent years trying to get out of circles where people only see us as sex objects. fuck off. 

fetishizing people’s abuse and turning something horrific into something you can get off to is also extremely shitty and spits in the faces of actual abuse survivors because you’re acting like it’s cute, hot, something to get off to when we’ve often spent years trying to forget what’s happened to us. when we’re still going through this every fuckin day. when people have killed themselves because of the abuse that we’ve gone through. when you do this, you act like what we went through is just something for you to get off to when it is often so bad we are left permanently scarred, our consciousnesses permanently broken, struggling with life-long mental health issues directly caused by the abuse we went through. that is not your fucking fetish.

again--i’m not saying you can’t write about these subjects, i’m saying don’t fetishize them, i.e. don’t act like any of these things can be a good thing, don’t write them like they’re something to get off to, don’t write them like they’re something to strive for or can be in any way, shape or form healthy. write them as they are: horrific, scarring, mentally and physically draining, terrifying, and nightmare-inducing. do not portray these things in a positive light is all we are fucking asking.

inb4 “so we’re not allowed to write characters who think their abuse is good???” or some bullshit like that, no, that’s not what i’m saying. you can write a character who has an extremely complicated relationship with their abuse, for example being sexually abused from childhood and “liking” it because that’s how they were trained to respond to sexual situations, that’s how they were introduced to sex and their body responds to sexually violent situations by being aroused, even if the person doesn’t want to be because biology =/= consent, and that’s how sexual trauma works, albeit not for everyone, but for some people like me. you can write about a character that struggles with “liking” their trauma because sexual violence and being a victim of it is what feels safe, “normal” and familiar to them, while healthy sex is foreign and terrifying because they don’t know how to behave in a healthy sexual environment. that is a normal thing to write about and should, in fact, be written about more because i don’t see anything like that being written by anyone anywhere, and is, in my opinion, FAR more interesting than forcefully writing a character to be in love with their abuser and entirely romanticizing their abusive relationship, (that isn’t to say that you can’t write a character that’s in love with their abuser and wants to forgive them/make it work/ignores the abuse/doesn’t know it’s abuse/etc, just stop acting like their relationship is in any way healthy or something to strive for or cute/hot/etc, just don’t fucking romanticize the abuse they’re going through, portray it as a bad thing because that’s what it is--a bad thing).

that’s the anti-shipper argument: don’t fetishize people, don’t fetishize (sexual) abuse, don’t fetishize (sexual) abuse survivors, and don’t fetishize paedophilia.

it’s pretty simple once you break it down, but i hope my relatively detailed explanation shows you why you’re an asshole, and i desperately hope your friend doesn’t turn out to be like you in this regard :)

*i’m a white person, so if any POC finds this statement racist or offensive or knows of a better way to word it, feel free to let me know and i’ll delete it/change it/etc

[spaceskam]

the choice is mine

warning for mentions of outing, queer bashing, literally all canon bullshit that’s chaotic but happy ending i swear

ao3

���Can I vent to you? I-I need to talk or I might explode, and you’re the only one I trust not to use whatever I say against me. Also, you’re honest and maybe I’m overreacting. I know I have a tendency to be dramatic, so I need you to tell me if that’s what’s happening or if I’m actually justified in my anger.”

Alex stood there in confusion as the man he hadn’t seen or spoken to in a year barged into his cabin. Michael had vanished soon after Max had unceremoniously healed him, something Alex couldn’t fault him for. He still was pissed at Max for it, he assumed Michael was as well. That, on top of all the other bullshit, had prompted him to leave without saying goodbye and without keeping in contact.

Well, Alex occasionally got vague postcards that only read ‘I’m alive, love MG’ on them along with even more scarce phone calls from random numbers. Michael would simply say, ‘just sit with me for a while’ and Alex had complied effortlessly. He kept those things to himself.

Yet here Michael was, looking weirdly good. His clothes were nice and seemed to be ironed, not a hole in sight. He smelled like the expensive cologne the higher-ups wore to award ceremonies. Most notably, his hair was long with months of not having Isobel to trim it, but it was well kempt and oddly suited him.

“Uh, long time no see,” Alex said, watching the man pacing around the living room, “Are you gonna say hi or are you just gonna wait until after you vent?” 

Michael seemed to suddenly realize his shitty etiquette, his eyes going wide as he rushed back over to Alex. he gave him a short-lived hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I missed you, Private,” he said, flashing a sweet smile before he got all serious again, “Can I vent? I swear I’ll make it up to you.”

Alex gestured to his designed pacing area. “By all means.”

Michael kindly waited until he sat down before jumping into what was bothering him.

“When I was a kid, no one wanted me, but they wanted Isobel and Max, so I was left to basically fend for myself. And I was only in that situation because some stupid government organization took my mother. Then they killed her. I’m allowed to be angry about that, right?” he asked. Alexx watched him with wary eyes, his heart aching at the part his family had played in that. However, Michael hadn’t given much excess emotion towards it, so Alex didn’t either.

“Of course you are,” Alex clarified. Michael nodded.

“And Iz and Max‒they happily let me play murderer for 10 years without a care and basically gave me no choice but to not go to college. They watched me ruin my life and-and they thought it was whatever because it’s just Michael. I was spiraling and they knew it and they let me. It’s also my fault, but… I help them when they fuck up. I’m allowed to be angry about that too, right?” he went on, turning sharply on his toes in a way that would’ve been comical if it weren’t for the subject matter.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“And, and I am bisexual!” Michael shouted, throwing his arms out as he faced Alex for a moment. Alex would’ve smiled, but it was clearly building towards a negative. “But I’ve never got to actually come out to anyone on my own terms except you. Max and Iz found out, god knows how. You basically out me to Maria and Kyle. Maria outed me to Liz. I never got to choose how I told the people that mattered.” Alex sunk into the couch. He felt sick. “I-I told myself that I didn’t care, that it wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, I’m not ashamed, I like that part of me, so I shouldn’t mind. But I do because it was mine to share and, and I… I’m allowed to be angry about that, right?”

Alex’s eyebrows were pulled together in concern. He hadn’t even thought about that. He should’ve thought about that.

“Yes, Michael, God, I’m so sor‒”

“And my hand!” Michael cut him off, thrusting his left hand forward. It was the first time Alex had actually seen it since it’d been healed. He chose to ignore the scattered, newer scars that replaced the old ones. That was a different conversation. “I had no say when it got fuck or when it got healed! That I know I can be angry about.”

“Absolutely.”

“Every goddamn thing that happened to me in my entire life, I never had a choice. I was forced one way or the other and I wasn’t allowed a say. Or, if I was, it didn’t really matter. And then the very, very few times it did matter, I fucked it up because I wasn’t allowed to make choices before and so I didn’t know how, but you,” Michael paused, stopping his pacing to look Alex in the eye. He was smiling so softly and his eyes were so bright and Alex felt like he had whiplash. “You are the one thing I chose for myself that was good.”

Alex’s swallowed and tried not to let him get his hopes out. Michael had been gone for months. Things were different now, he wasn’t going to just pop up and love him. Right?

Michael came near him anyway, kneeling on the floor in front of him. He had so much love on his face and in his aura and Alex was overwhelmed. But, for the first time in a long time, he felt overwhelmed in a good way. Whatever Michael was thinking, he wasn’t confused about it. He knew what he wanted and he was sure about it.

When had that ever happened before?

“The last few months I’ve been in Missouri. Well, technically, I went to a few different places before I went there, but that’s where I ended up. I was looking for work and I found this farm and, Alex, you’re gonna love it,” he said. Alex’s heart jumped into his throat. Not you would, but you’re gonna. “This couple owns it, they’re in their 50s, and it’s been in the family for years, but they needed some extra help now that their daughter is going to college and so they offered me a job and a place to live on the property. I eat dinner with them and I help their son with math homework and we talk about, like, life and, Alex, I have never felt so normal. They treat me like I’m one of their own.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Alex said.

“I’ve told them about you,” Michael admitted, “And us. They know I’m bi and they don’t mind. They said they were happy I felt comfortable enough to tell them about it. Hell, they were the ones who pushed me to come see you again.”

“That’s amazing.”

Michael reached for Alex’s hand and held it in his own, bringing it to his lips. Alex held his breath. This was just so much.

“Listen, Alex, I know it’s taken me a while‒too long, honestly‒but I think I finally know what it means to be a man. It means being honest and dedicated and loyal. It means making choices and sacrifices, even when they’re hard. It means communicating and loving with your whole being. And I want to prove it to you if you’ll let me.”

Alex exhaled sharply. “What?” Michael just smiled.

“I want to be with you for real this time. I’m willing and ready to put the work into it. Like I said, you were the only choice that I made that was good and I want to show you that. I put you through hell, we put each other through hell. Not anymore, okay? I’m gonna treat you like you deserve to be treated. If you want that too, obviously,” Michael said. 

“I want that,” Alex said without thought. Michael grinned wider and pressed a kiss into Alex’s palm. “But we… How? Are you staying here? Are-are you going back? Do we meet in the middle?”

“Well,” Michael sighed, “I agreed to work for them for a year at least. I have two and a half months of that left. I was hoping you could come up with me. Either stay the whole time or just to visit so we can work on this. If you like it, maybe we can get a place up there and I can keep working for them. Or maybe somewhere else. Anything that works for you works for me. I just want to be with you and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

Alex took in slow breaths, trying to steady his mind and stop feeling so fucking lightheaded. This was a lot. This was…

“You don’t have to make a decision right now. I’m here for two days and, honestly, if you still haven’t decided, that’s okay. I just want you to be happy,” Michael insisted. Alex looked at him incredulously.

“Who are you?” he asked, huffing a laugh. Suddenly, he looked a lot more like Michael as that cocky grin spread across his lips and he pushed himself closer into Alex’s space where he was more than welcome. Alex grabbed his face and closed the same between them.

Alex was used to having long spans of time between their kisses. Months, years, whatever, but this felt different. This felt like they actually had plans for something more. This didn’t feel like a hello and a goodbye wrapped in one. This didn’t feel like desperation.

This felt like their first kiss. They had all the time in the world.

“Hi,” Michael breathed in between the kiss. Alex smiled and brushed his nose against Michael’s.

“Hi.”

“I missed you so much.”

“I missed you more.”

The smile on Michael’s face was almost too much to bear. They could do this. They could be normal.

“Okay, hear me out,” Alex said, moving his hands to Michael’s hips to pull him onto the couch with him. He followed with ease. “I still have a job here so I can’t leave, but I’ll visit you up there. We’ll work on us and maybe I’ll move or maybe we’ll compromise or something, but,” He pressed the pad of his thumb onto Michael’s lip. “You have to talk to me every day. Texting, calling, E-mails, something. Daily communication. That’s my rule.”

Michael scoffed, eyes crossed to try to see Alex’s thumb. “The rule is more Alex? I feel like the luckiest man in the world.”

Alex smiled and pushed his hand into his hair, scooting closer. He got a good look at Michael’s face. He looked younger, happier. It was a beautiful thing to see.

“I want to get to know this man you seem to be now,” Alex said softly.

“I wanna show him to you.”

Alex took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Their foreheads met in the middle. That year that had passed seemed to mean nothing as they fit right back in with each other. Michael was home. How’d he spend so much time away from home?

“I love you too, so much. I’m sorry it took me so long,” Michael whispered right back, his forehead leaning to rest against Alex’s. They stared at each other for a moment. It felt casual, normal. 

“Also I’m sorry that everyone made choices for you and that I played a part in that. I didn’t mean to out you ever, that wasn’t my intention,” Alex gushed. Michael shook his head.

“It’s fine, I just needed to get that off my chest.”

“I get it.”

Alex fiddled with the fabric of his shirt, eager to feel his skin. Now that it was apparent they were going to do this for real, all he wanted to do was celebrate. He tilted his head to go in for a kiss and he got an enthusiastic one in return.

“Wait!” Alex said, pulling away as much as he didn’t want to, “Do Isobel and Max know you’re back? Have you spoken to them since you left?”

“No, I came straight for you,” Michael admitted. Alex bit his bottom lip. 

“You should tell them you’re here.”

Michael shook his head, pulling Alex into him completely. 

“I will tomorrow. I just want you tonight.”

Alex wasn’t going to argue that. Even if he did have a whole lifetime of this in his future.

[ctl-yuejie]

opinion on the term bl?

uhhhhhh…very complicated. I might have written a whole rant post before on the topic on this blog on an empty stomach so it was most likely not very nuanced (I think it was about people saying that The Untamed didn’t count as BL).

buckle in, this got suuuper long

tbh i first came into contact with the term in the early 2000s and since the internet didn’t play any role at my age then, the only context I had were magazines (here in Europe) and manga publications.

I knew that BL was a whole genre in Manga and that it featured gay romance and that fans / content creators would refer to themselves at fujoshi. Now, at that time I was only figuring out that I was bi, didn’t know any Japanese and didn’t have any friends with cultural ties to Japan.

So based on the magazines I read, I started to believe that “Fujoshi” literally meant “Rotten Girl” because of the taboo of same-sex relationships and the tantalizing sense of the forbidden that comes with it.

While I read some BL manga (couldn’t tell you the titles anymore), I never referred to myself as a Fujoshi or being into BL because both terms seemed to apply only to Japanese people and the sense of “the forbidden” in regards to same-sex relationships didn’t fit to my reality (having been to a same-sex marriage with my family at age 8 etc) and also felt demeaning to me.

After learning Japanese and living in Japan I didn’t really question my aversion to the terms, since I did have access to the internet now but didn’t think of fact-checking everything I had “learned” pre-internet (I think it is important to note here that the magazines weren’t the highest in quality in terms of journalistic prowess nor scientific in any way. They were just short entertaining articles, aimed at teenagers like me, trying to profit from the still ongoing wave of japanese pop culture in the west) and my only experience with both bl content and real life fujoshi wasn’t that positive:

My feelings on BL and fujoshi culture were heavily influenced by 

- the wave of very sad and traumatizing gay movies in Japan that most of the time ended in double suicides of the main characters

- rape storylines getting romanticized in manga

- pretty heavily stereotyped gay characters in main stream tv series that were only there for comedic relief

- the Fujoshi I knew back then being weirded out by the thought of same-sex relationships between women and basing their thought on gay men solely on the content they consumed 

- not finding the hailed “subversion of traditional gender roles” or discussion thereof in the BL my friends consumed. 

- my gay friends in japan having very frustrating encounters with fujoshi who started to treat them like an open air circus and not making them feel supported in real life 

- people around me making judgments based on attractiveness on whether gay people should get supported, while the hint of a celebrity being gay was weaponized  against them

now, this pretty much sums up, why I tended to have negative thoughts on the subject and felt more sympathetic to the push from some people in the queer community in japan to please retire terms like “uke” and “seme” when talking about real people.

since then, i didn’t intervene when other female friends in japan would use the term for themselves, because it still was a term coined in japan and those people were actually supportive of queer people so i didn’t see how me being preachy about it just because of my experience and not calling myself a fujoshi or fan of bl would be of any help and/or called for.

jump to 2018/2019 and i started to read more papers about it on a whim because i started to watch Crossing The Line and for the first time in a long while I was in a fandom again where people called the genre “BL” and themselves fujoshi/fudanshi.

I came to know that what I assumed the origin story of the term “Fujoshi” to be had been misreported (shocker) by the magazines back in my youth and that apparently the term was also widely used in Thailand, Taiwan and Mainland China. especially the knowledge that apparently TERFs were behind a pushback of the term made me reevaluate my opinion.

Since I have really no insight into Chinese or Thai culture it is not on me to judge whether it is appropriate for people there to use BL as a genre signifier etc and from all I have read, in some cases it is really about finding a way of creating and distributing queer content in a place that is not lgbtqi+ friendly or use it as means of finding expressions for one’s own sexuality etc.

Obv. there are genre conventions I will get annoyed about and criticize (all female characters are evil etc) but those things are also not BL exclusive so there’s not much sense in condemning a whole genre that at least tries to push some conventions.

With the Internet and a global push for more lgbtqi+ rights there is now definitely a strong symbiotic relationship between queer content and real life social changes. so being harder on queer content (in general) because it isn’t perfect doesn’t make anything better for queer people. 

nowadays there has been some wonderful content in japan with a push for real life legal changes as well, taiwan has the marriage for all and thailand is also pushing for a civil union for everyone.

especially in the case of mainland china with strict censorship rules i will congratulate anyone who tries to sneak some ambiguity in. it saddens me that the rules are as strict and that there are even more hardships for lgbtqi+ people in real life but i would never say that not creating any content that could be interpreted as queer should be favoured over trying to do something, regardless of how lacking the result might seem. 

The reason why I ranted about BL as a genre term recently was mostly directed at western fans with no cultural ties to any of the aforementioned cultures, but i definitely didn’t stress that enough in my previous post.

Since I still don’t call myself a fujoshi or being into the BL genre I am suspicious of western fans calling themselves as such. because i project my own experience and knowledge on them and there are people out there who definitely emphasize the cheeky “rotten” side of themselves while not knowing (like past me) where the term comes from and that it does’t have to do with any “forbidden fruit”. i assume a certain laziness when straight people will try and convince me that they are allies to me, because they consume BL series, but will still call me “the man” in the relationship etc.

There can definitely be a need for a similar outlet that allows people to write about gender roles, sexualities etc in a similar way but very often the argument of “it is female empowerment to be into BL” is just warping the origin story of the term into an excuse for homophobic statements. I see the term get applied to western shows as well (when there isn’t a need for using a Japanese term, especially not when there’s a missing understanding of its origin) and actual mlm shows in asia being dismissed just because it doesn’t fit the BL genre conventions (point and example: people in the west discounting The Untamed as mlm content because they weren’t explicit about it; What Did You Eat Yesterday getting dismissed because of similar reasons and the diversion from presumed age and beauty standards of BL as a genre). That way western fans made BL feel quite restrictive and not interchangeable with mlm anymore, which just confounds me.

in the end it also comes down to scope: someone writing fanfiction, producing small indie series cannot really be harmful even when they content might seem so. so regardless of what the genre entails it is important to put everything in perspective and whether this is the hill someone wants to die on, instead of leaving space for artistic expression, cultural differences and celebrating the steps into a more loving world for all.

tl;dr: I feel many emotions; there’s always space to learn more and I am grateful to everyone who made posts about the racism in criticizing the terms “Fujoshi” / “BL”; I don’t use the term myself, but only feel wary when westerners use it; personally I prefer to use mlm or wlw as content describers but I am also not 100% satisfied with that as well

ask me my opinion on ______

[swagreus]

Meat Cute

So @bluandorange made a post a while ago that I CANNOT FIND about Reaper being a Klyntar symbiote and we threw around ideas about it and now YOU GET 3000 words of it.

UNDER THE JUMP-- three relationship milestones between Reyes and the symbiote not yet named Reaper.  Morreyeson, pre-relationship Reyes/Reaper, implied Reyes/Reaper/Morrison

TW for medical setting, abuse of medical authority, government dehumanization, a little body horror, the SEP sucked a lot

(An introduction)

It's a day like any other in the SEP, which means it's a day of bullshit and nausea and unknown things shoved into his body.  

Gabe is fucking exhausted. They've been running them on treadmills for a few days, testing their response to the last round of shots, and the science wonks are making happy noises about how far above human baseline they are and it's still not enough. Not enough to take on the swarms pouring out of the omniums, not enough to survive long enough. And he knows it, but he's sick, his body's never where he left it, and he's so goddamn tired of being poked.  

Two labcoats-- new ones, that's never good-- come into the gym where Gabe is having a lift-and-bitch with Lawson and Morrison. All three of them clam up, Morrison's pretty pink mouth snapping shut around a profane assessment of program management.  Lawson sets down her absurdly large kettlebells, wipes stray hairs off her sweat-drenched brow, makes a show of re-tying her pony.

"We're just here for 24.  Candidates 76, 52, Carry on," says one of the labcoats-- young man, white, thin brown hair, mouthing the words like it's something he saw on a TV show. He used to learn their names, but they cycle too much now. It's not worth it. They never bother learning his name.

The three candidates share an unimpressed glance, just a flick of eyes meeting, brown -hazel - blue, wordlessly despairing together at the new desk jockeys that have given carte blanche to change their bodies from the inside out.

Gabe bends slowly, maintains eye contact, setting down the massive barbell, slowly, with so much control that the sound of the bar shifting inside the weight plates is louder than the sound of 300kg touching the floor.  

"That's my day shot. See you tonight, losers."

Two sarcastic, perfect salutes.  He can feel their worried gazes on him as he strides out of the gym. He doesn't think about it. Sometimes candidates don't come back.  Rodriguez washed out last round.  Stevens and McCullough went off for some kind of candidate trial and then a day later their numbers were scrubbed from their rooms. Nobody said anything.

"So, what did the wheel of injections land on today?" he asks, as he follows the new labcoats toward one of the procedure rooms-- oh, god, one of the airlocked ones, where they had that round of aerosolized stuff that almost killed Wallace.

"You're a special boy, Reyes," the older labcoat says, unphased by his irreverence.  "You're the only surviving candidate who passed the cross-matching."

Surviving. A chill goes through him. Not like he didn't know, but it's the first time anyone on the admin side's acknowledged it out loud.

"Cross matching. You-- that's for organ donation. Right?"

"Something like that," older labcoat says. He unlocks the door with a card-- not a palm scan, these two must be visiting experts and not part of the program proper. Not part of the plan that was laid out. Not part of the consent forms he signed, he knows that for damn sure.  

The government is just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks now. And he and his fellow candidates? They're the wall.

Young labcoat gestures to the procedure room. "In and on the bed."

He glances down at his sweat-soaked gymwear. "No prep? No decontam?"

"Not necessary."

Whatever that means.  

His sense of outrage is exhausted. All the ethical lines were crossed a long time ago, whatever new fuckery they have for him today is just... it's just how he lives now.

Sometimes he wonders if he'll ever see the outside of this place.  

He goes inside. Lays down on the bed. Younger labcoat follows him in, slaps a couple of ekg pads onto him and clips a blood-ox monitor onto him, but that's all-- he retreats, leaves Gabe alone.  That's not-- usual. They've moved one of the remote surgery units in, but the only attachment on it right now is a dual-clamp arm holding a sealed capsule about the size of a coffee can.

They don't know what to look for, he thinks.

They don't think there's anything to do if he crashes, he thinks.

They're scraping the bottom of the barrel and whatever they found there is in that hazmat canister hogvering over him.

He can feel the pressure change as they seal the room-- he can feel so many things now. No windows, but they all know when it's raining now. Wallace and Morrison and Hu can hear silent alarms and security systems now.  The soft press of the sealed-in air is oppressive, bears down on his ear drums like deep water.

Older-labcoat's voice crackles across the intercom:

"We're introducing a liquid enhancement system to you. There'll be some discomfort, but if things go well, you'll be out of here in an hour."

"What's IN the liquid-"

The remote surgeon unit whirs to life and unceremoniously cracks the canister over his body, like the shittiest fried egg onto a pan, and black ooze splatters onto his gym clothes and over his arms and torso.

It's viscous, rippling with the fall, and it takes a second for Gabe to realize that it's moving slowly with more than just gravity. He thinks, horrified: slime molds crawling over concrete. He thinks of those creepy funguses that zombify ants. People use them as fitness boosters, don't they? Is that what this is? He slaps at it, tries to scrape it off, and it clings to his fingers.  He can feel panic rising.

"Don't move, 24. That stuff's worth more than you."

He doesn't ask if they're joking. They're not.

Here's the rub: there's a robot apocalypse happening outside. All of them know that. And they've all accepted that this is the price to pay for even the chance of stopping it: they let go of their autonomy, their dignity, their certainty. It's fucking inhumane and it's probably necessary.

The black slime inches over his gym-shirt, and when it moves on, the cotton is dry.  It slides a little easier over his skin, and he can feel it replacing his cold sweat, displacing or ... intaking it, he can feel it clinging, and then pressing, and then--

It's suffocating, his skin feels like it's suffocating, bloating, filling--

The ooze pools up eagerly, covers his neck, slides under his t-shirt, slides over his face, and his control breaks and he screams and it goes down his throat and into his skin--

Then it's gone, and for a second he's actually-- he hates himself for this-- he's actually afraid he's broken the government's expensive zombie fungus ooze.

He breathes in-- and it's fine. It's like nothing happened. It's okay. The horrible feeling of drowning is gone.

"So what should I --"

And then his legs kick out without his consent and one of the monitors starts to scream-- blood ox, has to be, because he's suddenly breathless, struggling to inhale as his body goes stiff and jerks (myoclonic seizure, literally means muscular jerking-)

His head slams against the stainless steel biobed and he's out.

He comes back up in a different room-- different smell, different ekg machine beeping into his ears. It's not sterile in here, it smells like a fucking locker room, and when he lifts his swimming head, looks around, he sees it's because there's more than half a dozen candidates holding down every patch of available floor. There's a hand in his, suddenly gripping tight-- Lawson. His bunkmate Wallace is asleep in a chair next to the bed, loud clatters as Chin and Morrison scramble to their feet, cards falling from their reaching hands. Johannsen bolts through the door, shouting out into the hallway, and more bodies poor into the little room. They swarm him, everyone laying hands on his arms, shoulders, chest, talking over each other worried-relieved-urgent.

"...what's with the sleepover? I miss midnight TV?" The energy in the room is unpleasant, thick with fear and some kind of unfamiliar celebration.

"You  didn't come back," Lawson said quietly. "They didn't-- they didn't say anything." She bites her bottom lip, snarling at herself for the moisture flooding her eyes.

"Like McCullough." Morrison says, his voice cracking in the middle, part raw emotion, part  chemicals that seem to be putting the farmboy through a second puberty. He's got a deathgrip on Gabe's bicep. "Like Stevens. Had to check every day your number was still on your bunk."  

"Then after five fucking days they just come in and say 'he's stable' and we could see you-"

"Fuck. Fuck."

"How the fuck are you, man?" Wallace asks, sleep-slurred, pushing his way through to grab some bed-side real estate.

"I'm-- I'm fine."

...he really is. He doesn't feel like he's been out for five days. He feels like he's just woken up from a nap.

"Hey, I'm fine."

"Of course you are, asshole," Morrison laughs, eyes as shiny as Lawson's and Wallace's and Chin's and he pushes himself up and lets all these angry queer soldiers hug him because they only have each other here and apparently he's survived five more days amidst the bullshit.

He never sees the two labcoats again. They don't tell him if the zombie slime failed or succeeded, they don't tell him anything, and once he manages to forget it he doesn't think about it again.

(An Acclimation) He doesn't think about it when a Bastion gets off a shot a second before he can disarm it, close range, and he sees bone and cauterized meat and a cartoon cross-section taken out of his left side. He's too busy killing it and then passing out.

When he wakes up, and his skin is burned but whole, and his ribs ache but aren't visible, don't end where they were vaporized, he thinks-- it must have been a hallucination. He and Morrison can heal, but not like that.  It didn't happen.

He doesn't think about it when he steps into a building and inhales and tastes (explosion) and throws himself back out the door like an asshole.

He struggles to explain what alarmed him to his support crew, but they trust him now, they clear the building and send in a remote-control bomb unit instead. It circles the room twice before it finds the well-sealed package of explosives, the leaked chemicals barely detectable even to the tuned sensors.

(But he knows. He tasted it in the air. He knew it was an accellerant.)

He doesn't tell them that.  He doesn't explain it; he doesn't explain things. He's a fucking war hero, he doesn't have to explain. It's nothing, Morrison can hear ultrasonic and he can taste accelerant in the parts-per-billion it's just SEP bullshit.

(Soon the rumors go around that he's psychic. He encourages that. Keeps people on their toes.)  

They win the war, but the world's still in danger, a house on bombed out foundations with opportunistic termites all through it.  He and Morrison are the last survivors of the SEP, and they give themselves one day to mourn before they confront the new impossible mission the UN's saddling them with.

They've saved each other's lives more often than they can count.  They're closer than brothers. Closer than lovers.  When he kisses Jack and Jack rumbles "Thank god, thought you never would" and drags him down on top of him, it's an anticlimax, it's just another piece of warforged machinery clicking into place.  

They love each other and if it feels like that makes him stronger, makes him faster, makes him healthier, well who the fuck knows about hormones. Not him. He hasn't had a t-shot in months. Their bright new Swiss doctor looks at his blood panel and informs him serious as a headache that his body chemistry his changed. He produces his own testosterone now.

"That's impossible," she says. "I know. I've tried everything."

"SEP bullshit," he says.

"...Was it worth it?" She touches the patch on her own arm.

"To stop the war. Not for this."  

There's a lingering hate in his head, and something echoes it sometimes, just this instinctual fear when he thinks about the program, the procedure room.  

But that's just common sense.

They walk into the UN and Jack Morrison bats his lashes and convinces an entire security counsel that what they always meant to do was put him in charge of the new 'Overwatch' project and oh as an afterthought there should be a spec-ops branch and Gabriel Reyes should run it.

The lack of argument as they bolt Jack over his head stings, boils resentment in his belly. Petras doesn't even put up a token argument, despite Gabe's war record, his seniority. They get everything they want, and it tastes a little like ashes. He wants something to wash it out and has no idea what, but there's this odd-- intrusive flash, like something from a dream, of the crunch of bone and a strange taste in his mouth that would satisfy.

"Of course they wanted me in charge," Jack says that night, sitting around a kitchen table with Gabe and his brand new SIC, an old friend from the war. "They think I'll listen to them."

"They think you'll look better on a poster," Ana says, so that Gabe doesn' thave to.

Jack nods grimly. He's a realist. He squeezes Gabe's hand, then lays his own on his chest.

"I'm nonthreatening BARBIE," he chirps, and despite himself, Gabe snorts.  

Ana gapes, because she wasn't there for the SEP and doesn't know about the angry farm-queer who lurks under that polish and that lantern jaw. It still occasionally surprises her when Jack has a personality. Gabe knows better, but he still loves it when Jack's bitchy side sneaks back out.

"I have such features as BEING WHITE and PROBABLY DUMB. I'm from a FARM. Math is hard!"

Ana puts her face in her hands.

"Shut up," Gabe snickers, propping his elbows on his knees, loving this shady idiot with his whole heart. His brain fills with a wash of home-together-safe that he can almost taste (he can taste accelerant) (he can smell fear) and the taste of ashes fades.

"You love it."

"Fuck you."

"You love me."

"God, Bloomington, I really do." He pulls Jack unprotesting into his lap and Ana rolls her eyes and quotes fraternization regs at them without conviction.

And for a while it's good.

It's hard, but they're managing. It's a complicated business, saving the world, they walk lines, they cross him, but they're making a difference, they're doing real good when the UN's back is turned, they hold each other at night and make quiet promises that they won't make the same mistakes as their predecessors, they won't abuse their power like those who came before, they will do this RIGHT...

They make new mistakes.

They stop new crises.

They step too heavy.

They save the world even as it lashes back against them, over and over.

They take risks, spread the umbrella wide, looking for oddities and oddballs who don't fit any of the profiles the UN wants them to consider. A little shithead from the newly reformed Deadlock gang; a terrified teenaged super-intelligent gorilla from the moon; a multiple amputee ninja; a woman displaced in time.

(An Awakening)

They hire a brilliant geneticist, a follower of the late Harold Winston's work. She and Doctor Winston's other ... successor... get along poorly. But they don't have to see much of one another. What biological research Winston-the-actual-fucking-gorilla gets up to, he does with Angela Ziegler and not Moira O'deorain.

Moira has an edge to her that Gabe responds to. Jack ... doesn't, but he takes Gabe's word that she's necessary.  He takes Gabe's word that a lot of things are necessary. They trust each other, they have to.  

"It's fascinating, what you are," she says one day, his medical records spilled out across her desk. She clucks at the old-fashioned paper copies from the SEP-- there's no digital record of any of it, and the paper is more black-highlighted redactions than anything else.

"...you could be more, I think."

"I'm done with people poking me," he says.

And then Talon takes over an entire town in Italy without anyone noticing, and Blackwatch is moving fast but not fast enough, and he tastes accelerant again but this time the explosives are already primed and three Blackwatch soldiers die screaming, and this time he goes to her.

"Do you know what they did to me?"

"No idea. It's fascinating," she says, the faint lilt in her voice making it sound almost gleeful. "But I've been having a look at your latest blood draw, and there's something to it. Something more to you. I want to start some... off the books research."

"...it'll be on my books," he says.

She smiles, and if it doesn't look reassuring, she's not the only one in Overwatch who's not an expert at social cues.

She tells him: There's something in him. Something she can't identify. Something alive.

"Don't look so alarmed," she says, arching a brow. "Humans are full of micro-organisms. Whole species of bacteria that live only in our guts. We're walking colonies. You, you just have something a bit extra."

And for the first time in decades, Gabriel thinks -- black ooze.

Tasting his own emotions. The constant bitterness of stress that's making the stress worse.

A hole, like a cartoon-cut out, in his side.

"...And."

"And!" Her mismatched eyes light up.  "It's operating at maybe a tenth of its potential. It was weakened, nearly killed-- like a vaccine-- but this isn't a pathogen, it's beneficial. It can be stronger. You can be stronger."

"This could go very wrong."

"Come now, I wouldn't just incubate this thing in you."

He doesn't say: the government didn't hesitate to do exactly that.

"I've learned how to suppress and contain it, if there's any untoward side effects." She tuts away his concern, and it's testament to how bizarre his life has been for how long that ... he accepts that.

In retrospect, foolish.  But he lets her start him on this cocktail of -- fungus food, he mentally calls it.

And she's right. God, she's right. He's stronger every day. He heals faster, his metabolism is more efficient, his reaction time halves and halves again.

He means to tell Jack, he really does.

But.

One night, one stolen half-hour in their shared quarters, Jack has Gabe's knees over his shoulders and his tongue deep in Gabe's ass. His poster-boy, his G.I. Barbie holding the world at bay with the sheer force of their shared bond and the skill of his tongue, and he loves, and he loves, and he loves--

And loving Jack has a taste, a sweet, satisfying taste that he can't get enough of.

And something unfurls in his mind.

/Awake/ it coos.

/Tastes good./

And blackness ripples under his skin and he freezes and shoves Jack back, fetching up against the wall, staring down at his own chest, grabbing only at familiar skin and unchanged musculature. No sign of the alien presence. Not even the echo of a voice.

"What's wrong?" Jack picks himself up from where Gabe threw him-- not just onto the floor but almost against the far wall, he didn't mean to.

Gabe opens his mouth to tell him everything. Everything. The two strange labcoats. The impossible healing. The taste of accelerant, the taste of emotions. Moira.

He doesn't know how to say it. It sticks in his throat.

"It's-- nothing, I had a bad moment. S'fine."

"Okay," Jack says, eyes still worried but taking him at his word.

Jack takes his word that a lot of things are fine.

Gabe draws him back into his arms and kisses the worry off his face and pretends he can't taste fear, fear, fear.

[that-curly-haired-lesbian]

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo + Taylor Swift: a master post - Part 2/6

Hi guys, welcome to part 2 of my masterpost regarding parallels between Taylor Swift and Evelyn Hugo, the fictional actress from the book The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by author Taylor Jenkins Reid!

Before proceeding please be aware that there will be 

**MAJOR SPOILERS**

for the book ahead and please also read my disclaimer!

It’s very important that you read these in order so if you haven’t yet go ahead and check out the previous part right here, thank you and enjoy!

Monique goes home for the weekend consumed by the question “who the hell was Evelyn Hugo in love with?” This goes to the point that she finds herself no longer dwelling on her own relationship problems, but instead focuses on Evelyn’s love life for the whole weekend. (pg. 37)

This of course is similar to how Taylor’s fans and media instead of relating songs to their own love lives and experiences or writing about the quality of the music are obsessed with finding out who in her life she wrote the songs about. (x)

Essentially Taylor’s stories substitute or overpower fans’ own love lives and her love life overshadows whatever could be written about her in a professional sense…Apparently??

Similarly instead of wanting to ask Evelyn something regarding her remarkable career (or her childhood, or what have you) Monique finds herself immediately drawn to (both as a journalist and a consumer, she’s sure to point out, just like how both the fans and the media are drawn to this aspect of Taylor’s public persona) asking about the men in Evelyn’s life, which is frankly, a very sexist angle to take.

When it comes to Taylor fans and media seem especially interested in (or unable to let go of) Taylor’s “relationship” with Harry Styles and likewise Monique’s best guess for who the love of Evelyn’s life could be is the appropriately named Hollywood producer Harry Cameron aka beard/husband #5. A man who we later find out (pg. 72-73) is not only very flamboyantly gay, but also Evelyn’s best friend and closest confidant, the friend who she trusts to tell everything without fearing it might get out.

At her second wedding Evelyn and Harry have an interesting conversation, Evelyn asks Harry why he’s never tried to flirt with her (like most men she encounters in the industry has after all.) He asks Evelyn if she ever wanted anything to happen between them (since she’s the one asking him about this) she says no, but Harry catches onto the fact that Evelyn wanted him to want something to happen and she offers:

  “’And what if I did? Is that so wrong? I’m an actress, Harry. Don’t you forget   that.’   Harry laughed, ’you have actress written all over your face. I remember it     every single day.’ ” (pg. 72)

In response to why nothing has ever happened between the two Harry vaguely implies that he’s gay and Evelyn immediately gets it, but says nothing about it until years later when Harry is the first person she comes out to after realizing her own queerness. After which the two agree to always tell each other everything.

Harry’s vague coming out at the wedding is however not what interests me about that scene, instead it is the use of the word “actress” of course in Evelyn’s case this is literal, she is in fact an actress, but it’s Harry’s response that causes me to reach…

On the surface his comment seems to be him admitting that despite his preference for men he can see that Evelyn is an attractive woman (like actresses generally are), but if we are to put this in a different light let’s consider that Taylor often either uses the word “actress” in her songs:

   She's not a saint and she's not what you think She's an actress

                                                   //

                I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams

or implies that she’s playing a role a few examples being All of Blank Space, and I Did Something Bad and parts of Don’t Blame Me.

I’ve gone on record in my analysis of the song Better Than Revenge as saying that the acting theme may be a reference to bearding and if we are also to look at the fact that Harry comes out to Evelyn in this scene it reads to me as if the underlying subtext is someone who beards (like Taylor) asking a gay male friend why they have never bearded together despite this friend’s knowledge that this Someone (Taylor) beards a lot (or is an “actress”) the friend agrees that he knows she is indeed a prolific bearder and that anyone with eyes can see she’s gay (the fact that she is gay and beards, or “is an actress” if you will, is “written on her face”.)

This might seem like an extreme reach even for this context, but given the fact that Evelyn and Harry actually end up bearding together later in the book and Evelyn does mention shortly before this conversation with Harry takes place that she sometimes feels like her public persona is someone she’s pretending to be (aka a role she’s playing, just like Taylor implies she feels about her public persona in the songs mentioned above.)  I just found the conversation and Taylor’s bearding-connection to the word “actress” interesting in this context…

--

On Monday Evelyn tells Monique:

   “People have so closely followed the most intricate details of the fake story of    my life. But it’s not…I don’t…I want them to know the real story. The real     me.’” (pg. 38)

Similar to how Taylor told us:

“We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us.” 

“When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test. There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory” (x)

Monique responds:

  “’Alright, show me the real you then and I’ll make sure the world understands.’”

Like I said before people like Evelyn and Taylor are famous enough that this flies, they call the shots. Just like we are agreeing that Taylor is coming out in her own time, Monique agrees to listen to whatever Evelyn has decided she has to say. Meanwhile we’ll keep speculating and so does Monique.

At one point she even questions if Evelyn is capable of telling the truth after all those years of hiding it? (pg. 38)

I’ve personally had more than one anon questioning why Taylor keeps “lying” about her personal life and whether she’ll be able to ever stop and just come out? (For my thoughts on all that, please read this.)

--

As Monique agrees to Evelyn’s terms she’s put in a bit of a bind, given that Evelyn contacted her through Vivant when the story was truly never intended for the magazine but for Monique this basically means that one of their writers is about to steal a story from one of the most famous magazines in the world and she could of course be fired for this. With a sinking stomach Monique realizes that the only plan she has is to lie to her boss about how the story is going and act as if she’s still doing the original piece for Vivant in order to save her own career. (pg. 32)

She even points out later that being fired from Vivant for stealing a story would be disastrous for her reputation in the industry.  (142)

I imagine that Monique’s confusion about what to do with Vivant mirrors a young Taylor’s initial unwillingness to “lie” to us (the public and the fans) regarding her sexuality at risk of losing her contract with a label.

Being let go from a contract and a label for making her sexuality publicly known would’ve been disastrous for her reputation in the industry and probably harm her chances at ever being mainstream famous/get on the radio. Had she gone against the advice she was getting at the time and made her sexuality public knowledge/decided to sing about girls or whatever she could’ve lost her career, her job.

In Monique’s case she would literally be fired form a job, in Taylor’s case it’d be more in the sense of falling from grace in the court of public opinion, or being left out of the community in Nashville. Something that country singer Chely Wright has mentioned was a legitimate fear for her upon coming out. (x)

 When Frankie does find out what’s going on this is what happens:

  “’She used us to get to us?’ Frankie says as if it’s the most insulting thing she     can think of. But the thing is she used me to get to Evelyn, so…” (pg. 142)

This scene is yet another reminder that it’s all power play, a game and lowkey blackmail in the entertainment industry and that everybody does it, even the media.

…Baby let the games begin

--

 And so Evelyn’s story starts once and for all. She tells us how she wanted to run away from her abusive father after her mother died and how she at fourteen romanticized Hollywood and believed her life would get better if she could only get there:

  “It would take me years to figure out that life doesn’t get easier simply because   it gets more glamorous. But you couldn’t have told me that when I was   fourteen.”

New to town with a made up name in the angel's city,

Chasing fortune and fame.

And the camera flashes, make it look like a dream

You had it figured out since you were in school.

Everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool

                                     //

  Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now                               I didn't know who I was supposed to be at fifteen

14* but close enough, right? What I’m saying is, major Lucky One/Fifteen mashup vibes…

--

Evelyn does eventually get to Hollywood, by seducing a dude named Ernie who is a light technician on movie sets, she doesn’t love him and she lies about her age (she says she’s 16 when she truly is 14) but she gets a ride to Hollywood as she puts it, out of their marriage (pg. 44)

Having arrived in The City of Angels Evelyn does what she has to in order to launch her career and that included doing something rather bold for such a young, inexperienced actress:

“I did something not many other actresses at my level would have had the guts to do, I knocked at Harry Cameron’s door.” (Pg. 47)

This of course reminded me of:

   “Hi, I'm Taylor. I'm 11; I want a record deal. Call me.” (x)

At this point in the book Evelyn is 16 or 17 and not yet explicitly queer, so that isn’t what Harry (here representing the movie/music industry) points out they have to “get rid of” when it comes to Evelyn’s image if she wants to make it. Instead, when Evelyn does get her audience with Harry Cameron she’s immediately told she has to get a more American-sounding name (her maiden name was Herrera, and now being married to Ernie her name is Diaz which in the industry’s eyes isn’t much better) and dye her hair blonde.

Instead of her queerness it’s her Hispanic heritage that has to go, in Taylor’s case however, it was of course the queerness, even in the early days. Moving to Nashville at 14 (just like Evelyn and Hollywood) Taylor signed with Big Machine Records at 16 and after seemingly previously being out she was back in the closet by the time her first album was being recorded.

--

To begin with Ernie is supportive of Evelyn’s attempts to make it in acting, but eventually he gets resentful when she doesn’t wanna be a house wife or give him children. This understandably frustrates Evelyn:

  “I’d told him I was someone else. And then I started getting angry that he     couldn’t see who I really was.” (pg. 47)

Of course I wouldn’t truly know, but I don’t think Taylor has ever used someone as a beard/for PR without their consent the way that Evelyn does to Ernie here, but if it is to be claimed that Taylor Swift did what she had to get her career off the ground then the obvious example of this would be her closeting, she told us she was someone else (with the aggressive heterosexuality of The Old Taylor™) she thought the closeting was a price worth paying for the professional success, at first…and then it started to frustrate her that she couldn’t be open to us about who she really is.

Just like Taylor though, Evelyn is all too happy to agree to the studio’s bigoted terms if it means she’ll get to be an actress, so she agrees:

  “And in so doing I set the star machine in motion.” (Pg. 50)

Hmm, interesting choice of words, Evelyn…

As Evelyn’s image is starting to take shape Harry introduces her to the concept of bearding or in this case, since she hasn’t realized she’s queer yet, “dating” for publicity:

  “The studio thinks it would be a good idea if you were seen around town with     some guys…*proceeds to list various fictional male celebrities*” (Pg. 52)

So Evelyn Swiftly (pun intended) divorces Ernie and starts being seen around town with fellas of New Hollywood™

Here she shares her thoughts on those early days of bearding:

  “I was OK with it for it for two reasons. One I had no choice but to be all right     with it because I didn’t hold the cards. And two, my star was rising. Fast.” (Pg. 60) (x) (x)

  “Don and I had been seen around town, our photos taken at every hot spot in     Hollywood. … And we knew what we were doing, parading around in public. I     needed Don’s name mentioned in the same sentence as mine, and Don   needed us to look like he was part of the New Hollywood. Photos of the two of     us went a long way toward solidifying his image as a man-about-town.” (Pg. 68)

Bearding 101…

It’s not just bright sides to the bearding and PR though, on page 56 Monique calls Evelyn “calculating” that word (or a less kind option, “manipulative”) is often thrown around by both media and antis when describing Taylor both in her professional life and in her love life…. (x) (x) (x)

There are also dark sides to not just the bearding but to fame and Hollywood itself as we’ll soon find out.

At this point in Evelyn’s story she has genuinely fallen in love with one of her PR boyfriends (she’s bi and don’t you forget that) and so they decide to get married and at first Evelyn’s second marriage is going swimmingly (again, pun):

  “We had pool parties nearly every weekend, drinking champagne and     cocktails all afternoon and into the night.” (Pg. 74)

*TIWWCHNT plays loudly in background*

However sadly Evelyn is about to learn just why they can’t have nice things, it turns out her new husband Don is both physically and emotionally abusive and it doesn’t take long for him to start regularly hitting her and this ruins the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.

  “I’d made my way three thousand miles from where I was born, I had found a     way to be in the right place at the right time. I had changed my name. changed    my hair. Changed my teeth and my body. I’d learned how to act. I’d made the     right friends. I’d married into a famous family. Most of America knew my name.   and yet…And yet.” (Pg. 78)

  And they tell you that you’re lucky.

But you’re so confused,

'Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used.

   “I got up off the floor and wiped my eyes. I gathered myself. I sat down at the   vanity, three mirrors in front of me lined with lightbulbs. How silly is it that I   thought that if I ever found myself in a movie star’s dressing room that meant   I’d have no troubles?” (Pg. 78)

The same sadly seems to go for a singer’s dressing room I’m afraid…

--

Just like in Taylor’s case it’s not just Evelyn’s personal life that gets affected by various PR strategies though, her career does too. Ever since Evelyn heard that the studio was planning to adapt Little Women she’s been pushing to get cast as Jo and Harry is saying she will get that role, if she agrees to doing a few more run of the mill movies alongside her famous boyfriend. Evelyn all but rolls her eyes and asks Harry if he’s saying she should be predictable in her career choices, Harry denies this:

  “I’m saying you should be predictable and then do something unpredictable,   and they’ll love you forever” (Pg. 67)

This strikes me as very similar to what Taylor did in her transition from country to pop, she put out three full-on country album and then came RED and Taylor famously said that album isn’t “sonically cohesive” why? Well, it straddles the line between the two genres, but not enough to make anyone uncomfortable, it’s still country, she’s still being “predictable” and THEN she dropped 1989 her first 100% pop album and just as Ha-I mean Big Machine probably predicted, we loved her forever!

Evelyn agrees to not doing Little Women right away and admits she didn’t have much choice in the matter:

  “My contract with Sunset was for another three years if I caused too much     trouble, they had the option to drop me at any time.” (Pg. 67)

While I fully believe that Taylor is in charge of her PR these days we cannot forget that she was a minor when all this started and back then I think she let “the adults” handle her PR, she would do whatever they thought was best as long as it’d get her on the radio long-term, including staying closeted. However, now that the contract with her old label is up  and the Rep tour has basically been one giant glass closeting event we’ll see what’s to come in terms of bold PR moves.

--

When she finally gets to do pop Little Women Taylor Swift Evelyn Hugo meets Karlie Kloss Celia St. James. Celia is an actress too and they become fast friends complete with Celia calling Evelyn out on her bullshit over milkshakes:

  “So many women around here are full of crap in everything they say and do. I     like that you’re full of crap only when it gets you something.” (Pg. 97)

Just like Taylor Evelyn is genuine…for the most part and Karlie and Celia know this.

      Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me

      Flashback to my mistakes

     My rebounds, my earthquakes

    Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me

                           //

           You must like me for me

--

Both Evelyn and Celia realize that Celia is a better actress than Evelyn while Evelyn is better at playing the PR game than Celia, so the two agree as their friendship blossoms to teach each other what the other knows better.

Evelyn says about Celia:

  “She did teach me to find moments of emotional truth in false     circumstances.”  (Pg. 101)

This is of course in regards to acting, but it made me think of what Taylor’s early girlfriends and her exposure to PR games and bearding must have taught her, to find moments of emotional truth in false circumstances. That’s how she can write and sing songs with the wrong (male) pronoun and make it seem so genuine, she projects the feelings she has for the women she dates onto these wrong pronoun, it’s like I pointed out before, to some degree Taylor has always told the truth about her own emotions, even when she’s hid them behind male pronoun and false heterosexuality the emotion has been real all along. Moments of truth in false circumstances.

--

Even genuine friendship can be played up for PR in the world of celebrity and when Evelyn has to deal with some bad publicity Harry suggests using a shopping spree with Celia to get Evelyn back in the tabloids’ good graces.

It has been speculated over the years among Kaylors and non-Kaylors alike that parts of Kaylor’s 2014 glass closeting could have been played up to “get Karlie’s name out there.” Even genuine friends (or girl pals) call the paps from time to time, but in this case Harry’s suggestion that they could “call Photoplay and let them know Evelyn and Celia will be on Robertson” is shot down by a scheming Evelyn with a better idea, she is going to fake a miscarriage to get some sympathy and make the press eat their words about her “not giving Don a baby.” (Pg. 102-104)  

  “’How did you learn all the underhanded, sneaky stuff you know?’ Celia asked.   ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said coyly.   ‘You’re smarter than you let on to just about anybody.’ ‘Me?’ I said.” (Pg. 109)

We play dumb but we know exactly what we're doing

Taylor is smart, she knows just how to play the game. See: Blank Space.

Similarity Evelyn has learnt the industry by now, she manufactures her own scandals, playing with her own narrative for professional benefit.(x)

--

One night when Don is away somewhere (probably in the club doing I don’t know what) Celia comes over to Evelyn’s and they drink some wine…As you can probably tell it’s about to be gay up in here! Celia calls Evelyn the most gorgeous woman to have ever been created and Evelyn immediately counters, saying Celia is a KNOCKOUT with her BIG BLUE EYES

(Karlie’s eyes do look blue in some lights…See: “Oh damn, never seen that color blue”)

The night continues and as it gets chilly the girls decide to make a fire…Yes, seriously:     “I asked her if she knew how to make a fire.    ‘I’ve seen people do it,’ she said, shrugging.    ‘Me too, I’ve seen Don do it. But I’ve never done it.’    ‘We can do it,’ she said. ‘We can do anything.’”  (Pg. 109)

 (s)he built a fire just to keep me warm

--

What follows is all from page 111-112:

As the night progresses Celia spills some wine on herself and has to borrow a clean shirt from Evelyn, they go into the bedroom and Celia decides that now is the right time to get personal. She asks Evelyn if she loves Don, Evelyn is caught off guard and finds herself answering that she used to love him but doesn’t think she does anymore. Celia asks if it’s all for publicity and when Evelyn denies this Celia asks if she’s sexually attracted to Don (and by extension, men in general) Evelyn says yes, Celia is jealous and uncomfortable and she seems to feel she’s said or asked too much. The scene that plays out embodies:

  Is it cool that I said all that?

  Is it chill that you're in my head?

  'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)

  Is it cool that I said all that

  Is it too soon to do this yet?

Just like these lines from Taylor’s song could (in my opinion at least) represent sneakily trying to find out if your new crush is gay too and worrying that the questions will make them uncomfortable as the subject is delicate. Celia’s awkward question seem to really be her trying to ask Evelyn if it’s cool that she thinks of her in a gay way and that she talks about that fact?

The word delicate even shows up in the scene when Evelyn describes Celia as being more delicate than her when trying to find a clean shirt that might fit.

--

Finally she does find a shirt and hands it over to Celia who comments on how gorgeous it is, Evelyn agrees and confesses she stole it from the set of one of her movies and asks Celia not to tell anyone. As she takes off the soiled shirt Celia says:

  “I hope you know by now that all your secrets are safe with me?”

Evelyn comments on how she’s sure that line was something Celia said casually, but that it meant a lot to her nonetheless. Because as Celia said it Evelyn realized she believed her and she’d never had that with anyone.

  “People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When     you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to   them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is ‘You’re safe   with me’ — that’s intimacy.” 

Secrets and truth (and intimacy) are, of course a huge theme on Reputation:

1.    “No one has to know” (…Ready For It?)

2.    You've been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks, so here's the truth from my red lips (End Game)

3.    But when you get me alone, it's so simple/ But when I get you alone, it's so simple (So It Goes…)

4.    “Your love is a secret I’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep” (King of My Heart)

5.    “I loved you in secret” (Dancing With Our Hands Tied

6.    “Our secret moments in a crowded room” (Dress)

7.    “Even in my worst lie you saw the truth in me” (Dress)

 “I wondered if this was what it felt like to love someone?  […] To throw your lot in with theirs and think, ‘whatever happens, it’s you and me’”

  Don't read the last page   But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared   And you're turning away   I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong   Or we're making mistakes”

--

Celia goes to put on the shirt and says that she’s not sure it will fit her, Evelyn says that if it does fit Celia can have it.

Other people we know share/wear a lot of similar clothes too.

--

Just as Celia gets her own shirt off and Evelyn starts checking her out (spoiler alert: it’s really gay) Don enters the room and teasingly asks just “what is going on in here?” Just like that the spell is broken and Evelyn hurriedly assures her husband that “Absolutely nothing” is going on in that bedroom.

Here Don represents the shippers and the media alike starting to question the nature of Kaylor’s relationship during the height of their glass closeting forcing Taylor to assure “Don” aka us that “absolutely nothing” is going on between her and Karlie, but I’m getting ahead of myself, more on #Kissgate later…

Anygayyyy, let’s just say that those two pages are, as they say A LOT™ for my Kaylor feels!!

--

Thanks for reading, please read part 3!

[inkyardpress]

10 YA Reads That Have Us Loving the Skin We’re In

There are so many diverse and empowering new reads out there totally flooding our TBR that we couldn’t pick just one of our current obsessions to share—so here’s a list of ten we can’t stop talking about. From kick-ass queer anthologies to MC’s who totally get what it’s like living with anxiety, from the body-positive heroes we deserve to the everyday teens showing us how to be true to who we are inside, these books have us feeling ourselves and celebrating our individuality.

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis

For sixteen-year-old Tiffany Sly, life hasn't been safe or normal for a while. Losing her mom to cancer has her a little bit traumatized, and now she has to leave her hometown of Chicago to live with the biological dad she's never known.

Anthony Stone is a rich man with four other daughters—and rules for every second of the day. Tiffany tries to make the best of things, but she doesn't fit into her new luxurious, but super-strict, home—or get along with her standoffish sister London. The only thing that makes her new life even remotely bearable is the strange boy across the street. Marcus McKinney has had his own experiences with death, and the unexpected friendship that blossoms between them is the only thing that makes her feel grounded.

But Tiffany has a secret. Another man claims he's Tiffany's real dad—and she has only seven days before he shows up to demand a paternity test and the truth comes out. With her life about to fall apart all over again, Tiffany finds herself discovering unexpected truths about her father, her mother and herself, and realizing that maybe family is in the bonds you make—and that life means sometimes taking risks.

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Puddin’ by Julie Murphy

Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a little girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream of being a newscaster—and to kiss the boy she’s crushing on.

Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she’s more frenemy than friend.

When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing that they might have more in common than they ever imagined.

Puddin’ is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Fat Girl on a Plane by Kelly DeVos

FAT.

High school senior Cookie Vonn’s postgraduation dreams include getting out of Phoenix, attending Parsons and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly compared to her supermodel mother—and named after a dessert. Thanks to her job at a fashion blog, Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her portfolio and appeal for a scholarship, but her plans are put on standby when she’s declared too fat to fly. Forced to turn to her BFF for cash, Cookie buys a second seat on the plane. She arrives in the city to find that she’s been replaced by the boss’s daughter, a girl who’s everything she’s not—ultrathin and superrich. Bowing to society’s pressure, she vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush and put her life on track.

SKINNY.

Cookie expected sunshine and rainbows, but nothing about her new life is turning out like she planned. When the fashion designer of the moment offers her what she’s always wanted—an opportunity to live and study in New York—she finds herself in a world full of people more interested in putting women down than dressing them up. Her designs make waves, but her real dream of creating great clothes for people of all sizes seems to grow more distant by the day.

Will she realize that she’s always had the power to make her own dreams come true?

Fat Girl on a Plane is out June 5th. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson

Mila Flores and her best friend Riley have always been inseparable. There's not much excitement in their small town of Cross Creek, so Mila and Riley make their own fun, devoting most of their time to Riley's favorite activity: amateur witchcraft.

So when Riley and two Fairmont Academy mean girls die under suspicious circumstances, Mila refuses to believe everyone's explanation that her BFF was involved in a suicide pact. Instead, armed with a tube of lip gloss and an ancient grimoire, Mila does the unthinkable to uncover the truth: she brings the girls back to life.

Unfortunately, Riley, June, and Dayton have no recollection of their murders, but they do have unfinished business to attend to. Now, with only seven days until the spell wears off and the girls return to their graves, Mila must wrangle the distracted group of undead teens and work fast to discover their murderer...before the killer strikes again.

Undead Girl Gang is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell

Take a journey through time and genres and discover a past where queer figures live, love and shape the world around them. Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens.

From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.

All Out is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Runebinder by Alex R. Kahler

When magic returned to the world, it could have saved humanity, but greed and thirst for power caused mankind's downfall instead. Now once-human monsters called Howls prowl abandoned streets, their hunger guided by corrupt necromancers and the all-powerful Kin. Only Hunters have the power to fight back in the unending war, using the same magic that ended civilization in the first place.

But they are losing.

Tenn is a Hunter, resigned to fight even though hope is nearly lost. When he is singled out by a seductive Kin named Tomás and the enigmatic Hunter Jarrett, Tenn realizes he’s become a pawn in a bigger game. One that could turn the tides of war. But if his mutinous magic and wayward heart get in the way, his power might not be used in favor of mankind.

If Tenn fails to play his part, it could cost him his friends, his life…and the entire world.

Runebinder is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman

Star-crossed lovers, meddling immortals, feigned identities, battles of wits, and dire warnings. These are the stuff of fairy tale, myth, and folklore that have drawn us in for centuries.

Fifteen bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate.

A mountain loses her heart. Two sisters transform into birds to escape captivity. A young man learns the true meaning of sacrifice. A young woman takes up her mother’s mantle and leads the dead to their final resting place. From fantasy to science fiction to contemporary, from romance to tales of revenge, these stories will beguile readers from start to finish.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

The Diminished by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

In the Alskad Empire, nearly all are born with a twin, two halves to form one whole…yet some face the world alone.

A rare few are singleborn in each generation, and therefore given the right to rule by the gods and goddesses. Bo Trousillion is one of these few, born into the royal line and destined to rule. Though he has been chosen to succeed his great-aunt, Queen Runa, as the leader of the Alskad Empire, Bo has never felt equal to the grand future before him.

When one twin dies, the other usually follows, unable to face the world without their other half. Those who survive are considered diminished, doomed to succumb to the violent grief that inevitably destroys everyone whose twin has died. Such is the fate of Vi Abernathy, whose twin sister died in infancy. Raised by the anchorites of the temple after her family cast her off, Vi has spent her whole life scheming for a way to escape and live out what’s left of her life in peace.

As their sixteenth birthdays approach, Bo and Vi face very different futures—one a life of luxury as the heir to the throne, the other years of backbreaking work as a temple servant. But a long-held secret and the fate of the empire are destined to bring them together in a way they never could have imagined.

The Diminished is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi

For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.

Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him.

When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

Emergency Contact is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Someone to Love by Melissa de la Cruz

Olivia "Liv" Blakely knows how important it is to look good. Her father is running for governor, and Liv will be making public appearances with her family. Liv has an image to uphold—to her maybe boyfriend, to the new friends who suddenly welcome her into their circle and to the public, who love to find fault on social media.

Liv's sunny, charming facade hides a dark inner voice that will settle for nothing less than perfection. No matter who she has to give up to get there. No matter what she has to lose to do it. Liv is working for the day when what she sees in the mirror is worthy…worthy of confidence. Worthy of success. Worthy of love. But as the high price of perfection takes a toll, placing her body and soul at risk, Liv herself has to realize what she has to live for.

Someone to Love is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

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