#nontoxic writes

[nontoxic-writes]

Even if It's Just Pretend, by nontoxic

“The queen wants to show that the prince and the First Son are still deeply in love and committed to their countries.” Ellen swallows. “They want you to go on a tour of the Commonwealth together, to get the public to see those emails not as a sex scandal, but an invasion of privacy of a wholesome, loving relationship.” “It was an invasion of privacy,” Alex says. He swallows. “Did they say what would happen if we say no?” Ellen’s lips pinch tightly at the corners. “Then they will issue a full denial and Henry will tour the commonwealth himself.” Alex doesn't hesitate. “Tell them we’ll do it. I’m not gonna let him do this alone." It would kill him. Henry hates this shit. The public parading, the judgment. Having to do all of that, and deny who he is? Alex at least wants to be there, to hold his hand through it. Even if it's just as a friend. It might kill Alex to pretend, but that’s a small price to pay to ensure Henry—his beautiful, vibrant, funny-as-hell, brilliant ex-not-quite-boyfriend—isn’t killed instead. --- or, the alex-never-goes-to-kensington-after-the-lake-house, exes-to-fake-dating-to-lovers fic.

56k | complete | read on ao3

[tangents-within-tangents]

Would that there was a faithful, accurate adaptation of Dracula so that Jonathan Decker and Alan Seawright could discuss the nontoxic masculinity, healthy friendships, and the BEST MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP IN FICTIONAL HISTORY but nooo!

[firenati0n]

hi i must know more about #3, alex tormenting henry on tiktok

HELLO HELLO <3 <3

oh YESSSSSS this is a doc currently titled "forehead kisses" and i DO have words for this! it will be cute and fluffy and fun

this is alex doing a tiktok challenge where you ask someone to smell your shirt and then hit them with a forehead kiss bait-and-switch. and alex pulls this on his roommate henry. multiple times. and the comments are so fucking funny

here's a snip for youuuuu:

Alex sees the video pop up in his feed one day, a little brain worm that won't escape after he views fifteen seconds of a popular trend going around. In the video, a guy goes up to his friends, asks them to smell his shirt, then hits them with a forehead kiss bait-and-switch when they lean in. The comments are all a mix of jokes about his friends falling in love on the spot, the tenderness of physical intimacy, or just dudes being bros. Alex can't stop fucking thinking about it. He doesn't really have that many friends to pull this off with, but he does have a roommate who is supremely TikTok challenged and definitely doesn't know about this trend. And who better to give a little kiss on the forehead to than Henry? Is it an excuse to kiss Henry? Maybe. Is it a good idea to kiss your roommate, who you have a debilitating crush on, as a joke? Maybe not. Is it smart to broadcast said kiss on the Internet for people to scrutinize and criticize? Definitely not.  Is Alex going to film it over the next week and do it anyway? Absofuckinglutely.

some comments include:

@cha-melodius

@bigassbowlingballhead @captainjunglegym @violetbaudelaire-quagmire

thank you :)

[uwudonoodle]

I started watching Kimi ni Todoke again, so I can catch up before starting the new season. I'm only like 17 minutes into the first episode and I'm already crying over how wholesome and sweet they are to each other.

Best romance ever! I don't ever want to hear that romance needs contrived drama and toxicity to be interesting. All I need is two people getting to know each other, and being nice to each other the whole time.

[dukeofankh]

I've noticed a really troubling trend in masculinity discourse recently which views the peak of nontoxic masculinity as being totally unreliant on others. It's coming from a harm-reduction place, as is pretty much always the case. The thought process seems to be: 1) Incel shit comes from men feeling entitled to status and possessing women 2) Incels are dangerous 3) To decrease that the number of incels and the corresponding danger, we should push for the concept of the ideal man as one being unconcerned with status and possessing women. An island unto himself, satisfied and confident. Independent from both the pressures of a full-blown systemic-ass issue and the natural internal desires to be accepted and admired by others.

And like...something can be a good short term plan without being a good long term plan, you know? There can be side effects.

Like, I'm gonna make a post at some point about how I feel like the causes of the Nice Guy tm tire fire were radically misunderstood, considering I feel like we're on the precipice of another crisis in exactly the same mold, but apart from that I'm also just kind of frustrated that the process of organizing against patriarchal masculinity is suddenly bogged down by a bunch of folks trying to get me to adopt a stoic/zen philosophy as a necessary facet of my gender identity, and naturally assuming that my distaste for that can't be because I've spent a decade unpacking this as a queer man and I disagree with their tactics, and must just be that I haven't seen Barbie yet.

Ultimately, I don't feel like the root of modern toxic masculinity is entitlement. I feel that it's American-style Hyperindividualism. Its the erosion of the supportive community that naturally acts in opposition to the narrative sold by masculine competitive hierarchies. Its the belief that individual men must force their will upon the world or else be starved out because higher status men have hoarded everything for themselves. It's the belief that women are the scorecard and trophy in a contest between men, yes, but also fundamentally that absent some semblance of performance within that contest, men will be abandoned, mocked, and ostracized by both women and their larger community. The patriarchal dividend in that toxic system is not just power and sex, it's a sort of gated community within which all right to inherent human worth for men is contained, entrance into which must be earned through defeating others also desperately trying to get in.

Given all of that, to me the antidote isn't more individualism. It's less. Its community. It's love. It's not about men realizing that they don't need other people, it's about men realizing that they will still be loved and accepted within their communities without the need to dominate and overpower. That they do not need to become a patriarch to be seen, to have worth and a home and acceptance and support and community. That the idea that those things are gated behind power and wealth and the ability to do violence isn't just untrue, but the opposite of what is the case.

Toxic Masculinity is a systemic issue. Seeing people uncritically and wholeheartedly telling me that it should be conquered by intentionally atomizing men into self-reliant islands of personal choice is also not just untrue, but the opposite of what I think is the case. But it's...easy. It doesn't require the community to negotiate a new understanding under which they can embrace and love men who take up the responsibilities of being part of--not in charge of-- that community. It allows men deeply invested in a self-appraisal of their value as being rooted in not asking for help and in hierarchical superiority over other men to simply do that even harder, with largely the same rubric, but a new rationale. It leaves no room for male weakness, for mens needs, because, frankly, we are socialized to punish those and we do not want to change.

[kiwiana-writes]

more swans??? 👀

LOL A LITTLE DIFFERENT FROM THE LAST SWAN FIC WHICH I KNOW YOU LOVED. This one is Swan Princess AU my beloved. Alex as Derek, Henry as Odette, Mary as Rothbart obviously. Pez as Jean-Bob, I said what I said.

Titled As sure as the dawn brings the sunrise because of who I am as a person, and is probably the media AU that will most closely follow the media I'm basing it on lmao. At least that's the plan, but we all know how that generally works for me.

I wrote a little snippet especially for you xoxo

There’s Arthur and Catherine, of course; they always come together, even though it must mean leaving their own kingdom in the hands of their advisors for the summer. Philip probably relishes the opportunity to play pseudo-king, Alex thinks uncharitably, though Bea isn’t here either—having spent plenty of summers avoiding Henry in favour of playing her at chess or poker, Alex is absolutely convinced she can handle Philip if he starts getting too big for his boots.  There’s no sign of Henry, though. Just the man standing in between Arthur and Catherine, almost as tall as Arthur, with high cheekbones and bright, beautiful eyes. His broad shoulders taper off to a narrow waist, both highlighted by the trim fit of his shirt that’s been left unlaced at the throat, and he looks so familiar, almost as if— No. No. There’s no fucking way that Henry—gangly, awkward Henry, with spots and a terrible haircut and who had to look up at the inch or so difference between his height and Alex’s—and this man, who looks as though he was formed by the hand of God personally, are the same person. Right?

[Ask me about my badly summarised WIPs!]

[porcelainvino]

kurt and karofsky late s3 nonexistent friendship cuz its all in my head 😭 IT EATS IN BETTER!GLEE I SWEARRRRR

[sylvaridreams]

my toxic trait is that every time someone in a major city map chat starts spam asking "anyone have a full home" i desperately want to say "sorry, but my home is empty ever since...

the accident."

[esperqm]

Chapters: 32/? Fandom: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Persona 3, Persona Series Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Kirijo Mitsuru/Takeba Yukari, Edelgard & SEES, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Seiros, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Kirijo Mitsuru/Takeba Yukari, My Unit | Byleth/Hasegawa Saori, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hasegawa Saori, Byleth & Ken Characters: Edelgard von Hresvelg, My Unit | Byleth, SEES | Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, Seiros, Sothis (Fire Emblem), Kirijo Mitsuru, Iori Junpei, Takeba Yukari, Sanada Akihiko, Labrys (Persona Series), Amada Ken, Hasegawa Saori, Aragaki Shinjiro Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Wildcard Edelgard, Female My Unit | Byleth, Trans Kirijo Mitsuru, Byleth as Aigis, Sothis takes the place of Pharos, Ambiguously Isekai'd, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Mental Health Issues, Crossover, Edelgard starts out understandably Scrongled, Android!Byleth, POV Edelgard von Hresvelg, Trauma, Friendship & Camaraderie, SEES is not very straight, Scars, Edelgard von Hresvelg Needs a Hug, Edelgard is kind of hardcore, Fluff and Angst, Drama, Canon-Typical Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, God I Love Saori, Non-explicit Eye Trauma, Trans My Unit | Byleth, Trans Mitsuru my beloved, Strega is more dangerous, Found Family, Kind of Existential at points, Autistic My Unit | Byleth, PTSD Series: Part 1 of FE3H/P3 Protagonist Swap, Part 16 of Esper's FE3H Fics Summary:

With a little help from their friends, Edelgard and Labrys break free of their weakness.

[nontoxic-writes]

In Plain Sight You Hid, by nontoxic

Miguel's hand is back, slipping over and around his knee so his fingertips brush the soft skin inside his thigh and Alex feels himself getting hard in his trunks. See, asshole? Some people think I'm so charming they even want to fuck me. Alex can't stop his whiskey-loosened thoughts from imagining the meeting with Henry going that way, instead, imagines Henry's piercing blue eyes looking at him with an entirely different kind of heat blazing in them, imagines the same challenge and intent written plainly on Miguel’s face playing across Henry’s, blue eyes searing into his. And then Miguel leans in, and Alex lets him, reveling in the way the attention feeds his buzz and makes him lightheaded. Besides, kissing is fun. Even if it's with smarmy reporters who aren’t great at it. -- aka Alex falling in love with Henry while Miguel lurks in the background. (or, the author has a headcanon that "we once made out on the campaign, drunk, fully naked, in a hot tub" happened in Rio because someone was frustrated over being rejected, and it turned into 11k of loverboy ACD)

11k | complete | read on ao3

[dameferre]

the funniest thing about this post getting notes is i literally tagged it as ‘the queer experience is not a monolith’ then the notes are full of people commenting like ‘yeah weird barbie is for the lesbians and stereotypical barbie is for the aroaces!!’

meanwhile my friend and i are literally both bi

plagued by thoughts of barbie and queerness

specifically after my friend and i went to see it and were discussing it and i brought up the obvious queer coding she said ‘oh yeah weird barbie’ and i went ‘oh. no? stereotypical barbie??’

and when we unpacked it further i realised that she’d seen weird barbie as inherently queer bc of the way she’d been ostracised and called names that she made her own in time and could never fit in with the other barbies because of who she was and how she looked? and i saw stereotypical barbie as queer because of her lack of attraction to the people she was meant to be attracted to, liking them but never able to do so in the way they liked her. of being expected to act and be certain ways because of how she looked and the life she lived but not really wanting those things

honestly i don’t really have a point with this it’s just been ceaselessly rattling around in my lil brain

[flarebean]

do you have the 'i switched tasks and forgot about what i was doing before' adhd or the 'i thought of something i should do but i had to finish the current task first, and forgot what i wanted to do in the meantime' adhd

[astro-b-o-y-d]

It pains me that I'll have to wait a while to write out the Super Mega Hopeless Murder High School Of Hopelessness chapters, because I can't make toxic yuri jokes about a specific dynamic without spoiling the entire thing

[kiwiana-writes]

#19 for arranged marriage redux!!!!

19. What is a favorite line of dialogue so far?

“I thought Windsor valued courtly manners? As your betrothed, surely you should be showering me with compliments as you greet me?”

“As soon as I find something to compliment, I assure you I shall do so.”

[WIP Ask Game]

[wizarrrrrrd]

A great story - deserves a sequel!🫶🪄

Circinus by MarieKavanagh

March 1984.

Walburga Black sits alone in Grimmauld Place, accompanied only by her ghosts, a broken woman with little left to live for. The House of Black is in ruins, it's members scattered, awaiting its inevitable demise. Until, one day, a Ministry owl comes tapping at her window, bearing news that offers a last chance to change the course of her life - and the fate of the Black family.

Seizing the opportunity to free her son from Azkaban and secure him the trial he was denied, Walburga quickly finds out that three years in prison has done little to quell Sirius Black's rebellious spirit, and it is soon clear that he is not going to simply follow the plans she has so carefully laid out for him.

As the impending trial approaches, both Sirius and Walburga must grapple with their broken relationship and stormy past - and Sirius himself must decide whether he will seize the chance of the freedom offered to him, or whether he will send himself back to Azkaban for the punishment he is so convinced he deserves...

Prologue - Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

[swearphil]

for @nontoxic-writes and @lilythesilly

THE GUTS WORLD TOUR Tonight is gonna be so much fucking fun. Here's what I want, okay? I want everyone in here, you guys, I want you up out of your seats. I want you to jump! I want you to scream! I want you to sing at the top of your lungs! Can you do that for me, LA?