#obv I am young and haven’t met everyone etc etc etc

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

quietly realizing that I likely do not have queerplatonic attraction *or* romantic attraction.

[babymilkawa]

Can you do the haikyuu captions with an S/o who is in their first year (fluffy)

yayy finally have a reason to write for kuroo and bokuto

first year s/o headcanons with:

oikawa tooru, sawamura daichi, kuroo tetsuro, bokuto kotaro

gn!reader :)

oikawa tooru

at first, you were a little hesitant on letting your relationship out

because some of his fans could be second or third years yk, we don’t want no bullies bullies b gone whoosh

but he is almost always by your side and has even acted annoyed to his fans if they were ever mean to you

having a third year as your bf means that you can get homework help whenever you want

and all your teachers love him

so they don’t mind if he hangs out in the classroom sometimes, as long as he doesn’t distract you

he’ll gush about how you and your little friends are so cute

pull that old man shit and be like “I remember those days, we were young and free~”

dramatic king

whenever you go to one of his games, you’ll always try to cheer louder for him compared to his other fans and he’s got like this big surge of pride

but afterwards he’ll be like “don’t lose your voice honey”

will want you to be the team’s new manager soooo bad

like will beg you on his knees because if you accept the current manager’s offer, you can see your bf even more and he can impress you 

the manager totally doesn't use that to try to convince you

oikawa really just loves how the slight age gap means he has more the reason to take care of you

your first time during a class sports event? he’s right by your side, making sure you don’t feel awkward or lost

yes he’s that type of person who looooves it when you ask questions and he can show off his smexy brain

a lot of times Iwaizumi will hit him in the back of the head if he’s talking with you too much and he’ll just sulk and slump his head on your shoulder 

sawamura daichi

he’ll always bop his head into ur class

he’s obviously also a teacher’s favorite have u met this guy 

oh wait no u haven’t, rip sucks to be u *sobs*

so the teachers don't mind

ur teachers prolly even gush about him with you, yk like those teachers who lOVE drama/gossip yea them

Nishinoya and tanaka always try to get ur attention bc your Daichi’s s/o and every time, Daichi will yell at them, telling them to not scare you off

but they still do it

tis a cycle

plays 128489x better when you’re around

wait gotta round that so 130000x

we know he’s very encouraging to his teammates but with you around? he’s like Yamaguchi’s personal cheering squad

will go to your house in the mornings, walk you to class, wait there at lunch, walk you home, ugh this man can’t get enough of u

he loves it when you lean against him when u guys walk together, he’ll wrap a secure arm around you and you nuzzle in his neck SHDFKJHDKS

u always help them shag the balls and he’s like “no, no, y/n let tanaka and Nishinoya do it” and those two are giving you puppy eyes

cue Daichi chasing them down

if tanaka and noya are puppies, he’s your bulldog

omg random but y'all know that one parks and rec episode where they’re picking people’s spirit dog? yea Daichi is like a bulldog

but once he turns to you it’s all 🌈🌟💫💝

but he’s genuine

no fakes we don’t want them

if you read my sick s/o hcs you’ll know how much of a “handsome boy” to elderly people he is 

hehe sry for the self promo

kuroo tetsuro

u already know what ur dates are gonna be like

he’s gonna smexy study with you *bites lip*

yea that’s right Kuroo just leave ur brain and go

this man,,,again I know,,,is adored by your teachers

“Kuroo you’ve still got that same hair!”

yea he’s def like a teacher assistant or smn during his free period

he’ll pick ur class and just wiggles his eyebrows whenever y'all make eye contact

when you’re done with a presentation, he’ll be the first and loudest when clapping

alwaysss is there when you need a pencil or an eraser

this man will literally prepare protein bars for you the morning u have a test, will give you a pep talk, y'all like huddle outside the classroom or something LMAO that’s cute tho

“you’re gonna go in there and you’re gonna kick that test in the ass ok?”

gives you a dad pat, a kiss to ur head and gives you two thumbs up when you glance at him at your desk

p sure everyone in your class wants him to hold a study session

but no ladies & gentlemen, he’s reserved for y/n and y/n only good day ☺️

its kinda impossible for u to fail

to thank his brain, you always show up to his practices and games

you give the team their water, towels, etc and he’s just yea that’s right they’re my s/o

now shower them with praise *holds them at gunpoint*

his schedule is busier than yours and he always feels bad abt it

which is why he’s soooo clingy if y'all sleepover or after hw

it’s hard for him to resist u cuddles during hw tho

OMIGOD WATCH THIS VID 

bokuto kotaro

ok at this point we know that all our captains are angels so

*deep inhale*

he’s a teachers favorite

there I said it sue me

so yes he WILL hang around your classroom and talk to the teachers

p sure he does that with akaashi buttt 👀

and if u can’t come out during break he’ll just mope by the doorway while akaashi nom noms on his snacc boccuto

he won’t rly help u with hw, he’ll try but go off topic and whoops why did a pillow hit my face

yea y’all don’t get much studying done so hopefully ur smart

ACTUALYYYYY you just call akaashi

DuH

bokuto will litrally be like “ur bad at math? Babe just jump in the pool with me rn with ur clothes on, take a shower and then we’ll call akaashi!!”

it was 1 am 💀

he’s a good distraction whenever you’re stressed out

literally sunshine in human form

if ur there during his practices and matches he almost NEVERS goes into Emo mode bc gotta impress my s/o

ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ!!

will randomly call out to you when he’s on the court

“HEY Y/N HI HELLO”

“this ones for you” *hits it into the net*

every time he gets a good play he’ll immediately look into the crowd and ur there jumping for him and he’s jumping back and awww

some ppl r wondering if he’s even older than u like y’all look abt the same age 🤔

he’s just 🍗🍗🍖🍖🍑🍑

if ur not there during practice he’ll definitely just slouch and swing his arms around “where’s y/nnnn”

someone lift his face up and kiss him on the nose

THATS U Y/N GET UR MAN

but he knows he can’t act like that during games

he’ll just have to suck it up

and pretend like ur there, pretend that ur voice is there

literally he can only pick out your cheers from a whole stadium of people

but obv u get the best seats ;)

a/n: aaah this was fun to write ^3^

haikyu!! masterlist

[writingwithcolor]

B’nei mitzvah in spaceship without Jewish community | Jewish character celebrating Christmas

Hi! Thank you so much for running this blog. I appreciate how much time and effort all the mods have put into it. I finished reading through the whole Jewish tag a few days ago, and I’ve learned so much! I’m writing a Voltron fic (I *know* lol) and decided to make one of the protagonists a white nonbinary Ashkenazi Reform Jewish girl. Her astronaut brother mysteriously disappears in space and is presumed dead, so she runs away from home a couple of months before her b'nei mitzvah to find him. Now, she’s in a group of rebels in space fighting against an Empire. I have two concerns:

1. Everyone on the ship misses home, so part of the way they cope is through getting in touch with their cultures. They’re gonna celebrate (a mostly non-Americanized) Christmas because it matters a lot to some of the characters for non-religious reasons. To what extent can my Jewish character participate in the celebration without it being weird? I want her to enjoy herself more because she’s with her friends than because Jesus etc. They’ll also celebrate Chanukah, if that helps. I know Chanukah isn’t a major holiday, so I also want to have her celebrate a more significant one like Rosh Hashanah and/or Purim with them. Is it okay for gentiles to participate in those holiday celebrations, or should she do that alone?

2. Throughout most of the story, she’ll struggle with choosing whether to prioritize fighting the Empire or finding her brother and bringing him home. When she eventually does find her brother (who also turns out to be a rebel), he lets her decide whether they stay or go home. I thought it would be nice if she decided to stay and keep fighting for the greater good after she finally has her b'nei mitzvah. Her friends and other experiences are also a big part of why she decides to stay, but the b'nei mitzvah would be what gives her the final push she needs to decide. I don’t know if it would be okay for me to write the ceremony itself or if she can even have one if only two of the eight people on the ship are Jewish. I read that not everyone has a b'nei mitzvah and that it’s not required, but I feel like it’d be a big deal to her character. Should I keep the b'nei mitzvah idea, or am I heading towards appropriative territory here?

I want to make her Jewishness a big part of her character’s growth, and I really want to make sure I do it respectfully and accurately. I plan on finding a sensitivity reader when I’ve made more progress with actually writing everything out. Thank you for any insight you might offer!

It feels off to me to join a community symbolically when you’re far away FROM the community. Why not just have had her already have done the ceremony before she has all these adventures? That way it could just be a straightforward story about a Jewish teen having exciting heroic adventures in space, rather than a story about what happens when you have to miss aspects of Jewish life because you’re in space. It would also make the “….well, I guess I’m around for Christmas” bit less weighted because then that would be the only one of those instead of having two of those.

–Shira 

I’ll cover some other territory here. For those who don’t know, b'nei mitzvah is something you just automatically become at the correct age, the ceremony is simply to celebrate that with the community. Not all people have the ceremony, but if you are Jewish, and of age (for religious purposes), your status changes with or without it. Personally, I’m comfortable with showing a Jewish character finding a way to have a Jewish celebration when the circumstances are less than ideal, for me the other aspects of the story are more troubling. 

On the subject of having a Jewish character celebrate Christmas with their friends… look I don’t like this trope. There are many Jewish people, who are completely secular, who don’t celebrate Christmas, because it is explicitly a Christian holiday, and secular Jewish people are still Jewish. Some Jewish people (secular or otherwise) do choose to celebrate other holidays, and I am very comfortable with those folks telling their own stories. What I’m not happy with is the push from outside of the community for every Jewish character to slide into assimilation. 

Some Jewish people will go to Christmas parties and not eat the food, because they keep kosher, or won’t stay for a tree-lighting, because that feels like it goes too far, or will give presents but not receive them. There are a huge number of ways we might handle Christmas, and I appreciate that you plan to show holidays other than just Chanukah (and yes, it’s fine for non-Jewish characters to join her in her holidays, if she invites them), but I always question why a non-Jewish writer is so keen to show Jewish characters celebrating Christmas. The most generous version of me wants to assume that you get so much out of Christmas that you want to share it, but the part of me that knows about the pressures to assimilate, and the history of increased antisemitic violence around Christmas thinks… just leave this kid alone. She missed her celebration, she’s far from her community, and now she has to go put on a Happy Assimilated Smile for the culturally Christian folks around her. From a nonbinary Jewish perspective, it’s a little unusual for your nonbinary character to use she/her pronouns, and use b'nei mitzvah as a gender neutral alternative to the gendered bat mitzvah. In secular life, at least in the US, it’s not uncommon for people to use multiple pronouns, but I haven’t met, or even heard of, a single person using gendered pronouns secularly, and using new neutral alternatives religiously. It absolutely could happen but, because it is so unusual, to me it reads as either invalidating the character’s gender, or tokenizing her in the religious sphere. 

–Dierdra 

Shira, I think that’s a really good idea to make the character post-b'nei mitzvah. That way you just have a Jewish character having adventures rather than her culture being The Conflict. (And also, a pre-b'nei mitzvah seems a bit young for this storyline? Can she really consent to fighting alongside the rebels? Do they habitually take unaccompanied children on their ship? To me a teenager would make more sense, but hey it’s not my story!)

Dierdra, your answer regarding the Christmas aspect was awesome and really thorough. Thanks for your thoughts on the pronouns as well, it also jarred with me but I was waiting to hear your opinion as you have lived experience. My worry is if you use gender neutral terms for one but not the other, you risk falling into to the stereotype that only marginalised religious folks have to change our language etc to be inclusive to LGBTQ+ people, but everyone else is fine. 

I wanted to come back to the point about Rosh Hashana. First of all, thank you for acknowledging that we have holidays that are more important than Chanukah! Sooo many OP’s don’t know that. In terms of how she would celebrate it, I agree it’s fine to invite non-Jewish people along. However, given how community-based Jewish life is, making her keep Yom Tov on her own feels a bit like a torture story, especially when others have people to celebrate Christmas with. I wonder if you’ve thought about giving her a Jewish friend on the ship? Especially if you want her Jewishness to be part of her growth as you mentioned, an older Jewish friend and mentor could be a huge help :)

–Shoshi

As you can see, we have a wide range of possibilities for “what happens when you ask a Jewish person about celebrating Christmas.” I didn’t mind hanging around it as an outsider myself until a certain subset of Christians started being mean-spirited about it in the news plus some personal trauma that time of year, as long as everyone involved was clear that I was just participating from the outside and this didn’t somehow change me. (If I may make an analogy: compare it to going to a baby shower when you want to support your friend or family member but also really don’t want kids of your own. You’re going to have a whole different experience if your decision is respected vs. if all the other guests treat you like you being there means you’ll change your mind about not wanting kids.)

That being said, it’s still all over the map. Some people IRL are okay even going to mass with their partner’s Catholic family (without participating in communion obvs.) Some would never, ever do that and are sitting here with shocked faces that I even typed that. But what becomes important is the way it’s written. Sitting around listening to the Christmas story is probably a bad fit for your fanfic, but helping other people bake Christmas cookies or put ornaments on a tree could work. The ornament thing could remind her of decorating a sukkah, and she could point that out to the others. 

I guess I’m saying is 

keep her participation secular, and 

keep her participation from leaning into the idea that we’re unhappy with our customs and would prefer to do it their way. 

I have literally never in my life felt jealous of the kids who “got to do Santa” (for example) and while I’m sure some kids were and they’re valid too, I think it’s important to show that it’s not a universal phenomenon.

–Shira

[gardenburger]

lmao i am honestly aghast right now this girl (we’ll call moocher) that my best friend/ex wife (we’ll call jelly) and i both know (they’re a lot closer than moocher is with me) has been borrowing money from jelly for like a year, first it was for fertility treatments (this might be harsh but if you cant pay for fertility treatments how do you plan to pay for a child? im not trying to judge but it doesnt make sense to me) and then more recently (this monday) it was to help take care of her dad who is in the hospital due to covid. i’ve always considered moocher a perfectly lovely person; despite me not knowing her super well weve attended concerts together and she and jelly have been good friends for years and obvs jelly and i are very close so it’s not like we’re strangers and we’ve never had any issue whatsoever. so i did not expect this.

anyway, she already owed jelly about $300-$400 from last may; jelly wasn’t like pressed about it but she remembered it. then this monday moocher asked for another $450 for her dad. jelly, being the kindest person ive ever met, says im so sorry i don’t have that much to give but i can spot you $200.

cut to today. this girl posts right on facebook for all to see that she spent 5 hours in the ticket waiting room for “when we were young” fest tickets. which from my understanding were ~$300 off the bat, not including the $80 processing fees and anything else livenation may have tacked on. im relatively sure she got tickets for both her and her husband. so that’s what now almost $800 that she spent just today on something completely unnecessary! and they haven’t even bought plane tickets/hotel reservations/rental car, etc yet; that’s going to run them at least another $1k if not more.

jelly of course was upset. she texted me and another friend and we drafted a text to send to this girl. nothing mean, just expressing that jelly was a bit hurt and felt taken advantage of.

this girl deletes her fb post, texts jelly back and says she wasnt buying tickets and was just excited about the lineup (bullshit - i saw the post, she was complaining about the wait time to get tickets!) and proceeds to compose the most toxic, guilt tripping bullshit text ive ever seen, talking about how she feels so bad and she’ll never ask jelly for help again and she’s dealing with so much and proceeds to list it all out and sends jelly pictures of her dads x-ray results and says how stressed and suicidal she is and i’m just like ……what are you doing! you got caught, you hurt your friend, and now you’re trying to make her feel worse??? this is not ok!

i am just so shocked that someone could fathom doing something like this! especially to jelly, she is the kindest most genuine and loving person i have ever known and would give anyone the shirt off her back and it just makes me so mad 😤 like obviously everyone wants to go see mcr and the used reunited under one roof it’s a goddamned miracle but to drop $800+ on something completely frivolous when you owe your supposed “best friend” over $500 is just insane to me.

ok /end rant if the like 3 irl friends i have on here know who im referring to please keep it to yourselves im not tryna stir anything up or whatever im just venting bc y’all know how protective i am of jelly and it just steams me when people don’t treat her right 😒

[majicmarker]

so i’ve had a lot on my mind lately — the good, the bad, the ugly, you know the drill. i’m used to the bad and the ugly, but i think (and ofc by my therapist’s rec) i need to give a little credit to the good, too. not to mention the good is largely comprised of people, and those people deserve a sports stadium wave, yk? idk shit abt sports, whatever, but i know what the wave is and it’s like the grandest gesture i can think of, SO

listen, y’all. to get real here, i hate fandom. my time spent therein has been hit-or-miss, but the misses got me hard and contributed to some major self-loathing, etc etc. we’re not gonna get into the specifics, i don’t owe that to anyone, but suffice it to say things got Rough.

but so much of it can be so, so good. and rn i want to keep on my rose-colored glasses, and the rosiest parts for me have always been @kitten1618x and @mygutsforgarters

(quite a few others, too, but i no longer have everyone’s info. and some ppl are newer friends, or relationships that have moved more slowly. i have mad love for u guys too, obvs, but ik melissa and gus irl so we know each other More and they’re who this post is rly about atm. pls know i don’t want to harsh on anyone’s feelings)

the tl;dr version of events is i met them both via fanfic. i happened upon theirs like “bitch!!!! **i** wanna do this, they’re bomb as hell” and then i made them be friends w me. they’ll tell you they wanted to be friends w me first, but that’s not important bc **i** am the one making this post, so they can both like,, suck it.

ANYWAY.

@ melissa : so bitch listen. here’s the thing abt melissa…… i found her while browsing jonsa fic back when i cared abt GOT, and she brought me back to what i loved so much abt romance when i first started, way back in junior high, what’s up. i bad a fascination w historial romantic epics for a loooooong time — those formative yrs, amirite ladies??? — but girl i could never write it so well as melissa. immediately she struck this balance between the drama you expect from historicals and the levity of a good romance, and i was just like, “hand to god this woman must be published already, surely???”

(she’s not, but that’s ridiculous so we’re gonna skip that)

(also she’s busy?? we’ve been friends for like six years and i will never know how many kids she actually has, but the point is she’s a goddamn superhero and i’m obsessed w her, MOVING ON)

i just Had to be her friend for two reasons: 1) she’s too talented, and b) i have said that abt 2 ppl my entire life and she was the first, so i was like, “AH YES MY HOLY GRAIL”

so ofc i slid into her DMs just as effectively as that one guy i had a crush on when i was sixteen and he’s still shooting me texts every valentine’s day bc of the societal pressures i guess (it is Far Less Effective these days, he’s my age and therefore too young for me, gross, but i digress), except me and melissa go way stronger.

she reminded me of why, half a lifetime ago, i started writing romance — bc it’s fun, bc i want to. bc i can do absolutely anything i want, bc who else is gonna read it but me and whoever i share it with? it was all up to me what i wanted to do with it, and i could do anything. nothing really mattered but what i wanted, and i hadn’t felt that way abt anything in such a long time — let alone abt something i used to love so much.

melissa’s writing is so beautiful, it’s everything i wanted to achieve when i was fifteen and never got around to perfecting. and i’m totally okay w that now, bc what do i need to do myself that she’s not already doing/wants to do in the future? when i found melissa’s writing i found a missing part of me — a part i’d maybe lost, maybe i gave it up, idk, but it was totally gone until i found her fics and they fucking clicked. i had to reach out bc there was a part of me that was a part of her, and she helped me find that again w/o even knowing it.

so i found melissa via GOT, and from the start she’d been trying to get me to write some bethyl. years and years, she dropped not-so-subtle hints — and by “hints,” i mean legit directives that i watch just enough TWD to write her some beth/daryl fic. real crafty, she is.

eventually the stars aligned: i was bored w the same dynamics i’d been writing for years, i wanted smthn new, i was restless, i was line editing a bethyl fic she’d written, and — again — this shit clicked. her fic made me want to explore this dynamic i’d never done before, so i watched the prerequisite episodes (no more than that tho, i super hate the show and i’m begging y’all to not @ me abt it anymore). i found smthn that i’d been missing, smthn that challenged and excited me and brought me back around to why i love romance and, more importantly, why i want to write it myself.

so as i was starting to write bethyl, i was poking around the ao3 tag to get a feel for what had been done, what hadn’t, anything i might be missing. and goddamn BAM —

@ gus : this is where u enter dramatically thru a red velvet curtain that i don’t wanna touch (Metaphorically bc you do romance better than me and i’m cool w that bc your talent simply Cannot be touched, and Literally bc i hate velvet) — i was like, “please for the love of god let her want to write contemporary romance, i need some good fckin food”

i happened upon “doo wah diddy diddy” first. ofc the summary hooked me, forget my usual hard no against pregnancy fics (i have issues w pregnancy and that’s all anybody Needs to know, back off), but This Bitch !!!!!!! has a way with words and i wanted to be friends w her straightaway. lmao too bad for her, now she’s stuck w me

gus’s fics gave me what i wanted without having to write it myself. her style is so distinctive, she hits the notes between porn and Actual Affection that is missing from uhhhh, every romance i’ve tried?? (why is everyone so intent on the sex part?? fckin chill. at best it’s unrelatable and at worst u sound like u’d rather wear someone than fuck them, check urself)

she writes w such care, she wants you to know what she’s doing here, and what she’s doing here is combining the physical and emotional needs of both characters w/o infringing on anyone’s comfortability. you root for these characters bc they simply want to be together, no strings (and if there are strings, damn, they talk abt it).

gus makes you believe in love in the modern age. like, not to sound like one of those ppl who post fckin “no one in this generation knows how to love!!!1!!11!!” memes on facebook, those are dumb, but gus’s writing made me think “yeah man, love ain’t dead, it’s just abt how we approach it.”

(if y’all haven’t guessed yet, i have some hang-ups abt relationships. i’ve goddamn earned those. but melissa and gus both brought me back to where i needed to be — in this place where, yeah, we’ve got some shit to deal with, but we all still deserve the things we want, and those things are achievable. i could not have gotten here without them, so jot that down.)

gus is Real, she’s funny, she’s unapologetic in the way she writes. ofc she has her personal hurdles, but who doesn’t?? and tbh nobody writes a sex scene like gus does. physical, realistic, but balanced w the emotional depth that makes you root for these characters bc you can Feel how much they want each other — not just sexually, but in the less-erotic aftermath of that passion. it continues to blow my mind, bc i’ve never seen anyone do what she does. i can’t even pinpoint the specifics, bc she just… Does It. and you’re reading it like “yeah bitch that’s it,” and That’s It.

it’s fckin wild.

these two — my best friends, the lights of my life, both of whom always make me crave chicken tenders at THE most inconvenient hours bc somehow we always talk abt chicken or ice cream or ultimately DQ, but they're both so hot idec — have something special.

i really, really want them both to know that: it’s not just in how they’ve treated me as a friend, but who they are as people, in their creative pursuits. i’ve never known support the way they’ve shown me; i’ve never known this much enthusiasm or investment or belief that i can do what i want with my talent. i want them to know that i feel the same way abt them and their works.

sometimes, when i look back at their writing that completely kicked my ass, i still can’t believe that they’ve become two of my best friends. it’s totally bonkers. they’re This Talented, and they wanna be friends w my spastic ass? GIRL. i’m out.

i’m not always the best at being present, at giving people what they need when they need it. but with everything that melissa and gus have given me in the past few years, i need them to know this — honey!!! i need all y’all to know this, bc i know fandom shit is hard, but you should know some of these friendships are so, so worth all that bullshit, so —

they have so much to give, so much to say, so much to offer. i could not have kept going without them. i couldn’t believe in myself without the faith they’ve given to me. i hope that i can always give that same faith right back.

and that, babes, is what real soulmates are all about.

[cltwtb-blog]

Hi, I’m old.

I saw strange aeon’s video on the whole tc thing - obv she has a tumblr as well but i don’t know what it is, haha. Anyway, I’ll get to the point. 

To all the teens out there in love with your teachers - I’ve been there too. I understand how much it sucks. Obviously every situation is unique but the general theme is wanting somebody who isn’t allowed to want you back, even if they did. Which, to be clear, they probably don’t, If I were a teacher, I’d much rather have a wank and remain employed. 

I wanted to write this because I did feel like, wow, I don’t know her name, but Strange AEons’ reactions were, while not “wrong” per se - not entirely empathetic. 

The main thing I want to say is - even if it were to happen, you would both regret it; maybe not immediately, but you would. I never dated a teacher (boy did I want to), but my first boyfriend was 30 years my senior - I was 17 at the time. But hear me out.

The thing with relationships like that, is that (as SA said) you aren’t equals - no matter how much you think you are. And a teacher/student dynamic, while it can be hot af, is neither healthy nor fulfilling. At the risk of sounding condescending, as a graduate student in developmental neurology I can truly say that your brain isn’t developed in some really specific and nuanced ways - no matter what you’ve been through, you might have a lot of foresight but there is some inexplicable element of wherewithal that you really don’t get until your 20s (sometimes later).

(tl’dr this paragraph is neuroscience warning) (If you’re curious, your brain finishes sorting itself out from a caudal (near your neck) to rostral (above your eyes) direction - the frontal part of your brain (maturing in your 20s) is involved in complex executive function like empathy and planning. Your emotions, however, are a bit earlier to mature; so to put it (very) simply, emotional maturity is not the only factor in how “ready” or “right” you are/it is to have a relationship with such a massive social connotation attached to it.

(neuroscience over) 

Let me tell you my story. I met David when I was 16, having snuck into a nightclub. He was 47. I’d always been attracted exclusively to older guys; I was lucky in that it had never been a struggle or anything for me to accept that. But I digress. 

David, believing I was 18 (legal bar entry age here - also the age of consent is 16), was very charming and gentlemanly. He was here for work, he was married  (to a woman - she didn’t know he was gay) - he could easily have been a teacher. He wasn’t pushy, and I was there with friends, so nothing ended up happening that night. I’d given him my MSN (throwback!) and we talked on there the next day. We were both also avid gamers so we got to know each other over the next few months very well over a lot of Halo. 

We met in November, then he came back (he was a 3 hour flight away, a different country) the next February. Suffice to say we both disappeared for the weekend (i was still in the last year of high school - notably less interested in the teachers though, ha). I turned 17 that March, and in April, during a holiday, he came back and we disappeared again, this time for over a week. Keep in mind the whole time his wife believed he was at a conference. 

Over these months I became extremely lost in my (our) own little world. This wasn’t to do with the age so much but I did want to mention it because looking back I see I neglected a lot of my friends because I was obsessing over this one person whom I loved so deeply that truly nothing else mattered. By April I was heavily anorexic, and I thought as much about food (and not eating it) as i did of David. I wanted to be perfect for him.

I’ve just realised I’ve gone a bit off topic to the tc theme so I’ll skip ahead a bit. 

We end up together, and we couldn’t be happier (minus the crying and screaming phonecalls from his wife) (I know. Married men...) We have a place, he’s working the same job, after about half a year of adjusting and being in love I decide I’m going to start studying. 

The one line from this time that really reverberates in my mind was “I like my boys to look like boys”. It was funny, at first. I was a very feminine boy to start with, long and thin (still very anorexic - 6′2 and 53kg (don’t know what that is in lb sorry), with long blonde hair, armed with Maybelline dream matte mousse and some mascara. I wasn’t trans (was I? I was still figuring that out - but that’s another story), but I did enjoy playing with makeup on my self, a lot. 

David didn’t mind at first. But a subtle narrative began to arise over the later months. It was a narrative of “I’m the boss” on his part, and “I’m bored so I’m rebelling” on mine. It’s hard to describe so I can only really explain examples. 

When you’re a teen obsessed with someone, and you don’t really know what a relationship is, the boundaries can be a little grey. When you’re an adult and you’ve grown up in toxic/abusive/jealous relationships your whole life, you mightn’t know any different or better. While I cringe heavily to think about it now; we were both obsessed to the point we would read each other’s phones. I don’t know if it was trust or jealousy or what. But it was mutual - for a time. As the months progressed I grew weary of it. I’d never have cheated on him, and as the months passed I assumed he would never have cheated on me, so I lost interest in his phone. But he kept on checking mine. 

I didn’t have any friends there. We joined Grindr and had a profile for both of us, just looking for friends. We met a few people, they were alright, one in particular stood out to me. Cody was super cool, a runway model, super nice, etc. He invited me to parties a fair bit. I never went - at first I didn’t want to, because David was self-conscious (likely beingnearly 30 years older than everyone else there). But with time I did want to go, I was bored and there are only so many videogames one could play, and weed one could smoke, before one becomes restless. So I took Cody up on his offer. David was furious. He didn’t explicitly say no, but he emotionally made it very clear he did not approve. 

I don’t think it was intentional, there were so many aspects of out relationship that were unhealthy looking back now, but he was as oblivious to a lot of it as I. Was he just keeping me stoned 24/7 to fuck me? Was he emotionally blackmailing me when I tried to escape his control? Did he realise how much I loved him, how much I cared and would never have cheated on him? Did he consider how young I was, how I might have been a little naive or not ready to leave home to a new country with no friends and no plan? 

And I know you could easily say “Well it’s your life, you’re a fucking idiot for dropping out of high school (did I mention that?) and eloping with no plan” - and to that I would reply, yes, but love makes you an idiot with no plan. 

I hope I am getting across just how negative this became. Those are just a few examples but it started to feel like if I didn’t conform to his idea of “be a good boy (emphasis on “boy”), stay at home, relax” that I.. Well, I didn’t know. I still haven’t entirely resolved everything in my head and I’ve had a fair bit of baggage when it comes to relationships ever since.

A part of the lack of resolution was how David and I came to end. We were still ok afterwards and he told me later he had been suspecting something, but he came home early one day to find me doing a webcam show. I was exploring a few things I won’t mention here but suffice it to say David, in his absolute well-meaning vanillarity (it’s a word now ok cool) would have never been in to. Maybe he would have tried things for me, but I knew he would never actually be “into” it; maybe it was just in my head. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for him. Either way, more repression of a then-18 year old, still figuring out life and sex and gender etc. 

Whether it was out of a need for control (and not in a hot way) or just out of incompatibility, I would say the overarching theme of the latter days of our relationship was “suppression”. Looking back I feel like I was controlled, manipulated, repressed, emotionally abused - and it was entirely consentual. 

I just... I hope my story speaks for itself, I’m probably missing a lot as it was a while ago and it’s hard to think back to then, but please, tc community, have all the wet dreams you want, and maybe some of you will have a fuck, or a fling, but dear god do not expect to spend your life with someone who might not even be teaching you next year. It’s delusional. As kind and sexy and dominant and whatever the fuck you want that they are, it’s really not worth it. When it’s all over, you get left with three broken hearts (his, mine, wife), and enough baggage to sail around the world with - not to mention potential ruined careers, jail if you’re a minor, infamy (not the good kind), potentially debt for court fees, broken families, who knows. 

(names were changed btw)