#one was my best friend in elementary school

[gallaghersgal]

would it be possible to request carmy and elementary school teacher!reader like the plot could literally be anything I just love the thought of him bringing food for the class and being surrounded by a bunch of little kids who want to ask him questions and play with him and he’s all shy at first and loves watching reader with the kids…i’m feeling so soft rn 😭

hi my lovely anon!! im so sorry for letting this rot, i hope you're still hanging around to read it!!

field day is one of the best days of the year for a kindergartener. they run as much as their little bodies allow them, play games all school day, and have their bellies full of a delicious lunch. this year, that lunch is provided by none other than your boyfriend's restaurant, catering mini beef sandwiches for the kids.

you step behind the table to kiss carmen on the cheek when your class gets to the lunch station. he smiles and his arm wraps around your waist, muttering to you, "y're so good with those kids, 's drivin' me crazy."

you blush at his implications and smile when he leans in to pepper your cheek with a few quick kisses. a squeal interrupts the moment, the sound from one of your students who points at the scene with a grin. she shouts your name before asking, "is that your boyfriend!?!" her friends giggle, some of them remarking on how boys have cooties, and the little girl continues to stare at you excitedly.

"since you all have such curious minds," you start, the whole class's attention focused on you now, "this is my boyfriend, mr. carmy."

carmen smiles, giving your students a wave. they all giggle excitedly, greeting him with a staggered chorus of hi mr. carmy!

"alright, alright," you say with a smile. "we only have two field rotations to eat. so come to me for some hand sanitizer, then get your sandwich from mr. carmy."

the kids file through the line one at a time, choosing which sandwich they want, and what flavor chips will accompany it. one boy asks carmen, "do you make all the beef sandwiches?"

your boyfriend chuckles, shaking his head. "no, i don't make all the sandwiches bud. usually i'm makin' other sh- stuff." his cheeks heat up a little at his near slip, but the boy just nods, seemingly satisfied with the answer, and carmen asks him "now, what d'ya want, kid?"

[bunniesandbeheadings]

For over a decade now I’ve endured a very similar joke from people who, I know, both never have spoken to one another (so it’s not a conscious conspiracy) and also, I know objectively, don’t really mean me harm (because they can’t know my past history with this)

But ever since elementary school (for context: I’m a grown ass woman now with a husband and a mortgage and if I drop my favorite bag of chips on the ground I shouldn’t cry about it) every single one of my friends and also, a great majority of my family like to make a similar crack

“Did you know you’re my second best friend?”

“I love you bunnies! But I love (x) person more!”

And again, I know no individual person means me ill with this

But I’m just so. Genuinely tired of hearing this. I’m really tired of hearing my whole life “ha ha! You’re second best!”

Like it’s to the point that where a girlfriend of mine said it to me that every part of my brain fires off and told me, “ha. She thinks she’s telling you that you’re her second best friend! But here’s a funny thing you could do: just be her number one worst enemy.

Backstab the bitch

Ruin her fucking life the moment you get the chance

She thinks you’re her second best friend! Wait. You’ll find the time to show her that you’re really the worst enemy she’s ever made! Betrayal is fun!”

Cuz that’s what I want to do!

I don’t know why everyone I’ve ever met thinks it’s funny to tell me I’m their second favorite. Say nothing at all! I don’t need a ranking system! I don’t ask to be ranked people just tell me, out of nowhere, “you’re my second favorite person”

Ha ha ha

Well I’m about to be your least favorite person because I am going to actively ruin your life now! Thanks!

((See tags. No im not an actual threat. I don’t have the time for that. But what the fuck. Stop saying this to me. Stop it. I have low self esteem and I will kill us both.))

[bloggingboutburgers]

cw: discussions of bullying and aphobia

Hearing aroace peoples' existential crises over their friends discussing crushes, as someone who was socially isolated and severly bullied for their whole childhood and most of their adolescence so had NO friendgroup until adulthood and NO community or inclusion in literally anything (and when it came to sex and romance the other kids explicitly considered my potential involvement in either to be impossible / laughible because of how "weird" they found me (my autistic traits before I even realised I'm autistic)), felt like starving while listening to someone else complain about the food they're actively eating.

Food intolerances and dislike of different foods (as metaphor for being aro/ace) ARE important and difficult to grapple with when you're expected to eat specific foods in specific proportions at different times - but man did it sting until I realised why I felt that way and gave myself a talking to since my trauma doesn't justify belittling the very real struggles of aroace people.

I guess since the choice between 'stay alone or conform' was never really a choice because I was rejected no matter how cis straight or allo I was it taught me to go "fuck it" and accept myself regardless of what other people do or say (which ironically has lead to me becoming dramatically popular all of a sudden at uni, which has been weird to get used to since I have literally no experience with any of this - platonic or otherwise - which did lead to some advantage being taken of me but f*ck it we ball ^^'). And I guess it's just been difficult understanding why anyone would care so much about whether they're "normal" or not? You really have nothing to gain from that, safety is not guaranteed in conformity so best to live aroace and damn all aphobes to hell if they have a problem with that.

It's a mindset I'll never understand and that's only ok now insofar as that lack of understanding no longer results in misplaced anger at people who, for a time, I had once considered spoilt, ungrateful and out of touch. Basically, I'm full of sh*t and to every aroace person reading this you deserve good friends that actually respect you for who you are and do not even TRY to get you to change your mind about sex or romance. Have a lovely day x

Sincerely,

An aggressive emotional support anon

I'm genuinely sorry for all the hardships you went through. I don't mean to equate at all, truthfully from reading you and considering I WAS asked some of those questions as a kid regardless (the "who's your crush" bullshit and whatnot), it definitely sounds like I had it less hard than you did, but... I was bullied in elementary school and middle school, also not necessarily because I was aroace (I don't know why it happened really, I don't know if anyone ever knows, I boil it down to... me being me and there being something fundamentally wrong with me ig), and I definitely also get some of those feelings of "oh boo hoo you call that struggle" boiling in me when people discuss their own past struggles sometimes, so... Yeah, every one person's experience is unique, but I can at the very least very much sympathize.

I think a way it manifests in me is that I now have that compulsive, debilitating fear of being "othered" in any way, shape, or form, so I guess being aroace doesn't help my case. But at the same time... Well, like you brilliantly put it, when you're in a situation like that, no matter what you do, you won't be accepted anyway, and having that knowledge back then is probably also what lead me to figure myself out as aroace so early in life. Because I was treated as this much of an outsider, I ironically had that much room in my own head to form my own identity, far apart from others and the need to conform. Yeah, that identity may include a "piece of shit that doesn't deserve to be supported of part of a group" side that's been forced in, buried deep down and can't be erased, but... It also includes asexual and aromantic, and it's been cemented so hard from so early with such self-affirmation that later down the line, it saved me from a lot of stuff. I never had to force myself into a romantic or sexual relationship because I was undoubtably aroace – and people saw me as an outsider and an eyesore anyway. I spent years of being scared to go to school or out in the street every day, but later down the line, somehow, I feel it saved me from doing so many things I wouldn't have wanted to do.

...Bleh, sorry, didn't mean to turn this into me-me-me crap when you had the courage and sincerity of not only showing your experience, but finding the strength to show more love, understanding and support than a lot of people probably cared to give you for so long, despite all the pain you felt for so long. I guess I just wanna say... This take is definitely inspiring, so thank you on behalf of myself and others I'm sure, but also... I hope that, for yourself, you're also managing to own what you lived through in a way that allowed you to affirm yourself more strongly (it sounds like you are, I hope it IS the case), and most importantly, I hope you're in a much better place in your life now and you'll never have to return to that level of loneliness again.

[titsthedamnseason]

i actually feel like crying. it should be illegal to drift apart from your friends

[yardsards]

also. amber gris as a character is really important to me as an appalachian.

not just her accent or the specific type of person justin based her off of but like

the feeling of losing someone to addiction/overdose while the government does nothing to help, just criminalizes and stigmatizes and makes things worse. which obviously happens in more places than just around here, but we have one of the highest rates of overdose death in the whole country and that whole set of scenes felt like they were really informed by growing up around that

[antique-symbolism]

Fellow TUC fans: how and when did you first find the series?

[screechingfromthevoid]

So I was thinking about that modern AU, trying to figure out how to incorporate FCG because robot (literally he's just a pastors son. Duh)

but for some reason my brain said "Ashton's service dog" first. Then I thought about Ashton needing a service dog because of brain stuff. THEN I thought about Ashton needing a service animal AND a mobility aid.

So I'm just living for Ashton in a wheelchair rolling through school. They've got the key to the elevator. They've obviously got a whole dog at school that people try desperately not to pet.

When someone decides to bully FCG (Francis Charles Grady) or Laudna, they get out of their chair to their full height. People freak because they didn't know he could walk or stand. Ashton just shrugs because "you know what they say about assuming"

And when Dorian shows up and asks about it not as tactfully as he probably meant to Ashton pops a wheely and is just like "what's sadder than an orphan with a wheelchair and a service dog? Unfortunately it didn't get me adopted. People just don't want their inspiration porn in house anymore I guess."

And they try to be chill. They try to avoid those harsh topics with their friends because they don't wanna be a bummer. It'd bring down the mood to say "sure I can walk but sometimes my spine is on fire and my calves are full of knives so I don't." It'd suck to say "I can walk fine until I can't." It's not relatable to say "my whole body hurts all the time and if I want to be able to do other things like think, I should probably be sitting."

Slowly their friends get them to understand that they don't have to put on a brave face for them. They don't have to pretend like it doesn't hurt. They don't have to pretend like it doesn't bother them. Their friends care about them. Hell they're even down to help if they can. Anything to make Ashton feel like they are wanted, that they're not a burden.

[spacespore]

HI TUMBLRR it’s me

[pallases]

it is bad when i am in my feels enough to return to the abandoned poetry archives

[tessalation]

Consuming your loved ones’ hyperfixations is a special kind of love language

[moon-lords-lower-body]

THIS IS THE BEST MESSAGE IVE EVER GOTTEN IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE

[brainfilehasstoppedworking]

Idk if that's just kids being kids (even though I've never seen shit like this with other people) but like. Two girls tried to kiss me in elementary school. One girl tried to in lunch once. And another girl I think successfully kissed my cheek before I pushed her. She pushed me first onto these stupid things that were connected to the window (they hurt like a bitch btw), but I pushed her harder onto a wall. (Kid me did pack a push and a punch I'll tell y'all that.)

But yeah...two girls tried kissing me. And I'm still like "How the fuck–?"

I don't have any charm whatsoever (I really don't know how I even got a girlfriend.) Especially in elementary school where my only charm was being annoying and punching friends on the shoulder and crying.

Kids will be kids, I guess...?

[jivthecrow]

.

[mikeyswishes]

one of my friends last year was telling me how no friendship survives the grade im in and i told him that was bullshit but no he was right i dont like most of my oldest friends anymore n have found a bunch of new ones or gotten closer w old ones

[leftforthestars]

KJHSFDKHJSDKHJKHJSDKHJDSHJKSDHJKDS OH MY GOD. WHY IS HE JUST. EATING A BELL PEPPER LIKE THAT. OH MY GOD.

also the donatello hat adjhsakjsdkhjsa. reminds me of that interview where kevin parker and the live band are discussing which ninja turtles they would be. and kevin said he would be donatello and then dominic disagreed and said kevin would be raphael

[m00ngbin]

Just remembered one of my friends from elementary school's mom didn't want me around her kid cause she thought I was a queer so she moved her to a different school