#somebody was acting batty

[mikeru6]

guess who they’re gossiping about

-

btw do yall fw my new art style?? idk i kinda like it

[king-cowb0y]

ok ok ok daemons are such an interesting thing to me bc they're not a separate person. your daemon is YOU. but it isn't just your soul or your conscience or your subconscious it's the bit of opposite of you that exists in all humans given form. hence the animal shape and the fact that all* daemons are the opposite gender from their respective person. HDM actually never clarifies completely how they work/what they are, but it does establish some key facts that this Fic plays with which i Love.

daemons have a maximum distance they can be from their person. for humans that max distance is pretty low

daemons know inherently that they're part of somebody they don't have to be told that

touching other people's daemons is really fucking weird. like. imagine touching somebody's soul with your bare hands. or reaching into their braincase. yeah it's fucking weird and physically uncomfortable for both parties

that being said daemons can and will touch other daemons all the time bc they're on the same plane of existence and that's normal.

daemon severance is akin to a lobotomy. like you can do it but a) it releases a lot of very explosive energy and is therefore dangerous; b) if you do it on children the daemon becomes basically an animal and the child is just kind of an empty husk and both of them die soon after; c) if you do it to an adult it's basically a giant lobotomy. straight up

you can't take daemons into the land of the dead. normally living people don't go into the land of the dead, and daemons are the most alive part of you, so dying kills them instantly (they dissolve into gold dust). HDM has an example wherein lyra goes into the land of the dead and pan is literally pulled away from her. they both survive but it fundamentally changes them into more of a witchlike, wherein pan can go very very far away from lyra safely. (this also happens to will, but people from non-daemon worlds don't have exterior daemons†)

this Fic plays with this stuff particularly about vash and nai and it fits so damn well. it posits that vash IS nai's daemon, which makes him already break two rules: same gender and not critter. it also posits that he's way more independent to the point that he doesn't even realize he's a daemon. in fact neither of them do at first but then nai gets it and causes the big fall bc everyone won't stop fucking with his daemon, which if they were human would have Not Happened. it ALSO posits that vash separated himself from nai which is simply INSANE to think of Until you remember that plants are much more powerful than humans. it's literally the same as how a cube is to a line they're a whole pair of dimensions higher why shouldn't their daemons be whole human-level people on their own??

what's really killing me is NONE of the main crew have figured it out as of ch4 even tho literally their daemons are all snuggling vash ALL the TIME just like they do with each other and it doesn't feel weird to them bc it's daemon/daemon interaction as opposed to daemon/person interaction which-- AHHHHHHHHHHH. and bc he separated himself from nai but only partially (much like a witch) he clings to other daemons, literally withering without them, and also possibly acts as a daemon for bulbed plants (hence his ability to heal them) which drives me BATTY!!!!! /POS

*- independent plants in this au seem to all have same gender daemons unlike literally everyone else in hdm. hdm doesn't include nonbinary/trans characters so there's no stated explanation of how daemon gender would correspond to that unfortunately. whatever you think works works imo

†- everyone has the part of their being that makes them alive + a person. if you're from a world without daemons you can be taught to see your daemon, but not everyone does that or knows to do that. also in some cases your daemon simply shows up upon entering a world with daemons. the exact reasoning of what determines that is also not stated in canon

AAHAHAHHHHHHAHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH i found a trigun fic that's a daemon AU, as in from his dark materials, and it immediately was like what if independents' daemons are actually in the form of other independents. and nai is vash's daemon. btw a daemon is like, a physical and separate manifestation of like the glue between your heart/mind/soul/body, and also a secondary subconscious brought to the surface. pre-puberty they change form, and solidify into one form during puberty. they're typically animals but this fic is literally driving me up the wall and im barely a third into the first chapter i'll link it later

[cannedcrow]

Arbitrary Darkness - Part II

Summary: In which Grian dwells on the aftermath of his encounter with Tango, and is the recipient of a peculiar lead.

Part I Part III

~ Please reblog if you enjoy! ^ ^ ~

Grian stood now in the office, gazing at the rain-soaked world outside the window and thinking the vague thoughts of a rainy morning. A week had passed since the incident with Tango, and Grian had not seen him since. He made an effort not to linger too much on what had happened - after all, it was true that their paths did not cross often outside of business and there was no sense in needless paranoia - but he didn’t like the idea of the demon still alive in the city. He knew Tango well enough to suspect he was an unpleasant enemy to have; a person one would be remiss to leave out of sight. There was little chance he’d died of blood loss, unfortunately, and no doubt he'd have heightened his guard and be lying low.

Alas, it seemed there was nothing to do for it though but to carry on and keep a watchful eye. He sipped his tea, hoping privately he’d have no reason to venture out into the storm today, then turned at the sound of the door opening.

Mumbo entered bearing several letters. “Mail’s here,” he announced helpfully, “Just one for you.” He handed Grian the letter and began to open his own correspondences.

“Hope it’s a job,” Grian mused aloud, setting down his cup and saucer and beginning to open the letter.

“It’d better be; Papa K isn’t going to pay me until I get a new story for him.”

To Mr. Grian

I have something to say that I feel I must get off my chest, and I fear you’re the best person to tell. You see, I own a little cafe in Syville Square - it’s nothing special, but we serve 24 hours a day for convenience. That means, however, myself or my husband are often awake at odd hours, and I - we’ve seen some odd going-ons that I feel I must tell somebody about.

To be perfectly blunt, I am of the opinion that there is some sort of organisation or meeting-place of monsters in Syville Square - somewhere underground, I am inclined to think. I’ve seen one too many peculiar people in the area in the dead hours of the night. Funny silhouettes, people that act strange if approached. In the alley by Meadowsweet Cafe I suspect there is an entrance. I ask that you investigate this - while I haven’t enough money to pay you good commission, surely the police will provide you with bounty.

If this all turns out to be nothing more than shadows, you’ll have to forgive me for being a paranoid old lady. Thank you kindly.

Regards, Tabitha Crawley

Mumbo had evidently not discovered anything of interest in his own letters and had folded and returned them to their respective envelopes, preferring the greater intrigue of adjusting his collar. “Anything?” He asked, scrutinising his reflection.

“I’m not sure,” Grian said slowly, tapping one talon on the table in thought. “Do you know anything about Syville Square?”

“Syville Square? Place with a load of cafes and restaurants, right? Big statue of a bloke stabbing a creeper?”

“That’s the one I think. Here, tell me what you think of this.” He offered the letter to Mumbo.

A few seconds of silence passed while Mumbo read. “Well, that’s rather unhelpful,” he commented mildly, “One would expect a bit more promise of recompense.”

“Reckon I should check it out? I prefer to get paid upfront is all, and the police can’t be trusted to pay me bounty after I’ve done my bit.”

“Look at it this way,” Mumbo declared, moving back to the mirror, “Worst case is old Tabby is completely batty, in which case you just waste a bit of time. Best case is you find a secret meeting-place of monsters, which, if you play your cards right, could mean high reward.”

“You think it’s time to play spy?” Grian asked, a grin spreading on his face, “Collect intel and offer my service to the police only with commission?”

“Mhm. If I get paid per article you should get paid per monster. Otherwise, they’ll just give you a good boy sticker and a couple of emeralds, and gratitude doesn’t pay the bills.”

"Then again," Mumbo added thoughtfully, "I have ulterior motives for encouraging you. If you go through with a super important sting you can give me a special interview, and maybe we'll make enough to have someone else clean this place."

"Fair point! I’ll have a poke around later today,” Grian acquiesced, tail flicking in excitement as he picked up his cup and saucer and made for the door.

He paused at the door. “Tea?”

“Please!”

As Grian left heard the vague strains of Mumbo singing “Miss Tabby’s gone batty, her dress is all tatty …” to the tune of Oranges and Lemons.

-

Mercifully, the storm had grown bored of drenching New Hermiton and moved towards other venues, leaving only a thick ceiling of dark clouds and lacklustre rain in its wake. Grian found himself sitting in the Meadowsweet Cafe with a journal open in front of him, it’s pages slowly succumbing to mindless doodling as he conducted a very dull stake-out. He’d asked for a Tabitha Crawley, only to be told she wasn’t in and had thus resorted to drastic measures - ordering a hot chocolate and a cookie and sitting in the warm cafe.

He didn’t know what he expected to see, nor how long he expected to wait - in truth, he’d found the warmth and coffee-scented air of the cafe had a soporific effect on him, and the prospect of going out into the rain again seemed more uninviting than ever. Nonetheless, he kept an eye on the goings-on (what little of which there were) outside the alley-facing window. With only the mildest interest, he watched a pale grey cat catch a pigeon before realising the feathery wet carcass did not lend itself to palatability. He glanced at the clock - 7:20 pm - and took a desultory bite of cookie.

The sky was dim with the fall of evening now, and Grian knew he was out of time to stall. He stood, stretched, and donned his dark grey capelet in readiness for the elements.

The damp and narrow alley reminded him of the many others that made up the circulatory system of the city. There was a familiar aura of being trapped and vulnerable, and the tall walls on each side stretched far enough up that even in daylight one felt curiously shadowed. It was a place where the average pedestrian thought only of reaching the sanctity of the wider street, willfully ignorant of anything around them. A place where cretins like Tango skulked. Then again, so do I. This, Grian thought, was what made it such a brilliant hiding place. The rain had stopped, only to be replaced by fog. Brilliant.

He made a quick survey of the alley, meaning to note anything of interest. It was very much the same as any other - littered with rubbish, forgotten bins, straggling weeds, and the occasional glint of nocturnal eyes that blinked into invisibility. Those doorways that did exist did not invite entrance. They seemed to shrink back into the walls, their ugly countenances worn of rusting iron and rotting wood.

If he was to encounter a creature, it would be no good to be caught on the ground. He cast an eye up, looking for - there. Shifting his capelet and undoing the catch of his jumper underneath, Grian shook his wings free and flitted up to a niche high up the side of one building. Settling into the nook until he felt damp stone press his back, he made sure his cape covered him adequately. From here, nestled in the shadow of the niche, he had - fittingly - a bird's-eye view of the alley, obscured only by a few clotheslines.

He waited.

Perhaps an hour passed before anyone entered the alley, by which time Grian was getting fed up, scratching absently at the wall with one ungloved claw. But someone did come. A tall someone, only a silhouette in the now-complete darkness. Grian watched, unseen, comforted only by the weight of the various firearms against his hips. The someone didn't creep as a criminal would but strode in complete comfort, unfearing of the dark and seclusion. They looked up only once, and Grian's body tensed. The eyes that appraised the alley walls reflected the moon's light in iridescent, poisonous green.

It had evidently only been an arbitrary glance, for they moved on quickly enough. Descending a short flight of stairs that led to what must've been a basement, the figure disappeared into a wall.

Grian followed, no doubt faster than he should have. The stairway was only a dip in the ground, tucked against the side of the alley and railed. The door it led to, like others of the kind, did not invite company. His heartbeat pounded despite his lack of any particular fear. If it was a civilian, he could handle that. If it was a monster, he could simply reveal himself and act the part. Theoretically.

Upon entering the room, heralded by an unfortunate creak, he was met with a slaughterhouse, lit by a single lantern that did not appear to be a constant feature. It was clearly disused, and the smell of rot, old blood, and abandonment were thick in the air. The floor was packed dirt, the equipment that had been left was rusting and unuseable, the beams rotted and damp, stranded by cobwebs whose makers had even determined the place unliveable.

Disgusting. What a good method of keeping people out, he mused.

Grian suddenly realised he wasn't sure where his quarry had gone. He looked around hopefully, then examined the floor in search of a clue. Thank goodness for the rain, he reflected, seeing that wet footprints had pressed slightly upon the dirt floor, leading him towards the back wall.

A glimmer of light caught Grian's attention as he neared the lazily-masoned brick wall. The mortar was disintegrating and cracked all throughout, but where the light peeked in, he realised there was a very fine seam between the bricks, imperceptible were it not for the light. He ran a gloved hand over the brickwork, his grip curling around one of the bricks that had shifted from its confinement. He pulled.

A panel of the bricks came free on a hinge. They had been fixed with wood to create a hidden door that opened to a short, dark corridor. Well, he thought, if its not monsters, its definitely some sort of cult.

The short corridor led to a larger lobby of sorts, dimly lit by lanterns and tiled in large slabs of dark grey and green marble. A stone arch at the end of the room crowned a large door, and to one side of this was a countertop that seemed to belong to a cloakroom.

And there was the figure, too, standing near the cloakroom counter and chatting amiably to the man behind the counter. He had removed a dark red half-cape which was folded over one arm, but he also seemed to have allowed certain other attributes to relax. He was a phantom hybrid, by the looks of it - the back of his shirt ridged over a peculiarly defined spine, and at the base of his spine began a thin tail, ridged with the characteristic elongated white vertebrae of a phantom and ending with a blade of bone.

There was nowhere to hide, and even if there had been, the sound of Grian's boots on the tile would've given him away. The man turned his head, fixing Grian with those eyes that had flashed green, catlike.

The man at the counter also noticed him, and Grian in turn realised the curved white horns that grew from his head, the bovine ears that flattened upon seeing an unfamiliar face.

The man behind the counter disappeared, emerging from a door to the side of the desk, and revealing his person in full. The creature that entered the lobby was massive. Grian had seen centaurs before, though they weren't common - but in this case, the well-muscled torso of the man led into the stocky body of a bull, whose musculature rippled faintly under a sleek black pelt. He makes for a good bouncer.

"Who's this, Scar?" The bull-centaur asked, his voice impassive.

Grian acted. He moved further into the room, forcing down the anxiety that fluttered in his heart and reaching for the clasp of his capelet.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” he prefaced with an apologetic smile, “But I heard about some sort of organisation for monsters and I was intrigued. I’m sorry to have followed you without your knowledge, sir, but I uh -“ he faltered, summoning a pathetic air, “I - want friends.”

He drew off his cape then to reveal his wings.

Scar, who had been regarding him all the while with an odd, knowing sort of half-smile, seemed suddenly to snap to life. He chuckled good-naturedly as though they were old friends, and said, “Oh, you don’t have to bother with that; we’re friends here.” He turned to the bull-centaur to say airily, “He’s with me Impulse, don’t you worry!”

With little else to do, Grian followed in Scar's lead. If this stranger had decided to toy with him on a whim, he'd make sure the man regretted it.

Impulse moved closer to Grian, towering over him effortlessly. Then he held out a hand with a cheerful smile.

“Name's Impulse. Nice to meet you!”

“Adrien; and it’s good to be here.” He returned pleasantly, warming irresistibly to the unexpected kindness of such an intimidating creature.

“I can take your cloak if you like, and you'll have to leave your weapons with me too.” Impulse directed casually, offering an arm to take his capelet.

There was no sense in disobeying, and Grian (mostly) complied, removing all his visible weapons and leaving himself with a small revolver tucked into his waistband and a knife that sheathed conveniently at the back of his trousers, covered by his jumper. Lastly, he - rather awkwardly - freed his tail from the confines of one trouser leg. When in Rome.

As he got used to the room and peculiar company, Grian noticed a detail of the room he hadn’t before - the stone archway above the door had words carved on it. Fronti nulla fides.

"Fronti nulla fides," Grian repeated to himself in a murmur, "What does that mean?"

"It's Latin," Scar said with a chuckle, "It means appearences deceive."

How fitting, Grian thought as Scar led him to the door under the arch.

“Shall we?” Asked his companion with an inviting, fanged smile.

[herotome]

I'm so confused by that last ask lmao. Why would anyone want to buy spray and hurt someone who did nothing wrong to them/wasn't making them feel uncomfortable in any way??? Instead, how would the RO's react to a very soft and bubbly MC, that bakes them stuff and compliments them and is just,, a very somft person??? And when in a relationship stage, treats them with so much tenderness and love that it should be illegal. Have a wonderful rest of your day/night, author!

Agh, well, I don't want to make it a purely black/white situation; because if somebody knocked on my door well after sundown, I would certainly be uncomfortable.

While I can confirm that Warden had good intentions, those are the bricks with which hell is paved, yes? He DOES commit a social faux-pas. It is a BAD IDEA to knock on strangers' doors in the night! It would be perfectly understandable if the MC feels any range of discomfort or skepticism; even threatened or alarmed.

I remember this one time a perfectly nice young man approached me in the parking lot; I was about to get into my car, and I was so taken off-guard and terrified that I flattened myself against the car door the entire time, eyes darting. He didn't mean me any harm (good intentions), but the faux-pas of approaching me right outside my car was too great - I could not humanly have felt comfortable in that situation.

... I didn't hit him or spray him though, since he made no move to touch me. 😂 Iirc he wanted my help because his car died. I think sometimes people are too quick to be enact cruelty on men, because they assume all men have bad intentions, or that men are strong, they can take the abuse. But I also understand how people - particularly (but not limited to) women - are so often put into awful, deeply stressful situations of "I need to hurt them first, before they hurt me."

I want to acknowledge pretty privilege as a factor as well - while I wrote Warden as a Nice Fella, I also made conscious design decisions to make him generically attractive: even proportions, nice smile, neat hair, clean clothes. Would we be as understanding of Warden if he was fatter, uglier, more disheveled? Would we be as open to follow-up with him, follow him onto the path he sets for us? I'd wager not. (And then ah, viola, the MC never leaves her apartment and the game falls apart. Hahaha.)

Errr. So, ah. Those are my thoughts. No real conclusions, no hard and fast rules - I just want to encourage this blog/game to be a space where we exercise nuance whenever possible.

Anyway! Thank you for the lovely sentiment anon, here's the answer to your ask:

Warden: Disbelieving, really not used to such tenderness from anybody. Sort of wonders if MC is trying to trick him? It takes him some time to warm up to it and understand MC's angle. Blushes particularly hard when complimented.

Griffin: Fully participates in exchanging sweetness, for the most part tit-for-tat. Griffin might have gloomy or whiny phases and will take some alone time, but will very often seek MC out for comfort and very long, vulnerable hugs.

Mia: Flustered to the core, often tries to outdo MC in sweetness - Mia is a deeply reciprocal person, always returning favors, so it would drive her a little batty to be matched. She's used to being a giver, she'd have trouble quietly receiving.

Dart: Skeptical, distrusting, surely this is an elaborate act?? The pies must be poisoned. You'll catch him staring REALLY hard at MC, searching for flaws and slip-ups that would help him understand. There is a point, though, where Dart will begin to view MC as "family" - and then the distrust switch totally flips into undying trust and protective loyalty.

Jade: Wants to protect MC from the first moment she sets eyes on her, would kill for this MC.

[pawprintsmoon]

Inevitable

Henry Knew

Part IV

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28968006/chapters/71734731

Henry started to admit to himself what he had always known: they were inevitable.

When Alex called him to talk about his parent’s fight on Christmas Eve, Henry wanted nothing more than to be there for him, as his best friend. He had been listening to Christmas madrigals and commiserating with Bea about the absurdity of how many Christmas trees filled the palace, when his phone buzzed. A distressed and uncharacteristically apologetic Alex needed him. The younger man had nobody else to talk to and Henry’s heart swelled up with gratitude. 

He was the lucky person that Alex needed. He was allowed to listen and support. The intimacy of it! For the next couple days, he found himself reminding Alex to eat and sleep and he knew. He knew he was falling in love.

It was all way too fast, but somehow, it was also slow. So gentle the way they opened up to each other, petal by petal. The five days between Christmas Eve and #YoungAmericanGala2019, when they would see each other in person, were slow and fast as well. There was enough time for the two boys to become lazily closer and closer, yet not nearly enough time to prepare Henry to see the first son in person.

For those five days, Alex was as goofy as ever, and more than once Henry would burst out laughing in the middle of a quiet teatime or stuffy meeting. Bea would give him a knowing look and Philip would glare. It came to a point that sometimes when Henry was in meetings he’d have to turn off his notifications, lest his phone would buzz every ten minutes. While they mostly exchanged stupid memes and mockingly combative comments, occasionally the tone of some texts were softer.

When it’s 7:00am in London it’s 1:00am in Washington D.C.

Alex: so, what do you think the likelihood of me being able to fall asleep tonight is?

Henry: Did you have an entire pot of coffee after 8pm again?

Alex: well…

Henry: We may have found a cause for your insomnia then. You okay though?

Alex: yeah of course, why?

Henry: I worry about you sometimes… idk.

Henry: Like, I’m here. You know?

Alex: awwwww yeah I know, man. ditto.

They continued with a conversation about nothing while Henry ate sipped his morning tea, and every 30 minutes, he told Alex he ought to try harder to go to sleep.This became a routine for them. Alex, unable to sleep and waking Henry up with morning memes. Henry getting dressed, eating breakfast, starting the day until around nine, when Alex would text something like “good night” or “I’m out :-P ” or one time, “sweet dreams xo”. Did he really think he was being sarcastic?

One afternoon, it snowed in London. Kensington palace was so rarely covered in snow, and Henry felt that childish glee of first snow fall. He knew he could bear the cold if it meant he could see the long lines of winter light glittering through frosted trees. So he grabbed David and took him on a walk through the snowy rose garden. Bewitched by the magic of the winter wonderland, Henry succumbed to the impulse to call Alex. This was a first, so far they only talked when Alex called him.

He distracted Alex from studying for hours. His heels were blistering by the time they hung up, because he hadn’t planned on such a long walk and his snow boots were new and stiff. That’s one way to break in shoes, he supposed. All at once, while wandering lovesick in the gardens. Oh how the blistered skin ached.

Come the morning of December 31st, Henry couldn’t figure out what to wear to the New Years Gala. He knew Alex was planning on a burgundy velvet suit (how queer, dear lord boy) and he was pretty sure the dress code to this type of party disallowed boring black ties. His simple tailored Gucci suit would be fine, but what to do about that vulnerable spot at his throat? In a panic, he begged Pez to help and they conspired with his stylist. An hour later, about two dozen ties covered his floor.

“This one,” Pez suggested holding up a bright, coppery mustard tie in a narrow cut.

“You don’t think it’s too much?”

“Definitely not,” Pez said, tying it around Henry’s neck in a half windsor. “And it’ll look fantastic next to Alex’s burgundy.”

“I’m sure that’s neither here nor there,” said Henry, looking in the mirror. Pez rolled his eyes, and collapsed onto the couch. Luckily the stylist’s expression was neutral as she cleaned up the discarded ties. Henry busied himself with helping her and switched the conversation to June which could reliably distract Pez indefinitely.

As they flew across the Atlantic, Pez had to continually kick Henry to stop jiggling his legs. The nerves had him going batty and when he finally saw Alex, his nerves lit on fire. Once Alex spoke however, he remembered that they were best friends and his shoulders relaxed. This was the guy who had a Great Turkey Calamity after all.

“Nice tie,” Alex said.

Thanks, you look lovely too, thought Henry. He replied, “Thought I might be escorted off the premises for anything less exciting.”

It was so easy to flirt. So easy to walk, side by side through the crowd. To fall from conversation to easy conversation. To drink and dance and mingle. It was easy, even, to talk to June when she pulled him away from Alex to chat at the bar.

“So,” she said as the bartender gave them each a lemon drop shot. “What are your intentions with my baby brother?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nope, try again,” June scolded him. “He likes you.”

Henry laughed, and let the vodka to loosen his tongue. “I know.”

“He doesn’t know that he’s into guys yet though, does he?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“And he doesn’t know that you want to stargaze, and sing love ballads? Hold his hand and whisper sweet nothings?”

“I’m pretty sure he has no idea,” he agreed, ruefully. For a conversation about Henry’s deepest feelings, the mood was light. June seemed like a good type of person, the kind that he could be friends with. She reminded him of Bea, so maybe it’s a sister vibe that fueled their instant connection.

She fakes a frown and pats the top of his head. “It’s a cruel joke the world’s playing on you, isn’t it?”

“It’s alright, I have a fantastic sense of humor.” Henry sloppily poured himself champagne. “I’m rather hilarious, actually.”

“Prove it,” she challenged.

Oh dear.

“Your brother is like dandruff,” he began. “In that no matter how hard I try, I can’t get him out of my head.”

June nearly fell off her bar stool, laughing. “That was possibly the worst joke I have ever heard.”

“And yet you can’t breathe for laughter,” said Henry, lifting an eyebrow.

“You’re just lucky I’m drinking and in the holiday spirit.” They smiled at each other for a moment. “You know, I’m glad I invited you.”

“You invited me?” Henry asked. “Not Al-”

“No, no, Alex was far too nervous to invite the guy whose texts made him blush and giggle, like, fifty times a day.”

“Oh god.”

“Yes,” June said with a nod. “Speaking of, he’s staring at you again. You should probably attend to your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my-”

“Maybe not yet.” She gave him a pensive look, suddenly sincere. “You might need to help him figure it out though.”

Oh god.

And then there was Alex, coming to drag him back to the dance floor. Beautiful beautiful Alex. And Henry was just thinking about how June was right, how he wanted to hold Alex’s hand, and kiss under the stars. The fantasy of kissing progressed into more sensual imaginings as he watched Alex dance. What would those hips feel like, grinding against him? What would it feel like for Alex to run fingers through his hair?

When the ridiculous dancing American put his hands on Henry’s hips, it was nearly impossible to breathe. When Alex told Henry to look at him, he thought it was absurd to suggest that he’d be looking anywhere else. Stupid songs from the early 2000s filled the room, and Alex grabbed Henry by the lapel and ordered him to dance. In what must have been an act of mercy, Nora pulled Alex away to dance with her instead. As he jealously watched them grind, he imagined how it would feel to dance like that in public with somebody you like. He could never have that. Any relationship they could have would be doomed from the start.

But still, they were inevitable.

[goldenpinof]

so basically here’s a script of “Basically I’m gay” by Daniel Howell, if someone needs it

link to a google doc

Hello Internet.

«Sex! Secrecy! And a whole lot of internal screaming. Starring Daniel Howell. One of the greatest mysteries of our generation. What is Dan’s sexuality?»

Spoiler alert. I’m not straight. Sex, the foundation of life and the only thing we’re really supposed to do. Everyone’s obsessed with it. You bunch of degenerates. In the list of things that identify a person, one of the most important for other people to know is their sexuality. For, if sex is the primal force propelling all of these humans forward by their hips, they have to know. Are we gonna fuck? Or like could we? Or are you, ‘cause I’m just wondering. Now, we live in a heteronormative world, which is a long scary word that makes people feel attacked for some reason. Shh it’s okay.

What it means is people are presumed to be straight. If you’re not, then at some point, you have to “come out”, which is a whole thing. Or people might just try and guess based on something you do or the way you act, because yay stereotypes. So this is something you have to be clear on, because if you’re not, how are all these other people that aren’t you going to cope? But I’m pretty sure no one that knows me thinks I’m straight. So I don’t really need to come out as much as just clarify what the hell is going on. As here I am at age 27 and my sexual preference is seemingly still a vague, debatable, confusing, impenetrable mystery. But why? And what is it? Well, those are some big questions. Are you sure you wanna know my answers?

[YES]

Okay, well, if you say so 'cause this is a complicated and sensitive issue and when it comes to me, boy, there is a lot to unpack here and it is a total clusterfuck. So strap yourselves in and let me tell you a queer little story about a boy named Dan.

Chapter 1 – The Word

♪ When I was a young boy ♪

♪ My father ♪

Didn’t have much time for me because my conception was clearly an accident and he was a narcissistic proud man suddenly inconvenienced in the prime of his life and this emotional neglect gave me lasting problems.

Sorry that’s not all relevant right now.

I was an only child for seven years and with working parents. This meant I had to make my own fun so I was imaginative  and loud which is something that my teachers used to say quite a lot followed by, “However.” Here I am age five. Look at me. Cute, poised, sassy, turning out this photo shoot like sorry, Grandma, I stunted on this set. Are you seeing this? In almost every way, I literally peaked age five. I loved being the center of attention. People said I had an infectious happiness, that my beaming smile brought them hope and joy. People that know me are laughing right now. But a boy, in the '90s being happy and generally polite acting? Sounds kinda GAY if you ask me. Literally, masculinity was so fragile, people were so proud and scared and society so aggressive that a boy smiling!?.. appearing to be empathetic or in any way emoting was seen as a threat. How dare they laugh and feel comfortable? They must be soft and weak and girly and GAY. So basically thanks, Grandma, for raising me to be a nice child, you dick. Just kidding. That’s a joke and I told you not to watch this video because it would be rude so if you send me a disappointed text telling me you’re offended, I don’t know what to tell you. Although, now I think about it, you did make me go to church for 10 years, which in hindsight probably also didn’t help ♪ Hallelujah ♪ the issue here so. But then it was time for little Dan to go to school and this is when it  

♪ All went wrong ♪

'Cause it turns out most children, evil pieces of shit. Doesn’t matter if you try to raise a happy innocent child, throw that kid into school, aka, a literal Mad Max Battle Royale with the feral offspring of your local community. Yeah, that crap’ll be undone in about two weeks. I was six years old running around the playground pretending to be Sonic the Hedgehog or something when two brothers come up to me aged seven and eight with an unexplained aggressive look in their eye. And the younger one pushes me to the ground, kicks me in the stomach, and just says, “GAY.”

This was the first time I ever heard that word. Well, I don’t know what the heck gay means but apparently it means people kick you on the floor so that ain’t good. I didn’t know this child or give them any cause to have an opinion on me. And, actually, I never directly interacted with them again. What epic clustershit of failed parenting and general culture brought this tiny child to get angry and attack someone, then call them gay for looking like they were having fun outside. Are you okay, 1990s? And so my relationship with sexuality began.

I wasn’t looking to define myself as a child indiscriminately playing doctors and nurses with various friends until once somebody’s mum walked into a room to find three fully naked children sat on a bed sticking sellotape to each other’s butts. Yep, which I don’t recommend. Also, Jesus Christ, the poor woman that saw that. Then you get to the magic age around 10 or 11 where everybody suddenly wants to pretend they’re totally a “cool teenager” who’s doing all the drugs and the sex and the fights, totally. Boy, gay was a really popular word back then.

[[Boy] Uh, homework is gay. [Girl] Uh, my mum’s so gay. [Boy] Uh, you touched a girl, gay.]

This one little shit who I won’t name was one of the school bullies and he loved the word gay. He had it in for me and I have no idea why. You know me, Mr. Winnie the Pooh Meets Slender Man. Well, when I was 10 just Winnie the Pooh. I didn’t do nothin’ to no one ever and yet this guy used my pacifism as a punching bag where any group situation was an excuse to single me out call me gay for some reason and then make everyone else exclude me because they were scared of him. I had a girlfriend. We dated for six whole weeks. We kissed in a game of spin the bottle once by literally sucking on each other’s faces. Then she ended dumping me over speakerphone at a birthday party that everyone in my class but me was invited to but, hey. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but at this age, I understood one thing. Being gay, whatever that meant, was clearly the worst thing you could be. On a Darwinian level, I was being told, okay bitch, “Survival Code”. Don’t be this apparently. Evolution. Plot twist, this bully I think he was a bit gay because once he asked me to have a sleepover at his house and I thought was me finally getting socially accepted only for him in the middle of the night to come up and ask me, “So who’s going to be the boy and the girl?” I was an innocent smol bean who didn’t really understand what he meant because, to be honest, I didn’t actually understand get how babies were made yet. But needless to say I think he was disappointed. Wow, closeted child turns into homophobic bully. Thanks again society. But this whole primary school journey was really just an amuse-bouche for the full six-course tasting menu of suffering that would be secondary school.

I went to an all-boys school. It was a literal hellscape.  I thought it was hard making it through a school of 200 kids with two or three bullies. Try over a thousand where a clean 800 are fully psychopathic gorillas fueled by testosterone, Red Bull, and Eminem albums. Making sure that the word f- no longer means an innocent bundle of sticks or a cigarette anymore in the British lexicon. Nope, now it was a cool homophobic slur along with gay, gaylord, gayboy, puff, pufter, ponce, batty, batty boy, bum-boy, bender. Shit, this is so long. People have a lot of words for something they don’t wanna think about. Look at me in this stupid blazer. Oh, “you’ll grow into it at some point in the next four years”. Thanks, Mum. Day one, kid in form class, some stupid hedgehog-looking motherfucker side eyes me and says, “What you lookin at, puff?” First interaction at a new school. Great! My entire existence on a daily basis then becomes navigating this school like I’m in the bloody “Maze Runner” trying to avoid aggressive pricks with chode ties. And you know being verbally abused for being a nerd or a Greebo at least felt relevant to me at the time. Greebo, definitely one of my faves there and I’m sure that Korn and Slipknot would have been proud to have 12-year-old me as a fan. I kinda knew who I was in the hierarchy at that point. I was essentially a theater kid who spent all of his free time playing Runescape on the AOL browser on his mum’s PC instead of football. I accepted it. But at least I wasn’t actually this “gay thing” people kept throwing around because by now I understood a gay is a boy who fancies other boys. And to be honest I don’t really feel like I’ve ever fancied anyone before.

Then puberty happened.

Oh yeah, this is fun, tingly feelings, I smell bad. It was quite fun dribbling on this girl’s face playing Truth or Dare, maybe later we’ll go behind that bike sheds and, there I was sat in English class, my friend next to me. I watched as he delicately removes a pencil from its case. We briefly make eye contact as he flutters his long black eyelashes with a blink before staring forward. His eyes are so bright and beautiful yet they seem so sad and deep with emotion. I wish I could just understand. Oh fuck, I think I’m a bit gay. You’re telling me this whole time I actually have been the bad thing that people keep calling me? Shit!

Chapter 2 – Feelings

Oh do you hear it that faint hum, something coming from a deep, dark place too powerful to control? It’s the self-hatred. She is here and she’s only getting started. Short version, I fall hopelessly in love with a friend of mine who doesn’t feel the same way which crushes me into a million tiny pieces and years later actually it turns out he was gay the whole time. He just really specifically didn’t like me. [Double kill.] Here I am, 13, crying to evanescence alone in my bedroom feeling like there’s no point in really being alive as I’m clearly a faulty outcast person that has no place in the world. I stopped going to church with my grandma because I felt like I wasn’t really supposed to be there. Also, by this age, the whole Christianity thing didn’t really make much sense to me. And the adult services were dry AF compared to coloring in a picture of Jesus’s face at Sunday school. So other than the free tea and biscuits they gave away after the sermon, religion didn’t really have much to offer me. Damn, there was some good biscuits though. I miss that. But wait! All is not lost yet. Do you see that? A triumphant, rallying cry of guitars, stripey hoodies, and black hair dye. Emo had arrived! I swear to God, emo is one of the best things that happened to pop culture in the last 20 years. As well as inventing eyeliner and skinny jeans, a new word hit the theater, nerd, goth, band, kid corner that would change my world forever.

Bisexual. You can be normal and gay at the same time and some people think it’s cool? Well, slap a long fingerless glove on my arm and sign me up to Myspace 'cause Mum, I’m bi. It was a good term 'cause it was a catchall for anyone who felt sexually confused or curious that didn’t want to commit to something stronger which is very me. Big commitment issues. Thanks, fam. To be clear, regardless of whatever the 2006 teenagers thoughts and feelings were, being bi is valid and should not be excused away or erased by anyone. Thank you.

From this moment, I was a loud and proud raving bi to my close friends and the strangers on the internet who saw my clearly-labeled sexual preference on my Myspace page. And the emo friends I made at this time were awesome. We just used to hang and make out with each other and listen to music and drink bottles of Smirnoff Ice until we were sick on each other with no judgment. The judgment came several years later looking back at the photos that you can’t delete. So I didn’t need to tell my family or people at school anything. But the thing is with a Myspace page, anyone with an internet connection can read it. And so the rumors started spreading through my neighborhood that Dan Howell was in fact a bisexual. I had a friend in French class who one day, totally unprompted, just turned to me and said, “Hmm, yeah, I thought so. You give off a bi-vibe.” A bi-vi-, what the fuck is a bi-vibe? Great, yeah, nothing to make a 15-year-old feel self-conscious about his behavior like being told he emanates a bisexual aura. What am I supposed to do with that? Sorry that I give off mixed signals. I’m versatile. Turns out it was actually a social upgrade from being called gay all the time 'cause bisexual was a new word that only referred to sexuality so people actually had to decide how they felt about the fact I was attracted to boys. As opposed to gay which as we all understand is synonymous with bad and also implies a general threat, plague, curse/evil force that simply must be destroyed. People at school were actually almost nice to me with curiosity about it and a few of the boys that previously loved to just generically call me gay while throwing a compasses at me or something, now started to low-key flirt with me and some stuff happened. Go figure.

But then I entered the dark ages and no I’m not talking about my hair because I was never actually cool enough to commit to dying it black. As quickly as they arrived into my life, my emo friend group vanished into the night. Like the tip of an eyeliner pencil snapping or the HTML on your intricately-crafted MySpace page falling apart when the host websites of your embedded gifs die, so, too, did my social life. One had to suddenly focus on school, another moved town, two of them just fell out with each other and started hanging out with their old friends again. Well, we don’t all have back up friend groups, Lindsey! I went all in on the emos! You’re telling me I have to go back to sitting in my kitchen playing Runescape now! Thanks a lot. So for a year I literally had no friends. And this is when the bullying at school really stepped its pussy up. The things people used to say offhand to me in a corridor were now said loudly in classrooms where everybody would laugh. People used to sing songs about me being gay on the bus while my fellow nerds sat around me just stared awkwardly out of the window not wanting to get involved. People shouted things out during GCSE exams in front of the whole school and the low key pushing became punches. People used to wait for me after school just to throw things at me. Once a guy put his hand around my throat and pushed my head against a coat peg in the locker room while everyone was watching and just slapped me for five minutes. But I never reacted. I never cried or got angry or fought back 'cause then I’d be giving them what they wanted and I refused to play along. But this way of dealing with things definitely had an impact on my relationship with emotion going into life. I became a total outcast. No one wanted to come near me out of fear that they’d get targeted, too. So no one ever stood up for me. And, you know, I don’t blame them. I just resent them even to this day. No, I’m kidding, I don’t really. I do. No, I don’t. I, hmm. Teachers at the time obviously did nothing. In fact, one of them saw this happening to me and laughed 'cause you know, boys will be boys especially the gay ones that get killed by the other ones, am I right? Ah, classic lad banter. And home. See, keeping this on the topic of sexuality and not economic class, violence, addiction, and health issues, let’s just say some shit was goin’ down. I didn’t think I could ask my family for help or share my feelings about this, mainly due to my dad. Funny guy, kind of a woke hippie who did and said a lot of things I did respect but at the same time used to walk around the house saying how he hoped someone he had a problem with at work would *clears throat* “die of bum cancer.” Yep, so picked the one area to be a bigot that would further traumatize your child. Nice! This experience coming from a childhood hearing the word gay meaninglessly thrown around as an insult at home and school, in music, on TV, to then realizing I am actually kinda gay, to then very specifically being attacked for it was traumatic. The world was clearly telling me if I ever wanted to be accepted by anyone or, in my particular environment, survive, I couldn’t be gay. I was afraid of it, literally homophobic of myself. I am talking Pavlov, sunken place, North Korea-level mind alteration that made me terrified of and repulsed by this part of me. This is called internalized oppression. It’s a real thing and it’s some real shit.

Chapter 3 – Internalized Oppression

From this moment I was no longer advertising myself as bi. No, BRB deleting that Myspace real quick, xD lemme get on that Bebo. “My Chemical Romance”? No, I’m listen to what’s this, N-Dubz? Jesus Christ. I go away for the summer break and come back to school quiet and serious and fully straight. *coughs* I needed me some new friends that were a bit higher up the social ladder, you know what I’m sayin’ for security so I go ahead and join “The Inbetweeners”. Literally this group of friends, the exact middle ground between nerds and desperately wanting to be cool. And oh how desperate we were. The great thing about these friends was they knew loads of girls. So firstly, instant cool points. Secondly, if I date a girl *scoffs* super not gay. The problem with that was it’s not like everyone just forgot everything that’s been said about me and this group of friends, casually homophobic pretty much all the time and also they hung out in places near some even more aggressive and super homophobic peeps. Just full-time Runescape would have been a better in hindsight. I find myself going through the same shit at school but now voluntarily going through it at the weekends from the people that are supposed to be my friends thinking I’m doing the right thing whilst constantly telling myself I’m now totally heterosexual. So I did what many people choose to do at that point and I got a girlfriend. But this is pretty messed up because I really liked this girl. In fact, I loved her as a friend and I was genuinely attracted to her but I was so afraid of sexuality I didn’t even wanna do anything straight in case I had some weird gay panic that I was totally frigid and I led her on. And when she got pissed at me, understandably, for being a terrible boyfriend, I just felt even worse. This was someone who I liked that I was hurting and lying to but I couldn’t leave as then I’d have no armor. Beautiful irony here is having a girlfriend didn’t in any way stop the abuse 'cause remember, gay is a great all-purpose general insult. (Call someone gay today and we’ll throw in a free set of steak knives.) And when these neighborhood teens started heavy drinking and getting into drugs, things suddenly got quite scary as people joked about setting fire to a tent as I slept in it at Reading Festival. Or saying, “You know that notoriously unstable guy? Yeah, he said he’s gonna kill you next Saturday.” Awkward.

This was definitely the lowest point in my life. I just felt totally alone, confused and I deeply hated myself. I used to ask God, in case he was there, to please, just make me straight and everyone stop. But I saw no end, no escape, no way to change the world or who I was. So one evening I thought fuck it and I attempted suicide.

I say attempted, because just before it was too late I thought

“oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit what have i done what have i done fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck?”

“what will your grandma think don’t do this to her she tried her best and she loves you”

“your family aren’t total dicks and this will fuck them up can’t you just get over it surely”

“you’re gonna get to the last year of school and give up now really what was the point”

“I heard this is one of the most painful ways to die so not a great choice if I’m being blunt”

Felt kinda bad for a few days otherwise I pretended it never happened and I didn’t tell anyone, until now, literally. Hmm, I know pretty dark right, but hey spoiler things kinda worked out. I mean still gotta lot of issues but here I am. I’m so glad I failed for so many reasons, for the people in my life, for the future I would’ve wasted. The most important being that I thought I was trapped in a situation forever when in reality, the entire world I lived in and my life changed completely. I thought it was hopeless when in reality there was so much to hope for and that’s it. Time changes everything. With the lives that we have, we can try anything we’ve dreamed of. I want anyone that’s ever felt like this to realize you are never trapped. There is always hope. You just need to believe in yourself and get to the other side. So yeah school age 6 to 18, I’m gonna give that a bad Google review. The thing is I did stand out. I’ve always been a loudmouth, class clown, annoying shit. Since graduating, it turns out half the people I knew were fuckin’ gay. That group of friends I had, all lovely people now. Five of them were gay, five gays! That is statistically irregular. Oh but they flew under the radar. All I’m saying is I wish people just hated me for being annoying and immature. Leave the gays alone!

My light at the end of the tunnel was university. I was gonna get my A levels move to a new town and ghost these bitches. But I took a gap year first to earn some money which was very boring sitting at home and working at ASDA where I was not happy to help. My shift started at 5 a.m. on a Saturday. Signed up for a Twitter account to run my mouth off and then bam. “So my name is [Dan].” My YouTube story begins, a new chapter of my life to redefine. So you know what I do? Get a Formspring because nothing gives you that attention feeling like one of those anonymous question and answer websites that are inherently toxic and no one should use. And straight out of the bat bisexual Dan returns. 'Cause hey, just like Myspace, I’m only telling a few people on the internet right now. It’s not like one day I’m gonna get so many followers that random strangers and my family might see it. Wow, I had a lot fun with many different kinds of people in 2009. Let’s just say I got a lot out of my system. Got a couple of things in my system, too. Sorry.

And this is when, through the magic of the internet, I met Phil. And obviously we were more than friends but it was more than just romantic. This is someone that genuinely liked me. I trusted them. And for the first time since I was a tiny child, I actually felt safe. And the relationship we formed at that point was something that I needed in my life. We are real best friends, companions through life, like actual soulmates, not that souls are a real thing that exist. It’s so lucky to just find someone you can be that compatible with and especially to anyone that has experienced the kind of self-hatred that I have dealt with, one person accepting you can make all the difference. And I bet so many people wanna know so much more about that which, honestly, I take as a compliment. But here’s the thing. I’m somebody that wants to keep the details of my personal life private. So is Phil. I know lots of people these days, thanks to social media, want to share and monetize every aspect of their life and then as soon as something changes suddenly it’s this huge drama because everybody got invested in the story of your life like it’s a soap opera. I don’t want that. I wanna do certain things without an audience. I wanna be spontaneous. I don’t wanna feel afraid to take risks. I want to enjoy totally fucking something up and not have to post a statement about it. And if anyone thinks people really have to share these things about their life, you need to rethink your position. And look, I understand that sex is a fun and interesting thing to talk about. I get it. I am also a disgusting pervert. But the specific minutiae of who I be fuckin’, when, why, where, how long, how, uhh, I mean? Sexuality is a general fact that it can be very useful to know about a person for several reasons, but we can’t force people to disclose that either. We don’t know this person’s life story, what they’ve been through, if they haven’t told people, if they’ll lose their job, if they’re in danger. There are so many reasons someone might not be open about it. We can preach the message that being out is good, but aggressively speculating or trying to out someone is really bad. They might not be gay, in which case we’re just harassing someone and probably stereotyping. And if they are there’s gonna be a reason why they haven’t talked about it. So I don’t wanna see any responses to me finally talking about this like no one is surprised. “Dan we been knew.” Wow, you huge galaxy brain genius. What’s it like walking around with all those brain cells in there working overtime? What, you got like three in there? Don’t lose your balance, mastermind. I haven’t exactly been subtle have I? I’m an awkward, sexually ambiguous nerd. “What the fuck even is your sexuality?” That’s not the point. I’m already dead inside so it doesn’t matter here, but to me if someone’s reaction to a person coming out is just, “yeah, I knew”, they’re showing no empathy towards the issue or that person. They’re just making it about themselves like it was a fun piece of gossip they already knew. All we have to do is listen and be accepting.

So anyway back to the tale. Whilst things were looking up for Dan aged 18, things quickly got messy again. Wow, that beats the emo streak of temporary self-acceptance by like six months, nice. There was a point around 2011 where the relationship with my audience shifted from what felt like direct communication between me and individuals that just saw me as a comedy creator to communities of people that formed to talk about me when I wasn’t there. Which is fine, but for some people it was about getting generally invested in me and my real life which I thought was a bit strange 'cause inevitably like anyone who puts themself out there, some people started to really dig into my private life to find out information about me that I wasn’t ready to share. And this was around the same time that YouTubers finally started to get mainstream recognition in the British press. We had the BBC knocking at our door trying to offer Dan and Phil a radio show. From that, Dan and Phil became this entertainment duo that we could have a creative career with. And we love working together, so when all these opportunities came for Dan and Phil, we were really excited but I was also scared as people clearly knew I wasn’t straight and I hadn’t told my family that. None of my old friends knew about this, and what me and Phil had was ours and personal and yet some people were trying to get access to it for their own satisfaction. It was no longer a few people on the internet, no big deal. So I just shut down. It felt like I was back at school again, surrounded by threatening people trying to expose me for their entertainment. Most I’m sure just wanted what was best for me and I feel such genuine sadness and am sorry that I couldn’t be closer to and more truthful with the people in my life that were just trying to be nice but I wasn’t ready to deal with it at this time so I had to do something to contain it. I definitely sent some mixed messages. Some were just joking around, others were super defensive that in my panic came across like “I’m now telling everyone I’m totally straight” when all I really meant was “please fuck off and don’t invade my privacy, you creepy stalkers, thank you”. But this experience seriously triggered some PTSD in me and I was back in the dark place. I didn’t want to just disappear from the internet to escape it and throw away this creative hobby that actually started paying rent. Thanks. So I just decided to put anything to do with my sexuality in a box to come back to later as I was still processing my past and I wanted to understand my identity on my own terms and timeline and not just have it hijacked as fuel for people’s sexual fantasies or some headline in an article. And whilst we’re not exactly living in a utopia yet here on YouTube, the general internet culture only five or six years ago was a much less wholesome, progressive place as this little bubble is now. Sure, a lot of people probably would have been supportive, but there was just as much open bigotry and general toxicity 'cause people felt less accountable and it was okay to say certain things 'cause it’s just on the internet and I couldn’t handle that at the time. And, generally, I can handle a lot. I have big hands with a very wide reach for playing piano, you fucking.. get your mind out of the gutter. We can’t ask people to just put their lives on hold to address their sexuality first. If a kid dreams of being a footballer and age 18 gets signed to a club and all their dreams come true but they’re scared to come out because of the insane homophobia in that community, they shouldn’t turn it down. Yes, it’s so important to be truthful about who you are and open and proud in front of the world but it’s our society’s fault that these people are scared to say who they are. So let’s all focus on making it a welcoming place and people will come out when they are ready. So when was I ready? Well, it’s always been on my mind that I need to talk about this at some point. I couldn’t just keep going forward in my life ignoring it, not only just so I can be authentic, which is very important for general existing, but also just letting people know what kind of sexual attention I want from the world. All of it from everyone. God I’m so thirsty. And if anything motivated me, it’s the idea that I can help someone else 'cause that’s basically my whole career, isn’t it, admitting to shit that I’ve been through so you will feel better about yourselves. There we go, you’re welcome. I have a platform and a following of millions of people, many of whom I know have been through exactly what I have. And if I tell my story as painful and flip floppy and flawed as it is, I know it will mean something to someone as every time someone speaks openly about sexuality, it saves lives. I’d never met a single out gay person until I was 18. And if I had, or even just seen better representation in the media, I wouldn’t have felt so totally alone. I wouldn’t even be saying this to you now if it wasn’t for TV shows, musicians, and public figures in the last couple years reinforcing this to me. It doesn’t matter if I was living the life privately as there was still so much confusion about my feelings and fear. But things are better now, on the internet, on TV, in my real life. It’s not perfect but it feels safe enough in this space right now for me to feel confident. So thank you, sincerely, to all the brave people that came before me and to any of you that made this world seem welcoming for me. And instead of procrastinating from this by focusing on work, which was a way for me to insure my own independence and survival in case I was rejected, or just doing things for other people to take my mind off it instead of asserting my own needs, which my therapist keeps telling me is one of my biggest problems. Here I am with a fresh void of time in front of me to fuck up however I want. Now look, we all have different experiences in life. Some of us are lucky, some of us not. It just so happened that the first 18 years of my life were horrendously shit. It failed me. But we get dealt cards from the start, too. If you look at my life, I was born into this world as an able-bodied, white, cis-man in Britain which immediately gives me so much privilege in this current world and I am fully aware of how much harder making it to today could have been for me, which is why we all need to stand up for equality and social justice even if it doesn’t apply to us. No one stood up for me when it mattered the most and that almost cost me everything. So if you see a woman being harassed, a gay being threatened, someone muttering something racist, say something, do something because if you’re still or silent, the victim will just think that you are against them, too. We all have a responsibility.

This tale was just some of the stuff relating to sexuality. We all have a whole sob story if we wanna tell it but I just wanted to explain the journey of how I got to this point and overcame the obstacles that tried to block this path. And now I’ve arrived.

Chapter 4 – Labels

Okay cool story, bro, it’s answer time. What’s your answer. Whaddayalikedafuk? Here’s the thing, you want me to talk candidly about sexuality as if it’s something that I understand? I don’t know what it is, why it is. Turns out no one knows. I’ve been sitting here for years waiting for scientists to just work it out like bleep bloop. [Oh this is why and exactly how it’s different for people. There we go.] Thinking I shouldn’t run off my mouth on the internet in case my theories and opinions on varying gayness get debunked next week. Well, I waited long enough and it didn’t happen. Science, ya fucked up, you let me down. And I fully expect to have to delete this video in two weeks when you find out all the answers suddenly. Thanks a bunch. What makes someone gay or straight or all the things in between? What the ever loving fuck is gender about? This is a mess. Yet people want you to give them a word because that’s how humans communicate with words that have meanings. Which is why our disgusting species is impatient, stupid, and obsessed with labels. And this applies to everything, sexuality, gender, political identity, what obscure genre of synthwave you listen to. People just want a label that represents something they understand so they already know how to feel about you and don’t have to bother thinking. [Oh you’re a feminist well I don’t need to know anything more. Oh you’re a leftist. Oh you’re a K-pop fan but but but but.] If people just want to find a way to disagree with you or dislike you, they can refer to the label and turn off their brains. Hey, what does my label say? Huh. The issue is, especially when we start talking about the writhing mass of confusion and suffering that is sexual and gender identity, the limits of language and specific terminology become a big problem. What does being gay mean? You never thought about a boob once? What does being a man mean? You wanna be an emotionless rock rubbing raw steaks against your biceps? It’s not like humanity is all in agreement right now. I don’t like the stereotypes and drama that come with all this terminology so I’m just not gonna use it. Thing is gender identity isn’t my issue. I feel comfortable with the identity that I’ve had my whole life. Dan, a tol boy from England. But being a man means nothing to me. I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable wearing makeup or a sickening pair of heels, though I can’t even draw in a straight line so that would be a disaster. Also is anyone really comfortable wearing heels? Hmm. Icons of masculinity aren’t really a big part of my life. Might as well call me a fucking formless blob that sounds more relatable. Shout out to all my formless blobs out there, rise up. I don’t have to do anything or be anything and I personally wouldn’t feel offended if I wasn’t referred to as a he. Well, she’s feeling hungry today. Stop fucking judging me, Susan. I’m sad and I’m gonna eat this whole damn cake whether you like it or not. But anyone that has this don’t really care attitude about their gender identity is in a way privileged 'cause some people, especially trans, care a lot about their gender identity and using the correct pronouns which other people should respect. Likewise with sexuality, whilst to me the endlessly increasing list of tribes and flags being flown is a bit daunting and confusing and personally stresses me out 'cause I almost find it constrictive, some people like it. Because if you’re feelings are confusing and then you look at a word that represents something and go, “wow, that me”, it can help you realize you’re valid and find a community and that’s great. There is so much controversy around this issue and others but if we all just calm down, respect each other’s experiences and try to just be nice, reasonable people, which is a lot to ask, let’s be real, it’s quite simple. If you wanna use language to express your honest feelings and identity, that’s great and other people should respect what you say. Likewise, if you hate labels and you just wanna be a formless blob, that’s fine, too. No one should force you. The only thing that isn’t cool is telling other people what they should or should not identify as 'cause that ain’t your problem or your business, bye. This was one of the things that held me back from talking about this for years. Shit’s confusing, man. Let’s just go back to cellular reproduction by mitosis so I don’t really have to be specific. Two people that I really look up to and respect, Harry Styles and Janelle Monae, both famously say that they don’t feel the need to label it which, to be honest, is how I feel and is perfectly okay. But I get it, for me, you want a word. Oh, that’s hard, though. I’m an annoying guy. I feel uncertain specifying my sexuality in the same way I wouldn’t say I am an atheist. Who the fuck am I to say whether God does or doesn’t exist? I don’t know shit 'bout shit and neither does anyone else. I mean I think it’s unlikely in the same way I know I like DICK. But I’m not gonna pretend to have a definite answer here. Looking at my public statements is inconsistent and confusing. Looking at my personal track record through life is super confusing. And looking at the void inside my soul threatening to crush the entire universe with the force of its event horizon of misery and melodrama, well, fuck let’s close that shit up. One thing’s for sure whatever heterosexual is, I ain’t it. Really if you ask me, I don’t think anyone’s totally straight. I think there’s a lot of social and emotional issues getting in the way of yet to be understood feelings of attraction that can be very flexible. And trust me, I’ve known a lot of straight guys until a couple of drinks, some deep conversation, and lingering eye contact, and suddenly they just start leaning in. What does that make them? And am I totally gay? No. Am I slightly more gay or is it just easier for gays to hook up with each other because of societal norms. It’s not like the signs for male and female bathrooms are what I’m attracted to. I don’t care what flesh organ you have between your legs, what your hair’s like, if you’re covered in it or a fuckin’ beluga whale. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not picky. I’m easy. So am I bi or pan or poly? Well, now we’re just in a clusterfuck of defining language and I’m confused and sad and horny. This is why I personally love the word queer. I understand that some people don’t as it is a slur but as someone that’s been the target of it several times throughout my life I’m up for some reclamation. It’s like recycling. The definition makes sense because until society is equal with all sexual and gender identifies, it is literally strange from a conventional viewpoint plus it’s better than a super long acronym, it’s inclusive of everyone and therefore great for formless blobs. There we go, an identity I feel comfortable with. A highly-strung, depressed queer praying for a giant meteor to hurry up and finally eradicate humanity. LMAO, yeet!

But to come full circle, I know that even today, deep in my heart the word gay scares me because that’s how I’ve been conditioned my whole life. So, you know what? Fuck the literal definition and the scientific definition and what everyone thinks. I finally have to just confront and accept this.

I’m gay.

Oh look, didn’t spontaneously fucking combust. Well, there we go, that was a lot of stress about nothing, wasn’t it? Bloody hell. So yup, I’m here, I’m queer, and don’t worry I’m still filled with existential fear.

WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER WE’RE FILLED WITH EXISTENTIAL FEAR.

Chapter 5 – Fear

Even though I’m at this current place, there is still so much I’m afraid of and this has taken months to make because of that. Telling my family was a big fear. I have problems connecting with them emotionally because reasons. So I only came out to them this month and if it didn’t go well, as I’m now the independent adult that I fought so hard to be, I was ready to cut them off like the bottom of a sweater turning into a seasonal crop. But I didn’t have to, love you. I didn’t think they’d reject me these days but coming out is still a surprise. It changes things. And I’m a pretty awkward person generally but the idea of just dropping this in conversation in front of them all terrified me. And I tried several times this year to do it but I just couldn’t. So you know how I finally came out to my family? E-mail. Yep, I literally just sent them an e-mail saying and I quote,

“Hello gang. I’ve been meaning to talk to you all for a while, something quite important that should be disclosed at some point. I thought I would around Christmas, then Mum’s birthday, then last Easter Sunday, etc., but every time I meant to, I either felt like I would ruin the mood of the day or I just felt awkward and didn’t want to. So I decided just to email you all instead which is really inappropriate and just weird but that somehow seems appropriate for me and at least I’ll just finally say it.

Basically I’m gay.”

Yup. It was just getting ridiculous so I thought screw it and hey, it worked. Turns out my remaining family, pretty chill bunch of people. Even my Christian grandma said this,

“We love you for being you. It must be a great relief to finally acknowledge who you are. Popsie and I just want you to be happy. People are born as they are and have no say in it. I hope that now you will feel free to live your life as you want with no pretense.”

Aw.

“Don’t forget the iPad.”

Yes, I said I’d give her my old iPad. She mainly cares about that I thing. Wasn’t so sure when I was 17 but it went well now and I know that makes me lucky but, hey, it shows that times change. As for the other people in my life, obviously all the friends I have now are cool. If anyone in my life I’ve ever known isn’t cool with it then I don’t care. And sure here online there might be a few incredibly lost bigots following me or just some classic trolls who I think should get fucked. No, like literally, I think you should try it. You’ll probably enjoy it and you might learn something about yourself. Inevitably some of you watching this might have a weird reaction if you just feel like it was a shock or you feel hurt that I kept it from you. But I feel like I explained myself reasonably here and going forward I can’t have any space for that, sorry. I’ve come to terms with who I am and now you have to, too, ha. Funnily enough straight up homophobia is probably the one thing I’m not that afraid of, because I just don’t agree so it doesn’t hold much emotional power over me but you bet I’m opening myself up to all new kinds of in real life and international discrimination now which is fun. But one of the other big fears holding me back was, honestly, that I wouldn’t be accepted by the community. I know that it’s a big pride flag covering a lot of ground and even the idea of it and certainly most of it is amazing. But there is a lot of drama within it right now especially on the internet. You’ve got Grindr gays arguing about how manly gays should be, bi’s getting ignored, trans people, especially of color, not being historically appreciated, acephobia, fucking SWERFs and TERFs. No thank you. So even though they are my people, I know some of them will have problems with something. And even then, just seeing such a loud and proud, strong and opinionated group of people celebrating something just intimidates a smol introvert such as myself. And in my mind if these people don’t accept me because I’m not being definitive enough or I took too long then I almost feel like I’ll be alone all over again, and this is a fear that a lot of people have honestly. But I’m a nice guy and I’m trying my best so you better be welcoming, you bunch of fuckin’ queers. And obviously with the topic of sexuality, it doesn’t matter where we are or how far you think we’ve come, by merely mentioning it, I will be opening up a primordial box of bullshit which will include every single stupid argument and question since the dawn of time. [It’s not natural.] There’s gay animals. [Adam and Steve.] That’s based on a story and the protagonist that arrives later probably doesn’t agree with you. [Why can’t we have straight pride?] I could spend 10 hours on all the classic crap and people would still be asking the same things. This being posted on the internet, my hopes are so incredibly low, lower than my self-esteem.  Wow, that is unhealthy. I need to stop doing that. This video is about internalized oppression and the problems of language. I’m not here to pontificate on every topic tangentially related to the entire concept of gayness. *ASMR voice*: Pontificate on every topic tangentially related to the concept of gayness.  

There’s other humans and all the time in the world left for that. The time in the world coincidentally being not much longer. Climate change LMAO. But I had to tell my story so people would understand me and these things. Why coming out is still a big deal because queer people are often invisible and suffering until they have to do it. Some people grow up in supportive environments and it’s a positive experience. But more likely, especially around the world outside of the big cities, it isn’t. This is not a fight that is anywhere near over. Even in Britain today people are debating whether children should be taught to be accepting of sexual and gender identity in school.

Queer people exist. Choosing not to accept them is not an option.

To anyone watching this that isn’t out, it’s okay. You’re okay. You were born this way, it’s right, and anyone that has a problem with it is wrong. Based on your circumstance, you might not feel ready to tell people yet or that it’s safe and that’s fine, too. Just know that living your truth, with pride, is the way to be happy. You are valid. It gets so much better. And the future is clear. It’s pretty queer.

So there we go. Now I can proceed authentically in my life with full disclosure. Cute mutuals know to slide into the DMs. And you can all fuck off and leave me alone.

Bye.

[lauraells]

So, I decided to write the fic myself

I mean, it was half written anyways

You’re thirty-three when you shoot yourself in the head on the rooftop of St. Bart’s hospital. You’ve been holding London by the balls for almost ten years. Rich Brook may have been the (temporary) downfall of Sherlock Holmes, but he did more damage than you anticipated.

Seb has been picking up the slack over the last two years. He thinks that you can’t see the consequences of your obsession, but Seb can be so annoyingly human sometimes. You see everything. It was always going to end like this. But you didn’t anticipate the effect it would have on Seb. He’s surprised you again. Despite everything, he still loves you. He can be so annoyingly human sometimes.

The story can’t pick up again for another five years. You need to distance yourself from your kingdom. The stories of your reign need time to become legends. And you just know Seb is going to hold a grudge about this, he always did have trouble seeing the whole picture.

So, you have five years to spare. Five years to disappear into somebody else, somebody less. It’s all planned out, you’re going to Allen Hall. Maybe you should leave London, but people are so boring and this is the last place they’ll look for you. Seb won’t want to stick around and someone needs to keep an eye of things. Even if it is the distant eye of a broken man determined to change his life by going to seminary and becoming a priest. That really is the last place anyone would look for you.

You enter seminary and it quickly becomes a bit of a game. You’re thirty-three, older than the other prospective priests but you’re used to being an outsider. So, you push boundaries. You never paid them any mind before, why should you start now? You swear more than is acceptable, you talk about your alcoholic parents, you even make up a pedophile brother. (Seb would love that one. You’ll have to tell him about the silence that follows whenever you drop that tidbit). But like all games, you grow weary of this one. Everyone is so fucking predictable. You wish you could just sleep through the next five years.

At long last you're ordained. You do your six months as a deacon and every day you contemplate stabbing the priest in the face. He’s an old fucker. Probably wouldn’t live much longer even if you weren’t there to speed things along with a touch of aconite. He had a weak heart an no one questions the heart attack he suffers the week before your parish assignment comes through. Asking you to take over is only logical.

Things get a bit more interesting after that. Pam really keeps you on your toes, she’s always there when you turn around – you contemplate getting a little bell for her to wear around her neck. The parishioners are a bit of fun. You revisit your game from seminary – push boundaries just to see how far you can push them. And then this batty woman comes and ask you to be the priest at her wedding to the father of her godchildren. You leap at the chance to join them for dinner and that’s when you meet her. There’s something just a bit...off with her. She’s resonating at a different frequency than everyone else – an outsider, like you but not like you.

When you meet her at the restaurant she asks if you’re a real priest; she surprises you. You can count on one finger the number of people who have done that. Yes, you say, I’m a real priest. But, darling, you doesn’t say, I’m so much more.

She’s good, but no one is as good at wearing a mask as you. You read her easily, unconsciously, the mask falling away as if it were never there. There’s so much grief and fear and guilt and loneliness – it’s intoxicating. The chaos she brings would be a work of art, were it intentional. You want to harness it, own it, teach her to wield it like a knife. But that won’t work. She doesn’t mean for any of it to happen – it’s her sister who had the miscarriage, obviously, and the ensuing violence simply the result of sisterly affection. But, God, who gives someone a voucher for counseling? (That’s another thing you’ll have to tell Seb about – that list is starting to get long.)

There are these moments when she slips away. You don’t know where she goes, don’t see the destination. That intrigues you more than it should. It’s more of a testament about your life these last few years than it is of her. But where is she going? It infuriates you that you can’t figure it out.

You have time, and you know how this ends, but everyone else is so very boring; you don’t care that she’ll be just as boring afterwards. You’re exile is nearly over and you’ve missed making the world dance for you. She falls for you easily, so ready to believe how vulnerable and how human you are. It’s so predictable and so beautiful and so fun – the most fun you’ve had since before the trial. (Before you began to lose yourself in Rich Brook and before you began distancing yourself from Seb.) You know how this ends, but why shouldn’t you have your fun?

You’re not going to have sex, you tell her in the back garden, drinking those disgusting canned G&Ts from M&S. That’s a lie, but you almost wish it weren’t. You don’t really like sex – this stint as a priest is hardly your first go at celibacy. Seb is the exception, of course, but that has more to do with Seb than you. And if there is anyone to blame for this mess, it’s Seb. You find yourself furious at him for turning you into such a romantic idiot. You’re Jim Moriarty – you don’t love, you own. But you’re not Jim Moriarty – Jim died almost five years ago and it’s not yet time for him to return. Right now, you’re the broken priest with the broken girl falling in love with you. It’s as hilarious as it is annoying.

And maybe it’s out of spite, or maybe it’s out of boredom, but you’re starting to get a bit tired of this charade. You pry a bit too much, pick at the wounds she tries so hard to hide, and kicks you out of her little cafe. It won’t last, you know, and it doesn’t. She’s runs back to you later the same night. You act the tipsy fool and convince her to bare her soul to you in the confessional. You tell her to kneel and for a second, you’re Jim Moriarty again – back on your throne with genuflecting subjects before you. You revel in her discomfort and to stop yourself from laughing you kneel down and kiss her. It really is luck that brings the painting crashing down to the ground.

You fuck her a few nights later. It’s not your worst sexual experience, but she’s not Seb. She’s suffocates you with her emotions and you’re honestly surprised you can even perform under these conditions. She’s stopped slipping away quite as much when she’s with you. And isn’t that interesting? And just a tiny bit disappointing?

You notice it at the wedding – she’s still out of step with everyone around her, but it’s a bit less obvious now. And you knew this would happen, but still, your so disappointed. She’s so ordinary now.

You leave, pretend to be all heartbroken about it, pretend to love her. You even manage to shed a few tears. But you have an empire to reclaim, a right hand to whip into shape, and a pair of brothers to destroy once and for all.

You leave, because that’s what people do.

[gloriadenton]

⭐ for Tomorrow's Lovers Will Be Found please :)

Yesssssss, I loved writing this fic!

- Inspired by scioscribe’s totally wonderful Trick or Treat prompt for hurt/comfort after One-Eyed Jack’s turning into something tender and romantic. I absolutely love how Audrey and Cooper act around each other after One-Eyed Jack’s, how fragile and tender and careful everything feels, and I feel like it works so well as a moment in time for something to happen between them. It was so much fun to write for this part of s2.

- The title is from “50s” by House of Wolves (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j0WtwlDwJA), a profound Audrey jam that I found through this 8tracks: https://8tracks.com/seaswallowme/kiss-me-like-it-s-the-fifties

- (Other tracks I had on repeat: Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For by Nick Cave, Lord Knows Best by Dirty Beaches, Fire to the Stars by Angelo Badalamenti, Fever by Meiko.)

- I really liked the idea of a first time/getting-together fic set as a coda to “Lonely Souls,” both for the emotional intensity and because Cooper’s very open to following mystic directives. I had the idea that one way for him to get past the high school issue would be for him to feel like he has permission to think of a relationship with Audrey as part of the magic, intuitive, mysterious side of his life, where he stops worrying about external codes of ethics and lets himself try to do good in other ways.

- Also it meant I could write an opening with Margaret, and I love their whole dynamic so much – how respectful Cooper is with her, and how she has to tell him when to be patient and listen sometimes. (And as a sidebar, I totally think Margaret would appreciate Audrey and Cooper as a couple: they’re maybe the only two people weird and otherworldly enough to match her and her husband, and somebody has to be that couple.)

- I tried to ease myself into Cooper’s POV with something vaguely like the cadence of his Diane tapes, but still wanted it to be a little more skewed and strange than his normal observations on evidence, so that’s when I had the idea of him reading the time from the beer bottles outside the Roadhouse.

- I love how much Cooper touches Audrey during and after the rescue from One-Eyed Jack’s, so I had to sneak in a reference to it when he sees her in the Timber Room.

- I’m low-key obsessed with One-Eyed Jack’s and the Black Lodge as mirrors of each other, and I love the idea that Audrey’s kind of come back from the underworld in a way that we usually associate with Cooper. (Also, I love how Audrey totally mythologizes herself with the Little Red Riding Hood story at One-Eyed Jack’s, hence “the girl with the pomegranates.”)

- I worried so much about the dialogue for this scene, oh my god. (I feel like I’m profoundly not a dialogue writer, so that’s always something that worries me, plus all of Audrey and Cooper’s conversations are so iconic and weird and beautiful.)

- I love the noir-typical imagery that comes with Twin Peaks. I really enjoyed trying to tap into that a little with lines like “a rotary dial to nowhere.”

- Also, I love that scene Audrey has with one of the other girls at One-Eyed Jack’s before she sees Battis (who I think is also the girl who comes onto Cooper when he’s undercover?), and I love the idea of her talking to them some more. I wanted it to be a little like a continuation of her relationship with Laura.

- I really, really love writing them kiss. I’m always weak for old Hollywood imagery, so I tried to get a kind of… lush 1940s credits feel with the description of the powered silk in her lipstick.

- I also spent a lot of time watching Hays Code era kisses and trying to figure out what makes some of them look so filthy and romantic for when they kiss again later.

- I love how awfulmazing the decorations in Cooper’s room are, and how very Ben Horne they are (there’s deer hooves holding up a decorative shotgun!) and I wanted to show Cooper being very careful and tender and considerate of Audrey as a counterpoint to the predatory atmosphere that Ben’s effectively set up around them.

- It’s my diehard headcanon that both of them learned to kiss from the movies. (Or moreso that both of them learned most of their social interactions from the movies. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH OKAY.)

- I love how thorough and precise Cooper is about everything, and I loved trying to write ways for this to come across during sex as well.

- I also really wanted to focus on Audrey’s sexual agency, how she has really intense ideas and desires even if she hasn’t had any practical experience.

- Cooper needs to always go down on her. That’s my considered opinion.

- I wanted to fit in so much more detail and injury porn when Cooper gets undressed, but then the deadline snuck up on me. NEXT TIME.

- I don’t know if it should have been an author’s note at the end, because I tried to keep their afterglow talk kind of canon-typical levels of oblique, but: the song they’re talking about is “Don’t Smoke in Bed.” I really liked trying to write a moment for them just as Audrey starts to become a part of Cooper’s life, so that’s where the discography for Diane came from.

- And just. DARLINGS. They’re one of my OTPs to the point where I feel like it’s very difficult to do them justice in fic, but it felt so good to post something for them, and I can’t wait to write them again.

[joannalannister]

Daenerys Targaryen & JFK

“...let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. 

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”       --President Kennedy's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

“Shall we begin?”      --Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones 7x01

This post was inspired by a Dany quote from the show, but imma do what I usually do with the show, which is project my book!feelings all over it. This post is not intended to be a commentary about the show**, it’s about the books.

**There is one other Dany quote from the show that I intend to comment on below, but only because I feel it ties into the above JFK quote, in terms of ASOIAF themes and Dany’s book!characterization.

I’ve been thinking about this since the summer, when I first saw show!Dany trailing her hand lovingly over the Painted Table, over the hills and valleys, the rivers and mountains, places she’d heard about her whole life. A quote from A Game of Thrones was playing over that scene in my mind:

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. 

And when Dany went to stand at the head of that table, it was one of the only times in season 7 where I felt I caught a glimpse of things to come in the books. A pale shadow of GRRM’s Westeros, to be sure, but I could see it. 

Tiny, slender 16-year-old Daenerys, her hair shining like molten silver in the gloom of the Stone Drum. Daenerys, standing where Aegon the Conqueror had once stood, at the head of a great painted table stretching away from her into darkness, as a great Night falls over the continent. And this table! A table -- a map of Westeros -- so large that, if stood upright, it would be over five stories high. GRRM’s Westeros has such grandeur, “like in the great stories [...]. The ones that really mattered.”

(Like, I don’t think Dany would be in that special seat where Dragonstone is located on the map, I think GRRM would deliberately put her at the head of the table, beyond the Wall, foreshadowing her true destination.)

I have no idea what wondrous and highly quotable things GRRM would have Dany say and think while standing there. But that question show!Dany asked -- “Shall we begin?” -- that question captured the essence of it for me. 

And you’re all gonna think I’m lame, but my mind jumped to President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, to that similar line, “let us begin.” And no, I don’t claim the showrunners intended this parallel between Dany and JFK, and tbh I don’t care what they intended, but I feel like it’s an apt comparison when talking about GRRM’s Dany. 

(GRRM has spoken very highly of the Kennedys, saying on his livejournal: “They were men like any other, not plaster saints, and had their share of failures and mistakes. But they fought the good fight, and left the world a better place than they found it, and no more can be asked of any man.)

I see Dany as a dark horse in the race for the Iron Throne, similar to JFK’s unexpected win in 1960. More importantly, though, I see Daenerys as a reformer, as someone young and vibrant who wants to shake up the Old Guard and change the world. 

And like, I’ve said this before, but Westeros is currently without justice, without peace, without the rule of law. It’s a place where the Lannisters can enact a dwarf genocide with no one to stop them. Where no one speaks for the smallfolk, where families’ ancestral homes can be seized and sacked, where murder goes unpunished, where a Mengele-esque mad scientist runs free. 

And those are the kinds of things that Dany stands against:

“Justice . . . that's what kings are for." --Daenerys, ASOS

She values “peace, prosperity, and justice” while a lot of the people in charge of Westeros right now value vengeance. And sure, Dany obviously doesn’t always get these things right every time, and she makes mistakes, but she’s fighting to make the world a better place.

Daenerys cares about people. When most nobles in Westeros feel little or nothing for people of low birth, Dany raises the lowborn up and gives them a place at her side and on her councils. Think of Missandei, Grey Worm, her handmaids. 

Dany’s outlook is more radical imo than Arya befriending prostitutes, or Stannis raising Davos to a lordship -- which are both good and admirable acts -- because Dany goes further. Dany wants to get rid of this whole system that grinds the lowborn to dust under the indifferent heel of the mighty. Just consider how GRRM wrote Dany’s attitude toward the tokar: “It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work. The tokar was a master’s garment, a sign of wealth and power. Dany had wanted to ban [it.]” 

She wants to bring change. She wants to stop the abuse of power, and help people. 

It’s as if Westeros and Essos both have already been under a Long Night of dehumanization, one created not by the Others, but simply by other people. And when Daenerys takes that torch from her bloodrider’s hand and lights the pyre that night in AGOT, she’s lighting the world on fire. 

And it’s a good fire, my friends. It’s this kind of fire, the kind that gets passed around, and that makes your heart swell to see it:

It’s the kind of fire that rallies people to Daenerys like iron to a lodestone, and it’s what makes cynical people disparage Dany as a “Mary Sue” (whatever that is) when she gains followers. It’s the kind of fire that makes the Widow of the Waterfront dare to dream. It’s the kind of fire that gives Tyrion purpose and direction in the darkest depths of his depression. It’s a fire of hope: “...and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.”

Daenerys was the first spark in the forging of a brighter world. 

Light it up, girl.

(And while we’re talking about lighting fires, just FYI, I really fuckin’ hope Dany burns Randyll Tarly in TWOW, because he is a horrible person who represents everything that is wrong with the current Westerosi system. In GRRM’s early novel, Armageddon Rag, there is literally the prototype of Randyll Tarly, who GRRM describes on the page as a “fascist pig”. Burn him, Dany. And somebody necromance Tywin so she can burn him too, because only one death wasn’t enough for that bastard.) 

.

So when I heard “Shall we begin?,” Kennedy’s words echoed in my mind. “Let us begin.” Let us have “a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.” 

“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?" --Daenerys, ASOS

“Peace is my desire.“ --Daenerys, ADWD

Kennedy considered “tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself” to be the “common enemies of man” and it’s these things that Dany is fighting against. It’s this type of stuff that ASOIAF is all about imo. (It fascinates me to consider things like the pale mare in the context of this speech that GRRM grew up with.) 

But unlike Kennedy’s, Dany’s words were a question. An invitation, the way ASOIAF is an invitation: 

A Song of Ice and Fire [rubs] our faces in the reactionary brutality of its world, in the hope that we’ll see it more clearly, and fight it more fiercely, in the world we see when we look up again. [x]

I think I’ve said this before, but ASOIAF is the kind of work that requests audience participation. It doesn’t want you to remain passive. “Rage,” it commands, “rage against the dying of the light.” 

So I loved those three little words. Dany looks straight at the camera, straight at us, and she asks us, “Shall we begin?” 

“...let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.”

A new endeavor. A new world of law. Not a new balance of power. 

I said up above that Dany wants to get rid of this whole system that grinds the lowborn to dust under the indifferent heel of the mighty. 

She doesn’t want simply a new balance of power. She wants a world of laws, of justice, of peace.

Did you agree with me when I said that stuff above, about book!Daenerys? 

Because Dany says something similar in the show:

“Lannister, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell, they’re all just spokes on a wheel. This one’s on top, then that one’s on top, and on and on it spins, crushing those on the ground. I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”

And, like, ok, this is not my favorite show quote, and I don’t like talking about the show, but people use this quote to condemn Dany (even book!Dany) for not wanting to create a democracy or a constitutional monarchy in Westeros (and no one demands a democracy of the other (male) contenders for the Iron Throne). (I have #receipts on this fandom, just send me an ask.) 

Quoting from the book, “Mastering the Game of Thrones” by Battis and Johnston, it gives historical background and analysis to this wheel quote:

If Martin is the god of the text, he is not a benevolent deity seeking to punish evil, reward the good, or console his faithful readers. His characters’ lives are unpredictable, violent, and often brief, and beloved figures quickly fall from happiness and security to suffer betrayal, maiming, illness, and death. In the middle ages and Renaissance, such downfalls were often subscribed to Fortuna, whose wheel pulled men up to success and tossed them down again in failure. Fortune, like Providence, is a guiding force whose motion is inevitable. Her effects, however, were unpredictable; how quickly her wheel might turn or how high or low it threw those caught on it could not be foreseen. Unlike providence, Fortune does not seek to punish ill or reward good; her only motivation is movement, her only constant change itself.

In both the books and the show, Daenerys wants to punish wrongdoers and reward good. She wants justice. Justice is not compatible with this concept of Fortune’s Wheel, hence the “breaking the wheel” line on the show. The “wheel” speech is where she literally says on the show that she doesn’t want the little people crushed by the nobility’s political machinations. (It’s reminiscent of Varys’s line, “Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?”)

Dany doesn’t want people to live merely at the whim of a tyrannical ruler. That’s no way for people to live, always uncertain whether or not they have the royal favor of the person currently at the top of the “wheel”, like when Cersei throws Falyse to Qyburn, who experiments on Falyse and murders her. 

Or like when Cersei approves of people bringing her the heads of people with dwarfism. 

Or when the Tyrells, while clawing their way to the top, throw Sansa and Tyrion under the bus. 

These are the types of things that Dany wants to stop (“break”), because life is not a zero-sum game, no matter how much Cersei would like us all to believe that “you win or you die” is the way the world works. Absolutist views like Cersei’s, where you’re either on top of the world or crushed underneath it, leave no room for the kindness and compassion and love that GRRM advocates in every chapter. That’s why people like Cersei are wrong, and why Dany will cast her down in the books. 

The entire time, books and show, the Dany I’ve seen and read wants to change how the world works, and create something bold and revolutionary. 

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

This was the other reason that Dany’s “Shall we begin?” jumped out at me, because I knew what came before JFK’s “let us begin” in his speech, and I knew what came after in 1963.

In all the GRRM books and stories I’ve read, he has this tendency to leave a lot of things unfinished. Not in the sense that TWOW is currently unfinished as of January 2018, but in the sense that ... the worlds he creates go on without us, and often without the characters we love. There are things left undone at the end GRRM’s stories. 

Because, like, obviously I don’t know how ASOIAF is going to end, but I strongly believe that Dany sacrifices herself to save the world. (Like a president dying while serving his country?)

“All this will not be finished [...] But let us begin.”

For example, I get the sense that we’ll never see things all neatly wrapped up in Meereen, or see slavery completely gone from Essos. But Dany set it all in motion. Let us begin. She was the spark, and it’s now up to the people of Volantis, Lys, Myr, everywhere to fan the flames and keep them alive, even after Dany is gone. 

I was saying this in another post, that there’s a Romanticism to Dany, and in a way that’s similar to the Romantic-capital-R fairy tale attached to Kennedy and the “Camelot Era”. I’m just gonna quote myself (and Steven again) cuz I liked what I said the first time:

[...] “Coming out of the tradition of chivalric romance - where the point was about the purity and intensity of longing *from afar* not its consummation, which threatened the social order and had to be punished with a tragic end - a lot of the classic romances are cases of “star-crossed” love”. Steven cites classic examples of Guinevere and Lancelot, Tritan and Isolde, and Romeo and Juliet. Dare I add Dany and Westeros? The intense longing from afar, the threats to the social order, what I suspect will be a tragic end?

[...] I believe Dany would give everything for the people of Westeros, for the people of the world, that she would forsake her heart’s desire, her lifelong goal … that she would tear out her own heart for Westeros, and not expect to get it back, if only to keep her people safe … 

[post]

“...and it has been saved, but not for me.”

And after Dany dies -- if Dany dies -- it’ll be up to other people to pick up the pieces of Westeros and rebuild. But I don’t think Reconstruction is something we’ll ever see in Westeros. Like I said, GRRM tends to let his stories go on without us. 

.

Dany reminds me of the heroes in the big fantasy stories: Frodo from LOTR, or King Arthur from The Once and Future King (who Jackie Kennedy was arguably trying to build JFK’s legacy around with the “Camelot” comparison -- and I believe GRRM was a T.H. White fan? But I don’t remember where I read that), etc. Anyways. The Fantasy Hero often leaves us in the end, and it becomes time to stand or fall on our own as we turn the last page. 

But that’s what I think some of the best Fantasy stories are about: teaching us to stand. To hold. 

“I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.“      --The Lord of the Rings movies

.

wow ok that was a long post, sorry. idk man. those three words just gave me a lot of feelings. I’m sorta afraid now what TWOW’s gonna do to me because I think it’s gonna be a lot longer than just three words

im not gonna go back up to the top and read over this mind dump so i hope that made sense.

[the-fuck-rika-association]

It's bitching time. I can only handle so much of Yoosung Kim's immaturity before I reach my limit. Under cut because I'm not sure if this is going to be long or not. Screenshots provided for context & to show what an ass he's being.

        His first problem, but not his only one, is that he treats his mother like crap. She hasn't done anything wrong technically speaking. She's just trying to look out for him like a mother should, she's putting his own requirements and needs, as well as his mental health, over any possible questions she has about Rika. Instead of obsessing over her like Yoosung, she's trying to make sure that her son gets the help that he needs an order to recover, considering she knows he's been depressed ever since she died. And he is, apparently, disappointed in her... Because she wants to look out for him and she's worried over him instead of asking questions about his dead cousin. He is mad at her for trying to get him to go to counseling because he thinks she's trying to make him forget about things, when all she's trying to do is get him to stop obsessing over things, and try to get him some professional help for his depression.

        I could go on to more topics as to why I dislike him, but right now I'm just going to focus on this. Although I will also mention that, although he is very far from perfect, he treats V like crap too, saying he doesn't care about him and blaming everything on him, despite he has been trying.

        This is not the only time he has treated his mother poorly, he treats her poorly in his own route, and I believe in sevens or Jumin's. This is a spoiler for his route, so if you haven't played it and are planning to, this is your chance to turn back.

        And his route, it gets to the point where his mother literally has to come over to his apartment and take care of him as though he is still a child despite he isn't. It is even mentioned that she lost weight while she was there, and that she was sick recently. And he didn't know any of this because he never bothered to give his mother a phone call. He ignores his mother any chance that he gets, and because of this, he didn't know that she was sick recently. He claims that nobody understands him, which is about the most emo thing you can fucking do. Even I wasn't that bad when I was being an edgy teenager who swore that my parents were out to get me.

        Sometimes his mother can be a little strict, But really isn't that how moms are? Not to mention this game takes place in South Korea, which is a very conservative country. So his mother is bound to be old-fashioned. But she makes it very obvious that she loves her son and that she's trying to look out for him and take care of him. She's doing what a mother should, which is looking out for her son and his needs. But he's completely ignoring that And instead trying to demonize her because of it. And when Zen tries to step in, he tries to bring up Zen's lifestyle, despite Zen is a grown man who lives on his own and pays his own bills and works. Yoosung is only living away while at college, technically speaking he still lives at home, his parents still pay his way. Zen has been living on his own since he was a teenager, he has his own place, he pays his own bills and taxes, and he has a job. He is literally an adult. Yoosung is only a legal adult.

        He whines and complains about every little thing, and then when somebody points it out, he gets upset and offended that he's being called out on his immature Behavior. he even gets upset whenever you mention that he's treating his mother poorly and that she is only trying to look out for him. he doesn't even seem to treat her with some basic respect at this point, all because she is worrying more over him then she is his cousin that she was never close to. he is her son, and he is still alive. Therefore, he takes top priority to her. That's how mothers are. she's not being selfish because she isn't questioning like he is, she's being a mother Because she's just trying to take care of him in a time of distress & mourning.

        She wants him to seek counseling, he thinks she's trying to make him forget about everything. All she's trying to do though is get him the help that he needs for his depression. And that's saying a lot considering, again, this game is based in South Korea, made by Korean people. And if you guys didn't know, mental health hasn't taken very seriously in Korea. It's seen as very taboo.

Tl;Dr: he is like 19 right now; he's acting like a bratty child, and treating his mother like shit despite her concerns over him. And it's driving me fucking batty.

[newstfionline]

Meet the tutors of the ultra-rich

David Batty, The Guardian, 13 Mar 2018

Early one summer morning some years ago, Nathaniel Hannan was confronted by one of his students brandishing an antique Colt six-shooter. The private tutor had been hired by the young boy’s super-wealthy New York parents to ensure that his academic performance befitted the family’s elite social circle. Fortunately the tutor, who had been preparing a Latin lesson at one of the family’s homes, owned a revolver similar to the one now pointed at him and noticed that it was not fully cocked, meaning the gun could not be fired immediately.

“He seemed to be under the delusion that he was a gang member taking revenge upon me for a drug deal gone bad,” Hannan says of the boy, who he says had mental health problems. “I managed to handle the situation with a minimum of physical violence. I grabbed the barrel towards the ceiling and disarmed him.”

The tutor recognised the weapon, famously used by the US cavalry in the old west, as part of a collection on display in the family home. When Hannan explained what had happened to the boy’s father, the man “sort of shrugged and asked if I wanted combat pay”. “There were no penalties to the son,” Hannan recalls. “The father did, however, stop keeping the gun on display and I took the bullets out and kept them.” Some weeks later, Hannan had to disarm the boy again after he held a knife to the tutor’s throat. But the tutor stresses that this was the only one of his five long-term posts with super-rich families over the past 10 years where he had to deal with such extreme behaviour.

His experience is untypical for the British tuition industry which, according to the Tutors’ Association, is worth around £2bn a year. The majority of families who hire tutors in Britain are middle-class parents, with students often receiving additional lessons in the evening or at the weekend to help with schoolwork or grammar school entrance exams. But a handful of firms in London and the home counties also provide tutors for the super-rich, who account for about 10-25% of their clients and can pay between £50,000 and £70,000, or more, a year. One, Tutors International, says almost all its clients are high or ultra-high net-worth families.

Hannan, who works for the Oxford-based company, may have encountered only one gun-toting pupil, but the Tutors International founder Adam Caller says his staff have had to deal with incidents of self-harm, child abandonment and threats of violence. He once arranged to surreptitiously remove another tutor from her placement in the western US after a boy pulled a knife on her. “The father didn’t think it was a problem but she was scared for her life. We had to sneak her out of the house when the father was at the bakery, which he went to every morning. The police waited at the entrance to the property and escorted her to a plane.”

Caller believes that such incidents reflect the increasingly complex and exhausting demands tutors face while living with uber-wealthy families. In the past four months, these pressures have pushed the company’s top salaries to about $250,000 (£180,000) a year. “By far the greatest rise in the highly paid jobs is coming from Asia,” he says. “We’ll be earning more than $1m in revenue from four tutors in Hong Kong this year.”

In the past, the toughest roles might involve tutoring a child in up to 15 GCSEs, but now tutors are routinely required to be fluent and teach in two or three languages, from French to Russian and Mandarin Chinese, and to create a lesson programme suited to school curriculums in different countries. Some of the best-paid roles also involve addressing learning difficulties, mental health problems and other special needs: Hannan once worked with a young heir who had suffered a brain injury in a motorcycle accident. Others require additional work: the company has a job advertised in Florida, where the tutor will need to act as a personal assistant and project manager for the family, overseeing the rebuilding of their main residence, which was badly damaged by Hurricane Irma.

However, the mere fact that the family has such wealth and privilege can be the root of their children’s problems, says Caller. Some of these families “don’t work very well because they’re so rich”, he explains. For example, they never have to be on time for a flight, because they own a private jet. “The children grow up without any consequences for their lack of responsibility,” he says. Some of them also feel that “if they put effort into something, they won’t do any better than if they didn’t. They’ve got nothing to work for.”

One role currently advertised involves working with a 12-year-old Japanese boy, whose relationship with his parents is described as “toxic”. The advert states: “He frequently ferments [sic] trouble between himself and his schools. His access to the family wealth has led to his ability effectively to ‘buy’ friends, and … it is unclear whether he has any real friends at all. Over the years, the student has come to rely on his father’s money to solve all sorts of problems.”

The job, which has a minimum salary of $225,000 (£162,000), or $300,000 (£216,000) for a couple, may require moving with the boy to the US and being on call at all times: “The successful candidate will have to work as a tutor, mentor, guide and friend, and in some ways a surrogate parent.”

Another of Hannan’s former clients, who does not want to be named, says that she and her financier husband hired a tutor to mentor their son, who has Tourette’s syndrome. “The only thing he found that calmed it down was marijuana,” she says, “so he probably started smoking a bit too much. He was feeling very down, so it was a struggle to get him up in the morning and get him to class. That was when we realised we needed to intervene.” Their first step was to send the teenager to a therapeutic wilderness camp, which tackles addiction, mental health and behavioural issues in a calming natural environment. “It took him away from other kids who had high anxiety and other issues. When he finished, he was ready to re-enter normal life but not be in the same environment with the same friends.”

The role required not just working with the boy, but also assisting his parents. The job description stated that the tutor should “help them to enforce their boundaries and [limit] the controlling behaviours of their son. He has come to learn that if he makes enough of a fuss he can get what he wants from his parents and while they do not want this to continue they need support to develop strategies to be able maintain their authority when under pressure from their son.”

Hannan, who studied at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and Oxford University, not only helped the boy with university applications and preparation for admission tests but also bonded with him through their mutual love of mechanics, often helping the teenager fix his car. “I used the rapport to help him understand what his parents meant when they said or did things,” he says. “The upshot was that he was more likely to respond in a way that didn’t lead to shouting matches.”

The professionalism required in a private tutoring arrangement is very different to that required in a classroom, says Hannan, who previously taught in a private school in Washington DC. “For all kinds of child protection reasons, being a school teacher requires a certain emotional distance. In a family environment that changes; it’s important to be able to develop a sincere rapport with these folks.” His former student’s mother says that Hannan became a friend to her son, who is now at university. “My son appreciated [that there was] somebody to help guide him, moving forward,” she adds. “To have someone by his side, holding his hand, was a really positive thing for him.”

Other tutors say rifts in families often arise due to the high-flying and transient nature of the parents’ jobs or lifestyles. Mark Maclaine, who co-founded the agency Tutorfair in 2012 after more than a decade of tutoring, says tutors can also find themselves acting as an intermediary between highly demanding parents and their offspring. “If you’ve got a parent who is very successful in their career, they have been used to getting results by pushing their staff,” he says. “But kids don’t work the same way. The parents realise that the life skills that helped them become incredibly successful don’t apply to their child who is struggling. A lot of the families turn round to me and say: ‘I think I’m making it worse.’ If your dad is the king or your mum is the head of a huge corporation, that’s going to be dialled up to 11.”

However, Dirk Flower, a Harley Street psychologist who works with super-rich families and several tutoring agencies, says tutors can also find themselves in families whose value systems undermine their efforts. The standard gripe is that parents expect the tutor to achieve top grades even if the pupil’s schooling is disrupted by frequent holidays, he says. But the clash of values can be more extreme. “You do get a criminal family where the 13-year-old is walking around with a Kalashnikov because their father wants them to take over the empire.”

Cleo Masliah, a tutor who works with another agency, Simply Learning, says a significant aspect of her work with both children and their parents is helping them to operate in western society. Masliah, who studied art history at the Courtauld Institute in London and interior design at La Cambre in Belgium, has worked with ultra high net worth families in Dubai, Moscow, Switzerland and the Caribbean. When she tutored a young Russian girl who wanted to get into a leading British boarding school, she had to advise the mother on how to present herself. “In Russia, if you’re visiting a school and you want to show the principal that you’re serious, you take out all your diamonds and your Birkin bag and your Chanel suits and you wear some nice stilettos,” she says. “That’s frowned upon by an academic school in Britain. So part of the job is to say, ‘You know what? It would be a good idea for you to wear flats and keep the jewellery to a minimum. And you know what? You’re a smart, high-profile lawyer; let’s make sure they know that.’ And the girl got in.”

Masliah says the grey area of switching between being an authority figure and acting like an older sister to being a friend and adviser to a parent is what makes the job “fantastic”. However, she warns that tutors must remember the power their clients wield. “They are extremely wealthy, and your relationship with them is going to be what they decide it’s going to be. If you have an issue with a normal middle-class family, the worst that is going to happen is that you never speak to each other again. This is different; these are often people in a lot of power. And you’re often not in your home country--you’re in their country, where they are very important. I do a background check on my clients before I work with them. There’s a level of shady that I am not working with, because I’m putting myself in danger,” she says.

Emma Swanson, the founder of the UK-based international company Tutoring Futures, says home tutoring has become much more popular than boarding school for the super-rich because it is more convenient and allows the parents to spend more time with the children. “The father who needs to travel a lot now takes his children with him,” she says. “But, obviously, the ultra-high-net-worth do live a very transient lifestyle and they have homes around the world and yachts they want to spend their time on.”

In late 2016, James Clement, a former high-school teacher who works independently as a tutor in Washington DC, did a tutoring job with a family who took their children out of school for a term to travel round the world. For 12 weeks, they sailed around Indonesia on a 75-metre superyacht. He and another tutor taught the girls between 8am and 1pm on the observation deck, which was converted into a schoolroom, taking short breaks to play board games. Two or three days a week, the tutors would be invited to go jet- or water-skiing with the girls. On other days, they might go snorkelling or scuba diving on a coral reef, which would be used to teach their students about marine biology, or visit villages, volcanoes and islands relevant to their history and geography lessons.

While both tutors ate most of their meals with the 20 crew, on occasions they would be invited to join the family for dinner. But these were not simply social invitations, with the tutors sometimes asked at a day’s notice to give PowerPoint presentations on a wall-height projector screen in the yacht’s salon. “Once they asked if we would give a 30-45 minute presentation on the history of Indonesia,” says Clements. Other topics included the country’s political climate and scientific facts related to the places they visited.

Such tasks reflect how tutors tread a fine line between being friends of the family and mere employees. Nathaniel McCullagh, managing director of Simply Learning, says tutors enjoy an elevated status compared with other staff due to their academic credentials and close relationship with the children. But this can risk alienating the household’s “loyal retainers”--the personal assistant, the nanny, the butler--whom the tutors need on their side because they know the family’s foibles and secrets. “They’ll be the ones to say, ‘This is a good time to talk to the parents’, [or] ‘Whatever you do, don’t go into that room.’”

Although tutors sometimes receive privileges, including expensive gifts such as Rolex watches, use of private jets and family holiday homes, McCullagh stresses that they must be “unimpressed by their surroundings”. “We really can’t put anyone in with chips on their shoulder or any kind of overwhelming adoration for the family or the money or the lifestyle,” he says. “You’re in this world of massive wealth and, for a limited period, you’re part of it. The next day, the family is going home in a limo and you’re back on a train home. You start thinking, ‘Why am I on easyJet when they’re taking their own jet?’ You’ve got to understand that the parents are your boss, but in many cases they don’t want anything to do with you. They are abdicating their responsibility not because they’re bad people but because they have chosen a professional to do the work. If you’re the sort of person who needs constant affirmation from a parent, you could have problems.”

Caller says tutors are sometimes asked by parents to help a child appreciate their privileges, such as getting the student to make bread for the family for a month, or cooking a meal from scratch, including making their own pasta. Other projects can be more elaborate. For example, one family helped build a library for a school in a disadvantaged area of southern India, and tasked their two children--under the supervision of two tutors--with liaising with contractors, the headmaster and interior designers, as well as organising the fundraising and buying books.

Tutor Melissa Harvey says both sets of parents she worked with saw her comparatively humble background as a positive influence on their children. The modern languages graduate, who previously worked at the Swans international primary school in Marbella in Spain, says the two families “were curious that I went to a comprehensive. I worked in four jobs to get through university and I think they saw those things as a positive influence for their children.” One of her jobs, arranged by Tutors International, involved a private cruise through the Amazon jungle where she says her two students were shown how local people lived. “It was wonderful to be able to show these girls, who come from a very privileged background, other children who don’t. We showed them how they made their clothes or their food, using all the resources around them. Some of the children didn’t have shoes. We gave them some coloured paper and you would have thought we had given them a pot of gold. For the girls, that was a real eye-opener.”

Ultra high net worth families worldwide are predicted to pass down more than $16tn to future generations over the next three decades, according to the analysts Wealth-X. Hannan believes his work has social value. “In some of these students there is absolutely the feeling of ‘Why am I bothering to try? Daddy’s money is always going to be there to take care of me.’ But others think, ‘I’m going to distance myself from that money, from my parents. I want to think of myself as myself.’ The crux of the issue is helping them find out that their lives can have profound meaning separate from this great blessing of family wealth.”

[consump9qiz]

Greetings, Now the average = ( average = cave age ) persons ( persons = im person ate tors ) are on a Hollow Ween = ( Hollow Biological Cellular mean not enough Real Fruit Juices ) and ( to Ween or be Weened on Deceased Animal Particulars from Bath = Birth ) People are said by The 👼 Angels to have on their Biological Cuts Tomb and Guts Tomb. Cut, Gut up Deceased, Dad, Dead Animals and being the Burial and Tomb = Guts Tomb ( Costume ) after the animals Morgues and Mummifications Vantom = ( Vam Tomb ). DON'T ACT LIKE I AM MAKING THIS UP SAYS THE ANGELS CONTINUE READING. Farm = Vamp is where cattle and birds are slaughtered. House Holds are called Vam also, the house holds because, what you are holding onto are Dead Deceased Animals Parts you are indirectly participating in the Slaughter and Vamping of Cattle etc you label Farm animals Vam Animals and in your house holds are called a Family = Vam + Lee. So, Vam = Flesh and blood of Deceased Animals which is Love = Lovendar and Love is Pink in reality which means Dead and Lee in Vamly, the Lee is Dairy Lee all Dairy Products, cottage cheese, cheese, yogurt, sour cream, ice cream, too close to the cows but = butter etc. Grocery Shopping = Grotesque Chopping.. Every pieces of the animals flesh you bite into is Pink and Lovendar + ( Lavender ) which is Dead. Then when Love is Pink and it's Dead also, when a woman spread her legs it's Dead that is why all house holds call the Father ( Dad = Dead in reality ) Genesis Chapter 3 Verse 3 Speaks of The Garden of Earth when correctly put = ( The 🥛 Milk Carton Of Death Principle ). Fam = ( Famine or starvation and Feminine means being starved of number nine = ( Number nine is Real Fruits Juices and Electricity from the Son which is Tree Wise and Fruits Salad Man and Salad Woman is Part of the Wisdom. In your Adult Hollow Ween and He'll Low Eathe and Hellow Eve you want some Tricks and Treats = ( is when tricking every one in your households when time to eat by dressing up and disquising the dad = dead animals through your mummification = fictions = mummific taste your should shun. Trick or Treat also, known Ass Trick Whore Treats by each spouse tricking each other by lieing to each other. Remember, that Cheeses Cries She's Cut and Gut up in there Savor and Aroma for the fruits are fotidden Genisis Chapter 3 Verse 3. See the conceptualization written here is The Reality not the hippy on a plus sign you label Jesus Christ rather Cheeses Cries is any Woman Sexually Active with her make spouse has a Lord. You consider yourselves to be a Somebody or rather to be Zombie Batty and Zombie Baddy which the Truth reveals as one ages. Also, let me take you through some corrected spellings since you have been placed under a spell or rather misspellings. The term Paradise = ( Burry Dies or Berry Ray That Dyes. Any of a Berry Ray consist of a Rose Ray you call Rosary. Rose Ray's consist as follow are Pink, Orange, Maroon, Cranberry and Blue, such as, Straw Berry, Blue Berry, Raspberry. The term Heaven = ( Oven, Eathen, Evening. Church is broken down as follow: Church = Churcha/ Church = Charge +/ Church = Judge/ 👑 Crown = Ground/ Jesus = Cheeses/ Jesus = Juices/ Holy Bible = Holey Pipe Pull/ The Holy Gospel Of Jesus Christ = The Holey Gas Spell Of Cheeses Cries or The Holey Organ Gas Spell Oven Cheeses Cries. You the 99% has been placed under a Spell and Misspellings by Society = S.O.S. Syonide Poison Gases Tease, in which, you're under a Media Programming and Mental Control. The Society through its many forms of Media Programming whether by Cinama, Cinamax Movies, Books, News Papers and Education = E Jewish Can Shun = E Jewish Say Shun is how your Programmings is done. Sponsorship and Support is needed in order for Printing, Publishing Distribution expenses Etc. To continue following inquire at following Email.

556zafulladem@gmail.com

[chunsoftie]

23 - Jalph 😘

sentence writing prompts here

Thanks, @amsayy!

23. “I don’t need your attitude. (kind of NSFW but not really)

Ralph promised himself he wouldn’t doit.

Hell, he had gone through the reruns inhis head several times all night, even turning his phone off so hewouldn’t see the flood of messages. There was no way he could fallvictim for the third time this week, even if his body wanted it forGod knows what reason. 

The bruises that littered his neck (andcollarbone and chest and way other places, why is he still thinkingabout this?) would be too telling before long. He’d have to wear ascarf. Who just wears a scarf in the middle of July?

“Boys don’t wear scarves.” Hemuttered to himself, phone still warm in his pocket.

He guessed some boys did, but if he didit would because bloody Merridew made him. Bloody Merridew, who waswaiting to ravish the boy, spoil him senselessly, with fangs andclaws alike. This get together was starting to become humid, and itwasn’t like the AC was jammed. 

No, Ralph knew, it was because Jackwas an idiot and his libido was going to drive him crazy.

So, he caved, like he internally knewhe would, because this party was trash and he was even worse and ifit meant that Jack could do something about it, why the hell not? 

Ralph turned the phone back on and considered himself Hell’s bait.Not even a minute passes and he receives 19 texts. 19. He always knewJack could be a posessive motherfucker, but this takes the cake. Hesighed and dialed the number, getting a response after the firstring.

“Looks like somebody finally answeredtheir phone.” 

Jack didn’t even have time for a hello, how’s theshindig? Ralph didn’t expectanything different. He gritted his teeth before passing a tolerablevoice.

“Ifyou’re going to come and get me, might as well do it now.”

“Idon’t need your attitude.” Jack teased, but sometimes it was hardfor Ralph to tell if he was joking or not, especially when theirbodies were pressed so tight together that everything between themwas serious. 

Ralph was going to say something back but Jack hung upand left him puzzled. He felt a buzz and saw the newest message:

‘Wait4 me outside.’

Ralphhated when people used numbers in text messages. Jack always did thatsort of thing for his usernames, and Ralph always remarked on howstupid it made him look but Jack just shrugged and would say, 'Youjust don’t understand how social media words.’

What adick.

Longstory short, actually short story – Jack’s car pulled up to thehouse Ralph was staying in lightning speed. It was black and one ofthose cars that a person likes to heave up the engine just to lookcool. 

Jack was, of course, this kind of driver. It didn’t really helphim that it was actually his father’s car, but he still took it outmore than the truck he was given. Ralph should have known better.

Hereally should have known better.

Jack’s hands were all over him.He pressed his mouth against Ralph’s face like he was damn thirstyand Ralph didn’t bother caring at this point – he just wanted ahand on his dick. After a brief frenzy of tongues and the typicalcomments of, “Quit biting me there!” or “Are you actually goingto pull out of the driveway?”, they were off. 

Jack’s house was lessthan five minutes away, and Jack claimed his parents were off on somekind of trip. Ralph was about to ask how Jack had the car but hestopped himself, he didn’t want to know what kind of convincing wasdone. 

Jack would spill his own blood if that meant driving in thisthing, picking Ralph up from parties and just wanting to showoff.

“Youmust have been turning batty at that party.” Jack said, a handresting on Ralph’s knee especially near this dick. “Waiting for meto come and get you…”

“Pleasekeep your cock in your pants, you’re swerving.” Ralph commented asJack was about to hit another car next to them. Jack just narrowed aneyebrow before he straightened himself.

“You’regonna keep acting like that? That could result in some nastypunishment.” Jack was so full of it now, and Ralph wished he couldkiss him just to shut him up. That wish came faster than he thoughtbecause before too long they were at the house and they climbed intoJack’s bed. 

Jack was a nasty love-maker; he used too much tongue andhe bit everything.Ralph would need two bloody scarves by the end of this and Jack didit on purpose. He shoved his hands underneath Ralph’s top and startedrubbing his dick near Ralph’s pelvic region, covered by the tightestjeans Jack had ever seen. He would have commented on it if he wasn’tso out of it. 

Ralph on the other hand was ready to get out of them,sticky down there from thoughts before and the grinding really wasn’t helping.

“Yougoing to get going with it, Merridew?” Ralph was sexuallyfrustrated. 

He had been pent up since Jack started messaging him andhe was going to getsomething out of tonight, even if that meant he’d have to cave in toJack’s recent interest in the whole dominant/submissive thing. Hereally didn’t understand this boy at times, and his fetishes onlymade him all the more confusing.

“Youbet I will, just sit back, little pretty.” Jack smirked and Ralphwanted to throw up as soon as those two words left his mouth. 

LittlePretty?

“C'mon,let’s get you out of those things.” Jack whispered, starting topull down Ralph’s jeans before the two of them froze at the same of acar pulling in outside. 

The headlights flashed through the window andJack grew cold. Ralph shook him off, hair and shirt a mess.

“Whatthe hell about your parents?” Ralph asked and Jack didn’t sayanything as he started fixing his own self up.

“Idon’t know but you gotta get out of here or hide, now!”

“Seriously?”Ralph groaned as Jack started pushing him off the bed. Jack almostlooked sorry for a change, even as he persuaded Ralph to hijack itout of the window 'for the time being.’

Hepromised himself he wouldn’t do it, and look where that got him.

[midnightfloats]

- Batty’s Headcanons - 

Batty’s Headcanons

 Batty:

Headcanon #1

          Batty is afraid of clowns. Ever since Batty got bitten and attacked by Pennywise, even happy clowns cause her to feel fear. Batty gets really nervous around them and faints when she’s near them. Batty hates the circus and makes sure to never go because that’s how scared she is. Batty knows they aren’t Pennywise but she deludes herself into thinking all clowns are Pennywise in disguise. Pennywise knows Batty is afraid of clowns and appears to her in this form constantly. The child has frequent nightmares about clowns and is unable to sleep most nights because of it. Batty has also been known to attack clowns with a bat and this has gotten her in big trouble numerous times. 

Headcanon #2

Batty has fake teeth. Batty has been losing teeth regularly, but her agent doesn’t want her to have teeth gaps in her movies. Her agent claims teeth gaps aren’t cute nor will people want to see any imperfections when it comes to their favorite child actress. Batty sometimes removes them as a prank towards people that have no idea she has them.

Headcanon #3

Teen Batty: Batty will legally change her name to Batty when she’s old enough. Batty hates her real name because that’s who her fans know her as. ‘Dana’ has become an identity or a role to play while ‘Batty’ is the real her. Batty separates the two names and one day she will give up being Dana to be Batty forever. 

Headcanon #4

Teen Batty:  Batty will quit being an actress when she is in her 20’s. Batty by that time will have made enough money to live comfortably and she would get tired of being an actress. Giving up fame would make Batty happy, though Batty is happy being an actress sometimes, she just hates the fame that comes with it. Batty will give it up one day and she will live in the country somewhere where nobody from Hollywood can find her to pester her. 

Headcanon #5

Batty doesn’t know the difference between salt and sugar. Batty only knows that they are both white grain substances and she mixes the two up all the time. Batty has been known to put salt in coffee and sugar in soup. Because she can’t tell the difference between the two, people should be wary of what Batty uses to season her food.

Headcanon #6

Batty looks to the left when she lies.

Headcanon #7 

Batty doesn’t get much sleep.

Headcanon #8

Batty has Aspergers and a learning disability. 

Headcanon #9

Batty isn’t very good at math, but she’s pretty good at English

Headcanon #10

Batty’s reading has the reading level of a Middle Schooler.

Headcanon #11

Batty plays the ukulele and the guitar. Batty has been playing both since she was five years old and she can play songs like House of the Rising Sun and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Other songs are Purple Haze and Wish You Were Here. But she is very self-conscious about her guitar/ukulele playing. Batty doesn’t think she’s any good, so she practises by herself and away from other people. She also doesn’t like singing in front of people, but will sing in front of a camera.

Headcanon #12

Batty can remember her dreams

Headcanon#13

Batty wears her portal ring on her left middle finger. The ring feels more comfortable on Batty’s middle finger than on her ring finger. This is because the ring is too big for her ring finger. 

Headcanon #14

Batty has a deep fear of being abandoned. Batty’s birth parents were mostly absent when she was younger and they are still absent now. Batty didn’t have many friends before coming to Derry, and even then she is picked on by her classmates. Thankfully, Batty made friends in Derry, but they are older than she is. The child is always afraid these friends will leave her. Every time she makes a mistake, Batty freaks out and apologizes because she doesn’t want people to hate her. Loneliness is an emotion felt frequently by Batty. At all times, Batty is afraid of waking up and finding that nobody wants her around anymore and the thoughts have been getting worse and worse. It is a huge source of stress for Batty, but people have been helping her with it. 

Headcanon #15

Batty has acted in six movies and she is currently filming one. The movies she has acted in are: Lawless Katherine, Good Ship Lollipop, Curly, Family Times, Cinder Ella, and Dynasty. The one she is acting in at the moment is Little Princess

Update: Batty has completed the filming for the movie and will act in one in February 1991.

Headcanon #16

Batty can cook a few things because her parents are never around. Batty can cook macaroni n cheese, ramen, rice, eggs, and bacon. The child is teaching herself how to make pancakes and is saving up for a waffle iron. Batty often cooks for herself, but the maids make things for her. Some of Batty’s recipes have something added to them. Batty can also make omurice and macaroni with scrambled eggs in it. Sometimes Batty adds steak and garlic powder to her macaroni and cheese.

Headcanon #17

Batty has separation anxiety. Batty has been abandoned by people/friends numerous times, causing the child to develop a fear of being alone or of being separated from somebody. Batty will frequently beg people not to leave her even if they’re not going anywhere, and she has also been known to cling onto people if they have to leave. Some people don’t know how to deal with this and they get concerned for her well being. Batty also clings to her real parents when they have to leave her and she has mental breakdowns when they forget her during a holiday. Their neglect has contributed to her feelings of loneliness and anxiety. 

Headcanon #18

Batty’s texting style is informal and she uses emojis when she texts.

Headcanon #19

Batty has a bodyguard, a stylist, and an agent. The agent’s name is Mike Miland, the bodyguard’s name is Griff Garland, and the stylist’s name is Darla Kirk. 

Headcanon #20

Batty has a smartphone and two flip phones and a new home phone: Batty has a Samsung Galaxy, a DoCoMo SH-11C (pastel pink), a MOTOROLA MICROTAC 9800X, and a pager. As for the home phone, it is a wired home phone with caller i.d. It is relatively new. 

Headcanon #21

Batty carries a bag around with her. Inside, she carries: A lighter, two cell phones, a pager, a pack of pens, a laser pen, bag of cheerios, container of macaroni, her cassette player, cassette tapes, headphones, a change of clothes, a flashlight, and a first aid kit.

 Headcanon #22

Batty drinks energy drinks before bed so she can’t fall asleep because she has horribly vivid nightmares.

 Headcanon #23

Batty has the ‘power’ of transparency. Ever since Batty entered a portal shot out of her broken ring, she has been able to turn transparent. It is a very bad thing and that means she is slowly disappearing, but it will kill her when she is 12 years old.

Headcanon #24

Batty has eleven pets: a frog named Freddie Mercury, three cats named Bats, Mango, and Jester, two rats named Rattimus and Cheese, two hermit crabs named Xerxes and Iago, a male rabbit named Strawberry, a dog named Skittles, and a chipmunk named Nibbles. 

 Headcanon #25

Batty’s ninth birthday was on 7/19/90. For her birthday, she got: a rabbit, a Tamagotchi, a 3DS, the Hobbit book, two teddy bears, a Polaroid camera, lipstick, a backpack with bat wings, coloring books, a pocket knife, a doll, a Care Bear, two bikes, a painting, Power Rangers, a train set, a plush cat, dino plush, a toy truck, a rubber duck, a watch, a blanket, a wind up car, a Neopet. A bat plush. 

Headcanon #26

Batty’s injury history: Batty has been bitten in the shoulder and she has had a chunk of flesh ripped out. Batty has had a rock bashed against her head. Batty has had her legs bitten up and burned. Batty has had her arm and hand broken. She’s been stabbed twice. She has been shot at. Batty has been smacked. She has been Force choked. Batty has been kicked in the stomach and face, she’s been drowned in a special circumstance, she saw four people die. Shards of glass have been lodged in her arm. She has had Its claws dug into her sides until she bleeds. Her head has been smashed against the floor. Batty’s hands have been burned. Batty has been attacked (but not hurt) with an ax. She has also been hit in the head and legs with a metal bat. Batty was kicked in the chest and had her throat cut open. 

 Headcanon #27

Batty runs away when she can’t deal with her problems.

 Headcanon #28

Batty tells people she loves them frequently because she’s afraid the universe will kill her and cause her to fade away. Batty knows that at any time, the universe can detect her presence. Before she goes to bed, she texts people she loves them before going to bed in case she doesn’t wake up.

 Headcanon #29

Batty’s Fears: Clowns. Large dogs. Heights. Drowning. Nightmares. Not waking up. Being abandoned. Making mistakes. Being yelled at. Dying. Being a nuisance. Being hated. Getting hurt. Needles. Sid The Bully (no longer a fear). Not being able to control her power/ring. Fading away. 

Headcanon #30

Batty thinks she’s a burden to her friends and family. Ever since Batty realized she made her real parents unhappy, she has been very insecure and believes she lacks the ability to make anybody happy.

Headcanon #30

Batty has a beach house in Weston-super-Mare in Britain. It is located in North Somerset. Batty sometimes goes there during the summer and once a week at least once a month. It is more like a cottage, but Batty really enjoys going there. Her parents have a boat too they take out on the ocean or a nearby lake such as the Marine Lake.

Headcanon #31 

For the Christmas of 1990, Batty received: stickers, a yellow flower, and many other things. She spent the day with her friends and family.   

Headcanon #32

For Christmas, Batty handed out rocks. She has handed out: 19

Headcanon #33

There are some foods Batty likes. Batty likes: brownies, strawberry shortcake, strawberry and vanilla ice cream, root beer, cheese, and peanuts. 

Headcanon #34

There are some foods Batty dislikes. Batty dislikes: beans, caramel, and tea. 

Headcanon #35

Batty has a few legal guardians in North Park. Those legal guardians are Stan Marsh, Clyde Donovan, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick 

Headcanon #36

Batty went to Japan in 1987 in April. During her month long trip to Japan, Batty went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kamakura, and Nagoya. Batty spent the most time in Kyoto at a film location. During her trip, Batty got many souvenirs including a few kimono, a couple of dolls, and a fan. While there, Batty met a lot of other Japanese film stars and some animators. While there, Batty fell in love with the food and culture, but she still doesn’t like tea despite trying macha.

[ahmadgumm933400-blog]

Is Your Handshake Sending The Right Message?

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