#speak about his transphobia and homophobia instead!!! what the fuck is wrong with you

[majesticcorn2000]

ok im kinda pissed off and i think everyone should know about it

first of all, im fully aware that verbalase is a huge dickhead. like, no doubt. but all of you are focusing on that amv commission too much instead of him spreading queerphobia self-shipping is nice, nothing wrong with that. why people don't talk about verbalase being a bigot? every post about him i see talks about that animation and how it is very inappropriate due to the fact that he is married or something like that. who fucking cares if he has a wife? who fucking cares about what his wife would say? sorry but it seems like you're projecting. i'm fine if my partner loves a fictional character more than me. i will never be jealous because i know that he loves me no matter what. same goes for him, he is chill about me loving my favorite character more than him. he isn't mad or upset either!! my love for my partner and my love for a character can co-exist!!!!!!! it's ok to be like that!!! this is called "a healthy relationship", good morning!!!!!!!!! and who fucking cares if charlie has a gf? first of all, as far as i know she is bi. second, polyamory exists. and third. the most important. why do you care about it at all??????? are we out of the problems here???????????? people freaking out about spending so much money on that amv are weird. did you know that animation is expensive. if a person can and want to spend so much money on it, it's okay. don't act like you wouldn't like to get a three minutes long animation with your fav character and your self-insert for the love of chirst, talk about verbalase being an asshole to queer people. just because he is a douchebag it doesn't mean you can shit on him for self-shipping. i truly believed that we were trying to kill cringe culture, but looking at how the majority of the internet is acting now proves the opposite. if you think i'm trying to support him here, you're just fucking stupid. all i'm doing here is pointing at you choosing the wrong reason to hate him for, and if your mind can't comprehend this thought, then i don't even know how to explain it in more simple words to you.

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

social media’s in a nutshell, but the people who actually use them.

Twitter: So did I you know your an awful person?

also twitter: Racism, racism, racism, sexism, your best friend talking about a dog they saw, sexism, sexism, homophobia, homophobia, homophobia, transphobia, NSFW art from a mutual, transphobia, transphobia, and then the worst take in the history of worst takes by some 13 year old or maybe it was actually 30 something you can’t tell.

YouTube: “why YouTube has become a capitalist hellhole for anyone who dares speak about anything not consumer friendly: A video essay” 4 hours and 50 minutes long, 40,895 views.

also YouTube: “me and my friend are mermaids btw here’s how to do the mermaid spell! Easy in 1 step!” 26 minutes long.

also also YouTube: “I COMMITED TAX FRAUD AND TRIED TO OUTRUN THE AUTHORITIES CHALLENGE 24 HOUR CHALLENGE PART 1 OF 279” 10 minutes long and has almost a billion views.

also also also YouTube: “beheading” 13 minutes long, with 1,600 views.

ALSO ALSO ALSO ALSO YouTube: “HUGGY WUGGY TOILET NAKED VORE?” 20 minutes long, 8 million views.

4chan: be me> sexless loser> finds amazing wonderful woman who loves me for me> she’s fat> keep her until someone else comes> me and her do exercise and eat better> she becomes 100/10> gets married> has kids> love of my life>

also 4chan: ROBOTS, /B/ WE MUST UNITE THIS FUCKER BLENDERED A CAT WE MUST KILL HIM>

THAT (insert string of slurs) WILL GET WHAT’S COMING TO HIM>

FOUND HIS ADDRESS AT 404 CATBLENDER MAN STREET>

AUTHORITIES CALLED I GOT THE RSPCA AT THE HOUSE LETS GO /B/ FUCK YEAH THIS IS A WIN FOR ALL THE ROBOTS LETS GO>

also also 4chan: *the most graphic picture you have ever seen that haunts your soul and your life you will never be the same* hey /b/ look what I found>

also also also 4chan: guys, *insert the most out of pocket slur filled green post you hav ever seen* and that’s why I think (insert minority) are degenerates>

tiktok: *video of hatsune miku dancing with the caption* it’s not okay to encourage ED$ instead be kind and respectful and not be f@tphobic and @blei$t

also TikTok: *a video plays before quickly cutting out replaced with a new one* YOU ARE MAKING PEOPLE UNALIVE THEMSELVES WITH THIS TIKTOK GET HELP TRANS PEOPLE AREN’T GŘOÖMËRS AND PDFILES YOU ARE AWFUL!

also also TikTok: *a video plays of a montage of red and black text* you never saw me as real, you never saw me. I’m going to k1ll myself soon, life is too hard my parents have taken away my ps5 and my phones I am making this on my friends phone. Good bye cruel world.

also also also TikTok: *dangerous things happen in quick succession* “so that’s how you do a deep clean of your home!” comments : girly😭 NO you can’t use 🔥 on wooden floorboards 😰

comments: 💀💀💀 bro’s using chemical weapons to clean her sink💀💀💀

Comments: BLEACH IN YOUR FISHTANK? GIRL ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOUR BF’S DISCUS😬

comments: okay you did so many things wrong here and genuinely I’m surprised your are still alive-1

Cleangirly: no it was pretty safe idk what you mean🤷‍♀️

Comments:WHAT DO YOU MEAN SAFE? YOU SET A FIRE TO CLEAN THE FLOORBOARDS?-2

Also also also ALSO TikTok: *a video explaining why if you hate the color blue your a narcissist* yeah anyone who hates blue is a big red flag girlies

Tumblr: “guys penis” 1 million notes

also tumblr: *a long post explaining the intricacies of sexuality, sexism, the queer identity, toxic masculinity, and how colonialism and racism plays into it.* so yeah long post whoops.

reblog: *the most loaded toxic reblog you have ever seen* woman should all be killed.

reblog: *starts out making some form of sense then devolves* ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS AND SHOULD BE PUT TO DEATH NOW

reblog: *a story relating heavily to the post, which makes the original post better by its addition* so yeah some other re blogs are missing the point but you really put my experience into words thank you <3

reblog: *a picture of the tags filled with the weirdest take you have ever seen* Uhh who are you and can you leave tumblr? Thanks?

also also tumblr: gifly the gif, share gifly the gif because look at him *mindbogglingly fast images flash*

Quora: “why is the sky blue?”

answer 1: because god made it that way in his infinite wisdom

answer 2: because *long winded but concise explanation on how it works* I have a doctorate in this subject.

awnser 3: Long story short, it’s not blue it’s the ozone or something.

Facebook: “meemaw want to add you as a friend” *presses yes, anyone you have ever known tangentially appears in the Facebook friends page*

Also Facebook: “Gerald is my husband who I love”

Comments: that’s nice Geraldine, happy anniversary

Comments: *long winded conspiracy theory* that’s why the illegals want to rule the world and destroy us all

also also also Facebook: *random 5minute crafts video* TOP TEN LIFE HACKS FOR COOKING!

comments: oh what an amazing video! -Geraldine

comments: YOU CAN MAKE THE POPPED CORN WITH A COKA COLA CAN?

comments: I am showing this to my dear wife Geraldine. -Gerald

omegle: *video starts live-streaming and you see an older man’s cock* “…” “…” “you 13?” “…” *ends chat*

also Omegle: *you and a guy talk for ages* that was awesome here’s my socials! See you soon friend!

reddit: “why the Reddit mods are power hungry” *it is a screenshot of a screenshot talking about mod abuse.* “REDDIT WANTS US SILENT WE MUST FIGHT!” *deleted post*

also Reddit: “top ten anime wifus in (PEDO BAIT SHOW) and why I’d fuck them”

also also Reddit: “how do you fix a bolted screw valve on a pressure cooker…”

Vine: *5 seconds of comedy*

[fivedollarradio]

Wow, The Karen-meme-is-causing-white-women-to-self-censor (oh the horror!) thread on the Two X forum is 1400+ replies and still going. I stopped after about 200, but here is some shared wisdom:

Yes. We women need to keep on speaking up and taking space. Let's normalize women being human too!!

Which women are taking up space and where? White women in feminist communities have not problem taking up space to the detriment of women of color. Even in fan spaces here, which are largely dominated by cis women, I notice whose voices are loudest. And who complains the most when they are "silenced" (read, gently criticized.)

They misappropriated a good faithed term and changed it into a new slur

Not a slur. Next.

I decided to take it as a compliment even if not meant that way.

Good for you. Live your best life or something.

If someone thinks I'm a bitch for simply speaking my mind, then it's confirmation I'm probably doing something right.

I want to know when "speaking ones mind" became conflated with being a bitch. No, really. Self-censorship isn't always bad. You know that person who never self-censors? Are they pleasant to be around? Likely not.

55 and I also dgaf. I know I’m a good person.

Whenever someone says "I'm a good person," or just a frequently, "I know in my heart I'm a good person," I want to ask "Really? How?" Good people do bad things. Not all racism -- in fact much of it -- is not overt. (Same can be said for homophobia, transphobia, etc.), and it's more damaging when it comes from these so-called "good people," our friends and families, rather than some guy with Trump flag on his lawn.

People are allowed to have bad days. Not every customer who gets upset is automatically in the wrong or a Karen. Life fucking sucks. Unless someone is screaming at and abusing a retail/food worker, they're not a "Karen" just for expressing their displeasure with a situation.

But what if your "bad day" causes someone to lose their job, or worse?

In all, "Karen" should have never been co-opted by white people. I know I've used it myself before to piss someone off, which is a terrible reason to use it and I've since stopped. I've also stopped being mad at the meme and instead am mad at the women who continue to perpetuate the stereotype.

[metanoiamorii]

❛Maybe we are not meant to be, not yet. Maybe we’re stars, waiting to collide in another life.❜

♧ Title: Be Still My Foolish Heart [BSMFH]

♧ Status: Brainstorming & Drafting

♧ Point of View: Third

♧ Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama, Romance

♧ Warnings: Violence, War, Death of major and minor characters, nudity, past abuse, generational trauma, generational healing, racism, transphobia, homophobia, character corruption arcs, ethics vs morals, star crossed lovers, tragic endings, codependent and complicated relationships.

♧ Featuring: Diverse LGBTQ+ characters, enemies to friends to allies to lovers slowburn, complex and complicated characters, fantasy religions, plenty of symbolism, complex world building, ethics vs morals, a whole lot of moral grey can be fit into this bad boy, character redemption and corruption arcs, some found family, learning to separate one from their family's trouble and taking control of their life, soulmate trope, setting the groundwork for future generations.

♧ Setting: An Ancient Chinese inspired, fantasy setting

♧ Synopsis:

In Oidien there has always been a defined split against the Heavens and Ghost City. No one can remember what sparked the feud between them, it's possible after all these years of the fighting and endless war... they don't even remember themselves. They know it's tradition to keep fighting, to ensure the cycle of violence continues. So that is what they do; they keep fighting.

In recent years, the King of Ghost City has drawn back from the fields off battles and distants himself from politics. He leaves the affairs in his eldest children: Lianhauzi holds the crown, Lutaizi knows his way around the court, Suming’qiu is gifted with the army, and Taixuan is there to ensure everyone takes a break, to take care of her family.

A fight against children is how the Heavens view it... To their surprise, these children are more than gifted than their father. This isn't a game to them, it's a livelihood. They know how to secure a victory within minimum casualties, and they know how to balance one another's weakness.

The Heavens cannot take another loss. No matter how many battles they have lost, they have always managed to win this war. Each time. But on this account? They're afraid to admit they've been beat. So they come to a resolution: they have to take out one of the links. Take out one and the rest should crumble.

It's...

Not as easy as one would imagine. Or so their spies in court relay. The four know to keep their distance in public, and if they meet in private no one knows. They handpick their servants carefully, and they ensure each servant knows their tasks and do not overstep. They've taken every precaution necessary.

Even when it works, when one of their spies is welcomed inside that well guarded, hidden court... no one expects the game of cat and mouse to transpire. Their spy is humored until she's willing to change her allegiance and eventually is brought into the family by marriage... In the very least, she offers the weakest link to exploit to destroy the family.

♧ Tease

Of all I have done,

Forgettable they to none;

Has it now begun?

No, not forgiveness.

That I would never ask for, love.

I wish, regret comes.

You know as I do,

Games I once played, have turned you,

A pretty face blue.

I made no mistake,

You know as I do, the stakes

Required; played.

Once, for you, my rule

To survive, I broke, for you;

That forsaken dual.

My conscious it haunts;

My sleep, in dreams it will taunts

And it brings your scorn.

Pour me a wine glass,

For my sanity to last

And my wrath? To trap.

For me, preform; dance

Distract me with your nice laugh

Until I collapse.

And leave, in silence,

See to it, quiet your lips

Of the truth won't slip.

Allow me my sleep,

Don't be cruel, do not slight, cheat

You ugly she-beast.

A single night, peace,

That is all I ask for, please...

Better, just leave.

I have discovered,

Regret? No, I now confessed

Not for you, coward.

♧ Excerpt:

Her booted feet pattered against the puddles of rain droplets as she hugged the umbrella close to her shoulder, protecting herself from the storm. In a hurry she rounded the corner, following after the image of a soaked cat that had caught her attention and ran before she could approach it properly. It had been the first time in awhile since she had taken to sprinting, to follow the cat. Around the corner Xihuli came, brought to an abrupt halt when she turned into another person, as insane as she was to be out in the midst of a storm.

Her umbrella clattered to the floor, dropped as she staggered back a pace. The bright red silk was out of place, spinning upon the rain soaked ground. She gained her footing, no longer staggering to place distance between them. Her head threw back, an angry look quick to find purchase upon her features. Having yet to reach for her umbrella, the rain begun to soak the bright red and white silks she wore, drenched and sticking to her figure. "Watch—"

Her protests are so abruptly cut off. She watches the man tilt back his own umbrella, dark as the stormy sky with red spider lilies imprinted upon the fabric; the hanging tassels brush against his form, parting to expose his face. A youthful face that should have been smiling, with those eyes— so red to match the spider lilies upon his umbrella— staring at her as if she were a lesser being. The umbrella sits back upon his shoulder, head tilted forward with his chin forward, a sign he was in fact superior to her.

"Don't you know better, Zhuque?" The tone he speaks in, it's unlike that rambunctious voice he's known for, full of laughter that becomes too obnoxious for the ears. How serious it is, no jest spoken, no room for his games. He stares her down, staring through the dangling tassels of his umbrella. And how unkind that look is, a look that's no better than a wolf staring at a lamb. "You should never be out so late."

The two men, another prince and his own dog. Wine and lilac gives him away, wearing the golden lotus crown in his hair. Face unfriendly, a natural scowl he had been born with. He stands beneath the umbrella held above his head, keeping him dry from the rain. Held by that fucking bastard, smug and vain, with the bones acting as hair pins. He's uncaring if he gets wet, of course he is. When he controls the ocean why would he care about a little storm?

Lianhauzi pulls back his hood as he now stands blocking the last exit, Lutaizi and An Huli keeping the woman pinned in. He takes a step forward, Xieyuan moves with him, holding the umbrella in place. When he steps forward they all watch Xihuli push herself back, struggling to press her back into the wall, able to stare in each direction where one was coming from. "The fear in your eyes betray you... You know why we are here."

♧ Characters:

Love Interests

Shenguai Suming’qiu; Heizhao-jun

Amab • Agender • He/Him • Asexual • Reciproromantic

The Fourth Master of the Phantom Palace; that has earned the name of Black Sinister Claws. Said to be cursed from birth, as he has come to age and stepped into the politics and warfare, he has come to be their lucky charm. A conniving young man with a sharp intellect, and a shaper wit. For his family, he has taken up the role as master of intelligence and handles all correspondence, planning, and diplomacy. As a front, he appears an apathetic man, detached and void of all emotions, only hellbent on his work; only his siblings and a selected handful are able to see another side of him.

Yi Xianzi; Courtesy Name Ke’ai

Afab • Genderfluid • She/They • Pansexual • Demiromantic

The Young Mistress of the Yi Manor is a woman with high and strong morals, and lives to maintain peace for the Heavens, and secure a future for the younger generations. She bears conflicted emotions of supporting her mistress’ less than moral ambition, but often does not speak of them and turns a blind eye instead; she tries to justify these actions for the greater good, despite knowing better. Often at times, she is torn between her loyalty to her household, and her own sense of justice and morality.

━━━━━━━━━━

Phantom Paradise

Shenguai Bixie’e; Guiwang

Amab • Nonbinary • He/They • Pansexual • Apothiromantic

The King of Ghost City. Despite years and generations of war with the Heavens, he remains undefeated and stays alive. Defying the odds, many believe he is unkillable, and quite well, untouchable. He has retired, for the most part, from the battlefield, and remains within the Phantom Palace, allowing his children to helm the war. He spends his time with his concubines, or with his council. Few see his face, fewer are able to gain an audience with him.

Shenguai Lutaizi; Heige-jun

Transmasc • Genderfluid • He/They • Omnisexual • Demi-Homoromantic

The unorthodox First Master of the Phantom Palace; that has earned the name of the Lord of the Black Song. First in line to the throne, he has conceded his right to it, and would concede his own royalty if not for his siblings. Despite being a Prince of Ghost City, he is nothing like his father. Carefree and reckless, he would prefer to spend his days drinking, goofing off, and living life to the fullest, uncaring of a familia grudge that makes little sense to him.

Shenguai Taixuan; Duandaojian-jun

Transfem • Nonbinary • She/They • Demisexual • Panromantic

The Second Master of the Phantom Palace; that has earned the name of the Princess With A Broken Blade. She takes greatly after her elder brother, and refuses to partake in a war that has not personally done her wrong. Despite her heritage, she is a woman with a strong sense of justice, morals, and honour. She protects her family from harm, and she will not turn away someone in need, no matter their origins. Opposed to being a sister and a daughter in her family, she fills the role of mother and acts as the woman of the household.

Shenguai Lianhauzi; Baoli’jífeng-jun

Amab • Agender • He/They • Asexual • Akioromantic

The Third Master of the Phantom Palace; that has earned the name of the Violent Tempest. Pressed by his elder siblings, he has taken up as their father’s heir to the throne; the Crowned Prince. He is known for his bad temper and strict nature. At heart, he has good intentions, he lacks the best judgement to execute his intentions.

Shenguai Kuangre Ai Du De; Dubo'mogui-jun

Amab • Genderfluid • They/He/She • Pansexual • Cupioromantic

The Sixth Master of the Phantom Palace; that has earned the title of the Gambling Demon. He is a man unaffected by grudges, politics, responsibilities. He prefers to take a page from his brother, Lutaizi’s, book and spend his time enjoying life to its fullest. He is very much a hedonist, and a compulsive gambler. Everyone he meets, he is obligated to gamble with them, at least once. The catch? He’s capricious, he’s erratic, and he will always change the game and stakes with every person.

Shenguai Jiaxiu; Mei-jun

Amab • Genderfluid • He/She/They • Pansexual • Frayromantic

The Seventh Master of the Phantom Palace; that has earned the name of the Beauty Lord. Arrogant and narcissistic, he is a very conceited man. He enjoys simple flattery and having others fawn over him, being the center of attention. Out of admiration he has taken after his brother, Suming’qiu’s, footsteps and assists him with his tasks. Himself, he carries out the more… darker duties called for, and gathering information; assassinations and spying tends to be his expertise.

━━━━━━━━━━

The Four Calamities

An Huli; Chui Feihong

Transfem • Agender • She/They • Homosexual • Homoromantic

Little Fox, as she’s called, is the favored of Prince Lutaizi, and the oldest of the Great Calamities. She is a woman who knows what she desires, what she is determined to do, and she refuses to allow anything or anyone to stand in her way. She comes off to be blunt, spiteful, angry; a she-devil, some claim in kinder terms than a bitch. Ahead of her time, she refuses to hide herself behind a mask, to be perceived as a gentle woman when, in truth, she is a walking storm, and for that, many frown upon her.

He Ruxie; Hei Xieyuan

Amab • Agender • He/They • Demisexual • Gyneromantic

Lord Black Water, as he is called, is the favored of Prince Lianhauzi, and the second of the Great Calamities. Formally a scholar in his past life, he experienced a string of bad luck, costing him his family, his wife, his daughter, his livelihood, his freedom, and soon his sanity. When he perished in his mortal life, he returned as a malicious spirit, and soon came into the service of the Shenguai family and serves loyally and viciously

Da Chen; Nitu Guiguai

Transfem • Nonbinary • They/She • Asexual • Demiromantic

The Enlighted One, as they are called, are the favored of Princess Taixuan, and is the third of the Great Calamities. In their previous life, they lived the life of an honest priest, surrounded by corruption and sin. When they met their end, their resentment for their peers remained and thus they rose to power to root out the corruption and seek retribution. Of the four, they are the amicable. They often forgo emotions and act only in rationality. Their mind is never clouded, and each act they make are in good conscious. Good will is shown to those that live an honest life, no matter their origins; ruin is shown to those are decide to live a dishonest life.

Wusi Linghun; Bai Wulian

Closeted Transmasc • Agender • He/They • Akiosexual • Demi-Akioromantic

The White Devil, as he is called, is the favored of Prince Suming’qiu, and the youngest of the Great Calamities. Formally a young lord in the Heavens, he turned his back on a betrothed he held no affection for. Openly, he cast aside his previous life, to serve the Shenguai family, and became a quick aid to the Fourth Prince. He is said to be two-faced, in some encounters being ruthless and apathetic, and other times he is genuine and compassionate; a toss up upon which side someone will see when their paths cross with him.

━━━━━━━━━━

The Heavenly Host

Meng Zhang; Courtesy Name Amnizha

Transfem • She/Her • Demisexual • Demiromantic

The First Master of Dongbu, and the acting Qinglong. Kindness is the one rule she lives by: kindness to her family, kindness to her allies, kindness to a stranger, kindness to her foes. She sees no reason to rule with fear and hatred, and actively will not promote negative emotions. She is a stern and serious woman, she takes pride in her knowledge, her power, and securing the truth. Behind closed doors, she opposes Xihuli and the Emperor, knowing both have secrets they would prefer to keep buried, in public she maintains an appearance of being a close ally.

Ling Guang; Courtesy Name Xihuli

Cis-female • She/Her • Demisexual • Apothiromantic

The First Master of Nanfang, and the acting Zhuque. Openly, she is perceived as a compassionate woman, who puts the needs of her people before herself, and acts selfless; in truth, she is surprisingly violent and vulgar. She continues to fuel the war, slandering and starting rumors of false deeds to rile the public, and gain the support of her supposed allies. There is nothing she is not willing to do to gain fame, support, and what she desires.

Jian Bing; Courtesy Name Cixia

Afab • Genderfluid • She/They • Asexual • Demiromantic

The First Master of Xibian, and the acting Baihu. She is known for being a compassionate woman, she wears her heart upon her sleeves, and acts out of the goodness of her heart. She openly encourages peace, to cease endless war and bloodshed; to make amends. For which, she is seen as an enemy to Xihuli, but is a close friend to Amnizha. Her only downfall are her chronic illnesses that have left her sickly since birth.

Zhi Ming; Courtesy Name Lu'yongshi

Amab • Agender • He/They • Closeted Homosexual • Homoromantic

The First Master of Beifang, and the acting Xuanxu. He has a reputation that precedes him as an honorable gentleman. He is a man of his word, he acts in accordance to justice and honor, and rarely strays from it. At heart, he is a warrior, and lacks the delicacies for social greetings; he comes off as blunt, uninterested, distant, and often lacking a heart to care.

Zhi Shi; Courtesy Name Yansbi

Cis-female • She/Her • Asexual • Aromantic

The younger sister of Lu'yongshi, the Second Master of Beifang, and acting Xuanshe. She happens to be her brother’s polar opposite. She is less than honest, she lacks honour, she craves power, she will use blackmail to get what she desires. As, she is not above blackmailing and guilting her own brother to act in accordance to her own agenda. She is also a close associate to Xihuli.

Long Jianhong; Courtesy Name Canren

Cis-male • He/Him • Bisexual • Apothiromantic

The current Emperor of Zhongxin, and the acting Honglong. A prideful man that cares more of his own person than his own people. Often, he turns a blind eye to all suffering, and allows Xihuli to do as she pleases. He is a womanizer, with various concubines’ , and elicit affairs with others. He was loveless to his wife, as there are rumors he was behind her untimely death. Whether these rumors are true or not are unproven, and few challenge them out of fear.

Long Shisan; Courtesy Name Li Busengren

Amab • Genderfluid • He/She • Quoisexual • Quioromantic

The Fourteenth Prince of Zhongxin. With twelve siblings in line of succession to the throne, Li Busengren acknowledges the chances for him to be the heir are little to none; this is added by the factor of being, from birth, his father’s least favorite child. With a will to prove his father wrong, and desperate for his father’s approval, he’s ready to do anything for an ounce of recognition.

Taglist

BSMFH: @writings-of-a-narwhal, @kittensartswriting, @inkflight, @qelizhus,

General: @endlesshourglass, @writerray, @poore-choice-of-words, @alexwritesfiction, @primusesgiantmetalballbearings

Both: @cecilsstorycorner, @little-boats-writes, @hazard-writes, @egg-shark

[chroniccombustion]

Caught in The Grey (ch 6)

Genre: Trans!AU, hurt/comfort, romance, angst with a happy ending Rated: T Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Yosuke Hanamura, Naoto Shirogane, Kanji Tatsumi, Investigation Team, Izanagi/Shadow!Souji Warnings: depression, dysphoria, disassociation, self-hatred, implied suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, mentions of homophobia, implied past child abuse and transphobia, canon-typical violence, mild sexual content Status: multi-chapter, incomplete

Playlist: Spotify | Youtube <- previous chapter | next chapter -> (unavailable)

Souji is talking to Kanji.

Souji is walking with Kanji.

Yosuke feels something inside of him twist sharply. He feels… sick.

Chapter 6: On the Outside, Waiting

“I was only in my mind, You were on the outside waiting. I could feel you all the time. Your voice could save me...”

- (“Echo”, Starset)

Thursday absolutely creeps into existence.

Yosuke wakes with a vicious headache. It doesn’t start off slowly, either; from his first moment of consciousness, even before opening his eyes, his head feels like something has been trying to claw its way out from inside his skull while he slept. It thrums just behind his eyeballs, leaving everything tinted ever-so-slightly yellow around the edges with each pulse. He digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to lesson the pressure, but all he gets for his troubles is a stinging, lingering starburst behind his lids – not even ten minutes into the day and Yosuke’s mood is already beyond all hope of saving. So, bleary and exhausted, he forces himself to ooze out of bed like melted wax. He gets up, frowning against the sickening dizziness, the weird sallow hue, and drags himself through the house to get ready for the day.

Going about his morning routine feels like he’s wading through wet concrete. The constant pain keeps his stomach just barely at the point right before nausea, and as he sidesteps around Teddie in their new “brotherly tradition” of communal teeth-brushing, Yosuke has to actively fight the urge to just go back to bed and stay there until Monday. Maybe if he hits a hard reset he can write off the Endless Week from Hell as just another nightmare; fuck knows he’s had enough weird dreams lately that one more wouldn’t mean much at this point.

He doesn’t though. He powers through the motions on pure muscle memory and diverts what little willpower he does manage to scrape together towards putting on a mask of normalcy. It sticks in place precariously, like dried, cracking glue that’s flaking off under too much heat and wear. He keeps the façade going as best he can, however, because despite wishing he could just evaporate into nothingness, Yosuke doesn’t want Teddie to think he’s pissed off at him. (Because he isn’t, not specifically, even if the bear’s enthusiasm for everything is a dozen kinds of irritating this morning.) So Yosuke does his best to try and keep his mental and physical discomfort as close to secret as possible.

More than being worried that Teddie will take it personally, though, Yosuke just doesn’t want his little brother to ask at all. The reserves of energy Yosuke normally has tucked away have not yet been replenished after days of continuous draining. Even the overflow of nervous, anxious energy that comes from his brain and not his body and makes it impossible for him to sit still half the time; he just… doesn’t have it. There’s simply nothing left that he can spare, not even for Teddie.

So Yosuke swallows down the pressure in the back of his throat that threatens to choke him and pretends that nothing is wrong, that his head isn’t pounding like it’s about to explode and he’s two steps away from giving up for the day. He speaks when Teddie prompts him to, answering questions or responding as needed and staying quiet with it’s not. He lets the chatty blond fill the silence for him, instead, and uses Teddie’s unnatural lack of a need for air to his advantage. For the most part, it seems to work in his favor.

Teddie doesn’t notice – or at least, Yosuke doesn’t think he notices – and by the time Yosuke has to leave for school he’s almost convinced that his act has been bought. It’s only at the last minute, when he glances up for no real reason while slipping on his shoes and spots Teddie in the entryway next to him, that he catches the odd sideways look his brother is pinning him with. Yosuke gives him an overly sunny smile as he opens the door, pretending to both his brother and himself that he doesn’t see the frown on Teddie’s face, and finally slumps out into the chilly morning air.

He tries not to think about it for long.

The sky outside is drearier than it has any right to be as he begins trudging along the path to school. He’s actually a little glad for it – the diluted sunlight is just low enough that it doesn’t hurt his eyes and make his still-present headache worse the way a brighter, bluer morning might. Sadly, with his proverbial battery as drained as it is he can’t take much comfort from the lack of extra pain, and it does nothing to lift his mood from the murky depths of his own self-pity. So, even though the sun doesn’t bother him directly, Yosuke keeps his eyes trained on the concrete beneath his shoes as he walks and distributes his weight onto the balls of his feet to keep his own footsteps from jostling his brain.

He makes his way carefully down the familiar first part of the trek. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t pay attention to anything except the quiet music from his headphones – cranked down today so as not to exacerbate what he’s starting to think might be a migraine. Nothing happens; he’s never been so glad for uneventful monotony. He counts the cracks in the sidewalk as he crosses them and lets himself get lost in the repetition.

He doesn’t want to think – not about Souji, not about the dreams, not about the squirmy, guilty feelings low in his gut leftover from last night’s shitty texts. None of it.

He doesn’t want to think at all.

(He feels his knees start to buckle mid-step and has to forcibly blank out his mind to stop himself from remembering everything that’s made him question his own reality over the past few days, lest he turn right the fuck around and lock himself in his bedroom for a year.)

Surprisingly it seems to work; the awful, mocking voice isn’t there this morning, chewing at his memories and bringing them all into sharp relief. There is no harsh whispering in his ears, telling him all the ways he’s fucked up or how worthless and forgettable he is, how much Souji must secretly hate him or how disgusting Yosuke really is down inside. Instead there’s an eerie quiet, only broken by Yosuke’s own mind when he slips and lets his caged thoughts out for a moment. He can’t tell if he’s glad or unnerved.

He tries not to think about that, either.

(The yellow hue hasn’t gone away – he doesn’t know what that means but he’s pretty sure it’s nothing good.)

The mental silence feels like a cool breeze against a scalding sunburn for the short amount of time it lasts. It follows Yosuke the first third or so of the journey, numbing him to the streets and background highway noise within the couple-block radius around his house. But as much as he wishes it could last the entire day, Yosuke has long-since learned that nothing good or decent lingers around him for very long before vanishing and leaving him desperate for steady ground. All too soon, in little visual bits and pieces, he starts to habitually recognize his surroundings once more.

Just past the point where the sounds from the highway he lives by start to fade entirely, Yosuke’s eyes catch on minor landmarks, reminding him of just where he is and where he’s heading. He slows his already-sluggish pace even further and lifts his head to properly align himself with the rest of reality. Up ahead, about a block away, lies the little stretch of road where he and Souji’s paths usually intersect; he’d avoided it yesterday, and looking at it now, even from a distance, Yosuke can feel his nerve endings beginning to spark and crackle, even as his mind stays unnaturally silent. His muscles tense slightly, like his body is getting ready to break into a sprint at any moment before his head can even fully catch up and register the bitter unease that’s steadily taking hold. He hates this. He hates the way his stomach drops out at the sight of he and Souji’s meeting place. There isn’t even anyone there that he can see – though he’s ashamed to admit the teensy flash of disappointment – because... well, because – and, even worse, how afraid he is to stick around and find out if that’s going to change any time soon.

(The whole world turns sickly bile-yellow for a second; the color disappears when Yosuke blinks and swallows with a dry throat, but for a single instant it’s there.)

I can’t do this.

Just like yesterday, just like the coward he is, all talk and no spine, Yosuke lets his feet turn away from his typical route and down a nearby side street. It’ll take him a little extra time to go around like this, to wind through a different part of town and come out at another spot along the river before heading practically a back way up to Yasogami. He’ll still have to take the path to the front gates – there isn’t really another way he can go – but if he can do enough meandering and time it right then he can (probably, hopefully) avoid Souji until he’s actually in the classroom. He’ll have to figure out the rest of the day as it comes.

He stalls and stalls and wanders and picks his way carefully along a zig-zagging line in the general direction of the high school. He’s familiar enough with where he’s going that the roundabout way itself doesn’t bother him; he’s already spent a lot of time mindlessly exploring the streets of Inaba.

When his family first moved from the city, out to this tiny little hole in the middle of nowhere, Yosuke had found himself with too much free time and too few distractions to keep his mind from dwelling on his own misery. Being new meant he had no friends, and being the person everyone seemed to blame for Junes’ existence meant he wasn’t really welcome anywhere either. When he wasn’t at school he was working, and when he wasn’t working he was home alone because his parents were working, and when he was home alone his options were either homework or unpacking boxes. Eventually he ran out of both.

Video games were only fun for a little while before they grew frustrating and boring without someone else to play with. Movies and tv were alright but sooner or later he’d already seen everything twice over. Books where never really his thing because his attention span was always just too short to let him enjoy them; manga was better, but had the same problem as movies. In the end, Yosuke’s only choice for something to do besides sit and stare at the wall had been to go walking – if only to try and familiarize himself with the place he was inevitably going to be stuck in for the rest of his natural life.

So he walked. From the school district down towards his house, looping and doubling back to kill time, or from Junes after an earlier shift and across to the other side of town just to see how far this tiny pocket of rural bullshit extended before he hit the wilderness. He might not have gotten the whole place memorized, but after those first couple of months in Inaba, when his entire experience with the town outside of school, work, or the pile of moving boxes at home had been made up of long walks and lonely hours, Yosuke’s mental map had soon become, at the very least, decent.

He calls on that mental map now as he rounds another corner, pulling at a few staler memories to see if he’s going the way he thinks he is. The house at the end of the street with the blue shutters, the rickety doghouse in the front yard across the road – yep, all still there. He’s probably going to be late again, or very, very close to it, but as long as he keeps moving, as long as he twists and winds and pretends he doesn’t eventually have to join the rest of the student population on the same road to the school entrance, he can keep himself from succumbing to his anxiety. Souji is punctual, Souji likes routine. If Yosuke takes his time getting to school and avoids the usual path, then he theoretically doesn’t have to worry about accidentally running into Souji on the way.

But even as the thought helps to keep the jitters at bay, there is just something so… inherently wrong about it that Yosuke has to bite down hard on the inside of his own cheek to keep himself from choking. This is a violation of his own routine, of everything that has made his world anything considering normal up to this point. Never in a million years would he have ever thought himself capable of outright hiding from his best friend, going out of his way to purposefully avoid him – it feels like a betrayal, like he’s adding just one more slight against Souji to his ever-growing pile of mistakes. A faint echo of loneliness washes over him and clings to his skin like a humid breeze – the morning feels far too much like the walks he used to take before he even knew that Souji existed, all those months ago.

He never wants to go back to that.

He thinks he may have forgotten how to breathe.

Digging his shoes a little more roughly into the sidewalk, Yosuke powers his way up the street – headache be damned – and past the house with the blue shutters, counting his footsteps in his head loud enough to eclipse the lyrics of the song in his headphones. He keeps his head down and his shoulders hunched, only letting his eyes lift from the sidewalk to keep himself from tripping over as he walks like the entire world is clawing at his heels.

He almost doesn’t notice when he’s reached the path that leads through the school district.

He almost doesn’t notice the achingly familiar sound of Souji’s voice further up along the road.

He almost doesn’t notice the figure striding along at his partner’s side.

But then he does.  

Yosuke looks up instinctively as his friend’s voice reaches his ears, startling violently for a moment when he sees just how close he got to Souji without even realizing it. His heart stutters, trembles like the wings of a frightened moth at the flash of silver not even twenty feet in front of where Yosuke has been disassociating as he walks. (And how funny is it that even when Yosuke forgets where he is, his feet always seem to lead him right back to the one thing that’s ever made his life make any sort of sense?) He nearly trips on the next footfall as he overrides his own autopilot and manually slows his pace, falling a little further back from the ethereal swath of black-and-moonlight ahead of him just enough to not be noticed. He makes sure to stay close enough that he can still hear his partner speaking, though – not even the words themselves, just the sound of Souji is all he really needs.

(Just how needy can he get?)

Souji’s voice carries on the slight breeze that blows through and ruffles his hair, moving it enough to catch the muted morning light and make it shine like sunbeams across the Samegawa. Souji's volume is as quiet as ever but unmistakable in its steady timbre, its velvet-softness, and even with his headphones still on Yosuke can hear it. He’s trained himself to pick up on Souji’s commands through his music while in battle. By now it’s almost second nature to him to react every time his friend speaks.

But Souji isn’t speaking to Yosuke. No, Yosuke is still a ways behind him and from the looks of it Souji hasn’t noticed Yosuke at all. Instead, walking side-by-side, so close that their arms nearly brush every time one of them gestures, Souji is talking to someone else. Someone tall, with broader shoulders and a louder voice, bleach-blond hair slicked back to show off the glint of several earrings, a uniform jacket worn like a cape instead of over the arms.

Souji is talking to Kanji.

Souji is walking with Kanji.

Something inside of Yosuke twists sharply. He feels… sick.

It sits like concrete in the pit of his stomach, growing rapidly in its weight until he can barely breathe, can barely see, the edges of his vision almost pulsing with that same ominous yellow. He can't think for a moment, can't focus on anything but the way his best friend – his best friend, goddamnit! - walks just a little too close to Kanji, smiles just a little too widely at Kanji. It's wrong, it's wrong, it's so wrong, and Yosuke can't even begin to peel back his own thoughts from the slow crescendo of screaming now building inside his mind to parse just why he's suddenly so angry. The yellow becomes tinged with something almost like an acidic green, the color of jealousy and vomit and everything Yosuke can feel at the back of his throat like a wad of wet paper. He feels shaky in a new way, no longer afraid but something closer to how he tenses before a strike in battle. Defensive. A snarl curls at his lips before he can stop himself, and it's only because he's still rooted to the spot in a kind of shock that doesn't even feel human anymore that he doesn't go launching himself across the way and yanking Souji back to himself by the arm.

Somewhere, deeper than the anger and the horrible heat trickling down his spine, Yosuke knows he's being unreasonable; after all, Kanji is Souji's friend, too, and it's not like Yosuke has exactly been available for Souji to interact with recently, so there's nothing in the world wrong with the other boy walking to school with another member of their team. He wishes he could pinpoint where this is even coming from, why he's suddenly flipped like a switch from wanting to avoid Souji at all costs to violently wanting to hoard him all to himself. It doesn't make any sense, and Yosuke's actually starting to get a little bit frightened of his own reaction.

It's just too bad he can't feel it properly below everything sinking into his heart, poisoning him from the inside out; maybe it would be enough to snap him out of whatever this is.

He stands stock still, only vaguely aware of the other people around him, some shooting looks at him no doubt, and watches as his Souji (his, something in him hisses,) passes through the gate with someone other than Yosuke. He watches, body frozen and eyes burning, refusing to blink as Souji, his friend, his leader, his partner approaches the school together with Kanji, the same way he used to (used to, should be,) with Yosuke.

It shouldn’t knock the wind from Yosuke’s lungs like he’s taken a Zio straight to the chest; it shouldn’t, because when all is said and done it's almost guaranteed all this is completely innocent – Souji is a friendly guy, and it's never been like him to say no to anyone asking for his time. (Except for when he did, Yosuke thinks bitterly, because wow, that wound is just not closing.)

But that's the thing, isn't it? Because no matter how much it is absolutely Yosuke's fault for putting this newest distance between him and his partner, even if Souji's refusal to talk to him had set everything in motion, no matter who or what is truly to blame for this, it does little to change the very real fact that Yosuke is not the one by Souji's side right now.

That Souji has picked someone else.

The scene is so similar that it’s almost as if Yosuke is looking at a displaced echo, a badly done juxtaposition of two different images made to look like one. Like someone stripped the negative of a photograph and pasted in a poor substitute. Like someone replaced the original and, and...

Told you, the voice inside his brain sneers. For the first time that morning, Yosuke feels that formless smirk stretching wider, curling into his fingers and toes like something settling into its frame after being wadded up, stuffed into a space it didn't fit. It feels simultaneously right and wrong – wrong because he doesn't think it's supposed to be there, hiding just behind his limbs, adhering to his bones and pricking at his nerve endings; right because the thing now wearing his skin alongside him disagrees.

It was only a matter of time before he got tired of your shit.

It was only a matter of time before he got tired of you.

He takes a few steps after them as they start to get just a little bit too far away, hyper -focusing on the way Souji acts, the sound of his voice and the way it lilts and flows, comfortable in a way Yosuke's rattling memories can't recall if he's ever been before. Yosuke zeros in on the lack of distance between the pair ahead of him, scanning them like Rise does in the TV and storing away all the minute details he can suddenly see, focus now sharp as his kunai. He sees the way Kaji's face reddens. He sees Souji looking over at Kanji with a bright expression, with a smile that shows teeth and pulls the corners of his mouth wider than Yosuke has ever seen when Souji is talking to him. He feels a growl rumbling deep in his throat.

Souji tilts his head in Kanji’s direction as the punk says something, swinging a large hand out in front of himself with obvious excitement and nearly smacking into Souji’s side with his elbow. He catches himself before the hit lands and sheepishly pulls his arm away, face going redder. Souji lightly, deliberately, bumps Kanji's elbow with the back of his own hand, no doubt reassuring the blond that his exuberance has caused no harm. Kanji rubs at the spot awkwardly. He says something. He blushes harder.

And Souji laughs.

It not a real laugh, it never really is with Souji, nothing louder than a very quiet chuckle or a huff or a breath, but Yosuke has heard it before, has been the one to bring it out before, so he would know that sound anywhere, will always recognize that silent shudder of his partner's shoulders as the other boy uses his body to communicate instead of his voice. Yosuke doesn't have to hear it – his mind supplies the sound.

That's mine! he snarls.

Not anymore, something mockingly singsongs in reply.

The yellow-green in his eyes grows darker and Yosuke can see the corners start to creep inward with solid color, until all he can see is the fondness on Souji's face that isn't meant for him.

He has to claw his way back to the forefront of his mind in order to get to class on time, just barely slinking into the room with the teacher coming up the hallway behind him. His eyes bore into the soft grey hair at the back of Souji's neck and – for the briefest of moments – he has to quell the urge to lean forward and sink his teeth into his partner's flesh, leave his imprint for all the world to see and claim what's his.

He doesn't even notice the way the thing inside him that before would have been copper and sick now seems to purr at the thought.

---

He doesn't remember the rest of the day.

Yosuke is aware that he somehow makes it through the school day, bounding out of the room at lunchtime to go and... well, he doesn't even know, really. He thinks he may have gone up to the roof but he isn't sure. He knows that he did eventually go back to the classroom – presumably after lunch – but beyond that there's nothing. The end-of-day bell sounds and he's immediately on his feet, out the door, down the hall, head foggy and vision tinted yellow; if anyone says anything to him then he doesn't even notice.

Something ugly is happening to him inside. He knows it, doesn't know how to fight it. Right now, after that morning, after everything swirling around in his chest and his head for most of the week now, Yosuke feels a disconnect between himself and reality. He's spent so much time trying not to think, then over-thinking, the repeating, and repeating, and repeating, that it's like something has finally snapped. He's so tired and wrung out that he can't tell how he even feels right now, whether he's mad at Souji or Kanji or himself. Or all three. Or just fucking everything. It's as if there's a block of ice holding him separate from the dark things twisting like vines behind his heart; he can't look at them, can't pull them apart with his hands and study them, he can only feel them coiling tighter and tighter until his body goes numb.

His phone goes off in his pocket as he stalks his way down the hill away from school, thighs burning despite months of combat toning his muscles inside the TV. He checks it on instinct, feels the vines in his ribs twist in another direction as he reads the “I miss you, Partner,” that Souji had texted him.

Guilt or anger or self-disgust or something climbs its way to the back of his throat and threatens to spill from his lips onto the sidewalk and it's such a mess, such a god-fucking-awful mess that the only thing Yosuke can do is type a quick, dismissive, “sorry @ work” and back out of the text before he chokes on molten, raw emotion. Without even looking he scrolls and clicks on a random chat log further down the list and pulls it up so he doesn't have to look at Souji's name anymore, doesn't have to try and figure out if he's upset or happy or just sick to his stomach. Chie's nickname screams at him from the phone screen, her words from last night still justifiably pissed.

Yosuke takes a second to think of the dirtiest pick-up line he can and sends it off, not even caring anymore. It doesn't feel like anything, he gets no satisfaction from it, doesn't even bother harboring the idea that maybe she'd find it funny like he used to do ages ago. It doesn't mean anything. Nothing means anything anymore. He's just hollow.

His phone 'ping!'s and he barely glances at the response. She's mad again. Whatever. Let her be. Yosuke deserves it – the frigid rush he gets from her anger coats his skin and, in a horrible, disgusting way, it makes him feel better. Good. At least someone feels something in his direction. He sends her another message, pretending it was all a joke, that he wasn't punching at the walls of his tiny world just to feel anything anymore. He's gone so far from the constant buzz of anxiety and fear that he's grown immune to it now. Everything is so loud and at the same time it's all too brutally quiet. It's like he's rigged for self-destruction, caught in a loop of feeling betrayed and wanting to betray in return out of spite, folding back around to hating himself for it, wishing everything was back to normal, that he and Souji were back to normal, and then wanting to rip his own skin off when he realizes they aren't and can't. It tilts him side to side and he can't balance. He can't regulate his emotions, can't sort out his feelings, has no outlet – all he can do is take a swipe at everything around him and hope he finds a handhold, something to pull him back to the surface. Maybe if he causes enough damage outside himself then it will make up for all the damage already caused inside.

He wants to scream.

Instead, Yosuke types out another dirty text and hits send with shaking, vindictive hands.

Nothing changes as the afternoon stretches on. Chie spits more fire at him through the phone, apparently borrowing Yukiko's element for a while as she tells Yosuke in loving detail just how many ways she intends to break his knees. He hates that it's almost comforting in its normalcy – albeit in a dark and over-exaggerated way. The ice block sits comfortably in his chest, hindering him from properly feeling the fallout of his actions as the vines dig their thorns in deeper; he knows that if he tries to look behind it then he'll be disgusted with himself all over again, (Chie really doesn't deserve this kind of treatment, for one thing) and so he just. Doesn't. He holds back the part of him still consciously rallying against everything he's doing, yelling at him to stop, throwing itself against the frozen wall to try and make him feel all the remorse and guilt he knows is there behind the ice. It's building, drop by drop, bucket by bucket, action by action, but Yosuke can't make himself stop.

You really are a worthless piece of shit, aren't you?

It's to the point where Yosuke can no longer tell the mocking, hissing, whispering voice inside his head from his own. He thinks there might not be a difference at all anymore.

He wanders through the streets and between the buildings in the same weaving, winding pattern he did that morning, letting the music in his ears and the faint ache in his legs from his ceaseless power walking distract him from all the things he wants to pretend aren't happening. Eventually he reaches the bottom of another hill and doubles back to kill more time before his shift at Junes – because, unlike the night before, he really does have one this time. He debates on calling in as he takes the long way around to the shopping district. Right now he barely feels human, let alone like he's capable of interacting with other people; donning the mask of artificial pep needed to deal with shoppers is draining even on the good days, despite the fact that he's used to being on autopilot while at work with too many years of involuntary customer service making it almost muscle memory by now. In the end, though, he decides against it. Calling in will mean having to make up a good excuse for his dad, which might lead to a far longer and more complicate conversation than Yosuke has any desire to have. There's no way he has the energy to play verbal minesweeper with his parents, whether it be now or later once they get home.

He checks his phone to see how much time he has left to fortify himself, to keep his brain and his heart blissfully, chaotically numb, and sees a trio of new texts from Chie that must have come through while he wasn't looking. He taps her name to bring the chat back up and expects to see more of the usual fair. He doesn't.

Meat-Fu: What's going on Hanamura? This isn't normal.

Meat-Fu: U know u can talk 2 me right?

Meat-Fu: Ur my friend & I'm worried.

Yosuke feels like he's been stabbed.

Nonononono,this isn't right! With all the shit he's pulled to get attention, validation, to force the world to prove he's a bastard, none of it was supposed to result in this. He's sick, he's worthless, why can't everyone just hate him as much as he hates himself?!

Yosuke nearly throws the phone away from him, his body suddenly shaking as the ice cracks and the vines squeeze and he comes dangerously close to feeling something. This wasn't – he doesn't' know how to deal with this. Everything is off-kilter; Souji has gone and replaced him with Kanji and Kanji is stealing his best friend and it's all Yosuke's fault because he's disgusting, of course Souji isn't going to want anything to do with you anymore – and Kanji probably has the same kind of dreams that Yosuke's been having because that's what gay people do, right? And now Chie, of all people is picking up on the stuff Yosuke is trying so hard to shove down because how does he even begin to deal with all of this and he can't let her know, he can't! Not after everything he's done and said and everything he's turning into, oh god.

Blinking through the sudden blur in his vision, (when did he start tearing up, what the hell?) Yosuke grips his phone in both hands and sucks in breath after breath of too-thick air. He's so tired of borderline breakdowns. Typing as best he can with his limited sight, he fumbles out a reply, just something, anything to grind the conversation to a screeching halt before it can even begin.

Yosuke: wth r u talking about? lol ur crazy Chie

He sends it. It's not enough, it's too casual, too easy to brush off, but he can't see the screen anymore and his fingers won't move right. So he sends it and he stands there in the middle of the sidewalk near the bus stop in the shopping district, staring unseeing down at his phone and forcing himself not to blink. The tears stay in his eyes, dry up, fade away. He takes a shaky breath in and lowers his phone.

“Yosuke-kun?”

Oh no.

It's like a nightmare. An actual nightmare. He looks up and sees Yukiko standing a few feet away from him, likely waiting for the stupid bus (why did he have to stop here? Why?) with what looks like a couple of Junes bags draped over the crook of her elbow. She must have just finished shopping and come straight to the bus stop, ready to head home.

Which means Yosuke would have been damned either way – if he'd gone straight to work he would have run into her there, and because he'd stalled for so long he'd run into her here. He shouldn't have answered Chie's text, should have kept moving, should have taken another route or hidden in the stock room at work. He should have--

Yukiko takes a step closer, concern sweeping over her delicate brows. “Are you alright, Yosuke-kun?” She takes another step. Her lips pull into a frown as she looks at him and Yosuke can't even begin to imagine what's she's seeing.

“H-huh?” he squeaks out. His knees don't want to hold him up.

Yukiko's frown deepens. “You look troubled, did something happen?”

Yosuke shakes his head. “No! No, I'm perfectly fine, I'm just uh...” He flounders for a second, staring at her like she's an approaching Shadow four times his size – even if she hasn't moved since that second step in his direction. He knows his eyes are wider than a cat's, he can feel it. Finally he manages to blurt out, “stalling? Cuz I really don't wanna go to work.” (Well it's not... exactly a lie.)

From the way Yukiko is looking at him, he knows she isn't convinced, can already tell she's thinking of saying something. She's quiet and polite most of the time, yes, but she's been getting better at speaking her mind, and that scares him right now. He can barely keep himself together over a text conversation; there's no way in hell Yosuke will be able to make it out of a face-to-face one alive.

So he defaults. He defaults and it leaves him feeling gross and slimy even before it's finished leaving his tongue; “You know, if you're worried about me, you could always come cheer me up.”

(Oh god does he wish he could put the words back in his mouth and swallow them down.)

Yukiko leans back slightly, her expression turning uncomfortable, and it just serves to make Yosuke feel even worse about what he's doing. She opens her mouth to speak. Yosuke cuts her off.

“You never did send me that picture.” He tries to wink. He doesn't like how it feels.

This time, Yukiko recoils as if something foul has been splashed at her. “That's--”

But Yosuke is already turning on his jelly-kneed legs and willing them to carry him just around the corner, just out of sight. “See you tomorrow!” he calls, trying to keep himself from retching as the words come out. Behind him, he hears the sound of the bus' breaks squealing and pushes his legs faster. Yukiko won't follow him, he knows (he hopes,) lest she miss her ride home and have to wait for the next one. Yosuke has been spared for now.

(Except he hasn't really, now has he?)

He's almost makes it up to the top of the shopping district, almost makes it to (possible) safety at Junes where he can hide between the aisles, go and find things to do and redo in the stock room, keep himself busy without actually doing anything. It'll be a welcome distraction at this point, despite how vehemently he doesn't actually feel like dealing with customers, coworkers, hell, he'd even probably dodge Teddie because Yosuke just genuinely can't today. (And on the chance he spots one of his friends walking into whatever area he happens to be in, well... then he'll just have to find something to hide behind and stay there until they go away.)

He's almost to his goal when the universe decides he's not done suffering quite yet. There, coming around the corner, Nanako perched happily on his shoulders, is Souji.

Yosuke stops dead in his track, so abruptly that it's only by some tiny speck of luck that he doesn't fall face-first onto the pavement and break his nose. Panic erupts in his blood like he's been doused in gasoline and set on fire and suddenly his lungs are collapsing in his chest. He doesn't know how he manages to do it, but he dives to the side into an alleyway and tears out the other end as if his life depends on it.

Souji can't see him, Souji can't know he's there, because Yukiko and Chie both talk to Souji and Yosuke hasn't even managed to deal with all the stuff that's already happened this week, hasn't dealt with this morning even! So if Yukiko and Chie talk to Souji and tell Souji about all the horrible shit that's Yosuke's been doing...

Yosuke is doomed. Yosuke will absolutely be doomed. He hasn't spoken to Souji in days and he can't let their next interaction be Souji looking at him with disappointment, with anger, with disgust.

Yosuke runs through back streets and down alleyways until his legs betray him and he collapses against a wall just outside the Shiroku Store. He wasn't even aware he'd managed to book it that far – no wonder his chest feels like it's about to explode. He waits until he can manage to catch his breath, leaning into the bricks so he doesn't sink to the ground. When he thinks he can move again, (ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour later, he has no idea how long he's there,) he pulls himself around the corner and looks first to the left, up towards Junes, and then to the right down the shopping district. No Souji. Good. Hopefully the other boy is still up shopping with his sister and will be for a good long while, (especially if Teddie has anything to say about it.) Tentatively confident that he's not about to be ambushed by his former partner, Yosuke slips shakily out onto the sidewalk.

First thing's first, he shoves his hand into his pocket and digs around until he finds every bit of loose change he's got and shoves it gracelessly into the receiver of the vending machine. He hits a random button, doesn't even care what he gets so long as it's liquid and cold. He chugs the can without even tasting anything and he stifles a wince as the drink hits his burning throat, before the raspy dry feeling finally goes away. He tosses the can away in the nearby trashcan and slinks back into the alley to hide while he calls his dad and tells him he can't make it in for his shift.

(Chie texts him again because of course she does. He doesn't even look at it this time; he just fires off a quick, “@ work can't talk” and puts his phone on airplane mode.)

---

Yosuke makes a quick stop inside Shiroku Store before chancing the trip back home. He grabs a couple of instant ramens for himself, knowing full well no one will be home for a while to make dinner and that his own appetite is questionable after his stomach has been tied up in knots for so long. It'll also give him an excuse not to have to sneak back downstairs later and risk running into his parents. Again, not a conversational minefield he's willing to navigate right now. (He also grabs a pack of mochi to placate his little brother when Teddie inevitably whines about Yosuke not coming in to work.) Once he's out he heads straight home – straight, because the sun has started going down and it's freezing outside, so he feels confident enough in the low temperature to take the gamble on none of his friends being out where he can stumble into them.

He makes it to his house without incident, makes it inside and up to his room, even manages to take a bath without a fuss since Teddie isn't home yet to knock insistently on the bathroom door. For now, he's safe. But even knowing he's at home, alone, with his phone far away from him in the other room, Yosuke finds that he still can't relax. He soaks in the warm water, (he'd washed as quickly as fucking possible because even days later the shower makes his stomach squirm,) and tries to will the anxiety to bleed out through his pores. It doesn't.

Something is keeping his shoulders tense, his nerves frayed and spiked. Even when he gets out of the bathtub after Teddie comes bounding into the house, loud even from downstairs, Yosuke feels like he could jog all the way back to school and have energy left over.

He gives Teddie the mochi, which effectively shuts up any line of questioning that might have been incoming, and Teddie babbles excitedly as he eats. He tells Yosuke all about how “Sensei and Nana-chan” had come by to do some grocery shopping, how he and Nanako had run off to find the groceries together while Souji had wandered off. How they'd found him later after they were all done, around the side of the building, crouched low to pet the stray cats. Yosuke listens to all of this with far more attentiveness than normal; he only breathes once Ted is finished and there has been no mention made of Yosuke whatsoever.

It's... weirdly easier to relax his body after that, though understandably not his mind. His little brother is a small sliver of something normal, oblivious and innocent and forever just happy to be there. It lets Yosuke pretend that nothing bad is waiting for him just outside the house's front door.

Normally he'd play a few rounds of a video game with his brother until one of them felt tired enough to go to bed; tonight, though, Yosuke can't keep his attention on the game, and so gives up after only two failed races. He moves to sit on the bed and picks half-heartedly at his cold instant ramen, only partially watching as Ted plays against the game's AI until the bear starts getting bored. Teddie decides that they're going to have a movie night together after that, and Yosuke lets the blond boy put in some brightly-colored Ghibli thing for them to watch. Yosuke inevitably zones out.

It isn't until the credits end and the dvd menu comes back with a loop of the movie's main theme that he finally looks up, blinking at the red numbers on his alarm clock that read far later into the night than he'd thought, and then down to find his brother passed out cold on the floor. Yosuke sighs and gets up, throwing his unfinished noodles away before awkwardly – albeit carefully – dragging Teddie's slumbering form over to the closet and plopping him onto his futon.

It's as Yosuke is getting ready to turn off the light that he sees Teddie's phone lying on the carpet.

He doesn't know why he thinks it, what makes him link the sight of his little brother's cell phone to the flicker of memory that bubbles up to the surface. He doesn't know where the idea comes from. But he has it.

Rise had taken pictures of everyone and everything at the pageant. Rise had taken pictures of Souji.

Teddie had been begging Rise to send the pictures to his phone.

Yosuke has no idea whether or not Rise had ever actually did, but with how proud of herself she'd been for taking them, he'd bet money on there now being a whole folder of pageant photos residing in the bear boy's phone.

I shouldn't, he thinks, and not just because it'd be incredibly invasive to go poking around in his brother's phone –  if he does, and he finds what he's looking for, then what? He knows neither the girls nor Naoto took any photos of the second pageant, but despite what he let Yukiko believe (and what he's been trying to convince himself of for days,) Yosuke doesn't need those; he'd snapped a few of his own when the event was happening. There aren't many - he'd been a bit preoccupied worrying over Souji's disappearance at the time, and he'd purposefully avoided taking any pictures of Naoto because they'd looked so miserable that it felt almost cruel, but he has some. (And thinking about it now, he realizes he hasn't so much as opened the photo gallery on his phone even once to look at any of them since he took them.)

So no, it's not photos of the beauty pageant he's looking for.

Slowly, as if terrified Teddie will somehow wake up and throw open the closet door to catch Yosuke in the act, he reaches down and picks his brother's phone up off the ground. He's just picking it up, he tells himself; he's just getting it off the floor so no one steps on it. He's doing Ted a favor. He's not going to look, he's not.

(Liar.)

It's not hard to get into Ted's phone – the bear doesn't have any sort of lock on the screen – and because it's a cheap Junes model, Yosuke already knows exactly how to work it. It takes him less than half a minute to find Rise's nickname in the text logs and pull up their last conversation.

There, staring up at him, is the bottom part of a photo, with what looks like the stage in the school auditorium.

Yosuke immediately feels his palms start to sweat. He crosses the room in two quick, silent strides over to the light switch, turning it off with fumbling fingers and plunging the room into darkness save for the faint glow of his alarm clock and the glare from the phone in his hand. He pads back over to the outline of his bed and throws the covers back, then climbs in, throws the blankets over his head like a child avoiding bedtime, and curls up into a ball on his side with his prize held tight in his nervous hands.

His stomach swoops as he holds his thumb over the up button, ready to scroll past Ted's enthusiastic words of thanks to Rise and see--- but hesitates.

He could stop right now, he thinks; it would be so easy just to shut the phone off, put it on the charger, go to sleep. He could roll over with his face in the pillow and pretend none of this happened. It would be so easy.

Okay, he thinks, momentarily closing the phone. Okay. Okay...

This isn't creepy, it's not; he's just... making sure. Right. Yes. That's all. The dreams started after Yosuke had seen Souji dressed up as a girl – after Yosuke had thought things about Souji dressed as a girl. That had to be the reason, right? He couldn't be gay if he was only attracted to his best friend when Souji was in a skirt, when he looked a little too convincing as a chick. That's where the wires had gotten crossed in Yosuke's head, when his teenage hormones had been confused at the sight of his already-pretty partner making an even-prettier lady. That's all it was, it had to be, and Yosuke was holding the proof, the means to his mental salvation, in his hands. All he had to do was look.

Yosuke closes his eyes and takes a second to brace himself, scared for reasons he doesn't particularly want to explore. He pulls in a deep, unsteady breath. Another. A third. On the final exhale, he opens his eyes and taps a key to wake the screen back up. He stares at the bottom of the photo for just a few moments more and then finally sucks in one more breath, pressing the 'up' as his lungs fill to the brim.

The first few pictures aren't what he needs: a crowded group shot, Teddie flouncing around the stage, Kanji looking ready to break an ankle in his ill-fitting heels, Yosuke hating everything while holding the mic. He keeps scrolling up, growing irritated and more anxious with every photo revealed not to be the one he wants. Eventually he just holds the button down and lets everything scroll by until all the images start to blur together; it's because of this that he very nearly misses a flash of grey and silver as the photo streaks by.

Yosuke immediately takes his thumb off the 'up' and jabs at the 'down' until the picture comes back into view. There, bathed in the harsh spotlight of center stage, stands Souji, expression tightly neutral and face pale. It sucks the breath from Yosuke's lungs.

This. This is what Yosuke has been trying so desperately to find, simultaneously to avoid. It feels wrong, somehow, like an invasion of more than just Teddie's privacy, but the whole school had seen Souji in a skirt so it's not like it's a secret that anyone's trying to keep. Still, as Yosuke stares at the familiar shape of his partner's face, his hips, his hands, Yosuke feels, not the wave of relief he'd been expecting, but sour. He can't even put his finger on it, why his face seems to curl up in frustration without him even consciously bidding it to; Souji's body is just as lean and graceful as he remembers it looking, with the long silver wig framing his face and softening his features and the line of the skirt hugging his waist to give him just the faintest of hourglass figures. It should be beautiful, in a way it is, but the more that Yosuke stares at the photo the less and less attracted he finds himself being.

This isn't right.

(Oh, but isn't it?)

Yosuke scrolls up to look for another photo, finding a better one, a closer one, on the very next try. This time the camera is zoomed in, giving Yosuke a much clearer view of Souji from the waist up. Whatever bra the girls had stuffed him into makes his chest look natural, a petite curve to his body that fits stunningly along with the slender way his figure normally seems to taper slightly at his waist. Objectively, Souji looks great, hot, even in the pageant clothes he'd been forced to wear; Yosuke had thought as much when seeing his partner in person on that nightmare of a day. He squints at the phone in his hands and tries to recall just what specifically he'd found attractive when he'd been staring at Souji backstage in the dim, shitty lighting. His hips, definitely – he remembers thinking how perfect they would be for him to rest his hands on. Souji's waist, his chest, yes, but also his hands. Yosuke remembers how ethereal Souji had looked, too, with his eyes and the wig (an uncannily perfect match for Souji's actual hair color,) shining dull silver in the dark. The curve of his jaw, the hint of skin just above his collar bones, the line of his thighs barely there below the straightness of the skirt.

Looking at the photo now, Yosuke can see all the the things that he found so alluring before – and feels, strangely, next to nothing.

He can't understand it, why is he not swooning over the image of his best friend making the most amazingly convincing girl Yosuke has ever had filthy dreams about? (Something turns over in his mind, and suddenly, sickeningly, Yosuke feels like he's on the highest peak of a roller coaster, staring down at the hundred-foot drop below him just as the cart begins to move.)

The sex dreams hadn't featured a skirt.

They hadn't featured long hair or perky boobs.

In his dreams, Souji had just been... Souji. A flat, smooth chest, all toned muscle and softly masculine edges. The silver had been shorter, the cheekbones sharper, all of it had been Souji as he always is – a guy. No matter how gorgeous Yosuke thinks (or thought) Souji looked in his pageant outfit, the blinding fact remains that the boy in his dreams had stayed a boy.

Slowly, stomach twisting into nausea, Yosuke reaches out from the safety of his blanket shield and picks his own phone up off the night stand beside the bed. Like some kind of gremlin, he snatches his hand – phone and all – back into the darkness beneath the covers, clutching it to him with fingers so clammy it threatens to hinder his grip. His heart flutters in his chest, hard enough that he can feel his own pulse; he swallows and his throat is dry. Trembling, Yosuke holds a phone in each hand, holds them up next to one another. He opens his, and fumbles his way to his photo gallery, clicking through until he comes to a picture of himself and Souji, standing close and smiling as Yosuke snaps the selfie.

Oh god.

It's all still there. The photo is, again, a waist-up shot, but even still Yosuke can see the gentle line of Souji's jaw, the hint of his collarbones just past the open top button of his shirt, the long, delicate fingers on strong and calloused hands. Souji's hair is shorter, of course, and doesn't frame his face the way the wig did, so his cheekbones are more visible, his chin slightly sharper, but his eyes. Souji's eyes are still that same summer-storm hue, round and kind, and full of far more life than any of the photos of him in pageant garb. Pageant Souji looks like a marionette; real Souji looks like rainclouds incarnate.

Yosuke's gaze travels down to the very bottom of the picture, where the image cuts off right below Souji's belt buckle, leaving the dip of his waist, the jut of the top of his hip, all still visible. He's wearing his uniform shirt and jacket, but even with the layers of straight-cut clothing Yosuke can see that same faint, curving line of his partner's body that almost looks like the start of an hourglass. Yosuke can't see the other boy's thighs in this one, but the line of Souji's hip fills outward slightly, instead of carving a path straight down like Yosuke is so used to seeing on most other guys – himself included.  Souji, for all that he's built like an athlete, is only sharp in certain places, soft in others; a graceful blade of curving steel, handle wrapped in velvety leather.

Yosuke tears his eyes away from the photo of him and Souji together and back over to the one of Souji at the pageant. The features are the same but different, radiant in one and hollow in the other – both have the same shape, the same color, the same lines and vivid angles. But even without the false femininity, Souji is still gorgeous. Souji is still ethereal. And Yosuke can feel that swooping in his stomach turn to something warm.

A terrible realization comes dawning over Yosuke's mind like a cold and wretched sun. The people in the photos – excluding Yosuke – though differing in dress, are the same. The things that Yosuke had noticed on the day of the pageant, when he'd stared and stared and stared at his friend like Souji was the most beautiful ghost he'd ever seen, every single one of them was still there. Even without the wig and the makeup and the clothing meant for women, every tiny detail that Yosuke had poured over was unmistakably present; they'd all been there the entire time, never not.  

Which means that Yosuke just hadn't noticed them until he'd stopped and stared. And stared. And stared.

Oh my fucking god.

---

There is a certain kind of quiet mania that comes from not having slept at all; a distant sort of grinding at the threads keeping a person from breaking down, from cracking like a gunshot. It's a mental time bomb, one that can lead to either exhaustion and collapse, or the utter shattering of all rational behavior and thought.

Yosuke sits on the living room couch, already fully dressed for school, watching the sun come up through the window as his body and mind are eerily calm. That internal timer is already running low.

He hasn't slept. After his brain-breaking revelation the night before, Yosuke had lain there, pulling out every memory he had of Souji and turning it over and over in his mind. Each interaction, each time he'd thrown his arm casually across the other boy's shoulders, the way it felt when they sat close enough that Souji's body heat warmed his side. So many times Yosuke had felt his breath hitch, his heart beat just a little bit quicker, but every time he just brushed it off. Adrenaline from talking over the murder case, the heat in the summer air, his now-absent crush on Rise kicking in when she did anything cute. (Because he'd noticed that, too; that his cheeks no longer flushed while thinking about her – not since she went from The Idol Risette to his friend Rise.)

Memory by memory, it felt like Yosuke's self-dug grave had gotten that much deeper, and as he pulled on that first thread of realization, more and more had come. Like untangling a spider web piece by fragile piece. It had left his brain in a jumble, keeping him awake for hours until he'd just given up on sleep altogether.

He hadn't been restless, per se, but there had been enough static in his head that it had eventually threatened to spill out into the dark of the bedroom, and, resigned to being awake forever, Yosuke had peeled back the covers and crawled silently out of bed. Grabbing his wrinkled uniform from the day before and slipping it on, he'd gone to grab his toothbrush and a comb out of the bathroom (fervently not looking at either the mirror or the shower,) and headed downstairs to use the bathroom there instead. Slowly, with all the time in the world, he finished getting ready for school on autopilot, even bothering to make – and eat – a bowl of cereal. From an outside perspective he might have looked relatively normal; internally, however, there was nothing but empty, dissociated quiet. Still waters, deceptive with their glassy surface, poised and ready to drop into the churning rapids below.

Yosuke checks the time on his phone, still on airplane mode.

He stands from the couch without a sound, collects his coat and school bag, and slips out the door into the frigid November morning.

(His reflection in the entryway mirror turns to watch him as he leaves.)

---

He cuts through the back way to school again, though this time he doesn't drag his feet; instead, he stalks down the side streets with his hands shoved in his coat pockets and his shoulders hunched. The lack of sleep and the cold feeling now lingering just at the base of his skull both serve to sharpen the knife's edge of emotional instability he's currently teetering on. He feels... nothing. And everything. All at once. He feels like he could run full-throttle straight at somebody and deck them square in the jaw; he also feels like he could break into hysterical laughter at any moment, or maybe tears. It's hard to regulate what's going on in his everything, because his head is both empty and far too full from all the thinking he'd done the night before, but it's also quiet, which is never a good sign. Normally his brain is too loud, but today...

Today is different.

Today is bad.

If he had to try and put words to it, Yosuke would have probably described his mood (if only to himself) as fragile. It's like the wall of ice that had been blocking him from his thoughts and emotions before has turned to tiny, thin splinters. Sharp and cold and so delicate that one wrong move will shatter them – but they'll also slice everything in their path to ribbons.

The slow, methodical trudge to Yasogami High actually takes far less time than he means for it to, leaving him ample time to loiter unseen around the side of the gate, just out of view of any students passing through it. Somehow, (and he's not sure just which god to thank for this,) he hasn't seen Souji yet, either in flashes on the way as Yosuke ducked away from the normal path, or up already near the entrance. It means that Souji is either already inside or he's still en route. (And Yosuke hopes it's the former, because he's not sure just how well that wafer-thin pane of frost is going to hold. Or, for how long.)

It's just his luck, then, that he catches a glimpse of starlight silver and bleached blond coming up the crest of the hill. Yosuke digs his teeth so hard into his cheeks he can taste the coppery tang of splitting skin – Souji and Kanji are walking together. Again.

So easily replaced.

Yosuke bites viciously into the flesh inside mouth and turns to stalk into the school before either of the other boys – so close together they almost touch – can see him.

---

“Hanamura!”

Yosuke twitches, jerked from the ominous quiet inside his own achingly-empty head. Turning, (slowly, stiffly, with the faintest spark of mania waiting to be fueled,) he turns to see the bearer of the voice that had shouted at him from the stairwell behind. Chie stands on the second floor landing with her hands on her hips, glaring up at him with a look so cold it could rival her Bufu. Yukiko appears just two steps below and finishes the climb to stop beside her, a stern expression locked on her face as if made of iron resolve. Neither one of them looks to be in a forgiving mood.

Yosuke wants to just turn back around and ignore them, wants to say 'fuck it,' and just throw away what's left of his friendships so he can go back to the blissful emptiness of rock-fucking-bottom. It'd be easier that way, and he has neither the time nor the energy to even begin to untangle the knot of mistakes he's made this week.

But the looks on his friends' faces (Chie, especially,) tell him they aren't going to let this go, even for now, so, begrudgingly, Yosuke stands and waits for one of them to speak. They don't disappoint.

Chie, upon seeing him pause, marches up to him with Yukiko hot on her heels and together the pair of them back him up until he's nearly hit the wall. “Alright, you dick, we need to talk.” From around her, Yukiko steps into position and stays at Chie's side, looking for all the world like a disappointed mother as she silently lets Chie do the talking.

Somehow, Yosuke finds his voice. Somehow, despite that momentary fight-or-flight-or freeze instinct when the girls had stormed towards him, Yosuke is calm. (It isn't the normal kind, either, it's the kind of calm that can only be found when someone has reached the threshold of just how much adrenaline their body can handle and they loop back around to apathy.) “Can it wait till we don't have class?” he asks, and the voice that leaves him is so devoid of life and emotion that it actually makes Chie balk. She and Yukiko share a disquieted look, like they aren't sure whether to be startled or mad and Yosuke takes their moment of distraction to try and slip to the side where there's still space to move away.

This snaps the pair out of their hesitation. Chie blocks his path with an outstretched arm, open palm smacking the wall hard enough – though not violently, to his mild surprise – to make a soft 'thwap.' Yukiko, still silent, moves to block Yosuke's remaining escape route on the other side.

“No,” Chie hisses, “it can't. Because the moment we let you out of our sight you're just going to run off into nowhere and go back to avoiding everyone, just like you've been doing for days. We're tired of it, Yosuke.”

Yukiko nods. “I know we're not as close as you and Souji-kun, but you're our friend, too, and this behavior needs to stop.” She strengthens her stance - and it is frightening.

Yosuke can't meet either of their eyes. “...I don't know what you're talking about.”

Chie makes a sound low in her throat. “Like hell you don't; you've been totally MIA with barely a word to anyone, you've been acting shady as hell whenever someone tries to talk to you, and on top of that you've been straight up avoiding Souji – which is insane, considering you two're normally joined at the freaking hip!”

Yosuke must be doing something with his face, because Chie squints at him and says, “Yeeaaaah, don't think we haven't noticed.”

Something sniggers inside Yosuke's head and it makes his vision pulse a faint, sickly yellow. His lip curls in a barely-there sneer. “Look,” he says, a little more life in his words this time. He smacks at Chie's arm with the back of his hand. “It's nothing, will you get off my back? I'm just having a bad week.”

“Bullshit,” Chie growls in response.

From the corner of his eye, Yosuke can see Yukiko take in a long, carefully-controlled breath, as if she's silently counting down from ten to keep herself collected. “This is more than just a 'bad week,' Yosuke-kun,” she says, and the evenness of her tone belies the fire he knows she can conjure during battle. “You've been rude, crass, evasive, and downright belligerent...”

(Yosuke isn't sure he knows what all those words mean but he's pretty sure she's right on every one.)

“Even on your worst days you've never been this bad.”

Yosuke is so, so tired. He's tired of feeling like he's being buffeted by the wind that's supposed to be on his side, unable to find his footing and ready to fall at any given moment. He's tired of the wildly swinging pendulum of his emotions sending him back and forth from feeling everything to feeling nothing. (And deeper, deeper down, he's tired of people leaving him behind, even more so of driving people away; it's a skill he's never asked for but has somehow mastered nonetheless.)

He doesn't answer Yukiko's spot-on accusations. He doesn't answer Chie's too-observant glower. He doesn't look at either of them, he instead stares off to the side, unseeing, just past the arm that blocks his escape.

Chie lets out another sound of frustration and leans further into his space, craning her neck to somehow stare him down despite their height difference. “Well?” she demands, “Anything you wanna say?”

Yosuke takes a long, deep breath through his nose, letting it out so slowly that the yellow creeping into the edges of his eyes dots with black. With the exhale, he feels the last of his energy – physical, emotional, mental – drain away. It hollows him out with each passing second, until he's nothing more than a husk resigned to his fate of forever being the King of Fucking Up; he's already pushed everything this far towards the edge, he might as well take that last step over.

“...Yeah, actually,” he says, and it's a lifeless drawl, almost entirely devoid of anything. (He sees Yukiko stiffen and Chie flinch in his peripherals.) Exhausted, he lolls his head forward and finally turns his eyes to Chie's face, fixing them just above her eyebrows because he can't focus them any lower. False eye contact, something he's picked up in his time working at Junes.

He takes another deep breath, feeling that disconnecting wall of ice closing over his heart, and says, “You should probably lay off the meat, Chie, cuz you're not doing your thick thighs any favors.”

Yukiko gasps.

Beside her, Chie looks stunned, jaw dropped and mouth open like it's trying to form words her head can't find.

(Yosuke tastes bile in the back of his throat.)

Disgusted with himself and just wanting to not be here, Yosuke tries to use the girls' frozen reactions to his advantage. He isn't sure he can move or duck under Chie's arm, so he makes a break for it the opposite direction and attempts to slide past Yukiko – only for her to snap back to attention just as he's almost free.

“Yo--!”

But Yosuke is too far gone. Instead of letting himself be forced back against the wall, he doubles down, gives in to the fatalistic inevitability that he's going to be losing more than just Souji at this point. (Good, he thinks sadly; I don't deserve any of them, anyway.)

Swerving, scraping the wall with his shoulder to try and get as much space between himself and Yukiko as he can, Yosuke reaches out a hand (desperately hoping he misses,) and makes a pinching gesture at her skirt, causing her to jerk back and away. “See? Here's a perfect set right he--”

His face erupts in red-hot pain.

Yosuke staggers backwards, hitting the back of his head against the cold concrete of the wall with an audible 'thump.' Thoroughly bewildered, he blinks over at the space he had just been and sees Yukiko, hand raised, stance wide, and completely, utterly livid.

Oh, he thinks, slowly reaching up to touch his scalded cheek. I've been slapped.

“You!” Chie snaps, just as Yukiko whispers, “How dare you,” in the most bone-chillingly quiet voice he's ever heard.

He... may have gone too far this time.

Chie stalks forward, so close he has to shallow his breathing to keep his chest from touching hers when he inhales. She turns her face up at him and for a moment, through the exhaustion and the resignation and the apathy, he truly believes her to be capable of tearing his throat out with her bare hands.

It's almost impressive.  

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snarls, “You've been acting like a jackass all week!”

Yosuke focuses on Chie's cheekbones as best he can with her so close; he practically has to go crosseyed to do so, even without meeting her murderous glare. It's strange, how he's aware that his cheek is in pain, (and rightfully so, he deserved that slap,) just as he's aware that on any other day before this week he'd be terrified for his safety in a situation like this. He remembers just how hard Chie can kick, having felt it firsthand in delicate places. But his energy is spent at this point, and all the awareness in the world can't conjure up the ability to be anything other than drained.

So he doesn't react, just looks back at his (probably former) friend and huffs, “Chill out, Chie, it was just a joke.”

Both girls visibly tense, shoulders squared and backs straight. Yukiko brings her hand up like she's going to slap him again, rearing it back as she hisses, “It wasn't funny!”

Chie, simultaneously, bares her teeth in vicious rage. “Like hell it was!” she barks, her own voice layering over Yukiko's outburst.

Yosuke just lolls his head to the side slightly and focuses on empty air. “Yeah, well,” he drawls, unable to find the right emotion to put into his voice. “You're girls, of course you wouldn't get it; it's guy humor.”

Chie leans impossibly closer. “You think you're such hot shit,” she seethes, and her tone has gone icy, blisteringly cold. She jabs a finger into his chest hard enough for him to feel it bruise. “We put up with your nasty 'jokes' and your weird staring because you're our friend, but there's a limit, Hanamura!” Her lips curl, the finger digging into his sternum like a silent threat. “And you're freaking pushing it.”

Yukiko leans in as well, her hand still raised and ready, a bow string held taut. “Girls don't like it when you say things like that,” she says, so dark and even that it raises the hairs on the back of Yosuke's neck – but even though his body physically, instinctively reacts, the hollow pit in his chest where the ice now sits keeps his heart and mind numb. He doesn't look at her as she says, “If your brand of humor makes other people uncomfortable, then it isn't really humor at all, it's gross.”

There are people starting to collect around them; Yosuke can see them moving closer just past the haze of his unfocused vision. He can't tell if he cares of not, doesn't think he does anymore. Everything Chie and Yukiko are saying is too right, too justified for him to fight back or defend himself. I deserve this, he thinks, hears his own voice echoing like there's another nearly identical one layering beneath it.

A few other students, faces unrecognizable, gather just a bit too close to the direction he's been staring in. He doesn't feel like letting them think he's acknowledged them, so he rolls his head lazily back so he can pretend to face to the two girls in front of him. He's just going back to fixing his eyes on Yukiko's shoulder when a swath of silver catches in his vision – just barely, just enough to make him look up before he can consciously think about it. He refocuses, and feels his heart come to a painful halt inside his ribs.

Souji is standing there, looking at Yosuke as if he's never seen him before. His eyes are wide and confused, thin brows pulled so low that they're actually visible below his hair; his lips are slightly parted as if he's been caught mid-gasp.

Yosuke stares back at him for a long, panicked moment. A slow, frigid kind of adrenaline begins to seep into this veins, making his hands and knees shake even though he can't feel it. It kick-starts his heart back to life and suddenly it's pounding as he looks into Souji's eyes for the first time in he can't even remember how long, seeing no trace of recognition in the other boy's face. Only pain. Only confusion and betrayal. Souji looks at him like Yosuke is a stranger now, gaze boring into his own like he's looking for someone familiar but just can't find them, can't figure out who Yosuke is.

He saw, the voice that had layered his own whispers, hissing though laughing, jagged glee.

Souji saw.

The floor drops out from under Yosuke's feet and he switches to autopilot to keep from falling, somehow managing to stay upright through sheer force of unconscious will. Chie and Yukiko must notice the change, because he can peripherally see them pause, turning their heads to see what he's looking at. It's enough.

Moving feels like he's underwater, drowning, but Yosuke sees his chance and snatches at it with trembling fingers; as the girls are distracted by Souji, Yosuke pushes himself sideways along the wall until he's no longer pinned by Chie's proximity. Once there's space to do so, he shoves his way forward, sticking out an arm and breaking through the line that Yukiko and Chie's bodies have made. They part in their shock, and he's able to slip between them at last.

“Whatever,” he hears himself say. A verbal barrier, a wall to keep them all at bay while he books it to something resembling safety. He reaches up and palms the headphones resting around his neck. “You guys throw your hissy fit, I'm goin' to class.” He tugs the headphones up as he takes a couple long, quick strides out of their stationary reach, shoving them over his ears without actually turning on any music – using the comforting weight at the sides of his head as a shield. If they try and call out after him, he can just pretend he can't hear them and keep walking.

He makes it all the way to the classroom without being caught; he doesn't dare look at Yukiko, Chie, or Souji (especially not Souji,) as the three of them enter the room. Yukiko first, then the others, and Yosuke busies himself with his school bag until the sound of the door opening signals the arrival of the teacher and the start of class just moments later.

Yosuke keeps his head ducked down the entire morning, just in case of the the girls decides to risk a glance back in his direction. He can't tell with his eyes glued to his desk, but he thinks that none of them do.

(He doesn't know whether he should be relieved or not.)

---

Yosuke is up and moving almost before the lunch bell even rings. Like he's done for the past week, he grabs his stuff and hightails it out the back of the room, pointedly not looking and any of the friends he's managed to alienate in only a handful of days. Headphones snug over his ears and player in his hand, he takes the steps up to the third floor, then the roof, two at a time. It's only once he's up in the cold air and alone that he feels like he can breathe.

Picking a spot as far away from the door as possible, Yosuke drops to the ground and leans his back against the frigid metal links of the fence, barely even feeling the chill through his clothes. The breath he's finally caught starts to pick up – only for a moment – and he has to bring his knees up to the his chest, hands over his eyes and fingers twisting in his hair as he ducks his head and pulls in lungful after lungful of air. It passes just as quickly as it came.

What do I do now?

Despite the hollow feeling encompassing his heart, Yosuke still feels the twinge of anxiety that had brought about the thirty-second panic attack; it sticks to his blood cells, causing his palms to sweat and go clammy in the nippy November breeze. He brings them to his mouth and cups them over his lips, breathing into them to try and warm them back up. It doesn't work.

He sighs and drops his hands back into his lap, tucking them between the bend of his knees. He didn't bother bringing lunch with him again today, though between the rare breakfast that morning and the churning in his stomach he isn't so sure he'd be able to eat anything anyway. Still, even a snack would have provided him something to do with his hands, and so Yosuke is left with nothing but his music and his surroundings to occupy his time. He frowns – being alone with his thoughts recently has been anything but good, and today having gone the way that it has so far, he can feel the incoming uphill battle against his brain. He cranks the volume up on his player in hopes of drowning it all out before it begins, but turns the whole thing off and tugs the headphones from his ears a minute or so later, not wanting to associate any of his favorite songs with the maelstrom already brewing inside his mind.

It starts with a replay. Every single thing he'd said and done that morning in the hallway with Chie and Yukiko. It twists at his gut with each image, each remembered word he'd vomited out like a bio-weapon; he barely recognizes himself in his own memories, and honestly that is the part that scares him the most. No wonder Souji had looked at him that way.

And oh, if that hadn't been the worst part of it all. Yukiko and Chie he already hated himself for, already felt sick over how he'd treated them both since even before this all began, starting with the festival. He wishes he could go back in time and stop himself from ever putting their names down – all of them – because not only was it just a shitty, immature thing to do, but it also violated their trust. He sees that now, and it feels like a hammer to the head, because with everything that he's turned into in the days since, he knows it all started with that one first terrible decision. Most of the low points in his life have started with terrible decisions, he just hadn't been aware enough to put the pieces together until now. Had things been different, Yosuke wonders if Souji would have been proud of him.

That, however, is the thing that brings Yosuke's already-simmering self hatred to a rolling boil. Of all the people he's hurt so far, Souji is the one that makes Yosuke feel like he's beyond all hope of redemption. Souji had been his partner, his best friend, and Yosuke, stupid, stupid Yosuke had taken that bond and thrown it right in the garbage. They were supposed to be equals, but Yosuke had been too busy sinking into his own head, too mired in self pity and selfishly wanting things to go back to a normal that likely didn't even exist anymore. Not after all of this. For all the maturing Yosuke feels he may have done – the only silver lining in the storm that he himself created – focusing only on his own hurt and blaming Souji for it is by far the most childish thing he's done.

(Inside his skull, stretched out as though sliding into Yosuke's skin like a glove, he can almost feel something like a head being tilted, an eyebrow raised. There is a quiet, contemplative, 'hmmm,' as if his mind is thinking thoughts without him. He doesn't know how to interpret the sensation, so he tucks it away on the back burner for now.)

Somewhere past the door leading back into the school, Yosuke faintly hears the warning bell sounding, signaling the end of lunch and the resumption of classes for the day.

Yosuke doesn't move.

He sits there and leans his head back against the fence in utter exhaustion; he doesn't have the energy or will power to get up and go back inside. He doesn't want to feel the others' eyes on him when he walks in the door, or, equally painful, being entirely unacknowledged instead. Having done the same to Souji for days,Yosuke will admit his hypocrisy in that he doesn't know if he'd survive having his former partner do the same to him - even if Souji had scared the shit out of him, neglected to communicate with him, left him to wonder and worry and want after the pageant.

Then again, some part of Yosuke quietly relents, Souji... really isn't obligated to tell Yosuke anything. And while their leader should have at least been courteous enough to let someone know he was still alive, he'd eventually told Naoto. Which had hurt Yosuke – pretty badly, in fact – to not be the one Souji had talked to first, but at least he'd talked to someone. (Even though Yosuke is still adamantly sure the “food poisoning” excuse had been complete bullshit.) But... it wouldn't be fair to expect Souji to never have secrets; after all, Yosuke still has secrets of his own, even after confronting his shadow.

Some are just far, far more shameful than others.

Thoughts swirling, Yosuke can feel a headache beginning to build behind his eyes. He keeps going around and around; he's mad at Souji, he's not mad at Souji, he's mad at himself, he's not mad at himself for being hurt – on and on and on. It's a loop that doesn't seem to have an end, and it's making Yosuke dizzy.

He sighs again, and there's an echoing sigh inside his skull, albeit one that sounds far more frustrated than his own audible one. He's too tired to suss it out, though, and because all this thinking is starting to spiral, he digs his player back out and tries one more time to drown out the thoughts with music. He's relived when his attention stays on the lyrics and doesn't go careening off again; he closes his eyes and lets himself go blank for a little while, almost-but-not-quite dozing, tucked away in his little patch of rooftop in the brisk November air.

Sometime later – he doesn't know how long – Yosuke is pulled from his trance by the sound of a far-off school bell. His player apparently ran out of battery long ago, because the screen is dark and his headphones silent. Yosuke feels like shit.

He's chilly to the point where his skin doesn't really have much feeling anymore; his neck is stiff from the cold and the position it'd been kept in while he was out of it. His ears ache a little, too, and it's probably more from the headphones than the weather. Groaning, Yosuke sits up and peels the headphones off, setting them in his lap and rolling his neck to try and get his full range of motion back. He feels something pop. With another groan, he makes it slowly to his feet and stretches, every muscle in his body protesting as he does.

Fully aware that he hadn't gone back in after lunch, Yosuke has absolutely no idea what time it could possibly be; judging by the position of the sun over the treetops, however, and the sound of the bell from earlier, he can guess that it's probably well into the afternoon. “Fuck,” he mutters to the empty rooftop. He's more than likely missed most of the rest of the school day, though if that's the case then he can't bring himself to care. There was nothing waiting for him back in the classroom anymore, anyway.

Reluctant still to make his way inside lest someone catch him, Yosuke takes his time gathering his bag, tucking his player away, setting his headphones carefully on top because, well, they aren't any use to him right now, are they? It's only once he's run out of stuff to do that he finally fishes his pone out of his pocket to check the time.

Weirdly enough, there are no new messages – which, he isn't surprised at but also is? If no one had wanted to talk to him after that morning, he would have understood. However, with as rightfully angry as they both had been, he would have expected there to be something from Chie at the very least – even if not from today, then something else from last night, surely. Curious and a little uneasy, Yosuke stares at his phone until the screen goes dark. Oh, he realizes finally; he'd forgotten he'd put it on airplane mode the night before.

(He'd wondered why his phone had been so blissfully, ominously quiet all night.)

He taps the keys lightly to get the screen to wake back up and goes to take it off airplane at last – only to hesitate just before pressing the button, thumb hovering as Yosuke chews on his lip. His gut curdles. Whether there are a slew of missed texts or none at all, Yosuke knows that whatever is waiting for him once he hits confirm isn't going to be good. He has to brace himself; he just isn't sure what for.

With a deep breath in and a quick breath out, Yosuke takes the plunge and hits the button, not looking at the screen as his thumb presses down. He doesn't want to see just yet. At first there is nothing – no belated notification sound, no vibrations, nothing. He thinks maybe he's safe for the moment, simultaneously unsettled by the lack of any apparent messages...

...Until his phone vibrates, just once, in his hand.

Yosuke's breathing sticks in his throat for half a breath, head instinctively tilting to look down at the notification that just jostled his anxiety. It isn't from Chie, which is not what he expected, nor is it from Yukiko, which also would not have surprised him. It isn't even from Teddie, whining that Yosuke had left without partaking in their new morning ritual of communal teeth-brushing. No, the sender, devastatingly, is Souji.

Prtnr: I'm sorry. I won't bother you anymore.

Everything stops.

[milomeepit]

Diamond In The Rough: Chapter Seventeen

Roman has always wanted better. Has always believed that there’s a better life, a better world, just out of reach. Just beyond the veil of shitty teachers who don’t care, angry classmates that scream insults and slurs at each other all day, and drug-hazed parents who are more concerned with their next hit than looking after their ten year old son.

When he runs away after a particularly bad night at home and finds a quiet little cafe/bookstore tucked away in a back alley of the city, the sweet couple who run the joint (an odd pair; a quiet, gloomy man with a wry sense of humour and a cynical gleam in his eye, and a bouncy man who smiles like sunshine and laughs like a storybook king) help show him that maybe- just maybe- he really can have the life he always dreamed of.

Masterpost (to be added soon!)

Word Count: 1814

Chapter Warnings: homophobia, transphobia, emotional abuse, abusive parents, violence, fake crying, real crying, yelling, cursing, lawyers, CPS, court, paperwork, tree branch used as a blunt weapon

Hours later, Emile and Logan had taken Roman outside to get some fresh air after lunch. He walked along the edge of a garden bed in the courtyard of the large building, his arms held out for balance.

The snow was a brilliant white, blanketing the trees and pathways that filled the courtyard. It felt good, like a fresh start. Roman hopped off the edge of the garden bed and made his way back across to where Emile and Logan sat, carefully stepping in the footprints already tracked through the snow, retracing someone else’s steps.

Logan glanced up as Roman approached them and raised an eyebrow. “What do you have there?” He asked, nodding towards him.

Roman shifted his grip on the prize he had found. “A stick,” He said simply, waving it through the air. It was a good stick, sturdy and smooth, and not too long. It fit nicely in his hand. He liked this stick. “I wanna keep it.”

“I’m not sure you’d be allowed to take that back inside,” Logan frowned.

Emile hummed. “Well, it’s not made of metal or anything, so the detectors wouldn’t pick it up. He could probably put it in his bag.” He winked at Roman, who beamed back at him.

Logan rolled his eyes fondly. “Alright, alright. But it’s on your head if he gets in trouble for it,” He agreed.

Roman giggled, practically bouncing up and down. “Thank you!” He threw his arms around Logan, who caught him and squeezed him gently before releasing him.

Emile laughed as he stood, rolling his neck to stretch it. “We should probably head back inside. Awfully chilly out here, don’t you think?” He suggested, rubbing his arms.

“That’s what you get for not wearing a proper winter coat,” Logan bumped his shoulder against Emile’s lightly and smirked. “Let’s go, then.”

Roman shoved the stick in his bag and followed them back into the building. The warm air hit his face and he let out a contented sigh. It definitely was more cozy in here, he thought. Even if there wasn’t pretty snow or cool sticks to be found.

“Can we go say hi to Patton and Virgil?” He asked as they stepped into the elevator to head back upstairs.

Emile and Logan exchanged a look, and Emile shrugged. Logan looked back down to him and nodded. “Of course. You and Emile wait in one of the interview rooms, and I’ll go find them.”

Roman took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks, Logan.”

When they reached the hallway again, though, it was clear something was wrong. Patton was clinging to Virgil, his eyes red and puffy, and Virgil looked angrier than Roman had ever seen him. He ignored Emile’s exclamation as he dived out of the elevator, already making a beeline towards them.

“It’s okay, really,” Patton was saying. “It’s nothing to get all worked up about.”

“Like hell it isn’t! She doesn’t even make any sense!” Virgil growled. His arms were wrapped tightly around Patton in a protective embrace. “Seriously, she can’t have it both ways with that crap. Besides, I don’t care who she is, she upset you, and I’m not putting up with that!”

“Are you guys okay?” Roman asked, worried. “What happened?”

“Oh, it’s okay, sweetheart!” Patton reached out for him, and Roman met him halfway, practically throwing himself into the man’s arms. “Just... met somebody who wasn’t very nice, is all.”

Roman frowned. Whoever was upsetting Patton and Logan, he decided immediately that he very much wasn’t a fan of them. Not if they had Virgil looking like he was about to rip out someone’s throat, and Patton shaky and tearful.

“Roman, don’t run off like tha- what’s wrong?” Emile cut himself off, stopping a few feet from them and eyeing over the trio.

“So, we met Vivienne,” Virgil spat, venom dripping from his words.

Emile practically flinched at the name, and Roman stared at him. “Oh. I see. Is she...?” He gestured across the room, and Virgil nodded. “That is... unfortunate.” He clicked his tongue, staring down the hallway, and then sighed. “Heck, she’s coming over, hang on.”

Roman turned to watch Emile as he jogged up to a slim woman with straight dark hair. Her light orange blouse practically seemed to glow compared to the black material of her suit. Her face seemed set in a permanent scowl, and Roman shivered slightly. This was not a nice woman. She brushed Emile off and marched over to them.

Virgil stepped in front Patton, crossing his arms and staring at her evenly. Roman’s heart swelled with love at his protective nature.

“I see Duck still hasn’t come back from lunch,” She began as she adjusted her narrow glasses. “I’m assuming that means neither of you have your ID checks and documentation on you.”

“And I’m assuming you still don’t have an actual reason to see them, anyway.” Virgil snapped.

Vivienne glared at him. “As a lawyer working in these proceedings, I have every right to request information on those involved. Especially with such...” Her gaze flickered to Patton for a moment. “Risky individuals.”

“Risky?” Virgil’s voice jumped an octave. “What does that mean?”

“Well, there are several studies that have shown that many children under the guardianship of... non-standard parents have a higher rate of mental health issues, not to mention the whole... gender thing,” She responded primly.

Oh, wow, Roman hated her.

Emile looked like a deer in the headlights, and Roman couldn’t blame him. She seemed like a lot to have to talk to, let alone work with.

“Listen.” Virgil’s voice was low and heavy, like the air crackling right before a bolt of lightning during a storm, and Roman felt Patton shift away from him a little, his grip on Roman tightening. "You can either call us gay men and respect my husband's identity, or you can call us a cishet couple and stop whining about gays adopting kids. Make up your fucking mind."

Vivienne gaped for a moment, stunned but clearly furious. She started to reply, but Duck appeared seemingly out of thin air next to Virgil, smoothly inserting himself between them. “Please move away from my clients, Vivienne.” He requested.

“Absolutely not! This man just verbally abused me, I should call security-!”

“And they could very well call security for you harassing them over documentation when they have no obligation to even speak with you.” Duck interrupted. “I’ll be over to speak with you shortly.”

Vivienne sputtered, then turned on her heel and stalked away, fuming.

Emile was the first to break the silence between them. “Gosh, I can’t believe you just told her off,” He commented to Duck. “Or that she listened.”

“Yeah,” Duck replied, sounding a little dazed. He turned to Virgil, who was still standing stock-still, glaring after her. “I am... so sorry about her. She’s...” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“Yeah. She is.” Virgil huffed. “Somebody ought to kick her a-”

Patton reached out and put a hand on Virgil’s arm. “Darling,” He said, so softly even Roman could barely hear it.

Virgil paused and took a deep breath. He let it out in a rush, then bit his lip. “Does she have a leg to stand on? With... all that?” He asked Duck and Emile.

Emile practically bristled. “Most certainly not!” He exclaimed. “That sort of thing is... completely unacceptable. I’m shocked that she dared to say anything of that regard while in the building, let alone to your faces!”

Duck nodded. “We’ll make sure that gets followed up, but it’s hardly a point she can use in her favour for this case.”

Virgil sighed. “Okay, then. Okay.” He repeated. “This is... fine.”

Roman’s opinion of Vivienne didn’t raise any over the rest of the afternoon. She was a haughty, mean person, and he loathed the way she made Patton flinch whenever she walked past. This, of course, didn’t help how he felt when Emile told him that they needed to talk to his parents in one of the interview rooms.

“But why?” He whined, dragging his feet as Emile led him down the hallway.

“It’s just... we need to...” Emile just sighed. “I’m sorry, but I promise, this is all you’ll have to do with them today.”

Roman shuffled in and sat as far away from Mom and Dad and Vivienne as he could manage- which unfortunately, wasn’t very far in the small room. This room, at least, had couches instead of a table, so they were across the room rather than nose-to-nose with him. Emile sat next to him and nudged him encouragingly.

It was a boring conversation, mostly Mom crying- fake tears, he was pretty sure- and Dad making empty promises. They apologised and offered half-hearted explanations for their terrible behaviour. Roman sat silently, waiting for the pair of them to finish their song and dance before he responded.

“I don’t want anything to do with you two.” He said simply.

Mom made a sound like a kicked puppy, and Dad glared at him. For once, though, he didn’t feel scared. Not with Emile beside him and a bright future so close.

Vivienne, who stood next to the couch where Mom and Dad sat, rolled her eyes. “So, would you rather live with Mr and Mrs Sande-”

“Mr.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mr and Mr Sanders.” Roman got to his feet and crossed his arms. “Patton’s a man. You can’t change that.”

“I think you’ll find, actually, that she’s a female. That’s what’s on her birth certificate, so that would be her gender.” Vivienne looked down her nose at him.

“That’s not how that works. Patton was born a girl, because sometimes nature messes up and gives people the wrong parts.” Roman reached into his bag, digging around for Arwen. Vivienne sucked, and he really wanted to just cuddle Arwen and leave.

“It really is.” Her voice grated on his nerves, and he tried to stay calm.  He pushed his water bottle to the side, digging deeper into the bag. Calm for Emile. He moved his lunchbox, slipping his hand beneath it. Calm for Patton. Oh, hey, there was the stick again. Calm for Logan. Still no Arwen, though. Did he leave her in the car? “And her name is Pip-”

Everything burst into chaos.

Roman lunged forward without thinking about it, swinging the stick at Vivienne’s legs. She shrieked, trying to step back out of his reach. Mom screamed and grabbed on to Dad, who made a swipe to grab at Roman. Roman ducked away from him and suddenly found himself wrapped tightly in Emile’s arms. Emile plucked him off the ground and scurried out of the room, shouting an apology over his shoulder.

Roman stuck his tongue out at Vivienne as Emile carried him away. Stay calm for the others, he thought to himself. But be fierce for Virgil.

[acrobaticcatfeline]

The Fear of the Dragonwitch (Triplets RoLoRem AU) Chapter 3!!!

Word Count: 2329

TW: This is chock full of them! Remus, violence, blood, broken bones, bullying, homophobia, transphobia, swearing I think that’s it, LMK if I missed anything!

Notes: OK!!! Third chapter is... rough. It sorta comes out of nowhere, but all will be explained in time. There’s a little more closure from last chapter before everything takes off to the violent bit. I really wanted to play with Logan, I’ve been trying to keep him close to his canon self, but that means hes really really apathetic most of the time, and doesn’t want to confront his emotions. I played with how it manifests in this chapter. I also wanted to introduce Logan as another main character, because all of the triplets are, and they have their own arcs to complete. I see the Dragonwitch as nightmares and fears in general, so now from the title you might get where end game might be. They all have to face their biggest fears and grow from them, and that’s really rough in particular for Logan, who isn’t afraid of some trivial everyday fear like being alone or stage-fright. anyways I’ve gone on too long, last chapter is here, first is here. I hope you enjoy!

Pairings: Logicality, Joan X Talyn, OC X OC (vivian X mimi)

Summary: “The next day at school was interesting to say the least.” Roman goes to school after his whole crisis and rocks it! Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Logan. The boy is walking hand in hand with Patton when a bully walks up and decides to go much further than throwing simple insults. Logan is only so much of a distraction to them, who have targeted Patton in particular. In essence, people are assholes and it can end up with you in a whole lot of pain.

The next day at school was interesting to say the least. Roman had gotten thrown headfirst into rehearsals. Valerie and Terrance ran lines with him the whole time before school, after he had sufficiently made sure Joan was ok without him. He hadn’t even really quite remembered what he was performing as. It was a shock to be reminded that the musical was kinky boots, and that him being the lead meant he was Charlie price. Heck, he was playing the same character that the absolutely legendary Brendon Urie did, and that was a revelation. They were singing songs and Terrance had begun singing sex is in the heel, and roman could immediately see how perfect his casting was. He giggled at one part in particular.

I'm black Jesus, I'm black Mary, but this Mary’s legs are hairy!!!

They continued and he danced like a dork with the other two as he sung step one, twirling Valerie around dramatically with a wide grin. He couldn’t stop laughing when Valerie sung a history of wrong guys, her silly accent she was exaggerating was absolutely killing him. They ran through the script once before the bell rung and they had to split.

By the time it’s his lunch period he's gone through the script another 3 times and he thinks he pretty much has the lines down, to the shock and awe of the others.

Just put One foot Onward and forward I used to be a zero but now I clearly feel that I may be the hero who reinvents the heel I may be facing the impossible I may be chasing after miracles And there may be the steepest mountain to overcome But this is step one!

At that, Valerie had stopped him. She stared at him with wide eyes.

“Terrance, how have we only just been let in on this magical voice and impossible memory of our boy?”

“I mean he is pretty shy most of the time”

“… guys I've been the one to train understudies for the past year because of my memory for scripts.”

“what???!!!”

“I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t know that, I don’t think you two have ever been understudies.”

“TOMMY WHEN DID YOU PLAN ON LETTING US IN ON THIS???”

“if you had asked, I would have told you.”

“gosh, you already have your lines memorized, could you help us?”

“uh, yeah sure? I mean if Joan needs help, I’ll have to bail, but sure.”

“don’t worry about me Ro, its mostly finished, I just gotta fuss with the rollers so they roll straight and quietly.”

“ok then! Then let’s get to it!”

 Logan on the other hand was having a less than optimal day.

He flinched as his head hit the lockers and the hand holding his shirt lifted him off the ground. His own arms clung to the other, legs kicking futilely.

“what's wrong fag? Having trouble? Good, you disgust me. You and your fucking tranny boyfriend.”

Logan was dropped, and he fell to his knees, his head bobbing forward. He stumbled back to his feet; a determination set in his jaw. Patton had a bruise forming on their cheek, a black eye and more matching marks on their arms. Patton said nothing, silent tears flowing as their head fell forward. Logan turned his attention back to the bullies, he knew Virgil had ran to get a teacher, and he knew how slow some would be, hoping that they would get back before he and Patton were both blacked out from the assault. He balled his fists, wincing slightly as he felt a large pain shoot through him at the action. He ignored it and swung.

 Roman flinched as the theatre doors slammed open louder than normal. He flinched again at the yell that came from it. He turned to see Virgil and only heard Logan and hurt, and he was standing. Thomas had turned and was rushing to the doors just the same as he was. Joan, Talyn, Terrance, and Valerie followed behind them. Roman silently hoped that they would be fast enough, he had no idea what was happening, but he knew it was bad.

 Logan wanted to scream. He was an idiot! He swung and his hand, his right hand thankfully, was grabbed, and he felt the bones in his wrist crack. He merely winced again, continuing to fight back, refusing to leave Patton there defenseless. He didn’t hear the door to the hall open, didn’t see the bully and his group turn and try to leave, he saw red. He didn’t see Remus roundhouse kick the main guy and apprehending him as Mr. Sanders came through the other side of the hall. He just couldn’t see anymore. He DID feel himself collapse, however, and the screaming of his wrist. He knew he had apologized, didn’t feel it escape his mouth, or hear it ring through his head, but he knew he said it as he passed out.

 Next thing Logan knew, his vision was blurred and white. He had panicked, where was he? Where was Patton? Did his teachers know what had happened? Would he be marked as ditching? He was seen by several people that morning, what would they think? He tried to push himself up to get his bearings and when his wrist protested, he let out a quiet whimper. He continued to sit up, supporting himself on the other hand, quickly snatching his glasses off the counter and slipping them on.

He was in a bed in the nurses office. He looked for Patton and frowned when he didn’t see them. He swung his legs off the bed and went to stand but crumpled to the floor with a yelp. He steadied himself against the wall and assessed his legs. They were thoroughly bruised; he could tell from the constant throbbing pain. He also saw there must’ve been spots that he had broken skin, big blood stains scattered on his jeans indicated as such. He leaned on his good hand, pressed against the wall and stumbled painfully to the bathroom he knew was just down the hall. Once he had gotten there, he grimaced at his reflection. It was covered in dirt from the school’s floors and his blood mixed with it. The nurse must not have gotten to him yet, which meant he must have only been out for a bit, that was good. he carefully rinsed his face, then his arms with a fraction more pain and struggle. He then stumbled back over to his bed, leaning heavily against it as he grabbed his phone and shot a text to his mom and roman, basically a formal apology at the trouble he had gotten into, not to worry about him, that his writing hand was unharmed and that he was fine to continue the school day. He didn’t look back at it to see their crazed replies telling him to absolutely not continue with the school day. Instead he wandered to find Patton.

He saw the nurse turn and leave and then stumbled over to Patton who looked about ready to yell out his name when Logan raised a finger to his lips. He hated the tears that stung their cheeks. He placed himself on the bed and carefully wrapped them in a hug. He also noted, that he hated how Patton's shoulders shook while they cried.

“Lo… Lo why are you up and moving? The nurse said that your wrist is broken, and you have a bunch of bruises and scars, Logi why did you do all that?”

“Pat, what did you think I would do? I wasn’t about to leave you to get attacked, you could have died”

“so could you!”

And Patton's eyes flooded again. Cries about how stupid he was for protecting them and just cries of fear in general fell from their lips. Logan stayed silent and held them, letting them vent. When they couldn’t cry anymore, he placed a kiss on their forehead.

“its ok Pat. We’ll be ok. I'm gonna head to class though, I don’t want my teachers thinking I'm ditching.”

At this, Patton clings to his arm with an annoyed look.

“Logan, Mr. Sanders got us here, our teachers know we’re here. You are hurt, you are absolutely not going to class, or I'm getting up myself to stop you.”

At that Logan’s will crumbled. Patton looked miserable, there was no way he would let Patton get up and stop him. He was right, he was in a lot of pain, his legs and wrist kept screaming about it. His partner had a hardened gaze and he knew there was no way he was going to be going through with his plan. On top of that, the nurse, frazzled and confused had just found him and he got reprimanded for leaving his bed. He had been granted his request to be over next to Patton, if not for anything but it hurt too much to walk back. The nurse brought his things over and had just began setting his wrist when Roman, Remus, and Mimi had burst in. Remus was over immediately, his movement sporadic, but he didn’t speak. He sat on the edge of the bed staring at Logan’s broken wrist being fixed. He faintly heard the nurse explain to Mimi that what she was doing was only temporary, and that he would have to get it set at a proper doctor’s office. Roman walked over and Logan could see the words forming in his head getting held back. He merely smiled, and Roman started crying.

Mimi walked over soon after, her eyes brimming with tears as she gently held his hand that wasn’t broken. He frowned slightly.

“why are you crying?”

“because you got hurt you idiot!”

Logan was shocked to hear Remus say it. He looked at him and was shocked again to see tear stains on his cheeks.

“… it happens Re, its not that bad, pr-”

“don’t lie. I hate it when you lie to make us feel better. You always do it. It is bad, I was there, he broke your wrist, he kicked the shit out of your legs, I'm surprised they aren’t broken as well. This isn't fine this is bullshit. The kids aren’t even getting expelled, they have a week suspension and its so dumb! They assaulted you and Patton, why aren’t they in jail? They could’ve killed you and they're still staying here that’s unsafe and it’s bullshit!!!”

Logan couldn’t help the swell of anger at hearing his assailant’s punishment. Remus was right, it’s not fair. The world isn't fair, he knows this, but he had hoped that at least the school would do what's right. In the corner of his vision he saw Patton's eyes filling with tears again.

“Remus calm down. Me and your mom have already reported it to the police and pressed charges. We’ve also already called the school board to reverse your suspension.”

Logan’s eyes widened and he gaped at Mimi and Remus both.

“wait, you got suspended?”

“yeah. Apparently, roundhouse kicking someone who was trying to murder your brother falls under the same category as trying to kill someone to the school.”

Logan was furious. Remus had been working so hard to keep his record clean, he had punched a few kids when he was a kid, broken a few noses, but he had been getting better, he had been handling his anger responsibly and hadn’t had an incident in years, to have this ruin his record had Logan fuming.

“I… I heard from the nurse that we almost got suspended too. Um, apparently someone on the board had said we did damage as well, and that there was no proof that it wasn’t just a normal fight. They grabbed security footage and they were out-voted, I guess. I think they were the kid’s parent. That’s probably why.”

Logan hissed at Patton explanation.

“what? They- those fuckers broke my wrist, I barely got a hit in there, what the hell?”

“we are going to deal with this Logan. Your mom already has a line of people who are willing to take this to court for us.”

Logan felt both a little more at ease, and much more filled with anxiety. He really didn’t want to have to take his school to court.

“it’s- it doesn’t matter that much, like I said I'm fine, its Patton that I'm worried about. He was the one they targeted.”

“Logan, they broke your fucking wrist.”

He flinched at that. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that. He said it himself. But Patton saying it, Patton didn’t curse. They never cursed. And they seemed so angry. It scared Logan, he wouldn’t admit it, but he was. He was really scared. People attacked them for their gender and sexualities. And they got away with it. Logan’s legs were in complete and utter pain, his wrist was broken, and he was almost suspended for it all. His significant other wasn’t always with him, what would he do if he wasn’t there? He couldn’t imagine it, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to confront this, he just wanted to go to class, at least go home and sleep, be somewhere safe.

He was scared of his mortality, and knowing he was in danger in one of the few places he's ever felt safe was sending him into a panic attack. Mimi had left work to come and see him, maybe he could go home. But- but then Patton would be here alone. His head was swimming when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Logan. Breathe. You're coming home, and when Viv gets home we’re taking you to get a real cast. The nurse just said Patton's parents are here to pick him up. He’ll be ok Hun. And so will you.”

Logan breathed in… and out. He would be ok.

Taglist: @fivebyfive-finebyfive @tacohippy56900 @analogical-mess @crookedlyoptimisticdestiny @angels-and-dreams @fandomloverangel @demented-dukey @karmels-stuff @demented-dukey

Let me know if you want to be tagged in my writing!!!

Thank you for reading I will see you later ladies lords and nonbinary royalty!!!

[missmeikakuna]

Chad and the Incel Chapter 8

Rated: M

Fandom: Original Fiction (but inspired by the Virgin vs Chad meme)

Relationship type: Male/Male with a bit of Female/Female (the lesbians are adorable, btw) and unrequited Male/Female (in other words, the guys are bisexual).

Description: Chad is, well, a Chad, or at least he looks like one. He’s got his sights set on the cool nerd Becky and enlists the help of her shy incel ex-friend Noah, offering to help him get the gorgeous girl (Stacy) he desperately wants. Noah is reluctant to help, believing that he will be stuck in inceldom forever, but Chad’s interest in his life gives him hope. When their plans go awry, they start turning their romantic attention towards each other.

Content Warning: Given the subject matter, you can guess that this story has dark themes in it, such as suicide and self-harm (plus the mental health issues that often cause them), sexism, slut-shaming homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. There is also swearing and some mentions of sex but nothing too explicit (hence the M rating as opposed to an Explicit rating).

8th Post: [LifeFuel]  My crush likes me back

Noah rapidly raised and dropped his laptop, standing up and turning away from it. After remembering the price of the thing, he checked it for damages. Upon seeing no problems, he sighed and sat back down.

He put his headphones back on and played the game again. All the cartoonish gun sounds couldn’t drown out the voice in the back of his mind.

What’s with you lately?

He chose to ignore the voice but it only got louder, and as it got louder it pushed him to play harder, firing at everyone. Yes, even his teammates. He wasted bullets on players that couldn’t be harmed by him.

After his team lost the game, he slammed the headphones against the desk. Once again, he sheepishly checked for any damages and found none.

He leaned against the back on his chair and looked up at the ceiling.

The voice had disappeared but was replaced with an image of Chad smirking on the ceiling. He scowled at the image in his mind, only to swallow air when it was replaced with Chad’s fish-out-of-water face.

‘You’re… hot…’

Noah felt a twinge in his heart and throbbing down below. His shoulders became heavy as he unzipped his pants. As per usual, he pictured smoke rising from his hand and tried to ignore it.

After washing his hands, he picked up his phone, scrolled through the contacts and almost deleted Chad’s. His thumb hovered over the screen until he decided to keep it. The voice came back.

You should get a picture of him for the contact.

The thought put even more weight onto his shoulders. As if he was going to do that. It wasn’t like he missed him all that much.

He lied down on his bed, staring at the screen and trying to avoid the contacts app, though naturally his eyes kept going back to that little address book.

He groaned. ‘Fine,’ he hissed to himself. He sent Chad a message.

How are you? Been a while.

Chad replied surprisingly quickly, causing Noah to fumble with his phone after almost dropping it in shock.

Yeah, it has. I’ve been good. I need to go to bed soon so I’ll talk to you at school.

Chad kept his promise and chatted to him during class. At first, the conversation was slow and awkward, both boys trying to tiptoe around the issue of Chad calling Noah hot.

The conversation began to centre around sports, with Chad trying to convince Noah to watch one football game, something Noah had not done since he was eight. He reluctantly agreed on the condition that he watch Chad play first.

At football practice that afternoon, Noah leaned forward with his hands maintaining a strong grip on the metal bar in front of the bleachers. His eyes never left Chad as the player threw the ball with one of his muscular arms.

When practice ended, Noah congratulated Chad on doing well before sneaking out of the bleachers and shuffling to his car. On his way home, he saw a little NFL shop about to close for the day.

He rushed in and bought a generic poster with the NFL logo and a picture of a football. At home he blu-tacked the poster on the wall behind his bed’s headboard. 

He went onto his laptop and looked for ways to torrent NFL games. Instead of studying he ended up watching one and a half games until he fell asleep. His eyes subconsciously sought out the most handsome players and he even found a guy who looked like Chad. 

During the moments the players stopped, fantasies danced around his mind about what Chad would do with him in that uniform of his. At first, these fantasies were purely carnal, though they gradually changed into something a little different.

For instance, he imagined Chad running to the bleachers to kiss him after scoring a touchdown. He thought of the boy training him in football, complimenting his skills. He even made up a scenario in which he tended to Chad’s injuries.

After that last daydream, one question popped into his head.

The fuck is wrong with you?

He woke up late in the morning but couldn’t bring himself out of bed. He just lied there thinking about what those fantasies meant, what any fantasy he’d ever had about a guy meant. It wasn’t like he was gay. As much as women frustrated him to the point of stirring hatred within him, he still wanted them. No, he needed them.

His heart leapt in shock and something that totally wasn’t joy when he heard his phone buzz. It was a message from Chad.

Where are you?

Noah spent half a minute coming up with an excuse.

Sick.

Chad replied with some sad emojis like the normie he was.

I’ll meet you after school to check up on you.

Noah groaned.

You want to catch something?

Chad’s response sent a wave of warmth throughout Noah’s body.

I don’t, but I’ll feel worse if I don’t see for myself that you’re okay.

Noah smiled as he got up and made himself a meal he had learnt how to make from an anime. After finishing off his lunch, he went back onto his laptop and debating (or, to be more accurate, arguing) with someone on an anime forum.

Chad did what he said he was going to do, and quicker than expected. When Noah opened the door for him, Chad asked him how he was.

Noah coughed. ‘Good. I feel better now. You wait in my room and I’ll make us some coffee. You okay with having it black?’ 

‘Yeah, but aren’t you still sick? I should make it.’

‘It’s fine, really.’ Noah nudged him into his room.

Chad spun around on the chair by the desk. As he stopped the chair, his hand slipped on the mouse, moving it enough to wake the laptop from its screensaver mode. A tab showed a forum debate entitled ‘Are Traps Gay?’

When Noah entered the room with two cups of coffee, Chad asked him, ‘What are traps? I’m guessing you’re not talking about stuff used for hunting, unless hunting’s a gay activity now.’ This caused Noah to spill some of the coffee as he slammed the mugs on the desk.

‘N-none of your business.’ Chad took out his phone. ‘Wait!’ Noah shouted as he closed the door behind him. He whispered, ‘Okay, so, uh, in anime there are these guys called ‘traps’ who look like girls.’

Chad joined him in speaking with a hushed voice. ‘Sounds like an insult.’

‘H-how?’

‘Well, a trap means you’re, I don’t know, tricking someone, right? Are these anime dudes who look like chicks tricking people or something? Or is the word a coincidence or something like that?’

‘Well, uh, no, I mean, I think the word comes from that, but, uh…’ Noah looked around the room for a way to change the subject but found nothing. The whispering ended. ‘It-It’s a compliment nowadays!’

‘Really? Doesn’t sound like one,’ Chad said as he shrugged his shoulders.

‘The question isn't really about those guys anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they’re ‘tricking’ you or not. It’s more about if you’re gay for liking them. They’re, uh, popular with dudes.’

‘Sounds pretty gay to me.’

‘It’s not! Absolutely not! You think some faggot would be into anime characters who look like girls? No, it’s the realm of the straight men. Only straight men can appreciate these beauties.’

Chad stood up and leaned closer to Noah. ‘So you’re into dudes?’

‘No, it doesn’t count, it doesn’t-’

‘Would you fuck a real-life guy in a dress?’

‘Uh… n-no…’

Chad smirked as some mysterious, much more confident force possessed him and made words he never expected to say spew from his mouth.  Perhaps it was Noah’s relatable nervousness that made him feel oddly safe. He put his hand between Noah’s shoulder and his neck, lightly rubbing the area.

‘Would you fuck me if I looked like a girl?’

Noah didn’t respond, at least verbally. He just stared at Chad, who leaned closer and drank in the delicious sound of his heartbeat.

The stare lasted a good twenty or so seconds before their bodies joined together in a heated kiss. As Noah panted with desire, the zest of ginger and the scent of honey from his lunch lit up Chad’s mind, as did his partner’s heartbeat, which continued to get louder and faster. Chad’s heart and breaths quickly matched him as he held his cheeks, his thumbs stroking the hair in front of his ears. He continued kissing him even as he started becoming more aware of what he was doing, as any fear he could possibly feel was replaced with the endorphins he usually got playing football.

Part of him had expected an overly slobbery kiss, so he grinned when he noticed that this wasn’t the one he was having. Noah’s lips were a little rough but Chad enjoyed every inch of them. Noah’s skin was hot and, in contrast with his lips, soft. 

He pushed Chad onto the chair and stuck his tongue in his mouth, reaching for the taller man’s coat to take it off. Chad shivered at this sudden display of dominance and helped him fling off the coat. Noah only let go of him to turn on the CD player and soon the sounds of their kiss were hidden under the swelling of a boisterous symphony. They moved to the bed, grasping at each other’s clothes to remove them as quickly as possible.

The air was filled with heavy breaths that gradually slowed down. The duo felt almost sick from the smell of the room. The CD player finished its current track before Noah turned it off. He turned until his back was facing Chad, who placed his hand on the shorter man’s hip.

‘How was it?’ he murmured. Noah shrugged, refusing to look at him and yet again focusing on his own hands as if smoke was emanating from them. ‘That bad, huh? Sorry, I’m new to this. That was my first time.’

Noah rolled back with the speed of a tumble dryer. ‘The fuck are you talking about? There’s no way you were a virgin. What about all those girls that throw themselves at you?’

‘What girls?’ 

Noah stared at Chad like the man was high. Chad stroked his hip with his thumb as he said, ‘And besides, even if I did sleep with girls, it’s not like that would prepare me to sleep with a guy. I doubt many girls would be interested in doing what you…’ He laughed nervously.

Noah covered his eyes with his bangs. ‘Oh. Yeah. Speaking of which, are you… sore?’

Chad shifted his butt on the bed. ‘A little. Maybe we should have done more prep.’ He reached underneath the sheets and pulled out a bottle. ‘This is pretty good stuff, though. And the condoms… why’d you have these on you?’

Noah gulped, staring at the ceiling, then the door, anything to prevent him from having to look at Chad.

‘In… in case I needed to use them… with a girl. I bought them when you made me think for a second that maybe I could actually get a girl.’

Chad sighed. ‘Yeah, so, uh, what exactly are we? I mean, are we… what’s it called… bisexual?’

Noah pulled the sheets up despite showing no shame a few minutes earlier. ‘No way,’ he said with a shake of the head like a dog leaving a bath. ‘This is… fucked. I shouldn’t have… we shouldn’t have… Let’s just forget about this. It never happened, alright?’

Chad dropped the bottle and looked down at the sheets with a frown. ‘Was I really that bad? Or couldn’t you picture me as a girl? Maybe you are straight after all-’

‘You were fine!’ Noah snapped. ‘And I didn’t imagine you as a girl. You were… okay. It felt good.’ He looked at the evidence of this: the condom in the bin. ‘It’s just that… my first time wasn’t supposed to be ‘okay’.’

‘What’d you expect it to be like? It’s not like either of us are very experienced.’

‘I don’t know. Just better. It almost feels like nothing happened. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I lost my virginity! That’s a big deal, isn’t it? It’s not like I can undo it.’ Noah tightened his grip on his sheets until his knuckles turned white. ‘So why don’t I feel any different?’

With another sigh Chad turned around and got off the bed. Unsure how to reply to that question, he asked Noah where the bathroom was but, before Noah could answer, they heard a knock on the door. 

‘Noah, are you decent?’ a feminine voice called out.

‘No!’

‘Well hurry up and get dressed. Family meeting.’

Noah looked from side to side in thought before shoving Chad in the closet and pulling the quilt over the sheets to hide the evidence. He picked up the clothes he wore from before and threw Chad’s clothes into the closet.

‘Family meeting? Since when do we have those?’

‘We do now! Your father and I can’t decide on dinner.’

Noah pulled his jeans up, trying to ignore the sudden stickiness of his underwear. ‘Well, decide for yourself! You don’t need me.’ Chad felt his heart twist but he focused on his task of putting clothes on while cramped in a closet. Noah threw a shirt on and opened the door just a little, not so much as to show what was on his bed.

His mother pinched her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’

‘Nothing! I’m sure it’s nothing.’

After hearing the door slam shut, Chad made his way out of the closet, picked up his bag and coat and snuck out of the room. He tiptoed through the living room. He locked eyes with Noah, who gave him a deer in the headlights look. His parents turned their heads and Chad ducked down behind the couch, holding his breath. His heart sped up as he crawled to the door. He looked at Noah one last time and put his hand on the door.

Noah looked in the opposite direction and yelled, ‘Did you see that? Mittens just jumped for no reason!’ Chad opened the door. ‘I think she saw a mouse!’ Chad closed the door behind him and slowly exhaled. 

Once the family meeting ended, Noah took to Incels.me and discovered that the website was gone. He was fuming when he learned that it was taken down. He searched around for a replacement and quickly found one. He joined it under a new username and began to write, changing Chad from a ‘he’ to an unnamed ‘she’.

Rotcel2003- [LifeFuel] My crush likes me back

Well, this is only half life fuel. On the one hand, I just slept with my crush. It was fairly good, and she’s pretty hot, but it wasn’t life-changing. It kind of makes me question why I was so obsessed with losing my virginity. Is this really the life of an ascended incel? I don’t know. 

I can’t help but wonder if it was worth doing stuff with her. I mean, what kind of femoid would be into me? She clearly has low standards to date a sub-3 like me. And it’s even weirder when you consider that it started with us talking about anime. She doesn’t even watch anime! Plus, we were talking about traps, not exactly prime normie material.

So yeah, I’m conflicted.

When Noah went back onto the post, he was shocked at the influx of replies calling him a bluepilled cuck and saying he was bragging. Someone even accused him of being a normie trying to pass himself off as an incel.

It was that night when Chad decided to look up this whole incel thing. He came across the same forum Noah visited and saw a post about a discussion of anime ‘traps’ leading to sex.

His fish-out-of-water eyes returned. 

[smarmykemetic]

I hope you know that you can only practice your craft because of the systems of freedom that America has put into place. From the moment you were born you were guarantee'd this right. I'm an lesbian, black eclectic satanist, and I'm sure most countries would have me hung if I said what I felt out loud. Wanting communism over capitalism just shows how white-toast and weak antifa is. Real witches and POC who think with their brains instead of their skin color will know that, and love America.

I grew up in various army bases and trailer parks in the American South, otherwise born and raised in West Texas. I got abused by my family when they found out I was pagan. I got kicked out of my house for three days because my Christian tweaker mother said I “brought evil into her house” by talking to other gods besides Jesus. Later, when my aunt found out I was a witch, she encouraged me to talk to her about it, and then when I politely told her that she was not going to convert me back to Christianity, came back and told me to get all of my tarot cards and books off of her property or she would kick me out. Me and my friends who started talking about magic and spirits in high school all had to actively lie and hide all of it from our parents for fear of what they would do if they found out.

When I was a kid, I was only allowed to watch Christian cartoons. I still remember my mom saying she didn’t want me to watch the Winx club because of the magic, or Kim Possible because she wore a belly-baring shirt, or Disney in general because even fucking Disney was not clean and Christian enough for the Fort Riley churches; the pastors all told the army wives it was “work of the Devil”, and all the army brats just had to deal with it. Forget “speaking it out loud”; even by the time I was in high school, I couldn’t even read a book about goddamn astrology without my aunts telling me it was “witchcraft” and that Satan would “get in” to me or into the house I was in. When I was 14 and having a nervous breakdown/manic episode, my mom thought it was a demon. While I was manic and paranoid 14 year old, they gave me a book on “spiritual warfare” that said most physical and mental illnesses were caused by demons, which could get into you and control you through any sin or any association with anything or anyone Not Christian. 

Whenever I tried to argue with any of this, people would quote the Bible verse that talks about “lean not on your own understanding” and remind me that “Satan can lie” as a way to gaslight me into not thinking for myself. And all of this is just for the occult stuff; the stories I could tell you about the homophobia, transphobia, and racism in these places would likely result in me getting a bunch of anons accusing me of “making it up for notes”. I knew a kid in high school whose parents saw him texting his boyfriend and pulled him out of school, wouldn’t let him talk to any of us, and were trying to send him to one of those fucking camps but couldn’t because, thank God, he was already 18.

Even if you aren’t a troll or lying, you are still a closed-minded, ignorant moron. I don’t care how many Oppressed Groups you’re a part of. You don’t know what you’re talking about and if you think America and capitalism is automatically safe for us, but all or most of the other nations on the planet are dangerous, it’s because you’ve bought into the lie of American Exceptionalism so much that you don’t even realize how ridiculous you sound anymore. It’s obvious that you know nothing about what antifa actually is or does, and probably don’t know anything about what communism or socialism actually is either. 

And just so you know, trying to be One Of The Good Ones by talking shit about other PoC for “thinking with their skin color and not their brains” will not get racists to treat you better. They’re just using you as a puppet they can hide behind so they can treat other black people like shit and then when they get called on it, point at you and say “but she agrees with me!!!” I know this for a fact because that’s what happened back in my hometown every damn time the white upperclassmen would send some poor black freshman to go argue with me for them, because the kids didn’t realize they were being used. So it’s not just ethically wrong, it’s stupid, and you are going to get hurt if you keep doing it.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Proven Innocent Season 1 Episode 8

Trigger warning: This issue deals with trans issues, transphobia, and homophobia, as well as historical GLBT+ issues.

We kick this episode off with Madeline and Bodie walking down a street in the gay district. Bodie calls out to tell a couple of drag queens that they look fabulous, and they instantly recognize Madeline. She's apparently some sort of GLBT+ icon in the community, and when she was released from jail, they all had a party in her honor.

Madeline asks for directions from them, and Madeline and Bodie continue on to their destination... after Madeline stops to take a selfie with them.

They go to a law firm, where a man tells them about his trans client who was convicted of having killed another trans woman in the 80's. The jail doesn't want to provide her with hormone treatments anymore, and during the fight to get that back for her, the lawyer discovered that the amount of hormones in the blood found at the crime scene (that had originally put her in jail) didn't match from somebody who'd been on treatments for the past decade.

Easy and Madeline go talk to the lady in prison, but she doesn't exactly want to get out. She says that all of her friends and family are dead now. She then states a statistic that 40% of the trans community ends up dead by either violence or suicide, which is the highest out of any community out there. (And nobody would sit back and let this happen if it was literally any other group.) She only just wants her medications.

Meanwhile, Violet has her own subplot this episode. She brings over some podcast host from some other podcast, and they talk about making podcasts. He's actually a big fan of her podcast. After doing the recording, he invites her to dinner.

She goes thinking that it's a date, but it turns out that it's a job offer instead. He wants her to do this big new podcast... but it would be a full-time job, and she'd need to move to New York. He urges her to think about it.

He comes back to her at the end of the episode, but she says that she's already living her dream working for the law firm in Chicago. She might not actually be a laywer, but she's one of the people who helps find the important information that brings the actual criminals to justice and frees the wrongfully convicted. He kind of implies that she's making a mistake and leaves. Bodie then comes in to cheer her up, and says that she wouldn't have Bodie in New York. (And I'm not sure if I ship this or not?)

And now for the Bellow's/Levi/Isabel subplot: Bellows contemplates the new campaign signs that were printed up. The one with him standing before Lady Liberty gets him and his new campaign manager talking about Madeline Scott. And oh my god, why is everybody so fucking obsessed with Madeline? The manager implies that Bellows should look for new evidence in the Scott case that would put Madeline away for good, so that she'd stop being a thorn in his side.

He later calls Isabel into his office and asks what she's learned about Levi. She admits that Levi kind of keeps to himself in meetings, but she'll see what she can do about getting more information from him.

Later, she's crying in the empty meeting room when Levi comes in. He obviously asks her what's wrong, and she spins some sob story about how everything just feels so... sad. He offers to make her less sad. Which ends up with them at a bar. Isabel goes out of her way to get him drunk, and he eventually tells her something that he probably shouldn't have: that before Rosemary's body was found, but everybody was looking for her, Madeline just kind of stood there and did nothing. He described her as acting “stoned”.

Isabel obviously reports this to Bellows. Bellows is pleased with this information, because it implies that Madeline might have been the one to actually have killed Rosemary. (The previous theory was that Levi had killed Rosemary while Madeline helped her brother during or after the fact.) Although, at the same time... just because he has a new theory doesn't mean that this is enough evidence to reopen the actual case. Furthermore, Madeline's complete lack of action does not make her guilty. (This is going back to a previous episode about 911 tapes; you sound too hysterical and the jury hates you. You don't sound emotional enough and the jury hates you.)

This'll probably be relevant in future episodes, but this is the Bellow's subplot for now.

Anyway, back to the main case. Easy and Madeline talk about their latest client, and the fact that she's refusing their legal help. And it's not that they think that she's innocent... it's just that they can't do anything unless she gives them the okay. Madeline eventually says that they need to give their client hope. But they need to do a bit more digging into this, too.

They go to a gay bar that was open back when the murder took place, and the bar tender happened to have known both ladies. He talks briefly about the exclusion from safe places that the GLBT+ crowd faced from the 80s and earlier, and insists that the bar was inclusive towards everybody, even trans people. (It wasn't usually the case back then, unfortunately.) He goes on to say that a lot of openly trans/cross-dressing people would be picked up by the police simply because they looked like they were prostitutes. As you might imagine, this happened a lot to the victim. However, he also mentions that the victim was attacked on a couple different times by various closeted men who wanted to be with her. So there's another possible story of what happened right there.

They go back to speak with their client. Madeline gives her usual grand speech about wanting to help people like she herself was helped out of jail. The client agrees that she'd like to be out of jail.

They go to court to have the verdict put aside because of the new evidence about the client's blood. However, since the blood sample is long gone by now, the judge denies this, but lets them have the records from the original case. Which the judge points out was likely Madeline's plan all along.

However, rather than to just give them their client's case work, they give like all of the case work. From like that year. But this leads them to discover that another trans woman was arrested at the same time and place and by the same officer as their client.

Bodie is able to track this woman down to being the current owner of a drag queen bar. So they all go there, where we're subjected to a queen putting on a show for an ungodly amount of time. (And I'm not saying that she wasn't great, but let's get back to the actual plot now, shall we? Time and place, man. Time and place.)

They find the owner, and the lady who was also arrested at the same time. She says that a lot of “non-passing” trans folk couldn't get jobs in the clubs, so they often had to turn to the streets to make a living. The victim had a lot of sugar daddies, and had just broken up with one a short time before her murder. She gives them the guy's name.

As they're leaving the area, Bodie is wearing a rainbow feather boa and loudly singing with Violet. (And to be fair, some of the things he does kind of makes him a little bit odd to begin with.) Some guys drive by, and attack Bodie. The police show up, but it's painfully obvious that they don't give a flying shit about anything that happens in this neighborhood... if you catch my drift. Easy is angry because the police are refusing to do literally anything, and then they get angry with HIM just for trying to stand up for Bodie.

Madeline first tries calling the guy at his work, but he quickly tells her not to contact him again about that, and hangs up. She and Easy then go down to his office to talk to him. He's angry and upset over the entire thing, and is also worried about being outed. Especially to his children and grandchildren. He tells them that his wife died of cancer two years earlier. (This is mildly important for later.) He eventually tells them that he was in New York the night of her murder, and that he was the one who'd done the breaking up with, not the other way around. Easy seems to think that he's lying.

However, the guy sends his credit card statements from nearly 40 years ago, and it proves that he did buy a plane ticket. But there's a window of opportunity where he could have killed the victim and still gotten onto the plane. But then they also notice a hospital bill from two days after the murder... he could have hurt himself when he'd killed the victim, and then went to the hospital when his wound didn't heal.

And finally... Bodie then provides old newspaper articles from the gay bartender which directly contradicts his earlier statements about his bar being 100% inclusive to EVERYBODY in the GLBT+ community. So he's also now a suspect.

When the judge refuses to give them a warrant to look at the medical records, they instead go talk to the bar owner instead. He gives some awfully shitty excuse of “that's just how things were back then. We didn't want to be under the suspicion from the police.” Although he did have a friendly relationship with the victim, (the kids these days would call them “Frenemies”), but said that she was his “sister in arms”, and that he would never kill her. Easy believes the guy, which puts them back at needing to look at the sugar daddy's medical records. Violet then offers up an idea, but refuses to tell them since it's less than legal. Madeline and Easy pretend like they didn't hear her say that and leave.

Violet then goes to the hospital in question with a warrant, but says that it's for John Smith, but the warrant is actually for Jane Doe. She then bribes the clerk with coffee and a doughnut in exchange for him getting the records. But by mistake, he brings out the guy's wife's medical records, since they had the same first initial. Buuuuttt...

They all go back to court, where Madeline questions the sugar daddy. He refuses to talk about his relationship with the victim. Madeline asks what blood type he is, but it's not the same that's found at the scene. However, Madeline asks what blood type his wife had, but he honestly didn't know. It's the same as that found at the scene.

Madeline prompts him if his wife killed the victim. He eventually answers that he came back from New York to find his wife covered in the victim's blood. She'd found out about her husband's affair, somehow or another tracked the poor lady down, and attacked her.

With this new information, the judge instantly says that the client is free to go, because she's innocent.

Sometime later, Madeline visits her former flame in prison. They make out for a while, which is only possible because the girlfriend does things to keep the guards off her back. However, she mentions that there's a good chance she could be paroled soon. Madeline is obviously happy for her, but the girlfriend, not so much. She asks Madeline if Madeline could really see them being together on the outside, doing normal couple stuff like going home for family dinners and hanging out with Madeline's friends. Madeline says yes, but the girlfriend is still apprehensive.

Later, everybody gathers at the gay bar to celebrate the client's freedom. However, she mainly just sits at the bar and looks at the wall of historical GLBT+ photos... especially the one of the victim, her friend. The bartender tells her that everything is going to be okay.

Madeline steps outside to call her mom. She then says that she's bisexual and that she's dating a girl. The mother hesitates for a  moment, before asking when Madeline is going to bring her around to meet the family. Madeline then drops an even bigger bombshell and says that her girlfriend is in prison. Which is way more upsetting, for some reason. (Ah yes, the shitty parents who like to desperate pretend like their children weren't in jail for 10 years...)

The episode ends with a short montage of footage of GLBT+ protests, both past and present.

[curtisandlewis]

A Guide to The Playhouse

The Playhouse is a fic of my own creation and my baby. It originated from my need to write about the parties that Jerry, Tony, and Janet revolved their lives around that occurred at the building in Jerry's backyard affectionately named The Playhouse. As I sat down to plot this epic story that spanned from 1948 to 1953 relationships developed complexity, conflict was practically handed to me, and I got the gift of writing scene after scene of Jerry with Tony. They're not my OTP but are my biggest obsession. However, I am completely changing the storyline.

I knew from the start the "The Playhouse" would not be a fairytale. The relationships are complex and can be unhealthy and abusive. Mental illness, trauma, sex addiction, abuse of drugs and alcohol all contribute to risky and abusive behaviors. BDSM is also at the core of the story both being practiced in safe and dangerous ways. I thought it would be sufficient just include warnings at the beginning of each chapter as I do for any of my fics that can be "problematic" but I now realize the twenty or so thousand words I have written are not just "problematic" but can be harmful especially to anyone like me. I have written this guide to explain why I wrote those words and hopefully reverse any damage they have done.  

To anyone that read what I wrote and got the impression that certain sexual acts were more taboo or wrong than others, I am truly sorry. That is a fucked up way to live. I wouldn’t wish anyone to have shame for who they are or what they want in a consensual sexual relationship. Think about the sex you enjoy, without shame or restriction. Read the sex scenes that entertain you the most. Write the kind of sex you want to see in the world and is the most fun for you to write. Choose to masturbate and explore your body in the ways you want. Or choose not to touch yourself. Have sex in any way you and your partner/partners desire and consent to. Or choose not to have sex at all. It is your decision to make. That is your right as a person who is in charge of their own body. Please learn from my mistakes. 

I just want to make it clear that the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey came out in February 9, 2015. I had no idea about the book until I saw the trailer for the movie. The first chapter of "The Playhouse" was published May 17, 2014, and I had been writing and planning several months before that. I have never read Fifty Shades of Grey and I only saw the first half hour (I couldn't make it to the sex scenes) of the movie in 2016. After I saw Christian Grey say the infamous line, "I don't make love. I fuck. Hard." I worried that Tony was similar to Christian Grey and that his relationship with Jerry was similar to the one in the movie. However, I NEVER presented their sexual relationship as a love story to be watched on Valentine's day. It may be that the two stories have nothing in common but I obsessively worried that they were and that I wrote something deeply problematic.

In March of 2015, I wrote a spin off of "The Playhouse" about the first time Tony humps Jerry (their fave activity). After I wrote it I felt like I had done something wrong. Not too long after something bad happened to a member of my family. I believed by writing the words in that story I had caused the bad thing because I was being punished. I now know I have OCD and this is how OCD works against you. It makes you believe you caused something when there is no logical way you could have caused it to happen. This is why "The Playhouse" has not been updated in over two years. I can look back now and realize the reason why I felt like I had done something wrong is that the characters were acting in a way that was wrong to who they were. I had projected my anxiety and shame onto them.

From here on out there will be liberal use of sex terms and discussion of sex  

What you need to know: I have anxiety writing anal sexual stimulation or anal sex due to many toxic beliefs and stigmas I internalized over the years. To avoid writing these scenes I made Dean's character believe due to his internalized homophobia that it was wrong for a man to penetrate another man or be penetrated by any gender even if in masturbation. Since the age of sixteen, Jerry has had curiosity about being penetrated. Tony has wanted to top Jerry since Jerry's sixteenth birthday (the fic that sparked my OCD) that is six years starting from chapter one of the story. To again, avoid having to write any penetrative scenes I had to write Dean being emotionally abusive and using shame and threats to control Jerry's sexual behavior. All of this because I as a writer did not realize I could just not fucking write anal sex scenes. I thought if I wrote a bunch of dry humping scenes you would think I was weird so instead, I wrote horribly abusive relationships...

Quick History lesson, since the medieval times it was believed evil for a man to be penetrated because he was in a passive role that was reserved for women. Men that were penetrated were put to death while women who had sex with women without penetration were encouraged to do so for their health. These toxic beliefs are deep within history and still exist in society.

Allow me to get a little bit personal. I’ve always had anxiety writing anal sex scenes. I’ve written it very rarely in the past ten years that I have been writing sex scenes. I wrote mostly oral sex because it was less "homosexual" than anal sex. (I had a lot of internalized crap I was dealing with). Even though it’s absolutely possible for two men to have a sexual relationship and never have anal sex, I thought it would be too weird for Dean and Jerry to be having sex for six years and never try it. Also as a writer, I enjoy writing them being physically intimate but not having sex. That word I see in fanfiction tags: frottage (such a weird word). You know the act of two men rubbing up against each other. It just offers so many more options than manual sex or oral sex ever could. THE FACT YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF. How convenient is that? But I never saw it as the main option for sexual gratification. It was always presented as either foreplay or the only option because the characters couldn’t have sex. What made me feel weirder is that I enjoyed writing “humping” scenes (also a strange word) This is “frottage” but front to back instead of front to front. All of the advantages of anal sex without any of the problems. It required no prep. Whoever is on top can do it as hard and fast as they want and not hurt their partner. Likewise, to show intimacy it can be done in a gentle and romantic way, maybe even being left for special occasions like anniversaries. It’s also very easy for Tony and Jerry to take turns being top and Jerry doesn’t always have to be in the passive submissive role. Speaking of submissive it’s also easy to incorporate BDSM without it becoming too intense. Have you read those stories where the guy bleeds? You know what I mean. I didn’t want Jerry to bleed. And if he did I didn’t want it to be sexy. I wanted it to show that his sex addiction was getting out of hand or their BDSM relationship was becoming reckless. They can do it again, and again, and again. It wouldn’t put nearly the amount of strain on Jerry’s body that intercourse would. And of course, if you read “The Playhouse” you know that I use it an awful lot in group sex situations and to show just how fucking possessive Dean can be. As you can see there were a lot of positives to writing scenes in this way but that didn’t stop me from feeling weird about it. I probably read only one scene like that in my life. Before that, I saw it only a few times in movies and it made me go hmmm. I felt it was something that wasn’t really talked about or done. It wasn’t presented as an alternative to sex or even an option. I thought if I were to write the scenes I wanted to, people who read them would say, “Why don’t they just fuck already? What the fuck am I reading? This is so weird.”

I projected all of my toxicity onto Jerry. It started out simple enough I heard a lot of jokes as a kid that went, you must have known your husband was “gay” because he liked your finger up his ass. Because all women that enjoy receiving oral sex are “lesbian” right? (I hope you saw the sarcasm in that) Then I noticed there weren’t a lot of heterosexual married couples in movies having non vaginal intercourse. Sometimes you could see the couple in the “doggystyle” position but the wife was still being penetrated in her vagina. When I saw the other form of intercourse it was gay men or people not in love. I think that had a lasting effect on me. But what was worse is that I watched a movie with a BDSM theme. The woman worked as a dominatrix (hated her job btw) and her male partner confessed to her that he liked to be penetrated and dominated. Her reaction was so verbally abusive it was disgusting. Instead of thinking you are a horribly abusive person and he needs to leave you I internalized it as oh I guess it’s really not okay for men to want that. I have struggled with internalized homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. I have dealt with it all. I just didn’t have the tools back then to see things as they are. An abusive woman who had a very illogical view of the world and a media that didn’t have the imagination or the knowledge of what sexual relationships could be.

These are the general reasons why I wrote: "The Playhouse" with such problematic themes and why I have decided to no longer continue those themes.

The lesson I learned from this was to not project my toxic shit onto my characters and make them act in ways that are not authentic to who they are. I give myself the permission to write what makes me happy and fulfilled.

DEAN: What you need to know: Dean has internalized homophobia due to childhood trauma. He was taught if a man is penetrated by a person of any gender they will instantly become homosexual and not a man.

As a young boy Dean was told by his mother don't be a f...well, I'm sure you can guess what she said. All his life he was reprimanded (sometimes with hitting) for behavior that was too "homosexual" Behaviors like, crying, telling someone he loved them and showing emotion. As he got older his so called friends just made his internalized homophobia worse. He was terrified that he wasn't masculine enough and that he had to be a man like they said or else be nothing. Along the way Dean was taught the rules, he lives his life by:

A man never says "I love you" even to his own family

A man never ever says "I love you" to another man

A man never lets anyone see him cry or be emotional

A man must keep people at a distance

A man has sex with women and has sex often

A man has a wife and children and whatever he can get on the side

A man can do "guy stuff" with other guys as a form of bonding or just a quick way to get off.

A man does not suck cock

A man can get his cock sucked by another man and be secure in his manhood because he is in the active "manly" role

A man must never ever under any circumstance be penetrated by anyone even himself. A man must not fantasize or actively desire to be penetrated otherwise he is a homosexual and will no longer be a man. He will be nothing.

That is the reasoning for Dean's problematic and abusive behavior towards Jerry. He tries to control Jerry's sexual behavior and desires because if Jerry were to be homosexual Dean would have to end their sexual relationship (He could never think of ending their friendship). 

The truth is that in real life during the time Dean was growing up this was NOT the belief. It was believed a man could have anal sex with another man as long as he was the one doing the penetrating. This meant he was in the active "male" role. It was actually preferred to penetrate a feminine homosexual man because they were believed to not be men and to be a third gender. Jerry is bisexual, not homosexual but close enough to be a PERFECT candidate. The only worry Dean would have is hurting his pally that first time. They could happily fuck for the whole ten years of their partnership and Dean would think of himself as nothing but the picture of masculine heterosexuality.

and of course

YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY HAVE ANY KIND OF SEX YOU WANT AND MOST CERTAINLY MASTURBATE IN THE WAY MOST PLEASURABLE TO YOU WITHOUT AFFECTING YOUR SEXUALITY JUST AS LONG AS YOU DON’T CAUSE HARM TO YOURSELF OR OTHERS.

What you need to know: Dean is emotionally and at times verbally abusive to Jerry and arguably to his wife Betty as well.

[argentconflagration]

wondergirrl said:

what is this about. anti what?? am confused please aid me VonBond

This is pretty long and I apologize, but I feel like I need to go all the way back and talk about TERFs, for reasons that will hopefully soon be clear.

As I'm sure you know, TERF stands for 'Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist'. There are still TERF communities within feminism, but generally speaking, TERFs are far less numerous and their ideology has far less sway than it used to have. Part of the reason for this was people going out of their way to proactively explain why TERF arguments are wrong before their fellow feminists encountered TERFs, which made it a lot harder for TERFs to spread their ideology.

Which is great! But I think that for the most part, feminists have argued against the transmisogynistic aspects of radical feminism, and to a lesser extent the sex-worker-exclusionary aspects of radical feminism (SWERFs), but kind of failed to see the coherent whole that TERF-flavored feminism belongs to, what sort of thinking causes it, and why it's wrong. "Being anti-TERF" nowadays has largely been reduced to stuff like putting "no TERFs!" in blog descriptions and popular posts, and it rarely takes the form of scrutinizing TERF logic to understand how they went wrong and how we can avoid making similar mistakes against other people. Which is why I'm writing this now.

(I've tried very hard to articulate what I think are two distinct flaws in thinking that seem to me to give rise to just about every TERF position, but I do feel like I'm not quite right on the money, so if anyone has better ways to say these two things, I'm all ears.) In general, TERF positions are the result of 1) rigid, black-and-white, binary thinking and 2) ignoring people's consent, especially their 'yes'es. Take transmisogyny: they believe that trans women are men and therefore oppressors. Now, this belief is readily debunked by observing the world, but TERFs have divided the world strongly into oppressors and oppressed, and have a lot of rhetorical tools to dismiss and ignore anything said by "oppressors" or that seems to favor "oppressors". And because trans women are "oppressors", they justify violence and harassment that ordinarily common sense would never condone.

A lot of other central TERF positions have to do with ignoring people's 'yes'es. Sex workers say, "No, this line of work isn't without its problems, but I want to be empowered to address those problems, not kicked out of my livelihood." AFAB trans people say, "I'm not a woman, I'm another gender, and I want to transition." Subs (in BDSM) say, "I enjoy being submissive." Heterosexual and bisexual women say, "I want to date and/or sleep with men." And TERFs' response to all these people is, "That's just your internalized misogyny talking." (And when these people fail to stop wanting the thing they want, TERFs decide that they've taken the side of misogyny and are now valid targets for harassment.) TERFs don't pay attention to people's stated wishes and what they actually are or aren't consenting to. Instead, they decide what women must want, or what wishes would best further the cause of feminism, according to their views of feminism and patriarchy.

Which brings me, finally, to antis. Antis come from two main sources, and one is the anti-kink/anti-BDSM/anti-porn aspect of TERF-style feminism. The other is, as ridiculous as it sounds, ship wars. Ship wars have existed since the beginning of fiction, of course, and what's going on right now is that some people in fandom harass others using the intellectual framework laid out by anti-kink/anti-BDSM/anti-porn radfems. The targets are usually people who ship things (or create/consume other content) that's dark or unrealistic. (E.g. if you ship an abuser with his victim, that content is either going to be dark, if they have an unhealthy relationship, or unrealistic, if they have a healthy relationship. This also often includes non-ship-related dark content like characters getting killed.) The harassers believe themselves to be morally superior to their targets, based on the justification that "no one could really enjoy this content unless they were either enacting oppression or internalizing oppression".

This is particularly obvious when they talk about survivors of abuse and trauma. As you might know from debunkings of the "violent video games" moral panic, dark themes in media tend to be a way for people to emotionally process horrible things that happen in real life. There are lots of ways this plays out, according to the specific needs of the individual, but to speak from my own experience, taking things that were inflicted on me nonconsensually and fictionalizing them -- bringing them into a context where I have complete control -- is really important to healing and growing past that experience. Now, everyone, no matter their specific experiences, has fears that they might choose to process through fiction, but survivors of abuse and trauma are necessarily people who have experienced some of the worse things the world has to offer. Antis' response to this is the same as TERFs' response to people who want or need things that are politically inconvenient for them: "That's just internalized oppression." "That's an unhealthy coping mechanism." "You're taking the side of oppression, so it's okay to harass you."

Antis tend to have other beliefs that are inherited from radical feminism. For example, like TERFs, they tend to conceptualize heterosexism as "homophobia, which also hurts bisexual people because they're attracted to the same gender" rather than "heterosexism hurts people of non-heterosexual orientations in a variety of different ways". As such, they tend towards aphobia, biphobia, and nbphobia. Many of them are aphobes/exclusionists, and they tend to support a short list of acceptable non-straight identities (e.g. "LGBT") rather than accepting categories that are loose or flexible like "queer", "LGBT+", "QUILTBAG", etc. I've also found that, even when acknowledging NBs, they tend toward rhetoric that puts people into two categories based on their gender, like "men vs women/NBs" or "women/transfeminine people vs men/transmasculine people". Again, they have very binary thinking, and disregard people's stated wishes not to be put on one side of a gender binary.

They also have a particular way of talking that leans toward bullying and ideological abuse. They tend to interact with anti-antis even when they're not in a place to do so in a non-harmful way, and tell people who disagree with them to go kill themselves ("drink bleach", "jump in a fire", etc.). They tend to overuse words like "gross", "nasty", "scum", "garbage", etc. that provoke a disgust response, and generally exaggerate wildly ("literally advocating for child abuse", that kind of thing). There's a distinct lack of emphasis on anything that could potentially break the grip of black-and-white thinking, such as recognizing gradations of harm, or weighing the harm of something against the benefit it has.

I don’t want to go overboard and replicate the exact same patterns by implying that “calling something you don’t like ‘garbage’ is supporting ideological abuse” or anything like that. At the same time, I'm pretty sensitive to all this stuff, and pick up on it easily, even when I would rather ignore it. I can't stand to see people harassed for something as trivial as their taste in fanfic, and I also tend to be particularly vulnerable to ideologically abusive rhetoric because of some of the stuff I've gone through. An easy way to avoid interacting with people who harass others for their dark fic (or who support that framework of moral inferiority) would be to hang out with people who create and consume dark fic. But I actually find most of that content stomach-turning, so I wouldn't want to hang out around people who are posting it and talking about it all the time.

tl;dr: To avoid “TERFs minus (most of the) transphobia”, I might try hanging out with people who like fucked up fic, but I don’t want to do that because it would be unpleasant.

[mercenarypark]

medic hcs

Em made a big hc post for heavy a few days ago [here] and ive been meaning 2 finally do the same w/ medic bcause im gay

note: while i try to be brief about the details, this post is about a gay jewish man in Germany during wwii. to set aside any initial worries, no, he is never kept in the camps- as a jewish person myself it sickens me deep in my stomach to even think of that possibility. but there’s still mentions of n/zism and antisemitism, as one would expect.

also, a fair amount of the details of my medic hcs for his childhood are based on the german side of my family, primarily my grandfather and his father. while i still only know a little about my family history[tm], details like medic’s last name, how his family were able to lay low, etc, are based on the little bits and pieces ive heard from my grandmother #antisemitism #nazism #homophobia #transphobia #satanism #long post #text heavy #tf2 #gore text #medical abuse #malpractice #experimentation mention 

-Medic was born roughly around 1925- he’s in his early 40s around when the game takes place- to the name [redacted] Reichstein. the Reichsteins were reviled in their little town as mad doctors, which was at least somewhat true- they certainly weren’t shy to experimentation on body parts and [willing] subjects. but a good part of the hatred for them stemmed from Good Old Antisemitism, focusing their hate on the fact that they were an openly jewish family and saying that that must be influencing their occasionally morally dubious behavior

-for the longest time, though, people tolerated them- they were the only doctors around, after all. but as time went on, the disgusted glances turned to hate speech, turned to violent threats, and eventually, to violent actions.

-medic’s father, who had long since been debating on moving, finally packed the family up[against his wife’s wishes], and within a night, their home and lab were deserted.

-his father could tell that something terrible was coming. he brought down an ultimatum- they would have to abandon everything jewish about themselves in order to survive. medic was young, still, and didn’t fully understand the severity of why his father seemed so adamant that they never mention holidays they once celebrated, why their old family photos were torn and burned, why his mother was constantly reprimanded when her Yiddish roots showed through her accent

-medic’s father pulled a few favors, and before they moved into a new city, the family name was changed to Reich- a more acceptable, more German name. Reichstein could raise eyebrows, lead to questioning about jewish roots, but there have always been many Reichs in Germany.

-that’s also when Medic got his birthname changed to Ludwig, and he and his mother had to fight like hell for that. his father argued that the last thing they needed was another target on their back- if anyone found out that his son “wasn’t really a boy”, then that would bring the entire family under scrutiny and into danger.

-ludwig refused to take no for an answer. ludwig had always been someone who would rather die than pretend that he’s something he’s not, and this was one of the first signs of that. while he didnt fully understand his connection to judaism, yet, and thus didnt fight to keep it at the time; he DID understand that he wasn’t a girl, and by God did he refuse to pretend otherwise.

-eventually his father relented, though he never once forgot and throughout medic’s childhood, he would bring up how risky it was, how medic was potentially endangering them all.

-to clarify: his father DID technically accept his son being transgender, but he wanted him to repress it, ignore it, force it down and never bring it up, much like their jewish heritage. ludwig refused, and his father never liked that. [when ludwig grew older and became both openly gay AND became a practicing jew again, his father nearly had a fucking heart attack]

-ludwig was heavily isolated for most of his childhood after they moved, partially due to the war’s beginning, partially because his father was afraid of his son giving something away. he was homeschooled by his mother, and rarely left the house, instead spending most of his time playing with the family’s cockatoo, or in his father’s operating room, learning human anatomy

-this isolation[alongside his autism, and veritable cocktail of mental illnesses] helped contribute to medic’s general inability to understand how to interact with people- he is oblivious at the best of times, has no concept of personal space, rarely catches social cues, and has Awful attachment issues. he is overly affectionate with anyone he is even vaguely friendly with, he tends to ramble and talk about uncomfortably personal things without realizing its a bad thing, etc, etc, he is a mess and a half

-he does understand bits and pieces- for example, if he’s physically affectionate with someone, they tend to tense up, and try to get away from him, which means he’s doing something wrong. the problem is that he doesnt understand WHAT he’s doing wrong, or why it’s wrong[answer: he’s covered in blood and bird shit and holding at least one[1] human liver]

-speaking of physical affection, the first time engineer affectionately puts a hand on medic’s shoulder medic fucking freaks out because aside from his parents, NO ONE. no one has ever initiated Friendly Physical Contact with him. usually because theyre freaked out by him in some way. he has no idea how to cope with the fact that someone might actually think of him in a friendly manner to the point of expressing that physically [aside from sexually, which is a whole other story and a half]

-but im getting ahead of myself. the first time ludwig killed a man was when he was 17. a nazi soldier paid an unexpected visit to the Reichs. ludwig, scared for his family’s sake and overwhelmed with a boiling hatred for nazis that had simmered for all of his childhood, killed the man

-his father reacted violently, ranting that now they were doomed, but his mother helped ludwig destroy the body and evidence. by the grace of God, no other nazi followed up that visit- the soldier hadn’t told anyone where he was going, and there had been no witnesses to his visit. and germany was so chaotic at the time, that eventually the man's death was attributed to a previously unnoticed casualty in battle

-that was the first man ludwig killed, and also the first of many, many nazis. he spent a good stretch of his adult life hunting down nazis who had gone under the radar, trying to hide their past ties while still keeping the same disgusting views.

-as ive mentioned, in medical school, ludwig not only became openly gay, but returned to his jewish roots. no longer under his father's roof, and now that the war was over, medic saw no reason to hide aspects of himself any longer. and God help everyone who felt otherwise. especially once the most violently hateful dissenters, began to mysteriously disappear.

-throughout his adult life medic has had Multiple short term, non-serious relationships [including more than his fair share of one night stands], and maybe two serious relationships prior to heavy. neither of those ended well, citing ludwigs mental Fuckery as a big issue. speaking of, his mental fuckery has helped him get into at least a couple abusive relationships, which i wont detail beyond "he survived and healed".

-while he is Jewish, he is the kind of jew who criticizes god every step of the way. at least part of this is due to having to survive during the Shoah.

-the Shoah definitely fucked his mind up. the constant fear for his parents and himself, and the burning hatred for the nazis and everyone who agreed with them or stood back and let them take over, and just overall a horrible sense of helplessness, definitely contributed to a lot of his future mental fuckery, and to his feelings about God. as an adult, and as a doctor, he took the feeling of helplessness he had as a teenager, and flipped it around dramatically- if god didnt help him then, he’d have to become better than god. he would bring retribution where others didnt, and bring power and life to those god would not help.

-he sold his soul to satan sometime around his mid-30s. [this is a sentence that sounds really fucking weird if u dont know much about tf2.] there are a few reasons behind that, but im only gonna talk about one:

-as i've said, medic spent a lot of time murdering nazis who had tried to go into hiding. that's difficult when theyre trying very, very hard to cover up their past. medic struck a deal with satan- in exchange for the names, aliases, and locations of ex-nazis in hiding, he would kill them and send them straight to hell. his soul was just to sweeten the deal.

-ludwig does a Lot of experiments on captured and dead nazis, especially the painful ones. the ol' "removing a patient's skeleton" story was of a nazi officer medic had caught, and medical licence or not, ludwig would do it again in an instant

-medic's flock of homing pigeons, stolen from a wedding van, are like family to him. the original, stolen generation had more pretentious names, as named by their previous owner- mostly well known scientists and philosophers[Archimedes, Newton, Nietzsche, etc]. most of the pigeons he named himself have biblical, jewish names [Mordecai, Elijah, Rebecca, etc]

-ludwig is absolutely never prim, proper, or orderly. if he is wearing a coat that DOESNT have blood and bird shit on it, wait 5 minutes and check again

-he has a tendency to hyperfocus on something and forget things like "humans need food and water to live". heavy usually helps him remember

-medic snores. loudly. and it sounds fucking awful. heavy is, sadly, a very light sleeper. it takes a loooong time for him to finally be able to sleep through medic's snoring, and it winds up being one of the only things he actually CAN sleep through. god help you if you step on a creaky board halfway down the hall, though, because heavy will wake up in an Instant

-if tf2 were in modern times, ludwig's music taste would include a Lot of kesha, klezmer music, black metal, and so on. its varied, is what im saying

-medic, pyro, and soldier all get along surprisingly well together, because they all have a case of "same brain? same brain!", all of them have issues dealing with other people and have problems with processing/understanding things, have trouble w/ psychotic episodes and the like, overall their minds are all wired oddly but somehow they can understand /each other/

-scout accidentally becomes medic's unofficial adopted daughter and thats a whole post and a half on its own. suffice to say medic would do anything for her

-engie, demo, and medic are all Science Gays

-medic also does his best to help demo with his Absolutely Massive Amounts of Trauma and Self Loathing, by at least being a supportive shoulder to lean on when demo tries to drink himself unconscious to forget it all. hes absolutely terrible most of the time at actually saying anything to help, but he can be a good presence, and he has birds. birds help anything

-he has a very casual fling going with spy, since early on in their time at the base. its usually in a state of "on-again off-again", with the latter usually having something to do with how spy acts with scout.

-obviously theres a lot i could say about heavy and medic's relationship, but to put it briefly- theres a loooong time where both of them are "i dont understand social interaction" gays.

-medic is the "i literally dont understand how to act around people im attracted to or that me being extremely overaffectionate around you is due to the fact that im falling in love with you, i dont catch your vague hints towards the fact that you feel the same about me because you literally need to hit me over the head with something in order to get me to catch onto it" gay

-heavy is the "i have spent so many years repressing so much of myself and keeping quiet and not drawing attention to myself, that i physically cannot bring myself to be up front about the fact that im attracted to you. im also afraid of misintepreting signals and i am instead going to assume your over-affectionate attitude is platonic and i am misreading things" gay

-eventually they figure things out and its good and soft and gay

ok its 3 AM and ive been writing on this for at least an hour and a half and i told Em i would go to bed by now dhgfkhhj 

[angelicactorres]

Speaking Truth to Power

Good afternoon, and thank each and every one of you that came out today as a sign of solidarity for our dear Jussie Smollett in an effort to stand against racism, homophobia, transphobia and the discrimination of all marginalized groups. My name is Angelica Torres, and I stand here as a proud Latina transgender female, advocate and activist. Now, I’m gonna be real with ya’ll, it’s cold AF today! But I’m thrilled to see all of your beautiful faces here today. I would like to begin with how I’m presently feeling, and I think most, if not all, of you can relate to this...I AM PISSED THE FUCK OFF! I am infuriated with what happened to Jussie on Tuesday morning. And keep in mind this is no isolated incident as this happens every single day to the LGBTQIA community and people of color. Jussie, who is by far one of the kindest, most generous and genuine souls that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, was targeted by 2 white supremacists, 2 terrorists, 2 modern day NATZIS! Fuck this “White Nationalist” bullshit and call them what they truly are, RACISTS! BIGOTS! HOMOPHOBES! ANIMALS! MONSTERS! A humble and beloved gay black man was beaten up by evil men, poured bleach on him and tied a noose around his neck...All while screaming “This is MAGA country!” as they brutalized him. And do you think the bigot in the white house had the decency, the cojones to condemn the actions of this heinous crime? No. But he will sit on his lazy ass tweeting about how “Evil it can be” that a bunch of MAGA hat wearing, cisgender, privileged, homophobic, racist Catholic school white boys have become “symbols of fake news”. Let’s be very clear about something...MAGA hats are in fact the modern day white hoods of the KKK! The MAGA rhetoric was built on lies, hatred, bigotry and fear. We must stop pretending and turning a blind eye to the truth...That MAGA hats are in fact a symbol of hatred. I am also enraged that just a week ago, yet another trans woman of color by the name of Candice Elease Pinky was shot at 5 times at point blank range in broad daylight outside of a convenience store in Houston by a young man of color. My heart aches for Candice and for all of my trans sisters of color that are battered and slaughtered simply for existing in public spaces. As a young trans woman, I have been harassed on the streets of New York. Complete strangers have called me a faggot, homo, sissy, tranny, freak! I've been publicly humiliated and misgendered on national television and am still haunted by that experience. I know what it feels like to fear for your life because I fear for my life, the lives of my trans brothers and sisters and my non-binary friends every day. Even now, I suffer from crippling anxiety the very moment I step outside because every single day I live with the trauma of being accosted in public for who I am. But I survived...and while I am grateful to report that both Candice and Jussie survived these hate crimes, not all of us are so lucky. Based upon information gathered by The Anti-Violence Project and The Human Rights campaign, over 2 dozen Black and Brown trans women were murdered last year alone...and those are the ones that we know of. In the past, media has dead-named trans women by egregiously using their birth names in publications and their reporting. Bigoted families have made wrongful decisions to bury their trans children as the gender they were assigned at birth instead of that child’s preferred gender identity and name. We have no way of knowing how many trans people have actually been murdered because their living relatives and the media selfishly decide to hide the true identity of the trans individuals being laid to rest. The outpouring of love, support and media attention for Jussie was phenomenal...but we need to have the same outrage, the same urgency, the same outspokenness for our Black & Brown trans sisters and our gender non-binary folks that are being beaten and brutally murdered merely for doing something we take for granted every day...walking down the street! We MUST have the same compassion and empathy for our gay & lesbian brothers and sisters that are gay-bashed. Just because these people are not celebrities does NOT make their lives any less valuable or fragile. I am calling on the media, my LGBTQIA community, cisgender heterosexual people of all races to stand the fuck up! Help us! Fight with us! Because we cannot do this alone and we should not have to do this alone. We’ve been fighting on our own for decades and it’s not acceptable for homophobia, transphobia racism and any sort of discrimination to exist in this world. For those of you that do not realize, it was 3 trans women of color that initiated and fought for LGBTQIA rights during the Stonewall Riots in 1969! Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. They fought for us to have the opportunities to stand here today as our authentic selves. Now we need ALL OF YOU to speak up on the issues that we as a community of color face every single day. We need ALL of you to use your platforms to share these stories of injustice with your friends and family and to educate others if you hear them using discriminatory words like “faggot” and “tranny”. Each and every one of you has a power inside, and that power is your voice. Utilize your voice to spread awareness and stand against injustice when you see and hear it. Do not turn your back on marginalized people that are outnumbered and may not be able to defend themselves. I beg of you to hold these people accountable. Hold yourselves accountable because your silence can lead to someone’s death. Your silence is complicity. And we as a community cannot afford the luxury of sitting idly by while racist, homophobic, transphobic and discriminatory slurs are being thrown around. When the time comes for the 2020 election, make sure you get out there and vote! It is your right and duty to vote and to research all of those who are campaigning to ensure they are representing EVERYONE, not just the folks that look like you. I’d like thank you once again for coming out to support and I will leave off with this quote from the film “Wonder Woman”. “No matter how small an act of kindness or generosity or simple positivity you put out into the world, it will make a difference. Now I know, that only love can truly save the world. So I stay, I fight, and I give, for the world I know can be.” Thank you!

[lord-pigasus]

No Pride For The Police

(content warning: this essay contains conversations on police brutality, homophobia, transphobia, racism, mental illness, and rape that may be upsetting. it also uses reclaimed slurs)       Pride is our day to be out and be loud. To many, these events are the only face of the queer community. They're loud, colorful, and celebratory.  Seeing my people celebrate their queerness all over the country is inspiring. However, these marches often fail to focus on important political issues that affect more vulnerable queer populations.  Among these issues is the trend of increased police involvement.       Police are everywhere at pride parades, they escort the marchers, they block off the route, and they patrol the area. At the last pride march i attended, the police even paraded alongside the marchers in their cruisers, waving rainbow flags at the audience. Police love to play like they’re supporting the community. They smile, crack jokes, and pose for pictures. To them, pride is a way to build clout in the community. A way to get people to trust them and rely on them. Once pride is over however, they aren’t so friendly to the queers.       Mya Hall, a 27 year old black trans woman took a wrong turn off the highway and ended up headed towards the Baltimore NSA headquarters. Before she reached the gates of the facility, police open fired at her car. Kayden Clarke, a 24 year old trans man, called the police for help during an Aspergers-related meltdown. Instead of attempting to talk him down the police fired their weapons. Both of these people had their lives end at the hands of the police. Stories like these are shocking examples of how police interact with queer bodies. Police violence is a constant threat against us, felt most by trans people, people of color, and differently abled queers.       Black trans women especially are targeted. They are profiled as sex workers or drug addicts by the police who use the law as an excuse to harass, beat, sexually assault, and arrest these women with no repercussions.  According to the National Coalition of Anti Violence Programs, Transgender people of color are six times more likely to experience police violence that cis white people, and the Office of Justice Programs says that thirty two percent of black trans women report being sexually assaulted while in police custody or jail.       As a community, our number one priority should be to ensure the physical safety of our most threatened members. Any queer organization that supports or works with the cops does it in the face of every queer person targeted by them. If a group doesn’t fight for the protection of all queer people, especially trans women of color, then it is fucking useless.       When the modern gay rights movement began, police violence was one of the main points of action, and we would not have the rights that we have without our spiritual ancestors’ anti-police resistance. Unfortunately, that history of resistance has been lost or erased by the mainstream community.         In the 1960s, the queer community had to work underground to avoid police harassment. Raids on gay bars and restaurants were regular, and sometimes even scheduled.       Organizations such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society worked to create public acceptance of homosexuality, but were very restrained and quiet in their tactics. They excluded trans people, demanded formal dress, and did their work from the closet using respectful and non confrontational tactics that were slow-working and ineffective.       In 1966, police attacked a group of trans people at Compton's cafeteria in San francisco's tenderloin district. Fighting soon broke out as queers smashed windows and threw plates, cups, and furniture at the police. this quickly became a battle between police and trans folk and spilled out into the street. Those riots showed the community that they had the power to fight against the police. It inspired queer militancy all over the country, and helped create a network of fags in San Francisco that would organize and fight for queer rights in the coming years.       More well known is the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. When the police attacked the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar popular with homeless queer people, they were met with bricks, fists, and shouts of "gay power!" In the aftermath of the battle, queer people began organizing into groups such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). These groups borrowed tactics from black and anti-war activists, and advocated for queer people to come out and protest their unfair treatment.       On the first anniversary of the uprising, gay activists marched in the Christopher Street Liberation Day parade from Christopher Street to Central Park. Similar marches were organized in Chicago and Los Angeles. In the coming years, these marches had spread across the world and became the pride marches that we see today.       As we achieved more and more rights, the tone and politics of these marches changed. They became bigger, gained the support of city governments, corporate sponsors, and the police. The legacy of militant resistance was erased, and the participation of trans people, and queers of color was discouraged. Today's pride events hardly have any resemblance to the anti-police spirit that created the movement and gave us our collective power.       The only way to achieve queer liberation is to resist capitalism and the police that support it. Simply asking the system to give us rights can never ensure our safety, because the violence against us is a fundamental part of capitalism.       Gender and heterosexuality are constructs created by capitalism to assign labor roles on the personal level. Capitalism is strengthened when it can promote straight nuclear families that work for the benefit of the wealthy. If you were assigned male, you are pressured into doing wage labor for the wealthy so that you can support your family. If you were assigned female, you are pressured into unpaid labor in the home, supporting your husband in his wage labor and raising the next genderation of workers.  Gender is a life given to us at birth without our consent. Any deviation from those assigned roles is a threat to capitalism. As queer people, our bodies and sexualities are fundamentally opposed to the social order. We are the targets of violence because our very existence represents a loss of capitalism’s control over its workforce.       Police exist as the enforcement arm of the wealthy. They were created to protect the property of slave owners, and are the only group given permission to use violence. Their main goal is to protect the power of the wealthy under the guise of justice.  Because we’re a threat to capitalism’s control over the workforce, cops set out to terrorize and destroy vulnerable queer populations whenever possible. They don’t attack us because they’re homophobic, They attack us because it’s their job. No sensitivity training, policy change, or civil discussion can change their purpose. The police are fundamentally opposed to our existence and in order to achieve liberation, we must put an end to them and the capitalism that gives them power. Once we understand the nature of our oppression, it becomes our responsibility to resist capitalism and ensure that our community does the same.       In the 2016 Toronto pride parade, Black Lives Matter was asked to march as "honored guests". As they reached an intersection, the float stopped and the marchers sat down. As the entire parade came to a stop, the group demanded that the event's organizers agree to a list of demands calling for more inclusion of black and poc issues, and an end to police floats and booths. Within thirty minutes, the organizers agreed to these demands and police were not invited to have a float at the 2017 march. This tactic was effective because it was confrontational, direct, and gave power to the protestors. They spoke truth directly to the spectators, and obtained bargaining power that allowed their demands to be met.       We need to have open resistance against the police at pride events. Our tactics must be confrontational and dramatic. Pride is a stage that can be hijacked for a radical message. It’s easy to take the stage. even if you can't get permission to march you can jump in as a group and pretend to be a sponsored float. If you have banners and signs, none of the spectators will think twice about you being there.       At the risk of bad publicity, Police will be hesitant to use force at pride. Remember they're there to make friends and they're not trying to drag fags off the street. In a confrontational situation, there's nothing the cops can do to look good. They either do nothing and give us space to educate and agitate, or they react with clumsy aggression (the only way they know how) and end up looking like the gay-bashing fascists that they are.       There is no limit to the protest strategies that can be used at pride. You can set up booths, perform theater, hand out literature, and use your bodies to bring police outreach to a halt. You can chant, sing, dance, or speak. An organized group of twenty or thirty fags can easily turn a pride march into a radicalizing experience. In fact, it was a group of just a few fags dedicated fighting against the police that started the movement. Use your imagination, and don't forget what you're fighting for.       The mainstream movement has blood on its hands when it works alongside those who jail, rape, and murder our queer family. we have become obsessed with positive visibility and personal validation at the expense of ignoring the violence that continues to hurt us. Our liberation cannot come with rainbow flags and good intentions. Liberation can only come through action. -asher p. savio, 2017