#wanted to include disabled aces too but the best i could come up with is a finger amputee

[hisfearlesshaz]

It’s ace awareness week!!! Make some noise everyone

[johannstutt413]

(requested by calligomiles; continuing from this)

“Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” Ptilopsis’ head peered into Olivia’s room as her alarm sounded. “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!”

“I’m awake, I’m awake.” Not that she particularly felt it, but she was getting out of bed nonetheless.

Tilly giggled to herself. “Ifrit already left for class. She ate all of her breakfast, including the seconds she requested.”

“Impressive.” The drowsier Liberi had found her glasses and now much less blind began to dress for the lab. “Thank you for taking care of her. If I can find the time to learn to cook, I should.”

“Dr. Silence already works so hard to save the world, though. Ptilopsis has no objection to supporting her in that endeavor however necessary.” Although admittedly, it was an element of her daily calculation.

Silence shrugged on her topcoat before hugging the mid-number-crunching analyst. “I’ll be helping Iffy with her project tonight. Saria said she might come by for a bit as well to pitch in, but I won’t be upset if you go home with her.”

“Understood.” Mostly. “Firewall temporarily disabled. I’ve noticed the two of you talk more with each passing day, but this is the first I’m hearing of you allowing Saria to see Ifrit.”

“Her project is more focused on the skeletal system than anything else, and I think Saria’s substantially more familiar with that field of anatomy than I am...Besides, she’s proven herself with how she treats you.”

Ptilopsis blushed. “Oh.”

“I know it’s taken me some time to admit it,” the doctor continued, following her beloved to their waiting breakfast, “but after all the time she spent working for and with Iffy, it’s not fair for me to keep them separated. She did what she thought was best, and regardless of whether I agreed with or agree now with her decisions, they were made with good intentions. Sorry to start the morning like this.”

“It’s fine. Ptilopsis is glad you continue growing as a person.” She hadn’t declared that she’d re-erected her firewall, but it was clear from context.

They ate breakfast after transitioning to talking about their business for the day - patients with scheduled visits, the other Medics on rotation for their shift, their usual morning briefing - but before they left for the office, Olivia pulled her close for another hug. “Thank you. I couldn’t do this without you.”

“‘This?’” Tilly temporarily halted her work protocols. “In what context?”

“Raising Ifrit, attending to Rhodes Island’s Infected, researching Oripathy, deploying on missions...You make my life possible.” She managed to catch herself before crying properly, but a stray tear rolled down her face and onto the analyst’s jacket.

The other Liberi twittered sweetly in her ear. “The same is true for me.”

“It is?...Thank you.” A brief collapsing of the little space between them, a kiss that lasted either seconds or years, and Rhine Labs’ former Oripathy expert was ready to start the day. Work went as expected through lunch, with patients and care plans and the occasional accolade or scolding of some Operator or another. When the Liberi lovers came back from the cafeteria, however, a familiar Vouivre was waiting for them.

“Good afternoon.” Saria was in business mode. “The Doctor needs me to deploy for a mission; I need a pre-deployment exam.”

Silence nodded. “Ptilopsis can take care of you.”

“...If it’s all the same, can we all talk in the exam room in private?”

“Hmm.” The doctor glanced at Tilly, who was rebooting quickly after a momentary blue screen, before nodding. “If you prefer.”

The trio took the nearest open room, and as the analyst performed the exam, the Vouivre got down to business. “I made notes for Ifrit’s presentation, but since I won’t be there to help, I sent them to both of your inboxes. There’s more than enough information for her to ace her assignment.”

“Thank you. I’m sure she’ll be happy to tell you how she did when you come back.” There was no question that she’d be coming back, after all.

“...Which brings me to my other point.” She sighed, taking a moment to collect herself. “When I come back, I’d like to have a full discussion, all parties involved, about setting a schedule for me to spend time with Iffy.”

Silence lived up to her codename as Ptilopsis carried on dutifully with her task, doing her best to ignore the conversation and focus on procedure. “I...I think that’s a good idea.”

“You do?” Saria’s heart rate, as measured by the device her examiner was using to measure it, betrayed her surprise.

“Yes.” Olivia made sure she didn’t respond with the other phrase that came to mind. “I isolated her from you, and the rest of the world, out of a hyperbolized sense of danger. Not that there weren’t genuine concerns for her well-being, but in keeping her under lock and key like I was, there’s a possibility I did more harm than the good I intended. I’m not the only person in her life who’s made rash decisions out of good intentions, and it’s hypocritical of me to keep pretending that my mistakes are justified when others weren’t.”

The Defender sighed. “So it’s still a mistake, then.”

“I think so...but I’m learning to admit when I might be wrong.”

“I see.” This’d turned out better than she’d thought it would. “Tilly?”

The Liberi took a breath before shifting her attention. “Yes?”

“When I said ‘all parties,’ that includes you.” The Vouivre looked her directly in the eye.

“Understood.” Ptilopsis shut down her defenses for a moment. “Why?”

That was a rare question to hear from her; the analyst was much more a ‘how’ and ‘when’ sort of person. “Because you’re part of her family, too. You deserve a say.”

“But I don’t have any concrete opinion on the matter. I’m happy you’ll be able to spend time with her, but the specifics are up to you and Olivia.” It was a good thing she was essentially done with her examination; this was going to eat up most of her processing power, she could already tell.

“Tilly,” Silence interjected, “it does affect you, though. You’re very careful with how you spend your time, and Saria and Iffy spending more time together will affect your calculations.”

She nodded. “It will.”

“So if we set a schedule that makes it harder for you to make those calculations, that’s not fair to you. We know how hard it is for you-”

“No. You don’t.” The analyst looked each of them in the eye in turn. “But that’s okay.”

The room around Olivia and Saria disappeared from their awareness as Ptilopsis reactivated her defenses and continued her work. It wasn’t until she finished that the Vouivre had any kind of follow-up, which was lifting her off her feet in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for-”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, there definitely is.” The Defender set her down but kept her arms around her. “Every time we get into a fight or try to reconcile, we disrupt your life at a deep emotional level, and even if it’s better for us to try and get along, you get dragged along behind us in the process. We know your condition, but we don’t how it feels - you’re the only one who does. That doesn’t mean you have a right to lash out, but you do have the right to speak up, and we want to hear you.”

Tilly couldn’t keep walls up in the face of that. “Ptil...I know that, love.”

“Then take my apology for springing this on you in the middle of the week.” She held the Liberi’s gaze even as her vision started to blur.

“O-okay.” The analyst sighed before wrapping her arms behind Saria’s neck and pulling down slightly for a kiss. “You’re forgiven.”

The Vouivre let her go. “Thank you.”

“You are too, dear,” Ptilopsis continued, addressing Silence as she walked over to hug her as well.

“Thank you...and I’m sorry.” The doctor squeezed her like she had that morning. “We never explicitly said we would stop making these kinds of changes, but we did imply it a few weeks ago.”

The other Liberi shook her head. “Data changes, people change, and life goes on. Ptilo...I want you both to be your best, your happiest, and if that means chaos, then- Firewall engaging, overriding, halting process- then so be it. I need to be better, too. I’m sorry you had to hear the Other Voice.”

“You’ve held it at bay for years,” Saria noted, walking over to hug her from the opposite side. “That can’t be easy, especially with everything that’s happened.”

Olivia nodded. “Certainly not...I believe the Doctor is expecting you, Saria?”

“Unfortunately. I should probably be on time for the shuttle.” As she let go of Tilly, her hand accidentally touched Silence’s. The doctor said nothing. The Defender said nothing.

Ptilopsis made a note to record that in her diary that evening.

[shadowmaat]

While I do think/hope, that I've taken some strides in the recent past in regards to educating myself in regards to internalized/subconcious bias, I recall you mentioning ages ago, that you've learnt a lot about this through fiction and online interactions.

Technically I fall into a couple of "categories" as well, yet even as a neurodivergent and ace person - very white though - myself I have only recently (like 3-4 years ago maybe?) begun noticing media and cultural bias in regards to these things. Until then I kind of just ran with these, I suppose? E.g. I just accepted my old therapist telling me my asexuality and me being nonbinary was a product of my relationship with my mum and would be "cureable" through succesfull therapy. Or ofc how so many characters (nd/POC/LGBTQ/disabled...) are so often portrayed as conservative and very hurtful stereotypes.

I hope it's not irresponsible/falling right in line with the problem, that I'd be asking you, instead of seeking out several other blogs. The latter is likely for the better admittedly, but I don't know where to start and find well-written posts, from which I can honestly learn, because while there's plenty of these on tumblr, there's also plenty that are just - very understandbly - angry posts but lacking the information I might need to educate myself.

I'm planning on writing a fic including POC, disabled characters and diverse sexualities but I want to make sure, that I'll check my biases and don't produce anything hurt- or disrespectful.

So if you could recommend blogs or old posts, unless if it is too much of a bother, I'd highly appreciate it. Thank you!

I'm very flattered that you feel comfortable coming to me, and gosh, do I know that feeling of wanting to get things right and also being intimidated by trying to dig through overwhelming amounts of stuff to find what you need! I'm not sure how much help I can be since I just sort of wing it and constantly adjust as I go, but I'll do my best.

I'll start off by saying that if you want some good reading lists for books featuring various flavors of queer, @ace-artemis-fanartist has some great lists (as well as some incredible fanart of course).

This post has a simplified rundown of the different flavors on the ace spectrum.

This post gives some basic do's and don't's of writing a deaf character (which, now that I review it, means I should update some of my own stuff).

This post has a generalized list of things to watch out for while writing characters with marginalized identities.

For a more in-depth resource on writing characters of color, there's @writingwithcolor

@fixyourwritinghabits is more generalized advice, but their lovely tags page includes all the things you've asked about and a whole lot more.

I wish you the best of luck! And don't let yourself get so hung up on the fear of making mistakes that you let it stop you. Writing is a learning experience, and if you DO mess up then you can take steps to correct your misunderstandings and the next time you'll know better. Hopefully this will at least give you a few avenues to explore and use as jumping off points for more. :)

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2021 - July

I read a lot this month! I’m not even sure how I managed it, especially when we consider I’ve read another 850 pages between Anna Karenina and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on top of this lot!

I’m just going to apologise now for not proof reading this... I’m finishing this off at 2 in the morning to schedule and I’m sick of looking at my own writing at the moment.

Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly - Technically I read this at the end of June, however, I was on holiday so couldn’t include it in last month’s wrap up.

I’ve already spoken about the Amberlough Dossier and anyone who’s been around my blog for longer than about 10 seconds knows I love this trilogy. Amnesty was no exception. We have the return of Cyril, he and Ari working through their relationship (or not quite understandably), and the fall out from the fall of the Ospies - this world’s equivalent to the Nazi party. It’s not an easy book to read and the glamour of the first installment is completely stripped away to deal with very complex moral and political questions. I don’t necessarily agree with Donnelly’s answers, however, I do admire her for really delving into these very difficult topics. She used the speculative nature of the Amberlough Dossier to come up with a sensitive and interesting discussion on a very difficult period in history.

I’m hoping to write a proper review for the whole trilogy at some point (once I’ve finished the monstrosity that is my Words of Radiance review) so I don’t want to say too much more here. However, I do want to say I really enjoyed that Donnelly found the space to continue looking at the smaller, private, and interpersonal consequences of the Ospies’ regime, particularly for families. It’s a sensitive look into this situation and I loved every second of it - I also adore Cyril and Ari’s relationship, but I’ll dig into them in my proper reivew.

Master of Sorrows by Justin Call - this was a slightly underwhelming read for me, although I did really enjoy it. I’ve seen Master of Sorrows praised everywhere, I don’t think I’ve seen it given less than 5 stars? Yet, for me it was a solid 4 star read. I’d wanted a 5 star read (I’ve been sorely lacking them) but something was holding me back with this one - I do think the series has 5 star potential though and I’m going to read Master Artificer soon!

This is a book clearly embedded in a love of mythology and fantasy. It’s dark and gritty, especially in the second half, with plenty for the reader to sink their teeth into. I’ve also never seen such a strong focus on physical disability in a fantasy novel - it was refreshing to see and led to an interesting use of the magic system to develop ways of overcoming physical disadvantages. Although I’m hoping this is going to be explored further in later installments as, for a large part of this book, Annev was essentially able bodied due to a magical prosthetic he never takes off.

Unfortuantely the most interesting part of this book, for me, was the mythological world building at the start of each part in the book. The myths, clearly based on Norse mythology (I’m sorry but “Odar” was a bit obvious), were fascinating, particularly as they started to have an influence on the events of the main narrative. I just wanted to know more about the gods than the actual story, this is probably a me issue though... The main plotline felt generic: Annev is a boy in a coming of age story, complete with a magic(ish) assassin school, a wise old mentor, and a destiny/prophesy surrounding him. It’s a typical fantasy story, so far, and while I do really enjoy these plotlines (I read enough of them!) it’s not exactly the most original. Nevertheless, I am excited to see where Call goes with this as I do think the rest of the series will start growing into something much more interesting and I look forward to Master Artificer.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - this is one of my favourite books of all time, we all know this by now... See my full review for Bronte’s masterpiece here.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley - July has been the month of Natasha Pulley for me because I’ve rediscovered just how much I LOVE her books. I first read Pulley back in...what, 2017? (It’s been a while...) with her debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street which I remember loving, but I never continued with The Bedlam Stacks, the only other available book by Pulley at the time. To be frank with you, it’s because at 18/19 I wasn’t that interested in Peru. However, I now really want to read The Kingdoms, Pulley’s new release, but I felt obliged to read the books I already owned by her and hadn’t read - so I picked up The Bedlam Stacks as it’s the one I’ve owned the longest without having read it...

Not reading The Bedlam Stacks back then was the best decision I’ve ever made because I know at 18 I wouldn’t have appreciated what a stunning masterpiece this book is - it would have flown over my head because, at the time, I just wanted more Thaniel and Mori. At 23 I ADORED this book. I absolutely fell in love with the subtle whimsy and quite, understated beauty of this story. Pulley has such an elegant way of writing, it’s never overdone - she has a way of playing with words which reads beautifully but doesn’t feel like too much. She’s never flowery or purple with her prose, but she does create a work of art.

Unfortunately, The Bedlam Stacks is a book I think a lot of people may struggle with - there’s not a lot of plot, everything is a bit weird, and it’s largely a character study for our two main characters: Merrick Tremayne and Raphael. Merrick’s journey to Peru to find quinine - a cure for malaria - for the British Empire is really a set up to allow the rest of the book to focus on these two characters. It’s centred on the very slow development of their relationship together, coming to understand each other, and eventually open up about themselves - well this is more in Raphael’s case. It’s a poignant story about two people finding a home with each other that will endure across time and distance - it’s not quite a romance, but it’s certainly more than a friendship. Personally I read them as ace, but there is definitely scope here to read them in a variety of other ways depending on your own experiences. But what is certain is their deep connection, and that their love (platonic or otherwise) is what drives the outcome of this story.

It’s beautiful, poignant, and slightly tragic when you think about it... I loved every minuet of it and just wanted the book to continue, I was genuinely sad it was over! It’s not a novel for everyone, and I do think the opening section needed some more work as it did feel like Pulley was saying ‘lets get over this necessary but boring set up’. However, it was exactly what I wanted and I’m so happy I’ve finally read it.

I’m also much more interested in Peru now, so that’s something else to hold in it’s favour!

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley - I’m falling slightly out of order here but it seems better to continue with Pulley’s books. Most of the same praise I gave to The Bedlam Stacks can be repeated here - Pulley’s writing is slightly weaker here but it’s only really noticable because I read both books one after the other and I was thinking about her prose. The same whimsical, poetic, and understated style is used in both books and it really suits the type of stories Pulley like to tell - and again it’s a style that really works for me.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street I think is a slightly more universally likeable story - although I would argue Pulley is an acquired taste. There is a bit less whimsy, and the relationship between Thaniel and Mori is more easily quantifiable for readers. There is also a more obvious plotline to follow, whilst still developing three compelling characters with Mori, Thaniel, and Grace. Personally I don’t love Grace - I find her brash and callous - however, she does have as good of an arc as Thaniel and Mori, she’s also someone who regularly get overlooked when people talk about this book. She’s not someone I like or approve of, but I do really understand where she’s coming from and can appreciate her growth. Pulley doesn’t need us to like Grace - or any of her characters - she presents them as they are and lets us cast our own judgements on them, and I sincerely love this about her. (I’m also so up for reading more about Grace and her relationship with Matsumoto, they’re fabulous together!)

The main draw to this book is definitely the relationship between Thaniel and Mori - how could you not love them? They’re fascianting to watch - together and separately - and throughout the course of this nove you really feel them grow into their relationship. It’s beautiful to watch and feels genuine. Their bond is earnt, not just presented to us as a fact. However, what I really love about Mori and Thaniel is the slightly sinister route Mori takes to make sure he meets Thaniel. Honestly, in any other book Mori would be horrifying with his slightly callous use of his abilities to manipulate the world around him to achieve his own ends. However, with the narrative framing here he’s slightly toned down, it’s a spectacular example of framing shaping audience perspectives on a character. It’s great and I appreciate the sensitivity Pulley used to shape Mori and the relationship between him and Thaniel. I’m also really looking forward to seeing how they develope in The Lost Future of Pepperharrow.

Henry V by William Shakespeare - I don’t really have a lot to say about Henry V... I’ve never felt that strongly about this play - it’s fine? It’s a FABULOUS play to watch (I’ve partial to the Tom Hiddleston version in The Hollow Crown) but to read it’s merely okay. There are some fantastic and very famous speeches - and I absolutely adore the Chorus. However, as a whole the play is merely a decent one. I’m always left a bit uncomfortable with how Shakespeare treats the French, and I’m yet to work out where I stand on Henry as a person and the morality of the war... It’s something to ponder and maybe write something on at a later date.

Unfortunately, this one falls into a similar issue as the Henry IV plays - I just don’t like the common men plotline within this one... It’s slightly better because Falstaff isn’t in this play, except in name (I have an absolute burning hatred of Falstaff... Like we could burn him out of English literature and I’d dance on the ashes level of hatred, it’s perhaps sllightly irrational but I loathe him. I’d otherwise like the Henry IV plays but I see Falstaff and I’m immediately full of seething rage. It’s apparently very funny for my best friend.) However, I just find the common men a tedious distraction from the rest of the play. I switch off whenever I’m watching the play and they’re on stage/screen. I know why they’re there I just don’t care - it’s a me issue, I’m well aware.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling - okay I’m not going to write much on Half-Blood Prince as a whole becasue 1. Rowling herself, and 2. I’m going to rank the Harry Potter books when I’ve finished with Deathly Hallows. Overall, I loved this book, it’s always been one of my favourite Potter novels and my reread only cemented its place. The plot is genuinely interesting and well thought out, it’s one of the best books for exploring Harry as a character (I adore seeing his darker side!), and the set up for the finale is excellent. I actually perfer it to Deathly Hallows because the promises it makes are more interesting than the actual execution of the book.

However, I do want to say that this book made Snape my new favourite character - I won’t explain why yet, I need to do a full spoiler discussion of ALL the Harry Potter books, including Deathly Hallows. But Snape is by far the best drawn character in the Potter series. He’s certainly not the nicest, kindest of most likeable. Snape’s not a moral paragon, neither has he ‘done nothing wrong’ as I’ve seen argued. But he is the most interesting and morally complex.

Everytime I’ve read Potter before, Snape’s a character I’ve not really thought about - which is shocking considering how much he’s in these books, the role he plays, and the discourse around him in the Harry Potter fandom. I’ve always just gone along with the face-value presentation of his character. Yet on this reread I’ve paid attention to Snape, not deliberately, it just naturally happened. Anyway, to cut a long story short - Snape is my new favourite character! Yes Lupin is still my irrational, undying favourite. But, in terms of having a genuine interest and reason for loving him Snape is my new favourite because he is so complicated! He’s someone I’ve come to understand and sympathise with. I don’t condone Snape, I still think he’s a piece of work who should NEVER be allowed around children. But he is a good person. Again not nice, likeable, or morally sound. Yet he does spend the best part of 20 years working tirelessly for good without praise, acknowledgement, or recongition.

He’s a fascinating character and I’ve adored diving into his mind, as much as you can in this very Harry-centric series, without the accepting bias of a child’s eyes. Snape’s one of the few characters in Harry Potter I’d like to read a book about - I’ve neber been one to want a Marauder’s spin off or Hogwarts founding story. But I think diving into Snape’s mind would genuinely be worth it and an interesting experiment, I just don’t think J.K. Rowling would be the right author to do it.

[dangerousconnoisseurdonut]

Choice #7; Cowboy/Steampunk Fusion

Right, here we go with lucky #7; So, a Gotham that is still kind of young and a bit like the Old West like Back to the Future Part 3. The Wayne's are throwing a party with their 8-year-old daughter, Bryce in attendance.

Everything is going swimmingly until a youngish Theo Galavan and his Maniax show up, including 14-year-old Jerome and Jeremiah, as well as 'Matches' Malone intent on robbing the place.

Anyway, Jerome and Jeremiah think Bryce is cute but are a little messed up in the head so they think branding her with their mark is like a promise ring as they promise they are going to be big time Outlaws and treat her like a queen, and the brand is meant to scare other hoodlums off.

Thomas naturally goes to protect his daughter but Theo, who was looking for an excuse, shoots him, then Martha. He hits Bryce and sets fire to the home, figuring he's killed the last of the Wayne's, so now there's nothing stopping him from taking over Gotham.

Too bad he didn't see Matches go back inside to save poor little Bryce. Remember how Matches said he doesn't kill babies? Well, I expanded that to kids as well. Now, Matches feels bad for his part in Bryce becoming an orphan so he takes her and moves away from Gotham to help make her strong and train her to be a bounty hunter. Along the way, she meets and is trained by old west heroes like Bat Lash, El Diablo (Lazarus Lane), and of course Jonah Hex.

Matches also teaches her the most important thing she'll need to know to get close to Theo Galavan; how to act and sound like a man. To be a perfect duality; female vigilante and male Bounty Hunter. As she reaches her 18th year, he knows he's dying, so he kills himself after explaining everything she'll need to know, and makes it look like she killed him, so 'The Bat' will have her first Bounty, and she goes one step further; as she was branded, so too will she brand her victims with the insignia of a bat. For her male persona, she takes the name, Matthew Malone.

It takes her a year to make it back to Gotham as Matches took her to Mexico or something to keep her safe, and along the way she meets Lucius Fox who worked for her father, and Lee Thompkins, a doctor who was run out of Gotham by Galavan's partner, Sofia Falcone.

She helps Lee sneak back into Gotham, disguised as Thomas Leslie (if you have a better suggestion, I'm open to it). Gotham has changed a fair bit in the eleven years she’s been gone as there are now fairly tall skyscrapers, but people still get around by horse and buggy, though these horses are robots, hence the steampunk element. By an amazing coincidence, the saloon Matthew stops in at to get a cold beer, is patroned by the Valeska brothers, who still work for Galavan but now have their own crew; who else, but the Horribles. Everyone else clears out when the Horribles announce their impending arrival, but 'Matthew' wants to finish his beer, then he'll leave. Jerome tries to hassle him, but Matthew ignores him until Jerome goes for Matthew's gun (yes, he has a gun, I will explain later), only to find Matthew has a dummy gun that is coated with a mild form of Tetrodotoxin; not enough to kill him, but his arm and mouth go numb. Others would be offended at this; Jerome, his brother, and the others all find it hilarious; even Victor laughs at it. Matthew then pulls out $100 bill and pays for the first round of drinks for the Horribles as apology for the gun.

Matthew goes to leave but the Horribles invite him to have a drink with them; anyone who can shut Jerome up deserves a drink. They ask him if he's a Bounty Hunter with the kind of money he has, and he answers yes. They ask him about his family, and he‘reveals' he's the‘son' of Matches Malone, who Jerome and Jeremiah vaguely remember. When Matthew reveals his father was killed by The Bat, the others are intrigued and ask if he actually saw The Bat as no one is certain if she's real or just a legend. Matthew then rolls up his sleeve and reveals a 'Bat Brand', which she gave him when he tried to protect his father.

Before more can be said, Selina Kyle, protege of Tabitha Galavan and Bryce's childhood friend comes in with some news she just got from the telegraph office; The Bat was sighted not too far from Gotham, and may be on her way to their city. The Horribles are all excited to test their skills against The Bat, but Matthew warns them that she is lightning quick with her whip and daggers and is good at using the shadows to disappear, and that's without taking into account her horse; a large black stallion named Daredevil (if you think it should be Ace, tell me, but Daredevil sounded more ‘Old West’), a far cry from the steampunk horses everyone in Gotham uses. He then rises to leave, saying he's hoping to find lodgings and work in Gotham for maybe a month as his last Bounty managed to get him pretty good, and he could do with some steady work for a bit. Selina offers a room at the 'House of Instant Happiness' she owns; normally $50 a night, but she'll knock it down to $40 if he helps keep the rowdier customers under control the nights he's there. He agrees, and they shake on it; Selina notes in passing that, even for gloved, powerful hands, they seem a little small for a man, but brushes it off.

That night, someone from the Narrows is dragged out into the streets as he can't afford his ‘protection' this week, so Sophia is determined to make an example of him; as her enforcer goes to pull the trigger, however, a large piece of metal, later determined to be in the shape of a bat, comes whistling through the night and hits the guy right in the hand, taking it off; The Bat has come to Gotham. She swings down and informs Sofia that ‘she has never liked bullies'. Sofia responds that she doesn't like rodents that get in her way. The Bat responds that Sofia's face may be a little pinched, but there's no need to call herself a rodent.

A fight breaks out, and the worst injury The Bat gets is a black-eye while she takes down three of Sofia's best men and Daredevil takes out one of Galavan's men. The next day, Matthew is again at the Saloon when the Horribles arrive and they ask him if he's still looking for work. He responds yes he is, so they take him to see Mayor Galavan who is more than happy to take on the son of an ‘old friend'; it helps that Matthew can fight like nobodies business and is as good a shot as his father. While there, Matthew meets the Galavan's butler, and her heart clenches painfully in her chest; it's Alfred, and he just looks so downtrodden, not at all the man she remembers playing with her as a little girl. A week goes by with the days as Matthew and nights as The Bat, and Lee worries that Bryce will burn herself out before she gets her revenge, but Bryce is determined, more so ever since she saw Alfred. Matthew manages to move up a little when he manages to hold off the Bat long enough (maybe Lee in her costume? I haven't figured that out yet). What's surprising is how friendly Matthew gets with the Legion of Horribles as well as Deputy Mayor Oswald Cobblepot, his assistant Edward Nygma, and even his bodyguard, Victor Zsasz, all of whom are treated like dirt by Galavan and Sofia.

Bryce finally gets her chance; Galavan is holding a party at his house with his lieutenants, and Matthew is invited for protection. The setting is too perfect to pass up and she lays a bomb, ready to die herself if it means she'll take down Galavan as well. Problem is, Tabitha is there as well, which means Selina is there, along with the Horribles, Oswald, and poor Alfred is slaving away in the kitchen. She doesn't care about her own life, but she can't risk theirs; yes, Jerome and Jeremiah were there when her parents were killed and branded her, but she’s honestly come to like the two psychos. She manages to sneak a note to Selina, hoping she'll get the Horribles and Alfred out in time, signed by The Bat.

Selina manages to get the Horribles together and get them to Alfred, who was always rather nice to ‘The Freaks’ as Sofia and Galavan call them so they don’t want to see him get hurt either. When she shows Alfred the note, he just about has a heart attack; it may be more mature than when he last saw it, but he'd know that handwriting anywhere; it's *Bryce's* handwriting. He reveals a mark hidden on the paper near the signature; a heart with thorns wrapped around it;Bryce and Selina’s ‘secret symbol’ that they always signed their notes with to appear more ‘cool’. Selina can hardly believe her childhood friend is alive and well (if a little nuts to dress like some kind of Zorro/Bat hybrid and fight Outlaws) and Alfred, knowing his beloved little Mistress is alive, realizes why Matthew Malone looked so familiar. Matthew is really Bryce, which kick starts the reasoning in the twins minds; Matt, as Bryce, was the cute little girl they promised themselves to all those years ago. They manage to locate the bomb and disarm it.

Later, after the party, and Bryce mourns the lost chance of getting her revenge by warning Selina who must have found the bomb and disabled it out of loyalty to Tabitha, she meets up with Lucius at a cave just outside Gotham, unaware that the Horribles and Selina have followed her. They watch as Bryce, Lucius, and Lee all argue about just how far Bryce is willing to go in her revenge. Yeah, Lee wants to put Sofia in the ground, but she wants to be alive to enjoy it. Bryce responds that she has spent the last eleven years of her life training for this chance; learning sword and pistol, becoming ambidextrous so no one would even think to link left-handed Bat with right-handed Malone, learning to deepen her voice and more masculine habits so no one would suspect a thing. She hasn't gone through all that just to see Galavan get away with his crimes; she's going to kill him (remember, Bryce was raised by Matches, El Diablo, and Jonah Hex, not Alfred; she doesn’t quite have the same problem with killing as she normally would). Selina, Bridgit, Ivy, and Ecco all manage to get back to the city before Bryce and lay a trap in her room. When Matthew arrives, he and Selina talk for a few minutes before she deliberately calls him Bryce, and asks how she could not tell her that she was alive. Bryce goes for one of her smoke bombs to get out fast, but the others manage to ambush her, tie her up, and manage to knock her out before giving her to Jerome, Jeremiah, Jervis, Jonathan, and Victor so they can... interrogate her. ;)

They take her back to their private place where Jeremiah examines her arm and, sure enough, there's their old brand right where they left it when Thomas Wayne tried to stop them. He and the others, who are in a relationship, talk to her and find out her plan to kill Galavan, which they wouldn't mind as Galavan is a chicken-heart, no lip, slimy worm, but they also like Bryce so they don't want her to enact her suicide mission. To keep her from escaping, they tire her out with sex (cheesy, I know, but she is an escape artist and a very determined woman; they have to keep her energy low while they come up with a plan that doesn’t involve her dying). Bryce has had sex before, both as a woman and as a man (she has a strap-on, OK?), but it was always painful as her partners cared more for their pleasure than hers, which didn’t bother her as sex was just a tool to get close or a means of getting information. But the guys are all tender with her and make sure she enjoys it and she doesn’t know how to block this out like she does pain. Particularly with Jonathan as the little sweetie has never been with a woman before so the others guide him on what feels good for a woman; she’s embarrassed when he actually makes her squirt. But when she hears word that Galavan and Sofia have captured Lee and Lucius, she knocks them out with one of Jonathan's gas bombs, and goes to turn herself in. Galavan tortures her and Sofia goes to kill Lee, only for the Horribles, Oswald, Ed, Zsasz, and undercover lackey Joe Chill, who in reality is Marshal James Gordon to come charging in to save the day. During a scuffle, a lamp is knocked over, Sofia is killed by Barbara who wants Lee to be in a threesome with her and Tabitha (Lee: Hey, I’ll try anything once), and Galavan's house is set on fire. Bryce takes after Galavan, determined to see this end as it began. Victor can't follow because of all the flames and Jonathan's suit is hardly fireproof, so it's up to the other three. They see Galavan and Bryce fighting, but Galavan is about to get the upper hand and kill her when he's shot from behind; it's Alfred with a shotgun.

Alfred: Consider that my resignation from your service... Bloody Bastard.

It's not easy but they all manage to get out and Bryce will be laid up for a while, but she's done what she set out to do. Too bad she doesn't know what to do now that's gotten her revenge.

Bryce is in a room owned by the Sirens, surrounded by her friends just after the fire: Well, I should be up and around in about a week or two, then I’ll find a new city to go to and-

Ivy: Wait, you’re leaving?!

Male Horribles who have been waiting outside the room for the OK to come in but have been listening at the door: LEAVING?!

Bridgit sighs as she stands, rolls her eyes, walks to the door, opens it, and the male Horribles, excluding Victor as he naturally has more sense, all come tumbling into the room: Behold, Bryce; you’re idiots.

[fatebreaking-a]

Sorry to bother you but i am out of the loop. What did Riot do with seraphine?

// @crying-elf-lass // First of all - excellent choice in pfp, Marcille is great.

Now, trying to keep as much bias out of my post as possible... ( though there will be some, and I will miss some things! )

There are three parts to consider. Gameplay, narrative, and niche in the world.

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First, we need to talk about the history of Sona in League of Legends.

Narrative & Niche: Sona, as a champion, has existed for many, many, many years. Her lore was 2 paragraphs and she had no short story. Her canon appearances ( excluding an Odssey short story which I will take about later ) were limited to other champion’s stories ( her adoptive mother, Lestara, helped Quinn to become a ranger-knight, she helped Ryze secure a World Rune in Call of Power ). Several years ago, Riot changed the lore of Demacia ( Sona’s current home ) to be one that denies magic. With the addition of petricite, a magic nullifying material, and several changes in lore, Demacia became the host of several magical problems ( dragons, Evelynn, Nocturne, Fiddlesticks ) and a unit of anti-magic specialists ( mageseekers ).

Throughout that time, up until 2 months ago, Sona’s lore did not receive a single meaningful change or update. This is a period of over 5 years, in which one of Demacia’s only mages / magical creatures ( Poppy, Lux, Sona, Shyvana, and later Sylas ) did not get any sort of answer as to what is happening with her. Several other champions did get an explanation of sorts, with some manner of handwaiving - for example, minotaurs are part of the Demacian army, so magical creatures are not out and out excluded. Yordles are known to be seen differently by different people, so Poppy’s existence is also possible to explain ( we learned this with an interaction between Ziggs and Jinx in Zaun ).

This left Sona writers in a general state of confusion. Is Sona in jail? Is Sona a registered mage? Not to mention that Sona left Ionia ( where a war between Noxus and Ionia occurred ) and the timing of that was unspecified.

Which led to a giant gap in terms of “what is this champion doing and what is her situation”. And each of us tried to fill that gap in our own ways. Some of us had Sona leave Demacia, some had her retreat into her mansion and play less music, some had her be defiant, and so on. Because the last thing we learned was that she was in Ionia, helping Ryze with the World Rune, some people put her in Ionia semi-permanently.

And we also had to contend with the existence of Sylas, who flipped Demacia on its head and caused something of a mage hunt. The finer details of that I exclude, it’s enough to say that certain mages were rounded up and put in prison where once they were exiled, and Lux helped some magically inclined individuals escape. There’s a nuanced conflict there between several members of Demacia ( Garen, Jarvan, Lux, Xin Zhao, Tianna, etc ) but getting into that is not the point of this.

We still didn’t know anything about Sona. So Sona writers and players and enthusiasts tried their very best to fill in the gap with what we did know, often incidentally. We did know that Sona was once in Ionia, that the Ionia-Noxus war happened, that she moved to Demacia, and that she is a famous musician with a magical instrument. Prior to the removal of the Institute of War ( a part of lore which said that ‘summoners’ were real and nations used Summoners + Champions to settle conflicts ), Sona was known globally and was basically Runeterra’s #1 musician when it comes to the etwahl, perhaps more. We also know that Sona is an extremely empathetic person, and her music is borderline spellbinding, to the point where it was easy to guess that she could affect people’s emotions and was an empath. None of that was out and out confirmed, but it was easy to make that logical conclusion.

Very recently, Sona’s lore changed. In it, a lot changed. We learned that she left Ionia with others, rather than just alone and with her etwahl, and it was to escape the Ionia conflict ( not because Lestara, her adoptive mother, wished to possess the fabled etwahl ). Essentially, this new lore painted Sona far more as a war refugee, and painted Lestara in a far better light as well. Along with this lore update/rework, we also got a short story ( that still left what she’s doing now up in the air!) 

However, this came after a several year wait. And in that time, Sona enthusiasts had no choice but to come up with answers to all their burning questions by themselves. One Sona writer followed the ‘Sona is the aspect of harmony’ track, another followed the ‘music as a means of community togetherness’ track, another put her as an oversensitive empath who uses music to heal the pain of her people - and we all tend to agree on one point - Sona is an extremely empathetic person who uses her music for the good of others.

And as we waited, several other champions appeared, some of them overlapping with Sona’s music theme. Bard, the wanderer who listens to the songs of creation itself. Jhin, the murderous theater performer and assassin who believes the world his stage. Rakan, the battle dancer who uses the songs and rhythms of people to fight and move before they do. And Sona’s niche, what was unique about her, grew smaller and smaller.

Finally, we had something that felt unique about Sona.

Gameplay & Design: 

Sona as a champion has existed a very long time... And is the aura and music champion. Her q does some damage, her w shields and heals ( and reduces damage with her passive ), and her e speeds people up ( and slows with her passive ), while her r is a rectangular ult wave - thinner than Nami’s, but still relatively wide. The kit as a whole is pretty simple, but it has a history.

Sona players are... innovators. They like to do things like buy Kirchei’s shard because it’s most efficient, or take Sona mid, top, jungle, and adc. And over the last two years, Sona has received nerf after nerf after nerf saying, “No, stay in the support role”. You can still pull off certain lanes, but it’s extremely difficult because her aura abilities give you mana back if you tag an ally... making them difficult to use in a solo lane, or to roam alone.

Also, as one of the older crew of champions ( pre Jinx when Riot started using other body types for women ), her figure is... well, she’s got an hourglass figure, and her dress does not hide her breasts much at all. And it’d been like this for ages and ages, which meant that in League’s toxic culture, being a Sona one-trick led to a variety of hateful comments which I won’t repeat here.

Sona has a history of being treated like either an overpowered support or a terrible one, in part because she lacks any form of CC before 6 ( barring her e chord passive ).

So if you’re a Sona enthusiast, a big part of you wants Sona to have agency and not just be a pretty face damsel in distress. Even I, who have a second blog where I write Sona as an extremely soft character, don’t have her be a damsel in that interpretation of her. This is made worse by the community and a lot of art that ships her with men who treat her badly, along with an endless slew of adult images that degrade her, and often make fun of her disability - that she can’t speak. It’s sad and it’s degrading. And even within the last few years, she was written in a story in the Odyssey skin line...  as a prize for Kayn to take. That is an official Riot story which essentially treated her like a prize to capture for Kayn’s own goals - not as a person, but as a carrier of a key, as an object, and she lacked agency. Thankfully over the last few years, Riot has started giving women more agency, but... it’s been a problem for a long time.

Recently, along with the lore rework, we got Sona in a skin that makes her look and feel like a badass - PsyOps, her legendary skin. She breaks free of her confines and rages against those in her way in a very Syndra-like fashion, uncaged. And this was very cool.

And now, we have Sona where she is now.

---------------------------------------------------

Seraphine as a champion has recently been revealed, along with her abilities and lore.

Narrative & Niche: 

Seraphine’s lore is essentially this.

She, born of Zaunite parents, went up to Piltover. She was able to hear the souls and songs of people ( magical empath ) and hoped to unite those around her with her music. Then, she went down to Zaun, a city full of impoverished and disenfranchised peoples, to try and do the same thing.

In other words, “This champion uses music as a means of bringing people together. She aims to aid the disenfranchised.” There is nuance there, and it’s not the exact same as Sona, but the similarity is striking.

Furthermore, several key points in her lore are things that Sona writers have already imagined for themselves. A hypersensitivity to others, for example. Having such a strong sense of hearing that she can hear things others can’t. Sona is known to be able to essentially echolocate ( or at least, she had been known to do so in her older lore ). 

I will admit that the idea of ‘hypersensitive hearing or empathy’ is not the sole domain of Sona writers. Athena Cykes of Ace Attorney has a similar problem ( as revealed in her backstory ). And similarly, she wore a special device to help her filter that out. It’s not a completely unique idea, but again - the problem is striking. Sona, a highly sensitive and empathetic person, was often interpreted to be too sensitive to others. And now it’s on Seraphine, in her lore.

Seraphine’s whole lore is that she’s essentially an extremely popular and famous musician who brings people together with music... and that’s what Sona was.

She was all those things.

So to some people ( myself included ) it feels as though Riot has reworked Sona’s lore so they can give some of the overlap to Seraphine. Empathy / soul-seeing ( a Morgana, Kayle, Neeko, and Sona special... ) and the whole music thing...

And this is leading people to say, repeatedly, “This is just Sona 2.0.”

For Sona enthusiasts who have been waiting for Sona to get content or lore for years and years, this feels like a slap in the face.

Gameplay & Design:

Seraphine’s abilities are as follows.

When she uses 3 abilities, her next ability is empowered with additional effects ( essentially repeating ). Her q does damage ( based on missing health ) and is a skillshot, her w shields and speeds up people ( and heals herself if she’s already shielded ), and her e slows people ( and roots if they’re already slowed ), while her R is a rectangular ult that charms those hit and makes them walk towards her briefly.

That’s really similar to Sona.

When Sona uses 3 abilities, her next auto-attack is empowered with additional effects. Her q does damage. Her w shields and heals people ( and reduces damage output from an enemy if her passive is up). And her e speeds allies up ( and slows an enemy if her passive is up ). And her R is a rectangular ult that stuns those hit and makes them dance in place.

The similarity is striking. Seraphine does lack the ability to heal allies ( on first glance, I may have misread ), but she looks extremely similar to Sona... which is a frustration.

This year, we got Yone, Yasuo’s brother. And the reasoning behind this, when most other champions are written to give unique inputs/outputs, is that this is an alternative choice for Yasuo players when Yasuo is banned and will improve game health.

However, I suspect the same logic does not hold for Sona and Seraphine. Sona is in a class of enchanters, where several champions can do things similar to what she does already ( with some differences, of course! ). If you can’t play Sona, you can play Karma, you can play Taric, etc - not the same, but similar. It’s my suspicion that with the introduction of Seraphine, we will instead have the problem of Akali/Diana several years ago - these champions are so similar that whichever one is stronger will be played while the other one will be ignored completely.

Furthermore, Seraphine got a lot of attention. A lot of attention. She has a fake twitter account. 

And she is releasing with two skins, one of which is an ultimate. Release. For Sona players who only just got their legendary ( with the understanding that DJ Sona exists ), this feels like a slap in the face. It’s easy to feel overshadowed, and as much of the community is saying right now, this is ‘Sona 2.0′

Now some people are saying, ‘maybe Sona gets reworked’, but that will not be a great answer. If you like playing Sona’s current playstyle, swapping to Seraphine because Riot changed Sona completely will be alienating, and only exacerbate the feeling that Seraphine is replacing and overshadowing Sona.

But it gets a little worse than that too. Seraphine is designed for mid/support, to be played in both lanes. However, Sona enthusiasts have received nerf after nerf to Sona in other lanes, which only makes this hit that much harder. There’s a theory that Seraphine’s kit is essentially a scrapped Sona rework kit. If Seraphine’s build is the same as Sona’s, it will be... tragic. It will be disappointing...

And it’s already exhausting.

Neither Sona nor Seraphine enthusiasts are without the metaphorical gutpunch, and this is likely to divide the community even further. And heaven forbid you like both.

For Sona enthusiasts, this is a slap in the face. Our favorite champion being overshadowed and overhyped by another who gets so much on release, when we’ve longed for content for years is hurtful. 

For Seraphine enthusiasts, this is a punch in the gut, for seeing their champion essentially be treated like a clone of another is unkind. Any nuance or effort put into Seraphine will be drowned underneath ‘Sona 2.0′. And the overlap between both champions and their respective abilities and character traits will wear anyone out.

And that’s not fair to anyone.

( Disclaimer: I wasn’t able to stay 100% unbiased, but if you read all of that, thank you. )

[goldenworldsabound]

I know I already sent one in but 💫 for Star Trek too!!!

I'mma do this one first :D For those who don't know, Star Trek: The Original Series is my jam

You may have seen me go off about my various SIs before but that's what I want to do again kjfashfkjs

ALTHOUGH FIRST I do wanna talk about Spock

because I love him. I also love Kirk. BUT SPOCK IS REALLY SPECIAL and he's a main for a whole rainbow of reasons.

Spock is such a complex character and I think that's why so many people are really drawn to him. He's ostracized by Vulcans because he's half human, and he's ostracized by humans because he's half Vulcan. He acts as Vulcan as he can. He has a terrible relationship with his father. And he doesn't really quite fit in anywhere. He does the best that he can, always, and always strives to do good (and to be logical, but that logic is employed by Vulcans to do good in general imo, until you get into your extremist Vulcans who I've forgotten the name of now but anyway fuck those dudes). Even when other people are downright rude to him, he still helps them and does the right thing.

I feel like a lot of us can relate to not feeling like we belong anywhere.

And then of course his career choice ALSO further ostracizes him from his father. It's just! Man it hurts a lot how much he suffers. And he does feel very deeply (most Vulcans do) as much as he wishes he doesn't.

Anyway though, I'm sure these are some of the reasons I latched onto him in high school when my family sat down every night after dinner to watch Star Trek TOS.

At that time, my self inserting was a huge secret, and I wrote about it in my diary and told no one about it. I wrote pages and pages. I still have it - I started typing it up one time and got like 15 pages in? And we were still like. I mean. There was a lot left. I still wanna finish typing it up. That SI was intended to be the Literal Me. There would be time travel shenanigans (Star Trek has a lot of these) which landed me into the future, on the Enterprise, which it turned out was real despite being the subject of a tv show (don't worry about the details).

And of course, I already had a crush on Spock. So you can imagine the fic was largely him being aware of it and kind of ? about it while also teaching me about modern tech and science so I could adjust. Bones stepped in as a familial role as did Kirk at that time. I'm still very fond of this self insert and her story, even though it's no longer what I need. I really needed it back then. And it served it's purpose admirably. And I'm very glad I had it. And, frankly, some of the ideas from it? Stealing those for my new SI to use too.

For example, before I move onto the more current SIs, one thing I really loved about my first SI is she gets left on Vulcan for two ish years? She's got a baseline of knowledge now but no proper training in either science equipment (Spock did his best but you know) or like, Starfleet procedure or anything so she's really quite a liability. She gets to take classes at the Vulcan Academy, bond with Spock's parents, learn more about Vulcan culture, and make friends (with my OCs). I have a sort of comparable situation for the new main SI because like...I just really loved this.

So I actually have two more SIs! The main SI that I use now grew up traveling around the universe with her parents, and spent some of her formative years on Vulcan with Spock, where they accidentally formed a weak bond while playing. There was an accident, she was in cryostasis for a while, her parents died, by the time she meets him again he's the lead science officer on the Enterprise and she's just graduated Starfleet Academy and is joining up as his subordinate. Spock is betrothed (which I really didn't address in my super indulgent fic because that wasn't what I needed then) and also a superior officer, and he's faced with the weird realization of this sort of weak bond we have that is totally inappropriate. Long story short, it's more emotionally complex and tackles more difficult issues. Because it turns out we both fall in love. And that's difficult.

In this setting Bones and are I besties (kinda like him and Kirk!) and I date Kirk on and off. That stops once Spock and I get together of course, but eventually we become the happy space polycule 🥰

And as far as the specific situation, I was thinking she gets seriously injured and they drop her off at Vulcan where she does a semester or two teaching at the Vulcan Academy, again while bonding with Spock's parents and refreshing herself on Vulcan culture. And also trying not to kill T'Pring (the woman Spock was betrothed to who was an absolute bitch to him since it was an arranged marriage and she hated him) I guess but um ignore that. I just think it's a really great formative experience and I also want to include my lesbian Vulcan OCs again. Vulcan culture is really interesting to me! And some of it incorporates things from Judaism, which is a lesser known fact, but also true. :) Also Spock's mom is canonically Jewish so Spock is also Jewish so SPOCK AND I GET TO BE JEWISH TOGETHER. It's REALLY EXCITING TO ME OKAY???

The other SI I haven't talked about much she's the angry!SI variant. She's a security officer and also has a special ability, aka my SI shield power. But I was going to make it more Star Trek, so it comes from being exposed to something funky as a child (maybe something with dilithium crystals? idk I didn't get that far). Anyway, the shields make her an amazing person to bring on landing parties as it's not a weapon that can be disabled and no one really expects it. It's a nice ace up the sleeve. She's super in love with Spock, it's super obvious, and she acts really pissy about it all the time jsahfkjsahfkjdsa but uh you know. It's fine. She also bickers with Bones constantly over nothing, but if you ask either of them, they'd say they're great friends. They enjoy it.

angry!Star Trek SI was going to have a big culminating event where in an emergency her weirdness that results from dilithium crystals in some way would allow her to help the ship escape an emergency situation (the ship is powered by dilithium crystals) but at serious personal cost. So Spock would have to grapple with this being the logical choice but also like. With not wanting it!!!

Anyway I have rambled a lot now I hope you enjoyed this!!!

[growingupautie]

StoryTime: The White Card Incident

(2,770 words but worth the read.)

In January of 2013, I was promoted from a part-time weekend job as a technology sales representative for Lenovo to the Marketing Development Manager for Lenovo in charge of half of my entire city of Houston. For a while, I felt like I was on top of the world. I loved my job and traveling through my city. I loved meeting all the people in the 50 plus stores I had to visit and started to memorize a lot of them and what we talked about.

I even made my route have me end up near Chinatown on some days so I could stop by and eat lunch there (and get some things from my favorite bakery.) But just as Kandace and I were planning on using this newfound position to get an apartment together, something terrible happened. In October of that year, we got on our weekly conference call as we always did, but the mood seemed somber and no one was talking or laughing like they used to.

When our boss came on, she also seemed upset and had trouble getting her words out. I could tell that everyone on the call, all 20 plus of us from across the United States just wanted her to say what was happening so we could rip the bandaid off. After a minute of praise that felt hollow given the tone of the call, someone finally asked if she could get to the news we were told to expect.

She said "sorry" and continued to tell us that the parent company we work for had lost the contract with Lenovo after failed negotiations and our positions were being terminated immediately. The call somehow fell more silent. Everyone had questions. Myself included. But in the end, we found out most of what we wanted to know. The Lenovo branded cars we drove were to be returned, (I had let my vehicle stay broken down as I didn't need it and it would be expensive to fix.)

The laptop we were provided was to be returned as well along with the phone, and hotspot device. But the most important bit of info came when someone asked if we would be allowed to apply for unemployment. "Of course we would be able to. We paid into it, we worked, we should be able to get that back." but to our surprise, the boss said something along the lines of "no don't do that! We could get in trouble! We haven't paid into that!" All of us were stunned. Someone asked how that was even possible.

It turns out the loophole in the law they had found was that because the company was in Akron Ohio, and we all worked and paid taxes in our various other cities somehow they managed to not pay into it. We didn't get bogged down into the why or how, but all that meant to us was suddenly we were without cars and a paycheck and would be denied unemployment. I was devastated. I really thought I had found a place to grow and could see myself making a career out of it.

We were about to sign papers on an apartment and suddenly I'm without a job, without a working car, and without any kind of financial assistance. Some issues happened around my family and after a short time, I got my car somewhat fixed and I moved out of the house into Dadaw's (grandmother's) house. I tried frantically to get another job. After all, I had just been in charge if half of Houston for a big company. Surely I would be offered another position somewhere soon.

But as time went by, nobody had called. I had very little money left, and very little outside help if any. Hope was dwindling, relationships were strained. I had spoken to at least 20 job placement agencies. After my mom informed me that I had been diagnosed as Autistic as a child, I had reconnected with D.A.R.S. (Department of Rehabilitative Services) who help people with disabilities get help with work and other things.

But they refuse to help me based on my other medical issues because they closed my case before, and they refused to help me as an Autistic until I got rediagnosed. They paid for me to be rediagnosed, I did so with no sleep, having skipped dinner and breakfast, and with a ridiculous amount of stress on my shoulders.

I aced their IQ test minus the memory portion, and after a while of convincing the doctor I was Autistic through old stories and experiences and the fact that I had been diagnosed, he agreed. That day, I went home with my heart sunk in my chest. I felt like a failure for needing this kind of help. I felt like a broken or incomplete person because I couldn't do it on my own.

And after months of their "help," working with a bunch of disability-based job agencies, the "help" of 20 plus other job placement agencies I had saught out, and filling out applications online myself, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get a job anywhere. I couldn't afford to eat, and I didn't want Dadaw to pay for me as she often couldn't afford much. A few people in my life suggested I get food stamps. Several people in my life told me I should apply food stamps. But the idea of that in itself was terrifying.

But after a while, between eating very little, my friends taking me out from time to time, and constant pestering from my family I felt I was left with no choice. I went to the food stamp office with my head down, the people around me had the same downtrodden demeanor. When they called me back, I felt a rush of emotions. Guilt, remorse, sorrow, anger that it came to this.

But most of all, I felt embarrassed. Growing up, food stamps had been used as an insult toward the people around me, I knew at one point my family had needed them and used them and I felt like as someone who had been constantly bullied growing up, I was opening myself up for more. I played through a million scenarios in my head as I walked back. Someone I know seeing me at the checkout counter, the cashier silently judging me, the people around me, me dropping the white card with the unmistakable logo in front of someone.

I snapped out of it and sat down in the interview room to answer questions to determine my eligibility. But it felt like a police interrogation to me. I felt like I was cheating the system. Like it wasn't for me, but someone else who deserved it. Someone else who needed it. I felt the eyes of the interviewer boring into me as if to say "why are you even here?" I spoke up about to break. "I...I don't even want to do this." Her face changed from accusatory and annoyed, to shock.

I let her know that I felt like I had no other choice, that I felt embarrassed. I explained my situation, and she looked at me almost begrudgingly endearing. "Son, if you need help, you need help." she said. "That's what it's here for." I felt somewhat relieved or at least a little better about not actually cheating the system. They accepted my application, and I was approved.

When I got the card, I was once again filled with dread. Replaying the simulations over and over in my head a million times. Finding a way to cheat the system in a way to avoid being bullied, I realized I could use the self-check-out. Then quickly realized if I get one of those "please remove items from cart" messages or something else regarding my card, someone would have to come up and help me anyway.

Still, I figured it was my best hope for avoiding confrontations, and I parked outside the grocery store. I checked my balance on the card and made sure everything was working, went in and got a basket, and started shopping while feeling like a spy. Like somehow I would get caught and it would be the end of the road for me. I'm honestly surprised nobody thought I was shoplifting as nervous as I was.

When I was done, I walked over to the self-check-out area doubling down on my earlier decision when a woman stopped me and said they were all closed for repairs. Panic set in. I didn't say anything. I just sort of smiled and walked away with my basket.

The 15 items or less line was almost empty but I had too many items. The next line had too many people. The next few lines had the same amount of people and items, and I started doing the math on which cashier was scanning and bagging faster vs how judgmental they look trying to get myself into the best possible situation.

Eventually, I found a line sandwiched between two closed lines with only one woman and her 2 kids in the basket with a few items. The cashier didn't seem to care much about anything and didn't seem like a gatekeeper or any other kind of threat. And the woman in front of me seemed sad and aloof as well so I felt like things were going to be ok. The woman smiled at me and apologized for having so many items. "It's not that much. It's fine." I responded with a smile.

But suddenly from behind me, I felt a high strung angry presence. Like a monster who's in a hurry and I'm in his path. As each item was scanned, he started saying "Oh God...." "Of course..." and "Just great..." in a demeaning and monstrous tone. The woman continued to hide her face with her back to him and sulked further into herself as he continued. "Cash or credit?" The cashier asked in a monotone voice. "I...uh...Here..." The woman said quietly and she tried to hand her..."A food stamp card..." I thought to myself.

I realized that I and the woman felt the same at that moment. In need of help, but afraid to seek it out, and even afraid to use it once that help had been provided. I started to piece the scene together realizing the kids had beat up shoes and clothes, and the woman did as well. They were clearly hungry and frightened by this angry rhino of a person and just wanted to get some food. I started to think of all the scenarios that could have put them in that situation. But then I realized it didn't matter.

Only a moment had passed while I thought through all of these things, the children were terrified of this man already and then he saw it..."OH GREAT! MY TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!" he screamed scaring the kids even more. He began to verbally narrate what he thought her situation was. accusing her of getting "knocked up" to "leech off the system." He said people like them were a "drain on the economy" all while using language inappropriate to use around her children.

At that moment after the initial shock wore off, I grasped my card in my pocket as anger built up inside of me. I knew what I was afraid of, I had built it up in my head, and this ignorant jerk was making it a reality for a down on their luck mom and her two scared children. I immediately pivoted. "What did you just say?" I told him with a face that said: "I dare you to repeat that." apparently too blustered to care, he said, "I SAID PEOPLE LIKE HER ARE A DRAIN ON THE ECONOMY!"

I whipped my card out and held it in-between two fingers right in his face. "And what about me?" I spoke out with an angry but in control tone. "I...Uh..." he said as it became clear to me, like most bullies, this one was only doing this because he thought his targets (this mom and her kids) would not be able to defend themselves. I yelled at him more, trying to control my voice so I didn't frighten the kids anymore "Well, you had all kinds of ignorant crap to say a minute ago!"

He snapped out of his shock bullies go into when someone stands up to them. "Wh...Why don't you mind your own business?! I WASN'T EVEN TALKING TO YOU! WHY DON'T YOU FIND ANOTHER LINE!" He started to build up steam again making the children huddle in the cart.

Having had enough of his nonsense I moved my card, leaned in with a scowl, got uncomfortably close to his face and angrily whispered: "Why don't YOU find another line before I find one for you..." a terrified look came across his face as he realized doubling down on his ignorance would not get the job done and after a pained audible gulp in the "big man's" throat he was frantically on his way spouting off "That's what I thought" and other face-saving phrases.

I timidly turned back to the family making sure I had dropped my "don't mess with me" persona (My Autistic folks know this one) so I didn't scare them. I asked them if they were ok. Her eyes were filled with tears, and so were the kids. She smiled at me and thanked me for stepping in. I told her kids that it was ok because he was gone now and offered to walk them to their car. She said she appreciated it but they would be fine.

The checkout woman handed her a receipt and obviously wanted to stay out of the situation. I saw the woman leave and she smiled at me on the way out. I had enough items that it took a good 5 minutes to check me out. I realized in that time I was no longer afraid of being seen with my card. Maybe it was the adrenaline of standing up to that bully, maybe it was outing myself to protect that family, after all, it would be silly to be afraid now that everyone had clearly seen it.

I paid, went outside, and on my windshield was a note on small lined paper that had been torn out of a planner of some sort that said: "You will be blessed all the days of your life." I don't know who left it, or if it was in response to what happened, or even how they found out which car was mine, but it was there.

The message here is two-fold. First, it is easy to get caught up in thinking you don't need help, or that even if you did it isn't for you. "It's for someone more deserving." sometimes it's just the fear of being bullied or ridiculed for accepting it. And because of this, a lot of people wait until they hit "the bottom" before they ever consider asking and even then they might not.

In a better world, we would destigmatize the need for help. Therapy, government assistance, shelters, these things are in place to help people, and if people need help, they should be able to get it without being berated to tears over it. The last thing someone who's questioning if they need help or not needs is some blowhard with their ignorant opinions of why they don't. Which brings me to the second message.

If you see something like this happening, and you have the power to step in whether you are personally affected or not, do it. This includes all forms of bullying. Bullies are cowards. They may double down, but once these types of people realize that we won't allow this anymore and there are actually people who will stand against them, they buckle under the pressure. If you see it, shut it down.

This has been another [Growing Up Aspie] Storytime. If you'd like to help me make more content more often, please consider supporting me at Paypal.me/growingupaspie or with a monthly pledge of $1 or more at patreon.com/irishwolfproductions. Thank you for your support.

-Nathan Alan McConnell

[residentlesbrarian]

The First Book I Read In the Dark: Queer Witches and a Whole Bunch of Redwood Trees

The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta

Let me set the scene...we start Day 1 of this experience curled up next to the white painted fireplace desperate for warmth with two blankets, an extra hoodie, a stocking cap, and my trusty lazy husband for that much needed lumbar support. 

Now The Lost Coast was a book I had checked out multiple times over the past year of silence on this blog because every time I saw it on the shelf I would pick it up, flip to the blurb, read it and go, “Man, that sounds so good! I gotta read it!” Then I’d check it out and it would sit in my locker, or in my car, or on my desk for three weeks and I’d turn it in completely untouched. But this time...this time I swore I was reading this damn book! Even if I was reading 10 pages a day during my breaks at work I was gonna finally read this book, it wasn’t going unread sitting somewhere for three weeks again. Little did I know how right I would be! 

So as a bit of a precursor this is the only book of those I read in the dark that I had already started. I was 90 pages in when I started reading on Day 1 and I only get more incoherent from here so let’s do this!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Our protagonist is pulled across the country to the yawning redwood forest of northern California and discovers more than she could ever imagine. Her mom  thought Danny kissing girls was the worst of her problems but now she has to deal with witches and magic and is that a dead body! This non-stop ride is just getting started!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review: 

Okay so I would say this book pretty firmly falls in a middle ground of okay for me. It was some really great escapism for me in a time when I really needed it, but the way the book was structured and written just didn’t really jive with my usual reading tastes. It felt to me like it was trying so hard to be poetic and artistic that it got a little lost at times, no pun intended with the title of the book. 

Now for the plot, which I think was maybe the strongest element of this book. The driving plot of the book never changed and was always consistent and I really liked how the author wove the magic of the world and the unique structure of how she was telling the story while never losing the plot in that unique structure. It was always peeling away one layer at a time and showing us just a bit more without holding our hand. It was very well done and kept me guessing and trying to figure out what was going to happen and how it was all going to end. Next we have what is usually my favorite part of a review but this time...isn't. 

I have so many conflicted feelings about the characters in The Lost Coast. On one hand holy giant redwoods I haven’t read a book since Not Your Sidekick that had this many casually queer characters just strutting about doing their thing, but on the other hand I feel the way the story was written leaves so much to be desired. The characters feel so thin and lacking when they had the potential to be so rich and diverse. Don’t get me wrong they are diverse in the bare bones definition, but we know so little about them at the end of the day it feels like it doesn’t really matter. We have our protagonist, Danny, who we know has a strained relationship with her mother but is close enough with she was willing to move her across the country in an attempt to try and give her a fresh start. Now there are somethings that take place in the story that explain a lot of the odd things about Danny’s character and made me a lot less unhappy with her by the time the book ended but it was really hard to get behind her as a protagonist at the beginning not because I didn’t like her but because I wasn’t motivated to follow her into the story. She was just going along from one event to the next with no real drive of her own, which brings us to the Grays: Hawthorne, June, Lelia, and Rush. They at least have a consistent motivation, but they had such potential to be really interesting characters but each one fell just short for me. The closest one to a compelling for me was Rush, we learned the most about her and I think that was mostly because Danny paid the most attention to her for obvious gay reasons. Now I can’t really expand too much more without going into massive spoiler territory for the plot which I don’t want to do, because the book is good and is an experience I don’t want to take away from anyone it just fell flat for me.

So yeah, this book wasn’t what I expected and I think a huge part of that was because the blurb is so much different than what is in the book itself. And I know, as a lesbrarian I should know not to judge a book by its cover or its blurb...but that is your first exposure to the story you are going to be reading and in this case the tone was so much different. Now let me reiterate this book wasn’t bad. There were parts that were so beautifully written I had to reread them several times to take in the layers of imagery and sheer poetry of the prose, but I feel like at times that style took away from the story itself and most of all it took away from the characters so that by the end of it they just fall a bit flat for me. I do recommend you give it a shot though because you won’t find a book with a queerer cast out there and maybe it will speak to you more than it did to me. 

Queer Wrap-up: Alright lets look at the this stellar tally shall we. Even with my own lack luster feelings toward the characters from a story perspective you can’t over look the fact that all but one character we interact with on page regularly is queer. That is something I have never seen before, so it more than earned its five unicorns, even if the quality was a bit lacking on the tail end the quantity really pulled it out. So we have our protagonist who is unapologetically kissing girls from page one and doesn’t ever shut up about it but also doesn’t shy away from the fact she also finds boys undeniably adorable and cute. In a scene that makes this tally easier than most she defines herself as queer so we are gonna stick with that. Within the Grays we have Lelia who is a tiny nonbinary gray ace person who will get in your face and is not afraid to be called a weirdo, June is a “femme as fuck” lesbian who is also not white (I belive Danny describes her as vaguely pacific islander at one point. I swear it was more specifically stated what her ethnicity was somewhere later in the book but I didn’t write it down at the time and couldn’t find it in my quick flip threw the book when I grabbed it to jot down their stated sexualities, but she is definitely not white), Hawthorne is a bisexual black witch who states she has “a strong lean toward masculine folks” which is refreshing to see bisexual representation that isn’t just “gay but guys exist I guess”, then we have Rush who very succinctly sums herself up with “Fat. Queer. White. Cello Player.” She is also some add rep in the form of having synesthesia where she can taste words. We also have some disability rep as June has an injury to her leg from a fall out of a tree that never healed properly and it does cause problems for her throughout the book, not the greatest rep but it’s there and shouldn’t be forgotten or not included. Man, oh man, this is the longest wrap-up I think I’ve ever written but I am still not done yet. We have Imogen who is the missing Gray mentioned in the blurb and brought up pretty quickly in the story and without spoiling anything we do get confirmation she is also undeniably queer as well as another character that I can’t even begin to talk about without a giant redacted stamp for spoiler reasons, but just know this book does have queer rep coming out its ears. 

Links: 

Amy Rose Capetta’s Website

Goodreads

So yes here we come to the end of the first Book I Read In the Dark it was a whimsical journey through redwoods with witches and more queerness than you could shake a widowmaker at (if you don’t get that reference read the book). I finished this book on Day 1 and immediately dove right into Book 2 because well I didn’t have anything else to do and I was kinda reeling from the confusion of this book and wanted something to ground me. The next book was one I had wanted to read for a very long time. You’ll see whether it did the job or not. 

As always if you want to read this but don’t want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

[siriusist]

My (Updated) Masterpost for Asexuality [2020]:

Some Youtube Videos I found Really Lovely and Validating:

Debunking Asexual and Aromantic Myths

Ace-Spec and Are-Spectrum Book Recommendations

And Some LGBTQIA+ Channels That Bring Up Asexual Experiences:

Rowan Ellis

Problems of a Book Nerd

Jessica Kellgren-Fozard

Some Shows with Confirmed Asexual Characters:

Sex Education

Bojack Horseman

Liv in ‘Emmerdale’ (UK Soap)

Historical Asexuals/ Demisexuals:

Emily Brontë: Emily Brontë was a very private person and as such it’s impossible to be entirely certain of her sexual orientation. Some Brontë scholars believe she died a virgin, never having had physical relationships with men or women. However, most Brontë scholars think that the content of her novels would suggest she may have been asexual, but she was not aromantic.

J.M. Barrie: The man who wrote Peter Pan into existence, was reportedly asexual. His marriage was never consummated and ended in divorce when his wife cheated on him. Because of his relationship with his neighbor children, and the subject matter of his books, some speculated Barrie was prone to pedophilia. Those who knew him closely vehemently deny Barrie ever exhibited such behavior. Instead his lack of sexual relationships was more likely due to his asexuality.

George Bernard Shaw: Renowned playwright George Bernard Shaw was a man far more interested in intellect than sex. He never consummated his marriage (also at the request of his wife, Charlotte Frances Payne-Townshend) and was a virgin until 29. Shaw told friends he appreciated the ability of sex to produce “a celestial flood of emotion and exaltation” but only as it compared to the “conscious intellectual activity” he strove for with his work.

Isaac Newton: Isaac Newton’s supposed asexuality is based on his recorded behavior and lifestyle. He had strict religious views, never married, was obsessive in his scientific careers, and supposedly died a virgin. Whether he truly lacked sexual attraction or was simply too immersed in making massive scientific discoveries to have a sex life is unsure.

T.E. Lawrence: Tragically, T.E. Lawrence – a man immortalized in the film Lawrence of Arabia – was sexually assaulted while held prisoner during The Great War. His lack of sexual and romantic relationships in life were mostly attributed to this trauma but some scholars argue he may have been asexual. He had no documented relationships with men or women. Most notably, since it was the turn of the 20th century, Lawrence was known to be non-judgmental of homosexuals. His personal orientation may have motivated his tolerance.

Florence Nightingale: Interestingly, though “the Florence Nightingale effect” is a situation where a caregiver develops an attraction to the patient they are caring for, the effect’s namesake, Florence Nightingale, was likely asexual. The famous nurse never married and instead chose to devote her life entirely to her work. She even refused a marriage proposal from a suitor who had been pursuing her for years. Nightingale rarely discussed her personal life and the term “asexual” was not widely used at the time, but asexual activists and scholars strongly suspect she lacked sexual interest.

Nikola Tesla: Nikola Tesla, the revolutionary engineer who was instrumental in the invention of electricity, also lived a life of celibacy typical of asexuals. He showed very little interest in sexual relationships throughout his life, preferring to focus on science. Many asexuals describe their lack of attraction as a blessing allowing them sharp focus. Once again, we have a person who could have been too busy (and brilliant) to focus on relationships, but who’s asexuality likely allowed him to be busy (and brilliant). [Fun fact: I am actually related to ol’Nikola. Sometimes it’s nice to even think about someone in my family being asexual, because it makes me feel like we’d both be able to get along together when we get fixed in our little studies, research, and schemes ♥]

Frederic Chopin: Famed composer and pianist Frederic Chopin is supposed to also have been asexual. While he lived with writer George Sand, she noted in her biography that their connection was affectionate without being sexual. She described their affair as “eight years of maternal devotion,“ also noting, “He seemed to despise the courser side of human nature and…to fear to soil our love by further ecstasy.”Whether Chopin was uninterested in sex, or had reservations about consummating the relationship for other reasons, is unclear. Many scholars believe the famed pianist lacked sexual desire altogether.

John Ruskin: Victorian art critic John Ruskin was known to be particularly uninterested in sex. Though Ruskin was once married, he reportedly showed no interest in getting physical with his wife. Typical of other asexuals on this list, his marriage ended having never been consummated.

Young Adult Fiction/ Books about Asexuality (NOTE: Some of these are coming out later this year, August and September 2020):

How to be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual by Rebecca Burgess: Brave, witty and empowering, this graphic memoir follows Rebecca as she navigates her asexual identity and mental health in a world obsessed with sex. From school to work to relationships, this book offers an unparalleled insight into asexuality.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, And The Meaning Of Sex by Angela Chen: An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that’s obsessed with sexual attraction, and what the ace perspective can teach all of us about desire and identity. What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through life not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about gender roles, about romance and consent, and the pressures of society? This accessible examination of asexuality shows that the issues that aces face–confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships–are the same conflicts that nearly all of us will experience. Through a blend of reporting, cultural criticism, and memoir, the misconceptions around the “A” of LGBTQIA and invites everyone to rethink pleasure and intimacy.Journalist Angela Chen creates her path to understanding her own asexuality with the perspectives of a diverse group of asexual people. Vulnerable and honest, these stories include a woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that “not wanting sex” was a sign of serious illness, and a man who grew up in a religious household and did everything “right,” only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Disabled aces, aces of color, gender-nonconforming aces, and aces who both do and don’t want romantic relationships all share their experiences navigating a society in which a lack of sexual attraction is considered abnormal. Chen’s careful cultural analysis explores how societal norms limit understanding of sex and relationships and celebrates the breadth of sexuality and queerness.

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann: Alice’s last girlfriend, Margo, ended things when Alice confessed she’s asexual. Now Alice is sure she’s done with dating… and then she meets Takumi. She can’t stop thinking about him or the rom-com-grade romance feelings she did not ask for. When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library-employee badge, Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated– or understood. [A bisexual POC protagonist; adorable fluffy, easy and sweet read].

All Out: The No-longer-secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages: Take a journey through time and genres and discover a past where queer figures live, love, and shape the world around them. Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens. [This features several different types of queer stories, from transexual freedom fighters, but also a very sweet asexual love story set in a seventies roller rink with a POC protagonist].

The Pride Guide: A Guide to Sexual and Social Health for LGBTQ Youth by Jo Lanford: Jo Langford offers a complete guide to sexual and social development, safety, and health for LGBTQ youth and those who love and support them. Written from a practical perspective, the author explores the realities of teen sexuality, particularly that of trans teens, and provides guidance and understanding for parents and kids alike. [Although this is a little rudimentary, I found it a great resource even in my twenties for someone coming out, or to slowly but carefully come out to those who may be uncomfortable or not understand asexuality, or not see it as a valid sexuality or lack thereof].

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Katie Ormsbee: Natasha ‘Tash’ Zelenka has found herself and her amateur web series plucked from obscurity and thrust in the limelight. And who wouldn’t want fame and fortune? But along with the 40,000 new subscribers, the gushing tweets, and flashing Tumblr gifs, comes the pressure to deliver the best web series ever. As Tash struggles to combat the critics and her own doubts, she finds herself butting heads with her family and friends - the ones that helped make her show, Unhappy Families (a modern adaption of Anna Karenina, written by Tash’s eternal love Leo Tolstoy), what it is today. And when Unhappy Families is nominated for a prestigious award, Tash’s confusing cyber-flirtation with an Internet celeb suddenly has the potential to become something IRL if she can figure out how to tell him that she’s a romantic asexual. But her new relationship creates tension with her friend Paul since he thought Tash wasn’t interested in relationships ever. All Tash wants to think about is the upcoming award ceremony in Orlando, even though she’ll have to face all the friends she steamrolled to get there. But isn’t that just the price you pay for success?

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire: The story is set in a boarding school for teenagers who have passed through "doorways” into fantasy worlds only to be evicted back into the real world. It serves as something of a recovery center for boarders who find they no longer fit in, either in the “real” world or their own uncomprehending families. For a fortunate few it is just a way station until they can find their ways back to the worlds they do fit into; for others, it’s the least bleak choice in what may be a life-long exile. This unhappy ending for the students takes a terrifying turn when some of their number start turning up dead. A small group joins together in an attempt to expose the person committing these murders before it is too late to save the school, or even themselves.

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker: What if you weren’t sexually attracted to anyone?A growing number of people are identifying as asexual. They aren’t sexually attracted to anyone, and they consider it a sexual orientation—like gay, straight, or bisexual.Asexuality is the invisible orientation. Most people believe that “everyone” wants sex, that “everyone” understands what it means to be attracted to other people, and that “everyone” wants to date and mate. But that’s where asexual people are left out—they don’t find other people sexually attractive, and if and when they say so, they are very rarely treated as though that’s okay.When an asexual person comes out, alarming reactions regularly follow; loved ones fear that an asexual person is sick, or psychologically warped, or suffering from abuse. Critics confront asexual people with accusations of following a fad, hiding homosexuality, or making excuses for romantic failures. And all of this contributes to a discouraging master narrative: there is no such thing as “asexual.” Being an asexual person is a lie or an illness, and it needs to be fixed.In The Invisible Orientation, Julie Sondra Decker outlines what asexuality is, counters misconceptions, provides resources, and puts asexual people’s experiences in context as they move through a very sexualized world. It includes information for asexual people to help understand their orientation and what it means for their relationships, as well as tips and facts for those who want to understand their asexual friends and loved ones [A good beginning place to start if you’re considering your asexuality. Also provides reassurances about the most common stereotypes concerning asexuality].

Switchback by Danika Stone: Vale loves to hike, but kind of hates her classmates. Ash is okay with his classmates, but kind of hates the outdoors. So, needless to say they are both fairly certain that the overnight nature hike with their PE class is going to be a hellish experience. But when they get separated from the group during a storm, they have worse things to worry about than bullies and blisters.Lost in the Canadian wilderness with limited supplies, caught in dangerous weather conditions, and surrounded by deadly wildlife, it’s going to take every bit of strength, skill, and luck they can muster to survive.

Not Your Backup (Sidekick Squad #3) by C.B. Lee: Emma Robledo has a few more responsibilities that the usual high school senior, but then again, she and her friends have left school to lead a fractured Resistance movement against a corrupt Heroes League of Heroes. Emma is the only member of a supercharged team without powers, and she isn’t always taken seriously. A natural leader, Emma is determined to win this battle, and when that’s done, get back to school. As the Resistance moves to challenge the League, Emma realizes where her place is in this fight: at the front. [This is a third in a series, but the main character has recently come out as asexual at the end of the last book].

If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann: Winnie is living her best fat girl life and is on her way to her favorite place—Misty Haven and her granny’s diner, Goldeen’s. With her family and ungirlfriend at her side, she has everything she needs for one last perfect summer before starting college in the fall.…until she becomes Misty Haven’s Summer Queen.Newly crowned, Winnie is forced to take center stage at a never-ending list of community royal engagements. Almost immediately, she discovers that she’s deathly afraid of it all: the spotlight, the obligations, and the way her Summer King wears his heart, humor, and honesty on his sleeve.To salvage her summer Winnie must conquer her fears, defy expectations, and be the best Winnie she knows she can be—regardless of what anyone else thinks of her. [Another POC protagonist and promises to be a cute summer read in the vein of Gilmore Girls. Claire Kann’s first book was the adorable ‘Lets Talk About Love’ which reads as an asexual rom-com. This also promises to be absolutely precious.].

Immoral Code by Lillian Clark: Ocean’s 8 meets The Breakfast Club in this fast-paced, multi-perspective story about five teens determined to hack into one billionaire absentee father’s company to steal tuition money.For Nari, aka Narioka Diane, aka hacker digital alter ego “d0l0s,” it’s college and then a career at “one of the big ones,” like Google or Apple. Keagan, her sweet, sensitive boyfriend, is happy to follow her wherever she may lead. Reese is an ace/aro visual artist with plans to travel the world. Santiago is off to Stanford on a diving scholarship, with very real Olympic hopes. And Bellamy? Physics genius Bellamy is admitted to MIT–but the student loan she’d been counting on is denied when it turns out her estranged father–one Robert Foster–is loaded. Nari isn’t about to let her friend’s dreams be squashed by a deadbeat billionaire, so she hatches a plan to steal just enough from Foster to allow Bellamy to achieve her goals.

Loveless by Alice Oseman: The fourth novel from the phenomenally talented Alice Oseman - one of the most authentic and talked-about voices in contemporary YA.It was all sinking in. I'd never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean? Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush -  but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she's sure she'll find her person one day. As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia's ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her 'teenage dream' is in sight. But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her - asexual, aromantic -  Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever. Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along? This wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance sees Alice Oseman on towering form as Georgia and her friends discover that true love isn't limited to romance.

The Last Eight by Laura Pohl: Extinction was just the beginning in this thrilling, post-apocalyptic debut, perfect for fans of The 5th Wave series. Clover Martinez has always been a survivor, which is the reason she isn’t among the dead when aliens invade and destroy Earth as she knows it.Clover is convinced she’s the only one left until she hears a voice on the radio urging her to go to the former Area 51. When she arrives, she’s greeted by a band of misfits who call themselves The Last Teenagers on Earth.Only they aren’t the ragtag group of heroes Clover was expecting. The seven strangers seem more interested in pretending the world didn’t end than fighting back, and Clover starts to wonder if she was better off alone. But when she finds a hidden spaceship within the walls of the compound, she doesn’t know what to believe…or who to trust. [I’ve read there is also aromantic representation in this book too, so helpful for the Aros out there as well ♥]

LGBTQIA+ Comics with Possible Asexual Representation/ Influence:

Lumberjanes: At Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together…and they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! [I LOVE THESE COMICS SO MUCH I SWEAR THEY’RE SO DAMN CUTE ♥]

The Backstagers: When Jory transfers to the private, all-boys school St. Genesius, he figures joining the stage crew would involve a lot of just fetching props and getting splinters. To his pleasant surprise, he discovers there’s a door backstage that leads to different worlds, and all of the stagehands know about it!All the world’s a stage…but what happens behind the curtain is pure magic!

And Lastly, Extra Online Resources For Asexuality:

UCLA LGBT Campus Resource Center: Asexuality

The Trevor Project on Asexuality

Campus Pride: Asexuality

The Canadian Centre for Gender Diversity and Awareness

Asexuality needs to be a recognized as its own, unique sexual orientation, Canadian experts say

Asexuality.org

A Lot of Ace (An Ace Positivity Blog on Tumblr ♥)

[evan-hand-soap]

Basically my favorite characters to write for as your best friend headcannons UwU

Characters: Connor Murphy(DEH), Evan Hansen(DEH), Jared Kleinman(DEH), Freddy Freeman(Shazam), Shouto Todoroki(bnha), Hitoshi Shinso, Kyoka Jiro(bnha), and Peter Parker(mcu) *in that order*

A/n & TW: yeah it’s a lot, I know. Everything’s platonic and yes there’s some cursing and a small refrence of drugs in Connors if you squint.

My requests and matchups are open! Just please read my rules first!<3

Connor Murphy

He is oh so very protective of you

He doesn’t have many friends so he wants to keep you at his side as much as possible

Since his brains all fucked and tells him things that aren’t true, if you’re not around him he gets sad and starts to tell himself you’re out with other friends and he’s not good enough

Even if in reality you went to the bathroom

He overthinks so much

Hes a pretty goofy person though so he tries his best to lighten the mood or make you laugh when you’re sad

And it usually works

When you guys hang out you usually go somewhere like a park or your house rather than to his house because he hates his family and doesn’t want you around them

He’s too anxious to say things like “I love you” but he means well and you know he does

He starts saving money and not buying as much weed and such so he can have money to spend on both of you when you go out and hang out

His hugs are by far the best

He’s just so comfortable and warm and smells so good

Expect lots of calls at like 2 in the morning

Mainly just because his mind gets stuck in a rut and makes him upset and uses you as his lifeline which you have no problem with

He obviously gets very angry very easily but around you he goes soft

It’s impossible for him to get mad at you

His brain won’t allow it to happen

He secretly loves if you lock your arm with his because it lets him flex that he’s got such a great best friend without having to say anything

Any problem you have is his problem

Someone breaks a project you worked on for a while? Their ass is dust. Something happens at home? You live with him for the next week even if he doesn’t want you around his family. Hotel? Tivago

Having him as your best friend also makes everyone scared to do anything but be nice to you because they know he won’t hesitate to annihilate them

Just in general having him around and you being around him makes him a lot happier

He’s only vulnerable in front of you and Miguel

But he’s a lot softer and nicer with you

Evan Hansen

He’s an anxious baby

If he’s your best friend, he’ll be so at ease because he knows you won’t judge him or hate him or anything

He still stutters around you and can get pretty nervous but that’s just how he is

Hang out usually are at his house or at a park

He tries to keep you away from Jared because Jared’s a cocky bitch but Jared just means well

Most of the time..

But if you are around Jared, he panics because he’s scared Jared might say something about him and make you not like him and want to be Jared’s friend rather than Evans

That never happens though and to help Evan not panic about that, if you’re ever around Jared you make sure Evans there too

Evan loves hugs so much

He never has to say anything but just in general gives off a vibe of ‘I want hug’

He secretly really likes just hanging out in his room and laying down with his head in your lap and talking and ranting while you mess with his hair

It’s just so comforting to him to know you’re always there to listen

He’s very quiet so it’s best to always have an ear open around him so you can hear him mumble something like if he’s uncomfortable

He just really needs a person who can show him he’s cared for and loved

Like Connor, he’s too anxious to say “I love you” but for Evan, it’s mainly because he doesn’t want it to come off weird or something

But you know he loves you

Heidi once thought you were dating and it made him and flustered, anxious trainwreck as he tried to explain you two weren’t. It would’ve been a lot worse if you were there

(If he were to get into a relationship it would most likely be with his best friend because that’s who he knows he can rely on the most)

Jared Kleinman

He’s a cocky bastard

Like I’ve said, he mostly means well

But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a snarky asshole

He’s got a few nicknames for you but if you want him to stop he’ll try his best to

He’s a show off

He loves you a lot so if you’re his best friend he’s gonna flex about you so hard

Everyone’s gonna know you’re best friends

Literally no one cares

But they know

Like Connor, your problems are his problems

He will attack(verbally) anyone who does anything even as small as taking a pencil from you and not giving it back

Hang out are usually at his house or the mall

He secretly really really loves cuddling

He’ll be really cocky about it if you want to but he won’t say no

He teases you a lot but that’s just his way of showing he loves you

He, just like the other two, doesn’t actually say he loves you but his reasoning is he’s never had to say it to anyone so he just feels weird about it

If he says something actually insulting he’ll apologize

Something you’ve got to keep in mind though, is that regardless of what he says, he means well

He really does. He wants you happy but he doesn’t want to be different around you than how he actually is

He’s actually very insecure so if you’re good at making people feel better about themselves, you’ll be his ray of sunshine

He doesn’t actually have all those friends he met camp and a hot model girlfriend like he tells people so he doesn’t actually have anyone to keep his moral up

*DEH is such a sad musical wth-*

You can see right through his lies

When he feels like balling up and sobbing he smiles and cracks jokes instead of cocky comments

There’s been multiple occasions where he’s needed to sob and just huddled up in a ball and hugged his knees and cried while you just held him

That’s all he needs is a friend who can have a sense of humor to make him laugh instead of make himself laugh and have someone to lean on and not get judged for crying

His hugs are also amazing

Not as good as Connors but they’re still amazing

No matter how close you are, he’s still gonna be a cocky bitch but he’s nicer around you

Freddy Freeman

This boy is the best best friend anyone could ask for

Because of his disability he can’t do much but he really tries to make you happy

You do what you can to make him happy too because he’s a little depressed and a has mild anxiety and gets shoved around and made fun of a lot

If you love superheroes, he’ll be super stoked because... he is literally the biggest superhero nerd

Hang outs are always at his house because 1, his family adores you, 2, you don’t want him going places when its not necessary because of his disability, and 3 being that his home is just so cozy and fun

Billy is also really close with you because you’re around him a lot since you’re always in his room since they share a room

*His whole family secretly ships you two and it really pisses Freddy off since you two are, at this point, strictly plantonic*

He doesn’t say “I love you” or hug you around his family because it would just be endless teasing

If Billy’s not home and everyone else is downstairs he’s totally different

He does those one armed hugs because his other hand is always occupied with his crutch

If he does tell you he loves you, he kind of mumbles it since he’s pretty awkward and also in fear his family is around

He’s always on his toes when you’re at his house because he doesn’t want to let something slip and get teased about it because it’s already happened once when you were getting picked up from his house and when he walked you to the front door he just bluntly said “See you at school, love you.”

The second he turned around everyone was just smirking at him and started teasing him

He’s an incredible person to comfort you if you’re sad

He just always knows what to say

If you are sad he knows all you need is to be comforted which usually comes with physical comfort as well

If you’re in his room and just sobbing Billy promises not to say anything because he’s just trying being a good friend

The only times his family won’t tease him about it is if you’re sad and clinging to him

He’s very supportive and just all around great to have around

His best friend would probably be someone soft spoken and sweet rather than obnoxious and witty just because he needs someone sweet and kind in his life besides his sisters

He’s a big softie and anyone can fight me on this

Shouto Todoroki

Todoroki will be the best friend that gets very jealous if you’re around someone else

He just thinks he’s not good enough so if you’re around someone else for a little, he gets anxious and starts worrying and gets all down in the dumps

Kinda like Connor does

His hugs? The best on this whole list

His hugs are always so warm and tight but not too tight

Also,,, a literal living ac and heater

He’s just the best

Being his best friend, expect lots and lots of hugs when you’re alone in his dorm

Sometimes he’ll have nightmares and text you and ask if he can come to your dorm for comfort

And he just walks over to your room and hugs you and tries to calm himself down

He secretly really really really loves nicknames from you

Whether it be strawberry or candy cane or something else

He loves it

He’ll definitely need a best friend who can stop him from getting into fights because (I headcanon) he doesn’t like wasting his time in stupid situations like fights for no reason

remember when he almost threw hands with the chief of the police in the hospital? or when he shit on his licensing exam results because he was too busy fighting Inasa?

He’ll definitely need someone to be his common sense when he gets sucked into something and his won’t function

Hang outs are usually in his dorm, half of the time are just studying

Hang outs also don’t include much conversation because... he isn’t one to talk since he’s like on of the quietest in 1A

If you’re struggling with grades or training or something else, he will 100% help you but he’ll back off if you tell him to

Just like Connor and Jared, your problems are his problems

If he even hears your name mentioned in a negative way he’s all over it and won’t even mention what happened to you so you don’t have to worry or think about it

Kind of like Connor and how he saves up money to spend on the both of you, Shouto just steals his dads money and spends it on you both instead

You’re sick and need medicine? He skiddadles to the store and buys you some medicine and then a bunch of your favorite snacks or ice cream or whatever you like. You have a bad day? He takes you out shopping and spends Enji’s money like there’s no tomorrow

He’s that best friend that literally spoils you whenever they can

He will never ever judge you for things you like or do or anything about you

He’ll be a little awkward during the first few months of your friend ship and even when you’re close enough to be considered best friends

That’s just how he is

He’ll be very open with you so expect him to sometimes show up at your door and once you let him in just fall on your bed face first and ask for permission to rant

He’ll just mumble something like “Do you mind if I rant?”

Yes, he asks for permission. He’s very polite

He needs hugs. He’ll need someone who can initiate hugs because he needs wants them

He’s going to be the hugest softie around you, but other than letting down some of his aloof persona, nothing’s that different besides he’s a bit more open and goofy

Hitoshi Shinso

He’s honestly honored to be your best friend

At first, he was a little confused when you started becoming friends. No one ever tried to befriend him so he was confused. Did you want something?

When he realized you just wanted to be his friend, to say he was happy would be an understatement

He’ll definitely need support because growing up he was always told “sounds criminal, Shinso.” “You’re cool as long as you don’t manipulate us into being your slaves.” “Imagine how much stuff you could get away with!” And etc. so he’ll need support for when he gets depressed and insecure and lets his thoughts get to him

Once your best friends, he’s like your body guard

He’s supppeerrrrrrr protective

He doesn’t mean to be, he just loves you a lot and wants to make sure you’re okay

If he hears you got hurt during training, he’ll personally make sure you’re alright and then take you out to get ice cream

He kind of babies you but he knows you can protect yourself

He just doesn’t want you to feel like you’re alone

He refuses to use his quirk on you

It just seems wrong to manipulate you, which it is

He let’s you and only you touch his hair

Be honored

Like Todoroki, it takes him a bit to open up but once he’s open to you, you know basically everything down to his shoe size (?)

He’s not much of a ranter because he feels like he’s annoying you if he talks about his problems

You have to reassure him that you could never find him annoying and even after that, he’ll maybe rant once every month or two

Unlike the other few on this list and the whole ‘your problems are his problems’ for Shinso it’s a ‘you don’t have problems. I kill them before they become one.’ Kind of thing

Stressing over grades? Not a problem he stays up all night with you and does whatever he can to make sure they go up. Over worked yourself during training and made you sore and exhausted and go unconscious? He’s already convinced his teacher to excuse him from class and carrying you bridal style to the your dorm from the nurse

He’s on it, regardless of what it is

I headcannon he has a black cat in his dorm and it’s named is shadow, fight me

His cat loves you a lot

Being best friends with Shinso probably comes with Aizawa just generally appreciating your human more than others because Shinso talks to Aizawa about you and how you’ve made him happier

So of course, Shinso’s Dad™ is stoked

For the sake of this, I’m saying you’re in 1A

Since Aizawa likes you and the impact you’ve put on your best friend, you’re the only student in 1A that gets to leave to Shinso’s dorm whenever you wish because you’re not friends with anyone out of your class besides him

Shinso is a gifts guy

He’s that friend that is always thinking of his best friend when he’s out somewhere so if he sees something you might like, he buys it for you

He doesn’t shower you with gifts like Todoroki because he’s not rich, not that he’s poor, he just can’t afford spending money like it’s nothing, let alone if it’s not even his

Expect lots of calls or random texts at like 3am because his insomnia is always keeping him up

He’s definitely too shy to really show that he cares about you

If he does it’s in a way where he doesn’t need to look you in the eye or look at you at all because he gets flustered easily

He really likes Disney so one of his favorite things to do is just watch Disney movies

He’s the bestest best friend anyone could have ^‿^

Kyoka Jiro

This girl loves her music

She knows what it’s like to have someone insult your music taste so she will fight anyone if they discriminate you or your taste

She’ll definitely tease you about small things but nothing you’re insecure about

She’ll teach you how play the drums or guitar or whatever you want that she has because if you play songs with her, she will be super happy

She might not want a friend too dramatic or a drama starter but if you are like that, she’ll try an ignore it

Hanging out will probably be either in her dorm, an arcade, or doing something like kareoke

She loves kareoke so if you’re willing to play music with her and sing, you’re the best

Lots of inside jokes

Once shes open with you, you’ll know almost all of her secrets and opinions on things

But it might take a while since she has trust issues

Third most protective on this list (right under Peter and Connor)

She will not take anyone’s bs, especially if it’s even remotely at you

Every time Mineta mentions your name, he’s dead

She doesn’t care if you can defend yourself, there shouldn’t even be the case of needing to defend yourself unless it’s in training or hero stuff

You’re her favorite person to train with

Just cause she’s too scared she’ll get judged for something with someone else unless it’s Kami or Yoamomo

She’s not very affectionate so at first she’ll freeze up if you hug her or something

She’s just not used to it but once she is, she’ll hug you back or something

She’s pretty casual about it because it’s not like it’s anything further than plantonic

She’s not the best person to go to for academic help so if you ask for it, she’ll just refer you to Yoamomo or Todoroki

If it’s physical help you need, such as quirk or training stuff, she’s totally up for it

You’re the only person who she feels safe to rant around so it’s best that you’re a good listener around her

Her parents adore you

You guys rarely argue which she’s really happy about because she hates arguments

If you’re into the same music as her, she’s ecstatic

You two are jam buddies ヾ(＾▽＾)ﾉ

She never fails to make you laugh, whether she means to or not

It’s just her commentary thats funny

(You guys have custom ear pieces for your suits so during practice missions and training you guys can secretly talk with each other and hear everything that’s going on on each other’s ends and she’s always mumbles things to herself that you find funny)

Peter Parker(!FFH spoilers and gets a lil depresso!)

You know about him being Spidey

The poor baby has PTSD so you should do you’re best to not mention Tony around him

Sometimes he’ll just swing over to your apartment and give up on patrol and sneak through your window and sob and hug you

He just needs someone to hug and cry on

Your parents think your dating Spider-Man because they walked in on Spider-Man clinging to you and sobbing

You had to beg them not to tell anyone you know Spider-Man

Thankfully, he had his mask on, even if it was tear stained and sopping wet with tears seeping through it

Being his best friend, you should try your best not to worry about him out with bad guys, even if it’s super hard because he’s always face to face with death even if he’s just swinging around the city

What if he missed where he shot a web and slammed to the ground and got hurt?

Will definitely binge Star Wars with you

If you’re not into Star Wars, he’ll get into whatever you’re into so it’s not awkward when you hang out and just watch SW with Ned

He lets you try on his suit but only after he gets it cleaned because it always smells like sweat and tears and blood

Once it’s clean it smells like flowers and laundry detergent

He’s given you part control over EDITH so if something happens to him and you only have his glasses, you can protect yourself

When he needs to ditch class for something he either has you or Ned convince the teachers something, depending on which one of you is in a class with him at the time because every class he has is with one of you

He made you a braclet made of nanotech that can also go into the form of glasses, with an AI named Mila, but hasn’t given them to you and only plans to if he absolutely has to

He had Pepper make them since he knows nothing about Nanotech. He had it customized with ways to keep you calm in chaotic situations and can find the easiest and safest escape routes for you in a few seconds

I forgot to mention he’s very protective because he refuses to lose someone close to him again

He’s an awkward mess so please don’t make fun of him or tease him about something because he’s really insecure

Once his identity got out, you stayed at his side so if he were bombarded with with questions or the press or anything else you could help him answer because he gets super nervous and stiff around the press and such

He really appreciates you

He tries to save up some money to buy you gifts for your birthday and such but you always insist he doesn’t have to

The boys a bit stubborn though so he’ll still most likely do so

If something happens at home you’re more than welcome to stay at his apartment

May loves you so you’re always welcome there

He’s not to physical but he’ll hug you every once in a while and such but not much more

If you’re ever sad he’s one of the best people to be comforted by

Mainly because he’s dealt with a lot and never had many people or anyone to comfort him when he needed it so he always gets into the mindset of ‘when I’m sad, what do I need from someone else’ and knows what you need and what he needs to do

He’s just generally a really really great best friend UwU

[artoflifehealingarts]

Posted on Quora

By Tony Castaldo

Q: My IQ is at around 151 (Mensa). What can I expect to achieve in life?

Welcome to the club! You can expect to achieve absolutely nothing!

This is like saying, “I have a race car engine. How fast can I go?”

Well, buddy, you need the rest of the car, and unfortunately nature will not always match your engine with all the rest of the mechanical parts in your car. All the parts are randomly chosen and then forced to fit together.

The “rest of the car” in this case is both your physical self, and your emotional self, all you have proven with an IQ test is that you are capable of fast analytical problem solving. That doesn’t automatically make you well-adjusted emotionally, it doesn’t automatically make you an athlete, it doesn’t mean anybody will love you or you will love them, it doesn’t mean you will make a ton of money.

Here is the key you will learn when you get older. It may take time, but I’m giving you the hint now, so you’ll recognize it more quickly than I did: Emotions are king, and will ultimately determine your fate. Not rationality, that is a servant to your emotions, and it will always be.

The neocortex is called that because it evolved recently; before that we were ruled by instincts and emotions and very limited reasoning power, like all other animals. Well, in this case evolution worked by adding something new, not subtracting. Before the neocortex, our instincts and emotions were completely in charge of our actions, and guess what? They STILL hold the throne!

There is an “accidental” brain experiment* with a man that lost his amygdalae in surgery (basically the structures that act as an emotional clearing house) to excise a brain tumor. As a result, he was rational, he could solve math problems, ace quizzes, he did not lose any of his intellect. But he was incapacitated anyway, because he could not make decisions. Asked to pick out clothes for a day, he dithered in the closet for hours, until he had to go to the bathroom. And narrating what he was doing, he could endlessly analyze and come up with reasons to pick one shirt over another, depending on who he might meet, where he might go, what the weather would be, and never come to a conclusion.

You might think he’d get bored or angry or frustrated and just grab a shirt: Nope. Those are emotions. He wasn’t embarrassed by taking so long; he didn’t hate himself, he didn’t worry about what it meant that he could not make a decision. All emotions. In essence, he just did not LIKE any shirt more than another, and he had no rational reason to pick one over another. So his intellect just came up with one thing after another to present to the king (the amygdalae), which was dead on the throne and never indicated to the intellect “I prefer that option.”

Now bladder pain, hunger, muscles and joints hurting and getting tired from standing too long; those are not emotions, and he knew how to respond to that. Physical discomfort is a thing; but also not intellect. Given orders, he knew how to respond to that.

So what is the evolutionary role of Intellect, then? It is a SERVANT to your physical and emotional self, and provides you information, projections and predictions, and understanding for you to emotionally react to.

Why stay in school, when, emotionally it would be much more satisfying to have some money by getting a job? Your intellect will project those two futures, in one you likely have a better job and better life, in the other your short-term indulgences will lead to lesser jobs and a more difficult life. And when you emotionally consider one of those options better than another, the intellect has done its job and you stay in school, despite the short term allure of not being a broke ass student.

You have to learn to manage your emotions, delay gratification, and your intellect can help you with that, but it also depends on your emotional constitution right now. The Intellect can let you breeze through school and college. Mine let me finish a Bachelor’s in Mathematics in 3 years flat, and my Master’s in same in 18 months. It let me go to college for 12 years, earning five degrees with a 4.0 GPA, including my PhD.

Academic success is yours, and getting it will help you become financially successful, because our society pays (literally and figuratively) way too much regard to advanced college degrees.

But your emotions can derail all that. Mensa itself has studied this**; their members are not all successful, even in their own judgment, not all of them are living happily ever after. They have had members get addicted to drugs, get defrauded, go to jail for committing impulsive crimes. They have had high IQ women that got pregnant and bore children at 15. Mensans end up as janitors, truck drivers, and Amazon warehouse workers. Mensans have struggled with depression, and committed suicide. Mensans have attempted stupid stunts and ended up paralyzed for life. Mensans become obese and diabetic and get diseases because they cannot control their eating, their depression, or resist impulsive temptations.

And guess what? All of that shit at about the same rate as the general population that is NOT high IQ.

Why? Because emotions rule our lives. The best thing you can do with your intellect is not to “gain control” of your emotions; you cannot dethrone the King and should not try. But what your intellect CAN do is manipulate the King, learn to convince yourself to choose the best balanced outcome of short, intermediate and long term gains.

Should you study Computer Science and within that Algorithmic Science, there is an interesting class of Algorithms called “Greedy Algorithms”. Greedy algorithm - Wikipedia . The hallmark of such algorithms is that always choosing the optimal short term solution is guaranteed to produce the optimal long term solution, so it is very easy.

That is how basic animals work, as if this is always true of the world. It is why we can trap them: We humans can devise traps so the optimal short term solution for the animal will NOT lead to their optimal long term solution, it will kill them instead. The rat taking the bite of cheese triggers a spring-loaded bar that breaks its neck. The deer chased by a human takes the route of fastest escape and lands in a concealed pit.

People have all that same Greedy Algorithm equipment built in. The purpose of the intellect is to let you defeat this very strong tendency to choose the optimal short term solution, because the Greedy Algorithm does NOT solve all problems. Animals, and us, evolved emotions to use the Greedy Algorithm because it is the simplest and easiest algorithm to implement, one step up from the random action of bacteria and viruses.

The intellect is there to help you accurately predict the consequences and outcomes of your actions in the future, so your emotions can make an informed choice about what will give you the most emotional gratification in the long term, or at least for as far as you can see the future.

There is often a tendency amongst the high IQ crowd to put undue importance on the value of their intellect. They want to “Spock it out,” dismiss emotions as unimportant.

Well, Spock is mythical bullshit, humans don’t work like that, so figure that out as soon as you can. The point of life is emotions, and the best thing you can do with your intellect is use it and delayed gratification diligently to ensure you live a happy life, find love, avoid fear and embarrassment and prison and disease and disability, work at a job you love that uses your talents.

There is no point in being smart if it doesn’t make you happy. You have been gifted with a superior ability to solve problems and understand consequences. A bigger hammer to solve life’s problems, or avert them altogether. But it is useless if you don’t use it, there is no point in being proud of just owning a big hammer, you need to use it.

And remember that your Intellect is a servant to your emotions, it isn’t there to replace them, but to inform them, so you can resist short term gratification when your intellect sees it is likely to sabotage your long term future. That is how you avoid being trapped like an animal and suffering at the hands of others.

* Amygdala results: I believe I first read about this in the book “The Man That Mistook His Wife For A Hat”, but for a neurologist’s talk see Antonio Damasio | Speaker | TED.

** See for example High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities.

The remainder of the conclusions and advice are my own based upon reading several such studies, and the implications mentioned.

[foxfire-and-midnight-wings]

Protect Them with Your Bloody Wings Reference Sheet

Hello! This is very overdue, but I had a lot of information I felt I should aff, or wanted to add because I thought of it. I may occasionally come back here to add things or edit it, so it isn’t guaranteed to stay like all of this. 

There will be breaks between topics so it is easier to see subject changes, and if you need to skip a section it is easier to see the start and stop.

Warning! This is a very long post, and has brief mentions of multiple things that may trigger or make the reader uncomfortable. (Not in order) This post includes mentions of: self-harm, panic attacks, religion/mythology, sexuality, mental illness (anxiety, depression, PTSD, paranoia), dissociation and flashbacks, triggers for each character (be careful when reading these!), and mind control/manipulation

- Jay’s mom is a Seraph and his dad is a human, they gave birth to Jay and as a result his soul is specially made so he can help others. No one finds out for a while, but he can also interact with both the human/mortal world/plane and the astral/celestial/demonic plane. 

- All creatures, mythological and religious, co-exist in these planes, only the most powerful can actually interact and be seen in the human world. This is what allowed Jay’s mom to be able to interact with his father. She is a Seraph, and was sent down to help protect him from a demonic entity that was wanting to take his soul.

- Demons and celestial creatures all fight, sometimes directly but demons have an easier time interacting with the human world and humans. This usually causes other creatures to be sent down to the mortal world, where they are unable to actually be seen or felt, and they usually fight over the person/people that the demon or celestial is trying to protect/use.

- Different creatures can give what is called a blessing to a person, normally it barely affects them, but because Jay already had a special soul used to reach out through the planes to help people, this is what caused him to gain his wings with the blessing from the Phoenix. 

- Jay’s soul cannot take blessings like a normal person’s soul, because it is a mix of human and celestial. He always had a passion for helping others more than himself growing up, and this was because of his soul.  His powers were relatively weak though, and the only thing that actually occurred around others was that he had a stronger sense and ability of empathy and helping people through different event or what they were dealing with

- This is why he is considered very valuable to the celestials and why The Operator hates Jay so much. The Operator wanted Jay dead but wanted him to suffer too, which is why he went after Alex and the others around him.

- When the Phoenix gave Jay his blessing, it strengthened his soul, which let him gain more of an immunity to The Operator and other demon’s abilities/effects on humans. He also gained his Green Jay wings (due to both the Phoenix and his mother being winged celestials), a stronger empathetic ability (now he can pick up on other’s emotions easier, but unknown to everyone for a while, they can pick up and feel his emotions too. This can be dangerous in the fact that his negative emotions can end up hurting those around him by making them feel this way too. It’s small enough to where people can tell it’s not theirs but strong enough to be able to be felt), and is now able to touch (and if he used enough strength, harm) other demons. (The energy drawback is extreme, though, and if he attempted to kill a demon it would also result in him dying too.)

- People with celestial-human souls like Jay are extremely rare, and some have stronger souls than others letting them see the different planes. Those with strong enough souls can interact with the two planes, which the celestials find to be very helpful for when they want to help protect a person but are unable to manifest in the human world. These people sometimes act as messengers and communicators between worlds, but are usually not ones to advertise their abilities.

- This is the reason ToTheArk always made comments about “the ark” and Jay leading him “to the ark”. While ToTheArk was not sure themselves what “the ark” was, they knew it was important and knew something was different about Jay. The Operator was the reason they knew this existed, even though ToTheArk never worked for him, but they head heard it in passing

- ToTheArk is made up of Seth, Tim, and Brian but it’s only their alters. All three alters were created and forced onto each person by The Operator, and as a result could understand what he said at times. Eventually broke off from working for The Operator and created the channel ToTheArk

- The Operator’s powers were focused on electricity and the mind. Masky and Hoodie, along with Alex and Seth’s alters, were created by him. They all act similarly to how alters with DID work, but are also completely different. (Each is their own person with thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. When one is fronting the others do not remember what happened while they were not fronting. The differences start with how the Operator can forcefully pull them out, which hurts both the alter and host, but can not control what exactly they do.) 

Please Note! There are many other smaller differences, but these will likely exist because I do not have DID myself, and felt that giving each character these alters and saying they have DID would be disrespectful to the DID community. I, personally, do not like to give characters mental illnesses or disabilities I do not have personal experience or contact with (usually friends or people I know. I will go to them for advice and have them see if it is portrayed accurately). While these alters are a part of the original story and I felt like I should explain the specifics behind it, I want to make it clear I do not have DID and will only be taking notes from what others say about it. This includes the disorientation, amnesia, individuality, etc. I do not know anyone in real life with DID, and as a result have no way to fall back and ask if it is disrespectful, inaccurate, etc. If you have DID and would like to talk to be about it and have more aepects added into the story, feel free to. But, again, I will not be tagging or labeling these characters as having DID. Please keep that in mind while reading and seeing the portrayal of each character.

- Jessica is 5’3”, Amy and Sarah are shorter than Alex but height unknown (for this we will say Amy is 5’4” and Sarah is 5’2”), Tim is 5’6”, Brian is 5’8”, Jay himself is 5’10”, Seth is just a little shorter than alex and possibly around 6’0”, Alex is 6’2”

- While Tim is the shortest guy, he is also one of the strongest members of the cast, only bested by Amy and Jessica.

- Jessica and Amy are both bi, Sarah is lesbian, Alex is biromantic ace, Tim and Jay are both pan, Seth and Brian are both gay

- Seth and Jay are disasters. Jay can barely function around anyone he thinks is remotely cute and Seth just Blue Screens if he sees a hot guy.

- Alex is the one to tease everyone else about who they like because he can actually Function around who he likes, but on the inside he’s dying. Everyone else is so much of a disaster no one can tell who he actually likes bc to them he’s functioning like normal (even when he’s not)

- Jessica is a Disaster Gay, Amy is the same but only a little better, and Sarah can function decently (but not fully Function)

- Tim is stone cold and hides it as much as he can when he likes someone, and the only two people who can tell he likes someone are Alex and Brian, because he has a small blush that isn’t very noticeable but if he gets teased over his crush? You can guarantee he is a strawberry now. He secretly dies inside and his only thoughts are just love

- Brian can function almost as well as Alex, but is just a little more obvious

- All the girls are the type who would bring home stray animals but in different ways. Amy: I’m so sad guys LOOK! I found this poor cat stuck in the rain. Can we keep him please??, Jessica: Babe we have a cat now, I found them in a garbage can and I love them, Sarah: Hey I found a cat. Who wants to keep it??

- The guys are a little easier to control, but sometimes Jay or Brian will randomly arrive to the set or someone’s house with a stray. No one knows where they go or what those two do with them, and are too afraid to ask. (Brian keeps them if he can, but also gives them to his parents, relatives, and extremely close friends. If someone even mentions possibly wanting an animal he will show up and have a stay/abandoned animal ready for them. Jay isn’t allowed pets in his apartment except service animals, so he usually cares for them outside of his apartment or gives them to his dad, who owns and lives on a farm.)

- Seth and Jay are acquaintances before Marble Hornets, not on the full level of being friends, but pretty close. They were introduced to each other through Alex, and got to know each other a little bit. Mainly got closer to each other when working on Marble Hornets

- Brian was also friends with Alex, but never met Seth or Jay before Marble Hornets. Tim had no idea who Alex was until they met for Marble Hornets (Brian was there the first time they all met so Tim felt more comfortable, as he was panicking before hand about meeting so many new people).

- Seth has anxiety, Jay has both anxiety and depression (and now PTSD), Tim has depression and a form of paranoia/anxiety (while it got better over time and is not as bad, but still prominent enough to where he is almost always anxious at least a tiny bit, it resurfaced when The Operator started to mess with the cast members), and Brian has ADHD

- Alex does not have any mental illness, but has enough experience with Seth and Jay’s panic attacks/depressive episodes to have a fairly decent grasp on how to handle it. Brian is in a similar situation but with Tim and has almost no experience with anxiety/panic attacks. Usually it’s Tim’s depression that surges, and Brian helps him when it gets rough.

- Alex almost always has 2 different items for stress relief. One is for Seth and one is for Jay and even if they aren’t that anxious he lets them use it. If they are about to have a panic attack and he notices, he just whips it out and hands it to them without saying anything. He usually keeps on him money for comfort food and some band-aids/gauze too.

- Brian tends to keep money for comfort food on him most of the time. Sometimes he will have gum on him or items to fidget with. While he doesn’t have anxiety he tends to fidget/stim because of his ADHD. His stims usually are fidgeting with items (necklaces, bracelets, toys, etc.) and usually only chews when he feels comfortable enough around others to know he won’t be judged for it. He has a spinner ring that he found once, and will sometimes use that too. He tends to chew on gum a lot because of his chewing stim, but also has some items an old friend gifted him that were specifically made to chew on. (They are silicone, he has a necklace with a small but thick pendant, a pencil-shaped item, and a bracelet with silicone beads. Self-conscious about the chewing on other items besides gum, but prefers the other items to chew on. Tim was one of the first people he felt close enough to to actually chew on the items)

- For Tim, he usually keeps his anxiety/paranoia to himself. His medication helps some, but he still doesn’t like others to know about it. Brian is one of the only people who are aware it exists, but he doesn’t ever experience anything with it and just knows it’s there. When Tim’s depression surges, he sometimes tries to shut himself off from the world and be alone. Most times, when it gets really bad or he knows he shouldn’t be alone/doesn’t want to be alone, he will call Brian and hang out. Brian has a lot of experience with Tim’s depression as a result of this, and has learned how to best help him when he feels the worst. Sometimes they’ll just hang out and play games to distract Tim from his thoughts until he feels more in control/better, other times they will just enjoy each other’s company. Brian also tends to sleep over most times when he gets called up.

- As a result of Brian constantly coming over to talk or hang out with Tim, and spending the night at least once a month to help Tim, he usually has his own section of Tim’s house just for his stuff (clothes, pillows, sanitary items, etc.). Tim has a smaller section at Brian’s house, but it only exists because Brian insisted that if he had stuff at Tim’s, Tim should be allowed to have his own stuff over at Brian’s house. Both of them tend to hang out fairly often, and once shooting for Marble Hornets starts, Brian starts to create and plan group events. Tim doesn’t come to all of them, but he makes an effort to try to go. Brian makes sure they both still have plenty of time between the two of them, though, and they both understand that sometimes Tim needs time to be alone.

- For Seth, his panic attacks get worse with physical touch unless he says it’s okay, stress balls and other items to hold help ground him, he usually cries a lot, ends up being drained and usually naps on Alex. Fidget toys can help calm him down from a panic attack or general anxiety. Usually uses items that can snap around, move, twist, etc. He usually needs something to do with his hands, because they shake so much that when he fidgets it feels more grounding.

- For Jay, his panic attacks get worse when there is no one else around that he knows, or if there are a lot of people he doesn’t know when it starts to occur. The stress items help him some, but he is a very tactile person (as in, he needs another person there), even more so after he’s come back from the future. He usually holds onto someone when he has a panic attack, and afterwards usually tries to put some space between them. (He feels guilty that he clung to them so much, but after a while he can relax again and stops trying to move away from people. Alex knows he only tries to move away out of guilt, so he encourages him to stay close to them.)

- Now that Jay is back, because of The Operator, he needs someone to be constantly talking to him about something. Alex was not expecting this change, as they all had a silent agreement to only speak if they needed to go through breathing exercises so they could focus more on calming down. After the influence of The Operator, Jay ignores the guilt and stays right next to the others there. Sometimes he will actually press closer to them as a way to continue to ground himself.

- Jay’s depression never got too bad in the first few years before and during the shooting or Marble Hornets, and he had gotten a lot better compared to his highschool years. Now, though, Jay’s depression has come back with a vengeance. The guilt of everything that happened from the previous timeline, the fear that because he’s not good enough he won’t be able to help anyone and will have to watch everyone spiral down and die again, and the overall self-deprecation is crushing him. Alex knew he had depression, but because Jay had gotten better after a few years, they dropped the plans they made in case it ever got ‘out of hand’. Alex still remembers all of them, though, and will try to reach out to Jay if he doesn’t see him for more than a day. Jay knows he remembers them, and appreciates the actions he’s doing, and after a couple years in highschool he was able to be comfortable enough to let him know when he has worse days than others. This now usually leads to Alex coming over to his apartment, doing things to get Jay’s mind off of his thoughts, and the two of them hanging out until Jay feels better (which usually leads to a sleepover, similarly to Tim and Brian).

- Jay’s dissociation has gotten a lot worse too, now that he’s back, and while sometimes it’s pretty easy to call his name and make him snap out of it, he now gets episodes where he stops responding to anything. This can be pure dissociation or flashbacks mixed with the dissociation. Both times when it gets this bad, someone ends up sitting next to him and they have to wait it out. No amount of touching or noise will snap him out of it, and it worries the others to no end. (The only two ways to actually snap him out of it, unknown to the others, is either messing with his wings or The Operator actually being present. The first one is a lot better because it does help him come out of his dissociation, because there is the difference of feeling in his wings, and will be able to gradually pull him out. The change of feeling is because the feathers pick up feelings differently than human skin does, and because the difference of feeling acts as a reminder that he’s not there anymore and he has the chance to save them still. The Operator, on the other hand, is only able to snap him out of it because of the sudden terror and need to protect that Jay gets. This is dangerous because it can be sudden or slow change, and he is still so disoriented from the dissociation that he can’t think clearly. This then leads to him being a lot more self-sacrificial and reckless in his need to protect the others.)

- When coming out of a flashback Jay usually jumps or startles in some way (depending on the severity it can be a full-body reaction or something as small as wide eyes and a quite gasp), looks around, and usually takes a moment to relax again. The next few hours after the flashback are filled with paranoid thoughts, constant jumping and looking around, flinching, a lot more sensitive to noises and triggers, and a general anxiety that can start to cause the others around him to be anxious, even if they don’t know why. (Alex constantly sends worried glances his way the entire time this happens. Jay’s empathetic ability is stronger now, but the bad side is that it can go the other way now too. The others can pick up easier on his emotions, even though they don’t know why, and it can cause them to start to feel those same emotions too. Many don’t realize this is happening or that these are Jay’s feelings, which is why no one brings it up)

- Jay’s triggers - 

Physical: completely dark rooms, guns, knives, blood, anything dealing with Rosswood, tunnels, Tim/Brian wearing their alter’s clothes (even without the masks), being tied up/restrained, forests in general, certain areas like the red tower and the abandoned hospital, fast movements, people behind him/can’t see where everyone is/open back, Alex holding anything that can be used as a potential weapon (knives, guns, rocks, etc.), codes/glitching out videos, The Operator and creatures like him, hotels, screen static, dozens of tapes/multiple cameras (specifically to keep watch or record throughout the night), Brian’s house, fighting

Sound: any mentions of an ark/”to the ark”, gunshots, static from anything including radio interference, yelling, audio distortion, religion mentions (Noah’s Ark, flooding, etc.), sounds of fighting

-Seth’s triggers-

Physical: dark rooms, stress from deadlines, pressure from others, talking to new people/being around those he doesn’t know, being alone in a crowd, crowds, jumpscares, being put on the spot in front of multiple people/a crowd of people

Sound: yelling, sounds of fighting

-Tim’s triggers-

Physical: needles, hospitals, medical files/medical papers, medical equipment, pure white rooms/rooms that look similar to his from the mental health hospital, The Operator and creatures that look similar to him, coughing (himself, not other people), restrainment

Sound: the beeping from a heart monitor, yelling/screaming, static/white noise, being told he’s lying/faking,

- Alex, Jay, Seth, Brian, and Tim all know varying levels of ASL. All are able to hold decent conversations and a few could easily test out of college ASL classes. (Sometimes they forget words or phrases so they improvise, leading to hilarious conversations at times.)

- The reason all of them know ASL is because a few of them sometimes go non-verbal. Seth very rarely does, so he knows the least, but can hold a decent conversation. Jay used to not go non-verbal that much (still more than Seth, but not enough to warrant him being extremely good at it), but now that he’s back and has a ton more trauma it’s going to happen a lot more often. Tim has had his fair share of non-verbal moments, usually happening at least once every other month. Sometimes Brian is there for it, sometimes he’s not. When he is, though, it’s very easy to hold conversations because Tim is almost as good as Brian (but still not technically fluent). Brian, himself, has only gone non-verbal a couple times but not the the point of it hindering anything.

-Alex is practically fluent, and so is Brian. Both of them learned it because their friends going non-verbal made them want to. Seth knows the basics and can follow along a conversation fairly well, while Jay can hold longer conversations and is able to talk relatively easily (but still is not fluent)

- When Jay gets back to his timeline, he realizes within the first week being back that he’s gone non-verbal. He doesn’t realize it at first, but it isn’t until Alex signs something to him that he realizes he hasn’t been talking, and is still mentally recovering from the trauma, so he heavily struggles with talking to the others involved in Marble Hornets. He realizes that the moments of going non-verbal are probably going to happen a lot more now, and that he needs to find a way to quickly communicate with the others. (Deciding on impulse to try becoming fluent in ASL, he proceeds to spend at least a couple hours each day learning new signs or practicing making sentences/signing with others, usually on video calls or something similar. He was already very good and able to hold a conversation, but his goal now is to be completely fluent, or as close as he can get.)

-Brian can, and will, sleep anywhere. This has led to him often times sleeping against others and in random places he shouldn’t be able to sleep. He also loves attention/affection from others, but gets easily flustered when it actually happens.

- Jay is a very touchy person, and while him and Brian originally didn’t get very close, when they eventually do people start to find them sprawled on top of each other. They both are very comfortable with physical affection, and it takes a lot for them to be uncomfortable. This leads to them going to the other (once they get comfortable and know it’s not a bother) if they ever want attention.

- Brian grew up doing theatre stuff and can recite random lines that stuck with him. Some are because they were really weird, others because something happened and now it has funny connotations/memories attached. Also, he was in a lot of musicals. He remembers at least one song from every musical he has watched or been in, and can sing it off the top of his head. Would he say any of these lines or songs infront of the crew? Hell no. He’s very easily embarrassed by the fact he can, but Tim loves it. 

- Sometimes Tim will ask him to sing something or recite lines/tell a story dealing with certain productions he was in to help Tim feel better and get his mind off things (usually on days where his depression is flaring up really bad and he can barely find it in him to move. Brian and Tim have been friends long enough that this is normal. One of them is upset or needs to vent, and the other just heads on down to their house. If there’s a moment for some reason one of them can’t come over they talk on the phone and text.)

[blueyesandleatherjacket]

The girl in the pub

► The girl in the pub - Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler. ► Here’s my submission to the @dwsecretsanta for natural--blues. I hope you’ll enjoy it! ► AU Verse, All ages. ► 5,979 words.

"Perhaps it's a place about which everyone knows only one fact." - Bill Nighy in The Girl in the Cafe.

USERNAME BAD WOLF PASSWORD ***************** LOGIN WELCOME BACK ON BIGGER IN THE INSIDE, ROSE. IT’S ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU HERE. WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND TODAY?

Rose Tyler smiled at the blinking cursor on the empty white page of her website. So many things had happened to her in the last weeks and it was hard to decide of where to start this story for this new post. She had created this website years ago, during her studies as a web developer, and had forgotten it the minute she got her diplomas. She had come back to it months later when she had found out that she couldn’t get a proper job because of a particularity of hers. Interview after interview, they were refusing her for the simple reason that she was different. Discrimination in hiring. This had infuriated her so much that she had needed a place to vent and share this experience, a place where we would be able to communicate freely without any barrier. She had found out she wasn’t the only one to have gone through this injustice. Bigger on the inside wasn’t a name she had chosen randomly. Rose was a naturally kind and caring person and she had discovered that people were more than just a surface to scratch. If you looked deeper, you could have great surprises. This was a motto concerning all the people in the world but that also applied to her. Many persons had barely scratched her surface and chosen to leave her behind soon after. All because of her particularity. She didn’t have many friends. To be honest, she only had a couple of acquaintances she had met through her website. Acquaintances that shared her particularity. Creating Bigger on the inside had opened new doors on the world to her. It had given her the courage she needed to build her own business. It was easy to find work as a web developer when you were your own boss. All her customers were talking to her through private messages and she was working from her on ace. She had gone against all the prejudices people had about her. Rose Tyler was deaf. She had never known how it was to hear the smallest of sounds. She was born on a sunny day toward the end of April. Her mother had stayed around long enough to give her a name and a couple months of happiness. Then, her father died and Jacqueline Tyler had been unable to cope with the loss of her husband and their daughter’s disability. Rose was placed in the system and raised by different people, different foster families that never understood or try to understand why she was so different from the other kids. She found her shelter, her salvation, in books. She was pending her time in the local bookshop. She had read everything little thing she could read and taught herself everything she knew today including the sign language, the coding, the marketing. She had used that knowledge to build herself the better life that she had so far. And it was a success. She had founded the Bad Wolf Corporation and developed an association for the young and not so young persons who had been in her situation: left behind and discriminated. It was a small association where deaf persons could find a shelter and dedicated volunteers to teach them the basic things and help them to fit in the harsh society. More recently, she had bought an old bookshop, gave it a new name – The Blue Box in reference to the old police box gathering dust not far down the road. It had become her headquarters. There was the bookshop part and her computing space of work next to the storehouse. There wasn’t much activity yet but some people were coming in and buying books or settling down in the reading space for a moment. There was a sign on her counter informing her customers she couldn’t answer to spoken demands. Everyone was playing the game so far.

NEW POST GIVE A TITLE TO YOUR NEW POST “Don't mind me. I'm just toasting the happy couple. On the house!”

After a long day of work, it is not unusual for me to reward myself with a pint at the local pub. I place my order and sip my beer quietly. Drop money on the counter and leave for home. Sometimes I would bring the Times or a book and enjoying my time off before going back home. A little ritual of mine. That evening was no different from usual. I was at the pub reading the new issue of the Times when this guy showed up. Large ears, big nose, dark brown hair. The atmosphere was festive when I’ve come in. A couple was celebrating their new engagement. It all turned to craziness when he came in. I moved to a quieter corner of the pub and occasionally glanced at the party. My beer done, I folded my newspaper. I was getting ready to leave. At my very own pace. That’s when I’ve noticed that he had moved to come and sit across of me. He had been sat here for a while and I haven’t noticed him at all. His lips moved. I walked away. Not the first time some ‘cool’ guy tries to flirt with me and this one clearly was one of them. The Doctor was in a good mood that evening. He was in a mood for a drink, but not a drink alone in his place. A drink in a public place where he would be able to share his happiness and maybe find a one night woman to satisfy him. He never had much success with women before. The blame was on his unusual and rough appearance. No woman would fancy a man with ears that were too large, a distorted big nose, a large forehead? No one had ever wanted him before and then, he released a single, became number one in the United Kingdom and with the success came the women who started fancying the successful man he had become. He shouldn’t have fallen into the arms of this disgusting spiral all famous artists were slipping in but the temptation of giving in to these love letters and promises of forever had been too strong. Tonight, he was celebrating the release of his third album. The Turn of the Earth he had titled it in reference to the first single extracted from this album: “I can feel it / The turn of the Earth / the ground beneath our feet / Is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour / And the entire planet is hurtling / Around the Sun at 67,000 miles an hour. / And I can feel it. / We’re falling through space / you and me, clinging to the skin / Of this tiny little world / And if we let go / If you let go / I will drift endlessly / In this never-ending universe.” He was writing cheesy love songs he didn’t think a word of for he never met his soulmate. All bullshit. The women he was meeting, having affairs with, had no real interest in him. They all wanted the fame, the money. He was just a way to get it. That was why he was having one night affair after one night affair. He should have gone to the party his staff was having tonight for the new album but these people were no fun. You would have thought that in the world of music, and more specifically in the world of rock music, people would be funnier, a bunch of party-goers addicted to sex and drugs and alcohol. His team was nowhere near that and it was quite boring to party with them. So he had pretended to be needed elsewhere for personal reasons and had looked for a place where he would have fun, alcohol and sex. He was reasonable enough not to fall in the trap of drugs like many other artists but he could never say no to alcohol. Getting wasted made him forget about the loneliness an superficiality of such a life. Everyone was looking for fame but fame wasn’t bringing real happiness. Only a fake euphory. He found a pub with a good atmosphere. Someone was partying in there, celebrating a happiness that never was given to him in over thirty years of life. He pushed the door open, a large grin on his face and entered the pub. This joyful atmosphere was all he needed tonight. It became crazy once he was in. He walked to the counter and ordered a bottle of the best champagne. That’s at that very moment he noticed her. He was sitting there, sipping a pint of beer and reading the newspaper. She didn’t seem disturbed by the noise around her. Such an ability to ignore your surroundings was impressive. It wasn’t what caught his eye though. He had seen a lot of women falling to his feet but none of them were equalling her beauty. For a moment, he could nothing but admiring this reading beauty. Even tucking a strand of hair behind her ear made her the most beautiful woman he had even seen. “The news isn’t that good lately, heh?” She didn’t reply to him, didn’t even glance at him. With the noise around, she probably hadn’t heard him. The party-animals were singing loudly and screaming congratulations. Her calm was admirable. It was as if she was stuck in her own bubble and was disregarding her surroundings. The barman was gone in the wine cellar to find the bottle he had asked for. It was taking some time so he jumped over the counter, poured himself a pint and sat down beside the blonde girl and babbled happily. He didn’t remark immediately that she wasn’t giving attention to him and, to be honest, that was quite offending. No one was ignoring him. He was the Doctor. The international rock star. The best in cheesy love songs. Every teenager and grown woman were falling to his feet for a glance from him. Why was she ignoring him? “I’m the Doctor by the way, what’s your name?” No answer. She was deliberating ignoring him and that wasn’t nice of her. He never met anyone who could resist the famous Doctor. Who did she think she was to ignore him so conspicuously? He was gonna tell her his way of thinking when the barman came back with the bottle. The Doctor moved to the party, shook the champagne. “Don't mind me. I'm just toasting the happy couple. On the house!” The fiancée went crazy and her friends had to hold her back or she would have jumped on him. The cap popped and champagne rained over the guests. He took the time for pictures and partied with the happy couple until they were too drunk to see if he was there or not. He ordered another pint. The blonde girl wasn’t at the counter anymore. He had been afraid that she might have left but he found her sitting in a quiet corner. He sat across of her and took another chance. “You know, most of the girls of your age would sell their organs just to spend a minute with me. I am impressive.” The world was kinda revolving around him at the moment. All around the world, there were millions of fans waiting impatiently for his new album to drop so they could be the first to buy it. Could it be possible that she didn’t know him? That she didn’t care? No. The world did care. The world did love him. She could only be playing a game and it ended with her leaving and him being broken-hearted.

GIVE A TITLE TO YOUR NEW SECTION “Run for your life!”

The barman informed me, in my language, when I came back days later that this man had come back every day. He was ordering a beer and waiting for me to come through the door. Which I never did. I was working on a new project for a big company and didn’t have the time to go out and enjoy a night off at the pub. Busy man that he was, the day I finally passed through the door, he couldn’t be here. He had left a note for me. A sloppy, awkward, almost impossible to read handwriting. Something just to say that he would be back one day and would curry favours. Who was using such a language nowadays? I creased the paper, threw it in the first bin I found and forgot about this man. I wasn’t interested. He seemed to have a bit of an ego to him and it was everything I hated about men. He wanted something he couldn’t get and he was insisting. I didn’t know his name – he hadn’t signed the note – and I didn’t want to know it. Never heard of him either. No pun intended here. I had no desire to see him again and I avoided the pub, picked another just to be sure he wouldn’t find me. It was hard to wander in the pubs without meeting him. He was everywhere and I was doing my best for him to never notice me. This part was easy. He was always surrounded by hordes of hysterical people brandishing phones and Sharpies and busy grinning like an idiot while he was being hugged, touched, harassed until he was exhausted. Then, he would collapse on a stool and drink, meet with friends. By that time, I was already gone. The less I was being around him, the better it was. I didn’t want to be considered as a stalker. And I absolutely didn’t care about him. That was what I was telling myself. It was a lie of course. It had been true at first but fate had decided that our paths should meet again and again until he finally remarked my presence around him. I was a young man in her twenties, too clever for this world, too different for this society. I was just a face in the crowd moving around him. He was fascinating me, this man always surrounded by people who was bearing the weight of a loneliness no one could understand. Yet I never made a movement toward him and he never saw me. Until I found myself stuck in one of his hysterical crowds. With the release of a new album came the hard task of promoting it with interviews on radio and television shows. There, he would answer the same questions over and over again and the reporters would use all the possible approaches to have him opening up on his personal life. Which he never did. He never said a word about his private life, didn’t have any social media account and paparazzi never caught him. He was either excellent at avoiding them or they were respectful. The first option was most likely the good one. The question he was asked the most surely was: “who are you thinking about when you write these love songs?” Apparently, you had to have someone in mind when you were writing about love. It added a personal and authentical dimension. He always lied to that question, always pretended that it was one girl or another he had met in his life. The truth was, when he was singing The Turn of the Earth live in those shows, his mind was drifting toward that one girl he met in a pub one day. He hadn’t seen her again after that night and the barman had refused to tell him her name and if she was a regular customer of the place. Because he was a rock star didn’t mean he could have all he wanted when he wanted it. This time however, it wasn’t a celebrity whim like he could have had. He was pretty wise on that point. He had to find her by himself. Hard to do when you only had the image of her in you head, an image of this magnificent young woman sitting at the counter of a bar and reading the Times. This vision of her had shaken him to the core the night he walked into this pub and his heart was fluttering just at the thought of her. His team had already found him distraught these past few weeks and wondered where he was spending all of his nights when he didn’t have any obligation to be anywhere or to do anything. He never gave them an answer. This part of his life had nothing to do with his music and unless they were proving to be true friends. He was always on his guards with people. Especially since he was famous. With her, he had the feeling he wouldn’t have to protect himself against the gossips and betrayals. She was different. He could feel it. Plus, she was the only woman he knew that had been resisting him. She had totally ignored him last time. She was intriguing him. He wanted to know more about her and for that, he needed to find her. Which was the hardest part of the challenge his heart was imposing to him. His trail of thoughts was interrupted by the screams of the crowd waiting outside the building of the radio station he was interviewed in. The news that he was here had come rather quickly and the people without any obligation of work or family. Some were even sacrificing that just for him. They were sacrificing what he was seeking to get noticed and then, forgotten by him. He was famous. For them, it meant that he had all he wished for but his life was mostly travelling, answering questions, meeting fans. That last part and composing new music was what he preferred in this life. Touring was fantastic. All those cities, all those landscapes, all those different people. He had spent some amazing moments in the greatest cities of Europe, but they now all seemed dull because he had visited them alone. He grinned wildly at the crowd who screamed louder when he stepped out of the building. Immediately, phones and pens and goodies were insistently held out to him. A routine. Pictures, autographs. He satisfied as many fans as he could… Until his eyes caught a familiar blonde head whose confused and scared expression harmed him more any physical wound. She had been caught in the stampede and had no way out. He had come out and everyone had moved forward and made her a prisoner of their collective enthusiasm. He apologised to the fans around him evasively and moved through the crowd quickly. He didn’t hear them calling out for him. He was too focused on the lost young woman among them. No one seemed to see her distress except him. His hand finally grasped hers, she looked up at him, surprised to see him there, and he said the first thing that came to his mind: “Run!” He found me among all these persons. Usually I am unnoticed. An ordinary woman living in the Estates. I wasn’t even here for him. I was just passing by, coming back from a trip to the Royal Mail. A package to drop. I was walking back to the bookshop when this crowd suddenly surrounded me. They heckled me as if I was a simple rag doll. I couldn’t do anything. The sudden rush had petrified me. I am avoiding these kinds of situation. I hate being taken by surprise. But I refuse to believe that people could be so selfish, so mean not to remark my fear to be trampled on. I am an optimistic, compassionate person. I see the best in everyone and that day, the best of them was gone to the sewers. For them I was another fan trying to get my way to him when I only was a victim of their madness. There was no way out for me. They were pushing and pushing and pushing me toward the reason that had let them here: him. He came out of nowhere and grabbed my hand – the tips of his fingers were calloused but his palm was warm and soft. My eyes locked on the bluest eyes I have ever seen in this life. His lips moved and before I could figure out that he was saying, he was dragging me out of the crowd and running like crazy in the streets of London. He clearly had no idea where he was going but it was amusing him. He was running and grinning like an idiot, like a kid dragging a toy around. I detected the bookshop and pushed him inside. We hid behind one of the high shelves covered with books of all sizes and colours. Several minutes passed by before I realised how close I was standing to him. I quickly moved away and walked to the counter. The lights were off, the sign on the door indicated that the shop was momentarily closed. I didn’t say anything, just cleaned my counter, turned the lights on and turned the sign over. The shop was open again. When I dared looking up at him again, he hadn’t moved. Maybe was he waiting under the crowd was gone for good. I had seen some girls running past the bookshop. They most likely were looking for him. I gave him a nod to thank him and gestured to him that he could go. No one was waiting for him to come out of the shadows to jump on him. I didn’t see him leave the place but he did, only to come back around lunch time. The camera above the front door showed him coming in with what looked like his signature outfit – a jumper and a battered leather jacket, black pants and boots – and an acoustic guitar slung on his shoulder. I was in the back room fixing a website I created a while ago and found myself observing his image on the CCTV. The Doctor didn’t move for a moment. His heart had never beat so hard and so fast. This situation was unexpected. To be fair, he hadn’t had any idea of where he was taking her once they were out of the crowd. He was just running, happy to have found her again, happy to have her frail warm hand in his. Then, she took the lead and pushed him in this bookshop, pushed him behind a shelve stood there. He was stuck between her and the mountain of books behind him. His heart was hammering in his chest. He never felt so embarrassed to be this close to a woman but this one was fascinating. She moved away, moved around like she owned the place – which he found out later, she did – and he could only observe her and trying to get back his composure. Who was she? How could she make him feel so vulnerable? “Now we’re in trouble.” He chuckled but she was ignoring him again. She was reading the documents spread on the counter, tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. She waved him away but he wasn’t gonna leave that easily now that he had found her again, now she had been thrown on his way again. There was a reason why she was coming back to him like this. “Escaping from a crowd of fans? Easy.” He snapped his fingers. No reaction from her. He frowned. “Right, then, I’ll be off. Unless…” Was she really ignoring him again after he saved her ass out there? Women were all the same. Ungrateful to him. Was it his physical appearance? He had always had issues with it on a personal level. Now, people loved him the way he was. Years of struggle and he was rewarded like this. Fame had the power to corrupt minds, to turn the freak in the most handsome rocker ever seen. And no one ever saw the real him hidden underneath, the man in constant pain. “Okay. See you around.” An idea sprouted in his mind and he retained the name and the hours of the bookshop and rushed to his own place. He came back to the shop. She was nowhere to be seen in this part of the shop but it didn’t matter. He started playing. “I have met a girl / In a pub one night / Sat there she ignored me / I am so impressive / She should have acknowledged me / But her stubborn ignorance / Pushed me to the edge / And my heart can’t help / But cry a name I didn’t know. / How could I catch her attention / If my name, if my presence / Isn’t enough to win her heart? / You think fame brings / All you want in your life / People and cars and buildings / But it won’t / One day you’ll met her / The girl of the pub / And she’ll make you / Feel like you’re the smallest / And meaningless person / Of this world. / See I’m the Doctor / An international rock star / The last of a family / A survivor traveling alone / Hoping to meet / The girl in the pub again.” This was a stupid song with no rhymes, something he had written and composed in a couple minutes to court her, to win her heart. Yet, it proved to be useless since she didn’t show up once he was done with his song. When she finally appeared, she didn’t notice him – how could she not see the tall man standing in the middle of her shop? She was carrying a pile of books, books that she painstakingly added on the shelves according to their genre. She came back to the counter, put one of them down and pushed it toward him without a word. It was a book about the lack of confidence and how to deal with it. How could she have guessed? Intrigued he paid for the book and left the place, with his tail between his legs.

GIVE A TITLE TO YOUR NEW SECTION “Do you want to go home?”

I don’t know if he had figured out my situation at that moment, but I pretty much had grasped his personality according to his reaction when I gave him a copy of Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. Behind his airs, behind the rock star, there is a broken human too used to get what he wants from a snap of his fingers. His interest in me was strange both to him and to me and if it had to go farther, this famous side of him wasn’t what I wanted to see. If he wanted anything from me, he would have to show himself as he really was instead of hiding behind his fame. The character he was playing was of no interest. So was his job, his songs, his money and everything related to the Doctor. It was quite a challenge, but he seemed to be a man who liked to be challenged. Things too easy were boring, and maybe was I a challenge for him too. Now he knew where I was working, probably had found my name too. Yet, he didn’t come to harass me every day. I was almost disappointed not to see him insisting by coming in every day, but he was a busy man. I thought he had tossed the book in the corner of the huge property I supposed he had bought when he became famous and moved on to something else. It was a prejudice I had about him though I remembered clearly the intelligence burning in his eyes along with the feeling of solitude and suffering. The Doctor was just a shell to protect the real man from the blows of society. It was almost a schizophrenic behaviour. Something we all do in society. He was the famous Doctor, the rock star always grinning, always happy, when he was out… But I wanted to see the man he was when he was coming home and taking the costume off. I did get to see this man. I was lucky enough, trustworthy enough for him to unveil his real personality to me. I have considered it as an extreme mark of his affection for me. Beside the trust, he had this undeniable attraction toward me. But I was unaware of it until we met again in my usual pub. He was in before me. There were two pints before him and he casually pushed one toward me, as if he had always known that I would come that night. He was reading a book he hadn’t bought in my bookshop. Probably something he had been given or had found on Amazon. It was placed in such a way that I couldn’t see what it was. It wasn’t a problem. I had brought my own book. The latest release of an author writing exceptional thrillers full of mystery, adventures and adrenaline. All the contrary of my quiet little life. He had had no idea that she was gonna come. It wasn’t the first night he was sitting here with two beers waiting for her to come through the door. The barman and the customers were used to see him around now and no one was going overexcited to see him here. Not anymore. He could be himself and enjoy the book he was reading and the beers he had ordered in peace. All it had taken for him to find this peace was to notice a young woman sat alone at the counter of a pub one night. The penny dropped. He had found what he was looking for but he couldn’t have it as easily as he had had all the other things. He had had to remember how ordinary people were living. He had had to find his way back on Earth after drifting in the higher circles of society and thinking he was better than anyone. He wasn’t. And all it took was a girl in a pub. He knew it was her before she sat on the stool beside him. He had seen her reflection in the mirror above the perfect line of alcohol bottles in the back of the barman. He was wearing earplugs. Nothing would totally plug the noises totally but it was working well enough. He pushed the pint toward her, his eyes still on the book he was reading, his brain registering the words it was seeing. He sipped his beer, read silently. Her eyes were on him at first. He could feel her interrogative gaze on him before she looked away, took a sip of the beer he had offered her and focused on her own book. She was so absorbed by her reading that she almost startled when he put a gentle hand on her shoulder to get her attention. She marked her page and looked at him for the first time since he grabbed her hand and told her to run. “I’m the Doctor, hello,” he signed. Past the surprise of him signing to her instead of using spoken words like he previously had, there was the frustration of him not giving her a real name and introducing himself with his alias. She rolled her eyes and her annoyance was clear in the question she asked in return. “Doctor who?” The smile he gave her did nothing to clear up her annoyance. It actually made it worse. He glanced at his book and back at her. Deep sigh. He raised his hands, about to sign something. Glanced at his book again. He was unsure of what he was doing. “My name is J-A-M-E-S N-O-B-L-E.” “Mine is Rose. Rose Tyler.” “Nice to meet you, Rose.” He was awful at signing apparently. The look on her face and the teeth sunk in her bottom lip was telling him that she was holding back a laugh. He could only sign the basic things and he wasn’t even sure to have spell his own and real name right. “Don’t laugh,” he tried, offended. Which resulted in her giving him the most beautiful he had ever seen. Her tongue was poking out and the malicious spark in her eyes swept him off his feet. He was screwed. It had taken him months to have to proper talk with this woman and here she was finally looking at him and smiling at him. They used a paper and a pen to communicate the rest of the night. He wasn’t good enough at signing to hold a full conversation. He was revealing things about him he never had before but telling all of these to her was easy. He would have said she had a compassionate ear if it wasn’t uncalled for. But he had never felt this well with anyone else before. He was sure of it; she was the one for him. “The pub is gonna close, up for a walk?” The fact that she was offering to prolong this evening meant the world for him and he gladly accepted the offer. He was getting a bit hungry too. They had been ‘talking’ and drinking for a while now. It was night outside. They wouldn’t find much to eat. “I want chips,” she added. “Me too.” “You can pay.” “Why me?” “What sort of date are you?” She was joking. His heart was racing. Did she mean those words? Was he really a date to her? He wished. From the bottom of his heart, he wished she would say yes if he was asking her the question. He felt like a teenager discovering the power of love for the first time and not daring to ask her out. “Chips are on me,” she wrote. “But the beers are on you.” The Doctor grinned wildly, dropped a couple notes on the counter and held a hand out to her. His book was in his jacket’s pocket, hers was in her purse with the pen and paper they had used all evening. She took his hand without a hesitation and they walked out of the pub hand in hand. They found a chippy and Rose insisted in paying the chips. They ended up on a bench, eating from the same container, enjoying the quiet winter night. He gave her his jacket because she was cold and when she grew tired, he allowed her to lean on him. It was nice to be himself for once. “Do you wanna go home?” He had taken me back home. He was a real gentleman, never tried to take advantage of me. He just held my hand and made sure his large and heavy jacket was well wrapped around me. He was reluctant to leave when we reached my building so we prolonged the talk for a little bit. Did he kiss me goodnight after that? Yes. A chaste kiss on the cheek from him. A soft kiss on his lips from me. The first of a series.

GIVE A TITLE TO YOUR NEW SECTION “Come here, I think you need a Doctor.”

Through his eyes, I discovered a world of novelty, I discovered countries I’ve only dreamt of. He had confided to me that all of the trips he had done before meant nothing before me. It wasn’t a bad life to be a rock star, but it was better with two. Better to share it with the person he loved. And that person happened to be me, the deaf girl in the pub.

The girl in the pub © | 2019 | Tous droits réservés.

×××

AO3 || teaspoon

[fleetofshippyships-archive]

Fanfic Author Meme

Tagged by @diligent-thunder and @rockmarina​ =)

Okay, so I’m me, and I talked way too much, so I’m putting this under a cut to save your dashes. You’re welcome 😘

Please do not reblog this post.

Author Name: 

Fleetofshippyships + Knowyourincantations + Legendaryroar

Fandoms You Write For: 

(in order of decreasing # of fics) Harry Potter, Voltron, Merlin, Yuri on Ice, Star Trek, Star Wars and then a few one-offs that aren’t really worth mentioning.

Where You Post: 

AO3 primarily, Tumblr, trying to post more on Pillowfort, I also post on a couple of sites for knowyourincantations

Most Popular One-Shot: 

Fleetofshippyships: Potter’s Insatiable Cock (Drarry, Explicit (duh XD), 20k (viewable only for logged-in AO3 users)).

Knowyourincantations: A Decent Start to Things (Pansmione, Teen, 7k)

Legendaryroar: Finding Time for Rest (Sheith (Voltron), Teen, 3k)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: 

RestraintNone of my old multi-chapter fics are available to read at this time and I don’t really write multi-chapter fics anymore.

If oneshot/drabble collections or two-shots count, then:

Fleetofshippyships: Vanilla and Sweet Spices (Drarry, Explicit, 2 chapters, 20k)

and this really doesn’t count, but technically it has multiple ‘chapters’ soooooooooo

Legendaryroar: Kinktober 2018 (Multiple ships (Voltron), Explicit (duh), 31 ‘chapters’, 26k)

Favourite Story You Wrote: 

I don’t think I ever have a static favourite, I’ve just written too many things, I too quickly move on to the next (and frequently forget some of my own fics exist XD), but recently I re-read In Pursuit of Red Wine (Dreville, Teen, 29k) and really enjoyed that again, and I am really attached to it cos it was my first longish rarepair fic, kind of proving to myself that I can write longer rarepair stuff. 

I also recently re-read Unburdened (Merthur (BBC Merlin), Explicit, 2k) and really enjoyed that too, had a total disconnect from having written it since it’s been so long, so I was able to read it without self-judging, and oh boy that was nice. 

I’m also quite proud of Healing What’s Left (Parkgrass, Teen, 2k) for some reason, I dunno, maybe the dark political backdrop of the fic, or maybe just cos it’s the first time I’ve written Daphne as the main character and I’m happy with the result and now have some headcanons about her rather than her being an unknown blank character to me. 

I also binge read a lot of my Voltron stuff recently and had big feels over that so....I also specifically enjoyed re-reading The Perks of Skincare (Klance (Voltron), Explicit, 3k) again cos I dunno, I like how I wrote Lance XD and also the Sheith fic I linked earlier is a fav for sure. Shiro/Rest is the ultimate OTP.

It really depends how soon after I write something or when I go back to re-read it as to what my fav is at any given time (or people commenting on it and hyping me up for it again).

Story You Were Nervous to Post: 

Everything. But most recently I was terrified out of my mind before posting: 

Friday Night by the Fire (Harry/Neville, Teen, 583 words) because I have a lot of fears about screwing up trying to write ace characters and somehow not even making that a focal point of the drabble made it even more terrifying,  No More Waiting (TianShan (19 Days), Teen, 2k) because it was a new fandom to write in, Harry Potter and the Maudlin Merman series (Drarry, Teen+ Mature, 3k +6k) due to my feelings of inadequacy because it would be better as long fic but I struggle too much with writing these days to write long fics and can only manage short things. I’d rather write this as a long fic, but then I’d never finish it so connected oneshots are the best I can do right now, but I still feel it’s not good enough and have a meltdown whenever I post one. And speaking of which, I’ve been sitting on the next one for months and should probably just fucking post it already.

Actually, most recently: Minding One’s Limits (Cho/Ginny, G rated, 1.5k), because I gave Cho a disability modeled off my fibromyalgia and wrote a scenario similar to something I’d dealt with myself, it was incredibly uncomfortable to write in the first place, and then terrifying to post, even though it’s so short. But in the end I’m proud I finally wrote about it a bit? I dunno, might take me a while to work up the nerve again though XD (also was my first time writing that ship, so there was a lot of nervousness over that too)

Oh, and I was a super ball of anxiety posting  Kinktober 2018 (Multiple ships, Explicit, 31 ‘chapters’, 26k) because for almost all of those it was the first time I was writing those kinks (and some were kind of squicks for me but I wanted to see if I could write them anyway cos I’m dumb like that) and in a lot of cases those ships were completely new for me to write too, in addition to trying to write and post 1 a day, so...yeah. Also that was my first time writing tentacle and human/werewolf smut so...yeah. I was an absolute mess that month and not in a fun way. But I’m still really glad I did it, it was fun =D

In summary, I’m always an anxious mess posting anything, but most especially if it’s something I’ve not written before or is personal to me XD

How Do You Choose Your Titles: 

Most of the time I’m staring down the empty title field in AO3 cursing like a fucking sailor when I choose titles XD Sometimes it’s a line/theme/feeling from the fic. Sometimes it’s totally random and just comes to me. Sometimes I just grasp the first thing that I can no matter how stupid it sounds cos it’s been three days and I still don’t have a title and I’m over it and ready to post before I lose my nerve.

And tbh, it’s only getting harder to think of titles as my number of fics increases, and I’ve now started thinking of the perfect titles only to realise I already have a published fic by that title so....TITLES CAN DIE A FIERY DEATH

Sometimes, not so much anymore, it would turn out that I would give a wip doc a name just so I’d know what it was, sometimes as a joke with whoever was reading it and cheerleading while I wrote it, and then I would refer to it by that and think of it as that so much that when it came time to actually give the fic a title, it was too late and I could not think past that stupid file name, and that’s how Potter’s Insatiable Cock happened, and how I very nearly called a Merthur fic Arthur’s Wanking Tower (saved that one at the last moment thank god cos the tone of that fic is actually really serious and emotional and wtf was I even thinking with that file name and actually I linked to that fic above XD it ended up being called Unburdened). 

Potter’s Insatiable Cock slipped through cos it’s actually relevant to the fic content and I could live with it.

But needless to say, I don’t give my wip docs joke names anymore XD

Do You Outline: 

Only if I never want to actually write the idea...once I outline, it’s over. I can’t write to a detailed plan. It stifles me. I’ll always get stuck having to try and think ahead to the plan, and then I lose the flow and nothing works because I’m a pantser/intuitive/instinctive writer not a planner. Sometimes I jot down ideas but in like, the vaguest of ways, usually more focused on emotional development than actual scenes or events or anything because then I won’t be able to write it (and I rarely stick to those vague ideas anyway). 

I can really only write when I’m staring down a blank doc with no idea where it’s going and discover it as I go (which is why writing is so fun for me). I can only finish a fic if I don’t think too hard about what’s going to happen next and just let it happen as I write. 

This of course means that editing is a fucking bitch when I finish anything, beginnings often get totally re-written, but if I plan, it just doesn't happen at all, so I’ll take the extra editing if it means I manage to write something.

I do have a lot of detailed plotty fic idea outlines...and I mourn them cos I’m never going to write them now, but they’re so goooooooooood XD

Complete: 

Online (across all 3 accounts): 381 (incl. my hidden drarry fics as they are technically online just hidden, not incl. individual oneshots/drabbles in collection ‘fics’, of which there are ridiculously many). Offline: 20 (I have the worst habit of just sitting on completed fics and I really need to stop)

In-Progress: 

Too many to name, last time I counted it was ~60 but that wasn’t even including my vld wips so...I don’t actually know. I hoard wips and just switch up what I work on all the time depending on mood/interest levels/effort required. 

Current main focuses are a 50k+ plotty Drarry (*fingerscrossed* cos this is my first time seriously attempting something long (will probably reach 80k at least) in a very long time and I put it down for a few months and thought that was it but then I picked it up again recently, yay!), and re-writing some hidden fics I can’t put them back up in the quality they’re in, I just can’t guys, they’re awful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about working on the longish 8th year Pansmione fic I started for the wlw big bang before I had to pull out of cos stupid life stuff. I might pick that up again for a bit too, couldn’t be more different from the Drarry one so it’d make a nice focus break =)

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: 

I don’t even plan fics I’m writing, I sure don’t plan ahead to stuff I haven’t even started XD The only think I can think of for this category would be me re-writing my hidden long Drarry fics.

Oh, and there will be a Merthur oneshot coming (hopefully) soon, because @april-thelightfury115​ won my custom fic giveaway with a merthur idea. Just waiting for my brain to cooperate so I can start that and not suck XD but I’m so fucking excited to write some Merthur again, you have no idea.

Oh, and lots more Sapphic September drabbles coming too, I’m way behind and only just posted day 11 cos this month is literal hell for me, but I am still planning on finishing the prompt list, no matter how long it takes, but no plan for those, not even which ships, I just sit down with the next prompt and a blank doc and see what happens.

Do You Accept Prompts: 

Yes, I love writing to prompts, I’m take them via google form here, but I’m in such a bad space with my health I’ve been really struggling with writing lately, managed to do a bit of editing (fuck knows how), but writing new stuff is so hard, so there’s a long wait while I wait for my fibro fog to ease off to the point I can write new stuff with more regularity (and less stupid errors I have to edit out later).

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: 

Again, I so don’t plan. But I really want to be making more progress on the long plotty drarry wip I’m trying to write. I’m still not sure I’ll have the guts to post it even if I do finish it, given its subject matter (it would make a great careers or consent fest fic tbh), but damn I’m really excited by it. Not sure I can maintain it being plotty and not revert to focusing on the relationship (which is easier for me), but I can only try and see what happens. (trying to write a non-relationship plot without planning is a nightmare but I don’t have a choice if I want to write it at all XD)

I’m also now excited for my longish pansmione wip too actually, just because it’s already longer than my Dreville long-ish fic and it’s exciting and scary to do longer rarepair stuff. I’m way out of my comfort zone with the fic itself, but I dunno, I re-read some recently and fell in love with it all over again, like, flustered lesbian-awakening, disaster for Pansy (but sure she still hates her) Hermione? YES PLEASE! and also, I am guilty of not writing female characters as much as I should because, well, canonically, they don’t have much depth and I’m very meh about them, but in this there’s a huge focus on them because they’re all determined to band together for 8th year and Hermione is making friends with them (Parvati is like, dragging her along all the time XD) where she once dismissed them so it’s scary but exciting =D I’m getting more practice with all the sapphic I do over on knowyourincantations, so I feel more confident working on this wip now =D

I’m also kind of excited about re-writing my old long fics, because they’re all 3 years old now, and my writing tastes (and skill, yikes) have totally changed, so it’s like I’m writing the story again but how I would write it now while maintaining the overall same plot, so it’s really interesting, like discovering the story all over again. Like in one (Making Malfoy Blush) I’ve gone as far as introducing a new side character to replace another’s parts because I no longer feel those parts are in character for them. It’s super terrifying, but it’s fun at the same time =) it’ll take me forever to do these though, so I dunno about ‘upcoming’ really, I only chip away every now and then when I’m unable to write new stuff but am still coherent enough to do something.

Eh, it is what it is, I can’t write like I used to, hence me being inactive more than active these days, but I’m trying to work within my new limitations instead of getting frustrated with them and just giving up entirely =)

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Now, who to tag....I think anyone I would tag has already done it, and if not..I blame the fog if I’m forgetting someone obvious, if you wanna do it just say I tagged you so I can be nosy and take a look =)

Again, please do not reblog this post

[bethkerring]

10 Tips on Writing Asexuality

It’s been a long, long twelve years since I first realized I was asexual.

I’m one of the fortunate ones that realized my lesser-known orientation without having to go through years of confusion, uncertainty, and experimentation (because while some might enjoy that, I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn’t have). I was fourteen when I first came across the term and thought it might apply to me, and shortly before I turned fifteen, I officially claimed it as my own.

A lot has changed since then. When I first came out, there was almost nothing out there for asexuals. There was the AVEN website, a few blog posts, and even fewer YouTube videos, but the word basically didn’t exist in common knowledge, even among people who identified as LGBTQ+. Any fiction that included ace characters was almost exclusively unconfirmed, and left up to fans to compile lists of evidence that a certain character was probably asexual—which was usually ignored by the majority of fans, who wanted to see the character in sexual situations, and often later brushed aside by the creators.

Now, asexuality is more and more recognized by the popular media and the general public. Visibility is still lacking, but we’re recognized by major LGBTQ+ organizations, represented (to a small extent) in Pride events, and increasingly represented as characters in TV shows, books, movies, etc. I’ve even found random strangers recognizing the asexual pride button on my purse—and I live in the Bible Belt.

And it’s a great feeling. Every time I see another ace character in popular media, I get a little burst of joy to see someone like me—at least in this one way, if not in others. I’m especially glad to see good representation, especially after years of representation that was questionable at best (Sherlock still comes to mind) and harmful at worst (does anyone remember that episode of House?). I’m also thrilled to see that non-asexual people are really interested in doing ace representation right and are reaching out to asexuals to get their take on what they want to see.

So I thought I would include my perspective on writing asexual characters, because frankly, everyone’s experience and viewpoint is a little difference, and I hope this conversation continues with as many diverse voices as possible.

I hope these tips are helpful and make you at least a little more confident about including ace characters in your own work!

1. Watch out for stereotypes, but don’t throw them out the window. This is almost certainly confusing, so let me explain: I often see people try so hard to avoid stereotypical traits in asexual characters that they forget that aces are incredibly diverse. Yes, not all asexuals are aromantic, but some are. Yes, not all asexuals hate close physical contact, but some do. Yes, not all asexuals are shy or socially awkward, but some are. Yes, not all asexuals have seventeen cats, but some do. Yes, not all asexuals are repulsed by sex, but some are. And the list goes on. You should absolutely be aware if a character trait you’ve chosen is stereotypical, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should avoid it, especially if you have more than one asexual character. Be aware of it, but focus on writing a well-rounded, realistic character over avoiding every stereotype in the book. No matter what trait it is, if you’re writing it well, chances are good there’s an asexual out there who will empathize with it.

2. Keep intersectionality in mind. Though, as I said, I’m absolutely thrilled to see more ace characters in media, I know there’s still a desperate need for more diverse examples of asexuality, especially those that take into account how people of different races, genders, abilities, national origins, religions, and ages—among other things—experience their asexuality. A man does not experience asexuality the same as a woman. A white person does not experience asexuality the same as people of other races—I can’t list them all here, but from what I’ve seen, every racial identity comes with stereotypes and prejudices that interact with asexuality differently. Someone’s religion might affect how they view their asexuality or how they’re viewed by their religious community, and someone’s asexuality might be brushed aside if they’re “too young,” “too old,” or have a disability. Personally, I am an able-bodied American white woman, so I can’t say a lot about this specifically, but please do your research on this aspect of their experience just like you would any other. It might not be what you’re expecting.

3. Don’t make asexuality their defining trait. Unless someone is an asexual activist (and these are valid characters!), and even if they are, they’ve probably got quite a few aspects of their life that have nothing to do with their orientation. An asexual doesn’t spend all day every day thinking about the fact that they don’t experience sexual attraction. It is, after all, the lack of an experience rather than the presence of one, and is therefore less likely to draw their attention at any given moment. Contrary to some people’s belief, asexuals don’t necessarily have “oodles of free time” since they don’t spend it thinking about sex—but they do have other things that interest them. They are full human beings, just as complex as anyone of any other orientation, and as a certain lesbian character from a TV show I’m fond of once said, “My sexuality is not the most interesting thing about me.”

4. Remember that there are many ways to “humanize” a character without giving them a love interest. This is one of those topics that isn’t exclusive to stories with asexual characters, but is still relevant to them. All too often, I’ve seen characters who seem cold, inhuman, or heartless made more “human” by falling in love, as if the ability to feel romantic and/or sexual attraction is what makes them “not a machine.” This idea goes back at least a century, to Arthur Conan Doyle stating that Sherlock Holmes was “as human as a Babbage’s calculating machine, and just as likely to fall in love.”

Let me make this very clear: a character is not inhuman because they don’t feel romantic or sexual love, and a character is not especially human simply because they do feel these things. Even if your character is not asexual, please don’t make the one thing that “humanizes” them be romantic/sexual attraction—and in the case of asexual characters, please don’t try to “humanize” them by giving them a romantic interest. Yes, asexuals can be romantic, aromantic, or anything in between, but romantic asexuals are no more human than aromantics. There are so many other ways to humanize someone: strong platonic attachment, caring for animals, passion for a social cause, love for the environment, and countless other possibilities. Obviously it’s completely okay for romantic or sexual attraction to be one of these things: but please don’t make it the only one.

5. Think about how they discovered their orientation. Even if your character has known they’re asexual for 50+ years, unless your story takes place in some great fictional society where non-straight orientations are openly welcomed and accepted as normal, how they figured out their asexuality is probably going to affect them—as well as when they figured it out. I discovered my own asexuality in my early teens, but I’ve seen people who didn’t discover the term until they were senior citizens, having felt alone and out of place their entire lives with no idea why. If they discovered it recently, especially after a long time of not understanding themself, they might still be figuring out exactly how they define their own identity.

6. Consider asexuality in the context of your character’s environment. Small-scale and large-scale. Where your character grows up and what environment they live in during the story makes a huge difference on how their asexuality is expressed, and this is true whether you’re writing historical fiction (where views of and experiences in asexuality are obviously very different) or whether you’re deciding if your character’s family is supportive. There’s an enormous spectrum of variation in this, so I won’t even try to go into the details, but keep in mind that whether your character is out, what sort of prejudice they face, and how they feel about their own orientation will all be greatly affected by the world they live in and the people they know.

7. Asexuality is not an illness—but that doesn’t mean life experiences can’t affect it. Remember the House episode I mentioned? For those that never saw it, the patient-of-the-day was an apparently ace woman, married to an apparently ace man, who goes to see Dr. House. House is convinced that no human could possibly be asexual, despite another character, Wilson, mentioning research validating the orientation. In the end, House discovers that the man has a brain tumor suppressing his sex drive and the woman has been faking her orientation to stay with her husband.

This is … extremely problematic for what I hope are obvious reasons. This led to a lot of families and friends of asexuals, who had previously been supportive, suddenly worrying that their loved ones had brain tumors. Obviously, if there is a genuine reason to suspect a medical issue (such as a sudden disappearance of sexual interest when it existed before), one should consult a doctor, but this episode presented only two cases of asexuality, one of which was “just an illness” and another of which was a lie. This led viewers to the same conclusion that House himself reached: that no healthy human being could possibly be asexual.

This is a very bad example of asexual representation, but it’s also worth mentioning that there are asexuals who view their asexuality as being affected by their life experiences, a specific diagnosis, or even a chronic illness, and as long as you do research beforehand into what sorts of experiences can contribute to someone’s identity, and don’t try to “cure” that character’s asexuality as part of your story, this is okay. Ideally, include more than one ace character as a way to make it clear to your readers that experiences differ, and that all roads to finding one’s identity are valid. Sexual orientation is unlikely to change and can never be “cured”—since it’s not an illness in itself—but that doesn’t mean the environment can’t affect it.

8. Exploration and questioning is okay. I also want to emphasize that it is completely okay to have a character that is questioning their sexuality, and either later decides that they are ace or decides that they are not ace. As long as asexuality is treated as a genuine orientation and not just a “symptom”—and again, ideally, more than one ace character is included at least briefly—a character realizing that asexuality isn’t the right identity for them, or only realizing such after exploring other identities, is fine. As mentioned above, the House episode did this very wrong, but as long as you are not “disproving” the asexuality of the only two ace characters in the show—especially when it’s disproved by a guy who believes asexuality is impossible/inhuman—and you are sensitive and respectful, I think this can be done without causing offense.

9. Remember that ace views of attraction can be different than non-ace views. Much of society (at least Western society) seems to lump all attraction into one form: sexual and romantic combined. As asexuality gained more visibility, the idea of romantic and sexual attraction existing independently became more popular. On top of this, other types of attraction got more recognition: for instance, strong platonic attraction (like a non-romantic crush), sensual attraction (the desire for non-sexual physical contact), and aesthetic attraction (the attraction to the physical appearance of a person or object, but no desire for interaction). Note that this isn’t an asexual-exclusive experience, and a story definitely doesn’t need ace characters to explore these topics: many non-aces do experience these varied types of attraction, but haven’t had as much context to recognize or explore them. Asexuality, in recognizing that there are human beings with no sexual attraction, helped open the door to these ideas, but they have always existed. And even though this doesn’t necessarily relate to ace characters, I think it will go a long way to helping asexual experiences of attraction be better accepted.

10. Asexuality is a spectrum, and it’s more than okay to write all along it! I’ve been referring to the most general idea of “asexuality” in this post—probably because I fall completely in that category—but asexuality isn’t as simple as that, and the line between “ace” and “non-ace” isn’t so cut and dry. “Grey-asexuals” are a big part of the ace community, and their experience is both similar to and different from people who just identify as “asexual.” There are also demi-sexuals, who feel sexually attracted only once a strong emotional connection has been formed—and yes, these people deal with a lot of the same issues as asexuals, though of course, many parts of their experience are also unique. Keep this spectrum in mind as you’re writing your characters, even if you do end up writing someone who just identifies as “asexual.” It’s important to remember that the spectrum exists, if only because it’s a reminder that all of us, ace, non-ace, or anywhere in between, are part of the same immensely diverse gradient, instead of simply black and white.

Original post on my website.