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ofoceansandtombsanew · 8 months ago

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I Cherish You, Halcyon Days: v.

“You’re gonna die, kid. In the worst way possible.”

tags: afab!reader (she/her), angst, slow burn

pairing: gojou x reader + onesided!getou x reader

summary: You’re 15 years old when you’re told you’re going to die. You’re 17 years old when you realize who your killer will be. And you’re 17 years old when you make peace with the fact you wouldn’t want it any other way.

index | previous chapter | next chapter

"Sister School Exchange?"

"Yeah, it's this thing we do each year with the other of Jujutsu Tech in Kyoto," you lean back against Chinatsu's bed as your non-sorcerer friends look at your curiously.

It's a peaceful Sunday like any other.

Tooru is slouched awkwardly but comfortably at Chinatsu's desk playing Zelda, meanwhile Chinatsu has claimed her bed as her own while she braids her hair. Hard as these days are to come by now that you live in a school remote in some mountains on the countryside-esque outskirts of Tokyo, you relish when you have them. It's a touch of comfort and familiarity. "It's like a sports thing. Loser goes to the winner's school the following year. Last year we won so those suckers are coming to Tokyo."

"Who went where last year?" Chinatsu continues braiding her bright brown hair.

"We went to Kyoto," you expertly leave out the fact you didn't actually get to go. Nor the fact that you wouldn't be participating once again. Your friends don't need to know all that. Stupid special grade technicalities, you want to complain. There's no point, however, with the company you've surrounded yourself with. You're still more than a bit miffed at your inability to attend last year's Exchange.

"Is it an open event where anyone can go?" At your sympathetic grimace, Tooru scowls. "Damn rich people," he swears, rolling his eyes with an exaggerated sigh. His blue-black bangs are pulled back by a hairclip, fully displaying his newfound grumpiness. The idea of sports always kicks Tooru's competitive spirit into overdrive being a member of Tsubame High's rock climbing club. He tried getting you to join your middle school's team once. As it turns out, your grip strength was ass. And it still is if I'm being honest with myself. "Well kick their asses and send those losers back to Kyoto in shambles," Tooru demands as he returns to the visuals of Majora's Mask.

Oh if only. Well, you're certain that victory will be spelled out for your school once again if Gojou and Suguru have anything to say about it. You just know you won't actually play any role in it.

"I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes."

ー

It's a toss up for you on which days you prefer at Jujutsu Tech. Some days it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday and other times you really appreciate a good Tuesday, Thursday Saturday schedule. It depends on how tired your are... and how much procrastinating you've done on your assignments.

After watching X-Men back in '01, maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise that Jujutsu Tech had regular classes but you still remember your surprise during your first week of first year. Apparently, you actually need to at least know the essential basics society deemed important. As such, Jujutsu Tech operated on a block schedule where certain days detailed which day you'd be learning standard course work or anything related to jujutsu.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday were dedicated to normalcy with classes like Math, Japanese, English and Japanese History. Those were handled by the assistants who actually had teaching licenses. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday were all jujutsu-based. History of Jujutsu, Application of Cursed Techniques and Exorcism and Physical Education. (Physical Education being a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday class was the most surprising for you. But once you found out PE included sparring and mock battles against curses, you understood the picture.) These classes were handled by the sorcerers that did the heavier curse-exorcising work in this field with four teachers assigned a specific grade of students to handle.

With Nanami Kento and Haibara Yuu joining as first years, Fujioka still had her hands full with preparing the first years for the rest of their jujutsu careers.

Being in charge of the second years, Yaga didn't have much to do in terms of teaching late last year after Okita died. So the muscle head seemed pretty excited to go from 0 students to 4.

Yamada's graduated but with Utahime and Mei Mei being the new fourth years, Koizumi still has work to do.

The only teacher doing nothing now until next year rolled around at the Tokyo branch of Jujutsu Tech is Matsuno. If none of you are dead by the time third year rolls around, she'll have 4 students bothering her then.

This particular Saturday, classes have been halved for the day. Thanks again, irregular scheduling. And thanks again, Kyoto Tech. It's not the first day of it, that won't be until Monday. Still, today is the day the Kyoto Tech students are arriving and that is important enough that you don't need a full day of schooling.

You recall the names of the people of interest Utahime mentioned during spring break and try imagining faces to the names while Gojou loudly groans at Shoko's newest terrible attempt at explaining how reversed curse technique works. It doesn't help that it looks like smoke is exiting Haibara's brain in his own confusion.

"I think Shoko's right, Gojou," you grin widely at the snow-haired boy's head swivel in your direction. Even with the sunglasses, you can tell he's irritated. "You just don't have the common sense for it."

"Oh like you're able to understand her gibberish," Gojou's tongue clicks.

You're absolutely not. "Hyoo hyoi, right, Shoko?"

"Hyoo hyoi!" Shoko chirps back deviously. "[First] is getting it."

"See?" You gesture at the girl. A crumpled, empty soda can gets tossed your way and your hands fly out immediately to create a peach-colored shield of energy. "Sore loser!"

"Walking copyright infringement," you hate how that comment actually gets a choked laugh of you while you tell him your technique is called Rejection based on the Phoenix Wright franchise. So what if your abilities are reminiscent of a certain manga character with burnt orange hair and a pair of blue flower pins, Gojou should leave you be. You don't control the way in which jujutsu techniques are passed out.

"Why do I have to be stuck with the generation of teachers that don't know how to do reversed curse technique," he grumbles. "Why does the one person I know who can do it have the explanation abilities of a 5 year old? Who the hell did I piss off in a past life for this?"

Shoko tries to pull out a cigarette but it's snatched out of her hands by Suguru in equal parts concern and his own frustration at her less-than-stellar explanations. "I'm sure the list is long so thanks for spreading your bad luck to me too, Satoru," Gojou sticks out his tongue and brandishes his middle finger brazenly, Suguru flips him the bird right back. Yours and Haibara's giggles fill the air while Nanami, arguably the most sane of the six of you, sighs in annoyance.

It really is unfortunate for everyone that Shoko's pure instincts surrounding her abilities can't be translated into comprehensible words.

You learned the year prior in Application of Cursed Techniques and Exorcism I that it was really only relatively recently the jujutsu schools were established and passing down general knowledge outside of family became a thing. Unfortunately, the time in which these schools were created, information on reversed cursed technique was unable to be secured. So until Shoko is able to explain in full how she does it ー or the rest of you are able to start using it on your own ー Jujutsu Tech won't be receiving any updates to the cursed technique application curriculum.

"Nanami," Gojou points at the blond who already looks like he regrets even stepping one foot out of his dorm today. "Learn how to use RCT and explain it to me like a good underclassman!"

"I'd prefer to have a responsible upperclassman who learns on his own and teaches me instead," came the instant rebuttal from the practical sorcerer-in-training.

"Where's the fun in tradition?"

One last sigh of amusement later, you look at your hands thoughtfully. Rejection. A tiny shield stands tall in front your palm. But if we're talking about missing a few puzzle pieces, I'm assed out too. You sigh as Rejection dissipates. Why can't you have six little faerie creatures to help you create a variety of shields too? When it comes to you second years, it's easy explaining the roles you have based on ability alone.

You're the tank, Shoko's the healer and Getou and Gojou are both different flavors of DPS. That's not necessarily a problem, you know. Even the basics of cursed energy usage can exorcise a curse, but when it comes down to it ー you are your partner are both supports and having a bit of an offensive kick would come in handy at some point in the future.

So you decided at the beginning of second year that if you already were teetering the line of coincidentally ripping off Inoue Orihime's technique, why not go for the full thing and try mimicking the rest too? Your first assignment, creating a shield that sends back the damage and finally start stepping in the direction of acquiring an offensive move set.

It's just been a bit of a work-in-progress developing the technique in secret mostly because you have no idea what you're doing beyond the general principle of what you want to do. Dissonance and Disconnect will be your masterpieces ー whenever you manage to them figure out.

There's a tap on your shoulder, "[First]," Shoko taps you once again. "Help me carry back drinks from the vending machine?"

"Yeah, I got you," you'll figure out your masterpieces later then.

Together the two of you made your way to the nearest vending machine to the training grounds. It's not terribly far but it isn't particularly close either. You grumbled over this fact more than enough during your first year. You understand the lack of students means a lack of vending machines, but it would still be nice if this particular vending machine was close enough you didn't have to walk twenty minutes to get to it. "Do you think we could move it ourselves, actually?"

"Do you really feel like carrying that thing down a flight of stairs?"

"Never mind," you groan.

It's part way through your quest to quench everyone else's thirst when you see him. A boy donned in navy blue and gray traditional clothes and dirty blond hair with dark tips. He's certainly no student of Tokyo Tech, you perk up in realization. The boy is cute, you think. "You're one of the Kyoto students, right?" You wave politely as he glances at you. "We can help you if you're lost."

Amber eyes look you up and down before the boy turns to Shoko alone, "When I heard you were enrolling I was surprised, Ieiri," you can't stop your head from tilting, wide eyes blinking in surprise. "Considering all you're good for is healing your peers, you'd think your family wouldn't invest in your education. Especially considering

"Hey," you glare, sticking a friend out in front of your friend. "The only ones who gets to mess with one of us, is us." It's a privilege, not a right. "And all things considered, since Shoko's able to do shit you clearly can't, you shouldn't be running your mouth."

Amber eyes point your way again as the boy actually addresses you, "you must be the foreigner, your accent is very apparent." You have an accent, what of it? You learned Japanese from the ground and you were proud of the progress. No one can take away from you, least of all this guy. "If anyone shouldn't be speaking here, it's the one from a country so backwater you had to come to a foreign land to learn anything about sorcery."

"Naoya," Shoko finally speaks, mouth pulled into a frown. So this is the face you can put with the name Zenin Naoya. "How horrible to see you too. If you're looking to talk to Gojou and Getou, they're in that direction." The brunette thumbs behind herself in the direction you both came from. "Otherwise, you're a long ways off from the rooms the Kyoto students are supposed to be staying in."

You aren't sure what the boy has to be smirking about and you wonder how much trouble you'd get in if you tried punching him. "I know where I'm heading," the first year states, crossing his arms. "I wanted to see the Six Eyes of the Gojou Clan myself. But it'll be something to see the other special-grade as well."

"Yeah well get a good look at the dudes who are going to kick your-"

"Naoya," a deep voice interjects growing tensions. For once, something akin to a scowl dons Naoya's face as his expression shifts to annoyance. "You said you wouldn't antagonize the Tokyo students if I let you off on your own."

"That wasn't antagonizing, that was small talk," his upperclassman's face tells you he doesn't believe that one bit.

He's tall, albeit not as tall as Gojou or Suguru, with black hair with a dyed streak of green in his bangs."Sorry about our first year," the Kyoto senior bows with an exasperated sigh. You don't envy what he has to deal with. If Naoya had been included in the batch of first years Tokyo Tech received, you're sure you would have transferred schools. Or maybe you would have stayed out of spite. "I'll deal with him."

"Please see that you do," your cheek muscles ache from how forcefully you are smiling. What the actual hell is wrong with that guy? You side-eye your partner as the Kyoto first year skulks off, likely ignoring the scolding his upperclassman is giving him. "Why doesn't he have a hate club?"

"Believe it or not, that's not even as bad as he gets. That was actually Naoya at his best," Shoko has to be joking. This is another one of her dry humor jokes. Unfortunately, there's not even a wink of playfulness in her eyes. If that's this guy's best, I don't want to see what his worst is. "The rest of us were in a secret Hope Naoya Gets Homeschooled Alliance. Sadly all our efforts have clearly been for naught."

"Yeah, you guys really should have tried harder," you aren't sure there is any word in any language that could best describe him besides 'worst' and 'brat. And you know what? He isn't even that cute! The culmination of terrible traits in asshole shoujosei love interests created a terrible creature. I'll never say Gojou's a waste of a pretty face ever again.

Even at Gojou's absolute worse, he's never held a candle to the display of disrespect you bore witness to. "I really need us to win this year. I am so serious if we lose to that pompous asshole, I'll quit being a sorcerer because I refuse to accept defeat from him. Matter of fact," you cross your arms obstinately. "I know we're winning this year and I can't wait to see his walk of shame out of Tokyo. It isn't enough for him to lose, he has to be utterly humiliated."

"I hope he fights Getou," your rant certainly appeals to the brunette who nods in agreement. "It would have been better if Getou was a girl," despite the disappointment that is your reality, Shoko's eyes dance with mischief. "But either way, he'll hate losing to someone who comes from a non-sorcerer family the most." At your look, Shoko blinks in realization. "Right, you wouldn't know. The Zenin's have a saying that basically boils down to the only sorcerer's worth their salt are from the Zenin family, but a non-sorcerer is basically less than human."

Every time you learn something new about the Amazing Sexists, the less you like what you hear. "Geez that family sounds like a real piece of work," you stick out your tongue in annoyance. "I want him to fight Gojou," you nod to yourself in satisfaction. "Their families hate each other, right? So if he loses to him I just know his parents will be pissed. 'How dare you lose to the son of the Gojou family! You're no son of ours! Leave this house!' or something like that."

Shoko's bob dances as she shakes her head, "doubt it. When you're that strong, winning is guaranteed. They'd be disappointed but not surprised, if anything."

"Why 'cause Gojou's a special-grade?" You purse your lips in your prodding. "Because if that's what we're going off of Suguru's got the win in the bag too. Or is it the Gojou comes from sorcerer family thing?"

"Partly the latter," Shoko admits. "But I told you before already. Gojou's pretty much a legend to sorcerers," yes, it is hard to forget when everyone talked about it. "They'd expect a loss if Naoya had to fight him. Maybe if he had the Ten Shadows they'd think he had a fighting chance, but I doubt he does because it would be talked about all over if he inherited it."

Has Gojou always been so... Your mind struggles for the right word. It dawns on you then that Naoya had referred to him as the Six Eyes instead of Gojou's family or given name. Objectified? It's an unpleasant feeling to admit to yourself that he is. Even slightly more so as you try to recall if you've done so yourself and how much you may if you did. You're sure you have. You must have. What else were the bulk of your rants with Utahime were about if Gojou ever organically came up in conversation?

"He's still just some guy," you wonder if your words are more meant to self-soothe than a solid argument. "He thinks eating pancakes is substantial for dinner. I don't know how he's never had a cavity."

"A guy who'll be in the future Jujutsu Tech textbooks and we won't even be footnotes," Shoko sighs at her joke of self-deprecation. "But yeah, it's too bad they won't have anything in there about how he eats his weight in junk food." She pulls out a piece of paper where she has everyone else's desired drinks scrawled on. "Anyway, let's finish getting the drinks."

ー

This isn't the first time you've come out to the training grounds past curfew, but you would have head in by now.

Perhaps it's your irritation at Naoya that has you practicing longer than usual. Or perhaps it's your own inability to advance your technique and the frustration beginning to boil over. It's likely a mixture of both. It's well-past dinner and the sun has set for the evening, your only light source being a lantern you took out of the storage shed.

If there's another thing this school needs, it is stadium lights for the training grounds.

"Uwah," You look behind you, noticing the approaching footsteps and you spot a familiar head of messy white hair. "I would have thought you were sneaking off somewhere more exciting."

"How'd you know I was sneaking out?"

"Was up playing Momotetsu a few times and I saw your cursed energy moving around," Gojou shrugs. It truly is hard to hide anything from those eyes. You wondered in the past if his ocular abilities were passive or something that needed to be activated. When you saw his eyes glowing in the past, you came to the conclusion it's a mixture of both depending on what he needed to see. His sunglasses are on but in your dark surroundings, you don't see any signs of azure glow. Seeing cursed energy must be one of the passives. "Finally got curious to see where you heading off the past couple weeks. Didn't expect it to be here."

"Well now you know," you rest a hand on your hip. "Go back to playing Momotetsu."

Gojou dropped a hand above his hidden eyes as if blocking out the sun, "Nah, I'm looking for Orihime's faeries now, they're out here somewhere," haha very funny, Gojou hasn't said that one before. Ever. His grin widens as he takes in the unamused roll of your eyes. "What are you doing back out here? I could hear your big feet clunking around even with my walkman on."

"If you must know," you ignore his last jab petulantly as he comes closer. "I'm trying to evolve how Rejection works by ripping off Orihime's moves. Sadly these faeries aren't worth shit, they're stingy and only work for her." That earns a snicker from your new audience and that manages to make you perk up. "Jokes aside though, I'm pretty sure I can make Rejection be a return-to-sender and even get it to cut things in half if I try hard enough. So I've been trying it out."

"Must suck not having a users manual," Gojou whistles.

You huff in agreement, kicking a nearby pebble. "Who are you telling?" That's the trial-and-error of coming from non-sorcerer families. Everything you learn about your cursed technique is through figuring it out on your own. Weird glowing orb thing? It's was just Suguru doing as dumb kids do when he decided to swallow it and see what would happen. You didn't even start using Rejection until you were 10, well past the usual date of ability manifestation, all because of an accident. "But if I look at it from a different angle, this just means there's no pre-existing guide to tell me Rejection can't do this or that. I test out those limits myself and be the one who makes the guide."

And if you ever had kids, they'd be the beneficiaries. If you ever lived long enough to get to the point you'd start considering them. You shake head, physically tossing the thoughts out of your brain. "Anyways, like I said, I'm going all in on the copyright infringement. What Kubo doesn't know won't hurt him," you chuckle to yourself. "So I'm starting out with trying to get Rejection to return attack energy back at specific triggers."

Gojou looks between you and the noticeably empty space in front of you. You can already tell what your classmate is thinking ー must be pretty difficult when there's literally nothing to shoot anything at what you put up. "... and you're doing that how?"

You puff your cheeks sheepishly, glancing pointedly in a different direction, "Casper's been a great assistant to me lately."

"So all you've been doing is wasting cursed energy and hoping something happens?"

"On the bright side, I've gotten really good at putting my technique up with various poses over the past couple weeks," you offer weakly with a cough. So far you've mastered the Jotaro Kujo point, the Okuyasu The Hand swipe and the Kakyoin Emerald Splash.

That comment gets you a light swat to the back of your head and you move to elbow him back, but you only meet the infinity between you both. "Just get to posing out your shields and I'll blast cursed energy at it," Gojou flicks his fingers back in a shooing motion as he walks a couple meters away from you. Before you can even attempt to dissuade him, he's already in position. "Tell Casper to take a hike for a while. You don't pay him enough to do overtime."

"You'll help me?" You've never trained personally with Gojou. Likely because neither of you felt the need. You didn't like him and you likely weren't someone worth training with from his perspective. You'd sooner expect Hell to freeze over. It must have frozen over then.

"I don't know how you're planning on making a shield that shoots back attacks without actually having something shot at it," he shrugs in the dim light of the lantern. "And I'm already out here."

"You know what," you rest your hands on your hips. "Dinner's on me tonight, what do you want? This is gonna work up an appetite for me and you eat like a horse anyway."

"Seriously?"

"Just don't say pancakes. Or waffles," you rack your brain for different loopholes. "Actually, I'm putting in stipulations ー there needs to be a protein and a vegetable, bare minimum. I'm making sure you eat actual food tonight." You're pretty sure there's salmon leftover from the other night from when Nanami cooked. And I could sauté the spinach so he doesn't complain much. "Salmon, sauteed spinach and something else. I don't want this to take forever so I guess I'll just go with rice since it's already late." Rice it'll be then. "This is your reward for helping me!"

There's a decent-sized blast of energy that hurls in your direction. "Um, excuse me, I thought I was supposed to pick what we eat?"

"Rejection!" True to your word, you point as if you're the JoJo of Stardust Crusaders. There's no energy that shoots back in Gojou's direction, but you'll figure out a pattern before the night is over. Maybe I should try something where Rejection can pocket that energy and then it gets shot back? "I changed my mind," you snort. "You're eating what I make and you'll like it. I don't need you dying of a sugar coma before the Exchange Event properly begins."

"Oh come on, it's a treat for helping you out, shouldn't I call the shots here?" The pouting begins much to your lack of surprise. "What sort of reward dinner is this? If this is how you treat them, I can see why the faeries didn't want to help you out!"

"Do you want a free dinner?" When there's no slick comment shot your way, you consider this a victory. "Beat Zenin Naoya's ass to kingdom come and maybe I'll consider making something you want without any sort of fine print. Do we got ourselves a deal?"

There's a smile in Gojou's voice. A smug smile, but it is in his tone nonetheless while he speaks, "I'd do that even if there wasn't a free meal on the line, you know."

index | previous chapter | next chapter

Extra

And we're back to our usually scheduled programming. I update once per week for four weeks, two week hiatus, then back to consistent updates. At least, that's what I decided on other platforms to give myself a break here and there.

Admittedly the Orihime copyright infringement joke is one of the few jokes I've been waiting to make. Glad this moment is finally here.

You also finally get to meet your buddies from middle school, Tooru and Chinatsu. There's another buddy too but he's a special case who won't be showing up for some chapters. I honestly have an entire mini TV series worth of shenanigans concerning this friend group but y'all will just have the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully when that gets touched on in a future chapter, you guys will find it as amusing as I do. Like I made it a point to mention, the Reader really wants to hold onto what she can of her non-sorcerer life. She's "*Miles Morales voice* I can do both" about it

Anyways, you and Gojou are bonding some more and it doesn't relate to food. This is growth. Reblogs and Likes appreciated.

#look she's writing #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo x reader #gojou x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru x reader #geto x reader #getou x reader #geto suguru x reader #getou suguru x reader #i cherish you halcyon days

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riitah · 2 years ago

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[chocolate kisses] - gojo satoru x fem!reader

SYNOPSIS: gojo satoru is your best friend, and always will be. nothing more, nothing less. despite you having rejected him years ago, there was no awkward tension between the two of you. in fact, to everyone else, it seemed as if you two were already a thing well before gojo had said anything. holding hands, sharing sweets, falling asleep on each other’s shoulders – these were things couples did, no?

yeah, but everything was strictly platonic. from your viewpoint, anyway.

but lately, you’ve been getting this strange sensation near your chest whenever the two of you decided to do something that required physical contact. and these beautiful, mesmerizing eyes that you didn’t think much of before now put you in a trance whenever he takes off his blindfold.

how could you confess your feelings when you were the one who refused his?

WORD COUNT: 1.5k

HONORABLE MENTIONS: special thank-you to my beta readers “henry rumpelstiltskin III of the nuclear sock kingdom” and forel :)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I’ve recently started getting into Jujutsu Kaisen and, though I don’t exactly have a strong romantic attraction to him, Gojo’s been on my mind a lot. After reading several pieces of fanfiction about him, I decided that I wanted to write my own (honestly his personality’s probably gonna be so influenced by them 😭). So enjoy a small oneshot featuring this man, the first work on my blog that isn’t Genshin related.

Also, we’re gonna pretend that the Jujutsu world pumps out daily newspaper articles that only sorcerers can access 😁👍

Gojo Satoru. The strongest jujutsu sorcerer. You would’ve liked to add “self-proclaimed” in front of it, but there was no denying how powerful your best friend was. Especially after you personally fought him one-on-one.

You scowled and turned off your phone, freeing yourself from having to continue reading the article titled, “Gojo Satoru, the World’s Strongest Jujutsu’s Sorcerer, has Defeated Yet Another High Grade Curse and Saved Millions of Lives!” with his – as much as you hated to admit it – gorgeous face plastered smack in the middle of the screen every few paragraphs. Were all of the exclusive Jujutsu World newsletters and their long-ass titles about him now?

“(Y/N)!” someone shouted from outside the door. Moments later, a certain white-haired individual popped his head into the room, a gleeful smile on his face. “You’re still here! What’re you doing?”

Speak of the devil.

You sighed in response, massaging your right temple as you mentally prepared for another lunch break spent with this man. “Toru, don’t you have anything else to do other than coming here to bother me?”

With an exaggerated gesture, he clamped one of his hands over his chest and tilted his head to one side. “I’m hurt! Don’t you enjoy my company?”

“The day I got assigned to the seat next to you back when we were students at Jujutsu High was one of the worst days of my life.”

“Aw, c’mon, we both know that I made your high school years the most enjoyable!”

He strode into the room – quite indifferently, a sharp contrast to his previous overdramaticized display of sadness – and with him, his intimidating aura. Despite his laidback attitude, he did carry a pinch of…

You squinted at him as he set down a paper bag on the coffee table and plopped down next to you with his legs spread wide as if he was trying to get into your personal space without actually doing so, quietly searching for a word that fit.

“What’s up?” He noticed your gaze and turned to look at you, a smirk resting on his lips. Despite his eyes being covered by the blindfold that he constantly paired with almost all of his outfits (which is…just one), you could tell that there was a teasing glimmer in them right now. “Finally regretting rejecting me? Hm?”

You snorted at the joke that he’s made one too many times, and when he leaned in you lightly pushed against his chest. “You wish. And stop occupying 75% of a couch that’s meant to fit at least three people.”

To this, he closed his legs and scooted closer to you instead. The wood creaked under his weight as he gently pressed against your side.

Your arms resting against each other.

Your breathing syncing.

His head moving to rest on top of yours.

You playfully rolled your eyes and indulged in his intimate behavior like you always did. Only this time – along with the various other times the last few weeks – every touch felt electrifying and sent shivers down your spine.

You pushed these weird sensations aside, entwining his fingers in yours, something you’ve done well over a million times. His hand felt rough, calloused – all from training, you knew. A direct piece of evidence that proved just how much work he put into becoming the best of the best. A direct piece of evidence that proved why he held the title of the strongest jujutsu sorcerer and not you.

Biting down a surge of jealousy, you closed your eyes and gently laid your head on his shoulder. Noticing how his posture felt somewhat stiff, you started rubbing invisible circles into the back of his hand – just the way he liked it when he felt stressed.

You heard him exhale, a quiet sound that exited his body with poise and ease. You weren’t sure how anyone could breathe so elegantly, but here he was. And, just as you expected, his body sank lower into the cushioned seats as the tension left it, pulling you backwards.

For several moments, everything felt tranquil. Then, he just had to ruin it with a, “(Y/N), your heartbeat’s accelerating,” the smugness in his tone evident.

You harshly elbowed him and pinched his cheek, pulling on it hard.

“Ow!”

You half expected him to turn on his Infinity, but your fingers remained in contact with his face with no signs of slipping.

“Okay, okay, it didn’t – now will you please let go?”

You released him from your grasp and he rubbed at the spot, which was now red. “You know, if you wanted to touch my face so bad, you could’ve just asked.”

“Are you asking for a slap this time, Gojo Satoru?”

“Will that make you stay with me until the end of your break?”

“No, that’ll cost you another five slaps.”

“So mean! My presence should be more than enough to cover for it.”

“Not everyone’s obsessed with you,” you huffed indignantly before readjusting yourself into a more comfortable position. “Get that inflated ego of yours checked out.”

He merely chuckled and pulled you closer to him, moving his thumb to the area where your pulse resided. “But are you sure you’re not in love with me? (Y/N)?”

His voice dropped an octave when he drawled out your name. And your chest tightened in a way you couldn’t explain. Without even realizing it, you dug your fingernails into his skin, your breathing shallow.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you managed to say with a shake of your head.

“Keep pressing your sharp fingernails into my hand and I’ll start bleeding.” He laughed, and then, before you could apologize, added, “And I mean, why else would you be reading an article about me?”

“You – you saw that?” you whispered, horrified. Just how long had he been watching you before he made his presence known?

“So you are head over heels for me?”

He was half teasing, and half serious. You didn’t know how you should respond and looked down at your lap.

Seconds lapsed by in silence, but they felt like an eternity. Without alerting you to what he was doing, Gojo slid his blindfold off and shook his head a little.

Then he parted his lips, his voice more sincere than you’ve ever heard it.

“(Y/N), will you look at me?”

And you reluctantly obliged, heart nearly stopping when you met his pretty blue eyes.

His messy hair, now no longer supported by the black piece of fabric, swept over his forehead like a blanket of snow. And his eyes, half lidded as he stared down at you expectantly, sparkled like rare jewels in the dim light.

They were beautiful. He was beautiful.

You wondered if he was just doing this to guide you towards the more favorable answer to his second to last question.

“Please tell me the truth, (Y/N).”

You swallowed thickly, unable to look away. Mesmerized.

Entranced.

The way he said it made you want to give in with a simple “yes.”

“I–you–? I mean–”

When you finally spoke, words tumbled out of your mouth out of order, reducing whatever meaning you meant to put behind them to nothing but a mess of letters.

“I…I think so? I don’t know–”

And Gojo stared at your reddening face all the while, his serious façade breaking as the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in amusement.

“Let me ask you this, then.”

He brought his face closer to yours, the distance between the two of you almost enough for the tips of your noses to touch.

“What do you feel when I do this?”

He brushed a strand of hair out of your face, his finger slightly brushing against your cheekbone.

“Or when I touch you like this?

One warm hand caressed your cheek, a faint scent of chocolate wafting to your nose.

“…giddy,” you mumbled, the proximity and skin contact making you a little dizzy. “And nervous, I suppose.”

His eyes flickered from your (E/C) ones to your lips.

“And what if I told you I wanted to kiss you right now?”

The same hand trailed down your jaw until it reached your chin, where it stopped, awaiting your answer.

You didn’t know what sudden wave of confidence washed over you, but the next words that left your mouth weren’t products of a stumbling, stuttering mess.

“I’d let you.”

Without wasting any more time, he closed the remaining distance by bringing his lips to yours.

They were soft – just like you had imagined them to be, if not better – and tasted like chocolate. As he pressed himself against you, you ran your hand through his hair, enjoying every declaration of love he mumbled against your lips.

“You made me wait years for this, you know. Really uncool.”

You giggled when he leaned down to steal another kiss, arms still wrapped around his neck. “I know. Consider it punishment for constantly teasing me for more than an entire decade.”

Your competitive streak didn’t die down, no. But for now, maybe you could see him as something more than just a best friend and rival.

You smiled as you watched him grab the bag he placed on the table earlier and dig into it to hand you your favorite box of chocolates.

Gojo Satoru. The strongest jujutsu sorcerer, and the only one who has your heart.

#gojo #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #jjk imagines #jjk gojo #jjk gojo x you #gojo x female reader #jjk x you #jjk gojo satoru #oneshot #y/n #gojo x y/n #gojo x you #gojo satoru

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clowncaraz · 1 month ago

Text

Cattle Boy: Performing Masculinity Wrong

Original Medium version here.

Azriel Pierce is a cistrans mascfem Soulgirl who cannot be described as anything but a “Radical Gender Expansionist”.

...

When you are this thing, a cattle boy, they’ll put more weight on you — testing your durability. Seeing if you can handle masculinity and manhood present within it. If you wanted out, you were called emotional and a traitor. You are the meat they eat, you are the dairy they drink — the leather they wear.

...

Masculine World

Masculinity is not one overarching concept. Instead, it varies depending on how the culture views who and what gets to be masculine and how that is presented in language and time. To become a man and be declared a man is a specific form of growth that does not finish, that does not bloom, but grows like nails and vines. Manhood is consistently tried and put on display to criticize in a way that mocks itself.

To many, masculinity is to adhere to the common themes of ego, stubborness, strength, and breadwinning natures described as traits used by those “on top”. This form of masculinity is often called toxic or patriarchal masculinity because it upholds the patriarchy against men and women alike.

In those specific themes, you must always deny your association with womanhood and must listen to other men by ignoring the pleas of comfortability. You must also focus on asserting yourself into sexuality as the primary benefactor, your family life and trauma should not curse you, and your body must have no imperfections from past battles.

Anything other than this is a blight to masculinity and is to be questioned and mocked so that one may “experience” said growth (“Show me you’re a real man”).

If you do not have the ego, you cannot be a hero. If you are not stubborn, you cannot be deny responsibility. If you do not have strength, you are weak and feminine. And without making money, you are not valued.

Masculinity is vast, and yet we are stuck with the outlined attributes created and perpetrated by western standards spreading through our cultures. And because masculinity in the western world has always been related to being white, heterosexual, and Christian, being anyhting but these is effeminate and unvalued.

Masculinity that challenges male dominance, such as butchness or tomboyish attitudes, is seen as “ugly” in women and GNC/trans people. Said masculinity in these people are not valued, sought out, or recognized beyond lesbianism. Yet, even when said lesbianism allows masculinity, it is expected to still be apart or attached to a feminine figure or person who was born into “femaleness”.

Between The Two

I was born with a mullerian indication, meaning that I had indicators that helped in me being assigned female. I had a mullerian growth which resulted in being protomullerian — which are sex traits aligned with femaleness. XX chromosomes, enlarged breasts, wide hips, uterus and vulva, etc.

Being protomullerian had not caused me dysphoria until I hit puberty, in which I had begun to grow out these features that left me disgusted with my body. Since middle school, I have always been interested in being like the boys. I had an affinity for femininity or womanhood as if I was an outsider, a het boy. If I was smarter then, I’d realize that my attraction was being used against me by those around me.

Boys who saw me and my then girlfriend would gawk. It would be something that they had dreamed of. Two women, holding hands and laughing and being in love. They asked questions, they observed as if this was something taboo. Yet, I saw this as a young boy falling in love with a young girl. This was a heterosexual relationship. They were intruding.

I was always like the boys. I was the only mullerian outside of my mother in the family. My younger and older brothers were protowolffian — meaning they had sex traits aligned with maleness. I grew up the same way they did and had been allowed to be a tomboy.

Even when my neighbors were girls or I had friends in middle school who were just like me — mullerian — I did not refer to myself as being like them. I had ended up seeing myself entirely as this distinct concept from masculinity and femininity because I was never percieved as having both or any of it. They could call it androgynous, but that isn’t the right word for what I was dealing with from others.

When I reached high school, I noticed a lot of changes. I had gotten bigger, bulky and fat, but not exactly overweight. I tested out different names and learned a lot about how I felt regarding women and men. From the start, my presentation was lazy and I covered my body in jackets and hoodies. I dared not show my skin or my chest, and if I did, I was too fat to be feminine anyway. Hiding the fat, hiding the chest, hiding the hips — I tried to run away from my own skin in fear of being a woman because I sure was not a man and if I was not a man then I was a woman.

My friend group was full of white wolffian nerds and queer black women.

My earliest identity crisis regarding being transmasc had to have been during the discovery of plurality. In which I became aware that I was masculine because someone who snuck into my head had declared they were. I was outwardly plural in school, at home, and even with extended family — but I never shared our names. I had relations with the many people in my head as if they were physically there, and I felt pains along my body when they dug nails and cried into my skin. I felt it physically, and still often refer to myself as ‘We’ instead of ‘I’ when introducing myself online or to the public.

Self expression like that had caused the first rift. My da has always been traditional, and will never stop being so just because my ma is a little understanding of queer people.

Because I was masculine but not a man, I was not seen as entirely masculine but as butch. Butch is another word for masculine, but is seen used by lesbians and is now associated with them. I had called myself a lesbian for some time, which made me uncomfortable when a gay man in the plural system decided to control the body. I questioned a lot of my expression and sense of self, and definitely felt guilt for “appropriating manhood”.

I was expected to be feminine even if I was known as a stud/bulldyke. I completely distanced myself from femininity because I was never accepted as having it.

Black people like me, especially black women, have been called witches and “men” for showing inklings of their assertiveness and being ruthless towards those who seem to take them as a joke. From the start, people of african american descent were always seen as having hyper-masculine attributes — from our roots in slavery to our fashion and presentation. Black people like me never get to be feminine unless we are lighter, had thinner hair, short in stature, or were half-naked. So due to the fact that I never had any sisters, was called “grown” for being feminine, treated similarly by classmates, and looked with disgust because of my weight and race — I never obtained the connection to femininity and girlhood that I felt as though I wanted. I never had it and so I was never entirely a woman when I became an adult.

Breeding Bullock

I was not a woman because I was not feminine, but I had to be a woman so I could not be a man — and if I was masculine but not a man — then I was butch, a stud, or a bulldyke and not seen as a man or a woman.

My da once asked me why I had to be like a boy and why I couldn’t just be like my older cousin, who was a lesbian.

“Why can’t you just be like her?”

By then, I had severe body dysphoria regarding my breasts and my vulva. I felt beyond dirty, like a moldy rag. I felt as though my body was not supposed to be like this, and if it was, I was supposed to have a body that fit what I was — masculine.

I wasn’t allowed to be masculine though.

I stepped out of the house on day, into the backyard. It was summer, a nice peaceful summer. I had a white wife-beater on, with no bra. I was 16 or 17 at this time. My bottom was covered with shorts, sport shorts that fit boys in particular. I walked out to see what my parents were doing, which to no ones surprise, was smoking and fixing a broken tool. I walked out with shoes, intending to help them. This was routine. If I saw my da outside working on a car or his lawnmowers, I would go out and help him. That was the extent of my masculinity.

And he had told me, when I walked out with clothes on — with what my brothers had been wearing, with what HE had been wearing —

“You ain’t no boy.”

And that sunk in. I had enough. I went back inside, I sat on the bed. And I simply hugged myself. I had carried myself as a boy, questioned myself as a boy, present myself as if I was a boy — even if I knew that I had not entirely adopted the manhood and its labels. I still felt boyhood as a way that I was socialized, as a way I was raised, and as a way people treated me, until I no longer wasn’t when it was convient for others. I am always told what to wear, what not to wear — that sexual assault is the fault of the clothes not the hands that breached consent. And here, it was just another example.

Maybe, it was silly betting all of my emotions into being a boy.

But I had felt true freedom as a boy. As playing the role of a man, I felt true bliss. Yet, I did not have the same privileges to be arrogant and cocky and to be masculine as boys did and I still am not regarded as entirely seperate from the man and woman diachotomy. I was denied my womanhood because I never got to be a girl, but I also wasn’t allowed within manhood because I had been born into a body that wasn’t a boy.

Compared to a cis man like my da, he had already shown that he was capable of being everything a man was and more. There was no reason to teach his children how to be men — how to be masculine — when they were always expected to learn from other wolffian leaders in their environment. So instead of fixing bad behaviour that I had picked up as a result of only having masculine friends and wolffian influences, I used said toxic masculinity as a way to hide being a girl. People didn’t recognize I was one, others didn’t see me as anything but an enigma — between or stranger to what was the gender binary.

Masculinity, as a whole, can only be described by using vague experiences such as leadership or assertiveness. Even masculine black cis men will not have the same experiences as masculine white cis men, and those factors are specifically tied to how black men are seen as more masculine due to their race, the supposed links to violence, and racism. I will never share the same experiences with a masculine black cis man or a masculine white cis man because of how I was raised, and I will never have cis man privileges or the privileges of anyone born to fit into the patriarchy. That will never happen for me, and I have never expected it to..

I was just never raised as a girl, and was never in social spaces with women, and never interacted with them outside of how a heterosexual boy or a protector would — which created the confusion of how I was supposed to identify when people saw me this way and others saw me as the opposite. I was tied in the middle when there was no middle for me to start with.

For some ungodly reason, I was punished for being a boy when I was raised and treated as such due to hyper-masculinity. I was denied femininity and still am on the basis of my race and upbringing. So what was it? What was I?

The closest thing was being a butch. In AAVE, related terms were studs or bulldykes.

There seems to be a bit of a confusing way to use these terms, as butch has been used to mean masculine — but is something entirely different from both manhood and womanhood all together. To be butch is more than to be just a masculine lesbian, those are tomboy lesbians (I just call em’ tomms). To be butch is to be mature, to be the form of queer masculinity that isnt manhood and is tied to womanhood due to lesbianism, but not always functioning as women.

Even in lesbian spaces, due to not being feminine and because many believe masculinity equates manhood, butches are subsequently left out in fear of “men invading women spaces”. This belief has carried onto the fear of anyone who presents with queer masculinity — which is masculinity outside of the cis binary, and instead follows anything that is remotely distinct, nonbinary, xenic, trans, or nonhuman in a way. Lesbians who are freightened of butches have subsequently pushed butchphobia into queer spaces where phrases like “femmes and nonbinary people only spaces” actively tear down and rip into the community when it comes to housing, conversation, workplaces, safety, etc.

A woman being masculine, a butch, a stud, a bulldyke, a bulldagger, a stag — it was and still is regarded as disgusting to so many people.

I have had multiple similar experiences that studs have faced for being queer masculine, where our masculinity was tested by the use of introducing how we would react to physical violence by men and sometimes as a crude transphobic joke — by trans women. They would say that “even a trans woman would put us in our place”, and that men could fix us by corrective rape.

Recent events surrounding boxing, which made people around the world comment intersexist and transphobic things about a real person, choosing to attack her for the way she looks and the way she acts. People calling this woman “a transgender” in order to claim that she had been born with wolffian clusters. To claim she was a “man disguised as a woman”. That she won because she was “biologically stronger”.

At the height of that, I saw people advocating for the absolute harassment of queer masculinity, provoked by a boxing figure who could not by her nation and her religion — could never be transgender, and could never represent their country if she was. Said queer masculinity in this case was never even introduced, and yet it was caught in the intersexist crossfire to build upon the oppression and fear of masculinity in sports, in women spaces, in queer spaces, and much more. I had seen words written and said by queer people as a way to push masculinity down and perpetuate complete disgust towards butches.

Representation in lesbian spaces happen to be femme leaning, and in trans spaces those who seem to speak up the most are transfems. The majority of nonbinary people who are acknowledged are called “she/theys” and “theyfabs” as insults and slurs as a way to mock how they are all feminine in some way. All of these aspects tend to bleed into how there is testimony and genuine fear in many queermascs who deal with being erased because of how traditional queerness is often depicted — feminine.

Beef Cattle

Queer masculinity has always been a way to defy what traditional queerness looks like, intentionally or not.

In queer spaces, femininity is often seen as queerness itself because women who are feminine and not submissive are easily seen as lesbians. This isn’t just how men see a lot of assertive women, it is how cis lesbian women react to butches and studs. When they see a lesbian, they expect someone who is still presenting as a traditional woman or a fem. If not, then you must be adhering to “heteronormative rules” or relationships.

Since feminine men are seen as gay men or “fruity”, nonbinary people are always depicted as being mullerian, and feminine women are seen as gay women — queer as a label has been pictured to mean hyperfeminine. This is where we get into how the supression of masculinity is inherent in a community where queerness is always seen as feminine.

In lesbian spaces, androphobic lesbian women who hate trans women because of their “manhood” always cite their fears with masculinity as being from possibilities and never in the case of real queer mascs harming people. If you are a masculine trans woman, you are then treated even worse. This vilifying rhethoric is towards transmascs, masculine women, BIPOC lesbians, intersex lesbians, and multigender lesbians. In all of these cases, a Gold Star Lesbian — probably named after the reward a kindergartner gets when being the teacher’s pet, in this case when a lesbian outs and harasses other lesbians for gender identity and orientation to please cishetnormative society — would create strife and say that transmascs cannot be lesbians because of their manhood, or that they can be lesbians as long as they don’t transition and that they are perceieved as lesbians.

For me, I was described as masculine because it was easier to say that than queer masculine — and had never crossed my mind at that time that queermascs were being left out of the conversation to “better” the community.

With gay men, not all of them are feminine and many fit into traditional roles of masculinity that allows them to feel respected in outside situations that do not revolve around queerness. This is not a claim of them being privileged, it is a claim of masculine gay men being extremely underepresented because it is harder to clock them or to depict them as anything but “secure in their manhood”. Gay bears who are masculine are one example of this.

On the other hand, masculine gay women are punished for “wanting to be like men”, and are downplayed in their masculinity because its easier to clock them as gay. In the case for butches, if they fail to meet the standards of cis masculinity, that means that they are either pretending to be masculine all together or they “switched sides”, further giving rise to the idea that those connected to womanhood and are masculine in some way are able to use “AFAB privilege” to hide back into the closet.

For anyone who is not connected to womanhood, manhood, and are nonbinary, intersex, or agender, masculinity is a variable and a presentation used to address how they would feel if they were connected — because in this world, you are either cis masculine or subservient, where all femininity is seen as being apart of the subservient class alongside those presenting masculine wrong. If you do masculinity wrong, you are punished for it and are seen as submissive and weaker — regarded as a faggot and fairy.

Masculinity is said to reward others for their hard work to fit in, but I do not feel as though I was ever helped, as if I was ever aided in being who I was supposed to be. When I am called by name or by mention, my femininity is disregarded despite it being right next to my masculinity, my transness is always forgotten about when it came to discussions about trans issues, and I was always seen as this faker or poser in spaces that were supposed to help me and represent people like me. Not once have I ever been rewarded by cis men for being masculine, I have always been punished and I have always been told that my boyhood and my masculinity is a danger to queer people and white people alike.

I do not have the meat of a wolffian cis man, I do not have those parts that they have, but the other halves of me — breasts and vulva — are still on the market and are seen as ripe and for the picking because of how mature they are. These tits are strictly tied to me, and when I express slicing them off or getting rid of them, I am specifically targeted for not being “grateful” for the body that God gave me. When I express that my uterus is useless and that my clitoris should be four inches — that is when I am ungrateful and that is when I will “change my mind” about never having kids. When I speak out loud, an audience appears and tells me that I will regret the choice that I make because it will be irreversible damage. That is the point.

But the difference between a choice I have made and selling this body to someone else’s wishes is that when I finally make that choice, it is not okay to do so because it was not the “right parts” and the “right way” to remove my possession of them. I am supposed to bend to the wishes of others, and allow them to slaughter me. I am a feeder cattle who was raised for this meat to no longer be in my possession so that they may have enjoyment in eating me instead of me being able to take that choice. They slaughter me before I can make that choice.

To maintain forced femininity, queermascs (no matter their sex traits) must be bred to induce and support the narrative that we are confused little girls or mentally ill gender freaks.

Our masculinity is tried and tested because it is not viewed as real enough, and so I question those willing to call our struggle a privilege in times where queermascs are able to exist and not be seen, and said invisibility creates a veil between our community and our place in the world.

Draft Animal

What would one call this pressure? The outlined hate for queer masculinity by use of transphobic, butchphobic, intersexist, and exorsexist language against masculine people of those groups?

To put a label to the condescension, to the irrational screaming from TERFs claiming that queermascs have been deluded into being scary men, and how ugly we will become and how angry we will act when we begin T.

A mutilated body, a bald head, patchy and sweaty skin, to fear those results to the point of exaggerating what queermasculine people will ever look like in order to scare us from ever transitioning or being social. When queermasculine people exist, they are said to be “gender traitors” and are “failing the WOMEN” in the queer community because lesbians can “only be women”, and that gayness is a binary between two genders of the same presentation. A label that describes when queermasculine people are accused of being aggressive, of being evil, of being rapists and abusers because of our presentation and gender — when manhood is vilified as if we benefit from ever being tied to it.

What of a label for when people practice malgendering? A tactic used to gender someone correctly for the main purpose of painting their character as entirely representative of aspects of their gender, including blaming the patriarchy on trans men, calling trans women useless for their womanhood, referring to nonbinary as their pronouns only to mock them for it, treating xenics as other than living beings due to their gender or presentation.

When you are a draft animal, you are kept around in order to support the people who do not want you to be who you are. You work for them, you abide by them to satisfy their needs and their wishes. If your body is not entirely theirs, then they are told to give you away or put you down.

Your cargo is the weight of expression, upholding gender, and carrying the words from cis people who want you gone.

I am a draft animal, carrying masculinity on a cart, watching as the streets swirl and I am watched, gawked at, grabbed and pet at like I am from a zoo — like I am not in control. Like a child to be craddled, not as an adult who chose to transition and who chose to be comfortable in my own body. Because I was born mullerian, I am assumed to be weak and womanly and feminine even when I have been surrounded by black women who are feminine in all ways except disrespect. They are then called “ratchet” and “ghetto” and “rude” for asserting themselves as not to be messed with.

I have been protected by black women my entire life, my honor safeguarded by their power. The misogynoir within people’s hearts when they find a woman of color who is powerful… It boils. They begin to feel threatened, uncomfortable by the possibility that a woman like can treat you the same way you treat other women. But I see it from another point as someone who is percieved as a “strong black woman”, and that is realizing that the strength and the masks they put on are based entirely in trauma. Black women want peace, they do not WANT to fight, and yet everytime they are called to fight in place of people who cannot fight for themselves and they notice how tiring it is. I’ve noticed how tired I am of fulfilling that role.

Black men are ten times more likely to be killed and have their masculinity questioned because of racism. Patriarchal black men have decided that instead of putting that rage out against racism — patriarchal men come back to their community and force masculinity upon women they do not like. They traumatize families in the display of their masculinity that they feel never existed because they were never considered human to begin with — they are seen as draft animals. I do not believe black men want to fight, I believe that they have exhausted all of their other options though. And that the people who are supporting them most may be the same people they call “ghetto” the next day.

I was raised and protected by black women my entire life, and I do not doubt that one will be by my side when I am hurt. And so I do not use masculinity as a way to categorize who is capable of being hurt or not, I do not use my manhood as a way to control black women, I do not force my hands upon them and I do not put misogynoir back into my community because I FELT threatened at the moment.

To let that frustration out on people who have done nothing wrong is where the view of all forms of masculinity and the fear of it begins to arise.

Androphobia is the clinical fear of manhood and men. It can include wolffians to people percieved as men. These fears are real, and stem from repeated or second hand experiences of rape by men, sexual assualt, domestic abuse, familial violence, and consistent misogyny. It is a phobia, and many do not and will not heal from trauma that causes it.

Because it is a phobia, it is recognized as irrational even if trauma does cause it. This fear is sometimes used to drive home the phrases “kill all men” and “all men are pigs”. This is confusing men who uphold the patriarchy and men who cannot, will not, and have not benefitted from the patriarchy.

The identites caught in this are trans men, transmascs, queermascs, nonbinary men, genderfluid men, queer men, intersex men, etc. Transandrophobia is the fear of trans men and its subsequent prejudice against them, but even that word is still cooking alongside anti-transmasculinity and isomisogyny.

So what is the word to use?

If transandrophobia is for transmascs and trans men, transmisogyny for transfems and trans women, exorsexism for intersex, altersex, and nonbinary people, and butchphobia refers to those who are butch only.. what word would a masculine person use to describe how their queer masculinity is called “sodomy”, how queermascs are seen as fragile and weaker, how their masculinity is forced into femininity to present in the queer community, how this identity is attacked first compared to the rest of their gender — what do you call it when a woman’s masculinity is targeted? What is the word for when masculinity is deemed evil or oppressive? When you are called ugly for presenting as masculine and queer?

Lets try on some labels.

Cowhide Leather

To me, this problem is the reason why I feel as though my gender is complex and intrapersonal — it is why I do not find it easy to describe beyond existing alongside my body as if I am not of it’s grasp. My masculinity is me, but my femininity is this body, and I exist within the femininity that is this shape, that is these sex traits. When I walk outside, my masculinity and my ability to be like one of the boys is hindered because my masculinity is now acknowledged by passing — but is recognized to be lesser — and is seen as “fragile” or “fake”.

I can pass for a cis man, but everyone clocks that masculinity as being fabricated and from a source that is not “actually manhood”. They respect my pronouns, my gender, my identity — but in a way that subtly is used to figure out if I am a “real man” or not. Malgendering.

I do not believe I am exempt from transmisogyny or transandrophobia or exorsexism — and yet I believe that I am not experiencing any of them.

I am not being clocked and attacked for being “a man cosplaying a woman”, no one is afraid of me being a “confused little girl”, and no one is denying my identity and existence by use of surgery or the binary. I am not experiencing anything like this. But I am being questioned for my masculinity, I am being singled out for performing masculinity in conjuction with femininity, I am told that I am letting transmascs speak over transfems, I am told that I taint my femininity with my masculine self.

Queermasculine struggles are not less common, but they are invisible to both the community and outside society, resulting in people who are feminine and adjacent (transfems and flamboyant gay men) to be highly criticized for their femininity not being inferior. The struggles with transfemininity cross into the hate for queermasculinity.

As mentioned before, masculinity when failed is seen as fragile and effeminate. Trans women who are protowolffian have their masculinity ridiculed from the start and get “inferior femininity” forced upon them as a punishment for failing “superior masculinity”. This means that their reclaiming of femininity is not the same as a trans man claiming masculinity, as that said trans man would never be punished with masculinity but punished for attempting a false version of it. Trans men are not given the benefits of masculinity and trans women are forced into submissiveness. While transfems have that version of femininity that they must reclaim and rebuild so it does not service others and the patriarchy — transmascs have to claim their masculinity repeatedly because they are denied it in the first place for failing and are denied femininity because they are men.

Replace trans men with butches/studs, masculine gays, masculine intersex people, etc and you will see what I mean when I say that this is not just transmisogyny, transandrophobia, or exorsexism. This is a repeated way queermasculinity is seen, addressed, acknowledged, and gained in and out of the community. Masculine nonbinary people suffer from not having housing like butches do, their masculinity is seen as fake because they are nonbinary, and their struggles with representation in queer media is because of their masculinity.

I do not believe that misandry is an accurate term to describe this experience nor is it used outside of counterarguments against feminism. In other words, misandry is not a phenomenon that sprouted as a way to discuss how men belittle each other but as a way to counteract how women are treated by men and how to deflect that responsibility to destroy the patriarchy alongside others. Cis men are not demonized for being cis masculine or upholding the patriarchy in their communities, they are rewarded for doing so by being surrounded by other men who pride themselves on being superior, leading to consistent fighting and disapproval amongst what makes masculinity strong.

Cis masculinity is consistently fighting to prove that the masculinity they already have is able to be used against others, intentionally or not.

Queer masculinity is never being able to obtain masculinity that benefits their queerness and their queerness alone without having to accept femininity or the patriarchy.

We are not the same. And the struggles shown by the use of the word “misandry” obviously only counts for cismasculine people who have their masculininity ready to use.

Ever since I had joined conversations about transandrophobia, I have never once felt a deep connection to persue the term beyond declaring its existence and supporting those who theorize. I am not someone who is entirely sure that I even felt represented by the term, something to use and something to be used. I did not feel as though it could describe my experiences as someone who was not a man and did not have a connection to manhood outside of how I raised myself.

This disconnect had allowed me to find people who were like-minded in what I had been proposing; a term that refers to the invisibility, malgendering, and feminization of queer masculinity.

It is not the fear and subsequent discrimination of trans men, so it cannot be transandrophobia. It is not the sexism and hatred of trans women, so it cannot be transmisogyny. It is not the prejudice and erasure of nonbinary, intersex, and altersex people, so it is not exorsexism.

I have read work from different places to further aid me in this process of desconstructing what me and a wolfemic transfem have coined — Misabviriy.

Misabviriy, as it is disected, is the hate (mis-) for queer masculinity (ab- for “off” or “away”, viriy for “manhood, masculinity”).

Misabviriy and Superiority

The first point is that masculine individuals are being depicted as superior to women and above in any way as long as one performs the masculinity correctly, which gives incentive for said masculine individuals who are correctly masculine to use said performance in order to get rewarded. Then, because they are doing it correctly, there is the expectation that they must have a prize. If they do not get one, they feel as though they have been lied to and their masculinity is being threatened. Because queermascs are masculine and/or transition to masculinity, there is the assumption that they want said patriarchal power and are able to get it naturally without recoil or a fight.

Misabviriy and Invisibility

Due to the hypervisibility of queerfem individuals by queer media, transphobic outlets, and crude imagery, there is hyperinvisibility in queermascs. The interest in transfem bodies due to their sex traits, and the disinterest in transmasc bodies specifically come from the narrative that because queermascs and transmascs are either confused “little girls” or holding fragile masculinity, transfems and queerfems must be the predatory “grown men” and ugly women type who can’t date fragile mascs. To those following TERFism, queermasc people are hiding their real selves behind masculinity as a way to compensate for failing the patriarchy horribly, and are not the real culprit because they are being “groomed” and tricked into masculinity by being a tomboy or a butch. Said queermasc identity is then questioned until they are either shoved back into the closet, or they stop being masculine.

Misabviriy and Sex

Displays of misabviriy that revolve around sexualizing the sex traits of queermascs have been widely ignored in the community. Masculine intersex people have been told that they were not intersex, and that their masculinity could be changed with corrective rape. Butches get this treatment as well and often due to being lesbians and not being a woman “correctly”. Notable displays of it are with the “cuntboy” depiction where transmascs are reduced to their reproductive system, the “silent protector” type in butchphobia where a butch is deemed useful only in sex and when protectinf femmes, and the mystification of masculine nonbinary bodies when they are not visibly feminine. Queermascs who have vulvas are also expected to bottom in pornography and in relationships, leaving a hole of content and resources when it comes to topping after phalloplasty or with a tdick. In this area, queermascs have higher rates of suicide and the possibility to be sexually assaulted, and yet the only aid a queermasc will get is if they are feminine enough on the outside to hide it. Queermascs are also more likely to detransition or become feminine at the wishes of a cis or trans sexual partner, prioritizing the sexual partner’s pleasure with a sexual “tool” instead of a preference. Testosterone is a common transmasc form of HRT, and yet it is hard to be transsexual as a masc. Testosterone is a controlled substance, and no amount of market work around will help get it any easier for DIY HRT. The lack of queermascs and transmascs on T when they want to makes others believe we are still “women”, that we want to be feminine, and that once we get it we’ll be ugly. Some people, like intersex people with low T, could die without it. And yet, we still do not have it. I am not on T, but have been taking DIY DHEA, and it is because I know that I can only afford and find resources on DHEA.

Misabviriy and Malgendering

As mentioned before, malgendering is when validation of an identity is used only to be against said identity, usually for excusing violence or discrimination. Queermascs, especially transmascs, are positioned between being denied womanhood based on identity and being denied manhood for “choosing” it and doing it wrong. Malgendering is used to scare, to put fear into one for what they may face as the gender they transition to. While not exclusive to transmascs, malgendering is used against transmascs by wishes of harm, calling trans men the “men of the trans community”, and using correct pronouns and terminology to make a joke from said trans person. GNC women who embrace masculinity are targeted the same way, starting with many people using their masculinity as a way to validate their strength, only to use that affirmation to challenge them to a fight since they are “so strong”. It paints their targets as weak fragile women. The idea that queermascs are fragile and tainting their body with masculinity is used by Baeddels, Radfems, and TERFs who target trans men and call anyone else “collateral damage" for being in the way. In queer spaces, wolffian mascs and anyone who is remotely masculine regardless of gender are seen as dangerous because their ties to masculinity means that they apparently operate under the patriarchy and work for it. Queermascs, especially those who are trans men and intersex people, are more likely to be denied life saving treatments and gynaecologists due to their identity, and this denial can lead to death.

Misabviriy and Feminization

Queermascs such as masculine nonbinary people and butches have always been feminized by the outside world as a way to quell the disgust or discomfort with them being masculine. Separation of masculinity from their queer identity is a common occurrence in communities that are supposed to aid them in being who they are. As said before, queermasculinity and those who are of it are seen as confused little girls (the basis for ROGD) and predatory men due to their connection to masculinity that is “wrong”. Because of this, not only are queermascs the victim when first transitioning but are predators lurking to lure transness into innocent girls when they are post-transition and confident. From inside the community, many butches have faced being left out of media and out of the narrative when it came to lesbianism as they were slowly turned into guard dogs and sexual pleasure — focusing heavily on how a butch is “still a woman”, and the joke of “forgetting the bookbag” that is overused. Depictions of masculine women and queermascs are always in a way where their physical features “prove” them to be not actually masculine and that they are pretending to be masculine. Queermascs have also reported feeling extremely left out and lost in inclusive spaces that actively call out queer masculinity alongside patriarchal masculinity while uplifting patriarchal femininity that wishes to benefit from the patriarchy by pulling women and queer men down into terms like TIF, female brained, “woman bits”, and fake feminism that relies on bioessentialism (TME, TMA..) and gender wars (they ultimately do not earn benefits due to misogyny).

This isn’t to say that queer men and mascs cannot and can never uphold, take part in, or indulge ideas that agree with patriarchal masculinity. Misabviriy isn’t an excuse to be patriarchal. Queermascs can partake in it all they want, usually for protection under the guise that their manhood is cis passing, but there are no benefits for doing masculinity wrong and being perceived as the wrong version of masculinity when their hyperinvisibility wears off. Repowering is what I would call this — when queer people veil or mask their maginalized status to identify as cishet perisex people, regaining the power they lost over their identity when they transitioned or came out of the closet. Repowering is not when a trans person hides in the closet and pretends, or when they do not transition at all, because you do not gain power in the closet and only do so when using your former cishet identity as a mask for your true self to feed into horrible narratives and cycle queerphobic language/notions — intentionally or not.

I believe that anyone can practice repowering, including trans women who veil as men in order to gain the little bit of lost power that the patriarchy would give them by feeding into harmful sterotypes, tropes, and reuse intersexist, homophobic, or transphobic language to fit in. Privliege is a conditional concept that exists only when the perception of a queer person is not queer but cishet perisex. When a trans woman partakes in repowering, then is actually found out to be trans, they are no longer holding that privlege not because of their gender but because of their transness. Same with trans men, nonbinary people, intersex, butch, and other queer people.

Queer Masculinity Future

I have wishes for the future too. I have a life too, I have a world that I wish to see.

I don’t want to see infighting, I do not want the binary to persist, I do not want to bring forth a world where gender is valued through power and oppression — I wish for a world where gender is expanded beyond all limits until it no longer means anything. I wish for gender to no longer be biological, no longer social, not longer binary — I wish for gender to be intrapersonal. Something only you can affirm, something no one can take away from you even when you die, something that you work to prove for your pleasure, not anyone elses. I am a radical gender expansionist, and that means that these wishes will become my reality by any means necessary.

Labels will mean what they mean, but they will not be used to create or single out a group of people unless they have no experience. There should be no “oppression olympics” of trans communities, there should be no one speaking over lived experiences, there should be no one forcing each other to identify or creating terms used against groups of people who do not agree with your view. There should be nothing like that. And all of it seems to point directly at gender essentialism and gender wars. In order to punish the fires of them, we must quell it by personalizing gender instead of grouping gendered people into neat boxes.

I have fears that queer masculinity may not be present in the future.

I fear that our expression will be centered in the battle against cis masculinity, and if we do not speak about our struggles, then we are the object crushed under the heel of the foot. If feminism does not include men and the liberation of queer manhood, then it will not succeed in destroying the patriarchy for queer manhood is the number one enemy to the patriarchy. The patriarchy is afraid of us, afraid of what we are doing to their “daughters”, afraid of what our bodies would look like after transitioning, afraid of it all. They are scared, and we make them scared of our masculinity.

Feminism should include the liberation of queer manhood alongside womanhood, feminism should give us the right to speak alongside everyone, feminism should allow queermascs space to talk about how they are affected by the patriarchy. Feminism, I fear, should not exclude us.

I smile with joy at the displays of masculinity.

For that masculinity is what I would call queer masculinity, where the patriarchy dies at its teeth, at its claws. For queer masculinity will be at the forefront to the death of the patriarchy. I smile in joy when I see trans men binding and cutting their hair, grooming their beards, with free top surgery, with feminine figures, with masculine features, with long hair, with free breasts, with phallo or without, with manhood running in their blood, with their sex altered, with their sex unaltered.

I smile in joy when I see intersex men prancing for joy at their intersexness, when they are proud, when they love themselves, when they don’t need to bind, when they don’t need to be masculine, when they aren’t androgynous, when they are happy, when they fight IGM, when they are men and embrace manhood.

I smile when nonbinary mascs are fully masculine and do not back down for the pleasure of others.

I smile when multigender mascs are queer in every way, who embody all forms of presentations.

I smile in joy.

I have wishes for the future too. And those wishes should become reality, as we unshackle cattle boys from their prisons. Where the farms are dismantled, where the industry is brought down with their hooves, where the young are not slaughtered back into femininity, where we are not kicked when we are torn down, when we are not brutally pushed around for existing, where cattle boys are not starved, where cattle boys are not fattened for their meat.

Where the patriarchy and queer community stops claiming we are appropriating queerness and are dangerous.

Open Range Still Means Shackles

Between all of this, I do believe that my experiences and my troubles are painted here to be of priority to be solved in the future, where queer masculinity is not inherently dismissed as cishetnormative or oppressive.

Queermascs still live in a world where our oppression is seen as our fault, and that as cattle boys, we must suffer for the choice of being the oppressor.

I suffer independently to the patriarchy, whether or not it exists, other facts such as behavior in and out of communities, bio essentialism, and racism will still persist. But the centerpoint for all those thing happens to be the pleasure of the patriarchy. Destroying it, not just because it stands for oppression, but because it still keeps cattle boys in a roundup open range or not.

Further reading is linked in the Medium post, consider supporting Lunabelle and I on our queer journey.

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dtrghost · 1 year ago

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sweet, in every way

pairing: jake "hangman" seresin x reader (words relating to looks or gender were not used)

synopsis: jake calls you sweets, ever since you met in naval school, and one night you ask him why.

warnings: allusions to smut, fluff fluff fluff cause yes.

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

word count: 1.1k

Jake's hands combed through your hair, the moonlight glimmering through the curtains of his room and onto the delicacy of your skin. The glow took his breath away, the same way it did under the shitty lights of your dorm house when he first met you.

"What're you thinking about?" You questioned, smiling gently as you shifted in his arms to face in. He purred quietly at the feeling on your hand on his cheek, your thumb stroking his skin and leaving the tingles of your love behind with each pass.

"The day we met." You chuckled, recalling that day as it were yesterday. You were assigned rooms and yours happened to be right next to his, and each night he would invite some friends over for a drink.

A room full of a bunch of guys got loud, and you tried everything, earbuds, loud music to try and drown out their's, yet they'd just crank theirs louder. Jake assumed you didn't mind since you'd never mentioned it and looked displeased in the morning, until one night someone pounded their hand on his door.

"Okay okay chill out-" He cut himself off as a shiver ran up his spine, seeing your pissed off face. You proceeded to berate him, tired and annoyed after the consistent nights of little sleep due to his need to be loud.

"You weren't even paying attention to what I was saying!" You accused lightly, your hand landing on his chest and feeling his heart beat in a calm rhythm.

"You're right I wasn't. All I could think about was this random person who lived next to me breaking my door down and yelling at me in the middle of the night. And then I really looked at you." His eyes glazed over, his pupils dilating as he remembered how he drank you in for the first time. Your figure, your demeanor, you hair your skin your eyes, everything. He truly looked at you for the first time, and he fell. You stayed quietly, waiting for him to articulate himself for you as he pressed a soft kiss on your forehead.

"The way the light hit you, on your lips, the fury in your eyes. It was when I first really comprehended you, and after that day I wish I had done it sooner, on better terms." You hummed, pressing a warm kiss on his chest as your cheeks burned until the intensity of his gaze. You thought more about that night, how you gained your new nickname, sweets. He rarely called you by your name, it was mostly sweets unless he was introducing you to a stranger, where he'd say it once and move back to it.

"Well aren't you just a big ball of sunshine sweets." At the time it felt condescending and only made you angry, but now it meant the world to you, and you wanted to know more.

"Why sweets?" You questioned, his hand coming to grasp yours as it rest on his chest. He pondered for a moment, his eyes growing distant as he thought it over. There were just so many reasons, at the time it was meant to be just as it was seen, mocking and annoying, but it grew to mean so much more.

You two grew to be best friends after that night after he sobered up and realized he was a dick, so he approached you, begging you to let him fix things, so you did. He took you out the entire day, to wherever you wanted to go and paid for it. You stopped at a café, and you ordered a sweet tea with lemon and pancakes where you drowned it in enough syrup to make his stomach hurt looking at it. He thought maybe it was an accident. Until for lunch you took him to a cafe where you got a box of cookies and another small box of cake.

"How are you not sick?" He gaped as he watched me take a crack at the contents of the box. You just shrugged. You had a major sweet tooth and you were self-indulgent, so the nickname sweets persisted. Then instead of it being a one day event, it became a two day event, and then it never stopped.

You talked and talked with each other, he started canceling his nights with his friends to make room for hangouts with you instead. You showed him a side of you that he never thought was there, you would bring him food when you snuck out at night for a 2 am trip to a fast food place, you would bring an extra bottle of water for him during workouts.

When you got closer, you'd hold him when the stress would break him down, tears leaking from his eyes at a rate he couldn't comprehend. You'd whisper sweet nothings into his ear about how he was an amazing pilot, an amazing soldier, but most of all an amazing person. You being the better pilot, much to his denial, you'd teach him how to do things better in the air, little tips and tricks to help him stay safe.

He cherished the letters you wrote him that you slid under his door, always with a piece of candy you know he liked. He would take one with him on missions, rereading it over and over until he fell asleep. When you left for yours, you'd leave him the rest of the candy bag that you had, and the day before he spoil you rotten with any pastry you wanted.

He realized that you were a sweet person who ate sweet things, and he wondered if the latter played a factor. The once player of a guy he was made a turn around for you, clearing his phone, his socials, and only speaking to you unless it was for work or family. He needed you, he yearned for your nectar, your voice as sweet as honey, drizzling onto him, making him sticky with your love.

And when he tasted you for the first time, god, he became an addict. A mad man that would die without the taste of you. He'd wake you up with his tongue, pressing your hips into the bed as he made you feel good, to taste your sugar while listening to the sweet noises you made. He left love bites all over you, you sweet skin tasting delicious on his tongue as he licked, nipped, and kissed you.

Everything about you was sweet, a once in a lifetime delicacy that he stumbled upon. He told you this, and your eyes burned with hot tears as he kissed you deeply.

He gave you his all, everything he had, his past, present, and future. And you gave it back with the same intensity.

You were his sweets, and he'd remind you of that as long as he lived and breathed.

Jake Seresin has my heart, body, and soul!!!!! Anyway I hope you enjoyed this I know it's short and probably not that great but. Have an amazing day and if you want me to write anything just lmk!! This is also not proofread so um... sorry for mistakes!!!

#jake seresin #jake seresin x you #jake seresin x reader #hangman seresin x reader #hangman x you #hangman top gun #hangman x reader #hangman fanfiction #jake hangman seresin #top gun hangman #hangman seresin #hangman #fanfic #top gun maverick #top gun fic

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ssruis · 3 months ago

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i like youre posts, thoughts on ruinene ?

As a romantic dynamic: I don’t really think abt them that way�� it’s the unrepentant emunene/ruikasa bias. Also a lot of rui & nene’s interactions read as very… sibling-like? To *me*. Personally. I hesitate to say sibling-like, because people get really weird about assigning family dynamics to characters who aren’t related or raised as siblings and have never referred to each other as siblings (“it’s basically incest” no it is not what are you on), but it’s something similar to that imo. Gestures at nene’s new 3rd anniversary 2* card story where Rui is like “I remember when you were reading picture books… and now you’re reading more advanced books… how time flies…” & she’s like “stop treating me like a kid 😑” despite being him being only one year older than her.

I don’t have anything against it (& I think taking shipping fictional characters seriously enough to fight over it is ridiculous), it’s just not for me & I don’t see it romantically. But for the people who do: you do you have fun enjoy yourselves. (I also personally think Rui is gay coded but again. Idc if people disagree it doesn’t affect me I’m glad they’re having fun. Also that’s a hot button topic & I don’t want the people who do take this shit too seriously to hunt me down with pitchforks and torches please go outside it’s not that deep.)

As a platonic dynamic/going off what’s in canon: I’m so obsessed with them (as I am with all wxs dynamics). They’re so fascinating to me. They make me so sad. Another reason I hate the “they’re siblings” thing is it feels like a boring restrictive box people want to shove their dynamic into that does a disservice to how interesting it is. It waters it down.

Nene was the only person Rui really had as a friend when he was a kid, and the only person who trusted in him and his ideas. They grew their love for theatre together. At some point they grew distant - we don’t know why, but my personal take on it is this:

1. Rui slowly growing to think he would never find anyone who got him after experiencing rejection after rejection, and pushing Nene away. A combination of “I need to leave her before she leaves me, this way it will hurt less because it’s My Choice”, “I shouldn’t inflict myself upon other people it’s better for everyone if I stay by myself”, and “Nene has her own friends now I would just be dragging her down.”

2. Nene having her own friends (new troupe) and slowly pulling back - or, at least, not actively trying to prevent him pushing her away. “I don’t want to experience the same social rejection, and I don’t know how to help Rui, there’s nothing I can do.” Nene, especially in the early days, has never been very assertive, and I don’t think favoring blending into the background over standing out (in a potentially embarrassing way) due to Rui’s stunts and ideas would be out of character for her.

3. I don’t think they went to the same middle school/junior high (I could be wrong) (did they even go to the same elementary school?) which meant they didn’t spend time together without one of them reaching out, which became increasingly rare.

I don’t think either of them are to blame. Or they share equal blame, depending on how you look at it. I see people placing more of the blame on Nene though, which is… Nene get behind me. Leave her alone. If you held my prsk account at gunpoint and said “ok but seriously who is more to blame for the relationship breakdown you have choose or your 4*s are gone forever” I would say Rui. Wouldn’t even have to think about it. Given his abandonment issues/avoidant tendencies/habit of pushing others away/pre main story mindset, it’s what makes the most sense.

They don’t really reconnect until the main story, and even then I wholeheartedly believe Rui was less interested in reconnecting than he was interested in getting Nene to perform again. He accepts Tsukasa’s invitation to WxS under the condition that he gets to bring in a fourth member and then immediately tries to leave the second Tsukasa is like “I don’t want to die wtf.” like he doesn’t even try that hard to convince him he just goes “ok bye have fun nene :).”

Rui builds Nene a robot so she can perform again which - I’ve talked about it before briefly, I need to talk about it at length at some point, but while that’s very sweet it’s also… not helpful. Not in the long run, at least. It wasn’t a *bad* thing, it was just the only solution he was capable of offering. It was a bandaid over a gaping wound situation - Nene couldn’t hide behind a robot forever. Rui couldn’t always be there to fix nenerobo, she couldn’t pursue performing seriously behind a robot, and she *wanted* to be on stage again. What Nene needed was the courage to get on stage again, and Rui didn’t have the skill set to help with that, because it was something Nene needed to find on her own (with support).

The thing about them in the early days is they both enabled each other to stagnate in situations they weren’t happy with. Maybe more so Rui than Nene, in that he literally built he a robot to allow her to avoid confronting her anxiety around performing, but Nene also lacked the ability to challenge or discourage Rui’s “I’m better off on my own” mindset. The tragic consequences of two people who lack social skills (one of which has pretty severe social anxiety) trying to help each other. Nothing really gets done.

(As an aside: this is why the emu+nene and tsukasa+rui dynamics are so crucial. Yes even outside of a ship dynamic I promise I’m accounting for my own bias. Emu+tsukasa did actually have the ability to encourage nene+rui to come out of their shells - Emu is Nene’s no.1 hype man and always encourages her in everything she does and pushes her outside her comfort zone socially. Nene doesn’t have to guess at what Emu is thinking & get caught up in the weeds of anxiety bc Emu will just tell her outright. Rui credits Tsukasa specifically with giving him the chance to change for a reason, and Mizuki/pandemonium NPCs point out that Rui has seemed so much happier and less closed off since becoming Tsukasa’s friend. Pointing @ the thing Rui’s CV said about as you like it.)

There’s still some degree of guilt on Nene’s side wrt being unable to help Rui even now, but that’s lessened over the course of the story. There’s a lot that goes unsaid between them about their shared past, but they also understand each other incredibly well after knowing each other for ~10 years. By virtue of knowing each other forever they’re both well acquainted with how the other’s mind works.

Nene can tell what’s bothering Rui in wonder halloween before even he realizes it, and she understands that he struggles to explain/articulate his feelings and issues in curtain call. Rui is tuned into Nene’s anxiety saw trap of a mind and is well versed in getting her to realize she’s overthinking things (I.e. “why don’t you just ask tsukasa what he did in the acting camp” in her emu3 2* card. I think that’s the right card) as well as getting her to speak up (shutting emu up with a donut in one of the earlier nene card stories so nene has a chance to talk. source here is just trust me I don’t want to hunt the card down).

Nene is always in his corner, and the reverse is true. They want each other to be happy and they’re so so so pleased that the other is doing better now. Nene often points out that Rui seems happier, and Rui is very proud of how far Nene has grown both on the stage and off it. Love their dynamic it’s so good… I care them…

#Ty 4 ask. love to rotate them in my mind.#if you’re wondering why I kept emphasizing the ‘in MY opinion this is just MY take it’s fine to disagree’ it’s bc I know how this fanbase #works. & I am not trying to get burned at the stake bc someone crawling thru the rui+nene tags 2 weeks from now #saw someone they’ve never spoken to say ‘idk it’s just not my thing’ & decided they needed to tear my limbs off like a rabid chimp #insert that one jerma clip where it’s like ‘jerma talks to his audience like they’re a bunch of monkeys who will kill him if he’s not #entertaining enough’ bc that’s exactly how it feels to talk abt pjsk ships in depth.#mine #asks #analysis #rui #nene

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melodygatesauthor · 1 year ago

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Okay guys, I can't believe it's been a full year since I published the first chapter of my first fanfiction story and I'm still going strong today. - (Side note...it was actually yesterday but I wanted to get all my fics posted to AO3 so I could get an accurate word count and tell you all what I've done so...it took me an extra day)

This is going to be a really long post, and I thank everyone in advance for reading all the way through if you make it. I'm taking a moment to allow myself to talk about my accomplishments over the last year, my goals for this next year, and gas myself up just a bit. As an artist, it's really hard to talk about myself in a positive light without being critical, but I'm going to do it anyway. No one asked, but this is one of the ways I wanna celebrate my ficversary so...I'm gonna do it lol.

My First Fanfic Ever

I'd like to start by sharing my beginnings with writing. If I really think back to the very first fanfiction I wrote, I thought it was a Gorillaz fic (which I still have a handwritten copy of in my closet lol), but it wasn't. I think the very first fanfic I wrote technically was a Pirates of the Caribbean fic when I was 11. I didn't even realize that's what it was, I just knew that I was SO into POTC that I wanted to write about it. It had just come out by the way, so I'm really dating myself. This was...2003.

We had this thing we had to do for school, it was like a writing assignment or something, one of those big ones that they gave you, a standardized whatever. I managed to find a way to spin it into a POTC related thing and I went OFF writing this story. It had its own twists and turns unrelated to POTC, but it was a fanfic through and through.

The Beginning of My Fan Art

When I was 12 I started listening to Good Charlotte, to a point that it was my entire personality. Everyone who knew me, knew I loved them. Every fucking art project I had in middle school (7th and 8th grade) was revolved around this band, particularly Joel Madden.

My love for them has come and gone, but I still remember how I felt at the time (not unlike how I feel toward Oscar Isaac now lol). I mean my art teacher literally had to be like "I want you to branch out, you can't make everything about them." And as an adult, I'm wondering -why the fuck not but- ...I digress.

The First Fanfic I Ever "Published"

When I was 12 (or maybe closer to 13), I became OBSESSED with the Gorillaz. When I say obsessed I mean...I listened to the album Demon Days on repeat until it fucking broke. I changed my G's when I would write by hand to match the G in their logo. I made tons of fan art and it was a damn vibe. This was the first time I really discovered fanfiction and learned what it was.

I remember reading one fanfic from some girl on this website (I'm really dating myself here, some of you will know what site this is...) Quizilla. Quizilla was THE site at the time (other than LiveJournal I think, but I never used LiveJournal and didn't know it existed at the time) for fanfiction and what you would now call "buzzfeed quizzes". This girl's writing inspired me to write my own fanfic, which I handwrote and kept in a green folder which, as I said, I still have to this day sitting in my closet.

My very first fic, and yes at 13, included some romance, some non-con (don't fucking ask me why idk even how I knew about that at 13. I was never exposed to this type of thing as a child fortunately) and other nonsense. I published it on this site, and it made me really happy. I don't remember if anyone ever read it or not tbh, but it will forever hold a place in my heart <3

My Best Friend/Emo Era

I met my best friend in high school when I was about 14. She and I are still close to this day. Not as close, but I can still tell her my most unhinged thoughts and she loves me regardless. We met because we both wrote fanfiction and lost our minds over the fact that we did. Thus started my emo era.

She was into My Chemical Romance, and I was into The Used. 2005 was a time lol. The two of us had either a binder or a composition notebook where we'd handwrite our fics and pass them back and forth between classes. I still have the ones I wrote tucked away in my house. When we'd read them she and I would leave little notes in the margins like we all leave comments today.

Most of these fics never got published, they were just for us to enjoy. I did, however, publish a fic when I was about 15, that I wrote to completion. Quizilla ended up going down, and most of us moved to Mibba.com instead, which is still a website.

Edit: I looked at Mibba, and it looks like the website is still there, but you can't search for anything, so Mibba is gone too. Not gonna lie, broke my nostalgic heart just a bit to see...Some fics I wrote on there will be gone forever. Maybe for the best, but it's still kinda sad.

The Avenged Sevenfold Era

When I tell you that Avenged Sevenfold has been my favorite band since I was 15, I'm dead ass. Are they the best band ever? Not by a long shot, but damn the way I still lose my shit over them is unhinged. Anyone who was around during this time fucking knows...they were fucking HOT. Matt Shadows really had the bulky but not shredded body type going on, they all kinda did, and I'm so here for it.

Why I'll never post any of the fics I wrote during this time, even if I get my hands on them...

I wrote them when I was 15, and I was writing about things 15 year olds shouldn't write about.

You don't know cringe until you've read those fics.

It's about real people and I'm not a fan of rpf anymore. I'm all for writing whatever you want and fiction being fiction but there's something that gives me the ick about real people fiction. No offense to anyone who writes it, that's just my feelings.

The way these guys had a hold on me for the next 5 years was ridiculous. I wrote about them a lot, by hand, on my laptop, however I could. I had so many unhinged ideas and stories it's insane. I loved every minute of it, and I always look back on this as my true start into fanfiction.

The End of an Era

All good things come to an end. After graduation, my best friend and I stayed in touch, but grew apart. I went to college and continued writing fanfic. I was pursuing a major in graphic design with a minor in creative writing. I was convinced that even though I was writing fanfiction, I was going to write a book too and it would be a bestseller.

As time went on, probably when I was about 20 or 21, I kinda stopped writing fanfiction all together. My friend wasn't really writing it anymore, and the community around Avenged Sevenfold was slowing down. I was also in the middle of a breakup and it was a whole thing, so I kinda stopped writing around this time.

I'd also, unfortunately, felt like fanfiction was for kids/teens, so didn't feel the need to continue writing anymore. I didn't want to seem like a loser writing fanfiction in my twenties...so I didn't.

For the record, you're not a loser for writing fanfiction. It's a very valid artform and it's fun. We only live for so long, so enjoy it doing what makes you happy, period. I'll probably be writing in my 50s I fucking hope lol.

Anyway, at that time, that's how I felt. I now know it's bullshit to think that way. So fanfiction fizzled out for me, and I kinda moved on to other things.

My Not-fanfiction Era

What was I doing instead of writing? Going through an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship, working on trying to build what I thought was the 'dream' (marriage, kids, a house, e.t.c.), working and playing video games.

Fortunately that relationship ended. After years of therapy (which he told me I needed because he gaslit me into thinking I was crazy lol), I grew the balls to finally tell him to fuck off and leave. It was the best decision I ever made, especially considering this was JUST before COVID hit. I shudder to this day thinking about the fact that I was almost stuck in a house with that freak during lockdown.

When that relationship ended I moved back to Maine to be with my family. I missed them and had spent basically my entire 20s in another state with some loser.

Back to Fanfiction - Kylo Ren Era

So how did I get back here? How did I get back into writing and creating fan art? The truth is, a switch literally flipped in my brain over this guy right here...

I mean...

The funny thing is, I wasn't SUPER into Star Wars before this. I liked it, I'd seen the sequel trilogy in theaters, but to me it was just a movie series. I was literally watching a Sam Collins video on YouTube where he made fun of a Kylo Ren cosplayer's thirst trap on TikTok and was like...oh that's actually kinda hot.

Thought nothing of it though, just moved on with my day...until I dreamt about him too. And then I felt this spark inside me that I couldn't shake. I literally was like...👀 something is happening here.

So I remembered this feeling from when I was a teen and recognized the impending obsession immediately. I actually googled "is fanfiction still relevant" and "is it ok to write fanfiction as an adult?"

The short answers are - yes - and - of course it is -. This was how I discovered the VERY popular Kylo Ren fic Fix Your Attitude by Kassanovella. I read it in a matter of a week, and in that time I started writing my own fic. I also rewatched ALL the Star Wars movies, and then continued rewatching the sequel trilogy on repeat just so I could get Kylo Ren's character down. I wanted to make sure I captured his voice and personality perfectly. - When I say I watched the sequel trilogy 20 times, it's not an exaggeration, I had it on constantly.-

The fic I wrote was called, Yes, Master

The first chapter of that fic was published on 09/05/2022 (one year ago today), and the last chapter was published on 10/14/2022 with a word count of 100,701. Not only is it the longest fic I've written of all the fics I've done, but it's the one I wrote the fastest. I was posting a chapter a day every day until it was finished. I mean...I literally went OFF on this story. I was so proud of it that I went to lulu.com and made myself a physical copy of it that I intend to read as part of this celebration I'm doing lol.

Wondering if anyone would be interested in me revamping this story (rewriting and updating it) and posting here? I would definitely do it if there was enough interest.

I then wrote a sequel called By Your Side which taught me SO MUCH. Here's what I learned when creating this sequel...

Not everything needs a sequel.

Writing a chapter a day isn't realistic.

I should've planned a full outline before diving into this fic.

I'm not into pregnancy fics/domestic fics all that much as far as longfics go.

It's okay to genuinely dislike something you've written and you should try to learn from that.

By Your Side is still to this day one of my least favorite fics (if not my LEAST favorite). I am still proud of myself for finishing it, (it sits at a hefty 85,599 words). I don't have to love it though. I'm just grateful for what I learned in the process of writing it and proud of myself for finishing it despite being sick of it by chapter 8 and still writing 20 chapters after that.

I also wrote my very first Yandere fic, Just You. It's a bit darker, in my opinion, than The Fractured Moon. This fic was a blast to write, and it felt very freeing to write something so disturbing. It was fun to just let myself get into a dark headspace without holding back and not feeling bad about it. It was more

The Rainbow Six Siege Era

During my time writing for Kylo, I went back to a video game I used to play a lot, Rainbow Six Siege. My Oscar Era bleeds into the Kylo and R6S era a little but I'll talk about that soon.

The Siege fandom was an interesting one...one that I'll probably not go back to much, though I may still write a little fic for it here and there as I feel inspired to. I won't dive too much into this as I know most of you are Oscar fans, but I'll mention my accomplishments here and the things I learned.

I wrote another novel-length fic for this fandom called The Recruit and the Hunter which has another 83,888 words. I actually LOVE this story, and still look back on it fondly. It was a fun one to write, and I really challenged myself to write less smut for it, and I succeeded. It focused heavily on the relationship that built between the main pairing and in my opinion it's one of my better slow-burns I've done.

Why did I leave this fandom?

Well, I'm not going to throw shade, I don't like doing that unless I have to, so I'll keep it brief. The long and the short of it is this...

The readers were getting EXTREMELY demanding. I have comments on RATH of people saying things like "I'm going to be upset if you don't give us a happy ending" and "there better be smut or I swear...". It can get really discouraging as a writer when people seem to say "I love your fic but I'll only continue to love it if you do xyz." It puts us in a dilemma, and makes it hard for us to find a balance between providing fan service, and doing what's fun for us to write. It definitely changed the outcome of RATH and I'm not happy that I gave in like that.

The requests I got were confusing and downright weird. I didn't do some of the really weird ones, and I'm not meaning to kink shame, but it was just very niche things that I couldn't get myself into. I think part of why I felt obligated to provide fan service like I mentioned in the point above, and why I caved and wrote some fanfics for these more unique requests, is because this fandom is very small, and I felt an obligation to provide.

Some of the other writers in the fandom are fucking rude. I'm not going to mention names, like I said, but I had very poor experiences with several writers in the fandom, and since I was also integrating into the Oscar fandom at the time, I could see a stark difference in the way I was being accepted in one, versus the way I was being pushed away in the other. There aren't a lot of x reader writers in the R6S fandom, and I was one of them, and there seems to be some animosity between the people who ship characters, versus the people who write x reader and that's where this mistreatment came from. I don't know, I tried making friends over there, and felt like I was getting pushed out.

So anyway, it's not for me anymore, but I still think back to certain parts of it fondly, and I may write a little more here and there as I see fit.

The Oscar Isaac Era

This really is THE era, isn't it?

As I was working on the last 10 or so chapters of Yes, Master, and after my 12th time rewatching the sequel trilogy movies, I started to fall for Poe Dameron, naturally. How could I not? I mean look at him...

So I decided that I would give Poe a prequel to my Yes, Master story called One Hell of a Pilot. This fic was so fun to write, and it's how I became involved with the Oscar Isaac community in the first place. Immediately I started following Dee, and through her I found Mona, and it was just snowballing from there. Whitney and Romana were some of the first to follow me and my shenanigans.

In December, which is when I started writing One Hell of a Pilot, another novel-length fic that ended with 80,517 words, is when I started reading Dee's fics, along with Mona's and many others. I saw their interactions and felt excited by the prospect of making new friends who were just as into some of this stuff as I was. A place that I could be myself and lose my shit over this idiot and not be judged.

I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into.

It all started with a fic that Dee had written, I can't remember which one, probably a dbf!Santi fic, and I asked the innocent question of...

What movie is this from?

Oh shit...I didn't realize what the fuck I was getting myself into. After she told me it was Triple Frontier and I should watch it, my brother and I watched it right away. I told him a friend of mine suggested it. The way we spent the entire 1.5 hours laughing at how bad it was is still a memory I hold dear to my heart. I still didn't know at the time that this loser (Oscar my beloved) would hold a place in my heart from that day on.

My first Santi fic was a headcanon about Santi w/ a plussize reader that I called Preciously Plump. A headcanon that later got a full fic, appropriately named Preciously Plump the One-shot.

So then I read something about Moon Knight, and between Dee and Mona shoving me into it (peer pressure ftw) I caved and watched the show.

Phew...

That gave way to the first Moon Knight fic I ever wrote, How Unexpected which came out on January 3rd, 2023 of this year. I was sure that between Steven's adorable nerdy behavior, and Marc's tough exterior, I'd be head over heels for those two. I was nervous to even TOUCH Jake, because I didn't know shit about his character, and the last thing I wanted to do was write a character without it sounding like them.

I was also afraid at the time of writing the Moon Boys with DID because I didn't know anything about it, and I didn't want to misrepresent something like that. After some time went by, I got my bearings, and started working on A Bit Dodgy.

ABD is definitely one of the fics I'm most proud of. I had learned a lot from my past fics I'd written, Yes, Master, e.t.c., and figured out what it was that works best when I'm writing to not only keep myself interested, but to create a good balance between smut for smut's sake, and pushing the story forward.

When I first started writing ABD, I was sure it was going to be a 30-40 chapter fic, but as I started writing it more, I realized quickly that a lot of the chapters were just porn. Is there anything wrong with that? No...but as someone who's written nearly a million words in this past year, I don't feel the need to draw my chaptered fics out with smut just to say I wrote something x chapters or x words wrong.

That's why ABD ended up getting cut down SO MUCH from my original plan. I just made some decisions that I felt maximized the story more and used the smut as a major plot device, rather than the fic revolving around smut as the plot...if that makes any sense lol. I'm happy to say, that as of today, A Bit Dodgy has concluded, though it's the only fic I've ever finished with such a heavy heart.

I was an Oscar stan HARD after that, diving into Sucker Punch and other silly little movies filled with that silly little man whom I love so so much.

Statistics

Numbers aren't important when it comes to kudos (AO3) and likes (Tumblr) so I'm not focusing on those. What I am going to focus on...is my personal accomplishments. Like I said, I don't normally toot my own horn, but I fucking wrote A LOT this year, and I'm going to take a minute to pat myself on the back.

So NOT including my random blurbs (since I'm not bothering to cross-post those)...

My total word count from 09/05/2022-09/05/2023 is (drumroll please):

791,829 words

GEE

I had thought I would've hit a million by now but I am NOT going to complain. By the grace of the horny demon that runs the smut factory in my brain, I've written more than I ever even thought possible.

In the Moon Knight fandom alone, I've written:

238,950 words

I think the only fandom I've written more for is Star Wars, but I'd have to add it all up and I'm not doing that rn haha.

Just kidding it's:

368,566 words

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I wrote 6 novel-length fics, a total of 147 works, MK holds the record for most fics I've written at a whopping 82 fics!

----

It's shocking to look back and see what I've accomplished, and to look forward to seeing what else I can do. I know that this next year I won't have the same word count, probably not even close.

I'm focusing a lot on drawing now as well as writing, plus I'm working on my first novel that I'd like to publish so things will definitely be slowing down. I'm going to continue writing, but the speed at which I churn out fics will be slower in the future.

In Conclusion

Thank you all for the support throughout this year. There's no way in HELL I would've had the drive and desire to continue writing if not for the amazing community (most the Oscar Isaac community lol) behind me. It's not just the kudos and the reblogs, it's the people who I've grown to know since joining the world of fandom.

I never had a ton of IRL friends, and I live alone (happily btw) with my dog. Being able to make some friends here that I genuinely call friends, not just people I know online, has meant the world to me. I would list everyone out, but I have a fear of accidentally forgetting to tag someone despite how much they mean to me so I'll leave it at...those people know who they are.

And to my readers (I hesitate to use the word "fans", that makes it sound so conceited), thank you to the moon and back. Without out, I wouldn't have had the drive to keep going. Kudos, Likes and Reblogs aren't everything, I can't stress that enough, but they do help keep the drive alive. (Particularly the comments). Without the little boost of excitement I get when I see that other people are just excited about what I'm doing as I am, I probably would've given up ages ago.

You all are the reason that this was even possible.

With all that being said, I have a small celebration planned that I'll announce later tonight. In the mean time, stay amazing. You keep supporting me, and I'll keep providing the fics that you all love so much

Love, Melly

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giggly-squiggily · 9 months ago

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Hey hey miss girly! Hope all is well!

Do you think you could do the prompt

❤ It's Love: "Hey could You...You Know?" With the pairings of Lee Megumi and Ler Yuji? They are so cute!

Happy Valentine's Day! Stay safe, stay blessed, and stay hydrated 🥰🫶🏾🥤

Ahh, Gladys! :D I'm doing great! I hope things are going well for you too! <3 I love this prompt so much ajrearjkajkrja I haven't written for Megumi and Itadori in a hot minute; this is gonna be great! I've gotcha covered, friend! Happy Valentines day!

It's Love: "Hey could you...you know?"

Megumi wasn’t great with asking for things. If it wasn’t directly related to their various assigned tasks from the school or Gojo- he didn’t bother. Why ask when he can do it himself?

This however was something he needed another person for, much to his embarrassment.

“Itadori, er- I need something.” He was almost mumbling, how low his voice was, but Yuji had ears like a bat. Looking up from his manga, he turned to him with his usual sunny expression. God, why did he have to look so eager?

“What’s up, Gooms?” The nickname shook him out of it. Megumi glared some before opening his mouth to speak.

But all that came out was more stutters.

“Could you…uh, you know…”

Yuji watched him, unfazed at the growing blush spreading across Megumi’s cheeks, or how he seemed to shrink further into his collar with each word. Not a cloud passed over his warm gaze. “You want me to…”

“Do..do the thing.” The last part came out rushed, but it was all Yuji needed to hear.

“You got it, Gooms!” Yuji grinned, all but throwing himself into the other and pinning him to the bed. “What are we feeling? Gentle and slow? Or do you want me to go right for your death spots until you go mute?”

“Good lord- why the two extremes?” Megumi squirmed some beneath the other, feeling more relaxed now that they were on the same page. “I guess somewhere in the middle- but not too harsh, okay?”

“You got it!” Yuji winked before cracking his joints, making a big show out of it.

Then he grabbed Megumi's sides, pressing into his lower set of ribs.

“Ah! Aheahhahaha, Iihihihihitahahdohoohohhoori!” Immediately, Megumi tried to sit up, but Yuji had him pinned properly, giving him just enough room to wiggle. “Gehahahhaha!”

“Hehehe, tickle tickle, Gooms! Just let me know when you’re good, okay?” Yuji grinned as he spread his fingers wide, leaving not one bone untouched as Megumi twisted and tittered beneath him. “Until then, get ready to laugh until you can't no more!”

“Iihiihih’m ahahahahahreahahhahady lauhuhuuhuughing!”

“Great, we’re halfway there!”

Send me a candy heart and I'll write a dabble for it!

#Candy Heart Valentine Event #chve2k24 #tickle #tickle dabble #jjk #yuji itadori #megumi fushiguro #I love them your honor akjerajkrjkajera

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kkbardd · 8 months ago

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hello! i haven’t sent an ask in a while because schoolwork has been piling up infinitely :[ , but your recent posts have been really interesting to me! i really liked the room sketch one, I can’t exactly explain why but there’s something so indescribably human about it. i love spaces that looked lived in, that have personality, and I think that your room (current one? made up? old one?) has done a great job of showing that. and I’m not very good at giving advice— I can hardly follow it myself, but if you don’t know something, don’t know what you want to do, try things. it’s okay if you don’t like them. i recently found out I’m more competent in languages than I thought! i can already read and understand simple sentences in german.

there’s always more to yourself than you’ll know, I think, but the world is kinder than people think. If anything, everyone is still very new at this. we’ve never lived before. do the things you like, branch out, don’t become less of yourself for other people. everything has a place, and my best advice is to treat life as you would a vacation. do all the things you can while you’re here. build a life that makes it worth it. (sorry for the long ask and my rambling, or if this is overstepping in any way. i just read what you wrote and kind of related to it in a way. thank you for continuing to create art, it brings me a lot of joy! :] )

hey isopod!!! thanks for the ask & I wish u good luck with ur school work!

Thank u so much for the compliments, im really glad the vibe of my room was conveyed in those doodles. i absolutely looove drawing my room! It’s extremely small (a renovated utility closet) and just barely fits a bed + my desk but its packed full of the things i love. It’s very lived in and I feel like it reflects my character well.

when i drew that page I was in my senior year of high school and pressures to decide my future were overwhelming. I never thought much about it until then and I didn’t have any idea of what I was going to do. The only thing I felt I had going for me was art but I didn’t want to turn my only hobby into a job I hated. I remember going through a master list of majors on random college websites and one-by-one asking myself if I’d be okay doing it. In the end I had nothing. I was really crushed about it and felt stuck. This was right after the covid quarantine too so focusing in school was difficult & I couldn’t bring myself to apply for scholarships. I started skipping classes, smoking weed, and pushing off my assignments. All of this only made me feel more miserable, of course, so everything seemed pretty bleak at the time.

But luckily I had the support of my family and especially my mother. She would always remind me that “we have option”, “we always have options”. Because I did! This was a fresh start to try my hand at a totally different experience than what I’ve done so far. I ended up choosing my major on a complete whim after hearing my aunt had a job in an adjacent field. I was pretty sure I’d drop out after a semester, yet here I am about to graduate soon & I’m having a ton of fun!! (Hell, I’m 10 hours out in the middle of nowhere right now for my Field Methods class!) It’s not that I had a knack for Geology that I just never tapped into, or that i secretly had a passion for rocks this entire time; I just found something that seemed like an okay fit and grew interest from there. I think that a small level of commitment like that is more than enough to get you going. I had a ton of ideas in my head about how I needed to have a perfect fit major that would connect every dot I’ve laid out in my life thus far, but that’s not true at all. Life is much more messy and unpredictable than that.

But enough of my rambling!! That time of my life may have been stressful but I’m very grateful that I went through it! It changed how I viewed problems and it taught me to always look for other options when everything seems helpless.

Thank u so much for ur encouragement, I really appreciate it <33 I completely agree with everything u said!! Life is an ever changing experience & often leads u in unpredictable directions!

#ask #isopod #I often look back on those sketches (and more that I just haven’t posted)#I find a kind of beauty in it idk how to explain it #teenage angst is just something we all gotta go thru #ranting #we have options

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firealder2005 · 6 months ago

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Things that happened in the past that looking back might be because I am ADHD:

*I would read before class and COMPLETELY zone out. Ears blocked, unaware of time passing, the whole shabang. Missed the first 20 minutes of class a few times.

My English teacher (from the same class as above) straight-up told me that he didn't consider me one of the 'good students' because I read a lot (like. sir. what the fuck. so many things wrong in that statement. why are you teaching kids.)

(i wonder what he would say if i said 'you know when i would read before/in class and completely forget where i was? :) yeah turns out it's because i'm neurodivergent and have the kind where i literally can't turn off my brain and zone out/daydream without realizing it :)) you weren't being helpful when you lectured me all the time :))) )

*Hyperfixated like HELL on astronomy. ONLY astronomy. rest of science could die and i wouldn't have blinked an eye (nevermind astronomy wouldn't exist without other sciences but eh schematics). i was The NERD.

*I was considered The Weird Kid. for the typical stupid middle-school reasons;

Liked to read (gasp! how uncool! until it was suddenly 'cool' in high school)

Was nice to the one teacher everyone else hated for no reason (no wonder i was his favorite smh. the rest showed Zero respect. and he was a really nice and helpful teacher i literally have NO idea why they hated him)

Loner (wonder why that was. 😒)

Into science (how NERDY!)

Likes history (how even NERDIER!)

Actually Liked School when people aren't being shitasses (SUPREME NERD)

(sidenote: the nice teacher i mentioned was my favorite middle school teacher :3 i BEGGED him to give me one of the astronomy chapters for the end of the year assignment and he gave me THE BEST ONE - BLACK HOLES. NEUTRON STARS. GALAXIES. I WAS THRIVING. also he called out mean behavior. which...might be why the rest of the class hated him. mmm...)

*I can focus WHILE listening to music. but ONLY if it's music I chose. If not, I CANNOT DO ANYTHING. i am INCAPABLE of focus without my choice of music if music is playing. I baffled my teachers and parents when I did this.

*Not school related one- Caffeine seems to have little to no effect on me. I'm able to down a can of Coke or Pepsi at 11 PM and have a nice, restful sleep. My family was ALSO baffled by this lol Caffeine CAN wake me up (I've had a can in the morning a few times when we leave early for something or other and suddenly feel Awake) but it also doesn't keep me from falling asleep like I was told all my life (idk if that's an ADHD thing but from what i know caffeine affects the brain and ADHD affects the brain so i always assumed it could be connected to ADHD. don't quote me tho.)

*Needed/Needs brain stimulation to stay on-task. Work goes by SO AGONIZINGLY SLOW without my MP3 player. This is why I'm day-dreaming 24/7. There is ALWAYS something going on in my head. I have a ZILLION wips.

*also music helps my brain sort itself out when it's Full Of Stuff. decompresses and all that.

#alderspeaks #this was mainly me spitballing my 11:07 pm Thoughts #am i alone in this. especially the caffeine thing or is that a fever dream?#adhd #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #neurodiverse stuff #neurodivergence #school stuff #school #middle school #teachers #schools #learning #learning disability

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our-honeybee-transfem-experience · 10 months ago

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Finding out that i can, in fact, be afab and transfem was honestly so freeing. Also realizing that being assigned female at birth isn't really as important as people make it out to be and has no baring on anything besides your physical appearance as an infant.

Like, since middle school and learning that i was trans in some way, i stopped feeling cis at all. Even when my gender feels more fem (demigirl/girlflux/etc, i use a lot of labels, i am a dragon, ), it still felt trans. And I thought that it was because there's still the implication of nonbinary-ism, that i wasn't ever fully a girl, so that’s why it still felt trans.

Until I was fully a girl, in my middle school's graduation/moving to high school "ceremony". I was all girl-ed up in a dress and 1 inch heels, I felt completely 100% girl. And I still felt trans.

I kept this revelation to myself, I was friends with several transfems and transgirls and all were amab, and we talked extensively about gender dysphoria and transness together. One time, we were talking about chest dysphoria, and I was kinda off to the side just listening, and it hit me, I had chest dysphoria. I had binded on and off in middle school because that's just what transmascs do, but it didn't seem to cause any immediate euphoria to have a flat chest. So I stopped, again, making the assumption that my breasts were already small, so I didn't have dysphoria related to them. Until it clicked...I did have dysphoria, and I wasn't dysphoric about them being too prominent. It was the exact opposite.

Again, I kept this to myself. I was afraid of being ostracized by my high school's gsa by being transmasc and wanting a larger chest size. The other transmascs in the club were on T, and some had even had top surgery (i live in a pretty liberal state when it comes to teenage transitions). Why couldn't I just have a normal friggen gender? Eventually, I just stopped. I started using my birthname, she/her pronouns (i had previously been using they/them), and stopped going to gsa meetings. I was confused, afraid, angry, I didn't know what the hell I was or even what it was I wanted.

Until I stumbled upon a few blogs on tumblr which put words and actual labels to the feelings I had since I was 13. I hesitantly started using them again, picking up where I had left off and adding a few new words to my pile. Salmacian and transmascfem. And for the first time in my entire queer life, it felt right. Yeah, I was a transmasc who wanted to keep my vagina alongside acquiring a penis and who wanted a larger breast size and who wanted a thick beard and mustache and a buzzcut dyed 200 different colors because I was transfem too. I could be transfem too. And goddamn is that beautiful.

this is amazing

#afab transfem #afab transfem experiences #positive experiences

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the-grove · 8 months ago

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If we died when we were 11 people would assume I was a shy nervous boy who was socially awkward but excelled in school, who was trying to get his family go to church more often. They would not know that the reason I wanted to go to church was because I thought religion would fix me and remove the "bad thoughts" of me wanting to be a girl. They would not know that I picked that middle school because I wanted to be like my big sister and follow in her footsteps, or how I tried on her school uniform that we both hate because I thought, at least I could be more like her. Unless my brother who caught me wearing her clothes spoke up. But why would he.. wouldnt it be "shameful"... *"Inappropriate"

If I died when I was 15 people would assume I was a strong capable leader, that I might one day join the military. That I enjoyed having my hair cut short, and being in jrotc, and working out in weight lifting classes. Heck some people might think I was a flirt boy who went from one partner to the next... only a hand full will know that a good chunk of my partners broke up with be because we werent manly, they didnt feel like they were dating a boy. They wouldn't know that I joined jrotc because if religion failed to fix me maybe this military related thing would.

If I died when I was 17... people *might* know that I was bigender maybe even that we mainly saw ourselves as a woman if my friends had the confidence to speak the truth I had shared with them, and felt it was ok to tell my parents and family the truth... but it was in 2012 and if my family didnt listen to me...who knows if they would have listened to my friends. They may never know about the dreams I had about a sparkling blue prom dress that glittered like the night sky filled with stars, the way I decided that since it was too late to have that dress... too late to be a girl for a prom the least I could do is be a good date to a friend. They won't know how miserable I was because I smiled to make sure my friends had a good time. How suffocated I felt in a tux.. they might lay my corpse in a simillar suit forever suffocated by the masculinity we were expected to conform to...

If I died at 11, 15, 17.... If I had the courage and the time, I would use the last breaths to speak my truth. But I might not have the courage.... my death might be too swift and all that would be left.. is to hope there is an afterlife.. where our soul was how we felt and not how we looked... and that I could look down and maybe people could see the signs that I hid out of shame, that the few people I knew could say something out of love.

There are many people we may never know the truth about. But if we can't even talk about the posibility... then what hope do they have of being seen. You may say its speculation, its insensitive it's not proper to assume, but people are only put in this position because people already assume that belonging to a binary cisgender concept of assigned gender is the default, is the norm. You assume people wont want to be thought about, people wont want others to find the truth they were too scared to share. There is no moral high ground either way. We can not know, and people mourn in different ways. I'm not saying look into every possible death and try to find the truth of every single soul. But if someone notices signs, is it truly awful to wonder?

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yuqiyu · 2 years ago

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New Girl (Eddie Munson x F!Reader)

♡ CHAPTER 1: New School, New You

Summary: January 1986. You just moved to Hawkins, Indiana, with your family in the middle of your junior year of high school. You don't expect to make friends right away, but what can you do when you are unwillingly ushered into your new school's Satanic club?

Word Count: 1.3k

Tags: no use of y/n, slight angst (in relation to moving)

A/N: For those who followed me from my Guitar Lessons fic, I want to apologize in advance for the change in writing style. I'm trying something new! Hope you like it :)

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

Hawkins, Indiana is a little town tucked away in the suburbs. It’s smaller than what you’re used to, and the foreign smell pierces through your nose. It’s a far cry from the comforting aroma of your hometown. There’s no sweet scent of the sticky, melted ice cream on the benches outside the parlor you’d pass by every so often. No sign of the mustiness that would hang around the abandoned buildings off of the corner of your house. You almost don’t even remember what it feels like anymore.

When you enter your new home, the floorboards creak with each step of your converse. The laces glide against the wood; the soles leaving a trail of soil from the unpaved road.

The blank white walls are accented with brown chair rails covering the perimeter of the living room. Soft sunlight beams through one of the open windows. You peer outside, head craning towards the half-overcast sky. The universe doesn’t mock you today. Instead, it empathizes with you.

An arm wraps around your shoulder and squeezes you in close. “It might not feel like it now, but we can turn this into our home.” You breathe in the familiar warmth of your mother.

“I miss them.”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

You wonder if she’s really that sorry. But you remember—she had to say goodbye to her family and friends, too. It’s no one’s fault that your father received a promotion under the condition that he moves with the company. There was no way to convince him to stay; he’d argue that the new paychecks could give everyone a more comfortable life and afford new luxuries, even.

You were happy without new luxuries, though. Everything in your life was a fixer-upper, but that was all you ever needed.

So you conclude that she is sorry, to an extent at least. Because the possibility that she understood how you feel and could still easily take everything away without remorse feels much worse.

The warmth disappears as quickly as it came. You’re left with stacks of cardboard boxes filled to the brim with little trinkets and birthday cards, along with the labor of pushing them to your newly assigned bedroom.

The air is suffocating. It swallows you whole and each stride echoes, bouncing off the walls in an infinite loop. The color is perfect; it’s the same shade you were used to waking up to every morning. But there are no old paint cracks running along the windowsills. There isn’t a thin layer of dust covering it, and the windows aren’t stained by the changing seasons.

You want to hold onto your childhood so badly that it haunts you.

Life has a funny way of keeping track of memories. It reminds you through the small gifts friends give in passing, the way you feel looking at the ticket stub of your very first concert, and the scar you got from a fall once.

Even when you don’t want to remember, because it hurts so bad, you do. You carry the memories of your loved ones from back home with you, secretly hidden away in a safe compartment in your mind.

They stalk you as you unload the boxes. A picture frame with all of your friends, a friendship bracelet, a diary in which only one page was scribbled in, a handful of scrunchies.

You find your backpack crushed under some books. There are a handful of tiny rips and patches from when you tried sewing them back anew. Pencils and sticky notes are squashed in the smaller pocket. Worksheets, from the few days before you left, are scattered haphazardly within your notebook, half-finished.

You had landed in the eye of the storm, halfway through the semester of junior year. Time stops for no one, and you curse it for that very reason.

They say high school is the best four years of your life. In the three and a half years you were there, imagining a worse place was unfathomable.

You had watched kids being thrown against lockers, boys snaking a hand down girls’ collars, and favoritism, all of which could happen on the same day. You’d lost count of how many times your friends had come crying, searching for sympathy and comfort.

Most importantly of all, you had seen what they do to new kids. Would Hawkins be so different?

You dread lunch the most. Your lost gaze and trembling legs turn you into a walking target. You recall some of the worst ways to be tortured by a senior, then think about the way a poor boy had pleaded with you through his eyes to help, to call for help, or anything at all. But you had stayed motionless, trapped by the unshakable fear of being next.

You realize this must be your punishment.

Yet, when you slowly walk through the aisles of the cafeteria, no one so much as bats an eye at you.

Every single table is conveniently filled with their respective groups. It isn’t as cliché as the way they make it seem to be in movies, but the differences in fashion and personalities among each are enough to be discernible.

When you reach the end of one row, you stand face-to-face with a boy proudly donning a shirt that read HELLFIRE CLUB. He’s small; his brown curly locks are squashed by his baseball cap as he awkwardly moves to the side and sits down next to his friends.

The rest of the group, when huddling closely and laughing so hysterically, look like a strange assortment of candy tossed sloppily in a trick-or-treat bag. It’s almost endearing, watching the way their uniforms wrinkle as they carefully listen to who you assume to be their ringleader.

Today, you decide, is a good day to not eat in a random corner, on the floor, of the cafeteria.

You spot an open seat—two, actually, facing each other.

They fall quiet.

Their leader looks at you curiously, tilting his head ever so subtly to the side as he looks you up and down. “Hi there.”

He smiles, though his eyes ponder: Who are you, and why are you here?

“I—uh, I was wondering…”

He arches a brow.

Even though he’s standing a couple of feet away, his menacing height gives the illusion that he’s towering over you. His presence is strong and alluring. His gaze penetrates through your skin like a freshly sharpened spear. He knows how to command a room.

The fear returns tenfold, and you wonder if you had made the mistake of asking the king of bullies. Your eyes dart back to the seats and quickly change your mind.

He notices, and there’s now a crooked grin plastered on his face. New prey.

You begin to shake your head and back away, maybe drop a few apologies, and hope he spares you. But he puts a hand up, gesturing for you to come closer.

“Don’t be shy.”

You think about making a run for it. How fast you could go, how far your ripped shoes could take you—before he eventually finds you in this tiny school. It would only be stalling the inevitable.

Your feet drag against the ground slowly, and you swear they can hear the sound of your heart beating over the little squeaks your sneakers make.

You finally stand before him, shoulders tense and white-knuckling the lunch tray. You expect a spit in the face, a kick to your shins, or if you’re lucky, some insults about your unbrushed hair or puffy eyes.

Instead, he looks over to one of the kids and politely asks them to move down. They begin to protest, but it’s stopped with just a single look.

You are sure now, that this is how you caused the beginning of your downfall for the rest of your high school career.

#stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x reader

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orangeinecstasy · 1 year ago

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creative writing ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟelijah hewson

paring: eli x fem!oc

summary: meeting eli in s creative writing class.

a/n: wanted to experiment with writing something from the guy's povs so here we go! lmk if you guys would want a part two for this or maybe other stuff from the guy's povs.

wc: 3.8 k

*reblogs, notes, and feedback are greatly appreciated!!

"What do you have for your last class again?" Robert said, leaning against the lockers as I shut my own. I look down at my schedule, eyes scanning it.

"Uhh, creative writing with Mr. Smith," I push a hand through my hair, a nervous habit I had picked up in the past few months.

"Good luck with that one, lad. I heard he's a real dick," he patted my shoulder gently as we made our way down the crowded hall. Sighing, I glance down at my schedule again, trying to pretend I was happy with my class pick.

"I just need this year to be fucking over so that I don't have to worry about this shit anymore," I shove my schedule into one of my notebooks, hoping that it'll magically change as it's pressed between my physics notes. I glance down at my watch. "Shit, I'm going to be late. I'll see you a practice today," I said before spilling off from Robert.

"Good luck!" He yells as I sprint down the hallway, entering the class just before the bell rings.

"Good timing, Mr. Hewson," Mr. Smith, a man in his late forties wearing a tweed blazer and glasses that are slightly too small for his face, says as he stands behind the podium in the middle of the room. I flash him an awkward smile before looking around the room and finding an empty seat next to the windows overlooking the courtyard.

The bell rang, signaling the start of class. Mr. Smith cleared his throat as he straightened his posture. "Good afternoon, everyone. As most of you know, I'm Mr. Smith. Welcome to your senior writing sem-" His words were cut off by a knock at the door. He looked over, slightly annoyed to be interrupted to see the headmaster with a girl my age, with brown curly hair and the same blue uniform that all the other girls wore, standing next to him.

"Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Smith. This is Clara Anderson. She's new to our school," He said, resting his hand on her shoulder, I'm guessing to comfort her. "That's fine," he said, looking over his glasses at her. "You can sit next to Elijah Hewson. Mr. Hewson, please raise your hand," I did as told, my eye's following her as she sat down next to me.

"Hi," she whispered with a small smile, the American accent surprising me slightly. "Hey," I said, returning the smile as Mr. Smith started rambling again.

I look out the window, mindlessly watching the rain fall as I sit in Mr. Smith's class again. We had been in school for a few months, and the class hadn't become more enjoyable. The only thing that made the class even somewhat bearable was Clara. Though we didn't talk a ton, it was nice when we chatted occasionally.

I discovered that her parents had moved here from America because her Dad did something with international relations, and she had a younger brother named Jonah. We talked about music some, and I told her about the band that I was in. Yeah, I was trying to impress her, but who wouldn't when you're talking to a beautiful girl. I was snapped out of my daydreaming by hearing my name being called.

"Huh, yeah?" I said, eyes quickly flashing from the window to Mr. Smith.

"Are you ready to present your poetry assignment?" he said clearly unamused, eyebrow cocked as he and the rest of the room looked over at me.

"Uhh..." I stammered, knowing that I had totally forgotten about the assignment.

"Do you mind if I present Mr. Smith?" Clara said, in the mists of unpreparedness.

He rolled his eyes. "If you must," He said, moving away from the podium so she could present.

She grabbed her notebook and walked to the podium. Her curls fell over her shoulder as she flipped her notebook open, hands gripping it nervously. "This one is called Summer," she quickly pushed her hair behind her shoulder before starting to read.

Everyone always told me that summer love never lasts

But my heart yearned

It craved that feeling

So I didn't listen

Then I met you

Bright smile, blond hair, eyes that crinkled when you laugh

So I gave in

But now

As the weather grows colder

Blossoming falling

Leaves changing

I can feel your hands grow cold as I grip them tighter

Trying to hold onto something

Trying to hold onto you

But then you pulled away

Leaving me surrounded by the falling leaves

As I wished that I could just go back to that summer

She paused for a moment after reading her pome before shutting her notebook. "Thank you," she smiled gently, the class clapping loudly as she returned to her seat beside me.

"You really saved my ass. Thank you," I whispered, leaning over so she could hear me clearly. "Yeah, it's no problem," she smiled, her cheeks pricking with a slight blush. I nod, smiling.

The bell chimed, causing everyone to gather their stuff and leave the classroom, excited to go home and experience the weekend. "Hey, Clara!" I yelled, causing the girl to stop in the middle of the hallway.

"Yeah?" she said as I caught up, fingers running through my hair. "Are you doing anything tonight?" I asked.

"Hmm, I don't think so. Why?" she asked as we stared down the hallway together.

"Well, you know that band I'm in? We're playing a show at one of my friend's parties, and I was wondering if you wanted to come?" I said, messing. With the rings of one of the notebooks I was carrying.

"Yeah, I'd be down," she smiled, nodding. "Here, just text me the details," she grabbed the pen clipped to one of her notebooks, grabbed my hand, and wrote down her number.

"I'll see ya tonight," she said with a slight wave before walking off.

"Yeah, see you then," I said quickly before staring down at my hand where she had written.

"Eli, you haven't stopped checking your phone for the last thirty minutes. So what is going on?" Rob said as he sat on the couch next to me.

"Sorry, I guess I'm just kind of out of it," I shove my phone back into my pocket, leaning into the plush leather couch.

"It's probably that American girl, Clara, or whatever her name is," Ryan said as he walked into the room, cracking open a can of soda.

"Oooh, do you have a thing for her now or something?" Rob said with a smirk, nudging me with his elbow. My hands ran over my face, causing the sigh that escaped through my lips to be slightly muffled.

"I don't know. She might be coming to the show tonight, but she hasn't texted me back, and I'm just ugh," I huff, rubbing my hands on my jeans.

"I'm sure she's just busy. I wouldn't worry about it," Josh said as he kicked his feet up on the coffee table. He was always so positive, and usually, it was nice, but this time it was slightly annoying.

"Yeah, yeah," I said before feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket. Quickly, I pull my phone out of my pocket, and a text notification from Clara appears on my screen.

Thanks! Can't wait to see you play tonight. Tell the guys good luck for me :)

I smiled down at my phone as my fingers moved across the keys, responding with a simple, Will do

"Was that her?" Robert said, leaning over to look at my phone. I nod, a bright smile on my face. "She's coming, lads. We need to perform better than we ever have." The guys cheered, Ryan and Josh crashing their soda cans together in celebration.

The music from the speakers caused the floor underneath me to vibrate as I pushed through the crowd to get to the drinks. As I made my way over, I saw Clara, out of that familiar blue uniform and instead in blue jeans and a white off-the-shoulder top that exposed her collarbones.

"Hey, Clara," I said as I pulled a Heineken from one of the coolers. "Hey!" she smiled, using a bottle opener to remove the cap. "Enjoying the party?" I said, reaching into the cooler to grab my own beer, the cool green bottle pressing against my skin. She shrugs,

"Yeah, I'm here with some friends, so that's nice." She sips her drink. "When do you go on?" she hands me the bottle cap opener. "In a couple of minutes. I'm kind of nervous," I chuckle weakly, opening my beer and taking a swig. She touched my shoulder gently, that beautiful smile still on her lips.

"You're going to do great," she said before looking past me momentarily. "Shit, my friends are calling me. I promise I'll be watching. Good luck," she squeezes my shoulder, kissing my cheek softly before walking back into the crowd. I turned to watch her as she walked away, my heart skipping a beat as my hand reached up to touch my cheek.

I shake my head slightly, pushing through the crowd again to find the lads. "Eli, there you are. Fuck. We're on in two minutes," Ryan said, fiddling with the drumsticks.

"Sorry, I was just getting a drink," I hold up the Heineken, taking a long swig before setting it down on some random table. I wipe the sweat from the bottle on my jeans before slipping my guitar strap over my shoulders.

"Hey guys, you ready?" Jack, our friend hosting the party, said. "Yep," I said, grabbing a guitar pick from my pocket.

Jack steps onto the makeshift stage, tapping the mike gently to see if it was turned on. "Hey everyone, how are we feeling tonight?" The crowd cheered in response, some people lifting their drinks into the air. "That's what I'm talking about! Now, I'd like to introduce you to my good friends. Please give a big round of applause for Inhaler!" He steps away from the mike, clapping as the lads and I walk on stage.

"Thanks, Jack," I say, plugging the amp into my guitar. "Hey guys, we're Inhaler. This song is called I Want You. Hope you enjoy," I strum the guitar, ensuring it is still in tune before looking over at Robert and Josh, both nodding that they're ready. I take a deep breath, looking out into the crowd and seeing Clara beautiful as ever. She gives me a small wave and a smile that I return before starting the set.

Once our set was finished, the crowd erupted in cheers. "Thanks, everybody. Enjoy the rest of the party," I unplug the amp from my guitar, giving the crowd a small wave before leaving the stage. "That was fucking amazing! They loved us!" Robert said, wrapping his arm around Josh's shoulder, a goofy grin on his face.

"Yeah, great job, guys," I smile, setting my guitar back into its case. My hands push through my hair as my eyes scan the crowd, quickly finding Clara. "I'll catch up with you guys later," I move past Rob and into the crowd.

"You were fucking amazing!" Clara yelled over the music. "Thanks! I'm going out for a smoke. Want to come?" I leaned down, hoping it would allow her to hear me clearly. She nods. "Yeah, sure!" I take her hand, allowing us to wave through people so as not to get separated.

I take a deep breath as we set out into the night's cool air, the deck empty as I lean against its railing, quickly lighting a cigarette. "She's so beautiful," Clara said, looking at the sky. The bright moon cast light onto her skin, giving it a soft glow. "Yeah, she is," my eyes didn't leave her.

"Did you write that first song you played?" She turned to me, leaning slightly against the deck's railing. "Yeah, the lads and I write everything together," I take a long drag from the cigarette.

"Want a drag?" I say, holding it out to her. "Fuck it," she shrugs, inhaling deeply, causing her to cough as the smoke leaves her lips. I laugh, taking the cigarette back. "First time?" she nods, her coughing slowly subduing.

"Yeah, it's kinda taboo in America," she fiddles with her beer bottle, a phone chiming and cutting through the silence. Clara pulled her phone out of her pocket, reading something on her screen.

"Shit, I've got to head home. I really enjoyed tonight. Thanks for inviting me," she smiled gently. "I can drive you home if you'd like," I said, stubbing out my cigarette. "That'd actually be super helpful," she slipped her phone back into her pocket. "It's just out front," I motioned towards the driveway.

The car's top was down, and the cold night air pushed into the car. Clara's eyes were again fixed on the starlit sky above as we drove through the dark countryside, slowly returning to the city. It was quiet the whole ride, but it wasn't awkward. There was something almost comforting about just being with her. I parked in her driveway, shutting off the car.

"Thanks for the ride," her hand ran through her windswept hair, trying to push it back into its regular position.

"It's no problem at all," I smile, focusing, moving from her eyes to her lips, then back again. The space between them got smaller as she leaned in. I sucked in a breath as her eyes moved to my lips before looking at me. I leaned in, kissing her gently. She smiled into the kiss, soft lips melting into mine. I blushed as she pulled away, a small laugh leaving her lips.

"I'll see you on Monday," she said as she exited the car.

"See you" I responded faintly.

I waited in the noisy airport, families, school groups, and corporate workers passing me as I stood outside the arrivals gate. Clara was finally coming back from America after visiting her family.

Even after her family had moved back, she decided to stay in Ireland and attend university here. Though I told her I would support her no matter what, I was happy that she decided to stay. But that was a couple of years ago now that she was about to graduate from university.

"Where is she?" I mumble, looking down at my phone to make sure I had the right gate. "ELIJAH!!!" I heard a familiar voice scream. Looking up, I see Clara running towards me. I wrap my arms around her tightly as she reaches me, picking her up and spinning her around.

"I missed you," I say as her sweet scent consumes me. "I missed you too! Ugh, it's so great to be back. You don't understand. Well, I guess you kinda do now. Don't ya, rockstar?" she nudges me gently, causing me to laugh as I take her suitcase.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I shrug, the two of us making our way out of the airport, Clara talking about all the family drama she found out when she was back in the States.

"Surprise!" the lads and some of our other friends said as Clara entered my apartment, setting off party poppers that scattered confetti into the air. "Awe, guys, you're so sweet," Clara says, her face bright with happiness.

"I missed you so much, lovey," Lizzy, Clara's best friend, says as she hugs her tightly. "I missed you too," she hugged, greeting everyone else before settling on the couch beside Ryan. "I'm fucking exhausted, guys," she sighed, leaning back into the couch.

"That's a shame. I guess you won't want to go to the party tonight," Robert says, knowing that it would only push her to go. "Rob, seriously," I say, slightly annoyed.

"Party?" Clara perked up, her eyebrow raising. "I can always go to a party," Rob looked over at me, a pleased smile on his face. "See Eli, she wants to go!" he motions in her direction, his smile growing. I clear my throat, clasping my hands together.

"One of our friends is throwing a party tonight. I wasn't going to tell you because I knew you'd just be back, But Robert," I look over at him, jaw clenching slightly, "has now broken the news," his arm wraps around my shoulder, pulling me into him.

"Oh, come on, Eli. She's an adult. She can make her own decisions. Can't you, Clara?"

She laughs, nodding, "Of course, I can."

"Clara, you ready?" I say as I slip on my shoes, glancing in the mirror to ensure I look decent. "Yeah!" she says as she walks into the living room, her more casual airport outfit replaced by a black mini skirt and a small graphic t-shirt. "Is this okay?" she did a little spin, allowing me to take in all of her. I swallow hard before responding. "Yeah, you look great," I smile.

The party was already crowded by the time we got there, pushing our way into the apartment. "I'm going to go get a drink," Clara yelled over the music. I nodded in response before she walked into the crowd. I wandered around momentarily until I finally found Ryan and Josh sitting on a couch, smoking a joint.

"Hey, lads," I settle myself on the armrest of the couch. "Want some?" Ryan holds out the joint to me, smoke slipping from his lips. I shake my head, "I'm good," he nods, handing it back to Josh.

"How are you feeling? Still going to tell her?"

I shrug, fiddling with one of the rings. "I don't know. I just don't want to fuck our friendship up," I sign, hand brushing through my hair.

"If you don't do it not, you'll never do it," Josh said, taking the puff of the joint as its light fizzled out between his fingers.

"We'll just see what happens."

Clara appeared from the crowd, making her way in our direction. "Hey guys!" her smile was brighter than usual. "Eli," she says, handing a beer out to me. "Thanks," she hums, sipping her beer as I grab mine from her hand.

"I missed this. I missed you guys. You don't know how fucking happy I am to be back," a small laugh followed her words, the dim lighting casting beautiful shadows across her face.

"We're happy to have you back. Especially this one," Ryan says, hand coming down hard on my thigh. I could feel the heat creep up in my face.

"What can I say? I'm enchanting," she flipped her hair jokingly. Even though she was joking, it was true.

We talked for a little longer until the song changed to Lets Go To Bed by The Cure, causing Clara's eyes to light up. "OH MY GOD, I FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG!" she set her beer down on the table next to me. "Eli, come on, you have to dance with me!"

I shake my head smiling. "I'm good. You have fun, though," I say, gesturing to the crowd of people dancing. "Boring," she rolled her eyes playfully, smile still on her lips before going out to dance.

I take a long drink from my beer before standing and telling the guys I am going out for a smoke. I stepped outside into the cold night, watching the cars below pass as I lit my cigarette. I was getting in my head too much. I just had to do it. I had to tell her, but something was holding me back. I take a long drag from a cigarette, holding the smoke in my lungs until it burns slightly, then letting it drift from my lips.

God, you're such a fucking pussy, Elijah. You could have any girl you wanted in the tenth of a second, but you're too scared to ask the girl you've been in love with for years? Fuck this. I take another long drag from the cigarette before stubbing it out on the metal railing, walking back into the apartment, determined to confess my feelings to Clara finally.

I move through the crow of people, eyes moving along people's faces as I try to find her. Finally, I spot her in the corner of the room, another beer in her hand, as some guy leans down, saying something in her heart that causes her to laugh. My jaw clenches tightly as I make my wave over.

"Hey Clara," my arm slips around her waist, pulling her close. "Hey!" her arm wraps around my shoulder. "Mark, this is Eli. Eli, this is Mark" My eyes scan him for a moment. "Nice to meet you," he says with a smile. I nod my head, giving a slight hum in response.

"Can I talk to you outside for a minute?" I whisper in Clara's ear, causing her eyebrow to raise. "Do you think you can wait a sec?" she says, glancing at Mark. "It's kind of important," Mark clears his throat, rubbing his nape.

"I'm going to go. But I'll see you later, yeah?" Clara eye's cut in my direction for a moment, a smile quickly returning to her face as she responds. "Yeah, definitely!"

"Eli, you totally fucking cockblocked me back there," he says with a smile. I nod my head, giving a slight hum in 0talk to you outside for a minute?" I whisper in Clara's ear, causing her eyebrow to raise. "Do you think you can wait a sec?" she says, glancing at Mark. "It's kind of important," Mark clears his throat, rubbing his nape.

"I'm going to go. But I'll see you later, yeah?" Clara eye's cut in my direction for a moment, a smile quickly returning to her lips. "Yeah," Mark responds with a nod.

"Oh, excuse me. Mark looked so fucking ravishing. I was getting turned on for you," I say as the two of us step onto the balcony. She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"Jesus, what the fuck is your problem?"

"You! You're the fucking problem. Ever since you left, I haven't been able to get you out of my mind, and now that you're back and here, it all feels too real."

There's a beat before she responds, "Eli, what are you trying to say?"

I look down, the leather of my boots glowing slightly from the moonlight, "What I'm trying to say is,"

I pause, looking back up at her. "What I'm trying to say is, is that I'm in love with you, Clara."

Before I could even think, her lips were pressed against mine, the strawberry taste of her lips making my brain go numb as the kiss grew deeper. Her arms wrapped around me, pulling me close. My hands naturally found her waist as I smiled slightly into the kissing, humming happily as she pulled away.

"Elijah Hewson, you are the fucking dumbest person I know," she shook her head, causing me to laugh. "How so?" I say, glancing down at her lips for a moment, her lipstick slightly smudged.

"Because I've been in love with you since we were in creative writing senior year," she says, laughing.

"Wait, seriously?"

She flicks my forehead gently, "Yes, idiot."

"Hey!" I rub my forehead as she continues to laugh.

"That's what you get."

"Oh well, at least I have you now," I say, kissing her once again, the night fading around us.

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