#which is weird for me to accept bc i generally just assume no one cares abt me enough to be annoyed by me being absent

[td-brick]

genuinely have not watched td in so long but who r some of the characters u think are autistic? just out of curiosity

AHH thank you for the ask I LOVE THIS QUESTION!!!! All under the cut cuz i have a lot. There are definitely more (aka nearly every td character lol) but these are the ones I have a good amount to say ab

Courtney: The one i've talked about the most probably. My reasoning for this has already been said but in case it needs repeating i think some signs of autism in her are: routine planning and getting upset when it's interrupted/disturbed, (arguably) meltdowns, social unawareness/missing social cues, set in her ways/"strong sense of justice", bluntness, etc. Her making lists was also an indicator for me even though thats not a symptom its just something a lot of autistic people do. Idk I feel like a lot of her reactions and stuff on the show indicated autism too.. and i feel like its a popular headcanon but people don't really think of WHY but I do every day. God I love you autistic courtney. Anyways I'm gonna stop there bc. I've talked about this many many times

Harold: This one's obvious and widely accepted but it makes me really happy personally.. at least in how I interpret her i saw her as low masking, like me, and in a similar way to me too. If that makes sense. Like the amount she talks about her interests not realizing people don't care/don't want to hear about it, people ostracizing her for that and her acting "weird" (exhibiting autistic traits) and not being able to hide it/mask in general... idk I feel like those can be applied to a lot of autistic people but I just resonated with that a lot. Also her hygiene stuff is obviously played as a joke, but I saw that as an autistic trait too (struggling with badls). And just a kinda silly observation but she seems to be interested in geography and world history and whatnot which a LOT of my autistic friends are (including me to an extent) LOL.

Millie: I feel like i dont even need to explain this one LOL. Imo part of why she keeps that notebook in s1 is bc of an interest in sociology, maybe a special interest, since if you look at her passion about it from an autistic lens, it makes sense that it would be. I also feel like she's low empathy and struggles a lot w social cues. sorry this one isn't as detailed I've only rewatched the reboot like once vs the other seasons i've watched like 5 times each but yeah. Millie is autistic 100%. Also similarly to harold (although this isn't really canon) she seems like she'd be into geopolitics.not related to autism at all this is just a hc of mine

Bridgette: I don't have much genuine reasoning behind this besides "he's clumsy so he has poor fine motor skills which can be due to autism" <- mostly projecting here. But also I think animals could be her special interest! He clearly cares a lot ab them, which I assume is why he's vegan. Also her being vegan (and her sticking to that) could be interpreted as her being set in her ways/a routine for her idk. This is more of a just for fun one vs one that has canon evidence backing it up but I Like Him :-)

Sierra: Definitely audhd. I mean again I don't think I have to explain this td is obviously a special interest of hers and she has trouble w social cues and acts socially inappropriate. She's low masking too again i'm projecting but it makes sense so who cares... in my mind she also has HSD too because it makes sense with how athletic/agile she is and if i remember correctly hypermobility and autism are often comorbid.

[celestie0]

Hi Ellie, i want to take accountability as an anon for sending one of those types of asks you were referring to, actually it was the last one you responded to. I apologise deeply and I don’t want to be defensive but to be clear, i wasn’t criticising i thought it had become some kind of trend within us to dog on the ex wife character since i remember once you responded to an ask saying something like ���i feel sick to my stomach” I just assumed you were in on it but that was a long time ago I should have realised how it would of made you feel along with all the other asks. Apart from that I was only curious and since you were answering other questions I thought it might be okay to ask but I’m sorry for overwhelming you. Oh dear actually I just went back and it would appear that exact ask you were referring to as an example… I sent that as well back then. I’m SO sorry Ellie I didn’t mean it like that, your right about the maturity difference and back then that was just my genuine reaction to the plot line I didn’t mean it in offence to you but that was such a stupid thing to say. But I’m being honest when I say that since then after you responded to that I did understand your point and that it was wrong of me to react that way and with this recent teaser for the story I didn’t care for it like that rather I was excited for the drama and was just spectating other people’s reactions, then I decided to send that ask out of curiosity and I had a gut feeling I should delete that last sentence but I ended up pressing send. For both asks I couldn’t be more sorry, i absolutely love your writing and I admire you so so much you have no idea. I never ever wanted to belittle your authorial choices or make you feel such a way but there’s no excuse because that’s how it was perceived. What came off as entitled was probably intended out of a closeness that I felt to you which is weird anyway, either way I crossed the line and like you said that behaviour did not entail author/reader etiquette. But wallahi (istg) I feel so sorry and I want to kiss you on both cheeks, hold your shoulders and tell you ihm is PERFECT just the way it is. Your stories were experimental for me from the beginning (out of my comfort zone, not the usual type of stories I read) and now they mean SO much to me I have changed so many views and preferences because of that influence and I can’t overstate how much I wholly love everything about your works and also this blog page in general. Im so ashamed that my unthoughfulness has had such an adverse impact on you and if it makes you feel more comfortable I definitely will not interact going forward I will adhere to your boundaries and I assure you every boundary you’ve set has always been with good reason and you have nothing to doubt about yourself. You do not have to feel obligated to respond to this but I hope you can forgive me even if we are strangers I have caused you to feel the complete opposite that I want to make you feel, I’ve only ever wanted to uplift you and make you aware of how truly talented and amazing you are. Im looking forward to everything you have in store for all your stories and to grow and learn and adapt to every turn your writing takes because I know for a fact that it will ultimately be a wonderful experience. Sending all my love, appreciation and apologies if they are acceptable

~ regretful anon

hi love! sorry i won’t be spending time addressing everything in this ask bc i don’t have the capacity but i did read it all the way through n i appreciate you for apologizing!

i’m so happy you enjoy my stories even though they’re out of your comfort zone! that means a lot to me. i see where you’re coming from, and although it’s true those asks were hurtful, i see that you didn’t mean any harmful intentions by it and that’s actually really relieving to hear and has brought me comfort! so thank you for sharing this w me. no hard feelings but yes i think we can absolutely learn from this

[nikadd]

gonna complain abt biphobia for a second so if you think im automatically annoying bc of that it’s ok, just scroll past. idgaf

for the past few weeks on twitter and in the past on tiktok and im assuming here as well (im just not verging into those waters on here) i’ve seen a lot of weird and annoying things being said abt bisexuals and bi women in general and it feels like one of those things where somebody picks a specific type of a member in a community (here being “a white cis bi girl with a white cishet boyfriend”) as like the so called representative of the entire community and bc it’s like the supposed closest person to being the oppressor then all of the criticisms get to stick. it’s like when ppl add “white” in front of “woman” to make their criticisms not sound misogynistic.

like there are lots of things that are very much issues that bisexuals face in higher numbers than either gay or straight ppl do (such as ipv, for example), and nobody is talking abt it, but if we ever just express annoyances abt micro aggressions or negative stereotypes abt us (that feed into the material oppression we face! the stereotypes abt us being sex-obsessed and promiscuous freaks actually does lead to ppl thinking we can’t say no to sex and that we would cheat on them which leads to physical and emotional abuse!), then suddenly everybody is like “why are yall complaining abt it” “i wish i had your issues” “biphobia isn’t real, what you’re complaining abt is homophobia” “yall chose to date men” “who’s stopping yall from dating men” and it’s like…

we (cis bi women) understand that if we are dating men or somebody who is read as a man on the street then we benefit from being read as straight, but it’s weird when ppl keep talking abt “the real life” when we are talking abt how we are treated within the queer community or we want to address specific things. like many of us DO understand the sense of scale of things, we are not equating homophobic hate crimes to the micro aggressions, but if everything we say is conflated to just being micro aggressions we are blowing out of proportion, then it becomes difficult to address actually important things!

and i do think some of my fellow bisexuals have fallen into a weird pick-me-girl meme within the community, e.g. “i’m attracted to every woman ever and like 3 guys” which sounds like we are supposed to suppress our attraction to men to feel accepted in the queer community and act like it’s such a chore to be attracted to or be in a relationship w men. and im not even talking abt many of them coming to realize they are lesbians, which is good for them! but it just became one of those annoying things ppl just regurgitate and i don’t actually believe that it is an actual way many of them view their attraction, but they want the good queer points so they say it.

and i understand many lesbians’ frustrations w newly-out bi women expressing how they are intimidated by the idea of approaching a woman, but i think sometimes ppl are too quick to call it lesbophobia and that we think that lesbians are scary bc THEN apparently we aren’t living in “the real life” in our heteronormative world where we are taught how to be w men only? like i guess in this situation we don’t care abt what goes on outside of the community. and im glad many queer women are able to overcome it but we often forget how difficult it is to figure it out! and ppl online keep talking abt how weird and homophobic it is for bi women to say this when we should actually be scared of/intimidated by men bc they are more likely to abuse us… which is such a piss on the poor type of misreading of what we are saying. but also victim blaming once again.

like i’ve been out as bi for like 9 years now, had VERY strong feelings for multiple girls over this time (like i’ve had to tell some ppl im bi and not a lesbian), currently in my first ever relationship - and yes it’s with a man. and if i was some kind of famous person on the internet, people would be saying im settling, or im faking my queerness, or looking into my past relationships and seeing nothing there bc ive never dated anybody before. so what then? suddenly im not bi bc i’ve never gone out w a girl? like in my case i never even dated men before bc i rarely like somebody enough to want to go through w anything AND i need to know that they like me first as well so im actually always surprised to find out that ppl date ppl often but that’s neither here nor there.

like all those tweets abt billie eilish abt how she “chose to date an abuser before she ever dated a girl” or dove cameron “making a song abt being a better boyfriend to a girl and now dating yet another man” make me so upset like do they need to go out and date a girl for some kind of queer points for ppl to shut up abt it?

another thing i saw was like “a girl is gonna go to a queer bar or pride, dance and flirt with girls, and then go home to a boyfriend 💀” and it’s like okay so yall don’t want us bringing our boyfriends to queer events, that’s fine (not that my bf is straight and might also enjoy going to a queer event as he’s also queer but who cares abt that, right?) but then we also can’t go to a queer event by ourselves either? like not all queer events are singles-only events! and flirting doesn’t mean you’re being led on! sometimes ppl flirt just because! why does it mean that i need to stop going to queer events that i’ve been going to before dating my bf just bc im w a man now?

like ppl act like it’s not even worth to come out for a bi woman if she’s gonna date a guy / already is in a relationship w a guy. like maybe my identity existed before my relationship and might even exist after it? like im my own person or something?

like i’m so tired of ppl online being “heartbroken” over a hot woman (bonus points if she “looks” gay) being w a man - as if you ever had a chance w her if she was single! or acting like being w a bi woman means that she’s gonna leave you for a man! like it sounds weirdly incelish when i see other queer women online being like “oh ofc a girl i was dating left me for a man 🙄” and it’s like maybe she just started dating a man after you but you’re making it sound like she hated being with a woman and cheated on you with a man and you get to have this high horse about it. like im sure there have been instances where two women broke up and then one ended up w a man and even got married or something but i’ve seen too many ppl paint these situations like ultimate betrayals. like if she left you for another woman it would have been better?

like i know that there are some bi women who Have said/done things that led to these thoughts/complaints, but like the way we (queer women as a whole) have been engaging in these conversations has been very alienating. like there ARE things we need to address within our community (e.g., “everybody is a little bi”, “hearts not parts”, “don’t worry i’m bisexual” when dating trans ppl, etc) but i genuinely often feel more comfortable talking to other bisexuals abt it bc i think some things SHOULD be addressed within the bisexual community first bc it shouldn’t be on other ppl to address these things like we gotta clean our own house yk but it’s often difficult to do so on the internet bc anybody could chime in and divert the attention and take things out of context.

tldr i hate these conversations and all the jokes abt biphobia bc ppl think it makes them more progressive or feminist or whatever and seriously addressing these things suddenly makes me “one of those bisexuals” or whatever. like i know im saying all the stuff we’ve all already said in 2014 in all those “reblog if you believe that bi ppl are bi and not just half gay half straight” but i feel like ppl only agree w this in theory and not in practice and actively believe that every bi woman is a lesbian in denial or a straight woman w a fetish. and it’s fucking annoying.

and yeah it might sound like i’m a chronically online tumblr sjw abt it but the internet queer spaces are like a third space for many ppl and it’s disheartening to see these things and then feel like ppl are just keeping their mouths shut abt it offline but still believe and think this way.

…AND THATS ALL JUST ABT BI CIS WHITE WOMEN.

[melodic-haze]

Hello again, I have an actual ask unlike what I sent this morning. I know a lot about the types of characters you do like such as Robin and Bella, but what about the characters you generally don't like or couldn't care much for? I like hearing peoples opinions, and I wouldn't want to ask for characters you wouldn't enjoy writing for either.

Also, didn't know you haven't reached Penacony yet, so sorry for the Sparkle ask. May you get there soon to see your girl Robin in all of her glory.

-🍎

Oh shit??? This is such an interesting ask acc I haven't thought about what chrs I don't really care to write about

First off though to get it out of the way, DON'T WORRY AB THE SPARKLE ASK!!! I'm perfectly fine with spoilers (just moreso the fact that I don't actively seek content out nowadays cuz I'm busy) and I love the characters in the story and out as their own individual. I usually write character-related stuff in order and in my own time, while other things such as discussions are more immediate cuz I don't have to really think on it, which is why you haven't acc seen me answer it yet HAHAHA

Anyway tbf, for one the obvious has to be men. I don't really care to write for male chrs just bc of my orientation. Sure I like some of them (there's the thought of opening platonic reqs coming to mind from time to time) but idc to write them in a romantic perspective or anything beyond platonic stuff 🤷‍♀️ but really I already said that in my rules page so this was a given HAHA

Otherwise? Idk actually, not bc I'm indecisive but bc I acc have no preference I don't think? Like ofc I'm not gonna write for people I don't know, so Natlan rn is a bit of a question in my mind bc I haven't really been actively keeping up with Genshin anymore. But I'm??? Very open to anything 👍

I write the characters the way I do by not only using canon stuff as reference ofc but also by analysing them and then acting out my assumed personality of them in my head. It's why I keep saying I adore using dialogue in a few of my works, bc I think of them in the way an actor would while they're improvising, if that makes sense. I used to do theatre so I think I was doomed to write stuff by splitting my head with some sort of personality constuct I've crafted in my mind somehow. I admit it's acc a lil weird to do that for smut cuz I'm getting myself off in my head in multiple ways but still

There was ONE character I was initially iffy with though, and that was Jade due to the controversy wrapped around her in regards to her character. In the end I've decided to accept requests for her bc I DO wanna write for her as well, but I don't like the thought of possibly getting mauled online just bc like idk "ohhhh you're writing for a slaver 👹👹👹" or smth 🫠 maybe this is bc I originally came from the dumpster fire that is Twitter but still

I sound nonsensical my bad I'm very scattered all the time HAHAHAHA but tldr I don't actually mind whatever! I'm very flexible when it comes to different chrs and their personalities, whether they be carefree or serious or whatever it is. It's really best to just go through the masterlist and see which characters are on there to know who I'm happy to write for. If they're not there, I've either forgotten/don't know they exist or I don't wanna write for them, be it bc idk them well enough or for some other reason

[proshippy-fox]

hi there! I'm not really knowledgeable on fandom culture and rules and i can't get a clear definition of what proshipping means for the life of me. sometimes i see an explanation that makes me think "oh ok that just sounds like how any rational person ought to engage with media/fandom" and then i see an explanation that makes me think it's kinda unhinged. so! i came across your blog and thought i might ask for what it means to you if you have the time and energy for it? my vague understanding of it is that it's like, yall don't reject anything with fandom/media, like, even the "problematic" stuff. does a proshipper mean you have to accept everything and engage with everything with an open mind, or do yall set your own boundaries on what you don't like and prefer not to engage with, without forcing that boundary on others? i took a brief spin over the most recent posts on your blog here and i've gathered that proshipping means yall don't want to like, mandate the media/fandom that everyone experiences bc one specific person doesn't like it/thinks it's immoral.

my stance on fandom and media is usually, there are things i don't like, and i set my own boundaries on what i wish to engage/not engage with. And like, i've definitely read some weird stuff, and I've decided that those just aren't meant for me. As long as something doesn't actively promote/cause harm to anyone in real life, I don't really care what people choose to do with their own media experiences. Which, that kinda sounds like some descriptions of proshipping that i've heard? But again, even just trying to google the definition never gives me a clear answer.

Anyways, answer this on your own time, I'm in no rush to get an answer I'm just curious. Thank you!

heya! being proship is generally "whatever fictional media or tropes that someone is into is not an indicator of their morality and character," at least to me.

I use the label because personally, and logically, it doesn't make sense to cherry pick tropes and say stuff like "violence is often glorified in fiction (especially video games) but it DOES NOT cause real life violence, while sexual violence or other things deemed illegal and immoral in real life being glorified (or even just depicted at all) in fiction DOES cause real life harm." the average person knows that immoral and/or illegal things are, well, immoral and/or illegal, and does not let depictions and enjoyment of such scenarios within a fictional setting affect their real life views.

and about boundaries I believe you would be correct in that most proshippers set their own boundaries and do not enforce it on others, not that proshippers have to accept and engage with any type of media. everyone has their own squicks and triggers, after all

I do agree that they are something you enforce on yourself, especially online. it is pretty rude to insist someone stop posting because it makes you personally. blocking and muting are the most common way to avoid content, which is also why tagging correctly is a big thing. (and especially recently, with the way tumblr tags work. "cw inc3st" will get past your filters if you only have "cw incest" filtered. I assume most of that problem comes from tiktok and maybe twitter, unfortunately)

the community is pretty big and, as with all sizable communities, things get confusing and mixed up.

anyway, I tend to talk a lot, but I hope this helped. thanks for sending an ask!

[evilhue]

something that’s been on my mind

(i was about to make the above-cut “quick thots” but this is the entire opposite)

now this doesn’t plague me or anything because frankly i don’t really gaf like that but at the times i do think about my appearance i spend a large portion of it debating whether i am actually attractive in other people’s eyes (which sounds stupid as fuck to say/type now that i’m looking at it LMAO)

and i’d like to reiterate it really doesn’t weigh on me that much! i don’t beat myself up for not looking like a model it’s just i see so many beautiful people in my life and i have never placed myself in those ranks. and neither have i bothered asking either cuz 1) i know i’m not lol 2) i’m not looking for pity which is how it usually comes across.

i don’t deem myself classically or conventionally attractive tbh but i think i have the general proportions and positions that (if not for injuries leading to asymmetry) would put me at a very normal cute level (which to me is attractive. and this is the point where i realize i never defined attractive which is funny cuz i don’t experience attraction like that. so i guess i mean not harsh on the eyes!) i’ve never been upset with the size/placements of my eyes/nose/mouth etc. i have beautiful lips! my eyelids are “big”. i love my nose to death unevenness and all!!

my “ugliness” comes from asymmetry which used to weigh on me a lot because it all stemmed from childhood injuries… my eyelids are beautiful… individually lmao. if they matched, both looking like my left or both looking like my left, i would be unstoppable! my eyebrows are uneven again bc of those injuries! my jaw is hella uneven bc of braces/palate expansion trauma, but my left side looks snatched as hell. but also bc of unevenness there, my lip corners and teeth aren’t even on the same axis. all this has made my face veeeeeery asymmetric, plus existing scoliosis problems exacerbate this asymmetry lol. additionally my skin is clear (ie no acne + scars) but my eczema has been so bad before that i’m still recovering from discoloration in weird embarrassing areas.

if being privy to thoughts on the interwebs has taught me anything it’s that everybody has insecurities they fixate on that /i/ literally don’t notice. which i assume means nobody else notices! (but also, i must disclaim that it may just be my not noticing because i don’t care like that lololol). i feel like all my friends are so normal (/good /pos) in appearance but then they’ll rant about their insecurities with eyebrows or nose size or something and it’s like dawg! i ain’t even notice that. meanwhile in more photos than not, i find my own appearance very unflattering - the way i deal with this is to simply not take pictures of myself 🤣🤣

i know the angle (singular) that works for me which becomes quite apparent once i go to look at the pics i actually like of myself LMAO. i am unable to take selfies! i genuinely think i look my best when i’m having a laff or am just cheesing really hard - candidly! anything i pose for looks weird, my RBF looks terrifying with the asymmetry. again, it’s whatever. i’ve come to accept it, albeit reluctantly over yeeeears of dwelling on it.

but the thing that stays confusing to me is that people DO call me hot, find me attractive enough to attempt to flirt at least lol. and idk if it’s a personality thing? or if they are tricked by my one single angle where i look güd? or if they somehow see a different picture of me (highly likely) but have spun it into a version where i am hot (which i can’t believe)? certainly i don’t think photos do me justice which is a shame in this day and age.

so yeah i’ve never really gotten any concrete answers from people who like me about what exactly they like about my appearance. sure my body is conventionally “skinny” (i still have insecurities about this tbh) and people say i dress nice (which is. lol. i guess i try). when i really try my makeup can look pretty slayyyy (in most circumstances i do not try because a) effort b) idc that much c) it requires looking at myself which i find extremely difficult (i probably should have started this post with that fact huh)). i don’t think i’m hot (a word i have heard more than others like gorgeous, beautiful) and in fact more times than not consider myself on the ugly side of the conventional spectrum.

but. eh not sure it really matters all that much to me. especially since it isn’t so much an insecurity as much as an observation of my self-image over time. i don’t think it’s a self-esteem thing either. also it’s not as if i care about making myself look pretty enough to other ppl to want to date/know me or whatever.

tl;dr: to me it’s quite simple; i’m not thaaaat cute! so it becomes bewildering that people do seem to like my unconventional face (and claim it, or me overall, to be attractive), which to me is the wrong kind of unconventional since it has everything to do with asymmetry in every aspect

EDIT and ik it’s a bit weird to say this post-post but: i strongly believe “attractiveness” goes beyond physical attributes! which is why i’m not sure anyone is actually talking about my face, physically, when they say i’m hot lol

[casualbluebirdmentality]

this post is literally just me ranting about my own gender experience/questioning as an afab person.

(despite all the cws and tws, it's really not that overwhelmingly negative-- moreso just yelling my confusion into the void lol. i'm just really paranoid abt accidentally ruining someone's day by not tagging smth, hence the literal max 30 tags.)

you can read it if you want but if not,, understandable lol. either way, enjoy this picture of a quokka that i got by googling "cute animal":

...ok.

figuring out ur gender as an afab person is so weird, cuz it's like:

am I uncomfortable w my tits (always have been) for Gender Reasons, or is it the societal conditioning that they're sex objects/will make ME be viewed as a sex object if they're "too noticeable"?

is the visceral discomfort that I've always had (literally since childhood) at even the THOUGHT of having a period a Gender Thing, or is it the societal taboo that makes it impossible to speak/think about it?

do I like the idea of being perceived as masc for Gender Reasons, or bc I know it will make people take me more seriously and make me less of a target for abuse/harassment?

do I feel like a boy in disguise/an imposter when surrounded by other women/in female spaces bc I actually am more masc in my actual gender, or because gender roles and their "boyish interests/presentation" and "girly interests/presentation" have been so ingrained in me that it feels like if I don't match up with That Exact Image of being a very femme woman, then clearly I'm just not a woman at all? (/s for that last phrase)

(A more specific/personalized addendum to that last one: I've got a sister and we both did a lot of performing arts stuff VERY frequently growing up, especially as a duo, and whenever the roles were a boy and girl (which wasn't most of the time but still happened fairly regularly), I'd always be the boy bc she was more femme than me & always wanted to be the girl, whereas i didn't really care-- so like, was that because I'm inherently more comfortable as a more masc person? Or did I just not care either way at the time cuz I was a damn kid just having fun playing a role, and now from years and years and YEARS of doing that I've just conditioned myself into thinking of myself as "the guy one" when paired with a woman/surrounded by women??????)

And THEN for me personally, you throw in the fact that both Nate/ND Stevenson (creator of the first show that ever made me feel Seen as a queer person, to the extent that it broke my brain a little) and Elliot Page (right after/while playing his Umbrella Academy character, who was the only "female" character I've EVER felt I could truly relate to in such a full, overwhelming extent for some reason I couldn't name, and whom my friends at the time literally said "had big [my name] energy," without having been told anything about my feelings at all) BOTH came out as transmasc. So it's like,, am i transmasc? All Signs Point To Yes, pretty much. And I distinctly prefer when my tits are squished firmly against my chest, which sounds a whole hell of a lot like chest dysphoria.

...Except that when I got a binder to try it out, threw a hoodie on over it, and looked in the mirror, it was just like,, weird. And a minute or so later when I caught my reflection in the mirror out the corner of my eye without thinking and my brain automatically perceived my chest as like, FLAT flat for the first time, it pretty much shouted "WRONG WRONG WRONG" and started clanging pots and pans until I took it off.

But, irl my nickname is a typically "male" short-hand (as in, someone reading it would assume it's a guy 99.9999% of the time) of my (feminine) name, and I much prefer it. So like I guess I'm just generically nonbinary... but I also really don't want to say that I'm not a woman? But that reluctance could just be reluctance at relinquishing what makes me "valuable" in society's eyes, or in accepting that I've "failed" to be what I was "supposed" to be. Or in losing my ability to "speak authentically" about things like sexism, even though I Know Full Well that that's not how that works, like, at all. So it's just... ????????????????????

The only thing I have been able to figure out is that I definitely want to be more buff and athletic, and definitely make my body at least a little more masc in that regard. So like, Buff Sword Lady definitely, at least. (I do quite enjoy swords. A lot.) So maybe I just want to be butch?

But I don't look like that yet, and it's so hard to figure this kind of thing out without actually being able to physically see yourself that way, without being able to actually feel it first-hand and compare. So I'm just, like, here, a fantasy writer doing muscle work-outs alone in my room every day, hoping that micro-dosing on jock culture will help me finally feel Right lmao.

[doebt]

Ok. i slept 14 hrs. i woke up. ive been awake for 11 hrs. and im dead sleepy again. IS THIS NORMAL. is that NORMAL. is the ratio NORMAL. bc it doesnt feel normal

[groundcontrol21]

For the writing game - 4 for Arkady, and 10 in general, please?

You sent me some Thinking Questions huh...

4. what do they notice that others do not? what do they not notice, genuinely or deliberately?

(I assume you mean Anatoly for this one, which is funny bc I almost named him Arkady lol) He’s good at reading subtleties in people when it comes to treating them, especially when people might be too ashamed/proud/hesitant to say what they mean outright. This makes him adept at caring for his patients, but also helps him in other ways as he learns to apply this caring nature to more than just his practice. Example, he realizes his neighbor Lydia is doing badly on examinations not bc she is stupid or a slacker as some have assumed, but because she needs a confidence boost.

The inverse of this ties into the second part of the question, because he’s good at noticing these things because they are attributes he himself struggles with at times. He struggles to notice the myriad of more unconventional ways people can express their care for him (you’ll see this come up btw him and his mother in Sicktember), and as such he is prone to feeling a bit lonely/left out.

10. pick two favourite characters from two different canons: how would one help the other if they were in difficulty?

Now this one really got all the gears turning; talk about exercising the Crossover Muscle, the muscle I have never ever used before in writing. So my two characters are going to be Aramis (duh) and Thomas Hamilton, because I think that’s a super interesting dynamic.

If Aramis is the sick one: I headcanon him as being reluctant to accept care, perpetually downplaying or denying his illness because he is the Medic and others come first. Thomas would have a lot of experience caring for people who always feel like they need to go go go and be proving something, since he deals with James after all. But I think he’d appreciate the change of pace that is Aramis, who has a little bit of knowledge of medicine, as opposed to James who, in conjunction with not admitting anything is wrong with him, has little clue what to do with himself once he has been forced to admit it.

If Thomas is the sick one: I headcanon him as being a very sensible patient, but one very prone to quiet insecurity nonetheless, who worries about needing too much even though he is honest about what he needs. He might not voice his concerns at first, but they are there underlying his every request for help. This would be a change of pace for Aramis, who has gotten used to caring for the Three Dunces™️, who don’t accept help until they pass out (is Aramis himself much better? Don’t ask him).

I headcanon them both as being migraine sufferers, so they would know very well how to effectively care for each other during an attack. But if one or the other wasn’t too unwell, just enough to be in bed but bored with it, I could see them whiling away hours on theological discussion (Protestant v. Catholic yahoo) until the not-sick one notices the drooping eyelids and is just like “ok sleep now”. Since we know, by Miranda Hamilton’s own admission, that her husband is a killer devil’s advocate.

Thank you for asking! The second question felt a little weird at first but was ultimately great fun to think through!

[watchmegetobsessed]

Serendipity - Part I. (Harry Styles)

a/n: i am BEYOND excited to share this story with you guys! i’ve been working on it for over a month now if not more and what started as just a oneshot, slowly grew into this massive fic. i really hope you’ll love the story of Harry and Lis bc im obsessed with them haha. please feel free to share your thoughts and reactions about the chapter and the fic itself!

pairing: Harry x OC (Annalise Lloyd)

word count: 8k

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Serendipity (n.) Finding something good without looking for it.

There are people who plot out their New Year’s Eve plan even months before the last day of the year, making sure they will be celebrating the upcoming year at the best party possible. And then there are the folks who just ignore it until the very last moment and end up spending at a random place with even more random people.

Harry Styles desperately wanted to be the first kind, but unfortunately often found himself falling into the second case scenario. With his busy schedule and endless ocean of his upcoming projects, he never really had time to think about the last party of the day and usually ended up just tagging along some of his friends wherever they headed to. This year was no different, having to work up until even the last few days of the year, Harry had little to no thought about where he would be when the clock strikes midnight.

Just about a day before it, one of his old high school friends, Griff hits him up with a text if he would want to join them for the celebration at the pub he opened not that long ago. Harry didn’t think twice to accept the invitation, finally checking one more thing off his list, so he won’t just stay at home, and pathetically fall asleep at ten.

It’s nothing big or fancy, Griff assures him in the morning when he rings his friend up to ask when he should arrive and what he should bring.

“Nothing, ey? Just come and ‘ave a good time with us,” Griff tells him, though he already knows Harry won’t show up empty handed.

 December 31st

A little before seven Harry opts for a quick shower before he dives deep in his wardrobe to find something to wear. He is torn between wearing a fancy outfit or something cozier, but eventually stands up for the latter, putting on a pair of light washed jeans, a simple white button up and a seaweed green knitted jumper under his coat. He doesn’t pay much attention to his hair, his curls falling around his head in a messy, warm brown halo. It’s been raining all day, it wouldn’t have had any use to try to tame them.

Slowly but surely, Harry feels the buzz in himself, excited to see his old friends and maybe meet some new people while having drinks and just relaxing. He grabs a bottle of fancy whiskey from his bar and heads out around eight.

Griff is one of the few people Harry stayed in touch with after his career launched so abruptly, the two of them often met up whenever Harry was around, having a pint together, just chatting up. Griff bought an old pub a few years prior and completely renewed it, opened at the beginning of the year, Harry was there at the opening party, he had way too much to drink, but he surely had a great time.

“There he is! My favorite arrogant son of a bitch!” Harry immediately hears as soon as he steps into the pub that’s already quite filled.

The tall lad makes his way through the groups of guests until he can envelop his old friend in a warm, brotherly hug as Harry chuckles at the name he just called him. Griff always loved that line from Harry’s song and never missed a chance to call him that. He doesn’t mind though, keeps that playful side of their friendship he always adored so much.

“Good to see you, mate,” Harry smirks at him. “Here, this is for yeh.” He holds out the pricey drink and Griff shakes his head at him.

“Told ya not to bring anything!” he sighs but accepts the gift anyway, knowing well Harry would just sneak into the back anyway and leave the liquor on his desk. “We ‘ave a nice evening ahead of us. Got food, drinks, everything’s on me, take what yeh want,” Griff assures him as the two of them walk further inside.

Harry sees a few familiar faces, high school friends, kids from around the neighborhood that are now grown adults, just like him, but there are quite a lot of guests he doesn’t know.

“C’mon, yeh need t’ ‘ave a welcome drink with me,” Griff grins as he pulls Harry to the bar and fills up two shot glasses generously. Harry doesn’t even bother to ask him what it is, he just takes the glass willingly and after they clink in the middle they both send it down.

Harry grimaces as the hard liquor burns down his throat, Griff never played around with the soft drinks, he knows what hits the best and fastest and Harry figures it’s one of those drinks that would have him crawling on the floor after two more shots.

It doesn’t take Harry long to mix and mingle, get into conversations and meet new people, just enjoying the welcoming and warm atmosphere of the party. He is pleased to see that people treat him just like any other guest, rather than a famous person and he is beyond thankful for that.

Near the bar, Griff has set up a quite rich buffet table filled with all kinds of snacks and food. It’s way past ten when Harry shuffles over there feeling his stomach growling. He grabs a paper plate and his eyes roam everything that’s set on the table. Humming to himself he decides to opt for the delicious looking fries, his mouth drools just at the sight of them, so he puts a generous amount to his plate before his eyes spot the bowl of peas. That’s exactly what he needs to go with the fries.

He goes a little overboard, but he couldn’t care less. Once he is satisfied with his meal he puts back the spoon that was sat in the bowl of peas, right when someone reaches for it. Glancing up his gaze meets a pair of warm brown eyes and a shy, but playful smile. Harry can’t stop himself from smiling instantly as the woman takes the spoon and fills her plate with peas. He looks down and sees that her plate is filled with the exact same things: fries and peas.

“Excellent choice,” he smirks teasingly and her eyes snap down to her plate before she sees the similarity on Harry’s plate. She lets out an airy chuckle before she tugs her chestnut colored, wavy locks behind her ears with her now free hand.

“Mother always told me to balance the junk out with something healthy,” she admits, the corners of her mouth curling up as she blinks a little shy under Harry’s burning gaze.

He always knew he had an eye for pretty things and he never dared to deny himself from admiring them once he laid his eyes on something he found breathtaking. She was by far the prettiest thing he has seen in quite some time, so he doesn’t shy away from taking in her figure in front of him. Delicious looking curves dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a sheer shirt with a top underneath it, the front tugged into the waist of the jeans. Her hair looks effortless, but he can tell she probably spent some time forming the natural looking waves before coming here. The thin eyeliner makes her eyes appear more cat-like and her long lashes dance around with each look she pays him.

“You want to—um, sit?” she stammers nodding towards an empty table near the buffet, a soft blush tainting her soft skin. Harry absolutely adores the hint of innocence in her features.

“’fcourse,” he nods and follows her.

The two of them move over to the table and sit down with their meal, Harry sneaking a fry into his mouth right away.

“’M Harry, by the way,” he says, realizing he hasn’t even introduced himself just yet. Some people tend to look at him weird whenever he does it, as if it should be common knowledge to know who he is, but he never takes it for granted. Luckily, she doesn’t find it funny or weird that he introduced himself.

“Annalise. But everyone just calls me Lis,” she explains and holds out a hand for him, which at first looks a little odd and he can tell she regrets the motion, but he appreciates it, even finds it cute. So before she can pull her hand back he takes it and gives it a soft shake. “So what brings you here tonight?” she asks as both of them digs into their food.

“Griff invited me, saved me last minute, didn’t have any plans.”

“How do you know him?”

Harry finds it amusing that she didn’t bring up that a famous person like him would probably have tons of invitations to fancy parties. He hates when people assume that his social life is blossoming at all times, packed with parties and events to attend every day.

“We went to high school together. Stayed in touch through the years.”

Lis nods with a small smile before her eyes return to the plate in front of her.

“How ‘bout you?”

“Oh, um… Well, Griff and I had a blind date like ages ago, but we both figured out pretty quickly we are never gonna be more than just friends. But that we are perfect for. Have been meeting up every once in a while. I was kind of in the same shoe like you, wasn’t planning on coming out tonight, but… I was forced to,” she admits with a nervous chuckle.

“Y’ don’t like to go out?”

“I—uh, don’t really have the time,” she answers, clearly a bit nervous at the topic so Harry decides to just drop it.

The two of them sit there, just talking and eating and with each passing moment Harry finds himself more and more enchanted by the woman sitting on his right. The way she rambles sometimes, how her nose scrunches whenever she is laughing hard, how she likes to keep tugging her hair behind her ears all the time, are the smallest things but they easily catch Harry’s attention.

Besides, she is not just the looks, also an amazing company. Easy to talk about anything, even the riskier things too. She doesn’t shy away from giving her honest and raw opinion, but also doesn’t attack if someone thinks differently. Instead, she is open to other point of views, seeking opportunities to learn and grow. It’s a mindset Harry values highly and feels like it’s hard to find it. But on this evening in his mate’s pub, he found a gem, it feels like.

The plates soon get swapped to beers and Lis is getting giddier with each gulp, which he finds amusing, especially because she lets her thoughts slip without thinking about them and it allows Harry to look into that pretty head of hers easier.

He doesn’t fail to notice how his heart flutters every time she touches his arm or hand whenever she is deep in a story. The warm touch of her soft hand is sending him into trembling and he is glad they are sitting because he surely would be having a hard time keeping himself up on his feet. She is just the kind of person that wraps others around her fingers without even trying or noticing.

Though it’s only been over an hour since he first laid his eyes on her, he feels like he has known her for ages. The connection built up fast and smoothly, sweeping Harry right off his feet. He’s got it bad for her and he already knows he wants to see her again once this night ends.

“Oh, it’s almost midnight!” Annalise gasps snapping out of her thoughts, a hand snapping to Harry’s upper arm. The crowd is starting to buzz, getting ready for the count down.

“C’mon, let’s get some champagne,” Harry tells her and helps her up from her seat.

They head to the bar and each of them grabs a flute filled with the sparkly alcohol. They stand a little to the side, but still mingled in the crowd of guests. Harry can feel his hands getting sweaty as he thinks about the countdown. Every fiber in his body is aching to kiss her, even though he knows it’s quite crazy knowing the fact they have known each other for only two hours. But he just can’t help it, she has a spell on him with just one look, making him act like a teenager in love.

Annalise peeks up at Harry with a lazy smile, the drinks have made her a little lightheaded, but she is nowhere near being drunk. Her thoughts are absolutely clear and they all focus on the man standing close to her.

Harry watches her bite into her bottom lip and he wonders if she is thinking about the same thing. If she’d be mad if he kissed her when the clock strikes midnight or slap him right across his face. He notices as she draws a deep breath, eyes looking around before they return to him.

“Get yo’ drinks, lads!” Griff shouts from somewhere behind the bar and those who haven’t picked up a glass quickly work on the problem.

Then the countdown begins.

“Ten!... Nine!... Eight!...”

Annalise glances up at Harry and her cheeks blush when she catches him already looking at her. She wishes she had her beer so she could hide in her glass from his burning eyes.

“Seven!... Six!...”

Harry turns so his whole body is facing her and takes just one tiny step towards her. When she doesn’t back away from him, he takes it as a sign that she might want the same thing as him.

“Five!... Four!...”

She looks straight up at him with a sheepish smile and pushes herself against him right when his free hand finds its way to her waist. She sucks in a sharp breath, but doesn’t move while Harry is aching to taste her plump, soft lips.

“Three!... Two!... One!... Happy New Year!”

The crowd cheers as one, guests are clapping and screaming, welcoming the new year with high hopes and full of planes for the new chapter that just started.

Harry and Annalise lock eyes and while everything around them is a full chaos, he feels like a bubble of silence and tranquility is surrounding them. Harry sucks in his breath, lips parted as he doesn’t break his gaze with hers. There’s a moment of hesitation, but the voice in the back of his mind tells him that he can’t let this moment go to waste.

Fuck it! He tells himself before he leans down and his lips meet hers in a soft, warm and breathtaking kiss.

He is a man who believes in magic, in things he can’t explain rationally, he is a man who doesn’t try to pull reality into everything when something odd happens. When his lips meet hers, he is swept right off his feet with just that tiny touch. It’s not a demanding kiss, very restricted and shy, but it still makes his insides tremble for her, almost falling to his knees right in front of her.

There’s a moment of hesitation from her side, when their lips are just touching in a little awkward way, but it fades into nothing before Harry could wrap his head around it, her lips parting as she lets him deepen the kiss, a soft moan slipping out of her throat that brings a knot to his stomach.

The moment is so vivid, raw and intoxicating, he wishes he could bottle it up and open it to have a taste of her anytime later, keep her in his pocket just to have her lips glued to his like this whenever he needs to be grounded or taken away from the world. His fingers dig into her waist, pulling her close to his body, hoping to just merge into her, become one with the woman in his arms.

She softly glides her hands up his arms, through his shoulders before they stop at the back of his neck, digging into his soft curls, while never breaking the kiss. Their lips stay melted together, tongues and teeth clashing, they are a hot mess in the first minutes of the new year.

The cheering slowly dies down and the usual buzzing of conversations and laughter replaces it, but the two of them are still busy with each other and it takes quite some time to pull themselves out of the bubble they created.

“Happy New Year, Lis,” Harry smiles down, lips swollen, eyes glistening from the joy that’s filling up his veins. She glances up at him shyly from under her lashes.

“Happy New Year, Harry,” she whispers, biting into her bottom lip, coming off the high this little make out session gave her.  

One hour passes by, then another and the party is starting to slowly die down. People are flaking out the door, the crowd is getting smaller with each door opening.

Harry and Annalise remain in the corner of the place after their kiss, a barrier that’s been noticeably present before has come down as Harry has his arm swung over the back of her chair and she lets herself lean against his side. There’s something so calming and tranquil in just being so close to each other, sharing thoughts and stories while his fingers graze on her shoulder gently and her head always falls to his shoulder when she laughs on something. He loves her laugh, it could easily light up any place and Harry can’t help but feel sorry for the people who don’t see her shine. So many guests didn’t get the chance to get to know her, but on the other hand, he is a bit selfish, he wants her all to himself. No one else should have the honor of making her laugh or bringing a smile to her perfect lips. He wants her all to himself, even if it makes him sound like a mad man.

After she leaves to the restroom, she comes back with her phone in her hands and a tired smile playing on her lips.

“I, uhh—called an Uber. I really should get going,” she tells him and he wants to make her stay. He wants this evening to last forever, but he can’t ask her to stay longer than she wants, so he just slowly nods.

“I’ll walk you out,” he offers, but it’s more like a fact.

The two of them find their coats on the packed rack, Annalise says goodbye to the handful of people she knows, hugging Griff before they head outside to wait for her car to arrive.

“I really enjoyed tonight,” Harry mumbles, shoving his hands into his coat’s pockets, feeling like a nervous teenage boy talking to his crush. She glances up at him with a smile, but there’s something clouding her eyes he can’t really put his finger on.

“Me too,” she assures him, a pair of headlights turning the corner and they both look in the approaching car’s direction before facing each other. “It was really great meeting you, Harry. Take care of yourself in the new year,” she tells her, but he doesn’t like the weight of her words. It sounds like a proper goodbye, like she is bracing herself to never meet him again, but he can’t let that happen.

“Can I—Uh, can I have your number? I would love to take you out sometime.”

The car stops next to them and she nods in the driver’s way to let him know she’s the one he is supposed to pick up. Taking a step to the backseat, she looks back at Harry.

“I’m really sorry, Harry, but we can’t.”

Devastation washes over him, her words are like a punch into his stomach each. Why is she rejecting him? Did she not enjoy the evening? Did he say something stupid? She seemed to be having a great time, so why can’t he see her again?

“What? Are you sure? Because I really loved tonight and would love to see you again.”

Annalise opens the car door and shoots him an apologetic look. He has never felt this helpless in his life, than at that moment, looking at the woman of his dreams escape from his reach.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t get into… whatever it is you want from me. I really am sorry, I wish it was different.”

“But I just want to see you again. I thought… You didn’t feel like it was something special?” he breathes out, feeling the world crashing down on him with each passing moment.

“I did, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry. Take care, Harry,” she sighs, clearly not happy about her own actions and he doesn’t understand why she is fleeing away like this.

He stands there, completely frozen as she gets into the car and shuts the door open. Their eyes meet through the window one last time before the car starts moving and she falls out of his view. He stares after her until the very last moment, when the car disappears at the end of the street, leaving him in pieces from the major rejection he just suffered.

He stays out there until his nose and cheeks turn red and his ears are freezing off, part of him wishing that if he just waits she’s gonna magically reappear and tell him it was just a joke. He can’t believe he met such a wonderful creature and had to let her go like she didn’t flip his whole world upside down under just a couple of hours. Does she know how much of an effect she had on him?

She probably doesn’t, he thinks to herself, because then she wouldn’t have left so abruptly and without a trace for him to find her again.

When Harry returns to the pub, he is met with a tipsy Griff, shoving a pint into his hand immediately.

“Ay, saw you hanging with Lis all night!” he teases Harry, but the mentioning of her name just makes his heart ache. However, knowing that Griff is friends with her, he is ready to use him as a way to get to her.

“Yeah, hey, you have her number?” he asks, trying his best to look as innocent as possible, but Griff sees right through him, even with all the alcohol in his body.

“Sorry, mate. F’she didn’t give it to ya, I won’t go against her.”

“I’m begging you, Griff. I need to see her again!” he sighs in despair, ready to do anything he can to get to her.

“Y’not the first bloke to fall for her magic. I know what it feels like, but I can’t do anything, sorry.” He shrugs his shoulders, giving an apologetic look to his friend before he joins another conversation.

Harry could scream from the frustration, the urge to punch something or someone is growing with each passing moment, but he has to realize there’s nothing he can do at this point other than accept the fact that he met this wonderful woman, had the best night with her and then was forced to watch her walk out of his life before she could even become part of it properly.

Harry starts to realize that what he thought about heartbreaks is nothing compared to the feeling Annalise left in his heavy heart.

There has to be a solid reason for what she did. Or did not do.

Endless theories about Annalise flood his mind through the days following that night when he was forced to watch her leave on such a bitter and painful note. Harry couldn’t stop himself from making up the most ridiculous cases just to give himself a possible peace of mind, but neither of them brought him enough comfort to forget about her.

His best shot was that she had a boyfriend, or even worse, a husband. This was the only version that sounded somewhat real and believable, though he just knew she is not the type of woman to cheat on a significant other.

How would you know? You spent just one evening with her, she could be a serial killer for all you know! Harry’s rational side was always quick to shut him down when his thought swirled around the idea of knowing her well enough to assume anything about her.

As the days dragged by him in a painful pace, he slowly had to realize it’s going to be a question in his life he’ll never get an answer to, so he just has to learn to live with the thought of the woman that got away.

The end of January rolls around faster than he could comprehend, February comes and he finds himself spending his days mostly in the studio, cooking up new music. Studio sessions are his favorite. That’s his element, he feels safe and comfortable, surrounded by people he trusts and enjoys creating his art fully. In the new year, he has also been eager to pick up a new hobby so he has been trying himself out in knitting and painting recently, finding both of them just a tad bit too hard for him just yet, but they were enough to get his mind off of the one woman who was constantly occupying his thoughts following New Year’s Eve.

Sitting in an armchair in the studio, he and his bandmates are listening back to some recordings they did today and he is trying to find that one thing that keeps throwing him off whenever he hears the song.

“I think it’s great,” Mitch states once the recording ends, and Harry agrees, it is great, but not the best.

“Maybe we could tone down the keyboard a little through the bridge, give more space for the guitar,” he contemplates, but really, he is just shooting in the dark, not sure what it is that keeps him on edge about the song.

“Why don’t we have a break?” Sarah suggests with a warm smile, seeing how everyone is keen on leaving for a little, except Harry, who is still fixated on mastering the song. But he agrees to have the break, however while everyone gets ready to leave and grab something to eat from the diner that’s around the corner, Harry stays where he is, eyes glued to his notebook.

“You’re not coming?” Charlotte asks him and he just shakes his head.

“No, not that hungry.” He looks up and shoots them a short smile and though they all can tell he could use the time out, they know him enough already that he won’t leave before he finds what’s not right.

“Alright. We’ll be back in an hour,” Mitch informs him and he dismisses them all with a nod.

He stays right there, going through the lyrics a few more times, making tiny changes in hopes that it’ll fix it all, but he can feel himself growing frustrated. Doesn’t matter how hard he is trying, he realizes his brain needs a break. Letting out a defeated huff he leans back, looking around in the empty studio. He doesn’t feel particularly hungry, but he could use something to snack on. So grabbing his coat he locks up the studio and heads out to the nearby Tesco they usually run out during sessions.

He is still humming the melody to himself when he walks in, a pair of sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, his famous curls hidden under a green beanie. He doesn’t bother to get a cart or basket, just strolls inside and roams down the aisles, trying to decide what he desires.

He settles on some kind of canned tea and a protein bar, but before he heads towards the cash registers, he wanders down the aisle where they keep cereals, looking around aimlessly. It’s the middle of the day on a weekday, most people are at work at this hour, so just a few other customers are lingering around, filling their carts. At first, he doesn’t pay any attention to the figure a little further down the aisle, his eyes are glued to the shelves, but then he just mindlessly glances to his left, his brain not even processing what, or who he is seeing at first. Then he takes a double take and his stomach drops to the tiled floor when he recognizes the woman, deep in her thoughts to decide which cereal to buy.

Annalise is standing just a few meters away from him, looking just as beautiful as he remembered, wearing a pair of simple jeans, light blue sneakers and a white jacket, her hair is in a loose ponytail on the top of her head.

“Lis?” he calls out, as if he thinks she is just a ghost. Taking a few steps closer he watches as her eyes fall from the products on the shelves to him, then they widen and her lips part in shock.

“Harry? Wha-what are you doing here?” she asks and Harry is quick to read the panic out of her tone as she looks around cautiously.

“I’m… shopping?” he answers with a soft chuckle, holding up the items in his hands.

“Haven’t seen you around here.”

“The studio we use is nearby, I drop by sometimes. But today is clearly my lucky day.” Even though her reaction is giving him doubts, he can’t hide his joy upon seeing her again, fate clearly playing on his side this time.

“Uh, yeah?” she lets out an anxious chuckle, her eyes often wandering off him, as if she is waiting for someone to show up and it just fuels Harry’s rich theories about her.

“So, are you here with your boyfriend?” he boldly asks, deciding to just go for it. Annalise’s eyes widen once again, but not in a way that makes him think he just busted her, it’s more of a confused one.

“Boyfriend? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you basically ran away from me that night, I figured you had someone and that’s why you didn’t want to give me your number.” He tries his best not to sound petty or bitter, though that’s exactly what he’s been feeling ever since she left that night.

“Harry, that’s… not the case.”

“Okay, so does this mean you’ll give me your number this time?” he tries and he is so busy with her presence, he doesn’t even notice when a smaller frame runs past him down the aisle.

“Mommy! I want this!”

At first, he doesn’t even register that the little boy is talking to Annalise, he dismisses his presence, eyes still fixated on her, but then her gaze leaves him and turns down to the boy, holding up a bar of chocolate.

“Honey, that’s too big. Choose something smaller, alright?”

It takes Harry a few moments to put one and one together. This kid just ran up to her, called her mommy and most likely not on accident since she answered him, very much talking to him like his mother. Though Harry can’t see his own face, he knows it fell, shock completely taking over him as his thoughts finally add up. Annalise looks back at him in panic, completely puzzled about what to do or say.

“Benji, go get another one, a smaller one while I talk to my friend here,” Annalise softly tells the boy.

He turns to Harry, eyes meeting his as he cocks his head to the side, examining the shocked adult standing in front of him.

“Who’s this?” he blurts out.

“Just a friend, alright? Go get your chocolate,” she urges. Benji gives Harry another look before nodding and running off, leaving them alone once again in the cereal aisle. “Harry, I-I’m sorry, you weren’t supposed to know.”

“Are you married?” is his first question, taking her by surprise.

“What?”

“The father. Is he your husband?” he urges, eager to clear the picture. Annalise shakes her head.

“No, we were never even married.”

He feels relief washing over him. At least at this point he doesn’t feel like a homewrecker. If he found out she wasn’t only a mother but also married, and that she cheated on the dude with him, that would have crushed him. But it’s one less thing to worry about on a long list.

“Okay, it’s fine. You are not married, it’s all good,” he breathes out and it brings her a smile through this absurd situation.

“You thought I was married?”

“Or at least had a boyfriend, yeah,” he nods, hands on his hips as he licks his lips. He surely had a mini panic attack, but he can feel the life coming back into his body.

“Do I come off like the kind to cheat that easily?” she asks with raised eyebrows, but she didn’t take it as an offense, she more like finds it funny rather than hurtful.

“No, not at all! I was just trying to figure out why you rejected me and this was my best shot!”

“I’m sorry, Harry. I just… I didn’t know how to tell and I didn’t really think you would want to see me again after that night.”

“I think I made it clear that I wanted to when I asked for your number.”

“Well, yes, but I thought you just wanted a hookup and that’s just not what I can do.”

“Because of…” he gestures towards the boy that jolted down the aisle just a few minutes ago.

“Because of Benji, yeah.”

“Alright, it’s understandable, but I did not just want a hookup, and that’s still not what I want,” he clears, his words certainly surprising her. This is definitely not what she was expecting when she came down to get groceries today.

“Harry…” she breathes out, already feeling guilty that she is about to turn him down once again. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a single mother with a six year-old and you are… you.”

“I don’t see your point,” he truthfully answers.

“I’m not some model you chatted up at some award show, who is living her best life, traveling the world just like you. My days consist of work, doing laundry, cleaning the house, cooking, doing first grade homework, going to football practice and watching cartoons. We are polar opposites.”

“No, just our lifestyles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get closer.”

“Is that really what you want?”

Harry is about to answer right when Benji emerges again, proudly holding up a bar of KitKat in his hand this time.

“This one! This one!” he declares, stopping next to Annalise.

“Okay, put it in,” she nods and the little boy throws the chocolate into the cart with a beaming smile. Her eyes flicker back to Harry, who is now staring down at Benji, who is seemingly not that interested in him at the moment, his attention is more focused on the cereals on the shelves.

She is aware she can’t really push this conversation, but she also doesn’t want Benji to hear it.

“Benji, can you get me three apples? I’ll go get paper towels in the next aisle, alright?”

“Three?” he asks holding up three fingers to make sure he heard her right.

“Yes.”

Benji nods and runs off once again, while Annalise grabs a random box of cereal off the shelf and starts pushing her cart, Harry walking along with him.

“It’s nice that you want to prove that you are fine with whatever baggage I come with, but I’m not stupid, Harry. I know I’m not the jackpot and I’m not naïve, I’m not trying to make myself believe that I’m easy to date when I’m clearly not.”

“You act like you are the only single parent out in the dating field. I genuinely don’t think that it’s that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, that’s what you are saying now. But then we would get more involved, you’d grow frustrated that I can’t just go after you whenever you feel like it, or that I would have to cancel on plans because Benji is sick or has homework to do that he needs help with. Or that my Friday night consists of playing board games, then watching whatever cartoon Benji is keen on seeing and I’m in bed by ten while you probably spend these nights out with your friends, hopping from one bar to the other. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, that’s exactly what you should be doing at your age… at our age. But for me, it’s just different.”

She is not talking just out of theories. She has tried to date, several times, but it was always kind of doomed from the beginning. Men in their mid-twenties don’t want to be a stand-in dad, though it’s completely not what she expects. But as time went by, they all grew tired of having to deal with a kid in the relationship and they all ended up leaving and she can’t even blame them. It’s not what they want in life at this point, but she can’t be what they wanted her to be so slowly but surely she gave up on finding a man before she turns thirty and her peers start to get into the whole idea of having a family that’s already been her reality since she was eighteen.

And the situation is even more complicated with Harry. An international rockstar is definitely not the right person for her and vice versa. She can only imagine what some lowlifes would think when they found out he is dating a single mother. People can be cruel for no damn reason and she is definitely not in the right mindset to be humiliated just because she is a mother.

The two of them move down to the next aisle so she can grab the paper towels along with some dish soap. Harry is keen on making her understand that he is still very much interested and he has nothing against her being a mother. It was just a little shocking to find out this way, instead of hearing about it from her.

“I think you have an unreasonable picture in your head of what my life is like,” he explains. “Yes, I do travel a lot and I go to parties, but it’s not what I do most in life. And I’m not expecting you to turn your whole life around for me.”

“Yeah, but dating me is kind of me asking you to turn your whole life around for us,” she simply says and he is stunned at her words, having nothing to bring up against them. “Look,” she sighs. “I appreciate the effort and everything, but I want to save you the time, just like I originally wanted to. I know that it seems reasonable now, but once you get involved, it’s a whole different world, I’m telling you. And while I would love to give you the chance to prove me wrong, I still have to think about Benji. I can’t just drag someone into his life and then have them leave when they figure out it’s not what they want after all. He needs stability around him and it’s enough that he can’t get that from his father.”

Harry has a million questions roaming in his head that he is dying to ask. Mostly about the father, because if he is not in the picture, he can’t imagine what kind of scumbag he is for leaving someone like her. But he keeps them all to himself, especially when Benji appears again with the three apples, putting them into the cart with a proud smile. The boy turns to Harry this time, finally acknowledging his presence.

“Who are you?” he asks. Harry looks down at him and pushes everything else into the back of his mind as he hunches down a bit, holding out his hand for the boy, a friendly smile playing on his lips.

“I’m Harry, your mum’s friend. Nice to meet you.”

The boy doesn’t hesitate to take his right held out, his small hand almost getting lost in Harry’s big palm as they shake hands like two adults. Harry is stunned by how confident he is, unlike most kids his age.

“I’m Benjamin Lloyd,” the boy introduces himself smiling and Harry can see the resemblance now clearer than anything. His smile is certainly his mother’s and the shape of his eyes along with his chin are the exact same as Annalise’s, leaving only a few traits that must have been inherited from his father.

Benjamin lets go of Harry’s hand and turns back to his mother completely unbothered by the man he just met.

“Mum, are we staying on the playground a little?” he asks as they all move down the aisle, heading to the cash register.

“Uh, yeah, we can stay for a little, but you need to do homework when we get home. Mrs. Conrad sent me all the work you missed today so we have to catch up on everything. You got away with faking sickness this morning, but you are doing the work you missed.”

Benji doesn’t fuss about having to do work, he knew this would happen when he faked to have a tummy ache, he nods understanding the importance of doing his homework and Harry is amazed by how great his behavior is. Most kids his age would have thrown a tantrum over what Annalise just said, but not Benji. He is like a small adult, Harry thinks.

“I honestly don’t see why you still have to push me away completely. Did you not enjoy talking with me?” Harry continues as they stand in line, Annalise putting everything to the belt from the cart while Benji is busy playing around the poles that separate the lines.

“Of course I did!” she sighs.

“So then why can’t we just continue? See where it goes?”

“Because that’s just not how things work for me,” she says with a soft, sad chuckle.

“What, you can’t have friends?” Harry asks innocently as Annalise finishes packing, puts a divider on the belt so Harry can put his items behind hers.

“Oh, so you just want to be friends?” she asks raising her eyebrows, seeing through him easily. Harry opens his mouth, but then closes, a cheeky smile stretching across her face that makes her chuckle.

“For now, yeah?” he tries to sound convincing, but it’s more of a joke.

The cashier starts to scan her items so she pushes the cart over to the end and starts packing everything back, Benji still climbing on the poles, completely oblivious to the conversation happening around him, or he just chooses not to listen.

“You are unbelievable,” she shakes her head at the man in the line. The cashier finishes up with her items and she taps her card on the terminal, pushing the cart away a little.

Harry is scared that she’ll flee the moment she gets the receipt and leaves before she could go after her, but for his biggest surprise, she just pushes the cart a little away from the cash register and starts packing her items into totebags. Benji runs up to her and she gives him his KitKat without a word, the boy happily tearing the packaging open, snacking on the chocolate.

Harry is quick to finish with his items, catching up with Annalise as the three of them head out of the supermarket.

“Look, I’m gonna be honest with you, I haven’t felt like this with anyone in a long time, Lis. I loved talking to you, I feel like we had a connection, and I think you felt it too. I would hate to waste whatever we had so I’m offering you my friendship. I want to hang out, spend time with you, just as two adults enjoying each other’s company. Nothing more, if that’s what you really want for now. And we can see where it heads later. How does that sound?”

They reach her car and Benji runs to the backseat, tearing the door open while Annalise opens the trunk and she is surprised to see Harry help her pack her bags into the car, but she doesn’t protest.

“I really don’t know…” she sighs.

“Come on! Just friends. Give it a try! I have a great feeling about it and I promise to be very careful. I understand that you need boundaries because of Benji and I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable in any way. But you do have to realize that you need to open up at one point. You can’t use him as an excuse forever.”

“I’m not using him as an excuse!” she points out, but she can feel how that’s not the whole truth.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lis,” Harry smirks, pulling his phone out of his coat’s pocket and unlocking it he holds it out for her once she has closed the trunk. “I’m just asking for your phone number, not to travel the world with me. You can decide to block me later if you change your mind, it’s nothing serious, alright?”

Annalise’s hesitation is clearer than the light and in any other case, he would take offence at it, but not with her. Harry is keen on proving to her that he meant everything he said and that he is willing to take a chance with her.

Chewing on the inside of her cheeks, she glances back at Benji, who has climbed into his seat in the back of the car. She is fighting with herself, bringing up all pros and contras until she finally caves in. Grabbing the phone from Harry’s hand she types her number in and gives herself a ring so she can save his number as well. She hands the device back and Harry’s smile is so wide, she almost wants to punch him in the face, but she can also feel the excitement running through her veins.

“Great. You won’t regret it, Lis,” Harry beams shoving his phone back into his pocket. His hand reaches for her arm and gives it a gentle squeeze as he doesn’t want to try anything further with her at the moment.

“I better not,” she mumbles shaking her head before turning around to buckle Benji in. When that’s done she pays one last glance at Harry who stands at the car next to hers, watching her get behind the wheel and back out from her spot. He waves at her happily and she just nods in his way before turning around the car and driving away.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?!” Harry rages through the phone, his anger only met with a soft chuckle from Griff on the other end of the call.

“Mate, I told ya, s’not my place! She didn’t tell ya, so I didn’t either.”

“You saw how hooked I was on her! You could have, no, no… you should have told me!”

Harry was quick to run back to the studio and called Griff right away to load everything out on him. He felt betrayed that his friend didn’t let him know this small little detail even after seeing him all crushed after she left without a trace to find her. He gets his reasoning, he does, but it still doesn’t stop him from being so bloody mad at his mate.

“Sorry! I really am sorry! But I know how protective she is over Benji. I was not gonna betray her like tha’.”

Harry takes a deep breath, paying up and down the hallway in the studio, trying his best to calm his nerves. It’s an unfortunate situation as a whole, he sees that clearly, but the frustration how it had to go down at the end is getting the best out of him for sure. He is not mad at one specific person, because everyone was doing what they thought to be the best, but everything added up to be such a shitty outcome, or at least on Harry’s side.

Pinching the bridge of his nose he huffs again, putting aside his burning emotions.

“Okay, okay. Sorry to snap at you like that, it was just… a lot.”

“I get it, don’ worry about it,” Griff assures him, glasses clinking behind him somewhere, he is probably working at the pub as they are speaking. “She gave ya her number now, right?”

“Yeah, she didn’t want to, but I talked her ears off,” Harry chuckles lowly. He could still feel the excitement that rushed through him when she finally gave in.

“M’happy for ya, mate. But please be bloody careful. She doesn’t need any shit right now, has enough on her plate.”

“I know. I’m just trying to be her friend first, that’s all.”

“Alright. Swing by the pub sometime soon, if ya want.”

“Sure thing. Bye Griff,” Harry smiles before ending the call.

Walking back into the recording room, all eyes snap up to him and he stops in his track.

“What?”

“The hell was that about?” Sarah questions, asking in the name of everyone in the room. They all just heard his rage outside and now are dying to know what it was about.

“I uhh—I found her,” he simply says and watches all his bandmates gawk back at him with wide eyes.

“What? Did you like, hire a private investigator or something?” Charlotte asks, making Harry chuckle as he shakes his head no.

“No, I ran into her at Tesco. Well, her and her… son.”

His last word washes out the whole room, everyone stops breathing for a moment as they stare back at Harry who has that ‘yeah, you heard me right’ look on his face.

“A son?” Mitch asks snapping out of his shock. “Like a proper kid?”

“How do you not have a proper kid?” Harry asks him with a look.

“I don’t know! I’m just… surprised. How old is the kid?”

“Like six or seven. She said something about being a first grader.”

“Didn’t you say she is a year younger than you?” Sarah asks, as everyone is doing the silent math in their head.

“She is, with one year. Or that’s what she told me.”

“That makes her, what, like eighteen when she had the kid? And what about the father?” Charlotte trails, still trying hard to put the picture together.

“She didn’t say much, but from what I understood, he is not really in the picture. So at least she is not married or something,” Harry adds, still open about the relief he is feeling about that information.

“This shit is twisted,” Sarah huffs. “So what’s gonna happen now? Did you ask for her number again?”

“Ask?” Harry chuckles bitterly. “I begged, Sarah. I was ready to be on my knees in the middle of a bloody Tesco.”

A round of laughter runs through the room and the mood finally eases a little after the shock that just set in. It wasn’t the fact that Annalise had a son that sent everyone over the edge, but rather that she didn’t say a single word about it and how it all surfaced.

“And did she give it to you?” Mitch prompts and Harry nods, a shy smile stretching on his lips as the two girls start clapping and cheering.

They all saw his long face after New Year’s Eve, it couldn’t be missed how he was moping around for weeks. He told them all about this girl he met, who completely blew his mind just before breaking his heart. Now that she was found and gave him just a small crumble of information about her to him that makes him able to contact her, the change is visible. That little sparkle in his eyes is back and that’s all his friends wanted to see.

“So what are you gonna do now?” Sarah asks as Harry walks over to one of the armchairs and makes himself comfortable.

“Now… I’ll try not to scare her off. Hopefully she won’t push me away and at least let me be her friend.”

“Friend? Is that what you want to be?”

“Of course not,” he sighs, his head dropping to the back of the armchair. “But this is all I can do for now.”

They all just nod, tasting his words and letting everything that just happened sink in. Harry is doing the same, he has a lot to think about and figure out, but there’s one thing he is one hundred percent sure about: he will not give up on Annalise.

NEXT PART

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TAGLIST

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[iamanartichoke]

Natalie Holt implying that Loki slept with Sif before cutting off her hair honestly makes my blood boil. The first Thor movie showed us a sympathetic character that was an outcast in Asgard, and a scapegoat in his family. Everything now just seems like Marvel trying to take all of that away. So many people are saying, "Well, now I know why Sif doesn't like him, lol!" And that is exactly as intended. We are supposed to see Loki as an ass and everyone else as a saint for putting up with him. :(

I'm just really baffled at how it's either a) supposed to make sense, or b) explain anything about their dynamic?

Like, okay, let's assume that they do hate each other bc they slept together. Why would that be? Even if you catch feelings and get rejected, that's not really justification to hate someone. Ideally you'd just go your own separate ways but since Loki and Sif shared a social circle, that probably wasn't an option, in which case the next best thing is to just be civil while you move on/get over the feelings. No hatred necessary, and certainly not for centuries.

I don't believe that either of them is stubborn enough to harbor a grudge over being rejected. Sif bc I wouldn't believe that she caught feelings for Loki anyway, and Loki bc while he would certainly be hurt, and his pride would be wounded, I just don't see him holding onto that for longer than it would take for him to move past it.

And where is the hair-cutting supposed to come in? Are we implying here that Loki is so childish and petty that he cut off Sif's hair in retaliation for her not returning his feelings? (Seeing it written down like that, I am guessing this is exactly the implication, bc of course it is, smh.) Was he 12 when they fucked, or ??

So here's the thing, though. You pointed out that the first Thor movie showed us a sympathetic character who was an outcast and a scapegoat but no, actually, it didn't. Thor 1 showed us a jealous, vindictive loner turned villain. That's the problem - the MCU isn't taking anything away as much as they're trying to re-establish the characterization they intended for him to have all along.

Thor 1 left things out that would provide more context to Loki's motivations. Thor 1 actively deleted scenes that showed Loki as sympathetic. Thor 1 set up a "good brother vs evil brother" black-and-white dichotomy between Thor and Loki, in which the narrative and the supporting characters all behaved as though Loki was innately the evil brother and there wasn't even a question about that. Thor 1 was Thor's movie, and while I obviously have no problem with that, it being Thor's movie means that to a lot of the audience, Loki was never going to be perceived as sympathetic. In order to make Thor the hero of his story, Loki has to be the villain and most people just accept that at face-value.

Is Loki sympathetic? Yes. Was he an outcast in his society and a scapegoat in his family? Yes. Was he evil at heart? No. Did he do bad things? Yes. Did he intend for them to turn out as terribly as they did? No. Etc.

These are all things that a lot of us know because we've taken the time to know them. One needs to be interested/invested enough in Loki to make the effort of interpreting his motivations and his characterization but, that said, having a vested enough interest in Loki to be an active fan doesn't necessarily mean interpreting him sympathetically. There's this weird divide and things that seem obvious in hindsight, such as Loki's sympathy as a character or the nuances of what he was really trying to achieve in Thor 1, are things that a lot of the audience + his fandom either don't pick up on or don't care to see.

There's a reason 2011-13 Loki isn't as popular as Ragnarok Loki. There's a reason there are so. many. posts. in this fandom that start off with "I love Loki, but -" and then proceed to drag him. There's a reason why a lot of his fans are like "lol I mean he did murder all those people though?" or why the "you just like Loki/apologize for Loki bc you want to fuck Tom" argument is so prevalent. There's a reason why headcanons like "Loki just fucked his way into the GM's inner circle" are treated as canon, or why nobody questions whether or not it actually made sense for Loki to randomly betray Thor right before the obedience disk scene.

The reason is that Thor 1 didn't show us who Loki really was, and because of his portrayal in that movie and in Avengers (subtext and word-of-god confirmation is clearly insufficient for the wider audience to realize that Loki wasn't acting of his own accord - no, he's just evil), there are very many fans who are just never going to see him as anything besides villainous at worst or "a fun but greasy little shit" at best, who causes trouble and does shitty things for the lulz.

"Loki cut Sif's hair for no other reason than to be a dick after they fucked" falls perfectly in line with that characterization, and the result is that you get tons of fans who are like "LOL that's SO Loki!" or "No wonder Sif hates him!" etc. And if, in 2021, ten years after Loki was introduced into the MCU, people are still coming away from his narrative arc + his own series believing that he is, or ever was, just a rotten little shit who caused trouble for the lulz? Then that is clearly the Loki that they see, that they stan, and that means whatever he means to them, and regardless of how our portion of the fandom may object and cry foul, there's honestly just nothing we can do about it.

So, I mean, there we are. People can feel however they want about Loki. It is what it is. And I think I'm just tired of getting upset about it. Re Loki/Sif, I will share my opinion that it's a trash headcanon and laugh at it, but I'm tired of allowing myself to get genuinely upset about how other people perceive this character, especially when there's nothing I can do about it and the only person who ends up suffering is me when my mental health spirals downward (bc I care way too much about fiction and I have no problem admitting it).

I didn't intend for this to be so long, and obviously this is not any kind of rebuttal against you or your ask personally, anon. It just gave me an opportunity to put into words what I've been feeling for quite awhile. It is what it is.

I also feel it's worth mentioning, again, that I think Natalie's soundtrack is absolute fire and I have nothing but respect for her as the composer in this series, but I do not think that earns her any merit in how she perceives these characters. Loki/Sif is her headcanon, and she also said that Loki looks at Sylvie the way he looks at his mother, which is like, and how do you think he's looking at his mother, Nat? Cause uh. I don't think they are the same. I know most people won't agree, but I feel like her words need to be taken with a grain of salt and not accepted as canon based on nothing more than her position of being someone who worked on the show.

I should put this behind a cut, but meh. Also, I know a lot of people reblogged/added onto my Loki/Sif post from last night and I was going to engage but I just don't have time, so please accept this as my general response + stance on the entire clusterfuck.

[omegawolverine]

I love it when people talk about things they're passionate about, tell me something cool!! Anything you want, just something you find interesting or want to talk about :D

hello anon my beloved, I am in a bad mood so you will be receiving a passionate, yet lowkey of pissy rant about why villainizing bakugou makes me wanna vomit and its NOT just because I'm a dumbass kinnie :)

tws: child abuse (emotional and physical), near death expierences, bullying, kidnapping, suffocation, lots of trauma in general tbh. if you've seen bnha then basically just keep all the general triggering plot stuff in mind incase i missed any warnings

also, note: I havent caught up on bnha in a minute, I'm at like the start of the war arc but I barely remember shit there tbh so like. probs missing new stuff. also bnha spoiler warnings lol

so, for starters, the homie bakugou has like,, a good handful of issues that come from his childhood that explain why he's an ass. he was always praised and never actually reprimanded for being a twat which led to him having a huge ego that ended up fucking him over majorly. this ego was something that his mother acknowledged him having, but literally didnt try to fix it with anything other than violence. see here:

like, instead of trying to help him, she hits and insults him, which is probably what led to his weird inferiority/superiority complex. being constantly told by others that you're outstanding and one day you'll be a top hero because you're rude and aggressive and then going home and being hit by your mother for those exact same behaviors is bound to fucking confuse a child.

so like, now that we've established that its definetly canon that his mother (parents? I think he said parents at some point but masaru doesn't seem like the type so 🤷) hits him though we don't know how much or how often (though if bakugou was as much of a little shit back then ((which as far as we've seen- he was)) then it was probably often), lets talk about how regardless of all that 1) hitting your kids as "discipline" not only doesn't work but is abusive lol like idc if it's spanking/popping them on the mouth for talking shit, slapping them across the face "on occasion", etc. shits not okay 2) hitting your kids!!!! does not work!!!!!!!! it is literally PROVEN not to work!!!!!!!! hitting a child who has done something wrong doesnt teach them to stop doing something it teaches them to be scared of you, which will cause the child to withdraw, removing part of their support system (assuming said abusive parents would even offer that up) and will most likely lead to them thinking they're a bad person, not that their actions were bad, which are two different things. so, ya know, that would clearly have an effect on a kid. like, as someone with a mother who reminds me all too much of mitsuki: I have acted like a complete shitbag and taken my anger out on people to feel better in the past because of the way my mother treated me. though it was nowhere near what bakugou did, I still know first fucking hand what a mother hitting and insulting her child will do, especially if they have no proper outlet for that (friends, a safe place to vent) which bakugou never fucking had.

theres also the fact that just talking to your kid the way mitsuki does (saying it's his fault he was kidnapped because he's weak, all while hitting him) is not??? okay?????? ive seen people arguing that this was just a joke in poor taste but like her son was KIDNAPPED and even if it was a "joke" there's literally NO WAY that would EVER?? BE FUNNY??????? she just sounds like the kind of parent who at the very least says shit without thinking that would traumatize bakugou (because being told right after being kidnapped it's your fucking fault by your mother is absolutely traumatizing) but it comes across as her being emotionally abusive.

mitsukis character as a whole comes across as a shitty mom who doesn't realize she's a shitty mom and thinks bakugou being an ass isn't at least partially her fault even though she's admitted to realizing he has always had an ego problem and doing nothing to fix it except for hitting and yelling which obviously did nothing but make him just as loud and violent as she is.

this is obviously not the entire reason why he's a dick but he was never properly taught that the shit he was doing wasn't okay and people not stopping it and/or praising him endlessly even tho he was a bully is basically the same as encouraging it, thank you very much.

moving on from that, let's talk about bakugous other traumas and how he naturally responds to them. hint: it's with either full blown panic or a fight response (verbal or physical, though usually physical. also sometimes it's the panic followed by the fight response.)

so far in bnha (keep in mind that I am not caught up, I've only read up to the beginning of the war arc and i barely remember those bits so) bakugou has...

nearly died via sludge villain (he was unable to move and was being suffocated to death- keep this in mind)

lost for the first time ever and against deku of all people (this nearly sent him into a full blown panic attack, likely because of that sexy little inferiority/superiority complex combo. think of this as like. gifted kid burnout lite. he has always been the best of the best and now suddenly he is being beaten by somebody who has always been weaker than him, which immediately makes him start thinking he was never actually that good, he's actually a fucking failure, a goddamn fraud)

won the sports festival by default (bakugou counts this as yet another failure because todoroki didnt try his best. had bakugou lost to todoroki full strength, he would've taken 2nd place with a bit of bitching, but he still wouldve taken it rather than refuse the medal as it would be a reminder that he failed. instead of accepting that like UA shouldve, the staff chained and muzzled him on live television and then had all might, his fucking idol, force the medal into his mouth. remember the sludge villain incident and how he couldnt move and was suffocating to death? yeah.)

been kidnapped because of the way he reacted to winning during the sports festival (he was aggressive and tried to refuse the medal because he felt he didnt deserve it and was then retraumatized by being chained up and muzzled. his "villainous attitude" was a fucking trauma response, do not tell me otherwise)

was then chained up once again by the LOV after being kidnapped,,, do we see the "retraumatize bkg" theme yet?

"ended all might" (he literally blames himself for all mights retirement because had he just not have been weak, all might wouldve had more time, right?)

my point with all of these is that bakugou has been severely traumatized and has then had his trauma responses (aggression, fight) used to further demonize him. not all people with trauma react the fucking same and the way the fandom just refuses to acknowledge anger as a valid form of trauma response is gross as hell.

moving away from that topic, bakugou has literally never had any actual friends, they all just used him and didn't care about him which absolutely will fuck up a kid, especially one who already has all that other shit going on. bakugou deadass never had a support system or people to help him grow as a person, let alone properly work through his fucking emotions so it's not surprising that he would take out his bullshit on the one person who tried to help him especially considering he saw dekus actions as him thinking he was weak. bakugou was raised to not seek help, he thought somebody strong shouldnt ever need it, so for somebody like deku (who bakugou percieved as weak and helpless already) to offer up help? deku must obviously think bakugou is even weaker than him, what other explanation could their possibly be!

speaking of which, there's his heaps of insecurities that he basically hid by being a twat and bullying others for most of his life. kid was so insecure he bullied deku for fucking years cause he thought deku looked down on him, thought he was better than him, etc. and that only got worse bc his idol then decided to take deku in, train him and even give him his quirk. there's probably some shit im missing but still he's got issues and always has had issues. that being said, he's actually improving and working them out now which is what makes him a really good, interesting character. it's also nice to see a character who is a dick without some tragic backstory (like his backstory is sad but its not the classic "my family was fucking slaughtered and i turned into a raging bitch who murders people" type shit) bc that rarely happens and it's like most assholes don't actually have a story like that they're just assholes lol

now lets talk improvement! lil bitch has been getting better since he got into UA and im so happy abt it!! he had a rough start what with deku suddenly having a quirk and all but like he is really improving now and it highkey shows that bakugou just mostly needed people who 1) didn't constantly praise him and actually criticized him instead 2) actually fucking punished him doing stupid shit and 3) some motherfucking friends

Since going to UA he's gotten actually feedback from teachers about his weaknesses and how to get stronger, he's lost against others, hes been told he has a shit attitude and is a dick, told he should be nicer and leave deku alone, etc etc. He hasn't gotten in trouble too much with teachers but others give him shit for what he does and aizawa has punished him too, while still acknowledging that bakugou is an amazing and dedicated student, something which no one else had done up til that point. and uh???? homie actually has friends who like,,, don't use him and also call him out when he's a dick. like specifically kirishima has done this shit and him and bakugous relationship is clearly very healthy and beneficial for the both of them. makes me feel all happy n shit, ya know

bottom line is: while it is absolutely valid to dislike or even hate bakugou because he is a massively flawed person who has been very cruel to others, villainizing him for the way he acts which in large part seems to be from a lack of guidance, a shitty mother and heavy amounts of trauma, is fucking awful. his actions cannot be fucking excused, he needs to apologize and continue to grow, but he is also a fucking teenager, who is just now being told that the way he acts is unacceptable by people who dont fucking abuse him (and I swear to god if any people who think mitsuki isnt abusive interact with this fucking post I will fullstop hardblock you, I do not fucking care) and actually treat him like a normal person instead of some prodigy child or someone who needs to be fixed.

people are free to debate my points or whatever bc I know some of this stuff is up to interpretation but like. dni if you're just here to say you hate bakugou for xyz reason or that he's irredeemable. also especially dni if you compare him to fucking endeavor yall bitches make me gag.

anyways thxs for the ask anon <33 sorry this is a kinda messy info dump lol

[olderthannetfic]

Living in latin america and seeing all the mostly usa & european people who dont get that in things like copyright the Most Important Factor isn't if it's illegal but if it is Enforced and if it is, if it'll get you in real trouble or you'll just get told to stop is wild?? And that Legal isn't Good or Fair or whatever

Like equating what's legal to what's "allowed" (bc you can get away with it) is weird. There's tons of bootleg shit here though, pirating stuff is commonplace, and people straight up sell disney merch (t-shirts, hoodies, etc) with no consequence, and everyone knows this is illegal! It's not suddenly more legal to make money this way just because you're in Latin America! but we also know disney doesn't perceive us as a threat and would only go after you if you were a big company trying to do this, so who cares

The Law and how it's applied not being "fair" is just a given? Of course all paid fanwork can get you in legal trouble, even if you can argue that technically it's not illegal, it's a very grey legal arena. It's on an individual level that you've got to research precedent and decide how far you're willing to risk it. Like, of course it's not fair that fanart can be profitted from a lot easier and with less potential legal issues than fic, but the people telling you straight up admitting you're doing fic commissions is a bad idea aren't being unfair or devaluing writers, they just know ips are more likely to hunt you down for it (and potentially cause the hosting site to decide they're not dealing with this bullshit and taking down unrelated fanworks)

(Also seen the "ao3 is being so mean and unfair not allowing you to profit off fic" argument which. ??? They're certain they can defend fanworks as long as they're free, and not if they're paid. I dont get how a pragmatic policy that protects all their fanworks with 99% certainity is unfair. If they tried defending paid fanwork and failed, as they'd likely would, it could cause a fuckton of legal trouble even for the free stuff??)

--

Yes. When someone asks me about the law and doesn't specify, I generally assume they're from the US because we're the worst about thinking you don't need to say... But I've also seen too many fans from elsewhere listing off US legal concepts like fair use, which don't even exist in their countries. It all depends!

And like you say, enforcement is the real issue. Offline? Online? Website mostly in English? In Spanish? Malay? Hosted on whose servers? etc. etc.

I laugh at the idea that writing is so oppressed. Do people understand just how many fandom writers go on to sell trashy romance novels? Yeah, sure, you have to do a find and replace on the names, but some of the stuff I've read on Kindle Unlimited is only that. The better stuff was original or fully rewritten, but man is there a lot where the serial numbers have barely been filed.

You know what's really not fair? I and many other people have this visceral reaction where fan art is either good enough to feel semi-pro or it's a squick. Meanwhile, writing can be anywhere on a sliding scale from awful to awesome, and if it hits our kinks we'll put up with a lot. There's no hard line of uncanny valley/squick. So, sure, you have to change the character names on that a/b/o fanfic, but as long as you do, you can sell it even if you can barely string a sentence together.

I'm not trying to be mean to newbie artists. I just have this binary on/off switch when it comes to visuals. Good Enough or... not.

I've seen at least as much wank about this double standard as about the monetization one. So really, people need to just accept that different mediums are different and get on with their lives. Writing is extremely easy to monetize as long as you do it right.

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

if the post is about harry, valid, but also hasn't he already come out? like he's said he's not straight, right? idk much about him but i feel like i remember that being a whole thing, where he's talked a lot about not being straight? i could def be wrong

Google's helping me out here bc I know the bare minimum about him myself but I found this article listing some things but frankly I just don't think that's enough to certainly say he's queer in any way. Especially when a lot of those things could easily be things he meant in a different way, or didn't mean at all and just said as an awkward teenager put in uncomfortable situations.

But I think it's important to acknowledge that "I've never felt the need to label myself" does not mean "I like men/am queer" at all and could just mean he, like most straight people, have never had to consider labels. There's a lot of things to be said, I think. I don't assume people are straight but I also don't assume that "no labels" automatically means queer.

That article does something really stupid as well and questions his gender just because he's said some shit about femininity/masculinity and I just wanna say that's stupid as well. Cis people are allowed to explore gender presentation however they want.

Not to think tooooo hard about it but one of the quotes listed is [Regarding his concerts and pride flags] "They just want to be accepted." which kind of implies he doesn't identify with queerness, or at least doesn't want his fans to misconstrue his words and believe he's queer? No labels means no labels, if he doesn't care then it's not really fair to shove him in with queers. And he talks about how his clothing presentation isn't queer and I'm not sure I agree. It's not that I think wearing pink makes you gay, it's that surrounding yourself and your career with queer people and queer culture and then pulling back and refusing to acknowledge that culture is kind of weird. And in a way, denying the fact that the men who defined the style he enjoys have always been queer icons— Freddie Mercury, Elton John, etc— IS kind of refusing to acknowledge the culture, in a way.

Anyways this got too long, I'm sorry. I really don't hate him at all, I just don't think celebs like Taylor and him should be the ones touted as "queer icons" of our generation when actual queer celebs exist and face a hell of a lot more backlash.

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[itsclydebitches]

it's so funny to me bc the way you talk about show!witcher makes me not want to play the game bc. i love the way jaskier and geralt are in the show and i dont want THAT ruined for me by whatever the game does with them. which is probably weird but it just goes to show everyone has their own tastes i guess slkjfhgdskfjhgkjh

aksdjflaksj oh no! lol Honestly though, if you like the Netflix dynamic you may still like the game dynamic, if only because so many of the criticisms against Netflix — that Geralt is too cruel to Jaskier, Jaskier is too much of a caricature, they don't start out as the close friends they're meant to be, etc. — exists for TW3 as well. So for someone who does like their dynamic as opposed to being critical of it, the game and show might somewhat go hand-in-hand? Or at least that’s a theory of mine. Though TW3 takes place post-canon and thus the two have settled into a solid relationship (we've already gone through the development the Netflix boys will presumably get), there's still this undercurrent of Dandelion as this... grudgingly loved annoyance, I guess. Which, if you've read any of the books, feels totally off base, whereas if this is your first/only Witcher experience it can feel like a whole ocean of potential. We know Geralt does like Jaskier, so what does it mean if he doesn't always act like it? The whole "I pretend like I hate you, but deep down I'd totally die for you. Now what tragedy will make me finally  admit how much I care?" characterization can be GREAT. Great enough that I've got a 37,000 word fic derived from the Netflix dynamic going, despite my own complaints! (I am a contradiction) So yeah, I both like aspects of their relationship even as I'm frustrated by them, and more importantly, I can see many of those same characteristics in TW3. Which might make it more palatable for you, anon, than previously assumed.

It's the books where Dandelion truly differs and, as an adaptation — not just that, but an adaptation where the creators said time and again they were going to be faithful to the books — where Netflix fails to my mind. There's plenty of great Dandelion-Geralt moments to discuss, but you know Netflix's initial meeting? Jaskier begging for any acknowledgement of his work, Geralt dismissing his song as untrue, the whole man with bread in his pants? Compare that to the scene that exchange was likely taken from:

“Geralt,” said Dandilion, standing in the stirrups to pick a fine apple from a branch which stretched over the orchard fence, “all the way you've been complaining about it being harder and harder to find work. Yet from what I just heard, it looks as if you could work here without break until winter. You'd make a penny or two, and I’d have some beautiful subjects for my ballads. So explain why we're riding on.”

“I wouldn't make a penny, Dandilion.”

“Why?”

“Because there wasn't a word of truth in what they said.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“None of the creatures they mentioned exist.”

“You're joking!” Dandilion spat out a pip and threw the apple core at a patched mongrel. “No, it's impossible. I was watching them carefully, and I know people. They weren't lying.”

“No,” the witcher agreed. “They weren't lying. They firmly believed it all. Which doesn't change the facts.”

The poet was silent for a while.

“None of those monsters…None? It can't be. Something of what they listed must be here. At least one! Admit it.”

“All right. I admit it. One does exist for sure.”

“Ha! What?”

“A bat.”

They rode out beyond the last fences, on to a highway between beds yellow with oilseed and cornfields rolling in the wind. Loaded carts traveled past them in the opposite direction. The bard pulled his leg over the saddlebow, rested his lute on his knee and strummed nostalgic tunes, waving from time to time at the giggling, scantily clad girls wandering along the sides of the road carrying rakes on their robust shoulders.

“Geralt,” he said suddenly, “but monsters do exist. Maybe not as many as before, maybe they don't lurk behind every tree in the forest, but they are there. They exist. So how do you account for people inventing ones, then? What's more, believing in what they invent? Eh, famous witcher? Haven't you wondered why?”

“I have, famous poet. And I know why.”

“I’m curious.”

“People”—Geralt turned his head—“like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves."

The casual intimacy of traveling together, grabbing a snack, and chatting to pass the time. Dandelion waves at "scantily glad girls," but it's just a single line, not his defining trait. He plays a little music without Geralt insulting him (because Geralt likes his music and has always been willing to admit it). Here, when Dandelion is wrong about what kind of monsters exist, he's not made to feel lesser for that belief, or to have it presented as a means of coning people out of their coin (note that Geralt doesn't take exception to the suggestion of staying and getting "some beautiful subjects for my ballads”). Geralt kindly explains the villagers' ignorance — an ignorance Dandelion is a part of, even if the text simultaneously points out that he can read people well and he wasn’t wrong to pick up on the fact that the villagers think this is all true — before they share a moment of humor together: "Ha! What?" / "A bat." A few minutes later though Dandelion challenges things a bit, leading to a philosophical discussion about the nature of monstrosity. Dandelion is intelligent! Geralt welcomes his insights! They jokingly call one another “famous witcher” and “famous poet”! It’s a totally different feel from the grudging acceptance to outright hostility shown in the Netflix show, or even the general annoyance that can permeate their interactions in the game. The books are the one place where I believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that Dandelion is Geralt’s best and truest friend  — and not just because no one else will put up with the Butcher of Blaviken. 

So you might still like them in the games! Even if you don’t, I’d recommend not letting that stop you. Obviously I have some criticisms there, but TW3 remains one of my favorite games ever. At the end of the day, the Dandelion-Geralt interactions are an incredibly short part of the tale compared to the whole. For those who aren’t happy with that relationship, aren’t happy with Yen, don’t like playing Ciri, can’t stand Triss, even don’t like this major arc... everything is just one small piece of a truly massive game. So I’d definitely still recommend giving it a try sometime. If you don’t like their interactions, go watch some Netflix clips on youtube after the Dandelion scenes to wash away the bad :D