#which was entirely socially acceptable in middle school but some people see it as rude outside of that apparently so idk

[existencebringsonlypain]

I don't know if my elementary and middle school education was just leagues above some other schools or what, but sometimes I'm amazed at how much basic knowledge high-schoolers don't know

[honeyandbloodpoetry]

Gender Thoughts Pt 1 and 2

The first time I put a binder on, a little under a week ago, I felt euphoric. Ever since I hit puberty very early on, I felt uncomfortable with my breasts. They never felt right on me, and even though I’ve come to love them sometimes, they still don’t always feel like they match up. I hated how people always looked at them, pointed out how much they showed in low cut shirts when I never even noticed they were--or even wanted them to. They were just there. I liked the way low cut shirts feel and look on me, I just can’t help these giant sacks of flesh that sit on my chest. 

Except...now I can! I ran my hands over my smooth chest, feeling bright. I looked into the mirror, and felt something warm wash over me. I put on my new masculine clothes, letting my partner clip on my new suspenders. I realized that I was shaking as I looked at myself again… I looked like a boy. I felt like a boy. Like a man. And I liked it. I wanted it. Admitting that to myself was like coming home. 

I remember being in sixth grade, walking around the track for my civil air patrol class. I had been slotted in with the rest of the girls, the boys walking ahead of us. I remember feeling uncomfortable being shoved in with only girls, and looking at the gaggle of boys ahead. The exact thought that whispered in my brain was “I wish I was a boy. I want to be like them, with them.” I never forgot that moment, and how strange it made me feel. How it was easier to shake that thought away, and dismiss those feelings. Except they never really left, did they? 

I remember sitting on my bed, crying with my best friend kneeling in front of me. I remember telling her how I didn’t like feeling like a woman all the time. That I wished I could be a black shadow, monstrous, androdynous. Specifically like Venom. She took my hand, did my makeup all in black and helped me pick out the perfect black outfit to achieve that dark, gothic look. I was so incredibly happy and validated. But I still felt like something was missing. 

I remember going into an Adam and Eve for laugh, not expecting much since I am an asexual with a low libido. I remember seeing packers and feeling my chest tighten. I never liked my genitalia--I had wished for a cloaca or something akin to that, but since that was biologically impossible for a human… I sometimes wished I had the opposite of a vagina. I frequently imagined what it would be like to have a penis. I frequently lamented the fact that I didn’t have one. I took the box up to the counter to ask some questions, my dress swishing as I went. The cashier told me it was for trans people only, and a girl like me couldn’t have it. She didn’t know what asexuality was, and had tried polyamory once but decided it was bad when her girlfriend kissed her boyfriend. I was upset, disheartened, and left the store empty handed feeling frustrated and lost.

I remember finally cutting the long, curly locks that had frustrated and imprisoned me for so long. Seeing all of my hair fall to the floor, staring into the mirror as the barber buzzed the back of my head… It made me want to cry tears of joy. It was the first time in my entire life that I had looked at my hair and was happy. The first time I could look in the mirror and feel like myself. Then I remember wanting to go shorter, and my barber encouraging me to keep it a little longer so I didn’t look manly, so I could still be soft and feminine. The way my stomach dropped and the sick feeling in my chest only increased when he began to make fun of the gay men who came down the street near his favorite restaurant. I never saw that barber again. I instead found a nice local place down the road from my apartment, where the kind lady cut it all off without question, other than “Why?” and accepted my warm “It makes me happy. It makes me feel beautiful.” 

But wearing that binder for the first time? It was as if a beam of light had funneled its way directly into my heart. I felt like a handsome man, with just a little bit of striking man boob, and it felt so right. My partner called me a dashing boy and my heart began to race. I still feel his hand tracing my jawline as he called me handsome, and the butterflies it sent up through my belly, even after more than eleven years. 

I love my partner--he identifies as agender and primarily masculine, and has been on the lookout for a good pair of size thirteen shoes to wear with a dress. They also wear joggers and flip flops and graphic tees and can’t seem to stop talking about the ocean and outer space. They’re probably one of my biggest inspirations for finding myself, and being authentically me. 

I’m not super sure who or what I am right now. I’m still figuring that out, but I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere between agender and genderfluid. I feel like me more than anything else, but all pronouns make me feel good. I feel like all of them and none of them at once, but I swing between wanting to be feminine and masculine pretty strongly, though I enjoy being masculine most of all--even when I’m wearing dresses and pink. I feel like a beautiful person in a dress or a button down, no matter what gender I feel like today or tomorrow. 

I am me. And I am one dashing boy, and one beautiful girl. 

4 July 2021

XXX

Since first writing this little essay, I’ve been doing a lot more examination of my gender. I have come to the conclusion that I am transmasc and nonbinary, and am shaky on the title of genderfluid. I am feeling less and less like a woman--if anything, occasionally adjacent to a woman rather than actually being one. I love feeling like and presenting as a man. I have my first appointment with a gender services doctor at my local community clinic for consultation on starting hrt testosterone. I am planning to start with low dose first, and see how I feel. 

I am still unsure of my exact identity, but I have found great euphoria with being and presenting as a man. I love being a man and everything that entails. I have loved myself like never before. Being with my partner is amazing, and he has been endlessly supportive--even recounting little things they had noticed throughout the years. One of the funniest being that I only ever referred to my body parts--my belly, hands, hair, genitalia--with masculine pronouns. I always seemed to see my body as male even if I had a certain sort of dissonance from it. 

Coming out has been difficult. I have had both positive and negative experiences from it. I have been told going on testosterone would be self harm, and that I can’t be something I’m not. I’ve had coworkers I trusted out me without my permission. But I have also had positive affirmation, polite questions, and discussions. I am terrified to tell my mother and her boyfriend--I have no idea how they will react and am terrified that I will be disrespected and disowned. 

But I am prepared to do whatever it takes to be my happiest and most authentic self. 

I have been binding a lot more often, wearing sports bras for long shifts at work, and occasionally going without either when I feel like letting my man boobs hang free. I’ve had the delightful experience of going to a men’s big and tall store and finally wearing pants. I grew up as a fat girl and felt as if I had to perform high femininity to be taken seriously and be treated well--and had been told by someone I trusted that I was too fat to wear pants, which I heavily internalized. So I had completely cast them away in favor of dresses and skirts, bows and gaudy jewelry. Realizing that I could wear pants was...totally wild. That I could be comfortable and look good in pants and shorts, and that it didn’t matter what people did or thought of me was life changing. Maybe I’ll feel like being feminine again someday, but right now this masculinity and masculine clothing, with perhaps the added spice of funky earrings, feels like home. 

I also grew up autistic and with PCOS, both which I think have affected my gender identity. Being autistic, I truly struggled to connect to others socially, and especially to understand societal norms. Being a proper woman felt like I was making up for everything else I was lacking--I may have been awkward, semi-verbal and weird with no friends, but at least I was cute and girlish. I never connected to womanhood though, and always felt out of place no matter how hard I tried. With PCOS, I had heightened testosterone, which meant wider breasts and shoulders, a lack of periods, and excessive body hair. I recall the endocrinologist asking high school age me if I had excessive body hair around my stomach, breasts, etc. and my mother jumping to say no I didn’t...even though I did. I remember suddenly feeling very self aware and ashamed of something completely natural, and even something I started to enjoy. I started shaving my entire body then. 

I even remember being in middle school, and thinking nothing of my hairy legs. In fact, I loved my body hair and how it felt. A rude girl began making fun of me though, tutting her tongue as she cooed, “Aw, does your mommy not let you shave?” Among other things, all throughout many years of severe bullying and abuse. I remember feeling ashamed, but not knowing why, and immediately shaving my legs, covering them in nicks from my shaky and unsteady hands, that same night. 

So many things set me back in my gender expression. So many things contributed to me willful ignorance and denial. I remember wanting to be butch, and everyone in my life laughing at me and saying I was too soft for that. That sweet, sharp ache in my chest. I remember going to a salad bar with my mother, wearing a button up and telling her I wanted to wear some more boyish clothes around that same time--I had already told her that I was bi sometime earlier. I remember her lip curling, looking uncomfortable, and telling me that I better not become one of those boy girls. My late father was very vocal in denouncing homosexuality and specifically men loving men--something which always sat horribly wrong with me on a deeper level. 

I think I might ending up being a trans man. I am still unsure and figuring myself out, but I struggle greatly with the autistic need for sameness vs. the trans need for change. My sapphic love of women has always been very important to me, and fully becoming a man rather than genderfluid is scary for that very reason. I am still navigating my identity and what it means to me and my reality--but no matter what, being a man, being masculine is integral to who I am. 

I was called a “sir” at a job interview for the first time the other day, and nearly began to bawl from sheer joy. The gender euphoria from that and so many moments is worth so much more to me than the years of suffering and ignorance and my ongoing struggles with dysphoria. I finally got a packer and have had help from my partner in learning to position it properly--I am thinking of cutting my hair even shorter. I have almost perfected a pretty basic tie tying skill. Okay, not really, but I’m getting there. I feel deep inside that even though my father loved me, he would not like who and what I am. Still, I wear the last watch he ever wore, and hope to be a good man like him--and to learn from the toxic parts of him to be an even better man. 

I am very excited to start hrt. I am terrified of hair loss and vaginal atrophy, but I look forward to so much more. I cannot wait for bottom growth and body hair, for the voice drop that will hopefully get me misgendered less. I have always felt disconnected from my voice and look forward to getting to know it better as it changes with me. I look forward to meeting with new facial hair. Working out and growing muscle. I just look forward to my second puberty and becoming more like myself. I look forward to navigating and exploring my gender even further, both with loved ones, support groups, and myself. 

More than anything, I am just happy to be me. 

25 August 2021

[st-just]

Semi-coherent Queen’s Gambit thoughts

Overall I really did enjoy the show, even if it might be a bit shallow, once you dig into it. Or, well,, having thought about it I could write a damning denunciation on request, anyway (but that’s true of basically everything I watch, so). Aesthetically gorgeous, of course. But honestly, what’s most interesting to me is how, like, deceptively upbeat and optimistic and generally joyful show it is?

Okay, so firstly – I really do mean it when I say it’s aesthetically beautiful. This show has singlehandidly convinced me that every change in fashion since the ‘60s has been a strict downgrade. The soundtrack’s absolutely sublime as well, both the licensed tracks and just the score – I’m almost certainly going to just be listening to the soundtrack as walking around music for quite a while. I’m no expert on cinematography, but there were a few scenes that were absolutely just showing off, and I sure as hell enjoyed the show (the American championship montage, obviously, and the pull-out in the Moscow hotel. And, well, pretty much every important chess game/tournament). Anna Taylor-Joy absolutely makes the show, and literally anyone whose watched more than two minutes of it probably agrees. Has one of those faces that is just amazing at getting across emotions and ideas without actually saying anything (and without looking like an idiot trying to do so). Really, the comparison that springs to mind is Mathew Rhys and Kerri Russel in The Americans, which is just about the highest praise I, personally, can give. So, yeah, give her and the people in costuming and set design Emmys, at a minimum.

And – getting critiques out of the way, in descending order of how much I care. Jolene is absolutely the most stereotypically Black Best Friend sort of character imaginable, and the conversation where she basically looks at the camera and says she doesn’t just exist to be Beth’s guardian angel doesn’t actually help that much. Beth finally summoning up the self belief and willpower to flush away her lifelong pill habit in the middle of a tournament and playing the next day without any sort of problems was a bit twee. Between the show’s utterly despair inducing vision of the life the women Beth went to school with have and Julie’s whole vitriolic anti-model spiel the show can come off a bit #notlikeothergirls (incidentally, whoever got the French a national stereotype of being sexy, well-dressed and sophisticated deserves a bigger statue in Paris). And, yeah, it’s not unjustifiable or even, like, unusually bad, but Beth hitting rock bottom does end up looking a lot like a playboy spread.

But, okay – when I say the series is remarkably upbeat what I mostly (magical addiction-curing character development aside) mean is that the world (or at last, the world of chess) is shown as fundamentally uplifting, kind, and pure. The conflict of the show is either the result of forced interactions with the rest of society, or Beth struggling with her own damage. Her birth mother and father, the orphanage, her utter piece-of-shit of an adoptive father, the other girls at school – these are all, broadly, terrible. But chess itself is an entirely positive part of her life, and while some of the people she meets through it are rude or condescending at first, they basically all very quickly grow to respect her and become extremely invested in her well-being and success (her relationship with her adoptive mother also becomes more positive and loving basically entirely in proportion to how supportive she is of Beth’s chess career). All of her rivals turn out to be gracious losers and perfect gentleman, and also usually fall in love with her (which, well, fair), and the closest things the series has to a defined, hateable villain (beyond Beth’s self-destructive tendencies) is her adoptive father,  not anyone in the chess world that consumes the vast majority of the plot.

The show’s take on gender roles and period-appropriate patriarchy. There is, to borrow and probably butcher (I believe) Kate Manne’s there is quite a lot of sexism in the show, but almost no misogyny. Which is to say, Beth has to deal with plenty of condescension, double-standards, suffocating expectations, and generally being being looked at askance, and the show is absolutely crystal clear that actually living up to those expectations is a miserable, soul-crushing, dream-killing husk of a life. But when she ignores them and demands to be accepted as a serious chess-player, once she shows that she’s as good as she acts like she is, everyone just, well, lets her. There’s no enforcement mechanism to the patriarchy, or if there is Beth is too exceptional to ever even see it. And no one ever becomes hateful or violently insecure when shown up by her – quite the opposite, really.

Semi-related, but for a show set during the Cold War it’s got an oddly positive view of the Soviet Union. Benny’s rant about how people actually care about chess and give it prestige, and how chess players there actually work together and cooperate instead of being obsessed with individual achievement (which the rest of the show goes on to make very clear is a virtue and something worth copying). There was a bit in the last episode along the same lines that actually made me smile – when the State Department/CIA goon asks Beth to tell the reporters how being in Moscow has made her proud to be an American, when she clearly (imo) is rather fond of the sudden adoring crowds and the reverence her sport is treated with.

Beyond jokes about the there being another universe 10 degrees off from this one where the whole thing is a VN where you beat each potential love interest in chess to unlock them, the comparison that comes to mind is honestly Among Others by Jo Walton. Not for, like, tone or subject matter or anything, but just for the general arc of ‘Weird Girl in mid 20th century deals with horrifying childhood trauma and alienation from the social life expected of her by diving headfirst into nerdy/esoteric subculture”.

But yeah, anyway, gorgeous, enjoyable show. Would watch again. Give Taylor-Joy an Emmy. Thank you again to @triviallytrue and @rox-and-prose for the recommendation. 

[fandom-hoarder]

listen I have so many questions about Stanford Sam, like this kid who was raised in the wild, barely aware of acceptable social conduct arrives with his 2 ectoplasm stained t-shirts at his dorm and like ????? is he very aware of it at first? or does he think he's hiding it well? and like moving in with Jessica?????? he doesn't know how to water plants and that you have to pay electricity bills ??? Like obviously he's not stupid, we know that!! But there are certain things about ordinary everyday life that are just impossible to pick up when you're raised like that. And this is just surface-level stuff, like I feel overwhelmed just thinking about how many tiny things I do in a day, just normal life stuff that I've always done, that Sam would be like ???? so weirded out by, or maybe creepily fascinated ??? Would he try and copy everyone around him maybe??? and then all the odd things that he'd probably do !!! like just basic marine survival nonsense he's dad probably taught him applied in mundane life situations that would make him stand out and he wouldn't even notice !!! And he thinks he's doing fine, people seem to accept him, but then suddenly someone mentions like... TRL or something and he's like ??? and then Dean picks him up and it all falls to pieces, because it's so EASY and ingrained and he doesn't have to pretend and it puts it into perspective how not okay he was doing at Stanford even when it felt like he was ?? god I'm just rambling, like I barely even have headcanons, I'm just so overwhelmed by all the possibilities of how this would play out !!!!

Holy crap, first I wanna apologize if this has been sitting here awhile. The Ask notification location in settings instead of notifications on the app is so weird and I get them so rarely I don’t think to check. (and the website shows that I have 4 but this one is the only one it’ll show? How does tumblr work? Oh yeah, it doesn’t lol.)

Anyway, I have so many thoughts on this! But they’re not necessarily cohesive?! Like first we all know Sam is super smart. He’s curious. He’s inquisitive. But he’s also sheltered in weird ways. There are things he’s known about the world that most people would never know about, let alone kids his age at any given time; yet the existence of those things--and the understanding that therefore potentially anything could be real--also lends itself to keeping him childlike--he had an “imaginary friend” at age nine and believed in the Easter bunny through age eleven, which is much later than the average probably???

By middle school, he definitely would’ve been feeling the strains of his otherness around his classmates, even if they weren’t constantly moving around, but of course the nomadic lifestyle just makes it even harder.

I think Sam is a very observant person, though. He figured out something was up with their dad and The Truth at age 8! So people watching is Sam’s saving grace for getting along in the mundane world. He definitely learns to mask his otherness by mimicking mundane people.

And I get sidetracked here because then I start thinking about exactly how their childhood went. We know John used Pastor Jim and Bobby as childcare/parenting support to some degree. I don’t think we really know anything about Caleb, maybe I’m forgetting something, but my headcanon is that Caleb functioned as a “fun younger uncle” type to Sam and Dean: cool, responsible in a pinch, but mostly not given childcare responsibilities because of his wilding tendencies. (they learn swears accidentally from Bobby and John, but Caleb TEACHES them.) Sam and Dean didn’t even know about Missouri until s1, so she’s off the caretaker list. They had that babysitter they met up with in uhh... Swap Meat! But largely we assume that Dean had a lot of the caretaking responsibilities; maybe with temporary babysitters in other places the same as Swap Meat.

And lbh you just can’t expect well-rounded, informed child-rearing from a kid only four years older. There’s a reason I associate a lot of weechester flashbacks with Sammy watching TV like in Something Wicked, because literally little siblings are A LOT and sometimes you just want them to sit still and quiet and leave you alone for a bit omg.(wait, give me a minute, I’m imagining little 6 year old Dean on the phone with Bobby because John ran out for food supplies and isn’t back yet and Sammy is still asleep but Dean’s creeped out in the longterm room they’re staying in because he KNOWS about the supernatural already. but then bobby gets on John’s case about it--and instead of never leaving Dean alone with baby Sam again, Dean learns from John’s belt not to call anyone when he’s left alone unless it’s an ACTUAL EMERGENCY. Or maybe, because marine, John doesn’t use his belt; maybe he uses PT instead and every time Dean thinks about calling Bobby for that reason again, his abs ache from the memory of punishment situps, or his arms get suddenly shaky thinking about doing pushups til he just couldn’t anymore.)

I haven’t read all of John’s Journal, and I know it’s not actually canon, but IIRC the bits that I’ve read from the wiki show John and the boys staying with a family friend in Lawrence for a few weeks, MAYBE a few months before John visits Missouri and everything STARTS. I think if he hadn’t picked up and left with them then, the family friends would’ve been contacting CPS because they’re starting to think John’s grief is making him unhinged. (I really want to read the journal tbh--there are bits I’ve seen that make me fantasize even more about boyking!sam storylines... but I’m getting even more off track.)

So we’ve got this weird/interesting dichotomy of kids that are groomed with these hyperspecialiizations, too weird to really fit in with other kids but sheltered from the actual hunter life also--like the fact that there ARE other hunters, like as a THING, not just their dad’s rando friends that, as kids, they may just assume know about the supernatural because their dad told them! (jfc they’re SO PRIMED to be each other’s entire world omg I’m gonna die)

So like, by being quiet and observant (an imaginative kid, by nature and by nurture as John starts to take Dean out more and leave Sam alone with his own thoughts), Sam would pick up a lot of things. But they’re never anywhere long enough for him to fully grasp everything and he would definitely suffer a bit from the Dunning-Kruger effect--not having enough knowledge about a thing, but having just enough that you don’t realize you don’t.

Let’s say Sam observes and picks up some things about normal residential life by being around a few mundane babysitters. The nature of John’s “work” would mean that, even if they were in a more in-home-daycare-like situation, they’d be likely to be the “after hours” kinds of kids that are still there when everyone else is picked up and the babysitter would normally be doing their normal life stuff: changing clothes, cleaning up from the daycare kids, making dinner, etc (sam and dean would definitely help, either out of kindness or duty or because it’s agreed that if they help out John will get a discount on their care costs--don’t mind me, just projecting my childhood onto the winchesters hahh. I’m NOT going to go off on a tangent about Dean already having so much experience caring for babies cuz of Sam. He definitely doesn’t have all the under-4s following him around begging for attention while he burps one of the three babies their babysitter cares for after a bottle. it DEFINITELY didn’t make Sam (age 4, 5, 6 maybe) jealous enough to repress the memory so that over a decade later he would claim that Dean doesn’t even LIKE kids.)

Uhh... what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Sam. Observing normal life. Anyway so maybe after things settle for the day, sometimes a babysitter will sit at the dining table with the weekly bills and their checkbook and do the bills. And Sam kind of loves things like this: it feels like something important; it feels like playing school before he was old enough to go (quick aside here: John totally enrolled Sam in school early, both because that’s the only way his age works with canon timeline and because it would make life easier if Sam was in school just like Dean--more cost-and-time efficient.) And maybe Sam goes and sits at the table and just. Watches.

And then he asks questions. When he’s curious, he doesn’t keep his questions to himself as a child (unless the subject is expressly forbidden: see Dean’s reaction when Sam brings up Mary). But his age would inevitably limit the scope and understanding of those questions. Adults are generally disinclined to fully explain the adult world to children, especially when it comes to finances, and in the 80s and early 90s?? With most of the adults of that time that I knew, those kinds of questions were considered rude and nosey. He might understand that adults have to pay bills; he may even understand something about utilities; but he wouldn’t necessarily understand all the requirements and frequency.

Though their nomadic lifestyle wasn’t stable by any “normal” definition, one thing to be said about mostly living out of motels is that your power is never cut off, or your water, or your heat. There’s always television, usually with cable. And the only form of payment you see going on is dad handing over cash or plastic at the front desk--one and done. My headcanon usually disallows the idea that they would’ve squatted in empty houses when Sam and Dean were kids (John makes plenty of bad decisions but I just don’t see him staying in a place without power or water with CHILDREN. Teenagers? SURE.) They would learn how to clean house and make proper beds even when it wasn’t always necessary with housekeeping available--both because of John’s military parenting style and because John would be most likely to opt out of daily housekeeping to lower the risk of having people ask questions.

So yeah, there are so many little intricacies of the mundane world that Sam wouldn’t be conditioned to even think about. Even the realization that he doesn’t know enough about regular life, as he grows up and longs more and more for that very thing because he’s never had more than a glimpse of it, wouldn’t necessarily be enough.

Would his natural curiosity lead him to ask those questions? He can’t ask John because he already asked Dean and got a dismissive answer because ‘what does any of that matter, Sam? we’ll never have to worry about that shit.’ and if Dean seems borderline offended by the sheer audacity of the questions in the first place, he knows John will be worse.

In the 90s, life skills were still kind of a thing in most U.S. schools. But in a really inconsistent way. Sometimes it was in health class curriculum; sometimes your math class would actually do a short focus on balancing a checkbook and banking if there was a chapter, but a lot of times those parts get skipped. You never use the whole textbook. Sometimes life skills was only in Home Ec, but H.E. was completely elective in my area when I was in middle school (the same exact years Sam would’ve been in middle school) and I’m assuming the same for most of the U.S. Sam may have taken it, or he may have taken something else instead (wood shop or computer class were the alternatives in my area). Maybe the nature of school hopping meant that he HAD to enroll in Home Ec, because resources for the other electives were finite, but somehow always managed to miss the bills and budgeting portion. Maybe he couldn’t even take Home Ec due to class size or resources and they just put him in a study hall for that period. (Maybe they put him in the computer class, where he mostly does book work until he gets a turn on the PC he has to share with his classmate.)

As an observant person, Sam totally would’ve known about TRL, I think. There’s no way at least one group of kids in the halls or lunchroom wasn’t talking about it every day in high school, especially with the advent of Britney Spears and Eminem and Jesse freakin Camp. Maybe he goes to someone’s house to try to hang out or to study and they turn it on and Sam watches raptly because it’s such a strange phenomenon and he hardly ever gets to hear new music, much less watch the videos. But he can’t actually get into it because the fangirls are annoying and his analytical mind won’t let him suspend his disbelief about how the voting works. (Maybe he tries giving it another shot in their motel room sometimes, but Dean vetoes that bubblegum pop shit IMMEDIATELY--no Sam, look, that shit isn’t REAL music; most of them don’t even play instruments. And it’s really not fair because Dean TOTALLY watched MTV’s The Grind in the early 90s for his fix of suggestively gyrating bodies before he figured out how to access porn without getting caught.)

Sam and Dean actually make a LOT of pop culture references, which always fascinates me. I imagine they did a lot of TV watching and VCR/movie renting in the times they weren’t working on a case with/for their dad (projecting again; my dad’s house was a very boring place on his weekends). The nature of Dean’s idolization of John and disinclination to let Sam have his own separate likes means they have a mix of age-appropriate pop culture knowledge and a lot of Boomer-era TV and movie knowledge--Dean more than Sam, maybe when it comes to things like cowboy movies and TV lol.

Anyway, as the realization that he doesn’t really know how anything works crept in, maybe Sam would try to lowkey create situations where he could ask his friends/his friends’ parents those normal life kind of questions. But maybe after his first few tries, he’s become so uncomfortably aware of how weird he is to even need to ask that he stops asking. Maybe he starts to tap into his specialized skills and starts snooping/creeping around their houses to try to glean knowledge. Maybe he scours the library for books on ‘what you need to know for life’--I have the urge now to do a google search on actual titles of books on this subject that may have existed at the time, but I’ve already spent a lot of time on this without going into research spirals. lol Maybe he can’t find exactly the things that are pertinent--still doesn’t fully realize that, though--and in the meantime his cache of esoteric knowledge continues to build.

So he gets to Stanford and he mostly understands how the financing works; enough to get by with enrollment and stuff. He understands that he’ll need to get a job of some sort to make ends meet because he’s there to be normal and normal people don’t pay for everything with scammed credit cards and billiards money; he knows that much. But he doesn’t really know about wages, minimum wage, freaking payroll taxes, etc. (I feel like Dean would’ve had odd jobs as a teen, some legit some under the table, but that the nature of John (and Dean) wanting to keep Sam home and safe would’ve made the subject of Sam working through high school a banned topic. And anyway, much as I’m not a fan of the characterization in Drag Me Away (From You), what Dean said to Sam about the impossibility of getting into college with the way his academic career would look is accurate. So Sam would’ve probably spent most of his free time on academics so he could get the fuck out, rather than trying to get a job.

Maybe having to buy his textbooks would be a surprise? John probably always qualified for Sam and Dean to be on free lunch/free book programs in public school, not to mention the likelihood of the records being at least partially counterfeit. But at the same time, John was probably very hands off with their school enrollment crap once the boys were old enough to handle it themselves, so Sam would at least have an inkling.

Sam would be a weird mix of no-boundaries and too-secretive, and his first attempts at acting normal would be a bit too put-on. He’s got experience acting per 1x16 (oh, maybe he did drama instead of home ec somewhere lol), but acting on stage is so much different to acting in a more personal setting. On stage you have to exaggerate your movements to project all the way to the back. Early-Stanford Sam, I guess, is a bit like Soulless Sam. He knows there’s something off about him compared to the people around him, and he just does his best to pretend he’s the same as them without calling attention to his differences, which ends up coming off robotic. A little Stepford. A little uncanny valley. He learns to bite his tongue every time he’s about to let something normal only to his family roll off it; learns to be even more vague than he used to be, because now he’s around strangers ALL THE TIME.

At some point, Sam has a little-but-big breakdown about a payment he missed or the fact that he had to steal shampoo because he didn’t even have toiletries in his budget and couldn’t even afford a bottle of White Rain or Suave, so since he was stealing anyway he got the special brand he really likes and then feels too awful to even use it and doesn’t wash his hair for a week. Brady takes pity on the cute but hapless puppy-boy who is a physical and academic behemoth but has obviously been living off-grid on some kind of militia commune for the past forever--at first the rumor was that he was Amish on rumspringa but the amount of times Sam has busted out some supremely random survival knowledge in casual conversation changes that rumor quickly--and has no understanding of the world. And by the time he moves off-campus with Jess, Sam has this masking thing down pretty well; he can almost forget he’s not normal sometimes and Jess only knows about his previous helplessness in a cute, anecdotal kind of way.

And then Dean comes and gets him and Sam’s all “you and Dad still doing credit card scams?” and Dean’s like “well hunting doesn’t pay the bills.”

AND SAM’S LIKE, NEITHER DO YOU DEAN! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BILLS ARE?! BECAUSE I DIDN’T AND IT WOULD’VE BEEN NICE TO KNOW!

[welcometophu]

The Meaning of Home, Chapter 1

The Meaning of Home Chapter 1

Tags for all Welcome to PHU novels will be available at the PHU tag list on Pillowfort. This list is under construction as of Sept. 5, 2021.

[ First | Next ]

Even knowing that he’ll see him at the end of the trip, it’s strange for Pawel to be driving to his childhood home without Conor in the car. Usually his son would be requesting music changes, playing videos so loud that Pawel could hear them even with Conor’s headphones in place, or generally talking up a storm. Even after cranking the radio up to fill the silence, Pawel feels alone in a way he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

He can’t blame it entirely on Conor. Yes, as a single father he hasn’t had much, if any, time to himself in the last nine years. But this past academic year has been chaos to the point where it seems strange not to have one of his students in the car as they head off to save the world.

Students, yes, but he’s not that much older than most of them. Some of them are friends as well.

Rest. Take the summer and rest.

The voice in his mind sounds suspiciously like Mac, and he hears Carolyn’s soft, aggravated huff not long after as she adds, Get normal amounts of sleep. Take a shower. Eat real food.

Spend time with your kid, imaginary Mac adds.

Great. He’s back to being that only child who used to have conversations with invisible friends, except now, as an adult, it’s advice about self-care from real people who aren’t even here.

The thing is, they’re not wrong. He knows he has a tendency to focus intently on the one most important thing at hand and tune out everything else. Since fall semester—for the first time in nine years—that wasn’t Conor, and he still feels guilty about that. He feels the kind of guilty that means there are two brand new games for Conor’s handheld system in a bag on the back seat, along with a cooler holding freshly butchered grass-fed bison steaks as a thank you for his father for helping him out.

Pawel exhales.

Maybe he’s having a little trouble letting go of the chaos. In a way, it felt good to be busy. To fix things.

They saved the world.

Nobody knows it, but it happened. And Pawel knows, so he should be satisfied with a job well-done.

The question is: what can he do now?

Rest.

For all that they’re imaginary, the voices of his students are right, and he knows this. It’s just hard to let it all go, to accept that the chaos has ended and he can do that. But he’s clean-shaven, and his hair is neatly trimmed, even if he didn’t go back to his buzz cut. He looks older in the mirror than he remembers being when the school year began. He might even look his age, which would go a long way to gaining respect from incoming freshmen in the fall.

He just needs something to do with himself while on vacation over the summer.

Maybe his old dojang would let him step into a taekwondo class or two while he’s visiting Dad. It’d be nice to be the student rather than the instructor for once.

You couldn’t let go of control that much.

“Shut up.” He says it as if imaginary Mac would even listen.

One song ends, and for a second, the silence in the car echoes before the next song begins.

This isn’t working.

He reaches out to touch the button on his radio dash for the phone, then presses Mac’s number from his contact list.

“Aren’t you with your family?” She starts speaking without bothering to greet him.

He adjusts the volume so that her voice isn’t quite so loud. “Hello to you, too. I’m almost there now. It’s quiet in the car. No Conor. Not even any grouchy almost adults grumbling about saving the world, or muttering about sparring.”

Mac snorts softly. “I’m only a few years younger than you, Pawel. And out of us all, Rory’s probably got the oldest soul. I take it you’re bored?”

“A little,��� he admits. “Pels’s family moved into the house on Friday, then left for Burlington. As far as I know, everything’s gone well up there; they weren’t back before I left the house today. Anita’s got my number in case she needs anything for the house while they’re renting it out this summer. Traffic’s been decent, so I’m maybe fifteen minutes from my Dad’s house now, and the silence is killing me. How’s your summer break going?”

There’s a delay before Mac replies, and her voice sounds determinedly cheerful when she does. “It’s a break. I’m thinking about my research, and the fact that my advisor is in Italy until the end of June and told me I can’t work without him there. Which means Mom thought I should come home for a while, and right now things are… awkward… with me and Dad. So. There’s that.”

When Mac says it, Dad means Senator Delwin Palmer. Pawel knows what that meant to Mac as a part of a secret government training program for Talented children, before she came to PHU. He knows that everything they learned about the government involvement in the creation of the soul-destroying Shadows has only made her relationship with her stepfather more difficult.

He makes a small noise. “Are you going back to PHU soon?”

“Mid June, so I’ll be here about three weeks. I’m going to take my brother to the festival when Rory and Thorne are in DC in a couple of weeks, and I’m spending most of my time in the museums and libraries in DC until then.” She exhales. “I’ve thought about going to see my father, but I think that’ll be the weekend that I drive back up to PHU. I’ll just stop in to visit him in the city while he’s got some time off work.” Mac hesitates, her words more forceful when she asks, “How long are you planning on staying with your dad?”

Fine, Pawel will accept the change of topic, changing conversational directions at the same time as he takes the exit into town that will lead to his childhood home.

Sort of. It’s not the same house he grew up in, but it’s close to the same neighborhood.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m on leave for the summer. It’s not a sabbatical—they don’t do that for less than a year, and right now they won’t let me go for a whole year until the department has more experienced faculty. But it’s a paid leave and I’m supposedly researching my next book. The thing is, Dad doesn’t have a lot of space since he moved into the retirement community. I’m going to be crashing on his couch. Conor’s got the bed in the guest room.”

“Sounds great for your back.” Mac laughs. “You’ll probably still sleep better than you did for most of the spring.”

“Probably,” Pawel agrees. “I think—” He stops abruptly, because that makes it sound like he has a plan in place. “I’m going to play it by ear. Conor’s made friends there, although he’s clearly missing Alan and home, too. Everyone keeps telling me that I need to just stop trying to fix things and take a break. Including a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like you.”

“Good to know my voice has infected your brain, like the way I hear yours saying ‘commit to the kick’ whenever I’m sparring and going for that head kick against a much taller opponent,” Mac says dryly.

“They’re all taller than you.” Pawel takes a series of turns, remembering to turn left instead of right at the critical intersection. He slows down; there’s no one else on the road behind him to annoy, and he’s not quite ready to arrive yet.

Mac sputters. “Rude.”

“True.”

“Fine. True,” she agrees. “Taekwondo is a sport for tall people. I’m just a good jumper, and before you say it, no, I’m not teleporting to get there. Most of the time.”

He rolls down the road towards a four-way stop. There’s a sign across the way proclaiming the entrance to Hart Acres. If he turned left, he could make his way to the police station where his dad works, and right would loop him back behind his old neighborhood.

Straight takes him into his dad’s new life in a retirement village where half the people who live there aren’t actually retired. His dad’s been living there for a year, and Pawel’s not sure when he’ll finally step down as Police Chief. He likes his work far too much to give it up.

Dad says it’s easier to keep working when he doesn’t have to worry about the little things like mowing the lawn. Hart Acres takes care of that for him.

Pawel’s pretty sure Dad’s going to work until he has both feet in the grave, and then he might just keep going.

“Hey.” Mac’s voice is low. “Did I lose you?”

Right. He was having a conversation.

“I’m just about there,” Pawel admits. “There’s an old lady walking her fluffy dog down the street. I guess I should hang up. Focus on finding the place and not hitting the two people that are in the middle of the road having a conversation.”

No exaggeration. Now that he’s pulled into Hart Acres and is following the first traffic circle he encounters around to the second exit, there are small knots of people gathered everywhere. Including two smack dab in the middle of one of the side streets.

They see him looking and lift their hands in cheerful synchronized waves.

“I am really not ready to see my dad as the kind of guy who needs to be surrounded by old people looking for a social life,” Pawel mutters. He makes a disgruntled noise when Mac snickers.

He’s in front of the house before he can say anything else.

“Go,” Mac says. “Hug Conor for me, and tell him to work hard. He’s still in school, right?”

“Another three weeks, yeah,” Pawel says. “I might take him out for a day on Friday to head up to Buffalo for Rory and Thorne’s tour, though. It’s a holiday weekend, so maybe the school has the day off—they do weird things with snow days sometimes. Although the weather was strange this winter and they might not have the extra days.”

“Nikki would apologize if you need her to,” Mac says. She’s quiet for a moment. “Hey. You really should take the time to rest. Let your dad be the parent for a little while. Enjoy being home, and with your family. You don’t have anything you need to save right now. The world isn’t ending. Just have fun for the summer.”

“Only if you promise me that you’ll rest, too,” he responds. He wants to say that he understands that it’s not that easy. He understands that talking to Delwin Palmer is going to be complicated, and that putting herself back in that environment only brings the PTSD out in full force. “You can always call me if you need someone to talk to.”

“I’ll let you know when I’m back in the area,” she says. “Maybe we can get together and spar. I’m taking a break from organized classes while I’m home.”

Her old dojang isn’t full of happy memories like Pawel’s is.

“Sure, we can do that.” He catches movement out of the corner of his eye; the door to his father’s unit nudges open. “Conor’s coming out. I need to go.”

“Bye, Pawel. Rest.”

“I will,” he promises.

The music blares for a moment after she hangs up; he turns the key and silences it. He manages to get out of the car as Conor races around it and slams into him, hugging him hard. Pawel wraps his arms around him, and exhales as he feels the familiar crackle of Conor’s magic around him.

“I missed you,” Pawel murmurs. His hand is between Conor’s shoulder-blades, and it feels higher than it used to rest in this same position. “Did you grow in the last two months?”

“An inch since he arrived.” Dad stands on the lawn next to a girl about Conor’s age that Pawel doesn’t recognize. Her mouth is pinched and her brows furrowed. She has her arms crossed tight across her chest as she leans forward, a myriad of braids falling forward across her shoulders and down her back. Dad puts a hand on her shoulder, and she straightens up, shoulders relaxing. “I started a growth door for him here. We’ll need to get a mark on it for you so he can see what he’s aiming for.”

There was a piece of trim in Pawel’s childhood house that had marks for every few months of his age, from toddlerhood to adulthood. He wonders if the new owners painted over the careful notes made in his mother’s hand, and the messier ones his father wrote after she passed away.

“I had Dziadziu put Emma on the door, too.” Conor slips from Pawel’s hold and grabs his hand, dragging him towards Dad and the girl who still watches warily. “This is Emma. She’s in my class, and she’s a Weather Witch, and she’s my friend. We’re both new here. She’s talked to Alan with me.”

“I know they’re married,” Emma says with a heavy sigh and an eyeroll. “Conor’s not my boyfriend. I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“You say that like people have been trying to tell you that you can’t be friends because you’re a boy and a girl.” Pawel stops in front of her and holds out his hand solemnly. “Hello, Emma. I’m Pawel. And don’t worry, I understand that most people are full of shit. Right now my best friend is a girl and I can assure you I have no romantic intentions towards her whatsoever. And if I did, she might kick me in the balls.”

Dad makes a strangled sound.

Emma tilts her head, brow still furrowed. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t say that people are full of shit.” She takes his hand and looks at their joined hands in some confusion, then drops it again. “But you’re right. They are. Come on, Conor.”

“I think you’d like Mac,” Conor says as he walks by Emma’s side and they disappear into the house. “She’s small but fierce. She used to be a gymnast and now she kicks ass.”

Pawel should say something, but he did just tell them that people are full of shit, so maybe he can cut him some slack for language this time.

“I did say that someday you’d be lucky enough to have a kid just like you,” Dad observes. “That said, Conor’s been a good kid while he’s been here. Getting good grades, getting his work done. He and Emma bonded straight off—her parents disappeared not long before you did, so they had something in common. Except, of course, you’re back and they’re not. She’s living with a foster family here.”

There are a dozen potential things wrong with everything Dad’s just said. Pawel rolls the thoughts around in his mind as he heads back to his car, opening the doors so that he and Dad can both take several things into the house. “Do they know she’s Talented?” he asks.

“You know where the guest room is.” Dad points through the living room and kitchenette to the small hall beyond. “Right at the end there. Just take Conor’s stuff down. We’ll put your things to the side in the living room for now.”

Conor pops his head out of his room just as Pawel arrives. “What do you mean for now? Aren’t we staying all summer? I thought we’d stay here all summer, Dad. Dziadziu said we could.”

There are times when Pawel wonders what their family looks like from the outside: three generations having three separate conversations in tangled instances, answering questions in random order. He can see where Emma sits on the bed, Conor’s tablet in her hands. She doesn’t seem concerned.

“I’m sleeping on the couch, Conor. We’ll stay in town, but we might need to get a hotel room. I’m going to need a bed eventually,” Pawel points out.

“I’ll move in with Emma. Her dads wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t think they’d even notice,” Emma says dryly. “I like Conor better than Matt.”

“She has four foster siblings,” Conor stage whispers.

Emma looks up, gaze pinning him. “They aren’t my siblings. I’m an only child. We’re all just fosters in the same house, except Nevaeh and Jennie. I think they’re almost as good as adopted. Jennie doesn’t even remember her parents.”

For once, Pawel is the one getting whiplash from the swift turns in conversation.

“Is everyone Talented?” It’s the same question, asked a different way, and this time he throws it out there for anyone to answer. He drops the bag of Conor’s summer clothes on the bed, next to where Emma sits.

“Her dads are both Talented!” Conor bounces up onto the bed, almost knocking the suitcase off. “One’s Clan and one’s—”

“They aren’t my dads,” Emma snaps. She drops Conor’s tablet on the bed and stands up, her body shivering so hard that her braids shake. “My mom and dad are coming back. They aren’t my dads at all. I’m just staying there until—”

“My dad can find them.”

Emma’s mouth is slightly open, her voice a small squeak. “What?”

“My dad is really good at everything about Talented people. He’s an expert.” Conor nods quickly. “He’s so much an expert that he teaches people not to be stupid—uninformed,” he corrects himself, “about what it means to be Talented. He knows everything.”

“Not everything,” Pawel tries to stay, but Conor steamrolls over him.

“He just saved the world, and he’s friends with Clan and with Mages, and we know this entire commune of Mages up in Burlington and if anyone can find your parents, he can,” Conor says firmly. “You’ll do it, Dad, right?”

“I think I’d need a little more information before I can promise that,” Pawel says slowly.

“Your father is supposed to be resting.” Dad stands behind him, and Pawel doesn’t need to turn to know the look Dad gives Conor. He was on the receiving end of that look himself many times as a child. Dad continues, “The last time your father got involved in something, he disappeared and you came here.”

Conor’s mouth snaps shut, lips pressed and his cheeks flushed. “He came back,” he mutters. “He always comes back.”

Emma pats the bed and when Conor sits, she puts her arms around him and holds on. “Maybe mine will come back, just like yours did. Then your dad won’t have to go find them.” Her whisper is too loud to be entirely secret. “I don’t want your dad to disappear again.”

“Me neither,” Conor admits.

“Emma.” 

“Dziadziu!” Conor interrupts him. “Did you ask Emma’s dads—”

“They’re not my dads.”

“—if she can stay over tonight?” The sadness is gone from Conor’s expression as he bounces on the bed. “She’s got stuff in a drawer from the last time she stayed. She can get on the bus with me in the morning, and we can play games with Alan online later.” His gaze skates to Pawel. “If you say it’s okay, of course.”

It’s only been a couple of months, and Conor has somehow built himself a routine here. Pawel isn’t entirely sure how he fits into it.

It’s strange thinking about Conor growing up and growing apart from Pawel when his son is only nine years old.

“I talked to them,” Dad assures them. “But that means sleep tonight. It’s a school night, and I’ll be checking. No magic after dark. No surprise storms. No more rain indoors.”

“That was once!” Conor protests.

“Lights out by half past eight, and I want you asleep by nine,” Dad says in a tone that brooks no argument. “You’ve got plenty of time before then; we haven’t even had dinner yet. You might even be sick of each other by then.”

“Never!” Conor and Emma chorus.

Pawel has to wait for Dad to move before they can both slip out of the room, leaving the door cracked. “I’m glad he’s made friends here,” Pawel says quietly. “He and Alan are—well, I’d almost call them codependent sometimes. I was worried. But they both seem to be doing well.”

“Conor’s fallen on his feet, that’s for sure. He’s a lot like another child I once knew: just starts talking until he finds his spot to fit in. Might even have a bit of a savior complex.”

Pawel gives his father a dark look. “I do not have a savior complex. If I did, I’d have followed you into law enforcement, rather than going into academia.”

Dad smiles. “You’re still saving people. You just go about it in a different way on a daily basis. But it seems to me like you didn’t even hesitate when you found out your students needed your help. You can’t resist a puzzle.”

“Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I get it,” Pawel mutters. “Fine, fine. We’re all peas in a pod, and a hundred other trite descriptive phrases. The Szczek men have similar traits.”

“Mm.” Dad leads the way outside, so they can retrieve the last few things from Pawel’s car. “Some of us have learned how to ask for help,” he says quietly. “Conor’s made himself at home in Emma’s foster house. He’s spent more than a few nights there, and yes, before you ask, I trust her foster fathers completely. One of them works with me. But that’s something you might want to think about this summer, Pawel.”

Pawel shoulders the backpack with his computer in it, and closes the door to his car. “What’s that, Dad?”

“You don’t have to do everything on your own,” Dad reminds him. “For the summer, you’ve got me. Think about what to do when you get home. The fate of the world doesn’t need to rest on your shoulders alone.”

It seems like everyone’s got something to say about his bad habits. The thing is, Pawel’s got help at home. He’s a single father; he knows he needs assistance sometimes. He’s got Alan’s family next door. Emily’s always willing to help out with Conor. But he’s also got… a lot of responsibility. He’s a professor, and a dean, and he leads Coven and the taekwondo team. 

Who the hell else is he going to rely on? Pawel does the things no one else is available to do.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” he says, because he knows it’s what Dad needs to hear. “I’m not going to overwork myself again. I’ll make sure I’ve got help.”

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[koishua]

𝙂𝙀𝙏 𝙏𝙊 𝙆𝙉𝙊𝙒 𝙈𝙀 𝙏𝘼𝙂 !

tagged by: @luvvseong @yangyangify @spookybias @iuwon @floraljae (thank you, my loves <3)

tagging: @zhongwrld @moonbeamsung @rutosruru @lyjikyu @armysantiny @kopikokun @mochiable @envirae @channoticedmeuwu @radiorenjun @lebrookestore @whiteprincessofnohr + anyone who would like to do it!!

notes from vie: oml what the hell was this. honestly, this was so long, but i think it allowed me to reflect upon myself for a moment lmao.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙙𝙖𝙮

october twenty eighth! on winwin day, nonetheless!

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩❜𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙧

i adore every single one smh. if it were palettes we were speaking about, then it would probably be greyish blue tones and beige to yellow ones!

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩❜𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙡𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙮 𝙣𝙪𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧

my lucky number does not work, because my misfortune overpowers it way too much. i like the number eight, though!

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙨

i used to have pet baby cobras, fishes, yellow and blue budgies, and aquatic turtles!

𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪

i am aspiring to reach 170 cm, but i am currently 159-160 cm! that would be 5'2"?? i think.

𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚

a pair of combat boots, white canvas shoes, and one sneakers for sports class... not many lmao i am not a shoe gal.

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙜

changes everyday. as i am typing, however, it would be lose it by oh wonder, rush hour by gaho and run by one republic!

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙫𝙞𝙚

i have three: rise of the guardians, room (2015), and... any studio ghibli movie tbh. whoops.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚

i say that i do not have a type all of the time, but all of the people i have been attracted to and had a crush on were the wild, fun, and cute guys in my class. they also tend to be very kind and understanding as well. i am a sucker for people who smile often.

they would have to be accepting of all of my flaws and love me regardless, just like the way i would do the same for them if i love them as well. i am also extremely touch deprived haha, so i would honestly be over the moon if they don't mind hugs and physical affection.

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙣

only after i have a stable income and have things sorted out, because i don't want to struggle raising them because of financial and mental issues. no kid deserves parents that can't take care of them ig.

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙬

the law from where i come from are terrible and something pretty bad has happened, but i'd rather that's kept in private haha. i swear i didn't commit any crimes lmao police are just incredible blind and unfair there.

𝙗𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧

shower. i am way too impatient for baths. also, i feel weird sitting in a tub filled water while naked lmfao it's so weird for me.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜

grey.

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘

k-r&b, indie, pop-rock hybrid ig, lo-fi.

𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙨 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝

only one below my head.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙞𝙣

it varies. i sleep like a rock even though i can’t sleep for long, so i wake up in the exact position i initially fall asleep in. either on my back or my right side, since my left side isn’t too good lmao.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙙𝙤𝙣❜𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪❜𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜

buzzing mosquitos and damp, hot air (which is very rare, so i guess we are okay). i also hate being cold, so i sleep with two blankets even during summer haha. my limbs are ice-cold all the time smh

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙛𝙖𝙨𝙩

oats mixed with chocolate chunks.

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙮

i never went to a club or took lessons, but we had a backyard where my dad allowed me to shoot at stuff with a bow and the few arrows he made. i was pretty good at aiming, but my eyesight has deteriorated, so i left it at that lmao

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙪𝙞𝙩

watermelons and mangoes... also rambutan and mangis, but we don’t have them in germany ;-; i missed them.

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙

fuck. and i am sorry to say that i use it here quite a lot.

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙨

tons.

𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤�� 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙧

some have called me a psychopath before, but they just don’t understand that i was raised by very strict parents and learned how to lie lmao. i am pretty ashamed to say yes.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩❜𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚

i have tested twice. once when i was fourteen, which showed that i was an infj-t, but then i took it again last year and it showed that i was an infp-t. i heard that 16Personalities was trash, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩❜𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡

my best friend. she is a wild character, ngl, but she and i communicate extremely well. she is outgoing, courageous, hilarious, and has no qualms with being the odd one. she isn’t overly obnoxious, but she has a nice kind of self-confidence going on.

𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙚

i love yang jeongIN. definitely an innie, because i don’t even remember what the front of my house looks like haha. i don’t go out unless someone literally grabs my arms and physically drags me out and i am not even joking with this one. 

𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩 𝙤𝙧 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙙

i was originally right-handed, but then i got paranoid of breaking my right arm and having to study with my left arm all of a sudden and get bad grades, so i learned how to do stuff and write with my left hand as a kid.

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙

don’t have one. call me when we’re talking about dessert.

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙

don’t have one.

𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙮

my entire aesthetic is chaotic academia irl, so you tell me.

𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙥𝙝𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙚

oml, how tf, bahaha, bestie, no because-, hehe, lmao, i’m sobbing, i guess, toodles, etc etc.

𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮

i can techincally be ready in five, but procrastination is the sole thing i excel at, so yeah, definitely half an hour.

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠 𝙩𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛

cnversations happen in my head, my the office-esque reactions happen out loud. i talk a lot and imitate phrases i hear from someone to myself and reenact scenes from my daydreams bahaha

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛

i don’t shut up. someone save the people that live with me.

𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧

definitely not the most technically sound vocalist, but i can hold a tune or two. i was a soloist in my choir for a few years and was the vocalist for a band, but we disbanded smh i am still very sad about that :/ i loved them so much.

𝙗𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙧

seeing my loved ones die before me.

𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙥

i don’t feel comfortable talking bad about people :/ just ignore and move on.

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙞𝙧

i have hair that reaches my knees, but dear god do i want to chop it all off in one motion and get a yeeun-style bob cut.

𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡 𝙨𝙪𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩

sports and art. to hell with everything else. i’m not bad at them at all, but oh gosh i want to burn them all.

𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙧 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙩

... idk. i hate speaking to strangers and feel so awkward during one on one conversations with friends. i don’t go out a lot and social events tire me out, but i also crave noise happening around me. so,,, ambivert? i do tend to be the life of the party often during the few times i go out, but then i just lug myself back home and crash for the week lmao

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙤𝙪𝙨

anything related to school. i have regular panic attacks /gen. also, i have thalassaphobia and megalophobia, so things larger than life and the vast, empty ocean terrifies me and movies like that just make me nauseous. 

𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙘𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙝

my first real crush this one guy in my band. he was the other vocalist and was so pretty and fun. he always used to tease me smh. at least, that was something. but then we had to disband last year, because the older guys were moving away to study and us high schoolers were also moving to different cities ;-;

𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙛𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙧𝙪𝙣

i was in my middle school track team and used to compete a lot since i was pretty agile, but then i started to hate running, stopped, and now i am just a little above average bahaha.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙞𝙧

black. i want to dye it with cotton candy colored highlights, tho!

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙧𝙮

unnecessary comments, rude and obnoxious, self-entitled kids and people in general, people who tell you how to do your own job, hate comments, the basic dni criterias as well 

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚

kind of?

𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙖 𝙗𝙤𝙮 𝙤𝙧 𝙖 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙

i would want a girl.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙩𝙝𝙨

i have cold hands if you want to cool down. i can adapt to any kind of environment instantly, since i have moved twelve different times to fifferent schools and countries. bless my parents. i have gained the ability to conquer shifts in social environments at the cost of my mental health :’) i also consider myself to be nice and can get things down quickly, so i am a fast learner.

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨

kanemoto yoshinori, yoshi, eye smiles, and brownies. i am also very impatient, a perfectionist, a procrastinator, and have absolutely zero self-control over aggression against my own body. i have trouble reacting to other people's emotional outbursts, be it crying or anger and don't know what to do and how to comfort them. i also have trouble opening up and am never authentic around people, so i don't have... friends, if that makes sense? i don't feel comfortable being myself and feel like i have to be the person that they want me to be? idek.

i get bored extremely easily and nothing interests me that much ig

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩❜𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝙨𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙

blue.

𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙢

white and hints of blue.

[goldenpinof]

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

link to a google doc

Hello Internet.

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

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

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

[YES]

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

Chapter 1 – The Word

♪ When I was a young boy ♪

♪ My father ♪

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

Sorry that’s not all relevant right now.

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

♪ All went wrong ♪

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then puberty happened.

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

Chapter 2 – Feelings

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

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

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

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

Chapter 3 – Internalized Oppression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 4 – Labels

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

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

I’m gay.

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

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

Chapter 5 – Fear

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

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

Basically I’m gay.”

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

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

Aw.

“Don’t forget the iPad.”

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

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

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

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

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

Bye.

[augustusgreen]

Get to know Augustus, basically his vogue interview.

Part 1: The Basics

What is your full name? August Romeo Green

Where and when were you born? Austin Texas, November 12th.

Who are/were your parents? Tom and Anne Green, both still living but I have gone very low contact.

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like? No siblings that I am aware of.

Where do you live now, and with whom? I live in a kind of small apartment alone.

What is your occupation? A member of the hospital board.

Write a full physical description of yourself. -  White, 5 foot 10, regular weight, clearly visible muscles, dresses smart casual most of the time.

To which social class do you belong? Middle class.

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses? A slight intolerance to gluten. No diseases or physical weaknesses.

Are you right- or left-handed? Left handed.

What does your voice sound like? A little rough around the edges, deep.

What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently? Fuck, shit, damn.

What do you have in your pockets? Keys, wallet, sometimes chewing gum.

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics? I would say no but some would say that my incessant pen clicking is pretty irritating.

Part 2: Growing Up

How would you describe your childhood in general? Not the worst, but most spent time with babysitters as opposed to parents.

What is your earliest memory? Falling off a wall in the play area of an apartment complex we were living in.

How much schooling have you had? All the way to college.

Did you enjoy school? Very much so.

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities? Going through life.

While growing up, did you have any role models? Not necessarily.

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family? Got on better with aunts and uncles rather than my parents.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? An astronaut.

As a child, what were your favorite activities? Soccer, karate, baseball.

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display? A lot of impulsivity and fearlessness.

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like? Not overly popular but I had a lot of friends.

When and with whom was your first kiss? A girl called Mabel Arias when we were fourteen.

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? No. I lost my virginity in high school at a party.

Part 3: Past Influences

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far? Graduating college ranks pretty high.

Who has had the most influence on you? My tenth grade English teacher.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Again, graduating college.

What is your greatest regret? Not having a better relationship with my parents.

What is the most evil thing you have ever done? I wouldn’t class anything that I have ever done as evil.

Do you have a criminal record of any kind? None at all.

When was the time you were the most frightened? At the age of four when a tornado hit my town.

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you? Getting rejected for the high school prom.

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why? I would try more with my parents.

What is your best memory? Playing in a park with my cousins, I don’t remember it too well, I just remember being the happiest I ever had been.

What is your worst memory? Losing my grandma at the age of sixteen.

Part 4: Beliefs And Opinions

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic? Optimistic mostly.

What is your greatest fear? The unknown.

What are your religious views? I don’t believe in any higher power but I would like to believe in some kind of afterlife.

What are your political views? I am either here not there, definitely democrat.

What are your views on sex? I love it.

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable? No.

In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do? Hurt another, or hurt animals.

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love? I would like to but I don’t think I do.

What do you believe makes a successful life? A good well rounded education.

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)? I try to be as open and honest as I possibly can.

Do you have any biases or prejudices? No, I don’t think so.

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it? Drugs, will never do it because drugs are bad.

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)? No one.

Part 5: Relationships With Others

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how? I like to treat everyone with respect but will always hold the people I love higher than others.

Who is the most important person in your life, and why? Myself because if you don’t love yourself, you can’t expect anyone else to love you.

Who is the person you respect the most, and why? My grandfather because he worked his entire life.

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people. I don’t have many friends, the friends that I do have are more acquaintances than anything. 

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person. Nope.

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened. Once, around six years ago, I feel deeply in love and have never loved anyone like it since. It was simultaneously the best and worst feeling in the world, it just didn’t work out.

What do you look for in a potential lover? Humour, kindness and obviously some sort of attraction.

How close are you to your family? Not very.

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not? No and I do not want to because of my own parents.

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help? A cousin or one of my aunts.

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why? Myself.

If you died or went missing, who would miss you? I’m not too sure.

Who is the person you despise the most, and why? I wouldn’t say that I despise anyone.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict? Some conflict is healthy.

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations? A little.

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not? Not necessarily, I find it hard to fit myself in to conversations.

Do you care what others think of you? Not all the time.

Part 6: Likes And Dislikes

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? Working, reading, drawing.

What is your most treasured possession? A watch from my grandfather.

What is your favorite color? Blue, but like sky blue.

What is your favorite food? Anything that isn’t necessarily healthy.

What, if anything, do you like to read? I like to read anything fiction.

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)? A film or a book with a very good plot twist, music with a good beat.

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit? I drink but not to excess. No drugs or smoking.

How do you spend a typical Saturday night? If I am not working overtime, I will be at home with my feet up watching tv.

What makes you laugh? People falling over, as long as they’re not too hurt.

What, if anything, shocks or offends you? Nothing in particular.

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself? Well.....

How do you deal with stress? As above.

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan? I like to have a plan but I can be spontaneous at times.

What are your pet peeves? Rudeness, someone chewing with their mouth open.

Part 7: Self Images And Etc.

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted? Getting up around 6am each day, starting with a coffee and then a shower and then work. Come home from work, have another shower and then dinner and then relax. Routine isn’t all that important to me.

What is your greatest strength as a person? Empathy.

What is your greatest weakness? I’m not sure.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My relatioships with others.

Are you generally introverted or extroverted? A little here and there.

Are you generally organized or messy? More in the middle than anything.

Do you like yourself? Yes.

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime? Find true love.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Still doing the same thing.

If you could choose, how would you want to die? Peacefully in my sleep.

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death? My hard work.

What three words best describe your personality? Fun, Kind, Honest.

[blackrose343]

Unforgettable Night - NSFW

This fanfic is for 18+

Warnings: Sex

Kuroshitsuji / Black Butler - Sebastian x Female Reader

Fanfic Summary: For a long time Arthur Wordsmith could never forget his time at the Phantomhive manor. As his friend you tried to comfort him yet he would never reveal what happened. Every time you would mention it, Arthur would automatically become frightened. A new professor arrives to the school you both teach at. Your acquaintance with the new professor makes Arthur uneasy. Yet you can’t help yourself from indulging in your desire.

4,129 words

Still binge watching Kuroshitsuji and decided to revisit this fanfic too.

It was just past nightfall. Drizzles of rain were starting to come down, becoming liquefied tears. Lightning was hitting the ground with a mighty fist. Thunder could be heard from all over. There were stacks of papers to grade, a medium sized candle, and a cup of Earl Grey on my desk. Professor Wordsmith, my colleague, was seated at the desk waiting for me to bring some snacks. He seemed to be more tense and worried than usual tonight. I admit, I knew him for quite some time, but I could not tell what was bothering him right now or any other time there was a thunderstorm.

He has been like this ever since he came back from a party held by Earl Phantomhive. I have asked him multiple times to tell me what had happened, but he always starts to shake with tremendous fear and becomes as pale as a ghost. I would advise him to go to a psychologist, but I - along with the majority of the people - am extremely skeptical about them. 

I set the tray of food down on the table and looked into Wordsmith’s eyes through the candle’s flame. He gives me a small and innocent smile, trying to hide the fear radiating off of him. I wanted to put the poor man’s head in my bosom and rock him back and forth like a child, but refrained from doing so. “Arthur, you need to let this go. It has been years since that night has happened.”

“I wish I could, but that night is stuck in my memory. It is as if that entire time at the Phantomhive manor happened yesterday. I can never forget that night. Never.”

“Please, drink some tea. It will calm your nerves.” His hands shook as he took a sip of his tea. I took a bite of one of the cookies I set down. Its crumbs got on my dress, but I paid no heed to them. I wanted to calm Arthur down as much as possible before we went home for the night. “I wish you could forget about that night. Your wife is very worried about you. It may not be long till your daughter notices. You did say that she saw you burn a stack of papers, which I am assuming was about that night.”

“Let’s change the subject. Just saying ‘that night’ is starting to get me scared.”

“Do forgive me. I did not think it would. What a horrible thing I have done to you, my good friend.”

“Do not fret over it. You do not completely understand how it has affected me.’

“But, if it wasn't for that event, you would have never gotten an idea or inspiration for that story you wrote.”

“I know, but please.”

“Of course, I understand. Oh, did you hear of the new professor that is going to start working here tomorrow?”

“No, I did not. Have you?”

“Yes, some of the women said they were able to get a glimpse of him when he filled out an application to work here.” As I explained to Arthur what the other faculty members said about the new professor, his face paled. It was as if a vampire was sucking all of his blood from thin air. He quickly got out of his chair and ran through the door. “Arthur!”

I grabbed the candle and followed him. I did not think Arthur was the athletic type. He was running away from here as if a ghost was haunting him. He went around the corner towards the exit. As I turned the corner, I slipped. I had to claw my nails into the wall to prevent myself from getting caught on fire. Once I got my footing right, I stood up and saw that Arthur was gone. I quickly went back to my office and called his household. I told his wife what happened and to call me if he came home safe.

Today, I awoke to such a wonderful morning. Everything about it was perfect. Bright and warm sun, chirping birds, everything that Spring stood for in a nutshell. I thought it was a shame to waste, so I decided to have my class outside and have my students write about what they thought Spring meant to them.

I was on my way to my classroom when I caught Arthur from the corner of my eye. I went over to him and greeted him a good morning. He did the same and apologized for his actions from last night. I told him not to worry about it. He calmed down when I told him my plans for the day. Arthur thought it was a marvelous idea.

We started to talk about how his wife reacted to his actions and what he did to calm himself down when he returned home. He then told me how his daughter asked him to tell her a story to help her fall asleep. Arthur said that he made her pray to God before he told her a story. Honestly, I think it is stupid that people waste their time doing that, but I will not judge him for it. “Speaking of which, why are you wearing a pin of a cross? This is a public school.”

“To calm my nerves.” He gave a nervous laugh while he rubbed the back of his head. I wanted to tell him wearing a pin would not do anything, but I will accept anything that makes him feel safe. I also wanted to ask him why now of times he would wear it, but the bell rang. I was about to say goodbye to Arthur, but he beat me to it and sprinted away. I was bewildered, but turned around.

My face crashed into someone’s chest. Instinct made me take a quick step back. A strong, lean arm wrapped itself around my waist helping me regain my balance. I looked up to be met by a pair of crimson eyes behind a pair of glasses. Slightly messy raven black hair was framing the man’s pale face. It was the most handsome face I had ever seen. I can see why the women were awestruck when they saw him. “F-forgive me. I was not paying attention to my surroundings.”

“The fault is all mine madame. It was so rude of me to run into a beautiful woman such as yourself.” I had the feeling he was only saying that because he was trying to falter me, but I was faltered. I could feel a rosy blush run across my cheeks. Everything about this man was getting me hot. I felt like I was going to melt. This man was every woman's dream. He was handsome, intelligent, polite, and strong. I want to know what type of man he is in bed.

“Forgive me for I must get to my class.” I quickly left him like a school girl running away from her crush. I never knew I could feel like that again. The first time I felt like this was when I first met Arthur in high school.

Once I arrived to class, I apologized to my students for making them wait for me. We went through with my plans from earlier and they were successful. I also found out about the new student in my class, Ciel Phantomhive. I was shocked that his father would make him go to a school like this. It wasn't particularly bad per say, but usually the children of high social status would have private tutors come to their home.

The rest of the day was nice. Arthur seemed to have calmed down a bit and I got the majority of my papers graded. I finished most of what needed to be done, but alas, I could not get Professor Michaelis out of my head. Damn, that man is such a charmer.

As the next couple weeks passed by, I became more acquainted with Professor Michaelis. I noticed Arthur started to drift away from me and barely said a word when we had lunch together. It was making me become depressed. I want to be friends with Michaelis, but I do not want to lose Arthur in the process of it.

I was in my office grading timed essays from today when Arthur came in. He seemed a bit paranoid. He locked the door and came to my desk. His eyes went directly to mine, penetrating through the candle and locking my eyes with his. It had been a long time since I have seen Arthur like this. I had a feeling it was about my acquaintance with Sebastian. I was correct.

Arthur tried to convince me to stop trying to be friends with Sebastian, but I refused to do so. He did not explain to me why I should stay away from him. I gave him reasons to keep trying to convince me otherwise. I was so caught up with supporting my choice that I did not notice Arthur getting furious. He slammed his hands down on my desk, making everything shake momentarily. Shock took over, making me stop in the middle of my sentence. His hands were curled into fists. His teeth were clenched together.

He took a couple deep breaths and then put a stack of journals on my desk. I looked at him, bemused. I did not know what to do with these, but he would not answer. I gingerly picked up the book at the top of the stack. I quickly skimmed it and then read it meticulously. My eyes widened. These journals contained the story of that night at the Phantomhive’s party. I understood what was happening. Not only was Arthur finally allowing me to know what happened, but the books also had the reason why I should stay away from Sebastian.

Days passed as I read his story. I got so absorbed in it that Arthur offered to grade all of my papers until I finished reading them. Sebastian seemed to notice and only spoke to me for a few moments. Arthur really did remember everything as if it happened yesterday. Everything was so detailed: the dresses, rooms, even the food. I understood why Arthur did not want to see another body, but I did not understand why he was afraid of Sebastian.

I was in my office, finishing the last part of the book while organizing my office. This certain part was making chills go up my spine. I started to forget that this was what Arthur experienced. All of it was merging into a fantasy novel. I stopped reading it to give myself a break and to remind myself that this was real, not fantasy.

I started to boil some water and grade some papers Arthur left for me. I sat down at my desk and took a deep breath. I did not want to grade papers, but I knew I had to since I had to give them back and go over them tomorrow. Grading papers made me realize how much I missed over the past few days. I started to remember conversations I had with the other professors. Some of the women always talked about Sebastian and how they envied me. Some faculty members talked about how brilliant Ciel was. I was looking over Ciel’s essay when I remembered that conversation. “Damn, he is brilliant. The others weren’t lying. Well, his was the last essay to grade. Now I can finish that book.”

I took a sip of my tea as I reached across the desk to get the book. My middle finger pushed it off the desk, but did not hit the floor. I looked in the direction the book fell and saw someone getting up. The candlelight didn’t give off enough light to reveal the black silhouette in front of me. However, the candle’s light was able to reveal the silhouette was reading Arthur’s story. “Excuse me, but that is private. Please give it to me.”

“I’ve been wondering what you’ve been reading for the past few days, but I did not think it was this.” The silhouette turned towards me, letting the candle’s light reveal who it was. I knew it was Sebastian since I could never forget those eyes. He was looking down at me with the book in the air, a smirk on his face. I started to get a good idea of why Arthur wanted me to stay away from him even though I did not get to the real reason yet. “You are about to get to the greatest part. Though, I am shocked that Mr. Wordsmith would allow you to know this was all real.”

“As you probably know Mr. Michaelis, Arthur and I have been friends for a long time.” A thunderstorm started, making me feel how Arthur does every time one occurs. Fear started to creep up my body, but I was not going to allow Sebastian to see it. Sebastian smirked and started to read where I have left off. The room became eerie and cold. Goosebumps were appearing on my arms. Sebastian was taking his time walking to me. A dark aura (which Arthur described as an ill feeling) started to surround me. I looked all around me and saw that I had no escape.

“Do you want to know why Mr. Wordsmith fears me?” It was difficult to see yet I saw Sebastian change. Not his clothes but his appearance. His eyes glowed red with a slight pink hue. Claws formed. It was obvious Sebastian was not human. My instincts told me to try and run, but I knew it would be of no use. I also did not want to leave. I seemed to feel more at home around his aura for some peculiar reason. I wanted to reach over to him and pull him towards me. I wanted our lips to connect. I wanted his aura to engulf me. I wanted this man to drown me in pleasure. Sebastian’s smirk grew as he noticed what I was starting to crave.

He was in front of me. My heart was pounding so fast, so hard. I thought it was going to explode. My forehead was forming droplets of sweat. My lips were parted, waiting for either myself to say something or for Sebastian to claim them. He bent down to my level, letting one of his claws lightly caress my face. He was watching my every move, every expression, everything about me.

He had his thumb on my lower lip, slowly sliding and pressing it. His claw left a shallow cut on it. My saliva dripped on it, making it sting. It did not hurt, but made me give him a low moan. My breaths got shallower with each passing minute. He lightly blew on the cut, hearing me sigh in pleasure. He wrapped his arm around my waist again, just like the first time we met. He pressed my lip some more, forcing blood to come out of the cut. He was going to place his lips on mine, but changed his mind at the last second. He stuck his tongue out and started to lick the blood coming out of my lip. I took a sharp breath and moaned. I could feel my breasts hitting Sebastian’s chest.

He stopped licking my cut and brought his mouth to my ear. He softly whispered that he did not have to be as scary as Arthur described him. I knew that he was telling the truth. I knew that this was going to be a one time thing. I allowed him to do as he pleased. I knew this was his way of making me not tell anyone his secret. Right now, I did not care about anything except the pleasure Sebastian was going to give me. I wanted it and would do anything to have it.

Sebastian sucked on my wound and then claimed my mouth. I wished that he did not force my arms to stay at my sides. Oh, how much I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and deepen our kiss! Our tongues fought for dominance, but he quickly took it. I could feel saliva going down my jaw and onto my neck. I could feel my breast coming out of my dress.

His grip loosened as his lips left mine. A pout formed on my face. He chuckled and licked away my line of saliva. His warm tongue traveled from the base of my neck to the corner of my mouth. I turned my head towards his tongue, wanting it to claim my mouth again. Sadly, Sebastian pulled his head away and offered me his hand. I looked at it questioningly. I did not understand why I would have to get up. “I think your tea would have been better if it has some ‘milk.’“

Sebastian was showing me the sexiest, most erotic smirk I had ever seen. Butterflies started to flutter in my stomach. The darkest blush was forming on my cheeks. I had never been talked to so inappropriately. I knew I should have been appalled, but I was one of the rare ones that liked that type of stuff. He seated himself in the chair with his legs spread apart. He was waiting for me to make my move. I gave him a sweet and innocent smile then got down on my knees. I placed one hand on his thigh and the other on his hardened member. I started to gently rub it, earning a slight grunt from him. I then undid his fly and let his member come out. My blush deepened, for it was huge. I had to admit, his cock was the greatest I had ever seen, for I did not see that many in my lifetime. Everything about it was perfect: its condition, size, thickness, the tip, everything. I started to do exactly as he did to my lips - I licked the tip of his member. I could sense that he was becoming annoyed with me, but I did not care.

I took the tip into my mouth and swirled my tongue around it. I closed my eyes as I started to bob my head back and forth. I varied my rhythm. I could feel him pulsing inside of my mouth, ready to come. He pushed his member into my mouth, partially going down my throat. His claws punctured my head, but I did not notice. He took his member out of my mouth. I was able to taste some of his seed as it sprayed my chest. 

I leaned my head on his leg and gave out a sigh of satisfaction. I was looking up at him, waiting for his next command. He raised his hand and motioned for me to come to him by swinging his index finger back and forth. I quickly got up and Sebastian ripped my dress off. I was standing in front of him with my corset and panties. My breasts were completely exposed to him. I wrapped my arms around my waist and looked down. He pulled me towards him. One of his hands was swirling around my breast. He then pulled on it hard. I let out a scream mixed with pleasure and pain.

He set me down on his lap. My knees were right next to his buttocks. I lowered my hips so they were above his member. He started to play with both my breasts. He sucked on one and pinched the other. I couldn’t stop my loud moans from escaping. The pleasure from my breasts and precious spot were killing me. His member was rubbing against my “lips”. I wanted him to penetrate me and rip my underwear apart. I couldn’t hold myself back any longer and came. “Se-Sebastian!”

After I regained enough stamina, he made me squat above his lap. He told me not to move and tore my panties off. Slowly, I lowered myself onto him. I whimpered as I got closer to the base of his cock, but sighed when he was completely inside of me. I felt as if I was going to come again and it felt so good. I held onto his shoulders and started to move.

It was very clear to Sebastian that I had never had sex in this position. He held onto my waist and started to guide me. When I got the hang of it, he loosened his grip and resumed to playing with my breasts. My moans started to fill the room. I could hear some of Sebastian’s grunts in the background.

I had one hand on his shoulder; my other one was getting my hair out of my face. My head was leaning back. My breasts were jumping up and down while Sebastian played with my nipples. I could feel my climax coming again and picked up the pace. I was so close to coming again, but Sebastian stopped me. I looked at him with dismay on my face and pleading eyes. Again, he smirked at me while he laid me down on my desk.

I was flat on my back with my hands pinned behind my head and my legs spread apart. I quickly covered my opening and started to rub my insides together to reach my orgasm. I was panting, looking up at my tormentor. He brushed his fingers down my sides. It sent chills up my spine. I loved and hated the anticipation.

He continued this torture to the rest of my body until he sensed I was reaching my orgasm. He quickly put his hands between my legs and forced them apart. A little mewl escaped my lips. He stopped what he was doing and forced himself inside me. The top half of my body lifted itself up while my head was forced back. He was pounding into me so hard that I thought he was going to break me. I couldn’t stop mewling and moaning in pleasure. Something told me that he loved that sound. I wanted to do anything he liked so he could pleasure me.

My legs were wrapped around him. My feet were clinging to his pants. My wrists were fighting for freedom. My body was sliding up and down my desk. My mind became hazy. I could hear things falling off of my desk: papers, books, pens. I could feel our sweat mingling, the fire he sent through my mouth and body, and his claws that were cutting me. I could also feel my orgasm coming.

My moans became louder and sighs were escaping my lips. He actually let me come this time, but he was not done. He was still pounding into me. I could not stop my juices from flowing freely from me. Tears were forming in my eyes. I felt something playing with my clitoris for the first time. It felt wonderful and made me come again. Sebastian entered into me once more and released his warm seed inside.

Before his orgasm finished, he took his member out of me and let his seed cover me from head to toe. My body couldn’t stop shaking. My lungs were trying to gather as much air as possible. Sebastian unwrapped my legs from his and let them dangle off of the desk. I felt like a whore, but I guess I was one for tonight.

As Sebastian tidied himself up, I lifted myself on my elbows and watched him. There was neither a wrinkle nor a crease on him. He looked impeccable. It’s impressive how he can always look like this even when having sex. It was more impressive that his clothes were not dirty. Everything about this man was impressive.

After he left, I quickly ran to the school’s showers and cleaned myself. The next day we both acted as if nothing happened. Though I admit, I could not help but blush when he passed by me. Arthur is still worried about me hanging around Sebastian, no matter how many times I reassured him that he would not harm me.

When I got to class, I gave my students a free day. Some of their papers were covered in come or destroyed. It was a good thing I recorded the grades in my grade book. Sebastian came in and asked if he could speak with me. I gladly agreed to do so. Ciel looked at him, annoyed. I blushed, knowing that he knew what happened last night. Sebastian pulled me out of the room and told me to ignore him. He lowered his head and kissed me. I gave in immediately. I would do anything to have him again.

[mononyann]

a while back people requested that i share some of my headcanons for certain bnha characters, so here's some of the characters that i did

Shota Aizawa

- he absolutely has at LEAST 3 cats, he spoils the heck out of them too. that's why he's always eating those gel packs... he spends too much on his cats.

- he really does love his class. and we all know honey??? u haven't expelled any of them. ur soft for them ok.

- he likes to sleep with his cats bc he gets lonely at night... he will not admit it, but he likes having someone/something there :)

- he has reuccuring nightmares about the usj attack and how he could have failed to save his students

- has a very low alcohol tolerance and often ends up getting dragged back to his apartment by mic or midnight when they go out whilst he rambles and whines the entire time

- he hates crying and tries his best to keep his emotions held in, he's only cried in front of a select few people

- he tries not to let others opinions on him rule his life and tends to block it out if someone hates him

- he doesn't know it, but he is the entirety of class 1-a's dad.

- he really likes tea, and dislikes sweets

- as you would expect, he takes his coffee black

Hanta Sero

- he really likes kpop! he stans multiple groups and really wants to attend a concert

- though he seems really chill on the outside, he's actually quite sensitive and has some self confidence issues

- he loves being around people and finds that he gets his energy from being around those he loves

- definitely into e-boy fashion, and he is open about it

- pierced his own ears at 3 am and called kaminari crying about how he screwed it up

- he actually likes to draw a lot in his free time, it's very relaxing. he puts on some nice low-fi music and draws for hours

- he hasn't had many crushes in his life and doesn't find romance to be a big issue currently, but he's open to anything

- accidentally taped his hamster to the ceiling in 2nd grade, he didn't mean to and cried for hours (the hamster was ok)

Nemuri Kayama

- she is a BRO, she likes to crack a cold one open with the boys on the weekends

- she is bisexual and thinks everyone is beautiful in their own unique ways

- most likely talks shit about her coworkers to her classes

- she thinks children are adorable and loves them, often scaring them with her enthusiasm

- very touchy, she loves hugs and will probably not pass up a chance to use you as an armrest if she has the chance

- she secretly worries about aizawa a lot and is scared that he lets the past effect him too much

- did you guys know she has a cat?!

- i like to think she and mic are like... EPIC bros, she loves to paint his nails and do his hair while gossiping with him (aizawa would NEVER let her do this to him lmao)

- she isn't a mom, but finds the idea of having her own children very nice, for now having a cat will suffice

- she enjoys trying to make all might flustered, she thinks his reactions to things are always very cute and funny (it's all in good fun!)

- she's the mom friend! though she may seem very sexual, which she undoubtedly is, she is also very caring and has a very nuturing motherly personality, she's a lot more than just fanservice !!!!!

Todoroki Shoto

- completely oblivious when it comes to love... he doesn't even understand his own crushes

- "of course you can borrow my credit card uraraka" *pulls out endeavors card which he sneakily took*

- would be the person to tell a child that their pet guinea pig didn't go to heaven and be confused when they start sobbing... like "what... don't be honest?"

- allows his friends to huddle up to his warm side when they are cold

- is confused when people show him copious amounts of love and affection

- he would beat up anyone if they tried to do ANYTHING bad to midoriya

- he wants more friends. he really is enjoying meeting new people and having some new friends at ua!

- he gives really good hugs, he doesn't try to hug you too tight, but he doesn't half ass it either, very nice and warm

- he hates his scar. like. a lot. he wants to cover it up so bad but it just doesn't work. he's afraid it'll make other people scared of him.

Shinsou Hitoshi

- loves patd! and fall out boy, a brendon urie STAN

- loves to kiss his kitties on the forehead but dreads human interaction

- he loves to squish his cats' toebeans... he takes pictures of them and posts them to his secret cat social media acc

- he is gay but doesn't know how to feel about it and/or come out, he's really nervous and doesn't trust people to accept him

- he doesn't smile often but when he does it's the cutest thing ever

- he secretly really likes deku and kaminari and is hesitant about accepting their friendship, but appreciates the gestures a lot

- he suffers with social anxiety and doesn't really know how to make friends very well??? like, in middle school people were total dickbags to him so he kinda just closed himself off and decided he was gonna like... not make friends, but now that there's nice people around him he just kind of- doesn't know how

- this is actually canon! but he feels guilty about having to manipulate people when he uses his quirk, during the 4th school briefs book he feels guilty when he overhears midoriya and ojiro talking about him using his quirk during the sports festival, and he's like "i wish ojiro would say something rude about me to show he's angry so i wouldn't have to feel so guilty about this" since ojiro showed no ill feelings towards him

Izuku Midoriya

- "hold on I'll go get a blanket!" *opens closet* *thousands of all might figurines tumble out*

- watches cat vine compilations until 2 am, than freaks out when he realizes it is 2 am

- very good with children!

- used to be very self conscious about his freckles bc of bakugou insulting them; hid them with concealer for a while until someone told him they were beautiful

- loves his momma so muchhh he would do anything for her, he likes to surprise her with small favors to see her happy

- does not understand the concept of letting people handle their own problems

- stays after to class to offer his teachers help

- he has a lot of self doubts and is still struggling to this day to come to terms with the fact that he is worthy of having one for all

- he wants to learn how to cook for his mom and friends

Kyoka Jirou

- she is a lesbian!!!!! she has a crush on momo but is completely convinced that it's unrequited

- struggled with judgmental kids in middle school because of her sexual identity and style

- gets very easily flustered by anyone complimenting her

- that one person sitting at the back of the bus with their earbuds blasting full volume

- was a GOD at guitar hero

- acts like she's fed up with kaminari's (which she can be sometimes), but truly he's one of the people she can trust the most. she secretly appreciates the way he hypes up her talents and how he really helps her through the day sometimes!

- she loves heroes so much... when she was a little girl and didn't know what to do she'd ask herself "what would my favorite heroes do!?"

- she also secretly buys hero merch but hides it in fear of her being seen as sappy

Amajiki Tamaki

- would have trouble standing up for himself but if he sees ANYONE messing with mirio he WILL throw hands

- likes to watch bob ross videos when hes feeling anxious

- he once went to a butterfly museum with his parents and cried out of joy when one landed on his nose

- leaves food out for strays in his neighborhood, ends up attracting an entire hoard of animals.

- he can paint very nicely, he began to paint after he discovered bob ross

- mirio then saw his paintings and showed the entire class to tamaki's dismay, but everyone absolutely LOVED them!!!

- every day he becomes more and more capable and sure of himself, he is still very anxious, but he's learning to open up and embrace his talents <3

- he really loves to listen to music and any time he's not around others he'll probably have earbuds in, gently swaying back and forth to whatever he has on

- nejire loves to try out new hairstyles on him, and strangely enough, tamaki lets her, he loves it when people play with his hair

Shirakumo Oboro

- shares one collective braincell with mic

- that one person that brings EVERYONE valentine treats on valentines day at school

- most likely plays ding dong ditch

- *draws stick figure* "ah yes. just like van goh" (he cannot draw)

- hates to see his friends (and even random strangers upset) and will go out of his way to do dumb things to make them smile

- probably played soccer

- he's a massive flirt and likes to believe he will become a stereotypical anime protagonist with a massive harem

- he really wants to see aizawa come out of his shell more and tries his best to encourage him to see the best in everything

- he has most likely worn a schoolgirl uniform to class once

- he's very affectionate and loves to hug his friends (even if they don't want hugs), it's his way of showing he likes people

Hizashi Yamada

- he lives off of caffeine. he is a teacher, pro hero, and radio show host, im honestly not sure how he does it

- gives out stickers when students get the correct answer in class and has class parties when they are well behaved for the semester

- just like everyone else, he has his own turmoil as well, he likes to stay busy because it prevents him from having a lot of time to dwell on the past

- he gives really good hugs, and loves to feel the touch of others, it's very comforting to him

- was probably pretty troublesome when he was very young while he learned to get control of his quirk

- overall a really happy and excitable guy, he loves being the center of attention and if he can make people happy by being what he is, that's awesome!

- he shows his appreciation for people in odd ways, but he always means good, even if his wild antics can be a bit stressful lol

- he likes to sing a lot and does it a bunch when he's alone, he can also play a lot of instruments

- he can be very serious if needed, he does often put on a persona when he's present mic

- when he's hizashi (out of hero persona) he's even more of a dork than usual, very goofy, awkward and pouty. a manchild.

OK so I reached my image limit, if u guys wanna see the rest I might post some more later PLUS feel free to request some in my asks, I don't really know how all that stuff works bc I'm kinda new to Tumblr but ILL FIGURE IT OUT

[unproduciblesmackdown]

another prompt saga

April 8th: Talk about friendship. How important are friends to you? Do you find it hard to make and maintain friendships? Are your friends generally supportive? Is there anything about having friends that confuses you?

another big question for me to go on plenty of tangents lol

well i haven't often had friends Really, there's like, being amicable with classmates, being friends with people While We're At School Together, being friendly acquaintances lmfao, or like, the occasional "yeah ig we're sort of friends, not exactly very close tho" lol and then rarely where yeah i'd call someone a close friend, although naturally, it's not like i completely discount those other, less close relationships. and, even more so, not like overall i'm like "oh friendship? yeah that's pretty frivolous and unimportant and it's just something mildly entertaining vs the Real Shit & True Emotional Support & Love of your biological family and romantic soulmate" lol, Friends Are Important and it's entirely serious 2 me

also natch i Do find it hard to make and maintain friendships lol. goes back to like, preschool and being around a bunch of age peers regularly for the first time, where my "best friend" defaulted to this one person who sought out interacting with me when i was otherwise doing my own thing during preschool recess, and i was pretty enthused about getting invited to a bday party one kid invited a bunch of us to, because that was like, a Friend thing, and a fun social thing, and i was included.....that i Do remember just feeling like, socially, everyone else was playing a game i didn't know the rules to and so couldn't expect to participate and, furthermore, i ought to stay out of the way of whatever everyone else was doing, where i Did often choose to do stuff by myself, but it's like, you know, the way "autistic" is even used figuratively (which. i have a lot of disdain for) because it's like oh the defining thing really is that telltale "doesn't want to interact with other people or form relationships, probably because also they have no feelings / normal and intrinsic qualities of Humanity" but it's like, if you pay any attention or god forbid ask autistic people about their own experiences, sure everyone has their own varying social approach and anyone might not always be raring to be the center of the party or Not want to do their own thing, but it's not that oh all autistic people aren't interested in social connection, but that like even when you are a small child it's like, oh all these other kids are interacting in this way that isn't really my social style and that shuts me out, and/or attempting to interact with people results in this even subtle, quiet rejection / exclusion that can be picked up on. i wasn't making friends and was often keeping to myself / keeping my head down as it were, but it wasn't because i didn't want to have friends or socialize. my mom was insistent i was a Shy Child lmao and i'd always argue that i wasn't Really, without further explanation though lmao, but it's like, again that i felt that sort of emergent exclusion, and there wasn't any space to interact much on my terms at all, and like, yeah i often stayed quiet / didn't want to mingle with other kids / if i was in a Situation i wanted to know the How To of navigating it / what to expect

being friends with people at school was fine, except the drawbacks of stuff like "we're only interacting at school, rarely hanging out outside of that" & "someone in the same grade is in a diff class in elementary school so we just never see each other now" & "for some reason that 2nd grade teacher made a whole giant Example out of me and a friend, god forbid, not paying attention or whatever the fuck, so now i feel like we can't interact at all anymore" & "changing schools entirely between elementary / middle / college" & "not being in school" lmao similar to work friends too, we're At Work, might not see each other outside of that, might change jobs & stop seeing each other, & still overall rare, b/c the Preschool Experience never Really stopped imo, had different versions of it even into college and like, being at jobs with other adults lmao, socializing is still Like That, came up with the Je Ne Hate Quoi where like, people kind of just Know to exclude you / consider you an exception to whatever other social stuff is going on.

and then like, the difficulties even when socializing / interactions Are happening, where like, it's always funny like. i'm very Verbose / Chatty and very opinionated but like, this will surprise people, that i Talk actually and have a ton of takes, b/c i was keeping to myself / not sharing that with them and so it's like well, that must of course be the realest version of me, no way i was filtering myself, i just must have Not Wanted to talk, and/or had nothing to say & hence no thoughts or feelings i might wanna share lol, of course....and tbh like, it sure Can be true that i don't wanna talk lmao like. i wanna talk About Stuff that isn't really "personal" generally, which can be like, yeah i wanna talk about this book, or about birds, or about this trivia topic, or whatever, whereas idk so much how to do like small talk about your day or otherwise share Casual things about Yourself, like, idk, being aware my interests are things about Myself but also aware that it's Weird / wasn't the kind of stuff you were supposed to talk about, and i felt that things about my life were otherwise Not The Right Stuff, or too boring (never hanging out, not doing much except being at home reading / doing shit by myself or w/siblings) or too Unfun (able to pick up the sense that At Home Shittiness was a private matter lol......) and it'd be like, idk what to say, things about myself don't seem to fit..........but also it can be that i do not enjoy the Vibe of an interaction lmfaoooo like, i truly do not want to talk to you people. like that i can sometimes vibe with someone inebriated people better lmfao because then, idk, they have some sense of humor and can muster some enthusiasm for anything, but also i'm not really a fan of knowing that someone isn't sober lmfao like. ppl will be like "omg were you drunk" like no, that was just my personality, whereas i am not Heartened to know other ppl Will have to have been drunk to get on my level, for example, don't understand when people cannot muster being even a little silly. it's goofaround hours. but then you have like, being around a bunch of cishet people when they're drunk, and their humor is as nonexistent and boring as ever but they're even louder / more insistent about it, nightmare. and, yknow, just people talking and i'm like "i'm not interested in this at all, whether re: conversational Style or Subject, i would not want to participate" and times when it's like. i know if i was gonna chime in with what i Would say you would not be able to handle me here lmfaoooo so. i truly would prefer examining the wall and thinking about my own shit or texting with someone i do like talking with

but that yknow, in groups / conversations i would be at least someone interested in, i can still be like, idk, Hesitant To Talk b/c of all the instances you've been taught like oh you're socializing Wrong and everyone hated that, sorta like the post about making a comment about salsa that brings the gc to a halt and you're wondering how you fucked up and if salsa killed someone's parents and forgot or whatever, i've been Disheartened re: hanging out when it's like, well, nice to be included, but i'm a friendship third wheel here, not being included in the entire convo and nobody misses it, there's been instances where it's like, two people talking, i chime in, i am completely ignored multiple times, this is frustrating lmao. or there's been times i've tried to put myself out there in a way, like yeah sure i'll hang out with this group, but also i'm anxious and it's like, if people are doing homework i'm also bringing this thing i'm working on as this parallel task, only to find out down the line like people then regarded you as a joke or something b/c it was Rude or Wrong when you know, actually that was you reading some weird shit that didn't exist into the situation, and just like, idk it's wild how people will have like "graciously" declined to express something to your face, and you either can pick up on shit at the time but not be able to say anything which just reads to people like "oh they didn't notice this / that means you can push it a little further next time even" or like, figure out later that something that seemed positive or decent actually ft. people not liking you / not wanting to include you Yet Again, and as a bonus you're left with you know, having to always worry about if people Seemingly being amicable & accepting is actually them wishing you weren't there or solidifying some Interpretations of you that they're then gonna Talk About or Act On behind the scenes, like, beautiful thank you, always very touching, so glad you were so Considerate of someone's feelings and Nice about this where it just ends up being this whole letdown / feeling like even more of a rejection if there was this weird like stringing along lmao like. can allistic people be normal for five minutes

anyways and tied to that sort of, it's also like, simultaneously Cagey About Things and always worried about like, i could tell this person this thing and maybe it'd be Incorrect for the interaction and they won't care, whether because it's too mundane and boring a thing about you or because it's too #Real, i think i glimpsed something a month or so ago about like "do other autistic people have trouble where like, you can be friends with someone a long time but not get particular Close to them" or whatever lol, where like, well i have to hold everyone at arm's length and often Then Some because there's just matter of fact stuff about me that i nonetheless think i can't or shouldn't share, if i talked about something it might be out of the blue b/c i just was hardly confiding in people about it, or it's boring, or it's like, i don't actually feel like i'm close enough with this person that saying this isn't gonna be like "whoa overshare!! i just feel awkward & weird!" lmfao like. there were people i hung out with in person the year i lived out of my car and i did not mention this at all to them / kept it a secret b/c it's like, not out of like ohh this is a secret b/c No One Can Know, some people Could know lmao (shoutout to the person i Did confide in about these problems and who talked with me at what must've been like 3am in that timezone when i was like "well the rich people around here made sure to get cops to harass an unhoused person, e.g. me, would you believe it, it sucked" lmfao) it's that i knew idk, it would be pointless, they'd just feel weird about it and switch into that "for some reason, this is being Nice" where everyone will go into full Putting On A Front mode to be Polite like, that really sucks actually lmao could you Not. but it's like, idk, all this stuff where it's like "this thing about me / my life would be too Boring or too Awkward or Depressing or Etc Etc" turns out to be isolating / alienating b/c like, of course it would be. and idk nobody i ever made friends with in person i was Confiding in, not a ton of them re: me either, because you know. being cagey and wary, on top of like ohhh this person is Standoffish if they're hesitant to interact with people generally or do their own thing or i don't think they're socializing Right / have incorrectly inferred their feelings/motivations/intentions or whatever

and furthermore on that lmao it's also like, again, while i'm Verbose & Opinionated people will think i'm quiet & have no takes to provide because it's also like, even when it comes to stuff i sure feel i Could talk freely about, it's like, if i have a different opinion here will that just be a conversational Interruption ruining things for the real participants, probably nobody wants to hear me talk about this Subject, probably nobody wants to / would let me talk about it at much length without interrupting, even Online lmao i can be just going all out in terms of [how much i can talk about something] and while people can be Into that at that time it's like, people aren't into that beyond that one back and forth on one day, shoutout when people do enjoy the extensive discussing and/or have patience for it other times lol.

then supposing i Am talking to people lmao it's like, idk i'm an acquired taste or what have you, like, on top of the Talking A Ton it's like, the being opinionated and argumentative and sometimes pedantic or whatever on top of being irritable, could stand to be a bit more patient lmao, The Hater Friend to use the figure of speech lmao i have hardly been in a Group to be The [Any] Friend lol, also if my sense of humor doesn't fit it's like well how am i supposed to be silly, if being sometimes Enthused doesn't fit, again kinda an issue......have described myself as A Bit Much, humorously, but already not doing that as Much b/c it's like, i think i'm still too much like considering other people's opinions too "objective" here when like, first of all that's never accurate lmao, second of all i can easily forget that idk, i can at least in theory expect people to just regularly Like me and Enjoy interacting with me lol so. an acquired taste few can sample..........like hey even if other people don't vibe with me, it can just as much be the case that i'm not vibing with other people, don't worry lmao. and yknow, kinda parallel to Masking to seem acceptable in any casual social situation it's like, if i feel i'm suppressing my whole personality here / putting up a front / like i have to Get Through what should be a friendly interaction rather than be able to enjoy it myself, it's not exactly that rewarding. and plenty of times it's like, i like to be around people, but it can be strangers, i don't feel like "oh i wanna go out to eat / see a movie / go to this event, but if i can't get any friends to go, guess i can't!" like get out of the way i'm readily doing shit alone, it can even feel Better that way if otherwise it's like, now this occasion is about performing peak Agreeability for this other person/people, and like, not like i have ever been like "yes i have people i can readily ask to hang out and they'll be like Ya" anyways lol so. used to operating solo, where you can't be like "aha this is because this person has no Human Interest in Human Connection" when it's like. well it was never all up to me was it

well and so also it helped when i was 14 and able to be Online consistently, vs at home lmao. time for online friendship, which i don't think is like, oh that's not Real, like what sorry have you never known about people who have Remote friendships before, phones & letters & telegrams and also [nowadays when many ppl are Remote even if they usually lived near enough to hang out with] where it's like, you have this different format for socializing that can sure play out differently than Real Time, In Person interactions, and ever since i'll be posting mostly to myself lmfao but able to thusly talk about Interests and like, people will come along who want to talk more about it, then we do. i suppose also it can sure help that i'll draw (and Only draw, lol) for said interests, although tbh i think most of the time it's the extensive text posts that do it? really and great litmus test or whatever lmfao like, well already this person must not hate the verbosity. and then you can end up vibing with these people further, or not, but it's like, again, there's this chance for From The Start like, oh this person Likes that i have this niche interest, they like &/or don't mind talking A Lot about it lmao, vs in person introductions where that can sure happen but it's like, that's gonna be chance & spontaneous, whereas ppl might have the opportunity to Seek Out this interaction / content of yours......even online though, i'm still like, not as inclined to reach out or make the first interaction move or whatever lmao so. and then it's like, people make galaxy brain remarks like "ohh people who are very Online don't have friends, irl, they aren't Personable, irl," like yes congratulations i'm autistic and i don't have many In Person friends generally, sometimes maybe not any, don't really know where people think they'll land their argument here. like, follow it through, are you just calling people losers. is it "social media makes peopel Not social" like nobody is Doing Anything when they're online or everyone is embracing strangers and having heart to hearts every weekday morning with whoever is nearby if only they weren't on twitter? plus the fact that like, if i don't have access to people i interact with online, that doesn't like, force me to become neurotypical so that i then have a thriving in person social circle, it just means i'm more isolated? meanwhile, turns out it helps a lot if it's like, yeah i can Expect to interact with people

and then still like, all the time it might be like i still can feel Confused as it were about How To Talk To People lmfao like. there's not much "Just Be Yourself" when being yourself has meant filtering yourself, actually, and being v self conscious about trying (and often failing) to appeal to other people (which, then if you do succeed, it's like oops this person likes me but if i've been putting up a front the whole time, not super Validating) and not exactly a ton of practice getting to do Otherwise, and it can again be like. is this too boring to talk about, or just somewhat arbitrarily like "oh i'd better Not talk / say whatever" for no real reason lmfao, i Can just get like. Real Time Chatty as it were, but it's difficult actually lmfao like i need a lot of momentum, and it's easy for that to be Not the case.......and just like, again that it's easy to forget you don't have to be in "nobody wants to hear you talk" mode, or think like, okay, i can't just say anything, i have to say something Good, aka of interest or funny or whatever lmao but then it's like well i guess i Can just say anything. don't much know how to do that tho

(also, sidenote from "wtf is thinking being friends w/someone online is faker than when you're friends with someone sort of from being in the same building every weekday, what is the conclusion of 'what a loser geek whatever if you care about connecting Online who can't be popular Offline'" where it's always funny when someone is also like "wow even in person Fandom is, like social media, something that only people who suck at socializing Normally are into" lmfao like. not very relevant b/c nobody wants to really be in a broader fanbase rather than find particular kindred spirits through it, and who actually wants to go to comic con or whatever, sounds like a nightmare, but it's still such a faux analytical perspective lmfao like, again, first of all, what's the Conclusion to your argument here? and secondly honestly like. all versions of Small Talk are kinda gonna be bullshit, even amongst say, nt people, there's nothing Universal, and people can certainly be inconsiderate / preclude any genuine connection via what they might consider to be this neutral part of the ritual, and yknow, i find it kinda exhausting like it's peak Time To Mask and then i'm hardly in the mood to Really talk further, like yknow what. idk i'd be annoyed if someone demanded i Correctly Complete some sort of fandom reference by way of greeting, but i'm also annoyed when someone demands i Correctly Complete whatever maneuvers you're supposed to do with a rhetorical "how are you :)" lmfao like. you're a cringe nerd in the rigid social ritual of pleasantries fandom)

anyways and uhh yeah i also yknow, hashtag alana beck, it's like, glad to pretend Friendly Acquaintances makes sense, i guess it can, but it's great when it's like, oh i Don't have to only expect to be really peripheral in people's lives, or to only be friends with people i don't feel like i vibe with That much or also talk to that much about anything, when i can definitely feel like Yes this person is a Friend, no "are they actually closer to an acquaintance at this point" disclaimers needed, again, taking it back to the fact that friendship sure is Significant to me and when i have it that's v important thanks

so it's like uhhhh yeah difficult to make friends, don't have general appeal or whatever lol, ppl aren't on my wavelength or i'm not on theirs, hard to talk to people even though it's not because i don't/can't talk plenty lmfao.......and re: being Supportive it's like well, i don't really tell people In Person i'm autistic but naturally if you follow me Online here i am talking about it lol, and not like anyone who already knew me & was friends with me was like "oh nvm don't like interacting with you now" and i also gotta mention the like Handshake Lgbtq lifehack, where plenty of times it can be like, oh if we vibe on That wavelength it can be easier to befriend people, and/or that people will at least be more like, amicable / supportive based on Knowing you're handshake on that lol. b/c really it's like, i'd also like to just be allowed to talk and/or simply be around people even if we are not Personal Friends, aka that you can expect to be treated decently with some basic respect / consideration and like you're generally allowed to exist and be present and interact with people where you're not only guaranteed to Not be punished / excluded for it if someone's your individual friend and allows you to be here, so. once again it's like, can allistic ppl be normal for 5 min

[half-heaven]

Cresswell Au day! tlc ship weeks. Its apart of the Au ship weeks series that i made so i your confused about the chapters then thats why

yeah i should've done this earlier.

Starbucks AU

Chapter 2, Real

___________________________________________________________

Cress sighed. It had been a tiresome day.

She wasn't good with large crowds of people, or with small groups of people, or with a few customers in the store, or well...she just wasn't good with people. She had tried, lord knows she tried her hardest. But her fainting that one time at the register made it clear that she was not suited for the socializing part of the job. So Scarlet put her in the Drive-Thru. Cress's job was to take the orders, she never complained though. She wanted some freedom from her room back home, so she would take any job. Her father said that her working wasn't necessary, that he provided more than enough money for the two of them working as a scientist. Cress didn't care. She just wanted to have a semblance of freedom, she wanted to get out and experience things. She wanted to conquer this social awkwardness, courtesy of staying inside and programming since she was ten. She was going to, at least, try.

Cress heard another round of orders being said into her headset. She typed quickly, not missing a beat. She blew upwards, her actions clearing her vision of the loose hair. She told them to drive to the window. They pulled up next to her window and she took the money carefully to not to drop any. She thanked them and they pulled up to the next window. Thorne's window.

Thorne had been her crush for her entire time working here and in highschool. She would dare say she loved him but that might be a bit overdramatic. She had seen him a few times in school but never really knew him. He had graduated last year, and with that came the overabundance of signatures in yearbooks. Most of the yearbooks were owned by girls. Hers was one of them. She thought he was incredibly handsome and had developed feelings for him, which is why she had nearly screamed when he unknowingly signed her yearbook. That was why she was stoked when she happened to talk to him on the first day of her working here. He was so kind and supportive towards her, so kind in fact that she had nearly asked him to marry her right then and there. Thankfully, she didn't. He had a girlfriend.

Darla.

She very much disliked Darla, hate was much too strong of a word. Though with how much she disliked her, hate might be the right word.

1. Because Darla was much too aggressive, with Thorne, and with other men.

2. She was cheating on Thorne, well Thorne was cheating on her too but that wasn't the issue here. He flirted with every girl in the cafe, including the staff, accept for Cress. He also collected many numbers via Drive-Thru window.

3. Darla had called Cress a middle schooler. Cress was in her junior year of high school.

4. Darla was fake. Not like silicone, well she might as well have been. She was obviously not sporting real curves. That irked Cress because she lied about it.

5. Winter did not like her. Winter liked everyone. If she didn't like Darla that meant bad news.

Why couldn't Thorne found someone better, someone real?

'Someone like you?'

Cress blushed. Why must her mind be so blunt? Maybe she hadn't given her enough of a chance? No, she had. She had tried to befriend her but Darla just gave her a dirty look. Cress could tell she was one of those girls who would talk about you while in your presence. If you asked what they were talking about they would lash out and tell you to mind your business. Cress had dealt with a few girls like that in highschool.

'Even Sybil was more tolerable.' Cress thought.

Another car pulled in and Cress greeted them. She mustn't lose focus. She heard laughing. She turned her head in the direction of the noise and found Thorne looking at her. Her face heated up and she whipped her head back to the computer. She took down the orders and told them to head to the window. She turned her head a bit and glanced to see if he was still looking at her. He was. She slowly turned her head to the computer again.

What was she supposed to do?

The car outside the window honked. She jumped. Cress hurried to open the window and took the money. She muttered a few apologies to the customer before they drove to the next window. She can't lose focus! Not even for Thorne...

She glanced at the clock overhead and took a breath. Her shift change was soon. Hopefully, she would make it through.

There wasn't any activity in the drive-thru for at least 30 minutes after the last customer. This wasn't really all that strange but on a busy day like today, it made her wary. Emilee would be switching with her soon so she just leaned back against the wall and relaxed. She glanced out the window. A car drove by. What?

Cress turned around and caught sight of Darla and Thorne making out through the window. She heard Cinder gag. Cress felt her heart squeeze. It hurt. Why must it hurt? She blinked rapidly to keep the beginning of tears from spilling over. How troublesome.

She looked back up at the clock and breathed through her reddening nose. Shift change. She was grateful to have a moment of peace. She needed to get a grip.

If it hurt this much, could it be love? Maybe...

She walked by them to the back room. She sat on one of the benches and breathed. This wasn't worth it. She decided that she had to get over him. It was the only way she would be able to keep working here while they were dating. She heard Emilee's voice after a few minutes. Thank god.

The door to the break room opened and Thorne stepped through. It wasn't his shift change with Kinney so what-

"Are you okay?" He sounded genuinely concerned. She felt another tug at her heart. She didn't want to worry him.

"Y-yeah, just a bit tired." Her voice sounded a lot more vulnerable than she had anticipated. She looked up from her lap and her breath caught. His eyebrows were furrowed and his eyes seemed...sad.

"Why are you lying?" He asked quietly. She felt her body stiffen.

"There's no need to. We're friends right?" His voice sounded hurt, genuinely hurt.

"Of course! I just...I just don't feel comfortable around Darla is all." She decided to be honest. Honesty is the best policy, in some situations.

"Did she bother you?" He sounded a little more angry. She blushed a bit.

"N-no, I just feel a bit uncomfortable around her. She didn't really do anything." She lied. Darla did do something.

'She was your fake, obnoxious, and rude girlfriend.' Cress thought.

"Are you sure? I'd be willing to talk to her for you." No! that's the last thing Cress needed.

"No! I-I mean, no. It's fine. I just need to get used to the- the-,"

"The fakeness?" He smiled, " I heard you mumbling while you were working."

"What! Oh, my stars! I'm sorry! I didn't really- well I did but- I mean I-," She was red, unbelievably red. She was also ashamed, very much ashamed.

"Nah! You're fine. I completely agree with you." He laughed.

"Then why do you-" She was confused.

"My friend was trying to get her out of his bed. So he asked me to ask her out, being the good friend I am, I did, haven't been able to shake her off since." He said tiredly. Cress felt bad for him.

"Have you told her how you feel?" She felt a bit more comfortable. So he didn't like Darla. No! She mustn't get her hopes up.

"Yeah, she slapped me." He said rubbing his cheek. She gasped.

"Are you okay?!" He stared at her then smiled.

"Yeah." He said smiling.

Cress blushed. Why was he so handsome? Why did he make her heart warm and fuzzy? Why did she have to like him so much?

"Carswell-y!" A sickeningly fake sweet voice said.

Thorne sighed and glared at the door. Cress looked down at her lap.

Oh boy.

The door burst open and the girl flipped her hair back from her face. There was a man on her arm. He looked like a frat lord.

"Carswell, this is Leo. Leo, this is my ex-boyfriend. Ta Ta~!" She then skipped out with the man on her arm. Thorne looked a bit shocked but no pain crossed his features. He smiled. The smile was so big, Cress thought he would start a song. She smiled along with him. He looked at her and winked. She thought she heard the blush rush to her cheeks.

"Well, it looks like I'm off the hook!" He cheered, "good thing too, she was not my type." Thorne shook his head and headed to the door. Cress spoke before she could stop herself.

"Then what is your type?" She asked. She blushed again. Curse her ever-questioning mouth. She prepared herself for the backlash.

He turned and looked at her. He let the question hang in the air for a few seconds. He smiled, warm and bright. Cress felt her heart beat quicken.

"Someone real." With that, he closed the door and left Cress to blush.

________________________________________________________________

Thx for reading 💕 ( yeah i've never worked at starbucks so sorry if its not completely accurate.)

[ajoy3fanfics]

Childhood friends

Kagome sighed as she leaned back, her head lightly hitting the living room wall as she slumped down to a sitting position, all the while shooting daggers at the hanyou who was currently splayed across her love seat without a care in the world. Idly, he reached around for the remote, making himself right at home in her studio. She had planned on spending a quiet night in, watching a movie, maybe even starting to tackle studying for the math exam next week- really anything butsharing her space with the person who was currently the biggest pain in her ass.

“Quit glaring at me.” He said before he yawned. “It’s making it hard to relax.”

“Good.” She replied, her tone icy and calm, “who asked you to barge into my apartment and hog the couch in the first place? Go home.”

Inuyasha bit back a smile as he tucked an arm under his head. She’d been in a bad mood since yesterday- gods knows why- and she wouldn’t even return his texts or calls. Honestly, she left him no choice but to show up at her house and push past her when she made a show of trying to slam the door in his face.

“Don’t wanna. You should really work on how you treat your friends Kagome. If I didn’t know you so well I’d take offense.”

“Who’s my friend?” She snapped. “When I saw you at Starbucks the other day, you pretended you didn’t even know me.”

Ah, that’s what she was mad about. “Must not of seen you.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like me to ignore my oldest friend.”

Kagome grit her teeth, “don’t give me that. We made direct eye contact dog boy. I was standing there waving at you and you told the girl next to you I was a crazy stalker! I looked like such an idiot!” Kagome brought her hands to cover her face, trying to get a grip on her frustration. It wasn’t the first time inuyasha had been rude to her- far from it- but she happened to be with a study group, and more importantly, Hojo- and thanks to Inuyasha she looked like a total fool. She was so embarrassed and irritated she barley was able to concentrate. Hojo had even asked if she needed to go to the drugstore to get some medicine.

“What’s the big deal?” He asked, sitting up to comb his fingers through his short silver locks. “So some strangers think your nuts. Who cares?” He stood up, stretching his arms over head and walked towards her kitchen cabinets. “Got any ramen left?” He called over his shoulder, not bothering to look as the enraged woman jumped to her feet behind him.

“Classmates, Inuyasha. I was with my classmates! I’m trying to make friends!”

“You’ve got tons of friends. And more importantly, you’ve got me.” He kept his eyes trained on the rows of canned foods, the conversation taking a turn he wasn’t liking. “How many damn friends do you need?”

“Oh, Yeah, I’ve got you.” She rolled her eyes, hands on her hips for good measure, “except when you pretend you don’t know me. Obviously I need more than just you!”

Kagome had always had an easy time making friends- well, femalefriends to be precise. And while she loved girl talk and the bonds of sisterhood, she really, reallywas tired of being single. The few times she managed to get a boyfriend in school, something always went wrong- they mysteriously ended up losing interest almost as soon as they started dating! Her friends were always quick to point out that it was probably the 6’2 Adonis -like hanyou that was stuck to her side like glue, all the while glaring at anyone that identified as male that scared potential boyfriends away, but Kagome always waived off that idea. She knew better than anyone that Inuyasha only thought of her as a friend, and nothing more.

There were times, of course, that she had thought differently- especially when they were younger- but after their disastrous 6thgrade kiss, Kagome knew there was no way he could see past their years of friendship. And that was fine-really!- She accepted long ago that he wouldn’t love her the way she loved him, and she loved him far too much to risk losing him. But if he could just stop scaring off potential boyfriends, it would make things a lot easier. It wasn’t as if he was living a solo life. He always had a flood of female companions around him… like the woman at Starbucks who now thinks she’s a stalker.

“You know how girls get around you.” He defended. “Once they find out that we’re best friends they get so fucking crazy. They blow up my phone, harass you on social media, pretend to be friendly to get close. It’s easier to act like we don’t know each other, especially if the girl isn’t sticking around for long.”

Kagome had to give him that. Inuyasha was no stranger to short lived love affairs- the man hadn’t settled down with a girlfriend in a longtime- but when he was younger he did have a few girls he went steady with; and each one of them had a problem with Kagome. Being childhood friends was a recipe for disaster, at least for a middle and high school relationship; the girls would get jealous, demand they stop hanging around each other and eventually Inuyasha would break up with them. He had little patience for the dramatics, and he always made it very clear that Kagome was someone who was staying put in his life. After a while, he started turning down every girl in school, choosing only to date girls who went elsewhere. Maybe that was when he started preferring to casually date; less trouble with the same end result.

“Then maybe be pickier about who you date.” She muttered, making the dog demon roll his amber eyes.

“I didn’t exactlylie.” He smirked. “You basically dostalk me.”

Kagome open and closed her mouth, any retort fleeting her brain at his ridiculous claim. “Oh, yeah, I totally stalk you.” She stepped closer to him, closing the gap and poked her finger into his chest. “Because I totallywas the one sneaking into yourroom at night through the window, waited outside your classes-“

“Exactly.” He smiled as he grabbed her offending hand, “Stalker.”

Kagome could feel her rage building back up. He could be so- so… irritating!  “Ugggh!”

Inuyasha couldn’t help but chuckle at her. She was so expressive; after all these years of being with her, he never got bored of watching her reactions. Giving her hand a gentle squeeze he apologized. “I didn’t mean to make you this upset. I just thought it would save you the headache of dealing with Yuki.”

“It doesn’t excuse how you treated me.” She scrunched her nose as she pulled away from him. “I looked so dumb in front of Hojo.” She groaned, lightly smacking her palm against her forehead. A silver ear twitched at the mention of a male name, instantly turning his mood. Hojo? “Hojo?” He questioned.

Kagome furrowed her brow and pursed her lips together. “J-Just a guy in my class…” She had trouble making eye contact with him, he looked so focused and intense.

Pushing past him, she opened the second cabinet door, easily finding the ramen and held it out to him. “Here.” She said, before walking back to the love seat and sitting down, a tense energy still radiating off of her. Inuyasha gripped the styrofoam cup and reminded himself that he needed to smile. Friends smiled at that kind of news right? Damn, he just couldn’t seem to do it. No matter how much she brought it up- and thankfully it wasn’t a lot- it always caught him off guard to know she was interested in men- well, men other than him. It left Inuyasha feeling unsettled, a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach, an instant sour on his mood, but he chalked that up their relationship. They were close- best friends as long as either one of them could remember- of course he would feel some sort of discomfort at the thought of losing her, of being replaced.

No, fuck that. She would never replace him. They were friends, that wouldn’t change. The rational part of him knew that one day she would find someone she liked, someone she loved. She’d date,really date- not like those wimps in high school that he could easily intimidate to break up with her, and then the bastard would become the most important guy in her life. He got that, the rational part of him really did. His rage filled emotional part however… well, none of that was acceptable. He pressed on, curiosity getting the best of him. “Do you like this Hoho?”

“Hojo. You literally just said his name a second ago.” She crossed her arms, watching as he set the ramen on the counter, long forgotten. He plopped down next to her. “Which one was he? There were a few guys there.” None of them had seemed like a threat, just ordinary college guys. Had he thought that one of them would potentially steal her away- well, this entire conversation wouldn’t be happening. Maybe he needed to keep a closer eye on the people around her. He laid his arm over the back of the couch as she turned to face her.

Kagome narrowed her eyes. “So you doknow what I’m talking about. You’re such a jerk!” She hit his arm, not exactly lightly, but not enough for any sort of discomfort. “I’m really mad at you.” She said, her voice lacking said anger. Her plump bottom lip began to stick out, the way it always did when she was upset, an old habit from childhood. He sighed, reaching his arms around her and pulling her small frame into his chest. She resisted at first, pushing her weight against him, not yet ready to forgive him for being such a rude bastard, but, like always, she gave in, and Inuyasha rested his chin on top of her soft black hair.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, stroking her silky strands. “You’re right. I’m an idiot.”

She nodded against him. “You are.”

He chuckled, the sound low and light, “Keh, you love me anyway.”

“Eh,” She shrugged “that’s debatable.”

The dog demon clicked his tongue but said nothing, letting silence fall over them, the quiet of the studio apartment and the comfort of the dog demon lulling her into a trace.

“Kagome?” He asked, the sound of his voice warm and soothing.

“Hmm?” She could feel her eyelids getting heavier, her mind going hazy as his chest rumbled against her. She idly wondered if all friends did this, wondered who hedid this with. She knew that in public he was aloof at best and had a tendency to be cold; she never saw him hold hands with a girl or kiss, although they always seemed to hang over him. Was he like this when he was alone? Did others know the playful side of him, the sweet side that hated to see her mad? Who would guess that the same Inuyasha who spent his time avoiding social contact would be holding his friendand stroking her hair.

“You gonna make me that ramen now?” He purred.

Kagome slowly sat up, her hands still resting on the hard plains of his chest and smiled at him. “Take it, Inuyasha. Go home.”

He frowned, looking more menacing than disappointed and refused to move. “Nah, I’m staying over. It’s late.”

“Uh, no, you need to go home. To yourhome.” She pulled away, but clawed hands were fast on hers, pulled her down against him.

“Why? Hoto wouldn’t like it?” He asked darkly.

“Well it could certainly give him the wrong idea. I told you once we graduated the sleep overs needed to stop-“

“-Never agreed to that-“

“-And I’m sure the girl you were with the other day would be less than thrilled if-“

“Fuck her. Who cares what they think?” He was sulking now, clearly in a bad mood because he wasn’t getting his way.

“You’re such a baby sometimes.” She hissed, “I’ll make you your damn ramen and then you really need to leave.”

Hojo. Yuki. None of them mattered. He liked their life the way it was. He liked being with her; if someone had a problem with him spending the night they could go fuck themselves. And to top it off he worried about her! She was living alone, away from the college- any creep could break in- she needed him there! Really, any excuse would work; he just didn’t want to leave her yet. Crossing his arms he leaned back into the cushions, a knowing smile on his face.

“Fine!” She said, throwing her hands up in the air, a clear sign that she had given in. “I’m going to take a shower. Do what you want.” She stood up, walking towards the bathroom, leaving the hanyou satisfied as he stretched out on the sofa once more.

“American Horror Story when your done?” He asked, turning on the TV.

“Obviously.” She answered, hand gripping the door.

“My spare clothes washed?”

He could hear Kagome sigh. “Top drawer.”

Shutting the door behind her, closed her. He could be so exhausting- nothing was easy with him.

But she loved him.

She really, really loved him.

[nananaptime]

Request scenario : na jaemin and (y/n) bff since they're smol and grew up together, now at high school when (y/n) meets a guy (can be one of the dreamies) who likes her, jaemin gets jealous bcs the guy is literally stealing her away, thankies♡ I luv u and ur writing so much author nim♡♡♡

Open Your Eyes

This took so long, oops xD

I hope you like it

MasterlistRules

Genre: Angsty?

Word count: 2 401

Summary: Being in love with your best friend becomes obvious once there’s a reason for jealousy.

~

Jaemin gave me a confused look as I skipped towards where my bike was parked outside the apartment complex and giggled as I approached him with it at my side. A judging look crossed his face as I the sound resonated from my throat, causing it to become even louder. He sighed, fighting the smile willing to appear on his face.

“What are you so happy about? Please, give me my normal friend back.” We climbed onto our bikes and started biking towards our local high school. He received my explanation all the while, listening and scoffing at the reason behind my giddiness. “So you’re reacting like this because someone new is joining our year? I knew you liked meeting new people but wow, not to this extent.” I shook my head at his teasing comments, knowing he meant nothing by it.

“From what I hear, he’ll be in my English and history classes, and I’ll do everything in my power to make him feel welcome. You know new students more often than not have a hard time adapting to school life with new people, especially when transferring in the middle of a semester.” He nodded, acknowledging the fact but not fighting the small pout that soon appeared on his face.

“Yeah, but someone else can do that, we were supposed to eat out at the bleachers today, and then you said you’d watch me practice my dancing after school.” The whiney tone grew with every word and I giggled at his behaviour.

“He can join us can’t he? If I’m not incorrect, I’ve snapped up that he dances as well so maybe you two can exchange tips or something. I’m not trusting someone else with the important task of making someone else feel welcome.” I caught the huff which left Jaemin’s lips but no more arguments followed it, and so we biked the rest of the way in peace.

We parted ways with a hug once we reached the school, him having to attend his science class and I, my English class.

There was already a boy talking to the teacher when I arrived, seemingly settling details such as the coursebook and what he already knew from his last school. He was clad in a slightly oversized hoodie with a pair of black jeans. I waited until they were done before approaching the desk with a smile. Ms, Williams had a knowing look in her eyes, silently thanking me for what she knew I was about to offer.

“Ms, Williams! Knowing how difficult it is to find students who have the time and want to introduce a new student to the school, I’m more than happy to shoulder the responsibility.” Ms, Williams’ smile grew as I finished my sentence and she instantly agreed, finding the idea to be exceptional. She encouraged the new student to connect with me today and suggested being seatmates in her class, knowing that might spur some conversation during the practical half of the class. With that said, I threw the new student a smile, relieved to see that he was already smiling back at me, seemingly not having anything against spending some time with me.

As we sat down, I introduced myself and found out that his name was Jeno in the process. His smile was so bright that his eyes were almost impossible to spot and just the sight of it caused another smile to appear on my lips. During the class, I spent most of the time explaining what we had been going over the past couple of weeks and later helped him as much as I could with the practical exercises. The entire ordeal was filled with laughter and jokes and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this close to someone this quick before. Well, except for Jaemin.

Just before bidding each other goodbye I asked whether or not he’d the willing to join me and Jaemin for lunch later on. He shone up as soon as my enquiry registered and accepted with immense energy. Then he thanked me for giving him something to look forward to before being on his way to geography class.

The rest of the morning, I had a difficult time concentrating on what the teachers said, math had never come easy to me either way and hence, not concentrating did not make the challenge smaller. All I could think about was whether or not Jaemin would click with Jeno just as much as I did. He usually got along with everybody, so it shouldn’t be that much of an issue, but for some reason, I had a bad feeling at the bottom of my belly.

Jaemin met me outside the classroom and accompanied me to the cafeteria where we fetched our food. I didn’t get responses that was satisfactory while describing my encounter with Jeno. This only resulted in my bad feeling becoming worse and I threw a glare his way.

“Dude, you haven’t even met him, give him a chance before adapting that whiney personality you so regularly seem to display.” I accepted my food with gratitude and turned to him, stopping in the doorway to wait for Jeno to join us.

“He’s just a guy, no need to put him on such a pedestal.” I rolled my eyes as Jaemin sourly popped a potato tot into his mouth.

“Just you wait, you’ll like him, you like everybody, you don’t have it in you to dislike someone once you’ve met them, no matter how much you might want to.” He scoffed at me before stealing one of my fries. “Hey, you have your own food!” I exclaimed and laughed, moving my tray of food away from him.

“You took the last fries though!” He tried snatching yet another one but I smacked his hand away, causing him to retrieve it in fake shock. “Oh, now you’ve done it!” My shrieks caused many faces to turn our way as Jaemin’s finger found its way to my side, resulting in me crumbling in fits of laughter and screams, desperately trying to stabilize my tray of food in my arms while avoiding his attacks like the plague.

The ruckus ended only when someone cleared their throat beside us.

“Jeno!” I exclaimed, giving him a smile in return of the one he displayed on his face. “Jeno, this is my best friend Jaemin. Nana, this is Jeno.” Jeno extended his hand for a greeting which Jaemin accepted, albeit unwillingly. I bumped his shoulder, shooting him a meaningful look, telling him to be nice. With a small roll of his eyes, he turned his frown into a smile, putting in an effort to engage in some kind of conversation with Jeno. Satisfied with the current course of events, I started walking towards the bleachers, the boys behind me having a conversation regarding some new video game I wasn’t familiar with.

I sat down on one of the cold, metal benches outside, with Jaemin taking a seat next to me and Jeno on the bench further down in front of me, turned the wrong way around in order to exert some social sense. He joined in my and Jaemin’s talk about his upcoming dance recital which turned into me investigating his own dance story and what style he prefered. I could feel Jaemin’s eyes burning into the side of my face but did my best to ignore it, more surprised than anything as to why he wasn’t happy to talk about his biggest interest.

I asked Jeno if he could show us some moves, which he declined, explaining that he needed to warm up if he was to do any move justice. I heard Jaemin scoff at this and glanced at him, seeing him with his eyes turned to his food which he was just poking around at with his fork. Jeno’s smile faltered slightly but he continued socializing happily, not letting Jaemin’s rude behaviour get him down.

“You could show me another time then! We have many dance rooms at the school due to it being an extracurricular activity.”

“That’s a good idea!  I might need to buy new dancing shoes though, but I think I have the time to do that today after school. I need to check out this city anyway.” He took a bite of his food.

“If you want, I could accompany you and show you around. Wouldn’t want you getting lost.” All he could do was laugh at my joke, and nodded to accept my request.

“Y/N… You said you’d watch me dance after school.” I turned my attention to Jaemin and my heart broke slightly at the sad expression on his face, a small pout adorning his lips.

“Ah… Yes, I forgot about that. Can we postpone it? I mean, I’ve watched you dance so many times, it’s not like I’m missing anything, right?” His eyes shifted down to his food and a small “Yes” left his lips, leaving me feeling incredibly guilty. Before we could continue the conversation, the bell went off, alerting us of the end of lunch.

The shoe shopping had been quite enjoyable, especially since it had been followed by a cup of coffee at my favourite café as well as a visit to the bookstore and the game store, indulging in one interest each. We then bid each other goodbye at the bus stop as we were going in different directions and hence, catching different busses. We also decided to meet up earlier at the school library the next day as he needed some help with the History material he had gotten from their history teacher.

That’s where I was when my phone started ringing on the table beside me. I realised my mistake when I noticed the caller ID and answered it with a timid “hello”.

“Y/N, where are you, I’ve been waiting outside your place for ten minutes now and you’re never late.” The guilt instantly took hold of me.

“I am so sorry, Nana. I forgot to let you know that I was going to school earlier today. I’m helping Jeno with some school work.” I heard him suppress a groan.

“You’re with Jeno?”

“Yeah, he needed-”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’ll see you later.” Then he hung up. I looked at the phone, feeling a lump in my belly at the thought of having hurt my best friend. My best friend whom I’ve tried suppressing my feelings for the last couple of years. My best friend who’s never left my side and always prioritised me, even over himself. which I’ve scolded him for on several occasions. I knew my own faulty traits, one of them being focusing all my energy on one event or one person and hence forgetting everything else around me. I can’t believe I let it affect Jaemin like this.

“You okay?” Jeno asked carefully, giving me a sympathetic look. I nodded slightly.

“Yeah! Yeah, let’s finish this before our classes start shall we.” I received another nod and we continued in silence, only talking when he had a question.

I didn’t see Jaemin until lunch, which he was spending alone by a table in the corner of the cafeteria, earphones in and ignoring the world around him. I fetched my food and sat down in front of him. He glanced up at me before removing his earphones with a sigh and putting them in his pocket.

“Nana, I really am sorry.”

“It’s fine, who am I to decide who you can and can’t hang out with.” He didn’t look at me as he said it and every word had been dipped in bitterness. A small sigh left my lips, trying to think of how I could fix this.

“You have dance practice this afternoon as well, right?” He nodded and continued eating. “I’ll join you then and you can show me what you’ve been working on!” I attempted to smile at him but it fell as quickly as I’d manage to conjure it.

“I can dance alone, you go spend time with Jeno.” Then he left to leave his now empty tray, leaving me alone at the table.

I decided to show up anyway. Maybe my stubborn personality would manage to win him over. I was not going to let this fight pull us apart, we had too many years of friendship under our belt for that.

He was warming up when I arrived at the dance studio, stretching down to reach his toes, which he didn’t succeed with but was satisfied with either way. He noticed me in the mirror as he stood to his full length again, cocking one eyebrow as to enquire the reason behind my presence.

“I thought I said I’d be fine on my own.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to watch you dance, you know how much I love seeing you do what you love.” He scoffed slightly, however, with less resentment than before.

“You sure you wouldn’t rather be with your new bestie?” This time, it was my turn to scoff and roll my eyes.

“You know that I’m allowed to have more friends than you right? I know I screwed up and I apologized for it, no need to be mean about it.”

“Of course you’re allowed to have friends, I just wish it didn’t rub the fact that that’s exactly what I am in my face.” He kept his eyes on the mirror, as he stretched his arms.

“What? What are you talking about Nana?” An unbelievable laugh left his lips and he turned to me.

“Y/N, I don’t want to be your friend. I never wanted to be just your friend.” My brain did not make the connection as fast as I would’ve liked.

“So, what? You don’t want to hang out with me anymore?” Another laugh and he shook his head at me.

“I really need to force your eyes open, huh?” The confusion written on my face caused him to approach me, stopping only inches away from me. “Y/N, I don’t want to be your friend, I want to be your boyfriend.” My breath hitched in my throat. He glanced down to my lips. “Would a kiss be inappropriate or would it be an action ending on a happy note?”

Instead of answering him, I cradled his face and pressed my lips to his in a soft kiss.

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Triple the Losers AU - Concept Notes

i wanted there to be 27 but if i added patties and audras that made 27 but then i’d have to add kay bc i love her which would make 28 so 21 it is

so the basic concept for this is “hey guys remember how i doubled the baudelaires and made the best au with movie! and netflix!bauds well we’re doing that with book, miniseries and film losers club” 

So, yeah, in this au, the book, miniseries and film Losers are all in the same universe, related, and ready to kill a clown. There is no Chapter Two because these kids bully that clown to death asap. 

A friend group of 21 is pretty wild but definitely makes for a pretty great army. 

Full list of Losers:

The Denbrough Boys

Isaac Denbrough - film!Bill

13

An adopted sibling, though he’s never known any family but the Denbroughs and is never considered anything other than the oldest Denbrough boy 

Artist who wants to illustrate for his brothers’ books bc he loves them

Gay but in denial. Giant crush on Daniel Hanlon. 

Anselm Denbrough - miniseries!Bill 

12 

Likes to write fantasy novels as an escape from reality 

Fights with Bill about whether fantasy or horror is better which is lowkey a metaphor for them arguing about how to deal with their trauma

William “Bill” Denbrough - book!Bill

11

Writes horror stories cause he loves psychological analyzation 

He prefers to face his fears rather than “escape” from them, causing tension between he and Anselm with how they deal with Georgie’s death

Georgie Denbrough - there is only one Georgie as he literally only exists for like one chapter

6 

Loves his brothers 

Dead as fuck, sorry 

Stuttering seems to be a family trait during childhood in the Denbrough family that Anselm and Bill are afflicted with, though Bill much more than his older bother. (Isaac also starts stuttering young, which is suspected to be more psychological.) This trait skipped a generation, and thus the Denbrough parents don’t really know enough about how to deal with their sons’ disability.

They’re a very creative family, usually in terms of creative writing, though they’re also pretty skilled in the art department. Sharon Denbrough is a skilled pianist and taught Isaac until recently. The family was never very close, and Bill always had a rocky relationship with his parents, but the family fell apart after the death of Georgie. Isaac and Bill found themselves practically ignored, while Anselm was pretty much yelled at for trying to fix everything. The brothers only managed to maintain their relationship by trying to avenge Georgie by killing this fucking clown.

The Hanscom Boys

Desmond “Des” Hanscom - film!Ben

13 

Would like to go into Investigative Journalism, though he’s also really into Local Histories

Tends to be afraid of the concept of death more than anything else 

Has a lot of social anxiety 

Auster Hanscom - miniseries!Ben

12

Super into all forms of writing but mostly poetry, which he loves and kinda obsesses over 

Was most affected by not having a father figure around, as Des and Ben didn’t seem to mind 

Assumed he was straight for a while but is probably demi 

Benjamin “Ben” Hanscom - book!Ben

11 

The Architect, and his love of blueprints and planning has made him the main strategist of the Losers Club 

He really doesn’t have many psychological demons so his worst fear is just the mummy he saw in a movie too late at night

Pure baby 

The Hanscoms’ father left the family when Arlene was still pregnant with Ben; while the boys never understood why, they sometimes speculate about secret missions, one or both of their parents cheating, government conspiracies, etc. Des and Ben never really minded, as Des was quite the introvert and Ben was close with their mom, but Auster really wished they could have a paternal figure, especially since the boys tend to be shunned for their genetic overweight appearance and he really wished for some kind of acceptance. 

The move to Derry was recent, as Arlene managed to find a higher-paying job that could help her support her boys. Ben managed to get himself in trouble with the Bowers Gang, meaning that his brothers, defensive of him, also became targets. But they manage to find friends in the Losers Club, and with the whole gang together, nobody’s going to be able to hurt them... right? 

The Marsh Girls

Karen “Karrie” Marsh - film!Bev

13 

Hates her name, thinks it sounds like a middle-aged mom. Goes by Karrie which she thinks sounds cooler (and serves as another Stephen King reference)

Wants to do movie stunts as an adult, is the most daring and bold of the Losers Club, and also probably the physically strongest 

Intensely protective of her sisters, especially due to their home situation 

Brooke Marsh - miniseries!Bev

12 

The sweetest little angel you will ever meet. Has never done anything wrong in her life 

Wants to be a painter and is very artistic. Karrie has shoplifted her paint supplies before 

The only one of her sisters to not smoke, as they refuse to let her near cigarettes 

Beverly “Bev” Marsh - book!Bev

11 

Technically the half-sister (stepsister?) of her older sisters, and can tell that her Mom doesn’t seem to care for her sisters much. She loves them, though, and won’t stand for people insulting them 

Quite the fashion designer, and even though the family is poor, she’s been making sure they don’t look like shit since she could choose her own clothes 

Probably the most manipulative of the Losers, though this has its advantages, such as when they need to get out of trouble. 

Giant Lesbian, definitely marries Kay McCall 

Karrie and Brooke have lived under the hate of their father for a while, due to the fact that he blames them for their mother’s death; Karrie brought home a virus from daycare that infected their mother, weakening her enough that labor with Brooke killed her. Karrie tends to get the most shit for this, mainly because Brooke gets along more with their stepmother, Elfrida. Elfrida married their father only a few months following their mother’s death, mainly due to the fact that Al got her pregnant. The family is quite poor, and the parents work quite a lot, meaning the sisters have gotten pretty good at fending for themselves. 

Recently, the girls have started to get more fears about their father than just physical abuse- he’s been acting weird around Karrie and Bev, and while Brooke seems to avoid his eye for the time being, she has been quite hurt by his violent outbursts. Karrie’s secretly been saving up to take her sisters away before he can do anything to them, though she’s not sure how to tell Brooke and Bev, as they don’t even understand what they’re supposed to be afraid of. But while they’re in Derry, they end up finding themselves among the Losers Club, on a mission to save the children of the town by killing a monster that lives in the sewers. That won’t be much of a problem; they have much worse monsters at home. 

The Kaspbrak Boys

Chase Kaspbrak - film!Eddie

13 

Somehow simultaneously the most paranoid and most reckless boy in the world 

He’s really into analysis and predicting events 

Can and Will fight you, but he will be bitching about it the entire time 

Otto Kaspbrak - miniserires!Eddie

11, Eddie’s older twin 

Incredibly stubborn and snarky, but also the most loyal Loser and the most sincere 

Has an interest in mechanics and repair, and when his mom’s not looking he’ll take things apart to find out how they work 

Edward “Eddie” Kaspbrak - book!Eddie

11, Otto’s younger twin

Very adaptable and adventurous, though he has a lot of anxiety at times 

Special Interest in cars, wants to be a driver as an adult

Able to find direction no matter where they are, and his gift of coordination has helped the Losers numerous times 

There will absolutely be a car chase scene where he has to drive 

Chase is the only Kaspbrak who really remembers their father, being seven when he died instead of his brothers’ five. He seems to recall them not being so sick back then, though his Mother claims otherwise, and their father being a good, playful man. But he’s not here now, and their mother, Sonia, is paranoid about everything. Her boys are very weak and sick and can’t do much, and she hates that they have such rough, rude friends that must be corrupting them somehow. 

The boys, however, are much more adventurous and capable than Sonia believes- especially Chase, who has actually won more than one fight, mostly on behalf of his brothers. As the eldest, Chase believes he has to protect Otto and Eddie, whether it be from a bunch of school bullies, a killer clown in the sewers, or their own mother. Also, Chase and Eddie are gay as hell and Otto is demi-gay as fuck. 

The Hanlon Boys

Daniel “Danny” Hanlon - film!Mike

14, the oldest of the Losers

He’s actually the cousin of Orel and Mike; he recently moved in with his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents in a house fire. He’s pretty traumatized from the incident 

Wants more than anything to travel and explore the world, meet new people and see everything there is to see, and being stuck in boring, bigoted Derry is pretty much hell for him 

He is very protective of his cousins and friends, though, and is the one who believes the most in their ability to triumph over Pennywise

Orel Hanlon - miniseries!Mike

12

Incredibly excitable and very optimistic, as well as incredibly bookish. As such, he tends to infodump whether people want to hear him or not 

Super into cartography, and collects old, antique maps as well as making his own pretty much wherever they go 

Really into gruesome horror stuff and doesn’t understand why it scares and/or grosses out other people. 

Michael “Mike” Hanlon - book!Mike

11 

Incredibly watchful and steadfast, and the Loser with perhaps the most emotional stability 

He’s a lil Historian whose greatest desire is to work for the library and get to read as many books as he wants 

Just. really fucking loves his dog 

Orel and Mike don’t go into town much, mainly staying on their farm with their loving parents and spending their time with the farm animals; Mike is closest to their watchdog, but Orel loves being among the sheep. In the last few months, their cousin Danny moved in with them, and their relationship is... a bit awkward. Orel is too blunt and Mike is too curious, and they don’t know how to carefully approach the subject of his parents burning to death in front of him without making him feel worse. 

It doesn’t help that Danny hates Derry; it’s bigoted, it’s tiny, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and people are dying left and right. However, once his cousins convince him to come hang out with their friends, he ends up bonding with the other Losers of the town, even though they’re all a bunch of weird white kids. And though the Hanlons don’t deal much with town business, they’re ready to join in the fight to stop Pennywise from killing anyone else. 

The Tozier Triplets

Reynard “Reynie” Tozier - film!Richie

12, the firstborn of the triplets 

Loudmouthed, rude, impulsive and very crass, mainly to hide his crippling self-doubt and fears of being ostracized  

Super good at video games and says he wants to be a professional gamer, though honestly he’s just really interested in stand-up comedy 

Gay as all fuck

Roderick “Rod” Tozier - minseries!Richie

12, the middle of the triplets

While he’s just as hyperactive as his triplets, he’s a bit more controlled and actually the least raunchy, meaning Reynie and Richie joke that he’s not using his name correctly 

Wants to be a voice actor for cartoons like Looney Tunes, and is actually getting decent at impersonating the RoadRunner. 

Richard “Richie” Tozier - book!Richie

12, the youngest of the triplets 

Pretty wild and uncontrollable, energized as all hell, and makes off-color jokes to piss people off and get attention, though he does have a true heart for his friends 

Wants to have his own radio show in the future. Was the first to befriend the Marsh girls, because he and Bev would share cigarettes during recess 

Bi as all fuck 

The Tozier triplets are a trio of ADHD disasters and nobody in Derry can or will ever forget it. Reynie and Rod tend to “big brother” Richie, meaning they tend to end up slapping him upside the head for saying something insensitive, though sometimes Reynie says something a bit too impulsively as well. They used to do different voices to entertain each other, meaning it’s a bit of an interest for all of them. While Reynie tends to lean more towards comedy, though, Rod wants to be a voice actor for cartoons like Looney Tunes, and Richie hopes to be some kind of radio personality. 

Their parents mean well but are often at work, and even at home they don’t quite understand their boys, so the triplets are pretty used to relying on each other. Reynie kinda has the least parental affection, as Rod and Richie tend to get into even more shit than he does, so he kinda falls to the wayside. His isolation tends to manifest in fears of abandonment and loneliness- and a public outing resulting in such, starting when he started to realize that he maybe didn’t like girls as much as he said he did. Rod and Richie, meanwhile, also have vague fears of outing, though Pennywise represents their bisexuality as werewolfism- always transforming in painful and terrifying ways. 

The Uris Boys

Mason Uris - film!Stan

13 

Very cautious, but definitely not the Mom friend; he will inform you how shitty your idea is, but will not stop you, and in fact will grab popcorn to watch 

Loves studying art history and different art forms, though he doesn’t want to create them himself, just catalogue them. He likes to entertain Isaac and Brooke by “critiquing” their “fabulous” artwork

The only one of his siblings who doesn’t get along with their parents 

Peter Uris - miniseries!Stan

12, almost 13 

Incredibly logical and has the most anxiety. Is the last one to believe in the clown just because it doesn’t fit into his worldview 

While all the boys love birdwatching, he’s the one who’d like to go into it as a profession; he loves ornithology and wants to study birds for the rest of his life 

Stanley “Stan” Uris - book!Stan

11 

Loves to have things in order, and doesn’t really know how to interact with people socially, because people don’t act in predictable ways. 

Super good at mathematics and hopes to be an engineer or accountant 

Has the weirdest sense of humor, which means he is the best

The Urises are one of the few Jewish families in town, and in a bigoted town like Derry, that means they were pretty much outcasted from the getgo. They are all relatively close with each other, in that they’ll argue nonstop but also would die for each other without question. Peter and Stan probably get along the best, as they’ll sit and talk about birds until they pass out, while Mason likes to sit in his room and read his books on famous artists. Mason also has a bit more of a strained relationship with his parents, while his brothers get along with them much better. 

The boys refused to believe in Pennywise for the longest time, as they’re all very logical and orderly and “magic alien clown eating kids by turning into their fears” doesn’t exactly fit into their normal worldview. But they’re going to stick by their friends and do their best to protect themselves and the town... and, well, if the way to kill the clown is by bullying him to death, they have a shitton of insults they’ve been saving for a special occasion. 

[pluviophile-bookworm]

AWAE 1x3 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

I took a completely unannounced break from posting my reactions to AWAE. How rude of me. But I hope whoever reads these can forgive me, as I’m sure you’d understand that university is no joke. I’m not going to be posting for a while because I simply haven’t got the time to rewatch and write a reaction post, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. For now, I’m leaving you with my thoughts on 1x3 in celebration of the Netflix release of season 3. 

I’m actually really excited to be rewatching this episode since I’ve forgotten quite a bit of its plot details. I do remember it marks the first appearance of Gilbert, all the kids, and the school setting. I’ve told myself many times before that if this show was just Anne and her friends going about their day-to-day life, I’d still watch it and love it. So let’s dive right in.

I’m so happy to actually see Anne smile from ear to ear while getting ready for her first day of school. She’s nervous, but excited, and she deserves something positive after being denied so many joys for so many years. True, it will not be easy at first, but I can’t help admiring her positive disposition even though she is several years behind and is still not exactly accepted into the society of Avonlea with open arms. 

Anne dropping and breaking that cup reminds me of myself on my first day of middle school - even up to the hope that it’s not a sign of how the rest of the day is going to go. However, unlike me, Anne keeps up the positive attitude and, as I already said, I admire her for it. 

As much as I understand why Anne feels the way she does about her looks (she’s only 13 and she’s probably spent all her life being told she was ugly because of her red hair and freckles, and she never found beautiful heroines in the books she read that had those features), I agree with Marilla on this - Anne should find a worthier overriding concern, or indeed feel lucky she doesn’t have to worry about anything bigger than that anymore. 

Matthew and Marilla have only had Anne for what, a couple of weeks? But they already look like typical parents sending their only child off to school. I love them so much as parents. I just love them in general, too. Now that was a beautiful cold open, of the type I call “gold open”.

Talking to the trees as if they were fine ladies and decorating her hat with flowers is such an Anne thing to do... society may find it odd, but I love her for it. What can I say, I love this girl and that’s that. 

As much as Diana wouldn’t admit it because she was raised by her mother, I believe she loved the way Anne looked with the flowers on her hat. I also believe that she would have very much wants to do the same, but would never be allowed to. Just saying that makes me go back to her awesome development throughout the majority of season 3... Anne has been a big influence on her, obviously. 

“It won’t be long until my parents accept you” - well, they did, but they were still very disapproving of Jerry and his family just because they’re poor - which is probably not their fault. And I know it took saving Minnie May’s life for them to accept Anne, while Jerry never did that... but didn’t his family take Diana in when she was (supposedly) so badly injured she couldn’t walk? Isn’t that a good thing? and instead of accepting the Baynards, the Barries were even more terrible to them afterwards. Double standards much? Ok, I got sidetracked. Let’s go back to 1x3. 

The whole scene of Anne meeting Moody and Charlie has me laughing out loud, from the “I’m Moody” - “I’m sorry” exchange, which makes me think that Moody’s name is dad joke material, to Diana’s “Don’t talk to the boys. They’re ridiculous.” And then she mentions Gilbert Blythe in a way that makes me think - am I correct in assuming she had some sort of feelings for him, too? Did every girl have a crush on him but repress it in favour of Ruby? What would Ruby say about that?

These girls have me in stitches, a much needed change from the tragedy and drama of the first two episodes. And then... there were many “started from the bottom” moments in this season, naturally, but I think Jane is an exception to the rule. She actually started out pretty well, standing up to her brother for a social outcast she just met, and then in season three she almost supports him in something much more terrible. She had potential. That’s such a glow-down. But hey, not everybody can be Prissy.

“Never let them know when you like them, either” Is that what you do with Gilbert, dear? Because I don’t think you’re very good at it. But it seems that Anne took that advice a bit too literally. That would explain a lot of her actions throughout the series. 

Wait, Mrs. Andrews was one of the ladies who invited Marilla into the Progressive Mothers? Seems like Prissy turned out to be more her mother’s daughter than her father’s, then. But it’s a bit of a mystery to me how a progressive woman married a man who takes his son’s side when he assaults a girl... Seriously, the whole Andrews family is a mystery to me. First we have Prissy and Billy, who grow up to be like their mother and their father respectively - while being raised by both parents; and then there’s Jane whose character development is in the wrong direction if it’s there at all. I can’t figure them out at all. 

Anne and Diana’s polar opposite reactions to long division is a perfect illustration of their vastly different backgrounds. While privileged Diana is long done with long division, Anne just realises how far behind she is because she’s spent her young life working in abusive households instead of getting the least bit of proper education. It just makes you wonder how she managed to become such an avid reader when she never seemed to have any proper formal education. But there is the case of Matilda Wormwood who taught herself to read even in the worst possible environment, so why not?

I’m glad the age difference between Mr. Phillips and Prissy is at least acknowledged by someone... while I wouldn’t quite describe him as “old”, he’s more than old enough to make a relationship with 16-year-old Prissy wildly inappropriate and an outright crime by today’s standards. I’m so glad things turned out the way they did for Prissy in the end. 

Wait, so people back then used to think that a simple touch between a male and a female meant intimate relations? No wonder the girls reacted the way they did when the time came to dance with boys in season 3. This, along with the entirety of 3x5, is solid proof how badly these young people need proper sex ed... unfortunately, they won’t be getting it. They’re pretty much on their own when it comes to that. 

I have no idea how i’m going to endure seeing Mr. Phillips for the rest of the season. And half of the second one.  He’s one of those people that just make you wonder how on earth they ever became teachers. Like, even if he was somehow convinced he wanted to become one when he was young, how did people responsible for his higher education let him proceed to that profession with a character like his? Internalised homophobia or whatever Freudian excuse people may think of for him is certainly no excuse for the way he’s treating Anne in this scene. But can I take a moment to share a weird observation I just made - it just so happens that Anne starts her acquaintance with both her teachers in the series by spreading rumours - although accidentally.

“Are they in love?” - “When it comes to intimate relations, I’m not sure it matters.” Anne just spoke a dark truth without realising it. Although her knowledge is vague and filled with unusual euphemisms, she seems to have realised something important - love and physical intimacy aren’t mutually required in a relationship - unfortunately. I don’t even want to talk about it. Maybe I’m just not the right person to discuss such matters. 

Talk about abusive household... even Anne, a very young girl with no sex ed, realised Mr. Hammond habitually raped his wife when he would get drunk... imagine the horrors the poor girl has endured in that family - and the horrors the members of the family themselves have had to go through on a daily basis... and now the girls are isolating Anne because of what she’s experienced... let’s skip ahead. 

“Feminism... what exactly does it mean”? Well, ask Anne Shirley- Cuthbert - I’m sure she can explain it to you. Because you ladies insist on calling yourselves progressive, but some of you seem to not understand that true feminism is about treating all, and that means absolutely all women as equal to each other and to men. 

“Especially for those who are unlikely to marry” - what exactly do you mean by that? Is a girl who doesn’t get married before 17 somehow less worthy of respect in your opinion? I don’t know exactly who that woman thinks she is, but I didn’t like the suggestion in her tone...

I’m just glad Anne plucked away the flowers from her hat before Marilla could see them... of course, she should be free to wear as many flowers on her hat and in her hair as her heart desires, but such is the situation that she can’t afford to do it right now. 

Is this the same Rachel Lynde who represented women in a council made up entirely of men? The one who insisted on adding three more women to it? The one who offered Marilla as one of those women? Well, of course you could argue she is not the same Rachel - she was later changed by Anne, like pretty much everyone else in Avonlea. And I’m glad that such a change took place. Because imagine where Avonlea, nay, where the world would be without Anne Shirley- Cuthbert. How dare whoever is responsible for the cancellation take her away from us?

“I reckon every new idea was modern once - until it wasn’t.” Matthew is just about the best man of them all since day one. In Matthew we trust. 

“You know, there’s a difference between having an opinion about something and pronouncing judgement” - Marilla just put Rachel in her place by pointing out the fine line between voicing your opinion and acting like your opinion is the only valid one. Good on you, Marilla!

Anne is so dedicated to catching up and advancing further in her education... no wonder she ended up tying with Gilbert for first place at the Queens exams. Speaking of Gilbert, I just can’t wait to see him for the first time again. Is that coming soon?

I just can’t help admiring Anne more and more with every scene... she’s so optimistic about each new day that it just gives me hope that the sun will, indeed, come out tomorrow. Oops, wrong optimistic red-headed orphan... anyways, if the sun doesn’t come out, there’s still Jerry’s refreshing sarcasm and snarky one-liners.

Billy has some nerve calling Anne out for saying “nasty stuff” about his sister - sure, what she said wasn’t the most innocent of things, but she certainly didn’t mean it that way. Besides, Billy himself will go on to do way nastier stuff to another poor girl - and never realise the dramatic irony. Because he’s the classic straight white entitled man, one of those people you just can’t like. No matter what they do. 

There he is... couldn’t arrive at a better time, could you, Gil? This is one of my top 5 favourite moments of his throughout the entire series. It’s literally the equivalent of seeing a girl being attacked by a guy and talking to him as if he’s a civilised person instead of taking up his own aggressive tone, and I love that they chose to introduce Gilbert in such a context of all possibilities. “Any dragons around here need slaying?” Gilbert Blythe is a true knight in shining armour and he knows it. 

“Miss? What’s your name? Miss?” And thus begins the story of the two most confused teenagers in Canada, the slowest of all slow burns, the love story to end them all. A shaky start, sure, but it’s a start. 

“You can’t talk to Gilbert Blythe. You can’t even look at him.” Can you believe they’ve come from here to the point where they unanimously decided Anne was the only one who could ask Gilbert how babies are made... isn’t it ironic? But, I mean, from this episode all the way to the end, she did a very good job of convincing every one of them, including herself, that she didn’t care a single bit about Gilbert.

I just can’t get over Anne’s reciting... she’s certainly managed to get all eyes on her - but mostly Gilbert’s, with the most expressive pair of eyebrows above them... once again, Anne has made a strong impression... one that some liked and some will surely condemn - but it’s their loss. 

There goes that scene... the notorious apple from the notorious Blythe orchard we never got to see Shirbert in. And I have to say, Anne might have made a good ventriloquist. Too bad she’s not supposed to talk to Gilbert because... girl code is a thing. They won’t accept her as one of their own, yet she must play by their rules. It just seems unfair. 

Do the people of Avonlea have no sense of relativity and context? A bad rumour shouldn’t be taken so dramatically when it is a prepubescent girl who’s spreading it. She should be forgiven on account that she just didn’t know better. Instead, the very same story was repeated years later with Josie, where, again, nobody cared to gauge the circumstances - Anne only intended to defend Josie, not tarnish her reputation. It’s just the skewed priorities of the time that caused things to turn out the way they did. 

And this is the little moment that most likely started the spark in Jerry’s mind about wanting an education - just a simple remark from Anne that happened to contain a word he didn’t understand. They do say that it takes just one spark to start a fire. This little boy of mine is going far. Not without Anne, though. The two of them took their time to warm up to each other, but who could stop them when they finally did?

Gilbert is positively going to waste all of his chalk if throwing it at Anne is how he intends to get her attention. I have to say pulling on her braid was a bit too childish for him based on how he was established, but hey, we all have our moments, and for Gilbert, this is one of the most iconic ones in the source material, so why would anyone change it? Anne’s story wouldn’t be authentic if she didn’t crack her slate over Gilbert’s head. This immortal Anne of Green Gables scene was impeccably delivered by the infinitely talented cast of AWAE. 

Taking away the E and the Cuthbert from Anne’s name was a cruel thing to do. I can’t tell you how I trembled when I read this scene in the book years ago, just because of the E and how it felt like salt in the cuts left by what had just transpired, but now, the Cuthbert, too - the one thing that is solid proof to Anne that she belongs there - that she belongs to someone who finally accepts, maybe even loves her as she is - that, I have to say, is an awfully terrible thing to do to a young orphan if we look at it through Anne’s eyes. And let’s admit it, we all did in that moment if not in any other. 

Storming off is what any sensitive young girl with a strong sense of justice like Anne would do in her place, and, to her credit, she did walk out in dignity at least up to the schoolhouse’s door. I have to say she handled the situation way, way better than I ever could have. 

I mean, I would have reacted the same way as Anne when she said she was never going back to school, but let’s think for a second. There’s a little boy in the barn who would gladly take her place. Because going to school, however challenging at times, is a privilege. She should take a moment to catch her breath and realise that. 

To sum up, in this episode we saw: Anne’s shaky first day of school; the introduction of all of Anne’s schoolmates; the accidental scandal concerning a supposed scandalous accident; the Andrews family never ceases to puzzle me; “progressive mothers” being not so progressive; Marilla and Anne face similar bad treatment from their respective peers; a shaky start to the slowest of slow burns; a spark is ignited in Jerry; a broken slate and more than one broken heart.