#why does every lesbian have to be obsessed with some random man with a pretty voice. fuck these stereotypes

[staygoldpbj]

i’m gonna throw up i love him so much oh my godd

[potatopossums]

Idk man, sometimes I like the aromantic fb groups I follow, and other times I kind of hate the comments.

Uh yeah it's a long one. Affectionate aro-spec rant inbound.

Today, I was reading a thread about "allos developing feelings after sex" and how that was "such an alloromantic experience."

It felt fucking alienating.

Maybe I read "feelings" to mean something different than "instantly wants to marry/date this person." That is not my definition of "developing feelings." But the wording is so vague, and I don't have much of a vocabulary outside of these experiences. I mean, I still use decidedly alloromantic terminology sometimes, because I grew up with it for so long, and I find it difficult to use other terms, even if they're technically the correct definition for what I'm experiencing.

But my main gripe was really with this demonization of "feelings." Feelings of intimacy? Feelings of tenderness? Wanting to continue? Sure, it depends on the people involved; each relationship has its own rules and boundaries and goals. Aromantic people can easily do romantic-coded things and enjoy them. They can also just as easily avoid those things. That's up to personal choice, and I'm not knocking that.

But it bothered me how unanimous it was in that comments section that a casual sex partner expressing a desire to "do more than sex only" might be off-putting. Sure, I think the intention was that a sex partner suddenly wants to date you, and yeah, I would say no to that advance, too, were I in a similar position. But if a friendship/FWB/QPR formed organically from a casual sex situation? Sure.

And on the flipside, it also bothers me that sex can't possibly be seen as an emotionally bonding experience. Again, romance entirely aside, I would consider, especially as a largely demisexual person, that sex with someone I was actually physically attracted to would also involve emotions. It would enrich my relationship with that person. That doesn't make it romantic for me. My tendencies are just very close knit. I enjoy deep relationships and tend to despise surface level ones. This has more to do with my learned history of passivity, and less to do with romantic feelings. I don't feel romantic. I feel close. I desire closeness. That closeness can manifest in a lot of different ways. Romance, in my experience, likes to wear the costume of intimacy and parrot the lines, but it doesn't signify intimacy. Closeness comes from self and mutual honesty. And from some shit just lining up well.

Feelings (as in emotions) are part of the human experience. They're temporary, and that's the important bit (and that was the only bit on that thread that I actually agreed with; alloromantic people do tend to view feeling as fact in a romantic sense, but everyone is prone to misreading general feelings as fact—for example, a common trap is "I'm afraid, therefore I must be in danger." Feelings, thus, are not necessarily factual.) But emotions are also reactions to something. Experiencing emotions is a normal thing. Having sex with someone casually for an extended period of time will likely let you get to know that person a bit. Amatonormative conditioning can easily kick in, regardless of orientation. And amatonormativity promises something—something substantial.

Happiness.

Clearly, this promise doesn't hold up. Romance is bullshit, unhealthy, an obsession with being unrequited, and an overinflated lens of glorifying pain for the purpose of promised reward (which never comes). We all know that.

And yet, it still reels some of us in. Conditioning at its finest, eh? Remind me to stop watching movies with any shred of romance in them.

But here's the thing. I'm aro-spec and I have fucking ADHD. Those two experiences, for me, have been the absolute worst combination.

I'm only beginning to come to grips with my ADHD and how it affects my perception of the world and my orientation(s) within it. One of the things I've noticed about myself is that I chase highs. Those highs simulate the deficiency in dopamine and reward signals inside my brain. I kind of don't function normally when I don't have those reward chemicals. I don't feel senses of accomplishment often, even when I've done lots of things. This is a really common experience with ADHD, hence why depression and anxiety can sometimes be considered side-effects of ADHD. Of course feeling like you've done nothing would make you anxious and depressed.

But especially in terms of social relationships, these sorts of reward chemicals can factor in to great amounts. I mean, I'd like to say that romance writing & fantasizing has been one of my most persistent hyperfixations in life. It's a concept teeming with overwhelming emotions, which tend to set off chemical responses in the brain that can induce dopamine, or dopamine-like effects. Thus, drama feels good. And for someone who never feels good... well, drama can become a drug. It can become seemingly the only thing that helps one feel good—about themselves, about their life, their accomplishments, their abilities—especially for undiagnosed adults.

It's a really tumultuous reality. And the back and forth is absolutely chaotic. Hyperfixations don't go on constantly. But they can start at any time. They can be triggered so easily. And amatonormative and positive conditioning doesn't help. Again, it's a happy drug for your brain. Evolution probably intended that. And now it's gone very awry in me.

Here's my thing though: me wanting intimacy, me wanting closeness—that does not equate to romance. Me experiencing feelings and desiring those feelings also doesn't equate to romance. My brain has a chemistry issue. It likes these chemicals, like, way too much as it is. Amatonormativity already conditioned me to chase these highs, and those highs have an even stronger and more dangerous effect on me and my perception of reality, especially as someone who is statistically more predisposed addictive behaviors.

So imagine trying to sus out that you're actually aromantic underneath all that. But you also are really touch starved. Oh, and you're a lesbian. Not even a little bit bisexual. Totally very gay. And you have sensory issues. And you have those handy-dandy side effects of anxiety and depression hanging around.

There's a lot to parse through every time I have an emotion at all.

So genuinely: yes. I agree that it sucks when someone you only wanna have casual sex with suddenly wants to have a romantic relationship with you.

But also: I'm aro, and I'm also not over here having sex with random strangers. I'm over here having sex with good friends. I'm over here being polyaffectionate. I'm over here chasing the highs of pretty people, sensual intimacy, and awesome orgasms.

And none of that shit rings alloromantic to me.

[raccoon-wizard]

Two and Half Assholes

An entire one person (shout out to @jumpfiend) expressed their wish for me to write an angry essay about the long dead show Two and Half Men (2003-2015) and all the problems it has. Allow me to start by saying that I am by no means a professional critic and I have never really written an in-depth review of anything. But I have a lot of feelings that I need to get out about this shitshow, otherwise my head is gonna explode next time my father insists on watching it.

Just a warning, this is a very long post.

What is Two and Half Men about?

If I tried to write my own summary here, I would probably end up tearing it to shreds already. Instead, I’m going to borrow the annotation from IMDB.com: “A hedonistic jingle writer's free-wheeling life comes to an abrupt halt when his brother and 10-year-old nephew move into his beachfront house.”

That doesn’t really say much, does it now. Luckily, the same site also provides us with a wide range of plot (hahahah “plot”) summaries written by users. This one tells us a little more: “The Harper brothers Charlie and Alan are almost opposites but form a great team. They have little in common except their dislike for their mundane, maternally cold and domineering mother, Evelyn. Alan, a compulsively neat chiropractor and control-freak, is thrown out by his manipulative wife Judith who nevertheless gets him to pay for everything and do most jobs in the house. Charlie is a freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon. Charlie "temporarily" allows Alan and his son Jake, a food-obsessed, lazy kid who shuttles between his parents, to move in with them after Alan's separation/divorce. The sitcom revolves around their conflicting lifestyles, raising Jake (who has the efficient, caring dad while having a ball with his fun-loving sugar uncle who teaches him boyish things), and bantering with Evelyn and various other friends and family. Other fairly regular characters include Charlie's cleaning lady Berta and his rich, self-confessed stalker neighbor Rose who often sneaks in to spy on Charlie.”

Now that’s much better. It gives us quite a decent picture of the show’s ensemble. At least for the starter episodes, this is pretty much what it is. But as the show progresses, we see that the characters have a little bit more depth to them. But not that much. 

Let’s start with Charlie Harper, the “freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon” portrayed by Charlie Sheen. (Is that man still a thing?) I think we can get a lot by taking apart this brief description of him. Freelance jingle composer pretty much means that he has a grand piano in his house and we can occasionally see him playing it while trying to put together words for a commercial for some random product. And that’s it. He has a few other musician friends who are just as big of assholes as he is, but we’ll get to that later. Other than that, we don’t really see him working at all. I think there is one episode about him writing kids’ songs because his girlfriend’s kid likes them. And one about him getting an award?? I don’t know man. The second part of that statement is a much more prominent “personality” trait of Charlie’s. In nearly every episode, we see him “dating” (meaning shagging and then dumping) another woman. I have mentioned in my initial post that this show is misogynistic. Don’t worry, I will also get into that later. For now I’m going to say that Charlie treats all these women absolutely disgustingly and we’re supposed to laugh at that. On the rare occasions we see him in a long term relationship (which happens twice I think? I’m not sure now), we get the stereotypical ball and chain bullshit. The woman takes all his freedom and tries to make him better. While I hate that trope with burning passion, I have to admit that in this case, she does have a solid point. Charlie is a pathetic excuse of a man who has to count on his good looks (questionable) and his riches. By the way, where did he even get them? Does composing jingles really make that much money? Is he that good of a gambler? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen another episode addressing the fact that the answer to both of these questions is no. Where the hell did this luxurious beach-house come from??? So many questions about a show that deserves so little.

Surprisingly, Charlie is the better one out of the two brothers. At the start, we really do feel sorry for Alan. His wife (who is a HORRIBLE person by the way) kicks him out and manipulates him into still paying for everything and doing many things for her around the house. Who wouldn’t feel bad for someone like this? He moves in with Charlie “for the time being”. Soon, we realise that he is not leaving the house anytime soon. He becomes a disgusting leech, a truly pathetic excuse of a man. And he doesn’t even bother hiding it. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to feel sorry for him or laugh at him, but either case doesn’t really work if you spend at least ten seconds thinking about it. How are we supposed to sympathise with a man that lives off of others and barely lifts a finger to change it? The worst part is, the show presents it as something completely normal. We don’t really see Alan’s actions turning against him, do we? Most of the time, whatever shit he does, works just fine for him. 

Another prominent character is Alan’s son, Jake, who grows up throughout the series. A fat little boy, not exactly bright. A spoiled brat (if it’s the fault of Alan or Judith is questionable) that has everything handed to him, as Charlie points out in one episode. It’s another bad personality trait that we’re supposed to find funny. And at first, we kind of do. But once again, as the show progresses, it gets worse. Jake becomes the oldest kid in his class because he fails so many times. He only gets to start middle school because “he’s too big for the desks in his class now”. A bit of a watered down Dudley Dursley now that I think about it. It feels that the older Jake gets, the dumber he is. He eventually joins the military because he is too daft to realise. (If I remember correctly, that was done only so Jake’s actor could leave the show because he pretty much realised how bad it was.)

The main reason why I hate this show so much, however, is its way of handling female characters. There’s a few prominent ones - the aforementioned Judith, Alan’s ex wife, a cold hearted manipulative bitch, that also follows the trope of “I’m breaking up with you because I’m a lesbian” for a while, but then it’s never addressed again, not even once. Then we have Alan and Charlie’s mother, Evelyn, also a cold hearted bitch lacking any motherly instincts whatsoever that the men blame for how they turned out. Honestly, I can kind of see it. There’s Rose, Charlie’s neighbour whom he had slept with once and who’s been obsessed with him ever since, following him pretty much wherever he goes and inappropriately visiting him, usually in order to chase any woman that gets close to him away. We have Berta, Charlie’s housekeeper that I would like to believe is there to show the differences between different classes, as she has a large family to take care of, fending of her daughters’ admirers and dealing with drug and alcohol issues. But at this point we all know she’s only there so we can laugh at her struggles and the witty remarks she likes to make. 

A special category of women in this show are the lovers and girlfriends. All of them end up either leaving the men for someone better (good for them tbh), or getting left by them. But remember, we’re supposed to always be siding with the men. The women are there for us to laugh at and hate. Rose the stalker? The only reason Charlie never gets rid of her is so we can laugh as she appears unexpected on his balcony over and over again. Are her apparent mental health issues ever addressed? Maybe once, but as a joke. You know, the classic ha ha ha ha look an insane person that’s hilarious. Judith the ex wife and her flock of weird friends (that Charlie converts)? Look, evil wives hating men, ha ha ha ha. Better run away from there, men, or they’ll eat you alive! Ha ha ha ha. Judith wanting support from friends and claiming she deserves to be happy is played off as something we scoff at. Chelsea, Charlie’s girlfriend and fiancée? The ball and chain thing, similarly to Judith, but not nearly as manipulative - this one we can see really means well and wants to help Charlie, but he’s a Man™ and cannot handle that, despite claiming to love her very dearly. Lindsay, Alan’s on again, off again girlfriend? Oof. Where to even start with that one. As most of the characters (save for maybe Judith), she starts off decent, despite her inexplicable desire for Alan. (Seriously though what in the world is up with that.) Also, now that I mentioned Alan’s weird sex appeal (not to me but to the female characters of the show, ew), what the hell was up with Judith wanting to suddenly fuck him again and HIM ENDING UP BEING THE FATHER OF HER DAUGHTER???? Was that the point when the writers just said “you know what, fuck this” or?

Some additional things the men on the show did to women:

Infidelity. Aka “ha ha ha many women want man what a lucky bastard he gets to fuck many women ha ha ha oh no he’s been caught ha ha ha funny”.

Infidelity with their friends/family members. I’m pretty sure this happened multiple times. One of the male protagonists gets a girlfriend. Girlfriend has an attractive daughter. Man sleeps with daughter. Girlfriend is mad. Man claims that it is actually a compliment to her because the daughter is just a younger version of her. Man gets upset when girlfriend disagrees. Poor man, girlfriend mean :(((

Another thing I would like to point out is the show’s dumbass approach to sexuality and gender. It’s the age old, straight men bullshit that lesbians = hot, gay men = ew. We see that throughout the whole thing a bunch of times. Alan ends up marrying Walden (whom I will talk about as well) so they can scam an adoption agency. That’s just wrong, man. That’s awful. And regarding gender, the way this shitshow handles trans people is disgusting. I can currently only think of one instance of this, but I have a feeling it happened multiple times, but with Charlie and Alan. They meet a woman, flirt, sleep together, all fun and games. But for some god forsaken reason, after all is done, the woman decides to be like “yeah by the way I used to be a dude” and?? Why?? First of, why would any trans person want to tell anyone their deadname and other things after successfully transitioning? I’m a cis woman, but this really makes no sense to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but if you’ve spent years trying to pass as whatever gender you identify with, transitioned, you wouldn’t exactly go around sleeping with people and afterwards telling them about it, would you? And second of all, the entire reason why these characters appear are so we can be like “eww he slept with someone who used to have a penis eww” and laugh as they have a small crisis because of it. Just. Why?? I am aware that this is a thing other shows do/have done as well, but it really bothers me. And even when the guy decides to roll with it, all we get are those jokes that the woman is “more manly” than him. I remember vividly Alan hooking up with a trans lady and briefly dating her, only so we can see her pick a fight with a man, pay for their food and shit and Alan being flustered because he feels like less of a man. Again, please correct me if I’m wrong since my knowledge of gender is limited, but I’m about 97 % sure this is not how it works.

One would have thought that most of this would end after Charlie’s death. His place is taken by Walden Schmidt, portrayed by the angel that is Ashton Kutcher, a “billionaire internet entrepreneur who has recently been divorced and is now suicidal” (wiki). Before I dig in to how it actually got worse, let’s talk about Walden for a while. He really is a nice change. Walden is a genuinely good character, we see him working super hard and treating women well and just being great. I actually like him. The problem the show has when it comes to him is treating his suicidal-ness as just another little joke. Ha ha ha man wants to die man weak. Funny. But as we get over this part (rather quickly tbh), things involving Walden get actually good (besides the part where he sleeps with Alan’s mother). We do see some annoyingly familiar divorce related things, but in contrast to Alan, we see Walden actually get back on his own two feet. 

Alan will forever be my biggest issue with this show. I don’t know if he gets worse or if it’s just the contrast with Walden that makes it seem that way, but he becomes a bigger and bigger parasite, exploiting Walden’s kindness, becoming a lover to his, at that point, former girlfriend Lindsay and somehow exploiting her current boyfriend? He just goes haywire is what I’m trying to say.

I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist. We see it every day, the rich playboys, the pathetic incels. They are everywhere and we totally should talk about them. But not like this. We shouldn’t feel like we should sympathise with them, we shouldn’t hate those that try to criticise them, or those who want to get rid of them. We shouldn’t laugh when they hurt people around them. Men shouldn’t want to relate to them. Characters like this should be presented as something we should avoid becoming.

“What’s your problem? It’s just something I watch to unwind,” my father scoffs at me as I complain about yet another evening we all have to spend listening to the nonsense Two and Half Men brings us. Yea, maybe for you. Maybe you know better than to treat people around you, especially women, like they’re just something you can play around with and then throw into the sewers. Maybe you give everyone equal respect. (No he doesn’t, by the way.) But you know, with the way this TV channel plays this show over and over and over and over again (five episodes a day, every day, and the second they get to the end, they just start over), there’s probably a number of young people who don’t realise how wrong it is and take what’s said there as something to live by. Maybe they’ll think that it’s okay to use people to their advantage. Maybe they’ll think like a rich entitled middle aged straight white man. That’s my problem. Even though the show ended five years ago, it still lives on our televisions and it still gives us wrong examples on how to live our lives. That’s why I hate the show. Not just the awful writing and “plot” holes. It’s the way it treats people and presents it as something that’s totally fine. 

[kbeesims]

Alright, quick intro: My sister made the sims for the challenge and came up with a basic backstory for each and then I elaborated a bit more on them, but she wanted me to post them because she doesn’t really use Tumblr. So, they’re being posted on my Tumblr, but she also shared them on the gallery. So hey, look her up! Her gallery id is angel_blur.

Katt Eason and Elisha Clark for @possumsims Sapphopalooza! 

First up, Katt Eason!

|| 22 || Lesbian || Human || Interested in Nichole || She/Her ||

|| Spellcraft and Sorcery || Goofball || Self-Assured || Perfectionist ||

Katt and her family have always been interested in the occult, just in very different ways. While her family was obsessed with tracking them down to destroy them, Katt wants to become one. When Katt was eight, she met her childhood best friend, Serena. They were having a playdate at Serena’s house when Serena slipped up and accidentally used magic in front of Katt. Katt was both terrified and amazed, and the next year of their friendship was good, but filled with turmoil as Katt’s family told her about how horrible occults were. But when she was around Serena and got to witness her performing magic, Katt couldn’t help but want to do the same. 

But one day, Katt’s mom showed up early to pick her up and witnessed Serena performing magic while Katt was in another room. Katt was immediately dragged home and locked in her room while Katt’s mother talked to the rest of their family and began their preparations. Katt managed to sneak out of her room and call Serena’s family, giving them a warning as to what was coming. 

Serena and her family managed to flee the city before Katt’s family could attack them. And since Katt hadn’t been there when Serena performed magic, she was able to convince her family that she had no idea that her best friend was a witch. Ever since then, her family has kept a close eye on her and have tried their best to teach her their ways. And while Katt has let them believe she’s completely ready to hunt- and kill- the occult, Katt’s finally broken away from her family for her own “hunt”. As in, a hunt for a way to become a witch. She’s accepted the fact that she’ll be labeled a traitor and won’t be able to see her family again, but to her, the price is worth it. Once she has magic, she’ll be able to use it against the very same people who raised her. 

But why does she want to be on the Bachelorette? Well, first of all, she’s very very gay for Nichole. Like, dear god, she’s so attracted to her it hurts. And second of all, maybe by being around a ton of occults, she could find out the secret to becoming a witch.

Katt grew up with money. Like, her family lives in a huge mansion that can fit her sister, two brothers, mom and dad, aunt and uncle, and their two kids. Their family has been hunting the occult for decades and the family members who don’t usually fall into the family business: making and selling weapons. So, you know. Fun. 

Her favorite song is “I Didn’t Just Kiss Her” by Jen Foster.

Her first crush was on Serena, but it was definitely a puppy love/admiration kind of crush.

Because she was being trained to kill occults throughout most of her life, Katt knows a lot about most occults. And along the same vein, she was never allowed to date until she finished her training, so she’s only been free to date for two years. 

She hasn’t been in a serious relationship, but she’s done some random hookups. 

When she isn’t searching or training, Katt loves to sit down with a sappy romance novel and some hot chocolate, but she’d never let anyone knows. If anyone asks, her favorite genre is mysteries.

She usually gets cash by pick-pocketing people and running scams, along with occasionally working odd jobs as she travels.

And next up is Elisha Clark!

|| 24 || Pansexual || Vampire || Interested in Either || She/Her ||

|| Master Vampire || Ambitious || Hot-Headed || Jealous ||

Elisha Clark grew up in 1900s London, England, the daughter of a merchant and his trophy wife. Elisha was greatly loved by her parents, given that she and her brother, Larkin, were the only ones to survive to adulthood out of their four siblings. Elisha was married to a wealthy man at 19, but they were never really in love. Elisha was secretly having an affair with a servant at her family home, Victoria, 

One night, Elisha wasn't subtle enough and her husband witnessed her and Victoria together. He was enraged and attacked her. Victoria fought him off and killed him, but when she came back, Elisha was near death. So Victoria did the only thing she could do for her beloved: turned her. 

When Elisha awoke, alive and healed, she was shocked. Especially when Victoria told her that she was a vampire and had turned Elisha. It took Elisha awhile to get over that fact, especially when paired with the news that the police believed she had murdered her husband. Elisha and Victoria fled to the United States, leaving behind their lives in London. Elisha was heartbroken from leaving her family, but it had to be done. 

And now, to cover about 100 years of her life in a paragraph: she and Victoria were happy together for a few decades, but as the years passed they began to realize that they were falling out of love. They broke up amicably and are still friends. Elisha has protested in most huge civil marches and was one of the first women to join Harvard when women were allowed enroll. She loves trying out new things, whether it's getting a degree in a new major and getting a new job or playing around with somebody's heart. So when she heard through the grapevine that there was a Bachelorette challenge with two verified hotties, Elisha was definitely down. Life’s been getting a little boring lately, so why not shake it up?

Elisha's favorite career was being a lawyer in San Myshuno. She stuck with that one until it got too hard to hide the fact that she wasn't aging. 

She’s got a pretty ecletic taste in music, but she’ll always have a soft spot for jazz.

Her birth name is Elsie Fredrick. She was named after her maternal grandmother. She changes it every once in a while to cover her tracks, but her first name always starts with an E in an effort to stay close to her heritage.

She never saw her parents again after she fled London, but she went back to see her brother on his deathbed. It was probably the hardest moment of her life. 

She’s still got a faint British accent, but when she’s upset it tends to intensify.

Her favorite quote is from Emma Watson: “Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do, or cannot achieve. Just don’t allow it. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong. Be what you want to be- and prove them wrong.” After she escaped her husband, Elisha was determined to never be controlled by someone else ever again. Now, she’s strong and independent and does whatever the hell she wants to do.

Anyway, that’s Katt and Elisha for you! If you’ve got any questions about them, feel free to message me and I’ll pass them on to my sister.

[timeisacephalopod]

Courtship

Have a fun high school ABO AU in which Bucky is a tired omega who’s kind of tired of people hitting on him and Tony happens to be the only one who gives him good courting gifts!

Bucky stares into his locker as some random alpha prattles on next to him about shit he doesn’t care about. He sighs and turns to her, “want to know how to lose about fifteen pounds instantly?” he asks and she frowns.

“Uh, sure?” she asks more than states.

“Get into a car accident and lose an arm,” he tells her. It has the desired result of making her give him a confused and also slightly grossed out look as she walks away.

Beside him he hears a snort and he turns to find some other god damn alpha beside him and honestly how many really feel the need to try their luck today? Can’t they take a hint? “Nice. Should have told her to lose her head though. I mean, you’d have to sacrifice the fact that you lost an arm in a car accident once but it’d still be funny. I could make you a new arm though,” the guy says and Bucky laughs.

“I can do without some weird straw arm, thanks.” Its more polite than he feels like being but he’s pretty sure laughing at the guy’s suggestion is harsh enough. Doesn’t seem to fluster him any and Bucky can’t tell if that’s good or bad at the moment.

“It wouldn’t be straw, but that’s cute. Or disturbing, depends on if someone has handed you a straw arm before.” Bucky doesn’t answer and the guy winces. “Fuck, people around here have no idea how to give courting gifts,” he mumbles and he walks off. Bucky frowns because that’s the first time someone else’s weird behavior managed to get someone to leave him be. He doesn’t think too long on it though, content to go to class instead of worrying himself with it.

*

Tony’s had the design half made for awhile and he figured the gift was original enough to make him not look like a fucking idiot but apparently some other tool bag went and made poor Bucky a straw arm so he automatically looks better in comparison. Still kind of a weird gift but Tony figures if nothing else its practical and he think practicality is a useful thing to consider when gift giving. Also, without knowing Bucky all that well its kind of all he has to go on.

Bucky looks baffled though, but not the same kind of baffled he is when he gets jewelry, which Tony doesn’t get because he’s never seen Bucky wear any jewelry. Rhodey’s always annoyed that no one gets him any jewelry but mostly because he’d pawn it for money so he can buy stuff he actually wants. Probably another model plane not that Tony would ever tell anyone sniffing around for that information that.

“You made me an arm,” he says, sounding more confused than he looks.

Tony has no idea if this is a good or bad reaction. “Um, yeah. Said I would. And its not straw,” he adds, attempting to make a joke but it falls flat.

“Its metal,” Bucky says, ever the astute one.

Yeah, this has gone terribly. Tony shrugs a little, “um. Better building material? I’ll uh, leave you to it,” he tells Bucky before scurrying off.

Rhodey’s face tells him everything he needs to know when he gets back to his own locker space. He settles a hand on Tony’s shoulder, “I mean, you tried man.”

“Guess the good news is that he didn’t quote Charles Manson?” Tony asks more than states but Rhodey looks like he feels even more sorry for him at that.

“Tones, that should probably be a given.”

Okay, maybe that’s a point but Bucky does manage to pull the weirdest quotes from the even more fucked up sources just to get people to give him a break and maybe not getting a weird line from a cult leader is a good thing. But maybe given Rhodey’s pitying look it isn’t an improvement at all.

*

Bucky has no idea how the arm is doing any of that but holy shit it works mostly like a normal arm. Grasping stuff is a little difficult because he doesn’t know how to control strength given that his flesh arm has limits this one doesn’t but still he didn’t think it was more than a stunt. He only tried it on for shits and giggles.

“Hey,” he says, finding Tony in the back of the library with, of all things, college math texts around him. Bucky frowns, “what’s with the higher curriculum?” he asks.

Tony sighs, shooting a copy of Macbeth an offended look. “Technically I could have graduated high school years ago but English continues to fuck me over. And I need a couple other credits. But I’m good at math so,” he says, gesturing to his math texts.

Bucky mostly sees letters and his last brain cell checks out because fuck that shit. “Uh huh. How’d you get this arm to do these things? Its like its reading my mind,” he says, lifting his hand and looking at it. Freaks him out still when he lifts it because he hasn’t had a left arm in a year and when it shows up in his field of vision he jumps out of surprise.

“It kind of is-” Tony starts but Bucky cuts him off.

“My arm is psychic?” he asks and why did he have to go say that? The one time he manages to not get a shitty gift from someone who wasn’t at all pushy about it and he had to go say something weird.

Tony laughs though, “I... well no, that’s not technically how it works but I’ll spare you the long winded scientific explanation because a psychic arm is more fun.”

Fuck, Bucky doesn’t know what to do here now. He used to be kind of good at this but that car accident fucked him up pretty good and now his best bet is to get people do go away because he doesn’t want to date anyone. Sometimes he missed the dates and courting were fun because now its a hassle for him because of the newfound anxiety.

“Thanks for the arm, it freaks me out when I see it because I forget that I used to have an arm but this is neat,” he says and immediately flees because that is by far the worst reaction he could have spit out.

*

Sure social media has its drawbacks but Tony did manage to glean a bunch of information from Bucky’s Facebook so there’s that even if he hates Zuckerberg. Still, every troll has its use so when he shows up beside Bucky’s locker he feels relatively confident in himself at least until he gets a fucking death glare. He stops for a moment, glancing behind himself for some stupid reason before making peace with the fact that Bucky was, in fact, glaring at him in particular. “I can go,” he says, waving a hand around.

Thankfully Bucky relaxes and sighs. “Sorry, I’ve had a bad morning,” he says, picking up the fucking ugliest brooch Tony has ever seen with his thumb and forefinger in disgust and holding it up like a totem of annoyance. Which Tony supposes it is.

“Good news Buck, that’s expensive. Faberge. From the looks of it you could probably get a couple grand for that,” he says and Bucky stares at it him like he’s nuts.

“For tis ugly as fuck beetle looking thing?” he asks and Tony shrugs.

“Rich people like ugly shit.” As a rich person he feels he’s qualified to talk on the subject and frankly he doesn’t get the obsession people have with the tackiest stuff. Even his mom has a weird attachment to ugly things.

Bucky looks back to the ugly beetle brooch. “I think you telling me this isn’t a worthless hideous trinket is better than the actual gift,” he says before he tosses it back in his locker. “I assume you come bearing gifts too?” he asks more than states. He looks tired of it and frankly Tony doesn’t blame him, omegas seem to constantly be drown in attention that betas are jealous of and alphas who suck whine about because why do they have to buy all the gifts? Tony might think that has merit if it wasn’t for the fact that alphas started that trend and continue to enforce it with much more attention than any omega does. Actually omegas seem to avoid the attention but the pretty ones don’t get a choice. Hence Bucky.

He moves a little closer and hands Bucky his next gift. Bucky takes the tickets and his eyebrows go up in surprise, “Rocky Horror tickets,” he says, shocked.

“Yeah, uh. The second one is for whoever. Steve I assume. Musicals aren’t my thing,” Tony says. He watched it for reference and honestly Bucky has some... weird taste. Online research tells him its a classic but its definitely not Tony’s taste.

Bucky frowns, “you gave me tickets to a show you don’t even expect me to take you to?” he asks and Tony frowns.

“Is that not normal? I watched the movie but like... I don’t get the appeal. Why would I go to something that doesn’t really interest me when you have friends that you'd probably rather take?” If he got tickets to something he liked he’d take Rhodey over anyone else unless whatever it was interested Pepper more, then he’d take her.

“I... wow okay. Thanks,” Bucky says, smiling down at the tickets.

*

Rhodey stares across the parking lot and Tony follows his gaze, frowning. “She’s a lesbian, Rhodey,” he tells him. Rhodey turns to give him a dirty look.

“What do you know, Stark?” he asks and Pepper snorts from the other side of the car.

“More than you because he’s right, Carol is clearly gay as hell and in love with Maria. I don’t know if they know it yet though. What do you think?” she asks him and Tony doesn’t know why. He sucks at this stuff.

“I think Carol knows, but Maria is clueless.”

Pepper nods, looking back over to them talking together. Carol has her head thrown back, laughing at something Maria has said. “You guys are wrong,” he tells them but he has no confidence in his voice so Tony knows Rhodey knows that he and Pepper are right. “So how’s the Bucky thing going?” he asks instead, changing the subject. Pepper looks interested too and Tony shrugs.

“I assume okay. I haven’t found any of my stuff in the garbage so that’s nice.” Pretty sure that brooch would have ended up in the trash if Tony hadn’t told him  it was worth money.

“You gave him an arm, how’s he supposed to throw that out?” Rhodey asks and Tony squints.

“Trash cans can hold arms, Rhodey. Serial killers occasionally leave them in there.” Rhodey rolls his eyes at him and that’s fucking rude, Tony’s right and they all know it.

“Well that’s good news! The not throwing out your gifts thing, not the serial killer arm thing obviously” Pepper adds when she realizes how that sounds. “Maybe if he agrees to a date you’ll shut up about him.”

Tony gives her a dirty look because he doesn't even talk about Bucky that much. “Yeah, you’re always on about him,” Rhodey says, happy to latch on to anyone but him being made fun of. Tony gives him a dirty look too. “Don’t look at us like that, its not our fault you never stop talking about him.”

“I don’t talk about him that much,” Tony mumbles.

*

Bucky starts looking forward to Tony’s gifts because they’re always something that Bucky would like, not something shiny, or something his suitor would like but he doesn’t care about. The gifts show that Tony pays attention to what he says given that he mentioned liking Harley Quinn once and Tony got him a bunch of comics about her. Better than any of the other stuff he got anyway and even if he spends a lot, and Bucky is sure he does, he’s not showy about it. Or pushy and Bucky is especially fond of that.

Some alphas, they go out of their way to give people who didn’t ask for them gifts and then get mad when omegas don’t respond the way they like. Tony clearly wants his affections, but he never really pushes it. So when Tony hands him a gift card to a book store Bucky calls him back. “How do you know I read?” he asks and Tony snorts.

“There’s at least three new books in your locker every week. Usually on cults or serial killers and you have weird interests. Was gunna grab a book on something you read about, but then I realized I have no idea what you’ve already read and you obviously have that information so I figured a gift card might be more useful to you than my stab in the dark.”

A gift card would be more useful to him. Tony isn’t exactly wrong about that, but the fact that he knows anything at all about Bucky’s interests is surprising in its own right. “Do you have any plans tonight?” he asks and Tony smiles brightly for a moment before ehe pulls back a little.

“Not really. I mean I was probably going to watch Star Wars for the millionth time but other than that, no.”

“I’ve never seen Star Wars,” Bucky admits and he laughs when Tony appears to short circuit. “What? I have better things to do. I watch a lot of documentaries,” he says in his own defense.

“Okay but like. Star Wars,” Tony says meaningfully.

Bucky shakes his head, smiling. “Fine, since you’ve taken such an interest in what I like I’ll watch Star Wars with you but be warned that I don’t trust people who give me bad movie recommendations.”

“Star Wars is great, you’ll love it if for no other reason than weird looking aliens and totally cheesy graphics compared to what people can do now.”

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #239

i just want to sincerely apologize if my surveys take a negative nosedive again. i know this one’s kinda grim and i don’t want to make that a routine, but things are just rough right now and i’m not gonna lie on a survey, y’know.

Do you know anyone who works at McDonald’s? Not that I'm aware of. Do you know anyone who plays heaps of sports? Probably through school. Have you ever been suspended from school? No. Where do your cousins live? Aaaaaaall over the U.S. Have you met any of your second cousins? Possibly at some point? Do you like the All-American Rejects? I like "Move Along" and "It Ends Tonight" is good, but that's all off the top of my head. Oh wait, of course there's "Gives You Hell." When was the last time you wore a skirt? WOW I have ZERO clue. Probably not since elementary years. Have you ever finished a whole video game? Plenty. If so, which one(s)? There are way too many. Do you know anyone with a pet snake? Me, Sara, probably others. Which one of your friends has great music taste? Sara. Was the last person you hung out with single? That would be my young niece and nephew... so yeah. Have you ever attended a private school? I'm a private college now. Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? No, thank Christ. Have you ever cooked for anyone other than yourself? I made breakfast for Sara once. If your phone has a hole for phone charms, is it on the left or right side? I don't have one. Would you rather live in the city, the suburbs, or the rural area? Kinda like... suburban mixed with rural. I don't wanna be totally isolated, particularly away from necessary stores and such, but I also do NOT wanna be swarmed by people. Maybe like a loose neighborhood in the woods outside a small town? Do you know someone who is really ambidextrous? Sara. Did you use a pencil today? No. Are you adopted? Nope. Have you ever had your car break down on you? Never when I've driven, not that that's been much. With Mom, yes. Dad, idr. Jason's prom night, yeah; his truck broke down otw home at a stop light. Oof. Who was the last person that cried in your presence? My mom. It's the worst. When was the last time you ate at your favorite restaurant? Oh wow, probably not since my last birthday. What was the last thing someone gave you? A close family friend/my former teacher lent me a $20 just in case I needed anything while my mom was up in NY. Can you write your name in a foreign language? My first name (at least) is the same in German; even though "y" doesn't exist in the language, I guess it does for foreign names?? Idk about my last name. Who is the person you often go to for venting? Sara. Do you keep an actual journal or diary? No, not anymore. I did briefly when I had that WILD and totally random Jason obsession episode, but once I came off that godawful medicine and I went back to normal, I deleted it. Have you ever been prescribed Vicodin? That sounds very familiar... Maybe? Perhaps that's what was prescribed after my surgery? Have you ever cheated on someone without them finding out about it? Well considering I've never cheated and never would, I can't answer this. Was the last person you kissed male or female? Female. Who were you with the last time you went swimming? Colleen, at the beach. Does your dining table currently have place mats on it? No; we don't even eat at it. What was the last thing you cooked in an oven? I myself have literally never used an oven. I'm scared to. Oh wait, yeah I have... on some occasions where Mom needed me to put something in there or take something out, but idr what. But boy and I can tell you without memory that I was jumpy as hell about it. Is it hard for you to be “just friends” with the opposite sex? No. It's difficult for me to like-like people, especially men when you consider I'm generally afraid of them, on top of I'm just paranoid and don't trust easily. Do you prefer wheat or white bread? Wheat. Do you have an electric toothbrush? No, but coincidentally, I actually have that on my Christmas wishlist. Have you ever had an “exotic” or “abnormal” pet? Do you consider a Chinese water dragon "exotic?" Then I have a ball python morph. Have you ever eaten lobster? No, and considering crab is nauseating, I doubt lobster would be too different. What is your grade point average (if you’re still in school)? I don't know right now and don't know where to find it. Have you ever played croquet? Oh yeah. My sisters and I LOVED that shit as kids. Who was the last person you called? Dad. Have you ever watched Ghostbusters? No, believe it or not. When was the last time you drew a picture? Yikes... been a while. Not since I started a concept drawing of encompassing a panic attack in a meerkat form, as I tend to do. I haven't touched it in months. It's right on the second shelf of the table beside me, so... my only remaining excuse as to not finish it is that the paper is horribly wrinkled now. Are you happy? Not exactly. Should you be doing something now? I could be doing the practice exam work my math professor gave us all considering it's extra credit, but. Yeah. I'm absolutely awful at math and barely passing but I don't exactly need another stressor right now. Is there a smoke detector on every floor of your house? We only have one floor. What was the last kind of soup you ate? I tried vegetable soup anyway when I got my tongue pierced because I literally could not eat solids for over a week, but I'm a picky asshole who didn't like it so wasted the can. I had to survive almost exclusively on meal replacement shakes and popsicles. Warning from the wise: you want your tongue pierced? You better fucking want it bad because healing is a P R O C E S S. Or at least mine was, having to get it re-done and all... Have you ever had to do a class in summer school? No. Have you ever went a year without getting your hair cut? I don't think a year... but maybe? Do you think you could go a week without sugar? Considering sugar is in like... EVERYTHING, probably no? Would you be willing to go one day each week without meat? I don't really pay attention, but I probably already do. I'd like to eat as little meat as possible. Hell, I wish I could go full-on vegan. Do you feel comfortable telling people how much you weigh? NO. Do you have any talents that your friends don’t know about? No. Are you any good at sewing? Never tried, not interested. Has anyone ever interviewed you about one of your hobbies/talents? No. Would you ever consider experimenting with drugs? Marijuana for medical purposes if I didn't have to smoke it. I'm not smoking anything, I don't care what it is. What’s been tugging on your heart lately? I guess life in general. Mortality, death. Teddy died in my arms, I saw my grandmother physically ravaged by cancer, and just life hasn't been the kindest lately. I've been thinking about how time just flies, how every moment should be cherished even though it's so fucking hard, and just yeah. I don't wanna go down this rabbit hole. Are you comfortable with who you are? Have you accepted who you are? I don't know dude I shouldn't be taking a survey during like an existential crisis lol. What is the last thing you did that made you feel guilty? Decided to get some really unhealthy fries with my dinner. Would you have sex with the last person you texted? It's not a matter of "would," I want to. I may have already, I don't really know what separates foreplay from lesbian sex. Do you consider weed, marijuana, pot, etc. a drug? This isn't even an argument anymore, it's fact. It's a mind-altering substance. "Drug" does not always equate to bad, either. Are you planning on kissing anyone tomorrow evening? It'd be nice. Do you require a lot of private time? Oh yeah, but way less than I used to. I get depressed if I'm alone for too long now. Have you ever done something humiliating while drunk? N/A What is your favorite classic Disney movie? The Lion King. Do you like looking at old photographs? Yeah, usually. Do you enjoy puzzles? Yeah. Do you prefer painting or drawing? Drawing by a long shot. I'm taking a painting course this upcoming semester though, so hopefully that'll up my skill and thus enjoyment of it. Do you ever wear high heels? No, I don't have a reason to. Do you use belts? No, considering I never wear anything with belt loops. When was the last time you played Uno? Oh my fucking god, it's been forever, thankfully. When I lived with Colleen, as did her younger sister, we played Uno a lot, and then, AND THEN, came the night Chelsea dyed my hair red. Mind you, the ONLY TIME dyeing my hair had been truly successful and long-lasting. The process took hours, and we played Uno round after Uno round... and now I literally hate it. What do you like better, kiwis or pineapple? Oh man, I love both, but I gotta say kiwi. Are you trying to grow out your hair? No, I actually need to cute it again. What is your favorite perfume/body spray/cologne? Don't have one, really. Have you ever wanted to try karate? Not seriously. How often do you drink water? Ah yikes... I really fell out of my regular habit of drinking multiple bottles daily. Do you ever wear headbands? No. How many video games do you own? A lot. There's like a huge CD case in a living room drawer full of them. I've been considering making an EBay or something to sell a shitload of them as I'm sure a lot are actually pretty valuable now, but I think a lot about how I want to pass them down to my current and possibly future nieces and nephews when they get to a certain age to figure video games out or even have a console that can play PS1-PS3. Have you ever been to a casino? If so, which one(s)? No. What’s your favorite suburb in the city you live in? Why would you... name that on the Internet...? Besides that even, I pay no attention to suburbs' names I happen to pass. Have you ever visited a sex shop? No. I don't know if I could ever muster up the courage to even go in one. I'm the type that would just order online. What’s your favorite place to get pizza? I'm a basic Domino's bitch. How many times have you been to the beach? Multiple, but not a LOT. I have little reason to ever go, and it's never my idea, that's for sure. Has there ever been a fire inside your house? Tell me the story. Childhood home. Trying the Jiffy Pop popcorn that you make over the stove. Next thing y'know the thing is seriously on fire and we had to use the fire extinguisher. Fuck you, Jiffy Pop, the harbinger of the next fucking idiots moving in setting the entire house on fire thanks to the stove too. Have you ever had a scary encounter with a wild animal? No, besides like bees 'n the like being near me. Have you ever had a spray tan? No. Do you own any sports bras? Where’d you get them from? No, but I'd like at least one. Wouldn't know what to use it for, it's not like I go jogging or anything, but. I think it'd be good to have at least one. Have you ever had sex in a kitchen? No. What’s the most expensive restaurant you’ve ever eaten at? I have zero clu- no wait I'm gonna guess the Italian restaurant we went to on Sara's birthday, but that's just a guess judging by how it was fancy as fuck. Who crosses your mind the most? Sara. Have you ever been on a scavenger hunt? Probably as a kid. Ever been to an auction? No. would you ever get acupuncture? omg no Ever got stitches? At least twice. What is a must have on your french fries? At least some salt. Entirely saltless fries are boring. How do you like your meat cooked…medium rare? well done? Nothing less than medium well. If meat tastes even a little bit beneath lukewarm I can't take that shit. Are there two colors that you just simply despise? Bright yellow and puke-green. What do you usually do with recurring dreams? ... Nothing? What CAN you do? Have you ever been told you were hot by a complete stranger? I don't think someone has used the term "hot," but I know I've been called pretty, at least. Do you want to be single or with someone? I want to be with Sara. It kinda feels like we still are, like no feelings have changed, we're just not "official" anymore and not "bound" to one another. Have you ever had a sleepover with the opposite sex? I actually have twice (or thrice?) platonically with my younger neighbor FOREVER ago. We were still kids. Then there was a big (birthday?) party at my place where Juan stayed the night, and then I believe there was an occasion Girt totally knocked out on the couch so... I guess it turned into a "sleepover?" lmao Who are you closest to in your family? My mom. Who were the last 3 people to text you? Sara, Mom, and my sister. Have you ever dated someone in jail? No, and I wouldn't unless it was for something incredibly stupid or I'm aware was a false charge. What’s a movie you cannot BARE to ever watch again? Nothing's coming off the top of my head. Who got you hooked on the addiction you're addicted to (If you have one)? ... I just connected it all in my head. Jason got me into the Amnesia game. I got into custom stories for it. I was playing one one day. I got stuck. I YouTubed it for help. Guess. Who. I. Fuckin'. Found. This is a revelation; I have discovered the main purpose of my and Jason's relationship. Perhaps things do happen for a reason lmao. Are you a little bit cautious around horses? Do they scare you a bit? Not really, but I wouldn't say I'm in no way cautious. They definitely don't scare me, though. I just respect that they're very powerful animals and I'm not experienced with handling them. Have you ever burnt your tongue like REALLY bad? If so, what on? Yes, on rice that was literally right off the fucking stove lmao. LOOK I didn't know it had JUST come off and I was hungry as fuck but boy did I have REGRETS considering the burn lasted for well over a week, maybe two. Do you think having a sleepover with a guy is theoretically acceptable? Um, yes...????? Do you like to have cake on your birthday? Which kind of cake in mind? Yeah, and red velvet or chocolate frosted, depending on what I'm feeling.

[savrenim]

okay so I’ve got an hour before I’m getting on a plane to visit my family and I haven’t done a long personal rant about my life and/or feelings in a while and, like, I’m having some pretty strong feelings about stories and motivations to write and all that jazz so you know what, stupid long textpost it is

mostly, I’ve been thinking about my....semi-mixed feelings about stories where the protagonist is the most important person in the universe?

like, inherently when you’re writing a novel, esp a 3rd person limited thing, your protagonist is going to be the most important person in the universe. it’s interesting to watch people do things. and there’s, like. a part of it that is The Fantasy of, like, yes I matter, yes I am cool, that makes me want to write it? but it’s really really funny because a lot of my biggest complaints about media (I guess Dr Who and Sherlock under Moffat being the biggest examples) were how boring the protagonist being the most important person in the universe were, and, like, right now every single story that I’m writing or interacting with minus a single campaign that is maybe starting soon is about the protagonist being the most important person in the universe 

like

ifmlam? literally about Aaron Burr being the McGuffin there is a single Seer in the world and absolutely everyone wants the Seer on their side for war and politics and influence and everything, the entire world is obsessed with Aaron Burr. like. that’s the whole plot of the fic. which stemmed from the very real “okay but wHAT IF MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THE MUSICAL WAS ACTUALLY THE CENTER OF ATTENTION” but man past me, you really went overboard 

gay murder elf bachelorette? that’s a funny one because it’s still uncertain at least in my mind whether this is a story about Iria Strell being one of the most important historical figures in the Caedic Empire and subsequently the world, or whether or not it’s the story of her best friend Talvus Zhale being the most important person in Caedic history but one of those cool “we’re telling the story of this super influential figure from the perspective of their best friend who was backing them up all the way” and I almost like the latter one more but whether or not Talvus is bigger and more important than Iria, Iria Strell has still done a shit-ton of absolutely groundbreaking research and discoveries herself and even if the campaign stopped right now she’d kind of be just as important as Talvus, there is no denying she’s an influential figure in her own right

Marian Daywrym and the crew of the Asteranthos defs started out as tiny? like, just a crew of scav elves trying to scrape along their living. and they are unimportant but as the campaign has continued and we’ve started figuring out what’s going on in the Many Verses, it’s become evident that the run-ins with the crazy eldritch horrors from outside of reality trying to eat reality and all that jazz have some weird Fated shit going down and the cycle of the universe is pretty much some randos being Chosen Ones and defeating a couple of these gods, and then going back to their rando life? and that right now, we’re the Chosen Ones. we’re halfway through defeating the second of these Deep Ones and we’re fated to go up against a third and then fate has nothing more to do with us and we can go back to living our lives. and, like, why we were fated in the first place seemed really random, we just stumbled across someone who desperately needed help hiding an artifact when we were out scavving and scav elves are really community oriented and, like, tend to try to help everyone they can because it’s really hard to survive in space so yeah we offered her healing and do you need food or a tow and when she just wanted us to take and hide this weird stone we were all “yeah we can roll with this.” but, like. there are story implications at least to me that make it seem like more than a decade prior to that happening at least some of us were already starting to be wrapped up in Fate bullshit so we’re no longer this random crew. we are currently the five people standing between the universe and the things that would destroy it and while it’s a cool concept that, like, we were randos before and are going to be randos again after, we are, right now, the most important people in the universe, even if no one knows or cares 

then there’s trash novel, where, like. the protagonist, Saes, is just actively the most important person in the universe because trash novel was supposed to be stupidly self-indulgent so it’s about poly lesbians and has a ridiculous hodgepodge setting of fantasy AND sci-fi and it goes everywhere from ridiculous semi-classical aesthetic high noble backstabbing crazy powerful magic to literal space opera with all the ridiculous time travel and seers and AIs and hiveminds and everything I love so much crammed into one narrative but, like. a fair portion of the main characters get to a point where they’re all “oh huh I’m a god now.” and to a certain degree the balance against that because I’m getting so tired of main characters being the most important person in the universe is that there are other really interesting characters and other people just as powerful and, like. what I want to get across is kind of “the struggles of these people are the most important things to these people and they do a bunch of really interesting shit, but also, there are other groups of equally powerful and important people although maybe not that many out there doing equally cool things.” like. a combination of small and big. but the entirely of trash novel is massively character-driven so, like. I can’t lose the fact that character drama is the most important thing that the world is revolving around?

and then I had a dumb cool idea for sci fi paranormal novellas that, like, are individual short stories that I could write in between all my other crazy writing projects because, you know, I totally don’t have enough things to write

and they hella just kind of start out “let my protagonist be a pretty normal space bounty hunter and then, like. these stories be focusing on a cool arc of just different weird situations that come up”

but then I had a nine hour drive and, like, plenty of time to be super excited because there was a sci fi concept that I’d pulled after having super strong feelings about a character I’d played in a LARP that you know throw it in space and write an original novel about it and who will be able to tell the difference and it fit so well with the setting that the Numanok Files could be in and, like, they became a series and not a one-shot like I’d originally planned both because the ideas were so easy to write disconnected but also because woot woot I wanted to give my protagonist a ghost gf and just. this super old idea that I knew I was never going to write because it wasn’t quite enough to merit a story of its own and didn’t have a wide enough setting suddenly fit so well into this little series of one shot “buzzfeed unsolved in space” idea that literally came from watching buzzfeed unsolved and going “okay but what about in space” and now. lo and behold. while maybe the protagonist isn’t the most important thing in the universe there sure is a lot of shit that revolves around her

and I think it weighs on me because of how not true it is in real life and how much I want it to be true but know that it’s selfish for it to be true?

like

Iria Strell is the best and biggest example because the last three books have all had a scientific research aspect and the last book has just been a scientific research book, it’s literally been “Iria Strell goes to the foremost research facility in the Caedic Empire and ends up inventing magi-mechanical engineering”

and I want, so badly, so be that important, I want, so badly, for my own research to matter that much, I want, so badly, to figure out something really cool in math and physics and have people remember my name or my theorems I want to matter like that and for a while Marian was really comforting because hey her religious beliefs were essentially about a “god” that isn’t a god it’s just a blob of energy that exists behind the universe that isn’t sentient, but it is good, and when you die there’s nothing after death but you fade into the Helothes and while everything is nothingness for you, you’re also a part of something good. and that was kind of. my “math is the closest you can get to immortality” comfort of hey I don’t have to be important, I can do tiny things but it’s still contributing to the whole of human knowledge, which, like, isn’t sentient but in my opinion it is good and that was kind of this little relief of, like, no don’t hold yourself to this crazy stupid standard your life can still matter because when you’re gone even if there’s nothing else and you fade into nonexistence that which you leave behind isn’t a part of anything sentient or active or that inherently does anything on its own, but it is something that people draw on to affect the world, and it is good

and now Marian is a Chosen One too and it’s like 

goddamnit every character that I have now is Special

(not Imah Goblin, Imah Goblin at least is tiny and their story is kind of going to be about the world being really big the same way Friends at the Table always manages to do that in the coolest way possible?)

and there’s just a certain degree to which I feel really frustrated and annoyed at...I guess at myself for wanting something so badly that intellectually I’ve convinced myself is both toxic to myself and to my own mental health, as well as, like. not a good mindset for the world, I don’t think extremist individualism does anything good if there’s ever only one person who can do a thing and they are Irreplaceable and everything revolves around them whether it’s in a relationship or about a skill, like, it just......you leave more behind, in a way, when you’re replaceable. when you’re unique and you’re cool but humans are unique and cool, knowledge is meant to be shared, if your abilities to change the world die with you then you haven’t left behind anything permanent, I want with my life to do great things but there is this simultaneous “I want to be special I want to go down in history” warring with “but you need other people to be just as special if you want things to really matter and last” and just

all of the fiction that I’m pouring my heart into right now is about the former and not about the latter

I guess Marian has a subplot where she’s realized that she’s collected a bunch of cool medical knowledge that other scav elves might not have just because she’s a stupidly experienced medic both being a surgeon/doctor in clinics and the medic on ships and she’s realized that, like, with the uncertainty of “oh shit we might all die trying to take down these eldritch horrors” that maybe she should try to put together everything that she’s learned and leave behind medical knowledge for people but, like. that character arc is only half her character arc, you know? right now it’s kind of being overshadowed by the fact that the whole team are Chosen Ones and are saving the universe 

idk

I love all of my stories and my story ideas individually 

and definitely the way to kind of avoid the problem is to focus on “you’re the most important person in the universe, but also, there are a lot of most important people in the universe and even though this story is about you it also acknowledges that there are a shit-ton of people out there and glances upon their stories and the world is huge and rich and everything is happening at once and things can be all about you without the universe revolving around you” and that’s. I dunno. it’ll make for better stories so I guess I’ll hella keep it in mind? as well as, like, absolutely everyone I’m writing about/playing right now sans Marian is in the 15-22 year old range, so, like. of course their stories are more self-centered, coming of age is always a weird personal selfish time, and getting older and maturing is about the shift of that mindset from “I’m the one the spotlight is on” to a more mentoring role and, like, fuck even my life right now it makes sense for me to be a selfish protagonist I’m a grad student trying to make it in the world I don’t have the resources or base of knowledge to be the sort of advisor/mentor that a professor is

just

I dunno

I’ve been feeling very ambitious lately because there are two or three new math papers that are maybe going to be published soon with my name on it and my advisor has been writing stupidly good letters of like, all I needed was a letter for the people funding me saying that I was researching over the summer instead of taking summer classes so that I’d keep getting my stipend and this letter fucking sung my praises about how fast I’ve been going and how well I’ve done and my advisor has, like, told me multiple times that this one paper that I wrote in a month and a half is more substantial than most people’s theses that he’s seen and, like, I feel like such a fucking idiot because I barely even did anything it was just that I made a really dumb mistake when we were first talking about testing out cases of having the wrong definition of a positive matrix and then, like, could see the disappointment in his eyes and was like “fuck fuck fuck gotta come up with something better so he doesn’t drop me as his advisee” so just flat-out manically hyperfocused on proving one case and then proved all the cases and it wasn’t even new math it was just reading over every single similar proof until I figured out that oh huh you apply these two theorems in a row and the answer just. comes right out. and he was so impressed when I did nothing? which then after I did some actual really cool math to get a different case but when looking through the literature a second time found that I’d been scooped, someone else had done the same thing for that case four months prior but, like

it feels weird. and strange. and kind of shitty that all my mentors believe in me so much because there’s a part of me that doesn’t know why I’ve been singled out and yeah I’m doing cool work now but, like. I feel just like Iria Strell who is in the exact same boat of basically going “oh shit I accidentally tricked everyone into thinking I was good at science by doing this one cool science thing and now advisors who are way out of my league are being really impressed with me and single-handedly making my career and putting me on important projects and introducing me to important people” except Iria Strell is a goddamn protagonist 

the shit that she does is going to matter

she is set up to go down in history, she is set up not to fail

and I’m not, I’m one of tens of thousands of people working on the same subject and I’m going to do cool things but more likely than not they’re going to be incremental because the thing that makes the Einsteins and Newtons and Riemanns and [insert every famous math or physics person here] of history is the dumb luck of stumbling across an interesting question first and it’s not like there’s anything I can do to either get that question or not

but I’m greedy and oh boy do I want it just as much if not more than a slow and steady career of making slow and steady advances and boy am I and have I always been ready to sacrifice so much for that like the only reason well not the only reason but a huge reason my fiance and I work so well together is that she is just as appreciative of ambition as me and actively doesn’t mind, in fact likes, if I don’t talk to her at all for a month because I’m doing important math stuff because one of the things that she liked the most about me was my ambition and utter devotion to it to the point that, like, yes of course it comes before romance that was never a question, we each have our lives and are aggressively independent within that sphere and so our mutual achievements are half of what we’re bringing each other

but yeah that’s the stuff that’s on my mind on the other hand boy is my life going great, I’m producing real research, my advisor is impressed with me, the program financing me is now impressed with my because my advisor wrote a goddamn letter stating that I was so fucking advanced that it didn’t make sense for me to be taking classes anymore he wanted me researching with him full time, another professor who is, like. super distinguished. maybe the most famous professor in the department. actively just sent me an email out of the blue saying that he was so impressed with me in his class that he wanted to be my advisor and if I already had one serve on my committee and I had to send him an email back going “I’m so fucking honored but I kind of already have one maybe two advisors and also, like, I loved your area of math as an undergraduate especially and took your class as a broad horizons thing but this actually isn’t related whatsoever to mathematical physics and functional analysis and not what I went to grad school to do although I might be able to squeeze something tangential into my thesis” and he went “great I’m your unofficial advisor then” and it’s just like

well I guess at least in my chosen field I hella am getting a protagonist’s accelerated storyline right now let’s really hope it lasts because this was everything I dreamed of being and, like, I’m actually getting close to the standards with which I’ve been trying to hold myself so I really really hope that I don’t lose this momentum and at least use the time that I have in graduate school with all these people around me who believe in me so much to do something substantial 

[we-pay-for-everything]

I just finished season 4 and just wow. It was much better than season 3. The ending was heartbreaking and I just want more! What is your opinion on Eve? I couldn't stand her at all. For me, she was like a spoiled brat who wanted attention 24/7 and she was getting on my nerves in almost every scene.

Isn’t it? I’ve seen it 3 times already. But I have to admit, having watched seasons 1 to 4 recently, that season 1 is still the best season imo, followed by season 4 or 2. Season 4 has more depth and drama than season 1, but season 1 is very funny, entertaining, tight, and has a lot of subtle character work. 

I’m not sure you know this, but Netflix renewed Lucifer for a final season, which is both good and bad news. I feel like two seasons would allow the show to end organically, but one season will have to do.  

It’s funny that you dislike Eve because the fandom (which is very Deckerstar positive) actually seems to love her, despite her relationship with Lucifer. I have to admit that I like her too, but I also have some criticisms. 

With(out) your permission, I’m going to do some ranting... You can skip to the very end for an abridged version of my thoughts on Eve. 

Something that bothers me about Lucifer (but that I don’t know much about) is that the show is very Christian. Like, the Bible is actually, more or less, factual in-universe. There are tons of religions, but a show about angels, a god, and a goddess, which existed before religion, is, nonetheless, Christianity-oriented.

And religion is very sexist. I don’t like that god is all powerful and male-coded, but the goddess of all creation is way less powerful although they were equals at first (before anything existed). It sends the message that patriarchy is inherent to us because of god? Also, why does god have a gender? Why did god need to have sex in order to conceive the universe? It’s insane, but also sexist. Shouldn’t the goddess of all creation be equally powerful, and not like the cliché neglected and bored housewife who rebels and is punished by her husband (sentenced to hell)?

And Eve... the writers actually decided that she was created from Adam’s rib? They had a chance to re-write all that bullshit, but went with it anyway.. I actually read about Eve (on wikipedia), and according to some religious text, Adam and Eve were created from the same clay (and Eve wasn’t necessarily created after Adam or something), so the writers could’ve chosen a version of Adam and Eve’s creation that is less sexist...

Eve is all about Lucifer, Adam, and her relationship with those men. I didn’t mind it when Eve and Lucifer broke up and the show explored how dark her mind was because she’s really mentally ill - she loses her identity in a relationship, and can be obsessive, unreasonable, and even dangerous - although it was about men.  I liked that Eve recognized her pattern of changing for a man, especially due to hanging out with Maze. But I don’t like it when she’s with Lucifer and her whole life is him. Maze was a bit like that at first too. It’s like the show is telling us that being submissive to men is inherent to us? Maze and the goddess of creation aren’t human. They weren’t told by society to put men first. Yet in the Lucifer universe, the sexist bullshit in religious texts is reality. And I really dislike that. 

I think maybe the writers were trying to show that, even if a woman exists for a man, things can change because women exist for themselves and no one else? But I don’t like that Eve left Heaven for Lucifer, did almost everything for Lucifer, and then had a revelation after a season of failing the Bechdel test. If only she had more scenes with other women; if only we’d seen more sides to Eve.. 

I also don’t like that Eve gets off on Lucifer being the devil and on “punishing” people. She doesn’t care what someone has done. She just wants to punish them, whatever that means. Eve’s not a bad person: her first instinct was to save Trixie, and then Charlie; and she bonded with Chloe despite her connection to Lucifer. Eve’s just... unhinged... She’s kind, warm, funny, sweet, lively, charming, but also immature like all celestials seem to be. She’s delusional and it’s almost painful to watch at times. 

While I’m talking about things that bother me about the show... for a show that is so sexually diverse... there is not one serious same-sex relationship. Eve kissed three women this season for no good reason. She kissed Ella because she was freaking out (who does that?! what kind of objectification of lesbians is that?), a random woman because Lucifer had kissed her first, and then Maze because, again, of Lucifer. 

Same sex-couples aren’t a thing, and same-sex kissing or hooking up is rarely shown and/or played for laughs (Lucifer and Pierce...). Why do the bi characters don’t fall for the same sex? Lucifer seems to prefer women in general and falls for Chloe; and Maze, before Eve, kind of fell for Amenadiel and that bounty of hers. This is totally fine in real life (bi people can date and fall for whomever), but on a show... it sends a message. 

It doesn’t help that all the bisexual characters are also sexual deviants and “evil”. Lucifer is the Devil, Maze is a Demon, and Eve is the first sinner. Chloe is too “good”/“straight-laced” to like women (based on her reaction to Maze pretending to be her wife), and no other character is canonically bi. Maybe Ella... It’s really bad to associate bisexually with unusual sexual behavior (a lot of meaningless sex, orgies, etc.), and “evil” characters. Amenadiel isn’t bi, and he’s the only celestial being that isn’t. 

When first watching season 4, I was thinking how bad it was that the show didn’t have one single same sex couple... and it still doesn’t have one. Maze and Eve were great, but very one-sided, and Lucifer was a big part of that relationship. The show needs more actual representation apart from a couple of throw-away moments and sexy scenes between girls. 

So yeah, anyway... I like Eve. She’s hard to dislike. She’s immature, but Lucifer is too. I like him a lot this season because he’s pretty mature when compared to the previous season. Eve is charming and I think she has some self-awareness and genuine issues to work through. She’s a good character overall, imo.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry for rambling so much. It feels good to finally get all of that out of my chest haha. 

[odaatlover]

Author Q&A

Q: What’s your sexual orientation? 

A: I identify as gay. 

Q: Which country are you from? 

A: The United States - more specifically the southeast. 

Q: Sometimes the level of detail and realism in the fic amazes me to no end. So I was wondering if you had taken inspiration on personal experiences or some real life people to write any scenes or describe some details? 

A: Thank you! I have taken a few things from my own life – most of it being the more sexual stuff – but for the most part I’m just putting myself into the mindset of these characters and just writing as if I am them. I’m a very empathetic person, and it’s incredibly easy for me to put myself into ‘other people’s shoes’, so to speak. So because of that, I am able to write as if I am actually Nicole, or Waverly, or whoever is speaking in the moment. I do it for every single character in my story. It’s kind of fun, because it’s almost like acting! I will say that the only character I feel that’s a little different in my story than in the show is Dolls. I think in the show he’s a little more “to the point”, but in my story he’s a bit more easy going and laid back. That wasn’t a conscious decision, it just sort of happened that way. But I feel like if he wasn’t an agent that was trained to eradicate paranormal forces, he would be more laid back like that anyways, so it works out! 

Q: Last movie you watched? 

A: The Miseducation of Cameron Post, and it was VERY good. Chloë Grace Moretz’s acting in the film is incredible. It’s very realistic and eye-opening, and I definitely recommend buying/renting it and supporting the queer woman who wrote and directed it! 

Q: What do you usually use to write your fanfictions? 

A: I use Word on my laptop, and when I’m out and get a sudden burst of inspiration I’ll pull up the Notes app on my phone and start writing. The Notes app is great because it’s linked to my laptop as well, so when I get home I can just pull up the app on my computer and everything is there from my phone, so I just copy and paste it into my Word document! Technology is great. 

Q: What does a typical day look like for you? 

A: I wake up, take my wife to work, go to my job where I teach some kids how to play percussion instruments, come home to do something creative (writing, creating music, playing an instrument, etc.), pick my wife up from work, do something with her – usually either watching TV or playing a board game, go to sleep. 

Q: What’s your favorite thing to write? 

A: Most of the time, smut. Which is why there’s so much of it in my story! But I also really enjoy writing the humorous stuff as well. 

Q: Favorite WayHaught kiss? 

A: Their first one…it was a really good first kiss 😏 

Q: Do you already have in mind other fics for the future? 

A: Actually, I’m in the process of writing one right now! It’s a WayHaught high school alternate universe story in which Waverly is a cheerleader and Nicole is a basketball player who transfers to Purgatory High in the middle of sophomore year (10th grade). The story focuses on Waverly and Nicole figuring out who they are as young adults, discovering their sexuality, and exploring their bodies – as teenagers do. The goal is to make it as true as possible to being a teenager in 2019, for all of the teens out there that are stuck in high school and need something to relate to. I feel like a lot of the high school fics are a bit outdated, or don’t “go there” enough to touch on the “uncomfortable” or “taboo” topics. And you better believe that this fic will! I’m getting close to halfway through with it – about 10 chapters so far – and have been working on it for the past month. I will begin posting that when I’ve completed it, so be on the lookout! If you’re interested in helping me out with some plotline ideas for it, you can fill out this survey here… https://www.opinionstage.com/odaatlover/wayhaught-high-school-fanfiction-topics-calling-all-teens-or-anyone-interested-in-providing-ideas 

Q: What’s your favorite holiday? 

A: Pride! …does that even count as a holiday? If not, then I’ll say Christmas. 

Q: What’s your favorite kind of date night? 

A: Something where we can converse pretty easily. Maybe dinner or walking around somewhere. 

Q: Do you brainstorm chapters before you write them? 

A: Sometimes I’ll have a layout. For example, this is the exact brainstorming layout I have written out in my notes app for the next chapter… 

Chapter 55 – (title?) 

- Dolls asks Nicole for advice on a date he has planned 

- Nedley asks Nicole to go “undercover” to find out what’s going on with Chrissy in her life 

- Waverly surprises Nicole with a romantic homemade dinner. They talk about their day, Waverly asks Nicole some questions about her past. 

There’s a little sneak peek for you guys 😉 But other than that, all of the dialogue just kind of flows naturally. There have been a couple of chapters where I didn’t have a layout at all and just let the words flow out of my brain, but most of the time I have an idea of the main plots of the chapter. 

Q: Waverly or Nicole? 

A: I relate more to Nicole, but I find Waverly to be more attractive. 

Q: Do you have any siblings? 

A: I have a sister who is 3 ½ years older than I am. 

Q: What color are your eyes? 

A: Blue. And they’re very sensitive to sunlight. I spend most of my life squinting. 

Q: Do you ever get writer’s block? 

A: Yes! Quite often, actually. Which is why your survey answers in regard to “The Grind” have been so helpful! Also, those who comment on my fic with ideas of things they want to see help too. Any time I get writer’s block, I’ll either read some fics to draw inspiration from, or I’ll just start writing something that’s completely different, just to get the creative juices flowing. Often when I have writer’s block and aren’t sure where to take the story, I’ll just do a random smutty chapter for the week. Hope you all are okay with that 😉 If you haven’t filled it out yet, you can find that survey here… https://www.opinionstage.com/odaatlover/the-grind-reader-survey 

Q: Lipstick or chapstick? 

A: If you’re asking which type of lesbian I am, chapstick. If you’re asking which one I prefer on my lips…chapstick. 

Q: Favorite concert you’ve ever been to? 

A: Blue Man Group! Although, I will say that I went to Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour back in August with my wife who is obsessed with her, and although I’m not crazy about her music, I’ll admit that the girl can perform. I thought I was going to hate it, but I actually really enjoyed it. 

Q: Is there a specific place that you write? 

A: Most of the time I just write at my house - either at the table or sometimes on the couch in my living room, but occasionally I like to go to the Barnes & Noble at the mall close to us and write there. My wife and I will go together and we’ll just sit at the same table – me writing and her reading a book – while we occasionally steal glances at each other and kick each other’s feet. It’s pretty great. 

Q: What superpower would you choose and why? 

A: Shapeshifting, because I genuinely want to know what it’s like to walk through life as other people, more specifically as a man 🤔 

Q: Windows or Mac? 

A: Mac. I have nothing against Windows, but everything I use is Apple and I’m used to it. 

Q: What’s a fun fact about you? 

A: I’m deaf in my right ear and wear a hearing aid, due to having had a lot of ear infections as a kid. Bonus round: I started wearing glasses at age of 2, but stopped needing them at 16 because my eye doctor said that my glasses corrected my vision and I didn’t need to wear them anymore, so now I’m glasses-free! 🤓 (<-- not me) 

Q: Favorite lesbian YouTuber? 

A: Rose and Rosie! They’re hilarious, and honestly remind me of my wife and myself. 

Q: Describe yourself in three words. 

A: Where’s my wallet? (Always using it, always losing it…) 

Q: What was the #1 song on the radio the day you were born? 

A: *searches song* Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot 😂 Classic. 

Q: What languages do you speak? 

A: English and some Spanish. I can understand Spanish better than I can properly speak it. My wife is fluent in both, but her first language is Spanish, so I’m exposed to it often.

Q: Are you a DomKat fan? 

A: I love them! I genuinely enjoy watching their interviews, including the ones with them as individuals (Just Dom or just Kat). I also enjoy listening to the podcasts they’ve been featured in, more specifically Tales Of The Black Badge. I don’t ship them as a couple like a lot of people think they secretly are, but I love their friendship. You can tell they genuinely enjoy each other’s company, which in turn shows through their WayHaught scenes on screen. I love both of them, but I’m a bigger fan of Dominique. She’s just so adorable! 

Q: Do you have any celebrity crushes? 

A: Dominique Provost-Chalkley 😍 But also, Emma Watson. 

Q: What is your favorite season of Wynonna Earp? 

A: I think season 2 is my favorite. I loved season 3, but I liked season 2 better. And season 1 was inevitably them trying to figure things out since they didn’t have any fans yet. 

Q: What’s your least favorite thing about Wynonna Earp? 

A: The violence. They’ve toned it down a bit, which is good, but it was a little too much in the first season, which made it kind of difficult for me to watch. I’m not a huge fan of violence 🙅🏻 

Q: Do you have any other lesbian ships that you like? 

A: Well, I’ve watched the supercuts of pretty much EVERY lesbian ship out there, but I am a big Hollstein (Laura and Carmilla) fan. Spashley (Spencer and Ashley) was the first teen lesbian ship I was exposed to, so that will obviously always hold a special place in my heart. I loved Sanvers (Alex and Maggie), but since it ended I kind of lost interest in that ship. Big Calzona (Callie and Arizona) fan, and am super sad they’re no longer on the show. And I’m currently getting hooked on Avalance (Ava and Sara) now that we’ve just finished season 3 of Legends of Tomorrow. Basically, I’m very gay… 

Q: Do you have any fanfic recommendations? 

A: “From Afar” – Avrilsky. I know it’s popular, but I really enjoyed that one. Also, “How do I wrap my heart up for Christmas” by breezered is short, but sweet. 

Someone asked for me to tell my coming out story, and I’m going to make a separate post about that one tomorrow where I’ll share my story. So if you’re the person who asked me that, don’t worry, your question was not ignored and I will answer it! 

Thank you to all who sent me questions! ❤️

[ohnooooonedirection]

Three days after the release of his self-titled debut album, and six days after he wore a now-iconic pink suit during a Today show performance, lesbian pop-rock twin bandmates Tegan and Sara tweeted a confession about Harry Styles from their account: “I have a very real crush on @Harry_Styles. Loving the new album and the high waisted wide leg pants.” Check the replies to this admission from mid-May to find a smattering of solidarity from Tegan and Sara fans: “Same.” “Same.” “Same.” “You’re not alone.” “Lesbians for Harry Styles Unite (LHSU).”

The entire internet had a crush, really. And while Tegan and Sara may be the most famous queer women to make their love for Harry (and his style) public, they’re just the tip of the iceberg that is the gay-lady Styles hive. The Great British Bake Off’s Ruby Tandoh wrote a recipe for “Harry Styles’ Dutch Baby with Cinnamon Rhubarb.” Former BuzzFeed writer Katie Heaney (along with current BuzzFeed Books editor Arianna Rebolini) wrote a whole damn book inspired by their love of Harry. My girlfriend has a One Direction wall calendar, and wholeheartedly plans to re-up for 2018. As a queer woman with lukewarm feelings toward the singer, I kept finding myself thinking, What the fuck is up with queer girls and Harry Styles?

Queer women have always rallied around their likeness in pop culture: Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Jett, and pretty much the entire US women’s national soccer team all sit squarely in the elite category of lesbian celebrity icons. It’s not terribly common for queer women to rally around a cis man in the same way. Sure, people love to joke that Justin Bieber and Cole Sprouse look like lesbians, and queer women have harvested fashion inspiration from James Dean and Marlon Brando for decades. But it’s much less common for a cis man to be the subject of a full-blown lesbian pop-culture obsession.

Once he went solo, folks who hadn’t paid attention to 1D started eating up what his fans had obsessed over for years: Harry's sexual ambiguity, androgynous style, boy band appeal, and relatively progressive social awareness. It’s what many women I spoke with characterized as Harry’s “magic.”

I found that Harry Styles means something slightly different to each of his fans. He possesses an ability to be whoever you want him to be. When the lines are blurred between stage persona and social media persona and real persona, when it’s unclear what’s fact and what’s fiction, when his sexuality is an open question, a character is born. Fans can project their own desires onto Harry, in the quiet of their imagination or in their own fanfiction or in group iMessage threads with fellow fans. That’s the magic of Harry.

And that’s the Harry that queer women get so obsessed with. That’s the Harry who has even inspired some women, in becoming infatuated with him, to recognize their own queerness.

Men herald Cher and Whitney and Gaga as their gay pop idols. Have queer women chosen Harry Styles?

One Direction came to fame in 2011 and 2012 by offering a near-24/7 window into their lives, thanks to social media. Twitter and Tumblr livestreams gave fans access to whatever the five cute teens were up to at almost any given time. Fans had an insurmountable pile of content to consume: photos and videos of the boys just pallin’ around backstage on tour, or performing for packed arenas, or pondering their endearingly silly teenage thoughts aloud. No boy band before One Direction roared to fame in such an all-consuming and intimate way, as the technology wasn’t there yet. That near-constant barrage of content gave their OG fans (mainly teenage girls and young women) a feeling of truly knowing the boys. And with that, a sense of ownership over their rise to fame — a sense of ownership of the boys themselves.

Fans immediately fell for the youngest of the group, Harry Styles. Raised in a tiny village equidistant from Liverpool and Manchester, he wields a relentlessly British charisma. Even from the get-go, Harry publicly radiated charm. His boyishness, his ease on camera, his frog prince face — it’s almost unfair how easy it was to love this kid. He exuded, as many celebrities and so few 16-year-olds do, a complete ease in his own skin. According to fans, he seemed to genuinely not give a fuck what people thought about him.

Harry’s either a very reserved person or is incredibly well media-trained — likely some combination of the two. He rarely shares personal details in interviews, which, as several women I spoke with concluded, makes him very easy to project an imagined personality onto. Compound that mystique with his enigmatic androgyny and surreal level of fame, and Harry is a perfect blank slate.

And thus, a fandom was born. And with every good fandom comes fanfic. And lots of that fanfic is gay. Very, very gay.

Slash fanfic is far from unique to One Direction, but 1D fans took up slash fic in a major way. The main coupling shipped in fic was Harry Styles and bandmate Louis Tomlinson, coined “Larry Stylinson.” Fans went so far as to speculate a real-life romance between the two lads. Though, it didn’t stop with Larry. From stories of Harry and bandmate Niall Horan hooking up on tour to a sentimental imagined romance between Harry and British radio personality Nick Grimshaw, there is a near-infinite trove of gay fanfic involving Harry Styles. In One Direction’s heyday, especially from 2013 through 2015, Tumblr was ablaze with stories of trysts between the boys. This, of course, says more about the fans themselves than of Harry’s own real-life sexuality.

The One Direction fandom really latched onto the Larry slash fic. Julia, a 32-year-old Harry devotee, told me she would read Harry fic “half turned-on, half, like, academically.” This phenomenon, too — of women being into gay male porn — is a well-established one. (Remember that scene in The Kids Are All Right where two wives watch porn, and how people lost their damn minds they were so confused?) Taking heterosexuality out of the equation in porn complicates gender power dynamics in a way that really works for lots of women. So, it makes sense that that phenomenon would translate to 1D fic. Those cute British boys were like queer-girl sex bait.

Let’s make one thing clear: Harry Styles looks like a hot lesbian. With a wiry frame, effeminate features, a shaggy mop, and an enviable wardrobe of floral prints and eye-popping suiting, he’s an absolute Shane. If you’ve never noticed this, perhaps you should hang out with more lesbians.

His fashion sense — that is, fashion not designed to flatter only men — is central to most queer women’s admiration for the pop star. I mean, come on: Those suits! Harry’s bottomless cache of dazzling two-piece suits and patterned blouses has made him a bit of a lesbian fashion icon. “I don’t wear suits often, or hardly ever — but I always want his suits,” says Katie, noting his penchant for sporting outfits that would look great on men and women alike. My girlfriend, Fran, asserts her “personal fandom is rooted in all of his outfits.” (Good answer.) I’m not sure if queer women are suddenly running out and buying Styles-esque suits, but they’re certainly fun to drool over.

Harry came to adopt his now-notorious personal style throughout 2015. It was at this time, too, that he grew his hair down past his shoulders, which amplified his androgynous looks. This androgyny piqued his queer fans’ affection. Even Sara Quin admitted to GQ that she grew her own hair out to look like Harry’s. For many women, long-haired, end-of-One-Direction Harry was a glory age of sorts. “There was a specific moment from late 2014 through early 2016 where he had this long hair and was wearing all YSL, where he was for me, in some magical witch way,” says Julia. He wasn’t a little boy holding hands with Taylor Swift anymore — his presentation had matured into something much more interesting. Something a little queerer.

Styles wears printed two-piece suits while performing in September 2017.

Of course, Justin Bieber was the original “looks like a lesbian” pop star of the social media era. If you’ve never noticed (again, see my above note about hanging out with more lesbians), mid-puberty Justin Bieber looked a lot like an androgynous-leaning woman. Internet lesbians embraced this comparison, and in 2010 the blog of viral fame Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber was born. Women would submit photos (mostly selfies) where their looks were particularly reminiscent of the then-teenage Biebs. (The Tumblr’s most recent post is from April 2017, so it’s not officially dead, just past its heyday.) The account posted masses of photosbetween 2009 and 2012; it was a truly excellent meme.

But IRL, Justin Bieber appears to be — what’s the phrase? — oh, aggressively heterosexual. He very publicly dated Selena Gomez, joined a church that “does not affirm a gay lifestyle,” and has a habit of sliding into random women’s DMs like a true 23-year-old dumbass. Honestly, Bieber’s severe straightness is the perfect punchline after years of Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber. While he may sport effeminate features (even post-puberty), the star doesn’t represent any sort of queerness in the pop sphere.

Harry Styles, on the other hand, prefers to publicly retain a level of sexual mystique not dissimilar to Bowie and Prince. In the six years that Styles has been in the public eye, his own sexuality has remained an enigma. Even though fans have long speculated about a romance between Harry and Louis Tomlinson, Louis has outright denied any romance between the two — but Harry never has. On the whole, he prefers to keep his own sexuality undefined.

On a 2014 press junket, the British singer said being female was “not that important” a quality in someone he would date. In an interview with the Sun this past May, Harry declines to label his sexuality, seeming to confirm a fluidity fans had long sensed. Since their 2015 On the Road Again tour, it’s become a bit of a tradition at shows for Harry to parade around stage with pride flags brought by fans.

But, hey, coyness doesn’t equal...well, anything. For all we know, Styles has no interest in men whatsoever. He might reach Justin Bieber level on the Het Dude scale behind closed doors. My cynical side suspects he knows that coming out as straight, now, could very well alienate a large portion of the singer’s fanbase. Instead, he gets the best of both worlds by keeping things vague. Having his rainbow cake and eating it too, as it were.

But it ultimately doesn’t matter whether Harry Styles is gay or straight or one of the many other iterations of human sexuality. What’s important is that he appears to publicly champion non-definition.

FULL ARTICLE

[tumblunni]

Hashtag relateable protagonist yo

Gonna give some comments on Red String Of Fate as I play it! You can get the game here and it’s actually free to play. So yeah, even as I criticise parts of it, keep that in mind! Its really great for a free short lil slice of cuteness.

Oh, but the font size is weirdly small for some reason so I’m gonna be mostly doing cropped screenshots so you can see it thru tumblr auto resizing. Also the character sprites are very basic tbh, its like one pic that never changes throughout the game except eyes closed/eyes open and stuff. Like a lot of visual novels dont do much body language but the faces are very awkward here too. But yeah this isn’t a huge criticism cos I mean its free! Its impressive they managed to pull off this much in a quick project! I’ve seen way worse VNs on steam getting huge price tags, so i honestly don’t think this one should have been free, even if I have some complaints about it.

Anyway, onward!

We’re introduced to the premise of the story- that our heroine has the magic power to see red strings that show who your true love is. And by sheer coincidence during an exam she bumps into someone else who has the power! ...aaaand also she has a best friend, I guess. Seriously I feel kinda bad for Aaron, he’s not in on the secret or anything and if you take Luke’s route he’s just like comic relief the whole time. I wish there were more of the scenes where the three of them actually hang out as buddies.

I actually really liked the interesting ideas they had about how the red string could work! It’s just a shame that with the static character sprites you like.. literally never see any red strings at all except on the title screen. i wish I could have seen these cool ideas!

Oh and here’s a full screenshot so you can see the two love interests! Luke is on the left and Aaron is on the right. Luke is the mysterious other guy with the same power, Aaron is the adorable best friend who gets sidelined right away unless you pick his route. Like, I went for Luke route first cos I liked Aaron better and figured doing the best route last would be better than in DDADDS where i left the worst for last. I guess I can just hope that maybe Luke is equally sidelined on the other route? I wish neither of them were, tho, the game is best when they’re all playing off each other as the super besties team! Oh and like lol their personalities are very simple, but again it makes sense for a short free dating sim. And a LOOOOT of big paid dating sims have equally stereotypical roles, so yeah! But anyway just remember that grey guy is Books and yellow guy is Vidyagaems. Everything about them revolves around their hobbies, in that way that doesnt happen outside of basic children’s cartoons. MAN I am being too harsh on this game, lol!

Again, interesting uses of the red string thing! And it also makes Aaron instantly more intriguing than Luke. I mean, just to me ‘hey wow a thing that should be impossible according to my superpower and maybe we can find out the mystery behind it’ is more intriguing than just ‘another guy with power’. Like you at least have a frame of reference on how that plot will generally go, yknow? Also I’m intrigued cos I would have just guessed that a broken string means ‘he’s promiscuous and doesnt want to settle down’ from the context of this scene. But its curious to think that it could mean he had a soulmate once and they DIED??? And like what, does that mean your personality changes when it happens or something? Like is it not his own fault he’s flighty and has a lot of girlfriends, that just happened cos supernaturalness? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND

Okay this is kind of a weird thing. The first scene says they’re all in a philosophy class, but then their group assignment is science? And its just like.. make a presentation about LITERALLY ANYTHING YOU WANT. And for some reason they pick evolution, and think that everyone will pick evolution???? And Aaron says some very basic stuff about Darwin and then protagonist is like ‘I CANT UNDERSTAND THESE COMPLEX SCIENCE TERMS’ like.. literally the word Darwin... Basically, its a good old classic ‘school life as plot point, without showing any of the school life’ setup. We never see any other students or hear the name of the place or get much of an idea about what’s going on. And sadly we don’t even get to see their presentation even though that was a main plot point for 75% of the game! Just timeskip to the end and they’re all like Hey Do You Remember That Thing That We Did Offscreen... ANYWAY, MOVING ON!

A random moment I liked- protag and Luke talking about the stress of this superpower and exchanging tips on coping with it, that kinda seem like a depression or anxiety metaphor.

This is kinda the start of a very weird recurring plot thread for the protagonist.. Like.. she wants to find her soulmate but she REALLY wants to find her soulmate! She obsesses over it really melodramatically as if her life will have no purpose without love, and we hear about how she’s been doing weird self destructive and kinda jerkass things in the name of soulmate searching. Like she’s planned her WHOLE LIFE around it! She’s been working four jobs for years to save up to move to another country she knows nothing about and doesnt speak the language of, just because ‘my soulmate must be far away’. And she’s apparantly dumped everyone who’s ever tried to be in a relationship with her because if they dont have the string they aren’t ~really real love~ Like wow girl I am not sympathising with your perspective, this is really messed up. I hope the game actually brings up some of the problems with this and the ending isnt just finding the soulmate and everything is fine!

Aaron is cutie patoot This is like the most emotiony the sprites ever get, lol!

AARON IS CUTIE PATOOT: PART 2 also you see what I mean about them being strangely defined by their hobbies as personality

????????? That’s a ‘stupid chinese thing’?? Not just a normal thing everyone would do? Which is called maternity leave?? There’s a few weird moments of stuff about china in this VN, and then they like only say at the last minute that the protagonist is half chinese. Like you put the context an hour after the thing that required it...

Randomly I like that they did a splitscreen effect for talking on the phone.

Its conspicuously weird that they have no character portrait for this guy, he gets no dialogue, and he really does nothing in the plot. So it makes you wonder why they even mentioned him?

Also look at protag’s cool bedroom!

Also look at Luke’s cool bedroom! The background design is super good in this game!

WHO DOES THIS??? Its weird that Luke finds it cute and charming when I’d just call her rude and be super embarassed at people ruffling thru my things without asking Anyway he has A Bunch Of Rare First Edition Books and also A Library Room because He Is The Books Man But it is a nice bit of backstory that he got the rare books as a gift from his deceased grandpa. I MOURN YOU ALREADY, MYSTERY GRAMPS

YOU DID WHAT seriously.. what?? you can’t sexualize eating candy, game

AWW! Every now and again they actually do have pretty good chemistry! ‘But I just want to be friends!’ *mumble mumble* ‘we’re friends’ Grumpy shy book man does care!

Though as of this point they haven’t really had much else of chemistry, it all moves very fast and I feel like this scene maybe should have been earlier? Like seriously we go straight from ‘I just met this guy, all I know is that he hates having his superpowers and I love it’ and then they get put on a group project and then Friends Now. The game has a lot of soft timeskips that’re never really indicated, which causes a bit of confusion. There is a bit of nice continuity here tho, cos you get the choice to either keep arguing about the superpowers or drop it and try and just be friends. Either way the game follows the same conclusions, but you get a lil bonus bit of dialogue mentioning how things were super tense for a while but eventually you became friends anyway thanks to the group project.

This Scene Is Weird Apparantly one of protag’s billion jobs is at a library, and she sees Luke checking out books and makes fun of him? And like from this response I thought he was checking out lesbian porno or something but apparantly he was just checking out poetry? What the hell is wrong with a LITERATURE STUDENT checking out poetry?? When did poetry become a no men thing, was it around the time it was a male dominated field, like novels? >_> And its all kinda pointless cos she ends up being perfectly nice to him about the poetry later and even talks about how she likes poetry too, so wow hypocrite much

There is a nice dialogue choice tho, the two of them talk about a poem and the different interpretations of it, and you get to choose which you prefer as the player. Luke prefers if you agree that the satirical interpretation is better, cos apparantly he Hates Love And Such Which leads us into...

...what. Seriously this game is so weirdly melodramatic about love, even for a visual novel! the whole main conflict of the protagonist is about ‘wah what if i never fall in love, my life would have no meaning’ and also dumping everyone no matter how much you like them cos ~magical destiny is the only real one~ and now we’re like OH GOD WHAT A TRAGEDY THE ONLY REASON SOMEONE COULD WANT TO BE SINGLE IS BECAUSE A DEEP TRAUMA MADE THEM STOP BELIEVING IN LOVE like seriously dude just has a mild amount of skepticism towards overly cheesy romance novel depictions of love, thats like a minor and super common difference of opinion, not a deep plot twist

...seriously? ‘you cant read books unless you read books about love’ like yo i wouldnt even say books are remotely near the top ten most sex-obsessed mediums of all time. music and film are way worse!

Again weird comments about china. Is this really a thing that happens? High class chinese people visit chinese restaurants more often than poor white people? Like, I dunno, I just feel like uninformed white folks who undervalue the work that goes into making foreign food and reduce its reputation to takeaway-only are SLIGHTLY the majority of customers you’d get...

Again, melodrama. Not much has actually happened yet except we met the two boys, we got put in a study group together, and we chose to study with Luke instead of party with Aaron. But like interspersed is a whole bunch of Drama that feels a bit forced, with the lack of real situations causing it. like here she’s just walking through the park and wants to cry because she.... sees that straight people exist. Me too, lol. no but really she just sees that One Other Couple Exists In The World and she starts wanting to cry in the middle of the park and like.. the only thing keeping you from dating someone is your obsessive belief that they cant be your real love if they dont have this magical signal of destiny. And then she just reiterates her crazy ass plan to drop her studies and fly off on a world tour to test her string against every other human on earth and find her soulmate...

SEE THE SCENES OF THEM BEING BESTIES ARE AWESOME I’m way less invested in this love triangle and more invested in them just succeeding in their group project!

NO, I REALLY WISH I COULD HAVE seriously we dont see ANY of the group project, it just timeskips to them celebrating their victory. and this means we dont get to see many scenes of luke and aaron interacting, sadly :(

LOOK AT THEM THEY ARE SO CUTE ALL TOGETHER I LOVE AND SUPPORT THEIR FRIENDSHIP also its kinda funny that the game barely has any changes on the character sprites yet it has really great and detailed CG images. I feel like maybe if you prioritized these less it could have led to a more consistant experience?

FINALLY SOMEONE IS CALLING HER OUT, GEEZ

NOOOOOO Thats not the POINT, game! The point is that it’d be stupid and self destructive even if she succeeded! And she probably could have had a happier life if she didnt do this, even if she succeeds! AND SHE PROBABLY WILL HAVE BETTER HEALTH AND NOT BE IN DEBT AND NOT BE DEPRESSED COS SHE’S OBSESSED WITH THIS DESTINY SHIT

Just to prove that this is indeed the actual plot of the game, she really is planning to fly across the world for the sake of this shit

Also this line raises a lot of questions. Do asexual people not exist in this universe? or just people who never want to get married and only want casual sex or whatever? or does it mean they still have red strings but they look different? Also this game seems to define it pretty distinctly as only heterosexual destiny strings here, so like would gay people not have strings or would they have differently coloured strings? or is she just assuming all soulmates are the opposite sex simply because she’s straight and she didnt think about the alternative? or cos the writer didn’t? or maybe the writer did and it was just awkwardly written so it raised these questions in my head...?

^ and here’s the bit where she mentions she’s part chinese suddenly at the last moment, and also he’s part japanese too. Which made me a bit worried actually cos she mentioned asia as one of the random places she was gonna search first for her soulmate, and I thought maybe this means he’s her soulmate. But thankfully thats not the way the plot went and it actually does discuss the topic of destiny in more detail!

also that is cute

[peeblesofnewyork-archive]

Headcanon: Muses & Ideal Types

Dang: Dang is bisexual but prefers females. In women he likes a bit of shyness, a good girl who knows how to have fun. Natural beauty and a big fan of smooth long legs. He has no preference in body type. Men, he likes a variety of men. From physically fit to feminine boys. Type? Laugh at his jokes and go on adventures with him, think he's your hero and 'wow!' at everything he does and he'll love you for a long time. Lucy: Bisexual as well, male preference. In women she likes extreme beauty--lipstick wearing, high heels. Men, she prefers older age. Some sort of wrinkle here and there and delicate eyes. Her ideal type is someone who listens to her, opens their heart up to her and strokes her poetic side. Lucy is obsessed with romance and wants to be the perfect leading actress in a French love film. Kira: Kawaii and bubbly, Kira is heterosexual. She likes men who are honest and soft-spoken, sweet men who have goals and want to change the world for a better place. She has no preference in physical aspects as long as the man is kind hearted and loving. Jani: Heterosexual. Her idea type includes a wide range of guys but they all share one similarity; clever and independent. He hates codependency and constantly needing to bond. As a filmmaker she's always gone for 12 hour days filmming so she won't be around all the time to smooch and play. She likes a man who is funny, witty and has his own thing going on. Whether it's a bad boy or a surfer dude, as long as he can keep her interested she'll be all for a relationship. Houston: Bisexual, or Heteroflexible. She's has a romance with a couple women in the past, but doesn't like going there. Her ideal type would be your thuggish, criminal type with a bad bone. Houston needs someone who will match her ferocity. She's loud, hot-headed and needs a man who will put her in her place or handle it. Have some style, treat her like a queen, *have a big diq* and you are hers. Nikki: Pansexual wild card. Nikki enjoys people older than her, by ten years or more. She doesn't normally date anyone younger than that, she's dated Jermaine but they had previously established a relationship. She likes people who listen, can be her moral compass. But she also likes people who live life on the edge and risk themselves every day. It's a two sided coin. Either be her angel, or be her devil. Devon: Devon is heterosexual and has a tendency to base his relationship off of looks. He likes thick women with big hips. Breasts are really a big deal for him, as long as you can handle his. To pursue a relationship with him he prefers people to be honest, have goals and won't tolerate shit. Dedication and courage turn him on. Gun: His sexual orientation is very misleading, there are days where it cannot be deciphered. But, if he were to be labeled he'd be pansexual with asexual attributes. Gun doesn't usually go after relaitonships and when he does the gender does not matter to him. He enjoys submissive lovers, those who will obey him. He also has a weakness for romance so anything related to adoring him brings him to his knees. Dinner dates, dancing under moonlight, romantic getaways, gentle kissing. Someone who is tender at heart. Thomas: Thomas is heterosexual and has a fine taste. He likes women who are well put together, organized and independent. He typically models every woman he dates after his exes unfortunately. However, preferences changes. He's dated JC who was rough around the edges, and his ex-fiancée was ambitious. Keep him engaged, unpredictable and he's all yours. Shannon: Heteroflexible, prefers women and androgynous men or transwomen. He does not give a rats ass what you look like or what you do. Just screw him. However, he likes a woman who takes charge, will beat his ass with her shoe and put him in the grave. Someone who is all talk AND all show. Carlisle: Like his sister, he's bisexual as well. Their parents allowed the children to have sexual freedom. However, Carlisle manipulates his way into bed with both women and men. He hungers for those who are feeble minded, weak and easily swayed. Petite women and petite men as well, androgyny is a preference for him. Although, a family oriented person might change his ways, he falls for people who put family first. Jermaine: Heterosexual. His types usually fall under the category of: anything Nikki. But he really enjoys women who have sass and knows their body. A woman with confidence turns him on, he also enjoys deep conversations, sophistication and style. Kavi: Asexual, doesn't normally pursue relationships and if he does it's non-sexual. There are flares of intimacy and he may change his views depending on the subject. Mason: Bisexual, but male preference. He enjoys someone who is rooted to the ground, wholesome with a good head on their shoulders. He likes the softness of a female and rugged texture of a male. Someone who share similar interests as him and free-loving. Religious. Hyun-woo: Heterosexual. Married. But his mistress is a mix of things. Hyunwoo doesn't necessarily have a type, he does like a woman who is honest about things but very accepting and a good listener. He's okay with loud and obnoxious or quiet and gentle. Daenisha: Bisexual with a HEAVY preference for women. Would be considered fully lesbian if she didn't occasionally have a random fling with men. Sometimes she wonders why that happens---which is why she goes by bisexual because it's not like she does NOT have an attraction to the opposite sex. Like women who are soft, pretty and fun--gotta have a lot of spirit or energy. Like men who are forgettable because she's plans on forgetting. Neil: Homosexual, he is selective on men and requests they rival his personality. He's formal, organized, well put together and puts his professional life before his personal. Also demiromantic so gender is not exclusive when it comes to falling in love.

[noahfence1d]

Three days after the release of his self-titled debut album, and six days after he wore a now-iconic pink suit during a Today show performance, lesbian pop-rock twin bandmates Tegan and Sara tweeted a confession about Harry Styles from their account: “I have a very real crush on @Harry_Styles. Loving the new album and the high waisted wide leg pants.” Check the replies to this admission from mid-May to find a smattering of solidarity from Tegan and Sara fans: “Same.” “Same.” “Same.” “You’re not alone.” “Lesbians for Harry Styles Unite (LHSU).”

The entire internet had a crush, really. And while Tegan and Sara may be the most famous queer women to make their love for Harry (and his style) public, they’re just the tip of the iceberg that is the gay-lady Styles hive. The Great British Bake Off’s Ruby Tandoh wrote a recipe for “Harry Styles’ Dutch Baby with Cinnamon Rhubarb.” Former BuzzFeed writer Katie Heaney (along with current BuzzFeed Books editor Arianna Rebolini) wrote a whole damn book inspired by their love of Harry. My girlfriend has a One Direction wall calendar, and wholeheartedly plans to re-up for 2018. As a queer woman with lukewarm feelings toward the singer, I kept finding myself thinking, What the fuck is up with queer girls and Harry Styles?

Queer women have always rallied around their likeness in pop culture: Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Jett, and pretty much the entire US women’s national soccer team all sit squarely in the elite category of lesbian celebrity icons. It’s not terribly common for queer women to rally around a cis man in the same way. Sure, people love to joke that Justin Bieber and Cole Sprouse look like lesbians, and queer women have harvested fashion inspiration from James Dean and Marlon Brando for decades. But it’s much less common for a cis man to be the subject of a full-blown lesbian pop-culture obsession.

Once he went solo, folks who hadn’t paid attention to 1D started eating up what his fans had obsessed over for years: Harry's sexual ambiguity, androgynous style, boy band appeal, and relatively progressive social awareness. It’s what many women I spoke with characterized as Harry’s “magic.”

I found that Harry Styles means something slightly different to each of his fans. He possesses an ability to be whoever you want him to be. When the lines are blurred between stage persona and social media persona and real persona, when it’s unclear what’s fact and what’s fiction, when his sexuality is an open question, a character is born. Fans can project their own desires onto Harry, in the quiet of their imagination or in their own fanfiction or in group iMessage threads with fellow fans. That’s the magic of Harry.

And that’s the Harry that queer women get so obsessed with. That’s the Harry who has even inspired some women, in becoming infatuated with him, to recognize their own queerness.

Men herald Cher and Whitney and Gaga as their gay pop idols. Have queer women chosen Harry Styles?

One Direction came to fame in 2011 and 2012 by offering a near-24/7 window into their lives, thanks to social media. Twitter and Tumblr livestreams gave fans access to whatever the five cute teens were up to at almost any given time. Fans had an insurmountable pile of content to consume: photos and videos of the boys just pallin’ around backstage on tour, or performing for packed arenas, or pondering their endearingly silly teenage thoughts aloud. No boy band before One Direction roared to fame in such an all-consuming and intimate way, as the technology wasn’t there yet. That near-constant barrage of content gave their OG fans (mainly teenage girls and young women) a feeling of truly knowing the boys. And with that, a sense of ownership over their rise to fame — a sense of ownership of the boys themselves.

Fans immediately fell for the youngest of the group, Harry Styles. Raised in a tiny village equidistant from Liverpool and Manchester, he wields a relentlessly British charisma. Even from the get-go, Harry publicly radiated charm. His boyishness, his ease on camera, his frog prince face — it’s almost unfair how easy it was to love this kid. He exuded, as many celebrities and so few 16-year-olds do, a complete ease in his own skin. According to fans, he seemed to genuinely not give a fuck what people thought about him.

Harry’s either a very reserved person or is incredibly well media-trained — likely some combination of the two. He rarely shares personal details in interviews, which, as several women I spoke with concluded, makes him very easy to project an imagined personality onto. Compound that mystique with his enigmatic androgyny and surreal level of fame, and Harry is a perfect blank slate.

And thus, a fandom was born. And with every good fandom comes fanfic. And lots of that fanfic is gay. Very, very gay.

Slash fanfic is far from unique to One Direction, but 1D fans took up slash fic in a major way. The main coupling shipped in fic was Harry Styles and bandmate Louis Tomlinson, coined “Larry Stylinson.” Fans went so far as to speculate a real-life romance between the two lads. Though, it didn’t stop with Larry. From stories of Harry and bandmate Niall Horan hooking up on tour to a sentimental imagined romance between Harry and British radio personality Nick Grimshaw, there is a near-infinite trove of gay fanfic involving Harry Styles. In One Direction’s heyday, especially from 2013 through 2015, Tumblr was ablaze with stories of trysts between the boys. This, of course, says more about the fans themselves than of Harry’s own real-life sexuality.

The One Direction fandom really latched onto the Larry slash fic. Julia, a 32-year-old Harry devotee, told me she would read Harry fic “half turned-on, half, like, academically.” This phenomenon, too — of women being into gay male porn — is a well-established one. (Remember that scene in The Kids Are All Right where two wives watch porn, and how people lost their damn minds they were so confused?) Taking heterosexuality out of the equation in porn complicates gender power dynamics in a way that really works for lots of women. So, it makes sense that that phenomenon would translate to 1D fic. Those cute British boys were like queer-girl sex bait.

Let’s make one thing clear: Harry Styles looks like a hot lesbian. With a wiry frame, effeminate features, a shaggy mop, and an enviable wardrobe of floral prints and eye-popping suiting, he’s an absolute Shane. If you’ve never noticed this, perhaps you should hang out with more lesbians.

His fashion sense — that is, fashion not designed to flatter only men — is central to most queer women’s admiration for the pop star. I mean, come on: Those suits! Harry’s bottomless cache of dazzling two-piece suits and patterned blouses has made him a bit of a lesbian fashion icon. “I don’t wear suits often, or hardly ever — but I always want his suits,” says Katie, noting his penchant for sporting outfits that would look great on men and women alike. My girlfriend, Fran, asserts her “personal fandom is rooted in all of his outfits.” (Good answer.) I’m not sure if queer women are suddenly running out and buying Styles-esque suits, but they’re certainly fun to drool over.

Harry came to adopt his now-notorious personal style throughout 2015. It was at this time, too, that he grew his hair down past his shoulders, which amplified his androgynous looks. This androgyny piqued his queer fans’ affection. Even Sara Quin admitted to GQ that she grew her own hair out to look like Harry’s. For many women, long-haired, end-of-One-Direction Harry was a glory age of sorts. “There was a specific moment from late 2014 through early 2016 where he had this long hair and was wearing all YSL, where he was for me, in some magical witch way,” says Julia. He wasn’t a little boy holding hands with Taylor Swift anymore — his presentation had matured into something much more interesting. Something a little queerer.

Of course, Justin Bieber was the original “looks like a lesbian” pop star of the social media era. If you’ve never noticed (again, see my above note about hanging out with more lesbians), mid-puberty Justin Bieber looked a lot like an androgynous-leaning woman. Internet lesbians embraced this comparison, and in 2010 the blog of viral fame Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber was born. Women would submit photos (mostly selfies) where their looks were particularly reminiscent of the then-teenage Biebs. (The Tumblr’s most recent post is from April 2017, so it’s not officially dead, just past its heyday.) The account posted masses of photos between 2009 and 2012; it was a truly excellent meme.

But IRL, Justin Bieber appears to be — what’s the phrase? — oh, aggressively heterosexual. He very publicly dated Selena Gomez, joined a church that “does not affirm a gay lifestyle,” and has a habit of sliding into random women’s DMs like a true 23-year-old dumbass. Honestly, Bieber’s severe straightness is the perfect punchline after years of Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber. While he may sport effeminate features (even post-puberty), the star doesn’t represent any sort of queerness in the pop sphere.

Harry Styles, on the other hand, prefers to publicly retain a level of sexual mystique not dissimilar to Bowie and Prince. In the six years that Styles has been in the public eye, his own sexuality has remained an enigma. Even though fans have long speculated about a romance between Harry and Louis Tomlinson, Louis has outright denied any romance between the two — but Harry never has. On the whole, he prefers to keep his own sexuality undefined.

On a 2014 press junket, the British singer said being female was “not that important” a quality in someone he would date. In an interview with the Sun this past May, Harry declines to label his sexuality, seeming to confirm a fluidity fans had long sensed. Since their 2015 On the Road Again tour, it’s become a bit of a tradition at shows for Harry to parade around stage with pride flags brought by fans.

But, hey, coyness doesn’t equal...well, anything. For all we know, Styles has no interest in men whatsoever. He might reach Justin Bieber level on the Het Dude scale behind closed doors. My cynical side suspects he knows that coming out as straight, now, could very well alienate a large portion of the singer’s fanbase. Instead, he gets the best of both worlds by keeping things vague. Having his rainbow cake and eating it too, as it were.

But it ultimately doesn’t matter whether Harry Styles is gay or straight or one of the many other iterations of human sexuality. What’s important is that he appears to publicly champion non-definition.

Generally speaking, women tend to exist in a state of sexual fluidity more often than men do. A 2015 study from the University of Notre Dame found that women were three times more likely than men to report a shift in their sexual orientation, and more likely than men to identify as bisexual. What’s more, younger generations of LGBT people have been embracing fluidity and rejecting traditional labels of sexuality. A 2016 study found only 48% of Generation Z identified as exclusively heterosexual, compared with 65% of millennials.

So then, perhaps it’s Harry’s refusal to conform to mainstream sexual terminology that makes him so appealing to queer women. For many, seeing a pop star of extreme fame not only embrace a refusal to label, but appear to thrive in that gray area of sexuality, might be a relief. Sure, his private life could very well be less fluid. But publicly rejecting the notion of being “gay” or “straight” or “bisexual” — all of which have clear meanings — could be, for many non-straight women, something to celebrate.

But that, too, is an oversimplification of why queer women go fucking bananas for Harry Styles. After all, plenty of other celebrities keep their sexuality shrouded in mystery, or just choose to remain in the glass closet. So, still, why Harry?

On the topic of sexual fluidity, let’s get another thing out of the way: It’s not that queer women necessarily want to fuck Harry Styles. Sure, women tend not to adhere to gendered boundaries of attraction as rigidly as men do. But the Harry Styles obsession, for most gay women, is not “He’s so hot that I’d go straight for him,” nor is it “He looks like a lesbian, so that turns me on even though he’s a dude.” This love is not anchored in wanting to bone Harry. (Though, yeah, some would love to bone Harry.)

Hug? Yes. Flirting? Definitely. Engage in a drawn-out, rom-com-esque love affair that ends in kissing? Surprisingly, yes. But it’s not about sex in a straightforward sense.

“Addie” (who asked not to be named), a 29-year-old queer writer, would put wanting to sleep with Harry at, “like, number 17 of the reasons why I’m intrigued by him.” For Addie, “it's more of a kindred spirit situation, and I'd rather be him, or be like him, than sleep with him.” This feeling’s pretty common for queer people; think about gay men with Madonna or Beyoncé or Carly Rae Jepsen. Queer kids, before really tussling with their sexualities, often conflate these feelings of admiration with sexual attraction.

Julia has sexual fantasies starring Harry Styles, yes. But she clarifies that if the real-life Harry Styles made a move on her, she’d probably reject the advances. She then goes on to detail, “basically I want to watch him get fucked, then also zip his skin around me in a suit.” So, suffice it to say, these feelings are sexual, sure; but none of the women I spoke to were lusting after the real Harry Styles. Just the fanfic-born idea of Harry.

For some women, like Katie, their crush on Harry Styles is like a middle school crush: pure, nonsexual, anchored in cuteness and kindness. The kind of crush you had before you really understood your own sexuality whatsoever. “I can give myself flies thinking about Harry Styles flirting with me,” says Katie. “But my imagination ends there.” Similarly, Fran describes her ideal, real-life relationship with Harry to be “someone I see at four to six parties per year who I always flirt with, and who reciprocates, but literally nothing [sexual] ever happens.” (Again...good answer.)

And it’s not strictly about the music, either. Some women connect to the music itself, while others love it merely as an extension of Harry’s existence, like the “magical” era of long-haired Harry, mid-to-late 1D — once he was no longer the squeaky teen he was on The X Factor — holds a special place in the hearts of fans. Several fans cited the band’s 2013 album, Midnight Memories, in particular. Solo Harry falls more into the category of mom-like pride in their grown-up boy: “I love it because it’s Harry.” As Julia says, “Does a mother like her child’s macaroni art? Objectively, no. But yes, it’s the best thing she’s ever seen. I listen to [One Direction’s music] because I like to have them in my ears, but not because I like it.”

Fandoms are a funny thing. They can elicit such intense and unexpected joy, and the resulting friendships, more often than not, come to overshadow the thing itself. It’s like sports: It’s nice to have a thing, completely out of your control, that’s fun to talk about and obsess over without any actual, real-life stakes. A bizarre interview prompts an inside joke, a trek to a concert in New Jersey prompts another, and over time real-life, intimate friendships have been stitched. Addie tells me her life as a Harry stan brought her a whole new slate of queer women friends, including Julia. The One Direction community is far from the first one queer women have bonded over online: Everything from Buffy to The Social Network to American Idol has had rabid, fanfic-penning queer fans online. But still, it’s had quite a robust impact on the lives of many queer women.

For some queer women, the particular joy unveiled in the Harry Styles fandom is and was a newfound sense of connection to one’s own body and sexuality. Perhaps the strangest and most notable part of all this is the women who attribute their realization that they’re gay, in some part, to their love for Harry Styles.

Julia remembers the exact moment she realized she was gay, at age 29. It was early 2014, and she’d been consuming as much Harry content as possible over the previous two months — photos, videos, fanfic, the works. One evening, she and a friend were exchanging emails about Harry (you know, normal things), when she was sent an email of about a dozen GIFs of Harry Styles (naturally). Something struck her.

“I remember so clearly looking at those GIFs of Harry and being like, ‘I’m gay,’” she recounts. “I can’t really explain why… Something about this has unleashed a reality within me that’s like, I know myself now.” Julia attributes her sudden connection to herself and her sexuality to her love for this androgynous-leaning, charismatic pop star. It was wrapped up in her realizing she had a crush on a woman, who she now realizes she was conflating with Harry.

A similar thing happened to Katie Heaney. Her love for Harry, which peaked in 2014–15, “was much timed to my sexual awakening in my late twenties. I was completely obsessed with a boy band — for the first time in my life — at the exact moment that I’m turning away from men in general.” Julia and Katie’s stories are not identical (as no two coming-out experiences are), but are both inextricably linked to their fixation on Harry. Both women also describe feeling a sort of “second adolescence” during their coming-out periods. (Imagine feeling all that crazy, intense horniness and obsession, but with a parent-free apartment, a 401K, and a decade’s worth of weird pseudo-exes. That’s what coming out later in life is like.)

Perhaps Katie and Julia’s unapologetic love for a teen boy band sparked that second adolescence, or vice versa. In any case, the near-crazed feelings of boy band fandom and teen-esque sexual discovery can go hand-in-hand.

There’s no crystallized explanation for why so many queer women love Harry Styles so achingly. I’ve learned that the avenues by which fans arrive at Harry appear to be as multifarious as those to arrive at one’s own sexuality. I guess all I’m saying is, perhaps more lesbian bars could stay in business by adopting Harry Styles cosplay nights. If given the opportunity to exist as Harry, as this idealized prism of confidence and androgyny and fluidity and glitter and youthful joy — well, who wouldn’t come out for that?

[ossyuche]

What Do Men Find Attractive?

First of all, what do you think defines attractive? It’s interesting because a guy friend of mine said his girlfriend would be what he would call pretty even though he didn’t think she fit the mold of what society called pretty. Does that mean there can be an openness to different types? I’ve wondered. Exactly what makes someone pretty? I know this is a sensitive question so no pressure in answering.

Second, for whatever it is, can guys learn to compromise on looks or be open to different types? I’ve wondered because I thought about something for me that was similar. I will it admit in high school I only went after the charming popular guys. The high school jocks. I could have said well I can’t help what I like right? Then I realized I was being superficial and should instead go after less superficial things. So I now have a crush on a guy (that’s another story) who is less of the charming type but very likable. I realized I should see what’s important. It seems your dating advice encourages women (chemistry vs compatibility something like that right?) to focus on those things over things that people value in a more superficial sense.

Lastly I’ve wondered how much of the obsession with finding a hot girl is really about attraction. It seems like it would be an of course, guys want the pretty girl because she is pretty right? Then I thought of my old high school crushes. I realized some of them I liked not really because of them, but actually because I enjoyed the praise I felt of having won the attention over of someone so impressive. It made me feel important. Really though, frankly I think it’s actually using someone. I’ve wondered if that’s something our society could work on.

Let me know what you think! Deep questions I know. No pressure in answering.

Kath

Three different questions. Three different answers.

What do you think defines attractive? Can there be an openness to different types? Exactly what makes someone pretty?

The reason this one is tricky is because the answer is both objective AND subjective.

Objectively, there are traits that are almost universally considered attractive. Per Wikipedia:

Men, on average, tend to be attracted to women who have a youthful appearance and exhibit features such as a  symmetrical face,  full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio. Women, on average, tend to be attracted to men who are both taller than they are as well as taller than other men, display a high degree of facial symmetry, masculine facial  dimorphism, and who have broad shoulders, a relatively narrow waist, and a V-shaped torso.

Sounds about right. Look at the cover of most beauty and fashion magazines and you’ll see a lot of stereotypically attractive people staring back at you.

At the same time, everybody has personal tastes and preferences. Some men like women who are curvy. Some men like women who have no body fat whatsoever. Some guys are turned on by fake boobs. Some guys are turned off by them. Some prefer tattoos and piercings. Some wouldn’t look twice. Some gentlemen prefer blondes. Some prefer ethnic. Go to Pornhub and take a look at what men look at. Top searches include: lesbian, hentai, MILF and step mom. There was almost equal representation of men looking up “mom” and “teen.” So when you ask “what’s attractive?” I would only point out that there are broad generalizations on what women and men find appealing — and there are lots of exceptions to those generalizations as well.

Can guys learn to compromise on looks or be open to different types?

Yes, but it’s important we get our definitions straight. I don’t believe you can talk yourself into finding someone attractive. Attraction is not a choice; it’s a feeling. When any client of mine goes out with a guy where the chemistry is less than a 6, I tell her to move along. However, as burgeoning couples get closer and more intimate, there are many (if not most) of my clients who discover that their 6 can develop into an 8 or a 9.

To your original question, a man generally won’t compromise on looks in terms of going out with someone he doesn’t find physically appealing. But are guys open to different women who aren’t their “type?” Absolutely. When I was in high school, I was into skinny model-types from all the magazines and TV shows I consumed. Then I dated someone my senior year who was short and curvy and discovered I loved that, too. To this day, my favorite physical type is short, curvy, dark-skinned brunettes. Salma Hayek, Kim Kardashian, etc. I have NEVER had a girlfriend who looked like that. To me, dating around is like fine dining: the more you are open to trying different things, the more developed your palate gets, the more you can eat in any restaurant and find something you like. But still, you’re going to have your favorite dishes — just don’t think you have to marry one of them to be happy.

I’ve wondered how much of the obsession with finding a hot girl is really about attraction or about having won the attention over of someone so impressive?

I think it’s impossible for most people to separate their motives from their desires. How many women stop to think about WHY they like “bad boys” even though we all know objectively that they make for terrible long-term partners? They don’t. They feel something, go with the feeling, get burned, and go back for more of the feeling. The brain chemistry that is associated with attraction is very much like cocaine or meth — powerful highs that make people — men and women alike — do otherwise irrational things.

The brain chemistry that is associated with attraction is very much like cocaine or meth — powerful highs that make people — men and women alike — do otherwise irrational things.

My take as a 46-year-old former slut in a 10+ year marriage is this: I think the obsession with “hot” is largely a maturity thing.

When I was a kid, I was attracted to EVERY girl who fit the description in the Wikipedia entry. Essentially, if she was physically appealing, I would have a crush on her, regardless of what her personality was like. Now, I STILL find plenty of women physically appealing, and in an alternate universe where I was single, would gladly have NSA sex with 25% of the female population. But after all my experience, I know better than to think that strong attraction + good sex = happiness.

Which is why I can be attracted to so many people and be the world’s safest husband. It doesn’t occur to me for one second that I’d be happier with anyone other than my wife. That’s what I mean by maturity.

Men who are still driven by the need to get the hot girl literally only see women for their looks. They don’t see women as having value beyond that, so they place a disproportionately high premium on it. Witness the rich men/trophy wife phenomenon. But, as someone crude and wise once said to me, “See that hot woman over there? Some guy is getting sick of fucking her right now.” Which is precisely my point. Since most of life and marriage is not about sex and attraction, it seems short-sighted to place the highest value on sex and attraction. If a random guy asked me for blanket dating advice, I’d tell him to look for two qualities first: happy and sane. Brilliant is a bonus. Hot is a bonus. Because if you are with someone who is unhappy and unreasonable when dealing with conflict, you’re never going to have a great marriage — no matter how rich and attractive the both of you are.

Thanks for the thought-provoking question. If you liked my answer, please share it with a friend, and issue your comments below.

   The post What Do Men Find Attractive? appeared first on Dating Coach – Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

Related posts:

I Am Not Physically Attracted to My Boyfriend. Can We Possibly Have a Future Together?

Why Women Should Make Men Wait For Sex — Part II

Pity the Pretty: An Ode to Attractive Women Who Can’t Find Boyfriends

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[a-c-i-d-k-i-t-t-y]

Fuck it & Answer all of them!

oomg ok! this will take forever so i’m gonna take breaks in between and then come back1.if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?they would read my journal, watch any of my favorite docs/films that relate to my mind and my life the most, and if someone wants to really understand me they’ll have to communicate with me, listen instead of just hearing me. they’ll have to want to understand.2.have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?oh yeah plenty 

3.three songs that you connect with?this is hard as hell cause i have a million songs i connect with, but just off the top of my head: Why - NFHelp - Papa RoachHonor Roll - BulowMyself - Layton Greenthat’s four but whatever4.would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?no that girl is like my sister lol

5.have you taken someones virginity?someone’s lesbian virginity6.how many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?zero, i can’t see that ever happening. i’ve never fully trusted male figures.

7.if you could, would you take back your last kiss?noo

8.who would you like to see in concert?not counting anyone i’ve already seen,NF, post malone, paramore, ariana grande, billie eilish, kane brown, and a million more

9.what was the last concert you saw?i think it was demi but i feel like i seen someone after her who i’m forgetting

10.would you ever want to swim with sharks?maybe. if i’m totally safe doing so haha11.do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months?i fuckin hope so, i’m making it a mission

12.what was the last thing that made you laugh?whatever random shit me and angie were talking about tonight when i seen her13.a song you’d listen to during soft/slow/passionate sex?i have no idea, fire on fire - sam smith 

14.have any pets?4 kitties

15.do you want to have kids? How many?i don’t know honestly, it’s something i think about and flip flop with. i’ve always said that if i want to have a child, it’ll be before i’m in my 30′s and if it decide to, my plan forever was to have a sperm donor. but i don’t know if i can raise a child tbh. i have too many fears which i’m sure everyone does when thinking of having a baby. i can’t picture myself pregnant either lol. but i would want it to come from me if i had one.

16.do you have piercings? How many?my nose, vertical labret, and my ears are stretched

17.do you miss anyone from your past?i miss friends from my childhood and middle school who’ve moved away or drifted, family members who are gone now, and versions of people before they’ve changed due to addiction, struggles, etc

18.what are you craving right now?a shower cause i just got home

19.have you ever broken someone’s heart?yes not intentionally 

20.have you ever been cheated on?yes

21.have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?yes when i finally walked away, it bothered me a lot to make someone cry, but it really had to be done.22.do you believe in true love?yes

23.favourite weather?summer & fall!

24.do you like the snow?yes it’s pretty to look at, but i only like when it snows maybe once every winter cause i can’t deal with the freezing cold

25.do you wanna get married?as of today my answer is no26.is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?yes only if i like them or are dating them. when random ass people call me that i hate it

27.what’s an inner joke you have with your friends?my mind is totally blank right now when i try thinking of any, i do have some though

28.go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!“space can alter your DNA.”

29.what’s your favorite pasta dish?chicken alfredo pasta or just regular pasta with tomato sauce & meatballs

30.what color do you really want to dye your hair?i think i might change my hair to dark brown in the summer but i don’t really know cause whenever i change it from black i immediately miss it or regret it

31.what’s your favorite eye color?all eye colors are my favorite

32.talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.i had this bag with hearts all over it in middle school and i carried it everywhere with me and it seen some dark shit man.

33.are you a morning person?i used to be, i want to be

34. what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into?no weird places. i think i went to some abandoned places with friends when i was younger. we didn’t “break” into anything though, but we trespassed. 35.what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit?my converses or vans, i used to wear my combat boots EVERYWHERE people used to think i was crazy cause i’d wear them in the summer when it was like 90 degrees.

36.what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.i. fucking. love. socks. fuzzy socks.

37.tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.ummm idk i walked my best friend home to the next town at like 2-3AM and we smoked weed prior, and as we were walking some dude was yelling out to us asking if we know where to get crack rock, and all i remember is us running because we were scared lol 

38.do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!i used to got to starbucks a lot but not anymore. i usually just make coffee at home or go to DD or wawa.39.who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?fuck if i know. i think my boyfriend at the time in the back of his truck.

40.what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?always had the fear of abandonment or my mom dying since my dad died when i was 8. i would send myself into panic attacks whenever my mom would leave me home alone for hours or if i came home and she was gone i would automatically think she was dead and would cry hysterically. and yeah i have that fear still but i don’t cry like that anymore, just feel a lot of anxiety.

41.do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?yes, it’s been a minute so i don’t remember42.think of a person. what song do you associate with them?i just texted angie so that’s who i thought of,yoho - blood on the dancefloor lmfao don’t ask

43.what are your favorite memes of the year so faroh god if i could i would post them, they had me dying.

44.do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?yes poetry is pretty45.what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?never given or received a “stupid” gift46.what are some of your worst habits?here’s three: catastrophizing, ruminating, self-sabotaging47.describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.they’ve been here for me since day one, always. proven through their actions that they genuinely care about my well being and my feelings and want the best for me. has my back through everything and is more than a friend, i consider them family.

48.tell us about your pets!stella: alpha cat of the housecookie: she isn’t the youngest but she is the baby of the cat fam and is super needyiris: badass and fears nothingno-name: literally unbothered by anything 

49.is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?showering, sleeping. i’ve literally been working on answering this for an hour.

50.are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?don’t hate them, just not a fan. 

51.what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?honestly just treating me like a fucking human being

52.describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.eyesss like honey 53.what’s some of your favorite album art?lana del rey’s album born to die has nice artwork and that album is one of my favorites 

54.are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?i have one currently. i plan to get more. i want midna from twilight princess on my upper arm or skull kid surrounded other things from the legend of zelda correlated into the tattoo turning it into a half sleeve, certain quotes or lyrics i have in mind, a tattoo dedicated to my dad, etc.

55.do you like concept albums? absolutely

56.what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives?into the wild57.list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.pieces - red58.if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?i wouldn’t press either of them. everything in my past happened for a reason and i wouldn’t want to skip into the future because that freaks me out to skip time where i could have done something in those 5 years missed.

59.what do you do when you’re sad?either a negative or positive coping skill depending where my head is.

60.what are some things you do when you can’t sleep?think too much, listen to music all night, binge watch something on netflix or youtube, talk to someone, take a lovely walk to the refrigerator

61.what was the best (non-romantic) night you’ve had?nights full of positive vibes with friends, laughing, having good talks, good food, music, just chillen. going to seaside, having bonfires, going off-roading in the woods, etc

62.who is the last person you told a secret to?i really don’t have secrets, i’m an open book if you ask me anything. 63.what’s the best piece of advice you ever received?i wouldn’t say advice, but i’ve received amazing guidance from my fam back at my old outpatient program when i was in therapy. i wish i could still remember most of the things i was told but i know it really helped me when i needed it most.

64.what’s your favorite food?sushi 

65.what’s your secret dream?i don’t have a secret dream

66.three songs you were recently obsessed with.straight to my head - you me at sixno ordinary love - memphis mayfirefire on fire - sam smith67.three songs that remind you of the person who sends this onei don’t know the person who sent me this

68. three favourite old songssome of my favorites that throw me back to when i was in middle schooldon’t matter - akonleave, get out - jojoi miss you - blink 182

69.three last songs you listened towe belong together - mariah careylithium - nirvanaheart-shaped box - nirvana

70.worst possible time to get horny:a funeral

71.have you ever had a friends with benefits?it depends what someone considers a friends with benefits relationship to be. i’ve hooked up w a friend years ago like twice, but idk if that would be considered fwb? since it wasn’t an ongoing thing. there was no strings attached, so i guess? any type of ongoing relationship i had with anyone after that there was always feelings.72.do you believe in soulmates?i wanna believe that yeah73.Is there anyone you would die for?i’m sure there is 74.who was the last person you cried in front of?my ex like over a year ago. i don’t cry in front of people, i fight it and i hate feeling emotionally exposed like that. it takes a lot for me to actually shed a tear in front of anyone out of pain. but happy tears are different though.

75.do you give out second chances too easily?lol more like 50 

76.is it easier to forgive or forget?it’s easier for me to forget cause i just repress shit subconsciously. i forgive easily for things that aren’t a big deal. but detrimental/trauma type shit takes me years to process through and forgive 

77.is this year the best year of your life?this year has been better compared to the last few years. it wasn’t great, but a lot of good things happened even though a lot of terrible stuff happened too. but it def wasn’t the best year of my life lol.

78.do you have trust issues?yeah like the rest of the world

79.who/what was your last dream about?

lolol was driving in a car with a friend