#avoiding gender assumptions

[kopfconsulting]

As entrepreneurs, our words and actions can make or break connections with our audience. A simple slip can do more harm than we intend. Learn how to navigate interactions with mindfulness and inclusivity to foster positive relationships and avoid Foot in Mouth Syndrome.

[houseofwolvess]

i call myself a binary trans man bc functionally that's what i am, and i totally embrace that/im comfortable with that, but man. sometimes i really wish i could be open about the weird intricacies of my identity without people slapping labels on me left and right

[neverendingford]

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[pinkpluckpink]

Sugar Crash

Pairing: Erik Campbell x GN! Reader

Synopsis: I don't actually know! I felt motivated, and I cranked out something I genuinely like! And if you like it? Let me know!

Themes: bakeries, fluff, tipsy Erik, Erik has a Jacob's ladder, smut that's oddly domestic, mild sadism, an establishing friendship, no gender specific descriptions, awkwardness, summer parties, CANON DIVERGENCE

Word Count: 7.7k

Your eyes carefully scanned over the magazine in front of you, snapping your gum as quietly as one could do so, eyes trailing over models far too airbrushed and far too cinched, damn you photoshop. Sighing out your nose as you flicked the magazine shut at the sound of the bell above the door jingle. Pulling your lips into an impossibly tight customer service smile that didn't quite reach your eyes and looking up.

"Welcome to The Sugar Shack, your sweet tooth is our specialty…" it came out more monotonous than intended, looking over the very sweet girl you recognized as Julia, who your vaguely recognized from high school, and who'd usually come in with her mother, and two men trailing beside her as you hummed lightly.

"Hiiii," Julia started as she carefully moved her sunglasses into a makeshift headband, carefully looking over the menu and straight past you as you turned your attention to her company, smiling lightly at the sweeter looking of the two as he waved nervously.

"If you have any allergies or dietary concerns, let me know. We do peanut, dairy and gluten free. We don't do flour free or sugar free, or else we'd just be The Shack and that makes us sound like a whole different establishment~" it left in a mildly singsong manner as her other companion grinned lightly.

"The Shack is somewhere I feel I'd spend most of my Saturday nights," he snorted as your grin tightened, it didn't feel as funny coming from him. He just had a look about him, though you were working on your assumptive tendencies, not fair to judge. Though your inner scolding was thrown off by Julia smacking him lightly on the chest.

"Erik, behave yourself," she chastised as he winced lightly. "Sorry about him, he thinks he's funny. Do you guys do large orders? Say like…twenty four cupcakes and a sheet cake for like…twenty people?" She asked, talking with her hands as her wristlet jingled and you nodded.

You put your finger up in a 'wait a minute' manner before going under the counter to grab the binder full of sizes, designs, and price estimates. Setting it down carefully as you flipped through it quietly to larger sheet cakes.

"We can do custom designs, and we can do pictures too. Cake printing, it's the future," it sounded apathetic, and you could tell they noticed. That was terrible customer service. "Sorry it's, just a real tough day…" you explained yourself as Julia waved it off. "We all have tough days, clearly it isn't personal," she insisted softly as you exhaled through your nose, relaxing the tension in your shoulders as you nodded.

"Weeee, need something for a birthday party? This one's birthday party~" she poked Erik repeatedly on the shoulder as he batted her hand away. "Mostly just family, a couple friends of ours too…so I feel like…a full sheet would be great?" Julia insisted as you nodded to yourself.

"Okay perfect…anything I should avoid for starters?" You flipped open your desktop notepad as the blonde raised his hand. "Hi, im Bobby! Well, im Robert but everybody calls me Bobby. Uhhh, peanuts will, kill meeee, so just, make sure the cake isn't, contaminated." he insisted as you wrote 'NO PEANUT! WILL DIE!' in bold letters, underlining it three times as he snorted lightly.

Your attention turned to the soon-to-be birthday boy, who you'd learned was named Erik earlier. His eyes widening a bit as you pointed a pen at him and grinned lightly. "Tell me, the vibe you're going for, or the image you want. I will make, literally anything…as long as it's not completely not safe for work…" you laid out the guidelines as he leaned forward, matching your energy.

"I am, so glad to hear you can make my dreams come true~ I'm the happiest boy in the whole wide world~" he batted his lashes, resting his chin on his fists as you snorted lightly. "I'm a tattoo artist, and a piercer…and I want a pinup cake. She doesn't need to be, nude or nothin', but I know what I want. She's gotta be cool, she can't be cutesy or dainty…have a take no shit look to'er." He insisted as you wrote down whatever words tumbled out of his mouth. "Okay so, what colors are we wanting?" You probed as he chewed on his lower lip. "Black, red…silver…" he listed the last one as more of a question, running it by you as you nodded. "I can most definitely- DON'T!-"

You reacted quickly to the movement in your peripherals, catching Bobby reaching for the free samples as his hand shot back to his side. "Shit! I'm sorry! Is, are those display cookies? Or- it says free, take one. Am I not supposed too? I'm sorry-" he assured as you shook your head and Erik pulled him back.

"Didn't even check for peanuts, numbnuts! Would've died in this pastel hellhole-" Erik scolded as the realization dawned on Bobby. Looking at his feet sheepishly as your hand pushed through your hair anxiously.

"You're fine, hun…just don't wanna kill you, can you imagine the paperwork?" You joked lightly as you moved away from the counter and carefully approached the pastry case, finding a fresh iced lemon cookie and putting it into a napkin before bringing it to Bobby. "You can't have one of those, but you can have one of these…" you assured as he took it with a quiet 'thank you'.

"So…sorry um, do you know what you, want…on your cupcakes? I could print the same design just smaller for them." You offered as Erik kept glancing at his brother but nodded. "Yeah that's…that'll be good, I did, draw up the design I want so, is there a way I can send that to you?" He questioned as you nodded lightly.

"Yeah, here's my number, text it to me with any modifications you want…" you wrote it down before sighing in mild agitation, nothing to do with them at all, just, hating being where you were. You loved your job, you hated the surroundings. Erik wasn't wrong, to call it a pastel hellhole. It was a stark mint color, sprinkles painted everywhere a person could reach, horrendous peppermint decals everywhere, and the colorful, yet devoid of personality little busts of dogs and other animals you could find at a generic home goods store littered across the shelves, the cherry on top being the LED neon signs with generic sayings like 'a little sweet treat' and 'you're so bad!'.

"This is so fucking good…can I buy another one? Please? Or like…like twelve?" Bobby spoke through a mouthful of cookie as you laughed lightly, brows furrowed, but gladly obliged as you packaged twelve cookies to go in the painfully nauseating pistachio green to go box. You didn't hate pastels, you didn't hate sweets, you just hated how it was so in your face in every direction here.

"Who made these?" Bobby asked as you laughed. "I do. I'm the baker, and the cashier, and the delivery driver, and the janitorial staff." You explained as he smiled bigger. "Wow, so you like, own this place?"

The laugh that left you wasn't voluntary, snorting harshly and shaking your head. "Harper Shetland owns the place, she comes in an hour a day, bitches about how hard her job is, then leaves. I'm here open to close, six days a week~" you punctuated the sentence with an eye roll. Julia snapping her fingers while pointing at you as she laughed.

"AP Lit! You were in my AP Lit class! Harper was in that too, what a jerk." She recollected as you nodded. "Try being employed by her…" you murmured as Julia shook her head. "You're too nice, I would've quit forever ago."

You nodded at her statement, you should have! But you were passionate about baking. You were passionate about being a small business staple in your community.

"Isn't she that girl who comes in to get those teeny little tattoos that say shit like 'power' and lineart of like a sunflower? Has the weirdly cryptic instagram?" Erik butted in as you nodded. "She, I'm not gonna degrade her tattoo choices. It's her body. The only reason it's an issue is that she gets them because her sister has them and they're constantly competing." You confessed, as if it were some dirty, well kept secret, rather than small town gossip.

Erik laughed softly as he carefully looked you over and hummed to himself. "You are, real apathetic for someone wearing lavender…" he commented as you rolled your eyes. "Yeah, yeah…real funny," though your smile showed it did amuse you. "Anyways, when do you need this cake by? And the cupcakes?" You asked as Julia carefully bit her lip. "Saturday? Like…four days from now? I'm willing to pay extra! And we need it delivered?" She insisted as you nodded softly.

"I can do it but there's a rush fee…that I'm willing to waive," you started, trying to keep their attention. "In exchange for you guys watching the door so I can run to the bathroom and eat my lunch," you insisted as Julia nodded carefully. "Yeah! Yeah we can do that! Do we need to sell anything?" She insisted as you shook your head. "Just watch the door and tell them I'll be right with them." You insisted as you ran off, leaving the siblings together

"They're really nice," Bobby insisted as he worked on polishing off a third cookie, carefully wiping the icing off his face with the back of his wrist as Julia nodded. "So nice, I think they were on student council in high school, wicked smart, also in the like, culinary class? I liked them then, like them now." She insisted, glancing at Erik who was just staring at the spot where you had previously stood.

"Hellooooo, earth to KiKi. C'mon…you okay?" She insisted as he nodded lightly. "Yeah! Yeah I'm…I'm good just, thinking," he insisted, but he didn't know how to vocalize what was going on in his brain. He'd come across you a few times on tinder, seen you at HighDive, which was a local bar, and now here. It was a small town, yeah, but it was like you perpetually caught his attention. He wasn't sure how to deal with that, he hadn't dated seriously in a while, and hookups had lost their thrill, and you just constantly seemed to be around.

He wasn't sure when you came back, trapped in his own thought about you before being jostled by Bobby, his eyes focusing on the huge peanut butter fudge brownie you held out in front of him. "Earth to emooo…you in there?" You probed as he snorted but took the brownie, he didn't even remember ordering a brownie. Turning to look at Julia who was housing a strawberry cheesecake cookie. "Sorry uh, yes I'm here…not emo either but uhh, how much do we,"

"They're free, they said they liked us enough for free shit," Julia insisted as she tapped her phone on the card reader for the cake and cupcakes, waving bye as she led the pack out of there, Erik glancing back at you as you called out you'd see them Saturday with desserts as promised. Watching them go before prepping for closing, four days till Saturday.

-

It was a Tuesday night, and you as usual, had no real plans, scrolling mindlessly on your phone before getting a text from Cooper, a longtime friend, and a really bad influence.

'Heyyyyy :)'

'Yeah?'

'You busy? Like genuinely busy?'

'No, what's up?'

'Can you come with me somewhere? I have a piercing appointment at Stick It Out, need moral support.'

'Yeah, okay sure'

You carefully got yourself off the couch, pulling on a generic zip up and some dolphin shorts, shucking off your house slippers for some actual outdoor shoes and texting Cooper that you'd meet him at the piercing shop. Making sure you'd grabbed your phone, keys and wallet before fully heading out.

It was a crisp October day, and the shop downtown wasn't more than a fifteen minute walk, so you'd opted for that rather than taking your car and fighting for parking…even though it was 8pm on a Tuesday and nobody went out, you just liked walking!

You stared up at the large sign for Stick It Out, the neons flickering and the glass a bit foggy from the warm sun casting against the glass cooled by the air conditioning. Carefully stepping inside as the bell above the door jingled, frowning at how dark it was inside. Was it because of an acquired ambiance, or was it to hide the shoddy work done, but either way it was a little unsettling.

"Are you stalking me? Or something?" It came from behind you, startling you enough to yelp as you whipped around to face whoever it was, Eric carefully looking you over as you shook your head. "Good lord no, my buddy just, has an appointment, and im meeting him here for moral…support." You elaborated as Eric puttered his lips, rolling his eyes a bit harsher than anticipated. "His names, uh, Cooper…" you murmured as Erik nodded softly.

"Yeah, he's uh, a regular flake. This is his last appointment, and if he's not here on time, blacklist." He accentuated his statement by swiping his pen across the legal pad in front of him. Stark black lines as you snorted lightly, carefully watching him before taking a seat on the cracked pleather couch.

"If he's not here on time, what're you gonna do?" You questioned as Erik carefully wiped down the glass countertops of the piercing case and glancing up at you as he hummed to himself. "If he doesn't come in, then i get to close up shop and head on home." He insisted as you carefully looked over the set on the walls, vintage flash, American traditional, foam heads with piercings and drawn on tattoos and faces.

"What if um…you had a walk in?" You questioned as he quirked a brow, looking you over before rounding the counter. Lightly grabbing your face as he sighed lightly to himself. "We could do a septum, you've got the anatomy…" he felt the middle of your nose before humming. "Or studs right here," he tapped the sides of your nose as he laughed. "Stick your tongue out…" he insisted as you furrowed your brows, slowly sticking your tongue out.

He gripped your tongue carefully, gloved index finger running over the underside before shaking his head. "Nope, not gonna work out…" he insisted calmly. "And I don't think your first piercing should be anything surface…or your chest, or anything lower." He advised gently. "Professionals opinion."

You carefully grabbed his wrist, his eyes coming back to your face as his cheeks flushed pink. "Shit sorry, uhhh…" he let go of your tongue as you rolled it over the roof of your mouth and pursed your lips, your throat felt tight. "If you want anything, and he doesn't show up, I can most definitely squeeze you in." He assured. "A squeeze for a squeeze."

Your ears felt hot. "Excuse me?"

"My cake? You're squeezing us in to have it by Saturday…don't tell me you've already forgotten." He whined as you laughed lightly.

"It just, your words sounded suggestive, i was just startled. Thought you were flirting with me, and i feel like flirting with clients must be against the rules?"

"Not if they're cute clients."

"You think I'm cute?"

For the first time since you'd met him, it seemed like you'd thrown him off.

"No, yes? It's…okay, you're pretty, yes. But I'm, it's just a general statement." He insisted as you laughed lightly to yourself. "You think you're charming-"

"I know I'm charming."

"Mhm, I'm sure you think you know a lot,"

"Mhm, yeah, uhhhh, where's your lil friend?" He was changing the subject, clearly thrown off as he slowly licked his lower lip in mild agitation.

"Should beeee…not tonight," you frowned as you checked your phone and sighed in frustration to yourself. "Says something came up, boyfriend needs him…"

"I think he's just a pussy." Erik insisted as you scoffed, defensive about your friend and his troubles. "He's always flaking, the latest appointment in the day, and he never shows." Erik explained as you sighed in frustration, you could sympathize as someone who provided a service. "Think about it, someone keeps ordering forty cupcakes, they keep ordering, you prep and get ready and they never pick it up. You've already turned away other orders and everything, and then you're out of luck on everything. Ingredients, time, packaging." He tried to relate as you nodded, drumming your fingers on your knees lightly.

"Sooo…does that mean you can like…pierce my face?" You questioned as Erik groaned loudly, hands on his head as he spun on his heel to look at you. "Sure, if it means I didn't waste all my time on prep? Yeah…" he insisted, clearly still irritated by the fact he was led in another circle by Cooper.

"Alright, fill these out…and i will get your jewelry prepped." He insisted calmly as he slid the clipboard over and carefully tossed you a pen.

"If you're not up for it, you don't have to pierce me." You assured as you filled out all of the required information and Erik shook his head, carefully glancing back at you. "It's not your fault, I'm just an asshole," he assured as he grinned, tongue poking between his teeth as he carefully turned back to wiping the chair.

"Then, yeah I do want you to pierce my septum." You insisted as Eric grinned to himself carefully, delicately thrumming his fingers over the back of the chair and glanced back at you. "Okay then, take a seat…" he insisted softly as you nodded, walking over eagerly and taking a seat in the raised chair, the pleather sticking to the undersides of your legs and your forearms, the scent of iodine and a scented candle somewhere caused you to wince a bit.

"Okay…gonna be a slight pressure~" he got the pliers aligned in your nose as you winced at the clamping, his eyes flicking from the tip of your nose to your eyes as he tutted lightly. "C'mon you got it…deep breath, there you go…it's gonna feel like a pinch okay? You've got it."

"Okay…" you insisted, now your assuredness was dwindling as you felt the cold and sharp tip of the needle push, gritting your teeth lightly and feeling your leg raise as you whimpered. "Fuck fuck fuck-" your eyes watered a bit, though it wasn't full crying. "Shhhh, almost done…you got it, sweets," he was gentle as he spoke, threading the jewelry through and twisting the ball end onto it. Gently using a q-tip to dab away the blood.

"There you go…real cute." He pat your thigh, moving beside you as he held a mirror up, grinning over your shoulder and watching as you looked yourself over. "Looks good, glad to take your virginity~" he teased as you playfully smacked his shoulder. "You are so gross!" You laughed as you moved to stand, Erik striding over to the register as you followed quietly.

"That, is gonna run youuu…nothing. Since you're being such a good sport about my birthday," he insisted as you rolled your eyes, shoving a twenty into the tip jar. "I'll see you Saturday, Erik."

"Likewise…"

-

Saturday felt like it had practically skipped every other day in the week, you'd worked so hard on perfecting the damn cupcakes that you fell behind on actual work, not that anyone would actually notice. Nobody ever came in, and you felt like you were throwing away more and more each day.

You carefully double checked the address before rolling up the driveway, sandwiched between cars much more expensive than your little sedan and made sure to balance the baked goods as best as you could. Slamming the door shut with your foot and heading into the backyard, since a sign let you know the party was going on back there.

Everyone looked, so textbook. Like the mannequins of a family in an Old Navy, but significantly less unsettling, and Erik stood out with an adorably silver party hat and littered in black amongst a sea of J.Crew and Kohls catalogue clothing.

"There you are! Shit, did i give you the wrong time?" Julia ran over to you, your body turning to protect the cake and cupcakes. "No no, i was just running late…still had to close at the bakery and I'm so sorry," you insisted as she waved it off. "You're totally fine…you busy?" She prompted as you shook your head. "Cool, then you're staying." She insisted, and you tried to come to with an excuse, really. But her family was already coming over, welcoming you with open arms. It would be unsettling if it wasn't how everyone acted in this idiotically kind town.

You were sat by the fire pit, watching as Charlie and Stefani worked on s'mores, arguing over the logistics of the perfect marshmallow burnt-ness. Your smile felt impossibly natural, and it only brightened as a very tipsy, but not quite drunk Erik made his way over to you. Charlie and Stefani taking it as their cue to leave as you frowned lightly, watching them wish their goodbyes as they left with Marty. Turning your attention back to Erik as you sighed softly to yourself.

"Heyyyy~ how's that septum holding up?" He prompted as he dropped onto the chair next to you, offering you a beer which you took without complaint. "It's really good, more compliments than i expected to get." You confessed as his hand clapped your shoulder, shaking you lightly as he nodded his head. "You look real cute, but not totally hardcore you know?" He insisted as you quirked an eyebrow up at him. "And what would make me hardcore, Erik?" You questioned softly as you leaned forward. His eyes flicking from your eyes to your lips as you sighed lightly.

"Couple of tattoos maybe…" he insisted. "But you gotta let me do em…I don't trust anyone else not to fuck you up,"

"Fuck me up?"

"Yeah…fuck you up, you're uh…you're the perfect canvas, and you're sweet, pretty…someone could mess it up. Make it hurt when it doesn't have too, i can make it as gentle or as rough as you need…" he was definitely using more liquid courage than he knew what to do with. It was clearly a deliberate euphemism now.

You swallowed the swig of beer that was warming in your mouth as you slowly looked Erik over. "Listen, I'm tipsy yeah, but i know what I'm saying. I told Jules to ask you to stay, I gave you a free piercing because i thought you were cute, I thought about coming into the bakery like six times over the past four days but kept backing out. I am…crazy about you, I cannot get you out of my fucking head, and I'm not saying you gotta say anything i just…i needed to tell you before i drove myself insane, okay? I just…it's okay, if you're not ready but I'd be stupider than I already am not to say anything…you have my number." He whispered, the crackling of the fire the perfect backdrop to his soft whispers as you frowned deeply to yourself.

You carefully pushed your hair back, you needed time to think, and you knew that. This was, strong, but honest, transparent, truthful. He was interested more than you knew, and you wouldn't deny you felt the same damn things.

You turned your head, noticing his family had all entirely retired inside. Carefully looking back over at Erik before leaning in a little bit. Testing the waters as he moved forwards to meet you halfway. Your breath fanning over one another's lips, your eyes flicking frantically from his and back down as you shuddered lightly. Your noses bumping lightly before you cried out in mild pain, your septum snagging his as you recoiled.

"Fuck! I'm sorry, sweets."

"No no it's…I should go, it's late."

"Sweets, I'm- fuck I'm so sorry."

"It's, Erik really I should, go…" you turned on your heel, heading out of the back gate as you heard Erik following, hopping into your car and wincing as you struggled to get the engine to turn over. Looking up at Erik in the glow of your headlights as the engine sputtered to life. Reversing out of the driveway, and possibly from one of the best things that could've happened to you.

-

Days turned into weeks, and you thought about texting Erik. Hovering over that little blue arrow and swiping out of your messages. Becoming friends with Julia, who encouraged you to try, reach out to Erik. Weeks became months, you quit the stupid Sugar Shack and opened up your own little place on seventh street, with a business loan. You couldn't quit thinking about Erik, baking cookies the size of softballs and struggling to swallow the fact that you ran. You always ran. You were so good at running. You shot down a guy before you even got to chance what could've been.

"Stace, I'm uh…I am gonna go get lunch, ill be back in an hour," you told the young girl working the counter as she nodded eagerly, working with her little team to box up cookies for the farmers market on Saturday. It was nice, being able to own something and wholeheartedly care about the team that made it.

You made your way a couple of doors down, stopping inside a small sandwich shop, 'Subs'A'Plenty, carefully ordering off the little kiosk and going to wait patiently for it by the pickup counter. You idly scrolled through your Instagram before feeling a pair of eyes on you, carefully glancing over in the direction and coming eye to eye with Erik who was practically boring holes into you.

You slowly raised a hand to wave at him, and he did so back, albeit a bit surprised as he carefully walked over and you swallowed the lump in your throat. You could argue it was the tail end of a post Christmas cold.

"Hey…"

"Hi, Erik."

"Listen I'm so-"

"I'm sorry."

His eyes widened as his brows furrowed, slowly digesting your apology as you continued.

"I should've texted you, and I should've said something, anything. It wasn't fair to you, it wasn't cool. I was flirting too, and I choked up, and…and I messed things up. It's not your fault, I got scared. I ran." You insisted as you slowly wrung out your fingers.

"You could make it up to me…we could start over?" Erik insisted as you slowly swallowed your doubts and fears, your innate need to run from something possibly dependable. A flaky job, and a flaky friend, and now you had…better friends, you had a better job, you made a way for yourself. So why couldn't you have this?

"Okay…it's nice to meet you, total stranger, at this sandwich place, and wow you're really cute! We should go on a date!"

"Wow, total completely unknown stranger, I'm Erik! It's great to meet you, yeah we totally should go on a date. How about my place for a movie?" He smiled wide as you nodded. "I'm off at eight, I'll be there at eight thirty."

-

You had closed your shop a little early, to find some clothes that were, casual enough for movie night, but didn't suggest you were staying the night either. Coming on too strong was…well it wasn't your style. So you settled on some joggers and a sweater from a local coffee shop, made sure you didn't smell anymore like icing and flour than you could have, and made your way to the Campbell family home.

This time, you had the luxury of using the front door, carefully knocking as Brenda let you in, making small talk with you as you followed her into the kitchen. "You, are going to have so much fun. I am so glad you two reconnected…we kept heading into Sugar Shack to see you but you were never in!"

"Oh! I opened my own…place, actually!" You insisted as you smiled wide, carefully reaching for the glass of wine she offered you as you sipped it lightly.

"That's great to know! I'm so excited that now we know where to find you! I'll make sure to stop by…" she insisted as you smiled. "I told Julia to tell you all but, I guess some things just get lost in translation." You insisted, though you had told Julia not to tell Erik, and Brenda likely would have shared with him so you understood.

"Anyways, let me get out of your hair, enjoy your date…" she insisted, though it was clear there was more she wanted to share. "I'm…I'm very glad you're here. Erik has been just, in pieces, and Jules told me you also…kind of…were experiencing your own grief over the situation. I think you both, deserve each other. A nice thing." She insisted as you laughed lightly. "I'm gonna have to agree, we do deserve nice things."

"I am, so thrilled to hear that sweetheart…maybe I'll see you around the house more?" She questioned as you laughed lightly. "Hopefully,"

She smiled, glancing a bit past you before nodding to take her leave, causing you to turn around to face Erik in a pair of black sweats and a graphic tee for a band you didn't know. Or maybe you did? The metal font made it hard to tell. Smiling at him as he carefully walked over, hand guiding itself across your waist before pouring himself a glass of wine.

"Soooo, we have a couple of options, for our little date. I already took snacks, and stuff…toooo my room? It's the attic-…picked it as a teenager and decided not to move back down, but uhhh…options! Yeah, sooo, there's Scream~ there's uhhh, Sleepaway Camp which is, crazy old school~ and then there's Grave Encounters, but only the second one, I can't find my copy of the first one." He listed as you nodded along, sipping your wine.

"Grave Encounters two, sounds really good. I've seen the first one, so I'm thrilled there's a sequel," you insisted softly as he carefully took your hand, leading you down the hall, up the stairs, and quietly up into the attic as you grinned lightly to yourself.

It was a good setup, a little living room, an actual separated bedroom, and a small bathroom. These people really loved their kids, zero questions. You carefully got situated on the couch as Erik setup the movie, grinning wide at you as he made his way over to you.

"Soooo, how was work?" He pried as he carefully moved to sit beside you, pulling your legs into his lap as he grinned lightly to himself, earning a laugh as you watched the movie as best as you could.

"Good, own my own place now…uhhh, oh I made these huge, I mean huge, peanut butter chocolate mousse pies? They're massive, Erik…but they sell so well~" you cooed as he massaged your calves lightly, listening quietly as you gently adjusted to watch the movie better.

"Sounds like I'm gonna have to stop by, without Bobby so I don't kill him, huh?" He questioned as you grinned lightly, carefully running your fingertips over your own thighs.

"Wouldn't recommend giving it to him unless you were planning to kill him…"

"I'd only kill Bobby if it was for a good reason,"

"Oh yeah, I bet."

"You are, painfully sarcastic." You commented as he leaned towards you, gently pulling you closer by your ankles so your legs hung over the edge of the couch, halfway in his lap as you scoffed lightly. This was comfortable. Fast, but comfortable.

You rolled your eyes as you sat up, flipping so your head was in his lap, his fingers lazily running through your hair, nails taking across your scalp as you hummed lightly.

"You look like the main guy in this movie…Alex?"

"Do not."

"Do so~" you pressed a light kiss to his clothed thigh as he looked back down at you.

"I really don't~"

"But you doooo. He's got your eyes. No tattoos or good piercings, but he's got your eyes." You insisted as he carefully pulled your chin to look up at him, looks like the movie was gonna be background noise.

"You know what else he doesn't have?"

"I have a feeling you're gonna tell me." You moved to sit up to keep talking, all these angles and adjustments were getting uncomfortable.

"He doesn't have, a very cute baker, with a beautifully healed septum, kissing up on his thighs." He murmured as you rolled your eyes lightly.

"I kissed your thigh once, only once…" you insisted as you carefully pressed a kiss to his cheek, his eyes moving down your face back to your lips.

You smiled lightly, carefully moving to hold the sides of his face, letting your breath fan over one another's faces once more. Humming to yourself as you carefully scanned his eyes for any hesitance, only eager patience within them. Slowly moving forward to kiss him.

He tasted like menthol and tobacco, his facial hair grazed your skin. Your eyes fluttering shut as he moved to hold your waist. His wanting hands pulling you closer as you hummed contentedly to yourself. Months is waiting were paying off, and it was paying off in dividends.

He nipped at your lower lip, pierced tongue making its way past your teeth as you moaned lightly. Hands darting through his hair and nails across his scalp as he tugged at the loose material of your top.

"Can I…" he pulled away for air, for permission, easing your shirt over your head as you laughed lightly to yourself and slowly easing your top off as he shuddered lightly.

"Whoa, okay you are…way more into me than I realized~" you laughed as your fingertips grazed her his clothed cock, it twitching at your featherlight touches as you grinned lightly.

"Are you kidding? I'm fucking crazy about you…" he murmured as you carefully slid off the couch, on your knees between his legs as he made a show of looking up at the sky, clutching his hands together, and mouthing a 'thank you' up at nothing in particular as you snorted lightly.

"You are so goddamn dramatic…" you insisted as you carefully pressed gentle kisses along the clothed shaft, even through his sweats and boxers, it seemed to be affecting him immensely. Whining softly and biting down on his lower lip as you rolled your eyes.

"Wait, wait wait wait…shit-" he pulled your head up as you whined in agitation, and at the incredible ache in your scalp. "How…okay, how rough on like, a scale of one to ten?" He prompted as you hummed in thought, slowly running your hands over the tops of his thighs. "Let's just, see what comes naturally, and I will tell you if anything makes me uncomfortable?" You offered as he grinned, kissing the top of your head as you hummed softly. "There you go, sweets…wanna make me happy?"

"The happiest boy in the whole wide world!~" you teased, mimicking one of your first interactions as he laughed lightly to himself. "You are so fucking annoying-"

"Can we stop giggling so I can suck your dick, please?" She questioned as he grinned to himself and carefully raised his hips to work his sweats down.

Erik was…big, not huge, nothing unrealistic, but he was big, and decently thick. A beautiful Prince Albert and the starting rungs of a Jacob's ladder decorating his tip and shaft. Your eyes raking over him as he pulled you up by your hair to look at him.

"I want you to sit on your hands, there you go sweets…now open, open wide…" he insisted as you carefully obliged, tongue past your lower lip a bit as you let him hold the sides of your head and ease himself into your mouth.

A thing you'd quickly learn, was that Erik was a bit of a sadist. Moving quick enough to make you gag a bit, but slow enough not to injure you. Groaning softly as you felt your lips lightly stretch around him. Moaning softly as he eased inch by inch into your wanting mouth. His eyes narrowed in on the way your lashes fluttered, the slow exhales out your nose as he hummed contentedly to himself. "Relax, you got it…" he murmured, easing himself fully into your mouth as you whined softly.

The semi cool metal of his piercings pressed into your tongue, gently grazing the back of your throat as he ran a hand down your back lightly, bending over so his torso kept you pressed into him. "See? Told you you've got it." He laughed lightly, listening to the huff you pressed out your nose before moving to sit back down, mostly wanting to watch.

You bobbed your head slowly, mindful of his piercings as they dragged against the soft top of your tongue, the roof of your mouth. Whining lightly as it took a little more effort than anticipated to move smoothly. His hips rutting lightly as he mumbled under his breath. Slowly taking hold of the sides of your head as he moved you at a pace that better suited his needs.

"Look how pretty you are, sweets. Don't gotta do any of the work, lemme handle it. Fucking that pretty mouth of yours, like you were made for me-" his words were breathy, desperate. Clearly in control but, letting himself melt into the pleasure. "God you're real pretty, you know that?" He laughed lightly, knowing you couldn't respond to all his questions. Your drool collecting in a sweet ring at his base as he hummed, picking up his phone beside him as he pushed your head fully to the base, a soft gag leaving you but nothing that was uncomfortable.

"Look at me…there you go." He carefully took a couple of pictures, your eyes half lidded, hair tousled, nothing but adoration and lust in your eyes as he pay your cheek firmly. "God, I'd really love to keep you like this all night, believe me I would…but I really wanna fuck you." He insisted firmly as you went to lift your head, earning a firm grip to the back of your neck, keeping you in place.

"Aht…that doesn't mean I'm done." He chastised as he pouted condescendingly. "Just relax, you can't be that desperate for me ti fuck you~" he laughed as he held the sides of your head again, moving you a bit faster as breathy moans spilled past his lips, thighs tensing as he panted lightly. "Don't swallow till I fucking tell you, kay?"

You could barely focus, that heat in your stomach was impossible to ignore, feeling yourself clench around nothing, the quaking in your thighs. God you wanted Erik so fucking bad. You needed him to fuck you stupid. Life was stressful, it was nice not to think, let him do all of that for you. Whining softly as you gripped the undersides of your thighs, obedience was key in a moment like this.

Erik hissed a curse through clenched teeth as he pulled back halfway, your eyes widening a bit as you felt him cum on your tongue, eyes flicking back up to him as a bit spilled past the corners of your lips. Erik panting softly as he pet your hair back and slowly pulled himself all the way out.

"Stick your tongue out…that's it." He held your jaw as he took another picture, humming contentedly as you waited patiently for the all clear. His ringed hand patting your cheek as you took it as the cue to swallow.

"If you post those-" you started as he gripped your jaw a bit tighter, leaning down so you were inches from each other. "As if I'd let anybody else see you like this," he placed a chaste kiss to your glossed lips before moving back to pat the couch.

"C'mon sweets…face down, hips up." He insisted as you carefully obliged his request, whining to yourself as you positioned yourself on the well loved couch. Knees sinking into the cushions as your chin rested on the arm of the couch and you sighed softly to yourself.

Erik's hands gripped at the waistband of both of your bottom layers, pulling them off in quick succession as you bit your lip, waiting patiently as Erik laughed lightly to himself. Pressing light kisses to the backs of your thighs, along the curve of your ass, relaxing at the treatment before yelping harshly as he bit your left cheek a bit harder than you'd expect, granted, you didn't expect him to bite your ass. His votes trailed down the backs of your thighs as she whimpered loudly.

"Erik-…" you whined, writhing in anticipation, and the ache of bite marks littered across your skin as you whimpered desperately to yourself. Erik pressing soft kisses along his trail of bites as he rubbed your hips lightly. "Relax…just having fun with you…" he insisted as you glared lightly over your shoulder.

"Erik I swear to god, are you going to fuck me or not-mnhhh-" you were cut off by him already easing the tip of himself into you, the Prince Albert slowly dragging against your walls, the rings of the Jacob's ladder following suit as your eyes rolled and lips curled into a tight 'o' as he laughed lightly.

"Jesus Christ, no patience with you, is there." He laughed as you panted softly, eyes lightly stinging at the stretch, but wasn't the ache just incredible. "Ffffuck…Erik you gotta warn me-" you were cut off again by him rutting his hips, the head of his cock scraping that sweet spot that made your thighs quiver and knees buckle as you whined.

"Shhh, less talking, more moaning." He insisted as your brows furrowed. "You are so corny…"

"Yet I'm inside you, so just relax and take it like you've been begging for, please?" He insisted as you laughed softly to yourself, it littered with breathy moans as he hummed to himself.

He let you adjust fully as he bottomed out, busying himself with kisses along your shoulders and the back of your neck, massaging your hips, nails raking down the sensitive skin of your sides as you shuddered and whined up at him.

"You got it sweets…" he assured, pressing one last kiss before pulling back and rolling his hips in one fluid motion, so filling it felt like it punched the air out of your lungs as you groaned desperately. Gripping at the cushions as he laughed lightly, panting softly as he repeated his movements, setting a steady rhythm.

"I am fucking, crazy about you. I haven't quit fucking thinking about you…how bad I want you, how pretty those eyes of yours are, how sweet you are, how you take care of everyone…anyone ever take care of you sweets?"

You couldn't get words out, your brain felt entirely decorative at this point as you moaned through grit teeth, shaking your head at him as he laughed lightly. "Didn't think so, so that's my job. Fuck you stupid, don't have to stress out about anything if you can't think about it." You assured as he hummed softly to himself. "Gonna make you feel like nothing matters, all that does matter? Is letting me fuck you, okay?" He ran it by you, earning a swift nod as you panted loudly to yourself.

His free hand slid down your spine, coming up over your left shoulder as he took light hold of the sides of your neck, lightly choking you as he thrusted. Panting softly as he laughed to himself. "See? Look how much easier that is, moaning and taking my cock…" he murmured as he squeezed a bit, an action that caused you to tighten around him and a strangled moan to leave you as he laughed lightly.

"You're a fucking freak, okay…good to know…" he insisted as he let go and pressed your fave into the arm of the couch, encouraging you to bite down on the fabric as he bottomed out and held himself firmly in place, no longer relenting to you.

"If you want it, work for it…" he insisted as you whined loudly to yourself, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, you loved setting the pace! You just wished it wasn't depriving you of his hips slamming against your ass at a speed you wouldn't be able to replicate without leverage.

You whined as you rolled your hips back, whimpering loudly as you muffled your own moans, Erik groaning desperately as he carefully bucked his hips whenever he knew it would catch you off guard. One of your hands sliding down your tummy to take care of yourself as you sped up, Erik laughing softly at your desperation, though you kept punching the air out of his lungs each time you'd bottom out on his cock and clench, slowly dragging yourself up the rungs of the ladder as he whimpered desperately.

You felt that familiar warmth in your chest, the tightening of your core, the way your thighs quivered as Erik started sloppily thrusting to meet you in the middle. Clearly reaching his ending point as you panted softly. "Fuck fuck fuck, don't stop-" you whined as Erik laughed lightly, rutting into you as he tried to keep himself from cumming before you. "Whatever you need, sweets."

You arched your back lightly as you cried out, nails digging into the plush cushions as you felt yourself tighten up, lashes fluttering as you rode out your orgasm. Arms shaking and chest heaving, Erik fucking you through it before he bottomed out, hips flexing and cock twitching as he pumped you full. Hands rubbing over your sides as he kissed along your shoulders and neck.

He grinned lightly as he carefully pulled away and eased himself out of you, earning a displeased whine from you that he shut up with a kiss, laughing against your lips as your brows furrowed.

"Good movie."

"Great movie…"

"Stay the night?"

"Erik? I'll stay forever if you want…"

[stackslip]

other mutual just pointed it out on the dash but all these discussions on "(gendered term) is always neutra bc i use it this way l" "(gendered term) is never neutral because it posits masculine as default" "(gendered term) can be used as neutral but you should avoid in these circumstances" hit particularly here when my first language automatically imposes masculine as neutral and default (or more to the point as *dominant*), to the point where if there's a group of a hundred women and a single guy you are expected to switch to masculine forms anyway

and when feminists and trans people and linguists suggested very gently adopting more neutral forms (nvm feminizing language), everyone from the president and academy to random strangers lost their minds entirely and still do. it's more common in activists groups to use this language and it often comes with a huge stigma and barrier of complaints about accessibility and being Too Woke—i wouldnt be surprised if it gets banned entirely in official forms in the future.

and tbc often i find the default gender neutral language ("tou.te.s" "auteur.rice") used feels clunky and we really should have a broader reflection of how best to ungender french but as it is, near all of it has been captured by The Evil Feminists Are Destroying Our Language. in a time of record anti-feminism and doubling down on positing a certain form of cis manhood as not only the default but the only correct way of doing things, near everywhere in the world, im ngl i think rethinking one's base assumptions about language neutrality is worth diving into. i dont think it's worth say making a federal case if someone's slipped when talking to a group, and i myself am tutoring foreigners in french and have to stick to Masculine As Neutral both in accordance to the org's policies and bc i cannot prioritize spending the time i have with people tutoring them about this stuff when they are struggling to hear the difference between "et" and "a"—and herein lies the problem doesn't it. it's never really a priority even though it governs so many assumptions about who's centered and even though it's making life more hostile for people already in agony. hell like ive mentioned before but being nb in france and trying to use any gender neutral language for yourself is something you either give up on entirely soon or get immediately, violently clocked as such and treated with contempt/hostility or at best, like you're a delicate whining flower. so uh. anyway thinking of any language as Neutral or Default already comes with its own bag of assumptions is what im saying

[schattenhonig]

The A in LGBTQIA+ doesn't stand for aspec because they're not repressed!

(please read the disclaimer at the end of this post)

Ummm, excuse me? Would you mind telling me what your definition of repression is, then?

Because I feel repressed when a doctor asks me about my sex life, and if I say I have none, it gets marked down as a symptom without being asked if I suffer from it.

I feel repressed when my gyn tells me I can't get a hysterectomy yet despite losing so much blood on every period that I need to take iron supplements all the time, because I could change my mind about not wanting children (which is a whole other post, I know, but it's most likely linked to sex).

I feel repressed if I can't use dating apps or platforms because my sexuality doesn't even exist there, and the one time I tried, I got called names because I didn't want to meet for because it was clear where this date would go, despite my explicit "what I'm looking for".

I feel repressed when I think about how recently a paragraph was finally abolished in my country that considered sex a vital part of a marriage, basically entitling the spouses to having sex with their partner (both gender neutral, because entitling people to having sex with somebody else by law is wrong. It's basically a rape permission).

I feel repressed when I can't watch any film or show without it being about love and/or sex, no matter if it fits the narrative and furthers the plot.

I feel repressed when I plot my own stories and automatically put a romantic couple in there as main characters, even though I have no idea why this would be important for the plot. Not even my own stories, my own thoughts are mine.

I felt repressed when I was asked accusingly in a relationship if I wasn't missing something before I even knew asexuality as a spectrum was a thing, and having to lie about this being a side effect of my medication instead of genuinely not feeling attracted to someone in this way.

I feel repressed when I can't tell people I'm not sexually attracted to them because they will take this personally no matter how well I explain myself.

I feel repressed when everywhere I look there's advertising relying on naked skin, suggestive posing and objectification. Why are expensive cars still presented by women considered beautiful and tempting? It's not like that's necessary to convince people of spending so much money on a thing that gets you from A to B. Couches with women in smart dresses and high heels. That's not what a normal person looks like on a couch. But the worst is a truck in the town where I live: it's from a small fruit and vegetable stand, so whenever I see it, it comes from the warehouse, delivering groceries. On it is a woman clad in very little, presenting fruit. I'm sorry, but why? Does a misogynistic picture convince you of the necessity to avoid scurvy?

I feel repressed when I tell people and get the answer "you just haven't found the right person yet", because there are two possible assumptions from that point: I'm either not trying hard enough (so it's basically my own fault) or something about me is not right, appalling even (which circles back to I'm not trying hard enough or frames me as a victim of my genetics, upbringing or circumstances to be pitied).

Do not tell me how I feel. Do not try to tell me everything is fine and I shouldn't complain or ask for acknowledgement if everywhere I look, I'm reminded of how odd, how weird and how not normal I am. How much it inconveniences you to even acknowledge my existence, let alone respect any of my traits, views and choices.

And while I can only write from my own asexual point of view, I wrote this with all kinds of flavours of aspec in mind, so I'm explicitly including aromantics, aroace people and every shade of the spectrum in this. Not all my examples may apply to you, but I hope you can find something to relate to.

ETA: please feel free to add your own experiences of repression!

[blueiscoool]

A photo of the body casts of two adults and two children who died in what's now called the house of the golden bracelet in Pompeii. A new DNA analysis shows that these four people are not genetically related to one another. (Image credit: Archeological Park of Pompeii).

DNA Analysis Rewrites The Stories of People Buried in Pompeii

An ancient-DNA analysis of victims in Pompeii who died in Mount Vesuvius' eruption reveals some unusual relations between the people who died together.

Ancient DNA taken from the Pompeii victims of Mount Vesuvius' eruption nearly 2,000 years ago reveals that some people's relationships were not what they seemed, according to a new study.

For instance, an adult who was wearing a golden bracelet and holding a child on their lap was long thought to be a mother with her child. But the new DNA analysis revealed that, in reality, the duo were "an unrelated adult male and child," study co-author David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement.

In another example, a couple who died in an embrace and were "thought to be sisters, or mother and daughter, were found to include at least one genetic male," Reich said. "These findings challenge traditional gender and familial assumptions."

In the study, published Thursday (Nov. 7) in the journal Current Biology, Reich and an international team of researchers looked at the genetics of five individuals who died during the A.D. 79 eruption that killed around 2,000 people.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted, it covered the surrounding area in a deadly layer of volcanic ash, pumice and pyroclastic flow, burying people alive and preserving the shapes of many bodies beneath the calcified layers of ash. The remains of the city were rediscovered only in the 1700s. In the following century, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli perfected his plaster technique, in which he filled in the human-shaped holes left after the bodies had decomposed to create casts of the victims.

The casts of two people who died about 2,000 years ago in the house of the cryptoporticus in Pompeii. A new DNA analysis found that one individual was biologically male, but the sex of the other could not be determined. (Image credit: Archeological Park of Pompeii).

The casts allowed scholars to study the victims in their last moments and make hypotheses about their identities based on details such as their locations, positions and apparel. The problem with this approach, however, was that their interpretations were influenced by modern-day assumptions — for instance, that the four people at the house with the golden bracelet, which included the adult holding the child, were two parents with their children, when in reality none of them were genetically related, the researchers wrote in the study.

For their research, the team analyzed 14 casts and extracted DNA from fragmented skeletal remains in five of them. By analyzing this genetic material, the scientists determined the individuals' genetic relationships, sex and ancestry. The team concluded that the victims had a "diverse genomic background," primarily descending from recent eastern Mediterranean immigrants, per the statement, confirming the Roman Empire's multiethnic reality.

The cast of a person who died in the villa of the mysteries in Pompeii in A.D. 79. (Image credit: Archeological Park of Pompeii).

Our findings have significant implications for the interpretation of archaeological data and the understanding of ancient societies," study co-author Alissa Mittnik, an archaeogeneticist at Harvard Medical School and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said in the statement. "They highlight the importance of integrating genetic data with archaeological and historical information to avoid misinterpretations based on modern assumptions."

It's possible that past misconceptions led to the "exploitation of the casts as vehicles for storytelling," meaning that curators may have manipulated the victims' "poses and relative positioning" for exhibits, the team wrote in the study.

Sex misassignment is "not uncommon" in archaeology, Carles Lalueza-Fox, a biologist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona who specializes in the study of ancient DNA but was not involved with the study, said in an email.

"Of course we look at the past with the cultural eyes of the present and this view is sometimes distorted; for me the discovery of a man with a golden bracelet trying to save an unrelated child is more interesting and culturally complex than assuming it was a mother and her child," Lalueza-Fox said.

By Margherita Bassi.

[lycandrophile]

it's silly but the biggest reason why im not into t yet is bc im so afraid of losing my hair. do you have any solutions/tips for it?

first of all, i don’t think it’s silly — it’s natural to be worried when hair loss is talked about by so many people as like…one of the worst results of aging for men. listening to my dad talk about how much he hates balding definitely did not make me feel particularly good about the knowledge that i may very well be joining him someday. i’m not saying the fear is right, because i don’t think hair loss is something awful that we should avoid at all costs, but it’s an understandable fear given the beauty standards we’re working with, and it’s one that a lot of us (myself included) feel.

one thing that’s helped me is just…paying more attention to the guys that i interact with on a daily basis. i’ve learned two things from it: 1) hair loss is super fucking common. i’d say it’s much harder to find an adult man who isn’t balding at all than it is to find one who’s completely bald. and 2) if you forget everything you’ve been told about how bad hair loss is, you’ll realize that quite frankly, every single one of those guys looks totally fucking fine. it doesn’t ruin their appearance and make them ugly, it looks totally natural and isn’t really even something you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. we put so much weight on it but it’s really just not that big of a deal. i’ll hear my parents talk shit about men in my family who are losing their hair when i didn’t even notice a difference last time i saw them. it’s one of those things (like so many other appearance-related things) that you really only notice at all because you’ve been taught that you’re supposed to care about it.

this isn’t something i’ve done personally, but if you really want to desensitize yourself to the idea of it, embrace the time-honored queer tradition of just shaving your whole damn head! find out what you’d look like without hair, find out how you feel about it and what you can do that makes you feel good about your appearance without hair, test the waters while it’s still a temporary change and not something permanent. that way, it won’t feel like this big scary unknown, and you’ll actually have a frame of reference for your feelings about how you look without hair rather than accepting the societal assumption that you’ll inevitably hate it. if you don’t want to actually shave your head, you could also just fuck around with bald filters or photoshop and see what happens.

oh, and if you’re attracted to men, keep an eye out for guys who are bald or balding and also hot as fuck. in my experience, there’s no insecurity or potential future insecurity that being gay for other men hasn’t helped me with. just off the top of my head, i can think of a couple actors who i think are absolutely fucking gorgeous who have helped me get over my fears about losing my hair. despite what our anti-aging-obsessed world might want you to think, there is no such thing as a physical feature that automatically makes someone less attractive, and while making attractiveness less of a priority in your life is good, it can’t hurt to also give yourself some proof that actually, you might lose your hair and look hot as hell doing it.

basically, entertain the possibility that it won’t be a bad thing at all! whether that’s just because it turns out to be a neutral thing for you or because you end up actually liking it, it’s not an inherently bad thing. i’ve ended up liking a lot of things that were “supposed to” be bad effects of t — i love the weight i’ve gained and the new shape it gives my body, i get a lot of gender euphoria from the fact that my acne is now on parts of my face that i saw a lot of guys in high school get it and i’m not complaining about the scars i get from it either because i’ve always liked the added texture that acne scars give my skin, and so on. i think there’s a lot of joy to be had in the changes we’re taught to fear, once we look past that conditioning and actually explore how we feel about it.

but if it’s something you really don’t want and you just want to improve your chances of not having to deal with it, it’s not like there’s nothing you can do! products like finasteride (oral) and minoxidil (usually topical but i think there might also be oral versions) are pretty commonly used among trans guys, for the purpose of avoiding hair loss and for other reasons, and there are plenty of other anti-hair loss products out there (though i don’t know how effective any one of them might be). if it’s a big enough deal for you, you can just decide that you’ll go off of t if/when you start noticing signs of it, since no longer having higher t levels would stop the process in its tracks. and if you don’t find prevention options that work for you so it ends up happening, you can always explore different hair styles (judging by the pattern of hair loss i see in my family, i suspect that keeping my hair long would make it less obvious if i started losing mine), find your preferred method of covering it when you don’t feel good about it (personally i love a good beanie generally and would probably wear them a lot more if i didn’t have hair to worry about because my main complaint is the way they press my hair onto my neck), or just shave it all off if you don’t like the look of the partial balding but don’t mind a shaved head. the point being — you have options!

at the end of the day, whether you go on t or not, you’re going to see your body change as you age in ways that aren’t always going to be attractive to others or aesthetically pleasing to you. that’s just the reality of having a body. even if you never went on t, you’d get older and you might see your hair thin out even if you don’t bald, you’ll see your skin start to wrinkle and sag in places that used to be smooth, your metabolism might slow or your body fat might start to gather in new places; hell, you might lose your hair for a totally different reason and end up in the same place but without the benefits of having been on t that whole time. life is full of bodily changes like that. transphobes will fearmonger about the permanent changes of testosterone all day long but the truth is, there is no escaping permanent bodily changes. whether or not you go on t, your body now isn’t the same as it will be in 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years, just like it isn’t the same as it was at any point in your life before now. our bodies are never supposed to stop growing and aging and changing throughout our lives. there’s no guaranteeing that we’ll love every single change our bodies go through, but that’s okay! there are so many things in life that are more important than the way our bodies look. even if you go on t and lose your hair and don’t like how it looks, your life won’t be ruined; plenty of other things will bring you joy and more than make up for the insecurities.

just think about the gender euphoria and relief from dysphoria that t could give you. would losing your hair be bad enough to outweigh all of that? or is it just the pressure of a society that decided balding is bad that’s making you fear one single change despite how much joy you could have if you let that fear go? only you can decide if going on t is worth the potential downsides for you, but i suspect that for most of us, the benefits of going on t far outweigh the possibility of side effects like hair loss happening down the line.

[drdemonprince]

I really hated being a woman. The incredibly complex, winking social rules of girlishness were impossible for me to keep up with; the cultural obsession with my curves and the assumption that they existed for becoming a mother and feeding an infant made me go to war with my body. I perseverated over my self-image in destructive ways, spent hours bent over the sink picking at pores and lightening my hair. I raised my voice to make it seem more feminine until doing so gave me laryngitis. I practiced swaying my hips and then fumed at the men who noticed. In contrast to all that, becoming a man felt pretty wonderful for a while. After a lifetime of other people projecting assumptions onto me based on a body that I had not chosen, finally I was in control enough to choose something else. Becoming a man, I thought, was the closest thing to being truly seen as gender neutral, since men were the social default. Intellectually I knew that manhood came with its own set of punishing restrictions and damaging hang-ups, but I hadn’t felt them yet. I was too focused on getting free. But then, I started avoiding mirrors. The man on the other side was a perfectly adequate human being, but he always looked dour, and so boring. I hated smiling as him. Tiredness always clouded his eyes. It made me kind of sad to see him, but I could get away with not thinking about it. I didn’t obsess over his appearance the way I had as a girl. I could let a flyaway hair or a cyst on his back just be for days. But I never delighted in seeing him either. When I looked away, and had no confirmation of what he looked like, he became featureless in my mind, and unappealing. In public, my arms and neck felt stiff all the time. I couldn’t walk down the street with ease, or lose myself in my music. I was so conscious of the space that he occupied, hypervigilant against intruding against anyone, and yet insulted when crowds treated me like I was invisible and bumbled into me. My shoulders kissed my ears and my hands and feet felt like solid concrete, too hard to move. I had escaped the dysphoria of being a woman so totally that now I could recognize there was also a dysphoria to being a man. I was suffering from something my friend Jess White had once named bilateral dysphoria, the confusing push-and-pull of being some kind of nonbinary gender in a world with mostly-binary embodiment and presentation options, and almost exclusively binary social scripts.

Full essay is free to read or have narrate to you at drdevonprice.substack.com

[offsidetracked]

Will, Chance, and the Final Girl Reimagined

Will is at the mercy of circumstance in S1-S4. It's one of the most common criticisms I see from dudebros of his character:

Things just happen to him, and he lets them.

And while that's a one-dimensional take, it's not entirely wrong: Will starts out as the DAMSEL IN DISTRESS who needs to be saved from the horrors after all. He endures, but he doesn't take action. And in the limited capacity he does, he's immediately punished by the narrative for it.

But Will is also clearly a FINAL GIRL.

And that requires agency.

Don't worry Will, you're in good company.

The term final girl was coined by Carol J. Clover in the fantastic Men, Women and Chainsaws, and is a common horror movie trope, especially in slashers.

The final girl is a female character who is the last survivor left to confront the killer. She is usually intelligent, resourceful, and has a moral purity compared to the other characters (avoids sex, drugs, and reckless behavior in general). The final girl is brutally hunted by the killer and often witnesses her friends dying before she starts to fight back, either until she escapes or the killer dies.

Will is already not your average final girl, even if he clearly embodies the core traits of the trope. He is a gender-bent queer version, something that has implications for how the trope will play out in S5.

Things are about to get interesting.

By now, it probably hasn't escaped anyone that there´s a rod motif and allusions to Phineas Gage woven like a red thread through Will's character arc. The last shot we see of him with both is the most on the nose it's been since he destroyed Castle Byers:

Phineas, Phineas... how we obsess over you.

Will is back in Hawkins, and we're reminded that despite being more accepting of his sexuality and embracing his feelings for Mike, he's still very much split. Split by a phallic-looking object.

Clover makes an interesting observation about the phallic, the final girl, and the masculine:

"The tale is no less one of maleness. If the experience of childhood can be—is perhaps ideally—enacted in female form, the breaking away requires the assumption of a phallus. The helpless child is gendered feminine; the autonomous adult of subject is gendered masculine; the passage from childhood to adulthood entails a shift from feminine to masculine."

Childhood is a profoundly feminine period in any person's life. Your power, autonomy, and agency, all traits associated with the masculine, are limited. Instead you are, for better or worse, in a state of reception. You follow, learn, and receive. A highly feminine-coded way of being.

Adolescence is the liminal place where we transition. It's neither childhood nor adulthood but an awkward in-between, like being stuck between two slides in a View-Master.

Teenagers, like the final girl, complete the journey by increasingly stepping into masculine-coded agency. They take action. Often by experimenting.

The final girl takes the step by coming into her sexuality metaphorically: she takes the knife, the chainsaw, or other phallic object from the killer and turns it against him:

"She's the one who killed him. Not because she's a virgin, but because all that repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy. She and the killer have a certain link: sexual repression." —John Carpenter on final girl Laurie Strode

I'm sceptical of Will going the violently confrontational route with Vecna. @pinkeoni made a great point about how it would imply that Will's feminine traits are something that needs to be overcome.

Where other final girls found metaphorical outlets for their sexual energy, Will might confront his more directly. Initially, with someone who is simultaneously a manifestation of his sexual suppression, an attempt to break away from it, and a warped version of what he wants to have with Mike.

Namely, this guy:

Yeah, I know how it sounds. But bear with me a little.

Slashers are generally not kind to sexually active characters; they often meet an untimely death early on in the movie. It's more rule than exception that they're punished for their sexuality.

Who else was punished for their sexuality and seen as morally corrupt by the narrative in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis? Homosexual men.

It's crucial that Will not only explores his sexuality, but also uses it as a vehicle for liberation and agency. He's not going to end up sad and alone by the end of the show. Ultimately, he's going to be rewarded for stepping out of the closet and into himself as a queer young man. He's going to get the happiness he barely dares to dream about.

But if the show has been any indication so far, it's going to be a bumpy, chaotic, and messy ride to get there.

@therainscene has noted how Will's rebellious, defiant side is considerably diminished by the end of S4. The slim hope brought on by the painting is crushed, and he no longer believes a happy ending is possible. But instead of lashing out, he seems almost wistfully accepting. His silent tears in the van are a far cry from his angry outburst in Castle Byers.

He has admitted defeat.

But that doesn't mean he will sit back and do nothing next season. If anything, it's going to be the opposite.

Will's acceptance is his first real step towards autonomy. It's often not until we surrender that we start to exercise our ability to act. And only when we act do we have any say in our story.

Will trails after Mike and El all throughout S4, and while he rekindles his friendship with Mike and manages a couple of stolen moments of flirtatious energy, he's ultimately left wanting. It's not enough anymore. And it seems to be all he's ever going to get.

Add the Phineas No-Longer-Gage aspect of it all, and it's not far-fetched at all to assume that Will is going to engage in some uncharacteristic behaviour next season.

He's going to attempt, and fail, to move on.

Moving on from someone you still have feelings for is messy. You might make some highly questionable choices. Especially if you're a closeted queer teen in the 80s with limited options.

Will exploring and experimenting with his sexuality further subvert the expectations we have of a final girl. Where she uses metaphor and moral purity, Will is going to step away from both in the most hands-on way possible.

It will allow him to "wield the phallus" without compromising or erasing the feminine aspects of his character. Sexuality is inherently feminine and masculine after all. You can't leave any part out if you want to be whole.

According to Jung, sexuality is more than a purely biological drive.

It's a life force, an energy, that drives all human development, including spirituality and creativity. Integrating one's sexuality, including its shadow aspects, is critical if a person wants to move towards psychological wholeness:

"Pressures to conform or deny natural instincts create neuroses and psychological splits between inner needs and outer demands." —Carl Jung

By exploring his sexuality outside of Mike, Will is confronting his sexual shadow and the effects of suppressing it for so long. He's going "dark side" without having to go villain. It would also allow Stranger Things to take the psychoanalytic elements of the final girl trope further than possibly any other piece of horror media.

Dealing with the shadow is no child's play. But Stranger Things has proven to be a show that doesn't shy away from letting its characters handle dark, complex themes.

The AIDS metaphor is going to be more... direct next season.

Awakening Will's sexuality will also, most likely, be intrinsically linked to awakening powers that tie him to the laboratory, El, Vecna, and the UD. How this will play out, I'll leave to smarter people to figure out. What seems plausible is that:

Will's journey will culminate when he steps into his powers: sexual, emotional, and supernatural. Sexual exploration is, in other words, a key to Will fulfilling his role as the final girl and subsequently the entire plot of Stranger Things.

And not all of it can be done with Mike.

He's the one person Will needs a little autonomy from right now. Unpopular opinion perhaps, but I stand by it. Sadly trailing behind him and El simply won't do next season. And it would serve Mike's character arc to get a reality check.

If you snooze, you lose, lover boy.

Once byler come together, and I believe they will, it's going to be on equal footing.

So why Chance, this seemingly random jock? They could do this with a new character just as well.

Because there are clues within the show, at least throughout S4, that imply it will be him. There are way too many to recount here, and I don't view them all as equally credible. But more than enough of them are credible to make me believe this is where the story might be going.

And honestly? I'm pretty excited about it.

[stormlight-drafter]

Was reading through the Cosmere RPG preview and found some interesting lore bits in the Safety chapter. Maybe these things were already known (I haven't read the novellas) but there were some I wasn't aware of.

"Asexuality. All populations on Roshar, regardless of species and culture, include a spectrum of asexual people. Herdazians have a long tradition of valuing people who aren’t interested in sex or producing offspring. Singers, excluding when in mate form, are not expected to show any interest in sex."

I don't think I've ever seen Asexuality specifically called out like this, instead of it just being a footnote in Sexuality sections. Good on Brotherwise. The Singer thing was pretty obvious from Venli's chapters, but I didn't know that about Herdazians. Loving all the lore I'm learning about them from the rpg. Absolutely the most based ethnicity on Roshar.

"Discrimination Based on Eye Shade. The spectrum of eye colors for humans on Roshar is different from our own. Both darkeyes and lighteyes can have violet, blue, green, yellow, gray, or brown eyes."

Full list of possible eye colors. Though idk I'd probably just let my players have red, orange, or pink eyes if they really wanted it, why not. This section didn't mention if it's possible to have a medium shade that makes people confused on whether you count as darkeyes or lighteyes, but I'd assume so.

"Gender Identity. Breathing in Stormlight over time passively heals Radiants to their true genders."

I did know this, but it's nice to have it spelled out instead of buried in a novella.

"Gender Roles. Vorinism is one of many ideologies that impose strict gender roles on followers. Will your game include details such as female safehands, male illiteracy, and so on? Is being an ardent the only way for gender nonconforming characters to avoid social persecution?"

That was something I was wondering about, how Vorinism handles trans and non-binary identities. I'd assume "poorly" but I was curious if there were any quirks, considering it's pretty mild about same sex relationships. I don't know if the trans character talks about their life pre-transition or not, but this passage kind of implies that being an ardent is the only way for non-binary people to feel safe, but I'm not sure if it's just addressing the obvious assumption or actually stating its canon.

"Mental Illness. The Stormlight Archive features many characters with mental illnesses. While some might correlate mental illness with becoming a Knight Radiant, they would be missing the point."

Lol "please don't force your fanon on other people."

[rei-ismyname]

Cyclops, Masculinity, and the Hellfire Club

After Jean walks in on Emma's 'therapy session' with Scott, the two women have a long discussion in which he is not welcome. Scott deals with his feelings by getting drunk by himself at the Hellfire Club. People just will not leave him alone though, starting with this unnamed psychic dancer. She's presumably doing her job under the assumption that this is what men are here for. It's a normative and reasonable assumption, but Scott is pointedly uninterested in participating in this marker of masculinity.

The dancer's words remind us of Emma - telepathy, seduction, and a call to let loose - though there's markers of Jean there too, the wife he hasn't been able to communicate with. He rejects the whole thing as 'sexless and unarousing' instead of a 'no thanks, I'm not in the mood' or similar. Instead of rejecting Emma by proxy, my read is that he's rejecting the physicality of it, compared to the mind sex that's been going on. Also, Scott does a lot of 'calling the shots' - too much even. Exercising sexual, gendered power doesn't appeal to him.

This is nothing Scott hasn't been told before. I'm reminded of the butte sex incident specifically, where Phoenix urged him to 'get out of [his] head' so they could have sex. The dynamic and the power differential made the traditional gender roles hazy.

I think Scott agrees with the dancer here in some ways. He's been viewed as uptight his whole life and there's so many instances where Scott isn't the instigator of sex and intimacy. Here in the Hellfire Club with their regency cosplay the gender roles are super patriarchal. Scott rejects or tries to escape the expectations of traditional gender roles and the art reflects that - shifting from the male gaze to Scott's famous gaze. Interestingly we never see the dancer's face so we don't know who she's presenting as. It's Jean who has the significant association with black lingerie and red hair but it's Emma who's associated with BDSM.

Scott gives an awkward apology and explanation, doing his best to strip the illusions away. I can't help but feel like he's trying to convince himself that his complicated feelings for Emma aren't real but he's not doing a very good job. Why did he even come to the Hellfire Club? There's plenty of places to get drunk without running into people he knows or people that know him. He's wearing his X-Men jacket and his unique visor, not exactly incognito.

He completely avoids eye contact with the dancer and everything is tinted red, suggesting we're seeing everything through his POV. His gaze has a long association with angst and self doubt - I have to wonder how well he 'sees' the person he's making assumptions about. He's not exactly denying her personhood, but he's not especially interested in it either. It's ironic that he'd go to the one club that has a intimacy-free version of both his significant relationships with women at this point. One thing's for sure, he's not interested in performing masculinity, but he's in a space where he can't escape the expectation.

The faceless, nameless dancer eventually leaves. Scott's brief solitude is interrupted by a particular kind of toxic masculinity turned up to 11 - Sabertooth. He approaches from a dominant position in the ancient greek sense, from behind - while pointedly calling Scott 'boy.' He ignores this, and Sabertooth gets in really close to smell his drink, describing it as 'gay.' Deeply childish, but explicitly challenging Scott's masculinity. Creed accuses Scott of 'having issues' in a pretty egregious pot/kettle situation.

Scott responds, but simply by telling him to get out of his face. 'Seriously.' Creed switches to that other marker of masculinity - violence, or at least threats of it. Scott ignores that too, rejecting chest beating and puerile verbal sparring. Sebastian Shaw intervenes and orders Creed to leave Scott alone. Shaw has his own thoughts on exercising patriarchal power, but leaves when Scott isn't interested.

Scott is about to leave because 'his pride can't take it anymore.' He doesn't elaborate on this because he's accosted by probably the most prominent uber masculine person in his life - Logan. Logan accuses Scott of 'making the X-Men look like losers' and it's hard to read this as anything but a gendered challenge. He expands on Creed's judgment of Scott's choice of beverage by implying it's not 'real' (ly masculine) - slamming a bottle of Jack Daniels on the table. Scott's not interested in that either.

Logan doesn't really give Scott a choice, framing it in the context of a challenge. Denying that he's here to convince him to return to the X-Men, he tells Scott that Emma was murdered after he left. Leaving him to chew on that, Logan lays out the stakes of the challenge and departs for the urinal - that most bioessentialist of masculine spaces.

Making the subtext text, Creed follows him in for some insecure dick measuring. Rejecting any kind of serious discussion with an uncharacteristically cerebral Sabertooth, Logan issues violent threats and returns to Scott. It's got massive ex vibes in the best Creed/Logan homoerotic manchild way.

Scott finally opens up, discussing his relationship woes with Logan of all people. He shares how each of them makes him feel, explicitly tying the tension to the boy/man dichotomy. The 'pressure' and 'expectations' feel significant, something he should really talk to Jean about. Unfortunately he's got Logan instead, who's not especially interested in listening at all. He chimes in about Jean, of course, but he's here for tough love.

Scott ponders how anyone could think he'd shoot Emma. Above all he's not going back to the mansion and he's not drunk (or so he claims.) Logan, asshole that he is, suggests Scott should be grateful for what he has. 'You always get the best girls' which has got to be the worst possible thing to say (and super gross). Sure, he's having relationship troubles, but he's trying to figure out his emotions and his trauma. Logan frames this as 'all you do is whine' which is both not true and very rich coming from him.

I've never identified with Scott more than when he says 'I hate you.' Logan manages to make it all about himself, explicitly stating his jealousy. 'All I ever wanted was what you got' accusing him of throwing 'it all away to run wild with the White Queen.' He's right that Jean would like it if he came out of his shell, to a degree, but their problem is one of trauma and communication. Logan's possessive, reductive, and frankly ignorant diagnosis misses the forest for the trees. Scott's problems aren't his problems yet he gets the kind of advice one might expect from this hypermasculine space.

Further minimising Scott's issues, Logan shifts the conversation focus entirely to him. He outright says that Scott's problems are nothing compared to his and guilts him into helping assault The World to uncover Logan's past. He probably would have said yes if he just asked as a friend, but instead he kidnaps him when he passes out. Logan says he's 'trying hard' but doesn't finish the sentence before urging him to put aside his problems.

So instead of talking with his wife or getting to brood alone, Scott ends up hungover on a black ops mission. He got to verbalise some things he'd been keeping bottled up, but in a sense he was assaulted by masculinity and toxic expectations at every turn. Dude needs better friends. The narrative doesn't portray this as a positive thing - in fact it's pretty messed up. I wonder if he regrets going to the Hellfire Club.

Despite the superhero context, Grant Morrison does a swell job of portraying an AMAB person withdrawing from masculine-coded spaces and expectations, at least in my experience. Especially when you're friends with people like Logan, whose only mode is toxic hypermasculinity. I think if he was framed as being unequivocally right it'd be overpowering. Morrison's issues with writing women are on display, but overall this issue is powerful, especially for the time.

[maaarine]

The Adolescence alarm: ‘If there’s a problem with boys’ behaviour, it’s because of us’ (Celina Ribeiro, The Guardian, March 28 2025)

"Research released by Wescott last year, based on qualitative interviews with 30 female teachers, found that sexism – long identified in research on schools – endures still, “resurrected in part by the ubiquity and influence of one specific misogynist ‘manfluencer’, Andrew Tate”.

An anonymous online survey of more than 130 South Australian teachers conducted by Schulz last year found teachers identifying a “heightened use of misogynistic language and behaviours by male students, some as young as five”.

If anything, says Wescott, by Adolescence focusing on this extreme expression of misogyny – the stabbing murder of one child by another – “we may miss a conversation about what is happening every day and the very routine and sometimes even mundane ways that these expressions of misogyny and sexism are coming from young boys in schools”.

The mundane is not hard to find.

At one inner-city primary school in an Australian capital, for example, after-school carers meet in advance of the students’ arrival to discuss the students of concern.

Not least the boy who came in one day declaring “kill all women”, and the boys who will respond only to male carers.

It’s all they talk about, one carer says – how the boys seem “like they’re mad about something that hasn’t even happened yet”.

At another school in a well-heeled Sydney suburb, boys in year six circulate an online ranking of the hotness of their female classmates.

The class parents’ WhatsApp chat is peppered by parents insisting it is not their boys, and parents of girls sharing their daughters’ distress.

Then there are other everyday expressions of misogyny that spill out of the group chats and into the broader conversation, including deepfake porn of girls, made by their male classmates, and elite school boys chorusing misogynistic chants on public transport. (…)

Salter recalls his own primary and high school years, where sexual harassment was rife and normalised.

The average age of sexual harassment of girls is prepubescent, he says, and “that’s been the case for decades”.

“I’m not suggesting there’s nothing new about what we’re seeing or experiencing, but I think there is a pronounced tendency to explain the types of violence that we’re seeing from adolescent boys at the moment according to social media, and frankly I think we’re potentially missing the forest for the trees here.

“We’ve got some really complex challenges on our hands with boys, and I think social media and Andrew Tate have become quite a convenient way to answer that question without really challenging some of our underlying assumptions that really need challenging …

I think we could cut off social media tomorrow and still have really high rates of violence committed against girls and women by teenage boys because frankly they’ve always been the group most at risk of committing gender-based violence, well before the internet.”

The problem of understanding whether this everyday misogyny is on the rise or stable in young boys and adolescents in schools is in part the result of a fundamental omission: we do not record it.

“We need a reporting instrument so that we get a sense of the magnitude of the issue, because it is bigger than we think,” says Schulz.

“Because oftentimes particularly women teachers will learn not to say anything because the blowback from the institution can be just as bad.”

However, the first step is even more basic, says Wescott.

“Before we could even measure or record [misogynistic behaviour or gender-based violence] we would need to use accurate language to describe what is going on,” she says.

“Schools will often avoid using this kind of precise language, like reporting behaviour as misogyny or sexual harassment or sexual violence or gender-based violence.

And in a way, I understand that these are very adult concepts.

“But calling it bullying, for example, which is one euphemism that is sometimes used, it misrepresents the gendered element,” she says.

“We need to recognise the fact that this is happening in the first place, and be willing to mend it.”"

[iamthedukeofurl]

One interesting thing that can happen in long running media is that the general cultural background can shift under the work, recontextualizing it as it is being written. I'm specifically thinking of the Order of the Stick, a Dungeons and Dragons themed webcomic that started in 2003 with the titular party of adventurers going through a dungeon.

From left to right, we have Belkar Bitterleaf the halfling ranger, Vaarsuvius the Elf Wizard, Elan the Human Bard, Haley Starshine the Human Rogue, Durkon Thundershield the Dwarf Cleric, and Roy Greenhilt the Human Fighter. The comic takes place in a fantasy setting that knowingly runs off the rules of Dungeons and Dragons third edition. Characters talk about rolls and bonuses and intentionally take levels in various classes. At the start, the comic was a pretty basic gag comic about the D&D rules, basic fantasy/adventure tropes, ect.

In the 20 years the comic has been running, it has updated about 1300 times, not counting bonus strips exclusively made for the printed version, and several print (or PDF) only side and prequel stories. It has also dramatically grown from it's roots, the art has improved while keeping the same general aesthetic, and the gag-a-day comic has become a sweeping fantasy epic. The characters have grown beyond their initial bits (Belkar is a Murderhobo, Elan is stupid, Haley is greedy, ect), and it's genuinely up there as one of my favorite stories. But anyway, let's talk about Vaarsuvius. If you look at the above art, You'll notice that the characters tend to have three types of body shapes: Rectangles for Roy, Belkar, and Elan, feminine curves for Haley, and Robes for Vaarsuvius. This presentation is a pretty consistent signifier of gender and/or somebody wearing robes. Early on, part of Vaarsuvius's running gag became their ambiguous gender. At the time, it was a fairly common joke in fantasy to talk about how Elven men had androgynous or "Girly" appearances, so V was part of that. Instead of a singular pronoun, characters would generally just abbreviate Vaarsuvius's name as "V", and whenever the narrative would have naturally provided some indication of gender one way or another, V would resolve the situation without providing any such indication. For example, an early gag has the characters seeking out a set of modern style bathrooms in the dungeon. When they find them, V says that their "More Efficient elven biology" means they don't have to go yet, so they wait outside while the boys go into the Men's room and Haley waits in the inevitable long line at the women's. When Vaarsuvius reveals that they are married, they use the term "Spouse" to refer to their partner, when we see their children, the children are clearly adopted (V and their partner both have pale skin, their children have darker skin) and refer to Vaarsuvius as "Parent". Vaarsuvius themselves seems to have trouble identifying other people by gender. Characters outside the central cast might refer to Vaarsuvius as "He" or "She", but doing so was always shedding light on that character's perspective, rather than saying anything about Vaarsuvius. The assumption behind the gag is that Vaarsuvius must be either male or female, and the joke is that the narrative/Vaarsuvius themselves keeps finding ways to avoid "Revealing" their gender. Fan wikis and official books list Vaarsuvius's gender as "Ambigious" and on the forum there used to be a regular, multi-part thread dedicated to debatings Vaarsuvius's gender, even after the author declared that it would "never be revealed".

Anyway, going back to the start, it's 2023, and something shifted at some point, both in the comic and in the general cultural background. The jokes about V's gender kind of fell off, not just because the gag got played out, but because the basic assumption behind it simply doesn't work anymore. Everybody knows that Nonbinary people exist. There's no point in the comic where Vaarsuvius switches from being "Ambigiously Gendered" to Nonbinary, in fact, the entire comic reads just fine if you read Vaarsuvius as male or female and just not caring enough to clarify their gender to anybody and at some point other characters just stop thinking about it. But it's interesting to see how a character trait that was once included in even the most basic character descriptions (Varsuvius: Elven Wizard. Arrogant, Intelligent. Ambigiously gendered) just kind of got washed away by a rising tide of cultural nuance towards gender. Also go read OOTS, it's pretty great.

[jaiden-zhou]

Movie with Saiki !

contents: gender neutral, second pov, bold + italics = thoughts

I miss my husband

Platonic or romantic (pre-relationship), whichever you'd like to think of it, kinda proof read this eh

Also, this is under the assumption that his ring, while it blocks out everyone's thoughts, also means he can't telepathically talk to others

.

.

"Come on, this way." nodding your head towards the entrance.

"I may not be able to use my telepathy, but don't beckon me like a dog." Saiki gave a slight irritated look, which conveyed enough to you without hearing him.

"Sorry sorry, I'm just trying to get you to pick up the pace," gently tugging his sleeve forward. "I wanna catch the trailers!"

Saiki had retold his experiences at the movie theatres to you, the onslaught of spoilers he heard unwillingly as a kid, the time he kept running into "nendo"s with the germanium ring, Teruhashi with her brother..

And it was only sheer luck that you found out that he was a psychic; a wrong place, wrong time situation, which Saiki didn't want to exhaust all of his options to try to hide his powers, and just told you the plain truth. You only thought psychics were myths or scams.

Well, plain wouldn't be the word you'd use; it seemed like Saiki at least tolerated you more than the others. Why else would he let you drag him to the theatres, telepathically powerless?

Your goal today was to go to the movies and help Saiki have a good experience! With the ring, while he won't hear spoilers as easily, he becomes less aware of his surroundings.

Your role is to make sure he doesn't accidentally run into someone and spill his food again.

The external awareness to his.. "powerless" state.

And he had to admit, the process went smoothly. You mainly handled all transactions with food, drinks, and the tickets, occasionally tugging him the other way to avoid bumping into someone again when he's distracted with his internal monologue.

Guess god favored him today, or at least you more than him. As after many failed movie theatre trips that went sour, this is the first time he got to enjoy a movie in public. He felt at ease.

...

"Wow, who would've thought that Margot's action of sending back the food would get her out of there?" you exclaimed. He only nodded in your direction in agreement. He actually quite enjoyed the western movie you suggested.

You two walked out of the auditorium, your eyes scanning the lobby in front of you, finding a familiar blue-haired pair.

What are the odds?

Your face scrunches a little bit, in.. distaste? Saiki hadn't taken the ring off and couldn't ascertain your emotions, let alone your thoughts.

It seemed like he hadn't noticed the two yet, strangely focused on you.

You thought the best course of action right now, at least, is to try and secure a quiet leave without Teruhashi and her brother noticing, would just to try to blend in with some of the other guests near the restrooms.

"Hey, this way," your voice hushed, pulling his sleeve with a little more force this time.

"Why is she whispering? Why does she want to go through here when the exit is the other-"

"Saiki-kun?" a gentle voice piped from the entrance, one that he knew too well. He sees your face drop to defeat, and it dawns on him.

Teruhashi spotted you as well, holding his sleeve, and she started stuttering your name out in surprise, her thoughts running wild.

"Wh-what are you guys up to here?" she asked, and a thought followed immediately after, "together?!"

"Oh! Teruhashi-san, I was accompanying my little cousin to watch a movie today, and he really wanted Saiki to come along as well when we ran into him." attempting to refer to Saiki’s neighbor.

Lies. Yuta isn't here; the kid's not even your cousin.

“Oh, what did you guys watch?”

“The new Cider-Man 2 Movie,” at least the movie was real and currently showing here.

“Oh, I see,” Kokomi concludes. “So it’s not like what I thought it was.”

“Yeah, he’s in the restroom right now, but we need to head back soon, apparently he didn’t finish his homework like he was supposed to before I picked him up, and his mother wants him home.”

“Using 'auntie' would’ve been more convincing, but this works." Kusuo retorts to himself.

Finally, her brother whisks her away to watch whatever they were here for, and the two of you head off.

...

Walking him back, he still had the ring on. It was eerily silent, sure, but it was comforting in a sense, at least for him. He didn't worry about what you were thinking.

"Did you have fun today, Saiki?" you inquire, looking in this direction. You think you can make out a faint smile and he slips off the ring back into his pocket.

"Yeah, it was nice. Thanks."

"Anytime," you smile wide, "buuuut now, you owe me!"

"Never mind, I take it back."

"Just a coffee jelly from you!"

"No, not giving that up."

"I'm telling your mom!"

"You wouldn't." Saiki had a knowing smile.

"I wouldn't,"

.

.

Finally got that out of my system, gonna go back to locking in for studies..

[bosbas]

Chapter 12: I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed

series masterlist previous part || next part

pairing: colin bridgerton x enemy!fem!reader WC: 3.5k words

Warnings: period-typical gender roles, insane amounts of pining, idiots in love!!, in their friends era... or are they?, the slow burn is slowww burningggg i'm so sorry

Summary: It took precisely two days in England for you to utterly despise Colin Bridgerton. It took him approximately twelve hours after that to hate you right back. But he doesn't care that you're the only person in the ton who doesn't like him. You're set to marry someone else anyway, right?

A/N: I am BACK sorry for my absence I promise I won't leave for that long again <3

July 12, 1816 – It seems that the summer heat is not the only thing causing a stir within the ton. Recently, the Montclair and Bridgerton families have been seen in each other’s company more frequently than usual. Could there be a more permanent union on the horizon?

Lord Philippe Montclair and Mr. Colin Bridgerton have been spotted in deep conversation on multiple occasions, discussing matters that appear far more serious than the usual lighthearted banter one would expect. Indeed, whispers suggest that their discussions have involved future business ventures and mutual interests, signaling a burgeoning camaraderie between the two gentlemen.

Regardless, the warmth between the two families is palpable, leading this author to wonder if we shall soon hear the sound of wedding bells. Stay vigilant, dear readers. Though no one shall stay more vigilant than this author.

As you walked home from the modiste with Eloise by your side, you noted the afternoon sun filtering through the leaves high atop the trees surrounding you. You had suggested a shortcut back to your respective homes, opting to go through the park rather than the busy streets, and you were mostly thankful for the silence of the greenery around you. Mostly.

“So, will you be joining us for dinner tonight?” asked Eloise expectantly, gently nudging your shoulder with hers.

You groaned and screwed your eyes shut, already dreading the conversation, and the evening, to come. “Yes, Mother has been quite insistent that I go. I think she’d kill me if I asked to stay home one more time.”

“I didn’t know we were that bad,” joked Eloise, only a hint of resentment in her voice.

“Not at all!” you rushed to defend yourself, cringing at the fact that one of your dearest friends was upset with you. “You know that it’s just… Well, I’m sure Colin told you everything. I really can’t bear to face him.”

In all honesty, Eloise’s annoyance was warranted. You had spent the past two weeks avoiding the Bridgertons at all costs, only seeing Eloise at balls or in your own home. The only reason you had gone to Bridgerton House today was because you and Eloise were leaving immediately afterward to go get new dresses, and you were certain you wouldn’t run into Colin.

Not only were you still terribly embarrassed by your assumptions of Colin's character, but you also found yourself strangely drawn to him. Now that nothing prevented you from actually liking him, and now that you knew that he was not a horrible person like you had previously thought, you were in a bit of a conundrum. Colin Bridgerton had charmed you, and you knew that if you let yourself, you could very well start to grow feelings for him.

And that wouldn’t do. No, it absolutely wouldn’t. For starters, the two of you had never managed to get along anyway, so you had no idea how you would even live in relative peace were you to have a future. Even so, your father would never approve, no matter what Lady Whisteldown was alluding to. And so Colin was out of the question as a husband or really anything other than a friend.

But while you had been meticulously maneuvering through your social outings to avoid her family, Eloise had slowly been losing patience. She had tolerated whatever had been going on between you and Colin at the beginning of the season, but it was high time that you stopped acting so childish. Especially after Anthony and Kate’s ball, where the two of you had already apologized for your misunderstanding and subsequent feud.

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen him since that night,” scolded Eloise, crossing her arms in a huff. Then, in a humorous tone, she added, “He doesn’t actually look that bad with a broken nose if that’s what you’re worried about. The swelling has gone down considerably.”

Not able to help yourself, you let out a small snort and smiled at your friend. “No, it’s not that. I’m just so embarrassed. Oh heavens, even just thinking about it I can feel my face getting hot. He did tell you about it, right?”

“Yes,” responded Eloise, giving you a very pointed look. “He was very excited about the fact that you didn’t actually hate him. He wouldn’t stop talking about it for two days. Though now I wonder if that really is the case, given your behavior.”

 “Oh, no,” you groaned, putting your head in your hands in desperation.

“He was quite embarrassed as well, Y/N,” Eloise reminded you gently. “I don’t see why you can barely stand to be in the same room as him even now.”

“I just-” you started, finding it difficult to explain why you had been so against seeing him, or any of his family, really, after the most recent ordeal with Lord Barlow.

But Eloise wasn’t letting you get away with it any longer. She slowed down her previously brisk walk, looking straight into your eyes as she gestured for you to continue.

“I just wasted so much time and energy fighting with him and I’m so ashamed that your family saw that side of me. I didn’t even know I could be that unpleasant! And to make matters worse, it was all for nothing since I was completely in the wrong.”

“Not completely,” Eloise mused. Colin had been quite kind to you in his retelling of the events, and Eloise was inclined to believe her brother’s account.

With a sigh, your friend turned to face you. “I wish you had told me what you thought of him because I would have either helped you realize your mistake or helped you kill him.”

You laughed again, shaking your head as you realized how lucky you were to have Eloise in your life. Linking arms with her, you patted her hand as you explained, “I was just terrified of the recourse. My parents were so insistent that I ‘act ladylike’ that I was scared of revealing I had been unchaperoned in the presence of two men. And besides, I didn’t want to ruin your perception of your brother.”

“Well, regardless, it will all be resolved at dinner tonight, seeing how you’ll be in attendance.”

A soft sigh escaped your lips.

“I certainly hope so.”

---

As you walked into the dining room, a soft smile on your lips as you spoke with Kate, Colin’s breath was stolen from his body. He already hadn’t been expecting to see you, already growing accustomed to having you avoid him, but seeing you look as beautiful as you did now was completely doing him in.

“Y/N,” he whispered from across the room, unable to tear his eyes away from you.

Feeling an elbow digging into his ribs, Colin turned to see Benedict, smirking as he watched his younger brother. “Might I suggest pulling yourself together if you don’t want to scare her away again?”

“Be quiet,” hissed Colin, but he ran a hand through his hair to regain his composure anyway.

“Benedict!” you greeted, delighted at finally seeing him for so long. “And Colin!” you added, hoping your voice didn’t reveal the nervousness you were feeling.

“Lovely to see you again,” said Benedict brightly, squeezing your shoulder.

Then, feigning some obligation or another, the second Bridgerton slipped out of the dining room to join the rest of your families, leaving you alone with Colin. Benedict had been terribly obvious, but the resulting awkwardness that enveloped you and Colin kept you from noticing his brash exit.

“I’m happy you’re here,” Colin spoke, almost timidly. Then, speaking very quickly, he added, “I was fairly confused when I didn’t hear from you for two weeks, but I didn’t want to call on you because we agreed to just be friends and I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression. Though now that I think about it, that might have been the decent thing to do."

Sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, Colin looked down at the floor as he waited for your response.

“Not at all!” you rushed out, wanting to reassure him. “It was my fault entirely. I apologize for not speaking with you sooner, I was just a tad embarrassed, as you can probably imagine.”

Colin’s shoulders relaxed and he smiled, feeling at ease now that he was certain you didn’t spontaneously hate him again.

“You were embarrassed? I rather think I should be the one feeling that way,” he laughed. “I still find it hard to believe you could have thought I was that... horrid for so long.”

You put your hands over your face and shook your head. “I can’t believe it either,” you groaned.

Sensing you were getting worked up again, Colin instinctively put a comforting arm around your shoulders, pressing you to him. “No, it’s quite alright. I promise I was just…”

Then, suddenly realizing just how close he was holding you to him, Colin stepped away quickly. Instead of apologizing and drawing even more attention to his overstepping, he settled for clearing his throat awkwardly, clasping his hands behind his back to keep from reaching out to you again.

“It was all in jest, I swear,” promised Colin, realizing he had never finished his earlier sentence.

Before you could respond, Violet walked into the dining room, followed by your family.

“Hello, Y/N!” she greeted you, reaching over to put a hand on your forearm in greeting. “I’m thrilled you’re here! We missed you last week.”

You smiled gratefully back at her, internally chastising yourself for ever wanting to avoid this wonderful family. All because you were scared of facing Colin, who, as it turned out, had a singular talent for making you feel at ease.

“You’re seated here, next to Colin,” indicated Violet, gesturing toward a seat near the end of the dining table.

“Oh,” you breathed out, not expecting to have to be in such proximity to him for the whole night. Realizing you had been impossibly rude, you added, “Thank you very much, I’m sure we’ll have lots to catch up on.”

Four courses later, you were having the time of your life. You were sitting between Francesca and Colin, and both had been keeping you endlessly entertained as you ate. Speaking to Colin came so naturally that you wondered how the two of you had ever managed to fight so much without ever having a proper conversation, save for one or two. It seemed impossible now, the forgone tension between you. Especially when you had to actively ensure that you were talking to Francesca, too, rather than just Colin. But he was just so easy to talk to, and you simply had so much in common that it was proving quite difficult to focus on anything else.

“Are you excited for your season next year?” you asked Francesca, leaning away from Colin so you could concentrate on speaking to her.

“I suppose I’m looking forward to having something of my own,” she responded after chewing thoughtfully. “An experience of my own, that is. It’ll be quite the luxury, especially being from a family as large as mine. Did you ever feel that way?”

You hummed, thinking back on your season. “I felt that way at the beginning, to be sure. But having seen my older sister’s fairytale romance and having a season that was nowhere near that had me wishing for a season similar to hers in the end.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that-” Francesca started, having forgotten your ordeal with Lord Barlow.

You waved her apology away, smiling warmly at her. “Not to worry, I’m quite well-adjusted now. Perhaps next season will be better, though I’m not sure how unique it will be since I’m heading back to Spain, just as Isabelle did.”

“Are you really leaving?” asked Francesca, partially in shock that you were leaving after only one season. “But-”

“Y/N does,” came a loud voice next to you.

Confused, you turned around to face Colin, who seemed to have gone quite red in the face.

“I hadn’t realized I was speaking that loud,” he said bashfully, nervous now that most everyone at the table was looking at him expectantly. “Anthony was only talking about how I use the night sky to navigate my crew when I travel, and I was pointing out that you are quite knowledgeable in that area as well,” he explained, looking at you with wide, uncertain eyes.

Anthony, who had been at the other side of the table, was struggling to contain his laughter.

“I had no idea Y/N knew so much about the stars,” commented Violet, looking directly at Colin as she did so, an unreadable expression on her face.

Highly uncomfortable at being the center of attention for this particular reason, the third Bridgerton internally cringed and gulped his wine, hoping to wash down some of the discomfort as he did so.

“We’ve only talked about it a few times, but she does seem to be quite the expert,” he said finally.

Feeling charitable, Louis chimed in to change the subject, “I know I’ve been victim to her hour-long lectures about which constellations are visible at any given point in time. Were you thinking of traveling soon, Anthony?”

Letting out a sigh of relief now that the attention was no longer fixed on his thinly veiled infatuation with you, Colin cast a fleeting smile in your direction, eager to gauge your reaction.

But you only smiled amusedly at him, snickering as he gripped his fork and knife tightly in his hands with leftover tension.

“Tell Louis I say thank you,” he muttered.

You shook your head. “It’ll get to his head,” you argued.

And Colin’s smile in return was so charming, so roguish, and so handsome that you were tempted to forget your agreement to be friends right then and there.

Ah, that was why you had been avoiding him, you reminded yourself. Colin was far too charismatic for his own good. For your own good, rather.

But you had to remind yourself of what your parents –and society– expected you to find. A man with a title and a fortune. And that was decidedly not a Mr. Colin Bridgerton.

Clearing your throat, you turned away from Colin to face Francesca again.

Friends, you reminded yourself. You were friends with Colin.

---

The Montclair brothers sat in their father’s study, brandy in hand as they so often did after evening dinners ran long and they needed to wind down. Supper with the Bridgertons had been lovely, but the boys had important matters to discuss with their father. Well, important matters to you. But important nonetheless.

“Que pensez-vous de Colin?” asked Jacques, trying to seem nonchalant (What do you think of Colin?).

“Bah, il est assez gentil, mais il est vraiment amoureux,” came your father’s gruff response before he took a long sip of brandy, rubbing his temples (Well, he’s nice enough, but he’s definitely in love).

“Quoi? Amoureux de qui?” pressed Philippe, feigning innocence as if this wasn’t exactly what the brothers wanted Lord Montclair to notice (What? In love with who?).

“De Y/N, bien sûr,” replied your father, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world (With Y/N, of course).

That was the tipping point for Louis, who apparently was the only person in the world who wasn't instantly attuned to Colin’s feelings. Forgetting why he and his brothers were so eager to meet with their father and talk about Colin, the youngest Montclair brother set his glass of brandy down in exasperation.

“Putain, comment tout le monde a pu voir ça?” (Damnit, how did everyone else see that?)

---

Laughing quietly at a comment Colin had whispered in your ear, you found yourself truly enjoying a ball for the first time in a very long time. Now that you were past all the hatred and subsequent awkwardness, it was lovely to spend an evening with Colin by your side.

This might have been the first ball you had been to that you hadn’t spent a considerable amount of time sulking at. It was, to say the very least, quite freeing.

Not to mention the absolute entertainment that was watching the third Bridgerton rush from ambitious mama to eligible lady and back to another mama as he attempted to please everyone. You had only been here an hour and he’d already danced three times and spoken with at least four women you knew for a fact he had no interest in.

“Ah, Mr. Bridgerton, it’s lovely to see you again,” came a voice behind you.

Both of you turned around to face Miss Anne McCall, who was looking at Colin expectantly. Amused, you raised your eyebrows at him, too. You could bet your family’s entire fortune that Colin had promised her a dance at some point tonight.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, briefly touching your arm. “Excuse me just a moment, Y/N.”

You nodded, unable to respond because you were momentarily overtaken by the feel of his hand on you. An unfamiliar warmth radiated to you, and you almost stumbled as you tried to regain your bearings.

Looking out across the ballroom, you spotted Colin smiling and laughing as he danced with Miss McCall, who was looking absolutely enamored as he spun her around. You smiled to yourself, glad that your rivalry with him had been resolved and you could simply appreciate the fact that he was a lovely person. Maybe some night you would be the one he was spinning around the ballroom.

Shaking your head to will the mental image away, you made your way to the other side of the ballroom, needing to clear your head.

However, a hand gripped yours and you turned around, surprised. Colin’s relieved eyes met yours and he pulled you closer to him, though still allowing an appropriate distance between you two in case anyone was observing.

“A turn about the ballroom?” he suggested, eyes pleading.

Once again taken aback by how aware you were of his skin on yours, you could only nod, allowing him to place your hand in the crook of his elbow.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I think I’ve spoken to too many people tonight. If I have to laugh politely at another conversation I’m certain I will dissolve right where I'm standing.”

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly, squeezing his arm. “You don’t have to do it, you know?”

“Do what?”

“That,” you said, gesturing toward the dancefloor full of couples waltzing. “You’re allowed to say no.”

Colin frowned, thoughtful. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

“Why not?” you pressed.

“I- I don’t know, I suppose. It feels like it’s what I should be doing. Doesn’t everyone?”

“Hmm, not particularly. I’ve said no to plenty of men wanting to dance with me, you included,” you nudged him playfully.

“That doesn’t really count, though. Because you’re… you. It doesn’t matter if you say no to every single man asking you to dance.”

“Doesn’t it? You’re also you. So, it doesn’t matter either.”

“No, I mean that…I don’t know what I mean. I suppose that people would still like you even if you said no a lot.”

Your eyebrows shot up as you took in what Colin was saying.

“People would still like you if you said no every once in a while, you know? I know I would.”

Colin shook his head. “It’s still different!” Then, softening his voice, he added, “Because you have… Or rather, because I just don’t have any remarkable qualities beyond people finding me charming or affable.”

“Colin,” you scolded, rolling your eyes. Then, seeing that he was quite serious, your expression sobered. “Of course you have value beyond how much people like you. My word, Colin. You are so clever and so well-traveled. You can orient yourself on a map at first glance, and I doubt you would ever get lost at sea. You know most constellations visible from London, and I don’t even know how many beyond that.”

“Alright, I see your point,” he laughed, secretly wishing you would continue speaking forever. Colin was practically preening at your praise, and he so desperately wished you could want him the way he wanted you. “What do you suggest I do at balls, then, if I'm not dancing with every single member of the ton?”

 “Well, you could start by only dancing with people you want to dance with.”

“In that case, would you like to dance with me?”

You laughed, shaking your head. “No, I’m serious.”

“So am I,” insisted Colin. Then, after a pause, he added, “Friends can dance together," a twinge of regret in his chest as he said the words.

But that seemed to placate you, and you placed your hand in his. “I suppose they do.”

With a shaky breath, you prepared for the next few minutes you would spend in Colin’s arms, not quite sure you or your heart were ready to look into his mesmerizing eyes and not fall completely head over heels for him.

But one smile from him, and you were completely at ease. One dance couldn’t hurt, right?

—

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