#because I can be trusted to react casually to lesbians

[jestercatkermy]

Cookin up a little something rn…

[ayamturd]

bisexual│mcyt hc

warnings: small mentions of hate, fluff

prompt: (requested 1 & 2) “Hello uh I saw one of your posts about the dream smp reacting to you coming out so I was wondering if you haven't already done it can you do dream smp reacting to you coming out as bisexual?” 

“Hello yamturd so I was wondering if maybe you could do tubbo, Tommy and Ranboo reacting to reader coming out as bisexual or lesbian if you haven't already done it :)” 

pairings: irl platonic! dream, ranboo, tommy and tubbo ; c!technoblade

a/n: if i offend or misinterpret anything in this hc, please feel free to message and correct me otherwise. i will always try to correct or delete this post if asked so <33

sending my love to all those who identify as bisexual <33

wc: (1.5k) - m.list

dream - 

considering his prideful personality sometimes, you probably wanted to play with his ego and drop subtle hints

not anything too obvious, but enough to make him kick himself when he realizes

though it was admittedly difficult since he plays into the dnf ship so much that he thinks you’re also joking more than half the time 

imagine you two were in a voice call one evening and randomly discussing the recent fanon and what would be funny to turn into canon (to mess with the fandom)

you’ve been recently shipped with two other content creators, both of opposing female and male gender, separately and together

“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind hitting that.” “Which one?” “Both.”

He’d laugh, but you didn’t.

“Wait, you’re serious? You actually identify as…?” “Bisexual. Yeah, I’m pretty sure anyway.” “Y/n, that’s amazing.”

takes pride in the fact that you trust him, but would feign being upset that you messed with him for as long as you did

be jokingly offended if he found out someone knew before him

“Wait…” “Yes?” “You told Bad??” “Yeah, he was one of the first.” “W— Why??”

It was your turn to laugh while he gawked in disbelief.

“It’s Bad! Of course I told him.” “… Fair enough.”

hate is a given, and he’ll always be there to support and defend you

he’ll always ask your permission before taking any action, however, because he respects you too much and knows you can fight your own battles

dream is someone will show relentless support, whether that be through words or moral support, he’ll always be there for you 

c!technoblade - 

i honestly feel like you never officially came out to techno

as you began to recognize yourself as bisexual, you slowly expressed yourself around him more openly to the point where he unconsciously knew

it’d probably would have hit him in the most random moment after months of assuming he knew

imagine you’re in the midst of battle when techno paused entirely with wide eyes 

“Y/n!” “What!?” “Are you gay??”

you would tease him when discussing your love life in one-sided conversations with him; him basically choosing to ignore you when you talk to him

“Honestly, Techno, how could you not want to hit that?” “Please, just stop.”

(i’ve written this before but will stand by this that) he truly doesn’t care for your sexuality

you’re a friend, someone he trusts and relies on, he doesn’t need to consider who you’re attracted to since he sees you for your skills and friendship

the only, and only time he is mindful of your sexuality depends on others unnecessary comments about it

the smp is a known judgement free land, but there will always be someone with ignorant opinions that he is always quick to shut down (or kill)

nothing much can be said besides the fact that you’ll always be y/n to him: a loyal friend and someone he would fight the world for

ranboo - 

oh sweet ranboo, dear ranboo

considering how openly supportive and kind he naturally is, you didn’t question the idea of telling him

i’d like to imagine that unlike most where you planned or waited to tell, the moment you knew, he would know soon after

imagine you called him before he began his lore stream to hype him up

you both were talking about more mundane things to calm his nerves as people joined when you brought it up

“Oh actually, before you start, I wanted to tell you something.” “Sure, what is it?” “Well, I— I’m Bisexual.” “…You’re tELLING ME THIS WHEN I’M ABOUT TO START MY STREAM??” “Y/n! I’m so happy for you, that’s amazing!”

he’s incredibly patient concerning how you wanted others to know or when you were ready to be completely out

similar to c!techno with the same beliefs you’re still y/n, and nothing has changed besides you coming out as yourself

he’s your go to when days are rough, because he knows how to help you understand you’re still loved as the same y/n and nothing less

“Hey, hey, listen to me. I love you, y/n. We all do, and you’ll never be alone when things get rough, alright?” (love /p)

knows how to silently deal with hate in his chat unless it becomes evident enough to address it (doesn’t want to bring attention to meaningless words until it becomes serious)

ranboo’s your rock and makes show that he’ll never believe anything other than that you deserve love

tommyinnit - 

as someone who took pride in defending the LGBTQ+ community, you had no hesitation when coming out to tommy

if any, your reluctance would come from accepting yourself to the point to be open with other people

it’s not as if he didn’t accept you, he could never imagine doing so in the slightest, but he probably wouldn’t know what to say initially

imagine you both were in the midst of playing bedwars together in a recording for a video

he had been busy gathering emeralds while you remained at the base, and the comforting silence gave you the confidence to blindly address it

“Hey Tommy?” “What, y/n? I’m in the middle of something right now.” “Oh, um, I’m pretty sure I’m bisexual.” “…” “…Tommy?” “…” “T— Tommy?”

it’d be dead quiet for a few seconds before you heard the noise of him rustling in realization

“Wait wait wait, you’re serious? You’re bisexual?” “Haha yeah, yeah, I am.” “WHA—!”

he was happy for you, to say the least

tommy loves to joke, and one he loved to make would be your attraction to both genders

you like women? pog!

you like men? a shame, honestly

if you were publicly out, his favorite bit would be to include you in his obnoxious swooning

imagine he was streaming while talking about his love for women

“Boys, honestly, the ladies just can’t resist me.”

The ding of discord notified you entering the call, the sound of your laughter immediately coming through.

“I agree, Tommy, I definitely agree.” “Y/n! You are attracted to women, and I am also attracted to women. You can agree women are amazing, yes?” “I can, Tommy. Women are indeed amazing.” “Good lad!” “Tommy, you do realize I’m not only attracted to w—” “Shush, we don’t speak of that.”

he showed his support by normalizing your sexuality, his acceptance quick and easily integrated into your lives

(this is getting long but—) tommy was well aware he lacked some knowledge when being in the LGBTQ+ community, but openly voiced his ignorance as a sign of awareness itself

he was always quick to correct either himself or others, he refused to accept slander of any type in his streams

would probably try to keep it light heartedly, but scold nonetheless

tommy was your figurative cheerleader, always there to include and uplift you, whether that be through the smallest gestures or loudest cheers

tubbo - 

poor tubbo

since he wasn’t the most careful with secrets, you probably withheld telling him till you were ready for most to know

this isn’t to deter anything of not trusting him, he’s still supportive and loving tubbo that wouldn’t dare do anything purposeful against you

if anything, you might have forgotten that he didn’t know when you were casually taking about it within a group

imagine you and Ranboo were trying to get him to sleep one early morning but gave up

you started talking about personal stuff and the topic of your love life came up, specifically the attraction to someone of the same gender

“I don’t know, Ranboo, I mean, I think I like them but at the same time I’m not sure.” “That’s fai—” “Wait, y/n. You’re gay??” “Bisexual, actually.” “WaAA—”

his very sleep deprived state was extremely happy and emotional for you

he’s like the little duckling with a knife, like he loves you completely but will try to hurt anyone that offends you

like tommy, he has no personal knowledge when being in the LGBTQ+ community but will solely learn for your sake

whether you’re younger or not, tubbo never fails to remind you that he looks up to you

he gives his all and won’t hesitate to provide in any way he can if needed

“You matter,” he’ll always say, “you’re important and no one else’s opinion matter.”

is proud to be your friend and expresses his platonic love in full, for you’re you and are so brave to be yourself despite all

choosing not to tag my usual taglist just cause its a headcanon with a specific request <33 (huge ty to @basilly​ and @inniterhq​ though for the advice/motivation to finish this)

[demonfox38]

Okay. Made it through the last season of Netflix's "Castlevania" interpretation. Thoughts are below the cut.

I've often thought of this series as the exploitation version of "Castlevania," and hiring Malcom McDowell confirms that.

Although, I find it hilarious that both Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Stewart have ended up voicing the same character. I'm sure there's a "Star Trek Generations" joke to be made in there, but I'm not Mike Stoklasa.

Also, I was cracking up a bit when Varney's plot twist happened. Mostly, because it came off a bit Skeletor-esque in vocal performance.

Also, also—laughing that the final boss went the "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence" route despite barely touching on that game's plot.

Animation had its ups and downs with this season. It seemed like there were some frame issues (not enough inbetweening.) I do appreciate how they incorporated more of Alucard's SOTN animations into his fights, however.

Additionally, some of the fight scenes' pacing seemed to have issues, particularly regarding weapon recovery.

The whole bit with St. Germain was off. Like, he's a weird asshole in "Castlevania: Curse of Darkness", but he's more of a weird asshole there in the same way that casually encountering "Doctor Who"'s Doctor would also be strange. Not a straight up villainous boob. Kinda makes sense thematically to have another character who is willing to do horrible shit for their lost loved one, but the series honestly did not do a good job establishing her. Like, did she even have a voice actor? Or a name? All I'm saying is it was much easier for outsiders to get the Lisa revenge thing Dracula had going.

Also, how dare you joke about not being deaf and then have a villainous monologue, TV show.

Greta's a good girl. Well, outside of being an occasional homewrecker. Point is, she's competent and trying her best to save people in a bad situation, and anyone having issues with her is not to be trusted in the same way that you don't trust people who don't like Rochelle from "Left 4 Dead 2."

Look at me. Do not trust people who do not like Rochelle from "Left 4 Dead 2." Yes, her writing could have been better, but she's still a viable character. Let people Thunder Child their ships on the rocks of your better self. Got me?

Also, y'all really need to embrace more polyamory. Or understand the fact that Alucard's not going to love just one person in his life. Dude lives to be at least 600 in the game's timeline. For a dude who loves humans, constricting him to just one who may live to be 100 at best is cruel.

There are some interesting philosophical dialogues going on here, but I can see where some people may lose their patience for them. Considering one of Castlevania's most popular memes is a philosophy debate, you're just gonna have to suck that up. My personal favorites included the topic of acting versus reacting, as well as having agency in one's story.

Striga's battle theme was cool, but otherwise, the music was forgettable. Yes, that is a sin. Punishable by Death? In this series, maybe!

The gore's still over the top. Which, okay, fine. There's a bit of that in game. It's just generally a bit more reserved with it or uses it in crucial boss fights.

RIP doggie.

The Targoviste plot's a bit of a wash, but it doesn't feel as useless as Trevor and Sypha's previous plot predicament. It's just nothing of a surprise, considering how many times the writing has played the "authority figures are useless" and "dark secret surprise" tropes in this series. Like, Greta being reliable is actually more surprising than anything with this plot.

I cannot emphasize enough how boring I found Carmilla's interpretation and plot arc. You guys could have had a giant, naked lesbian riding a skull and spewing magic at people while her cat-eared girlfriend jumped them for extra damage. But no. Vanilla lady with a scarlet sword for you. So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Good night.  

Gotta say, as much of a deviation from his source character as he is, Isaac really turned out well in this series. He's definitely evidence that you don't always need to stick to source material.

His Abel is fucking sick, dude. Way to go, king.

Also, I was expecting more violence from Hector this season. Oh, well. At least he got a teeny bit of a spine.

Look. I'm not an alchemist by any means. I'm just a bit baffled by this season's emphasis of obtaining a Rebis. Like, any time the game series has talked about the Magnum Opus of Alchemy, it's more been in pursuit of making a Philosopher's Stone (or at the very least, a Crimson Stone, as seen in "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.") Pulling a Rebis out of the aether is…well. Could have been more interesting than it was. I mean, it was a bit nightmarish, but it really didn't do much.

Sypha's really never getting back to her family, is she?

Love the idea that the cross subweapon is basically a fancy chakram.

GERGOTH. BUDDY. FRIENDO.

Really appreciating the monster variety in these last two seasons. I mean, that's a big selling point of the "Castlevania" games. Not so much vampires standing around and bickering in dick-waving contests.

Breaking out of the bullet points to hit on the big subject of this season—that is, the ending being surprisingly happy.

There's been a lot of shit that's happened over the last few years. Obviously, a pandemic. Konami's run by pricks. Then, there's the situation with the allegations of sexual coercion with Warren Ellis. Additionally, the terrible ending of "Game of Thrones" likely impacted how this season was developed, considering it seemed to be chasing its progression in construction. (I mean, look at Carmilla and Daenerys.) I don't know how many people were happy with the last season of "Castlevania," but from my POV, it double-tapped itself in the foot with the way it pushed simultaneous sex and violence in its last two episodes. My point is, there was little taste for additional darkness, considering everything that has been happening. Society is drained.

A happy ending was what people really wanted. And man, did this pull through, in that regard. But, there's a conversation to be had in if this swerved too far or if it violates some artistic integrity to give people what they want. So, let's have it.

Look. Man. Have you seen a "Castlevania" ending? When you do it right, it's crumbled castles and rainbow-colored skies. If you do it really right, it results in a pretty girl holding the main character's hand. There is happiness in these games. Hope. Forgiveness and redemption. If this is supposed to be any bit an accurate interpretation of these games, it absolutely should end in such a joyful fashion. (Okay, maybe giving Dracula and Lisa a second honeymoon at the end was a bit much, but I get where people would want that.)

Did some items need to be addressed more? Absolutely. Alucard staking people and Hector getting sexually coerced into servitude are some pretty big topics to just wave away. (Oh, shit. That second part is even worse now with what Ellis was allegedly doing, isn't it?) I suppose I'm just glad the series didn't go full Sephiroth with Alucard. And at least Hector finally took some stand in his situation, even if it wasn't the bombastic, hateful revenge I'm used to seeing from this character in other stories.

I think the creators of this series were trying to save this show from the fate of "Game of Thrones." (To some extent, perhaps the "Voltron" re-interpretation as well.) There's so much media out there anymore that if a production team doesn't nail the ending, their creation gets wiped out of the collective consciousness. To that extent, I think the creators were successful in saving their series. Did it do damage to itself in yanking out of its construction and themes? A bit. But, in doing so, it pivoted back to being more like a proper "Castlevania" product. (And of course, by proper, I mean anything ignoring "Lords of Shadows." God, people need to stop chasing other products when developing "Castlevania" stuff and just let the series be as it is.)

I am very curious as to how much of this season was part of an original draft and how much was revised in backlash to everything that has happened. It doesn't seem like Trevor was intended to survive, but to some extent, Sypha had to. (I mean, until she has a kid, anyway. See "Lords of Shadows" series for dickery regarding that.) I'm also wondering if there was more intended for the Carmilla subplot, as much as the series was banging on about her invading locations. I'm not even sure St. Germain was intended to be a villain all along. Getting into a bitchfight with Death? Sure. Doing what he did here? That's a weird arc, dude.

If you come away from my POV with anything, it should be this: GO PLAY THE GAMES.

Do it. Do it, you ghouls. Go to the Steam store and download the "Castlevania Anniversary Collection." Boot up your PS3 or 4 or 18 or whatever and get "Symphony of the Night." Throttle Nintendo's stores until "Aria of Sorrow" or "Dawn of Sorrow" or "Harmony of Dissonance" or whatever rattles out of their moldy pockets. Find a ROM. Find an ISO. Just play a game. Especially, one of the ones made before 2010.

"Castlevania" as a game series isn't about hordes of vampires dick-waving at each other or edgy swearing or being grim and dark. Some of that stuff's there, sure. But, at its core, it's what game developers created when they looked at Universal Monster Movie creations and went "That's cool. Let's fight that!" It's a series about pushing technology in MMC chips to make rich, vibrant music. It's about flourishing artwork and layers of sprites dripping particles and gore onto players. It's sober and goofy and very pro curry.

The thing is, "Castlevania" players have their own unique connection to the series. We're the weirdos you see clapping their hands when a mutilated dinosaur shows up on screen. It's not because the monster alone is cool. It's that we've fought and struggled and bodied that thing through several floors like a goddamn "X-Men: Children of the Atom" stage. It's kicked our asses. We've kicked its ass. We've got a connection to it that you just don't get from passively watching it barf lasers through a computer monitor or TV screen. Like, you know how people go, "Well, the movie wasn't as good as the book?" It's obnoxious, sure. But, those who read the source materials have to go to the effort of constructing their own sets and people to understand what's happening. In a similar fashion, game players build up their own skill set to reach that next rung.

Maybe you don't always get a payout when you invest your resources into something. But, there is a sense of accomplishment, seeing what you can do.

There's a reason this series got an adaptation. I mean, outside of Konami's head executives wanting easy money. "Castlevania" is a fantastic video game series. Has it got a few problems? Oh yeah. Especially after outsourcing and pachislot machines became all the rage. But, there's a reason Simon and Richter Belmont are playable in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate." There's a reason I spent a significant amount of time playing these games and writing or drawing fanworks for it. These games are wonderful. Beautiful. Difficult, but inspiring. Reasons I will still bang on about them decades years down the road.

When I get exasperated by layers of angst and edge lord content this Netflix series generated, I want you to know why. The roots of this show are good games held captive under poor management. Some people on staff know this. I wish they had more scenario and writing control. But mostly, I don't want to shit on them or their work. (Well, other than perhaps the obvious target.) I just want you to see what I love in these games.

And also to watch Crashervania. Because that's legit.

[whentherewerebicycles]

Hi! I really hope this isn’t overstepping but I don’t know any grown up lesbians irl (I mean I’m 23 so I guess technically I’m a grown up but for the purposes of this question it doesn’t count). Anyway, you can delete this if you want, but here’s the sitch: I met this girl like 9 months ago at work and first we hated each other and then we became friends and then we started hooking up but just as friends. I’m leaving this job in a few weeks and moving across the country, and I’m having all sorts of complicated feelings about this. Like, I don’t really want to date her, but we haven’t hooked up lately and i think I’m experiencing that as a kind of rejection of me as a friend even tho we’re still friends and do friend stuff together, just minus the kissing. And those rejection-feelings are making me sad. And I guess my question is, since you seem like someone who is really good at processing emotions and sort of regulating your responses—how do I do that? Like how do I become okay with things, especially things that I didn’t think would happen? I’m sorry I know that’s really broad and not really an answerable thing but if you have any advice I would really appreciate it. Thank you

aww it's not overstepping! i am happy to be a Grownup IRL Lesbian in this situation, although yknow take everything with a grain of salt as i am just one person and this is just one perspective. it sounds like there are a couple things at play here... one has to do with communication between the two of you and one has to do with emotional self-regulation. the communication piece i have historically been less adept at handling than the emotional self-regulation piece, but i have a best friend who is very good at it, and i feel like i have learned a lot from watching her navigate these kinds of emotionally sticky situations. so i will tell you what i think she would do -- and i will also tell you that historically, while communicating clearly with people has not always gotten her the outcome that she wanted, she always seems to feel a LOT better for having done it, and it clears the way for her to do the emotional self-regulating part more easily without having to also wade through lots of emotional projecting / attempts at reading the other person's mind.

it sounds like the way this relationship started (because it IS a relationship, even if it's not a capital R relationship) may have laid the groundwork for what's happening now. you say you hated each other at first, so you probably didn't feel comfortable or at ease around each other, and you may have established a pattern of not treating each other with special consideration or thoughtfulness (even if you aren't outright antagonistic towards each other). i'm also assuming (though correct me if i'm wrong?) that the transition into being friends who hook up probably wasn't discussed much at the outset or was treated as a casual thing that didn't need a lot of communication or clear boundaries (since it wasn't a capital R relationship). that kind of thing happens! i think it especially happens in your early 20s (and maybe also in situations where the two women involved don't have a lot of experience dating women or navigating that tricky 'are we friends or...?' kinda thing). but, again, it seems like it might be laying the groundwork for what's happening right now, where one person has withdrawn without explaining why, and the other person is left feeling rejected or confused about what's happening. it also doesn't sound like you think of this as something that could be resolved between the two of you -- you're asking for advice on how to manage your own feelings about the situation, rather than advice on how to address it with her.

from ten years of observing my best friend, i have found that she tends to operate according to the following principles:

ask the person in advance if you can have a conversation with them about something that's bothering you (instead of springing it on them in a social situation when they're not expecting it). it doesn't have to be a big serious We Need to Talk thing. you can make it clear that you're coming into it from a casual, friendly, 'can we try to work this out together' place, not from an attacking place (so as to avoid making the other person defensive)

have the conversation in person instead of over text (it's awkward but trust me TRUST ME it's better)

don't assume that you know what the other person is thinking or why they're acting the way they are. use "I" statements and try to frame things in ways that defuse tension and don't put the other person on the defensive. in your situation, you could say something like, "hey, so, I've noticed that we aren't really hooking up anymore. i respect your choices, and i'm completely okay with that if it's what you want to do. but i've been feeling kind of mixed up and sad about it, i was wondering if we could talk about what the next few weeks of our friendship are going to be like." you can also ask open-ended, nonjudgmental questions: "would you feel more comfortable not hooking up anymore, since i'm about to move?" "would you still like to hang out even if we're not going to be hooking up?" and you can voice your own preferences too - "i'd really like to keep hanging out, but it would help me feel better/more secure to know what you're thinking re: hooking up again," or even "i think it's getting harder for me to separate my feelings about the friendship from the hooking up - i think it might be better for us to stop hanging out."

think about what you want the result of the conversation to be -- not necessarily your most desired outcome, but what your priorities are re: the relationship and your personal needs for closure. you can go into a conversation hoping for a certain outcome ("i hope she says it was just a mistake, apologies, and says she wants to keep hooking up until i leave") but you have no control over whether or not you get that outcome, and you may just be setting yourself up for disappointment. what you can do, though, is set priorities for yourself, so that in the conversation, you are making choices or discussing things in a way that aligns with those longer-term goals. an example of that kind of priority might be something like - "I don't really need to keep in touch with this person after I move, but I want to leave on a good note - so I want to prioritize keeping the conversation positive and friendly, without either of us resorting to the animosity we used to feel towards each other when we first met." or you might set a priority like, "I actually do want to maintain this friendship in some form, and to do that I need to feel like we can be comfortable enough with each other talking to each other openly. I don't know how she'll respond or if preserving the relationship will be important to her at all, but I want to prioritize clearly sharing my own needs and feelings, giving her the opportunity to respond in kind, and modeling what i hope our friendship could look like going forward." getting clear in your own mind about your priorities in advance is different from attempting to emotionally project onto the other person or to control/manipulate their actions in some way. it's something that prepares you to communicate well with another person, but at its core it's an emotional self-regulation strategy -- a way for you to check in with yourself and decide in advance what your 'values' for the conversation are going to be. in the middle of the conversation, you may start feeling defensive, angry, hurt, rejected, or some other Big Feeling that causes you to want to react instinctively and impulsively, or makes it more likely that you'll cave on something you don't really want to cave on. doing some of this thinking beforehand gives you something to refer back to when you're feeling emotionally overwhelmed in the middle of a difficult conversation.

remember that you can only regulate the way you act and respond in a situation. so your priorities can be not just about your hopes for the tone of the conversation or the longer-term outcomes, but also about how you want to respond if things don't go well. poor communicators often tend to interpret attempts to openly, directly communicate or to set boundaries as an attack of some kind or an attempt to manipulate the situation. if she's not a very good communicator, it's possible that she might respond negatively to your attempts to have a calm, direct conversation -- whether it's by lashing out, dismissing or invalidating your feelings, changing the subject, stonewalling you, or trying to turn the situation around on you to make it somehow your fault. remember that if someone is violating your boundaries or making you feel shitty about yourself, you can always leave the conversation. it's not you failing as a communicator -- it's that the other person just isn't able to communicate with you in a healthy, productive way. i feel like when i was first dating women (and navigating breakups or complicated conversations like this one), i used to get sucked into these long, drawn-out processing conversations, which would sometimes last for hours and could be really painful. and i always used to think that to communicate well, or to be a respectful partner, i owed it to the other person to sit there and listen to everything they wanted to say to me, even if it was really cruel or was upsetting me. or if i was breaking up with someone, i owed it to them to answer every single angry or hurt question they asked me, because i was "hurting" them by breaking up with them, and so they were entitled to hurting me back or to dragging me through hours of processing. but that is NOT the case. not to traffic in stereotypes too much, but i think that women are socialized to feel like extensive emotional processing is always required / necessary, that we owe other people our undivided emotional energy and time, and that setting reasonable boundaries or calmly stating our needs is somehow "hurting" or inconveniencing other people in some way. this is simply not true. you have an ethical obligation to respect other people's autonomy and human dignity, and you have the right to expect that they communicate with and treat you with that same basic respect. watching my bff communicate has helped me realize that setting healthy boundaries (and then clearly demonstrating that you will honor those boundaries, by removing yourself from the situation if they are violated) is a way of showing respect to yourself and can also be important for the other person to see. like, way too often poor communicators are rewarded for poor or immature communication by getting what they want from the other person -- whether it's wanting the other person to fight back, or seeing the other person be visibly hurt/filled with self-doubt, or successfully manipulating the other person into doing what they want. every time you let people violate your boundaries, you positively reinforce the idea that emotionally manipulative or disrespectful behavior gets them what they want. by choosing to leave, or knowing where your own emotional boundaries are and having a plan for what you'll do if they're violated, you can protect yourself while also avoiding inadvertently providing that positive reinforcement. btw i don't necessarily anticipate that all of this stuff will be relevant in your situation! but i think it's good to keep in mind, especially if there's a history of antagonism there in the early stages of your friendship. also it's just good Lesbian Dating 101 knowledge to have in general, i think! again, not to generalize too much, but i think that women dating other women can be especially prone to really complicated, painful, emotionally manipulative dynamics, in part because our society teaches women that it is dangerous, unattractive, pushy, selfish, etc to clearly express our feelings/needs and enforce healthy boundaries. not to mention that lesbians and bisexual

women are also more likely to have issues with internalized homophobia, shame, etc, which may cause us to develop lots of maladaptive coping mechanisms, which in turn can further distort our ability to be honest with ourselves about our feelings/needs and to clearly communicate with others. so yknow! as you continue to date and sleep with women i think it's good to be working on your shit while also being attuned to signs that someone else is working through (or avoiding working through) their own shit.

also remember that, while it's good to be prepared for worst-case or most stressful outcomes, it's also very possible that having an open, nondefensive, nonjudgmental conversation with her will work! it's very possible that it will go well, that you will work things out in a way that makes you both feel better about each other and about the situation, and that she will take your good communicator cues and respond to you with the same openness and respect you are extending to her. so i wouldn't go into it expecting things to go badly!

anyway to sum all of that up: i do think that my advice would first be to try having a conversation with your friend/casual partner -- and i would especially recommend approaching this conversation not as a Huge Emotional Thing but as a good, low-stakes situation where you can practice your open communication skills! the fact that you are moving in a few weeks imposes natural parameters around this situation, so you don't have to worry about, like, seeing her at work for years to come, or moving in the same social circles as her. i think that can kinda free you up emotionally to take a communication 'risk' or to try something that's a little bit outside of your comfort zone. and whether that conversation goes well or not so well, the experience of reflecting on your priorities for the conversation, making choices in the conversation that align with those priorities, and reflecting back on how it went afterwards can be a really good, really important learning experience. if you can start practicing these things at 23, you will be SO far ahead of where i was at that age, lol, and you really will benefit from having these strategies in your relationship/friendship toolkit.

to get to the question of emotional processing and self-reflection, though, here's how i think i would handle this situation.

first and most importantly: make space for yourself to feel the bad feelings. don't try to downplay or compartmentalize or dismiss what you're experiencing. if you feel sad, rejected, and confused, make space for yourself to really feel those feelings and to acknowledge to yourself that they are real, and they hurt. i often do this in writing (private writing rather than tumblr writing) but i also do it out loud, and i find that saying it aloud can really help me feel that sense of relief/release. a couple months ago a thing happened that really bothered me & made me feel very ashamed and small and embarrassed. and i just spent that morning in my apartment writing through the feelings, and then saying aloud to myself: "I feel really bad right now. I feel really embarrassed, and I feel shame - ie I'm not just embarrassed about something I did; I feel embarrassed right now by who I am as a person. It feels really bad. It makes me feel really small. It stirs up a lot of painful past memories where I've felt like this before, and it's really hard for me right now to not link this situation to those past situations, and to tell myself a story about how I have always been the kind of person other people perceive as too much."

you will absolutely cry a lot, if you are anything like me! but it is a good, cathartic kind of crying. It doesn't exorcise or expel those feelings, but putting them out there in the open allows you to look at them clearly, and to put them outside of yourself instead of doing the shame thing where you repress them and internalize them. internalized shame, for me, always feels like it is literally internalized in my body. repressing or avoiding voicing feelings of shame doesn't make it go away; it just gets internalized as physical tension, like literally stored in my muscles (tight jaw, hunched shoulders, constricted chest, etc). voicing the feeling aloud and letting yourself cry through it (or however you let yourself process big painful feelings) releases that tension, and means that i don't literally "carry it" in my frame like i used to.

when i've let myself feel the big feelings, i start doing something that i think of as bathing myself in acceptance and compassion. this is kind of a metaphor, but i also try to use it as a visualization, kinda? i think of shame and feelings of rejection are emotional experiences that flood my body/mind/senses. so i try to visualize acceptance and self-compassion in a similar but slightly different way. flooding is so violent and is something you have no control over. bathing can similarly 'drench' you in a whole-body feeling, but for me it has connotations of consciously chosen tenderness and care. instead of opening the floodgates of negative feelings, you are choosing to gently care for yourself, to bathe yourself in acceptance and compassion. if i am really really upset about something, and am really having a hard time with shame-flooding, i will sometimes sit in a quiet place somewhere, close my eyes, and actually say those words aloud to myself -- I am bathing myself in accepting and compassion. I am bathing myself in acceptance and compassion -- as I try to visualize those feelings of compassion, permission to feel what i feel, and nonjudgmental acceptance just gently washing over me, again and again. i usually cry some more! i am a big advocate for crying all the time as part of healthy emotional processing! but it really does seem to work, to soothe my flooded brain/body back to a state of calm equilibrium.

at this point, i usually am feeling calm enough that i can look at the situation again and think about it in a less visceral emotional-response way. i've cleared time/space for myself to feel the bad feelings, and then i've consciously chosen to honor those feelings and to make it clear to myself that i'm not going to judge myself harshly or critically, either for feeling what i feel or for whatever i did/failed to do in the original situation that prompted the bad feelings. doing that emotional processing work seems to allow me to reengage the prefrontal cortex and look more carefully at the situation. i tend to do a lot more writing (and some talking-aloud) at this stage, and i try to ask myself lots of open-ended, exploratory questions. when i was very upset and ashamed of the thing that happened a couple months ago, here are some of the questions I asked myself and spent time writing through:

why do I think that situation triggered such a strong emotional response in me?

what was i imagining the other person was thinking about the situation or about me? what are some reasons that upset or distressed me?

i noticed that i started immediately linking this situation to past situations where i've felt the same way. is it possible that the intensity of my response might have less to do with this specific situation, and more to do with other situations it reminded me of?

when i was awash in those shame feelings & linking the situation to past situations, what kind of narrative was i constructing about myself? what story was i telling myself about the kind of person I "am" or have always been?

looking at the same set of facts, can i construct an alternative story about who i am/have been? my initial narrative was really focused on my negative traits and negative past experiences. what would it look like to tell myself a story that centered the ways in which i've grown and changed, or a story that incorporated both traits i like in myself and traits i am less proud of? what might those alternative stories offer that my original story left out?

what could i learn from this experience? without resorting to self-criticism or self-judgment, are there things i might want to do differently when i find myself in this situation again? what choices could i make that might better align with my values or my understanding of the kind of person i want to be in the world? without shifting blame onto the other person, is there anything i can learn from the way they responded -- about how i want to treat others (or avoid treating them) when we're in some kind of conflict with each other?

i really cannot stress how crucial it is for me to actually carve out the time/space to do this kind of deep, sustained emotional processing. in my own emotional history, the things that i have struggled most to get over/move past/grow beyond are the things that i initially brushed off, or told myself were too trivial to feel bad about, or actively repressed because at the time they felt too raw and painful for me to look at or handle directly.

i was just thinking earlier this week about that whole embarrassing / painful experience, and sort of marveling at how easy it is for me now to think about it without feeling it like a wound, or without my mind instinctively trying to deflect or evade thinking about it. looking back at it, i can still see exactly why it caused me pain, and i can still remember/access what that hurt felt like. but i created space for myself to deeply process it -- that is, space to actually acknowledge the feelings; to extend acceptance and compassion to myself for what was past/over; to openly explore what the situation made me feel and why; and to reflect on what i could learn from the experience or take with me moving forward (ie, consciously choosing what i wanted to carry with me from the situation, instead of involuntarily carrying the shame, tension, etc in my body). and that processing allowed me to integrate that painful experience into my sense of who i am and how i relate to other people, in a healthy way that doesn't deny the pain but also doesn't let it become all-consuming, or assume outsize importance in the stories I tell myself about myself.

I'm sorry this got so long! i just really do enjoy and value getting to think aloud about this kind of thing, so thank you for the chance to do so. I don't know how much of this advice will be directly relevant to your situation! I think everybody processes things differently, and while we can learn from closely attending to other people's methods, we all have to figure out how to create and consistently practice healthy coping mechanisms that fit our individual temperament & emotional histories. but i hope that this at least gives you some starting points for thinking about how you might work through your own complicated emotional situation, in a way that feels healthy for you. i wish you the very best of luck!!

[longinglook]

I’m going to be gone for most of the day so I thought that the best way to use up my last 10 minutes before leaving would be to write a multi paragraph post on what I think about Fighter’s behavior so here we go

(under a read more because this could get very very long)

so. fighter. our confused messy boy we are just starting to understand

i’ve read a lot of tweets/posts/comments of people that don’t understand his behavior or think that his storyline doesn’t make sense which has always left me a bit perplexed because to me everything he does seems justified and coherent to where his mind is at the moment so i’ll try to explain

but first, something about me kfmslkcls 

i identify as lesbian but i have struggled with compulsive heterosexuality all my life, i’ve spent years identifying as bi because the scary part for me was not admitting that i liked girls but admitting that i did not like boys past the occasional crushes on fictional boys and let me tell you: a lot of what fighter does/the way he thinks reminds me so much of how i was and here’s a list of things:

1) he seems a lot more at ease with same sex friends, the only times we see him with hwa you can tell that he’s forcing himself to act a certain way, he knows he’s supposed to do boyfriend things like taking her on dates and kissing but he is not comfortable with it, he tries and fails at it. of course part of the reason is because of his father but not only does he seem uniterested in her, there’s always a sense of uneasiness when he’s with her, like he’s scared of actually having to kiss her. he’s fine with the relationship as long as it’s just texting and hanging out (like a friendship would be) but he seems not to want it to become phisical. since he’s a very confused boy he’s probably blaming all of this on his father forcing him into the relationship, instead of knowing right away that he’s not interested in her

2) thinking whatever he has with tutor is just friendship and teasing: i feel like this is such a common experience for most lgbt+ folks, thinking you just have a deep friendship with someone of the same sex, only to later realize it was actually a crush and you had no idea. ex. liking the casual cuddling and touches and looking for more, paying close attention to all the displays of affection, wanting to always be close and being a little jealous of everyone else that they interact with. I feel like a lot of people go through this thinking it’s just a friendship, especially if it’s with someone of the same sex because they are not even considering the option of it being a crush. that’s why fighter keeps saying that they’re only friends and he’s behaving like a close friend would, he just doesn’t let himself consider the option because it would be way too scary and that leads us to point #3

3) being too scared to say what he wants: he does this A LOT. instead of asking for something, which would mean saying it out loud and admitting it, he just acts. words can be so scary (again making this about me, i have id’d as lesbian for over 2 years now and ive come out to a lot of friends but ive never said the word lesbian out loud because it’s just terrifying to me), and fighter seems to only use them after he has acted to justify whatever dumb shit he has done with an excuse. saying something like “i kissed you because i wanted to” would mean admitting he wants to kiss another man (meaning he’s not straight) and that man is fighter (meaning he has feelings for him). it’s much easier for him to go with the flow  and do first, explain later. and by explaining i mean lying, even to himself because deep down he knows, of couse he knows what’s going on but acknowledging it would have serious implications on his life.

also the way he reacts to tutor asking him if he likes boys is a big indicator of what's going on with him, it's his way of answering, not his way of avoiding the question. he can't say it out loud so he shows it but then he's scared of the consequences and no homos it. and the choice of replaying the question scene while they're making out shows us that fight is tormented by it, he's scared of other people asking him that as well, now that tutor has noticed it more people could as well and that's why he pulls away. 

4) on a similar note, teasing until tutor does something/not wanting to be the one to start it: this is pure fighter behavior, hoping tutor will be the one to start it so he doesn’t have to. i called this gay chicken last week, it’s fighter making everything into a challenge so he can blame it on tutor and say that he was just reacting. we can see how desperate he is for tutor’s attention, how happy he is when he has it and how frustrated he is when he doesn’t. he’s like a child who wants people to pay attention to him but doesn’t know how to ask for it, so they start annoying people. fight knows very well that he could just say hey tutor i’m here, please talk to me but how could he give a realistic reason for it other than because i have a massive crush on you meaning i’m not straight. he knows tutor doesn’t back down from a challenge and he riles him up because he has learned what that will lead them to. it’s like he knows there’s an easier way to get to that, but it’s scary so he just keeps going with his soundproof tesing tacting which so far has worked every time. also in general reacting is a lot easier than acting, again a personal example: if someone asks me if i like girls I’ll say yes right away, but if i have to start the conversation i won’t. (one thing i do a lot is to be like “hey i have something to tell you about myself but you have to guess it”)

5) backtracking/giving mixed signals: again he’s terrified, he knows what he wants but he knows what /wanting it/ implies. sometimes he follows his heart, but then his brain comes back to tell him that, hey, you’re kissing another dude and you’re enjoying it and of course he freaks out and leaves. i would be way more annoyed with him if the show had been portraying tutor as pining and in love, meaning that fighter has been giving him false-ish hopes, but after ep.6 we see that tutor himself still hasn’t admitted to himself that he likes fighter (in bold because i feel like this part is very important and often overlooked) so they are both confused about their feelings. 

i don’t think they are actually confused, they know but they are scared which in my opinion is very realistic of how someone behaves when they thought they were straight and they are not. It’s not about being dumb or being slow, it’s about realizing that once you take that step and acknowledge you’re not straight your life changes. idk how many of you are actually not straight (i assume most just because tumblr) but like…… coming out is so stressful being straight is just so much easier you dont have to do shit i wish that were me

6) his father: i feel like we only grazed the surface of fighter’s daddy issues, but he seems to be a very controlling and inflexible man, meaning that he probably wouldn’t be thrilled at the idea of his son dating another man. we don’t know about fight’s past, and maybe he has already had crushes on men and had to repress them. fighter seems to be used to a pretty luxurious lifestyle, he can’t just fuck off and go against his father because he would lose his support.

so it’s not just admitting things to himself, which can be insanely hard on its own especially if you were brought up in a traditional family, it’s also having to deal with the reactions from everyone around you

I KEEP THINKING ABOUT NEW THINGS TO ADD TO THIS POST SORRY anyway i think fighter has already shown multiple times that he does care for tor, it's just in a very shy and lowkey way because he's scared of giving himself away but he does indeed worry about tor (ex. he notices tor is stressed about his test, he tries to help outat his part time job). it also seems that in times of urgency he's more explicit about ex. offering to pay off his debt when tor was being threatened or saying he's his boyfriend when the gross cafe dude was hitting on him

also can we talk about how heartbreaking and soft fighter can be when he lets down his guard and shows his emotional side ex. telling tor nobody has ever taken care of him like that or the way he looks every time tutor pulls away first... this poor boy is touch starved and he craves affection but he can't ask for it yet. he's going to be a real gem once he can be honest with his feelings

for future episodes i think that tutor and fighter are well on their way to realizing their feelings for each other and there's going to be some development soon, but i dont expect fighter to come out to anyone else in the next few episodes because there's a lot of work to be done still. i just hope they dont pull the /i dont like boys i just like you/ trope because i WILL drop this show. so. fast. please don't ruin this character please let him accept his attraction to men fully

in conclusion. i dont blame fighter for anything he has done so far, he’s scared shitless but knows what’s going on, i trust he will soon be brave enough to start being honest with himself and with tutor

man this did NOT  take 10 minutes to write and i dont have time to proofread

[silveny-dreams]

okay so here's a hc i have: marella is super affectionate, she's just not open about it. she has to really trust someone to be as touchy touchy as she wants to be. so like with linh (when they're in private because even though she's marella and she's a badass, she's still a bit insecure about how she's a major fricking lesbian) she kisses her a lot and holds her hand and LOVES cuddling, and she can understand keefe to a degree because he's EXACTLY the same way. also she loves doggos

This is interesting because I’ve never headcanoned Marella like this before! There’s this line in Nightfall, I think, where after she sees Grady and Edaline hugging Sophie before they go on a mission, where Marella’s basically like “whoa you guys are huggers aren’t you” and I always got the impression from that line and how she said it that she usually prefers not to be touched? But it would be fascinating for her to really want physical affection but not trust anyone except her most trusted confidantes to give her any!

I also don’t think she’d be like really obvious about it, either. I think when it was just her and Linh, she’d be grumbling about something or other and just kinda flop her head into Linh’s lap, and Linh would stiffen just a little because she knows Marella doesn’t just touch people. And she’d be too hesitant for like the next half hour to do anything but sit there and let Marella’s head lie in her lap, convinced that any second Marella would get up again and act like it hadn’t happened. But when Marella stays where she is, Linh tentatively lifts a hand and brushes some of Marella’s hair into place, testing the waters. Marella stiffens, and Linh stiffens in response, moving her hand away and apologizing, saying that some of her hair had gotten out of place and she was just fixing it, and Marella just mumbling “no it’s fine, I just didn’t expect it”

And slowly over time they kinda build up this tolerance? So that Marella doesn’t freeze every time Linh shows any physical affection. Marella feels bad anytime her body reacts that way because she really doesn’t mind being touched, since she trusts Linh, but it’s kind of a knee-jerk response? And Linh doesn’t even really mind that Marella doesn’t know how to be touchy, and doesn’t overwhelm her with lots of physical affection, either. Both Linh and Marella strike me as people who aren’t overly physically affectionate, who slowly end up being touchier with each other in this really casual way?

And no one else knows that Marella is okay with being touchy until one day Tam comes looking for Linh to ask her about something and pauses in the doorway, stunned, when he sees Marella laying back against Linh, sat pretty much in her lap, with Linh fixing one of Marella’s tiny braids. Marella sees Tam first and raises an eyebrow, drawling “did you need something, Bangs Boy?” And Tam glares at her for a few seconds before asking Linh his question.

a few days later at lunch Marella glares around at the squad and asks why they’re all giving her funny looks, and Biana hesitantly asks “so are you and Linh, like...?” And Marella instantly knows this is Tam’s doing (and he knows, too, and purposefully sat on the other end of the table from her, just in case) and all she does is shrug. “I dunno, we just chill. Nothing you guys don’t do with each other all the time.” And Biana looks embarrassed, saying she’d just never seen Marella be physically affectionate with anyone, and thought Marella just didn’t do that sort of thing, so when she’d heard that she’d get touchier with Linh, she’d gotten curious.

And Marella shrugs again, glancing at Linh, who looks just as unbothered, and is like “I dunno, it’s been a process, and it’s not like this big deal or anything” and the squad decides to leave it at that.

And slowly the others start showing little bits of non-overwhelming physical affection towards her, like those bro hi-five-slash-hug things or poking her when teasing her or resting their arm on her shoulder when they stand next to her, and because she’s gotten better with touchiness with Linh, she doesn’t freeze up so badly, because they are her friends, and they don’t push it, mainly because Marella really isn’t that much of a hugger or cuddler anyways, and the squad never knows how nice it makes Marella feel that they make an effort while respecting her boundaries.

I dunno how to end this thing but yeah Marella being physically affectionate is a fascinating concept

[queercapwriting]

Hey Cap! I don't think I ever told you but my gf and I (still blows my mind) have been dating for almost 11 months but she still hasn't told her parents because she's afraid of how her dad will react. I was wondering if you could maybe write a thing about Lena going to one of the superfriends and talking about how she can't tell her mother about Kara.

She brought a bottleof wine and her worst insecurities, and the vague hope that Alex wouldn’t hate herin a few hours.

Lena was alwaysworried – that she was one social misstep away from the people closest to herrealizing that they actually hated her, that there was nothing about her tolove.

Especially when sheasked for things. Anything, really. She was supposed to give and work hard andgive even more and work even harder. She wasn’t supposed to take.

But she was asking totake tonight, because all she’d texted Alex was “can we talk?” and as afollow-up – so she wouldn’t make up something benign, backing out of theconversation she really needed to have – she wrote, quick and hasty anddesperate – “it’s about Kara and my relationship, and my mother.”

Her mother.

If anyone in theircircle of friends understood, it would be Alex.

She didn’t know howshe’d wound up in a group of friends with mothers who were all either absent ordead, or – in her and Alex’s case – very much alive and very much thinking theyloved their daughters well, but in reality coming up short – very short – oh somany times, in oh so many ways.

But maybe it wasprecisely that – daddy issues, mommy issues, general parent and trauma andabuse issues – that brought them all together, that made them recognize eachother, really see each other whereother people couldn’t, or didn’t, or chose not to.

Which was why she wasknocking on Alex’s door, shaking hands and bottle of wine and Kara’s oldNational City University sweatshirt hugging her just right, just comfortingenough to give her the courage to not knock and run.

Alex tugged the dooropen with a lopsided grin and groaned in a way that Lena could never determinewhether Kara got it from her or she got it from Kara when they saw food ordrinks they loved.

“Oh my god you are the greatest person,” Alexsaid, taking Lena’s hand in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other andpulling her sister’s girlfriend inside.

Lena marveled at thetouch, the casual intimacy it implied. She knew that Alex knew by now that Lenawelcomed her touch, her hugs and her hand grasps and her hand on her arm, herknee, when they laughed together at Game Night, at the bar. But still, Lenamarveled at it every time.

The touch and theacceptance and the no strings attached.

“So talk to me,” Alexsaid, without preamble, as she opened the bottle of wine with a crisp pop.

“Um,” Lena gulped,drumming her fingers on Alex’s spotless counter top. “No Maggie tonight?”

“Working late.” Aghost of a grin passed over Alex’s lips as she poured a generous glass forLena. “And then she and James, Winn, and Kelly are grabbing a drink. Brainy andNia are probably going to join them, and then you know, it’ll be up to me tomanage all the hangovers.”

Lena grinned,remembering the last time they’d all gone out. Another night marked withmarveling of being accepted, being welcome, being… herself. Kara’s arm casuallydraped around her shoulders, or holding her from behind, or grasping her hand, gentleand perfect and right. And no oneminding, no one thinking anything of it except being happy for them, beinghappy that they finally admitted how they felt, that they finally kissed, forcrying out loud.

“So?” Alex repeated, tothe point but open. “Kara and your relationship and your mother.”

Lena’s eyes widenedslightly at the direct invitation – she should expect nothing less from thedirector of the DEO – and took a gulp of her wine.

“I don’t know how totell her,” Lena admitted, plunking down on the couch in a way that no oneoutside of this family she was growing would associate with the refinedbusiness woman-science genius Lena Luthor.

Alex sipped her wineand tilted her head, and Lena smiled slightly. She wondered what mannerisms shewas picking up from Kara, like Alex was picking up mannerisms from Maggie.

“How to tell…”

It was a gentle prompt– nothing Lena had been used to or understood until she fell into this family –and it unnerved her as much as it made her feel cared for.

“How to tell mymother. About Kara and me.”

Alex nodded, slow andunderstanding. Lena stared into her glass, worried that her face was turningred, worried that Alex would tell her she was being ridiculous, that she was agrown woman, that she and Kara had been together for almost a year and it was immatureand stupid and hurtful that she hadn’t figured out how to tell Lillian yet…

“Because Kara’s aSuper or because Kara is Supergirl?”

Lena chuckled at thepun, at Alex’s gentle way of asking if Lena was out to her mother.

She tossed her handsup, nearly sloshing her wine, and shrugged. “I don’t know. Both? She knows, shemust know, about me and Sam, and me and…” Lena’s eyes sparkled mischievously,just for a moment, a brief moment of bemusement in her pain and anxiety. “Well,me and just about every woman I was close with in boarding school…”

Alex raised her glasswith a grin, and Lena clinked them together with a shake of her head. “But thenagain, I didn’t tell her about Jack, either. I never told her who I was dating.I assume she knows, of course. That I’mbisexual, that I lean more towards women, that… I assume she knows. But we’venever discussed it, because we’ve never discussed my personal life beyond myapparently endless list of failures…”

She glanced up atAlex, then, not wanting to pry. Not wanting to make her talk about Eliza if shedidn’t want to. But she watched Alex’s eyes, and knew that Alex knew why Lenahad chosen her to talk to. And instead of calling her selfish, instead ofhating her for it, Lena marveled – again, again – as Alex just shifted to getmore comfortable on her part of the couch, settling in, leaning towards Lenainstead of away. Lena searched, hard, for signs of discomfort or annoyance. Shefound none.

It confused her, andit made her feel like she was flying, safe in Kara’s arms.

Alex sipped at herwine, long and thoughtful. “When I came out to my mom, I don’t think she wassurprised. I think she was… I don’t know, sad that I’d felt like I couldn’ttell her. I told her I didn’t want to disappoint her, and she… it was hard.”Alex downed more wine. “She hugged me, and she told me she loves me, and itfelt amazing. But it also was frustrating, because of course I felt like she’dbe disappointed. She’s been disappointed in me for most of my life, you know? Iwas never good enough, never took good enough care of Kara, or… of course Ithought she’d be upset, but she acted so sad and confused that I would thinkthat of her. And that was hard, because it was just… infuriating somehow, I don’tknow.”

Lena nodded. “Iunderstand that. I do.”

Alex smiled sadly. “Iknow you do. So. How much of it do you think it’s because she’s a Super and howmuch of it do you think is because she’s a woman?”

It was Lena’s turn tosmile. “Who knows? 50-50, 70-30? Sometimes it feels 100% like one or the other…but another part of me thinks, does she even deserve to know? About my personallife, about my loves and my wants? Has she earned those parts of me? Especiallywhen she might turn around that trust and hurt me with it?”

Alex nodded. “And yetall we want, still, is for them to tell us they love us and are proud of us.”

Lena let a tear, justa single one, drop from unblinking eyes.

Alex leaned over andsqueezed her hand. Lena squeezed right back.

“She doesn’t deservethe power to hurt you like she’s hurt you. But she’s got it, and it’s okay totake your time deciding what you want her to know. Because even if she doesn’tdeserve those parts of you, if you want to share with her, you should beallowed to do that. And know that we’ll all be here for you, whatever herreaction.”

Lena sniffledslightly. “You sound like your sister.”

“Good, I’m glad you’retalking to Kara about it, too.”

“I’m just scared thatit hurts her. Talking about it. I don’t want her to feel like I’m ashamed ofher, or like I’m hiding her.”

“But Lillian isterrifying and has also tried to kill Kara several times, so. Your hesitationis more than understandable.”

“Also what Kara says,”Lena chuckled. “She says she’ll wait as long as I need, and in the meantime wehave our own family, but I still worry. That she’s protecting me from her hurt.”

Alex nodded, chewingat the inside of her cheek. “And if she is, then it’s her job to tell you that.You’ve got to take care of each other, and that includes telling each other allof it, good, bad, and indifferent.”

“When did you becomethe sage old lesbian?” Lena narrowed her eyes, but the corners of her lips gaveher away.

Alex laughed. “Maggiehas an odd effect on me.”

“It suits you.”

“And Kara suits you.It’s no one’s decision but yours, Lena, but whatever it is, we’re all here. Ipromise. Okay?”

Lena smiled, becauseokay. Yes. She did believe it. Maybe for the first time ever.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

A matter of discourse

Kind of autobiographical, which may be boring. This post is a very brief discussion about my experiences with online discourse. 

I’ve changed a lot since my A-timer days back in 2016 when I was first engaging in genuine discussion on the internet for the first time. Back then  I was fighting the fight for stuff like Bubbline to be allowed on television. There was a lot of insane and aggravating discussion. It felt fun to let off steam by having a proper go at someone I knew was wrong though. It developed some solid communication skills as well. I felt alive!    

When I opened my tumblr, suddenly lots of things were a big deal. Friends sharing posts about tragedies that had happened, about venomous members of different communities. This only escalated after I left the Atimers for Homestuck fandom, which was itching for a good fight. So I got in the gang with various LGBT bloggers, and watched the material they were sharing.   

So, there was stuff like Zamii, like scandals about ships, like scandals about what people did on other accounts... lesbian shippers were at war against gay shippers.... 

...and back in the cartoon fandom shows like SU were going under intense scrutiny from the people who enjoyed them, an overtly progressive show like SU had attracted an overtly progressive audience which was going to take absolutely no prisoners whatsoever, even on stuff that in most people’s eyes would never be a big deal. Standards that no other show in the history of television had lived up to. 

It’s not so much that SU etc were bad, or that they were not bad, but the thing that got to me was how the crew reacted. They couldn’t deal. They jumped to defend the show, say it was sooo not bad, that everyone else was being stupid. People deleted their accounts and stopped communicating with the internet. That was the harsh blow - the crew had decided the entire fanbase were not worth speaking to, because somebody criticised their work.

Not unlike what had happened to Homestuck, I feel.      

This was the time where I decided to step away from my tumblr account. I felt like I had to police everything I post because I was at the time a popular blog, if I stepped out of line - something ridiculously easy for a moron like me - then I wouldn’t be lynched as such, but my casual friends would reject me. I felt like this meant my tumblr friends weren’t true allies and it didn’t feel right to expose myself. (Not inclusive of the Group Chat friends or certain individuals from this site who are a whole different story of people I’ve neglected, I’m really sorry.) 

Watching the crews of all my fandoms just walk away at the first obstacle took the spirit out of being a fan too. 

Besides which, Homestuck was ending. It had decided late in act 6 to perform a round of virtue signalling which I felt was kind of facetious considering Hussie’s actual views on everything and the lack of energy he’d been putting into the story. Until the story ended I believed that maybe he’d changed, but then A7 dropped and I realised I was right all along. Years later, the epilogues have only reinforced my perspective that Hussie only wrote A6 to be so progressive because that was what he thought his current fans would be into, not because he thought it would be a good idea or the right thing to do. It shows because of how badly he’s handled it. 

So I joined the Homestuck reddit and became more active there than on Tumblr. Then I joined the Homestuck discord. 

The place at first was kind of... cold towards me, because of my reputation for being a firestarter whenever the topic of LGBT ships in homestuck came up (a reputation I am proud of - together we inflicted genuine change in the way the reddit handled homophobic content). I took a liking to it though because there is a ton of people and I didn’t have to engage in horrible one-on-one discussions where there could be intense emotional labour. I didn’t have to deal with people’s personal drama, with suicide threats, in-group fighting. I didn’t have to deal with callouts, because while they were a thing, they were just a silly thing that wouldn’t result in being kicked unless you were a genuine cunt. And I have grown to trust the place to protect itself from truly vile people. There are enough channels and there’s just enough activity that you can discuss whatever you like with a small group of people and have a good nonjudgemental discussion, though it will be layered with lots of sarcasm and maybe a couple of nasty comments, which I think I’m a bit weird for enjoying getting thrown at me. Playing the Fool is my forte. 

Watching the news now, even looking on tumblr, but ESPECIALLY looking at twitter, it’s so intimidating seeing how much people hate each other for acting naturally. Whether this is people who would be described by many as “social justice warriors” or people who would self describe as “anti social justice warriors”. I do think the latter are significantly more evil and petty to be honest because they’re doing something far worse over an issue that’s less severe than whatever they’re defending.  

The major issue appears to be people reacting without genuinely looking into whatever they’re being clickbaited with. This is stupidity at its finest. 

To summarise my position:  If you see something and it’s making you feel strongly, I implore you to sit back, think about what you’re looking at, maybe do a bit of research, then think about why it’s happened, and why it’s making you feel strong. If you do all that and your opinion is the same, great! You’ve got a well thought out opinion.   

If you refuse to do this, you’re being dumb and you should not try to cause controversy or grief.  

If you’re causing drama or harrassment about something purely out of spite to someone else who you don’t like much, go fuck yourself. 

Okay, post is over, go home everybody. Your homework for tonight is the controversy of the Homestuck epilogue, why it became what it was, and whether it’s justified to be angry. Please submit papers by tomorrow morning for review.  

thiswillbemynextblogpost

[sapphicscholar]

Pride Month Prompts Day 22: Wedding (Grace/Frankie)

From this Pride Month Prompts post! I’m taking the opportunity to write some short fics for a variety of pairings that I haven’t written for as much. I’ll be sure to tag them all with #pride month prompts so you can find them later if you’d like!

Day 22: Wedding - on AO3 as Casual Simplicity

Pairing: Grace/Frankie

A/N: I apologize if this has already been done and I haven’t gotten to read that particular fic yet!

“Marry me.”

They’re words Grace never expected to hear again, not after 40 years of a loveless marriage came crumbling down around her, the husband she’d tolerated for so long apparently deciding that the years she gave him weren’t enough to make up for that “more” he’d gone chasing in another man’s arms, sneaking away on long “business trips” and leaving her alone with the children she’d come to love but had never wanted for her own sake. But the words are real. Nick is real, sitting there, right in front of her, looking perfectly handsome in a tailored suit from a designer that Grace has heard of and approves of. But the words—they have to be a joke, and she says as much.

Only Nick doesn’t leave. He stays there, telling her he doesn’t care if it’s crazy; he wants to marry her anyway. There’s an answer for every question, even that why that Grace has tried to avoid thinking too hard about when it comes to most of her romantic decisions. But Nick smiles up at her, more guileless than he’ll ever be during the business day, and tells her it’s simple, says, “I love you,” says, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

And there’s something so damn attractive about simple.

Robert had seemed simple. He was a lawyer from a wealthy family with a charming smile and an easy laugh. He was a perfect gentleman on their dates, never pushing her to do things she didn’t want to do—later, she’ll wonder if all those years of polite manners were just repression dressed up in bourgeois niceties. When he asked her to marry him, neither of them asked why, neither of them wondered if it would be enough, if it would be the kind of love that sent them reeling. They fit. Socially, politically, financially, hell, even aesthetically—Robert’s taller, slightly stockier frame the perfect accessory to finish off Grace’s ensembles, right along with all shimmering, pre-packed gift jewelry that accentuated prominent collar bones and thin wrists and long, perfectly manicured fingers.

Simple makes sense. Simple is Byron telling Grace she’s “smokin’ hot” and sweeping her off her feet—quite literally—his desire plain for the world to see. Simple is the way her body had reacted to that show of need, of someone wanting her so clearly, so straightforwardly, at least until her mind caught up with her.

Everything with Nick would be simple. Problems would be purchased and turned into solutions or made to disappear. Love would be something declared in clear prose. Meals would appear and could be ignored in turn, the dishes vanishing and leftovers sliding down a garbage disposal that would never be clogged with paint or dirt or the DVR remote that had gone missing weeks ago. Sex would happen on a semi-regular basis and would continue to be semi-good, and Vybrant, promising older women that they could enjoy genuinely fulfilling sexual pleasure, would continue to flourish, and never would she let herself hold those two things up side-by-side for a comparison that might show her things she didn’t want to see.

Grace leans over and kisses Nick, hoping it’s answer enough when she can’t make her mouth form the sounds needed to agree to this next simple step. He cups her jaw and kisses her, smiling into it, and it isn’t Byron’s rough hands, but it’s real. It isn’t some video broadcast to the whole Internet talking about kisses that never happened—kisses offered in jest and discussed in public and penciled into Grace’s otherwise pristine planner in all capital letters, but never a real option.

As Grace walks down the beach, tucked into Nick’s side, she finally manages a, “Yes.” And that settles it. Because Nick doesn’t offer things he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t proposition someone for years only to laugh—loudly, too loudly—and insist it had been a great big tease all along when they finally start to say yes.

Only, it turns out that for all his simplicity, Nick wants some of that simplicity in return. He wants someone who will want him back. Can deal with a third player in the game, but not when it becomes clear that player 3 will always be priority 1.

They’re in the back of Nick’s car, flying down the highway on their way to be married, but all Grace can think about, can talk about, is Frankie. About what Frankie said. About everything Frankie has done. About all the ways Frankie has been telling her, again and again, even after her walking disease of a boyfriend took his yurt and fucked off, that what they have isn’t enough—and why shouldn’t it be enough? Why can’t it be enough? Why is Grace—again, always—being told that what she valued as enough someone else saw as lacking, never the “more” that would somehow make it worthwhile?

Nick shrugs his shoulders, as laissez-faire in his attitude towards Frankie’s behavior as he wants the government to be about his business. “Maybe Kooky wants something that you already have without her.”

“And what the hell would that be?” Grace snaps, yanking her hand free of Nick’s, too annoyed to want his easy comfort right now.

Nick turns to face her head on then, and Grace can see something like resignation in his expression, wonders how she’s fucked another thing up today, all before the sun has even set. “I meant me. A relationship.”

“Oh.”

Before Grace can get out one of those light, breezy laughs and paper over the fact that she’s forgotten the very thing she’s on her way to concretize in binding, legal documents, Nick takes her hand in his once more. “Maybe I should have listened when you told me this was crazy.”

“Nick.”

“I love you, Grace. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But not when you’ll always be there wondering about someone else.”

“It’s not the same,” Grace insists, her voice cracking as Nick’s words edge close—too close—to the questions that she’s been trying to quiet with pills and drown in vodka.

“No, it’s not the same. But I think I’m on the losing side here.”

---

Hovering on that thin line between still drunk and already hungover that would normally have Grace reaching for either a new drink or an Ambien and a few Advil, Grace pulls her sweater tighter around herself to ward off the chill as she wanders down the beach. The sea lions are quiet now, the breeze barely a whisper in the air. If only Bud and Allison had scheduled their wedding for 4am, then no one would have known that Grace couldn’t make heads or tails of Frankie’s pictionary Post Its.

The lights are almost all out at the beach house now, though the outside decorations are still up, long strings of fairy lights twinkling in the night sky. Grace knows she could walk back in, go up to her room, and sleep in a bed, but after hours of drunken contemplation alone, she isn’t quite sure she deserves it. Yes, Frankie had left stupid notes that made no fucking sense, but Grace could have asked, could have dealt with Joan Margaret and gotten on Frankie’s calendar, or pulled a Frankie and scrawled her name across the entire day (and she thinks Frankie may well have honored such a request). Instead, she’d assumed that Frankie was being, well, Kooky—and the caricature of Kooky that Nick thought he knew, not the slightly kooky but also brilliant, caring, warm woman Grace had come to know over the years.

Of course, there’s still anger there, too. Anger at Frankie for thinking that her life only meant something if she drank disgusting cacao and slept in a yurt on a beachfront in La Jolla and stole the Whole Foods groceries Grace was still buying for her and acted like somehow it was all enlightened because some man who smelled like feet and patchouli told her it was. Anger at Frankie for getting stoned and tweeting out promises that would bankrupt the company they’d worked so hard to build together—their refuge in a world that told them they didn’t matter. Anger at Frankie for posting some poorly edited video that made it sound like they were some old lesbian couple selling vibrators and sneaking into one another’s rooms late at night to kiss and test out their merchandise. Anger at Frankie for making her think about those things, making her wonder about those possibilities.

Then Frankie’s own anger and hurt comes rushing back at her. The betrayal in her voice when she’d seen the store-bought cake—the last straw that seemed to scream into that big empty kitchen: “I don’t trust you to do anything, not even when it comes to your children.” But Grace’s mind keeps returning, again and again, to the big fuck you moment—at least the one Frankie named as such. “You ran away with your boyfriend.” Grace absolutely loathes the hope she can feel bubbling up in her chest at the thought that maybe Frankie does see value in what they are together, that maybe Nick hurt Frankie—not because he was a capitalist or a fiscal conservative, but because he was there, with Grace, the new second name to her “Grace and”—as much as the yurt hobo and the version of Jacob who’d decided Santa Fe was a good idea had hurt Grace.

Eventually Grace settles herself in on a pile of rocks, tries to ignore the aches and pains that have become so much sharper as all the alcohol from earlier fades into the cold sobriety of almost-morning. Closing her eyes, Grace lets her mind drift, thinks about all that might have been had she run off with Nick and gone through with the marriage. Would she be here now? She doubts it. A wife would have been at home in bed with her husband, not sitting on the beach desperately needing to make things right with the woman who’d been her home for the past five years.

---

It’s a little after sunrise when Grace sees what she thinks is another figure down the beach. Her eyesight isn’t as bad as Frankie’s, but it certainly isn’t what it once was. Deciding it’s worth the potential humiliation of yelling at a stranger or an inanimate object, Grace stands and starts moving toward the blurry shape, yelling, “Frankie!”

But then the blurry shape is standing and yelling, “Grace!” right back at her.

And she doesn’t care that her knee is screaming, doesn’t care that Grace Hanson most definitely does not run, because her heart is pushing her as fast and as far as she can go—even if it isn’t very far or very fast.

“I’ll come to you!” And Frankie, who eats carbs and whipped cream and gummy bears for breakfast, is running like some sort of elite athlete in the 65+ category, while Grace waits, half hobbling, desperately hoping her knee won’t give out on her now.

Then Frankie is in front of her, and all the anger slips away in the face of the person she might have lost, maybe forever, and everything Grace has been thinking comes pouring out of her. Apologies for the terrible things she’s said. Admissions that she’s become a better person, someone that most days she can stand to look at in the mirror, with Frankie at her side. And somehow it all builds to Grace, standing on the beach, waves crashing beside them and the surf inching closer and closer to their feet, holding Frankie close, calling her a best friend, a partner, telling her that she needs her. And there’s nothing simple about that need. There are no straightforward lines where Frankie can do x or be y to fulfill z. It’s a need mingled with pangs of annoyance and frustration and anger but wrapped up in what Grace is finally realizing is love, and somehow that outweighs everything else, makes it simple even when it’s not. “I need you,” Grace repeats, blinking back tears that make Frankie look blurry, even now when she’s only inches away.

“Oh, I need you too.” Frankie falls into her arms with the words, holds her tight, the last vestiges of their fight falling away the longer they stay like that. “So, let’s go home.”

A sentimental part of Grace that rarely rears its head, and even more rarely gets anything out, wants to say that she’s already there. Instead she blurts out, “Nick asked me to marry him.” In an instant, all the happiness and love in Frankie’s expression is clouded over with hurt. “I—we’re not.”

“Not getting married?”

“Not getting married. Not together.” A deep breath. “He felt like he was always competing with you. Competing and losing.” Frankie’s usual taunts about beating Nick in any way are absent. She looks cautious, and Grace wonders if the same fragile hope is demanding shelter from her too. “Maybe he’s right.”

The quiet maybe isn’t enough to bring Frankie back to that joyous openness—not after she’s put back up those walls so few people realize she has in the face of all the pain Grace’s declaration had been poised to deliver.

This will never be simple, and Frankie will never be Robert, assuming Grace will say yes because it follows logically. She will never be Nick, convinced so deeply of her own charms that she’ll put her heart on the line in matters of love without a moment’s hesitation. Despite the “fuck it” lifestyle, she will never be Byron, desire plainly written in every move.

But, Grace realizes with a jolt, she can be that for Frankie, can let her see everything she’s offering—no jokes or questions about it.

Grace steps forward, closes the distance that had pulled them apart again. Her hands find Frankie’s arms first, one coming up to hold her jaw, thumb sweeping across her cheekbone. “I’m not going anywhere this time. I promise.” A kiss to the forehead, like Frankie had asked for all those years ago, only to have Grace deny her in a moment of panic about why—dear god, why—the thought of pressing her lips to any part of Frankie had sent her heart pounding. Then Frankie’s cheeks, one after the other. Grace pauses, waiting, centimeters away from Frankie’s mouth. “I promise,” she whispers again, the words ghosting across Frankie’s lips. Her eyes flutter shut as she leans forward, her mouth finding Frankie’s. Just one kiss. One sealed promise. One hint of what might be waiting for them.

When she pulls back, she finds Frankie blinking at her. Everything is still and silent for a long moment.

Frankie’s hand reaches out, tangling around her own. “Let’s go home.”

[3laxx]

DJWifi December 2k18

Day 14: Secrets

Ao3 / FF.net

Alya’s behavior had changed.

There were just slight, subtle changes, nothing too much, she still seemed like the same old Alya. But Nino had noticed anyway, the way she drew away from him while kissing sometimes, the way she avoided eye contact with some people that she valued a lot.

The way she spoke to people, the way she acted, the way she generally carried herself.

Before, about two weeks before, she had still worn her back straight and her eyes gleeful but Nino had noticed how her shoulders sometimes sagged, he had noticed how her eyes were veiled by a seemingly unnoticeable shadow.

He knew her too well for her to hide something from him.

At first, he let her be. It was her choice to talk to him, her choice if she wanted to tell him if something was wrong.

Maybe something in her family had happened or maybe some message she had received. He knew, after all, that there were some haters of the Ladyblog, for reasons unknown to him.

Nino gave her one week. He waited for one week before dropping hints.

When he hugged her goodbye after school or when he greeted her with a kiss in the morning, he let her know he was there for her. In a hushed whisper or sometimes just a gaze, he let her know that he was there to listen, to support her no matter what.

She seemed to pick the hints up, however she still didn’t do anything about it. Or maybe she hadn’t understood him, or didn’t want him knowing there was something up with her.

He would be fine with that. He would be fine with her not wanting to tell him something.

He himself had a few things he didn’t want her to know about him (at least not yet) and he would completely respect her decision if she deemed this information as not shareable.

That was her decision to make, and he wouldn’t pry.

Though… He was curious.

And he at least wanted to ask her one time. If she told him that either, nothing was wrong, or that she didn’t want to share, he would let it rest.

But asking, that’s what he wanted to do.

When a month had passed since he had noticed something being slightly off about her, he grew anxious. She hadn’t gotten worse, but she hadn’t stopped being just a little different.

He subtly asked Marinette if she had noticed something, over a casual conversation after school, but Marinette, her very best friend, didn’t even seem to have noticed anything.

That’s what caught him off guard. Were the changes so little that only he had realized something was apparently off?

He still waited. For her to open up to him, maybe, for her to make a first step, but it never came. He let her know more obviously that he was there for her, he stuck by her side during Akuma attacks even if his heart always wanted to hide in his pants when he saw an akumatized victim running rampage in the city.

Nino also made sure to cuddle with her more often, even if she called him dork and pushed him away, but in the end, after bickering a bit, she always leant against him and he knew she enjoyed it. He also made sure to let her know he supported her. When Marinette once again tried talking her out of running right into battle for the blog, he now stood up for her, interlacing their fingers and joking that he’d keep her safe. Well, he didn’t want her running in mindlessly either, but at least he had stopped scolding her for that.

Each time he did that he earned a small smile from his girlfriend, and it made his heart swell.

But she stayed different. He tried getting through to her by letting her know subtly and obviously that he was there and open to her. He even shared some of his things that he never told anyone before. That he sometimes stayed up to watch Anime that Adrien had recommended to him, because he actually found a liking in some.

She called him nerd, lovingly, but never shared something from her life.

It began worrying him. He had given her time, had given her space and affection and unconditional love and support. And yet she didn’t seem to be reassured.

He still stayed true to his word that he wouldn’t pry if she didn’t want him to. He really did, he swore that he would let her keep her privacy, he didn’t want to be a control freak.

But he wanted to let her know that he knew something was up and he wanted her to decide if she would tell him or not. If she decided that she didn’t, it’d be fine with him.

So, one evening when they were at her house, he gently closed the door of her room after a nice dinner with her family and turned to look at her lovingly.

He had made sure that her big sister was home, to give her the security of being able to throw him out if she needed to. He also made sure to ask her in her familiar surroundings, not in his home, so that she could send him away and wouldn’t need to go home, still.

He also made sure that her parents were around and that she wouldn’t need to feel anxious.

He even asked her if she wanted the door shut, even if he knew that she definitely did because one rule in the Césaire household was that if a door was closed, the person wanted privacy and would get it until the door was opened again. Even the twins kept that rule.

After a short pause he still kept close to the door, to open it immediately if she wished, and buried his hands in his pockets.

“Alya?”

She looked up from her phone, probably texting Marinette, and smiled.

“Yeah?”

Suddenly, he felt like caging her in. So he quickly sat down on her bed, not to be a threat. He hated thinking of himself that way but something was weighing down on her and he had to make sure to give her all the freedom she needed before asking what was up.

“Are you-…”, he broke off, swallowed thickly, the words like dust in his throat, “… Are you keeping secrets from me?”

That seemed to make her listen up. With a quick swipe, her phone was on her desk, screen down.

“What?”, she asked, her head slightly tilted.

“It’s just-… I noticed you acting differently. I mean, maybe nothing’s up and I’m just imagining but-… I think, over the past month, something changed?”

With a sigh he kept his gaze down, his shoulders sagged.

“I don’t need to know if you don’t wanna tell me.”, he quickly clarified, “I still love you all the same. Whatever it is. I just want you to know that I’m here for you and I want you to know that you can tell me anything, okay?”

A long silence stretched out in which he fidgeted around with his fingers and looked around, just not to his girlfriend, until a sniffle broke it. In a heartbeat he was up and at her desk, his hands hovering over her hips, unsure if he was allowed to touch her, soothe her, as he saw her chin quivering and her eyes glassy.

“Alya? Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to poke too much. You don’t need to tell me anything, I’m just here for you, you can cry if you want to or I can go and-”

“What did I do to deserve you?”, she finally interrupted him with a choked chuckle, her shoulders shaking before she breathed through, straightening her back and taking his hands to caress them, to reassure him that she was fine.

“… Do you need me to go?”, he carefully asked, immediately feeling her fingers tightening around his.

“Please, no…”, and finally, with a sigh, she blinked a few times, smiling almost melancholically, “I-… Didn’t think anyone would notice, to be honest. I did my best not to show. But I guess-… I’m glad you did…”

With a careful nudge of his nose against her forehead he made her look up to him, their gazes locking.

“Wanna talk?”, he softly asked, rubbing the backs of her hands with his thumbs. She smiled and shrugged, tears still glistening in her eyes.

“Well, might as well. I’ll have to tell you someday, anyway. So-…”, he waited as she collected herself, took in a deep breath, straightened her back and squeezed his hands, and when she talked he tried his best to look the most reassuring he could, “… I think I might be bi.”

In an instant, he pulled her into a tight hug and buried his face on her neck, squeezing her tightly.

“Oh gosh I thought something in your family had happened or something happened to you! I thought something really serious was up.”

With a light, relieved giggle she melted against him, the joke in her voice evident since she knew how he had meant it. She always knew.

“Oh, and that isn’t something serious?”

He nuzzled closer to her neck and shook his head, a light grin playing on his lips.

“It is, but it’s nothing life threatening. Most of all, it isn’t something negative. I thought it would be something negative.”

Alya softly ended the embrace as she fished for his hands again, once again leaning against the desk while he stood close to her, his lips pressed to her forehead.

“… Well, it might be… While I knew I could trust you with this I dunno how my family will react…”

He sighed as he nodded, letting her rest her head against him.

“I know… That’s hard. But I know your mom and dad will be fine with it. I’m sure Nora’s a lesbian anyway, so she’ll be more than fine with it. And the twins are kids, they’ll accept it anyway.”

He earned a light smack on his upper arm for that and grinned broader.

“Hey, we don’t know anything about Nora’s sexuality! She’s not the type to talk about feelings and stuff.”, Alya giggled and he shrugged, “But yeah, I thought that for years. It actually surprised me she had a boyfriend back when I didn’t know you guys yet.”

Nino grinned and snuggled her closer, pressing kisses along her temple down to her neck.

“… Well I know for sure that Mari won’t mind. And Adrien’s such a sunshine boy, he can’t have anything against that.”

Alya played with his hands as she hid her face in his shirt.

“Yeah… I’m just scared about my grandparents… They’re pretty… Conservative, you know?”

“They’ll have to accept who you are. And if they can’t, they’ll either learn or they’ll miss out on a great part of you.”, he replied, knowing that he could do nothing to ease the anxiety, but he knew that his words alone would show her his support, “And I’ll love you no matter what.”

That once again triggered her sniffles and she let go of his hands to wrap them around him in a tight embrace.

“… I love you, too.”

They remained like this for a moment and Nino let her collect her thoughts and put them in order while finding warmth in his chest, before speaking again.

“You know what, I think I knew.”

“You did?”, the surprise in her voice almost made him laugh.

“I dunno. You seem like the type.”, he chuckled, once again kissing the soft skin on her neck, “And besides, now I know for sure that we both like boobs.”

This finally made her laugh fully and he didn’t think he could grin any broader as she pulled back, lovingly called him a dork, and pressed a kiss to his lips.

My prompts are based on THIS calendar from @djwifi-december!

[rejectedbyeharmony]

The Last Time I Dated A Friend’s Brother

Growing up, I had this best friend named Haley, and I spent a lot of time at her house. Haley, Sarah, and I were like the three amigos. We did everything together. I smoked weed for the first time in a tent in her backyard. She had an older sister who was away at college, and a little brother who always seemed to be around. It was like this kid had no friends, he was always bothering us. He was super annoying, and I vividly remember actually punching him one time because he wouldn’t leave us alone. I heard a few years after high school he had been dating a mutual friend, Amelia, and that they had a baby together. I was happy for them, and that was probably the only time I ever thought about him as an adult.

After my breakup with John, I decided to get on Tinder. I was having a hard time getting over him, and the idea of getting into a new relationship was not even on my radar. Instead, I was pursuing a casual dating situation. This was my first foray with this dating app and I met a few fun guys, and had some good dates, but nothing serious. I was traveling for work one week, and it occurred to me that Tinder matched based on location. So, while I was in North Carolina, I deleted the app to avoid matching with someone great that would be too far away. On the way back, sitting in the back of my coworker’s car while everyone was sleeping, I was bored so I downloaded the app, to check my messages, and started to swipe again as we got closer to home.

I saw a very familiar face, so I swiped right to dig a little deeper. Immediately, I got a match notification. I cracked up when I realized he was Haley‘s little brother, Matt. When we were kids he seemed so much younger than us, but in truth it was only four years age difference. But he had grown up a lot and got pretty cute over the years. He messaged me first, “If you promise not to hit me again, I would love to see you!” I responded with about four lines of HAHAHA, followed by “holy shit, how are you?” We chatted for a couple days and found that we had a lot more in common than we ever knew before. We were quickly bonded, and our conversations turned a little flirty. Eventually, we decided to hang out, and he came to my apartment with his son.

Now, I know that seems weird, and even now writing it if feels weird because… can you imagine meeting somebody’s kid on the first date? But I’ve known this guy like my whole life I just felt like he was a longtime friend introducing me to his kid! We hung out and played cars on my living room floor, while Matt and I caught up. His son was funny, adorable, and bad! Like, Dennis the Menace bad. Matt told me a little bit about his relationship with his ex, Amelia. It sounded a little difficult, but I had no idea how toxic it really was. In the beginning, I didn’t even weigh this into my decision to date Matt.

My bigger concern was Haley. We hadn’t spoken for years. The summer after Senior Year, I got the opportunity to travel abroad with some fellow students. This was a very eye-opening experience, and I was exposed to a lot of things in Europe that I hadn’t encountered in the US. When I got home, I told Haley that I kissed a girl. I hadn’t really worked through my feelings about it, but it wasn’t any kind of declaration of sexual identity… it was just confiding in a friend that I had a new experience. Haley told our friend Sarah that I was a lesbian. Sarah worked with my sister, and told her… and then my sister told my mom. So, here I thought I was just sharing a secret with a friend, and I ended up having to explain to my mom that I wasn’t lesbian. The truth is, I don’t know what I am, even now at almost 36 years old I don’t know. I have never had nor pursued a romantic relationship with a woman, but I’ve definitely been attracted to them. I don’t know if that needs defining either, because I don’t believe that sexuality is binary. Anyway... what I didn’t know, was that she didn’t think that was a big deal. She hadn’t spoken to me because I didn’t invite her to my very small wedding. I barely invited any friends, it was mostly family there. We had approximately 50 guests, there was one friend from high school (who knew my husband well) and a handful of friends from work (who were also friends with Joe). I hadn’t spent any amount of time with Haley since she told my secret.

But, Matt assured me that Haley still loved me and his family would accept me with open arms, and he was totally right. Being with his family again was like being in high school. But I dont want to mislead you, Haley and I didn’t pick up where we left off. She had new best friends, and so did I. But it was still cool, and we were cool. Once I had his family’s blessing, it didn’t take long for us to start dating, and for me to start coparenting his child. His ex-girlfriend, Amelia was a former friend of mine, but now treated me like I was a stranger. I don’t know with what went on in her life in the 10 years since we last hung out, but she was not the most mentally stable person. It affected the kid and deeply affected Matt.

He was very much a pacifist and never stood up for himself in their relationship. His vain attempts at trying to coparent were constantly thwarted by her miserable attitude and unreasonable, aggressive communication style. She had a horrible time keeping a job, and it seemed like our custody schedule would change as frequently as week to week. I encouraged Matt to get an official custody agreement with the courts, but he was honestly afraid of her taking the kid away from him completely, so he would lay down to her demands all the time. It was infinitely frustrating to stand by and watch her make him feel like less of a man. And honestly, sometimes it made me see him as less of a man, too.

I tried to create some stability at home by moving us in together. I bought a house out of necessity, because a 2-or-3 bedroom apartment would cost much more than buying a home in Northern Virginia. Our first couple months in the house were met with tons of problems. We moved in at the end of December. By the time we got everything unpacked and settled, we discovered bed bugs. It was hard to discern whether they had been transferred from the moving van, or the house Matt lived in before, or if they had always been in the house I purchased. Ultimately the source didn’t matter as much as the remediation, so we asked Amelia to help us out and take her son when it wasn’t “her week”. She completely blew the situation out of proportion and called CPS on us for endangering their son, when we were really trying to protect him. We had pets we had to move to his sister’s house, and we slept in her basement while our house was being treated. If you’ve never had bedbugs, let me explain what a complete mindfuck they are. I was not getting bitten, Matt was. Every morning he would wake up with welts all over his body that he couldn’t explain. But we worked different schedules, so we weren’t waking up together to see if we both had welts. He didn’t tell me about them until the third morning, asking if I also was experiencing this. That’s when we discovered the little splatters of blood on our mattress and walls from the bugs after they bit Matt. Even after the bedbug dog sniffed our entire home and the bug company assured us we were safe, we felt like victims in our own home. Every tiny tickle on our skin would send us reeling. It was psychological warfare.

Once we safely moved his son back into the house, I decorated his room first. We painted the walls, we made him a little toy/art workstation, and hung a huge light-up Bumble Bee, his favorite transformer, on the wall above his bed. Matt invited Amelia to come see our house when we were all settled. It wasn’t breaktakingly beautiful, like some of the homes I’ve designed in my career. It’s kind of like the housekeeper who doesn’t clean her own house, our house was cozy and humble. But we were proud of what we built together. This was the one and only time we had a amicable meeting with Amelia, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth. She brought her son to us for our custody week, and walked him inside. We showed her around the main floor, and the kid noticed some candy on the kitchen counter. He asked me for some, and I said no, and he threw himself into a rage fit. He was jumping up and down, stomping his feet, screaming about wanting that candy. I stood back and waited for either Matt or Amelia to react. And they both just stood there staring at him in horror, like most people stare at other people’s kids when they are having a tantrum in public. I got down on one knee, at his eye level, and said “it’s not time for candy bud. It’s time for bed. We can have candy tomorrow. Ok? Now why don’t you go show your mom your new bedroom?”

His tears dried, and his face lit up. He turned, grabbed his mom’s hand and ran toward the stairs. I heard Amelia say, on her way up the stairs “you are so lucky you have three parents.” And I looked at Matt and said “he has one parent. It’s me.”

Now any parents reading this might be pissed at that statement, but trust me when I say, I believed it was true. I was the only one parenting him.  When he was with his mom, there were no rules and no boundaries. And Matt had the typical single dad attitude of never wanting to be the bad guy, so he also had very few rules. But when he was with me, there were rules. We sat at the dinner table to eat. We used our forks and spoons. We didn’t act like a fucking lunatic in public, and we said please and thank you. It was like trying to train a puppy, because he was constantly unlearning these behaviors with his parents. I was the only one who cared about him being a decent human being some day. Fuck me, right?

This is the part where I’m too mad to finish the story today. To be continued. 

[docholligay]

Between Us Girls

Perhaps, as @keyofjetwolf herself put it, the first Cagney and Lacey fanfic written in 15 years, commissioned by her. Friendship feelings, rare coming out drama from me, please let Jet know if you liked this at all (also me) Please bear in mind I have seen exactly *ONE* episode of C&L, so, this might be terrible. 

To say Chris wasn’t paying attention wasn’t entirely fair, and so Mary Beth wouldn’t have said it. She wished she had the words for what it was, that way Chris had of paying too much attention, focusing so intensely on the job that everything else got pushed from her mind, her eyes laser focused on the door to the small apartment building.

It always meant something else. Not that Chris wasn’t a good cop--most times, Mary Beth would say she was a great cop, a little old-school, a little reckless, mostly with herself, but a great cop. All that being true didn’t change the fact that Chris never focused more on the job than when something else in her life was falling apart.

It was wet and cold, the grey drizzle falling over the New York streets, the sidewalks shining like ice under the streetlights, and might have been, for how cold it felt. It seemed to match the wet and grey of Chris’ mood.

Mary Beth had gotten to know the different flavors of Chris’ distracted melancholy, over the years, and what it felt like when her father drank too much too often, when she drank too mucha and too often, when her job was frustrating her, and this one, her least favorite of them all, that Chris never opened the door to, that Mary Beth was never allowed to see.

That Chris’ door on the subject was about as effective as a clear plastic shower curtain didn’t seem to matter.

Chris kept her laser focus on the door, sipping at her coffee. Mary Beth privately wondered if there was anything else in it, but decided the moment wasn’t right, and besides, it would have been tough for Chris to sneak away from her to do it, and so she simply shrugged internally and leaned back in the seat.

“Cold tonight.” It was a cheap entry, but Chris didn’t usually have a very expensive cover charge.

Chris nodded. “More coffee in the thermos if you want it.”

Not spiked then, Mary Beth thought. That was, at the least, a good sign for the moment. She’d be reasonably clear-headed.

Mary Beth often found herself in this position with Chris, of wanting to talk, walking to let out the poison, and knowing that Chris wanted anything but. Of knowing how she would react, always defensively and as if she had something to hide, even if she could never hide anything from Mary Beth. That was the joke of it, always, the way Chris thought she could pull one over, even after all these years.

She would never let anyone else say Chris was stupid, but sometimes, Chris was stupid, and Mary Beth was very satisfied to say it to herself.

“You're sure quiet tonight.” She gave Chris a chuckle. “You mad at me or something?”

“No,” Chris smiled reassuringly, “Of course not. Just got a lot on my mind.” She shuffled down further into the seat, her coat climbing around her ears.

“Want to talk? Nothing else to do, waiting for a perp.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure it is.” It was never anything, when it was this thing. She always tried to slam the door in Mary Beth’s face, ignoring that she’d had a key for years, and it didn’t do much good.

“What’s got you in such a mood?” Chris bristled against her casual disbelief.

Mary Beth took a deep drink of her own coffee. “Can we talk about what’s really going on with you? As friends?”

Chris took in a deep breath. “I mean, you know my luck with men,” She shrugged, “always looking at the wrong one, in the wrong place, wrong time.”

Mary Beth sighed and shook her head. “Oh Chris, it’s not some man, it’s never some man, stop lying to me.”

That put her in a snit.

“Well, what do you want, Mary Beth?” She shrugged aggressively, pointedly looking out the windshield, not even angling her face toward Mary Beth

I want you to stop hiding from me. I want you to trust me. I want you to be honest with me. I want to be able to know all of you. I want you to know I know. I want you to be safe with me.

“You know I already know? Right?” Mary Beth looked at her, suddenly tired of the carried secret over the years, tired of the way in made Chris, who trusted her in so many things, cagey and quiet and suspicious.

Chris snorted and smacked her hand on the steering wheel and turned to Mary Beth. ‘Then why make me say it?!”

“Because I want you to trust me, you stubborn ass! You can tell me anythi--”

She waved her hand. “Mary Beth, this isn’t any of your business--”

“You’re gay, Christine! There it is. I told you, now you can tell me, okay?”

They sat in silence, Mary Beth’s arms crossed in front of her, Chris staring out the driver’s window, turned away from her.

“I’ve known a long time, Chris.” Mary Beth looked over at her. “When we first partnered up, about six months after that. I saw you with a woman, walking down the street. Harv and I had a date in the city. Seems like a lifetime ago.”

“What, I can’t have friends?!” She crossed her arms leaned against the window.

“Aw, Chris, don’t insult me, I know you like my 2 foot square backyard. You don’t look at your friends like you were looking at her. You don’t dress like she was dressed to get a drink with a friend.” She decided to go for broke. “You don’t look at men that way. You’ve tolerated every sad double date we’ve been on.”

Chris said nothing, not even mounting an attempt at denial,  simply continued to stare out the window, not looking at the building in front of them so much as looking through it, and Mary Beth felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t meant to hurt Chris. She’d meant to make her feel better. To make her feel cared about. That was always its own battle with her, to let you show her love and care, to keep her from using everything as a weapon against herself, from pushing people away.

Mary Beth had stood and fought, from day one, whether Chris liked it or not.

The coffee steamed as Chris sat silent, the moments stretching into a block of silence, and she swore she could hear Chris’ mind whirring, chastising herself for being too much this and not enough that.

It wasn’t like she blamed her. If it got out in the squad, it was hard to say what would happen. She can’t imagine the lieutenant would be too surprised. Esposito’d be shocked, Isbecki would say he’d known the whole time on account of Chris’ disinterest.  If Chris were on, she’d shoot back that if that were true, the entire female population of New York would be lesbians.

She probably wouldn’t be on top it that day.

Mary Beth might have to pop off for her.

So no, she didn’t blame her. Except for not trusting her partner.

Thinking over all of this, and imagining Chris thinking the same, Mary Beth grew tired of the quiet, the strangeness hanging between them. If it was already here, she may as well take it all the way home. God only knew when she’d get the chance again. It would nag at her if she didn’t sure as a mosquito in the bedroom.

“Does Charlie know?” As soon as she blurted it, it seemed like an inappropriate question, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want the answer.

Chris looked at her wildly and hit the edge of the steering wheel again. “Of course Charlie doesn’t know! Can you imagine what he’d say? Mary Beth, you can be so--”

Well, she wasn’t sitting and pouting anymore, at least.

She spoke softly. “I think he’d say he loves you, Chris.” She tried to lighten the mood, and chuckled. “And take it easy on the car, you want to cost the city?”

Chris shook her head and leaned toward the window, head in her hand. “Forget I said anything..” She thumped the edge of the window, rattling off words as fast as she could, so fast that an excuse might come. “Everything is so easy for you Mary Beth, you don’t even know--”

“I think he’d feel that way. I know I do. I know it doesn't matter to me, Chris.” She shrugged. “I don’t think Charlie’d feel different from me.”

Chris avoided her gaze, just gesturing into the distance, still sputtering. “Oh you think Harvey’d just be fine with it, you go home and tell him your partner's a--”

“I don’t think Harv’s gonna be very surprised, Christine, I know we’re from Queens, but give us a little credit here.”

Chris looked out the window, but her expression changed, and she bit her lip. “I didn’t ever want to tell you.”

Mary Beth turned her whole body, slightly insulted. “Do you not trust me, or what? We’ve been partners for years, Chris, you think something like that would matter to me? I’m some small-minded idiot? It’s the 80s, Chris, for God’s sake.”

Chris turned toward her, her face in a scowl. “You don’t understand, Mary Beth, it matters to everyone. Easy for you to say, with your nice husband and your nice kids you can bring everywhere, and everyone understands, and it’s so EASY for you, Mary Beth, you don’t have to spend your entire life holding your breath.”

Mary Beth’s face softened, and she nodded. “You’re right. It is easy for me.”

Chris paused a moment, taken aback by her easy admittance of the fact, as if she’d expected nothing but a fight. Chris had spent her whole life ready to fight.

But Mary Beth didn’t come with a fist. Maybe that was always what was hardest of all.

“But I’m not the world, Christine. I’m Mary Beth Lacey, and I care about you, and I want to be a part of your life. All of it.” She reached out and touched Chris’ forearm. “You don’t have to go it alone, Chris.”

Chris just looked at her, searching her face, the partner she had known so well and who she had trusted in so many ways asking her to trust her in just one more.

“You won’t tell anyone?” She asked cautiously.

“I’ve known for years.” Mary Beth shrugged and gave a reassuring laugh. “Not even interesting to me now, there’s nothing to tell.” She patted her arm. “But I promise. I won’t even tell Harvey, if you don’t want me to, though, kinda ruins my plans to ask you and your girlfriend,” she hoped it came out smoothly, she had practiced saying it to Chris so many times, “over for dinner.”

Chris gave a weak laugh. “What girlfriend?”

“You’re as much of a disaster with women as you pretended to be about men? Chris, I’m shocked.” Mary Beth quipped dryly.

Chris laughed, genuinely this time. “You can be a real shit, you know that, Mary Beth?”

“So who was she?” Mary Beth sipped at her coffee. “And why do we hate her?”

“Her name was Dana.” Chris’ shoulders, for once, seemed to relax. “And the trouble is I don’t hate her at all.”

“That’s what I’m here for, anyways.”

“Mary Beth?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

The man they were looking for never did materialize that night. Whether he caught wind of where they were looking, or stopped at the bar and had to many, or was caught off guard by a downed subway line, they couldn’t say. Mary Beth would never remember. But what she did remember, in all the years that followed, the shared joys and pains and victories and struggles, is the warm night in the freezing cold New York streets, where she felt like she saw the whole of her best friend for the first time.  

[mbtizone]

Liam Booker (Faking It): ISFP

Dominant Introverted Feeling [Fi]: Liam has very strong morals and is first and foremost concerned with doing the “right” thing. His conscience rules him, and if he does anything that contradicts his internal values, he obsesses over it until he’s able to correct his perceived shortcoming. Liam takes a stand for what he believes in. He is socially, economically, and environmentally aware, and wants the way he lives to reflect his principles. He’s opposed to lying and sneaking around, which makes his relationship with Karma difficult for him because he’s under the impression that Karma is dating Amy. He doesn’t want to get in the way of their relationship, and even though he cares about Karma, he feels that getting in the middle of their relationship is wrong. That’s just not who he is. Liam values honesty and hates that Amy is forcing him to keep their secret from Karma. He just wants to fess up, tell her the truth, and deal with the consequences. He can’t live with the guilt. Liam believes in punishing himself when he breaks his moral code and vows to abstain from sex after sleeping with Amy. He doesn’t like to openly discuss how he’s feeling, and prefers to do something to fix things rather than talk about it. Liam is very loyal to the people he loves and gives up his dream to get Karma and her family out of jail. He doesn’t tell her about this, though, because he didn’t do it to gain favor with her. He wants to earn her forgiveness and had no intention of using his good deed to sway her. He’s outraged when Karma considers taking the $250,000 check Mr. Booker wrote her to keep her away from Liam. He turned Zita down after she threw herself at him while Karma was contemplating accepting the bribe money, which hurts even more, because he knows she wouldn’t consider it for a single second if the money was given to her to stay away from Amy.

Auxiliary Extroverted Sensing [Se]: Sometimes, Liam makes shortsighted decisions in the heat of the moment and often comes to regret them after having time to reflect. He keeps seeing Karma, even though he’s against being with her behind Amy’s back. When he’s angry or upset, he tends to react without considering the ramifications. After his breakup with Karma, he learns that she had faked her relationship with Amy. In his outrage over being lied to for so long, he sleeps Amy and becomes immediately remorseful of his actions following the incident. Liam enjoys sensory pleasures, particularly sex, and is a talented artist. He expresses himself by creating, and is very good at translating his feelings into the works he produces (Fi-Se). Liam tends to work through his feelings physically – whether it’s by producing art or going to a mixed martial arts class with Theo.

Tertiary Introverted Intuition [Ni]: If Liam gets a hunch about something, he usually believes in it, fully committing to the idea, even if he’s completely mistaken. When Jackson Lee takes a special interest in him and his art, Liam is convinced that Jackson is his real father. He begins investigating to confirm his suspicions, and believes that he found “evidence” to prove it (his mother in the same photo as Jackson). However, it never occurs to him that it’s just a coincidence and his theory turns out to be incorrect. When Liam has a goal in mind, he can become singularly focused on achieving it, particularly if it’s something that is important to him morally.

Inferior Extroverted Thinking [Te]: When Liam believes in something, he does something about it. He organizes protests and inspires others to rally around him and fight back. When in protest mode, Liam is able to take charge, make decisions, and shout commands to the crowd. He doesn’t like when things are done for money, power, or control, which is why he refuses to drive a fancy car or buy expensive clothing, even though he comes from a rich family. He doesn’t like what money has done to them and rebels against that lifestyle. Liam is very upfront and lays down rules when need be – he tells Brandi upfront that their relationship must be casual sex or nothing. He’s not looking for a girlfriend, and if she can’t handle that, they have to stop hooking up. He knows what he wants, and has no problem speaking up.

Enneagram: 1w9 4w3 7w8 Sx/So

Quotes:

Brandi: Where have you been, Pooh Bear? Who’s this bitch? Liam: Whoa, Brandi, you’re drunk. Brandi: He’s mine, so keep those nipples to yourself. Karma: That was my goal from the beginning, I promise. Liam: Look, I am not your boyfriend. We’re just good friends who occasionally have sex, but if that’s too confusing for you, then we have to stop. [to Karma] What? Karma: Nothing. Liam: Look, I’m not a douche bag, all right? I’m always clear about my ground rules. And girls, they always agree to them, and then they get- Karma: Clingy? Women are genetically wired to mate and start a family. In fact, if we weren’t, our entire species would’ve died out, so have some respect.

Shane: They’re here, they’re queer, they need your votes. Nice work, minions. Liam: Anything to help the gays.

Karma: Liam’s parents are rich, but he drives a beat-up biodiesel, which means he’s socially aware. His best friends are a gay guy and a feminist, which means he’s tolerant and accepting of strong women. And he’s an artist, which means that deep down inside he’s wounded.

Liam: I’m glad you got back together with your girlfriend. You two are like the school’s Portia and Ellen. Karma: Which one am I? Please say Portia. Liam: Trust me, you’re the Portia. Which is why we probably shouldn’t make out again. I don’t want to be the asshole that breaks up Hester’s cutest couple.

Liam: We can see through your lies! She’s just trying to buy us! Robin: Trust me, no one is trying to buy you. Though you’ll each be getting new Skwerkel smartphones and tablets. Liam: What do you get out of this? Robin: The satisfaction of helping a school in desperate need of money. Also, Skwerkel will own all data collected on these devices. Karma: That means our photos, our emails, our text messages. They want to make us their digital slaves. Are we gonna let them? Crowd: Hell, no! Liam: Time to occupy Hester. Man your stations!

Liam: Money has made my family secretive, image-obsessed ass. I want nothing to do with it or them.

Liam: Look, maybe you two are okay with this sneaking around thing, but I’m not. I tried to be, but it’s just not who I am.

Liam: They’re right. I knew Karma had a girlfriend, but I kept seeing her. Shane: Why are you beating yourself up like this? It’s not your fault they broke up.

Liam: Six months? That’s forever. Karma: I know, I’m sorry. But if people at school think I left Amy for you, they’ll hate us more than oil companies. Liam: And Amy is okay with this? I just, I really don’t like lying.

Amy: This is kidnapping. Shane: It’s really more blackmail. Lauren: We’re going to take photos of this assjolr that are so shocking and deviant, he’ll never tell anyone my secret. Shane: Conveniently, my mom sells sex toys out of the trunk of her car. Amy: Guys, guys, this is illegal and highly disturbing. Lauren, how bad could this secret be? Lauren: Ugh, I’m not telling you my fucking secret. Shane: She’s not. Trust me, I tried. Liam: Guys, I’m with Amy. Maybe it’s a good thing this thing gets out. They say you’re only as sick as your secrets. Amy: What? No, who says that? Who, the voices in your head? Tell ’em to shut up. I changed my mind. I’m on board. This is America. We are all entitled to our secrets. Will you excuse us for a second? What the hell was that? “You’re only as sick as your secrets”? I’m sorry, but the guilt is killing me. Amy: Oh, this little piggy went boo-hoo-hoo all the way home. Man up. Look, it’s killing me too, but what would it do to Karma if she found out that her soul mate slept with you? Liam: So what, we just pretend it never happened? Amy: What happened? See how easy that was? And before we never speak of this again, do I need to add contracting syphilis to last night’s list of tragic events?

Shane: You’re still hung up on Karma, aren’t you? I don’t get it. Are her lips dusted with cocaine or something? Liam: No, this is not about Karma, and I’m only hung up on her because Little Liam wanted to meet a lesbian, so he needs to be put in time-out. Shane: Why are you punishing your penis? Hey, Karma is the one who lied. Liam: Trust me, I deserve to be punished. Shane: No, you deserve to move on, and the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new, stat. Unless you don’t want to get over her. Liam: Of course I want to get over her. I just think celibacy is the best way to do that. Shane: I don’t know. In my experience, it only leads to blue balls and long, incoherent speeches about wolves.

Amy: This is your last chance. Promise me you won’t tell Karma or I’m about to make a scene so juicy I might win a daytime Emmy. Liam: What if I tell her I slept with someone and I don’t say that someone was you? Amy: Not a negotiation, last chance. Liam: Wow, you’re completely mental. This is what secrets do to people. Amy: Three, two – Liam: You wouldn’t dare ’cause then you’d have no leverage. Amy: [hits Liam in the face] How dare you? That was one. Liam: Amy, come on. Amy: Don’t touch me! Liam: Amy. Amy: Do you know where I met Liam? At a protest. And do you know what we were protesting? Skwerkel. Mr. Booker: Liam. Amy: But it turns out, he was just seducing me. He never told me his father founded the company. Who are you, Liam Booker? Liam: That’s hilarious. Amy has been taking improv classes, and she’s getting very good. Amy: And if that weren’t enough of a betrayal, I also found out that he slept with my best friend.

Liam: I cannot believe – Did I just really say all of that out loud? Amy: You did. And your family… Liam: Probably disowned me, but right now, I do not give a fuck. I have a huge weight off my back. Amy: Now I get why you’re so hung up on honesty. Liam: Yeah, well a few years ago I accidentally found my original birth certificate and my whole world cracked. It weighed me down ever since. I wish somehow I could un-know it, but, I can’t. I don’t want to tell Karma something she can’t un-know, I care about her way too much. Amy: That’s just how I feel, thank you.

Shane: Quit taking it out on these innocent art supplies. Liam: Shane, really, I don’t want to talk about it. Shane: That’s just your straight guy resistance to talking about your feelings. Push through it. Theo: What are y’all on about? Shane: It’s Karma’s birthday, and Liam can’t be with her for reasons too complicated and fucked up to specify. Theo: Wanna go hit stuff? Always makes me feel better. I’m taking this mixed martial arts class downtown. Shane: Nice try, Theo, but what Liam needs is to talk it all out over some grilled cheeses at Millie’s Diner. Theo: What is this, The View? Liam: Shane, I’m sorry, but that class is just what the doctor ordered. Shane: You’re not the doctor. You’re the patient. You can’t prescribe your own medicine. Theo: Wow, you really think you know what’s best for everybody, don’t you? Shane: It’s a gift. Liam: We’ll talk it out later, I promise. But right now, I just want to punch someone in the face without getting arrested. You wanna come? Shane: I’ll pass. It all sounds a bit too aggressively heterosexual for me.

Karma: If she can’t handle our relationship, then maybe it’s not meant to be. Do you want some dessert? They have homemade doughnuts. Liam: She doesn’t want doughnuts. She wants Reagan. Karma: Amy loves doughnuts. Liam: Karma, we get it. You know all of Amy’s favorite foods, but can’t you see that she’s really into Reagan? You can fix this, but you’ve gotta go and stop her. Amy: You’re right. Liam: No, Karma. Karma, this isn’t about you. You need to give them space.

Karma: You gave up art for me? Liam: Zita told you? Karma: The real question is why you didn’t. Liam: Because I didn’t do it to buy your forgiveness. I want to earn that. But do you think I ever will? Karma: Look, I want to forgive you. You’re doing all the right things. I’m just scared of getting hurt again, which is why I need to be in control. Liam: I’m okay with that. Karma: Then put your hands behind your back.

Shane: Grr! Young Jackson Lee was cute. Liam: And that’s Robin in the same picture. That’s proof! Shane, he’s my dad! Shane: I don’t know. I’ve been in plenty of pictures with people I haven’t impregnated. Liam: No, it all makes so much sense now! Being an artist is in my blood, and now my dad has come back to build some kind of relationship with me. I’ve dreamt about this moment. Shane: Liam- Liam: Shh! When I dreamt about it, there was no talking.

Amy: Who wouldn’t consider taking $250,000? Liam: I’ve been such an idiot. Karma: It could help my parents get back on their feet, help pay for college. How could I not consider it for even a second? Liam: After you left L.A., Zita kissed me. She made it very clear she wanted more, but I turned her down. It didn’t take me a week to think about it. Karma: Oh, yeah, well, too bad you didn’t think before you slept with Amy. Amy: Karma, please leave me out of this. Liam: Here we go again. You’re taking a bribe to stay away from me, but I’m the one defending myself? Karma: I’m not rich, Liam! I didn’t fall asleep in class because I’ve been studying. I’ve been working every catering gig I could get. And I live in a freaking juice truck! Liam: It’s so besides the point, it’s not even funny. If you were offered that money to stay away from Amy, you wouldn’t have considered it for one second!

Principal Turner: These are all of the school’s known visual artists. One of them has to be “B.” All right, you Banksy wannabes. You’ve had your fun. Now if someone doesn’t admit to being “B,” you will all be suspended. And yes, I can do that. Again, read the Terms & Conditions. Liam: It was me, okay? I am “B.” Now, let everyone else go. Principal Turner: B for Booker. You know, I think we might just skip right past suspension to full-on expulsion Penelope: Stop! It wasn’t Liam. It was me. “B” is for Beaver. I mean, Bevier.

Liam Booker (Faking It): ISFP was originally published on MBTI Zone

[mysticimaginations-blog]

Hello and welcome new blog! I thought I’d send in a request for some HC. Basically how would the RFA + V & Saeran react to MC having a close male friend who flirts with them. I’m a sucker for jealous RFA lol!

Aaah thank you, anon!  This was extremely fun to write! Thank you again for sending in your request! ~Admin Mazz

Omg our first request!!! I was super super excited to write this because let’s be honest we all like it when they get jealous, m’kay? Enjoy, anon! (thx for being our first :3) ~Admin Lily

Seven

Seven knew that he was a close friend of yours

When he first met him he seemed okay?

But after the second meeting the guy said something pretty promiscuous.

Um, no sir she’s taken.

He would gradually indirectly insult the guy, trying to make a point that he wasn’t okay with his flirting.

You would brush it off, already used to his flirting, but it can get a little annoying after time

Once you kindly sassily said goodbye to your friend, you parted ways with seven

You can feel his grip tighten the whole way home, and you constantly ask if he’s okay.

Of course he’s fine, it’s just a friend.

Your mind says otherwise Seven.

When returning home he was more sulky and clingy to you.

I only love you Seven okay? Chill out.

You take him into a cuddle session and wait until he explains whats wrong.

When he finally gives in, he tells you he feels like that guy is after you.

“Oh, don’t worry he’s gay. He does that everytime we’re in front of someone.” You laughed at his worriment.

Oh, he didn’t see that coming.

He ends up laughing it off, and returns back to his normal self.

Though he knows that you love him, it still nags him every time situations like these appear.

To get rid of the bitter thoughts out of him, he’ll begin to give you a bunch of sloppy kisses to you, and it won’t stop until he’s gotten rid of any thoughts of you being gone.

Yoosung

Yoosung was definitely thrown off guard when he first met him

You had never mentioned him before, so he wondered how long you’d known him

He seemed like a decent guy, but Yoosung just couldn’t get himself to like him

Once he left, Yoosung began to bombard you with questions about him

“What’s his name? Is he always like that? How do you know each other?”

Yoosung calm down you’re talking to fast

You explain he’s just a friend from work that you’ve known for a long time and that he shouldn’t get jealous over someone like him

“Pfft! I’m not jealous!” Notorious Yoosung blush

The next encounter got a little more heated

He noticed your “friendly coworker” had made an attempt at flirting

Um what? He knows that you’re his, right?

He’s about to let out his yandere boyfriend-mode when he notices you push the flirtation aside and wave goodbye

You grab his hand and give him that smile he loves and he immediately melts

Of course, he can’t help but give the guy a cold glare as they walk away

“This isn’t over. I’m watching you.”

You began to tell Yoosung you loved him a little more than usual that night to get the point across “you are my one and only, Yoosung, I promise!”

“Aww, I love you so much. But, if he ever flirts with you again, you let me know.”

Jaehee

Being the level-headed angel that she is, Jaehee thinks nothing of this male friend since, ya know… you’re gay

But, even still when she realized that he seemed to be flirting with you, she was just like… “?”

Isn’t that kinda pointless?

But when she looked at the way you smiled at him, she couldn’t help but start to worry

“You are gay right?”

“Jaehee, aren’t we both?”

“Except for Zen. We’re both straight for Zen”

You reassure her that nothing is going on and that you aren’t even remotely interested

“He’s just a nice guy that I’ve known for a while.”

“Maybe a little too nice?” She would reply but you would laugh it off

Later on, the same thing would happen again and Jaehee would immediately begin to worry again

You just look so happy with him and she begins to feel insecure about it

You realize her discomfort quickly and immediately stop your conversation with your friend

“Babe, are you okay?”

“Oh, fine. It’s just that…”

You slowly smile, your cheeks becoming a rosy pink, before you explain: “Jaehee thinks you’re flirting with me, so she’s getting a little jealous~”

The guy immediately apologizes and explains that he’s just known you for a while, and that it’s all just fun in games, especially since he’s already married dropped his ring in the sink a week ago

“The only kind of women I’m allowed to flirt with are lesbians, so it’s just an inside joke, don’t worry.”

Jaehee is instantly relieved and began to apologize for the misunderstanding

“I told you so~” you would tease

She would smile and admit “you told me so”

“I love you so much, you’re such an angel”

Zen

You guys were out on a date  at a cafe when you ran into your good friend.

The guy takes you into a bear hug, and you can feel the icy stare being borne down onto your friend.

Poor guy, you started off on the wrong base already.

Before you can introduce your friend, Zen confidently introduces himself as your boyfriend.

It was a casual conversation until the guy  says a funny pickup line he heard from  someone.

Or so he says.

You laugh it off, and Zen didn’t think it was funny one bit.

“Hey you should use those to flirt with someone else.” Zen would tell your friend.

The guy would reply “I’m not flirting, I’m just being extra nice to someone attractive as myself.”

It seems you’re into being around narcissistic people huh?

You can feel the tension between the two become as hot as your drinks, and you needed to think fast before one of the two decides to play king-of-the-hill.

You take Zen’s hand, pointing out that you two will miss the movies if you don’t leave soon.

“Well, it was nice seeing you! We’ll see you later!”

Zen gives his other hand out to give firm death grip handshake to your friend, before pulling you towards him, and leaving the cafe.

“I don’t like him, babe.” Zen says to you while walking.

“You don’t like any guy I talk to Zen.”

“Well he was flirting with you and-”

“Zen, don’t worry, he’s been like that forever, and plus I love you.”

He would pull you into a kiss, realizing that he was being petty over nothing really.

You loved him, not some egotistic friend of yours.

Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself, Zen?

Jumin

You two are hosting a dinner party together and having a blast when all of the sudden this buddy of yours decides to come along and ruin Jumin’s fun

You introduce this man to Jumin as an old friend from highschool that became a rather successful C.E.O.

“Oh! What company do you run?”

“My company is the top company in our market.”

“And, it is?” “Just answer the question, it’s not like I want to talk to you”

“My company makes delicious dog treats for adorable little puppies and dogs!”

Dog treats!? This man can not be trusted

You explain that this guy is  actually one of your closest friends

Him? Out of all people

The guy starts telling stories about you when you were young and mentions how much more attractive you’ve become since then.  Uh, oh.

“Excuse me?” Jumin will not tolerate those kind of comments

The guy doesn’t back down. He adds another comment on how “beautiful your eyes looked”

He is flirting, isn’t he?

Jumin immediately tells this guy that you are engaged and that you aren’t interested in him in any romantic way “if that’s what you’re implying”

You awkwardly tell Jumin that there’s no need for him to get so defensive over you even though you kinda like it don’t lie

The guy suddenly apologizes for offending Jumin in any way and leaves, telling you that he’d see you later

Offended? I’m not offended

You give Jumin a look before asking, “Jumin, do you have to get so jealous?”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Yes you are,” you’d chuckle.

“Am not.”

“Well, if you were jealous, I’d tell you not to worry because you’re the only man I’m interested in.”

Jumin would smile, feeling that deep love for you that he’s always felt before pulling you in for a passionate kiss, for that little friend of yours especially to see

“If he tries flirting again, I’m going to kick him out of Korea.”

“Jumin, no”

“Jumin, yes”

V

This precious bean wouldn’t say anything about this guy.

He���s not exactly the jealous type, so he wouldn’t start to worry until your friend made any inappropriate moves on you.

V had taken you out to take some photos at a local park, but V you can’t SEE, when you ran into a close friend from high school.

Your friend was… Well, he was a little intense when it came to you.

You specifically introduce V as your boyfriend to your friend, hoping that your guy-friend would take the hint of not trying anything.

You can be discrete as hell, but it ain’t gonna happen.

Everything started off nice, you three were having a casual conversation until how you two met came a part of the conversation.

“We meet during high school, and when I saw her it was like love had blinded me.”

Are you insulting him? Or are you insulting me?

You laughed it off awkwardly, and looked to see V just smiling and nodding along.

He continued on with his previous statement, talking about how he tried to get with you, and you kept denying his attempts.

Yeah, I wonder why.

During all of this, V would slyly pull you closer to him, giving subtle hints that you were his.

Your buddy just seemed to almost ignore the fact you were taken.

“If only you would understand, maybe we could have a bit of fun, huh?” Your friend would ask flirtatiously, winking at you.

“Why would you even say that? That’s  disgusting.”

You and V would both feel uncomfortable after that comment, and he would tug on your hand, indicating you should both leave.

Turning towards your friend, you’d say that you are leaving.

“Are you sure you wanna leave already? I was gonna ask you out to some drinks.”

“We’re both busy, if  you’ll excuse us.” V would say before grabbing his stuff, and taking you with him.

After escaping from your overly-flirtatious friend,  V would be eerily silent for majority of your outing for the day.

Every time you asked if he was alright, you’d would get, “I’m fine, love.”

He’s been thinking about maybe you’d be better off with someone else, so you could say in a sense he wasn’t fine.

By the time you two returned home, you had enough of his silent treatment.

“V, darling, are you jealous of my friend?”

“Of course not.” He would immediately reply with, but his thoughts have been saying otherwise.

You would be the one to take inessive and sit him down to talk to him.

“Well, I want you to know that I love you more than him.”

It still shocks him every time you say ‘I love you’ to him, but he pulls you into his embrace as he sits quietly with you for a few minutes.

“He’s way too intense.” You say to break the silence. “You wanna know why I always turn him down?”

“Why?”

“Because, he has an Oedipus complex.”

That gets both of you to laugh, and it reminds him why he loves you so much, and he should take your judgement on this.

Saeran

You’ve told him about all your friends beforehand to help him adjust easier, but this guy… this guy he knew he wasn’t going to like at all

Still, you tried to explain that your guy-friend wasn’t a bad guy

“I’ve known him for a while and he’s very nice! You gave me a chance, why can’t you give him one?” Guilt-trip professional

He’ll try to be nice for your sake.

You three meet up at your apartment for a bit of a reunion between you and your friend, as well as an introduction for Saeran.

Your friend enters your house giving you an intense hug, and an awkward handshake to your boyfriend.

You introduce your friend to Saeran while slipping out the proud title of boyfriend

The friend gave Saeran an awakened glance as he mumbled, “boyfriend, huh?”

Wtf is that supposed to mean??

Well this was starting off great, but you were gonna try to make this work.

But you began to think these two are not gonna be compatible for friendship.

You brought the two into the living room, and tried to create a conversation that they could engage in.

Just when Saeran thought things couldn’t get any worse, he started to notice that your friend was always touching you in some shape or form when he talked (and it was you he was talking to, not Saeran)

“Can you try to keep you hands to yourself?” Saeran would ask, passive-aggressively

You would immediately look at your friend with an awkward glance, “I-uh…”

Your friend would remove his hands from you, only to make a crude comment about the your relationship with Saeran, and that you should’ve picked “someone like him.”

You seemed to be oblivious to his comment, which made Saeran glare at your friend,menacingly.

Didn’t you notice what he said?? He’s flirting with you!

You begin to notice the tension get bigger between the two and you begin to think that your attempt at bringing them together was probably a mistake

“Look at the time!” You said, awkwardly, “Saeran, we forgot we have to-to uh… get your brother that thing, remember?” Please, Saeran just go along with it

Trust me he’s happy to

You nicely explain to your friend that they had some very important things to do, and that this reunion will have to be postponed

Oml the smile Saeran had on his face as he tauntingly waved his fingers at your friend “bye bye~”

Of course, you held in your laugh until after you had closed the door

“You don’t have to get so jealous, you know?”

“Who said I was jealous?”

“I did,” you smirked, “anyways, let’s go get your brother that thing.” Notorious Saeran eye roll

“Hey, Saeran? I love you.” You smiled before batting your eyes playfully

Of course, he can’t help but smile, “good.”

[a-lion-in-summer]

This isn’t about “if you don’t do these things you’re un-feminist, you chauvinist pig, and your story and your characters are bad.” This is about some things I see a lot in fantasy that often annoy me, or are troubling general trends, and some things I see only rarely but have a personal preference for.

I don’t care about the single token female warrior in the group of heroes. That does not indicate “Of course women can fight in this society, look how progressive I am.” Give me other women who fight, not just the eventual love interest and that one evil assassin. Give me unnamed NPC soldiers and guards and police in groups that happen to be mixed-sex. Give me female generals and captains and sergeants at every level. Don’t give me women who are exceptions; don’t make them exceptions.

Don’t give me all-female organisations, however badass they may be in and of themselves. Show me women who have actual decision making power, not ones who are shunted off to some distaff group to be used at some man’s orders or as his minions when he finds it convenient, who are excluded from or discriminated against in all other organisations around them. By all means, give me groups of women, and groups of female friends, but give them male friends and colleagues to. Don’t give me all-male organisations either, while we’re at it. Again, show me mixed-sex groups with women at all levels, that’s what’s so much cooler than any group of all-women even if they get an occasional “look how badass we are” fight scene.

Don’t give me male warriors and female healers. Give me men in traditionally feminine roles who are never described as weak or effeminate in their adjectives. Give me women who are aggressive or irrationally violent who aren’t described as hormonal or bitchy, and give me women who would casually add anyone who said that to the skull throne she’s building.

Don’t give me women who do the same things as the men but not as well, who are cute mascot characters but not taken seriously or in anyone’s chain of command. I want women who are the best, and who are admired for it and are leaders or teachers or mentors because of it.

Give me ambitious women. Women whose ambitions aren’t treated as evil. Give me women who weren’t born as the chosen one of prophecy or as secret lost heir to the kingdom or to fathers who will turn out later to have been really important or with special and unique magic. Give me women who decided, of their own accord, to become powerful. Give me women who decided to become magical, in settings where magic isn’t an innate thing you’re born with or not, and for that matter more such settings. Give me women who decided to become warlords or high priestesses, who decide they’re going to own the biggest farm in the district or become the king’s jeweller, and work their whole lives after their goals. Give me women who decide to land a good marriage, and go out and do so, and have this treated as a very sensible and worthwhile goal for a woman in that society, not an excuse for the heroine to look down on “other girls” for being silly or petty or feminine.

Don’t give me women who’s lives revolve around a particular man, especially a man whose life doesn’t revolve around them. Goddamn are there a lot of really badass personal assistant/second-in-command characters out there, but I’m getting tired out it, especially as the glass ceiling for women to be powerful and competent, but only being completely subordinate and dedicated.

Don’t give me women who are delicate or petite or lithe or lean or waifish. Don’t give me women whose boyfriends worry about how fragile and tiny they are when they’re having sex. Give me women who tower. Women who could punch out a bear and carry it home. Women with huge shoulders and broad hips and muscle in between, that’s what I want to hear about, not her bust size. Women who are fat, women who are solid, women who no one would ever worry about breaking.

Give me men respect their love interest, who tell her things and ask for her advice and get her help and take her, her feelings, and her skills seriously. Give me men who trust their love interest, who never condescend to her or do things “for her own good”, who rely on her and are grateful for her, who are in awe of her. Give me women who keep having their own goals and interests even after they get involved in a romantic subplot. Give me battle-couples where the woman is the stronger one, and the man worries about keeping up with her. Give me couples where the man isn’t a fighter, or two women who don’t fall into an easy dynamic of butch fighter/femme civilian. Give me fiercely protective women, women who’ve never had the slightest desire for someone to shelter them or be their knight in shining armor but who feel that way towards others. Give me brains-and-brawns lesbians who adore each other. Give me women who give up on the person they liked because they want them to be happy more than they want him or her to be with them. Give me women who don’t get the guy without it turning into a moral about a woman who focuses on her career will lose out to one who stay at home and devotes all her time to her man. Give me women who have breaks-up, ugly or companionable, and whose past heartthrobs aren’t very important to her anymore.

Give me women who show more emotions than “losing her temper” or crying. Don’t give me women who can only be strong because they’re emotionally broken, who can only be honorary men because they’re inadequate as/unable to be women. Give me women who are easily excited at everything that goes right who aren’t considered childish or silly. Give me women who laugh a lot, or are really embarrassed at her tendency to giggle at every joke she hears however lame. Give me women who don’t buy into the idea they’re supposed to be stoic all the time to be worthy of respect, and who get sad or happy or angry whenever it’s appropriate to the situation, and don’t apologize for it as they keep getting things done.

Give me women who aren’t “the heart,” who aren’t “intuitive,” who aren’t “feel, don’t think.” Give me women who like logic and rules. Give me women who like to think things through before they react to anything, women who are unflappable, women who like to plan. Give me women who love science, real science, science the way of thinking, of examining evidence and testing hypotheses and changing based on information, not clinging to a set of current real world paradigms that don’t even make sense in fantasy magic world. While I’m at it, give me science that isn’t combined with deep misguidedness or naivety in general.

I want better female characters.

[mmoxie]

50 Character Questions For Karalonde

@memes4less​ asked me to do the whole darn ask meme for a character of mine that i like a lot, and it took some time, but

it happened, and i’m just, so incredibly sorry to mobile users if this somehow eats your dash

here’s a readmore tho

What is your OC’s favorite color? Yellow.

Does your OC collect anything? What do they collect? Curios and antiques from Elven history.

What kind of things is your OC allergic to? No allergies.

What kind of clothing does your OC wear? Very huge yellow cloak full of pockets is a must. Steel-toed boots, sweaters, comfortable all-weather pants. It takes a lot to get her into something elegant.

What is your OC’s first memory? Her mothers and mentors, the spooky old Ravens Grey, holding her hands and singing songs to her.

What’s your OC’s favorite animal? Least favorite? Karalonde gets along very well with corvids. They tend to recognize her as another corvid, like a very big crow or raven. On the flip-side, dogs don't trust her, and she doesn't trust them.

What element would your OC be? Sodium.

What is your OC’s theme song?

The Heavy - No Place For A Hero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhwDxNqWtxk

Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC? Nah.

What deadly sin would best represent your OC? This one's a toss-up. I'm going to go with Pride though, because she's sure of herself to a tragic fault. Believing without question that she's making the right decision, because she's Karalonde, so of course she's right, has been her downfall more than once.

What are your OC’s hobbies? She used to play guitar. Hasn't picked it up again since she lost her eyes, but she could.

How patient is your OC? How hot-headed are they? She's patient until she's not. Dynamite with a really, really long fuse is still dynamite. When she's angry, she's Category Five Angry.

What is your OC’s gender / sexuality / race / species / etc.? She's a night elf, a trans woman, and a lesbian.

What foods does your OC like to eat? What are their least favorite foods? She's a total disaster about modern food. Absolutely spoiled by the world of greasy and salty and deep-fried. But she's got a soft spot for kimchi, which she grew up on, and likes her meat rare.

If your OC could have any pet, what would they choose? Why? A corvid of some kind. She's always had an affinity for them due to her upbringing. Whenever she encounters one in the wild, she has a way of approaching them that makes her seem to be a Very Large Raven, rather than a different creature altogether.

What does your OC smell like? Boot polish.

How do they make a living? What kind of job do they want / not want? What is their dream job? What do they think of their current job? Karalonde found and sold a great deal of her belongings from half an eternity ago in order to build a large savings. Large enough that she can coast on it for basically as long as she wants, as long as she lives simply- which she prefers. Most days, she takes a boat to the Broken Shore and participates in holding the line there, helping to keep the demons from advancing any closer to the mainland. Her dream job requires that the war be over. She wants to go back to being a public servant. Maybe the mayor of a small town, or some other low-caliber politician. She considers her current "job" a necessary service, but it places her uncomfortably close to the Illidari.

What are your OC’s greatest fears? Weaknesses? Strengths? Karalonde fears failure to the point of outright "you didn't win" levels of denial. She also fears abandonment. She's absolutely awful at expressing herself, and this distances herself from would-be friends and romantic partners, and this is exacerbated by her vast ego, which insists that she can't be in the wrong for acting that way. She is, however, phenomenally physically strong, literally fireproof, and she can, on occasion, channel her inability to otherwise express herself into a passionate drive to protect the few people she can keep close to her- even if that means doing something as dangerous and oafish as picking a fight on their behalf.

What kind of music do they listen to? Do they have a favorite song? Karalonde likes things that sound like Spanish guitar. She also has a certain fondness for the powerful drums the Trolls use.

If they came from their world to ours (if not already in our’s) how would they react? What would they do? She's been traveling offworld for half an eternity, thanks to her career with the Illidari. If anything, she'd just be shocked to find out that the Earth isn't a smoldering husk. The next step after that would be to casually assimilate, never explaining her appearance or origins, pawning off her extremely valuable gold coins from Azeroth in exchange for fat stacks of cash. She'd miss out on a lot of our visual media due to her general eyelessness, but once she got the hang of things, she'd almost certainly end up a celebrity. Maybe even star in an action movie.

What personal problems/issues do they have? Pet peeves? Lack of decorum makes Karalonde very upset. She's got a strict sense of what's proper behavior, and she's not above delivering a hard slap to remind her close acquaintances to behave when she's around. She also has a stomach ulcer, and arthritis in her knees and hands. Her only pet peeves are all to do with communication- she hates when strangers interject with "their two coppers," and she'll often deny them outright if they ask to contribute. Likewise, she hates un-asked-for explanations, and will mock anyone providing one with "ah, look at the young scholar," or something to that effect.

What kind of student were they/would they be in high school? Horrible. Just the worst. Not even a disruption in class, just the kid who seems to always have better things to do than be there. Abysmal attendance record. Shows up whenever she wants. Gets into fights in the cafeteria pretty often over basically nothing. Steals little things all the time. --Librarian's pet, though. If she's not in class, she can be found there, helping stock returns and organize the shelves, holding surprisingly mature and serious conversations with the librarian about her future.

What is a random fact about your OC? At least once in her life, Kara has- just like a dog- chased after and eaten a bee. With the consequences you'd expect.

What is their outlook on life? What is their philosophy / what do they think in general about living? Kara is a firm believer in "all the fake things, all the bullshit, all the wishy-washy myths and mysteries." Every cryptid is real, every mystery has its fantastical conclusion, every conspiracy is worth investigation. She insists that it's the fake things- "the things we invent, because we like the sound of them" that contribute a newfound value to the dirt and grass and trees. Every ritual, she believes, is a total fabrication- an invention that, by virtue of our commitment to it, achieves its function. The only "fake thing" she questions is the Holy Light, because she finds it uncomfortably godless. "Where in the hell is their deity," she's asked more than once, "how in blazes did they reckon on just -light?-" The truth of that is, she just finds it unimaginative- lacking the spark of imagination that comes with grander rituals and other "fake things." But a world rich with fake things is a world she wants to protect. She's invented a great many, herself, ascribing value to trinkets and places and even articles of clothing. She'd save the world just for the sake of the value she finds in an idea. Even a really silly idea. Especially a really silly idea.

What inspired you to create them / how did you create them? Were they originally a fancharacter? What was their personality / design like when you first made them? In a lot of ways, Kara is wish fulfillment. She's beautiful, she's strong, she's capable. But in other ways, she's constantly failing, She's a lapsed Illidari who broke the bond with her demon because the two of them fell in love, for goodness' sake. Talk about taboo on top of taboo. She's wrong about most everything, but she believes so hard and so sincerely- and again, that's wish fulfillment. I wish I could believe like Karalonde believes. She's only a fan character in the sense that she's not built out of My Original Lore, but really, there's only so much structure that Blizzard offers to characters, so they end up 1% Blizz, 99% Your Effort. She's always been kind of the same, ever since I made her, but she's changed in subtle ways- being more indulgent, telling more jokes, opening up little by little, learning to care about others again. Her journey's gradual, and she's got a long way to go.

Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact and why? It's hard to say. Kara makes herself into a mother figure accidentally, all the time. She ends up attached to someone and worries about them, and next thing she knows, she's rushing to protect them. But there are a few- a very select, very distinct few- who she sees the "makings of greatness" in. And yes, John Silver from Treasure Planet went into the pot, when I was making up Karalonde for the first time. She fixates on these people- often slow-witted but sincere, brave but prone to accidents, full of self-doubt but in possession of great ambition- and she dotes on them. She provides what she can for them, even if it's just providing encouragement. She wants them to succeed, because she's already lost the war, as far as she can tell- but they don't have to. They could win it. To contrast, boastful warriors who go on and on about their conquests and victories, she considers fodder to be fed to the Legion. Let them go and die, if that's what they want, because they don't have or make any fake things to enrich this world.

What kind of childhood did your character have? A very strange one. The Ravens Grey served as three different mother figures- One was tall and thin and very judgmental. One was hairy and squat and very slow to speak. The third was near-about the elven ideal, beautiful and youthful- but she had strange habits, drinking smoky concoctions and babbling prophecy. They each raised Karalonde in their own way, but also together, as a family. They taught her to be shrewd and clever, and never meaner than she had to be. To be tacit when it served her, and to make speeches when- and only when- they were called for. They molded her into an elf that could serve the woods, one of the finest politicians their village would ever see. None of them- not even the babbling prophet- expected that the woods would burn and Kara would find herself trapped in service to the Illidari. They were kind to her, but not coddling. They chose lessons over discipline. If she was going to scrape her knee, she was going to learn how to mend it. If she was going to throw a rock at the boy across the street, she was expected to explain why he deserved it, to their satisfaction. Otherwise, she'd get a lecture on when it's appropriate to throw rocks, and what rocks are the best kind to throw, and where you ought to throw a rock depending on how upset a person makes you. She grew up to be a woman who is very good at throwing rocks.

What kind of nervous habits do they have? Do they stim? Do they have any kinds of addictions? Her ears twitch when she's angry or overstimulated. When she's frustrated, she'll grab an old trinket out of her coat and polish it until it squeaks. She's not an alcoholic, but she's fonder of a cosmopolitan than the average elf. 

If they could choose their epitaph for their grave, what would they choose? [KARALONDE - BORN IN TIME IMMEMORIAL - DIED IN BED, BENEATH A DOZEN GOBLINS] She always was too friendly with the waitresses in the Bay.

Do they want to get married? Why or why not? Would they ever want kids? Do they have kids? Why? She considers marriage an "Eastern tradition," like worship of the Light, necromancy, and failing to maintain a functioning kingdom. That said, if she was proposed to, she might open up to the idea. Just for the sake of trying something new. As for kids, she's never had one. She was meant to have one- a child intended to be the next leader of her village- but it never came to fruition, due to the woods burning. As things stand, she may end up a godmother for one of her friends. She might like a child of her own, but she's not ready to settle down. Not even after all this time.

What is their most traumatic memory/experience? What is their favorite memory? She wasn't taken offworld by choice. She wanted to stay in the woods, hold the line, defend her village. She was dragged by the armpits through a portal, to go "fight them where they live." She's been bitter with Illidan and his ilk ever since, and it hurts her every day, to think back on what she was forced to leave behind. To contrast, her very favorite memory involves going to a quiet glade in Duskwood where the green dragons used to stay, and finally being able to touch the waters of a moonwell without them burning her skin. She was in the company of a young druid, who sang and kept her safe while she fretted and protested and doubted aloud until she finally found the courage to try. There was no greater relief than knowing that the mother moon recognized her again, even a little bit.

If they could have one thing in the world, what would it be? One thing? How big or small scale is this? Like... one article of clothing, or one concept? For the sake of a good answer, I'll choose concept and go with "a home." She hasn't had a place to call home since the woods burned, and she wants one very badly. So badly that she's willing to occupy old elven ruins that've been abandoned and start dressing them up again.

Would they ever kill someone? What would someone have to do to push them to kill someone? If they would kill someone, why? She "doesn't kill things of the good dirt that walk on two legs." This has to be broken down, a bit- "things of the good dirt" means creatures of all kinds who are made out of flesh and blood as a result of living somewhere. By this metric, demons are not things of the good dirt, largely. Many of them are composed of dark magic from the nether in their entirety- or they've been killed and remade so many times that nothing remains of what they once were, when they came up from their "good dirt." Then there's the matter of two legs- if it moves on four, it tends to qualify as prey. She considers herself an old creature of the woods, and as such a creature, she eats what she damn well pleases. These aren't hard rules, however. She'd eat a human or an orc or any such creature if she had to, and feel no moral or ethical dilemma whatsoever- she considers them to be "made of the same meat I am." If it's not a matter of eating or driving back the Legion to protect her home, then she absolutely will not kill. Maim, bludgeon, assault, she'll beat the daylights out of someone who crosses her- but she won't kill them. She, like the Ravens before her, would rather teach a lesson.

What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually? Kara isn't the life of the party, but she's an active participant. She's belligerent and traditional in a lot of ways, but she likes to laugh and she likes to have a good time, and she's got the good sense not to make a bad situation out of a good one- unless she's really, terribly bothered by something, in which case she'll raise hell. She doesn't belong to any clubs or organizations anymore, but she's casually trying to form some- a township in some abandoned ruins, for example- and she hands out yellow cloaks to match hers, to any lapsed, failed, or rejected Illidari in need.

How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories? She has a spectacular imagination, but it's limited by her perspective. Her ideas are fanciful and sometimes brilliant, but they have the same kind of old-fashioned charm that "old sci-fi" has compared to the sci-fi we're used to now. She doesn't worry, but she is prone to fantasizing- and she does do a great deal of living in memories, because she has an eternity of nostalgia to sift through.

What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain? She wants the war to end. She's tired of having to fight in it, she was never meant to. She doesn't have many compulsive needs, but she does like to fight more than the average elf. By a long shot. She's done sacrificing, though. She'll kick ass and take names all up and down the Legion front, but she's already given up her eyes, her home, her lover, her allegiances, her dignity, her glaives, her traditions, her family, her friends, her neighbors, and every last tree in the woods we now call Felwood. She's Fucking Tired Of Sacrifices And She's Going To Keep And Protect Everything Else That Exists Now, God Damn It.

What’s something that your character does, that other people don’t normally do? Bumps into walls. If it's not enchanted, she can't fucking see it. But she's too proud to use a cane or a dog, so she just struggles against the physical world because she needs to insist to herself that she's fine.

What would your character do with a million dollars? She already has a million dollars. She's chosen to live well within her means, do a job that satisfies her, and make meaningful personal connections.

What is in your characters refrigerator right now? On their bedroom floor? Nightstand? Garbage can? Fridge: Several stolen platters from New Years celebrations. Meat and cheese and vegetable dip trays from several different parties she wandered through. Also, a gallon of milk, a gallon of sweet tea, and a gallon of lemonade.

Bedroom floor: Gigantic heaps of treasure, stolen from everywhere. Rugs, quilts, piles of loose gold and silver trinkets, pottery and riches. It looks like the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin in there.

Nightstand: Flask of spring water from halfway up Hyjal. Gnomish audio recorder featuring a tape with instructions on how to read braille. Three other gnomish audio tapes are nearby, with instructions on how to use the Common alphabet, a recording of some very good guitar played by a pirate in the Bay, and a highly explicit tape, also bought in the Bay, which features very animated readings of a couple "steamy romance novels."

Garbage can: Empty soup cans, spent matches, various wrappers and shreds of wax paper.

Your character is getting ready for a night out. Where are they going? What do they wear? Who will they be with? You can count on somewhere expensive. Kara likes paying extra for something quiet and special and well-crafted, so fine dining suits her. Even if she eats with her hands. She was given a dress over Winter Veil, made of embersilk. It fits, and she likes to wear it out. Odds are, she'll go out with a friend- but if she had a choice, she'd get a celebrity on her arm. She'd love to stir up a controversy by being caught out at dinner with a world leader, like Tyrande or Sylvanas. Especially Sylvanas- she feels like they'd have a lot to talk about, in their long years.

What does your character do when they’re angry? Why? Pick fights. She's an extremely physical woman.

Does your character have any scars? Where did they get them from? S h i t l o a d s. Where do you think? She's been fighting the Legion for goodness knows how long. Longer than most.

What was the most offensive thing your character had ever said? "It's only a human. Wheel it off to a priest before it stinks, or eat it."

How does your character react/ accept criticism? ...It takes her a while. A long while. Usually something painful and humbling has to knock some sense into her before she'll accept a new idea.

If your character was given a slice of pineapple pizza and they HAD to eat it (or something bad would happen), how would they react? Do they even LIKE pineapple pizza? She fucking loves pineapple on pizza.

Your character is given a voodoo doll of themself. What do they do with it? Do they see if it actually works? Poke at it, then put it away. She believes very strongly in the sorcery of the Trolls, and she's not going to test her luck.

Can your character draw? What do they like to draw? Do they doodle? She can't draw. She also can't read, or see.

What were their parents like? How has that affected how they are as an adult? I feel like I already answered this one. The Ravens Grey were strange, confusing, but ultimately compassionate old witches whose methods carried both the danger and directness of the old trolls, and the dignity and decorum of the new elves. Kara, as an adult- having gone through so much- still tries to make herself like them. They were good to her. She appreciates how they raised her.

Does your character like candy? Do they get sugar rushes? What are they like when they get a rush? Candy makes her sick. She'd never eat enough to get a rush, she'd vomit. Hates the taste. Even chocolate.

If your character was presented with imminent and unavoidable death/fatality, how would they react? Would they try to avoid death anyways? Would they try to make their last days count? She'd embrace it with open arms. She's been waiting to die for a long time, and death simply hasn't come to her. She'd feel relief, in passing away. She'd get her affairs in order as best she could, distribute her wealth, talk to the people she wanted to talk to- Tyrande, Sylvanas, Boss Mida, Alexstrasza, Chromie, Shandris, and Varok Saurfang, in particular- and then call it quits. Take it easy, stay home and close to her loved ones, and just let herself finally die. An eternity is long enough to live. Let someone else handle the next one.