gorgeousdan

[gorgeousdan]

said fondly

[gorgeousdan]

finger guns 🌻

[gorgeousdan]

loml ❤️🤍❤️🤍

[gorgeousdan]

[gorgeousdan]

[gorgeousdan]

Ten days from today, I’m graduating with a Master’s degree.

In ten days, I will be a mental health professional. I will be a social worker. I’ve already helped dozens of children, at least in a small way. I’ve looked them right in the eyes and offered space. Compassion. Things I wish I had heard at 14.

I hope they don’t know I’m a hypocrite.

Ironically, the only kid I can’t save is the 14 year old who lives inside me. They’re getting ready for their eighth grade graduation, sending a picture of yet another white dress to their boyfriend.

They aren’t very untraditional, yet. He doesn’t like any of the dresses.

The two of them aren’t going to the same high school. That really pisses him off. He will spend the next four years in a public school twice the size of their Catholic school.

They cried when they found out. They didn’t know it would save their life.

Last I heard, through the very last grape stubbornly clinging onto the vine through the changing seasons, he lives in Philadelphia. He’s an illustrator.

Theatre was always our dream. I wonder when his died.

Mine died age 18, in a dimly lit auditorium at night, when I was so fixated on the ghost in my dorm room that I didn’t learn any of the words. I just stood there, blank. They thanked me. Said they’d be in touch.

The show went on without me. Why wouldn’t it? Who needs to pay to watch someone’s dream die in real time?

On the way back to my dorm room, I decided if I couldn’t save myself, I’d save everyone else.

It worked. Everyone was proud of me. My first supervisor hugged me and handed me a card. It starts “the impact you have made is beyond words.” My second supervisor handed me a book on my way out the door. It begins “Emotions are the real magic that help us feel close to each other in relationships.”

A kid waves goodbye to me on my way out the door. He says he’ll miss me. I say I’ll miss him too, and pray he doesn’t notice the ghost of a high school freshman that follows him down the hallway.

I frame it as a survival story. It’s more palatable that way. That’s how I frame it to two men I credit with giving me hope in my childhood. Camaraderie in the form of likes. I quote one of them on my cap. “Have the courage to exist.”

It’s not a survival story. It’s the story of someone fracturing over the course of 11 years, who is too stubborn to admit it. I lay in bed the night I see them and think what kind of healer needs two men across the world who don’t know they exist to give them hope?

What kind of helper is a fractured person? An adult crying at a YouTuber tour, a dying teenage actor, the kid who remembers his hands between their thighs and what happens if they say no.

A mental health professional. A child social worker. Hilarious.

But I’ll keep trying, and helping, and praying no one sees my hypocrisy. I’ll walk across the stage and smile and shake hands and hope no one notices mine trembling in response.

And I’ll congratulate that kid in the dressing room, trying on a white dress they really don’t like to appease someone who doesn’t listen to no. Congratulations on your graduation, Ve. May you continue to fracture in increasingly tragic ways.

[gorgeousdan]

TW: Sexual Assault

“Why buy the cow if you’re getting the milk for free?”

It’s a misogynistic framing device, a way to discourage women from having premarital sex with men, lest being milked ruins their chances on the resale market.

There’s something inherently taboo about it. It’s not his cow. But she’s sneaking him in, letting him into her space, into her life, letting him take her milk. Hopefully she’s getting something out of the equation too. Maybe he takes her to really nice barns. Maybe when he pulls on her udders, he’s good with his hands. Maybe it’s such a laughable milking that she has a story to share with the other cows.

You were broke.

And you were hungry.

I was just barely old enough to nurse my young. You were a farmer on a mission. You made my farmer laugh. He let you into our barn. No farmer with kind eyes and an easy smile and artist’s hands could be dangerous.

Your gentle hands drifted to my udders.

I tried to shake you off. Shook my head at you. Motioned to my young. My milk wasn’t for you. It was for me. It was for them. 

“C’mon, baby,” you whispered into my ear. “Don’t you love me?”

I did. You were a good farmer. You had pretty eyes and extravagant stories of the world. I was barely more than a calf. And I knew my farmer would be mad I had let you back here.

Your hand wandered back to my udders, and you squeezed. “Look at this, baby,” you said, when my traitorous body produced milk for you. “You’re already dripping.”

I didn’t scream when you milked me. I didn’t want to wake my farmer. So instead I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling shame and fear flood through me as my milk flowed out for you. You called me a good cow.

Good cows don’t give away the milk for free. And here I was, keeping quiet while you squeezed my udders with the same, gentle hands I had adored. While you stole my young’s milk, my milk, like it was something you had the right to.

You bypassed the market altogether.

When it was over, you bragged to your friends about it. How I was your cow, how much milk I produced for you. Like you hadn’t stolen it from me. Like I had let you into my barn, let you steal my milk.

And I knew you wouldn’t buy me.

You were a smart man. And smart men don’t buy the cow if she won’t scream when he steals the milk for free.

[gorgeousdan]

i met up with my younger self for lunch.

i ordered a chicken sandwich. they picked at my fries.

they were thin and bony, all sharp lines and dark circles, and they cowered when i spotted the fresh bruises on their skin under their hoodie.

they told me they liked my sweatshirt.

dan and phil merch, of course. i thanked them. said it was from their third world tour.

their voice dropped when they whispered a name that made us both shiver. they said he doesn't like that they watch dan and phil videos.

a childish complaint, sure, but they were 14

and besides, i knew what they were really saying.

i knew who was responsible for the bruises, afterall.

"fuck him," i said, which made them laugh, startled.

i told them one day they wouldn't have to hide under hoodies. there'd be nothing left to hide, and they could wear their silly little youtuber merch guilt free.

they seemed relieved. asked me when.

i put my hand over theirs, and our fingers shivered together, perpetual motion.

"soon," i told them. and i meant it.

(inspired by "deep in my feels" by jennae cecelia)

[gorgeousdan]

happy tit day💙🤍💜

[gorgeousdan]

squish

[gorgeousdan]

me when the chronic pain is chronic and painful:

[gorgeousdan]

dan and phil react to amazingdan

[gorgeousdan]

dan pronouns & identity discussions & other dangender moments x x

gotta give credit to @yonpote and @freckliedan for posting most of the clips and having great tagging systems to easily find everything <3

digifest x || podcast x || wad q&a transcript || vidcon post & video || younow

i was hoping to fit everything in one post but tumblr hates me posting videos so i’ll just keep adding to this

part two

[gorgeousdan]

google feud has us fuming

[gorgeousdan]

Dan's first crush vs his last crush

[gorgeousdan]

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF RPF…….PHAN!!!

Dan and Phil, fans of Dan and Phil, I hereby announce you as the inaugural winners of what I am dubbing…The Phanley Cup 🙂‍↕️

[gorgeousdan]

just another one of life's unanswerable questions...