#LGBT ISNT SILENT

[mejomonster]

You know what else? Alex used the word queer in his fucking speeches. <3 the movie writing made a fucking choice and the choice was to be inclusive in that regard and I appreciate it

[the-s1lly-corner]

hey, may i request hcs of laughing jack + slenderman x nonbinary, afab!reader who gets misgendered/bullied a lot but is too scared to correct/stand up to ppl? happens to me a lot :[

laughing jack and slenderman x afab!nonbinary!reader

im so so sorry you keep getting treated like dookie- as a fellow afab nb i totally get your pain with the misgendering, people just need to hush up

notes: reader is afab and nonbinary, established relationships, both canon characters have limited knowledge of lgbt topics but thats mostly because they hardly interact with people or media

cws: transphobia, canon typical violence, mentions of stalking

laughing jack

doesnt get to interact with many people much, so hes a little limited on his knowledge- and given that he originally started existing in the Victorian era? hoo boy- hes not transphobic or otherwise lgbtphobic but there is some ignorance

can see himself as using some labels once he gets more educated on it, though! always headcanoned laughing jack to be gnc!

tries to help you appear more androgynous or masculine if thats what you want! he doesnt mind playing dress up with you, and hes definitely going to take it as a moment to turn it into a game and try to cheer you up!

openly mocks the people who bully you, as well as outright saying that theyre just a bunch of jerks who... dont deserve nice things to head their way.. to keep the description vague

similar to slenderman, hes going to go out and get some vengeance if things get ugly enough

he doesnt like going out without you, hes a bit clingy.. but the sight of you being so distraught really makes his insides coil like snakes.. does not like it at all

even tries to push for you to carry him around in his box so he can just jump and slash anyone who says anything- though thats not a very good idea... would give him away quickly

slenderman

he doesnt understand much about gender, and honestly? i can easily see him being agender, or maybe gender apathetic simply due to him not showing interest in his own identity. he rarely wants to be perceived anyway

despite not knowing much about it and not caring how others see him, he can understand just a little bit on why it matters to you- especially when youre seen as something youre not and harassed for it

rest assured that if he ever finds out someone is harassing you, he will silent them quickly. out right offing them or stalking them over a period of time, the result will end in you having one less person on your back... then two.. then three.. and so on

actually the fact that people seem to either go missing or skip town not long after messing with you makes many keep their mouths shut- and before you even think that might prompt someone to harm you under the guise that its YOU doing it, slenderman isnt going to let that happen

he listens to you if you need to talk about your feelings on it, hes unsure of how to verbally help you affirm your gender identity but if you outright ask him how he views you; he tells you that you pass in his eyes regardless of if you present more femininely, masculine, or androgynously.. though that may be because of his aforementioned limited knowledge on the topic... hes supportive nonetheless!

[wiltking]

Do you have any book recommendations of 2023? I know the Weebly page goes back to 2022, and the latest under the book rec tag here is 2022 as well.

sorry i have not read much this year so far 💀 trying to pick up the pace but i wont lie its been an uphill battle.

best things ive read this year so far are silent reading (mo du) by priest, ariah by b. r. sanders, bound in flesh: an anthology of trans body horror arranged by lor gislason, spring in siberia by artem mozgovoy, and kissing carrion by gemma files (gross horror collection that isnt an lgbt book per se but its really good overall and has a sprinkling of morally bankrupt gay activity), and the final book of the last rune series by mark anthony

[brandwhorestarscream]

More BotBots + invasive species thoughts with some inspiration from the “Burgertron: and they were roommates” anon.

It’s through Burgertron Jack and June learn Cliffjumper and Arcee’s (and bitty’s) names, along with pronouns. I remember you mentioning June basically going “oh shit” in a different anon ask in response that learning “Ruby” (or whatever June called Cliffjumper) was male. But Burgertron being very confused on why June thought Cliffjumper was male.

June: the red one gave birth but it’s male???

Burgertron: It’s pretty obvious, he has a lower voice.

June: NO IT ISNT

Jack: *silently suffering*

LMAOOO 😂

TFP takes place in like 2010. Gay marriage wasn't even legal yet. The general population was pretty ignorant to anything involving the lgbt community. June just made the assumption that giving birth = woman. Of course, they're aliens, so their biology is very outlandish and confusing to the people of earth XD she's trying to explain that to this tiny sassy burger boy, but he just Does Not Get It. The idea that anyone is capable of siring a child and anyone is capable of incubating one is such a wild concept to her, but the idea that those roles could be limited to only certain people is a wild concept to him! There's a weird two-way barrier there where they're both just very confused about the other's species and how reproduction works 😂

Imagine her shock when she finds out the only real difference between mechs and femmes is spark frequency. They're exactly the same otherwise. She's just like 🤯 before thinking, huh, that actually might be nice. You guys probably don't have a concept for misogyny or feminism then, cuz everyone is the same, right?

June is really apologetic to Sapphire and Ruby for getting their titles wrong, but they're not offended. It really doesn't bother them. If anything, they think it's kinda funny that she switched them around XD Jack is just glad the misunderstanding got cleared up, and is also happy to learn their names. He starts calling little Eavesdrop by her name, and it's not long before she starts responding to it

[captaindarksword]

I have to be frankly honest I have seen alot of a certain sect of shippers repeat the claim that it was planned from the start as if  ( leaving aside the possibilityof them lying because that isnt important)

1. they act like that  means it was built up from the start when no it doesnt  it only began to be teased in v6 before hand blacksun got years of teasing mutual attraction and development since v1

2. planned from the start doesnt equal built up from the start there is slow burn and then there is a late ignite ( which is starting to hint at a ship years into the story ( everything in v1-3 was platonic you have to bend overbackwards to claim something is evidence like claiming that a character getting seriously injured after a villain ( ex boyfriend) proclaimed he will destroy everything that person loves which includes friends and family and the other girl happens to show up because she is her friend.

is somehow evidence arguing well she got focus after the proclamation when yes because she is included under friends and family 

she needed to get a reason to not follow her sister and to get a character arc the fact she is tied with that villain isnt evidence for romance. 

they gave the het ship years of buildup  going well the two girls spent alot more time together offscreen in v1-3 then the m/f did in v1-3 is not justification because its offscreen  in writing terms  on screen moments show focus which points to het ship imagine if a m/f pairing happened after the show onscreen gives us years of on screen teasing mutual attraction and development ( with the m/f havinga couple scenes like one where the guy helps the girl  but nothing that hinted at mutual thing)

and they try to use those justifications  like the m/f pairing were both main characters while the other girl was a side character

people would be mad and cite the fact that its irrelevant that the girl was a side character ( which it is ) 

and justifying a ship by going but they spent alot of time offscreen wh when on screen the two girls got the focus and ship tease etc  and giving that much buildup  is unsatisfying. This applies even when the genders involved are flipped it doesnt matter that there arent many shows where same sex ships happen the double standard shouldnt be held. and same sex ships arent exempt from being criticized just by the genders involved

lgbt rep is a secondary concern compared to if the writing is good if that means that the het ships should be canon rather then the same sex ship thats that.

lets be real here ship wars and arguments happen in every fandom like zutara vs kataang ( dont give the typical proclamation that anyone who doesnt ship that same sex ship is homophobic  or just criticizing it based on genders involved when it could easily be flipped onto them that they are shipping it based on genders involved since they are trying to use the genders involved as a shield.

and try to shame people with adhominem attacks to get them to be silent not to mention the people who are sexist to men. and basically try to claim that same sex ships are better when no it isnt  straight enemies to lovers is no superior or inferior to same sex enemies to lovers its about  how its handled and anyone who proclaims something like straight enemies to lovers is bad is a bigot because they are specifying the genders involved.

ship wars happen between het ships all the time.

3. sometimes you need to change the plan because you ended up writing things you didnt forseen when you originally planned it . ie  that would mean that even if you planned on the f/f ship becoming canon things would change and it would be better for the character to end up with the “”intended” “red herring “

like giving the het ship so much teasing mutual attraction and development that people doubt the claim that the f/f ship was planned and say it reeks of direction change. at that point they should have just went with the het ship if they did plan it from the start ( they didnt write it well and they ended up waiting for so long) that people doubt that it was planned and would say that v6 finale reeks of direction change  (which I agree).

on the other hand there is the chance that it was not planned from the start and they threw  the m/f pairing out due to the popularity of the f/f  ( its not like they were intended to die at any point) an

 which would fit with the writing of the show if the f/f ship was planned why give the m/f ship so much. ( while the f/f ship didnt have anything that hinted at romance till v6 . ( no a girl bringing up her ex and how he slowly changed in response to how the girl felt about the other one possibly choosing to injure a guy,) (too many people seem to think that anyone who is part of the lgbt people would support the f/f ship just because its a f/f ship or that only homophobes would criticize it ( thinking their ship  is that good etc)

there not being that many canon same sex ships doesnt exempt the ship from criticism or mean it deserved to be canon that ship was unearned

[shoezuki]

I believe the main reason ranboo is getting criticism is because some black fans of his feel a little upset that he celebrates and helps lgbt causes but is silent in helping or talking about people of color like in bhm. Ranboo himself said that he understands that and doesn’t really want hate spread around because it is a valid thing to be disappointed about

i think bein like 'i wish he'd talk bout this more' like. shit makes sense. but jus cuz ranboo is a white dude w a huge followin doesnt mean he needs to act as a spokesperson and vessel for all social movements. like showin support for one organization isnt equal to an absence of support for another organization/movement

like. if any time some big mfer donated to and acknowledged One movement, then people were like 'oh so youre not going to talk about this Other Movement?' then we'd jus go in circles forever. because no matter what there will always be other groups that will need support and to be uplifted. but one guy that jus wants to play video games shouldnt be pushed into bein an activist in general

[honeyheaded]

i am SO HYPE abt mine and my best friend (and a lot of other people’s apparently but im talking about it anyway) idea for who the fifth member of the syndicate is you dont even know

like

tho the codename is never explicitly stated it is visible as the name “Harpocrates”

now, if you‘re a greek mythology nerd like a lot of us (hello lgbt community) then you recognize the significance of the codenames and the fact that they are chosen based off greek mythos

Techno’s is Protesilaus - the first to hop off the boat during the trojan war and thus the first to die. this is ironic for obvious reasons, though there is some mythos that he actually survived the war and went on the found Scion after he was left unable to return from the war. additionally, protesilaus means “first” so it may also be a reference to the fact that Techno was technically the first member of the syndicate

Philza’s is Zehpyrus - one of the four gods of the directional winds (the West one to be precise) and the spring. he is the gentlest of the four and considered the soft bringer of spring, ironic when you consider that phil and techno live in a frozen tundra and also that the god is most famous for epically ruining Apollo and Hyacinthus’ frisbee date by going all “return to sender” on the discus and accidentally killing the dude. another thing the god is known for, however, is giving Odysseus the bag of winds he fails to use to return home.

Ranboo’s was (as of yesterday) revealed to be the popular fan guess of Lethe - a daughter of Eris, the goddess of choas, the goddess lethe is said to be the living embodiment of oblivion and forgetfulness who looks over the river of the same name. the river lethe is a river that runs through various parts of the underworld, and every soul that drinks of the water forgets all of their previous existance. it is said that the river runs through/around the cave of the god of sleep, hypnos, and that the noise the river makes lulls people to drowsiness

Nikki has not picked her codename yet, but i dont believe i have enough knowledge of her or greek mythology to make a good guess on what shell pick so i wont even try

now, if you think about this, about how they went about choosing their codenames and what we already know the mystery member’s name to be, then you start to get a picture of who it could be

Harpocrates is the child greek god of silence. there isnt much we know about him, only that he was borrowed by the greeks based off the egyptian god horus the child, who’s gesture of the pointer finger pressed to his lips was a symbol of the sun, which he is a symbolic representation of. the greeks mistook the gesture as one of silence and serenity and thus Harpocrates was born, who is often depicted as a small child with a finger pressed to his lips.

who do we know on the smp who is silent? literally the Only person who doesnt speak?

Callahan

admittedly, i have only recently joined the smp fandom (within the last two months) so i know next to nothing about him. reading the wiki, he is shown as mostly comic relief, joking around on the rare moment hes on unless there is a big event happening. because of this, i have very little actual evidence that the fifth member is Callahan, however, id say the name is a pretty good place to start

feel free to add on to this

[squishytenya]

mina x female reader who’s family is very religious and she accidentally comes out and gets kicked out, so she runs off to her girlfriends place for at least the night (i’d ask for angst > fluff as well as hcs, but that’s up to you tbh) (also aizawa would not stand for that, he’d go full father and adopt, can’t change my mind)

Mina x F!Reader who gets thrown out by homophobic parents

Ahhh anon darling I hope this isnt reality for you I'm so sorry if it is. This ask really inspired me so I got on it right away! Also you're right about Aizawa and you should say it

Warnings: Homophobia, Child abuse, Unsupportive families, angsty wit fluff towards the end

Mina is one of those partners that will call their s/o every single night regardless of if they’ve just seen them or not

She had dropped you off at your house only 2 hours prior and was now yelling at you down the phone about your sparring session 

‘You looked so good today, how does your hero suit even look that good after getting all dirty? It might just be you being the prettiest girl in UA but you pull it off no matter what!’

You chuckled at the pink girls sweet nature, she never failed to compliment you even on the weirdest of things

‘Thanks Mina but the prettiest girl at UA would have to be you babe, I'm so lucky to have you as my girlfriend’

A gasp sounded from your door way and it felt like someone had thrown ice water down your back

You made eye contact with one of your family members (it’s so hard to make this neutral lmao)

A  shaky voice rang out through the phone asking if you were okay

This just seemed to make your family member more angry, the uncomfortable silence soon grew into high pitched screaming

‘How dare you do this to me in my house! You abomination you’re going against everything we stand for’

Mina had gone silent on the phone, horrified at the sounds of your sobbing and your family relentlessly screaming at you

They had formed a crowd now with each person ranging from vague disgust to seething anger

‘Get out’ ‘what no I haven-’ 

‘Get out of this house or I swear you’ll regret it, I never want to see your face again’

Sobbing, you packed a bag and ran out of the house

You found yourself sat on the swing in the park you and Mina had been at earlier that day

How could you let this happen? You had been so careful around your parents to the point of not even letting them meet Mina just in case you slipped

But here you were. Alone and crying in a kids park at 10pm

That is until Mina’s voice rang out from your phone

She hadn’t hung p on you in fear of what might happen if she did

‘y/n me and Aizawa sensei are coming to pick you up. I’m sorry I told him but I couldn’t leave the dorms otherwise’

Your family hadn’t let you stay at the dorms, you lived close enough to UA anyway and they didn’t want you getting affected by the ‘bad influences’ of 1a

You sobbed your location down the phone

The cold air of the park nipped at your fingers, you had only been able to grab a thin hoodie and your uniform before you fled and were now feeling the effects of the night air

Shivering, you thought back to all the times your parents had condemned same sex relationships and sighed

You loved Mina and you were happy it’s a shame they couldn’t see that

 A car beeping pulled you out of your thoughts

You looked up just in time to see a blur of pink collide with you, your girlfriends arms enveloping you in a tight hug

Immediately you broke down, sobbing to her about your parents and how you just wanted to go home

Rose coloured hands held your face as she pulled you up to be eye level with her

‘You are not a freak,’ she assured you, looking deep into your eyes ‘you are nothing they say you are and I love you too much to let your believe their words’

You barely remembered the drive back to the dorms

Only soft murmurs of Mina explaining the situation fully to a very concerned Aizawa

Mina was allowed to take you up to her room and instantly had you cocooned in her duvet You may have cried yourself to sleep that night but at least you were in the arms of someone that loved you

The next morning everyone was surprised to see you at the kitchen table, bags under your eyes and a mug of hot  placed in your hands (courtesy of a very concerned Yaoyorozu)

Aizawa allowed you and Mina to skip classes as long as you needed but requested to talk to you in the late afternoon

The authorities had been called on your parents, they had given up all custody of you but Aizawa had a further question

’A similar thing happened to my son and I was wondering if you would like to stay with me and my family? Maybe permanently or just until you can find someone to live with’

You almost cried on the spot and pulled Aizawa into a tight hug (he reluctantly returned it)

You were ecstatic to find out Aizawa was lgbt+ too (i had to include Erasermic don’t @ me okay)

Mina was very protective of you from that day forward

She always made sure you knew you were loved and not just by her

The classmates that knew of your situation to were understanding and almost as protective of you as Mina was

Her sweetness only grew as you two were allowed to live near each other in the dorms and your friends would often find you two cuddling in the common room

You couldn’t ask for a better found family

Ahhh anon this almost made me cry! I was so passionate about writing this it came across as more a mini fic than headcanons but I hope it was okay for you. Have a lovely day darling!

[oceanflowerrs]

wtf did i post that made two thousand people follow me. i literally have an lgbt-character url isnt it like a silent rule that those people are supposed to not get popular? poops

[sluttyten]

I'm not sure if this is shaking the table but I must ask- if someone's religious- and they believe that being gay is a sin-- does that make them homophobic or just religious? (now of course there are technicalities like are they just assholes to gay people or do they believe they just have to avoid the gay™?) *me personally i'm not going to rag on someone if theyre taught that their religion isnt lenient towards gayness *as long as they aren't an ass* -christian school anon

I feel like it’s both homophobic and just being religious because what their religion is teaching is homophobia. I grew up Christian, went to Catholic school since I was like 4 years old until I was 18, and in those 14 years I was taught in multiple religion classes and during homilies at church that being gay is a sin and it’s wrong, and for so long that didn’t sit right with me. It still doesn’t sit right with me. Christians love to preach love and peace, but will quickly turn on that basic principle of their faith when it comes to two men or two women being in love. They’ll say it’s disgusting and a sin, and I just feel like that’s total bullshit. Why should love be limited? And there’s not an argument that it’s unnatural, because homosexuality isn’t just a human thing, there are animals that also practice same sex bonds, so it’s actually quite natural. It’s not a modern idea born of sexual depravity, not brought about by internet culture or anything like that, because there are records of same sex love throughout history. Whether someone uses religion as a basis for them being an asshole or just being silently disgusted toward someone for being gay or suppressing their own homosexuality (or other aspects of the LGBT+ spectrum), they’re still homophobic because that religion is inherently teaching hatred. It might not be outspoken hatred, might only be internalized hatred, but it’s still homophobia. And silence in the face of homophobia, allowing it to happen, is also a form of homophobia

[chrissykissy]

hello lgbt community welcome to a thread of me thinking abt how my adventures in odyssey f/os celebrate The Holidays 🥰🎄❄

eugene:

insists upon informing jude at Every opportunity that the holiday season does not coincide with historical record of christ’s birthdate, and rather was placed at this time of year to steal the solstice from pagan groups (jude knows, and loves to hear about it)

holiday serenades!!!! he did that whole album, plus he isnt one to shy away from a traditional carol or hymn

i’m sure he’s very low maintenance as far as gifts are concerned, but he’s very used to people tuning him out when he talks so jude getting him a gift that shows he really Listens would get eugene all choked up for sure!

favorite xmas songs: big fan of the old classics, such as: o tannenbaum, silent night, god rest ye merry gentleman (he has sung these songs in canon). i could have sworn he had canonically performed auld lang syne but idc because i say he likes it and im right. loves the sufjan stevens xmas albums because i am never getting over The Incident

dr blackgaard:

i think that regis probably finds the holiday season to be! frivolous? a waste of perfectly good time for productivity, and all that. the grind never stops 😤

definitely spoils sasha with sweet little kitty gifts every year, even as he monologues to her about the arbitrary nature of the season. shes just like *licks him*

that said, i think he’s putting on airs because he never has anyone to spend the season with :’0 until now.... he’s not really sure what to do with himself once jude triumphantly declares his enthusiasm for christmas, but, ah. he’ll find a way to make things interesting

oh GOD i forgot that he’s rich. i’ve never had any desire to travel someplace fancy for christmas but regis knows all the hot spots and surely revels in the opportunity to whisk jude away to literally Any place more glamorous than the northernmost united states

gets a halfhearted christmas card from his brother edwin every year, always saves them. jude is the only person who can ever know about this

favorite xmas songs: will absolutely tear it the fuck up to tchaikovsky’s the nutcracker in its entirety, probably has a private fondness for evil-sounding minor key hymns

bart:

its all about the SPECTACLE, babey!!!! leans 100% into the commercialism of it all

jude’s christmas bonus is a kiss on the cheek :/

ideal christmas date is driving around to extravagantly decorated houses with light shows. hes like “can you believe it? they oughta be chargin’ admission!” but we all know he would stop going if they did. also he had to stop bringing rodney with him bc he and the bones would vandalize the houses 😔

is late giving christmas presents 9 times out of 10 bc he waits for that sweet sweet december 26th sale

favorite xmas songs: mele kalikimaka and feliz navidad (he cannot pronounce the names correctly), i saw mommy kissing santa claus. curated a playlist for the electric palace loudspeaker that only contains the Most consumerist holiday songs

doris:

starts carrying mistletoe in her pocket on november 1st

cannot cook or bake (we know this) but she LOVES decorating (which she can’t really do either). jude comes over with gingerbread pre-baked so doris can have the simple pleasure of icing a sloppy little house. but also? they can nearly burn down the kitchen attempting to bake cookies together...... as a treat :)

would probably have an absolute blast on a horse-drawn carriage ride. i think in general shes Used to experiencing christmas as modern commercialism bc thats what bart likes but she seems like she’d have a taste for a charms and whims of an old, classical christmas. jude (probably post-blackgaard brain imprint, as it seems like an idea he’d come up with) takes her to one of those little town-wide Victorian Christmas events and she gets SO emotional

has probably committed manslaughter on black friday

favorite xmas songs: santa baby, sleigh ride, christmas wrapping by the waitresses

philip glossman:

receives one (1) christmas postcard from jude (which blackgaard begrudgingly co-signed) and is red in the face for the entirety of the month of december

favorite xmas songs: baby its cold outside cause he a lil weirdo

[incarnateirony]

as an emerging lgbtq+ (i'm 'BT') guy i am so glad you're making the point you made in your last post. I've always gravitated towards Dean because he is so 'imperfect' in his queerness, like me. but he's not a uwu soft queer so apparently that bothers a lot of ppl on here? Especially younger queer women, I've noticed. But a lot of guys, cis and trans, struggle with being attracted to men so much in a way that is simply different (not better or worse) than (1/2)

being wlw, especially depending on one’s generation and region, etc. basically what i’m saying is a lot of the few queer men that there are in the fandom stay quieter as it is almost completely queer women dictating what is and what isnt, and not quite empathizing with the unique struggle many queer men have with internalized homophobia/being Unmanly for being attracted to men. hope this wasn’t too all over the place, ive had this on my mind for a Long time and i’m glad you brought it up. (2/2)

ps: I’m not trying to put down queer women for being a significant part of the fandom. I just really wish the environment of the fandom felt more like somewhere queer men’s voices can be heard better, considering the largest pairing is, needless to say, mlm

Well, first of all, welcome Nonnie. I take it you’re addressing this untitled post addressing intersectionality, representation vs tokenization, represented demographics and just general motivations of those in discussion, yes? (x)

You’ll find this is a longstanding topic of my blog, be it excavating creator commentary people have buried for their own motivations and talked down and around, or dual faceted issues. 

(If you haven’t read the crosslinks on the post you’re addressing, you may want to read The Problem With Dreamhunter (x) It discusses exactly this issue, even if it was written over a year ago at that point, showing just how cyclic this issue is. It talks about MLM/WLW intersectional issues, migrating goalposts, a bunch of show stuff and some of Bobo’s sociopolitical commentary from 2003 about advancing LGBT representation through moderate incremental methods being proven effective at expanding the media presence/platform exponentially above liberal, or more severe/extreme styles)

But when it comes down to it, basically: Yeah, you right.

I didn’t just arbitrarily develop this opinion. I didn’t… just magically tune in to what the LGBT men that literally dodge fandom, for exactly the reasons you say, and know it’s because of the reasons you say – like that didn’t manifest. It came from leaving fandom (un)”safe” spaces. It came from engaging a great variety of LGBT males in real life, many of which engage the content. From observing how they spoke of the content in multifandom servers, or even *why* they chose to avoid speaking up.

And no, I personally didn’t get a read of you, like, insulting LGBT women for their part in fandom. Women engage social media for primetime TV fandoms at an exponential rate above men, so it’s almost unavoidable and it’s nobody’s fault really, but that says nothing for the perpetual habit of drowning out their voices to the fact that– well, they literally abandon engaging.

I’ve seen it enough times it *hurts* me. I shouldn’t *have* to pull my gay writing buddy out of holes to face this, and him still hide silently. I shouldn’t *have* to be the vein of news and information on the show to the bi male friend I have that refuses to touch this fandom. I shouldn’t *have* to even speak up about this. I really do want *you all* to speak up about this, because I can only speak so far, because you’re right: OUR JOURNEYS ARE DIFFERENT.

Hell, even a cis lgbt male vs a trans lgb(t obvious) male have entirely different journeys even though they’re both validly men. These battles are not the same. One community can speak up to defend another, and help hold them up and amplify them if there��s just not enough of them to project the way they need to, and this is something *greatly under respected* in this fandom. Nobody’s holding up the LGBT male voices when actually talking about representation. And you’re right, it’s mostly women, and you’re right, our path is different and our struggles and needs and wants and lives are different. But unless you take a considerable amount of time talking and sharing and learning personally the perspective of the LGBT male community, you’re not… really… helping them speak.

And let it be said, “holding up LGBT male voices” does not and should never equate to “despite having multiple LGBT men saying one thing, I found the one LGBT male saying the thing that matches what I want, who may or may not even actually be in the targeted demographic set of the character we’re discussing representation about, because it’s more than just being bi, it’s entire lives, paths and challenges– but you know, I found the ONE, so fuck the others.” That’s using your friends as tokens and cards. If you want to genuinely add to the conversation, what you do is you introduce your male LGBT friend to the other male LGBT friends and let them have a long conversation to talk out the sources of their disagreements before engaging in conversation.

But drawing a pretty base line collective from all people in the represented demographic, respectfully learning the majority wants and needs and struggles, and helping voice those is pretty key.

Women can sit here all day, and pass around things they’ve been told by other women are woke points, or things that sound progressive and good, and often sort of decontextualized from their purpose (be that the dresswear mentioned shortly hereafter, or what LGBT want/expect/SHOULD want or expect – but in the end, if you’re not sitting down and having dialogues – not just with one, or two, or even three LGBT men – but large handfuls and subsets, able to actually critically examine the differences in LGBT males of gen X, Y, or Z and their lives and stories – if you’re not doing that… If *that* isn’t the core of your discussion values, rather than pass-along buzz vibes– then you’re really not talking representation. You think you are. But you’re not.

There’s the uh. Thing. You noticed. About how women expect the men to engage.

When it comes to young queer women, I’m going to risk pissing some people off, but the long and short of it is (I could probably dig up the link but it’s been an eternity) a while ago they ran a psychological study to figure out why young women were attracted to yaoi, and gay porn, especially what is essentially stereotypical force-role type gay porn. It has to do with blooming attraction, primal fear, and trying to make the men more appealing in a way that does not intimidate them. 

This later manifests into feminizing them, setting twink/bear roles that go beyond into top/bottom, and conflating it with penetration, position, power, dom/sub, fork/spoon, sometimes served with a dose of internalized misogyny being projected into the vessel of whatever twink/sub is positioned, and generally— like, kink culture. Often this is passed with narrowly progressive-masked arguments of “Men should be allowed to be feminine if they want!” rather than a genuine answer to, “Why do you perpetually heterosexually resize, or reframe, and enforce heterosexual structure onto characters that do not meet this mold, and why is that a personal gain to you?” because in the end– it’s a personal gain. And again, at that point it’s not about representation.

Now again, I’m not… shaming anyone for having a kink. But kink/fetish needs/wants have blurred themselves in as if to hedge on equal territory to discussing canon content. Or sprinkling the quite literal fetishized art (power to you if that’s your thing, I guess, even if I do bear discomfort over fetishization of any LGBT demographic, even by another LGBT demographic) and reasoning with dialogue that implies it as being representative, and inserting that into the representation discussion, which *literally* just makes the entire bog muddier, makes the LGBT men trying to speak more easily dismissed in a vat of “just women/fetishists”, it just– it’s Not a Good. I’m… personally not a fan of it. Like at all. A lot of it makes me angry tbh. So I don’t engage. I don’t browse fanfiction. I look at very little art. 

Hell most of the people around here don’t even realize it’s actually a *minority* of LGBT men that choose to engage in penetrative sex, but it’s become a topic of outright obsession around here. There is so much simple… lack of awareness and discussion of the lives LGBT men lead, even by LGBT women because again – we don’t have your path. We can only listen to you. (And BOY have I gotten earfuls from my LGBT male friends absolutely going apeshit banana bonkers over fandom’s obsession with penetration culture, gender role enforcement while feigning it as liberation, and all kinds of other stuff. And that’s what I base most of my talking points on.)

Because if I’m going to talk representation, I’m going to talk about representing the demographic the character is supposed to represent, not molding him into a tokenized wash-over of every single person’s wants. If you’re an LGBT woman that can resonate with Dean Winchester, that’s great. Sometimes representation can be shared. But a character’s origin determines what demo he represents and not all of any given representative’s character’s attributes, methods, functions, anything – not all of it is going to meet any one person’s goals collectively, but the target demographic is inevitably closer to it.

Another point to raise is that it feels like people have lost track of *what* the representation battle is about. It isn’t just about any one person attaching to any one character. It’s about developing a TVscape that looks more representative of the real world, with a fair presence of PoC, of women, of LGBT people of all types, of the disabled community, of people that are even more than one of these, of people with different stories: people. About, well, normalizing it, because it should be normal. About saturating television enough that one day, and that day will not just be tomorrow per convenience, that people won’t be desperate for representation even vaguely in their wheelhouse, that they can turn on and see people of any intersectional type and go– wow, the world finally realizes we’re real. And that in that wide, realistic menu, yes, being able to turn a channel and eventually see someone *just like you*. A day when any show turned on has at least *someone* in your wheelhouse because every show eventually should have some sort of realistic spread, but if you find the *right* show, *there you are.*

That’s how it’s built. We don’t start by footstomping and tokenizing everyone to be vaguely representative of everyone or it doesn’t count because it didn’t work for *them*. We start by sharing truly diverse narratives, each unique to their own, just as diverse as straight stories are, maybe even more. That’s the only way you’re actually going to end up with a TVscape full of The Gays, and full enough to find *explicitly yourself* in there.

Deleting normalized, non-sensationalist text for lacking either visibility or flavor, even if you weren’t the intended demographic for it to speak to, is quite literally contrary to the entire fight.

and tbh?

This shit is why I hate shipping culture.

And I say that as someone who presumably “ships” Dean and Cas, if it’s shipping to address canon bullshit happening in front of you and just watch the show as it folds out without going into denial for *whatever* personal reason. 

There’s a lot of well intended people, most shipping fandom is full of good beans, but as a collective group – skewed by sociopathically manipulated dialogues we can literally track the origins of – have been driven into much of the above while genuinely believing they were doing the right thing, in a long chain of being told this was what and how to fight for, without really stopping and critically examining the nuance of the conversation. Because why would you? Seems to be the popular gay thing to do – while a lot of bisexual people currently hide their commentary via reblog hashtags or hedge awkwardly into an anon box sideways.

That all said, it continues to be my focus. It will never change on this blog. I will never surrender to being pressured, be it by antis or bitters or people just wanting to argue, into pretending things that were text are subtext. I will not move that goalpost. You are real, and you are valid, and you are welcome in my inbox any time, Nonnie, confidentiality guaranteed. Like, DM too.

but lmao like shit, dawg. There’s a reason the LGBT guys I’ve had as writing partners as Dean literally refuse to play with another Cas. That’s not just because I’m a *super aweSOME auTHOr*, it’s because they recognize I do not come from the wing lost to fanfiction, to troll wars, or even to shipping culture, love of a ship be damned. I don’t try to force gender roles on them. I listen when they speak, and often, surprise many with the angle I ever enter discussion or listening from to begin with, because of spending so many years listening to begin with. It’s an intrinsic understanding of why they resonate with the content, not what I can pull some transformative art stuff on or wanting to *make* it into anything else to fit *my* molds. It’s because of being someone engaged to the male perspective, without the need to twist or change a character to be content with it, and being WILLING to hold those challenging conversations.

Listen first. Talk later. But never in front of or over the people you claim to be talking for.

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

CW: transphobia, homophobia. Also pretty long and I'm on mobile so I cant put a read more thing on it.

Ok so this is kind of a personal post so if you don't wanna hear about some of my personal drama, just scroll along. But I feel like I need to get this shit on record somewhere since I don't have the screenshots of the texts this is concerning anymore.

So a little over a year ago, I told the person who'd been my best friend, we'll call her E, since I was about 9 that I didnt want to be friends with her anymore. More on that later.

Back in senior year of high school I started thinking I might be Bi. I brought this up to E and she was super dismissive right off that bat. Saying that I wasnt, sounding like she was trying to console me. Like being Bi was this awful thing that I needed to worry about.

Well fast forward about a year and a half and I went up to my college with her so I could do new student orientation since I was starting the next semester. This is when the fact that I was Bi sort of smacked me in the face because the girl doing my orientation was super hot. I immediately knew I wouldnt be telling E that.

Fast forward to march of 2017. Its spring break. I've reconnected with my high school friends. I've never felt the need to hide my sexuality from them and they were instantly nothing but supportive of me. We never really hung out outside of school back in high school (or in elementary school either in Eric's case.) I start realizing that I've been having more fun with them then I ever did with E. And I finally had people to geek out about sciencey stuff with because E doesnt believe in science but eric LOVES science. It was nice.

Well a couple weeks after spring break me and Es mutual friend Althea asked me to drive her to the shelter so she could get her boyfriends cat fixed (it's way cheaper there then at the vet) and spent the day hanging out with her because she WAS planning to walk back there to pick up the cat afterwards and I was like "uh no. I'm not gonna make you walk across town by yourself." So I finally got to meet her boyfriend. Well that afternoon E came and picked me up to go up to the KU campus to get some more bus passes to go to our college in KC because our school was out of bus passes and didnt know when theyd get more.

Here's when I kinda started to realize I should maybe get out of this friendship. On the way to campus E starts telling me about her day at school and how "theres a girl that used to be a guy in one of my teachers other classes. It's making me uncomfortable."

Me: "that sounds like a you problem, E."

Now I knew she kind of thought that way already. She may not have said shit like that around our other friends but I had to hear it a lot. But because I'm pretty nonconfrontational and she was my only close friend outside of school and I was terrified of being alone, I usually just ignored it or politely debated her about it but generally just agreed to disagree. This was the first time I ever decided to speak up to her about it. Unfortunately I couldnt say much cuz her mom was the one driving us and i knew she agreed with everything E said.

But I'd been hanging out with althea and her boyfriend (who just so happened to be trans) all morning so suddenly having to hear E talk about how uncomfortable trans people make her got me more fired up than usual.

After this I slowly started distancing myself from her. I'd been hoping for a few years that she'd grow up and accept that not everyone is like her and try to be more open minded and accepting of people. Apparently that wasnt happening.

I stopped responding to her texts as often. I was trying to think of a way to talk to her about it but all my past friendships that fell apart, did so naturally and on a silent mutual agreement. So I was half hoping that would happen. Pretty stupid. Dont recommend. Just be straight with people.

After a few months of me only answering her texts every once in a while, she decided to start calling me multiple times a week. Often while I was at work. Sometimes from her mom and sisters phones when I wouldnt answer from her number. Idk y she thought that would work. She knows I hate talking on the phone.

I still didnt know what to say to her. I probably should've just told her I needed some space and she might've backed off for awhile so I could figure it out. But subway stressed me tf out. And i have no idea how you're supposed to end a relationship with your best friend of over 10 years.

(Also some of my other reasons for not wanting to be friends with her were specifically because of althea and I didnt want althea to get dragged into it. Unfortunately it ended up happening anyways. But basically back in highschool, if we were planning for all four of us (me, e, althea, and nikki) to get together, and nikki would have something come up, E would tell althea our get together was cancelled but would still have me come over and then made me promise not to say anything to althea about it.)

Around march or april of last year I blocked her family's numbers. This is when they started showing up at my work. The first time it happened I had a long ass line and was helping my coworker get through it before I left. Her sister came in by herself and just asked how I was doing but left pretty quick after she got her sandwich since it was busy. A couple more times they came and just parked outside like they were waiting for me to get off my shift but ended up leaving. The last time it happened E came in while I was there alone and I really didnt wanna have THAT conversation while i was at work alone and her crazy overprotective mom was out in the car waiting for her. So i made her sandwich very quickly so i could get her out as fast as I could.

I was planning on finally talking to her around the end of april but was still having trouble figuring out what to say.

Unfortunately any plan I had to let her down easy was sort of thrown out the window on may 13th of last year.

My mom texted me that morning about how she got a weird call from Es aunt. On her work phone. This is basically how that call went:

"IS THIS OLIVIAS MOM?????"

My mom, suddenly worried it's my work and something happened to me, "Yes?"

"Why isnt olivia talking to E anymore?"

"............I dont know."

So that kind of crossed a line for me. It really freaked my mom out.

I'm bad at articulating my thoughts when I'm mad or stressed out tho. So my friend Alice ended up writing out the text for me and I read through it to make sure it was ok.

Basically it said "I'm sorry but I dont think we can be friends anymore. The way you talk about the LGBT+ community makes me extremely uncomfortable, especially seeing as I am bisexual and have several friends in the community. The way you used to exclude althea from hanging out with us because you think shes annoying and then expect me to lie to her about it makes me uncomfortable. It was inappropriate to show up at my work unannounced to corner me into talking to you when I needed space. And it was even more inappropriate for your relatives to call my mom at work. I'm sorry I didnt say something sooner but I'm tired of pretending I'm ok with everything you've said over the years."

Then her mom texts me. I dont remember all of it but the gist was "you're a horrible person. E never judged you or anyone else (sure, miss "gay people are gross. I can see how conversion therapy might work." Totally isnt judging anyone and 100% cares about the lgbt+ community.) The only reason she did those things is because she was worried about you."

Then E left me a voicemail that I couldnt understand at all cuz she was crying and I felt terrible even tho everyone was telling me I shouldn't. Now I probably should've taken out the part about althea because it effectively threw my "not wanting to get althea involved" plan out the window. Honestly what really pissed me off about this next part both made me pissed at E but also at myself. E removed herself from the group chat I had with her, nikki, and althea. Blocked althea on Facebook and blocked her number. Didnt bother to explain why. I still feel terrible about this even tho althea has told me many times that it's fine and if she'd had to pick a side she wouldve picked mine. But I still felt like she at least deserved an explanation.

Alice told me to screenshot the texts. I almost didn't cuz I just wanted to forget about all this. But I did.

Anyways life moved on. Eric got a new phone and gave me his beat up galaxy s7. I stuck my s6 into a drawer and let it die and forgot about it.

Then on new years I got a call from althea. Not weird at all. She calls me every major holiday and birthday. Shes done this every year since junior year of high school.

Normal phone call at first. But then she says that her mom has been talking to E's mom. Apparently E's mom told altheas mom that I told E that althea hates her and thinks shes a terrible person and that's why E hasnt been talking to althea. Althea of course didnt believe that but wanted me know about it. This prompted me to try and charge up my old phone and get the screenshots off of it. I had it plugged in for a couple of days and it never turned back on. So that's out apparently.

That's also why I felt the need to get all of this written down. It may not be as great as having the actual screenshots but I'm bad at articulating my thoughts when confronted so I want to have something written down in case any of this comes up again.

[side-effect-of-the-meds]

Okay!!! Desperate for twinyards :D!!! Will Aaron ever found out that erin takes care of him when he is drunk? And will he find out that Aaron cares for him and will there ever be a point where the things he said when he is drunk would be said when be isnt? Gosh im such trash for your fem!andreil

I’m so sorry these asks keep taking so long! They take me thirty years to get to and then they turn out really bad. One day I’ll start creating quality content. Until then, have this. 

In honor of Spoopy Month, it’s Halloween themed!!!!! (I borrowed a big chunk of it from my canon compliant fic Love of my Life but I just really like that part of the story. Sorry :))

“I never thought Crowley and Aziraphale would ever return to Eden,” Ronnie said as the Monsters made their way to the bar. Ania smiled. Erin scowled. “Aw don’t scowl at me like that, Angel.” Ronnie barely dodged the heels Erin chucked at her. With a broad smile, Ronnie turned her attention to Aaron. “I’m sorely disappointed to see that you’re not the Archangel Micheal.” Aaron glared at her but his annoyance didn’t last. 

Aaron could never stay mad at Ronnie for long. For the longest time, Ronnie had been the only ray of sunshine in Aaron’s dreary life. The middle child and only daughter of a rich widower, Ronnie was free to do as she pleased while her father groomed her brothers to inherit his fortune. Having four brothers would be more than enough for most people but Ronnie hadn’t hesitated to adopt Aaron into her little band of miscreants. In the years before Erin’s arrival, it was Ronnie (and at times, her brothers) that had been looking out for Aaron. She was just as much his sister as Erin was. That was what made their relationship so hard for him to wrap his head around. He’d given up trying to make sense of how they could have gone behind his back like that long ago but on nights out at Eden’s he couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. 

“Earth to Mikey,” Ronnie said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Come on, we’re toasting you’re little cheerleader. To Katelyn,” Ronnie cried as she raised her own shot. “For breathing -or maybe blowing- some life into Aaron!” Aaron shrieked at the crude joke as his family laughed, downing their shots. Aaron’s brain short-circuited at the sight of Erin downing her shot to the toast. She just wants to drink, Aaron told himself as he regained control of his thoughts. Curling himself into his shoulders, he stood apart as Ronnie caught up with the others.

“Aaron,” Josten said as she nudged his foot with her boot. “Erin said to grab a table.” Aaron nodded and headed off to search for one. Despite the pounding music, he heard Josten following him. He risked a backward glance only to find her watching him. He growled but Josten’s face remained blank. She’s been spending too much time with Eri, he thought as he went back to shouldering his way through the crowd. Finally, he found a table in the back of the club with just enough chairs for them. Without hesitating, he sank into one only to find it covered in something sticky and white. 

“Oh Hell no,” he screamed as he leaped up. Josten peered over at his seat before doubling over in a fit of laughter. “Fuck off, Josten.” He snatched the paper towels she offered him out of her hands and did his best to clean himself off before kicking over the chair. 

“I see temper tantrums run in the family,” Josten remarked. Aaron looked over at her. She was staring out across the dancefloor, a soft smile on her face. Following her gaze, he spotted Erin flickering in and out of view from where she still stood at the bar. A pang shot through his chest. Ania looked at Erin the same way Erik looked at Nicky- the same way Katelyn looked at him. 

“Damn you, Josten,” he said, more to himself than her. 

“I’m already damned,” she replied anyway. “I’m damned to spend the rest of eternity in love with your sister but if that isn’t damnation at its best, I don’t know what is.”

The world tilted beneath Aaron’s feet. Love. Ania had said she loved his sister. His Erin. His Little Doe. Tears spilled from Aaron’s eyes. “If you hurt her…” he said, his voice breaking before trailing off entirely as he gulped for air. 

“She’ll kill me herself,” Ania answered easily. She reached a hand out and carefully wiped a tear from his face. “Don’t cry. Eri’ll skin me alive if you do.” 

“Does she even care?” he asked. Aaron tried to smile as he asked it but he knew it came out as more of a grimace than a smile. A wave of sadness crashed down over him at the sound of his own words. 

"Of course she cares, you cracked walnut," Josten snapped. As the strobing lights passed over her countenance Aaron could see the fury on her face. "I've only known her a year. You've known her for three? Four? How the hell can you not-" Josten stopped short. "It's because you're always drunk," she said quietly. 

"No. That's Kevin," Aaron said. 

"Whenever we're here. Whenever we go home, you're too drunk to remember." 

"Remember what?" 

Josten worried her lower lip, weighing her words "Don't drink tonight." She clamped a hand over his mouth before he could protest. "Trust me. You'll see."

"Trust a liar?" 

"I wouldn't lie about Erin." It sickened Aaron to know she was telling the truth. For the remainder of the night, to Kevin's delight, Aaron discreetly pawned his drinks off to him. Where Erin excelled at faking the drug-induced mania she’d lived with for the last two years, Aaron excelled at faking a drunken stupor. Or at least, he usually did. Keeping up the act was much harder than Aaron anticipated. He was far too preoccupied keeping an eye on his sister to fully concentrate. A few rounds in, he gave up watching her in favor of retreating to the dance floor. At least there, he wouldn’t be under her constant scrutiny. 

He was wrong. Each time the crowd parted enough for him to have a clear view of the ledge where he’d left them, he found Erin’s eyes trained on him. No matter where he went or what he did, she was watching him. Beads of sweat formed along his forehead. Had she seen through his ruse? Did she know he was faking? 

There was nothing Aaron could do now but pray. He passed the remainder of the night on the floor with Nicky. Around 11:50, Ronnie called out for the final round. Josten was by Aaron’s side in an instant. 

“Throw your legs onto Nicky’s lap in the car. And talk to Kevin about something- anything. Make him laugh.” Aaron broke his facade to shoot a confused look at her. “Just do it,” Josten pleaded. Aaron ground his teeth together as he considered his options. After a moment he gave her a sharp nod and made his way over to the counter with her to collect the final round. 

In the car ride home, Aaron did as he was told. He threw his legs over Nicky’s and leaned heavily against Kevin. Kevin wrapped an arm around Aaron, who tensed immediately. Kevin Day was not known for his compassion nor for his affection. Catching the warning look Josten shot him as she buckled her seatbelt, he forced himself to relax. For once in his life, Kevin wasn’t talking about Exy. Instead, he was giving a lecture on the unabridged history of the LGBT community. Aaron tentatively slid his own commentary into the lesson. To his relief, both Kevin and Nicky laughed. He choked on the soda he was drinking when he saw the upward curl of Erin’s lips in the dashboard mirror. 

Nicky got out of the car first as it rolled to a stop on the drive. He toppled face-first into the grass and laughter burst out of Aaron. He felt something pressing at his back and before he knew it, he toppled out of the car too.

“You drunk bastard,” Erin said. Aaron’s heart stopped as he rolled onto his back. Erin was standing over him, a brilliant grin plastered to her face. “That’s what you get for drinking so much” She bent down and scooped him up in an easy, obviously practiced, motion. Aaron was too shocked to say a word. 

 Aaron was suddenly thirteen again. He was sitting curled up on his mother’s bed with the handset pressed to his ear. A woman's voice drifted through it. She was talking about a girl named Erin. The woman was gushing about how happy she was to have found Erin’s birth mother, and her brother too. Brother, Aaron thought. He felt his heart racing in his ribcage. I’m- I’m a brother! A twin brother! Aaron had been over the moon at the very thought of meeting his sister. 

        The voice of his mother sent him crashing back down to earth. She hissed at the woman to keep her fat mouth shut. She didn't want to know anything about Erin. She wanted nothing to do with her and she certainly did not want Aaron seeing her again either. She slammed the phone down so hard that Aaron jerked the phone away from his face. Silently, returned the phone to its cradle and crawled back to his own room. Drawing his legs in, he tried to hold in his grief. Hot tears streaked down his face as his shoulders shook. Anger coursed through his veins. Clenching his jaw, he unfurled himself and stalked into the kitchen. He grabbed a notebook and pen from the kitchen and ran out of the house. He raced down the block to the park. Seated at one of the picnic tables, his pen flew across the page. He wasn't quite sure what he'd written, only that he had to send it before his mother ever found out. He stopped by the fountain on his way out of the park. He would need money to send the letter. With a grimace, he peeled his shoes and socks off. Wading through the fountain, he collected every penny, nickel, and dime he could find. This isn't stealing, he told himself. They threw their money in here. Even if it is, it doesn't matter. This is for my sister. This is for Erin.

        Every day for the next two weeks, Aaron checked the mail in the hopes of finding a response to his own letter. When it came, Aaron nearly had a heart attack on the spot. He sat down on the steps in front of the house. With shaking fingers, he carefully opened the letter. A brilliant smile plastered itself across his face when he saw the chicken scratch that filled the page. It looked just like his own handwriting. Unfortunately, his smile had been quick to fade. Erin had only written back to tell Aaron that she didn’t want him around. She was more than happy to remain with Cassidy and her new brother, Drake. Aaron grabbed desperately at his chest. It felt as though some hand had forced its way into his ribcage and ripped his heart out.  New brother, Drake. Tears fell onto the page. Ink ran, blurring the words into one another. Aaron ripped up the remnants of the letter up and hurled them in the bin. He collapsed on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Great, he thought. Fucking great. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone. I hope I never meet Erin or her new brother Drake.

But Aaron had. He had been sat down across from her in a juvenile detention facility, three feet away from her, separated by a four-inch pane of bulletproof glass. Looking at Erin was like looking through a funhouse mirror, it was him but something wasn’t quite right. Sure, Erin’s hair was longer than his, ending harshly at the edges of her jaw and she had a few more moles than he did but that wasn’t it. Maybe it was the seemingly permanent downwards tug of her lips. Maybe it was the bold set of her shoulders that exuded a confidence Aaron could only dream of.  

Maybe it was her eyes. They were the same brown as his but where his were full of pain and fear, hers were empty. Two empty pits stared back at him from across the table. The glass may have been designed to protect him from Erin’s fists but it did nothing to save him from her eyes. So empty. So soulless. Aaron had once heard that there had been a time when people had refused to take photos for fear that they stole the souls of the photographed. At the time, Aaron had scoffed at the people for being so stupid. Now, Aaron understood. Sitting before his sister, he feared that if he stared too long into her eyes, she might steal his to replace the one she lacked. They were so cold. So empty. So loveless. On the plane back from Cali, Aaron closed his eyes only to find his sister engraved on the back of his lids. 

Back in Columbia, Aaron stood before Nicky’s full-length mirror. He’d tugged a skull cap down over his head. His bangs poked out from beneath, matching Erin’s to a T. He blinked and it really was Erin staring back at him in the mirror. Reaching a hand out, he traced a finger down her cheek. Her cold eyes stared back at him and realized why he couldn’t look directly at them. They were their mother’s eyes. When Tilda Minyard wasn’t drunk or high, she was empty. 

There wasn’t very much Aaron knew about his father other than the fact that his mother had eloped with him once she’d learned of her pregnancy. Tilda was three and a half months pregnant when Micheal Minyard died in a car crash. Depression coaxed Tilda back into old habits that Micheal had helped her break. She began drinking and chain-smoking despite the twins she bore within her. Both twins were born with fetal alcohol syndrome, manifesting in their stunted growth, ADHD, and Aaron’s dyslexia. Erin had developed a nicotine addiction as well.  It wasn’t until after Aaron had found out about his twin that Tilda had told him this. 

“I didn’t even want you,” Tilda mused as she took another swig from her whiskey bottle. “I wanted Erin but your names sound so similar that the shitty ass nurse fucked up and gave me the wrong one. You never stood a chance with me,” she said. “I was never going to love you.” Tilda swung the bottle at the side of Aaron’s head. It connected with his skull and rattled his brain but it wasn’t enough to dislodge the words from it. 

Aaron pressed his forehead up to the mirror. Up to Erin’s forehead. 

“Do you know why Mom doesn’t love us?” he whispered. “It’s because no one loved her. No one but Dad but he’s long gone. It’s his fault, you know? Luther’s, I mean. Mom is the way she is because her own brother didn’t love her enough. He didn’t love her enough to let her stay once she got pregnant. He didn’t love her enough to help her take care of us. He didn’t love her enough to protect you.” Tears slid down Aaron’s face as his grip on the mirror’s frame tightened. “Luther might not have loved his sister, but I’ll love you til the day I die.” Looking in the mirror, Aaron saw himself again but it wasn’t the same Aaron he’d grown accustomed to seeing. This one had fire. This one had fight. This one would protect his sister, no matter the cost. This one was going to save his sister from devolving into the monster their mother had become. 

That Aaron failed. Erin was just as cold and empty as their mother had been. That Aaron failed. Erin was forced to face Drake all on her own. Every night, he lay awake wondering what horrors his sister faced behind the pristine white walls of Easthaven. No amount of kisses and cuddles from Katelyn were enough to bury the weight of Aaron’s broken promise. Guilt and regret intertwined, winding around Aaron and choking the life out of him. He broke down constantly, reduced to a sobbing mess by the weight of his woes. 

Aaron loved his sister more than life itself. Erin was indifferent to him. Upon her return from Evermore, she hadn’t even spared him a passing glance. Instead, she’d fixated upon the child Josten had brought home. Aaron had never expected his sister to fawn over him. It wasn’t in her nature. Or so he had thought. It was because of this that Aaron couldn’t help the spike of jealousy that shot through him as he watched his sister’s shoulders soften when she held the baby. He could barely contain the scowl he felt tugging at his lips as Erin brushed her lips against the backs of Cleo’s hands.

  Cradling Cleo close he asked her, “What makes you so special? I know why Erin lets Ania have what she wants but what about you? You’re just a baby. I’m her brother. Am I not good enough for her?” Tears splashed down onto Cleo’s face and he hurried to wipe them off of her. As he did, he felt Cleo’s tiny hand wrap around his little finger. It was just barely big enough to encircle the single finger. “Oh,” he said. “That’s why.” He sat down on the couch and lay Cleo in his lap. She looked up at him curiously before her face split into a wide grin. “No wonder Mom wanted a daughter.” Cleo babbled at him and he chuckled softly. “You’re right. Maybe Luther was jealous too. I won’t be like him,” he swore again. “I’m not going to abandon Erin. Or you either.” 

Aaron loved his sister more than life itself. If Josten made her happy, then so be it. If Cleo was the one she showered with love, then fine. But a small part of him wasn’t fine. Erin didn’t love him. His sister, his own flesh and blood, didn’t love him. It left a hole in his heart, one that even Katelyn couldn’t fill. Aaron hadn’t known what he’d have to give up to Katelyn but what he did was far worse than anything he could have imagined. There weren’t enough words in any language to express the anguish that washed over Aaron when Erin had picked Ania over him. He’d used Josten as bait for Erin to break her promise but a small part of him had wanted her to refuse. He’d wanted Erin to pick him over her. He’d wanted Erin to do the unthinkable and tell him that she loved him more than she wanted Ania. He’d wanted her to wrap her arms around him and hold him close. 

He wanted her to hold him the way she held him now as she carried him to the front door. Josten was already unlocking the door. She turned at the sound of Erin’s footsteps. A bright smile of her own burst out across her face. 

“Shut up, Ania,” Erin swore. 

“Haven’t said a thing,” Josten replied. She pushed open the door and let Erin pass. “Erin?” she asked as she followed them into the house. “Why do you only do these things when Aaron’s drunk?” To anyone else, it may have seemed like an innocent question. To Erin though? Getting anything from her was like pulling teeth. For half a second, Aaron didn’t expect her to answer. Then he remembered that it was Josten asking not him. A pang of bitterness pierced his heart as he felt his sister’s chest swell at the intake of a breath. 

“Because he’s nice to me,” she said. Aaron’s head jerked up but Erin wasn’t paying attention. She’d stopped walking. Her eyes were trained on a spot on the wall. “After I killed Tilda, he stopped talking to me entirely. Aaron loved Tilda, even if she didn’t deserve to be loved, and I took her away. I hate when you say you’re fine because that’s what I told myself whenever he ignored me. I told myself that I didn’t care. I did. Aaron’s favorite color is navy blue. Half of my closet is navy blue. Aaron’s favorite song is Young Blood. It’s on every one of my cassette tapes in the car. I hate cool ranch chips but I buy three bags every time I go to the store because Aaron loves them. Tilda didn’t deserve Aaron’s love but he loved her anyway. I don’t deserve Aaron’s love either. I-” A shaky breath rattled through Erin. “I just wanted him to love me too.” 

“I do,” Aaron blurted out. Erin snapped out of her trance at the sound of his voice. 

“You’re not drunk,” she said. Her voice was dangerously quiet. Her eyes were dark and stony but this time Aaron didn’t look away. The longer he stared, the more apparent it was to him that they weren’t empty. Staring into them, he saw something flickering deep down inside.  

The truth about cameras is that they don’t steal your soul. They show you yours. No matter how perfect a picture may seem to others when a person looked too hard at their own, they saw what lurked beneath. It wasn’t that Erin had their mother’s eyes. It was that she had his. When Aaron looked too hard at his sister’s eyes, he saw too much of himself. He saw the sad, empty creature he’d become. He saw the defeated, lonely creature he still was. Most people hailed Aaron as ‘the normal twin’, the Dr. Jekyll to her Mr. Hyde. No one realized how wrong they were. 

Erin was a fatalist at heart. To her, everything, every single thing, was predetermined. If the world believed her to be a monster, then that was what she’d be. She played her part and lived exactly the way people thought she would. It was all an act though. Behind every one of Erin’s monstrous acts, was a lonely little girl trying her hardest not to get left behind again. 

Unlike his sister, Aaron didn’t believe in fate. Every man made his own way in life, no matter the circumstances he faced to make it there. If that was true, then didn’t that make Aaron responsible for all the things that he’d done? Growing up, Aaron had done many things he wasn’t proud of. It didn’t matter who suffered so long as it wasn’t Aaron. If there was no fate, then wasn’t Aaron responsible for all the people he’d hurt? It wasn’t Erin who was a monster. It was him. When Aaron looked too hard at his sister’s eyes, he was forced to face the monster he had become and it scared him. 

Aaron felt the support go out from under him and he hit the floor, hard. Erin spun on her heel and shoved past Josten. Neither of them moved until they heard the door to her bedroom slam shut. 

“I told you so,” Josten whispered. There were tears shining in her eyes. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she asked herself. 

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked. 

“I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone about this and now… she’ll never trust me again.” Her voice broke. 

“Ania-”

“Don’t, Aaron.” She turned on her heel and marched out of the house, nearly knocking over Kevin who was dragging Nicky in. 

“What the hell have you done to her?” Kevin snarled. Just the sight of a teary-eyed Josten was enough to sober him up. He abandoned Nicky and closed the space between himself and Aaron in the blink of an eye. Balling his fist in Aaron’s shirt, he shoved him against the wall. “I’m not asking again, Aaron.” This is what a brother should be, Aaron thought.

When Ania first arrived at Palmetto a year ago, she and Kevin were always at odds. No matter what she did, it was never enough for him. But that was because he knew she could be better. Nicky had made the mistake of mocking her once and Kevin and slammed him against the wall just as he held Aaron now. Erin intervened quickly, breaking them apart with a poisonous smile and a flash of steel but one thing remained:  Kevin Day, a man afraid of his own shadow, hadn’t hesitated to square up the second someone dissed Ania. And that was before he’d found out who she really was.

Kevin and Ania weren’t bound by blood the way the twins were. They’d chosen each other. Ania had chosen to follow Kevin out to Palmetto and Kevin had chosen to have her back. But hadn’t the twins done the same thing? Erin chose to move to Columbia and Aaron had chosen to protect her. Why had they failed where Kevin and Ania had succeeded? The two of them were just as broken as the twins. In fact, they were worse. Ania had lived her life in the shadows, jumping ship the second anyone started to get too close. Kevin had lived his life in the limelight, denied anything even resembling a friend. 

Even without knowing her, Kevin had looked upon the wretched creature that had been Ania Josten and wanted to offer her a future. He had wanted to offer her something to live for. Kevin would never be able to love Ania the way she needed to be but he wanted to give her the chance at a life where she could find someone who could. 

And he did. Kevin brought Ania to Palmetto and gave her a reason to keep going. He brought her to Erin, someone who could care for her the way she needed to be cared for. But what had Aaron done for his sister? He’d pushed her away the second things got hard. He’d denied her of the love he’d promised himself he’d give. He’d made her lonely. 

“How?” he croaked. “How do you do it?” Kevin frowned and his grip loosened.

“How what?” he asked.

“How do you always know what Ania needs?” Aaron had seen the way Ania ran to Kevin the second things fell apart. Too many times, he’d come back to the dorms to find her breaking down in Kevin’s arms. Each time he’d watched Kevin swaddle her shaking form in blankets and offer her things: a cassette player with only one tape, a bowl of vanilla ice cream drowning in chocolate syrup, his laptop with an exy game already loaded. 

During Erin’s time at Easthaven, Aaron had found himself craving the smell of cigarette smoke. He wasn’t a smoker but the smell reminded him of Erin. One night, he finally caved and dragged himself to the corner store. He returned with a pack of cigarettes and another pint of strawberry ice cream. Every time Aaron passed by the corner store, he picked one up. He never ate a single one, though. Opening the fridge door, he realized there wasn’t any space left. Every inch of his fridge was filled with pints of strawberry ice cream. 

It should be empty. The fridge should be empty. His breath came in short, ragged gasps. Aaron didn’t know when the tears started or how long he’d stayed knelt in front of the open fridge, only that Ania kicked it closed before sitting down on top of it. 

“There isn’t enough strawberry ice cream in the world to fix her,” she said. She handed him a tissue box and waited for him to blow his nose.

“Then what will?’ he asked. 

“That’s for you to figure out,” Ania said before unplugging the fridge. That was what Kevin said before he let go of Aaron entirely. With that, he left Aaron alone in the kitchen so he could lug Nicky up to his own room. 

Aaron sat heavily in one of the dining room chairs, picking at the table mats. It was early the next morning when he finally decided what to do. Actually, he didn’t decide. He just kind of stood up and started for the stairs. He didn’t even remember taking a single step. One moment he was at the kitchen table, the next he was standing in front of Erin’s door. He reached a hand out, tracing the letters on the door. The memory hit Aaron like a train. 

It had been a week after Erin had arrived in Columbia. Aaron’s name was already on the door and he had wanted to add hers to it too. Ever since he’d been old enough, Aaron had been working part-time just to keep himself and Tilda fed. In the months before Erin was set to come home, he’d picked up extra shifts to scrounge up the money he needed. With it, it went to the crafts store in the rich part of town. He picked out the four letters he needed and bought the highest quality paints he could find. On Friday, after practice, he’d broken into their mother’s liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels. Downing a swig, he found the courage to present his haul to Erin. It took some coaxing but he managed to convince her to sit on the floor with him on a pile of newspapers. Together the two of them painted the wooden letters black. Once they were dry, Aaron watched as his sister painted constellations onto them. 

“What’s that one?” he asked.

“Gemini,” she replied. 

“Astrology,” Aaron said as he crinkled his nose in disgust. Erin glanced at him, her lips just barely curling up. 

“Have you ever heard the story of Pollux and Castor?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.

“They were two brothers, twins, from Greek Mythology. They did everything together,” Erin said softly. “The two of them couldn’t live without each other. So, when Castor lay dying, Pollux called out to his father for help. Zeus saw his son’s pain and offered him a way to save his brother. Zeus offered Pollux the ability to share his immortality with his brother. Doing so would mean that neither of them could live normal lives again. They would no longer live here on Earth and they’d only have each other as company. Pollux agreed immediately. To him, his brother was more important than anything else in the world. So, Zeus turned the brothers into stars. Together, the two of them live side by side in the sky.”

“Wouldn’t you get lonely if you had only one person to talk to?” Aaron asked. 

“Not if it was you,” Erin replied. With that, she picked up the letters and moved them to the desk beneath the window. The two of them climbed into their respective beds and fell asleep. 

Aaron took a deep breath and knocked softly at his sister’s door. He stood there, his heart hammering in his chest. What if she didn’t answer? Aaron took a deep breath. He’d just try again later. Ania was right. What they’d done tonight had betrayed a great deal of Erin’s trust in them. If she didn’t answer, it was because he’d hurt her, just like he always did when he was sober. Aaron leaned his forehead against the door. “I’m sorry, Eri,” he whispered. Just then the door opened and Aaron toppled forward again. Erin neatly sidestepped his falling form but caught him with an outstretched arm. “Eri-” he began. He stopped short, realizing he didn’t know what to say.

Erin gave up waiting for him. She righted him and stepped back. Aaron took it as an invitation and entered her room. Aaron had never been inside his sister’s room. In the pale glow of the first rays of sunlight, he saw the dead roses suspended from her ceiling. A thousand photos covered the surface of the mirror. Upon closer inspection, he found that they were pictures of the Monsters. There was one of Nicky smiling brighter than the sun as Erik pressed a kiss to his cheek. There was one of Aaron shoving Matt, the two of them smiling. There was one of Wymack with his head resting on Abby’s shoulder. There was one of Bee dressed up as a bumblebee. There were a lot of photos of Ania. One of them had been kissed with black lipstick. Erin was the only Fox that owned black lipstick. As Aaron inspected them he was aware of Erin at his back. 

“There aren’t any with us in it,” he said as he dragged his fingers over them.

“Yes, there is.” Erin wrapped her hand around his wrist and guided it to one all the way in the bottom corner. Its sides were crinkled from being taken out and replaced too many times. There was a fold down the center from when it was been folded in half, probably placed between the folds of a book. 

It was a photo featuring a pair of babies. Both of them had wispy blonde hair, most of which had been tucked beneath a little beanie. They were dressed in matching white onesies patterned with little sharks. They were two perfect, identical little babies. Erin laced her fingers through Aaron’s and he suddenly saw it. The two babies were holding hands too. Eyes closed, unable to even see one another, they had taken hold of each other’s hands. Babies didn’t have much strength, but the two of them were clinging to one another like their lives depended on it.  

 “Eri-” he croaked. 

“Yes or no?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said. Erin turned him to face her. She wrapped an arm around him and drew him close. Tentatively, he wrapped his own arms around her. “Erin?” he asked softly. She pulled back just enough to look at him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t better.”

“You were the best,” she said. “You still are.” For once, Erin’s eyes weren’t empty or angry. Instead, they were hard. Resolute. If anyone else had said it, Aaron wouldn’t have believed it. Erin wasn’t a liar. Every word she said, she meant. 

“I can be better,” he offered. He watched as she worked her jaw, searching for what to say. 

“I think I can be, too,” she said. Time seemed to stop. Aaron watched as the smallest of smiles tinged his sister’s lips. The rays of the rising sun filtered through Erin’s thick curtains, illuminating the fading freckles that danced across her face, forming constellations of their own. It turned her pale hair, bound in a messy bun atop her head, into a halo of pure gold. Erin might have been dressed as an angel last night, but she looked more like one now than she had then.

[mynameismeowmeow]

Shawn Mendes has actually said people have presumed hes not straight so much its made him uncomfortable. Not in a way he has a problem with it but that they are making bold assumptions and he feels too closely watched. I know you mean well but assuming isnt great. I hope you have a great day and dont mean to come off as rude at all :)

I'm guessing this is about a post I made a few months ago (I wish tumblr had dates ugh) about not wanting to out or make celebrities uncomfortable but getting queer vibes from them and silently supporting them and their possible identities.

I mentioned Shawn in the tags, and was by no means singling him out, but then again if I didn't get those vibes from him I wouldn't have put him in there, so that's hypocritical of me. I don't think any of the people I mentioned will ever see the post since it only had like 150 notes tops, and like I said I don't want to out anybody and encourage others not to out celebrities, maybe if they do find the post they'll feel supported without being overwhelmed? Whether or not they are lgbt+?

Not to be the devil's advocate but the same could be said for presuming people are straight and cis-binary, although it is safer and more accepted to be.

U good anon, u got a point

[joonshadow]

"i'm not straight"

being in the closet isnt that much fun

or

namjoon comes out to the other members after hiding for so long.

/namjoon-centric fluff/

namjoon knew he wasn't straight for quite a while now but never told anyone, neither his family or his members. not because he wasn't sure about it, heck no, he knows for a hundred percent.

but coming out to yourself is really hard and coming out to everyone else in your life is even harder sometimes.

the leader always is open and accepting, never judging anyone. he has some not straight friends and loves them so much, couraging them to be open and happy. but being not straight himself is a bit different.

first, he could never be open about his sexuality to the whole world. its just the sad truth that an idol isn't supposed to be gay, they should be "normal" and appealing to their fans, who are mostly female.

which leads to the second reason; the hate.

as the leader of the group its his job to hold the members together and look after them. if he came out as gay, the media would go crazy and not just attack joon, but probably the whole group with hate and drama.

so no, being out and about isn't really an option for him. but for a while now he thought about telling his little "secret" to his members, his best friends who are like a second family for the boy.

-

turns out that trying to come out is nerve wracking as fuck.

all seven boys are cuddled up on the couch, watching a movie yoongi choose called "love simon" and eating popcorn.

namjoon is squished inbetween jungkook and hoseok, the youngest laying his head down on joons lap while his head is on hoseoks shoulders.

namjoons hands are sweaty, his heart is bumping hard in his chest and his throat is dry as hell. the blonde boy kept thinking over and over how he should say it but everytime he wants to say it out loud, he gets too scared.

its weird because he knows he will receive nothing but love and support from his friends, so he doesnt know why its so scary to actually tell them.

probably because his whole life, it was his little secret just for himself that no one else knew. so telling it someone else who obviously isnt him, is scaring the hell out of him.

and the time passes, the movie almost over and jungkook asleep on his thighs.

the first one to speak up wasnt namjoon, it was taehyung.

"i love this movie, its awesome. the two boys are so cute together!", the blue haired boy said with a sleepy voice and smiled at the other members, everyone agreeing with him instantly.

which makes joon incredibly happy. he doesn't know if its just something he feels or if its common among lgbt people, but everytime someone whos important to him says something accepting or nice about the community, his heart secretly bursts full of happiness in his chest.

"its late, we should sleep.", hoseok mumbled while carefully standing up, trying not to wake the youngest member up.

"youre right, hyung. do we have any schedules tomorrow?", asked jimin, who also was almost asleep next to jungkook.

seokjin told them all that they dont have anything planned for the next week since promotions are over and their tour starts in three weeks. everyone smiled because that means they would all be able to sleep as long as they want tomorrow.

namjoon brought some blankets from his room for jungkook who will sleep on the couch today because everyone is too tired and lazy to wake the youngest up and bring him to bed.

he carefully put them over him and tucked the sleeping boy in, kissing his head before turning off the tv and going out of the living room as quiet as possible.

seokjin and hoseok already dissapeared in their rooms, tired from practising their newest choreo all day long, while jimin and taehyung were in the bathroom and getting ready for bed.

namjoon did the same, telling the younger ones to sleep well and not to stay up too late before going to his room as well.

yoongi was his roommate, the two rappers sharing their room for quiet a while now.

the older boy was already in his bed when namjoon came in and crawled into his bed after changing into his pyjamas.

namjoon thought he was already asleep so he tried his best to be quiet and not make any noise to disturb the other. he almost fell asleep too before he heard some footsteps coming near his bed, his big blanket being held up and yoongi going under them.

it wasnt surprising since the two of them cuddle almost every night. but namjoon still got surprised as yoongi began to talk in a soft, calm voice.

"whats wrong, joon? i know somethings on your mind. you can talk to me, you know?"

is he that obvious? okay maybe he is a little bit tense lately, trying so hard to act normal but at the same time trying to find a good moment to tell his members about his sexuality.

after the movie was over today, he was kinda pissed at himself because he wasted such a good opportunity to tell them.

"i dont know what you mean, hyung. im just like always?"

yoongi sighed but besides that he just stayed silent. he softly caressed joons hair and waited for the younger boy to speak up when he is comfortable with doing so.

namjoons heart started to pound faster and he felt his hands getting sweaty again. maybe this was better than telling it everyone at once.

so he took a deep breath, tried to get his shit together and with a voice that yoongi almost wasnt able to hear, he finally said it out loud.

"im gay."

namjoon couldnt see yoongis reaction, wasnt able to read his face because it was pitch dark in their room and his back was turned towards the older one.

he started to breath faster, anxiety rising up in him because yoongi didnt say anything and for a second namjoon thought that he will hate him now.

but all his fears went away as yoongi wrapped his arms around namjoons waist and pulled him a little bit closer, giving him a soft kiss on his shoulder and smiled against his neck.

"hyung?"

"what?"

"arent you gonna say anything?"

"what should i say, joon? its no big deal,

i still love you. youre still the same person as before, you know?"

namjoon fell asleep a few minutes later with the biggest smile on his face.

-

"so for how long have you known?"

yoongi decided the morning after that just the two of them should sit together and talk a little bit. namjoon was more than okay with that which resulted in them sitting on yoongis bed, both with a cup of tea and surrounded by soft blankets and pillows.

namjoon told him everything, about how he found out and if he ever had a boyfriend, to which he sadly answered with a no.

"i dont know if anyone would every truly love me for who i am, you know what i mean?", namjoon said and looked down at his cup.

yoongi looked at the other boy and smiled softly, hitting his shoulder playfully.

"i bet youll find the perfect boy soon, joonie. dont worry too much about it."

-

this same afternoon namjoon decided that he should tell the other members too. it was unfair to just tell it yoongi and keep this big secret from everyone else.

its kinda hard to plan this kind of stuff since he is the type of person to back out on the last second. but after feeling so relieved from telling yoongi about his sexuality, he figured it wont be that bad to tell the others as well.

he went to seokjins and hoseoks room, knocking on the door twice and letting himself in after hearing a tired "yes?" from the inside.

there they were, sitting on their comfortable beds while probably scrolling through social media and stalking fan accounts. neither of them looked up, too concentrated on their phones and whats going on on the internet.

"hyung?"

both of them looked up after they heard namjoons quiet voice filled with anxiety, instantly putting away their phones and just focusing on him which, to be honest, didnt make this any easier.

"whats wrong, joon?", hoseok asks curious while standing up, taking his hand and pulling him over to seokjins bed.

hoseok sat right next to jin, which meant that namjoon is right in front of the two older boys.

nervously he was fiddling with his hands, taking a deep breath and thinking about what yoongi told him.

its no big deal,

youre still the same person as before

"i have something to say that i feel like you two should know, okay? its nothing big, at least thats what yoongi hyung says, but i just wanted you guys to kno-"

"are you gay or what?", hoseok said while letting out a small giggle, stopping the moment he saw namjoons surprised face.

"wait, youre really gay. holy shit, im sorry namjoon, i didnt mean to-"

"oh shut up hoseok, dont make this even more embarassing for yourself.", seokjin insisted and then just focused on namjoon, who was just hella surprised and a little bit shocked to be honest.

"yeah, im actually gay. thanks for ruining my big surprise", namjoon joked and smiled at hoseok, who still feels kinda bad and tightly holds joons hands in his.

the two older boys gave namjoon a big hug, telling him that theyll love and support him no matter what and reminded namjoon that theyre always here if he needs someone to talk to.

everything they said means a lot to joon and he is so happy to hear it, especially from the oldest member in the group. the two were always really close with each other so to know that seokjin still loves him just the way he is, means a lot.

-

"hyung?"

namjoon looked up from the pot with boiling hot water in it, making pasta for everyone or at least trying to. taehyung came into the kitchen and just silently started to cut the vegetables that joon already put out for cooking.

"whats up, tae?", joon asked while taking out spices from the cabin, tasting the sauce for the noodles before adding some more salt and pepper. hes not the best cook but still able to make simple pasta with tomato sauce without making everyone sick or burning down the kitchen.

taehyung put away the knife for cutting the veggies, puts his hands on joons shoulders and turns him around so that the two boys are facing each other.

"uh, taehyung? what are you doing?"

the younger one just hugged joon tight and buried his face in the taller ones neck, pulling him close. to say that namjoon was a little bit confused was an understatement.

taehyung began to speak quietly with a shy, almost embarassed voice against joons soft skin.

"i heard you, hobi hyung and jin hyung talk in their rooms. i shouldnt have listened, but i was so curious about what you guys were talking about. im so sorry, hyung."

he was a little bit confused but understood after a second whats going on.

"so you know?"

the blue haired boy nodded quickly and promised namjoon that he doesnt mind it at all and that hes still the best leader of the whole world to which namjoon just responded with a soft "thank you", a big smile and an even bigger hug.

-

the day is almost over, no one really did anything besides sleeping and eating all day long. days like these are much needed after stressful promotions and exhausting award shows.

the boys ate joons pasta for dinner, complimenting him on his "amazing" cooking skills and after that they all just dissapear in their rooms or somewhere else in the house.

it was already dark outside as namjoon sat down on their big couch, pulling his phone out and scrolling trough social media.

most of the fans dont know but all of the members love to look at all the different fan accounts and see what they say about their group. its fun.

around five minutes later he got a message from jimin.

jimin: hyung

jimin: do you want to watch a movie

jimin: just jungkook, yoongi and me

namjoon: sure

after hitting send, he made his way to jimins room, already hearing their voices and the tv playing in the background. he just went in there without knocking and got greeted by the sight of jimin making little ponytails with yoongis grey hair and jungkook eating leftover pasta from dinner.

"wow, looks like you guys are having a lot of fun without me", namjoon said laughing and just laid down on the bed next to jungkook.

"its boring just with yoongi hyung, most of the time he falls asleep during the movie and thats-"

"oh shut up, its not my fault that the movies you guys choose are always so boring."

both of them laughed after yoongi jokingly hit jimins arm, which hurt not even a little bit since he isnt really the strongest.

"what movie are we even watching today?"

"probably a bad love movie which jimin found on netflix after feeling lonely and sad again"

the next second jimin just deadass jumped on jungkook and both of them tried to push the other one down on the bed. jimin gave up a bit after since its unfair because jungkook is "way stronger and hes tickling him which is fucking unfair".

namjoon just laughs and sits a little bit closer to yoongi, the older one putting his arm around joons shoulders and pulling him even closer.

"guys, come on now. if you dont want me to fall asleep during the movie, we should start now and not just in a few hours when you two decided to calm down.", yoongi murmured kinda annoyed, he would probably rather be in his bed now.

after a few minutes the movie was playing on the big tv screen and all four of them cuddled up on jungkooks big bed.

namjoon couldnt hold back a small giggle after seeing that jimin chose 'titanic' and hearing yoongi and jungkooks annoyed sigh.

to be honest, it was actually really nice. a few minutes after the movie started, taehyung decided to join them too and just snuggled between jungkook and jimin.

yoongi couldnt hold back and after a while he was softly snoring on namjoons lap with messy hair and parted lips.

the younger one of the two just caresses the older ones hair, loving the way it feels between his fingers.

"did hyung fall asleep again?", jimin asked with not even a little bit of surprise in his voice.

namjoon just nodded without saying anything, he didnt want to wake up yoongi and taehyung, whos also sleeping in jungkooks arms.

maybe now is the right time to tell them too since they are the last ones who dont know about joons little secret yet. jimin is still looking at namjoon with sleepy eyes, smiling a bit.

"jimin, jungkook, i have to tell you guys something", namjoon whispered as quiet as possible, hoping the younger boys would understand him anyways since he would rather not say it twice.

"what is it?", asks jimin, now wide awake and looking at namjoon full of curiosity.

from jungkook he just heard a tired "hm?".

"im gay", he whispers softly.

he honestly expected to be more calm now considering he came out to so many people in such a short time. but hes still nervous, his heart beating fast and waiting for a reaction he already knows will be the same as all the others before.

"not surprising, hyung"

wait, what? namjoon was confused.

"what do you mean, jungkook?"

jimin just giggles and shrugs his shoulders. jungkook told him that it isnt really that big of a surprise since hes not that stupid and knows his hyungs well. namjoon wanted him to be a little bit more clear, so he explained why he always kinda knew that joonie isnt that hetero.

"you never had a girlfriend and neither do you really talk about girls the way, for example jimin, does. and since there were never any signs that youre straight, i just assumed you arent."

namjoon just laughs and sarcastically congrats jungkook on his smart brain and his skill on finding out peoples sexuality. jimin joins in too and after a bit they all just cant stop laughing.

both, taehyung and yoongi woke up from the noise, confused and tired.

"whats going on?", yoongi said so quiet that namjoon and the others almost didnt notice.

"namjoon hyung likes boys!"

after that, the three boys just started to laugh even harder, not even knowing whats so funny about the whole situation.

but theres one thing namjoon knows for sure.

and that is that hes genuinely happy right now, feeling so good after knowing that he doesnt have to hide anymore and that hes so so loved.

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you can find my other stories on wattpad @ smolouis

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