#and i get that he picked up the ace book! but! he's obviously aro too!!!!!!!

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

me seeing everyone talk about how great it is that isaac is bringing more asexual rep to tv while completely forgetting that he's also aromantic and that the word aromantic was probably uttered for the first time ever in mainstream television: this is absolutely fine🥲

[noirs-pages]

Lucifer 2

Summary: Lucifer wants to get along better with you and you see that. So, to show that you appreciate his attempts, you keep him company while he gets himself drunk off his wine. Unfortunately, Lucifer misreads your signals and makes an unwanted advance.

(Just me being my aro/ace self. Basically a case of Lucifer making an assumption, acting on that assumption and it backfires horribly.)

Lucifer was someone you could only tolerate on a good day. He isn’t a bad person by all means. He meets the low low standard of not actively wanting your death, but the little things he does, the small demands he makes of you, they irritate you in such a way that makes you want to avoid him altogether.

Lucifer dropped a pen and he asked you to pick it up. There’s a book too far away and he asked you to get it for him. There are papers that need to be taken to the student council room and he asked you to take them there. You wouldn’t have minded doing these small things. They’re menial tasks that you can easily forget.

But then you began to truly understand him. By the time he asked you to wash his utensils after finishing his dinner, you understood that Lucifer never truly asked for anything. They’re demands wrapped in politeness, things he expected you to fulfill without question, because it fed his pride to have someone at his beck and call, no matter how small and insignificant the task may be.

You remember Mammon calling you paranoid when you told him these things, because understanding the subtly of intentions behind too-small actions was never his calling. But, it took a simple sigh for Mammon to stew in his brain for a little bit to see your point.

Either way, you avoided Lucifer when you could and it took weaponizing Diavolo’s favor towards you for Lucifer to start reigning in his pride just the slightest bit. Diavolo wanted to see you do your human things while Lucifer wanted to refine you to his specifications. Obviously, Diavolo was going to win out and Lucifer had to concede.

And it seems that that particular event actually stuck with Lucifer, because when he would catch himself slipping into old habits, he would clear his throat and either help you out or do these tiny tasks himself. He stopped trying to “perfect” you in those small ways.

Honestly, it wouldn’t mean much to you if it weren’t for the fact that were no other eyes beyond just you and Lucifer. This attempt at trying to treat you like an equal stretched beyond the gazes of everyone else.

So when Lucifer drunkenly texted you near the middle of the night for some company, you figured why not. The both of you are getting along better. You can even say he’s your friend by this point in time. Besides, you’re at that point where you do want to get to know him better.

That and it would probably be pretty fun to see drunk Lucifer in action.

“… and wouldn’t you know it, he came at full sprint. Without a single article of clothing on him,” Lucifer chuckled, pushing his hair back from his flushed face, “Mammon was lucky nobody saw him.”

You snorted, swirling the wine in your glass even though you weren’t going to drink it, “That’s evil, Lucifer.”

“It’s of no fault of my own that my phone misspelled ‘witches’ with ‘riches.’”

“But you didn’t correct it,” you put the glass down and picked up your own phone, wanting some music to fill this quiet air.

“That I didn’t.” Lucifer further slumped into his chair, digging his fingers into his tie before pulling it off.

You found an interesting pick and played some modern classical music. You can save your weirder picks for later. The swell of strings and light presses of piano keys had Lucifer tapping his finger.

Just as you were about to soak in the atmosphere, Lucifer stumbled to his feet.

“Have you ever danced?” Lucifer almost tripped backwards but caught the arms of the chair in time.

“Depends on the dance,” you leaned forward, smiling at this too drunk to function demon.

“Do you want to dance?” Even when you know his head must be swimming, Lucifer tried to be suave and held out his hand. He would’ve tipped forward had you not caught his palm.

“Might as well,” you stood up just to support him, letting him rest most of his weight on you, “Here, let me show you something fun.”

And so you pulled him into a dumb little jiggle of a dance that did not suit the music in the least. Just loud steps, awkward swinging of the arms, the kind of dances you’d do as a kid when coordination and social awareness was just not a thing.

It got Lucifer laughing and you couldn’t help your own chuckles.

Lucifer eventually fell into your arms, too drunk to properly stand and you adjusted his head on your shoulder.

“Whoa there,” you patted his back, guiding the both of you to your knees so you don’t fall, “I think you had enough wine for the night.”

“Hmm,” Lucifer leaned forward, hooking his arms under your shoulders for a hug. You let him. You didn’t mind giving hugs at all.

You let your hands lazily rest on his spine, just letting him be in the moment since you’re pretty sure this man hasn’t had a hug in a while. You’ll let him have this since he probably won’t ask again when he’s sober.

Lucifer further buried himself into your neck and you shifted your weight so your weren’t on your knees. He took a deep breath in and when his fingers trailed down and grabbed at your waist did you stiffen up.

For a moment, you thought you were misunderstanding him, that you were too paranoid and that this was some sensual affection he wanted, nothing more. But then he snuggled deeper, pressed his lips up your neck and rubbed his thumbs over your ribs.

It was a knee-jerk reaction, shoving him away and onto the carpet away from you like that. Honestly, this wasn’t the first time you had your waist grabbed like that by the other brothers in this house. Beelzebub pretty much did that all the time but you knew him. He never meant anything more than that. He’s just a naturally affectionate guy that likes some sensual affection as well.

Lucifer, however, was a different story. Face holding, hand caressing, getting lost in the smell of skin, waist grabbing, all those things aren’t just actions that he would do casually. He places meaning to just about everything he does, as he puts too much effort in refining himself.

Lucifer rose from the floor, hair a mess but eyes wide with surprise and a shocking amount of clarity.

“… sorry,” you murmured as you got up. You don’t want to think deeper on this. You just want to attribute this to him being too drunk and that’s it. There’s nothing hidden in him, nothing that he’s shoving down, no fantasies that he wants to come true. Any and all softness that he’s been showing is because he wants to be your friend and nothing more.

Because if there is more, then he’d have to find out how disgusted you are by that. And you don’t want him to find fault in himself just because that’s how you react. You don’t want to ruin this already fragile friendship.

“It seems…” Lucifer started when you helped him up and back into the chair, “I lost myself a bit there.”

“You did, but don't worry about it, okay?” you backed away, skin unable to stand the thought of touching anything. You need to be in bed, away from here. “Good night.”

And Lucifer didn’t stop you. Hopefully you all will forget this night in the morning.

[necropolis144]

may i interest you in some hashira headcanons?

rengoku kyoujurou - first off, ftm. the man is trans. second, autistic. avoids eye contact? little to no volume-control? just the way he responds? yeah he’s autistic. he also loves cooking but he sucks at it! it makes him super happy when he finishes making a meal no matter how badly it turns out. he also gives off demisex/ro vibes! also he totally has a soft spot for people who have had to deal with shitty parents/guardians since he finds it easier to empathise with them.

shinobu kochou - she hates kids. she tries so hard with her tsuguko and the kids at the butterfly mansion and she wants to like kids but she just can’t. also, her favorite insects are not butterflies! she likes praying mantids, they’ve been her favorite since she found one in her house when she was super young. she’s also a lesbian, and like most of the hashira, she had a crush on mitsuri when she first showed up! now mitsuri is her biggest supporter in both her identity and her search for a girlfriend!

tomioka giyuu - he’s considered changing his name so many times it’s not even funny anymore. at the end of the series he does everything he can to learn to love himself. it starts small, “wow look at me go i straightened my futon” “i made myself breakfast, what a legend” and eventually he finds it much easier to casually make jokes about how “great” he is with a lot less sarcasm than he would before! everyone cheers him on and them caring about him helps a lot!

shinazugawa sanemi - sanemi likes to read! he doesn’t like super pretentious novels, but he enjoys ironically reading odd romance stories and unironically loves books on natural history! although he gets bored if they’re too easy or too hard to read, so he has to find ones with a good intermediate balance. and he’s never ever cried when he got too invested in the plot in the romance novels, never once *wink*

himejima gyomei - we all know he’z the dad friend, right? i feel like everyone has to agree on this. obviously oyakata-sama is the real “father figure” but himejima takes it as a personal duty to check up on how everyone is doing every now and again (especially giyuu because nobody trusts him to be okay) and when anyone is feeling down at all he cries with them and he makes for a pretty good therapist in a pinch. he’s also aro/ace. when he first learned abt romantic/sexual attraction he was a bit skeptical, but he supports all of the other hashira and their romantic pursuits.

muichiro tokito - genderfluid, has the biggest neo hoard out of all the hashira. they love going out with mitsuri for lunches because she’ll buy them as much food as they want. she’s not one to judge. their memory lapses also cause them a lot of distress, and those are the days when therapist himejima™️ comes in. also muichiro has chronic psychosis, and while they’ve figured out how to work around it, it hasn’t been the easiest thing for them to deal with.

kanroji mitsuri - panromantic! pangender but fem-aligned! demisexual! amab! she’s kind of in queerplatonic relationships with all of the hashira. she’s the cheerleader of the group, which puts a lot of strain on her at times. which can cause her to break down every now and again, but it’s nothing a group bonding session can’t help! she’s an extrovert at heart and feels the most happy and energized when she’z spending time with her friends. also, may i present adhd mitsuri who hyperfixates on different romance novels? (she totally doesn’t give them to shinazugawa when she’s done *wink*)

iguro obanai - i saw it/rot iguro once and i haven’t looked back since. its gender identity was severely influenced by rots trauma. honestly iguro sees rotself as more of a disgusting “thing“ than a person. uzui and muichiro didn’t understand this at first, and thought that was more of an obscure way of describing its gender than an insecurity, but since they rolled with it for so long soon it just became a source of coping jokes and an easy way to describe rots gender. it also picked up a knitting hobby? so rot makes masks for itself for fancy occasions when the bandages don’t cut it.

uzui tengen - poly king. polysexual, polyamorous, polygender. uses so many neopronouns and probably keeps a list. he also has a ton of xenogenders that he feels on a rotation, and whenever he gets thrown out of the rotation he acts very dramatic. sometimes he cooks for his wives and he’s way too good at it. his yelling problem comes from when he was little and he would talk very quietly, so nobody could hear what he was saying and they weren’t patient enough to deal with it, so they just encouraged him to yell. he’s trying to pull back on it because sometimes it makes suma cry (it doesn’t take much to make her cry but he feels so bad every time)

[moonlightserenadeeznutz]

luna for the headcanons thing pls pls pls

Yes!!! I love giving Luna headcanons, so here ya go bestie!

(Read under cut)

Luna Lovegood headcanons

First of all, definitely a trans girl, no doubt about that. She lived in a very open environment and was able to explore her gender identity at a young age. Her mother sewed her dresses to wear, long, flowing garments that Luna thought were the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. Her father taught her how to make flower crowns and crowns of leaves, and she’d wear them with her dresses.

She didn’t have to come out to her parents. Her femininity at a young age simply led to her simply stating that she was a girl, and that her name was Luna. Her parents were very accepting (and Xenophilius is trans himself because fuck you of course he is, so he was super supportive of Luna).

She named herself after the moon because her parents loved astrology and they taught her all the different planets and their moons, and all the different stars in the sky and how to spot the constellations.

The Lovegoods were definitely pagan, I mean they were all about nature and spirituality. They always marked every single holiday, staying up all night on the solstices, lighting huge bonfires, and making wreaths to wear. Pandora played the lyre, Xenophilius sang songs and Luna would act out stories and poems.

Cornish, and they speak the language as well because being bilingual is sexy.

Speaking of pagan, Pandora’s funeral would have also been pagan, obviously.

She’d have a natural burial, and Luna would recite a poem, and the rest of the family would also give eulogies, recite poetry, or thank the Goddess. Four members- including Xenophilius and Luna- would stand at each point on the compass and “invoke” each element (Air in the East, Fire in the South, Water in the West and Earth in the North) and give thanks to them. There would also be music at the wake, played by members of the family. Drums, tambourines, flutes etc. Luna played her mother’s favourite song on her lyre.

When she reached Hogwarts, I don’t think she was drawn to anyone in particular right away, I think she had better relationships with the teachers more than the students. She got on really well with Professor Sprout, and I think Hagrid really liked her too, because they’d talk about all the different magical creatures together, and Luna would tell him about all the creatures her and her father wrote about in the Quibbler.

Academically, she was very smart, and did well in most of her classes, but she didn’t particularly find a lot of them overtly interesting to her, unless she was able to put her own twist to it, which usually she wasn’t. In Potions, she wasn’t able to brew her own stuff, make up recipes, or use a variation of the recipe. Snape was much too strict with her and as a result, she didn’t do very well, which made her more upset than she would let on since she had been really good at potions at home.

She particularly shone in third year, since she was able to take classes more suited to her, like Astrology and Divination. Astrology was her favourite of course, and she’d talk about it all the time with Ginny.

However, in third year she also became particularly interested in DADA, mainly because she formed a strong friendship with Professor Lupin. Remus had been informed that Luna was trans, and since he is as well, they had things in common, and were able to talk about it with each other, Remus sort of taking Luna under his wing a little. They’d sit in his office and drink tea and Luna would give him copies of the Quibbler, which he’d happily read.

Luna was actually the first to figure out that Remus was a werewolf, but she didn’t tell anyone, not even him. She didn’t think it was her secret to share, nor did she think it changed anything. But she did find it fascinating, and read a lot of books on lycanthropy. After Remus had left, Luna told him that she knew and she asked if she could write some articles about it in the Quibbler, to raise awareness, or if he’d like to write any articles. Remus agreed to let her write something, and she wrote a three page article about werewolf inequality (but careful not to mention Remus by name). She did interview him about it, and he said that he was proud of being a werewolf, that it was actually very cool at times, but that it was simply wizarding society that had forced him to be ashamed. She wrote all this down, and it became the most bought copy of the Quibbler, as lots of students at Hogwarts wanted to read it, and they shared it with their friends and parents. So despite Remus not being able to come back to Hogwarts as a teacher, he did receive tons of letters in support of him from parents and students who had read the article and put two and two together.

Friends with Ginny by third year! Luna actually took a while to warm up to Ginny, thinking she was this loud, athletic, snobbish type, but then Luna got to know her and realised that she wasn’t that at all. Ginny was loud, but in a contagious laughter sort of way, and she could be very quiet and calm when she wanted to. She was athletic, but chatted animatedly about Quidditch teams, and Luna couldn’t help but listen. And she wasn’t snobbish, quite the opposite. She was the only person who listened to Luna, and discussed her ideas rather than swat them away impatiently. Luna made Ginny flower crowns, and Ginny stayed up with her all night during solstices. They became very close.

Ginny was the first student at Hogwarts that Luna told about being trans, and Ginny came out to her as being bisexual. And they were very supportive of each other, as well as being great at keeping each other’s secrets. They trusted each other with their lives, and would always stand up for the other. If Luna was getting picked on, Ginny would go feral and start fights. Although she eventually stopped, since it made Luna more upset. So she stuck to just being there for Luna (and maybe slipping a potion into bullies’ morning pumpkin juice that made them cluck like a chicken. But Luna didn’t need to know about that...)

That being said, Luna could get angry too of course. When she heard an older girl make fun of Ginny behind Ginny’s back, Luna wordlessly went up to her turned the girl’s hair blue with a wave of her wand. Ginny laughed her head off when she found out.

It was through Luna’s bond with Ginny, that she realised that she wasn’t interested in either the romantic or sexual side of relationships. At first she assumed that it was because Ginny was a girl, and she may not be attracted to girls, but it got her thinking about boys too, about everyone. And she just didn’t want that sort of relationship with anyone. She loved her platonic relationship with Ginny, and that’s how she wanted all of her relationships to be like.

I feel like she also had a close bond with Neville, and they gave each other plants as birthday gifts.

Projecting a little bit here, but Luna with Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder, spending hours by herself making up fantasies and constructing worlds in her head, making up new characters, and getting so invested in them that she regularly saw herself as her characters. I feel like this started because of the trauma from losing her mother. She didn’t tell anyone about it, or at least nothing in detail, but she tried to explain it a bit to Ginny, who knew to leave her alone when Luna would sit by herself.

MaD also made Luna a little more detached from her gender identity, especially if she was acting as one of her characters (again I’m projecting here) who were either male or genderless. She still identified as female, but in a much more looser, fluid way, and even experimented with she/they pronouns, which she eventually decided she liked. (If this were set in the modern world, I can also imagine her using neopronouns such as xe/xer or fae/faeself, though in the canon world, she may have also tried out it/its).

Doesn’t know much about the muggle world, but Hermione gave them a copy of Alice In Wonderland which they loved. And if I were to headcanon Luna liking a muggle band/artist they’d probably like anything psychedelic or nature-like, maybe the early stuff of Pink Floyd (yes, Dev, I’m thinking about Atom Heart Mother).

Went travelling after Hogwarts, where she met Rolf Scamander, and they hit it off immediately. Very similar to each other, and soon became close friends. I also headcanon Rolf as aro/ace so their relationship basically became like Luna’s and Ginny’s.

Their house was filled with all sorts of plants and animals. Rooms were lined with trees filled with Bowtruckles, and owls flitted in and out of windows, cats slinking about the place, so many frogs. My god, their house was wonderful.

Adopted Lorcan and Lysander because ffs not everyone has to have a nuclear family jkr 🙄. And parents also don’t have to be romantically or sexually involved with each other either; Luna and Rolf had a good relationship, both wanted to be parents, so they raised the twin boys together. And Lorcan and Lysander had a fantastic childhood, can you imAGINE?!

Godmother of Lily Luna, obviously. And Harry and Ginny’s kids loved going round Luna’s place, so more often than not, the house was filled with not only the entire natural world, but also a bunch of children running about the place.

Oh also, Luna has nymph ancestors. They just do, okay?

[all-seeing-ifer]

So I’ve been having more 2019 Jo n Laurie Thoughts (genuinely it’s no thoughts head empty just them and their incredibly fraught and complicated friendship over here) and specifically about the fact that unlike the original book and most adaptations, the 2019 film leaves it ambiguous as to whether they can ever really be friends again after the proposal and after all the incredibly complicated feelings that have sprung up between them. Obviously I’m me and I choose to believe that they do become friends again (for a number of reasons but for now let’s just say it boils down to Those Are My Kids, Your Honour) so this is maybe gonna sound weird coming from me, but part of me does love the ambiguity of it, and the possibility that no, things aren’t ever going to be the same between them, they can’t reclaim that friendship they once had, there’s just too much baggage there. Because it hurts, obviously, but at the same time it feels right. It feels like it fits with what this specific adaptation is going for.

So much of Jo’s story in the 2019 film is about the fact that she can’t go back to the life she had. There’s this absolutely wonderful interview Greta Gerwig did with the scriptnotes podcast which I think I’ve genuinely thought about every day since I read it, where she talks about how a big part of why she changed the structure of the story was that she wanted to capture this sense of like. You can’t save anyone’s life but you can write it down. You can’t get those moments back but you can write them down. That’s why Jo writes her novel - because she finally understands that she can’t go back, this is the only way she can get those things back.

And so the possibility that Jo has lost her friendship with Laurie ties in to this idea that has always been there in every adaptation that chose to change the ending so Jo writes Little Women (which is more than you might think) but wasn’t integral to them in the way it is to the 2019 film. This idea that there are things, there are people, moments, relationships, that you can never get back. But you can write them down. They were real, they existed and they happened and they mattered and you can write them down. And I mean, obviously Beth is the most important part of this. As it should be, really, it’s a story about sisters, and so of course it’s Jo’s love for Beth that motivates her to write it all down. But I think you can also apply the same idea to the friendship between Jo and Laurie!

(also, sidenote, but I’m still not over how absolutely devastating it is that the film specifically structured the scenes so you get Beth’s funeral, Meg’s wedding, Amy finding out she’s going to Europe, and Laurie’s proposal all in a row, so it’s like every single moment Jo felt like she was losing someone she loved one after the other.)

Because it’s this same basic idea of she’s maybe never going to get her best friend back. They’re never going to be the same people with the same relationship that they once were. But what she can do is she can write it down. She can immortalise it. Immortalise the fact that they existed to each other, that they laughed together and supported each other and loved each other, and maybe they’re never going to get that back but they were part of each others’ lives and that mattered.

Also, I’m gonna hop back on my aroace Jo March bullshit for like five minutes (it’s arospec awareness week so I’m legally obligated to) and say that all this is part of why I consider Little Women 2019 to be such an aro/ace story. Because to me a big part of the Aspec Experience(tm) is is struggling with feeling like your experiences don’t matter as much or have as much value as other people’s because they’re like. inherently deficient in something. And that’s why it’s such a huge deal that Jo writes her book about her own experiences. Because it’s like what Amy says about writing things making them more important. Writing this book is like her way of saying “My experiences matter. All these things that have happened to me, no matter how big or small they were, they all matter. The fact that my younger sister played piano and that I danced with my best friend for the first time at a New Year’s party and that my older sister used to act in the plays I wrote and that my youngest sister could have drowned in a frozen pond and that I gave my best friend a ring which he never took off for years and that I saw my older sister get married and that I sold my hair to buy my mother train tickets - all of that is part of me and all of it matters.” I don’t think I consciously picked up on that my first time watching the film, but I definitely felt it. And it felt so beautiful and cathartic and needed.

[shuttymcshutfuck]

Hold all the cracks together and tell them they aren’t broken

This is my gift for my wonderful giftee @green-writes-sanderssides for the @sanderssidesgiftxchange ! I hope you enjoy it!

tw: crying, maybe internalised acephobia?

A03 link

Summary: 

“Virgil, what’s wrong?” Logan looked him over for physical injuries but couldn’t find any. The only thing he could see was tear tracks on his face. His make-up from last night was smudged and he was still fully dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday.

“Am I b-broken?” 

or: Virgil comes out to Logan accidentally and Logan comforts him

Mornings were always nice for Logan, it was the time when his routine was the easiest to stay on track with. Alarm at 6:45am, out of bed by 6:47am, showered and dressed by 7:05am then reading over Thomas’s schedule until 8:25am when he would walk down for breakfast early. Patton was always downstairs by then, in the kitchen humming to himself while Janus gave him a hand with making breakfast. Logan grabbed some coffee and proceeded to sit at the dining table with a book in hand.

 It was a fools game to try and guess when Roman, Remus and Virgil would be awake. Thankfully it wasn’t too long before Roman came down the stairs and tackled Patton with a tight hug, making him squeal. After a few minutes of small talk Patton and Janus carried through 6 plates of pancakes, each different types just as Remus threw himself down the stairs, literally.

 “MORNING!” Remus shouted as he stood up, his neck making a sickening crack. Logan really wasn’t sure how someone who just woke up could be that energetic but maybe he could ask him later. His train of thought was broken by Patton nudging him slightly.

 “Logan, do you mind going to see if Virgil’s awake? Wouldn’t want his breakfast to get cold.” Patton spoke softly like he always did in the morning, a smile on his face that was natural instead of forced yet. Logan nodded and made his way up the stairs. He felt a little like he was wasting his time going up until he heard what he thought was laughing? Maybe? He wasn’t sure until he knocked on Virgil's door and the sound stopped suddenly.

 “Virgil? Are you alright?” There was no answer. Logan could feel himself get nervous but he pushed it down. “Virgil? It’s Logan.” His answer this time was only a soft sniffle. “Virgil, I’m coming in.” Logan steeled himself as he was unsure of what he’d find. He gingerly opened the door and switched on the fairy lights by the door, casting a soft warm glow over the room. As soon as Logan saw the shaking Virgil shaped mound on the bed he practically ran over, careful not to startle the obviously upset Virgil.

 “Virgil, what’s wrong?” Logan looked him over for physical injuries but couldn’t find any. The only thing he could see was tear tracks on his face. His make-up from last night was smudged and he was still fully dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday.

 “Am I b-broken?” Virgil could barely speak through the sobs that racked his body. Logan didn’t even try to hold back how shocked he was at the question. Why would Virgil think he was broken? To Logan, Virgil was perfect.

 “What on earth would make you think that?” Logan sat down on the bed beside Virgil. He knew he wasn’t the best at comforting people but he had to try.

 “I just- I think I’m ace and I’m just scared p-people will think I'm broken or- or wrong or something.” Logan's heart broke at the cracks in Virgil’s voice. He knew that what was wrong didn’t have a simple answer and he couldn’t just solve the problem, he had to speak from the heart so to speak. 

 “Of course not, there is nothing wrong with being asexual.” Virgil sat up a bit to face Logan, not meeting his eyes. Logan kept his voice steady as he started to feel something creep up inside of him.

 “Are you s-sure? cause I just f-feel like there’s some-something wrong with m-me and I don’t know how to-to fix it.” Logan took Virgil’s hands in his, causing Virgil to look up at him. Physical touch was grounding, Logan knew this. If it made his heart flutter a little bit then that was just an added bonus. The next bit was the hard bit, vulnerability. 

 “There is nothing wrong with you, Virgil and I know that for a fact.” He took a small breath as he confessed. “Actually, I’m ace as well and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with either of us.” 

 “You are?” Virgil’s eyes looked into Logan’s, shiny with tears. It made Logan’s heart wrench with pain. 

 “Yes, I just never told anyone because I didn’t really think it was too important.” Logan shrugged, playing his confession off as if Virgil wasn’t the first person he’s ever told about being asexual and that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Logan could feel his body start to tighten but he forced his shoulders to stay down.

 “Oh,” Virgil fidgeted with the corner of the blanket he still had wrapped around his body.

 “So, do you think there’s anything wrong with me?” Logan felt his stomach figuratively drop as he asked. He logically knew Virgil didn’t find anything wrong with him, but anxiety is illogical, and he was in Virgil’s room. 

 “O-of course not.” Logan’s heart pounded in his throat. Was he lying? No. Logically Janus wasn’t here, but his heart wouldn’t calm down. His lungs felt like they couldn’t take in much air. He felt like there was a weight on his chest. 

 “Lo?” Virgil’s voice sounded like it was underwater. Then it hit him.

 He was having a panic attack. 

 “We have to get out of your room. Spending too much time in here can affect your reasoning and cause cognitive distortion. That's why you were believing you were broken. That’s why I’m panicking about something so silly. Your room, while comforting to you, could end up harming your way of thinking in the long run. And-”

 “Okay, Logan, take a breath. I get it.” Virgil took Logan’s hand and they both left the room. Logan watched as Virgil’s breaths seemed to slow a little and he felt the panic leave his body bit by bit. He took a deep breath and adjusted his tie as he cleared his throat. 

 “I apologize for that, however I do believe staying in your room too much could be bad for you. How do you feel now?” 

 “Worried, but...not broken.” Logan nodded with a genuine smile.

 “Good, now take a deep breath.” Virgil nodded and took a deep breath, wrapping his hood around him. “You are not broken. You are perfect the way you are, Virgil.” Virgil looks up at Logan with wide eyes and pink cheeks through his pale foundation. “Ace, Gay, Aro, Poly, no matter what you are, you are perfect that way.” With a small smile, Virgil throws himself to Logan, hugging him, taking the logical side by surprise. 

 “Thank you, Logan.” As Logan slowly puts his arms around Virgil, he feels something else bubbling inside of him but this time he knows what it is. 

 “Ah-You’re welcome.” Logan lets himself enjoy the embrace for a moment. Virgil’s warm even if he has perpetually cold hands. It’s only when Logan starts to wonder how they would feel in his own that he realises how long they've been hugging for. Even more so that Virgil hasn’t loosened his grip in the slightest. “How about we watch a movie in my room? Help you calm down a little?”

 “That sounds nice.” Virgil lets go of Logan with a small, calming sigh. Logan feels the warmth Virgil gave, leaving him.

 “Alright, you choose a film while I go get us some food and tell Pat that you’re okay. I have make-up wipes in the second drawer down at my desk if you want them, pj’s are in the third drawer down next to the window.” Logan leads him over to his bed and turns on the tv, handing Virgil the remote.

 “Oh, okay. Thanks, Lo.” As Logan makes his way to the door he stops and turns back to him.

 “Oh and Virgil?”

 “Yeah, Logan?”

 “Please, if you ever need to get out of your room when it gets too much, come to mine. We will watch a movie or play a game.” Logan thinks he sees Virgil blush as he nods but he isn’t quite sure.

 ~~

 Only a few moments later Logan was back with their pancakes (blueberry for himself and plain with syrup for Virgil) and tea for the two of them. Logan felt his heart skip a beat when he saw Virgil, wearing an old pair of periodic table pjs, wrapped in Logan's favorite blanket. He looked so much calmer than earlier and without his make-up on Virgil looked softer in some way. Logan came back to his senses as Virgil frowned slightly at the lack of coffee, causing Logan to chuckle.

 “You know caffeine will only make you feel worse while your anxiety is heightened.” He says sternly, much like the teacher everyone says he is. Logan hands Virgil his pancakes and tea before sitting beside him. Far away enough that it isn't awkward but close enough that if Virgil wanted to lean on him he could.

 “Still, coffee is nicer” Virgil pouts softly before chuckling and settling into Logan’s pillows, closing the space Logan left between them.

 “I know, now what have you picked out?” Logan started to cut up his pancakes just so he had something to do with his hands. He knew that the reason his heart was racing again wasn't his anxiety but that didn't mean he knew how to calm it down. He’d have to ask Patton later since he was the heart, only if he agreed to not tell anyone. 

 “Uh, I was thinking Onward? I still haven’t seen it yet but Roman said it was good.” Logan felt a smile creep onto his face that only grew when he saw Virgil smiling back. 

 “Great, I haven’t seen it either.” Logan felt his heart slow down again as the movie began, feeling the pressure lift off of his chest ever so slightly. They both sat in silence as it played, laughing every so often. About half way through Logan felt Virgil's head fall onto his shoulder. It was then that he decided that he couldn't move until Virgil did, similar to Pattons rule if any pet is lying on you. The comparison was relatively close, Virgil was very similar to a cat anyway.

 “Virgil?” Logan whispered as the credits began to roll. Virgil just grumbled slightly in return. Of course he's asleep, Logan thought to himself. As gently as he could, Logan slowly moved the plates onto his bedside table and started to move Virgil into more of a lying position. There was little protest on Virgil’s end apart from a few indiscernible mumbles that made Logan’s heart beat a little faster, making him more curious as to why it did so.

 As Logan tried to get up he felt Virgil's hand reach out for him. He knew that if Virgil woke up cuddled into him he might feel uncomfortable but on the other hand, Logan didn’t know if he could leave him. Thankfully he thought of a compromise. Logan pulled out a soft shark plushie he kept under his bed and gave it to Virgil who snuggled close to it. He really had no clue that Virgil was such a softie sometimes. Logan still felt bad for leaving but he didn’t want to overstep his bounds so he took the now empty mugs and plates downstairs as quietly as he could, leaving Virgil to finally get some rest. He must have still had a smile on his face by the time he got to the kitchen as Patton gave him a knowing look and a grin as he stood at the sink.

 “Not a word, Pat.” Logan said as firmly as he could with his heart currently in a puddle. 

 “Of course, my lips are sealed.” Logan placed the dishes into the dishwasher before starting it. 

 “So, Patton, I have a question.” Logan broke the bit of white noise of the dishwasher as he spoke up. 

 “Sure, Logan! What is it?” Patton bounded up to Logan who was sitting at the counter, making a cup of coffee, having needed it earlier. Logan explained the situation of his heart beating fast whenever he and Virgil touch. The blush he felt creep onto his cheeks as he watched Virgil smile. The whole time he watched Patton fail to stifle a grin. “Logan, do you really not know what this is?” Logan nodded gingerly.

 “I don’t understand what’s happening and why now?” Patton took Logan's hands.

“You like him, Logan.” Logan felt it all hit him at once. It was so obvious, he had a textbook case of feelings. “Shit.”

[hms-chill]

Hii! I see you've read RWRB (which means you obviously have impeccable taste) and was wondering if you could recommend any more LGBTQ+ books? Thank you!!

OH MY GOD I HAVE SO MANY!! It really depends on what genre you’re interested in and what you like; I’ll sort of try to break it down that way (and not just rec every gay book I’ve ever read lmao)

General fiction:

 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz is about two Mexican boys growing up in El Paso in the late 1980s and the writing style is absolutely incredible. It was the first Gay Book(tm) I remember and I spent months of 2012-2013 trying to find a copy and it was 100% worth it.

Simon Vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli. We know it, we love it, I wanted to include it anyway.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee is a historical fiction (leaning on fantasy) romp about a boy in the 18th century going on his grand tour with the best friend he’s in love with; the sequel stars his aro/ace sister. Bi lead, Black gay love interest, and a sequel about the importance of girl friendships.

I’m on page four of Gail Wilhelm’s Torchlight to Valhalla but I love the writing style and the fact that it’s a lesbian book from 1938 that apparently ends happily almost made me cry so there’s that.

anything by Virginia Woolf, but especially Orlando, which is a love letter to her girlfriend.

Soft Place to Fall by Ba Tortuga is a fun gay cowboy romance; it’s dumb and sappy and predictable and fantastic.

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

THIS IS WHERE I THRIVE this is my wheelhouse so sorry if I get carried away lol

anything by Sarah Gailey. Their Upright Women Wanted is about queer librarian spies in a futuristic wild west. The American Hippo series (River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow) is about queer hippo wranglers in an alternate 19th century. Magic for Liars is a murder mystery set in a magic school, perfect if you’re trying to ditch She Who Must Not Be Named but still want your fun magic school itch scratched.

Nottingham by Anna Burke is a lesbian retelling of Robin Hood; I’m still working through it but I’m pretty sure all the merry men are queer women and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas is absolutely fantastic; it’s got an entirely Latinx cast with a trans lead and a ghost love interest; 15/10 almost made me cry.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo has that casual queer rep that I absolutely adore. Like yeah sometimes you need a book about Being Queer but sometimes you also need a heist where the badass gunslinger casually goes “oh yeah not just girls” and steals a tank, you know?

This is very I’m A Child Of The Late 90s/ Early 2000s but Tamora Pierce was huge for me growing up. She clearly stuffed as many queer characters into her world as publishers would let her, and recently she’s confirmed fan theories about even more queerness (ace/aro characters, trans readings, etc) in her work.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness was published in 1969 and treats gender as a fluid thing; I haven’t read it yet but it’s on my bedside table and I’m very excited to get to it.

Poetry

all of it straight people don’t get poems

Badger Clark was a gay cowboy poet; I love his stuff so much. “The Westerner” made me absolutely feral and “Others” gutted me.

Wilfred Owen is best known for his work about WWI, but “Maundy Thursday” and “How Do I Love Thee” are absolutely incredible.

Whitman wrote poems about being gay and was one of the more iconic queer voices of the 19th century, at least in literary circles.

Byron was an icon and also incredibly queer.

Sappho is the iconic one; Anne Carson’s translation of her work (If Not, Winter) is fantastic and the one I’d personally recommend.

Classics

If you’re down to read between the lines do I have some books for you

Stoker was gay (and wrote thirsty letters to Whitman), and no one can convince me that Dracula is a straight book. Arthur and Quincey were dating thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.

The Iliad is long and complex but also Achilles and Patroclus wanted their ashes mixed when they died (fellas...)

anything by Wilde but especially A Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Les Miserables has a character who “admired, loved, and venerated” another man, and who “took great care not to believe in anything” but said other man (fellas...). There’s also an entire page about how the lead has never felt any form of love other than familial (fellas... is it aro to spend a whole page talking about how you’ve never loved anyone).

I haven’t read Moby Dick but I know there’s like three pages about how much the narrator loves his crewmate (fellas...)

Nonfiction

A lot of people are scared of nonfic but I’m gonna let you in on a secret: you don’t have to read the whole book. Pick and choose chapters that interest you, put it down for a year, whatever. Nonfic’ll be there for you.

Portrait of a Marriage by Nigel Nicolson is a look into his parents’ open relationship and his mother’s relationship with Virginia Woolf; it’s a gorgeous exploration of the various ways that love and marriage can be flexible and it changed how I look at relationships.

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski is a good intro to queer history.

We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown is a great look at the Stonewall Era and the time after especially, and it’s full of incredible pictures. They also run @/lgbt_history on insta and 10/10 for that.

Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet and Into the Stonewall Era by Jason Baumann is fantastic too; it’s got pictures and short descriptions of what’s happening in them. Maybe not a first place, but if you know the general scope of the queer rights movement it’s a fantastic thing (or if you don’t and you’re ready to google lmao).

My Dear Boy or anything else by Rictor Norton is incredible. My Dear Boy is a collection of gay love letters; he’s also got books on queer culture in 18th century London and queering the Gothic. You can find a lot of his stuff online here and My Dear Boy specifically here.

If you want more/ something more specific, don’t hesitate!! I work in a library and I’m always finding new gay stuff and I love it.

[ckret2]

idk if someone actually finally sent this ask but i'mma do it since it seems people are dancing around it: if you're comfortable with it, may we have some radiosnake sexual headcanons (wherein alastor is not sexually repulsed or is demisexual/grey-ace ofc)?? love, a very happy demisexual who just finished a cold day in hell literally two minutes ago

You win the prize for "actually has the courage to directly ask for sexual headcanons" because no, nobody else has asked yet. Sorry for taking so long to answer it but like... the answer is over 2000 words. Have fun.

Now, anon, I've got something important you should know.

When I brainstorm radiosnake stuff, there's a little chatroom I do it in. What happens is, a lot of times, I'll come up with a scene or a scenario or a plot arc, and I'll describe it to that chat. And then, every once in a while, I'll say, "... and then here's how that same thing goes over in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks." I have. A looot of little ideas set in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks.

(He's still somewhere on the ace spectrum in all those ideas—either he's demi or else he's sex-neutral/sex-positive ace, depending on the idea—but he does Fuck.)

However, 1) a majority of these ideas are very clearly set specifically in CDIH's verse, and so I don't wanna share them as broad "radiosnake headcanons" when they're tied to one specific fanfic; and 2) a lot of them are angsty, and if you're asking for general headcanons then I'm assuming what you probably want is them actually having a good time rather than several decades of self-induced suffering over unrequited desire. So if you want CDIH-specific stuff and/or angsty stuff (or, more likely, CDIH-specific angsty stuff), hit me up again and I'll share some more stuff. For now, I'll talk about more general non-angsty headcanons.

Okay so most of this answer is geared toward Alastor's perspective since it's like, it's the more interesting one to me in this context, he's the one gradually figuring stuff out while Sir Pent's hanging out being allo with over a century of having his sexuality sorted out.

So that you know what kinda headcanons I'm rolling with here: there's, like, several ways I can conceptualize Alastor's orientation in my head, and they're sorta ranked by how "true" they are to me. Not "true" as in "how canon I think they are," but "true" as in, like, what Feels the Most Right to me.

The #1 Most True version of Alastor in my head is 100% ace/aro. He's not "repulsed" by sex (or romance, for that matter) in the sense of "disgusted/horrified/never ever wants to hear about it," but he, like, has absolutely zero interest in DOING it. He's not repulsed by the subject but he is by most touch, including the kind of touching necessary for sex. Might have some, like, academic curiosity about sex & romance, might enjoy it in a fictional context simply for the drama it adds to a story, but has no desire to be a participant. He can listen to a friend talk about their sexual escapades in graphic detail for an hour without an ounce of discomfort but if they offer him a quick peck on the lips he goes "I'm out." He might have sex Once just to see what it's like/just to say he has and that’s where his curiosity ends.

So that's my mental Most True Version Of Alastor.

The SECOND most true version of Alastor is like, the exact same as that, except he's just barely demiromantic enough that he might, once, fall in love. The odds of him falling in love are the same as someone's odds of winning the lottery. This is the version of Alastor I use in CDIH and other radiosnake fics, where Sir Pentious happens to have been lucky enough to win the lottery, but also, it took fifteen years before it happened. Alastor's feelings about touch & sex are the same, EXCEPT that whoever he loves is excluded from the Touch Is Unpleasant rule, which opens up a few more possibilities.

And I've got more mental versions of Alastor but that's as far as we need to go to be relevant to this post.

So given the above: Alastor's natural internal pool of Enjoyable Physical Activities that he would be autonomously inclined to want to try with Sir Pentious is broader than "nothing at all" but stops short of actual sex. More like sensual activities.

The not-necessarily-sexual sensual things that are obviously & immediately available on Alastor’s Selectable Menu Of Romantic Physical Activities are gonna be things like:

--Cuddles! We're starting as vanilla as possible, folks. Cuddling and sleeping in bed together. 95% naked cuddles are acceptable, although Alastor is inclined to keep his underpants on. Moving to "underpants" from "underpants AND undershirt" is a Notable Intimacy Milestone for him because like Back In His Day undershirts were part of the required underwear, so to him that's taking off 50% of his underwear. It's like switching from loose boxers to a thong. On the other hand Sir Pent is just, totally nude, because look at him he already isn't wearing any pants, he's got nothing to hide.

--Massage! Neither one of them is any sort of professional but tbh on a scale of 1 to 10 a massage can be as bad as a 3 and still be enjoyable y'know? Alastor tends to offer if he notices Sir Pent is sore and/or if Alastor has decided he's gonna be in Extreme Over-The-Top Performatively* Romantic Mode tonight. He always sort of forgets that the option of being massaged exists until Sir Pent offers it in return, because, like, he thinks of himself as a floating radio voice with an inconvenient meat puppet attached, sometimes he forgets that the meat puppet can be pampered too. And then he sits there in a blissed-out daze while Sir Pent goes holy crap your shoulders are like oak, how have you not snapped your own spine with tension yet.

(*Note here when I say Alastor can get "performatively" romantic I don't mean "going through the motions but isn't feeling the love"; I mean that, like, basically NO romantic gestures come naturally to him because he just isn't feeling the gestures even though he's definitely feeling the love. He's sort of figuring out How To Perform Romance As An Action by drawing on how he's seen it done in books/movies/etc. and picking & choosing the things that seem most fun to him to do. So in a sense he is performing a role that he's conscious of when he interacts with Sir Pent romantically, but that's because "performing a role" is how Mr. Perpetual Radio Host approaches all of life—and he's only performing this one because he genuinely wants to and because he's enjoying it.)

--Body worship! Alastor is really deeply squicked out by touching someone's skin/hair/fur but on the other hand (and maybe specifically because it avoids the squick) he is really deeply fascinated by Sir Pentious's scales, which feel Not At All Like Mammal Skin. He also still does the "??? oh right, I have a body too" thing when Sir Pent returns the attention—but Alastor's like, okay, I’m obviously more familiar with my own body than Sir Pent is, I don’t find my body that interesting but it must still be interesting to Sir Pent.

--Showering together! Sir Pent has figured out that if he starts singing in the shower there is a 99% chance that Alastor will trip over his own pants trying to simultaneously strip down and run to the bathroom so that he can join in on SHOWER DUET TIME. Frankly it's a lot safer to just go "hey I'm about to take a shower, wanna join?" but sometimes he doesn't just to see how fast Alastor shows up.

--Kissing! Making out is completely and always an option. Three of Alastor's most defining character traits are being a radio host (which kind of reduces a person to their voice), his perpetual smile, and his cannibalism. Like 80% of this dude's existence revolves around his mouth. He's absolutely got some kind of oral fixation. He gets into making out—as long as it's with the right person. There is exactly one right person. Sir Pent is okay with this.

Other enjoyable mouth activities:

- Kissing places other than the mouth

- Being kissed in places other than the mouth

- Biting

- Being bitten

And there's the overall list of non-sexual sensual activities that Alastor is into!

... And then eventually at some point Sir Pent is like "no pressure but hhhhypothetically sssspeaking are there possibly any sexual activities you might be interested in trying out" and Alastor is like "What? Oh! Right! Actually forgot sex existed for a bit. Yeah sure fine let’s try it." And that's the point at which they start experimenting with activities beyond Alastor's default activities!

Despite just about everything else with mouths being good, things Alastor is NOT into:

- Blowjobs

They did try. It seemed like a logical starting point. Alastor was like "I've liked putting my mouth everywhere else on this snake, it stands to reason I'll like putting it there too!" He got himself psyched up. He faced down The Dicks. He went, hmm. He stuck his tongue out and poked one.

He went "Yeah this isn't happening."

And Sir Pent went "Honestly you've already surpassed my wildest dreams just by getting that far."

They tried it the other way around too and Alastor went "Yyyye... hmmm... nnnnnooo no, no, don't think so. Not into that at all."

And it took him all of five seconds to reject the mere possibility of ever trying rimming, and the only reason it took that long to reject is because first Sir Pent had to explain what that is.

But everything else with mouths is great! Like. Everything. Sir Pent could go "can you lick my eyeball" and Alastor would go "which one? :)" (Sir Pent would probably not ask for this. But the point is he could.)

Figuring out Alastor's acceptable/enjoyable sex acts was a lot of experimentation like the above with BJs. And what they figured out is: he doesn't want his junk touched. Like. At all. In any context. Which, you know, understandably cuts down on nearly all the sexual options out there. But that’s the hard line: no touching his dick and no touching his butthole. Even if he, like, actively has a raging boner.

(Fun fact that I actually had to do research on, because despite being ace I did not know this due to the fact that I don't have a dick: if you are ace and have a dick there's good odds you'll still pop a boner in sexual situations, even if you have zero interest in what you’re looking at or participating in it. It's like something in your crotch goes "oh! Oh! A naked butt! I know what to do here! We got training for this! Time to ready the cannon!" and something in your brain goes "why the hell are you readying the cannon, we are absolutely not going to use the cannon, the cannon is a major inconvenience here" and the something in your crotch goes "listen, pal, I'm just following my orders. I don't tell you how to do your job, don't tell me how to do mine." The tl;dr here is that when Alastor is experimenting with Sir Pent, he could be completely bored out of his mind and still get a boner because biology is funky like that.)

The first few times this happens Sir Pent goes "are you sure you don't want me to, y'know, give you a handjob or something?? I feel like an inconsiderate jerk not helping out" and Alastor goes "absolutely not" and Sir Pent goes well okay I've made a career out of being an inconsiderate jerk, I guess I can do it in the bedroom too.

What they do manage to gradually figure out is that Alastor is perfectly fine with touching Sir Pent's junk, as long as it's not with his own junk or with his mouth. So hand jobs? Totally fair game. Letting Sir Pent grind against his thigh or abdomen? No problems with that. (Alastor flopped on his stomach going "this really does it for you??" and Sir Pent rubbing in Alastor's tail fur going "... yes." and Alastor is like, "wow. wild.")

More than that, Alastor gradually starts to figure out he likes that. Not necessarily the sensation of having a couple of dicks rubbing on his thigh—that's just sorta weird and probably always will be—but the knowledge of what it's doing to Sir Pent. He likes knowing he's giving Sir Pentious pleasure. He likes hearing him gasp and seeing him writhe and knowing that it's because Sir Pent wants Alastor and that Alastor has the power to give him exactly what he wants. He likes hearing Sir Pent hissing his name and little praises and one-word requests. ("Alastor’s existence revolves around mouths” includes sounds coming out of mouths, he gets more out of words and little noises than he does out of sight & touch combined.)

They figure out that what Alastor enjoys doing best is spooning Sir Pent from behind, wrapped around him to jerk him off. In bed or in the shower or even sitting with Sir Pent in his lap or between his legs. Alastor can put his chin on Sir Pentious's shoulder to listen to the sounds he makes and watch how his long long body moves, he can wrap his free arm around his waist and feel how he tenses and relaxes and squirms, they can kiss (and/or bite, biting is nice) with a little bit of careful positioning...

Also it's easier for Alastor to quietly sing to him from there.

... Alastor sings during sex. For the record. The first time he does it it's a nervous "I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying and it seems too quiet—oh I've got a solution" but soon it's just. A thing he does. Sir Pent gradually goes from "what? seriously? this is what you're doing?" to "lmao you dork" to "well I guess I now have a new kink I will never be able to get rid of, thanks." Sometimes he'll shakily sing along and Alastor's guts will melt into warm goo.

So there's a general overview of the more, like, normal stuff they get up to. Considering that their shared hobbies include things like "murder" and "being better than everyone else" and one of them is a cannibal, I'm sure that once they get down the basics they just get weirder. Copious amounts of blood get involved! Not their own blood. Other people's. 

[woulddieforperrytheplatypus]

tag ten friends game!

I was tagged by my buddy @monotremeinafedora! 

I don’t want to bore you all with my life story (or like 10 questions but whatever) so I’m gonna put a cut down here

Name: Katie! but tbh people call me Kitty on so many social media sites that if I saw my real name online I wouldn’t even process that it was directed at me 

Gender: female

Star Sign: I’m vaguely aware that I’m a taurus but every time I see someone talking about astrology it gets super complicated and it scares me

Height: 5'4″

Sexuality: aro/ace

Hogwarts house: oof I read those books in third grade and I didn’t exactly spend much time taking internet quizzes in 2010 so I have absolutely no idea but I like the idea of Hufflepuff cuz they remind me of the Amity faction from Divergent (granted I wouldn’t last a day in the Amity faction but that’s not important)

Fav animal: imagine being able to pick a favorite animal lmao couldn’t be 

Dogs or cats: the question above I didn’t answer bc I’m indecisive but this one I can’t answer because I have a cat and two dogs and how can I choose a favorite? Like my 8-year-old dog is so sweet and cute and she likes going on walks for at least an hour with me and I love her but my 8-month-old dog is a piece of shit who tears people apart but she’s also really cute and she can be really fun when she’s not giving you really bad bruises bc you made the mistake of trying to play frisbee with her and now you have to walk around looking like someone dropped a fridge on your arms for two weeks but then what about cats right like my cat was like 12 or 13 when I got him last year and he’s an old man and he just curls up on my bed all day and sleeps on my Supernatural blanket and then I go to bed and he sleeps on my sweatshirt on the floor until like 8 am when he decides it’s a good time to crawl on my bed and tap me in the face until I wake up and ahhhhhh I just love themmmmm

Hour of sleep: I spend at least 12 hours lying in bed with the lights out and my phone away every night but how much of that is sleep and how much is eternally cringing at my horrible life decisions is unknown

Blankets: I. LOVE. BLANKETS. I have to move my stuff into college on Monday and I had an existential crisis trying to figure out what to do with my blankets like my mom got me a super soft, super warm cat blanket for Christmas specifically for school so that’s gonna come and I wanna bring my Supernatural blanket bc that’s good for a warmer night and I wanna bring my Frozen blanket because it’s so warm and fuzzy and I wanna bring my snowman blanket I got as a Christmas gift from dance last year bc it’s so cozy and I wanna bring my super soft blanket I got from work for Black Friday last year bc it’s super soft but I wanna bring the yeti blanket with the hood and buttons and mittens built in which I got from work the Black Friday before that one because duh who wouldn’t want to bring that and I wanna bring all my blankets right except I also have two weeks at home after I move my stuff in and I won’t have space to bring more blankets when I move in on the 31st bc half my duffel bag is going to be my giant stuffed Perry the Platypus I got from a friend a few months ago so I’m leaving my snowman one on the couch downstairs and my work one on my bed and my yeti’s gonna hang out by the closet with my similar Olaf blanket (that’s meant for little kids and does not fit which I didn’t know when I bought but but at least I worked at Target at the time so I got an employee discount?) probably until I come home for Thanksgiving and I’ll take my yeti blanket back with me then and wow this was a really long answer but in my defense it was a very open-ended question

Dream Job: I’m going to school for nursing, so that!

When and Why I’m here: uhhh idk what exactly it means by “when” bc I made my main blog @kittyhazelnut and my Supernatural blog @gabrielsbackbitches in like 2017ish (or whenever it was my fav character came back just to die again a month later) but this blog i made in May (idk the date but it was whenever I posted my pinned) so take your pick for that one. Why I’m here? I was talking too much about Phineas and Ferb on my main and I decided to make a side blog for it with no intention of it getting big (I mean my marvel blog @marvelbutmostlyloki has been around for a year or two and it has, like, 10 followers so clearly side blogs don’t always work out in my favor) and then I posted that screenshot of Vincent tweeting about Perry the Platypus statues replacing Confederate statues and people decided to follow me and now I exist purely to promote the new Phineas and Ferb movie to casual Phineas and Ferb fans (no jk I do love promoting the movie to casual fans but I do most of that on Twitter. I found a whole bunch of fun people in the Dwampyverse fandom and it’s like our own little private party in a dark corner of tumblr and it’s honestly the most fun I’ve ever had in a fandom, and that’s coming from someone who’s been in the Supernatural fandom for five years)

Reason for URL: I use the phrase “I would die for _______” way too much in my everyday life and I couldn’t think of a witty URL so I went with that lmao

Current time: 8:55 pm and I should probably stop staring at a screen in the middle of a dark room at 9 o’clock at night if I’m planning on being up and out of the house with a full face of stage makeup on in under 12 1/2 hours for my dance comp whoops

And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for... TAGS! It said to tag 10 people and a lot of my peeps were tagged in Grayson’s post so I don’t think (?) I’m retagging anyone? I’m only tagging PnF people because I genuinely have no idea which of my IRLs and online friends from non-PnF-related-things would recognize this as my account lol. also half of these people are in the Perryshmirz discord bc that’s where my people live lmao

@myperryshmirtzblog @mushipper713 @necroticcoffee @grayblebayble @eathotchip-and-bi @sorryformybadenglish @ill-change-my-name-to-larry @momphineasandferbmadeablog @fcrbfletcher

Obviously y’all don’t have to do it if you don’t want to :) and if you didn’t see your URL but you want to do it anyway, go for it! You can even say I tagged you and no one has to know! in fact, wait a second...

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[tsuki-chibi]

The Ace-ing on the Cake Part 9: Cupid

Or read it on AO3: The Ace-ing on the Cake

Part of my Aro-Ace Valentine Collection.

--------

Nathalie woke him shortly after twelve; of course, she made a fuss that Adrien was still in bed despite the late hour, and nearly called the doctor before Adrien managed to convince her that it wasn’t necessary. He dragged himself out of bed and presented himself at the table for lunch, then bundled up in a coat and boots and left the mansion for three hours of Chinese lessons and then basketball practice.

When he returned, Nathalie directed him upstairs for piano practice. Adrien sat on the polished bench, weary, and set his fingers on the keys, but did not yet play. What he really wanted to do was put his head down and sleep for another two or three hours, but he could only risk using pre-recorded music as a cover so many times before he’d get caught and it was more important to be able to use that excuse during akuma battles.

“Going over to Marinette’s again tonight?” Plagg asked, and Adrien looked up. Plagg was perched on the edge of the piano, watching Adrien with unsettlingly green eyes.

“I don’t know. Hadn’t thought about it,” Adrien said, touching a key to hear the soft chime.

“Surprising since you seemed so excited when you came home last night,” said Plagg.

“That was different,” Adrien muttered. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that the concept of sexuality was utterly lost on a kwami. According to Plagg, kwamis just were. They couldn’t have children; they were born into existence when a new concept or need arouse in the very universe itself. Of course, Plagg had also pointed out that that was a massive oversimplification of the whole thing, inferring that Adrien wasn’t smart enough to grasp the full explanation – but Adrien preferred not to dwell on that part of it.

He set his hands on the keys and began to play a simple scale just to warm up. It had been a while since he’d actually sat down to practice, and his stiff fingers reflected that. Playing piano could be a comfort or a source of frustration depending on the day; he was grateful that today it was the former, and the longer he played the more he could feel some of his tenseness starting to melt away. Naturally, that was when Plagg spoke up.

“Was it? She’s the same as you. Maybe you should date her instead.”

Adrien startled, accidentally hitting a sour note. “Plagg!”

“What?” Plagg said, adopting an innocent look.

“That’s not a good reason to date someone,” Adrien said, exasperated.

“Obviously, but that wouldn’t be your only reason, would it?” Plagg said knowingly. “You can pretend you’re just friends all you want, but you like her.”

“I do not,” Adrien said, scowling at his kwami.

“You do too. And if you didn’t have Ladybug, I bet you’d be willing to admit it.”

Adrien said nothing for a moment. Because maybe there was a shard of truth in what Plagg was saying – as Nino had said once, Marinette was so open and giving and kind that it seemed like everyone had had a crush on her at some point. But it wouldn’t be right for Adrien to date anyone, never mind a friend, when he was so caught up in Ladybug. Marinette deserved better.

“But I do have Ladybug,” he said at last, very quietly. “I really – I really do love her. So…”

Plagg sighed. “Stupid kids,” he muttered, and took off. Adrien watched him fly over to the bed, then looked back down at the piano.

He’d never admit it out loud, but maybe Plagg was right. Maybe he should be giving Marinette a chance. They were compatible sexually even if she didn’t know it. But was that enough for the basis of a relationship? Not to mention, his love for Ladybug and Marinette’s mysterious crush. She was in the same boat as him, it seemed… in love with someone, but uncertain now that it could ever happen.

At least, he hoped, Marinette’s chances with her crush were better than his chances with Ladybug. Because it didn’t matter what Adrien’s orientation was. Ladybug had made it clear she didn’t love him like that. He still held out hope she’d change her mind, but now what would happen if she did? Could he ever make a woman happy if he couldn’t give her a fundamental part of what made a relationship?

He lowered his head, frustrated, then resumed playing. He practiced for over two hours, trying to focus on the music rather than letting him dwell on the situation at hand, and only stopped when his hands starting cramping up. Adrien reluctantly straightened up, rubbing at the back of his neck to ease the tension, and glanced around for Plagg. His kwami was curled up on the bed, asleep.

Should he go to Marinette’s? Adrien debated that for a moment as he set aside his music book and closed the lid over the keys. She hadn’t told him to come back, but nor had she asked him to stay away. She probably wouldn’t think anything of Chat showing up for another visit. After all, the last two times they’d spoken had changed both their worldviews pretty fundamentally. And even if she didn’t want him there, Marinette was too sweet to send him away. She’d welcome him with open arms – and maybe even more sweets.

It just seemed more fraught now that Plagg had brought up dating again. He’d always teased Adrien about Marinette being his girlfriend, and Adrien had always denied it, secure in his feelings for Ladybug. And he still was, but now, even if he decided not to give up on her, he was losing hope that he and Ladybug would ever be more than partners. So should he be spending more time with Marinette? Less? Was it wrong to spend time with her with an ulterior motive in mind? Especially since she didn’t know that Chat Noir was close to her as a civilian… she had no idea she had disclosed something so private to a friend…

“I can hear you overthinking from here,” Plagg moaned. “You’re disturbing my sleep.”

“My apologies,” Adrien said, rolling his eyes. He picked up his music book. There was a silhouette of a white Cupid drawing back an arrow on the cover; love songs probably weren’t the thing to be dwelling on right now anyway, he thought wryly. He set the book on his desk and pushed it to the back.

“So?” Plagg said, opening one eye to stare.

“I’m going to go see Marinette,” Adrien announced. There didn’t have to be anything more to the visit than a simple friend dropping by to visit another, after all.

“I knew it,” Plagg muttered.

“Don’t complain. It was your idea!”

“I know; I hate myself already.”

Adrien shook his head. “I’m going to eat supper. When we come back, we’re going.” He left the room before he could hear Plagg start whining again, heading downstairs.

He ate supper alone as usual – no clue where his father was, and Nathalie was holed up in her office working on some kind of report – before wandering back upstairs. The mansion was dark and quiet, just like usual. He stood in the doorway to his room for a moment, looking over his shoulder. Marinette’s house always seemed to be filled with warmth and laughter. He wondered what Ladybug’s home was like. He hoped that it was similar to Marinette’s; he hoped Ladybug didn’t know what it was like to eat alone and then go to bed alone.

Maybe someday he would get to ask her. Someday after Hawkmoth was defeated. If, at that point, Ladybug felt comfortable sharing her identity, and Adrien had no idea if she would. They’d never really discussed it. He wasn’t sure how to bring it up without it seeming like he was pushing.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Adrien blinked, startled. “What? Seriously?”

“I’ve had about as much of you moping as I can stand,” Plagg said. “At least when you’re with your girlfriend, you don’t mope!”

“Marinette isn’t – oh, never mind,” Adrien said, sighing. Plagg did have a point. He wasn’t going to accomplish anything else tonight. He’d just spend the whole time thinking about Ladybug. Maybe going to see Marinette would make him tired enough that he’d actually sleep.

“So?” Plagg said impatiently.

“Plagg, claws out!”

[mimisstudy]

Ash - character study

We are doing a new project called ‘write what you know’ which means writing a film about something that has happened to you or around you. Mine is about why people don’t report things straight away as this is something I see complained about a lot with #metoo

Ash is the main character ~17, and based on me. She lived with her dad who emotionally and sexually abused her, and then moved in with her mum when she was ~16. 

this is a super long post btw

Personality

Are they more optimistic or pessimistic? Pessimistic - considers herself a realist, prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Are they introverted or extroverted? Introverted - was great at making friends as a kid but really struggles to since living with her dad.

What bad habits do they have? She keeps things to herself far too much - she wasn’t allowed to talk to her dad as he would make it about himself and so, despite not living with him anymore, she still internalises until she can’t anymore

What makes them laugh out loud? Shitty puns

How do they display affection? Giving gifts - listening to what they like and giving things related to this

How do they want to be seen by others? Smart (was always told she was smart so doesn’t want to seem dim)

How do they see themselves? An idiot, weak, a bad person. Then she moves. Smart, funny, kind, brave, creative/inventive

How are they seen by others? Funny, kind, smart, gentle

How competitive are they? Competitive with themselves, doesn’t care so much about competing with others but hates when she does something worse than she has before. 

Do they make snap judgments or take time to consider? Indecisive but once set on a plan, she will do it to the max.

How do they react to praise? Struggles to, not used to it

How do they react to criticism? Also struggles as not used to it. Never really praised or crisitised, just sort of blends in

What is their greatest fear? Wasps. Being abandoned. 

What are their biggest secrets? The abuse

What is their philosophy of life? Fuck it, might as well try.

When was the last time they cried? A wasp landed on her while she was on a hike and she had a panic attack

What haunts them? Her dad. she is starting to see him on the streets and in her dreams.

What are their political views? Prioritising people's safety and well-being over the economy

What will they stand up for? Equality, environment, women's rights, sexual assault

What quality do they most value in a friend? Honest / real

If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be? Their past, though she wouldn’t actually change it. Or make themselves more confident

What is their obsession? gardening

What are their pet peeves?

What are their idiosyncrasies? Autistic. Stampy feet flappy hands.

 Friends and Family

Is their family big or small? Who does it consist of? Small - Taylor (sibling), mum and dad. Lots of extended family but she has moved too much to bond with them.

What is their perception of family? Used to hate her mum but now appreciates her. Loves Taylor but weird sister relationship as they didn’t grow up together

Do they have siblings? Older or younger? Taylor, 3 years older.

Describe their best friend. Does not have any - struggles to bond with people long term

Describe their other friends. Mainly extroverted people that talk for her. 

 Past and Future

Did they grow up rich or poor? Not obviously poor (she wasn’t aware of it) but far from rich. Under the poverty line a few times but didn’t go to food banks

Did they grow up nurtured or neglected? Felt nurturing but was rather emotionally abusive

What is the most offensive thing they ever said? ‘I would like to live with mum/dad’

What was their first kiss like? Awkward school dare - she’s not that into dating but did hook up with someone while in a depressive episode to avoid thinking

What is the worst thing they did to someone they loved? ‘Basically everything ever’

What are their ambitions? To help others get through what she did. set up her own music label

What advice would they give their younger self? Say no clearer

What was their childhood ambition? Be a musician

What is their best childhood memory? Camping at Tolpuddle music festival and the way the musicians interacted with the audience. 

What is their worst childhood memory? The dad experience

Did they have an imaginary childhood friend? No. She would talk to her blanket though.

Love

Do they believe in love at first sight? No. She is aro/ace, she thinks

Are they in a relationship? No. 

How do they behave in a relationship? She has only been in one proper relationship and this was a depressed escapism one - she was sleeping with her as a distraction from her life but wasn’t sexually or romantically attracted to her. she was nice to her but was mainly there for the sex - though she is terrified of insulting people so was still respectful and kind

Has your character ever been in love? No

Have they ever had their heart broken? By her family, yes

Conflict

How do they respond to a threat? Disassociating - she struggles to speak and is very slow. She also stims a lot which leads to rubbing her skin raw and has many scars because of this. 

Are they most likely to fight with their fists or their tongue? Neither but her tongue if really having to.

What is your character’s kryptonite? Loud people/sounds

If your character could only save one thing from their burning house, what would it be? Her blanket that she has had since she was born

How do they perceive strangers? No one is trusted until they do something big

What do they love to hate?  Sound design

What are their phobias? Wasps

What living person do they most despise? Certain political leaders and CEO’s that are fucking up the plannet

Have they ever been bullied or teased? No - they aren’t really noticed at all. Taylor used to tease her constantly though - mean, even for a sister, but they are far better together now.

Where do they go when they’re angry? To her garden plot. She has one away from the house.

Who are their enemies and why?  She doesn’t pay attention to anyone enough to hate them that much.

 Work, Education and Hobbies

Do they have a job? Yes

What is their current job? Editing music videos for a band that she knows from secondary

What do they think about their current job? She likes doing it but hates that she could mix the songs better than them - they wont let her change anything though

What are some of their past jobs? They worked at the sweet shop round the corner for a few months before she moved in with her mum.

What are their hobbies? Mixing, baking, minecraft, gardening

Educational background? 7+ (the new uk grading system) in all subjects at secondary. Working on a music and media course at college - predicted distinctions.

Intelligence level? Very smart but struggles understanding basic things often

Do they have a natural talent for something? Baking but she doesn’t enjoy it so doesn’t do it often. 

Do they play a sport? Are they any good? Swimming - she’s good enough to not drown but mainly enjoys just floating around

What is their socioeconomic status? Working class. Her mum is slightly more well off (upper working) but both parents kept their money troubles to themselves.

 Favourites

What is their favourite animal? Snakes

Which animal do they dislike the most? Wasps

What place would they most like to visit? Havana, Cuba due to all the music that has originated there.

What is their favourite song? We’re going to be friends - the white stripes

Music, art, reading preferred? Music

What is their favourite colour? Green

What is their password? Chrysanth3mum

Favourite food: Bolognese but the pasta separate.

Who is their favourite artist? The Crane Wives

 Possessions

What is on their bedside table? (Kubrick was obsessed with bedside tables, he thought they spoke the truth about an individual). Three books: one on music theory, Percy Jackson but she’s barely got through it, and one on gardening. A bedside lamp. A mug. Her glasses. A spray. A hat. Sweet wrappers. A pen and pencil. Her journal, open.

What is in their bin? A years worth of receipts after she finally emptied her wallet. Seed packets. Tissues. 

What is in their purse or wallet? Lots of receipts and business cards. A few bank cards. Lots of change but no notes.

What is in their pockets? Her phone and earplugs. Her jacket pockets are stuffed: rocks and shells she likes, seed packets, tissues, gloves, various bits of rubbish she has picked up, pens, a tiny notebook

What is their most treasured possession? Her hardrive

 Spirituality

Do they believe in the afterlife? She hopes is doesn’t exist - the idea of still being alive after you die is horrifying

What are their religious views? She was into all the spiritual wiccan things at one point but fell out of it during her last depression spell. She still uses crystals and tarot cards though.

What do they think heaven is? Heaven is in the moments of bliss

What do they think hell is? The world we are currently living in

Are they superstitious? She thinks other things are out there and around us but she isn’t scared of that. She likes to leave apples outside for the ghosts and fae

How would they like to die? Either by her own hand (again, depressed) or drowning. Old age would also be nice.

What is their zodiac sign? Taurus

 Values

What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person? Not listen to them

When did they last lie? ‘No, its fine’ - when asked if they wanted to talk about what he did

What’s their view of lying? Lying is bad, it’s just really confusing. That being said, she is okay with it when you are doing so to protect yourself

When did they last make a promise? They don’t make promises

Daily life

What are their eating habits? They won’t eat things if they are in the wrong order. Eating is boring so she wont do it unless she is actually hungry. She has lots of ‘bad’ foods - tomatoes (puree is okay), cucumber, bananas, mushrooms, dates, oranges (orange juice is okay). Fizzy drinks. ARFID

Do they have any allergies? no

Are they minimalist or a clutter hoarder? Hoarder. Everything looks like a mess but it all has a reason for being where it is.

What do they do first thing on a weekday morning? Clean teeth, shower, water, food, pack bag, get dressed, clean teeth, check the lights and plugs, college.

What do they do on a Sunday afternoon? Edit and then do some gardening

What do they do on a Friday night? Make pizza and play minecraft and drink

What is the soft drink of choice? She doesn’t like fizzy drinks. She will have ribeena

What is their alcoholic drink of choice? Blackberry liquor that her mum makes for social drinking. She has a habit of getting very drunk with vodka and smoking to dull her mind

Miscellaneous

Who is their hero? Elton John

What or who would your character dress up as for Halloween? She doesn’t celebrate halloween and instead tries to do Samhain rituals.

Are they comfortable with technology? Yes but she does tape over her camera and is always using a vpn

If they could call one person for help, who would it be? Taylor

What is their greatest regret? That they didn’t say no enough. Thinks about the butterfly effect constantly though so wouldn’t change anything in her past if she could.

What would they do if they won the lottery? Split the money between her, her sister, her mum and a little tiny bit for her dad so he doesn’t hate her. She would set up her own music label and get a farm but almost the rest of it will be for setting up charities/donating. She wants one charity for helping victims of abuse, another to go to an orphanage, and then to alazhiemers and autism charities. 

What is their favourite fairytale? Snow white and rose red

Do they believe in happy endings? No

What is their idea of perfect happiness? Sat on her farm, her music playing softly in the background, many cats and goats and chickens, and a bowl of soup. 

If your character could travel through time, where would they go? They would stay right where they are. Although, she would quite like to tell the guy that came up with autism to not be a sexist twat.

What sport do they excel at? They are weirdly good at golf but don’t like it as it is such an unnecessary use of green space

What sport do they suck at? Frisby 

If they could have a superpower, what would they choose? Invisibility or the power to change chances

[firecoloredwater]

Ace representation gives me weird feelings.

This was originally posted on pillowfort, and is being reposted here for the September 2019 Carnival of Aces.

To be 100% clear: I AM ACE.  (And aro, and the concept of gender gives me approximately the same feelings as the concept of being covered in live spiders, which I will grudgingly/squeamishly refer to as being agender or nonbinary when a label is required.)  Relevantly: ace.*

I began to identify as ace when I first heard the word, and had an "oh" moment.  (Or rather, multiple simultaneous "oh" moments.  "Oh that's a thing" and "oh maybe my classmates aren't all just faking relationships to mimic TV" are the two I remember most clearly.)  It was July, and at the time I was fifteen; I'm currently 28, so that's a bit over 13 years.  I'll skip the full journey, but the point is, this is an identity that I've had for a while and am comfortable with.

Despite that, ace characters in fiction give me weird feelings.  I mostly end up metaphorically staring at fiction which I know contains ace characters, going "hrmmmm I can't parse exactly what feeling I'm having, but I'm not enjoying it," to the point where I sometimes end up avoiding them entirely.  I doubt I'll be able to analyze all of why, but I'd like to at least try to start.

I'm also not referring to bad representation, or even to representation that focuses heavily on angst/suffering/prejudice.  Several years ago I read a large chunk of Shades of A (which, for anyone unfamiliar and about to click that link, includes a lot of kink and general adult themes; since it's been years I can't recall exactly what's in it) which was, from what I recall, very well done, and then I hit a point where I just... couldn't make myself keep going.  More recently I've heard several times about Every Heart a Doorway and thought 'that appeals to literally everything I want in fiction that I can think of' and then... not read it.

On the other hand, if a character is called asexual or characterized in a way that I can easily interpret as their being asexual, but it's not a major focus of the story or descriptions/advertisements/reviews thereof, I don't have the same reaction.  So for the rest of this post I'm just going to be discussing the former category (fiction with asexual representation that does give me weird feelings), and not addressing works that have an asexual or easily-read-as-asexual characters without giving me the weird feelings about it.  (The only real explanation I have for why a work falls in one category or another is the 'is it a major focus' question, so I don't think I can get anything useful out comparing them.)

Some of this, I'm sure, is that I'm just generally low on energy; I'm not reading much of anything that isn't fanfic right now.  But I tend to avoid fanfic tagged or described as having an asexual character too, so it's not just that.

The most obvious source is just that ace characters are unfamiliar.  There are a handful around now, even in mainstream media, but that wasn't true until I was in my 20s.  (Unless, of course, you counted the monsters/aliens/serial killers, and even then it was only the monsters/aliens/serial killers that the creator wanted to emphasize were really, really inhuman, even more than your typical monster/alien/serial killer.  And I was never fond of horror anyway.)  So ace characters stand out to me in a way that straight characters (and gay or lesbian ones, thanks largely to the Valdemar series) don't.  That extra attention-catching element can in itself make the representation feel weird and off on a level that's often subconscious and therefore difficult to dissect.  Again, though, while I think this is likely to be an element, I don't think it's the only reason.

I think some of it is the expectation—mine, but absorbed from a more general one—that if an asexual character is present, that should be the character that I most strongly (or even exclusively) identify with and connect to.  But that's often difficult: Anwar from Shades of A, for example, I have prettymuch nothing in common with except for being ace, our general age range, and maaaybe some of the social awkwardness and tendency toward geekiness that 98.5% of characters on the internet have.  I spent a lot of the time I was trying to read the comic being frustrated at every significant decision Anwar made because, while I probably would not have made better decisions, I certainly would have made different ones, and couldn't bring myself to empathize with his reasoning or priorities in any but one minor aspect.

And again, it's not that he's a bad character, it's just that he and I have nothing in common.  But I felt like I ought to empathize with him—I'm pretty sure he was the first ace character I ever encountered, so obviously I should empathize with him strongly and immediately and easily, right?  Not even "I should be able to," just I should, like saying the sun should rise in the morning, it's expected to just happen.  And because of that I couldn't pick another character to identify with (JD is nonbinary!  Chris and I have the same hair color! From what I remember they both have a more similar personality to me than Anwar does!) and I also couldn't just let myself gradually develop an understanding of Anwar's thought processes and start empathizing with him over time, because I was supposed to identify with him yesterday.  (Or rather, at least five years ago.)

(To be clear: none of this is something I was thinking consciously at the time, I was just frustrated with Anwar's decisions and didn't really analyze it further until like, two hours ago.  But from my current perspective, I think this is what was going on.)

Since I haven't actually read Every Heart a Doorway I of course can't be sure the same thing would happen, but I think I've avoided it because I expect it to.  From the summary it sounds like the main character is maybe fifteen or so, and the majority if not all major characters are mid-to-late teens?  So I'd be reading the book more as an observer than projecting myself among them, which is fine and often a thing I enjoy in fiction (because I'm way too empathetic and that distance helps tone down my distress at every little thing ever). But with an asexual main character... well, I wouldn't quite feel guilty about not identifying with her, but I'd be conscious of it the entire time I was reading in a way that would be distracting, and wouldn't be enjoyable.

Another possible element is that I tend to avoid fiction (and fanfic) in which a romantic relationship is the primary plot.  Since the majority of all fiction is romance, logically the majority of fiction with ace characters will be as well, and 'has an ace character' isn't enough to make me interested.  I think there's also a chance that romance fiction is in fact more likely to have an ace character, and/or to be labeled as having one (particularly in the case of fandom/fanfic/original work in fandom-derived areas).  A creator whose primary story focus is the characters' romantic and sexual relationships is more likely to consider the characters' romantic and sexual orientations, and therefore more likely to explicitly call a character asexual (whether in the story itself, a summary/description, or tags). Trying to read a story with an asexual character but being bored because it's a romance gives me about the same not-quite-guilty-but-not-comfortable feeling as being unable to identify with an asexual character does.

When I was in college I explained Asexuality 101 to various people or groups of people at various times, and one of the things I found myself explaining a lot is that "asexual" is actually just as much an umbrella term as "queer" or "trans" is.  Even without including demisexuality and the gray-a spectrum in the term (which at the time as far as I knew, at least, the most common approach was to just say "asexuality and gray-asexuality" if you wanted to discuss both) "asexual" includes asexuals of every romantic orientation and aroaces and people who prefer not to use the construct of romantic orientation, asexuals who are repulsed and who enjoy sex and who don't care too much either way, asexuals who lack attraction or libido or both or who experience both but are asexual anyway, because humans are complicated and sexuality is complicated and human sexuality is, therefore, utterly bizarre, and it would be weirder if asexuality (or any sexuality) were easy to define.**

And I think that's a factor too; there are asexual people whose experience of What It's Like To Be Asexual will have not one single thing in common with my experience of being asexual, and so a character that perfectly represents them will just leave me confused.  Which gets back to the thing about asexuality not really being sufficient for me to identify with a character, and the way that that fact runs into my expectation that it should be sufficient.  Like walking down a sidewalk, pausing to do something, then looking up and discovering a wall half an inch from my nose.  It's not painful, but it's jarring and annoying and I kind of want to look around and check if anyone saw that, because if so I'll be embarrassed about it.

(And I expect that most likely there are other factors, but I'm not coming up with them right now and this is long enough already, so I'll wind down here.)

I don't think this is a problem, or something that needs to be fixed; if "I'm not consuming the fiction that I would have expected myself to consume" is a problem at all, it's definitely the most minor one I've ever experienced.  If it does need to be fixed (or prevented), I think that "have more ace representation so it's not a Rare New Extraordinary Thing all the time" is probably the solution, and I'm pretty sure that aces are already in favor of more well done ace representation in fiction.

But it's still an experience, and it's been gnawing at my brain for months, so I'm posting this and... well, we'll see if and what use people make of it.  Has anyone else had the same or a similar experience?  Any thoughts on other factors which I didn't think of?  Some other related thing I missed?

*I'm not discussing aromantic or agender or nonbinary representation/my reactions to it because 1: asexuality is by far my "primary" identity (in the sense that it's significant to how I define and think of myself, while being aromantic and agender are just sort of... facts that forms sometimes request; probably largely because I settled on both those identities much later), and 2: frankly I haven't encountered aromantic or agender representation enough or in the right ways to experience this dynamic with them.  Or any dynamic, really.

**If you want to argue with me about the definition of What Is Really Truly Actually Asexual and how something I included Doesn't Count, please make a separate post and like, send me a link or something if you really want my opinion specifically.  My opinion is pretty firm but I'm willing to discuss it in good faith, but it's not the point of this post and I'd rather not go off on that tangent here.  Same if you want to argue that gray-asexuality ought to by default be included with the term 'asexual;' I don't honestly care either way on that one, I'm just describing the vocabulary I was familiar with at the time.

[affectedexistence]

Get to know me tag! I was tagged by @whoshugginghop 

Name: Meg

Birth year: 1991. I was born in a mirror world.

Sign: Fishies do the swim-swim.

Put your playlist on shuffle and name the first five songs

1. “Spirit Cold” Tall Heights

2. “Ribbon” Billie Marten

3. “In the Beginning” Fahrenhaidt, Alice Merton 

4. “The Night We Met” Lord Huron

5. “Until the Levee” Joy Williams

Grab the nearest book and turn to page 23. What’s the 17th line?

All of my book-books are in the closet of doom with all of my other earthly possessions, so picking from the top of my kindle library instead. Which means this is coming from a free Kindle read that I haven’t actually read. I also had to go to page 24 because the Kindle skipped from 22 to 24. Will I ever read this book? Probably not.

“-other faiths and developed her own brand of spirituality. But she hadn’t wanted to-”

(The Snow Gypsy by Lindsay Jayne Ashford)

Ever had a song or poem written about you?

Don’t think so. If you’ve written one about me (or want to take this opportunity to do so), let me know and send it my way. Especially if it’s a diss track. Keep me humble, folks. I do know people who have based characters off of me for their scripts, which has always been super flattering. 

When was the last time you played air guitar?

Probably a week ago, at my dad’s wedding reception. Twas much good times, and the band was fantastic. If you’re in Southern CA, I highly recommend them. They’re OC based, and they’re called Ragdoll. They did a series of classic rock covers and the female vocalist did a great job on Stevie Nicks songs. They were also super fun with the wedding group and let guests come up and sing with them, including the bride and groom. Previous to this, they’ve been one of my dad’s favorite bands, so he was super stoked that they did the reception. Check them out!

Celebrity crush(es)

In the traditional sense of a crush, eh. Ace/Aro here. But in the Friend-Crush kind of way, I think Robbie Sheehan would just be fantastically fun to be around. Him or Brendan Urie. Talented folks who I imagine could only make a person better to be around. 

What’s a sound you hate/love?

hate: chewing (if I can still hear you while wearing headphones blasting my music at full volume, you need to figure that shit out), fireworks (too unpredictable, the fourth of july is a nightmare, I feel nauseous the whole day), crying (not just like light crying, but that broken-hearted, nothing you can do to help, defeated sort of cry where it’s like the person’s soul is trying to flee them. it’s so hard to be around when I know I can’t do anything to help), animal pain shrieks (they deserve nothing but snuggles), background noise (I have tinnitus, which means I’m already sorting through lots of noise in my head to listen to people, when there’s music playing or someone else talking really loudly in the same room, I have a hard time hearing what people are saying because I can’t sift through all of the stimulus, and I hate having to ask them to repeat it five or six times)

love: waves, rain (also the smell of rain is perfection), blasting music in the car, my sister singing, cats purring, that little whine that dogs do when they want ear scratches, weirdly I like the sound of fabric rubbing against fabric (like that sheet noise that happens when you’re all snugged up in bed and you shift and the topsheet rubs against the bottom sheet. I don’t know why, but I really like that sound), towel-drying hair, shower (any kind of running water, honestly), the voices of people I feel safe around (jane, val, my parents, my sister, my new step-sister, my grandma, my cousin, my aunts and uncles)

Do you believe in ghosts?

To me it’s one of those things where I kind of want to believe, and there are times when I get close, but I don’t really believe in them. I think it’s not entirely impossible that if individual particles are capable of time-travel, that many particles could be time-traveling at the same time in which case an impression of a person or figure could be witnessed, but I don’t really believe in souls, so it’s kind of impossible for me to really believe in the traditional sort of ghosts.

Do you believe in aliens?

Insomuch as do other lifeforms exist outside of Earth, obviously. Perhaps even something resembling animal life, even intelligent life. But intelligent humanoids within our ability to contact? Profoundly unlikely.

Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

I love driving, and have driven cross-country six times. I’ve never crashed, though I have been in an accident during one of my cross-country drives where a van pulled into my lane, almost knocked me under a sixteen-wheeler, and then sped off down the next exit when I pulled off to the side. Also of note, I was in a convertible at the time, and if they’d hit me any harder, I probably would have gotten thrown under the trailer and gotten decapitated. 

Last book you read?

Oh, gosh. I couldn’t tell you. I have a tendency to read multiple books at a time and I have been focusing of script reading the past few months. Book-wise, the last few I’ve been cycling through are Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge, The Black Mage series by Rachel E. Carter, and basically any other female protag fantasy I can get my hands on because I love that shit unconditionally. Even the garbage. If it’s staring a female character who defies all expectations put on her by a patriarchal fantasy culture, I will eat it up with my bare fucking hands. SOUND LIKE A STORY YOU KNOW? TELL ME ABOUT IT AND I WILL DEVOUR IT. I also have a soft-spot in my heart for anything fantasy-assassin related.

Do you like the smell of gasoline?

I’m indifferent? It doesn’t bother me, but I’m not going to go shove my face in it.

Last movie you saw?

Bohemian Rhapsody, I’m not big on features but it was alright.

Do you have any obsessions right now?

Umbrella Academy as Vines Compilations. 

Do you tend to hold grudges?

Not if it’s for a wrong done to me, but I will hold a grudge forever if I think someone is fucking with people I care about. Like you can treat me like shit and I’ll probably be able to move past it because I have a lot of issues and I need people to like me, but if you fuck with my family (which for me includes my friends, without question) then I will never forgive or forget.

Are you in a relationship right now?

Yes. I am happily committed to my Playstation 4. Ours is a pure love. We stay up late talking into the wee hours of the morn. We rarely have communication issues, but when we do, I immediately seek to rectify the problem. 

So no. And not looking either. Not my jam.

I’ll tag... YOU! IF YOU’RE READING TO THIS POINT THEN YOU ARE CLEARLY INVESTED AND NOW YOU HAVE TO DO IT, I DON’T MAKE THE RULES, I JUST ANNOUNCE THEM IN ALL CAPS.

[marinsawakening]

I didn’t wanna derail the post by @aroworlds I just reblogged, but while we’re on the topic of ‘what to add to a post recommending arospec rep in fiction’, I have a request: please clarify whether the rep is actually canon, confirmed by Word of God to be canon using the words actual identity labels like  ‘arospec’,  ‘demiromantic’, aromantic’, etc., confirmed by Word of God to be canon using vague descriptors like ‘they are more interested in x than romance’, or if the rep is simply coded.

That’s the short of it, the long of it is this:

(Vocabulary: ‘Word of God’ means that the author said it outside of the source material, like JKR confirming Dumbledore is gay but never actually putting it in the series. ‘Author’, in this case, refers more to a general ‘creator’ of a media, which may be the author of a book, or the production team of a movie, or whoever else created it.)

As an autistic aroace, I’m more than used to seeing myself coded into characters, usually not in a nice way. More often than not, the aro-, ace-, and/or autism-coding is used as a flaw to overcome in characters, or something to mark them as ‘other’ (a robot, an alien, etc). Even if the coding doesn’t end up coming across as negative, the odds of it actually being intentional are really very low. I think that the only time I’ve actually come across autism-coding that turned out to be intentional was in Anne Ursu’s The Real Boy (which is very good and you should read it). I’ve never come across aspec coding, of any kind, that turned out to be intentional (I’m sure it exists, I just haven’t seen it, which should probably make it clear how rare it is). 

As such, seeing people recommend characters who are only coded as arospec as ‘canon aro rep’ really grates on me. There is a 99% chance that the author never intended for the character to be arospec, and now they’re getting the credit for creating one anyway. I understand that, oftentimes, arospec-coded characters are the closest we’re going to get to canon arospec rep, and I understand why people put these characters on lists when recommending media with arospec characters. But we can and should acknowledge that those characters do not count as canon rep unless they, at the very least, have been confirmed by Word of God to be canon. We need to hold creators to higher standards before giving them the credit for a diverse cast.

Jumping off that, I’m personally of the opinion that Word of God confirmation is not good enough unless the author had a damn good reason not to put the confirmation in the media itself, unfortunately, however, the vast majority of Word of God confirmations don’t seem to be so well-handled or necessary, especially not when it comes to arospec rep. For one, the word ‘aromantic’ (or another arospec identity label) is rarely used; instead we get vague descriptors like ‘x is too busy with y for romance’, which is, if you ask me, a giant cop-out if the character is being advertised as canon arospec rep. At worst, this indicates the author doesn’t actually know what aromanticism is, let alone that they’ve heard of any other arospec labels, and we end up latching on to ‘canon’ arospec characters who were never intended to be canon. At best, this means that the author does not deem it necessary to specifically use the rightful identity labels for a character; given the long history we have with unintentional arospec coding, the even longer history of obfuscation/general erasure of LGBT+ identities (especially bi/m-spec identities), and the general misinformation/lack of information about arospec identities, I’m sure I don’t have to explain why I stress the importance of actually using the right arospec labels when confirming a character as arospec.

If the author does explicitly use the right arospec labels, we then need to ask ourselves: “Did this author intend to write an arospec character, or did they accidentally write one and decided to confirm them as arospec after seeing how the character resonated with their arospec audience?” While I’d (obviously) prefer option a), that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily wrong of the author confirmed a character as arospec only after seeing fan reactions. In fact, it’s nice to be listened to! However, if the rep wasn’t intentional, it’s very possible that there are some canon elements that clash with the confirmation; this can cause problems down the line, because not everyone will have knowledge of the Word of God confirmation.

This is actually my biggest gripe with Word of God confirmation as a whole; not everyone will have knowledge of it. To come back to my example of The Real Boy, if I hadn’t decided to google whether Oscar was canonically intended to be autistic, I would never have known that he was. AKA, if I hadn’t had a vested interest in autistic rep and a very strong suspicion that this couldn’t be on accident, I would never have known about the Word of God confirmation. If an allistic person had read that book, the chance that they would’ve actually picked up on the autism-coding is significantly lower, and the odds of them caring enough to look it up even lower than that, meaning that they won’t know that Oscar is canonically autistic. While I think the Word of God confirmation was very well-handled in this particular case, it still doesn’t manage to avoid this trap, because it’s one inherent to Word of God confirmation: Word of God only reaches hardcore fans who keep up with the announcements made by the author, or the people who get suspicious and care enough to go looking for confirmation that they’re right. For something as important as LGBT+ rep (or rep for other marginalized identities), I feel like it’s exceedingly important to have the rep be as undeniable as possible, especially in the case of arospec identities, who (alongside many other LGBT+ identities, such as the aforementioned m-spec ones, but also intersex, nonbinary, and honestly just everyone who doesn’t fit into common narratives of their respective communities) are often erased or ignored even among the LGBT+ community, and who suffer from a severe lack of representation in the first place.

Still, Word of God confirmation is better than nothing, and a Word of God confirmation that explicitly mentions arospec identities is definitely better than one that doesn’t.

This entire post became thrice as long and six times as rambly as I wanted it to be, but the tl;dr is this: there is a significant difference between media that directly acknowledges that a character is arospec in-text, and media that implies it and confirms this by Word of God, and media that simply implies it and nothing more. We should not give authors who only imply an arospec character and then only vaguely confirm it the same respect and credit as we give authors who straight-up state a character is arospec in canon. Since we have little to no mainstream rep to go off of, I don’t mind people putting characters who are only arospec-coded on lists of canon arospec characters, but at the very least, I want acknowledgement that they’re not on the same level.

Also, on a personal level, if I’m seeking out media specifically for arospec rep, I would rather avoid media where the rep is even somewhat ambiguous; I’m sick and tired of seeing my identity teased but not confirmed in canon, and I don’t want to see it rewarded with the same praise as media that actually takes the time to make my identity canon.

[mxlxdroit]

i finished oathbringer!

yay! *confetti*

i can now unblock the oathbringer tag! woohoo!

it took me a month and a half to finish this book, all 1200-odd pages of it, and unfortunately, i’ve gotten a bit of book exhaustion. i enjoyed reading it, but it’s like reading a long trilogy of books in a very short amount of time, so i’m probably going to wait a while before tackling another cosmere book so i can get a breather and read some other stuff.

first off, i liked this book a lot! so much happened i’m not gonna go back and recap too many specific points right now, but there are a few things that i think were particularly important.

TL;DR oathbringer was good and had a lot of cute and funny stuff but it dragged a bit and got a bit too heavy for me a few times. i’m now shakadolin trash, Dalinar’s like fifty and he finally storming learned how to read, Lopen and his spren flipped off the Stormfather, and there are lots of good messages about agency and responsibility. oh, and lots of people stabbing each other

thematically, a lot of oathbringer is about choosing to take responsibility for your actions (or not. looking at you, Moash). this is most clear in Dalinar’s case, as his main character development is confronting the evil he did in his past, including killing his wife and burning thousands of people to death along with her. he has to admit what he did and take responsibility for it within himself in order to be able to resist Odium (speaking of which, What Is Up with Cultivation? i feel like i know so little about her. since Honor and Odium have spren and surges and all that jazz does Cultivation have them, too? D: i don’t know). Adolin has to admit to killing Sadeas, Venli has to realize that bringing back the Fused was a bad call, and the entire human race have to figure out what to do when they learn that they are the Voidbringers and invaded Roshar (i’m sure this is going to be a prominent theme in Stormlight 4, because it’s a huge deal and they barely talked about it). Not only do the characters have to confront their pasts and the truths there, however unpleasant, they have to decide what to do next. the story doesn’t end with a big reveal. life goes on, and they have to decide what steps to take and what future they want. the most important step a person can take is the next, if you will. in many ways, that is what the Ideals of the Radiants are for- life sucks, so what are you going to do to make it a little less terrible? and therein lies the connection between responsibility and agency. Moash’s internal dialogue about how nothing he regrets is his fault also means that none of the good things he’ve done belong to him. he gives up ownership over his life and himself and gives away his agency. he won’t be able to make meaningful decisions about his own life because he doesn’t want to anymore. Dalinar, on the other hand, accepts all of his past as his, including the good he has done, accepting his own agency over his actions and allowing himself to use his experiences to inform his decisions in the future.

on a kind of related point, honesty also leads to forgiveness. Shallan has to forgive herself for things that weren’t her fault and find a way to acknowledge the horrors of her past without letting them consume her. she isn’t all the way there- i don’t know if she’ll ever be able to be fully comfortable in herself, but i don’t doubt that she is going to continue getting better throughout the rest of the series. Kaladin has to forgive himself for not being able to save everyone, though he’s been figuring that out since book one, so it wasn’t a big part of his story in oathbringer. Teft comes to a kind of reconciliation with himself and is able to let himself start moving forward.

overall, it’s a “forgive, but don’t forget” kind of thing. don’t deny the bad stuff you’ve done or that has been done to you, don’t blind yourself to the truth, and act accordingly, but also don’t let your past hold you back or decide that you aren’t worthy of becoming a better person. it’s some important stuff

smaller-stuff-wise, uhhhhhhhh

-the scene in hearthstone was adorable i love Kaladin’s family and Kaladin being happy and getting to see his baby brother it was such a sweet part of the book

-Dalinar and Navani had the most dramatic wedding imaginable. they’re Kholins

-Shallan and Adolin! i’m so happy with how sanderson handled their whole pseudo-love-triangle thing (although this book turned me into shameless shakadolin trash (everyone has a crush on kaladin stormblessed 2kOathbringer) so that’s a thing and also since Veil isn’t gone i don’t think Shallan’s whole ‘wow Kaladin’s hot’ thing is gonna be totally gone) and their wedding was sweet

-Elhokar. wow. i didn’t see that one coming AT ALL and it’s really sad! i’m glad Gavinor’s okay though. a+++++ job to Skar and Drehy and Shallan’s guardsmen for remembering to keep him safe

-i love Wit. he’s fantastic. he’s obviously kind of an asshole but some of his scenes (the ones with Shallan and the epilogue) show that he can be very kind “Sadeas counts twice” yep pretty much. also we got two new names for him? and he bonded a Cryptic. this man

-Lopen flipping the Stormfather off... perfect

-Shallan recreating an entire play that she saw as a child... and doing it again later... i could imagine it so vividly and it was beautiful

-Kaladin’s suffering is just... never going to end. branderson just enjoys making him sad all the time and i resent that because he’s my favorite character in SA

-Venli is going to save the listeners and i’m so ready for it. it’s going to be a long, tough journey but i believe in her she’s so strong

-hmmmmmm interesting that branderson was like “HERE’S A GAY CHARACTER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH” when a bunch of his characters are written (even if it’s an accident) to be Bisexual(tm)/Polysexual(tm)

-Lift and Szeth are a good team. i’m gonna draw him ice-skating at some point

-Adolin, Kaladin, AND Jasnah insulting Amaram... good... also Jasnah marrying Amaram is a terrible thought. both of them would be miserable even if Amaram wasn’t openly working for Odium. also is Jasnah supposed to be under the ace/aro umbrella or is she allo but not interested?

-people have been calling Jasnah a queen for ages and now look at what happened! long live queen Jasnah she is one of the most qualified leaders alethkar has ever had or will ever have

-i like Nightblood a lot. wanna destroy some evil today?

-Kaladin picking up a rock at the end of the battle :’)

-Rock firing a shardbow was surprising. i found the parts he narrated interesting because he knows a lot more than he lets on. i’m excited to see more from him in SA 4

-some of the heralds still think ishar is sane but he is NOT

-Moash straight-up stabbed a Herald! he takes the cake from Kelsier. punching gods is no longer enough

-sanderson is making Kaladin’s depression more explicit and i think he’s doing a good job. knowing that his parents are alive and safe helps, and being around people he loves helps, and having a purpose and path in life is really important for him, but his depression is still there, just like Teft’s addiction is still there, and Dalinar’s tendency towards alcoholism is still there, and Shallan’s tendency to repress trauma is still there. he still gets depressed during the Weepings and when he is forced to question the ideals that he has chosen to follow, and that’s very realistic, which is good

-DALINAR IS LEARNING TO READ! FINALLY

-and generally gender roles getting smashed is good. Lyn and Malata and Shallan and Jasnah and the other female Windrunner scouts all fighting and Dalinar learning to read and even little things like sanderson letting Kaladin cry over his baby brother were wonderful to read

-also everyone’s gotta stop making fun of Renarin for being a scholar and start paying attention to stuff instead

-Evi. Evi. Evi.

-Adolin and Shallan being the PDA couple of this series and disturbing the Good Alethis around them

my main criticism of oathbringer overall is that it was really heavy compared to the rest of the stormlight archive. the battle scenes were REALLY LONG and full of lots of main characters getting stabbed, and the philosophical weight of the decisions they all have to make is just getting heavier and heavier. there are definitely funny moments, especially in bridge four sections and a lot of the character interactions in non-conflict scenes. and every bird being a chicken. and the boots thing. how many pairs has kaladin lost now? anyways, almost every scene felt like it existed to serve a specific purpose and move the plot along, which is part of why i got book fatigue. there weren’t enough breathers, which usually isn’t an issue in sanderson’s pacing, so i’d assume that it won’t be a big issue going forwards? maybe it’s just me trying to leach as much meaning from every sentence as i can and if i just relaxed and enjoyed the book then it wouldn’t be so exhausting

also, this post (btw thanks op that’s a great summary) says that the stormlight archive (and i think by extension the cosmere as a whole) is anti-grimdark. while i mostly agree, i think some of the moral relativism and “you’ve been accidentally evil the entire time!”s in oathbringer have leaned it a little more towards (sometimes gratuitous (looking at u, mr. stormblessed, u, ms. lightweaver, and in this book, especially u, mr. dad kholin)) angst, which is another reason for the book fatigue. it’s not unnecessary, and it leads to character and plot development, but it got to be too much for me sometimes. then again, i’m a teenager and these books are written for adults, so maybe that’s a factor- moral relativism might be hitting a bit too close to home for me

ANYWAYS! i’ll probably write some more, smaller posts about OB but this is what i have for now! cfsbf, y’all

[lynfantasy]

This is YOUR fault!! -- fanfic

For Lotor Week 2017 @voltronweeks Day 2: Broken (sorry this is a day late) AO3 link

Summary: Lotor was honestly minding his own business, just walking around campus at Voltron University, when a random girl ran into him. It really wasn't his fault her laptop broke, but, well, it's easier to just agree when a feisty redhead girl starts yelling at you.

Genfic, no shipping, Lotor & Pidge (platonic)

Human AU, College/University AU, fluff

Rated for general audiences

Warning: cursing, yelling

I’m sure that this prompt was meant to be deep and/or angsty, but have a broken laptop instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be fair, it really wasn’t actually Lotor’s fault, but, well, when a feisty redhead girl screams in your face that it is, there’s really no way to fight that. It’s far easier to just… go along with it. Case in point: Lotor was minding his own business, walking through campus at Voltron University at a brisk but unhurried pace, certainly not fast enough to pose any real risk to anyone traveling at a reasonable speed.

Unfortunately, one particular girl was flat-out running straight at him, and Lotor did not have time to do much more than slow down before she directly collided with him. Lotor took a step back to avoid falling, but he was otherwise unaffected. The girl didn’t fare quite so well; her own momentum had caused her to bounce off of him and fall on her backside, and her unzipped backpack and its contents were sprawled across the pavement. Her round glasses sat askew on her nose, and the flannel shirt tied around her waist had been shifted down to her hips as she’d slid back slightly in her fall. When she moved her arms, it was clear to see that her elbows had been scraped up pretty badly, nearly to the point of bleeding. She groaned in pain as she gently shifted her weight, trying to get up.

Lotor offered a hand to her and said, “Oh dear, are you alright? You should really be more careful, running around campus like that.”

Her expression turned sour at the implication that the incident was her fault (which, to be fair, it really was), but she accepted his hand, so Lotor gently pulled her up to her feet and helped steady her, only letting go of her hand once he was sure that she wouldn’t fall down again. “Thanks,” she muttered as she brushed herself off and set her glasses straight, “but I was being careful enough! You need to watch where you’re going too, you know!”

Lotor felt… strangely uncomfortable. At his previous university, no one would have dared to speak to him like that, but he didn’t have the same reputation here at Voltron University that he did at Galra University (for a good reason – he rather hoped, actually, that no one would make the connection between Lotor Imperator, son of President Zarkon Imperator of Galra University, and Lotor “Sincline” here at Voltron University). He froze for a moment, biting back a harsh reply and composing himself before saying, “I do apologize for my speed; however, you underestimate your own. I did see you right before you hit, but I simply did not have enough time to properly react.”

She glared at him with fury in her large, honey-colored eyes. She was probably trying to intimidate him or at least make him feel the force of her wrath, but she mostly just looked rather cute and child-like with her wide eyes behind her large glasses. Her short, reddish-brown hair was doing her no favors either as it fluffed around her round face and made her look pretty adorable. She reminded Lotor of an anime character or a particularly grumpy kitten.

She glared at him for at least five seconds before she finally broke eye contact with a huff and said, “Fine, whatever. Can you at least help me pick up my books?” Without waiting for a reply, she began gathering her stuff and shoving it back into her too-small backpack.

Lotor began to help her gather up her books, but he’d only picked up a few when he heard her cry of dismay. He looked over to see her gingerly picking up her obviously-damaged laptop. She opened the screen to reveal cracks spread across the screen from the lower right corner, emanating outwards like rays of light while twisting and branching like lightning. It would have been almost beautiful if it wasn’t such a costly loss.

“Damn it!” the girl yelled. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck…” She carefully pressed the button to turn it on, and her expression was simultaneously relieved and pained when the screen came on, illuminating the cracks but proving that the computer itself still worked aside from the broken screen. She gently closed the laptop before taking her flannel shirt tied around her waist and using it to wrap up the broken piece of tech to protect it from further damage before sliding it into her backpack. She then turned to Lotor with an absolutely enraged expression. “YOU BASTARD!! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!!”

Putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender, Lotor took a couple steps back as the girl marched over to him. “Please, calm down,” he placated. “This isn’t my fault.”

“THE HELL IT ISN’T!!” she yelled, and Lotor instinctually tensed up in response. The girl sneered as she looked at him. “Some rich kid striding around campus like you own the place, not bothering to look out for people because you assume the world’s gonna bend around you—”

“I’ll pay for it!” Lotor blurted out in an attempt to make her stop with her accusations. He was certain that she didn’t even know how accurate those statements had been to the kind of person he used to be, the kind of person he was trying very, very hard not to be now that he had a second chance. “I… I can cover the expense. I’ll pay for it. Just tell me how much.”

The girl froze; she obviously hadn’t expected him to cooperate so easily. Her anger was replaced with suspicion as she looked him up and down, reevaluating. Finally, she seemed to accept his offer. “Alright,” she said, “but it’s not going to be as simple as just buying a new one. I built this.”

Lotor swallowed harshly, but he kept his tone even as he replied, “I can pay compensation for your time and buy you all of the spare parts you need. Money is not an issue.”

“Of course,” she scoffed. “Rich kid like you going to make your daddy pay for it?”

Literally biting his lip to keep himself from rising to her challenge, Lotor took a few deep breaths. “Actually,” he finally started in a measured tone, “I have been… cut off from my family’s fortune. However, I managed to steal large sums of money from my parents before that happened, and I am now using that money to invest. That is why money is not an issue. If you have some sort of distaste for stealing from the rich, I’m afraid I cannot help you.”

“Oh.” Finally, she looked at least a little apologetic. “Right, okay. Um. I have no problem with that. I’m sure it was justified.”

“How much money do you need?”

The girl fidgeted uncomfortably, absent-mindedly playing with the edge of her shirt. “I’ll have to assess the damage, search for parts both online and in-person… and this model is getting fairly old, so I might have some trouble buying new parts…”

“Perhaps you could use this as an opportunity for an upgrade?” Lotor suggested.

She eyed him with a hint of her former suspicion. “I guess I could, but I’d be starting from scratch. I’d love to do that as a side-project, and the end result would be worthwhile, but the cost—”

“—is unimportant,” Lotor insisted. “I will buy you a high-end laptop if that is what you want.”

“Why?”

Lotor hesitated, considering his words. Finally, he answered, “I have treated people in ways I am not proud of in the past. I cannot really make amends – most would not give me the chance to – but perhaps I can pay kindness forward?” He stopped, hoping that this was enough of an answer, but the girl kept looking at him with an intensely questioning gaze until he added, “Also, your words rather stung, and I was rather hoping to prove you wrong by showing how generous I can be.”

The girl gave an amused snort of laughter and finally cracked a smile. “Alright,” she relented, “I’ll let you buy me a better model. Just let me do some research first.”

“Right, of course. May I give you my number?” Lotor offered.

She gave him a deadpan look. “I’m ace. And aro.”

“Good for you. I’m gay, but that does not change the fact that you will need a way to contact me if I am to pay for your replacement computer.”

“Oh,” she said softly, cheeks coloring a little with embarrassment at her assumption. “Right, okay. Maybe an email instead? I prefer that to phone calls.”

Lotor nodded and agreed, “Of course, not a problem. Should I write it down, or…?”

“One sec.” The girl pulled out her phone and poked at the screen a few times before saying, “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Alright, it’s Sincline, that’s S-I-N-C-L-I-N-E, dot Lotor, L-O-T-O-R, at Voltron dot E-D-U.”

“Sincline.Lotor@Voltron.edu?” she read back to verify.

“Yes.”

“Perfect. And the name…?”

“Lotor Sincline.”

The girl paused for a second before laughing a little at herself. “Right, that should’ve been obvious. Okay. I’ll email you soon.”

Lotor hesitated for only a moment before asking, “What is your name, if you don’t mind?”

“Pidge Holt,” she replied without any pause. “I mean, technically my name is Katie, but everyone calls me Pidge.”

“Well met, Pidge.”

“Uh…” Pidge seemed a little uncertain about the formal greeting. “Same, dude. Lotor. Yeah.”

Lotor stifled a chuckle and ignored the pang in his chest as he thought of his old friends at Galra University. The girls would have probably liked Pidge a lot. Still, there was no reason to dwell on the past. Lotor watched as Pidge struggled to fit everything into her backpack, which looked ready to bust at the seams. “Perhaps I should buy you a new backpack, too,” he offered, only half-joking.

“Dude that would – Do you mind if I call you dude? I call everyone dude, even Allura – that would be amazing because I swear this thing is gonna fall apart any day.”

‘Allura Altea?’ Lotor wondered, but he decided to save that question for another time. “I’ll buy you one, then,” he replied. “And I do not… I really don’t mind.”

“Okay, cool.” Pidge swung the backpack up onto her shoulder. “Well, later then!”

Lotor smiled. “Yes, I… I’ll see you later.”

As Pidge walked away, Lotor couldn’t quite shake the warm, happy feeling that he’d just made a new friend.