#and like I’m just…so confused…how in the world does that make him/his speech homophobic

[bloodfreak-boyking]

when people get on here and say with their whole chest that Sam’s speech in Sacrifice (specifically the part where he says “Who are you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel? Another vampire?”) is homophobic, another media literacy angel has its wings violently ripped off and is cast to hell

[hakasims]

The Most In-depth Analysis of Luca Marinelli’s Characters You’ll Ever Need

You’d think I was done with classifications, but I’m not! There’s so much more I can say about Luca Marinelli’s oeuvre and his magnificent roster of characters. And yes, I’ve made this post before where I highlighted specific tropes that show up in a lot of his movies, but that was surface-level shit. This is an actual exploration of what makes a Luca Marinelli character besides being a kinky little whore. And don’t worry, it’s still in that user-friendly question-answer format because I love you.

Here’s the thing: Luca is a chameleon but he also has a type, and this type is:

✨ a (likely) queer repressed addict with daddy issues ✨

That’s the skeleton. Let’s see how many of his major roles possess that skeleton at all and what flavors they add to the picture.

Disclaimer: I excluded characters with little screen time and Joseph from Mary of Nazareth because he doesn’t deserve rights. Also, instead of going in the boring chronological order, I’m gonna start with the least typical character for Luca and end with the crème de la crème. The results may not surprise you.

Nicky (The Old Guard)

Is he queer? Undeniably.

Is he repressed? No.

Does he have an addiction? No.

Does he have daddy issues? I know we’re all deeply affected by our shitty father figures but I would genuinely question Nicky’s sanity if he were still on that shit at the ripe age of 951. A little tip for daddy-hating immortals out there: just do what Angel did and kill your shitty dad. Problem solved.

Is he violent? Despite doling out tons of violence, he doesn’t have a violent nature and seems uninterested in hating his enemy or delivering retribution.

Does he need a good night sleep? I’m sure nothing helps one sleep better than a Joe-shaped big spoon.

Does he need a good cry? Doesn’t seem like it.

Flavors: A perfect immortal warrior bean in a healthy relationship.

Conclusion: Ironically but unsurprisingly, Nicky is the least Luca-like character.

Guido (Tutti i santi giorni)

Is he queer? I don’t believe so but who knows? If someone told me he’s demisexual, I’d believe it.

Is he repressed? The movie may disagree, but I say yes, obviously.

Does he have an addiction? Not unless you count his romantic relationship.

Does he have daddy issues? His family is so supportive and wholesome it’s almost parodic.

Is he violent? He’s the opposite of a toxic macho dude, but then he has a violent outburst out of nowhere because the movie is bad.

Does he need a good night sleep? He doesn’t like sleeping at night.

Does he need a good cry? Naturally.

Flavors: An adorkable awkward nerd with flowery speech.

Conclusion: I can forgive straightness and wholesomeness but I can’t forgive lack of complexity.

Martin (Martin Eden)

Is he queer? I don’t believe so.

Is he repressed? Yes.

Does he have an addiction? No.

Does he have daddy issues? Not to my knowledge.

Is he violent? When he deems it necessary to be.

Does he need a good night sleep? Sure.

Does he need a good cry? Cry your little heart out, Martin!

Flavors: An arrogant, pretentious, politically confused writer.

Conclusion: A little too straight for your typical Luca, but he makes up for it with being complex and complicated.

Loris (Il mondo fino in fondo)

Is he queer? I don’t believe so.

Is he repressed? So fucking repressed!

Does he have an addiction? Nothing beyond his savior complex.

Does he have daddy issues? He has a shitty dad he’s spent his whole life trying to please, and also his mommy left, so like yeah, obviously.

Is he violent? He has his straight dude moments.

Does he need a good night sleep? Definitely.

Does he need a good cry? Oh yeah, let him cry, it’s good for him.

Flavors: A casually homophobic mother hen.

Conclusion: Ruined by heterosexual agenda.

Lui (Ricordi?)

Is he queer? I don’t believe so.

Is he repressed? Very.

Does he have an addiction? No.

Does he have daddy issues? A big sack of them.

Is he violent? No.

Does he need a good night sleep? Oh yes. To sleep, perchance to dream about anything other than his traumatic memories.

Does he need a good cry? So much.

Flavors: Up-his-butt and pensive.

Conclusion: Leave it to Luca to take a guy who would be an absolute nightmare in real life and turn him into someone I actually want to watch for two hours and see happy by the end.

Gabriele (Waves)

Is he queer? There’s evidence he might be gay.

Is he repressed? I’d bet on it.

Does he have an addiction? Doesn’t seem like it.

Does he have daddy issues? Nobody knows.

Is he violent? No.

Does he need a good night sleep? He probably will with how the movie ended.

Does he need a good cry? At least one.

Flavors: A sweet introverted guy who loves boats.

Conclusion: While not particularly complex, Gabriele has layers and nuances. Also give him a big muscular daddy.

Fabrizio (Fabrizio de André - Principe libero)

Is he queer? I don’t believe so.

Is he repressed? He was before music became his only career.

Does he have an addiction? Alcohol, cigarettes, sex, cheating - take your pick.

Does he have daddy issues? Not as bad as some of the other guys here but he’s heard his fair share of “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” speeches.

Is he violent? He’s soft.

Does he need a good night sleep? He’s an artist, what do you think?

Does he need a good cry? He’s an artist, what do you think?

Flavors: Fabrizio de André is the flavor.

Conclusion: Even though it’s a biopic, there are still many Luca-isms there. He’s just that kind of actor.

Milton (Una questione privata)

Is he queer? It could be argued that he is bisexual.

Is he repressed? Do you even need to ask?

Does he have an addiction? About half of the breaths he takes are filled with cigarette smoke.

Does he have daddy issues? He seems to have a good and loving relationship with both his parents.

Is he violent? Not by nature.

Does he need a good night sleep? Yep.

Does he need a good cry? He certainly does.

Flavors: A repressed bisexual feeling powerless in a horrible world.

Conclusion: This is proof that Luca can carry a whole entire movie on his sexy shoulders, alone. Also Milton needs a safe and loving triad.

Mattia (La solitudine dei numeri primi)

Is he queer? I personally read him as asexual. Though assigning asexuality to characters who are traumatized is a dangerous path so don’t quote me on this, okay?

Is he repressed? Just the most repressed.

Does he have an addiction? It’s debatable whether self-harm and eating disorders can be considered addictions, but they’re part of his character, and I thought you should know.

Does he have daddy issues? His parents played their part in messing him up which then led to the big thing that really messed him up, though other than that his dad is barely a presence.

Is he violent? Not at all.

Does he need a good night sleep? At least 17 hours.

Does he need a good cry? Oh, so much. He needs all the cry.

Flavors: A quiet genius with lots of guilt.

Conclusion: Can you believe this was his first film role? Our boy is talented af!

Fabio (Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot)

Is he queer? Undeniably.

Is he repressed? You could argue that he is repressed by being limited in his place in social hierarchy.

Does he have an addiction? Amazingly enough, no. He has fixations, though.

Does he have daddy issues? Thinking his father was a loser and not wanting to end up like him is textbook stuff.

Is he violent? Very.

Does he need a good night sleep? Yes please.

Does he need a good cry? He needs to purge his soul from all the bottled up stuff.

Flavors: A campy psycho.

Conclusion: Luca’s most iconic character, so of course he scored high on the list.

Paolo (Il padre d’Italia)

Is he queer? Undeniably.

Is he repressed? I can’t even start listing all the ways in which he’s repressed.

Does he have an addiction? He smokes a lot.

Does he have daddy issues? His issues are more of a mommy variety.

Is he violent? Not in the slightest.

Does he need a good night sleep? He’s the poster boy for needing a good night sleep.

Does he need a good cry? A good cry, a good weep, a good sob, a good bawl, *googles more synonyms* a good wail, a good squall...

Flavors: A self-loathing gay orphan in need of some life goodness.

Conclusion: What can I say about Paolo that all of you aren’t already thinking? Decent film, great character, excellent portrayal.

Mickey (Die Pfeiler der Macht)

Is he queer? Undeniably.

Is he repressed? It’s Victorian England, you guys.

Does he have an addiction? He smokes casually but other than that... eh. And don’t tell me he has sex addiction. He uses his body strategically.

Does he have daddy issues? If what he has isn’t daddy issues, I don’t know what is.

Is he violent? He’s got tons of bottled up aggression.

Does he need a good night sleep? It would be great if he could use the day’s darkest hours for sleeping.

Does he need a good cry? Undeniably.

Flavors: A conniving slut extraordinaire.

Conclusion: A major player in the book (says me who managed like 50 pages), Mickey Miranda was turned into such a nothing character in the miniseries that they needed a truly extraordinary actor to make him memorable. And guess what, Luca delivered.

Cesare (Non essere cattivo)

Is he queer? Not explicitly, but come on.

Is he repressed? Lethally.

Does he have an addiction? He’s an addiction textbook.

Does he have daddy issues? *Jake Peralta voice* Yeah, the guy without a daddy is the one with daddy issues. Explain that logic.

Is he violent? Oh yeah, he’s a rabid little trash goblin.

Does he need a good night sleep? So much.

Does he need a good cry? He’s had his fair share of good cries, but he could always use more.

Flavors: A aimless junkie.

Conclusion: The quintessential Luca. Beautiful.

Primo (Trust)

Is he queer? Listen, just because we don’t see him fuck a dude on screen it doesn’t mean he isn’t a motherfluffing queer icon. It’s not subtext; it’s TEXT.

Is he repressed? Where do I even fucking start?

Does he have an addiction? Oh yeah. And a coke nail to prove it.

Does he have daddy issues? I would need a whole separate post to unpack his daddy issues.

Is he violent? So very violent.

Does he need a good night sleep? Yes, please. On an actual bed in an actual bedroom.

Does he need a good cry? You can just tell.

Flavors: A ruthless criminal with a strong mafia boss potential.

Conclusion: The pièce de résistance of the Luca Marinelli filmography. Not only does he tick every box, he gets bonus points for the excellent wardrobe choices that emphasize Luca’s best features. Primo Nizzuto is everything great you want from Luca, except singing. (Though in my headcanon that whole white car in a snowstorm monologue was a musical number.)

[emiefaunwrites]

Hi hi! I’m back! I made a promise to be nicer to Taka and Leon and I’m gonna keep it! Perhaps Taka and Leon have run into a few Karens in public who aren’t too keen on seeing two boys holding hands in public. They would absolutely OWN the Karens! Not sure how, maybe they’ll purposefully make out in front of them or something lol. Up to you how they deal with them lol. If you don’t like that idea, there’s also this one

Taka getting drunk for the first time haha

Heyyyyy!! 😊😊

ASDFGHJKL I so want to do both of your requests but my HC posts are so long that it would clog up space...so I'll go with the first one. BUT please feel free to ask me about drunk Taka separately. I has some thought on this one 😎

Ohhh yeah, I've also had thoughts on dickead people being dickheads towards their relationship. I have a PRETTY specific one for BA (which is lightyears away 😭) so it'll be nice to channel parts of it in this AU.

Trigger warning for homophobic slurs underneath (I've tried to allude to them as much as I can rather than say them but it is used once). So if you're offended by it, please don't read. But the bastards will get their comeuppance, let's be sure of that!!

Thank you so much as always for the ask! I hope this is what you were after!

************************

• Taka isn't really a fan of too much PDA - hand holding and hugging is fine, but kissing beyond a peck on the cheek is a bit too much for him (unless he's caught up in the moment - which has happened!)

• It isn't because of any fears of what people will think about his sexuality - he's quite naive when it comes to that.

• It's literally because he's watched kids making out in public before and knows it makes the people around them uncomfortable.

• When it comes to his sexuality, Taka's out and proud because he's just not had that negativity towards him (about the only part of him that he WASN'T bullied about since his gay awakening happened in Hope's Peak).

• Leon, on the other, has experienced homophobia first hand.

• And despite his loud personality, it took him a good while to feel 100% comfortable holding Taka's hand in public without feeling paranoid.

• But after about a year together and with all the support of his friends and family, he begins to forget how nasty people can be.

• Until it all comes crashing down on them.

• It's their second summer together and they've decided to head into the city for a date.

• They head to a cafe that Leon introduced to them in the Spring - ran by a family friend.

• They walk in, hand-in-hand, and Leon tells Taka to find them a seat - pecking him on the cheek before heading to the counter.

• As he's taking the order, he feels eyes on the back of his head. Unfriendly eyes.

• He tries his best to ignore them, taking their hot chocolates back to their table and striking up a conversation.

• But as Taka reaches over the table to take hold of his hand, he spots the source of the gaze.

• It's a middle aged woman and her husband, glaring daggers at them with a look of disgust on their face.

• And Leon knows exactly what the problem is.

• His walls go right up as all his insecurities coming flooding back, huddling into himself and pulling his hand roughly away from a confused Taka.

• 'Are you okay?'

• 'Mm.'

• 'What's the matter?'

• When Leon doesn't answer, Taka leans over and tries to brush his fingers over Leon's face.

• At the same time that Leon mutters a teary 'stop it', Taka hears what the problem is.

• Because the husband has scoffed in disgust and the woman has called them something rather disgusting.

• Now this is Taka's first time dealing with someone like this. But he knows it isn't Leon's and can see his boyfriend shrinking away in shame.

• And to see Leon like this flips a switch in his mind that doesn't normally flip.

• He spins around to glare at the the two, anger coursing through his veins.

• 'I'm sorry - can you repeat that?'

• The couple's faces twist further, announcing that people like THEM shouldn't be allowed in public. It's disgusting, immoral...

• 'As Hope Peak's Ultimate Moral Compass, I think you'll find I know FAR more about what's considered immoral. And being in love with my BOYFRIEND is NOT on the list. HOMOPHOBIA from narrow minded assholes IS though. So I suggest you back the hell off and leave us alone.'

• The entire cafe is silent, all holding their breath as they wait to see what happens next.

• Leon's peeking up at Taka with awe, lip trembling as he fights their corner so bravely and confidently.

• He can even see the owner getting ready to step in if it goes too far.

• Which it very nearly does when the husband rises out of his seat to scream homophobic slurs and general disgusting language at Taka.

• But Taka does not back down - rising out of his seat, dragging Leon to his feet and pointedly pulling him into a kiss, wrapping one arm around his waist while cupping his cheek with the other.

• Leon barely has a chance to respond before Taka's pulled away, pulling Leon against his chest as he twists his head back to address the husband.

• 'Once I'm Prime Minister, I'll make damn sure that 'people like us' can live freely without fear of being judged for something as simple as loving another person. And if loving this man makes me a 'faggot', then I'll tattoo the word on my forehead for the world to see and wear it with pride.'

• The cafe explodes in applause, Leon starts sobbing happily and the cafe owner bans the couple from his establishment.

• For the rest of the day, Taka is particularly insistent on PDA - walking around with his arm wrapped around Leon'a waist, kissing him on the lips even if there's no call for it.

• Anyone who even looks at them weird receive the same death glare as earlier.

• And Leon never needs to feel self-conscious ever again (and so doesn't parrot the speech that Taka gives whenever he's confronted again. Not at all...).

• (And Taka so doesn't get proud whenever he does.)

[ladyartemisia28]

Loop of Despair: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: In the End.

Title reference to the cover by Tommee Profitt.

Word count: 1,740

Warnings: Homophobic Language, self harm, blood, & vomit.

Authors Note: Happy late Groundhog day and I'm sorry

Homophobic Language will be used, I will be marking where it will be starting and where it will be ending.

~

Dean momentarily blacked out as his heart began to physically fail him. He found himself coming back to consciousness standing hunched over near the entrance to the room. Dean was unable even able to look at Castiel.

The ghost of Castiel's mouth whispered against his own.

“Did it work?” Cas asks

“Uh, huh” Dean mumbles.

Dean just replays the memory.

The idea of repeating that particular version of the loop was tempting.

‘But that would not stop Cas from dying’

“There is one thing that can.”

He nodded numbly along to his disclosure of the trade his life for Jack's.

Castiel continues his speech to a Dean who was not capable of listening.

“Because the one thing I want is something I know I can't have.”

All Dean wants to do in that moment is response with his own words.

He was at a complete loss. He didn't know what else he could do.

'I've tried to tell him this is a loop and THAT was a waste of time, I've tried to throw myself into the Empty, and I let myself get cut through by that scythe. I tried to gently reject him....'

'I tried to...tried to..'

He couldn't finish that sentence in his mind. All his mind came out was the imagery of Cas's blood.

'And last I tried to tell or I guess show him how I felt.'

'And nothing'

“But I think I know, I think I know now. Happiness isn't in the having...it's in just being it's in just saying it.”

'The problem is that he is still happy. Either someone dies or he gets taken'

“What are you talking about Man?” he replies automatically.

'So what I have to do is make sure we both survive AND he is unhappy,'

Cas has a brighter expression on his face as he takes a step forward towards Dean.

'Look at him.'

“I know, I know how you see yourself Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you.

'Ruin his happiness'

“You're destructive, you're angry, You're Broken. You're Daddy's blunt instrument.”

'Take all of the most hurtful things you can think of and say them!'

“You think that hate and anger that's what drives you, that's who you are.”

'I don't want to do this'

“It's not. And everyone who know so you sees it. Everything you have done the good and the bad you have done for Love.”

'Come on, Think of something else!'

“You raise your little brother for love, You fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are.”

Dean can no longer hold his gaze.

'anything'

“You're the most caring man on earth. You are the most selfless loving human being I will ever know.”

'Time is running out!'

Dean had heard Cas's words more than enough time to memorize everything from the words themselves, to the cadence, to the breaks and breaths.

“You know ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of hell” a tear rolls slowly down Cas's right eye “Knowing you has changed me. Because you cared I cared. I cared about you, I cared about Sam I cared about Jack I cared about the whole world because of you”

“You changed me Dean”

'I just want you to live...no I NEED you to live!'

“Why does this sound like a goodbye” Dean replies his previous words slower to hopefully stall for more time.

He looks at the slowly approaching figure of Cas until he is once again within arms reach.

'This is save his life'

“Because it is”

“I love you”

He closes his eyes and clenches his jaw with force to keep his response silent.

Dean hears The Empty appear.

'Showtime'

~

~

~

~

~

*BEGINING OF SPEECH*

Dean shoves Castiel away.

“What the Hell Cas?!” Dean says forcing his voice out harshly.

Cas looks hurt but still not sad enough.

He repeated the words that when he would imagine Castiel would reply to Dean's confession

“I...I'm not interested in that...that is NOT something I Could EVER want!”

Dean felt as though he was swallowing a golf ball.

Cas had previously told him that he understood when Dean gave him the gentle version of a rejection.

So him nodding along to Dean's words were tragic but not surprising.

'You deserve the world Cas. You deserve much better than this.'

Dean remembered when he was thirteen or so maybe fourteen. That was when he first realized that he was attracted to boys as well as girls.

It was 1993 or so. He had never heard of the word bisexual so he was conflict incarnate.

He had just enough youthful bravery to try and make a move on a middle school crush.

His name was Mitchell and he had bonded with Dean over a shared interest in music.

As they sat in the parking lot behind the gas and sip.

He remember every word that the boy had said to Dean in return.

The ones that burned him.

The ones that made him curse himself for ever being so vulnerable.

'I was never so happy to move away.'

“I can't believe I thought we were friends! So as we were hanging out, watching movies, you what? Wanted to shove your tongue down my throat?”

“Anytime we touched....I....you” Dean paused his lies momentarily as he catches his voice waver with the wrong sort of emotion. He clears his throat to reset his voice.

“It make my skin crawl”

He could see Cas looking like he was going to say something. Dean would falter if he hears Cas’s voice so he quickly cut him off.

“...You disgust me.”'

He held his breathe and sees that Billie has been taken by The Empty but it has paused as if it was watching the pair.

'That must mean I'm ruining this moment for him. Go more hurtful.'

Cas's face looked similar to the time that he kicked the newly human man out of the bunker years ago, confused and hurt.

Dean pulled more of his deeply painful memories to the surface.

When it came to romance he was not brave enough to try again with another boy until he was 16. He was the son of a hunter that they were working on a case with. They were hanging out alone in the motel room.

This time it reciprocated.

But he was caught by his father.

John Winchester was not known for his being a kind and loving parent.

The violence was not what he remembered for years.

It was the words that cut into him for years.

The ones that made him feel guilt and self loathing when he found himself flustered by male attention.

The ones that silenced him.

“I thought I knew you? But you've been lying to me.” Dean paused to take a shaky breath.

The knives that were in his heart for years Dean took them and stabbed them into Cas's heart.

'Please be sad enough that I don't have to say anymore.'

“I'm willing to forget about this. You are too useful to keep around on hunts. But if you EVER try to say something like this you're gone!” he hears the anger and hatred in his voice.

He hates many things.

Mitchell

John

Whatever is causing the horror loop.

Himself

'But not you Cas.'

He felt like he was in a prison. Like he was trapped in his body watching a living nightmare happen.

But continues to cause Cas the type of haunting emotional pain that he himself had suffered for years.

'Maybe this won't hurt as much since he's an angel and human insults don't mean as much...no he understands what words mean and he understands when they are hurtful and hateful. This isn't 2008 Cas!'

He almost couldn't continue his parroting of his homophobic father's words.

But his mind conjures images.

Cas peacefully surrendering himself to The Empty.

Cas being killed by Billie

Cas bleeding out.

Cas being forcefully torn from his arms

It propelled him harshly forward.

“You are such a fucking disappointment. You...” he quietly said more to himself as he could not find another way to save his angel.

He whimpered out one final word, a slur, before a lurch of nausea overwhelmed him as forced himself from puking.

“Fag”

~

~

~

~

*END OF SPEECH*

He turns to stare at the wall, he could not bear to look at Castiel.

“I'm sorry Dean.” Castiel's deep voice sounded so hurt that Dean immediately wanted to turn around and take back the words. Instead he bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots The Empty float in front of Cas.

Dean closed his eyes and holds his breathe as he waits for the time loop to start again.

The Empty.

It speaks in a inhuman voice.

“I wanted you to suffer. This is more painful than anything I could ever do to you.”

He felt the death grip on his heart more painful than any other time. He opened his eyes expecting to be in his usual spot near the entrance.

“You get to live with this, You're welcome.”

He turned his head in shock to see the Shadow get smaller and smaller until it was completely gone. and Castiel's defeated form looking with dull eyes at the floor.

He quickly returned his eyes to look at the wall.

“We need to go find Sam and Jack.” Cas whispers with a heart wrenching tone moved out of the room. “I...I will meet you at the car.”

Dean fell to the ground catching himself with his hands and he rid his stomach of it's contents.

He wiped the puke from the corners of his mouth, took another moment and still nothing.

He stands and hits the wall again and again, his body does not allow the relief from tears.

He took a painful punishing grip of his own left shoulder. Where the absence of Cas's hand print solidified the realization that this was the finally the end of the loop.

'I am so sorry Cas.'

[lets-talk-appella]

i’m nobody’s but yours - deleted scene

Bechloe Week 2019: “Why are you here?”

Summary: Consider this a deleted scene, set between Chapter 24 and the epilogue of the multichap fic “i’m nobody’s but yours.” Like the rest of that fic, this chapter is both angsty and happy at the same time.

No need to have read the rest of this fic! All you need to know is that Sheila the step-monster is homophobic and is consistently horrible to Chloe and, by extent, Beca. The last time Bechloe went to Warren and Sheila’s house, chaos ensued.

Word Count: 3k

Rating: T for this chapter, M for the whole fic

AO3 and FFN

Chloe hates lying to Beca. She hates it more than anything in the entire world.

She’s only lied to Beca a handful of times: when she’d said she was happy for Beca when she and Jesse had started dating; when she had to pretend to be okay with Beca being with anyone other than her; when Beca had bought her a particularly ugly blouse for her birthday that Chloe pretended to like.

And now.

She’d told Beca that she was flying to Georgia to visit Aubrey. And technically, that’s partially true. She is visiting Aubrey while she’s here. And Aubrey is with her, now.

But waiting in the car.

While Chloe walks toward the front door of a house she’d hoped to never see again. The entire reason for her visit is inside that house. She pauses at the bottom of the front steps, composing herself, trying to calm her racing heart.

It takes a minute.

She climbs the stairs and raises a fist, then pauses. Counts to three. Then five. And finally forces herself to knock. She blots her sweating palms on her jeans as she waits, struggling to breathe around the dread lodged in her throat.

She’d been hoping Mr. Mitchell would be the one to answer the door rather than his wife, Sheila.

She’s never had much in terms of good luck.

So Sheila answers the door, her expression changing from curiosity to blatant hostility in a heartbeat when she recognizes Chloe.

There’s a beat of silence while they each observe the other, a beat during which Chloe has time to take in Sheila’s tightening lips, flaring nostrils, and narrowed eyes, and she realizes too late she’d made a mistake.

“Why are you here?” Sheila asks so bitingly Chloe’s surprised it doesn’t take a chunk from her arm.

She takes a deep breath that rattles the unease in her lungs. “I’m here to talk to you both.”

“About what?”

Sheila’s eyes flick around Chloe, occasionally looking past her and toward the car she pulled up in, and Chloe knows she’s looking for her stepdaughter. Chloe has never been more thankful that Beca isn’t with her; the shouting would have started already.

“Can I speak to Professor Mitchell as well?” Chloe asks in the politest tone she can manage.

Sheila studies her for a moment. “No.”

A muscle in Chloe’s cheek twitches. “It is quite important.”

“Don’t care,” Sheila dismisses with a frown. She starts to close the door and Chloe pushes forward, suddenly panicked, until—

“Sheila? Who’s at the door?” Beca’s dad calls from somewhere deeper in the house.

“Hi Professor Mitchell, it’s Chloe!” Chloe says loudly, nearly shouting as she makes eye contact with Sheila, who looks as though she’d love nothing more than to strangle her into silence.

“Chloe?”

Footsteps sound, drawing closer, and Warren appears in the doorway. Sheila reluctantly steps aside to make room, and he opens the door all the way, looking surprised.

“Chloe?” he repeats, then his eyes flick past her, looking for his daughter. “Is Beca with you?”

“No, I’m here by myself.”

Warren frowns, concern filling his eyes. “Is everything okay?” he asks. “Is Beca okay? Did something happen? Are you—”

“Everything’s fine,” Chloe says quickly. “I guess I should have—I meant to call ahead, but I guess I forgo—”

Sheila clicks her tongue loudly. “Are you going to ramble on all day?”

“Sheila...” Warren says, glancing over at her. “Be polite.”

“What? She shows up unannounced and starts babbling on—”

“Chloe, why don’t you come in?” Beca’s dad cuts her off. “And, really, call me Warren. Only my students call me ‘professor.’ You’re family.”

Sheila gapes, her mouth falling open in disbelief.

Chloe forces a probably painful-looking smile and steps over the threshold, Warren and Sheila moving to give her room to enter. She pauses in the entryway when Sheila closes the door, uncomfortable at moving farther into the house; the last time she’d been there, Sheila had called her a whore and implied she was taking advantage of Beca.

It hadn’t been the most fun experience of her life.

“Um, do you want to sit down or anything?” Warren asks, rubbing the back of his neck. The gesture helps to ease some of Chloe’s anxiety; Beca does the same thing when she’s feeling awkward.

She shakes her head. “No, thank you, I’ll just… I won’t be long.”

Sheila scoffs openly. Chloe’s shoulders tense; she can already tell she’ll need a backrub after this.

“Um, okay,” Warren says, still looking confused.

“Right,” Chloe exhales. “So, uh, I’m just gonna jump in.”

Sheila crosses her arms. “Please do. We’ve got errands to run.”

Chloe’s jaw clenches, and she has to remind herself why she’s there in order to speak. “As you know,” she says, her voice coming out terse and business-like and this isn’t how she’d imagined this happening at all. “Beca and I have been together for more than a year now and have known each other for a lot longer.”

Warren shifts his weight, putting his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and looking down; she thinks he might (maybe, possibly, hopefully) be hiding a smile. He and Beca had been talking on the phone and texting a lot more now, and the thought that he might know why she’s there—might even support her—gives her hope.

Chloe continues, “She is… this amazing, funny, talented, wonderful person that I am lucky to have met.”

Sheila wrinkles her nose and looks away, but that’s a better reaction than Chloe had expected.

“Her mother did an outstanding job,” Warren says quietly, still looking at the floor.

A muscle pops out in Sheila’s cheek, but she doesn’t comment.

Chloe takes a deep breath, steeling herself for what she knows is coming next. “I’m so in love with her.”

Sheila’s eyes snap to hers. “So you say,” she snarls, looking at Chloe like she’s something disgusting on the bottom of a shoe.

“Damn it—” Warren starts, but Chloe cuts him off.

“Yes, I do say,” she says directly to Sheila, her hands curling into fists at her sides. She came here for a reason, and she’ll be damned if she wasn’t going to get her point across. “And don’t you dare question that. I know you don’t like me, and I know you don’t like who I am. You can stand there all day, spewing misery and hate and—and just pure bullshit because you don’t understand what Beca and I have.”

Sheila’s mouth has fallen open. Warren looks again as though he’s struggling to contain a smile.

Chloe knows she probably should stop, but she’s rehearsed her speech so many times that it flows out of her, washing away any judgment Sheila could throw at her. “You don’t know what we’ve been through—what you put us through. So you can question my manners and my sexuality and everything else about me. But don’t you dare—don’t you ever—question how I feel about Beca Mitchell.”

By the time Chloe finishes, her chest heaves with anger. Her nails are digging into her palms painfully, but she can’t unclench her hands; the sensation helps to ground her. The sound of her own voice rings in her ears, but she doesn’t regret the outburst. She’d meant every word.

Sheila blinks, her mouth still hanging open foolishly.

The tense silence is broken by a soft chuckle; Chloe’s attention switches to Warren and he raises his hands defensively. “No, no, sorry,” he apologizes immediately. “You just sound like Beca. I see why… go on, please.”

Chloe’s anger ebbs at the mention of Beca. She swallows, anxiety churning her stomach even though she knows, deep down, that the outcome of this meeting won’t change anything. Not really.

“I love Beca,” Chloe states simply. “I know you may not completely understand it, but it’s true. Beca is… she’s everything. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I hope to God she feels the same.”

Sheila regains her voice and reaches out to grab Warren’s arm. “Warren, what is she—”

“I’m here because…” Chloe swallows again. “I’m going to ask Beca to marry me, and I wanted you to know. Both of you. I’m not asking for your permission. I’m telling you what I’m going to do.” She looks at both of them, staring them down, making her point. “But it would be really awesome if you approved, so. Please.”

A deafening silence follows her words.

Then Warren’s face slowly transforms into a wide grin, one that reassures Chloe more than anything he could say.

Sheila looks as though she’s been clubbed over the head and stares at Chloe with unfocused eyes.

Chloe waits. It’s absolutely agonizing, but she waits.

Then Sheila turns to Warren sharply and the spell is broken. “You can’t possibly—”

“Yes,” Warren speaks over her, looking only at Chloe.

Chloe’s heart stops.

“What?” Sheila gasps, sounding utterly aghast. Chloe almost feels sorry for her. Almost.

“Yes, I approve,” Warren continues, completely ignoring his wife. “I think you two… I think you will be much better at being married than I am. And you’ll probably enjoy it more than I do.”

Sheila inhales so sharply that Chloe is amazed there’s any oxygen left in the room. Her face turns blotchy and she looks between Warren and Chloe, neither of whom give her the honor of making eye contact. After a moment, she says shakily, “I see.” She pivots on the spot and storms away, marching from the entryway and stomping up the stairs. A minute later, a door slams with enough force to startle Chloe and shake the entire house, dishes rattling in the kitchen.

Warren sighs and rubs a hand over his face, looking older and more tired than Chloe has ever seen him.

Chloe draws her lower lip between her teeth. “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Chloe,” Warren says, looking at her blearily. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried telling her this would happen. Whenever I talk with Beca on the phone… you make her so, so happy, Chloe. Did you know that?”

Warmth floods Chloe’s chest; she feels exactly the same about Beca.

“And I have to say,” Warren continues, “I’ve enjoyed having my daughter again. I think I owe you that. Otherwise, I think she’d rather not talk to me.”

“I… that’s—I’m glad,” Chloe manages. She rolls out her shoulders, trying to make the motion seem casual.

Warren smiles at her, and she knows he sees right through her. He probably knows exactly how hard it had been for her to visit his house alone. “I promise, Chloe, I approve. I—I also very much understand if my wife and I are not on the guest list.”

Chloe’s jaw goes slack and her stomach drops. “Uh—Beca will want you there,” she says quickly, the horrible realization that that might not be the case hitting her half a second after the words leave her lips.

“Maybe,” Warren shrugs. He looks to the floor, then back up, his lips tight around the edges. “I never expected to be the one to walk her down the aisle.”

From upstairs comes the sound of more stomping, along with slamming drawers. Something glass shatters against wood or tile.

Chloe grimaces, discomfort rising in her chest. Her eyes flick to the door, but Warren isn’t done talking.

“Beca was never going to be Sheila’s daughter,” he says quietly, linking his hands together and studying them. “I won’t try to tell you what I see when I look at my wife, because I think I know what you see. But just like Beca is my daughter, Sheila is my wife.”

Warren finally looks up to meet her eyes, so intensely that Chloe almost has to look away.

“And this is one of those moments, Chloe—and I hope you’ll never experience this—where I’m reminded that it is entirely possible to love someone, but not always like them very much.”

Something else fragile shatters upstairs. Warren releases a breath and closes his eyes, seeming to sag in on himself.

Chloe’s mouth tastes like cotton. “I... I don’t really—”

“It’s okay, Chloe,” Warren tries for a smile, his chin quivering dangerously. “All that really matters is that I’m very happy for you and Beca. Thank you for bothering to stop by.”

“You’re her dad,” Chloe whispers, simultaneously wanting to reach out and run away.

Warren flinches. “I could have been better at it.”

Chloe wonders if she’s about to be sick; her stomach flips and rolls. “I should probably—I should go.”

Warren nods and takes a deep breath, his hand rising to rub at his neck. “Would you like anything to drink for the road? Um, water, Coke?”

“No, thank you, I’m okay.”

“Alright then.”

Warren opens the door and stands aside, allowing Chloe to pass by and start down the steps. The fresh air on her face helps, making her chest feel lighter.

“Chloe?”

She turns, having made it only a few paces beyond the stairs.

Warren hesitates in the doorway, then asks, “Are your parents…?”

Chloe forces the muscles in her cheeks to form a smile. “They adore Beca. She’s actually getting together with them next weekend, um, during a business trip.”

Warren nods. “Do they know about the wedding?”

“I haven’t told them yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Will they be happy?” Warren looks like a child, as if Chloe’s answer might break him.

Chloe is positive her mouth has never been this dry. “They’ll be over the moon,” she breathes.

Warren’s hand twitches on the door. “Tell them to take pictures,” he requests, voice raw and eyes shining. “I would love pictures, if...”

“I will,” Chloe promises. “Bye, Warren.”

“Bye,” Warren says gruffly, not quite looking at her. “Drive safely.”

“Thanks,” Chloe says, and then turns and walks away. She hears the door close behind her and thinks maybe there’s some muffled shouting from within the house, but she doesn’t allow herself to look back. She only walks stiffly to Aubrey’s car, fumbling with the handle, flinging open the passenger door, and sliding into the seat.

“Let’s go,” she says tersely as she buckles the belt.

Aubrey doesn’t need to be told twice. As soon as Chloe’s situated, she starts the car and puts it in reverse, backing down the driveway.

Chloe doesn’t look at the front window of the house, doesn’t want to know if Warren is watching.

“Did they say yes?” Aubrey asks, glancing over when Chloe doesn’t immediately reply.

Chloe stares straight ahead without seeing the road in front of them. She nods jerkily, not trusting her own voice.

Aubrey makes a sound of understanding; she takes one hand off the wheel and puts it on Chloe’s knee.

Chloe’s face twists and she has to look out the passenger window, biting her lip as the tears finally start to fall.

—

Warren closes the door behind Chloe just as a wordless shriek sounds from upstairs. Another trinket—probably a picture frame or something—shatters and he winces.

He has to take a moment, hand resting on the doorknob and chin tilted down. Memories of the last time Chloe and Beca had been to their house wash over him, the regret making his eyes sting even more. He takes several deep breaths, counts the seconds that go by until his hands stop shaking.

Once they do, he lifts his head up and drops his hand from the door. Robotically, he makes his way to the sitting room, where he plops himself in his armchair. A glance out the window reveals that the car is already gone from their driveway. With a tired sigh, he reaches for the TV remote, turning it on and staring at it mindlessly.

He shifts in his chair, trying to sink back into it, but he can’t get comfortable.

His unsettled feeling only increases until he hauls himself up from the chair and walks into the kitchen, where his phone charges on the countertop. He knows he maybe shouldn’t. It might not be welcome. Still, though, he pulls up his text string with Beca and starts to type.

Good luck talking to Chloe’s parents, he sends. I’m sure they’ll be excited.

Her reply comes less than a minute later. How did you know?

Dad’s intuition.

Weirdo.

He smiles at the screen, still surprised when she doesn’t yell at him for use of the term “dad.” She’d have every right.

His phone chimes again and he looks at it, surprised to see a message from Chloe, who has never texted him before. There’s no text, only a picture attachment. When he opens it, he has to put a hand on the counter for support.

It’s a selfie, clearly taken by Chloe, that shows her and Beca sitting outside somewhere, maybe Central Park. The focus is on them, and all Warren can see of Chloe is the side of her face as she kisses Beca on the cheek. Beca’s looking at the camera, smile bigger than Warren has ever seen it. Her eyes are crinkled with happiness and her expression is wide open, unguarded as she leans into Chloe. Warren hasn’t seen Beca that happy since she was a kid.

A sound drags its way from Warren’s chest, a mix between a laugh and a sob. He saves the picture immediately; it’s the only one he has of Beca and Chloe together. He stares at it, memorizing everything about it, until his vision blurs and he has to wipe his eyes. He takes a jagged breath and sends Chloe a message in thanks.

The shattering, slamming, and stomping from upstairs has quieted; he imagines Sheila has either started crying or cleaning up after herself.

Warren’s mind races and he rotates his phone in his hands several times.

Decision made, he opens a new tab in the search bar, typing and hitting enter. He scrolls, almost overwhelmed by the sheer number of results before he finally finds one result that’s close to their house. He writes down the marriage counselor’s number on a post-it, sticks it to their fridge for later, and grabs his keys.

He needs to get out of the house for a while.

[the-desolated-quill]

The Abyss Gazes Also - Watchmen blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t read this comic yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Rorschach is arguably the most beloved character in the graphic novel.

Now anyone reading these reviews who hasn’t read the graphic novel I imagine must be slightly confused by that statement, considering I haven’t exactly been painting a very glowing picture of him. He’s misogynistic, homophobic, bigoted, violent and sociopathic. Not exactly the traits you’d associate with a ‘beloved’ character. And yet that’s exactly what he is. Out of all the characters in Watchmen, Rorschach is by far the most popular. Of course this isn’t exactly a good thing. A big reason for his popularity is because of people either missing or ignoring the satirical subtext of the character (Ted Cruz reportedly is a big Rorschach fan. Let that sink in for a moment). That’s not to say the character isn’t well written or compelling. I’ve said in the past that Rorschach is my personal favourite character simply because of how interesting I find him.

The Abyss Gazes Also explores the origins of Rorschach and I thought this would be a good opportunity to not only analyse the chapter, but to also question where this romanticised view of Rorschach may have come from.

The Abyss Gazes Also is told from the perspective of Dr. Malcolm Long. A psychiatrist assigned to evaluate and counsel Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach. I absolutely love this setup and how it plays out. Like with Doctor Manhattan’s origin story in Watchmaker, rather than just giving us a big info dump, we get to explore the backstory through the eyes of a certain character.

Malcolm represents everything Rorschach despises. He’s part of the corrupt establishment, thinks of no one but himself and deludes himself into thinking everything will be fine so as not to upset the apple cart. (also, while not overtly stated, considering Rorschach’s extreme right wing views, I imagine the fact that Malcolm is black probably doesn’t help matters either). From the beginning we know that Malcolm doesn’t really care about helping Rorschach in any meaningful way. He just wants the fame attached with studying the mind of this infamous vigilante. And by the end he does get to fully understand Rorschach better than anyone else, but at a horrifying cost.

As Malcolm learns more about Walter’s transformation into Rorschach, we see his otherwise upbeat personality slowly dissolve as he begins to see the world from Rorschach’s point of view. I love how Alan Moore chooses to represent this. In the beginning, Malcolm’s notes are eloquent, detailed and optimistic, but as the issue goes on, the sentences start to become more broken, much darker and disjointed to the point where it actually begins to resemble Rorschach’s speech pattern. It’s a subtle illustration of Malcolm’s changing psyche. We also see him become more and more aware of the situation between America and Russia, whereas before he was very much focused inward on his career and his wife. As his perception of the world around him changes, the things he used to care about fall away. He neglects his wife and by the end his career is virtually in tatters because in the wake of potential Armageddon, none of these things matter to him anymore. Now on the one hand you could see this as some kind of comeuppance. A selfish man getting what he deserves. But it’s also deeply tragic because the point is no one should have to view the world the way Rorschach does.

Which brings us to the man himself.

The life of Walter Kovacs is... a bit of a bummer, to say the least. His mother was a prostitute who regularly abused him and he had to endure a lot of bullying and torment by sexist pricks labelling him as a ‘whoreson.’ It’s this that has contributed to his view of women (more on that later) as well as his own distorted view of sex. In the extra material, we get to read some of Walter’s psychological profile, which includes a diary entry from a younger Walter describing a nightmare he had where his mother was ‘dancing’ with a man and, upon further inspection, realises the two have been morphed together into a grotesque monster that then chases him. A literal beast with two backs, if you will. 

It’s also worth mentioning that the most significant moments in Walter’s life that led to him becoming Rorschach were all sex related and involved women. Obviously there’s his mother. There’s also the job he got at a women’s clothing store, which clearly made him feel extremely uncomfortable, the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese, whose uncollected dress was used to make the Rorschach mask, and of course the murder of Blaire Roche. This I think is what led to Rorschach’s reductive view of women and also serves in some ways as a damning critique of how women are presented in comics. Every woman Walter has ever encountered has either been a helpless victim or a sexualised monster. Even Laurie, the Silk Spectre, contributes to this because of the sexualised image her mother forced onto her. In many comics, the assault or death of a woman often serves as the catalyst of a male hero’s journey, and Rorschach is the same, except it’s presented deliberately as being incredibly distorted. His relationship with women is already fraught thanks to his mother, but his encounters with Kitty Genovese and Blaire Roche serve as a way for him to justify his distorted view of reality. I particularly like the inclusion of the real life case of Kitty Genovese and the myth that over forty witnesses saw her being attacked and did nothing to help. Of course Walter seizes on this and uses it to support his worldview. We’re not even sure if the dress he uses to make the mask was actually intended for Kitty as it could just be a delusion that Walter has concocted to fit his narrative. Whereas other comics might use a woman’s pain as motivation for the male hero, here we see the male ‘hero’ use multiple women’s pain as a means to an end. A way of excusing his behaviour and justifying his actions. It’s a great reversal, exploring the sexism of the refrigerated woman trope.

What I find especially interesting is how despite his childhood, despite his right wing views and despite his reductive view of women, in his early days you could accurately describe Rorschach as a proper superhero. During the period that Walter refers to himself as being ‘soft,’ he teams up with Nite Owl and stops many criminal masterminds such as Big Figure, Jimmy the Gimmick and Underboss. You get the feeling that, had he stuck with Nite Owl, he might have grown to be a somewhat more balanced individual. (which is not to say Dan doesn’t have flaws too, but he’s far better adjusted than Rorschach is, that’s for damn sure). It’s what comes later that sends Rorschach past the point of no return. And no I’m not talking about the murder of Blaire Roche, though that was probably the final straw. I’m talking about Rorschach’s first encounter with the Comedian.

See, I don’t think Rorschach would have become a murderer if he hadn’t met the Comedian first. In his interview with Malcolm, Walter speaks of the Comedian in glowing terms, saying he’s the only one that understood how the world works. If it wasn’t for the Comedian planting the seed of nihilism in Rorschach’s head, he might have reacted slightly differently when he discovered the fate of Blaire Roche. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have reacted violently, but I do honestly think it wouldn’t have been quite so extreme.

I’ve said in a previous review how all the characters of Watchmen are technically nihilists. Rorschach and Comedian are a perfect illustration of two contrasting ways of reacting to nihilism. Namely moral absolutism versus amorality. The Comedian believes that the world has no meaning and that morality is a joke, and so uses that as an excuse to commit heinous acts for his own amusement. Rorschach is also a nihilist. After his encounter with Gerald Grice, he learns that morality and meaning doesn’t exist, but unlike the Comedian, Rorschach takes the opportunity to impose his own morality onto the world. Like ink blots on a blank canvas. The problem is with his own warped sense of reality as well as his motivation. Having discovered that Gerald had killed Blaire Roche, dismembered her and fed her to his dogs, Rorschach no longer has any interest in helping people because, in his mind, people are beyond help. He just wants to hurt and punish those that ruined the world. This isn’t justice. This is revenge. Revenge based on faulty logic. Walter says this was the day he became Rorschach, but it’s also the day he stopped being a superhero as far as I’m concerned. While his motivations and worldview was questionable before, he was at least acting for the common good. Now he’s just an angry man lashing out at the world indiscriminately.

So why do some people have this romanticised view of Rorschach? Well one reason I think is because he’s a man who lives by his own code. Whether we admit to it or not, there is a part of us that wants to see the predators of our society get what they deserve, so even though we recognise that Rorschach is going too far and that his views and beliefs are unsavoury, there’s a little voice in the back of our heads that most of us may not want to acknowledge quietly whispering ‘yes.’ Because if these are truly evil people he’s doing these despicable things to, then it must be okay, right? But then we have to ask ourselves the same question we did about the Comedian back in Absent Friends. Are we saying that the moment someone commits a crime, their life becomes forfeit? That they deserve to die? What does that say about us and our own morality? Which leads to another reason why I believe some people romanticise Rorschach. It’s because it’s easier to romanticise Rorschach rather than to acknowledge what he potentially says about us. 

I love Rorschach because, as a character, he forces us to ask some very awkward and uncomfortable questions about our own morality. How far is too far? Where do we draw the line? If the misogyny, psychotic behaviour and extreme violence aren’t deal-breakers, what is? Can we really excuse these poisonous views and beliefs if the person in question is acting, supposedly, for the greater good? This is what makes Rorschach such a fascinating character in my opinion. And I’m sorry to say that if you can’t bring yourself to think about these things, then I’m afraid you just don’t understand Rorschach, or indeed Watchmen, at all.

[the-angry-tired-lesbian-bitch]

Ok so I have an idea for a story/fairy tale

PSA: This is very reminiscent of Cinderella and I was tired when I wrote it

Ok so, there are two girls, let's call them violet and daisy.

Daisy is bisexual, and "open" about it, in the sense that her parents know and she makes no real attempt to hide it. However her parents don't accept her and thus treating her like a slave and pretending that she doesn't exist. But she does have a friend who acts as her sort of fairy god mother in this situation, his name is Greg because why the hell not.

Violet is a lesbian but is 1200000 coats deep in the closet. She is also the princess of the kingdom they all live in. Since she obviously can't marry a girl, she frequently disguises herself and visits what is basically the kingdoms version of a gay bar, where she has met daisy several times but they never really exchanged names, due to violet fear of being outed and shunned.

Anyway on to the story.

The king decides that they should hold a ball for violet in an attempt to find her a suitable husband, but he poses this as a birthday party for violets little sister, Rosa, to the queen, Rosa and violet. Now the queen and violet are very close and the queen would not approve of marrying violet off. So the king invites the rest of the kingdom.

Daisy and Greg hear about this and are really excited. They get all the stuff they need, suit or dress you can decide, but Daisy's parents, the bastards, find a binding spell, or something like that, to make sure that she, or perhaps someone else, would not be able to leave the house. They would check on her every night at exactly midnight to make sure she wasn't off doing something scandalous.

Daisy is devastated but determined to go to that fuckin ball, so she and Greg come up with this plan. Greg takes daisy's place so that the binding spell would effect him instead, because he knows what she goes through on a day to day basis and honestly? She deserves a fucking break from the ugly ass homophobes that are her parents!

So she goes and has and absolute ball ( I am so sorry I saw an opportunity and I took it). Violet however is having an awful and confusing time ( and like girl same, like in life generally) because this is her little sisters birthday party but her dad keeps intruding her to these weird old dudes, and finally (I love this girl but she's a bit of a dumbass) it clicks and she realises her dad is trying to marry her off. Horrified that she would be betrayed in this way by her own dad, she runs away ,like the gay dramatic bitch she is, to the library, because it's kinda her happy place. (If it isn't obvious enough, violet is based off me, I'm the gay dramatic bitch)

Cue our wonderful bisexual

Being the amazing gal she is, Daisy follows her to the library, to make sure she is ok. Now at this point they kinda recognise each other but don't know from where ( Daisy is also a dumb ass and doesn't realise that she is the princess either) so they get to talking and slowly realise that they know each other from the bear in the woods ( that's the gay bar btw I could think of a better name) they spend hours in the library, just talking, and getting to know each other, hands almost touching because there useless wlw. But it gets to like 11:45 and Daisy has to run home. BUT unlike Cinderella, they plan to meet the next day in the town AND daisy give Violet a quick cheek kiss ( violet dissolves into gay panic and again girl same).

Daisy makes it home just in time, not only not getting caught, but in a fucking euphoric state, because she . Met. A. Pretty. Girl. And. They. Have. A . Date. Tomorrow!

Half way through that date, Daisy realises that she is on a date with the fucking heir the the throne. She nearly freaks out but violet pulls her into an alley and explains everything to her, and says that she would understand if she never wants to see her again. Daisy kisses her and says that it changes nothing and they'll just have to be very careful. They have their first and second kiss in that alley

They begin a secret relationship, because they would be shunned from society and violet would be disowned by her dad.

This goes well.

Until it doesn't.

One of the weird old dudes, lets call him Chad because it's the douchest name I can think of (no offense to the chads out there who aren't douches) from the ball sees them kissing and realise the truth. He tells violets family, in an attempt to gain there favour and marry the princess himself. However he makes a big mistake. He only tells the queen because the king has a reputation for being unreasonable and killing the messenger .

Since the queen is the only good parent in this story, she talks to violet, trying to see if it's true. When confronted about it, violet breaks down in tears, saying how it is true and it isn't a phase and she's in love, begging her mother to still love he, which of course she does. But she does tell her that her life is going to be dangerous and she might not be able to protect Daisy. Because when it comes to it, a mob is a mob and no crown is going to protect you from that.

However Chad, the mother fucker, realises that the queen is a good person and instead goes to the king. He somehow manages to convince the king that violet is going through a phase and he is the best person to bring her our of it into the blissful world of heterosexuality (that was sarcasm btw)

When violet goes to her room, she finds her father sitting on her bed. He basically explains to her that she is going to marry Chad, and tell her mother that she wants to and that everything was just a phase. Or he will have Daisy killed. At this point violet is passed questioning her father mortality, and believe him when he says he will kill her.

She breaks up with Daisy, saying how it was doomed to begin with and they were dumb to think it could work in the first place and ends things with her. Both of them leave crying.

Daisy drinks at the bear in the woods questioning whether she is capable of being loved. That's when our friends, Rosa and Greg enter. (Both of them are ace aro. Why you ask? Because I said so) They are the only people in the kingdoms with more then 5 braincells each, so they put two and two together and figured out that violet and Daisy are in love with each other ( their relationship kinda just started with them bitching to each other about how dumb violet and Daisy are, but at this point there really close).

Daisy breaks down and tells them every. There are a lot of tears and a lot of beer. However, Rosa finally manages to get out that, violet does actually love her and that her dad is forcing her into the wedding.

*this scene honestly just reminds me of the princess bride*

Violet is getting ready for her wedding to Chad of douche land, when Daisy knocks on her window (she on like the second floor btw, so daisy is fuckin ripped) Daisy gives this big speech to violet about how she's the best thing that's ever happened to her, how she doesn't need anything else apart from her and how she's willing to risk her life if it means being with her. Violet loves the idea, but knows that they can't stay in the kingdom.

They are faced with a choice. Stay and be miserable or leave and be happy. It was an easy choice.

They run away from the castle, violet still in her wedding dress, to an Abandoned cottage in the forest. However, violet does leave a note for her mother, basically saying that she's safe, with daisy and happy. In the note she also explains what her father said to her about killing daisy.

The queen is destroyed that her daughter had to leave but is ultimately happy that she is not being forced into an unwanted marriage.

She also fuckin pissed at the king.

Fast forward about 2 years

Rosa and Greg are the reigning king and queen (they got married but as friends) because the king died. (The queen killed him the night violet ran away and framed Chad. What can I say, she's a bad bitch)

Suddenly, all 3 of them are told to go to the bear in the woods and not tell anyone. They all go because it was either that or suffering through a memorial for the king and honestly, possible death was better then that.

However, instead of the cold hands of death, they are greeted by violet and daisy. They're both a bit worse for wear physically, but they're happier then Rosa, Greg and the queen have ever seen them. (This isn't important but daisy is butching it up. Like loose white button up under a vest butch and short hair. Also violet has that "oh my god I like girls" hair. You know, the shortish hair that ends half way down the neck. So yeah daisy is super butch and violet is cute as shit)

Daisy and violet break the news that they are going to get married!! And while it will be in secret, in there little cottage in the forest, they want the 3 people they love most to be there.

They all show up, daisy is in the same outfit, but you know classier, and violet is in a lovely dress with a bouquet of violets and daisies. Why, because I said so.

Greg is daisies best man, Rosa is Violets maid of honour (they both walk them down the isle) and the queen conducts the ceremony. It's all happy and gay.

The newly weds have their first dance, and even though they were away from where they lived all there lives, they've never felt more at home.

The end

(please tell me your opinions, improvements casting and things like that in the comments, because I really enjoy reading them)

Also @miss-yiay what do ya think?

[thecourtneychronicles]

“Courtney Act says she’s enjoying an endless “hot girl summer”. Which, for those not initiated into American rap memes, basically means she’s having a damn good time.

“I’m kind of lubed up and ready for Mardi Gras, so to speak,” she says. As Australia’s most famous drag queen, active since the turn of the century, Courtney helped lead the mainstreaming of queer culture in this country along with figures such as Carlotta and Bob Downe.

But being a leader or pioneer doesn’t guarantee being comfortable in your own skin. Courtney says that until recently her understanding of sexuality and gender was actually quite limited. When she was performing, she was a woman, but when she stripped off her make-up, she went back to being Shane Jenek, a man.

“Although I did drag, my masculinity and femininity were compartmentalised in the binary,” Courtney says.

But over the past few years, as public discussion of gender, sexuality and identity has grown, she has discovered things are more complex than your genitals, clothes and hair.

“I think sometimes people think identity has something to do with the wrapping, but really it’s the gift underneath,” she says. “It’s about how you feel. For me, I definitely feel like I occupy masculine and feminine qualities.”

Courtney explores this journey in her pop-cabaret show, Fluid, showing this week at the Eternity Playhouse in Darlinghurst as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival. It’s a change of pace for her after focusing on television in recent years; first by winning Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother in 2018, then as the runner-up (with Joshua Keefe) on last year’s Australian Dancing with the Stars.

It’s also a far cry from her humble beginnings in the DIY world of drag, which has never been regarded as high art but remains a staple of gay bars and culture worldwide.

“There’s a lot less hot glue and sticky tape in this show, which makes it feel a lot more professional,” Courtney says of Fluid. “I don’t know if that will hold until opening night.”

Set to original music, Fluid was written by Shane and American comedian Brad Loekle. For the most part it’s a one-woman show, with some help from a ballroom dancer in the second half. (“It’d be weird doing a ballroom dance by yourself,” she says.)

The show acknowledges that, more than ever, people are being flooded with “ever-changing and flowing ideas of who we are, what we are and what we might become”.

This is something we should embrace, says Courtney. “We change our clothes every day – we change  our hairstyles, we change our jobs. Everything is constantly in motion and constantly fluid. But we have this idea that our identities are fixed. When we look at our lives they’re actually a lot more fluid than we think.”

Courtney, or Shane, doesn’t identify as trans but has said that seeing more transgender people represented in the media was liberating and allowed her to explore her own doubts about gender. She’s previously been described as “gender fluid, pansexual and polyamorous”, although she no longer embraces those labels as she once did.

“They all work,” says Courtney, who prefers to identify as “just generally queer” these days. “It’s funny … so many of our groups identify so strongly with labels and they’re so important to us. I kind of feel less attached to those labels.”

She also understands why some people might feel confused, or even confronted, by the politics of queer identification. The acronym LGBTQIA+, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and others, has expanded over the years to the point that some critics deride it as “alphabet soup”. Even those who are part of the community can be intolerant.

“I get that LGBTIQA+ is a little cumbersome from a marketing standpoint,” says Courtney. “But if you find yourself with the time to complain and be confused by a few extra letters, then you’re one of the lucky ones. If there are people that get to understand themselves more because of a letter in an acronym, I’m all for it.”

“I definitely feel like I occupy masculine and feminine qualities.”

Courtney casts a sceptical eye over everything, including the rise of cancel culture, a predominantly left-wing phenomenon which argues that anyone who says or does something deemed to be racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way offensive should be called out, shamed and, preferably, silenced.

Lamenting the state of political discourse while appearing on the ABC’s Matter of Fact program last year, she said: “The volume’s too loud now and everybody’s yelling.” While history showed that people sometimes need to raise their voices, “when you actually sit down opposite someone and have a conversation with them, you get so much further”.

How, then, does Courtney view the debate over religious freedom that has raged ever since Australians voted to legalise same-sex marriage in 2017? She says it’s clear that sometimes people, especially older white males, perceive other people gaining rights as a threat to their own. She says religion can be a lost cause because it is, by definition, about faith rather than rational argument. Still, queer people have to make the effort to engage.

“The way to do that is to get people to picture themselves in other people’s experiences. That’s the only way you can foster that empathy.

“Rather than yelling aggressively back at the people trying to oppress us, I think the most important thing to do is to share our stories.”

Another thing you can do, of course, is march. This weekend, Mardi Gras culminates in the annual parade up Oxford Street, which will feature more than 200 floats and 10,000 marchers. For the first time, Courtney will co-host the coverage on SBS with comedians Joel Creasey and Zoe Coombs Marr, and Studio 10 presenter Narelda Jacobs.

She had something of a practice run hosting the coverage on Foxtel some years ago. “I saw a clip of it the other day,” she says. “And I’m definitely hoping to redeem myself.”

As a character, Courtney has been on the gay scene for about 20 years. The person behind the facade, Shane, turned 38 last week. He grew up in Brisbane and remembers watching the parade on television as a teenager in the 1990s, huddled up close to the TV so he could quickly switch it off if his parents came downstairs.

Shane came to Sydney when he was 18 and attended his first Mardi Gras. “I just remember it was such a melting pot of people,” he says. “It was the first time I really understood what a community was: that there were all these different parts, and we all faced different challenges and struggles.”

But even then, Shane says he failed to really comprehend about what Mardi Gras was all about. Just like many heterosexual critics over the years, as a young man he gawked at the giant dancing penises, fetish-wear and nudity and wondered: why?

“I remember thinking: why can’t they just be normal?” Shane says. “Have your parade, but why does it have to be about sex and penises? Because I had shame about all of those things. I realise now that the parade’s brash display of sexuality liberates the shame … it’s a really radical way to shake people and say there’s nothing wrong with sexuality – not just homosexuality but sexuality in general.”

The queer community has given Shane a lot: acceptance, identity, a career and fame. It has taken him to Los Angeles, where he was based for some years until 2018, and now to his new home in London.

Love, on the other hand, remains elusive. He is “on the rebound” at the moment, though eternally optimistic. “It’s Mardi Gras time, it’s summer in Sydney, I think this is the perfect time to be single. Maybe I’ll find love under a disco ball at the after-party.”

Incredibly, at 38, Shane is about to attend his first ever wedding, straight or gay – his friend Tim is marrying his partner Ben. It is set to be a baptism of fire. “They have asked my ex-boyfriend and me to give the best man’s speech together, which could be slightly sadistic,” he says.

Shane is still adjusting to the relatively new world of same-sex marriage. It’s not for everyone – many queers still think of it as a conservative and unnecessary institution – but it’s growing on him. “Weirdly, seeing all these people get married, I feel like my cold heart has melted a bit,” he says. “I think there’s something really beautiful about marriage.”

It’s a reminder of why events like the Mardi Gras are still so important – a celebration of diversity at the same time as the old divisions between straight and gay are knocked down. As well as marriage, this can manifest in small shifts, like the politics of Bondi Beach.

“I was at North Bondi on Saturday [and] it was surprisingly unlike North Bondi,” Shane says. “It was all families and those banana umbrella things. I was like, ‘Oh, I remember when this used to be [gay nightclub] ARQ, but with more light.’"

“I guess that’s the progress we fought for – the families are happy occupying the gay beaches now.”

Fashion director Penny McCarthy. Photographer Steven Chee. Hair Benjamin Moir at Wigs By Vanity.

SBS’s Mardi Gras broadcast airs live from 7.30pm on February 29. Fluid will return for a tour of Australia and NZ in spring.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale February 23.”

Courtney’s interview for The Sydney Morning Herald - February 21, 2020

[tyrustrash]

Exhale

Ander grabs his lunch tray from the end of the cafeteria line and stands to the side. He looks around the room. He could sit at his usual table, where Guzman and Polo are sitting at, but still stands and looks. Seeing the entire cafeteria for the first time made his hands shake. People are walking to tables as if it’s programmed in their minds that that table is where they are supposed to be at. He notices all the different cliques: nerds, druggies, soccer players, and all the other groups compromised of kids who were friends since forever. That’s the group he had made with Guzman and Polo. And it’s the group that he’s currently contemplating going to. Guzman notices Ander standing and waves to him, wanting him to come sit with them. Ander gulps. Fear hitting him harder by the second. He knows he shouldn’t be afraid of his friends, but his day so far has been a wreck. He woke up late and missed his first class, he practically failed his pop quiz, and Omar cancelled their date for that night. Although all that was bad, none of that is why he’s afraid right now. The worst thing today, and possibly ever, happened just before lunch. Ander was at his locker getting stuff for his later classes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Guzman walking with Lu. Lu was on her phone, like always, and she was showing Guzman a video of what Ander could only identify as two guys playing Gay Chicken. Basically it’s a game where two straight guys go for a kiss and whichever one pulls away first is the gay chicken. Ander thought it was a weird game since he wondered why would straight guys even do that. Possibly because if they refused it was proving they were gay? Or they were ‘straighter’ if they participated and didn’t pull back? The more Ander thought about it, the more confused he got. Straight boys are confusing. Anyway, as Guzman was watching the video, Lu asked him if he would ever participate. That comment made Ander listen closely. Guzman chuckled weirdly and shook his head. “Nah. Not my thing.” “What isn’t?” Lu asked as she clicked a different video. This time a different take on the game where the guys touch each other instead of kissing. “You trying to hide something?” Guzman pushes her phone away from him. “I’m not into dudes.” “You don’t have to be. It’s just a game.” Lu said as she grinned. She stepped in front of him, stopping them from moving any further. She rubs her hand across his shoulder. “Come on. I think it’ll be so hot to see you try that. The thought of it is already turning me on.” “Listen,” Guzman states with the coldest and most stern voice Ander has ever heard him use. Ander managed to see his face too, and it’s so serious that it makes Ander worry about what he’s about to say. “I will never do that. Ever. You understand me? I’m not gay, bi, or whatever the fuck else. And games are supposed to be fun, and that’s not fun for me. I don’t want to think about that. It’s weird.” Guzman moved past Lu and walked towards his class. Ander closed his locker and sprinted to the bathroom. He locked himself in one of the stalls and cried until it was time for his next class. Now Ander is still standing in the cafeteria with his tray of chicken parmesan, not knowing where he should sit. At this point he doesn’t see any empty seats. Guzman waves again, smiling. That damn smile is so charming and makes him look adorable, but it could also be the smile of a person who hates Ander’s kind. Another gulp happens before Ander starts slowly moving. He keeps looking around in hope of finding somewhere else to sit. Wasting more time by avoiding the table, Guzman got a little impatient and got up to help walk Ander over. He grabs Ander’s shoulder and push him to the chair across from his own. Ander could only stare blankly at Guzman as he sits back down. “What’s up with you?” Guzman asks him. “What were you doing standing there?” Ander couldn’t say the real reason, well, without the extra fear of losing one of his only friends. He picks at his chicken, mumbling. Polo raises an eyebrow and nudges his arm. Ander looks at him, then at Guzman. “Just life, you know. The usual. Thinking about grades and love issues.” Guzman lets out a faint laugh. “Don’t worry about shit like that. Grades are that important unless you’re a teacher’s favorite since the stupid curve that determines your grade before you take tests. And don’t stress about love, you’ll find the right girl eventually. Just keep trying. Maybe use one of those apps to relieve some stress, if you know what I mean.” Ander drops his fork on the tray. He looks down, trying to hold in the tears. Why does straight have to be the default? Why do people automatically assume that you’re attracted to the opposite sex? No one ever assumes that he’s gay, only straight as if heterosexuality is the only possible choice. Ander balls up his hand into a fist and hits his leg. All he wants is to tell the truth but is scared. He just holds in his breath and doesn’t say anything. He looks up at Guzman as he eats. Guzman takes a bite of his turkey sandwich and then takes a sip of his Powerade. All the while the movement is causing his silver chain with the cross on it to shake and bounce on his chest. Ander has noticed that cross from time to time and has never thought anything of it. He knows Guzman is Christian, but he has never really talked about it or mentioned anything he was against because of his religion. Now Ander might be thinking there was one thing he was against. Wiping off some mayonnaise from his lips, Guzman looks Ander in his eyes. “Bro, what’s wrong?” Polo nods slightly. Finally being able to say something. “You’re worrying us.” Ander looks between the two, his teeth clattering because of how nervous he is. He attempts to open his mouth to say something, but fails to find the words. Instead, he shoves the rest of his food into his mouths and leaves the table. He manages to swallow everything just as he turns the corner and exit the cafeteria. He barely walks far before he feels a grip around his wrist. He stops and turns around, seeing Guzman behind him. Guzman lets go, but looks even more concerned than before. Ander wanted to leave, but his feet prevented him. The only thing moving were tears from Ander’s eyes. “What’s going on?” Guzman asks him. His voice is stern, yet concerned and caring at the same time. His eyes show that this is the most important moment in the world. “And don’t say nothing. I know you, and something is bothering you.” Ander cries harder when he takes another look at the cross necklace. He looks to his left and sees a row of lockers and decides to punch it relentlessly. Guzman immediately stops him by grabbing his hand. “The hell, man!” “I hate myself!” Hearing that, Guzman grew even more worried. He had never seen Ander act like this, not even when he was almost failing every class and might have had to repeat a year. Guzman is near panicking because he doesn’t know what’s going on. “Just talk to me.” “You’ll hate me.” Ander tells him in between sobs. Tears keep coming and snot was running. Normally he would be scared to show this type of emotion in front of his friends, but he didn’t care. He thought that his friendship isn’t going to last any longer. Why would it even stay. Guzman has certain believes and they probably disagree with him. Guzman breathes deep and rests his hand on Ander’s shoulder. He looks him in the eyes and says, “Never. You’ll always be my friend. No matter what, I can handle it.” Ander manages to calm down a little, but still is freaking out internally. Sure, he’s supportive now, but in a few minutes everything will change. He’ll never want to be friends again once he knows the truth. His face will soon feel the pain is hand is feeling once Guzman finds out. “I’m, I-“ Ander stutters. He doesn’t want to finish, but there’s no going back now. “I’m gay.” Silence. Neither one is able to talk. The longer the silence continues, the more Ander grows worried. The more Ander’s fears are piling up. He wants to continue hitting the lockers, but Guzman is still holding his hands. Guzman gives a small nod and sighs. “You’re gay?” Ander nods. “Why haven’t you told me yet?” Guzman’s voice sounds like he’s hurt. “I thought I was your best friend.” Ander is in complete shock. He wasn’t expecting this type of response. He was expecting a more violent and slur filled hate speech from him. “What? You’re not mad?” “I’m mad that you didn’t tell me sooner. I’m mad that you would think I would me mad.” “You’re a Christian.” “So.” Guzman says while sighing. He rubs his hand through his blond hair. He shakes his head in disbelieve at what Ander said. “I’m a Christian, not an asshole.” “What?” “Yeah, I have beliefs. And they are to accept people for who they are and not discriminate, to be a good person, and to not judge others. You really think I’m one of those homophobic jerks?” Ander cries harder. He doesn’t want to be around Guzman because of him making himself look so stupid. “I’m so sorry. I thought because of your religion, you wouldn’t like me and wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.” “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t care that you like guys.” “What about earlier. When Lu showed you those videos.” “I didn’t say what I said because of homophobia. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. Just before that I was told that I couldn’t get out of a dinner party my parents set up and I was pissed. I let my emotions get the best of me.” “God, I’m so stupid.” Ander continues to cry. Guzman pulls him in for a hug, letting Ander place his head on his shoulder. Guzman pats his back, comforting him. “No, you’re not. You’re my friend, forever and always. I love you, Ander. You’re my best friend.” For the first time today, Ander calms down, no longer crying. The feeling of being this close to Guzman and having his arms wrapped around him feels so soft and comfortable. He also feels like the biggest idiot for ever thinking Guzman would ever hate him. “Hey, Ander.” Guzman says. Ander muffles a response wince his head is still in Guzman’s shoulder. “How about you come over to my house over school and stay the night. We can have an old-fashioned bro night. You can tell me more about who you are, and about any boys you like.” Ander smiles for the first time today. He feels so free from any restraint. He actually has an ally in his life that is completely supportive. At last, he can exhale and let go of all his stress and worries.

[tumblunni]

Reasoning behind the headcanons:

* Dr maddiman is pansexual because we know in canon he dated a woman but also i like the headcanon of him and mckraken having some mutual crush going on. And i just felt like he would go with pansexual in the broad spectrum of identities for multiple gender attracted people.

* i really have no reason why i see dr nocturne as aro ace...? i mean its not really just because we dont see much of him and romance is never brought up during his short screentime, lots of other characters had equally little screentime and i still headcanoned them as non-ace. So i guess maybe its just because i found his plot very relateable and i'm aro ace myself...?

* trans arachnia = pretty obvious. The game itself is already very vague and confusing over whether this character is meant to be canon trans, a gay man, or merely a 'flambouyant' man. Like thats all we know, that this character is very feminine, fights by seducing people with "femme fatale" techniques, has "maximum girl power" and is part of an all girls club of yokai. In that context the use of male pronouns in the english dialogue seems to be more of a transphobic "trans women are really men" sort of thing rather than a confirmation that the character was not meant to be even slightly associated with transgender people. But we have no real confirmation aside from the english dub flip-flopping over to "she" in certain spinoffs, and then in shadowside this character has a more feminine appearance BUT fans are debating whether its a different individual of the same species because her personality seems a lot more evil. So yeah its all convoluted and whatever i still wanna hold onyo the headcanon of one trans character at least existing maybe :/

* nonbinary casanono/casanuva because this design has a very nice sort of androgenous aesthetic i wish i could achieve in real life, also like i mentioned before casanono's colourscheme is already super close to the enby flag

* lesbian hailey: SHE HAS SO MANY LINES OF DIALOGUE THAT SOUND FLIRTY WITH EVERY OTHER FEMALE CHARACTER she's the embodiment of Big Gay Mood and i cant believe its not canon already

* Genderfluid Hoaxy-Coaxy makes more sense with how he's written in japanese. He has a very silly, flambouyant, singsong kind of voice and seems obsessed with being cute at all costs. Its uhh..very resembelant of the kinds of ways that negative stereotypes of trans women/gay men/any DMAB person who defies gender roles ("okama") are written in japanese. So yeah i just wanted to try and take that and rework it into a more positive portrayal. I would have preferred we got that in the dub instead of losing his entire speech pattern and giving him nothing equally unique to replace it. And i dont really know why i ended up getting more of a genderfluid vibe rather than trans woman or gay man, but there you go. *shrug* (Also incidentally i see Whisper as genderfluid too since well he does canonically crossdress often. I know the intent is just to be "funny" but my dumbass queer heart is like BUT WHAT IF CANON GENDERFLUID THO)

* Ben Tover and Herbiboy are gay and dating: i dont even know. They are green boys who are cute. What if they were cute togetherrrr~

* also incidentally i headcanon that LGBTQ+ minorities are generally more accepted in the yokai world. Theyre all magic ghost dudes who can do whatever they want, and if anyone wants to have kids theyre not really limited by the physical bodies they dont have. So the whole idea of rigid biologically-determined gender and sexuality seems nonsensical to them. Every time the anime does some stereotypical heteronormative homophobic bullshit im like UR A GODDAMN SENTIENT FIREBALL WHY WOULD YOU CARE ABOUT HUMAN STEREOTYPES Its silly, yo...

[lesbianau]

I'm a trans mtf gal majoring in LGBT/queer studies so I'd just like to add something! English isn't my first language rip so I apologize for my grammar. But there was so much misinformation being promoted yesterday and from what I could tell the op's of these posts were mostly cisgender? Which is so so uncomfortable. The idea of these messages from cis people on gender being cemented in this fandom as the acceptable way to talk about gender is a bit distressing. And from what I can(...)

tell from following you is that you’ve been very respectful about this topic from the posts you reblogged so overall I feel comfortable sharing this message with you. Since it seems like others who tried to do the same thing were met with hostility and anger. So to get to the point, I’d just like to say that from where I stand, with both academic and personal experience with this, er, discourse, is a few things. A lot of people have already said this and for whatever reason(…)

it’s been rejected. Which is bad! Let me make this clear: gender exists as a mental, emotional, and physical spectrum. It’s incredibly complex. A queer person’s experience with gender is their own to put into words. No one else can. This goes for gender identity and gender expression. The reason why it’s such a sensitive topic is because the idea of gender we know know comes from a misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic society. When you assign gender- that is, categorize(…)

(I’m putting the rest under the cut, but this is a very interesting read i highly recommend)

anything at all as either feminine or masculine- you are by default perpetuating those standards. Pink is not feminine, blue is not masculine, sewing is not feminine, woodwork is not masculine, certain manners of speech or dress or walk or physical features- none of these things that are gendered. Society assigned them genders and decided to shape us around it. It is through this idea that queer people experience oppression, shame and violence. It is because of it. And as(…)

long as we continue to live in this society it’s an influence that we cannot escape. It shapes us, our perception and our beliefs on a subconscious level whether we like it or not. To change it would mean undoing centuries of social conditioning on a global scale. It just can’t be done. What we can only do is decide for ourselves our own feelings with gender, sexuality, etc. We weren’t born with the perks of falling into every societal standard demanded of us. As a result(…)

we are forced to examine our identities and try to make sense of what makes us feel a disconnect with the identity we’re told we must have. For some it’s a journey away from those societal standards entirely. For others it’s about finding a more comfortable spot within those norms. There is no invalid way of experiencing this. For gender specifically the experience is even more nuanced, confusing and delicate. This is because the further away one strays from gender norms(…)

specifically the greater the danger. There can be fatal consequences to simply existing as a trans individual. Both from violence and suicide. Because this is what our society perpetuates. So the second any of us project something born from discrimination and hatred onto anyone or anything other than ourselves, we are are honoring what it was meant to do. As a trans woman my experiences with masculinity have been very unpleasant and as such I’m very sensitive about conversations(…)

involving femininity and masculinity. For me womanhood is something I associate with femininity and I can’t break free from my feelings about it. However not all women feel this way. There are masculine women who are joyous in their womanhood and they are valid in their experience. It does not and would never affect my experience nor would mine affect theirs. Unless I came up to her and told her women can only be feminine or she came up to me and congratulated me on(…)

being a feminine man because we would both cause each other a lot of pain. Even if she meant to be nice to me I would be experiencing depression for weeks even though she meant no harm and even if she apologized to me right after. Another example is if someone told me they loved how feminine my demeanor despite having no hips I would probably burst into tears right there! I can’t help but have a very traditional view of gender in regards to my own identity. I’m a feminine woman(…)

who thinks everything I am and do is feminine. But because I can’t afford to transition I feel that I have to be more loyal to societal norms of gender in hopes I can be more passing. I see a feminine woman when I look in the mirror without makeup or my wig. But the world doesn’t see that. I go to sleep a masculine cis man according to society. Hell, I’m a cis man crossdressing in a wig to my neighborhood Kroger when I groceries. Someone might say that to me as a complement(…)

but hearing things like that nearly drove me to suicide in my teens. I can’t think of a more clear example of the harm in societal gender norms. It is a one-sided word. I walk towards the handle and I am given security. I love being a girly girl and wearing pink and wearing padded bras and a wig because I feel feminine and when I feel feminine I feel like a woman. If I were to take all that sitting at the tip of my sword and walked right towards a trans man what do you(…)

think would happen? It’s a terrible thing! If I waved around my sword out in the open- gave my view of gender and interpreted the identity of gender according to my experiences- what do you think would happen? It’s dangerous! And what I see every day with Harry is a lot of sword waving. Yesterday it was an outright sword fighting! When people were saying what made Harry masculine and feminine the only thing they were doing was promoting every homophobic, mysogynistic and transphobic(…)

and traditional societal standard of gender. Harry’s feminine because of this, followed by a statement that is meant to contrast the previous one regarding why he is masculine because of something else. The excuse is that they’re appreciating how multidimensional he is. But what they do is very blatantly categorize these traits as paradoxical. That there is something about the things being mentioned that are different, complex and unharmonious. And(..)

in a way that is the most harmful they make the implication that this is something he means to be. Harry has made a connection with gender and himself and it’s very simple. Masculinity, femininity, womanhood and manhood. The context has always been lighthearded and it has always been consistent. There is ironically no complexity at all. By simply wearing a leopard print suit he became Shania Twain according to his friends. He thoughtlessly talks about being pregnant without(…)

commenting on his gender or biology. So I find it strange that others try to make him out to be so deeply complex when he talks about himself so bluntly! The only way to speak on gender identity and gender expression is to take cues from the other person and stay true to respecting their identity. This is never seems something that’s given to Harry in the way people talk about him. It is the only way you can refer to someone’s gender identity ever. When he is taken apart(…)

and categorized into what is and is not comparable it directly opposes how he talks about himself. This isn’t something that doesn’t do his character justice or undermines what a complex and multifaceted human being he is. I’m a complex and multifaceted person and I only connect with one gender! I don’t like how this always used as an excuse or even something that comes into question. The only way to talk about gender and everything that falls into it is by mirroring(…)

the comments of the individual and those closest to them who are already doing the same. By not doing that you’re stepping into the minefield that is societal gender norms. It’s no wonder the people at the forefront of yesterday’s discourse were met with an entire onslought of outrage. This is how it will always be and honestly should be. People need to learn compassion and understanding and distance if they are trans or not. The great irony is the fight to establish(…)

Harry’s masculinity and the guilt that is demanded from those who don’t mention it the way they do. Not being masculine is one of the rare things Harry’s been very vocal about. Yesterday’s discussion should’ve never escalated the way it did. This is much bigger than fandom. Because what is shared is what you are being told is oksay by the person. If they compare themselves to women and use female pronouns then take cue. If they says they are not masculine then take cure. If(…)

the person shares with you a comment involving themselves within the gender spectrum then this is the only thing it’s okay to repeat. To speak generally is to place your view of gender onto a queer person who will always be listening and who will always disagree. Reading through some of the things from yesterday broke my heart in two. I don’t ever want to see such reckless comments on gender in a fandom full of so many queer people ever again. Wasn’t the outrage and pain obvious enough? I(…)

just can’t believe it could happen when the person they were arguing about has, to me, been more than clear about how they are comfortable being spoken about in their relationship with gender. If my opinion is of any value to people then I hope they listen and make an effort to at least think about something I said in the giant essay I didn’t meant to send you initially rip I apologize for that Kaleigh! I didn’t mean to send as many messages as I must have after all these hours(…)

I couldn’t help but get this off my chest. At least a trans person has had a say in this in a way outside of yesterday’s debate and maybe people will be more understanding of what really went so wrong yesterday. Anyway thank you so much for giving me this space Kaleigh! I hope I worded myself well enough and didn’t accidentally miss the anon button 😭 Have a lovely day ❤💙💚💛💜

hello darling! thank you for sending this to me because while i know a lot of what was being discussed was making me uncomfortable, i also didn’t feel comfortable speaking on it because i didn’t feel educated enough to do so. i’m sorry people made you uncomfortable and you’re so strong for reaching out to educate people who happen to read this. gender/identity is so personal, and people trying to “disprove” certain aspects of someone’s expression just to fit their personal narrative is so horrible and in no way okay in an lgbtq+ space. i love you a lot and i really really appreciate these messages ❤️

[mentalcurls]

3.5 Ammucchiate

Here’s a masterpost of my thoughts on and reactions to 3.5 Ammucchiate, translated from this post, that I mostly compiled from my tweets from that day, because I had A LOT to say. They’re not properly in chronological order and I’ve added a couple of observations I made in hindsight at the end of the season.

While the girlsquad is singing “Bello e impossibile”, Emma sings along and she touches Marti’s shoulder to catch his attention and communicate to him something like “Hey, hear me out, I’m singing about you” but he’s impassive, then lowers the sunglasses to his eyes and doesn’t smile until his eyes are hidden by the lenses

“Bello e impossibile”, by the way, stops right when Emma says “Io adoro i gay”/”I love gay people”, so right at the beginning of Niccolò’s roast

So let’s talk about Niccolò roasting Emma: first thing he does is retract his arms from around Marti’s and Emma’s shoulders (breaking the united front of the three “disertori del terrazzo” he himself had established earlier), then he makes the most unimpressed face ever, then he quotes an extreme example that forces a polarization (“Tutti gli arabi sono terroristi”/”All Arabs are terrorists”; this is a bit of a fallacy, but it’s also a pretty smart move because it makes Emma sound homophobic by association and forces Marti to side with Nico in the event he needs to choose between the two of them), while he could have chosen as an example of generalising something like “All women are bad at driving”, which would have been closer to Emma’s personal experience, but also closer to a direct attack on her (therefore counterproductive if Martino had to pick sides)

Kudos to Niccolò for studying Greek and Latin rhetoric very well, and philosophy too, YAY FOR LICEO CLASSICO

Martino’s dumbstruck expression when he breaks away from kissing Emma, aka when he hears that Niccolò has gone to them and is talking to them. Marti, by the way, doesn’t smile at all during the rest of the conversation with Niccolò (whereas when he was alone with Emma he smiled most of the time, but with his eyes hidden by the sunglasses, which makes me think they were fake smiles)

(I do believe Marti’s positive reactions during the conversation about Apparat were genuine)

Niccolò Fares sitting on the couch between two people who were making out until a second before without an hint of shame, which means he not only positions himself near Marti and manages to put his arm around Martino’s shoulders, but he also physically separates his boy from his love rival Emma. An inspiration.

DID THEY REALLY HAVE TO USE ELIO of all possible names, in the year of CMBYN (I know the reference here is to Elio Germano, not Pearlman, but my brain only recognizes some types of references)

LATENT HOMOSEXUALITY  did he really say that oh God help me

Can we talk about the way Niccolò says “homosexuality” in a normal way, the emphasizes “latent” stressing every syllable?

My heart hurts both because of Nico’s little speech about generalising and because of the way Marti and Emma just leave him alone on the couch

Niccolò looking at his hands, his smile disappearing and the corners of his mouth turning down

During Self Control, Martino doesn’t consider Covitti at all, she tries to get his attention dancing closer, putting her arms around his neck, turning his face to kiss him but 2 seconds later he breaks the kiss and even when she goes for his neck he completely ignores her (p.s.: and we know now that Marti actually likes “neck action” a lot so this is very significant)

This lasts until Niccolò starts watching him, of course, then Marti has to try and make him jealous(?)/show off(?)/follow some kind of weird mating ritual (?)

Martino doesn’t stop watching Niccolò even when he stops watching Marti

10 minutes standing ovation for Rocco Fasano’s eyes 🔥🔥🔥

So that was Martino in the Self Control scene, now let’s talk about Eva. Her expressions! At first she smiles, then she sees Marti with Emma and she stops smiling, she studies them, she notices Marti is distracted, then when they start making out she makes a face and turns away (p.s.: she’s definitely disappointed, because at this point the things she knows are 1) that Marti told her he likes her before the summer 2) he allegedly made her and Gio broke up because of that 3) he has gay porn on his phone 4) he hasn’t approached her and he turned her down just a couple of weeks before with an excuse, so up until now her working theory is that he’s gay, has a thing for Gio, lied to her cause he’s in the closet/in denial; except now? he’s kissing Emma? a girl? who’s not her? She feels confused and betrayed, a feeling that stays with her at least until 7.1 Era per lui)

Then there’s Federica, poor thing, heartbroken and for the completely wrong reason

Eva directing everybody to hide any and all evidence of the party is very me tbh

(except that if it was me and I sent one person out with the trash and he DOESN?T COME BACK AT ALL, I’d kill him? I mean, I appreciate the moment as a fan, but not as my group of friends’ designated problem-solver)

Martino and Emma freezing and not doing anything even after Eva yells “Regà che cazzo mi guardate, dai, dai!” and freaks out

Maddalena and Emma are shown while they do the same thing aka taking the red cloth off the lamps (and this details gives me feels that are entirely unreasonable given that I was about to link this detail to Schopenhauer’s Veil of Maya) (p.s.: I mean, there’s definitely a lot of symbolic meaning I couldn’t quite articulate at the time of the clip, because unveiling = revealing and this is the clip in which the boys reveal their mutual attraction beyond any doubt, plus it’s Emma and Maddi “eliminating” the red light which is so important for Marti and Nico’s relationship, it’s their thing for their most intimate moments)

“Elio” and “Colino” keep silent for 11 second after throwing the trash in the bins, 11 second of fidgeting, 11 second of I’m-looking-I’m-not-looking, 11 seconds of awkwardness, 11 secondi of disaster gay Marti not knowing whether to say something or not

BAM! Niccolò smiles, steals a joke from Emma and Martino starts smiling again for the first time since Nico arrived to the party, since he interrupted Emma to kiss her (and no glasses this time!)

COLINO

God, how sad is this pet name? The allergy pseudo-explanation is even worse, sorry Maddalena, you do you, but Colino is afwul

Martino: ”How long have you been together?” Niccolò: "Since we were 16, but we’ve known each other since middle school. To be honest, we’re more like siblings than anything else. We haven’t fucked in, like, two months.” Let’s analyze this answer: Niccolò gives the information Marti requested, adds a relevant qualifier, then an unnecessary qualifier and another even more unnecessary information (that’s unnecessary when compared with the literal content of the conversation, discounting the context, [which is Niccolò trying to justify his being with Maddalena while undressing Martino with his eyes at every chance to Marti himself])

Marti’s confusion when Nico says “But I can’t break up with her” breaks my hearts, just like the fact that despite everything he genuinely feels bad for Maddalena’s “hypertrichosis”

Seriously, what’s with Niccolò and feet? They’re part of the human body, let them live, or is always mentioning them with a negative connotation some kind of reverse psychology thing to tell the world you’ve got a fetish?

8:53 is the precise time at which Nico cracks and you can see just a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth AND MARTI SEES IT RIGHT AWAY I mean, with all the Nico-watching he does of course he’s carefully catalogued his every tiny change of expression and of course he can’t possibly not notice

So how much time will Martino lose trying to decide whether Niccolò was only joking about the hobbit feet thing, about the whole hypertrichosis thing or about the fact that he can’t break up with Maddalena, too?

That hint of hope and affection you can read in Nico’s eyes while he’s watching Marti right before he starts to move his pinky (thank you Rocco, ily)

My son Niccolò? who can’t stop smiling? when he’s alone with Marti? and who acts so brave??? going for his hand first????

Martino, you’re such a dumbass though, that’s a classic movie move and you look down like an idiot, look at the stars you can’t see instead, look at the street lamp!

Martino’s absolute lack of chill when he looks down towards their hands as sson as Nico touches him kind of makes me homicidal (because it breaks the convention a classic rom com scene), but it makes his answering, reciprocal move even more significant because it’s intentional (p.s.: over time, I actually got a different perspective on this? And I actually completely love it now, cause it makes sense for Marti, it makes sense for a teenager like him and it gives us a feel of disbelief over the whole situation he has to be feeling too cause that shit happens in movies alright, but not in RL, not to people like him, except it’s happening; on top of that, I love LudoBesse for breaking another stereotypical romantic trope and making our boys fucking FEARLESS - I mean, if something like that happened to me I’d be shitting myself and I would ignore it as hard as possible out of fear that if I pointed it out it would scare the other person away, but that’s me)

And then, a herd of mammoths DARES TO INTERRUPT MY CHILDREN you deserve the worst things, folks

Finally, I would just like to state for the record that I’m kind of disappointed Silvia’s 80s party only had 80s music, Eva and Silvia dressed up kind of eighties and a girl in a Madonna-ish outfit, stop

It’s a real shame, I have see no huge bows, no fluo tutus, no legwarmers, no oversized blazers with the big shoulders, no Memphis group style prints on sweatpants, no Puma-Fila-Kappa-Champions N O T H I N G WHERE’S FIORUCCI? 

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Why I Am Not A Unificationist

I’ve been a Unificationist since childhood. From then, until I was around 19, I had to eat all of the sadomasochism fed by Rev. Moon. My new Father. My new Messiah. I’ll take some time to go through them, but please be patient. I had been told that God was some sort of compulsive crybaby whose universe was forever torn asunder because two naked teenagers had pre-maritial sex in a garden. A step up from the apple and snake, I admit, but the Garden of Eden is still a myth no matter how you spin it.

Anyways, I was also told that human history was a convenient series of failures on behalf of the human race to understand the infinite sorrows of God. The Church painted said God, interestingly enough, as quite impotent. He was a servant to some pseudo-scientific law, called the Divine Principle: a lugubrious, confusing, absurd, and comical attempt to plaster Moon’s idiotic theology onto human history. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s myths made more sense.

I’m not quite sure if the Divine Principle was supposed to be a moral law or not, but I certainly was given that impression. I would be horrified and disgusted if the Principle was by any stretch of the imagination considered moral. This so-called morality dictated that again, because two naked teenagers had pre-marital sex in a garden, the Biblical wars against various tribes, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Fall of Rome, both World Wars, the Holocaust, the Korean War, and numerous other tragedies, in the Bible and in history, were ordained by the Divine Principle to occur as payment for indemnity, or global karma. The Principle has weird ideas on proportionality. I don’t think that even Zeus, at the height of his maliciousness, would have approved of such a doctrine, so it would be doubly discouraging if a loving and compassionate God did. 

Why then does Moon praise the Principle with such fervor? Even it was true, it should have been condemned and resisted, even if the effort was futile. Of course, there’s always the idea that the Principle is brutally objective, but then, I don’t recall Newton’s Three Laws of Motion or the Pythagorean Theorem bluntly putting persons into sides of God or Satan.

Again, I swallowed this nonsense in my elementary years – I didn’t know any better. I think that I was still watching Power Rangers. So all of this made me very terrified of sex. Moon had a cute obsession with sex. If you don’t believe me, just look up the instructions for the 3-day ceremony. It’s quite revealing. He also said that if a pretty woman attempts to touch your penis, you should kick her 1,000 miles and God will praise you for it, but I’ll touch on his sexism later.

He just could not stop going on about the sexual organs and how they were at the center of the universe, or something like that. Easy enough to pledge abstinence when you’re young, but after puberty, I felt like I was walking in a nightmare. No sex until after I married, and Lord knew when that was going to happen. No choking the chicken, either, but when I did get the occasional slip of the wrist, so-to-speak, my whole being filled with guilt, as if I had committed a crime against God and joined the ranks of Satan.

I realize that abstinence is quite common among many Christians and even Muslims in this country, but at least they are allowed to date! Yes, because God certainly doesn’t want His Children engaging in the evil of DATING. Okay, so women were off limits until I married. At least I got to choose my wife. Oh, what’s that? My wife could be chosen for me? We might barely know each other before getting married? She might not even speak English? There could be a waiting period before having SEX? You know, there’s a word for people who have a peculiar interest in other people’s sex lives, they’re called perverts, and Rev Moon was certainly among them. Lord knows the countless unintentional pregnancies, STI infections, and abortions his teachings may have prevented had he taught instead about the options of masturbation and birth control.

Speaking of sexuality, Rev Moon was diseased with homophobia. I am sorry to say that I caught this disease as well. Moon referred to homosexuals once as dung-eating dogs and homosexuality as an activity that attracts Satan. He also said that those who love dung eating dogs, ergo people who support gay rights, will produce that quality of life. I’ve heard some homophobic statements from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but Moon’s hate speech sounds like something you’d hear from Neo-Nazis. Yeah, I went there, but Moon’s words were straight up dehumanizing and condemnable. NO group of people deserve to be described in that fashion. Also, Moon himself said that Hitler and Stalin were reborn as new beings, and they declared him the messiah. So he seems to think quite a bit of their opinions.

In any case, many religions still have trouble with treating homosexuals as equals, and that’s a shame. I repeat, a shame. Moon could have learned a thing from Desmond Tutu. Even the 14th Dalai Lama supports gay marriage and Pope Francis, who does not like homosexuality, says that the Church has no right to interfere with the spiritual lives of gays and that he has no authority to judge gay Catholics. I grew out of homophobia after I grew out of Moon.

Then there’s this whole damned idea of Rev Moon being the Messiah. Hell, anyone can claim that. Just ask Father Divine, Marshall Applewhite, Elijah Muhammad, Jim Jones, or L. Ron Hubbard. We all know the story. Jesus asked Moon to take up the cross and suffer for humanity as the first True Parent. The whole idea being that Jesus was supposed to get married as opposed to being crucified. Now I wouldn’t force crucifixion on my worst enemy, but marriage on the other hand, should be a choice, not a requirement for joining heaven, as Moon teaches. I think that most people are comfortable with the parents that they already have, and don’t need fanatical ones from Korea.

What makes Moon so special that he should be the Messiah, anyways? It’s his word against mine. Surely, Jesus didn’t expect Moon to convince people on word alone. Except that he apparently did. To be honest, I believed that Moon was the Messiah out of pity. He does deserve some. His home country was torn apart before his eyes, and he had to suffer atrocious accommodations in a North Korean prison camp. No one should have to go through that. The pressure was all around me to convert. Certainly I wouldn’t turn against a man who suffered so much. Before I knew it, I was bowing before photographs and reading books I could hardly understand at six in the morning. For those who want a better idea of what I am talking about, check out the film, “Ticket To Heaven.” Moon, however, had a habit of romanticizing Korea as the center of the world. I don’t hate Korea. It’s a fine nation, but not a holy one. Since Moon cast North Korea as Satan and South Korea as God, he probably forgot to mention that “God’s” nation had brutal dictators like Park Chung-hee.

I could also go on about how, in face of separation of church and state, Moon crowned himself like a king in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, how he implored Americans to forgive Nixon who sabotaged the Vietnam Peace Talks in 1968, how he founded the Washington Times which spews climate change denial, and how he had at least one affair while dictating other people’s sex lives, but I think I’ve made my point. Moon is no more of a messiah than my dead goldfish. If you still want a Korean to admire, try Kim Dae-Jung.

In closing, you may wonder what exactly liberated me from my slave-masters? It was a woman named Nansook Hong, whose book I would implore all of you to read. She married Moon’s first son, Hyo Jin, and suffered unspeakable abuse, both mental and physical. When Moon was told of these things, he blamed her for not being a good wife. This is the sexism I was referring to earlier. Moon was more concerned about his magnanimous legacy than about the domestic abuse of his daughter-in-law. As I read her testimony and followed her journey, I found myself going through a similar one. By the last page, I left the church and freed myself from the depressing theology of Rev Moon. I live a happy life now. I’m not very religious, but I don’t hate religion. 

Moon didn’t learn a lot from religion. Many Jewish scholars see the Old Testament stories as metaphors to learn from, not literal historical events representing the Cain and Abel dichotomy. If Moon really understood Jesus, he would have lived more like Gandhi, Tolstoy, or even Shaliene Woodley, as opposed to Donald Trump or John D. Rockefeller. The Qur’an opposes collective punishment for crimes done by others and would be disgusted with ideas like indemnity. While both Buddhism and Hinduism see atheism or agnosticism as acceptable spiritual paths, Buddhism more so. Moon denounced godlessness as Satanic.

I would like to thank HWDYKYM for giving me a healthy space to express these thoughts. As you can see by the length of this, they’ve been bubbling beneath the surface for some time now. I know that I may not have not have gotten everything right as far as Moon’s doctrine is concerned. I simply speak from my own experience – what I was taught, what I had believed. I hold no ill will towards current members, by the way. Many of them are still beloved members of my friends and family, just don’t expect me to go to workshops.

Sun Myung Moon’s theology used to control members

Divine Principle – Parallels of History

Sun Myung Moon  – Restoration through Incest

Moon’s Theology of the Fall, Tamar, Jesus and Mary

Nansook Hong, transcripts of three interviews

Nansook Hong In The Shadow Of The Moons, part 1

[richiefuckfacetozier]

Chapter 17: Father’s Day

Story: It’s Not My Fault

Pairing: Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak

Located on Archive of our own

For other chapters - | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |

Title - "Father's Day" by Frank Turner

Warning: Use of homophobic slurs

“We need to talk.” His father said sternly.

“Wentworth," Richie sighed deeply. "I really don’t care what you want to talk about with me right now.”

“Look at me, young man.”

He crossed his arms, thinking he would ignore the request and go to bed. After their conversation, he certainly wished he had.

Richie turned around as annoyingly slow as he could. His father was holding up a small piece of paper. Richie squinted his eyes, even with his strong prescription, seeing was not his forte. He walked toward him slowly then froze. His throat dried up and his stomach felt like it was going to extricate the burger he ate that afternoon. The best meal of his life because he was holding Eddie’s hand the whole time was about to betray him.

Because in his father’s hand was not just a piece of paper.

It was a photo.

A photo of him and Eddie kissing as if no one else in the world was there.

Art by @slashpalooza

Richie was usually a pacer when horrible situations happened. He already fidgets constantly and moving helps him calm down. At this moment, he needed to do the opposite and sit because his knees were about to give out from shock. He thought he was careful hiding the photo under his mattress, knowing his parents never went into his room.

Wait a minute, why did he go into my fucking room?

“That photo has nothing to do with you.” Richie said in a shaky voice. His heart was pounding roughly against his chest.

“Sit down, Richard.”

“This is a total invasion of my fucking privacy.” Richie’s voice did not even sound like him. It was angry but most of all, terrified.

“This is my house you selfish shit. Sit down.” He repeated.

Richie’s legs moved automatically toward the empty armchair in the living room. Sitting far away from his father felt better even if he was obeying him. “What are you planning to do with the picture?” Richie said through gritted teeth.

“Nothing, if you shut up for once and do what I tell you.” Their eyes met with matching expressions of hatred. Wentworth put the photo in his pocket. “Here’s what is going to happen. You will break up with this boy.”

“I love him.” Richie replied immediately.

“You what?” His father sneered.

“I. LOVE. HIM.” Richie accented every syllable as if he could slam the words into his father’s brain through speech.

“You don’t know what love is Richard.”

“I’m not you. So yeah, I fucking do.”

“Enough!” Wentworth jabbed his finger toward Richie as his voice became deadly quiet. “You listen to me boy. I will not have any of this disgusting business under my roof. You are ungrateful and have no idea the embarrassment you bring upon this family. We didn’t raise you this way.” It was all words Richie had heard before. Listening to his father’s disappointment was similar to a CD stuck on repeat, persistently aggravating you until the player is turned off.

“You didn’t really bother raising me actually.” Richie said lazily.

“Do you think this is funny? Are you trying to ruin this family?”

“You do that all on your own.”

“How dare…”

“No! It’s my turn to talk.” Richie stood up and turned off any filter he had ever taught himself. This was the speech he always desired to speak but never did. He hesitated thinking about how Eddie would feel if he could see him now, but then pushed that down. “You say I never shut up. Well, here’s a Richie tirade for you, FATHER...”

“...You leave us for 3 weeks over winter break without any explanation, just completely disappear. You know who held us together? It wasn’t me. It was Eddie. He came by every day to make sure Mom and I were eating, bathing, cleaning the damn house, simple life stuff. Because I could barely handle Mom being drunk everyday. Now, she’s trying to get better for me she says. And what are you doing to help this family? Planning to leave her, which she doesn’t even KNOW, and telling me that I can’t be with the one person who brings me any kind of happiness in life. Why are you the world's BIGGEST JACKASS?!” Richie knew his face was on fire. He had never yelled so much and for so long before. 

I can barely breathe. Why can’t I breathe right? Is this what a panic attack feels like? I need Eddie to tell me.

Wentworth stared at Richie with harsh contempt. He seemed speechless, completely unable to defend himself. He brought back his only ammunition, threats. “End whatever this is or there will be consequences.”

A nasty laugh ripped through Richie. The kind of bitter laugh that didn’t reach your eyes and had no trace of mirth. “You think you can threaten me? I’m not scared of you. You are weak and pathetic. There is nothing you can do to me that will get me to break up with Eddie. He’s more important to me than anyone, or anything, or even my own life. Do your fucking worst.”

“If you don’t end it. I will make sure this…” He held up the photograph again. The harmless, beautiful picture of him and Eddie. “...gets into the hands of his mother.”

Richie sat down heavily staring at the man in horror. It felt like a boulder had dropped into Richie’s stomach. He was such a fool. His father was the most manipulative person in his life. He should have realized he would not bother threatening Richie. He hasn’t been able to control his son’s actions for a long time. He would have to threaten Eddie instead. It was like witnessing a cartoon villain threatening his love. Except the villain was real and him and Eddie may not survive this kind of pain.

“No…” Richie heard his voice whisper. “You wouldn’t.”

“I bet Sonia has no idea her son is a fucking faggot.” Wentworth snarled. Richie clenched his hand automatically. His brain craved the possibility of his fist meeting his father’s jaw. But he did not punch him. That was not the kind of person he wanted to be. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

“As you and mom have pointed out before, I’m a fucking faggot. How does that make you feel to have raised a boy that loves dick? Perhaps that’s why you named me Richard.” His father stood suddenly and Richie followed suit. They were the same height but Wentworth weighed at least 70 pounds more. They had never hit each other before, but Richie wondered if it was time one of them did.

“What’s going on?” Came the sharp voice of his mother. Richie looked at her feeling an irrational rage toward her too. If she had left him, I would not be in this mess. Why do we both have to be trapped with this monster?  

“Go back to your room, Maggie.” Wentworth’s voice was low and commanding. Richie glared back at him. It made him sick how controlling he was with both of them.

“No, I don’t know what’s going on but you two need to cool off.” His mother walked over and stood in front of Richie to move him away. Richie looked at her in confusion, when he realized she was trying to put herself in between them. No, she’s trying to protect me from him. The revelation almost made him cry.

“Mom,” Richie said quietly. She put her hand on his shoulder pushing him from the room.

“You end it with that little shit boy or you know what will happen.” Wentworth called viciously behind him.

“Fuck you!” Richie growled.

“Rich, go to your room, sweetheart. Lock the door and blast music.” She said hurriedly.

He stopped walking, “I’m not leaving you alone with him.”

“I can handle your father.”

“Mom, he told me...that I can’t see Eds that I have to br - ” Richie choked on the words. He swallowed back the sob. “I love him, mom. Please.”

Her golden brown eyes that matched his gazed up at him with concern and fascination. She hesitantly brought her hand up to brush away his tears. He had no idea when he started crying but was too distraught to care.

“Eddie’s lucky to have you.” She whispered kindly.

Richie shook his head as his lip trembled, “I’m lucky to have him.”

She kissed his cheek. “Thank you for not being your father.” He was hit with so much affection for her. He wrapped his long arms around her slender frame in a hug he hoped would give her strength.

“I love you, mom.” He couldn’t remember the last time he and told her that.

“I love you so much more.” She replied. He definitely couldn’t recall her saying those words to him. They broke apart and he headed to his room.

He didn’t lock the door or play music. He wanted to listen to everything they had to say. The argument started with Richie, then went to Richie and Eddie, then swiftly got to them. Richie lit a cigarette. It took him five times to light it because his hands were shaking. That first draw from the stick eased his nerves a little. He hadn't smoked a cigarette in almost a month and knew Eddie would hate it but desperation trumped his guilt. He zeroed in on the fighting again. 

“We don’t deserve that kid and this is how you treat him.”

“You act like a fucking saint. You’ve treated him much worse than I ever had!”

“That’s because I am sick, but I'm getting better. You’re just an asshole!” Her screaming was so loud, Richie wondered if the neighbors would call the police.

“You fucking bitch. I provide for this family and give you everything and…”

Richie could barely stomach their argument. He paced around his room, his energy on overdrive. His mother screamed at his father to get out of the house and never come back. He told her he was planning on it anyway but that it was her responsibility to end Richie and that boy’s defiling of the family name. It was exhausting to listen to, like a never-ending record scratch.

The front door slammed violently and his mother was screaming at him to drop dead.

Richie heard her go into the kitchen and wondered if he should go out there. A part of him wanted to feign being asleep if she tried knocking, but that was their old relationship.

He rolled out of his bed and headed to the kitchen. He stood in the entrance frame watching his mother attempting to make hot chocolate.

“If the stove is too hot, it’ll burn.” Richie walked over and turned it down. Which I only know because of Eddie. Then he grabbed marshmallows from a cabinet and cinnamon sticks. He went into the fridge and took out the whipped cream, shaking the container before uncaping it.

She grinned at him weakly. “Where do all these sweets come from?”

“Oh Mom,” Richie said gently. “It’s time you knew that I only eat sweets.” He sprayed a ton of whipped cream straight into his mouth. 

She turned toward the stove and stirred the chocolate. “That must be why you are with Eddie.”

Richie choked on the whipped cream.

He swallowed quickly, looking at her in disbelief, “Mom, that was dirty.”

She laughed a genuine laugh. “Sorry! I meant because he is the sweetest of all. Damn it. That still sounds bad.”

“No, I’m using it on him. He’ll be mortified.” Richie’s laugh filled the kitchen and she chuckled too.

“That poor boy.” She shook her head. The hot chocolate was bubbling, so she took it off the stove to let it cool down. “Sonia has no idea about him does she?”

“Um...well he tried to tell her and she wouldn’t even let him say the word gay.” Richie watched his mother carefully. She didn’t flinch or frown. She just looked like the world was on her shoulders. “They aren’t speaking and he is technically not supposed to see me anymore. But of course, we don’t care.”

“Rich, I…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want to say I’m sorry.” She leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed. He crossed his own subconsciously, half sitting on the kitchen table.

“For what?” He pushed.

“For everything. God...this is supposed to be step 9 of the program and I am supposed to have everything written out that I am sorry for.” She hung her head miserably as she tried to find the right words to say.

“If you want to wait until you get there, that’s ok.” Richie reassured her, even if he did want an apology. Hell, I want an apology for almost 17 years of neglect, please.

She tried again, “No, I want to say now that I’m sorry for how I reacted when you came out. I can barely even remember it because I was so…so...”

“Drunk. I remember. I was there. You also told me if you had a daughter this would not be an issue. You wouldn’t have to deal with a faggot son.” Richie thought about how horrible that night was. He had a perfect memory, practically photographic, so the expressions and words of hate his parents displayed were forever stamped in his brain.

“That’s the cruelest thing I could have said to you and I’m so sorry.” She blinked quickly trying to will her tears away.

Richie sighed not feeling in a comforting mood at that moment. “It happened. You can’t take it back.”

“No, I can’t.” She looked at him steadily. “Do you know why I said that?”

“So you could braid your hypothetical daughter’s hair? I mean mines getting pretty long so you could try -“

She interrupted his ramblings, “Because my biggest fear was seeing my husband in my son’s eyes.”

Richie stayed silent mulling that over. His biggest fear was becoming his father too. He shivered at the thought. Then asked quietly, “Was your fear?”

“I know, now, you could never be like him. You’re everything I want in a child and more. I’m sorry I never realized how good I got it until now.” There were no words for how that made Richie feel. He walked forward and hugged her for the second time that night. They pulled away to make their hot chocolate, adding tons of marshmallows and cinnamon sticks.

They sat down at the table in a bit of an uncomfortable silence. Richie usually avoided awkwardness by talking but he had nothing, in particular, he wanted to talk about.

“We should talk about your father’s threat to expose you and Eddie to his mom.” She said carefully.

Richie looked at her as he blew on his hot chocolate before drinking it. “Sure.”

“I think, and don’t bite my head off…” She waited for him to nod that he would stay relaxed. “As much as I hate to say it, you may need to temporarily end things with Eddie.”

“I’m not fucking doing that.” He practically slammed his mug on the table.

“Richie…” She warned

“No! I’m not afraid of him. Like you said, Wentworth can drop dead for all I care.” He yelled. She flinched at him raising his voice and he felt guilty. There had been too much yelling tonight. “I’m sorry.”

She gave him a sad stare. “Aren’t you afraid for Eddie? Our family is too messed for you to bring someone into it.”

“Mom I…”

“You love him. I know. It is ultimately your decision but you have to figure out whether he should have pain thrust upon him or choose to bring that pain on himself.” Those words hung in the air like a parasite ready to kill its host.

Cliffhanger x2

The next chapter is almost ready to go, nobody panic. Feel free to yell at me in the comments, over messenger, or ask. 

@sam-i-am2468 @dandeliontozier @reddie-brasil @takemetothetide @ohheydatsme @slashpalooza @averym14 @fucking-reddie @leidi-didi @savannaholeff

[sicklylittlesnowflake]

So I am in /desperate/ need of an injured Grantaire because of a bar fight (maybe ‘protecting Enjolras’ honour’ type thing in which he tells some idiot to stop badmouthing his sun) and Enjolras not knowing until he walks in to find Grantaire bleeding all over the place with broken or bruised ribs like ‘it’s nothing’

(Combined bc these prompts are similar!! Ok real talk I love this prompt a lot tho?? I had a lot of fun with this!)

It’s quarter after one and the all the buzz of earlier that evening has died down considerably. The Cafe Musain is relatively calm, quiet with the exception of the slight and quiet chatter of those who remained. It’s nice, and Grantaire is calm.

He takes this time for himself as he walks aimlessly around the area, appreciating life for a moment. Grantaire watches the other happy people, their laughter leaving a warm fuzzy feeling in his stomach. There is something so cozy about being inside a warm cafe during a cold winters night and the slight warmth from the one beer he had that night. He thinks about the glee of those surrounding him, and when he heads his way down the stairs ready to walk home, listen to the music along the cobbled pavement, he sees his main source of glee, glowing with all that he is.

Butterflies flutter in his stomach and he feels like he is flowing when he sees bouncy golden curls hunched over a seat. Grantaire can’t help the idiotic, smitten smile that laces his lips as he inches closer to who he wished was his.

Grantaire swings onto the chair next to him with a charming, a little sloppy, grin on his face, prepared to say something sly or playful, when his smile is suddenly wiped off his face when he realises his beloved is not glowing as bright as he usually is.

There’s a few tears falling down his flushed face, a massive contrast against his complexion. Strewn about him is a collection of cans of alcohol. He normally smells of coffee and chocolate cake but now he reeks of what seems like a concoction of Kronenbourg and Guinness.

“Enjolras?” Grantaire immediately says, concerned and alarmed.

Enjolras jumps, only now broken out of his own world. He becomes aware of the world around him and he wipes away his tears quickly, turning to face him with a shaky smile.

“Hey ‘Taire,” He singsongs, but his timbre is wobbly and there’s something behind his eyes that aren’t quite as bright as he intends.

“E..what’s going on sunshine?” Grantaire asks softly, his gaze drifting towards Enjolras’ shaking hands.

Enjolras shakes his head, clearing his throat, but it doesn’t stop his voice from cracking, “Nothing. Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Then why are you drinking so heavily? C'mon E, this isn’t you. We’ve talked about this before; you don’t need to repress your emotions from me, or from anyone. It’s no use bottling it all up. Please talk to me,” Grantaire encourages, there’s a steadiness and firmness to his voice but gentle enough. He knows Enjolras so well. Grantaire eyes his shaking hands again and he gestures towards them.

“Yeah, yeah, you can hold them, a-actually please do,” Enjolras whispers as to keep himself from bursting into tears again. Grantaire reaches in and laces his fingers with Enjolras’s, holding firmly but gently, strong but loving. He tries to ignore the lovesick voice at the back of his head, screeching for more.

Enjolras lets out a shaky breath and nods, gently fiddling with Grantaire’s fingers in a blissfully absentminded way. He subconsciously clings onto Grantaire for support, and the way Enjolras’ fingers brush against his make the butterflies in his stomach wildly dance and his chest soar.

“I just..I’ve had an off day. I just woke up this morning..feeling really blue, you know? I mean, I have them often and it doesn’t really faze me as much now, you know, I was getting through the day. But since I feel so empty I was empty at the meeting earlier and I was lifeless and dull, and pathetic, nothing like a leader should be and I fucked up earlier. Loads of people weren’t listening and I don’t blame them because why would they, and I just feel like I’ve failed miserably and now I’ve tuned the other Amis off the cause because I can’t fucking feel happy and–”

Enjolras can’ tbite back the sob, he slaps a hand over his mouth to stop himself. Grantaire gives his hand a gentle squeeze.

“And to make everything worse I saw two guys from my high school–they’re the sons of my dad’s business partners and they tormented me so many years and they still are–they’re passing through town and they saw me and I could hear them talking about all these horrible and disgusting creepy stuff about me and all these homophobic bullshit and how much of a failure and disgrace I am to my family and now I keep thinking of my father and maybe he was right all along, maybe they are right, maybe they’re–”

Hearing all of the people who have hurt his sunshine made Grantaire’s blood boil. He could feel a fiery passion building up within him, an anger that was begging to be released. Grantaire cups Enjolras’s face and brought it over so they were looking at each other, looking at him intensely.

“They are so wrong about you. You are strong, and brave, beautiful, intelligent..You incredibly bright and talented and the world has to brace itself because you’re here to take it by storm. You are not a disgrace, E. We all love you, we all look up to you. I know you don’t see it but you’re a great leader, because you have bad days, because you have bad days but you persevere and you live for another day. Don’t let anybody take that away from you. And if these guys give you any trouble again, let them know there’s a very angry Grantaire ready to show some fists,” Grantaire promises as he carefully wiped tears away from his face.

Enjolras manages, a chuckle, and he could begin to see a little bit of that bright, spectacular smile again.

Grantaire couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face, “There it is.”

Enjolras leans in to give Grantaire a hug, nuzzling his nose into Grantaire’s hair, whispering a breathy and loving, “Thank you.”

It sent shivers up his spine and he felt like a chilly but somehow cozy winter’s breeze brush against him.

“Lets go home, okay? I’m driving you–you are far too drunk to be walking. You need your rest, Apollo, we’ve got a big day tomorrow,” Grantaire remarks, at hoisting Enjolras onto his feet and slinging his arm over his shoulder, holding him close and he feared the moment he’d have to let go.

Despite all the love and warmth he could feel soaring all throughout him, Grantaire couldn’t quite shake the anger still boiling in his heart and the burning passion for justice for the wrongs done to his sunshine. He could not rest.

“Hey Bossuet! You seen Enjolras?” Grantaire calls out to his friend as he jogs up to him, slightly flustered and out of breath.

“Yeah! He’s just over there, getting ready for the speech–he’ll be on in about 5 minutes so you better get to him now!” Bossuet says quickly as he walks off to get his seat in the audience and watch.

Grantaire nods and heads over to Enjolras who is waiting for his queue to go on. His face is blank, breathing deeply to try and get himself into the right headspace. He’s gathering energy, building up the fire. Creating just the right spark.

And Grantaire knows he hasn’t quite got it.

Enjolras lets out a frustrated sigh and stings his hands anxiously, until he realises Grantaire’s presence.

“Oh! Hey ‘Taire,” Enjolras greets.

“Hey you, how you feeling?” He asks sweetly.

“Not great. I don’t have it, I can’t get the fire started. Yesterday just..kinda extinguished it. I’m not sure if I can get it back,” Enjolras admits quietly.

Grantaire gives him a reassuring smile and holds him by the soldiers firmly, “You’ve got it. It’s right inside you. But you gotta let go of these thoughts and voices and people who are withholding you and your entirety. Once you do that, I know you’ll get it.”

Enjolras smiled softly and kisses Grantaire on the cheek quickly, so sweet that Grantaire could have melted into a puddle. He felt a little bit shaken after that, swept off his feet, light as a feather.

“Think of someone who makes you feel safe.”

With that, Grantaire leaves with a thumbs up and heads towards the audience to watch his beloved. And unbeknownst to him, Enjolras had thought of him the whole time.

When Enjolras steps onto the stage, he’s still a little out of it. And before he can even speak a voice echoes, loud and harsh and cold. It freezes him.

“It’s the fucking disgrace!” A man yells.

Then comes the homophobic comments, the disgusting remarks. The words are like nails against a chalkboard for Grantaire, and it makes his blood boil and he can feel the fire rising in his body and he feels the anger sizzling within him.

Grantaire finds his attention averting towards the noise and ruckus and he finds his target, eyes of venom as he sees the two men guilty of this crime. He has company, Combeferre is glaring and Jehan is too while holding Courfeyrac back.

Enjolras is frozen, and the crowd watches on, a mixture of confusion and pity and discomfort. He sees his sunshine scan the crowd anxiously, he can see the breathing pick up but suddenly like this magnetic inclination, this electric attraction, this connection, they meet eyes.

Enjolras’s gaze locks onto his and suddenly he thaws. He steadies himself with him as his anchor and Grantaire is all he sees. The rest of the world does not exist. The fire is lit.

And Enjolras burns with fire as he speaks, and the crowd roars with him.

The energy is soaring high when the speech finishes. There’s this pulsating adrenaline in the air afterwards, this beautiful high and everyone’s light and breezy, celebrating this victory. This enlightenment.

But Grantaire seethes in his anger, there seems to be a thunder cloud looming above him and the lightning is striking.

Grantaire wishes he could be calm because he wants so badly to find Enjolras and hug him and tell him he told him so, celebrate with his friends, but he can’t quite shake that bitter feeling of injustice stinging at his heart.

He takes a swig of the Kronenbourg he has in his hand and relishes the metallic warmth as it slides down his throat, the heat in his stomach only seeming to progress the fury building within him. Grantaire sits there with himself and his anger, in a world of his own with his fiery thoughts rampaging a storm until he is pulled back to reality with a grating voice that cements him back to this reality.

“What a fucking queer..You know, he’s actually smart, he could have been working for his father at this stage.”

“God yeah, he had it all. He had girls lining up to even talk to him. To be fair he is good looking–he just had to go that way, it’s so disgusting. And he had to pursue that stupid English degree–which is so fucking stupid.”

Grantaire tenses more and more as more and more slurs piled up, until he just couldn’t anymore.

He had reached a breaking point, something inside of him snaps and he loses control.

Grantaire liftshimself off the bar and plonks his beer onto the table, shoving himself off his seat. He pushes through the crowds of people, and as he gets closer and closer he can hear better and the insults get louder and Grantaire gets angrier, picking up pace and his fury  builds up onto this climatic crescendo.

He pushes past until he makes it to the table where the two perpetrators sit. Fiery rage ablaze, panting. The two look over at him and raise an eyebrow.

“Who are you?”

And Grantaire’s fists meet their faces.

Grantaire lunges and pounds with fire, he feels this fire come ablaze and spread, he punches with force and he feels the adrenaline pump. It feels great.

Until he is kicked off, and he feels a sharp, stinging pain rise up hid body and he yells out in pain. Firsts come into contact with his face, and he feels the rough and hard bones like concrete against his face. He cries out as a a sharp and tremendous blow explodes by his rib cage, the pain and hurt radiating like tremors throughout his body. Grantaire hisses in pain and spits the metallic taste of blood onto the floor of the bar.

Grantaire groans, unable to pick himself up from the floor, but he manages to look up to see one of the guys standing, looming over him, preparing for the last blow. But before he does he kicks him off balance and lunges, pouncing on him and punching him repeatedly. The two scramble out, limping, leaving Grantaire leeched of all energy and dropping onto the floor.

He can hardly hear the commotion before him because all he can think of is the impending and worsening pain by the second. But through all the madness and noise he can hear a familiar voice calling for him and it sounds like a sweet familiar melody calling him home.

“Grantaire?! Grantaire–’-TAIRE! Oh my god!” Enjolras screams, pushing violently past the ring of people that have crowded around him and he slides onto the floor by his side.

He holds Grantaire up with so much warmth, his touch so loving and secure, like he’s determined to never let him go.

“Oh god, R, I was so scared–I couldn’t find you and–fuck! What’s happened to you?! Where does it hurt?!”

Grantaire gruntsvin pain, reaching out for Enjolras’s hand to cement him back to earth, as a lifeline, squeezing it tight, “My ribs.”

“Oh fuck, why’d you do this?!” Enjolras cries out frantically, placing an arm around him to try and support him.

“For you,” Grantaire chokes out, a few spatters of blood flying from his mouth.

Enjolras freezes, bewildered, confused. “Me..? Why would you..?”

“Because I love you–aaAHH!!” Grantaire yells as his ribs scream out to him, a intemperate scorching pain pulsating throughout his ribs. He cries out in pain, hissing as the pain ravages him.

For a second Enjolras is frozen, but soon after his instincts kick back in and he hoists Grantaire to his feet, away from here, to a place where he can be fixed up again.

“Stay with me sweetheart, you’re going to be fine,” Enjolras repeats over and over as he drives frantically to the hospital, Grantaire groaning out in pain in the backseat, squirming, hissing. He’s not really sure if he’s saying it for Grantaire or for himself.

Grantaire cries out as a new tidal wave of pain comes in with a vengeance and washes all over him. Enjolras bites back his tears, loathing the amount of pain his beloved was in, and how it was because of him.

“You shouldn’t have done this for me,” Enjolras whispers, and it doesn’t quite reach Grantaire and in a way he’s glad it didn’t.

But he can’t quite ignore that persisting feeling within him, the three worded sentence echoing in him repeatedly like a mantra. He doesn’t quite feel like he’s here, like he’s gone on autopilot, because his world has just been shaken and it cannot go back to how it used to be ever again.

Enjolras is not sure how long he’s waited but each moment lasts forever and it feels like he’s known nothing but this torturous limbo.

The ticking clock seems to be taunting him, playing with his heart. He breathes in ragged breaths and wrings his hands anxiously, tapping his foot to a syncopated rapid rhythm. He cannot rest until he knows Grantaire is okay.

He springs up to his feet when the doctor comes out of the room.

“Is he okay?!” Enjolras yelps.

The doctor is taken aback a little, “He will be just fine, sir. He has pretty severely bruised ribs, and quite a few more bruises. He’ll be in a lot of pain for the next few weeks but we’ve loaded him up on some painkillers. You may see him if you wish.”

Enjolras nods quickly and pushes past the doctor to meet Grantaire, sitting up on the bed with an ice pack pressed against his cheek.

The sight of him–his blackened eye, bruises face, scratches and swollen all over, in pain, brought him to tears.

Enjolras bit back the sob that threatened to leave him, and he aggressively swiped the incoming tears from his eyes.

“What the fuck?! Why did you do that?!” He cried out, angry, shaky, trying not to succumb to his tears.

“What? Because–E, they were disrespecting you!”

“And so?! You didn’t have to! Leave them be–they will always disrespect me, it didn’t do anything, did it? Now you’re hurt without reason! Don’t fucking do that!”

“Without reason?! You are reason enough, E! Do you not appreciate what I’ve done?!”

“No! No I don’t! I do not appreciate you bloodied and screaming in pain my arms, I do not appreciate the anxiety and fear taking over me in fear id lose you! I do not appreciate my heart pounding out of my chest in a rush to make you okay again!”

Grantaire softened, “E..”

Enjolras couldn’t help the tears flowing freely now, “You don’t understand. You don’t understand, seeing you hurt hurts me.”

Grantaire sighs heavily, “Of course I understand. You don’t understand why I did it. You should’ve seen your eyes. You are sunshine, Enjolras. You’re radiant. You glow. Yesterday you were full, dark, like all the life and light had been sucked out of you. You were empty and it hurt me too. I couldn’t let it happen ever again, because I..i..”

A silence fell upon them.

And suddenly Enjolras leans in and his lips collides against his, sparks flying between them in this wonderfully electric connection. He can feel a fire, a blazing fire full of life. Grantaire is glowing.

Enjolras pulls away, “I-I’m sorry, I..”

Before he could speak any further Grantaire pullsback in, grabbing by his shirt and kissing him like it would be his last, letting the warmth rush through him once again. He shivers as Enjolras puts his hands through his hair, and it’s like the air has locked into place for the first time really.

“I-I’m sorry to interrupt..” A nurse calls out with embarrassment.

The two quickly pull away in shock, looking at each other with bewilderment until they end up in giggles.

Enjolras straightens up, unable to wipe the stupid grin off his face, “Sorry. I’ll..be on my way.”

He gets up to leave, but not without giving Grantaire one of those beautiful smiles that melt him all over.

“How’re you feeling, sir?”

“I don’t know m'am, like I’m a lot lighter.”

“It must be the concussion–”

“No m'am, I think it might be my heart.”

[turnsoutnoonewasexaggerating]

Part 13 of The Sam Diaries

Summary: Meet Sam, a sweet confused unfit demisexual, as he encounters his celebrity crush Andrew Minyard time and time again despite, or perhaps because of the fact that he doesn’t actually like Exy all that much. (That or because his girlfriend owns the ice-cream place Andrew’s obsessed with. One or the other.)

Chapter summary: Sam's origin story, or, at least, the origin of his friendships

Read on Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10507836/chapters/28723324

“Well you know what, fuck you guys, because that makes three of us!” Nicky exclaims, to everyone’s confusion. A second ago Neil was sure Nicky was about to cry at Andrew’s (for him) heartfelt thanks, and now he looked a second from tearing his hair out.

Neil and Erik shared a look. Sometimes he hated being part of this family.

“I had to find out from fucking YouTube that you’d been outed to the press, you little asshole.” Nicky continues, pointing a finger at Andrew accusingly. “And, you!” Nicky shouts, now stabbing the finger at Aaron, who doesn’t back down on his glare at Andrew but somehow still manages to look sheepish. Erik and Neil both slowly edge out of the car, and Katelyn also attempts to sneak away from the trio, but Aaron won’t let go of her hand so she settles for sending pleading looks Neil’s way instead. “You got engaged?! MONTHS AGO?!” Neil’s slightly worried Nicky’s going to strain his shoulder with how sharply he’s gesticulating. He looks around for Erik, his main support here, but Erik’s talking to what he assumes is one of their co-workers, smiling a bit forcefully and trying to turn their attention away from his angry husband. “So if a fucking family intervention is what I had to stage to get the two of you to fucking talk to me that’s what I fucking did! Fuck you!” He frowns. “It’s been a while since I’ve spoken English. I feel like that was too many fucks.”

“You’ve always given too many fucks.” Andrew deadpans, with a hint of the double-edged sense of humour that sends thrills down Neil’s spine, at the same time that Aaron says, “Why are you dressed as a pilot?”

Nicky makes an inarticulate noise of frustration, throws his hands in the air, and stalks off to Erik, which is ten times more dramatic because of the sequined vampire cloak he’s currently supporting.

Andrew is still in the car.

When Sam Goldsmith had arrived at university, he’d been quiet. Quiet, scared but sweet had been most people’s first impressions of him. At first, his roommate had thought Sam was just socially awkward, but after politely but firmly being turned down repetitively to go out to a party, he figured Sam might just be really into his studying.

Everyone liked Sam well enough; he kept his room clean, he took out the bins when it was his turn, he didn’t smoke weed in his room and despite his thick Southern accent he didn’t appear to harbour any racist or homophobic beliefs that everyone attributed to the south. Nobody knew Sam; perhaps if pressed they could recall he had a fairly standard home-life, expressed no interest in exercise and liked Harry Potter enough that he knew what house he’d be sorted into (Hufflepuff, obviously) but generally he was unremarkable.

There was a boy two floors above Sam’s that gave him smiles and Christmas presents after Sam had helped him build a shelf. There was a girl who spent most of her time in the library being sexiled that always shared her crisps with him after Sam had run up three flights of stairs to get her inhaler for her (thankfully it wasn’t in the room she’d been sexiled from). There was even a professor who awkwardly smiled at him every time they passed each other on campus because Sam read to their mother once a week at the old people’s home down the road, and it always made the lady’s day.

And then there was Yasmin.

Katelyn soon-to-be-Minyard is an incredible doctor. She can keep calm and collected even during the most panicked life-or-death moments (and none of her colleagues believe that it’s from years of Cheer practice (possibly because it’s not entirely from that; but trying to explain her almost brother-in-law’s slightly knife-happy tendencies without making him sound insane is mostly impossible)), but for some reason, standing in a parking lot, freezing her tits off in her ‘sexy Doctor’ costume that she likes to make fun of and likes how Aaron always eyes her thighs in, with her fiancé who’s locked in a stare-down with his brother that she, even after all these years, still doesn’t know whether it’s mostly just to rile up Nicky, makes her blurt out the first thing that comes into her head.

Andrew on-bad-days-still-sometimes-forgets-his-last-name-is-now-Minyard, hasn’t wanted to kill his brother’s partner for years (Katelyn may be unsure about that but Andrew’s not. He’d never be unsure about something that concerned Aaron’s safety). And yet, as soon as he registers the words that Katelyn has just spoken, he has a split second of longing for a present where he’d just done away with her all those years ago (a feeling Neil would mock him for and say was ‘regret’ but Andrew doesn’t believe in it), but finds it difficult to put into practice when he is still in the fucking car and can’t leave until one of the people who own keys for the vehicle comes back to lock it up (he doesn’t think Nicky lives in a particularly bad neighbourhood but it’s not like he was concerned enough to Google it before he came so who knows. Maybe German bad neighbourhoods look really fancy).

Aaron on-bad-days-still-wishes-his-name-wasn’t-Minyard, loves Katelyn very much. So much, in fact, that her words make him break his stare-down with Andrew to stare at her in confused delight (not that he hasn’t wanted to be staring at her for the past five minutes anyway, because if possible he’d like to live in a world where his eyes would never have to leave hers, but glaring at Andrew has become as ritualistic as fist-bumping Nicky nowadays).

“You really missed an opportunity to come as skeletwins.”

Sam didn’t like parties. He didn’t like clubs. But he wasn’t completely averse to alcohol (no-one except him had twigged that he was averse to crowded places filled with sex and no escape seeing as that was most freshman’s dream come true) which is how he managed to be at the pub (a sensible mile from campus) at the same time as Yasmin Harris, who, among other things, was stoned out of her mind.

“We should fuck.” Is what Yasmin says to him, sitting down next to him at the bar like that’s a normal greeting. Sam shoots a mournful look to his roommate who’s chatting up the girl on his other side and resigns himself to having to deal with this. He glances at Yasmin and finds himself blinking slightly in surprise. He’s been at university, away from his family, for more than a semester now, and he’d thought he’d seen just about every version of whacky looks possible. Yasmin Harris might be about to take the cake however. She’s tall, unusually tall for a girl, like a good head and shoulders taller than him and he’s not exactly short. She has a very sharp face (Sam finds himself comparing her to Draco Malfoy before he can stop himself), bright purple contacts that absolutely do not match her sunshine yellow hair that is so bright it almost hurts to look at. She also has a fairly impressive burn scar on one side of her face that she’s drawn round in black sharpie, to show it off. It mars one of her nostrils oddly, and twists the left corner of her mouth into a grimace. He meets her eyes eventually and when he does she snorts, and he doesn’t understand why.

“You reek of virgin kid.” Sam’s brother had said that to him, at Thanksgiving Christmas dinner. Then he’d showed off a hickey he’d got (apparently) off some leather-clad biker dude that ‘reeked of Derek Hale almost as much as you reek of virgin’ and Sam had pretended to not be hurt by the way his mother had been absolutely scandalised at the ‘sinful’ gay activity but not at how Sage was being a dick. Sam also didn’t know what to do with the information that his brother is apparently still watching Teen Wolf, or began to watch it in the first place. Sam’s hoping this girl isn’t going to go down the same route. “My name’s Yasmin Harris. You’re Sam Goldsmith, the nice kid who’s even nice to fucking wheezy Winter.” Sam narrows his eyes.

“No-one calls her wheezy Winter.” Yasmin shrugs, and then grins, her tongue lolling slightly out of her mouth like a dog’s. “I don’t want to have sex with you.” He adds.

“But,” Yasmin says, and pokes one ridiculously long talon-like fingernail into his chest, “Do you want to have sex with anybody?” Sam feels his chest seize slightly and forces himself to relax. He’s a freak, but he’s not a liar.

“Not particularly.” He says, eventually.

“If you stop reeking of virgin I’m going to have to kick someone’s ass now, aren’t I?” Yasmin sighs, looking worn down all of a sudden. Sam blinks.

“What?”

“Because we’re friends now, dickhead.” Sam thinks with longing about the next day, where presumably Yasmin is going to completely forget this happened and Sam can go back to being quiet, scared and sweet.

  Surprisingly, or not, Andrew doesn’t kill Katelyn. It is only, as he’ll admit to Neil later, 50% because he’s still stuck in the car. Instead, Erik comes back to lock the car up with a grumpy Nicky standing very pointedly off to the side and eventually they all go into the party.

“I’m expecting an apology. From both of you. And an explanation.” Nicky finally says, sniffing, and Andrew and Aaron share an conspiratorial look of smugness that Nicky cracked before they did. Both of them pretend like these looks never happen.

“I wanted to tell you in person.” Aaron says, when Andrew doesn’t speak.

“I didn’t even know you were thinking about it!” Nicky huffed, grabbing Katelyn’s hand to look at the ring. He introduces his family to a co-worker who taps him on the shoulder in German, barely even looking at her. When he looks back up from Katelyn’s hand he’s a bit teary and Aaron thunks his head on the table in defeat.

“I am not drunk enough to deal with you being sappy.”

“It’s not my fault I’m already on edge from Andrew’s fucking speech in the car.” Nicky says, more than a little choked.

“Why’d you make him cry?” Aaron says, frowning at his twin, disapproving. Andrew shrugs.

“Just said thanks. Not even to him.” Andrew huffs, the words partially muffled in his whiskey glass as he drains it.

“Neil’s been holding out on an Andrew who’s actually nice and has emotions.” Nicky stage-whispers. Aaron raises an eyebrow, disbelieving.

“Nicky I am never going to thank you again.” Andrew deadpans.

“How about an apology?”

“I don’t do apologies.” Nicky glares at him. “Neither does Neil.” Andrew argues confidently. Neil winces a little beside him, but when Andrew turns to look Neil’s looking at Aaron of all people. “What?” Andrew snaps.

“That’s not quite true.” Neil hedges, still looking at Aaron.

Yasmin doesn’t forget in the morning.

Instead, she turns up at Sam’s door in a very tinted pair of sunglasses and a bikini, with a cocktail in one hand and Winter White in the other. Winter White is the girl Sam has been sharing crisps with in the library, and apparently he’s just found the roommate that’s always sexiling her. She’s waves to him, sheepishly, and Sam’s roommate groans at him to close the door because it’s letting in the light from where he’s lying face down in bed.

Sam obediently moves into the corridor. If Sage’s mysterious hickey-giver had been Derek Hale then Winter is the female version of Stiles Stilinski, all lean and freckled and nerdy, with geek glasses that frame warm brown eyes and very fidgety hands. Sam doesn’t know why he’s still thinking about Teen Wolf.

“Wheezy here’s all hung up on that guy who couldn’t get a shelf up on his first week here. And don’t worry, I’ve already warned her all about if he can’t get a shelf up there might be other things he can’t get up too but she’s adamant that he’s the one and apparently you know him. Jesus. I think I’m the only one with balls around here. Anyway, you’re going to introduce them because god knows I owe Wheezy a few nights of shagging and she’s pretty much the sweetest so if you try and get out of this I will cut off your non-existent balls.” Sam thinks about this.

“Stop calling her wheezy.” He offers back, and Yasmin does that grin again, where Sam’s kind of wondering if she’s only been smiled at by dogs before because no human being smiles like that.

“I know you were a sweetheart. Here’s the deal; you go help this darling with her romantic troubles and then the four of us are going to be A Group. Like a clique. It’s going to be a thing.”

“What if Anders already has friends?” Winter points out, quietly. ‘Anders’ is referring to the guy who couldn’t fix a shelf, who goes by his last name ‘Anderson’ and has so far refused to tell anyone what his first name is.

“He doesn’t.” Sam and Yasmin say in unison. Yasmin holds her hand up for a fist bump and Sam is already bumping her fist before he realises he’s moving his arm.

“How do you know?” Winter argues.

“No-one knows what his first name is.” Sam points out. “Which means no-one knows him well enough to ask.”

“Shrewd, Sherlock.” Winter concedes, with a small smile. Sam wonders whether he might have had a friend this whole time and just hadn’t realised. When he thinks about Anders, upstairs, and the exchanged Christmas presents and the smiles, he feels heat rising in his face.

Yasmin makes a noise like she’s physically pained. “Ugh. Can we keep him? Please?” She stage-whispers to Winter. “He hasn’t even asked about my face yet.”

“How strange. Not asking people personal questions as soon as you meet them.” Winter deadpans, and how did Sam not know she was sarcastic? Yasmin scoffs, unoffended.

“In my defence, I was high as a kite.”

“When are you not?”

“Now who’s asking personal questions?”

“Anders?” Sam cuts in, when their banter doesn’t subside. Winter immediately starts trying to back down the hallway but Yasmin’s got her scary nails wrapped round Winter’s wrist before she’s taken two steps.

“I’m in A Group with cowards.” Yasmin sniffs. “Sam barely leaves his room, Winter’s been crushing on a guy for like High-School long without saying anything and this Anders guy can’t even tell people his first name.”

“I leave my room.” Sam mutters, affronted.

“Yeah, barely.” Yasmin snaps right back, and Sam feels sort of like he should be taking offence at this woman who he’s only known the best part of twelve hours judging him but she’s not exactly wrong.

So much for quiet, scared and sweet. Looks like he’s going to have to settle for slightly social instead.

“Matt’s out.” Is what Aaron says as soon as he opens the door to Neil’s knock, already preparing to close it.

“Cool. I came here to talk to you though.” Aaron’s face immediately pinches tight with worry.

“What’s happened to Andrew?” He demands, opening the door wider.

“Nothing. As far as I know.” Neil brushes past Aaron into his old dorm, ignoring the fact that Aaron didn’t invite him in. “He’s in class.” Before Aaron can ask what the Hell Neil is doing, Neil’s looking at his Biology notes with a weird blend of queasiness and interest. The notes are spread out all over the floor because Andrew might have an eidetic memory but Aaron didn’t get that particular blessing/curse, and he has midterms he actually cares about unlike apparently everyone else on this sodding team.

“What?” He snaps, when Neil doesn’t explain why he’s staring at his notes like it’s a particularly disgusting museum display.

“I remember having to learn all the different arteries and veins, how close they were to the surface, all that stuff.” Despite himself, Aaron’s a little intrigued; he genuinely loves Biology and it doesn’t take much to get his interest.

“Did you do Biology at Milport or something?” Neil looks startled.

“Ah, no. I got taught this stuff by Lola. When I was eight.”

“Not in this level of detail.” Aaron argues, slightly affronted. Neil’s expression lifts, become more humoured.

“No. Didn’t need to know how the circulatory system worked just how to sever it with a particularly sharp knife.” His voice is for a second distant yet hard, and then he blinks and his normal closed-off expression is back. “Anyway. I came here to talk to you about this.” Neil gestures between the two of them with a grimace.

“There is no this.” Aaron scoffs. For some reason this startles a laugh out of Neil.

“You really are twins.” He muses.

“What?”

“That’s what Andrew says whenever I refer to our relationship.” Neil says, almost fondly. Aaron narrows his eyes at him.

“You’ve been… Dating for what, a year now? And Andrew refuses to acknowledge you have a relationship?” Neil frowns.

“Not like that he just. Doesn’t do it verbally. It doesn’t matter.” Aaron really thinks it does matter but he’s learning to ask before he asserts his own judgements. He’ll bring it up next time they go to see Bee. He knows what it’s like to be called nothing. To some extent, he even knows what it’s like to be called nothing by Andrew. He knew now, in some capacity, Andrew had done and had been doing more to protect Aaron than he ever knew at the time, but that didn’t change how little he’d valued Aaron’s opinions or existence in general. It wasn’t so much that Andrew had not lived up to Aaron’s expectations as subverted them completely. While Aaron doesn’t like Neil and he definitely doesn’t trust him, he also doesn’t want Andrew to drive Neil away because of stubbornness when Neil’s clearly the only person who Andrew can stand for long periods of time.

“Hurry up Josten I need to get back to studying.”

“I wanted to apologise.” Neil says, eventually. Aaron was expecting a gun to his head more than he was expecting this. “Except I’m kind of shit at that. So I thought maybe I could teach you how to drive as an apology instead.”

“An apology for what?” Aaron asks, baffled. Neil pulls a face.

“Are you going to make me list it?” When Aaron just continues to stare blankly at him, Neil sighs. “For throwing Tilda in your face, for interfering in your relationship with Katelyn, for lying, for endangering everyone on this team, for persuading Andrew to go to the Hemmicks, for not talking to you much afterwards and for stealing one of your shots last week. Did I about cover it?” He asks, sarcastically.

“The shot was the real grievance.” Aaron shoots back, unimpressed. “You don’t have a car. How are you going to teach me to drive?”

“I bought Andrew’s car. I get a key.” Aaron’s eyes widen.

“You bought Andrew’s car? What the fuck Neil?” Neil shrugs sheepishly.

“I thought I was going to die at the end of the year so I didn’t need the money anymore.”

“Andrew doesn’t accept gifts that aren’t food related.” Aaron disagrees. Neil, if possible, looks even more sheepish.

“I traded him for not taking cracker dust anymore. Wanted to limit his addictions.”

“Why didn’t you take him off cigarettes they’ll kill him much faster.” Aaron complains. “Bastard.” He adds, almost as an afterthought.

“It’d ruin his aesthetic.” At that, Neil Josten succeeds in the previously impossible and makes Aaron laugh.

“Oh thank fuck you also think the all black is a little much sometimes. You know he wore a skull cap to meet the team on our first day here?”

“What’s a skull cap?” Aaron sits down by his laptop and does a quick image search for him. The vindication he feels when Neil I-am-physically-repelled-away-from-fashionable-clothing Josten looks horrified is the most satisfying feeling he’s had all day. “I don’t think I’d wear that even if I had no other clothes.”

“I would if only because everyone would think I was Andrew.” Aaron admits. “I’ve bought the same tie as him for this year’s Christmas banquet just so I can pretend I’m him if anyone tries to talk to me.”

“Can you even do a good Andrew impression?” Neil asks, not convinced. Aaron does his best to shut down all his facial expressions and stare blankly at the wall in front of him. “Oh my goodness! It’s almost like you’re tw-”

“Don’t.” Aaron cuts him off, unamused. Well, maybe a little amused but Josten doesn’t need to know that. “Is Andrew ok with me learning to drive in his car?” He asks, suspicious.

“When I asked he said I’d never convince you so it didn’t matter what he thought.”

“Are you any good at driving?” Neil’s hand goes to the side of his stomach for a second, rubbing at the skin there.

“I’m better than Nicky and obey more traffic rules than Andrew.” Neil offers.

“Good enough.”

  Almost two semesters later and Sam’s not entirely sure he remembers what it was like to not be in A Group. Anders’ (who still goes by Anders to everyone except Winter, who he lets call him ‘Tal’ but all of them at least know what his first name is) parents have lent him their apartment for a couple of weeks while they join in on some sort of pilgrimage (Anders hadn’t explained and only Yasmin had asked, only to be shut down) so Anders had invited the three of them up to stay with him. It was nice, because Anders could have just invited Winter but he was as invested in their Group as much as Yasmin was, as much as all of them were to be honest.

Sam was more comfortable being around them than he was anywhere else, but he was still an introvert at heart. Which meant he got up early and went for a walk by himself round the city every day, just to clear his head. He went a different way every time, because for some reason he was falling more and more in love with this city (city? Town?) every time he discovered something new about it, and he wanted to explore it all.

There was a café he found, after about half an hour of walking, which he was about to go in to until he saw a sign for what looked like an ice-cream parlour round the corner. Sam felt the way the sweat was beading on his forehead in the heat and his stomach concurred with an emphatic grumble so he went there instead, pushing his way through the door eagerly.

Inside was bright and colourful, with tables and chairs that looked slightly rickety but very homely. Even though this town was pretty large, it was clear this place was the kind of place that had regulars and meant something to the community. There were so many homely vibes coming from the whole place. Sam loves it immediately.

“Hi there! Can I help you?” Sam stops taking the place in and looks behind the counter. There’s a young woman stood there, around his age, her hair held back by a simple headband instead of the hairnets he usually associates with people dealing with food. There’s something about the dark circles under her eyes and the weary slant of her posture but real, genuine smile that makes Sam want to draw.

He’s not sure even his Group knows about his drawings. It’s not something he was encouraged to do; his father was sure it was going to lead him into being ‘one of those prissy little gay boys’ so it’s become something he does only when the need to draw overcomes the weird lingering bad feeling he gets whenever he does.

He blushes, realising he’s been staring for slightly too long and shuffles closer to the counter. Luckily there’s only a couple of other people in the store to witness his embarrassment, and they seem far too interested in shoving their tongues down each other’s throats to care about him. “Um, do you have a recommendation?” Sam manages to stutter out, gesturing at the ice-creams on display.

The woman sucks her bottom lip into her mouth thoughtfully, looking him up and down. Sam thinks the heat must be getting to her too, if the way the back of her neck is going splotchy is any indication. “You look like the kind of person who’s into vanilla-ry things, right?” She smiles at him again and then her expression blanks before he can return it, looking mortified. “Oh my goodness I’m so sorry I meant in terms of ice cream I wasn’t trying to- Shit.”

“What else would it be in terms of?” Sam asks, bewildered. The woman buries her face in her hands, her hair sweeping past her shoulders at the bottom to help. She peeks at him through her fingers and then waggles her eyebrows, comically enough that Sam finds himself laughing even before he’s made the connection between that and the looks Anders and Winter give each other when they think no-one’s looking.

“I promise I wasn’t trying to be creepy.” The woman says, laughing a little with him but still looking embarrassed as hell. Sam thinks it’s adorable. Now he’s closer to her he can see the pretty impressive muscles she’s got in her arms, that he doesn’t think are just from scooping ice-cream, and the freckles that dot all over her visible skin.

“Don’t worry.” Sam assures. The woman bites her lip again.

“So, ice-cream? I think you’d like something classic, like Honeycomb or maybe the white chocolate and raspberry?”

“They both sound good.” Sam admits. “Can I have a scoop of each?” The woman rings up the order and then freezes.

“Ugh I meant to not charge you for this-”

“It’s fine.” Sam says firmly. The woman seems unsure.

“Can I at least buy you a coffee sometime? To apologise?” Sam smiles shyly at her.

“Can I have a name to go with that coffee?” He replies, as she scoops out his ice cream, and Sam is more than a little impressed by the way her muscles ripple as she does.

“Eunoia.”

“Sam.” He offers back. She hands him the ice cream, but doesn’t quite let go of it yet.

“Sam.” She says, testing the name. “It suits you.” Sam doesn’t know whether that’s a compliment or not. “You free now?” Sam blinks at her, perplexed.

“Are you?” He says, pointedly looking at the counter separating them.

“I’ll be done by the time you finish your ice cream.” Sam wonders what weird shifts they have going on at this place but doesn’t question it, finding himself excited to get to know someone, for quite possibly the first time in his life.

And if he spends most of the time that he’s supposed to be eating the ice cream doodling Eunoia in his sketchbook, well, only the two of them are going to know.

And maybe that couple in the corner if they’d stopped to disengage their mouths.

“You actually taught Aaron how to drive?” Andrew says, a little bit stunned and trying not to show it.

“You said I could.” Neil says quickly and Andrew nods, but sends him a look that clearly says ‘I didn’t know though’. “We had the same free blocks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Plus Aaron’s a fast learner. We just took the car out when you were in class. I figured you knew.” Andrew narrowed his eyes at Aaron.

“You could drive for our last two years? Why was I stuck driving you everywhere?”

“You didn’t?” Aaron replies, frowning. “The only time you drove me places was to go to practice or to Eden’s.”

“Yes but if you could drive why would you still come to Eden’s with us?” Andrew says, genuinely confused and not liking being so. Even Neil looks like he knows the answer and Andrew’s being particularly dense.

“Because I wanted to.” Aaron answers, shortly, and Neil and Nicky and Katelyn all grin at each other because; progress!

“It doesn’t feel complete without Kevin here too.” Nicky says after a moment where Andrew’s still glaring at his glass like it’s offended him as he tries to wrap his head round this new information.

“Maybe next time you scheme us all into a surprise reunion you can get him too.” Aaron says sarcastically. At Nicky’s excited expression Aaron points his finger in Nicky’s face. “No, nope that was not an idea-” Nicky’s already bounding off to talk to Erik, shouting something about ‘Weihnachten’. “Fuck.” Aaron says, thunking his head on the table again. Katelyn runs a hand through his hair comfortingly, although it’s shaking slightly because of how much she’s laughing.

“We’re having Christmas this year.” Andrew says, in the same tone of voice one might deliver the news of a death, and everyone on the table looks at him in surprise. “Can you come?”

“Does coming mean I have to do Christmas next year?” Aaron says, shrewdly.

“It’s Wymack’s next year.” Neil assures.

“Has it really been another five years since we beat the shitty prick already?” Aaron muses. “They always say you get fonder of dead people as time passes but…”

“Yeah no Riko’s still a massive asshole.” Neil agrees, and how in holy hell did Andrew not notice his brother doesn’t hate Neil anymore?

Christ, he’s getting old.