#i really want to try to get this blog running

[countrymusiclover]

8 - Life Used to be Simple

Part 9

A Wolf Among Dragons

Tag list ( just ask to be added ) @tallrock35 @kmc1989 @starkleila @noirrose21-blog @lover-of-books-and-tea @immyowndefender @iamavailablesstuff @plaguecourier

My boots clicked against the heavy marble stone as I walked alongside the young dragon prince Aemond. Normally I felt some comfort around the young man but now it felt differently. I felt like someone was pushing down on my stomach making it hard to breathe now when I’m around him.

“My lady, we've been strolling for nearly an hour and you’ve not spoken a word. Must I assume you don’t wish to stroll with me.” He broke the uncomfortable silence that could be felt between us.

Tucking some hair behind my ear I kept my gaze trained forward as we kept moving. “I must confess I am rather tired, my prince.”

“We can stop and rest if you wish.” He commented back at me.

Shaking my head I wished he would understand that I wasn’t comfortable around him. Halting in my tracks I huffed, dropping my shoulders heavily. “I wish to retire to my chambers now.” I quickly spun on my heels in a hastened manner to leave yet he managed to snag my wrist in one of his hands keeping me from doing so.

“Lehna, wait.”

I attempt to yank my wrist from his grasp but he holds a slightly tight grip. “Aemond - I. Please let me go please.”

“You’re acting cold to me and I want to know why. Have I done something to offend you?” His voice was filled with care I could tell. I just couldn’t bring myself to be honest with him like I had always been.

No matter how much I despised being in a marriage with Daemon I had no real way out of it. We were wed under the eyes of the Gods and nothing would change that.

Rolling my eyes I tried a second time to break free from the princes hold on me. “You’ve done nothing to upset me, my prince. I am really just needing to retire for the day. Now please let me go - urgh!”

“Stop lying to me, Lehna.” Aemond snapped back at me.

Throwing my freehand up in the air I was surprised he was able to notice. “How do you know I’m lying? You know nothing about me.”

“You’ve never lied to me before so I must assume that you’re lying when your voice gets a higher pitch to it.” He enfired with the slight raise of his eyebrows. He was much more clever at figuring things out then his older brother Aegon, which was very obvious in the short conversations I’d shared with the second born prince.

“You don’t deserve to know anything about me - it’s improper since I have already been wed off.” I sharply growled back with bared teeth.

Aemond gently kept a hold on my wrist speaking quietly with a shrug of his shoulders. “I do know some things. Not enough to build a life together but I suppose I must find a way inside your head if you won’t let me in on your own accord.”

“I’m done having this conversation with you.” I shoved him as much as I could, finally managing to free myself from his grasp. Sadly I only took two short steps forward before I felt arms wrapping around my waist and I was spun around before my nose brushed against his. “Ahh! A - Aemond.”

“Tell me you feel nothing for me and I will walk away.” He takes a step closer, nearly closing the entire gap between our bodies. He tilted my chin up with his freehand making me meet his gaze. He leans forward barely keeping his lips from mine.

“I only have feelings for my lord husband.” I gulped trying to come up with the right words to say to him.

Aemond narrowed his one good eye on me. “You’re lying. I know you don’t care for him.”

“I have no feelings for my husband so I must have feelings for you. Pfft that’s the most ridiculous defense I’ve ever heard.”

The young prince runs his thumb over the side of my face, a gentle manner compared to the rough side he usually showed everyone else around the court. “If you had no feelings for me you would’ve already come out and said it. You’re denying the question so I know you are lying.”

“You can spat off whatever you want, Aemond. It still doesn’t mean shit if it’s not true!”

“So you're saying you feel absolutely nothing when I do this.”

Knitting my brows together I didn’t understand what he meant by that until he pressed his lips passionately down onto mine. “Aemond, what are you meaning by-“

He tugged my flesh against his chest making me yank my wrist from his grasp, leaving my arms to have the ability to move freely. Resting my hands on his chest our eyes met when he rested his forehead against mine before harshly kissing me again. Leaning up on my toes I yanked the collar of his tunic bringing him forward deepening the kiss.

In an instant it was like a million flames were spreading through my entire body. An unknown fire or desire whatever you wish to call it. Certainly it was never something I had felt when I was forced to kiss Daemon.

Experience in the act may impress some ladies. But I’d rather chase this unchecked feeling.

Slowly wrapping my arms around his neck I broke the kiss reconnecting our lips in a fiery kiss. Aemond moaned into the kiss till we finally broke it needing to catch our breath unfortunately. “Lehna-“

“Don’t speak - just.” I leaned back on my toes, raising my hands up to hold his face in my hands. Scanning my eyes over the eye patch and scar on his lost eye. I wished things were easier then this, cause I knew I had to push him away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I just can’t.”

Aemond called my name yet didn’t try to reach out and physically stop me this time. This time he simply watched me and my gown skirts disappear from his view once I rounded one of the large pillars entering the castle. “Lehna!”

Zooming through the castle hallways of the Red Keep and I didn’t stop till I reached Helaena’s bedchamber. Kicking opened the door with my foot the doors slammed against the wall and I shrieked, covering my eyes at the sight before me. “Laena - seven hells!”

“How dare you come in unannounced before the future king!” Aegon sharply took a step backwards from his position about to kiss his sister Helaena until I walked in and interrupted them.

I gulped nervously remembering this was common for the dragon family even if it wasn’t common for my direwolf family. “I’m sorry, my prince.”

“Tell your friend to knock next time, Helaena.” Aegon stomped past me slamming the door behind him after he had exited.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt - uh whatever that was.” I nervously spoke, finally meeting my friend’s gaze.

Helaena clasped her hands together crossing the room to be nearby. “He came in and told me our mother was planning on making us marry when the time comes after our father has passed. I am actually grateful you interrupted us. I didn’t wish to kiss him.”

“Maybe the Targaryen tradition will get broken for you.” I touched her shoulder gently and she sent me a smile before I told her the reason I had come inside her room so abruptly. “Laena, I have a favor to ask of you as my only friend.”

She takes my hands in her own. “What is it?”

“I need you to take me on your dragon somewhere out of King's Landing. I need to see someone I’ve heard rumors about throughout the castle.”

“Dreamfyre. Who must you need to see so desperately?” She asked me in a softly toned voice.

Blinking through some tears by mentioning his name I did my best to not think about Daemon at that moment. “I need to see the girl that was originally supposed to marry Daemon until my father sent in my name to your father. I need you to take me to see Rhea Royce.”

“I’ve never been out of the keep, Lehna.” Helaena nervously muttered showing me she was slightly worried.

Intertwining my hands with hers I sent her a half smile hoping she believed that I needed her help with this. I needed to talk with someone who got out of marrying the man I was wed to. “Helaena, please help me. I need to go talk with her and you’re the only person I trust to ask this favor of.”

Finally to my relief the princess nodded her head yes in agreement.

Hopefully she had some advice to give me.

I needed advice on whether or not I should ignore my feelings for the young prince or deny what I was feeling for the rest of my life.

[wsdanon]

hello everyone I made a little poll about this wip on my alt blog, so here it is \o/!! fic for some of the shotgunners (Matt, Felps, Guaxi) except I don’t feel like I’ve watched enough to write about this confrontation + resolution correctly, so just take this little lead up thing I wrote because I really wanted to write something for them…

reblogs appreciated, hope you enjoy \o/!!

Well, Felps is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Although using rock to describe the demon pathetically clinging to his arm—who made himself smaller just so he could stare up at Felps with wide eyes—doesn’t seem entirely accurate. But it is working. Even if it makes it a little hard to see what he’s signing. 

“Matt…” Felps sighs. How to put this? “I want to stay on good terms with Guaxinim.” 

“It’ll be fine!” Matt insists. “You two have already fought, right? Just say it’s a misunderstanding similar to that if it goes wrong.” 

“He might be too paranoid for that, you know?”

“But we’ve already all investigated together and he was fine then! It doesn’t need to be anything big—just, you know, that you trust me.” Matt pauses, seeming to consider something. “And… maybe that you don’t think people will think badly of him for talking with a demon?”

“Ah, Matt… you’re pushing it a little, yeah?” Felps sighs. “But, fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you!” 

Matt uncurls himself and throws his arms around Felps in a tight hug. Honestly—he is taller than Felps. That crouched position to make himself look smaller couldn’t have been very comfortable for long. Or maybe it’s fine for demons—he doesn’t know. 

Out of Felps and Guaxinim it’s almost funny that it’s shaken out like this. But he’s never been a very good Saint. Does Matt appreciate the irony, too? 

“Okay, okay.” He hugs Matt a little tighter before trying to pull away. For a moment—he doesn’t think Matt is going to let him. “I’ll go talk to him now. But don’t expect it to work, okay?”

“Of course.” Matt smiles—and how can Guaxinim say with so much confidence that the man in front of him is ugly? It’s certainly not true. Not in Felps’ opinion, at least. “Thank you for trying, though.” 

“Of course, of course, it’s no problem.”

He does… sort of trust Matt. Compared to everyone else on the island that isn’t in their group, he could even say he trusts Matt the most. If someone suggested he be added to their chat, Felps wouldn’t argue. They are already kind of investigating with him, anyway. 

He has no idea what’s going on with Matt and Bagi, but maybe if this thing with Xinim and Matt smoothes over he will get an invite. If Meiaum has any reservations about it Felps is sure he’ll easily be able to convince those away. 

With another thank you, and a goodbye, Matt runs off. Leaving Felps with the mammoth task of somehow convincing Guaxinim to be less harsh with Matt. 

“Where are you?” He messages Guaxi. “I want to talk.”

Guaxinim sends his location. With a belated, “Everything okay?” 

“Just have some information.” Felps replies. 

Then he plugs the coordinates into his map and stops focusing on messaging in favour of getting there as quick as possible. It’s starting to turn night, and Felps doesn’t want to deal with the myriad of monsters that will shortly appear. At least he seems close. 

He has no idea how he’s going to do this. Guaxinim worries too much. Or maybe not too much—just… too explosively. After all, Felps is fairly certain he does like Matt, he just… doesn’t want to be seen with him?

With every passing day back on this earth he understands the people on it less and less. 

At least the chaos they create is entertaining, but it does beg the question—should Felps reveal what he is? Will that calm Guaxinim’s mind? He really didn’t want anyone to know, but maybe…?

Matt knows. Matt definitely knows. The first time they met Matt had looked at him like he could see more—like he could see the haze Felps himself sees when he looks in mirrors—red eyes wide and glittering with wonder as he called him Saint Felps after Felps had introduced himself. 

And that’s already one person more than he would like to know. 

But if Guaxinim is worried about Matt’s demon status reflecting badly on him, he shouldn’t have to. As much as Felps isn’t good at being a Saint, Matt isn’t good at being a demon, either. Anyone on this island will easily see that. 

And somehow he has to convey that without revealing what he is. Because, no, thinking about it—two people knowing is quite enough, thank you. And Guaxinim has sold him out before… maybe. Felps is still unclear on the truth of that situation, but he’s willing to put it mostly behind him. 

Mostly. 

He doesn’t want this information getting out, and Guaxinim can’t be trusted with that right now. He’ll save it for if things really start going wrong. 

Guaxinim jumps out in front of him with a hello on his hands, and Felps barely notices the latter—too busy yelping and recovering from the fright. 

“Hey, Felps.” He repeats, smiling a little too much like he finds this funny. “You okay?”

“What a scare.” Felps lets his hands shake as he signs it, then he weakly pushes at Guaxinim. “For the love of god, Xinim, don’t do that!” 

“Hey, it’s not my fault, right?” Guaxinim complains. “You were too deep in thought—how else was I supposed to get your attention?”

And… Well, he’s right, but Felps isn’t going to admit that. 

“Listen…” Then he sighs, and looks around, and beckons Guaxinim a few steps to the left. “Come here, come here—it’s too exposed there.”

“Okay, okay.” Guaxinim signs as he follows after Felps with a laugh. 

Good. He doesn’t want this to come off like a serious conversation. 

…Even though they have been having serious conversations like this, too. But it at least adds some levity to the situation. 

———

this is about as far as I dare write with how little I currently know… hope you enjoyed though \o/!!

[cerise-on-top]

Nikolai with a s/o who always has a hand on his chest? With consent ofc, and it’s always to feel his heartbeat. I think of this all the time and it’s always super cute in my head.

Hello! That is pretty cute!

Nikolai Always with Reader’s Hand on His Chest

Nikolai is a pretty laid back and chill sort of man, so he usually doesn’t mind you putting your hand over his heart. Maybe not while you’re walking, though, he doesn’t want you to trip. It’s very sweet to him: You wanna make sure that he’s alive? That he’s still with you? That his heart is still beating? Trust me, not even death could take him away from you. He’d dig his way out of his grave after killing the reaper with his bare hands himself. You can always put your hand over his chest while you’re at home together, though. It’s nice to feel you. After a while it would be reassuring to him as well, feeling that you’re there, that you’re with him. He thinks it’s sweet that you always want to be touching him, because if it was up to you he’d do the same thing with you. After some time, once he’s realized that you’re always touching him whenever you can, he tries to get into positions that facilitate you touching him a bit. Usually lies on his back when you’re cuddling so you have full access to him. Can and will fall asleep like that, but will also want to hold you back. Will also put his hand over your heart as well so he can “get back at you”. In reality, feeling your heartbeat is also just nice and reassuring to him. However, he sometimes might lie on your chest in order to hear it as well, something like it lulls him to sleep, after all. You can put your hand over his chest in public as well, though, he doesn’t particularly mind cuddling in public either. There’s a good chance you’ll be nicely clothed, though, so you won’t feel his heartbeat unless you slip your hand under his clothes. You can do that, he doesn’t care about strangers staring in public. However, once it’s time to continue walking around, release him. You can continue your antics once you’ve found another nice bench to sit on.

[every-sanji]

[necrotic-nephilim]

i love your fics and the ideas you describe for the ask games. i'm especially fond of your takes on the rarer pairings and i always smile when i see your posts in the ship tags <3

and don't stress too much about not posting anything, real life is important and participating in fandom should be fun, not something you have to force yourself to do. god knows fandom burnout is real, especially if you feel like people are expecting something from you. just keep doing what makes you happy :)

ghgfhgjhkjhjhg this was so sweet, thank you so much! i *love* talking about rarer rarepairs, especially if it gets other people to ship them too. the popular ships are fun and all, but i truly love spreading rarepair propaganda.

that's very reassuring, thank you <3 i've loved everything i posted here so far and have not felt pushed to post anything i haven't enjoyed, but sometimes i forget i can like. use this blog for whatever i want and not *just* headcanons/fics/mets/etc lol. and i also forget i don't have to rush myself. it's annoying to want to write and either not have time or not have the words work. i used to run a fandom blog in my teens that got very large and felt like a chore and i was so stressed about the need to perform and the numbers and all of that. like if a fic didn't do well i saw it as a personal failing and forced myself to write popular headcanons just for the numbers game. was not fun or sustainable in the long run and i think it contributed to me no longer having any taste for the ship i primarily wrote for. so for too long i treated existing in fandom like a job lol. i've mostly gotten it through to myself that this is a space for me, but i occasionally forget when i'm so caught up in all the things i want to get to for this blog. my to-write list is a mile long and i need to be bonked with a paper towel roll, i think. so it's very kind of you to say this bc the reminder is nice <3

[morismentos]

here’s some doodles of life to actually get her design down and then some of death can’t exactly separate them

[luck-of-the-drawings]

when i was in highschool one o my biggest coping mechanisms was drawing all the kids i hated getting killed and eaten and killed. and well. time is a slowly ascending spiral. you will find patterns.(i work as a blackjack dealer. gamblers are FASCINATING

[just-aro]

y'all have no idea how much effort goes into trying to interpret and respond to some of the questions we get about aromanticism lol.

like kee does so much tonal phrasing to be nice about this, but. please. "what is aromantic?" i am not google. "i don't know if i feel romantic attraction." cool, i'm not gonna be able to tell you what it feels like either. "hi, what if I am a person and not one of the major aro stereotypes?" then you are a person who is aro and doesn't fit that stereotype.

and like, whatever, we deal with those fine. but the worst. the absolute worst. is the ones where the ask is more or less requesting me to speak for aromantic people as a whole, or - worse and more commonly - a specific subset of aro people who i may not identify with, and almost always insist they aren't trying to be bad, but have such a questionable mindset behind it that i feel like i need to start with "how to identify that you haven't unlearned shit, you just realized you have an identity and stuck your tongue out at the people who taught you that shit"

[newvegascowboy]

Kind of strange but i feel like i haven't been In Fandom for years. Like there are tv shows i like, but i wouldn't consider myself Part Of Fandom. Rdr2 was rhe closest ive gotten to feeling like im In A Fandom again in a while. I feel like the only reason i consider myself part of the fallout fandom is because ive been posting about it for nearly a decade

[dissociationswagcompetition]

Are there still plans for a part two or no? (No pressure either way, just wondering as it's been a month since the last update.)

There still are! We've been really busy irl and haven't had as much time as we were hoping to to get things together, but we've been slowly getting the stuff to at least start Round 2's nomination period! I was hoping to get that together sometime this weekend, no promises, but I'm hoping to try!

[arcaneyouth]

RAMBLING INCOHERENTLY FOR TOO MANY PARAGRAPHS WATCH OUT

oc spaces are weird. like i'm never going to bash on anyone for doing ocs differently than me, but like ,,, the way i do ocs isn't. the usual? and,,, of course not, yeah, i'm making a full on comic that's taken me 6 years to get this far and will take me another decade to finish, not everybody is capable of doing that or wants to. but it is odd to me sometimes how much having A Story, a full story, is just not normal in oc spaces.

most often, i see ocs that are just a design and personality and a couple relationships (which is awesome i have many of those too) and they clink them together like dolls. sometimes the ocs are JUST the design with no personality (which is awesome i have many of those too). fandom ocs are pretty common too. dnd ocs go crazy. ,,,but i kinda rarely see people with ocs like mine with a full fleshed out universe and storyline just for themselves. which is fine most of the time, but when i do try to talk about it and get excited about it, it's kinda ignored. cause it's more welcomed to talk about individual ocs and why they're sooooo silly. i see it happen with people that aren't me too, it's not just a me thing, in the oc spaces i'm in it's So Common to just ignore anything more than a pretty design.

ok so i guess if i want to find people like me, i should be looking for other authors! but authers don't really like me either. i'm not a novelist, i'm a comic artist and i'll always be a comic artist. i don't do things in the right way because i'm making Comics (not stories.) and comics aren't real stories in a lot of places. not to mention online it's mostly taken up by fanfic authors, which i am very much not

ok. so i just need to find other comic artists. right? i can do that right? NO. because of webtoon the webcomic creator community is constantly in fucking shambles and i'm still doing it wrong because i'm doing everything webtoon hates. so i don't even want to look at comic spaces.

so i go back to oc spaces where they will at least look at my pretty designs and go wow they're so pretty while i try to tell people i have a full comic about them if they wanna know more and they look away

[arrowpunk]

no I just wanted to show you that trads who aren't homophobic exist.

the fact you are married at all is already a tradition. :)

the fact you seem to have passion for treating your wife with the upmost respect and love is something all spouses do healthily regardless.

if you didn't care about any traditions why bother being married at all? why live together? why care?

I'd love to know genuinely how you think you being lesbian makes your relationship totally different from someone else in love? honestly?

Ok so once again confused as to why you’ve decided to make this a whole Thing, unless you’re looking for validation or something which I’ve already said I’m not gonna give you. I’m not trying to be rude, I’m doing my best here to take what you’re saying/asking in good faith, and I’d like to ask you to do the same for my response here. I’m not trying to be mean, though I’m sure an amount of it is gonna come off that way regardless, because I’m not gonna police my tone here. 

Damn there’s so much for me to go into here I don’t even know where to start. 

So like in your first ask you referred to yourself as a “catholic trad wife” that already tells me pretty thoroughly that we are incredibly different people and that our respective relationships couldn’t be more different. 

I am not speaking from a place of ignorance about Christianity or Catholicism. As a matter of fact, my wife’s maid of honor at our wedding is Catholic. And we were both raised Christian. We were married in a church, actually, the church paid for our wedding. Contrary to what you seem to think I have no hatred for Christians or Christianity, or Catholics or Catholicism. I don’t personally consider myself a Christian anymore but my wife still does, and we do actually attend church pretty regularly (we like the sense of community that regularly attending a decent church brings, our last church before we moved to where we are now was genuinely the only reason I wasn’t homeless for a year). 

I know it’s possible for someone to be a Christian and not be homophobic, I know it’s possible for someone to be both Queer and a Christian. But I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, I have no way of knowing what your personal definition of homophobia is. I have no way to tell whether you’re actually affirming of queer love and queer relationships and queer sex, or if you’re ‘Side B’ or ‘Side Y’ or whatever the fuck the middle of the line, trying their hardest to be centrist of all things when it comes to this topic, Christians are calling themselves these days. All I know is that you’re a “Catholic Trad Wife” who claims she isn’t homophobic. You’re on anon so I’m apparently just supposed to take your word on this. Which is kind of weird. I mean literally why the fuck should I, some random queer on the internet, give a shit about whether or not some random internet stranger that I do not interact with is homophobic? It’s a weird thing to show up in someone’s inbox and just say these things. Like do you want a pat on the head? Validation for being ‘one of the good ones’? I’m not gonna give you that. I do not know you. (Ok I’m actually like pretty sure I know who sent me this, but like I do not know you personally, and the time I spent looking at your blog and seeing the people you interact with frequently on here does not give me hope that you’re actually ‘not homophobic’ but I’m not gonna put you publicly on blast like that)

“If you didn't care about any traditions, why bother being married at all? Why live together? Why care?” -Okay see this right here makes it a lot harder for me to take any of this as said in good faith. I’m still going to. But it’s wild to me that you might’ve actually genuinely asked me this. Because I fucking love my wife and enjoy being around her???? And because there are legal protections that come with a marriage license???? Ma’am what the fuck kind of question is ‘Why care?’. Genuinely. What the fuck. Like it feels like I should insert that ‘I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people’ meme here. So like my wife and I love each other very much and we don’t need a marriage license to know that, like the strength of our love and care for each other didn’t change one iota after we said ‘I do’. BUT that marriage license is still really fucking important, there’s a reason queer people fought so fucking hard for the right to be married legally. There’s protections that come from being legally married that you just don’t get without that special piece of paper. And those protections are Really Fucking Important. Some of the big ones we, personally, were concerned about were hospital visitation rights, and legal guardianship. My wife is disabled, my wife’s mother has a history of being incredibly controlling. If she found out we were queer she wouldn’t have wanted my wife to be able to see me anymore. Now, the fact that we are married, and that we have moved many states away across the country from her family, mean that if her mom finds out about us, she likely will not be able to successfully get a conservatorship over my wife. I do not have legal guardianship over my wife, and I don’t want to, she’s an adult, she’s her own person and I should absolutely not have any legal control over her, that’d be really fucked up, but we also want to be absolutely certain nobody else is able to get any legal control over her. My wife is disabled, and I am her primary carer. If she was hospitalized for some reason, and we were not legally married, I might not be able to visit her in the hospital because I wouldn’t be legally considered family. That is a legitimate Safety Risk especially given that I want my wife to be able to get medical care and her mother doesn’t(Her mother is an anti-vaxxer who doesn’t trust doctors and put my wife through years of medical neglect in favor of ‘just praying harder’).

I have nothing against ‘traditions’ in general. What I take issue with is the culture surrounding ‘Trad Marriage’ the term ‘Trad Wife’ is a really loaded term, which heavily implies a Complementarian marriage wherein the husband is head over the wife. The whole “Umbrella of Submission” thing, the relationship hierarchy which goes ‘God -> Husband -> Wife -> Children’. I grew up in evangelicalism. I know what the fuck I’m talking about when I get pissed off about evangelical Christianity/conservative Christianity/what have you. You don’t get to performatively tell me ‘well not ALL Christians-’. I was a Christian, I grew up deep in Christianity, I have read the Bible front to back and back again. I went to a Christian University for a time. I still regularly attend church. I have yet to encounter any Complementarian marriage that is actually healthy, where the husband actually fully respects his wife as a fully autonomous human being who gets to have rights and opinions outside of him. I get that you think your relationship is healthy! I get that you think your husband loves you! I don’t know you- I don’t know your husband- I don’t know the ins and outs of your relationship so I cannot speak on the health of your personal marriage. 

What I can say is that I know it’s a heterosexual relationship. You said yourself you are a catholic trad wife. “I'd love to know genuinely how you think you being lesbian makes your relationship totally different from someone else in love? Honestly?” I didn’t say it was totally different from ‘someone else in love’ I said “if you are a fundie or conservative christian or evangelical or what have you#and you see my posts about my wife and enjoy them#I NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ABOUT QUEER SAPPHIC GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY LOVE#I have gay sex with my gay wife I am the homosexual lifestyle incarnate#I am a queer liberal leftest punk etc#my love for my wife is as queer as it gets#you need to know these things#there is nothing straight about this#anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk or whatever#pls do not repurpose my posts about my love for my wife for your trad fundie evangelical marriage it is NOT the same even a little#thank you” So I feel like it’s pretty damn clear here that I’m placing the divide here between my love for my wife, and trad/fundie/evangelical marriage. Because yeah, they aren’t even remotely similar, and since you said you genuinely wanted to know why I think that I’ll give you a whole list of reasons (I’m generalizing here about cishet white Christian/Catholic ‘traditional’ marriages). 

My wife and I are on equal footing in this relationship. Neither of us is in charge of the other one. There isn’t a designated person who ‘gets the final say’ in everything that we might disagree on. We don’t have fights, we always approach conflict as the two of us together vs. the problem at hand. There is no “head of the household” here and there absolutely doesn’t need to be. 

Now I’m making the bold assumption here that both you and your husband are heterosexual, cisgender, and white. But if I’m right- it was never illegal for you two to get married. You don’t have to worry that your right to exist is ever going to be a topic of debate in your church, in your family, in your friend groups, in the country you live in as a whole. You don’t have to worry that your right to get married might be revoked at some point. There are not any significant societal/cultural barriers in place that would stop or make it more difficult for you and your husband to get married. 

You don’t have to hide your marriage from your parents or your in-laws out of fear of your personal safety. You don’t have to worry that if your family found out about your relationship you might be disowned or disinherited. You don’t have to worry that if your family found out about your marriage your parents might no longer let you talk to your younger siblings. You don’t have to worry about whether or not your brother would physically harm you or your husband, if he found out about your marriage. You didn’t have to take all of these factors into account and then decide that it’s all worth the risk anyway because you love your partner just too damn much not to. 

You don’t have to be constantly aware while existing as a couple in public spaces that there are people who are disgusted by the fact that you even EXIST. You don’t have to worry about the possibility of corrective rape. You don’t have to worry that you might be attacked because you decided to exist in the vicinity of someone who doesn’t think you should. You don’t have to worry that someone might straight up try to kill you because of who you’ve chosen to marry.

You didn’t have to pack up your entire life and move across the country, just to be sure that if your partner’s parents found out about your relationship, that members of their church wouldn’t show up at your door and shoot you. You didn’t have to sit through an entire sermon at that church, pretending you and your partner weren’t a couple, because your family was visiting and they couldn’t know you went to a church that was okay with the existence of queer people. And sit through the entire sermon about how f*gs will never see the light of heaven, while the man at the pulpit made direct eye contact with you Every. Single. Time. He brought up queer people. As if to let you know he knew what you were. You didn’t have to meticulously plan out where you would stop for gas on your 20+ hour long road trip to make sure none of those places would be somewhere with a higher likelihood that you and your partner would get hate-crimed. Two weeks after your wedding. 

You don’t have to worry that your sexuality might get you fired from your job or make it more difficult to get a job in general. 

You don’t have to know that you cannot ever safely spend any holidays with your parents because they live in a place that is so incredibly hostile to queer people.

You haven’t had to deal with friends trying to be so so teeth-grindingly polite as they let you know that they really just can’t agree with your personal choices and think that what you’re doing is sinful when they find out you’ve become affirming and decided to get married. They still love you though! They just really feel the need to make sure you know that they don’t approve of your life choices and think that you’re sinning- solely based on the gender of your partner. Of course they can’t stop you from doing anything, but they feel it’s only right to let you know they disapprove. It doesn’t matter that your relationship is healthier than most cishet relationships you know, all that matters is that they think it’s sinful. Even if it’s not hurting anyone. 

So I’m saying it’s different because the very foundations of our relationships are different. The risk factors of our relationships are different. Of course ‘Love is Love’ but there is something transgressive and subversive about queer love that just isn’t there in cishet white Christian/Catholic trad marriages. My wife and I are married and love each other deeply and devotedly in spite of all of these many many genuine dangers and obstacles. I’m not trying to say that you and your husband don’t love each other. I’m not trying to say you and your husband wouldn’t ‘risk it all’ for each other if you had to, that you wouldn’t also overcome the same obstacles my wife and I have faced, but you haven’t had to, you obviously haven’t even had to consider it if you’re genuinely asking me these things. I’m not trying to say that my love for my wife is somehow ‘better’ than whatever is going on in your marriage. But it is inherently different. I’m not saying it’s totally and completely separate and different. Apples and Oranges are both still fruits, but they’re not the same. And I hope you can understand why I, a very very queer human being, who has suffered much abuse at the hands of the church, would prefer if my posts about how much I love my wife weren't co-opted by cishet Christians to meme about their own relationships. 

I’m not trying to be mean or rude. But I do genuinely hope you can understand how you speak from a place of privilege and that what you’ve said is, at best, in poor taste. 

[strohller27]

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[mccncutter]

:)

[cannibalisticskittles]

amity would not want to share memories in general, but if the tadpole connection let anyone see any memories of her when she was younger/before she started trying to be an adventurer -- when she mingled with other patriars, and tried to engage in high society -- amity would be mortified and extremely apologetic -- "sorry you had to see me like that, how awful!"

she wouldn't have that same feeling if the memory being shared is one where she's getting her ass kicked, even if it's one of the ones where she's REAL fucked up, bc yeah it's a bit embarrassing to be seen in that moment where she got stabbed in the gut AND had an arrow sticking out of her shoulder AND was nursing an incredibly broken nose, but if someone happens to see one of those, yeah, sure, whatever. no apologies for how she looks there.

on a purely superficial level, this is a little funny. because, to be clear, amity is a pretty girl. even now, when she's fucked up her hair with careless knife haircuts, and her skin isn't in the best condition (she uses her One Bar Of Soap for everything on the road, bc it's important to be clean, and it's efficient!) and she's dressed plainly and practically and is constantly dusty at a minimum, and bloodstained and ragged on a fairly regular basis.

so in those memories of her at court? she's radiant. she kept her hair long for years, and it was in much better condition before she started cutting it herself and washing it with The Same Fucking Bar Of Soap She Uses For Everything Else, and her curl pattern was still intact then. and she dressed the part of the only daughter of a nobleman; very fashionable, well-tailored gowns and garments. superficially, she looked gorgeous.

but of course, it isn't really about that. in her eyes it's all awful. everything from that time is. she has shame attached to all those attempts to be a part of high society. back then, she was just making a fool out of herself, trying to be seen as something other than what she was, for people who would always see through her. and whenever she thinks about how she looked then -- the time and effort involved in letting her hair be meticulously styled and braided and brushed out and outfitted and decorated, and sometimes feeling eager, hopeful even, to be involved, when she should have known better. should have known it would never end like she wanted.

she might not like how she looks now but she at least feels like she's doing something worthwhile -- trying to help people who need help. the act of fighting for someone is a noble pursuit and the trying was worth it, even if it didn't work out well for her in that moment.

[steelycunt]

okay so i don’t mind reg bc w/e this is fandom innit ppl can do what they want, but i think you’re so right that remus and lyall are fundamentally much more interesting characters and so is their relationship. reg by himself is somewhat compelling but no one in the fandom seems to care abt what makes him compelling i.e. stuff that actually happened in canon not just fanfictions that he’s been featured in. for instance, i see it being stated as though it’s fact that his parents abused him which we don’t know iirc? we know that sirius was mistreated and i do think being raised by political radicals would likely cause a turbulent home life, so i doubt regulus came out of his childhood unscathed, but we have no actual proof he was treated similarly to sirius at all. he was still a supremacist, just not to the extent that his parents were. as far as i’m concerned he died a fascist, but he had a “for thee but not for me” tory level attitude about certain things.

oh absolutely! with regards to my position on regulus, im in no way trying to say that people can’t/shouldn’t like him—as you say, people can do as they like, but im just personally not at all interested in him or with what general fandom consensus has chosen to do with him. the things that would make regulus compelling in canon do not necessarily compel me anyway, but more than that i agree that a lot of people have chosen to virtually wipe those things out out in favour of creating a morally pure conceptualisation of him that they don’t feel the need to defend (not that i think anyone should have to defend having an interest in regulus anyway).

i suppose i am just not personally predisposed to having an interest in canon regulus, so his popularity is not something i fully understand, but particularly the version of him that has been created by fanon...honestly i find him irritating, and generally i find even less to be interested in in a conceptualization of regulus that strips him of agency, flaws and responsibility. i said in that other post that i dont think regulus is as complex as he's given credit for (which applies even more once fanon is through with him), and i honestly stand by it--i reckon he was fully willing, albeit having been influenced by his upbringing, to become a death eater, and i don't buy the narrative that he had no choice and was forced into it and had no personal sympathy with the politics of it all. i find it ridiculously convenient. and then, i think he started having doubts when the impact of all it all became a little too close for comfort (for thee but not for me is quite a perfect summary lol), and he turned traitor. that is really all there is to it for me. i do not think that he would have rejected his parents' ideology if given the chance, the way sirius did. but i recognise really, since i don't think a character's morality or lack thereof should dictate whether you're allowed to enjoy them, the discussion of regulus' morality is sort of besides the point lol, other than the fact that i find his complete and unrealistic redemption via fanon rather boring and admittedly a little lazy.

my comparison between his relationship with sirius and lyalls relationship with remus in the earlier post was mainly just me. making a joke of sorts and being a little unserious, but i do genuinely think lyall and remus are a lot more interesting and complex--though i 100% recognize that this is largely personal preference and im not trying to dress my opinion as an objective fact. mainly, i guess where i am with it all is that i already dont really have an interest in regulus from canon, and despite his huge surge in popularity i have never seen anything in fanon that really changes my mind about that (apart from. maybe one fic). which is fine! nobody is obligated to sit here and try and tailor their own takes on, or fondness for, this guy to attract my interest, or win me over. that is not their job. my opinion holds no more weight than the next guy's, and my lack of interest in regulus is not anyone else's problem, just like i am not ever going to exert energy trying to win someone over to liking remus or liking r/s. i am never going to go to someone's blog or fic and have a go at them for liking regulus/demand they justify themselves. BUT, in the safety of my own blog, i figure im safe to say these things xx and as far as im concerned, my favourite thing regulus ever did was piss off and die xx