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aconstantstateofbladerunner · 2 years

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I think you mentioned it a few times... But can we get a peak at anything left on the cutting room floor for Dekugate? Notes, cut contact, ect? If you feel okay with that! I just love this story and wanna see all your thoughts on it, even what didn't make the cut. Kinda like dvd extras I guess ahahh.

HOWEVER I get you cut some things for a reason and know how tumbler can be and don't want drama, so it's cool if you just don't feel comfortable with that.

There are two main story elements that got cut.

The first one is that there was originally going to be more of a subplot around Izuku having crushes on both Uraraka and Aoyama. I say ‘crushes,’ but it was closer to what it ended up being where he’s not sure how to feel about them or the idea of being close like that with anyone. When Izuku learned about dekugate, the internal conflict would shift to how his toxic fans would treat them. They’d hate Uraraka for being a girl since aggressive shippers tend to view male/female relationships as inherently lesser, but with Aoyama, they’d just be fetishized. But i worried that having overt shipping stuff like that would overwrite the focus on the fic in the minds of readers; the relationships would be seen as what’s at stake instead of Izuku’s mental health on its own. When I decided to cut it down from a subplot into a background detail, I favored the Uraraka parts because they fit neatly into the more misogyny-focused critiques. And why did I end up focusing on that part? For one, as a female-bodied person, misogyny, particularly misogyny coming from other women, is something I have more experience in and thus felt I had more to say. That, and I worried that even if i made careful critiques about how women in fandom often fetishize gay men via reductive stereotypes and how applying that fandom behavior to real life people can cause harm, people would just see it as “ew gay ships are bad.” If I were to ever do some kind of follow up, I’d give more time to the fetishization side of things.

The second major cut was a lot more detail about the backstory of Toshi and Inko’s relationship, as well as an expository dump of refutations for every single insane thing the dekugaters claimed. Most of it was stuff so obvious, it really didn’t need to be spelled out, (why aren’t they holding hands and smiling in every photo? because no one smiles and holds hands at every single moment, even two people in love.) The rest was either shaved down to just the most relevant bits, or left to implication.

I’ll summarize the highlights under the cut:

- Toshinori was interested in Inko right away since by that point, he was the symbol of peace and constantly surrounded by hero worship. Between being a naturally anxious person and the paranoia that comes with fame, he didn’t think it was possible for anyone to ever fall for the real him. Then he met Inko, someone who called him a show-boating poser to his face, and fell head over heels right there.

- It’s only hinted at briefly in the fic itself, but Toshi didn’t come from a great home. His hang ups about Izuku being named after someone came from the fact that he himself was named after a great grandfather in an attempt by Toshi’s mother to appease his anger for having a kid out of wedlock, with an American tourist no less. He was already looked down on by his conservative family for being illegitimate, but once his mother ‘properly’ married and starting having more kids, they emotionally neglected him even more. By the time he moved out to live with Gran Torino, they barely noticed he was gone.

- Inko’s biological parents were a low-level thug for hire who bounced between gangs, and her mother was a sex worker who gave her up for adoption, then later died of an overdose when Inko was a toddler. None of this was particularly relevant for Inko growing up, but the dekugaters would eventually dig up the records and use them to fling accusations. But until then, Inko had a fairly normal childhood all things considered. She didn’t bounce around foster families too often, and the ones she had were good people. Mitsuki was in the same home as her for a few years, and they kept in touch after she was adopted.

- Inko’s hero’s journey began when she was eleven. She and some friends stopped at a convenience store to grab some snacks after school, when a villain took the whole place hostage. Nobody was hurt, but it took almost two hours for any heroes to even show up, during which Inko thought she was going to die. Afterward, she needed to know why it took so long for help to come. This was a time before heroes were on every street corner, and her neighborhood was outside of the nearest agencies’ ranges. She decided to fill in the gap herself.

- Her UA career wasn’t all that eventful. She got into the hero course by using her quirk to pull all the bolts out of the robots, but she didn’t make it to the tournament stage of the sports festival until her third year, at which point she was eliminated in the first round. Instead of going straight into hero work, she went to college to study management and urban engineering so she would have everything she needed to run a self-sufficient hero agency. Before the dekugaters, she had plans to construct a new agency building that doubled as a community center.

- One of the big dekugate brain rot posts i eliminated before writing was a timeline breaking down Inko’s pregnancy to ‘prove’ it was fake, complete with the exact date they believed izuku would have been conceived on and it’s impossible because All Might was seen doing something else not with Inko that day. This is unfortunately based on real posts. But since I cut it, it didn’t need it’s refutation, which is that the dekugaters’ stalking isn’t as accurate as they think. Their dates were top to bottom wrong, with inko becoming pregnant way later than they thought and Izuku being born prematurely.

- Their dating timelines were also screwed up, but mostly because they refused to believe All Might would commit to anyone so fast when ‘they were barely seen together’ aka if something doesn’t appear on social media, it doesn’t exist.

- Izuku still went to Aldera in this universe for 3 reasons: it’s in the neighborhood his Mom works in and he wanted the chance to see her on action walking to and from school; he still saw Bakugou as his only friend and he wanted to have someone he knew at his first public school experience; he played down all the bullying and quirkless discrimination to his parents until after he let for UA, otherwise they would have homeschooled him again and he didn’t want to be isolated anymore.

- izuku’s UA experience up to the point of the fic has been largely unchanged from canon. This is because this is supposed to be a small, self-contained fic and it’s a lot easier for readers to understand when the conspiracy posts reference canon events.

- Melissa does know about the conspiracy, but just the part about her dad and uncle being together, none of the fake kid stuff around Izuku. But because most of that fandom likes her, not many people have been obnoxious enough for her to think it runs any deeper than a few overzealous shippers.

If there are any other weird conspiracy claims from the fic you want context for, just let me know

#answers #dekugate

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voskhozhdeniye · 1 year

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My mother was so afraid of stranger danger that for middle school, she got a special exempt from the school board to send me to a different school in the county. This way, the school bus would drop me off at my now former elementary school, which is where my mother worked. I had to wait in the library until she got off. This separated me from the best friends, and in particular, my best Black friends I had made in elementary school. Looking back now, that distinction was probably intentional. My mother is mixed race. Her grandfather on her mother's side was an Asian immigrant, we believe from Mongolia. His wife was of Native American ancestry. Her father's side of the family is Black. My mother has very light skin. My mother hates Black people.

The first week of school in seventh grade, this is right before September 11th, and right after Aaliyah death.

The teacher goes around the classroom asking each of us questions to introduce ourselves to each other. We all already know each other, but she goes around the room anyway. She gets to me and asks, "What's my favorite TV show?" I confidently respond, "Pokemon!" As an adult, I know Digmon is better, but not at the time.

I then have an entire class of people, many of whom I have known since the beginning of my school career laugh at me for being 12 and still into Pokemon. This makes no fucking sense to me. In June, we were just discussing our favorites. A year or two before parents across the country were banning card trading. Kids were getting beat up for their cards. When did we stop, why wasn't I told?

What they didn't understand was the household I was being raised in. I had beatings over Pokemon, I learned which floorboards creaked so I could sneak out Saturday mornings to watch. Pokemon was how I kept in touch with the kids outside of the church who I wasn't supposed to be friends with. It was all we had in common.

I lost all my friends and was severely ostracized by pretty much everyone. I got bullies, molesters, and bastards. From then to the end of school, I was able to make two friends. One later in middle school, who after graduating high school, I learned was gay, which makes so much sense now, but at the time, we were both so closeted and dealing with the same social situation it never clicked. The friend in high school eventually moved to the west coast, and we "drifted" apart. When I last looked him up, he was married and working at Blizzard. He was a big Guild Wars fan. I bought tickets, and he drove us to my first real concert, Bat For Lashes, in 2009. I was 20. That's the only opportunity I've ever had to do something like that besides when I met up with a mutual on here back in 2019.

That's it, that's the list of friends since I was 12. So I would go to school and get treated like a leper, and then come home and suppress myself to avoid fundamental Christian bullshit.

I've been emotionally dead for 22 years. Last year was the 20th anniversary of the first time I tried to kill myself.

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random2908 · 2 years

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My two sisters and I are probably never going to marry, probably never going to have kids. Pretty sure my little sister is just all the way aroace. Middle sister and I are somewhere on the gray scale where we don’t identify as ace or aro, but sex and finding a romantic relationship are like down around like #10 on our life priority list. For most allo people it seems like one or both of those is typically in their top 3, and for plenty of people it’s #1.

People talk about Millennials not have kids, generational deviance due to despair, whatever. And it’s like... wow, I don’t think of myself as having or leaning on role models much, but my sisters and I are so lucky this was role-modeled so much for us as kids.

Like. Two of our mother’s siblings never married. They’re both in long-term relationships, but no marriage, no kids, and they’re in their 80s now. Two of our grandparents’ cousins--the two they were closest to--weren’t even in long-term relationships (and were still alive and participating in family stuff in our childhood memories). My grandmother had an aunt who never had romantic relationships--also still alive when I was very young, she lived past 100--and my grandfather had THREE uncles who so far as I know were never in serious relationships, although none of them lived past 40 so even my mom never met them. There were an additional two great-uncles of my grandfather, great-great uncles of my grandmother (my grandparents were distant-ish cousins) whose father died before they were old enough to have an arranged marriage and they decided that gave them the liberty to never be in relationships--one of them lived to be pretty old, like into his 70s, old enough that my grandparents knew him. That’s not getting into the occasional lesbian cousin across the generations (presumably there were gay male cousins and uncles too, but they weren’t out back in the day).

That’s my mom’s side. About half my relatives on my mom’s side never had kids. About half of those were never in serious romantic relationships. It’s common in my family.

On my dad’s side it was rarer, because arranged marriage lasted into my grandparents’ generation and was still universal in my great-grandparents’ generation. But my dad’s favorite great-aunt had been married off to an American in her early 20s, and he died just a few years later (possibly as a US soldier in WWII? I’m not really sure). But not before she got American citizenship, and then she was like, she was an American citizen--what did she even need marriage for anymore? She lived long enough that I remember her, vaguely. Only one of her siblings--only one person in my great-grandparents’ generation--had anything resembling a love match, which is to say one of my dad’s great-aunts married a doctor who was stuck in the same relocation camp as her because it seemed like a pragmatic choice, but she didn’t have parents or a matchmaker to pick him out for her so she did it herself.

That was my dad’s idea of what a love match looked like: he married literally the only Jewish woman in his doctoral program, because he needed to marry and have kids, and that was the option on the table, and at least they laughed at some of the same jokes and really that’s good enough.

My sisters and I were poisoned by American movies, according to my dad. We thought “falling in love” was a thing, and it’s mostly not, he said, and we needed to get over it. Grow up--find someone you can get along with emotionally and financially (because most divorces are over money), someone who will laugh at some of the same jokes and someone you can survive a road trip with without hating them; get married; start procreating. My sisters and I said no, mostly quietly, occasionally out loud in my case because I’d rather have a fight most of the time. Whether or not we believe falling in love is a thing, we weren’t doing that.

But it’s ok. Because on my mother’s side, the American side, the side where arranged marriages ended in the 1880s, this is normal. It’s normal in a big family for only one or two siblings to marry--and our baby brother is married and planning to have kids, it’s not like it’s none of us. It’s not about being a Millennial with Millennial values at all. It’s that the wider message of our family said it was ok to do this, this was a choice available to us. So we took that choice.

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riverdamien · 7 months

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Sloughing Towards Galilee

The Practice of the Cross--The Cross As A Stake!

"For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (I Corinthians 1:18).

The fence outside of Laramie, Wyoming, where 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, beaten, battered, and bleeding was left to die.

East of Wyoming, I Remember Matthew Shepard

Ruben Quesada

The night my father died, I sat on a stool

at the Buckhorn, gazing out the window’s cool counter seat. Like a funhouse mirror, you appeared. I have a familiar-looking face; my father used to say— his wish for me to blend in. Late after an argument, I fled and was found bound to a prairie fence after eighteen hours. My body is like a sock in the wind in a field just a mile from here. My face blooms, velvety and light like a lamb’s ear, stachys byzantina; my ears frozen with blood; down my neck, it goes. A medley of ants shuffles away. My body is rich with the sour smell of urine on my head like a crown of daffodils.

=======================

(All names are Pseuydonym names)

Today we look at the Cross as a Stake I am reminded of the stakes my grandfather would make for his garden. They were pointed and if you were not careful could be hurt. I remember a time I fell on one, and bled a lot.

The word for a stake in the New Testament Greek is simply translated as stauros meaning an upright stake, especially a pointed one. This is the bleakest image of the cross has been presented.

I remember a young, nine-teen-year-old Hispanic man, beaten to a pulp, dying for being gay.

He died near his home in the Mission. As I sat with him, waiting for an ambulance, getting his blood on myself, I thought of the "Stake". Like Matthew Shepherd, he died on the "Stake", the "Cross" for who he was.

Jake thought he was safe in San Francisco, but the truth is we are never safe. As I sat with his body I felt the pain of my rejections, hurts, and of people frankly being cruel.

And so as we enter the first week of Lent I mourn Jake, emotionally and in pain deep within myself.

There is only one answer and it is found in The Stations of the Cross--I am holding on to them, with my whole heart now, and invite you to meditate with me in the coming weeks.

Tenderloin Stations of the Cross

“Our Journey With Our Brothers and Sisters

Who Lives on the Street

“Our Hauntedness!”

“The street transforms every ordinary day into a series of quick questions and every incorrect answer risks a breakdown, shooting, or pregnancy. “Ta Nehie Contes

March 31, 2024

Noon

Meet In Front of City Hall

Sponsored By: Temenos Catholic Worker and Society of

Society of Franciscan Workers

30th Anniversary of Temenos Catholic Worker

22nd. Anniversary of Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross

Introduction

People, who live on the streets, the homeless, have haunted me all of my life. From the time I was six years old, driving late night through Sequoia National Park, seeing an old homeless woman walking up the road, and when I was seven walking across the street with a homeless person begging for money. They continue to haunt me as I walk out my door and see someone begging or mentally ill, out of their mind. They tear at my heart!

Haunting is the relentless remembering and continuing reminding that will not be appeased by the propaganda of assistance and care or the promises of our city, state, and national Governments that all will be well. In over twenty years in San Francisco, we have seen the problem grow immensely, with tons of money being spent.

Haunting is both acute and generally haunted, but that haunting comes from the haunting of society. The

United States is permanently haunted by the homeless, its massive population of poor, and the violence intertwined in its past, present, and future days.

Haunting’s aim is to wrong the wrongs, a confirmation that the rich and middle class hope to evade.

On Good Friday the cross calls us to look at its “backside”, the side that points us seeing the homeless from their perspective, not one of judgment, but one of love, and to work to end homelessness.

--------------------------

1. Jesus is Condemned to Death by Pilate!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

How many others have heard the state bureaucrat say, “We cannot tolerate you. We cannot help you. The world will be a better place without you. You must die.”

What goes through the mind of the victim when he or she hears, “You are to be executed!” Over the centuries many who have claimed to be followers of Jesus have stood with the historical “community of executioners”—kings, presidents, governors, judges, soldiers, police, wardens, and hangmen. Jesus himself stood with the historical “community of the executed.” He did not stand with those who say, “You must die.” He stood alongside those who were told, “You must die.”

Capital punishment is not what Jesus taught. It is what he suffered. But, Pilate washes his hands and says, “I am not responsible.” The scientist who makes a part of the instrument that when discharged sends hundreds and thousands to a fiery death says, “I am not responsible.” Christians in the Third World are beaten into oppression, while Christians in the First World live off the fruits of that oppression and say, “I am not responsible.”

The affluent Christian who spends thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours a year on sports, alcohol, fashions, drugs, and entertainment says to the billions of people caught in the unrelieved miseries of poverty, hunger, disease, and injustice, “I am not responsible.”

The poor, and non-white suffer the punishment of execution, suffer violence from the police, more than whites. Our society is not non-violent, but hungry for violence and death! The mentally ill are beaten every day!

We like Pilate wash our hands as the suffering Christ is condemned to death.

2. Jesus Bears His Cross!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

The cross is the symbol and the reality of nonviolent love, of suffering love, of voluntary postponement of gratification on behalf of others, of hurt endured to serve, to forgive—to be merciful. The bearing of the physical cross is just the final moment in an existence that has chosen to serve others rather than indulge itself. The cross of nonviolent love is not an isolated instant. It is a free choice of a radically different verbal pattern, thought pattern, emotional pattern, and behavior pattern. That is, it is the free choice of a radically different reality orientation and self-understanding. When we sign ourselves with the sign of the cross, we are symbolically saying to ourselves, to the world, and to God that we choose to pick up Christ’s cross and follow his way, that we choose, as he did, to bear the cross of nonviolent love unto death. We choose to walk in non-violence with our brothers and sisters on the street!

3. Jesus Falls the First Time!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

To fall under the abnormal burden of the cross of nonviolent love is painful. For the person who wants to love, who believes in forgiveness, who desires to serve, who wishes to reconcile, who is committed to patience, kindness, meekness and mercy—for this person to fail hurts and hurts deeply. Fatigue, ignorance, fear, selfishness, false securities, prior nurturing, self-righteousness,

escapism, and idolatry all stand always ready to trip up, to knock down the bearer of the cross of nonviolent love.

But Jesus teaches that when, for whatever reason, we fall under the humanly impossible burden of the cross of nonviolent love, our task is not to give up, stay down, walk away or change direction. Our task is to get up and to continue in the Spirit of Christ our journey to Calvary—our pilgrimage to the Absolute.

4. Jesus Meets his Mother!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

How many times have we said to ourselves or heard others say: “I would like to be more faithful to Jesus’ teaching of nonviolent love? I would like to respond more fully to suffering humanity. I do not want to be irresponsible and ignore or participate in homicide, causing homelessness, and pain for those around me. But, what about my family?—my children?—my wife?—my husband?—my parents? It would not be fair to them.”

To what extent has the Christian family become one of the primary obstacles to living a faithful Christian life? Jesus foresaw this possibility and explicitly warned that the faithful following of God’s will as revealed by Him could cause hardships within families. He also said that this was not a legitimate excuse for not being a disciple of Jesus.

The early martyrs had to walk with their children into the Colosseum. They had to look into the eyes of their little boys and girls as they all waited to be disemboweled by starving beasts or torched by obedient soldiers.

When Jesus’ eyes met His mother’s eyes on His way to execution, did He and His mother not experience the unbearable distress of the “Crucified Colosseum Family”? Is the “Crucified Colosseum Family” is only a relic or is it a permanent condition in the life of the Church as long as the Beast of Power and Profit roams the earth?

If the “Crucified Colosseum Family” does not exist today, does that mean the Beast has been pacified, harnessed, or extinguished?

Do not all political and economic tyrants of all ages try to use the family to control the adult population? Can Christian family love and relationship find any lasting security in any source other than unconditional obedience to God’s will as revealed by Jesus Christ? Could Jesus have found any lasting life with Mary outside the cross of nonviolent love? Is the Beast interested in preserving and protecting the family or is it interested in manipulating it to satisfy its diabolical appetites? Is the Beast of Power and Profits not present as a cause of homelessness?

5. Jesus is Helped by Simon!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

How often do we fail to love those who are loving others, to help those who are helping others? How often do we fail to walk with those who work with the homeless? How often do we fail to even consider that those who have chosen the long loneliness of the cross of nonviolent love are not supermen or wonder women but people subject to the same human limitations and frailties that we are.

To help carry each other’s cross of nonviolent love is part of the purpose of the Christian community, the community of peace.

To love without condition is hard. To serve without desiring reciprocation is hard. To suffer without desiring retaliation is hard. To reconcile without desiring domination is hard. To serve without suffering burn out is hard? How many of our brothers and sisters have grown weary and fallen under the harsh and dreadful weight of the cross of nonviolent love not because we failed to be heroically Christ-like but simply because we were not Simon, carrying our cross for a time in our relations with them?

6. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

The poet says, “I am a part of all I have met.” For good or ill, I leave my image on all who, by whatever means, enter into my history. What image is it that the disciple should want to imprint on the consciousness of others?

We should never wish to leave the impression of a someone who desires clout, the good life, class, style, the quick fix, the quick trigger, the quick buck, the easy life, or “gusto” without end.

Rather, we should, as a follower of Jesus, desire to leave the impression of one who is always merciful, patient, and kind, who is never resentful or rude, who does not take offense, who is never jealous, conceited, or selfish, who is always willing to excuse, to trust, to serve, to forgive, and to endure whatever comes. The poet says, “I am a part of all I have met.”

When we help a suffering human being, it is not that person who should be grateful to us, it is we who should be grateful to them. Christ teaches that to serve suffering humanity is to encounter Him in the victims, the oppressed, the deformed, the paralyzed, and the bewildered. In serving them we encounter the sacramental presence of Jesus. The blood, the sweat, the vomit, and the tears that the suffering leaves on our handkerchiefs are the image of Christ’s suffering that Veronica received on her towel.

When we receive the blood, sweat and tears of homeless people in the same way we receive Christ.

7. Jesus Falls a Second Time!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Down again! Is it possible to overemphasize how foreign nonviolent love is to the consciousness nurtured through the formal institutions (schools, family, government, corporations, military, etc.) and the informal institutions (T.V., videos, CDs, DVDs, movies, internet,

iPods, newspapers, magazines, books, Kindle, peer pressure) of capitalism?

A mind that has been bombarded since childhood with notions like “the world would be a better place if everyone just follows their selfish interest” or “grabbing as much as can while giving as little as you have to is what life is all about,” becomesa mindset to which the cross of nonviolent love seems nonsense.

Who can stand against this knowing it leads to crucifixion?

It is easy to find hope, security, and a future in the G.D.P., a national anthem, a football team, military technology, Disneyland, drugs, fashion, and alcohol.

We will fall over and over again, but Jesus will pick us up! We need to follow him on the journey!

8. Jesus Speaks to the Women

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

How often have we been told, how often have we told ourselves, “nonviolent love does not work”?

In a world struggling under militaristic, bureaucratic, and technological oppression, what reason is there in suggesting that the road of nonviolent love is a road to anything but total failure and permanent insignificance.

As Jesus, brutally beaten in body and forced to carry the instrument of his own execution to the Calvary, looked at the women, what did he see in their eyes? Disbelief? Sadness? Confusion? DespDespair?Horror? Desolation?

Through his eyes did he see his love for them and all who follow him non-violently, walking with the disenfranchised!

9. Jesus Falls a Third Time

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Did Jesus fall only three times or was it in reality four ten or twenty? How often each day do I feel crushed under the weight of the cross of nonviolent love? How often do I want to walk away from the cross of non-violent love? How often do I turn my eyes on a person on the street? How often do I walk by someone in need?

10. Jesus is Stripped of His Garments!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

There was nothing tasteful or tactful about Jesus’ crucifixion. He was beaten brutally and stripped naked as billions of other oppressed people have been over the centuries and are being today. He was naked as many are on our streets. The vested powers of this world

always strip naked those they wish to control, humiliate, and destroy, for if clothes make the person, then the absence of clothes means that the “thing” before them is a sub-human non-person.

To hide from the Christ stripped of his garments, which we see every day, is to hide from the reality of the cross of nonviolent love and to continue to strip Jesus!

11. Jesus is Nailed to the Cross!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

To choose the cross of nonviolent love is to freely choose to remain nailed to it until that day when the last person who has been crucified by the powers of this world has their nails permanently removed.

Gandhi said: “If I have to be reborn, I wish to be born an untouchable so that I may share their sorrows, sufferings, and the affronts leveled at them in order that I may endeavor to free myself and them from that misery."

12. Jesus Dies on the Cross!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

The death rattles, the open eyes, the limp, heavy, breathless body—this is how it ends. Christ dies!

In each homeless person, in each gang member, in each aged person, in each migrant, Jesus dies as the violence of our political and justice systems roll over them. They die by being judged by their color, and economic standing. Violence from all sides is Jesus dying.

13. Jesus is Taken from the Cross!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Viewing the mutilated body of Jesus is the most grief-ridden experience of human existence. It is

evidence that evil rules. It is evidence that violence rules and is used to control all of us.

Seeing the broken body of Christ is evidence that non-violent love is dead!

14. Jesus is Laid in the Sepulcher!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

The dead body of Christ is a stark statement that a life of non-violent love is not the way to overcome violence, injustice, evil, and death. Or is it?

15. Jesus is Raised from the Dead!

V. We adore you O Christ and we praise you.

R. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is not here, He is risen!”

His triumph is ours as well. On Easter Sunday, and the many other Easter Sundays of our lives, we rise above our failures, our burdens, and our struggles, and we too emerge victorious. Throughout our own Good Fridays, the risen Lord is by our side, pledging that we too, will rise again, and enter his reign on earth moving into eternity.

Through the years I have found that the majority of youth and adults on the street have poor experiences with Christians. Christians are the unseen, and churches lock their doors to our brothers and sisters who are homeless. Many work to remove them from our streets.

As we enter the new life of Easter let us remember the words of Jesus, and ask ourselves do we honor his commands:

Matthew 25: 26-46

31. 'When the Son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory.

32. All nations will be assembled before him and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats.

33. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.

34. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world.

35. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome,

36. lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me."

37. Then the upright will say to him in reply, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

38. When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you?

39. When did we find you sick or in prison and go to see you?"

40. And the King will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me."

41. Then he will say to those on his left hand, "Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

42. For I was hungry and you never gave me food, I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink,

43. I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, lacking clothes and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me."

44. Then it will be their turn to ask, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?"

45. Then he will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me."

46. And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the upright to eternal life.'Amen! Deo Gratias!

------------------------------------------

(This year the route will be much shorter, and we will not give out food, if you would like to volunteer or email.)

Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration

October 5, 2024

6:00 p.m.

Victor's Piazza pm Polk

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Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www.temenos.org

snap chat: riodamien2

415-305-2124

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We will be having our Annual Good Friday Remembrance of The Haunting!" on Good Friday, March 8, 2024 beginning at 11:30 a.m. If you would like to participate by reading one of the Stations please let me know!

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trini-trin-trin · 3 years

Text

Sharing this from a FB group that I am in. I was very moved by the article and felt affinity with the experiences shared. A really sweet read.

Here is the article if you don't want to click on the link (I know it is a little long, but well worth your time to read!):

The letter I received ten years ago was unsigned and bore no return address. Clearly its author did not expect, much less want, a reply. A message in a bottle, from no one to no one, that letter still remains the most bizarre form of communication. It asks nothing but to be read, promises nothing but to share a few facts and feelings, and, seeing that it must have been dashed off on a lined yellow sheet that seemed hastily torn out of a pad of paper, the author would not be surprised if, after skimming through it, the recipient decided to crumple and lob it into the closest dust bin.

The letter is one page long. One page is enough. The handwriting is uneven, perhaps because the author had lost the habit of writing in longhand and preferred the keyboard. But his grammar is perfect. The man knew what he was doing. I assume he was writing the note by hand because he didn’t want traces of it on his laptop, or because he knew he was never going to send it as an email and risk a reply. Now that I think of it, he probably didn’t care if it even reached its recipient, a local Bay Area reporter who had mentioned my novel about two young men who fall in love one summer in Italy in the mid-1980s. The reporter eventually forwarded it to me, minus its envelope with the postmark. It took no time to see that all the author of the letter was looking for was a chance to blurt out the words he couldn’t dare breathe elsewhere.

My book had spoken to him. His letter spoke to me.

So here it is: dated April 16, 2008.

I came upon Mr. Aciman’s book while on a business trip back East. Not the type of book I am normally able to read, so I bought a copy for the flight home. I think I’m glad I did.

You see, I was Elio. I was 18 and my Oliver was 22. Though the time and place were different, the feelings were remarkably the same. From believing that you are the only person who has these feelings, to the whole “he loves me – he loves me not” scenario, Mr. Aciman got it right. I was particularly impressed with the attention he gave to the morning after Elio’s and Oliver’s first encounter. The guilt, the loathing, the fear. I felt it too much. I had to put the book down for a while.

But in the end I was able to finish the book before we landed at SFO. Which was good, because I couldn’t take the book home. Unlike Elio it was I who married and had children. My Oliver died from AIDS in 1995. I’m still living a parallel life. My name is not important. His name was Dwight.

Instead, I kept the letter. I kept it for ten years.

What moved me was not just its sobering matter-of-factness or its hint of downplayed sorrow, but the associations it provoked in my mind. It reminded me of those short, clipped messages to loved ones, written by people about to be shipped off to the death camps who knew they’d never be heard from again. There is a chilling immediacy about their hurriedly scribbled notes that say everything there is to say in the fewest possible words — there wasn’t enough time for more, no smarmy pieties, no hand-wringing, no treacly hugs and kisses before the tragic end. It also made me think of the moving phone messages left by those who finally realized they were not going to make it out alive from the Twin Towers and that only their family’s answering machine was going to take their call.

“My name is not important,” he writes, almost as an apology for remaining anonymous; yet the author drops quite a number of hints about himself — hints he likely knows will stir his reader’s wistful curiosity to know what made him write the letter in the first place, what he hoped to accomplish, and if writing did indeed help. The letter itself allows us to see that he travels for business. We also sense that he probably lives in the Bay Area and that he travels not infrequently to the East Coast, since, as he writes, he is “back” in the East. And we know one thing more: that he simply needed to come out and tell someone that a man called Dwight had been his lover when the two were young. The rest is a cloud. We’ll never know more. Writing has served its purpose. We write, it seems, to reach out to others. Whether we know them or not doesn’t matter. We write to put out into the real world something extremely private within us, to make real what often feels unreal and ever so elusive about ourselves. We write to give a shape to what would otherwise remain amorphous. This is as true about authors as about those who want to correspond with them. Over the years, many have written to me either after reading or seeing Call Me by Your Name. Some tried to meet me; others confided things they’d never told anyone; and some even managed to call me at the office and, on speaking about my novel, would eventually apologize before bursting out crying. Some were in jail; some were barely adolescents, others old enough to look back at loves seven decades past; and some were priests locked in silence and secrecy. Many were closeted, others totally out; some were widows who felt a resurgence of hope if only by reading about the loves of two young men called Elio and Oliver in Italy; some were very young girls eager to meet their long-awaited Oliver; and some recalled former gay lovers whom they’d occasionally bump into years later but who’d never acknowledge what they’d once shared and done together when both were schoolmates and neither was married. All were keenly aware of living a parallel life. In that parallel life things are as they perhaps should be. Elio and Oliver still live together. And no one has secrets there.

Unlike Dwight’s lover, everyone who took the time to write to me did not withhold their names, but all had, at one point or another, withheld something very primal. They withheld it from themselves, from a relative, from a friend, a classmate, or colleague, or from a beloved who would never have guessed what troubled longings seethed below their averted gaze whenever they crossed paths.

Some readers wrote to tell me they felt that my novel had changed them, and given them new insights into themselves; some felt it was urging them finally to turn a new leaf in their lives. But some couldn’t go so far and, despite their perfect command of language, confessed lacking the words to explain why they were so moved by my novel or why they felt an unresolved longing for things they’d never considered or desired before. They were experiencing an upwell of emotions and of ungraspable might-have-beens that were asking to be reckoned with because they seemed more real than life itself, a sense of themselves that beckoned from an opposite bank they’d never known was there and whose potential loss now was a source of inconsolable grief. Hence their tears, their regrets, and the overpowering sense of being lost in their own lives.

And yet, they said, theirs were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of recognition, as though the novel itself were a mirror for readers to watch their own emotions laid bare before them. These responses made me aware that Call Me by Your Name does not call attention to anything readers didn’t already know, nor does it bring new truths or revelations; all it does is shed new light on things that were long familiar but that they never took the time to consider. It would be so tempting to say that they are reminded of their forgotten first loves; the truth is that all loves, even those that occur late in life, are first loves. There is always fear, shame, reluctance, and not a tiny dose of spite. Desire is agony.

Everyone who’s read Call Me by Your Name understands not only the struggle both to speak and hold back their truth but also the shame that comes whenever we want something from someone. Desire is always cagey, always secretive — we’ll tell everyone we know about the person we crave to hold naked in our arms, but the very last one to know this will be the person we crave. Same-sex desire is even more guarded and watchful, especially in those who are just discovering their sexuality. Awkwardness and desire are strange bedfellows at a young age, but shame and inexperience are just as paralyzing as fear when we watch them tussling with the urge to be bold. You’re torn between the raw horniness that makes you dream scenes you hope to forget as soon as you’re up and the scenes you pray you’ll dream again and again — if dreams are all you’ll have. Silence and solitude exact a cost that leaves us emotionally wrecked. At some point we need to speak.

So “is it better to speak or die?” asks Elio, the narrator of Call Me by Your Name, quoting words penned by the sixteenth-century Marguerite de Navarre in her collection of tales known as The Heptameron. Marguerite was the sister of King Francis I and the grandmother of Henry IV, himself the grandfather of Louis XIV, hence she was plenty familiar with court intrigue, gossip, and the risks of opening up to someone who may not welcome what’s in our heart and could easily make us pay for it. Not everyone who has written to me has dared to speak their hearts to those they loved. Some have sought silence — slow, lingering droplets of quiet desperation taken every night before bedtime until they realize they’ve been dead and didn’t even know it. Many have written to me with the feeling of having missed their chance when someone tethered his rowboat to their jetty and simply asked them to jump in. “Some sentence or thought on almost every page,” writes a reader, “triggers tears and knots my throat and chest. Tears well up in my eyes on the subway, at my computer at work, walking down the street. Perhaps I am weeping in part because I know that at my age there is virtually no possibility of experiencing anything remotely comparable to what Elio experiences with Oliver.” Someone else writes, “Reading Call Me by Your Name made me feel a love I never had.” A happily married 50-plus colleague took me aside and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this much in love in my whole life.” “I'm 23,” tweeted someone else, “and have never felt such love, until I read Call Me by Your Name. I feel like I lived it.” “Elio and I are essentially the same age,” writes a teenage girl. “I have never really experienced his environment of the Italian summer…My experiences have only taken place halfway between nature and smog, however I have felt the same tension, fear, guilt and overwhelming love that you express perfectly through both Elio and Oliver…Finding myself in Elio was something I never expected and I’m positive that I won’t experience anything quite like it ever again. The first girl I ever loved remains…the only girl I have ever loved and though everything she and I shared…lives now as a secret between two friends.” “I finished reading Call Me by Your Name a couple of days ago,” writes someone else, “and wanted to let you know how much it affected me. It felt like a narration of my thoughts that I had systematically buried long ago.” And finally this from a 72-year-old: “I was fascinated by the idea of parallel lives where would I have been if I had gone with him, where would I be if I traveled alone? Maybe the point is just what do I do with the gift you have given me during the remainder of my life.”

There are at least 500 more such letters and emails.

Some find themselves weeping at the end of the film or the novel, not for what happened long ago or for what did not and might never happen in their own lives but for what has yet to happen, for the terrifying moment when they too will soon have to decide whether to speak or die. This from an 18-year-old: “[Your novel] gives me hope that one day I will meet someone whom I desire so badly that I’ll actually find it in me to make a move, the way Oliver is that someone for Elio. Maybe my Oliver will also turn out to be someone that I realize I love as well as desire.” She was crying for a week, as was this 15-year-old young man: “I stopped reading…because I didn’t want [the book] to end, didn’t want the wounds that you caused me to close, I didn’t want to overcome, for some reason that I have yet to find out. I wanted to stay a wreck, emotionally and mentally fragile….My mother handed me tissues because she had never seen me cry like this. I had finished your book and ‘moved’ is too weak a word to express what your book had done to me. Here a week later and it is literally all I can think about, not my midterms coming up, but…Elio and Oliver and if it is better to speak or die. You answered questions I didn’t even think I had.”

Indeed, the whole novel seems to enable the outing of all manner of feelings, feelings from Elio’s relentless inward journey and obsessive self-examination that readers are invited to identify with. Through Elio’s unfettered introspection they too feel exposed and sliced open like a crustacean without a slough, now forced to look at itself in the mirror. No wonder they are moved. The mask that is torn off their faces is not just the mask that conceals same-sex desires from themselves and from others. Rather, it is the realization, through Elio’s voice, of what they truly feel, who they truly are, what they fear, what bears their signature, and what coy little shenanigans they go through to read others and hope to reach them. Some identified with some effusive sentences in my novel so much that they had them tattooed on their bodies. They even attach photos of these tattoos. People have also tattooed peaches on themselves!

But what moves most people — and this is as true now as it was when the novel first came out — is the father’s speech. Here he not only tells his son to nurse the flame and “don’t snuff it out” after his son’s lover has left Italy, but that he too, the father, envies his son’s relationship with a male lover. This speech tears away the last vestige of a veil between reader and truth and is a moving tribute to the irreducible honesty between father and son.

Most readers have written to me about the scene because the father’s speech rekindles the very difficult moment when they decided to come out to their parents — or, as is often the case with people 60, or 70 or older, it reminds them of the conversation they wished they’d had but never did have with their parents. This is the loss no one forgets and from which no one recovers after seeing Call Me by Your Name. It bears the very essence of that precious and life-defining might-have-been moment that never happened and never will.

Here is the speech:

“Look…[y]ou had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!...

“… {L]et me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.”

I received the anonymous letter sometime in early May 2008. At the time, I was staying at my parents’, because my father was suffering from throat and mouth cancer and was already in hospice care. He had refused radiation and chemotherapy, so I knew his days were numbered; though morphine was clouding his mind, he was still lucid enough to bandy a few quips about a host of subjects. He had stopped eating and drinking water because swallowing had become very painful. One afternoon while I was stealing a nap, the phone rang. A reporter I’d met in California had just received a letter, which she wanted to share with me. I told her to read it over the phone. After she’d read it I asked if she felt she could mail it to me. I wanted to show it to my father, I said, and explained he was dying. She felt for me. We talked about my father for a while. I told her I was trying to make it up to him these days, and that he too had been exceptionally easy to be with. How was it growing up with him? she asked. Tense, I replied. Always is, she added. Then the conversation ended, and she promised to mail the letter soon.

After hanging up, I got out of bed and went in to see him. Over the past few days, I had made a point of reading to him, which he liked a great deal, especially now that he was having difficulty focusing. But rather than read to him the memoirs of Chateaubriand, one of his favorite authors, and feeling buoyed by the letter I’d been read on the phone, I asked if he’d like me to read from the French translation of Call Me by Your Name, the galleys of which I had just received from Paris that very morning. Why not, since you wrote it, he said. He was proud of me. So I began to read from the very beginning, and soon enough I knew I was opening up a subject neither he nor I had ever broached before. But I knew he knew what I was reading and why I was reading it to him. This made me happy. Perhaps it made him happy as well. I’ll never know.

That evening, after the rest of us had dinner, he asked if I could continue reading from my novel. I was nervous about arriving at the father’s speech because I didn’t know how he’d react to it, though he was the kind of father who would have given that very same speech himself. But the speech was two hundred pages away still, and that would have taken many, many days. Perhaps I should skip some parts, I thought. But no, I wanted to read him the whole book. My father didn’t last long enough to hear the father’s speech. And when the letter finally arrived from California, he was already gone. His name was Henri, he was 93 years old, and he inspired everything I’ve written.

#andre aciman #CMBYK Book #call me by your name #cmbyn #elio x oliver

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anwynb2003 · 3 years

Text

Um... I think I made a BatFam AU while half-asleep...

Ok so, I wake up, and it seems last night I wrote out a messy explanation of a story that I just might have to write now... but I've read literally one Batman comic (Death in the Family), and all my knowledge comes from either YouTube, Wikis, and stories on AO3...

Hyperfixation is fun, isn't it?

Anyway, here's a copy-paste of what I wrote in my half-asleep state at around 2:00 last night (note, the doc itself is simply titled "C'mon. You Know."):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tireeeeed let’s do this

Okay so

AU: No superheroes. Bruce Wayne is just a rich dude who starts taking in orphans because reasons.

First up was Dick Grayson, who he adopted when he was 9.

7 years later, he added 13-year-old Jason Todd.

3 years later, 12-year-old Tim Drake.

2 years later, 14-year-old Cassie Cain.

And finally, 2 years after that, he learned of and gained custody of his only biological son: 10-year-old Damian Wayne.

Only a year after Damian joined the family though, Brucie boy died, presumably in a “tragic accident”, but it’s quickly revealed that someone’s altered his will, leaving his kids with none of the family’s fortune; not even their home.

Dick, who’d moved out a few years ago, now has custody of his 3 youngest siblings, and only a small, 2-bedroom house in Blüdhaven to care for them in.

Jason, who for a variety of reasons had run away at 15, and had stayed away for the most part, reluctantly agrees to move in Full House style to help Dick, while all the siblings work with their ex-butler/grandfather figure Alfred, and family-friends Jim and Babs Gordon to figure out the mystery of their father’s death and will.

Tensions run high, Dick’s having a breakdown, Jay’s struggling to Dad (verb), Tim’s gay and spiralling, Cass struggles with speech, and Dami’s emotionally stunted. Yay!

So we got:

Dick, 24-year-old officer of the BPD. Adopted at 9 years old after losing his parents in a circus act gone wrong, Dick stayed with Bruce until he was 18, when after a heated argument he left for college. He made up with his father over the next couple years and stayed in contact, often visiting him and his siblings.

Jason, 21-year-old, works part-time at a gym in Crime Alley, Gotham City. Adopted when he was 13, after several years of living on the streets after his step-mother’s death by overdose and his father’s “peace out” moment. Discovered the identity of his birth-mother, ran away to go find her because teen angst and increasing fights with Bruce, then she was found dead a week later (her ex was charged and found guilty) and while Jay couldn’t be found, much of the blood at the crime scene was his. Then, randomly, he contacted his family again 4 years later, at 19. Didn’t move back in, and things were quite tense between him and Bruce, but still hung out with his siblings outside the home (though he was angry at Tim at first, for being adopted less than a year after his “death” and "replacing" him).

Tim, 17-year-old honours student. Adopted when he was 12, but actually started hanging around the house a little before that, as Dick was tutoring him after school. This helped both Dick, and Bruce to discover how neglectful and emotionally abusive his parents were, and Bruce literally had to sue for custody for this kid. He won.

Cassie, another 17-year-old. Adopted at 14, she’d been on the streets much like Jason had, but of her own volition… to a point. She was scarred after seeing her father do… something, when she was only 8 years old (she’s repressed so hard that even she doesn’t remember exactly what), and so ran away. This thing traumatized her so much that she lost her ability to speak for years, and has only just started learning to talk again. Instead, she usually uses ASL.

And Damian, an 11-year-old ball of politeness, good manners, and pure, unadulterated rage. He was born nine-months after his mother date-raped his father, and was raised in quite an… odd way, by said mother and her father. Long and short of it: crime family, but not a close one. He rarely if ever actually saw his mother, and when he did she wasn’t overly affectionate. He spent most of his early days being groomed to be his grandfather’s heir, only for their entire organization to be captured by police when he was 10. It was now when the emotionally stunted, spoiled brat was put into his father’s custody.

Main issues:

-Dickie boy stressed ooooooouut, gotta be a breadwinner and keep his siblings together and safe

-Jaybird technically never made up with Bruce; they’d actually made plans to get together and talk things out, but then, y’know, death

-Timmy, poor thing, is balancing school, work at Wayne Enterprises, and investigating the case of his father’s death, and has seemingly forgotten what sleep is. Adding on the fact that Bruce being dead means his (granted, chosen) role as heir to the company seems much more real (even despite the fake will, he's confident he'll figure it out and find the real one), he’s not doing all that great

-Cassie, sweetheart, has been emotionally traumatized for years, and now just has more trauma to add to that with Bruce being dead. She’s getting better, but struggling

-Dami, baby bird, is filled with more rage than usual, and is endlessly worried about all the animals in his “zoo”; Alfred remains at the manor (though he has not met his new employer), for the sole purpose of making sure they stay fed, watered, bathed, and more or less cared for.

So, to sum up, Dick’s working to support them and trying his best, Jay’s Dad-ing while Dick’s at work since his hours are more flexible, Tim hasn’t slept in years, Cass needs therapy and hugs, and Damian has a growing army of stuffed animals to fill the gaping hole in his life where his zoo used to be (since he could only bring Titus and Alfred the Cat with him to Bludhaven).

Will they be able to figure out who had their father killed and get their family legacy back?

Hell if I know, I haven’t written it yet. Probably. Get off my back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, long story short, I seem to have issues, but this is happening now apparently.

Not right now though, Ima go play Minecraft.

#batfam #batfam au #au #no heroes au #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #cassandra cain #damian wayne #alfred pennyworth #bat bros #kill me #why do i do these things #hyperfixation #i'm hyperfixating #can you tell?#ok ima go play minecraft now #bye

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aliwritesfic · 3 years

Text

Night Shift Part 3 (F!Reader x Frankie Morales)

Summary: Yours and Frankie’s weekends take very different turns

Word Count: 2K

Warnings: Emotionally abusive relationship, very brief mention of drug use, drinking, T*m D*vis makes an appearance

Part 1 Part 4

Frankie slept better that week than he had in months. Every night was long, uninterrupted, mercifully dreamless sleep. The diner had done exactly what he had hoped. When he awoke that Saturday afternoon, he felt better than he had in ages. He hummed while he rummaged through the refrigerator, grabbing out some leftover padthai and throwing it in the microwave.

Each night that week, a routine between you and him had formed. You’d work, barely exchanging words until the dinner rush was completed, then you’d make him a coffee and he’d make you something to eat. You’d requested something different each night, and each night you’d spoken to him a little more. Some nights you were in a better mood than others, but he quickly realised it wasn’t personal against him.

He found he was a little disappointed when he woke up that afternoon and remembered that it was his day off. If he was being honest with himself, he’d grown to enjoy your company. Something about you intrigued him, made him want to get to know you more.

Frankie spent getting stuff together for poker night with the boys. It was his turn to host, so all he had to do was make sure that his dining room table was clear and his portable speaker was charged.

While he got ready, his mind kept wandering back to you.

He thought of the way you had a different smile for certain customers. The truly genuine one was reserved for only a select few of your favourites. He felt himself hoping that one day you’d give him one of those smiles, instead of the one that didn’t really reach your eyes and disappeared quickly.

He thought of how when the diner was quiet, you’d lean against the counter and sip your coffee, your gaze firmly out the window.

He thought of how when your shift ended and you checked your phone, your face would change for just a fraction of a second before you’d say goodbye and rush out the door.

Jesus fucking Christ, he thought, do I have a crush?

Frankie hadn’t had a crush since high school, when he had finally had the guts to ask out Portia Inglewood. That relationship had lasted until he left the military, and brought all the emotional baggage with him.

A loud banging on the door knocked him out of his thoughts.

“Cat!” Benny didn’t wait for Frankie to open the door. “We’re here, and we have beer!”

“You know where it goes,” Frankie called back.

Santi grinned at his best friend and handed him a beer. “How’s the new job?”

“It’s exactly what I need right now,” Frankie told him. Santi nodded in understanding. They all had their own ways of dealing with what they carried. “Plus, the extra cash doesn’t hurt.”

Frankie didn’t want money - he had plenty from when he’d do private jobs with Santi. If he ever became desperate, he knew he could just join Santi on his next job.

“Well, extra cash or not, I’ll always be the hottest person you’ve ever worked with,” Santi winked, making Frankie roll his eyes.

“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, man.” Frankie laughed.

The night progressed in a haze of pizza and beer and poker. Will lost money to Tom, and Tom promptly lost it all to Benny. Santi told the group about the new girl he was seeing, some French expat over stateside for a few months. Benny double checked everyone was coming to the fight next weekend. Tom revealed that he and the girls were moving to Ohio to be closer to Molly’s parents. The boys promptly began planning a going away party, which would basically just be another poker night but with more beer and possibly a cake.

Any worries Frankie held seemed to melt away on nights like these. At one point, he briefly wondered what you were doing and if you were thinking of him too. Yep. Definitely a crush.

~*~

You didn’t like Kurt’s friends. Unfortunately, you were stuck spending your Saturday night with them crowded in your apartment, loud and disrespectful as hell. It didn’t matter to them that you’d asked time and time again could they please go outside to smoke, could they please put their beer bottles in the recycling bin, could they please not use your nice plates to do coke on.

If your grandfather could have seen you now, he would’ve called you a push-over. You hated that you had become this person - afraid to stick up for yourself in your own home. Hell, you didn’t even know at what point you’d become this person. It just seemed to happen over the five years you’d been dating Kurt.

You had lost yourself in trying to be what he wanted.

With a sigh, you sealed yourself away in the bedroom with a bag of Doritos and your phone, wishing you could call your grandfather. You still had his number in your phone. Occasionally, you’d look at it, the numbers seared into your brain.

Instead of calling the now disconnected number, you settled for messaging Sara. She was one of your only remaining friends from high school, and knew as much about your feelings as you were willing to let on. The thing was, you knew what she would say if you told her how you felt every single day. How lost, how hopeless you felt. She’d tell you to leave, forget Kurt and all the years with him, but to you it wasn’t that simple.

Part of you still loved him, despite everything, and that part remained hopeful that you and Kurt could fix the fractures in your relationship. Plus, a voice in the back of your head told you he was right when he said he was the only one who could ever love you.

Being alone, unloved, was one of your deepest fears.

This was one of the nights you actually missed being at the diner. You missed the lemon scented countertops, the radio that seemed to be permanently set on the oldies station, hell, you even missed Frankie and his amazing food. He’d been working with you less than a week but he had already wedged himself into your stomach. But, it was just two more nights until you were back there. It struck you that this was the opposite of how most people thought. No one you knew actually wished to go back to work.

It was almost dawn when you were woken out of your half sleep by Kurt stumbling into the room.

“Baby,” he slurred, crawling into bed beside you. “Baby, I love you.”

“I love you too,” you mumbled, moving over so he could fit in the bed easier. He reeked of sweat and booze.

“I’m sorry,” he planted a sloppy kiss on your neck. “I really try to be good.”

“I know,” you ran your fingers over his head. He liked his hair cropped short, in an almost military like style. “I try too.”

“Can we go back to how we were?” Kurt continued kissing you, his hands moving drunkenly over your body. You bit back a sigh, knowing where this was heading.

You decided it would be easier to let him do what he needed, despite how badly you wanted to sleep. The only saving grace was you knew Kurt would only last a couple of minutes before it would be over.

~*~

“So, what’s the new guy like?” Manny asked. You were seated outside, at one of his favourite cafes. The sun shone down warmly on you both, brightening your mood.

“I like him, I think,” you said. “He’s nice, quiet.”

“And pretty cute, right?” Manny wriggled his eyebrows.

“I hadn’t noticed,” you lied. Of course you had noticed. It was impossible not to notice.

“Don’t feed me bullshit, I can tell when you’re lying.”

“Ugh, fine. He’s good looking. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s the thing lover, it only means something if you want it to.” Manny took a conspiratorial sip of his drink. “And I didn’t get a gay vibe from him.”

“Oh good, because the only thing holding me back from jumping his bones in the kitchen is that I didn’t know his sexual preference.” You rolled your eyes, deciding to quickly change the subject. “Anyway, how’s the new job?”

“I’m loving it!” Manny lit up. “Everyone says teenagers are the worst group to teach, but it’s like they forget middle school exists.”

You smiled at Manny’s happiness. It thrilled you to see someone you considered your best friend so happy. If anyone deserves the whole world, you thought, it’s him. But he wasn’t going to let you change the subject that easily.

“You know, maybe you could invite Frankie to one of our lunches,” Manny said slyly. “It could be a night crew thing.”

“That would mean inviting the weekenders,” you reminded him. Manny held a grudge against the weekend crew, but you could never figure out why.

“No, weeknight crew only. Come on, lover, it could be fun! Plus, I want to get to know my replacement a bit better. Make sure I’m not handing the spatula to someone I don’t approve of.” Manny pouted and switched on his puppy dog eyes.

“Ugh, fine, I’ll ask,” you conceded, “but don’t be surprised if he says no. The man probably has a life.”

“It can’t hurt to ask though, and I will bother you about it until you have an answer.”

“What are you planning?” You knew that look all too well.

“Just on making a new friend,” Manny said innocently. “Lover, you can never have enough friends.”

At that moment your phone buzzed with a text from Kurt.

Where r u?????

You grimaced and sent a quick reply, hoping it wouldn’t lead to what it usually did.

At lunch with Manny from work. I’ll be home in a couple hours, do you want anything?

“Why don’t you just break up with him?” Manny asked, watching you carefully.

Is he the gay 1?

Yes, you met him and his husband last year.

“It’s complicated,” you said. You didn’t have anywhere to go. You were terrified of being alone. Part of you still felt like you could salvage what you had. The one and only time you had tried to break up with him, he had threatened to kill himself if you left.

“You deserve better than that,” Manny said. You remained silent, not sure if he was right. “You’ve been unhappy for ages now.”

“I’m happy!” You protested.

“No you aren’t. Don’t fucking lie to me. You’re miserable with that douche bag, even James agrees.”

“I haven’t seen James in months! How the hell would he know!” You were getting defensive, but you still managed to keep your voice lowered.

“Lover, I talk that man's ear off every chance I get. Because I love him. Because he likes to hear me talk about my day and the people important to me.”

“I’m important to you?”

Manny rolled his eyes and threw his napkin at you. “Of course you are, you’re a sister to me. Stop trying to change the subject.”

“What subject!” You scoffed.

“The subject of you for some reason wanting to stay in a relationship with a man who makes you miserable,” Manny’s voice softened and he gently held one of your hands. The gesture almost made you tear up with its gentleness. You merely shrugged.

“Like I said, it’s complicated.”

Manny nodded. “Just please think about it, for real. I couldn’t sleep at night if I never said anything to you about it.”

The walk home was slow, you took your time to sort out your scrambling thoughts. Manny had offered to drive you, but it was a nice day, and you wanted to enjoy the sunshine. You pushed the issue of Kurt to the side, knowing either way the outcome would be the same unless you magically grew a spine and a few extra zeros in your bank account.

Instead, you thought about Frankie and how best to ask him to Sunday lunch. Honestly, if there was going to be a night shift tradition, it just felt downright rude to not at least extend an invite. And if Frankie said yes, well, that was even better. It was like Manny said - an opportunity to make a new friend. Just a friend.

So why did your stomach flip at the thought?

Tagging @hnt-escape if you’d also like to be tagged just let me know <3

#the night shift #frankie x reader #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #triple frontier #slowburn #diner romance #friends to lovers

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magspag · 2 years

Text

Let me tell you about my OCs

this is self indulgent rambling about my circus setting and it's going under a cut if you don't wanna read it

Jasper Chuckles, Clown Detective: He's kind of scruffy. He's not so much the funny guy as the one who gets to be the victim of all sorts of slapstick. He isn't as patient as he believes he is but he is persistent and will solve the murders.

Detective John Braun: He is proud of keeping the peace in Sapphire Springs, and sort of resents that a literal clown from out of town is mounting an investigation o his own.

Leaf, aka the Lovely Leafcutter: She's really buff. Her completely bogus backstory is that she was raised by ants and learned their secrets for lifting up to five hundred times their body weight. She can't lift that much but she is hella strong. Has a decent knowledge of how the body works from her extreme training and her paramedic background.

Ringleader Ray: He deliberately cultivates an aura of sleaze and has a pencil thin moustache because it worked for John Waters. He regards a good portion of the crew as family and a lot o the rest as mostly temp workers, so expect him to play favorites when dealing with the staff. He used to be romantically involved with Jasper but the two are not just close friends.

Coach Reverend: He lives north of town outside of city limits to evade building codes on the 'mansion' he made himself. His wife left him because she believed the 'dream house' was becoming a dangerous obsession that would get both of them killed. Without support from her, he quickly went off the rails emotionally and lost his physical therapist credentials. He pivoted towards religion and combined that with his training in sports medicine to establish the Christian Athletics Temple, which explains why there is a neon sign that says CAT above the front door to his house, which has now been filled with various exercise machines. The local high school supports him financially because it's a place for the teen athletes to train and because he drills a strict abstinence only agenda to the kids.

Becca Brae: Kinda gay and very dead.

Dougie Hope: Car salesman and Becca's former employer.

Julia Jones: Libertarian who runs a boba tea shop, and an illegal lesbian bar in the same strip mall after she decided that since nobody was gong to be renting out the space where the old Blockbuster was she might as well cut a hole her ladies room wall and move into that space with her own business. It's called disruption, and she legitimately believes that running a bar long enough will mean that she'll HAVE to be grandfathered in and given a liquor license if she ever gets found out. Will probably go to prison for some combiation of tax evasion, serving booze to minors and sawing a goddamn hole into the wall of somebody's building. If she's really unlucky there will be a fire and massive fatalities. She doesn't see that as her problem though.

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antihentaiclub · 4 years

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i’m rating manga/manhwa i’ve read because i don’t want to do my schoolwork

1. Blood Bank

status: completed

rating: 8.8/10

this was the first one i read and MAN. i like how in the beginning there was no relationship whatsoever but because Shell had power, he was able to use it and see One whenever he felt, at first, Shell was almost like a sugar daddy trying to use that to win One over. but over time, they developed a genuine relationship that was unbreakable and brought them back to each other in the end so they would receive their own happily ever after that they Definitely deserved.

2. bj Alex

status: ongoing (side story)

rating: 8.9/10

the basis of the story was good. i liked the growth of Jiwon throughout the entire story. watching Jiwon accept and move forward from his past trauma was therapeutic and so wholesome. it would probably be my favorite aspect of the series. however, i wanted to punch Dong-gyun Real hard in the beginning because of how he thirsted of Jiwon, but i think that factor is what made him so realistic. he was nearly obsessed with this idea he had of Jiwon and we got to see that idea destroyed and rebuilt multiple times. one another note, i really liked the side story with MD and Chanwoo. it was subtle enough not to overtake the main plot, but present enough o make an impact. now, though, in the side story i want to murder Chanwoo because he’s taking MD for granted. anyways, overall, bj Alex is a very good story. i also quite liked that it was drawn in black and white and the important parts were in color.

3. Make Me Bark

status: completed

rating: 7.5/10

Make Me Bark was very cute. different than my usual tastes, but definitely a good, quick read. i like how Sungjoon was having nothing go his way but Hyo-in kinda swooped in and knocked him off his feet. although, i do wish that we got to know a little more about Hyo-in. i feel like i know so little about him.

4. Well Done!

status: completed

rating: 7/10

i liked the overall concept quite a lot actually. i think the author did a decent job in proving that there doesn’t have to be a good person, or a hero, in a story and that both sides can essentially be villains in their own respect. parts of me wished that Sangwoo and Jaehyun worked out in the end, but i know their relationship didn’t have a solid foundation whatsoever. i don’t want to say the end was fitting for Jaehyun, but he definitely got knocked off his high horse.

5. Walk on Water

status: ongoing

rating: 9.8/10

one of my absolute favorites. this story takes you on so many twists and turns emotionally. the author has beautiful art and an incredible story including growth for both McQueen and Yeowoon. i can’t talk enough about how much i like it. it starts with Ed, who’s later revealed to actually be name Yeowoon, trying to find another source of income to pay off debt that his grandfather accrued. he stumbled upon this gay porn website owned by Glen McQueen and decided to give it a shot, despite not being gay. from then on a shaky string of hookups to hide true feelings ensues until McQueen and Ed finally reveal their real emotions. they begin dating and one would think that’s it, things are fine. but instead, things all start going wrong and Ed and McQueen get in a huge nasty fight in which they both end up regretting but Ed can’t bring himself to be the bigger man and apologize. he starts finding himself in less and less fortunate situations, but currently things are starting to take a turn for the better as he and McQueen have apologized and are talking in hopes of eventually creating a new relationship that will not lead to the hurt they experienced before.

6. BL Motel

status: ongoing

rating: 8.7/10

in this story i liked watching Jinwon and Byul’s relationship grow. you get to see them develop feelings and not tell each other despite how obvious it is. you also get to see Byul struggle with he and his brother’s relationship and how it had been flawed from the beginning. it showed Jinwon helping him and letting him finally resolve the situation so now they are on better terms and healing and finding proper love. i liked that a lot. my one thing that bothers me though, is that a lot of the character designs are similar so i get super confused on who is who. it’s a little disorganized in that sense which can make it a bit hard to read. otherwise, it’s a great story.

7. Dear Door

status: ongoing

rating: 8.6/10

i love the art style for this story. it goes from sophisticated and attractive to cute doodles in seconds and i like the laid back approach to storytelling. in this universe demons can use people as “doors” between the human realm and Hell, which is how Cain, a demon, and Gyeong Joon, a human police officer. Cain begins to use Gyeong Joon as his door and they develop an interesting type of relationship that still has a lot of room for growth. it’s still very early on for this story but i look forward to updates.

8. Love or Hate

status: ongoing

rating: 9.5/10

another favorite of mine. first, the art style is incredible and the character designs are so good. plus, the story is well structured. in this story you witness Haesoo conflicted between two people, his long time hookup Joowon, who he had known for ten years and had immense history with, and Taekyung, a photographer who he met through his job and funny enough, resembles Joowon’s actions. the story shows the damage of toxic relationships and how vulnerable people become when they’re in love with another person and when all they want is them. the characters, Haesoo especially, are so well thought out and complex and it adds so much flavor to the already good story. i heavily anticipate season 3 and know i’m in for a rollercoaster.

9. Back to School

status: completed

rating: 6.8/10

hear me out, by no means am i saying i didn’t like Back to School. what i am saying is i think there was potential for so much more. the ending was abrupt and left me with too many unanswered questions. i also thought the writing was a bit inconsistent towards the end. anyways, the concept was good. Cha Chiwoo left school because of a traumatic event and went back after taking his time off to finish and get his diploma. there he met Ki Kyujin, the class president, who tried befriending him despite the rumors that surrounded him. later on he reconnects with someone from his past, Song Jihyun, his ex best friend and the reason he left school in the first place. now, Jihyun decides to finish school and they’re all in the same class. throughout the story we got to unlock more of Chiwoo and Jihyun’s history, which was a factor i enjoyed. however, at the end, after Jihyun left, i think there should’ve been a point in the future where he comes back and he and Chiwoo actually resolve their last and can healthily move forward. i know it’s not my story, but i think something like that would’ve provided more of a resolution than Chiwoo just confessing his feelings and kissing Kyujin. i also think Jihyun was demonized more than necessary. he already had been falsely arrested for murder, he had multiple settled cases for his violent nature, and he had the major fall out with Chiwoo but in the q&a at the end the author said that Jihyun had raped Chiwoo which i don’t think matches his character. it was clear that everything he did was because he loved Chiwoo and he isn’t stupid enough to do something so cruel, or so i think.

#manga #manhwa #back to school #blood bank #bj alex #bl motel #painter of the night #walk on water #make me bark #well done #yaoi #mangago #jiwon bj alex #md bj alex #dear door #seungho x nakyum #seungho

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queerbreadcrumbs · 3 years

Text

Getting married as a baby trans

I’m a little late to the party and pretty old for a “baby” trans. I’m 24. Having said that, most of my family and friends have not been at all surprised by my coming out. For me, becoming engaged was one of the things that cracked my egg. When it comes right down to it, it was that and the pandemic that put it all into perspective for me. September was a hectic month, I got engaged and got a new job. Both of these things were positive changes for me, but that’s still a LOT of change.

What this means is though, I’ve been engaged and planning a wedding while transitioning and figuring out my gender identity. The conclusion I’ve come to is essentially that I am a transmasculine person, who uses they/them pronouns but is also fine with he/him. I have a new name which most people now use, I’ve been out at work as non binary for most of the time I’ve had that job now, I bind probably more than I should because it makes me feel awesome and I’ve been referred to a gender clinic which is cool. This is all good stuff, and I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made with my gender in the last year.

But in that time, I’ve also been planning a wedding and navigating through all the heteronormative, cisnormative and heavily gendered bullshit that is wedding culture. Lots of pretty wedding dresses, some of which I even tried on. I felt so awful and wrong in all of them. I honestly left the first bridal shop in serious doubt as to whether or not I should get married at all. But then I got home, and I looked at my partner’s face. Sometimes it feels like I can't contain how much I love him. So no, its not that I shouldn’t get married. I tried again, and this was better. Some of the dresses I looked fine in, like I looked okay. But didn’t feel comfortable, didn’t feel like me. What’s the point in dropping over £1k on a dress that makes you uncomfortable, even just emotionally?

I felt like I was running out of time to get my wedding outfit sorted. My grandfather gave me some money and I bought a dress online from Ghost of London. It cost less than £200 which is frankly a great price for a bridal gown. I bought a lace topper and a lace edge veil from Etsy. Again, I look nice. I look “like a bride should” in the traditional sense. I just wanted to be seen as good enough, for one day of my life. Even now, I can’t seem to stop doing things that make me unhappy or uncomfortable just for a shred of external validation.

But the decision began to weigh on me, and I expressed concerns to my partner that I didn’t want to wear a dress, and wanted to wear a suit instead. I bought a powder blue women’s suit from Mango. Again it fits and its fine, but I’m not sure its me. It doesn’t look right if I wear it with a binder either. Men’s suits don’t look right on me because of my gargantuan hips. I look like I’m either wearing a victorian bustle or like I’m wearing something that actually belongs to my dad. I’ve spent all this money on two outfits, neither of which I particularly like, and can’t afford to get something tailored or altered to fit me properly, while still allowing me to look masculine. That’s it, I’ve fucked it, I’m going to have to “do drag” at my own wedding. My partner is going to marry someone dressed in drag.

But I’ve accepted that, that’s just how it is. I’ll get married in the dress to appease my family and then change into the suit once the paperwork is signed because it is more comfortable for me, and less formal.

Because my name hasn’t yet been legally changed yet though, (I thought it would be easier to do this once married, as I will also be taking my partner’s surname) the entire process has just been awful. Vendors, registrars ect all keep dead naming and misgendering me, constantly. Every. Single. Interaction. The ceremony has to be performed with my legal name, rather than my actual name. I started contacting vendors and booking suppliers before I changed my name, and on an almost daily basis, I think things like “Is it worth outing myself to the person who’s making our wedding cake?”

Having to give notice at the registry office of our intention to marry. “ you are *deadname*, you are female, you haven’t been known by any other name legally?” and having to betray myself by saying yes. Telling the registrar that I don’t like or use my given name and asking her to please call me something else, only to have her only use my legal name throughout the entire process.

I saw a vision of my wedding day, three months from now. My gender identity being invalidated because I wore a dress for the first few hours. Being dead named and misgendered all day by well meaning family. Being read as a straight couple instead of the wonderful gay dudes that we are. Being called a Bride, Mrs. Spending our wedding night crying myself to sleep and battling dysphoria instead of consummating my marriage to a wonderful man. This is not how planning a wedding, or indeed the wedding itself is supposed to go.

Planning a wedding and being engaged is supposed to be the most exciting time of your life. I feel like the excitement I was supposed to feel has been stolen from me. Firstly by covid, as everything we booked had to be done with trepidation, with the reminder not to get too excited because “it might end up being postponed anyway.”, having to ask vendors whether it would cost us any more if we did end up having to postpone, them telling stories of phoning other couples on the eve of lockdown announcements to tell them their weddings weren’t going to happen, and every time we booked something praying that wasn’t going to be us. Secondly by not having the mental space to figure all this out earlier. How much further along in my transition would I have been if I’d had the mental space to figure this out when I first moved out of my parent’s place, or hell even younger? How much sooner could I have figured out I was trans if I didn’t have to be such a people pleaser growing up? How much smoother could this have been if I wasn’t early transition AND getting married? If I had already figured this out when he asked me to marry him, I could have had a suit made for me. He’d have asked me to marry him and used my name. My name would already be changed, and my deadname no longer legally binding.

But despite all this, I still can not wait to marry the love of my life. I can’t wait to put that ring on his finger, hear him say “I do” and admire how wonderful he looks in his suit. It is that thought that keeps me going on the rough days of wedding planning, that before the year is out, we will be a married couple, and I’ll hang a decoration in our home that says “Mr & Mr”, and he’ll hold me as I admire it.

#rant #personal #transgender #transmasc #transmasc problems #marriage #wedding #trans wedding #getting married as a trans man #transmaculine #trans man #gay and trans #deadnaming #misgendering #queer #lgbt wedding #trans uk

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alotsgonnachange · 3 years

Text

Fan apprentice Bios

for the alotsgonnachange/the arcana cinematic universe that eye personally believe to be better than the original game...

Name: Isabella Ciccino

Meaning: Promise of God

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Height: 5′10

Birthday: October 28th

Star sign: Scorpio

MBTI: ISFJ-T

Patron Arcana: Justice

Sexuality: Lesbian

Favorite Food: Lemon chicken orzo

Drink: White wine (Vinho Verde)

Magical abilities: Plant care/recognition (green witch), Foraging

Ethnicity: A small rocky/mediterranean esque island off the coast of Venterre that would strongly resemble sicily and malta.

Family: Mother, Angela Ciccino (deceased). Younger sister, Annamaria Ciccino (deceased)

Backstory: WIP

Occupation: Seamstress/tailor

Hobbies: Ballet, reading, drinking wine, dancing, tending to plants

Familiar: None (for now i guess??)

Love Interest: Nadia

Description: Isabella is a mysterious and alluring magician. To most people she is kind and charming, but private. She is incredibly helpful and caring to those she is friends with and cares about and will drop what she’s doing to assist. Likes to do quiet introspective work like reading, sewing, knitting and caring for plants. She’s a bit of a homebody in that sense. She comes across as level-headed and assertive in formal settings and does not allow others to talk down to her. With friends, she is a bit more sassy and teasing. She hates answering personal questions and has strict boundaries, which can lead to her being standoffish and stubborn at times.

As a Love Interest: Very loyal and committed, generally very gentle towards whoever she is seeing. You are going to have to get her to open the fuck up though she’s not good at being vulnerable AT ALL. The type of gf who may or may not qualify as a therapist/mother which…yikes. needs to work through her fear of intimacy before she can have a healthy relationship awwww 5/10

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Name: Danielle Dupont

Meaning: God is my judge

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Height: 5′6

Birthday: September 7th

Star sign: Virgo

MBTI: ENFP-A

Patron Arcana: The Sun

Sexuality: Bi

Favorite food: Pain au Chocolat (Chocolatine for my canadians…)

Favorite drink: Espresso or a good wheaty ale

Magical Abilities: Sexual magic, chemistry/potionmaking, candle magic, topical balms/solutions

Ethnicity: Whatever the Arcana equivalent is of like. Western Europe germanic? A country including but not limited to Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland. Who cares really she is white and an Orphan

Family: Orphan!

Backstory: WIP

Occupation: Shop owner who sells potions, balms, candles and various other uhhh items usually of the purpose of sex (literally think a modern day sex shop with dildos and shit but also candles and skincare too)

Hobbies: Socializing, singing, making/testing potions, foraging, baking

Familiar: None, is in fact frightened of several animals due to trauma :(

Love interest: Lucio (Her taste is questionable and that’s okay!), also portia

Description: Danielle is a cunning and animated witch. She’s outgoing, bright and carries herself with confidence. In the past this has made her friends and enemies alike. She’s charming but can be a bit of a trickster. Her demeanor is generally calm and she does not often experience strong anger. She’s very smart and dedicated to her craft, and she is a perfectionist. As a worker, she gives excellent customer service and is a good saleswoman. To her friends, she’s teasing and wild, but loving and encouraging. On her worst days, she has the potential to be a bit more inconsiderate and is not the best at handling huge displays of emotions from others.

As a Love Interest: Girlllll…. first of all she needs to stop being emotionally stunted! My good sis cannot handle open displays of emotion at all and tends to shut down! The physical aspects are all there and excellent and she is going to be sweet, caring and loving but she needs to take things more seriously and be able to talk about feelings!!! 3/10

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Name: Jia Song

Meaning: In korean it’s “clear” or “good”

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Height: 5’5”

Birthday: August 5th

Star sign: Leo

MBTI: ENFJ-A

Sexuality: Bi

Favorite Food: Pulled pork or a good seasoned steak

Drink: limeade

Magical Abilities: Potions/herbs and healing

Ethnicity: Her father is from the same country as Ki (in a modern AU, this would be like. Korea.) and her mother is from somewhere uhhhh near nopal or something. Warm tropical nice (in a modern au this would be Brazil), but she grew up in her mother's country.

Family: I don't currently have names but basically, her father, mother, aunt (deceased) and two younger brothers.

Backstory: will be linked coming soon

Occupation: Healer, researcher, linguist

Hobbies: Dancing, reading, adventuring

Familiar: None

Love Interest: Julian

Description: Jia is a bright and curious magician. She’s a bit nerdy and loves reading/learning new disciplines. She is an energetic and altruistic person who is liked by many. She comes off as kind and forthcoming. She is very helpful and if she can’t help directly she will find someone who can with her connections. To her friends, she is loyal and sweet and affectionate, but also has the potential to be grumpy and even a bit negative. She’s very determined in hard situations and won’t back down until things are made right. Despite this, she can potentially overthink and overestimate situations and is incredibly stubborn when she wants to be.

As a romantic partner: loving, but definitely also able to keep independence. Not necessarily a stage 5 clinger but somewhere in the middle. She will love just spending lots of time with a partner and just picking their brain and learning everything she can from them. The type to brag about them to her friends. A wonderful listener but give her a chance to speak too she likes talking a lot as well! 10/10 would recommend

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Name: Ki (Kiyoung) Kim

Meaning: Debatable but Ki alone means arisen and i’m getting “Vigor and eternal” But i think names differ based on the characters u use i am not korean so take this with a grain of salt

Gender: Nonbinary i think...

Pronouns: He/him or they/them doesn't have a preference

Height: 5′8″ Short king

Birthday: February 27th

Star sign: Pisces

MBTI: INFP-T

Sexuality: Gay

Favorite food: Budae Jjigae or Yongeun jorim

Favorite drink: any alcoholic beverage where you can’t taste the alcohol and strawberry milk

Magical Ability: Divination and mediumship (idk what the proper term is) so he can communicate with spirits/the dead

Ethnicity: Think of a small nation veeeery far away from Vesuvia that's cold for a lot of the year (for reference, think Korea).

Family: a twin sister named Jiyoung, 3 older sisters (Jiwoo, Jeongyeon, Joonhwa), mother and father and paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother who are living.

Backstory: will be linked coming soon

Occupation: Musician - mostly guitar and piano. Enjoys instrument care, arranging and performing in large ensembles, not a soloist by any means. He’s a great singer but he’s shy and singing gives him anxiety

Hobbies: Playing guitar, composing/arranging, reading, writing, shopping

Familiar: a tiny white dragon named Egg. Idc if dragons exist in this world but i feel like they HAVE to..

Love Interest: Asra

Description: Ki is a perceptive and witty magician. To most he comes off as a bit anxious and shy, which he is. Once you get past that, he’s eager, forthcoming and empathetic. He is very kind and likes to believe people have good intentions. He is very helpful and always tries to make sure others are comfortable and happy. He enjoys music and learning musical instruments. He prefers to work more in the background so as to not draw attention to himself. With his friends, he’s actually very talkative, silly and goofy. He’s prone to anxiety and may tense up or feel attacked when put into frightening situations. Unfortunately he has self destructive tendencies and low self esteem and has a hard time due to that.

As a Love Interest: perfect little s/o shut the FUCK UP…. that is if u can deal with low self esteem and anxiety! He really really tries though! He’s also shy with physical affection but will warm up to it eventually with familiarity and trust. Very doting and randomly shows up with delicious food and takes care of u when ur sick. 8/10

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Name: Mathilde “Tilly” LaRue

Meaning: Mighty In Battle? Lol

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Height: 5’11

Birthday: January 16

Star Sign: Capricorn

MBTI: INTP-A

Sexuality: Bi

Favorite Food: Lentil soup

Drink: Black coffee

Magical Abilities: Divination, telekinesis, herbs, defensive magic

Ethnicity: From a large urban area with a large population somewhere in an area a bit cooler and rainier than Vesuvia. (think like. England)(in a modern AU think Afro-caribbean)

Family: Mother and Mother and an older sister named Topaz

Backstory: will be linked coming soon

Occupation: Court Magician (but like simply a well rounded witch who goes wherever the money is)

Hobbies: Exploring, foraging, reading

Familiar: A white ferret named Elle

Love Interest: Muriel

Description: Mathilde is a gentle and thoughtful magician. She is soft-spoken and hates raising her voice, and is often making bizarre and thought provoking side comments in most situations. She is curious and intuitive when it comes to magic and often able to use several methods to predict the future for others. She carries herself in a dreamlike/contemplative manner and does not really care what others think - She’s off in her own world. With friends, she has a good source of humor and gives good advice and is a very good listener. She has an affinity for animals and nature, and would generally prefer to be outside. She can tend to be unrealistic and naive and loses hold on her emotions in tough situations (angry crier…) and feels misunderstood by those around her.

As a love interest: Downright adorable. Sweet, will bring you cool items she found and very endearing. She’s also encouraging and surprisingly cheesy. Not outwardly clingy but if you let her she will. but good fucking luck starting to date her! She is extremely pretty and gets asked out almost every day, turning down 99.999999% of applicants because other people do not particularly interest her and her taste is insanely picky! 10/10 but FAT CHANCE

#my art #bios #my text #the arcana #fan apprentice #ki #tilly #danielle #isabella #jia #refs

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