#might be bc i’m aroace but this made me SO HAPPY

[rggie]

Idk if we do oc talk here, but i needed to tell someone about my favorite boy. I made a whole twst oc who is a third shroud w/middle child syndrome named Connie bc of certain connections to greek and latin words in the other boy’s names. Cringe is dead you can make ur ocs related to canon now/j. He bullies Idia (lovingly) about using gamer speak and internet abbreviations out loud. He and Ortho are menaces bc of their 🥺 act. He’s still very much a Shroud and an ignihyde student he never wears his uniform coat it’s the Emotional Support Jacket at all times.

Connie isn’t quite as eccentric as his brothers are considered, but he’s got his quirks. A little paranoid, never seems to sleep, has cameras and bugs and droids everywhere he can hide them. Seems quiet and hard to approach, but is a warm person until someone hits his berserk button. He hears someone say a single negative word about Idia or Ortho and he’s already swinging. Connie has no mercy for anyone who would even think hurtful things about the people he cares about. He’s their shield, he’ll stand at Idia’s side in the future, he needs to make sure nothing bad happens again. Never again.

He’s still a kid though. He likes to have fun, and his idea of fun can vary drastically depending on who he’s with and if there’s someone acting as impulse control. He and Ortho aren’t allowed to wander campus without a chaperone. They’re watched diligently to ensure it doesn’t happen. It happens anyways, and then explosions happen. Connie and Idia have a healthy sibling rivalry, always trying to one up each other. Fighting over academics, video game scores, height, you name it. Often verbal, sometimes physical, never magical. They have their sibling fights the old fashioned way, by wrestling, yanking hair, kicking, and biting until someone (Ortho) tells them to stop.

Connie is still Idia’s little brother, no matter how much he annoys him. He helps with homework he struggles with and they play games together when they’re not at each other’s throats. When Connie and Ortho get in trouble, which is often, they can always run and hide behind Idia’s back. What do you mean Idia’s precious little brothers caused that mess?? They’re totally innocent, how dare you accuse them of something like that! He could see Connie doing it, but Ortho? NEVER! It’s probably those other freshmen! Jeez!

They’re just funny little guys. I needed someone else to know about them before I exploded. Thank u for the ramble spot- 🐝

we absolutely DO talk ocs here. ocs, theories, brainrot abt ur fave characters, literally anything. if there’s one thing i am, it’s a good listener. (it comes with my introverted nature😭 i think.) scream at me abt ur blorbos and i will scream back!!! /pos

another shroud sibling. my heart is so full. FIRST OF ALL CONNIE SOUNDS LIKE A MENACE TO IDIA (lovingly) AND I ADORE HIM ALREADY. the sibling rivalry… i love it. pushing each others buttons😭 realistic sibling dynamics🤍🤍🤍!!! and oh my god imagine connie and idia getting into a physical fight in front of the other third years.. absolutely shocked because who is this firecracker able to wring such emotions out of idia????!! and ortho is more than happy to brag abt both his brothers 😞😞

and aaaaa ortho and connie getting into little shenanigans.. the way they have to be supervised PLEASE THEYRE SO SILLY… AND THEN HIDING BEHIND IDIA’S BACK WHEN THEY GET INTO TROUBLE😭😭 i can’t fight the smile growing on my face “He could see Connie doing that, but Ortho? NEVER!” i’m ascending. this is absolutely gold. idia’s innocent little siblings could never do anything wrong!!!🥺🥺🥺 it must have been ace or grim. it must have!

thank u for this bc u have no idea how much i love familial tropes. like romantic things? they’re cool! but familial tropes and platonic intimacy are at the top for me 😭 just imagining all the shroud sibling interactions has me tearful. and this isn’t even touching on the angst potential…

[oatflatwhite]

Absolutely feel free to not answer but I was wondering how you grew more comfortable being aro/ace? I’m 22 and ace (maybe aro too idk) and I recently ended an on again off again relationship and I am questioning if I ever felt anything towards him in the first place. Im kinda scared bc I love romance but idk if I’ll ever experience it? I wish I was as secure as you seem to be. Thank u in advance 🙂

hey anon :) thank you for reaching out! it's a really hard feeling to come to grips with so i hope i can help in at least a small way.

id'ing as aroace has been quite the journey for me. i've known i was ace for the longest time, but there was a period of several years where i denied even that (thanks 2016 tumblr discourse). eventually i realised that certain feelings would just never happen to me and that was ok - because i could still have romance, right? well!

i think it was around 2021 i kind of thought hold on. i've lived 23 years on this goddamn earth and don't think i've ever had a real romantic feeling/urge for someone who wasn't a fictional character/someone i didn't "force" myself to like because everyone in high school has crushes, right? so i thought about it and just went oh. oh! and it almost felt as though a weight came off my shoulders. like, yes, i was fucking bummed to realise i would probably never fall in storybook love. but there was this sense of a burden i could unshoulder because suddenly i wasn't beholden to the need to find that love, you know? i could just. be me. and even though it might make me sad sometimes, it's enough.

since then i've been up and down about it, absolutely. i even had a brief period last year where i convinced myself i actually did like this guy in real life! through a comedy of errors i realised that romance in my head was fine but any kind of real life interaction in that vein made me sick to my stomach fr lol. (for real! he had to drive me home in my own goddamn car bc i felt so ill.) i still get upset about it sometimes too. i mean, all i write is romance. i read and watch a lot of romance too. romance is every fucking where and it is so ingrained to be a part of everyone's lives that to try and distance yourself from it in order to feel more comfortable not feeling it is. virtually impossible.

where i am right now, 26 years old, 10 years into my ace journey and about 3 into my aro one, is here: i like my life. i love my friends. i can't force myself into a feeling that i will never have. and maybe at times i will be lonely and sad about it, but building a community has helped so much. whether that's with other aro/ace people, or just your friends or family or anyone else you trust with this. because romantic love =/= personal fulfilment, happiness, success. we've just been told it does. it just takes work to make yourself believe otherwise.

and it's ok to be sad about it. but even if you feel lonely, you're not alone.

also, because i'm nothing if not a girl who loves a bibliography, i would recommend checking out these sources:

loveless by alice oseman

ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex by angela chen

this essay by k.a. cook

and pinging a couple blogs with some good aro resources, though i'm sure there's more out there! @aroworlds @arowitharrows

[happybird16]

(Kinda tmi?? Idk)

Hm...after reading what you and that anon talked about (I was thinking about it for a while too), I'm getting way more convinced I'm aroace... it's weird to say it actually... I never felt any interest in anyone (sexual or romantic), I do recognize when someone's attractive though; I'm considered an attractive person too, but every single time someone shows they're interested in me i feel so weird. I feel kinda bad in a way because I'm always rejecting, but because i feel nothing towards them I also don't care??? It's weird, I just don't feel anything; meybe some hyper-fixation for a couple of days and if the person is annoying just some hours lmao

I don't ever want to marry and don't really wan't a relationship; can't see myself in one even though i know aroace people can, and some want to, be in one.

I do love thinking about sex, masturbating, etc, but I only feel this need when thinking about fictional people and very rarely people i couldn't ever have like a celebrity (rarely because I'm not attracted to any of them, I was once for this one artists but meh idk real people might be the problem)

Idk what to do.... Levi, specially Levi, is the only fictional character that made me feel free with being sexual and fantasize about romance without feeling weird. It makes me happy, but again, kinda weird because idk what to do irl. I'm okay being alone, it's just confusing thinking about being aroace when I was convinced I was pansexual just bcs I find anyone attractive

Let me know if your uncomfortable with me posting this response publicly, I’ll delete it immediately.

It’s sort of exactly the same for me. I’ve always had the hardest time even telling when someone is hitting on me, but once I realize it it’s immediately an ‘oh god no’ feeling. I feel hot and itchy and uncomfortable and just want out. Even back in high school. Heck, probably even middle school.

I’ve always sort of felt bad too. Like they’re interested in me, why can’t I respond in kind. Everyone else is always obsessed with pairing off like it’s the end all be all, but I just can’t. Like I almost feel like I should be obligated to respond. I also can not tell what flirting is or isn’t, so I feel like I might accidentally lead people on all the time. :(

I’ve never really found an irl person attractive, or even cute. Tbh most people sort of look the same to me. There’s only like a handful of basic facial features and they all sort of blur together. Maybe I have face blindness?? Idk. Anyways, I can find individual features attractive, i’m sure my obsession with muscles is apparent, but never the whole person, ya know? Abs, nice. Arms, nice. Whole thing, ew. Not just for men either, I often find individual features of women nice to look at as well.

Also the whole fact that that’s a bother person, a whole human with their own thoughts and desires, really stresses me out. Like I’m never sure exactly what they want from me, what they think of me and what they expect.

I think anytime I’ve ever shown any interest in someone is because I more or less felt obligated to. Either by society or their interest. There was no actual sexual or romantic intent on my part.

I’m not an expert, and it’s a spectrum so we’re not doubt very different, but don’t be afraid of labeling yourself as something and changing your mind later. It’s your life. You do what you need and if anyone says anything that’s their problem.

I’m not even 100% on the label of aroace for myself, partially because of the comments I’ve gotten from people I know about it. That if I’m asexual I shouldn’t feel any desire ever. No thirsty thoughts and no masturbation. That if I’m Aromantic, how can I watch and enjoy romance movies/shows? Like people don’t understand basic human empathy is what makes us enjoy those things. I’m not emotionless, I’m just a little different.

In the end, you don’t even have to pick a label, just do what makes you feel comfortable. Enjoy being alone and fantasizing about Levi just like me, lol. Ive basically just decided not to stress about it, and just focus on myself since I have no desire to pair off anyways.

(Though I have been contemplating ‘coming out’ on my Facebook next month and urg)

[excaliburofficial]

OMG I SAW UR NAIGUS HEADCANONS AND THEY MADE MY SEROTONIN LEVELS GO OFF THE WALLS GRGRG DO U HAVE ANY HEADCANONS FOR KILIK RUNG?

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I GOT YOU FAM I GOT YOU

Thank you for the ask!! I'm glad my Naigus headcanons facts striaght from Okubo's email made you happy! :)

Kilik is honestly also a super cool character that needs more love I feel????? He just gives me such wholesome vibes idek so I'm really happy to be doing these since he's such a stand up dude tbh

Headcanons I have about Kilik Rung

He's a really rational thinker and obv very very competent but his real strength is his resolve

He has a very strong personal moral code and will always stand by and do what he thinks is right. A lot of integrity from Kilik!!

He's a very dependable person and an all around good friend. He's pretty emotionally intelligent person who says what he means and gives good advice and is very loyal to the people he cares about the most

What some might think is being hot headed is just a result of his passion and drive. He isnt really reckless or arrogant or anything, he just gets overwhelmed with his determination and passion in the heat of the moment

He doesnt really like ambiguity much and is a problem solver

He really liked things like Karate Kid and DBZ growing up and a lot of the lessons and messages really stuck with him

Got really involved in like combat sports like martial arts and wrestling pretty young because of how much the idea of personal strength in those movies/shows really meant to him

Hes very focused in general in personal growth both with physical capabilities and with his interpersonal relationships

He's absolutely the type to lift up the other people around him so they can be their best selves

He was interested in going to the DWMA largely because it seemed like a good fit for his lifelong interests and skills and goals and HE WAS RIGHT

But tbh he was actually a little hesitant specifically because he didn't think he could find a weapon partner that matched his more close/direct preference from his sport experience and karate movie influence but in the end decided to go ahead and try

After all he could learn to use a weapon pretty quickly if he needed to and who would pass up the chance to be a meister? Esp when he has the passion for it already?? Not Kilik no way cause he knows what he wants and will get it

Enter Fire and Thunder who were worried about finding a meister who would think about using a hand to hand combat style cause they kinda require it

And because Kilik is in general just this down to earth and intelligent (esp socially) person matching wavelengths with both of them wasn't really an issue

He's pretty popular at DWMA and will talk to just about everyone he sees like he's known them forever

He became such good friends w Ox because he saw that Ox was just kind of this super serious guy and was like "hmmm he could probably benefit from lightening up some"

And as it turns out they actually had a lot in common esp when we're talking about self improvement even if they have different approaches to that

He actually really respects Ox as his peer and they do a lot to lift eachother up, in fact Ox is probably one of the people he respects the most

Plus both of them having thunder attacks helps them bond haha

Is generally just a stand up guy overall who puts effort into everything he does

Outside of combat/DWMA stuff he's really into music! He has a wide variety of stuff that he listens to and has made a ton of different playlists for friends and different occasions

Idk if I necessarily think he's aroace but when we see him in the series I get the feeling that he's def more focused on his friendships and personal goals than romance or anything which like good for him

Really likes filling foods with complex carbs like pasta and baked potatoes but isn't a picky eater like at all which I might just say bc im hungry and could really go for a baked potato or noodles rn but ssssshh

Has at least 1 teddy bear that he's has since he was a baby and will never get rid of and still has his baby blanket

Probably really loves his grandma. Idk anything about his grandma except that he loves her a lot

Very proud of what he's been able to do WHICH HE SHOULD BE YOU GO KILIK and is excited to be able to do more and see what he and his peers are capable of

[transsscorpius]

"hi danny i would love to hear if you had any thoughts or headcannons abt Astoria or perhaps even Astoria and Scorpius ones?? idk i just love hearing people’s interpretations of her 🤗💕"

@grey-edges your ask got deleted somehow and i had to rewrite this i'm so sorry for the late reply but anyway. Thank you for this ask! I have Astoria headcanons i just never got the energy to write them so here is my personal interpretation of her 🥰💕

• Ok this is probably vastly different than other interpretations of Astoria i've seen, but i think she's into like pop rock/metal/grunge type of music and her her aesthetic in dressing sometimes reflects that. Sometimes her wardrobe is floral dresses and bright colors. There is no in between

• Like if you saw her in the back of the classroom with headphones on smiling softly while scribbling something down and asked her what she was listening to and it's just. Literal screaming and depressive lyrics. What the fuck

• I think she's the black sheep of the family, her family is in a 'purebloods are better' mindset and has a rocky relationship with them (her and Daphne eventually develop a better relationship with each other) so i see her sort of straying away from them slowly during her time at school

• Also family dynamics and internalized bigotry is not as easy to just throw away as jkr writes it to be and she takes time to listen and educate herself for a while to break free from that

• She's bi oriented aroace or bi ace or something along those lines but definitely aspec

• My Astoria is in ravenclaw! I am fine with other house hcs as well, i just want her to see Luna more often and have her influence in her life. Also eventually Ginny too, they'd definitely get along. Astoria+Ginny+Luna is where my mind is always

• She wears a bunch of rings on every finger and so does Draco when he starts hanging out with her after Hogwarts. Whores

• Ok but seriously, if we're going in the drastoria route, she's the one who gets him to open up bc Draco is so repressed in many ways and she's visibly free and has those 'who gives a fuck' vibes, so he feels more okay in experimenting with gender expression and whatever else when he's with her

• I made a post once that Draco and her were in a qpr and now i can't think of them in any other way sjsjjsjs like i used to genuinely ship them romantically but now i can't think of them as anything other than having qp thing going on

• Draco is also some sort of ace. Maybe demi

• Speaking of, they would tell Scorpius about them being qp and answer all his questions about that, so when Scorpius gets rejected by Rose, he doesn't try to persist on her to go out with him (what canon? idk her) and might enlighten Rose on the fact that she might be aspec after a few comments from her saying she doesn't see really herself with anybody that way. Scorose friendship basically <3

• Scorpius has Astoria's smile. I don't know how to explain it properly but i feel like it's important to know. They have the same smile :)

• The older Malfoys hated her and probably tried to sabotage her thing with Draco so she convinced Draco to sell the manor (it became his property but i seriously don't know how this stuff works so don't call me out skksksks) and Lucius nearly had a heart attack. They spent all that money on charities and on homeless people they found on the streets

• If we're going outside of canon... Ginstoria is a very very nice concept to me. I'm sort of obsessed with the ship

• Back to just Astoria, she was a bit shy, but if anyone was being cruel, she would absolutely deck them on sight

• She was part of the DA, Harry just never noticed her idk

• She's the type of person to cut her own hair. It's always a bit choppy bc she did it herself but she likes it like that so it works for her

• She has the weirdest shit in her bag. There's regular school stuff but then there's also a bottle of clay she found (she likes to make clay figures), a pair of scissors, a sharp dagger??? some pins for her hair, eyeliner, interesting looking potion vials. People walking with her to class are always really weirded out when she start pulling them out to find a book or something. Luna is never weirded out, she understands

• Luna Ginny Astoria sleepover. Pls think about it

Yeah idk haha i just like thinking about her as strange and optimistic and someone who wants to be happy so she makes sure that she is and no one can bully that away from her <3

[thegeminisage]

I'm curious: in your personal reading of Cas as ace, do you also consider him another orientation (romantic or sexual)? For me personally, I consider him gay and ace, or sometimes gay-oriented aroace.

this is a good question actually lol. most of me wants to say that cas is gay and ace because he did canonically fall in love w/ another man and it means a lot to people to call him the gay angel even though i think he’s the ace angel so like gay ace is a v good compromise i think. ace angel handshake emoji gay angel you know!

however (unpopular opinion warning) i do have a little trouble with meg. with every other woman cas is around he either doesn’t have any chemistry (hannah, daphne), it’s CLEARLY a platonic relationship (kelly), or it’s clearly some kind of comphet weirdness (the orgies in 5.04, the reaper in s9 which also counts as rape in my book). w/ meg though his affection seemed both genuine and...i know but... ??? borderline romantic ??? hard to say. it definitely doesn’t negate or cancel out the obvious and canonical feelings he had for dean, but he liked her! he was dtf! in a way that was very different from his thing with the reaper in cursed season 9.

so like: ??? ace and gay and willing to bang a lady anyway maybe? like because when you’re ace you’re not physically attracted to ANYBODY, so it’s impossible to be physically attracted to whoever you’re banging - ace people have sex for other reasons - emotional intimacy, because it feels good, w/e. so he could have been ace and gay and still willing to nonromantically bang his lady friend just as a form of affection. “biromantic” def feels like the wrong label for cas, even if you slap a “demi-” in front of it - if anything, i’d call him unoriented. 

by unoriented i mean: i myself don’t use the split attraction model bc i don’t like it. that doesn’t mean i think it’s bad in general or bad for other people, it’s just not what i like. so when i say i’m asexual that’s the whole label. my romantic orientation isn’t “aro” or “gay” or “bi” or whatever it’s that i just don’t have one. subtle but distinct difference. so i could see something like that for cas, bc what is he there for if not to project on. he fell in love w/ dean because dean is dean (and in “like” w/ meg because meg is meg) and his orientation or lack thereof had nothing to do with it, you know?

this is NOT EVEN GETTING INTO the secret essay i have on how angel sexuality is totally different than human sexuality - because the taboo is to be attracted to humans, and gender has nothing to do with it - this is ALSO because angel gender is probably totally different than human gender, and human gender is totally fucking made up anyway - male seahorses have the babies, you know? it’s not that defining sexuality and gender is bad (labels are good because they help people be comfortable with themselves and find other people with similar experiences!) but we put the label on the experience, we don’t try to make the experience fit the label.

anyway, the point of all this to say that sexuality is weird and complicated (even moreso when you’re talking about the aro and ace spectrum, even MORE SO when you remember that the way we classify it seems to be somewhat arbitrarily based on gender, which again is kind of a fake concept that we made up), and it seems a liiiittle pointless to try and like, qualify cas’s romantic orientation when the sum total of his romantic feelings (except for MAYBE the .1% of genuine connection he had w/ meg) are just wholly devoted to and laser-focused on dean. like, CANONICALLY, castiel loves dean winchester to the total exclusion of other people. what else really matters, yk

that said, dean happens to be male and cas happens to be in a male vessel, so yes, technically the factual thing to say is that he’s gay and ace because that fits canon, it makes the people who him being gay has meaning for happy, and it also keeps exclusionists on tumblr from calling you homophobic. (apparently headcanoning a gay character as being aspec is homophobic even though the two are not at all mutually exclusive and being aspec isn’t code for being straight because aces ARE queer?? bro don’t even get me started lol)

sorry anon this answer got way longer than intended! but yeah i do think cas is queer like twice over - firstly because he loves a human (angel queer), and secondly because he loves one of his own gender (human queer). you might also say he’s some kind of genderqueer too based on your interpretation of angel genders (???) vs the gender cas became when he decided to stick around in jimmy (male, ostensibly, but many other headcanons work for that too). he’s like queer squared. and i love him. my rainbow angel <3

[spn masterpost]

[elyvorg]

Do you accept headcanons? Bc i am thinking about aroace kaito. Space ace. He would be so damn hyped about being a space ace.

Haha, way ahead of you there; I already low-key headcanon Kaito as aroace! I'm aroace myself, and imagining Kaito as being that too makes me happy.

(For the record, I wouldn't technically say I “accept headcanons” in general without limits, because they won't necessarily always be something I'd find interesting and/or agree with enough to want to make a post about. This blog is a my-thoughts blog, not a submission blog, after all. But this particular headcanon happens to be one I do agree with, so damn right I’m going to take the excuse to talk about aroace Kaito.)

So, when I say “low-key” headcanon, I mean this is mostly me imagining Kaito being aroace just because I personally enjoy the idea, and not because I'm especially strongly convinced that this is definitely true about him. While I've thought this from pretty much the moment I happened to consider the words “aroace” and “Kaito” in the same sentence, I've never really made any posts about it until now because there's no particularly specific evidence for it, and so it's not all that relevant to Kaito's character either way.

Meanwhile, a headcanon such as my ADHD-Kaito headcanon is a lot more than just “low-key”, since there's a whole mountain of evidence pointing towards it, such that even if it might not be what the writers intended, it's still very much there in the canon text. Kaito indisputably shows so many traits that just objectively are ADHD symptoms, so it may as well be considered canon truth that Kaito has ADHD, or at the very least some similar kind of neurodivergence. That's why I've made a huge analysis post about that ADHD headcanon: because it's interesting not just to me personally but also in a way that's relevant to understanding his character. Anyone who's invested in understanding why Kaito is the way he is ought to consider those points and take them into account when thinking about him.

(For that matter, while I'm pretty low-key about aroace Kaito, I do in fact have another V3 aspec headcanon that I'm deeply invested in and very firmly convinced is the canon-proven truth that people who care ought to understand, which this has just increased my desire to talk about on this blog. That deserves its own separate post, though.)

  But still, while there's no particularly strong evidence that actively points towards Kaito being aroace, there's also absolutely zero reason not to imagine him that way, because there's no meaningful evidence against it either. Kaito is never shown giving any kind of a damn about romance or sex and definitely seems like someone who's just got better stuff to do with himself, you know? Like going to SPACE, obviously, and also supporting his sidekicks!

Plus, it's very refreshing and non-amatonormative of Kaito to put as much priority and emphasis on his platonic relationships as he does. Heck, his whole hero-and-sidekick thing is his own unique type of self-defined committed platonic relationship! It fits absolutely nowhere into the general societally-expected relationship moulds of either “casual friendships (Less Important)” or “monogamous romance (The Most Important)” and nothing else. Because of course Kaito wouldn't give a damn about any of that nonsense. To hell with what everyone else expects; he does things his way, and that includes his relationships, too!

(That's really along very similar lines to the principles behind queerplatonic relationships, and I love it.)

In short, even if Kaito isn't actually aroace and is hypothetically capable of romantic and/or sexual attraction, he nonetheless exudes a very strong energy of Screw This Amatonormativity Bullshit. That's something that I, as an aroace, can very much respect and get behind. Kaito is the best.

[a-hundred-jewels]

cruel summer ch 12: i have these lucid dreams

Ao3 Wattpad

Summary: sabrina starr, pegasuses, and oh no! the fourth wall broke! do we have a carpenter in the audience?

Word Count: 9000 ish

Tags: Rachel Elizabeth Dare/Jane Penderwick, Rosalind Penderwick/Tommy Geiger, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jane Penderwick, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Rosalind Penderwick, Skye Penderwick, Chiron (Percy Jackson), Martin Penderwick, Elizabeth "Batty" Penderwick, Elizabeth Penderwick (senior), Iantha Aaronson-Penderwick, Ben Aaronson-Penderwick, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Annabeth Chase, Jeffrey Tifton-McGrath, Percy Jackson, Demeter (Percy Jackson), Apollo (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood AU, Demigods, demeter!elizabeth penderwick, demeter!rosalind (second generation), demeter!batty (second generation), apollo!alec mcgrath, apollo!jeffrey (second generation), demeter!jane (second generation), demeter!skye (second generation), all of that's in no particular order, main focus is on jane because i love her and she's so so fun to write, tomsalind is there (and stuff will happen - i can't really say what, it will really be eventful though), yes of course there's solangelo, takes place right before Penderwicks In Spring, After Trials of Apollo, more tags to come??, Minor Swearing

Notes and Full Chapter below cut:

Hello everyone and welcome back! I'll admit, this is a little later today than I'd been planning to post (was hoping to get an early start), but hey! If the Puppet History season 4 finale can be late, then so can I!

First off, a massive massive thank you to waterbottle_stickers for being the best beta reader ever. This chapter would be a mess without you. Also, if you haven't already, please check out their enola holmes fic wherever you stray, i follow it's truly wonderful.

If you've been following me on tumblr, then you'll know that, in addition to reblogging an alarming quantity of good omens fanart, I've been making some plans for fics this month. The original plan from back in august was to post every day of the month, but... ahhh.... I just don't work that fast lmao. I'll have to be content with just posting a fair amount this month. Happy october! Anyway, stay tuned.

On this fine day, we've got two lovely QUEER fanfic recommendations that I'm very excited to share. Up first is one from the tumblr blog izzielizzie (which you should all absolutely check out! especially if you're into the one of us is lying fandom!). it centers around the skye/melissa pairing and their senior prom, which Skye is said to have only gone to last minute, and also wearing a lab coat, in a passage of the penderwicks at last. featuring some oblivious lesbians and also jane. once again a massive thanks to izzielizzie, as this fic is one of my favourites!. click here to take a look! (also keep an eye on her blog in general bc her penderwicks fics are awesome!)

The second fanfic is also one I'm very fond of, as it focuses on the siblinghood of skye and jane, which is one of my favourite topics on earth. check out rolling down the ancient high street by hanchewie/ramblemadlyon (tumblr and ao3 respectively) for the sibling antics of aroace skye and bisexual jane when the latter visits the former at her college in california! and, if you like it, ramblemadlyon has two other penderwicks fics from the past couple days that look fantastic as well, and that I look forward to reading.

This chapter is dedicated to my therapist, since I've decided this will be the month of oddly specific dedications. thank you for telling me to stop referring to cruel summer as my "trash baby" and help me recognize the true worth that it holds in my life.

Disclaimer: not my characters, you know the drill. Jeanne Birdsall and Rick Riordan are lucky ducks indeed. chapter title is (obviously) from "lucid dreams" by Juice WRLD.

FROM THE POV OF JANE PENDERWICK

The woods loomed around me, seeming as tall as buildings as they invited me in further. I took another step, the sharp pain of a pinecone digging into my foot barely registered in my mind. I kept walking. A crack sounded throughout the air, and, behind me, a tree splintered round its base and fell down, only inches away from crushing me dead, and completely blocking the path out.

Frightened, I began to run, looking for a way out of the forest. But no matter which way I went, there were only trees in front of me. Where was the path? Where was the grassy hill I had walked down to get in here in the first place. Had I even walked down that hill to begin with? Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I remembered coming here. I wasn’t sure I remembered waking up this morning, or going to bed last night, or anything besides existing in the forest. Who was I? What was I doing here? How could I get out?

Panicking, I stood in the middle of a clearing, looking frantically at the trees around me, trying to find something familiar. Nothing. I was exhausted. How long had I been here? An hour? A day? A lifetime? I collapsed at the base of a tree, sobbing as I tried to remember. Something. Anything.

Then, a voice echoed around me. “Welcome,” it said, and my mind went black.

I bolt upright in bed, a scream halfway out of my throat. I clamp it back, not wanting to wake my cabinmates. Thin light whimpers through the window--enough for me to see my white-knuckle grip on the sheets, but not enough to pass as daylight.

What time is it?

Our cell phones don’t really work here--that was one of the first things Miranda told us when we arrived, and Batty’s been gleefully lording it over us that her Mp3 player will still play music and, like, function, while our smart phones recline sadly in our duffel bags. That being said, I don’t feel quite brave enough to get out of my bed just yet and tiptoe over to the big analog clock that Rio bought at a pawn shop in Colorado. Maybe my phone will at least show the time.

I reach under my bed and fumble for my duffel, hooking my pinky through the zipper loop and yanking it out onto my floor. My phone’s in the front pocket, buried under two pairs of headphones, several gum wrappers, and some strawberry leaves (?????). A piece of gum peels off the screen as I disentangle my phone, and I mentally chide my past self for being so messy.

My phone does not turn on. Big clock it is.

I tiptoe across the cold tile and peer around the tree.

5:45 .

Jesus Pagan Christ.

It’s too early to wake anyone up (as I think this, Batty lets out a snore to rival any crabby Tyrannosaurus Rex), so I wrap a blanket around myself like a criminally attractive burrito, and creep out onto the porch, with my notebook and pen tucked into my shirt.

As long as I live, I will never get tired of summer mornings. There’s something deeply lovely about the soft light of the still-sleepy, pink lemonade sun, the quiet anticipation of the cool air, damp from dew and preparing for the upcoming heat. At home in Cameron, Skye’s woken me up many an early morning to go for a run or do soccer drills or for a grueling “Seven Minute Workout Except You Don’t Follow The Rules And Torture Your Sister by Making It Actually A Forty-Nine Minute Workout.” (But it’s okay, I’m not bitter). But, as delightful as those experiences have all been, I don’t think Skye really gets it. The beauty of the summer morning is not what it can do for your workout schedule, but rather in its gentle softening of an otherwise boiling day. It is to be appreciated in the way that I am now, sitting curled up on this frighteningly creaky porch (I mean, seriously, who built this?) and calling up the Sabrina Starr section of my brain to try and write away the residual panic from my nightmare.

Sabrina sighed as the plane took off. She wasn’t sure if she should have followed the voice in her head telling her to come here. Saying it out loud--even just thinking it--made it sound ridiculous. A dream, a voice in her mind. Barely more than a whim.

Worse than that, Sabrina wasn’t even sure where this whim was taking her. On a napkin in her pocket, she’d scrawled everything she remembered about the dream from the night before. The dark sky, lit only with spiderwebs of lightning, the shadowy figure huddled on a beach and soaked through with rain. The voice crying for help.

And a name. Aeaea.

After she’d woken up, Sabrina had looked up Aeaea, too tired to fully connect why the name felt familiar. Her heart had sunk further after reading the Wikipedia entry, and a breath of hopelessness had left her lips. According to the internet, Aeaea was not a real place. It had been the island prison of Circe. Fiction wasn’t new to Sabrina, and neither was mythology (she recalled an adventure spent with a ghost called Rainbow from a few years back).

Fictional places, though, were another matter. How could she get somewhere if she didn’t know where she was going? Was she trusting her gut with too much this time?

Sabrina folded up the napkin and put it back in her pocket. There was no point in worrying about that now. She’d looked at enough maps to make a guess at where Aeaea might be if it was real. When she got there, she could get more information. Sabrina Starr had survived this long in her career of rescues and whims. She could survive one more adventure. Worst case scenario, she said to herself, I spend a few days running around for nothing and have to brush up on my Greek.

She repeated it to herself like a promise. Worst case scenario, worst case scenario… Eventually, tired out from all her anxieties, and from trying desperately not to worry about what would come next, Sabrina fell asleep.

FROM THE POV OF RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE

“Okay, I give up. Tell me what’s wrong.” Annabeth’s voice startles me away from my plate of eggs, which I had been pushing around with a fork. Anxiety bubbles in my throat, just as it had been since I woke up, and food just doesn’t sound like a good idea.

“I--what?”

Annabeth waves her hand impatiently. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and I don’t think you’ve looked up once. Also you’re always hungry in the mornings, so unless you, like, ate an entire cow before I got here, this ,” she gestures to my uneaten eggs, “is unusual behaviour.”

I give her a look. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Annabeth exists as a part of multiple different dimensions at once, like she’s having four other conversations that I can’t hear, and is still ten steps ahead of me in the one I’m actually a part of.

Or maybe I’m just easy to read.

“Nothing’s wrong.” I don’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine.” I’m terrified.

Annabeth sighs. “Is this about the prophecy?”

“No,” I spear another piece of egg, and don’t eat it. “Maybe. Yes.” I feel like going back to my cave and staying there for the rest of my life. Waiting with a book and some paints for the prophecy to get bored and go away. Maybe I’d take Jane with me, or Nico, for some company. That sounds nice.

My plate is pulled away from me as I aim my fork again. “I can’t pay attention when you do that,” Annabeth huffs. I think I wouldn’t invite her to stay in my cave. She’s too on the nose when I want to mope. Then again, she says the same about me.

“Fine,” I turn and face her. “Let’s talk feelings.” Connor Stoll, who had been making his way towards our table, abruptly turns around and walks the other way. I should get Chiron to hire a therapist. Gods know we need it.

Further proving my point, Annabeth’s eyes widen a little, before she remembers it is I who will be spilling. (I make a point to corner her later. It’s a routine we have). “Wow. You broke fast.”

I nod. “I’m tired and you’re annoying.” (False. We both know it. Another routine). “Like you said, I’m nervous about the prophecy.”

Annabeth nods. “And?”

I frown. “What do you mean, and ? There’s no and.”

Annabeth frowns back at me. A mirror, a mime, an annoyance. The nerve to look disappointed in me. “I thought you were spilling, Red.”

I roll my head back and study the roof of the pavilion, which Annabeth designed, and slowly lean my head down to stare at the table. I really don’t want to have this conversation. I go along anyways. “I’m worried about Jane.”

Annabeth leans back, triumphant. “Ah, yes. Your girlfriend.”

Maybe if I try reeeeeeeally hard, I can activate the Oracle of Delphi and freak Annabeth out enough to make her go away. “ Not my girlfriend. You know that.”

“You called Percy my boyfriend for weeks before we actually officially decided.”

I wave my hand dissmissively. “That’s different, you guys were dancing around each other for like three years. You needed a bit of a push. Jane and I kissed once! Over a week ago! And nothing came of it.” We actually haven’t really talked about it. We’re in this sort of in-between zone where we spend a ton of time together, but don’t have a label for it. Honestly, it’s been nice.

Annabeth grins, apparently reading my thoughts. “You’ve been eating lunch with the Demeter cabin, like, every other day. I saw you doing archery together yesterday. Both of you were awful at it, but you stayed there for hours. I’ve never seen you focus on something that long outside of your paintings.”

I stare at the ceiling again. Maybe Annabeth designed it so that a single square foot of rock might fall down onto my head and relieve me from this conversation. “Yes, fine, we spend a lot of time together. But that doesn’t make us a couple, and has nothing to do with what I’m actually worried about!” I can see in her face that Annabeth is more serious now, and is about to fully listen to me, when Percy and Malcolm show up, sliding into the seats across from us, and clanging several plates of pancakes down onto the table in front of them.

“Made them ourselves! Wanna share?” Percy gives Annabeth heart eyes and a kiss on the cheek when she folds a large blue pancake into thirds and bites it like a burrito. I roll my eyes at them because they are a horrifying and disgusting couple and also I kind of want to be them when I grow up. Malcolm ignores them, instead turning to me. “Were you talking about Jane?” he asks, pushing wire rimmed glasses up his nose.

I frown. “Sort of. Why?”

He shrugs, sheepish. “You know. Just, uh, just wondering.”

I narrow my eyes at him, then Percy, who tears himself away from looking at Annabeth to sigh dramatically. “Malcolm wants to ask out Jane’s sister. You know, the blond one.”

I snort. “ Skye? Seriously?”

Malcolm looks vaguely offended. “What’s so weird about that?”

“Sorry, it’s not weird.” I reach over the table to pat him on the shoulder with my fork. “Perfectly normal teenage hormones.” He glares at me and I smile sweetly back. “I just can’t imagine Skye going out with anyone, that’s all.”

Malcolm stares down at his pancake, disappointed. “Oh. You sure?”

I nod, feeling a little more normal with my friends and less doom-related breakfast conversation. My eggs are past the threshold of “warm and appetizing” but I take a bite anyway. “Pretty sure. Jane told me that she’s aroace and, based on past occurrences, there’s a seventy percent chance she’ll punch anyone who asks her out. Anyway, why the interest? I didn’t know you guys talked.”

Malcolm shrugs. “We don’t, really. She just seems cool.”

Percy pipes in, “He’s been practically obsessed with her since she won that soccer game against the Nike kids and made them cry.”

I nod approvingly. “Well, Malcolm, at least we know you have good taste.”

Annabeth pats him on the head, ignoring his complaints that her hand is covered in blue maple syrup. “Better luck next time, brother of mine.”

Piper and Leo join us next, contributing an alarming volume of grapes and a single hardboiled egg to the breakfast display. Leo grabs a pancake and wraps it around some grapes, before taking a big bite. “I hear you’re discussing Malcolm’s romantic failures,” he says around the world’s worst breakfast burrito. Piper gasps in mock offense, then swallows the unpeeled hardboiled egg whole, like a snake. (This is a regular morning routine. She’s trying to work up to being a sword swallower, since her dad did it in a movie once and she thought it looked like fun). “ Malcolm, why didn’t you come to me? I could have given you a verdict within five minutes!”

“I wanted advice on whether I should ask out that Heaphestus boy two weeks ago and you told me to fuck off.”

Piper pouts at him. “That’s on you, you caught me at a bad time.”

Annabeth holds up a pancake with the air of a respected royal and we turn to her. “As delightful as this is, Rachel and I were initially talking about her romantic prospects and also her worries and fears, and I feel that we should get back to that before she slinks off and avoids the rest of the conversation.”

I glare at her. “Why would you bring this away from the very nice conversation we were having about everyone else’s problems? Do you hate me?” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “No, dumbass, I’m just not letting you walk away from a potential breakthrough. Now, where were we? You were saying that you’re worried about Jane but it has nothing whatsoever to do with your relationship, or lack thereof.”

I give a long suffering sigh, and try to communicate telepathically with Piper that she needs to Save Me Now, but she’s looking at me in interest with her chin resting in her hands, her long fingers adorned with rings sent to her from her Mortal girlfriend, Shel, who bought them at a vintage punk store. The traitor. Defeated, I turn back to Annabeth.

“It’s just that, whatever ends up happening with this prophecy, I don’t want it to fuck her up, in the way the quests have sometimes done to us. Like, we’re used to this by now, but it hasn’t been a smooth road. I don’t exactly like going on quests, and at first I was really worried at the prospect of being included in a prophecy, since that’s fairly abnormal, but Jane was only made aware of her heritage a couple months ago! What if this turns out like Silena or Beckendorf or-or Jason, and the prophecy destroys her, and it’s all my fault because I’m the one who pulled her into all this?”

Everyone tenses up at the mention of Jason, but they continue to look at me with a mixture of concern and love that makes something soften inside of me. For the hundredth time, I think of how lucky I am to have these people who love me unconditionally. Even if they really, really need therapy.

“I know that I didn’t plan any of this, but we’re both tied in now, especially since both Chiron and I had the prophetic dream and I actually gave the prophecy that day in the woods, and, well, this isn’t her world yet. She’s only got a little bit of ichor in her, and she grew up knowing nothing of any of this. In a way, I did too, and I have no ichor, but I had clear sight. For me, it was ineffable, but she could technically leave any time, if it weren’t for the prophecy. She can leave, and I feel like it’s up to me to make sure that doesn’t change.”

“Oh, Rachel.” Annabeth reaches her arms out to me and I let myself be pulled into an embrace. “Jane’s going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.”

Sabrina stood in line at the boat rental hut, her arms crossed and a frown plastered on her face. It had not been a successful afternoon. For hours, she’d been searching the coastal towns near where her plane landed, looking for some trace of Aeaea, or anything else she’d seen in her dream. She was used to working with dregs. It was normal for her to have to squint a little at the evidence, have to shuffle things together around big holes of “Maybe,” like she was working a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

But this was something else.

Sabrina had read about places where mythology shaped the culture. Places where the tourist draws were events that had supposedly happened thousands of years ago, or creatures that only existed in grainy photographs and people’s imaginations. Hell, she’d met the Loch Ness monster. Was it insane for her to have assumed she’d be able to find the same kind of thing here? All her training and years of experience had told her that, if you sniff around long enough, you’ll find a conspiracy theorist or a slightly off-the-rails guidebook.

So far, though, Sabrina had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hunted around, searching up library catalogs, checking every store on the street. “Aeaea,” “Circe,” even “the Odyssey.”

Nothing.

The line edged along slowly, and Sabrina ran her hands up and down her arms. The air was chilly from its proximity to the cold sea water. There were three people in front of her now. She just had to wait a little longer, then she would have a boat and be able to explore these waters herself.

Something was wrong with this place. Something was wrong with all of these places. And Sabrina was going to figure out what.

Later, Jane and I are taking our time walking to the pegasus stables to watch the riding lesson that Rosalind has reluctantly agreed to let Batty take (provided that Percy, who’s teaching today, doesn’t let her fly high enough that she’ll die if she falls off, and that Batty wears all of the necessary protective gear). Jane looks lovely, wearing a sunshine-y yellow bandana that sets off her dark curls and warm sepia skin. She has on her Camp Half-Blood shirt again, and a short green skirt, and all of it should clash horribly, but it doesn’t.

We’ve decided to cut through the strawberry fields, and I swallow a sun-warmed strawberry while Jane tells me about the dream she had last night. I think back to my conversation with Annabeth this morning when she tells me of the dark woods and the feeling of drowning, the memory warping and the echoing voice. At some point we sit down in a patch of grass, a simple circle amidst strawberry plants with a couple logs where the campers and satyrs take their breaks when they work here. Jane finishes her story and we sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, only broken by the grunts of annoyance Jane makes while trying to get her plant powers to activate again. She’s been doing that a lot.

“Well that sucks,” I say finally. “Have you been having other dreams like it?”

Jane shrugs, the neon orange fabric of her shirt wrinkling on her shoulders. “One or two, I think. Last night’s was the first one I really remembered. ” She smiles out of the corner of her mouth. “I hardly ever remember my dreams. It used to upset me. I thought I was losing potential writing material.”

I laugh. It’s such a Jane thing to think, that I can’t help it. She goes quiet, like she’s reminiscing, and I picture a tiny version of Jane, sitting crossed-legged on her summer quilt, writing. I look at her now, scrunched up nose and big brown eyes. Oh gods, she must have been an adorable child.

“My mother used to say that my imagination was the eighth wonder of the world,” Jane says. She’s looking down the hill at the cabins, plant powers temporarily forgotten, and I remember her telling me about her mother, the first Elizabeth Penderwick, who came here and was a daughter of Demeter and loved opera. The Penderwick siblings’ beloved mother who died so young.

I move closer to Jane on the log. “I can understand why she’d say that.”

Jane smiles again, a little sad this time, a little absent, but full to the brim with love.

“Bet you she’s in Elysium,” I say softly. I explained the Underworld to Jane a couple weeks ago, and she’d gotten this same absent look on her face, that I now know means she’s thinking about her mother. Jane nods, now, then turns to me. “Could we talk about something else?” Her voice is quiet, her eyes a little shiny.

“Course,” I say. “Shall I regale you with tales of dimwittery at this camp in the years past?” I told her last week about the time some Hermes kids tried to order pizza to the camp, accidently causing Chiron to think we were under attack. Jane had nearly fallen off the bench laughing.

She grins now, but shakes her head. “Tell me what it’s like being an Oracle.” I give her a look. She’s asked me before and I never really know what to say. When I give prophecies, it’s like I black out. I’m taken over by another entity who shares my body. (“Like that lady in Suicide Squad ,” Leo had said when I tried to explain it to him once, but I’d refused to be compared to such a gods-fucking-awful movie). So, in a way, I don’t know what it’s like to be the Oracle.

As if reading my thoughts, Jane shakes her head. “Not that part. I’ve seen you all green and smokey, and I know you can’t feel it. I mean the other stuff. How did you know it was you? What did you have to do to become the Oracle? That kind of thing.” I relax a little. Jane’s asked me all sorts of weird questions about Greek mythology and the gods recently. She calls it “research for her book,” but sometimes I think she’s just nosy. It’s cute.

Jane shrugs and looks off into the distance. If you tilt your head a little you can kind of see the stables from here. We have fifteen more minutes to get there, according to my watch. I decide to take it easy. “Delphi is this weird ethereal spirit,” Jane continues, “but there’s also just everyday, Oracle you, who likes paint and denim and bagels.” At that, I laugh. “I actually don’t like bagels that much. I’m just late to breakfast so often that they’re usually the only things available.”

Jane pouts at me and plays with the bracelet tied around my wrist--the one she gave me. “You know what I mean! You know all this weird shit about me because my siblings don’t shut up at lunch, and I know stuff about you, like the denim thing, which I still think is funny by the way. But you’re also the freaking Oracle! Your dormant self lies waiting!” I laugh at her, and she rolls her eyes, but I see the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Rachel, that’s very cool!”

I give in. “Honestly, there’s not much to say, that’s why I don’t talk about it.” I pause. “Well no, it’s that a lot of the stuff beyond the obvious is actually sort of creepy and weird, and not in a good way. There’s stuff I try not to think about, is what I mean.”

The edge of her yellow bandana sticks up as Jane tilts her head at me. “That makes sense. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I shake my head. “No, it feels okay right now.” I mean it. Now that I’ve gotten into the swing of it, I do want to talk about it. Still, a small sigh escapes me. “I like being the Oracle, because that’s what brought me to a place where I feel like I belong and I have people who love me. It’s nice to know that I’m fulfilling my purpose in life.”

Jane pulls her knees up to her chest. “But?”

“But I also get lonely.” It comes out in a rush. “There are other oracles, but I didn’t know about any of them until the Apollo thing happened, and even then, they’re all supernatural beings--I know, I know, but not in the way I am. It’s not the same. Also, there are all these weird rules. Like I have to stay an unmarried virgin my whole life.”

“That’s fucked,” Jane says softly.

“I know! Chiron won’t even tell me why, just that it’s ‘the rules’” I let out an annoyed huff. “And, like, it’s not even that the idea itself bothers me. That’s pretty much what I was planning to do with my life anyway.”

“Same.”

“But it’s the principle of the thing!” I flick a strand of hair out of my face, offhandedly noticing that the tip of my pinky finger is slightly green. I ignore it. It’s not important. “Just because I don’t want to have sex or get married doesn’t mean it’s a fair rule to impose on me! Besides, why is it always the women in these things whose identities are tied up in who they do or don’t fuck? Last I checked, Grover didn’t have to sign an ‘I shalt not fornicate’ contract when he became Lord of the Wild!”

“Exactly!” Jane raises her hands and shouts up to the sky. “Don’t you fuckers realize we’re more than that?”

“The Hunters of Artemis, too!” I’m a jack-in-the-box, and something’s winding me up. “Thalia and Reyna send me letters all the time, and they seem really happy! Which is great!” I pause to emphasize the greatness of their happiness. My pinky is completely green, now. “But, they also had to make a stupid ‘ode of chastity,’ like I did!”

“Are you kidding me?” Jane’s hair flips as she turns to me. “I thought Artemis was one of the good ones!”

My voice lowers to a husky rumble, and I stare into the distance towards you, the reader. “In a broken system, there are no good ones. Abolish the police.” I clear my throat and my voice turns back to normal. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.” My green pinky has begun to vibrate.

“Happens to the best of us,” Jane’s voice is light and nonchalant. “And yeah, I know. Pretty much all of the gods have skeletons sitting on their shoulders, but it just seems out of character for her. I thought all of Artemis’s groups were supposed to be safe havens, not oppressive structures in their own right.”

I frown. “Yeah you’re right, that is weird. I’d never thought of it much beyond the gods having weird rules, but I wonder if something bigger is at play. The gods might be fucked up in the way that regular people are, and are undoubtedly responsible for all sorts of crap. But then there's more personal things, like the ‘chastity vows’ the Hunters and I had to take, and the fact that Nico was initially outed by Eros, and the weird unexplained eye condition that Piper had during some of her quests that made her eyes a bunch of bright, Eurocentric colors, rather than their natural brown. All sorts of other stuff, too.”

“Wow!” Jane says, sitting up straight on the grass. Her hand moves from where it was resting in her lap to cover her heart. “It’s almost like a bunch of genuinely good and inspiring material, such as including prominent queer people and characters of color in fun children’s fantasy, as well as having an immortal group of warrior women who support each other and are free from the gaze of men, was taken into the hands of a cis white man armed with unchecked misogyny and a fair amount of white Twitter feminism, both of which really showed when he tried to create an inclusive and empowering book series for children! Like yeah, it had its moments, and definitely some good characters, but overall, a lack of meaningful research in certain areas really made it fall flat!” Once again, I stare through the bindings of URLs and internet coding, now joined by Jane as we lock eyes with you, the reader. This time, we hold eye contact for nearly a minute, giving you time to read and process the long tangent spat out by this fanfic’s author, who, if we’re being honest, has gone just a tad off the rails right now. Finally, Jane and I look away from you, and resume our roles as fictional characters, still shaking off that strange cloud that comes with staring into the soul of those who give you life.

“Ugh, what’s going on with me today?” Jane groans at the same time I mutter, “What’s Twitter?” We turn to each other, blinking in the sunlight, then grin. This is normal. We’re fine. Jane looks up at the sky again. “I wonder if the gods are watching us. Maybe we should make them think we suck so they’ll leave you alone.”

I laugh as she sticks her tongue out, grinning wickedly at a nearby cloud. “Better yet, make them think we’re too powerful to be messed with,” I say. Jane sees me watching her and opens her mouth, sucking the cloud in between her teeth. The sky seems bluer in the space where it had been, and Jane’s eyes glitter with mirth as she swallows. “Mmm, tastes like sugar.” I giggle, feeling a small shiver on the top of my head. When I peer up, I see another cloud has floated over to me. I open my own mouth, and take it in, just as Jane did hers. “Sugar, yes. But there’s a touch of blood, too,” I say. Jane nods sagely. “What were we talking about?”

“The inherent misogyny in much of Greek mythology and the world of Camp Half-Blood in general.”

Jane nods again. “Right. A very important topic. It makes it weird when I’m writing sometimes. You know, cause I want to bring in Circe and Zeus and Apollo and all these fascinating characters, but there’s just so much bad stuff tied up with them that comes up when I research.” She looks down at our feet, which are standing in the midst of a strawberry patch. We seem to have been walking, crushing sweet summer strawberries as we go, which is odd because I don’t remember getting up. “You know Rachel, I’m feeling a bit strange.”

I look at her, and see an odd blankness in her warm brown eyes. “Now that you mention it, Jane, so am I.”

“My thoughts and words are my own,” Jane says, “But there’s something up with my body. I can’t really feel it.”

“I agree, I’ve honestly gone a bit numb.” I try to glance down at my fingers, wondering idly if they’ve gotten any more green, but find that my neck won’t bend.

Jane’s eyebrows furrow. “Yet, at the same time, I feel as though I could do anything. Grow another grass blade. Grow a flower. Grow a tree. Bend the world to my will if I wanted to.”

“Or is it the world bending me to its will.” I grin at my own philosophical point, but find that the smile won’t go away. Pretty fucking inconvenient, since the next thing I was going to bring up was part of the whole serious misogyny conversation. I decide to go for it anyway. “And I’m not the only one with weird rules!” Jane nods, as if this is a perfectly normal segway, and the only extraneous thought that floats through my mind as we find ourselves walking down a hill is how unfair it is that she still has control over her neck and I don’t. “Remember when I told you about the Hunters of Artemis?”

“Oh yeah! Your friends Reyna and Thalia, right?”

“Yeah, them! They send me letters sometimes, and seem really happy, which is great.” I pause, meaning to add emphasis, when I’m hit with a great sensation of deja-vu. “Wait a second, we already talked about this, didn’t we?” I try to remember, but something in my mind is rapidly melting. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything.

“Jane?” My voice quivers, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh gods, please let this be a dream. For a moment, I try to convince myself that it’s the Oracle of Delphi taking over, just like she did the other day and generally does a couple times a year. But I know that I’m lying. This is not what that feels like. “Jane, where are you?” I can barely move my mouth to say the words. I can feel nothing but the frozen fear of paralysis, of lost control. When I open my eyes, this other thing in my body has brought me to the edge of the forest. “Jane? Jane?” She could be right beside me, unable to speak, and I wouldn’t know because I can’t turn my head, can’t move my eyes, can barely even hear right now.

It’s okay, something says.

“Jane?” It’s not her voice. It’s no one’s voice.

It’s okay. You’re home.

With every cut the wooden oars made through the choppy ocean water, Sabrina knew she was getting closer. She could feel it in her bones, in her brain, a little voice that whispered in her ear. It had been three hours. Her body was worn down, energy levels dipping dangerously low, when she felt something scrape the bottom of her boat.

A rock.

Frantically, she peered through the fog that had begun to surround her boat a mile ago. The island. Had she finally made it?

As if answering her call, a peel of thunder rang out, and Sabrina’s boat began to fill with rain that pounded down from the sky. The storm from her dream. She rowed even faster, then, fear sparking a renewed strength in her tired muscles.

Just as Sabrina was about to reach the shore, a massive wave crashed over her, and her boat capsized. She came back up, sputtering, holding her sopping wet bag above her head. Another wave swept against Sabrina’s face, and she found herself spitting out a mouthful of saltwater. Finally, she washed up on the shore, heaving breaths raking through her lungs.

Sabrina blinked, pushing herself up onto her elbows. It was real. She was here.

She had made it.

FROM THE POV OF ROSALIND PENDERWICK

It’s been a pleasant day so far. Breakfast with my siblings and some of the Demeter cabin (though Jane did seem a bit absent-minded). Miranda, Florien, and Rio convinced me to practice some plant magic with them for a couple hours and I built up to growing a small sunflower. Lunch (again with Jane seeming distracted, though Rachel ate with us this time, which appeared to help). Then, Skye and Jeffrey disappeared with some of the older campers (supposedly for a regular game of soccer, but the unsettling gleam in their eyes had me doubting that was all there was too it), Jane and Rachel went to take a walk in the strawberry fields, and Batty and I were left to prepare for a pegasus riding lesson. If it had been up to Batty, the latter could have easily taken up the entire afternoon, but changing into durable pants and finding a bandana can only take so long.

After a somewhat restless hour, during which I grew three peonies and Batty rhapsodized about the stable of unicorns that another demigod camp apparently has, Batty and I arrive at the stable. We’re ten minutes early, and she’s been talking a mile a minute the whole time, not stopping from before. I swear I now know as much about pegasuses as she does. According to Rachel, the teacher today is Percy, her friend, who’s very responsible “when he puts his mind to it.” I wasn’t sure how to tell her that’s actually not very comforting, but Batty looked so excited and I figured there will be plenty of other people there, so. Why not. She’s been spending so much time there anyway.

Needless to say, I very much regret my decision now.

The stables are modest, made of wood and painted green, and I’ve been there several times by now. There’s a long line of stalls visible when we first walk in, but Batty skips straight to the far end, where a massive pegasus the color of a carrot pokes its head over the door and nuzzles Batty’s hair. She looks up at me with a smile that could melt anyone’s heart, and pats the horse on the nose. “Rosy, this is Queen Lotus Flower. Percy said we have a impenetrable bond.”

I look at the two of them with a questioning gaze. How can they both have the exact same puppy-dog eyes? I swear to god. The gods. All of them. “Batty, sweetheart. That horse is like ten feet tall.”

She nods enthusiastically. “I know, she’s so much taller than any other horse I’ve seen. Percy says she has the biggest wingspan of any horse at camp.”

I nod, slowly, wondering why my sister picked the biggest pegasus to fall in love with. At that moment, Percy pushes the door open. “Hey Batty! Ready for your lesson?” Batty leaves her post by Queen Lotus Flower to wrap her arms around my waist and nod. I look Percy over. He’s a few inches taller than me, with brown skin and curly hair. A beaded camp necklace, orange tshirt, and jeans. Weird arm tattoo aside, he’s one of the most normal-looking people at camp. I’ve only met him a couple times before, but, my nerves over Batty flying around on massive horses aside, I do trust him. Rachel seems to have a good taste in friends. Also, Batty likes him, and she’s still shy around a good number of Skye and Jane’s friends back in Cameron.

For the next few minutes, I watch as Percy instructs Batty on buckling Queen Lotus Flower’s giant saddle and looping the bridle over her nose. Not wavering a bit from the “lesson” aspect of all this, he steps back to let her show what she’s already learned from hanging around the stables so often, only stooping in to guide her when she gets confused. As the minutes tick by, more people show up for the lesson: three other students, and a good sized crowd of people who just like watching the pegasuses. By then, I’m seated on the grass outside the stables, soaking in the blistering sun and watching as Percy (seated atop a wiry black pegasus who Batty pointed out as Blackjack) darts around the large dusty enclosure, making final preparations for the lesson.

Skye and Jeffrey show up then, and sit on either side of me. I want to ask them where Jane and Rachel are, but they’re talking non-stop about a game they just played in the woods with some of the other campers, only switching the subject when Percy and Blackjack return and they begin discussing whether or not it should be scientifically possible for a horse to fly.

Just as Batty and Queen Lotus Flower begin a gentle trot around the enclosure, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and hear the familiar sound of Tommy’s chuckle. “She’s got a weird knack for that,” he says. I nod, grinning.

It’s been good with us. We’ve had breakfast together a few times, even played a game of basketball one afternoon. Our conversations aren’t the same as they used to be, and there’s a sense of newness that feels cold and strange every so often. But it’s good. It feels right. At least for now, this feels like where we’re supposed to be.

As Percy starts demonstrating how to take flight, I look around again. Jane and Rachel still aren’t here. They promised to come. (“For moral support!” Jane had said. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Rachel had added with a smile). I try to push it out of my head. This lesson is a big deal. Batty’s going to be flying.

She leans forward on Queen Lotus Flower’s neck.

They begin to run, moving together like a single being.

Just as they burst into the air, Batty’s euphoric smile lighting up the sky, Katie grabs my shoulders from behind. I shush her so I can lean forward and watch Batty silhouetted against the pegasus’s wide orange wings.

“Rosalind. Rosalind, guys. ” Something about the panic in Katie’s voice makes me turn around. Her usually tied back hair is loose and her clothes rumpled, giving the impression that she was dragged out of bed for this. (Some part of my brain distantly remembers her saying she was going to take a nap). Skye and Jeffrey turn around, too.

“What, what’s happening?” I reach out my hands, trying to calm her as she collapses into a squat, breathing heavily.

“Billie… found me in the cabin… had been looking for you guys… been running all over the camp… lucky I remembered about the riding lesson…”

Jeffrey leans over and puts his hands on her shoulders. She stares down at the dirt while her breathing levels.

“Katie, what are you saying? Why were you and Billie looking for us?”

She looks up, and I see that her forehead is drawn into well-worn creases of worry. “Jane and Rachel have gone into the woods.”

Something was wrong. Sabrina crouched on the wet sand, straining to see through the heavy rain. In her dream there had definitely been someone else on the island. She remembered the hunched figure, the sound of sobs leaking through the rain.

But she’d circled the shore at least twice by now, and there was nobody to be found. “Am I late or something?” she wondered aloud. Somehow, she’d gotten that dream It felt like it had been sent to her. Why did it show a person when there was no one?

Sabrina sighed and began to traipse inland, tucking a knife in her pocket. It wasn’t a big island, and she might as well find some shelter aside from her boat, which was now overturned somewhere on the beach. Circe lived here, didn’t she? There must be some sort of roof, especially if this kind of weather was standard.

Or maybe this was just a random island and there was no Aeaea and Sabrina’s dream had just been the unhinged work of her unconscious mind.

There was a small grassy hill set aside from the sand, which Sabrina crawled up with the determination of a dying warrior. Something was pushing her back. An invisible force, a last crumb of survival instinct, plain old fatigue, she wasn’t sure. But something wanted her out of here, and it pushed back harder and harder as she climbed.

She let out a cry of frustration, clawing at the ground, at the air, at whatever this goddamn thing was, and found a renewed burst of strength that pulled her to the top of the hill. Once there, the force that pushed back ebbed a little, like it was giving up. Sabrina let herself relax, and simply took in the view for a moment.

The hill she lay on top of gave way to a deep valley, sprawling and green. In one corner, there was a cluster of trees that looked healthy and comfortable, despite being on a random Greek island in the middle of the ocean. A modest garden lay next to it, somehow appearing unaffected by the rain, and a narrow river wound around the whole scene.

There was also a house.

Sabrina wasn’t sure what she might have expected from the lair of an infamous Greek enchantress, but it wasn’t this.

She hauled herself up on the hill and started down, rushing through the rain onto a wide wooden porch. There was a large stone vat of something dark and crumbly, with a heavy looking staff of sorts leaning against it. The door to the house was short, and Sabrina heard it scrape on the floor when she pushed it open.

The scene awaiting her was surprisingly cozy when she stepped inside. There was a fire in the hearth and rows upon rows of little viles arranged on a set of shelves beside it. A broom leaned against the wall. Sabrina looked around, noting the way that the rain didn’t make any sound as it thrashed against the roof and window, and the almost drug-like stupor that threatened to take over her brain, whispering that everything was fine, she was safe, nothing bad could happen to her.

Sabrina had encountered hypnosis before, and it only ever made her more jittery.

There was an open hatch in the floor with stairs that lead into darkness. She followed them down, feeling the air grow cooler with every step. Sabrina was quiet, taking tiny steps on her toes, and wincing when one of the stairs creaked. She didn’t know what was down there, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. But there were no arrows flying up from the space below, no sounds of footsteps or slashes of swords.

Sabrina stepped onto a dirt floor and let herself exhale, shuffling along until her toe hit something hard. Only seasoned reflexes made her reach for the knife in her pocket instead of crying out in fear. She knelt down and squinted in the darkness, trying to see what she’d hit.

A leg.

She frowned, shaking it until she heard a low growl. “Stop that.” She stopped.

“Who are you?” Sabrina leaned closer. If they hadn’t killed her yet she was probably safe.

Instead of answering, they reached out a hand. Sabrina could see a gold ring on the thumb that glinted in a little sliver of light that had crept down from the room above. “Pull me up,” the figure said. “I’ve been paralyzed by the witch.”

Helping the stranger sit turned out to be no simple feat. They were tall and muscular, wearing a cape and a heavy metal chest plate. “The witch?” she questioned, propping them up against one of the cellar’s dirt walls. Her eyes were beginning to adust to the dark, and she could just make out their sharp chin sticking out as their head lolled back.

The figure made a noise. “The witch, the sorceress, the woman. Whatever you want to call her. I figure she sent you down too?” They snorted. “Good luck. I told Zeus not to sent mortals, but does he ever listen? You’re gonna die.”

Sabrina tried to piece together what she could from all this. The witch must be Circe, unless she’d wound up on an entirely different island. And if Circe was going around paralyzing people, then something must be going on. She must be hiding something. As for the person in front of her, Sabrina wasn’t sure who they were. By the way they talked about Zeus, and casually said “mortals,” she’d guess some sort of god? As if that narrowed it down. She’d have to be careful.

“Why did she paralyze you?”

Another weird gutteral noise. “She didn’t like my offer. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

She was growing impatient. Why’d he have to be so vague? “What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why he always sends me. I don’t think he trusts me. He’d rather me stay her paralysed in the basement of a witch than come back home.”

Sabrina let out an exasperated sigh. This wasn’t working and she needed answers. A whole coast of people with mythology-shaped holes in their memories awaited her. “You’re going to need to be a little more specific. I don’t think we’re on the same page.”

The figure sounded confused. “What do you mean? Don’t you know who I am?”

She leaned forward and inspected them in the darkness. “No. No I don’t.”

They slid their eyes down to her face. “I am the god Apollo. I came here for Circe and she did this to me.”

“What? Why?”

The stairs creaked behind Sabrina and she felt a long nail drag up her back. “I just want to be left alone,” said a voice as deep and powerful as the smell of red wine. “You don’t mind, do you?” Before Sabrina could grab her knife and turn around, before she could even scream, strong arms had surrounded her shoulders and a hand was clamping a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. Shock made her breath in, sharply, and she smelled the sweetness of sleeping drugs.

A heartbeat, a brief struggle, and Sabrina Starr was gone.

[instablamwriter]

A3! Aspec HCs | Spring Troupe Part 1

I originally made a thread on twitter but links are possibly messing up the tags but these are expanded on those so anything there is also here.

I got inspired by Elena and thought of more HCs so I just thought of compiling it here instead. Doing 2 posts for each troupe so that they all have more spotlight time!

cw some sex talk

Disclaimers before I start

just my own hcs

i made them all aroacespec bc I can

no gender hcs included

am i projecting to some of them? lol yeah

not my main sexuality hcs for everyone

ofc everyone has very different experiences being part of the spectrum, so just my own hcs. Feel free to add or message me about these!!!

Sakuya

demisexual/demiromantic/pan or aroace

I say this bc I like both hcs a lot

since he never got the chance to create a lot of deep bonds in the past, he never realized it

had been kinda detached from the thought of dating and romance and just figured it will come when it comes

i’m sure neigbourhood people have definitely told him “I don’t get why you don’t have an S/O!“ and he’s always at a loss on what to tell them

he slips in some anti-amatonormativity sentiments to the preschool kids he handles

“it’s okay to want a partner but it’s also okay not to want one. it’s not everything in life“

“friends are just as important as romantic partners!“

“you shouldn’t be judged on the kind of person you are based on whether you want a family or not“

“sakuya-sen might not get married in the future and that’s okay! he’s still happy where he is!“

he loves hugs!! He wants all the hugs!! and his hugs are some of the best and he’s warm and nice

loves people liberally and with his whole heart

he doesn’t particularly contribute a lot to sex talk and has little interest in it

Masumi

ace/grayromantic/bi

didn’t even know he could be attracted to people at all until he met the director

something about her acting just sparked an interest in his heart that he has never felt before (whether it’s romantic or not is up to u reader)

most of his daydreams involve hand holding and forehead kisses and cuddling by a fire or something like that

he doesn’t really think about what the director looks like and focuses on her likes/dislikes and her quirks as a person

doesn’t understand what people perceive to be so attractive about him physically so he’s annoyed by any fangirls from his school because they don’t even know him

he doesn’t really understand when someone mentions someone being ‘hot’ so by default he just compares them to the director

doesn’t particularly like sex but if the person he likes wants it, he’s willing to try and make them happy even if to him it’s just okay.

Tsuzuru

demisexual/demiromantic/bi

the reason his works are mostly about friendship or focusing on friendships is not because of comphet but because that’s what he genuinely treasures the most

friendships and filial ties have had the biggest emotional impact on him

he associates pining with friendships mostly

he’s also oblivious to the people that crush on him

Which is funny bc he observes people a lot and can read them well but he doesn't really pick it up if potential feelings for him

tho I also think that he’s super horny for the person does he does come to like

and it troubles him because he never had to deal with all these feelings of want before and it’s all focused on one person

he shows a lot of love thru physical touch even though he’s hmm usually politely distant of people. Or more of he’s used to it with his family and would be ok in theory hugging/patting/etc with other people but he doesn’t quite know how bc his instinct is to not carelessly touch someone unless they’re close

he’s okay with other people’s physical affection towards him tho

probably wouldn’t realize he was attracted to someone right away and confuse them for all the feelings he associated with friendship so it takes some time for him to realize that the two can be quite similar but it also feels ‘different’. Not better or worse. Just different.

[aro-ace-advice]

So I have this friend. We've never been *just* friends, but we never questioned our relationship. Well, after five years, I think I might be aroace, and I think that we've been in a qpr for at least half the time we've known each other, if not longer. The problem is, even though I've tried to gently bring it up, he shuts me down. I haven't tried very hard, bc Im scared, he can't be without a relationship for long so he's always dating someone. (I realized this is a long story so 1/idk 2 or 3 lol

So my friend has dated this girl from two years at this point, and she's always been a bit insecure about his and my relationship (I didn't know about the qpr thing until recent) but we've all been civil. Over the course of the two years, she's slowly drawn him away from me. If me and him hung out, she would drape herself over him so that it would be weird if I sat next to him, and we stopped hanging out nearly as much. It hurt, he kept choosing her over me, but she was his gf and I was not. 2/3 Last week, they cornered me together bc I was keeping a secret. I tried to tell them they didn't want to know, but they pressed untill I caved in. So I told them most of the truth. My friend has been lying to his gf and me, about a lot. Then I brought up the qpr thing, and both of them brushed it off like it meant nothing. It was even said to my face that he would always choose her over me. I don't want to lose the friendship. He's the only one I have left at the moment. So the question is 3/4 Do I break up with him? Can I even break up with him? We never established a relationship, and it's obvious who he choose. Is it okay that this feels like a betrayal? He ignored me for a week before telling me that not talking to me was the hardest thing he's ever done, but he's the reason we weren't talking in the first place! I completely understand if this isn't something you want to answer but I haven't been able to talk to anyone about this bc no one understands the aroace thing. 4/4

hello! that is a complicated and uncomfy situation you’ve got there, anon. i think it’s definitely valid that that feels like a betrayal to you. as a reminder, folks, friendships and qprs are not lesser than romantic relationships, just different. you should not be prioritizing your significant other over all of your other friends just because you’re in a romantic relationship. no one person can be your answer to everything, and it’s important to not rely on them and put them on a pedestal simply because they have the s/o title.

anon, i understand not wanting to lose a friend, especially when that friend is one of the only ones you have, but if someone is hurting you and one of your defenses of them / reasons you want to keep the relationship is because they’re all you have, that isn’t healthy. being lonely sucks ass, but it’s better than sticking with an unsatisfying or unequal relationship out of desperation. the whole thing about him ignoring you for a week and then coming back and saying how hard it was, seems at best to be careless of your feelings and at worst downright manipulative and an attempt to make you sympathize with him while he actively avoids you. not only that, but the fact that his girlfriend seems to be a direct influence on your relationship with him, while you don’t even seem to consider her a friend based off of what you’ve told me, raises some red flags. her insecurity is not your responsibility, and he should have done a better job at communicating with her to put her at ease or walked away from someone who seems to be unable to keep herself from meddling in his other relationships. since he’s done neither of those things and allows her to continue affecting your relationship with him, i would agree with you and say that his priority is definitely with her.

honestly, if you have a relationship of any kind in your life that has reached the point where you feel the need to ask other people for advice on whether or not you should keep it, you’ve probably already made your decision and you’re looking for a justification for it. whether or not you want to keep trying to fix it or leave it is always going to be completely your choice, but if it was me in your shoes, i’d be cutting contact with them both or at the very least slowing it down. they’ve repeatedly ignored and dismissed your sexuality and your attempts at communicating to fix the relationship, and it seems to me that you feel as if you no longer have any agency in the way things are with him at all. healthy relationships of any variety require listening and communication and a give and take that is acceptable and comfortable to all parties involved. if your needs aren’t being met and you’ve communicated this, but your partner(s) haven’t listened or made any attempt to fix this, the relationship isn’t healthy. in a healthy relationship, you should not be made to feel as if you are powerless in it. walking away is hard and not an easy decision, especially when it seems like if you do you’ll lose all you have, but if all you have is making you feel shitty, it might be time to do what you can to find something new. if you’re concerned about not being able to find new friends, my inbox is always open and i’m also happy to point you to plenty of resources online to meet some new friends!

and remember folks, romantic relationships are not inherently superior to a friendship or a qpr!

[welcometotheocverse]

🌟 for Elliot pls?

:D aaaah! I’ve had him in the brain a lot lately okay sorry this got long And also im rewatching rn so its sorta season 1ish.

Elliot is Rory’s younger twin. He was given Christopher’s middle name. He’s mostly grateful it was the middle name.

He and Rory are super close. It was just the two of them ( and then Lane) The Twins That Read A Lot. Because they had each other they didn’t have much incentive to make friends outside of each other ( Elliot more than Rory) and extrapolating from the Pilot where Rory doesn’t seem like she has a lot of friends ( or any sans Lane) and is lowkey scoffed at for reading the assignment I’m gonna go with “other kids weren’t that keen on making friends with them either”

Rory’s the talkative one, he’s the quiet one. This is a bit of Rory also being protective of him/noticing when he looks overwhelmed and just...talking up a storm as is her wont and subtly getting attention away from Elliot. For a lot of the early season they’re not seen one without the other ( keeping in mind their arch is to learn it’s okay to have different dreams and even go different places ) 

Sorta shy and a bit more introverted than Rory. Once you become his friend however he pretty much would die for you and his face absolutely lights up when he sees you as opposed to his usual reserved nature and he talks to you albeit not as much as his twin ( unless hes super excited or talking about something he finds interesting then the resemblance kicks in lmao but thats the exception)  its like a switch ( seen with Rory, Luke, and Lane in canon and Sophie/Paige in their xover)

Likes hanging out at Luke’s. They both sorta enjoy... being quiet around each other. Elliot thinks he has a really calming vibe …when Taylor’s not there.

Ms Kim doesn’t like him because he’s a boy so he’s not allowed at Lane’s like Rory is ( honestly the feeling’s mutual bc “I’m pretty  sure locking you up for days and keeping you from school falls under child abuse also wtf” and lowkey the girls are like “lets just keep you not in the house” Lane might be closer to Rory but they still talk music together. She’s part of the reason his music taste actually started deviating  from  Lorelai’s and Rory’s.)

He doesn’t like unfair treatment of other people. It really gets to him. Examples are Ms. Kim to Lane and his grandparents and father to his mom. Later examples are Mitchum Huntzberger, and Marty. ( he’s pretty unimpressed with Marty and how his feelings for Rory make him act in general tbh but what he does with Lucy is just...it really bothers him he’s adamant that  Rory should tell Lucy the truth.)

Highkey  he has about zero patience for bad/toxic parents partly bc of his own feelings about Christopher and to an extent his grandparents that he keeps minimizing so they get projected on...everyone else with bad parents lol.

 Logan’s still a bit amazed that this shy soft spoken kid he met in his junior year went off like “He’s not your fucking property” when Mitchum went on his “You’re available when i say you’re available” tirade ( Elliot was ngl intimidated/scared of Mitchum who pretty much went “Who the hell are you??!” but Logan’s his friend and that wasn’t okay and he kept eye contact with the asshole until Logan diverted his attention back to him/the fight they were having and made sure he at least told Logan afterwards because “but he shouldn’t..” and “he shouldn’t have” and “No! No..it’s not Okay. “)

But also like constantly “it’s not a big deal” when it comes to his aforementioned feelings about Christopher and pretty much anything he might be angry about. 

Lowkey spends a lot of time Rory goes through relationship drama between “????” and “wowww dodged a bullet” Rory throws pillows at him for the latter because “If I’m gonna rant at you El, you could at least give me sympathy.”

He does have some insecurities about his orientation born out of just..f.eeling othered due to isolation and also some stuff he’s heard his dad say.

He figures out he’s asexual before he figures out he’s aromantic and has to deal with a lot of “Are you sure?” and “is that..is that normal?” from some townsfolks before he figures out Luke can scare them off and he lowkey spends a lot of time at the dinner during this time. Luke smiles at him and gives him muffins tho he’ll deny deny deny if you mention it.

A bit more sensitive than Rory like on the pilot episode when he notices Lorelai is worried about Chilton/having to ask her parents for money he stops at the base of the stairs and asks “is...everything okay mom?” and is kinda just in tune with how the people he cares about are feeling/picks up on things like that.

He...doesn’t super like his grandparents because of how they treat his mother.  Emily already made him a bit anxious because of her passive  aggressive nature ( he’s giving me some anxiety vibes tbh) and the fact that he thought the fact that his mom kept them away sorta ominous.  A lot of season 1 is him looking down at his plate and tensing with every “your mother’s golf clubs are in the attic along with the rest of her potential” and Richard’s “he ( Christopher) always was a smart one that  boy, you two must take after  him” and “as a maid with all your brains and talents” and it sorta...yeah he spends a lot of time looking at his plate and swallowing resentment. There are times where it gets better but overall he’s never completely at ease around them. He’s very quiet but civil around them even as he grows some affection and builds bridges with them along Lorelai and Rory. And I haven’t even figured out the fallout with the thing they pull at the wedding.

Emily at least once asked off handedly why Elliot wasn’t seeing anyone and I’m still figuring out if she says something like “that’s not normal” before Lorelai or Rory intervene.

(( Full disclosure Emily reminds me a bit too much of my own relationship with my mom and its really hard to write her favorably though I at least try to be fair. So Elliot is sometimes  a bit harsh on her and very in Lorelai’s corner when Emily and Richard are...less than nice. ))

Sort of a mamma’s boy. Rory and Lorelai have their special connection but so do Elliot and Lorelai. Rory was a bit more extroverted and would play/hang out with Lane while Elliot was perfectly content as a babie curling up with his mom and reading. It worried Lorelai a bit, how hard it was for him to reach out ( she never had that moment she had with Rory and Lane of “my kid has a friend” with him) but he always had Rory yknow so she calmed herself with that. Sometimes when Rory’s with Lane he’ll hang out at the Inn and work there. He somehow got in to Michel’s good graces ( “because you are quiet and unobtrusive”  and got him to teach him French 

Very tactile. When he’s getting nervous Rory will reach out and grab his hand or Lore will put her hands on his shoulder and he’ll calm down. He does the same when wanting to comfort friends or just wanting to show affection ( will lean on Finn and Colin a lot as he gets closer to them or accept that they’ll just throw an arm around him)

Meeting the LAD bridgade kids makes social events with his grandparents so much easier like ohmygod subparties with Logan Colin Finn and Rory  become lifesavers. ( its not so much the drinking as having someone you can laugh with while dodging your grandparents friends and the girl they told to look for you yknow)

He has more resentment towards Christopher than his sister and doesn’t see him with the rose colored glasses Rory sees him in their younger years. His absence hurts him a lot. He hides it well and is nice enough towards him because he loves Lorelai and Rory and wants them to be happy/have a good time but if you catch him on a bad day you might get a rant about how little Christopher knows about them and how little he was there  and “he just drops by, spends like a day with us and leaves yknow...it’s...and we’re supposed to be happy???” and the fact that he doesn’t wanna tell Rory or Lorelai bc he thinks it’ll upset them just  sorta...makes it worse.

And then at some point  Christopher pops off with “and how long are you gonna entertain this phase of his Lore, a boy his age should be dating” and while Rory’s making angry noises and Lorelai’s saying “Outside. Now” ( though they don’t know the twins are listening) he just gets...this thin unsurprised smile and...yeah it’s not great. 

Very supportive of people he loves. He’s constantly telling Rory through the Chilton years that she’s smart enough, more than smart enough to get through this and helps her study. He makes sure he tells Lorelai he loves her or hugs her if he can tell the dinners are a bit hard on her. Honestly a total cream puff. The resentment for his grandparents and father is mostly buried and comes out like when he’s upset/they do something that provokes it. Mostly he’s a really soft boy and kinda soft spoken, loves reading about science and space ( he balances out Rory’s preference for literature and history though they both like poetry and Elliot occasionally reads prose as Rory lets him infodump sometimes about science journals) and loves his friends so so dearly. Will get angry a la Beware The Nice Ones if you hurt them though the first thing he’ll do is comfort them/try to cheer them up.

He loves Stars Hollow but being the only aroace person he knows of there ( and fielding well intentioned “are you sures?” and “oh honey you’ll find someone someday”s and just..alot of early 2000s Star Hollow-ness ( “Hey kiddo you gonna bid on a basket this year?” “oh you’re getting handsome, gonna find yourself a girl for the starlight festival?” “is he..youknow?” is just...a lot? He wants to spread his wings and find his place/people like him/feel less isolated.

He still loves his town though as its his home and raised him his sister and in a way his mother. He visits while he’s at Yale ( the distance helps tremendously as does the ability to just...leave again) like Rory and says hi to Miss Patty and Gypsy and Andrew ( he loves Andrew omg. One of the few people who didn’t just assume he and Rory were always reading the same books) He helps the 30-Something gang find jobs/fine tune resumes  though im not including anything else form ayit and checks in how they’re doing bc..its still his town. They’re his family. “my nuts-o, extended...well meaning but sometimes overly invested and too-pushy-and-slightly-overbearing family.” even as he dreams of getting out a lot and once he does he...really likes it. He loves them

He goes to Yale because Rory goes to Yale (because again the whole Learning To Be Independent From Your Twin...kind of a slow process for him) and gets sibling-adopted by Finn and Colin  in a turn of events he’s pretty much confused over like im p sure they were like “hes ours now” and Elliot was like “im ...you’re...w..what?” and Logan who Knows Finn and Colin is like “don’t fight it” and lowkey adopted him too.

Im cutting myself off bc this got Long and im sorry lol

Thank you so much for the ask <3

send me a ✨ and i’ll tell you about a random OC

[stimmingandstruggling]

song lyrics that remind me of/inspire particular characters and moments in my shamble of stories

“Blood money, blood money. How do you afford this ring that I love, honey? ‘Just another shift at the drug company.’ ...he doesn’t think I’m that fucking dumb, does he?”- Sippy Cup, Melanie Martinez

Lili and Beckett Reese, particularly in a crossover au with my friends.

Orphaned at age 18, Lili gets into some Shady Shit to support herself and her 13 year old brother. Years later, Beck isn’t so naive. He knows what’s going on, and he doesn’t like it.

So, when Lili gets him a new iPhone, which he KNOWS she can’t afford, even with her multiple retail jobs (putting all her college savings into supporting them and saving for Beckett’s education left her options fairly limited), he gives her a chance to come clean.

She forces a smile, saying “just a couple extra shifts.” As she turns to leave, he calls out to her, stopping her dead in her tracks.

“You know, just because I’m a couple years younger than you doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I know where you’re getting this money.”

She’s silent for a moment.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You need a partner in crime (I need a partner in crime).”- Partner in Crime, Tuck Everlasting

Beck’s had it rough, so i gave him some happiness.

Meet soren!! Beck’s best friend, platonic soulmate, future platonic husband (get them tax benefits babeyyy), and... partner in crime.

MORE AROACE BOYS PLEASE

theyre a dynamic duo. Inseparable.

They met in a mechanical engineering course in colleg!! Beck is mainly a coding nerd but he needed the mechanics to go with the stuff he really wants to do, and soren just really fucking loves making shit

They’re so close that at one point-

Beck is taken into hiding bc in the main story uhhh Lili’s work is Dangerous (think government rebellion secret agents with superpowers) and he might be targeted. Milo, a shapeshifter, takes his place in class for a bit (and soren is aware of this)- but the class quickly notices something’s off bc “hey aren’t you and that kid who’s always putting wires in his mouth basically attached at the hip why are you so awkward now”

They become bros real quick tho so people let it go. Something seems Off but it’s not their business

“I dont think you have to leave. if to change is what you need, you can change right next to me... when you’re high, i’ll take the lows, you can ebb and i can flow, and we’ll take it slow... and grow as we go.”- Grow As We Go, Ben Platt

God, combining childhood friends, hurt/comfort, team mom/team dad, and Trust issues.

Alchemy and rumor. No, theyre not together- everyone in this story (called the Chaos Squad or just The Bastards) is aro. Found family supremacy.

When they were really little, Rumor was one of the few people Alchemy could talk to. She’s selectively mute, but he’s always been a safe space.

Years later, age 17, due to circumstances i dont feel like explaining, the world is almost fucking empty. Basically, there’s maybe a couple thousand people left (the others aren’t dead, just in space. There were more on earth but uhhh).

It’s either luck or fate that they find each other again.

Rumor is ecstatic. He can admit that he’s been worried- al is strong, but he’s always been a little protective. Of everyone, not just her.

He runs to her, and al flinches. He realizes that it’s been over 10 years- she probably doesn’t even remember him.

(She does. But the years have only made her sm worse, and she can’t fucking speak to anyone anymore. She wants to talk to him, but... the world has changed. She’s changed. He probably has, too.)

(He has. But his love for her is the same.)

Traveling together, they learn to trust again. Collecting a gaggle of idiots, they learn to laugh again. Watching the stars together, they learn to breathe again.

When the raids come and the wars break out, they all agree its best to split up. Stay inconspicuous.

...it’s either luck or fate that they find each other again.

“...I might fail you... I might fail you... i might fail- but that doesn’t mean that I won’t try.” “wash my hands of past mistakes.” “I’ll probably get the whole thing wrong!” “the weight of the worlds on my shoulders... like atlas is crushing me down. We’re not brave, we’re not strong, we’re not soldiers.” “i’m not leaving your side til we find what matters. I’m not leaving your side til we’re back home.”- Try, The Lightning Thief Deluxe

Alchemy and rumor- with bonus Chance.

First quote- al has a lot of trust issues. She’s been betrayed and abandoned so many times, she can’t let her guard down.

Rumor knows he might fuck up. He probably will. But he will always, always try to protect her. (”fuck you i dont need protecting” “yeah but i can watch your back and you can watch mine”)

Next quote- chance. He did a fuck up. He was only trying to survive, but in doing so, he betrayed the best family he’d ever had.

They were all pretty fucking mad, at first. Al especially. She spent so long doubting the others, only to be proven right.

But... chance is 14. Hes a kid. A kid in a terrible situation.

He’s going to redeem himself, even if it kills him.

Next- fuck ups, all of them. They’re gonna fuck it up, theyre going to fuck SHIT up, theyre going to get it wrong. Still, they cant just lie down and die.

Next- SO ONE OF THE CHARACTERS IS NAMED ATLAS BUT THATS NOT WHAT THIS QUOTE IS

Again- al and rumor are the oldest. They’re only 17. Chance is 14, Atlas and Charcoal are 15, Karma and Haze are 16.

They’re kids.

Last quote.

What matters and home are the same thing for them.

The others.

They are home.

[asiryn]

so hey.......y’all remember when i said that sometimes, just for fun and the hell of it, i make lists of “endgame” ships in my fandoms? bc yeah, that’s a thing that i do sometimes. XD

having now finished kh3, i’ve finally finished my endgame ship list for kh, and i figured that it might be a fun thing to share!

the actual list i’m gonna put behind a cut, bc it’ll be hella long (bc seriously.....i put about 95% of the characters into ships, and this includes all of the humanoid-ish disney characters too (barring most of the villains, bc....well, those characters are dead)), but before that, i’ll give you some....idk, context behind this list. 

keep in mind, this entire affair is just like........gonna involve a fuck-ton of indulgence on my part. and most of this is fairly light-hearted. most importantly of all, this is pretty much a self-challenge: i paired up the majority of the characters just to see if i could, with the additional challenge that i could only pair them with characters that actually, canonically, have appeared in kh (this means that i couldn’t substitute in other final fantasy or disney characters); i did this to see how creative i could get with my ships, really. 

idk if i’ll ever actually get around to writing fanfic for this verse (tho i do have a lot of headcanons, and i’ve actually put (probably far too much) thought into how i think these ships would work/come about, and my long-suffering friend Ip, bless her, has been an incredibly good sport about being a sounding board for all this), but i tend to refer to it as my “Healing Vision”, and it’s basically a post-kh3 AU, that presumes that everyone but xehanort (and also eraqus) got to live happily ever after. and this verse is so named bc, apart from everyone being able to heal and be happy after the traumatic canon, i also wanted to do my absolute best to put them in.....idk, healthy ships, and not ones that i think would be more toxic. everyone had redemption arcs, is what i’m saying (even if they never did or would have gotten them in canon).

y’all don’t understand, at this point i probably have over a hundred pages in various word docs of notes about this verse, so please feel free to ask if you want to hear more about it, i need validation of my madness---

anyway, here we go!

just so that there isn’t just a massive wall of text, i’m gonna break this up into roughly 2 sections: square/original kh characters, and then the rest of the disney characters.

Square/original KH characters:

Olette/Xion/Namine/Sora/Riku [OXN, SoNami, & SoRiku], Shiki/Kairi/Selphie, Axel/Saix, Hayner/Roxas, Terra/Cinderella, Aqua/Larxene/Yuffie, Repliku/Vanitas, Ven/Beat [more friends w/ benefits], Xigbar/Luxord, Aeleus/Even, Ienzo/Demyx, Sora’s Mom/Dilan, (Cinderella’s) Prince Charming/Marluxia, Geppetto/Ansem, Tidus/Wakka, Zack/Cloud/Leon, Aerith/Tifa, Cid/Auron, Fuu/Tinker Bell, Seifer/Rai, Jack Sparrow/Setzer, Boo/Vivi [platonic], Rikku/Paine, Yuna/Elsa, Neku/Joshua, Rhyme/Snow White, Hiro/Pence, & Eraqus/Xehanort [together in death]

i have no idea what’s going on with the khux characters going forward, and atm they don’t really have anything to do this AU, but assuming they’re alive and they’re all their own characters, at least for the time being, those ships would be: Skuld/Strelitzia, Ava/Ephemer, Invi/Ira/Aced, Gula/Brain, and Sephiroth/Master of Masters (but again, these are more tentative, and i don’t actually care about these characters, really)

Disney characters:

(again, keep in mind that these are only the humanoid or really anthropomorphic characters; ones that are straight up animals, like simba for example, were not included)

Mickey/Minnie/Daisy/Donald/Goofy [M/M, D/D, MinDaisy, & qpt Donald/Goofy], Horace Horsecollar/Pete, Clarabelle Cow/Clara Cluck, Hercules/Meg, Tarzan/Jane, Aladdin/Jasmine, Ariel/Eric, Belle/Beast, Lumiere/Cogsworth, Will/Elizabeth, Quasimodo/Phoebus/Esmeralda, Kristoff/Anna/Rapunzel/Eugene, Maleficent/Aurora/Mulan/Shang/Phillip [Malora, Philora, Mulora, Mulan/Shang, Phillip/Shang], Alice/Wendy, Peter/Wendy [qpt], Peter/Tinker Bell [qpt], (BatB) Chip/Pinocchio, Anastasia/Chien Po, Yao/Prince (from Snow White), Ling/Drizella, Merlin/Yen Sid, Hades/Genie, Mrs. Potts/Flora, Merryweather/Triton, Hook/Smee, Doc/Grumpy, Blue Fairy/Dopey, Fairy Godmother/Happy, Fauna/Bashful, Slightly/Cubby [platonic], Calypso/Barbossa, Sam Flynn/Quorra, Queen of Hearts/Agrabah Merchant, (BatB) Wardrobe/Gibbs, Emperor/Sleepy [his cuddle-cubine, if you will], Grand Duke/Sneezy, Mike/Sulley, Woody/Buzz, Honey Lemon/Go Go, Wasabi/Fred, Baymax/Tron/Baymax, & Phil/Zeus

Assorted Notes:

- should probably mention that all the worlds are just vaguely All Connected Now

- ven and hercules dated in bbs (then the Plot happened, ven pretty much vanished, and eventually herc moved on. they’re a bit awkward with each other now, but they agreed it’d be too weird to even attempt to date now, bc herc outgrew ven while he was in a magic coma)

- zack’s alive bc they forced hades to resurrect him like he did with auron (my hc is that the deal he made with cloud in kh1 was to bring zack back to life, but hades reneged on this; when cloud finally shared this info with sora, a Quest was undertaken to get hades to honor the deal)

- repliku’s name in this verse is Kiru (he decided to go along with the Theme, minus the sigil); sora’s mom is named Hikari; and i’m going with henry and florian for the real names of prince charming and snow’s prince, respectively (marluxia will probably still call henry “charming” as a sort of affectionate and kind of joking nickname (bc in this verse, henry is the definition of a Disaster Gay))

- goofy and pete dated in the past, but broke up with goofy came out as aroace; pete’s still kinda bitter about it

- aqua/larxene/yuffie is 100% a thing bc i feel that aqua deserves to be able to have fun and not be the responsible mom friend for once; aqua and cinderella also have some playful flirting, but it’s never really serious

- terra’s getting a staycation with his girlfriend, and aqua’s getting a vacation with her girlfriends 

- olette/xion/namine/sora/riku is Peak indulgence for me; i love namixiolette, sonami, and soriku too much to want to choose between them? fuck it, they’re all smushed together in a poly pile now. this is my indulgence fic, i can do what i want, and none of you can stop me XP (the other sub-ship combos, riku with any of the girls, and sora with the other two girls, are more queerplatonic, ftr)

- there’s like a whole soap opera behind mickey/minnie/daisy/donald/goofy coming to their current arrangement, mostly bc the idea of giving all the Drama to these characters in particular amuses me; same with past goofy/pete

- a recurring Theme in this verse is that compulsory heterosexuality is the true darkness, and pretty much no one is straight (and so, light = gay) (this is how the final confrontation in kh3 truly went down: sora: kingdom hearts, is gay! / xehanort: shit...u right, bro. kk, lemme just fade into the light of gay with my bf then)

- sephiroth in this verse is mostly just a vehicle for me to be able to mildly punish terrible lightside mentors, so this ship with the MoM is kinda a cracky spite ship (before kh3 went all in on xehaqus, this was eraqus’s original fate XD)

- i will admit, gula/brain is mostly just me going, “you both really annoy me, and i don’t care to find you better ships, so you two can deserve each other”; to be fair to myself, this attitude was on the rarer side during this process

- hiro totally builds a robot body for tron to use to visit the outside world, tho he still chooses to live in the computer most of the time; tron’s besties with baymax 1 & 2

- i’ll be honest: scrooge, huey, dewey, louie, chip, dale, and possibly jiminy, by my rules, should have been put into ships. they’re not bc i couldn’t find any that worked for me *shrugs*

- phil is more like zeus’s on and off again boyfriend; he’s really fucking annoyed that he keeps having to train a lot of zeus’s offspring, and that he kinda, in a way, ends up doing more parenting for them than zeus does; currently phil is kinda claiming herc away from zeus (”i’m his dad now, so there”) (so at this point, their relationship is more of a hatemance than anything else) (i guess in my hc, zeus skews more towards being like his myth self than the disney version)

- the total number of ships, if you’re curious, is 75

- i’ve actually got queer headcanons for the square characters (excluding the khux squad), and some of the disney characters, figured out (as an example, namine is a demiromantic asexual)

okay, i think i’ll stop here for now, tho of course i might tweak or add things later XD

[ol-razzle-dazazzle]

All the gay asks bc you made me do all of them

OWO thank you I love you1. describe your idea of a perfect dateAll of them??? Kakhiwkdkalgr walking around the beach or going to a bookstore or maybe a forest to chill or an abandoned place for a spooky date??? Movie date??? Ocean date??? Marriage date??? All good!!! Crab catching would certainly be on the agenda though. The oceans the best2. whats your “type”My type? Uhh anyone that’s nice to me lmao. Someone i can joke with and I know that cares about me. Quiet on the outside but like, nurturing and fun when you get to know em. Someone that doesn’t let people treat em like garbage because i yearn to be like that. On a side note I’m not sure why but most people i used to tend to have crushes on were ISFJs (or ESFJs) probably because they fit the criteria above. I don’t really like people that are totally my personality, and I think it’s important to not surround yourself with yes people or people that vehemently disagree with you. And communication! V important In terms of looks though? The kinds of girls I’m attracted to vary a lot actually. Buff girls soft girls tall girls short girls thin girls medium girls big tiddy little tiddy it’s all good. I guess I tend to prefer girls that aren’t white (not in a fetishistic way of course it’s just most girls that I’ve had crushes on or knew that were gay that were white just had really bad personalities and that brand of White Feminism™️ sorry if I worded this poorly) brown or black hair I guess? Just someone that doesn’t look like me adjnrujbslltgbk. Also someone I can squish and hug nicely. Of course I think there’s a lotta bullshit with people limiting themselves to only a few criteria and the racism or body type discrimination is total bullshit. Fetishisation is just as bad. There’s just so many cute girls out there why be a shitlord to people y’know? 3. do you want kids?Later on in life, if my partner would then yeah sure why not. I hate babies though so I would...4. if you do, will you adopt or use some other form of child birth?Adopt definitely. I’d personally prefer to adopt a kid that’s older, because they have a less chance of being chosen and I want them to be raised in a loving environment. 5. describe the cutest date you’ve ever been onI’ve never been on an actual date ;v; but tbh any date I’d have with my gf would automatically top the list6. describe your experience having sex for the first time (were you nervous? or was it easy peasy?)I’ve never had sex so I got no gosh dang clue aside from fantasies, which I would be nervous as heck but ultimately want to be as adoring as possible and kisses everywhere7. are you a morning time gay or night time gay?Mornings when you don’t have to go to things are amazing and beautiful but otherwise afternoon or night time gay. Anything that isn’t midday is good though8. opinion on nap dates?I’d be down for it. Sleeping is great, but cuddling and sleeping? Even better! Doesn’t matter for how long but yes! Good shit!!! 9. opinion on brown eyes?Only the most beautiful thing ever??? Brown and black eyes being ugly is a government lie, they are gorgeous. Black eyes just have that deep obsidian stare and like an adoring cat with dialated pupils you just want to hug, and brown eyes??? When the light hits them or you’re staring into them? Beautiful galaxies my dude. 10. dog gay or cat gay?I love dogs but I would never own one unless my partner wanted one. They’re just not a companion I prefer to cats. Cats are very good and fluffy and compact in comparison to dogs. Dogs are amazing though and I need to pay every one I see. 11. would you ever date someone who owned rodents or reptiles?Dude we already planned to live in a pseudo-barn to have crabs, rats, bats, cats and lizards 12. whats a turn off you look for before you start officially dating someoneSomeone who’s very ‘my way or the high way’. (My mum’s a lot like this and it’s caused me to try to constantly be appeasing. But with my mental illness I’ve gotten a lot more irritated by it.) Or someone that is a bit too mean I’m joking about people to the point where you don’t know if they’re serious. (I have this problem a lot with ‘friends’ and it leads to a lot of doubts and depression.) Also highly argumentative people who want to seem better than you and debate everything you say. (Just...ew.)13. what is a misconception you had about lgbt people before you realized you were one?I live in a homophobic family, so I used to think gay was a swear word lmao. I was told that we were unnatural, burning in hell, hypersexual, all that shit. Issues on trans people were even worse, and back when I considered the possibility of me being a trans man (while I experience dysphoria In my body I don’t think I would ID as a man- at the time I didn’t know what agender identities were) I was made to feel like it was the worst thing ever or that it didn’t exist that everyone was just straight and ‘normal’ 14. what is a piece of advice you would give to your younger selfDon’t pretend you’re aroace to hide who you are, you’re autistic but that’s okay just don’t overwhelm yourself, try to do things to the best you can. Also toxic feminity/masculinity is bullshit don’t feel guilty about wearing anything. You’re gay it’s so much easier now and don’t let people dictate of make you defend yourself 15. (if attracted to more than one gender) do you have different “types” for different genders?Lmao nah. There is always that awkward moment when you think you see a hot butch but then he’s a twink. Bamboozled again. 16. who is an ex you regret?A few years ago I was forced into a relationship with some rude ass dude who ignored that I ID’d as aroace at the time. I guess at the time I had some comp het so I think that’s why I went along with it? It was kinda some toxic shit like nothing nsfw but he was just a huge dick that went off at the slightest disagreement and I’m glad I got rid of that trash lmao17. night club gay or cafe gay?Cafe gay by far!!! Well I’ve never been to a night club, but I’m someone who gets overwhelmed by loud noises and people, so it wouldn’t be the place for me. Cafes are relaxing18. who is one person you would “go straight” forNo one lmao, The only possibility of slightly me becoming straight is like a fictional character19. video game gay, book gay, or movie gay?Books and video game gay! There needs to be more gaymes, but books are good I just have less time to read them as opposed to gaymes which I can do whenever 20. favourite gay ship (canon or not)Probably RenMerry from Touhou! These two mean a lot to me, and got me into the series that helped me realise I was a lesbian! These two just work so well together that I strive to have a relationship like that- a slightly bickery old couple with the freshness of new adventure tied together with a love that will never fade away even as it transcends borders~21. favourite gay youtuberDon’t really have one. I’m not really into the British youtuber scene and the ones that I do sub don’t really talk about their sexuality or not (I think sailor j might be bi? But that’s about it) I usually watch comedy channels or vocaloid covers. Actually Oktavia’s Gay, yeah let’s go with her. Her voice is amazing and made me realise how much I love deep voices22. have you ever unknowingly asked out a straight person?Ahbkowejkboesh I’ve had crushes on straight people that I’ve wanted to hang out with but no of course not I’m too shy for that shit23. have you ever been in love?Yes! And I’m still doing so right now! 24. have you ever been heartbroken?While in a relationship? No. But like the whole ‘falling in love with a straight girl senpai and then everyone tells her that you have a crush on her which causes you to be distant to each other leading you to cry copiously at her graduation and never truly repairing your friendship which is all you ever wanted and never being able to talk to her again?’ ...y yeah 25. how do you determine if you want to be them or be with someoneHonestly I try to make a distinction between ‘people I have crushes on’ and ‘people I would date’ bc yeah someone might be cute but dating is another story. I’m someone who varies a lot in style (as someone who may possibly be gender fluid or agender but hasnthad the opportunity to explore that for family reasons) 26. favourite lgbt musician/bandUhhh Queen I guess? Idk I need more gay shit recommend me please. Queen is quality shit though 27. what is a piece of advice you have for young / baby gaysDon’t ever feel the need to apologise or defend you being gay. Be happy even if other people aren’t about you. If you’re autistic chances are you’ll question your identity, don’t worry about it and just love who you love. If you’re a lesbian especially don’t apologise or feel you have to be in a certain role to ‘be truly gay’ and also please ask people out otherwise you’ll never get anywhere- all lesbians are useless and I got lucky shjgowkgowlgr. But above all, don’t feel guilty and have fun exploring yourself and fleshing our who you are, even if you can’t always show that out loud. 28. are you out? if so how did you come outI’m not out to any family member (I say that I’m aroace but they believe I’m straight despite jokes on the contrary) but pretty much everyone that isn’t a complete stranger knows. I can’t help but talk adoringly over my girlfriend so it just happens. Otherwise I go on some spheal about homophobic bullshit dropping hints that I’m gay before saying I’m gay. It’s led to some shittalking and other various bullshit but I don’t give a fuck anymore 29. what is the most uncomfortable / strange coming out experience you have Believing I was aroace and my friends saying that i was in denial of being gay. I was like ‘lmao Domi’s just a friend I lowkey have a crush on her but she’s just being nice :^)’ then like a week later burst through the door like BITCH GUESS WHOS GAY FOR HER GIRLFRIEND 30. what is a piece of advice for people who may not be in a safe place to express their sexualityEvaluate the consequences of coming out. While I live in a homophobic family, Australia is somewhat accepting and there’s no conversion therapy to my knowledge at least (there are highly fundamentalist Christian groups but I’m not sure if they include forms of violence) Especially if you are in an anti-gay country or an area where you could be persecuted, I think it’s important to be out to at least one person you know who supports you. It could be online or a friend that you know you could trust (if you don’t know if you could try subtly bring it up and see their reaction, but better safe than sorry.) because it’s hard to go through this entirely alone. While it’s important to be unapologetic of who you are, it’s more important to protect yourself- this doesn’t make you wrong, but the people who make you feel wrong wrong.

[jeonniez]

a “should we know us a little better” tag

RULES: you must answer these 89 statements and tag 20 people

Tagged by: @tae-all-day aka the best person in the whole world 

THE LAST:

1. Drink: lol water. i am boring

2. Phone call: my doctor’s office to confirm my appointment

3. Text message: my dearest Court 

4. Song you listened to: “My Body” by Young the Giant

5. Time you cried: i think like Monday(?) night cuz my anxiety was kicking my ass

6. Dated someone twice: nah mate

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: well i mean, considering I’m aroace and actually hate kissing more than a peck a lot basically anytime I’ve ever kissed someone cuz i thought i was supposed to

8. Been cheated on: nope nope

9. Lost someone special: mhm

10. Been depressed: highkey still am my dudes

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: i’ve only ever been drunk once and it was supervised by my father so i did not throw up

LIST YOUR THREE FAVORITE COLORS:

12-14. YELLOW, black, red

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: yep (<3 love you alexus)

16. Fallen out of love: does friendship love count? im saying it does. yes.

17. Laughed until you cried: YES

18. Found out someone was talking about you: i literally learned that some guy in my grade that i’d never met told the entire tennis team that i was his first kiss this year

19. Met someone who changed you: yep

20. Found out who your friends are: a thousand times yes

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: i dont have FB whoops

GENERAL:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: see 21 lol

23. Do you have any pets: 2 dogs that I love with my whole heart and would die for

24. Do you want to change your name: when i was younger i wanted to but now i dont really care either way 

25. What did you do for your last birthday: i went on a scavenger hunt around town with my brother

26. what time did you wake up: 6 am cuz the world hates me and work exists

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: i literally went to bed at 7 pm last night bc my life is boring and my sleep schedule is a mess

28. Name something that you can’t wait for: my Fall Out Boy concert in October

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: for dinner like 3 hours ago

30: What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: there are so many things my dudes the list could go on forever

31. What are you listening to right now: “little darling” by Lewis Watson from my acoustic playlist on Spotify

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: idk probably

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: my boss 

34. Most visited website: Tumblr or YouTube

35. Mole/s: i have one on my cheek area and one just below my armpit for some reason

36. Mark/s: I have 2 birthmarks on my leg and lots of scars everywhere

37. Childhood dream: singer and/or librarian because apparently young me loved books as much as old me does

38. Hair color: brown, some people say honey to make it sound prettier but it’s brown

39. Long or short hair: kinda medium rn. ive had it v short and v long before 

40. Do you have a crush on someone: nope

41. What do you like about yourself: my eyes are really cool

42. Piercings: I have eleven all in my ears

43. Blood type: maybe A or AB? something with A in it i don’t really remember 

44. Nickname: well my full name is Allison but people use Allie so consistently that Allison might as well be the nickname. My friends call me Alz and my family calls me Alliegator

45. Relationship status: pringle (like single but hungry)

46. Zodiac: Scorpios unite

47. Pronouns: she/her

48. Favorite TV show: The 100 currently but Avatar the Last Airbender is an all time fave

49. Tattoos: one on my wrist 

50. Right or left hand: Right

51. Surgery: does wisdom teeth count?

52. Piercings: we already went over this. eleven

53. Sport: I’ve played basketball, soccer, and softball competitively but currently there’s none

54. Vacation: i dont think i’m going on vacation anytime soon, but the coolest vacation i’ve been on was my trip to Europe

55. Pair of trainers: I have a pair of bright yellow Doc Martens that I treasure with my whole being

MORE GENERAL:

56. Eating: nothing rn but we had tacos for dinner

57. Drinking: water again lol

58. I’m about to: watch more Brooklyn 99 cuz i’m on a binge watching spree 

59. Waiting for: COLLEGE OMG IT’S SO SOON

60. Want: for my back to stop hurting like an old woman’s

61. Get married: i mean, if any of my friends wanna marry me and be permanent roommates that’d be epic but probably nah

62. Career: I wanna work with kids for sure. maybe speech or occupational therapy

WHICH IS BETTER?

63. Hugs or kisses: HUGS FOR DAYZZ

64. Lips or eyes: EYES EYES EYES EYES

65. Shorter or taller: taller

66. Older or younger: older

67. Nice arms or nice stomach: i don’t really care? just be happy

68. Sensitive or loud: loud

69. Hookup or relationship: relationship 

70. Troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker i guess

HAVE YOU EVER:

71. Kissed a stranger: no

72. Drank hard liquor: yes

73. Lost glasses/contact lenses: I lose my glasses literally every day lol

74. Turned someone down: I’ve broken up with people before does that count?

75. Sex on the first date: sex is ew. sex never.

76. Broken someone’s heart: gosh i hope not

77. Had your heart broken: yeah

78. Been arrested: nada

79. Cried when someone died: i cry when dogs die on tv let alone in real life

80. Fallen for a friend: nope

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

81. Yourself: not at all omg

82. Miracles: no

83. 83. Love at first sight: nope

84. Santa Claus: I wish tbh i’d get more presents

85. Kiss on the first date: i feel this does not apply to me. i mean, i’d peck-kiss my friends but most people do not like that so i do not

86. Angels: yes? a bit? yes. 

OTHER:

87. Current best friends: Courtney, Alexus, Nathan, Hanna

88. Eye color: green

89. Favorite movie: Deadpool, Spirited Away, or The Nightmare Before Christmas

I def don’t have 20 friends/mutuals/people to tag so I’ll tag @sopeotp @tomato-goddess @goldenskychild @bewareoftaehyung  and @soulanjello / @parkjiminivan