#most normal lesbian i have ever knowingly met

[5-htreuptakeinhibitor]

now. being an "alt queer" type guy. i have befriended many other alts and queers. i believe i am witnessing for the first time a lesbian who is like a stright girl who acts gay. the "cottagecore"esque. the pop indie. the taylor swift.

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Curiosity Killed The Cat | Owen Patrick Joyner

Requested: Yes/No

Hi! I was wondering if you can do an Owen imagine kinda based off his Instagram story of him finding a cat. I was thinking he’d actually find the missing cat though and come ring your doorbell at 4am bc he’s chaotic. You can decide everything. Thank you in advance!!!

A/N: The cat doesn’t actually die in this, it’s just a saying that i liked for the title, so don’t worry! It’s got a happy ending!

Pairing: Owen x Fem!Reader

Song(s) used: none 

Warnings: none

Words: 3,949

A week. It had been exactly one week since y/n last saw her cat, Tunabean. The white, grey striped Ragamuffin cat had been absent from y/n’s apartment for way longer than she normally would be and it worried y/n to the point where she’d be out looking for the little rascal every night after work. 

“Found her yet?” Jamila asked as she entered y/n’s apartment after coming home from work. 

Jamila was y/n’s roommate and best friend since college. The two had lived together through their college career and decided to be roommates after too, as long as neither had significant others to go live with. 

“No,” y/n’s lip stuck out into a pout as she feverishly reposted the message on all her social media platforms. “People have been tearing down my posters as well. Did you see the ones near Andrews Park? They were torn to shreds!” 

Jamila pulled her lips into a tight smile before putting her bags on the dining room table and joining y/n on the couch. “Yeah, I saw. I’m really sorry, y/n. If you want, we can go and put up some more posters? Exchange the torn up ones with some fresh ones?”

“You’d do that for me?” 

“Of course! Sweetie, I’d do anything to get little Bean home, you know that, right?” y/n nodded her head in response, though she wasn’t sure if she knew that. 

Jamila wasn’t the biggest fan of Tunabean at first. She hated cats. Growing up, she’d always had a dog but never a cat. She didn’t trust the little rascals for one second. So, when y/n showed up with little Tunabean after having had what felt like the worst week of her life, Jamila was a tiny bit angry. But eventually warmed up to Tunabean when the little kitty seemed so placid, you could easily cuddle up to it on the sofa. 

“Let’s go find Zach at his work, bribe him to print me more posters for cheap, hang ‘em up around town and then maybe Tino’s?” Jamila’s eyes lit up at the mention of her favorite restaurant. 

She snapped her fingers and pointed finger guns at her best friend. “Sounds like a plan!” she said and wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck. It was a cold November day and no person could leave their house consciously without being bundled up into layers and layers of clothing.  

“I hope Bean didn’t hide under a car and the owner didn’t tap the hood before getting in…” y/n muttered, her voice thick with worry, as they exited the apartment building and stepped into the blistering cold. 

“I’m sure she just found a few boyfriends and is spending her time with them,” Jamila tried to reassure her, but knew all-too-well that Tunabean wouldn’t stay away this long, even if she had a lover cat to make little kittens with. She loved Jamila and y/n’s home too much. 

“Are you slut shaming my cat right now?” 

“Our cat,” Jamila corrected, causing a smile to find its way to y/n’s face, “And no, I am not. I’m just trying to be optimistic here, y/n.” Jamila tucked her cold hands into the pockets of her tan peacoat. “I’m sure Tunabean is alright.” 

“What if she isn’t though? What if she’s like meowing somewhere in the middle of Norman and no one to hear her pleas?” Jamila rolled her eyes at how dramatic her best friend was being.  

“Norman ain’t that big, sweetie. I’m sure if she’s meowing somewhere, we would’ve heard her already.” 

“Exactly! Which means she’s either dead or god knows anywhere! She could be in Oklahoma City! We don’t know that!” y/n exclaimed loudly, using excessive hand gestures more so to keep herself warm than emphasis. 

Jamila stopped in her tracks and grabbed y/n by the shoulders, stopping her too. “Stop being such a drama queen, y/n! I’m sure Tunabean is fine. Maybe she’s on an adventure or making new friends, you don’t know that!” 

“You don’t care about our child, admit it,” y/n muttered. This rendered Jamila silent. “Admit you don’t care about our child, Jam!” Passer-byers shot them a weirded out glare, which Jamila sent right back. 

“Oh, please! Don’t pretend there are no lesbian families in Norman too!” she yelled at them. The comical side of the whole situation made y/n laugh a tiny bit. “There’s that smile I like to see.” Jamila softly touched y/n’s chin with her knuckle before grabbing the girl’s hand in hers. The warmth of Jamila’s hand radiating through to y/n’s made her feel all toasty. “Let’s go print some posters!”  

The girls reached a one-storey building with red decrepit letters stuck to the roof. 

HOOPER PRINTING CO. 

As y/n opened the glass door and held it for Jamila to walk in, the smell of ink reached her nostrils. Though not a very traditional scent to love, it reminded y/n of one of her best friends. It was like  her brain just knew that the muscles in her cheeks would soon start to hurt thanks to Zachary. A boy the girls had met in college as Xana. 

Jamila spotted the bleached blonde mop of hair immediately and signaled to y/n to sneak up to him. On their tippy toes, the two approached the tall slender man, and when they were close enough, they took in a deep breath and-- “Don’t even think about it,” Zach mumbled without even looking at them. 

Jamila and y/n glanced at each other, cheeks puffed out from the breath they were holding. “How’d you--?” y/n didn’t even finish her sentence as she looked past Zach and her eyes landed on a tiny tv screen. Cameras, of course. 

“Since when do you have security cameras?” y/n asked as she hopped onto the counter Zach was sorting invoices on. 

He shrugged, “Sometime this week, I think.” His bright blue eyes met y/n’s as she sheepishly looked at him while kicking her legs. The boy sighed exasperated, knowing all too well what the girls are here for. “No. Not again.” 

“Please, Zachy! Tunabean is still missing and her posters have been ripped down!” Her eyes teared up at the thought of her kitty being out there all by herself in Norman. All she could hope was that the creepy dudes from Doyle’s didn’t get their filthy paws on her little princess. 

“Come on, Zach. You love that cat too!” Jamila chimed in, crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at him knowingly. 

“Fine, come here,” he reached out his hand and y/n handed him the thumb drive on which she kept her self-made posters. “You’re gonna have to buy me Tino’s though.” 

“We were going there afterwards, if you wanna join?” y/n’s voice was teasing and sly. 

“I’m off at five,” he simply stated before pressing a few buttons on his desktop and waking up the printer closest to them. “How long has she been gone for?” he then asked after a few beats of silence. Y/N dropped her head and stared at her still moving legs for a moment. 

“About a week,” she replied. 

Zach pulled his lips into a tight smile. He reached his hand out and placed it gently on top of hers. “She’ll come back.” 

“How can you be so sure? She might be hurt somewhere or dead and I won’t even know. I won’t even be able to say goodbye to her.” Tears pooled in y/n’s eyes as she thought of the sweet little kitten she had found in a ‘take one for free’ box on a curb one day. She was the last one left. 

“I’m not sure, y/n. But I’d like to be optimistic. Besides, Tunabean is resilient and the most independent kitty I’ve ever known. She’ll survive. She’s probably out adventuring with some friends.” 

Though the words weren’t very reassuring and y/n knew she had every right to be worried, they did calm her down a little. Tunabean was resilient and extremely independent. She’ll find her way back home.    

*

“I’ll see you guys later, bye!” Owen waved at his friends as he stepped into the cold November night. It was 4 am and he was just returning home from a day spent with friends. He had fallen asleep during the movie, only waking up in the middle of the night, realizing his parents were probably worrying about him, seeing he’d told them he’d be home by midnight at the latest. 

He softly hummed along to the song that was playing in his head as he walked down West Main Street, his hands tucked deep into his pockets to try and keep them warm. He should’ve brought a thicker coat or a thicker jumper. 

“Ah, mister Joyner!” a familiar voice with a thick accent made him shake out of his train of thought about the cold. The friendly face of the robust Italian greeted him in the dim light of the restaurant behind him. 

“Still working, Tino?” Owen asked as he stopped in his tracks to talk to the man everyone in Norman, Oklahoma loved. 

“Already back at work, ragazzino!” he replied in his thick Italian accent. Owen always thought it was fake and just for show to lure clients, so that they knew he was a pure Italian man, sharing his love for the Italian cuisine in his restaurant. 

“At four in the morning?!” Owen exclaimed, stunned at the man’s determination for his job. 

“Deliveries don’t wait, signore.” His laugh boomed into the empty, dark streets of Norman. Owen couldn’t help but let out a laugh too while his eyes averted and landed on a poster in the window. A black-and-white picture of a small cat stared back at him.  

MISSING: TUNABEAN

Grey-and-white striped ragamuffin cat, listens to the name Tunabean. 

“She’s been missing for a week, the poor girl who owns her is worried sick,” Tino told Owen when he noticed what he was looking at. The blond twenty-year-old pressed his lips together. He only ever had a dog that had never run away, but he could imagine what it would be like to not know where your pet is. He would totally lose it if Bindi ever went missing. 

“I feel sorry for her,” Owen said, unsure of anything else to say. 

“Yeah, me too,” said Tino. “Keep an eye out for Tunabean, yeah?” 

“I will.” 

And with that, Owen continued his walk back home. The cat on the poster kept haunting his mind. Those big eyes were something he wouldn’t forget anytime soon. Thanks to said image plastered in his brain, he even started hearing meowing when he got to Andrews Park. It was a soft, fragile meow that had to echo through his brain for a few seconds before he realized it actually came from the bushes he was walking past as he passed through Andrews Park. 

Curiously, and kind of feverishly, Owen started to dig into the shrubbery until he found a tiny cat. “Oh, don’t worry, little one. I got you.” He said as he carefully detangled it from the branches. As he held it up to his face, he found the big, round eyes from the poster staring back at him in real life. “Tunabean?” he cooed, and the cat tilted its head ever so slightly. 

He stroked the cat’s head and scratched behind her ear before pulling it closer into his chest. She was shivering, but Owen wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the fear. If she’d been missing for a week, God knows how long she must’ve been stuck in there. 

“You hurt, little one?” he mumbled to it as he absentmindedly made his way to the one person he knew could help. 

“Owen,” Emmy groaned when she’d opened the door to find him standing on the curb with a pout on his face. “It’s four in the morning, I have to be up in an hour for work.” 

“That’s why I’m here,” he said and showed her the cat he had tucked in his jacket to keep it warm. “I found her in the bushes near Andrews Park. Can you check if she’s okay?” Emmy’s eyes darted from the cat to Owen and back. “Please, Emmy? You’re the only one I know could help her out.” 

“Come on in,” she sighed, clearly disgruntled at the early wakeup call. But she couldn’t say no to a little kitty in need. She’d been rescuing animals since she was a little girl, she wasn’t going to leave this one in the dust. 

Owen placed the cat on the table as it meowed and nudged Owen’s hand with her head. “It’s okay, Tunabean, Emmy here is gonna make sure you’re okay.” 

“Tunabean?” Emmy asked as she put on latex gloves. 

“Yeah, I think it’s the cat from the missing posters you see all around town?” 

Emmy gingerly took the cat in her gloved hands and started her check-up. “Ah, yes! My brother and his buddies took some of them down, thinking they were ‘rebellious’.” She rolled her eyes. “You gonna bring her back?” 

“Of course, Tino said the owner was worried sick about her.” 

Emmy smiled at this. Owen had always been the compassionate one in their friend group. He’d only act upon things if he was sure it wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Though, sometimes that compassion vanished when they were with their friends and he got a ‘brilliant’ idea, which was most likely kind of dangerous. 

“Oh, look,” Emmy whispered as she showed Tunabean’s paw. There was a thorn stuck in the little pad. “Poor thing! Hold her for a second, please? I’m gonna get my tweezers to get it out.” Owen placed a hand on the cat’s stomach, his fingers lightly scratching at the white fur. 

Emmy returned with everything she needed, and within a few seconds, Tunabean was freed from the thorn in her paw and back on her feet. She suddenly seemed a lot more peppy than she was before. 

“Let’s get you home, yeah?” Owen said as he scooped the kitten back up into his arms, holding it close to his chest. Emmy took her gloves off and scratched the cat’s head. 

“Goodbye, Tunabean,” she cooed, earning licks from her rough little tongue. “Ooh, I think I got the girl’s address here somewhere. Tunabean is Anna’s client and we’ve got them in the system.” 

As quickly as she’d said it, she’d handed the address over to Owen. After thanking her profusely, Owen went on his way with the cat tucked safely in his jacket for warmth. 

He was nervous as it was already five in the morning and the woman most definitely was still asleep. But he didn’t want to keep her in even more suspense and worry about her cat as she already was. 

“Hello?” a sleepy voice sounded through the intercom. 

“Hi, I’m Owen, I think I got your cat, Tunabean?” 

A silence fell, only Tunabean’s sleepy snoring disrupting the peace and quiet of the night. The poor girl had fallen asleep in Owen’s arms. He almost felt sad he had to give her away again. 

It took a good minute before the door to the apartment building opened up and a girl in red flannel pj’s opened the door. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun with big strands falling out of it. Though she’d probably rather not be seen like this out in public, Owen thought she looked breathtaking, even in the dim light from the hallway of her corridor and the street lights. 

“You really got Tunabean?” she asked as she held onto the door, squishing herself in the small opening she’d granted herself. Owen opened his jacket and carefully showed her the cat who’d woken up from her slumber. “Tunabean!” the girl exclaimed and grabbed the grey pet from the boy’s hands. Their fingers brushed ever so slightly, and though y/n was too busy with her cat, Owen felt it. He felt the spark. 

“I would invite you inside for a drink to thank you, but my roommate is still asleep and I don’t want to wake her.” Owen held up his hand, a smile tugging at his lips as he shook his head. 

“That’s okay. I don’t need a reward. I’m just glad I could reunite the two of you again,” he said, smiling at the girl and her cat. “Oh! She did have a thorn in her paw though, but my friend is a vet and I took her to her for a check-up before I came here.” 

“Aw, poor Bean,” she scratched the cat’s head before turning back to the blonde boy. “Thank you. That’s very considerate of you.” He tipped his head forward, the smile still persistent on his lips. 

“Glad I could help,” he repeated, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket again. “I’m gonna go though. I’m sure you’d rather go back to sleep right now than talk to a complete stranger on your doorstep.” 

“Oh, uhm, okay… Goodbye then? And thank you again for bringing Tunabean back.” 

Owen took a few steps backwards as he said, “You’re most welcome. Goodbye, Tunabean and…” 

“Y/N.” 

“Goodbye Tunabean and y/n.” His eyes lingered on hers for a few more seconds before he turned around to really make his way home now, no distractions. 

“Wait! I didn’t catch yours!” she whisper-shouted after him. 

He turned again, but kept walking. “Owen,” he said. 

“Goodbye, Owen.” She grabbed Tunabean’s paw and waved at him with it, causing a giggle to rake through Owen’s body. With his hand still in his pocket, he waved back. 

The more distance he created between them, the bigger his smile became as he thought of her. She was the epitome of a beautiful dream come to life. It made him wonder what she’d look like if she did put effort into her appearance. That could just be the death of him. 

*

After two more hours of sleep, the alarm blaring through her room woke y/n from a beautiful dream with the mysterious blonde boy that rang her doorbell very early in the morning. It caused her to wake up with the thought of him, wondering if she’d ever see him again. 

“Morning,” she greeted Jamila when she found her best friend in the living room, gathering all her stuff. “Guess who came home last night!” As if on cue, the little cat pattered across the hardwood floor towards the dark beauty that was Jamila. Her eyes widened as did her smile upon seeing the white-and-grey ragamuffin. 

“Bean!” Jamila shrieked as she knelt down to pick the four-legged friend off the floor. “Oh, baby! I missed you!” She peppered the cat with kisses, receiving the kisses back from her tiny pink tongue. “Where’d you find him?” 

“Oh, I didn’t. This guy, Owen, did. He brought her back at, like, five in the morning,” y/n explained as she absentmindedly smiled at the thought of those pretty blue-ish eyes. 

“And this Owen guy is pretty cute, isn’t he?” Jamila asked upon noticing her best friend’s flustered demeanor. “Did you ask for his number?” Y/N rolled her eyes before she started gathering her things she needed for work. 

“It was five in the morning, I had just woken up and I was too busy with Tunabean’s return to even think of that,” she explained, mostly cursing at herself for not asking his number. “Besides, I looked disgusting, I doubt he thought I was the epitome of beauty.” 

Jamila simply shook her head, debating against saying any more about it before pressing a kiss to y/n’s cheek and leaving the apartment. 

A silence fell over the space, leaving y/n alone with her thoughts. Her beautiful, yet annoying thoughts of the handsome boy at her front door. “He was handsome, wasn’t he, Tunabean?” she asked her cat, who simply tilted her head to the side as she sat in front of y/n on the floor. 

Once y/n had gathered her stuff for work today, she said goodbye to Tunabean and left the apartment. She was fumbling around in her handbag to look for her car keys when a vaguely familiar voice made her look up. 

The gorgeous blue eyes she’d been dreaming of for two whole hours were staring down at her whilst the plump pink lips curled up into a dreamy smile. “Oh, hey, Owen.” 

“I wanted to come and check up on Tunabean,” he carefully said, pointing up at the building she’d just come out of. “You know, see if she’s okay and stuff.” He suddenly seemed nervous. More nervous than he did at five in the morning. 

“Uhm, she’s okay, actually. Slept well and seemed very chipper this morning,” y/n reassured him, a smile playing at her lips as her eyes scanned his face. She made sure to make a mental note of every single detail of his face. Like how he stuck his tongue between his teeth as he smiled or how his eyes squinted slightly or the stubble faintly growing on his chin. 

“Oh, okay, good. That’s--that’s all, then…” He awkwardly coughed. 

Y/N awaited anything else, her eyes darting left and right as they just fumblingly stood on the curb in front of y/n’s apartment. “I-uhm… I have to get to work though, so…” She pointed somewhere behind Owen, indicating she needed to pass him and get going. 

“Right!” he said and took a step aside to let her through. She offered him a little wave and a soft ‘bye’ as she passed him. He watched her walk away, cursing at himself for not asking what he really wanted to ask. “Wait!” he yelled, making her stop in her tracks and turn around again with an expectant look on her face. “That’s-that’s not what I wanted to ask. I mean it was, but it wasn’t the only thing I wanted to ask.” He scratched the back of his neck as y/n’s eyes searched for an answer on his face. 

Y/N looked at him with a piercing glint in her eyes, urging him to continue. 

“Oh, right! Uhm… Would you -- would you maybe wanna go have a drink with me later today? Or something?” Her smile grew wider as she slowly nodded her head in response. 

“I’m off at five. Meet me at Gray Owl then,” she told him before turning to walk away. 

Owen was left on her curb, wondering if he had died. He thought she looked pretty when she’d just rolled out of bed, but now that she was all dolled up for work, she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. And that smile. That smile was killer. 

She was more than the epitome of a dream come to life. She was beauty and grace. She was a poem and the poet. She was the lyrics and the melody. She was the question and the answer. 

Owen grew more and more curious about that girl the more he thought of her. He wanted to know what she liked and what she absolutely hated. He wanted to know how she laughed and how she cried, if she sang whenever her mind wandered. He wanted to know how she liked her eggs in the morning. 

Even though he knew curiosity killed the cat, he knew for a fact the cat in this story was just the beginning of something beautiful. 

 *

*

*

JATP taglist: @hannahhistorian92 @marinettepotterandplagg @thequirkybookaholic @bookdealer5 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @hemmingsness @iainttakingshitfromnobody @ifilwtmfc @angryknightstatesmantrash @kiss-themoongoodbye @rudysbay @thedarkqueenofavalon​ @caitsymichelle13​ @calamitykaty @wiselight @kcd15​ @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic @stars-soph @kinda-really-lost @notasofti

Owen taglist: @alexpjoyner

Lemme know if you wanna be on my taglist! 

[cupiiid]

//March 27th 1967//

Chris heard the door close from her place on the floor. "Babe, I'm home!" Ginny's cheery voice bounced from the doorway. She heard the clatter of keys and the dropping of a bag. it all she could think about was how much of a disaster her day had been. First, she'd been late to the office because her train had been late, then she realised she'd forgotten her lunch and finally, the asshole higher-ups had humiliated her again because she was a woman. If was bullshit! She was better than half the fuckers there.

"Honey?" Chris was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of her lover's voice searching for her.

"'M in here, Gin," she whined from the floor of their living room. Before she knew it, Ginny was standing over her, a confused look on her face, tilting he'd head in that adorable way she did that made her look a lot like a puppy, a habit she'd adopted from Neil.

"What're you doing down there, love?" Chris groaned again and put her hands over her eyes. She felt Ginny sit down next to her and pull her head into her lap, gently stroking her hair.

"Rough day?" She asked gently. Chris nodded, not removing her hands from her face. "D'you wanna talk about it." Chris sighed.

"It's just been a bunch of shit honestly." She removed her hands to get a look at Ginny, resting them on her stomach instead. She saw her lover's face harden.

"Is it those squares from the office again? If they've messed with you again, I'll kill them myself." Chris huffed a laugh at her lover's antics.

"It's just the normal stuff, no need to get involved." Ginny gave an irritated sigh.

"It's not fine, Chris. They're treating you like shit for no reason. Your writing is incredible! Why does it matter that you're a woman?" Chris smiled up at her, the other woman didn't notice, too caught up in her antics. "It's such bullshit! Do you think Todd would have to go through shit like that? No. You've worked just as hard as he has and and people still don't take you seriously." Chris hummed and traced Ginny's lips with her fingers.

"Todd still has to deal with a lot of shit. Being a woman just isn't one of them." Ginny frowned.

"Yeah, that's true. Still sucks though. I hate having to watch people belittle you. You're the most amazing person I've ever met." Chris grinned and sat up, facing her lover. She took the brunette's face in her hands.

"Look, it sucks. I'm not going to tell you it doesn't. Everyday, I wish it wasn't like this and that I'd be respected by everyone but that's just the way it is." Ginny was about to cut in but she didn't let her. "But, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop fighting. I've earned my place here. Plus, I have you and Todd and Neil and Charlie and while I'd love outside approval, the only real approval I need is you guys'." Ginny's hands came up and over her own, smiling proudly.

"I love you. I love you so much." Chris leaned forward and met her in a dizzying kiss, trying to communicate the pure love and adoration she had for the woman in front of her.

"I love you too." She whispered into her lips. "I love you more than anything." Ginny's lips traveled down her throat and for a while, she didn't think of work (or anything other than Ginny for that matter) at all.

Some while later, the two of them sat of the couch together, watching the Andy Griffith Show. It was a nice evening, it was sprinkling lightly outside and the cool weather made Chris feel better. Around five thirty, Ginny checked her watch.

"Shit," she muttered. Chris pressed a kiss to her jaw.

"What's wrong, love?"

"Todd's out late tonight, meeting with someone about his book or something and I don't think he left Neil anything to eat." Chris snickered. Neil, as lovely as he was, couldn't cook for shit. If they left him to his own devices, he'd end up with burnt mac and cheese and half the kitchen blacked with soot.

"Should we invite him over for dinner then?" Ginny looked at her.

"Are you sure? We can just relax with the two of us if you're not up to it."

"Have him over, he is your husband after all." Ginny huffed before speaking.

"You know that's only a technicality, Noel!" She said before playfully hitting Chris on the shoulder as she laughed. Once their laughter died down, Ginny pressed her lips go Chris' in a silent thank you.

It was true. Earlier that year, all four of them had a wedding ceremony. First, a hurried one at a cheap chapel where Neil and Ginny exchanged vows (trying their hardest to make the other laugh) before Chris and Todd did the same thing (also making up total bullshit). Then, after that trainwreck, once they were legally married to avoid suspicion, the four met their friends in Chris and Ginny's living room for a real (and very much illegal) wedding.

Neil and Todd went first, Charlie as Neil's best man and Jeff as Todd's while Knox 'officiated' the rest of them crowded around in the way too small room and cheered once they kissed at the end.

Ginny and Chris were second. It's still the happiest day of her life. Even though she's legally married to Todd, the look on Ginny's face when she read her vows and the hollering and champagne and cake made everything worth it. Cameron was her own best man, Charlie's partner, Alex, being Ginny's (those two had made fast friends and they were overjoyed to be Ginny's best person)

They were luckier than most. They had managed to find a house for people like them in New York, two buildings connected by a basement door. Chris and Ginny lived in one with Neil and Todd in the other, creating an allusion of two straight couples living next to each other instead of the truth, one person from each household being able to switch quickly if necessary. She wouldn't give up this little life if hers for the world.

Chris got up to start making the pasta as Ginny ran to go fetch Neil. As the water was boiling, the two brunette's trailed into the kitchen, Neil carrying a bottle. He smiled brightly when he saw her.

"Chris! Thank you for having me over." He pressed a kiss to her cheek before passing the bottle to Ginny and leaning against their dining table. "I brought some wine as a way to thank you." He smiled his classic Neil Perry grin as Ginny examined the label.

"Neil," she snorted, reading the label. "this is grape juice." Chris burst out laughing as Neil hurried over and took the bottle from Ginny.

"No, no, I could've sworn this was wine." The two women laughed at Neil's fumbling.

"Jesus Perry, you get one role without me and you become a mess!" It was true, for one of the first times in their careers, Neil had gotten a rather large role without her. Shortly after, Ginny had managed to snag an equally impressive part in another show but it still felt weird not seeing them together.

Neil grinned and rolled his eyes. "Well, it'll have to do."

Neil sat at the dining table as they worked on the spaghetti, not trusting him to help after what happened last time. Once the dish was done, the three of them migrated to the living room with their plates and glasses of grape juice.

They squished on the couch that was really only made for two (there was another couch plus a couple of arm chairs but that couch had the best view of the television and none of them were going to give that up) and watched some sappy soap opera that was playing while laughing at the characters and talking about their days.

"...and then Lizzie stepped on my toes again!" The girls wheezed, almost falling off the couch in the process. "It's not funny! This is the seventh time it's happened!" Ginny wiped tears from her eyes.

"Like you didn't do that when I taught you how to dance, you hypocrite!" Neil waved his hand around wildly.

"Yeah- when I was seventeen!" The hysterics dies down after a while and they all sat in a comfortable silence.

"Do you remember when I taught you to dance so you could impress Todd at the Welton-Henley dance in highschool? The one Chris snuck into." Neil nodded along knowingly. Chris looked at them shocked.

"That's what you two were up to?" She asked. Neil nodded.

"Yep. And if didn't even work." He sighed. Chris looked at him indignantly.

"Are you kidding?!? You should have seen him, he was all over you when you danced with Ginny. We couldn't stop looking at you two all night." Neil blushed before realising her words.

"Wait- we? You were looking at Gin?" Now it was Chris' turn to flush as she felt Ginny's eyes on her.

"Well... yeah. That's what got Todd and I bonding in the first place. Both of our pining for two hopeless theatre kids." She was met with two sharp 'hey!'s.

After Neil had left, they got into their bed and Ginny circled her arms around Chris' waist, resting her head on the nape of her neck. Chris hummed in content. "Was what you said earlier true? About watching me that dance?" Chris laughed and placed her hands on top of Ginny's.

"Of course. I couldn't take my eyes off you. I drank so much spiked punch just to get away from the feeling really." She felt a soft press of lips to her neck.

"I love you, Chris. I love you so much I don't even know how to describe it." Chris turned in her arms to face her lover.

"You're such a sap." She said lightly, tracing her face with her fingers. Ginny closed her eyes and reveled in the feeling. "I love you too. So much." A smile tugged on the brunette's lips.

Chris' life wasn't perfect by any means. She was living as a lesbian with a secret lover in 1967 and trying to make her way as a journalist in a male dominated industry while misogyny ran rampant without consequence. It would always be hard, at least to a degree, but right here, in bed with the person she loved more than anything in this world, all was good.

[collegegal789]

Hello all of cyberspace. I don’t know why I’m putting this all out into the world, I guess to find myself some kind of clarity. And also because when I share bits and pieces of this with others, it reminds me that this is real. That this isn’t some shit I’m just making up. I’m worried everyday that I’m making up these thoughts and feelings that I’m having. And everyday I find a new concern or inconsistency in this narrative that I’m writing for myself, by myself.

I don’t expect anyone to read this, I’m assuming this is just for me to spill my thoughts. But if you have any insightful help you’d like to give me, I’m all ears.

The first time someone ever asked me if I was straight, it took me a second to think about it. I was 17 years old, and I had only ever had one boyfriend, which had been not a fun experience, and all I knew was that I always had crushes on men. I wasn’t boy crazy, quite the opposite actually. I never understood my friends who were so obsessed with their boyfriends, or so obsessed with getting a boyfriend. I would like guys from afar and leave it at that. It was rare when there was ever more action than that. Boys for the most part always made me uncomfortable. I can name the men on one hand that I’ve felt totally comfortable around in just a platonic way. I normally had crush or two per school year, often only based on one, and sometimes only, conversation we had. I never felt that thing that they say you feel in the movies. That knot in your stomach- your heart constantly feeling like it’s about to burst. If you told me to list the reasons why I liked my current crush, I don’t think it would’ve been a long list. Maybe only a few generic adjectives long. So basically, one guy named Jack was the same as another guy named Jack to me.

And when those crushes suddenly showed signs of becoming something more, I ran away from that situation was quickly as my little legs could take me. When my first boyfriend told me over text message that he had a boner for me, I honestly felt like I was going to vomit. The idea repulsed me. If that’s not a sign that this wasn’t a relationship I wanted to be in, then I don’t know what is. When I told my mom that I had a plan to break up with him in the school library the next day, I was fucking beaming like it was my wedding day. The literal happiest day of my life. And what’s sad about all of this is that he was the nicest guy... such a damn sweetheart. He literally composed me a song for my birthday, and I refused to let him kiss me for the entirety of our relationship.

That was my last romantic entanglement until college. For the rest of high school I had a few crushes here or there, but kind of just guys that I “liked” because they were nice to me. Which is a terrible reason to like someone. But that was what I did. And then I liked some guy my first semester of college. He was a sweet kid, and the most I had actively tried to flirt with someone in my entire life. But my efforts were minimal, and he and I both had our separate shit going on, so that story isn’t too exciting.

But I’m forgetting someone really important, someone who came before that sweet 5’ 4” rapper from my freshman seminar. Someone who I never even met, but who made a lightbulb go off in my brain that I had never realized was there before. And it was a girl.

She played Sheila in an amateur production of Hair my mom and I saw about a month before I left for college. We were sitting in our seats, watching the show, and I was thinking to myself oh the guy who plays Burger is so cute. And then this girl entered the stage. I couldn’t tell you what her face looked like, but she was tall and thin and had long, shiny brown hair. She was a girl who I all my life had looked at and thought, god why don’t I look like her. One who I would be so jealous of that I would spend days and weeks and months thinking about and looking up pictures of and obsessing over endlessly until I found another attractive girl to obsess over. But this was different. As I stared at her, I felt a different sensation wash over my body. I was entranced by her. It felt like I was staring at the sun, and it was too bright and beautiful and it would melt your eyes, but you couldn’t look away. It was the first moment that I was knowingly staring at a girl I was attracted too. And I kept forcing myself to look at Burger, because I knew he was hot and that if any of my friends had been there, he would be the one they were gagging over. But it was her, for me. Watching her onstage made me feel things I didn’t know were there. And sitting next to my mom DIDNT make this any easier. I left that show being more confused than I had ever been in my life. But it had sparked a thought in me that hadn’t ever crossed my mind before. What if I like women too?

Then I started college, and I got busy. I was taking classes, meeting new friends, working on shows, living in a dorm, and making some time to think about the cute boy in my freshman seminar. I would say to myself, god I want to date him and be with him, but I never made the effort. Never really tried to make something happen, and I never did before. I always claimed my less than stealer romantic life was because I hadn’t found the right person, or I just wasn’t good at opening up. But now I realize I just never wanted it. I never wanted any of it.

The girl from that show was the seed, the beginnings of an idea of a consideration of an identity. It wasn’t until Elyse when that seed sprouted.

I remember exactly what she was wearing the day I met her. She had her jet black hair in two French braids that laid on her shoulders. She was wearing this fuzzy long sleeved orange sweater and these blue checkered pants that tapered perfectly at her ankle where her doc martins started. She has the most intense chocolate brown eyes I had ever seen, that easily danced from humor to frustration in a matter of seconds. I don’t even remember how the crush hit me. Normally with guys it would be after one measly conversation. One that I can remember because it was the only one we had had. Or because we were friends and I thought that, like in the movies, that had to mean that I should like him as something more. I couldn’t even tell you if we had any one on one conversations. We were in a group setting with at least 10 other people. I don’t even know how long it took for me to realize the feelings that I was having. But when it hit, boy did they hit hard. I had a crush on a girl. I felt the way with all of my crushes from my past, but it hit a bit harder. I was so confused and lost and I felt like my entire perception of who I was was just gone. I would work around campus at night and listen to my music, regrettable a playlist at first titled something like “Lesbian Feelz”, and then something more broad like “Let’s figure this shit out.”

Well I feel like this is getting very long so I’m gonna speed through some things. The rest of that semester was really bizarre for me. Elyse was dating someone, so nothing ever panned our. Plus she was a senior while I was a lowly freshman, so the chances of something happening were small to begin with. Had a shorty summer at work, and then started my sophomore year without much to report. No new crushes, a majorlly fucking sad family thing, and a lot of pent up stress about my production the following semester. I had also recognized a few of my first queer celebrity crushes, which included Ellen Page, Kristen Stewart, and the literal love of my life, Lauren Patten. I felt more watching Lauren Patten sing You Oughta Know than I felt about any guy ever.

Okay... I’ve realized this is terribly long so I will make a Part 2.

If you made it this far... WOW. You’re a really great person. And if not, I don’t blame you. This is shit is complicated and long.

[rickktish]

BNHA Headcanons

Yagi Toshinori | All Might is asexual. He has had romantic relationships before and did enjoy them, but he’s a complete virgin and satisfied to remain such. He’s not utterly sex-repulsed, but he is rather uncomfortable with the idea of it. He generally assumes that if he met the right person he would be okay experimenting, but none of his past romantic partners have been “the right person,” so it’s kind of more of an idea than a practice.

Aizawa be trans.

Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic grew up with deaf lesbian moms.

Aizawa is a little bit autistic, mostly in regard to sensory issues and social cues. He doesn’t really portray a lot of overt autistic behaviors outside of his home because he’s very good at masking.

Iida is also a little bit autistic, and possibly Tsuyu though not as much for her.

Todoroki has never been diagnosed as autistic in any way. This will probably not change any time soon. He was so isolated growing up that it’s impossible to tell what social queues he misses because of inexperience and what may have less environmentally determined reasons.

If Todoroki ever was diagnosed as being autistic, his father would deny it to his dying breath and bury the evidence deep. No proof will ever arise of any particular doctor’s visits in his childhood having ever taken place. At all.

Todoroki was not allowed in the same room as his siblings from the time he was six to when he started high school. When Fuyumi started cooking she was required to leave his food in the room before he finished training and leave before he arrived. His only interaction with people other than his father for most of his life has been what he can catch on tv and radio and listening and sometimes talking through the walls with his siblings. The only exception was when dressing wounds, but whoever was sent to clean him up after training wasn’t allowed to speak to him nor he to them.

Izuku has never knowingly met another quirkless person, but he did grow up hearing about quirkless suicides on the news. During his late elementary school years, he started trying to attend the funerals for those he heard about on the news whenever he could make it. Some of them had a good-sized gathering, but others were empty, lonely affairs with only one parent attending— two is rare in households with quirkless children— and sometimes not even that. It’s left deep scars and he remains terrified of being revealed to have been quirkless previously.

Midoriya never really gets much taller. Where All Might is this giant— 7 foot something and before he lost all his power an enormous slab of meat and almost nothing else— Midoriya is just this little stocky determinator who definitely never breaks 5’10”-- if he even hit 5’8” it must have been a miracle. He beef, of course, but he short beef, not tall beef.

Todoroki is taller (6’- 6’2” ish) but slimmer than Deku and can curl up very extremely small. Sometimes he has bad days and comes home and curls up into a ball on the couch and when Deku comes home he just picks him up like nothing and holds him in his lap even though his thighs might actually be longer than Midoriya’s torso. Todoroki inherited his mother’s slim build, which translates on him as scrawny, wiry muscle where Deku may be smol but he got BUILT. His arms can cover Todoroki like a blanket, which is exactly what Todoroki needs on bad days.

Deku does the same fairly often for Iida, who has several weighted blankets but they’re just not the same as a warm person who knows what is okay and how to ask and cares and is the best friend he’s ever had

He’ll also occasionally hold Uraraka this way, but mostly only when she’s drunk. She’s a very cuddly drunk.

Actually a lot of the class has found themselves randomly curled up in Deku’s lap at some point for one reason or another and it’s honestly one of the most comforting things. Kaminari had a bad breakup, Tsu got really sick for about a week, Sato had a mild breakdown after a series of really difficult family challenges that culminated in his grandma dying, Tokoyami and Dark Shadow got in a fight that Deku ended up helping to resolve where they took turns with one of them in his lap and the other behind the couch until he got them to talk through it, Aoyama went through a bit of a rough patch with his French parent involving his parents’ messy divorce, it’s kind of just become a thing. For some it’s a one-off, a one-time thing that they’re grateful for but never repeat, for others it’s a regular event when circumstances align, and even those who have never actually wound up curled up in a messy ball of suffering of one kind or another have found themselves draped across or leaning against Deku at one time or another during some kind of distress. He’s very tactile and very comforting. He’s just a magnificent bean who kind of accidentally became dorm parent at some point and then stayed group parent even long into their hero years.

Deku has a habit of randomly picking people up and carrying them. It startled a few of his friends at first, but they all adjusted rather quickly and now it goes without comment. Besides, Deku gives the best hugs (aside from Shoji, Literal Huggin Machine), and being carried by him is basically just an extension of that.

Anyone whose legs are too long for him to piggyback rides on his shoulders, upright, like a toddler. Sometimes he’ll have one person on each shoulder. Giggles abound, but for the most part, they just keep conversing like nothing has even happened.

Various members of class B have wandered past or walked in on conversations between Deku and any combination of people he’s carrying and people he’s not. None of them are quite sure what to make of it. It becomes such a casual part of Class A’s lives that none of them can figure out why Class B is staring.

Uraraka has a bunch of planet mobiles that she sometimes sends floating around her room. She calls it quirk training, but really, she just really likes space.

No one in their class realizes what a space nerd she is until they’re in a science class and start talking about space and she can name every single thing and answer random obscure questions.

The whole class goes stargazing at some point and Uraraka points out every single constellation in the damn sky and it’s a wonderful evening. Someone responds by buying her a shirt with an otter in a flying saucer, backed by faint stars, captioned “i’m off to otter space”

She and Tsu also have paired Tshirts that both have a starry sky, where one is captioned “I have no idea where I am” and the other has an arrow pointing at a single star and says “You are here.” They trade who wears which regularly and never wear one without the other.

She jsut has a lot of space stuff, okay? She really likes space that’s all im tryina say she just really fucking likes space.

She is of an undecided opinion on Aliens and hasn’t explored the idea a lot

Sero is the aliens guy. Uraraka can tell you about celestial movements and the history of the discovery of the stars and constellations from three different cultural beliefs. She can describe interplanetary motion and actually understands the mathematics behind light and space travel. Sero is the aliens junkie who can tell you about coverups and mysterious floating lights and things.

Sero and Kaminari are conspiracy theory nuts and as far as anyone else is concerned they deserve each other.

Even Deku can only listen to so many “the US planted chemicals in the Luminous Baby’s home town and then spread them all over the world when the mutation worked” spazz-outs before getting a little twitchy-eyed.

Deku’s response to things he likes in chats is “my skin is clear, my crops are watered, my father has returned” and all his classmates are Concerned.

Midoriya Inko and Bakugou Mitsuki went to the same middle and high school, but Inko is two or three years older, so they were only there together in her last year of each. Still, they hit it off well in middle school and it meant that they stayed friends while they were at different schools.

At some point while Katsuki is in middle/high school, he and his mom have a huge fight that ends with everyone in the house in tears. His mom decides at that point that she needs to go to therapy to figure out how to be a nicer person. It’s a work in progress— it will always be a work in progress, her therapist tells her, and that’s normal and that’s all right— but their relationship is slowly improving. It gets even better when Katsuki starts attending therapy himself and working through his own issues, both those that are a result of his mom’s behavior and those that are entirely his own. Coincidentally, his other relationships also begin to improve at that point.

Bakugou is trans.

Bakugou transferred into Deku’s preschool halfway through the year. Initially, he was attending another preschool, but problems arose with the teacher when Bakugou declared his gender. Before he arrived, Deku had a fair group of friends who he played with. They were all equals, but Deku was the central figure of the class, being friends with literally every one of the other friends groups within. When Bakugou arrived, he asserted dominance by turning Deku into the laughing stock of the class, and it continued through middle school that way. This is why he describes the method he does during the special training with the kids— that’s what worked for him.

Deku knew Bakugou before that, because their moms were friends. He calls him “Kacchan” because they’ve known each other literally since they were in diapers, when both their moms would refer to them as “Kacchan” and “Zu-chan” because they were both so damn tiny and cute and precious. Zu-chan just didn’t stick the way Kacchan did.

Both Present Mic and Bakugou have some level of hearing loss due to their quirks. Mic is fluent in sign language, as is Aizawa. Bakugou doesn’t talk about it.

Deku learned sign language when he found out Kacchan was losing his hearing. He only brought it up once. It did not go well. He stays on top of it though, practicing with Present Mic whenever he gets the chance, just in case he needs it someday.

Bakugou has reading glasses that he hides very carefully in his dorm and never wears to class in spite of it probably making his life easier if he would.

When Bakugou and Kirishima get married they do in fact decide to have biological children.

They all have dark brown/black hair, because genetics, but at least one or two are born with blond hair that darkens over time instead of just having straight black straight away.

The mommy/daddy question is a real one, Bakugou struggling with questions of his identity as he tries to decide what he wants his kids to call him. He ends up being mum-mum for a short while in the midst of it all (he chooses to breastfeed because it’s better for his kids, dammit, he’s not gonna have them developing hearing problems because of improperly shaped ear canals or anything else of the kind that he’s heard can happen, and when his oldest starts babbling Kirishima has been calling feeding “num-nums” for so long that the kid starts saying “mum-mum” every time he’s hungry and it just goes from there), but eventually by the time all his kids reach middle school they all call him dad or pops. Kirishima is Daddy or Papa all the way through though.

They have three kids, one girl and two boys. It goes boy-girl-boy. Their eldest has a mutation quirk that makes his skin highly resistant to high temperatures. Their daughter has a slight mutation that makes her hands very rough but also an emitter type where she sweats not nitroglycerin but something chemically similar. Their youngest can transform his head, neck, and shoulders to be hard and sneezes nitroglycerin.

Kirishima was sexually abused by a relative as a child and struggles deeply with his sense of self-worth and esteem as a direct result. Starting high school was when he decided to stop letting his fear and pain control his life, hence the hair dye and other changes he made to himself.

Shinsou gets migraines when he overuses his quirk that aren’t really painful but leave him in a weird confused state where everything is too loud and too bright and he can’t really follow words because they just sound like noise. He goes nonverbal, closes his dominant eye against the brightness, and tries to keep going as normal but usually gets caught and pulled gently into a dark, quiet room to recover. They go away after he sleeps.

Bakugou has the most fashion sense out of any of class 1-A.

Hagakure is NLP blind from birth, since she was born invisible and light cannot bounce off her retinas because they reflect no light. She can, however, perceive the reflection and refraction of light around her, which is a semblance of sight for her, except that she senses it with her whole body like heat, not through her eyes. This is part of why she chose to be in the nude for her costume, because she can sense light better when it’s not blocked by her clothes. Eventually she gets clothes that are made of her DNA like LeMillion has which are invisible like her, but she dislikes how it blocks her light perception.

She reads by holding her hands over the page and feeling where the light is reflecting and where it is not. It takes a lot of concentration. She can also read Braille, and that’s easier on her, but often far less available. She has accommodations for quiet rooms to read in and sometimes to take tests in, though she’s embarrassed about it and often doesn’t take advantage of it.

The Todoroki siblings are all very different people, who went through different kinds of trauma as a result of their awful home life and grew up with very different attitudes about many things.

This said, there is exactly one moment in each of their lives in which they all behaved in the exact same way, thinking the exact same words.

At some point in their early adulthood, each of them independently stood in line at a store and noted a small stuffed animal on display. None of them were allowed stuffed animals as children.

None of them were allowed any soft toys as children.

Independently, several years apart from each other as each of them reached their majority and began living alone and free of Endeavor, four hands reached out and picked up the stuffed animal. Four minds thought to themselves, fuck you, Endeavor; I can have this now. And four siblings, never knowing that their older or younger siblings had done or would do the exact same thing, began collections of stuffed animals which no one except their most trusted friends ever saw.

Natsuo showed his husband. Fuyumi showed her spouse. Shouto showed Izuku. None of them ever knew about each other’s collection.

(Touya showed Hawks. It was the beginning of the end for Endeavor.)

Himiko and Twice know about Touya’s stuffed animal collection. He’s never told them, they just know, for their own reasons. Both of them have randomly attached little stuffed animals on keychains to various parts of his body and outfit, ostensibly to mock him, but actually to help contribute to his collection.

Kurogiri also knows, because he is the only well-adjusted adult in this whole damn scene, damnit, and he’s basically already parenting these absolute CHILDREN anyway he might as well spoil them a little as well sometimes. He doesn’t actually tell Dabi he’s doing anything, but he’ll randomly teleport a toy or two into the space where he knows Dabi keeps his Pile. Dabi is occasionally confused when he finds a toy he doesn’t remember purchasing, but kind of just tries not to think about it and appreciates the fluffy.

Shigaraki has a single thimble he uses to keep from disintegrating things he wants to pick up. It’s just big enough to cover enough of one finger to disable his quirk, but is too small for him to get all fingers on at once. It’s also pink.

Shigaraki can neither read nor write, nor can he tell time from anything other than a digital clock set to twelve hour time, not twenty-four. AFO got him young and never bothered to teach him, only indoctrinated him and trained him in what he would need to know in order to one day rule the earth. Which did not include reading, writing, or telling time in more than the least complicated way. He’ll have minions to do those things for him, so best not to bother.

[rachello344]

I’m going to tell you all a story. I don’t really know who all will see this, but I think it’s important for me to make my position and my history clear, so I’m going to write it out anyway.  This will probably have some level of TMI, so your mileage may vary, but I don’t want to censor myself for this.  Includes frank discussions of sexuality, sex ed, etc. so it’s relatively NSFW.  Nothing especially graphic, but again, ymmv

This is... much longer than I meant it to be, so tl;dr: Fiction is meant to be a place to explore.  Being afraid of sexuality or intimidated by it is normal, but trying to control the people around you because of that is not.  The only person whose sexuality is your business is your own, and potentially your partner(s)’.  Policing the sexuality of other people will not give you anything more than the illusion of control.  Illusions, however nice, don’t generally last long.  Be kind to others, and be kind to yourself.

I started reading fanfiction when I was 12 or 13, which I think is about the average.  Everyone around me was starting to talk about dating and the like, and I wanted to figure out what they were talking about without asking anyone I knew.  As an avid reader, the only way I knew how to get contextualized information was through stories.  So I did what I think a lot of kids online inevitably do:  I looked up stories about sex and romance.  The site I was using at the time was DeviantART.

Any of you who have used the site are probably recoiling right now, as you should be.  I have seen so many terrible things written in fiction from such a young age that a lot of the stuff people complain about here seem legitimately tame.  But that’s not the point.  The point is, I was a curious kid looking for answers, and I turned to stories to find them.

I started with original fiction.  Imagine that.  A 13 year old girl online reading effectively hentai-style fiction about OCs she had no connection with.  I learned about my body through badly written dA hentai fic.  I figured out things that felt good.  I experimented quietly when my family left for my brother’s baseball games.  And then, at some point, I found my first fanfiction.

I’d technically written fanfiction of Sonic characters when I was 8 or 9, but they were all just fairy tales with Sonic and Amy as the leads.  I didn’t start with Sonic fanfiction, though.  No, the first fanfiction I remember reading was Naruto.  It was a badwrong Uchiha-cest fic.  I was probably 13 at this point.  I’d never watched Naruto, but I absolutely knew that those characters were related.  Morbidly curious, reluctantly fascinated, I read the fic.

It was short, but it was definitely hot, to my 13 year old standards.  I mean, most things were.  I was 13.  I didn’t exactly have standards.  And then I realized:  If this exists, shouldn’t there be stories with characters I actually know?  Granted, I still read SasuNaruSasu fic because it was SO easy to find--I preferred Naruto topping at the time, but now I’d go back and forth, I think, I just hated the characterization of bottom!Naruto--but I also discovered slash for things I actually knew.  Sonadow was a revelation.

It does not escape me that I got my start in fanfiction reading incest and furry porn, btw.  I mentioned earlier that I was curious, and that was my driving force.  I wanted to see where the limits were.  I would read anything.  And then once I figured out the tags, I could look for the things I liked and avoid the things I didn’t.  I didn’t much care for a lot of things where romance was concerned, but for a PWP those limits evaporated like rain in the desert.  And through this process, I developed standards.  Things I will read, things I won’t, writing styles I prefer, things that I won’t read no matter how well written, writing unskilled enough that I wouldn’t touch it regardless of the kink depicted.  And on and on and on.

I feel like it bears mentioning that the demographic of my junior high and high school was predominantly Mormon and Fundamentalist.  Not all, but a significant number.  We were mostly white, mostly well-off.  I was in as much of a bubble as I could be.  But that meant that until my friends started coming out in high school, I didn’t know any queer people IRL.  I had one friend, Avery, who told me she was Bi in eighth grade, but until about tenth grade, she was the only one who’d told me.

Our sex ed was abstinence only.  Heteronormative and absolutely the kind of thing that we all speak out against.  There were no websites that I could find with reliable info.  I was using google image searches to figure out what genitalia looked like, and I wish I were kidding.  All I’d ever seen was stuff with diseases and sores.  I was told that a girl who has a lot of sex is like an old pair of gym shoes.  I was told that boys will be boys.  I was not told that boys could love boys or girls could love girls.  I was told “Just say no,” instead of any kind of way to tell when it was safe for me to say Yes.

Luckily I wasn’t interested in sex for me, personally.  I was interested in it intellectually.  I wanted to know how it worked, why people chose to do it, what it might feel like, what kinds of sex you could have.  I was arming myself with knowledge in case I ever needed it.

When I was 15, I stumbled on a kinkster’s blog.  She was a writer, and she specialized in BDSM practices and culture, specifically in explaining it to the uninitiated.  I was too young to be there, but the information I got was invaluable.  Again, scarleteen might have existed?  But I’d certainly never found it.  This was the first time I saw someone talking about consent, about condoms and dental dams, about safe words.

It was life changing.  I read her blog avidly.  I spent about three weeks there, researching BDSM.  When I found something that seemed interesting, I’d return to deviantART to see if I could find it in story form.  I’d google terms I wasn’t familiar with or cross check online.  I googled so many things that it’s lucky that my parents let me have my own computer (an old desktop from my dad’s boss).  It’s even luckier that my parents generally let me have free reign.

When I was 17, I found the word Asexual.  It was the best word I’d seen for how I was feeling.  Sex positive asexual.  “It would be fine if it happened, but chastity isn’t exactly a punishment.”  I could make do on my own without much trouble, and I didn’t really like any boys.  Not like that.  (Whether or not I ever liked girls, I’m still trying to puzzle out.)

What I’m trying to say is that my best online experiences were via kinksters.  Fic at the time did NOT go into safer sex details.  They were either implied, glossed over, or outright ignored.  Fantasy doesn’t need to jive with reality, so it’s hardly wrong of them to ignore it.  But that information was truly incredible to me.

And I know I’m an odd case.  Someone who’d never felt sexual attraction to her knowledge researching every kind of sex under the sun sounds strange, I know.  But I’ve always been a researcher.  When I come across something I don’t understand, I look it up.

I guess, the point I was trying to make is that... for me, without all the “bad” erotica and porn, without kinksters, without slash ships, I never would have figured things out for myself.  I had no sexual education to speak of, no context for anything I did no, no one to talk to, and I definitely didn’t have any queer role models or examples in media or in my real life.  The first time I met a lesbian was when I was 13; she was my gym teacher.  And she was the absolute first queer person I ever knew about.  And until college, I’d never met another queer adult that I knew of.  Never.

We had a gay straight alliance in high school, but I didn’t want to get involved.  The cultural climate wasn’t outright homophobic, but I’d learned to keep my head down for being “too much” a feminist.  Like hell was I going to put a target on my back.  I doubt I would have been bullied--no one had come after me yet--but I didn’t really want to tempt fate either.  I stood up for the people around me, and I called it good.

When I hear people say “Kink is unhealthy and glorifies abuse” I think back on my sex ed, on learning that women who sleep around are dirty.  I think about the first time I ever even heard about consent being on a blog about a woman who loved BDSM.  When I hear people say “X fic trope condones Y behavior” I think back on the absolute sewage that I was reading as a young teen.  It’s safe to say that I’ve read just about every kink there is.  I read vore on accident by the time I was 15.  And I didn’t even remember it until I had a visceral flashback to it about a year ago when the jokes first started getting popular.  And despite all of the abuse and rape and badwrong incestuous fic that I’ve read, never once have I knowingly harmed another person.  And that makes the arguments feel a little odd.  Like “violent video games make teens more violent,” the argument that violent erotica and porn makes teens more violent is absurd.

So, for those of you still reading, if you promote anti-shipping or kink critical anything, I think you should look at it a little more closely.  Do some more reading on the other side, within your limits.  Do your own research and figure out where you stand.  I know that sex can be intimidating and scary, especially when you’re young, but something can be scary without being harmful.  Only you know your limits, but there are plenty of places to do research that have reliable information.  I’d be happy to help you find them.  For general sex ed, scarleteen is definitely my go-to.

Policing other people’s sexualities is not the way to make things feel safe again.  I know it seems like a suitable answer, and it makes you feel like you have power and safety, but think about how you feel when people tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to like or do or feel.  Think about how you feel when people accuse you of all kinds of things simply because your views are different.  That’s what anti-culture is doing.  And just because you don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean you have the right to tell them how to feel or how to think.  Because that opens the door to them returning the favor.

“But incest--”  “But CGL--”  “But--”  No.  It doesn’t matter.  If you know it isn’t for you, then avoid it.  That’s the end of it.  Do I think some things are weird or even kinda gross?  Sure.  But that doesn’t mean no one is allowed to like those things.  If that was the case, no one would be allowed to write fic where people have sex in a kitchen or otherwise involve food in the process.  That squicks me out, but that doesn’t mean people don’t want to get off to it.  I avoid the tag and move on.  Don’t waste your time on things you don’t like.  Period.

Life is too short to waste your time on things that turn you off.  That’s time better spent finding the things that turn you on.  And hey, tastes change.  Maybe someday I’ll decide I want to read people having sticky food sex (doubtful).  Maybe someday I’ll decide that I cannot read another tentacle fic ever again (unlikely).  I won’t know until that day does (or doesn’t) come.  But I’m not gonna waste energy worrying about what other people think about my fantasies.  They’re no one’s business but my own, and theoretically a future sex partner should I find one.

Fiction is for exploration, so explore!  Find ways to keep yourself safe.  Figure out what you need to avoid, and how to do it.  Find the things you want to read and read them.  Consume the media you want to consume.  And if anyone bullies you for it or tries to make you feel bad, you block their ass on sight.  They don’t deserve even a second more of your time.

[newssplashy]

Entertainment: Dick Leitsch, whose 'sip-in' was a gay rights milestone, dies at 83

Dick Leitsch, who in 1966 led a pioneering act of civil disobedience to secure the right of gay patrons to be served in a licensed bar.

A close friend, Paul Havern, said the cause was liver cancer, which had spread. Leitsch, who lived in Manhattan, learned he had terminal cancer in February.

A gentle, soft-spoken Kentuckian, Leitsch (pronounced LIGHTSH) was one of the first leaders of the Mattachine Society, an early defender of gay rights when homosexuality was mostly underground and even a small protest took courage. He called his action a “sip-in,” and likened it to sit-ins by black protesters at segregated lunch counters in the South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Three years before the Stonewall Inn uprising accelerated the gay rights movement in America, Leitsch challenged the common practice of bars’ serving gay customers under a no-questions-asked arrangement necessitated by an unwritten State Liquor Authority policy that regarded homosexuals as inherently “disorderly.” Bars that knowingly served them could have their liquor licenses revoked.

The policy, supported by no law and apparently unconstitutional because it precluded the right to free assembly, led to charades by gay men and lesbians. They would sometimes minimize their sexual identities by avoiding affectionate touching or dancing with one another or any other conduct that might be interpreted as “queer.” Bartenders looked the other way and poured the gin.

It was just another of the countless indignities and rights violations that gay men and lesbians endured in an age when vice squads raided bars frequented by gay clientele and entrapped men in homosexual “encounters.” Many publications, including The New York Times, referred to gay men and lesbians as “sexual deviates.”

Hypocrisy infected the era. Gay men and lesbians were widely regarded as sick by the medical establishment, sinners by the clergy and criminals by the law. Judges accepted the testimony of undercover officers who had solicited sex from gay men and then arrested them. For those with a name, job or family to protect, lewdness charges could carry fines, jail time and ruinous publicity.

Criminals also took their cut. There were scores of illegal bars in New York, many of them private clubs run by the Mafia, that catered to gays and lesbians. Drinks were watered, prices were steep, police raids were scheduled (with forewarnings), payoffs were routine and liquor licenses, if they existed at all, were rarely challenged by the liquor authority.

“For decades, gay bars were our most visible institutions,” Perry Brass recalled in 2015 in The Philadelphia Gay News. “Gay men and lesbians found their only home in them. In New York, bars were raided cyclically: usually before elections, before major events like the 1964 New York World’s Fair, when Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. closed the bars to keep innocent tourists from wandering in, or when cops decided they wanted to squeeze out a bit more payola from Mafia barkeeps.”

On April 21, 1966, Leitsch and three friends, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons and Randy Wicker, accompanied by a Times reporter and a Village Voice photographer, staged the “sip-in” at Julius’, a bar at West 10th Street and Waverly Place in Greenwich Village.

The bar had been serving a gay clientele since the 1950s. A clergyman had just been arrested there on charges of soliciting sex, and a sign said, “This is a raided premises.”

As the four stood at the bar in suits and neckties, a bartender set up glasses and asked, “What’ll you have?”

“We are homosexuals,” Leitsch announced, according to several accounts he gave to the news media. “We are orderly, we intend to remain orderly, and we are asking for service.”

The bartender clapped his hand over Leitsch’s glass — a signal moment captured by the Voice photographer, Fred W. McDarrah — and refused to serve them.

“I think it’s the law,” the bartender said.

The Times published an account the next day: “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” The Mattachine Society, citing the events at Julius’, said it would sue the State Liquor Authority to overturn the policy that prohibited bars from knowingly serving alcoholic beverages to gays on grounds that they were inherently “disorderly.”

The liquor authority chairman, Donald S. Hostetter, promptly denied that such a policy existed, and claimed the authority had never threatened or revoked the licenses of bars that served gays.

Leitsch, in an interview for this obituary in March, said that the lawsuit had not been filed because the liquor authority had backed down. “The whole thing was bizarre,” he said. “We didn’t need to prove that the bars refused to serve us, or that the liquor authority revoked licenses for serving gays. They denied ever doing it.”

In 1967, New York state courts, ruling on two suits filed by bars, struck down theories that homosexuals were inherently disorderly, effectively ending the liquor authority practice of using gay patronage as an excuse for revoking licenses. Among other effects, the rulings opened the way for licensed gay bars, which proliferated in years to come.

“Dick Leitsch was one of the country’s most militant and important gay activists in the decade before Stonewall,” George Chauncey, a Columbia University historian who wrote “Gay New York” (1994), said in an email. “The sip-in he organized at Julius’ is a brilliant example of lessons he took from the black civil rights movement about how to stage events that reframed public understanding.”

After years of stony silence from public officials and potential allies in his fight against police raids and entrapment cases, Leitsch, starting in 1966, won the support of John Lindsay, the new Republican-Liberal mayor of New York; of William Booth, the commissioner of human rights; and of columnists for The New York Post, then a progressive paper, who wrote about police corruption. Weeks after the protest at Julius’, Lindsay ordered the Police Department to halt the entrapment of gays, although many gay men said his orders were ignored, at least initially.

Historians of the gay rights movement say Leitsch was instrumental in ending police entrapment in New York. Besides helping to persuade Lindsay to ban it, he worked with bar owners, the American Civil Liberties Union, police brass and other city officials to gradually overcome the practice. He also advised gay men how to navigate arrests in sting operations, and urged entrapped men to request lawyers and plead not guilty, forcing courts to bring their cases to trial, where the testimony of arresting officers could be challenged. In court, gays were urged to present themselves as model citizens, in suits and ties.

The Mattachine Society’s gradual approach to change became obsolete overnight on June 28, 1969, when the Stonewall raid triggered an explosive protest that roiled Greenwich Village for a week and transformed a gay men’s reform agenda into an LGBT revolution.

On the morning after the raid, as the violent protests spread, Lindsay called Leitsch and pleaded, “You’ve got to stop this!”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t,” Leitsch reportedly replied. “I’ve been trying for years to get something like this to happen.”

David Carter, the author of “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution” (2005), called Leitsch a pivotal figure in the fight for gay rights.

“The historical evidence suggests that Leitsch’s total success in persuading the Lindsay administration to end entrapment and his partial success in legalizing gay bars constituted a liberalization that was the most essential precondition of the Stonewall uprising,” Carter said in an email.

Richard Joseph Leitsch was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 11, 1935, the oldest of four children of Joseph Leitsch and Ann (Moran) Leitsch. His father owned a wholesale tobacco business. Richard, called Dick, and his siblings, John, Joanne and Laurene, grew up in a Roman Catholic household and attended parochial schools.

Dick was attracted to boys at St. Patrick’s elementary school. At Flaget High School, he was a voracious reader, worked in the library stacks and had several homosexual encounters, he said. He graduated in 1953. His family was supportive when told he was gay. At Bellarmine University, in Louisville, he appeared in theatrical productions, but dropped out before graduating.

Leitsch moved to New York in 1959, met Rodwell and formed his first long-term partnership. Rodwell belonged to the Mattachine Society, and persuaded Leitsch to join. In the early 1960s he was inspired by Franklin Kameny, one of America’s earliest gay rights activists, who urged gays to model their struggle after the civil rights movement.

At a time when many gay men concealed their sexual identities, Leitsch was open about his. As Mattachine’s president from 1965 to 1969 and then as executive director, he faced television cameras, briefed reporters and lectured widely, never worrying about his jobs as a bartender, waiter and journalist for gay publications.

One Leitsch article detailed the Stonewall uprising for the Mattachine newsletter and later appeared in The Advocate, the LGBT magazine. “Those usually put down as ‘sissies’ or ‘swishes’ showed the most courage and sense during the action,” he wrote. “Their bravery and daring saved many people from being hurt.”

After Stonewall, Leitsch was criticized by younger, louder voices of the Gay Liberation Front as being insufficiently militant. “Dick and Mattachine were loathed by many of my young GLF brothers and sisters,” Brass recalled. “For us he represented gay accommodationists.”

It passed. Leitsch was eventually seen as an early hero of the gay rights movement. Julius’ became a landmark in the National Register of Historic Places and a setting for gay-themed films like “The Boys in the Band” and “The Normal Heart.” It called itself the oldest gay bar in New York. Leitsch dined there often.

On the 50th anniversary of his protest, a crowd celebrated at Julius’, and Andrew Berman, of the Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society, hailed Leitsch and his sip-in. “This was one of the first, if not the very first, planned acts of civil disobedience for LGBT rights,” he said.

Leitschis survived by his brother, John, and his sister, Joanne Williams. His partner of many years, Timothy Scoffield, died in 1989 after developing AIDS.

In the crush of letters Leitsch received after his illness became known was one from former President Barack Obama. “Thank you for your decades of work to help drive our nation forward on the path toward LGBT equality,” he wrote. “Our journey as a nation depends, as it always has, on the collective and persistent efforts of people like you.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Robert D. McFadden © 2018 The New York Times

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/entertainment-dick-leitsch-whose-sip-in.html