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at1nys-blog · 9 months

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His own Valkyrja

Pairing: fem!Doctor!reader x Hvitserk Ragnarsson

Summary: Valkyrje. They come from the sky to take to Valhalla the warrior that feel in battle but Hvitserk Ragnarsson has his own, very different version of a Valkyrja

A/N: This came to mind while watching Doctor who specials on DIsney+ and I wanted to write a ff for the series since I am back at watching it but I dind't want reader to be the companion so I inverted the roles and made a crossover with my favourite historical Tv Show. Also the TARDIS is referred as she because I felt like doing so.

A/N pt.2: There are a couple of words in Old Norse like já that means yes and Valkyrja/Valkyrje, Old Norse for Valkyria/Valkyrie

The song is in danish/old norse so here a transation of the song

It was a simple day in Kattegat, nothing special was going on, not during winter. During the snowy season there were just talks, talks about what was the best curse of actions to take in the spring. Were they going to plunder back a new Saxon’s city or were they going to discover and plunder a complete new city? This was something only the spring and summer could tell.

The winter wind was blowing, hard and consistent, like an old friend that wants to catch up. Everyone wearing thick coats to protect themselves from the cold weather and in the crowded market of the city, one of the sons of Ragnar was walking around.

The prince, the man or whatever you want to call him, didn’t had a place to be, nor he was really interested in what people sold in their lonely stools. He just needed time for himself, away from his brothers, his mother and the lords who tried their everything to become friends with him.

Walking around the city, head up to the clouds, Hvitserk Ragnarsson didn’t notice when he walked outside the city’s walls. It was when he was at the forest’s door that he was brought back to reality.

Looking behind him, he couldn’t see the city, nor hear the chattering of the market anymore. It was just him, a snowy and grey landscape. His mind wondered if he had to go back, but then he decided to stay out a little bit longer. He knew that if anyone needed him, they were going to send someone to find him.

The landscape was snowy and grey and silent. Too much silence was keeping company to the warrior, he started singing. Sure, between his brothers he knew Sigurd was the most artistic one. He was the one with a nice voice and gentle touch and the one with the mind filled with honey like words, but Hvitserk, he was pretty sure he came in good second.

The song was one that his mother's maiden used to sing to him and the rest of the Ragnarssons, it was about Ymir and was rather short but his favourite nontheless.

The forest too was silent. The trees' leaves weren't rustling; birds did not chirp on top of his singing voice and no animals dared to make a noise. It was like the wild that populated that place was admiring his voice.

Hvitserk performance got interrupted by a leaves rustling, as if someone moved them aside to not trip or to get hurt. The prince tried to find the source of the noise, ready to fight it was from a foe-man or an ally. Some seconds later he saw her, a female figure walking directed straight to north.

Hvitserk was able to get a glance of her, taking him just a couple of details: she couldn't be taller than him, maybe some centimeters shorter, from his standing point he couldn't say for sure; her hair were messy and up in a simple braid. He decided to follow her, from a distance to not scare her away and to be in control in case she was enemy to him and his kingdom.

Hvitserk Ragnarsson notice her choice of style was weird, nothing he had saw before. The coat was too long, coming down on her ankles; her feet covered in a colorful pair of...

"What are those called?" he asked, curios and getting the girl's attention. She turned back in an instant, and she had to close her eyes a little if she didn't want to faint there in front of him. The viking approached her carefully, slow in his step and stepping back every now and then.

"What... what are you talking about?" she spoke his language, if that was the case maybe she wasn't an enemy. He pointed at her feet, asking once more what those things were. Looking down, the unfamiliar presence kept silence for some seconds. "Those are called sneakers but you won't need to learn the name, don't worry." was her answer.

"Sneakers." he repetead on and on, as to grab the essence of the word, as if he was trying to taste the word she just spoke.

"I was trying to search for some more historically appropriate footwear but my space ship had a problem and it dropped in the middle of the forest. You know where I can find a river or a lake? I really need some water right about now." Even though Hvitserk could understand what she was saying he couldn't understand what she was talking about, she had dropped a word he had no idea what it meant, it wasn't in his native language. The stranger could tell he was confused. "right, you don't know what space ship means. Again nothing to worry about or for you to keep in mind."

"You say I don't have to worry about a lot of things and still haven't told me your name. I am prince Hviterser son of king Ragnar and Queen Aslaugh." he introduced himself. The figure smiled.

"You are right, how rude of me to not introduce myself. I am The Doctor, but not the doctor you are thinking. I can't cure people." the more this so called Doctor spoke, the more Hvitserk's mind was in a state of confusion, what was she talking about?

"Then what do you cure?" a smirk appeared on her face and the prince was warry of that, was it a good or bad sign? She streatched out her hand tilting her head on the side, it was a clear invitation to take her hand and follow wherever she was goint to. It took him a quick minute to decide to trust her, if she was there to kill him she should have tried already. Not that he thought she could do it, but he felt like she wasn't as weak as she seemed.

"you have nice skin." he commented with a small smile pictured on his features. It hadn't been a long time since he had touched a woman but her skin felt different, it made him feel different.

"I think I've heard someone singing, was it you?" the viking man answered with a quick já that he was sure she understood. "You have a nice voice. Can you sing me a song? If you don't mind, of course." Hvitserk started to sing, a different and longer song than the one he had sung previously to meet her, with a calmer tune. This one talked about a love story between a Valkyrja and a brave warrior.

Hvitersk kept his eyes on the Doctor, thinking that she resembled a Valkyrie. Just like the divine creature, she had come from the sky, sure in a ship made for the space, but still from the sky. He felt like she had found him, maybe he was dreaming and it was all in his head. He thought, for a moment, that she came into his dreams to foresee his imminent death.

He didn't notice her halting in her steps, bumping into her. Hvitserk apologized and she realized something was wrong with the TARDIS' translation circuit because she couldn't understand what he had told her, pretty much he had apologized but still, the word didn't register in her mind.

The language, the one she knew as Old Norse, sounded like an old song. She loved it, and it made it at the top of her list of favourite language--something her ninth version started--alongside Ancient North Martian and Sittuun.

She looked left and right, as to remember which way to go, where did the TARDIS landed? East or West? Hvitserk noticed she never let go of his hand, not even when she had trouble keeping her balance. Her hand still in his.

They walked some more and the prince kept on singing, he performed three songs since she had asked the first time, and he was about to sing a fourth one when she let go of his hand. Hvitserk felt the cold wind now, his hand felt the cold weather and if she didn't rushed towards a blue box he would have kept his hand in hers. He liked it.

He kept his eyes on her, walking inside and he waited a little bit. For what he didn't know but he felt it wasn't right to get inside without an invite. She came out some minutes later, asking him why he was staying outside.

"I didn't think I could..."

"Nonsense, come on. I want to show you something." and back inside she went. He followed her, slowly. He had the idea it was an ambush, he had to be carefull. "I'm down here" she said when he opened the door. His eyes couldn't believe what he had in front of him. He walked outside, went around the blue box and then back inside. "I know she is..."

"Smaller outside." he comented. His choice of words triggered her, he saw it. She stiffened, just for a second and he was about to ask if she was doing fine but she didn't gave him the time to ask. "You remind me of a friend I've lost." he was about to give her his condolecence but once again she didn't let him talk, it was like she could read his mind. "Is okay, I'm used to that but here. Come."

Hvitserk approached her, and once again The Doctor took his hand and walked him in front of a square object, with colorful moving drawings.

"What is this?" he asked looking at her.

"This, my dear Hvitserk Ragnarsson is what is hidden behind the sky. Do you want to aknowledge what there is outside of this world?" he noticed her eyes were blinking, like all the starts decided to move into her eyes. She looked etheral, out of this world, just like her blue box.

He agreed, why not? He had nothing to do, nothing to loose so he decided to follow her. He would have followed her no matter what and he was fine with it. He had found his Valkyrja.

He walked around the weird looking piece of metal, studying carefully everything. There were letters he couldn't name but at the same time shapes and colors he had seen both in Kattegat and in his travels over the icy seas; there were objects, like mirrors but they never reflected his face but people he had never met. He was fascinated and confused at the same time.

An earthquake shook up the little blue box and he lost balance for a second, finding support on one of the weird object that were surronding the space inside the box. Hvitserk heard her giggle, for a second and then she was back working on whatever there was in the deepths of that box.

"Doctor, so what exactly did you wanted to show me?" he asked still looking around. Everytime he turned he noticed something new and he was curious to find out what it was.

"I wanted to show you..." her head appearing from somewhere below him. "Something amazing, but I need to fix my ship" she commented.

"This doesn't look like a ship at all." he retored and once again he tried to fullfill his curiosity about what she had called a ship.

"Not in the sense of what you are familiar, no is not, but is a different type of ship." she answered back. "is a ship that sails through time and space" she tried to use words he could understand and even if he did know what sail meant, I mean he did that every spring and summer, he couldn't wrap his head around how a thing could sail through time and space. "this ship can go whenever on this Earth and in every time you want: back in the past, or foward in the future."

The future, he wanted to see what the future had in store for him and his brothers. Were they going to realise all their dreams? Were they going to rise the name of their father to fame? Was he going to have a happy life with a good wife and amazing kids?

"Can we go the future? Not that far into that, just a couple of years." he asked, this time is full attention on his Valkyrja. She smiled. A nice and warm smile.

"Sadly the TARDIS doesn't work like that. Is like she gives me a mission everytime I set her gears on. She sents me when I am needed." another word he couldn't understand but he remember what she had told him before do not worry, and he did not.

"So you are needed here?"

"Not really. My ship needs some time to fix herself. I think she decided the safest place to land was in..."

"Kattegat, 818 AD." he stated. She repeated his words. "Why here?" he asked. Kattegat wasn't the safest option, he knew that. Not when the city feared invasions from basically everyone.

"I might know a lot but this is something I can't tell. Maybe this old lady..." prince Hvitserk followed her every move while she was speaking. "...planned our meeting." she joked, laughing at it. But Hvitersker was pretty sure Urd, Verdandi and Skuld had worked their web to let the two of them. The warrior made a note to himself to leave some offerring to the Norns to thank them for this opportunity. "Now, would you mind show me around?"

He didn’t mind, the more Hvitserk Ragnarsson was alongside her, the happier he was.

Roaming around the market’s stalls it was his time to feed her curiosity. Every question she asked he had the answer, well most of the times.

Everything was going on pretty good until his older brother, Ubbe, whistled to get his attention, he really wanted to run back in the forest to avoid uncomfortable questions from him and the younger of the Ragnarssons.

“Ubbe.” He simply said asking with his eyes to not say anything inappropriate. “Ivar.” He added turning to the the younger of the four brothers.

“Who is she?” Asked the older viking. He took her hand in his and gave it a quick peck—he had learned this during a trip in Wessex—making the Doctor giggle.

“Such a gentleman Ubbe Ragnarsson.”

“Thank you my lady.” Was his throw back(?)

After a quick introduction, whit Hvitserk lying about her name being Brynild like one of the Valkyrje, Ivar invited her to have dinner with them so the two of them and their mother could know more about Hvitserk’s new friend.

“I see if I can attend dinner with your family but I won’t promise anything. But thank you for the invite Prince Ivar.” The title feeded his ego more than enough, the younger prince was happy and limped back from where he came with a soft thank you; Ubbe rolled his eyes and after another act of cavalry he followed in tow his brother.

“I’m sorry for them.” Apologized the second born.

“Is okay. I think the TARDIS is ready. Do you want to live an adventure outside the ordinary?” The viking wanted to tell her that just meeting her was out of the ordinary, sure in a positive way, but still out of this world situation.

“Lead the way, my lady.” And with that they went back into the forest, hand in hand. Hvitserk asking more questions and the Gallifreyan never saying a word.

Hvitserk woke up with a strong head pain, memory of what he thought a dream flooding his mind. He pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to relieve a little the pain he was feeling, not noticing his brothers, Ubbe and Björn were looking for him.

"Here you are. Queen Aslaugh wants you home." started Björn and without giving him the time to get up he left for Kattegat on his own. Ubbe, on the other side, took a seat next to his brother and with a smirk on his face asked him if he had fun all that time he was missing.

Hvitserk had to lie, nodding his head yes. He didn't know how to explain that he didn't know where she went, and what happened between the two of them, he thought saying they had some private time together was easier.

"How was she? Do you think I can have her one day?"

"I don't think. She told me she found Kattegat by accident" that was not a lie, well not completely. "and besides she has to take care of her family so I don't think she has much free time."

"What a shame. Well, at least you managed to get her. But do tell, was she good?" That was the only thing Ubbe cared to know, then again is about a viking man we are talking about.

Hvisterk rolled his eyes and smacked his brother to his chest, a way to ask him to shut up and that he wasn't going to give him details about it.

Weeks passed and Hvitserk had made it a routine to check the market from the main door of the Great Hall. Watching carefully to see if she was coming back anytime soon.

Then months passed and he realized she was not coming back to Kattegat, he needed to move on. But then it came one day, one beautiful spring day where he saw her, or so he thought, because that woman in the market looking for a pin to use for her hair looked almost ideantical to his Valkyrja. What was more astonoshing was the fact she had fall in love with the prince. Hvitserk decided to take it as a sign from the Gods and after a couple of weeks they got married.

Spending nights together, it was not a surprise to hear his wife giving him the news she was with child and Hvitserk was the happiest to hear it. He had told his brothers first. Björn patted his back, proud of him; Ubbe smirked and laughed at his own words when he said that the little brother had been working hard and Ivar just smiled, happy for his older brother. Then when his mother found out, she decided to throw a party, all Kattegat was welcomed to celebrate the news.

Nine months later, or so, Hvitserk's daughter was born. A beautiful and healty baby girl. Hvitserk looked at her with stars in his eyes, she was going to be his first priority from now on.

"How do you want to call her?" asked one of the women that helped his wife deliver the little girl.

"Brynhildr" he said without esitation. The couple didn't talked about the name but that sounded a good fit for the girl. "I like Brynhildr." he added. He started cooing at his daughter, making her giggle and wrapping her little hand on his big pinky.

"She loves you already." said his wife, a weak giggle leaving her lips. "She is going to be a daddy's girl. Boys will be terrified to ask for her hand" she joked.

"She is going to grow into a fine woman." he commented and gave it back to the one who gave her to him, so that the new addiction to the family could spend time with her mother.

Hvitserk left the little house, taking in the cold weather of the winter season, looking up to the sky he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.

"I might not see you again, my Valkyrja, but the memory will be always be with until my very end." Was it then, that his brothers came to take him out to drink. He just had a daughter, it was a good enought reason to celebrate.

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youremyheaven · 6 months

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Do you think those influencers who dramatically switch from very left wing Marxist alternative etc to very trad Christians (specifically in homophobic/transphobic way) have ketu influence?

You were talking about ketuvians and their struggle to find a sense of self and it made me think of these types of people. I know someone with ketu 1H and magha moon who did this to an extent. She used to identify as non binary and was constantly shifting through different names and pronouns but then one day she just kind of stopped and started saying how she thinks pride is pointless and a waste of time or whatever😭 it wasn’t *that* extreme but I still thought it was a significant shift in belief in such a short time.

I think a lot of people have this dramatic shifts not only out of a need to identify with something due to a lack of sense of self, but also because they like going back to what their parents believe for comfort. I guess those two are interlinked but it’s interesting how my friend is a magha moon and magha is associated with ancestors and whatnot.

I guess mula is somewhat similar as “the root”? Idk about ashwini though

Sorry I haven’t actually had the chance to look into examples since it’s hard to find birth data for influencers and I don’t know that many examples irl 😶‍🌫️ so this is me just going on a tangent and hoping you get what I’m trying to say LMAO

I’m also not sure if anyone else is familiar with this phenomena or if I’m just too engrossed in niche internet drama.

In terms of influencers I guess a somewhat prominent example is Freckle Zelda on tiktok? I never followed her but she went from making cutesy safe space liberal type content in like 2021 and now she’s a Christian and is using it be to super controversial. But like I said I’ve never followed her so idk if this is dramatic enough of a switch to count as what I’m saying.

I also feel like this a rahu trait to switch between extremes🤔 idk lmk what you think

I feel like the capitalist commodification of identity has most adversely affected Nodal people.

If you think about it, spirituality's aim is to transcend the "self" entirely, you stop identifying with labels and attaching yourself to this or that thing. I'm not saying you cease to be a person but you stop trying to "accumulate" identities to hold on to.

9/10 times the reason we identify with something is to feel a sense of belonging but searching outwards for it will only lead to disappointment, when we search within and feel at home within ourselves, we lose the need to externally confined ourselves to rigid "identities"

Yk how people dye their hair, get piercings/tattoos etc to mark a new chapter or the end of an old one or whatever??? It is an attempt to claim something as "yourself" and "solidify yourself". Everything changes all the time, everybody changes yet there are many people who will never dye their hair or change their name or join a cult or whatever (not that all these things are the same) its just that if you're at peace with yourself and truly grounded, you will no longer be shopping for different identities or things to associate with.

Yk those people who have IG bios that read like "Mother, Pluviophile, ESFJ, Petrolhead, UJC'22, Missourian, Ancient Spirit, 1/4th Cherokee, Bitcoin Enthusiast, EDM Lover"

like what do any of those terms say about them?? how on earth is any of this central to your identity? all of these are external ??? is loving rain and being a petrolhead central to your sense of self?? im not trying to demean anybody's interests, im only trying to point out that what we choose to make the focal point of ourselves is up to us and its possible to not be defined by anything?? i think a truly ugly consequence of capitalism is how people try to define themselves by things outside them (their interests, hobbies, job, income level, marital status etc etc) because there is more to a person than all that.

when we retreat within, we base our sense of self on our qualities like kindness, compassion, creativity (this becomes the essence of who we are) so we don't feel the need to claim 87373 other things to describe ourselves

some people overly identify with others like their partners, friends or even strangers and kind of become them. this is also the root of stan culture, by being obsessed with someone to that extent and giving them all your time and energy, you are losing your own qi and harming your Sun (the same way criticizing the appearance of others ruins your Venus)

Rahu is prone to taking things to extremes and Ketu is prone to trying on different identities and losing interest in all of them one after the other. so your observations are right.

i dont really use social media so i dont know any influencers that i can quote as examples ;-; but im thinking of certain celebrities who have had drastic style changes in the past and all of them have nodal influence lol

in the 2000s, the Olsen twins were known for their boho chic hippie style and over the last decade or so they have become known for their "quiet luxury" style. They are Magha Moon

Julia Fox is Ardra Rising and she went from basic to avant garde

Jared Leto, Mula Sun, Ashwini Moon & Rising , he's also the leader of a cult allegedly so👀i guess it all adds up

Adele, Mula Moon & Ardra Rising

im not just talking about her weight loss, just her overall change in style. she got married young and had a baby and in a couple of years she got a divorce and revamped her look to that of an ig baddie

Kylie Jenner, Swati Moon she's changed her style/demeanour every other year since the early 2010s lol

Taylor Swift, Ardra Moon has also had many diff lewkzz throughout the years

before anybody says dont celebs change their styles often?? no they dont, not everybody for sure. look at Jennifer Lopez or Sarah Jessica Parker, theyve been dressing the same since the 90s. constantly evolving style/looks/personality is a Nodal thing. its also a big part of the reason why Nodal people succeed in the entertainment industry and in the material realm (a lot of rich people including Bezos have Nodal placements) because entertainment = illusion, pretending to be someone you're not and for Nodal people, this is pretty much second nature.

im sorry that my response is kind of all over the place. your question provoked some thoughts within me lol and i just had to shareee

i cant think of celebs who have drastically changed their life paths like the example u cited ;-; EXCEPT Bridget Mendler who is an actor, singer, and entrepreneur, has a PhD and went to Harvard Law and now runs a satellite company?? she also adopted a kid during all this? She has Mula Sun

anywayyys thats it for now

tysm for sending this ask!!! its a very thought provoking and interesting question<33hope u have a good day<33

#rahu #ketu #nodal #jyotish

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wutheringmights · 2 months

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New CTB Music (2024 Update)

It's that time of year where I share some of the tracks that I added to my personal CTB playlist that have not been mentioned before on this blog (view (2021, 2022, and 2023 updates as well).

Body to Flame - Lucy Dacus

Longing for your short hair to grow back to the way you like Thank you for the gesture I regret ever implying that you could be better Didn't mean to empty your perfect body And fill it with my passing will

Hate Me - Miley Cyrus

Go ahead, you can say that I've changed Just say it to my face One drink and I'm back to that place The memories won't fade

Is It Over Now? - Taylor Swift

"Come here, " I whispered in your ear In your dream as you passed out, baby Was it over then? And is it over now?

Halloween - Noah Kahan

But the wreckage of you, I no longer reside in And the bridges have long since been burned The ash of the home that I started the fire in It starts to return to the Earth I'm leavin' this town and I'm changin' my address I know that you'll come if you want It's not Halloween, but the ghost you're dressed up as Sure knows how to haunt, yeah, she knows how to haunt

Growing Sideways - Noah Kahan

But I ignore things, and I move sideways Until I forget what I felt in the first place At the end of the day I know there are worse ways To stay alive 'Cause everyone's growing and everyone's healthy I'm terrified that I might never have met me

Orange Juice - Noah Kahan

You said my heart has changed and my soul has changed And my heart, and my heart That my life has changed, that this town had changed And you had not That the world has changed, don't you find it strange That you just went ahead and carried on?

I Remember Everything - Zach Bryan

Strained words come on out Of a grown man's mouth when his mind's broke Pictures and passin' time You only smile like that when you're drinking

Figure 8 - Paramore

All for your sake Became the very thing that I hate I lost my way Spinning in an endless figure eight

Let You Down - Zach Bryan & Kacey Musgraves

I'll let you down darlin', down babe Just like I did before You'll just keep on slammin' closed hollow unlocked doors I'll let you down darlin', down babe Just like times before You'll just keep on crawin' back and beggin' me for more

No One Else to Blame - Madison Cunningham

For the burden and the stress For the heartache and the mess you entertain You put your money down on which part of you is next To slip down the drain with nothing, nowhere and no one No one else to blame

Golden Age - Ethel Cain

Do you just want my blood? Am I just that damn hard to love? 'Cause it feels like all I have is still just not enough I guess that I'll just go outside and watch the fire And fields of gold fly farther away from me

Dawns - Zach Bryan & Maggie Rogers

Give me my dawns back Everything that dies makes its way back I lost her last July in a heart attack I need one small victory

Crave - Paramore

I romanticize even the worst of times When all it took to make me cry was being alive Look up and see a reflection Of someone who never gave way to the pain What if I told 'em that now that I'm older There isn't a moment that I'd wanna change?

Your Hate Could Power a Train - Madison Cunningham

I'm not messin' around, not ready to laugh about it I don't worship the ground that's holdin' you I think it's wrong, the way you harm But no one ever looks too hard at it What does it say about you? Your hate could power a train

Head In the Wall - Ethel Cain

Sometimes you make wanna put my fucking head through the wall Sometimes I wonder if I even know you at all

thousand eyes - FKA Twigs

If I walk out the door, it starts our last goodbye If you don't pull me back, it wakes a thousand eyes

teenage dream - Olivia Rodrigo

They all say that it gets better, it gets better the more you grow Yeah, they all say that it gets better, it gets better, but what if I don't?

You First - Paramore

Everyone is a bad guy And there's no way, no way to know Who's the worst Karma's gonna come for all of us And I hope, well, I hope, I just hope She comes, comes for you first, oh

Vampire Smile - Kyla La Grange

I want a scar that looks just like you, 'Til then I gotta learn to be a wiser fool.

#if you're wondering by x noah kahan song isn't here it's because it's been mentioned before #i could have put the entire stick season album but I really had to restrain myself from adding You're Gonna Go Far Kid if only because #i view is as the ending credits song from the very last chapter. it doesn't make sense without that context #also congrats to taylor swift for somehow getting another song on the playlist #why so much zach byran? no other genre of music coneys 'i'm a little bitch and everyone and god hates me' quite like country music does #me rambling #lu ctb #linked universe #ctb music #apologies again for my basic white girl taste

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zbrewer · 11 months

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I Sold a Book! Let's Talk About It.

So if you’ve been paying attention at all (and it’s 100% fine if you don’t – trust me; there are plenty of days when I don’t feel like paying attention to myself one bit), you may have heard that I have a new series debuting next fall (2024). It’s called THE CHRONICLES OF VIKTOR VALENTINE and yes, it takes place in the same world as THE CHRONICLES OF VLADIMIR TOD and THE SLAYER CHRONICLES. But, like, apart from the announcement that we’re going back to Elysia, I haven’t really spoken much about the book/series and what it’s going to feature. So why don’t I do that now?

First off, I sold the first two books of this series back in September of 2021, and I’ve been DYING to talk about it ever since. But there are certain things in publishing that we don’t do – and a big one in my case is that I never discuss a book until my publisher has announced our deal. So I kept quiet. Kinda. For the most part, anyway. Then, just a few weeks ago, I got the news that my happy news was public, and I word-vomited all over TikTok and then I disappeared for a while. Why?

Oh. No biggie. Just a much-needed family vacay to celebrate my 50th birthday, my son Jacob’s 30th birthday, and Jacob’s engagement to his beautiful fiancée, Jordan (!!!). (She had NO idea and it was just the perfect moment. Love them so much.)

But now I’m back and I feel a bit like Crowley in Good Omens 2 when he walks into the bookshop after he and Azirophale had argued and Crowley says, “I’m back.” In other words, I’m back. I’m here. I don’t really have a plan for what I’m going to say, but I know one thing is for certain. I’m not doing the apology dance, dammit.

So what’s the series going to cover? Will you see Vlad again? Will you find out what the deal was with Snow’s eyes?

The short answer is YES! The longer answer is: YES…eventually.

See, I plan to include as many of the characters you know and love from CoVT in this series, but there are a few of them, so that’s gonna take time. Am I going to give you all the answers to all the questions you still have about CoVT? Oh yes. Just give me time.

This series is about a boy named Viktor who learns that not only are vampires real…but his parents are the most famous vampires of all—Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory. Viktor is a nervous kid as it is. His chest often feels tight with anxiety. He’s pretty insecure about his friendship with his bestie, Damon (who has amazing hair, btw). And don’t get me started on his mean next-door neighbor. The new neighbor across the street, however…

Her name is Alys. Keep an eye on that one, Minions.

Viktor lives in a town called Nowhere. It’s a small, Midwestern town. Quaint, normal, boring. But that’s only because Viktor has yet to unearth the town’s secrets. But I digress…

I could ramble on about Viktor and how his life is tied to Elysia, but I’d rather you find out for yourself…staring in Fall 2024.

Any questions?

#books #writers #author #piblingz #zbrewer #vampires #covt #vladtod #viktorvalentine #news

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calumthoodshands · 1 year

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LUKE HEMMINGS for TUSH magazine

- Tailor made -

On stage, Luke Hemmings is living his bloom, For Givenchy Beauty, the butterfly follows a different trail of scent.

Von Domen & Van De Velde - Into the flowerbed -

Interview by Afra Ugurlu.

It's pouring rain in L.A. when Luke Hemmings joins our zoom call. Just in time, the frontman of 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) finds refuge in his car on the side of a quiet road, not far from the big Hollywood sign. A look in the rear-view mirror: At the age of barely 16, Luke and his bandmates from 5SOS found themselves in the middle of an international fanbase. Their songs enthralled especially because of the band's juvenile euphoria, and the Australians quickly soared to new heights in the middle of the YouTube madness of the 2010s. But what happens when boybands grow up? After a decade of pop punk influences and with a little more chest hair, Luke took upon a solo career path for the first time and in 2021 released his debut album “When facing the things we turn away from”; a whole new insight into the obstacles and the success of the last years, he later reveals.

Almost 10 years have passed since “She looks so perfect” and “Don’t stop”. What has the last decade been like for you?

I'm living my dream, what else can I say? It was all very intense. You just accepted whatever came at you. For eleven years, for as long as I grew up, that’s been my whole life. Quite crazy, all the stuff that just came flying at us. I don't know whether we would have allowed ourselves this, even if rather short, break if not for the pandemic. Usually it all feels so fast-paced, I often have to pause to mentally take it all in—if you asked me to describe the last decade, then it’d consist of so many moments like that.

Did you ever feel like you were missing out on certain things and experiences during all that hustle and bustle?

I think they were very formative years, so there are probably some life skills I missed out on. In retrospect, you wonder: when was I supposed to learn that? And then you try to somehow fill those gaps. I had to emotionally catch up, but also with things like doing laundry, running errands and so on. There are some more significant matters, like not being close to my family, not to mention that I was missing my home in general. But then you start to put all those thoughts into another perspective: we did what we always wanted to do: write music and perform.

I remember 2014 and 2015, black, ripped skinny jeans and vans. How do you see yourself now, regarding your style?

Pop punk has always been a huge inspiration, and it was simply the style of all these bands like Green Day, Blink 182 and Silverchair. Back then, I was an absolute late bloomer and had to first of all grow into my own identity. I think it was similar with the other guys. We had found a thing that worked, and just stuck with it. It also just felt like a risk to me, doing something other than that, especially in front of an audience. Around the time of our third album, I started to open up a bit more. Our music was changing, and with it our style. At that point I understood myself a little bit better. From then on it just kind of evolved, and I think it still does.

By now you are someone who likes to step out and look beyond the binary. Was that always something that you were interested in or did you rather find yourself getting into it step by step over time?

Where I grew up, people weren’t open at all, everyone wore the same thing. For a long time, it simply wasn’t even on my radar. And of course, I’m not doing anything that someone else hasn't already done before me. I think it was in 2017 when I just started experimenting with glitter and nail polish. From that moment on it all evolved a bit, but it's actually always been something that fascinated me. It just took a while for me to find that part of myself. I feel pretty doing it, and who doesn't want to feel that way? If you only go on stage with a tracksuit, that might be cool. But I'm not an extrovert, quite the opposite, and when I perform and feel so much bigger, it's almost like playing a character. The makeup only emphasises that and turns me into someone who is not introverted and lost in thought. That's the origin of it all, so to speak.

How can we overcome these toxic gender perceptions and behavioural patterns, and heal?

I think a lot of the stigma we experience comes from people projecting their own insecurities onto us. I understand it better now because I grew up in a place that was very toxic in that regard. I'm from West Sydney, which was very conservative. If you’re a man, you have to be really ‘masculine’ and I think that's just complete nonsense. And I think that just sticks with you, growing up like that. There was a time when I came home and didn't want to wear makeup on stage. There was no way I would have done that, whereas now I just do what I'm most comfortable with. Personal growth means putting yourself first and accepting that people will think what they want either way. So really, you should just do whatever you want. That’s the way I'm trying to see it now. It sounds very simple and banal, but I wouldn’t know how else to put it.

Congratulations, by the way, on the release of your first solo album, “When facing the things we turn away from”. Which things do you want to turn away from this year and what else is there to come for you?

I’m facing myself and trying to be more open with the way I deal with stuff. My wish is to just enjoy everything a little bit more. I constantly worry about what might happen tomorrow. I’m not really present or enjoying the moment to the fullest. Everyone probably says that, but I believe it's more important than ever to live in the here and now. We're always looking for the next thing. You want to be at home when you're out and about, on the road when you’re at home. Only when it's over do you see what you actually had going for yourself, and are frustrated; so no ‘Live Fast, Die Young’. But I also think that this year will be a creative one for me. I want to try out new things. We’ll see which doors are going to open for me.

What kind of creative directions are you thinking about?

I can't really say yet. But also in general I don't want to limit myself by excluding new paths. Doing something by myself musically like the album was very intimidating at first. In the end, though, it was very encouraging as well because it was the first time in a long time that I tried something new again. Obviously I love being in the band, it’s my home base. But the solo album is something I never thought I’d be capable of, and now that I know that I am it’s definitely something I want to pursue further.

How do you manage working both on your solo career and with the band at the same time, and are there any points of overlap?

I have a feeling that with the first album it was a bit easier. We were in lockdown and everything on the band's schedule had to be cancelled. Suddenly, I had more free time than in the last 10 years together. I don’t think I would have made a solo album if it didn't come about this way. With four people in the band, all great songwriters and each having their own projects in the pipeline, I feel like it's actually for everyone’s benefit to give other things a try as well. I wondered what it could be like to produce a song from start to finish, and learned so much in the process. Afterwards, when I return to the band, it makes me feel like I know so much more about the recording process and can thus also be a better band member.

How did writing and composing for only yourself change your overall sound?

I don't know whether it significantly changed my sound, but I feel more confident than ever. When you're in a band, you have the luxury to lean on other people and ask: What do you think of this? Do you think it's good, or should we change this? Or someone will encourage you when you're on the right track, telling you to keep going. With this, the only input came from myself. I had to trust my instincts and first of all understand what my own sound really did sound like.

You have no features on your album. Was it important to you to create your first solo album by yourself?

After 10 years on tour, it was quite good to be alone for once and deal with my subconscious. The album is so personal and emotional to me, it didn't really lend itself to include any features. Maybe someday, but I think it has to fit perfectly then. And who knows what’s coming soon. But I think the point and purpose of doing something by yourself is to get accustomed to working without your usual tools.

What did you learn about yourself while working on “When facing the things we turn away from”?

Newfound empathy and love towards myself. The stories of these songs and the lyrics are mostly things I’m dealing with for the very first time. It's almost like writing a diary, you don't have any idea how to start. You sit down and something comes out of it, and that’s what you then try to decipher.

#5sos #luke hemmings #sololuke #hope this helps!#if you click on the title you'll find the photos @ meg's post!

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ninximagicalcats · 2 months

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Your OC Ester looks a lot like @/mishacakes tomiko, not only in Ester's design with the pink fur, the white stripe in her hair, the backless top, the ribbon on the back, the shorts and the circular fur pattern on the back and Also, Ester is genderfluid like Tomiko, but that part isn't so bad because uhmm, yeah.

Ester's mom's design looks a lot like Tomiko's mom's design, with the same bangs, they both have a bun and that widow's peak fur pattern on their foreheads and also the fact that Ester and her mom have a difficult relationship just like Tomiko and her mother. but that's not so bad because many characters have difficult relationships with their parents.

Also, Ester goes to work for Big Mom, which Tomiko also does, and also Ester's alternate outfit with a jacket similar to Tomiko's outfit after moving to New York.

and no, I'm just saying that I'm noticing a lot of similarities and the fact that Tomiko was created and shared around 2018, while yours was around the start of 2024, isn't exactly a good look for you, and I have a friend who blames you and is very angry with you for taking too much inspiration from another artist and says that you are stealing

Look, people like you already told me the same thing. and no, friend and friend, I do not copy that lady that you speak of all my inspiration comes from the user bloody cat And I didn't even know the person you mentioned. I only met her a month ago when a friend of mine told me that this person had a fight with her and Misha lost. That's where I met her but I don't want to know anymore. ps his cat was somewhat similar to mine and I didn't want him to think that he copied me, ps it always seems that the person who is bigger always wins ps I'm going to make my oc ester clearer, I've had it since 2021 I have only published it on my Instagram Because of the movie that was in 2020, I created it but I didn't show it yet because of my concentration on fnaf These days several people already told me the same thing as you and I had to prove that this is my character and my style. I didn't get all this from Mrs. Misha, no. everything comes from bloody and the old Usagi Yojimbo manga and the Yuichi series where I was inspired thanks to Chizu for the bangs, but I made it left And yes, Ester works for Big Mama, but from 12 to 13, she quits not so easily. and make it clear that the clothes Ester wears are the same color palette as Frida and the Frida 2 type clothing. and because of the outfit I have a good explanation I got the clothes from the white and green snake, a movie from years ago that I loved when I was little. and the 🎀 is inspired by silveon from Pokémon that's why the ester ties move and regarding anatomy I practical caricature semi realism proportion of real faces I showed many videos where I draw my ester and the nose bone the same I'm from art classes.

#parati parati paratiparati #artists on tumblr #dibujos #fyp parati #arte #digital art #rottmnt #ibispaintx #rottmnt oc #rottmnt oc x canon

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0alanasworld0 · 2 years

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Hidden connection (Yassine Bounou x reader) *request

Request: "Hey 👋, okay first of all I’ve saw your fics and they are brilliant, so I’ve would like to request you a fic on Yassine Bounou where the reader is the is the daughter of Walid Regragui and they met during the World Cup. Thanks in advance ❤️"

Warnings: none

“Please don’t take unnecessary holidays just for this tournament, habibi” your father says over the phone while looking over the team training. You’re not entirely sure why he’s so nonchalant about the whole ordeal. He’s the coach of your country’s team, the big reason for why so many retired players decided to make a return. A beacon of hope for Moroccan football with a glittering vision for the team that no other coach has had the courage to pursue.

“You can’t be serious, dad. It's your big moment and I’m coming. It's bad enough that you convinced me to miss out on the qualifiers.” you remind him, with a tut. You can miss a few weeks of work for this. Absolutely worth it. you can feel it in your bones that it's gonna go well. He hums with slight disapproval but is relieved internally. Should anything big come from this, he wants you there with him.

Thankfully, your bosses were only a small bump in the road. Being Moroccan themselves meant that a single implication of your father’s name had their ears perking up, when they realised anyway.

“Hmmm, we can’t just give out holidays Ms. Regragui” he states, not bothering to look up from his laptop.

“I understand that! Trust me, I do! but since my father is helping out, I would really like to be there to support him.” you reply, trying to hint at the reason without fully going down the nepotism route.

“Helping out? Ms. Regragui, that's hardly specif-” his eyes widen in realisation.

“You know what, maybe I'm being too hasty. 3 weeks is good, right?” Bingo.

“Thank you, sir I-”

“Yes yes it's fine! Great even! Just get a shirt signed for me, yeah?” He looks at you expectantly as you nod your head vigorously.

“I really appreciate it, sir!” You say, walking out of his office and sighing a big breath of relief.

The perks of your father’s status means that you’re in the stadium earlier. You have some time before the match as the team squeezes in a final training session, nervously awaiting their big debut. They're revived with a new sense of hope and excitement that they haven't felt in far too long. The weights of resentment and general discontent are lifted and there's a burning desire to make their big chance count, to make everyone proud.

You’re on the grass just daydreaming with your music, admiring the beautiful day, looking out at the team every once in a while. One of those glances, lands you on someone familiar. Sevilla vs Real Valladolid. March 2021, the 2nd ever goalkeeper in La Liga to score a goal himself. You also know that he has some impressive stats to match that goal. He’s practising some basic footwork with one of the younger players, stopping to give him some advice every once in a while. You zone back in to see him smile at you. You feel butterflies in your tummy already and you haven't even spoken to him. He has a gorgeous smile, in all fairness. The rest of him is gorgeous too so you shouldn't be too shocked at that: he’s got thick, dark hair that swoops over his forehead, dark brown eyes that are slightly obscured by his heavy brow, an adorable mole on his cheek, a small scar on the other and lord help you that dimple on the apple of his cheek- enough. you cut the rambling thoughts off short as you wave back with your brightest smile, hoping that the pause wasn’t as long as you were imagining. You don’t see it but as you’re scrolling through your phone he asks Hakim about you, gaze never leaving.

“Oh that's Walid’s daughter. Mashallah, she’s a sweetheart. So talented too!” he praises, eyes narrowing as he notices Yassine continuing to stare at her. He hums in vague acknowledgement with a smile on his face and soft eyes. Hakim rolls his eyes playfully, leaving Yassine to collect his thoughts.

You made it to your seat in the stadium with little fuss. You’re behind the Moroccan goal post and close enough to the pitch to discern some faces. Admittedly, you’re a little disgruntled that you can only see the keeper’s back but you can’t complain, It's still your father’s world cup debut.

The match has been frustrating, some clear opportunities that were just short of a goal for your home team and some close calls by Croatia to score. Yassine does well to hold them off. He certainly lives up to his legendary La Liga status, that's for sure.

The game ends after what feels like years, the score remaining at 0-0. It's not ideal but given the competition, you consider it to be quite impressive. Not a moment of celebration necessarily but your father brings you onto the pitch anyway so you catch up with some of the players. You have a good friendship with Achraf in particular.

“You were pretty impressive out there huh?” you smile at him, it's been a while since you both spoke. Both of your schedules are packed as ever. You know that his career has blossomed quite spectacularly over recent years and you couldn't be more proud.

“Could have been better, thank Allah that Yassine was okay for this match!” You both laugh together. His name makes your eyes light up a little bit, what is wrong with you?! You hug again as he leaves to talk to one of the coaches.

You make eye contact with Yassine again but this time, without the bounds of his training, he jogs up to you. Your heart starts beating quickly again as you try to come up with something to say. C'mon be cool be cool be cool be cool-

“You’re really living up to that Zamora trophy, huh?” you joke, wanting to kick yourself for being so forward but thankfully he chuckles.

“I try my best. Not easy when Luka Modric and co. are coming at you with full force.” you hum and giggle a bit in agreement. There were certainly some close calls and having to face such a strong attacking force must have been one of the most nerve-wracking moments of his career.

You both begin walking together as he continues to make you cackle with his corny jokes. You’re stood very close and he goes to nudge your shoulder every once in a while, trying to coax more laughs out of you. He’s absolutely smitten. You're gorgeous with an infectious personality that he feels compelled to be around. And the feelings are mutual. He’s obviously mesmerising but he’s so unbelievably sweet and down-to-earth. You feel all warm and cozy in his presence. Not to mention that you absolutely love the way he towers over you.

In the midst of enjoying each other’s company, your father, among a couple of other players is keeping a watchful eye on the pair of you. The chemistry is palpable already and Yassine is the picture of a complete sweetheart but your father is naturally a little weary. However, he keeps quiet. Maybe this is a one-off moment that will pass.

It was not a one-off moment and it certainly wasn’t passing. He enters your bedroom to see you knocked out cold at normal hours in the night and hears your hotel room door opening at odd hours in the morning. He thinks he can hear you laugh and mumble quietly about something? Weirdly early for a night owl like you but he doesn’t want to pry. You've always loved exploring so perhaps it was just the excitement of being in Qatar that began waking you up early. It's a good habit to maintain, far more productive and healthy than waking up in the afternoon with no coherence for a good few hours. He's had enough stern talks with you throughout your teen years for that.

He really should have trusted his intuitions from observing the first encounter because the early mornings were in fact the only times you could spend with Yassine before training began. And you had learned to adapt to a normal sleep schedule so you could make it work. It was nothing too wild, just a couple of friends walking through the streets of Qatar… hand in hand… or an arm around your waist. You've shifted your sleep schedule and adjusted your body clock to a healthy one after years of being told off for the opposite. "Friends."

The pair of you had exchanged numbers after the Croatia match and couldn’t stop texting/calling/facetiming each other since. Every free minute he had, he rushed to his phone; eagerly checking his notifications and hoping to see the emoji he picked out for you pop up. His friends have began to notice the wide smiles whenever he checks his messages. Yassine, one of the most focussed and dedicated people they know, is all of a sudden counting down the minutes until he can look at his phone again.

“What has gotten into you, man?” Nayef asks, incredulously. Yassine returning from break about 5 minutes late.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, and I'm the queen of england. C’mon, spill.” Hakim retorts. He has a good idea of what's going on but is eager to be entertained by Yassine’s explanation.

“It’s nothing! Look, I’ll check my phone less often. This game is just a little addicting, that's all.”

“I sure hope that this is more than just a game to you.” Hakim smirks, narrowing his eyes as Yassine widens his.

“Huh? In what world does that make any sens- OH MY ALLAH YASSINE YOU LITTLE SNEAK! HOW COULD I FORGET YOU AND-” Yassine shushes the outburst quickly, panicking as he looks around and hoping that no one, especially Walid, has caught wind of that.

“Can you calm down for a second?! Fine, we’ve been talking a little bit here and there, nothing too serious.” he sighs with exasperation, so much for keeping things quiet.

“Please, you’ve practically been glued to that screen since the Croatia match. And this is you we’re talking about! You might as well start buying flowers already!” The boys cackle as Yassine blushes.

“I mean that's just stupid when she’s got a pollen allergy” He mumbles to himself with a small smile. He recalls one of your early morning walks together, opting to walk through one of the botanical gardens.

Your pinkie intertwined with his, you were talking about a show that you thought he would like and in the middle of your excited chatter you paused with a gasp. Your hand leaves his to cover your mouth and nose.

“Everything oka-” You sneeze, he doesn’t think anything could compare to how cute it was. You manage to pause for a second, hurriedly grabbing the medication from your purse and taking a couple of pills, you cover your nose with a tissue, sneezing again. His head is cocked to the side and he’s really trying to hold his smile off.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying my misery(!)” You jokingly cry out as you wipe the tears from your eyes. You sigh as the sneezing fit settles.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Would some flowers make it better?” You smack his arm as you laugh together. When you both calm down, he looks at you with a soft stare and you blush under it. He doesn’t mean to but there’s an intensity to him that has blood rushing to your cheeks whenever you make eye contact.

He dips his head down to press a sweet kiss to the tip of your nose and the blush darkens.

You respond by kissing his chin. He follows by kissing your forehead. You peck his cheek and he finally ends the suspense by kissing your lips. He originally intended for it to be quick but the second he makes contact, he can’t let go. They’re so soft and he’s addicted to the taste of the cherry lip balm you applied within seconds. His arms snake around your waist and your hands play with the hair on the back of his neck as he lifts you up in the air. You squeal in surprise and he smiles into the kiss. You reluctantly part to catch your breath but he holds your forehead to his, barely a second passes before he joins your lips again.

He wishes he could live that moment again and again and again…

“Earth to Yassine? Hellooooooooo? Anyone there?” Achraf calls, snapping his fingers and successfully pulling Yassine out of his flashback.

“You’re whipped already and it's been just over a week, man.” Hakim nudges him playfully as a blush returns to Yassine’s face. He’s not wrong.

You’re now sitting at the edge of your seat, smile widening as the extra time against Portugal comes to a close.

That morning, you had managed to sneak Yassine into your room. Your dad decided to give the boys some time to themselves, opting to run the final training session before the match a little bit later. He wanted them calm and well-rested before the most difficult competition they’ve had to face so far. Walid did not have this luxury and had to spend his time confirming all the necessary paperwork for the match. That proved advantageous for you as

You were sat up, with his head resting on your thighs. He relished the softness, loving the feeling of your fingers through his hair and lightly scratching his scalp and you felt comforted as the ache was settled by the weight of his head. You stayed quiet, allowing Yassine to vent all of his concerns about the match ahead. Somewhere in between, you lifted his hand up to your lips and kissed the bandages in an attempt to reassure him just a little bit. He pulls away from the warm of your thighs, lifting himself off to be level with you and pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. When you part, his eyes don't leave your own.

“Thank you” he whispers against your lips.

You can see the players pretty well from your seat. The tension was thick in the air as the Portuguese players flowed through the Moroccan defence with more ease than the preceding teams had managed. You see the pass that you’ve been dreading. Felix now has a hold on the ball and is quick to make a shot. You feel the tension leave your body and breathe out a heavy sigh as Yassine comes through with one of his world-class saves. The crowd cheers almost as if Yassine had scored himself. He probably could, knowing him. You can see your father sigh out in relief too, quietly celebrating with the other coaches; there was still a chance. You’d never felt more stress in your life than this.

Half-time is ticking to a close and you don’t have the best view of the free kick from your seat so you make do with squinting. The corner kick looks to have been miscalculated as Costa moves for it but you tense again, a smile making its way onto your face and eyes widening. There's no way.

He’s a second off the mark and you think you can see En-Neysri jump for the chance. The crowd erupts into cheers and you feel the electricity of the moment move through your body as the ball buries itself in the back of the net. You may not see the celebration from that end but you can see Yassine fall to his knees in relief. You can’t wait to see him when it's over.

There have been a couple more anxiety-inducing moments in the second half with Felix and CR7 himself taking multiple shots. You beam with pride as Yassine saves all of them.

One moment has you particularly stressed, however. A collision very similar to the one in that qualifier match has him tumbling to the ground. Your heart stops as you think about how you’re going to jump the barrier if he’s hurt again. The worries simmer down as Yassine gets up quickly, going to comfort and cradle the head of the man who caused the collision in the first place. You laugh with the crowd at the faux-intimate moment and the game continues.

The minutes are now running thin as the defence holds off the Portuguese attack until you finally hear the beautiful sound. The Moroccan team pours onto the field in exuberant celebration. They’ve just made history, done the impossible, and brought pride to so many people. Morocco are the first African nation to make it to the world cup semi-finals. Holy fuck, they've done it. Holy fuck.

You jump and scream with the crowd as the realisation settles in, they did it. Your father immediately races to you, requesting that the guards let you through the barrier as he wraps you in a tight hug. You’re both crying as your father’s hard work has finally proven to be worth it. All those days where your heart broke at his exhaustion, even apparent from the facetime that he’d been losing sleep over this. Those moments have been vindicated finally. Walid brings you onto the pitch to celebrate with the rest of the team. You go to hug Hakim and then run to Achraf who’s still laying on the ground, stunned by the moment. As you walk back to hug your dad once more, your eyes catch Yassine’s and you smile brightly. All you want to do is hug and kiss him but you know better than to make your blossoming relationship public before it's even begun. You also would prefer for your dad to find out before the public rather than with.

When you’re in the bunker, you manage to catch Yassine alone for a second and run over. There are still people around so you know you need to be careful but you have to talk to him. You tap his shoulder and his face breaks into a joyful smile the second he sees you.

“You were amazing out there, you know?”

“It feels so much better hearing it from you, sweetness.” You blush as he bends down to give you a quick peck on the cheek.

He’s then pulled by one of the coaches to the locker room so they can all get the celebration videos they need. The feeling of his lips lingers on yours as he leaves.

The party is buzzing with the excited chatter of players, coaches and family members celebrating the victory. You’re quietly admiring the surroundings and a certain someone brings an immediate grin to your face. He walks up to you and takes your hands in his.

“You look gorgeous, sweets.” a blush appears on your face as you rub little hearts into his palm.

“Could say the same about you” his smile is wide and bright and you wish he could stay this happy forever. You reach to adjust his tie and his hands wrap lightly around your wrists. he looks at you with a sappy, love-drunk haze glossing over his eyes.

Walid and Hakim are once again observing the moment.

“How could this even happen?” Walid asks, utterly confused by the scene unfolding. He may have had suspicions but this is very different.

“Your guess is as good as mine, coach” Hakim replies, amused by the events unfolding.

He feels a phone ring in his pocket, realising that he forgot to return it to you after making an emergency call. He sees the phone background and sighs out loudly in frustration. Its annoyingly adorable: Yassine’s head resting on top of yours as you both smile brightly for the camera

“I ought to talk some sense into him.”

“I get it but anyone can see how happy they look. And Yassine is probably the most reliable and harmless person we know. Maybe it’s worth a chance?” He hates to admit it but Hakim is right. His daughter deserved happiness and if that's with someone as lovely as Yassine, who’s he to stop it from happening?

“I can’t believe this is still going,” Walid comments.

Your relationship with Yassine has stood the test of time. you still look at each other in the same way, he still tells awful jokes, you still laugh and everything is just how it should be. Currently all wrapped up in soft boutique decor and the most luxurious dresses that Yassine insisted on you trying for the upcoming wedding. Walid doesn't catch exactly what Yassine has said but you're doubled over in laughter, the dress you're trying on crumpling on the floor as you try to catch your breath. All of the to-be bridesmaids are laughing too.

Walid would never admit but he’d grown very fond of the relationship himself, it brought him great joy knowing that his beloved daughter was so happy in such safe hands.

“C’mon, you have to admit that its kind of sweet.”

“Whatever” he holds back a smile shaking his head softly at the two of you. Completely and utterly content with each other’s presence.

And thats another bounou fluff complete! sorry that its a bit of a long one, i hope u enjoy anyway my lovelies xxx

#yassine bounou #yassine bono #yassine bounou x reader #yassine bounou imagine #footballer fic #footballer imagine

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theoneandonlyduskstrike · 6 months

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Ramblings Reuploaded #2

My Trans story so far (2024)

Hoi there, and happy trans day of visibility. I can't possibly be more vissible then this right? I had to share my story with someone a few months back when i came out to them, and ever since then i had the idea of making it my next post in this inconsistent and confusing series.

I say series because this is part two. Here's part 1 on...sonic cd. yup.

So the format is simple. I take something i already typed and try to make it more legible for a blog type racket. No reason not to get right into it. Beware of typos, and transphobes begone!

I'm a kid in a barber shop. My grandpa is talking up a storm to some random clerk. I'm extremely bored. There are some toys though. Poly pocket. I never seen these before. These are so cool. I wish i had one of these but they don't make boy versions right?

Some time in 2022, I was at work dealing with closing cleaning type things which let my mind wander. I started thinking about a fairly innocuous interaction I had in FFXIV no earlier then 2021. The race I wanted to play was gender locked so I was playing as a female character. Two players starting joking around with me and the whole time they used fem pronouns for me. I didn't think too much about it back then but on that day in late 2022 it made me question why I was so ok with that use of language towards me

That was the day my egg cracked.

I spent the rest of 2022 trying desperately to figure out what my relationship to gender was. Just what the heck was I and did that even mean anything? Maybe I was gender fluid. It was hard to feel fem at work. Or oh! Maybe i'm just a drag queen in the making. But why did I not want that to be true and did that mean anything? Well clearly i wasn't actually trans right? Nevermind that gender fluid was trans. I thought maybe that I only felt that way because I was playing a character. So I made up my mind. In 2023, at the start of a new year I would begin to experiment.

It's around the era of the nintendo wii and something is bothering me feircly. I spent days on my gamecube on my tiny crt and realized I was picking princess peach a lot on my precious 'cube. I confide in my friend that I really must have a crush on her. When pressed I can't say why. I'm so glad he doesn't embarss me for my stupid feelings. It was a little weird I didn't like her as much in that one game though. Not my fault she just looked better in a dress.

I stopped cutting my hair and started trimming my beard and prized mustache so I was always smooth and baby faced. Anyone who asked I simply told them that it was a new year and a new me. Except for my friends who were the first to know.

My imposter syndrome was HIGH. And it remaind so for a long time. so afraid was I that I was actually, secretly, a fake trans. I had no evidence for this except piss poor self confidence. I only talked myself out of it much later with the idea that "Being trans and just really thinking you're trans is functionally the same so it doesn't mater if i'm 'fake' "

Unfortunately, my friend group wasn't doing a lot of online gaming at the time. I got a little desperate to see if my new pronouns fit. To my shame I basically asked one of them to contrive reasons to put pronouns into a sentence so they had reasons to use my new ones. They did not oblige.

Another pokemon game for my precious nintendo 3ds. I pick the girl because clearly they'll have better fashion options. I had just learned my lesson from Pokemon Y. No other reason. A few other simular things. I pick up megaman zx for the first time and choose the girl because, obviously, only female megaman.

I got a break when I was invited to a short lived DND group. I started hanging out with a separate friend group I was already beginning to know before gender stuff started. With ample chances to try my gender out I realized that something felt right.

So I went deeper. I remember wandering around a good will trying not to draw ire or eyes as I went and both tried on a dress and managed to bring it home. The few times I wore it felt great. Would feel much better if it actually fit.

It's my childhood again and i'm sat in front of the ps1 with my little brother. Namco museum only had one true co-op game. Toy Pop. I pick the girl so he won't have to.

In days to come I kept experimenting. I started to realize all the small signs. You already know many of them. I've peppered them througout my story. Unbeknownst to me I had already started to experiment with gender. Awhile ago I, once again trying not to get attention, bought some thigh highs from a party store. I really enjoyed wearing those. Everyone except for me knew I was trans before me, including me.

When I was dead certain on my path I set up an appointment with planned parenthood. I told my grandparents I was simply heading to Dave and busters which was technically not untrue. I began my medical transition but I was also urged to come out to people. I couldn't live in the closet forever. So I did so with my very obviously gay manager… And it went nothing like I expected. It went well, but not how I thought. I ended up coming out to the whole work force as well.

The right wing had tricked me into thinking any "regular" person would react with shock and confusion on a reveal of my new gender identity. All the media I consumed had colaborated this.

I'm just entering furry twitter when I see quite a few posts of male characters in dresses, usuasly of the maid variety. How cute, i think. I'm allowed to do this one because it's a shared joke. So i draw the one dress.

And then a few more.

"I wish I could look as good as my characters do right now"

Eventually I managed to come out to my grandparents. They were confused but attempting to be accepting. Things have mostly been rocky in the sense that they haven't made any effort to treat me the way I ask, but they don't deny me. The parents who raised me are forbidden to know their daughter.

I even came out to my astranged mother. (seperate from my step mother mention a second ago). When I was in highschool she moved back in town and we started to rekindled our relationship. Being the first to know I was ace, it was a shock when she became a born again christian. I thought she'd never accept me and I was almost right. Behind closed doors she tells my younger sister to not refer to me by my pronouns, or so i'm told.

After I was out for awhile something weird happened and I stopped.. Policing my own behavior. How I held myself. The words I used. I was my own women. I didn't need to fit into a box. The more I went on the more free I felt!

I started holding my hands in gay little ways. I crossed my legs. I walked however the hell I wanted. I used 'hon' whenever i felt like it. I wore this cute little collar I owned out to my weekly dnd meetings. Who cares. I'm me now. This cat can't be boxed.

The longer I've been on this journey the more I felt right. And here we are now. A two year or more journey still ongoing

It's 2023 and i'm attempting to put on eyeliner for the first time. It goes horribly. I laugh, inform my friends of my mistake, and we play games through the night. I wear my favorite of the two dresses. I ask them if it's ok to do so. They laugh. What and absurd thing to ask. Why would a woman not be allowed to wear a dress?

I would like to thank a huge number of people for their help in my journey but my brain is mush so i'll try to get as many as I can

@tuttifruttifox my ex who's been supportive of my journey and put up with my experimentation @biddyfox girl you are my sister and I couldn't have done this without you. Thank you so much for everything. @bigbadkingboomboo for casually replying to my nervous bullshit with "ma'am this is mcdonalds" which was simultaneously very funny and very affirming.

@cynical-cy for being you. Honestly just being a out trans woman who's art I happened to enjoy did wonders I think. Sorry to tag you. I know we're not really friends.

@patricia-taxxon that one fucking video you made on just being a furry and doing your own thing litterally changed me. You made me stop hidding who and what i am.

Honorable mentions to my friend xio. he doesn't do tumblr, but He's been my best friend through everything and his support is invaluable to me. I love you buddy.

if you think you should be on this list too, let me know and i'll add you cause honestly it takes a village to raise a catgirl.

#trans #trans story #transition #trans joy #trans woman #ramblings

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mariacallous · 1 year

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Since 2018, conservative state legislatures across the country have proposed and passed laws targeting young transgender people’s freedom to to play on sports teams and use bathrooms that correspond with their gender, and to obtain gender-affirming health care. Advocates for trans rights argue that the increased interest in the subject has served to galvanize the energies of those who had fought an ultimately losing battle against gay marriage—and have observed how the anti-trans movement has used tactics that have proved successful in limiting abortion. As with much legislation of this type, amid the nationalized, culture-war politics, the effects are felt most acutely by the most vulnerable families and individuals.

In a startling piece of reporting in this week’s issue, Emily Witt follows a mother named Kristen Chapman who moves her family from Tennessee to Virginia, in order for her daughter Willow to continue receiving gender-affirming care. “I genuinely feel we are being run out of town on a rail,” Chapman says. “I am not being dramatic. It is not my imagination.” With nuance and compassionate precision, Witt captures the urgency of the family’s relocation, and the sense, as laws seem to change underfoot, of pursuit. As she writes, “Chapman had chosen Virginia for their new life, she said, because it was still in the South, but there would be ‘multiple avenues of escape.’ ”

On the last morning of July, Kristen Chapman was getting ready to leave Nashville. Chapman, who is in her early fifties and wears her silver hair short, sat on a camp chair next to a fire pit outside the rental duplex where her family had lived for twelve years. She was smoking an American Spirit and swatting at the mosquitoes that kept emerging from the dense green brush behind her. Her husband, Paul, who was wearing a T-shirt with the Guinness logo, carried boxes out to the front lawn. Their daughters, Saoirse and Willow, who were seventeen and fifteen, were inside, still asleep. Chapman looked down at the family’s beagle mix, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was drinking rainwater out of a plastic bucket. “We got him when we moved in here for the kids,” she said. “He’s never lived anywhere else.”

Paul was planning to stay in town; Chapman was heading to Richmond, Virginia, with Saoirse and Willow. Chapman and Paul’s marriage was ending, but the decision to split their family apart had happened abruptly. Willow is trans, and had been on puberty blockers since 2021. In March, Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee, had signed a bill that banned gender-transition treatment for minors across the state.

On paper, the law, which went into effect in early July, would allow trans teens like Willow to continue their medical care until March of 2024. But Chapman wasn’t sure they could count on that. Willow was determined to begin taking estrogen when she turned sixteen, in December of 2023, which would allow her to grow into adulthood with feminine characteristics. If she couldn’t continue taking puberty blockers until then, she would begin to go through male puberty, which could mean more surgeries and other procedures later in life.

At first, the family had hoped that the courts would declare the new law unconstitutional. Federal courts had already done so in at least four other states in 2023, finding that such bans violated the First Amendment and the equal-protection and due-process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. But that spring the Pediatric Transgender Clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Willow had been receiving care, informed its patients that it was ceasing operations. Seeing this as a bad sign, Chapman set up a GoFundMe page in early May and began planning their departure.

Inside, the apartment was filled with abandoned objects—an old Wi-Fi router, trash bags of unwanted clothes. A Homer Simpson doll in a hula skirt lay forgotten on a windowsill. Chapman, an artist who supplements her income with social work, had recently quit her job as a caseworker. She would need their landlord as a reference to get an apartment, especially because she had bad credit, but the family still owed him back rent. She checked Venmo, waiting on a loan from a friend.

At six-thirty that morning, Chapman had gone out to her white Dodge S.U.V. and found her younger daughter asleep in the back seat. Willow had gone over to a friend’s house and stayed out late. When she got home, she realized that she had locked herself out. The Dodge’s window had been stuck open for months, so she got in. “Any other human being would have handled this totally differently,” Chapman said, shaking her head.

Willow had gone back to sleep in her room, which she once shared with her brother. (He was a sophomore in college and had already moved out.) The colorful scarves and lights that used to decorate the space had been taken down. When she woke up, she began sifting through what was left. “I feel like I’m ready to say goodbye to it,” she said, looking around. There were drawings scrawled on the wall, a desk spattered in paint. “Most of the stuff in here I’ve trashed.”

“It’s like getting a new haircut,” Chapman said. “A fresh palette.”

Chapman had chosen Virginia for their new life, she said, because it was still in the South, but there would be “multiple avenues of escape.” Paul worked nights for a large grocery-store chain; Richmond was among the northernmost cities where it had branches, and Chapman thought that at some point he might be able to transfer there. Earlier in the summer, she and Willow had driven to Richmond to see the city, and Chapman had lined up a marketing job. It didn’t pay well, but she knew she wouldn’t get a lease without a job. Willow, who had received her last puberty-blocker shot at the Vanderbilt clinic in late May, was supposed to receive her next one in late August. They didn’t have a lot of time.

Despite having taken puberty blockers for two years, Willow looks her age. She is tall and long-limbed and meticulous about her appearance. That morning, she had on Y2K-revival clothes: wide-legged jeans worn low on the hips with a belt, a patterned tank top, and furry pink Juicy Couture boots. Her blond hair was glossy and straight, her bangs held back with a barrette. She is committed to living her adolescence as a girl regardless of what medical treatment she is allowed to receive. At times she has used silicone prosthetic breasts; attaching them is an onerous process involving spray-on adhesive.

From a very young age, Willow wore dresses and gravitated toward friendships with girls. Her parents thought that she would likely grow up to be a gay man. As Chapman put it, “We knew she was in the fam.” When a homophobic shooter killed forty-nine people at Pulse, the gay night club in Orlando, in 2016, Willow, who was eight at the time, accompanied her mother to a vigil in Nashville. Willow wrote a long message on a banner in solidarity with the survivors. Chapman took a photo of her there. “It was like she was transfixed,” Chapman remembered. In the sixth grade, Willow went to an all-girl sleepover. A parent overheard the kids discussing gender and sexuality, and told Chapman. Willow says that it was around then that she began to think about her identity. “Pretty much as soon as I knew about, like, conceptualized gender, I knew I wanted to be a girl,” she said. She had been an A student, but her grades started going down. Looking back, Willow struggled to articulate what had happened. “It just got complicated, like with all my stuff physically, it just felt like a mess,” she said.

She came out to her friends first; then one day, in the spring of 2020, while she was upstairs on her laptop and Chapman was downstairs working, Willow sent her mother a three-word e-mail that said, “I am trans.” Willow told me, “I realized I have to do this sometime if I want to advocate for myself and get what I need to get.” She left it to her mother to inform the rest of the family. Chapman was accepting; Paul was more skeptical. “That’s him, you know—a man of science,” Chapman said. “It wasn’t overly positive or negative.”

Willow had already decided on her new name before coming out, and began using it with friends. She was again reluctant to tell her family. “I was, like, I’ll keep that secret,” she said—she had been named at birth for a brother of her father’s who had died, and knew the name was important to him. Her mother found out when another mom referred to Willow by her chosen name. Chapman started using it right away; it took Paul another year.

To figure out their next steps, Chapman took Willow, who was then twelve, to her regular pediatrician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She was referred to the center’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic. The clinic, which opened in 2018, was part of a broader expansion of gender-affirming care at flagship medical schools in the South that occurred around that time. (Clinics also opened at Duke University, the University of Mississippi, and Emory University, among other schools.) These places “attracted the kind of people who build very trusting relationships with patients and are able to establish not just the clinical competencies but also an inclusive environment,” Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, the executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, an advocacy group for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, told me. “All those things are nothing you can take for granted when seeking medical care in the South.” (Federal funding for health care is often funnelled through state governments, some of which have a history of withholding money from providers that offer abortion and other politicized health services.)

Care for patients who are experiencing gender dysphoria is highly individualized: some trans kids opt for a purely social transition, changing their names or pronouns; others, like Willow, seek a medical transition, which can be started at the onset of puberty. In Willow’s case, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria had to be verified before pharmaceutical treatment could begin. A course of psychotherapy was accompanied by a physical assessment at Vanderbilt, which included ultrasounds, X-rays, and blood tests. The clinic was following a protocol supported by the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, whereby patients take puberty blockers—which have been used to treat children experiencing early-onset puberty since the nineteen-eighties—to delay the onset of secondary sex characteristics until they are ready to begin taking estrogen or testosterone.

“I’d always explain it to the families as a pause on puberty, allowing the youth to take a deep breath,” Kimberly Herrmann, a pediatrician and internist at Whitman-Walker Health, a provider in the Washington, D.C., area that offers gender-affirming care to patients aged thirteen and over, told me. (Some patients choose to go through their natal puberty.) “All of the data suggests that it is the correct thing to do for a patient with a clear diagnosis,” Izzy Lowell, a doctor who started a telehealth practice for gender-affirming care called QueerMed, said, of taking puberty blockers. “If they are going to develop the body of a grown man, it becomes difficult to undo those changes.”

Paul was worried about the blockers’ long-term effects on Willow’s health. (Studies have shown that they can affect bone density when used long term, and the protocol for hormone therapy advises doctors to discuss potential risks to fertility and options for fertility preservation.) Chapman thought the risks to Willow’s well-being would be worse if she developed male secondary sex characteristics. In one testimony against the Tennessee ban, an adult trans woman described her adolescence, in which she attempted to present as male, as “a disastrous and torturous experience.”

“Paul and I talked about it and came to the belief that we wanted her on them as quickly as possible for safety reasons,” Chapman said. “I hate that that’s true, but we know that’s the world that we live in, and that she is going to be a safer person for the rest of her life if she does not look male.” (A recent analysis of crime statistics from 2017 and 2018 found that transgender people are more than four times as likely as cisgender people to be the victims of a violent crime.)

The evaluation and diagnosis took almost a year. For Willow, the talk therapy was the most taxing part. Willow was insured through the state’s Medicaid program, TennCare, which meant that there were only a limited number of therapists she could see, none of whom were trans, or even queer. She went through three in a year. “We were in the lowest tier of care,” Chapman said, adding that at least one therapist dropped their health insurance. Willow told her mother that she wished she could just be left alone to be a “sad trans girl.”

At the age of thirteen, she was finally able to start puberty blockers. “You have an end goal,” Willow said of the experience. “And all the in-between doesn’t matter.”

In September, 2022, the conservative commentator and anti-trans activist Matt Walsh, who moved to Nashville in 2020 (along with his employer, the conservative news company the Daily Wire), posted a thread on Twitter. “Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors,” it began. “But it gets worse.” Walsh—who is the author of books including “Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians” and “What Is a Woman?,” a polemic arguing that gender roles are biologically determined—worked in conservative talk radio before being hired by the Daily Wire as a writer, in 2017. Last year, the left-wing watchdog group Media Matters for America mapped Walsh’s origins as an aspiring radio shock jock in the early twenty-tens who once said, “We probably lost our republic after Reconstruction.” In 2022, he was one of several right-wing social-media pundits who began broadcasting misinformation about hospitals that provided gender-transition treatment for minors, which were then overwhelmed with phone and e-mail threats and online harassment. One study found that more than fifteen hospitals modified or took down Web sites about pediatric gender care after being named in these campaigns.

Walsh included in his thread about Vanderbilt a video clip of Shayne Taylor, the medical director of its Transgender Clinic, speaking of top and bottom surgeries as a potential “money-maker” for the hospital. Walsh did not specify that Taylor was mostly speaking about adults. (Vanderbilt never performed genital surgery on underage patients and did an average of five top surgeries a year on minors, with a minimum age of sixteen.) More than sixty Republican state legislators signed a letter to Vanderbilt describing the clinic’s practices “as nothing less than abuse.” In a statement calling for an investigation, Governor Lee, who was up for reëlection, said that “we should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children.” Within days, Vanderbilt announced that it would put a pause on surgeries for minors. Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee’s Republican attorney general, began an inquiry into whether Vanderbilt had manipulated billing codes to avoid limitations on insurance coverage.

In October, Walsh and other anti-trans advocates held a “Rally to End Child Mutilation” in Nashville’s War Memorial Plaza. The speakers included the Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn, the former Democratic Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, and Chloe Cole, a nineteen-year-old self-described “former trans kid.” After identifying as male from the age of twelve, receiving testosterone, and getting top surgery, Cole de-transitioned to female at sixteen and is now one of the country’s foremost youth advocates of bans on gender-transition treatment for minors. “I was allowed to make an adult decision as a traumatized fifteen-year-old,” she said at the rally.

For the past four years, the number of anti-trans bills proposed throughout the United States has dramatically risen. The A.C.L.U. has counted some four hundred and ninety-six proposals in state legislatures in 2023, eighty-four of which have been signed into law. The first state ban on gender-transition treatment for minors was passed in Arkansas in 2021. It was permanently blocked by a federal judge this year, but more than twenty states have passed similar laws since then. As lawsuits filed by the A.C.L.U., Lambda Legal, and other organizations make their way through the courts, trans people are left to navigate a shifting legal landscape that activists say has affected clinical and pharmaceutical access. Lowell told me that she consults with six lawyers (including one she keeps on retainer) to best advise patients, who must frequently drive across state borders to receive care. “It’s literally a daily task to figure out what’s legal where,” she said.

In Tennessee, the Human Rights Campaign has counted the passage of at least nineteen anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws since 2015, among the most in the nation. Some of these laws have been found unconstitutional, such as a ban on drag shows in public spaces and a law that would have required any business to post a warning if it let transgender people use their preferred rest room. But many others have gone into effect, such as laws that censor school curricula and ban transgender youth from playing on the sports teams that align with their identity.

Proposals to ban gender-transition treatment for minors were the first bills introduced in the opening legislative sessions of the Tennessee House and Senate in November, 2022. “It was Matt Walsh who lit a fire under the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party this year,” Chris Sanders, the director of a Nashville-based L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group called Tennessee Equality Project, told me. “It was lightning speed the way it all unfolded.” At hearings throughout the winter, parents of trans kids, trans adults, trans youth, and a Memphis pediatrician who provides gender-affirming care testified against the ban. Those who spoke in support of it included Walsh, Cole (who is from California), and a right-wing Tennessee physician named Omar Hamada, who compared such treatment to letting a minor who wanted to become a pirate get a limb and one eye removed.

L.G.B.T.Q. activists who attended described feeling disregarded by the Republican majority. Molly Quinn, the executive director of OUTMemphis, a nonprofit that helps trans youth navigate their health care, likened the experience to “being the only queer kid at a frat party.”

Three months after Governor Lee signed the ban, Vanderbilt University Medical Center informed patients that the previous November, at the attorney general’s request, it had shared non-anonymized patient records from the Pediatric Transgender Clinic, including photographic documentation and mental-health assessments. “I immediately started hearing from parents,” Sanders said. Their fear stemmed in part from attempts in states like Texas to have the parents of trans kids investigated by child-protective services. (The attorney general’s office said in a statement that it is “legally bound to maintain the medical records in the strictest confidence, which it does.”) Former patients have sued Vanderbilt, and a federal investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services is also under way. (A spokesperson for Vanderbilt declined to comment for this article.)

In July, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal court in the country to allow a ban on gender-transition treatment for minors to take effect, with a final ruling planned for September. Chapman, who had spoken out for trans rights through local media outlets, and had been targeted with online threats and menacing phone calls in return, understood that Tennessee, where she had lived for most of the past thirty-five years, had become a hostile environment for her family. “I genuinely feel we are being run out of town on a rail,” she said. “I am not being dramatic. It is not my imagination.”

It was dusk by the time Paul had loaded the last of the boxes into three storage pods. Everything was ready, but the family was having trouble leaving. Someone would walk out of the house and get into the car, only to go back into the house five minutes later. Chapman suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to buy padlocks for the storage pods, which were scheduled to be picked up by U-Haul the next day. As she drove off to get them, Paul sat on the back steps and stared out at the lawn. Fireflies were winking on and off over the grass.

“Bollocks,” he said to himself, then stood up and went inside.

Although comprehensive demographic data on transgender youth are scarce, the American Academy of Pediatrics has reported that “research increasingly suggests that familial acceptance or rejection ultimately has little influence on the gender identity of youth.” But without parental consent most kids in America who wish to transition medically are legally unable to do so until they turn eighteen. Having a supportive parent or guardian as a trans child is more than a legal or practical advantage, though. A study of eighty-four youth in Ontario, aged sixteen to twenty-four, who identified as trans and had come out to their parents found that the rate of attempted suicide was four per cent among those whose parents were strongly supportive but that nearly sixty per cent of respondents who described their parents as not supportive had attempted suicide in the previous year.

Chapman’s decision to support her daughter grew in part out of her own experience as a black sheep in a deeply religious family. She was born in East Tennessee to a Baptist minister and his wife and had an itinerant upbringing, moving around the South. The last words her grandfather, who was also a Baptist minister, said to her were “I’m so sorry I’m not gonna see you in Heaven.”

Paul was raised in Dublin, Ireland, as the youngest of twelve children in a Catholic family. “We both came from communities that were super fundamentalist,” Chapman said. They agreed that they would raise their children outside of any religious tradition. If they had a doctrine, Chapman said, it was “critical thinking.” They brought their kids to Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and took them to hear the Georgia congressman and civil-rights activist John Lewis speak. But Paul and Kristen would also listen to the far-right radio host Rush Limbaugh, to know what the other side was saying. As the children got older, Paul and Kristen started to have different visions of the future—Kristen wanted to buy an R.V. and travel the country, and Paul wanted to buy a house. In 2019, they decided to separate, but they couldn’t afford to split their family into two households.

Paul at first had trouble understanding how Willow could decide about her gender so young. Kristen would argue, “If a person presents and says, ‘This is who I am,’ it is not your job to unpack that.” In the end, it was by talking to two trans women—a co-worker in her fifties and a twentysomething bartender at the pub he frequented—that Paul came to understand his daughter better. “Reading online was too much right-wing or left-wing,” he said. “I needed something more grounded.” The bartender told him that her father had rejected her, and that she had scars on her arms from self-harm. “I said, no matter what, I wasn’t doing that,” Paul recalled.

Willow had told me that one of the hardest parts of leaving town was doing so while her relationship to her father was still evolving. “I feel like my biggest unfinished business is that relationship,” she said the day before the move, over boba tea in a strip mall called Plaza Mariachi. “I think I’ve dealt with it. We’ll talk on the phone. Even if we don’t have an in-person connection, I think we’ll be O.K.”

Once they all managed to leave the house for the last time, Paul gave Chapman and each daughter a hundred dollars in cash as a parting gift. The family had dinner at Panera Bread, then sat for a while at a nearby park. Paul cancelled two Lyfts before finally getting in one and heading to the pub, where he would try to process the day. Chapman and the girls got in the white Dodge and took I-24 out of Nashville.

L.G.B.T.Q.-rights activists around the country have seen the sudden uptick in bills targeting transgender identity as a strategy to rally conservative voters after the legalization of gay marriage and the criminalization of abortion. “There was an inordinate amount of money and attention and huge far-right groups, many of which have been deemed hate groups, focussed on keeping us as L.G.B.T.Q. people from getting married, right?” Simone Chriss, a Florida-based lawyer, told me. Chriss is representing trans people in several lawsuits against the state over its restrictions on gender-affirming care. She observed that, after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, in 2015, “all of the people singularly focussed on that needed something else to focus on.”

She recalled watching as model legislation propagated by groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council targeted trans people’s freedom to use bathrooms of their choice, and to play on their preferred sports teams. Health care came next. “All of a sudden, you see this surge in gender-affirming-care bills,” Chriss said. “And what’s bananas is there was not a single bill introduced in a single state legislature prior to 2018.”

The anti-trans rhetoric about protecting children mirrored that of the anti-gay-marriage movement, she continued, and new rules mandating waiting periods, for example, were familiar from the anti-abortion movement. “It’s like dipping a toe in by making it about trans children,” she said. “I think the goal is the erasure of trans people, in part by erasing the health care that allows them to live authentically.”

Beach-Ferrara, of the Campaign for Southern Equality, said her organization estimates that more than ninety per cent of transgender youth in the South live in states where bans have passed or will soon be in effect, and that between three and five thousand young people in the South will have ongoing medical care disrupted by the bans. (The Williams Institute at U.C.L.A. estimates that there are more than a hundred thousand thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds who identify as trans living in the South, more than in any other region in the country.) Already, university hospitals such as the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Medical University of South Carolina have discontinued their pediatric gender services before being legally required to do so.

Had Chapman stayed in Tennessee, Willow’s closest option for getting puberty-blocker shots would likely have required a four-hundred-and-fifty-mile trip to Peoria, Illinois. Willow’s TennCare insurance would not easily travel, and a single shot can cost twelve hundred dollars out of pocket. Paul had told Chapman not to be ashamed if the move didn’t work out and she changed her mind, but she already knew she would never go back to Nashville.

On their way east, the family stopped for a few days in Seneca, South Carolina, where Chapman has relatives. Back on the road, she tried not to focus on the uncertainty that awaited her and her daughters, but she had to pull over at least twice to breathe her way through anxiety attacks. There was a heat wave, and by the time they arrived in Richmond the back speakers of the S.U.V. were blown out, and everyone was in a bad mood. Willow had snapped at her mother and Saoirse for trying to sing along to the Cranberries; she had even yelled at the dog. “It was difficult?” Willow told me afterward, when I asked how the trip had been; then she added, “I’m still excited.” (Saoirse declined to be interviewed.)

Chapman had booked an Airbnb, a dusty-blue bungalow outside Richmond. It had good air-conditioning and a small back yard for the dog. She could afford only a week there before they would have to move to a motel. That night, Willow zoned out to old episodes of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in the living room, while Chapman scrolled through real-estate listings on her phone. She asked for advice on the social-media feeds of local L.G.B.T.Q. groups, and the responses were heartening. She decided that, if she was able to find a place to live by the end of the week, she would not take the marketing job she had lined up. School wouldn’t start for a few weeks, and it was not the right moment to leave her daughters alone all day.

At eight the next morning, Chapman was sitting in an otherwise empty waiting room at the Southside Community Services Center, filling out forms to get the family food stamps and health insurance. She had put on makeup for the first time in days and was wearing wide-legged leopard-print pants and a black shirt. She had forgotten her reading glasses, however. “Do you have a spouse who does not live at home?” she read out loud, squinting her way through the questions. “Yes,” she answered to herself, checking a box. (She and Paul are not yet divorced.)

Chapman kept mistakenly writing “Willow” on the government forms—she had never officially changed her daughter’s name. (A 1977 Tennessee state law that prohibits amending one’s gender on a birth certificate will apply to Willow no matter where she moves; another Tennessee law, which went into effect this past July, bans people from changing the gender on their driver’s license.) Chapman picked up the next batch of forms, for Medicaid. “One down, one to go,” she said.

Later in the day, Chapman and her daughters went to see a house that was advertised on Craigslist, an affordable three-bedroom in the suburbs of Richmond. As they were driving, the owner texted Chapman that he had a flat tire and couldn’t meet them. But the place looked ideal from the outside, so she filled out an application and sent the landlord a thousand-dollar deposit. At five the next morning, she woke up and saw a text from the owner claiming that the money transfer had not gone through. She quickly realized she’d been scammed.

Chapman became weepy. She posted on social media about the con, then drove Saoirse to a thrift store she wanted to visit. At first, only one shopper noticed the woman crying uncontrollably in the furniture section. Then someone went to find some tissues, and someone else brought water. Soon, Chapman recalled, she was surrounded by women murmuring words of sympathy.

That evening at the Airbnb, Chapman and Willow sat at the kitchen table. “The emotional impact of the scam hit me way more than the money,” Chapman said, still tearing up at the thought of it. Willow nodded in sympathy. But for Chapman the experience was also a reminder of the advantages of talking about their situation—the women had told her that the schools near the house were not very good, anyway. “Thrift-store people will help you when you’re down and out. They’re used to broken shit,” she said, shaking her head. “If I had broke down in a Macy’s? Think how different the reaction would be.”

The next morning, Chapman was feeling a little less pessimistic. The humidity had broken, and the weather was good. People had responded to the news of the scam by donating money to replace what she had lost, and a local Facebook group had led her to a property-management company that was flexible toward tenants with bad credit.

She drove to see a three-bedroom apartment in a centrally situated part of Richmond. Though one of the bedrooms was windowless, the place was newly painted, and it had a wooden landing out back that could serve as a deck. It was also in a school district that people had recommended. “I can see this working,” Chapman said tentatively. Most of the utilities were included in the sixteen-hundred-and-fifty-dollar rent. Chapman didn’t have time to overthink it. She wrote the real-estate agent saying she would apply.

That afternoon, Chapman drove Willow to see the apartment. The door was locked, but Willow climbed through a window and opened the door so they could consider the space together. “We were, like, ‘Oh, this is nice,’ ” Willow said. She loved the neighborhood, which had vintage stores and coffee shops. “You can walk anywhere, you don’t need transportation—that’s really cool.”

The next day, Willow was sitting on a couch in the Airbnb watching a slasher film called “Terrifier.” Chapman was next to her, getting ready for a Zoom call with someone from a local trans-rights organization called He She Ze and We.

In the weeks leading up to the move, Chapman had taken time to research which schools were friendly to trans people. Willow estimated that maybe half the students in her middle school in Nashville were transphobic, and twenty per cent were explicit about it. She was bullied, but she says that it didn’t bother her. Her teachers were more supportive, such as the one who gave her an entire Lilith Fair-era wardrobe. “She was, like, ‘Do you want some of my old clothes? Because you’re so fashion,’ ” Willow said. “I had that black little bob.”

“She had Siouxsie Sioux hair for a while,” Chapman said, looking at her fondly.

The two of them agree that Willow’s personality shifted after transitioning. Once withdrawn and nonconfrontational, she began to develop a defiant attitude. “It was kind of fun to just mess with them,” she recalled of the bullies, who she said were not vicious but more into trying to get a laugh—“like, childish, immature stuff.” She would be coy; she would tell them to give her a kiss. “My only weapon, I guess, was how I chose to respond,” she said.

“She’s not a shrinking violet,” her mother added.

“I just don’t like the traditional way that you’re taught to stand up for yourself,” Willow said. “I think absurdism is the best way.” If she lets someone misgender her, she said, “it’s not because I don’t want to be the annoying trans person, it’s more like . . . you’re not gonna get to those people.”

In her freshman year, she attended a public arts high school, and began skipping class and smoking. She says there were at least ten other students who identified as trans, but she remained something of an outsider. When she was in school, she says, she almost thought of herself as a kind of character expected to perform.

Chapman is not a disciplinarian—she had enough of that growing up. But she had a conversation with her daughter after watching a video of an incident in which Willow was voguing in a school hallway, attempted to do a death drop, and ended up with a concussion. The students around Willow were clapping and egging her on even after she fell. “It’s great that you’re the kind of person who will do crazy things,” Chapman remembered saying, “but you need people around you who are not like that.” Both Chapman and Paul worry about Willow’s safety, in part because she is not easily scared herself.

“Will you turn that off?” Chapman said now about the horror film, as she logged on to Zoom. Willow took that as a cue to leave the room.

“You’re going to want to be on this thing,” Chapman said, calling her back.

Willow, who wore blue eyeshadow, a purple baby tee with a peace sign and the word “Smile!” on it, and magenta-pink shorts, plopped back down on the couch, then got up to retrieve supplies to disinfect her belly-button piercing, which she began to do with studiousness.

On Zoom, Chapman introduced herself to Shannon McKay, the co-founder of He She Ze and We, and gave a summary of their situation.

“Have you gotten connected with the medical piece yet?” McKay asked. She explained that, in Virginia, Willow might not have to wait until she turned sixteen to start estrogen. At this news, Willow looked up and made eye contact with her mother, who nodded back.

The conversation turned to politics. Earlier in the week, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia, had held a town hall on parents’ rights at a school in Henrico County. A parent there had urged Youngkin to introduce a ban on gender-transition treatment for minors.

“Our governor, just to let you know, has not taken a stance,” McKay, who also has a trans daughter, explained to Chapman. “And I think he’s not conservative enough for the folks that wish he would be.”

In July, Youngkin had issued a series of rules that direct trans kids to use pronouns and bathrooms that accord with the gender they were assigned at birth, unless they have parental permission to do otherwise. Chapman asked McKay if that gave her some control over how Willow would be treated at school.

“The clincher here is, even if all parents involved do fill out the form and say, ‘We’re all on board,’ school personnel can still say, ‘I don’t believe in that. I’m not going to do it,�� ” McKay said. She did have some good news, however: if Willow learned to drive, she could determine the name and gender on her identification card.

“I’m not ready for it,” Chapman said, referring to the driving.

“Well, before this governor messes it up, I encourage people to go ahead and get these documents lined up,” McKay said.

Chapman got the apartment she and Willow had visited, and a few days later the family moved in. Willow started at her new school on Tuesday, August 22nd. She made friends with another trans girl in the first week. But, despite a letter from Chapman specifying Willow’s name and pronouns, school administrators told her they had to use the name on her registration. She was also told she should use the nurse’s bathroom instead of the girls’ bathroom, even though it was on a different floor and might cause her to be late to class. Willow ignored that rule, and asked her mother not to intervene on her behalf.

Before the school year had begun, Chapman told me that if school didn’t work out she would be fine with her daughter getting a G.E.D. When I asked Willow about the future, she said that she wants to move to New York City. She wants to go to the balls, “maybe be a model, I don’t know,” she continued. “I like doing art. I like meeting people. I don’t know how to connect all of those things and get paid.”

“You care more about personal freedom than hitting a milestone,” Chapman said. “You care less about the traditional high-school things, the traditional college things.”

“I feel like I should care about them,” Willow said.

“Oh!” Chapman said, looking surprised. “I like hearing that.”

“I’m open—like, I could potentially care about them, but if it’s not welcoming me then I won’t,” Willow said.

The day in August when Willow needed her puberty-blocker shot came and went. The family’s insurance still had not come through, and the earliest appointment Chapman could get at a clinic with tiered pricing was in mid-September. An administrator at the clinic assured her that there was a window with puberty blockers, and that Willow’s voice would not drop overnight.

I talked to Chapman the evening after the appointment. “We thought we were just going in for an intake, but they started Willow on estrogen today,” Chapman told me over the phone. “The doctor was in shock that Willow had been on puberty blockers for two years and that she was almost sixteen.” (“It’s really hard for cis people to fully appreciate the deep destabilizing physical betrayal that these kids are navigating on a day-to-day basis,” the doctor, Stephanie Arnold, told me. “It’s a period where you should be establishing confidence in yourself and your ability to interact with the outside world.”) Willow, Chapman added, “is over the moon.” They called Paul to let him know. “After every fucking thing . . . it just happened,” she said.

The following Monday, Chapman started a new job, counselling people on signing up for Medicaid. She was earning less than she had in Nashville, but hoped to rebuild her career as an artist and a community organizer.

The family was getting to know Richmond, with its restored Victorian row houses and stately parks. Using the hundred dollars from her father, Willow had bought herself a skateboard to get around town. Paul was planning a visit for October. “This city is just dang cute, let’s be honest,” Chapman said. They had found a leftist bookstore where she had bought Willow a book of poetry by trans writers. When I asked Willow how she felt on estrogen, she said that it was too early to discern any changes with clarity; what she felt, she said, was more vulnerable. A little more than a month in, Willow said that she was liking her new school and had even attended the homecoming dance. “And my grades are O.K.,” she added. “So that’s something.”

On September 28th, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban on gender-transition treatment for minors in Tennessee. The court found, among other things, that state legislatures can determine whether the risks of gender dysphoria are less significant than the risks of treating it before a patient turns eighteen. A dissenting opinion stated, “The statutes we consider today discriminate based on sex and gender conformity and intrude on the well-established province of parents to make medical decisions for their minor children.” Because the federal appeals courts have split in their findings, with other circuits finding such bans unconstitutional, the issue has the potential to proceed to the Supreme Court.

“I know what’s going on,” Willow had said, when I asked her about politics. She doesn’t see herself as an activist, though; she prefers to let the news filter through her mother rather than to consume it herself: “She’s my person on the inside.”

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catnipsims · 1 year

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BESTIE @aliengirl tagged me, thankou !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sims Tag

1. What’s your favourite sims death? The city living pufferfish one 😭 its kinda silly hgishughuhdg

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? well i used to be maxis match but idk anymore hiushguriugiosrhig alpha cc is so pretty on the previews but often looks... crunchy????? in game... so i guess i tend to stick to mostly mm???

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? I've never played far enough of any household to notice weight gain 😭😭😭

4. Do you use move objects? GIRL YES 😍😍

5. Favorite mod? i CANNOT live without more columns in cas & no cc wrench 😭😭

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? first one i got back when my game was still a legal copy was city living !

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? LIVing !!!!!!!!!!!!!

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? i have an unhealthy attachment to veronique, the model sim i made back in 2020. (Shes the one i used to model my recent Octavia hair) her tag

9. Have you made a simself? yes on multiple occasions 😭here

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? I just choose random ones most of the time???? but after checking creative seems to be a common one??

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? Oh the fourth one, that new warm brown one, i keep needing to restrict myself from using it on every single sim i ever make....

12. Favorite EA hair? really love the short parted one from the free update back in september?????? of 2021

13. Favorite life stage? the few times ive tried playing in live mode its been young adults so that one????????

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? im only ever really in cas eiughisghiruhg. i build sometimes but i really never play in live mode so i guess builder????????????

15. Are you a CC creator? well im supposed to be but cc creating is just on the backburner rn 🤭 also bugfixing gives me anxiety

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? i have the 5-ish mutuals that i keep harassing with my silly comments, but definitely no full on squad

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) ts4 was the first one i got, and the only one ive really played, so i guess that one

18. Do you have any sims merch? nough 🥰😍🤪👍

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? i tried and forgot about it 😭😭😭 so currently no

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? i think i used alpha cc back in like 2017????????????? and then i transitioned to my hardcore maxismatch era back during the early times of this simblr if you were there no you dont i ate your memories of me and now its just all over the place (maxis mix????????? idk)

21. What’s your Origin ID? i think its just catnipsims????? i could be wrong but i dont use the gallery anyway....

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? oh thats a difficult question 😭😭 id say @pralinesims, @simandy, @clumsyalienn, and @marsosims !!!!!!!!!!

23. How long have you had a simblr? since summer of 2019 i think???? yes i was 12 dont bully me

24. How do you edit your pictures? editing???? never heard of her.... no but i use photoshop for whatever minor adjustments i want to make through liquify and adjusting contrast and whatnot

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? any occult related anything will fullfill my sim creating needs 🤭🤭

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? since im so rarely in live mode i dont really have any opinion on gameplay ghihuighruie but i really really love the aesthetics of snowy escape in like every aspect but gameplay (cas, buildbuy, world etc.)

tag @barbieaiden, @marsosims, @eva-andsomenumbers, @avornalino, @woosteru, @ravensim, @wastelandwhisperer / @adrasteamoon, @radical-sims, & @chelseasasimmer and anyone else who i forgor 😭😭 sorry my brain is not the best

#tag game #simblr

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thelioncourts · 1 year

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Okay, please share what it was like watching Sam and Jacob being cast back when the announcement was made! Curious to see what fans of the book thought when they saw them. And Bailey!

!! so I followed anne religiously on social media (naturally) and remember vividly when she sold the rights in 2016. i had called my friend v and was like 'WE'RE GETTING TVC' and she and i freaked out. but then it just. didn't happen. and there would be news, and then nothing, and then news sometimes, then nothing. i remember the last kind of "big" thing i saw was an article in 2019 (which i posted on my instagram story so it's in my archive lol) that ultimately, at the time, led to nowhere.

(i feel like the article was about the show moving from the original network that had it OR was about the showrunner changing, because there's a whole story there too)

anyway, i very much became a 'i'll believe it when i see it' kind of person and didn't check too much into anything.

then all of a sudden: august 2021.

i'm sitting in my shitty apartment, getting ready for my first year of teaching and nauseous at the thought, and i'm doom-scrolling and amc has put out casting announcements. and i absolutely lost my mind.

you see, there have been fancasts and everything since the books came out, and i have seen some pretty insane casting suggestions for tvc. i remember cody fern was a big fancast for lestat around this specific time period. i, personally, had very much made up my mind that i didn't want to know the actors that got cast as lestat and louis, specifically, because i would have preconceived notions of who they were and would get in my head.

i saw jacob's casting announcement first and had a very mixed set of emotions. i sort of vaguely knew jacob from got; i never really watched got, but my parents did and i would see about everything in passing. he was my mom's fave character <3 but! i had not real opinion of him other than he was beautiful and for that i very much approved. i will say, however, that when the casting announcement was first made i didn't know/they hadn't said (??) about the time change and i spent a lot of time really confused how he was going to play a 1700s wealthy plantation owner :)) and then when i learned of the time change his casting made sense, but it added this whole different level of anxiety because like ?????? what did that meannnnnn for me. but i knew he was talented and i knew he was beautiful and i was like 'this is fine. i trust this' and like ?????????? oh my god did strike gold with jacob anderson. beautiful, stunning, talented, otherworldly boy.

i saw sam's casting announcement second and i need to preface it with this: since 2016 i had lived in this state of almost fear at the idea of casting lestat. lestat walks so many lines, lines of villain and hero and lover and antagonist and beauty and monster and prince and pauper and vampire and human and mentor and student and father and son and husband and etc. etc. etc. like lestat is fully, 100000% the hardest casting because he really is the vampire chronicles. i did not know sam reid when i saw him. the picture they posted for the announcements was with very short hair, a fair amount of stubble, and i remember looking at him and thinking that i couldn't really see it but also i've seen amazing transformations and so i was like 'we'll see.' i purposefully did not look up ANYTHING about him, did not watch anything he was in, to avoid getting in my head. it wasn't until SDCC that i really took the time to look at him and, in hopefully the least weird way possible, i have never been more attracted to another person in my entire life. and so much of it was centered on personality. like hollywood is full of beautiful people so it wasn't just that sam is incredibly attractive and stunning, but the way he spoke of the books, of lestat, of loustat, his utter understanding of what this was, how important it is, him having a multitude of copies of the books, some since his adolescence, just -- everything. and then, of course, i watched iwtv and i can't believe i ever questioned if someone could play lestat the way he need to be played because sam is the definition of perfection. he is everything, he is superb. he is unmatched in his talent and we're so fucking lucky to have him.

bailey made me nervous too, namely the age change! anyone that's read iwtv knows that the true horror of claudia is the idea of this FIVE. YEAR. OLD. CHILD. running around in that child body for eternity. being a woman in that body. and so making her 14 was like :)) like i got it from a filming perspective; if you cast an actual 5/6 year old and it takes three/four years to film the first two seasons (as it is) then suddenly she's 8-10 years old and the growth of a child from 5 to 8 or any of the other options is just crazy !!!! but also i was like oh nooooooooooooo a time period change and a significant claudia age change whyyyyy and then i watched it and it was perfect. and bailey was this perfect love child of sam and jacob's likeness and she embodied so many of lestat and louis' traits in a way that made her so much their child it was scary.

and basically it was my nervousness at the time period change and casting lestat and the aging up of claudia all being proven to be utterly beautiful things, perfect and a gift, truly, to this story that made me decide, then and there, that i would not question these writers until i felt like there was something right on my screen that made me. i would trust all of their changes, all of their choices, because they have yet to ever let me down.

and the casting -- i know so many of us have talked about it, but we are so incredibly lucky on all fronts. beautifully talented and wonderfully kind people are playing our vampires. what more could we ever ask for????

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc iwtv

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ateliernayo · 1 year

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I did it! I reworked this piece i made in 2021. Some little details were bothering me actually, so i tried to change some of them and i finally GOT the result i wanted!

Cropped a bit of the background so sheena and zelos are not Lost in the image and this light effect are adding depth to the pièce ✨ really happy with it.

Anyway, short story Time

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

11 pm, Mizuho was calm and silent, there was some flower's leftovers spreaded on the dirt paths of the village. Each home had a little incese stick burning in their porch.

It would soon be a week since igaguri passed... In a day or two mizuhohans would stop all the ceremonial, his soul would be guided to the right place already.

People had to grieve their guide, their leader, their chief and soon sheena would be their New one. She already did everything to take over igaguri's responsabilities... But she was still grieving a lot... Too much, to be honest, so people were kinda worried about how the next operations and missions would go if she didn't recover.

For once, they were glad the former Chosen was here, at her side. Usually when Zelos came to visit Sheena, he was not really the most welcome, mizuhohans don't really appreciate outsiders in their precious village. But they were kinda used now to see him sometimes.

The village was silent, until a loud sound came from sheena's hut. As if a piece of heavy fourniture fell on the floor.

Paper flew to the ground while the little table she was using as her desk was flipped to a corner of the room.

She was panting, a pearl of tear in the corner of her eye.

Zelos was sitting behind her, not far away in the little room; waiting for her to calm down. He didn't interfere, nor said anything. He observed her figure from head to toes and her legs became a bit shaky. She Took her face in her hands and fell her knees to the ground, right next to a finished bottle of sake.

" how am i supposed to do all of this? why did he want ME to be their chief? I'll never be able to make it... " she said out of breath

" you know that you are able, hun." Zelos assured serving himself a last cup of sake, almost finishing the second bottle. "He knew you are brave enough, strong enough, wise enough to be their lead. Plus you are dead sexy too"

Sheena flipped to face him, her hair a bit messy, and her cheeks a strong Shade of red, she pouted semi angrily, and a bit drunk-like. She wanted to reply something but nothing went to her mouth, she watched him sip his cup and put it by his side on the floor as if he did not drank a drop of it before this last cup, then he began to take his gloves off.

" it's hot in there, this sake is kinda strong tho, i may have drank too much, and so do you" he said pointing his index to her.

She watched him silently, a strange feeling growing inside her. Why this stupid Chosen was this handome? But why was he so annoying? Why was he there at her house since igaguri passed ? Why did he not headed back to meltokio instead of annoying her everyday?

He stayed, for..her? Sure her grandpa was not his priority. But He Always wait silently by her side, rubbing her shoulder, her hand or her head when she cried. He had made breakfasts and dinners cheering her to eat at least a bit, because she wasn't hungry at all since then. He even called her by her name more than by those stupid nicknames... he respected her boundaries?? At least he tried and she noticed only now... It have been minutes she was watching him, saying nothing, her gaze sometimes directed at him, sometimes at the ground as if she was thinking about so many things at once.

Zelos tilted his head a little concerned

" do i have something on my face, hun? You may stop dri-"

Not even knowing why, she rushed to him, grabbed his pink coat and kissed him; throwing them a bit backward and shoving the unfinished sake bottle on the tatami. Zelos put his elbows to the ground to not totally fall on it. His eyes widened but he did not fight against this sudden kiss... he closed his eyes, His hands adventured on her head, keeping her close to him, lightly reaching her ribbon to losen her hair. All of his soul was boiling hot now, and so did hers.

- i'm too Dizzy - she thought to herself

His lips were soft and his breath so sexy and his touch so-

"wait, wait wait Sheena !" He cut the kiss suddenly pushing her a bit from him a hand on her shoulder

"what? " she said out of breath and a bit irritated from this sudden stop "isn't it what you wanted?"

"of course not! " she widened her eyes, a stabbing sensation went throught Her Heart and stomach.

"No it's not what -... i mean, yes but... " he continued embarassed by the way he said no, aware of the arsh way he spoke " i can't lie i really ... Want to, i - that was - wow, but... I can't with you in that state" he finished softly as she looked at him a Ray of sad in her eyes -why am i sad tho? She thought. WHAT DID SHE JUST DO THO???

He cupped her face in his hands and put his forehead to hers, closed his eyes and Took a deep breath.

"you are drunk, and i don't wanna abuse you like that..i ..... " Zelos marked a 10 seconds silence, Took a deep breath and whispered" i love you too much for this"

He said it, After all those years, he finally declared his love to her... He blushed a bit drunk too but not as much as her. His head still on hers

She blinked, her face still red, reddened even more. It Took her a hot second to print his words on her Brain. She backed up a bit and smiled softly (and drunkey)

"that's kind of you, i'll remember that -stupid Chosen" she said falling in his arms, asleep.

- . - . -

The next morning she woke UP on her futon, scraching her head, her hair messy, her head spinning from the last night. Her kimono still on her but opened and her long pink ribbon folded by the side of the bed.

"What the hell happened?"

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

#sheelos #sheenaxzelos #zeroshii #talesofsymphonia #talesofseries #zeloswilder #sheenafujibayashi #ateliernayo #ゼロしい

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justaghostingon · 2 years

Text

I posted 279 times in 2022

That's 55 more posts than 2021!

169 posts created (61%)

110 posts reblogged (39%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@kitkat-the-muffin

@crookedblade

@jay9marie

@mosaicofdreamsanddragons

@snazzyscarf

I tagged 274 of my posts in 2022

Only 2% of my posts had no tags

#room of swords - 204 posts

#room of swords reactions - 176 posts

#gyrus - 33 posts

#kodya - 28 posts

#iro - 21 posts

#don - 21 posts

#reblog - 14 posts

#tori - 12 posts

#yumeji - 12 posts

#strawbarrow - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#of course a watsonian explination is that she hasn’t progressed enough at level 1 to begin to hone her craft and specialize her ability

My Top Posts in 2022:

So i get why y’all mad about the short hair in the Rings of power, but consider:

The short hair was a fashion choice unique to the second age. Where everyone jumped on the trend and then immediately (for elves so a couple centuries) jumped off again. It’s the embarrassing haircut every elf tries to forget they ever had, so much so that they tear down all statues and paintings where they have it.

The kind of thing that galadriel will absolutely hold over elrond’s head every time they come to visit, and show all his kids.

“Oh Arwen, he doesn’t want u to marry ur hot human boyfriend? Well sometimes he doesn’t make good decisions. Just Look at this painting i keep on me of him with short hair. Could you imagine a worse decision? I can’t”

Arwen (horrified): father?!!!

Elrond: it was a phase! Stop showing people that!

Galadriel: No ☺️

420 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

The Inversion of the Ideal Type:

A mini meta on Komi-san Can’t Communicate

So i’ve been watching Komi-san lately, and I really love the main couple, but it took me a while to finally pinpoint why.

When the show begins, we start from Tadano’s perspective: he’s an average guy with a beautiful but silent classmate who’s secret he discovers. And at this point, I thought i knew what i was getting. The everyday man finding out some secret about a girl way out of their league causing the girl to need to keep them around is a very common wish fulfillment plot. Komi is clearly Tadano’s ideal girl, and the fact she has a weakness he can exploit is just the icing on the cake. I’ve seen it all before, and it always left a bad taste in my mouth.

But here’s the kicker: Tadano doesn’t exploit Komi’s secret. He doesn’t make her dependent on him, or act jealous of her new friends. He’s constantly looking out for her comfort and trying to help her reach out and make new friends. And in this, he becomes a wish fulfillment character himself. After all, a guy who genuinelu cares and tries to help you with your crippling anxiety? Someone who always understands when u try to communicate? People with social anxieties want that. Any girl who’s ever felt misunderstood wants that. Komi-san wants that. Tadano, with his gentle encouragement and seemingly endless patience, is as much Komi’s ideal man as she is his ideal woman.

And that’s what makes the show work. They both value each other, they both want each other, and every episode they find new little details about each other to make them fall even more in love. Its sweet and uncomplicated, and maybe its a bit idealistic, but its like having a yummy desert after a long day, it soothes you.

571 notes - Posted June 29, 2022

The Great Demon Fiance ManHunt of Cang Qiong Sect

A scum villian’s self saving system au

It all started when Liu Qingge fell into another succubus pit.

Now the succubus in this pit had been gossiping just before he arrived. Well, more like debating in demon fashion, which is to say they had been in an all out brawl.

Liu Qingge thinks this might be an easy fight since they’re all so distracted, until on smarter succubus stops the others

“Wait!” She says. “He’s from Cang Qiong. Maybe he knows something!”

Liu qingge isn’t particularly interested in hearing them out, but they overwhelm him, united as one and fueled with the vigor of one who is starving for gossip

They ask him: “which cang Qiong peak lord is getting married to the next mobei-jun?”

This completely throws liu qingge for a loop nad he venemently denies it

But the succubus insist, spinning a tale of star crossed lovers which as reached their ears: of a young mobei-jun who was rescued by a pittiful human from cang qiong sect, who promised to always be there for mobei-jun, even as he rose higher and higher in thr sect, never betraying him, until even the great mobei-jun could not help but fall in love

Liu qingge dismisses this, but the succubus insist its true, because the same Mobei-jun visited their madam (i forget her name) for a fortune told, and there was a human at his side, dressed in the robes of a cang qiong peak lord!

Their madam is famous for her love fortunes! Why visit her with someone if u weren’t planning to marry them?

(Mobei-jun was not there for a love fortune. He and Shang Qinghua were looking for some plot device to help thwart on of his uncle’s schemes, and needed directions)

So which one was it? Was it him?

Liu qingge is outraged by this suggestion, so much so that it gives him enough of a power boost to escape

At first he ignores it. But it keeps circling in his brain, like a nagging fly he can’t get out of his mind

Then the unthinkable happens: Shen Qingqiu starts being nice! He saves him! He wants to bury the hatchet! He starts being nice to his disciples!

It’s almost like he recieved some very, very good news.

Like a secret proposal.

But no! Shen Qingqiu liked woman! He was always sneaking down to the red pavilon! Right? Right?

Unless he was just using that as a cover to sneak out to see his demon lover????

Filled with worry, he tries to subtly interrogate Shen Qingqiu by asking him what he thinks of demons. Rather predictably, this fails horribly. With an oblivious shen yuan thinking this was a perfect opportunity to get liu qingge to soften to his future brother-in-law’s heritage and gives his whole “there are bad and good ones” speech

Liu qingge leaves heartbroken, certain his shixiong is in love with a demon

He goes to yue qingyuan and tells him that they might be losing a martial brother to an engagement, but refuses to say who

Leaving yue qinghuan witn thr impession its liu qingge who’s getting engaged

At around this time, the rumor of a cang qiong peak lord marrying a demon reaches the peak, because those succubus are still fighting over which one it is, and have taken to asking every cang qiong disciple they can find

Yue qingyaun panics, because his shidi has all but told him he’s getting engaged, liu qingge panics because shen qingqiu could get in serious trouble if this is found out, and shang qinghua panics because what if this inane rumor causes people to examine his own connections to demons?

Shen qingqiu is not panicking. Shen Qingqiu is having a lovely time playing house eith binghe and ignoring everything else

Meanwhile the other peak lords all start accusing each other, the disciples start using this to start fights with other peak disciples, and its all getting very out of hand

Yue qingyuan is forced to call a meeting, and tries to politely get liu qingge to confess

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689 notes - Posted July 16, 2022

How to Woo the Girl You Dumped Without her Demon-possessed Brother Getting in your Way: A Guide by Jin Zinxuan

A crack au

It all begins when Jin Zinxuan notices that Jiang Yanli is actually really pretty.

This is unfortunately right in the middle of him yelling at her for trying to claim credit for the soup someone’s been making for him

Wei Wuxian shows up, demonic tendicals (we’re going anime version here) dripping from all around him as he defends his sister, it comes out that she has been making the soup, and now he’s smitten with a huge problem: the girl he likes both now prob hates him because he humiliated her, and also her brother is definitely a demon

Now a sensible person would first try to patch over the relationship with jiang yanli by apologizing, but jin Zixuan is a Jin! He’s never done a sensible thing in his life!

And also talking about feelings is really scary and as his friend Miammiam likes to point out, he is really bad at it

So naturally, he decides that the most important step to wooing Jiang yanli is to save her brother from demonic possession. That way she’ll be super impressed with him and he’ll be less terrifying and so greatful he’ll well come him into the family!

What could go wrong?!!

Jin Guangyao insists that it is not demonic possession, it is demonic cultivation. But jin zixuan has heard jin zixun rant about “that wei demon” enough times to know better

Figure of speech? What’s that?

So jin zixuan decides to exorcise wei wuxian, and to do that, he’ll need help from the smartest person he knows: jin Guangyao

Jin guangyao is less than thrilled at being sent on a rediculous job like this, to exorcise the clearly not possessed wei wuxian, until he realizes jin zixuan will do anything he suggests without question

ANYTHING

So Jin guangyao decides to have fun with this, setting jin zixuan on increasingly ridiculous tasks to “cure” wei wuxian of demonic possesstion

Like covering him in salt. Or throwing itchy flowers at him. Or running after him chanting this truely awful tune while hoping on one foot.

The result of course, is a very angry wei wuxian who chases zixuan away, and an increasingly desperate jin zixuan who thinks wei wuxian’s frustrations are proof that “the demons are trying to stop me!”

Now the sect heir acting strange is going to raise some eyebrows, and when outsiders look at jin zixuan throwing flowers and singing, they come to a very different conclusion.

Within a day, everyone in every sect is convinced jin zixuan is trying to court wei wuxian

“My son is a cutsleeve!” Moans jin guangshan. “How did this happen! I showed him all the fine ways to love a woman!”

“You’re lessons are the reason my son is a cutsleeve!” Madam jin retorts. “U scarred him for life!”

They proceed to spend the rest of the time arguing and somehow forget to actually talk to their son

Meanwhile in yumeng everyone is losing their collective shit. Jiang cheng is furious that jin zixuan thinks he can poach wei ying with a few pretty words and flowers. Jiang yanli is depressed because her crush is really hopeless now, and how could she measure up to wei wuxian?

Wei wuxian himself is disgusted, not that jun zixuan is a cutsleeve, but that he’d dare to court him! After what he did to shijie! He resolves to firmly rebuff every attempt jin zixuan makes

Which only serves to make jin zixuan more determined because “those demons are really stubborn!!”

But then… the rumor reaches gusu

And lan zhan hops on the first sword to the jin sect to challenge jin zixuan to a duel for wei wuxian’s honor

Lan Zhan tells himself he wouldn’t do this is wei wuxian actually loved the guy. But its not just some guy. This is jin zixuan, wei wuxian hates him! Even he knows that!

They fight, but jin zixuan for all his denseness, even he knows he doesn’t have a quirrel with lan Zhan, and eventually he gets lan zhan to calm down enough to ask why they are fighting

Lan zhan explains and jin zixuan is horrified he’d ever thing that, and quickly fills him in on what he’s really doing: saving wei wuxian from the demon that is possessing him

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692 notes - Posted September 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The Yiling Laozu’s Lost Spells, A.K.A. The Weird Ones

A Collection by Mo Xuanyu

aka another crack au

Edit: Now with a part 2!

When the Yiling Laozu died his work was divided up by its use

The Lans took anything deemed undemonic, like Spirit Lures and Demonic Compasses

The Jins snuck out anything dangerous under the lie they’d destroy it

And the rest of it…it got scattered everywhere to every lowdown village and wanna be demonic cultivator.

At first, no one thought this would be a problem. It’s not like anything dangerous is out there, and not just anyone can culitvate

But they forgot two very important things: 1) no one needs to be a culivator to use demonic cultivation and 2) people will find a way to use anything

Soon the culivation world is overrun by really, really weird cases that their cultivators just can’t keep up with

And when I say weird, I do mean weird here’s a look at some of the cases:

Case 1) Giant rabbits the size of houses have been spotted in a mountain near a sheparding villiage eating all their feilds. They asked Hanguang-jun for help. Hanguang-jun went up but he did not come back down. It is suspected the giant bunnies ate him

Case 2) the dancing radishes. Every night on the full moon radishes come to life in a villiage and dance on their beds. Its not hurting anyone, but its really freaking them out

Case 3) dog begone spells. A whole villiage has lost all its dogs and no one knows why. Some of them were really expensive spirit puppies, including one jin guangyao was planning to purchase for his nephew

Case 4) the case of the running radishes. Radishes are leaving their beds a d running away as fast as thry can. Every time someone gets close they keep moving farther away

Case 5) flowers flying to lan clan ribbons and sticking. Every flower, even ones on stems. The lans are walking around covered in flowers and it is becoming a Problem.

Case 6) radishes that look like potatoes. Again? What is with this guy and radishes? This spell would have been harmless if it hadn’t been in a villiage with two rival families of radishes and potatoes. The potato family is accusing the radish family of sabatoge and the radish family is accusing the potato family of stealing their crop

Case 7) Lotus soup possession talisman. If u stick this talisman on someone, they will make lotus and pork rib soup. Always. Again and again. They can’t stop. Everything they make is soup. They’re crying.

Case 8) the peacock tail talisman. Every jin who comes into contact with this talisman will get a peacock tail. They can’t get rid of them. This is a problem.

Case 9) grass butterflies come to life. Again, not harmful, but very annoying. All children love it. All adult toy sellers do not. Their wares keep flying away. Please someone save their buisnesses

Case 10) hug jiang cheng. You must hug jiang cheng. You can’t help it. You can’t stop. If u don’t give him one hug a day you will die. Jiang cheng is furious. Fix this now.

Case 11) give Hanguang-jun compliments. Not hard, no one would notice if it wasn’t stuck to Su She. He hates it. He’s sueing for emotional damages. You better fix this quick!

And these are just the first ones! In times like this, people look to the Chief Cultivator. But the Chief cultivator is off flirting with women, so like all things, this falls to jin guangyao to solve.

So Jin guangyao decides he needs to get those documents back, and who better to send to handle the weird cases no one wants to touch than his weird half brother who’s so fasinated by demonic cultivation?

Thus Mo Xuanyu finds himself with his dream job: chasing down the yiling Laozu’s lost works! What more could he want?

The first case is easy. He goes up and finds Hanguang-jun asleep cuddled in a pile of giant rabbits. All he has to do is find out where the talisman is and remove them. The hard part is getting Hanguang-jun to stop looking like he just killed his wife. Mo xuanyu didn’t know Hanguang-jun had puppy eyes. Since when did he have puppy eyes? Eventually to make him feel better he helps him take all the rabbits to cloud recesses. And at another puppy dog eyed, gloomy look like he’s denied him his long lost lover, Mo Xuanyu gives him the talisman too. Jin Guangyao’s not happy, but really, what was Mo Xuanyu supposed to do? Not make that handsome man smile again?

The second case is a lot harder. Nothing Mo Xuanyu does gets the radishes to stop singing. No spells, not talismans, nothing. The only thing left is to dig them all up and throw them deep into the woods where no one will have to listen. Mo Xuanyu’s ears are still bleeding from their reedy songs

The third case is where Mo Xuanyu feels a bit of hope in Yiling laozu’s work really paying off. Lots of his bullies at the jin sect have dogs. If he can make them vanish, he’ll be safe! Unfortunately this spell makes all dogs leave, or none at all. And even when he finds a way to undo it, he can’t afford to copy it out because jin guangyao took one of the pups to give to jin ling, and if mo xuanyu makes the grumpy jin ling’s beloved new puppy go away, he’ll be kicked out of Koi Tower and feel bad besides

The radishes are back, but they run now. They aren’t even violent, u can’t use them for anything! They just run! It takes mo xuanyu months to catch one and track it back to its home. The radishes have built a radish villige in the forest. Radish farmers radish shop keepers and radish children. Mo xuanyu feels like he’s stepped into a children’s book. Then he hears the familiar reedy songs and it becomes a nightmare. The running radishes found the singing ones. They interbred. Now they have musical theatre radishes. Mo Xuanyu booked it out of there as fast as he can. Fuck the Yiling Laozu. Mo Xuanyu isn’t messing with that

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1,022 notes - Posted September 23, 2022

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