#this is the mortifying ordeal of being identified with the person you were in the past and having honest fucken Doubt. like yes but also no

[shabbytigers]

tfw someone reblogs something i reblogged several months or years ago and it pops up in my notes all surprise bitch 🫥 i get that tumblr puts algorithmically generated ‘more like this?’ suggestions under posts you click into nowadays, so probably nobody is deliberately spelunking my archive in a mariana trench ready diving bell, and what if they were? knock yourself out, lmao. it’s just exhausting to contemplate.

[eijiroukiriot]

why do you see bkg as trans?

i've had this ask sitting in my drafts since like august BECAUSE i knew if i did the question justice it was gonna get VERY long and pretty personal - if i'm gonna talk about it then i gotta talk about it in all earnest. and you've given me the floor to talk about it. so!!

at first i had these typed out as two separate points but i think they go a lot more hand-in-hand than that, so to start - when i think about my own gender and why i can't bring myself to identify fully with womanhood a lot of it is because there's something that feels so free about masculinity. mostly just like because of womanhood on a societal level a lot of my experience as a girl forever has been "you need to think about how your existence makes other people feel. you really need to present yourself in a way that's pleasant for other people. the way you look, the way you talk, the way you conduct yourself - people are entitled to having a say in all that. and if any of that isn't living up to the way it's supposed to be, then that's a fault of yours." here's a vent post i made when i was 17:

which is mostly really superficial examples of the suffocating expectation of girlhood but it's also so blatantly about bkg. in the moment my thought process was more like "i'm so deeply unsatisfied with so many parts of being a girl, it sounds like there'd be so many less people to answer to if i were a boy" but it's funny reading back on it bc it's like "dude are you just talking about bkg". but then who's a better example of choosing to stomp through life exactly as loud and rude as he wants to be without answering to anyone than bakugou katsuki!! honest about his thoughts in any case!! free to speak as bluntly and rudely as he wants!! never putting up with shit that makes him feel unlike himself!! walks with big wide steps and wears stupid baggy clothes and doesn't care what people have to say about it and doesn't feel worse if they do disagree. grins crazy blasting himself through the air. fights with big windup swings and shouts all the while. huge huge presence and so unafraid to assert it. named himself great・explosion・murder・god dynamight. i think i project a big sense of defiance onto bkg's character because everything he is just feels so defiant to me. there's just a lot that i admire about boyhood and bkg feels like the embodiment of it to me

and then you've got bkg himself, who like- isn't even fulfilling the "doesn't feel worse about himself if he is genuinely not the greatest or kindest" part of it!! bkg's character is so centered around figuring out who he is and like navigating through the mortifying ordeal of existing and not actually liking the person you are and trying to figure out where to go from there- he really thinks he has so much to prove...both in the sense that he DOES want to project this big image and also that he really can't cut himself a break. and then he freaks out when he's not becoming the person he wants to be and picks a fight with deku over it and totally breaks down and picks himself back up and forces himself to seriously rewire the entire view of himself and others that he's had his entire life - he's 16 - and goes to all this teeth-clenching effort to be a better person and has highs and lows and wears himself raw and then comes back to life. well the quality of the later part of his arc is very debatable. but his character is so about just figuring out who he is and kind of failing at it a lot of the time. and then eventually figuring it out and getting confident and stable in it. he makes friends who rib on him because they know he's got a good heart under it all, and moreover he lets them. he gets good at shouting something back and carrying on. you see the amount of conscious thinking it takes him to take some of those steps - rethinking his relationship with deku, the god am i really fucking doing this scoff before he gives kirishima back the money - but a lot of it is just steady growth. growing up. genuinely getting more comfortable and more okay with himself over time. but there's also all these little failures along the way because he's just a kid figuring it out, and also genuinely this anger towards the world for not understanding it when he does assert himself (sports festival....where deku also specifically notes that he knows he's not as confident as he wants to be!)

i haven't really closely reread bnha in a sec so a lot of this is probably a lot of projecting (i know it's undeniably influenced by the picture of bkg i have in my head) and i probably also didn't really clarify anything, because in the end everything bakugou is feels very trans to me. "the image you have of bkg katsuki in your head can actually be so personal" etc. digging into my archives i found this post from years back where i described basically the same stuff about bkg being a teen figuring himself out and saying "so yeah he's trans" without being able to hit it more on the head. kirishima is my favorite most special boy of all time, and i love him in so many ways, but bkg is my cringefail stinky teen boy in w the unshatterable determination to actually go MAKE himself the person he wants to be, no matter how many missteps he makes on the way there. it brings me a lot of comfort to imagine him being a self-made man as a part of the because gender is so confusing and questioning can be so intense. i'm 23 and i'm typing all this about an anime boy so i hope it's evident what a soul-bearingly honest answer this is bc otherwise oh haha embarrassing. but yeah i love that kid. i hope every little victory and day where his voice sounds good to him and glance of his top scars in the mirror feels like one of the high points on the journey

[kodas]

How long have you known you were plural?

hoo boy.... i've sorta "known" for maybe (looks at calendar) 8 years? but sorta also like I've "always" known, too?

I didn't really count myself as plural "enough to use the word" until 2021/22. as of this post that's ~3 years of being open about it after 5 years of denial spent in therapy revolving around OSDD + integration due to cptsd. IFS helped me work through early stuff like identifying when they would switch & the idea of no bad parts, but I know opinions vary on IFS re:dissociative disorders.

when I came out as trans all those years ago it was a similar experience: not really counting my own validity for the first handful of years because I didn't think I checked "enough of the boxes" to ask loved ones to re-contexualize how they understood me. then when coming out as trans did Not go smoothly (there were a lot of instances of people trying to bait me into intersex validity fights) I... did not bother to share details about my multiplicity lol. it felt like publicly admitting to plurality would make people "gotcha" me about my genderflux/fluidity and shifting relationship to my own sexuality.

without getting into any literal trauma, my icon ruff was the first character I drew as a 4/5 year old. since that age I'd been drawing shapes and thinking "that's this part, that's that part, all of this happened to this shape, all of this applies to this shape, this shape is friends with person, this shape never leaves the house," etc. all of these lights have their origins in hardship so it always felt like if I went into Any detail, it's already "too much" ykno? even now drawing my lights as critters & anthros feels like a few more degrees of distance than raw shape abstractions, which I think has made it easier to be open n actually talk about. something something mortifying ordeal of being known.

[999-roses]

SMSKSKSKSKSKSKSKS CHEN WHEN YOU SAID “BOBA LIB” IN THAT TAG I SCREAMED PLS WHY DOES IT FIT SO WELL

screams in the mortifying ordeal of being seen

well. 'boba lib' is a term that exists... but i didn't come up with it. i dont know where it originates from tho (like idk if it's a 4chan or reddit pejorative, but whoever came up with it doesn't get to solely dictate how it's used or what it means). i never personally identified with it but i see my past thinking/behavior as aligning under that label. anyway imo tread lightly with its use

lmao i ranted too long and hit tumblr's tags per post ceiling. i should probably make my own post since my rant has nothing in particular to do with swk//disney's recent 'asian representation' sanitization, and the point(s) i wanted to make the most was truncated at the tail end

(i'll edit and clean this up if/when i actually make my own post;;; engage with culture not solely consumption. don't alienate or tokenize 'what it means to be diaspora' by enclosing that to a monolith/specific kind of diaspora, and by that i am not that limiting to 'AAPI shouldn't be a willy-nilly mashup monolith' nor to dismantling the 'model minority'/'x excellence' standard. bringing it back to culture: learn a language other than english, or re-engage with learning your mothertongues no matter how rusty you are because it's never too late or too embarrassing to relearn. internalized racism is real but staring, paralyzed, at your issues, how you were inoculated, how you're retraumatized can be a neverending loop... but it would certainly be worse to never address it. if you (re)learn your native language, it allows you to reengage with culture especially the culture back in 'the old country' that is moving forward, regardless of what you might think. if you're fortunate to have access to media produced in your native language, that's a decent place to start, outside of family members. yes, language can be utilized as a barrier to keep people out (particularly those who don't want to actually learn to engage with a culture on the culture's terms), but in most cases, language is not an impossibly tall fence, there are ladders for people who want to put the effort into trying climb it. and, ultimately, language is a place that culture calls home. find pride in becoming/being/doing rather than being seen or championed [by white people].

and for (white) people who want to try harder not being surface-level or purely performative, the ladder is open for you to climb, or at least it is for chinese language and culture, since I can't speak to the openness of anyone else's cultures. learn our languages, and not just honorifics, i mean the whole kit, grammar, conversational etiquette, how we divide the color spectrum, common idioms, referential and influential literature. speak with us in our terms. <- thinking about this paragraph/whole discussion;; i have no say on what indigenous first nations or formerly enslaved people want or should do; their historical circumstances are far different from mine, resulting in if they have a language other than english for their cultures to call home. if they wish to remain culturally and linguistically closed (like I've heard expressed about AAVE) then other people should respect that)

[jamestaylorswift]

The Archer - Analysis

I was nudged to write out my thoughts about “The Archer” and I’m honestly glad for the push. This song is so beautiful yet haunting. I don’t see people appreciating it as much as I think it should be appreciated.

Standard disclaimer that this is my own personal reading of the song. You are free to disagree with any or all of what I say. There are many good interpretations of this song out there. It helps that it’s a very evocative track 5!

This analysis is not short. Sorry.

——

Combat, I’m ready for combat

I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?

‘Cause cruelty wins in the movies

I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

——

Unlike other tracks on Lover, there’s no concrete imagery such as a garden gate or prom dress in this song. Taylor is sharing what only exists in her mind. This is a story told purely with metaphors. It’s important to lean into them.

The purpose of the first verse is to contextualize the rest of the song. She introduces the idea of being torn about wanting a fight. She would only want to fight someone if she has a really good reason to do so. Her driving force is “cruelty winning in the movies.” Her thrown-out speeches are the thing that would start the fight. Tossing the speeches implies that she is unsure not of the content of the speeches but of entering the fray of battle that would ensue after delivering them.

It’s very hard for me to see these speeches as anything but coming out speeches. Coming out (even as a non-celebrity) is often stressful. Cruelty winning in the movies is a nod to the fact that mainstream media depicts LGBTQ characters meeting tragic ends. Taylor, as a wildly famous celebrity, has cultural influence. Her coming out would impact the culture; it could change the endings of those movies. But her impact would only be measurable years in the future. 

This verse is also where she first addresses the “you” in the song. I think the “you” is essentially a random observer/everyday Joe Schmoe. It’s nobody in particular because it could be anybody. The only thing remarkable about “you” is that she’s directly addressing them. That makes this story personal.

——

Easy they come, easy they go

I jump from the train, I ride off alone

I never grew up, it’s getting so old

Help me hold onto you

——

If the “you” in this song is a random person who has some benign preexisting opinion (whatever that may be, including a non-opinion) about Taylor Swift, then the “they” refers to arbitrary people who are on the fan/hate train. “They” come and go easily and represent flux in interest in her. I read the metaphor about a train with momentum as the implication that general interest in Taylor waxes and wanes but is inherently self-sustaining because of her celebrity. In this song, “they” aren’t necessarily the enemy like the public was, for example, in reputation. She just doesn’t concern herself with “them” anymore. It’s the “you” who has her full attention and who is sticking around to hear the story.

Finally, we get the first of many “help me hold onto you”s. This one is her articulating why she’s telling this story in the first place. It’s “I want you listen to this story and try to understand.” It’s “help me,” but in a chill way.

——

I’ve been the archer

I’ve been the prey

Who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

——

The archer is the zodiac symbol for Sagittarius, the centaur, Taylor’s astrological sign. Taylor exists in parts, just like a centaur: she is part her celebrity persona and part her real self, an amalgamation who is a Taylor different than either of the constituent halves. To the “you” it’s Taylor in her purest form. It’s impossible to completely separate her celebrity from her person at this point.

The chorus is about the duality of Taylor’s being, her actions, and others’ investment in any part of her. As the archer (hunter) she has aggressively exercised control over her public persona. As the prey (hunted) she has been a passive victim chewed up and spit out by the public/industry/etc. for things outside of her control. Sometimes it is her own actions that drive people away or attract people to her. Sometimes it is by individual choice that people board or leave the train.

The archer, Sagittarius, is also symbolic of a prophet who can predict fate. The prey is a victim of a terrible fate that, by nature, cannot be changed. I prefer to think of the archer/prey metaphor as commentary about the duality of fate rather than intense combat (for which a bow and arrow would probably be insufficient). This song is Taylor trying to reconcile the certainty of her future with distress about the unknown consequences of present-time decisions.

(Note that this first chorus is where the bass drum beat starts. It represents anxiety about the future. The first part of the song is exposition. The drum only comes in when she starts worrying about the “what ifs.”)

——

Dark side, I search for your dark side

But what if I’m alright, right, right, right here?

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face

Then I hate my reflection for years and years

——

Nobody Joe Schmoe has no obvious reason to hate Taylor for anything that she just said. But Taylor knows what comes next in the story. She’s anxious about Joe Schmoe’s reaction to what she’s about to say.

Taylor admits to doing self-destructive things. Because of the context she provided at the beginning of the song, I believe this is a reference to staying closeted. The “reflection” could be the literal reflection of her now-noseless face. Hating it is pure personal regret for self-destructive actions. The “reflection” could also be the mirror which her fans/the public hold up to her. Her self-destructive choices manifest in others’ toxicity. Hating what they’ve become starts with hating the ways she enables that behavior. (It’s really both “reflections.” The duality of man, yadda, yadda, yadda…)

More important than blaming herself for any (*cough*) past decisions, she articulates the pain of being in the closet in two simple lines. Burying a significant part of yourself by hiding behind a carefully constructed lie is exhausting. It’s sad. It also provides protection and safety and it’s unfortunately all too common. Cruelty wins in the movies, thus people are cruel to themselves.

——

I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost

The room is on fire, invisible smoke

And all of my heroes die all alone

Help me hold onto you

——

I think people consistently underestimate just how morbid “The Archer” is. Taylor reveals that her prophetic future is death—specifically, becoming a ghost, thus leaving an imperceptible trace of herself. She already feels suffocated by that possibility. Her suffering is invisible. She might just be left to die a slow, agonizing death via asphyxiation. Worse yet, what happens afterwards? Asphyxiation from invisible smoke would make it seem like she just dropped dead of her own accord. Or if the smoke somehow became visible….well, if you could see a ghost in the first place, a smoke-filled room would make that impossible. The implications are staggering and they’re all sad.

Few, if any, of Taylor’s heroes have literally died alone. I’m going to go out on a short limb here and say that Taylor probably sees parts of herself in her heroes. Therefore, the “heroes” in a song supposedly about the dilemma of coming out are other famous people who were/still are closeted. Taylor identifies herself as a potential role model for the younger generation like her heroes are for her. Her heroes’ lonely metaphorical deaths are exactly what she fears. Dying alone is being in the closet indefinitely. It’s being misunderstood and not having any way to rectify that situation. Perhaps this song is about the mortifying ordeal of remaining unknown.

As evidenced by the invisible smoke in the room, she thinks her metaphorical death is certain and imminent. The “help me hold onto you” is now “help me,” but in a very unchill way.

——

‘Cause they see right through me

Can you see right through me

I see right through me

——

As a reminder, “they” = random people in the public and “you” = nice, ordinary Joe Schmoe whom she wishes could understand her predicament. Being see-through is being seen without substance. Therefore, what the bridge is not saying is “don’t you see how obvious it is, isn’t it wild that people don’t pick up on me and/or my lover being loud in public?” It is saying “I am literally a ghost to ‘them’ because ‘they’ look at me and don’t see any of this pain, I’m basically dead to myself too because I feel like I’m already doomed, you’re my last hope so please say you see me.” Who cares about reaping the benefits (love, adoration) from the mortifying ordeal of being known? At this point she’s pleading simply to be seen as herself. “I see right through me” is her worst fear. This is why this line breaks out of the bridge and bleeds into the surrounding choruses.

(The bridge, to me, is where it becomes clear that treating the “you” as her lover with whom she could come out does a serious disservice to the rest of the song. Her lover as “you” inverts the meaning of the bridge. This makes the story inconsistent. I appreciate the gravity of the “help me hold onto you” line if it were spoken to a secret lover. However, being seen/understood is more intimately tethered to being out as an individual than being out with another person. In my mind, it makes more sense for this attitude to be an invariant of the song.)

——

All the king’s horses, all the king’s men

Couldn’t put me together again

‘Cause all of my enemies started out friends

Help me hold onto you

——

The Humpty Dumpty rhyme is basically “anthropomorphized egg sits on top of a high wall, anthropomorphized egg falls off the wall and shatters irreparably.” Taylor as Humpty Dumpty makes the wall she’s on top of the pedestal of fame/success. She’s saying that coming out would topple her from her pedestal. Her image as a woman who became famous for writing heterosexual love songs is as fragile as an eggshell. When it breaks, what is left behind?

“All the king’s horses, all the king’s men” might be a reference to her fans whom she once considered as friends but whom can also be incredibly toxic. I read it as a catch-all for anyone who isn’t Taylor. The key of this verse is her musing on why an eggshell can’t be repaired. It’s not for lack of manpower. It’s that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—everyone, literally—are enemies and don’t want to reconstruct Humpty Dumpty. They simply don’t believe Humpty’s death is so tragic that they would spend effort to change his fate.

Taylor fears that darling Joe Schmoe, a friend to whom she is addressing this story, could become an enemy by conscious choice. She can give Joe Schmoe the truth and plead to be seen, but Joe Schmoe can still choose to see right through her anyways. It’s terribly frightening to be honest yet have that vulnerability go unacknowledged. Taylor coming out is her facing the prospect of instant confirmation that good people do not care. She could die a ghost despite efforts to be visible.

——

Who could stay?

You could stay

Combat, I’m ready for combat

——

Coming out is a choice but being gay is not—it is fate. She has no control over how others react to that. Taylor slowly acknowledges throughout the song that her future isn’t in her hands. She ultimately shifts away from the prophet/victim binary by reiterating that she’s sure of herself and that whatever happens, she’s not going down without a fight.

Lover the album isn’t just about romantic love. This song is not construing an inherently unequal and sometimes toxic relationship with fans/the public as love. “The Archer” romanticizes the possibility of someone reacting to honesty with kindness and understanding. Love is being seen.

[sophialongbcttom]

KRISTINE FROSETH? No, that’s actually SOPHIA LONGBOTTOM from the NEXT GENERATION ERA. You know, the child of NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM and HANNAH ABBOTT? Only TWENTY-ONE years old, this GRYFFINDOR alumni works as a PUBLIC RELATIONS INTERN and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. SHE identifies as a CIS WOMAN and is a HALFBLOOD who is known to be MANIPULATIVE, COMPETITIVE, and SPITEFUL but also INTELLIGENT, DRIVEN, and COQUETTISH. — &&. ( MEGAN, GMT, SHE/HER, 23. )

 PINTEREST.  

—— THE BASICS !

FULL NAME: Sophia Caroline Longbottom

AGE: Twenty-one

DATE OF BIRTH: September 19th 

BLOODSTATUS: Muggleborn

GENDER IDENTITY: Cis Woman

PRONOUNS: She/Her

—— CLOSER TO HOME !

FATHER: Neville Longbottom

MOTHER: Hannah Abbott

SIBLING(S): Lydia Longbottom (20), Delilah Longbottom (22), Pippa Longbottom (24)

HOMETOWN: TBA

—— ON THE SURFACE !

FACE CLAIM: Kristine Froseth

HAIR COLOUR/STYLE: Thick light brown waves.

EYE COLOUR: Blue

HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 5″5 135lbs

BUILD: Slim.

TATTOOS/PIERCINGS: Lobes on both ears, conch on the right.

CLOTHING STYLE: Highly fashionable, put together, femme and girly. 

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Bone structure, big blue eyes. 

ACCENT/VOICE: Fairly grey-area southern English accent, quite high and sing-song. 

—— DIGGING DEEPER !

STAR SIGN: Virgo

MBTI: ESTJ-A

ENNEGRAM TYPE: The Achiever

TEMPERAMENT: Choleric

COLOUR PERSONALITY: Yellow #FFFF00

BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TEST: O - 37.5% C - 87.5% E - 94% A - 31% N - 50%

THEME SONG: dead to me - kali uchis, thank u, next - ariana grande, how to be a heartbreaker - marina 

HOBBIES: Quidditch, dating, taking care of her appearance, singing, a little bit of herbology and gardening. 

—— BEHIND THE WIZARD !

WAND TYPE: Fir, Phoenix feather 10" Hard.

My august grandfather, Gerbold Octavius Ollivander, always called wands of this wood ‘the survivor’s wand’, because he had sold it to three wizards who subsequently passed through mortal peril unscathed. There is no doubt that this wood, coming as it does from the most resilient of trees, produces wands that demand staying power and strength of purpose in their true owners, and that they are poor tools in the hands of the changeable and indecisive. Fir wands are particularly suited to Transfiguration, and favour owners of focused, strong-minded and, occasionally, intimidating demeanour.

PATRONUS: Abraxan Winged Horse (according to Pottermore)

AMORTENTIA: Wood polish, sun-warmed skin, freshly toasted bread, wild mint leaves. 

BOGGART: Herself, invisible and muted to everyone. 

since day one she realised that punishment as a child was inconsequential really, and that people naturally wanted to react to her in a caring way. just made easier if she lead them in the right direction. so u can imagine that being her sibling was so much fun! like she wasn’t angelica pickles all the time.... but she wasn’t a constant delight. pretty desperate for attention.

i guess carrying on from the learned behaviour as a kid she only really knew pulling people’s strings? she wasn’t influenced by anyone else, it was just something that came naturally to her very early and wasn’t really corrected because she was pretty good at it.

really competitive, driven. under? over? around? no? THROUGH. 

a quite frankly frightening perfectionist. causes her quite a bit of turmoil which she ofc hides in an effort to appear effortless. yes that is a very broken looking sentence, you see the issue. 

at hogwarts she got pretty quickly obsessed with her self image, lived the mean girl dream (nightmare) through most of her time at school. never had any true friends until her last two years at hogwarts bc the rest were all social climbers who periodically threw one another under the bus depending on the circumstances. despite this, she is loyal to a fault. she will swiftly demand vengeance, retribution and is not afraid to steal your boyfriend if she feels you aren’t being punished enough. 

never got below an E in her entire time at hogwarts and was able to remedy that initial grade swiftly. 

is actually a good friend once she lets her guard down. 

overall a better person now but she can still be snappish and cruel without thinking. is not a girl who will lie to you about how you look in that outfit. 

was a chaser for gryffindor, tries not to seem overly enthusiastic about the game but adores playing quidditch. has season tickets for the holyhead harpies. 

jenna marbles vc: I’M A VIRGO!!

a very talented herbologist in her time at school, sequestered herself away in the greenhouses often even though the humidity made her hair go all frizzy. still has a little windowsill garden at her flat. 

absolutely disastrous with romance and is lowkey terrified of submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known, i mean, aren’t we all ladies? really does genuinely enjoy dating around and casual attachments. is a thoroughly sexual being, doesn’t give a shit if you don’t like it. an insufferable flirt. 

still sleeps with a stuffed mooncalf that she’s had since she was tiny. if you make any unwanted comment about daisy however, you will be sleeping on the floor. 

works in a pretty cut-throat PR office now, after the whole gilderoy lockhart ordeal there was an opportunity to mine. 

TIMECLASH - Is completely desperate to understand the magic behind it all. Slightly terrified to see her parents as 20-somethings? And has honestly had the thought: look at how the dating pool has widened up, nice. Yep.

oof i’m so rusty with intros and i should proof read this but i’m not gonna lol. please please please feel free to message me to plot, or you can like this post and i’ll drop you a dm. i will be going thru everyone’s intros tomorrow at work and will hopefully be drumming up some ideas!

exes who hate each other? still have chemistry? on good terms? friends? not exes exactly... ex-almost-somethings? ex-hookups? current hookup? someone she teased at school? used to be fake ass friends together? friends with romantic/sexual tension? coworker? current long-lasting best friends? school rivals? someone she used to tutor? they live in the same building? share a flat? live next door and hear her singing in the shower? maybe she saved a potted plant of theirs? a client of hers? friends who only see each other to party? friends who shop together?

[sunlitroom]

Hi! For the fic ask - A, E, G (New Beginnings), M, T, V, Z :)

Thank-you!

A: Of the fanfic you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

I don’t know if I have a favourite, she said, boringly.  

I could say that The Beginning of Wisdom was particularly satisfying to write, because I got stuck on how to progress on it for ages before I realised that stitching on a random fragment I’d written ages ago would work.  Then I stalled for ages on how to end it before it just came to me in a flash.  It’s maybe my favourite last sentence that I’ve written.  

I also enjoyed getting just some of their mundane day-to-day in there.  Oswald dealing with envious rivals, Jim acknowledging that his co-workers mostly dislike him.

E: What character do you identify with most?  Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well?

I’m not sure of the extent to which I identify with them.  I’m stubborn to the point of bloody-mindedness, which I suppose you could say about both of them.  Jim’s stingy in terms of how willing he is to open up to people - I suppose that rings a bell with me too?  

On a side-note, I’ve just realised that Jim makes me think of that meme: “if we want the rewards of being loved, we must submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”  Jim is bad at being alone - he wants company, but he shies away from true connection, which is offered to him by those who know all his ins and outs, all his unswept corners and ugliest things.

G: If you wrote a sequel to New Beginnings, what would it be about?

I’m not very good at sequels.  I think I’m usually most interested in figuring out how the characters - given the universe and how I think of them - would get from A to B.  As such, I usually feel ‘done’ when i’m finished.  There’s three fics I’ve written that exist in the same universe, but that was sort of accidental.  

I suppose, if I were to write a sequel for New Beginnings, I wouldn’t want to have broken them up between the first and second fics: I wouldn’t really want to make relationship issues front and centre at all.  They’d still have a relationship, and I’d just drop them into a plotty scenario and see how they interacted.  

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with?  Did it turn into a story?

I suck at AU.  What satisfies me in writing fic is solving problems in the canon universe.  I like reading it - but my mind never really goes there at all myself.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

Just whump on its own, maybe?  I understand it fulfils a need for some people, but some of them lovingly linger over details of torture and suchlike to the point of queasiness.

I don’t tend to read just straight-up angst.

I don’t dislike MPreg, I’m just not interested in it.

Over-woobiefication.  Often pops up with Oswald.  Combine that with that oddly pornographic whump, and you have a fic I won’t touch with a barge pole.  

V: Are there certain comments you’ve received on your stories that have stuck with you?

Honestly - I’ve found people are enormously generous when it comes to leaving comments.  They all stick with me.

Z: Is there a story you’ve written that doesn’t seem to get much love?

I suppose the sun, the night, running water, death has the least hits of my Gotham fics, but - honestly - people read it and left lovely comments, so I wouldn’t say it didn’t get much love.  If one person reads anything I’ve written and enjoys it, it makes me genuinely happy.

My Fred Squared stuff for Hannibal hasn’t got many hits in comparison to my Gotham stuff - but it is pretty much a rare pair, and, again, even one hit makes me happy :)

Thank-you for asking! :)

[troubleangel1994]

Were you sexually assaulted? How did this happen? I have had several experiences with "sexual assault". My cousin once put his hands under my shirt and tried to unfasten my bra. At that moment I kind of frozen...I didn't know how to act, but out of nowhere I started crying and begging him to stop. I was 19 when this happened.

Part 1/3

First of all, I’m so sorry that happened to you and thank you for sharing your experiences. I hope you feel better now and are doing good mentally. At this point, I believe every single woman on earth has experienced some sort of sexual assault but many of them haven’t come to terms with it. They either don’t want to feel like victims or they don’t have the tools to identify and describe what happened to them. It’s heartbreaking hearing stories like yours but I think coming to terms with it, even though it’s super painful, can help you protect yourself overtime and also help you mentally heal. On the other hand, I must admit I kind of miss being oblivious to male violence. I hate listening to my girlfriends talking about her sexual encounters with men. They are almost always violent and dangerous. Female pleasure is ignored but the worst is that in many of those  they have actually been assaulted and are unable to identify it.

Anyways, coming to me: The first time I was sexually assaulted I was 21 and I was on erasmus. Very early on, (my first week there) I met this guy who was friend’s with my roommate. I wasn’t interested in him sexually but he was and he made it clear right away. 3 weeks later I was out partying and VERY drunk. I barely remember anything but according to him he gave me a lift home after the party and we went together to this other house party. I do remember being in a house party full of Irish people where I knew nobody. Then everything is black and I woke up naked in my bed with this guy by my side. I started freaking out but I thought nothing had happened since I had never slept with a random guy before. I didn’t dare to ask him if we had had sex but as soon as he left I went to the toilet and my genital area hurt A LOT. I stated freaking out looking for a condom everywhere in my room and the whole house, going through the trash cans… but I found nothing. I finally messaged him. I was mortified. He told me we had had sex and later when we spoke in person he admitted that I had “passed out at some point during sex” and that he had then stopped. For all I know I might have been passed out through the whole thing. One thing is clear, I was too intoxicated to consent and he clearly remembered everything. He also didn’t explicitly confirm that he had used a condom. I started experiencing severe anxiety and I would need to hide every time I saw him around the student apartment complex. 10 days laters I started bleeding out profusely. I had no one to take me to a hospital and couldn’t call an ambulance. I was completely alone and I thought I was going to die. But thankfully the bleeding stopped after around 24h. I have always thought this could have been a miscarriage but doctors have never confirmed this, apparently no one knows. One week after this I got my period which was also very strange. I bounced back from all this ordeal and everyone I told about that night I told it had been consensual and never said I had no recollection of it. After this incident my behavior became increasingly erratic. I started drinking a lot more and completely lost control. I literally became easy pray from men. Less severe forms of sexual assault happened during that period of time. I’m not going to get into those. The two other two more severe assaults, which we could also describe as rape, happened over the following 7 months. I was already back home. In one I believe I was spiked but it could just have been alcohol poisoning. I woke up for a few seconds to a dude on top of me which I didn’t even remember meeting and quickly lost consciousness again. The other involved the best friend of my best friend’s now ex-boyfriend, an Italian dude. I met him one night while partying and we made out. At the end of the party everyone left and I was stuck with this dude so we ended up going back to my house. I was drunk but I remember everything. We made out again then he wanted to have sex. I didn’t want to so I started saying no. He got super rough with me and he broke my bed. I was very angry  so I told him to leave and tried to push him away. He out-forced me pretty easily and at that point I gave up. I let him do whatever he wanted so he wouldn’t hurt me and I prayed for the whole thing to be over fast. I remember disassociating from my body feeling as if I was an observer. So that’s that for me. It’s funny because coming to terms with the two last incidents has been much more easy than the first one. Remembering the first one still gives me anxiety and it has been 8 years now.

[chronotopes]

lantern, harvest, pumpkin?

lantern - how did you meet your best friend? What were your first impressions of each other?

trigonometry class on my first day of junior year! our high school environment was such that our first impressions of each other were basically always gonna be pure “Oh Holy Shit It’s A Gay Person I Must Befriend Them Right Now Immediately.” in more detail i guess we both mutually thought we were extremely smart and funny (which was correct), and that surely the other party couldn’t be AS interested in being friends as we were (which was wrong)

harvest - what fictional character do you most identify with? Why?

this changes depending on what thing i’m most interested in within any given moment! currently it’s terezi from A Webcomic Called Homed Stuck. i really connect to a lot of stuff her arc has to say about identity and performance and The Mortifying Ordeals Of Being Loved And/Or Known.

the other characters in hs i identify with are rose and a little vriska as a treat. can u tell i’m a mean lesbian? my past big points of connection are tiffany aching from discworld and ezri dax from star trek ds9

pumpkin - do you think that humans are inherently good or bad?

none of the conventional answers to this question ever really made sense with me. ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mean a lot of things! what’s the big deal with demanding inherence? i think humans are for sure inherently some things – inherently predisposed to seek their own happiness and comfort, and at the same time inherently predisposed to dislike seeing the suffering of others. i don’t think describing those qualities with an overarching ‘good’ or ‘bad’ qualifier really does anything for anyone. who we grow up to be matters more than what we’re inherently predisposed to anyway 

[justanotherbuckydevotee]

Not The Only Monster

Summary : Sometimes the truth doesn’t set you free -- Bucky x Reader

Warnings : Angst. Talk of murder.

Word Count : 1,204 words.

A/N : Now THIS ONE I’m a bit anxious to share. I knew someone who did this (not literally) and at that time I didn’t think much of it because it’s her decision, and quite frankly I’m neutral about this whole ordeal. I don’t want people to be saying shit to me because of what I think so please… just don’t. If you’re uncomfortable with the issue of babies and abortion please DO NOT read this. I have an alternate ending for this story (that I still have not finished) so if you think the ending is unsatisfying, or it could’ve gone better don’t be afraid to tell me what you think; I value and encourage criticisms of my writings. Again, take note that English is not my first language so any errors that you want to point out, just go ahead and shoot me a message or ask (:

masterlist

There was heaviness in the air between you and Bucky. The both of you had stayed silent, your eyes avoiding his hard gaze as you studied the floor. Your heart was hammering against your chest, the beat banging loudly in your ear.

The conversation the two of you had was still fresh in your head, your last words replaying at the back of your mind.

“You’re not the only monster in the team, Barnes” you chuckled lowly as you recalled the one horrible, sinister act you executed. Your eyes may still be looking at him, but your focus was elsewhere. Even though you were here, in your room at the compound surrounded by your team mates, the danger lurking put off at bay, you could never escape your unforgiving past –because behind these four walls you were left to contemplate on your sins.

“What are you talking about?” he asked as he noticed the way your eyes were void of any emotions. He recognized that look anywhere; you were somewhere else, revisiting a memory and letting the weight take over your being. Bucky placed his hand on your shoulder, and his touch had brought you out of your walk down memory lane.

“Y/N?” he asked, his voice gentle, as if asking a terrified child where their mother was when they got lost.

You began focusing on him, noticing his worried expression. His furrowed eyebrows, the blue in his eyes filled with concern at your sudden change in attitude. He had never seen the walls you carefully built crumble to dust, and it pained him to know that you too had a fair share of a tragic fate. He saw the internal battle you were waging in that very moment. He knew the torn feeling of wanting to divulge a predicament, but also not wanting to be judged by it.

“I killed someone” you finally managed to murmur and your eyes began to water.

At first, Bucky couldn’t understand what you meant –of course you had killed someone. The whole team had killed someone at one point in their lives in order to make the world a better place, ridding of any evil. Then it dawned on him; you weren’t talking about killing the wrong people, you were talking about committing a murder on an innocent life. Suddenly he felt a searing pain where his hand touched your shoulders, and he quickly returned his arm to his side as you looked down the floor.

‘I killed someone’

He wanted to know who, to know why you decided to do so. And you wanted to reveal to him, to finally let someone know about the one thing you were mortified of. But how could you formulate a sentence that would release that burden off of you while simultaneously make him understand why you had done it in the first place? For once you let your emotions get the best of you, and let yourself cry –finally allowing guilt to wash over you.

Bucky heard you sobbing on the edge of your bed, and never had he encountered such a pitiful sight before him. You were letting someone in, allowing them into the deepest and darkest part of your soul. On the outside you were strong, confidence practically running in your veins as you sauntered around the compound with your head held high, but this? This was everything but that person.

You were fragile, and any wrong movement or words he spilled will undoubtedly scare you away.

“You can trust me” he spoke gently, making you cry harder. Inside you were scared, so scared of what he’ll think of you when you reveal to him your most personal issue. Will he ever look at you the same again? Will he tell the others? Will he abandon you too? Mustering all the courage you had left, all the energy that was still in you, you returned to meet him.

“In the Institution” you began, swallowing the lump in your throat before continuing “where I was raised, where I was trained, I was partnered with a guy”. You closed your eyes and inhaled a shaky breath. The secret was at the tip of your tongue, and the courage that you mustered was beginning to waver. “I hated him. He was vile and cruel” you explained, your body now shaking but from what you couldn’t identify.

“He did things to me, things I will never forget” you told him, hoping he knew the ugly truth underneath it. You tore your eyes open when the face of the man you detested came flashing by, his evil smirk plastered on his lips.

“it’s a boy” a doctor announced, holding a baby in their arms. He was crying softly with his tiny hands flailing around, begging to be touched by the warm hands of his mother. “Get it away from me” you screamed, looking at it with disgust. Your partner then came charging in, wrapping his large hands over his son protectively. He looked down at you and said “Don’t worry, my doll. You will learn to love him”, before taking the baby away and leaving you behind.

“I…” you croaked, now unsure on your decision to tell him. Nobody knew of this, not even Natasha. You had kept this side of you hidden deeply inside of you in a vain attempt to forget it. But how could one forget?

“He was just three” you finally confessed, bringing your hands to cover your face, the shame burning your whole existence.

Shocked, horrified, revolted –those were the emotions that whirled inside Bucky when you finally let it out. He was speechless, and your cries the only sound that echoed in your room. He thought HYDRA was cold-blooded, but nothing could be as merciless as to what you had done. He wanted to scream at you and to get away, far away from you as possible because he never thought you would do such a terrible thing. He recoiled, taking a few steps backwards as if the space between you and him was flames.

You heard him retreat, and you knew he was disgusted by you. Who wouldn’t be? You were a monster they let in, disguised in the form of a woman who had skills that were beneficial to their operation.

You cried harder, feeling the consequence of being honest bite you. There was nothing but silence from Bucky’s end and your muffled weeps for a time, and maybe that was what provoked a few hurried knocks at the door. Damn these paper thin walls.

You didn’t even hear the door being torn open as Steve barged in, his worried voice booming from the silence that had plagued you and Bucky. Not wanting to let your secret be told freely while you were here, you ripped your hands from your face, revealing to them your drenched cheeks and reddening eyes, before standing up and running past them.

One of them knew, and that’s all it takes for private information to be turned into public knowledge. You didn’t want to witness these people that you had learned to care, to value, and see them turn against you.

So you did what was rational, and left.

Deserve This -- continuation 

Tagging: @imaginingbucky @avengersnthings @bexboo616 @bucky-plums-barnes (Tell me if you want me to stop tagging you / to tag you).

[aducklingrants]

The most embarrassing thing about coming off a low period is having to do a whole apology tour.

If I were to make a bingo for the experience of being my friend, it would have one square that says, "being ignored for days on end with no explanation." I am ashamed to say that I have nothing worthwhile to explain it with; calling it depression feels so callous, so dismissive, as if I expect you to excuse my distant, irresponsible actions just because my brain lacks the serotonins to make me act like a normal person. I do not want to be that person who hides behind the fragile screen of a mental illness, and I do not ask to be pitied. I am ashamed to admit that I am too scared to be understood, for it has to mean to explain the hundreds of contradictions that run themselves dry inside my head at any given moment. The whole ordeal of explaining how I feel is so mortifying when largely I have never been good at identifying just one single clear emotion. I do not want to subject any of you to the confusing, frustrating task of understanding my irrationality. I wonder every day if I am simply lazy, unfit for the responsibilities that the world will throw at me, devastatingly incompetent under pressure, and that is why I have no choice but to turn myself off. Perhaps that is the truth, and the comforting, pitying pillow of depression is what I have grown accustomed to fall back on so I do not have to face repercussions.

If I was really sorry, perhaps I wouldn't spend so much time trying to explain myself. Perhaps all I have to do is take the blame; that is certainly easier to do. If all of you hated me, I no longer have to perform this version of me that is cheerful, loud and filthy-mouthed, a fun, knowledgeable person. Not this husk of the 2017 cocky, proud me who feels so much and for nothing. The truth is, I missed that person too, and I do not know where she went. It is very irresponsible of me to let her escape, and I think since then I've put this version of me in jail so nothing could ever pass me by ever gain. I just feel so much and for nothing; all my feelings have ever served me is this horrible state of comatose that roots me in bed and refuses to let me get up. I am not kind nor good; I just sink my teeth into the few good days and try to get by, and for that I am sorry. I thought that I would be better one day; so why bother explain? Why bother with the infomercial, go through the trouble of making you understand, when I could quietly disappear and be better, so that the next time you see me it would be the better and improved version? But I am still desperately terrible, and then I cannot explain anything, for all that you know about me is written all over me: selfish, grossly incompetent, a travesty of narcissism and exhausting self-hatred, disgustingly exhibitionist in feelings.

I am sorry that I feel the need to justify everything that I do. I hope you don't see me as a victim; I simply want you to know that this is something that I am going through. I do my best to keep the most mangled parts locked-up, but I don't do a good job of it sometimes. I am sorry I'm letting all this bleed out. I will collect myself soon.