#this story is long

[its-in-the-woods]

Down the Rabbit Hole Chapter 8

Chapter one here, two here, three here, four here , five here, six here, seven here,

Pairing: Walton Goggins x You

Rating/Warning:  As always minor get out. Back to angst, this whole chapter is pretty angsty, some emotional damage, melancholy, self-doubt, self hatred, and almost no Walton (I am sorryyyy) It will get better I promise.. maybe..

Synopsis: Working in film as a make-up artist is hard enough, but then Walton Goggins requests you, well it's way too easy to fall down the rabbit hole.

Note: they are both single, all for fun.

I think I may have an ending now. Posts will continue to be 2-3k long. Every other day more than likely. The whole fic will be around 30k words.

You wake up to an empty bed, you frown and look around. Disappointment seeps into your skin at not getting morning cuddles from the man who had you screaming his name last night. The door is open a bit and you can hear Walton talking. Getting up you grab the shirt and pants, that had started last night’s shenanigans, from the ground slipping them on quickly. You open up the door and walk down the hallway, peaking into the kitchen Walton is sitting at the table. Tablet in front of him, glasses perched on his nose, brows furrowed as he talks into the phone. 

“I am a little preoccupied, can it not wait?” He speaks into the phone, rubbing his hand against his forehead.

You slip in and grab a cup filling it with water, before going to the table. Sitting across from him you can see that he is scrolling through a lengthy email. The water is cool, and your throat a little raw from the evening before. You can feel the material of your shirt rubbing against your fresh bruises. 

“Okay, okay,” Walton grumbles a frustrated sigh coming out. “Yes, I will be on the plane, I’ll be in LA in a few hours.” Your heart sinks a little, realizing he is going to be leaving. A feeling of dread spreading across your sternum, as you wait for him to finish his conversation. 

“Have you called production as well?” He asks, eyebrows raised, throwing his hand up, “Okay. Yes, I know it's important. I actually had plans this weekend. Yes, I know you tried to get a hold of me, but the day before seems a little short notice?” 

His shoulders slump and he leans back against the chair, staring up at the ceiling hand on his head, “Yes, I will be downstairs in twenty.”

The phone gets dropped on the table, the tablet switched off, his eyes looking at you. Running his hand through his hair he lets out another sigh. He looked tired, his usually sparkling eyes a little dim. The man’s usual endless energy smothered into a whiff of smoke. 

“I, unfortunately, have to go to LA, Leo will be here to pick me up in twenty minutes,” He groans and reaches out to take your hand. “If there was any way around it I would stay.” You squeeze his hand, trying to reassure him and yourself. 

You were looking forward to the weekend with him, but your mind drifted to the conversation from last night. His life was unconventional, he was going to be on the move a lot. If you couldn’t deal with that, then you shouldn’t have started down this road to begin with. 

“It’s okay, I know you’re busy man,” You say putting a smile on your face, even if it hurt now, you where determined to at least give it a shot. “I will get an Uber set up and get my things.”

“If you want to stay here you’re more than welcome,” He says softly, and as much as you want to stay in this beautiful space you know it would be better to go home.

“No, I am good.” Letting go of his hand you stand up, and he follows after you as you go back to the bedroom. 

His hands find your hips and he turns you around to face him. “Hey, hey,” You can’t look at him in the eyes. Walton’s fingers tip your head up, and you try to keep yourself from getting emotional. “This was never the plan. I know it’s not ideal, and if I could convince my agent to fly you down with me I would.” You almost hate him for knowing you so well, the way he crawled underneath the careful mask you created. The fact that you let him in so easily. 

You shake your head, “I knew what I was getting into. Get ready to go or Leonard is gonna be up my ass about it.” 

A small smile crosses his face and you kiss him gently before you strip out of the borrowed clothes stepping into last night's. You gather things up from around the room slipping the belt around your waist. A smile crosses your lips remembering both of you running around the room like lunatics. The thought that you would get to do that again helps keep you going forward. 

Walton has a small bag he is stuffing things into. He looks flustered, hair standing on end face flushed as he disappears into the bathroom. He mutters under his breath as grabs a power cord. You grab your phone dig into the apps to find an uber, happy when you see one is less then five minutes from you. Going over to him you tap his shoulder, he turns to you his deep eyes looking you over. That heat pooling in your guts as you meet his, and if both of you didn’t need to be on the road in five minutes you’d be get him out of that shirt again. 

“I am gonna head out,” You say quietly, hand coming up to rub against his stubble. “Message me when you can okay.”

He leans against your hand eyes closing, turning his head to kiss your palm. “I will, as soon as I land and over the next few days.”

You nod, moving forward to give him one final kiss before you leave. Heart sinking to your feet as you close the door behind you, all you want to do is run back. To tell him you’d figure out how to come with him, anything just get anothe day in. 

***

“So, come on tell me all the details,” Trevor all but bounces through the phone. 

“If I wanted you to know the details of my sex life I’d invite you to join,” You chuckle, as you dig through your mostly empty fridge.

“Well, I am sure Walton wouldn’t mind that much,” 

“Oh please, then again he did bite me. Also the belt.”

“Did he spank you?” Trevor squealed into the phone.

“Well not really, he slapped my ass with my belt.” You flush remembering the exchange, the absolute glee on his face. 

“Oooh, you two are going to be a problem. Should have known he has a kinky side.”

“Hush, we are both professionals, I haven’t heard from him since he left this morning.”  You can hear the hurt in your voice. As much as you’ve tried to avoid it not hearing from him since you left had started to cloud your mind.  Your fingers tip tracing over the marks on your collarbone, a stark reminder of what had transpired. 

“Oh,” Trevor says, you can hear his voice soften, “I am sure he is just busy. He will get back to you.”

“I am sure he will,” But that cloud of doubt has already crept in. You know he is busy and probably is going through a laundry list of things to do. But it still hurts that he hasn't texted you back. You could phone him, text him again, but you also didn’t want to push things. The last thing the man needed was a clingy girlfriend. Where you even that? Was it just a fling for him? Pushing that away you tell yourself its best if you let it be, he would get back to you. 

“Now, now, don’t get in the dumps girly. That man is smitten all over you,” 

“Well wasn’t all over me, thought I might have to try that” You giggle trying to change the subject.

“Oh you’re nasty,” Trevor says gleefully. 

“Not yet, but I have a feeling that may change,” You smile, a little spark of hope in your mind. “I am looking forward to Monday.” 

“If you can believe I will be too! Want to see how flustered I can get both of you,” Trevor cackles into the phone. 

The two of you chitchat for a few more hours before you say goodnight. You sit at your small desk slash dining table looking at your wall of artwork. Your heart was heavy, you flipped your phone open scrolling to see anything. But there was nothing. Putting your phone face down on the table, you debate if you should eatt. It would likely have to be take out as the fridge was bare. The thought of food made your stomach turn, maybe it was best to just have another cup of coffee. 

***

The water from the shower spilled heavily over you. You sat in the bottom of the shower tears mixing with the water, snot had long been wiped away. You shiver slightly even with the steam. You knew sitting here wasn’t going to help anything, but you also didn’t want to go out there. Here the pounding water and stingy heat stopped your mind for a moment. Stopped it racing over all the what-ifs of the world. You couldn’t face another blank screen, scrolling through all the unanswered texts. Why did it hurt so much? You had excused Saturday, but then Sunday came. An email from Liz. Saying Walton wouldn’t be in Monday, but that you would be assisting FX with their work. Normally you’d have been happy to help FX, and get a chance to show some of your skills. But knowing that Walton wouldn’t be there and wasn’t answering his phone made your heartache. You had heard how people died of broken hearts, how their hearts just gave out. Was that what this felt like, to feel your heart pounding at your chest with grief? 

You tried so desperately to let go of Friday night. The weeks of flirting, the feel of him touching you, the date at the sushi place and long night on the beach. The way he had and kissed you. Maybe you were jumping to conclusions, but hearing nothing from him felt like a nail in the coffin. You had seen a few photos and interviews of him, promoting his latest released show. He looked happy and cheerful, answering questions with his quirky smile. Your fingers running over the marks that still covered your chest. Pressing on them to feel a slight amount of pain that numbed the hurt. 

“So stupid,” You mutter under your breath, dragging yourself from the floor of the shower. You turn the water off and grab a towel drying yourself off in the humid room. You rub at your scalp trying to scrub memories out of your mind. Purposefully avoid the mirror so you didn’t sese the memories of Friday. 

You don’t bother getting dressed just crawling under the covers. You set an alarm for tomorrow and plugged your phone in. Facing it down against the side table. You curl up under the covers more tears coming out. 

“Go out for two dates, and you’re laying here blubbering like you're sixteen.” You curse at yourself. “It’s enough. You knew it wasn’t going to end any other way. Let it go.”

***

Monday morning comes and you are downing a redbull and breakfast burrito. You don’t bother talking with Trevor, just shooting him a look of ‘please let it be’. You are grateful he doesn’t push the matter, instead, you get your hands deep in fake blood. Helping FX set up the dead bodies and crime scenes. Just happy to have a reason not to look at your phone. You briefly contemplate turning it off entirely. But leave it on just in case, in case of what you weren’t sure. What excuse could he have had for ignoring you for nearly three days. Your jaw hurts from clenching iit so much. You rub against it, fingers moving down to the mark on your collarbone. You still had marks, the thought made vomit sting in the back of your throat. Something had to be wrong here, you walked over to your chair and sit. Trying to hold back the emotions that were threatening to pull out of you. 

Friday night had been, wonderful, amazing, a bunch of other adjectives. You shake your head, fingers still fighting to not rub on the bruises. The way he had made you feel as he touched you. Your face is flushed, both with anger and regret. Maybe you were being irrational, maybe you’d look too deep into things. But had you? You feel your jaw clench again, part of you wants to just leave. Walk away from set, from it all, the emotions gnaw inside trying to find a way out. The AD yells cut and calls lunch, you feel relieved half of the day was done. 

You grab a book from your trailer before going to get lunch it helps take your mind off things. You are sitting in the tent book in hand, trying to avoid everyone, when Leonard sits down in front of you. Stomach learches as you try to ignore him, but he just keeps looking at you. You look over your book at him, the older man doesn’t have a plate of food. Just staring at you with deep blue eyes, hand running down his white beard. You let a sigh and put the book down.

“Hi Leonard.” You say trying not to let irritation seep in. It really felt like the world was against you today. Could no one leave you alone for 12 hours?

“Could I talk to you please, outside,” He was firm and confident, but at the same time something a kin to worry seemed to be crossing his face. 

“Sure.” You do your best not to roll your eyes. He gets up and you follow him, tossing your half-eaten lunch in the garbage. Leonard goes down a side street towards his large black SUV. He opens the door for you, and you sigh. Maybe he would abduct you and you’d have legitimate things to worry about.

He closes the door and goes around the front of the vehicle, getting in and turning to you. “I am here to give you a message. I tried to find you this morning but things got a little hairy and I wasn’t able to get to you.”

“Did I join a gang and no one told me?” You ask words laced with sarcasm, fingers itching to grab the door handle and leave. Part of you wanted to know what was happening, and another part didn’t. It would just make it more real. 

Leonard huffed, “Well if it’s a gang of two dumb-asses then yes.” Hand going over the rings on his hands. 

“Sorry Leonard, it’s been a long day.” You saw his shoulder relax a little, he was just the messenger. Even if the message hurt, he didn’t deserve to be on the other end of your anger.

“Mr. Goggins sends his apologies. He left his phone in his apartment and wasn’t able to get a hold of you”

You blink for a few minutes, eyes narrowing at him. Could it really be true, something so simple? “That’s awfully convenient.”

Leonard narrowed his eyes right back at you, “If you saw how upset he was. You would think otherwise.” You felt like you were being scolded in kindergarten. 

You chewed on the inside of your cheek. “Leonard, are you messing with me? Cause I am not here for any boys club BS.” 

Leonard sighs looking out the front window, arms resting on top of the steering wheel. “Ma’ma. I’ve known Mr. Goggins for a very long time now. He is many things, but he is not someone to pump and dump.” You cringe at the last phrase, making you feel dirty at the idea. You raised your eyebrows, clear disgust on your face. “You know what I mean.” He said quietly. 

You swallow, heart racing with nervous anticipation. “When is he coming back?”

“This evening, I am sure he will want to see you.” The man was so sure of his words, it was hard not to believe him. 

“Well, he has my number,” You say curtly turning and opening the door to leave. 

You walk quickly from the vehicle, hoping Leonard doesn’t follow you. You have nowhere to go, you know you should go back to the trailer and get the end of the day going. But you need just a few minutes alone. You walk yourself into the bathroom trailer and close the door locking it.  

Ignoring the obvious odors you try to calm your mind, it was racing all over the place. You didn’t know how to feel, you had just spent the last three days upset over him. Yet could it have been as simple as him forgetting his phone? You knew he had forgotten it in the trailer before. Your mind races to Saturday morning, you had seen him put the phone on the table. Your heart skips, and you sit in the stall wanting to punch something. You opt for grabbing all the covered toilet paper rolls and lobbing them off the walls. Here you were blithering away like a fool over something simple. It wasn’t like you both had added each other on socials. Not that that would have mattered. A few more breaths and cleaning up the toilet paper you feel somewhat better. You’d sort whatever the hell this was tomorrow, for now you just needed to make it to the end of the day.

chapter nine

*all the love to every single one of you, you are my heroes*

[smokiedokie]

I opened my copy of The Tale of the Body Thief & immediately had to close it again because of this silly little annotation

[afniel]

This is the magic lucky word count. Reblog for creativity juice. It might even work, who knows.

[newlevant]

Preview of Sam Long’s story, drawn by the amazing Cynthia Yuan Cheng! (@cynthiaycheng, cynthiaycheng.com)

Becoming Who We Are Kickstarter ends Dec 14! Preorder now to help us fund the book!

bit.ly/becomingkickstarter

[wasabi-gumdrop]

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

[jesncin]

"Who Is Superman? A Private Interview with Lois Lane" a fancomic about hope and connection. I've had this story in mind for so long and I'm very excited to be able to share it at last. Thank you for reading, and happy Lunar New Year!

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Might I inquire as to what, precisely, a Mustain't is? (Aside from a string of letters I hesitate to Google in that order.)

In October 2014 I went on a road-trip to the Dryest Place In America.

I was having a rough year, very depressed from having dropped out of college for the third time. I decided a road trip was in order to re-set my brain and get a little distance. Being that it was October, and therefore all the campgrounds in the American Southwest were filled with people who have the good sense to camp in reasonable temperatures, I elected to take my parent's minivan so I could car-camp anywhere suitably isolated, and looked up some of the southwest's geographic extremes- the highest place I could drive to (Pikes Peak), the lowest place (Badwater Basin), and for fun, the Dryest Place in the continental US, which turned out to be the Pinacate Volcanic field just west of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. It gets rain maybe twice a century and has no standing water, despite being less than 100 miles from the gulf of California.

It's a startlingly beautiful and alien place. The ground is a deep chocolate brown to black volcanic sand, and in mid October, the rabbit brush is turning bright yellow as it shifts to autumn, the organ pipe cacti are a dark green and stand, partially concealed in the brush at exactly human height. The air is alive with birds and insects and bats at night. The stargazing is like looking into the eyes of God.

You get there by driving down a little dirt road called "El Camino Del Diablo", or "The Devil's Road".

I drove out about three hours from Glendale, AZ to get there, arriving at sunset, and felt a profound sense of peace. I stargazed, listening to the bats hunt and sing, and slept peacefully for the first time in months.

I stayed out there for three days, sketching and painting the landscape, taking strolls through this almost alien landscape, and enjoying the light and sound and total absence of human intrusion besides myself.

On the fourth night, it was a new moon, and I awoke in the middle of the night. Something was amiss, and it took me a while to realize it was because I could NOT hear the bats. I was sleeping inside the van with the rear windows rolled halfway down rather than trying to set up the tent, so I when I sat up, I looked out of the van's reflective windows to discover what at first appeared to be A Horse.

It was something between pale gray and bright white in the starlight, standing maybe a dozen feet from the van, sniffing curiously. It made sense- I was in the middle of mustang country and there was quite a bit of foliage in the area for it and it did look like a truly wild horse- lumpy where the bones were jutting out, dusty about the hooves and face.

I was instantly seized by the sort of paralytic fear Sleep paralysis is made of. I couldn't move. It wasn't quite looking at me because it couldn't quite see through the windshield into the shadowy into the shadowy interior, but I had the distinct impression that if I looked away, it would know, and get me.

I already had problems with horses. My beloved Aunt Helen's Prize mare tried to kill me on two separate occasions, and the year before I had to carry my sister-in-law backwards out of a slot canyon whilst reciting the Saint Crispin's Day Speech as loudly as possible to keep a mustang from trampling us to death.

This is approximately what it should have looked like:

Instead, it was... off. like trying to draw a horse from memory.

The waist tapered in.

The legs were slightly too long or the torso slightly too short, probably both.

The ears were Triangular.

The head wasn't quite right- Too narrow and the jaw wasn't heavy enough.

The tail was too long and arced unnaturally away from the body.

The neck arched.

The nostrils were too high and close

The mouth too long.

Whatever this is, a Mustang it Ain't.

I watched it from the back seat as it sniffed around the front of the van, curious with about the side mirrors. It moved around the van, nibbling experimentally on the front door handle. It came up to the side windows, sniffing like a dog, and it's breath didn't fog up the glass.

Finally, it came up to the rear window, which was rolled halfway down to let the fall night air in. Not even half a pane of glass and two feet of air between us, and I could clearly see it's bright blue eyes.

Horses have Elongated pupils to give them a wide field of vision, and eyes that rotate sideways in their sockets so the pupil remains parallel to the ground. Rather creepy to watch, especially the ones with blue eyes.

A real horse that was curious about the interior of the van would have come up to the window more or less sideways, and looked at me with something like this:

Instead, the damn thing walked up and faced the back window head on, staring back at me with this:

I'm not sure how long we watched each other like that, eyes locked. My eyes burned. I couldn't blink. My mouth was dry. I couldn't swallow. My throat began to ache. I couldn't make a sound. My skin began to twitch, like I was severely dehydrated. I couldn't move. My lungs burned. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I couldn't move.

Something was touching the side of my hand on the seat next to me. It's my water bottle.

The realization must have broken the terrible paralysis in the lower parts of my brain first, because by the time I consciously realized I could move again, I was already flinging my water bottle out the window at it.

The top was open, and splashed out the window at the Mustain't.

I've never heard such a scream out of an animal. Something halfway between the sound of unquenchable rage vibrating in someone's chest and the way rabbits cry out to God when the dogs catch them.

It jumped back, pivoting away from the van, snarling at the water bottle. I don't think you're supposed to be able to see All of a horse's teeth at once, no matter how angry it is.

I watched it run into the night for some distance, it's pale body visible against the black sand and the dark gray shadow of the ancient volcanic cone it was headed for.

When the blood stopped pounding in my ears, I could hear the bats again.

I debated leaving right then, but I didn't want to get out of the van with that thing in the area, nor litter by leaving the water bottle out there. I also had the awful idea that if I left now, it might somehow be able to follow me home. I ended up staying up three hours to watch the sunrise, shaking and trying to figure out if I'd woken up from a vivid dream, if my meds had stopped working, or if that had really happened. I didn't dare move until I actually felt the temperature rise, before stepping out of the van to grab the bottle. I had my camera ready- I was still using a DSLR back then- to take pictures of the hoofprints, to show how close it had gotten to the van.

No hoofprints.

Beetle tracks in the soft sand around the van, and the clear foot-and-wing prints of a bird that had hopped around then taken off. But no hoofprints.

I went over the entire campsite with the tent broom, to make sure I removed every scrap of evidence I had ever been there, including my footprints, grabbed my water bottle, and drove the three hours back back to Glendale, then decided to do seven more hours of driving to Moab, Utah just to put more than 500 miles, the state line and at least nine things that could be considered "running water" between me and the Mustain't.

-

I still have that water bottle. It has a dent in the bottom from hitting something, but that could have happened at any time. Strange thing though. I can't drink that bottle dry. I'll have it on me, drink whatever I've put in there- water, juice, iced coffee- and eventually feel like I've drunk the whole think and that it's empty. But I open it up and it's still at least a quarter full. I drink that. I get thirsty. I open it up again. ...and there's always a mouthful left.

Not sure what the side effects of drinking from a bottle cursed by a Mustain't to always have some left are, but it lives in the Emergency Breakdown Kit in my car now, just in case I meet another one.

---

(I'm a disabled artist and make my living telling stories, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi or Pre-order the Family Lore book on Patreon)

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[nenoname]

Stan Pines' drawings

Plus a Stan drawing of debatable canonicity but I love his signature being a dollar sign

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

[officialspec]

so we just moved, and the house we moved into has been abandoned for a few years so weve discovered some fun little secrets scattered around as we explored. for example, theres a little room downstairs with graffiti on the door dubbing it 'the dog box'

of course we were intrigued. aside from some storage and a place to put a washing machine, the dog box seems to exclusively contain this old ass piano, with a little window to see into it from outside

also pictured sitting on the piano is a little novelty dagger we found in the grass outside. its all very funny and novel, right? we thought so

that was when we found The Stain

of course, we immediately jumped to some conclusions. the knife outside, the abandoned house, 'do not enter' written on the door. whatever it was, it had dripped through the floorboards from upstairs, from approximately just outside the bathroom. we decided to wait until we finished moving and then grab some peroxide to test it just in case

still, the dog box bloodstain remained a hot topic, and the curiosity was killing me. after figuring out where upstairs the stain wouldve dripped down from, we noticed it had also seeped up through the newly installed flooring, and i decided i couldnt wait to investigate

looking around the dog box, i noticed that there was a section of the ceiling/underfloor that was noticeably newer than the rest of it, meaning the place the stain had leaked through had been pulled out and replaced just before we moved in. suspicious

im using my phone torch to look around in the dark, and when i shine it on the bloodstain it lights up in a distinctly.... glossy way. when i get closer i can see its not matte, but sticky. so i decide to touch it, and immediately im hit with a STRONG smell of something deeply familiar. all the pieces fall together at once, and using my superior investigative prowess i have deduced the culprit

it was bees. there was a fuckoff massive beehive in the floor that got taken out before we moved in and it leaked honey up through the floorboards and onto the floor of the dog box and the landlord didnt feel like cleaning it up. mystery solved

[elexuscal]

Danny Phantom, The Show:

geeky kid gets super powers from his parents' weird inventions! now he has to fight a rogue gallery of ghosts... but uh-oh! he still has to keep his grades up, deal with his embarrassing parents, and navigate girl troubles! rap theme song!

Danny Phantom, the Fandom, After 19 Years of Fermentation:

a child dies. but not quite. the inherent tension between life and death. the obsession of the dead for faded remnants of the living. warped green shadows on the walls of a dark laboratory. having to hide your true nature from those who should be your greatest allies. the fear of the monster you could become if you let yourself. being a ghost as a metaphor for the trans experience. a cold breath on the back of your neck in the dead of the night. rap theme song!

[tooquirkytolose]

~The Most Beautiful Woman in The World~

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