#yes there was just lesbian sex which was a huge win but that JUST happened today

[livvyofthelake]

i think the biggest reason it’s taking me so long to read chain of thorns is because i need to take so many breaks. i read one page of thomas and i have to contemplate for three hours. i see cordelia doing something horrible and i have to close the book in secondhand embarrassment. i get mad at jesse again and i have to take a break to cool down. this is no way to read cassie a girl cannot live like this…

[sapphos-darlings]

Is it true that lesbian couples are the most likely to get divorced? If yes, then why?

You know - when I first ran into this claim, I was 17. Gay marriage wasn’t a thing back then, yet a girl close to me had just entered a relationship with another girl, and they were both despairing over the way they felt their relationship was doomed from the beginning because of this rumour that lesbian relationships don’t last. They were trying their hardest to find older lesbians in long-term relationships to convince them that they, too, could last. I don’t know if they ever found any.

Now, for the question itself. Before we go into it any deeper, let’s face up with two facts: firstly, and most importantly, depending on your location two women have been able to marry anywhere from never to a couple years at best. The very first country to allow marriage between same-sex partners was the Netherlands in 2001. Here’s a timeline to illustrate:

This is a remarkably minimal timeline to be working analytics from. Especially universally. This is not every country in the world. In fact, it is at best a tiny fraction of all countries of the world. Which leads us to the next point we must observe,

we don’t have this kind of statistics. There is no way to compare homosexual divorce rate with heterosexual divorce rates objectively, because heterosexual marriage has existed pretty much throughout the history of civilization, whereas homosexual marriage started 19 years ago. Similarly, it is impossible to objectively compare divorce and marriage length between gay, lesbian and straight couples simply due to the effect of cultural factors, especially in terms of homophobia and oppression faced by gay and lesbian couples in comparison to straight couples, and the differences in the kinds of struggles and pressures that gay and lesbian couples face in comparison with each other.

So, it might be impossible to answer your question with the data we have, due to the nonexistent history from which to measure from, and because in order to examine divorce in same-sex relationships in general, I feel that we absolutely should take into account the environments and conditions these marriages happened, and only compare them amongst marriages in similar environments and conditions, especially culturally speaking. This just isn’t possible.

Now, for the actual answer?

Shortly put, the studies we have right now say yes. Same-sex marriages between two women have about twice the divorce rate from marriages between two men, and range from about the same divorce rate as heterosexual marriages to having a higher divorce rate than heterosexual marriages depending on the study and country in question.

In a study conducted in Denmark, the divorce rate for lesbian couples over a decade was 30%, against 18% for opposite-sex couples and 15% for gay couples. This is the longest term study I can find.

Let’s look into the why.

First, it’s important to once more remember that same-sex marriage is a novelty. In every country that has so far legalized gay marriage, it has been a major victory and a huge milestone in the struggle for our rights. To celebrate it, a lot of couples got married. A lot of couples. That involves couples who perhaps shouldn’t have gotten married, and so, you have divorces happening at a faster rate than they normally would if there had been nothing to celebrate. Some evidence points to the very first wave of gay marriages trending towards a longer survival rate than the waves following them, but this first wave would similarly include the couples who had already been together for decades, and for whom marrying was just making official what had already been their lives for years and years before - nothing changed for them. For the following couples, there may well have been some hurry to marry, both out of the sheer joy of being able to do so, and for the fear that it would be taken away.

Secondly, there are multiple other factors straining same-sex couples. Oppression is a very harsh reality in our lives, and oppression leads to difficult life situations, and difficult life situations do not favour marriages and commitment. It is extremely difficult to stay in a stable relationship when nothing else in your life is stable - it’s like building a house on an earthquake.

Some of the cited reasons for divorce by homosexual couples, gay and lesbian, include societal attitudes and family pressures. We don’t need a reminder of how difficult it is to be gay in this world, but it is absolutely crucial to remember when speaking of gay divorce. Marriage may provide the legal status of equality to a gay couple, but it is also just about the equivalent of a visible stamp on your forehead. A lifetime of homophobia, internalized and external, clashes with a homosexual couple marrying. It’s like coming out over and over again, or hiding the biggest of secrets from everyone around you. It’s the realisation you still aren’t equal, you still can’t proudly call your wife your wife without the fear of what’ll follow. It’s the shame and the doubt that has always followed you turning to diamonds under the pressure you feel under scrutiny. It’s the knowledge that now you and your relationship are examples set to everyone who is watching, and they are watching - if you don’t succeed, you will be judged for it. What if your family disowns you for it? What if your relatives don’t even attend your wedding? It is so easy to be ashamed and afraid even of the best thing in your life under the prejudiced observation of everyone and everything around you.

Woman couples suffer both these difficulties together with the added unique oppression of misogyny, and a higher overall rate of trauma, mental illness and addiction. Is it any wonder we have a harder time keeping our marriages stable? Look at it from an objective perspective and it’s impossible to miss that many of us live in a cesspool of horrors.

But it’s not all bad. See that the highest divorce percentage over a ten year period was 30%? That means that 70% of all same-sex marriages between two women survived that decade. 70% of those couples are still together. That’s not just half of them, that’s well over a half. Seven out of ten couples stayed together. Furthermore, homosexual couples overall report higher satisfaction, happiness and intimacy in their relationships than heterosexual couples do. This includes female couples! If you look at those reports and match them with the success rate of marriages over the period of a decade... you could just about read between the lines that the majority of our long-term relationships are stable, happy and committed.

The world may be dealing us its worst, but it hasn’t broken us, and it can’t separate us all, or even the majority of us. Our relationships are strong. The fact that we often hurt and that this hurt and pressure may prove to be too much for some doesn’t mean that we’re doomed to an eternity of loneliness. The very fact that most of our marriages do survive means that we are fighters and we are winning, and that our love is well worth the struggle, and that our fears are conquerable.

Oh, and that couple I knew when I was 17, who were scared that they’d never make it? It’s been 12 years, and they’re still together.

So that’s something, isn’t it?

[rising-generations]

Iris. [SDRA2 Sannohashi Oneshot]

read on ao3 here if you please

plot:

and i don't want the world to see me 'cause i don't think that they'd understand when everything's made to be broken i just want you to know who i am.

syobai hashimoto has to fix the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life. mikado sannoji has to deal with what syobai leaves behind when he runs away. it was never supposed to go this far.

syobai-focused sannohashi, set in the "nuclear" AU. more explained inside. featuring trans!mikado and sora/syobai friendship. tw for mentions of suicide attempt in the beginning.

notes:

So to make a long story short, this series takes place after a huge nuclear war decimated half of the human population and fucked up a lot of shit with the environment and people's bodies. Everybody knows shit's fucked. The SDRA2 kids exist in the same universe as the rest of the canon Ultimates, and everyone's around the same age (THH and NDRV3 kids are about 22, SDR2 kids are 23, SDRA2 kids are around 20-21). So everyone's an adult. Don't come for my throat. Don't like it, don't leave a nasty comment, thanks! Bad and stinky comments will be placed inside the bee oven to atone for their sins.

It's not often that Syobai admits this, but this time, he's absolutely, completely, royally, fucked up. Badly. And normally he doesn't care, but this time is so very different. Sitting at a table in a nearly-empty diner at half-past noon is not where he thought he was gonna end up today, but here he is, with his head in his hands, staring down at his phone's lock screen, counting the minutes since Sora sent her "omw" text.

This diner serves whiskey. A lot of places serve liquor now, have since the war tore the world apart and left millions of traumatized people to deal with the aftermath, many of them turning to alcohol to cope. Syobai has been drinking since the ripe old age of ten, so that's not new to him, and the whiskey they have here is strong, and it's tempting.

It's so, so tempting. But if he does that, it won't end very well for him; first of all, Sora would likely -- definitely -- beat his ass into next week if she shows up and finds him drunk. Second, in the state he's currently in emotionally, if he gets drunk, all he's going to do is remember things, and when he remembers things, he ends up waking up on the bathroom floor at 3 AM in a puddle of his own tears with a bottle of pain pills in his hand.

So Syobai won't drink. Not today, anyway. But God damn, does he really want to smoke.

As soon as he starts to get up to go outside (the diner has a no smoking policy, which he thinks is stupid considering the fact that nuclear warfare has done shit to the air they don't even know about yet, but he's not willing to get kicked out and risk a beating by Sora yet again), the universe interferes with his life once more. Sora steps in through the door of the diner.

Well there goes that plan.

She spots him fairly quickly and strides over to the booth in the back corner, sliding into the seat like nothing's changed. Syobai remembers when they'd used to skip class every Wednesday and go down to the diner down the street from Hope's Peak, the one that served all the crazy Western food, and dare each other to eat the craziest shit on the menu as fast as they could without puking or choking. Sora, of course, would win every time, and "claim her victory for all of the lesbians out there."

It's enough to make him smile a little bit. The diner was abandoned when the war started, but they still hang out there sometimes.

"So, you wanna tell me what's wrong with you?"

Sora's voice breaks through his thoughts, and Syobai lifts his head to look at her. She's got her chin in her hand, and her elbow propped on the table.

"Elbows on the table? Not very lady-like," Syobai jokes. With her free hand, Sora flips him off, and he snickers. "I'm kidding, geez. Who says there's anything wrong with me?"

Sora points at the complimentary basket of chips the diner serves with every customer. "There's food on the table, and you haven't eaten it all yet to spite me. Now, I asked you nicely. Don't make me come over there."

Well. Looks like he can't stall his explanation anymore.

He lets out a long, heavy, slow sigh, and laces his fingers together in front of him on the table. Syobai turns his grey-eyed gaze down towards the surface of the table, before forcing himself to look up and meet Sora's eyes.

"I need your help," he says simply. "I fucked up."

"You do that a lot. Elaborate."

"I fucked up really, really bad." Syobai pauses. "With Mikado."

Sora tilts her head. "Last time I asked, you told me the two of you were "just sleeping together casually." Did you lie to me, Syobai?"

Syobai swallows heavily. He can hear his heart beating in his ears.

"Mikado is pregnant," he finally says. The words actually leaving his lips feel like the final blow in a fight, and he's just lost. "With my children."

"... oh." Sora blinks a few times. "So this was an accident, I take it? Whatever happened to high school Syobai Hashimoto who carried five different types of condoms in his wallet at all times just in case he met a hot guy walking home from school?"

"Hey, in my defense, I usually still have condoms." Yes, they're a bit harder to find nowadays, as is almost everything, but up until now, he's always managed to have one on hand for when the two of them start feeling frisky (which tends to happen at least once a day). "To answer your question, though, what happened is Setsuka decided to get hitched."

"The party," Sora gasps, remembering suddenly. "Oh, my God. So you two did fuck in the bathroom! Emma owes me five thousand yen."

"Yes, we did do that," Syobai mumbles. It's not totally his fault, he thinks. It's not like Mikado wasn't grinding on him half the night, begging him to fuck him as hard as he could against the wall. It's no doubt the best sex he's ever had in his life.

And, of course, it's the one time they fuck without a condom and without pulling out. Not that that's guaranteed to help anything, but hey, it might have? Maybe it's just wishful thinking on Syobai's part.

"So what's the problem?" Sora continues. "Does he not want the babies?"

Syobai looks away. "I, uh. I don't know."

Sora's eyes narrow dangerously. "You didn't talk to him about it?"

Syobai gives a dry laugh. "Well, ya see, that's where the whole "I fucked up really bad" bit comes in."

"What'd you do." This isn't spoken as a question, somehow, as Sora's voice deepens. She's already pissed off, great, and Syobai has a feeling she won't be any happier when he tells this part of the story.

"Um." Syobai swallows again, more nervous this time. "I... I ran off."

Silence. "Excuse me?" Sora says. "You wanna run that by me again?"

Syobai still isn't meeting her eyes. He recalls exactly how the exchange went, just about two hours ago now.

"I'm pregnant."

The world stops turning.

Mikado's holding his hands over his stomach, gloved fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt so tightly his hands shake. Syobai, on the other hand, just. Stands there. Staring at Mikado, completely speechless.

Before he knows it, his body is reacting all on its own. Syobai opens his mouth, trying to form an intelligent response, but all that comes out is two words he'll regret deeply:

"I can't."

Before Mikado reacts to that, Syobai yanks the front door open and takes off down the street, running and running and running until he can't, falling to his knees behind the 7-11 -- how the hell did he get there, it's a mile from the house -- choking and coughing before he inevitably pukes from the strain of running so far, so fast.

This all goes through his head in the span of about two seconds. "I just stood there like an idiot," Syobai finally says. "I -- I said I can't and then I ran." His hand curls into a fist. "I ran like the dumb fucking coward I am." He brings his fist down on the table as hard as he can. Sora doesn't jump, instead staring at him evenly. "Go ahead and say it. I know you want to."

"You're right for once. What the hell is wrong with you?" Sora snaps. "I know that taking responsibility for your numerous fuck-ups is completely foreign to you, and usually you get away with it with no consequences because that's just how it is when you deal with people you don't care about and criminals, and hey, I can let it go when it's some nameless Yakuza dude who got assassinated with a gun you sold someone 'cause I don't care either," she begins. "But then, you turn around and do this shit? To Mikado? To someone we all know, and yeah, he might be a rat, but he doesn't deserve to be left high and dry and pregnant and scared because you --" And here she points at him, Syobai flinching as every word cuts deeper, "-- are a fucking coward. You're God damn right you screwed up."

"I was scared," Syobai says, his weak attempt at a protest surprising even himself.

"You were scared?" Sora laughs, and it's bitter. "That's funny. It's funny that you were scared. How do you think Mikado feels right now? Alone, facing the possibility of having to raise more than one child by himself after the man he's spent half of high school madly in love with, and the man he's been sleeping with for the past six months, ran away when he told him he'd gotten him pregnant?"

There's really nothing he can say to that. Syobai sighs shakily. "I wasn't just scared because he's pregnant," he finally says. "I was scared because..."

He shuts his eyes.

"Because I love him. I love him, so much that it hurts, and I may as well have just stabbed him right in the chest."

"And you're not used to that," Sora says. "You're not used to caring for anyone except yourself. But as long as you kept telling yourself it was just for fun, and there were no feelings involved, you could shrug it off. Maybe a part of you thought Mikado felt the same way, like it was just a game. Then he started to make your world wider, you started to get comfortable with it, and you got scared. Then he came to you, and told you that it wasn't just him anymore, and you panicked. You couldn't handle it. But instead of staying there and talking to him about it like an adult, you were just cryptic, and then you ran away."

Syobai opens his eyes and looks over at Sora. He somehow looks even older than he usually does. "Yeah. Yeah, you got me there." He swallows, heavily, and his mouth tastes like copper from how hard he's been chewing on his inner lip. "It was just supposed to be for fun. It was never supposed to be serious."

"Yeah, well, tough shit," Sora shrugs. "Mikado's pregnant. You're gonna be a dad. You could run all the way to America and it wouldn't change a thing. The only difference is, Mikado has to live with what you gave him forever. You've got two choices: you can drag your sorry ass home and show Mikado you're sorry, or you can keep running away. But, I'll have you know..." And here, Sora's voice darkens, and she looks more dangerous now than she ever did before even with a gun in her hands, "If you leave him like that? And if you ever run away from him like that again? And dare to show your face in Japan again? I will personally hunt you down and make you beg for me to kill you. Understand?"

"... yeah. I understand," Syobai replies. He runs a hand through his hair while Sora takes a couple of breaths to calm herself down. "I don't want to leave him. But I don't think I'm ready to be a father. Or much of anything, really." He looks down at his hands, rough and calloused and forever stained with the blood of so many that only he can see. "What if I can't love them?"

"If you love Mikado as much as you say you do, you'll fall in love with those babies way before they're ever born," Sora tells him. "Listen. This world's gone to shit. It's gonna be hard to raise a family like this. That's why Yoruko and I are waiting. But it's a little too late for you to do that, so all you can do is suck it up and do everything you can to make sure they never have to be a part of what we were."

Sora's words seal Syobai's decision.

---

He tries calling Mikado to tell him he's coming home for an hour, and gets absolutely no response. A part of Syobai is worried, desperately hoping Mikado didn't do something stupid and end up hurting himself, and wants to get home as soon as he can, but...

The other part of him feels like if he just shows up at home with no warning, it'll only make the situation that much worse.

So he calls, and calls, and calls, and gets sent to voicemail over and over, until finally, there's an answer.

"Fucking Syobai Hashimoto," a voice that is decidedly not Mikado's comes through the speaker. "I ought to skin you alive and wear you like a fur coat. How dare you."

Syobai sighs and frowns, rubs a hand over his face. "Hello, Nikei."

"Don't you hello, Nikei me!" The furious man spits over the phone. "Ever since Mikado told me you two were a thing, I've been looking for a reason to shoot you and make Why Syobai Hashimoto's Death Should be Celebrated as a National Holiday an article on the front page news for a month straight! Now I finally get a reason and I can't even do it because Mikado wants his kids to know their scumbag father!"

Syobai pauses. "... he wants me to come back?"

"I want you to come back, too," Nikei starts to say. "So I can beat you to death with a baseball bat." It sounds like he wants to say more, but then Syobai hears a very quiet, muffled voice in the background. It has to be Mikado. He strains to hear, but it's no use, because the phone doesn't pick up exactly what he's saying. A few seconds later, though, he hears Nikei give a heavy sigh.

"Alright, fine. Mikado wants to hear you out, so I won't be here when you get back, sadly," Nikei mutters. "But I can be there in ten minutes tops if he calls me back, and I'd love to see you try to outrun my bullets."

"Point taken." Syobai closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath. "Tell him to leave the door unlocked. I'm coming home."

---

It takes a little under an hour for Syobai to get home. He has to walk all the way there, after all, and he's already tired, but he pushes through. By the time he makes it to the driveway, it feels like his legs are about to fall off.

Then he gets to the front door, puts his hand on the doorknob, and hesitates. It's like all of the exhaustion evaporates, replaced by pure adrenaline and the urge to turn around and start running again.

No. He's made up his mind. Syobai closes his eyes, the mental image of Mikado laughing brightly in his arms appearing to him with no trouble at all, without him even needing to think about it.

God. All the things he would do to make that smile come back to Mikado's face. All the things he would do to forget the look of heartbreak he saw for just a split second when they were standing in the living room.

He turns the doorknob and walks inside the empty living room. His feet land in the same place they were, and he lets the door close behind him as he takes a few shallow breaths. The nagging little voice in the back of his head says you should've ended this a long time ago, Hashimoto. You always knew you'd never be man enough for him, to protect him, to care for him. You're just a coward.

Syobai ignores it, pushes through the pain and walks over to the door of the bedroom he and Mikado have been sharing. Technically, it's Syobai's room, because this is his house, but his sheets smell like Mikado, and it's his and Mikado's clothes on the floor in that room, and there's a picture of both of them hanging on the wall.

Syobai bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, then knocks three times on the door. He contemplates saying something to announce his presence, but finds it better to keep his mouth shut for right now.

At least, until the door opens up, and it's Mikado standing before him, with no mask, his face clearly streaked and stained with tears. Syobai forces himself to look at his face, look him in the eyes, because Mikado deserves that, at least. He deserves so much more than what Syobai's given him.

Neither of them really knows what to say at first. Then Syobai takes a shuddering, shallow breath.

"I'm sorry, for what I said," Syobai finally says. "I said "I can't." That was a lie. I - I can, I just... didn't want to face it."

"I really hope you didn't come all the way here just to say I'm sorry and expect me to forgive you," Mikado says, his voice barely above a whisper.

Syobai shakes his head. "I'm not asking you to forgive me right now," he murmurs. "I just want you to hear me out. Then you can do whatever you want. I swear. Please."

Mikado bites his lip and looks down at the floor, contemplating. "Fine. But I'm not doing this for you."

"That's okay." Syobai closes his eyes for a moment, then looks back evenly at Mikado as he slowly gets to his knees, now looking up at him. Mikado doesn't hide the look of shock on his face as Syobai starts talking.

"Listen. I'm not gonna make excuses. I'm a coward, and I'm a fool. I broke your heart. When things go beyond my intentions, I try to own up to them. Today I ran away instead." He swallows heavily, watches as Mikado shuts his eyes tight. "I - until you told me this morning, I was a man with nothing to lose. Nobody but myself. Then I went from that, to having everything to lose in two words. All my life, I never cared about what happened to anybody but myself. I didn't give a shit. And now..." He looks at Mikado's stomach, where he's resting one of his gloved hands, as though he isn't even thinking about it.

"I realized no matter how far I ran, or for how long, I'd never be able to forget that. I couldn't change it. I can't go back in time and stop what happened." Syobai sighs. Mikado's hands tremble. "The more I thought about it, the more I realized: I don't want to stop what happened. I don't want these kids to not exist."

"Then why did you run away? Why'd you leave me?" Mikado chokes out.

There's no turning back now. Syobai looks at Mikado right in the eyes, grey meeting pale brown, Syobai finally ready to say the words that could make or break him.

"Because I love you, Mikado Sannoji," Syobai says, clearly, sincerely, the only words that have ever come from his mouth with complete purity. "I love you, and it's real and it's raw and it scares the living hell out of me, because I didn't think I could until you walked into my life." He reaches out, fully ready for Mikado to push him away. Instead, he's pleasantly surprised when his cold hands are wrapped in Mikado's warm ones. He hasn't looked away from him, not for a moment, watching as more tears spill down Mikado's face despite him trying to fight them. "I got through life by putting up paywalls, literally, and I knew no person in their right mind would ever wanna get past them." He gives a little laugh. "I didn't count on you, coming in and blowing holes through them."

"Hey, I only blew a hole in a wall once, and that was an accident," Mikado laughs and cries at the same time, his body trembling. By now, Syobai's shaking too, but he's still fighting his own tears.

"Well, you sure got rid of mine," Syobai says. He lifts one of his hands to his lips and kisses his knuckles. "To be honest, I'm still scared. I don't know what I'm doing, not with you, not with the kids we made, not with my life, but I do know one thing: I wanna figure it out with you, and nobody else."

His voice cracks. Syobai swallows heavily, one last ditch-effort attempt at holding back his emotions.

"Will you let me stay here, right here, by your side?" Syobai asks, voice strained. "Will you let me become the man you deserve?" He sniffs, his last words coming in a quiet sob:

"Will you let me be a father?"

Mikado nods, squeezes Syobai's hands, his decision made as soon as he sees the tears -- so very real, undeniable evidence of Syobai bearing his soul to Mikado for the first time -- coming down his face like rain.

"Yeah. Yes, let's do it," Mikado whispers. "Oh, my God. We're gonna be fathers."

Syobai leans forward a little, rests his head against Mikado's belly, presses their still interlocked hands against the small, barely-noticeable swell, evidence that their children are safe, growing, and healthy. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to, as he rolls up the bottom of Mikado's shirt and kisses his skin, so gently he's afraid he imagined it at first.

Syobai Hashimoto doesn't so much fall in love with Mikado Sannoji; instead, rather, he stumbles into it, clumsy and foolish and with no grace at all. But he falls in love with their little ones in a split second, a moment in time he'll never forget.

[champsays]

“Adam” The Film And It’s Problematic Implications

Okay, so first of all — YES IM LATE TO THE PARTY! Apparently there’s a film called “Adam” that is coming out this summer based on a YA novel written by a white lesbian woman that is supposed to be super groundbreaking for the LGBT+ community. I’ve never heard of the book or the film until recently because of some backlash I saw on twitter. I didn’t wanna join the band wagon without being properly informed so I did my research and I must say that the backlash surrounding this film is completely just and warranted.

The novel written by Ariel Schrag is about a cis, white teenage boy who has bad luck with girls so when he goes to visit his lesbian sister in New York, who is at the moment dating a transman, he decides to pretend to be trans so he can bag himself a hot lesbian. He does this after being mistaken for trans and decides to run with it. He falls hard for the “hot lesbin girl” and in one scene they even have sex where he actually uses his real penis to penetrate her even though she thought it was a strap on. He goes to a Trans Camp where he eventually feels bad about his actions and confesses to the girl. But for some reason she’s not as mad and even says that ‘it’s okay because she imagined him as a real a boy anyway.’ A lot more happens but that’s the summarized version.

Despite the backlash, some movie executives thought that it would be groundbreaking to make this novel into a film and here’s why that’s a huge mistake. How many Hollywood movies have we seen where a White, Cis male has infiltrated the safe spaces of a marginalized community for personal/sexual gain and then eventually learns how these actions are problematic? We’ve seen this same story play out plenty of times on screen but now that LGBT allyship is trendy in Hollywood, the powers that be thought they were doing something groundbreaking and pushing the envelope by making this highly offensive film.

First of all, the fact that the original novel was written by a lesbian just goes to show how education on trans identity is very scarce even in the Queer community and we have to do better in that regard. But how many times do we need to see a white boy using real issues to get laid on screen? This could have easily been a story about an actual transman coming to terms with his identity in life and in romance. But instead lets create a story where trans is essentially a costume. Hell, a story about the main character’s sister would have been more interesting and more authentic to the author’s personal experience. It also proves that just because you identify as being apart of the LGBT+ community, it doesnt necessarily mean you are qualified to tell stories about all of our experiences.

Now besides the highly problematic narrative and offensive nuances, the writer literally tries to romanticize a rape scene. In the book, the main character tells his lesbian girlfriend that he is using a strap on to penetrate her but in fact he uses his real penis. The girlfriend didnt consent to that which is, by definition, RAPE. Make no mistake, when engaging in any sexual activity and one party decides to go a step further without the consent of their partner that is considered rape. Not to mention the horrible implication that trans men arent real men. Or the fact that lesbians can be “fixed” by having sex with a ‘real man’. That’s right! In the book, the girlfriend of the main character ends up getting a cis boyfriend. Does this make her bisexual or has she decided to be completely hetero? We really dont know but the implication is not okay, especially for this to be a YA novel. If you marry that idea with how impressionable young adults can be, smells like a recipe for disaster.

I can’t continue without saying that there are actually straight men who prowl gay bars hoping to connect with a “hot lesbian” to convert her back to liking “real men”. I’ve personally encountered men with this exact mindset so to fantasize this very problematic behavior into a book AND movie just perpetuates the notion that gayness/queerness/trans identity is curable.

I perused through youtube to find a few videos and interviews of the filmmakers talking about the movie amidst the backlash and the director Rhys Ernst is surprisingly one of the directors that works on the critically acclaimed show “Transparent”. As popular as that show is and as talented as Jeffrey Tambor is, the show is still riddled with its own issues by allowing a Cis White man to play a trans person eseentially taking a job away from an actual trans actor. An issue that even Jeffrey Tambor ironically shed light on during his acceptance speech after winning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in the role.

One would think that in an industry where LGBT+ stories have been scarce for so long that we should rejoice in the small triumphs. On the surface, this film is being paraded around as artistic genius amplifying the voices of the trans community and employing those who belong to the community in front AND BEHIND the camera. We should be applauding this right? WRONG. This story is essentially about the trans community through the lens of a selfish, insecure, sex crazed straight man and we are tired of seeing that portrayed on screen. I looked on IMDB and it says that this film comes out in August and I’m sure it will have a strong marketing campaign that will be wrapped in a beatiful bow of romance, inclusion, and acceptance but don’t be fooled.

We live in a climate where standing up for what’s right is frowned upon. Where people mistake using your voice as another cry for political correctness. You even have people saying this new generation is “too sensitive”. Well I beg to differ. We are not sensitive at all. We just choose to not be as passive as our parents and grandparents were. We have decided to not apologize when we tell you how we want to be treated. And if that’s an issue for you, take it up with God or whatever higher power you choose to believe in. I’d rather be politically correct than completely deaf and oblivious to the experiences of a marginalized people — and that’s what Champ says!

[anniekoh]

I just finished reading Doing Harm, I was already grouchy yesterday and correctly anticipated that I would be furious after reading the book. I can’t immediately locate my notes from Inferior, but recall similar sense of wtf. 

All women, and all diseases suffered primarily by women have a “legitimacy deficit” (Dusenbery is citing Joanna Kempner’s Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health).

“A 1971 gynecology text warned that “many women, wittingly or unwittingly, exaggerate the severity of their complaints to gratify neurotic desires” (p 71).

I should dig up the article that discussed how alternative health gurus, like those charlatans promoted by GOOP, find traction because so many women have been dismissed and belittled and generally ill-served by the American health care system, even wealthy white women. 

I’m immensely sympathetic to many scientists’ frustration with how blithely research data is dismissed (the rise of anti-vax sentiments), but I have rarely seen any willingness to acknowledge the immense harms that capital S Science has inflicted on women’s bodies, and the very gendered, misogynist flavor of many comments that mock people who are concerned about GMOs, chemical exposure, and yes, vaccines.

Dusenbery does a great job of synthesizing the studies of the medical/drug studies. There is a truly abysmal rate of actually including women as study participants, partly due obsession with excluding women of “childbearing age” lest they somehow risk their baby-making purpose in life (never mind if they shout to the heavens that they are happy lesbians or nuns or just have no risk of becoming pregnant). I

Dusenbery has a truly fantastic bibliography, bringing forth nuggets of wtf and OMG from articles and books published 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. 

My list of monographs I want to read has grown by at least 10 books, 

As feminist disability scholar Susan Wendell, reviewing the epidemiological research on somatoform disorders, wrote in 1999, “It seems a remarkable coincidence that men of higher socioeconomic backgrounds from the developed Western countries are, in all the world, the people least likely to ‘somatize,’ given that they also happen to be the people who are accorded the most believability and authority in Western scientific settings.” (p 82)

Of course women of color, especially black women, and poor women are seen as the least reliable.

The sheer preponderance of studies showing how gender influences doctors’ perceptions is cause for reconsideration of how my own internalized biases are at work in my ill-informed sense that at least some auto-immune diseases must be psychogenic. 

“Doctors think that men have heart attacks and women have stress.” A study of 230 doctors showed that a simple note in a patient’s file about a stressful event resulted in much different treatment for a hypothetical man and a woman (identical symptoms/risk factors):  

Only 15 percent of the doctors diagnosed heart disease in the woman, compared to 56 percent for the man, and only 30 percent referred the woman to a cardiologist, compared to 62 percent for the man....  The presence of stress, the researchers explained, seemed to spark a “meaning shift” in which women’s physical symptoms were reinterpreted as psychological, while “men’s symptoms were perceived as organic whether or not stressors were present.” The male patient’s stress not only didn’t detract from a heart disease diagnosis but actually seemed to support it. (p 112)

Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick Maya Dusenbery (2018)

Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. 

In Doing Harm, Dusenbery explores the deep, systemic problems that underlie women's experiences of feeling dismissed by the medical system. Women have been discharged from the emergency room mid-heart attack with a prescription for anti-anxiety meds, while others with autoimmune diseases have been labeled "chronic complainers" for years before being properly diagnosed. Women with endometriosis have been told they are just overreacting to "normal" menstrual cramps, while still others have "contested" illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that, dogged by psychosomatic suspicions, have yet to be fully accepted as "real" diseases by the whole of the profession.

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong - and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story  Angela Saini (2017) 

For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less a scientist than Charles Darwin asserted that women were at a lower stage of evolution, and for decades, scientists—most of them male, of course—claimed to find evidence to support this. Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition or behavior, science has continued to tell us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be described as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of research is now revealing an alternative version of what we thought we knew. The new woman revealed by this scientific data is as strong, strategic, and smart as anyone else. 

In Inferior, acclaimed science writer Angela Saini weaves together a fascinating—and sorely necessary—new science of women. As Saini takes readers on a journey to uncover science’s failure to understand women, she finds that we’re still living with the legacy of an establishment that’s just beginning to recover from centuries of entrenched exclusion and prejudice. Sexist assumptions are stubbornly persistent: even in recent years, researchers have insisted that women are choosy and monogamous while men are naturally promiscuous, or that the way men’s and women’s brains are wired confirms long-discredited gender stereotypes. As Saini reveals, however, groundbreaking research is finally rediscovering women’s bodies and minds. Inferior investigates the gender wars in biology, psychology, and anthropology, and delves into cutting-edge scientific studies to uncover a fascinating new portrait of women’s brains, bodies, and role in human evolution. Angela Saini is an independent British science journalist and author of two acclaimed books. She presents science programmes on BBC Radio

[stowawayproductions-blog]

The Wife vs Colette vs Lizzie: We Run the World

Written 10/15/18

Glenn Close, Keira Knightly, Kristen Stewart, Chloe Sevigny. I wouldn’t want to meet any of these women in a dark alley, at least not if I’m an arrogant man who’s trying to run their lives.

Within the last two weeks, all three of these powerhouse feminist rants made their way into the Darkside Cinema (our local indie theater in Corvallis, Oregon. You know the one, hidden on top of a bookstore, up two flights of stairs, with the slogan “We Suck Less” scrawled across the olds-mobile style drinks cooler). At a glance, none of them are in my top five of the year, probably not even my top ten, but what they say together elevates them to something worth writing about.

I saw Lizzie first. My fiancee and I went in expecting poetry and got…well, not poetry. He was harder on it than I, tearing to bits its drab writing and hazy narrative. I felt defensive, recognizing the attempt at a feminist rallying cry, and wanting to support the effort even if the product fell short. Kristin Stewart amazes of course, bringing a realistic attitude to the otherwise fantastical cast of characters. Jamie Sheridan is basic, Dennis O’Hare is unnecessarily slimy, and even Chloe Sevigny performs below her talents with a flattened version of what this mysterious character could have become. Everyone else could be replaced with cardboard cutouts and probably deliver their lines with equal fervor. Stewart, however, shines like the sun. She’s meek, defenseless, and defeated. Showing in her emotional climax the level to which women have been beaten into submission; expecting rape, expecting blame, expecting ownership. The mix of determination and apathy is complex and fascinating, giving Stewart the opportunity to use all her skills and defining her career to this point. I cannot wait to see what she brings us next.

Next I saw The Wife. I went solo to this one, and I’m glad I did. I love my fiancee, but there are some stories that we as women have to experience alone, if for no other reason than to be able to sit in a dark theater and quietly hate men without feeling the need to say to the person sitting next to us “well except you dear”; and my goodness, thank you Jonathan Pryce for being willing to be a punching bag for all our pent up aggression. Cathartic and thoughtful, Glenn Close delivers a magnum opus for all women who feel underappreciated next to men in our field who are, often…okay, for the sake of this piece, who are USUALLY not as talented as we are. I’d also like to add that while working the register at said local theater (yes I work there now, definite pay drop but huge moral promotion), The Wife received mixed reviews from patrons exiting, however everyone who didn’t like it happened to be, you guessed it, a middle aged man. One man told me why he didn’t like it, saying that the characters were unrealistic and the story unbelievable: “That would never happen in this day and age”, “A woman who’s supposed to be so intelligent and in tune with her emotions would have handled that situation better”. Guess what sir who-I’m-not-allowed-to-yell-at-because-you’re-a-customer, this would ABSOLUTELY happen in this day and age, and normal humans who are just trying to fucking survive would ABSOLUTELY handle it that way. It’s hard to get into this without spoiling the plot, but for those of us who have had the honor of witnessing this beautiful story, Joan (Close) is a disturbingly accurate vessel for our thoughts and feelings on ambition, devotion, and making it through the day as a second class citizen. The whole cast is splendid, the story moving, and the message bone-shaking, forcing me into an existential crisis, wondering if I even culturally have the potential to ever be sat next to equals, or if I will always be in a class below, paired up with men who are less than me but seen as equal because the “real” men are at the other table making Birdman and Moonlight and winning all the things. But I digress. As I did for an entire night. Moving on.

Lastly I saw Colette. Ah Keira Knightly, I wanted to be you as a little girl watching Pirates of the Caribbean, and I want to be you today as a grown woman trying to figure out what being creative and independent really means. A beautifully rendered ode to classic filmmaking, Colette rises from its traditional format to challenge the heavyweight dramas of today. Its story is elegant, its writing is soft, is message is clear, and Keira Knightly reminds us all why being a woman is not something to overcome but something of which we are god damn proud. With hints of sexual freedom and trans rights that don’t overshadow the central theme, we’re privileged to observe three dimensional characters fraught with believable and relatable issues. Unlike Stewart and Sevigny in the above-mentioned lesbian period piece, Knightly crackles with chemistry with not one, not two, but THREE of her female dalliances, making the sex scenes not only enjoyable (this coming from someone who has never seen a sex scene that I consider necessary) but enlightening to the story and character.

To (finally) get back to my original point: I am honored to be living in a time when I can see these three movies back to back, and more-so when I can write about these movies and not be dismissed as just a “woman writer”, and these women, some real and some fictional, have made this reality possible. It is a bit of a shame that the directors of these films are Bjorn Runge, Craig William Macneill, and Wash Westmoreland (see an ironic pattern?), but regardless of that, these films are a one-two-three punch at a world that has changed so much in the direction of inclusion, but still has so far to go. Watch out boys, we’re coming to take our stage and we’ve got talent, determination, and years of pent up rage on our side. Next step: hand over the camera and let us tell our own stories.

“The hand that holds the pen writes history” — Colette, 2018

Ratings: Lizzie — Disappointing; in my bottom 2 of 2018. The Wife — Great; in my top 10 of 2018. Colette — Great; in my top 10 of 2018.

Great 6) Sorry to Bother You 7) The Wife 8) Colette 9) How to Talk to Girls at Parties 10) The Death of Stalin 11) Eighth Grade 12) Love, Simon 13) RBG 14) The Old Man and the Gun 15) Bad Times at the El Royale 16) Lean On Pete 17) You Were Never Really Here 18) Crazy Rich Asians

Good 19) BlackkKlansman 20) First Reformed 21) First Man 22) A Quiet Place 23) Annihilation 24) Blaze 25) Tag 26) The Miseducation of Cameron Post 27) The Hate U Give 28) Hereditary 29) Avengers: Infinity War 30) Black Panther 31) Tully 32) Searching 33) Mandy

Some Issues 34) Halloween 35) A Star Is Born 36) The Spy Who Dumped Me 37) Disobedience 38) Pick of the Litter 39) Ready Player One 40) A Simple Favor

Disappointing 41) Lizzie 42) The Party

[the-voice-of-hell]

Rent is Theft, part 21

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.  Note:  My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not.  If you have notes on that or anything else, hit me up.

                                                        ***

      When I woke the next day, head aching as bad as I expected, but there was a sort of pulling sensation I didn’t quite get.  I pawed at my temples.  There was a fresh wrap on my head that I did not remember putting there.  Leimomi must have done it in my sleep, and maybe a bit tightly.  I adjusted it.

      Then I realized that meant she would have had at least a few moments alone with that fucking bitch Reverse Courtney.  I was very alarmed by that.  What if she made it seem like that was my inner thoughts, that her hateful trash was my real feelings?  I couldn’t stand that.

      Leimomi was nowhere to be seen.  I stood up too quick, grabbed my head, and staggered around a moment.  She appeared in the doorway, all clean and wrapped up herself, the daylight lining her body.  She looked at me in concern, and I searched her face for a hint of Reverse Courtney trauma.

      “Did my stupid-ass head mouth say anything mean to you when I was asleep?”

      “I think so, but I don’t remember.  I only had it out for a moment, and I covered it.  I was real tired.”  She came into the darkness with me and held me in her arms.  “Are you OK?”

      I closed my eyes.  “Real hungover, but really good too.”  I lolled my head at unpleasant memories.  “I’m gonna try to forget my apartment exists for a few more hours, heh.”

      She kissed me and it turned into a little makeout session, right there.  I loved wrapping her in my scrawny arms, rubbing her all over.  I hoped it didn’t feel too much like being flogged with skeleton bones.

      Leimomi got me a bottle of water and then joined me on her bed.  I was still in the bathrobe from the other night, she was in capri leggings and a t-shirt.  We stayed on top of the blankets.

      “Thanks for helping me clean up, baby.  We gotta figure out a cleaner way to do all that.  Or just set my apartment on fire when we’re done with everybody, heh.”

      “It’s OK, Courtney.”  She ran a palm from my chest down to my belly, parting the robe.  “We’re both nice and clean.  You wanna fool around?”

      “Maybe just a little.  I dunno if I can go all the way with this headache.”

      “Aww.”  She pulled her hand back.

      “In for a penny, in for a pound?”

      “What?”

      “You don’t wanna fool around a little, gotta have a big climax or it isn’t worth your time?”

      “I dunno.  Why just do sex stuff a little?  That would be frustrating.”

      “Sometimes it can feel nice.”  I rolled onto my side to better look her in the face.  “Like, I’d love to kiss your *redacted* but I don’t think I’ve got the stamina to finish what I start.  But you might still kinda like it, even if it’s frustrating?  I know I’d like it.”  I made a grabby hand gesture in the air to underscore my point.  Give me those things, please.

      “Mm, OK, but if I get lady blue balls, I’m gonna be mad at you.”  She whipped off her shirt.

      *sex scene redacted for tumblr*

      Maybe we both fell asleep after that, or she just let me sleep for a bit, until we were roused by a knock at the door.

      I wrapped myself up to answer it, because Leimomi still had to wrestle her bra back on.

      “Marcie, hey.  Sorry I can’t invite you in just now.  You wanted to see Momi?”

      “I just wanted to see you, thank you for helping Mikey!”

      “Hey,” he said.  The daylight in the apartment had me a bit blind for looking into the hall, with its weak electric lights.  I hadn’t noticed him lurking behind her.

      “Mike, hey.  Feeling better?  Or worse?”

      “I’ll be alright.  Being green was kinda like being high, so I’m not too hot right now, but Marce is takin’ care of me.  She’s a saint.”

      “Well great.  I love you guys.  Have a nice one,” I said.

      “Love you too, girl!”

      I came back in, feeling nice, despite the low thunder in my head, and lay down on the bed again.  “Mike seems great.  It’ll be good to get done with this shit, but I just can’t do it again tonight.”  I laid a paw on her arm.

      “I figured.  That was rough.”

      “I know we can’t afford to wait for the next full moon.  Maybe we’ll just take one night off and go back to it.  I can try to come up with different spells for all our problems.”

      “Would you kick me in the stomach like Mike?”

      “Never.  Might have to shave your pretty hair, though.  I hope not.”

      She had a moment of alarm at the prospect but then shook it off.  “That’s silly.  I’ll be glad to go bald for a while to get rid of this problem.”  Then she looked sharply at me.  “But will you love me if I’m bald?”

      I grinned.  “Hell yes.”

      “But why?  That would be so ugly.”

      “No way, baby.  You’re real cute.  I love your hair but I haven’t seen it in a while, y’know?  I’m still coming around.”

      “If you say so.”

      “I do.”  I was about to say it would make her look more gay, and I’d love that too, but I knew that conversation would tread into territory where I’d find out whether she really thinks of me as a woman, and it killed my mood.

      “What do you like about me?  Is it just my big *******?”  She was looking coy, which is great, because I couldn’t handle her self esteem problems right then - not as well as she deserved.

      “Yes, hahaha.”  I squeezed * ***** maniacally and she pushed me back until my head squished into the pillow, threatening to lose the headwrap.  We settled down and I grabbed her hand.  “Seriously, I love everything about you.”

      “You don’t know everything about me.”

      “You aren’t who you used to be.  You’re who you are right now, and I know who that is.  You’re my girlfriend.”

      “I guess that’s true.”  She put an arm behind my head and I snuggled into place.

      “I was thinking about it.  I don’t know if I ever dated an Islander before.”

      She smiled.  “Just how many people did you date, Courtney?”

      I gripped her around the waist and shook her around.  “Grrr!”  I flopped back down beside her.  It was too much effort.  “You win, I’m a huge slut.  Huge hungover slutty slut.”

      “I love you, slut.”

      “I love you too, honey.”  I relaxed again.  “Anyway, I just mention that Islander thing, because it feels significant.  Like, I’ve never dated anybody that looks like my people.  You don’t look like the average Pinay, but if you flipped the islands probably a few Leimomi lookalikes would fall out.”

      “That’s weird.  Why you say that?”

      “I can imagine a different life, where we were from the same place.  Same neighborhood.  Where we grew up together.”

      “Oh no, you don’t wanna be in Pearl City with my family.”

      “That’s not what I mean.”  I touched her face.  “Get with me on this.  Just hear me out.”

      “OK...”

      “We’re in some kinda place that never existed.  Pilipwaii.  It’s a nice island, low key people working hard and not so many hustlers and problems.”

      “Pilipwaii?  What’s it look like?”

      “There’s a mountain but it isn’t an active volcano, pretty worn down.  The reefs around the island got so big they shelter it from storms.  The city is on a little plane, growing stuff like cane, bamboo, coconuts, bananas, mangos.  The only school is a catholic school, so we grew up being chased around by nuns with rulers.”

      “Why mean nuns?  You want the story to be nice.”

      “I want it to be believable.  So trouble in paradise, baby.  Anyway, you and me are schoolgirls together, best friends.”

      “How could I be friends with you?  You’re smart and--”

      “There aren’t so many kids in a small town.  Everybody knows everybody, and we just like each other, right?  I hope you can find that believable, because you’re my girlfriend.”

      “I’m your girlfriend in the story?”

      “Not yet.  Listen.”

      “Hmm.”

      “We’re just friends.  Best friends.  It can happen all kinds of ways.  You know, I’ve always had friends that are different from me.  Maybe I got hurt and you helped me out, or I helped you with your homework, or you were sad and I was nice to you one time.  And it stuck, we stuck together.  Best friends, in Pilipwaii.”

      “At the school with the mean nuns.”

      “That’s right.  So one day, I’m in love with this boy, and he’s mean to me.  He tricks me and then says he doesn’t like me in front of some other girls and everybody laughs and stuff.”

      “This is too sad.  Did the nuns laugh too?”

      “They did.”

      “I’ll kill ’em.”

      “It’s OK.  So I run home, I’m all sad and it’s terrible.  You find me and help me feel better, hug me and say nice things.”

      “I love you,” she said, and gave me a little squeeze.

      “That’s right.  Something like that.  We’re there, say, in a gazebo.  Big blue dragonflies are flying by.  It’s hot but there’s a cold breeze blowing off the ocean.  We’re schoolgirls, best friends, and you hold me and say, Hugo is a stupid ugly boy and I deserve better, and you love me and stuff.”

      “I hope the nuns don’t hear that.”

      “Well, you just mean, you love me like a friend, right?  We say that stuff, like friends.  But this time I’m looking you in the eye and I realize, maybe we could be more than friends.  But it’s a little island, so nobody ever told us that being gay is an option, right?”

      “This story is weird, Courtney.”

      “Is it OK?”  I searched her face.  She nodded in approval and I resumed.  “Well right, so you and me, we’re there, we’re schoolgirls, and we never heard the word lesbian in our lives, but I’m still super into you.  And then I kiss you, and you start to get it.”

      “Whoa.”  She looked at me, then away to the ceiling, and back again, thinking about it all.

      “Is that a good whoa or a bad whoa?”

      “Wait.  Now I know why people think schoolgirl skirts are sexy.”

      “Hehehe, nooo, I’m not trying to be a pervert.  I’m just saying, for all it matters, we could love each other any kinda way.  Like, it doesn’t matter how we got here.  Let’s just say we came from Pilipwaii.”

      “OK, but tell me about our skirts.  Are they kinda short?”

      “No, they’re long.  It’s a little island.  Very conservative.  But our shirts have short sleeves and we have little bow ties.”

      “That’s cute.  And you kissed me, and I start to get it, like, hey, we could love each other.  No Hugo.”

      “Yeah.  So we kiss and it’s kinda sloppy and stupid because we don’t know what we’re doing or know what to do.”

      “And I start to figure it out,” Leimomi said, “like what I wanna do.”  She reached inside my bathrobe, *redacted*

      “Oh no, I gasp!  I shy away.  It’s all so fast.  What are we doing?  Have we gone crazy?”

      “Whut.”

      “It’s part of the bit.  Like, there’s a push and pull.  Will we or won’t we?”

      “Oh.  But we will, right?”

      “You fucking know we will, baby.”  I kissed her savagely.  “But right now,” I panted a little, “I’m terrified of this forbidden love.”

      “I’m so sad, I can’t handle it.  I guess I’ll cry.”

      “Don’t cry, Leimomi.  I come back to you, take your hands.  What is this?  What are we doing?  We’re both girls.  It isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

      “But why?  Nobody is around, we can do whatever we want.  I want to love you so much, Courtney.”

      “It works, I’m like, oh shit, I can’t handle it anymore.  I open my shirt up.”

      “Heeheehee, yeah, now you’re talking.  I open my shirt up too.”

      *redacted*

      “It’s time for freedom.  Young ladies inventing lesbianism for the first time in the Universe, since all the other times it happened for other girls.”

      She pulled off her t-shirt again.  “Cool.”

      I unfastened her bra and *redacted sexy / emotional content*

      Were we being romantic or dirty?  Both by turns, but those turns proved awkward to navigate.

      We *redacted* and talked dirty and sweet until we both *redacted*  She’d already worn herself out some that morning, and I was surprised she was able to go again like that.  *redacted*

      In the afterglow, she didn’t jump up or freak out, which was great.  And I hadn’t gone down on her, so there was no question about kissing afterward.  We snuggled up, just the thin material of my bathrobe between us to reduce sweat.  I was tempted to *redacted* but I resisted the urge to avoid coming off like a total freak.

                                                        ***

      There was another knock at the door.  I rolled my eyes, put my robe on, and answered it.

      “Hey Patrick.  Were you looking for me?  Does Perry need help with something?”

      “Kinda.  I was wonderin’, how do we say who gets ta go next?  I’d like to go, get it done.”

      “My priority has been whoever is in the most danger of ratting us out, getting us in trouble.  You have something like that going on?”

      “Naw, it’s just somethin’ personal, bothers me a lot.”

      “Well I think we all need some rest tonight so not now, but maybe tomorrow we see about some kind of plan?  I don’t think anyone else seems likely to be a problem.  Like if Olivia’s head pops up, she can join a circus and make some real money.”

      “Thanks, Courtney, you’re a doll.”  He reached out to shake hands.

      My hands were both behind the door, only my head poking out.  “Ah, hands are full.  Thanks, Patrick.”

      “See ya later!”  He smiled and walked away.

      I looked down the hall after him.  His walk was a little awkward, but was that a clue?  What was going on under his clothes?  Marcie had two holes in her upper chest, I’d found, little squares that puffed out smoke.  Most of the time she could keep it down, but several times a day she had to open the covers to let it out, or she’d feel a burning in her lungs and throat.  Never did hear what Patrick and Perry had going on.

      I pushed the door closed with the backs of my arms, avoiding getting my wet hands on everything.  But that meant my hands were close to my face when she wasn’t looking.  I avoided touching my face, but I took a deep inhale, and one little lick of a finger.  It was awesome.  Sue me.

      I washed my hands and went back to her, sitting on the edge of the bed.  I was going to just stay another moment, but couldn’t resist laying down again.  This time I was on my belly, face propped up with one arm, the other draped over my lovin’ lady.

      “I was thinking about the haircut.  I think it would be real cute.  You could grow it out again later, but for now, it’s fun to play with a different look.”

      “Huh.  That’s weird.  Is it because you’re a grunger?”

      “Hehe, maybe.  But more than that, it’s like...  I know you’re bisexual like me, but you’re in lesbian love now, baby.  It might be fun to see you play the part.  Girls like me have to be girled up all the time just to have a chance of people treating us like we want.  But you?  You could get big flannel shirts and tank tops and stuff.”

      “Whaaat?”  She crinkled her forehead all to Hell like I was trying to teach her quantum mechanics.  “Dress like a lesbian?  Like, butch?”

      “I know, you aren’t really a butch.  You’re a sweet lil’ girly babe.  But it can be fun to play a different style, y’know?  What do you think?”

      “I never thought...  I guess I could.  But how would people look at me?  What would they be like?”

      “Some people might be mean.  A lot of people will be pretty nice.  And in this town?  Ladies will be on your jock, like twenty-five deep at all times.  You’ll have to keep them off you with a baseball bat.  Probably some weird fellas too.”

      “You’re lying.  No way that’s true.  Why would they?”

      “Lesbians like butches, but most of them are not.  It means you’d be a precious rarity.  Plus you’re so cute and tall and strong, you’d kill them dead.  They’d have trouble walking because their legs would go all wobbly around you.  It would be hilarious.”

      “Oh my goodness.”  She touched her face, which was hot and pink.

      I kissed her cheek to steal a little of that heat.  It was mine.  I put it there, after all.  “My cutie.”

      She shook off the embarrassment.  “You just wanna make the lesbians jealous.  That’s mean.”

      “I know.  I’m horrible.  But we gotta eat.  I’ll make us something.”

      I sprang out of bed and put on the clothes I’d brought over the previous night.  Leimomi dressed too, still lost in thought at the prospect of a makeover.  She followed me out and sat down across the kitchenette island from me, on one of the tall stools.  I got to work on some spam, macaroni, and cheese.  I found the sauce from the packets was less gross with some milk and spices added, and randomly found part of a red pepper to mix in.

      “You didn’t think much about being a lesbian before, huh.  What do you think now?  Gonna get those intertwined Venus symbols tattooed?  Doc Martens?”

      “I dunno.  If you think it’s a good idea.”

      “Again this power I have.  I feel like an evil hypnotist from Scooby-Doo.”

      “I just don’t care what I look like, I guess.  Like, you know why.”

      “Sorry, babe.  But yeah, I think it’ll be real fun to get you dyke clothes, at least to wear ’til your hair grows back.”

      “You’re a weird weirdo, but you’re my girlfriend, so I gotta do what you say.”

      “Lovers are supposed to be partners, equals.  If you gotta do what I say, then I gotta do what you say.  Any requests?,” I said, gesturing to the food I was making.

      “Naw.  You do it pretty good.”

      “Just ‘pretty good’?  Sounds like there’s room for improvement.  You don’t have to know how to cook to know how to judge food.  Just think, would I like this better if we did it like that?  I’ve made this for you before.  Didn’t do the pepper last time, but I had green onion and cayenne for garnish.  What did you think?  Was that alright?”

      “Green onion, is that the little green rings?”

      “The way I cut it that time, yeah.”

      “I didn’t mind those, but I didn’t like them either.”

      “That’s OK, I don’t have any this time.  How’d you like the texture?  Like, how it felt in your mouth.”

      “It was OK.”

      “Coulda been better?”

      “I dunno.”

      “Don’t make me follow through on that clown thing.”

      “Hehe.  OK, so what do you want?”

      “Was it too creamy, too thick, too sticky, too rich, too thin?  Do you prefer a different kind of sauce with macaroni?  If it’s really OK, then it’s OK.  But if it’s not OK and you’re pretending just to be nice, I’m gonna make us have clown sex.”

      “Is that a promise?”

      “Alright, so now I see how it is.  You really don’t care about macaroni sauce, and you might be into clown sex.  These are important things to know, for our future together.  I will take these mental notes and never reverse or overwrite them with contravening information.  No matter how much you protest, from now on, I will know that you want to look like a clown when we fuck.”

      “Don’t make it so complicated.”

      “So like, a simple clown outfit, nothing too fancy.  A few polka dots, big shoes, a red nose?”

      “Yeah.  But I thought you wanted me to dress like a butch dyke.”

      “You know the ‘D’ word now?  You’ll be ready for Pride in no time.  Hm...  I gotta figure out where to get combat boots with novelty foot length.”

      “A butch clown?  I don’t think the lesbians would be jealous of you anymore.”

      “Damn!  This is too complicated.  Maybe you were better prepared to go lesbo than I was.”

      “Heehee.”  She got shy.

      “Hey, you’re thinking about something and not telling me.”  The water was up to a boil so I turned the heat down to seven and poured in the pasta.

      “We both weren’t prepared.  We don’t have a double dildo.”

      I stood up straight in shock, though by then I should have been getting used to the idea of her knowing more about sex, in her own way.  “What.  What do you know about double dildos, girl?”

      “Well, usually lesbians use a double dildo, right?  Like one side goes in my pussy, and, uh...”

      “Best place for me to put my end is the back door.  But I’m sure plenty of lesbians don’t have double dildos.  Where did you hear about that?”

      “I just saw a porno once.  Some ladies used a double dildo.  Guess I thought...”

      “We could use a double dildo, if you want.  Sounds fun.”  I stirred the macaroni, had to bust some apart as they had started to clump in the freshly released flour goo.

      “Heehee.”  She played with her hands.

      “What else do you know about lesbian stuff?”

      “Ya know, I never thought about it, but the pornos I saw are different from the lesbians I see around town.  Like, in the pornos they have pretty hair and makeup, wear skirts and heels and stuff.”

      “Sharp.  That’s right.  Most of those pornos are made for straight dudes.  Might look different if ladies made ’em.”

      “Why don’t ladies make ’em?”

      “I dunno, but I could take a few guesses.  You wanna be like a real life lesbian, like the ones on the streets, or would you rather be a porno lesbian, like in the movies?”

      “We get a choice?”

      “Always.”

      “You are like a porno lesbian.”

      “Guess I made my choice.  How about you?”

      “If I have short hair, I’ll hafta be like a real life lesbian.”

      “Or you could mix it up.  That’s what they call ‘queer’.”

      “So if I have short hair, but I still wear makeup and stuff, I am queer, but if I have short hair and I wear a flannel shirt, I am butch?”

      “That’s close enough to right.”

      “I dunno.  I don’t like to be wrong, to say the wrong thing.  Maybe I won’t talk about this stuff with real life lesbians.”

      “Just porno lesbians like me, right?”

      “Umm, maybe just you.  Not another porno lesbian.”  She considered that.  “Wait, are there porno lesbians in real life, aside from you?”

      “Not a lot of us, and I’m sure most of us wouldn’t want to be called that.  They also say ‘lipstick lesbian’ for ladies that stay lady-like, though most of them are still gonna do things their own funny way.  I kinda like that porno lesbian thing for myself, because I’m not gonna dress like the singer from 4 Non Blondes.”

      “I don’t get that one.  You lost me again.”

      “Hahahaha, you’re in for a treat.  I’m gonna look that up for you when we’re done eating.”  I served up the food.

                                                        ***

   Read next chapter here.

[bellabooks]

Five good (and gay) things that happened this week: 1/13-1/9

Happy Friday! Here’s some good and gay news to start off the weekend.   via syfy 1. We get a tasty bite of what’s in store for S3 of Wynonna Earp. Jonesing for some Wynonna Earp scoop? Who isn’t. The show is currently filming it’s third season and showrunner Emily Andras sat down with the Calgary Herald to share some tidbits. Calgary happens to be Andras’ hometown, so it’s an extra special treat.   via brianadchrissy FB 2. Youtube star Chrissy Chambers wins a huge case against revenge porn and scores a fiancee the same day. Chrissy, of Bria and Chrissy Youtube fame, won a major case this week against her former boyfriend who filmed her having sex without her knowledge, then posted them to a porn site. The case that took place in Britain, is the first civil case of it’s kind and this could bring justice to other people in similar situations. In addition to winning her case, Chrissy proposed to longtime girlfriend and collaborator, Bria Kam. She said yes! Congrats to the couple. 3. After sixty-three years, a lesbian airwoman get the honorable discharge she deserved. Back in 1955, Helen Grace James was the victim of lavender scare, and was investigated and interrogated for being a lesbian. She was undesirably discharged, and lost all rights to benefits befitting military personnel. This week, she got a letter changing her discharge status to honorable. The ninety year old vet filed a lawsuit this month to have the discharge amended, and it looks like her voice was finally heard and her service honored.   via giphy 4. Your crush and mine, Lena Waithe, will be guest starring on This is Us. Get the tissues, because the NBC sobfest is about to get even better. Lena will be guest starring as, wait for it, an animal shelter employee. If she is holding a puppy, I might just lose it.   Get ready for more Adena next season. @Nikohl_Boosheri is joining #TheBoldType as a series regular. pic.twitter.com/nkpA3YRajm — The Bold Type (@TheBoldTypeTV) January 19, 2018 5. Kadena! Kadena! The Bold Type on Freeform just announced that actress Nikohl Boosheri will be joining the cast as a series regular, which means we’ll be seeing much more Kat and Adena’s romance in Season 2. Hurrah! http://dlvr.it/QBvFdx

[surveystodestressme]

60.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 15

1401. Do you like your movies and books to be more lighthearted or serious? it really depends, honestly 1402. What’s more important, first impressions or lasting impact? lasting impact 1403. Order these areas of psychological health from what you need the least improvement in to what you need the most improvement in: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, environmental, spiritual spiritual, environmental, emotional, social, physical, intellectual 1404. Do you react appropriately to things and control your feelings? i try to 1405. Do you have stable relationships? i think so

1406. Do you need to be in a relationship to feel good about yourself? nope 1407. Which is the most clear and concise, your thoughts, your speech or your writing? Which is the least clear and concise? my thought are the most clear and my speech is the least because i mess up words and say the wrong things all the time 1408. Are you always trying to learn new things? i try to 1409. Do you feel at peace? not at this point in my life but i’m getting there 1410. Do you have strong morals and ethics that you believe in and adhere to? yeah. 1411. Are you over or under weight? technically i’m average but i feel overweight 1412. Do you think of the needs of all humanity or just the needs of yourself and those you know? for the most part, me 1413. Do you recycle? nope, only when i’m at school 1414. Are you active in your community? not at all. 1415. Are you sensitive to the needs of others? i try to be 1416. Do you dress up to go to the mall? not really anymore. 1417. Have you ever been on anti depressants? nope. 1418. Name a part of your body. Give that part of your body a name. head.  big head 1419. Is fourteen your lucky number? nada 1420. What could make you lose respect for someone? when they are rude for no reason 1421. Is ignorance really bliss? i don’t think so 1422. What can be described as ‘even better than the real thing’? a dildo... lol jkjk 1423. Are you jealous that dog can lick their own genitals? If you could do that would you ever leave the house? lol no dude.  1424. What’s in your wallet right now? driver’s license, debit card, some cash, change, and some coupons 1425. Do you write letters that you never send? yeah, actually 1426. Do you ever get the feeling people are laughing at you? sometimes. 1427. Who’s the one person you’d like to drop a house on? several people 1428. Have you ever been swept off your feet? literally? yes, lol 1429. Tell me why you don’t like Mondays: work 1430. In the Harry potter series the books seem to be getting darker and more serious with each new release. Do you like this change or do you prefer the story to be light? i like the books.  i stopped reading halfway through the 5th one, though 1431. How often do you update your diary? every day 1432. What do you mostly write about in your diary? what happened in the day 1433. How many quizzes and/or surveys do you have in your diary as entries? is this like an online diary thing? bc i don’t do that 1433. How many forwards does your diary contain? mine isn’t online dude 1434. What is your writing style like? idk 1435. How honest are you in your diary? pretty honest 1436. Why do you write in your diary? idk just to document my days so i can look back on it 1437. Do you have a comet cursor on your diary description? idek what that is 1438. Do you ever chat online? not very often 1439. Have you ever met someone from online? How’d that go? from tinder, yeah lol 1440. What’s your favorite horror: Movie? the saw movies Book? most of the stephen king books 1441. Have you ever caught a mistake in a movie? plenty of times, i watch cinema sins lol 1442. Have you ever seen that munchkin who supposedly hangs himself in the Wizard of Oz? If yes, how/when should someone look for it? nope 1443. If you had to give yourself a letter grade (A, A-, B, B-, C, C-, D, D-, F) for things how would you grade yourself on: Happiness: A- Being a decent human being: B Being serene (calm, peaceful): C Kindness: A Anger management: B Creative thinking: B+ Modesty: B Being an original: B Knowing yourself: B- Being true to yourself: A- Getting along with others: B+ Liking yourself: A- Admitting your flaws: A Self improvement: B 1444. Are you kinky? i don’t know lol 1445. How would you feel if twice a week you could wake up next to the person you love? i’d be pretty happy 1446. Out of all the people you know who is most likely to be one of the great minds of our time? uhh.... my sister??? idk 1447. Have you ever been to: Church? yes. Temple? yes. A bar? yes. A house party? yes. A rave? no A goth club? no. A punk show? yeah A hip hop club? no What sounds like the most fun out of that list? a bar. 1448. So far, have you changed around any of the questions on this survey? nope 1449. Are you crying on the inside? not right now 1450. Are you afraid of the future? a little 1451. What will you dress up as this year for Halloween (if you celebrate it)? halloween has already passed 1452. Do you think of some people as not worthy of being your friend? not currently 1453. If you won $1,000 every week until you die, would you still go to school? Would you still get a job? i’d actually do more school since i could afford it 1454. What’s the most difficult job you can think of? doctor 1455. If you could decorate your room with any theme you wanted what would you pick? outer space 1456. Of the following bands which would you be most likely to check out? roxy music (70’s glam) the magnetic fields (current indie rock) kraftwerk (experimental electronic rock) <— this one i guess. 1457. You and your boy/girlfriend have been together 6 months or longer…. One day s/he wants to go to a strip club with his/her friends to hang out. It’s guys/girls night out and you aren’t invited. Would you be upset by this? nah.  jack actually told me that for his friends bachelor party, they were going to a strip club.  like at first it bothered me but i know he loves me and only me so it’s not a big deal at all. 1458. Can a person avoid dying if he or she does not believe in death? no???? 1459. If someone sings songs that they don’t write and they don’t play any instruments or mix the songs or have any creative input at all..Are they a musician? i used to think about this a lot and yeah i guess they’re still a musician. 1460. What do the following stand for: html? idk faq? frequently asked questions. fao? no idea. imho? in my humble opinion. hiv? human immunodeficiency virus aids? aquired immunodeficiency syndrome r&b? rhythm and blues. 1461. What does the world owe you? nothing 1462. Do you read plays and books or just get the cliff notes? read the books usually 1463. What do you want to get out of life? happiness and success 1464. Do you know what is really important to you? family, friends, jack 1465. What trend has been getting on your nerves lately? most trends get on my nerves lol 1466. Do you forgive yourself when you make a mistake? sure 1467. What tiny little very small thing has made you hugely happy? coming home and getting to lay down and read a book or simply just hangout with my parents 1468. Can you read body language well? kind of 1469. Do you look people in the eye when you talk? i try to. 1470. Do you notice if they aren’t looking you in the eye? usually 1471. Are you alert to opportunities? sometimes. 1472. Puppet Yoda or digital Yoda? digital 1473. Do you look like the person you want to be? yeah 1474. Do you behave like the person you want to be? for the most part 1475. Some children were asked 'how would you make your marriage work?’ One child, Ricky, age ten, said: 'Tell your wife she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck.’ Is this good advice? no.  i would want my partner to tell me if i looked weird or different 1476. Do you visualize your goals and dreams? yeah 1477. 4x + 3 = 15  What is the value of x? 3 1478. Do you keep yourself organized? yeah 1479. Does anyone really win an argument? oh yeah, and it’s me 1480. Have you ever had champagne? at a wedding when i as like 16 and it was gross 1481. Do you strive for perfection? nahh, i’m just trying to get by honestly 1482. Name one thing you understand. my computer lol 1483. Whatever it is are you afraid of it? nope 1484. Do you dislike being told what to do? very much so 1485. If you had a cat would you have it declawed? now that i have done research in declawing, i would never get my cat declawed ever again 1486. Do you prefer lobster, clams, or crab meat? crab meat 1487. What do you think about guys who don’t wear underwear? i don’t care 1488. What do you think about girls who don’t wear bras? i don’t care.  i don’t wear one half the time 1489. Do you ask for what you want?

usually 1490. What are you against? rape 1491. How many notes does your diary have? - 1492. Ace of Base or Enya? idk what these are 1493. What makes you feel awkward? everything 1494. Have you ever been to teenopendiary.com, and if yes, how does it compare to opendiary.com? idk what that is 1495. If you were going to switch to another diary website, which one would you go to? - 1496. Do you believe that certain books should be removed from high school libraries? depends on what it is, but i’m sure there is stuff that doesn’t belong 1497. How do you feel about gay and lesbian marriages? i’m pretty happy they are finally able to marry who they love 1498. Can you rearrange the letters in your name to form any other words(check here if you aren’t sure http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/)? not that i know of 1499. What is the sexiest moment in a movie? sex scenes???? 1500. Do you have a favorite stand up comedian? chris boom boom johnson

[sage-nebula]

Anyone asked Alain yet for the meme? If not, Alain, Manon, Steven, and Sycamore~!

Alan:

sexual orientation headcanon

Aromantic asexual! And if I can finish it (it’s at thirteen pages right now, and I’m near the end, I just—!), I should have a fic exploring him discovering this posted for Pride Month. (Yes, we’re two days out from the end of Pride Month, and I have another fic due on the 30th, and I’m still struggling to finish this, orz.)

But essentially, Alan is as aroace as it is possible to get. He does not feel romantic nor sexual attraction for anyone, period. As I’ve mentioned before, he never once shows any kind of attraction toward anyone during his time on the show, which is notable for the Kalos saga due to how many characters openly and blatantly expressed romantic attraction to others (including Alan’s own papa, what with the way Sycamore blatantly hit on Meyer like that). Alan is aware that romantic and sexual attraction are things that exist for other people—that other people get into relationships and the like—but it’s not something that he ever experiences himself, and usually it’s so far from his mind that he doesn’t even realize when others are hitting on him / when others take the things he says as flirtations (such as, I headcanon that Ayaka thought he was flirting with her in TSME 1 when he said that it was an honor to be complimented by her, but he wasn’t—he just genuinely meant that in a respectful way, because he’s a nice person).

Additionally, while he’s not romance repulsed (he’s not interested, but it also doesn’t skeeve him out), he is sex-repulsed to an extent. Like, it doesn’t bother him that other people have sex, and he doesn’t mind if they talk about it in front of him / doesn’t mind discussions about it, particularly since it’s something that occurs in nature with pokémon and whatnot. It’s a thing that happens. But the idea of having sex or being involved in a sexual act himself is one that does skeeve him out and make him uncomfortable. He’s not only not sexually attracted to others, and is not only not at all interested in participating, but the idea of participating makes him uncomfortable to the point of wanting to up and leave. It’s not a huge, drastic thing, but it still is a thing nonetheless. It’s a part of who he is.

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

Right off the bat, he absolutely has complex post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as C-PTSD, as a result of being an abuse survivor. Based on canon alone, he definitely has it as a result of being emotionally abused by Lysandre over a period of years (two in my headcanon, but the exact time frame is unspecified in canon; all we can tell is that it was quite a long time). If we add the backstory I created for him to that, then he had C-PTSD even prior to that as a result of his abusive early childhood in Isolé Village. Living with Sycamore helped mitigate his symptoms and helped him heal considerably (particularly since Sycamore rescued him from Isolé Village when he was so little, and raised him for the seven years following), but when he was recruited into Lysandre’s service, the emotional abuse that Lysandre doled out on him reawakened and exacerbated the symptoms that, while latent, were already there. (Keep in mind, too, that C-PTSD can often strongly resemble a personality disorder when it occurs in childhood / adolescence—it shapes the way one grows and develops, and affects how they come to see and interact with the world. So this isn’t something that can ever be healed completely, nor is it something that will just “go away”. While Alan can and certainly will recover from his trauma, his C-PTSD is something he is going to be living with for the rest of his life, and something that has shaped him as a person.)

In addition to C-PTSD, I do think that he’s prone to clinical depression, as well as an anxiety disorder. His depression, while chronic, tends to not be severe unless it’s working in conjunction with his C-PTSD (in the sense that, his depression is acting up again while he’s also suffering a guilt / shame spiral as a result of his trauma, hence everything is exacerbated and the depression is a lot worse than it would be if it was just the depression acting up on its own). His anxiety, on the other hand, does tend to be more severe, particularly because Alan has the type of brain that never shuts up. Once he gets started thinking about something that stresses him out, he has a difficult time distracting himself from it. He’ll keep thinking about it, and think about it some more, and think about it even more, and this leads him on anxiety spiral that can spiral right down into a panic attack. (Of course, the problem is that Alan also tends to stifle his reactions to things and shut down / close in on himself, so it can be hard to spot. Yes, he’s having a panic attack, but since he shuts down and just goes silent, it can be damn near impossible for others to tell. That said, sometimes his panic attacks get so bad that he actually vomits, so … that’s a little more noticeable, even if he’ll usually try to get somewhere private (or at least with just Lizardon) before it gets to that point.)

So yes, he has C-PTSD, depression, and a major anxiety disorder. Fun times!

3 random headcanons

Only three? Heheh. I’ll try to share three new ones.

At some point in the Immortality AU he gets a massive sycamore tree tattoo on his back. It’s purely in black ink, and is rather stylized, but he got it as a tribute to his father, as well as … well … a reminder of his roots. ;)(… I’ll see myself out.)

He knows how to pick locks. Specifically, he knows how to pick locks with a paperclip. Even more specifically, he knows how to pick handcuff locks with a paperclip, and had to do this once when he was ten (which is also the time he discovered he could figure out how to do this). Yes, there is a story there, and yes, it will be written eventually. But the point is, he can pick other locks, too, if you give him a paperclip and enough time to work it. (And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a paperclip—a bobby pin could work too—but it’s just that a paperclip was what he had on him at the time, when he was ten. He was a lab assistant, what do you expect?)

Alan has various social media accounts, but he hardly uses any of them. Like, he has a Tripter, but he hasn’t updated it in months and probably doesn’t even remember it exists on the regular. He has a FateBook (and has had one for years), but he rarely posts things himself and changes his profile picture once in a blue moon. He does comment on other people’s statuses and the like, but again, his activity there is still pretty minimal, even then. (He’s also very selective about who he adds on FB. He has a very small Friends List, and even though the Friend Requests start piling up (much to his alarm) after he becomes Champion (and tbh he even had quite a few after winning the League), he just kind of … lets them sit.) Manon pestered him until he created a blog on Shakr, and so he does have one there, but … it still has the default theme. He has never posted anything. He never reblogs anything, either. No one even knows it’s his. He’s just not interested.That said, the one social media account that he does update at least semi-regularly? Immedigram. While he rarely adds captions to his photos, he takes a decent amount of pictures with his PokéNav Plus (or whatever the newest model is—Steven makes sure he stays current), and he uploads them to IG whenever he does. He has quite a few followers because, in all honesty, some of the pictures he takes while flying with Lizardon are downright beautiful. (And there are a lot of sky / dawn / dusk / star pictures. He … really likes the sky. It calms him.) So there is that, at least, even if Manon still thinks that his social media participation could use a lot more work. (Steven agrees. Alan just rolls his eyes and ignores them.)

Manon:

sexual orientation headcanon

She’s a lesbian, Harold.

Manon likes girls. She likes pretty girls! And this is something that’s always been a part of her, even before she consciously realized that she had pretty strong crushes on pretty girls right out of the gate. But once she hits her teen years it doesn’t take her long to realize that she really, really likes pretty girls, and from there to realize that she really only likes pretty girls. Like, guys are okay, she guesses—but they just don’t make her heart flutter the way girls do. Moreover, Manon being Manon, once she realizes this about herself she’s pretty okay with it. And by “pretty okay”, I mean that once Manon has a crush on someone, she goes after that person. She is not afraid to outright flirt with someone she is interested in, or outright ask them on a date, or outright tell Alan about how she found her future wife and they are going to get married and adopt three children and he better be her best man at her wedding.

“What’s her last name?” Alan asks.

“I’m—it’s—” Manon waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll get to that part. I’ll find out. It won’t matter ‘cause she’ll take mine, anyway.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you mean, ‘uh-huh’? What’s that tone for? Why do you always sound so disbelieving whenever I tell you I’m getting married?!”

“I think you just answered your own question.”

“Hmph! Keep this up, and I won’t let you be my best man!!”

(For the record, he’s not her best man when she gets married. He is the one, given the absence of a father in her life, to walk her down the aisle, though.)

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

While I’m by no means an expert on it, I can absolutely see Manon with ADD, as well as dyslexia. She tends to talk fast and jumps from idea to idea, and some of her most common questions have to do with words or vocabulary, which could stem from a difficulty with reading (like, if she has dyslexia + has difficulties focusing on the page, then learning new words could be a challenge). These two things tend to frustrate her and make her feel stupid at times, because if she was smarter she wouldn’t have such problems—but of course she’s not stupid at all. She just has a learning disability / neurodivergence, and that’s okay because she learns in different ways, particularly once she learns how to work around her learning disability / neurodivergence to find the learning styles that work for her.

(Bonus: She had no idea that she had either of those, but Alan noticed her mixing up words / letters when reading or writing, thought it might be dyslexia, and talked to Sycamore about it the next time they talked. The three of them sat down and discussed things, did some research, one thing led to another and that’s how Manon had some pretty big questions answered for her. Who knew.)

3 random headcanons

Manon loves flowers and plants of all types, which is a big part of the reason why she ends up specializing in grass-types (to the point of becoming the grass-type specialist of the Kalosean Elite Four). When she’s older she’s almost always wearing a (fresh) flower crown in her hair, along with hair clips that are shaped like leaves. She also gets flower tattoos along her arms, with each flower representing a different important person in her life. Also, while I always imagined that she would evolve Hari-san into a chesnaught someday, lately I’ve been toying with the idea that maybe he stays a chespin forever, similarly to how Pikachu will forever be Pikachu. People can laugh, but Hari-san can be the most dependable pokémon in Kalos even if he never evolves—he could be strong regardless. I’m not sold on that yet, but I’ve been toying with it lately anyway. (Besides, it’s not like he can mega evolve—that’s for Fushi-kun the venusaur—so there’s no reason why he has to evolve all the way …)

Yvonne ends up becoming her rival. She is high-key outraged when she learns that Alan helped Yvonne pick her starter pokémon / gave her advice. (“Alan, don’t help her, she’s my rival!!”) They end up becoming friends (girlfriends??) later on in life, but it’s a hot rivalry there for a while, particularly since Yvonne picked fennekin, which has a type advantage over … well, Hari-san, but also the rest of Manon’s team.

She gets her ears pierced when she gets older. Let me be more specific: She gets her ears really pierced when she gets older. Not only the standard piercings, but also piercings all the way down her cartilage, on both sides. She doesn’t get gauges, though; those are gross, even to her.

Steven:

sexual orientation headcanon

I’m … not actually sure, to be honest. I really don’t have a firm grasp on Steven; sometimes I feel demiromantic demisexual, but then I also think that he recognized that Sycamore was damn fine when they first met and was only half-joking when he asked Alan if Sycamore was seeing anyone. (And even then, the half-joke just came from the fact that Steven is actually in a happy relationship with Wallace, and wouldn’t pursue Sycamore anyway; he was just curious because, damn, Sycamore might be ten years his senior, but he is still attractive in basically every way.) He obviously doesn’t have a bond with Sycamore at the time, which would suggest that he’s not demisexual, but … I don’t have a clear read on his orientation, still.

That said, it’s entirely possible that he’s still demiromantic, and maybe … pansexual? Homosexual? Allosexual without a clear boundary even though he’s never been attracted to women? Something else?? Like I said, I don’t really have a firm idea here, haha. Maybe I’ll just cheat and say that Steven has never felt the need to identify with anything specific because his feelings are what they are, he’s in a happy relationship for now, that’s all that really matters. He is Not Straight™, and that’s all he knows, and that is all he cares to know, and if anyone wants to have a problem with him not being more specific, they are free to take it up with his metagross.

(No one ever takes it up with Metagross.)

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

I don’t really see anything here either, haha. ;; Nothing about his behavior really stands out to me, personally, as reminiscent of a mental illness or neurodivergence. 

(Though that said, now I’m laughing a bit, because when Alan sends out Lizardon to fight the Primal Legendaries in TSME 3, Steven expresses exasperation at how Alan went and just did that without giving any warning, because it’s reckless and dangerous and why can’t Alan at least communicate these plans or ask for help instead of just doing everything by himself, and I just—okay, well, we can’t all be neurotypical, Steven. =P)

3 random headcanons

His relationship with Wallace is straight up childhood best friends to lovers. Wallace was pretty much the only friend he had growing up (because Wallace only ever treated him like Steven, versus treating him like the heir to Devon Corporation), and as such they have a level of emotional intimacy that is nigh unparalleled. That said, they also have a level of comfort with each other that can lead to things like—well, like this. (They really do love each other, but sometimes Steven drives Wallace a little nuts and Wallace is not afraid to let him know.)

 Although he does genuinely love steel-types (and rock-types as well) due to his fondness for precious stones and rocks and the like, part of the reason why he chose to specialize in those types as a child is because he has an allergy to various pokémon dander. The severity of the allergy depends on the pokémon, and to be honest he’s not even entirely sure he knows all of the pokémon he’s allergic to, but when it comes to pokémon with fur, there is a definite risk that if he spends time around them / comes in contact with their dander, he will start to get hives, and might even have some trouble breathing. (This is also part of why he very often wears long sleeves; it creates less risk for him to come in contact with pokémon dander while out and about, and therefore less risk for his allergy to trigger, just in case.) Such an allergy can be treated, of course, but it can also make training difficult (not to mention emotionally painful, if he couldn’t even pet his own pokémon without hives breaking out), so he sticks to pokémon without fur, which thankfully, steel-types and rock-types have plenty of.

He is gorgeous, and he is a fantastic dancer, but he cannot sing for anything. It is said that children have been moved to tears by his singing, and trust me, those are not tears of joy. Never invite him to karaoke night. There will be much regret.

Sycamore:

sexual orientation headcanon

He’s gay. Like, 100% into men only. Although he has always been a rather charming person and finds it easy to charm women (something he often does unintentionally—he can’t help it, he’s just charming by nature!), when it comes to romantic or sexual interest he has only ever been attracted in men. He realized this about himself in his early teen years, and has readily embraced it ever since.

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

Sycamore has struggled with chronic depression for pretty much his entire life, the severity of which varies depending on where he is in his life at the time (so like, it was really bad in university, but it’s not nearly as powerful and is much more easily fought in adulthood, when he has his dream job and a happy family). He also has experience with an anxiety disorder, as well as that fun cycle of “I’m too depressed to get up and go to class, but now I’m anxious about failing my classes, and the potential for failure worsens my depression, and my worsened depression increases my chances of failing, which then heightens my anxiety, and …” And so on and so forth. That was a monster to deal with in university, let me tell you. (Fortunately, he wasn’t alone. As much as Fulbert might have grumbled, he did help Sycamore where he could. There’s a reason they remained friends after university, and the fact that Fulbert not only used tough love such as flipping Sycamore’s mattress to get him out of bed in dire circumstances, but also helped Sycamore complete some of his coursework on top of the work Fulbert had to do for his own program, is part of it.)

3 random headcanons

He doesn’t drink very often, but he is the lightest of lightweights when he does. He really only ever drinks wine when he does drink alcohol, but it only takes about two glasses (if that) before he is slap-happy drunk. One time he and Meyer had some wine with dinner (while at home), and that was the first time Meyer had ever seen Sycamore drink, and it was not very long before Sycamore decided that it was time to enact some Risky Business. It was a good night.

He really likes cereal. Like, a lot. Not even just a specific kind of cereal, but all kinds of cereal (well, all kinds of cereal that you eat with milk and a spoon in a baseball helmet bowl, anyway—oatmeal is not really his thing). He will eat it for any meal or snack of the day, and sometimes all of them if he can get away with it and doesn’t have a small child he needs to set an example for. He just … really enjoys cereal, okay.

As notorious as he is for bad fashion, one of his favorite parts of taking Alan in when Alan was five was buying him all kinds of cute little kid clothes and merchandise and things. (I mean, he loves pretty much every aspect of (unofficially) adopting that boy, but you know.) In his eyes, pretty much every article of clothing and accessory available for purchase was absolutely adorable, to the point where he could hardly stand it at times. Like, for instance, one of the shirts Sycamore bought him had a rockruff rolling around on the front, with the words “Rock ‘n’ Roll!” Another one had a cubchoo on it and said “Chill Out!” He bought Alan light-up shoes, and also a plush komala backpack where the actual backpack part of it was the log, which unzipped at the top (the komala was purely a plush). For the orange theme day of Alan’s first Festival de la Vie (when he was still five) he got him a charizard hoodie that had wings on the back, spikes on the head to resemble charizard, and sleeves that ended in clawed gloves (with little holes on the bottoms of the sleeves so Alan could stick his hands through). It also had a detachable flame tail. Alan wore it for weeks and Sycamore probably has about a hundred pictures. But really, though, Sycamore just found all the little kid fashion to be so cute and would spontaneously buy shirts or what have you for Alan for the sole reason that he thought they were cute, and it was honestly one of his favorite things to do. He frickin’ loved it.(Also, I haven’t decided if Kalos has a Halloween equivalent yet, but if they do, imagine that when Alan was five or six, Sycamore decided on a werewolf costume for him, based on rockruff. And because it’s always fun for the parents to dress up to take the kids trick-or-treating too, he dressed up as a werewolf based on lycanroc. PAPA (WERE)WOLF WITH LITTLE (WERE)WOLF PUPPER. ADORABLE. Fulbert threatened to call CPS but Sycamore felt it was #WORTH IT.)

[all-my-novels]

Iris. [SDRA2 Sannohashi oneshot]

read on ao3 here if you please

plot:

and i don’t want the world to see me ‘cause i don’t think that they’d understand when everything’s made to be broken i just want you to know who i am.

syobai hashimoto has to fix the biggest mistake he’s ever made in his life. mikado sannoji has to deal with what syobai leaves behind when he runs away. it was never supposed to go this far.

syobai-focused sannohashi, set in the “nuclear” AU. more explained inside. featuring trans!mikado and sora/syobai friendship. tw for mentions of suicide attempt in the beginning.

notes:

So to make a long story short, this series takes place after a huge nuclear war decimated half of the human population and fucked up a lot of shit with the environment and people’s bodies. Everybody knows shit’s fucked. The SDRA2 kids exist in the same universe as the rest of the canon Ultimates, and everyone’s around the same age (THH and NDRV3 kids are about 22, SDR2 kids are 23, SDRA2 kids are around 20-21). So everyone’s an adult. Don’t come for my throat. Don’t like it, don’t leave a nasty comment, thanks! Bad and stinky comments will be placed inside the bee oven to atone for their sins.

It’s not often that Syobai admits this, but this time, he’s absolutely, completely, royally, fucked up. Badly. And normally he doesn’t care, but this time is so very different. Sitting at a table in a nearly-empty diner at half-past noon is not where he thought he was gonna end up today, but here he is, with his head in his hands, staring down at his phone’s lock screen, counting the minutes since Sora sent her “omw" text.

This diner serves whiskey. A lot of places serve liquor now, have since the war tore the world apart and left millions of traumatized people to deal with the aftermath, many of them turning to alcohol to cope. Syobai has been drinking since the ripe old age of ten, so that’s not new to him, and the whiskey they have here is strong, and it’s tempting.

It’s so, so tempting. But if he does that, it won’t end very well for him; first of all, Sora would likely – definitely – beat his ass into next week if she shows up and finds him drunk. Second, in the state he’s currently in emotionally, if he gets drunk, all he’s going to do is remember things, and when he remembers things, he ends up waking up on the bathroom floor at 3 AM in a puddle of his own tears with a bottle of pain pills in his hand.

So Syobai won’t drink. Not today, anyway. But God damn, does he really want to smoke.

As soon as he starts to get up to go outside (the diner has a no smoking policy, which he thinks is stupid considering the fact that nuclear warfare has done shit to the air they don’t even know about yet, but he’s not willing to get kicked out and risk a beating by Sora yet again), the universe interferes with his life once more. Sora steps in through the door of the diner.

Well there goes that plan.

She spots him fairly quickly and strides over to the booth in the back corner, sliding into the seat like nothing’s changed. Syobai remembers when they’d used to skip class every Wednesday and go down to the diner down the street from Hope’s Peak, the one that served all the crazy Western food, and dare each other to eat the craziest shit on the menu as fast as they could without puking or choking. Sora, of course, would win every time, and "claim her victory for all of the lesbians out there.”

It’s enough to make him smile a little bit. The diner was abandoned when the war started, but they still hang out there sometimes.

“So, you wanna tell me what’s wrong with you?”

Sora’s voice breaks through his thoughts, and Syobai lifts his head to look at her. She’s got her chin in her hand, and her elbow propped on the table.

“Elbows on the table? Not very lady-like,” Syobai jokes. With her free hand, Sora flips him off, and he snickers. “I’m kidding, geez. Who says there’s anything wrong with me?”

Sora points at the complimentary basket of chips the diner serves with every customer. “There’s food on the table, and you haven’t eaten it all yet to spite me. Now, I asked you nicely. Don’t make me come over there.”

Well. Looks like he can’t stall his explanation anymore.

He lets out a long, heavy, slow sigh, and laces his fingers together in front of him on the table. Syobai turns his grey-eyed gaze down towards the surface of the table, before forcing himself to look up and meet Sora’s eyes.

“I need your help,” he says simply. “I fucked up.”

“You do that a lot. Elaborate.”

“I fucked up really, really bad.” Syobai pauses. “With Mikado.”

Sora tilts her head. “Last time I asked, you told me the two of you were "just sleeping together casually.” Did you lie to me, Syobai?“

Syobai swallows heavily. He can hear his heart beating in his ears.

"Mikado is pregnant,” he finally says. The words actually leaving his lips feel like the final blow in a fight, and he’s just lost. “With my children.”

“… oh.” Sora blinks a few times. “So this was an accident, I take it? Whatever happened to high school Syobai Hashimoto who carried five different types of condoms in his wallet at all times just in case he met a hot guy walking home from school?”

“Hey, in my defense, I usually still have condoms.” Yes, they’re a bit harder to find nowadays, as is almost everything, but up until now, he’s always managed to have one on hand for when the two of them start feeling frisky (which tends to happen at least once a day). “To answer your question, though, what happened is Setsuka decided to get hitched.”

“The party,” Sora gasps, remembering suddenly. “Oh, my God. So you two did fuck in the bathroom! Emma owes me five thousand yen.”

“Yes, we did do that,” Syobai mumbles. It’s not totally his fault, he thinks. It’s not like Mikado wasn’t grinding on him half the night, begging him to fuck him as hard as he could against the wall. It’s no doubt the best sex he’s ever had in his life.

And, of course, it’s the one time they fuck without a condom and without pulling out. Not that that’s guaranteed to help anything, but hey, it might have? Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on Syobai’s part.

“So what’s the problem?” Sora continues. “Does he not want the babies?”

Syobai looks away. “I, uh. I don’t know.”

Sora’s eyes narrow dangerously. “You didn’t talk to him about it?”

Syobai gives a dry laugh. “Well, ya see, that’s where the whole ”I fucked up really bad“ bit comes in.”

“What’d you do.” This isn’t spoken as a question, somehow, as Sora’s voice deepens. She’s already pissed off, great, and Syobai has a feeling she won’t be any happier when he tells this part of the story.

“Um.” Syobai swallows again, more nervous this time. “I… I ran off.”

Silence. “Excuse me?” Sora says. “You wanna run that by me again?”

Syobai still isn’t meeting her eyes. He recalls exactly how the exchange went, just about two hours ago now.

“I’m pregnant.”

The world stops turning.

Mikado’s holding his hands over his stomach, gloved fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt so tightly his hands shake. Syobai, on the other hand, just. Stands there. Staring at Mikado, completely speechless.

Before he knows it, his body is reacting all on its own. Syobai opens his mouth, trying to form an intelligent response, but all that comes out is two words he’ll regret deeply:

“I can’t.”

Before Mikado reacts to that, Syobai yanks the front door open and takes off down the street, running and running and running until he can’t, falling to his knees behind the 7-11 – how the hell did he get there, it’s a mile from the house – choking and coughing before he inevitably pukes from the strain of running so far, so fast.

This all goes through his head in the span of about two seconds. “I just stood there like an idiot,” Syobai finally says. “I – I said I can’t and then I ran.” His hand curls into a fist. “I ran like the dumb fucking coward I am.” He brings his fist down on the table as hard as he can. Sora doesn’t jump, instead staring at him evenly. “Go ahead and say it. I know you want to.”

“You’re right for once. What the hell is wrong with you?” Sora snaps. “I know that taking responsibility for your numerous fuck-ups is completely foreign to you, and usually you get away with it with no consequences because that’s just how it is when you deal with people you don’t care about and criminals, and hey, I can let it go when it’s some nameless Yakuza dude who got assassinated with a gun you sold someone 'cause I don’t care either,” she begins. “But then, you turn around and do this shit? To Mikado? To someone we all know, and yeah, he might be a rat, but he doesn’t deserve to be left high and dry and pregnant and scared because you –” And here she points at him, Syobai flinching as every word cuts deeper, “– are a fucking coward. You’re God damn right you screwed up.”

“I was scared,” Syobai says, his weak attempt at a protest surprising even himself.

“You were scared?” Sora laughs, and it’s bitter. “That’s funny. It’s funny that you were scared. How do you think Mikado feels right now? Alone, facing the possibility of having to raise more than one child by himself after the man he’s spent half of high school madly in love with, and the man he’s been sleeping with for the past six months, ran away when he told him he’d gotten him pregnant?”

There’s really nothing he can say to that. Syobai sighs shakily. “I wasn’t just scared because he’s pregnant,” he finally says. “I was scared because…”

He shuts his eyes.

“Because I love him. I love him, so much that it hurts, and I may as well have just stabbed him right in the chest.”

“And you’re not used to that,” Sora says. “You’re not used to caring for anyone except yourself. But as long as you kept telling yourself it was just for fun, and there were no feelings involved, you could shrug it off. Maybe a part of you thought Mikado felt the same way, like it was just a game. Then he started to make your world wider, you started to get comfortable with it, and you got scared. Then he came to you, and told you that it wasn’t just him anymore, and you panicked. You couldn’t handle it. But instead of staying there and talking to him about it like an adult, you were just cryptic, and then you ran away.”

Syobai opens his eyes and looks over at Sora. He somehow looks even older than he usually does. “Yeah. Yeah, you got me there.” He swallows, heavily, and his mouth tastes like copper from how hard he’s been chewing on his inner lip. “It was just supposed to be for fun. It was never supposed to be serious.”

“Yeah, well, tough shit,” Sora shrugs. “Mikado’s pregnant. You’re gonna be a dad. You could run all the way to America and it wouldn’t change a thing. The only difference is, Mikado has to live with what you gave him forever. You’ve got two choices: you can drag your sorry ass home and show Mikado you’re sorry, or you can keep running away. But, I’ll have you know…” And here, Sora’s voice darkens, and she looks more dangerous now than she ever did before even with a gun in her hands, “If you leave him like that? And if you ever run away from him like that again? And dare to show your face in Japan again? I will personally hunt you down and make you beg for me to kill you. Understand?”

“… yeah. I understand,” Syobai replies. He runs a hand through his hair while Sora takes a couple of breaths to calm herself down. “I don’t want to leave him. But I don’t think I’m ready to be a father. Or much of anything, really.” He looks down at his hands, rough and calloused and forever stained with the blood of so many that only he can see. “What if I can’t love them?”

“If you love Mikado as much as you say you do, you’ll fall in love with those babies way before they’re ever born,” Sora tells him. “Listen. This world’s gone to shit. It’s gonna be hard to raise a family like this. That’s why Yoruko and I are waiting. But it’s a little too late for you to do that, so all you can do is suck it up and do everything you can to make sure they never have to be a part of what we were.”

Sora’s words seal Syobai’s decision.

—

He tries calling Mikado to tell him he’s coming home for an hour, and gets absolutely no response. A part of Syobai is worried, desperately hoping Mikado didn’t do something stupid and end up hurting himself, and wants to get home as soon as he can, but…

The other part of him feels like if he just shows up at home with no warning, it’ll only make the situation that much worse.

So he calls, and calls, and calls, and gets sent to voicemail over and over, until finally, there’s an answer.

“Fucking Syobai Hashimoto,” a voice that is decidedly not Mikado’s comes through the speaker. “I ought to skin you alive and wear you like a fur coat. How dare you.”

Syobai sighs and frowns, rubs a hand over his face. “Hello, Nikei.”

“Don’t you hello, Nikei me!” The furious man spits over the phone. “Ever since Mikado told me you two were a thing, I’ve been looking for a reason to shoot you and make Why Syobai Hashimoto’s Death Should be Celebrated as a National Holiday an article on the front page news for a month straight! Now I finally get a reason and I can’t even do it because Mikado wants his kids to know their scumbag father!”

Syobai pauses. “… he wants me to come back?”

“I want you to come back, too,” Nikei starts to say. “So I can beat you to death with a baseball bat.” It sounds like he wants to say more, but then Syobai hears a very quiet, muffled voice in the background. It has to be Mikado. He strains to hear, but it’s no use, because the phone doesn’t pick up exactly what he’s saying. A few seconds later, though, he hears Nikei give a heavy sigh.

“Alright, fine. Mikado wants to hear you out, so I won’t be here when you get back, sadly,” Nikei mutters. “But I can be there in ten minutes tops if he calls me back, and I’d love to see you try to outrun my bullets.”

“Point taken.” Syobai closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath. “Tell him to leave the door unlocked. I’m coming home.”

—

It takes a little under an hour for Syobai to get home. He has to walk all the way there, after all, and he’s already tired, but he pushes through. By the time he makes it to the driveway, it feels like his legs are about to fall off.

Then he gets to the front door, puts his hand on the doorknob, and hesitates. It’s like all of the exhaustion evaporates, replaced by pure adrenaline and the urge to turn around and start running again.

No. He’s made up his mind. Syobai closes his eyes, the mental image of Mikado laughing brightly in his arms appearing to him with no trouble at all, without him even needing to think about it.

God. All the things he would do to make that smile come back to Mikado’s face. All the things he would do to forget the look of heartbreak he saw for just a split second when they were standing in the living room.

He turns the doorknob and walks inside the empty living room. His feet land in the same place they were, and he lets the door close behind him as he takes a few shallow breaths. The nagging little voice in the back of his head says you should’ve ended this a long time ago, Hashimoto. You always knew you’d never be man enough for him, to protect him, to care for him. You’re just a coward.

Syobai ignores it, pushes through the pain and walks over to the door of the bedroom he and Mikado have been sharing. Technically, it’s Syobai’s room, because this is his house, but his sheets smell like Mikado, and it’s his and Mikado’s clothes on the floor in that room, and there’s a picture of both of them hanging on the wall.

Syobai bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, then knocks three times on the door. He contemplates saying something to announce his presence, but finds it better to keep his mouth shut for right now.

At least, until the door opens up, and it’s Mikado standing before him, with no mask, his face clearly streaked and stained with tears. Syobai forces himself to look at his face, look him in the eyes, because Mikado deserves that, at least. He deserves so much more than what Syobai’s given him.

Neither of them really knows what to say at first. Then Syobai takes a shuddering, shallow breath.

“I’m sorry, for what I said,” Syobai finally says. “I said ”I can’t.“ That was a lie. I - I can, I just… didn’t want to face it.”

“I really hope you didn’t come all the way here just to say I’m sorry and expect me to forgive you,” Mikado says, his voice barely above a whisper.

Syobai shakes his head. “I’m not asking you to forgive me right now,” he murmurs. “I just want you to hear me out. Then you can do whatever you want. I swear. Please.”

Mikado bites his lip and looks down at the floor, contemplating. “Fine. But I’m not doing this for you.”

“That’s okay.” Syobai closes his eyes for a moment, then looks back evenly at Mikado as he slowly gets to his knees, now looking up at him. Mikado doesn’t hide the look of shock on his face as Syobai starts talking.

“Listen. I’m not gonna make excuses. I’m a coward, and I’m a fool. I broke your heart. When things go beyond my intentions, I try to own up to them. Today I ran away instead.” He swallows heavily, watches as Mikado shuts his eyes tight. “I - until you told me this morning, I was a man with nothing to lose. Nobody but myself. Then I went from that, to having everything to lose in two words. All my life, I never cared about what happened to anybody but myself. I didn’t give a shit. And now…” He looks at Mikado’s stomach, where he’s resting one of his gloved hands, as though he isn’t even thinking about it.

“I realized no matter how far I ran, or for how long, I’d never be able to forget that. I couldn’t change it. I can’t go back in time and stop what happened.” Syobai sighs. Mikado’s hands tremble. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized: I don’t want to stop what happened. I don’t want these kids to not exist.”

“Then why did you run away? Why’d you leave me?” Mikado chokes out.

There’s no turning back now. Syobai looks at Mikado right in the eyes, grey meeting pale brown, Syobai finally ready to say the words that could make or break him.

“Because I love you, Mikado Sannoji,” Syobai says, clearly, sincerely, the only words that have ever come from his mouth with complete purity. “I love you, and it’s real and it’s raw and it scares the living hell out of me, because I didn’t think I could until you walked into my life.” He reaches out, fully ready for Mikado to push him away. Instead, he’s pleasantly surprised when his cold hands are wrapped in Mikado’s warm ones. He hasn’t looked away from him, not for a moment, watching as more tears spill down Mikado’s face despite him trying to fight them. “I got through life by putting up paywalls, literally, and I knew no person in their right mind would ever wanna get past them.” He gives a little laugh. “I didn’t count on you, coming in and blowing holes through them.”

“Hey, I only blew a hole in a wall once, and that was an accident,” Mikado laughs and cries at the same time, his body trembling. By now, Syobai’s shaking too, but he’s still fighting his own tears.

“Well, you sure got rid of mine,” Syobai says. He lifts one of his hands to his lips and kisses his knuckles. “To be honest, I’m still scared. I don’t know what I’m doing, not with you, not with the kids we made, not with my life, but I do know one thing: I wanna figure it out with you, and nobody else.”

His voice cracks. Syobai swallows heavily, one last ditch-effort attempt at holding back his emotions.

“Will you let me stay here, right here, by your side?” Syobai asks, voice strained. “Will you let me become the man you deserve?” He sniffs, his last words coming in a quiet sob:

“Will you let me be a father?”

Mikado nods, squeezes Syobai’s hands, his decision made as soon as he sees the tears – so very real, undeniable evidence of Syobai bearing his soul to Mikado for the first time – coming down his face like rain.

“Yeah. Yes, let’s do it,” Mikado whispers. “Oh, my God. We’re gonna be fathers.”

Syobai leans forward a little, rests his head against Mikado’s belly, presses their still interlocked hands against the small, barely-noticeable swell, evidence that their children are safe, growing, and healthy. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to, as he rolls up the bottom of Mikado’s shirt and kisses his skin, so gently he’s afraid he imagined it at first.

Syobai Hashimoto doesn’t so much fall in love with Mikado Sannoji; instead, rather, he stumbles into it, clumsy and foolish and with no grace at all. But he falls in love with their little ones in a split second, a moment in time he’ll never forget.

[hannah-honestly-blog]

Age Gap Relationships

So, I am a member of a group on Facebook named "Age gaps don't matter in a relationship". It is full of couples from all over the world who seek advice and comfort in knowing they are not alone in their situations. Situations such as bad family reactions, issues which age gap couples face within their relationships such as marriage and children, and the response they have from the outside world.

Now, I am not one to rise to petty people who it seem have nothing better to do with their day than sit behind a computer screen and type all about their opinion on matters that do not concern them. And I still haven't. Instead, I have read and absorbed what they have said and feel my response needs to be written somewhere, even if it's just for me to look back on. They will never read it most likely, probably no-one will read this, but it helps me get things off my chest and mind if I just write them down.

A few members of this Facebook group, it seems, have told their stories to newspapers, who have in turn released the articles on their Facebook pages. This is something I view as incredibly brave and although it's something I don't think I could ever do because the backlash would upset me far too much, I do see what they are trying to do by getting their stories out there. They are trying to bring a sense of normality to a subject that I hadn't even known was such a taboo. This in itself is a hugely difficult task, not made at all easier by the person writing the article littering it with constant commentary about "how old the man/woman was when the younger man/woman was this age". I get it, of course. The aim of some news articles are to report, but most nowadays are to shock and start a discussion, therefore pulling in the most comments and reactions on their post.

It is some of the comments which have angered me. I find it utterly incomprehensible, with everything else going on in this world, that people choose to hate two people in love.

The list of issues with the world that these people could be concentrating on is HUGE: war, poverty, bombings, murder, ACTUAL paedophilia, extreme hunger, rape, sex slaves, slavery in general, mistreatment of animals, lack of clean water, poor sanitation. This is only the slightest of slight compilations of things which actually deserve and require these people's outrage and discussion. Why aren't they focusing on these things? Why aren't they using their brains to try and help with something which negatively effects millions of people? Instead of bashing people who are doing them absolutely no harm? People who are plain and simply in love?

I'm not naive, I get that Facebook is a playground for "trolls", which in my book is a loose term for someone who needs likes on their "funny" comment in order to feel they are accomplishing something in life. Facebook is full to the brim of people trying to "win the internet" for that day. In all honesty, people who put others down in the name of comedy are not funny in the slightest. If you need someone else's misfortune to crack a joke, you need to sit the fuck down and take a long hard look at your own life.

People have opinions, I also understand this. After all, is this whole post not my own opinion? However, I feel my opinion on this subject is somewhat more justified than theirs. My outlook on life is incredibly simple: live how you please...within reason. What I mean by this is that as long as you are not harming anybody else, physically or mentally, you should be able to do with your own life what you see fit.

These age-gap couples are in loving, consensual relationships with one another. They have fallen in love and have chosen to pursue a relationship and created their own small globe of happiness. Which is awesome. Why shouldn't they be happy? Why does the older female have to be labelled a cougar? Or the younger female branded as having daddy issues?

We humans are complex creatures, we are no two the same and we all choose to lead different paths in lives and that is what makes up the world. If everyone were the same, there would be no interest. The beauty of everyone being different is that they are unique, and they bring to the world something utterly personal to them. This is how we have different cultures belonging to different countries, and we celebrate this. We travel to these countries and marvel at what makes them culturally different to us and we love it because it is something new and beautiful and unique to that specific place.

So why is being in love with someone twenty, thirty or forty years senior considered such an inappropriate thing? "Because it's disgusting, he's clearly a peado." No. No. And no, again. If these people had a brain cell to share between them they would realise that if somebody is over the age of eighteen, which is recognised most of the world over as being adult, they physically cannot be a peadophile. It's impossible. "It's inappropriate because she/he is only with him/her for the money." Wrong. The majority of the age-gap couples I have met on Facebook, myself included, are financially stable because they are together. They both work and both pay their way fairly.

When I first told my parents about my age-gap relationship, my mother told me to ask my boyfriend how he would feel if his eleven-year-old daughter was to end up with someone twenty-seven years her senior when she was twenty, like me. And I did ask him, or rather, I told him what she had said. He said that as a father, yes, he understood why they were having a bit of trouble understanding it. BUT, he would be happy with it as long as his daughter was. When you are an adult, and you make a decision, you make it for yourself and your own happiness. There was never an option for me to just do what my parents wanted, because that would be sacrificing my own happiness in order to please them. And it is not their life, it is mine, and mine alone.

Now, things are slightly better with my parents, although they will probably still need more time to wrap their heads around it. I am pregnant with my first child, and I did, at one point, find myself considering what I would do if my daughter were to grow up and enter into a similar relationship to her parents. And I'm fine with it. I might be biased, but that doesn't matter. It is exactly the same situation if my daughter were to come to me and tell me she were a lesbian. Love, whether it be same-sex, opposite-sex or age-gap, is ALL THE SAME.

Many people in the comments detailed what they thought could be possible issues with age-gap relationships. One being: "how on earth do you find something in common with someone who is so much older than you." The answer: Easily. All sorts of different people connect with all sorts of different people. My partner and I both enjoy board games, card games, walks, a fair few pub crawls (before I got pregnant of course). We love finding little hidden gems of pubs with unique decor, and we like finding new places for a good Sunday Lunch. We both like much of the same food and we both laugh at the same things. We can mess around together and play-fight, and we discuss our views on different matters the same as every other "normal" couple out there. We have both always liked to read, and we both have creative tendencies. We're easy-going, open-minded, non-judgemental people. It just so happens that he was born in 1969 and I was born in 1996. And I see no issue with that. At all.

To me, the people who go out of their way to insult and mock others must seriously have such sad lives. There must be so much going wrong in them that the only time they get any sort of mental relief is when they are attempting to knock others down. It is the only explanation I can think of. Because I lead a happy and fulfilled life, and I have plenty to look forward to, and I have never felt the need to comment on someone else's life decisions or condemn them for those decisions. I don't judge others, because it is their life, and their lives do not affect mine in any way at all.

And so, I will continue my life with my lovely boyfriend and my daughter who is going to be coming into this world very soon. And I will show her all of the beauty in it and teach her that love, in all it's shapes and forms, is the most beautiful and sacred thing we, as humans, are capable of. To love another and be loved by another is truly an incredibly pure and amazing thing which should be cherished for all of time. It is most likely inevitable that my partner will pass before me (although not certain) and I accept that. I accept that I would rather have thirty to forty years with him that spend a lifetime with someone who I just didn't feel the same connection with.

Life is not a trial run. We don't get a second go at this. Live it as you please. Do whatever makes you happy. And fuck those who try to tear you down for doing your thing.

❤️