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MY JILL STINRAY NENDO CAME IN TODAY!!!!
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saltygilmores · 9 months
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Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls 2/16, There’s The Rub, The Part Where Paris and Rory Are SuperMegaGay And All Is Right With The World Again, Part 6
Paris just saved Rory's hide from the wrath of Dean (okay, she still got plenty of wrath from Dean, unfortunately, but it could have been a lot worse) and this is why Paris is my favorite Boyfriend, not Jess.
You can read parts 1-5 and all previous episodes here.
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Omg, my cynical, cold, black heart can't take this tenderness. I love them so much. Long live PariMore! (finally thought of a ship name! woot!)
One of the most serious crimes commited by one miss AmyShermanPalladino in writing a Year in the Life is not taking advantage of the freedom of Netflix and the much more progressive year of 2016 by having Paris get a divorce at the same time that Rory is lost and adrift in her life and finally put these two idiots together. But no. They still didn't find each other and live happily ever after and Rory is still shacking up with Logan even when it's clear that neither Paris or Rory actually like men.
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By golly. This is 2002, they said. It can't be done, they said. And yet, PariMore proved us wrong. They went super duper ultra mega gay. Netflix and Chill gay. Slumber party gay. Super Gay Fanfiction!
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"Sort of."
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Staaaaaaaaahpppppp!! 😭 We interrupt Super Duper Gay Lesbian Slumber Party and cut to Lorelai and Emily having a night on the town after their spa day. They meet a handsome older gentleman at the bar who offers a dance to Emily. In a shocking turn of events that further proves this episode comes from some alternate dimension where all is right with the world with the exception of Dean Forrester, Lorleai happily becomes her mother's wingwoman after some small initial resistance. Are you ok, Lorelai? Do you feel feverish? You haven't nagged, cockblocked, offered unsolicited advice, or butted into anyone's business in like, a whole 30 minutes. This episode has such great Lorelai and Emily banter, like Emily telling Lorelai "You let me get 60/40'd" and "Hookers eat at bars." "Only if they can't get a table." Terrific! But the handsome gentleman gets a little too close, Emily feels guilty about dancing with him and that puts the kibosh on that and Emily blames Lorelai for making her feel like a cheap floozy. Geez Lorelai, I guess you can't win. You're insufferable when you're being a cockblocking menace to society, but then when you actually do relax a little bit and alllow people do as they please, you get the business. Emily wonders why she can't have what Rory and Lorelai have and I don't know if a deeply fucked up mother daughter relationship forged from a teen pregnancy where the 34 year old mother is still about 15 maturity wise is something you want to aspire to. Rory reading the check in forms at her therapist's office 5 years from now: Form: "Reason for appointment?" Rory: "Hmmm..." Lorelai to Emily at the hotel: Rory and I are best friends, Mom. Best friends first, and mother and daughter second! (Rory in her therapist's office: "Ah. There it is.")
There are so many times Lorelai is this - close to having a breakthrough, where she exhibits a fleeting moment of self awareness then poof, it is gone. She didn't pause to think about the implications behind admitting "I'm my daughter's friend before her mother." She will never learn or grow or change. Oh well, that's our Lorelai!
Listen, stop the feuding, you both get a trophy for Sucking At Parenting. Is there any hope for Rory's spawn to break this generational curse? It would be interesting if Rory's future child turned out to be a boy, because like, I have to wonder what creative and different ways she could manage to fuck up a son? (as with everything I'm sure this exists as a work of fanfiction somewhere). Lorelai thinks spending a whole weekend with her mother was too intense and they should have started with something smaller to patch their relationship and grow closer. What is her idea? No, not therapy. Petty theft. They steal the robes from their hotel room. Yay, mother and daughter bonding and not healing any trauma whatsoever!
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No, never. Only if it's a box of cornstarch, a boat, or another woman's husband. Emily enjoys the robe stealing caper, some sarcastic quips are exchanged, and the desperate, aching, deep seated emotional trauma being suffered by both parties is once again shoved down deep deep inside to fester like an infected wound.
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She's totally fine you guys. We cut to Rory and Lorelai at the diner the next day where Rory is giving Lorelai the run down of the previous events, presumably minus the super duper mega gay sexual tension between herself and Paris. Lorelai remarks that Paris looked nauseous and tired when she woke up in the morning, which Rory attributes to a sugar overload, but we know better. We know how dehydrating all-night Blockbuster & Chill lesbian makeout slumber parties can be.
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Oh right, Rory committed the felony of spending one evening with someone other than Dean so now she "owes" him her time. She is talking about it with a level of excitement in her voice akin to someone who was just asked to scrub a toilet. Of course, there could not be a mention of Dean without a deeply troubling response from Lorelai. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. Surely it will be something like, “Aw honey, he just yelled at you because he loves you” or something.
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Eh, close enough.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! It gets worse! There's only a minute left in the episode! How does she do it, folks? She is truly breathtaking. Before we get there, let's enjoy some Literati bliss. Rory is catching on that the whole Food Delivery thing may have been a ruse from Jess to get all up in her bizzzness and almost pries the truth out of Luke, but Jess diverts Luke away from the scene. Jess and Rory then enjoy an incredibly rare, blissful moment together, free of interruptions, alone at the counter. Or so they think.
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Sorry I almost called you a naive woodland fairy when I thought you still didn't get that Luke never actually told Jess to bring to food your house and USA here cooked up the whole scheme on his own. It's clearly Jess who's the naive one if he thinks you're actually going to pay for your food! Ha ha!
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WAAAAATTT???!!! #AlternateDimensionEpisode #EpisodeFromOuterSpace #TheOneWhereTheGilmoresPayForTheirFood #IsAmyShermanPalladinoOK?
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SOMEONE (two someones) are not happy about this budding, adorable relationship, one so stinking cute that you'd have to be sick to try to destroy it. Like someone who would try to stop a bunny and a puppy from cuddling. Gee, wonder who I'm talking about?
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Just normal Butthead Business, staring into windows while people are trying to eat. We already know from prior Window-Peeping episodes this doesn't bother Lorelai in the least. Lorelai smiles sweetly at her ShnookyUkkums Dean as if 30 seconds ago she wasn't hearing a story from her daughter about his anger issues for the 400th time. He's also talking in his usual miserable serial killer monotone about "Spending the day with Rory" like he'd rather be sticking his arm into heavy machinery than spend time with her, and again I have to wonder why he is even bothering with her, other than the fact that she's an easy victim and that no other humanoid woman besides Lorelai would ever give this soggy cornflake the time of the day. L: Rory told me everything that happened last night. She feels terrible about it. You shouldn't feel bad. It was a "Freaky unfortunate thing that happens." She continues in her soft, flirty, gentle Talking to Dean voice, "It had nothing to do with Jess coming over, trust me, she did not want him there!" Um. Again, a very weird thing to say about Some Kid to the guy your daughter is dating? Thanks to one of my followers who pointed out that Rory never said this on camera which means Lorelai has now resorted to flat out lying to Dean in order to sabotage her daughter's friendship (and it's still only a friendship) with Jess.
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Look alive Butthead. She's salivating. I think she's about to start humping your leg right there in front of Luke's Diner. Don't make me turn the garden hose on you Lorelai. Dean isn't listening or aware he's about to be humped. He's distracted. There's something he's incredibly concerned about. Rory and Jess....they're talking. To each other. In public. Now, Gilmore Girls knows how to do creepy. We've got plenty of stories of people stalking, eavesdropping, hiding in bushes, leaving excessive amounts of messages, Dean existing, yada yada. But this is easily one of the creepiest things to ever happen on this show. It seriously gives me the chilly willies. The eeby jeebies. The eepy creepies. They look like two villains who have joined evil forces to devestate....Lorelai's own freaking daughter.
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Picture ID: Lorelai and Dean watching Rory and Jess have an innocent conversation creepily through a window, cementing their status as the villains in this wholesome drama known as Gilmore Girls. *deep shudder*
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narutodivorcearcreal · 3 months
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Fight clubbers ranked by me based on how much i like them. very long.
1. Fem narrator - cuter than regular narrator (to me she looks the same except for the obvious). coworkers think shes a “mildly effete teenage boy” (via jacksprostate). she has acne from the copius amounts of foundation needed to cover her fight club bruises. she has a virgin mary complex (fears spontaneous pregnancy despite not having sex). she has a collection of 37831 kitchenwares because she doesn’t make enough money to buy furniture as a hobby, and despite this she eats mustard for dinner. if she ever had a pregnancy scare she would kill herself immediately. her morning routine is weighing herself and riding her exercise bike religiously. she’s sooo afraid of becoming a parent or married or pregnant. she has penetration anxiety. what’s not to love.
2. Fem Tyler - Looks exactly like tyler with crazier sideburns and boobs. doesnt have sex with marlon not because shes lesbian (shes not real idk i dont consider her or tyler to have any specific sexuality) but because narrators fear of pregnancy and penetration is so deep it extends to her. likes narrator more than m tyler likes m narrator but still throughly sick of her shit by the end. To me shes a coyote but she would LARP as a hyena. kind of wants to kill marlon but they’re still besties. worst boyfriend ever. Also shes very hot to me sorry.
3. Regular Narrator - The Guy of all time. truly a fascinating specimen. many many things deeply wrong with him. he took all his issues and made them into one guy. he is inertia personified. i think if he doenst kill himself post canon and survives until 2009 he has a blank grindr account where he scrolls through all the guys in the area without actually messaging any of them. but he probably is dead by then.
4. Regular Marla - I love her so dearly. Her in the book and narrator was so cute… so sad they cut out a lot of their closer moments in the movie. Idk she wants him to shove sleeping pills up his ass girl best friends forever objectively… and her calling narrator in the psych ward.. Her madonna-whore complex towards herself where she can only see herself as a human shitstain when she’s so tender… she lets tyler hurt her and she keeps coming back when narrators an asshole… she asks narrator to check her for cancer and tries to keep him awake and watches him kill a person and shes still there. what can i say it makes me ill. And she’s going to die young… everything about her is so tragic. She wants someone to love her……..
5. Male Marla/Marlon - tfw your best/only friend who semierotically puts out cigarettes on you was actually a split personality. when he’s walking with narrator through the gardens he assumes she got on meds or something because she doenst look like she wants to skin him alive anymore. as project mayhem grows he has to perform increasingly complex maneuvers to get to paper street house and narrator without getting his balls cut off.
6. Regular Tyler - “i could fix him” except “him” was also tyler and he could not, in fact, fix him. tried to get narrator to make impactful decisions and change but narrator imprinted on him like a baby duck and became totally dependent on tyler. like the idea that tyler is alive post canon but pretends to be dead because he’s so sick of narrator’s shit.
7. My fight club OC Brandon Pitchard - never actually joined fight club. tries to hook up with narrator in a gay bar september 9th 2001 and gets punched in the face. Buddhist.
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girljeremystrong · 2 years
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COMING OF AGE
YOUNG MUNGO by Douglas Stuart
Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars (Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic) and they should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all. Yet against all odds, they become best friends. (TW abuse)
LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB by Malinda Lo
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
RAINBOW MILK by Paul Mendez
At the turn of the millennium, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London, escaping a broken immediate family, a repressive religious community and his depressed hometown in the industrial Black Country. But once he arrives he finds himself at a loss for a new center of gravity.
HISTORICAL FICTION
THE GREAT BELIEVERS by Rebecca Makkai
In 1985, Yale Tishman is about to pull off an amazing coup. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. The AIDS crisis and how it affects a group of Chicago friends and the survivors who meet decades later in Paris.
STILL LIFE by Sarah Winman
A sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a richly drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms. A group of english outcasts used to meeting in a London pub end up in Florence.
SWIMMING IN THE DARK by Tomasz Jedrowski
Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide.
A TIP FOR THE HANGMAN by Alison Epstein
Christopher Marlowe, brilliant aspiring playwright, is pulled into the duplicitous world of international espionage on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I. A many-layered historical thriller combining state secrets, intrigue, and romance.
TELL THE WOLVES I’M HOME by Carol Rifka Brunt
A moving story of love, grief, and renewal as two lonely people become the unlikeliest of friends and find that sometimes you don't know you've lost someone until you've found them. 
 CONTEMPORARY FICTION
THE GOLDEN SEASON by Madeline Kay Sneed
A love letter to the places we call home and asks how we grapple with a complicated love for people and places that might not love us back—at least, not for who we really are.
JUST BY LOOKING AT HIM by Ryan O’Connell
A darkly witty and touching novel following a gay TV writer with cerebral palsy as he fights addiction and searches for acceptance in an overwhelmingly ableist world.
REAL LIFE by Brandon Taylor
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses.
SKYE FALLING by Mia McKenzie
Told in a fresh, lively voice, this novel is a relentlessly clever, deeply moving portrait of a woman and the relationships she thought she could live without.
FUTURE FEELING by Joss Lake
An embittered Trans dog walker obsessed with social media inadvertently puts a curse a young man—and must adventure into mysterious dimension in order to save him—in this wildly inventive, delightfully subversive, genre-nonconforming novel about illusion, magic, technology, kinship, and the future.
GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernardine Evaristo
Follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.
MEMORIAL by Bryan Washington
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston, and they've been together for a few years -- good years -- but now they're not sure why they're still a couple.
THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS by Laurie Frankel
Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.
ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS by Ocean Vuong
a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born.
DETRANSITION, BABY by Torrey Peters
A whipsmart novel about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.
EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD by Emily Austin
Gilda, a twenty-something lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.
 SHORT STORIES
FILTHY ANIMALS by Brandon Taylor
It’s a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.
THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES by Deesha Philyaw
Explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good.
 NON FICTION (MEMOIRS)
IN THE DREAM HOUSE by Carmen Maria Machado
About the complexities of abuse in same-sex relationships. (TW abuse)
ALL BOYS AREN’T BLUE by George M. JohnsoN
Weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
 THRILLERS & MYSTERIES
WHERE THE TRUTH LIES by Anna Bailey
When a teenaged girl disappears from an insular small town, all of the community’s most devastating secrets come to light in this stunningly atmospheric and slow-burning suspense novel.
BATH HAUS by P.J. Vernon
Oliver Park, a young recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving partner. With everything to lose, Oliver shouldn't be visiting Haus, a gay bathhouse. But through the entrance he goes, and it's a line crossed.
DEAD DEAD GIRLS by Nekesa Afia
Set in 1920s Harlem featuring Louise Lloyd, a young black woman caught up in a series of murders way too close to home.
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gravitywonagain · 1 year
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the "alone on thanksgiving? mad at your dad?" craigslist ad post but it's chinese new year or something and mianmian invites "rude party guest" wei ying to be her Evil Beard, basically, so that when she shows up to the next thing with wen qing her family will be somewhat relieved that at least wen qing is Respectable. but at the party, wei ying meets lan zhan. he stays in character because he's a bro like that and internally grieves the loss of this beautiful man who is (rightfully) glaring at him the entire party as wei ying pretends to get more and more drunk and hits on many various women and finally does actually propose to mianmian in front of all the jins and lans and probably nies (idk who's all there, but jin guangshan does not throw small parties).
wei ying leaves that night having bonded deeply with mianmian and also having been banned from koi tower and all other jin properties and resorts. but most importantly, he is sad because lan zhan was super hot and totally into him for the half-a-second they shared by the bar before wei ying jumped back into character.
(what wei ying doesn't know is that lan zhan heard him tell the bar tender to pour him drinks that look alcoholic but that do not have any actual alcohol in them, and then watched him act progressively drunker and rowdier as the night went on. he hasn't put all the clues together just yet, but he knows something is going on.)
less than a week later, probably, lan zhan walks into the bookstore wei ying runs with the wens. wei ying is reading a book about the silk road aloud to the sleeping toddler curled tightly into his chest. it's like thirty minutes before closing. wei ying was definitely banking on nobody showing up anytime soon. but lan zhan is looking for a gift for his brother, and the store is open after all. so wei ying wraps a blanket around a'yuan, tying him to his chest as he and lan zhan wander around the bookstore, discussing possibilities in hushed voices and cooing at a'yuan's tiny snores. mostly wei ying is just praying to every god he can think of that lan zhan doesn't recognize him as the asshole from the jin party.
(lan zhan definitely does.)
unfortunately, mianmian's family didn't totally buy the act, or at least weren't quite scandalized enough to be open to lesbianism, so wei ying has to keep attending these awful parties for a little while and pretending to be The Worst and also pretending that he's not totally into lan zhan the entire fucking time. (this may open up an opportunity for wei ying to take a drink for lan zhan to piss off actual asshole jin zixun, and also cause problems with wei ying's sobriety, if we want to get angsty with it. or maybe he just tosses it in jin zixun's face. choose your own adventure.)
cue confusion about wei ying's actual relationship with mianmian, a series of awkward interactions as wei ying and lan zhan dance around each other to figure out if the other is even into men, and a'yuan (predictably) being the Best Boy and forcing his dads to get their collective shit together and become a happy little family! (nie huaisang might help, too.)
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bus-ghoul · 1 year
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They want to make that intuitive leap
Of all things I could have written... This is a Quinn Fabray x Nancy Wheeler ficlet/drabble. We aren't gonna call it Quancy cause that's gross.
These guys are ... not romantically compatible imo so on a soul level this is more ronance/quinntana
but they are both screamingly comphet more than any other characters I know so I'm obsessed with them
I hope someone else can enjoy my self indulgence
Quinn isn't going to let herself acknowledge it, but she has a plan.
There were calculations involved in every step of getting to this point.
But, if she thinks too much about the fact she's traveled over an hour and a half away to get to the nearest thing she could find to a lesbian bar, then she'd have to start thinking about other things too. Like the fact her usual choice of a long skirt has crept up to barely her mid thigh. Like the fact she had spent the hour before classes this morning filing her nails short.
What works best for Quinn to just act. She has questions she needs answered.
She walks into the bar with the confident front she's been putting on since she was 13.
There are a lot of women.
Not that is is surprising, the Facebook post advertised 'Ladies night', but it's...weird and distracting so have no men in sight.
No one she would assume was a man anyway... There are people here she wouldn't know how to address.
The thought jolts her.
The first person to smile at her as she walks towards the center of activity has bright pink hair, cropped into a short mullet. They are wearing a white singlet that clings to their body, and their chest looks flat. Quinn tenses with anxiety that's a lot like curiosity.
The pink haired person is dancing with a crowd and turns away to laugh with one of them, so Quinn redirects to the bar.
There's a seat next to a girl her age towards the far end of the room.
She's pretty, Quinn thinks, petite. She's wearing some high-waisted trousers and a top cropped in a way that leaves a couple of inches of her back exposed where she leans forward on her stool. Her hair is dark, curly. Quinn pulls back the adjacent stool.
"What are you drinking?" She asks.
The girl next to her looks up. She looks surprised to see Quinn next to her, she thinks, but that might just be her eyes. They're wide and dark and searching in a way that makes her feel exposed before they've even really talked, but she smiles at her and leans back, straightening up.
"It's actually called a gold star" she tells Quinn, her voice drawling slightly. "I couldn't tell you what's in it, I just ordered the one that sounded least perverted".
Quinn smiles back.
"Would you recommend it?"
"If you want something that tastes good, no, but it's the cheapest cocktail on the menu and it'll get you drunk fast". The girl cocks her head and smiles at her again.
There's something in her eyes that makes Quinn prickle. Like this girl is trying to see more than she is currently allowed.
It is not part of how this is going to go.
"What's got you drinking to get drunk?" She asks, conversationally, as if she isn't asking to gain ground.
The girl looks at her, considering, for a moment. Her brows raise. "You want to have sex." She responds, cooly.
Quinn's mouth drops open for a second, before she snaps it shut. She had intended to be bold but she isn't sure how they arrived here after all of 30 seconds.
"Going to ask my name first?", she asks casually watching the other girl carefully.
"Don't need to, Quinn"
The build up to get herself to this point had involved resigning herself to a commitment of being steadfast, stubborn and determined in the face of overwhelming discomfort but that comment about sends her into fight or flight, before the girl gestures to the ID she is twirling between her fingers.
Quinn let's out the breath she's holding silently, through her nose, and flags the bar tender, ordering by pointing at random to the cocktail board.
"Why do you think that's why I'm here?" She asks in the tone she hopes is casual.
"You've come to a lesbian bar night alone and talked to the first single girl you saw" the curly haired girl supplies, looking at Quinn carefully. "Nancy, by the way.".
"Nice to meet you Nancy." Quinn responds flatly. "Want to share why you're here alone?".
Nancy raises an eyebrow at her and Quinn feels a rush of frustration. This is not nearly as simple as it is with boys. She's actually sure if she's closer to fighting this girl or flirting with her.
"I think I might be in love with someone, a friend. A girl" Nancy explains, looking back at her drink at the same time the bar tender slides Quinn hers. "It's confusing. I don't know if we're just really close and I'm not good at that so I'm misunderstanding my feelings, or... I don't know if she thinks of me... like that . I just don't know much about this. So I came here to learn."
"Hands on learner?" The bold question slips out before she can catch it but she feels a tingle of satisfaction when Nancy faintly blushes.
"Hmm, just very thorough." Nancy smiles again. "Have you been with a girl before?".
Quinn tapers down the instinct to balk at that, this girl has been honestly frighteningly open with her and it feels like something mutually satisfactory can come from this.
"Yes." She states. "A friend... we had a casual... encounter". Quinn looks up at Nancy, who's listening intently, and prays she never sees her again after tonight. "I can't stop thinking about it, about her. I've never...it's never been like that before."
Nancy asks softly, "How did it happen?".
"We were at a wedding. I'd broken up with another awful guy and I just wanted something. She was there and willing and I trust her. I was pretty obvious, really. Probably as obvious as just asking.".
"That won't work with mine." Nancy says, dejectedly stirring the ice left in her glass.
"I want to know if... If it was good because it was her or just because she's had a lot of experience"
"I see." Nancy nods. "Well I've never had sex with a girl so that should help answer your question".
Quinn grins. "What about your question?".
"Mine is more, will having sex with a random girl while I'm pining over my friend make me feel better?"
"I'm beginning to think my question has been answered" Quinn finds herself laughing. "This feels like a business transaction".
"Sexy for some." Nancy smiles again and her lashes flutter and Quinn experiences a similar sensation in her chest. "What do you find sexy Quinn?"
🍎🍏🍐🍑🍒🍓🥝🍍🍌🍋🍊🍉🍈🍇
An hour later, they've only had two drinks, but Quinn has lipstick on her neck and Nancy is dragging her somewhere private and she's more happy and excited that she has ever felt with a guy ever.
She tries not to think about how gay Santana would say that is.
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undead-supernova · 2 months
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I'll Pay the Price, You Won't.
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Miss Heartbreak
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3
Masterlist
This chapter is based off of Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince by Taylor Swift and I'm starting to realize just how in deep I am in the lore and storytelling of her music. See if you can find my easter eggs, hm?
plot: no cameras catch my muffled cries...you are the only one who seems to care...this is a fight that some day we're gonna win
Pairings: modernrockstar!Eddie x fem!popstar!Reader (curvy!reader, bisexual!reader)
Warnings: slut shaming, body image insecurities, public shaming, crying
easter egg count: 43
wc: 5.3k
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When you first realized you were in love with him, it was a Saturday night. You weren’t even with him. In fact, you were at a house party with some of your best friends. They weren’t famous—these three girls were in college, just the way you should’ve been. You’d met them at a dive bar in Pittsburg while touring. 
There was a distinct memory of watching these girls walk in, talking about their English courses and the ten-page research papers on the feminist lens of the works of Octavia Butler, rape culture in a novel called Waiting for the Barbarians, and how the third girl was doing some deep dive into the coded lesbianism in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. You approached them, desperate to know more about their class. Their studies. Their college experiences. 
Desperate to know more about the life you gave away when your career blew up three days before moving into your dorm room. 
They knew who you were, but they didn’t care to squeal or ask for pictures. Instead, they motioned for you to join them and started to complain about their shared Rhetorical Analysis class. And after a few Fireball shots, some poor attempts at karaoke, and loud debates about Jane Austen and Emily Brontë that nearly got you kicked out, you were solidified. 
But there you were, at a college house party after flying out just to see them. You were in drastically different makeup than you were used to. In short, you were basically in Eddie Munson cosplay. Your friends had dressed you up, giggling and adding more charcoal eye shadow than you desired. Becky, Mary, and Este swore it would make you feel better. That you’d dance the night away without a care in the world.
But the couch was where you stayed the whole night, a mimosa (filled with more prosecco than orange juice) in your hands as you watched life exist around you. You were pretending to be a normal twenty-two year old girl. You were pretending that you could have love affairs with anyone you wanted to and if your heart got broken every single time, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to anyone outside of your friends that loved you.
And he would be there, too. 
With your head to rest on his shoulder, listening to him talk about his Dungeons and Dragons game he hosted with the rest of the band when they were tucked away in hotel rooms. They were too big to go out without everyone and their mother following them, so they found a way to escape. 
(People thought they did drugs and partied. And, at the start of the band, they did. Eddie had told you about having a coke problem in the beginning and Gareth, Jeff, and Grant trashing hotel rooms. Ronnie getting the cops called on her house regularly for the outrageous parties she hosted. But it died out after about a year when they realized how tiring it was to just be on all the time. They went to parties sometimes, but now they really looked forward to smoking a few joints and playing a fantasy game.)
In this fictional scenario, they’d congregate in the communal rooms at their dorm. They’d buy a few pizzas and beer, remembering to get the garlic twists of course, and play for six hours.
And you would lean over to his ear, brushing your lips against his ear and say, “I’m in love with you.”
As soon as it fell into your imagination, you were startled to the point of springing up and running to the bathroom, hyperventilating in the mirror. The rest of your night had been spent with your friends cuddling you in their shared apartment until you could calm down.
“It’s too soon for this!” you exclaimed. “It’s too soon for me to fall in love.”
They said that it was fine. That you were allowed to love him. That the chance at love was worth the bullshit. You could survive this, even if he didn’t feel the same. Maybe you would be able to connect better if you just told him how you felt.
But this was only a month after you started seeing each other.
Only a week before you two were caught in public together.
Only a week before the whole world had an opinion.
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“I can’t believe we’re out at a restaurant in Manhattan of all places.”
“On a date,” he noted.
“On a date.”
“Oh, and happy four-month anniversary,” he said while holding up his piece of bread, leaning over to tap yours with it.
“Ah, yes. How could I forget?” you teased before stuffing the slice in your mouth, closing your eyes as you became overwhelmingly calmed by the taste of butter melting on your tongue.
It was super late on a Saturday, one of the only times you could get away with having a private dinner without the threat of paparazzi and lingering glances. You felt fancy, with a sparkly silver dress on, all short with thin straps and a small slit at the thigh. Tall, sparkly silver heels that made you nearly the same height as him. A fluffy pink faux fur coat sitting on the back of the chair (that Eddie had spent the whole drive here running his hands through). Pink nails to match, already chipped from your nervous picking.
Eddie was dressed beautifully, wearing a silk white button down. Simple black blazer and slacks. His signature boots. Those rings. That necklace. Hair up in a bun with bangs and stray hairs framing his face. The only real nontraditional part of his ensemble was a thin layer of black eyeliner adorning his eyelids and waterline, with mascara to match. 
Oh, and a coat of lipgloss, lipgloss that he borrowed from you, that was now lining the rim of his wine glass.
“Do you like it?” he asked. “The wine, I mean.”
You looked down at the burgundy liquid you were absentmindedly swirling. You had no clue what that did for the drink or if it was just to look fancy, but it was something you saw your parents do growing up. You decided to take a crack at being an adult tonight, just to see how it felt.
“Yeah, it’s nice. Thank you.” 
He nodded, but you could tell that he was still nervous about the whole thing. You couldn’t blame him. Being out for an official date together in the heart of a city with nearly nine million people who could ruin it at any second was quite a heavy burden. There was a part of you that feared that you had become a burden in the last four months. 
Enough of that, you tried to tell yourself.
“However,” you added. “I do have to confess that I have absolutely no clue what the difference is between this and the stuff I get at the grocery store.”
Eddie let out a sigh and a breathy laugh. You wondered how long he’d been holding it in. “Well, that’s a relief because I was literally sitting here thinking the exact same thing.”
You couldn’t help but giggle. “Are you serious?”
He kept laughing. “Yes! I thought I was the only one!”
“No, this is literally exactly how I feel whenever I have dinner with some of the label execs,” you exclaimed. “They order all this like crazy expensive wine, and I have to just sit there and be like,” you raised the pitch of your voice, “Oh, wow. This is sooo cool. So good. What year is it? That must cost a fortune.”
Eddie nodded. “Me, too! And it’s like: Dude, seriously? I could get shit I like better than this at, like, Trader Joe’s or Target. Fuck, even Walmart.”
You giggled as you continued to nod with him. “Yes, yes, yes! I genuinely don’t get it. Everyone is so pretentious, I swear.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.” Eddie raised his glass. “Fuck ‘em.”
You grinned. “Fuck ‘em!” you agreed, clinking your glass with his before you took a hearty sip. Finally took a second glance around the room. 
“I really thought there’d be more people here,” you observed. “Isn’t this, like, a popular restaurant? I hear celebs love this place.”
“I maaaay have bought out the empty tables,” Eddie admitted, looking sheepish. “I didn’t want our first official date to be bombarded with people we know or even ones we don’t. I wanted to make sure I could focus.”
A grin met your lips. “You’re a sweetheart, you know that?”
“That’s you, baby. That’s all you.”
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The playful dinner conversation continued with a whole three course meal plus dessert. You came alive in public for once, talking in silly voices and laughing as loud as you wanted. Like you were best friends. Like you were lovers. Holding Eddie’s hand at the table without having to worry about cell phones. No one here was able to take away what was yours.
Despite feeling full, you couldn’t help but nibble on some more of the bread. Your personal trainer, Mary, forbid you from eating any while you were gearing up for another album release and tour. But you were starting to care a little bit less. And she wasn’t here. Eddie was, pushing the basket towards you. 
But then the strangest thing happened as the waiter took your dinner plate.
As he turned to leave, you looked past him and saw that the other five occupied tables in the restaurant were…staring. And…so were their waiters? Had everyone finally started staring or were you only now noticing? But you would’ve noticed before…
They were all looking from their phones to you and then back again. The hushed whispers were getting a bit louder, even catching Eddie’s ears. He turned his head to look but was distracted when his phone started ringing.
Gareth.
“Take it,” you encouraged. Eddie raised an eyebrow. “It’s probably important.”
He nodded. “Hey,” he said as he answered.  “No, I’m on an incredibly important date, remember?”
As you spread butter over the last slice, you couldn’t help but giggle when Eddie looked up at you with a quick wink and a smile meant only for you.
But then his eyebrows narrowed.
“What’re you doing watching cable?”
And a part of you wished you could hear the other side of the conversation when you watched Eddie’s neutral expression falling into anger.
“They what?”
“It’s fucking SNL. They haven’t had a good run in years. I don’t think anyone even watches—” 
You noticed him get cut off before shaking his head. 
“What? Why the fuck do people care?”
“Fuck…yeah, okay… Sure, whatever…” He sighed, pinching his nose in frustration. “No, I’m not mad at you. Promise… I’m sorry for being a dick. I just hate people, I swear…” A quick nod. “Thanks for understanding and letting me know. Love you, dude. Okay, talk later.”
“What’s wrong?” you asked as he immediately started searching for something on his phone. “Is everything okay?”
Eddie paused, looking away from his phone to bring his attention back to you. 
His expression held something resembling an apology. 
“The guys are watching TV back at the hotel and, uh, they were watching SNL…”
“Okay?”
“Apparently they did a skit about you.”
Your stomach dropped as you let his words sink in. 
It was one thing to have random people on the internet give you shit. It was another thing entirely for a long-running, highly known television show to have grown adults portray you and spend four to six minutes making fun of you. Especially when you’d performed there merely two months ago.
“Is it…” you trailed, almost unable to speak.
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Yeah, it’s bad.” 
“It’s on YouTube already?” He nodded. “Let me see.”
“Are you sure you want to watch it?”
You nodded. “I should know what’s going on. Everyone’s already staring at us,” you stated, gesturing behind him.
When Eddie looked back at every nameless face watching you, every single person looked away. Like he commanded the room with his presence. Like he had the power to change the world with just one stare. 
He had changed your world with just one glance.
Sighing, Eddie clicked on the video, holding it between you two on the table.
“I decided to go on The Bachelorette to prove that I haven't dated everyone,” a woman said with a huge grin, mimicking the way you smiled. "And to get new inspiration because I need to sell my next album. I'm sure this will be fun."
Some new addition to the cast tried to imitate your posture. Your voice. Your everything. She was acting like you were some ditsy girl. Did people really think of you like this? Is this how the cast and crew saw you when you were there?
A fake announcer's voice said, “Here are the men and women chosen for tonight.”
The woman impersonating you smiled even wider in a comedic fashion, making fun of the way you, what, didn't ever give a negative reaction? The camera turned to watch everyone file in.
The different men and women of the SNL cast rotated, pretending to be people you’d allegedly been with. But most of them were wrong. When you were rumored to be dating these people, friend or not, they left, either from wanting that clout or being unable to handle the noise. All you had wanted were real friendships, real relationships. But being burnt at the stake came with the possibility of flammable embers. 
One after the other, impression after impression, they were reminding you of everyone you’d lost. 
And was that Jacob Elordi pretending to be…Christopher Briney?
(You met Christopher once at the Emmy’s, having taken one fucking photo together before he was whisked away by his team. At the time, you had only wished he would notice you before he got a girlfriend…)
“We're missing one guy...where is he?” the announcer said.
Mikey Day popped in with a smoke machine behind him and some copyright free rock music playing, wearing a curly wig and pretending to be Eddie. The audience lost their minds, erupting in applause and laughter at the sheer mention of him. He was immediately stereotyped as a punk stoner who only pretended to listen to you talk while playing his guitar.
“Hey, babe,” he said, trying to mimic Eddie’s voice. “What’s up?”
You looked over at the real Eddie who looked less than impressed. Less than affected by someone trying to make fun of him. You wished you could say the same for yourself.
“I CHOOSE HIM FOR MY NEXT ALBUM!” the woman shouted before ripping up the roses and walking over. However, she turned and pointed at the others. "Save them for me in case I get bored.”
As she grabbed onto "Eddie's" arm and professed her love, it was clear that he wasn't paying attention. "Are you even listening to me?" she shouted.
“Nah, baaabe,” he said and then realized his “mistake”. Cue laughter. “I’m totes paying attention.” Laughter. “Just practicing this sick riff for the band.” He raised his guitar before turning it the other way. “Does it look cool this way, babe?” Laughter ensued as he pretended to play his guitar right-handed. “Do I look metal as hell?”
“Totally, babe,” the woman said, giggling. “You’re so hot.”
“Ah, babe, thanks. I know it’s been three minutes but this is forever, babe.”
When the skit ended, Eddie turned it off and shoved his phone in his pocket.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay,” you said, trying to tell yourself more than him. “It’s okay. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Did anyone see what was happening? That this was starting to get out of hand? It was like nobody gave a shit, nobody cared that you were human. Yes, you were privileged and had money, you knew that. You grew up fucking poor, hit even worse with the 2008 recession, hardly ever recovering.
You always acknowledged your privilege, always made it a point to give it away to people who needed it more than you. Provided for your family so your parents didn’t have to go back to working at the sawmill and being fucking tour guides for next to nothing at Graceland. (The fucking irony.) Donated constantly to animal shelters, women’s shelters, LGBTQIA+ youth organizations, etc. etc. 
But no one would know any of that because you kept that secret. Kept it hidden to be the face of your label, with a shiny pageant smile. You were now the punching bag, the reflection of society that every YouTuber did deep dives on and now SNL was taking a shot at. 
When would it end?
“Are you?” Eddie asked, causing you to come out of the fog. “‘Cause your hands are shaking.”
You looked down, realizing he was right. “I—”
Before you could say anything, your own phone buzzed. Looking down, you noticed a text from Becky. It was a link to a video on Twitter or X or whatever the fuck it was called now. Her text read, 
Look how delusional the internet is. I don’t care about this crap but I wanted to make sure you knew what was going on before you got bamboozled or something. Also, fuck that SNL skit. Love you.
“There’s more,” you murmured, looking up at Eddie’s concerned expression.
“Fuck.”
He stood up immediately and pulled over the chair next to you. He sat and leaned in, just as deep into this as you were. You didn’t hesitate to click on the link. It was just another band-aid to rip off anyways. 
The caption said:
are gareth ronnie and grant next? lmao eddie shouldn’t have gone anywhere near her. the vibes are soooo off
You heard Eddie scoff as he read it.       
The video attached was of you and Jeff walking around New York City that very morning, laughing together. You nudged his arm, animatedly talking. 
You knew what had happened, distinctly remembering that the conversation was about Eddie. Jeff had been teasing you, telling you that he knew you were disgustingly in love with him and that you needed to just say it before you lost your minds. You thought it was funny, so you jokingly nudged his arm and pretended to threaten violence. That was it. Nothing else happened.
“No!” you exclaimed, wild-eyed as you turned to Eddie. “No, Jeff and I went to get this chocolate mousse at this little bistro we both like. We told you before we left, remember? I swear it was the truth. We were literally talking about you. Eddie, I—”
“It’s all good, sweetheart,” Eddie interrupted, kissing your temple four times. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s okay. I believe you. I know you’d never do anything like that.” You felt yourself breathe again. “Besides, Jeff has a crush on our tech manager anyways.”
That made you chuckle for a second, but you felt yourself deflate, putting a hand on your forehead as tears trickled down your cheeks. “I’m scared. I don’t like this, Eddie.”
“Me neither.” 
Before you could say anything else, your waiter was approaching the table.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the waiter asked, hands politely clasped in front of him. You avoided his gaze, embarrassment flooding your system. There was something irrational telling you that he would tell the internet about your breakdown, expose you for your reaction.
But when you glanced at him, he actually looked…concerned.
“Yeah, could we get the check, please?” Eddie asked in a hushed voice, running his fingers down your back. “We’re gonna need a minute, but I just wanna get that out of the way.”
“Of course, Mr. Munson.” he responded before turning to you. “I can take that plate for you if you’d like?”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” you said, sniffling. 
Without thinking, you moved your hand to grab your bread plate, accidentally knocking your glass on the table. You watched as the wine seeped into the white cloth, staining the fabric.
Eddie was quick to grab the glass before it shattered on the floor.
“Oh, shit,” you muttered, taking your napkin and trying to blot the stain. You kept glancing up at the waiter through your tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That’s so rude of me. I’m so sorry.”
The waiter shook his head. “It’s okay, ma’am. We have a hundred more in the back. This happens all the time.”
“Here,” you said, shaking your head as you rummaged through your purse. When you found your wad of cash, you handed him a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Take this. For you, not the restaurant. I’m so sorry.”
He gaped at you, looking down at the bill before looking back up. “Um, thank you,” he said, breaking his customer service voice before taking the cash from you. “I’ll get everything sorted for you right away.”
“Sweetheart.”
“I want to leave,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Can we leave?”
You looked over at Eddie who was already standing and grabbing your coat. 
“Yeah, baby,” he said softly. “I’ll pay up front. Come on, let’s go.”
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But it wasn’t really going to be that simple, was it?
As soon as you reached the front doors, James and Scott, your personal bodyguard, were stopping you.
“Guys, uh, we got a situation,” Scott said, mainly looking at you.
“What’s wrong?” you asked.
“There’s a fuck ton of paparazzi out there.”
“And that’s the only way we can get to the car,” James added.
You wanted to look at Eddie, but you didn’t want him knowing just how scared you were. He was so stoic and strong, always being able to shrug everything off. It was like he was born for this. 
Maybe you weren’t.
“Okay,” Eddie said, putting his shoulders back before grabbing your hand. His grasp was firm with a gentle squeeze that left your heart soaring despite the fear. He nudged your arm, causing you to look up. “Ready, sweetheart?”
You nodded, looking back at James and Scott, tear stains still adorning your cheeks. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
A gasp left your mouth as the doors opened and a swarm of people with cameras crowded around you. Flashes and red recording lights and cell phones. Screams, gasps. Some fans tried to catch your attention the best they could, but their voices were drowned out by the incessant vultures. James and Scott were on either side of you, pushing people out of the way. 
But it did nothing. It only sprung more tears.
Paparazzi shouted your name. Shouted Eddie’s.
         “What did you think of the SNL skit?”
         “Any comment on the cheating allegations?”
         “Is this thing between you serious?”
They were all variations of the same thing.
Except for one voice that stood out from the rest.
“Hey, why are you crying?”
You turned, seeing a teenage girl who looked barely fourteen, maybe fifteen, with rainbow braces and friendship bracelets in her hand. She stood next to who you presumed to be her mother, over by the curb. Set apart from the hive.
Despite your better judgment, you nudged Scott and walked over to her quickly. 
“I want to talk to her,” you told him loudly, disconnecting your hand from Eddie’s.
Scott nodded. “You got maybe a minute and a half before things get buckwild.”
“She’s got this,” Eddie said. You looked at him and smiled.
Thank you, you mouthed before rushing over to the girl.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Just got a lot going on, hun,” you said softly, trying to smile but your tears clouded your vision. Your only hope was that the sight wouldn’t scar her for the rest of her life. “What’s your name?”
“Caroline,” she said before handing you the bracelets. “I made these for you.”
Her mom placed a hand on your shoulder, causing you to look up. “She’s been keeping them with her just in case she ever saw you in the city. She’s a big, big fan.”
You could only try to smile again, studying the colors Caroline chose to represent your last few albums. Light blue to represent your self-titled album. A soft sage for your second, “Tetris”. Sparkling gold for your last album, “Acacia My Dear”. There were even one or two that had references to inside jokes shared between you and the fans.
“These are beautiful,” you told her, immediately rolling them onto your wrist. “Thank you so much, Caroline.”
“Could I get a picture of you two?” her mom asked.
“Hey,” Scott interrupted. “Sorry, we gotta cut this short. They’re pressin’ in on us.”
You nodded, looking back at Caroline. “Thank you so much, Caroline. This means everything to me,” you said honestly. Without thought, you gave her a tight hug. “You just made everything better,” you whispered in her ear.
When you pulled back, her mom grabbed your hand. “You’re doing great things,” she said, softly squeezing your hand. “Don’t let those bastards win.”
Before you could even process her words or thank her, Scott was pulling you back to Eddie. Scott seemed a little softer, blonde hair still peppering with gray. He was from Tennessee, like you, his accent just noticeable enough to give him away. James seemed to contrast him, with thick muscles, frown lines across his forehead, and a bald head. Oh, and did you mention that he was a hardass from Ireland?
Your grasp on Eddie’s hand tightened with every passing second before you were finally enclosed in the confines of the black van. 
The walk to the car was only, what, two minutes? Three?
But it felt like forever.
The waterworks continued, wracking your body with sobs you didn’t realize were just brewing behind the façade you were able to put up on any given occasion. 
Scott took the driver’s seat while James took shotgun. You could just barely make out what they were whispering.
“Fucking vampires, the lot of ‘em,” James said, shaking his head.
“Them two deserve better,” Scott replied. “They’re just fucking kids.”
Eddie pulled you into his side, making sure you were hidden from any and all intrusion even if the windows were severely tinted.
You had an urge, however miniscule it felt, to go on your Instagram story and be bitter about it. Tell SNL to fuck off and remind them how sexist and gross it was to put you in a sketch just to make fun of your dating history when there were men around you who ran through women like sport and talked about them like each one was a momentary fad. 
But you knew what would happen. You would be considered overreacting. You’d be a woman scorned and laughed at for caring so much despite the rest of the fucking internet seeming to care more.
So, you did nothing. Said nothing.
You merely curled yourself further into Eddie and fought the urge to have a mental breakdown.
“We’re getting out of the city,” he whispered. “Back to your place.”
“It’s a long drive,” you mumbled. 
“I don’t mind. Really. We made the drive out here, remember?” Eddie shook his head. “Speaking of, I’m sorry. I should’ve chosen somewhere more secluded.”
“You shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t have to.”
He leaned back, tilting your chin up to make eye contact with you. “I want you to feel safe.”
“But I want us to be normal people going to a normal restaurant and have a normal date.”
“We’ll win this fight, okay?” he said, tracing his thumb along your cheeks as the tears came and went. “They have to get bored soon enough, yeah? TikTok will move on to its next viral bullshit anytime now. We just have to wait it out.”
“It’ll just go away?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” Both you and Eddie let out a sigh. “Listen, okay? Just listen to me. We’ll figure this out. I’ll tell the world to fuck off. Just give me the word and I’ll do it.”
“That’ll just egg them on.”
He kissed your wet cheek. Pulling back, you could see the color return to his face as he smiled. “I could always pull an Ozzy.”
That got a giggle out of you, a few snot bubbles awkwardly falling down your lips. Eddie didn’t mind, simply grabbing a tissue to help wipe it away.
“Absolutely do not do that,” you said with a sigh, grabbing another one.
“Then I won’t. But I’m here in front of you. I want you. I need you.”
You nodded, your eyes glassy and wild as you tried to stop crying.
“Alright, babe?” he exaggerated, imitating Mikey Day. “I’m metal as hell, babe.”
You couldn’t help but laugh. It was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. You looked up at him, watching a playful grin meet his lips.
“Oh, yeah, babe,” you played along, still wiping your tears. “You’re sooooo hot, babe.”
Eddie nearly suffocated you with another hug, rapidly kissing the top of your head. You couldn’t help but giggle again, feeling some weight lifting off of you. For the first time, you had someone in your life who was blocking out the noise. 
“You know, the jokes aren’t even funny,” he said. “I don’t know why they’re making fun of a right-handed guitar. Jimi Hendrix had one and that guy’s a legend.”
“I think the point was to make you look dumb by playing it upside down.”
“Mmmm, I don’t think so, babe,” he teased. “I’m, like, sooooo smart.”
“You’re soooo right, babe.” “Okay, I’m cutting us off. I just know we won’t stop talking like this.”
The laughter died out, silence ensuing. Eddie was fiddling with your bracelets, his touch settling the storm in your stomach.
“Why did you walk over to that girl?”
You thought about her, Caroline, and how she was the only one outside to ask if you were okay. All she wanted was to give you bracelets. Had been keeping them with her just in case she ever saw you. Fuck, if that wasn’t one of the most shocking things you’d ever heard from a fan. It was kind. And when she did see you, she cared more about how you were feeling. 
“She asked me why I was crying,” you said. “She actually cared. It meant something to me.”
“You really love the fans, don’t you?”
You nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
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The night seemed to settle into comfortable silliness, ending with pints of Ben & Jerry’s and the start of another TV show for you two to binge. You settled into his side with fuzzy socks and old pajamas from before all of the bullshit ensued. They were probably ten years old, from the thrift store down the street from your childhood home. The hand-me-downs that never seemed to get holes, the ones that always seemed to save you from the brink of madness.
Eddie was donning a similar outfit, just with a few holes here and there. Baseball tee with a logo for his old D&D group, Hellfire Club, back in high school. Some of the lines were starting to crack, the red fading into something nearly blood orange.
It was comforting to know that Eddie was able to shrug it all off. That he was able to guide you through this fear and loathing. But some part of you wondered how long that could last. All the heat and dismissal and scrutiny and humiliation. All the assumptions and poking. 
Because if he wanted to do this, if he was in it for the long haul, this was going to be how it was for the rest of your careers, for the rest of your lives. He wasn’t going to be able to shrug everything off. What happens when he’s poked at? When he’s the one in your shoes?
And as you laid there at 2am with Eddie fast asleep next to you, you were starting to wonder about yourself. Because if you wanted to do this, if you wanted to follow wherever he led, you were going to have to endure. Watching him sleeping soundly, you couldn’t help but wonder how long you could last.
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Last Night at the Telegraph Club Book Review
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In recent years, the amount of queer YA literature has grown at a near exponential rate. In plenty of major bookstores, libraries, and even within some schools, young adult readers can find LGBTQ+ literature from a wide range of genres— romance, mystery, horror, comedy, sci-fi, and more. Though, if you’re a sucker for historical fiction that includes romance, suspense, and drag shows like I am, then an awesome book to check out would be Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
This novel takes place in San Francisco, California during the mid 1950s, in which the United States were in a time of political and social unrest. The narrator, Lily Hu, is the teenage daughter of Chinese immigrants. After Lily finds an advertisement for a “male impersonator” performance at a lesbian bar called The Telegraph Club, her perception of herself is turned upside down. Her exploration into her lesbian identity becomes much more intense after meeting Kath Miller, another teenage girl from Lily’s high school (who is very familiar with the queer scene in San Francisco, and the people within it). It is hard not to fall in love with these two as they navigate their romantic feelings towards each other in a time where their love is forbidden.
Now, this book is a slow burn (emphasis on the slow) when it comes to the romantic aspects of it. However, Lo does an amazing job of keeping the reader’s attention with her depictions of the gay/lesbian and Chinese neighborhoods of San Francisco. This book is overflowing with culture, within both the Chinese and queer populations of the city, and guarantees that readers will finish it with a deeper understanding of these groups. Lo also does an excellent job of depicting the tensions caused by the Red Scare in the United States— the fear of communist spies infiltrating the nation and attacking American democracy. As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, Lily is not only face with the threat of people learning about her sexuality, but also the threat of her father being deported back to Communist China.
Like other books I have reviewed, Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a story about resisting the harmful expectations of society and finding pride in one’s identity. It is tender, loving, very passionate at times, and leaves you wanting more (in the best of ways).
My Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10 (this is a pretty lengthy book, and while the build up is nice, it can sometimes drag a little— but once it reaches the “good part,” it stays good. you’ll know it when you get there)
Audience Age Range: 17+ Years Old (this book does include some sexual themes and scenes, so if you are uncomfortable with these topics, this one may not be for you) Other Recommendations: The Boy in the Red Dress by Kristin Lambert & Music From Another World by Robin Talley
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flying-elliska · 1 year
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Anyway ! Better late than never but here's my favorite stuff I read in 2022 :
- Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo. Without a doubt my favorite read of the year. Somehow it manages to be heartbreaking, tender and uplifting all at once. The writing is beautifully evocative, the details chosen so clever, and I found the main character painfully relatable. It illuminates a type of experience, that of a young Chinese American lesbian in 1950s San Francisco, that has generally fallen through the cracks of history - it's a celebration of the fact that queer people have existed, everywhere through time and space, and have found ways to be happy even though it was scary and hard and they couldn't tell anyone. And it also illustrates the complex intersections between her different identities - the struggle of her immigrant family to build a life in the US during the Red Scare, the racism she experiences in queer spaces, how she struggles to make a future for herself as a woman interested in science, etc, in a way that feels very important and builds on each other. Also, it's a wonderful tribute to queer spaces and how life saving they must have been, the wonder of discovery, having to rely on crumbs of info and representation, how dangerous and uncertain it all was, just, ugh. Reading this made me think of my 17 year old self who would repeatedly go through the street of the only lesbian bar in town on purpose without daring to go in for years. It's like !!!! That specific mix of longing and anxiety and anticipation. Things have gotten so much better, and yet. Ugh. Anyway, the sense of place and geography in this book is brilliant. Also the romance is very sweet, and the end, if frustratingly open ended, took my breath away. Anyway there is a reason why it got so popular and it's one of the best sapphic books I've read - also YA at its best, easy to read uplifting coming of age story that is also well written and doesn't set aside complexity, richness of historical detail or psychological nuance. Destined to be a classic honestly.
- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston ; already reviewed this one but for me this was the perfect fun enjoyable queer summer romance with an interesting plot and cool characters and vibes. Perfect for what it was honestly.
- Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand ; also popular for a reason ; clever and inventive and inspiring YA, with a great uplifting kick the patriarchy solidarity between girls + Buffy vibes. Good ace rep and I just found the main couple really compelling, especially Val, the privileged queen bee with the family secretly cursed to serve a horrible monster that takes over their bodies and forces them to commit atrocities, how she's honestly kind of an evil bitch at times and is allowed that moral ambiguity but also gets to be brave and heartbreaking and lovable and redeemed in the end and also empathized with as a victim of abuse, and it's like !!!! This is exactly the treatment that male characters get so often and female characters were denied for a long time. Main couple feels like the meme where the popular shallow girl and the 'not like other girls' edgy loner girl are actually falling in love and also, real people instead of cliches. I feel like the author could have done a bit more with the atmosphere but overall it was great and I would have been obsessed with this book as a teenager.
- A Marvellous Light, Freya Marske : gay Regency fantasy romance, what's not to love? Fascinating characters and cool magic system and just a joy to read. My main caveat is that I read it in the beginning of the year and I don't remember much of it but I did remember having a blast reading it.
- Cultish, Amanda Montell : Cults have been a hyperfixation of mine for a long time, for reasons that range from intellectual/writerly interest in what it says about human behavior and group dynamics, wanting to understand how power abuse works and generally processing some fucked up shit I've experienced and witnessed growing up. And there is a lot of sensationalist, dehumanizing stuff out there, so I liked the book's more compassionate and humanistic approach. People on the whole don't join cults because they're isolated wackos or mentally weak or instable or desperate ; in fact cults tend to go for the strong willed, determined idealists who want to see the best in people and have a lot to gain in joining a movement that promises change and real action for a better world. (Unfortunately this is why a lot of cult victims are oppressed minorities). They prey on people's innate need for group belonging and meaning in an atomized world that offers little, using manipulative mechanisms of language that slowly shift your reality away from you. Far from outlandish, these mechanisms are already used at a lesser degree by a lot of big mainstream institutions and religion, and are everywhere in ads and on social media (I especially liked the bit about how MLMs function like capitalistic cults whose protestant/prosperity gospel ideology is deeply tied into our current system, which is why they've been allowed to proliferate so well). And yeah honestly i think recognizing those techniques in order to be immune to them should be basic education. Also I liked the point that a lot of what makes people vulnerable to cults are also often very useful important qualities in other settings so you can't set them aside entirely. So a very interesting book, even though it's still pop science so it gets judgmental and imprecise in places.
- Getting to Yes, Fisher and Ury : lmao this is not a very tumblr book but this is a book about principled negociation, e.g how it's not being a domineering asshole that makes you a good negotiator but instead you can get to the best outcomes by being methodical, empathetic, knowing exactly when and where to stand your ground and when to be generous, setting good boundaries and communication and showing the example by being fair without being taken advantage of. Obvs very useful in a pro setting but I think in general this is a very affirming book if you're the quiet, shy type who struggles with self-confidence. Like, you don't have to be an obnoxious immoral backstabby asshole to get what you want, you really don't.
Overall this was not a good reading year, with 18 books read down from 34 in 2021 - mostly because there were some months where I completely forgot to read. But, I did have a lot of fun reading and I still think that's the most important. Also I read more queer love stories than straight ones, which I am very happy with and definitely want to continue with.
My main goals for 2023 are to read more and especially all the books sitting unread on my shelves (you know the issue.) I want to get into more intellectually challenging stuff and balance it out with lighter reads, esp. queer adult romance and fantasy. I'd like to write more reviews here again. And yeah I want to keep having fun most of all.
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fayegarrett · 2 years
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excuse me did you see elizabeth olsen hanging around palmwood studios? oh no, that was faye garrett, the thirty three year old actress who plays winter ryan on the orange county. yeah, you know rumour has it they’re introverted, and anxious, but their fans all say they’re empathetic, and optimistic. around palmwood studios they’re known as the mom friend. ( cis female, she/her) ( pari, she/her, 27, est )
read all about our closeted lesbian mom friend below the cut!!
[ pinterest ]
full name: faye christine garrett
place of birth: los angeles, california
gender: cis female (she / her)
birthday: january 12 (33 years old)
sexuality: closested lesbian
relationship status: single
occupation: actress
INTRO:
tbh i’m still working through this but for what you need to know is that she started acting young (think hollywood nepotism). somehow escaped the disney pipeline and worked on a lot of indie projects. she struggles with a lot of anxiety especially around crowds so she has therapy and medication to help her overcome it. she’s kind of a loner but doesn’t mind it so much. she’s very much the big sister/mom friend of a lot of her costars because she wants the best for them as to avoid the dramatics of hollywood. she’s hiding her sexuality at the advise of her agent. she recently has started taking larger roles and her fan base is growing.
WANTED CONNECTIONS:
best friends: VALENCIA — they’re both tender hearted queens that have been able to stay friends through their rides in the industry. they vibe on a very similar level.
childhood friends 
big sis/little sis: AALIYAH — faye loves aaliyah and wants nothing but the best for her. she’s protective of her in the way a big sister does.
“mom friend” to: ALANA & LUNA — faye watches out for alana and tells her when she’s being childish or selfish and keeps luna in check to make her calm down.
older sibling vibe: DARLA — darla doesn’t have many people she considers family but faye is one of the few. she looks out for her and even has a key to her place, darla is welcome at faye’s anytime.
friends: FIONA — they understand each other on a different level because they’re both introverted and anxious. they support and take care of each other.
platonic soulmates: ALEX — they have similar personalities and have recently grown to enjoy each other’s company.
good influence to: AREUM — being known as the mom friend has meant she’s been the voice of reason and good influence to a lot of younger girls in the industry. areum has been one of those girls for faye.
angel on his shoulder: RYDER — faye is ryder’s angel on his shoulder, she looks out for him and tries to steer him in the right direction… or at least a better direction.
current co-stars / old co-stars
bad influence
hook ups / fwbs
crush
admiring: ALI — ali is out and proud while faye is still being forced into the closet. faye admires her for who she is and is in awe of how poised she holds herself. future plot: they run into each other and hook up.
ex that couldn’t stand to be hidden: HANA - when they were together everything had to be a secret. they were barely able to leave the four walls of faye’s place or hotels. it broke faye’s heart that hana broke up with her but she couldn’t blame her.
the beard: CARLOS - he’s the guy she’s “dating” for press or her go-to date for anything related to her movies and shows
secret love: ISABELLE - the girl that she’s casually seeing and having to hide because their agents don’t want them to come out and “ruin” her reputation with their audiences:
greatest mistake: they met  casually  at  a  bar  /  club  /  party  setting  and  immediately  clicked. the  thing  is  that  your muse  has  just  got  off  a  relationship  and  doesn’t  want  to  be  involved  with  faye.  now, months  later, your muse  regrets  not  giving  faye a  chance  back  then  and  gives  them  a  call  /  texts  them, because  they  decided  they’ve  got  nothing  to  lose (roles can be swapped)
if anyone wants to plot more, hit me up in my DMs here or on discord!! pariwrites#7319
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gatheringbones · 3 years
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[“For lesbian feminists, liking women also meant liking the whole woman, or the less coercively modified woman. Accounts of this expansive lust for women can be found in lesbian feminist memoirs, in which body fat, cancer scars, power exchange, disability, aging, radical activism, self-love, years of sexual experience deemed “slutty” in the straight world, and various forms of embodied “ridiculousness” are all fodder for lesbian feminist arousal. I offer a few examples:
Audre Lorde, in Zami, reverently describes Ginger, her first lover, as “gorgeously fat, with an open knowledge about her body’s movement that was delicate and precise. . . . She had pads of firm fat upon her thighs, and round dimpled knees. . . . Loving Ginger that night was like coming home to a joy I was meant for.” Lorde later describes her lust for a different woman, Eudora, whose “pale keloids of radiation burn” were part of her irresistible body: “If I did not put my mouth upon hers and inhale the spicy smell of her breath my lungs would burst. . . . I looked from her round firm breast with its rosy nipple to her scarred chest. . . . I bent and kissed her softly upon the scar. . . . The pleasure of our night flushed over me like sun on the walls.” By contrast, Lorde describes sex with men in terms similar to those used by many feminist straight women of her generation; sex with men was “pretty dismal and frightening and a little demeaning.”
Dorothy Allison, illuminating her gleeful dis/identification with the phallus, recounts her pleasure in “fucking, fucking, fucking” Alix, a woman who wore a dildo named “Bubba,” a cock “fat and bent”: “[It] jiggles obscenely when she walks around the room. Obscene and ridiculous, still no less effective when she puts it between my legs.” Allison goes on to detail the shifting power dynamics between her and Alix, evoking her erotic identification with the vilified old woman, the crone: “She is ten years younger than me . . . sometimes. Sometimes I am eight and she is not born yet, but the ghost of her puts a hand on my throat, pinches my clit, bites my breast. . . . When I am fucking her, I am a thousand years old, a crone with teeth. . . . She is a suckling infant, soft in my hands, trusting me with her tender open places.”
Highlighting the lesbian feminist disinvestment in female sexual innocence and modesty, Jeanne Cordova recalls that her status as a handsome butch lesbian and high-profile radical organizer “brought dozens of women” to her bed, one of whom, Bejo, Cordova describes as “the most accomplished femme lover” she’d ever met. “Old-school bar femmes were far better lovers than newly coined lesbian feminists.”
Cherríe Moraga, too, desires a woman with age, accomplishment. Of Elena, the woman she lusts for, Moraga states, “I am ready for you now. I want age. Knowledge. Your body that still, after years, withholds and surrenders—keeps me there, waiting, wishing. . . . Willing. Willing to feel this time what disrupts in me. Girl. Woman. Child. Boy. Willing to embody what I will in the space of her arms.”
Lesbian feminist desire, in these accounts, is defined not purely by two women’s sexual attraction to each other but by a quality of desiring women in which the objects of one’s lust are women’s complexities and accomplishments, both corporeal and otherwise. The best women lovers have the scars, the hunger, the weight, the teeth, and the political and sexual experience that allows them to know and harness their erotic will. Through Lorde’s desiring gaze, physical features that are often cast as deeroticizing imperfections in the straight world are remade into sites of pleasure. In Allison’s writing, sex with women is transformative and dead serious in its intensity, but it is also an inevitable send-up to the phallocentric self-seriousness of heteronormativity. In Cordova’s retelling of her life story, there is no erotic without the movement, the revolution, and the battle scars and street cred earned by women at its helm. In Moraga’s account, her lust is shot through with desire for the fruits of her lover’s lived experience. I dare say that this way of loving women, this understanding of the erotic, need not be owned by lesbians but is among the basic requirements of deep heterosexuality, wherein men’s lust for women is triggered by women’s actual temperaments, bodies, and experiences. Men’s sense of being sexually orientated toward women must signal, as it does for most lesbians, an acute interest and investment in women’s lives and accomplishments because, within deep heterosexuality, attraction is measly and half-baked if it is not a synthesis of lust and humanization. From this viewpoint, the hyperstraight man possesses an unstoppable interest not only in women’s bodies but also in women’s collective freedom. To be into women, one must be for women.”]
Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality
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happytroopers · 2 years
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Boba Fett season finale shit post
Spoilers below. Obviously.
Rip hot twilek your 6 minutes of screen time will be duly forgotten
WAIT THEY KILLED MAX REBO
Fuck the Pykes man
I can tolerate space drug trade but I draw the line at killing renowned jizz musicians
God Fennec Boba and Din in one shot now there’s a sandwich I wanna be in
Many thoughts and yet none at all just sin
Not them trying to redeem the mayor
“I have an idea to draw Fett out.” I’m sending g that there’s the inspo for a new WAVE of self insert fanfic
XWINF
Luke coming to help his boy toy???
The child????
YEP
That’s artooie:)))
THE BABY
Wait can he drive
Me and PELI are on the same page
HES SO TINY
BRIGHT EYES
R2 s like we’re on a SCHEDULE
ME TOO PELI ITS A TERRILBE NAME
WAIT DID BE CHOOSE THE SRMOR
Is he dropping out of Jedi school
If so I’m gonna have to start kinning baby Yoda
Goth Wookiee :)
Someone’s gonna sneak up on them
Din stop being so sexy
God boba in his armor is so sexy
This is the showdown we wanted in clone wars
Star Wars-issficstion of southern idioms
Ok but two of them are wearing beskar and u are not
Boba said “no 💖🖕”
Why do I feel like fennec is gonna take the brunt of this
Fennec being the sexy voice of reason as always
“Ur going soft in ur old age” as if Bane isn’t fucking ancient
I love my little beuqacratic wiggler
Yep just as I fucking thought
NOT GOTH WOOKIE
I don’t appreciate them ripping my found family trope to pieces
So that augmented eye is very helpful to his aim huh
Not the water waste
God I love her
SHES SO SEXY
Lil punk said lesbian panic!!!
The only woman I would call Mommy
The last time Din got trapped in a blown out bar, it didn’t go well
We love a loyal bestie
More self insert inspo “I’m with you til we both fall”
WIGGLER SAYS I DONT WANNA DIE HERE
NOT THE EDUCATION ELITISM
He said I’m not afraid to pathetic
Is he not gonna read that first
What if it just said “fuck u losers”
Yay space slurs!!!!
Pls be inappropriate
“Nothing 💖”
Creative writing king! He wrote that so fast
Jet pack hotties
INLOVE THE KNEE BLASTERS
THE SLUT TURN DIN J LOVE U
Overkill a lil boys???
DIN WHY ARE TOUSING HR UNARMORED HANDS RO GAUARD UR BESKAR HELMETED HEAD
Awww yay :)
Can y’all imagine like living in this part of town??? Just like, trying to get brunch, and this shit happening.
No the moped!!!!
YES CITY FOLK COUNTRY FOLK FISCORS
Disapproved dad says save it
GOTH WOOKIE
Din’s thighs :)
Oh no
Hey maybe we should start shooting now
Yes start shooting now that they put their RAY SHIELDS up
Ahhhh clone wars nostalgia
Goth WOOKIE said show off
Well that was a waste of a missile
Quick mafs
“You’ve run out of friends” me too boba
God I love this man
Both of them actually
Hey maybe let’s not just run in a mobbed straight line guys????
There is one droid chasing you and approx 60 of y’all
Slutty lil spin there
Din is so fast ????
FHE HAMMER TBDKW
Bonk !!!
She’s gonna show that baby and dins gonna be like “YOU BROUGHT MY SON INTO A BATTLE ZONE????”
I fight usually leads to dying
They’re in love
THE IMMEDJATE FARHER PANJC
FBE HUG ONG Y’ALL IM CRYING
HES SK HAPLY TENDER AND SOFT I LOVE HIM
Fave dilf
HE CAUGHT HIM
Not the tooth!!!
YES YES YES YES YES
Zillow beast vibes
Boba lemme sit on ur lap while you ride
NO NO NO
ok that was hot
Remisnent if genonosis Kenobi
YES BABY DO UR THINK PROTECT HR DAD
ARE U OK
Boba u are so hot
They’re in LOVE
But fr fr city x country makes the best pairing
Imagine if that was ur house
Boba I demand reparations
Who is the lil pretty boy we keep seeing
NO BO NO NO NO
Not mysmotinal support space beast!!!!
They’re gonna date!!!!
Wiggler x PELI!!!!
YES INWAS WAITJNF DOR ONE OF THEM TO GET EATEN
I doubt they’ll kill off Bane. But liek…. What if they did
Also that’s ANOTHER problem for the city
HOODLUMS
HEY YO
Mmmm Jango ment
Just grab his little face tubes
YES STICK STUCK STUCK
Oh maybe they will kill him
Makes since tho he’s like OLD OLD
He’s wAs old in Clone Wars
Oh nvm he’s def not dead
STOP SOOTING HIM
Ok now for a King Kong parallel
NO NOT THE BALL
ok that was hot Din
NO NO NO NO
KID
HIM LITTLE WADDLE
HIS EARS
HIS EYES
How to train ur dragon parrlell
CLONE WARS KENOBJ PARALLELL
HIM LITTLE HANDS
NAP BUDDIES
Found my new screen saver
Yay decaptiated heads are back!!!
They should hire a tourism director
YES FENNEC FUCK IT UP
So sneaky :)
NOT THE REN FAIR MUSIC
Rip to the ham guards
THE TAPS
truly encapsulated what having a toddler is like
I LOVE THEM
Is there an end credit scene
Just realized that in the choral grunting they’re saying Fett- I’m an idiot
Yep end credit scene
I swear if it’s bane
COBBY BOY
Boba quit modifying ppl without their consent!!!
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yrbutchgf · 3 years
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hey, i'm feeling a bit insecure in my identity rn and i was wondering if you have any... tips, or anything like that. i'm a lesbian who feels more comfortable in a masc role, and i think i would identify as butch... but i feel like i'm too emotional. i cry SO often. my mental health has been less than stellar for the last 10 years or so lol, so that plays a part, but i'm also just a crier. things that make me cry: criticism, heated discussions, presentations, movie/game/book endings, all music with violins, some music without violins, christmas commercials, those miniature food clay charms... literally everything. and it's always in public too, which is embarrassing enough as it is. and i know that doesn't have to mean anything for my gender identity, but the whole "boys/men don't cry" thing kind of did a number on me lol. i always feel like a little girl when others watch me cry, even though i want to be the protector. sorry for rambling, but i feel like you always have good takes on butchness and stuff like that, so i was wondering if you have any tips on feeling more secure in my butch/masc side :)
ok before i say anything else, thank you, i’m honestly really flattered you think that highly of my takes lol <3 i do try my best, i’m glad i’m able to help people to whatever extent i do with my posts. also, bit of a length warning -- i always set out with the intention of writing succinct responses to asks, but it always gets away from me, and this time "getting away from me" meant "turning into a manifesto." well, oops. c'est la butch/femme.
now to start this answer off: i definitely relate. i’m also pretty emotional. when i get stressed i get really shaky, especially in my hands, and then after that my body turns on the waterworks. i also have a fairly exuberant personality in general, and i'm very expressive with my hands & body language. the only times i’ve ever really fit the stoic archetype have been on accident, usually when i’ve felt uncomfortable in a social situation and it’s come off as strong silence. at the same time, i also don’t like when people see me cry or be emotional in general, especially in public. it makes me feel vulnerable in a way that i don’t like to give most people, and the fact that i can’t fully control when or if i do is uncomfortable. and i think disliking that feeling is totally normal, or at the very least it’s a common boundary to have. regardless of sexuality, gender, or presentation, there’s a social urge to cover up when we’re feeling our feelings, but even beyond that there is, i think, a reflexive, self-preservation level urge to cover up what can be easily damaged. so to an extent, i think it’s natural to shy away from vulnerability.
at the same time, the urge to push down one’s tears is not necessarily a HEALTHY urge, only a COMMON one, because you’re right: emotionality has no bearing on your gender or what roles you can take up. some of my best butch and masc friends are also extremely emotional people, and they’re very open about it, and in a lot of ways that openness almost feels to me more masculine or more butch, because they’re embracing their feelings, and that’s obviously a really hard thing to learn to do, so it’s powerful, admirable, and also to be honest, it’s attractive! the ability of someone to be brave enough to be vulnerable can in many situations make the people around them feel more at ease, and i think it can become a very steady, very stabilizing sort of masculinity. in other words, someone who is very comfortable in their tears is also very good and healing to be around. so i think in a lot of ways, when you learn to own your emotions rather than push them away, that can very easily augment your butchness rather than take away from it.
now obviously everyone views butch/femme differently, whether as genders/sexuality labels/dynamics/what have you, but for me no matter what at the center of these terms there is always this nexus, this core focus, of care. in the dynamic, butch/femme is about butches & femmes caring for one another in complementary ways both in- and out-side of romantic relationships. so when we talk about butchness standalone, you and many other people reach for words like “protector,” and i don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, i think protection can and often is a key role, but my point here is, where is that urge to protect coming from? it’s from love, from caring about the people you love. and i think it’s important to remember that and to frame it that way, because when you do, it becomes pretty simple: your emotionalism is more than anything a sign of that urge to care/protect/provide in you, or a driving force to those urges, however you want to frame it. far from taking away from your butchness, your emotions are at the very foundation of what it can be. i talked about this in the butch/femme server a bit, and thren @lesbiandaemon said it perfectly:
i genuinely think i (and many others!) would feel so much safety and security being w someone who allows themself to be vulnerable and earnest abt their emotions and it definitely augments butchness, from my perspective as a femme. i envy and care deeply for the butch whose emotions and vulnerability are on display, there's a strength in that imo, even if you've been made to feel self conscious and dysphoric and "less than" bc of that. i think of phrases like "the strength to remain tender", "the violence it took to be this gentle" in the lens of trauma but if that applies and you're ok w it, i think it could also apply here too [...]
whether ppl know it or not, sometimes the way one carries themselves can be projected onto others; there's already an example in how anon mentions the "big boys/men don't cry" thing, vulnerability being shut out and dismissed/disparaged isn't going to make anyone more eager/open abt their emotions. and like, going back to the butch/femme dynamic, it does feel so much more stable and steady if someone has the courage to acknowledge and let themselves feel their emotions, it's very welcoming and validating, knowing that someone can have a strong image and show their tenderness, knowing that you're safe and free from mockery/scorn to do the same when someone protective of you knows how it feels and will care for you because they feel touched to their core and have let you know in more than one way.
and i want to add an important caveat here: obviously not everyone who cares very deeply is going to be outwardly emotional or show it in the same ways. that’s true for all kinds of reasons. i think a lot of the stoicism we see in traditional depictions of butches can come from how people relate emotions to masculinity (that is to say, how people view masculinity as inherently based around a distance from one’s “softer” side), but also, honestly, i think this may also have roots in the historical coping mechanisms that a lot of butches took on in the face of a world that was unkind to them.
in stone butch blues, for example, there’s a lot of talk about this idea of “hard” versus “soft,” or “going stone,” especially when jess is first getting into the bar scene and she’s still fresh-faced to violence. and going stone in this context isn’t just about sexuality, it's also about how so many butches learned to stop letting people in even at a basic emotional level. for them, hardening up was an inevitability of circumstance, not an inherent facet of their personality or a building block of butch identity. i’m sure plenty of old-school butches would be glad to know it’s no longer inevitable or necessary for a butch to close themselves off completely in order to survive.
of course there are also plenty of butches who are just naturally reserved with their emotions, and that’s also fine -- that doesn’t mean they don’t feel things, or that they don’t care. they care -- all of us do! some of us showing it more or less than others doesn’t reflect badly on any of us, whether we’re of a more stoic or a more open variety. but some of us really can’t help showing it, and that’s okay. that’s just how the love spills out. the right person won’t see that as weakness or a crack in the fine china of your masculinity or whatever, they’ll see it as a lovely and endearing part of your whole and warming butchness. so embrace your emotions. do your best to honor the role they play in butch/femmeness. try to love your emotions, or at the very least not to be afraid of them. and remember: you are strong. your tenderness will not destroy you. in fact, it’s what built you to begin with.
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queer classic book recs!!
Image description under the cut! Please tell me if I did something wrong and I will gladly change it!
The other recs will be in the reblog!
[Each slide excluding the title screen includes 3 photos relating to the book, largely alternative covers of each in a small grid format.]
Slide One: In the center is a box with interior text reading "13 lgbtq classics and 1 “modern” classic. Recs in the comments welcome!" The top left corner includes an image of a calligraphy quill. Underneath this is text that reads "Disclaimer! The beginning of this list is.. Very White, but don't worry it gets more diverse as the books get more recent!!" In the top right corner is a text box reading "Look up trigger warnings or I’ll steal your gender! … or give it back!!" under this is a picture of an open book displayed in the foreground and another stack of books in the background.
Slide Two: Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.
1872
Lesbian/wlw but written by a man
vampires!
“Following a near-fatal carriage collision, the beautiful young Carmilla is taken in by the narrator Laura and her father.”
While this book plays into the stereotype of the “monteress, seductive lesbian,” it is one of the oldest and most famous classical texts depicting a lesbian relationship. Toxic AF.
Slide Three: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
1890
not explicitly queer (subtext)
but gay (mlm) tho
“Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.”
This book contains Anti-semitism, Racism, Sexism and is honestly a product of its time. Oscar Wilde is certainly a character.
Slide Four: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
1928
sapphic/gender exploration
“The novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost.”
Main Character is racist and anti-Semitic. While her writing is incredibly important and impactful as a queer figure, she will always be white before she is queer.
Slide Five: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
1928
lesbian/wlw
originally banned
“Stephen is an ideal child of aristocratic parents—a fencer, a horse rider, and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer, and a loyal, protective lover. But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women. As her ambitions drive her, and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions.”
This book contains racism, use of the N-word, sexism, homophobia & lots of outdated ideas in general.
Slide Six: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
1956
gay/mlm
“In a 1950s Paris swarming with expatriates and characterized by dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself. After meeting and proposing to a young woman, he falls into a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two.”
OMG! A classic on this list in which I can't find any evidence of racism or antisemitism! /srs. Imagine that- it's almost like POC classical authors are important to teach about! /hj
Slide Seven: Maurice by E.M. Forster
1971
gay/mlm
fluffy, but homophobia exists in the story as well.
“Maurice is heartbroken over unrequited love, which opened his heart and mind to his own sexual identity. In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.”
This book contains the use of the g slur. Please tell me if I missed something!
Slide Eight: HERmione by H.D.
1981
queer/sapphic woman author
poetry
so mf sad bro I mean look at that blurb
“An interior self-portrait of the poet H.D. (1886-1961) is what can best be described as a 'find', a posthumous treasure. ‘I am Hermione Gart, a failure' -she cried in her dementia, 'I am Her, Her, Her.”
To my knowledge, this book isn't problematic- please tell me if it is though!!
Slide Nine: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
1982
lesbian/wlw
A staple of lesbian lit from before the peak of an activist’s career. Great read.
“From the author's vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde's work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic
Slide Ten: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1982
features queer women
has a movie adaptation!
“Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia and their experience.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic
Slide Eleven: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
1985
lesbian/wlw
“This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home, and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy, and tender.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic- but warning, there are quite heavy themes!
Slide Twelve: Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel
1986
lesbian/wlw
a classic comedy comic + a really good insight & look into lesbian culture
“Grin, giggle, and guffaw your way through this celebrated cartoonist's graphic commentary of contemporary lesbian life.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic*
*contains d-slur used by lesbians in a non-offensive way
Slide Thirteen: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
1993
lesbian/gender identity around lesbianism
“Woman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in the "Ozzie and Harriet" McCarthy era and coming out as a young butch lesbian in the pre-Stonewall gay drag bars of a blue-collar town. Stone Butch Blues traces a propulsive journey, powerfully evoking history and politics while portraying an extraordinary protagonist full of longing, vulnerability, and working-class grit.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic
Slide Fourteen: Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
1998
lesbian/wlw
historical romance
“Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser, and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic
Slide Fifteen: Under the Udala Trees By Chinelo Okparanta
2015
lesbian/wlw
modern classic imo, look into the coexistence of native Nigerian culture & queerness
“Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child, and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie.”
Once again to my knowledge, this book isn't problematic
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Dating the Hargreeves
Luther Hargreeves
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-You met when one day you were called to the Hargreeve residence
- Your mother was a friend of Reginald and she had asked you to deliver a letter to him.
- On arriving you noticed how empty the place was
- So as Reginald took the letter from you, he told you to come back in ten minuets when he had written the reply
- Thinking he lived alone now, you just wondered about the house, until you bumped into Luther
- After stating your business, he seemed to warm up to you a lot more, even if he was a tad awkward
- You realised that he was just really lonely
- So you invited him for coffee
- He was so shocked all he could do was nod
- The coffee date went well the next day
- It was all going swimmingly, the two of you were good friends but right as you both were realising your feelings were more than just friends
- His dad sent him to the moon
- Pogo let you message him three times a day
- But you still missed him
- You didn’t understand why he couldn’t disobey orders
- But you respected his choice and waited
- For years
-When he finally came back he was slightly more clingy than he was usually and you two quickly became an item
- He was a broken soul who just needed some love
- And attention
- And to believe he didn’t waste four years of his life
- When you two started dating he was basically your own personal teddy bear
- he’s so warm so if you’re cold he would let you cuddle up to him
- he’d be so gentle because he doesn’t want to accidentally hurt you
- You would constantly be there to remind him to be nice to his siblings
- going stargazing together 
- or moon gazing the guy has an obsession
- You would steal his coat and make brilliant impressions of him, much to the joy of Diego and Klaus
-You are defiantly the smart one so Luther would always go to you for advice
- he’s so protective and will glare at any man who looks your way
- which can get a bit annoying but it’s nothing to bad.
- He’s really insecure so you would constantly assure him that he was beautiful the way he was
- Helping Luther see that dear old Dad was not the nicest guy
- Your best friend is 100% Diego though
- Which Luther hates because if you're mad at him, he’s doomed on all fronts
- He buys you chocolate though so you keep him around
- He has a good heart really
Diego Hargreeves
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-You're both vigilantes of sorts
- You're more like a private investigator plus baddass crime stopper
- Police pay you to solve crimes, and then the government pay you even more money to take out pesky people
- It was kinda fun
- You meet Diego when Patch brings him in
- He overhears what job you’re doing and asks why you’re getting paid doing the same thing he’s getting arrested for
- Patch laughs and tells him that you are more of a private investigator
- You smile, thinking that would shut him up 
- But no. He starts calling you Sherlock
- Wearing that stupid smirk as he says it
- Your meetings become more frequent and he always teases you about your job but its nothing more than that
- Until one day he realises you don’t actually have a house, you live in a car
- Because even though your job pays well, you move around a lot and most of you money goes to your sister so she can afford a house, and living with her may but her life at risk
- So he offered the spare bedroom in his apartment 
- He assures you he can take care of himself
- So you agree
- And slowly you adjust your life to be with him
- You take turns cooking at first and then it turns into a you cook whilst he cleans because he cannot cook
- And then he takes you on a date
- He’s a shy stuttering mess when he asks you on a date, nothing like the mischievous confident man you'd known
- It was adorable so you said yes
- Things went really well so you guys decided to date
- He is such a cuddler
- Secretly likes being the little spoon, or sleeping on your stomach because it makes him feel safe
- But also likes being the big spoon because he likes to feel like he’s protecting you
- You’re probably the cook as he can only make eggs
- And even tho “They’re great eggs Y/N,” they’re “Not a balanced diet Diego,”
- Patching him up when he’s on his nightly hero duty things
- If you have work in the morning you will leave cute notes around the house for him to wake up to, and he does the same for you when he works
- When he grows his hair out he secretly lets you braid it as long as you tell no one.
- Until Klaus find’s out and gets you to braid his hair too
- He cannot say no to you, so gets through the day of relentless teasing by his siblings when you painted his nails 
- It was worth it to see you smile
- Full on shouting at Reginald at the dinner table when he upset Diego because HOW DARE HE make your boyfriend stutter like that
- The other siblings looking at you in shock because you were the calm and reasonable one 
- He wouldn’t really get jealous because he trusted you, but can’t resist showing off the fact you’re his girlfriend when someone starts to flirt with you
- Okay maybe he is jealous
Allison Hargreeves 
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- For some reason you are immune to her power
- You found this out when Reginald tried to forcefully recruit you to the academy when you were fifteen, using her power and you just responded “I don’t know where you heard that sunshine.”  before merrily skipping off.
- She was shook
- The two of you started meeting at Griddy’s donuts
- At first she wanted to know how you managed to get away
- But eventually she started to like you
- You were sassy and smart and didn’t put up with her shit
- This is probably why Five adored you so much - you two became best friends
- She always held your hand and often kissed it softly if you were deep in thought
- You taught her how to get people to do what you say without using her power
- Which meant you guys left with a lot of free stuff
- She always loved to show you off, PDA was something she had no problem with
- Much to the disgust of some of the siblings
- Being in the 60′s as a lesbian couple was difficult
- So you pretended to be cousins
- which was weird for both of you
- She would constantly buy extravagant gifts for you, especially when she had the money
- Despite the fact that in public you seem like the one in charge, she is 100% the big spoon
- She likes the feeling of feeling truly needed
Klaus Hargreeves
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- You meet in the war, you’re the bar tender that introduced him to Dave
- The talk he had with you was very brief but he remembered your face
- So years later, when he went back to that same Bar once he got back from the past he was shocked to see you serving people having not aged a day
- At first he thought you just has really good genes you had passed on but you were identical to the way he remembered you
- The he thought he was seeing your ghost but he saw that you were interacting with others
- So he called you over
- You didn't seem shocked to see him but pleasantly surprised
- You explained that you had gotten in a bit of a pickle as you were picking up a suitcase from the commission so you could retire but Five blew the place up causing the suitcase to malfunction
- So you were stuck in a warzone until you figured out how to fix the case
- You also told Klaus to give his brother a slap when he next saw him
- He did, but Five was very pleased to see you as you were a good friend to him and knew how to help
- Anyways after a couple of soft drinks you and Klaus got to know each other better
- And after a while the two of you became an item and life just got better
Helping him remain sober
- Cuddles all the time because he is needy
- you guys shared clothes because neither if you give a fuck
- You show him other ways to get high without damaging his body
- like taking him skydiving or to a theme park
- you always listen to him
- And will shout at the siblings when they undermine Klaus
- You keep the ghosts at bay, and will often hold him when he sleeps so stop any nightmares
- However neither of you can cook
- which leads to you waltzing off to Allison’s house at three in the morning because she can cook
- She doesn’t mind though because she’s never seen her brother this happy when hes sober
- You are best friends with Ben, and can also see and hear him so like to talk shit about Klaus when he’s in the room
- He is a pro at forehead kisses
- He’ll wrap you in his arms and just lightly kiss your forehead
- Because you make him feel safe, so he returns the favour
Five Hargreeves
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- You worked with the commission as an assassin and after a few weeks of Five being there, he was told that you would be his partner
- He was a little annoyed because that would mean he wouldn’t be able to work on the apocalypse on the job in case you told on him
- Then he met you and you were nothing like he expected
- He’d seen you train, seen you kill five men whilst barely moving and go after the most dangerous of people
- So why were you so nice?
-You were like a little ball of sunshine and he was Mr grumpy
- When you were informed that he had been alone for 45 years, Five thought you’d run away from him, scared that you were friends with a madman
- But instead you walked up to him and wrapped your arms around his waist
- At first he didn’t know how to respond but then he hugged you back
- And then you two became inseparable
- He wasn’t much into PDA especially when you got back to the Hargreaves siblings
- He didn’t want to be bullied
-But you loved affection
-So he compromised and the two of you would subtly lock pinkies
-But that was it
-Until you were alone
-Oh boy
- He needed coaxing at first because he’s socially awkward
- But he loves to be cuddled. He loves laying on your stomach, or holding you against his chest or wrapping his arms around your waist
- He’s a sucker for when you run your hands through his hair
- It makes him w e a k 
-When he’s working you’ll sit on his lap
- Because you want attention and he overworks himself
- You constantly look after him, making sure he drinks water and shit
- Because you cannot run on coffee alone
- The siblings become suspicious when they catch Five staring at you
- So they decided to spy on him
- And whilst they spied, they saw their mardy little brother dancing (Rather gracefully) around the Kitchen with you, both laughing as if there was no one else there
- Which tbf they didn’t think there was
- “They could just be working a case?” suggested Luther
- But that was quickly brushed aside when Five kissed you
- “Turns out the Hargreaves are capable of Love,” was all Klaus said although they were secretly thrilled at the fact you and Five were together.
Ben Hargreeves
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- You were just a small town waitress 
- Working another long shift at your work, you saw two men come in, one rather skinny and hippie looking, and the other dressed in all black
- You’re a naturally sweet person so serving them with a smile wasn’t a problem
- But when you asked Ben what he wanted he just froze in shock
- After some explaining you decided to let the two guys stay at your apartment for a while, as they were lost anyway
- You all became super super close
- You helped Klaus become sober again
- And then you realised that not only could you see Ben, but you could make him physically there just by touching him
- You learnt this when you accidentally ran into him nearly knocking yourself out
- The Klaus was no longer the clingy one
-Ben was always touching you, not in a weird way just always brushing hands or wrapping himself around you
- He loved cuddles, just feeling warm for once
- He’d cuddle you no matter what, and if you had a tiring day at work he would be there to sweep you off your feet
- you made him feel alive again
- When he was touching you others could see him too
- which meant you automatically became the family favourite, after you helped Klaus, and then Ben
- Ben loves it when you read to him, it just calms him down
- His favourite thing to do is to sit in the park with you sat between his legs, lent against his chest listening to you read
- He wears the flower crowns you make with pride
- It takes ages to figure out why you can see him and make him real as you were actually a couple months younger than him
- Turns out you had died as a baby for exactly 108 seconds and that had left you with ties to both the physical world and the afterlife - and it was Mr Reginald Hargreeves who had saved you
- You were convinced he was an alien but the others disagreed
- You helped Ben not fear his power
- The guy is king of nose kisses. He just finds it really cute when you scrunch your nose, either in disgust or frustration or confusion
- You always kiss jawline, as if you’re snuggled together it’s often the only place you can reach
- Vanya is your best friend, you always invite her because she understands what it’s like to not know the extent of your own power
- Klaus is scared at first because he doesn’t want Ben to leave him although he would never admit it
- But then he realised he hadn’t lost a constant companion, he’d just gained another
- Ben loves to surprise you with cute simple things, like setting up a movie and hot chocolate, or picking out flowers he found at some point for you
- Dancing round the kitchen would be a daily thing
- You even got Five to join in 
- You make the best waffles so every morning all the siblings come to your house just to eat the waffles you make
- It’s like they are a family again, but this time they have you
Vanya Hargreeves
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- She’s a bit iffy with personal contact
- It makes her a little nervous
- But you’re okay with that, she shows her love in other ways
- Like she’ll always make you tea in the mornings, or make sure you’re under the blanket before she sleeps because she knows you get cold
- You meet for the first time when you’re kids. The other siblings are saving everybody and ask you to stand with the others, because to them you’re just a civilian
- But when things start to go sideways, it’s you who helps them, using your powers of mental manipulation to make the bad guys visualise their worst fear
- Sir Hargreeves takes you in immediately, adopting you as Number Eight.
-The other kids felt bad for you when Reginald left you on your own, and it was Klaus who spoke
-”He’s not a good parent, he isn’t really here at all so I’m sorry if this wasn't what you were expecting,” but you were happy
“My real dad gave me this scar when he tried to stab me,” you replied with a little laugh “Ill take yours any day,”
-After that you and Vanya bonded over the fact you were both the black sheep of the family
- You always made sure she was included, and felt a bit bad that you weren’t a sibling but were often invited to more places than her
- During your teenage years you and Vanya clearly had something going on, so Reginald sent you away to France to study your powers
- It wasn’t until his death did you two see each other again
- It felt like you had never really left and things kicked off again
- But the Harold came along and told Vanya you were just as bad as the rest
- So she abandoned you
- You meet  for the third time in the 60′s, you’re staying with a married couple and their disabled son
- Vanya recognises you but she doesn’t know where from which breaks your heart slightly but it’s okay
- Because the more she spends time with you the more she falls in love with you
- She finally asks you to be her girlfriend
- Which you say yes
- Although she’s not big on affection, she loves it when you lay in her lap, it makes her feel trusted
- She loves to play the violin for you
- When she starts to grow used to affection, she loves it when you sleep all curled up beside her like a cat
- Or when you play with her hair
- Or kiss her cheek
- You make her feel like she’s valid and that’s all she ever wanted
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