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#but made especially more non computing by the fact that im not even the one whos been talking to them
kawaiianimeredhead · 2 years
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Ya know I stressed so much about the damn call that it almost feels like I made it already considering how I rehearsed and wrote some things down and I feel exhausted and even more dumb because like panic attack over so now the realization of like how dumb that was don't look sets it but also I still have to make a call and still feel stupid that I can't bring myself to do it so ya know super fun times all around I am just having a fucking time over here yall
#its so dumb#but made especially more non computing by the fact that im not even the one whos been talking to them#the ac pan at my parents house overflowed and was leaking and created serious damage to their garage#on top of that it led to the discover the pan is hella rusted#well a family friend has been talking to the people#and the moment everyone heard theres a min. of $2k cost to replace the whole thing nobody wanted to ok it because the homeowner isnt around#but nobody offered a different solution so what the hell is supposed to be the solution?#like yes that a lot of money i can recognize that but my parents want it fixed and in all honeat#which the guy handling this would know#2k is not as much to them as it would be to others and also if its the inly goddamn solution then like fucking do it please#but everyone went ahout their ways and i am left talki g with my parenrs over GB messenger trying to explain to them#that nothing has been completly fixed and rhen i have to call the people and be like no please fix this#but i dont even understand if they COULD fix this today#so i dont know if this is information that has been talked about but just not wigh me or what exactly them measuring today has done#and its incredibly annohi g that i have to be the one to call to sort this#when i can understand why my parents would not want to call monday but it also has already felt like its been decided on doing it konday#the calli g part#and i dont have anyyjing in me to even slightly say anyghj g back if theyre like no sorry we cant#cause im not even the ho.eowner so whos to say that i even can say anything#because its already been established the home owner is out of tiwn#and i want to scream
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notnatawree · 1 year
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drafting 12/2/22: they should coin a term for this fear
im really fond of all things sex. i started masturbating when i was young, could tell a story in vivid detail about the first time my coochie throbbed (lesbian washing machine episode of 1000 ways to die), the countless hours i spent trying to figure out how to reach climax, the soft porn videos that i used to watch (girls riding, my favorite).
ever since the day i made myself come for the first time-- i’ve only ever been able to orgasm in such position. and i hate this!! i’ve tried to change it. and i’ve come close (smirk) don’t get me wrong. but im only able to come in one position. and ive only been able to come using my left pointer. yup. go lefties. 
so when it comes to sexual encounters that i have, orgasming is a... difficult thing. i think i’ve masturbated in front of a few guys that i’ve dated, especially like with my high school boyfriend where we exhausted every possible sexual avenue for two years because i wasn’t quite ready to have his penis in me yet.
but now that im getting older, im starting to think more critically about ways to resolve this. there’s a few ways that i bucket sex things.
for one, and this bucket is massive: the entertainment and thrill of it all. the non-endgame part. the part where it’s just hot that a guy’s fingers are inside you. the part where it’s unique having a dick in your ass. those parts of sex. where it’s not like, oh im stimulated and going to come. more of in a “this is hot” and “i am participating in this” kind of way. 
the second, much smaller, tinier bucket is the: my pussy is so fucking stimulated right now i actually feel so much pleasure and maybe i WOULD come hypothetically. i could probably count on my hand how many times i’ve experienced this. once while getting fucked by my sophomore year of college situationship. we were listening to summertime in paris after a cute date in his (single) dorm room and having the most intense passionate eye contact. stimulated. another instance would be with my one and only boyfriend in 5 years that lasted in fact, 5 weeks (officially) was rubbing my clit and taking directions and as an intelligent computer science boy, knew how to follow an assignment. i literally thought i was going to come. i didn’t, though.
i’ve never come by someone else’s manipulation. not even a toy, at that. i think i need to start resolving this because i would wonder what it feels like to orgasm because someone else made you. that’s like so far gone and absurd sounding to me that i can’t even seem to conceptualize what that would feel like.
like a guy that im seeing legitimately makes me lose my shit to the point of orgasm. i need to seek that. and i’ve always told myself that i’ll probably marry the first guy who does (embarrassing).
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I Can’t Say Anything to Your Face
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Summary: Lunchtime is Spencer Reid’s favorite time of day and not because of the crappy endless coffee, dry sandwiches, or the occasional chocolate donut. Spencer’s favorite time of day comes in the shape of a little post it notes and fits perfectly into his heart.
Pairing: Spencer x Female Reader
Content: Fluff (1 use of a$$)
Author’s Note: The idea of for this came from @shemarmooresfedora for giving Spencer compliment cards
Word Count: 2.6 K
I Can't Say Anything To Your Face
When Spencer checks his watch for the twelfth time that day, he can practically feel Derek’s eyes roll. He tries to cover up his action by picking at his sleeve, but that just seems to draw attention to the situation. Derek raises his eyebrows at Spencer, as if to tell him, I saw that.
When it comes to teasing Spencer, Derek doesn’t miss a beat.
The team, minus Derek and Spencer, continue to work diligently. JJ walks back and forth from her office to Hotch’s, constantly shuffling through piles and piles of paperwork. Emily seems to keep herself busy with the 33 tabs that she has open on her screen. Y/N, who’s tongue slips out of her teeth in concentration, doesn’t look up from her mound of case files. Spencer likes studying how each of the members of his team works, but he particularly likes to watch Y/N. She always sticks her tongue out when she’s deep in thought. Sometimes she’ll close her eyes and rub the butt of her palm against them. Other times she’ll push her glasses up on top of her head and her hair frames her face perfectly. Spencer couldn’t care less what she looked like or how she wore her hair, but watching her was his favorite part of the day.
In a totally platonic, non-creepy way.
A beep distracts Spencer from being distracted by Y/N. It’s an IM from Derek, telling him something to the effect of asking Y/N out. Instead of responding, Spencer decides to send Derek a more direct message. He shuts off his computer, which isn’t really used, besides for Y/N to send Spencer requests for online scrabble.
Spencer, ignoring Derek’s gloating, walks from the bullpen into the team’s lunch room. It’s a small kitchenette with a couple tables, a very old coffee machine, and an even older refrigerator. Peeking into the refrigerator, Spencer takes out two lunch boxes. One is light green with patterned purple and orange dinosaurs all over and the other is a light blue with green plants. Like clockwork, Y/N rounds the corner with a smile plastered to her face.
“What’s got you smiling like that?” Spencer asks, placing his lunch box down across from Y/N’s seat.
“It’s just my favorite time of day,” Y/N responds, unzipping her bag and taking out her banana, water bottle, granola, and turkey sandwich.
Spencer tries to hold back his smile at Y/N saying that lunch is her favorite time of day. He likes to believe that it’s because of him and not because of the top tier kitchen facility the government provides for them. But who’s he kidding, there’s no way that lunch is Y/N favorite part of the day because of Spencer when he’s up against a crappy coffee maker.
“Did you know that sandwiches were only called sandwiches because the Earl of Sandwich ate his meals with bread, meat and cheese like modern day sandwiches? However, there’s much debate if sandwiches existed prior to this. Researchers actually believe that sandwiches were simply referred to as bread and meat or bread cheese, depending on the ingredients. There’s hundreds of works of literature that help to determine this,” Spencer says, as he unwraps his leftovers from dinner the previous night.
Y/N, who takes a bite of her turkey sandwich, listens intently to Spencer’s oral history of sandwiches. She starts to respond to Spencer, but before she can even get the chance, Derek interjects into the conversation.
“Hold your horses, there Reid,” Derek says, his voice tainted with sarcasm and Spencer braces himself for a clipping comment, “you don’t want to scare away the newbie,”
Y/N, ever quick witted, rolls her eyes dramatically at Derek. She gets up and moves her seat closer to Spencer who’s heart rate, at the thought of her sitting even closer to him, speeds up. He knows that it's just an effort to tease Derek. That she'd rather suffer next to Spencer, than to have to entertain the idea of sitting next to Derek. But still, Spencer is a dreamer; he'd like to think she'd sit next to him even without the added bonus at avoiding Derek's playful teasing.
“Derek, leave Spencer alone, I happen to adore his facts. You know, I’ve seen I’ve been here I’ve been a Jeopardy beast. And when are you going to realize that I’m not a newbie, I’ve been here for what 2 years-”
“2 years, 4 months, and 4 days,” Spencer says, cursing himself silently for interrupting Y/N.
Derek grabs his lunch from the refrigerator, and sits down across from Spencer and Y/N.
“You remember the day I started?” Y/N asks, turning her attention from Derek to Spencer, whose face is twisted in what he can only assume is an extremely unattractive deer-in-head-lights look. He shrugs off Y/N’s comment, as if to say it’s just normal for him.
"Of course I do, I remember how long each of us has been here,"
"Oh, right. Eidetic Memory," Y/N mumbles, almost like she's slightly disappointed in something.
Suddenly Spencer’s mouth is quite dry; he reaches into his lunch bag to grab his water bottle, but his fingers brush across a small card taped to the outside. Forgetting that showing the card to Morgan would give him enough ammunition for the rest of day, Spencer quickly scans the card. It’s a small piece of paper, but it suddenly has become Spencer’s most treasured object. More than the set of Chaucer tales that his mother gave him, or Gideon’s watch, or his first microscope that his biology teacher in high school gave him at his graduation.
The one side of the card is decorated in small hearts and there’s a sketch of a dinosaur on the other side. In careful handwriting, the giver of the card wrote “Are you made of Nickel, Cerium, Arsenic, and Sulfur? Because you got a NiCe AsS!”
Spencer’s eyes grow a couple sizes once his brain registers the meaning of the card. Handling it less than gracefully, he chokes on his water, which catches Derek and Y/N’s attention.
“You okay there, Spence?’ Derek asks, questioning what sent Spencer coughing and choking on water like that.
Spencer, not wanting Y/N or Derek, especially Derek, to read the card, attempts to put it in the front pocket of his lunch box. Unfortunately, Derek catches sight of the card and snatches it out of Spencer’s hand.
“Derek!” Spencer whines.
He can feel his embarrassment deepen as Morgan’s smile grows. Spencer seriously thinks that this is how he’s going to die. His death, being in his line of work, is something that plagues his thoughts from time to time, but any gory hero’s death pales in comparison to Derek Morgan reading Spencer’s love notes about his ass.
“Nice ass? I’m not too sure about this, Reid, but looks like your secret lover likes your ass just as much as your brains,” Derek teases, handing back Spencer his card.
“Those are private,” Spencer says, grateful that Derek’s going to leave him alone, places the card back in it’s temporary resting spot near his driver’s license and photographs of him and Y/N at the arcade.
“Hey man, I was just going to put in that shoe box you have tucked under your desk, you must have hundreds of them by now,” Derek says, taking a bite of his ham and cheese wrap. His eyes dash between Spencer and Y/N, like the pair of them is the most entertaining reality show he could think of.
“I have 645, now,” Spencer says, unable to help himself much to Derek’s amusement. Spencer hears the chair next to him screech and Y/N rushes to pack up her half eaten lunch.
“I completely forgot, Anderson needs me to uh, help him with something,” Y/N says, stuffing her water bottle into her lunch box in a flustered state. Spencer watches as she rushes, her need to leave the kitchenette quite evident. Spencer is left wondering why she has to go see Anderson, of all people.
“Anderson? What does he want with you? I don’t remember Hotch saying anything about that,” Spencer says, his voice comes off a little more bitter than he indented.
“Maybe Anderson has some extracurriculars that he needs Y/N’s help with Spencer,” Derek says with a wink. Spencer’s brow tightens and his blush deepens as if he’s trying to decipher the way that Derek’s voice is laced with suggestion. The only logical conclusion is that Y/N is flustered because she’s sneaking off to see Anderson, because she likes him.
Y/N likes Anderson? Something about that doesn’t taste right in Spencer’s mouth.
Like the wind, Y/N is gone and all that remains is Derek’s sly chuckle.
“What!” Spencer says, much too loud for him to continue the coy and unassuming demeanor he usually produces when Y/N gets hit on at the bar or on case by local cops.
“Nothing, Reid. You're just clueless. Just think about how many of those little compliment cards you’ve gotten,” Derek says. He reaches into Spencer’s lunch box and takes his brownie. Usually, Spencer would have protested, but Derek’s words sent him into a confused spiral.
“645,” Spencer responds.
“Okay,” Derek continues, “645 days you’ve gotten those cute little cards in your lunch box or taped to your hotel room door on cases. Now, Reid think. How many years, months, and days, is 645 days”
“That’s 2 years, 4 months, and 3 days,” Spencer starts, “now given if it’s a Leap Year that could change it a little bit bit-”
“Think about it Reid,” Derek says, talking slowly to get the words sink in and hoping that he doesn’t have to spell it out for him.
“Y/N?” Spencer asks, kind of like he can’t believe it, but desperately wants to believe it at the same time.
“Y/N,” Derek repeats, “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long, Reid. She’s been making eyes at you the day she’s gotten here. It’s almost sickening to watch you to dance around each other,”
“Y/N,” Spencer says, it’s like he’s saying her name for the first time. It’s the most beautiful string of syllables to ever come from his lips.
Spencer pushes back the chair and swings the door open. As he walks to Y/N’s desk he gets distracted by the little brown shoe box that sticks out slightly from under his desk. He crouches down and picks it up, hoping that it can be helpful. He approaches Y/N’s desk, but JJ stops him before he can go closer.
“Stairwell,” Is all she says before she brushes past with an armful of case files. Spencer, heading JJ’s advice, practically runs to the stairwell. As he approaches he can hear quiet sobs, which he can only imagine are Y/N’s.
Spencer opens the door and Y/N, startled, stands up and tries to mop the tears away from her face.
“Spencer, oh god, I didn’t know you were here, I’m okay, it’s just me being a little silly,” she says, trying to laugh through what she can only assume is going to be rejection.
“I really hope you don’t think these are silly, well some are kind of silly, but others were very poetic,” Spencer says, taking a step forward and gesturing with the shoe box to make it obvious to Y/N that he’s talking about the compliment cards.
“What are you talking about, Spencer?” Y/N says, feigning ignorance.
“Don’t play dumb, Y/N. You're much too smart to play dumb,” Spencer says, moving closer to Y/N so he can wipe her tear-stricken face with the sleeve of his soft cardigan. He tries not to focus on the way that Y/N seems to melt into his touch. He knows that if he can get another touch of that, he’ll never want to touch another person ever again.
“I’m not playing dumb, Spence. I just never planned for you to find out,” Y/N mumbles. Spencer’s face resembles a mix between shock and confusion.
“Why would you not tell me, I don’t think I made it anything but obvious that I’m crazy about you,” Spencer says, deeply wondering why Y/N would ever hide something like this from him.
“God Spencer, have you ever looked in a mirror?” Y/N asks him, sitting down on the third step, “you’re so gorgeous, Spencer, I can’t say anything to your face. So the next best thing was to write down everything that I wanted to say to you,” Y/N finishes, a little embarrassed. She tries to hide that embarrassment by not making eye contact with Spencer, who sits down next to her.
“You think I’m gorgeous?” Spencer asks, not entirely sure that he heard her correctly.
Y/N peaks at him with teary eyes and a runny nose. Spencer thanks science and the universe for his Eidetic Memory. He knows that there won’t be a single day of his life that he won’t want to think back to this day and remember the way that Y/N looked when she first told him that she thinks he’s gorgeous.
“I think you’re the most beautiful person that I’ve ever seen,” Y/N says breathily, her voice laced with restraint. She’s terrified of rejection, terrified that Spencer will turn her down still.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard that,” Spencer says, equally as quiet and equally as terrified. He notices that Y/N’s hand creeps closer to his. Spencer is itching to intertwine it to his and never let go.
“You deserve to hear it more often, hence the cards,” Y/N explains, moving her hand even more closer to Spencer’s. He has no choice but to wrap his much larger one in Y/N’s smaller one.
“You meant it, right?” Spencer asks, bravely putting her heart out there on the line, “because if you did Y/N, that I’d really like to kiss you right now. But if you didn’t then that’s-”
Spencer tries to finish the sentence, to give Y/N an out, but somehow she doesn’t take it. Somehow she decides to kiss him.
Spencer has kissed a total of three people in his entire life, but none of them ever mattered again the second he feels Y/N’s lips against his and her hands in his hair. Spencer doesn’t complain when Y/N starts to set the pace. Her lips roam across his face. They venture across his jaw, up closer to his nose and then back down to his lips. Spencer had no clue Y/N can kiss like this. It's a little passionate for a first kiss, but maybe it's just the pent up tension and frustration 2 years in the making finally being let out. He's dreamt of the way that Y/N's pillowy lips would feel when they were finally pressed up against his. Spencer, from the fibers that make him up to the hormones that surge throughout his body, tries to be brave. He places his hands so they rest on Y/N’s neck. He’s not passive, but he’s happy to sit back and let Y/N have her way as she continues her feverish assault on his lips.
Her ministrations are interrupted, however, when the box of cards falls from Spencer’s lap. It seems to remind both of them that they are in the stairwell of the FBI making out like over zealous teenagers for the first time. Y/N lets out a small giggle. Spencer wishes he can write down the feeling it gives him and tuck it away safely in a shoe box.
“I hope you know that those compliments aren’t platonic, Spencer. I really do think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,” Y/N says, her fingers gravitating to the brown curls behind Spencer’s ears. He has the softest, silkiest hair she’s ever felt.
“That’s a good thing, Y/N, because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,”
Standing up, Y/N winks and pecks Spencer on the cheek, “I hate to break it to you, darling, but I think I win when it comes compliments,”
--Thank you for reading--
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sixtyeightdays · 4 years
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you reap what you sow
prompt from @mialuvscats : i hope this meets your expectations ! im sorry this took so long, i tried uploading it from my phone but it glitched and i could only get my hands on the computer today 
i’d like to say that i think if sabine and mari are there, damian and talia willl be relatively looser and not as uptight . mari and sabine are cold but loving and sunshiney. they keep talia and damian in check, essentially. which is why i wrote them in to be loose and free but able to be openly happy when they want to be, even if they are only happy around each other.
with sabine here i also thinkt hat talia will be slightly easier on damian, which also ties to the fact that he will not be as cold and uptight.
talia will be a good mother in this fic bc i want her to be and itll be ooc but its okay its my fic anyway
and the timeline is kinda messed up and all over the place sorry
that aside, have fun reading and i hope you enjoy!
--
talia and sabine are best friends, and before most of the class joins francois, marinette ruled the school after coming to paris with sabine. mari and damian are betrothed and the two are best friends. they can be icy one minute and sunshiney the next, although the sunshiney part is more mari than damian.
maybe the waynes come to paris, bc if theyre in gotham the others wont really know if the queen is back, and theyre kinda unsure why marinette is being timid and very unlike her ice queen demeanor she sometimes uses. mari is closest to jason in terms of batfam because firstly maybe she cleanses jason of the lazarus pit after helping damian using tikki's creation magic to counteract plagg's destruction one. since the waynes are here theres no point in mari hiding her queen status anymore and queue lila reveal
-
Talia al Ghul and Sabine Cheng were an unlikely combination, but worked perfectly well.
The two women were extremely close. Sabine was almost as deadly as Talia, but she made up for it with her devious mindset. She was the one who steered Talia away from doing anything wrong --well more wrong than usual-- and the one who was assigned to dish out punishments to usurpers.
The two could read each other like open books, and hence, when both Talia and Sabine became pregnant, Talia one month before Sabine, the two knew immediately.
They had debated whether or not to have their kids be betrothed, and eventually decided to let their children make the final call when their kids were old enough to understand.
Nine months later, Marinette and Damian were born. In the League infirmary, an hour after the two were cleaned and left there to rest while their mothers did the same, the two had already grown rather close.
Their baby cribs were next to each other, and somehow they were staring at each other through the walls of the crib, and were making small grabby hands to the other.
When Talia and Sabine were sufficiently rested and came to pick up their children, they were slightly shocked, yet gratified by their children. Sabine smiled and draped an arm around Talia’s shoulder, smiling lazily.
“I guess they’ll be as close as their mothers, non?” 
Talia smirked, and the two walked forwards, lifting their respective children in their arms and walking to their quarters.
-
The two mothers did not regret it. Their kids were enamoured with each other, practically joined at the hip.
By the time Marinette and Damian were 5, they had a very extensive vocabulary, since they had learned to speak Arabic, French and English. They were also extremely smart and skilled with weapons. 
Marinette was extremely adept at using a yoyo. It seemed weird, I know. But when the League was stormed when she was 3, she had taken out 4 men with her yoyo alone. Since then, she had been teaching herself how to use the yoyo effectively.
Damian preferred to use a katana. He looked much scarier than Marinette, even if the two were the same age. He had found a natural talent in using blades, knives, katanas and daggers included.
Marinette was the Rain to Damian’s Fire. 
She was the only one who could calm Damian down when he was mad, mad.
But make no mistake, Marinette could switch personalities in a heartbeat. She was one of the League’s most skilled interrogators at the age of 5.
After all, who would suspect a pigtailed 5 year old in pink to be scary?
Damian much preferred his stoic and icy attitude. The only people he ever let loose around was Marinette, Sabine, and Talia.
Talia and Sabine loved the children to an almost deadly extent, and the four were extremely overprotective of each other.
Marinette had taken to magic as well. She had been trained by many people in the League about sensing magic. Damian did not have the patience for magic and rituals. 
Marinette knew Damian was more of a ‘attack first ask questions later’ type of fighter, a stark contrast to Marinette’s ‘i will curse you and you will suffer in agonising pain for the rest of your life’ preferred type of fighting.
She’d never really liked getting her hands dirty, hence the magic. Killing people with magic was so much cleaner.
Sabine and Marinette had to leave for Paris when she was 9. For what, she wasn’t sure, but regardless of the distance, she and Damian constantly traded calls and letters. They would never go even a day without contact.
They were staying with one of Sabine’s old friends. His name was Tom Dupain, and he was an old wrestler and had worked with the League before. He and Sabine pretended to be married and Marinette’s name had hence became Marinette Dupain Cheng.
Damian and Talia stayed at the League, although all of them knew that Damian was to meet his birth father when he turned 10.
Marinette adapted her icy demeanor in Paris, never wanting anyone to get as close as she was with Damian. 
A few hours in, walking around Paris, she had met an elderly man in a red Hawaiian shirt, emitting the aura of magic. She had confronted him, and eventually, he opened up to her about the Miraculous. Tikki, the Ladybug kwami, and Plagg, the Black Cat kwami had taken a liking to her.
Marinette was apparently something called a True User, a reincarnation of the first Ladybug miraculous wielder. Plagg just rather liked the aura of death and chaos she apparently gave off, from the League.
She and the other Kwamis also had a rather amicable relationship, and she’d go to the ends of the Earth for the tiny gods, and vice versa.
The elderly man, named Fu, had also started to train her into becoming the new Guardian of the Miraculous.
Before, Marinette had been planning on laying low and not drawing atention to herself, but once she had beaten up two upperclassmen for bullying her classmate and somewhat accquaintance Nino, she had been fiercely regarded by both the students and faculty. 
As a result, she eventually grew close to Nino, and his friends, Kim, Alix and Chloe. She only ever let down her icy demeanour around them, showing the bright and bubbly girl persona she kept hidden. She wasn’t as close to them as she was to Damian, but they were all still quite close friends. 
It wasn’t long after that Marinette became the queen of her school, at the tender age of 10, earning her title as the Ladybug. Or, as Chloe liked to put it, the Lady, because she was lucky enough to ‘get a friend like her’.
Marinette didn’t protest. She rather liked Ladybugs, and besides, it was ironic and it reminded her a little of Damian, who sometimes liked to call her his Maribug. Because she was sometimes a pest, he deadpanned. Marinette had whacked him with a pillow. 
Everyone in the school feared the Ladybug. No one knew anything of her past. She was a mystery, an enigma that no one could solve. When new students came in after Marinette turned 14, everyone was slightly shocked to see their Lady change.
She was much more bubbly and approachable. Word had spread around that Marinette, the Lady, was trying a clean slate for the new kids. After all, not everyone should fear her.
Probably.
School eventually returned to what it was like before Marinette became the Lady, although she did still rule the school, she did it much more subtly, with more restraint and secrecy.
One of the new kids, Alya, had taken a liking to her. Marinette did not like her  very much, she was loud and clingy and drew a lot of unwanted attention. 
Marinette and her old crew, who had playfully called themselves her Consorts before the name stuck, had split up temporarily, to cover more ground and spread their branches.
Chloe was to pretend to be Marinette’s bully, Kim and Alix rivals, and Nino a shy recluse. They had had a good laugh about it beforehand, before watching Moana, because Kim wanted to compare the size of his muscles to Maui’s.
None of them had accounted for Adrien Agreste, who had tried to get the gum off Marinette’s seat like the naive, sheltered boy he was. Marinette had admittedly gotten mad at him for screwing up a perfectly good plan, before ramping up her ice persona to like, a 2/10, to get the newbies off her scent and scare Adrien away.
It hadn’t worked, because the boy was apparently as stubborn as he was naive. But besides that, Alya had been really grating on Marinette’s nerves, especially since she was convinced that Marinette had a crush on the model. It was not true, of course. 
Honestly, Marinette thought dryly, as Alya dragged her all over the place to.. somewhere, she wasn’t even sure anymore. But frankly, she didn’t particularly care. Honestly, the only boy she’d probably ever have a crush on would be Damian.
Not that she’d ever admit it.
-
When Marinette and Damian turned 10, she and Sabine had taken a plane to Gotham to meet up with Damian.
Damian had not been having a good time. He was very much unwanted here, that was clear. 
Grayson seemed to be the only one trying to interact with him. His father, had been trying his best to stay out of Damian’s way, which he reciprocated. Todd was flat out ignoring him and Drake just seemed to be busy all the time.
After all, who would want to interact with a grumpy 10 year old assassin?
He missed Marinette.
It was the day Todd finally tried to open up to Damian, that Marinette had arrived. No one had told him that she was finally meeting him again for the first time in a year. Sabine had left Marinette to figure out where Damian was on her own. She was more than capable of it.
With a quick scrying spell, she found him, and Kaalki opened a portal headed in the direction of Wayne Manor.
Meanwhile, Damian just appreciated the fact that Todd was finally extending an olive branch. He was lonely.
It hurt seeing his father care for everyone in the manor apart from him.
He had been walking along the gardens in the manor. Todd had joined him.
“Listen, I know it’s hard to feel accepted here. Sometimes, I do.” Jason gazed wistfully at the sky above him.
Damian was unsure of where the ex-Robin was getting at, so he just kept quiet. It wasn’t as if Damian didn’t know who Jason Todd was. Before he had come to the manor with Talia, he had read the Waynes’ files. In addition, Damian had known of Jason while he was affiliated with the League. They had never talked, or interacted, but he had known of the elder boy. 
“I just, uh, wanted you to know that if you ever need anything, you can come to me.” He finished lamely, running a hand in his hair.
Damian opened his mouth, then closed it, hesitating. “Thank you, Ja--Todd. I will.” He settled on saying dryly.
Jason visibly relaxed and cracked a miniscule smile. There was a sudden ‘swoosh’ sound, and both Jason and Damian turned around, bodies automatically going on the defensive.
Stumbling out of Alfred’s rose bushes, trodding on a few accidentally, was Marinette.
“Angel!” Damian exclaimed, moving forwards to help her forwards.
She brushed her shoulders off, looking around before freezing, staring at something behind him.
“Jay?”
“Pixie?” He asked, sounding incredulous.
Marinette rushed forward and wrapped him in a tight embrace. Jason laughed and hugged her back, chuckling.
Damian quashed down the bubbling feeling of rage in the pit of his stomach and settled for casting a frosty glance in their direction. Not that they noticed, since they were too busy embracing each other, Damian thought scornfully.
The two pulled apart after too long in Damian’s opinion, laughing.
“Angel? How do you know Todd?” Damian asked coldly, ever so protective.
If Jason noticed the sudden reversion to his surname instead of his first, he didn’t say anything.
“Oh, he came to Paris with Lia once and I cleansed him of the Lazarus pit madness, like I did with you.” She replied.
“What are you doing here?” Jason asked. Damian had forgotten about that.
“Visiting, of course!” She winked. “Now, let’s give your old man a good scare.” She pecked Damian on the cheek before vanishing. (Thanks, Trixx.)
Jason and Damian looked to each other. “Did you know she could do that?” Jason questioned. Damian shook his head before pausing.
“Wait.. how did she get into the manor?” 
The only response was the faint echo of a laugh.
-
It was time for dinner anyway, and only Damian, Jason, and Alfred knew of Marinette’s presence. Marinette had voluntary evelaed herself to the elderly butler after noticing his aura. 
It was Miraculous tainted. If Marinette could guess, he had been either one of Duusu’s, Sass’s, or Nooroo’s.
When the butler had retired to the kitchen alone, Marinette had unraveled Trixx’s magic veiling her and waved at the butler.
To hi credit, he didn’t so much as bat an eye before his eyes widened as he took her in. Marinette cut to the chase.
“Who was your kwami?” Alfred had surveyed her for a second before seemingly trusting her.  
“Duusu.” He answered.
Marinette smiled. “I’m Tikki’s.” From her perch in Marinette’s left pigtail, the red Kwami pried open the folds of her hair, waving once at Alfred before sinking back into the recesses of the bluenette’s locks.
Alfred blinked. Once. Twice. “I’m presuming you’re staying for dinner?”
Marinette beamed. “I’m gonna scare the big bat.” Alfred nodded, accepting this. Marinette clapped her hands and she disappeared again. Alfred shook his head, smiling faintly.
Conveniently, it was one of the times where everyone was there. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian. Rare these days, what with Dick in Bludhaven, Tim at WE, and Jason off being Jason.
Bruce was currently on his way back from WE, although it would take around half an hour. He had told everyone to start eating first. Perfect. 
After Marinette’s encounter with Alfred, she had reappeared in Damian’s room, where she and Damian caught up. Just like old times.
She had disappeared again once she left the room, and Damian wasn’t entirely sure where she went.
Alfred set the the table as per normal, which Damian and Jason noticed right away. They looked to Alfred, who merely winked before stepping back into the kitchen and laying out the food.
There was a screech of a chair as Marinette, disguised as Bruce (Trixx in her right pigtail and Tikki in the left) sat down. Dick looked startled. 
“I thought you wouldn’t be back till later!” Dick exclaimed.
Mari-Bruce shrugged. “Faster than I’d expected.” She answered, securing the veil of Trixx’s magic around her vocal chords, making her voice sound exactly like Bruce’s.
Jason inched away slightly from Bruce, though she pretended not to notice.
Alfred nodded at her as he reentered the room.
Everyone dug in, occasionally talking. It had been about 25 minutes before the sound of the door opening could be heard. Damian and Jason’s head shot up, thinking it was Marinette.
Mari-Bruce smirked. Showtime.
Bruce entered the room, not noticing Mari at first. Until the batboys gaped at him. He looked confused. What--?
Mari-Bruce was a pretty great actress. “Who are you?” She thundered, internally laughing.
“Who are you? I’m Bruce Wayne.” He answered, looking befuddled and frustrated.
“Impostor.” Mari-Bruce accused. 
Bruce spluttered. “No! I’m the real Bruce!” 
Mari-Bruce scoffed. “That’s what an impostor would say.”
Damian and Jason seemed to figure it out, although they probably weren’t sure which Bruce was the real one yet.
Tim rubbed his eyes. “Am I seeing double, or?” 
Bruce said, “Ask me something the real Bruce would know.”
Dick looked torn, but did as requested. “Who murdered your parents?”
“Joe Chill.” They both said at the same time. Mari-Bruce and Bruce winced, selling the act.
“When’s my birthday?” Tim asked. 
“July 17th.” Both Bruces answered.
Tim looked surprised. “You actually know my birthday?”
“No shit, Tim.” Mari-Bruce said, rolling their eyes. She rather wanted to proceed to the next part of her plan. 
“Would I say that to you, Tim?” Bruce asked slightly desperately. 
“Maybe?” 
Bruce facepalmed. In the confusion, Mari took the chance to slink into the shadows where she rewrapped Trixx’s invisible magic around her.
Only Damian noticed. He smirked. “Where did he go?” He asked, placing a hand on the hilt of his katana for emphasis. He didn’t see Marinette smile at him.
Everyone looked panicked. “Search the manor.” Bruce ordered.
Jason still looked slightly skeptical but did as he said. Damian drew his katanas and tilted it in the direction he was going.
Amongst everyone, Bruce was the most attacked. While Jason and Damian paired off, Tim and Dick did as well, ("Don’t go alone!” Was Bruce’s admonished cry), Bruce had gone alone. 
If she were being honest, Marinette had always had a grudge against the billionaire. He hadn’t saved his son, he had tried to kill his son, even though he had a no killing rule --which Marinette thought was plain stupid--, and he had left Damian to suffer at the hands of Ra’s Al Ghul.
Talia could only do so much to save her son.
Yes, Marinette was aware that Bruce hadn’t know Damian existed, but now he was still treating Damian as if he didn’t exist. Marinette knew how much Damian craved affection, even if he never admitted it.
Yes, maybe Bruce was getting better, but maybe she could.. spur the process.
So Marinette retaliated in one of the many ways she knew how.
Messing with them.
So when the Waynes regrouped in the dining room, Jason, Damian, Dick and Tim came back unharmed, and Jason had been filled in by Damian of his suspicions. But Bruce? 
He came back covered in honey and feathers, drenched with water and covered in pink slime. 
“Why is he going after me?” Bruce had questioned in that annoying voice of his, after looking over his spotless sons.
Jason shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t like you. God knows he’s not the only one.” 
Bruce looked slightly hurt but Jason didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
“Maybe this person is infatuated with you and is vying for your attention.” Damian deadpanned dryly. Marinette had smacked him on the back of his head, still invisible.
But the damage had been done.
Bruce snapped his fingers and ‘aha!’-ed at Damian. “That must be it!” Bruce crowed.
“Are you that narcissistic, you arrogant plebeian?” Marinette’s normally cheery voice was dry and dripping with distaste as she unwrapped her magic.
Bruce, Dick and Tim immediately went on the defensive, shifting into a battle stance. Marinette only scoffed.
“If I wanted to harm you, I would have already done so.” Marinette waved a hand in their direction dismissively.
Dick looked confused. “You’re like, ten.” He pointed out.
Damian glared. “I am ten as well, Grayson.” 
Tim butted in. “Are we not going to acknowledge the fact that this tiny ten year old broke into the manor unnoticed?” 
That brought everyone to their senses.
They were suddenly surprised by Marinette running at Jason, full speed. They expected him to duck or whip out a weapon, but all he did was stand still as she flipped in midair to land on his shoulders.
To their utter shock, Jason grinned, even as she fisted her hands in his hair for a better grip.
Damian only smiled fondly at his Angel. She was as short as he remembered, Damian noted. 
He missed her. More than anything.
Marinette beamed, and slid off Jason’s shoulders.
“Why did you attack me?” Bruce asked.  “Isn’t it obvious, fool?” Marinette revamped her icy demeanor and glared at the civilian Batman. “I despise you.”
Bruce looked very affronted. But Mariinette ignored him, even as he continued talking and made her way over to Damian.
“Damibear!” Marinette sang, as if she hadn’t seen him less than an hour ago.
The Waynes looked as if they expected Damian to attack her just for calling him that. They were not expecting him to grin and say, “Angel.”
Mari jumped on his back, and Damian merely repositioned himself accordingly, used to this from all her previous piggybacks.
“Okay so Jason and Damian helped her get into the manor.” Tim deduced, only to notice Jason and Damian shaking their heads.
“All by herself.” Damian and Jason chorused. Marinette made bunny ears on top of Damian’s head.
She kissed Damian’s forehead lovingly, replying to his ‘i am older than you’ with a ‘yeah by like a week’, and looked to his family. 
She winked.
Then disappeared.
There was silence, and then, “Wait, we didn’t even get her name!” From Dick.
Damian and Jason were interrogated that night, and they refused to tell them anything related to Marinette.
Marinette smiled from where she had hidden in the shadows, and made her way back to Damian’s room. She curled up in Damian’s bed, drifting into sleep. She was almost asleep when Damian returned.
And when Damian pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered, “Goodnight, Angel”, a smile made her way onto her lips.
By the time Damian had slipped into bed with her, her head leaning comfortably on his chest, she had fallen asleep.
-
When the two turned 15, Talia and Sabine sat them down and told them about the betrothal. Damian had been visiting with Talia.
It had been almost two months since Lila had turned her classmates against her, not that she cared, of course. She still had her Consorts after all.
“Marinette, Damian, we’d like to tell you something. An offer? Of sorts. I’m relatively sure you will accept, however.” 
Talia smiled as Marinette dragged a grumpy Damian over to them by the head, beaming brightly.
“Oh come on, Mian! Don’t be such a grumpy banana.” Marinette reprimanded the older boy who was rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
The boy only smiled lazily, and ran another hand through his best friend’s hair, the girl making a small noise of protest. “Thats what you get for calling me a noodle, Angel.” (if you didn’t know miàn means noodle in chinese)
Sabine cleared her throat but looked at the two with amusement clear in her eyes.
They straightened. “Sorry, maman,” Mari muttered.
“Now, before you two were born, Sabine and I had an agreement. We are perfectly fine with this and the implications of it, so it is up to you to whether to accept or not.” Talia got straight to the point.
The two children looked to each other curiously before turning back to their parents. Damian nodded in acknowledgment and Sabine picked up where Talia left off.
“How do you feel about each other?” Sabine asked, watching the two closely for their reactions.
“If that’s your way of asking us if we’re okay to be siblings, since you and Lia are dating, Maman--” Marinette started but was quickly interrupted by a barely noticeably flushed Talia.
“No, not that, and we aren’t dating, Nette.” Talia aimed a playful glare at the girl, who grinned and blew a raspberry at her.
“How would you and Damian like to be betrothed?” Sabine asked, smiling at her friend and daughter fondly.
Marinette spluttered and Damian coughed. 
Talia and Sabine burst out into laughter.
After the adults got their laughter under control and after a few glares from their kids, Damian spoke up.
“Marinette is my best friend. If I had to be betrothed to anyone, I’m glad it’s her.” Damian looked away and Marinette coughed awkwardly into her elbow.
“You misunderstand us. You don’t have to be betrothed. The choice is yours.”
Damian felt slightly attacked. He really did like Marinette, and the betrothal was an easy excuse to ask her out (even if he was a 15 year old). He didn’t know if Marinette felt the same way, and he didn’t want to impose that on her, so he kept quiet.
Marinette, who was looking deep in thought, answered.
“Can I talk to Damian for a while, privately?”
Damian, despite his better judgement, winced. This was probably the first time in a really long time that Marinette called him by his full name. It was normally Dami, Damibear to annoy him, or some other weird nickname like Mr Grumpy Banana this morning.
Regardless, the bluenette hadn’t called him “Damian” for a very long time. Two years, maybe.
She walked out of the room, Damian trailing slightly behind, before stopping a few feet outside the room.
Marinette slid down onto the floor, her back pressed against it and head in her hands. Damian frowned. He didn’t want his best friend looking so.. dejected. He ignored the slight pang of hurt that the thought of being with him could get this kind of reaction out of her.
He sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder like he always did when any of them felt upset. He was happy to feel her lean into his side like she always did. 
She turned her head and buried it in Damian’s side, breathing in his comforting scent of paints and nature. He tightened his hold on her ever so slightly and she almost burst into tears.
It wasn’t that she was opposed to being in an engagement with Damian, it was just that she didn’t particularly want to be with anyone or love anyone, especially after her father died and Damian’s father abandoned him.
Her mother and aunt didn’t show it, but they were sad about their fathers. She had heard Talia interacting with her ‘beloved’ before, and it almost always ended up in tears or frustration. (Not that Mari blamed her, Bruce was kind of an asshole.)
She felt Damian’s chin press into her scalp and a hint of a smile grazed her lips. But this was Damian. Damian who was her best friend. Damian who supported her no matter what. Damian who comforted her and was there for her whenever she needed it.
Damian would never hurt her. And she was determined never to hurt him, ever, if she could help it.
She looked up and smiled at Damian. The smile he loved so much, the smile she always had on whenever she saw him, the smile that would unconsciously fly to her lips whenever she heard his voice.
Maybe it was then that Marinette should’ve known that she loved her best friend, but then again, she was only fifteen. She didn’t know what love was. But she would. Very soon.
“We accept.” Damian told Sabine and Talia when they reentered the room.
“We thought you would.” Talia replied.
-
When Marinette turned 16, her last year at Francois Dupont, six months since she’d made Lila’s time a living hell with her Ladybug (both in suit and in school), and fashion clients connections, the Waynes had visited.
Turns out, Damian and Jason got caught trying to sneak onto the Wayne private jet but instead of stopping them, they insisted they came along too, having pieced together that Damian and Jason were going to visit the mysterious tiny girl they couldn’t find the name of.
So they had no choice.
And os that leads to now, with the Waynes standing in the courtyard, elicting a growing crowd as they waited for Marinette, looking the part of scary rich people that can end your life without a problem.
Damian suddenly started running, and he hugged a girl. No one could see who the girl was because her head was buried in Damian’s chest and his body was shielding hers.
Not many people in the courtyard was surprised when they pulled away and standing there was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. After all, she was one of the most successful students in class that didn’t get fame from famous relatives. No, al her fame was hers alone.
In fact, the only people surprised were Marinette’s class, not-so-fondly referred to as the Akuma Class.  Her Consorts were the only one who knew of her betrothed, Damian. Other than that, Marinette had never been willing to share. 
When Marinette saw the other Waynes however, after hugging Jason, she rolled her eyes. Bruce, Dick and Tim stalked forwards, looking every inch the scary billionaires they were.
It was broken by Dick hugging the girl and gushing over how cool she was. Tim smiled at her and she had smiled back. Marinette flipped Bruce the bird.
“Why are you... so sunny? You definitely weren’t like that when you threatened us in Gotham. You were such an ice queen.” Tim mentioned, failing to keep the amusement out of his tone.
“What do you mean? Marinette’s always been like that, even if she is a bitch now. There’s no way she can be cold.” Alya remarked snidely.
Alix and Chloe stalked forward, raising thier fists threatningly. But Marinette only laughed coldly.
“You wanna see cold, Cesaire?” Marinette snarled, dropping all acts of being nice. 
The Lady was back. Publicly.
The silence was interrupted by Rose, who asked, "But Lila, don't you know the Waynes?"
Said Lila had been trying to slink away unnoticed, but when her name was mentioned, all attention diverted back to her, effectively keeping her in place. Her pale face and scared eyes were enough to tell that she had indeed been lying. 
Yells and screams broke out across the courtyard as the Akuma Class berated Lila for lying to them all this while. Until, Marinette interrupted, face set in a ice cold, stony position 
"Okay, blame her for lying." She started. "But why did you believe her?" 
The Akuma Class drew a blank and didn't respond. Partially because they didn't know what to say, and partially because Marinette's mere presence was overwhelmingly intimidating. Marinette sighed and pressed on. 
"Everything the Liar has said can be found faulty by a simple internet search." It was true, and the class knew it. When no one replied, Marinette shook her head sardonically. "You reap what you sow." 
She turned to her betrothed. In an instant, her icy mood was gone, replaced with the sunshiney-ness the Akuma Class had grown used to. 
"C'mon, Dami!" She gave him a quick peck on the lips, hoisting herself up on Damian's back. Damian grasped her legs tightly, as she continued to be piggybacked by him. 
"Onward!" She cried out dramatically, pointing to the school exit. 
Damian only rolled his eyes fondly at his beloved, steering themselves out, her Consorts and his family behind them. 
None of them looked back. 
If they did, they would've seen the expressions of disbelief and regret etched onto every one of her old classmates' faces. 
Not that they would care.
-
5k words yay
also uh yeah again, sorry this took so long, i kept hitting a mental block while writing this and it didnt manage to upload from my phone for no good reason :( 
but anyway its up now, i hope u find this acceptable! :)
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its-an-inxp-again · 3 years
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Hey
Idk if you ever got the answer to your thing. But I’m a person who is queer but regularly uses the term lesbian to make things simpler. I can tell you why I hate the phrase monosexual- it feels transphobic to me- I am not attracted to men at all, but I am attracted to women, non-binary folks, gender queer folks, and agender folks. If I was with a partner and they transitioned to be a man I would still love them. That wouldn’t change. Sexuality is fluid and calling someone monosexual seems to erase that and really put people in boxes. Everyone has exceptions. And as someone who has identified as bisexual and pansexual in the past and find those not to suit me and fit right (especially since I am not sexually/romantically attracted to people physically/based on appearances- it’s more about personality and what I could do with a person)
I don’t mean this in an antagonistic way, I really hope it doesn’t come off that way(I’m bad expressing myself sorry).
(I’m sorry, I know you’re not trying to be rude. My answer, however, will sound rude and upset because you touched upon some stuff that needs a lot of unpacking to me lmao. Just know this anger is not necessarily directed at you but at biphobia in general.)
Why do bisexual people may need to use the term monosexual?
A. It is descriptive
I see what you mean but as you said you're queer and lesbian is a term to make things simpler, right?
So I wouldnt call you monosexual because you’re clearly not attracted to only one gender (but if you want to who I am to stop you?). Monosexual is someone who is almost exclusively dating/is attracted to people of one gender. There are plenty trans people that are straight or gay that would NOT date a partner if they realized they were a different gender. For real: kat blaque made a video (here it is if youre interested) on youtube about this - she’s trans and she wants to date men and wouldnt feel comfortable on continuing dating if a partner of hers realized they were actually a trans woman all along. She wants to date guys not girls and that's FINE it just means A. She actually recognizes the girl gender, obviously B. She's straight af and that's wonderful! It’s not a box if that’s how her experience is and she likes it that way!
Also how is being monosexual transphobic? Cant a girl just like guys exclusively (both cis and trans) or like girls exclusively (both cis and trans)? It's not even enbyphobic since you dont need to be attracted to a person to support their rights. (Gay men arent attracted to women but can be 100% feminists.) Being open to fuck somebody is not the same as supporting their rights: fetishization is a thing. Again, I refer to the video Kat Blaque made.
Sexuality IS fluid but to some people (like me and you) it is more than others. Some people don’t feel comfortable dating people that dont fall into the gender theyre usually attracted to and thats 100% okay.
B. It helps in talking about biphobia and panphobia in society
Biphobia and panphobia are for the large part based on the assumption that you cant be attracted to more than one gender (not even non-binary and so on) and that if you do you're weird/disgusting/mentally ill/a sexual predator. I can tell you 100% that's the narrative both straight and gay people can and may perpetuate since I struggle w this kind of shit every single time Im attracted to someone no matter their gender (YES, EVEN IF THEY'RE A GUY, BECAUSE THE OTHER DAY I WAS ATTRACTED TO A GIRL AND NOW I FEEL LIKE A FUCKING ANIMAL THAT CANT CONTROL ITSELF, even though it makes NO sense because if it was two girls or two boys the actual number of people my hormones activated to wouldnt change, but it would make my experience not subjected to biphobia!). I’m not saying gay people are the same as straight people. But I do feel alienated BOTH from heteronormative society AND from (subtly biphobic) gay spaces because of my bisexuality. I costantly feel like I’m outside both of those worlds and you know how humans are: I just need a term to encompass it all easily, to say “I don’t identify with any of this” (which is both straight and strictly gay spaces: ie, monosexual). To me is literally the same as saying non-bisexual/non-pansexual.
I dont mean to say lesbians or gays have it easier or are just like straight people. But we do have different experiences and I need terms to express that. It honestly doesnt matter to me if you identify as lesbian or queer (though I think you’re implying you’re more queer than anything). But I do need a term to talk about how society at large treats sexuality; ie, as a monosexual thing. Another concept that’s been thrown around is bi erasure. A strictly monosexual society is bound to view a girl dating a girl (or girl presenting) as if theyre both LESBIANS and erase a queer person the moment they’re in a m/f relationship, because people cant COMPUTE that it may not be the case and that the girl dating a cis straight dude isnt betraying her queerness.To think so is basic biphobia.
In some ways, I think it’s the same as when transgender people started using the term cisgender - which is applicable to both straight people and queer/gay people. They simply needed a term which meant “not-trans” as they were saying “I dont identify with this” (ie the cisgender experience). Does it imply that cisgender people, no matter if queer, have something in common? Yeah, yeah it does. Does it imply that queer people are just the same as straight people, or face no oppression? Of course not. Seeing people being offended upon being called monosexual feels like people being offended upon being called cis to me.
Also, saying that the terms bisexual people use are transphobic is almost implying that bisexuality is inherently transphobic? Or reeks to me of that kind of rhetoric. I use the terms I need to use, just like any other marginilized group does, and nobody outside of that group has any right of denying me that. It’s like I’m trying to create a safe space for myself and people like me and yall come around to judge us YET AGAIN. And I'm just tired of hearing this bullshit. I could accept this kind of criticism only if it came from a trans person themselves, I guess? But it’s not usually trans people who accuse us of being transphobic, in fact, many trans people identify as bisexual and use bisexual terminology lmfao.
“Hearts not parts” rhetoric
Finally, about personality being superior to physical appearance. That's amazing but I do want to note that, not you necessarily, but many people who are into the “hearts not parts” rhetoric are, how can I say this. Slut-shaming people? I’m not sure if you are doing this but I feel it needs to be said just to be sure. A lesbian trans woman can be just attracted to a girl for her physical appearance and just want to fuck her - and THAT'S OKAY. That's fine. I am a sexually attracted to people and that doesnt mean I have to form a deep bond first. Sex positivity is about accepting that people can feel like this and not shame them for this. "Hearts not parts” rhetoric has in the past infantilized, sanitized or outright shamed other queer experiences. It's fine if you feel that way but dont start acting like you're morally superior because of that. That's catholicism with extra steps. My bisexuality its not the symptom of some predatory and animalistic thing that should be purified into something more palatable and less sexual. That’s the same thing they used to say about gay people and now gay (biphobic) people are using this against us. That’s also the kind of thing trans women (especially if they’re sapphic) constantly hear every fucking day. Queer people have a good part of their discrimination rooted in the shaming of purely sexual desires. Forcing ourselves to be more palatable and less sexual is just respectability politics. I’m tired of it. (This is obviously different from being on the asexual spectrum: but you dont see ace people going around pretending they’re morally superior than everybody else, and many are actually very sex positive)   You would still love your partner if they were a different gender: that’s great, but that’s not how some (most) people feel, and they aren’t superficial because of this, just different from you.
Also, I think you’d really benefit from hearing a trans person say they don’t care if someone has genitalia preferences. Here it is. This obviously doesnt mean that every trans person will feel like she does, but it does mean that we can’t generalize trans experiences/preferences/what they feel transphobia is. Just like straight people dont get to say what’s homophobic or not, cis people dont get to say what’s transphobic or not. The definition of those terms relies entirely on the community that is targeted by these things.
I hope this wasnt excessively confusing but I wanted to make my point clear.
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into-control · 3 years
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Into i need help. I bought a oculus quest 2 right and i tried to connect it to my laptop and it wont work so I realized i needed and actual pc gaming setup you know, problem is idk anything about PCs and i dont wanna get scammed. Can you help me? Ive looked online and idk wtf im looking at tbh. Can you give like advice and shit lol 😂 love you into 💕
well i'm not a professional at pcs by any means but i've always had a huge fixation on them so i can try to help as much as possible and i'll even try to put it in simple terms. fair warning, i talk A LOT in this post because i love rambling about computers :') i tried to use the simplest terms possible since you seem confused but if something doesn't make sense just ask and i can try to reword.
it all depends on what you want out of your pc. and do you want to build one or get a prebuilt one? if you want my advice i recommend building one. getting a prebuilt pc is the easiest way to get scammed because retailers tend to overcharge and they think they can get away with it because they stuck a flashy high end graphics card and colourful lights in it even though it has shit airflow and they cheaped out on the motherboard and power supply or something like that. if you're going to get a prebuilt pc make sure you look at allll the specs and consult some online reviews to see if they're any good, and figure out if you're going to be overcharged. now i'll talk about building one. a lot of this will still be useful if you're considering buying a prebuilt though.
the very first step is deciding your budget. idk where you are but in USD the typical amount to spend on pc parts is i think like $1000 - 1500 (you can spend less but that's if you don't have a lot of money to spend and are still desperate to have a gaming pc). i'm spending around $1700 CAD (before taxes, eugh) on mine bc i want to get into more demanding games eventually. it sounds very costly but computers like these can last you a decade and are very multifaceted. figuring out your budget first instead of going right ahead and buying stuff is important because each component should take up specific percentages of your budget. another important thing to consider when deciding your budget is if you want RGB (the colourful lights as previously mentioned), because components with that capability are slightly more expensive.
after deciding your budget, your first move is deciding what graphics card (GPU) you want. the GPU is responsible for processing and presenting the visuals on your screen. theoretically it should take up between 35 - 40% of your budget because it is the powerhouse in a gaming system. you have two developers to choose from here: NVIDIA or AMD. from what i've seen people tend to prefer NVIDIA but AMD cards aren't bad and they definitely compete in performance. i'll talk about nvidia though because that's what i know more about. by searching up the oculus quest 2 system requirements it tells me you at least need an nvidia geforce gtx 970. this card came out in 2014 and is by no means bad however it is actually the same base price as a lot of newer cards. if you want to go better than the minimum requirements, first consider what your monitor is capable of. if you don't have one yet, consider what you want it to do. monitors are not considered a part of the budget i keep mentioning by the way. idk how much this matters to you since we're talking about the oculus quest 2 but i'm just kind of assuming you're going to use this pc for other games too. the main two things to take into consideration are max resolution and refresh rate. my monitor has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a 144hz refresh rate. what the resolution means is that there are 2,073,600 pixels in the screen, and can go up to a resolution of 1080p in video games. the refresh rate means the monitor can refresh the picture on the screen 144 times a second, therefore can show a max of 144 frames per second in a video game. to put that in to perspective, most screens have a refresh rate of 60hz, such as regular laptop screens, iphone screens, etc.. monitors come in mainly 60hz, 75hz, 144hz, and 165hz, and for resolution they mainly come in 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. seeing as i don't have any plans on upgrading my monitor any time soon, dropping extra money on a GPU that can achieve more than 144fps and 1440p/4k would be pointless. but forget about the monitor, the oculus quest 2 has a max refresh rate of 120hz and its resolution lies somewhere between 1080p and 1440p. if you know what kind of games you're going to be playing, look up how they perform with different kinds of cards. i'm fairly certain anything above an nvidia geforce rtx 3070 would be pointless because of your display limits, and anything below the nvidia geforce gtx 970 simply won't be enough for the system. you can look at all the GPUs ranked here. after deciding which GPU you want you need to figure out which brand of it you want (NVIDIA themselves, asus, gigabyte, evga, etc), because they all perform at slightly different levels, although the difference is usually only a few frames so it's better to save money. something to watch out for is the quality of the fans in the GPU because if they aren't good, it will overheat and underperform. i'm aiming to get a 3060 or 3060 ti, if that helps. the only problem is that there is currently a worldwide GPU shortage due to covid, tariffs, and the cryptocurrency mining boom (gpus are used in bulk to mine). fortunately there is currently a crypto mining crackdown happening in china, where majority of mining in the world happens, so the demand for GPUs will hopefully start going down soon. you wont be able to build your pc right away but the market is looking better than it has in awhile. this is just about the only argument i have in favor of getting a prebuilt pc, because they have GPUs in them and are more readily available. i don't think that's a good enough reason though especially since part of the reason i'm building my pc is because it looks fun lol. another thing to note is that you should not overspend on your GPU. the shortage has caused a lot of GPU prices to skyrocket into the $2k-3k range but none of them should be above 1k except the highest end ones. when deciding on a GPU, search up the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). cards made by brands other than AMD and NVIDIA will almost always cost a little extra, but do not pay hundreds of
extra dollars. but anyways!! the GPU is now out of the way and is definitely the longest paragraph here because it's the most important part.
next up is the central processing unit (CPU), which you should be spending about 20 - 25% of your budget on. its job is essentially to retrieve instructions from the RAM and execute it. i suppose you could call it the brain. again you have two developers to choose from, this time between intel and AMD. i've had two laptops with an intel CPU and my current one has an AMD CPU and both are very good, however the general consensus is that you can get the same performance for less by going with AMD. CPUs have cores, and each core can run its own process. the more cores you have, the more your pc can think about basically. you can get CPUs will all sorts of amounts of cores but for gaming, 4 or 6 cores is all you really need. 8 is actually already a bit overkill. so you really don't need to get the best CPU out there. the one you get should depend on what GPU you get (hence choosing that component first). you don't want to bottleneck your GPU by getting a CPU that isn't good enough for it, but bottlenecking your CPU with the GPU by a small amount isn't as big of a deal because the goal is to allow your GPU to be used to its full ability. another detail about CPU is clock speed, which determines how quick it can complete tasks. the higher the faster, obviously. my (non gaming) laptop's CPU clock speed is 2.30 GHz and has 4 cores. the cpu i have for my build is the AMD ryzen 5 5600x. it has a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz but it can be maxed out to 4.6 GHz, and it has 6 cores. the oculus quest 2 has a minimum requirement of the AMD ryzen 5 1500x or the intel i5-4590, which is a little low on the performance list. but like i said the CPU should depend on the GPU. all it takes is a google search for which CPU goes best with the GPU you've chosen and you can find several answers depending on if you want the best possible performance, best budget performance, etc.. a nice little fact about choosing AMD over intel is that most AMD CPUs will come with a stock cooler, which is absolutely necessary otherwise your CPU will overheat (this is another thing prebuilts will cheap out on). this only adds to the whole price-to-performance thing. the stock cooler will most likely do unless you push your pc or want the build to look prettier.
next on the list is a motherboard, where all the parts come together in unity. you should spend 8 - 10% of your budget on this baby. it's easy to over and underspend on a mobo. the most important thing when it comes to choosing a mobo is that it supports your CPU. you cannot use the same mobo for intel and AMD CPUs. fortunately the product page will straight up tell you which CPU brand the mobo is meant for and will typically have two versions of the same board. it's important to note that motherboards don't always have onboard wifi, meaning it wont be able to connect to the internet via wifi and instead needs an ethernet cable or an external wifi adapter. if you can't get an ethernet cable to the room where you want your pc, you're going to need onboard wifi, or a wifi card/usb. onboard wifi mobos tend to be more expensive so it's up to you, but i personally bought one with wifi included so i wouldn't have to worry about it because our ethernet cables are in the basement and i'm upstairs. another very important thing about motherboards is that their BIOS version (operating system i guess?? idk how else to describe it) doesn't always support your CPU out of the box and must be updated before using it. this can present as a problem if you don't have another CPU to perform the update with, however some motherboards allow you to 'flash' the BIOS with a only usb drive as long as it's hooked up to power. there are plenty of step by step youtube videos about how to do this. i will have to do this with my motherboard when the time comes because it doesn't support ryzen 5s out of the box. don't let this deter you from getting a certain board as long as it has a BIOS flash feature. next up is what I/O ports you want, which are the ports (usb ports, headphone/mic jack, hdmi port, etc) you'd find on the back of any desktop computer. that is the side of the motherboard. basically just be aware of how many of each ports you want, and remember that there will probably be even more ports on the front of the case you get. the last thing i can think of right now is making sure your motherboard has all the headers (where you plug components in) you want it to have but i'll get to that later.
next up on the list is RAM, aka random access memory. this stores short term data. the amount of RAM you have kind of determines how much your pc can multitask. RAM sticks typically go up by some multiple of 2GB. most standard laptops and desktops nowadays will come with 8GB of RAM, which is enough for day to day use. it can be enough for mid and low end games however it cuts it pretty close most of the time. 16GB of RAM is the sweet spot for gaming and anything above that is pretty much overkill (and once again a waste of money) as long as you don't have a billion unnecessary background processes. a large amount of RAM is typically needed for video editors or computer programmers. you should always make sure your motherboard can support the amount of RAM you want although any good motherboard will support 64GB or even 128GB. the best option is to get a 16GB RAM pack, which will include two 8GB RAM sticks. splitting RAM between two sticks will increase efficiency. this is called dual channel. i also recommend getting DDR4 RAM, which is simply faster than DDR3. a good speed to have is around 3600 MHz. make sure your motherboard supports DDR4. you also want to be weary that your RAM is compatible with your CPU brand because they do have to interact for your pc to function.
next is storage. there are three-ish options here depending on how much you're willing to spend. generally you should spend 8 - 10% of the budget here. you can always get a good ole hard drive for the cheapest, however they are the slowest and physically biggest option, meaning whatever you put on it will take a bit longer for your pc to retrieve and open (they can load about 100-200MB of data per second). the next option is a solid state drive. they are a little more expensive but can load as much as 600MB of data per second and take up less space. the last and most efficient/expensive option is an m.2 nvme drive. these things are physically absolutely tiny and can load up to 4GB of data per second. anything you put on these will open very very quickly. the fairly standard solution for this is a combination of two of these three. personally i'm using one m.2 drive and one hard drive. the hard drive i have can store 2TB while the m.2 drive can only store 256GB. funnily enough these two drives are roughly the same price. the idea here is to install your operating system on the faster drive. this makes it so it only takes like 8 seconds tops for your pc to start up. you can also put any other programs you use most often on there (like your main browser and favourite games) and they will open very quickly, while the bulk of your games and other files will go on the bigger drive. that's all there really is to say for storage, just make sure the reviews are good on the drive you want to get, but that goes for any component.
next is your power supply (PSU). very very important to not cheap out on this. 6 - 8% of the budget should go to this. the function of the PSU is to do exactly what its name implies: supply power to all the components. this is where the website pcpartpicker can come in very handy. not only does it help you build a list of parts that are all compatible with each other, it will also estimate how much wattage you will need to run your pc. 600W is usually enough for a normal gaming pc. PSUs are ranked, and you should never really go below a bronze ranking. you can also choose between non-modular, semi-modular, and fully-modular PSUs. non-modular PSUs have all the cables permanently attached. this can be desirable to people who are confused by what cable is plugged in where but also undesirable as unused cables cannot be removed and make cable management harder. fully-modular PSUs come with the cables all in a separate bag so you choose which ones to plug in. semi-modular power supplies have the necessary cables attached and the rest can be attached need be. it all depends on preference and how much faith you have in yourself. i have an 80+ gold certified fully modular 750W PSU because the thought of unnecessary cable management makes me sick lol. corsair is pretty much the most trusted brand for power supplies. be careful because this is another place prebuilts will cut corners.
now for the case! this one isn't overly difficult to choose and mainly will just appeal to your aesthetics. it's less important to stick to a precise percent of the budget for this one but you also don't want to spend more than 8%. do you want a black case? a white one? do you want a glass side panel so you can see inside your pc and admire your hard work? besides that, you also need to make sure the case is big enough for your motherboard, GPU, and PSU. most info pages for cases will tell you the max size of the GPU and PSU and what size of mobo it's meant for. you also want to make sure there is a place to put your storage drives (unless you only have m.2 drives which are installed on the motherboard). you also want to make sure it has optimal airflow abilities. a case with no airflow will cause overheating. the best ones have mesh fronts and tops to allow cool air to be pulled in and hot air out. it's even better if you can get a case that comes with fans in the front, because they are what pulls that cool air in.
next is the CPU cooler, which i briefly mentioned. if you don't get an AMD CPU then you'll need to buy a separate cooler. you can choose between air coolers (a fan and a heatsink) or liquid coolers. i don't really have much to say about them and i recommend doing your own research on liquid coolers lol.
last but not least, case fans. like i said a lot of cases will come with front fans and also an exhaust fan at the back, however you might want more, or even replace the ones you already have with better ones. pay attention to how many fans your case manual says can fit and plan accordingly. check out reviews to see if the fans you want are quiet and efficient. if you buy a three pack of case fans there is a chance it will come with a fan hub. this makes it easier to control all of them in sync because the hub will connect all the fans to one header on the motherboard. generally 3-6 fans are pretty good for a gaming pc. two or three in the front pulling in cool air, one at the back and two on the top to pull out hot air.
now that i have all the components out of the way i'm gonna talk about RGB lighting. numerous components that i've mentioned have the option of including LED lights to make your pc brightly coloured, which is always nice if you have a glass side panel on your pc. it's an extra bit of money but i personally was willing to sacrifice that because i want to show off my build lmao. motherboards, RAM sticks, GPUs, CPU coolers, and case fans are the main components that can come with RGB lighting. you can also get special LED strips and power connectors designed for PCs. if you decide to go for RGB lighting, do try to stick to one RGB ecosystem, meaning make sure all the RGB components can be controlled by one program. RGB is controlled by your motherboard. for example if you get an asus motherboard you'll probably want to use their program, aura sync. most components can be controlled by any brand's program however if the motherboard itself has RGB lighting it can only be controlled via its own brand's program, along with the GPU. if you want RGB case fans you really have to make sure your motherboard has RGB headers (the thingy on the motherboard where you plug the fan's LED lights into). most motherboards will only have two-ish RGB headers so if you're going to buy a bunch of fans make sure they come with a fan hub, which lets you plug them all into one header on the motherboard. also, never sacrifice performance for RGB. specifically when it comes to GPUs. if you have a choice between a GPU with RGB and a GPU without RGB, always take the one that has better performance (given it's within the parameters i mentioned earlier).
that's all i have to say :) if you couldn't tell i really love this stuff. i will also recommend you watch youtube videos about this, you can see the build process and the reasoning for using each component, and also tips on what to do and what not to do. i hope this helps and wasn't too confusing. i know you said this is mainly because you got an oculus quest 2 but if you're going to get a gaming pc you should definitely consider games outside of the oculus too.
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ughgclden · 3 years
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bee, love, don’t apologise, please, it’s okay, and first and foremost, are you alright?? i hope you’re taking care of yourself, love, but i understand, i don’t think there’s been a year since third grade that i haven’t gotten pneumonia in the winter. I hope you’re feeling alright!!
honestly, dead poets society is one of my only personality traits anymore, i find myself drawing parallels to it constantly, for no reason but i love thinking about it. i’ve watched it so many times at this point, it’s,,, concerning. those tests always take me way less time than they give me, and i used to feel really awkward, i remember i took a bio one once, four hours they gave me, 45 minutes in, i was finished, and the moderator didn’t believe me. i aced it too, like the silly little neil kinnie i am. i’ve gotten used to the ‘worse’ side of being a neil kinnie, and honestly, now that my mum isn’t as controlling about everything as she used to be, it’s easier to deal with. i remember once, i’d gotten an 89 in algebra, and she threatened to pull me out of the fall show. that was a neil perry moment if i ever had one lol. the biggest thing these days is just imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome like oh you’re not hispanic enough, but also, you’re not queer enough, nonbinary enough, things like that. It’s exacerbated some days, but i try.
i watched the it movies on my cousin’s hbo,,, i may or may not have used it without her permission since she forgot to log out of my computer, but that’s neither here nor there. i remember having such a hard time taking the first one seriously initially, because of all the new kids on the block jokes, having a mum who was obsessed with them made it hard, especially when i actually got them all- in truth, the only midnight premiere i’ve been able to make was the force awakens, and i had school the next day too. i’m definitely a richie kinnie, and i have the internalised homophobia (only towards myself though) to prove it /hj my waterbottle has both a sticker of neil on it and a sticker of the r + e carving on it. in case there was any doubt about me lmao. stan kin makes sense for you, honestly, i can see it, i can see it.
okay so listen- no really, i’d bought them with the intention of only drinking half of one that night and spreading them out like that, but then came 9:45pm, and i had a research paper (on womens’ pockets/lack thereof) due at 10am that i simply hadn’t even started, so i downed them all in an hour and got the paper turned in at 5:56 in the morning. but i scare you huh? /hj bee, you’re too sweet, in truth, i’m fairly inelegant, but i try, as for the comforting and cosy, i’ll take you at your word, since that is something only someone interacting with me could discern. i do try to be kind to others for the most part. mainly i think because i’m usually on the other end of mean people.
i’m just perceptive like that bee, i dunno what to tell you, something just tells me, you know? /j and thank you, i always feel a little silly talking about it, because most of the tattoos i want are dead poets society tattoos, i guess some part of me, within the part of me that feels so incredibly tied to it, feels as if if i were able to get a tattoo i’d owe it to the movie in some way, if that makes any sense. i’ve already begged a friend of mine to go with me to get my first once i get to new york, the question though, is what to get first. i’ve got time to make a decision (for once in my life) i just spend a lot of time thinking about it.
honestly, i have never known a school rule to make sense. banning ripped jeans? banning dyed hair? it’s almost as if if they don’t stifle everything natural about kids expressing themselves they dont feel like they’re doing anything. but i digress. the same-sex couple rules were. awful. 12 year old me had enough going on without having an administrator yell at my friend and i for hugging in the courtyard and not leaving until we were a foot apart, but hey.
okay, jumping over a fence to go to a mcdonalds? how coming of age indie movie manic pixie dream girl of you /hj
200k words, is that a challenge? also ahaha not at all like my italian uncle up there just opened a ‘pizzeria’ /hj but mob!star au? might be a project i should start… granted, i’m not as good a storyteller as you, but i can try.
when i was little, i wanted to revolutionise things, i guess. i even actually wrote out a campaign, i wonder if its still somewhere. thank you for believing in me, but these days, bee, i’m thinking less about changing the world, and more about making it the next few weeks, and then the ones after that. little star was aware of so much, but also so little. i wonder what they’d think of me now, honestly.
i did, in fact, teach archery, it was so fun but my arms got SO SORE, and the kid who challenged my archery skills seemed surprised when i actually,, hit the bullseyes. my inner susan was happy then. incidentally the experience is also why i made a playlist called “touchstarved and wanting to teach you to shoot a bow” which low-key slaps when i’m lonely. and bee omg i cannot believe you said im better than susan pevensie i will be thinking about this for the rest of my life thank you- and yes, yes it was named aslan, however did you guess? /j prince caspian<33333
i’ll let you know my results from the tournament, as soon as they come out, and i say this having just put on pjs after taking off my suit, and sitting in the room with my cat in my dear evan hansen hoodie, frantically refreshing the results page because i’m anxious and impatient.
i hope you have a good night, with fitful and restful sleep, i’m sorry this got to be so long, but you know me, i certainly can talk. i’m honestly shocked i even made it to finals, considering i was running off four hours of sleep, having gone to bed at three last night. whoops.
all my love, hugs, and a warm mug of tea,
yours,
star✨
p.s i said yes so that?? happened?? it honestly feels surreal but we’re not gonna be in the same place anymore come the end of this year, so that’ll be something to deal with
P.p.s might just start adding spanish or latin or russian phrases to these if i keep having to translate your cute french bee /lh /hj
star my love, i know you said don't apologise, but i think the word 'sorry' makes up about 60% of my vocabulary. i'm okay!! was just a bit icky, but luckily i've recovered now!!
that's so nice - and again, makes so much sense for you. i think you would work perfectly in welton, i know it. i love bringing the messages from that film into my own life, as silly as it may sound. i'm astonished, and so fucking jealous of you. i used to finish tests maybe half an hour early, but hours is so impressive??? fun fact i did finish my physics final in about 45 minutes and slept for the other hour <3 neil would b proud my love!!! oh my god - i'm so sorry that happened??? but that is also so neil kinnie??? it seems futile me saying this, but i assure you that you are hispanic enough, and queer enough, and non-binary enough. you are enough, period. more than enough even. imposter syndrome is the worst, and i'm so so sorry you're dealing with it.
she did that to herself, you just saw an opportunity /lh a midnight premiere of the force awakens sounds so cute though omg - i hope you had the absolute best time. the r + e carving actually broke me. as a die hard reddie shipper since 2017, seeing the movie make it basically canon?! had me a mess in the cinema.
you are ridiculously comforting and cosy, everything about you feels like a warm hug from a familiar face and i love it. and the way you write is so smooth, it makes me think of a quill smoothly gliding across parchment, the deep black ink unsmudged and pristine. that seems a little pretentious of me, but oh well.
i also want some dps tattoos!! i desperately want "and still we sleep" from todd's poem, and was also so so tempted to get an outline drawing of meeks + pitts dancing on the roof. i love that, and i can't wait until the day you get it, whichever one it may be. my one concern is becoming addicted to them and making my bank account suffer - at least my piercing obsession is a little easier to fund /hj
i've NEVER gotten that - they claim it's 'distracting' but how on earth would it be?? when i got to college, no one was distracted by my dyed hair, and i certainly wasn't distracted by other people's outfits or painted nails. you were yelled at. for hugging. a friend.. what the fuck is wrong with these people??
just call me ramona flowers star /j it was possibly the highlight of my school career, sans hiding in the back room of the music room to avoid a maths test
i bet you're an amazing storyteller, if these letters are anything to go by. it would be a new york times best seller, i know it
we all have to take things one step at a time, i think. that's the only way i really get through things if i'm honest. one day after another and the cycle repeats. i love wondering what young me would think of me now - i'd probably be intimidated of myself, but i like to think i'd be proud that i'm still here, pursuing something i love
that playlist. sounds nothing short of sheer perfection. i too am touch starved and want to teach someone to shoot a bow - even though i.. cannot shoot a bow... but i can wield a sword so, it's close enough.
i saw your message about the tournament results - im so fucking proud of you!!!! you deserve it so so much and i couldn't be happier for you. see, your words and ideas are changing the world, even if you don't realise it.
ps; that is so fun???? omg im so happy for you star, you deserve tis <33 i hope towards the end of this year whatever happens leaves you both happy, no matter how far the distance.
pps; omg no.. please don't do that.. aha that would be awful... definitely wouldn't make my heart race.. haha not at all
all of my love, star. pardon the pun, but you are out of this world ;) i'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes;
il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé <3
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tl;dr political rant post:
it had been my goal from 12 years old to do an arts degree in philosophy (yes what a nerd- thanks to my dad playing a Great Courses philosophy dvd one morning in 2007 and my dad always taking me to the botanic gardens/the uni some weekends).
i graduated from my arts degree in 2018, with a major in english and a minor in philosophy. i was so, so lucky to even get into my communications & media degree (at first i was originally going to do marketing communications, advertising & PR)... but i realised that i was not made for business subjects- despite my mark101 tutor telling me she thought i had knack for marketing- something under this policy that i wouldn’t undertake due to the price hike for commerce/business degrees. nor was i made for a media degree. so i changed to arts & humanities.
although under this atrocious policy, english subjects are made “cheaper”- why on fucking should the rest of someone’s arts/humanities degree be so much more expensive, all depending on the fields they choose???? so you’re telling me, if i was instead to enter undergrad this year to do my english degree... that my english major would be subsidised, but my philosophy minor would be at double the cost (along with the few first year business and communications&media subjects i did), unless i forced myself to pick maths or science subjects that i would most definitely fail, no matter how much work i’d put into them??? or there’s languages- but much like maths/science- there’s the problem with my handwriting that stopped me trying french and even japanese (ironically, since it’s know for its ~painstakingly neat and orderly~ script- but my handwriting is still messy, disorderly and confusing asf).
*please note that most of this next section is just me being highly spurious and cynical. it’d probably work out fine*
but you’re also telling me that under this policy that i’d also probably have to forego my reasonable adjustments in those subjects (yes i still have trouble with my handwriting to this day) mostly because a lot of software still won’t let you write out maths problems properly or i’d have to spend twice as long trying to get a graph to work in excel or idek matlab (please teach me maths nerds)???? and most maths working out is probably better handwritten or whatever??? and that’s besides the point that i still can’t use excel at all 😂.
so with these classes then, would i be battling from day one of first year with professors to let me use a computer during exam periods (unless of course they use online/take home exam methods like philosophy)???? probably (im being very suspicious here because i don’t know how science/maths etc faculties work).
although i did get this once with one particular english professor; who used the excuse that he didn’t know how to set a computer up for exams because he had been on “sabatical for 4 years” or whatever and so “didn’t know the policies anymore”.... so then according to him it was apparently “the students job to do it.... especially since you’re in third year, miss williams”..... however, i was promptly then told by EVERY uni offical that i approached for help to do it for me.... and my other professors across my course that had done it for me, that it was in fact the PROFESSORS job/responsibility to set it up, and not the student’s??? like. help your students fuckwit professor grant??? honestly. anyway. aside from my personal struggles in the english department: let’s proceed. (this was a real incident btw).
would i be at a significant disadvantage to other students by not being able to use a computer during maths exams or science exams because of the drawing of diagrams and graphs and “showing your working”???? hell yes. would i want the professors in that department to probably condescendingly telling me all the time to “present my work neater and more precisely”? FUCK NO. it’s exactly why i avoided every maths and science subject in undergrad- even including the astronomy subject that i wanted to do- because it also meant that fellow students had to read my handwriting for practicals etc as well, that i wasn’t entirely keen on either. but i did not need the harsh reminders of “be more precise and infallible in your work presentation” that i’d had at school constantly for 11 years of maths lessons; affecting my mental health and performance in a subject during a uni semester.
moreover, that’s besides the fact that i’d flat out fail the “year 12 band 4 maths” requirements- unless they want to waive those- for first year maths/science subjects (at least basing it on my local uni).... considering that i actually skipped out on maths completely in year 12 by doing a TVET/tafe/technical college course in live theatre, production and events (which no surprises here, actually included maths anyway 😅).
because, fuck. is ANYONE seeing a trend in my study choices here? hell, i almost did a commerce/business dual degree with a tafe diploma in event management for crying out fucking loud. and you’re telling me that’s also doubled in price?? it’s obvious that i was interested in the arts & humanities and business subjects from the get-go. but under this policy- i’d be charged double for having my interest in event management, instead of say, biology (which is a subject that if it weren’t for mark scaling in my final hsc exam- i would have failed completely)??? utterly ridiculous.
i even contemplated doing a double degree with law at one point (or doing a legal studies major/minor- which is now a course at my local uni, but was not while i was there). however, law course fees have also doubled under this new policy. leaving that out of reach for me, despite that a double degree with law was out of reach for me anyway..... since my mark average was 65% and not at least 75% lol. but as if those marks averages will actually matter under this new policy.
under this bullshit policy, i’d be forced to take science/maths or even teaching (another field i had to avoid, since people can’t read my writing on a whiteboard from a distance half the time either.... besides the fact that i’m not really the ~teacher type~) subjects- all so that my degree price overall will be ”reduced”..... meaning that i would have to trade out my philosophy minor for something in maths/teaching/science (or maybe creative arts- since those fees stayed the same roughly)... instead of sticking to what i was good at: philosophy and other humanities/social science fields like sociology and history????
i understand that many people will snub me with saying “oh why did you even BOTHER going to uni if you were THAT indecisive about what you wanted to do?” which is something i’ve seen many older people saying on posts about this policy. but hell, i was 19 FUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN I STARTED UNI, FOR GODS SAKE. OF COURSE I WAS GOING TO BE FUCKING INDECISIVE ABOUT MY DIRECTION IN LIFE! because, newsflash fuckwits: not everyone has a defined career goal at 19. hell, i still don’t have one at almost 25..... since i’ll admit here, that i flunked out of my postgrad library course.... because i realised that i simply couldn’t cope with learning simple HTML, CSS and javascript coding for website design & user experience design 😂 (again help me computer wiz friends). yes, believe it or not, librarians have to know that today. and most people think that it’s just all about books (okay that was me, but i was wrong). also, if you’re wondering: postgrad library courses aren’t affected, thank god. but my point is, aren’t we meant to fuck up and pick the wrong things in life sometimes??? aren’t we meant to be indecisive about our choices in our late teens up until our mid 20s???
but now you’re telling students that their very first year of uni is practically set out for them, even for arts/humanities degrees (im not counting properly prescribed degrees such as engineering/science/communications & media (they had prescribed majors and prescribed first year subjects, which is why i left it. because i felt trapped in the prescribed marketing et al major etc); all because the government is telling them that “oh to make your first year cheaper: (A.) get good marks.... so that we don’t cancel your HECS place and (B.) pick subjects outside of the arts/humanities like science/maths/tech related subjects so that you don’t pay a whopping $14,500 for your first year of uni and will be more likely to be “job ready”. whatever the actual fuck “job ready” really means. and this all as if there ISN’T enough pressure for a 18/19 year old to succeed in their first year of uni already.
although, the one thing i’ll say is that my one year advanced diploma in marketing that i did in 2014, was $16,500. i still haven’t made any moves to pay it off. but it was constantly in the back of my mind during uni, both undergrad and postgrad. it was there as a reminder to pick cheaper subjects, so as to not greatly increase my combined hecs debt and vet-fee help debt; which is now sitting at $42,500. which under this new policy is the new price of ONE arts & humanities undergrad degree. i’d hate to be going into uni next year at 19 years old (or any age really) with that price tag on my degree.
anyway. that’s the end of my non-sensical rant. morrison and the rest of the libs etc can go fuck themselves.
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astudyinsarcasm9 · 5 years
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Steven Universe The Movie - Review - a confused mess - SPOILERS!
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I’m still thinking about the movie and I still can’t properly say why I didn’t wholeheartedly like it. It’s complicated. 
On one hand I liked the animation, I loved Spinel and I loved seeing the uncorrupted gems roaming around Beach City but that was about it. 
I understand the tone this series has and where it has positioned itself and knowing that of course I knew how the movie would end, pace itself and handle its characters but it was still rather disappointing. 
But let’s start things off. 
What did I like?
Spinel - her animation, design, voice and song, the only song I liked, apart from the song Pearl sang when she was reset. 
The concept of the Rejuvenator - I think it’s brilliant. Considering that we long thought of gems as being like computers it makes sense that you could reset them to their factory settings. Though this does create some plot-holes I will address later. 
I loved how Spinel was not up for the whole talk it out and sing approach. refreshing. Though she did sing but on her own terms.
Loved the little homeworld bit but it does raise questions. 
The fact that they addressed the plot point of PD wanting a colony and waiting for it. Even though it was mentioned in passing.
The Pearl lore we got. How they re basically an OS when they are made.
Pearl sing-explaining.
Pearl obessing over Greg. HILARIOUS. BUT ALSO like a lot of implications for her relationship with PD.
And that was about it. I guess. 
What I didn’t like or understood
The Diamonds going from antagonists to obsessing over Steven and being those annoying relatives. I. mean the concept is hilarious and I love it but when you consider what the Diamonds did and who they are it gets unsettling. 
How the hell does Spinel know what a son is? Im pretty sure she wasn’t filled on the whole Rose/PD stuff unless Steven told the whooole story in that one transmission at the beginning of the movie. And even so it took the diamonds a whole while to understand the concept of a child and a parent. Apart from WD which is still unexplained. 
Where did Spinel get an injector? We can infer the whole plot takes place over the span of a day or so. How did a gem who used to be basically a Pearl get access to an injector?
For that matter, why and how is this injector different than the injector we knew of? One pops in gems in the earth’s crust and the other just up and destroys the planet? 
Why did Amethyst behave that way once reset? I mean in ”Now we’re only falling apart”, we saw first hand how the other Amethyst were emerging, full fledged and self-aware and able to talk. And ok she was overcooked but overcooked doesn’t mean talking like a parrot. Does it? We received no indication prior to this that that was the case. If anything we knew gems just popped out already knowing who and what they were supposed to be. 
I’m getting real tired of the whole Garnet is true love, when she isn’t. I love her, I do but she became her fusion and Ruby and Sapphire are neglected as a result. Even in Change your mind when they are in their gems as a result of being poofed by YD, Steven doesn’t call for them but for Garnet. Way to go Steven. Ok, Sapphire saved Ruby this time and they are meant to be together but what they are displaying is love at first sight and codependency ( as WD put it) . 
Steven really seemed like a jackass in this when interacting with Spinel. He didn’t care for her, didn’t care for her feelings. He wanted her to go back to normal just so she can remove the injector and when she called him out on that he said that yeah that was kinda it. She was just in the way.  When she was nice and hanging around Steven never showed her anything but annoyance. I think maybe once or twice he softened to her but that was it.He was more focused on bringing back his friends (legitimately so but still.) 
The fusion between Greg and Steven is...Look I know it’s an anime reference but it was so uncomfortable to watch. Idk why. 
Connie being useless throughout, appearing very little. despite her being awesome.
Bismuth, Peridot and Lapis being only comic relief and not contributing much to anything. Aside from Peridot who spoke about the injector a bit. 
Lars only briefly seen. 
The off-colors only having cameos here and there. 
And finally the fact that a fascist dictatorship was just dismantled and put aside without it having any consequence whatsoever. People just weren’t affected by it. Yellow just did away with her army and her colonies. 
It’s just...I understand the message SU is talking about, I understand it is this pacifist and friendly show. But like...I really felt like the movie was talking down to me,  like you would talk down to a kid who you think doesn’t understand stuff. 
Especially in the dialogue Steven has with the diamonds. Where they tell him their good deeds of the week. How they dismantled their armies, talk nice to lower life form and refrain from shattering gems. 
It’s like if someone wanted to scold Stalin over what he did and made him pinky promise he’d change nce his policies. 
Maybe I’m being too harsh but  there’s one thing to promote non-violence and a pacifist approach to conflicts and it is another thing to just apply that to every possible situation ever. It just doesn’t work. Dictators don’t turn nice over night just cus you’re related to them. 
Also, the end felt bittersweet. The Diamonds took Spinel not because they cared or whatever but because she used to be Pink’s and she reminds them of Pink and they have a spare room. And they are going to pour out all their issues on Spinel and make her fill a role instead of caring for her for who she is. 
Bonus: how tf is Spinel able to rotate her gem like that?  I thought Diamonds could cus diamond powers but some rando gem?
P.S. Doesn’t Little Homeworld feel a bit creepy to any of you? 
Like, I get they miss their home but all they’ve ever known ever since their creation was the genocidal dictatorship of the Diamonds. Why would you want any part of that close to you again? Much less live in it? I would’ve understood if, I don’t know those were homeworld gems who lived all their lives there and wanted a piece from there despite being such an awful place. 
But all those gems on Earth were, er...corrupted gems by the very regime they had back home. All of those gems thought a war with their Homeworld. Why would they want that on Earth?
Btw, are Yellow and Blue Pearl still slaves? Cus sure they looked happier but they were still serving the diamonds.
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On the Other Side / Ch15: Movie Night
Last / Masterpost / Next
Summary: For the past thirteen years, a secretive organization has been raising two groups of superpowered children. Half of them, since their very first memories, have been told they’ll grow up to be brave and strong superheroes; the rest were taught a much harsher view of the world, and groomed to become villains. Neither group knows of the other’s existence. But when a certain trio of heroes-to-be meets two future villains who really just want to be left alone, they all realize how much they haven’t been told.
Warnings: non-graphic violence, bullying, child abuse, sympathetic/good Deceit (Devon) is a main character
A/N: And I said, "I'll start updating regularly again." You know, like a liar. (but actually tho im doing a big bang so it's unlikely i'll be able to even try to update anything else regularly until the end of summer :/)
Read on AO3
Late Saturday morning, Thomas regarded the trunk of his car skeptically. “I really don’t think we needed to buy so many tiny flashlights and screwdrivers.”
“Uhm, I really think we did. Who’s the more experienced thief here, Thomas?” Remy’s unsubtle hand gestures made it clear what the answer was supposed to be.
“Just because you stole gum from a convenience store when you were thirteen—”
“I’m now a master criminal, yes, exactly. I’m glad you understand. The tiny flashlights are super important, trust me.”
Thomas sighed, amused. “If you say so. You gonna help me carry these bags?”
“Nope.”
“Remy—”
“I don’t have time, hon, I gotta go talk to Emile about all this, remember?” He neatly dodged Thomas’s attempt to foist a grocery bag on him. “I know you’re gonna miss me, but I’ll see you later, babe, don’t worry.”
Thomas scoffed and swatted his arm, which backfired a bit in that it nearly made him drop one of his bags. “I’ll live.” His words may have been dismissive, but he was smiling. That smile was still on his face as he made his way into the building and through the hallways to his own room. Most of the snacks were left there to be distributed later. He took the rest, along with the less innocuous items hidden at the bottom of the bags, and went down the hall to Logan, Roman, and Patton’s room.
“Good morning,” he called, after knocking in a pattern they’d agreed on the previous night so they would know it was him. He set the bags down and pressed a hand over his mouth in an effort not to “aww” out loud when he saw the kids.
They were all piled together in the blanket fort, and it looked like they’d been there the whole night. Patton was still asleep, tangled in a blanket, while Logan used him to prop up the book he was explaining to Devon- who, of course, tried to act like he already knew it, but his eyes were wide with interest. Meanwhile, Virgil was still curled up under Patton’s arm, where he’d become trapped at some point in the night, and Roman was telling him some grand story, complete with illustrations and various bits acted out. The smaller boy looked enthralled, if a little wary of all the wild gesturing. Roman paused mid-emphasis when Thomas walked in, just short of smacking Logan in the face, and Devon reached out and slowly pushed his arm back down.
Thomas smiled. “Hey guys, I brought you some stuff.”
“Ooh! What is it? Did you get good snacks?” Roman scrambled out of the fort and almost tripped on Patton, who had started to wake up. He turned over, holding Virgil to his chest like a teddy bear. The latter made a face and squirmed away, causing Patton to finally open his eyes.
“Oh. Sorry,” he laughed. Virgil waved him off with a shrug.
The kids gathered around, and Thomas started to show them what he and Remy had bought. “Of course I got good snacks, who do you think I am? Most of them are staying in my room for now, though, because I know you guys.”
There was a chorus of “aww.”
“Other than that, I got some clean clothes for you two, so you won’t need to keep wearing the same outfits all the time or borrow from the other kids. But I had to guess at your sizes, so if something doesn’t fit, tell me, okay?”
Devon and Virgil nodded shyly and took the clothes, hiding them under blankets in the fort for now. They would try them on once Thomas was gone; changing with him right there would be embarrassing, even if he couldn’t see them behind the blankets that hung down.
“Now… everybody come close, this part is secret. Remember the plan we talked about?” They all nodded. “I know not all of you were sure if you wanted to help, and I’m not trying to push you into it or anything, but I got you all some stuff for it- if anyone decides they don’t want to come, that just means there’s extras for those who do participate.”
“I’m coming!” Roman reminded him, in his version of a whisper.
Thomas laughed. “You made that clear, don’t worry. So, uh, we’ve just got a few little things that might be useful- most of it Remy insisted on, so don’t ask me what the putty is for.”
“Ooh, you were with Remy?” Patton grinned, clearly believing he was being subtle.
“We were just doing boring work things, so shush- and quit doing that thing with your eyebrows at me, Logan.” Thomas blushed, wishing he knew how to stop letting children embarrass him. The shopping trip may have been a boring work thing, but it was very hard to convince himself Remy hadn’t been lowkey flirting with him the entire time nonetheless. “Take the stuff already and leave me alone.”
“How about this,” Roman offered, “we’ll stop if and only if you let us have a movie night! I mean, we really need to- did you know they haven’t seen any Disney movies?!”
Thomas hummed, pretending to think hard about it. “That sounds like a deal I can agree to. I’ll bring my laptop in here for you later, how about that? I know you’d rather use the big TV screen," he said over disappointed protests, "but I really don’t want to risk having Devon and Virgil leave the room when it’s not necessary, alright?”
“I guess,” Roman huffed. “But that means you have to give us more snacks for it!”
“Whatever you say.”
Movie night, naturally, had to wait until it was at least evening- you couldn’t very well have one in the morning. Roman and Patton spent nearly all the preceding time planning it and gushing about how amazing it was going to be, to the point where the other three almost wished they weren’t having it, if only to get some peace and quiet. By the time Thomas came back after dinner to let them borrow his computer, the blankets in the fort had been rearranged countless times, and the kids had a list of everything else they wanted in order to make it absolutely perfect. Thomas went along with some of their requests, if not the ones like ‘a bunch of plastic balls so we can turn the room into a ball pit,’ and they managed to get everything arranged without anyone yelling at each other.
The movie they’d all decided on for tonight was Sleeping Beauty- they should start with a classic, right? Logan was in charge of holding the popcorn, because he was the only one who could be trusted not to spill it or eat it all himself. During the opening credits, Roman bounced in place impatiently, while Patton carefully arranged his stuffed animals so he could hold them all and none would feel left out, ignoring Logan’s reminder that they were inanimate objects and had no feelings to hurt. When he was finally satisfied and looked up, he caught Virgil staring at him, looking conflicted. As soon as their eyes met the smaller boy  looked away, blushing and wrapping the too-long sleeves of his jacket around himself. He and Devon had changed into their new clothes by now, but he’d refused to give up that hoodie any longer than was needed to wash it, and even that had been a struggle.
“Hey, Virgil?”
He looked up again, defensive.
“Do you wanna hold one of my toys?”
Virgil shook his head roughly, retreating into his hood. He didn’t need toys, he wasn’t a baby.
“Are you sure? This one’s all the way on the outside, I’m afraid it’s gonna get lonely… would you mind just holding onto it for me?” He held out a black stuffed cat, clearly well-loved by the fact it was missing an eye. Virgil hesitated, but finally took it, setting it down on his lap just so Patton wouldn’t be disappointed. Maybe it wasn’t too bad to hold it for him, as long as he wasn’t actually hugging it or anything.
“Oh- look, look, it’s starting!”
They both turned back to the screen at Roman’s exclamation. The credits had ended, and the fairy-tale book was opening.
“In a far-away land, long ago…”
Roman watched Devon and Virgil, waiting for them to see how great the movie was. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem too impressed. “Don’t you like it?”
Virgil shrugged.
“It’s kinda boring,” Devon admitted. “Like, oh, there’s a king and a queen and a princess and they’re rich and perfect and everyone loves them- who cares?”
“That’s because this is the exposition,” Logan pointed out. “We need to know who they are before we can get to the real beginning of the story, in which a—”
Roman swatted his arm. “Don’t spoil it!”
The movie continued up to the celebration of the baby Aurora’s birth.
“Those gifts suck,” Devon decided. “Why couldn’t they give the princess something cool? They could’ve given her magic powers and instead they just made her really pretty and good at singing.” Virgil nodded in agreement, making a face. They were both startled out of their snark when Maleficent appeared.
“She’s an evil fairy,” Roman stage-whispered.
Logan added on, “It was a great insult for the king and queen to invite everyone in the kingdom and not her, especially when she’s so powerful.”
It was hard to tell if the intended audience for these explanations was actually listening. They were staring at the screen, wide-eyed, as Maleficent turned around and cursed the princess. Roman took this as a good sign that they weren’t bored anymore.
“It’s just so impractical,” complained Logan, watching the pile of spinning wheels burn. “I mean, has the king even considered what this will do to the price of cloth in his kingdom? Everything will have to be imported!"
“Shut up, it’s a fairy tale,” Roman whined.
Devon looked almost impressed. “You know, he has a point.”
“Oh, just watch the movie.”
The three fairies, at least, were not a point of contention. It was generally accepted that, being fairies, they shouldn’t be expected to make sense- although, really, hiding Aurora away from civilization to keep her safe wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or kindness…”
When said Maleficent came back, it was hard not to notice the younger boys’ nerves. Logan saw Devon go very still and quiet next to him, no longer making fun even though Maleficent’s weird little minions were objectively ridiculous, and Patton could feel Virgil jump with every angry lightning strike, holding the stuffed cat tightly to his chest.
“It’s okay,” Patton told them in a whisper, “she doesn’t win.”
Roman was beginning to despair. “Don’t spoil it, Pat.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “It’s hardly a massive plot twist, Roman. In movies like this, the good guys always win.”
Thankfully, the tension was dispersed by a transition to a much lighter scene. Even Virgil relaxed and giggled at the fairies’ attempt to create a birthday party. Some of the humor was lost on them, however- they didn’t have the faintest idea how to sew or bake, either. What was a “tsp?” The other kids seemed to know. Maybe it should have been obvious what exactly Flora and Fauna were doing wrong.
The scene with Aurora-slash-Briar Rose and Prince Philip… didn’t go over quite so well.
“Oh, oh, he’s back, look! With a horse! Bet you think he’s cool now, right?”
The prince promptly fell off said horse into a stream, and Virgil snickered, raising an eyebrow at Roman. That was about as clear a wordless answer as he could ask for.
And now, the princess was dancing around singing about love?
“Gross,” muttered Devon and Logan in unison.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Logan continued as the two finally danced together. “I suppose I can understand her falling in love so quickly, given that he’s not only a handsome prince, but also the first person she’s ever met besides her guardians.”
“So you admit he’s handsome!”
“But what reason does Philip have for suddenly loving her so much, he’d rather marry her than become king? He’s only known her for a few minutes, and most of that was just listening to her sing without even seeing her.”
“The fairies did give her a magically good voice,” Devon mused. “Maybe she enchanted him to fall in love with her without realizing it.”
Roman reached over and gave them both a light shove. “It’s romantic, quit ruining it!”
“I think it’s cute…”
”Thank you, Patton!”
If Devon was oddly quiet after that, it was because he was grossed out by the sappy love stuff, and then worried about Maleficent’s bird finding the fairies- definitely not anything to do with the song about dreaming of having a friend hitting just slightly close to home. At least the kings were funny.
“Okay, maybe he’s a little cool,” Devon finally mumbled, watching Philip tell his father he was going to marry the random girl he’d just met. That was still a dumb decision, but anyone who could argue with a king and not be at all scared was at least slightly impressive.
Nobody really liked the part where Aurora was all distraught about not being able to meet Philip, so after a bit of sad silence, Roman took the opportunity to check in. “Do you guys like it so far?” he asked, clearly needing the answer to be yes.
Virgil nodded hesitantly, and Devon shrugged: “It’s… not bad. But I still think there should be less stuff about love, and—”
He gasped and cut himself off when Maleficent appeared in the fireplace. Virgil pressed up against him, eyes almost as wide as the hypnotized princess.
“Should’ve known she could just make another spinning wheel…” He tried to sound cool and unimpressed, and not scared. “Stupid king. She’s magic.”
Virgil whispered something in his ear.
“Oh, yeah- it doesn’t even matter, anyway, right? They can just get the prince to come back and kiss her, ‘cause they’re already in love.” His face scrunched up at the thought of kissing, but it was a solution.
However, as everyone else already knew, it wasn’t that easy.
Virgil sat up so quickly when Philip was attacked and captured by Maleficent’s minions that he would have fallen over, had Patton not been there to catch him.
“But did you see how many of ‘em he fought off before they got him?!” Roman punched the blankets around him to demonstrate, making sound effects.
If Roman was still happy, that probably meant Philip would be fine, right? Not that Virgil cared what happened to some stupid prince in a movie. Maleficent could kill him, for all Virgil cared. …But she wouldn’t, right? No, that wouldn’t happen, Patton and Logan had said she didn’t win in the end.
That reasoning didn’t stop both him and Devon from remaining tense for… pretty much the entire rest of the movie. Even if Philip was okay, they really didn’t like seeing him in Maleficent’s dungeon. At least in the Room they didn’t get chained up- Virgil shuddered at the thought.
“See!” Roman exclaimed triumphantly, when the fairies finally arrived to help him get out. “I told you he was cool!”
“I guess,” said Devon, sounding a whole lot more impressed than he wanted to let on. “Fairies are still doing most of the work, though.”
Then came the most exciting part of all: the final battle between Philip and Maleficent. From the moment she landed in front of the castle and turned herself into a dragon until the end of the movie, there were no snarky comments to be heard, and hardly even any disgusted faces made when Aurora was awakened by true love’s kiss.
“See? You didn’t need to be so worried, good prevailed in the end!” It wasn’t until Roman turned to face the two younger boys, and saw them still pale and anxious despite the movie being over, that he realized worrying about the ending may not have been the full issue. “Um… Guys? Is something wrong?”
Virgil and Devon had a brief, tense whispered conversation before Devon spoke up- very quietly, almost like he didn’t want to be heard.
“Are we evil?”
In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Virgil climbed over him, conspicuously placing himself between his friend and Roman. He didn’t seem to realize he was still clutching Patton’s stuffed cat.
“Wh- no! Of course not!” Roman jumped to his feet to emphasize how serious he was, and they both flinched a little. “Why would you think that?!”
Devon waited for Virgil’s cautious nod before saying anything else. “It’s just- Maleficent… she was evil, and she looked like us, kind of, and- and she could shapeshift like me.” He touched the scales on his face and remembered the dragon. “So- it seemed like… the movie was saying those things are evil. I dunno, it’s dumb,” he trailed off, shrinking behind Virgil. “I- I mean, we already knew we’re villains…”
“No, you’re not,” Roman said firmly. He pushed the laptop aside and sat down in front of them, so they couldn’t avoid looking at him. “You’re not anything like her! You’re not evil, you’re nice and you care about people and- and if anything, you’re more like Aurora.”
They both looked up, if only so he could see their skeptical faces. How did that make any sense? She was a princess.
“No, really,” he insisted. “Because you didn’t even do anything wrong, but the teachers and everyone are trying to hurt you because they’re the evil ones, but now you’re gonna get a happy ending! Because I’m the Prince, and I’ll fight them for you.” He stood again and struck a pose to demonstrate.
Devon gave him a soft, genuine smile, then smirked as a thought occurred to him. “Just don’t try to kiss us.”
“Ew, no!”
Everyone laughed. As Roman sat back down, he almost didn’t feel the tug on his shirt. He looked over to see Virgil looking not-quite-at him, chewing on his lip nervously. Once he saw he had Roman’s attention, he took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and went for it.
“T-thanks. For saying that.”
In an ironic turn of events, Roman was speechless. Virgil’s voice, now that he heard it, was lower than he would have expected from such a tiny kid, and somewhat rough- maybe because he hardly ever talked. And now he was peeking up through his bangs, waiting for Roman’s reaction, looking like he kinda wanted to run away. Oh, shoot, Roman needed to say something back and not make it awkward, didn’t he?
He pushed through his shock to answer, “Of course. It was all true, after all.” Then he nudged Virgil’s hood back slightly in order to mess up his hair, because he couldn’t let things get too mushy. Virgil hissed and smacked his hand away, and the natural order of things was restored.
“But really though, what did you think of the movie?”
Virgil curled up in the blankets. His heart was still beating too fast just from saying four words- if he talked any more, he was afraid he might die from it. But he gave Roman a shy thumbs-up, and from the grin he got in response, that seemed to be good enough.
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a-singing-carebear · 5 years
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Coming out-honestly
*Fair warning - it came out (pun intended) very very lengthy, you really don't have to read it, it’s just a mess-salad.
I decided to wait until the last day of pride  (kinda, i won’t have the computer in the next couple of days so it’s now on the 28th and not the actually 30th) rather than on the first or some random day.
Last year i posted on Pride Month a short post about my sexaluy-just stating for those who didn’t know that i'm homoromantic (/ace lesbian / whatever) and happy pride...
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A few weeks (or days) after i deleted that post.
I was scared, it was the first time i ever came out in a social/"public" place, and i know that a lot of other people who are closeted outside of the net find places like tumblr or twitter as a safe place.
But i panicked and the fact that an ex-friend (yes that a word i’m using) is following me didn't help. (even though i'm pretty sure she hasn't touched her account in years...)
I’ve known i'm queer for a while. Actually i was raised in a very heteronormative environment, (and in a pretty lonely and closed childhood, so i wasn't aware of a l o t of things) until i was 12 i didn't even knew what the LGBTQ+ community was (other than hearing people use "homo" as a curse word or an insult).
When i found out it was just like "oh cool". Then realised that i was falling in love with my best friend, what started everything. I started looking back and realising things that i thought were just me being too young, a late bloomer or just not interested in all of that. The thought process-maybe i’m bi-i think im bi-no lesbian-oh asexal is a thing- Until i finally understand myself completely. (Maybe one day i will make a post about that)
Almost two years ago i finally fully came out to myself (as weird as it sounds) as asexual homoromanrtic. I was desperate to find the correct label and explain it to others. I felt like i couldn't just be “queer”, that no one will take it seriously or believe it without a clear specific tag(\label).  (i’m not that much into labels, they can help and make you feel comfortable but why can’t i just say:
“i don’t think i have sexual attraction to anyone, i don’t want a sexaul relationship, i like girls, i want a girlfriend, and hey maybe there will be a guy someday that i will want to be with, in like a 2% present if even but still” .
(found this post a few days ago, it made me happy, like it was waiting just for me to read it, so thank you - https://atalana.tumblr.com/post/184952782507)
Now i’m almost 19, and knew for the past 7 years that i'm not straight, but it was really hard for me to be out to someone else. What if they will not accept me? What if they will hate me? What if it will make things awkward and uncomfortable? What if they'll tell me i’m wrong? (It has come to a point that i feel more comfortable coming out to people at my base (military) then my closest friends)...
I always said to myself that when i will have a girlfriend, this will be how i would come out - "...this is my girlfriend..."  But it’s so much harder, still single, been single all my life, i don't really know how the whole “asking out” thing works (especially with my self-doubt, anxiety, being an introvert, and of course my sexaulty- first i need to find a girl that i like than for her to be wlw then for her to want me and then for her to be fine with me being also ace.
Switching things up a bit, let's talk about Pride Parade. For almost three years now (maybe more) I wanted to attend Pride. but combining: closeted, social anxiety, not loving very big crowds and being alone (like not having anyone to go with), and you can kinda see why i haven’t even though i do want.  i can celebrate in my own way for now, looking at gay stuff in tumblr, re-reading the events of Stonewall ,listening to The Prom or Ben Platt’s “Sing to Me Instead”, watching Steven Universe, rewatching Love, Simon, making some(bad) queer art for myself etc.
For some reason it's really really hard for my to celebrate pride...cause i’m alone(feel alone at least). And i'm really terrified of being out. Even at home, even a simple thing like putting a flag or commenting gay stuff...
"Cause no matter what, announcing who you are to the world is pretty terrifying, cause what if the world doesn't like you." [-Love, Simon]
It’s all i want to do, to come out. I’m happy to be a part of the community, In silence and alone i embrace myself and everything… but, my feelings are so complicated.
"I feel like I’m stuck on a ferris wheel. One minute I’m on top of the world, then the next I’m at rock-bottom." [-Love, Simon]
I want be be proud, but It's just... For example, last week i was talking to someone and told her a story with two girls getting married, which ended in a big discussion with me defending and explaining the community, and finding out she's pretty homophobic. Then she asked me "wait are you a lesbian?"
"Ya, what of it?" That's what i wanted to say. i panicked, just froze and didn't answer her. And i know what you're going to say "we do understand, you just found out she's homophobic". It's more than that, i'm not sure if i would have acted differently if she wasn't...
It's so hard to be closeted, especially when your trying so hard to keep it that way (for some damn reason). I don't think there something wrong with me because i’m lgbtq+. i just think i couldn't handle the types of rejection/denial that i could receive.
Being in the closet is hard, growing up changing the pronouns in love songs, having nothing to say in "boys talk" etc. My little personal bubble is colorful (like a soap bubble in the sun), it's just so hard to me to show it. I need the courage, the self-confidence and the safeness of my surrounding, i just don't have them…
[This is what i love about people from the community wearing pride colors, it helps. it gives me hope and validness, it’s makes me so happy, i don’t feel that alone. it’s like holding a big sigh “hey i’m queer too, you’re accepted & safe!”]
Here, My closest friends for example, we’re friends for almost 5 years now, but i haven't told them. at all. I know they will accept me. But it can affect our relationships so much. I hope it doesn't... It's like a bandaid, i just need to rip it off, but it will hurt. Like opening Pandora's box, who know what will come out.
I’m out to my younger brother, but he doesn't like that i talk about it too often.  I told my previous therapist. I came out to a new friend of mine, and then(of other reasons)a few weeks after we stopped being friends. My mother kinda know but not really. Two weeks ago i came out to a good friend of mine (but that i know only 4 month), and the only reason i felt comfortable telling him was because i knew he moves away in a couple of weeks (so even if it will be a disaster, i wouldn't have to see him again).
That's it.
So I was wondering for a while lately why didn't i already came out yet to any of my close friends? To my family?  Yes, we already realise that it’s because i'm scared of what will happen,
I think i get another reason why, Because what if i’m wrong? What if it will change? What if i am just a late bloomer? If it’s false? Or what if i tell someone for example that i’m homoromantic and down the line i will find out i’m actually biromantic or vice versa or just a lesbian...
The amounts of anxiety i’m dealing with on a daily basis in every aspect of my life and my low, non existent self-esteem, make me qustion evey single time my sexualty. 
Even when i’m already out to myself and know what i like, there's this voice keep telling me that maybe i’m wrong. I’m fine with just being queer, with not using a specific labels (and i’m fine with). But it feels like the others, the society around me, need those tags. It can't end with “i was in love with that girl” or “i want a girlfriend”, and furthermore, a lot of pepole have no idea about asexalty. so telling them that i’m also ace or that i’m homoromantic will be completed...
Don’t get me wrong, i know who i am, what i like, i’ve known for a long time. But i also know that it’s a spectrum and its flexible, it just, like i said, I don’t think anyone will except/believe me if my "tags" would "change".
Then i realised. It’s ok... Even if i’m not totally sure, even if it could change, it’s an exploration, an experience. And most importantly- it matters, it’s real. whoever i am, now it’s real and i have to be more confident with myself (and not to let my already existing tons of self-doubt affect how i accept my own sexualy).
So “i’m gay, gay means Happy”.
Happy Pride! LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE
Sorry for the huge, huge, enormous post. Thank you so much for listening, if you stayed until now (and coungration!) Just hope i don't regret it and delete this too…
Still not sure what to do… If you have any advices for me (or something else to say) i would love to hear.
Sorry again for the length, mess and probably grammar mistakes. I really needed to get it out there.
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klappertart · 5 years
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Connecting the Dots
sekali-kali posting sesuatu berfaedah kayak @amq-note​
Aku mau coba pake bahasa inggris ada yang ngerti gak ya
Part 1: The Dots
It’s 2019 now. Almost four years ago I graduated from highschool, not that I proud of it. My highschool days was quite awful for me especially academic-wise, as a someone who really concerned with academic achievement since I was little. I entered the highschool with high hopes, especially I am the first who entered that school from all of my school I ever graduated.
After managed to pass the first year and managed to join nature science (? IPA i mean lol) specialization I still struggling. I’m not good in anything, academics or non-academics. I joined a club but I’m too awkward and shy that in the end, none of those people responsible remember that I’m there, and I was always silent. That’s the time when I started hating myself. I hate that I can’t speak up to them, too afraid so I became obsolete and never done anything worth in my highschool days.
I didn’t graduate with good grades. In fact, I think I’m the worst. I didn’t pass the university entrance exam, and that time i feel really didn’t care about anything. I got a computer and tablet, I guess I should start drawing seriously. My parents enrolled me on a Quranic school, yeah I guess I can be more religious... so I will not blaming the world and hating myself again.
But, the school only two days a week. And totally only tahsin and tahfidz. I still spend majority of my time at home, being an edgy shut in and watched animes. I still hating myself.
One day a friend of mine introduced me to a program called mabit, a certain program that kinda changed my life after that. I no longer stare blankly to my PC screen, but started to blame all the difficult questions that I can’t be an edgy shut it anymore. That time I also feel regained my long lost intelligence. I think I became as smart as I used to be in elementary and middle school (damn you highschool). In the end I passed university entrance exam that year.
Still, the endless activities before the test often made me upset. I need recharging (introverted stuff, I guess) but in the other hand if I did that I’ll left behid. Just like when I was in highschool. It drove me to hate people (yes it’s hard to be me). I want to chill at home.
Months later I entered uni. The orientation is terrifying, especially being in engineering faculty even though architect aren’t engineer! When orientation ends, I don’t want to enter any organization aside a certain Islamic section in the council (bhs inggris IM apa coba). I still hate myself that I can’t do good in academics even though this is my dream goal.
I don’t get a chance to go to a learning something stuff in last holiday and honestly I’m jealous over some friends that managed to get there. I can cry about it. Now I realized my reason of keep silent around people is more or less I’m a cruel person. I can say mean things, very mean to someone. I have lots of negative thoughts. So being silent is better that ruin the day.
My mom keeps saying that I need to believe in Allah. Of course I did! I used to be very suicidal especially when I around 15-16 and maybe I’m not here anymore if I don’t believe (I often wondering whenever people say religion has nothing to do with suicide. Bruh, I’m a living proof of it).
Okay it went too long than I planned. But let’s leave these here, now start to connect the dots, Steve Jobs style.
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dramallamadingdang · 6 years
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Question Meme: The Run-on Sentence Edition
Hi! I hurt myself again yesterday. No, not in an "self-harm" kind of way but more in the usual (for me) "mountain-climbing incident" sort of way (I hate scree; I was so close to that summit) and got lots of deep bruises and lacerations for my troubles and was in a world of hurt by the time I saw a doctor, and I cracked something that isn't supposed to be cracked and it all hurts enough that I got prescribed narcotics again for a week and I really, really hate narcotics but I really, really like to be able to breathe without feeling like my lungs are being ripped to shreds, so...narcotics it is. 
It might make the answers to this latest iteration of Ye Olde Question Meme rather entertaining, though. Maybe. Maybe just incoherent. Well, whatever, @nekosayuri tagged me, so it's her fault, and I'm bored and my sleep schedule's all outta whack and I haven't even turned on my Simming computer in like three days and am posting this from a non-Simming laptop, so I have nothing else to post and....yeah. So, I'm like high as a kite right now. I mean, it's not totally unusual because I live in Colorado and weed's legal here, but narcotics is a totally different and much less coherent high for me. So, like, fair warning.
I'm not tagging anyone, though. I've no idea who's done this lately...
Name: Katrina
Zodiac Sign: I don't know why I answer this because astrology is a huge crock of BS, but everyone always wants to know so...Taurus. Barely. (Birthday is April 23.)
Height: Still ~6'0"/~182cm. Yay, not shrinking yet!
Languages Spoken: Fluently? At this point, only English. I used to be pretty fluent in Italian and German, but, you know, the saying "use it or lose it" applies, and since I've not had occasion to use those languages much....Well, there we are. I could speak quite a bit of Russian at one time because I spent a chunk of years there, in the late 80s when it was the Soviet Union and shortly thereafter when things were sorta nuts there. But, again, I have lost much of what I once knew. And there are smatterings of other languages that I can speak mostly-useless bits of. I can ask where the restroom is in many languages because I've traveled a lot. :) I do speak fluent bullshit, though...
Nationality: 'Murican. And since 'Muricans are really, really into their "ancestry" for some bizarre-o reason because ‘Murican apparently isn’t good enough...Like, 95% dirty Welsh peasantry (plus some Irish and Scottish thrown in for flavor) on the paternal side and on the maternal side....Well, one of my great-grandfathers was a first cousin of the English Queen Victoria. So basically, my maternal ancestry is the very confused inbred multinational mutt that is European Aristocracy. God only knows what’s in their genes, though my particular bit of it has lots o’ German. 
Favorite Fruit: Okra. It is a fruit. Look it up. Then again, much of what people call "vegetables" is, in fact, fruits, so there's that.
Favorite Scent: I've never really thought about this except when this was a question on a previous iteration of this meme that I did, and I don't remember what answer I came up with then. So I'm just gonna say...Vanilla-scented candles. Not cheap ones that just smell sickly-sweet sort-of-vanilla-y, but these ones that I buy online that smell...well...NOT sickly-sweet and like how vanilla really smells. Alternatively...snickerdoodles when they're baking. Hubby is baking me some snickerdoodles as I speak. Type. Whatever. The house smells really good. Baking bread is good, too. Before the snickerdoodles, hubby was baking the twice-weekly loaf of sourdough.
Favorite Color: Green. And/or orange. I go back and forth about which is really my favorite.
Favorite Animal: Elephants. Or hyenas. Or cats of all shapes/sizes. Or alpacas. Or llamas. Or snakes. Or spiders of all kinds. Or dragonflies. Or...Um, yeah,  I'm pretty much a fan of all vertebrates and terrestrial invertebrates and some aquatic/oceanic invertebrates, too, so...take your pick.
Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate all the way. I don't drink coffee because A) I think it tastes and smells disgusting, but even if that wasn't the case B) I can't have caffeine. Tea is OK. Hubby's way into herbal tea, grows/collects and dries herbs and makes his own blends and shit, and I'll drink it mostly to make him happy, but I'm not into it. I do like hot chocolate, though it's hard to find premade mixes that don’t have powdered milk in them (because I’m vegan), so I generally have to make it from scratch, so to speak, and when I do I use cashew milk as the base and I usually add either peppermint or vanilla extract for zing.
Favorite Fictional Character: Can't really pick a fave. So, have a list, probably but perhaps not really in preference order. Spock from Star Trek, who's been a fave of mine since I was 3 and was watching the original Trek in its initial run, and I announced I'd marry Spock one day. Rodney McKay from Stargate: Atlantis and Vala Mal Doran from Stargate SG-1. (Basically, if you cut up those two and glue various bits of their characters together -- and not necessarily their good bits -- you have...me. So I relate really well to both of them, so I like 'em.) Also Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG-1, but he's mostly for reasons of estrogen. (Especially if you stick 'im in dress blues. HUBBA!) Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine because Cardassians Are Love. Jayne from Firefly, also for reasons of estrogen. Big, hairy, dark hair, blue eyes, solid but not too muscle-y...Yep, that's how I likes my men. And Zoe from Firefly, 'cuz OMG she's how I likes my women. HUBBA!
Dream Trip: *sigh* Still Antarctica. It's the only continent I've not been to, and I will get there before I croak, but...not yet.
When was your blog created? IIRC, it was, like, the middle of December 2013. So, I'll have had this thing 5 years soon.
Last Movie You’ve Seen: I couldn't sleep one day like a week ago, so I put on Miss Congeniality, which is one of my favorite movies because Michael Caine. When I can't sleep, I'll usually put on a really familiar movie or TV show and it lulls me to sleep, but it didn't work that time. :(
Song You’ve Had on Repeat: Englishman in New York, by Sting. I have no idea why, but it's been on repeat in my head, though I haven't actually played it lately or anything.
Favorite Candy: Not much of a sweets kind of person. I prefer salty-crunchy. I can eat a whole big bag of crisps (Like, the British ones, which are way better than American potato chips, but American ones will do) easily, but I can't even get through a whole candy bar because, ew, too sweet. That said, I do like Flake bars, but I have to go up to Canada to get 'em. Or else buy 'em online but then usually by the time I get them they're kinda smashed. Or melted. Or both. Better to go up to Canada. Where they have real chocolate and not this sickly-sweet Hershey's crap. *shudder*
Favorite Holiday: When in Canada, Canada Day is quite fun. It's like July 4th only not so...well...chest-beatingly, yahoo-y, "patriotic" 'Murican. (I really, really dislike nationalism and "patriotism" in general but especially the obnoxious 'Murican brand of it.) When in the UK, I have a fondness for Guy Fawkes Night. I guess I like fire and fireworks and things that go boom and shit, only without the "YAY AMERICA!" yelling of America's own "things that go boom" holiday. Other than that...Can't really say I'm into 'em much. They're not even "days off from work" since...Well, I've never had a "real job," and I'm pretty much retired from my unreal job these days.
Last Book You’ve Read: *cough* Does a really long and smutty and slashy Stargate: Atlantis fanfic count? I'm sad to say that, though I was a voracious reader of books when I was younger, I'm really not so much these days. Haven't been for the last decade or so, really. Not of actual books, at least. I do subscribe to and read a number of academic journals, some having to do with science and medicine and some having to do with history, but they're not books. 
Favorite TV Show: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, mostly because it has Cardassians, who are all uniformly awesome, plus all the gritty political and religious goodness and stuff. Except that its last season kinda sucked and did totally WTF things with my second-favorite Cardassian. Close runner-up would be Stargate: Atlantis. Except that its last kinda season sucked, too, and did totally WTF things with McKay, so hmmm. Stargate SG-1 is good, too, except that half its team annoys the piss outta me...although this is largely made up for by the hotness that is Jack O'Neill so there's that. I like Firefly a lot but it was so short-lived that it's hard to really be a favorite because I can watch the whole thing, including the movie, in less than a day. (And believe me. I have.) I like the other Star Treks, too, especially if I'm in the mood for the "goofy soap opera in space" that is Voyager. TNG's shiny-happy Roddenberryness kinda bores the piss outta me, though it does have a few really good episodes, and the original show...Hmmm...Well, I both love and hate it. I love Spock, as I said, and I also love McCoy and all of its secondary characters. The problem is that I hate Kirk. Like, viscerally hate him. Like, I want to punch his face in every time it's on-screen. If he'd just, y'know, been eaten by a salt vampire and Spock and everyone else was OK and went off and had cool space adventures battling giant space-going amoebas and shit, I'd be totally happy and that's what fanfic's for *cough*, but since Kirk doesn't get eaten by a salt vampire...well...
Who’d You Most Like to Have Lunch With? @holleyberry :) Dude, we should totally hook up (No, not THAT way!) when I'm in SoCal next. Which won't be soon if I have my way, but when I am there....
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sylvansoldier-a · 3 years
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Get  to  know  the  mun!    Repost,  don’t  reblog.
(PEN)NAME  :  Dani, Leafmun (a holdover from back when Tess was an Epic oc)
PRONOUNS  :  She/her
ZODIAC  SIGN  :  Pisces
TAKEN  OR  SINGLE  :  Seeing someone
———  THREE  FACTS  ! ♡
I love building computers! I learned by watching a lot of youtube videos, and to date, I’ve built two computers for myself, one for my parents, one for a friend, and co-built one with my younger sister on the other side of the country, and I’m building another for a friend next week. I love the control that assembling my own machine gives me, and I like researching upgrades and making improvements. It’s been difficult to get ahold of some parts because of the pandemic and the jump in demand for graphics cards, but with some patience and a few early mornings driving an hour and standing in line at the closest computer part store, I’ve snagged some great parts.
I’m a big fan of D&D, despite never having grown up with it. Like a lot of new players, my introduction to D&D and tabletop games in general was Critical Role. I recently completed a 3 year long campaign (made longer by the rona), and I’ve played a half-orc monk, a tiefling cleric, a halfling rogue, an aarakocra barbarian, a dragonborn ranger, a kobold wizard, an elf sorcerer, and a dwarf druid. Some of those were oneshots, but the majority are from ongoing games in various states of hiatus.
An extension of the last fact—I love to learn new things. In the last few years, I’ve taught myself how to stream; I’ve learned about audio and lighting equipment; I’ve studied HTML, CSS, and Javascript; and soon, I’m going to try my hand at mini painting. If something is simple enough that I can learn how to do something on my own, I’ll do it. I’ve replaced my own car filters and restrung a set of blinds for my window, rather than paying for convenience. I always like to try to do something on my own before asking someone else to do it for me.
———  EXPERIENCE  !  ♡
I’ve been roleplaying in some form or another since the days of the Neopets chat boards—back when you had to get a parent to sign a permission form to allow you to interact with other users if you were under 18, I believe. I’ve been writing here since 2013, and Tess is my one and only muse. I’ve dabbled with other characters, but they fizzled out before they even got off the ground.
Tess used to be an original character from the animated movie Epic. I really loved the movie, and when I found a few roleplayers here on tumblr, it kind of kicked the door open to the whole rpc. I’ve made truly incredible friends that have kept in touch daily for the last 8 years, and some of us have even met in person. While I still love the movie for all its quirks, the fandom was never particularly large and it only shrunk as time went on. Plus, I found the story a bit limiting in places, and I liked the idea of expanding Tess’ world and interactions with other muses and settings. She’s due for a massive blog overhaul and possibly a purge. Eight years is a lot of baggage and a lot of growth.
———  MUSE  PREFERENCE  !  ♡
Tess is the kind of character I liked to read about when I was younger. I prefer to write and play women, simply because I feel like I can draw from so many of my own experiences and feelings. I know what it’s like to be hungry to prove yourself and to be made to doubt yourself, despite knowing well your own capabilities. I know what it’s like to be frustrated with the indifference and casual cruelty in the world and to want better. I like writing characters who play a supporting role, rather than seeking out the limelight—I’ve always loved those stories.
———  FLUFF  /  ANGST  /  SMUT  !  ♡    
FLUFF  /  ANGST  :  I’m of the opinion that a good will have a bit of both. Too much of one or the other can get boring really quickly. Don’t get me wrong—I love writing softness and flirting as much as I love writing gut wrenching pain and despair. Nothing is better than setting up a few characters with differing goals and worldviews and letting them bounce off each other, complete with all the character exploration and conflict that brings. I think I tend to write more fluff than angst, but I’m open to both. Writing isn’t my strongest mode of expression, but I always want to be better than I was when I started.
SMUT  :  
For someone under the ace umbrella, I actually really enjoy writing smut. I definitely think my feelings on sex come through in Tess’ attitude—trust is paramount and relationships are work. While she’s more comfortable with physical relationships, she has difficulty really putting her faith in someone and making herself vulnerable. Not to say she’s impervious to being manipulated—it’s happened before and it’ll happen again. She’s just very wary of getting in too deep with anyone she thinks is unlikely to stick around, erring on the side of self-deprecation and cynicism when it comes to relationships.
PLOT  /  MEMES  :  
I am not historically great at plotting, but I genuinely want to get better. It’s just really difficult to do with a new partner right off the bat. I’m always really nervous about annoying anyone and tend to read too deep what I think someone’s responses might mean, especially when I really admire someone’s writing and I’m really excited to work with them. Memes are a fantastic icebreaker. When I first start to follow someone, I will take every opportunity to send in some memes to get a feel for their character and for the mun, themselves. It doesn’t always work out, as some muns don’t like replying to memes from new folks, and honestly? That’s a real bummer. I’m not the most confident person, and if I run into a mun with a lot of walls and barriers to entry, I tend to bounce off and give up.
My discord is open to mutuals, and I’m always open to IMs, even from non-mutuals or new followers who just want to ask questions. (I know that Tess’ blog is a bit of a mess, and it’s not really well laid out for anyone looking for a good, quick summary of her character.)
Tagged by: @ofdeathandfear​​
Tagging: Anyone! Seriously. I would tag folks, but I think everyone in my orbit has done some version of this. But if you haven’t—yes, I mean you—then steal this and go do it.
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liskantope · 7 years
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I’ve felt subtly rubbed the wrong way for a while by the way a lot of people in the SSC comments threads talk about nerd culture and use the word “nerd” in general. It’s hard for me to pin down exactly what has been bothering me here, but I know that some of the discussion under the latest SSC post has brought that feeling to the surface again. (It’s hard to point to any particular comment as especially bothersome; it’s just a vibe I get in that whole thread and similar threads.)
Before going any further, let me state the blindingly obvious: I am a nerd. And although perhaps in several ways I’m a non-central example of a nerd (not good with computers, not much of a gamer, etc.), in the ways that lie closest to the crux of the term’s usage, I clearly 100 percent, 110 percent qualify.
Maybe part of what bothers me is the fact that so many seem to treat “nerd”, “introvert”, and “autistic” as interchangeable and all of those things as typically traits of quiet underdog heroes that society doesn’t like. Not that I deny how widespread the ignorance and prejudice is against those who are less neurotypical or less socially competent, but the traits that directly highlight someone’s nerdiness don’t imply those things nearly as much as some make it sound like they do -- indeed, IME the definitive nerd traits are celebrated among adults in today’s world at least as much as they are (often affectionately) made fun of.
I guess... until discovering the SSC crowd, I thought of what is referred to as “nerd culture” in a slightly different way. It’s a little hard for me to directly describe the distinction, but I’ll make an attempt. For most of my life, I considered “nerd” to mean basically a smart, curious person who enthusiastically devotes their energy to intellectual pursuits, typically to the point that they are prioritized over other things (e.g. physical competitions, etc.) The simple fact of the matter was that compared to my peers in school, I was smart and curious, which naturally led to a priority of pursuing certain interests, and therefore I have always been a nerd. Since I was in at least the 90th percentile in terms of intellectual curiosity, my passions looked pretty extreme within the general school environment, so I (along with my fellow nerds) was bullied and picked on a lot. But that didn’t mean I was condemned to a life of being marginalized, because (as with many characteristics that are far from the average among one’s sample of peers at school), It Gets Better. This is for at least two reasons: (1) the further I got in my upper education which led eventually to my current job environment, I was able to immerse myself a circle of people who were closer and closer to me in levels of nerdiness; and (2) as others in my age group matured, they came to have respect for nerdy qualities and skill sets in general; maybe my interests weren’t their cup of tea, but they no longer saw that as reason to pick on me. (Also, I think society as a whole has become much more tolerant of nerdiness during my lifetime, but that’s a little tricky to justify.)
By the way, I stopped consciously considering “nerd” as a part of my identity probably by the time I left college, because by then it was sort of the default category of the people around me, and nerd-bashing didn’t seem to be something the adult world cared about much anyway. I guess I’m pretty privileged in this respect; undoubtedly many nerds don’t manage to escape environments where they’re an extreme minority nearly so easily.
So anyway, I never thought of “nerd culture” as some sort of small, oppressed entity out there on its own and facing attacks from all sides. I just saw it as comprised of people who are near one end of a sliding scale and who tend to make friends with each other for that reason, who have obviously faced a lot of nasty behavior growing up because that’s what happens to those who don’t conform to the average, but who have found their home eventually. Since intellectual interests obviously vary over a very wide range, the population of nerds is vast and doesn’t conform that much to many uniform standards. Nerds just exist as a major presence in our culture that happens to contains most of us who are more intellectual than average.
But "nerd culture” as I see it portrayed in a lot of SSC comments (and even some SSC posts themselves) is somehow not that. It is instead viewed as a highly marginalized demographic who is so low-status all more powerful groups always have and always will find any opportunity to crap on it. By virtue of being a nerd, one is prone to finding oneself in the line of attack and get the brunt of the blame in most societal conflicts.
I recognize some truth to this in that there’s an obvious correlation between nerdiness and social incompetence, even following the definition I proposed above (someone who prioritizes certain interests likely does so at the expense of honing social skills), and that the socially lower-status among us are more likely to be victimized all across the board. But I’m just sort of uncomfortable with the extent to which this is treated like such an intrinsic, inalienable part of what it means to be a nerd.
(Ugh, this was sort of steam-of-consciousness, and I’m not sure how effectively I expressed my views here. I realize my characterization of some commenters’ narratives is a bit strawmanny and not as charitable as it could be.)
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danieltrent · 7 years
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5,8,16,22,26,29,31,32,36,38,39,46 (sorry there are so many
thanks sweet anon! and don’t apologise, im bored so this is a good distraction, and i love answering these questions! except not when i have to answer them again because i accidentally refreshed the first time.
5. Last text message that made you smile?well, i got a message from @sense-there-is-none saying “why doesn’t ex dress as well as you do” which, while i dont agree i dress well, it was nice to hear. besides, sweet anon, i smile at pretty much every delightful ask you send.
8. Would you be my friend?sweet anon, you are my friend. and if anyone else is reading this, i would be your friend - legit, if you just send me a “hi” id be like “oh look i got a message from a friend!”
16. Can you draw?interesting question, and it depends on what you define as drawing. im great at copying other drawings and photos (or at least i used to be), but im terrible at making things up or remembering off the top of my head.
22. Least favorite book you’ve read?that’s hard to answer, mainly because i rarely read books, and even when i do if it was bad id put it down pretty quick. although, ill have to call out Lord of the Rings. i know its actually great, but i just couldnt read it. CS Lewis was right when he said Tolkien described trees too much.
26. Favourite childhood TV show?i have a terrible memory, but from what i do remember, i really liked CatDog for its silly fun, SpongeBob SquarePants for the same reason (but this was 10 to 15 years ago, i dont know what it’s like now), and YuGiOh, but I never cared about the plot or anything, i think i just really liked the monsters and because i played the game myself.
29. Something you regret not doing?i regret not giving my ex more space when she asked for it. but i know thats easier said than done, and i can say anything in hindsight. at the time, giving her space wasn’t an easy thing to do, especially because i was going through a pretty rough episode of depression at the time. oh depression, how you love to get in the way of things.
31. Kisses or hugs?hugs, because i am very much touch-starved at the moment. (but still, when my sister went to hug me the other day i tried to push her away because i still feel like i shouldnt be that close to anyone, especially family. long story)
32. Cuddles or sex?cuddles, for the same reason. i really like the idea of holding someone while we fall asleep together.
36. Favourite super-villain?i really like Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, but i know everyone does.
seeing as im not really into superhero stuff, and even less so their villains, ill extend this question to non-super villains. in that case, I really like Frank Fontaine in BioShock, purely because of his role in the absolutely mindblowing plot twist. and (slight spoiler, if you want to go into the game completely unspoiled), it definitely wasnt the battle with him that made him a good villain - in fact, the battle was pretty lame - but it was just the amazing plot twist.
38. Dream job?it might just be because ive been painting models recently, but id like to design, print and paint 3D models and then sell them. i really enjoy designing 3D models using computer software, and obviously enjoy painting them, so its a good combination.
39. Ideal partner?honestly, it’s what you make of it. i could say my ex was the perfect partner, but that’s because we have a good amount of communication and honesty between us, which are the main things you need for any relationship. as long as you have that (and maybe a little more), you’re set. i have types - both physical and mental - but all my previous partners have deviated from that in one way or another.
46. Opinion on aliens?hell yeah. see also: Fermi paradox, but if i had an opinion either way it wouldnt be “aliens dont exist because thatd be weird” or “aliens exist because look at the pyramids”. but yeah, i reckon there’s aliens, but quite possibly not in the way that we expect them to be; we might need to redefine what we consider ‘life’ to realise that aliens exist.
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