you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.
you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.
he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.
a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.
he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.
you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.
people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.
wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.
also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.
he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."
you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.
"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."
he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.
you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.
is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?
you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.
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i cannot physically remove them from my head
this is a joke of course, but i think sometimes that maybe once in a time phoenix says smth self-deprecating without even noticing it and edgeworth loses his patience INSTANTLY and starts to being like "OH I AM GOING TO POUR SO MUCH AFFECTION ON YOU". phoenix doesn't even understand where is this coming from but hey who is he to complain
"A GREAT PERSON" yea guess who said that
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Hello! I adore your Bodies fanart. I was imagining Karl in 1890 and how much havoc he would wreak. Also Henry and Karl would get along very well, I think, and Karl would be a *terrible* matchmaker for Henry and Alfred... I'd love to see your take on any of this, if anything comes to you 😍
HELLO OMG THANK YOU FOR THE EXCUSE TO JUST DROP HOT TAKES INTO THE BODIES NETFLIX TAG <3 all these drawings are very scrappy and i lost the plot and this became more like sharing all my hcs but still :')
now that you have brought it to me i really do think henry and karl would be unstoppable, i think they'd constantly have a fun, back-and-forth banter !!! i also can see karl dropping multiple not-so-subtle hints, and all of the detectives being quite supportive. gently too, considering the period-typical homophobia. i do think sometime along the lovelorn pining looks, he gets tired of seeing them orbit each other without anything happening, and this exchange occurs:
more doodles and crying under the cut :)
i will die on the "karl weissman bisexuality" hill. HE TOLD ME IN A DREAM!!!! it's just a little messier for him because he really likes women and will not figure it out ever. charlotte hillinghead TO ME also has the exact opposite problem where she is very much in love with her husband and doesn't have any incentive (or freedom considering the time period) to explore her sexuality. the way she accepted hillinghead's feelings for henry, and was less rejecting and more devastated over thinking he didn't love her or polly, just read queer to me somehow. an acceptance because she's like that too, yk? (maybe a bit of a reach but i don't get to choose who my mind designates as being bi)
i like to think that charlotte-karl experience a spider-verse mindmeld "YOU'RE LIKE ME" moment over being bisexual but they're not quite sure why they're feeling that way because they have no idea they're bi. if you are me you will understand perfectly
and i am a henry/alfred/charlotte poly truther as well (please see above discord ranting from my dms with a friend lol)
on more notes of just giving whichever character i want the bisexuality card, hasan is bi to me too. i think hillinghead and her bond a little over that shared religious guilt, of having their respective institutions be homophobic, and the feeling for so much of their life that they're different, so there must be something wrong. it helps her empathise with him and they quickly become closer because of it :) possibly also introducing him to queer lit, and maybe some non fiction lgbt history books
and one last final doodle because i think alfred as the only detective with an active love life where he's pursuing someone would make the others pretend like they can be adults but they want to know SO BAD and they also give advice once in a while because they're rooting for alfred :) they're all pretty good at hiding how badly they're invested in this (think iris 'casually' asking hillinghead how it's going and the other two perk up in the background) like i refuse to believe any of them are totally immune to the equivalent of office-gossip
this was so so long LOL i hope any of that is coherent !!!!! a lot of it ofc is my own projection bc i am bi, but it's real to me <3
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