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kaedeakeshisworld · 2 years

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One night stand

Update on the series: I know I'm slacking like a tad bit. My migraine condition has worsened so I had to care of it because I can't do a single thing when they happen. So, I'm feeling much better that is why I got back today.

cw: as always black reader intended, modern au, love hotel setting, Kakyoin knows what he is doing, Kakyoin is a gentleman, reader is asexual but not sexually repulsed( yes, it is possible. Being asexual and sex repulsed is as valid as the former one mentioned!), doggy sex position, Kakyoin's thumb pokes reader's butthole( had to mention it 'cause it is what it is), missionary but upgraded (idk, I was lazy and didn't look it up)

wc: 548

aperçu: reader and Kakyoin are having sex for the first time. You know what they say about those quiet guys right…

You were already an hour in. It’s making you question whether this was even a good idea from the start. Yes, both of you are consenting adults but this man wants to milk you dry. While his strokes don’t seem to falter, he pokes your butthole with his thumb. This surprises you but it also feels really good, like you can get used to this kind of touch if it is him that does it to you. He thinks this seems to get her going. His goal is to literally make sure not a single soul is going to be able to properly fuck you and as a result, you have to come back to him if you want to get your back blown out. He is doing this to you, imposing this brutal pace upon your body for all those times where you told him “ You can’t properly fuck me, you’re too vanilla for that!” He has a firm grip on your hips, his relentless thrusting doesn’t falter and hits that spongy spot dead on. You know he is going to murder your pussy. He says “You like that don’t you? You keep gripping this dick so much, huh!” You can’t answer him, your attempts are really useless. You try “Ye-nnnhhh, I really- aahhhh…” you paused, it’s hard to talk to him while he’s drilling you as if there is no tomorrow. You try again to finish your response “ I like it” you managed to tell him but it only seems to motivate him to go harder! And you are not ready for the next pace he has in store for you.

If the previous pace was already a bit too much to handle, this one it’s something else. Now, his pace is bruising you the best way possible. He holds your legs up against his chest, your ankles are on his shoulders and now he is looking into your eyes. The malicious glint clearly lets you know that he is not done with you. His smirk belongs to someone else, this doesn’t look at all like him. Where did the shy Kakyoin from earlier go? But you’re pulled back to reality by his potent strokes that make his pelvis graze your clit and you know that a little bit more stimulation on that area will do wonders.

He hasn’t slowed down, did not stop and you are a mess. Your head is lolled to the side, your tongue is hanging out of your mouth. The way you’re drooling onto the sheets, your eyes roll back, you try your hardest to tell him to slow down because you are five orgasms in and this heat building in your core is not the regular kind of orgasm. He really loves to watch your face contort with pleasure while he is the one making you like this. It definitely does boost his confidence.

You’re too fucked out to even hear what he is telling you, you just want this to be over. He is currently admiring the mess you’ve done on his dick. That cream ring looks so good he thinks that he has to fuck you thorougly this way. You are really meant to be his and his only even if it is just a one night stand .

Fic 8 of pride series

Comments and reblogs are immensely appreciated!!

Taglist : @diamond-3, @txtgojou

2022 © All rights reserved to @kaedeakeshisworld. Translations, modifications, replicas or even property of my achievement are not allowed without my approval. Do not repost/ recommend/ share it elsewhere!

#jjba smut #jjba kakyoin smut #poc! reader #kakyoin noriaki smut #noriaki kakyoin smut #kakyoin x reader smut #kakyoin smut #jjba x y/n #jjba x reader #jjba part 3 smut #jojo's bizarre adventures smut #kakyoin noriaki x female reader #female reader #anime smut #smut #black reader smut #black female reader #kakyoin x black reader

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honeyandbloodpoetry · 3 years

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Gender Thoughts Pt 1 and 2

The first time I put a binder on, a little under a week ago, I felt euphoric. Ever since I hit puberty very early on, I felt uncomfortable with my breasts. They never felt right on me, and even though I’ve come to love them sometimes, they still don’t always feel like they match up. I hated how people always looked at them, pointed out how much they showed in low cut shirts when I never even noticed they were--or even wanted them to. They were just there. I liked the way low cut shirts feel and look on me, I just can’t help these giant sacks of flesh that sit on my chest.

Except...now I can! I ran my hands over my smooth chest, feeling bright. I looked into the mirror, and felt something warm wash over me. I put on my new masculine clothes, letting my partner clip on my new suspenders. I realized that I was shaking as I looked at myself again… I looked like a boy. I felt like a boy. Like a man. And I liked it. I wanted it. Admitting that to myself was like coming home.

I remember being in sixth grade, walking around the track for my civil air patrol class. I had been slotted in with the rest of the girls, the boys walking ahead of us. I remember feeling uncomfortable being shoved in with only girls, and looking at the gaggle of boys ahead. The exact thought that whispered in my brain was “I wish I was a boy. I want to be like them, with them.” I never forgot that moment, and how strange it made me feel. How it was easier to shake that thought away, and dismiss those feelings. Except they never really left, did they?

I remember sitting on my bed, crying with my best friend kneeling in front of me. I remember telling her how I didn’t like feeling like a woman all the time. That I wished I could be a black shadow, monstrous, androdynous. Specifically like Venom. She took my hand, did my makeup all in black and helped me pick out the perfect black outfit to achieve that dark, gothic look. I was so incredibly happy and validated. But I still felt like something was missing.

I remember going into an Adam and Eve for laugh, not expecting much since I am an asexual with a low libido. I remember seeing packers and feeling my chest tighten. I never liked my genitalia--I had wished for a cloaca or something akin to that, but since that was biologically impossible for a human… I sometimes wished I had the opposite of a vagina. I frequently imagined what it would be like to have a penis. I frequently lamented the fact that I didn’t have one. I took the box up to the counter to ask some questions, my dress swishing as I went. The cashier told me it was for trans people only, and a girl like me couldn’t have it. She didn’t know what asexuality was, and had tried polyamory once but decided it was bad when her girlfriend kissed her boyfriend. I was upset, disheartened, and left the store empty handed feeling frustrated and lost.

I remember finally cutting the long, curly locks that had frustrated and imprisoned me for so long. Seeing all of my hair fall to the floor, staring into the mirror as the barber buzzed the back of my head… It made me want to cry tears of joy. It was the first time in my entire life that I had looked at my hair and was happy. The first time I could look in the mirror and feel like myself. Then I remember wanting to go shorter, and my barber encouraging me to keep it a little longer so I didn’t look manly, so I could still be soft and feminine. The way my stomach dropped and the sick feeling in my chest only increased when he began to make fun of the gay men who came down the street near his favorite restaurant. I never saw that barber again. I instead found a nice local place down the road from my apartment, where the kind lady cut it all off without question, other than “Why?” and accepted my warm “It makes me happy. It makes me feel beautiful.”

But wearing that binder for the first time? It was as if a beam of light had funneled its way directly into my heart. I felt like a handsome man, with just a little bit of striking man boob, and it felt so right. My partner called me a dashing boy and my heart began to race. I still feel his hand tracing my jawline as he called me handsome, and the butterflies it sent up through my belly, even after more than eleven years.

I love my partner--he identifies as agender and primarily masculine, and has been on the lookout for a good pair of size thirteen shoes to wear with a dress. They also wear joggers and flip flops and graphic tees and can’t seem to stop talking about the ocean and outer space. They’re probably one of my biggest inspirations for finding myself, and being authentically me.

I’m not super sure who or what I am right now. I’m still figuring that out, but I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere between agender and genderfluid. I feel like me more than anything else, but all pronouns make me feel good. I feel like all of them and none of them at once, but I swing between wanting to be feminine and masculine pretty strongly, though I enjoy being masculine most of all--even when I’m wearing dresses and pink. I feel like a beautiful person in a dress or a button down, no matter what gender I feel like today or tomorrow.

I am me. And I am one dashing boy, and one beautiful girl.

4 July 2021

XXX

Since first writing this little essay, I’ve been doing a lot more examination of my gender. I have come to the conclusion that I am transmasc and nonbinary, and am shaky on the title of genderfluid. I am feeling less and less like a woman--if anything, occasionally adjacent to a woman rather than actually being one. I love feeling like and presenting as a man. I have my first appointment with a gender services doctor at my local community clinic for consultation on starting hrt testosterone. I am planning to start with low dose first, and see how I feel.

I am still unsure of my exact identity, but I have found great euphoria with being and presenting as a man. I love being a man and everything that entails. I have loved myself like never before. Being with my partner is amazing, and he has been endlessly supportive--even recounting little things they had noticed throughout the years. One of the funniest being that I only ever referred to my body parts--my belly, hands, hair, genitalia--with masculine pronouns. I always seemed to see my body as male even if I had a certain sort of dissonance from it.

Coming out has been difficult. I have had both positive and negative experiences from it. I have been told going on testosterone would be self harm, and that I can’t be something I’m not. I’ve had coworkers I trusted out me without my permission. But I have also had positive affirmation, polite questions, and discussions. I am terrified to tell my mother and her boyfriend--I have no idea how they will react and am terrified that I will be disrespected and disowned.

But I am prepared to do whatever it takes to be my happiest and most authentic self.

I have been binding a lot more often, wearing sports bras for long shifts at work, and occasionally going without either when I feel like letting my man boobs hang free. I’ve had the delightful experience of going to a men’s big and tall store and finally wearing pants. I grew up as a fat girl and felt as if I had to perform high femininity to be taken seriously and be treated well--and had been told by someone I trusted that I was too fat to wear pants, which I heavily internalized. So I had completely cast them away in favor of dresses and skirts, bows and gaudy jewelry. Realizing that I could wear pants was...totally wild. That I could be comfortable and look good in pants and shorts, and that it didn’t matter what people did or thought of me was life changing. Maybe I’ll feel like being feminine again someday, but right now this masculinity and masculine clothing, with perhaps the added spice of funky earrings, feels like home.

I also grew up autistic and with PCOS, both which I think have affected my gender identity. Being autistic, I truly struggled to connect to others socially, and especially to understand societal norms. Being a proper woman felt like I was making up for everything else I was lacking--I may have been awkward, semi-verbal and weird with no friends, but at least I was cute and girlish. I never connected to womanhood though, and always felt out of place no matter how hard I tried. With PCOS, I had heightened testosterone, which meant wider breasts and shoulders, a lack of periods, and excessive body hair. I recall the endocrinologist asking high school age me if I had excessive body hair around my stomach, breasts, etc. and my mother jumping to say no I didn’t...even though I did. I remember suddenly feeling very self aware and ashamed of something completely natural, and even something I started to enjoy. I started shaving my entire body then.

I even remember being in middle school, and thinking nothing of my hairy legs. In fact, I loved my body hair and how it felt. A rude girl began making fun of me though, tutting her tongue as she cooed, “Aw, does your mommy not let you shave?” Among other things, all throughout many years of severe bullying and abuse. I remember feeling ashamed, but not knowing why, and immediately shaving my legs, covering them in nicks from my shaky and unsteady hands, that same night.

So many things set me back in my gender expression. So many things contributed to me willful ignorance and denial. I remember wanting to be butch, and everyone in my life laughing at me and saying I was too soft for that. That sweet, sharp ache in my chest. I remember going to a salad bar with my mother, wearing a button up and telling her I wanted to wear some more boyish clothes around that same time--I had already told her that I was bi sometime earlier. I remember her lip curling, looking uncomfortable, and telling me that I better not become one of those boy girls. My late father was very vocal in denouncing homosexuality and specifically men loving men--something which always sat horribly wrong with me on a deeper level.

I think I might ending up being a trans man. I am still unsure and figuring myself out, but I struggle greatly with the autistic need for sameness vs. the trans need for change. My sapphic love of women has always been very important to me, and fully becoming a man rather than genderfluid is scary for that very reason. I am still navigating my identity and what it means to me and my reality--but no matter what, being a man, being masculine is integral to who I am.

I was called a “sir” at a job interview for the first time the other day, and nearly began to bawl from sheer joy. The gender euphoria from that and so many moments is worth so much more to me than the years of suffering and ignorance and my ongoing struggles with dysphoria. I finally got a packer and have had help from my partner in learning to position it properly--I am thinking of cutting my hair even shorter. I have almost perfected a pretty basic tie tying skill. Okay, not really, but I’m getting there. I feel deep inside that even though my father loved me, he would not like who and what I am. Still, I wear the last watch he ever wore, and hope to be a good man like him--and to learn from the toxic parts of him to be an even better man.

I am very excited to start hrt. I am terrified of hair loss and vaginal atrophy, but I look forward to so much more. I cannot wait for bottom growth and body hair, for the voice drop that will hopefully get me misgendered less. I have always felt disconnected from my voice and look forward to getting to know it better as it changes with me. I look forward to meeting with new facial hair. Working out and growing muscle. I just look forward to my second puberty and becoming more like myself. I look forward to navigating and exploring my gender even further, both with loved ones, support groups, and myself.

More than anything, I am just happy to be me.

25 August 2021

#transmasc #ftm #ftx #gender #genderqueer #transgender #trans #lgbt #lgbtq #trans man #nonbinary #genderfluid #poets of tumblr #spilled thoughts #gender expression #low dose t #hrt

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urproblematicfav-arsonk · 4 years

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There's a lot of things about Borderlands 3 that makes it kinda a garbage game. And all of those things are valid and true but a aspect of bl3 that deeply bothers me isn't something I've really seen people talk about?? Maybe they have but I missed it but I want to say my interpretation. (Also like, spoiler warning throughout all of this post)

To start off with: hi, I'm a autistic afab nonbinary person and this is relevant for this little rant I'm bout to go on.

I want to begin by stating why I love this franchise so much.

Borderlands, whether you like it or not, is INCREDIBLY queer. And not in a coded kind of way, it's just flat out gay as fuck. And that means so fucking much to me. Borderlands 2 was one of the first times I ever felt fully represented in a game. Zer0 being this dumbass making Yugioh references and generally being a fun garbage boy and also being nonbinary meant a lot to me and I adore him to this day (nonbinary people can use gendered pronouns fuc off). And getting more and more into this series and finding out that basically every character was on some level queer was really cool to me. Maya being asexual and most of the characters being attracted to multiple genders so honestly and off handily was so refreshing and amazing to get to play through. The casual mentions of a woman's wife or some man's husband in the echo's you find or Moxxi talking about her ex girlfriends was one of the reasons I loved this so much.

Another thing I loved particularly about Borderlands 2 was how feminist it was. I can not tell you how quickly I lost my shit at Mr. Torgue talking about the friend zone being misogynistic(it is btw). And the repeated jokes about fully murdering men for being rude to women was some of the highlights of my first playthrough. Punching a guy till he explodes because he disrespected a sex worker?? Fucking immaculate.

SPEAKING OF SEX WORK.

Mad Moxxi is a icon. She is a mother of MULTIPLE children, a survivor of rape and assault and a fucking bad bitch who runs a now intergalactic titty bar. Getting to have not only a sex worker be respected in a narrative, Moxxi is fun and a genuinely complex character who isn't defined by her job or her appearance. She is emotional and strong and funny and flawed but amazing person.

And then there's the way the male characters a represented and treated. I'll be honest here, I haven't really played Borderlands 1, mostly because have been spoiled by auto pick up and also I just didn't feel like it. So my idea of most of the men are based entirely off of Bl2, the pre-sequel and Tales. Anyway, Mordecai in particular is a character I really liked upfront. I love how a lot of his motivation and character is driven by his love of animals and Bloodwing. He's kind and though troubled knows when to get his shit together and be there when he needs to be. His casual "are you okay?" After the latter falls in the Arid Nexus was such a nice moment and the way he genuinely tries to be there emotionally for all of the people around him who he cares for is so fucking rare to see in a male character. And his arc of giving up alcohol to focus on being a better bird dad and you getting to help Brick make Mordecai a special gift to celebrate his sobriety is so amazing and I'm so proud of him.

Mr. Torgue is my dad and I love him. As mentioned, he is normal and believes that the friend zone is absolute garbage talk is ICONIC™ and the best scene in that game fight me. Torgue is a crybaby. He is an emotional person who is not afraid to express his pain and hurt when people are mean to him. He respects women and loves unicorns. The fact that is physical appearance is a big muscle guy who screams but is the literal opposite of toxic masculinity will forever make him the best male character of all time and I love him and he is my dad.

Roland was a character that I was never in particularly attached to but I still respect him and did enjoy his presence. I really appreciated his leadership style being primarily based on empathy and logic as opposed to him being a big meanie man with a HUGE dick who yells at people. I always really resonated with the echo from Tannis talking about how she came to Sanctuary. Roland going out of his way to bring Tannis to safety while completely respecting her autism and struggle with socializing really made his death hit harder when Tannis was very obviously distraught by losing him. It really seems that Roland was the only one who didn't treat her differently. And as someone who's autistic, finding people who legit 100% understand and respect you and just let you live the way you want/need to is kinda hard and those are the qualities I'd personally want in a leader.

Angel is also a big spot of affection for me. Handsome Jack being a irrefutably horrible person who Angel flat out says gaslights people and killed her means a lot to me considering 99% of Bad Parent stories end with "I forgive u" getting to see an abusive victim take that narrative and say fuck you was powerful and meant a lot to me coming from my own abusive home life.

There's a lot of other things I love about Borderlands but if I keep going I won't stop lol so let's get into why Borderlands 3 makes me so uncomfortable.

One of the main things that bothered me was the sexism. Its nothing too horrifying but given how feminist bl2 was it was really shocking and a bit hurtful the number of times women are called bitches or made to seem crazy. If you recall I brought up how you punch a man to death for calling a woman a bitch? Yea no, in this game we mock women for having boundaries and opinions because lol she's just a CRAZY BITCH who just needs to stop acting so hysterical am I right guys?

Yea the whole mission with that stupid bear thing and his ex robot girlfriend made me insanely uncomfortable and upset. I kept waiting for the gotcha moment where it says actually this bear guy is a dick and he shouldn't use language like that but no we just,,,,,, are supposed to laugh along. I hate it.

Even though Borderlands 3 is still very much queer, this game introducing 2 new trans characters as well as a whole DLC about a gay marriage and one of the playable characters being a lesbian there was this some shit that bothered me.

The mission where you crash and ruin a lesbian wedding.

That mission made so upset and uncomfortable. I hated how traumatized and hurt Tumorhead was as I murdered her family and wife. I hated how unfulfilling the mission was where PLOT TWIST the lady was actually a spy or whatever. I hate how there's a mission about ruining some poor psycho ladies wedding. I would've much more preferred a mission where Idk Bloodshine asks you to help her kill a spy who's causing problems and then fucking go around Promethea collecting wedding decorations or something. OR MAYBE JUST NOT A MISSION WHERE YOU KILL LESBIANS FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

I'm mad, anyway.

I also hated how Tannis was treated in this game. Under absolutely no circumstance would Doctor Patricia Tannis ever willingly take up a position of leadership. She is a severely autistic woman who gets nose bleeds from talking to people she wouldn't just be like "I'm in charge now pls talk to me!!!" Fuck off. And the joke about her dating a minecart isn't funny. The whole thing with the chairs, though funny in its absurdities was still a very important and powerful moment of character exploration. Tannis is insane. She is traumatized and hurt and in a moment of severe torture, she humanized some inanimate objects to cope. Tannis crying over the echo over Phillip is a heartbreaking moment of true vulnerability. It is also funny, because that's how good dark comedy works. It can be both hysterical and emotionally ruining at the same time. So what exactly does Tannis divorcing a minecart mean? What is this saying about her character? Why is it funny? Because lol lol reference??? Again, fuck off.

I hate how the Calypso twins childhood is handled. Troy implies it was horribly abusive and traumatic. But when we met Typhon whatever, he acts like it wasn't that bad??? He acts like he just didn't buy his kids the latest iPhone and oh no whoopsie now they're evil, my bad guys. It feels super weird and I don't like it.

Speaking of abusive parents. THEY DID MY GIRL ANGEL DIRTY SO BAD. This was literally when I decided I hated this game. Angel being the one who killed her mother and not Jack was fucking horrible. Especially after the literal foreshadowing in borderlands 2 implying he did. The fact that Jack is treated like a fearful man making what he thought was the right decision was insulting. I get that MattPat manipulated the fandom into thing Jack is a uwu bean but fuck you, you're the writers and you should fucking know better. Handsome Jack saw his daughter had power and turned her into a living battery for him to use as he saw fit. He was not scared and he was NOT right. Fuck you and fuck you for framing child abuse as chill and ok if your spooked enough like that. And the mission directly contradicts the echo's in Get To Know Jack. If Angel killed her mom why does she ask Jack where her mommy is when he's putting her in her chambers?? Why is it in the echo Jack is aggressive and forcibly and hurtfully makes her go into her chambers but in the memory, he's quiet and passive about it?? That's literally just flat out bad writing. Also fuck you.

Anyway,

I think that's really all I wanted to say about this topic. Obviously, there are also things that suck about bl3 but I'll try to chill and not make this too long.

I mostly wanted to make this to see if people cared/are bothered by the same things I am. I've seen how some of the fandom treats the more emotional and gay aspects of this franchise(the people throwing a fit over Amara, the friend zone line, not respecting trans peoples pronouns, sexualizing and being gross about Moxxi)

Anyway that's it byeeeeeeeeeeeee

#rant time #i was also gonna post this on reddit but it turns out i don't know how to use that app lol #so i prob wont #but dont worry still got tumblr #anyway #borderlands #borderlands spoilers #borderlands 3 spoilers #borderlands 3 #borderlands 2

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corporatelobotomy · 4 years

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Hey, I just saw your tags in this ace pride post and I wanted to tell you you're completely and totally valid ❤️ And I'm sure you already know this but you shouldn't ever feel like you have to pretend someone making out with you is ok when you don't want it. I'm not ace and I've also had someone I wasn't attracted to make out with me and I felt like I couldn't say no because we were on a date - and I regret that so, so much. It's always always ok to say no. ❤️

thanks so much for your kind words, anon 💕💕💕

sorry, i’m feeling really emotional at the moment so i went on a bit of a rant hahah.

i know i can assert boundaries and say no,, but it’s so hard because i keep deliberately putting myself in these situations because i want something to just click. and then i’ll be catapulted into the real world where real people live and i’ll be normal and not secretly a robot impersonating a human woman.

i’m always flipping back and forth between being like ‘okay. i guess i must be asexual. and ... it is what it is! maybe this is even a good thing. that’s kind of unique right? maybe i’m just supposed to have a sort of stereotypical ‘married to my work’ nutty professor vibe and that’s the way i am!’ and then sometimes it hits me and i feel just so lonely and i go on all these dates and just force myself to kiss people and hold their hands and play with their hair even though i feel like i’m so repulsed that i’m floating somewhere outside of my body. just telling myself over and over “maybe it’s just not the right person!”

it’s not necessarily that i’m trying to force myself to be something i’m not, but i can’t understand why i have to be like this. that makes more sense in my head hahah.

i don’t know if anyone (”normal”) has experienced this before or if it’s a uniquely ace experience but it’s just so rough.

#asks #anon #asexuality #maybe i should go to one of those AVEN meetups?#but even then it's like -- i want to find my soul mate !! i believe in true love!#i have so much internalised judgment oooooof

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karinakamichi · 5 years

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Saiki Angst Headcanons/Possibilities

So somebody mentioned that I should write about some angst and since Angst is my forte, I have decided to give it a shot.

There will be some serious and sensitive content warnings here so be leave this post if you’re not okay with that!!!

Also, I apologize in advance because a lot of my thoughts are really jumbled and might be confusing.

So where to begin...? 🤔

Well, to start, This one is not really angst, but I figured I should put it here anyway, because I’m projecting a bit and it’s caused me a lot of issues and frustration in relationships to the point that I figure I’m just better off alone.

1. Saiki is either Asexual or demisexual.

Again, I’m asexual myself, so a pretty big part of me might be projecting. However, Saiki doesn’t really show an interest in relationships to begin with, but he seems like he’d be even less interested in sex. Or at the very least, it’s certainly not one of his top priorities. Heck he’s a lot more interested in coffee jellies than that.

However, for angst, maybe this could cause him to feel a little out of place when sex is brought up. Maybe he would even feel kind of odd for not being interested in something that is pretty much considered “a basic human desire”. While, Saiki is the type to usually be stoic and nonchalant about stuff, we do know there are things that upsets him. This might be one of those things. I certainly know my own nonchalance towards sexual contact certainly upsets me.

(And for that matter Kaidou is like one of the only other ones on the show that seems like he wouldn’t want to rush anything with a partner. He seems like he’d be awkward enough just holding hands and especially kissing.)

This kind of contradicts with the above headcanon or maybe not?

2. Saiki avoids any kind of close intimacy because he afraid of hurting people and getting hurt.

Saiki says himself that he has trouble controlling his own strength, so I feel like he could be insecure and afraid that he would do something that ultimately either hurts those he cares about or reveals his powers. He can’t have either, so it’s better and more convenient for him to just avoid it all together, even kind of with his own friends, whether or not it’s kind of lonely like that(though I doubt Saiki would ever admit to being lonely).

This is kind of a given, but

3. Down deep, Saiki feels like he will never truly fit in with others.

He may use his powers to force himself to appear just average, but that’s just it. He will still always feel different than others because he’s a psychic. He will always resent having to hide from others, and not being able to be completely honest with others, and there will always be barriers up between him and others.

4. If Saiki truly lost his powers(which the end of the manga kind of gives us mixed messages on that), he would no longer be able to appear just average, and he would probably have a very hard time adjusting to it.

There’s a high chance that after so long of relying on his usual tactics, he would begin to fall behind in sports, and basically everything. He might start to stand out, and become a victim of bullying.

Of course, this is especially if we’re going by the end of the manga, where he doesn’t have full control over his powers anymore.

He could no longer teleport, or turn back time or even read other’s thoughts, but he still caused a window to break and he still was causing damage to walls from what I recall. There’s a pretty big chance if he didn’t get control over what powers he did have that people would start to notice and he couldn’t just use his usual means to get out of the situations anymore. Sure, Terahashi showed up when he was being cornered by those guys and Nendo saved him when those guys pushed the bookshelf onto him, but I guarantee they wouldn’t always be around to protect him, and if Saiki did become a victim of bullying, he would be the type to try to hide it, and wouldn’t want to bother others with it.

Also, I kind of think he would feel frustrated at having to be protected by others if that happened, yet another reason he would keep the bullying to himself when he could.

5. Kaidou’s father was abusive.

- Maybe Kaidou’s Father would hit and beat Kaidou’s mother and say horrible things about her, so his mother eventually kicked him out. But like maybe impact of his father’s abuse is what made it so hard for him to stand up for himself and others. Maybe Kaidou even tried to stand up against him, but then just got hit himself, and he developed into somebody that was afraid of standing up against others because he was afraid of retaliation? Because when people get confrontational with him it always reminds him of his father and automatically weakens his resolve to fight back? But he also can’t stand to see people being insulted and hit because it reminds him of the way Kaidou’s father treated his mother?

- Maybe Kaidou’s Father died when Kaidou was very young, so the lack of a stable father figure is what led to his interpersonal issues and insecurities/doubts when it comes to the certainties of his friendships.

This is gonna be a dark one, but

6. Kaidou either self-harmed or self-harms, and hides it underneath his bandages.

This could be caused by a lot of things. Feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, like he’s never good enough, frustration for not being “stronger”, maybe he’s a victim of bullying, maybe his father was abusive and and Kaidou can’t forget some of the things he said about him or maybe his father is even dead and he feels frustrated because he was left fatherless at such a young age. Heck, maybe he feels guilty for not being able to live up to his mother’s standards. Maybe he cuts because he struggles to make friends and stuff?

Although I feel like Saiki would find out at some point because of his telepathy.

7. If Saiki ever self-harmed while he still had his powers, he would just use them to heal it or rewind time, so nobody would see the injuries.

I think plausible reasons for self-harming could be:

To distract himself, to channel out the voices at least to a degree, to collect himself, to let out feelings and frustration he can’t through other means, because he feels like he’ll never truly be able to relate to others or like nobody will be able to truly understand him. To release pent up tension or anger?

But at some point, somebody like Kaidou or Nendou might walk in on it.

And while Nendou might be easier to fool, Kaidou likely wouldn’t be and he would probably feel kind of betrayed by Saiki hiding it from him.

But if we’re going by the headcanon that Kaidou himself self-harmed and hid it under his bandages, then he would probably feel even guiltier for not noticing.

Of course, if Saiki was doing it when he didn’t have his powers anymore(For some of the same reasons but also for some of the reasons listed in the fourth headcanon, like bullying and some of the other stuff), he would probably hide it with bandages just like Kaidou does, which Kaidou would probably pick up on(unless he didn’t have a history or self-harm in this).

Thought Saiki would more than likely cover up the bandages by wearing long sleeves as well anyway, in which case it wouldn’t be as noticeable at first.

8. Saiki is depressed.

Depression isn’t always obvious and many people can have it without even realizing it.

But basically it can be inhibited in

Constant Apathy, a lack of desire to engage with others, feeling like you’re alone, wanting to be alone, feeling like things will never change, having little to no interest in anything, being excited by very few things, feeling like there’s no point to living, the list goes on. I personally feel like Saiki has at least some of the symptoms and that it could be explored further.

I don’t have too much to say about this one, but

9. Sometimes, the voices are very hard to deal with.

I’m sure Saiki has also heard thoughts he didn’t want to from people, even from friends and family. After all, we all have negative thoughts about people we care about from time to time. But imagine having hear all of the negative thoughts from other people about you care about. Certainly, that would take its toll, so maybe Saiki is a lot more bothered by it than he lets on.

10. Teruhashi needs validation from others to love herself.

Like I deal with this a lot as somebody with BPD, but I will do whatever I have to to make people like me, and I often obsess if I think I did something wrong or made myself look like an idiot. I obsess over what people want to hear so I will be liked and not shunned. So maybe Teruhashi needs people’s validation to feel complete and secure about herself. Maybe she wasn’t always confident?

11. Teruhashi’s brother made some kind of sexual advances towards her at some point.

He’s kind of messed up in the head, so honestly I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that since it’s confirmed he... um... wanted to marry her?

Anyway, these were just some stupid headcanons of mine.

It may be a comedy anime, but I really can’t help but think about it and consider the more darker elements of it, and the drawbacks of having powers like Saiki’s.

#saiki k #the disastrous life of saiki k.#kaidou shun #angst #tdlosk #teruhashi #saiki kusuo #kusuo #kaidou #saiki k headcanons

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jcmorrigan · 4 years

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Valentine’s Day F/O Letter

For the event hosted by @nougatships and @megane-shipping! I decided to write a letter to Giovanni Potage from EE because I am love him SO MUCH right now. Anyway, it got kinda long, so most of it will be under a cut.

***

Hi Gio,

This is the first time I’ve ever really written anything of length to you. To any of the ones I love this way, really. Beginnings are hard. There’s so much I want to say, and I’m not sure where to even start. So let’s get the basics out of the way: how are you doing? Successful heists lately? Epic tales of villainy I simply must know about?

I’ve been fine. Life’s boring, as usual. I would say I don’t even know how you put up with it, but I’ve seen your couch-potato side, so that’s not really a big mystery. I like that. I like that you’re equally up for breaking the mold with some adventure and just…kicking it. (Wow. That’s some old slang. When’s the last time anyone said “kicking it”? Me. Just now.)

So as for the reason I’m writing this letter…I think it’s best if I just begin in chronological order. So you and I both know you’re not the only one in my heart, and I’m glad you respect this. There’s a time, a place, and an AU for you, and it doesn’t make you any less special. But I’m always stunned when I look back at how we met. The others, it took time to realize I loved them, and how much they meant to me. But you? You broke through that fuckin’ museum wall, and I KNEW you were my type. If you want the receipts, I have the Discord chat of when I was talking to my friend while watching you and screaming about how much I wanted to cuddle you. (LISTEN. I KNOW THAT WAS FORWARD. I’M SORRY FOR BEING A CREEP. SOMETIMES I’M A STALKER.) …Actually, the exact words were when my friend, knowing you were my type, said “If he were any further up your alley, he’d be at your house” and I said “He could come to my house anytime” and I’m sorry your girlfriend is such a creep.

I haven’t felt that instant…fall that many times in my life. The last time I can remember it, it was for someone real. As in who originates in my world. I think you’ve figured out that sometimes, I compare you to him. That chase went on such a runaround…with men, my whole life after him, I’ve thought of them as goals to achieve. I got the attention of the hot one! Yay! Finally! Now he can love me and all of my little quirks, even though I’m super boring! And I’m not saying that’s incredibly wrong. I’ve made some good relationships that way, actually. (All fictional, of course.)

But you…what struck me is how much I wanted to be with you for your sake. Not mine. Not to bandy about getting you to notice me, or playing the tsundere game, or worrying I’m not good enough. Sure, I like a slowburn and a good confession, but I really just wanted to be close to you because you made me smile. You had a good sense of humor, you have that unbreakable lighthearted confidence I adore…you’re a little bit of an idiot, but in the absolute best way possible (and you have emotional smarts where I don’t). And on that note! You’re one of the nicest guys I know! Even if you are the bad guy.

Which was kind of the two-hit combo that slayed me. I have a villain problem. You know this. I know this. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Some days, I want to be a villain, myself, and have the freedom to do what I want, take revenge on those I feel wronged me, take whatever my heart desires, just not have to live by the RULES anymore. But some days, I become acutely aware of my conscience. Could I ever be a real villain? Could I actually steal? Could I KILL? I think about the people I’d hurt, and I don’t wanna do that. I now know that depending on the situation, I can laugh with the sinners and cry with the saints. (Little Billy Joel for ya.) But with you, I know I don’t really have to…pick. You let me be me, and you let me have that freedom of just…doing bad things that are against the rules. And it feels AWESOME. But then, we never really take it too far, and we still have our friendships, our standards, our moral codes, our etiquette. Basically, you’ll let me be the good guy, too, and you’re just a sweetie pie. Some days, I need to toe the line more; some days, I need to shed blood. But you let me suspend in between, getting the best of both worlds.

And all this is why I think…maybe you’re my favorite out of all of them. It makes me feel guilty to love you best when I’ve given my heart to two others, and who knows where it will stop? But it’s you I find myself thinking of most often. You who I’d have fun with. You who’d make me smile. You who I’d want to make smile.

Also, I realized lately. I don’t get jealous over you, not like I thought I would. I like seeing you depicted with other partners, the Blasters or other selfshippers/OCs. I love when I meet someone else who had the good enough taste to fall for you! If you want to invite Crusher or Spike or anyone else you like to be part of this…I know you have enough love for all of us. We can all be happy together. Just say the word!

Knowing you would support me emotionally no matter what is touching. I’ve relied on you for a lot. I’ve done scary grown-up government stuff while listening to your theme. I invited you to the crew that would go on that flight with me because I hate airplanes so much, and I knew you would give me amazing distraction-cuddles (though I suspect you, also, fear the airplane, and if I’m right about that, I admire you so much for not letting it show). There are times I…really hate myself, or feel worthless. Especially because I have so much trouble validating myself. But I know you’d just put a hand on my shoulder and tell me it’s going to be all right before inviting me to slip on some ski masks and pretty supervillain clothes so we can go hijack sugar cookies from the bakery. (Pink for you. You always have dibs on the pink ones! I haven’t forgotten! And blue for me <3)

The adventures we’ve been on in my imagination…the walks around Twilight Town (YEAH YEAH I KNOW WRONG WORK OF FICTION), snuggling up in your knitted blankets (which are SO SOFT), making my villainess dress together, the first kiss on the rooftop, dancing like idiots, THE HEISTS…it all makes me really happy. You remind me that I don’t necessarily have to “grow up” to be a grown-up. And, I mean, I knew that, but you make sure I REALLY know that. (Speaking of which, don’t you love how if you add the two of us parents’-basement-dwellers together, you probably end up with one [1] functioning adult?)

I also really have to thank you for being accepting of my asexuality. I’m always scared it will push others away. They say men only want one thing, right? And I am unfortunately attracted to men. Yaaaaay me. But there are big exceptions to the rule, and you’ve always been the one to say “Fuck gender roles!” I feel like when I’m with you, I never have to worry that you’ll be wanting something I can’t give you.

In return, I will accept you no matter your body, your identity. I’ve run into a couple different takes on you, but they’re all you.

I guess that brings me to the hard part of this. This is going public, so I don’t know how specific I want to get. But there was a very powerful force that suggested I couldn’t see you through my own eyes. That no one could do so. It almost tore us apart. I thought it was my moral obligation to let you go. I thought loving you would mean taking a stand on the wrong side and hurting my friends. I thought that what would happen is that every time I thought of you, I would be reminded of ugly truths and harsh realities.

But after two days, I missed you so much. It was a good wake-up call to know this relationship wasn’t completely baggage-free, and it reminded me that I have many characters in my life who I want to give my attention, but it also proved to me that if I tried to let you go…I would have to physically push you away instead, and in the end, I couldn’t do it. I think back all the time to how good of a brother-dad-mentor-figure you were to Molly, and how you got worried about Fred’s astigmatism, and how I was sure you’d get along with so many of the characters who already made up my world, and how this spoke to your heart. Oh, and also, I needed your dumb ass to say loitering in front of a truck was a valid crime. (Please don’t ever loiter in front of a truck. I’m begging you.) I need you to show me how easily you shift from Grandma Mode to Knife Mode with your knitting needle, to be proud of the way you season your soup attacks, to keep making your own capes, to insist on the benefits of wielding a bat with a fucking knife taped to it, to jet your friends to safety when they’re afraid of such things as fire and traitor bears.

Whatever comes of all that, I hope there can still be a space for us. You and me. And I’m confident it will happen, now. It already is happening. Because I know that you’d just want me to be happy, no matter where you fell on the issue that began it. And you love and respect my friends, too. I know you see us as our own little group of villains and co-minions and talk about us like we’re an evil team that has to take care of each other, and that’s…honestly so cute. Too bad I’m terrible at putting your words to work. Maybe one day. When I learn how to find the approval I seek without fighting it out of people. But I think that was the moment it went from a crush to actually loving you. When I saw how you would do that with Molly. With everyone. Make sure they knew how valid they were. I…feel bad that I haven’t been able to live up to this lately. Like I’ve failed you. But I can always try again, right? That’s what you’d want me to do! And I do improve on things every day. One day, the minion will surpass her villain (but still stay around with you because that’s what we do)! I hope I can support you in the same way – that when you have things that trouble your mind, that I can help you feel better and get you toward a solution to the problem.

I know I’m safe with you, and I want to keep you safe, too. I know how much you’d put on the line to defend me, and I just want to protect you from all of the bad in your world – from snooty Vice Principals who call their armies to beat you up (I’m still SO SORRY you went through that!), from the law chasing you away from all that’s familiar, from all the insults and mockery that could ever come your way. I want to stand before you like a shield. To gather the troops of the other characters I know and form a protection squad around you. To make you smile. (Even if you are really, really cute when you cry. Look, I’m not gonna beat around the bush – I do love getting to comfort you. It SUCKS that you have to go through the hard times, but I like…being there. I hope that doesn’t make a sadist of me. Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s an overreaction.)

By the way, I’m kinda sorry for not ordering the lobster bisque at the pub in the airport. I was gonna because of you! But I chickened out! And that salmon I got instead was REALLY good, okay? But it’s a double whammy because I had JUST found out the soup place in the mall closed and I need to make up for this. There will be soup!

(As of the most recent draft, I had a horrid stomachache last Sunday, and chicken soup was all I could eat for most of the day. I thought of you. Though yours would’ve been better than Campbell’s and we both know it.)

Fun fact: you are dating a silly, sappy lady. I keep thinking back to this letter – I drafted it once, then went back and added things, and here I am saying I ALMOST mailed this without talking up your looks. Which is probably a good thing because it means I’m primarily with you for your personality, but everyone deserves to feel like they look nice, so here goes: I love your silly, sly smirk. I love your cute little fangies. I love your untamed pink hair. I love when I can see just how deep-pink your eyes are. I love how much of a beanpole you are, and how much taller you are than me (even if it does mean you can’t carry me bridal-style for more than thirty seconds). I love how innocent you can look, and how you can look the absolute OPPOSITE of innocent when you want to. I love the way your face lights up when you’re happy about something, or when you’re being cocky. I love the way you wear your emotions on your sleeve, and I can always see how you feel just by looking (I’m bad at body language and reading between lines, after all). Do not ever doubt that is one handsome man looking back at you from the other side of the mirror! Because I could just watch your smile for so long, unbroken, you don’t even know.

Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting me be me. Thank you for the fact that we’re our silly selves and we can be grown-ups without growing up in the gray space between good and evil. I can’t wait to see you more – in your own story, where I’m not; in the story just for us, in our own little timeline; in the TBTCverse Twilight Town where we are hounded by complex crossover lore; in the beautiful art everyone draws of you; in any other universe that may bring us together.

And someday, the time might come that we have to part ways romantically. I’m not looking forward to that. I’m really not. I hope it doesn’t happen. But someday, we might not have the chemistry anymore, or you might find someone better, or I might have to put more focus in what I guess is the “real world.” If that day comes, I hope we can still be friends and mean something to each other. Zucchinis/QPPs, preferably. But if we have to be more distant…just so that I can think of you, and you can think of me, and we’ll both treasure those memories.

I love you, Giovanni. Or should I say “Boss”?

Sincerely, with all my heart,

Rachel “Composer” Scribere/Inlustris

(P.S. I wasn’t sure which universe’s last name I should put, seeing as I obviously am not going to write my last name in THIS world, so there, have both the ones you know me as.)

(P.P.S. “If there’s a place that I could be, then I’d be another memory. Can I be the only hope for you? Because you’re the only hope for me.” ~MCR, “The Only Hope for Me Is You,” Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys)

#selfship #i'm at soup!#valentine's day f/o event

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asteroiideae · 4 years

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You know for that character thing I gotta ask you about Jyn Erso.

I’m reasonably sure I did Cassian the last time one of these went around, so this seems only right! lol How I feel about this character: I don’t know that I have enough room in this ask to list out all of the reasons that I love Jyn Erso, because there are just so many but I’ll do my best! From the first trailer we saw, I knew that she was going to be special to me; this angry, destructive, person who rebels felt so much like who I felt like inside (if not on the outside) at the time that I felt an instant, genuine, kinship with her. I love the way she is allowed to be angry; not righteous, passionate, productive angry like Leia - which is valid, but also the only kind of angry female protagonists are universally allowed to be. Jyn is let the world burn kind of angry, the kind of anger that comes from being wronged and deciding that you’re just going to fuck off about it. I love that we get to explore the complexity of fathers and daughters, of that very special kind of anger, the way you can love someone and hate them at the exact same time. The way it feels to have to grapple with that while there are other, seemingly more important events going on. I love that even though Jyn is angry, it hasn’t robbed her of her compassion, that she sees the vulnerability in other people and knows how it feels, so she does her best to save the little girl in the way she wished she had been saved. I related so much to Jyn that I went home from the first (of so many) theatre viewing of Rogue One and laid awake in bed just vibrating with how much I felt seen, and heard, and represented in a Star Wars film. All the people I ship romantically with this character: Okay, I’m super boring here, but I exclusively ship Jyn with Cassian. As a personal preference I like having my ships make canonical sense, and to me between Rebel Rising and Rogue One it just feels unlikely that Jyn opens up (often, or easily, or at all) to people. I also tend to headcanon her as a demiromantic asexual person, partially because I like to give myself that kind of reputation, but also because I think it makes sense for her and her trauma. It’s pretty obvious she’s bonded hard to Cassian, but I think she would have difficulty making that kind of bond with other people. (disclaimer: any other ships y’all may have with Jyn are fun and valid and I fully encourage it lol) My non-romantic OTP for this character: My top #1, ride-or-die, can’t write a singular piece of Rogue One fanfic without it platonic ship is Jyn and Bodhi; brotp forever. I love this idea that they’re two people, utterly orphaned, who share the truth that Galen Erso has given them the opportunity to be better people, and now they’re siblings about it. I can’t help myself, I love platonic ships as much as romantic ones, and the one between Bodhi and Jyn writes itself so well. Aside from those two, I enjoy writing Jyn off of literally every other member of the Rogue One crew, because they’re a found family that just fits together so perfectly and easily that it’s too much fun not to write them all bouncing around off of each other. (K2 and Jyn is a very close second though, or maybe Saw and Jyn.) My unpopular opinion about this character: I don’t know that I have any unpopular fanon headcanons about Jyn. I do think I read her relationship with Galen post-Rogue One as being a little more fraught and complicated (and still a touch angry) than most of the fics that I’ve read? I guess I think it’s difficult to go from 10-12 years of hating someone and pretending they’re dead to loving them without complication. (Or it’s just my daddy issues showing through, who knows lol!) I think if there’s a commonly-used Jyn trope from fandom that I dislike (as another way of looking at this question,) it’s probably how early on there were a LOT of fics where Jyn was deep in substance abuse, and I don’t really like that for her as a character. But I think those are the closest to unpopular opinions I have about her! One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I don’t think I would change anything about the film, Rogue One is pretty much my personal perfect Star Wars story and, though I’d love to see the cut/alternate scenes, I wouldn’t want it to be canonically different. I think I would take the romance out of Rebel Rising (it felt a bit forced, like one more check box for the YA crowd that had to be hit,) but I think that’s the only critique I have of it. I would LOVE to see Rebel Rising expanded and turned into a Disney+ series, either animated (with Felicity voicing Jyn,) or live-action, though I think it’d be more difficult to bring Felicity back for that and it would be such a shame. Or maybe turn Rebel Rising into a comic series? Or both??? tl;dr I just want more Jyn Erso okay? (Or more Lyra - okay wait no, that’s my critique. Catalyst sets Lyra up as the more present parent for most of Jyn’s upbringing but we almost NEVER see anything about their relationship in either the film OR in Rebel Rising and honestly my girl Lyra deserves better than that.) If anyone else would like to see me rant about a character - literally any character! - this is the post here and you can just yeet your choice right into my asks. :D

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farfromsugafanfic · 5 years

Text

Sammy Interview

Before we get started, do you mind introducing yourself and telling a bit about yourself?

My name is Sammy. I’m 34 years old, a college graduate with a background in cultural anthropology as well as women, gender, and sexuality studies. I’m particularly interested in queer and feminist methodologies. I live with my partner of some 15 years, who is also a fanfiction writer.

Q1: So, you told me that you’ve been writing fan fiction for 20+ years which is awesome! How did it all get started and what kind of fan fiction have you written in that time?

A1: Like a lot of fangirls of my generation, anime was my introduction to fanfiction. I grew up watching Sailor Moon when it first aired on American network television. It was love at first sight. There was nothing else like it on TV. At my local Blockbuster I discovered anime. It wasn’t as readily available then as it is now. Because the english dubs were so limited I ended up watching the same OVA rentals over and over - Ranma ½, RG Veda, Vampire Princess Miyu. First I wrote stories in my head, then I started writing them down. When I recieved my own computer and constant access to the internet, I went searching for fansites. Secreted behind unassuming links I found small clutches of fanfiction. This was before fanfiction.net first took off, and An Archive of Our Own was well over a decade away. Fansites had webrings, which took me to the next fansite, and so on. It really was a matter of finding the right webring for a given show and following the thread.

I began with writing Sailor Moon fanfiction, and as Cartoon Network’s late night block of programming (Toonami) expanded, the more I wrote. Gundam Wing fandom introduced me to shipping and it blew my mind.

I moved away from anime when the Harry Potter movies happened. A lot of us made the transition to book and movie based fandoms when someone discovered Harry/Draco. After that I found DC comics, and then became very active in the Star Trek reboot fandom. I’ve written for Stargate: Atlantis, BBC Sherlock and Hannibal and so, so many other shows/books/video games. I’ve been an active participant in Yuletide, which is an anonymous holiday fanfic exchange, and multiple Big Bangs -another fanfic/fanart exchange- as well as a kinkmeme prompt filler for years.

Q2: What pushed you to begin sharing your fan fiction?

A2: The mailing lists. In the early days of fandom private yahoo groups and message boards were the main venue for posting and reading fanfiction. Most mailing lists were fandom based and created for specific content - like Gundam Wing Slash, GundamWingGEN and CRACKSHIP. These became high volume, tight knit communities. It wasn’t unusual to have your mail box refreshing on the left side of the monitor, while you chatted with members on AIM on the right side. There was a lot of encouragement, experimentation, and collaboration. You posted your fanfiction to the list, or board, and people cheered. It was all so exciting. It’s hard to describe now how close we all were, and just how much fellow-feeling fueled hundreds of emails a day. This was my online family, my community. I didn’t need a push or moment of courage to post my early fanfiction - I was delighted to share, invited to share. It was an electrifying thing to be part of.

Q3: Were you scared to post it online?

A3: Not at all. I didn’t need to be scared - none of us did. No one outside these early lists and boards knew what we were doing. I really can’t emphasize enough how guarded the early fanfiction community was. We were incredibly insulated. Our families didn’t know, our teachers and co-workers were oblivious, popular culture wasn’t shitting on fanfiction writers because it didn’t know we were writing. I wasn’t scared to press ‘send’, but it did feel dangerous, a little rebellious. There was a sense of getting away with something.

Q4: Has writing fan fiction taught you anything? About writing? Reading? Something else?

A4: On a basic level, fanfiction taught me how to write. Structure, pace, dialogue - I was taught those things in a classroom, but I learned them by writing fanfiction. We all taught ourselves to write by writing for each other. We created an entire literary movement without an MA in literature, or a structured pedagogy. Fanfiction writers generated new narrative traditions, like the Five Things + 1 format (a breakaway from the three-act story), Hurt/Comfort, and a language of tagging that defies classical genre rules - all because we were messing around.

Writing fanfiction has taught me the value of questioning western literary rules and conventions, that writing for myself and my own pleasure is valid. It’s also taught me that I don’t like to write alone. One of the things that makes fanfiction so special for me is that so much of it happens in conversation with other writers and readers. My best writing experiences have been in simpatico with total strangers, on AIM, in livejournal comment threads, gchat. I’m not writing “original fiction” because I lack imagination; it’s just too lonely.

Q5: Do you ever want to be published in a professional capacity one day?

A5: I do, though I feel like this is a bit of a fraught subject for fanfiction writers. There’s an compulsion to say yes, of course I plan to publish one day, as if that end goal legitimates the fanfiction I write. I don’t want to contribute to the idea of fanfiction as a lesser form of literature- a stepping stone to Real Writing - but yes. I started writing creative nonfiction in community college. That writing comes from a very different place than fanfiction. It satisfies another hunger.

Q6: How you feel about the stigma surrounding fan fiction and fan fiction writers? Or, do you not feel any stigma at all?

A6: I think the stigma towards fanfiction is pushback from multiple sociological and institutional sources.

In the beginning we had the sense that fanfiction - slash fanfiction - wasn’t something to bring up outside of those digital spaces we made for ourselves. We knew it would be considered an auteur kink at best, or downright perverted plagiarism at worst (I think this is largely still the case). Before the community found the language to discuss slash and fanfiction as transformative works - as deconstructions of conventional media, gender roles, and sexuality - there was an ethos of compartmentalization to the whole thing.

Q7: Do you think that stigma is warranted? (Whether or not you have personally experience it?)

A7: No.

I touched on this earlier, but I believe the stigma and hostility towards fanfiction is firmly rooted in gender and non-normative sexuality. The writing we do is generally characterized as a feminine endeavour, which immediately marks it as inferior to a literary canon that values the masculine so highly. The perception that fanfiction is a plagiarism of male authored source material makes it all the more egregious.

Equally as foundational, is the reduction of fanfiction to gay porn written by straight cis women for straight cis women - fanfiction is not only shit writing, it’s perverted and weird.

I’ve never been ashamed of the fanfiction I write, or read. Embarrassed maybe, of those first earnest attempts at writing. But fanfiction does not have a monopoly on bad writing. I can just as easily find the same trash in Barnes & Noble. So, quality is not and never has been a valid criticism.

Q8: What’s your favorite piece of fan fiction you’ve ever written? Why?

A8: A gen fic I wrote for Star Trek (AOS). I’m a leisurely writer, and stories don’t just hit me whole and complete in one go. But this one did. It took three hours to write and I didn’t have to think about where I was going after finishing a paragraph, the next was already there, I just had to type it out. It’s never come that easy before or since. It’s not my most popular piece of fanfiction, but I can go back and read it and not feel like I need to change anything.

Q10: Do you write outside of fan fiction?

A10: I do - until recently I was writing up lesson plans for classes I was co-facilitating. Generally, when I’m not writing fanfiction I’m working on creative non-fiction. I use the frame of gender analysis and sexuality studies (among others) to write about my life.

Q11: What site do you prefer to write and post your fan fiction on?

A11: An Archive of Our Own (AO3). The tagging system is superior and the site is far more user friendly than ff.net, which is an absolute dumpster fire.

Q12: What’s something you want people outside the fan fiction community to know about the fan fiction community?

We’re not a monolith. Teenage girls are the cultural face of fanfiction, but so many of us are in our 30s and 40s, old fandom queens from those first private mailing lists, boards, and LiveJournal accounts. We have soul sucking jobs. We have degrees in STEM. We teach college, have kids and debt, and friendships that have lasted decades.. We are not, and never have been a homogenous group of straight cis women. Asexuality and gender fluidity abounds. Plenty of us experience disability and chronic illness. And we aren’t a small group of weirdos obsessed with Johnlock. We’re an enormous and diverse group of weirdos who have created a literary movement.

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eirenical · 6 years

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15, 20, and 25?

Thanks for asking, @takethewatch! (If anyone else wants to send me some, here they are.)

15. five most influential books over your lifetime.

Oh, boy. That’s not an easy one, is it? I’ve read way too many books. XD

OK, this list has to start with the Last Herald-Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey. IIRC, LHM had been recommended to me by an English teacher in 8th grade, along with Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series and another series that I don’t think I ever actually read? Looking back--and considering that this was in 1991/1992--those were really bold recommendation choices. LHM’s protagonist is gay, and gay couples are present in the Pern series, too (though I’m not certain I recognized them as such back then). Anyway, the point is that LHM entered my life at a time when I was totally open to whatever I was reading and would accept world-building choices without question. Vanyel loved boys? OK. *shrug* I just accepted it, lock, stock, and barrel. Sure the characters in the story gave him a hard time for it, but the author clearly thought it was OK, so clearly it was OK, and I just ran with that. And I didn’t realize until much later what a HUGE life-altering thing that was. And it happened so quietly, I didn’t even realize it had happened. Non-straight people existed, they were valid, and their stories were worth telling. I don’t even have the words to describe how utterly huge that was for 13 year old me, but IT WAS.

(Side note: There is another thing that I accepted lock, stock, and barrel from ML’s books, as well as a few others I loved with similar characters that were NOT so healthy, too: a) overworking yourself to the point of exhaustion and collapse is the sign of a hero, and b) being willing to sacrifice the things you want for the greater good/so the people around you can be happy is definitely the Way To Be. And since vet school reinforced those mindsets LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS, I ended up with a really significant martyr complex that I’ve only recently begun to realize within the last 5 years or so is SUPER UNHEALTHY. So... YIKES. -.-;;;)

This isn’t a book, so it might be cheating, but as far as life-altering stories go, fair game by @myrmidryad has to go on the list. First of all, it’s just flat out AMAZING (the whole series is, for that matter), and I highly recommend it. Second of all, my journey didn’t exactly parallel Courfeyrac’s in this story, but the realizations he had throughout the story struck enough chords in me that reading them helped me figure out that I was asexual, too. And that had been a realization I’d been dancing around for months, at that point, but still never seriously thought I’d land on. But after reading this fic, not only did I finally managed to land, but I managed to ground and stabilize there, as well as, start coming to terms with it. And that was just as huge as the realization I had over LHM in 8th grade--it was just that this one happened with a bang instead of a whimper. ;D

Every horse book ever written by Marguerite Henry. ^_^ I was horse-crazy as a kid and horse-crazy as a young adult and though I really can’t ride anymore because of my back, I’m still horse-crazy, now. But thanks to these books, I ended up at horseback riding camp where I met two of the best friends I’ve ever had. ^_^

Snow Dog (and many of his other dog books, but especially that one) by Jim Kjelgaard. Same basic story, here as with Marguerite Henry. I loved this book SO MUCH when I was young. I completely wore out the spine I re-read it so often. If you had told me as a child that I could only keep one book out of my (even at the time) extensive collection, it would have been this one, hands down. I don’t honestly even know why it affected me so profoundly, but it did. And it and Marguerite Henry’s books were definitely two of the influences that set me on the path to veterinary medicine, so that definitely can’t be discounted. ^_^

And... now I’m in the same position you were in @takethewatch. WHAT DO WITH 5TH SPOT. O_o;;; THERE IS TOO MUCH. But I think ultimately, it has to be Tamora Pierce’s Wild Magic and the Lioness Quartet that go here. For, ironically, wildly opposing reasons. I read Wild Magic when I was in early high school and still very deep in my horsiest horse-crazy mode. Girl who communes so deeply with horses that she practically becomes one and talk to all animals? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. But what hit me so hard about Daine’s story and Alanna’s both was this: that scene where Daine was told that it was OK to give up her skirts, to give up the things that are considered traditionally feminine, and that Alanna flat out gave up being a girl entirely for the right to pursue her dream, because at the time, I was still very much a tomboy. I loved to dance, but that that about the only feminine thing I did. In fact, I felt SO strongly against all things feminine, that if I’d grown up now, instead of then, I might have identified as agender or nonbinary. Looking back on it, it’s also possible that that was a bit of internalized misogyny at work, maybe a little bit of bb!aro/ace me peeking up from under the covers, but I’d never really felt comfortable or interested in most things that were coded as feminine, so I don’t know. Anyway, that was thing number one: that there were heroines out there who rejected the feminine and weren’t punished for it by the story. Here’s the second: that Alanna decides in the third book that she DOES like some feminine things and even more than that, it’s OK that she likes some feminine things. She isn’t any less a warrior. She isn’t any less respected. She isn’t any less a badass. She’s still her... she just occasionally likes to wear dresses. And that was HUGE for me. That I could be a tomboy and still prefer all the scrub around in the dirt things that I did and still not be genteel and fragile and feminine... but if I wanted to wear a dress or a skirt because I liked the feel of it swirling around me... THAT WAS OK and it didn’t commit me to being a girly-girl. And that was something I desperately needed to hear at the time--that there is no wrong way to be female. You can prefer pants and still occasionally want to wear dresses and really it’s just about what makes you comfortable; it doesn’t change who you are inside, whoever that is.

20. would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?

Between the three, I’d have to say Hogwarts, for the sole reason that I’d get to have magic and yet would still get to keep my technology, the Internet, and Broadway, too. ;D

25. could you live as a hermit?

For short periods of time, yeah, I think I could, and quite happily. I’d love to have a little cottage out somewhere in a forest clearing with lots of growing things around me, enjoying a much simpler, grounded kind of life. But ultimately, I need people, too. And all those modern conveniences I mentioned above. ^_~ So, while that life sounds HIGHLY appealing as a sabbatical from reality, I wouldn’t want it to be my everyday life. ^_^

#ask meme answers #long post #PHEW that really was longer than i expected #BUT FUN!#^_^#thanks again #takethewatch #!!#conversations through replies

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vtori73 · 3 years

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*me recalling a post someone shared on labels*

Okay... it's still bugging me so I'm going to just talk about it. So, a post I saw ON HERE not twitter or Instagram or anywhere else but HERE where I normally don't expect to see posts like this waa reblogged to my dash. Im not going to say it's necessarily all bad but I am still a bit surprised that I saw it & just... doesn't really, at least too me, make any good arguments and more so comes off as wanting to police identities & caring more about understandability then actually caring about LGBTIA+/ Queer people.

Instead of forcing you all to scroll through my whole post if you don't want to read my word vomit I'll add a read more (quick cw for brief mention of harrasment/assault):

Now the basic gist of the post was wanting people to change the conversation of if certain labels are "valid" to "are these labels necessary or useful" which... in my honest opinion I think both conversation either way are kind of... pointless. They just feel like they kind of take time away from actual important topics that we, the LGBTIA/Queer community, should be having. Why are we still bothering with this pointlessness of labels similar to how people are overly obsessed with flag discourse or slur discourse NONE OF THIS ACTUALLY MATTERS FOR FUCKS SAKE in the grand scheme of things.

I'm not saying some labels can't be problematic of course... well probably. Like, for example this one I heard someone bring up that was put on a wiki about "wanting to have pure bloodlines" or something like that but... I feel like I shouldn't have to explain ALL of the why's to why that one shouldn't count as a legit example. Anyway, I bring this up because this WAS brought up as a counter to the argument someone made about labels, most likely a pro-label argument I don't remember exactly what was being said though this was Twitter not Tumblr though so it was unrelated to the post I'm discussing here.

This tumblr post I saw just seems like the thinking/foundation for what I see a lot in the gate-keeping LGBTIA+/Queer community. Bi people who are Panphobic using similar arguments against each other or against the other lesser known mspec identities such as Omni or Poly. Or more recently the arguments against mspec lesbians or more specifically bi/pan-lesbians and usually the arguments I find being used against these labels make LESS sense then pro-labels people who go "labels are valid."

Anyway I bring this up because when it comes to people against labels, discussing the importance of legitimacy of labels, and similar arguments tends to sound exactly like the arguments people who do police identities and such like transmeds, terfs, homophobes, biphobes etc. Why do our labels NEED to be useful, need to be understood? We don't seem to care about straight, cis, allo people understanding so why should we care when it comes to people within as well? Being "understood" also seems kind of... what's the word... "Pointless?" No, not exactly what I was going for but... it's close enough. Even when non-queer people DO understand us and our labels it doesn't somehow automatically make them allies to us, even the self-proclaimed allies who understand can still work against our best interests so why are we putting importance in ANYONE understanding our labels?

For example purposes I will breakdown the arguments against the label.

Okay so, people who are doing what op said they wanted to see more of in the post I'm referencing here were basically saying (that's isn't just x is bad) "Bi lesbians are harmful to the Lesbian community because men will use it as an excuse bother us/it shows men were available to them. Bi lesbians are also bad because they are tearing down something Bi people worked hard for, to have their own separate community. Bi-lesbians also are bad because terfs created the term."

Alright, so for the first point this one isn't obvious to some but is for many other how messed up the argument is because it basically amounts to nothing more then victim blaming, basically "your asking to be harassed by men if you can possibly be attracted to them" which is a huge slap in the face to straight, but ESPECIALLY bi women who ARE statistically more often victims of abuse. Not to mention this argument makes less sense you you recall that lesbians often DO voice how men will continue to hit on them REGARDLESS of what they say their sexuality is so if straight men decided to use "bi-lesbians" as an excuse one day it only really proves how insidious they are and not the labels legitimacy.

For the second point this is normally made by Lesbians and... look im not saying you can't speak up for us but what made this even WORSE specifically was that Lesbians at the same time were saying that ONLY Lesbians can speak on this "bi-lesbian" discourse which just... voids any good will they may have had initially. You don't GET to speak about others identities & their histories while ALSO telling them to shut the fuck up because thats NOT how this shit works especially when you're spouting ahistorical nonsense. Which yeah, they were/are. The argument was not only bad because of the speaking over Bi people but it was also just legitimately WRONg... well, maybe at the least just glosses over some BIG details. Like, for example that, yes, Bi people DID work hard to make their own space BUT were you also aware that Bi people WERE apart of the Lesbian community with open arms for a time before political lesbianism became a thing & took power in the Lesbian community which resulted in kicking out anyone they didn't like because I feel leaving that out is kind of wrong but I guess it does make their argument look bad. Also not to mention that as a Bi person bi-lesbians don't bother me, they don't negativity effect Bi people just by existing so I have no qualms with them & a decent amount of other Bi people feel the same so... like I said before don't speak for a community you're not apart of, especially when you're also telling us to shut up at the same time!

The last point is also wrong, I'm not bringing up sources but basically the idea that terfs started is actually, you guessed it, due to terfs! Sorry.. that's probably confusing but actually terfs don't like the label so they started the misinformation that terfs(& similar) started it to get people against it which makes sense if you understand who terfs hate. Terfs, specifically the ones within the lesbian community are not much different from political lesbians & I wouldn't be all that surprised if thats what a lot them were or would have been if that was still a thing. I would say a closer equivalent would be "gold star Lesbians" or anyone who thinks it's a good term but ANYWAY the point was that a lot the Lesbians who hold one of these beliefs/identities TENDS to hold the other because they aren't all that much different so it's easy to see why they would want to destroy the term vs actually want it around.

I almost forgot one part of the argument though, and that was that the misinformation was that "terfs created it too separate trans lesbians from the lesbian label" which... Look I'm sorry but if you know terfs this honestly doesn't make all that much sense, yes terfs ARE mainly against trans people it's in the name but don't lie and tell me that plenty of terfs also haven't been found to be against queer, bi, & asexual people as well so I don't see them wanting to ever create the term "bi-lesbian" even if it is to be transphobic. But if we disregard that line of thinking the argument also falls flat when you immediately just... TALK to any Bi-lesbian and ask them why they use label because most who use it tend to be non-binary people who have fluid genders and thus have complicated relationships with their sexuality. Even then some just use it too mean they have strong connections to the Lesbian community for whatever reason! There are probably other reasons but my brains fried so that's all I'm listing but I feel like my point should have sank in by now anyway.

So, after having bare through my long example I hope my point has gotten through but if it hasn't I will summarize: not all labels in the end are going to be "helpful, useful, or needed" BUT that's doesn't make them bad just because of that fact and policing labels & identities in the end is more harmful to the community then not. Instead of caring whether a label is useful or not let's instead focus on making sure we don't allow harmful, bigoted rhetoric and thinking to continue to thrive and permeate our communities, whether online or not so we can keep them from overtaking our spaces... again. And if there really are ACTUALLY harmful labels popping up let's MAKE SURE they are actually harmful and then deal with them accordingly!

Note: if your curious as to why I wrote "LGBTIA+/Queer" I'm going to explain below:

Basically I do it because I feel its weird to put Queer in the middle of acronyms that fall under the queer umbrella. Not to mention that I think it makes more sense to have it be a separate thing considering plenty of queer people don't care for the term being used for them or with them/etc. I like to use Queer for all people who can fall under the term & are accepting/ok with it being used for them more then I like to use the acronym but the acronym is good for anyone who doesn't like to use Queer or for allies to use. I'm not saying it's perfect thinking or other people should change how they use the labels/acronym but that's just my reasoning and I don't see any actual negatives too it so I used it here but as always I'm open to being wrong!

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swampgallows · 7 years

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for the first time in a while, at least a month, i woke up screaming again. i fell asleep around 4, which i was proud of, feeling myself slowly sliding back toward a preferred schedule. lately i’d still been falling asleep at 6am but would wake up a bit earlier, getting fewer hours but at least seeing more sunlight. the urge to hurt myself yesterday was strong, but luckily there are understanding and generous people in my life to ease me through it, and i am beyond thankful.

two things have happened.

one, an old face from my previous WoW server has resurfaced and sought me out specifically. a different friend had namedropped them out of nowhere, but was also drunk and wouldn’t extrapolate on why he had mentioned it. he just said the character’s name, then drunk-dialed me a bunch of times until i picked up and then had their “gay roommate” scream across the room that “asexuals aren’t lgbtq!”, then hung up.

but anyway the old face returned. we’ll call them “Pockets” because it’s 7am and I’ve barely slept and so i’m pullin raver names out of my ass. I met Pockets back on thobro in 2006ish. we’re the same age, and so we’ve known each other for a fairly long time and kind of grew up alongside each other. Pockets eventually got into a relationship with...I guess we’ll say “Dizzy”. Now, Dizzy lives very far away from Pockets. Pockets lives in America, like me, and Dizzy lives in Australia. But as the capabilities of the internet were improving every day (especially with the advent of internet telephony like skype at the time) it was easier than ever to sustain a long-distance relationship. But by the time I had quit WoW in early 2009, Pockets and Dizzy’s relationship had not progressed as one should have. For instance, Pockets had barely seen any pictures of Dizzy. While they chatted all the time, at that point they hadn’t yet had a webcam chat. It had been some years of constant companionship, yet they never had a plan to meet. But that was fair, I thought, since Pockets and I were only 16 in 2006, so planning that thing was kind of difficult. But by 2009, we were 19, and Dizzy was a bit older in the first place, so surely two people who loved each other would want to meet irl, right?

But Pockets said they respected that Dizzy wasn’t so open about their looks or personal life, etc. Okay. Pretty big red flags, though, if someone you’ve spent almost every waking moment with for three years is being this conservative about their identity. They were prominent characters in most of the server’s RP, so there was a lot of talk. “Maybe Dizzy is like... WAY older than they say, and they don’t want to admit it.” “Maybe Dizzy isn’t the gender they say they are.” “Pockets will get fed up with this eventually—they’re young! They can’t just wait around forever.”

So Pockets found me in game, yesterday, and had transferred to WRA, where a lot of thobro refugees (like myself) ended up. And they sought me out specifically because they remember my friendship with them, and that I had known them (and the rest of our community) all that time ago. And Pockets told me, yesterday, that Pockets and Dizzy had finally broken up. They had stopped talking for about two weeks, and for about two solid weeks, Pockets was staring down the cavernous hungry maw of suicide. “Everything was just... so quiet.”

They must have been fucking married by now, I thought. Either way, it had been over ten years! I knew Pockets was taking it really hard. Except... Dizzy and Pockets never met.

Not once. Not once in over ten fucking years of being in a relationship did they ever meet. And Dizzy had actually been to America a handful of times throughout the relationship. Yet Dizzy never went to meet Pockets.

I don’t know what the rest of the situation was like. If they video-chatted every day, if they called each other all the time, or whatever. Regardless of how you look at it or what the situation with Dizzy was, Pockets was catfished and abused for over ten fucking years. “It’s my fault. I should have left when [etc. etc.] happened...” Pockets told me that they hadn’t even seen end-game content past Cataclysm, despite playing WoW the entire time. Dizzy never wanted to do any of it, but would get upset if Pockets did it without them. So all Pockets did from Cataclysm onward was PVP, and once they reached the top achievements, felt there was nowhere else to go from there and stopped. Dizzy only wanted to play alts and quest. No raids, no PVP, no dungeons even. Just running around and questing, and preventing Pockets from doing any of that content. When someone you have never even fucking met is controlling the way you play a video game and what permissions you have within the game that you pay monthly to play, something is wrong.

Pockets knew they were lacking confidence. They were so lonely and so latched on that they let Dizzy run the show. And Dizzy barely cared. Pockets knew they basically only existed when it was convenient for Dizzy, but outside of that, they were nothing. I felt that about halfway through my relationship with my ex qp, and shared those feelings with Pockets. It took so long to break away and I held on past everything, past my own pain and self-torture, because I had some kind of hope that things would change. And part of me, an insidious part, said that this was the best I was going to get. After all, I’m some broken asexual idiot—”I should be so lucky,” the words rang out in my head, yellowed and worn but enduring and broadcasting itself loud and vivid over and over for years and years and years, tattered even during my childhood, “I should be thankful,”—and this person was my best friend. I should take the affection in the times I could get it. I should just accept that they will want other people sexually because I cannot provide that, and my best friend has a right to be sexual, and they are being so generous by fixing me with their limp novice dick.

So I bit it back and squashed it down and even after asking six times and getting no answer, “Do you have a problem with hurting me?” it took them falling into the pit of legitimate white supremacy and Nazism for me to finally let go. And I had tried a number of times but felt myself being pulled back, and they, too, were so desperate for some sense of power in their shitty meaningless life (if that wasnt obvious), so lacking initiative and direction that when i floated back upstream, they took it in stride like every other aspect of existence, as if i were just some trash that floated down the river that they, some huge, slack-jawed bloated fish, gobbled up regardless. I existed only when it was convenient for me to exist, and the moment I started being consumed by my anxiety, getting combative, demanding more affection, more outward recognition, I was gaslit and told, literally, word for word, in fun little tumblr doublespeak, “Your feelings are valid, but this is all based on things within your head.” me coming to my QP and saying, “I feel like you dont care about me because I keep asking to hang out and you’re completely ambivalent about it, and when i asked you, ‘Do you want to see me?’ you said ‘You can visit if you want,’. It’s a yes or no question. Do you want to see me?” DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HURTING ME? and then being told it’s “all in my head”, it’s a perceived disinterest. YES, that is what I’m perceiving, which is why I’m trying to address that you are not giving me enough attention and acknowledgment for someone you claim to care about! But obviously, it was me that was the problem, because i was daring to exist outside those convenient parameters. If you didnt want to fuck me right now then what was I even doing breathing your air?

And I’ve been thinking about them a lot because it was around this time 3 years ago that i had started my job, which i had to quit, and had also had a falling out with them, and was mourning that loss. as well as a, in retrospect, MUCH LARGER LOSS of tokin, who had taken his own life that same week. so i tried to turn it into a new beginning, doing my job and being appreciated, but eventually i crawled back and, one-sided as usual, tried to mend things with the QP. But it didnt matter to them. I didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. “Oh well,” was their shitty little trademark. Yeah buddy, life is fucking just happening to you and you’re stuck in one place without even a dream of things getting better, or worse, just taking things as they are, apathetically, without interest, wanting for nothing except to fuck girls but not enough to do anything about it, only if they’re delivered to your doorstep.

So here’s the second thing that happened.

Yesterday was coming out day, and a sort of friend-of-a-friend posted their story on facebook. I read it this morning upon waking up.

She mentioned her living situation and how she was living with other women who promised that they would help her, which is, in her words, “a huge red flag”. She says things settled into a routine, and eventually the big problem that she needed help with fell to the wayside in the wake of all of the smaller, but more prolific things: “focused on other fires, both making and putting them out.” She talks about the time she wasted living with these women and how she was “on the edge again”. She trusted people she loved and that loved her to help her, and they couldn’t. But then, after hitting a very low point, she had a breakthrough:

I did something I'm not sure I'd ever done before in my life: I took the initiative to help myself. I researched, found, and made an appointment with a therapist who specialized in this sort of thing. I worked through a tremendous amount of repression. I did mental exercises to actively re-wire my brain, and unlearn my unhealthy coping mechanisms. It was painful.

And then, she wrote this:

Maybe my point is that you can't entrust your journey (ugh, hate that term) to anyone else. You can't let other people tell you who you are or are not. No matter how much you love and trust someone, they cannot do the work for you. They can facilitate it, as [redacted] failed to do, but in the end, it's you... get help, get the best and most objective and impartial help you can, do not let yourself be held hostage by people or environments or your own fucking apathy which benefit from you being inert.

When someone you love offers you help, it's normal to want to take the help, and oftentimes you should. But sometimes, it's too much to give, or they have their own problems or motives, and the help is unreasonable to expect. Do not turn yourself over to someone. Deal with these things on your own terms. Define the terms by which you exist. I lost two fucking years of my life...because I believed that someone else could and would do it for me.

But at least I'm there now. You can get there, too.

I do not know how I can start this journey. I have been trying for ten years, but I have very little direction or resources. I’ve spent the last... god, I guess 8 years, just trying to keep my head above water. Basically since my second year of college, all I’ve really done is survive, and the only times I felt truly alive and like myself were within the rave scene. So I have been clinging to that, and it is a definitive part of me, because it helps me breathe. I don’t think it is “holding me back” because I am not heading anywhere. But I have spent so long gasping for air that I’m almost nauseous from taking a breath. Since I was really young I have cared about electronic music, somewhat in defiance of my live musician parents [drum machines have no soul], and going to thunderdome in a week (!!!) or so is like a pilgrimage to gabber mecca, but also a kind of zenith.

where do i go from here? I’ve said I want to DJ just because parties dont play the music I want to hear, but within the last few years I have felt myself so plugged up and insecure that I don’t know what I want. I’m too old to be precocious and have lost some of my identity in that way because of it. Now that I’m getting older, I feel like I don’t have permission to be new at things. But I have been restrained by permission my whole life. I have earned money yet i’m not allowed to pay for things. I earned my driver’s license by myself yet i’m not allowed to leave my house. i am controlled by my mother’s desperation and neediness and guilt, and by my father’s disconnect and judgment. I am controlled by my siblings’ apathy and my friends’ disappointment in me. i am afraid of not being perfect because then my parents won’t want me, so i put off things that i even want to do and i fear messing up, fear not acquiescing, fear not providing something expected of me, because i will be hurt.

but ultimately i am constrained by my own fears, my fear of pain. i am hurt by the thought that my parents don’t love me and that, to them, i just exist when convenient also, only when they can brag about me, only when they need something done. “I’m worried you don’t get out enough,” my mom says, but all she can offer are words because her heart is closed. she loves by worrying, by stifling, by pity. and i dont want to continue that. i dont want my love to be just good intentions. i want it to be good actions. love, love is a verb.

“I took the initiative to help myself. ... It was painful.”

There is a lot of red tape between my life and my parents’ control. and sometimes doing any action is so exhausting that I cannot do anything for the rest of the day. But I don’t want to be Pockets, waiting for the people who control me to start loving me actively, to have faith in their control benefiting me somehow. I’ve done it before by getting my license by myself. It was slow, and agonizing, and incredibly difficult and drawn-out, but I have it, and it’s mine, and my mom “felt bad”, but I can’t care. Now it’s just a matter of literally getting out the door, without the inquisition, without the mire of their guilt. I am genuinely starving, living on bread and half-expired milk and soda, because I am tired of making my mom cry by asking her to buy things, or coming home with things that, if I had only asked, she would have gotten for me.

I am not asking anymore. I am just going to go get things myself. It will make her cry. She will cry that she is “obsolete”, and that she has “no purpose”, and that she “lives for her kids”, and it will be painful. Like Pockets, I have wasted over ten years of my life banking in good intentions, on the trust that people who love me will help me. Or the trust that even people who are paid to help me will help me.

"Do not turn yourself over to someone. Deal with these things on your own terms. Define the terms by which you exist."

Asexuality is a term that has helped. It gave me more agency in my verbs, of making a command decision about how I approach sexuality, whereas before I was giving myself, in every imaginable interpretation of the phrase, over to someone else. It hurts that I have to fight so much, that I must fight constantly for personhood, even from those who claim they would do anything to give it to me, even from those who physically did give me personhood.

For my entire life I have thought my bloodline cursed. I have lived beneath the shadow of my father's greatest failure. I hated him for what he had done. I hated him for the burden he left me. But now... You have shown me truths that I would have never known. You and your allies have gifted me with something that cannot bear a price: Redemption. Thrall, redeemer of the Mag'har, you honor me as none ever have... On this day, a great burden has been lifted from my chest. My heart swells with pride. And for the first time, I can proudly proclaim who I am. I can finally unleash the fury in my heart.

As long as I know what I stand for, even if I don’t know what I want or how to get it, I can get there. Because I’ve done it before.

When the bread was finished, the tired little red hen asked her friends, “Who will help me eat the bread?” “I will,” barked the lazy dog. “I will,” purred the sleepy cat. “I will,” quacked the noisy yellow duck. “No!” said the little red hen. “I will.” And the little red hen ate the bread all by herself.

Not that I even have my first tattoo yet, but if I ever get a second one, it should be a little red hen on my wrist. It can be my personal shorthand for “take it easy, but take it”.

#blathering #long post #the little red hen #power word fortitude

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artistictrance · 7 years

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lgbt+ meme?

what is your sexual orientation? - demisexual :3c what is your romantic orientation? - demiromantic, so a full demi lol side note: demiromantic/demisexual is a person are ppl part of the ace community, they prefer to build a strong bond before even entering a relationship [and yes, im aware that most ppl are like this, but with demis its a bit more harder to feel attraction towards someone else without building a friendship first. of course nothing wrong with not finding anyone attractive, and no, it doesnt mean youre "picky"] what is your gender? - a female demigoddess cause why not B) [female] what is your sex? - like i said above, a female demigoddess [female] what pronouns do you use? - she/her/they/them how long have you been in the lgbtqa+ community for? - i have no clue tbh, i didnt realize i was demi till like...what?...2-3 yrs ago??? but then again, looking back during my middle/high school yrs ive always been demi and never noticed cause i thought i was straight [tho thats still kind of true, if that makes sense??? idk im still figuring it out] have you ever dated anyone in the lgbtqa+ community? if yes, explain what they identify as - ive been a single pringle so far my whole life how did you find out about the lgbtqa+ community? - tbh i didnt know much about the lgbt+ [besides gay/bi] till like college when i joined tumblr, so mostly from tumblr then some from school too (: do you have any friends in the lgbtqa+ community? -its funny cause my irl friends are mostly straight [minus 1 who is bi-curious], while the majority of my online friends are either gay, ace or both [with a few exceptional straight friends]. theyre all pretty great :3c have you ever been at a pride event? - no, but from the pictures ive seen it looks super fun! on a scale 0-10, how confident are you with your sexuality? - hmmm i guess 10? but i do remember when i first figured it out i was self-conscious about it cause i thought i was one of /those/ ppl who just picked a random sexuality to look "cool" till after some hard thinking/teaching, ive realized im ace af and proud B) on a scale 0-10 how confident are you with your gender? - idk, i dont really think much about it??? not sure how to explain it, but even if i identify as a girl, i dont really see myself as one? [maybe thats just my mind being mean to me and separating myself from all the other girls and yadda yadda. long explanation] are you out to anyone yet? - my mom and brother know, and all my friends do too but i guess most ppl just forget/dont remember what demi is do your parents know about your gender/sexuality? - yeah my mom knows, tho she has a bit of trouble understanding it, but i do my best to remind her and teach her again, and again do you ever get misgendered? -tbh i dont even know :/ i remember one time some guy in hs called me a guy cause of how i was dressed? [school hoodie and some jeans] but then again, he was a pretty annoying and stupid person so i dont really count it plus i wasnt the only girl wearing something like that on a cold day have you gotten any hate for your gender/sexuality? - not gender, but ive had close ppl tell me that "ppl shouldnt label themselves like this, it doesnt make sense" so obviously that hurt ;v; in all honesty, do you think that theres a sexuality that might not be valid? - no, all sexuality is valid. tho those toxic/nasty ones, i dont label them as "sexualities," i label them as "ppl who shouldn't talk to me, or my dogs, ever" do you own any pride merch? - nope, im not sure where to find some cool ace merch. [there was this kickass sweater my friend showed me and i love it to bits, but there was no link to buy it, i cri T v T] plus even if i did, idk when or where would be a good time to wear them ;v; do you think that theres a possibility that you might change your mind about your orientations/gender in the future? - i know im pretty confident in being demi. as for gender, idk, i just have to see : P what are your thoughts on people that identify as cis? - cis? you mean that store "cause it's spring"? [i kid you not, thats an actual store name, ive seen it with my own eyes] lol jk, i identify as cis [???], but besides me, they good folk (: [of course those who bully peeps who dont see themselves as cis are just bullies and i dont want you near me or my dogs 8) ] what are your thoughts on people that identify as straight? - nothing wrong with it, if youre cis, youre cis just remember my cis folk, dont judge or be mean to those who are trans, bi-gendered, etc. theyre ppl like you if someone saw you on the street, would they realize that you are in the lgbtqa+ community? if yes, why? - honeslty idk, i dont think aro/ace ppl really have a "look" to them? [ive tried looking it up and nothing much comes up other than pride clothing] other than we're hella good lookin' folk, be aware of us plus most of the creepy guys that hit on me think im allo. so i just feel like a cleverly disguised spy lol [alloromantic/allosexual or "allo" for short = basically means that ppl who are not aromantic and/or asexual ] on a scale 0-10 how familiar are your friends and family with the lgbtqa+ community? - since i teach my mom and brother stuff about this whenever i get the chance, theyre pretty ok [tho my mom has a hard time remembering the ones outside the "basic" ones like lesbian/gay, bi, pan. it mostly has to do that spanish is her 1st language so english can be confusing for her] as for irl friends, idk. i hardly talk to them about this, i doubt they even remember/know im demi but for my online friends, im pretty sure they know, lol This tag is almost over, did you enjoy it? - it was fun, i hope more ppl are aware of the aro/ace community and possible learn a few things about it :3c i want more ppl to know more about the aro/ace communities cause even if our population is kind of small, we're still here...eating all the food at the parties...petting all the cute animals > v > do you love yourself for who you are? - of course, sure it was kind of hard to get to where i am, and at times i still dont really feel part of the lgbt+ community, but i try to at least accept myself (: shout out to my sweet friend @dirtydaggy for suggesting i do this, it was fun thanks again friendo cX also check out their journal! [they did the same meme too!!!]

also im gonna tag:

@lunarprinc3 @thatsweaterdude

if i miss anyone [friends/mutuals] or you would like/not like to be tagged in the future, let me know c:

#Nightly Posts #tagged #i guess i should tag this as #personal #too? since it does relate about me?

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