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ghost0loxer · 3 years

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Imagine, a gender fluid teenager like myself has a favourite/feel-good film and that film is “Just One of the Guys,”from the mid 80s.

Picture this: theatre class, we watch “She’s The Man”, a dreamworks film from the 2000s. And yet, the social justice issues within the film are glaringly obvious to today’s society. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a funny film in a group setting - but then there are scenes that are just uncomfortable. Now, we discussed these themes in class, but I just can’t help but think about the film that came before it. Yes, StM (she’s the mans) is a modern day adaption of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” but I was thinking about the modern day adaption before StM, “Just One of the Guys” from the mid 80s.

I love this film. For multiple reasons, which I hope to discuss.

Number one, our main character. Terry Griffith is stubborn. If she thinks something is right, she won’t let anyone say no or get in her way. Now in some cases, this is great. It’s definitely a shift in the usual romantic comedy female lead (especially for the 80s). But it’s one of her biggest flaws. In the beginning, Terry doesn’t win a contest for a part-time job at the Sun Tribune. She believes her article was amazing, but she speaks with her English teacher and he gives it to her straight. “You don’t have what it takes to be a reporter.” Her article is boring; it’s about the nutritional value of the lunch menu in the school cafeteria, of course it’s boring. But the words her teacher tells her has her convinced it’s because she’s a woman. Thus, she leaves school for two weeks and transfers as a buy to another school who are holding the same competition. Once she gives her article, she is told almost the same thing, but this time, she’s given proper feedback to improve it. Of course, there was some irony with this scene between Terry and the teacher. “Just because you’re guy, doesn’t mean you can’t be sensitive or light.” Thing is, she doesn’t give up, she strives to fix it and finds a new angle. I love her determination, I love the way she doesn’t let others push her around. Furthermore, her transition to a man. In StM, Viola as a guy is made to be cringey and comedic, you watch and think, there’s no way a guy would do that. But Terry, having grown up with a younger brother and is actually smart, manages to nail the role. Sure, she has slip-ups, but she stays afloat and she’s not being over the top. She’s chill and convincing, yet you as the audience can tell she’s trying to appear masculine. Her lines are witty and she’s sharp. Someone has something to say, she’ll be able to backtrack and answer with a joke or sarcasm quickly. I like smart characters.

Another point, the way women are written in this film. A lot of women in this film are treated like shit, but it’s probably a realistic depiction of the 80s. Everyone is talking about dating and sex, it seems to be the only topic the women in this film speak about, unless they are Terry. Terry seems to be the only character in this film whose main goal is not romance or sex. She strives to be a reporter, she wants to prove herself, and she rejects the advances upon her frequently. Whether it’s the boys asking her on dates in halls, or her own boyfriend attempting to seduce her when her parents aren’t home, she doesn’t put them above herself, yet she still lets them down easily, unless they become more pushy (case in point, her boyfriend, Kevin, in the beginning). She can stand up for herself, but she’s not the only one. Her best friend, Denise is one of the many women looking for love, nevertheless, she holds standards. I will admit, I didn’t like Denise’s acting in the beginning; she’s not a great character, but even she manages to reject men’s advances constantly. She’s not afraid to say it bluntly and she expresses her true emotions when certain guys try to ask her out. She tells it to them straight, and I respect her for that (despite her lack of empathy for some). Terry’s brother is constantly hitting on Denise, but she stands her ground. She doesn’t hit him or curse him out, she spins words around him and always lead back to the key word “no.”

This is my third, and maybe final point, (because I’m not great at writing but I’m starting to get tired) the way they handle sexual orientation. It seems if you’re going to make a film about a cross-dressing woman who falls in love with a man, you have to discuss sexuality and this film is not afraid to. That was my biggest beef with StM, when Viola confessed her love to Duke, the made it blatantly clear that it was “weird” and “unusual”; the editing and music cuts. It was done for comedic purposes, but in that moment, it just made me cringe. Even when the principal marched onto the field during the big match to expose Sebastian as “the woman he was all along,” he used a big megaphone and said to the whole crowd this man is in fact a girl. If it were to happen in the real world, and this character was a trans male, that would be traumatizing and so so insensitive. I couldn’t help thinking the way they handled the reveal in StM was poor and shitty.

But with JOotG (just one of the guys)? It’s done respectfully. Throughout the film, Buddy, Terry’s younger, sex-obsessed brother (I have thoughts on this character), often refers to Terry as a transvestite or sexually confused. They make references about her dating other women and jokes. It’s not treated like taboo, but just something people normally talk about, and as a questioning kid when I first watched the film, I really needed that. Although it was used for jokes, the fact that it wasn’t treated like a silent topic made me think more of it and discover who I was; it was media like this that made me accept myself.

Even with the reveal. Kevin, Terry’s boyfriend (or ex boyfriend by the end), stomps up to Terry after she’s wrestled with the school bully and was dumped into the waves at prom. Rick, who’s been Terry’s friend (and is the male lead) throughout her time at his high school, immediately questions who Kevin is and he responds with a harsh and sure “Terry’s boyfriend.” Of course, that doesn’t expose Terry as female, but makes Rick assume she’s a homosexual. But instead of calling her weird or replying negatively, he answers Kevin’s question calmly and says he’s just a friend. There is no prejudice, no disgust, Rick is shocked, but that’s expected. Furthermore, this reveal not only does not alienate homosexuality, it puts the center of focus on the main characters rather than have the whole audience/prom witness this exchange. Sure, the rest of the school is watching but the camera never pans over to them, and even then, Terry drags Rick away from the crowds to a secluded area to explain more.

Even once they’re secluded, Rick doesn’t yell at her or is homophobic. He just says “I understand, you’re gay.” As we know, Terry is not in fact gay and she reveals this to him in a similar fashion as StM, at least it’s not flashing a whole crowd. But the thing that hits me, is the fact that it’s not used as a joke or for comedy. Throughout the film, they’ve mentioned homosexuality and being transgender, but it was used as a light-hearted joke (nothing insulting or derogatory). In this moment, it’s not a joke, and it’s the bare minimum for a emotional scene like this, but it always hits me.

Of course, Rick gets justifiably mad that he’s been deceived and he storms off. Terry’s flaw catches up to her here, as she kisses him in front of the prom guests, stubborn to make him realize how much she cares. ( I didn’t agree with this action to be frank, I cringed ). The crowd gasps and it’s the usual reaction to a homosexual kiss and Rick just pulls back, says “It’s alright everyone, he’s got tits,” and leaves with Deborah.

In true romantic comedy fashion, life moves on. Terry gets the job at the Sun-Tribune after writing her article about posing as a guy and everyone who was longing for love in the beginning has found it, except Terry. The ending, however, is Rick coming back for her after a couple (days? Weeks? Idk all I know is it’s summer by the time he comes back, how much space between prom and summer?) and they kiss, go on a date and all is good.

Now after writing this long ass post, I’ve come to realize the main reason I like this film. Sure, Terry is a good character (not morally sometimes, but she’s interesting to watch), the way women are presented also is good, but my main source of affection for this film (in comparison to StM) is the way they handle the switching of genders. I’m gender fluid, I don’t always like being a woman or a man, I switch almost daily and half the time can’t decide if I want to grow out my hair or cut it. Seeing Terry, originally a woman, manage to convince people she was a guy made me wish I could do it too. It made me realize, I don’t always like being a woman. I want to be a guy sometimes, and I want that to be accepted. It was media like this, like Ouran High School Host Club, like Bare: A Pop Opera, that made me understand my gender and sexuality. (Even media that didn’t have any relation to LGBTQ+ helped).

When I first heard of “She’s the Man”, I had hoped it would be like these pieces of media. And it wasn’t. It was an alright film, but made me feel disappointed and somewhat let down. And that’s why I just prefer Just One of the Guys. Maybe it wouldn’t float in today’s political climate, maybe I’m wrong for seeing these points as reasons it’s one of my favorites, but its still better than StM and is one of my favourite films.

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rein-ette · 3 years

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Artie HC cuz even when my brain empty he takes up 60% of it

So I wrote like a 3 paragraphs before I realized I have to premise this with a couple things:

WHY DONT WE CALL ARTIE'S RELATIONSHIPS FOR WHAT THEY ARE. He has friends. He has acquaintances. He has lovers, and kids, and colleagues. Who falls into each category is obviously up to personal interpretation and changes over time, but can we pleaaaaaseeeeee stop pretending Arthur doesn't have friends and that his world is, like, just divided into "me" and "hostile beings".

Okay, having said that, these are the people who I believe fall into each group in 2021:

1. Close Friend Circle: (their relationships are complex, but they're friends, they are, ik arthur has problems with denial but we can call it for what it is) France, Spain, Port, Prussia, Belgium, Ned, Belgium, sometimes Denmark, also Hungary and Austria but they're not really close with artie so much as close with others in the group

2. Personal Friends (they're close with Arthur, but they don't share the same social circles): Norway, Japan, Malta (< so done with Arthur's shit but they frends), India (they were closer before...u kno), former states like Hessen, Saxony, Hanover

3. "Kid"-Friends: Alfred, Matthew

4. Mostly just kids: Zee, Aus, Singapore, HK, Seychelles, etc etc etc etc i can't list everyone

5. My Friend's Kids So I Share Some Responsibility and Can't Bully Them: Brazil, Macau, pr much all Portugal's other former colonies, and Ludwig.

6. Everyone Else: some shade between "i dunno you" to "i wish i didn't know you"

oKiE now the actual hc lol

Arthur's demeanor changes when he's interacting with nations younger than him (groups 3-5) versus his close friends in Europe. This isn't noticeable at meetings or situations where both are present, such as G7 meetings, because he just defaults to factory settings. But it is more pronounced when he's alone with either group. When alone with his kids/younger nations he feels some sort of kinship towards, he's more patient, calm, even tolerant. He's more likely to roll his eyes and brush things off, or let them get away with teasing with a half-hearted glare or a raised eyebrow. He's also quieter, content to listen to the kids chatter while he does something else or just zones out.

However, with Europeans -- especially countries that are considerably older than him like France, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, German states etc. --- he pulls out all the bratty stops. He's a lot snarkier, mischevious, even whiny if he feels really comfortable with the person. He's also more tolerant of physical contact and possessive gestures. For example, if he's with Mattie, Zee and Aus and Alfred puts an arm around his shoulder, he'll shrug it off. If someone tries to tease him about a romantic relationships at a Commonwealth meeting, he'll pretend he didn't hear them. But in the dinner parties after EU meetings, when its just him and the gang, he'll let Francis drape himself all over him, let Bella whisper in his ear, will even curl up with Port on the couch out of his own volition. Even with people like Denmark, Spain, Ned, or Prussia, he's more likely to slap/punch them playfully or go along with flirtatious jokes whereas he normally wouldn't touch them on his own initiative.

This comes as a surprise to a lot of Artie's kids, especially the ones who haven't seen him interact with the European nations on a personal level (mattie, having spent quite a bit of time shadowing Arthur in the 19th-20th centuries, is less surprised). And this is no coincidence. I hc that Arthur tried very damn hard to keep the two spheres of his life (his empire vs other empires) separate, to the point where in his old Victorian estate he would make sure the kids only stayed and played in the West wing while he recieved guests in the East wing, and no one was allowed to go to the other side of the house unless otherwise given permission. Of course nowadays they know that their dad brought lovers home and had some *interesting* relationships, but even when the sex part of diplomacy became normalized for ppl like Al or Matt, they still wouldn't often see Arthur be affectionate or accept affection from anyone, platonic or otherwise. In fact his kids probably knew more about the people Arthur hated than the people who loved him, because the closer he was with someone the more obsessive Arthur was about keeping them away from his kids and never talking about them. This probably stemmed from a semi-conscious fear that if the two worlds ever mixed one person might have too many cards to play against Arthur, ex. Port close with him and with his kids? = dangerous; Mattie being an sweet little baby angel but also knowing all his dirt? = danGerouS (he ended up knowing anyways). And was he wrong? The Alfred-Francis combo f*ckin ruined him, so. Some precedent there, for sure.

But yeah, because of that compartimentalization now when Arthur's kids happen to see him pull out the impish smirk or whiny pout with his friends, which is still exceedingly rare, they react with varying levels of shock plus anything from mild disgust to awww uwu.

From the other perspective, I think a lot of England's friends are still surprised by how gentle he is with his kids when he's not angry with them. I don't think countries like Spain, Ned or France had very loving relationships with their colonies at all -- it was mostly a cold distance or calculated affection. Of course Arthur was also far more strict in the 19th century, but even so there's an undercurrent of tenderness that, except for Port, I don't think the other European powers managed to create to the same extent.

#kids #hws england #my hcs #note that when I say arthur's kids i dont mean all of the former british empire #cuz yeah most of them weren't his kids they were grudging political allies at best #and ofc that relationship was different and Artie was often Not Nice #i think ab arthur being a brat more often than i shd #but he DOES have very strong older sibling and younger sibling vibes #which i think is kinda rare?#RAREST Arthur tho like absolute Collector's Edition is when he's completely enchanted by something and becomes so boyishly #unironically #excited #like i often think about the scene in Howl's Moving Castle where Howl shows Sophie the garden #that kinda mood #best arthur tbh

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mk-wizard · 3 years

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How “Zombie Garfield” Happened

Hello, friends.

Today, I want to talk about a comic series that is extremely special to me because it is one of the many comics that made me realize what I wanted to do as a calling and it helped shame my childhood as well as my sense of humour: Garfield. Sadly... this essay will be a negative one, but it needs to be written. It is how the “Zombie Garfield” came to be. No, it’s not a Halloween special, it is a case of how the downfall of Garfield happened and how it became nothing more than a shadow of what it once was. Note that this essay is also subjective and I am well aware that some fans like the new Garfield. I have nothing, but respect for those fans, but as someone who read Garfield from the beginning and owned a large majority of its books for the last 25 years, I can tell you that the iconic orange fat can is not what he once was and while he has yet to lose weight, he has lost a lot of his original charm. And it goes well beyond seasonal rot. To understand how Zombie Garfield came to be, I will list all the things that made classic Garfield great and how those qualities are now gone. And for the record, this is coming from someone who supports reboots and getting with the times.

1- Garfield is still and always will be a cat. - No matter out outlandish, wacky, ambidextrous his forepaws are or quirky Garfield will act, he will always fall back on being a cat. He cannot talk meaning no one can understand or hear his thoughts, he walks on four legs most of the time and he is a creature of his species habit. With the exception of eating mice that is.

In short, Garfield was smarter and more self-aware than the average cat, but he is a cat and would act like one. That was part of what made him funny, but over time, Garfield would walk only on his hind legs which now had human like feet, everyone could hear his thoughts or he could talk, and he was able to do everything a human being could do. In other words, Garfield became more like an anthropomorphic cat playing the part of a cat.

It just isn’t the same and while I love the Looney Toons for being this way, Garfield isn’t a Looney Toon. He was his own unique thing and now, that uniqueness is gone and I’m not the only who misses it. After all, Garfield paved the way for other pet themed comics thanks to being a cat. It also feels all the more wrong to stop being what he is supposed to be for that reason.

2- Garfield has a heart. - While Garfield has the personality of a problem child and slightly bullying big brother, deep down, he loves John, Odie and at one time, the comic was on the path with Garfield even growing to love Nermal. And no, this isn’t a joke. At one time, Nermal growing on Garfield was a thing.

That was also a huge part of the joke. Garfield was cynical, sarcastic and savage, but deep down, had a lot of love to give. And that is why we loved the comic strip. After all, how can you have a family slice of life comic if there’s no love? Now, Garfield’s antics have become outright sadistic to the point of being grimly homicidal which I get is funny to some, but to a long time fan like me, that is shocking and not the Garfield I know. At all. And not just Garfield. Everyone in the comic has become so mean spirited. While the Garfield family was never a perfect one, it was never dysfunctional like it is now. While even Nermal used to say clever quips, he was never actually mean because he actually admired Garfield. Now, the heart has been replaced with stone and it shows.

3- Garfield was relatable. - And not just for people with cats or for socially awkward people like Jon. Garfield was relatable to people in general because it dealt with issues that the average person could relate to. It wasn’t all about Garfield being a glutton or just putting down Jon. While exaggerated at times, at the core, we could all put ourselves in the characters’ shoes at one time or another. Kind of like, this situation right here;

Nowadays, we have Garfield taking these mission impossible type trips all the way in the Amazon jungle, he finds a dinosaur bone in his backyard and there was even a special about him becoming a superhero.

Now, I don’t mind specials that switch it up, but even the specials should be grounded in reality because that was Garfield’s major audience: real people. And I also understand that the new Garfield Show cartoon is aimed for children, but the type of episodes it features feel like they belong in another setting. Not for Garfield.

4- Everyone would win and lose some sometimes. Including Garfield. - In other words, Garfield was not a Mary Sue who would get away with everything no matter how awful he acted. Sooner or later, he would get his karma moments just like everyone else would. And on the flipside, the others would win every now and then for their efforts including Jon and Odie. This kept the characters interesting and funny.

Now, there seems to be an unwritten rule that no matter how bad Garfield acts, the worst he gets is a slap on the paw. And also, Jon just isn’t allowed to win anymore (with the exception of the point I will bring up next and I’m surprised he still has that with how he is written now). This has changed Garfield into a mischievous yet loveable cat to a borderline abuser. This is absolute not the Garfield I know at all. Sure, he was savage at times, but never cruel. And Jon was socially awkward and had a rocky love life, but he was never THIS inept.

5- Jon’s struggle with winning Liz’s heart. - If there was one true plot to Garfield, it was Jon finding true love though specifically, him trying to woo Garfield’s vet Liz. It was always kind of hinted that sooner or later, Jon would finally capture her heart and it was something we were all rooting for yet at the same time, it would be bittersweet because it would mark the end of the series just as Steve Urkell finally winning Laura Winslow from Family Matters marked the end of that series. As long as Liz only at best tolerated Jon, it meant that the story was still going on and in its defense, the comic was still funny throughout that period even if by the end, its age was starting to show.

And on a side note, I mean even years after this phase of the comic, but this is the best of the Jon wooing Liz strip’s in my opinion. Anyway, when the fateful day happened where the pair finally went steady, we all expected to end. Of course, not abruptly as there would be a few new jokes to tell, but the story ran its natural course and the only big left to do was end it on a high note with Jon and Liz most likely either getting married or at least living together... but that didn’t happen. The comic is still ongoing which is a disservice to it because all of the important jokes have run out. Now, it looks like the story will continue until Liz leaves Jon which is not a good way to end the show because instead of ending on a happy high note, it will end on a sad low note. If it even ends when that happens.

Now, as I stated before, this is all my opinion, but I have to say that in my mind, once Liz finally became Jon’s woman and the family accepted her, Garfield ended. I also want to clear the air that new Garfield in no way, shape or form changes the way I feel about my Garfield. Nothing can change that for me. I am just saying that I have lost interest in the comic and I just take it as another example of what happens when you don’t let a story end once it has run its natural course. It loses itself.

But what do all of you think? What has Garfield lost? And what is your opinion on new Garfield? I would love to hear it. If you love my essays and my work, do give me a follow and even drop me a Ko-Fi or become a patron of mine. I also make art, webcomics and I do commissions. All links are in my profile page.

Thanks for reading and as always, have a great day and stay safe.

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jojotichakorn · 3 years

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my thoughts and opinions on "lovely writer": criticizing the critic

tw for discussions of age gaps, rape, and sex

before i turn into the mean and constantly dissatisfied archer that we all know and hate, i just want to say that i liked this show. i think it's great, actually! gene and sib are appropriately cute, the premise is nice, and the attempt at criticizing the industry is... well, an attempt, which is better than nothing. moreover, "lovely writer" came with gifts because it gave me my new favorite character, so you can't go telling me i'm trying to completely obliterate it or something.

besides, this specific post isn't going to get into analyzing the show as a whole anyway. i won't be talking about any irrelevant plot points, cinematography, sound design, or anything like that, though i could probably write a post just as long as this one about that side of things as well. however, i am here to specifically look at the problematic things that were both criticized by the show and included in the show without any criticism. i'm going to talk about the more serious side of things here, which means i'm going to get serious. and i'm going to be harsh. very harsh.

gene and nubsib: yes's and no's

overall, the relationship between gene and sib was a fair attempt at showing something complex, yet ultimately quite healthy, which i appreciate. there were some things i was especially glad about. the fact that sib dated other people before settling on getting together with gene, for example, makes the whole situation a little less codependent. however, as much as this show prides itself on not wanting to romanticize problematic relationships, there are at least two major problems with genesib.

the age gap (and why it was not needed)

i've tried my very best to give this entire concept the benefit of the doubt. at first, i was convincing myself that they were simply close childhood friends, then i was trying my best to believe that even though sib did have a sort of crush on gene (which sometimes happens to little children), gene only saw him as his younger brother, but eventually, the show gave me no choice, but to deem the entire storyline problematic, because they did their best to romanticize that relationship - from gene's dad seeing the "early signs" to the counting and kissing the cheek turning to counting and full-on lip-locking in the last episode.

i could go into how this could all easily be mended if little sib was shown as kind of obsessed with his older friend, but gene was shown as not being anywhere near interested in the kid. but the real question is - why was the age gap needed at all?

i've researched the age of the boys during the flashbacks to the best of my ability and it seems that gene is 11 and sib is 6 or 7. if sib was the same age as gene (or maybe just one year younger, but not any more than that), not only would none of it feel weird, it would also be quite appropriate to explore that first glimpse of romantic feelings some of us experience exactly around that age. i don't think it's necessary for sib to be much younger than gene (children can be just as impressionable at 11 as they are at 7, and as for gene being surprisingly nice and helpful and the other kids not wanting to play with sib, he could have easily been - for example - bullied by his peers instead, which would have the same effect).

moving forward to the present, i don't think the lack of an age gap would affect the storyline that much either. even if they desperately needed sib to be a university student, they could have that one-year difference i've talked about before, which is not as significant. sib could be in his last year of uni, while gene could have easily written his very first novel during his university years, which would actually make more sense (since that guaranteed him employment and freedom to write after he finished uni; and i would rather believe that he had time to write his first novel in-between classes than in-between shifts at work, which he would surely need to have if he started writing after finishing university).

so that brings me back to my initial question - why was it needed? and much like the show often does, i will leave this one up for your interpretation because i do not have any sensible answers myself.

the issue with sex and consent

"but archer!" - i hear you exclaim - "lovely writer is known for explicitly denouncing rape romanticization in bls, how could there possibly be any problems with consent here?" and i hear you, my dear reader. and you aren't incorrect, "lovely writer" is indeed very explicit at calling out bls for having rape scenes (and i do appreciate that). however, as i'm sure you know, there are different ways in which consent can be taken from a person, and there are different non-consensual acts that someone might perform. for example, there are many different forms of coercion, such as the person being persuaded until they feel like they have no other choice, but to say yes. touching someone or kissing someone without asking for permission are also non-consensual acts. i can go on and on, there are many examples outside of what so many people consider rape.

now, what if i tell you that though there (thank the gods) has been no rape present in "lovely writer", not all scenes with gene and sib are consensual? well, that's what i'm telling you because it's the truth. both the first kissing scene and the scene where gene and sib "try out different poses" have clear coercion in them. the entire "joke" of the scene before gene and sib's first time is literally built upon the concept of "a person is trying to run away from someone, who wants to have sex with them" and it is NOT funny. the later reveal of gene actually looking up how to have sex seems to be there on purpose, to show that everything that's happened is "ok" because gene was thinking about it. as a sensible person, i will only accept actual enthusiastic consent and not someone possibly maybe probably considering it. not to mention that right before having sex, sib asks gene one last time if he is sure, which is great, except it is immediately followed by "i'm not going to let you change your mind anymore", which - daily reminder - you are allowed to stop having sex at any point during the act if you start feeling uncomfortable with it. that's absolutely normal.

now the problem that we seem to run into here is that "lovely writer" appears to think that it's ok to push someone to the limit until they either finally agree or confidently and loudly disagree. the drama has repeatedly shown us that actually forcing someone to have sex is not ok; however, persuading and otherwise coercing someone, as well as taking an approximate guess of them wanting to have sex based on some marginally related factors, is ok. i would like to once again remind everyone that all of that is not ok.

one more issue i want to bring up in connection with sex is something i wish was common knowledge: it is NOT supposed to hurt during your first time. whether you are planning to have vaginal or anal sex for the first time, it should not hurt. and if it does, something has definitely gone wrong and you need to stop. you are not supposed to experience any pain or discomfort during sex, including your first time (outside of desired and therefore intentionally inflicted pain, but that's not what i'm talking about here). i have seen this misconception brought up many times in bls along with the other person "thanking the person who got hurt for bearing the pain to bring them pleasure" and absolutely none of that is normal. stop. please, just... stop.

criticism of the BL industry

there are certainly quite a few things i liked about the way "lovely writer" criticized the many problems that surround bls. i think they dealt especially well with the fan aspect. the breaches of privacy that are considered normal, the toxicity of social media that encourages people to comment on other people's personal life, harass and stalk them - all of that was shown in its full glory (or rather horror) and clearly condemned. it was also interesting to see how easily everyone around sib fell into the routine of having to hide genesib's relationship, just because "that's what's supposed to be done in these situations" - even tum did that without thinking twice.

however, i have not spent the past three years hating gmm for a show trying to criticize the industry not to focus on criticizing the production company and everyone professionally involved with the making of bls. don't get me wrong - they didn't completely overlook that side of things, but i found the way they approached it dissatisfying.

like yes, tum fights with his sister (aka sib's manager) and calls her out for her terrible actions, and the publisher (bua) eventually apologizes for what she did, but all of that feels a bit too... personal. i do not care about these individual stories. i care about you saying that the whole system is broken because it very much is. i wanted manner of death but with the bl industry, and instead, i got an "uwu the fans are demanding we do this, and our hands our tied" (which is a lie) and "uwu i'm just trying to make money" (which i mean... if you feel ok milking even more money than you already have by doing something unethical and immoral, then be my guest, but also go fuck yourself). besides that, i didn't see any criticism of tabloids or exploitative celebrities either (both of which we had examples of in the show), and that was kind of disappointing.

coming back to the fans for a moment, i also think that the criticism of real people shipping was entirely unsuccessful. we basically mostly got an "oh, what if this person's partner thinks they are actually dating", which... if a bunch of people on the internet who do not know your boyfriend personally and make all their judgments from screenshots and their imagination can convince you that your boyfriend is cheating, i've got some bad news for you and also a number for a therapist. partly i know why it was so complicated for them to get into it properly - the issue with real people shipping is an issue of privacy, boundaries, the perception of celebrities, acceptable interests, and many other complex topics. however, it's better to not criticize something than to criticize it badly and inaccurately (because the latter usually leads to even more encouragement of whatever you were attempting to criticize).

aey: the flamboyant villain

aey certainly starts as a promisingly complex character, but the farther we go from his backstory and his family, the less complex and the more evil he gets. eventually, the trauma he goes through is no longer enough to give him a get-out-of-jail-free card, and he loses all remaining sympathy after sexually harassing gene and pretending to drug sib. and i did start this post by saying that i am not to analyze any plot points or characters from the show here; however, i'm saying all this to prove a point that aey is a clear villain in the show. this is further cemented by the fact that by the end of the show he loses the only two people who cared about him, and the very last moment with him in the show is literally just him crying for about 3 minutes. there was no redemption arc, no pity, no revenge - he was left alone and broken, clearly punished by the narrative. and i've got a bone to pick here as well.

one of the first things that we find out about aey is that he is gay, and quite openly so. he is repeatedly described as very feminine by many characters, he flirts with men, he talks about being good in bed, and his entire character is built upon being gay (half of it directly, and the other half due to the fact that his entire backstory and therefore personality is also built upon the fact that he is gay). he is - for the lack of a better term - the gayest character in the show and the only one who is loud about being gay not because he is in love but simply because it is a part of him and he doesn't want to hide it. and he is the villain. not the disgusting publisher or the terrible manager - no, this guy was specifically chosen to ruin everyone's lives. and i can't say i'm particularly happy about that. *british voice* seems a bit homophobic love

not quite queer enough

as i said, aey is openly gay. gene and sib also eventually say that they are gay, gene's father teep is queer, so are tiffy and mhok. but it just doesn't seem to come up as much as it would in real life. the only time anyone has a problem with any of the characters being queer is when we deal with the parents. but knowing actual queer thai actors in real life, we are all aware how hard it can be for them, but it has not come up even once for aey, gene or sib (with genesib only being a problem because they are a "non-shippable couple"). being queer is far from being a non-issue in the industry, and i found it incredibly weird that it was never brought up (and i would also prefer if they brought that up instead of showing the unaccepting parents plot for the millionth time).

same goes for the lack of conversation around queer people on set. i think we all have a wonderful example of how much better a bl can get simply when it involves a queer director and/or screenwriter (gods bless p'aof), gay actors, etc. i also thought it was a missed opportunity that gene being a gay man writing a bl novel was never highlighted. if anything, everyone made a big deal out of him being a man writing a bl - never mind that he is a gay man that is far more qualified to write bls than a straight woman.

in conclusion, there are simply not enough queer issues talked about here for a show that is about queer people facing difficulties while making a queer drama.

tiffy and tum: the good, the bad, and the ugly

overall, tiffy and tum are quite cool. outside of my own personal feelings, i really liked the clear reversal of gender roles they have going on: he knows lots about make-up, she knows nothing about it, he knows how to sew, she knows how to repair a car, etc.

tiffy is also a nice addition to the precious few queer girls we have in bls. however, the way her being bi is executed... it isn't great. when she first talks about dating girls to tum, she says things like "even though i look like this" (implying queer girls have a certain look?) and "maybe it seemed normal because i was at an all-girls school" (which wtf does that even mean?). i think the worst thing, though, was when she assumed tum was gay. my best guess is she thought so because she initially thought that tum and gene were a couple; however, she should be the first person to know that just because he likes men, it doesn't mean that he doesn't like women or any other gender. even though there was nothing explicitly leading me to make this conclusion, this whole thing did kind of feel like the old "flipping the switch" stereotype (meaning, she used to like women, but now she likes men, and both of them can't happen simultaneously).

make it make sense

i think i've never been more confused in my entire life than when i found out that the director of "lovely writer" also happens to be the director of "th*arnt*pe". and if at first, i was asking a lot of questions about this peculiar individual, who went from working on the worst rape-romanticizing show we have ever had to a show that explicitly states that rape is not normal. but the more i thought about it, the less i was interested in him, and the more i was interested in whoever made the decision to hire him. there are dozens of different directors that have worked specifically on bls, and even more that haven't. yet out of all those, you decided to choose this one. the dude, who before your show has only directed the show with the biggest rape-y vibes. that casts a particular kind of shade on the entire show that i simply do not like.

conclusion

at the end of the day, i think what "lovely writer" tried to do was very interesting. it succeeded in some ways and failed in others. frankly, i think this show could have easily been made better if someone queer was involved in making it. that's always true, but especially so, when we try to talk about the issues of making a queer drama. either way, it's certainly a good start to this conversation; however - as i said - i'm still waiting for my manner of death but with the bl industry. this was unfortunately not it.

#it is here it is queer it has some controversial hot takes #archer speaks #lovely writer

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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i really thought hange was non-binary bc the one who said hanges gender was up for interpretation was kodansha us but isayama asked for gender neutral pronouns right?

here!

I’m gonna answer all of the gender asks in one go because for one, I don’t think I wanna flood my own feed and my own tumblr with the same arguments.

I think a lot of the questions on Hange’s gender and the topic of gender and sexuality overall are kinda intertwined and I feel like for anyone who actually reads my stuff, it’s better understood as one big wall of text.

So I was wondering, is that song the absolute proof about hange's gender?

No. I think the interpretation of the song which people are using to prove that Hange’s nonbinary is very western centric. I actually did research around this song and knowing what I know about Japanese culture, I actually interpret the song as a way for Japanese people to break out from gender norms.

For people who are not aware, Japan is incredibly strict with gender norms. The LGBTQ community is not as progressive as it is in Western countries (I mean gay marriage isn’t completely legalized yet). And just looking at it from the stand point of gender roles and gender expectations, despite the progressive thinking, there are a lot of things Japanese men and women have to conform to just to be respected in everyday society. Because in Japan, the community has always been more important than the individual and it’s honestly the same for most asian countries as well.

A lot of the pressure of living in Japan, working with Japanese people is the pressure to conform and I’ve seen my friends do it through small things like getting bangs (because all Japanese women have bangs apparently), wearing make up when going out (because this is generally an accepted for all Japanese people) and always dressing your best because in that manner women are held to an incredibly high standard in Japan. And this goes similarly for men who are constantly pressured to be the breadwinner in the family. If your wife is making more than you, be ready to hear people talk. I know these expectations exist in a Western setting too but Japan is incredibly stiff as a society and this is one reason why, despite having numerous opportunities to moveto Japan myself, I am not at all entertaining that possibility. I have worked in a Japanese company and I hated it and moved to a western company right after six months. I have completely accepted the fact that there is no mobility career wise from a non-Japanese (and a woman at that) in Japanese society.

In conformity, hierarchies etc, Japan is its own monster. That’s why when songs like Jibunrashiku, Hitchcock (by Yorushika) or Shisoukan (by Yorushika) come out, for one it’s in Japanese so I wouldn’t approach the songs from an English and as a Japanese speaker and someone who is pretty familiar with Japanese culture, I can’t help interpret that song as a social commentary for the shitty parts of Japanese society and how they tend to shoot the concept of an ‘individual’ down.

But does that mean I completely shoot down the idea that Hange is NB?

NO. Yams said so himself, Hange’s gender is unknown. But at the same time, Yams recognizes the fact that in the anime and in the live action, Hange is a female. If Yams were that adamant to make Hange NB, I think he would have at least made more of an effort to police how she is depicted in the anime and in the live action.

His exact words were:　「ハンジは彼（彼女）みたいな、ちょっと浮世離れした、枠にとらわれない自由な感じで描きたかったんです。」If I roughly translated it to English, “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender.”

Tbh, I wanted to avoid these gender asks altogether but I’ve seen the environment in twitter and the ways many people approach gender, particularly ‘nonbinary’ or genderfluid and it really just doesn’t sit well with me. For one, what’s up with all these rules on how to approach our nonbinary and LGBTQ friends? What’s up with all these accusations that if we don’t follow them to a T, then we’re suddenly transphobic or homophobic?

The fact that we’re creating all these rules on how to go about her nonbinary gender for one, just defeats the whole purpose of Hange being a free bird in the first place who wouldn’t have cared and who wouldnt’ ever have been confined to gender in the first place.

I mean the establishment of set rules and social norms on how to navigate gender, sex, sexuality and gender roles is the reason why we had heternormativity in the first place. And what I can see, yes, we did get progressive, we did start recognizing other genders, other ways of thinking but the danger in all this is that, we’re once again creating frameworks and norms about how people that identify as these genders are supposed to act. And this defeats the whole purpose of why we recognized concepts of other sexualities, other genders and breaks from gender roles in the first place.

We wanted to show these people that their feelings are valid, that the way they’re navigating their relationships and their identities are valid and the heternormative society we’ve lived in that has been condemning for so long, was flawed, was wrong.

But the thing is, with the establishment of all these social norms on how to navigate our relationships with LGBTQ people and how to navigate our own gender, sexuality, sex and role is just making us regress back to that shitty heteronormative society of a hundred years ago. Because suddenly, everyone is questioning once again ‘How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m nb?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m trans?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m LGBT?”

And we’re creating these abstract ideas of how exactly, being genderfluid is supposed to feel like. Am I really supposed to be going by ‘they?’ Am I supposed to be uncomfortable with CIS pronouns?

And If I don’t go through this process… If I don’t feel this way then maybe I’m not NB? Maybe I’m not Trans? Maybe I’m not LGBT? And if I don’t conform to this clear cut idea of what NB is which people set up for me, god forbid I might just be transphobic or homophobic.

And Here’s the thing, everyone’s journey to self discovery is unique and there is no exact way to go about your gender or identity. I find it terrifying actually that creating all these clear cut rules have built misconceptions in so many people already on what they are supposed to feel like when they decide to identify with a certain gender which is no different from long ago when people had to hide the fact that they liked people of the same gender because god forbid they might just be persecuted for being gay.

Creating these frameworks, these incredibly strict rules on how someone is supposed to navigate relationships with LGBTs and their own personal identities is only making it all the more dangerous for people who are in the process of discovering themselves.

Back in college, I used to accompany a friend to a clinic when he was starting HRT treatments and before he started them, he had to consult with a doctor and the consultation lasted months. Before all that, they gave him a checklist of ‘feelings,’ which if he does experience them, he checks it and if he does check enough of them and agrees with a huge chunk of them, then he might have gender dysphoria and maybe the HRT treatments and sex reassignment was for him. It was a hundred item checklist, pages full of waivers, warnings and questions about his own experiences with his gender identity. And the fact that he had to consult for months after on that? There must be a reason.

Maybe because the academe realizes, maybe because those adept on the field on gender realize that gender is too complex of a subject to have been boxed into these categories in the first place.

And this whole discourse or I wouldn’t say discourse more of like, this ‘pushing of agendas’ as to say, ‘this is how being gender fluid or non binary is supposed to feel like’ this is how being transgender is supposed to feel like and if you don’t fit it to a T then you’re not transgender or you’re not nb. Or if you don’t fit it all, maybe you’re just transphobic is dangerous for many reasons. Either it gatekeeps people who want to explore their gender further. Or it forces people to have to conform to these and force themselves to ‘feel’ all of these things in the first place.

And god, this is just the gender issue, I haven’t even explored the sexuality, gender roles or biological issue.

i mean pronouns are important but they don’t really reflect someone’s gender??? like there’s people who use he/they, she/they or all pronouns(? they just don’t conform to gender binary ahaha

Given the environment on twitter and having witnessed the bullying first hand that came with one writer who is active on twitter using she/her pronouns for Hange, I feel like my own writing and my own POV on how I go about my writing and how I approach the gender of Hange (since I strictly use she/her) might just be a ticking time bomb and I might find myself at the end of whatever hate war or ‘education’ or as I like to just refer to as bullying, one day.

I believe though I at least have enough knowledge and awareness of the LGBTQ situation and I think I did put a lot of thought already into this before I made my decision to use ‘she’ to refer to Hange.

(And tbh, you can be nonbinary and you can be female at the same time and I’ve written about that multiple times already BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. And creating this mutual exclusivity between being nonbinary and female just kinda invalidates a lot of those people who are still deciding where exactly they fall in this complex web of identity discovery)

As someone who generally mainly hangs out with LGBT people and i have been doing this since high school by the way, and as someone who has tried all the sexualities on the spectrum, I talked to my asexual friends about possibly being asexual, I have experimented with women and sometimes, I just had dry spells and it just so happened that in the end of all these, I fell in love with a guy but I really believe that gender is such a flexible thing and even though I am with aguy right now, I still simp over lesbians, gays, ciswomen, transgenders because simping isn’t about gender.

And these set of rules on how to navigate genders is just invalidating the experiences of people who are flitting in between the two identities and it just hinders the process of self discovery for a lot of people.

Anyway, the point is, there is only one statement I found fundamental when approaching my relationships with the LGBT community and my own perspective on my self identity.

Recognition of someone’s feelings and their journey to a gender identity and the pronouns that come with it are important.

Then someone might go “THEN WHY DON’T YOU RESPECT HANGE’s NON BINARY PRONOUNS. Because just because someone is nonbinary doesn’t mean they automatically go for they. Just because someone is non-binary, doesn’t mean I have to use every single pronoun on the spectrum. The only one who can tell me what pronouns they want used on them is the person in question.

(I actually read an argument somewhere that going for ‘they’ just because someone is NB is transphobic lmfao. Assuming someone’s pronouns is apparently transphobic too lmfao.)

AND HANGE IS FICTIONAL. And we will never hear about which pronoun she would have wanted in the first place and I think the great ‘nontransphobic’ in-between is just letting people interpret characters how they want to interpret characters in this fictional world (And Hange can be both interpreted as nb and female). It’s the policing which makes the whole process of self discovery, the process of navigating genders all the more difficult for a lot of people.

And policing how exactly people should navigate gender and sexuality is just gatekeeping. Hange is everyone’s character. The only gender and sexuality identity people have complete jurisdiction on, is their own. And this policing of what exactly certain journeys to discovery are supposed to feel like is inherently harmful for those who are still in the process of deciding for themselves where they stand.

And going back to what Yams said “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender/sexuality/gender roles.” I agree with that.

Because even though I do use ‘she’ with Hange, I do not firmly believe that Hange is a cisgender heterosexual female either. I just believe there are so many more layers to her whole identity and I believe similarly for every single person. Just concluding for one’s self that Hange is nonbinary with a very narrow minded view of what non binary just generally defeats the whole purpose of being ‘free from the confines of gender’ and hinders a lot of discourse and analysis on Hange’s identity over all.

I mean, I don’t know if people agree with this but in the decades I have spent with my close friends figuring out their gender identities, changing pronouns, transitioning, coming out to their parents, here is one thing I noticed. They weren’t asking for a celebration of their gender or sexuality, they weren’t asking for all these policing on how people should approach them. All they wanted was for their feelings to be validated, normalized as an everyday occurrence. I think the point of all these LGBTQ discourse (and by extension race and sex discourse) were all there to just make all these different identities normalized and to completely eradicate the concept of a negative bias or an other which was generally plaguing society for a long time.

And as their friends, I have never approached them as this champion who would make sure EVERYONE RESPECTED THEM IN THAT WAY IN TWITTER THEY BELIEVE LGBTQ PEOPLE SHOULD BE RESPECTED. All these nonverbal rules I have set up for myself on how to go about being friends with them is because I wanted them to be happy and comfortable in their shoes. And what were the types of things they appreciated? Me hiding it from their parents until they were ready to come out, me helping make their relationship work with their partner, me respecting the pronouns they requested for themselves, me accompanying them to HRT when their parents refused.

And you know what, that was only a facet of our friendships. My friends’ gender identities and sexualities never dominated discourse. None of them were the ‘token gay friend,’ the ‘token lesbian friend’ or the ‘token asexual friend’ or the ‘token NB friend.’ They were all people I genuinely care about who just happened to have fallen in love with someone of the same gender. They were just people who just happened to be uncomfortable with their original sex. But I would never just describe them as just that. My friend who just so happens to identify as assexual makes a great companion on a night out drinking. My friend who just so happens to be trasngender is really great with logistics and planning and was super helpful and I was eternally grateful when we worked together on that one project. My friend who just happens to be a lesbian has the cutest picture of her girlfreind on her phone screen.

I will memorize their favorite orders, what makes them tick, what makes them such a great companion, their talents, capabilities more than I will remember their gender. And that’s the characetr song in question is called “Jibunrashiku” or in English “just like me.” Because in the end a strict society which creates all these maxims of what exactly people of a certain gender should act would of course birth songs like “Just like me” A society which puts so much emphasis on gender and sex as an identity instead of other things like personality, preferences, skills etc.

And I don’t know if it applies to everyone. But my friends appreciate it because this journey to whatever gender identity they chose wasn’t rooted in some sort of strict framework on how they should be treated according to twitter. It was rooted in their own experiences and how these experiences made them feel.

Do they feel weird in a woman’s body? Do they just don’t feel any romantic attraction to the opposite gender?

Just treat them as how you would treat anyone else you respect. Just be a decent person. Just be a good friend.

Respect their requests for their own personal pronouns. If they need help, help them to the best of your abilities.

And here’s the thing, the approach I use with navigating identities, sexuaities genders are rooted in one very simple concept which can be applied to the race discourse, the feminist discourse etc etc.

Don’t be an ass. Respect people. Don’t reduce people to one facet of their identity. And by extension, when faced with such a dubious situation, think, discern for yourself what’s right or wrong. When there are people educating you, policing you on what is right or wrong, process that information objectively.

All I have here right now is my own opinions on the gender discourse on Hange and my own opinions on the discourse overall.

If you don’t agree with it, then have a nice day and I hope you find something else that will convince you to be more openminded but...

UTANG NA LOOB HUWAG LANG KAYO MAMBULLY NG TAO POTA. MAGHANAP NALANG KAYO NG IBANG PWEDENG GAWIN SA BUHAY MO.

ANG DAMING NASASAKTAN ANG DAMING NATRATRAUMA ANG DAMING NAWAWALANG GANA MAGSULAT KASI DI KAYO NAG-IISIP. PURO TIRA LANG.

Okay thank you for listening. Do what you want with the information up there but I have said my piece.

#hange zoe #hanji zoe #commander hange #commander hanji #meta

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honeyandbloodpoetry · 3 years

Text

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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m0thmachine · 2 years

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TDoV/Autism Month: Faith in Faggotards

(This is a decently long text and I also posted it on my website.)

March 31st: Trans Day of Visibility

April: Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month

I think about all the acceptable targets. I think about how KiwiFarms was founded to harass autistics, trans people, women, and especially autistic trans women. I think about Chris Chan and the r/antiwork person who went on Fox News and every neurodivergent trans person (especially autistic trans women) who go viral in cringe compilations. I think about how the theory of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” calls out autistic transmascs specifically as “groomed,” too stupid to possibly actually be trans. I think about the countless autistic trans people I’ve seen cancelled over the years—not the pop culture buzzword conservative “cancelled,” but trans autistics who have their whole social life (or even their living and income) online, who have lies spread about them and their words taken out of context and misconstrued and personal fetishes painted as signs of a predator and poorly-articulated panic-posting framed as lateral aggression. I think about the transphobic caricatures that are stereotypes of autism. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to vomit.

The whole “male socialization/female socialization” argument feels so alien. I was not socialized female. But I was not socialized male. I was socialized autistic, people putting aside gender lines to torment me, to other me. Any matters of safety were about surviving as an autistic person, first and foremost. I was never seen as another girl, but I was never seen as a boy, either. I was a weirdo. I spent my time with the other kids and teens who gamed, hyperfixated, were teacher’s pets with shit grades, who meowed at each other, who were bullied, who kept getting hospitalized. Kids can recognize autism better than many psychiatrists can.

Just as I find little common ground with cis people, or at least little solidarity and even less comprehension, I feel the same way around neurotypicals. Even autistic cis people and non-autistic trans people have that distance, that gulf. Sometimes it’s a matter of safety, of bigotry and hatred; sometimes it’s simply a matter of not getting it. The masking necessary, the energy it takes, to perform both my gender and being palatable to neurotypicals. Even then I know I will be passed over for someone with a more “clear” gender, or a more charismatic presentation, most of the time.

I find familiarity in other autistic trans people. Sometimes other queer autistics or other neurodivergent trans people make sense, too. I call myself “faggotard,” a portmanteau of two slurs that cut like knives alone, which I can now coat myself in as a defensive measure, but become something more together. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I find myself relating to other people under this faggotard life, regardless of the nuances and specificities within that identity, more than anyone else.

It’s not all fun and games and sun and roses and solidarity, though. I’ve seen autistic trans people cannibalize each other. Sometimes it’s to look less trans, or less autistic. Often it’s out of fear of being the next Chris Chan or 4lung or Nyx or whomever. Nobody wants to be a lolcow. The closer you get to being able to be an acceptable sort of trans autistic, a tenderqueer softness or an Aspie, the more prone you are to this. I think that’s why you see this behaviour a lot more (but far from exclusively) in trans men and transmascs (who are exempt from transmisogyny), and in autistics who lack comorbidities in the realm of psychosis or BPD or “ugly” disorders. Not all queer neurodivergent people—not even all trans autistics—are faggotards. The only safety they can see is pushing others away, ritual sacrifice to appease the cishet NT gods.

The other lack of safety comes in the form of seemingly having nowhere else to go. When groups become so insular, so terrified of stepping out of the room for fear of the beasts outside, that cramped dark room becomes a fertile ground for abuse. Even experiencial, ideological, and aesthetic similarities cannot account for individuals. The nature of being underground means building your own structures, and often those lack the accountability, safeguards, and even methods of escape that others might have. To pretend autistic trans people don’t hurt and traumatize other autistic trans people is laughable. Even narrowing it down by gender and race and hobbies and age cannot save you from that.

That being said, there is potential. I see autistic trans people and I see strength. My neuroqueer and faggotard peers and lovers and mutuals and friends have so much brilliance inside them, even against impossible odds.

Visibility and awareness kinda suck. It often just brings more violence and hostility. It’s often deeply performative.

But thank you for being there.

I’m glad you’re still here.

#long post #Dramatic monologues

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 2 years

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one girl in all the world: chapter 1

Willow x Angel, BTVS. Also on AO3. Prologue here. Bonus graphic here.

A reimagining of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the very beginning, in which Angel was sent to Sunnydale to help the wrong girl, and fell in love with the right girl anyway. Very belatedly for @actuallylukedanes in honor of their birthday. 💗

“Sorry I mistook you for my mom,” Willow added as an afterthought. “It wasn’t because you’re…like my mom. I was just confused.”

He grinned. “I figured.”

“My mom and I aren’t all that close,” she babbled before she could stop herself. “But when I was little, she was the one who would come in and hug me really tight when I woke up from a nightmare, and it always felt…safe.”

Willow shook her head. “I know how that probably sounds. Like I said, with the gas and everything, I got confused. But when I woke up, I knew I was safe, somehow."

She looked over at the table where Buffy was laughing at something Xander said. “I don’t know why you’re helping Buffy–why you’re helping us, even, because of Buffy. But without you, we’d probably all be dead by now.”

Some things were simply facts; elements of reality that Willow accepted the way she accepted gravity and oxygen. She didn’t have to enjoy them to live with them–but like basic physics, she knew there was no point in trying to fight them, either.

That was her life before the day that Buffy Summers came to town and changed everything: good friends in Xander and Jesse, good GPA in high school…and a place at the very bottom of the social hierarchy.

She had her theories about why Cordelia felt the need to pick on her so much. Basic psychology– in her head, that sounded a lot like her mother giving a lecture –would blame deep-rooted insecurity that the Queen Bee covered up by constantly putting everyone else down. And as someone who kept to herself, Willow was an easy target.

She knew she was smarter than the popular girls, and probably better adjusted. She didn’t feel the need to bully people, or try to be somebody she wasn’t. She was happy enough in her life. So Willow tried not to let it get to her.

But shrugging it off didn’t change the reality of being a teenager at Sunnydale High, one who had stumbled onto Cordelia Chase’s hate list long ago, and lived there now. Nothing changed that, any more than she could decide to resist gravity.

It made Buffy’s arrival a truly unprecedented event. She not only brought fresh life to their little town, breaking Willow’s understanding of what reality even meant; she also chose Willow and Xander to be her friends, in open defiance of the way things were supposed to be.

Suddenly, life was different. Willow had more to worry about than people staring at her in her nightmares. She had to reconsider every scary story and fairy tale she’d read, every monster movie she’d seen. And she had to decide what it meant, to live in a world that was more dangerous than she’d known.

But at the top of the list of what had changed, there was also just Buffy. Her first friend who was a girl, who she could talk to about crushes and parents in a way that Xander would never understand. Willow was maturing, as her parents liked to say with coded glances and distant tones. It was a lonely place to be sometimes.

Living in the after of Buffy’s arrival, it was a little less lonely. Willow figured that was a decent trade for the upgrade in her nightmares.

Especially since, if she had never learned that Sunnydale had extra layers to its reality, a different kind of physics, those things would still be real. She’d just be blind to them. Less safe from the monsters.

Willow might not be able to do much to fight the evil of mean girls in her everyday life, but Buffy had shown her that some dangers could be defeated. She planned to make use of that lesson.

****

Willow couldn’t have explained to anyone why she felt drawn to the books on magick that she found in the library. At first, she wondered what they were even doing there, old intimidating volumes in a high school library. And then when she started reading them, she found them really interesting.

It didn’t seem unusual to her, or like something she should worry about. She found a lot of things interesting. She enjoyed learning.

But she was still grateful that no one caught her slip when she was teasing Xander about them. Nobody asked how she knew the books had semi-nude engravings, how she knew anything about them at all. The group was too busy, or distracted.

And of course, she was lucky her name wasn’t listed right above Xander’s. She hadn’t felt the need to be sneaky, exactly…but she had a habit of browsing in the library in her free time. She’d never considered checking out the magick books and taking them home, because she hadn’t been studying them any more seriously than the books about French history she read, or photography.

But before she was knocked unconscious, it occurred to Willow how silly she felt, tossing questions at Amy’s mom to get her attention. She didn’t know much about the woman’s black arts, not nearly enough to successfully distract her. She did have questions, though--less silly ones, unrelated to broomsticks or black cats.

Willow wanted to know what it was like when people used witchcraft for good. What did that kind of magick look like? And could it protect them from people like Catherine? Or worse?

There was no harm in doing some more research, she decided. Research only helped. Giles had lots of books she hadn’t even opened yet. And living on a Hellmouth, clearly they needed as much help as they could get.

****

There was something about him, Willow thought, the first time she saw Angel in the Bronze. He wasn’t funny like Xander, didn’t carry that warm familiarity that made Xander feel like home.

Even from across the room she could tell that Angel was nothing like that; even if Buffy had never described him to her she would have known he was the enigmatic guy who had caught her friend’s attention.

There was a coolness about him, a stillness. A calm. As if the world moved around him and he stayed a little bit apart from it.

It reminded her of that thing people said, about having an old soul. He looked so serious, even more than the age difference would explain.

Buffy had talked about how cryptic she found him, how impossible he was to pin down, but that made sense once Willow could actually see him: he was right there among the rest of the crowd and still, somehow, he didn’t fit.

So she knew Angel was Buffy’s new crush the moment she saw him. She also knew he was even cuter than Buffy had said, like some romantic hero from literature brought to modern life. To Willow’s life, to her sleepy little town that used to be so boring.

Vampires and all, she wouldn’t want to go back to the way things used to be. But Willow couldn’t separate the two things–Buffy was why she knew about the vampires. And Buffy was the only reason she knew Angel.

So it didn’t matter if she found Angel cute, in a brooding sort of way. Her friend was into him. That was all that mattered.

****

Willow could tell that Giles wasn’t used to his supernatural knowledge, his ties to the Slayer, being known to outsiders. When she asked him where the term Watcher came from, since he behaved more like a coach or a guide, he sputtered.

It happened when she asked him other questions too, about witchcraft or the origins of evil or why Sunnydale sat on a Hellmouth but the next town over didn’t.

He was much less hesitant when they were facing a battle–when it was Buffy he was delivering information to, or they were all working together to fight her battles. That led Willow to guess that it was about Buffy’s unconventional allies. He clearly wasn’t prepared for this…for them. For a Slayer who simply wanted to be a girl.

But since Willow wasn’t prepared for nightmares to come true and for monster-fighting to become her new extracurricular activity, she didn’t feel too badly for him. She just wondered why he was called a Watcher if that was not really what he did.

She could argue, Willow thought, that she was much more of a watcher than Giles. In the truest sense.

She’d always lived her life on the outside, observing, taking things in. As great as it was to have Xander in her life, that didn’t give her a warm and involved family. It didn’t make her part of the social scene in Sunnydale, one of the popular girls. She was still invisible in a lot of ways.

And being invisible wasn’t always bad. She would rather be ignored by jerks like Cordelia than picked on. It gave her a different perspective–the freedom to see more and understand more than she could if she were noticed.

Like the way Angel and Buffy circled each other; she watched that and saw what was coming. Maybe even before they did. Definitely despite Buffy’s words to the contrary.

Her friend was head over heels and she barely knew the guy. Angel was much harder to read, but he never seemed to be anywhere except where the Slayer was.

Willow thought it was romantic, swoony like a classic film you’d see in black and white. She worried a little bit too–but she couldn’t tell anyone about that part because she couldn’t explain it. All she wanted was for Buffy to be happy, and if Angel was the guy, who was she to argue with that?

Who was she to be judging anybody’s relationships, Willow added to her self-directed scolding. The only person she’d ever wanted to date was Xander and even he was mooning over Buffy now.

Instead, she kept watching. She kept her worries to herself. And by the time things started to get complicated, it was too late for her to do anything about it.

****

When Willow and Xander arrived to interrupt Buffy’s date with Owen–which was already being interrupted by Angel–they were in too much of a hurry for introductions. And Buffy didn’t bother, probably because she was trying to get them to go away and leave her and Owen alone.

Which meant that technically, Willow and Angel were never really introduced. After that night, they would acknowledge each other in a work-acquaintance sort of way whenever the chaos of the Hellmouth brought Angel to them…but Willow found it kind of funny that they’d skipped past ever saying hello.

She assumed it just hadn’t occurred to Buffy, given who Angel was. He was this dashing, mysterious figure in the Slayer’s new life–almost like some kind of superhero–who appeared whenever he might be needed, then faded into the shadows. As if he only existed because of Buffy.

So of course she didn’t think to introduce them all. It wasn’t like Angel was a part of the group.

Willow didn’t know him well enough to know if Angel minded that, but she had to wonder if the distance came from him or from Buffy’s efforts to have a normal life. Owen was a prime example of that: cute boy, their age, not a mystery to be solved.

It was clear that Angel wasn’t thrilled to see Buffy dating, but that didn’t change the way he hovered and held back. He didn’t make small talk, he didn’t try to bond with Buffy’s people. He didn’t do the things a person was supposed to do when they liked somebody.

Angel left Willow wondering. Because she might not understand Buffy’s mystery guy, but she knew one thing for certain: staying on the outside, being so disconnected…it had to be terribly lonely. Why would anybody choose that if they didn’t have to?

****

It shouldn’t have taken hyena possession, Willow thought, but she knew now that she had to let go of her crush on Xander.

Not having her feelings returned she could live with. She didn’t need Xander to be in love with her.

And even the bullying, the way he behaved as part of a cruel pack, she could forgive. She knew who Xander was, how his father treated him and what he tried to rise above. The potential for mean was there, and the possession tapped into it.

But what he did to Buffy…what he tried to do…Willow felt guilty about that. Because part of her was relieved it hadn’t happened to her, which was too much like being glad it happened to Buffy. And she wasn’t! She was horrified.

She would have sworn to anybody who asked, before the hyena possession, that Xander would never do anything like that. That he wasn’t even capable of it. Under any circumstances.

Knowing what was lurking inside him, somewhere deep down–what had to be inside him to make that possible–changed how Willow saw her oldest friend. And it made her a little scared of what he could’ve been like if she was the object of his obsession, rather than Buffy.

Spending this year together as a new friend group, Willow had been quietly jealous of Buffy. A little bit.

Buffy was strong and could defeat the evil that lurked in their little town. She was pretty and knew how to flirt and get boys’ attention. She had not only Angel but also Xander pining after her, while Willow was off to the side, watching it all happen.

She’d longed for Xander to see her the way he saw Buffy, to want her even a fraction of how much she wanted him.

And now, Willow had seen where that kind of longing could lead. She never wanted Xander to think of her that way, after all.

She wished she had the ability to go back in time and keep Buffy safe from his attention, too.

****

After the truth came out, Willow wasn’t sure what to make of Buffy’s crush on a vampire. Of course, if anyone could handle herself in that kind of situation, it would be Willow’s new Slayer BFF. She’d never met anyone like Buffy–not that she’d met many people so far.

But, still. Willow remembered the boy she’d tried flirting with at the Bronze, who turned out not to be a boy at all but a vampire who wanted to sacrifice her to the Master. She’d been so pleased with herself, so caught up in how well her efforts had worked out, she hadn’t been even a little bit aware of the threat.

The irony that she was following Buffy’s advice that night had not been lost on Willow, but she also knew–even more after she almost got eaten–that she and Buffy were very different people, when it came to boys and dating.

For example, Buffy had definitely dated boys already. Whereas Willow had not. Other than her childhood relationship with Xander, anyway, and she knew that didn’t really count.

But knowing that Buffy probably had a lot of dating experience didn’t make it any less strange to see her mooning over a vampire. A dark and dreamy vampire who didn’t seem like he wanted to eat Buffy, Willow reminded herself. Angel was different.

She hoped that Angel was different. For Buffy’s sake.

Because if the Slayer fell for a vampire, and he just wanted to eat her, that would make her, like, the worst Slayer ever, wouldn’t it? And Willow believed in Buffy. She had skills. She was a badass. She could flirt and cheerlead and kill monsters, without missing a beat.

Since surviving her near-death and her very first rescue from Buffy, though, Willow couldn’t help wondering how Buffy–who had fought and killed so many vampires, who had seen so many vampires attack and kill other people–could still be interested in Angel. Knowing what he was, didn’t that change things?

Willow had always been a curious person. It made school easy for her. And when she found a new interest, like computers, she could master it quickly.

While Buffy wrestled with her feelings, Willow wondered what made Angel different…unique among demons, but also something more than that. Appealing. Almost human.

What did it mean, that Angel’s existence broke the supernatural rules Willow was still getting used to?

She couldn’t discuss her thoughts with Xander; he was too jealous of Angel to be helpful. She wouldn’t pose her questions to Giles, who seemed uncomfortable around Angel even before he discovered the history. And she definitely wasn’t going to ask Buffy anything she selfishly wanted to know.

Luckily, Willow always had the option of trying to learn more on her own. She could try to satisfy her curiosity towards the vampire that her best friend was falling for–even if her curiosity had to stay a secret.

****

While he sought to avoid Buffy, Angel admitted to Giles that being around Buffy was too hard for him. The Watcher misunderstood his fear of losing control for a kind of romance.

“A vampire in love with a Slayer,” Giles commented, continuing on for a moment, before switching subjects. Angel didn’t respond to the commentary on his feelings, largely because he didn’t know what to say.

Is that what this is? He wondered. This feeling of being pulled despite reason, toward someone you should know better than to want?

He was soulless during his life with Darla, so he couldn’t say he had loved her. He had tried to make her happy even after regaining his soul, but Angel blamed that on not knowing much else after more than a hundred years together. He'd wanted their old life back, to escape the pain.

And before Darla, he was soulless in another way–he bedded many women, but certainly never loved them.

So maybe that explained why being around Buffy was so hard. He didn’t know how to handle being in love, because he wasn’t used to it.

But at the same time, Angel couldn’t say for sure that his feelings for Buffy were the same as what she felt for him…what her Watcher assumed he was feeling.

How would he know the difference?

Really, after spending so long living for his passions–selfish, cruel, and solitary in turn–what did he know about love at all?

****

There was something about her, Angel thought, after he half-dragged, half-carried Willow out of the gas-filled room. He knew Giles had grabbed Xander and was right behind them, but to be honest it hadn’t occurred to him to worry about Xander’s safety–he’d gone straight for Willow, whose lack of consciousness he sensed before he even entered the room.

She smelled sweet, like fruit, not as though she were wearing perfume but simply as a result of being human. A young woman, he reminded himself. Practically still a girl. Innocent.

Buffy was the same age, but already draped in the weight of her duty, her fate. And at the same time, there was a lightness to her that came of confidence–it was not a surprise to him that she’d led a life of cheerleading and dances at her old school.

Willow, though, she made herself small. He didn’t like thinking that part of the attraction there was a predator scenting prey, his natural instinct to seek out weakness, vulnerability. Especially since it had become clear to him quickly that Willow was anything but weak.

But the vulnerability that radiated out of her…it tugged at him. It reminded him of things he’d rather forget.

When Willow woke up from the gas fumes, she stayed pressed against him, leaving only when Xander did, and even then her hand lingered on his arm as she pulled away.

Angel could feel her heart, the way it was racing, but he couldn’t know if that was in response to him or the constant life-threatening events she was encountering in Sunnydale.

He wondered, though. A bit.

****

She’d expected Angel to be…well, cold, Willow thought, after he saved her in the high school. Vampires were dead, after all. Shouldn’t that mean they were lifeless, no blood flowing…chilly to the touch?

He wasn’t, though. He wasn’t warm, the way a living person would be, she knew now–but he wasn’t a corpse either. He was sort of room temperature.

She wondered if that had something to do with the blood he drank. Did he warm it up, and did that warm him? The science nerd in her had so many questions.

Questions he would probably find rude, she guessed. Not that she would have an opportunity to ask them. She and Angel didn’t exactly hang out. He just sort of appeared, and then vanished again whenever he was done helping them or seeing Buffy.

That made it nearly impossible for her to do what she needed to, but after several days of watching and waiting, Willow spotted Angel at the Bronze after school while Buffy and Xander were chatting next to her.

“Bathroom,” Willow said, a little too brightly. She left before either of them could ask any follow up questions–she didn’t expect them to notice her absence, but she knew it was more likely if they thought she was acting weird.

Willow was careful not to look at him as she skirted the edges of the dance floor, making her way to where Angel was standing in the shadow of a staircase. She had a hunch that if he knew she was coming to find him, he might leave before she managed it.

“Hi,” Willow said when she reached him.

Her smile was soft, like the rest of her, Angel thought. There was a seriousness to Willow that he appreciated, but it was her open sincerity that made him feel unusually protective.

It surprised him that Buffy–who was so vibrant, even prickly sometimes–had grown close to this wide-eyed girl despite their differences.

“Hello.” Angel shifted where he stood, and Willow wondered if his discomfort came from being spoken to in general, or if he was concerned that Buffy might notice them together.

“She thinks I’m in the bathroom,” she offered helpfully.

“Oh. Okay.”

“I needed to talk to you, and I didn’t know how to find you,” Willow explained. “So I’m glad you’re here. I…wouldn’t know where to look.”

“I wouldn’t want to be looked for,” Angel replied. The lines in his forehead made him the picture of a worrier. Willow wondered if he was; they would have that in common.

“Well. I wanted to say thank you.”

His brow stayed furrowed, and he stayed silent. Willow frowned. “For saving my life, in the high school? With Giles and Xander?”

“Right.” He continued to watch her, his gaze flicking back to Buffy for a second before refocusing.

“It was, um, really scary, and we wouldn’t have made it out of there, if you hadn’t found us. I don’t think. So thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His words should have been casual, but he said everything with such a grave tone. Could vampires have depression? She wondered. Because if any of them were a candidate for that, Angel should be at the top of the list. He always seemed so somber.

Maybe that was just what happened when you lived for hundreds of years.

“What?” He asked her, and Willow realized she had been staring at him without speaking, the whole time she’d thought those things. She blushed and looked down at her shoes.

It could be worse, she reminded herself. She could have been thinking aloud.

“It’s the centuries,” Angel said, and she looked up, meeting his eyes.

Maybe she had been thinking aloud, she realized. Shoot.

“Makes me forget how to act around people,” Angel explained, and Willow relaxed. He hadn’t been reading her mind. He was apologizing.

“Oh, you’re okay,” she assured him. “You’re-you’re very person-seeming.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Thanks.”

“Well, I should probably get back,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Before anyone notices.”

“Sure.” There was amusement in his eyes now, she noticed, though you wouldn’t know it from the rest of his face.

“Sorry I mistook you for my mom,” Willow added as an afterthought. “It wasn’t because you’re…like my mom. I was just confused.”

He grinned. “I figured.”

Willow shook her head. “I know how that probably sounds. Like I said, with the gas and everything, I got confused. But when I woke up, I knew I was safe, somehow."

Willow looked back at him with no hint of a smile. Not even her usual sweetness. There was a strength instead, that he was surprised to see shine from underneath her words.

“Everything that’s happened since I met Buffy, the really scary stuff and the really nice stuff, I wouldn’t give it up to be safe and in the dark again. I’d rather know about the monsters. But if high school has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes the worst monsters are the ones who seem safe.”

She frowned again, looking up at him. “You feel safe. I trust that. But I’m not sure I should.”

Angel nodded. “I’m not sure you should either. But that’s good to know.”

She nodded back and turned away, disappearing into the crowded dance floor.

Angel watched until she reappeared at the table where Buffy was waiting, now alone. He followed Buffy’s pointing finger to where Xander was dancing by himself.

He didn’t know what either of them saw in that one; he suspected Xander was the most likely among them to end up dead before graduation. But he could see the fondness in Buffy’s smile from where he stood, and Willow watched the boy’s movements like a flower staring at the sun.

Angel couldn't decide what to make of Willow’s rambling speech, or her gratitude. He certainly didn’t deserve anyone’s thanks. Or their trust–most definitely not their trust.

Well, she was young, he reminded himself. Even before he was turned, he was much more worldly at Willow’s age. Spoiled, and an awful person, but experienced.

Thinking about who he used to be put him in a terrible mood. Scowling, Angel left the Bronze, letting the dark night envelope him and make him a shadow among shadows. He wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, lurking in the Bronze, anyway.

****

Angel entered the Bronze the week after Prom, in what was becoming a habit. Willow saw him more often now around the edges of the club, not even meeting Buffy–just watching. She couldn’t tell if it was meant to be protective or romantic. Or if those were the same thing.

That night, though, he came to where Willow was sitting. She was alone, holding the table until Buffy and Xander took a break from the dance floor. Which would hopefully be soon, she thought, watching them laugh from a distance. She was thirsty and they’d promised to grab her a soda.

“Hey, Angel.” She smiled at him, then went back to watching her friends.

“Hey.”

He seemed relaxed, but it was unusual for him to join her without Buffy around. “Is there danger? Should we go get Buffy?”

“No. I mean, not that I know of.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She listened to the music for another minute, then turned to him. “They should be back soon.”

“I’m not in a hurry.”

“I guess you wouldn’t be, huh? Being immortal and all.”

“That, and I’m here to ask Buffy about her plans. Not exactly time-sensitive.”

“Like for a date!” Willow nodded encouragingly. Buffy had seemed a little off ever since she…well, died. It would be nice if she and Angel went back to normal–or as close to normal as possible for the Slayer and her vampire boyfriend.

“Actually, for patrolling. I want to get an idea of which cemeteries she’ll be slaying in, make sure I’m close by.”

“Oh.” That wouldn’t help Buffy’s mood at all, Willow thought. Didn’t guys understand that girls wanted to be wanted for more than their saving-the-world skills? Buffy in particular was wishing for non-Slayer fun lately.

Like dancing with Xander, who seemed to have bounced back from Buffy’s rejection sooner than Willow would’ve expected. Being the one who saved her life had probably helped, she decided as the music sped up and her friends stayed on the dance floor.

“I guess they might be a little longer,” she told Angel. “You could sit.”

He hesitated, but settled across from her. “Thanks.”

“Buffy’s not going to be patrolling,” Willow remembered suddenly. She didn’t look forward to being the bearer of bad news, but it was strange that he didn't already know.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s leaving tomorrow. Spending the summer with her dad. She didn’t tell you?”

He turned his gaze to Buffy, expressionless as he watched her dance. “No.”

“I’m sure she was going to,” Willow rushed to assure him.

“Yeah.” He added, after a moment, “I live near here. In case, while Buffy’s away, something happens and you need…help.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Near here was more than a little vague, Willow thought, but it was nice of him.

“I’ll write down my address and get it to you. When I can.”

“Cool.”

He was still watching Buffy, and his stare was starting to look a bit like a glower. “So you’ve seen, like, so many things,” Willow said in an overly-chipper attempt to change the subject.

She cringed a little when Angel looked her way. “I mean…I read about history, but you’ve lived it. You must have really good stories.”

Now Angel was the one who looked uncomfortable. “I guess that’s one way you could put it.”

“How would you put it?”

He was silent for so long that Willow worried he might decide to leave, rather than answer. “You don’t like to talk about yourself, huh.”

“Not much, no.”

“Why?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” he replied, without rancor.

Then he did answer, carefully. “Let’s just say that a person can make a lot of mistakes in 200 years. And I’m barely a person.”

“That must be hard. All those memories.”

He wasn’t expecting that level of understanding from someone her age, and it showed. “There are no words that can truly describe it.”

“I can still remember every one of the worst moments I’ve lived through,” Willow confessed. “Like I’m living them all over again. The fights I’ve had with Xander, the bullies that never seem satisfied. The Audio-Visual room full of dead kids that I knew, where I went all the time.”

She was the one who paused now, considering him carefully as that memory washed over her. Willow was struggling lately to make sense of a world that contained both that kind of vampire bloodbath, and Angel, who was so different.

“I know it’s not the same…but I understand feeling haunted,” she tried to explain. “Ashamed. And like something must be wrong with you, even if you don’t know why.”

He was watching her with that intense stare she still wasn’t used to. He didn’t speak.

Instead, the flash of knowing and being known passed between them silently when he nodded his agreement. It was crazy, with him being a vampire and all, but it felt like a meeting of souls.

And then Buffy came back with a soda in hand, Xander behind her, and the moment passed.

****

Angel heard her before she knocked, and opened the door carefully to gesture her in. Willow had arrived close to sunset, but not quite close enough. He had to stay behind the door while she entered.

“I need your help.”

Willow hadn’t come to his apartment before, though he’d seen her at the Bronze several times since he’d given her his address. She’d seemed touched by the gesture. He knew his motives were more selfish than kind.

If something happened to Buffy, he didn’t trust Xander to keep him informed–but Willow was much more sensible than the boy. And less territorial.

“Is something wrong?” Angel was already setting his book aside and standing, ready to follow her. “Is Buffy alright?”

Willow shook her head, holding both hands out to calm him quickly. “She’s fine. I heard from her yesterday. It’s not an emergency.”

“Okay…” Angel relaxed, but was now watching her with a bemused expression. It wasn’t an emergency and she had…showed up at his home?

“You’ve been around a long time.” Willow looked around his place while she spoke, rather than at him. He couldn’t tell if she was nervous or curious. “You’ve had centuries to learn about, well, anything you wanted.”

“I suppose.”

“I want to learn about magick.”

“You want to be a witch?” He didn’t look confused anymore–now Angel looked stricken. If it was possible, he became even paler than usual.

“No, I just want to learn about witchcraft. Like, as a hobby. A practical skill.”

Willow sighed. “You know what it’s like here. Better than I do. But ever since meeting Buffy–and you–I know that danger is everywhere. And magick can give a person power. I need to be able to protect myself better. Maybe even protect us all.”

Angel shook his head, avoiding eye contact while he spoke. “You shouldn't get involved with power like that. You don’t know what you would be getting into. It backfires. It hurts people. It does what it wants.”

“So you do know about magick then.” Willow’s chin jutted out stubbornly. “You can explain things to me.”

“I might be able to,” Angel admitted, “but I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a hobby,” he said simply. “You can’t dabble in it. You can’t pick and choose parts of it to use as weapons. It will corrupt you, if you do. Using magick for good requires you to treat it like a practice. A calling, even. To wield that kind of power…”

He trailed off, and Willow could see something deep in his eyes, something dark and far away. It sent a shiver through her.

“It will change you forever,” Angel explained. “In ways you can’t know. I don’t want to be any part of that.”

He sat back down, gesturing for her to sit next to him.

“What brought you here, anyhow? Tonight, I mean. To me.”

“Well, I’ve been interested in witchcraft for a while. There are books in the library. Old books. Like nothing I’ve read before. And I went back to them to try and learn more, after Buffy had to fight this witch at school. I wanted to know what good witches were like, compared to Amy’s mom.”

Angel continued listening patiently as though he knew who Amy or her mom were.

“Giles realized I was consulting his books, and he-he kinda freaked out. I’ve never seen him so upset. I tried to explain, like this–I pointed out that Ms. Calendar uses magick for good. I promised I would use it to help Buffy. But he totally brushed me off, wouldn’t even listen.”

Willow’s voice was more formal when she continued. Angel recognized her tone as a Giles impression, even without the British accent.

“Ms. Calendar isn’t a witch. She simply incorporates some Pagan elements into her use of computers, and even that is risky–and not a path I would ever condone for someone your age. What you are talking about, Willow, is much more perilous, as well as wholly unnecessary. These forces are not to be trifled with.”

She sighed, slumping against his chair. “He locked all the books up after that. Not just the ones with spells in them, but even the history and theory books, the ones that explain different kinds of Paganism. And he’s been watching me ever since, with this weird look on his face, like…”

“Like you’re about to start levitating?”

“Exactly like that. He’s being ridiculous. I’m not Xander,” Willow protested, exasperation lacing her voice. “I’m not some irresponsible kid who doesn’t know what she’s dealing with. I saw how terrible it was, what Amy’s mom could do. I understand the seriousness of it. That’s why I need to learn–so I’ll be able to fight back.”

He seemed unmoved, but Willow pressed onward.

“Buffy can fight. She’s got superpowers, basically. And Xander is, well, Xander, but he and Giles are both bigger than me and stronger. I can’t predict what kind of monsters will come for us next, but I do know they’re coming. They keep coming. And I need my own way to be strong. This could be my way.”

Angel wanted to tell her that her words were truer than she realized, but he knew it would make everything worse–more complicated, not less. It wouldn’t stop her. It might ruin her.

So he asked her a question instead.

“If Giles banned you from his library, you could have gone to the public library, shops in town. Or researched online. You still haven’t explained. Why did you come to me?”

“You’re right, I could go online. Or those other places. But the ‘Net is full of unreliable sources, and given the risks I don’t think Ms. Calendar will encourage my independent studies any more than Giles. I don’t want to go to strangers.”

She bit her lip. “It’s probably dumb, but I thought…we’re on the same team. Team Buffy. I know you’ve had centuries to learn stuff, and I need to learn too. I hoped maybe you would give me a chance, if I could fight for good like you do.”

He could see it in her posture, the determination she had brought to his door. The certainty within her that his efforts so far hadn’t managed to shake.

It wasn’t going to be that easy, he realized. He should have known.

Witches and magick couldn’t be easily kept apart. Even when those witches didn’t know they were witches yet.

He could see it within her so clearly, the need to prove herself. The yearning to matter. He recognized it, a mirror of what brought him to Sunnydale in the first place. Angel had wanted to become someone worthy of Buffy’s light, as though good deeds would wash away his past.

Now, with Willow waiting for his response, he was forced to admit–if only to himself–that his efforts with Buffy were selfish. He was following his passions, just as he always had.

Attraction and need were pulling him toward Buffy even as it hurt them both, even as it defied the laws of nature, of good and evil. He knew better and yet he kept letting himself get closer to her. He let himself want her.

Willow was human, and her needs were as selfish, as deeply rooted. Authority figures couldn’t steer her away from power any more than burning flesh could sway Angel from the Slayer.

Willow might not realize it yet, he thought, but the magick was drawn to her the same way she was seeking it out.

Nothing would keep the two apart forever.

You could almost call it destiny.

Angel leaned back, sighed quietly. Then he nodded.

“I’ll help you.”

“Really?”

After her impassioned speeches, that made him laugh. “Yes, really. Better than you getting your information from a more dangerous source. And you have a point. You should know how to look after yourself. Buffy can’t always be around.”

She smiled, gratitude changing the way the light hit her face. For a moment, she looked older, less girlish. Angel could see the woman she would be, centered in her power, confident. He blinked and let that go.

“Neither can I,” he added, his tone serious again. “So you’ll learn. But it takes dedication. It’s not something you can try on and then leave behind. If you’re going to do this…really do this…you need to be ready. For whatever comes.”

“I understand.” Willow smiled again, this time softly. “I trust you.”

He didn’t like the way those words made him feel, coming from Buffy’s friend. If he let himself, he could sense her heartbeat from across the room. It was a small space, and he could smell perfume that she was wearing today, a light fragrance that reminded him of the Roseraie in Paris.

The vein in her neck that was jumping didn’t show a hint of panic. It proved her words true, though he had no other reason to doubt them. Willow was so sincere, it made him ache. Had he ever been that guileless? How long would she remain that way?

He couldn’t think about the blood running through her, the way she smelled even more intoxicating than Buffy and had brought herself unbidden to his home, with no one else aware.

He was lucky he’d spent a long time building up his willpower, and that he was living his life now for a reason–aiming for a higher purpose. Otherwise, it would have been far too easy to enjoy Willow’s company in a way that was not safe for either of them.

****

After several weekends of study at the Bronze, with Angel bringing her books and some practical supplies, he rang the doorbell of Willow's home.

Knowing he wasn't shielded much from the view of passersby, he waited close to her house's front windows. Beyond her footsteps, there was silence as she approached.

Lack of additional heartbeats made him bolder. If she hadn’t been alone, he would have dropped off the bag without waiting.

Willow opened the door and stared blankly at him. Recovering her manners hastily after that, she took a step back. “Angel! Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You’re at my house.”

“Yeah, I wanted to bring these by.” He lifted up the bag of books in his hand. “I know we said we’d meet Saturday at the Bronze, but I found these early. Figured you could use the extra time with them.”

“Oh, well, thanks. And, um, my parents are traveling, so I can bring those into the living room for now.” She turned to head that way, leaving him standing on the porch.

Angel cleared his throat. “Kind of need an invitation.”

“Right! Sorry. You’ve never been here before.”

“If you’re not comfortable,” he said, “I would understand. You can take the books yourself. I don’t have to come in.”

She huffed out a breath, and he got the distinct feeling that she might’ve rolled her eyes if he weren’t watching her so closely.

“Angel. Come in.”

She closed the door behind him after he entered and locked it. “It was really great of you to bring those by. I can’t wait to read the collection of beginner incantations you told me about.”

He smiled. “What are friends for?”

“Friends? Is-is that what we are?”

“I think so.” The guarded distance that Angel carried with him, that he’d begun relaxing around her, returned. “Is there something wrong with that?””

Willow shook her head “I don’t think so. But I don’t exactly have a lot of vampire friends. Or, well, any. So I wouldn’t really know.”

“And I don’t make a habit of befriending humans,” Angel pointed out. “Or anybody, much. So I’m probably the wrong vampire to ask.”

She took the books from him and sat on the couch, gesturing to the other end. “Well, then, friends it is.”

Willow reached for a text on magick theory, and she was hit with a sharp flash of deja vu.

It reminded her of the book that had unleashed Malcolm–Moloch, she corrected herself–on their world.

Clearly, Willow had decided after Malcolm, she wasn’t meant to have a boyfriend. Spending most of her life pining for her best friend–who didn’t see her that way–should have been a clue, even before the hyena possession.

But Malcolm had seemed so nice, and smart. As if he understood her. And then he wasn’t even human!

Plus there was that vampire, she reminded herself, right after Buffy arrived in Sunnydale. Willow was pretty sure nobody had a more pathetic dating record, especially considering she had never been asked out on a date.

Xander had been moping over Buffy during their summer hangouts, and that kept reminding her of her own un-luck in love. Kind of funny, though, that Xander complained way more about Buffy’s absence than her actual boyfriend did while in Willow's company.

She couldn’t help wondering why Moloch had decided to prey on her. Why he chose to fixate on her, of all people.

Something must be wrong with her.

She would have spent much longer in wallowing self-pity mode if not for Angel. “The opposite,” he said, in his matter-of-fact way. “You’re thinking about that all wrong.”

“Huh?”

She hadn’t been talking to him, exactly–more like worrying out loud.

“The demon didn’t choose you because there’s something wrong with you,” he explained, a little more gently. “I know I wasn’t there, but Buffy told me about it.”

“Okay.”

“Well, Moloch needed your help to be free, but he needed to be freed by magick.” Angel watched her, waiting for the click, for it to sink in.

“Wait, are you saying…” She blinked at him. “What exactly are you saying?”

“He needed to be free from the magick binding him. You were there, able to free him.”

Angel shifted a little where he sat, feeling trapped. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to introduce this idea to her world, but maybe it had been inevitable all along.

“He could sense the magickal potential in you.”

“He–” Willow gulped, audibly.

He held back the urge to chuckle.

“Is that a thing his type of demon can…do? That’s kind of intrusive.”

Angel waited a moment before admitting, “It’s not specific to him. All demons can sense magick. It’s not useful to all of us, but it’s there. You carry it in your blood.”

“Oh. So because you can sense my blood…”

“Yes. I felt it the first time I met you.”

“Why didn’t you say something? To me, if not to Buffy?”

“It would’ve been rude. And of no use to you–you weren’t a witch then.”

She pressed her lips together hard, thinking about it. She saw his point, and yet… “I still would have liked to know.”

He didn’t reply.

“Angel, promise me something?”

“What?”

“That if you know things about me, you won’t keep them from me, ever again. Secrets can ruin things.”

“That was the only thing I knew,” he countered, but she shook her head.

“I mean it. Friends should tell each other the truth. You can’t have trust without it.”

“You know, you shouldn’t trust a vampire,” Angel pointed out for the first time, his mouth quirked.

Willow grinned back. “Little late for that.” Then her face grew solemn again.

“Promise me.”

Angel considered it for a long time, while she watched him and waited. He knew the weight of making vows; he didn’t take them lightly. Especially now that his life was eternal.

She probably couldn’t understand what she was asking, to expect him to keep his word. To demand that he prove himself trustworthy rather than trusting him as easily as she had so far. But he understood.

To befriend a human was no small choice. Not without risks. He had done so with this one, and didn’t regret it; Willow was unique among them.

To promise her anything was another choice, and Angel knew he might regret it. But he wanted to be who she saw, in the asking. He wanted to prove he was trustworthy, in some real way, if only to himself.

When he nodded, matching her serious face with his own, he could feel something shift between them. Like a crack in a wall.

“I promise,” Angel told her.

And Willow smiled, dipping her chin to return to the books. Her long hair veiled her face a little, her eyes roaming quickly across the current page.

“I should go,” Angel said. “Enjoy the reading.”

“Oh.” She looked up. “You don’t have to.”

“Well, you can keep the books as long as you want. I’ll get them back when you’re done.”

“Thanks.”

Before he stood to leave, Willow asked, “What if I have questions for you?”

“You mean, about the magick?”

“Yeah. Isn’t it just, like, practical if you stay–in case I need your help?” She blushed a little. “I mean, if you don’t have somewhere else to be. I wouldn’t want to–”

“I don’t have anywhere to be.”

Charmed by her welcome, Angel settled into his seat.

The silence between them was easy as Willow read, and he looked around her living room and kept his thoughts to himself.

She didn’t end up asking him any questions, but when he left an hour later, neither of them mentioned it. Angel walked home feeling lighter somehow, and Willow dreamed of candle flames and cemeteries when she slept that night.

#willow x angel #willow x angel fic #angel x willow #angel #willow rosenberg #btvs fic #my fic #ogiatw fic

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athena-is-a-chaotic-lil-shit · 3 years

Text

Getting back at writing, is, well, hard. My grammar and vocabulary and basically everything is messed up so I apologize in advance for that. It's been, almost a year ever since my last written fic. That time I was still crazy with Kimetsu no Yaiba and the KyoTan ship. I'll post it some other time ^^.

Anyways, I present to you my attempt in making a plotted work from a random thought that came over me this morning.

Pairing: Tai'chi Kashharzol (Orc) x Pearl Blackbell (Human OC/Reader)

Warnings: Basically none. Except for some curse words.

UD 01/10/21: Cleaned and revised some parts! Tried my best, hope it was enough.

•

Of Ice and Blood

Part 1

Quick backstory and some details I left out in the main work.

It was in summer, 28th of July, when Pearl Blackbell turned 19. She left her home and moved closer to the university she’ll be going to. She rented an apartment about five blocks from the school. Albeit small, it was cozy and proper, having what she needed: a kitchen, a decent-sized bedroom, a small living area with a worn but comfy couch, and a bathroom.

When she was younger, her parents started training her in martial arts and the use self-defense weapons. They needed to make sure she knew how to protect herself against assaulters and dangerous people, she was after all, their only child and baby girl . They want their daughter to be strong, both inside and outside, by the time she sets out on her own and leaves home.

Her favorite self-defense weapon was brass knuckles, despite her parents’ protests. She enjoys punching nasty people and feel the crunch of their bones beneath her fists, especially racists, sexists, bullies, and the lot. The main reason why she got into detention multiple times.

Painting it with a ruddy color, she keeps it in her person, no matter where she goes. She has two, one is for extreme situations, while the other has only two knuckles. It stills maximizes the damage dealt but it is relatively less dangerous than the full dusters. The second one is usually a spare, though she rarely uses it.

She also occasionally carries a pair of retractable nunchucks, which she designed to be hidden within her regular baggy clothes. Her father had trained her vigorously with them and she even bested him in a match before she left for the city.

Selkoth, the city of marvels.

Distant sounds of buzzing cars reached my ears as I opened my eyes and blinked away the sleepiness, the light shining from the spaces in my curtains rather helping, together with the warmth it brought to my chilled tawny skin.

[Start of the actual work]

I fully woke up as I registered the sound of my phone alarm, shortly getting up to prepare when I realized what day it was.

Monday, the first day of my college life.

I stepped into the bathroom and took a quick shower, knowing I bathed thoroughly last night to save some time today.

Time management is key.

I dried myself down, turned to my closet and started putting on the outfit I picked out the night before.

Prioritizing comfortability over appearance, I wore my favorite orange cotton shirt, my blackish-blue hoodie (that had been stained with blood some time ago, but don’t worry, I know how to clean out blood. Mama raised no fool.) over it, together with a pair of black skinny jeans. And of course, tight black sports bra and boxers, even mentioning my underwear yes?

I looked over to my mirror and it was—

Simple. And I loved it. The more simple it is the better.

'“Keep a low profile over there, sweetie. Don’t get into fights when you can help it okay??? We already taught you and prepared you to the best of our abilities. Promise to us that you’ll stay safe, and healthy. Okay? And don’t forget to call sometime.”' I sighed, remembering my mother’s words.

"Yes mama, I will.”

With a smile, I did my hair and went for a tight Dutch braid, it going down between my shoulder blades and ending a little above my waist. I ran to my kitchen to eat breakfast, satisfied with my look.

I eat fast okay

Backpack, check. White sneakers, check. Phone and keys, check. Airpods on, playlist shuffled, I bolted out of my apartment and jogged all 50 blocks to school.

Exercise is always important, and what other way to utilize time for exercising than to do it while heading to your destination, right?

I snickered.

As I made my way to the university, I saw bizarre creatures and monsters of different sizes, coexisting, and interacting with humans. Even so, I noticed other people’s disdain and bitterness towards them when I passed by. My nose is awfully sensitive to scents that sometimes the ones their body releases tells me what they feel at the moment. It’s all science, I guess. I was made extra susceptible to these, so I wear a mask everywhere and every time I go out just to partly block most of the smells.

My first day at a university open to everyone across the country gets my blood pumping with excitement. To think that I’m going to study at Ernestine State University, the Ernestine State University!

I first heard about the uni back when I was a child. News broke out about Victor Ernestine, committing suicide by driving his car off a cliff because he couldn’t accept that his daughter was one of the major leaders who made the unity of all people, of all races, possible.

Dramatic.

Months after Mr. Ernestine died, all his properties and riches were passed down to her daughter, who took over as the new founder of the university and rebuilt it to accommodate everyone, no matter the size and shape.

The strictly all-human school, renovated, reshaped, and repurposed, was now the first university to open its gates to everyone in the country of Yundomia.

I’ve always yearned to get to know other species in this world. I didn’t get the chance previously because my parents sent me to an all-human, local high school. Which sucks. I hated how everyone had a certain hatred for the other races, especially orcs. They keep talking about how they are wild beasts and savages that aren’t meant to be in society.

They treated them like animals that are void of emotions and intelligence.

Come to think of it, I mostly fought with humans who were either racist, bullies, bastards trying to hit on me, or a mix of all of them together.

I chuckled, remembering how many times I got counseled on not punching people in the face.

High school was pure torture, being a human-exclusive campus making it worse, considering how everybody smells so horrible and the principal was an egoistic dumbass I was a hair away from gutting him. My poor nose.

But now I’m done with that! I’m starting anew in this school, in this city. Perhaps make some friends along the way.

Which is kinda problematic.

I’m not the social type. I tend to keep things to myself and hardly open up to anybody. I wanna make at least one friend that isn’t human! Or just, one good friend. I didn’t have or made any friends in the past since people tend to shun me out just because I can tell how they are feeling and find it creepy.

Or they’re afraid to get punched in the face.

Entering the campus gates was like stepping into another world. I was met with the sight of humans and monsters walking together and conversing! It was nice, and I don’t get to see this much often.

I walked around and took in the landscape of the campus. It was huge! And beautifully designed to have a great number of trees and plants, while also having space more than enough to accommodate every student going to their respective classrooms.

I was minding my own business and it was all serene, until some bastards pushed past through me and knocking me to the side. I stumbled but didn’t fall. I was gonna say something, but I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to cause any trouble on the first day for goodness’ sake. So I brushed it off and went straight to the gym for the orientation.

*************************************

The orientation was, intriguing. The dean seems nice, though I couldn't smell him from where I sat. There's also a student council made up of both humans and monsters which is a good sign. The student council president was a Minotaur with a dark brown coat and horns curving front and pointing up. The vice-president was a male student who looked decent enough. The secretary was an elf. The treasurer, a dwarf. And the rest were humans. I couldn't scent any of them to tell me what they were feeling at the moment, but the Minotaur looked uncomfortable, his hands behind his back, body going stiff when they were introduced to the freshmen. There was a larger numbr of humans than monsters, which was expected. I also noticed how both were grouped, a white line in the middle of the gym separating us from them.

Maybe to avoid any misunderstandings?

We were informed that today will be for introductions to your classmates and subject teachers so there will be no lessons at all. Hooray!

I was walking to my first classroom when a damned familiar smell attacked my nose. I stopped to stand for a moment and adjusted my mask. I looked around to spot the one emitting it and of course, saw a human. He looked, well, the typical playboy cool boy who used too much body spray on himself.

Not wanting to stand there like an idiot and prolong my suffering, I speed walk to my classroom and planned to sit at the back hoping no one would notice or ask why I’m wearing a mask.

That's always what they ask first. Not my name or how I was doing.

I expected to find no one inside since it was still early, but I was startled to see a massive orc sitting at the back looking out at the window. He was wearing a dark gray knitted sweater that was hugging his hulking frame very…well. Along with what looked like thick cargo pants and black boots.

He turned to look at me when I let out a small yelp, greeting me with his piercing, blue eyes.

Beautiful.

The orc had long, braided, jet-black locks. Two of them had distinct beads that trailed down from the side of his face and down to his chest, the rest of his hair behind him braided with intricacy and tied and ended halfway down his back.

I was pushed out of my trance when a person entered and crashed into me, swearing under my breath that it was intentional, nearly making me plant face-first on the trash bins if I hadn’t changed my footing at the last moment.

“Watch it, bitch, you’re gonna ruin my make-up,” she snapped.

Wow. She dared to call me that and not apologize like I’m the one who shoved her. Just wow. Usually at this point, I would have planted her face on the floor, but I stopped myself.

Low profile! Low profile Pearl! You’re in college now! You definitely don’t want to get suspended on the first fucking day of class now do you?? Keep it together.

Straightening up, I walked towards the back and sat beside the orc. Whose gaze fell on me, curious, when I wasn’t looking.

I made myself settled in my seat before the professor came in.

There were other races in my class. A blue tiefling sat three rows in front, wearing a casual outfit. A black-haired elf who looked and dressed clever, a row away. A cute pink pixie on my far right. A satyr wearing glasses, two seats in front of me, and a female lizardfolk a seat from of the pixie.

"Are you...alright?"

I almost jumped from my seat when the orc beside me spoke. I couldn’t help but admire how deep his voice was. I tried not to appear flustered, my mask helped with that.

“Uh…yes?”

The orc regarded me for a second before continuing.

“You were pushed earlier.”

Oh. He saw that?

“Oh, yeah, I’m okay.” I smiled at him. Then I remembered he can’t see my face. But I hoped the crinkling of my eyes gave it away.

“I’m Pearl, by the way.” I reached out my hand to him, socializing not my best suit but at least I tried.

He paused for a second before taking it into his bigger one, engulfing mine and shook it slowly. I was again, surprised by how gentle he was.

“Tai'chi.”

Interesting.

“Nice to meet you, Tai'chi.”

He lets go of my hand when the professor started talking up front.

“Nice to meet you too, Pearl."

***************************************

Thoughts? I am wide open for constructive criticism :D

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

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bnha-more-like-bnh-gay · 3 years

Text

Todoroki needs love

Summary: Todoroki finding out that he likes cuddles and assembling his own makeshift family. Aka: I project my being touch startled onto Todoroki, with a side of found family! I hope you enjoy!!

Word count: 2,779

Side note: this is the first actual fanfic that I’m posting, so any thoughts and/or tips you have are always appreciated!!

Thank you, I hope you have a good day!

____________________________________________

Shouto had never really experienced positive touch. But that’s fine, that’s what he was used to: it’s what he expected. He didn’t associate physical contact with anything good. Even now, after his father’s “training sessions,” had ceased, Shouto didn’t understand the hype around hugs or physical contact of any kind. In fact, he made a point to avoid touching his peers outside of class.

He was fine with that. Then Izuku hugged him. It wasn’t long, and he was an awkward mess afterwards. Stuttering over an apology that didn’t need to be there, because, once again; he had shattered Shouto’s world. Why did this boy insist one breaking everything around him? His bones, Iida after Hosu, Stain’s hatred of all hero’s, their teachers sanity, Shouto’s resolve and ideals that he had known and held since early childhood.

So, instead of reacting, or saying, “it’s fine,” like a normal person would; Shouto stood there. Blanking out. Blue screening. Not computing. Shouto exe has stopped working.

Oh wait, Izuku was still talking.

“You’re fine.” Oh, he did it. Good for him. His mother would be proud.

He thinks.

“Ahh, are you sure?” Izuku had asked.

“… yes.” Midoriya had walked away after a while, leaving Shouto to stew in his inner turmoil… Again.

It was warm though. His heart felt,, odd. It hurt once he had pulled away. It felt empty, in a way that felt when his mother had been taken away from him. Which was silly. Midoriya pulling away from a hug shouldn’t feel like losing someone. It was a two-second-long hug. But losing it felt like being shoved in a bucket of ice water after his fathers training.

The second time it happened, it was Uraraka. Shouto had not been paying attention. He had been learning about memes, which he was now fluent in and enjoyed torturing his sperm donor with. It was ‘fire’ to watch his reaction (pun intended).

He had tripped over his own feet, which he thought was very fitting for a hero in training. But Uraraka had been there to help him. Also a concept that he was unuse to. People helping him. Without expecting a favor in return. Interesting. Either way, she had floated him.

“Sorry for using my quirk on you without your permission, but I think it’d be better than landing on your face!” She said, with a laugh, patting him on the back.

Not a hug, but yet another affectionate gesture.

“Todoroki? Are you okay?” She had asked, looking a bit confused he thought. Right, it was probably odd to stop dead after being shown affection. He should find a way to mask that.

“Fine.” He said. Then, “how are you?” She softened then. Yes, another point for Todoroki and the social interactions!

“I’m alright! Thank you for asking, Todoroki!” She smiled. “We should head to class, or Iida is going to be mad!” Yes, Iida was also learning social interaction. He thinks Midoriya is too. And Shinsou. At least he wasn’t alone in that. Maybe he should start a club. Maybe Mina, Kirishima, and Tsu could teach them about social interactions. They seemed fairly well adjusted.

“Todoroki? Are you coming?” Right.

“yes.”

The third time it had happened, Aoyama had gotten glitter all over him.

“Greeting, Monsieur!” He had said, throwing his arm around Todoroki’s shoulder.

Aoyama’s half hug was warm again. Not soft as Izuku’s hug, but not as casual as Uraraka’s pat on the back. He did it smoothly, and naturally. But it still felt so… New, to Shouto.

“Have you had one of Sato’s magnifique cupcakes?” He had asked, pulling away from Shouto and pulling him towards the dorm kitchen.

“No,” Shouto managed to choke out. Physical contact, it just… It stumped him. It was stifling in a way that he wouldn’t have expected. It was nothing like how his father would pat his back after he “succeeded,” after, he “finally realized his future,” or was did something “worthy of his masterpiece.” No, it was meant to be comforting. It wasn’t… Disadvantageous.

“Monsieur!” Aoyama gasped.

“Sorry?” Shouto guessed. Aoyama had laughed then.

“Non,” he said, shoving a cupcake into Shouto’s hand.

“Hey, Todoroki!” Sato said, waving at them. “I see Aoyama has roped you in to trying my cupcakes! I hope ya like ‘em!”

Shouto did indeed like them, and made sure to tell Sato as much.

As time went on, the physical affection continued. Shouto still flinched at it sometimes. And almost always bluescreened. But he had come to look forward to it. Izuku had hugged him a few more times. He had asked Shouto the next few times. Shouto had said yes, he hadn’t known what to expect, but he wasn’t used to saying ‘no.’ and he found that he looked forward to it. He didn’t like when the physical contact ended. So Izuku started to hold his hand. Almost constantly. Aoyama and Momo had also taken this up. Just small touches. Touches that made Shouto feel more grounded and in the moment.

The self-proclaimed, “Izucrew,” had formed towards the end of first year. Slowly adopting more people into it as time went on. First Tokoyami, Shinsou, Momo, Jirou, Mei, Monoma. Their first Christmas as a class, half the class had gotten Shouto piles of stuffed animals. Piles. Mina had insisted that they name them. Shouto had gone along with it readily. He now had a stuffed bear that he referred to as, “dad,” and several other plushies with various names.

He soon realized that the other members of the Izucrew had a lot of plushies as well.

It started one week when Tsu had been feeling homesick. Izuku had suggested gathering all their stuffed animals, and having a, “cuddle pile.” Which turned out to be less violent than Shouto had expected. They were not, in fact brawling, or wrestling, but literally just laying there with each other. It was soft. After a while, Uraraka had suggested that they build a blanket fort. He found out that no other members of the Izucrew, aside from Tsu, Uraraka, Monoma, and Aoyama had had sleepovers before. Izuku said that he had had one when he was three, but he didn’t remember much, so Shouto wasn’t sure if that counted or not.

They had made the blanket fort. Shouto thought it was… soft. And comforting. Like a weighted blanket. Not the stifling heaviness that he dreaded during school breaks. Warm in a way that Uraraka said was like cuddling up with hot chocolate during the winter. Or how Momo said drinking tea after waking up felt. Or how Kaminari said he felt while at the arcade with the self-proclaimed ‘kiricrew.’ Or how Sato said he felt whenever the class complimented his baking.

“Ooo, we should watch a movie!” Mei had exclaimed half way through the night. Iida was already dozing, but Tsu and most of the others had agreed.

“Horror or animated?” Shinsou had asked, from his position half under Monoma, with his head on Aoyama’s lap. Glitter making its way into his hair.

“We could to both!” Izuku suggested, his head resting on Shinsou’s chest, legs tangled with Mei and Shouto’s. “Horror first, then animated?” Momo nodded.

“That would be best! Just incase we get scared from the horror movie!” She said. Shouto agreed. He hadn’t seen many movies, but Kaminari had told him about one that sounded most unpleasant.

As it turned out, they had several horror movie connoisseurs in their group. Izuku, Shinsou, Monoma, Tsu, Jirou, Tokoyami, and Uraraka were the most emphatic about them, but no one seemed to dislike them.

And that’s how Shouto spent his night. Curled up amongst those he trusted. He trusted them. He let his guard down around them. He let them into his personal space. He had known them for hardly over a year. But he trusted them. More than he trusted most people. He would tell them about his past. He would share secrets with them, his aspirations, the real reason why he wanted to be a hero, all of the things he went through as a child. And they did the same with him.

Izuku shared that he got his quirk late, his past with Bakugou, how his father left him and his mother, how his mother never noticed when he came home bruised and burnt, smelling vaguely of caramel and smoke. Shinsou, Mei, and Monoma shared how they were bullied throughout middle school. Iida, Momo, Jirou, and Uraraka told them how much pressure they felt from their parents. Tokoyami and Aoyama admitted to their difficulties accepting their quirks. Tsu relinquished how fast she had to grow up and take care of her siblings. Shouto found that he related to a lot of their struggles.

“Todo and the rest of the Izucrew’ve been getting really close lately!” Mina had said, Watching Aoyama, Mei, and Jirou drag Todoroki and Monoma up to Momo’s room.

She had noticed how close their group seemed to get towards the end of first year. The whole class had gotten together a few times over the summer, and the group chat stayed active most days. She liked how close she was with the rest of her classmates. Apparently that happened after getting attacked by vllains multiple times, and going through severe trauma. She smiled, thinking how far they had all come.

At the beginning of first year, Todoroki hadn’t so much as said a word to any of them. Izuku couldn’t string a sentence together without stumbling over his own words and blushing like crazy. Monoma wouldn’t talk to them without making some sarcastic comment. Now, she had given Todoroki a number of hugs, some of which he had returned! Izuku started a couple conversations with her, and joined her dance club (she still joked with him about his blatant lie that he couldn’t dance. The fool). She had eaten lunch and had a conversation with Monoma, who’s sarcasm slights had turned into playful ribbings.

She was proud of her boys too of course: Ejirou and Sero had really gained some confidence in themselves and their quirks. Kami had gotten a lot more control over his quirk, working with their teachers, the support department, and Midori on ways to channel his quirk so that he didn’t short circuit. And she had also learned how to better use her acid. She, Izuku, Momo, Mei, and Shinsou had convinced Nezu to let them lead an anti-bullying and harassment seminar during the start of this year. So yeah, sufficed to say that she was proud of her class.

Sato had been happy to see how some of their more… troubled classmates had grown in the past few months. He had first noticed it when Aoyama practically shoved one of his cupcakes down Todoroki’s throat. The first time Sato had brought any of his baked goods to share with the class, Todoroki had refused to try any of them. Now, he not only taken one, but he had complimented Sato. He had even been convinced to bake with Sato! He was not good. But he tried, and that was good enough.

Ojirou hadn’t expected to end up being so close to his classmates. Sure, he had hoped to make friends, maybe even find a girlfriend. But he hadn’t thought that he would end up close to all of his peers, or to like all of his teachers. But there he was the week before school, excited to be back. He had never considered himself to be a teacher, or at least, never thougth that people would ask him to teach them anything. But a significant number of his classmates had asked him to work with them on hand-to-hand combat. He and Uraraka especially sparred quite often. Surprisingly enough, Shouto Todoroki had asked him to work on some close combat techniques.

Aizawa Shouta was not going soft. He wasn’t, okay?! He made a point not to get attached to his students, thank you very much. Turns out though, that it’s kind of hard to not get at least a little protective over them after going through so many villain attacks with children.

Something that Shouta still beat himself up over, was not noticing so many problems that his class so clearly faced. He had written off Midoriya and Bakugou’s relationship as a simple childhood rivalry.

After walking in on Midoriya having a panic attack, the boy had accidentally spilled the very important fact that he had only developed his quirk the day of the entrance exam, and that Bakugou had been his bully. He had thought that Kaminari simply, didn’t try very hard in school. After talking to Hisashi though, he had seen how smart Kaminari actually was. He had overlooked how predatory Mineta’s behavior had been. He had chopped up Todoroki’s behavior to simply being anti-social. After Midoriya and Hisashi had dropped a few hints that were about as subtle as a Mac Truck, he had paid closer attention, and oh kami if things didn’t make a lot more sense.

“Todoroki, stay after class.” He had stiffened up. Another mark for the worrisome column.

Midoriya had given him a calculating look. A look that he had only seen when Midoriya was assessing someones quirk. Well damn. He knew the kid was protective over his friends; but he was also incredibly respectful and borderline fearful of teachers (another thing he would need to look into). Shouta had stared back, and Mirodiya had given him a calculated nod. Kami, this kid was going to be another Nezu.

Todoroki had pulled his backpack onto his shoulders, giving Midoriya a short nod.

“We’ll be outside if you need.” Shouta had sighed. These freaking kids.

“Yes?” Todoroki had said tightly. Eyes darting to the exit.

“Todoroki, I’m going to be honest; your behavior is fairly worrisome, and I overlooked a lot of it.” Todoroki stiffened.

“How do you mean, sir?”

They had talked through next period. And most of the problem class was waiting outside the door when they had left. Shouto had sighed.

“I’m not writing all of you late slips.” He said.

“With all due respect, sir; we’re fine with that. We just wanted to be here in case Todoroki needed us.”

He wrote them all late slips.

He wasn’t going soft, dammit!

Shouto never expected to be close to anyone, certainly not during high school. His entire life had had tunnel vison: his hero career. That was all that mattered, all that had ever mattered, or would ever matter. But now, Shouto had a makeshift family. Dysfunctional and no matter how mismatched they all were, they were there for each other. They had each others back, they supported each other. They had game nights, movie nights, baking competitions (Sato judged), cookie decorating competitions, snowball fights, cuddle nights, group hugs, and more. And Shouto found that he enjoyed them. He didn’t at first.

He had been dragged to the first movie night by Momo.

“It’ll be good for you to socialize a little.” She said, after evicting him from the confines of his room.

He hadn’t said anything to that. But after, Kaminari had handed him a hot chocolate, with the explanation that they were going to watch a horror movie, followed of course, by cartoons.

“Can I leave now?” He had asked. Kaminari frowned. Oh no, he hadn’t meant for that to happen.

“Not a fan of horror movies eh? We can find something else to watch if ya want!” That was… Odd. They cared about his feelings?

“I don’t know.”

“What’d’ya mean?”

“I’ve never seen any horror movies.” Kaminari’s eyes widened in shock. Was that bad?

“Well now you have to stay!!!” He exclaimed. “TODO HASN’T SEEN ANY HORROR MOVIES!” Cries rippled through the gaggle of teens.

“Well let’s make this the best horror movie marathon for Todobro then!”

Kirishima was an interesting character, Shouto thought. He was fairly persistent in his stringent interest in what was, “manly.” Shouto wondered if most people had these fixations. Midoriya had analyzing quirks, Jirou had music, Koda had animals, Sato had baking, Ojirou had karate, Ashido had dance, and so on.

Shouto came to realize that he did indeed like horror movies. He also liked the pre-quirk televisions show, “Kim Possible.”

“Shouto, the crew are having another cuddle pile in Iida’s room. Let’s go, yeah?” Shinsou asked, as Todoroki left the locker rooms. Todoroki nodded.

“Yes, do we need to bring snacks?” He asked. Shinsou smirked.

“Hell yeah!”

Shouto liked his class. He liked being able to trust his friends. He liked having friends. And he really liked cuddle piles.

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hopetofantasy · 3 years

Text

Actress Nora Dari (wtFOCK): “I hope I don't go crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens”

Two years ago she was allowed to bump into Matteo Simoni in ‘Patser’, now your fifteen-year-old knows her as Yasmina from ‘wtFOCK’ and she ended up in Cannes because of the new film by Bas Devos. Where it ends for Nora Dari remains to be seen, but you don't want to get in her way. “You’ve been looking so long for a Moroccan girl who wants to act and then you get me.”

“So I always try to be a bit low key...” She hesitates. "Eumh, do you know what 'low key' means?" "How much of antique do you think I am exactly?" “Gosh. You have a flip cover for your smartphone, I saw.” “Point for Dari. But what are you trying to be a bit low key...” “Huh? Sorry, I have no idea anymore. I was completely distracted by that pigeon over there.” It’s easy to forget - especially when she starts talking in her Genk dialect about her sky-high ambitions or her tough childhood in Winterslag - that Nora Dari is barely seventeen. After all, she’s already accumulated a nice record of achievements in two years. From the Belgian-Finnish crime series ‘Bullets’ (shown on Telenet) and a leading role in ‘wtFOCK’, the online series of SBS and Telenet, to her supporting role in ‘Ghost Tropic’, the most recent full-length movie by Bas Devos, who made the selection of Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes in May. The day after our conversation at an Antwerp terrace, she leaves for London, for a fourth and final audition for a lead role in an international film project. “It looks good, but I can't tell you anything about it yet. That’s a tough assignment for me: my whole body really wants to scream. Seriously, I'm pretty much the Moroccan Tom Holland (Spider-Man, and the spoiler king of Marvel's Cinematic Universe). But I'll remain silent!”

How does a large, international production house ends up at your door? Nora Dari: “I started knocking on their door. I'm really not going to sit around and wait for someone to discover me miraculously, so if someone gives me a tip about an interesting movie, I'll go after it myself. I always want more and everything I set my mind to, seems to be working. An international series, ‘wtFOCK’, Cannes with my first film role and now this latest project is also within reach. Can you blame me for believing? In my head, I'm already in Hollywood. First become a Shooting Star at the Berlinale.” Just in between everything? Dari: “You can dream, right? Acknowledgement is not for me - I don't even know who decide such things - but rather, it’s a means to an end. If you end up in the same list of acting prodigies (those Shooting Stars) as Marwan Kenzari, Matteo Simoni and Matthias Schoenaerts, every director knows who you are.” You can also quietly build an acting career in Belgium. Or is that really not an option? Dari: “Why should I linger on a few square meters? My world was so small in Winterslag and now that it’s gradually getting bigger, I really don't know why I should stop at Flanders. Even if ambition is a very dirty word where I come from.”

How? Dari: “Winterslag is a neighborhood where many young people are going into the wrong direction. Big dreams are taboo, apparently. I was bullied, mainly because I wanted to start something with my life. Even if I said that I would one day want to go to New York, I would be laughed at: “Just sit down, Nora! Who do you think you are?”

Keep your head down, keep your nose clean and make sure that you can start working at the age of eighteen: something like that? Dari: *nods* “Graduating and going to work at the age of eighteen seems like quite an achievement in Winterslag. If you hadn't gotten into the wrong shit by then, you would’ve done well. At my school, we had two pupils without an immigration background and otherwise exclusively Turks, Moroccans and Italians from families who were really poor. Our parents worked very hard, you spend a lot of time on the street and bad things sometimes happened. *thinks* There’s a reason why I almost exclusively watch gangstershit movies. I come from a neighborhood where a lot of gangstershit happens. I’ve seen and experienced so many bad things, but at the same time Winterslag is such a big part of who I am and I get very angry when someone else talks about it like I do now. *small laugh*

I’ll buy a house there one day. It’s still my home, all the beautiful things and all the rotten things in one pile. To be clear: I don't want to romanticize my childhood. Winterslag is hard, but nothing to be sad about. There are so many people who have gone through the same thing. Only, it sucks to be called a whore, because you want to do something that is apparently 'not normal'.”

It dawns on me why you once said that Algerian-Canadian Zaho's song Kif'n'dir summed you up quite nicely. Especially the text 'Je fais la morte pour ne pas mourir'. Dari: “That's what I've been doing for a long time. Keeping myself deathly still and don’t stand out too much. In the long run, you also start to believe what others are telling you, that acting is not for you.”

When did you finally stopping ‘being death’? Dari: “When I was fifteen, when I heard that Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were looking for extras for ‘Patser’. That didn't mean much more than just bumping into Matteo Simoni, but I was sold immediately. In between shots, I approached Adil: “Mr. El Arbi, thank you for opening my eyes. From now on, I’ll go all out for this.” *laughs* We clicked and in the meantime we’ve become friends. I hope he thinks of me when they start recording ‘Patsers’, so that I can show how much I've grown in those two years.”

Not much later, through their casting agency Hakuna, you ended up as a suicide bomber in the Finnish-Belgian Crime series ‘Bullets’. What have I missed? How did you go from a sixteen-year-old extra to such an intense role in a few months? Dari: “I think - if I may say that - they were shocked after my casting. I’ve never thrown myself into a project as hard in my life. Whining. Shouting. Tantrums. All fucking emotions, one after the other. You’ve been looking so long for a Moroccan girl who wants to act and then you get me. *laughs* I've never loved anything as much as acting, so I’m giving everything during a casting. I know that I’m not the best and still have to learn, but I suspect my energy is making up for it. That, and I consider myself a very pleasant colleague. *laughs* I greet everyone in a Genk dialect, always walk around smiling and even bring cookies.

I've always had the feeling that I have to work harder than the rest, because people expect less of me. That's what my father taught my brothers and me. At the Liège boarding school where he studied, he was the only Moroccan in Latin studies: his classmates thought he was weird, because of his origins and the other Moroccans looked at him weirdly, because he aimed higher. "Ah, Mr. pope is back there." In the end it became so unbearable that he enrolled in the TSO (technical school), which was socially accepted.”

How does a 16-year-old feel like a suicide bomber? Dari: “They gave me a background, but I added a few things myself to make it easier. And music helps me really hard too: ‘Qui suis-je’ from Scylla on repeat and then a little method acting in that character. My mother was there on set and apparently got terrified. *laughs* I asked them not to accompany me anymore. When I see them, I come back to myself, while I try very hard to forget myself in front of the camera. I need to be able to get into a role on set. Although it remains very strange to hype yourself up for hours with the mantra 'I'm dying and I'm taking all these people with me'. Fortunately, I can also easily let go. I had to, I had exams the next day. *laughs* Suicide bomber by day, studying economy by night.”

In May you hopped around on the Croisette for the world premiere of ‘Ghost Tropic’. You play the daughter of Khadija, a woman who walks home through Brussels after falling asleep on the metro. Devos makes quiet, poetic arthouse films: it’s a huge leap from teenage series and thrillers. Dari: “It was an adjustment, yes. Before I played in ‘Bullets’, I had never even seen a Flemish film. Not a single one. Or wait: one at school. What was it called? I have to give a speech soon, with its protagonist.”

‘Daens’? With Jan Decleir? Dari: “That one! Everything I had already learned about acting was from Hollywood movies. That enlarged playing style also worked in ‘Bullets’, but when I tried that in ‘Ghost Tropic’, Bas blocked it very quickly. *laughs* "The less you do the better, Nora!" I thought about it all too hard. "Nora, just go." “Yes, but Bas, who am I? What have I been through up to this point?” I have a hard time playing without a backstory in my head.”

Did you learn something from Devos? Dari: “Bas and Maaike Neuville told me in Cannes that I shouldn’t forget to live. I was only busy with what should be my next big step, but I also have to learn to enjoy. Surrendering is nothing dirty, but if I put everything aside for this job, I’ll never be able to put content in my characters. Then they’ll give me a heavy role and I’ll get stuck.”

Sensible advice. Alarm bells already went off when I read in ‘Het Belang van Limburg’ that you certainly wanted to remain celibate until you were 27 and wouldn’t continue your studies, just focussing on your career. Dari: “In the end, I’ll study cross-media management and I’ve come back to that other one as well. *laughs* What?! I’m seventeen, I change my mind completely every month. When I am 40, I don't just want to have a nice IMDb profile to look back on.”

'9000 followers? That is more people than have seen my last film', Devos thought humbly in your Instagram Stories. Dari: “I hope ‘Ghost Tropic’ gets more visitors than I have followers, but I'm not going to bitch if only fifty people come to watch the film in the end. I just like to act and have hardly seen anything from ‘Bullets’ or ‘wtFOCK’ myself. When I'm not on set, I just feel bad. As if I'm not getting the most out of my life.

At the very least, ‘Ghost Tropic’ gave me another experience and I was able to take my father with me, when we went to the Dominican Republic. My grandfather had passed away just before the shoot and we kind of processed that together there, while we were watching the sunrise at five in the morning. A very tender moment. Very cinematic, too. *thinks* I’m a very passionate person. Everything I experience is immediately very big. It’s all hard, good or bad. So hard that I can't always process all the feelings. *dryly* I hope I don't go crazy. I really wouldn't be surprised if that happens.”

You seem to be especially prone to obsessions. Whether it’s making music, painting or acting: if you decide to do something, everything has to make way for it. Dari: “When I got a keyboard, I was immediately very invested in my music. Making beats to accompany my slam poetry, tinkering at night, searching and keeping my parents awake until they went crazy. And then I suddenly got tired of it and started painting. Swimming. Dancing. I also played soccer for a while, mainly to get my dad's attention. During the 'consultation hour' around the tajine I could never have a chat with my brothers and father, because it was only about football and anime.”

Anime? Dari: “The men in my family are all next-level anime fans. They even speak Japanese to each other. *thinks* And I also plunged into my religion for a while, in between football and slam poetry.”

How? Dari: “When the community center closed its doors around the age of 13 and I saw a whole circle of friends go away in one go, I started clinging to something else. So, faith. At that time I also wore a hijab, because I was convinced that you could only be such a good Muslim. I was really pretty strict and took everything way too literally. Today I understand that you mainly have to look for your own interpretation.”

In the meantime, the average 15-year-old is also going through a storm for the second season of wtFOCK, which can be followed daily on Instagram and wtfock.be, good for about 400,000 visitors a week and more than 8 million watched - or at least started - episodes. Significantly more than the first season, although that also had good numbers. Especially for a series that was deliberately launched in silence. “You’re already bombarded with advertising on Instagram, subtle and less subtle,” says Dari, while she tries so intensely to make eye contact with a waiter that he almost bumps into a glass door. “I don't have any big theories about the future of television, but ‘wtFOCK’ really was a relief. It’s on the internet and you mainly do what you want with it. "Ah, I don't have to look?" That unforced approach works. The worst thing that could have happened to us, was that the press started writing about it en masse: it had to remain a bit mysterious and above all belong to the young people themselves. Normally we don't give interviews either: ‘wtFOCK’ is one big bubble that you shouldn't talk too much about.”

Without any illusions about the appeal of Knack Focus to fifteen-year-olds: is this conversation a good idea? Dari: “Sounds okay to me. I’m more now than just Yasmina? And I think fifteen-year-olds do know Knack.”

For real? Dari: “That's the book we get in History as source material in class. *laughs* I think I'll stop giving interviews again after this. A little mystery can't hurt.”

SKAM, the Norwegian series of which ‘wtFOCK’ is a remake, became a hit in its own country. That’s not always the case with foreign remakes, except for the Flemish one. It continues to gain popularity. Do you have an explanation for that? Dari: “No idea why things were less successful in other countries, but ‘wtFOCK’ is so good because it is real. We don't disguise anything, don't pour Hollywood sauce on it and talk like I talk to my friends. Apparently, a lot of teachers also follow the series to get a better understanding of their students. Smart, because we tackle all issues a teenager has in a very realistic way.”

The makers of SKAM were prepared with a tour through its country and a survey of Norwegian teenagers. Their biggest conclusion was: no generation suffers as much from performance pressure and comparison anxiety as yours. Dari: “Social media. Instagram is a very beautiful, but at the same time very scary place. A lot of girls now ask me, for example, how they can also enter this profession. But if you ask them why, it turns out that there’s no passion, they just see it as a fast road to fame. Then join ‘Temptation Island’? They see people like Millie Bobby Brown (from Stranger Things), who is barely fifteen and has a crazy career and they let themselves be hyped about it. I should actually say 'we'. I said it already: I hope I don't go crazy.” *giggles hysterically*

About 1200 teenagers showed up for the casting of wtFOCK, but the makers did not find their Yasmina there. Dari: *nods* “In the end they also had to call Adil, who gave me the tip.”

Why do you think that is? Dari: “I get angry when someone says they want more diversity, but can't find anyone. *throws arms up dramatically* "They aren't there!" They are there. In my neighborhood alone, so much talent is packed together. You may have to do your best to find them, because if you come from a neighborhood where ambition is laughed at, you’ll not find your way to a casting. Because the TV and film world seem so closed off from the outside - and it is. I also didn't know how to do that, I was just lucky that Adil, Nora Gharib and Ikram Aoulad wanted to help me. They helped me avoid a lot of rookie mistakes. And that I won't sign myself up for Temptation Island or something tomorrow.” *laughs*

Gharib also predicted that as a Moroccan woman she would have problems with ‘Patser’. From the moment you do not portray a classic religious Muslim woman, it seems to already lead to commentary. Dari: “I've had my part too. Women who send to me that I brought shame on the entire Moroccan community, for example, because Yasmina doesn't always wear her hijab. Usually these are women who’ve seen two minutes of the series and then get angry without seeing the context. *blows* You know, I don’t care. If my parents and I are okay with it, then no one has anything to say to me. Criticism slips away from me. It really takes more than an angry DM to get me off my path, I come from Winterslag breeding.”

*** Bas Devos, director ‘Ghost Tropic’:

“I had never seen Nora at work, but her audition video immediately made me curious. At the final casting, where she had to improvise a bit, it was already clear to me after a few minutes. She did a beautiful job. Nora is not trained as an actress, but I often work with a combination of non-professional and professional actors. That really doesn't matter to me. It's all about how naturally someone relates to the camera and how relaxed you are while being filmed. Then very beautiful things can happen. And I think she also liked not having to make her character bigger in an understated film like ‘Ghost Tropic’, as that’s sometimes the case for TV. To hear that you are still playing without doing anything.

It's cool how she dares to go for something so outspokenly at such a young age, but I did point out to her that working alone isn’t the perfect solution. She’s very fond of that international career, but it is also easy to walk into a wall there. Seventeen-year-olds have to live, right? Well, she's sensible enough, I'm not worried. She'll eventually find the right balance. At the end of the shooting period, she said she hoped we could work together again. I told her that I hope she still likes it by then. *laughs* Who knows which films will she be in then.”

#wtfock #wtfam #older article

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