#like a grandma who used to be that pretty goth girl back in the day

[cannibalmapleshade]

she reminds me of that song funeral by the buttress

#yellowfang #thunderclan #shadowclan #warrior cats #wc #warrior cats designs #wc designs #starclan #medicine cats #i gave her a mourning veil because i thought it was cute #i also wanted to make her look goth #like a grandma who used to be that pretty goth girl back in the day #hc she sounds like eda from the owl house #or sevika from arcaneee

[fedorahead]

if you look back at your younger self and cringe, you haven't learned all their lessons yet.

it always makes me uncomfortable when people have horribly mean things to say about their child, teen, young adult selves... that's the person who built the you of today.

i have so much respect for the teenager dealing with mood swings and trauma competing with each other for life ruining intensity. that kid had balls. running around downtown trying random doors to see if they were locked, climbing on rooftops, hiding from cops, drinking in parks, walking around hoping to run into people... my agoraphobia has me fucked up in adulthood but i know what i'll be capable of when i face it because i know what i have done.

that kid hanging out outside borders asking grown ass boomers if they were boys or girls, translating manic sugar high energy into shenanigans that outraged people mired in the status quo, that kid grew up to become someone who eschews gender norms and actively helps people acknowledge and accept their own complex selves.

the snarky asshole telling their grandma's friend that they have no idea where the soap is because they don't wash fuckin dishes, to be told as a woman they should know how to do such things even though they're heavily allergic to dishsoap? that kid still doesn't do fuckin dishes, and fights dumbass gender stereotypes for the next generation of kids getting fed toxic lies.

that kid who fought with breathing problems, digestive issues, eczema, mysterious exercise malaise and intolerance, and was told they were fine and normal and lazy toughed through a lot of shit i couldn't even imagine doing now that i know my health issues are real and can be minimized through avoidance of allergens and certain activities. they discovered the only exercise i can get without wanting to toaster bath has to be play, because i don't get endorphins from exercise itself. so now i fight with foam swords because that's full of endorphins.

this was a kid who started with 0 friends and a school full of enemies. who was in counseling from age 2. who got put in therapy groups every year in school with kids who had very different lives and problems. this is a kid who survived childhood undiagnosed and autistic, and managed to develop friendships (slowly, and later than everyone else), a passion for style and fashion (that had some very wild moments people still like to laugh at), a biting humour that hurt people as often as it made them laugh, a dedication to becoming excellent at every major struggle.... this kid set up everything it's my job to build and grow. and they gave me a bunch of shit i can be proud of for the rest of my life.

that kid was the one who kept getting spawnkilled so that i could have 22 years of sniping experience.

that kid was the one who wore mismatched converse and had panick attacks when people called them weird for it, so that i can dress like a goth ragdoll and beam with pride.

that kid wore the most uncomfortable clothing on earth every day so that i was forced to learn how to find clothing that i could look good in without wanting to die from discomfort.

that kid did everything that made the good parts of me, and that's the same kid who went through my trauma and worked on rounding out the rough edges along the way.

the person i used to be split their time between building me, and healing for me, so that i can do the same for the me that will come later.

idk, i can't imagine shitting on them and whispering their secrets to scandalize my friends. i'm a pretty big fan, honestly. teenage me was fucking awesome. i'm glad they never managed to stop me now from happening.

[fakeboitherottengirl]

I’m pretty sure I was like 2 or 3 (maybe younger but not older bc we still lived with my grandma) my dad watched “Banned From TV” with me and also “Faces of Death” which all I remembered was the monkey “death” until I rewatched it in my teens but people think I’m weird for being fascinated with gore/lost and forbidden media and it’s like my brother in Christ I was watching my first mixtapes when y’all were watching Barney my ability to feel healthy levels of shock went out the window before they had a chance to develop. I really do hate the trending back toward long mixtapes because there’s usually something on the mixtape like animal or child content which I find too upsetting or gross filler like scat porn. also there is animal violence material (the crushing of chicks) that I thought was a bad dream when I was little but I’m starting to suspect was something on my fathers mixtapes because apparently he used to collect tapes of shock footage that he would buy on construction sites in NYC and has the VHSs in his gun locker so I guess my gore fascination is another thing I inherited from him but yeah apparently in the early 90s in the shittier part of NYC you used to be able to buy an unmarked VHS with only the knowledge that what it contained was really bad. Also I never got in trouble for watching gore, it was something I did in the open on my family computer growing up (as opposed to reading Hannah Montana erotica and forgetting to clear the search history which got my internet privileges revoked for a few days in middle school) my parents were just like “oh, our goth teenager likes gore, what a quirky little girl” like it was treated as completely not alarming to the point where I just assumed everybody watched gore in private like they watched porn and was shocked to find out that wasn’t the case. Also it’s weird that my family just let me watch it on the communal computer in the middle of the living room where my sisters and shit could also see and they’ve thrown it in my face since that I exposed them to gore growing up and it’s just like y’all I didn’t even realize it was a taboo thing until I hosted a viewing of 3 guys 1 hammer and half my friends avoided me for a week but I’ve grown up with gore and consider it a fairly harmless indulgence especially compared to porn. It was also an important part of me re-mastering the parts of my brain that Happy tree friends shook up (which were the only segments in FUBAR that I remember having to look away from). Idk what the point of this post is other than to say I never really had a chance to develop a healthy sense of shock and early exposure to extreme/adult media has completely fucked up my ability to respond normally to the concept of violence and I really worry for this generation who is growing up with iPads from the time they are old enough to hit a button they are going to get exposed to so much and as much as i front like queen edgelord early exposure to that kind of material seriously damaged me and as far as I’m concerned the glass can’t be Uncracked the damage is done but if u have a child please dear god monitor/limit their internet activity because I grew up in the age of the physical Chinatown mixtape and still saw what I saw kids growing up online are going to see so much so soon if you don’t take active steps to shelter them please protect the next generation from what happened to ours they deserve better

[moipale]

Heartbreaking: The Goth Kid You Hang Out With Just Rearranged Your Worldview

Written for Ectober Week 2020 Day One: Fog/Splatter, hosted by @lexosaurus, @ecto-american, and @babypop-phantom! Can be found here on AO3 and here on FFN!

“Do you ever think about how weird the ghosts are?”

It’s Spike who asks the question, and Valerie only doesn’t jump because she’s had months of practice pretending nothing phases her.

Spike—real name Sam Edmond, though no one calls him that—is an upperclassman, somewhere between goth and punk, and a complete outcast in the school. Since she’d been booted from the A-Listers, Valerie had taken to sitting with him at lunch for two reasons: he’s idiot repellant, and he doesn’t talk much. Perfect for a girl who wants to be able to stew in her own rage without being interrupted.

He’d started actually speaking to her a few weeks ago. It was mostly greetings here and there, or questions about when pep rallies or ghost attack drills were scheduled, but it had gradually grown into what might pass for full conversations. Valerie’s not exactly sure when that happened. It just sort of crept up on her, and now they’re… friends? More than just tablemates, at least.

“What do you mean?” Valerie asks, a little shortly. In her mind’s eye she sees Phantom, streaking across the night sky, away from her. She’d failed to catch him again last night. She bats the thought away, frustrated.

“I mean, they’re not like the stories, y’know?” Valerie makes a face, and he goes on. “They’re not manifesting in broken electronics or slamming doors or flickering lights. The ghosts from legends are subtle. Amity’s ghosts pretty fuckin’ aren’t.” As he talks, Spike doodles on a napkin. Stealing a glance at it, Valerie makes out Skulker’s distinct frame—and a very prominent bazooka. No, he… he is not very subtle.

“Does it matter?” Valerie asks, tiredly.

“I just wonder sometimes if they’re not something different.” Spike straightens out of his slouch, stretching before he slumps back over, half-laying on the table. “Something alive.”

She bristles. “They’re ghosts. They’re dead,” Valerie bites out, standing up. Her lunch is only half-eaten. “Everyone knows Ember is that girl who died in a housefire in the 80s.”

Spike doesn’t move, unaffected by Valerie’s aggression. “Sure, she died. But maybe she’s just different now.”

Valerie has gathered up her bag and moved to throw her lunch tray out when Spike speaks again. “You’ve noticed, haven’t you?” he says, almost quietly, but it cuts into her anyway. “That they bleed when they’re cut.”

She turns around and leaves.

 She shouldn’t put any stock into Spike’s words. He doesn’t know anything about ghosts; he hasn’t fought them, he’s not scientists like the Fentons are. Valerie has more authority on the subject than he’ll ever have.

That doesn’t stop what he said from creeping into her mind every time she tries to rest, though. It keeps bubbling up in the back of her thoughts, arresting her ponderings when she least expects it, infecting her mind like a slow-acting poison, growing more and more intense with each passing day. She doesn’t want to think about it, she can’t think about it, and yet still it haunts her.

Ha, haunts.

It’s not anything major that forces her to let the words come, to examine them. It’s not the ghost dog, or Phantom, or anything like that. Instead, it’s a bird.

Valerie has always loved birds. Her mom took care of a cockatiel named Butler when she was younger; it was a silly thing. Loud, too, but Valerie was a loud kid, and they were two peas in a pod. When Mom died, her grandma ended up taking Butler, since Dad was never much one for taking care of pets. She hasn’t seen Butler in a while. Grandma never did like Dad much.

The bird that’s decided to roost on the ledge outside their apartment window is decidedly not a cockatiel. It’s as big as Valerie’s arm, for one, and it’s that sickening ectoplasmic green that she’s become all too accustomed to. And the residents have started sending their landlord rather aggressive complaints, which their landlord then redirected to Dad, saying, “It’s your apartment, Gray. Get rid of the thing or get out.”

Funnily enough, what Spike had said is the furthest thing from her mind when she goes outside that night, at around 2 A.M. She doesn’t have her suit on; instead, she has an ectogun in her hand and a net strapped to her hip, just in case. The bird hasn’t made any moves to attack so far, and Valerie’s expecting to catch it by surprise.

It glows, as all ghosts do, so it’s not hard to spot it against the dark, looming façade of her apartment building.  It’s three floors up, well within the range of her gun, and Valerie would wager that it’s not a very strong ghost.

One shot will do it, she thinks.

Valerie raises her gun, both hands on it, steady as can be. She knows her way around weapons by now—knows the weight of a gun in her hand, a bowstaff, a bat. She knows the kickback. She’s an expert on her hoverboard, movement smooth and balance perfect. She’s far more powerful than this puny interloper.

Trained on that acid-green silhouette, Valerie lets out a breath. She lets her pulse slow. She listens to the low whistle of wind down her empty street, a far cry from the busy murmur of the suburbs where she used to live. She licks her lips, then blinks, just once.

Ectoguns don’t make a lot of noise when their triggers are pulled. There’s something different about the projectiles; something less physical than a bullet, that makes a whiny sort of pop instead of a sharp blast. Valerie’s never liked the sound that much. It feels less monumental to pull the trigger—like a toy, almost.

She pulls, and it pops, and the splatter of the ghost against the brick of the building echoes louder, farther, than her gun ever could. She’d brought one of the bigger ones, one with a little punch.

She didn’t expect the bird to explode on impact.

Valerie brings the gun back to her side and just looks for a minute. She looks for long enough to watch the spray of ectoplasm begin to drip, and a piece of—neck? head?—peel away from the wall, falling into the nest the bird had begun to build.

She can’t see any distinct guts or bones from here, but does that matter? In the dead of night, with a gun in her hand, does that matter?

She vomits against the side of the building before she goes back inside, Spike’s voice ringing like church bells in her mind, loud, so loud she can hear nothing else—

They bleed when they’re cut.

I wonder sometimes if they’re something different.

Something

alive.

#danny phantom #dp #dp fanfic #ectoberweek2020 #ectober #my fics

[ash-etherwood]

Top 5: writing memories, songs, characters that are not blank rune, runes, food

♡

Linda I love you but are you trying to kill me … that’s so many Top 5’s! But alright, I’ll do my best! (Answers will probably switch between German and English RIP to every non-German-speaker who follows me and wants to read this for some reason I swear I’m normal)

WRITING MEMORIES

5.) The entire time I spent finishing my first (second?) longer writing project It was the year 2012 and it was a cyberpunk story about my friends’ and my edgy self inserts riding dinosaurs, fighting aliens and being badass. The plot twist in the end was that my character was secretly evil and wanted to kill everyone. (Things to show your therapist) The final boss fight made zero sense and also everything was incredibly weird and stupid. But sometimes I still think about those times when I sat in my grandma’s living room at night, eating chips and listening to Vocaloid covers while thinking this story was the coolest shit ever. Truly simpler times.

4.) Researching something about universities in Texas for OvF on a rainy Saturday afternoon I have no idea why this memory is still sticking with me to this day (I think it was around 2016 or something?), but I remember that it was just a really nice day and I felt really at peace at that moment?

3.) The entire writing process of Bathroom Blues It was such a spontaneous project and I still have no idea how I managed to power though it in just a little under two months! Also it was just incredibly fun seeing you getting excited over new drafts and I loved coming up with new plot points and Halloween costumes for everyone with you. :-D Truly a summer worth remembering.

2.) FINALLY uploading the prologue and intro chapter of WWBL Not really a writing memory, but that moment was … so sexy and magical. Seriously, you have no idea how long I had been waiting to finally start that story, waiting for the Steckbriefe to roll in and see people react to the prologue and generally the idea … I even made one of those countdown graphic thingies for the designated upload date! 8D At that point I had planned that story for about six months and just … yeah, that felt powerful to me.

1.) Writing the prologue for WWBL When I first started the draft for that prologue I was sitting at the window in my favourite hotel in Winterberg, Sauerland, wore my dark green flannel, had the window wide open breathing in the cool mountain air and allowed myself to listen to my WWBL playlist for the very first time. God, that felt so amazing. I even have a photo of it (which somehow makes it look like I have the biggest football shoulders in the universe) my sister took that night. God I miss Sauerland. )’:

- - - - -

SONGS

My apologies to every favourite song of mine that I forgot about, I have a whole playlist of them, but I think these are some of my oldest faves … (Honorable mentions for Don’t Mess With Me and Not That Big by Temposhark, Goodbye by Apparat, Me And The Devil by Soap&Skin, Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers, Pain and Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace, Beautiful Crime by Tamer, Gravity Of Love by Enigma, In Flames by Digital Daggers [thanks Phi u_u] and Murder Cries by Snow Ghosts AHHH FUCK IT I could’ve just made a playlist,,,)

5.) Vater Unser by E Nomine Starting off with some weird shit, won’t we? I’ve been in love with this song since fifth or sixth grade, when I was just starting to develop an actual music taste and although I have many favourite songs by E Nomine, this one has to be my absolute fave. Every time I can relate it to a character it makes me love said character even more. (Also I think about it every time my mom forces me to go to church for Christmas so … yay? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even be able to remember the Vater Unser if it wasn’t for this song. 8D)

4.) Wires by The Neighbourhood I think this is the newest all-time fave on this list, I found it in … 2015? Thank you, Youtube AMVs. Yeah man, this one is just … on so many playlists it’s not even funny anymore.

3.) Heathens by Twenty One Pilots An edgelord classic but like … it’s on EVERY playlist of mine. Every single one. It’s just so good. The first time I heard it was on the radio tho, when I was having breakfast with Jessie and I forced her to shazam it because it immediately stuck with me,,,

2.) Imaginary by Evanescence My first Evanescence song ever and the first step towards becoming who I am today I think. This song has like … such a big history for me, man. It single-handedly turned me goth in 2008 and I have never really thanked it for that.

1.) Eternal by Evanescence Might be my favourite song of all time. The number of dramatic RP scenes I have written with this in the background … man. Oh, also this song is the reason for one of my oldest internet nicknames, ‘eternala’, which subsequently shortened into Etschuh and then Tschuh, my main nickname until 2017, when I came out as trans and finally found an actual name for myself I was comfortable with!

- - - - -

NON BLANK RUNE CHARACTERS

I know this was probably supposed to be about fandom characters but I can literally not come up with a single character right now that I love with a special burning passion and that is not my or one of my friends’ OCs so you’re getting OCs now. u_u And boy do I have a lot of those.

5.) Jackson Tracey from atroCITY (mine) This little piece of shit kept me company for a pretty long time and is still very close to my heart for some reason, although I haven’t drawn him or really thought about him in detail for a while now. My favourite thing is how I only realized what a horrible person he was after I stopped regularly working with him but honestly good for me. 8D His storyline and personality is kinda convoluted and tbh I’m not really sure how much of it is canon anyway (atrc was always a little weird about canon rip) but yeah. He’s an obsessive stalker piece of shit who pities himself way too much and he is also a semi-immortal demigod who likes knives. I hate him but he also helped me a lot with some gender and sexuality stuff so thanks I guess.

4.) Mayoko Imai from Century Riders DXPrototype (Maus’ and mine) Mayoko is a magical girl protagonist with a cool cyborg arm prosthetic and her main character trait was that she was basically a reverse weeaboo, a Japanese girl who was obsessed with American media, culture and comic book heroes! I actually love her concept a lot and she also had a pretty cool character arc in her story (which Maus and I wrote together and actually finished btw!), although it could use a lot more … polishing from today’s point of view. But I love her anyway. She always wanted to do the right thing and be a hero and got broken pretty cruelly and her ending is kinda bittersweet I guess? Ahh there’s just so much nuance to it … anyways, CR3 also stuck with me for a very long time and I enjoyed the time with her a lot. :3 (Her name had a cameo in Another Incident btw heehee)

3.) Tessa *insert extremely long chain of unnecessary first names here* von Lean from Nobody Is Perfect and Infernal Temptation (belongs to one of my old school friends) Tessa is just … a hand full. I love to hate her. She is badly written and developed and just OOZES mentally ill teenage girl’s idealized self-insert power fantasy, but she just … man, she was a big part of one of my most drama-filled high school friendships which I love looking back at so much. Tessa has fucked so many of my characters … good for her tbh! There are actually two versions of her, one is just a ‘normal’ teenage girl and one can shapeshift into a cheetah, but both of them are very close to my heart. I should really adopt and redesign her some day.

2.) Judy Khayat from Original vs. Final (mine) Look, I love all my OvF-characters and every single one of them is special to me in their own way, but Judy is just … the most complex of them all I think? Man, she went through so much … she is actually one of my oldest (semi)-active characters (I created her in 2009) and her latest version is from 2016 but I should really, REALLY revise her again tbh. She has a very complicated backstory that I didn’t handle as carefully as I should have, and anger issues and religious conflict and depression and PTSD and then Vance of all people becomes obsessed with her for no reason and decides to traumatize her even more … yeah. God I really love her but I seriously need to work on her. A LOT. I should also finally rename her tbh … let’s just see where she takes me next.

1.) Okami (I don��t even remember if she has a proper last name rn lol) from Split Realm (mine) Yeah, that bitch is just my favourite OC. She’s also very old, probably from around 2009, and initially was a magical girl with fire powers who I played in an RP with my friend Flauch but boy did she grow up! Holy fuck. Okami is a horrible person but I love her so much. She is so violent and full of anger and pain and sadness and treats everyone around her like shit and she is in love and she is a demon but also apparently the personification of the concept of Chaos but she just wants to be a teenager again and run away with the love of her life and ahhh it’s all so hopeless for her … also she turned out gnc af with time passing and pretty much went through a gender/sexuality crisis in real time with me, her creator, which is always fun. :^D I haven’t drawn her in a while tbh. Should really do that.

- - - - -

RUNES IN BLANK RUNE

I’m just gonna go with the arcs here, okay? Also this entire answer might look completely different if you asked me again tomorrow, you know how indecisive I am with Blank Rune shit ahha,,,

5.) Jera Look. I know I’m boring and stupid. But I just love Tave and Liam having their disgusting little foreshadowing talk, okay? I can read it over and over. I just love my horrible little shit crime boys. Also Rhy and Phillip are there. (’:

4.) Isa This one is here because it was the first arc I witnessed in real time which gives it a very special place in my heart and it also … hit pretty hard at the time. But having read Fehu it’s become even better now! It’s just such a wonderful, tragic romance between two horrible, ruthless boys and I … I’m not immune to Rhy, sadly. :-/ Just like Phillip.

3.) Wunjo We still haven’t seen everything that leads up to Wunjo yet, but we DO know more than we did initially (wow shocker) and it’s just always a fucking blast. Also, it has the first mention of Ash’s real name … the first Rhy POV (which what the fuck!! I always feel like we had one before but we didn’t!! Wild) and it has crazy blood-soaked murder Tave, my beloved. :///3

2.) Eiwaz You guys have heard me fanboy about Eiwaz so many times already. Eiwaz-OT3 (and Kain) my beloved!!! It’s just SUCH an amazing starting point and there are so, so many things that tie back to it and every time we find out about a new one my heart makes a little jump … und es beginnt von Neuem indeed.

1.) Gebo One of the most painful but also the most beautiful arcs yet in my opinion. It’s been hyped up for so long and boy did it deliver. God, my heart still hurts when I think about that last scene. Also all the dialogue … the golden lines we got … and it’s an arc without Rhy! Crazy!! :-D I just love the relationship between Ash, Astrid and Jakob so much. God fuck I want what they have. Just maybe without the murder suicide,,,

- - - - -

FOOD

5.) Diese Sonntagsbrötchen wo die Verpackung so plopp macht, wenn man die Folie abzieht Better than normale Brötchen for some reason. Most of the time. See 2.) Look man, I just really love a good breakfast …

4.) Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese topping One of the first things from a certain baking book I tried when I was getting into baking back in 2019. God they are so tasty. I don’t make them often so I don’t get used to them too much and eating them still feels special but ahhhh I love them so much!

3.) Grünkohl mit Kartoffelbrei und Mettendchen One of my favourite things about autumn/winter and one of my biggest comfort foods. God I love this shit so much. I just put … mountains of Grünkohl and Kartoffelbrei on my plate every time and I will just warm it up for four days straight until there’s no more left. It turns me into a fucking caveman. I’m not even big on eating meat but … yeah. Everything is different when there’s Grünkohl.

2.) Normales Brötchen mit Butter und Scheibenkäse aber ich bin beim Frühstücksbuffet im Hotel Oddly specific but that’s just how it is. Sorry. Nichts geht über Brötchen mit Käse.

1.) Chilli-Knoblauch-Nudelauflauf My beloved. My comfort food. I eat it literally every second day. At least one hour in the kitchen every time. Fresh ingredients. My only vegetable intake. And I’ve been doing that for three years. I just love it so much, man. I cook it for everyone who visits me. Chilli-Knoblauch-Auflauf cured my depression.

#ask #crimsondaisy #2.4k works of me talking about myself under the cut rip #thank you tho!!!

[hargrove-mayfields]

Headcanons Part Two!!!

My last headcanon post was all about Billy and Steve, but they won’t be the only ones showing up in my stories, so here’s some hcs for a few of the most recurring characters!

Starting with Max!!

My preferred middle name for Max is Nicole, because Maxine Nicole sounds pretty, but can double as being intimidating if someone was yelling at her. Also, she’s named after her aunt Nicole just because I can see Susan being like that.

Most important thing to know about Max in my writing is that she is ALWAYS autistic. I might not specify depending on the content of the story, but she is never ever ever meant to be allistic. I imagine her as being on a moderate support needs level, meaning for those who don’t know the term that she has highs and lows! There’s days where she can pass as allsitic and days where she can’t, and she maybe doesn’t need a lot of assistance in everyday life, but she still needs lots of stimming and has meltdowns and stuff!

Related to this fact is that in the 80s, autism was not a very common diagnosis at all, and so I don’t think she’d really have a word for it other than like, that just being the way she is. Because no one will give her the official diagnosis, Neil thinks she’s faking, so she gets told to stop stimming, isn’t treated fairly during a meltdown, told to “act normal” etc, etc, and she needs a lot of therapy in the future for it.

Her favorite ways to stim are rocking on her heels, humming, listening to loud noises (like sirens/car engines/lawn mowers, NOT things like music/Susan doing the dishes, those do the opposite) and dancing!

Her least favorite sensory things are raindrops touching her skin, her hair brushing her shoulders or her face, overwhelming smells (cologne, candles, food on the stove) and furniture that’s too firm! (like a memory foam mattress or a leather couch)

The first time she feels truly seen in the way she is is when Fraggle Rock starts airing in ‘82. Susan tells her to watch it because she thinks Max is still a baby no matter how old she is, but the minute she lays eyes on Wembley Fraggle she knows he’s like her. He stims vocally and with his hands, his friends don’t understand him, he’s empathetic, bad at choosing, gullible, and in every way just so much like her! Her and Billy have an inside joke where, if she’s putting something off or can’t make a decision, he’ll tell her to stop her Wemblin’ and sometimes he calls her Wembles without thinking!

There isn’t a lot of personalized furniture in the Hargrove-Mayfield, so I think it’s safe to say that she doesn’t really have any comfort items lying around. No favorite blankets or stuffed animals or toys of any kind, and I think because of that she clings to people. That’s why she is so insistent on getting in with the party, and why was so excited about having a brother in Runaway Max, because she relies on comfort people instead of objects.

She’s not very good at putting a name to her relationships. Like, she doesn’t really know how to describe how she feels about somebody, she just knows if she likes them or not. If she feels happy and sage with someone, that’s all that matters, she doesn’t feel the need to classify them beyond that. But she’s also aware that others don’t feel that way! And she feels pretty special when Lucas calls her his girlfriend!

In the future, there can be a lot of different outcomes for her.

If Billy stays dead, I can see Max ending up two ways, either staying in Hawkins because that’s where her brother is dead and buried and trying to move on in her own way, or leaving Hawkins entirely, just cutting ties completely with everyone and everything there to move away from the trauma that’s there, except for every year on B’s birthday when she comes back to visit.

If Billy lives though, I think there’s again two outcomes for her. One where she feels guilty about not noticing the mindflayer and her and Billy’s relationship gets a little strained, because they don’t cope well when they’re trying to pin the blame, or one where she is just grateful her brother isn’t dead and decides to live life to the fullest after that.

In any scenario, she would obviously get the happy ending she deserves, she just has to get there a totally different way.

And also, regardless of what path she takes, I think she’d make for an excellent writer in her future career. She’s smart, she’s got lots of story to tell and draw inspiration from, and it just seems right for her, because it isn’t super constricting and it’s a job most people who do it love!

Now onto Robin!

Her middle name is Leora!

For some reason I have this idea in my head that she doesn’t live with her parents anymore. Not that she got kicked out or anything, just that she moved out pretty early on.

I also think she isn’t from Hawkins. I like the idea that her family moved there just before high school from either Ohio or Maryland, not sure which.

In band, I think she’s a flute. She just gives me flute vibes but I got kicked out of the band so maybe I could be wrong.

It’s canon that she’s goth, wearing her spiky leather bracelet with her work uniform and all, but I think she also sometimes goes in the totally opposite fashion direction, like, sometimes she’s just feeling the patterns and fabrics and colors of the sixties and seventies her mom gave her.

One of her favorite things to do with her friends is go shopping! Not like, around malls, in part because other than Starcourt, the closest mall to Hawkins is forty five minutes away, but she likes to go out with her group and visit all the local thrift shops and cafés and stuff like that.

And she’s super crafty! She has embroidery hoops, beads, jewelry making kits, all of it scattered everywhere!

She has like, the tips of her hair bleached, they sort of look like highlights in a way, so I think it was her that convinced Steve to get his highlights done too.

Matter of fact, I think she teaches Steve a lot of things about himself without either of them realizing. She’s just so, not-superficial I guess, that it starts to rub off of him.

In my head she’s just always got like, a suuuuuper good read on people even if they just met, like, she just sees straight through everybody ever, and that’s why she even gives Steve a chance despite knowing how he treated her in school.

Her Scoops! shorts are pretty big while Steve’s are tight as heck, so I hc that those are his shorts. The uniform used to be a skimpy sailor skirt, but she’s seventeen and not particularly keen on being creeped on by older men when she gets hired there, so she refuses to wear it. She gets in trouble on the first day for wearing jeans, and Steve feels bad about it so he gives her the extra pair of shorts from his uniform!

Robin totally bottles up everything from Starcourt until she can’t anymore. Like, Steve is very open about his struggles with what happened under the mall because he wants help and he’s done it alone before, but she feels like she should be strong, grateful that they survived, and just, move on and forget about it. It doesn’t work and she ends up crashing hard. Like she goes from silently suffering to getting panic attacks all the time, and falling in a super deep depression rut. Obviously her friends are very supportive and provide her with the help she needs, and with time (lots and lots of time) she gets better!

Heather!

Her middle name is Ernestine! It was her grandma's name!

I head canon that she is a lesbian and I ship her and Robin!

She calls Billy William all the time because she was raised to be formal and respectful, and Billy just doesn’t feel or sound right when she says it. Even though she insists her name is Heather and she doesn’t need a nickname, Billy calls her Hetty or H!

She wears clip on earrings! Her parents refuse to let her get her ears pierced because they say she needs to respect her image and all that, but she always felt like she was missing some accessories, and found out from one of her friends about clip ons, which they allow!

Even though she has popular girl vibes, I don’t think she was in high school. Just sort of a floater, and she liked it that way! She’s way too sweet to be in with Steve’s crowd, but had some things in common with pretty much everyone else. Once she’s graduated she sort of falls into that popular category around Hawkins because she’s rich and older now, but she’s still the same old Heather.

Heather is a super good baker and cook! Her mother always had her helping in the kitchen while her dad was staying late at work, and eventually she got really good! Sometimes she’ll just randomly bring her friends like, a load of banana bread or a hot dish because it makes everyone happy!

She's a very affectionate person! If she hasn’t seen her friends for a while she’ll kiss them all over, and everytime you see her you have to hug her (unless you don’t want to, she’s equally as understanding as she is lovey!)

I reject canon! Heather is not dead! I know it’s very unlikely but I think the clones in the upside down were like fail saves, and the real versions are all still alive somewhere!

In the case that this is true, when everything gets fixed I don’t think her memories of what happened to her would be intact, and I think that would be super traumatic for her. Almost worse than how she would be feeling if she knew.

In the future she wants to be in the entertainment industry! I can totally see her becoming a country singer or a soap opera actress or both!

Robin becomes a librarian at the same school that Steve works at when he becomes a teacher! She also does art commissions on the side. Sculpting, painting, charcoals, all of it, she’s good at all of it!

And last but not least, Tommy!!

My hc for Tommy’s middle name is Byrd. It was like a super common name at one point and then just sort of plummeted, and I like to think his parents thought they were being original choosing that one. All of his friends call him Tommy Bird to make fun of him, but he secretly doesn’t hate it.

Tommy and Steve didn’t really become friends until middle school! Hawkins has two elementary schools based on which region you live in, and because they live in like, opposite ends of town they go to different ones. But the first day of middle school when the two schools merge, they’re out for recess, Steve sees Tommy alone and approaches him, and they become instant besties!

Tommy is very insecure about his popularity. Steve is cool with letting his slip because he has other things to worry about, but Tommy doesn’t. His grades are alright and his home life is decent, and he’s not involved in upside down business, so when Steve ditches him and people start to lose interest in him, he gets extremely upset. It consumes him sort of, the fear that nobody likes him anymore. That ends up being why him and Carol break it off for good.

Another reason he thinks a reputation is so important is because he used to be picked on before being friends with Steve. When he was little he had giant glasses and dressed kinda lame, and he internalized that a lot. He’s scared that without Steve they’ll go back to that.

All of that is why he clings onto Billy so tight. Like, his best friend for the past six or seven years just walked out without looking back, and he’s terrified that he’s going to be bullied again. So when big tough guy Billy Hargrove rolls into town he’s like I have to be friends with this dude right now or I’ll die.

I ship him with Steve! A lot! But also I like the thought of Tommy and Steve and Billy, platonically and shippy-y!

As for where he’s from, I don’t think Tommy is Hawkins born and raised. He grew up down south, maybe Georgia, or Tennessee?, but then his uncle over in Indiana starts a snake oil business with his dad and they have to move.

I think he’s very much a lightweight. Alcohol isn’t really his thing because his dad was an alcoholic and it scares him that he’ll be like that, so he never really tried it and his tolerance is super low. He always designates himself the driver, only he doesn’t have a car of his own, he’s not allowed to until he’s on his way to college, so he always drives other people’s cars to their houses and walks home.

I don’t know if Tommy is able to avoid the upside down beyond st2. Maybe him and Billy try to keep in contact once school lets out, but he notices somethings off with him because he’s flayed. This could result in him also being flayed, depending on the situation, or if not he might get involved later, because he starts putting the pieces together after Starcourt.

Tommy owning up and joining Steve in monster hunting quests! Heck yeah!

If there is no involvement with all that mess though, I’d say it takes a few years out of high school for him to finally admit to being wrong. Like, he always maintained that he was right to be mad at Steve for driving away and right to be basically just a bully like he was, but once he’s older, mid twenties maybe, he realizes that wasn’t the way to be and calls a bunch of people up to apologize to them.

He goes to beauty school and becomes a hair stylist and makeup artist on television sets!

As for other background characters, like other party members or adults, I don’t have a whole lot of specific ideas that aren’t already canon! In the future if I write anything where they are more central characters that might change, but as of right now I don’t really have any headcanons for them!

#max mayfield #robin buckley #heather holloway #tommy h #nonsense from ej #headcanon #obviously I have a bunch more in my head when I write but this is just the basic stuff I wanted to throw out there #it’s also kinda a mess because I’ve been trying to get this list organized before I post my next fic #which I already said a couple of days ago would be up in a few and it will #I’m working on it I just have a heck ton to do right now #anywho pardon all the projecting I did here #and sorry if this is formatted super weird I’m posting this from mobile

[earlgreytea68]

A Review of the Fall Out Boy Biography Inevitably Colored by Shippiness Oops But Really Mainly By My Love for Pete Wentz

I don’t even know who the audience is for this monstrosity of a review, nor do I know the audience for this biography, though, so, like, it’s fitting lololol: 

I am a new Fall Out Boy fan. I say that because, if anybody was in need of a Fall Out Boy biography, you would think it would be a new fan. AND YET. I’m not entirely sure who the market for this book is, because it isn’t really Fall Out Boy fans of any duration, because not only can everything in the book be easily located with the simplest of Google searches but also there’s so much he leaves out. And what he leaves out is just…so incredibly telling. It’s like, the facts he chooses to highlight are often pointless and random (although thanks for telling me that Pete Wentz’s jeans were so tight he had to perform without underwear, I’m going to think about that a lot now), whereas the facts he leaves out are the ones that lend both complexity and context. Like, this whole book could be Exhibit A in how malleable facts can be. Given the same set of facts, this man and I would tell two very different stories.

At least partly this is because he’s a music critic (I glean from the book) and I’m a creative writer. I believe he is a music critic because he takes care to dedicate a paragraph of musical analysis to every song on their earliest CDs (he loses interest in them over the hiatus, and more on that later). I appreciated this, because I know nothing about music, and I learned a lot about how talented Patrick Stump really is, like, not as a vocalist, because I knew that, or as a musician, because I also knew that, but as a smart, clever songwriter. I don’t know how to critique music, and I was happy this guy was full of praise for what Patrick does. He also pointed out musical hallmarks of theirs – like their tendency to drop the music suddenly for Patrick to sing an a cappella line – and that was the first time I’d ever really thought about them.

He was full of much less praise for Pete’s lyrics, though, and I think that’s because he’s a music person, not a word person. Not that he thought Pete’s lyrics were ever bad but he tended to stay very conventional about them: emo, confessional, dramatic, and ingeniously juxtaposed with Patrick’s clear-as-a-bell voice. He’s kind of obsessed with the contrast between Patrick’s voice and the lyrics he’s singing, whereas I’m much more obsessed with the contrast between Patrick himself in sweater-paws and glasses snarling, “I am your worst nightmare,” like, sweetheart, I doubt it. AND YET HE PULLS IT OFF. Like, that’s so interesting to me, how much Patrick can make himself embody Pete, that act of alchemy where he sings on his behalf, but this book talks less about that than I think it might, mostly because I don’t think this guy really wants to think too hard about how incredibly good Pete’s lyrics actually are. The thing about Pete’s lyrics – he does this, and it’s so clever, it’s killer clever – is you can read them so easily on one very obvious and expected layer, and then there’s always one or two additional meanings tucked underneath them, and you might never stop to think about them, especially if you’ve already written him off, but his lyrics reward careful study and a lot of thought, he specializes in triple entendres, a turn of phrase that spins out into so many meanings, that’s so hard to do and he makes it look so easy that it’s such a simple mistake to dismiss it, to not even see how dense his poetry is. The conventional story on Pete Wentz is he’s good at marketing – marketing the band, marketing himself – and so he spun in circles to keep the spotlight on him and away from Patrick, and that’s definitely one take, and another take would be to point out that the same whirligig sex-symbol tabloid-fodder act also had the side effect of undercutting any tendency to take Pete seriously from a literary point of view, like, so much easier to just say that, in keeping with his goth guyliner, he wept into his inkwell and scrawled messily over parchment. So anyway: criticism #1 of this book is that they should have complemented the music-critic-ness with an English major.

Criticism #2 is that I feel like people always get wrong what appeals to girls, to speak in the massive generalizations of this topic. Like, someone somewhere was like, “Hey, girls like this Fall Out Boy band, it must be because Pete Wentz is hot.” And they’re not wrong about that, exactly, but they always seem to miss how many entangled layers often come with attraction. Like, yeah, sometimes it’s just he’s got nice abs but often there’s a million other things happening there, and one thing I cannot forgive this guy for is not just his failure to engage with Pete’s lyrics on any real level, but how little he also truly examines Pete Wentz’s genuine marketing genius. He’s a music guy: His interest is clearly in Patrick, and also in Joe and Andy, because they’re musicians, and he can wax poetic about them. Pete gets his standard paragraphs: Oh, he chose the right management, the right record label, the right deal. He can pick out a good band, like Panic! or Gym Class Heroes. All of that is true, but none of it really grasps exactly how smart Pete really is. Like, the book hardly mentions at all how much Pete realized immediately the value of internet fandom. When I first fell for Pete Wentz – that first weekend I spent Googling him – what really was the death knell for me was stumbling upon the old FOB Q&As he used to run in the earliest days. And it wasn’t actually his constant leaning into the Peterick shipping with such dead-on unerring understanding of fandom that did it for me (although that was pretty charming, ngl). It was how often teenagers messaged Pete Wentz with their problems, and how patiently he took the time to respond. My boyfriend broke up with me. My grandma just died. I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. Again and again and again, Pete Wentz took these messages and wrote out detailed, laborious responses. And I know he was a guy angling hard to be famous but not all guys angling hard to be famous realized how important something like this is, this very personal connection, like, above and beyond the bantering and the smirks, and even if you’re doing it entirely for ulterior motives, that’s a ton of emotional labor he was performing. I finished reading those Q&As and thought, God, Pete Wentz must have been exhausted.

And I’m not sure that’s something the bio ever really wrestled with, because it never really talked about that aspect of him. I don’t actually think the bio read anything Pete Wentz has ever posted online, like, not even those basic Q&As that are the easiest thing in the universe to Google, never mind the secret blogs he still has scattered all over the internet with nuggets of lyricism buried in there for Patrick to mine. It’s just so easy to buy into the Peter-Pan, devil-may-care Pete Wentz picture, and for all I know that’s the truest of the pictures, but it’s also undeniable fact that the other side to that was either really cunning and savvy or just a nice guy, and either way it’s another layer to Pete Wentz that gets short shrift in the bio. Which isn’t surprising because although the author clearly appreciates Fall Out Boy the band, the author clearly isn’t fannish at all, whereas it’s pretty abundantly clear Pete Wentz is fannish. He’s unapologetically fannish. He speaks fan language with a fluency that is hard to fake. And he’s astonishingly well-versed in tropes. He’s instinctively good at creating a good story, not just in his lyrics (although he, like Taylor Swift, is adept at tropey lyrics, so it’s no surprise they have a mutual admiration society), but in his life. In addition to the Q&As, that first weekend was full of me being like, …How is this the tropiest thing I’ve ever read??? It’s unsurprising that the bio doesn’t point out all the tropes in the Pete Wentz / Patrick Stump / Fall Out Boy story, because the author isn’t versed in tropes, but Pete Wentz definitely is. He knows how to use words, well. And you wouldn’t necessarily know it to listen to him – he babbles and uses tons of filler phrases and never, ever ask him what his lyrics are about, it’s like trying to have a conversation in Wonderland – but that’s all part of the aw-shucks-sometimes-I-scribble-some-stuff-down-Patrick’s-the-real-genius brand.

Now I am not qualified to write a Fall Out Boy biography and also I don’t know these people and also everything I do know comes from Google but that said, I feel like I do know for a fact some primary source materials that the writer just chose to leave out that really does display how malleable stories can be depending on what you highlight or not. Like, if he didn’t want to draw psychological conclusions based on the facts that’s fair enough. But he also pared back the narrative so drastically that it left off the true meat of it, like, if you read this book you would not necessarily think there was much interesting about these people, whereas if you really dig into everything they’ve got out there, well, you could start to think they’re super-interesting people. But I am a creative writer and this biographer was a music critic. He settles happily into the song analysis but I’m busy connecting dots into a narrative, and life is complicated, it is not a simple narrative, but that impulse underlies most biography, the idea that we can assemble the facts into something that has something to say about a human life. But that act really exists in how you assemble the facts.

 ~~~~~~~~TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE DISCUSSION~~~~~~~~~~~

A really good example of this is the way the biography deals with the Best Buy incident. Here are the bare facts: Pete Wentz, in a Best Buy parking lot listening to Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah,” took too many Ativan. In a phone call, his manager noticed he was slurring, called his parents, they rushed him to the hospital, he lived. These are the facts that the book gives you, and these are true facts.

If you want to expand slightly upon these bare facts, Pete has given many, many interviews about this incident because he is very open about mental health issues and his bipolar disorder and depressive episodes and anxiety. Pete has said that he’s not sure he was trying to kill himself so much as just make his head quiet for a little while. Pete has said he felt like he was too busy being Pete Wentz for everyone else and he just wanted to rest. These are also facts, although ones I don’t think the biographer truly believes. He does dutifully quote them but he also clearly has his own belief about how much Pete’s telling the truth. Because this is inevitable in any telling of the facts.  

If you want to expand slightly upon these facts, you could point out that Pete’s lyrics reflect how noisy his head is (“when this city goes silent, the ringing in my ears gets violent”), which might color how you understand him when he says he just wanted some peace and quiet. You might also point out that, as the bio has already said, Pete was the driving force behind the band’s strategy and it was about to culminate. You might remind the reader that Pete walked away from other possibly very successful careers to do this band (there is much made in the book of the theoretical ease with which Pete could have achieved a soccer career, which made me raise my eyebrows a bit but, you know, Patrick does say Pete’s really, really good at soccer). You might recall that Pete has these kids relying on him whose parents he literally had to persuade to trust him. You might say that so far everything had gone exactly as he planned and he just needed to stick the landing. You might mention the fact that they kept rewriting songs and rewriting songs and rewriting songs; that Pete was in such utter meltdown mode that he was sliding lyrics under Patrick’s door and then retreating, so that the rest of the band never even saw him; that they had scrapped half the album and were furiously writing new music right up until the deadline – all of which are facts not even mentioned. You might say all of those things, because they are indeed all true facts.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is appropriate at this point to note that many of these things were simply not germane to the story this biographer was telling, which was a music-critic-focused story. But these things are all incredibly germane to the story *I* would tell, about these four people who found each other, lost each other, and found each other again, and the two people at the center whose creative alchemy was by turns either too dazzling or too explosive and in both incarnations needed to find a way to balance to keep the band afloat. This is the story I would tell, but, to be totally honest, Pete and Patrick’s creative partnership doesn’t really seem to interest the writer of this book. He mentions it vaguely, in passing, once or twice, fairly standard surface proclamations about Pete handling lyrics and Patrick handling music, and Pete drawing the spotlight away from Patrick who didn’t want it. Or he’ll say that the true secret to the band’s success is Patrick’s voice and Pete’s lyrics, like Patrick could be any pretty-enough voice, which I think just isn’t true, there’s so much more to the way they clicked together. I read this great New Yorker article once about how, through history, genius exists in pairs, that often two people need to find each other to push each other to be better than they would ever be apart.

It’s fine to not want to get into that too intensely, it’s just that that means that half the story of Folie goes away, if you’re not focused on how the band was creating. Like, there’s so much about the lead-up to Folie to talk about: Patrick’s control over the music to the exclusion of everyone else, Pete’s worsening prescription pill thing, and the way that their creative partnership seemed to disintegrate while simultaneously leaving no room for Joe or Andy in the band. The book mentions really none of this – nothing about the fact that at one point they had descended into physical altercations over chord progressions; nothing about the story the producer tells that Patrick would get so frustrated after phone calls with Pete that he’d throw things around the studio; nothing about the story that Patrick once told Pete, “I don’t care, I’m going to write a song and call it ‘I Don’t Care,’” such a telling little tale when later Patrick comes to hate the song “I Don’t Care” – so the hiatus feels like it descends out of nowhere, with a paragraph about the fans not liking the album. Which, again, is a true fact, but without the other true facts of the way the entire creative process was crumbling around them, around all of them, it sounds less compelling. The bio does get into Joe wanting to flex his creative muscles more but doesn’t connect it back to the Folie era of being shut-out. The hiatus becomes entirely about Patrick not liking being booed.

Even worse to me is the book devotes a lot of time to each of their music videos, which is awesome, because their videos are important and great, but it devotes exactly zero time to the video for “What a Catch, Donnie.” And I’m so bewildered by that, you can have a field day with the symbolism in that video, even if you want to just make a true factual statement about its plot: Patrick collects all of the detritus of Fall Out Boy and all of their friends come and party with him, while Pete goes down with a sinking ship all alone, to a medley of the words he’s leaving behind. Like. That is literally what happens in this video. And then the hiatus starts. To me this is one of the most ridiculously angsty things ever, that they would go out to their own triumphs echoing back at them and the literal death of captain!Pete Wentz. To the story I would tell, this is the most germane. It merits not a single mention in the bio (other than praising the song itself for being one of the strongest on the album, and talking about the Elvis Costello cameo).

Because he’s much more interested in them musically than as people or relationships, he seems to lose interest in them post-hiatus. He details each of their hiatus-era projects with his typical attention to the music criticism side. And then he spends, like, eight pages talking about the guy who wrote the article that triggered Patrick’s “We Liked You Better When You Were Fat” blog post. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s an entire chapter dedicated to the article and the guy who wrote it. Patrick’s response is described and quoted and even praised, but not in nearly as much as detail as the original article, and Pete’s reaction to Patrick’s blog post gets literally zero attention. Which is fascinating since, in some tellings of the story, that’s the entire reason the hiatus ended. Pete has said on multiple occasions that he read the blog post and was upset Patrick was so upset and called him up and asked him to try writing with him again. But if you’re not actually interested in that creative relationship as a relationship, then you don’t see a reason to explain the motivation behind trying again.

You also don’t really see a reason to tackle why they initially struggled to get back into it. Like, truly grappling with the Pete/Patrick relationship leads to more depth than the surface “Patrick doesn’t like the spotlight, so Pete takes it for him.” That’s too simplistic a formulation, as Pete himself has said. It also discounts Patrick’s obvious dedication to Pete, his complete willingness to step in and publicly defend him on many occasions, like, Patrick’s no shy, retiring wallflower when it comes to Pete, Patrick can let loose viciously on behalf of Pete. Their protectiveness is mutual, although the public narrative often glosses over that. (In one of those “why leave that out” details, the biographer notes that Hemingway was Pete and Ashlee’s ring bearer but not that Patrick was Pete’s best man, Idk.) At any rate, I point that out because the struggle they had to find their groove writing together after the hiatus mirrored their initial struggles, to find their way into trusting each other’s strengths, but the book is just kind of like, “The first session wasn’t successful but the next session was. They were out of practice.” They weren’t out of practice with songwriting, not really, especially not Patrick – they were out of practice with each other. And that wasn’t just a hiatus-era souvenir, that went back to Folie, but we didn’t get that part of Folie.  

The biographer also, annoyingly in my view, loses all interest in them at this point. He devotes almost no time to the post-hiatus era, which is fascinating to me, since their ability to launch a comeback as successfully and relevantly as they did is striking, and to do it not by relying on nostalgia but by generating genuinely new hits with a genuinely new audience, and he’s not interested in that at all. Even worse than not being interested in this is the fact that he fails to close the Folie loop, like, he devotes lots of time to Patrick coming to hate Folie because of how much the fans hated it. Then he makes a little note, like, “Maybe someday Patrick will come to love Folie again,” or something, and the thing is, I know the book was written a few years ago now, but there was definitely stuff available about how much Folie had become a fan favorite in the hiatus years. Patrick gave an interview somewhere where he talked about the reunion show and how he read fan reviews of it and the fans were like, “They should have played more songs from Folie!” I always think at that point And then Patrick looked into the camera like he’s on The Office. But, at any rate, Patrick got to see Folie become beloved and that loop could have been closed better and he just leaves it dangling. (I’m almost like, Did he really write most of this book while they were on hiatus and then when they came back he was like, …Goddamn it?)

He doesn’t at all get into the shock of the immediate level of success of their comeback, like, that’s another thing that’s documented, that they were unsure anyone would care and they were so startled by the response that they had to actually add larger venues onto their tour because they’d thought no one would want to come to their shows. He could have talked about how people waited hours outside in the Chicago cold to get into the comeback show, how they started the show with “Thriller” and Patrick says the response was electric and it must have been amazing and he’s just not really interested in it, you can tell that he’s bored. He doesn’t talk about how Patrick hadn’t really thought about having to perform the new songs live because he didn’t think anyone would really care about the new album, so they had to really think about how they were going to make it work, and how he almost permanently damaged his voice having to sing “Alone Together” live and that’s what finally finally drove him to pursue actual voice lessons, like, he mentions none of this, he’s just like, “They wrote Save Rock & Roll, and then they wrote American Beauty / American Pyscho.” He’s just clearly, at that point, bored. Whereas in the story I would tell, that is the most satisfying part, the happy ending beyond their wildest dreams.

Okay, omg, this is SO LONG, but here are some other random thoughts:

·       He never – not once – goes back to source Pete’s lyrics to their original blog entries, which can be very interesting. This is because he’s not interested in the lyrics really, but it’s very frustrating to me because, like, SOMEBODY TAKE THESE LYRICS SERIOUSLY, PLEASE, THEY’RE SO GOOD. It also means that he misses things like “Miss Missing You” and the way it echoes Pete’s poem with the line “I miss you missing me,” like, that’s just a fact ::shrug:: He also says “Hum Hallelujah” is about teenage romance, and that is the most straightforward, surface-level reading, like, “Oh, it says ‘teenage vow in a parking lot,’ that’s what it’s about.” This pains me only because “Hum Hallelujah” might be the most perfect lyrically constructed song Fall Out Boy has, every line is golden and stuffed with meaning and emotion, and he’s just like, “teenage romance,” so dismissively, and I wince, like, “I could write it better than you ever felt it” is a line that deserves more than that. Not to mention “I love you in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital,” god, or “One day we’ll get nostalgic for disaster,” ugh, do not read this book for lyrical analysis. He also terms the best lyrical line on Cork Tree as “To the ‘love’ I left my conscience pressed / Between the pages of the Bible in the drawer” and, while there’s nothing wrong with that line, I don’t even think that’s the best line in XO (I mean, leaving off the follow-up of “What did it ever do for me? I say” undercuts those lines immediately, imo). (He does at least point out that “Keep quiet, nothing comes as easy as you / Can I lay in your bed all day?” is a devastatingly sexy couplet.)

·       Can I just say, the entire debacle with Hey Chris gets precious little time in this book, which in a way is fine but in a way is like, just by Googling I got way more information on what went down and the weird, weird words that were being flung back and forth (at one point the term “heterolifemates” is used which makes zero sense at all in this context), but this book does spend a lot of time with Chris and Pete pre-Patrick (fascinating, right???) and there’s this weird part where Chris says he hated Pete before he met him and is like, “He should wear pants that fit,” which is just…such an interesting reason to hate Pete Wentz, like, Idk, Chris, coupled with your heterolifemates thing and weird thing about “whose name do you say every night???” which is also weirdly sexual phrasing and also being like “no one knows how to break a heart like he does,” like, everything about this entire situation has so much queer subtext but the book doesn’t touch any of that, ever, in any circumstance, with a ten-foot pole.

·       EVERYONE, THE BORDERS WHERE JOE AND PATRICK MEET IS LOCATED IN EDEN PLAZA AND I AM SO UPSET I DIDN’T KNOW THAT WHEN I WROTE THE DEVIL FIC.

·       I did not know that the producer wanted them to change the “We’re falling apart to halftime” line in Dance, Dance because he thought it was too incomprehensible and I’m just like, That’s the lyric where you thought you were going to lose people??

·       From the bio, describing the Live in Phoenix performance: a strange moment where Wentz inexplicably gets changed onstage. A strange moment? Inexplicably? Okay, like, germane to my telling of the story is how much those dick pics affected Pete Wentz’s public persona, how much he knew exactly what he was there to sell and he sold it with gusto, and how much of a spiral that ultimately sent him on. Instead, this biographer finds it inexplicable that Pete Wentz would take his shirt off onstage, and his analysis of the music video for “This Ain’t a Scene” gives the dick pic storyline only an offhand reference, calling it “making light” of the scandal, instead of really digging into the obvious pain there, like, that’s not a joyful lark there. (Later, much later, years later, Brendon Urie will manage to actually make light of the dick pic saga, both in the Drunk History and also in the joke of the dick pic being the photo that comes up when Pete calls him, as seen in the promos for the tour they did together, and that feels much more genuine. But that bit in “Arms Race” is kind of heartbreaking.)

·       Pete says of their failed attempt to get the Guinness record of the first band to perform on all seven continents that it was the worst feeling he’d ever felt in Fall Out Boy, and the biographer is like, “Really, Pete? Really?” and I kind of want to shake him because Pete Wentz is obviously a dramatic person and he feels disappointments keenly and he made that statement literally just as they were finding out they wouldn’t be able to do it, like, of course it’s just hyperbole! The biographer is weird through that whole section of the book because he never once mentions that, as a consolation to Pete, Patrick stayed up all night with him so they could get the record of most interviews by a duo in a twenty-four-hour period, like, that’s what I would have said about that story instead of trying to get way more out of Pete’s off-the-cuff self-pity (which is just so Pete Wentz, it’s like this writer hasn’t just spend a hundred pages writing about him…).

·       Whenever I read about how many songs Patrick shows up with when it’s time to record an album, I always feel this little twinge of solidarity with him, like, sometimes that’s just how it is in your chosen creative medium, you’re just always endlessly writing.

·       I had never thought before about the fact that Pete says all the time that he was too selfish pre-hiatus, all the time, a lot, that’s how he describes his problem – and the fact that there’s an entire song on Truant Wave called “Love, Selfish Love” with the line “God bless the sad and selfish” and I’m just going to…sit here and think about who in Patrick’s life could be described as sad and selfish.

·       From the bio re: Soul Punk: It’s disarming to hear this garrulous boy-next-door sing so candidly about sex. Yeah, I don’t think you were paying attention to the way Patrick smirks at the camera in the music videos, buddy.

·       Detail I knew but had never really thought about before: that Pete got Patrick to really click into songwriting with him again by giving him a puzzle. Patrick says that sometimes Pete gives him homework assignments, “I want a song that sounds like x, y, and z,” and Patrick will be like, “That’s impossible,” but also so intrigued that he ends up sitting and writing the thing. The fact that Pete knew, after a few mediocre songs neither of them liked, like, “You know how I snag him? This way,” is adorable. Also, the fact that it was Pete who adored the song to come out of it, “Where Did the Party Go?,” and that it was his excitement over the song that made Patrick think, Okay, maybe we can do this, like, it was Pete’s joy that drove Patrick’s optimism, they’re so creatively linked, these two.

·       He does include the detail that Pete was worried he’d fallen behind during the hiatus because he didn’t spend much time playing music and so he committed himself to practicing and improving with metronome work, like, Pete Wentz ugh <3. In a very recent interview that I cannot blame the bio for not including, Pete said that Patrick helps him with the bass because he’s so musically talented and everything about that offhand statement just kills me.

·       I did not know that one of the leaks of their reunion was on a blog that wrote “You can stop refreshing for a journal update,” and I’m in love with that, sorry.  

·       Ugh, can I just say, the fact that Patrick sang all of his vocals for Pax AM Days live with the band is just so unbelievable, he kills me.

·       From the bio: “We were fireworks that went off too soon / And I miss you in the June gloom, too,” Stump sings here, and you can’t help but wonder if the words refer to his public but brief marriage. …I have indeed helped the wondering of that because I have never once thought that about this song lolololol

#long post #peterick #pete wentz #fall out boy #fob #bandom

[mor-beck-more-problems]

When Death Comes || Morgan & Deirdre

TIMING: Before the mushrooming

LOCATION: Hambry Park

PARTIES: @deathduty, @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan wants something more from her death.

CONTAINS: discussions of death and dying, soft goth girlfriends

“...When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.” Morgan punctuated each line break in the poem she read with a kiss to Deirdre’s spine, climbing up the vertebrae, colored auric and purple-shadow by the golden hour, until she was mouthing the final lines into the nape of her neck: “I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” The poem finished, Morgan set the book aside and wrapped herself around her love’s body, pressing in until they tumbled sideways onto the blankets and pillows they’d spread over the grass. “It’s your turn, my love.” Morgan said. “How do you feel about reading with a zombie on top of you? While also eating pie? You still have your slice, you know.” As she spoke, Morgan finagled their bodies so she was resting against Deirdre the way she liked best, tucked against her side with her face cradled between her neck and the gentle slope of her chest.

Hambry Park was gilded all around them by evening light. Even the most weathered angel monument or the most moss ridden death’s head icon turned lively in the glow. Red wildflowers, weary from a day’s worth of swaying with ghosts, folded down to brush their petal cheeks against the earth that held the dead. Morgan pressed a finger into the ground with them, wondering not for the first time what it would be like to be held that way too. “I wonder who designed these things,” she said, thinking out loud more than anything else. “Like, did the person who died say they wanted cherubs, or a bible verse, or a cute little flying death head? Or was it their family? Or some funerary designer? They’re so beautiful, and they’re all a little different, right?”

There was some measure of amazement in hearing the same words said a dozen times, not tiring of them. How many times had Deirdre heard that poem exactly? And yet, it was always a treasure to hear it said again by Morgan’s tongue---as though she might have been reciting scripture from her heart instead of a poem from another’s. The poem ended (too soon, always too soon) and they tumbled away, bubbling laughter erupting from Deirdre’s grinning mouth. “As if I’d want it any other way.” Her fingers tangled into Morgan’s hair, playing absently with the strands as she reached out for the book (the picnic basket with the pie was too far, and she would never dare have them separate, even for a second). Thumbing through the pages with one hand in search of the right poem to recite, was no easy task. She had to thank the flimsy paperback for being flexible to her stubbornness, but in the time it took her to flip the pages, a breeze rolled over their picnic and claimed all of Deirdre’s progress in navigating the book. “Hm?” She abandoned her search in favor of tossing the book down to air her irritation with the wind. “You mean the graves?” Deirdre couldn’t quite make them out from her angle, but she’d been to Hambry enough to have the scenery memorized.

“Depends. Some people plan these out; funerals can be expensive, and picking out and saving for a headstone can be a weight you alleviate later on. Some people never think to decide, and so the family might pick through catalogues and displays--fighting over what Bible verse they think suits grandma better. Some people are...even less fortunate than that. But Hambry is on the nicer end, and anyone buried here undoubtedly had money, so it wouldn’t even surprise me if the headstones are custom pieces.” Another gust swept over them and the book flopped out of reach. The poems were a lost cause now. Deirdre sighed. “Why do you ask? Thinking of buying a headstone?”

“I know all that,” Morgan sighed, pulling down the ends of Deirdre’s hair and starting to arrange them in a loose eight strand braid. “When it was time to bury my mom, she had everything set out, like a really...awful, morbid, pop-up book. With lots of fees and fines. I opened the lid of the storage box she’d shoved everything into and a brochure literally flew out at me. And then they didn’t make the coffin she’d picked out anymore, so I had to pick out another one almost at random.” She smirked sadly at the memory. “But I wondered if things might’ve been different back in--” Morgan squinted at one of the gravestones she could see from her place. “19-0--something.” She kissed her love’s clavicle and wrapped them tighter together. “Maybe I do want one, though,” she shrugged, as if she were thinking about getting a new dress. “I mean, that would be kind of ridiculous, because where would it go, right? And then a whole plot of land doing nothing, just being there? But, I don’t know… I mean, a girl should get to have something for dying and mostly coming back.” Even flowers could be dried or pressed to commemorate what they offered to the world. Even the dead remains they’d burned in the woods had ash and bone that now lay comfortably at the bottom of Dark Score Lake. Animals, at least, had bones to leave behind and flesh to be devoured or return to the earth that had helped feed them. Her death didn’t even make the paper; it couldn’t. And if anything happened to her permanently, who was to say her remains wouldn’t become goo in a few days? Morgan bristled at the thought. It wasn’t even her dead self she wanted to lay in the ground; she had made it far enough out of the pit to not long for that anymore. But she wanted something. “It doesn’t feel right that everything I used to be has to be invisible, or written over. Does that make any sense?”

Deirdre’s brow quirked up, silently asking why, then, Morgan was wondering about it. She didn’t have to wait long for her curiosity to be answered. “It could go anywhere you wanted it to, my love.” Deirdre paused her brushing of Morgan’s hair, considering it. Morgan had died, and she had lost parts of herself, but it never felt that way to Deirdre. What was there to bury but memories--and those could always be carried just fine in the heart. But she knew Morgan missed herself; missed her magic and her heartbeat and the ways she connected to the world--now forever changed. Deirdre sat up slowly, not wanting to push Morgan off her chest but wanting to look at her a little better as they spoke. She reached a happy medium of propping herself up on her elbows, half-raised. “I wouldn’t say it’s invisible, or written over. They’re still a part of you; in my mind, at least.” She stared out at the rows of gravestones and statues, claimed by nature. “You never did get to have a funeral. You could always have some memorial, some way to remember yourself as you did--or put those parts to rest. If that’s what you want.” Deirdre pushed herself up to sit properly now, urging Morgan back in her arms so she could hold her tight. “...is that what you want?”

“Only a few people even know I died at all, I think that counts as pretty invisible,” Morgan said. Of course, some part of her had always been partly a secret and always would be. But for some reason, hiding her death seemed even worse than her species. Even nobodies got obituaries, or a funeral director to process their body and give it one last look before burning up into ash. Even the supernaturals who were not more than parts in that storage units had her, Lydia, and Deirdre to watch them, to try and carry their pain. “I had to tell everyone at work there was a death in the family, and then make up some distant cousin, because everyone already knew I didn’t have any family. I didn’t even bring home all the bereavement cards. And I’m never going to be--” She swallowed, voice growing thick, and sat up with Deirdre. She crawled into her arms as she beckoned, nuzzling her way into her grasp and finding the right place for her arms so she could squeeze her tight or rest almost effortlessly if she wanted. “I’m never going to be just the way I was. I’m never gonna warm you up, or make anything beautiful just by willing it. Or enjoy fish tacos. I don’t know if I’ll ever have patience or belief or hope like I used to. You love me the same, maybe even more, but I’m different. And I-- want a place for that...stuff. That missing stuff that just belonged to Alive-Me.”

Deirdre looked back at the gravestones, overtaken by nature, forgotten by time--pillars of memory. She knew enough lonely ghosts to fill her own obituary. She’d seen enough deaths that would remain unanswered to know the great tragedy of one gone unmourned. But it didn’t work in black and white. The gravestones were relics practically, if there existed a soul who cared about the names written on them, they hadn’t visited. The ghosts thought it worse that the flowers left at their grave slowly dwindled over the years, just as the memory of them faded. And every loss was mourned, even if the person they were mourning wasn’t dead. Death was both never invisible and always, but she knew that wasn’t Morgan’s point. “Where would you put her? Your alive-self. Where would you bury her?” Deirdre longed to tell Morgan that she still warmed her, that she always made beauty, that her hope hadn’t left at all---but refrained. Morgan would always miss herself, how could she not? It didn’t matter how perfect Deirdre thought Morgan was, it wouldn’t bring anything back. And it wouldn’t stop Morgan’s rightfully deserved mourning. “Would you want a ceremony? We could do something...whatever you want. We could burn everything, bury it, I can buy you a plot of land and the best headstone any cemetery has ever seen. Tell me what you want it to be like.”

Morgan gave a wet laugh and squeezed Deirdre tight. She wasn’t sure why having Deirdre’s support, her tender questions and touches struck her with the kind of gentleness that melted and stung. “Oh. Um--I didn’t think that far. Well, not realistically. I thought, alive me liked those dates at the beach we had, so maybe I should put something in the sand or float it off to sea. Or she could go in the back yard, in the flower beds, and she could pretend like she was helping to grow the flowers Moira likes to play in. Or, um, gee, if I actually left behind a body, I’d get to have the fun debate of whether to get buried in Texas or get buried here. And, maybe my bereaved girlfriend would get me one of those big fancy statues goth kids take pictures under, but like, more pagan, because judgey angels aren’t really my thing, or our thing. Or maybe there would be a pyre, like we had in the forest, and someone could say...here burns the Morgan that was. She made crystals out of dirt and trash and sold them for tens and hundreds of dollars on Etsy. She cried over dead deer, and the cats that spent their lives in animal shelters, and the parts in Grey’s Anatomy where they saved lives in the nick of time, and sometimes herself, because no one else would. And um…” Morgan shrugged, laughing now in the kind of way that hid tears. “...For a while her only real friend was her cat Anya, but she came to...stupid, probably-cursed White Crest, Maine and almost made everything different for the better. She had friends, and roommates, and a job she didn’t hate, and big, dramatic love, and there were even days when her magic was actually good for helping people. She believed, more than anything, that she could make things different. That she...had a better life, just around the corner. And it never felt closer to it than when she…” Morgan pulled away to scrub her hands over her eyes, breathing tenuously through the sobs that wanted to break through her chest. “She had so much hope, she died thinking she could say ‘I love you’ one more time, even though her lungs were probably filling up with blood. It was so stupid, but she really...thought she could…” She tried breathing again, but the sobs she was holding in broke and she couldn’t make herself say any more.

Deirdre reached for Morgan again, anchoring her back as she pulled away. She wrapped her arms around her; tight, secure, as if she knew nothing else. Hearing Morgan's sobs rack her undead body, spurring to life dead lungs, and a eulogy spoken with shattering honesty, Deirdre made poor work of trying not to cry. For all the love she held, she could not take this pain away. But she kissed her like she could, pressing her lips to every exposed inch of skin she could reach—urgent, rough and desperate.  Between each breath she spilled was an unspoken declaration of love, and ending each quivering sob was one of devotion. She gathered herself together just enough to speak. "Texas, obviously. Your family is there. I'd fly every one of our friends out to see you there if I had to. And I'd get a monument here too; I don't know why you'd have to be remembered in just one place. I obviously deliver a eulogy that makes everyone cry—I'd tell them all about how amazing you are, how much love you put into the world, how strong-willed, how you fight even when you don't have a fighting chance, and how brave you are. How unfathomably brave.” Deirdre sniffled, memories of Morgan’s death surged through her mind. She could remember where the rod was, which parts of Morgan hadn’t been stained by blood, the way her legs bent. “I’d tell everyone how much I love you. How much I’ll always love you. And how lucky I am, to have been loved by you too---how lucky I am right now.” She leaned down to kiss her again, whining as her lungs burned and forced them apart. “But you’re here, Morgan. You’re here and you get to decide how you want to remember yourself, how you want others to. And you get to say ‘I love you’ as many times as you want now.” She breathed out, trying to calm her rapid heart, which was only trying to adjust for the way her stiff body resisted crying more than she already did. “What do you want to do right now? We could...have a mini-ceremony...for now. Anything. Whatever you need.”  

It was almost a relief to hear Deirdre cry. The last time Morgan had declared how dead she was, Deirdre had been too intent on holding her together to cry for any of it. But there was an ache to the words she gave, to the way she fastened her against her body. Maybe Deirdre didn’t miss Morgan the way she missed herself, but she hurt for her, cried for her, and still carried a wound from that awful day. Morgan imagined that their hurt throbbed in synchronous harmony, that something was missed together, even if they felt it differently. Morgan didn’t know the word for it, she could only think of it as a kind of magic, two disparate parts brought into the same vibration and bound closer until they looked like one. As Deirdre held her, there was no rush of cold, no illusion of being submerged into her deathly calm. But there was still the weight of her, steady as gravity, keeping her fastened to the earth, to the life she still reached for, no matter how far away it drifted. Morgan pressed back into her, filling her hands with as much of Deirdre as she could fit.

She could imagine everything Deirdre said so perfectly, that even if she’d stayed sleeping and broken, Deirdre would have done everything for her. She would have found out where her family was, she would have brought her down to be with her family and made a place where they could be together. Even if she had stayed dead, there would have been a way to stay close to her. She turned to look at her love as she heard her cry, and stoked back her tears. “I love you,” she stammered, gasping through cries of her own. “I love you, Deirdre. I love you so much.” She sniffled. “Even if I hadn’t pulled myself together this much, it’s pretty good, to be able to tell you. That I--” Another sob heaved out of her and she hid herself back against Deirdre’s body, aching for the soothing wave of cold being this close used to give her. “Breathe, okay? Breathe for me, my love,” She sniffled and tried to remind her lungs how to work too, wheezing for breath as she struggled. “You. You saved me, when I came back. And I love you, and I want you with me. And I want...something, even a small something that...that proves what happened to me wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Everything’s been so hard ever since, it wasn’t nothing. Do you think...we could bury something I kept? A crystal, or something else I made, or can’t use anymore? It can be at home, or on the beach, or anywhere else. It doesn’t really have to be some...gothic statue. It can just be...something that can rest. I want that. If those parts of me can’t come back, they can at least rest somewhere. I’m not going to be able to anytime soon, you know? But, when we get home. For now, we can just lay here for a little while. If you want that too--?” She mumbled most of her words into her shoulder and held on tighter.

Deirdre held Morgan tighter, with great fanatical desire to meld their bodies together—hold her pain inside of her, take it away and give her all of the love that bloomed instead. She imagined that in her arms held her gratitude, for whatever God there was, or whatever twist of fate it might have been that allowed Morgan to speak those words as many times as she wanted. For each 'I love you', Deirdre swelled with her own 'thank you's—to Morgan, to the world. "You're one to tell me to breathe," she laughed, pressing a kiss to Morgan's forehead. Her lungs might have protested, and her heart might have had an argument or two lined up, but she knew how important being able to hold Morgan—kiss Morgan—the right way was. Not just for Deirdre's sanity, but for the desperation to feel she knew coiled inside of Morgan. She must have read Morgan's letters and words about her cold body a dozen times, she must have asked to hear them a dozen more, but she never dared ask if Morgan missed it. She knew the answer, and Deirdre had a response of her own. She held her tighter. Closer. Her head against her chest, flush to the slow pounding of the heart that beat for her. She might have frozen her body if she thought it'd bring back the feeling for Morgan, but there were better ones she could make. That she was learning how to make. "If I saved you, then you've saved me a thousand times, Morgan." Deirdre smiled and nodded. "Okay. As soon as we get home, we'll do that. We'll find the right piece, and the right spot. And if you want some pillar to remember where it rests, we'll do that too." For her arguments—that all of Morgan, and especially those parts she thought she lost, had never left—she shook them away. This wasn't about that, she knew it. Even as she ached to reassure her, to tell her love of all the beauty she had never stopped seeing—all the magic that existed inside of her; in her smile or her eyes or the delight of her laughter. "Do you miss her?" Deirdre asked after a moment. She knew the rudimentary answer to the question, and she'd inquired down similar paths before, but she asked knowing time had passed since her last query and she always loved to hear Morgan's thoughts anyway. Even if she heard them a hundred times before, even if she knew them by heart. "Yourself. As you were before you died. Do you miss her?"

Morgan sighed into all of Deirdre’s kisses and touches, soaking up each cotton brush of ghost feeling as if it fueled the magic keeping her alive. She whined, wordlessly asking for more, and brought them down to lay on the blanketed ground. She could touch more of her at once this way, and if she closed her eyes, it even seemed like her romantic fantasy of alchemizing themselves had come true, the two of them, distinct and dissolved at once. “I miss getting goosebumps when you touch me, and the way it was like falling into melting ice water when I put my head against you. And I miss pasta night, and tacos, and pie, and Al’s. I don’t care about it anymore, but even that was nice. And I miss the way you made fun of my hair when it was all flat and sticky after sex. I miss falling asleep in your arms, and naps in the afternoon with Anya.” She sniffled, remembering the little black cat and how they used to pad around the house together, enough that she would sometimes call Anya her shadow. She kissed Deirdre wherever she was closest, passing back whatever vitality, whatever warmth that went beyond physical sensation. Back and forth between them, in such a balance that they always seemed to be bursting with an abundance of feeling. “I miss breathing. And my heartbeat. And getting sweaty. And being so tired I could practically fall over. And smelling my own cooking, and...my magic. There were years when the Universe was the only one who would really hold me at all, when it was just me and my magic and trying to break the curse. I could just make the world prettier with a touch of my fingers. And patience. Alive-Me would never have lost my temper at you, not the way I have since I died. And she never threw a real punch in her life. She thought she could power her way though anything, and that habit is still there, but it’s hard not to second guess or feel like an idiot when I know that it’s just the kind of thinking that helped get me killed. And sometimes it feels like...those parts of her couldn’t take it, and that’s why they stayed behind. She was so naive because it just hurt too much, after everything awful that had happened, to realize that’s what most of the world was going to be. She thought she couldn’t find that happy other side because of her curse, but there’s just...more mess, and more unfairness from people who don’t care enough to make things different. We have to make our own good. It was never gonna fall out of the sky like some weird Christian angel light.”

She shifted on the ground to look at Deirdre and brush away the wetness on her cheek. “Do you miss her too? You can say, if you do. I know you love this me too, and you’ll love me longer, just by, you know, how math and linear time works. You can tell me, Deirdre.”

Just as Morgan spoke, memories were breathed into existence. Deirdre closed her eyes and allowed them to filter through her mind. She knew the way Morgan shivered to her touch and the delight that curled up her own lips at the sight---she was different from all the humans that flinched or shrieked, she seemed to like the cold just as much as Deirdre. She remembered nights of fighting Anya for Morgan’s affection--some happy medium was reached with Anya in Morgan’s lap and Morgan in Deirdre’s--with their plates stained by pasta sauce sitting unattended on the table (Deirdre would pick them up later, but it always spurred a whine to be pulled away from Morgan). Plans of a breakfast at Al’s would be shared between them, right before Morgan fell asleep in Deirdre’s arms---she always waited to hear her breathing to lull her to sleep. She knew well the way that sweat built on Morgan’s body, the places she’d grow the warmest in, and the way her hair stuck flat to her reddening face---she remembered each time she brushed that hair away, pressed kisses to her burning cheeks and watched with awe as Morgan caught her breath. Deirdre opened her eyes. Lazy rolling clouds above greeted her. “For each moment that will remain a memory, there are new ones…” She sighed, speaking to herself. She might not have been able to watch Morgan shiver, but that didn’t matter much when she could feel every bump and curve for herself. Moira would wiggle her way between them. Morgan watched eagerly for her reaction to her latest cooking venture, unable to taste for herself. Deirdre slept now to the sound of Morgan’s voice, holding her love tight in her arms, and woke just the same way. They didn’t go to Al’s anymore, but she wouldn’t replace their morning jogs for anything else. And sex--well, now the only limitation was Deirdre’s abundant stamina.

“That’s why I don’t miss it. I don’t miss her.” She smiled, quickly catching up to explain herself. “I don’t see you as lacking anything, you know that. And if that’s how I think...there’s nothing for me to miss. I love you, just like this. Just as you are, always. I don’t want to be thinking about anything else, I don’t want to look at you and think about the things that aren’t. You’re perfect to me. You always have been, and you always will be. So, no, I don’t miss it. I...well--not like how you miss it, at least. I don’t want to, and I won’t allow myself to. What kind of a person would I be if I thought that way? If I missed what I have?” She tilted her head down, pressing a kiss to Morgan’s nose. She wouldn’t be sure she was making sense, and she figured she probably wasn’t--even for as impeccable Morgan was at deciphering her thoughts--but she felt it in her heart. To claim she missed something was to say there must have been an absence, and there wasn’t. Morgan wasn’t less to her, she never would be. Morgan might have mourned the pieces of her that were gone, and she should, but Deirdre never would allow herself that. She never would indulge the idea. “I miss you when you’re gone from me. I missed you that one day I had to wait for you to wake. I miss you when I’m at work. I don’t miss the things we used to do, I remember them and I’m happy they happened, and I love what we can do now just the same. How you were when you were alive...to me that’s still you now. I just won’t do it. I won’t miss you when I have you.” She paused. “But I know you miss it. I won’t stop you from doing that, and I’ll always be here if you want to talk about it--or remember it. But every trip to Al’s we don’t take, we’ve replaced with hikes and picnics and graveyard visits or movies at home. And I love that. And if that changed, if we had to replace those moments with something else, I won’t miss them either. Because I’ll love what we do next, and I’ll always love whatever it is we do next. However it is we change. I would have loved you as an old woman, I’ll love you as an immortal. I don’t miss it. I have you.”

Deirdre closed her eyes again. “I think Alive-You would have lost your temper at me all the same. Alive-You might have grown to learn more painfully about the world. She might have thrown a good punch one day. She’s not so different from you. She was just alive.” When she opened them, the cloud had shifted and somewhere beyond them she knew a world continued to turn. Change was inevitable; to the living and to the dead. But it wasn’t so bad to mourn what changed. “Your optimism isn’t what got you killed. That was Constance.”

Morgan thumbed Deirdre’s cheek as she spoke, watching every turn of her expression, trying to follow her down her maze of thought. She liked their life, which had grown around her death like weeds bursting through asphalt. She was stronger since she died, and maybe even before then, without all of the extra curse-related anxiety and running for her life. There were hunters, still, but she was learning how to handle that, and they were so much easier to get rid of than a ghost or a curse. But she was still drifting in a strange form that kept her at one degree of remove. And yet to hear Deirdre speak of her, it was as though nothing had been severely disrupted, as though their life had merely taken an unexpected turn in its ever continuous growth towards abundance. “You can let yourself miss something,” she whispered, confused. “You don’t have to lock that away…”

But Deirdre was so confident, so gentle and firm with her estimation of the past and everything that had changed shape around their present, their future. From Deirdre’s lips, their life was a wonder, something to be faced with the same curiosity she approached a freshly gored corpse, its bones shining with promise. Morgan couldn’t imagine taking the ache of the pieces they’d left by the wayside. There were days when everything different she did felt like a desperate excuse to cover up what was missing. No damage! Nothing to see here! Morgan even tried to imagine how she might approximate her new self into those spaces she’d left behind. What if she could go for a burger and not feel alienated out of her existence by not being able to taste it right? The thought of having to shift again for the sake of some other cataclysmic change frightened her. She had just gotten morning jogs and bone crafts. She didn’t want to jettison those too someday. But the years ahead of them were long, and if she dared to look at them, she would know that it was all but inevitable. But she kissed Deirdre tearfully instead, and brought them tight into each other’s grasp once again.

“W-wow, I really don’t deserve you, babe,” she whispered, trying to make her voice light. “But I am so glad I have you. I mean, keeping me around even when I was old and decrepit? That would’ve been a lot to take on. I will, hypothetically speaking, have a lot of fun poking at your gray hairs, but that would be a long way off, obviously…” Morgan’s voice caught, unable to keep up the game she was playing with herself. “Why do I feel so different if we’re the same? What Constance did to me--she-- Why are there days when there’s even less of me than there is right now? And you don’t know that Alive-Me would have stormed out or yelled. Apparently multiple zombies have written that they feel more aggressive after they die, more prone to being...awful, and--” Morgan brought her head down to rest on Deirdre’s shoulder. She didn’t know why she was trying to convince her that things were worse or less than before now. She cherished the survival of their love more than anything else she had managed to keep, though the list felt pretty short. “I don’t know what I’m saying anymore,” she mumbled into her skin. “I love you. I want this to be good. I want to be here, and feel more okay. If I could just skip to the part where none of this hurt and we’re good and doing our best, that’d be really great.”

“I’m not locking it away. It just---even if I try to think about the things we can’t do anymore, I just remember all the new things we do instead. And I get excited for everything else we might do in the future. It’s not--life is a stream, as I see it. It’s hard to swim up-river and say I miss it. I--does that make sense?” Deirdre grimaced at herself. It probably didn’t. She watched Morgan consider it, her thoughts flickering across her face in the turn of her expressions. When she spoke next, Deirdre shook her head. “I could say the same thing about you…” She leaned into the quiver in Morgan’s voice, matching it was a steadiness in hers. If only she could make things better with just the sound of her gentleness, or the pressure of her arms around Morgan, or her words or any number of the things she did that made her wish she could pull Morgan’s pain away. “I would do anything for you, my love. I would then, I would now.” And yet, there was only so much she could do. She couldn’t kiss Morgan like a lullaby to sleep any more than she could love her heart to reanimation. Even that hadn’t changed much from before; she couldn’t ease away Morgan’s curse or the trauma it wrought. The feelings of love never shifted, the desire for care never wavered. Morgan’s pain, in the same way, had only turned to another source. Life was cyclical, wasn’t it? “Because you died. You died and nothing can change that fact, but you’re not some new person--not entirely. I--you died, Morgan. Of course that feels...different.” Deirdre frowned, clumsily stumbling through her explanation. “You don’t know that she wouldn’t have. Isn’t anger just a natural reaction to pain? And you have so much pain. I don’t---none of this is bad to me, Morgan. But I understand how terrible it must be for you. You don’t have to see it the way I do; you’ll figure it out your own way, I know you will.” Deirdre laughed gently, a sound bred more out of a need to prevent an onset of tears than some kind of joy. “It’s okay. You can say whatever you want, whatever you’re thinking. I want to know, always. And I’m forever glad you share yourself with me like this.” She shifted, urging Morgan’s head up with her hands, just enough so she could kiss her better. To kiss her like sacrament, offering prayers of a brighter future and present--to absolve pain and allow it passage to what existed beyond it. “It’s fine. Whatever you are--now, tomorrow, forever--it’s okay, I’m sure I’ll love her too. Don’t worry about...being anything else than what you are, Morgan. Just feel...however you want to feel.” She kissed her again--the benediction.  

Only Deirdre could have spoken so calmly and perfectly of rivers and tides and in doing so washed away the harshest sting of Morgan’s confusion. Maybe that was why she felt stuck on her worst days; there was a tide trying to carry her one way, and all her pain was driving her the other way. In this moment, with her voice as steady as the Earth’s turn, as the resting hum of the energy in the universe, Deirdre’s voice cut through the stagnation and carried Morgan to safety. Morgan nodded along to her words, as rapt as if they were the gospel of the stars. Yes, she was a babbling mess, and that was okay. Yes, she was in pain, no matter what she did she couldn’t shake or bury her pain completely like she had when she was alive. Sometimes when she could bear to look ahead more than a few days, she feared that pain was all that lay ahead for her. If dying hadn’t been enough to stop it, surely nothing would. And the unfairness and the heaviness that came with this fear made her snap at each new hurt that got added to her pile. That was no excuse, but Deirdre’s silent forgiveness fell over her as surely as any cleansing charm.

Morgan took Deirdre’s face in her hands and kissed her as if she were the scion of salvation. If she drank enough of her in, blessed herself with enough of her touch, maybe she could finally will the strange property allowed her banshee to see goodness and certainty in a world marked with death to come into herself and stick as seamlessly as any alchemy she’d ever performed. Morgan clung to her with all her strength, reaching for that hope with each tug of her lips. What tears she had been fighting to keep back fell harmlessly past her lashes and dried up. Morgan was consumed only by this moment, this needling urgency to taste Deirdre’s conviction in exchange for surrendering all her messy doubts and worries. “I want that,” she murmured between kisses, meaning I want it now. For all the frustration and hurt that roiled silently in her dead body, Morgan hadn’t lost the human need for urgency, and so she pressed Deirdre’s body against hers as if it was that magical horizon in the land of ‘better,’ as if she could make come to her by dragging it over with her bare hands, as if it were magic itself. She pulled away  just as her longing bottomed out into hunger, when hope watered in her mouth like desire and Deirdre’s neck seemed as gratifying as any tomorrow she could ever look forward to. “I love you,” she said, voice cracked and starved for air. “Thank you. I am...trying. I can keep trying. I want everything you said. And you’ll be here? And you’ll take me home? And we’ll… we’ll keep going until we can’t, and we’ll make everything as good as we can.”

Loving Morgan always felt inexpressibly right; a place where everything fit and all the world faded away. It was the two of them, against the tides of the earth, the pull of life and death around them. The two of them, standing together at the frontier of something brighter than bright. Deirdre couldn't explain it. She had tried countless times to commit the feeling to words; to write it down or vocalize it in a signature metaphor, but she could only ever pick at the surface. When Morgan said "I love you", it never was just those three words. When Deirdre said it back, it too was something much greater than she knew how to say. Love to her had been nonexistent, conditional or something dangled in front of her like a goal she might reach if she was just good enough for it—her fault then, if it was never given. But with Morgan, everything was different. She never had the words to explain how much everything meant to her, how much Morgan meant to her. All she could say was— "I love you too." And kiss her back. "One day," she murmured against her, "I'll be able to tell you just how much, with the right words. One day, maybe, I'll just be able to love all of the pain away. I want that. I wish I could right now." There never was an old Morgan and a new one, not to her. Always just Morgan, just the woman she loved most. "I'll be here for you. There's no place I'd rather be. And I'll take you home, I'll take you anywhere you want to go. I love you." Deirdre held her tighter, squeezing her arms around her girlfriend as hard as she could, for as long as she could and far past muscle aches. "No matter what happens, I love you. And if you want to mourn yourself, I'll be here. And, well—maybe I wish we weren't in such a public place." Deirdre laughed lightly, keenly aware that even their intimate cuddling probably broke some modesty rules. "As good as we can…" she smiled, "I like that."

#when death comes #wr deirdre #wr chatzy #wr deirdre chatzy #//this might be our shortest chatzy in a hot minute #//bask in brief glory #wickedswriting

[kunrendeotaku]

Chapter 9

“Oookay, we should probably get going!” I immediately reach over to grab Star by the shoulders, hoping to drag her away using this perfect distraction. Unfortunately for me, Janna recovers faster than I believed possible. She looks mostly like her usual self, but I dislike the look in her eyes even more than usual. “Well, you two can leave if you gotta… or I could show you a little bit of Earth magic. I’m a witch, you know, hehehe.”

The next thing I know I’m being spun around to be planted right back on Janna’s doorstep. Star’s hands are clutching the front of my hoodie, and she yells right into my face “I -knew- it! No dimension could survive without magic. Stupid Earth immigration class.” I wince, wondering if my new friend will ever learn how to turn down her volume. Thankfully she releases me and bounces over to Janna instead. “Show me show me show me! Witchy stuff on Mewni is usually suuuuper creepy, but magic is magic right?”

This is it. Today is definitely the day I die. Nothing good can happen from this pair teaming up… “Yeah, like, totally.” Janna brushes off Star’s words, probably barely even listening. She has a terrible habit of getting into her head when she’s got a scheme in mind, which throws even more warning alarms off in my own brain. I briefly consider just leaving and coming back later, but I know I’m too tied to my responsibilities as Star’s guide to leave her alone, so I just sigh and follow the pair of girls inside.

Contrary to all expectations, the inside of Janna’s house is perfectly normal to the untrained eye. Nothing creepy or evil or witchy, no traps or hidden caches of forbidden knowledge. I know better, being her primary victim-I’m certain every single painting on the walls and rug casually tossed on the floor is hiding secrets. We’re walking through the living room when Star and I are just about shocked out of our socks. A pair of blank, peaceful voices speaking in unison greet us with “Oh, hello Marco Diaz. Welcome again to our wonderful home.” They sip what I deeply suspect are empty teacups with identical dumb looks on their faces, eyes dull and smiles polite.

It's been a while since I last saw Mr. and Ms. Ordonia. Janna’s mother looks like an older, lighter skinned version of her, while her father seems like the kind of guy who was bullied for being a nerd in highschool (I know the type). They’ve always been polite and boring, but this is the first time I’ve seen them look so… zombified. Hell, they were just silently sitting on the sofa when we came in, staring at nothing! We didn’t even notice until they’d spoken. Star seems to also get the idea that something is wrong, and looks rather confused at not being able to figure out quite what it is.

I, however, already have a good idea at who the culprit is. I turn to glare at Janna and throw my hand up at her parents. “Janna! What the heck did you do to them?” She frowns at this delay, likely mostly bothered by being unable to continue whatever scheme she is planning with Star. After a shrug, she simply replies “I dunno. They seem fine to me.” In time with her saying that, the pair once again pick up their teacups and sip at them with better coordination than the Echo Creek High cheerleaders often have. While that's not saying much, it’s still unsettling to watch.

Just as I open my mouth to continue arguing, Star apparently loses patience. Deciding to leave the poor family to their fates, she snags both Janna and my wrists and starts dragging us to the stairs. How she knows Janna’s room is upstairs, I don’t know. Maybe she just assumed all teens have their rooms on the second floor? “Nobody cares Marco! It’s Magic time.” Janna seems briefly surprised by Star dragging her up as well, but is over it quickly by the smug wink she throws my way. Absolutely infuriating.

We stop only when Star realizes that she has absolutely no idea where she is going. Luckily before she can get the bright idea to start kicking in doors, Janna takes the lead and opens one of them up herself, revealing what I had finally been expecting all along. Its like if a goth, a witch, and...a mechanic for some reason? All had a baby. And that baby was a room. Ugh, that was a terrible metaphor. “This. Is. Amazing!” So Star exclaims while I’m in the midst of mentally face palming.

“Yeah, it's pretty rad. This is where I get up to most of my magic stuff.” Janna claims, wandering around the room cluttered with shrunken heads, skulls, nuts and bolts, and things I don’t even have a name for. “Watch out for Vladimir. That's my giant centipede, he gets out all the time.” I glance over at an empty terrarium and shudder, already feeling like something is crawling over my back. It's been years since I last visited Janna’s room-maybe her eighth birthday party? She was so much less crazy then… or maybe just better at hiding it. I did remember her shoving a pile of stuff into her closet before we were allowed inside.

I don’t know if it's because of who Star is or where she comes from, but she seems perfectly comfortable inside the awful room. Even adding her own little flair of weirdness, since we’re still all covered in glitter that kind of flecks off every few seconds. “So how does Earth magic work? Do you have a wand? Spells? A cauldron, or a book? Ohhh, maybe talismans and charms!” Janna glances back at Star and grins, then yanks open the door to her aforementioned closet. She’s clearly renovated whatever it was originally, as it opens up into what looks almost like a stone room, lit only by candles. I see a pentagram drawn in what definitely can’t be blood on the floor, and a shrine in the corner that for some reason has a picture of me?!

That can’t be good… I walk over to Star and put a hand on her shoulder, glaring at Janna and her little reveal. “Earth magic doesn’t work, Star. It's all bologna. She’s probably just gonna try to trick us into a séance or something where she says vague things that anybody's grandma could say! It's a hoax.” Star frowns, clearly unhappy with my assessment of all of this nonsense. She places her hand on my chest and shoves me back, before walking over towards Janna with a hmph. “Well I for one know Earth magic is real! How else would doorbells and light switches work if not for creepy demon rituals?”

I’m shocked by my first real rejection from Star. Is this her rebellious phase?! Wait, she’s always been a rebel! That's how she got sent here in the first place! Still, not being trusted kinda hurt more than I expected. I wonder why? We barely know each other, of course we’re gonna disagree… “Exactly, Star. Marco’s just a skeptic. He probably doesn’t believe in any magic at all-even yours.” Janna leads Star into her little closet, the latter blowing a raspberry at me. Ugh, why do I even hang out with these girls?

Seeing little choice in the matter, I follow the pair into Janna’s spooky closet to find them kneeling around the pentagram. The door slams shut behind me, which is only to be expected in this horrible home of Janna’s. Still gives me a mini-heart attack. “C’mon, Marco. There’s no harm in playing along if you don’t think it's real, right?” Janna and Star are kneeling around her pentagram on the floor, holding hands. They extend their free hands to me, “Yeah, Marco. Like, don’t be a chicken. You have to complete the circle.”

God above, I’m definitely going to die here. “We are going to talk about why you have a picture of me on a creepy shrine later, Janna.” I mutter, but eventually kneel down and take their hands. They’re right after all, as long as Star’s wand doesn’t act up nothing should -actually- happen. For all her craziness, Janna isn’t a real witch, right…?

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #rating: mature #marco diaz #fanfiction #fanfic

[princeanxious]

💕: “Years I’ve spent dormant in the earth, thinking of my horrible revenge upon humanity, yet when you set me free I suddenly had seconds thoughts” for Anxciet? :>

,,,,i tried! (This isn’t beta’d so all mistakes are mine) enjoy theres two disaster gays!

Virgil had bought the golden gothic locket from a seemingly innocent and unassuming booth at the market, the booth owner had been sweet and kind and had even given him a discount on it because it matched his aesthetic! And well, as a struggling college student, how was he to say no?

He’d worn it days on end, feeling safe with the weight of it resting against his collarbone, careful to maintain the little locket’s nice condition with the occasional TLC. Never had he expected anything more from the small little locket, even when his nightmares noticeably died down after receiving it. Leave it to an entitled thief at the park later that month to prove him wrong.

It was pretty late in the day and Virgil was chilling on a bench, sketching a concept piece in his sketchbook. Occasionally he would pause to get a gauge on his visual, his non-dominant hand loosely clutching the locket as he fiddled with the intricate engravings. Honestly, it was no wonder that it would gain him some looks from time to time, being a bright but still gothic gold, it was the only stand out color that he wore amongst his dark blacks and purples.

“Excuse me, Sir?” A female voice from a distance called out, causing Virgil to glance up. A pretty woman was flirtingly sauntering up to him, obviously trying to catch his attention with a self-satisfied smirk when his eyes met hers and flicked away again. She seemed sure she’d caught his full attention now, completely oblivious to the fact that Virgil was completely and utterly gay, not to mention uninterested in the confrontation.

“I couldn’t help but notice, you’ve got a pretty cute necklace there. Where’d ya get it, honey?” She laid it on thick, batting her eyes and speaking in a heavily, almost too suspiciously sweet tone. Virgil blinked at her, once, twice.

“Um..? I don’t think you’ll get one exactly like mine but there’s a vender that-“ The girl held her hand up to silence him, before looking at her nails with a sorely fake, sorrowful look.

“Oh that just won’t do, Doll. I like yours! Any chance I could buy it off you?” Virgil blinked at her, and tried not to chuckle, completely confused. Who walks up to a stranger, offering to buy their own personal items off of them?

“Uhh, no? It’s uhm, it’s a gift from my grandma, and I’m not willing to part with it.” That was a lie, of course, but lately he’d been finding himself a little more comfortable with doing that lately if it meant it got him out of harmless situations like this. Plus, he really didn’t want to give it up! However, the stranger did not seem to want to accept that answer.

Before he knew what was happening, this woman was screaming at him, calling him entitled and a rotten, selfish teenager, and plenty of other nasty things under the sun. Immediately, the sudden onslaught had caused Virgil to curl up, staring up wide eyed and terrified of the older woman now standing above him and shouting at him. Then his body’s shaking began, and Virgil knew he was in for it. He’d frozen up like a petrified fawn in front of an over glorified wolf, and the overwhelming negative emotions being projected at him was tearing him apart inside.

Getting fed up with the boy’s lack of response, she reached for the necklace, growling out “If I can’t have it, then no body can!” Before giving a sharp tug. The old metal snapped, causing Virgil to jerk back as he watched this stranger slam the fragile locket to the concrete pavement. It made a sickening crack as it broke in two. However, before the woman could truly be satisfied with her wrath and before Virgil could properly mourn his loss, black smoke billowed out and around the two. Virgil, still on the verge of an emotional breakdown, could only think about how that much smoke couldn’t have naturally fit in that tiny locket.

The woman stumbled back, temporarily broken out of her petulance to escape the pitch black smoke with a shout. In a matter of seconds, the smoke asmassed together and tightly formed together, before dissipating. In its wake, a tall, lean man was left in its place. He wore dark clothing, a suit of dark grey and a golden accented vest, a dark bowler hat tilted stylishly upon his dark hair. His back was facing Virgil, but the woman, from what Virgil could see, looked terrified.

“Well, Hello there. I didn’t think I’d be summoned by something so pathetic.. one hundred years in that stupid prison and this is the welcoming I get?” The woman was still in utter disbelief, glancing over to Virgil with confused anger resurfacing.

“Is this some kind of act? You think I’m an idiot, huh, Brat? Just because you’re friend was able to pull this,-” She gestured towards the particularly disinterested man in front of her, “this stupid prank or whatever off! I’ll sue you for harassment!”

At this point, the woman looked haughty and ready to do something even more rash. However, before she could move, the man flicked his wrist, and the woman’s hand slapped over her mouth.

“My, you could drone on and on, couldn’t you? Please, a mortal like you doesn’t scare me. Now please, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave.” The woman’s eyes briefly flashed yellow, and she turned around and walked off without a huff. With a sigh, the man turned around to the bench to sit, only to pause as he finally took notice of the shaking man curled up on the bench. Now Virgil could see why the woman had been surprised, realistic green scales were attractively scattered up one side of the man's face, his eyes mismatched of green and yellow. For a being that was apparently trapped within that locket for at least, what, a hundred years? He still looked as sharp as a young adult, and attractive too.

“Oh, hello.” The man’s voice had softened considerably, apparently surprised into sympathy at seeing a young man so visibly shaken. Before Virgil could muster up a response or even figure out a proper reaction to the situation, the man dipped elegantly to one knee, bowing in front of Virgil with the flourish of his hat.

“Excuse me, my dear. I didn’t mean to startle you! I am called Dorian, however, you can call me anytime.~” The mysterious man called Dorian held out a hand to Virgil, smiling warmly when the young man’s shaking hand rested itself in the others gloved hand. “You’ve been caring for me in all this recent time, I recognize that panicked heartbeat, My Dear. How lucky am I?” Dorian’s adoring gaze never left Virgil’s pretty flushed face as the other brought the still trembling hand to his lips. All Virgil’s frazzled mind could think to do was make him giggle at the absurdity of the situation, and close his eyes and cover his face because his mind wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

Surrounded by his thoughts, he did not hear the other get up, nor did he feel when the other sat beside him. However, he did feel the arm that pulled him closer to the other man, gentle and loose, yet still comforting. For a few long moments the pair sat in silence.

As Virgil calmed down, his mind slowly came to terms that his company was not really human, but found that his tired mind did not really care. Lowering his hands, Virge glanced at the taller being next to him who was gazing up at the darkening shades of the sky. Leaning against Dorian’s arm a bit more, he joined the other in his gazing at the sunset splashed sky. Another long moment of silence stretched past them, before Dorian finally found his voice to speak.

“...Years I’ve spent dormant in the earth, thinking of my horrible revenge upon humanity, and yet when you set me free I suddenly had second thoughts..” Dorian hummed, meeting Virgil’s gaze solidly for a moment before gazing out across the park. “It’s been long since I’ve stretched these legs, used these eyes, held another so close.. I’ve missed it dearly. I hope you don’t mind, uh-“ Dorian paused, realizing what he’d forgotten. Here he was, cuddling with a mortal that he didn’t even know the true name of!

Virgil seemed to catch on, chuckling softly, “It’s Virgil, Dorian. My name? And.. don’t worry about it. I totally get being touch starved, dude.” Dorian smiled sadly, disappointed that this human was feeling the consequences of lack of contact too. He let the others name roll off his forked tongue, an inhuman purr escaping him at such a pretty name. Dorian didn’t miss the shiver that passed through Virgil in reaction to the deep voice, but kept his thoughts to himself about it for now.

“I think.. A proper night of introduction is in order. A walk around the park, or this fascinating city, if you will?” Dorian smiled, standing up and reaching out a gloved hand for Virgil to take. Accepting this weird fate, Virgil just shook his head with a smile and took the others hand, allowing Dorian, ever the gentleman, to link arms with him.

“What about your um, scales?” Virgil asked, hoping that they wouldn’t get anymore stares than a man in a suit and a man in full goth attire could attract. In a swift movement of a hand over Dorian’s face, the scales vanished. Replacing them was breathtaking vitiligo, the yellow eye becoming blue to accompany Dorian’s green one. Virgil laughed softly, face flushing at the beautiful man before him but still keeping his shy smile present.

“Now that that is settled, how about that walk, hmm?” Dorian grinned, and with Virgil’s agreeing nod, the two disaster gays from different times were off to traverse the city.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #sympathetic deceit #deceit sanders #anxceit #luka writes #writing request

[kisskissbanggang]

Ten Questions Tag (x4)

Rules: Answer the questions and add your own.

Tagged by @neocitybynight 💕

@neo-cultures

What’s your cultural background and where is your family from?

3/4 PacIslander. 1/4 white. Born and raised in the States.

How old is your tumblr?

About 1.5 years!

What’s your favorite genre to write or read?

Thrillers! Mysteries, suspense.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR MEGAN BABY?!?

I’m a grandma I’m not up on the memes but I do like me some Megan Thee Stallion

What year will you/ did you graduate from high school?

2011 lmao

Are you into makeup? (If so pls help me idk how to do mine 🙃)

Sure! Just can’t be fucked to put any on most days now.

Do you think it’s non practical to make chicken tenders in a microwave?

You do you babe, just make sure you’re fed.

Do you like mint chocolate? If so pls explain 🤔

Yes! Those little Andes mints in restaurants or on your pillows at hotels? Love them.

Where you into any other groups before you got into K-pop?

Groups? Sure. I’m an aged emo kid, FOB/MCR/P!atD were my life, along with Taking Back Sunday and Gym Class Heroes and Conra Starship.

What’s your sign and about how accurately or inaccurately does it describe you?

Capricorn sun and that’s fine. I’m fairly determined and try to remain grounded.

@byunbaekby

what is your favorite season and why?

The midst of fall like that week of Halloween where the air crisps up and the leaves are drifting.

who is your role model?

None, really. I guess me in ten years maybe.

what is your favorite book? give a short summary!

You know I don’t know? I still think about The Book Thief by Markus Zusak all the time though. The movie looked milquetoast at best and I don’t know how you do that with a story told by Death about a little girl growing accustomed to her new life with new guardians in war-torn Germany.

if you would redo your life from the beginning, would you?

Of course not. Some pains and praises should only be lived once.

have you ever been to a concert? if so, who?

Sure! A few. I’ve been to a Warped Tour and saw Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, Kesha, Too Many Zooz, Foo Fighters.

would you rather fight a horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses? sjdsdk

Can I please just pet either choice.

what color do you think represents your soul?

Hmm. Orange? Like a peachy orange? What color am I even thinking of?

do you sleep with the door closed or open?

Closed. It literally prevents fire spread in case of emergency lmao

what are your thoughts on mayonnaise?

Use in moderation and it’s 👌

what is one of your goals for the second half of 2020?

Calm down.

@in-my-neofeelings

what’s a quote that describes your life?

UHHH PASS.

if you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with all the free time?

Learn a language. Exercise. Write.

how do you imagine future you (maybe in 5-10 years)?

Married. Five dogs. Maybe a kid.

favourite color schemes?

Peach and lavender, pastel pink and baby blue, light grey and periwinkle

where would you like to travel?

Anywhere. The dessert. The outback. The ocean. Anywhere.

who’s someone you feel like you have a really big emotional connection to?

My partner.

would you rather be stargazing or watching the sunrise?

Sunrise!

tell us a few things that you love about yourself!!

I think I’m quite cute with nice hair and some good wit thank you very much. And I’m pretty decent in the kitchen.

if you could experience any of your fics/other fics irl which one would it be?

UHH. Oh god. Standby?

what distracts you the most (can be good or bad ahha)?

Tumblr. Cafe videos.

@neocitybynight

If you could live in one fictitious universe, what would it be?

Shoot me it’s Harry Potter

If your life were a teen movie, what high school archetype would you be?

Verbose art kid who’s sort of deep, sort of goth

What is your life mission?

Be proud of who I was five years ago.

Would you rather be able to play every instrument or know every language?

Every language!

If you could be in one of your own fics IRL, which one would you choose? (stealing this because it’s so good!)

EEEE I still think Standby. I’m coming out with something now which could be pretty exciting to live in.

Do you eat your toast with toppings or naked?

Butter, maybe a little blackberry jam.

If your life were a sitcom, which two NCT members would you want in your series-long love triangle?

Yuta and Doyoung gimme Learning to Share 😭

What is your spirit animal?

Used to think octopus, like a blue ring octopus. Maybe a fox.

What is your favorite food from your home country? (or in general, if you don’t feel comfortable sharing)

Biscuits and gravy?

Do you know how amazing you are?

More than I used to. 💕

My Questions:💕

What body part represents you?

What’s your favorite smell?

What is a detail you love about someone that you’ve never gotten to share?

Which finger is your favorite?

If you write, what’s a world building detail you’ve never gotten to share? If you don’t, what’s a headcanon you have for someone else’s au?

Describe a feeling or sensation you think you understand but have never experienced.

Carpet, hardwood, or tile?

What is your most prized possession that doesn’t hold any sentimental value?

What types of clouds do you prefer?

Can you tell me about the weather during your favorite memory?

Tagging: @hellapainyo @starxblossom @darkcb97 @sluttyten @channiesmixtape

#tag games #LONG POST #about me

[iamartemisday]

Pepperony Week Day Seven- AU

A/N: This will be a Nanny AU. Hope you enjoy and I hope you all had an amazing Pepperony Week!

**

Everyone hits rock bottom sometime.

For Pepper Potts, rock bottom was standing on the porch of an Upper East Side Manhattan townhouse ready to hock cheap makeup products to another bored housewife. Either that or get the door slammed in her face. Currently, she had a three to ten ratio.

"This is why you don't take a job in your cheating boyfriend's law office," she told herself again, just in case she didn't get the message the other six thousand times. "This is also why you don't date cheaters."

She knocked on the door and listened for footsteps. A tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes answered. He was dressed in what she'd come to find was a standard butler uniform. Great. One more door in the face.

"Hello," Pepper said, her well-rehearsed sales pitch ready to go. "My name is Virginia Potts, and-"

"Yes, we've been expecting you. Right this way, please." The butler stood aside, motioning for Pepper to come in.

She gripped the make-up case tighter, blinking stupidly for a moment as she processed the wide expanse of white marble interior and the well-dressed British man expectantly watching her.

"Uh… okay." There was a script for this, but she'd only skimmed it.

Entering the home was like walking into a cave. As Pepper took in the winding staircase and cathedral ceiling, she felt like going back outside just to check that the house wasn't bigger on the inside. Through one doorway was a dining room with a table built for twelve and an elegant chandelier. The living room was to the left. A boy sat on an onyx couch by the fireplace. It crackled merrily even though it was early August. The flow of central air didn't seem to be coming from a vent. At least, not one Pepper could see.

As she marveled at the sheer scope of this fairy tale dream home, the boy glanced up from his book. "Who's this?"

His tone wasn't rude, but it wasn't warm either. Pepper's first impression of the boy was aloofness, a common trait among teenagers if she remembered correctly.

"This is Virginia Potts, Harley," the butler said. "She's here to interview for the nanny position."

He glanced at Pepper to confirm. As she was now occupied with a decorative mirror on the wall which she was sure she'd seen in a movie somewhere, all she could do was nod her head. She barely heard the exchange anyway.

"I'll let Mr. Stark know you've arrived," he said, gliding down the hall as graceful as a gazelle. "If you'll wait one moment please."

There were no chairs anywhere except in the living room. The boy had returned to his book and didn't acknowledge Pepper when she stepped over the threshold onto the lushly carpeted floor. She didn't know if she should say something, or if she should even sit. If her grandma was here she'd coat this whole room in plastic covering and then never set foot in it again.

A second boy raced down the stairs, reaching the sixth step and jumping to the bottom. "Harley! I got it working. Now we can-" He stopped short of running into Pepper. In her heels, she was half a head taller than him, but he looked no younger than the boy on the couch. He also looked like he'd just broken about fifty rules. "Uh… sorry. I didn't know we had company."

"She's the new nanny Dad's going to hire to keep track of us," said the boy on the couch. "Because it's not like we're teenagers who can take care of ourselves. No, just have to get us a handler."

"Maybe he's still mad about the alpaca thing," the second boy mused.

The boy on the couch scoffed. "He was just pissed that we thought of it first. If anything it was the riverboat thing at the Summer gala last year."

As they ran through a list of unintelligible incidents which might have led them to this point, Pepper replayed the word 'nanny' in her head a few hundred times. Try as she might, it never sounded like anything else.

A door opened and a man stepped out. He wore an expensive suit, yellow-tinted sunglasses, and a thousand-watt grin made for magazine covers. "Good morning, you must be the new applicant Jarvis was telling me about."

Pepper shook his hand, trying to act as though he was a supervisor at the makeup company and not Tony Stark. The actual literal Tony Stark. Ridiculously rich genius inventor all of her friends had at the top of their celebrity crush lists. The last time she saw his face, he was on Ellen. Now he was talking to her.

"Hi, I'm Pepper," she said, forgoing all formalities. "It's… nice to meet you, Mr. Stark."

He grinned wider. "My reputation precedes me. Awesome. Let's talk." The doorbell rang. Jarvis approached but Tony stopped him with a hand. " That will be my daughter and her escort. Give me one second Ms. Pepper."

"Ms. Potts," she said, but he didn't appear to have heard. He opened the door and a pale young girl with a bright red pixie cut and a dark purple hoodie stood sullenly at the entrance. With her was a police officer.

"She was tagging dumpsters," the officer said, arms crossed.

Tony pursed his lips. "Thought she'd graduated to bridges. Guess I was wrong."

"That's the third time this month, Mr. Stark. Any more and I will have no choice but to arrest her."

"Hey now, let's not use the 'A' word in front of impressionable children, huh?" Tony stepped aside as the girl stomped past him. "This is a phase and she'll grow out of it. Now I'm sure you have lots of grocery store robberies to stop and kittens to rescue from trees, so I'll just let you go."

"I'm serious, Mr. Stark. Keep her in line."

"I assure you, no child of mine would ever cut in line. See you later, Stan." He shut the door and locked it. Pepper thought she heard a beep like a computer booting up. "Okay, that was exciting. Let me introduce you to your potential charges-to-be. Over there is Harley-"

The boy on the couch raised a hand but didn't wave.

"-this right here is Peter-"

"Nice to meet you," he said, his smile lighting up his face in such a way, Pepper had to resist hugging him.

"-and this bundle of sunshine is Nebula. Hey Neb, say hi to Ms. Pepper."

The girl was already halfway up the stairs with no signs of stopping. She mumbled a quick, "hello Ms. Pepper," and then she was gone.

"Don't mind her. It's a teenage thing. She'll write a few goth poems and be right as rain by tomorrow." Despite his dismissive tone, his eyes lingered on the top of the steps, as if he thought maybe she'd come back down. When she didn't, he rolled his shoulders and sighed. "Okay, let's go talk in my office."

Pepper followed him down the hall past a number of doors until they reached one hanging open. Inside was a room full of metal parts with bookshelves lining every wall. A couch and coffee table added a homey feel and by the windows was Tony's desk. A man and a woman stood by it. The man was tall and lean with sharp, handsome features. The woman petite and skinny, with a face that would make most men look twice.

"Hey guys, you mind if we take a break?" Tony sat in his plushy desk chair, spinning it once for good measure and propping his feet up. "Need to do a job interview. Ms. Pepper, allow me to introduce Loki Odinson, my business partner, and Dr. Jane Foster, our favorite benefactee."

The man, Loki, nodded politely but had nothing to say. Dr. Foster, by contrast, smiled and took Pepper's hand. She was overall quite personable and Pepper didn't miss the way Loki kept looking at her.

"I can bring you more information about the project tomorrow, Tony," Dr. Foster said. "I think this might be the big one."

Loki chuckled. "Yes, with a little hard work and elbow grease you'll finally defeat those baking soda volcanoes at the science fair."

Dr. Foster blew air out her nose. "Gee, thanks. Anyway, I need to head out. Have to be at the university in an hour to discuss my lecture and you know what Manhattan traffic is like this time of day."

"Be careful you don't get stepped on," said Loki.

"Don't mind them," Tony fake whispered as they glared at each other all the way out the door. "They act like they hate each other, but it's really just unresolved sexual tension. Pretty soon they'll snap and fuck on my desk or something."

"I can hear you," Dr. Foster shouted.

"That's good. Use a condom," Tony shouted back. He took his feet down and laced his fingers together, slipping into business mode like it was a second skin. "Okie Doke. I assume you have a resume somewhere in that makeup kit."

As it happened, she did. One never knew when they'd pass an office building with a help wanted sign in the window. Pepper had learned long ago to always be prepared for anything, and she hadn't made an exception here. Opening the case she whipped out a folder full of crisp white linen pages listing all the qualities that would make her an exceptional businesswoman. She handed it to Mr. Stark, hoping it could get her a job in childcare.

"Hmmm…" he rubbed his chin as his eyes raked across the page. "Mmm. You're in grad school. Working on your thesis, I see."

"It's a process. I'm almost done, but you know… one day at a time."

"Business management." Mr. Stark dropped the page. "I guess you could say raising a family is like running a business in a way. Communication and cooperation are key. We've all got to work together and respect each other."

"Of course," she said.

"We can't be afraid to let our colleagues know when they've made a mistake or are getting ready to set off a homemade explosive in the house."

"Yes sir," Pepper nodded. "I mean… what?"

She caught a whiff of the air. Ashy like something burning. A trail of gray smoke floated down the hall. There was a popping sound and one of the boys cursed. Pepper crossed the hall to find Peter on his knees tinkering with a miniature rocket booster. Said rocket was currently cradled in Harley's arms.

"Why don't these figures ever add up," Peter groaned, typing furiously.

"Did you carry the one?"

"Yes, for the hundredth time. I always carry the one."

Pepper looked to Mr. Stark, mouth wide. He maintained total serenity and motioned for her to step up. At first, she wanted to scream. He was the parent, not her. It was his job to stop them.

Except it would also be the nanny's job, and she was the nanny.

'I knew I should've taken the west end,' she thought, shuffling forward on uncertain feet. Neither boy acknowledged her until the toe of her shoe bumped their device. "Hey guys, you can't set that off in the house."

"Have you checked telemetry?" Harley asked Peter as if no one else had spoken.

"Everything's running normally. If I could just get this thruster to work."

"Excuse me," Pepper, kneeling to Peter's level. "Do you really think it's a good idea to launch a rocket indoors?"

"It's not dangerous," said Harley, rolling his eyes.

"It's just supposed to fly into the kitchen out the window and land in the yard," Peter explained. "We've calculated the distance based on the positioning of the booster and triple checked our math. There's no possible way this could go wrong."

"Well as long as the fuel doesn't leak out, but that probably won't happen," Harley interjected. "I'd say we have about a ninety-seven to ninety-eight chance of success."

Peter grinned innocently, trying his best to look cute and unthreatening. To his credit, he was good at activating those motherly instincts, but he was about seven years too old for it to stick.

"Okay, how about we try this another time?" Pepper pushed the booster into the wall, well of course for its intended trajectory. "Maybe out in the park would be better."

"It was made for this house," said Harley.

"The whole point is to get it out that window," Peter argued.

"And what if you miss and break something?"

"Dad won't mind. Right, Dad?"

Harley shot his father a pleading look, and to Pepper's consternation, Mr. Stark did not immediately shoot him down and send him to his room. He had a hand on his chin and seemed to actually be considering it.

"I don't know. Maybe it'll work." He eyeballed Pepper. "You sure they can't do it?"

There was that grin again. Either he really was screwing with her or her expression was just that hilarious.

"Are you kidding me?" she snapped, forgetting for a moment that she was talking to a guy rich and powerful enough to destroy her life with a snap of his fingers. That was the other thing about hitting rock bottom: you just plain stopped giving a shit. "They could destroy this whole house! Burn everything to the ground. They are not shooting that damn rocket in here." She rounded on Harley, who took a step back in surprise. "Give me the rocket."

He held it tight to his chest. "It's mine. I spent weeks working on it."

"Then you should've gone outside. Give it to me now."

"No!"

"Harley. Now!"

The moment seemed to drag on for hours. Harley stared defiantly at Pepper and she stared back. If he thought his scrawny teenage self would cow her, he should've spent a night babysitting her sister's kids. After that, there wasn't a child in the world who could bring Virginia Potts to her knees.

After a while, he seemed to realize that. Even with Peter offering silent but steady encouragement, his stance had weakened and his grip on the rocket's base had grown slack. Slowly he unfurled his arms. The rocket was heavier than Pepper expected and appeared to be full of liquid. Whatever it was, she didn't want to know.

"Let's go, Peter," Harley grumbled.

The two boys scurried upstairs without another word. Doors slammed and that was the end of it. Pepper let out a sigh which was cut short as she remembered the children's father standing right behind her.

'You just told off a pair of kids you just met like you're their mother,' her inner voice said. 'Are you ready for a tidal wave of pissed off entitled rich parent crap? Because you're about to get it.'

Except when Pepper turned to face the music, Mr. Stark was not scowling. In fact, he wasn't angry at all.

He was smiling.

And then he clapped.

No, he was full-on applauding her.

"Perfect," he said, that world-famous grin returning with a vengeance. "Absolutely stellar! You are exactly what I need, Pep!"

Pepper held her breath, but it never came. "Y-you're not mad?"

"Mad?" Tony laughed. "How could I be mad? What do you think I need around here, a yes man who will roll over and let my kids do whatever they want? Or someone to be, y'know, responsible and mature? And tell them 'no' when they have to?"

"I…" Pepper swallowed. "Family is built on cooperation, right?"

"Exactly!" Tony put an arm around her and led her back to his office. "Now, if I haven't made it clear, you're hired. Let's go discuss moving you in and the six-figure yearly salary I'm going to pay you."

"Well, I still have a few months left on my lease," Pepper said. "I guess I could break it, but I'd really rather… I'm sorry, six-figure salary?"

"Uh-huh," Tony spun and struck a pose against the wall. "I compensate my nannies very well for dealing with my children's antics. Let me make it clear, they're not troubled. They're all good kids at heart, but they're smart. Like, really smart. The trick is to always stay one step ahead of them. Are you up for it, Ms. Pepper? Or would you rather go back to selling makeup door to door?"

Her pink, heart-shaped makeup case stared at her from the desk inside, as if issuing a challenge. Pepper refused to look at it. Inanimate object or no, she'd never give it the satisfaction. "Yes sir, I am."

Tony pumped a fist. "Great. Let's talk contracts. Also, feel free to fall madly in love with me and have a whirlwind romance that ends with you properly joining the family."

Pepper gawked at him, a laugh bursting forth. "That is not going to happen, Mr. Stark."

He shrugged. "It might."

"It won't."

"But it might."

"But it won't."

He smirked at her but didn't respond. The next hour was all business with a few well-intentioned barbs thrown in. As Pepper signed and initialed a dozen pages, she wondered just which kind of insanity she was getting herself into.

Either way, things were finally looking up.

#Pepperony #pepperony week #pepperonyweek19 #Pepper Potts #Tony Stark #AU

[dpjustified]

Bingo #1

   (disclaimer: fanfic only, not a headcanon)

   (Themes for my #1: Crossover(with Ghostwriter a 90′s PBS show, because I can), Setting: Family Reunion, and Sam Works at the Nasty Burger)

   It was that time again, not that Paulina Sanchez was looking forward to it or anything. Some of her cousins were cool and all, and her aunts and female relatives liked her fashion advice. The problem was that the places they picked for meeting were always extremely awkward.

   Last year was the Chinese Food Buffet. The year before was at her house, in the backyard, with a live mariachi band (not that she hated mariachi music or anything; in fact it was pretty cool). Five years ago it was in Brooklyn, NY, at the park near her cousin’s place, which was a small store with an apartment complex above it. Renting out the apartment rooms was where they made most of their money, so she wasn’t sure why they still maintained the store except for nostalgia. Of course, compared to her family, they weren’t that rich.

   This year, her grandpa wanted to - no, insisted - upon meeting at a burger place, so her father suggested Nasty Burger. Cringe. That girl she used to be friends with, Valerie, worked there. She did not want her to see her act in a non-popular way with her family. No.

   But her father, as usual, never listened to her complaints when it came to the family reunion locale, and all the others agreed. So, Nasty Burger it was.

   The family rented out the whole place, so she didn’t have to worry about her friends at school running into her today. She greeted her aunt Mari with kisses, her Grandma with hugs. She was momentarily the center of attention, with everyone complimenting her on her beauty and perfection - well, maybe that was just her female cousins.

   Her favorite cousin was Gaby, who was already a career woman, working successfully at a fashion magazine. In fact, she was one of her style icons, and Paulina wasn’t afraid to admit it. Her brother Alex, though, helped run the family store and always read mysteries.

   If he likes them that much, he should write them himself.

   Not that she would say that aloud. He was nice enough.

   “Lina!” Gaby said, and they exchanged kisses.

   “Gabs, I love your outfit today. It’s casual, and chic!”

   “Not so bad yourself. Hmm, looks like everyone else has ordered and I’m starving. How about you?”

   “Same.”

   “So, dating anyone?” Gaby asked as they walked up to order.

   “Not yet,” Paulina said, sighing. “I’m currently enjoying my wide range of admirers. If I picked someone, they might be hurt and never talk to me again!”

   “Ah, youth,” Gaby said, shaking her head. Paulina figured she was jealous, but she wasn’t surprised. She was the object of envy everywhere. “Well don’t wait too long, but of course there’s always college.”

   “I know, right? I’m so excited! There’s only a year to go and there are so many schools with sports teams.”

   “Aiming for a scholarship?”

   “Of course. My grades aren’t that bad. Right now, I’m around…3.0?” Of course, she had her bestie Star to thank for that, since she was too busy studying style trends in class to pay attention.

   “I don’t see how you do it. Keep it up, girlfriend.”

   The cashier girl was turned around, so Paulina focused on deciding what to order. The Junior Mini Nasty Burger sounded appealing, but she got that too often these days and needed a change-up. Recently they added salads to the menu, and the chicken Nasty salad sounded perfect, at only 120 calories.

   “Excuse me, I’m ready to order,” Paulina said to get the cashier’s attention.

   The one who turned around was not who she was expecting.

   “Sam?” Paulina said with a gasp.

   “Oh boy, not a face I wanted to see,” Sam said in a droll voice.

   “Friends?” Gaby said, pointing to the both of them.

   “No,” Sam and Paulina replied.

   “Oh.”

   “Anyway, where’s Valerie?” Paulina asked, looking around. It was too bad her wish for Valerie to be gone was activated, as she preferred her to Sam. She was just too negative and boring, even though her looks weren’t that bad. If only she wore the right makeup…

   “She begged me to take her shift today because she’s sick. Me? Serving meat?”

   “Well it’s a good thing you don’t work in the kitchen.” She’d hate to get grass again. It was low calorie but what was the point of low calorie if it didn’t taste good? Bad tasting food made her looks worse because of stress.

   “That’s…true. Well, what would you like to order?” She looked surprised at Paulina’s wise words. Maybe I’m getting through to her after all?

   “I would like to get the chicken Nasty salad please.”

   “Why chicken? What about the bean salad?” Sam twitched.

   “But I don’t want the bean salad. I want the chicken salad.”

   “Oh, that’s too bad. One…chicken…salad.” As she typed the code into the cash register, she glared at Paulina like she wanted to drill a hole into her or something.

   Paulina simply smiled. Smiles always overpower darkness, just like Papa always says.

   After they paid, Paulina turned around to see Alex there.

   “Hey, isn’t this that goth girl you talk about that goes to your school and knows a lot about ghosts, and that ghost boy?” Once Alex was excited about a topic, he never stopped.

   “You want to know about ghosts?” Paulina said, getting excited herself. “I’ll tell you all about my ghost boy.”

   “You talk about me?” Sam said with a surprised look. “And I mean, this doesn’t even sound negative.”

   “Girl,” Paulina said with a flick of her hair. “If I’m going to talk bad about you I’ll do it to your face. I’m not rude.”

   “That’s…still rude,” Gaby said.

   “I’m just being honest and expressing my feelings!” Paulina insisted. “That’s what people like about me.”

   Alex put a notebook on the table. “If you know about ghosts, have you heard of Ghostwriter?”

   “Sure I have,” Sam said, eyeing the notebook. “He taught my boyfriend the meaning of Christmas two years ago, apparently.”

   “Really? So it’s true that ghosts live in some kind of alternate dimension?”

   “The Ghost Zone, as we call it. Why do you ask, and how have you heard of Ghostwriter? I don’t think he’s ever even left his lair, for the most part. He doesn’t cause much trouble.”

   “I wonder if it’s the same ghost I know then. The thing is, when Gaby and I were kids, we and a group of friends would solve mysteries with him. He and his messages could only be seen by kids, and he couldn’t talk or hear, only read and write.”

   “The Ghostwriter I know talks just fine. There’s another Ghostwriter?”

   “Look here.” He opened a notebook to reveal case notes dated in the 90s. “He was a good guy. Hearing about the ghost boy being a good guy, and people being able to see ghosts in this town, I had to come to this year’s reunion. Too bad I couldn’t make it last year. If this town is something special, I’d want to see him again, and thank him for being a friend. And all his help…”

   “The last time we saw him, he still lived in the words of this notebook,” Gaby said. “I wonder if he feels lonely. We probably got too old to see him. We still write to him though. You and Lina are still young though. Maybe you two can talk to him?” She pulled a felt pen out of her bag and sat it next to the notebook.

   Paulina looked warily at the notebook and felt pen. “This feels like that thing in middle school where two people grab a pen and see what it writes. Goth girl, you probably know what it’s called.”

   “That was a stupid game, and I think it’s off topic,” Sam said, turning to a blank page on the notebook. “Sure, let’s write I guess.” She picked up the felt pen and wrote “Are you Ghostwriter?”

   Paulina looked expectantly at the page, somehow hoping a sexy ghost would pop out. Nothing happened.

   “Alex, are you messing with my young and easily influenced mind again?” Paulina said with a pout.

   “No, I’m serious.”

   “But, seriously, nothing-”

   “Paulina, look!” Sam said.

   She turned back to the notebook. The words were glowing and started moving on the page. They formed a glowing orb with two arcs on top.

   “Looks like some kind of wifi icon, Sam,” Paulina observed.

   “You’re…right on about that.”

   “Of course I am, do you think I’m dumb or something?”

   Sam’s blank stare answered that question.

   “Hey! Why are you so mean?”

   Words formed on the page to read:

   “Hello, children. Sam, lover of ghost mysteries. Paulina, a friend of the people.”

   “And how does he know that?” Sam asked, while Paulina just nodded in agreement.

   “I see it too!” Alex said, while Gaby wiped a tear. “Why didn’t he say anything all this time?”

   Paulina opened her hand and Sam passed her the pen. Paulina wrote, “Gaby and Alex value your friendship. They want to solve mysteries with you again. Is it okay?”

   The words reformed to read: “Of course. I would love to.”

   “Aww,“ Paulina squealed. “I love a good ending, don’t you?”

   Sam offered a slight smile.

   After that, Gaby and Alex gladly told Paulina more about the Ghostwriter, and their middle school adventures, over the meal.

   This year’s family reunion was a bit more eventful than the others. It was too bad the Ghostwriter was hiding his true form. Paulina knew he was secretly a fluffy bunny or something. And she loved fluffy bunnies!

#danny phantom #phango19

[motherfucker-somewhat-limited]

1: Name

Sarah

2: Age

23

3: Fears

Everything, I have anxiety

4: 3 things I love

Dogs, weird movies, sunsets over water

5: 4 turns on

Long hair, facial piercings, good sense of humor, back muscles

6: 4 turns off

Poor hygiene, rude to service workers, adults who are still obsessed with Disney to the point where they make it a personality trait, Trump supporters (or the equivalent in other countries)

7: My best friend

@wanderingwondererofthings

8: Sexual orientation

Bi? I think? IDK not straight tho

9: My best first date

I’ve only ever been on one date in my life and the dude ghosted me afterward which turned out to be a blessing bc it was not a good time in my life to try to start a relationship

10: How tall am I

5′2″

11: What do I miss

Mental stability

12: What time were I born

3:45 am or thereabouts

13: Favourite color

black

14: Do I have a crush

celebrity crushes but I don’t really count those

15: Favourite quote

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

16: Favourite place

bundled up under a heap of blankets by myself in a dark room with good snacks and a good book/movie

17: Favourite food

chocolate

18: Do I use sarcasm

do i

19: What am I listening to right now

my housemate doing laundry

20: First thing I notice in new person

what they’re wearing

21: Shoe size

womens 7

22: Eye color

brown

23: Hair color

brown

24: Favourite style of clothing

love that goth shit

25: Ever done a prank call?

not that i can remember

26: Meaning behind my URL

adam darski’s true form

27: Favourite movie

Ink (2009) dir. jamin winans

28: Favourite song

UHHHHHHHHHHH

29: Favourite band

Eluveitie

30: How I feel right now

like shit lol

31: Someone I love

My friends

32: My current relationship status

single

33: My relationship with my parents

it’s good and i’m very grateful

34: Favourite holiday

the day after halloween when all the candy goes on sale

35: Tattoos and piercing I have

none

36: Tattoos and piercings I want

seriously considering getting my eyebrow pierced soon. if I ever cut my hair short i’ll pierce my ears

37: The reason I joined Tumblr

to follow an art blog that made amazing JTHM fan art

38: Do I and my last ex hate each other?

what ex

39: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?

yeah from my mom

40: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?

yeah it was my mom

41: When did I last hold hands?

yesterday with my grandma

42: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?

takes me well over an hour to actually get up but then like 3o minutes tops

43: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?

no

44: Where am I right now?

in my room

45: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?

i’ve never been that drunk because i hate hangovers

46: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?

reasonable level unless i’m at a concert

47: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?

not anymore

48: Am I excited for anything?

sexy eggman is coming to san francisco

49: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?

no

50: How often do I wear a fake smile?

basically whenever i have to talk to strangers

51: When was the last time I hugged someone?

yesterday

52: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?

my mom is allowed to kiss other people it’s okay

53: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?

i don’t think so?

54: What is something I disliked about today?

i’m tired of being tired

55: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

my soulmate

56: What do I think about most?

spirals of existential dread

57: What’s my strangest talent?

I have no talents lol

58: Do I have any strange phobias?

going down stairs. i’m fine going up them but going down them freaks me out

59: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

depends on my mood and whether or not i’m ugly that day

60: What was the last lie I told?

“I’m okay”

61: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

In person or don’t fucking talk to me

62: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

yes and yes

63: Do I believe in magic?

idk. i believe there’s things that happen that we can’t explain yet so maybe that’s magic

64: Do I believe in luck?

i believe in good chances

65: What’s the weather like right now?

dark

66: What was the last book I’ve read?

The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne Valente

67: Do I like the smell of gasoline?

yes as long as i don’t have a headache or stomachache

68: Do I have any nicknames?

just dumb shit my mom calls me

69: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?

worst acute injury was the time i tripped onto an outdoor heater in kindergarten and burned the shit out of my hand. i also have a stress fracture in my spine that will never heal from gymnastics but that happened over a matter of years

70: Do I spend money or save it?

i try to save but i spend a little too much

71: Can I touch my nose with a tounge?

with a tongue? yes. with my tongue? no

72: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me?

my fluffy pillow

73: Favourite animal?

take a wild fucking guess

74: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?

trying unsuccessfully to sleep

75: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?

Columbus

76: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?

That Time of the Month by Harley Poe

77: How can you win my heart?

be a dog

78: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?

ceci n’est pas un corps

79: What is my favorite word?

sussuration or cathedral

80: My top 5 blogs on tumblr

this is the internet equivalent of the judgment of paris

81: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?

eat the rich

82: Do I have any relatives in jail?

not currently

83: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?

shapeshifting bitch

84: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

i’ll say anything on the internet i don’t give a shit

85: What is my current desktop picture?

86: Had sex?

no

87: Bought condoms?

no

88: Gotten pregnant?

no

89: Failed a class?

yeah, fuck ochem

90: Kissed a boy?

no

91: Kissed a girl?

 no

92: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?

no

93: Had job?

i’ve got one right now

94: Left the house without my wallet?

yeah lol

95: Bullied someone on the internet?

no

96: Had sex in public?

no

97: Played on a sports team?

i ran track for a couple years as a kid

98: Smoked weed?

yup

99: Did drugs?

no

100: Smoked cigarettes?

ew no

101: Drank alcohol?

yuppers

102: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?

no

103: Been overweight?

no

104: Been underweight?

yes

105: Been to a wedding?

yes

106: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?

only 5?

107: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?

only 5??

108: Been outside my home country?

yes

109: Gotten my heart broken?

yes but not romantically

110: Been to a professional sports game?

many

111: Broken a bone?

nope

112: Cut myself?

not on purpose

113: Been to prom?

yeah and it sucked and i wish i hadn’t gone

114: Been in airplane?

yes

115: Fly by helicopter?

no but I want to

116: What concerts have I been to?

a multitude

117: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?

yeah lol

118: Learned another language?

can I give this one a half a yes?

119: Wore make up?

yup

120: Lost my virginity before I was 18?

no

121: Had oral sex?

no

122: Dyed my hair?

yes

123: Voted in a presidential election?

yes

124: Rode in an ambulance?

no

125: Had a surgery?

do wisdom teeth count?

126: Met someone famous?

yup, holla atcha doug jones

127: Stalked someone on a social network?

no, i don’t care that much

128: Peed outside?

who hasn’t?

129: Been fishing?

no

130: Helped with charity?

i’ve donated some money

131: Been rejected by a crush?

yeah but a) I never actually asked him out, b) we were 12, and c) turns out he’s gay so like i’m not made about it

132: Broken a mirror?

no

133: What do I want for birthday?

a new laptop

134: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?

why would i want kids

135: Was I named after anyone?

my great uncle and great grandmother

136: Do I like my handwriting?

i have no opinion on it

137: What was my favourite toy as a child?

legos or something similar you can build with

138: Favourite Tv Show?

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

139: Where do I want to live when older?

somewhere near the ocean

140: Play any musical instrument?

i wish

141: One of my scars, how did I get it?

i only have acne scars and those are pretty self-explanatory

142: Favourite pizza toping?

sausage, bell pepper, and onion

143: Am I afraid of the dark?

no

144: Am I afraid of heights?

sometimes

145: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?

no, i’m a good girl

146: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end

yeah, FUCK OCHEM

147: What I’m really bad at

being a functioning human adult person

148: What my greatest achievments are

not killing myself in college

149: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me

idk man i get upset by everything even when it’s not mean

150: What I’d do if I won in a lottery

pay off my friends’ and family’s debts, set aside a big chunk of money for grad school, maybe get my own place depending on how much is left

151: What do I like about myself

i have nice hair

152: My closest Tumblr friend

idk

153: Something I fantasise about

what don’t i fantasize about

154: Any thoughts on the paranormal?

hey demons come and get y’all juice

#asks

[jackednephi]

Hello! Apologies for sending in an ask so late. I just wanted to reach out because I'm not in such a great place right now. I was wondering, if you found out about your being queer at a fairly young age, how you managed to stay in the closet?? (And, you know, remaining alright, mentally) my parents are extremely homophobic, and it's tearing me apart, especially because I really care about them. Any advice would be great, even if it's not much. Best of luck in everything, and thank you so much ♥️

so tumblr doesn’t always let me know when i have messages >(

that said, i’ll do my best to respond but like it’s going to be long and convoluted so imma include a cut to save dash space. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND i am polyamorous, agender/trans, pansexual, and demiromantic. so like there are various facets of my queerness and they all played into my life differently

feel free to skip close to the end for like “how to stealth” if you don’t have the spoons for like a 20 page autobiography with annotated bibliography

so finding out about being queer is a question that has both a yes and a no answer. it’s more like i was experiencing queerness but didn’t have words for it, then repressed it, then dealt with it. so it’s less “i knew ever since i could form words to describe it” and more my journey was in no way linear

see when i was little, like really little yknow when you start getting your first crushes right around prek and stuff, i had all kinds of crushes. i had crushes on multiple people at once and this has continued straight into adulthood. so, like, sign one of being poly. my friends would have one person they would hardcore crush on whereas i was crushing on people around me, characters in fiction, just like so many people. i remember listing crushes in my journals every now and then and i’d have lists of upwards and over like 20. :/ so i am in no way surprised i’m poly

so far as my sexuality, i didn’t realize i was feeling for certain female friends what i was feeling for boys. partly because i’d be like “oh i want to hold his hand” and because i saw m/f couples holding hands all the time i was like ah! yes! obviously romantic! but i never saw any f/f relationships so i didn’t make the connection that the hand holding wasn’t a friend feeling. i had INTENSE crushes on girls too, just as intense as on boys. but i was used to the media portraying rival nonsense like hannah montana and whatnot so i was like “oh. this is my situation”

there was also a lot of repressing going on because i just didn’t see that reflected around me from media to adults. all i saw were m/f relationships. i knew gay people existed but i thought they were all gay men. when i was somewhere around like 10 or so, give or take, i realized i was crushing on my best friend at the time (a girl) and was like “no. absolutely not” shoved that as far back as possible and ignored it

my demiromanticism is more born of trauma than me being born that way and that’s ok. one of my close friends found out about one of my crushes in the second grade and i was RELENTLESSLY bullied for it. every time i got a crush on somebody, i would end up HARDCORE bullied or they would get weird and things would be awful. i also had boys shove their crushes onto me and not take no for an answer. like i’d have my bra snapped painfully, bugs shoved down my shirt, my stuff vandalized, hair pulled just because i wasn’t interested

like when i was 12, somebody started a rumor that i was pregnant :/ and that’s not even covering my abusive ex or the sexual assaults so like everything kind of came together for that

then there’s my gender. which is its own bucket of worms and kind of played in with my sexuality in certain ways

my parents are boomers, born in 50 and 58. “but vann,” you say, confused “you were born at the end of 94″ and you are correct! i inherited pcos from my mother so i’ll let you put 2 and 3 together as to why i was born in 94 and my brother in 96. i say that because, unlike their peers, they raised my brothers and i radically different from the accepted cultural norms

if i wanted to wear baggy shorts, that was cool. pretty dresses? whatever. same (kind of) went for my brothers. if they wanted to spend a lot of time on their appearance, that was fine and not shamed at all. in fact, it was encouraged because it made them feel good. i played with army men, barbie dolls, cars, a train set, tools, swords, sports stuff, had tea parties with stuffed animals, drew and crafted, etc etc. my younger brother played house with me (and often suggested it himself) and would play with my baby dolls. like had my younger brother wanted a doll, they would’ve gotten it for him. but i had them so he didn’t bother asking for one cause he could borrow mine

so like there was no gender segregation of toys or activities. and that sounds kind of like the bare minimum of parenting but you have to remember that both of my parents grew up in the rural south as boomers. gender roles were violently enforced for them. but they didn’t think about enforcing them for us so far as play and, to a certain extent, dress/grooming was concerned. this created a safe environment for us to be our true selves

so for a very long time, i was comfy saying i was a girl. i played basketball after school and then afterwards would find my prettiest dress and watch scooby doo. gender expression was fast and loose in my house

i contribute that a lot to the fact that my father was too disabled to work. even before then, he had been a nurse and a damn good one. my father has ALWAYS been the go to for when we were sick, injured, etc. my mother had this disconnect with how much concern to show. it was either too much or not enough and was pretty much never helpful. even after retiring, when my nephews came around he was the go to caretaker for them. even now at 70, he frequently goes back to where the children are during family gatherings and keeps watch. much like a mother hen

so he stayed home and did the cleaning and other “wifely” duties. not cooking though because his brain just cannot. my mother worked as a high school teacher so typical roles were entirely reversed. when i was tiny and wanted nothing more than to be a parent? you go, sweetie! when i was older and wanted to be a scientist? achieve your dreams, kiddo! like they were very supportive of my goals no matter what they were

so i just??? didn’t realize????? until i hit puberty somewhere around 9

talk about body dysphoria. i went from looking like my brother and every other kid my age to wow ok there’s hair now??? and my face is all weird???? and oh no why does my tummy feel funny?????????? (sexual arousal was a TRIP to discover as a third grader that i would not wish on any child ever) oh my god WHAT IS ON MY CHEST!? and grown men are hitting on me now??? oh no i’m in fourth grade and bleeding!?

it was not a fun time by a long shot. i started wearing the baggiest tshirts i could possibly find. anything to hide my freakish body, really. so many hoodies. i would swing wildly between hyper feminine expression with tight clothes and heels and hiding everything as much as possible. part of me was smug about being ahead of my peers, for adults to be treating me as more than a kid. but a LOT of me felt like a freak

maturing (mentally) into an adult was a wild experience. i was 13 and looked like i was 21 except for my face. i did everything possible to find comfort with myself from goth/emo expression ro masculine stuff people threw “dyke” at me for and then finally, weaponized femininity. tight tops, tight pants, shortest skirts i could get away with, eyeliner so sharp it could cut god, heels as often as i could including uniform days, perfect hair. i made myself look like a hot, unapproachable goddess

finally, people were too intimidated to approach me and comment on my appearance. i wore makeup like a mask and people who had known me for YEARS were surprised to find out just how big my chest really was. but i walked with murder in my eyes and i was finally treated the same was i was before puberty - completely unapproachable

ALL THAT IN MIND, here’s how i figured my shit out

i was on facebook seeing “gay, straight, black or white, marriage is a civil right” and being typically “it’s a sacred ordinance shyaddap” about it. i ended up on tumblr about idk 15 or so? note, i’d already discovered porn by this time so i was aware that lesbians existed. like just to throw that out there that i wasn’t like totally in the dark when i made my tumblr account. i did it for school to blog about shakespeare for an english assignment. and that’s when my world expanded

bisexual? wow ok! that was a thing! and oh. oh no

there were pretty girls

and pretty boys and pretty people whose gender i had no idea. cosplayers cosplaying as the opposite gender, trans people, and a whole rainbow of people i was suddenly finding attractive. and i had a HARDCORE identity crisis

i liked girls? but was it the same as boys? was i bisexual? that didn’t seem to fit. there was more than two genders right? and trans people existed? bi? was i bi? bi?

bi. probably

but it didn’t feel comfortable like at all. but i discovered a fanfic writer who talked about being pansexual and i looked it up and everything just clicked?? into place????

not to be overdramatic or anything but it was like the stars finally aligned. it felt SO good! so many genders! and it meant all and aliens are a thing, right? who was i to say no to the possibility? but, more than anything, it felt comfortable. like a hug from my grandma. like home

i wanted to scream from the rooftops that i’d figured it out! i found myself! pansexual! I WAS PANSEXUAL! THAT WAS ME! HOME!

and then the reality of living in our society crashed down on me. i continued to talk about the guys i liked around my family but never EVER the girls. i hid my relationship with the person who eventually became my wife. to be fair, i’d hidden all my relationships prior cause i was an IDIOT and had been dating before 16. so that wasn’t hard. but what was was the breakup

previously, i’d been like “you remember that guy i like? he’s a jerk” or some other excuse to cry to my mother. but i couldn’t about cake. so i cried to my bff/twin/sister like i had everything else and moved on. and i just kind of shut up about it to everybody except those closest to me

except that hurt. here i was knowing i was queer and happy about it but people were being homophobic. i don’t know how often i cried myself to sleep after hearing about “those dirty f*gs” cause of the marriage thing. i ended up quietly coming out to my favorite teacher and she dismissed it as trauma response to my then recent sexual assault. she had seemed safe but that was her reaction so i shut up about it

up until, ironically, coming out day october 2011 just before turning 17 that next month. my mother and i were at chilis, she was being homophobic, and i screamed for the whole restaurant to hear that i was queer and the whole base found out. hard to stay closeted after that

i was pretty much out until college when i started going to church in a new place. i just didn’t talk about my sexuality. ever. period. and it was “easy” because i was dating guys. and pretty sure i was a cis woman. so i was stealth passing. and that was ok with me because i was out on campus, vocally and unapologetically

in high school, i dated a trans guy. he introduced me like in a personal way to transness, to binding. i knew i wasn’t a man but it intrigued me. and in college where nobody knew me, nobody knew me as femme fatale black widow i had a chance to explore my gender. i discovered that loose tshirts made me feel really good. as did other comfy things like shorts and sweats. sometimes i wanted to look fancy or felt like wearing a dress. really, i kind of reverted back to who i was in childhood

i felt weird when i heard my birth name. i’d gone by a nickname for so long, i just chopped off the y (vanny) to vann so it sounded more adult. it felt good. so i identified, tentatively, as nonbinary. it was around this time the trans dude i dated and i fell out with each other because he thought me playing around with my gender was like mocking his transness. or something. idk dude was toxic trash

so i wasn’t male or female then? nah that didn’t feel right. i wasn’t some third androgynous gender. but sometimes binding and passing as a man felt good and sometimes passing as a woman felt good. genderfluid then? was i a man who liked to wear dresses? no. didn’t feel right. made me uncomfortable

eventually, things clicked for me with agender the way they had with pansexual the fall of my third year of undergrad. stars aligned, the universe smiled upon me, and i was THRILLED. like gender euphoria is REAL and never before had i felt so comfortable in my own skin. i remember literally weeping with joy. like i’d been going with they/them/their for a couple years at that point

i came out to my parents about that one pretty shortly after realizing it because i was OVERJOYED. they’d been working on calling me vann for awhile at that point and the pronouns. i’ve since learned that so long as soebody has my name, 90% of the time i legit do not care what pronouns somebody uses. im aware that people perceive me differently and it’s fine. i mean neutral pronouns fill me with euphoria but like it’s fine. so long as somebody doesn’t mistake me for cis

my parents are like so great about it now. they correct people who deadname me (except my grandma cause she’s like 85 and i gave her permission years ago) and my mother straight cut contact with family members who refuse to respect me. except my brothers but like she makes it clear whenever they’re going to be awful that she WILL NOT tolerate it. like they don’t dare trash me in front of our father. he’s old now but he will backhand one of my brothers for that and they know it. so they try it with our mom and she’s like “try it again and you won’t hear from me until you apologize for trashing your sister”

i realized i was poly when cake came back into my life. that was a serious mess involving their abusive ex girlfriend but we clicked and it ended up working so yknow. that was my easiest coming out actually. my parents were like “yknow, you always seemed to love people when you were a kid. and you had SO many crushes. makes sense” which was awesome. it was the most difficult emotionally but  the easiest because i’d already come out twice before so it was whatever

the demi thing was discovered in therapy. and like it doesn’t have much in the way of impact like the other things do. so i never really came out about that? there wasn’t really a point? like i talk about it when it comes up but it’s just whatever. i honestly have no idea if i ever told my family?????

WITH THAT NONSENSE IN MIND, HERE’S HOW TO STEALTH AND BE OK MENTALLY

you said homophobic so im gonna assume you’re not straight. no idea about gender and, honestly, so far as gender goes i’ve seen it’s safer to lean into masculinity than it is femininity. so if you’re amab, i don’t really have tips or tricks for that as i’m afab. with being afab, lean into the tomboy aesthetic so you seem acceptably (safely) your assigned gender. i recommend fun lipstick and nail polish colors. sparkly nails did wonders for me honestly

but for like not straightness. that’s a tightrope that is but a gossamer thread to balance. like there are ways to stealth gender expression and feel affirmed but queerness is a different animal or it was for me

so i had AT LEAST one space in my life where i was 100%, unapologetically, loudly out. like i’m here, i’m queer and flying my rainbow flag and not at all sorry about it OUT. for awhile, it was just my very closest friends in the whole world. then it was tumblr. then i made a facebook for people irl i could trust. 0 family and 0 people who couldn’t be chill about it

like having a carved space for you to just be the authentic you, whatever that is. for me, that’s all this queer mess, the polycule that is my family, my faith, my absolutely foul mouth, my mental illnesses, my love of good coffee or a glass of wine every now and then as a rare treat, the good and the bad the ugly and the uncategorizable all together. the struggle with the word of wisdom AND the love of my spouses. all of that

it’s affirming to have this space where you’re yourself and people accept you for who you are rather than what gets your engine revving. but you’ve also got to try and stealth that into wherever you can. you want a dyke spike? go for it and say it’s a pixie cut. plaids are in right now which is a lowkey signal to other queers you’re a queer too no matter your gender. just depends on what shoe you pair it with and other queers will take notice while non queers will just think you’re trendy

it was also fun for me to get that pan flag aesthetic wherever i could. like blue/pink galaxy type eyeshadow that wasn’t too peacock flashy so it looked Hot without being Obvious and a pink lipstick and yellow nails. like it was subtle but i knew what was going on and it felt good. i did the same with rainbows but i had more to work with there. like i’d have an inconspicuous notebook where i’d paint/paste a rainbow on the inside cover so that it was Normal from the outside and BAM! GAY! on the inside. did that with highlighting my notes too

i just kind of stuck it everywhere i could possibly get away with. people were excited to see me go from emo to bring colors becuase “oh wow! you’re finally not sad!” lol no i’m just stealth queer over here

i also wrote SO MUCH queer fanfiction. i didn’t publish any of it just in case but i have notebooks full of stuff. i also rped with people as a way to live vicariously through characters. i also READ a lot of queer fanfiction actually. i saved all kinds of fanart and photo manipulations of certain pairings together. like i couldn’t be out so i could have fiction where others were

i also poured myself into hobbies. i fenced, did karate, learned japanese, participated in drama club, played in a band, took piano lessons, taught myself to draw, journaled, learned to cook, read amazing books, played video games, learned to sing. like i’m sure there are other things i’m forgetting? basically, if it was EVER covered in a young women’s activity pretty much anywhere in the world, i learned at least those basic skills. like i can embroider now even

so like that’s how i stealthed and stayed sane. i was also in therapy where i was out to whatever therapist i was seeing at the time which ABSOLUTELY helped. i also made like queer playlists i would listen to. like same love, i kissed a girl, born this way, etc that i would listen to when i needed to just sink into it. music in general is super cathartic and i’ve gotta say green day, acdc, evanescence, bon jovi, etc got me through some tough shit

i also yelled at god. i yelled at god a LOT actually. like i know we get told “pray for comfort” but sometimes you need to bawl your eyes out and just SCREAM at the almighty. dude can take it. he’s god after all. he can handle our anger. it isn’t disrespectful. like if you ever do cross a line, he’ll let you know. like your thoughts will hard stop. you’ll know

but empty your lungs screaming in pain. let him know it isn’t fair, you’re not happy. beg for relief from the nightmares you’re living. demand to know if or when it’ll ever get better. burn yourself out yelling and crying and fall asleep drenched in tears. then wake up the next day and live your life and you know what?

you’ll feel better. maybe not a lot sometimes and maybe everything is cool for once in forever. but it definitely helped me a lot. like dude listens and you WILL feel better even if the things around you dont get better. you get some strength to get through and be ok and it’s super helpful

but that’s what i got. also bear in mind that i came out to thousands of people by yelling at my mother in a restaurant when all the ships were in because everybody in said restaurant texted everybody they knew and my texts were flooded in like an hour of “DON’T TELL ME YOU CAME OUT TO YOUR MOM LIKE THAT OMG” and “you’re queer!?” so like

i’m not the best when it comes to stealth queering so take my advice with a grain of salt

#long post #like reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllyyyyyyyyyy long post #i cannot overemphasize how long this post is #advice #i tried :/ #Anonymous #anon #vannswers

[whenimgoodandready]

✨Hey Everyone! Welcome to my new Season 4 reviews of “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”! The final season!✨ And look! Look! Look! I made gifs for each episode this time too! Like I said! Also in honor of Eclipsa back on the throne again, I made my stars and butterfly frames dark! All hail The Queen of Darkness! We’ve been waiting since last year and the times finally come for us to enjoy what our favorite magical girl and karate boy have to face! I’m gonna miss this fandom, it was fun seeing all the art, fanfics, theories and reviews from everyone and getting to know some nice people. These past few years have been great! Not only have the characters grown, but so have my reviews. It was just words, but then I added frames and pics and now look, gifs! Weirder, wilder and not from this dimension things will happen and more importantly, the questions we’ve asking will finally be answered! Now let’s get those answers!

*Butterfly Follies-We begin with the first promo we saw of Star, Marco and her father, River, fighting off some guards in some guys tower and discovering (for the third time already!) that her mother, Moon, isn’t there. Here’s the first question we’ve been asking, 1.Where’s Moon?. The last we saw of her, she was in the Realm of Magic running around stark naked not remembering anything and zapped away by the First Born unicorn to God knows where!? After which she sent Star back home to fight off Meteora, sooooooooo, where’s Moon? Well, not in that guys tower that’s for sure! Also the Mewmans aren’t happy with Eclipsa being back on the throne again (cuz they’re stubborn as Hell and hate change) and giving monsters their rights after Star gave her back the wand from the Season 3 finale. I like how everyone’s pointed out that Star is just a normal girl now and not Princess Star. She’s no longer a magical girl princess, just a magical girl, but still awesome (so I guess that means Marco isn’t a squire anymore too, huh?). It’s just like The Magic Book of Spells said about Stars tapestry, “Was queen for just four days, her one decision on the throne, to give it all away” (must’ve been a rough four days. Unless it was those four days she spent “acting queen” for the last seasons finale?).

Star and the gang had searched all throughout the map of Mewni and Moon is nowhere to be found. Stars desperate. It’s been weeks! And Marco needs a break (and River appropriately needs a bath!). They then see a Pie Carnival where Moons an icon there with her face plastered everywhere, but not her face in general (Hey, you think maybe we can get some of the Moonchandise over here? Huh? Huh? C’mon! We want it! We need it!). River is distrusting if the Pie Folk as he says they’re “sleazy” and you’ll hear more of them in the next review soon. The whole pie thing is a reference to The Magic Book of Spells chapter of Queen Comet the Chief, who made perfectly delicious pies with a fancy butterfly knot design on the tops (recipes in the book too!).

Next, we see is the other promo with the mockery play of the Butterfly Family. Think of it as The Ember Island Players of “Star vs. The Forces of Evil” where they portray River as an idiotic slob, Star as an infantile and destructive monster sympathizer and poor Marco left out in the cold as irrelevant to the whole situation (I always thought it was cuz the Mewmans "liked" him, but oh well). How rude of the Mewmans, after all Star did saving their a**s from Toffee at that one time and this is how they show they’re “gratitude”. They really hate Star and her fame for letting Eclipsa rule and having monsters roam about. She set right what’s been done wrong for centuries! Did they not get the memo!? Sadly, we never got to see how the play ends since Star interrupts it. Damn! I thought we’d get a whole shows recap of what went on, but I guess that wasn’t the case :P.

By the by, here’s what went down from “Divide” and “Conquer”. The Butterfly castle is in ruins and Eclipsa now resides in the Monster Temple as her kingdom (it’s more suited to her) and she’s letting Star, Marco and River stay with them too, she’s so nice, best goth faux grandma ever!, her monster hubby, Globgor, is still crystallized and her magic isn’t working (Hey, uh, Eclipsa.........you might wanna get Rhombulus over there), Glossaryck is still cryptic, Meteora is now a baby again (who may or may not still have her old memories. Watch out Marco!), Tomstar (and Tomco) is doin’ just fine even after the Starco kiss. At least, I think it is? And Star is using inner magic now w/out her wand! (Funny, I thought she gave it all up to Meteora? (shrugs)).

These will be my last reviews for “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”, and I had fun writing these. It’s what I do. I hope you guys liked ‘em throughout the years, it’s what helped me express myself and expand my creativity. I also liked reading everyone else’s too. It’s not the end of my reviews all together though, I still have “Miraculous Ladybug”, whenever I get the schedule release dates for new episodes on occasion. Check ‘em out if you’re into that! As for “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”, the theme song for its final season hadn’t changed and that’s pretty disappointing cuz we were expecting a new opening, like maybe Eclipsa in the opening and some new foreshadowing events during the final season and a new end shot with Star, Marco and the gang, but if there were a new one, we would’ve seen it in SDCC already like from before. The shows goin’ through a “Kim Possible” route ending it on its fourth season, but one that’ll live in our hearts forever ღ. With these reviews, the first eight episodes of this month and the others next month, I’ll be adding in the questions we’ve been asking for so long. Like, What is the current outcome of the Monsters and Mewmans coexisting with each? Will Globgor be released? What’s Ludo up to? What’s the deal with the Blood Moon? Is Tomstar gonna break-up? And the million, no billion, no trillion, no ZILLION dollar question, IS STARCO GONNA HAPPEN!? Keep reading my reviews and find out!

#svtfoe #butterfly follies #svtfoe butterfly follies