before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.
you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"
and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.
it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.
you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.
in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.
the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.
you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.
after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.
the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.
you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.
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Dani loves traveling, but she loves the sea the most.
It's just so wild, so untamable. She loves it!
In fact, when she takes a trip into the Zone, she seeks out Youngblood to reminisce about the sea. But Youngblood's never actually been to it.
He thinks it sounds super cool though!
In fact, his old ship, The Caleuche, still works beautifully as a Ghost Ship and a Proper Ship! Since it used to be his, he should be able to visit if she uses it! She just has to figure out how to get it out of the Zone.
So she tests a theory. Is The Caleuche ghost enough to get souped?
Yes. Yes it is.
She soups The Caleuche, leaves the Zone, and heads to the Pacific.
The Caleuche is great; she steers herself when it gets rough but follows orders, she can submerge but the interior is still dry and doesn't appear to run out of air, and whenever she surfaces she's so brightly lit and fun looking that recently deceased sailors like to come aboard and party before deciding to move onto the Ghost Zone through the natural portal in the Brig.
Dani thinks she may be making Youngblood's crew larger, but that's Danny's problem.
Not all ghosts go. Some stay on the ship. There's a doctor in a really old uniform, Mikhail, who can only speak Ghostspeak and Russian. There's a lady pirate, Jacquotte, who would rather spend her afterlife partying on the seas than going with the rest of the Ghosts to the Zone. There's a chef that wears some modern sort of chef uniform that only speaks Ghostspeak and Korean, Eun-Woo, who insists on making sure she eats a balanced diet. A big, growly sailor dressed like he's from the mob like in the movies, Frankie, but he just sits around and whittles wood or intimidates the meaner Ghosts into backing down so she doesn't have to fight.
They're her crew! Sure, it's way less than Youngbloods, but she likes it that way.
Sometimes she comes across humans doing stupid stuff, or getting in trouble, or even Atlanteans getting in trouble, and she saves them from their own mess.
One time she found a man with tattered green and black suit, with a very pretty ring, unconscious and floating on some weird metal wreckage.
So she hauled him aboard and let the doctor treat him, ordered The Caleuche to submerge, and dropped him off at a busy port.
What Dani doesn't realize is that she's getting Deified by sailors across the world.
A laughing child that saves those who can be saved, and reaps the ones who can't. A benevolent Goddess of the Sea.
That when she dropped off that Green Lantern at The Metropolis Harbor, videos caught a brightly lit, vaguely see through ghost ship rise from the waters. Recordings of laughter and music aboard, with the people on it very clearly dead and wearing uniforms from all walks of life would make the rounds.
That she herself, decked out in her new pirate gear, flickered into existence from nothing and gently laid the Green Lantern on the ground before disappearing.
Then the ship went back underwater.
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