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sunbirddtellsstories · 4 years

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Some dumb Team Spicer OT3 headcanons no one wants to hear but I’m gonna say them anyways:

Jack has a thing with personal space and doesn’t like being touched by pretty much anyone and hates physical contact as a whole, except for maybe hugs from Mom. However, he’s severely touch-starved and the more he falls for Jermaine and Timber, the more he not only allows for physical contact from both of them, but he initiates it too. Sitting closer to them, leaning on their shoulder, that sort of thing.

Eventually when they do become a thing he then becomes this barnacle that is always hugging or leaning or lounging on one of them at all times. They’re his safe space and he shows it by being close to them.

I’m still debating on whether Timber’s short hair becomes a permanent look, but I like to think that if it becomes long again, Jack has a habit of playing with it and petting it because it’s so soft and fluffy. And because it’s Jack, Timber let’s him.

Since one is a martial artist and the other is a wilderness nut,Jermaine and Timber are both pretty physically strong. And Jack 👏 is 👏 here 👏 for 👏 it 👏 He’s into physical strength.

Before Xiaolin training Jack is pretty wimpy and nowhere near as physically fit as he should be because he spends most of his time building robots in a lab. Since he’s so slow and kind of a load in an emergency, Timber often just picks him up and carries him. He pretends to hate it and won’t stop complaining when she does it, but he actually kind of likes being carried around like that. He’s always lowkey impressed by it.

He has tried or will try carrying her just to get back at her and it never ends well.

Jermaine is the strongest of Team Spicer and can carry both of his partners. However since he’s also the shortest member he rarely does it because it’s way too easy to lose balance.

Timber never really played any sport except hockey because...well, because Canada (and also no friends), but I like to think that Jermaine teaches her how to play basketball and she just loves it. She likes playing it and when he finally takes her to a game she likes watching it too. Jermaine loves the way it brings out her competitive spirit and her sense of wonder as a whole.

Jermaine’s favorite things about Timber are her enthusiasm, her curiosity, her creativity, her ability to stand on her own two feet, her outspokenness, her wild nature (pun intended), her wilderness skills, her thirst for adventure and knowledge and her smile.

His favorite things about Jack are his innovative nature, his feistiness, his intelligence, his competitiveness, the cute and silly faces he makes when he’s sketching out new blueprints for one of his inventions, his eyes, his awkward and adorkable moments, his defiant nature and the way he just doesn’t quit no matter what life throws at him.

Jermaine also likes Timber’s laugh and Jack’s smile. Neither of them are prone to laughing or smiling and as they grow closer Jermaine makes a point to try to get each one to do both. He genuinely wants to see these two disasters realize how beautiful and amazing and incredible they really are.

Slight spoilers but Jermaine ends up suffering from nightmares after the events of MW! due to reasons I won’t go into. He’s alright but healing is a slow process and it takes time to get over trauma, and the nightmares are intense and leave him in a cold sweat and make it hard for him to get some rest. The only way he feels safe enough to go back to sleep is if he’s with Jack and Timber. So for a long time after the fic, the three have nightly sleepovers so Jermaine can actually get some sleep. He wakes up, freaks out, talks it out with them, sometimes Timber makes him some tea with her super potent lavender and chamomile flowers and after they just all fall back asleep.

Jack is the first to catch Feelings. Next is Timber. Jermaine, for all his virtues, is incredibly thick and can’t seem to understand that both of the people in his party are crushing on him pretty hard. Sadly it’s because he doesn’t really think he’s good enough for anyone to like him.

In this universe, Jack and Jermaine are both bi, but only Jack is aware of his own orientation. Jermaine is not. At least, not for long.

Jack’s color motif is mostly black, Timber’s color motif is mostly blue and Jermaine’s is mostly red with yellow accents. Why?

They’re the colors of the poly flag :)

Spoiler but once they start dating, everyone’s in a tizzy about it. But hands down the person who is most shocked and/or disturbed by this turn of events is...Chase Young. Despite the fact that he used the boy as a pawn in a scheme, he did get somewhat attached to Jermaine. He was after all a good student and Chase is honorable enough to respect legit talent and effort. The moment he hears that his talented former Apprentice is dating both the student of his oldest rival AND Jack freaking Spicer, he goes through all five stages of grief before running straight to the Xiaolin Temple, finding Jermaine and telling him “I’m sorry for your loss”.

As you can imagine, Jermaine isn’t pleased.

You better believe I have an entire YouTube playlist dedicated to this ship, but this one in particular, and this particular mix made for this AMV, is definitely one of my favorite songs for their ship. https://youtu.be/SYcODDcNSIk

youtube

Timber’s family is dysfunctional and abusive, and Jack’s family is distant and neglectful, if well intentioned. So I like to think they both find a healthy family dynamic in Jermaine’s mom, grandmother and older sister.

They try to keep their relationship a secret from anyone outside the Temple, but eventually their families find out. Jermaine’s family is very supportive, but you better believe Ivory grilled Jack and Timber pretty hard once she realized these two idiots were in a relationship with her baby brother. But eventually they do have a supportive dynamic with each other (with Timber slightly more successful than Jack on the grounds that Jack is a show off and Ivory doesn’t like show offs).

Jack’s Dad is shocked and doesn’t really know how to handle it but since Jack is genuinely happy for once in his life he’s got no beef and just quietly lets them be - with one exception. Jack’s Dad is relatively famous and in the news all the time, so he’s used to being paparazzi fodder and having tabloids spin stuff on him. But the moment they try to belittle Jack for his relationship with his partners, Jason puts an end to it. IMMEDIATELY. Jason may not understand his son, but he will always love him.

Jack’s mom is devastated, but not because he’s poly - it’s because as a hardcore supporter of Jack getting married and giving her lots of grandkids to spoil (she’s that kind of mom), she’s been budgeting his future wedding for years, LITERAL YEARS, so that the moment he finds The One, they can get hitched with no fuss. And now suddenly she has to budget for a whole other person. One and a half decades of planning RUINED.

Timber’s mom and step-dad.....even I’m not sure. But Kallik and Hanta still care about their sister, even if they’re terrible at showing it. And once they get wind of what’s happening, Timber’s brothers get overprotective and overstep their boundaries in an effort to drive off these “playboys” from toying with their sister’s heart. That is, until Timber puts them in their place.

I like to think that Kallik and Hanta eventually do find a way get along with Jack and Jermaine, if only for the fact they can watch over Timber when they can’t....but it’s a slow process. After all, they’re still working on repairing their relationship with their sister.

Poly families exist in real life (and happily so depending on the family) so maybe when the members of Team Spicer are all grownups and are at a good age to start a family, they get married and have kids? I dunno. It’s a hypothetical situation for now since the whole “Xiaolin Dragon” thing is more or less a lifelong deal and that would get in the way of raising kids. But I like to think that if they do have kids, they have a boy named Jake who raises a lot of Hell (like his birth Dad), and a girl named Jazmine who likes to kick evil’s butt (like her birth Dad).

Slightly spoilery but our Team each end up with an army of their own - Jack has his robots, Timber has her plants and Jermaine has loyal jungle cat soldiers. So if they did have kids, those would hands down be the most well protected kids on the face of the earth. Also maybe the most...interesting, since being raised with killer robots, killer plants and dangerous animals might make for some unnaturally fearless kids.

Jermaine is the glue that holds them all together. Jack and Timber come to love each other dearly but Jermaine is so influential to the both of them that neither one can imagine life without him.

Same with Jermaine and both of them. Timber and Jack are both crazy, they’re both stubborn, they’re both unpredictable, they cause trouble and break rules and he never knows what they’re gonna do next - and he loves that about them.

You know that person in the relationship that steals the other person’s hoodies to wear them? That’s Jack. And he doesn’t even say sorry.

Jack likes to flirt and tease Jermaine and Timber but when either of them reciprocate he gets all flustered and tsundere.

Jack and Timber both have jealousy issues but neither of them compare to Jermaine’s. He gets majorly angry when someone flirts with or gets too close to either of them - he just hides it well and is smart enough to know that Jack/Timber weren’t asking for it.

Jermaine is very protective and sometimes even overprotective. It’s an issue he’s gonna need to let go of.

Jermaine is pretty short for a boy and Timber is very tall for a girl. Jermaine doesn’t have issues about it, Timber does...but if anyone insults either of them, Jack throws hands. Like seriously he will fight you if you make a nasty comment about their height.

You see these three often chilling with each other because they are each other’s safe space.

Because they fell in love with each other while traveling the world, their idea of a date together is grabbing the Tiger Claws, warping to a random location and exploring it together. It’s a tradition they keep up even as they get older.

They genuinely love and care for each other very, very much.

That’s all for now but I have more headcanons for these guys. Trust me.

#team spicer ot3 #the good the bad and the wilde #jack x jermaine x timber #Jack x Jermaine #jermaine x timber #Jack x Timber #Youtube

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wants-to-sleep · 5 years

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I don't really use this account anymore because I've been so out of touch with this fandom and TV shows in general.

But I like to write this down here because it's a place where I can scream into the void and not mind if people decide it's annoying and unfollow.

I've come to a lot of realisations about my life recently. Things I probably should've realised and accepted way sooner, to be honest. But a part of me didn't want to see it.

I realise that although my mother and I are close, and she is a very gentle, amazing person, that she has harmed me. She has harmed me by dating, marrying and staying with a man who only interacted with me when it was to make me uncomfortable or to complain about me. It was brushed off as "he's just teasing", "he just wants to get a rise out of you" and "just laugh about it" or "he was raised that way". I was a child, and my own emotions were continuously discretited in favour of "keeping the peace" because my mother knew no other way to deal with conflict than to bury it.

He could yell at me. He could call me names. He could say things to make me uncomfortable or make me feel worthless. Most of it was brushed off. A lot of the time I was told to just smile. Like it was funny. Like the fact I was hurt was somehow amusing because my emotions were the base of some sort of joke. And maybe some of it WAS harmless joking. But I was a child, barely 7, shy and sensitive. And he was a grown ass man who never had to face the consequences apart from a very gentle "don't do this next time, please" in maybe 20% of the cases.

I was told I was lazy. Selfish. Dumb. I was told in a fight over me drinking the juice meant for breakfast that someday, all my friends would leave me.

I was told I was a prude for being a pre teen that didn't want to see him naked, and didn't want to be undressed in front of him. I was told "it's not like I haven't seen you undressed before" when really, I can't remember a single instance where he should have.

I was the bottom of jokes and insults and comments that made me feel uncomfortable and worthless, but because they were always delivered with a grin and a giggle it was played off as some sort of joke.

I realise now, at almost 23, that this is probably a good chunk of the reason why I developed anxiety and why I started isolating myself more and more as I grew up. Because people were scary. People yelled at me over drinking juice meant for the next day. People said I was a lazy, selfish, dumb cow. People said I won't have friends.

Really, people was just him. But it felt in a way like it was also my mother. She called him out, sometimes. Gently. But it never had repercussions and more often than not, when he and I fought, my mother would approach me and ask me to go apologise just so "we can have peace again". And it made it feel like it was okay for him to do what he did. Like maybe, there was an underlying truth to it.

I have social issues because I don't know when my feelings are valid. I'm scared of being too much. I'm scared of making a wrong step and facing someone's anger.

But I accepted it. And I swallowed it. Whatever sense of justice I had, whatever need I felt at times to defend myself? I buried it in order to keep the peace and make sure my mother doesn't suffer.

Because she liked to play the victim. She liked to say "this thing with you two, it ruins me" or "one day I'll have a mental breakdown". And I knew how sensitive and soft she is. How gentle. And I thought to myself that she DOES deserve peace and happiness, even if it is at the expense of my own.

"At least he treats HER well. At least he makes her happy." that's what I would tell myself, and that's why I tolerated him for 15 years with only minor altercations.

But then, we caught him cheating once. On my birthday no less. Naturally, she decided to forgive him. And she urged me to act as if nothing had happened, as if the only reason I put up with him wasn't just eliminated.

So eventually, I did. For my mother. I grit my teeth and sat it out and decided that if she chooses he is her happiness, then I have no business to have an opinion on that.

But under the surface, I could feel something growing and boiling and threatening to spill forth at every turn.

I always say hate is a strong word. We say we hate things or people way too easily. But what I felt rumbling underneath the surface was 15 years of anger. 15 years of resentment. A hatred 15 years in the making. And it was exhausting.

I also realised that I began to resent my mother. I began to resent her for always excusing him but never showing the same leniency with me. I hated her for being spineless, for letting herself be treated in this way. For making me give up my own self worth for her life with someone who didn't even have the common decency to treat her well.

And I lived with these feelings for almost a year. Until the day he came home from work (he always comes home 1 to 3 hours before my mother) and had a call that I heard through the wall. A call with a woman. A call mentioning meeting her everyday. A call mentioning his love for her. Mentioning a name that isn't my mother's.

That day, I drank. And I cried. Because he didn't show redemption after the first time. Because this time, it's not a meaningless prostitute, but someone he has a relationship with. Someone he claims to love.

I cried for my mother who doesn't deserve it. And I cried for myself, because all my sacrifice over all these years seemed to be for a cause that I hated.

And I confronted him. Shaking, with a voice way thinner than I wished. For the first time in 15 years, I called him out. I asked him about the woman on the phone. I listened to him making up a lie that had no bearing. I told him I don't believe him, that he needs to stop this, that my mother deserves better.

And I told my mother, too.

She. She then told me she had suspected this. That she "isn't stupid" but that she "can't bear to be alone anymore".

And I swallowed again. Everything inside me was raging. I thought about what he'd done to me, about the way he treated her. And about how it will all stay without consequence.

I told her I don't think it's healthy, but shut up after that. Resigned.

The next weekend, while my mother was showering, he barged into my room unannounced. Into my personal space. The only place in this house he never stepped into.

He started yelling, without any way I could have predicted this, without any prior indication of it. He yelled that he hated how I lock the bathroom door when I take a shower. And I suddenly felt 12 years old again, being told I was a prude for not wanting for us to be undressed in front of one another, being told he'd seen me before when there was no opportunity he had.

For a moment, I was 12 years old again.

But then it cracked. For the first time in 15 years I raised my voice back at him. I asked him if this was all he could come up with. If this was really the kind of things he needs to stoop to now that he can't find something else to criticise.

I almost undressed and told him to take a good look if that's what's so important to him, if it weren't for my mother coming out of the bathroom and holding me back.

I left that day. But my mother called, crying. And I came back. Not only for her, but also because I had nowhere else to go.

But, for the very first time, we properly talked. For the first time, I told her about my feelings. For the first time, I didn't give her false reassurances when she talked about how she made mistakes and was (in part) to blame. For the first time, I told her how I genuinely hate him. And that I resent her too, although I don't want to feel this way.

I don't think she entirely understands. She still makes excuses for him. But I think for the first time, she realised that things have gone too far downhill too long ago to keep pretending. To keep playing happy family. I think that day, for the first time, she realised that she was harming me with it (and tremendously so). She realised that she cannot keep us both in her life at the same time. That she will have to see me without him and him without me, once I finally graduate and move away. That she's harming me by making me play pretend.

I told her I can no longer keep this up. That too much happened, that it drains me. That I can't keep playing. And she accepted it. And I haven't played, since. I share an apartment with my mother and a man whose eyes I haven't met since that day. A man I avoid.

It still burdens me. And I'm still angry about the injustice. There's still a voice in my head chanting about my hatred for him when I hear his voice through the wall.

But it's bearable. It'll be another 6 months until I graduate and get my own place.

And I decided for myself that I will not see him again after that. I decided I was done playing. I decided that, no matter what my mother may plead again in the end, I will free myself from him.

Because I finally spoke. To him. To her. And I finally see enough of my self worth to stand up for myself.

I still dream of telling him that I hate him to his face. Of telling him a real peace of my mind before turning my back on him for good.

And I think I might do that when I move out and won't have to deal with living in the same house as him after that.

And I think, this is how I'll finally start finding myself again.

I used to have a form of BFRB where I'd bite at the skin around my nails until it bled. Coincidentally, that started when I was 7. When he came into my life. And although I tried time and again to stop, coincidentally, it stopped without me trying once I finally broke and spoke up and stopped cowering completely.

I had problems with acne since puberty. Coincidentally, my skin has cleared considerably now.

My anxiety problems seem a lot less. Or at least easier to handle (although admittedly, this has been happening for the past year or so already, although I do attribute it in part to the realisation that the person who hurt me all my life was actually a bad person. A cheater. Someone whose opinion maybe really doesn't matter).

It feels like both my mind and body are finally on the right track.

And while I still have a lot to work through (my hatred, my resentment. Both powerful and ugly emotions that drain me quite a bit), I'm confident that I'll be able to let go of these emotions once I am physically removed from the trigger. And if not, I am more than willing to finally find a therapist and work through it with a professional.

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artificialqueens · 6 years

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Twist Of Fate - Ch08 - (Trixya) - katyahzamo

A/N: The time has come, squirrel friends, to finally see a tiny bit of Trixie’s side of the story! There will be one more Trixie POV until the end of the fic, so enjoy it while you can and let me know what you think!

A reminder: Trixie is a hairdresser and Katya is a struggling photographer slash yoga instructor. Lesbian AU. Read the chapters on AO3 and/or come hang out on my tumblr katyahzamo. Comments are welcome and encouraged!

Trixie Mattel used to read a lot of romance novels growing up. Living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by endless fields that stretched for miles, there weren’t many other things to do during summer months, when school was out and the heat reached its peak, forbidding her to walk through the tall grass hours on end. Instead, she would sit on the small porch, propped up by pillows she’d bring down from her bedroom, and read one shitty romance novel after another, bought in grocery stores for a dollar or two.

It used to be the only thing that transported her somewhere else, away from her alcoholic stepfather and the poverty her family endured for years on end. The romance novels have always been painfully straight and extremely cliché – but Trixie wasn’t complaining. She’d read them, and reread them if she ran out of pocket money to buy new ones, and daydreamed about running away one day to have an adventure of her own. Her favorites were those that included love triangles, a woman stuck between being infatuated with two men, choosing one and leaving the other broken-hearted. She loved them because she thought them to be fiction – no person could love-love two people at the same time, right? It was stupid.

Many years down the line, Trixie Mattel stopped reading romance novels, when empty fields got replaced by Bostonian buildings, streets and little cafés, and she started working and began worrying about real problems, like paying rent, eating regularly and keeping herself hydrated. The romantic part of her never died, however, even though she had issues with keeping herself in relationships for too long. At first it was because the internalized hatred and shame for who she was, endless attempts at dating men that didn’t work out, women who were emotionally unavailable and those who called her emotionally unavailable. Later – it was just a lack of time and energy, and determination to go far in life with her hairdressing career.

When Katya walked into her life in her mid-twenties, Trixie was instantly enamored by her charm, wit, and the perfectly white, broad grin that always seemed genuine and warm. First time she found out Katya loved women, Trixie found herself fantasizing about going to candle-lit dinners with her, kissing in the dark movie theatres and dancing with their fingers intertwined. The fantasies never stopped, even after finding out that Katya was in a serious relationship, despite herself, and always secretly hoped there would come a day when they would break up and Trixie would get that chance. She often indulged these fantasies, especially lying in bed at night and staring at the ceiling, even though she knew it was never going to happen. No one could ever love two people at the same time.

Getting an offer from Berlin had come in the right moment, when her attraction to Katya became almost unbearable, words always at the tip of her tongue and ready to spill over the edge. It was also a sign from the universe that keeping to her career was the best thing she could do for herself at that moment in time. Kim and Bob had practically jumped up and down after hearing about the opportunity Trixie has gotten, and shut down every doubt Trixie had about moving. It was exactly like she’s told Katya all those years ago: there was nothing tying her to Boston, and she was far from home anyway.

The life in Berlin had been easy – and fun, despite her horrible, broken German and shitty sense of direction. The city itself, huge and full of history, made her fall in love at first sight. Not staying in contact with Katya , while something she berated herself over for the first two weeks, became a blessing in disguise since she could finally move on. People, especially at the salon where she worked, made her feel like home and took her out to gay bars every chance they got, happy to have a lesbian American among them. Foreigners are chick magnets, her co-worker would say, you’ll be drowning in German pussy in no time.

It was funny then, or maybe a little ironic, that the first girl she would get a gigantic crush on was an American DJ, and a famous one to boot. They met one cold winter night while Kim was visiting, and told her that the new girl from Honey Salon, Adore, invited them for a party in Berghain, Berlin’s biggest nightclub. When Trixie saw Pearl for the first time, she decided that her type were definitely fit blonde women with pale eyes and a beautiful smile. Talking to Pearl would turn out to be the easiest thing in the world, even in the light of the following day when they went out for coffee. When they kissed in front of Trixie’s apartment later in the evening, Trixie felt butterflies in her stomach for the first time in forever.

It took her a long distance relationship with Pearl, who was almost always on the road, to make Trixie realize that long distance relationships are hard, maintaining solely on FaceTiming, talking over the phone and counting days until the next time they would see each other. Still, Trixie was very proud of herself for having a functional romantic relationship, even long distance, and Pearl always made it easy even though she wasn’t a romantic type. Soon after that Trixie realized that she felt lonely in Berlin, with all of her friends and her girlfriend living one ocean away and the city being now familiar enough, all the thrill of novelty gone. When she found herself crying over her morning cup of coffee in her empty apartment on a Sunday morning, Trixie decided it was time to go back.

There were many things that Trixie expected to stay the same in two years of her absence: that small coffee shop at the end of the street where Honey Salon was, the delicious ribs in a restaurant close to her apartment, Latrice’s beautiful booming laugh and lovely sunsets over Boston’s townhouses. What Trixie didn’t expect to stay was that dumb smile of Katya Zamolodchikova that walked into the salon on the first day she came to visit her friends and beg Latrice to let her work at least part-time.

Talking to Katya felt… the same and different at once. The two of them were still the same people with the same sense of humor and mutual understanding no one but them shared; but now with different circumstances. Trixie soon found out that the absence makes the heart go fonder was unfortunately horribly accurate, even though she now had no reason to fantasize, even after finding out that Sharon was out of the picture. Pearl was in the picture now, and Trixie was in love, and loving two people at the same time was impossible. Right?

When Trixie wrote I Know You All Over Again during the worst week of her life, saying goodbye to her favorite aunt and crying in Bob’s arms for hours. When she wasn’t crying, her old guitar was in her hands, Bob by her side, picking at the guitar strings until something that made sense finally came out. Trixie was certain that it was about no one in particular, and just a little bit about Pearl. That was at least what she told herself for the entire week leading up to Adore’s and Bianca’s party. She knew she’d made a mistake telling Adore that she wrote a new song the moment Adore brought it up in front of everyone, but decided to perform it anyway. Only after she’s seen Katya sitting across from her, another girl’s hand in her lap, and that dumb grin on her face, did Trixie realize there was no point in pretending anymore. Loving two people at the same time was impossible, but over the past three weeks it’s not been Pearl that she’s been thinking about all the time, not Pearl she wished was with her back in Wisconsin, not Pearl she wanted to show off to her homophobic family. She loved Pearl, yes, but not like she loved Katya.

That is why she’s on the balcony now, getting fresh air away from the loud music and the laughter of her friends, feeling like she’s betrayed absolutely every single person that cared about her. When she hears a voice behind her, Trixie is quick to wipe her tearful eyes and laugh bleakly at the choice of words that Katya used, transporting her to two years back when she’d ask the same question.

Penny for your thoughts?

There is no way that Katya remembers that night of her farewell party when Trixie almost kissed her on three different occasions, right?

Trixie turns around to meet her eyes with Katya’s, noticing a very little smudge on the edges of her lips and smiles, hoping the balcony was dark enough that the other doesn’t see her red eyes that still prickle uncomfortably. Trixie swallows and then shrugs casually.

“I’m thinking how horrible my singing must have been to make you run before I was done.”

Teasing Katya is one of the easiest things in the world, especially when it’s rewarded with this gorgeous laughing that sounds like a squirrel fighting for air. It makes Trixie laugh too, the knot in her throat loosening.

“Bitch, it wasn’t your singing! I don’t have to explain my bowel movements to you, do I?”

Trixie scrunches her nose in Katya-you’re-gross kind of way but she’s still laughing.

“Maybe that’s exactly what I want, Katie.”

“You’re a disgusting, vile human being.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

They laugh again but then Katya comes to stand next to her, arm propped on the railing, head tilted up a little bit since Trixie is wearing heels and she is most definitely not.

“Okay, how about this: your song is really good and your voice is amazing.”

Trixie feels her cheeks heat up and she has to look away. Since when was Katya this open with complimenting her? Diffusing the situation in her head, Trixie clears her throat, ready to fish for more.

“Oh but I fully know that.”

“You do? Good. Okay—“ Trixie watches Katya raise her index finger and presses it to her own chin, pretending to be thinking, glasses on top of her head making her messy hair even messier. Trixie wants to tuck the stray strands so badly, but doesn’t think her own heart can bear it.

“Let me try again: I think that you’re talented in everything you do and you’re seriously underestimating yourself.”

The tone that Katya uses when she says that is as neutral as if she’s talking about the weather, but Trixie has to blink once, twice, the corners of her mouth twitching into yet another smile. The knot in her throat is back, however, and when she opens her mouth to speak, nothing comes out. Instead, her eyes fill with tears and she exhales shakily pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Trix?” The last thing she needs right now is Katya coming even closer to her, but she’s there anyway, fingers wrapped around her wrist comfortingly, and Trixie flinches at how cold Katya’s skin feels.

“I’m fine I just- your fingers are really cold.”

“Trixie-“

Next thing she knows, Katya is pulling her into a hug, one of the tight ones Trixie always hoped to get more of, and her own eyes close shut when she leans her cheek on Katya’s shoulder.

“I got you, it’s okay.”

“I’m getting mascara all over your dress.”

“That’s why I always wear black dresses.”

“In case girls decide to cry on your shoulder?”

“Yes, and to keep up with my bat aesthetic.”

That makes Trixie hiccup, then laugh, before she pulls herself away and wipes the tears from under her eyes, grateful she didn’t go with heavy makeup today.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine I just— this week’s been a lot.”

Katya nods thoughtfully and rubs Trixie’s upper arms before she fishes for cigarettes in her pocket – of course Katya’s dress would have pockets - and asks Trixie if it’s okay if she smokes, to which Trixie nods, still finding it hard to speak.

“Your aunt?” Katya asks again when she exhales smoke in a direction opposite of where Trixie is standing.

“Yeah, and… other things.”

“Yeah?”

Trixie wants to tell her all about it. She wants to tell her how fucked up she is, and how bad of a person she is, how her girlfriend is in this very house downstairs with all their friends and all she can think about is stepping closer to Katya and kissing her. How she doesn’t deserve someone like Pearl, or Katya. Trixie wants to tell her how a part of her wishes she never went to Berlin because she’d have been there when Katya and Sharon broke up. She also wants to tell her how the last thing she wants is to hurt Pearl whom she loves and who has been nothing but great to her, but how her heart goes insane every time Katya is around. She wants to tell Katya other things, even more personal , and wants to tell her just how irrationally she’s in love with her, even though they still don’t know a lot of things about each other.

And yet, she doesn’t.

“I’m just tired, and I don’t really know what I want anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s kind of a long story, but just, you know, general things. Work, life, being back in Boston…”

“Having a hard time readjusting, huh?”

“Kinda, yeah. And the girls at Honey are great but recently I’ve been thinking about opening my own salon but I don’t have the stability to, you know, mentally or financially.”

Katya nods along, and the absolute understanding Trixie finds in her eyes makes her want to cry again.

“A wise woman once told me: follow your gut and stick with it.”

“Was the wise woman you?”

Katya laughs, and Trixie finds herself smiling again.

“No! But I’ll tell you this: I believe that everything you set your mind to, Tracy, you can achieve.”

“You really want me to start crying again, don’t you?”

“Wet my shoulder baby one more time.”

The shriek-laugh leaves Trixie and eventually Adore finds the two of them laughing loudly together, both having long forgotten what exactly it was they have been laughing about.

Pearl goes home with her later that evening, and as they climb up the stairs to her small apartment, Trixie still thinks about Katya leaving with Kameron little before them, trying not to feel too bitter about it. Her own emotions aside, Katya has absolutely every right to move on from Sharon, and it would be selfish to feel betrayed or sulk about it. After all, Pearl is right next to her, with her arms around her, mumbling about how tired she is and how she can’t wait to get into bed.

Trixie watches her take off her clothes and go into the shower, and does the same once Pearl is out. Feeling mentally and physically drained, Trixie snuggles into Pearl under the covers in her king-sized bed that’s more than big enough for the two of them.

“I’m going to miss all of those bitches when I leave.”

Pearl’s voice is low and rumbling with her lips pressed to Trixie’s forehead, Trixie snuggled into her embrace and arm slung around Pearl’s bare, toned stomach.

“I’m going to miss you.” She adds, and Trixie looks up to find her blue eyes searching for hers, feeling a whirlwind of emotions from the night, from the week, from this moment, tearing her apart from the inside.

“I’ll miss you too.” Trixie finally croaks out, and she’s not lying. These past couple of weeks has been the longest she and Pearl have spent together, and Trixie’s gotten used to having her around. Waking up with Pearl and going to sleep with her has been her favorite part of the day, because she loves the feeling of being protected and safe, and loves having Pearl’s arms around her. She wishes, with all her heart, it was enough.

“You smell so good.” Pearl says then, and her lips are already leaving small, lingering kisses down Trixie’s face and her jawline. Once her teeth find Trixie’s neck and bite down playfully, Katya temporarily leaves Trixie’s mind. All she can think about are Pearl’s lips and Pearl’s hands running down her sides and fingers digging into soft flesh of her waist under her T-Shirt.

“Yeah?” She breathes out, scooting closer, suddenly hungry for physical touch, Pearl’s touch, always so attentive and knowing of what Trixie wants and needs.

“Mhmmm.” When she sees Pearl smile and trail kisses down her bare stomach, her long fingers pushing Trixie’s underwear down her thighs before she settles between them, Trixie thinks she can make this work. Maybe she has been wrong all these years. Maybe it was possible to love two people at the same time after all. She will think about what to do about that realization tomorrow.

Trixie is thankful that Kim is back on Monday, and they embrace tightly in the middle of the salon. She requests every single detail from the New York seminar, and Kim has just finished talking about how Brianna got food poisoning from one of the small delis when customers start pouring in. Without having to say anything, Trixie knows Kim wants her to talk about Adore and Bianca’s party, because Kim and Bob are the only people who knew about her liking Katya back then, two years ago. It has been the only thing that kept her sane through everything. Neither of them know about Trixie’s realizations now, because saying them out loud would mean that it’s true, and Trixie is not ready to admit it to herself just yet.

Luckily for her, Kim is a really good reader of people.

“Come on, Trixie, I know you’ve been dying to tell me about the party all morning.”

They finally manage to sit down hours later, for lunch, and Trixie knows she doesn’t have a lot of time before their next appointments walk through their door.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you Kimberly, it was a housewarming party. Alcohol has been drunk, songs have been sung, we’ve all been roasted by Bianca at least once, Katya and I talked twice…”

“Katya was there?”

“Yeah, you know how much Adore loves her, of course she was there.”

“That must have been awkward, huh?”

“A little bit, yeah, but not too much. She hugged me on the balcony after I started sobbing right in front of her so that was fun.”

“Why were you sobbing?”

Trixie suddenly feels like she’s in a dark room, set up for interrogation. She feels she might as well tell her best friend about it, since mulling over the situation alone during the weekend did not help at all.

“Everything just hit me at once, and I am just so confused Kim-“

“So you still have feelings for her, huh?”

Kim asks the question with her eyebrows slightly raised, slurping on her noodles, and Trixie feels her heart swell. Kim Chi was never a judging type when it came to serious things, despite her jokes and judgment on every other occasion.

“I- I don’t know. I literally don’t know. It seems like those two years in Berlin did nothing to help me forget her. I feel like a dumbass.”

“And Pearl is in the picture.”

Trixie pokes at her own noodles unenthusiastically, sighing with a groan.

“I wish I had your problems.” Kim says then, and Trixie gapes at her with a scoff and an incredulous look on her face.

“Bitch!”

“Bitch nothing! You have these two gorgeous women fighting for you and you’re here being useless, complaining-“

“Katya isn’t fighting for me; I don’t think she even sees me like that.”

“Trixie please, she was here the first day you were back-“

“She didn’t know I was back, Kimberly, you’ve seen how surprised she was. And it doesn’t matter anyway; she went home with Bianca’s cousin that Adore invited only to hook them up so…”

“Oh. That sucks.”

Trixie half-shrugs, half-nods, shoving the fork full of noodles in her mouth. They both chew in silence for a couple of moments before Kim speaks up again.

“I still think you should talk to Pearl. This isn’t fair to her.”

“I know. I just don’t know how to bring it up. I think I’ll do it after their photoshoot thing on Friday.”

“Good idea. Oh! Speaking of which, I don’t think Brianna is going to make it for that.”

“Still sick? Yikes.”

“Yep. Adore will probably ask you to fill in, so just a heads up.”

“Why can’t you fill in, Kim? Katya and Pearl are both going to be there.” It’s futile to say that her pouting does not work on her best friend.

“I can’t, they will need a hair person and I do make up. But even better! You can look and them both and decide which one you wanna bone for the rest of your life.”

“Kimberly!” Trixie laughs loudly, splattering her noodles everywhere.

“What? It’s a win-win! And I’m not cleaning up your shit. You’re on your own.”

Kim was right, Adore does storm into the salon on Tuesday morning, begging Trixie to help her out with the photoshoot on Friday, and Trixie does not see the way of turning it down without seeming suspicious. Adore, despite being a stoner who talks slowly, is incredibly smart and intuitive, and Trixie could have sworn she gauged at least some of the feelings Trixie has for Katya. And, Adore being one of Pearl’s best friends, is definitely the worst person to get suspicious right now, since Trixie wants Pearl to find about everything from her and not anyone else. That is why she promises Adore to be there on Friday, and spends the rest of the week between preparing for it mentally and helping Pearl pack.

Pearl is busy enough not to notice the shift in Trixie’s behavior, or at least that’s what Trixie wishes, with her getting increasingly jittery about Friday and genuinely not knowing how it will all end. A large part of her hopes in vain that whatever she felt during these past couple of weeks have just been emotions intensified by the loss of her aunt, and not something that could potentially change her life, make her lose Pearl and fuck up her friendship with Katya. She’s a mess, and she needs time she doesn’t have to process just how much of a mess she is.

When Friday finally rolls around, Trixie and Pearl go to the agency together, and Katya is the first one to greet them in the hallway, giving them both tight Katya hugs and looking much less tense than when she’s seen them at the party. Trixie wants to ask her about Kameron, but they barely get the chance to talk to each other for majority of the day. Katya, on the other hand, looks at Trixie with a newly found wonder Trixie can’t place, crinkles around her eyes she’s earned by constantly laughing, and Trixie finds herself wanting to know every single thing that makes Katya tick.

Watching Katya and Pearl work together is an… experience, and she cannot tear her eyes away when Katya runs to Pearl to fix strands of her puffy blonde hair or talks to her with her arms flailing all over the place. Pearl, being herself, feels absolutely unfazed by Katya’s chaotic energy and the way she bursts out laughing at whatever Katya says makes Trixie’s nerves spike. After talking to Kim on Monday, she knows that she needs to do something about this stupid situation, but now, looking at the two of them laughing when Pearl made a funny face and flipped Katya off, Trixie knows that at least one person will end up hurt. Love sucks.

Katya runs up to her during one of the breaks, begging her to do something with her bangs that keep falling into her eyes, and Trixie spends fifteen minutes laughing at the stubborn blonde strands, attracting curious glances from all of their friends. Katya watches no one else but her, murmuring jokes and egging her on even more, and Trixie swears that no one, not even Pearl, exists around them for a hot minute. Selfish.

Once the individual shots are done, the group shots follow, and Adore and Trixie watch the entire thing unfold, standing just off the side where Katya was kneeling and shouting instructions at the girls and Michelle is sitting and watching it happen.

“Katya’s insanely talented, man.” Adore comments, her arms folded, her and Trixie’s bags half-packed besides their feet. It’s the last set of the day, and Michelle promised to buy them all dinner afterward.

“She is, she’s always talked about how she wanted to be a photographer when I met her.”

“Oh yeah, you’ve known each other for a long time, right?”

“Three years, more or less. Violet brought her to the salon one day and she just kept coming back.”

“Until you left?”

Trixie looks over at Adore, and Adore’s looking at her with an expression Trixie can’t quite read.

“Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t really keep tabs on my American customers once I moved.”

“Uh huh.” Adore nods and looks away and at the girls again, and Trixie can’t help but feel a little bit uneasy.

“Is everything okay, Adore?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

It’s the first time Trixie has noticed a tiny bit of hostility from an otherwise chill Adore, and it makes her heart sink. She knows, she knows, she knows. It’s unsure how Adore knows, but it’s the only thing that would explain this behavior. Trixie opens her mouth and closes it again, and they don’t speak again until the set is done and everyone is doing a group hug and Trixie is painfully aware of Katya’s arm around her waist from her right.

Trixie and Pearl don’t stay for dinner, since Pearl’s plane is at 4 am, and Trixie is the one taking her, so they need time to get her all packed up. When they finally zip up the second and final suitcase hours later, Trixie can feel the heart in her throat and when Pearl comes to hug her, she knows that this is the time to make a decision. If she stays silent, she will take Pearl to the airport, kiss her goodbye, and they will be back to their long distance relationship until November.

It could be enough time to figure out her feelings, Trixie thinks in one fleeting moment as she hears Pearl’s heart beat under her cheek, but then remembers Kim’s words and how unfair it would be to the girl that has been nothing but kind to her. If they stay together, it might take weeks, months, even years until her feelings for Katya fade, and Trixie doesn’t know if she can bear kissing Pearl one more time with Katya on her mind. If they break up now, and Katya doesn’t like her back, Trixie will have to live with the consequences and it’s nothing less than she deserves with getting herself into this situation. And if Katya does like her, somewhere down the line… that scenario scares her as much as it excites her. That thought alone makes the final decision that much easier.

“Pearl?”

“Yeah babe?”

“What time is it?”

“Five minutes after midnight. Do you want to go eat something? We still have time.”

“Sure. But uh…”

“What’s up, Trix?”

“We should talk.”

#trixya #trixya fic #lesbian au #katya zamolodchikova #trixie mattel #twist of fate #katyahzamo #slow burn #rpdr fanfiction

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bizarrebird · 6 years

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Okay so, to start this, for reference, I have watched Buffy: the Vampire Slayer several times and taken a class entitled “Understanding the Whedonesque” and written/read several papers about all things Whedon, Buffy in particular, so I feel like I’m at least somewhat qualified to speak on the subject so, here we go

I will put the bloggings under a readmore. And yes, I am very sure someone before me has done this better, but I’ve had a lot of wine and this shit seems fun, so fuck it. And yes, I do like Buffy. I honestly do. Regardless of literally everything Joss Whedon, it’s a good show and was very important (arguably still important) for its time. So this may be a continuing thing. We’ll see.

Diana Liveblogs Buffy (Season 2, Episode 1: When she was bad)

tw: this episode features undiagnosed ptsd, and the subsequent mistreatment and misunderstanding of someone suffering said condition

We’re starting with Season 2, Episode 1 (Because most of season 1 just... isn’t good. Like it’s just bad. The first and last episode are passable, but the rest is mostly eh, and I won’t be revisiting it without significant comment)

So we start in with Xander* (human garbage) and Willow (a sweet child who deserves better) talking idly exchanging movie references (dumb ones, like really really, dumb ones. No seriously their big references are Planet of the Aps (the old as fuck one) and Star Wars (also the old as fuck one) don’t worry about it, Joss still thinks these are smart) and talking about the fact that Buffy has left to spend the summer (after she fucking died) with her estranged father in LA. This scene shows, rather explicitly that Willow has feelings for Xander which aren’t (????) reciprocated, as he is still very much hung up on Buffy, asking if she asked about him when she contacted Willow. Which is of course the most important thing she could have possibly done in such a situation. (we will revisit later all the times Xander* is terrible about Buffy and several other people/things as we go This is the first of many that will be touched on.) Xander* mentions that he has “certain needs” because he’s a man. Wow. A man. Wanting to fuck a woman. How amazing. What intense drama. The fact that Buffy might not be interested occurring to him exactly... never. Huh. How about that.

*fuck Xander

There’s sexual tension here that’s really awkward (more awkward with the fact that WILLOW IS GAY AND I WILL TALK ABOUT THIS IN SEASON FOUR BUT SHE IS GAY) were Xander* dabs her nose with ice-cream and cleans it off. And okay, honestly credit where credit is due this could have been grosser with him licking it off, but he doesn’t. He gently cleans it away. AND THEN They are attacked by a vampire and saved by Buffy, who seemingly appears out of nowhere to save her friends.

THINGS IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE IN THIS FIGHT SCENE

Xander does push Willow back and tells her to go. Ignoring the macho vibes here, he is trying to protect his friend who he was about to kiss. I don’t give Xander a lot of credit, but this is a decent moment.

Buffy slays this vampire by pushing him into a tree branch. Thus she does not kill the first vamp. She pushes him onto another object that kills him. No trust me this is a big deal. Buffy has not killed a vampire with her own two hands for a while. Willow hugs her and then She then asks “Miss me?” as we go to opening credits

((This is important. I don’t care about the hugs we get after credits, we don’t know if her friends missed her and I don’t know how to tell you how important that is))

Buffy comments on the fact that neither of them are ready to deal with vampires “very sloppy”. Which they brush off, Xander* saying “that’s the first vampire we’ve seen since you killed the Master”. Buffy is immediately uncomfy, but they all blow through it. Xander* draws attention back to the vampire she just killed, and Buffy admitting that she went hard (”yeah, I didn’t kinda wail on him, didn’t I?”), but then that gets brushed off too. (do we see a theme yet???)

*fuck Xander

Willow says Buffy missed them burying the Master’s bones, and there’s this very close shot on Buffy’s face as she looks where Willow’s pointing. No one else notices, and no one else cares that Buffy is very obviously having a reaction to that and they just go on with their business saying they’re glad Buffy is back. (There’s a question asking whether she’s seen Giles yet and she’s pointedly ???? about it (cause she doesn’t want to admit to any issues) but that is a whole other Slayer/Watcher video that will develop as we go)

Alright then we go to:

Buffy’s parents putting away her stuff, which honestly is????? I think this plot would mean more if Joss got to do his actual version of the movie and Buffy’s dad got more screen time. But he doesn’t and Joss didn’t so this is just real awkward time that could have been devoted to my queen Joyce. Her dad mentions Buffy was distant. This is maybe because SHE FUCKING DIED AND NO ONE CARES. NO LITERALLY NO ONE GIVES A SHIT SHE DIED. THEY ASKED A 15-16 YEAR OLD GIRL TO DIED AND WERE SUPER CONFUSED WHEN SHE WAS UPSET ABOUT IT.

Okay, but this is not to shit on Joyce. She’s a good mom and she does her best. Please if you are for whatever reason only watching this show now, give Joyce a chance. She’s trying.

So we go to the school and

Cordelia (light of my life and sunshine of my heart this will make sense season 3 or when we get to Angel trust me) complaining about her parents not taking her on a glamorous vacation (this will be important later). Cordelia asks “is it possible to have too much character”, which is a great question (the answer is yes) and we’ll also get back to that later. Then we go to Giles and new (ish, remind me when hyenas ate the last dude) principal Snyder. There is an, extremely worrying comment from Snyder about how ‘every girl makes boys a time bomb’ (no like what the actual fuck Joss that’s so fucked up).

Snyder makes a comment about teenage boys turning into idiots around girls that ‘ironically’ (Joss Whedon doesn’t know what irony is) signals the arrival of Jenny Calendar. Jenny is the computer class (computer sciences???? idk what the fuck they were teaching in the 90s) teacher who helped last season with the destruction of the Master (a lame villain with like minimal buildup and a shitty plot, who killed Buffy cause fuck Joss Whedon).

Giles also likes her. A lot. This will be important later when the plot remembers who she is for drama.

Snyder ends this scene with the line “I might as well be talking to myself”, which HAHA he is. Isn’t that clever? Oh man, Joss, that’s a good one. So fucking original. I can’t believe this guy lasts as long as he does with the shit Joss gives him. No, seriously, look him up, he’s a decent actor??? but all he gets are bit parts cause of shit like this

Anyway

We go to Giles talking with Jenny about her exciting summer at Burning Man. Here we see how cool and ‘in touch with the youths’ Jenny is and Giles isn’t. Wow, how ever will they work out their issues? We just don’t know. There’s some marginally flirty banter featuring Giles picking up on the word ‘naked’ (so clever Joss wow, you are a wordsmith) and Jenny teasing him about liking books (she hints at him reading dirty books, or her liking them. idk what the real point is here) before Xander and Willow show up. Buffy shows up and Giles asks “how are you?”

To which she responds “alive and kicking.”

There’s a lot of fairly pointed stuff here about her dying and coming back, which again NO ON FUCKING TALKS ABOUT. But whatever. Buffy’s good. Like so good.

They quickly discuss and establish that the Hellmouth is still an open and active thing that they should be worrying about. Just in case anyone was wondering what this show would have going for it.

Now okay, Giles does try to be a decent human being here. He asks Buffy when she wants to start training again and clearly feels bad about the whole thing. And when she says she wants to start just then he’s iffy cause he knows there’s some underlying issues going on. But Buffy does insist. She says she’s ready.

INTENSE TRAINING MONTAGES

Okay so 90s montages aren’t what they are now, but the show does make it clear Buffy’s hung up on the Master and, y’know, the whole deal where he killed her. Yeah, that’s still a thing.

Then there’s some vamp stuff that like might have gone somewhere if the kid playing the anointed one wasn’t getting too old. But seriously in two episodes no one’s gonna care. Just worry about how this shit affects Buffy, that’s what matters.

And then Buffy has a dream where Giles tries to kill her while her friends sit there doing nothing. This is obviously super important, but again a point that I feel other people have probably covered better. But the essentials are that Buffy feels like Giles, and to a bigger extent the Watcher’s council don’t care and are actively trying to kill her, and that her friends (when push comes to shove) will stand by and let him do so.

We then go to this shot of Buffy’s window and SURPRISE SURPRISE when she looks back to it Angel is there. Who could have guessed. And okay like, this is a step up from Twilight. I will admit that. But it’s not as much of one as people want it to be. A 100+ year old dude creeping on a girl in high school will always be creepy. HOWEVER BUFFY HANDLES IT BETTER AND YOU CAN FIGHT ME ON THIS LATER.

So to the point.

Angel is in her bedroom because he has an invite to the Summers’ house. This will be important later. Vampires who are given invitations to a house can use it whenever. REMEMBER THIS.

So anyway, Angel is literally the first person to actually ask how Buffy is. She does shrug that off, but that’s still important. No one else even bothers asking. However, when Buffy presses, Angel reveals that there’s other stuff going on which is the real reason he’s there.

Again, no one is asking about Buffy’s issues because they honestly, earnestly care. Just wanna point that out.

For what it’s worth, Angel does apologize for not having better news and for (at least I like to think this**) not having unselfish reasons to check in. And Angel does try to warn her about the anointed one’s power, which is... nice?

SPOILER WARNING: Nothing comes of this because the actor playing the anointed one was getting to old and wouldn’t work as a recurring villain.

This scene doesn’t quiiiite end there because (and I’m going to try to be civil about the Bangel moments because I don’t wanna shit on anyone’s ship, but god Angel’s the worst) Buffy asks ‘is that it?’ Like, quite clearly expecting more. That isn’t a subtle signal Angel, what the fuck

But he leaves with an awkward “I missed you” before Buffy can respond cause he’s an awkward asshole who doesn’t know how to process emotions. Yes, this is a recurring thing with him. Don’t expect it to get better. It won’t. Yes, Buffy deserves better. She won’t get it, I’m sorry.

ANYWAY

Her mom drives her to school, and here we see THE SECOND PERSON TO GIVE A SHIT AND SORT OF ASK BUFFY WHAT’S WRONG. She doesn’t do it perfectly, and Buffy doesn’t respond, but like... this tiny moment it a looooot for this show. Trust me. You will be amazed at the amount of “I don’t give a shit” that happens later comparatively to the two whole people we had giving a shit here about Buffy’s issues.

Clearly, by what we see, Buffy says nothing to Joyce here. HOWEVER she mentions something about Angel to Willow and Xander. Who are no help. At all. They ask about kissing (Willow, sweet bab) and groping (Xander, oh honey no, I see you Joss, I fuckin see you). So yeah. MENTION OF RELEVANT 90s BAND AT THE BRONX WOW WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE I DON’T REMEMBER

And then Cordelia (my queen) arrives. The show is blessed with her glorious, radiant presence, and we should be so grateful.

So Cordelia (my badass queen who knows no bounds) just flat out stats that she knows demons are a thing and she’s not afraid to admit it. Xander and Willow are trying to keep up the ‘all is normal’ thing, but sweet Cordy has no patience for them. Cordelia (wonder of wonders) says she’s still freaked about being around for the Master stuff last year and (WITH A VERY SIGNIFICANT CLOSE SHOT) tells Buffy “your secret’s safe with me” (which would be a declaration of love on any show between an m/m pair I’m just fucking saying). Buffy (who isn’t ready to accept that she’s bi yet) brushes her off, which, I just wanna say, EVERYONE IN THAT SCENE POINTS OUT.

And we cut to the Bronze (idk if that’s the most correct spelling, but that’s what google seems to think is cool) . Willow and Xander are talking with Willow ( a soft child who knows little of the world yet) saying Buffy’s different now and Xander (a gremlin) saying who cares. Xander just wants to ogle that sweet Buffy bod, which becomes apparent when Willow tries to recreate their cutesy moment from before and it shot down completely.

And I forgot about this moment cause no one cares, but we cut away to vampire biz with the Anointed Baby digging up the Master’s bones for some creeptastic ritual. He doesn’t care about his followers and neither should you. This scene would matter if the anointed one matter, but he doesn’t, so it doesn’t. The only thing that should matter here is that the ground where the Master is buried is consecrated, but that’s never gonna come up again, so don’t worry about it, no one cares.

Stepping in time with *COOL 90S BAND MUSIC* Buffy struts into the club in a dress that’s hot but like... it’s still the 90s so don’t get your hopes up for sideboob. Also Angel is suddenly here I guess???? This would be a lot less weird if he had been there in any of the establishing shots, but Joss is still learning here, I guess, and forgets (frequently) that Angel should exist outside of his love interest, especially if he’s gonna get a spinoff later.

Buffy and Angel say hi and it’s awkward and I would probably care more if I rewatched season 1 first, but you couldn’t pay me enough to rewatch that. There’s clear tension there with Buffy wanting Angel ti give more of a shit and him not getting it because he’s spent a hundred years barely being a person, and Cordelia watches because???? reasons???? I guess. Buffy goes over to flirt with Xander and dances with him and it’s literally uncomfortable for everyone because this is an aggressively clear sign that BUFFY HAS BEEN THROUGH TRAUMA AND IS NOT DEALING WITH IT AND IS LASHING OUT BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO

Like I’m not saying that makes it okay, but this scene is a cry for help from Buffy that no one responds to. And then Cordelia (my sweet love) is forced to regurgitate words from Joss telling Buffy to ‘get over it’. Uh huh, yeah sure Joss, she’ll get right on that you dick.

And then Cordelia gets dragged off by vamps literally right behind Buffy’s back. Like that is the most literally of literallys. And she finds they also have Jenny Calendar there like ????? did they just snatch her and no one gave a shit???

Okay, okay, moving on, Buffy heads home-ish and finds the dug up Master grave which like... is in the middle of a regular cemetery and seems like it should have been fucking noticed by someone???? Whatever, all adults in the Buffyverse (except Joyce) suck I guess

AND THEN. Fucking then we cut to Willow saying Buffy has to be possessed for her weird sexy dancing with Xander. Instead of, y’know, the fact that she’s dealing with a lot of trauma and coping in shit ways and no one cares. Willow, I love you, but you’re not a great friend. Like straight up***.

Xander (a garbage boy wrapped in moldy taco shells****) tries to argue for a second before agreeing. Giles does try to point out that Buffy’s dealing with some trauma (which he has at no point directly addressed with her cause his spine is made of marshmallows and paperclips), and then Buffy shows up and says the Master’s bones are gone and everyone else forgets that she’s dealing with some massive shit. Cause wow, they might be in danger.

ACTUALLY I wanna point out a thing here where Buffy’s like ‘this is slayer stuff, no civvies’ meaning no Xander and Willow and like... given the response he has to Willow being in danger later, his response of getting super pissy now This is gonna be my first

FUCK YOU XANDER HARRIS

FUCK YOU AND YOUR GARBAGE PRIORITIES

FUCK YOUR CRUSHES AND FUCK YOUR ONLY DECIDING GIRLS ARE WORTH CARING ABOUT WHEN THEY’RE DIRECTLY RELATED TO YOU

ahem

Anyway

Snyder says some weird stuff and we move on.

We go to the library for RESEARCH FUN TIMES. Giles reads some prophecy thing saying they need the bones of the Master to bring him back and the blood of whoever was close to him when he died. Huh that’s interesting phrasing, or is it. A rock crashes through the window with a bracelet attached that Buffy immediately identifies as Cordelia’s (why do you know that’s hers Buffy? why do you know that bracelet?). It’s threatening and says come to the Bronze and is deffos a trap, but Buffy goes anyway cause fuck you not-dad

Buffy goes out to kick ass and I believe in her. Angel shows up and is all dark and brooding and no one cares, Angel. They don’t make out cause Buffy can do better and she heads into the Bronze (also there’s terrible foreshadowing about them fighting later and I hate it don’t look at me). Okay a lot of meta could be written on Buffy and Angel talking there but I don’t wanna do it

The trap isn’t for her surprise. It’s for Giles and Willow who were close to the Master when he died. Buffy realizes this and goes back to try to help them and gets there too late and Xander makes me hate him forever. He says he doesn’t know what Buffy’s issues are (there are a lot of them would you like a list fuckboi) and he doesn’t care (and yet he continues to call himself Buffy’s friend) if she had worked with them for five seconds (uh what five seconds? before or after she gave you all the info you had and then went to deal with literally the only lead) and he says, and I fucking quote “If they hurt Willow I’ll kill you”

Suck my giant dick Xander Harris. Maybe you’re a teenager and you’re stupid, but still. that is not the kind of threat you make to a friend, let alone one who fucking weekly saves your selfish entitled ass

I get this is supposed to be a moment where we’re shown he cares about Willow, where there’s a hint there might be chemistry there, but all this comes off as is spiteful and Joss Whedon shoving it in our faces that Buffy is wrong

She’s wrong for feeling her feelings

She’s wrong for not immediately getting over the trauma and hardship Joss fucking Whedon wrote her into

She’s wrong for not immediately knowing what to do to make things better

In case it’s not obvious, I hate this and don’t accept it, but LET’S PRESS ON SHALL WE

Xander actually takes a second to fucking explain why they took the people they did. We cut to Buffy torturing the one vamp who attacked her before (no one’s ever gonna touch on the morality here. like ever. like what the shit guys fucking Supernatural handles this better). Then we go to some... ceremony to probably resurrect the Master. Buffy plots with Xander and Angel “I’m gonna kill them all, that oughtta distract them”*****

And then I guess the ritual almost happens????? There’s not super much threat. The anointed baby runs away and Buffy eventually kills everyone. There’s some cool fight moves, I guess. And Xander and Angel are vaguely helpful, but they mostly let Buffy do everything

Buffy then goes to smash the bones of the Master and FUCKING FINALLY gets to have an emotional moment. Angel comforts her (he still doesn’t deserve her but like at least he gives a shit so... that’s good, I guess, better that literally everyone else here******) . And everyone else looks on and thats???? really weird???? Like there’s no emoting in any of the faces and it just feels v strange

We go to the high school the next day???? and Cordelia talks to Jenny Calenday briefly. Then we go to Giles and Buffy, who (because Joss Whedon secretly hates her which is my thesis for this project btw) says she made all the goofs. All of it is Buffy’s fault you guys. She did everything wrong. Wow. What a concept. Wow. Can you believe it. Because I can’t. I literally can’t wowzers.

Buffy goes to class and... has a moment with Xander and Willow I guess???? They saved her a seat so... everything’s fine now??? idk what the fuck the emotional conclusion we’re supposed to get here is so

Whatevs

FINAL THOUGHTS: All in all, this episode did have an important emotional arc for Buffy and isn’t a bad season opener. It didn’t introduce the main villains, but it did deal with significant wrap ups from the previous season and alluded to some potential conflicts down the road.

*My ‘fuck Xanders are largely as a result of a later ‘fuck Xander viewpoint’ but I think it stands

**For the record, I don’t like Angel. I don’t like the Angel/Buffy relationship. BUT I will give Angel points where he gets them. And right now, he gives the most of a shit about Buffy, so he’s doing decent, not great, but decent in by books

***Buffy and Willow both tend to be iffy friends when there’s a significant other involved. It’s a recurring thing and it’s not great.

****I am legit giving Xander more of pass now because he’s a teenager. He should still know better than to be the intensely shitty shit that he is, but he’s 16 now. This will change in later seasons

*****Okay but how does no one notice or give a shit that Buffy’s dealing with some stuff. She’s 16. This is fucked up, fuck Giles, fuck the watchers, fuck Angel, fuck all of it

******Not to detract from the moment but Buffy’s definitely standing on a box here like. Sarah Michelle Gellar is tiny and David whatshisface is a giant

#diana hush #diana liveblogs buffy #liveblogging #btvs #mostly nonsense #if people like this i'll do more #i just have a lot of feelings and opinions about buffy #i hope no one following me likes xander harris cause hoo boy #i am not kind to him

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hotelconcierge · 6 years

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THE GENDER NULLARY

Trigger warning for everything that follows: the coddled, over-sensitive, “triggered” millennial crybaby does not exist. Hold your applause—the COSTMC is an oxymoron because coddling does not sensitize, it scleroses. Have you met these people? They can’t feel an emotion without an audience and a week to rehearse. The performative offense of this group results from high emotional tolerance, not low; sad-rage is heroin to everything else’s Motrin, and no matter how vast the safe space, some kids are gonna hang at the outskirts hoping to score.

Of course, even the phoniest opportunist has a few real triggers—the type that precludes rage because you’re numb in the fetal position. And of course, there are many uncoddled e.g. traumatized people who are genuinely vulnerable to the many, many instances of genuine cruelty and callousness.

Every community with a code of conduct is a safe space to some extent. My lawyer advises no comment on whether safe spaces are good or bad in principle, because it depends: who is being included, who is being excluded, where will they go, and who is enforcing the rules.

My concern is the way these debates are settled. And when the excluded protest against political correctness—that human resources plot to merge all safe spaces under one state capitalist thumb—they ditch culture war bushido and strike at whomever can be hurt the most.

What you have to understand is that the PC debate is a farce. When the public demands a witch for the stake, the NYTimes selects David Brooks,

perhaps the most balding, white, sanctimonious chump at a newspaper full of balding, white, sanctimonious chumps. Here are four critiques; don’t read any of them unless you still find it exciting to watch a strawman burn.

What’s more interesting is that while Brooks criticizes upper-middle-class culture for being “laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class,” his article is nothing but illegible cultural signifiers. Which, duh, he’s writing for the Times. Brooks thus renders himself irrelevant (which was the point): his critics focus on his blunder of political correctness (the high school grad intimidated by a chicken pomodoro) and dismiss him as classist accordingly.

Lesson: Anyone who opposes political correctness from within will lose and be humiliated. Even without the unforced error, Brooks could have been dismissed as rich and white. His archives could have been mined for hypocrisy. Even a charged non sequitur would have crushed his argument: “So it’s no big deal that it’s legal to murder transpeople in all fifty states? No, I’m David Brooks, better focus on political correctness!” Of course, plenty of non-bourgeois oppose PC, but you’ll never hear that point of view in the Times because, yikes—internalized racism.

The result is that the anti-PC viewpoint is only taken seriously when it refuses the framework of PC. I don’t mean “taken seriously” like there is a meaningful debate. But when an internet troll calls you, say, “a fucking spic faggot,” you can’t reply “hah, well that just shows your heteronormative, colonialist assumptions!” without looking like a wimp. You have to reply with equal bile, which smells of hatred, maybe fear. And it’s no fun to be on the receiving end of hatred, but it’s better than being treated—like Mr. Brooks—with contempt.

Trolls, like catcallers, flashers, and school shooters, are men who ran the numbers and found: being hated > being invisible > being humiliated in the official channels. The first two go back to chimps, the third variable is society-dependent, and wowza does ours fuck it up. Men want to become masculine, citation needed, and when society shit-talks the honest path to manhood then it is inevitable that those foolish enough to listen will turn to the black market. And once that’s your game...

This blog is far from politically correct, but I try to mock only the deserving— bureaucrats, demagogues, cowards, and conformists—and for behavior, for the things people can change rather than those they can’t. But people tend to be insecure about the things they can’t change, and it just so happens that in America insecurity is always wound up in sex. Every debate about safe spaces thus devolves into a debate about gender: a catalog of body dysmorphisms, a who’s who of racial castrations, cuckold, bitch, cunt, whore, freak. You’d think everyone would be against this level of discourse, but gun control means one thing on Park Avenue and another thing entirely in Wichita. The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both the popular and unpopular from being unpopular. Calls for PC go nowhere because cruelty is the best weapon some people have.

Idiot [unemployed, probably no friends]: “So you’re sympathizing with racist, misogynist trolls. Wow. Just—I can’t even.” I didn’t say anything about sympathy. I said that a society gets what it pays for. IMHO, most shock-value trolling is both ineffective—it strengthens the case for Big Brother—and morally disgusting. But it’s a symptom, not the disease. Like oxycodone, trolling is recourse for people with nothing better to do, and like The Opioid Epidemic, the hand-wringing has less to do with fixing the problem than with making it so consumers don’t have to look at something ugly.

The content of trolling is thus extremely not the issue, but even so, I’ll take the bait. To accuse someone of failing at gender is the worst sort of punching-down. It’s not just hateful, it’s lazy, it’s bullying the foreign kid to make up for getting your ass beat at home. And it’s dumb. Forget about the moral argument—my critique is that the gender police are not even wrong.

Judith Butler (Gender Trouble), who coined the term “performative gender,” the antecedent to “sexuality is a spectrum,” has reached Antichrist status in some circles and in fact received a personal diss from Pope Benedict XVI. She’s good, and if you wanna throw down you gotta throw down with the best. So: Does Butler write like a pedant getting paid by the syllable? Does she open each topic with a chain of passive-aggressive rhetorical questions? Does she have the worst fanbase this side of Harris and Klebold? Does she have a point?

Hemlock time. How do you define gender? “Gender is a set of behaviors and attributes that correlate with sex.” Okay—what’s sex? “Aren’t you a doctor or something? XY and XX.” I’m flattered by the appeal to authority, but weren’t you the guy complaining when the CDC lowered the normal testosterone range? How do you feel about androgen insensitivity syndrome?

You can deny your eyes and insist that having an SRY gene makes Eden Atwood male, but from a medical perspective Eden is estrogenized, at risk for osteoporosis, and going down in the chart as an F.

“Look, fella, I know a dime-piece when I see one.” So modify your definition: hormone levels, fertility, waist-hip ratio, empathizing over systematizing, long bathroom lines, 10 Things I Hate About You...The first problem is that all of these traits exist on, sorry, a spectrum, from menopausal women to full-figured men. The choice of which traits to include—and where to draw the cut-offs—and if the division is binary or quaternary or nullary—is just like, your opinion, man (woman/they/them). The bigger problem is that now you’re defining sex as gender.

This reduces your original statement to, “Gender is a set of behaviors and attributes that correlate.” Which is true. And as far as stereotypes go, gendered ones ain’t bad, maybe even necessary to function, the guy wearing a V-neck probably does like shaving his pubes. But they are still stereotypes, man-made, imperfect, and punishing to those who do not conform. I’m no cultural relativist, some people suck and deserve cold and swift judgment, but is the presence or absence of armpit hair really the hill you want to die on?

There’s a practical argument to be made against fractalized gender: it’s confusing. With 3^^^3 possible sex-gender-orientation combos, how are kids supposed to know how to grow up? Aren’t imperfect gender roles better than 24-year-old otherkin? I hear you, guy wearing a Harley-Davidson jacket and listening to Mötley Crüe, but Tumblr semantics are a consequence of twenty-teen spirit, not the cause. If we weren’t arguing about the gender binary (and before we were) we’d be arguing about the range of femininity or masculinity; the crusade would be for pixie cuts and stick-and-poke tattoos to be considered as feminine as Brazilian butt lifts. Don’t be fooled by words—do you really want society to have one idealized template per gender? How would that ideal be decided? Majority rule?

There’s a hilarious overlap between the people who get mad about preferred pronouns and those who call for a return to “traditional masculinity.” The idealization of some Hollywood-ified tradition isn’t the problem; if you want to roleplay a fursona, go ahead. No, what’s pathetic is the begging. Rather than be a man, in spite of the system, you demand validation from the system for aspiring to be a man. Being against identity politics is the new identity politics. That’s why right-wing culture warriors are so into the idea of crybaby millennials—it’s comforting to believe that you’re actually strong (since you don’t drink from plastic water bottles) and that anyone getting laid is actually xeno-estrogenized. Even if this was true, obsessing over it, masturbating to it, using it as an excuse for self-pity and inaction—that makes you a _ _ _ _. Four-letters. Multiple choice. Maybe hangman will teach you something.

The foundationalist reasoning of identity politics tends to assume that an identity must first be in place in order for political interests to be elaborated and, subsequently, political action to be taken. (Gender Trouble)

My beliefs are no doubt way south of Ms. Butler’s on the political compass, but we agree about one thing: that ain’t a nice way to go out.

But this is precisely the way in which the laundry-is-a-social-construct movement has failed. I have held off on criticizing them because it’s too easy, when you mock Rachel Dolezal for being “transracial” you get to pretend your own self-image is meaningful, but no, all identities are power poses in front of the bedroom mirror, meaningful only insofar as they help you with the rest of the day. “Well, SCIENCE says that—” You sure you want to play that game? Again, I respect anyone who has the courage to defy their assigned caste. I have no purity objections to a transhumanist society where the tap water runs ecstasy and you can get augmented genitals at Starbucks. I don’t even mind Bushwick. The problem with the mad libs youth isn’t the slew of labels—intersectional, nonbinary, pansexual, curious kinkster, ethically polyamorous, empath, casual baby witch (mostly crystals, auras/energy)—the problem is, what are you going to do with them? And there’s a patriarchy-approved answer: buy shit and beg for validation.

If gender is performative, if identity is not necessary for political action to be taken, if the possibilities are infinite once freed from the bounds of phallogocentrism, then why is it that so many cultural subversives sound exactly the same? You know the stereotype. Bondage. Anxiety. Smoking when drunk. Circlejerks of praise for completing the most basic of tasks. Very, very bad poetry. Expensive fashion draped across waif-like models. Guilty pleasures: junk food, liquor, and problematic TV. Hated roommates. Emoji marxism. Twitter. “today i feel cute enough for a selfie, might delete it later.” “didn’t get out of bed until 2 i’m trash lol” “wow, some casual racism at work today. i’ll just laugh and someday burst because i hate confrontation. but whatever.” I’m not saying these traits describe anyone real, although they might. I’m saying: why is this the stereotype?

Discussion questions: When people type in lower case, what emotion do they hope to convey to the reader? The alt-right often asks if “liking feminine traps” is “gay”—is there anything more heterosexual than wishing you had a weaker male friend to validate your penis? Would trans rights even be an issue if the majority were FtM? How many modern protests can be summarized as “consumers demand product”? Who would win, every chafed masculinist and joyless academic or one flamboyant 19th century playwright? As Oscar Wilde put it: “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.”

Choose:

HYPOCRISY’S BAD, BUT YOU’RE WORSE

THE FALSE NEGATIVES

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dreadhaus-literature · 4 years

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{A/N}

I’ve already talked about this before but I have more to say, so.

I don’t often cite “being old” or “getting old” or whatever. I don’t care about changing trends or hating on what’s become popular “with the kids” like some Boomer. Idc what everyone else is doing, that’s pretty much been a staple for me my whole life. I do me, you do you, we’re good.

But one thing that just continues to confuse me and my bitter old ass, and has my whole life is this concept of romance and what’s considered “romantic” or I guess, idk, “acceptable” to put into romance.

Now, let me preface my post with a couple things:

I grew up reading romance novels. Damn good ones, thank you Miss Christine. So I’m used to not only real sappy, happily ever after stories, but also the idealistic way someone ought to treat you.

A lot of what I say can be taken lightly or as a joke. For some reason this seems to be lost a lot in translation with me so let me just be clear. A lot of my points aren’t serious and are mostly just light-hearted jabs at what I’m talking about.

I’m not a complainer. I’m typically happy with anything and if not I ignore it and move on, so keep that in mind, too.

I’m not gonna waste my time with the whole “romance is different for everyone” because we all fucking know that already. This is just me talking about me.

So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s sample the tea.

A lot of people are fucking awful at romance.

And I’m saying this having sampled a plethora of media on the subject. Bear in mind, I don’t consume media that doesn’t have some form of romance in it. I don’t read novels that aren’t romance or have SOME aspect of romance in it, I prefer ASMR videos that have personal attention triggers or are affection roleplays, I sample a fuckton of otome/dating simulation games, I consume x you/x reader headcanons and fanfiction constantly, I unironically watch rom-coms--I’m a sappy bitch. Love and affection are really the only thing that matter to me and it’s ironic as fuck considering how often I’m single, but whatever.

We already know fantasy > reality so we’re not gonna rehash that.

But that is my point. I don’t understand this sweeping trend of needing realism and shit in our escapism. That just...doesn’t work for me? It never has. I have a wild, vivid ass imagination and I know not everyone does, but it’s so fucking tedious for me to consume media and see people constraining themselves by reality because “this wouldn’t make sense in every day life”.

Bitch why do you think I’m here.

I’m a 6′2 lesbian of color with a hormone imbalance and a terrible family. I don’t fucking need reality for a goddamn thing. That’s the whole reason I’m here, to escape it.

And I’ve asked this question before, multiple times, but what is the fucking appeal of making characters mean to your audience? I know I’m probably in a minority here, but I will immediately lose interest in a character if they treat me like shit, even slightly. I am never and have never been one of those people who is all, “they could do whatever they wanted with me and I wouldn’t care,” like, nah. I’ve been treated like shit enough in my life, I come to a relationship to be treated well so you can fuck right off treating me like I don’t matter.

It’s so bizarre. Because I see it across the board. Like, all forms of romantic media is guilty of doing this, of creating these tropes of asshole types who are like, “I’m barely going to look at you. Date me,” and it’s like, my guy, you’d be talking to thin fucking air. That shit ain’t cute.

I ain’t a 1950′s housewife. You act right or you get to steppin’.

And I’m aware my independence likely has a lot to do with it. I’m 100% fine on my own so I don’t put up with foolishness, generally. Don’t have a need to, not scared to be by myself.

I very rarely get seriously invested in a lot of these otome/dating simulator games because the story is so flimsy or it’s very obviously just a ploy to “look at these pretty characters who’ll mildly ignore you” and that just ain’t for me. Looks are very much secondary in my book and if someone is attractive but they act like garbage they immediately become unattractive. If Tom Hiddleston was revealed to be some douche canoe that’d be it. I feel myself souring to characters when they act a certain way, and their appearance changes, to me. They become unattractive to me. Personality’s much more important, so the pretty pictures just aren’t enough to reel me in or keep my attention.

Monster Prom was the first one I can genuinely say I was wholly invested in. One, because I’m a monster fucker (thank you, Silent Hill during my formative years) and two, there was genuine care taken into the story. As a writer, especially a romance writer, I can be super particular about story-telling. It’s very easy to lose me to a bad story. But I loved the character concepts and designs in MP, a lot. I still do--but I will admit, the more I played, the more I got a little turned off because I started to uncover it was less about making the characters love you and more about “look how witty our banter is” or “watch how many times this character can give you the brush off or insult you, isn’t it funny?”

No. No...it isn’t.

Escapism, remember? But I’d have to be careful when I played MP because if I was having a bad day, it stung to be insulted or dumped/literally laughed at when I’m trying to feel better by escaping to a fantasy world with characters I love and who are supposed to love me.

I know I’m sensitive. And being emotionally abused my whole life has also left me with some pretty...well. Idk the right wording, but there are some things I don’t want to hear or be told because it puts me in a really messed up headspace. And so I take my opinion on what’s “mean” or “rude” with that in mind. I know these things about myself and there are times I’ll catch myself side-eying a response I get in these games, then laugh and be all, “Nah, that wasn’t a big deal.”

I have to do that in real life, too, so.

But that’s my whole point. I shouldn’t have to take myself out of the fantasy to remind myself that I’m not stupid just because some pixels on a screen are trying to be cutesy “mean” to me. No one likes to be called names or made to feel dumb or ugly or...idk, I just, that’s never been my style of writing romance and I don’t understand the appeal of it.

I always write to make my reader feel the best they’ve ever felt. No one in real life can adore and love you in the perfect way a fantasy character can. I learned that a long, long time ago. That shit really is only in fairy tales. So if you’re escaping a reality where people treat you shitty or make you feel unimportant why the hell would you choose to go to a fantasy life where characters you love are going to do the same thing?

I don’t understand writing characters, ANY CHARACTER, as being cold or aloof or mean to your reader. I don’t give a fuck who it is or what their character type is. I’ve said it before but love changes who you are, so whose to say a character who is cold and aloof and mean to everyone else wouldn’t be warm and affectionate with their lover? But that isn’t generally what I see, what I see are characters who remain exactly the same with their partner as they are with everyone else and so much for feeling special.

I can genuinely say there’s not a single character I’ve come across that I couldn’t write any way I wanted to, most especially romantically. Hell, if DC can write Bruce fucking Wayne initiating “I love you,” then you can write a character not being a bag of limp dicks to me.

The other otome game/DS I’ve gotten into is Obey Me! Been playing that for a while, and same with MP I love the character designs and the story. It’s engaging, it’s funny, the brothers are all diverse and adorable and I love them all ♥, but the same issue with MP I’m seeing with OM, too. There are times when the brothers are downright mean to you and I turn the game off for a while because I didn’t open it up to be insulted.

I can’t tell if it’s bad writing or if there’s actually people out there who enjoy that sorta stuff. I don’t talk to enough people to know who the hell this is for--and I’ve seen community comments along media where the readers just laugh it off and I generally do that, like in OM when Levi gets all tsundere or Mammon IS ON HIS BULLSHIT AGAIN (I love that idiot boy) but other times I’m straight up shut down by them and if that were me, IRL, that would be the end of a relationship.

Again, might just be preference. I don’t do hot/cold people, I spent my childhood dealing with an unpredictable household where one moment it would be okay to be in the same room or even look at my parents and the next I’d literally be shut up in my bathroom to have two sets of doors between me and them because it was safer.

Case in point? Earlier tonight I was spending time with Asmo in-game, who is just...an absolute flower and I love him so much, he’s so cute, but every single alone/personal time I spend with him he’s been fine to be touched, does that whole super cute, “More, more!” beg. So I went to touch him like always and he rejected me. Out of nowhere, after being thrilled with everything else we’d done together. And I immediately felt myself turn cold to him and had to stop myself--which is something I do IRL, too.

If you immediately switch up on me like that, don’t expect me to stick around. I can’t/won’t do it. Grew up with it, have no tolerance for it now.

And again, after I closed the game down, I was sitting there like, who is this for? Why is that even a thing? If I designed otome/dating sim games, the characters would all be receptive of MC because that’s the fucking point. If I wanted to be rejected I’d just fucking date IRL, I’m here to see pixels because I like feeling wanted, not insulted and told to go away--especially out of nowhere. That’s just...idk, mean to be mean?

It’s not that I get my feelings hurt, lol, I’m 30 years old and I know the characters aren’t real. It’s more that I’m just baffled by it. It’s illogical and leaves me scratching my head. I don’t understand what is so hard about making things perfect or why that’s so unappealing for so many people. The argument, “It’s unrealistic,” shouldn’t even be a fucking argument. None of this is real.

It’s like Joker, and how up in arms people get about seeing him written obsessive but still able to not be abusive to Reader. Like, writing him with his craziness intact, but making him obsessively in-love rather than abusive and people lose their goddamn minds.

“It’s unrealistic! He’s a psychopath, he’d never really be able to love you! He’s supposed to be abusive! This is OOC!”

Right okay but he isn’t fucking real? And your imagination is pathetic.

Going the opposite end of the spectrum, and you get a cold, aloof character like Crocodile and authors have zero issue with telling you he would never love you and he’d likely be mean to you a lot.

Cool, get away from me then. Also, why? You don’t treat the person you love the same as everyone else, otherwise...that’s not the person you love.

You wanna be realistic, let’s be realistic.

I’ve always considered my relationships like ripples in water. The people closest to me get the best of me, then further out will get some warmth and kindness but they’re not #1. Beyond that will get politeness and beyond that? Acquaintance-level. It’s like how ripples start out large and get smaller the further out they go. That’s how my heart works. I’m not going to greet my best friend the same way I greet a friend, because she’s more important and should know it.

And I wouldn’t treat my partner the same way I’d treat some rando on the street, but so many authors are guilty of writing characters so poorly there’s no discernible difference between me and some random.

And I hate it. ಠ_ಠ

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you struggle writing any character in-character and still able to be in a loving relationship, you’re a bad writer.

And I’ll say it louder for the chuckleheads in the back.

If you struggle writing any character in-character and still able to be in a loving relationship, you’re a bad writer.

And to be honest, I wouldn’t be...idk, 100% surprised that there’s someone out there who is actually fine with this sort of thing? Like, I know some people are fine with being denied/rejected, given the brush-off, etc, but my childhood has taken that off the table for me. It goes really south for me, really fast. It’s to the point I have physical reactions to it, I wind up feeling so bad.

But I mean, they have to be writing it for someone, right?

Let me give you two examples, though. Picture your favorite character (FC).

Example A:

FC comes up to you before you could react to their arrival, home at last, and greets you with a chaste but soft kiss. “I missed you,” is said quietly, almost secretly, against your mouth--an admission you knew no one else had heard from those same lips. The words are backed up with action, an arm swept around the small of your back, fingers cinched against your hip to keep you locked to their side so when they straightened up, they took you with them. Tethered together as you’d been apart long enough.

Example B:

FC was home, had arrived home hours ago, but had made no attempt to come see you or speak to you. Finally, you’d figured enough time had passed they’d be all right with a small interruption, but the knock on the door goes unanswered. After a second try, a brisk, “Come in,” is your welcome. Once inside, a glance is spared for you but no more words exchanged. “I missed you,” is your attempt for more attention, met with a silent nod to show it was heard, and a gesture you could be on your way. They were busy.

I would argue that, given the choice, most would go with Example A. Which is insane, considering the majority of fanfiction and game play I see tends to lean toward B.

And the wording is super particular, too. In B, the wording “be all right with a small interruption,” implies the Reader is actively bothering their lover. The brisk greeting could be said to anyone, but shouldn’t be said to Reader if they’re meant to be someone special. And the lack of reciprocation speaks volumes. You missed them? Who knows if they missed you.

And again, if you’re really into defending realism, a relationship where a character wouldn’t speak to you or if they do, they’re treating you like shit? You’re not going to form a relationship to begin with. It’s almost like how we, now, look back at those old time housewives who put up with/made excuses for their husbands who barely paid attention to them and ignored their kids altogether because “that’s just how men are”. We’re repeating it, just modernizing it.

Well, y’all are. I’m not.

Because I am of this wild idea that escapism should live up to it’s name. That I should be able to disconnect from my depressing ass reality to go somewhere that people are always happy to see me and then treat me like they are.

Reality is often disappointing and I am of the belief fantasy shouldn’t be.

And like I’ve said before, you can write any character in a loving relationship without making them OOC. It’s about the way you make the character show their affectionate side, their loving side, that matters--making a cold character a fucking frigid cockthistle isn’t the right way to do it.

Using Example B, a cold character who may not express themselves as openly, when written properly, might not say, “I missed you too,” but they might put their work aside, set their pen down, and hold out their hand for you. The attention they pay you there is how they show you they missed you, too.

An aloof/busy character who came home and couldn’t immediately come to see you, who still had work to do, might text you from their office and tell you--

“I’m home. Come here.”

No flowery language needed, you know they missed you. And idk about you but I’d get all tingly from that text. (♡´艸`)

And that’s what I’m talking about! How hard is that? Apparently very! I see glimpses of it in media, from the games to shows to movies (fanfiction leaves much to be desired but good writers are few and far between) but they always chase it with some unnecessary rude bullshit and then I’m like, well here we are again, me ignoring lines of dialogue because you cain’t act right.

But I digress. Getting into certain things at least allows me to cherry pick characters out of it and then rewrite them in my own head--hell, I’m a comic book fan. I’ve been doing that shit for decades, lmao.

Canon? Nah son.

So yeah. That’s just been tumbling around in my head for a while and I wanted to talk about it proper.

OM was the reason I finally decided to sit down and write this all down, and I have been seriously restraining myself from gushing in the midst of all my commentary--because I really do love the Demon Brothers something awful ♥ they’ve taken over in a big way. But this isn’t the place, unless I start analyzing the stuff OM does right--and that’s partly why it kept my attention where other otome/DS games can’t. Despite running into the same blocks as the other, similar media out there, OM does a lot of things right.

I won’t go into everything, just a handful of examples, because there’s a lot of subtlety that I think is masterfully done:

The way Lucifer is first to defend you and check up on you

The way Mammon turns from calling you “human” to “my human”

The way Levi shares his personal collector’s items with you

The way Satan invites you to events that mean something to him

The way Asmo values your compliments over anyone else’s

The way Beel shares his food with you

The way Belphie actually smiles at you

Out of context some of those could sound super unimportant, but the game does an excellent job setting it up so that you know all of those things? Mean that you mean something to the demon it’s coming from.

Lucifer has a million things to worry about but he leapt to my defense (before Mammon, who is technically in charge of me) and he goes out of his way to walk by my room and then texts me if I’m too quiet to make sure I’m okay--and offers to accompany me if I happen to leave my room for any reason. Lucifer is a super great mix of, “Come here. It’s lonely without you. Spend time with me,” and “I’m only asking where you are because I should be with you...for protection.” Like, okay. I’m onto you, old man. ♥

Mammon has little respect for humans and initially begins calling me “Human” rather than my name (despite being told to call me by name because yes, I did tell that ill-mannered boy to call me Dot) but then it gradually changes to “My human” and now I’m annoyed my heart skips when he does it. Him going so far as to say as “his human” I should only let him protect me because “It’s me or no one, understand?!” I hate you made me love you??? Plus he’s a masochist and I could obliterate him for it.

Levi is gonna get enough of calling me a fucking “normie”, aight. I’m not an otaku like you, kiddo, but I’m a fucking comic nerd so could you maybe chill--but the more you progress with him, the more he waits for you because he wants to show you his new manga or show or game. Someone wanting to share something personal with you is everything--god and he’s so tsundere he’s so easy to fluster. “It’s not what it looks like! I wasn’t waiting for you!” Outside my door? Right. Okay. “What, is that supposed to make me happy...? I-I’m sorry, don’t stop!” I love it.

Satan was one I wasn’t initially sure of. He’s very obviously hiding something beneath that cool, collected exterior (haha probably a lot of rage if you’ll ignore my Wrath pun), but he won me over pretty fast by inviting me to multiple events because, like Levi, he wants to experience things with me. Plus, when I get excited he appreciates it rather than making me feel silly. “That’s the answer I was looking for.” ♥ And he invited me moon-gazing so like, psh, yeah let’s get married.

Asmo I knew, immediately, I would have zero issue with. He’s the Avatar of Lust, which is one sin I’m real into. So while I wasn’t worried about him, finding out he had so many fans and lovers and the like, that I was worried would bother me. I’m possessive~♫ But the game did a huge service to me by showing Asmo wants my compliments more than anyone else’s. Him saying that to me made me coo, out loud. I’m typically not into narcissistic folks, but when it’s done a certain way? Like Tony. You can be important to a million people but if you show me I still come first? I’m smitten. With Asmo, the adorable way he’s almost like a puppy in wanting, “More! I want more! Just from you!” It’s so fucking cute.

Beel is best boy. Like, hands down, immediately crowned Best Brother. He is adorable, like the total giant teddy bear trope. And being the Avatar of Gluttony, food is everything to him. So when he started offering to share his food with me? Like boy oh my god. Freaking Sam hugging gif x100. I CAN’T EVEN EAT ALL THAT MUCH BUT YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES. It never fails to make me smile when I give him his favorite food and he goes, “You’re going to eat with me, right?” NOW I AM. Sobbing. While he tells me being hungry around me “isn’t so bad.” I’m not going to touch on the vore fetish he’s feeding in me every time he starts drooling and calling me a dumpling.

Belphie. Oh, Belphie. My difficult boy. Like Damian from MP I fucking knew you’d be a problem--WHICH IS DUMB YOU’RE A SLOTH, I’M A SLOTH. YOU LIKE NAPS, I LIKE NAPS. But he’s so aloof, he’s hard to pin down initially--but I was gonna get ‘im. I love how the game makes you glean Belphie’s caring for you from the things he says. “You’re late,” when you show up, because he was waiting for you. Or, “What were you doing?” because he wants to know what you’re up to and who with and why it wasn’t him. I adored his line, “I want to sleep but...come see me in my dreams or I’ll get mad.” Like baby I will live there. That and my other favorite is when he smiles and simply says, “Welcome back,” because he missed you and is happy you’re here.

That ^ is all quality. It shows that different character types can love and love well in their own way, without having to be assholes. Belphie loves differently than Asmo but you still know he loves you. The game falls into the same traps as others do, I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it definitely has my attention and I love the brothers now the same as all my other characters--where other games I’ve set aside and given up on.

I think I’ve rambled on about all this enough, it was just buzzing about in my skull and while I guess this is discourse? Really I wouldn’t even say it’s a hot take, it’s just confusing why this isn’t talked about more or why so many characters and games and stories and media are ruined by badly written attempts at romance.

My rule of thumb, or one of them, has always been similar to the golden rule:

Write your romance the way you’d want your favorite character to treat you.

I feel like, most of the time, you can’t go wrong with that. I certainly haven’t had any complaints, at least.

#{A/N} : commentary

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alexisthinksalot · 4 years

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well , i’m up , 5:34am

staurday, november 30

its so early.

i’m in the RV

tired as hell. but cant sleep bcs my stomach problems. i think im home sick.

i remember that last night i said “I’m breaking up with you” to Raul.... not really meaning it ... but ...

if i really didnt mean it, would i have said it at all ?

i get he’s busy; but any body who has time; will make time for the things that matter most to them.

Raul coulve at least texted me when he got home yesterday after work n he never did ubtil i said something. & before that ... he didnt say goodmorning or anything like that. which okay. idrc. i get mornings suck ass.

but then later that day (yesterday) he tells me whats really been on his mind. why he really wasnt talking to me.

Turns out this nigga , QUOTE ON QUOTE said “i just want a woman” “a woman who will help me. you dont do shit. you make me go broke. you came into my life n just made me broke agian.”

first of all) he was practically begging me to date him again. everyday he would nag nag nag “be my girlfriend” “date me already” & he would always make jokes and aide comments about how if i was dating him he would buy me this or that of which we would be looking at when we would go out together.

second) it was NEVER like i was telling him to buy me this and buy me that. he decided on his own terms to spend his money. not me. bcs thats not my money.

third) ha just wow i just really cant believe this nigga wants to talk about this while im out on a family trip. like really nigga ? we spend 24/7 together and you wanna wait until im spending quality time w family // fucking refreshing my soul. and he wants to text me “i want a woman. youre not enough. you make me broke. you dont help”

it just upsets me that he brought this own himself (he told me to be his after multiple times of me rejecting him) and now he wants to complain about how im not enough....

that shit hurt me. and it was out of nowhere. and whats even worse is that hes been feeling this way for a fat minute. it explains ... omg everything makes since now .... this all explains why he’s been so quiet this week ... and probably last ... buti know forsure its been all this weekthat he’s been feeling this way.

what a dick. instead of telling me how he feels about our relationship , he just sits back and thinks to himself “i need a real woman. someone else who can help me. i wish she would.” instead of telling me his thoughts. -

communication is everything.

otherwise; i’m out here lookin stupid.

- instead , he got me out her lookin mad dumb !

i’m over here actin like we’re all good. like theres no problems between me and my boo !

but nah apperently there is problems. and i guess he just HAD to wait until i was with my family , enjoying my family time for him to THEN tell me how he’s negatively been thinking about us. about me.

... so yeah i said i didnt want a relationship bcs why tf would i want to stress myself out like dat ?

all of a sudden im a part of someone elses life/problems and honestly thats just too much for me. i have enough of my own shit to deal with. why add another load of shit to my plate ??????

im only 19 ... growing up , i didnt have a stable home so alot of things i shouldve learned ; i didnt get the chance to ... so i feel like i need to be alone. a one man army until i can get myself situated.

bcs truth be told. im not situated.

and thats why raul’s over here sayin what he’s sayin.

maybe it is best if i stay single.

but here’s the catch:

i was kicked out at 17 & my mom will NOT let me back into her home under any circumstances. (bcs her husband will not allow it🙄 like he says what goes in this family !? ha bitch 😒)

i ended up house hoping from rauls to friends to family ...

i lived in OK for a year

got my GED (bcs my dumbass dropped out) & Drivers License (bcs my mom never had time for me) & I even got an ID for oklahoma. 😎

Tía took care of me like she promised. 🥰

but that was last year ... here i am now.

feeling like im back at square one ....

... i feel like this is my cycle ... men ... 🥺

i came from a broken home , then i spent years growing up, looking for a place to call home but having no place to call home ....

... i just want to be happy while being my own person. i wanna feel like i can do this life shit without a man.

cause rn , the way the universe is playin me; i feel like i’m cursed and i will forever have “daddy issues”

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komahinasecretexchange · 7 years

Text

Title: Subjective Luck

Author: @certifiedboyf (irlhinatakun)

For: @imakeideasnotart

Rating/Warnings: T, warning for brief Suicide Ideation from Komaeda

Prompt: Anything funny with a serious undertone. Nagito’s luck and self hate, idk go nuts / fluffy hurt and comfort. Nagito’s arm, Hinata’s eye, kissing- the works

Author’s notes: It isn’t as fluffy as I meant it to be….. Like I went in for prompt 1 but for whatever reason I ended up frankenstiening these together into serious stuff and hurt comfort. Then saw what I did and was like OOPS. I hope you like it regardless! I do like how it turned out~

If Komaeda had to make a list of things he hated, like a top ten, his personal qualities would probably make up all ten of them. He hated his temperament, his personality, he hated his eyes, his voice, his hair, his face, his body, his cancer, his lack of tact,and most of all, above everything else (while all in a non-specific order) was his luck. His stupid, extreme-to-the-point-of-absurdity luck. His luck had kept him from getting what he really wanted from himself.

Would saying death here sound too cliché?

He had been set, for a very long time, on the idea that dying would be the best case scenario. He’d tried, before and after being diagnosed, to do it. To kill himself. But while the want was there, his luck (which to him felt like some kind of separate entity from himself, that had its own agenda) decided that it wasn’t going to allow it. Was it good luck or bad luck that he kept failing at dying, at getting what he wanted? Komaeda would say yes, but…

Things had been better, lately. A lot better. So much better that Komaeda was waiting for the bad luck to hit. It had to eventually. He didn’t deserve what he’d gotten. Hajime Hinata.

Hinata asking him out had to be the best bit of luck he’d had in his life. He still dealt with his self deprecation and suicide ideation: Dating someone can’t suddenly cure something like that. But Hinata seemed to get it. He was careful around Komaeda, and caring and supportive and Komaeda was absolutely terrified for him. Things like this didn’t last for Nagito Komaeda. Good things in his life always ended up gone or some matter of destroyed. His dog, his parents, they were all ripped away from him. If something like that happened to Hinata….

He was torn, between riding out his good luck with Hinata (which would be extremely selfish on his part, he thought) and leaving Hinata to save him from it. If Hinata died or got hurt because of him, he’d never forgive himself. Never.

So he made his choice, resolved his tear between the two options. He didn’t want to think about the opportunity costs of the whole situation, just rip it off quick like a band-aid.

It had started with a “Hinata, we need to talk”, to which Hinata had responded with a dubious “Okay?” and a concerned look. They’d sat down, and Komaeda told him that it “wasn’t working out” (a lie) and that he “didn’t want to go out anymore” (a bigger lie). Hinata had stared at him, eyes wide, and said nothing. When Komaeda had finished talking, and he looked at Hinata, he regretted his choice.

Hinata hadn’t been crying or anything like that. If he had been, Komaeda would have been surprised. Hinata cried at movies, but tended to be more serious when it came to real life events. He was just staring at Komaeda, looking almost blankly at him. He shook his head with disbelief.

“Y-you don’t mean that, do you?” The way Hinata’s voice caught on the words had punched Komaeda in the gut. He was so shit at people, why was he like this? “Never mind, you wouldn’t have said anything if you weren’t serious. I'm… I’m glad you told me. It’s okay. I wouldn’t want you to silently suffer through it. I know you would, you don’t like upsetting people like that.”

Why was Hinata so…. So good to him? Even when he out of nowhere broke up with him, Hinata still was supportive. Even when he was obviously upset and hurt, he chose to be kind.

Why was Komaeda like this? Why did he have to hurt Hinata? He felt so bad, he didn’t want to do that!

He had grabbed at his hair, trying to backtrack. “N-no, Hinata-kun, I’m sorry, I’m just…”

“Komaeda, you shouldn’t feel like you have to be in a relationship with me-”

“It’s not that, it’s just me being stupid-”

“-You aren’t stupid-”

“- and I really love you Hinata-kun, I just don’t want….. I don’t want you to get hurt because I like you!”

Hinata had frowned. “Why would that happen?”

“The Luck! My luck! It hurts people I care about! And even then, even if I didn’t have my stupid luck, I’m a terrible person, Hinata! I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a piece of trash!”

Hinata’s frown deepened. “No you aren’t! Having issues and being a bad person aren’t correlated! And as for your luck, I’m not scared of it….”

“I AM!” Komaeda hated that he could be brought to tears by his own mistake, and that he let his luck and his fear control his life so totally, but what else could he do? “You could end up dead, just like everyone else I loved! I’m not allowed kindness, Hajime!”

Hinata had looked terribly put off, which Komaeda later learned was for a mixture of reasons, though the main one was that Komaeda was upset enough to use his first name. That was rare and it had surprised him. “But you deserve it! You deserve kindness. Just about everyone does, and you’re in the top percentage of said people.”

Komaeda had choked out a “no!”, but was cut off by a hug from Hinata. A kiss on the cheek. Soft words of caring and love that Komaeda wanted but didn’t think were owed to him.

“Listen, I don’t care about your luck, but if you’re scared of it, I’ll be more careful. If you have a way to avoid it, I’ll do what you say to. Okay? I love you a lot, Nagito.”

And that was the end of the conversation, because Komaeda didn’t know what to say.

He just cried into Hinata’s arms.

***

It was better, afterwards. Komaeda, who thought Hinata couldn’t get any more sweet, noticed that Hinata started giving him random words of encouragement about things Komaeda didn’t like about himself. Snuggling became more common, as did hand holding and dumb little dates. Little actions of comfort. He suspected this began because of his comments during the discussion they had had, but he wasn’t complaining by any means. It was nice, really nice. Spending time with Hinata always brightened his day. Hinata seemed happier, too, and that in turn made Komaeda feel better. Before the discussion, Komaeda tended to try (and often succeeded) to break off that kind of stuff. But he felt more at ease, now.

On top of that, Hinata began to invest himself in the research about Luck done at Hope’s Peak Facilities. When asked, he said he had simply taken an interest in the subject, but Komaeda knew better. He knew that Hinata was doing it to report back to him and try and make him feel better about the whole issue. Komaeda was thankful, but still worried for Hinata. Just because he understood it didn’t mean he was safe from whatever wrathful god decided they really hated or really loved Komaeda. Lady Fortune was fickle, but Komaeda wondered often why she chose a trash bag like him to play with. Hinata would always reprimand him for saying stuff like that, but that didn’t really stop him.

The final remedy that Hinata was trying was doing what he had said he’d do. He listened to Komaeda to avoid possible issues. Some bad stuff happened that barely missed Hinata, but it did miss. Komaeda wasn’t sure if this was a relief or something to worry about more. For now, though, it seemed his luck had hit a spot of calm for the two of them. Equilibrium, almost.

Komaeda put all his faith into hoping that it stayed that way.

Maybe he’d be lucky.

#komahina #komahina secret exchange #fanfiction

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