Heavily identifying with butch femme culture but existing on a feminine spectrum that can lean somewhat androgynous and therefore people assuming I’m not attracted to masculine people entirely is a strange phenomenon. I feel the expectation for “traditional” femininity as an indicator placed on femmes of color negates things like cultural nuances and racial bias in one foul swoop. Although I’ve read up, listened to, and thought thoroughly about others perspectives and similar experiences sometimes I’m not sure how to articulate it in this context all these years later. It feels like forbidden fruit.
Women approach me and tend to interact in a way that suggests they expect me to exist in a more traditionally masculine role which perplexes me for more reasons than one. I forget baggy shirts and pants with clunky shoes reads a certain way for most people despite the delicate jewelry, carefully selected matching accessories, glitter on my eyelids, gloss on my lips, or the lace underneath.
Ironically enough when speaking with a butch friend about this they were surprised by my experience and shared they’d noticed how much consideration I’d put in even in the most comfortable of clothing. They said they wouldn’t have second guessed that identifier but, I digress.
I adore “traditionally feminine” clothing. I collect it in my closet with intention and wear it often. My tight, long sleeve sweaters and flared pants, small cropped t-shirts and low rise jeans, beaded maxi skirts and sheer vintage lingerie tops, tiny shorts and off the shoulder knits, and so much more but functional half buttoned long sleeve tops, carpenter pants, oversized graphic t-shirts, Harley boots, canvas work jackets, loose jeans, embroidered vintage sweatshirts, and sneakers in my favorite color combinations have a huge place in my heart too. It’s cloth, fabric, materials that sit on my body that shift if and how I’m spoken to or who I’m assumed to be. Although my presentation and truthfully gender feel to a degree fluid, nuanced, and need I say somewhat complex, I’ve always felt a strong pull in a direction and maybe I’m saying all these words to express I wish I was seen fully more often but then again I can’t expect a stranger whose never spoken to me to know who I am.
This is an unfiltered brain dump, my words might not be perfectly articulate of my feelings but better out than in.
Still thinking about that one time in 8th grade where i was being silly and writing Mark Tuan's wife in cutesy letters around my literature notebook and some idiot thought it'd be funny to ask 'who the fuck was mark tuan and why was i married to him' very loudly to a full classroom
My love for Mark Tuan came back to cause more trouble for me when I couldn't stop posting stuff about him and his new album and a japanese friend fully asked if I was an asian chaser or something
Still thinking about that one time in 8th grade where i was being silly and writing Mark Tuan's wife in cutesy letters around my literature notebook and some idiot thought it'd be funny to ask 'who the fuck was mark tuan and why was i married to him' very loudly to a full classroom
My love for Mark Tuan came back to cause more trouble for me when I couldn't stop posting stuff about him and his new album and a japanese friend fully asked if I was an asian chaser or something
Still thinking about that one time in 8th grade where i was being silly and writing Mark Tuan's wife in cutesy letters around my literature notebook and some idiot thought it'd be funny to ask 'who the fuck was mark tuan and why was i married to him' very loudly to a full classroom
Still thinking about that one time in 8th grade where i was being silly and writing Mark Tuan's wife in cutesy letters around my literature notebook and some idiot thought it'd be funny to ask 'who the fuck was mark tuan and why was i married to him' very loudly to a full classroom
Every school has a completely different aura from each other; that´s something you had learned to identify with time.
Was it because of the usual social standings of the majority of the school population? or because most of the cliques would just transition from one grade to another? That; you didn’t quite comprehend yet, what you did understand was that Yukigaoka and Aoba Jōsai felt as two vastly different worlds.
The change was understandable (at least to your parent´s eyes); a private school would help you be more focused, make better connections, improve your grades, it´d be a good stepping stone for your future. Unfortunately, everything you could think about was how in God´s name were there so many students convoluted in just one place.
Not that the student population was by any means larger than one in a public school (the explanation was almost unnecessary) but mostly because almost every single teenager seemed to be running from one place to another and chatting to whoever crossed their path.
As you would simply put it: They all looked so preppy and peppy.
You let out a quick comforting sigh for yourself while you gathered your confidence, focusing quite hard on placing one foot in front of the other. You slithered between one group through another (a couple of sorry’s and excuse me’s coming out of you and a few other students you passed) until you finally managed to reach the gymnasium, where the entrance ceremony would take place.
The ambient was pretty much the same on the inside; and you had to admit it, the non-talker strategy was making you appear as the odd one out much more than you had anticipated. Fortunately; it seemed as if no one was looking at you, and most of the students seemed somewhat amicable.
The first day went on without much difference; and then the first few days, and then it almost turned into a very quick first week. Chatter all around, some friendly classmates joining you on their conversations, if anything you were having trouble matching the energy that beamed through the halls of Seijoh.
You only talked when needed, didn't involve yourself much; and to be completely honest, you were pretty brusque on your way of speech...
The fact that you were not suddenly the target of bullying or that your classmates weren't excluding you was honestly amazing to you.
It wasn't as if you didn't want to interact or that you thought of yourself as higher than your peers. If anything, you were impressed of how quickly everyone would pick up on themes both in and out of the classroom.
But honestly? Seijoh was pretty cliche on a bunch of other stuff.
Preppy uniforms? Got it.
Pretty girls? Got it.
Pretty boys? Got it.
Fashion icons? Got it.
Thousand of clubs with a very niche focus? Got it. (Who even though of a "language of flowers club? And how was it different from the gardening or flower arrangements club?)
Surprisingly young but experienced teachers? Also got it.
The halls actually looking like they were completely pulled from a tv set? Definitely got that.
Seijoh definitely seemed like a good school; but to your eyes, it was predictable.
And predictability is so boring.
—Have you decided on which club you would like to join? — The girl sitting next to you asked curiously; gleamy smile on her face, forcing you out of your trance and distracting your glare from the window.
That had also become the usual, your mind doing insane laps and cartwheels on the inside but your eyes being completely lost and focused on a specific point on the outside.
You pondered for a second, a singer finger laying on your chin —The “Go home club” sounds like something I´d enjoy - you answered half jokingly.
Her expression quickly changed to one of funny disbelief - Somehow I'm getting the sense it would be - she chuckled - You keep to yourself a lot, don't you? Aren't you interested in learning something or meeting people? -
"What's it to you?" You quickly though, biting your tongue inmediately to avoid the comment. You knew the girl was probably just curious. For all you knew; in such a dramatic teenage movie world like Aoba Jōsai, joining a club was probably a rite of passage to kick start what would be a new scholar life full of day-to-day adventures.
- I guess - you shrugged - I just don't really think I'd fit into any of them.
The girl smiled sideways and placed a hand on your desk, her face showed the effort on trying to keep the chat going.
You felt uncomfortable for a second, to her it probably felt as if you were trying to cut the conversation.
- Well we're all still just getting started here - Another girl joined in, almost making you sigh loudly of relief - I've also haven't decided on anything yet so maybe we could all check it out tomorrow? They're doing a small club fair to showcase what each one has to offer.
You could almost see the halo on top of her head.
- Sounds fun! - The girl by your side smiled brightly, doing a quick save to the talk
You smiled - Sure, anything that helps me be out of the classroom for a bit -
- You definitely have a special type of focus on stuff - they joked.
If Oikawa Tooru could define the first week of classes after spring break, it'd be loud.
Cheerful, but loud.
Not that he minded, really, the happy aura of Seijoh had a way of pulling you in.
He had taken the time to do a mental check list of things he had also seen on his first year.
Friends crying at seeing each other again.
People pulling strangers in to their conversations by complimenting the way the uniform would look on them.
Clubs ligning up since the first day to sign as much newbies they could (a direct consequence of having so many clubs being always having to add members to fill the quota).
Cherry blossoms making every moment look like a regular movie scene.
And if you were him, getting confessed to on the first day.
- Was it necessary to pull me away like that? - The tall brown haired boy asked to his friend, who had made the embarrassing act of taking him by the ear
- It's too early in the semester to be caught up in your messes - he answered
- Iwa! I would not be in any mess! - Oikawa pulled himself from his friend's grasp - If anything you made the moment messy by just taking me away like that.
Iwaizumi; his friend since diapers, who knew him better than anyone else, simply crossed his arms. - You're telling me you would not say something cheesy like "I'm sorry but i cannot accept your feelings right now, please give your heart a break, you'll find someone soon, maybe we could be friends"? -
He pouted - I don't sound like that -
- You most definately do - His friend sighed - That type of stuff makes them think they'll have a chance later on, and that's messy -
-Should I just say "no thanks" and walk away? - he furrowed his eyebrows
Iwaizumi shrugged -It's better to just get it over with -
The boy was ultimately left without words, just sighing in defeat.
He had to admit he was thankful to his friend, he did have a flirt reputation for trying so hard to not make himself look ungrateful to the girls who would be brave enough to approach him.
Just as he had finally come up with something to get the conversation started again, something above caught his eye.
A girl inside a classroom.
She was staring at him.
He was used to that; the boy knew he was good-looking, but that girl didn't have a single emotion out of her eyes that would indicate admiration or attraction.
If anything, she was glaring at him.
A shiver went down his spine and he inmediately grabbed his friend's shoulders to hide behind him - Iwa, I think someone's planning my murder -
Iwaizumi looked confused - What? -
- I'm serious, someone's looking this way, she looks mad -
-She? - his friend looked around them - Who and what are you even talking about?
- Up! Up! Look up! Through the window! -he hissed
Iwaizumi looked up - Who? And where? -
Oikawa straightened up, quickly scanning the building up, down and sideways.
-I swear I'm not kidding - He took one of his hands to his own chest - I thought she'd throw a knife at me or something -
Iwaizumi shrugged again, no longer paying attention to his friends antics - Maybe you also told her you could be friends and forgot about her -
- That was uncalled for -
Even as they made their way in, Oikawa would look through the window again, hoping to get a good look at the face that had made him so nervous (for his life, might one add), the girl being quickly lost in a sea of people.
He shook his head to get the uneasy feeling out, maybe it was nothing. Quickly forcing himself to forget that face.
But those eyes? That look?
He would definitely remember that.
Previous/Next
Quick attraction and meet-cutes are for the weak. Real warriors eat sloth paced slow-burns for breakfast./jk
Yes, Y/N wasn't even looking at him, it was just her being lost in her thoughts before the classmate started talking. I thought it'd be so fun for their "first interaction" to be a big dumb thing.
Who here has also just stared at nothing and realized that they were accidentally staring at someone?
"Oikawa is so charming! Oikawa is so cute! He's always taking care of everyone, even his underclassmen!"
"Oikawa is so childish. He's always making out of pocket jokes. He's always complaining about something or annoying someone"
"It's like he just knows what's going inside your mind"
When you're someone that has lived their whole life analyzing every little detail about everything and everyone; it's easy to know what everyone expects from you, it's easy to read between the lines and find which exact buttons to push to get a reaction out of someone.
Oikawa is that type of someone.
He doesn't wear a mask; he doesn't hide who he is, he just lets his guard down around very specific people - although even he'd have to recognize that might lead him to ask somewhat childish sometimes -.
It's not like he wants to hide a part of himself, or that's even his final objective, he just finds it easier that way. It's natural and intrinsic to his personality.
You just need to be a very specific type of person to find yourself inside his list of favourites.
Although he'd have to admit, it's always comforting to add people to the list.
EPISODES
Chapter 1: The problem
Yes, it's a slowburn.
A small novel born from the deep need to analyze Oikawa 's character (also a reboot from a fanfiction I had already started on the account tumblr murdered).
Also born from a deep obsession with the relationship dynamic between MaoMao and Jinshi. I honestly think that if Oikawa had a canon partner (besides iwaizumi) it'd be someone like that.
I´ve been grappling and struggling with the concept of fate vs. luck since I was a child; ever since Mrs. Myers decided it would be a great idea to sprinkle in her Divinity Master´s in an 5th grade biology class; somehow managing to teach biology and theology in the same breath, simply deciding that explaining the origin of life deserved both Darwin and Genesis.
To her, it was an interesting comparison.
To me, it became an infection.
Children are remarkably good at abandoning impossible questions. I wasn't.
To be fair, there´s no way she could have expected anyone to take the cosmic differences for the explanation on the miracle of life between religion and science so seriously. To her; it was just bad luck that my brain wasn´t wired as a regular kid´s one. She couldn't have known that one lesson would burrow itself so deeply into my mind that years later I'd still be turning it over and over, searching for an answer the way a frightened child tries to escape a locked basement; gripping the doorknob so tightly their knuckles turn white, twisting it again and again as if desperation could repair whatever broke it.
I tried not to think too much about it; I tried not obsessing on why did some of us had such different concepts for conception itself. If life was given to us by a higher power, why did it require two separate strands of DNA to assemble one person? If we were all created with the same purpose — to love, to be loved, to spread something good — why did some people arrive in lives that looked nothing alike? Why was one child born into safety while another entered the world already fighting to survive? Why were some people handed healthy bodies while others inherited illnesses before they had names?
Wiith the 7th grade came Miss Hamm.
She never mentioned God.
She didn't have to.
Life is likely to appear where the conditions are right.
Give a planet liquid water, the right chemistry, enough stability, and life simply... happens. Not because the universe wants it to, but because matter behaves the way matter behaves.
That sentence should have settled something inside me; instead, it shattered something. Because if life emerges wherever conditions happen to be right, then maybe existence isn't extraordinary. Maybe we aren't.
Maybe every one of us is the consequence of conditions aligning for just long enough.
Whether your parents prayed for you, planned for you, accidentally conceived you, or spent fortunes trying to have you, your existence still depended on an impossible chain of events refusing to break. Whether you were planned or not; your existence was still left up to chance, it doesn´t matter if your parents spent millions on the best fertility doctor or they just hit it off at a bar one night; the fact that you exist is by default a combination of very specific conditions. Conditions and possibilities that no matter how much anyone tries, they simply cannot control. Even the most intelligent and meticulous people on earth are subject to possibilities; so much that they even factor it in on every single one of their studies.
Everything I have ever loved exists because the universe rolled it´s dice.
Maybe once.
Maybe countless times.
That's what keeps me awake.
Not the possibility that we're alone nor the ambiguous existence of a higher power.
The possibility that the difference between an empty universe and one overflowing with life was nothing more than a few conditions aligning at precisely the right moment.
Wild, but not really out of the ordinary. I mean; look at the type of stuff we grew up watching.
Sure every other cartoon or sitcom would have their "Just say no!" episode, but the cool shows would have their very own full length run showing this glamorous life of teens drinking, partying.
The smoking girl was always the hot one.
Then came the other vices.
And god was it good to dissapear into the void; to erase that existencial fear and replace it with a numb and quiet relaxation.
All that went through the window when my grandfather fell from the roof and cracked his head open when trying to fix a hole while high on thinner.
Just say no kids; sure, saying no it's easy. But what if you really don't want to say no?
What if the release feels good? What if what you want more than anything is to shut down the voices.
Were you predestined to follow a path of self-destruction because of the life you've had?
Did i first light that first cigarette because I had secretly been craving it thanks to some messed up genetics?
Everyone wants a clean answer for addiction. Either it's a choice, or it's inherited. A failure of character, or a flaw in the blood. As if the world ever had the decency to sort itself into neat little boxes.
The truth is less satisfying.
Scientists have spent decades trying to untangle inheritance from circumstance.
And they somehow did.
Addiction turned out to be one of the most heritable psychiatric conditions we know of. Depending on the substance, genetics explains somewhere between forty and seventy percent of the differences in who becomes dependent. Cocaine sits near the top. Hallucinogens lower down. None of them close to zero.
The numbers should have made me feel something. Maybe relief. Maybe fear.
Instead, they made me think about lotteries.
Because those numbers don't mean fate. They don't mean destiny. They mean probability.
People hear heritable and imagine a sentence already written. They picture a gene curled inside someone's cells like a sleeping snake, waiting for the first drink or the first pill before it wakes.
That's not how it works.
A person can't become addicted to a drug they've never touched. Choice still exists, opportunity still exists, accidents still exist. The genes don't force your hand; they only alter the odds once the game begins.
Which is somehow more frightening.
It means two people can make the same decision on the same night—accept the same cigarette, swallow the same pill, place the same harmless little bet—and one walks away while the other unknowingly nudges open a door that they will spend years trying to close.
How is anyone supposed to make peace with that?
Even the scientists are careful with their conclusions. Their estimates only work because they compare people who grew up in roughly the same world, breathing the same air, surrounded by the same temptations. In a country where nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, or gambling are everywhere, it's almost impossible to separate the influence of genes from the simple fact that everyone keeps being handed the same opportunities to fall.
Genes don't exist in a vacuum.
Neither do people.
Lifestyle matters. So does timing. So does who happens to be standing next to you the first time someone says yes to trying something their friends haven´ts topped talking praises about.
Even deciding to try something isn't entirely random. Some people seem born a little more curious, a little more reckless, a little less afraid of risk. Those tendencies have genetic threads woven through them too, though not as tightly as addiction itself.
Nothing is clean.
Not even the numbers.
Heritability isn't a verdict carved into stone. It's a statistical estimate, a pattern emerging from thousands of lives viewed from far enough away that individual tragedies blur into correlations. It can't tell you what will happen to one person. It can't account for every mistake, every friendship, every loss, every coincidence. Measurement itself has limits. So does certainty.
Maybe that's why I keep coming back to luck.
Not because luck explains anything, but because it occupies the space where explanation runs out.
Some people inherit blue eyes. Some inherit a crooked smile. Some inherit a body that quietly stacks the deck against them, then waits to see whether life ever deals the cards.
The terrifying part isn't that we're prisoners of our genes. It's that we're not.
We're prisoners of probabilities.
And probabilities have no conscience.
They don't know your name. They don't care how good you've been or how hard you've tried. They don't promise justice. They don't reward caution. They simply exist, indifferent as gravity, waiting for chance to collide with opportunity.
I used to think luck was the opposite of science.
Now I think science simply gave luck a percentage.
I used to think I was afraid of addiction; then I thought I was afraid of genetics -and the messed up cards i was drawn-.
Then I thought I was afraid of death.
I was wrong. I was afraid of chance.
Because chance doesn't hate you, hatred would imply intention.
Chance is worse, it doesn't know you exist, it doesn't care whether you're kind, careful or brilliant. It simply waits.
And sooner or later, every life collides with it.
I don't think that's what haunted me but more so what it was realizing that everyone else had already accepted it.
They called it faith, destiny, God's plan.
I called it probability and I couldn't understand how everyone else managed to sleep.
Have you ever thought of the specific set of things that had to happen to bring you to the point in which you're standing now?
When a mommy loves a daddy they give each other a veeeery big and warm hug, right?
Wrong.
My parents used to say that every woman was born with a baby that started growing once they found someone they loved and got married. That's how 8 year-old me decided she would never fall in love and get married; because kids are a nightmare.
Imagine coming to terms with the fact that humanity is flawed as a simple 8 year old. Horrific.
Also horrific when you start learning about math and the specific 9 months that happened between your parents wedding and your birth; and no, your parents explanation of how they just wanted to see if they were able to have a family together before getting married doesn't help.
Everything we say to kids gets stuck inside them, one way or another. Sometimes you just let it out with your toys (although i doubt a regular kid makes a public conference to their plushies to ask why are they alive) or you project your insecurities on another highly emotional kid.
One way or another, a cycle is started, a cycle of life.
I've been writing all these thoughts since i remember; some are harmless and even funny, others are dark and make you wonder "dang, what happened to this kid?"
My dream is to publish them someday.
To make others feel as if they're not alone, and those feelings are not weird.
I wish there was more art like that, the type that make you think "Hey, they're like me"
Why do we exist? Why do we do the things we do? Why are we going around endlessly looking for an answer.
Holaaa, ultimamente he estado haciendo varios dibujos asi que, aqui les traigo a twilight y a flash, triste su relación en la serie , realmente me gusta mucho este ship....
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be normal?
I don't mean normal as basic, straight, neurotypical, binary- I just mean, normal.
There exists people out there, who are not constantly thinking about their actions, or the consequences of said actions. They don't wonder if the person sitting next to them likes them, or thinks they look good, or thinks they smell, or obsessively fidget with the corners of their shirt because they can't stop thinking about the one stray hair on their head that they just noticed a second ago in the mirror.
They are able to look at themselves in the mirror and just: be.
They sometimes even like what they see.
They don't doubt for one second that someone could find them attractive, they don't stay awake til 3 am wondering if anyone will suddenly wake up and figure out they're not as special and should probably give up on them.
They don't cry before bed.
They don't have to force themselves out of bed.
They don't have to force themselves to eat.
They don't know how lucky they are.
Normal; what even is that?
I have no clue, I've never experienced it.
I was born cracked, missing pieces on the corners of my mind.
