Name and pronouns are so funky for me right now, try CJ and they/them 29, AceAro Pan, Agender ISFP Sanders Sides and Markiplier Egos ko-fi.com/cjandcosplays paypal.me/categeo
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Hi yall
I made a discord for everyone who is on the ace and/or aro spectrums.
Aspec identities are a special interest/hyperfixation of mine. I facilitate the acearo meeting at my college, and somehow relate every school essay or project to talk about aspec identities if I can.
I really like helping people learn and discover that they’re aspec and I figured I could reach out to more of the community this way.
I tried to be as inclusive as possible, and I know there is still a lot that I can and will add.
Whether you’re questioning, have known you’re aspec for awhile, or are anywhere in between, I invite you to join.
Imagine if we did the “public libraries are punk” thing for other subcultures. Imagine if people made shirts that said “Soup kitchens are grunge” or “Mixed Use Urbanism is Juggalo”.
@intrualityweek day 2! today's prompt is fake dating/first dates.
i originally had a fake dating at a wedding fic i was working on, slowly, but i hit 3k words and they still hadn't met and i was like hold on i don't have time to finish this to the quality it needs to be. so. look forward to a REALLY LONG intruality fake dating fic bc it's coming your way
instead, my aromantic ass is hitting you guys with the classic 'best friends who start dating but nothing really changes' trope. bc i love it and i love them and i dont know the difference between romantic and platonic love so patton doesn't either
Summary:
Patton hated first dates. He hated the nerves and the awkwardness, and he never knew how to act.
Did it make any difference that this first date was with his best friend? He didn't think so.
Warnings: some suggestive comments/innuendos from Remus but nothing crazy. this is mostly short and sweet
Words: 1832
Read on AO3
Patton chewed on his bottom lip, his leg bouncing up and down as he took another sip of his water. He’d already finished the jug.
He wasn’t even late. Patton was just… early. Crazy early.
He was being silly. There was nothing to be nervous about. Sure, it was a first date, but… It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t.
“Why, hello, gorgeous.”
Patton startled slightly, his head snapping up to stare as the seat in front of him was suddenly occupied. Two bright green eyes met his, a wide, toothy grin between them that Patton knew like the back of his hand.
“Hi,” Patton said, and he could feel his face heating up. Remus’ grin widened impossibly.
“You alright there?”
Patton nodded. “Mhm! Just— I got here early. You look nice.”
His friend— His date— laughed. “Why, thank you! You like this little number?” He stood up, his chair scraping against the floor so he could twirl. He was wearing the closest thing to a suit Patton had ever seen him in, with tight, jet black trousers and a dark green button-up made of some kind of shimmery, shiny material. He didn’t have it buttoned all the way up — he barely had any of it buttoned at all, leaving it hanging open down to just above his belly button, his thick chest hair bursting through the gap.
Patton smiled at him and nodded. “Is it new? I haven’t seen it before.”
“The shirt is,” Remus answered, sitting back down. “The pants are old as hell. You give me a twirl now, my turn!”
Patton let out another laugh and shook his head. “No way!”
“Why the fuck not?”
The man hesitated, staring at him. “Well— I’m not gonna twirl in the middle of a restaurant, Re!”
“Why? I just did it!”
Patton scoffed disbelievingly. “I’m not you!”
“So? You’re something way cooler, Patsky. You’re you. Give me a twirl, lemme see your ass.”
This time, Patton just stared at Remus, eyes huge and face burning, and he swallowed thickly. Remus waited a second, and then his grin faltered.
He wasn’t dressed as well as Remus was, nowhere near, but he’d tried. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, buttoned up to his neck and tucked into the nicest pair of jeans he owned. He had a suit jacket, too, but he’d slung it over the back of his chair.
Remus cackled, cheering loudly enough that several other people looked at them, and Patton sat back down, grinning past his blush.
“You suck,” he laughed.
“Oh, I can show you just how much I can suck later, if you want me to, Pattycakes,” Remus said, winking.
“Shut up,” Patton giggled.
The waiter came over then, taking their inital orders — a bottle of wine and a lemonade and a Bloody Mary — and the drinks menus away.
“So! What food we looking at, huh? This place is pretty fancy, eh?”
“Um— I think so. What’re you thinking?”
“Get a couple things and share?” Remus asked.
Patton nodded. “Sure!”
They both looked down at the menu, and Patton faltered. He didn’t know what any of those words meant.
Oh, goodness, he was wearing jeans.
“Shit, Pat, didn’t realise you were gonna take us to Paris for our first date,” Remus said lowly.
“I— I’m sorry,” Patton choked, and the joking expression slid from Remus’ face.
“Woah!” he said. “Hey, now! What’s the matter? We can google translate this shit, it’s all good!”
“I just— You hate fancy food, and fancy restaurants, and you bought a new shirt—”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Remus teased. “I didn’t buy this for you. I just bought it and happened to wear it for the first time tonight.”
Patton snorted, but his face was burning and he wanted to cry.
“C’mon, Pat, what’s wrong? We can blow this place off. I thought you wanted to come here?”
“I thought— I mean— This is a date. We’re not— Aren’t you meant to go somewhere fancy on dates?”
“What? What d’you mean?”
“Like. That’s what you do.”
“It isn’t what I do. I take them bowling. It’s fun and you can talk and get drunk at the same time.”
Patton stared at him, eyes wide. “You hate this,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Oh, Re, I’m so sorry.”
“What? I don’t hate it!”
“Of course you do! You want to be having fun and getting drunk and— Oh, God, I’m so stupid—”
“Patton! What the fuck? I take strangers bowling, yeah. I could be sat watching paint dry with you and have the time of my life.”
“Don’t be— That isn’t true.”
“It is! Of course it is, you’re my best friend! Come on, let’s google some of this rich people shit and order and we can make fun of their tiny rich people portions and get fucking tacos or something after. C’mon. I promise I’ll show you a good time.”
Patton’s face was on fire, but he nodded, biting his lip and looking down at the menu again. “Okay,” he whispered. “Sorry.”
“Stop being sorry!”
Patton winced and nodded. “Right. Sure. Okay. You look up the stuff on this page and I’ll do this one. Remember any that sound good, okay?”
In the end, they found six dishes they actually wanted to eat. One was basically chicken tenders, and Patton had no idea why they were calling it whatever that said, and the others turned out to mostly be mixes of vegetables. Patton didn’t want any of the stuff with fish — because, ew — and that knocked out easily three quarters of the menu, which was around when he realised he should have researched the place first.
Patton really did have a great time, though, mocking the names of the dishes and the sizes of the plates and wheeze-giggling as Remus made fun of the serious-looking couples around them.
The ruckus they were causing made the waiter come over and ask them to leave. Remus’ expression of genuine shock was enough to send Patton all the way over the edge, and he practically screamed with laughter. They ran out of the place, giggling and throwing more money on the table than they could have possibly owed, and rushed into the street, their fingers intertwined.
“So! What do you think, now?” Remus asked.
“I picked that awful restaurant. You get to pick now.”
Remus snorted. “Hm… Follow me.”
He kept Patton’s hand in his own as he started dragging him down the street. Once Patton fell into step beside him, he swung their joined hands back and forth between them, and Patton stared at the side of his face, bathed in the golden light of the streetlamps and grinning like he’d won the lottery, and he let him talk and talk about how stupid that restaurant was and how he should’ve robbed all those stuffy couples before he left. Patton didn’t think he could have replied if he wanted to, too busy giggling and gasping at the more vulgar insults he would spit out.
Then, Remus stopped suddenly, and Patton turned to look at where they were.
“Uh— This is my apartment building,” Patton said slowly.
“Sure is.”
“I’m… Is this… Do you want tonight to be, um… over?”
“Nope! I wanna go inside.”
“Right,” Patton said, like he understood. “Is this— Are you… Were you only doing this for, um… sex? Because I don’t want that yet—”
“What? No. Of course not. I just want to go inside. We can watch a movie and order real food to be brought to your place like real rich people do. Or we can play games, or just talk.”
“But— But that’s just what we do anyway,” Patton said slowly.
“Yeah, so? Patty, I don’t want you to be a different person just ‘cause we’re dating now. We aren’t even dating, we’re just… trying it out. I don’t need to do the getting to know you bullshit that we have to do on most first dates. I know you. I love you. You’re my best friend. You took us to that restaurant because you thought you had to make us different to what we were before. I don’t want that. You don’t either. We can still be us. Nothing has to change, except I get to kiss you when I want to instead of pretending I don’t want to.”
Patton stared at him. Remus was still holding his hand, his thumb tracing Patton’s knuckles in a way he wasn’t sure Remus knew he was doing.
“Do we get to stay best friends?” Patton asked. “This won’t make it… weird?”
“Of course it won’t. You’ll be my best friend till I die, even if you kill all my family and get sent to prison and I’m not allowed to visit you. I’d think about you every day until I went crazy and started hallucinating you. Who cares if we call them dates now? We’re still us.”
“What if we decide this is a bad idea?”
“Then we go back to not kissing. It doesn’t matter. We’ll still be us.”
Patton stared at him, sniffling as tears began to burn in his eyes. “Do you promise?”
“Oh, you’re so lame, with your soft little feelings and your big wet eyes. ‘Course I promise.” He dragged Patton into his chest and hugged him tightly. “You’re stuck with me for life. This is just the first date. It doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been stuck with me for three years already — what difference could one first date make?”
Patton laughed wetly, burying his face in Remus’ bare chest. He sniffled, and pulled back to look up at him. “You— You’ve been wanting to kiss me?”
“Like, all the time.”
“Right now? When I’m all covered in snot and tears?”
Remus snorted, but released Patton from the hug so he could grab his face and press their mouths together. Patton gasped into it, and his legs went just a little bit weak despite the tender gentleness of the kiss. Remus pulled away, just a little bit, enough to whisper, “All the fucking time. I wanna consume all your fluids at least once.”
“Oh, ew, you’re so gross,” Patton laughed, wiping his face on his hands. “I wasn’t even actually snotty.”
“Then that’ll have go back on the list,” shrugged Remus.
Patton laughed, but reached up on his toes, kissing Remus again. “C’mon then. You can pick the movie.”
“You pick the movie, I pick the takeout. You lost food choice privileges.”
Pouting, Patton turned away and moved to unlock the door to his building, shooting forlorn glances over his shoulder as he did so.
“Aw, c’mon. Obviously I was gonna pick pizza anyway. I know your favourites, Pattycake.”
Patton grinned and turned away to hide the redness in his cheeks. Yeah. Remus did know him pretty well, didn’t he? Maybe this didn’t have to change much at all.
i have understood so many things about online leftist culture by the fact that when i said "your local community has people you will morally and politically disagree with but you cannot lock them out of accessing any tangible service you’re organising" one of the tags responding said "this isn’t about proshippers in here you’re not welcome" like. folks. focus with me. some of us are homeless here.
There's a disconnect happening here because the primary function of social media for most casual users is to form a circle of friends around the usual things that friendships are built on: shared interests and lifestyles and ideas of what is important and what is unacceptable. When people are mainly doing leftism on social media, this encourages thinking of leftism as centered around establishing high-minded social clubs.
For anyone who still isn't getting it from someone who helps people IRL: There's a difference between whom you're helping to feed at the mealshare and whom you're choosing to hang out with for fun after the mealshare. You don't have to invite a hungry person with opinions you don't like to play board games with you, but you do have to help keep them from starving if you're serious about leftist organizing.
[Image ID: Tumblr reply with username blocked out reading: *volunteering at the soup kitchen, holding a bowl hesitantly to my chest* what do you think about age gaps in ships /End ID]
