kat :3

You hate it.

It looks terrible on you and you've always thought that. When you were really young, you thought that's just what everyone thought about their hair colour. When you were a teenager, people chalked it up to hormones and wanting to be unique and follow the trends of dying your hair. It wasn't.

You've seen people with brown hair. It looks so good. You start imagining yourself with beautiful brunette hair. What if you could be that? And then you hear someone talk about you, call you 'that blonde over there' or someone telling you, 'your blonde hair looks so good!' and you're reminded all over again.

Your parents talk about something. Something you've never heard of before. "All those young kids, dying hair everywhere," they say. You ask them what it means. "Oh, that's when someone with one hair colour thinks they're better off with another hair colour." Your heart lights up. There's more people like you. You're not insane. And then- "Fucking insane. They just want to feel special. All this ridiculousness over trends." It hits you in the heart. You say nothing, just mumble an 'okay' and turn your attention back to your food.

That night, you're scrolling on your phone, and one video pops out. It's talking about dyed hair. You see people not just with natural-coloured dyed hair, but blues and greens and so many other colours. It looks beautiful. You remember your blonde hair. Could it finally be brown? These people are like you. They might be able to help.

You do research. You reach out to people online. And finally, you have your hands on a box dye from a store. it's not the highest quality, but you have it. At midnight the next weekend, you do it. You dye it brown. It's messy and tricky, but your heart is swelling with joy the entire time.

You expect people at school to be happy. Your hair is beautiful. You're beautiful. You finally feel comfort in your hair, confident in the way you look. Instead, you get side-eyes. People whisper and glare. One of your friends pulls you aside. "What happened to your hair?" You tell her you dyed it. Asks her if it looks nice. She grimaces. "Yeah... it looks fine.... but your blonde hair was your natural hair colour and it looked fine as well." You tell her the truth. How you've always hated it on you. Found brown to be so, so much prettier. Looked so much more amazing on you, and felt it too. "Yeah... but blonde is still your natural hair colour, right? No amount of dye is going to change that." Your confidence starts to sink. Will everyone think this?

Turns out, they will. You hear people still refer to you as "that blonde there". New people express confusion. "But her hair's brown? It's very clearly brown." "Well, yeah, but she dyed it. Her natural hair colour is blonde." "Oh... okay."

Your parents don't like it. "Your blonde hair was so beautiful," your mother sobs through her tears. "Why did you have to ruin it? My beautiful blonde child is gone! Gone forever! Why did you do it?" And you tell her that her child is not gone, her child is right here, just with different hair. She doesn't listen to a single word. Your father is mad. He yells at you to get out of his house, that you're a fucking disgrace, that you're mentally ill and brainwashed by trends and so many other hurtful things. You can only leave.

You try to go to another friend's place. She answers the door with a scowl. "Why are you here?" she seethes. She's angry. Why? You tell her about your situation. "Serves you right," she spits. "You're incredibly offensive to everyone with blonde hair." You ask her why, puzzled. "You clearly hate blonde hair. Why else would you dye it? Do you find blonde people disgusting?" No, no, that's not it. Blonde people are fine, you try saying. It just didn't suit me. I wish it did, but it didn't, so I changed it. "Stop twisting everything," she says. "I don't want to see your face." The door closes and you're left there on the steps.

You don't know what else to do. Were you truly lying? No, blonde hair has never suited you. Brown looks better. Brown makes you feel secure. You feel it's what makes you feel like yourself. But why can no one grasp that?

You search up more on your phone, and you find a community for similar people. People thrown out, disowned, abused for dying their hair or expressing wants to. When you get there, you find that they accept you with the warmest smiles and the coziest hugs. You find people that bleached their brown hair to blonde and dyed their blonde hair to brown, just like you, and they look so amazing. You find people with all sorts of coloured hair too, red, blue, yellow, purple, multicoloured and hair that gets redyed differently depending on the day. They all have similar stories. You've finally found a place you belong.

Outside, people are still outraged. They scream at the community that they're brainwashing their kids, that they're grooming every kid to dye their hair until there's no natural hair kids left. You don't feel hurt anymore. You know now they make no sense. They push out their own children, and this is the result. They don't want people with dyed hair banding up together.

Brown hair has always suited you. You're rather tired of people trying to pretend it doesn't.

I wanna make one of these that is like a literal curtain of worms

384

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

It isn't about cancelling problematic media, idgaf. We're capable of reading books we already own with a critical eye.

doesn’t want free gas? And, they

didn’t specify.

the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.

sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.

evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.

sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.

evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.

errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.

grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.

#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.

schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.

amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.