I love to imagine and create

It referenced some aphobic rhetoric (like "you will when you're older" or "when you find the right person"), then was like, as if who they are now matters any less! and basically pointed out how crappy it is to invalidate someone's current real experience based on a hypothetical future

and I've seen some questioning people who I think could really benefit from that post but I can't find it again

When someone starts dating it's not only normalized but near-universally expected that they'll put their friends second to their partner, regardless of the length or depth of the respective relationships. The "friendzone" is where you hang out when you're hoping for a "real relationship." When there's a romantic or sexual aspect they're "more than friends."

Occasionally it takes all four of us to open a jar. Very odd experience, when all four of the people in your house are the person you hand the jar to and you still can’t open it.

under hot water of course

but that’s not as fun.

When someone starts dating it's not only normalized but near-universally expected that they'll put their friends second to their partner, regardless of the length or depth of the respective relationships. The "friendzone" is where you hang out when you're hoping for a "real relationship." When there's a romantic or sexual aspect they're "more than friends."

Stuff your ereader with a collection of 10 queer whumpy books!

25% of profits from sale of this bundle will be donated to The Trevor Project, which provides crisis support to LGBTQ+ youth. The bundle starts at $17.45, which is a 50% discount from buying each ebook individually! So you get a great deal AND get to support a great cause.

You can grab this bundle over on our ko-fi until July 5, 2026.

Included ebooks:

Lux in Tenebris: Poena et Salus by Isaac Ryals (nonbinary rep)

Hunting Static by Jayde Layne (nonbinary, trans, and aroace rep)

The Windows to a Shapeshifter's Soul by Booker G.A. Feniks (trans and nonbinary rep)

Creatures From the Caldera by A.E. Pillow (sapphic rep)

Deepest Canyon: A Starslinger Tale by Kras Nebula (nonbinary rep)

Showstopper by Rae Ellis (nonbinary rep)

Chipped by Lux Thorn (m/m rep)

Savage Sunset and Magnanimous Moonrise by Nox Spacey (sapphic, trans, and gay rep)

Cry of Fangs by Kailey Alessi (aroace and nonbinary rep)

Pleading His Belly on Zakon-4 by E.J. LeRoy (aroace rep)

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-

Whumpee and Caretaker working long-term deep undercover in a power-imbalance dynamic:

* Slave and Owner

* Servant and Noble

* Drug Runner and Crime Lord

* Living Weapon and Handler

The longer they stay in role, the blurrier the lines become.

Maybe you have whumpee struggling to separate Caretaker from the role, even when it's just them two:

- Flinching when Caretaker moves

- Using rank/title/honorifics even in private

- Waiting for permission before acting

- Defaulting to submissive body language

Maybe Caretaker's behaviour is starting to change too:

- Waiting expectantly for whumpee to serve them even when in private

- No longer apologising for the things they have to do to keep cover

- Using violence/verbal abuse in role with increasing frequency.

- Accidentally using the degrading names for whumpee in normal conversation

and the villain knows they're making themselves the villain, knows they're sacrificing their own humanity so that the real issue can wear their face instead, and they die with the hero's hands around their throat or a blade through their chest or a bullet they could have dodged but didn't, and only then, only then, does the hero find the documents, the evidence, the proof that the villain was right, that the system was rotten, that people were dying in silence while the world looked away, and the hero realizes with sickening clarity that every crime they stopped was a distraction from a bigger crime, that every person they saved from the villain was still doomed by the thing the villain was trying to expose, that the villain wasn't stealing the money, they were redistributing it; wasn't destroying the lab, they were freeing the prisoners; wasn't threatening the city, they were forcing the city to look at the poison in its own water, and the hero was the weapon used to silence the only person telling the truth.

now imagine this. hero standing in the aftermath with the villain's blood on their hands and the truth in their ears, watching the world finally wake up, finally march, finally change, all because the villain made themselves the sacrifice, made themselves the monster, made themselves the story that eclipsed the real story just long enough for the real story to become undeniable, and the hero has to give interviews and accept medals and smile for cameras while knowing that the person who actually saved everything is the one they killed, the one they called evil, the one whose last words were probably something the hero mocked, something the hero used as proof of their insanity...

and now those words are graffiti on every wall, are chanted at every rally, are the name of the movement that changes the world, and the hero can't say anything, can't confess, can't tell the truth without destroying the very thing the villain died for, because the movement needs a hero, needs a clear narrative, needs the villain to stay the villain so that the cause can stay pure, and the hero understands finally that the villain knew this too, that they planned for this, that they chose to die misunderstood so that the truth could live clean and unburdened by their complicated methods, their necessary violence, their stained hands, and the hero lives the rest of their life as the face of a revolution they didn't start, wearing a halo the villain forged in their own blood, and every time someone thanks them they hear the villain's voice saying you're welcome or i'm sorry or make it worth it or just a simple please. and they smile and nod and go home and stare at the mirror and wonder if becoming the villain's opposite was just another way of becoming their continuation, if the hero the world needed and the villain the world deserved were always the same person wearing different masks, and the only difference is that one of them got to choose when to take theirs off and-