the marketing for xo kitty being ridiculously heteronormative and then the show being extremely gay is so funny

I want everybody who’s calling Ken a Trophy Husband to know that he’s actually a Trophy Boyfriend, because when Ruth Handler invented Ken in the 1960s, she was adamant that he would never marry her and instead be her “handsome steady”, so that Barbie remained a figure of independence for the little girls and was never put in the position of housewife.

Her house is hers. She bought it and furnished it with money she made in her own job. In STEM, in politics, in healthcare, in fashion, in academy, in customer service. Her credit card is in her name (women in the US couldn’t have their own regardless of marital status until 1974). And it’s all pink and fashionable because femininity and badassness aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter who you are, you can be anything.

That’s why Barbie’s slogan is “you can be anything”. Teaching these ideals to little girls is why Barbie was created. Empowering women and empowering femininity is the original meaning of the Barbie doll. It’s not that you have to be all this to be a woman, but if you are all or some of this, you too are awesome.

And somehow pop culture deliberately changed that narrative. Sexualised, bimbofied, and villainised her, when she actually isn’t responsible for the impossible beauty standards — people are, she’s just a stylised, not-to-scale toy like most others.

Men are frothing because he’s just Ken and I guess they were expecting her to be just Barbie, but that’s exactly what Ken is. Canonically. A badass woman’s himbo boyfriend.

This movie has the potential to change the way we collectively see Barbie radically into what Ruth Handler’s intended, I’m so very excited

ok first off i wanna start out with an apology bcuz i took this prompt for a walk and it came back lookin DIFFERENT. it’s not EXACTLY confessing at prom, but billy still crashes prom. 

and dude tbh i don’t eve nknow where i went with this. it’s about 3.7k of me just rambling. a lot of nothin. steve’s barely even in it but it’s like all about him. basically billy writing an essay about how he loves steve and how that explains why he’s going to go across the country so he doesn’t have to look at him anymore. idiot !! 

if there’s any formatting issues, i copied this straight from docs so that’s why. might be missing some italics in places so if things are delivered weird it might be that or just because of me writing this in a fugue state :^) 

(hope u like it anon) 

—-

Billy’s chest ached. The blood in between his ribs and skin pulsed like it was trying to kill him. His lungs burned from the two-thirds of a pack he’d chain smoked in a little over an hour. A swipe of his wrist under his nose told him it wasn’t bleeding anymore but it still stung to even touch it. 

The quarry was quiet below him. Sometimes wind gusted up from the rock face but nothing was too cold this time of year, even in this shit hole of a town. The silence nagged at him. It made him want to scream. His voice was hoarse enough already from the cigs - and besides, if he started there was the chance he wasn’t going to stop. Not unless someone stopped him or his throat gave out or until he drowned from the wetness in his eyes. He sure as shit wasn’t about to cry over this. Not about to act like it’s never happened before.

But never again. He told himself that the moment he heard the front door slam behind his father, promised himself that. Once he was able to pick himself up off the floor, minutes or hours later, he drug all the shit he cared about out from their hiding places around his room. Collectively, it filled two bags. The rest - fuck it. His dad could sell it at a pawn shop for all he cared. Throw it in the dump, the quarry, shove it into storage. Fuck it. 

So no, Billy wasn’t going to scream or cry. He was way passed shit like that. 

He was going to drink instead.

Because fuck his dad. Fuck Neil Hargrove. Fuck this shitty little podunk town he dragged them to as a fucking punishment. Fuck Hawkins and fuck everything in it.

Except - 

Shit, except.

Keep reading

bring your arms around me (fast)

(t, 10.3k, complete)

or; Someone’s leaving mysterious notes. Billy Hargrove has a cold. Steve’s just trying to survive this winter.

read it on ao3

Billy comes back different. He’s so obviously and profoundly different when he first comes back that it almost eclipses the real ways, the deep, aching, chasmic ways. His hair is short and shaggy and so, so curly and Steve had never thought that that was real, Billy’s curls. Never gave much thought to anything about Billy being real. He’s skinny, now, skinny and soft and white in a way Steve’s never seen, gold all leached out so the blue veins in his wrists and the pink scars on his arms stand vivid, unreal, vibrant. There’s no grin. Steve thinks about Billy’s face before, thinks about his white teeth red with blood, thinks about the lazy way he bared them. Like he was untouchable. Like he knew something the world didn’t, a secret. Even when Billy was furious he was grinning, electric, a little wild and so compelling Steve ended up caught in his orbit before he’d even noticed the tug of his gravity.

Billy smiles, sometimes, now. Rarely, and never loudly, and Steve keeps each one he catches close to his chest.

Steve didn’t live with Billy in the before, but he doesn’t imagine that he was the type to knock gently on a bedroom door and wait for permission before turning the knob. For instance. Imagines Billy was the type to knock twice, loud and careless, before barging in at two am without waiting for a response. If he bothered to knock at all.

‘Yeah?’

‘Sorry,’ Billy says first, even as the door is still creaking open, ‘I, uh.’

Billy didn’t apologize, before. Didn’t duck his head when he asked for things.

Didn’t ask for things.

‘What is it?’ Steve asks, tries to say it soft and easy like a breath. Billy spooks easy sometimes. Seems like it might be a night where the glue keeping the cracked pieces together is particularly fragile.

Billy stands in his doorway and wraps his arms tighter around himself and takes a shuddering breath that Steve can hear from his bed and doesn’t answer. Steve pushes himself up, scoots himself over, and turns down the corner of his comforter.

It’s been months, now, and Steve’s still not sure how deep the trenches go, what all there is to find in the unexplored places where no light reaches and the pressure is enough to crush bone. The Billy that knocks on his door sometimes at night isn’t the same Billy that kicked the shit out of him at Jonathan Byers’ house. Everything is different.

the rest on a03

so since we’ve all collectively agreed that billy’s fav subject is english and that he’s, indisputably, a bookworm,, how about an au where he self-publishes a mlm novel under a pseudonym (because neil would literally butcher him if he found out)

and steve somehow comes across it (hears someone talk about it, finds it on a table when he’s at a café, idk) and he reads the blurb. takes the book. reads it in less than 3 days. discovers himself in it because whoever the author is, the dialogue isn’t as fictitious as the feelings they’ve implanted into every damn word. and there’s this. note at the end of the book. something about pride and love. about safety. something along the lines of ‘don’t step out the closet unless you’re ready’ and ‘you don’t owe anyone your safety’. he doesn’t mean to fall in love with some, pseudonym. ‘W.L.H. Cypress’

but he does. sort of aches with the knowledge that he’ll never meet him. he traces words with his fingers. outlines the crown hanging on the first letter of every chapter.

because it’s the closest he’ll ever feel to him.

and it’s after his fight with billy at the byers’, when he’s helping the kids clean up the mess he and billy left behind that he finds billy’s jacket. finds wings engraved into the back of it. he scoffs like, ‘angel my ass,’. but there’s a W.L.H. etched above the wings, big and swirly, a crown hanging off the upstroke of the W. “what’s WLH?” he manages out, heart beating a hundred beats a second. he looks up at max.

“oh, just billy’s initials,” max rolls her eyes, waving her hand dismissively before she goes back to adjusting the pillows back into position. “william something hargrove.”

you know what i want?

alex finding out his parents were completely shaken by his death and ended up becoming huge supporters and allies of the lgbtq+ community. his mom is one of those sweet ladies that offers ‘free mom hugs’ at parades.

alex watches her hug person after person, and this warmth floods through him. he can tell it’s just as meaningful for her. maybe more.

they’ve learned how to be corporeal, so one night he pops in to see his mom in the middle of the night when she’s sleepily walking back to bed. he convinces her she’s dreaming, and softly asks, “you think i can get one of those hugs, too?”

and she pulls him into the tightest hug. whispers all these apologies and tells him how proud she is of him and how desperately she misses him and alex squeezes her so tightly. hides his face in her neck and breathes her in and wishes desperately wishes they could have shared this moment years ago.

he helps her back to bed, stays there until she falls asleep at her request. he doesn’t visit his mom again after that, but every year at pride, he still watches her.

the hugs still clearly mean everything to her, but there’s a weight on her shoulders that’s lifted. alex feels lighter, too.

going on testosterone is so exciting im so glad to finally go through my himboification

my special friend calls it his PP Juice and I started calling it PP Up from Pokemon and so now it’s the PP Up Juice.

Honestly the minute I saw the word himboification I knew this post was gonna be good and I was not dissapointed. This is so fucking wonderful and I love the sheer universal experience of exasperation, concern, and just so fucking done with your shit from your doctors and nurses.

There is no greater indicator of being a Man than every woman around you being done with your shit

i know jatp is a happy show, but listen: if the boys were 17 in 1995, that means they were born in 1978. which means they lived through the aids epidemic and reagan presidency (and, actually, deaths from aids peaked in 1995, so this was actively happening while they were teenagers as well). it means that alex had to grow up steeped in hatred, it means he had to grow up terrified. the fact that luke and reggie know he's gay when the show starts - it's absolutely mindblowing to me, considering all that. is it any wonder he's so anxious all the time?

but see, the thing is: alex grew up in a world that hated him. that saw him as dirty and diseased and sinful. and he grew up to be emotional and loving, to be gentle and kind and always smiling, and soft and sweet and incredible. alex grew up being taught to hate himself but doesn't, and is nothing but a bright, bright light to those around him, and i just think that's beautiful.