sapphic-september - Tumblr blog

[sapphic-september]

Was supposed to be for sapphic September lmao.

[sapphic-september]

That's a wrap on Sapphic September 2023!

Thanks so much to everyone who participated - we loved seeing your creations! The month may be over, but our love for sapphic works never ends. We'll continue to reblog prompt fills throughout the year, so if you've still got ideas, feel free to post them.

A special shoutout to @wardenred for completing every single day of Sapphic September - awesome job. We'll see you all next year with a new set of prompts!

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 30: Robots/AI

One more Post-Final Girls flashback to finish off the month.

Flo stared at Jules while the cleaning robot shuffled off to disappear around the corner. “Are you... always like that with the bots? All ‘please’ and ‘thank you’?”

Jules looked up from her school satchel. The active LED display on the flap cast flashes of green and blue upon her face, painting her eyes brighter. “Um. Yes. Shouldn’t I?”

“I guess I just don’t get why.”

“Well, I made a mess and it picked up after me. Seemed fitting.”

“Yeah, but...” Did something so obvious truly bear explaining? “You know it doesn’t matter to them whether you’re polite or not? No matter how good their AI programming is, they don’t actually feel things. They’re not human.”

“But I am,” Jules said. 

Flo’s bewilderment must have reflected on her face, because she smiled and reached out, like she was going to touch Flo—pat her arm, maybe, or tuck back that annoying loose strand of hair. She didn’t, though, and Flo stifled the pang of regret. 

“See,” Jules continued, “the way I see it, it’s normal for humans to be kind to those around us. Yeah, plenty of people forget about it, or rather, make themselves forget. They spin all those myths about mean people being stronger and better at surviving, but I truly believe that kindness is the natural state of being. So I try to be kind. To bots, too, because why not? It doesn’t cost me anything. But if I don’t discriminate between humans and machines, I stand a smaller chance to start discriminating between different types of humans in the future.”

Flo might have fallen a little bit in love that day.

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 29: Replica

Some more Post-Final Girls. Basically a tweaked snippet from the book, tbh.

“Uh-oh,” was the first thing Flo said when she stepped inside the apartment. Jules was standing in the middle of the hallway, hands clenched into fists against her hips, eyes absolutely livid.

Carefully, Flo shut the door, shrugged off her backpack, and stepped closer to her girlfriend.

“Whoever upset you so much, you know I can kill them, right?”

“Oh, shut up,” Jules snapped. She immediately winced and looked down, but Flo only raised her eyebrows. Jules was so rarely angry, and she’d hardly ever been angry with her. Figuring out what was wrong felt infinitely more important than indulging hurt feelings.

They stood in front of each other for a few long moments: Flo waiting patiently, trying to be there without barging too far into Jules’s space; Jules obviously fighting to control her breathing. Finally, Jules looked up, lips trembling

“How could you be this foolish?”

Flo blinked. “You’ll have to elaborate,” she said gently. “I do so many stupid things per day, how can I know what you mean?”

A vein twitched across Jules’s forehead. “This,” she all but snarled, pushing a small chrome ball into Flo’s hands.

Oh.

Flo looked down at the innocuous-looking object. For all anyone knew, it might be a child’s toy or an office accessory—but only until you swiped your finger over the ribbed surface just so, and then the gadget would project a bunch of images into thin air. Images, and more importantly, words.

The language of the revolution.

“They’re everywhere in the city these days, you know,” she said. “Well, not quite everywhere yet, but more and more are turning up each day in public spaces for people to pick up.”

“Oh yeah? So I’m meant to think you just picked it up somewhere in the street? And you have nothing to do with making it?”

Flo summoned her most earnest look. “Of course not!” She was telling the truth, even. It was merely a replica of the one she’d had a hand in creating.

Jules groaned and carded her fingers through her hair. Her hands were shaking, and noticing that sent a sharp prickle of guilt through Flo’s ribs.

“For fuck’s sake. This goes beyond troublemaking and societal disruptions! Do you want to be tried for criminal sedition? Do you think that—”

Flo caught her wrists and squeezed. “Jules. It’s fine. I’m being very careful, okay? We all are.”

“An idiot, that’s what you’re being!” Jules’s voice shook. “Do you even know what’s been happening around the city? You’re so caught in your dreams of big changes and stuff, but do you know how the Corps have been searching random offices for signs of association? Random apartment buildings, even?”

“I know, and that’s why—”

“They could come for us any time!”

“They won’t.”

Jules blanched. Flo was stumped by what had her so taken aback. The confidence she tried to project, maybe?

“How do you know?”

A dozen of potential lies flew through Flo’s mind. Something in Jules’s eyes pushed her to say the truth instead. “Mel and I have... come to an agreement. Of sorts.”

For a few seconds, Jules simply looked at her, a heavy, unblinking stare. Finally, she twisted her hands out of Flo’s grasp and stepped back.

“What other secrets are you keeping from me?”

There were so many.

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 28: Bad Ideas

Poking at an old idea for a sapphic romantasy with Regency vibes.

Vinsen had told her to wait for him by the mews.

Liola assumed he’d meant a few minutes. Fine, a quarter of an hour, although in her book that already verged on impolite. But time stretched on and on, the azure summer skies fading into gray with a pink trimming over the horizon, and Vinsen was nowhere in sight.

She considered going back to the house and asking where he was. She considered turning around and walking home. But every time those thoughts sprang up in her mind, they were followed by the image of her mother’s pale, tear-stricken face.

Her family owed too much gold to the Rezenforts, all thanks to her late father’s gambling addiction. They desperately needed a way to soften their wealthy neighbors’ hearts toward them for the debt to be restructured. Perhaps even forgiven, if miracles ever happened. And between Liola, her mother, and her grandmother, they’d been able to come up with one way to achieve that: through Liola charming Vinsen Rezenfort. The heir of the family, the one everyone in this estate doted on.

Now, he had either seen right through her ploy and chose to humiliate her on purpose, or he was simply an inconsiderate oaf. At this point, Liola wasn’t sure what was worse. 

She drew a deep breath and nearly choked on the abundance of scents in the air. In isolation, none of them were too bad, not even the musky smell of horse sweat. Most were, in fact, downright pleasant: the sweetness of flowers blooming in the rolling hills past the fence, the freshness of hay, the light bitterness of sun-warmed tree bark. Mixed together, though, they became as overwhelming as her fears and thoughts.

Inside the long wooden building, a horse huffed and neighed. A stableboy hurried past, carrying a bucket of oats. The sky darkened further, and one by one, orbs of magelight sprung up along the length of the high fence—a majestic sight that only served to remind Liola of her precarious situation.

Her family hadn’t been able to afford magical lanterns outside of the house for months now. And they’d been forced to sell all their horses but one.

“Have you ever been to a fairy market?”

The sudden question jolted Liola out of her wallowing. She looked around wildly for its source, half-expecting a magical creature to have made it through the estate’s defenses to taunt her. But nw, the girl who stood in the shadow of a sprawling oak tree was as ordinary as one could be while wearing male riding clothes and boasting a flaming mane of loose, windswept hair that went past her waist. It was the hair that made her so easy to recognize.

Janiz, Lady Rezenfort’s wayward niece who’d come to live here at the start of summer for some obscure keep-it-inside-the-family reason. They’d never been introduced, but Liola had caught glimpses of her. She knew they were of the same age. She’d heard that Janiz kept to herself, disappeared gods knew where for hours on end, and had made it clear she wasn’t interested in any offers of courtship. Once, Liola had tried asking Vinsen about his cousin and the vehement derision in his response was shocking.

She couldn’t deny she’d been intrigued and fascinated by this newcomer for months, and yet she’d done nothing about it. It was, after all, dangerous to indulge in fascination for other girls. Especially in Liola’s present position.

And yet here was Janiz, a vision of freckles and impish dimples, and Liola couldn’t look away.

“I haven’t,” she said after an all too obvious delay and hoped the warmth in her cheeks could be written off as a touch of the setting sun. “Why do you ask, Miss Janiz?”

The girl laughed softly and took a step out of the shadows. “Recognizable, am I?” She traced a fingertip up the bridge of her nose, as though fixing glasses that weren’t there. “Well, see, Miss Liola, I have this annoying habit of filling awkward silences whenever I spot one. And you’ve been standing there quite silently... and quite awkwardly, too, if I may say so.”

“Oh.” Liola knew she should feel embarrassed, but she was too busy getting captivated.

Especially when Janiz ventured even closer.

“I’ve been to several fairy markets,” she confessed in a low voice, eyes sparkling. “Back home in Atissia and here in the hills. I have a tree house just beyond the fence that I’ve built myself, and I store all my purchases there. Would you like to come and see?”

That sounded like a strange offering and a really bad idea. But Liola could see nothing good in hovering about waiting for Vinsen to remember her existence, either. And out of two bad ideas, why not pick the fun one?

“I would be delighted,” she said.

Perhaps through Janiz, she could get into the Rezenforts’ good graces just as well.

[sapphic-september]

Unexpected First Meeting

Drabble for @sapphic-september, day 30 prompt robot/AI! I was looking foward to do something for this ship 💗

Fandom: Spider-Man (MCU Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Pairing: May Parker/Pepper Potts Tags: Avengers Compound, Morning After, Artificial Intelligence Summary: May wakes up alone in Pepper’s bed the morning after. Wordcount: 100

Read on Ao3! Or visit my Sapphic September 2023 collection

[sapphic-september]

wc: 421 | sapphic september: day 24 | sapphic september prompts (@sapphic-september) | 024, hotel I sapphic september prompts (@cora-writes-things & @solar-settings): 024, hotel I fandom: that ‘90s show I rating: m

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 27: Atomic

No idea who these characters are, but I like them.

"There are no aliens on the abandoned atomic station," Anna says again. If she were paid a dollar for every time she's had to say it over the last thirty minutes, she'd be able to get a Big Mac meal on her way home.

The obnoxious twerp in front of her, predictably, doesn't relent. Anna honestly isn't sure the journalist is capable of relenting. An admirable quality, really. Not when it's aimed at her.

"Yes, but if there were—"

"There are not."

An extra cheeseburger is looking possible.

"But have you personally checked?"

Anna stares. The journalist grins, twirling a strand of unfairly shiny blond hair around her middle finger. In the low light of the office, her eyes are radium green.

"Of course I haven't. Why would I even?"

The journalist's smile widens. "Maybe you could write a paper about what you find there."

Ridiculous. As if she would ever besmirch her reputation with a paper on an urban legend.

"Listen, are we done yet? I don't mean to be rude, but I have homework to grade."

"I see. Any other plans for the night?"

"Again, not to be rude: how is that any of your business?"

Those dimples on the journalist's cheeks are an annoying distraction. Same as the way she leans forward, placing her hand a millimeter away from Anna's.

"It's just that I wanted to suggest exploring the abandoned station together."

Of all the cretinous ideas in the world. "What on earth makes you think I might be remotely interested?"

The journalist keeps grinning, as if heedless of Anna's indignation. "Well. Aliens are cool."

"I've told you a million times there are no—"

"Also, you look like you wouldn't mind spending the evening with me."Anna absolutely does not blush.

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 26: Gears

With a prompt like this, could it be anything other than steampunk?

"Fascinating," the tinkerer murmured, bending low over the desk. She peered at the weird contraption through her thick goggles. "Would you just look at it! Those gears, so perfectly meshed—and the crystal! I've never seen one cut so precisely. I wonder what it might do—"

"Yeah. Sure. Very pretty," Louada said in a flat monotone. She supposed there must have been something impressive about the device, what with how much she'd been paid to retrieve it and the kind of security she'd had to get through. It really was a nice-looking thing, all shine and moving parts. The truth was, though, she had no interest in aethertech. Only in stealing it.

Besides, there were far more enthralling sights in this cluttered workroom. Such as the single thin strand of hair escaping the tight knot at the base of the tinkerer's neck, curling against the spot where her pulse fluttered. Or the way her gray robes hugged every curve of her body. Or those small breathless noises she made whenever she found another exciting thing about her newest toy.

Louada wondered if she could get those noises out of her under different circumstances, as well. What it would take.

"Pretty? Yes, why, I suppose so. The craftsmanship is exquisite! But it's really the functionality that wows me here. Just look at this! It shouldn't be possible for this spring to unfold in both directions, and yet it does. I wonder if this is because of the way the dual magnets are set up. My, I've never seen anything like that!"

Louada cleared her throat. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

The tinkerer looked up. "What? Oh! Sorry, I got carried away—you must be expecting the rest of your reward, right?" 

She straightened and took a step away from the table, rummaging through the pockets of her leather apron. Louada moved closer, delicately placed her fingers on top of the other woman's hand.

"You've already paid me in advance, remember? An arm and a leg, too. I don't need any more coins. I do, however, want to remind you that you promised to have dinner with me if I get you that thing."

"Oh." The goggles covered most of the tinkerer's face, yet did little to hide the blush darkening her brown skin. "I thought you were joking. You do that. Sometimes."

Smiling, Louada shook her head. "Never about the important things. So? Dinner?"

[sapphic-september]

wc: 284 | sapphic september: day 23 | sapphic september prompts (@sapphic-september) | 023, phone call I sapphic september prompts (@cora-writes-things & @solar-settings): 023, phone call I fandom: that ‘90s show I rating: not rated

[sapphic-september]

wc: 279 | sapphic september: day 22 | sapphic september prompts (@sapphic-september) | 019, highway I sapphic september prompts (@cora-writes-things & @solar-settings): 022, dystopia I fandom: that ‘90s show I rating: m

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 25: Dreamscape

Is this just a sapphic novelization of a world building/magic system idea? Yes, yes it is.

Dreamscapes are so much trickier to navigate than regular mindscapes.

Sure, a mindscape can also be hazy and convoluted, full of shortcuts that lead nowhere and ever-shifting spaces. Sure, you’re in more danger of getting spotted when you investigate one, since its owner typically remains alert and awake as you carry out the job. But at least they’re self-contained. A mindscape is a labyrinth, perilous and uncanny, but it can be mapped out. Once you crack the laws of its inner logic, you know you can plant or steal whatever you need, then make your way back to your own head.

A dreamscape, on the other hand, is endless. It has some of the characteristics of the mindscape it’s connected to, but it’s also endlessly getting lost in that collective unconsciousness shit. There are all those familiar symbols constantly adopting new meanings. Roads leading straight into other people’s dreams. Earthquakes and hurricanes that happen undetected, carrying you out to a whole different reality in the blink of an eye.

Right now, Jinna is walking through a field of daisies and dandelions, red grass under her feet and redder skies up above, but who knows how long it is going to last. The space is already getting frayed and blurry around the edges. What’s casting that shadow over there? Are those dragon wings flapping behind the line of ship masts, or a single-minded hive of tentacled bats? Where do all the doors lead? 

The doors are what she’s here to concentrate on. There all kinds of them scattered around the field, some made of ice and others of gold. Blue doors, green doors, translucent rainbow doors. A lot of them have intricate shapes etched into the surface, runes and sigils, astrological signs, mathematical symbols. Doors are always important.

Most of them, no doubt, lead out of the dreamscape and into other layers of the half-reality that surrounds it. One or two, however, may take her deeper, and she needs to go as deep as she can. What she’s here to replace must be at the very core.She doesn’t have the time—one never does in the dreaming—but she’s still meticulous and slow about inspecting the doorways. She recalls every instance of seeing their materials and markings before, in other dreamscapes, and in the real world, and in books. She thinks about similar things from her target’s mind. She reaches out with her magic to get a feel for each door without entering.

Then she chooses one on a whim, and down the spiraling stairs she goes, down and up and down up, until everything is covered in thin purple mist and the air is cold enough to cover her dream-skin in frost.

Jinna begins to worry she’s made a mistake. Then, the mist clears, and she’s exactly where she hoped to be. A small room full of muted grays, a faded version of her target’s bedchamber. 

What she doesn’t expect to see is herself. A dreamscape version with longer, fairer hair and a tear-stained face. She is curled up on the settee between two lamps that burn bright and cast no light whatsoever, and her head is resting on the target’s shoulder.

“You don’t understand,” the non-Jinna whispers. “You don’t know what I am, what I’m capable of…”

“Shh.” The dreaming girl plants a soft kiss on her temple, treads her long pianist’s fingers through non-Jinna’s hair. “Of course I do. You are human. And you are capable of all the normal human things: love, friendship, belonging.”

For a moment, the real Jinna stumbles. She envies this version of her that doesn’t exist. She loathes her reasons for coming, and that she’s intruding at all.But there’s work to be done, and she isn’t a normal human.

“I’m so glad,” the target continues, “that you’re letting me help you, finally. I’m so happy you’ve come to me.”

She looks up as she says those last words, her eyes locking right on Jinna’s with a surprising degree of awareness. 

She is dreaming, Jinna has to remind herself. She is literally asleep. I should just carry on.

The next thing she knows, she’s on the settee, shaking and disoriented, her feet tucked under her, her hair too long and getting in the way. There are warm lips pressed against her temple. She looks up.

The target smiles at her the way Jinna has only dreamed she might.

“There you are. Don’t you worry about a thing. Now that I’ve got you, we’ll sort this out.”

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 24: Hotel

I was waiting for a prompt that would work with this old plot bunny.

"You know what your problem is?" Dawn asks, slumping against the front desk. Her faded leather jacket is snug around her shoulders, and the dim light of the lobby lends an illusionary feline glow to her green eyes. "You keep wanting things, so many things, so hard—it's a wonder all the demons in the world aren't flocking to Cedar Creek enthralled by your longing. But you never tell people what you want. You just accept what they want from you, and then you tell yourself you're content."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Fanny says flatly. The bit and barrel key clatters onto the scratched wooden surface. It's an old-fashioned one, a twist of metal hanging off a bright lime-green ribbon with a laminated room number tag attached. No fancy cards and electronic locks here in Always Sunny. "Here. You'll be in room seven this time. It's the one with the nice view."

"Come on, Fanny. You can't be satisfied with—" Dawn scrunches up her nose, looking around the lobby, spreads her arms. "With this."

"This is a perfectly nice hotel," Fanny counters. Technically, Always Sunny is more like a bed-and-breakfast, but Grandma Barbara's always said the town already has two of those and needs a proper hotel for variety. So a hotel it is. "You like it, too. You always stay here when you're back in town."

A grin spreads over Dawn's face, slow and soft and leisurely. "You know what brings me here, and anyway, don't change the subject. I'll be here for three days. Plenty of time to pack your bags. Come with me."

Dawn asks that of Fanny every time she visits. Normally, it's not part of the opening conversation. She saves it for later, when they're both flopped against the soft flowery linens, shoulders touching and feet tangled. When it's the hardest thing in the world to keep saying no.

"Dawn, you're a monster hunter with no sense of self-preservation, and I am, well, me. I'm not cut out for your life. I like it here. Home."

"You like it with me, too." Dawn leans forward. Her breath tickles at Fanny's lips. "You've always been my best back-up."

"Yeah, when we were in high school and you kept dragging me into it. How do you know I wasn't just—how'd you put it? Accepting what you wanted from me?" 

That's not true, and they both know it. But that doesn't make Fanny's present choices any more false. 

Dawn studies her closely, those haunting green eyes focused on Fanny's like twin gun barrels. Maybe it's not the lighting that makes them glow like that. Or maybe Fanny's imagination is running wild.

Fanny swallows when Dawn reaches out, smudges the tips of her calloused fingers down her cheek. Their faces are perfectly aligned for a kiss. Fanny's breath hitches.

Abruptly, Dawn steps back, scooping up the key from the desk. "So. Room seven."

"That's what I said."

"Yeah, but I thought I'd remind you. There are a lot of things you seem to be forgetting lately." Before Fanny can ask what the hell that's supposed to mean, Dawn is already retreating, her lightly packed backpack bouncing behind her shoulders. She turns once at the foot of the stairs. "See you when your shift ends, right?"

Fanny can only nod.

[sapphic-september]

fic: and secure the blessings: amy/liz

written for @twwpride day 6, “rare pair,” and @sapphic-september 2023, “phone call.”

wordcount: 4,270 // rating: T

tags: childhood friends, growing up together, pining, politics, not actually unrequited love

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 23: Phone Call

Randomly, have some angsty magical girls.

"You should probably call Jilly," Sonya says.

Lou tosses her a sidelong glance. "Why would I do that? It's not like she's my girlfriend." 

The silent anymore lingers thick on the tip of her tongue. She’s not sure if the rest of the team has ever realized the nature of her and Jilly's relationship. Maybe everyone thought they were simply very good friends, until they weren't.

Sonya scoffs, twirling the paper straw in her vaguely caffeinated milkshake. "Yeah, well, I've never dated her either, but I still called. So did Ashley, and Jade, and honestly, half of the city. You should, too."

Lou wishes she still had a drink to focus on. Her herbal tea is long gone. The dregs at the bottom of the paper cup look like a wilted rose framed by a waning moon.

"If she's getting so much attention, she can do without mine."

"Lou! Don't you care at all? Jilly's just defeated Toxicity! On her own! And lived to tell!"

Well, she shouldn't have, Lou thinks, stubbornly keeping her eyes on those dregs. She shouldn't have placed herself in that kind of danger. She should have asked for help. She should have stayed with the team, instead of randomly deciding she's "too old for teamwork." She should have fucking explained what was going on.

Instead, she went off to become this new formidable solo presence on the magical girls scene, and well, good for her. Lou is certainly neither worried nor jealous.

Jilly's mad victories or not, she isn't going to call first.

(Waiting for a call, night after night, is a whole different matter.)

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 22: Dystopia

Yet another case of "idk what this is, I just started writing and it happened."

"If we're literally living in a dystopia, where are all the good tropes?"

"Do dystopias have good tropes?" I wonder. Kate mock-gasps and tosses a potato chip at me. It lands smack in the middle of my laptop's trackpad. I swipe it away and curse when it leads to one of the tabs closing out of the blue. For the better part of the hour, I've been meticulously selecting freelance projects to respond to. Ctrl+Shift+T has never failed me yet, but I still feel oddly disheartened. It's like the universe warning me in advance that all of this is going to be in vain.

Tanner, our dog, crunches on the chip under my shabby computer chair.

"Of course there are good tropes," Kate says. She tosses the rustling foil bag aside and stands up to put her arms around my shoulders from behind. It's only like two steps between our bed and my desk. This room is tiny, and I swear it's shrinking the longer we occupy it. 

"Mmhm. Name one."

"Well. Chosen ones. Chosen ones are fun."

"I think it's more of a fantasy trope, babe."

She thinks a bit. "How about... love triangles!"

"Now name one good thing about love triangles."

She leans harder against the back of my chair. Its plastic joints whine.

"I mean, they can be ridiculous, but like, in fun ways, you know?"

On my screen, the lines are beginning to blur. I throw my head back and close my eyes for a moment. There's that urge to massage my temples, but I refuse to move my hands for the keyboards. At this rate, they'll never go back there.

Today isn't a good day for job searching. Then again, lately, few days are.

"I hope you're not trying to tell me something. I'm not sure I have the energy to be in a love triangle," I warn. "All that pining and drama sounds completely exhausting, no matter what part of the triangle you are, and drama doesn't pay rent."

Kate laughs softly. Her thumbs travel up the sides of my face, to those points near my eyes where tension mounts and buzzes.

"Ew," she says. "Love triangles."

"You just said they were fun."

"To read about!"

"I am getting so lost on this conversation." It's hard to complain, though, when she's drawing those soothing circles over my skin, and I really need to go back to job-searching, but capitalism and gig culture can wait for another few minutes.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, if we're stuck in this crapsack world, we should at least be able to go on an adventure of a lifetime, become fearless rebellion leaders, and topple the government, don't you think?"

"With our luck, we're just going to end up as those side characters who end up dead by chapter four."

She steps away only to whirl my chair around and lean in again, her forehead resting against mine. "I don't know," she whispers. "I tend to feel pretty damn lucky when I'm with you."

My head is heavy with the early promise of a migraine and I have yet to find a promising new gig. Still, when she looks at me with that smile, I can't help but grin back and reach up.

Somehow, Kate always makes me want to reach up, no matter how down I get.

[sapphic-september]

Sapphic September 21: Utopia

Jules. Flo. Moral conundrums that tend to plague one at bedtime.

"It's funny," Jules says out of nowhere, twirling a strand of Flo's overgrown dark hair around her finger. "You want to destroy the Corps and the super serum to build a utopia, right? That beautiful society where equality—"

"Equity," Flo corrects. She's too sleepy for this conversation. Too sleepy to even raise her head from Jules's shoulder and glare. Never too sleepy to insist on the right choice of words, though.

"Yes, right, that. A society where everyone is happy and protected and has a role to play. But has it occurred to you that the serum was invented with the same goal?"

Flo can't help but scoff. "Please," she mumbles. "Don't tell me you've suddenly bought into that propaganda."

"No, but really." Jules tugs at her hair, not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to send a pleasant tingle through Flo's scalp, and honestly, she'd rather focus on that sensation than anything her girlfriend is saying. But Jules often gets talkative right before they both drift off. Most of the time, it's nice. Sometimes, though, she gets philosophical about all the wrong things.

"I mean, all those managers and moneymakers, yes, of course, they were only looking out for their own gain. But it wasn't them who made the serum. There were scientists there. Visionaries. They wanted to make the world a better place, just like you."

"They picked a lousy way of doing that, though."

"Yeah," Jules agrees, and Flo doesn't need a special power like hers to sense the sadness behind the sweetness. "But they didn't know that back then."

Every cell in Flo's body feels heavy, but she rolls onto her back and props herself up on her elbows.

"Is there a point to this?"

The twilight warmed up by a single LED lamp from the nightstand obscures the color of Jules's eyes, but not the worried look in them. "I don't know," she says. "I guess this is yet another thing I get concerned about sometimes. Someone built a thing to make the world better, and it got worse. Now you think you can make it better by breaking the thing. How do you know it's the right choice?"

"Doing the opposite of wrong seems pretty damn right to me, Jules."

"But how do you know?"

Yes. Flo is definitely too sleepy for this shit.