#Dwarnian

[dyke-in-crisis]

so theres this alien soap opera *twirls hair*

commissions

[birgittesilverbae]

“i never pegged you as a picnic person. it’s a nice surprise.” + Lilith/Ava (optional: Bea also) :0?

continuation of this

//

When Ava makes it to the end of the lakeside path, having taken ample time to enjoy the view and give Lilith the space she'd so clearly needed, Lilith has spread out a blanket on the grass and is unpacking the picnic basket. She glances up at Ava's approach, a stricken look on her face. 

"What're we having?" Ava asks, and Lilith's shoulders relax at the out Ava has so clearly served up.

There's an ease to Lilith as she details the contents of the basket, as though she's memorised them in preparation for the question. Ava transfers smoothly from her chair to the blanket and grabs her seat cushion, settling firmly on it with a sigh. Lilith reaches the tailend of her rundown of the charcuterie board, and Ava's lips curl into a smirk at her last addition.

"Chocolate-covered strawberries, Lil? What is this, a romcom?"

Lilith's ears go pink.

Ava ducks her head to hide her smirk and watches Lilith out of the corner of her eye. When Lilith has seemingly regained her composure, Ava speaks up again. "Can we talk about what had you running scared just now?"

"I wasn't running. Nor was I afraid." 

"Babe, you said you wanted me in your life and then took off like a startled rabbit." 

"I did not."

"You absolutely did. Wanna tell me why?"

Lilith shifts uncomfortably. "Not particularly."

"Lilith."

"You simply seem to have slotted easily into my life already, without me being conscious of it. So me stating that openly to you seemed like the natural next step." Lilith lays her hand on Ava's knee, palm up, and Ava takes it, threading their fingers together and giving a comforting squeeze. She strokes her thumb back and forth across the back of Lilith's hand as Lilith continues. "You do so well with Libby. Beatrice is enamoured by you, for some incomprehensible reason, and she said that Shannon likes you and Mary only looks like she wants to throttle you half the time."

Ava smiles gently. "Okay, but what about you?"

"You're rather exceptional in bed."

Ava stills her movement, twists her hand so that she can pinch the webbing between Lilith's thumb and forefinger in soft rebuke. "Lilith. Please."

"You'd just like to hear me sing your praises."

"I'd just like to hear something positive from you about me that doesn't involve how well we fuck," Ava says, gaining an edge to her tone. "It's getting a bit old."

"I…" Lilith's jaw works, but she comes up empty, lapses back into silence.

Ava pulls her hand away and Lilith's fingers stay splayed open on Ava's knee, the tender flesh of her palm exposed to the sky. "All of this is very sweet, Lilith, but the feeling I get is that it's formulaic. That this is what you think you should do, rather than what you actually want to do. Even this picnic feels to me like you've googled 'romantic dates' and pulled a checklist from the first search result."

Lilith swallows audibly. "I did," she admits. "That's what I did."

Ava sighs. "Lilith…"

Lilith withdraws her hand and fixes her gaze on the far shore, her jaw working as she picks at her cuticles. "I'm not good at this," she admits. "I've never been good at this."

"I don't need you to be good at this. I just need you to figure out whether you actually want me in your life or you just want me in you and think that this is the way to get that."

Lilith gives a wet little laugh, and it's then that Ava spots the barest glint of tears at the very corners of her eyes. "I want to be good at it. I want you in my life. You're kind and generous and compassionate and caring and I like you. I like being with you." She takes a steadying breath and her eyes clear. "I enjoy learning about you. I'm sorry that I haven't been as open about that as I could have been. I– I don't know that I've ever had to step outside of my comfort zone like this, and I like that you challenge me in a way that makes me want to not only do it, but actively improve at it."

"Okay. Wow. Okay. Wanna go finger me in the car?"

"Ava."

Ava laughs brightly. "Couldn't resist, babe." She braces her hand on Lilith's thigh and leans over to kiss her cheek. "Thank you for trusting me with that." She lets her weight sink into Lilith's shoulder and, with an exaggerated groan of annoyance, Lilith lifts her arm to allow Ava to burrow closer into her side. "I like you, too, you know. I'm so happy you're in my life. And I do really appreciate this gesture," she adds, motioning towards the spread. "You're very sweet, Lilith, no matter how much you want to pretend you're not."

Ava can feel Lilith's grumble in her chest, but then Lilith sighs. "I will allow that, the once. What do you want to try first?"

"Did you make the hummus yourself?"

"I did."

"Then that, definitely, with the crostini."

"Good choice, I made those too."

"Even better."

[alivegirlmari]

taishauna :0?

TAISHAUNA!!!!! god. god. i love them so much. literally my favorite scene this season is the little moment where shauna wakes up after the baby-eating dream and tai says they thought they'd lost her. jasmin portrays tai's devastating relief, her exhaustion, the inherent bittersweetness of the moment - thank god you're alive, but now i have to break your heart and now you have to live with this and i'm so sorry - SO well, it's the one thing about that episode that actually made me cry! my fave teen timeline moments are the ones where they either a) take care of each other or b) make me say 'ohhhh they're just kids!!' over and over, and the offscreen implication of the girls just all sitting around, holding this dead baby, waiting for shauna to wake up but not knowing if she will and being utterly powerless regardless has both. i'm never not thinking of tai telling shauna that she can do fucking anything, tai with no medical skills but still on the frontline at shauna's side, willing to hold her hand for three hours or thirty-six, tai giving in and chanting for the wilderness with tears in her eyes. like fuck! i'm not entirely happy with how they wrote some parts of them (the makeup corpse thing, her ~siding with lottie at first when lottie was talking to shauna's stomach; both felt like reactions just to the move the plot along but w/e), but tai in the birth scene reminds me so much of s1's abortion scene: tai doesn't want shauna to do it bc she doesn't want her to die but if shauna's gonna do it then she'll help!!! she knows that she'll potentially have shauna's blood on her hands and she does it anyways!! bc she's on shauna's team and she loves her!!

and i'm really sad we didn't get any adult taishauna moments this season bc what i also love is that they're maybe the one platonic (well they're romantic 2 me but ykwim) dynamic where it feels like not much has changed from teen timeline to adult timeline? like the other adult ships, regardless of how they felt about each other as teens, are now all tinged with things like betrayal, suspicion, disappointment, hatred, sadness etc. and yes taishauna do get snarky with each other and i'm sure tai didn't love having to clean up a dead body and obvs shauna wasn't happy about the jessica roberts reveal but like. who the fuck else is still having sleepovers as adults?? no one!!! bc that's really what it all comes down to isn't it!!! i love you and i will lean on you and i will follow you into a blizzard and i will do anything and everything to keep us safe and i will hold you so you can sleep as a teenager so i will return to you as an adult and hold you so you can sleep again bc some part of my body and mind intrinsically trusts you and i will keep your secrets no matter how ugly and hard they are to admit and we will always be those girls in the attic, we will always be those girls in the woods, and we will always have each other. LIKE??

also god that side shot of them in the diner in s1…so gay indie movie coded of them…they should hook-up in s3, i think. would it fix them? well No. but it can't make things that much worse can it. case closed.

anyways tl;dr: ride or die besties who aren't sappy 24/7 and are actually p grizzled...you are so beloved. to me.

[thetragicallynerdy]

1 + jim/oluwande for the ficlet starter lines thing :0?

Oh hell yeah!! This got a little bit long, but it's still within a thousand words, so I guess that counts as a ficlet?? This takes place in an unidentified modern au - it's low-key inspired by @dragonmuse 's birthday party for Jim in Hungry Like A Wolf , because the idea of Jim not having a birthday party since they were a kid until Oluwande throws them one is just so fucking good. (Also everyone should go read their Leda House and the Kraken 'verse it's absolutely stunning)

Thanks again Dwarnian!! This was v fun to write.

#1 - "You know that's not what I meant."

“You know that’s not what I meant!” Jim hissed. “Would you stop? We’re not doing this!”

Oluwande grinned back at them, like he hadn’t just dropped that he was going to throw them a fucking birthday party when they were in the middle of the goddamn grocery store, of all places. At least he’d dragged them here when it was deserted.

“Oh? Then what did you mean?” He kept tossing half-price bags of chips into the shopping cart he was pushing. “Because I could’ve sworn you said, and I quote, ‘Yes, I’d definitely like the biggest birthday bash ever, please Oluwande’.”

“I was being sarcastic!”

Jim grabbed a bag of chips and tried to put it back on the shelf, only for Oluwande to tsk and shove two more in the cart. They fought the urge to bare their teeth at him or to grab the knife hidden under their coat, the one that definitely wasn't legal to carry in this state. Not that they really wanted to threaten Oluwande out of throwing them a birthday party. But the urge was still there, and they still ignored it, which was what counted. Right?

“I don’t even like birthday parties!” they said, waving their hands in the air. “They’re stupid!”

“You liked the one you planned for me just fine. Don’t think I didn’t see the list on your phone of all the ways you want to throw me an even better party next year.”

“That’s – that’s different!” They tried to bat his hands away from a case of pop. “Maltida sea Olu, would you stop? You are not allowed to throw me some big stupid fucking birthday party -”

Oluwande grabbed a different case of pop and tossed it in the cart, then kept walking. “It won’t be stupid at all –“

“It will be – fuck, can you just” – Jim grabbed the front end of the shopping cart and planted themself in front of it, throwing their weight against it until Oluwande stopped – “stop for one damn second –"

Something in the look on their face must have given him pause, because suddenly the air of humour faded, his face shifting into something serious.

“Okay,” he said, leaning his elbows on the handle of the cart. “I’m stopping.” His voice went soft. “Mate, are you really upset about this?”

They chewed on their lip.  

“Because if you really don’t want a party, we won’t have one,” he continued, nothing but sincerity in his voice. “I just… thought it might be nice. Since you said you haven’t had a proper birthday party in like - a really long time.”

“Not since I was a kid,” Jim muttered. They looked down at their hands, white knuckled on the metal edge of the cart. “I’m not – I’m not a birthday person. I don’t need a party just because I made it through another fucking year.”

“I know you don’t need a party. But it’s okay if you want one.” They wrinkled their nose at him, but Oluwande just smiled. “And it’s not just to celebrate still being alive. I mean yeah, that’s good, but it’s to celebrate you, y’know?”

Jim groaned. “Dios, that sounds terrible.”

Oluwande laughed. “Yeah, well, some of us love you. Like, a lot of us love you, actually. And we’d like to get the chance to show you every once in a while.”

Fuck. When he put it that way, it felt like…

It felt like having a family again. And they knew he was theirs, the only family they had. But maybe the rest of their friends could be, too.

“You still don’t have to,” he said, voice going soft again. “Or we can just do something small instead of a party with everyone. You and me, or just a couple people. It’s totally up to you. I won’t be upset either way.”

Jim ducked their head, staring once more at their hands, then at the contents of the cart. It still felt like too much. Too much attention, too much effort for them.

… but they couldn’t deny that they kind of wanted it, too.

“… you really want to throw me a party?”

Oluwande smiled, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Yeah, mate. I really do.”

Jim sighed. They let go of the cart and stepped around to where Oluwande stood at the back, then slipped their hand into his.  

“… fine. We can do a big party.”

The smile on Oluwande’s face shifted into the biggest grin. “Hell yeah we can!”

Jim held up their finger. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Lucius isn’t allowed to choose the music. If I have to listen to one of his stupid fucking Brittney Spears playlists at my own fucking birthday party, we’re gonna have a problem.”

Oluwande laughed and squeezed their hand. “It’s a deal.” When he started forward, tugging them along, they followed. “You can make your own playlist for the party, how’s that?”

Jim pursed their lips. “… make one for me? You know more music than I do.”

They didn’t say that he knew all their favourites. They didn’t need to.

The look Oluwande gave them was unbearably soft, making all their insides flip. “Of course, mate. Anything for you.”

[smokestarrules]

I’m not the writer of the library AU, but Shi Yue isn’t Bea’s mother! Based on the words she and Bea use for each other (小妹, 月姐), she’s an older sister figure, maybe an older cousin!

@softpluto ive been exposed as a fool ignore literally all my tags except for the ones where i'm praising you

[iriscasefiles]

a word of advice to anyone writing sci-fi or fantasy for the first time: take it from me, maybe don't come up with key worldbuilding details on the basis of making obscure jokes that are literally funny to you and only you

[fa1ry-sandw1ch3s-6]

CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT HRESH’VATHAM

I find my myself thinking of them more than the actual storyline

[glassfullofsass]

Language can be SO GOOD

[chaos-lioness]

Happy Rosh Hashana guys have some marker experiments with my new favorite Jewish character of all time, Brian Jeeter. And Krejjh!!! ID below, lengthy design decision ramblings below that :)

[ID: A marker drawing of Krejjh and Jeeter from The Strange Case of the Starship Iris. Jeeter is a light-skinned human with short curly hair. Krejjh is an alien with four arms and mid-length hair in elaborate braids. They are lying on a mattress together with their arms and legs overlapping, partly covered by a blanket. Krejjh is face down and their limbs are spread out across most of the mattress. They are drawn in purple. Jeeter is face up and smiling slightly in his sleep, and drawn in blue. He has visible top surgery scars and oxygen tubing leads from under his nose to a machine beside the mattress. Also on the floor are two pager-like devices, a pile of notes and books, and a tablet showing two figures in elaborate hats. END ID]

Marker test number two has been marginally successful!! Still trying to figure out how best to get a degree of smoothness. My main regret with this is Krejjh’s sleeping position honestly. ‘Krejjh is exhausted flops face down and takes up the whole bed’ is, I maintain, a hilarious idea. But now we can’t see them smiling back at Jeeter! Their fancy braids are supposed to be a Dwarnian thing, I wanted to give them something appearance wise that could have cultural significance. I figured Dwarnians might have a variety of hair textures just like humans, so I wanted to go with something that works similarly for lots of different types of hair. I have them on a mattress to drive home the makeshift way they’re using the new ship (I intended this to be set mid season 2). The stuff on the floor is supposed to be coms, linguistics research, and everyone’s favorite Dwarnian soap. Also, big thanks to @high-voltage-rat for answering my hopefully spoiler free vague questions, this was a good drawing to have a resident Biomed Person for! Believe it or not a lot of work went into figuring out where Krejjh’s extra arms should go that would not have been possible without her anatomy textbooks and well-informed suggestions. (The muscles for the bottom arms are upside-down versions of the musculature in human shoulders (and Krejjhs’s top arms) if anyone was wondering. Also the bone structure is behind their digestive organs, so their stomach pokes out more than a human’s… which you could also see if I chose their sleeping position better. Alas.) Also for telling me enough that I could Google the right words to figure out an oxygen tank but Future but like the Right Amount of future. (The nose piece is name dropped so I left that pretty much unchanged, but rat said you’d usually need pressurization at night so the ‘tank’ is a little more flexible and technologically advanced than what we have right now in the real world. So it can act like a cpap and it squishes but you still gotta lug it around, keeping it nice and cannon aligned.) Finally, they’re so uh. Scantily covered because the ship is allegedly kept at 37 degrees… which for a while I thought was Celsius but maybe it’s Fahrenheit?? Anyway. 37 Celsius is really warm. So. It was the only logical way.

[dyke-in-crisis]

this is sickeningly niche but I NEED to know how Sh’th Hremreh continues has someone written a fic?? anyone??

[iffeelscouldkill]

OKAY WAIT I just came up with a crack headcanon about Shelly

What if even RJ doesn't know who she is?? 😆

Maybe Park mentions her once or twice in passing, and RJ is hoping to glean from context exactly who this is because they feel too awkward to ask 😅 (Park's going to tell them, right? Or does he think they already somehow know??)

And then Park says, "If Shelly calls, tell her not to expect me," and through the dread comes a new realisation - RJ is going to have to talk to this person they have absolutely no idea about.

-- But it must be in Park's file, right???

Cue RJ frantically (and guiltily) searching through their superior (former superior?)'s file only to find out:

Even the IGR doesn't know who Shelly is.

Maybe Shelly doesn't call - or maybe she does but RJ struggles to gather anything from her voice or her references to Park about who she is to him. And it's a really inappropriate moment to go "also, um, who exactly are you?"

Come Episode 10, RJ asks Park, "How's Shelly?" and inwardly thinks am I finally going to find out?? But Park's reply is non-committal and RJ is still in the dark 🙈

(And it's not exactly the most pressing issue, what with the whole "sparing the life of a Dwarnian" and "Park being a traitor to the Republic" and "RJ being a traitor to the Republic oh god")

But then they're on board the Iris 2, Shelly's name comes up, and Park looks stricken, so the Rumor crew obviously decide not to ask. Later, someone (Sana?) pulls RJ aside and asks about Shelly and RJ (in far far too deep to admit the truth) improvises desperately.

"She and Park were very close…" (Surely that can only be true, right?) "Park really misses her…" (Again, self-evident) "I think it's difficult because she can't know what's happened to him…" (That's just part and parcel of going on the run)

Sana nods and doesn't seem to detect that the key piece of information is missing.

ALTERNATIVELY, they're on board the Iris 2 and Shelly's name comes up, and both Park and RJ make confident references to her as if the Rumor crew already know who she is. Did Park mention this? Did Other Violet? It's been a crazy 48 hours, no-one has slept, and later on it seems almost… too late to ask (each member of the crew thinks they're the one who can't remember who Shelly is).

Which results in Park + a ship full of people all desperately trying to pretend they know about Shelly

[mv-damn]

suggested by @dwarnian in this lovely Butterfly Soup discord, I bring you this iconic exchange (in soup form):

And, an alternate 2nd panel:

[id: a series of three images made to look like screenshots from the game Butterfly Soup, all featuring the "locker room" background.

The first image features Noelle, smiling widely and looking quite proud of herself, saying, "I was expecting a battle of wits, but you appear to be unarmed."

The second and third images feature Akarsha (arms splayed in a shrug, looking smug) and Min (arms crossed, looking slightly aggressively directly at the "camera") respectively, both saying, "Your mom suck me good and hard through my jorts."

//end id]

[the-official-account]

Is it just me, or does lesbian fandom have a problem?

My name is Edil. I've been a medium-sized name in several small fandoms, especially podcast fandoms. I am also a women appreciator, and enjoy media that centers on women. I'm going to mostly be talking about my experiences in two fandoms: The Strange Case Of Starship Iris and Pasithea Powder, both podcasts with central wlw ships, though I've also seen these same issues in Goncharov (1973) of all places.

When I go into fandom I go hard. My brain, which is very autistic, breaks down information of small details for fun. It's the reason why I wrote a dwarnian (TSCOSI's fictional alien language) dictionary for the podcast. The reason why I have a massive notes document on all of Pasithea's season one and the reason the wiki...looks and reads like that. It isn't owned by me, but most of the formatting, fonts, content: yours truly.

And I'm proud of these projects, which took time and effort and skill building to do! But I haven't finished or caught up with either of these podcasts, and that's because the online spaces that center around them have been overwhelmingly hostile.

I have a strong emotional connection to this issue — of whether or not sapphic fandoms tend to be more hostile to diversity, especially race and nuerodivergance — so I can't make a distinct analysis, not without more distance and more information. That's part of why I am making this post.

Mods and members of the TSCOSI discord circa 2020 will know me, and know why I left. That being a series of unwarranted criticisms and bad faith readings that left me with anxiety even interacting with the fandom I loved.

I am probably a lot less known in the Pasithea fandom, because I wrote fewer fics for it and left more quickly. After TSCOSI, I recognized resentment faster. But the Pasithea notes document that I've posted here before and the wiki, three fics, fan art and that one comic that's still to this day the only comic I've drawn: me.

This is not a callout post, not for individuals or for groups, and I don't have screenshots. I am only trying to open a discussion.

See, the pattern that I am seeing is that fandom spaces centering on wlw ships attract fans who are wlw. And while nothing is inherently wrong with that, issues in the lesbian community start to become very obvious.

Firstly, the lack of diversity in sexuality among most of the fan base (As I suspect bi and gay people have largely more popular media that attracts them, and lesbians have to dig deeper for smaller spaces like these podcast) starts to feed this sense of possession among fans. As if there is a correct, normal, or standard way to be sapphic. A set of rules stating that anyone who doesn't obey it hates lesbians.

From Pasithea, I got this in comments about how I was drawing the characters "ugly" (Jane is canonically fat and has a scar, which I made very visible...because I wanted to. I gave her strong Hispanic features because it appealed to me. Sophie is butch, and canonically has or had a buzz cut. Which is what I drew. — The "appearance" section of the wiki? Yup. I wrote that.)

These comments, which were themselves problematic, came from a place of implying I was lesbiphobic for drawing these wlw as "ugly". When in fact, I was drawing the type of characters that would appeal the most to me, and hopefully to others like me.

These expectations of skinny, eurocentric appearing, usually feminine characters... Well it reflects a lot of issues with TERF-y feminism and lesbianism at large. Lesbianism on the internet has an issue with gender essentialism that isn't universal but is incredibly worrying. And when WOC are often masculinized because of their non-white features, that transphobia becomes anti-butchness (or strict standards of butchness) and racism.

While TSCOSI fans were more receptive to my designs, I was drawing in a less realistic style where "ugly" was less of an issue — and, to be frank, The main ship being Southeast and South Asian made it hard to draw them "ugly" from a eurocentric perspective. Realism there would just be...exotic, I guess.

However, with TSCOSI fans there was still a sense of possession around how these characters were interpreted, especially in headcannons, that lead to me deleting more than I posted as time went on. Some of those were genuine issues on my part ("what if the Jewish guy was a vampire in a au haha!" I said. Then went to bed, woke up, googled it, and went "NOPE! NOPE!!! SORRY.") Others were just unnecessary, such as comments on how silly head cannons were "unrealistic", and how I should write more cannon compliant work, rather than what I was doing for fun.

Ultimately these are the ONLY things that made me stop listening to these podcasts. The ONLY reason I put down the projects I poured consecutive hyperfixate weeks into. Part of me thinks it was this enthusiasm in the first place that was the biggest threat others reacted to in how I spoke and acted.

For instance, in trying to write for both the TSCOSI and Pasithea wikis, I had folks try to change my methods of research and writing to a style that worked best for them. When I said they were welcome to work that way, there was no offers to assist. And communication with those who had established work was either non-existent or hostile. I've had people question if my passion projects were necessary, berate me for meaningless mistakes, and treat what could be fun collaborative work like a pissing contest. For TSCOSI, none of this occurred on the wiki, and mostly around documents I owned for my own note taking. Even then, the hostility of Wikipedia culture is an unnecessary and hurtful thing to bring into fandom wiki culture.

The TSCOSI people went on to make a wonderful wiki that I deeply admire, but I still wish I could have been part of that project in its infancy, instead of being pushed away. (I may have made the navigation system if I remember correctly, but I'm not certain. So this is not to say I was not allowed any input whatsoever.)

I love sapphic media, it's my bread, butter, pride, joy, and favorite past time. But time and time again I have found far safer social spaces for media that centers around gay men, even if it isn't my personal first choice.

As a non-white, non-allistic, non-lesbian, not-skinny fan...I have concerns.

I know you all want sapphic media to get more attention. I want that too. But unless you start actively searching for and calling out bigotry in those spaces, it absolutely cannot and will not happen. So much of fandom is powered by autistic people with time on their hands, and I want there to be space for people like me. Who get TOO excited, TOO far from cannon, TOO analytical about race and class and fatphobia and whatever else.

Sapphic media obviously has issues reaching fans that aren't the fault it's its current audience. But the good thing about being part of or close to a problem, is having the power to make incredible, effective change.

I refuse to leave these podcasts behind, I love them more than anything, and the projects I got out of them are still my beloved brain children (The alien calligraphy from the random writing system I made for dwarnian is still up on my wall. "It is what. It IS what, keeps us from the abyss.") I refuse to be shoved aside my racist fans and random people who assume they can act rudely to strangers because they treated characters or lore differently. I refuse to be sidelined from conversations just cause I can act weird.

But I also refuse to spend so much of my beloved labor on people who turn up their noses and belittle it.

This all has had a lasting effect on how I interact with fandom, a legitimate fear-responce to the idea of trying to engage deeply with women-centered podcasts. Something I'm trying to unlearn and overcome.

So. There's my explanation of why I don't do tscosi anymore, which I mentioned on the minibang I'd eventually follow up on. And a criticism of sapphic fandom which, I'll be real, I have a few more essays worth of commentary about, and it's also another expression of how I stare longingly at Pasithea every time it comes up on my dash.

But, most importantly, this is my question of whether anyone else has found themselves in a similar place. If it's a trend or an anecdote.

If you have thoughts, please reblog with them. I'd love to know what you have to say.

[jaggedwolf]

TSCOSI Ficlets #4

Queued a couple of batches of five of old ones, wanted to collate'em before I lost'em.

I'll protect you!

Krejjh tackled Translator Jeeter to the floor before the glass window shattered. They didn’t make a move till they heard the gunfire drift farther away from the restaurant. Other patrons went back to their meals, one pair trading four tens with the look of a settled bet.

Krejjh?” Translator Jeeter’s breathing tickled the frills of Krejjh’s neck. A couple of words in human-English that Krejjh couldn’t catch, and then in Dwarnian, “Can I get up now?”

“Sure thing!” Krejjh pushed themself back into a crouch, and stared. No blood coming out of anywhere, no obvious wounds, only quicker breaths. “Are you injured, Translator Jeeter?”

“Nope, thanks to you.” Translator Jeeter smiled for too short a moment before looking worried. “Krejjh-”

Krejjh spun around to face the window, the smarting of their left wing only another focus for the coming battle. No enemies faced them. They turned back, confused.

Translator Jeeter frowned. “Your wing-”

A waiter slid between them briefly, and wow, human restaurants were way more used to Nuezo gunfire than Krejjh would’ve thought. Folks back home would’ve freaked out about mixing meals and battle.

Krejjh folded back their right wing, peering closely at the other one. There was a small tear in the translucent membrane. From the glass, not the bullets. They lightly flapped the wing. Krejjh hummed with the solid, soft sting of air passing through the new hole.

“Woah,” said Translator Jeeter, curls of his hair swaying in the wing-created wind. “I mean, uh, do you need a doctor?”

“Nah.” Krejjh shrugged, their extended wing brushing against a human who scowled and shifted their chair away. “It’ll be good as new, just got to eat and not get any more holes in it.”

Translator Jeeter let out a big breath. “Thanks again for the save. Man, I could’ve sworn the Lower District was supposed to be safe this week?”

“It’s no problem at all.” Krejjh puffed up their chest. “I wouldn’t let my translator get hurt.”

They sneak a look, pleased when Translator Jeeter’s cheeks turn interesting shades of red.

Bad dreams

When Arkady woke, a new shot of adrenaline spiked through her heart at the arm around her waist, the leg tangled between her own, the pressure on her back. It took the sight of her gun on the table and the tickle of breath against her spine to keep her still.

The Iris. Her own room. Violet.

Not the first time Violet had spent the night, but the first time one of those dreams had happened during. Stupid. Should have thought of that, she’d almost flipped and pinned Liu on pure instinct, and that would’ve been-

That would’ve been bad. Arkady disentangled herself. She swung her legs off the bunk, the cold floor a jolt to her toes. Violet’s breathing stayed steady behind her. So quiet, you could almost miss it in the constant hum of the ship.

Arkady listened until her muscles untensed. She slumped forward, forearms on knees. Before tonight the worst thing about the nightmares had been her memory of them - only the barest outlines remained for her head to conjure a dozen possibilities, even as her chest seized in desperation. She blew a breath out past her lips.

“Arkady?” Violet’s voice solidified. “Hey-”

There was the sound of the covers shifting, the feeling of shifting pressure on the mattress, a tentative hand on her shoulder. Arkady leaned back into its warmth without turning around.

“It’s nothing,” said Arkady, throat dry. “Bad dream. You can go back to bed, Liu.”

The thumb idly brushing under the strap of her undershirt stilled. The hand disappeared altogether. The dim disappointment mixed with relief didn’t last long, movement catching the corner of Arkady’s vision.

A pajama-clad knee rested against Arkady’s bare one. “Would you rather be alone?”

“No,” admitted Arkady reluctantly.

Violet slid her arm along Arkady’s, interlacing their fingers. She yawned and cuddled closer to Arkady. There would be another question soon, in the next few minutes, or tomorrow.

Somehow, Arkady didn't mind.

Feet

Sana sighed and tilted her head back against the wall. It had been a long week. Good to be back on the Rumor. Good to be here with its crew.

“This wall is way more comfortable than I remember it.” Sana stretched her legs out, careful not to knock over the cup of moonshine next to her. “I could fall asleep here.”

Sitting cross-legged opposite her, Arkady half-grinned the way she did the way after jobs that mostly went according to plan. “Captain, your mattress is literally five feet away.”

That it was, sheets messily crumpled on it. Sana shrugged. “I built this wall too well, I might not even take off my boots.”

“Now I know you’re drunk,” snarked Arkady, taking a quick swig from her own cup. “Actually taking credit for something?”

“Hey, I do-” Sana’s train of thought was derailed by Arkady lifting Sana’s right foot into her lap, palms skimming the brown leather. Arkady’s fingers made quick work of the shoelace knot. Sana shook her head, trying to clear it. “Kady, you don’t have to-”

“There’s a lot of shit I don’t have to do,” grumbled Arkady, shoulders tightening.

Sana noted that line of tension, the flicker of nervousness in Arkady’s dark eyes, and the easy comfort her own legs felt. She didn’t pull her foot away. “That’s true.”

Arkady continued unlacing the boot. Sana picked up her cup again to take a slow sip. “I don’t thank you enough for it.”

Arkady snorted, but her shoulders relaxed. Good enough. Arkady coaxed out the boot’s tongue, pulling the boot Sana’s sore foot without jarring it. She peeled off the sock in the next breath. Unthinkingly, Sana wiggled her free toes.

Not that Sana had any expectations of where this was going, but if she had, she would’ve expected Arkady to move on to her left foot. Instead, Arkady’s fingers interlocked around the top of her foot. Arkady’s movements were cautious. As if there was a wrong way she was capable of touching Sana.

Sana let out a low groan at the warmth and pressure of Arkady’s thumbs digging into her sole. “Wow, that’s good.”

Arkady’s expression grew more content. “Not exactly my first job with a lot of on-the-feet time. Learnt a few tricks.”

Cat AU

RJ skulks along the alley's walls. They try to keep in mind Park's lesson on minding sound and warmth as much as sight, the first time he had let them accompany him to the kitchen. One had to be careful not to wake the sleeping of the big house.

Park's advice is no use out here - RJ hisses at the thought - where it's always noisy and hot and RJ keeps feeling things on their whiskers that makes them want to dart under dumpsters like they're a kitten.

They inch forward. Their paws are weaker from hunger than they've ever been, but Park is counting on them. Park, who's still asleep in that box two or three blocks back, who's hurt in a way that makes RJ want to yowl even though good cats aren't supposed to. RJ scrunches their eyes shut and tries not to remember the swinging boot that-

The sound of crashing cans fills the alley. When RJ's eyes open, they see a tail disappear around a corner. Another cat! An alleycat, RJ reminds themself. Yet they and Park hadn't eaten in almost a day, and reconnaissance was always a worthy endeavor. At the very least, it would be good intelligence to report.

RJ curls around the corner, both relieved and disappointed to see nothing. They enter the alley, sniffing nervously for any sign of food. A sudden weight lands on their back. They stumble and fall, yelping when hot breath fills their ears.

"If you don't wanna get hurt, keep still," the breath says.

RJ knows that voice. It's one of those alleycats. The fighty one, RJ thinks. The other cats land softly around them, sets of white and orange and grey and striped feet caught in peripheral vision. The group must have waited up on a fire escape or a windowsill. Should've cleared the area fully.

Claws out, RJ readies their trembling paws. These alleycats aren't going to find out where Park is from RJ.

Blankets

Krejjh's Earth-English is isn’t good enough to catch what the human from the bed is frantically yelling into the comms. A summoning of reinforcements, perhaps.

What is this room? The inside of this ship looks nothing of Dwarnian make. The last memory is of a game night with the other pilots. Krejjh’s armor and weapons are nowhere to be seen. If it’s a capture, and these humans are willing to gain something for themselves...the subclan might bother attempting to make a trade, but the subclan would never let Krejjh live down such a folly.

There's still only one human. Krejjh has yet to fight one face to face, only shot down ships and buildings from far above, but Krejjh has the entire upbringing of a Dwarnian citizen and this human has-

Hair? This human has hair, which makes sense, because humans do. Dark curly hair on the head, and a thinner layer over the bottom half of the face. No weapons or armor worn, doesn’t strike Krejjh as a soldier, but what other reason could explain the presence?

"Krejjh?" The human's voice softens, turning to Krejjh with empty hands in the air. In accented yet understandable Dwarnian, the human says "Hey friend, I really need you to stay calm. The war's way less of a concern than what you said earlier, we’re not enemy soldiers or anything.”

The human’s term of address stirs something in Krejjh’s vitals. A sign of deception? A bargain? Krejjh had never been good at the social games, had flown right away from all of those. The blanket, gripped tight, could serve as an impromptu weapon. Then again, it was human-make like everything else Krejjh could see. Could as well fall apart at the first use. The human’s eyes stay on Krejjh’s face, not a glance at Krejjh’s hands.

"Why have you captured me?" asks Krejjh. "Where are your fellow soldiers?"

“None of us are soldiers,” says the human.

The door slams open with the entrance of another human who was covered in guns. The scarred face scowls as Earth-English spews forth - something about the taking of oaths, and maybe weapons. Though the new human really didn’t seem to need any more weapons.

"That's definitely a soldier," says Krejjh, slowly sliding against the wall, pleased when the new human mirrors the movements on instinct.

"Arkady's not a-I mean, kinda used to be but-"

"Catch!" Krejjh throws the balled-up blanket into the face of the new human before leaping through the open door, leaving the humans yelping behind.

Escaped from the room, check. Next stop, armory or cockpit. Shoulders cooled by the ship's air even while running, Krejjh glances down.

It’d be fantastic to find a shirt at some point.

[eyrieofsynapses]

Trick or treat!🎃🕴

howdy!

*eyes your blog description* hmm. have a quote from The Strange Case of Starship Iris podcast!

"ARKADY

I’ve never met a Dwarnian who didn’t find the whole gender binary thing really frickin’ funny.

KREJJH

(laughing) (Human impression) “Pardon me, sir or madam, but I simply must know what gender you are! There’s two whole options, and I can’t really explain why but somehow it’s very important!” (laughs)"

-- The Strange Case of Starship Iris, season one, episode 3: In the Deep

happy Halloween!

[iriscasefiles]

Dwajjhah Ferin,* everybody!

*Ferin technically happens based on the Dwarnian solar/lunar calendar so it absolutely would not be on june 12 every year but why turn down a space alien party