#ENLISTING ME TO HELP WITH HER OWN UNTIMELY DEMISE ...

[ask-coolskellington95]

[sallysoot]

    ↱ IT’S A CONVERSATION. ↲

in the drift, the two of you are made equal. 

[ pairing ; (pacific rim AU) philza x reader ] [ stats & warnings ; 3.3k, second person, general angstiness warnings apply + some descriptive-ish kaiju death! ] [ notes ; this one’s pure self-indulgence, but i SUPER wanted to write it regardless. i tried to make it pretty easy to understand whether you’ve seen pacific rim or not, though i don’t know if i succeeded. OTL also i cannot write action at all don’t come for me with the kwoon combat scene 😭 ]

          if your mind has ever shown you kindness, its most gracious act is when it buried the memories of the day the kaiju crawled from the depths of the ocean and laid waste to your hometown. only a child, then, you were much too young to understand that the earth shaking beneath your feet was the same rumble of impending doom that had sunk californian cities and crushed lives in its rubble. when you hear others speak of that day, it sounds to you like a simple fairytale with its terrible, grim ending left intact. hastily written history calls it abedus. those that mock your personal disaster with comedy on live television call it toe-biter. you wonder what you had called it, in those memories that your psyche keeps locked away.

          you think it might have been monster. 

          an overfed orphanage replaced your childhood home, when help finally dragged you from your hiding place in the aftermath. the dark fog around your recollection subsides when you think of those times, with little to eat and the ever-present sound of children crying for parents that, for the first time in their short lives, never came back. a girl in her late teens had seen you, shellshocked and unresponsive, and took it upon herself to be the first one to care about you. her heart ached for the loss she shared in kind with you; something that your own heart could yet to bear the worst of. her name was benji, and she told stories as expertly woven as handmade tapestry. benji had promised you that when she left the orphanage, it would be to enlist in the jaeger academy. she even swore on her life that she would become a pilot to fight humanity’s latest foe. 

          ‘the kaiju will never hurt you again, okay? if any of them try, i’ll beat them up! they’d never get through me.’ she’d say, pretending to throw a punch at the air. you laughed, back then, at her pretending you were a kaiju and tickling you to death to demonstrate just how easily she’d emerge victorious. in your heart, though, you had hoped she’d never walk that path. the media made it seem glamorous, treating jaeger pilots like celebrities. but even as young as you were, you knew better than to think of it so casually.

          your silent prayers that benji would never graduate went unanswered, in the end. you saw her do it all, through the lens of the tv in the orphanage’s common room: graduate, fight, win, do interviews, become famous, promise to protect the people of the earth.

          then, in the end, you watched her die a death so horrible that there was nothing to recover or bury. her partner was dragged up from the ocean in mangled pieces, but they still had enough of him for a funeral, you heard. their jaeger, adder paladin, is laid to rest in its own graveyard, too. more people seem to mourn the mech than they do its pilots; you resent them for that.

          only months later, you outgrew the orphanage, too. benji’s optimism had taken her down a path with an untimely end, and you never shared the same blind faith she did. instead, you had resigned yourself to this: if it is inevitable that the kaiju will wipe out humankind, someday, you’d far rather meet your own demise fighting than face it hidden away in a bunker with a hundred terrified strangers.

          so you ghost through the jaeger academy. for four years, you are a specter taking tests and doing drills without leaving a trace of your presence behind. your scores speak for themselves when you refuse to; those numbers that summarize precious years of your life are what place you on a list of partner candidates for a man that you had thought much too legendary to be real, until you see him standing before you.

          phil zagami, notorious first for his victory streak and second for his vanishing act on the day it ended, stares straight through you. through everyone, really. his demeanor is heavy, its weight leaning into you as another candidate steps forward to challenge him. the last one before you, you realize. phil’s disinterest is palpable. he steps back, showing a respectful bow to his opponent— just a split second before he sweeps his staff under her leg on the first strike, sending her to the floor with a startled gasp. the time is called out from across the room. two point four seconds, and her chance had ended.

          as she collects herself and leaves the mat, phil looks to you. this time, he sets his gaze upon you instead of looking beyond. his winter-blue eyes pierce holes into yours; they invite you silently forward. so you move, gripping your staff in clammy palms and letting your feet sink into the mat. phil bows to you, so you return that respect to him.

          “let’s talk,” he says, a hint of light melting through the ice of his stare.

          a cold chill runs through your right shoulder, down to your fingertips. wide-eyed, you narrowly dodge phil’s first strike on that side. electric currents spark under your skin, guiding your foot forward to swing for his hip. he blocks you, turning on his heel to hook his foot under your knee while that foot is lifted. you lurch to that side in an attempt to force your balance. when you manage it, somehow, you swing the staff down, over his head. he clutches his own in both hands, blocking the attack with a wooden clack. 

          feeling the path of his next move, you block his return towards your chest. when you step forward, he steps back; you, to the side, him, to the side with you, circling the mat.

          it’s a dance, percussion kept in time with every breath and resounding noise of colliding weapons. the weight of his presence becomes light. his grim expression shifts into a smile and you think you might be smiling, too. phil catches you off balance on the next turn of your waltzing, catching the crook of your knee on his staff and jerking backwards.

          your back hits the floor, the wind leaving your body with it. as you lie on the floor, trying to catch your breath, phil stands over you. his chest rises and falls in time with your own. perfectly in sync, like co-pilots should be. he leans forward with his hand outstretched. you take it, letting him pull you up from the ground. when you’re upright again, he doesn’t let go right away; instead, he raises your joined hands to the air.

          the once-hopeful candidates watching your ‘conversation’ offer their support, clapping and cheering for you both. for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like a ghost. phil saw you, when you danced, in a way no one has before him. you wonder if this is how benji felt, the moment that she and marley had chosen each other.

          phil chose you. so you choose him, too, then and there.

          with your first dialogue over, you move swiftly to the second, that night at dinner. the chatter of the room goes quiet as you focus on him, listening to his voice like it’s the only thing that matters.

          “where did you go when you retired?” you ask, curiosity taking its hold.

          “i’d hardly call that retiring. i didn’t get a 401k or anything,” phil replies with a little shrug.

          “okay, not retired... left, then?”

          phil looks away, suddenly finding the contents of his plate much more interesting than you. “you’ll find out, won’t you?”

         “what do you mean?” 

         “when we drift,” he says. “you’ll know everything, then.”

          realization washes over you. you’d almost forgotten that your designation as co-pilots is far from over. you shudder to think of him trawling through your memories, seeing every embarrassing moment and failure you’ve ever lived through. you know that it’s a necessity, in order to sync your minds to one another and the jaeger, but you wish it could be any other way. “right...” you murmur.

          “don’t go getting all reluctant on me, now. it’s not as bad as you think.” phil pushes the rice on his plate around for a moment and takes in your palpable uneasiness. “the psychologists that made the whole thing say that the ‘modesty reflex’ is one of the main reasons people aren’t able to drift. they panic and hide things, so it fails. we could get it out of the way now, if you want.”

         “uhhh-” you raise a hand, shaking your head in panic.

         “here, i’ll go first,” phil proposes. he doesn’t gve you the chance to interject before continuing, “when i was a recruit, i had this one picture from a magazine of megan fox. i liked it. i mean i really liked it, so-”

          “ew! okay, okay, no, i’ll just wait for the drift to get a load of that image, thanks.” you try to sound a bit serious, but it’s all for show and you start giggling. when phil laughs, too, your suppressed laughter gets loud until you’re cackling in the corner of the table with him. your sides feel like they might split, and it isn’t until someone from another table exclaims ‘shut up!’ that you quiet down. when phil looks at you a split second later, though, you get carried away all over again.

          that night, after practically getting heckled out of the cafeteria, you stare up at the ceiling and wonder how the drift will go, when the time comes. the next few weeks pass in a hurry; fourteen-hour training sessions in the combat room leave you tired but nonetheless fulfilled, and your skills become rounded out with the help of phil’s experience. soon, perhaps too soon, the time comes to drift with him.

         phil tries to keep your spirits high with laughter and reassurance, but he can’t hide the unease in his own form, either. he looks different, in the drivesuit; he looks like the man that you saw on tv, the one that took on impossible odds and won. there’s that hollowness to his face,though, that makes him recognizeable to you, as your friend and co-pilot. 

          you’ve never truly set foot in a jaeger before now, and its sheer scale becomes all the more apparent as you’re brought to stand in the cockpit with him. phil looks to you as the suits connect, locking you in to the fate that you’ve chosen. “they told you already,” he says, “but don’t chase the RABIT. they’re just memories, alright? don’t linger on any of them, no matter how real they feel.”

          “...i don’t remember things that happened, when i was young. will you see them?” you ask. “will i?”

          “yes, i’ll see them. do you want me to tell you what i saw, when we’re done?”

          “no, i... don’t want to know,” you decide, settling back and taking in a deep breath. some things are better left forgotten. you close your eyes and wait for the drift to begin.

          the robotic, tinny voice overhead tells you: neural handshake initiated. all at once, you’re dragged through what feels like a pane of glass, thrust into a shattering field of blue over your vision. you see yourself, young and untouched by the cruelty of the years ahead, laughing on a swingset with once-familiar hands pushing you forward. it goes blank, dark, until you re-emerge on the other side in the orphanage with benji. you see yourself stutter over a presentation in your second year of high school, and the time your first date stood you up. you see your failures laid out so plain and simple that it stings. all at once, those are overtaken by the crushing weight of watching the last news report about benji that ever ran. your memories play out like cinema, taking phil with you through each set of grief and embarrassment and every ‘first’ you remember living through. every time you want to hide, you force yourself to keep the wall down; you want this. you want to be a jaeger pilot with phil and continue the legacy that was promised to you. 

          the kaiju will never hurt you again, okay?

          the memory passes by, too, but you wish you could cling to it. you want to live in that time again, when there was only you and the promise of a future that was too distant to think of as reality just yet. when you leave this place, for the first battle that you will take on, will you be afraid? will phil be afraid, with you?

          just before your side of the neural load stabilizes, phil sees a memory of only weeks ago, of you reading through old articles about him and the battles he’d won. you nearly try to block him out of it at the moment you see yourself go red, flustered by the thought of him. of all the embarrassing things, you dread to think that had to be among them. even so, you let him walk through it, and for the first time, you have been seen. so truly and deeply that every vulnerability is exposed, handed over to him with faith that he won’t exploit it. your trust belongs to him alone. so much that parts of yourself invisible even to you have been handed over to him to keep safe; even the hours upon hours spent training with him couldn’t have prepared you for being flayed open with your heart rendered bare.

          so when phil lets you in, you think you’re ready to be shown the very same thing. his childhood is warm, and the gentle comfort of it doesn’t subside until later than in your own. you watch a kaiju tear up the seaside town he’d called home. the ground splits apart with all the struggle of eggshells underfoot, and his mother is swallowed by the earth seconds after she pushes him away from her.  you see him try to reach for her into the darkness of the pit, knelt by the edge and calling down to her in a voice shattered by overuse. he turns to look at the ocean when great calamity stirs up even more noise; a jaeger you don’t recognize rushes the kaiju, wrestling it beneath the surface of the water. its hands go violet-hot as it grips the head of the kaiju, squeezing and squeezing while the thing screeches, writhes, until its skull bursts open. toxic blood and brain matter sizzle away on the hands of the victor while phil watches in silent awe of the power before him.

          he lives with his grandparents, always thinking of the pilots that had saved the survivors of the wreckage, until he enrolls in the same academy you had attended. you see him surpass his classmates, until he graduates with incredible honors and goes straight to combat with his co-pilot: a pretty woman with silvery-white hair. you see the two of them get married a year later, then have a son a little after that. when she dies of sepsis in the aftermath, your heart aches to watch him raise the boy alone. even so, you feel the adoration in every moment they spend together. you watch him grow up and follow proudly in the path of his father. 

           wilbur becomes a pilot with an ego and the skill to back it up. he’s quick-thinking, showing the effects of his training since youth. he and phil become co-pilots, taking on battle after battle and coming away with glory. there’s a crack of thunder that marks the change in memory; you’re inside of the jaeger with them, now, and there’s flashing lights and flying sparks that tell you everything has gone wrong. with a horrible screeching sound, a long spike spears through the cockpit.

           and through wilbur. he chokes and gasps for air while phil shouts at him, watching the lifeblood pool at his feet. he’s in agony unspeakable, but you can hear it in his voice when he begs, “dad, it hurts- fuck just kill me!”

           so he does, sobbing as he takes a loose-hanging tube from the ceiling and slips it under wilbur’s helmet. your confusion turns to dreadful understanding; toxic gas will kill him even faster than bleeding out, it will make his passage less painful.

          phil pilots the jaeger alone, in piercing agony as he shares the burden of wilbur’s death with him, feeling all the pain and terror until it goes dark. the neural link is severed, there’s a complete void and emptiness where it should be. he’s not been truly alone for so long. he finishes off the kaiju in a furious twist around its neck. the beast dies, and phil nearly goes with it; the neural load is too much for one person, after all.

          he has a stroke the very moment he crashes upon the shore. it leaves him weak and useless for months. you feel his rage and frustration, trapped in his own mind and unable to speak. his body recovers, he regains his full capability in what doctors call a miracle. though his body heals, his heart does not, and the anger makes him a vicious man until they ask him to pilot again. he doesn’t want to lose another co-pilot, you hear in his protests; they eventually die out as he finds that he hates kaiju more than he fears another loss. 

          memories of the past months flicker by easily, until his side is stabilized, too. it feels as though you’ve lived through years, yet you know it’s been only moments. synced with one another and the machine, you think to reach a hand out and phil does it with you. you can feel the weight and power you’re controlling with every move, even as you turn your hand upright and give a thumbs up. phil looks to you with a wide smile. you feel his excitement and his exhaustion like it’s your own-- and it’s exhilerating to be one with another person.

          when the test is over and you’re released from the jaeger, you stumble giddily down the platform next to phil. “amazing,” you breathe, nudging your shoulder up against his. “you’re amazing. everything you did was.”

          phil shrugs, but you see him trying not to smile. “all of it was what i had to do,” he replies.

          you hesitate a little before slipping your hand into his, interlocking your fingers. “okay, mr. humble. would you rather i focus on the megan fox thing, then?”

         he laughs and rolls his eyes. “no, no, i’m good.” phil turns to you as he pauses on the platform, squeezing your hand. his expression goes a bit somber as he says, “we’ve both lost a lot, already. but i don’t want to lose you next. so when we go out there, for real... don’t be stupid. or overconfident, or whatever.”

          seeing the time for jesting is over, you nod. “i won’t.” you lean back against the wall and he follows, heaving a sigh as he does. “we’re in this together. we’ll win, together.”

          phil lets go of your hand to hug you, instead, pulling you close. “and losing?” he murmurs.

          you rest your head against him, arms wrapping just as tight around him. “that, too. together, from now until the end.”

          he rubs the small of your back with his palm outstretched. “you’re supposed to say we won’t lose.” 

          “fine, then. we won’t lose,” you concede. it feels as though you’ve known each other for far longer than a number of weeks; more like a lifetime, after having seen each other’s. you tip your head to look at him and see that he’s already looking at you, and the two of you move in sync even without the aid of the drift. phil runs his fingers along your jaw, leaning down to kiss you. 

          it’s a dance, too.

[goodnightkisseu]

Park Jihoon - Roommate

Genre: Fluff

���When We Met” Series: [Minhyun][Jihoon][Jaehwan][Guanlin][Daehwi][Jinyoung][Jisung][Woojin][Seongwu][Sungwoon][Daniel]

Note: Hi everyone! I’m back with another series and this time, it’s a particularly special one because it’s a series that will be counting down to Wanna One’s 1st Anniversary! I’m calling it “When We Met” because it’ll be a series of scenarios, using Wanna One’s individual debut teasers as starting points for how you meet!

This is also a series in collaboration with @nothingwithoutwannaone​! She will be writing her own versions of how you meet and I will link them in each post ^^

Today is Jihoon’s version! This one was pretty fun to write. Got to write some really fun banter so I was really excited about that. X3 Hope that everyone enjoys~~

nothingwithoutwannaone​‘s version —> [x]

- goodnightkisseu’s admin <3

“Ya, why does your new place have so many stairs, Woojin? This is so excessive,” you said, taking a moment to catch your breath before you continued up the stairs that led you around the building, and to the door on the side of the house.

Woojin, who had been your best friend since high school, had finally decided to move out to his own place. Okay, it wasn’t exactly his own place as he was sharing I t with a few other guys, but it was away from home and closer to campus. This was honestly his main motivation to move. His classes were always at odd hours so commuting to campus was proving difficult. It was easier to use the money he got from working part time to get a place that was closer, and with roommates, it was far more affordable. So, in his quest to finish all of his moving this weekend, he enlisted you to help him. Now, why he couldn’t just ask his friends, and new roommates, to help out, you were unsure. Yet, here you were, on your weekend, making your first trip up the stairs form his car, getting the first of a number of boxes up to his room.

“Oh, come on, it’s really not that bad. I think you just need to exercise more,” your best friend stated, earning him a glare from you. Woojin knew he could get away with that type of statement no, only because your hands were wrapped around a giant box and there was no way that you could kiss his ass like that.

“You’re going to owe me for this…” you mumbled, knowing that your revenge would have to wait until later.

“Owe you?” he asked, stopping momentarily just outside of the house to turn and look at you. “Do you remember who had to spend all of his free time tutoring you for your Calculus course?” he shot back.

Of course he would bring that up. Both of you had to take that course for your majors, and Woojin grasped the topics far quicker than you did. So, being your best friend and actually a pretty decent guy, he spent a lot of his free time thoroughly going through the concepts with you, which actually led you to understanding it quite well. Honestly without Woojin, you probably would have failed your first quarter of university, but still… he was guilt-tripping you hard.

“You’re the worst for bringing that up again. Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve made up for it by now. Please remind me who has been cooking for you, almost daily, because you never have time for breakfast before work?” you asked, firing your shots right back at him. “Plus, you could just ask nicely if I’d be willing to help you move, you know, like normal friends do.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” he retorted. “And even if I asked the normal way, you never would have helped me move. You’re already complaining about the stairs and we just got here,” he pointed out.

Well, he got you there. If you had a choice, you probably would have weaseled your way out of it. But still, he could have tried instead of going the guilt route. “Fine, fine. So where’s your room?” you asked, slipping off your shoes and doing your best to peek over the box and follow your best friend as he made his way down the hallway.

Though he had told you to just help him move and you could roam around later, as you made your way through the home, you couldn’t help but let your eyes wander. The place was actually pretty nice. It was definitely a little older, but the owners did a good job on the upkeep in between each group of tenants. There was nice flooring the form of wood-like laminate in all areas of home, sans the bedrooms, which had carpet in them. The walls were painted nicely, and given such a close proximity to campus, the prices were reasonable! You wanted to move out too, but currently didn’t have the funds to do so. Guess you would just have to visit Woojin every chance you got…

Granted, no matter how nice the house was, it was currently a complete mess. With five guys all moving in at once, all of their things were haphazardly thrown around, looking like a poorly packed storage unit. It was so disorganized that Woojin has to warn you of upcoming obstacles. You had overheard some of the boys talking as you were walking through that they still had more things coming. At this point their plan seemed to be to get everything inside, put together the necessary furniture, and then sort through the remaining boxes. It was going to be an eventful week or two for this house.

As you were passing by one of the open bedrooms, you couldn’t help but peer in momentarily. Much like the rest of the house, this room was also a mess. Clothes, particularly shoes, and other objects were all strewn across the room. Boxes were half unpacked and other boxes weren’t even touched yet. You heard a familiar clicking, that you recognized was the sound of a game controller and deduced that he must have been playing some video games, not being able to see him over the box in your arms. He could do with his time what he wished, but you couldn’t help but think that he should have been cleaning up… and if not that, helping you and Woojin with all these damn boxes. What kind of guy –

“Hey, I told you that you would have time to look around later. We still have so many boxes to move,” Woojin said, his tone exasperated when he realized that you had fallen behind due to your curiosity. Rolling your eyes at your best friend, you quickly ran up to him, knowing that he would keep complaining if you didn’t hurry along. Upon arriving in his room, you both placed down your boxes before going right back outside to continue the process…

========

Almost ten trips later and the two of you were finally almost done. There were three boxes left, but Woojin had to leave with a couple of his roommates to pick up his new desk and bed frame. You told him that you could take care of the rest of it, but you also made him promise you that he wouldn’t bring up Calculus to guilt-trip you again.

With the remaining boxes, you decided that it would be best to get the biggest and the heaviest out of the way first, even if it was a little too large for you. Still, you went for it anyway, letting muscle memory take over and as you headed up the familiar steps to the side of the house. Muscle memory was doing you wonders at this point, avoiding the table by the front door that you had run into twice earlier, eliciting a louder than necessary laugh from your best friend. However, when you avoided it this time, you found yourself running into something else, though it wasn’t nearly as hard or sharp as that table.

The sudden contact had more force to it than you had anticipated, and you found yourself unsteady on your feet. This was literally the worst place you could have lost your balance. With so many things in the area that you could hit your head on and this box being unusually heavy. You were sure that you were about to meet your end. It was going to be death by Woojin’s gaming consoles and other hobby things. This was it, and you were going to haunt the hell out of Woojin after your untimely demise.

Thing was, you never fell backwards. You actually never hit anything. You stayed relatively upright. It took you a bit to realize that your fall had been thwarted by hands that had reached around the box to grab your arms to prevent you from hitting the floor.

“Are you alright?” the mysterious individual asked. Woojin’s ridiculous box was so big you couldn’t see over it to see who you had unceremoniously run into. “Sorry about that. I should have paid more attention to where I was going…”

“It’s not your fault,” you told the male, piping up when you realize that he was blaming himself for the incident. “I should have made it known that I was coming through with a giant box, or maybe I should have asked one of the other guys to borrow that cart I saw them using…” you said, trailing off slightly, realizing that you really should have grabbed that cart. Seriously, this would have been so much easier with that cart.

“Do you need help with that? This one seems pretty heavy,” he stated. Before you could tell him that you were fine, the male had already effortlessly lifted the box from your hands. Why did he have to make it look so easy? Was that box not as heavy as you thought?

In the process of him taking the box form you however, your field of vision was finally cleared so that you could see the mystery man behind the box. That red and white striped shirt. The light brown mop of hair. It was the guy that had been playing video games in his mess of a room! Wait… but was he always this good looking? You thought you had caught a glance of him earlier, but this looked nothing like that guy. Did you not see his face? You must not have because how could you forget someone that looked like this. You knew that Woojin had some really good looking friends, but this one… this one was really something.

He gave you a smile when he finally caught a glimpse of your face and he nodded towards the hallway, indicating that you should go first to both lead the way and to make sure that his path was clear so that he didn’t run into anything. “I’m Jihoon by the way,” he said as he looked at you over the tall box, his eyes watching the way that you moved from side to side, avoiding all of the hazards up and down the hallway. He followed your movements, moving from side to side when you did, and he couldn’t help but think that you looked kind of cute just bobbing along. “You must be Woojin’s best friend?”

You turned back momentarily, meeting Jihoon’s eyes that were just peeking at you over the box. You nodded before introducing yourself. Your eyes lingered for a bit too long, which was probably why your leg hit one of the boxes sitting in the hallway. You cursed under your breath, and gently bit your lip, trying to get through the pain. Jihoon asked if you were alright, the concern was very evident in his voice, but you quickly told him you were fine, not wanting to worry him. Well that was smooth.

Within minutes the two of you arrived at Woojin’s room and you led the way in, letting Jihoon place the box amongst all of the others. He finally gave you a proper smile now that they two of you could see the entirety of each other. “You know, Woojin never told me his best friend was so cute though…”

His words caught you off guard, but you were quick to throw them right back at him. “And Woojin never told me that he had such a good looking roommate. So Jihoon, do you want to help Woojin’s cute best friend move the last of his boxes?” you teased.  You didn’t think he would actually agree to it. He probably had his own things to do.

But you were wrong.

“Only two more boxes, right?” he asked with a small smile. “I don’t mind… as long as I can ask you to help me sort through some of my things? I’m really bad at this type of stuff…”

“You got yourself a deal,” you said with a giant grin. You could feel the slight heat in your cheeks as you made your way back outside with Jihoon, grabbing the last of Woojin’s boxes and bringing them to his room. The two of you then headed to Jihoon’s room to sort through his things. Yeah, their roommates would definitely be seeing more of you…

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This was such a wild ride of a book, a deep, living mythos populated by living, breathing characters with histories, passions, and wants.  Córdova spares no details, but her writing is always fluid, painting a full picture of a world layered within our own, and one underneath it, exploring the motives and images that populate the underworld.

Walk-In by T. L. Hart was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Small revelations come as Jennifer begins to process everything in therapy. Slowly she comes to realize that something extraordinary has happened. She isn’t really Jennifer Strickland at all. She is, instead, a lesbian activist who runs a shelter for battered women and children. Her name is Cotton Claymore, and she met her untimely demise in an alley by being severely beaten on the same night Jennifer had her car accident, putting them both in the same emergency room at the same time.

About a Girl by Sarah McCarry was reviewed by Friend of Dorothy Wilde.

This was one of my favorite books I read in 2015, and rereading it has been such a pleasure. The writing is funny, gorgeous, transcendent--yeah, Tally is kind of judgmental and cranky and florid, she's a teenager, and that felt very real. I'd only read the first book in the Metamorphosis series, All Our Pretty Songs, but was still able to follow the plot--having a working knowing of Greek myth helped. ...  A stunning, unusual read to add to your collection, About a Girl has me ticking off the predecessors--and whatever is to come--from Sarah McCarry.

The Complete Works of Pat Parker edited by Julie R. Enszer was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

The arrival of The Complete Works of Pat Parker therefore comes as a revelation. Edited by scholar and poet Julie R. Enszer and with over 100 pages of for the most part previously unpublished poems from Parker’s archives, it broadens our understanding of Pat Parker as a poet and radical activist. Featuring two plays, a selection of speeches, and prose pieces–including fragments of an unfinished autobiography as well as poetry from manuscripts and all of her books–The Complete Works of Pat Parker allows us to see the author as a constantly working artist and thinker, as well as an important part of the gay rights, women’s liberation, and black civil rights movements.  

Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash was reviewed at Okazu.

The relationships between Maggie and the other girls are exactly as fraught as I remember relationships being at that age. One wants so much to have someone to confide in, but there’s always the understanding that betrayal could come for the most absurd of reasons. Maggie’s relationship with Erin exists only in outline, but Maggie knows the moment that the moment has passed and it’s over before it’s begun. I appreciated her self-awareness.