#I guess technically this didn’t NEED to be wlw but like

[forhereyesonlyyy]

love call. // iz*one, kcw. // one-shot.

in which missing your hardworking girlfriend causes you to do ungodly things, like staying up until two in the morning to drag her out for a late night date.

word count: 2.2k

author's note: chaewon on the brain all day 🥰 this is just something short and sweet for all my fellow chaewon thinkers 😩☝️ i wish to see her on a stage again 🥺

tags: fluff, wlw, established relationship, goofy, is it obvious i'm running out of things to say here.

warnings: none.

Perhaps your friends were right when they said that your girlfriend was the only person that could get you to act right because if she were around you right at this moment, you wouldn't be walking around the empty streets at two in the morning wearing shorts and a simple jacket. But you couldn't sleep to save your life, and you were getting tired just pacing around your room. Besides, what's a better plan than to take a short stroll around the neighborhood?

You could have probably watched another Netflix movie or played until your eyes started burning, but contrary to popular belief, you actually wanted to live beyond your 40s. It's not like walking around in the dark with absolutely no regard for what might be watching in the shadows was any safer, but at least you were having fun!

The city was practically dead anyway. Not even cars were seen driving around the streets. It truly felt like you were the only person in the world, and you loved that feeling. But it would have been more lovely if your girlfriend was with you.

Being an idol sure is demanding. I hope she's taking care of herself.

As if she could hear your thoughts from the other side of the city, your phone starts ringing and the special ringtone you set up just for when she calls or texts you starts filling the air. You immediately pulled out your phone and grinned when you saw her contact name on the screen.

You eagerly pressed the green button and put the phone against your ear, "Hi, beautiful."

Kim Chaewon laughs from the other line and you could feel your heart growing twice its size. Oh, how you longed to hear her laugh in person instead of through your phone. IZ*ONE has been busy with their Japanese promotions and they only got to go home a month ago, even then they had to attend a lot more activities. They had no time for rest, or to have a nice day off. It was the main reason why you have been so very worried about your girlfriend.

"I knew you'd be awake. Can't sleep?" Chaewon asks. You could hear her grunt, she was probably getting ready to sleep. While you appreciated her checking up on you at this ungodly hour, you wished that she just went straight to sleep. God knows how long of a day she probably had.

"As always. What's your excuse?" You jog across the street, your eyes fixed on the glowing sign of a cafè. Now you were fully aware of how you just stumbled into a street full of stores that are open until after midnight, and you have never been more thankful for bringing your wallet with you.

"Not to sound like I'm in love with you but," Chaewon pauses, and you could almost see her biting her bottom lip out of both nervousness and enthusiasm. "I was missing you— have been missing you. A lot. Too much, maybe?" Chaewon laughs at herself, and then mutters some nonsense that you couldn't decipher because her words made you stop on your tracks and tear up just a little.

Maybe you were too sensitive, or too dramatic, but you couldn't even put how much you missed her into words. For the months she was gone, you lost count of how many times you wished she would just come back to you. Perhaps you really were too attached, because at some point, you were in over your head at the thought of Chaewon realizing that romance did not have a place in her life as a rising star.

It was your biggest fear, getting abandoned by the person you love the most. Before Chaewon became your girlfriend, she was your most precious childhood friend. There was not a time in your life where she was never there for you, and you truly belived that your friendship would go on for the rest of your life.

You realized that your feelings for Chaewon was more than what a normal person would feel for their best friend when you entered your new high school together. She was just... glowing when you both attended the entrance ceremony, and you vividly remember how she gently took your hand in hers and promised that she'll do her best to make you proud.

But she didn't need to promise anything. Chaewon was already perfect in your eyes, you knew she wouldn't disappoint you ever.

Then on the same night she was announced to be a member of IZ*ONE, Chaewon expressed her gratitude to you by coming into your house and wordlessly kissing you while in tears. You didn't need her to confess her feelings through words since her kiss had already told you everything she wanted you to hear.

And now here you were, stronger than ever despite not having been seen each other for months too long.

"I miss you too, Chae," You replied after collecting yourself. There was no way that you would just allow yourself to break down in tears in the middle of the street. "Tell you what, the moment you're free to hang out, I'll get you that delicious strawberry cake we always loved consuming."

Chaewon laughs again, and the sound just makes you grin like a crazy person, "I'll hold you to that, (Y/N)." A yawn escapes her, and she groans. She probably knows that now you know that she's tired, you'll go on and on about how she should go to sleep. And you most certainly will!

"Go to sleep, baby. I'll text you when I wake up." You said. You did want to talk more, you wanted to hear Chaewon's voice for so many more hours but you'd hate to be the reason why she's so worn out. There will be opportunities some other time, I just have to be patient.

"Mm~ okay, I will," You hear some shuffling in the background. It was Chaewon making herself comfortable in her bed. "Wait. (Y/N), my love, are you seriously outside right now?" Your girlfriend questions. And all of a sudden, she didn't sound so tired anymore.

You scratched your head, "Um. No. What makes you think that?" It was never a good idea to lie to the person that knows you better than anyone else, but you had to try!

"I can literally hear the wind against your mic." Chaewon said. You squeezed your eyes shut, of course you would lose the battle before it even started.

Sighing, you turned away from the various shops, "Fine, fine. I am outside. I just... took a little walk because I couldn't fall asleep. I'll be going back home now, where I'm safe and where my beloved wouldn't yell at me." You replied with a teasing smile although Chaewon couldn't see it.

"It's dangerous to be out so late in the night, babe. I thought I told you that if you can't sleep, you can just call me?" You could hear Chaewon sit back up. Her tone was firm, you knew you couldn't joke around with her anymore. You take a seat at the nearest empty bench and snuggled yourself in your jacket. It was getting colder, but something inside you told you to not go home just yet despite your girlfriend's scolding.

"But you've been overworked to the bone, Chae. I didn't want to be an inconvenience," You admitted. You nervously fiddled with the zipper of your jacket. "You shouldn't even be calling me right now, you know?"

"(Y/N)... I'll use my time however I want, and if it's to talk to you, I'll take every sleepless nights I can get," Oh, you were so hopelessly in love with this woman. You leaned back on the bench as tears suddenly started falling down your cheeks. It absolutely infuriated you how Chaewon just knew what to say to you. "You're never a bother, okay? I love you, I really do." Chaewon means every word that she says, you could feel it in your heart.

You held back a sob, "I love you more, dummy."

Chaewon explodes in a burst of adorable giggles, "You're the dummy here! But in all seriousness, please go home. I wouldn't want you to get sick when I'm not there to take care of you." Even though your girlfriend was right, the brightly lit shops further down the street made several light bulbs in your head illuminate, and you just couldn't pass up on the opportunity to do that.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm going back now." You said, now jogging towards the bike rental shop. The staff sitting by the entrance gave you a small wave as you approached him.

"Good girl," Chaewon yawns again, and you hear her collapse against the pillows. "Don't stay awake for too long now. Love you." Her words were slurred, you just knew she was one second away from running off into dreamland.

You smiled brightly, "Love you more." And with that, you hung up. You finally looked at the old man sitting by the bikes with shining, eager eyes.

Genius, that is what I am.

~

Exactly thirty minutes later, you start regretting your life choices. You were standing right outside IZ*ONE's backyard dead in the night, it wouldn't be surprising if someone mistakes you as a burglar or an obsessive fan and decides to call the cops on you. But you were already there, you would only wear yourself out if you decide to turn back now. Taking a deep breath, you carefully dropped the bike on the ground and took out your phone.

Before you could think to contact Chaewon once again, the sound of footsteps hurriedly approaching made you panic. I'm really about to be arrested like this, huh? It's been a fun life I guess.

"EUNBI-UNNIE, THERE'S A THIEF— wait, (Y/N)?!"

As if it the deity of fortune was looking down on you, Kim Chaewon stands a few meters in front of you wearing a shocked look on her face and a single slipper on her hand. It was probably what she was going to attack you with, had she not realized that it was you who had technically snuck into their backyard.

You smiled sheepishly at your startled girlfriend, "Surprise?" You barely finished speaking when Chaewon throws herself onto you, literally. You lost your balance and fell into the grass. Chaewon squeals into your ear and plants several kisses onto your face, and you laugh as she does so.

Chaewon pauses and holds your face for a good minute, staring at you as if she couldn't believe that you were right there with her. Then she engulfs you in a more gentle hug, and you wrap your arms around her waist, taking pleasure in the feeling of her loving embrace. Gods, you were about to cry again. It has been way too long since you were physically with Chaewon. You were almost willing to forget whatever plan you had and just cuddle with her for the rest of the night.

"I thought I told you to go home and sleep, you dummy!" Chaewon hits your shoulder, almost in tears herself. You raised yourself from the ground so that she was sitting on your lap, and you rested your head on her shoulder. Just her mere presence would have been enough for you, but now that she was right there, you didn't dare to not take advantage of the moment.

You hugged her closer than you ever have before, and you tilted your head to look into her beautiful eyes that never ceased to make you feel safe and appreciated, "I really love you, Chaewon." The pure sincerity on your voice was what really pushed Chaewon to let go of the restraints and let her tears fall free.

"I love you. I'm glad you're here." Chaewon slightly drips her head down to catch your lips with hers. It felt as if a collection of the world's biggest and most beautiful fireworks had set off inside your heart as you returned the affection. Chaewon always had that effect on you, she made every kiss feel like the first time and it just absolutely makes you swoon. The way she would carefully run her hand through your hair during it all made your heart go crazy.

You were never going to get tired of being in love with Kim Chaewon. Even if the two of you somehow ended up being on the opposite ends of the world, your hearts would always be together. Or something like that.

"This is probably a dumb question, but," Chaewon pulls away and smiles at you. Oh, yeah. Her smiles make your brain go haywire as well. "What are you doing here, anyway?" Your girlfriend asks.

"I'm taking you out on the best date you've ever had, baby," You said with a wide grin. (You never knew, but every time you showed her that stupidly cute smile, Chaewon falls for you even more.) Your face falls immediately a second after, however. "I-If that's okay. I mean, it is pretty late and you're exhausted."

Chaewon beams at you, and gosh you could just feel all her love through it, "I'd love to go on a date with you, (Y/N)," She then takes your face in her hands again, and her eyes immediately drop down to your lips that she has missed so very much. "But maybe after this."

Yeah, now that was a plan you could get behind.

[granger-or-garcia]

A Nice Welcome

Contains- wlw, mutual pining, murder, crime, kissing, smut

18+!!

Ch 2

The next day at the BAU seemed somewhat different than yesterday. Today, I felt like all eyes were on me. The team seemed to know something I didn’t. I was filling out paperwork on my desk when someone threw a balled up piece of paper at me. I look up and Emily, Morgan, and JJ are trying not to smile at me as I open the paper.

Hey Y/N, Do you still like Penelope??

“Morgan, did you tell everyone about what I said to Penelope?” I wish I could take back what I said yesterday.

“Listen kid, it’s ok, it’s not like were going to tell her.” Morgan holds his hands up innocently.

“Yeah we’d never tell anyone else if you don’t want us to.” JJ assures me, which makes me feel better. We continue chatting for a while until Hotch comes up to my desk. 

“Hey Y/N, can you go see Garcia, our technical analyst, there seems to be something wrong with your file, you’re not in trouble just go check with her.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right there.” He walks away.

“Hotch knows too?” I look at the three of them.

“No, just us, Reid, and Rossi.” Morgans smiles which makes it hard for me to be upset.

“Well, I need to go see her, can one of you help me get to her office.”

“Yeah sure, I’ll walk you down there.” Emily gets out of her chair and walks me out of the office. “ So, Penelope, huh. I think she’d really like you.”

“Well, thanks Emily. That’s nice of you to say.” I smile at her as we turn the corner to her office.

“Well this is it, go get her tiger.” Emily laughs as she pats me on the back and leaves me at the door. I can feel my palms getting sweaty. I knock on the door tentatively.

“Come in!” I hear that familiar voice as I push open the door into her small office filled with trinkets and knick-knacks. “Oh, hello stranger, nice to finally meet you for real.” Her voice is shaky as she smiles. I hold out my hand which she gently moves out of the was and pulls me in for a hug.

“Wow” I didn’t even realize the words came out of my mouth until she pulled away from me.

“Sorry, sometimes I forget not everyone likes hugs.” Her face is red.

“No, you’re just really good at giving hugs, that’s all.” What a dumb excuse. I feel myself fumbling around with my fingers.”Well, uh, Hotch says there’s something wrong with my file, so what would that be?”

“Oh, yes. Well, we have to put in our loved ones like parents, siblings, and partners. You didn’t put anything down for partner, so I just wanted to check what your status is.” Her hands were shaking as she typed on her keyboard to pull up my file. 

“I’m single, but I was dating a girl for almost 3 years, so should you put her down?” I look at her to see how she reacts when I tell her about my ex. 

“Uh, um, no, not if you haven’t been dating within the last year.” She was really nervous now.

“No, it’s been a few years. But, if you happen to know anyone I am ready to date.” I joke with her, trying to ease the obvious tension.

“Oh, well, I do happen to know this one girl,” Penelope spins around in her chair and stands up,”She just so happens to be single, and in this room.” I did not see that coming. She brushes my hair behind my ears. Was this just some kind of prank by Morgan? She moves around me and locks her office door. 

“Hey, you’re okay with this, right?” Penelope looked at me seriously.

“Of course, I’d like nothing more.” I see her blush as I go to unbutton her shirt. Quickly, I pull my shirt over my head. I look into her eyes. She grabs my face and crashes my lips into hers. I feel around her back and slyly unbutton her bra. I step back after a few minutes, leaving kisses down her body until my lips meet the waistline of her pants. I look up at her, she nods. Slowly, I undo her fly and pull off her pants and underwear. I kiss her thighs as she leans against her desk, moaning softly.

“Please, I want you.” Penelope moans as she pushes my head in between her thighs. She tastes so sweet, getting wetter and wetter as I lick her, moving my tongue in different ways to keep her eyes in the back of her head. She squeezes her thighs around my head, only causing me to bring her more pleasure by bringing my fingers into the mix. Pulling my fingers in and out of her wet, tight core, I feel her legs start to shake. I don’t slow down, licking her clit and fingering her until she moans my name so loud.

“Y/N, Oh my God! Wow!”She pulls me back up to meet her face. She licks her cum off my lips and kisses me harder than anyone ever has. I fight the smile hiding behind my lips as we kiss so passionately. After a while, we get redressed. 

“Well, I should probably get back to work, but maybe I could take you out for dinner sometime?” I hand her a slip of paper with my number on it, causing her to blush. 

“I’d love that. How about tonight. I’ll meet you in the office as 6.” She smirks because of her abnormal confidence. 

“See you then. Bye Penelope.” I wave slightly as I shut the door on my way out. I take a deep breath and walk back to the office. I walk to my desk and see the whole team, except for Hotch and Rossi, staring at me. 

“Oh, my, God,” Derek looks me up and down in disbelief.”You didn’t.” How did he know?

“What are you talking about?” I try to play dumb, which doesn’t work well with profilers at all. 

“Nice shirt.” JJ adds. I look down. Last time I check I didn’t own any purple shirts. 

“Uh oh” I smirk as all of their mouths drop in surprise.

“Well, I for one, am glad that this happened, I think it’ll be great for both of you.” Spencer always had something nice to say, which brightens my day. I quickly rush back to Penelope’s office once the topic of conversation isn’t me or her.

“Hey, can I come in?” I knock on her door.

“Yeah, come on in.” I open the door to Penelope sitting at her desk in my shirt. “Personally, I feel like grey suits me.” She smirks as she puts the end of her pen into her mouth.

“Me too, but the team noticed so I guess the cat is out of the bag.” I smile, trying to make light of the situation.

“Well, I say we keep it out, who cares, Y/N, as long as we’re both happy.” She holds my hand.

“Yeah, good point.” I kiss her cheek and head back to the office. I return to see the chatting has mainly died down and everyone is working, so I do the same. Filling out papers is not the best way to spend my day, but I’m glad we don’t have a case so I can still go on this date. Finally, 6 rolls around and Penelope meets me at my desk.

“Hey Y/N are you ready for tonight?” Penelope smiles as she comes up to my desk. The team’s whispers and smirks are drowned out by her beauty.

“More than ever.” I smile and kiss her hand. I get up, grab my bag, and hold out my arm for her. She takes it gently and we step into the elevator.

REMINDER- i do requests for criminal minds AND harry potter so don’t hesitate to request anything!!

[thedreadvampy]

ok so this trip down memory lane kind of leads neatly into what I was wanting to talk about last night (even though it’s past 4am again oops)

which is the gendered nature of queerbaiting and of bi/homophobia

like last night @silly-slacker-person and I were talking about Glee and about how like...the Brittana relationship started with the improvised line “if having sex was dating, Santana and I would be dating” and how that fits into a Pattern

where queerbaiting with male characters is about emotional intimacy but They Can Never Kiss Or Touch Sexually, queerbaiting with female characters is...weird.

queerbaiting with female characters is often almost the inverse of queerbaiting with male characters. female characters will kiss on screen, touch constantly, and even actually have sex with each other, but the story will still regularly insist they’re straight. and romance is off-limits. emotional intimacy is withheld. it’s always waved away with being a performance, or an experiment, or a thing they’re doing because they’re horny and don’t have a boyfriend. 

and think about how often queerbaiting with women involves maneuvering them into a situation where they kiss onscreen but in a purely performative way (the example that springs inevitably to mind is Veronica and Betty in Riverdale - images of them kissing were all over the marketing for the show, and in reality they kissed as part of a choreographed performance in-story - I can also think of several examples where it’s as part of a game, a dare or because their boyfriends tell them to/to titillate their boyfriends) or like...it’s not technically Queerbaiting but how often women specifically are made bisexual but only in a teehee coy ‘it’s sexy when girls kiss’ way.

whereas queerbaiting with men is an “I love you...bro” or a quiet moment or a point of emotional intimacy and them touching remotely sexually/romantically is seen as the Proof Of Queerness, which writers will often shy away from committing to

it only tends to become A Canon Queer Thing when men express physical/sexual intimacy (kissing or sex)

it only tends to become A Canon Queer Thing when women express emotional/romantic intimacy (dating, “I love you”s, or monogamy)

and I feel...Some Kind Of Way about this and how it slots into the experience of exploring your own wlw identity. how women are still assumed to be and treated as straight even if they’re regularly seeking/having sex with other women unless they a) reject men utterly or b) enter a monogamous relationship.

and it feeds into something I’ve thought about a lot over the years which is how thoroughly gendered the experience of bi/homophobia is (not in terms of how you identify but in terms of how the -phobe is reading you)

like ultimately it comes down to the idea that men define sexuality

all sexual contact with women is overridden/negated by sexual contact with men. women aren’t given the same power to define sexuality as men.

which means that if you are a man who kisses/sleeps with men even once, you are gay

if you are a woman, kissing/sleeping with a man even once will make you straight

so sexual contact between women isn’t threatening the way sexual contact between men is. however gay a woman gets you can always walk it back in the eyes of heteronormativity. but if a man Goes Gay even a little bit that’s his identity set in stone however many women he goes on to sleep with/date.

and ultimately not to be crass it’s about The World Revolving Around Men’s Dicks. literally. so much of the gendered construction of homo/biphobia is about a patriarchal society unable to comprehend the concept that you could sleep with a man and be unchanged by it. sex and sexuality has been framed so universally for so long in so many cultures as a matter of male power and that is so definitional to homo/biphobia and to mainstream ideas about sexuality.

and that means that homophobia and biphobia are very shaped by your perceived gender in relation to your attraction

gay men are threatening because male sexuality is seen as such a powerful, shaping force, that the mere presence of gay men could be enough to shape the sexuality of men around them. this horror of Being Turned Gay this utter distress at the fragility of heterosexuality is so foundational to the way homophobia is upheld and expressed. it’s vital to heteronormative masculinity to distance yourself from gayness by any means necessary, to violently reject gayness, because even slight contact with male sexual or romantic intimacy has the power to redefine you.

whereas a lot of lesbophobia rests on the idea that it’s a deliberate rejection of men, and a temporary one - you’ll find the right man. sex with a man has the power to change you. and because of that relationships between women aren’t seen as meaningful in their own right. like a lot of cultures prohibiting sex between men treat sex between women as a natural, expected adolescent experiment, or as irrelevant as long as you also fuck your husband. it isn’t threatening to heteronormativity to kiss, fuck or love women, until you say this is real and it matters. Then it’s threatening because you’re being mean. You’re saying the Not Serious Not Definitional relationship of women loving women is powerful, more powerful than the Defining Power of Man Dick, and that’s aberrant, and it’s also kind of seen as...childish? silly? like you just Don’t Understand that women loving women isn’t Real Attraction. you can’t define yourself through sex with women! they’re not men! women are defined by, they don’t define!

and as a bi woman who largely dates bi men, I’m particularly interested in the gendered nature of biphobia

bi men are assumed to be “really” gay and in the closet

bi women are assumed to be “really” straight and performing attraction to women for male attraction

and that brings us full-circle to glee

see Ty and I were talking about the two really offensive stories in glee which affected us as bi teenagers

he was talking about the story where Blaine says “I think I might be bi” and Kurt tells him “bi guys don’t exist, bisexual is just a label for closeted gay high schoolers”

I was talking about the story of Finn outing Santana, which is a CLUSTERFUCK. but aside from the outing, thinking about how everyone canonically knew that she was sleeping with Brittany but she was only put in danger when it was named as a queer love. like that she was still understood as entirely straight and Doing It For Attention even when holding hands, kissing and fucking another woman, as long as she didn’t call it love or a relationship.

and I’ve talked to a lot of other bi people about the experience of being a bi teenager and almost everyone who was read as a woman as a teenager speaks to doubting the veracity of their attraction to women, to being treated as an attention-seeker looking for male attention or someone going through an experimental phase. and I think that’s usually how we talk about biphobia. as being assumed “a straight person looking for attention”. but the experience of a lot of people of narratives about bi men are a bit different and so the experience of bi teenage boys is really different. for girls/”girls”, queerness is something that has to be constantly asserted and proved. for boys/”boys”, it’s straightness that has to be proved. even if you mostly date girls, if you ever like. kissed a boy at a party or expressed attraction to another guy then people assumed you were gay and your attraction to women was fake.

and the throughline isn’t comphet it’s. I guess...comp-liking-men. it’s the assumption that attraction to women is a shadow of attraction to men. it can’t possibly compete.

I have often expressed, often to girlfriends I just had sex with, my fear that I’m appropriating queerness by laying any claim to it. like they look at me like I’m an idiot but later they’ll tell me the same thing. and that’s a fragility that assumed-male queerness just doesn’t have. male heterosexuality is so fragile that anything straying even slightly away from it is seen as Deeply, Threateningly Queer. female heterosexuality is so default that queerness has to CONSTANTLY fight for any space against it - even glancing in the direction of heterosexuality is enough to negate queerness. if you sleep with a man, if you even express the opinion that a man is good-looking, you’re Straight Now. they’re mirror images of each other and ultimately yeah it really comes down to the expectation of male power 

and also kind of...the irrelevance of women’s feelings in sexuality? the construction of all sexuality (including heterosexuality) as Male Desire and Female Acquiescence - historically society tends to not give a shit what women want, feel or love as long as they have sex with their husbands and don’t run the risk of having another man’s babies. it honestly like, not to get all Straw Feminist on this but it comes down to the subjugation and dehumanisation of women. a woman in patriarchy is an object owned and used to serve a function and a relationship that doesn’t threaten the ownership or affect the function (you’re still having sex with him and he still knows your child is his) isn’t a threat. women aren’t owners, they’re owned. if you say ‘actually I belong to this other woman and not to you’ it becomes a threat. if you start refusing to be a wife or a sexual partner or a mother it becomes a threat. but “passionate friendships” and schoolgirl experimentation weren’t just tolerated but sometimes actively encouraged as long as you still fulfilled your function as a wife fully. like you can fuck other girls before you get married - that’ll help you learn to Do Sex without having you Tainted By Another Man. you can keep a live-in mistress as long as you understand that your husband will always take precedence - that way you can have those pesky emotional needs met but you won’t cheat on him with a man and cuckold him. it’s only when you say This Is Queer And This Matters And We Matter that it becomes a threat. when she starts mattering as much as him. when you don’t marry men but devote yourself to women. now you’re Failing In Your Function. obviously this isn’t how it’s framed now but like. these ideas seem to me to have a direct throughline to the ways queer women are recieved now - as either Basically Straight or as Aggressive Rejectors Of The Normal.

idk it’s 5:30 am now I should sleep. but. this is such a rich topic I could talk about it forever. 

[daydream-believin]

Sure Took You Long Enough, Babe

Summary: (wlw) Reader pulls an all-nighter with coworker Zoe

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, uh i think i remember mentioning people doing drugs, that trademark wlw obliviousness

Word Count: 4374

a/n: g-g-gorlfren... *slaps roof of fic* this baby can fit so many gay fantasy tropes in it. yes, the bars in cali stay open till 4am idk

Your alarm blared it’s cheery tune, startling you awake. Strangely enough, the happy melody never inspired happiness, just rage. Yet, ever the eager beaver, you shot right up and slammed the button as you slid out of bed, not allowing yourself to dilly-dally. As much as you’d like to stay asleep for three more hours at the least, you forced yourself into a good start for the day. Today was the first day of your new part-time job at Hextech, and lucky you, you got the morning shift. Curse of being fresh meat, you supposed. As long as you could make it through the day without getting too terribly hazed, you’d be fine.

Back home in Arcadia Oaks for the summer, you’d needed a new job or you’d go crazy. What were you supposed to do? Relax? Nah. You’d start taking double shifts as soon as you could. It was a bit tricky finding somewhere that would be a good fit for you. Okay, that was a lie. It was a bit tricky finding somewhere that would even be willing to hire you, apparently. Really knocked your pride down a few pegs.

By a strike of fortune, you had been catching up with one of your old high school buddies over coffee yesterday. You know, the one you used to hang out in the graveyard and practice tarot reading with? Yeah, Evan. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who was just as excited as you were that My Chemical Romance was back. When you two ordered, he pulled out that old joke about taking his coffee black like his soul and it still made you laugh as much as it did in high school. Evan was doing good, new boyfriend, new job, new band. You felt happy for your friend. You were happy that he was happy. He deserved it.

After you’d lamented that you couldn’t find work, he told you about how lately he’d been working for that electronic store Hextech. Not subtly named, was it? He’d told you about how it was run by hedgewizards like you two. They only hired through connections, since they were a magical company run by magical people. You, thankfully, had one of those connections. Your buddy put in a good word for you and, just like that, you were in. They put you on the schedule crazy fast. Like, the first shift of the very next day fast. Good. You were going out of your mind having so much free time. Your relatives were starting to ask you *shutter* questions about your personal life.

You looked in the mirror, slicked back your hair into a neat style, and admired how you looked in your new work shirt. Of course, it would eventually join the trophy quilt of old work shirts you were making, but for now it was nice and new. A pretty baby blue, it will go well sewed next to the royal blue Domino’s shirt from last semester. You added about a dozen earrings to your ears as a finishing touch and headed downstairs. After downing your coffee and hastily scarfing down a still-warm blueberry muffin, you kissed your grandmother’s cheek goodbye as you headed out the door. You tossed a crumpled muffin to the crows waiting by the front door. The greedy bastards inhaled every crumb. As much as you loved having a job again, the sun was still asleep when you started your walk to work. Fuck that.

As you walked through the door at Hextech, you were astonished to see the absolute angel who was waiting there for you. An absolute angel who looked kinda hungover, actually. Well, it was 6 AM on a Sunday. The doors didn’t actually open to customers until seven, but you were here at the ass-crack of dawn so she could train you some before throwing you to the customer wolves. Said pink-haired angel introduced herself as Zoe. What a fitting name for someone as cute and feisty as her. You had to catch yourself from staring too much into her striking blue eyes, that reminded you of lightning, pure electricity, before she caught you. And really, they were distracting. It was hard to focus on what she was telling you, which was a bad thing since she was giving you vital information. You forced yourself to focus. As much as you could.

After going over the ropes of working the wizard-bar, she took you through a cool hidden door to show you around the back. The back had such wonderful rooms as the kitchen that someone microwaved fish in yesterday, workrooms, one of which had a poor guy who looked like her never left last night, tinkering away at some techy-thing, the room Zoe introduced as the room she went to scream in, and a common-room type thing with a sick floor to ceiling screen (or was it a window?), depicting a soothing nature scene. She told you that after you had been working in the front for a while and proved yourself, your bosses would move you up to the repairs and phone troubleshooting. Maybe even invention if you were talented enough. That filled you with dread, despite the inspiration it was supposed to be. You had to admit, you knew almost nothing about the technical/repairs side of electronics and you did not belong here. You were more of a coding/hacking type of hedgewizard. You’d have to fake it till you make it. You were sure Zoe could tell you were bullshitting through this, but thankfully she was gracious enough not to call you out on it. Although, you didn’t mind that impish grin that found it’s place on her face.

Damn. You did not need to get involved with a coworker. No matter how enchanting she was. Or how pretty. This was just a summer job. You would be moving back across California for school soon enough and you were not going to do long-distance again. Although, is a few hours really that long? Definitely not as long as your last relationship. Shut up shut up shut up. No. You don’t even know if this chick is into girls, don’t get ahead of yourself. Mmm, she is very pretty though. You can admire from afar. What’s the harm in that?

There was much, much harm. Stars, you had it bad. You had only been at Hextech for a month now and it felt like hell. Perhaps it was hell. Maybe you were dead, and this was your eternal punishment. Damned to forever pine after the loveliest wizard you had ever met. She took a liking to you instantly too, inviting you out for drinks that first night, and every weekend after that. And she’d invited you over to her place for movie nights and to hang out with her friends. Some nights she’d take you to go dancing with her. She’d taken to calling you Baby. Perfectly normal things for gals being pals right. You guessed this is what girl besties do. You wouldn’t know, you’d only ever really hung with guys. Really feminine goth guys, sure, but guys nonetheless. She seemed hellbent on spending time with you. Not that you were complaining, but it just made your emotions stronger. And harder to shove back into the abyss.

~ ~ ~

One Friday night, you two were just chilling up in your bedroom. A rest before one of coworker’s birthday party tomorrow night. Zoe was telling you that she really wanted to try out a new makeup technique. And you told her she could try it out on you. The joy that painted itself across her features is something that will be burned into your memory forever. But not as high a degree of burn as what came next. Zoe straddled your waist, eyeliner pen in hand, and pushed you back against the headboard so she could better reach your eyes. Your breath caught in your throat. You were helpless to do anything but stare at her face that was in super close proximity to yours. You were caught in a trance as you obeyed when she told you to do this or that so she could properly apply the makeup. Her pink lips were pursed in concentration, and her pink banged strayed into her face. Her signature pink style matched the pink of your cheeks. You were sure she could feel your heart pounding, her elbows were on your chest, basically. She moved on to eyeshadow. Weird, you were always an eyeshadow first kinda person but who were you to critique this goddess’s methods. As she rolled on the perfectly matching lipstick onto your lips, you couldn’t help but think about this being an indirect kiss. This lipstick has been all over her lips and now it’s on yours? Stars.

Once she was finished with her masterpiece, she leaned back to take a good look at it. You felt the heat blaze under your skin as her blue eyes scanned your face. Finally, she seemed satisfied and nodded. Zoe helped you up and you went to go check it out in the mirror hanging on your wall. It was brightly colored, garish even, yet perfect, in your opinion. Like Zoe’s personality distilled into something you could wear. She crept up behind you and put her hands on your shoulders as you both admired her skills.

“My best work yet if I do say so, Y/n,” She grinned like a Cheshire cat, “Hmm, I know it’s already like, 3 in the morning and we’re supposed to be relaxing, but we should go and show this off.”

You both had a shift in four hours but you didn’t know how to say no to those eyes. “Alright, Zo,”

You grabbed your jackets on the way out, careful not to wake any of the other inhabitants of the house, but unable to keep the giggles in. Zoe had thought it would be fun to swap jackets, and you weren’t going to say no to that. Her jacket was cozy, black leather, and smelled of her rosy perfume. You never wanted to take it off. When you put it on, her eyes lingered on your form, commenting how good it made you look. You were very thankful for the cover of darkness that hid your flush, rosy like her perfume. You thought she looked marvelous in yours too, but you weren’t as brave in order to say that out loud.

Suddenly you were in some club across town, being introduced to Zoe’s friend Mimi who was working the bar that night. Mimi looked you up and down, then cocked her brows and clicked her tongue, while nodded to Zoe? Who turned pink and angrily said something under her breath to her friend. You couldn’t make out what she said over the music, you were too busy trying not to put too much weight on this interaction. Telling your heart to stop jumping. Jumping just gets you hurt. Mimi snickered as she scurried off to the other side of the bar to fix up your drinks after Zoe finished her rant. She turned back to you and laughed nervously, leaning on the bar.

“That Mimi. What a card.” You nodded in response, not sure what to say.

You three chatted while you sipped at your drinks. Zoe had ordered you something fruity, sweet, and vibrantly colored. It was very tasty, whatever it was. Must have had a high percentage because your head was already fuzzy with just this one. You stopped after finishing it, not fancying being drunk at work, but Zoe got another. Her alcohol tolerance was way stronger than yours. You fucking lightweight. Mimi had started cleaning up since the bar closed soon. Zoe grabbed your hand unexpectedly.

“How about we dance until we get kicked out, Babe?” She said with a sparkle in her eye.

“Uh- y- yeah,” was all you managed to get out before she pulled you over to the dance floor. It was almost vacant, since it was nearing 4am and most people had either moved on for the night, passed out on one of the club’s couches, or were getting their fix in the bathroom. Nice. It was like the floor was just for you two. Zoe was really jazzed, spinning you around to whatever trashy party song was playing. It was infectious. Her energy, not the song. You were having a lot of fun with the pink girl dancing with you. She tossed her hair back laughing at one point. Right then and there, you decided to throw all those things stopping you out the window. If you missed her come fall, you’d just drive the trip to see her. It would be worth it.

The other trio of people who had been dancing left, and now it really was just you two. It would have felt like just you two even if the floor was full. As the current song ended, the DJ looked at you in sympathy. “Alright guys, this is the last song okay, we close in ten.” He switched it to a Viper song.

“OH! I love this song!” Zoe’s smile got even bigger. You didn’t know that was possible. Somehow, she got an energy boost too. You had completely no idea how the firecracker you were with could stay lit well into the morning. If it wasn’t for your manic pixie dream girl here, you’d be groggy by now. She flittered around you, having a blast. It was adorable. She mouthed the words of the song to you, which would have been rather cute if they hadn’t been considerably sexual lyrics. You felt that blush come back for the umpteenth time that night. And she had that impish grin plastered across her face again, like she knew what she was doing. Zoe had gotten closer to you as the song winded down, you hadn’t noticed until it faded out altogether. Your eyes were wide. She booped your nose, giggling. You blinked, surprised. You felt your heart squeeze at how fucking cute that was.

She took your hand again as she pulled you over to go give Mimi a quick hug goodbye before you two left. You still had two and a half hours to kill until your shifts started at six thirty. Zoe’s favourite coffee house wouldn’t be open until five. As much as a nap sounded good right now, you both knew that it would just make you sleepier. And grumpier from being woken up after such a short time. Might as well pull out an old goth kid staple.

“Wanna go hang around in the graveyard?”

~ ~ ~

Zoe tossed her head back laughing so hard she hit the gravestone she was leaning against.

“Oof, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” She rubbed her head and turned back to look check the name on the engraving, “Sorry Howard.”

“It’s too late, he’s offended now and he’s gonna haunt us,” you snickered, “Nice going, Zo.”

“Don’t worry Baby, I’ve been working on my exorcism skills. You know, since a certain dumbass brought spirits into the party last week.” Ah, Douxie, what a guy. Of course he hadn’t meant to ruin everyone’s night and release those ghosts. It just sort of happened. He was accident prone and you didn’t understand why people trusted him with cursed stuff like that to begin with. Luckily, within the number of wizards gathered, you guys were eventually able to find a way to banish all the spirits before any real harm came of it. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night. You got to live out your childhood dream of being a ghostbuster.

You looked around. The cemetery wasn’t as spooky as most people thought it was. Sure, there were strange noises, and endless headstones with disembodied names that meant nothing, and creepy mausoleums that cast big shadows in the moonlight, and a creaky gate that swung back and forth whether there was wind or not, but it wasn’t scary. Well, maybe that was just because you’d spent most nights of your teen years here, so you were desensitized to it. Zoe didn’t seem to mind it one bit either.

You glanced up and saw three of your crow friends on the top of the mausoleum across from you and Zoe. If crows could smirk these would be smirking. Fuckers. They were always around whenever you’d go out with Zoe. Watching so they could tease you later. Damn nosy birds. Why did you ever start feeding them. They were even there in a set of three, just to mock you. They may as well be singing “Y/n and Zoe sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

You ignored the crows, pulling out your phone and flipping to your ebook app. Because you know what would make this just like old times? Some dramatic goth poetry. What a way to woo a girl. Zoe was fond of the idea of some poetry reading too. She told you that you could pick. At first you thought to read some Poe, perhaps starting with ‘Serenade’, but decided against it lest the bastards on the roof started demanding you read them ‘the Raven’. It’s happened before. You settled on some Keats instead. And you knew the perfect poem. A poem you could put all your emotions into. The most sapphic poem ever written by a man, in your opinion. If she didn’t feel the same, you could always deny it and say that you were just getting way into character. Either way it was going to make work weird, but you didn’t think you gave a fuck anymore. Here goes nothing.

“Had I a man’s fair form, then might my sighs

Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell

Thine ear, and find they gentle heart; so well

Would passion arm me for the enterprise:” You took a big gulp of air. Zoe’s gaze was locked on you, and that didn’t make this any less nerve-wracking. You could feel your hands shaking. “But ah! I am no knight whose foreman dies;

No cuirass glistens on my bosom’s swell;

I am no happy shepherd of the dell

Whose lips have trembled with a maiden’s eyes.” With those words, a sudden burst of boldness in your heart caused you to take her hand. Must be the alcohol. Yes, that which hath made them drunk hath made you bold. Zoe didn’t appear to be breathing anymore. You looked back into her electric blue eyes. “Yet must I dote upon thee, --call thee sweet,

Sweeter by far than Hybla’s honied roses

When steeped in dew rich to intoxication

Ah! I will taste that dew, for me ‘tis meet,” Your voice became breathy as you uttered these last verses. “And when the moon her pallid face discloses,

I’ll gather some by spells, and incantation.” You just froze there, breathing. The ball was in Zoe’s court now. Speak of the devil, she was really close, like really close. When did she get so close. You hadn’t realized. She lifted a finger to your face and brushed a loose strand of hair behind you ear. Your breath caught in your throat. She drew closer, your noses touching now. Her eyes slipped down into a half lid. Your eyes flicked to her lips and she watched you. It occurred to you that she was waiting for you to close the gap. So you did.

It was fireworks. Of course, you were kissing a firecracker herself. It was a sweet kiss, but laced with that fire. You both pulled back for air, but quickly returned to each other’s lips. Zoe’s hands drifted down to your hips and she pulled you into her lap, leaning back up against that headstone. And now you were snogging in the cemetery. Mary Shelley would be proud. Howard, however, was probably pissed off for sure now.

Your breaths mingled as you gasped for air. Zoe caressed your cheek, cupping your face. She chuckled, “It sure took you long enough, Babe. I was starting to think I’d have to spell it out for you.”

You all but collapsed back into her arms, exasperated. Stars, it sure did take you long enough, didn’t it. You could hear and feel Zoe’s snort through her chest. You raised back up to gaze into those baby blues. A pang of adoration shot through your heart like one of cupid’s cursed arrows.

“How about I buy coffee, for our first official date?” Zoe agreed to your offer. You got off of her, legs wobbling like a baby deer. Speaking of deer, you were happy to see that the herd that usually hangs out here in the graveyard in the early hours was peacefully grazing around you two. You hadn’t noticed them come in, too busy snogging. You reached out a hand and helped Zoe up. You two brushed the grass off your clothes and gave one last apology to Howard before setting off for the coffee shop. Zoe checked her phone for the time. It was 5:23, you two still had almost a full hour to spend lounging in the coffeeshop before you had to head off to Hextech. Zoe reached for your hand as you walked back to Zoe’s bike. You threaded your fingers together. Something as small as that shouldn’t have felt as nice as it did. But it did.

You completely adored riding on the back of Zoe’s motorcycle. You got to cling to her, arms around her waist, pretending that you were holding her for romantic reasons and not so you wouldn’t fall off a moving automobile. You wouldn’t have to just pretend any longer now. The thought made you giddy. And now that you think about it, that was probably why Zoe had insisted on giving you rides everywhere for the past month. You were so fucking oblivious. It was painful. Thank the stars above she was patient with you. You snuggled further into her back, inhaling that rosy perfume. It truly was intoxicating, Keats. A girl could get used to this.

~ ~ ~

The coffee house barista recognized you two as you walked in and started making your orders that he had memorized. He greeted you cordially as you handed over the cash. He looked down at Zoe’s hand joined with yours, raising his eyebrows teasingly but not saying anything. Did everyone in this fucking town know about you two before you did? You think you might have beaten that Parisian catboy at his own game. How embarrassing.

Zoe got cozy on you guy’s usual couch while you carried over the coffee. After you set the mugs on the coffee table and plopped down, Zoe swung her legs up onto the couch, and over your lap. Didn’t exactly take you by surprise. Zoe often sat like this. You were used to it. Wait, was this also flirting? Stars, you didn’t even know anymore. This was so confusing. She noticed the face journey you had taken with the internal struggle, and grinned, shrugging her arm around your shoulders to ease you. You snatched your cup of the table and downed as much as you could handle before it got too hot. You were still really nervous, despite her being very clear about how she felt, and Zoe thought that was pretty funny.

“So, we’re gonna have to say something to people tonight,” Zoe started.

You just nodded in response. Hopefully this wasn’t going to make anything weird. You hadn’t been working at Hextech long enough to know how the dynamics worked. Maybe someone had been pining after Zoe too and now hated you. Maybe someone was Zoe’s ex and now hated you. Maybe someone was just really homophobic and now hated you. There were plenty of possibilities, you could go on.

“I was thinking we should wear these matching dresses I found last week, and sort of bought already, to double our cute couple factor.” She had murmured that middle part but you still heard it loud and clear. You had to hold back a squeak. That was so sweet. And adorable. She just saw the dresses in the shop and thought to herself ‘I want to wear that with Y/n’? You could die right now. You settled for downing more of that coffee.

“Yes! That’s so cool? I- What color are they?” You didn’t know how to handle this.

Zoe pulled out her phone and leaned over to show you the pics she took of them. They were matching, made of the same brown floral-patterned fabric, but different styles. Either one would go great with Zoe’s leather jacket, which you were still wearing. You’d go for your denim one. Not the purple jacket that currently hung off Zoe’s shoulders. The colors wouldn’t clash but the style of it would. This was going to be awesome, anyways. Matching dresses, telling your friends the best news you’ve had all year, having fun at the party, not having to spend the whole night miserably shoving your feelings aside? You couldn’t wait.

“Which one do you want?” You picked the looser, more flowy one. Zoe was more comfortable with tight stuff that showed off her body. You had a sneaking suspicion she already knew you’d pick that one, and was giving you the illusion of choice. It was sweet, really. Your phone alarm went off, alerting you that it was time to start the walk for work. All the relaxing time was gone. A crying shame, but you’d still get to spend the day with your favourite person just the same, so not truly that big of a loss. Albeit, Zoe didn’t look too pleased to have to go back to work. Laughing, you stood to your feet, and held out your arm for her to link through.

“Shall we go milady?” You two waved to the barista as you headed out the door. “I think you should do our makeup for the party again, really show off this time.” Zoe perked up, excited at the prospect as Hextech neared.

“And I’ll show off my hot new girlfriend too.” There was that damned blush again.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

We Deserve a Soft Landing, Love

Genre: wlw sci-fi

Words: 4.6k

Summary: An astronaut on the International Space Station gets a transmission from a girl on a dying ship.

They talk as the radiation increases.

Content Warning: death

2036

Astronauts really weren’t supposed to be alone. Not at the space station, it wasn’t made to run that way, three permanent residence were assigned at all times, and they were rarely alone.

But mistakes happen. A gash the size of her forearm down his side, perfectly round red droplets hanging in the air like ping-pong balls in suspended animation. A face as ashen as the grave and yelling. They never yelled.

Sarah Reyes was chosen for her composed personality, composed in theory, less so in practice. She watched her coworker burst open and heard NASA ringing in her ear: what do you even do with a dead body in space?

But he wasn’t gone yet.

They pressed a template they never had before: cрочный спуск, the Soyuz computer sprang to life, emergency.

NASA kept ringing in her ears. Some young women named Janet was talking to her now and she was talking back.

Rod wasn’t going to make the journey if he went back alone. His eyes were barely open and red blooming droplets still swam around the room like liquid party balloons, Sarah never liked the word helpless.

She looked to Nikolai and told him to ‘get the fuck down there,’ someone needed to take the CRV shuttle down with him. Nikolai’s heavy-lidded eyes studied her, he pursed his lips, and she said it once more in Russian and then again in English.

They secured Rod’s bandage a second time, his fever-warm face a distant star on the horizon. She grabbed onto his hand and told them ‘to get the fuck down there.’

They pressed cрочный спуск, the shuttle launched down with Kazakhstan readying down below, God, they had to be ready.

And she was alone.

Astronauts were not supposed to be alone.

The quiet was just as engulfing as the urgency had been before. Janet had apparently gone to take a break and they were on the sun side of the planet. Sarah started counting. It would take them 3.5 minutes to get back to earth. It would take three days for a shuttle to come back to the station. It would take three hours for the shuttle to be attached to the docking port.

It would take some undisclosed amount of time for them to sort out the politics down below. Astronaut’s don’t just burst open. And Sarah was alone.

She continued as normal, there was nothing else to do, she had at the very least three days to herself, and there was cleaning to do. Maintenance, communication. It turned into four days.

She was talking to a young man named Ted on the telecom now and she was sort of starting to hate young men named Ted. Politics were messier than space and no one was even set up to relieve her yet. NASA was in some sort of limbo and Russia wasn’t talking. Sarah was alone.

It was the sixth day when the shuttle finally launched, a crew of three, Sarah had already forgotten their names, but she would have months to memorize them anyway.

She had turned off the intercom for that day, but didn’t notice the static until later when it started echoing off the hallways like a ghost. Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts, though. No self-respecting scientist believed in ghosts.

They were on the planet side of the sun, dark, alone, dumping heat back into the square hallways through the vents.

Sarah heard the first hush of static in her sleep, strapped down and frowning deeply as she screwed her eyes shut. It felt like she was getting tinnitus. For a moment she refused to wake up, she had to keep to her schedule, or else what the fuck else was she going to have up there.

The static breathed again, and her thoughts broke off and on in starts. Finally, she sat up, after all, they don’t know what to do with dead bodies in space. She ripped her sleeping mask off and cocked her head to the side.

Ssshhhhhh

She squirmed out of her restraints and floated to the side of the room, “It’s probably just Yulia messing with the frequencies planet side,” She muttered to herself mostly just to hear the sound her own raw voice in the dark, “Just Yulia…”

She pulled herself up and out and floated over to the communication bay while passing the wide yawning emptiness of the station. It could technically suit ten people, the size of a five-person house, but apparently, earth was still arguing. Two more days.

Sssshhhhhhh

She sighed and followed the noise; she really wasn’t in the mood for any system malfunctions. She tapped on the screen of the newly installed video chat. It sprang to life with the headquarters of NASA asking who she would like to get a hold of today.

Sarah blinked. But no one had been hailing her.

Sssshhhhhh

She looked around and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. None of the devices in the room were lighting up or winking at her. None of them were making any sounds at all. She scratched the back of her hand and accepted the fact that the noise really wasn’t coming from the central communication room.

Sarah turned around in meaningless circles and then left a message to the NASA night crew that there was a possible technical issue on the ISS. Two days before any crew was set to land, Sarah groaned, and it was just her.

She took deep breaths and pushed herself off toward what she could only assume was the source.

Ssssshhhh

She cringed as she crossed the "unity" room into the Russian side of the station, empty as a ghost town and twice as unnerving. But Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts.

Ssssshh-he-sssshh–ll-ssh-o

“Ah!” She clutched at her heart as something, a voice something, echoed off the halls. She took a deep rasping breath and turned in every which direction.

Ssh, hello? It came again.

Sarah’s mouth hung open and she found herself outside of a room that had been used as an old communication hub. It was a relic from a time back when they had separate ones instead of a “bubble of trust” in the center of the station.

Sarah cocked her head to the side and stared. One of the old radios that was attached to the wall and ingrained in the system was making a soft but distinct buzz. It was grey and had a panel of buttons and a microphone attached to a round speaker. Most of the old pre-2025 devices had been removed or repurposed but this one was intact and felt like she was reaching backward in time itself.

She frowned at it and she knew she should go report this. Houston would want to know one of the 2000 models was acting up.

Shhh-h–ssss

Sarah reached forward and her finger hovered in midair over the panel and her eyes glued to the intercom. There was something, a voice-something, bubbling underneath the static.

And, of course, she did believe in aliens.

Sarah pressed down on a feedback button and wet her lips, she leaned down toward the speaker, “Is someone there?”

She held her breath and watched the blinking red light of the transmitter in the dark center of the room. It had been repurposed several years ago to be another storage room.

She blinked, waited a full minute, and suddenly felt a little silly-- she should really be sleeping right now. Or reporting it. She watched the flickering red light and counted.

60 seconds, 180 seconds, 3 minutes, Sarah was about to take her finger off the feedback button when something responded back with clear articulation.

“Oh, thank God,” Sarah’s mouth fell open. It was a woman. She quickly bent over to reply, but the voice kept going, “Can you hear me? Is someone there? I am Lotte De Vos of the Argus, Landing Mission One, ESA. Can you hear me?”

Sarah gasped, “Oh my god--”

Lotte kept speaking quickly, “We have been pushed out off route and…Can anyone hear me?”

“Yes!” Sarah returned as soon as she found her voice again, perhaps yelling into the speaker a little too loudly, “We thought, I, are you safe? We thought the Argus was lost, what’s your status?”

Sarah did the math in her head, it would take four to five minutes for radio waves to transmit between Earth’s orbit and the Argus. The Jupiter moon’s mission.

“I can’t see our location, but I think I am stranded near the atmosphere of Jupiter, repeat I can see the troposphere…I don’t know where I am.”

“Argus,” Sarah rushed to speak, hoping they could balance out their conversation, “I am Sarah Reyes of the International Space Station, NASA, I can hear you loud and clear. What’s your status?”

She waited. Counting, 60 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, God, she needed to tell someone about this. But she heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end.

“ISS?” Sarah exhaled as the woman responded, “Thank God, okay, this is Lotte De Vos, reporting again from the Argus. The…the life support system is sustaining itself it looks like but none of the ram’s are responding, I think we’re disconnected from the rockets.”

“Miss De Vos,” Sarah hunched over, “What is the status of the crew? How much oxygen do you have left? What…what happened?” She remembered reading about the Argus a week ago. About the radio silence on the other end of one of the most ambitious human-manned missions into their solar system.

One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four.

“I,” She heard the other astronaut falter, “I have the full amount of oxygen left that we carried with us for the return journey.” She paused and a hitch of static filled the air, “The crew is incapacitated.” The voice said flatly and without inflection, “We were hit with an unexpected projectile and pulled into Jupiter’s orbit, we didn’t calculate the full effect of the mass of the planet on our ship it seems,” She chuckled and it was one of the most surprising sounds Sarah had ever heard, “I guess we are still making scientific discoveries.”

“Do you have your satellite? Where is your telecom? We can--”

The delay continued to confuse their conversation, “--it’s acting like a black hole, we tried to fix the rockets to propel us back to the base on Io but there wasn’t enough power, everyone else,” The young women took a deep shaking breath, “They tried to get back to it without the ship. Some of our jets were still working for the suits.”

“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered.

“It didn’t work.”

Sarah waited, making sure Lotte was finished and the full four to five minutes had passed so Lotte could get Sarah’s message.

She heard another laugh on the other side, “We really need a better system than this. How about we say ‘over’ when we’re done talking?” Sarah’s shoulder’s tensed. The woman sounded so young. “Anyway, to answer your question, our telecom was damaged when the projectile thrust us off course, I just recently jury-rigged this device in order to be picked up on low frequencies.” Sarah nodded and Lotte took an audible breath, “Over.”

Sarah pressed her forehead up against the cool metal of the side-paneling; she cleared her throat, “Lotte,” she said quietly, “Do you need me to contact anyone?” It had taken that crew six years to get to Jupiter’s moons. “Over.”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut.

She heard the next notes like a deflating balloon, “So you’ve figured it out too?” She said with a controlled tremor to her voice, “Well… I have a few people I would like to message if you could write it down. Over."

Sarah floated to the side of the makeshift storage room and found a pen and paper. She wrote down the woman’s mother’s name, her college professor’s email, and her ex-lover’s phone number.

“Do you want me too,” Sarah cringed, “uh, write down messages for them? For me to say to them. Over.”

She waited, she heard a sigh when the four minutes passed, “Just tell my mom I love her. That sort of thing. Tell the professor I wouldn’t be here without her, I mean, not here, in space, in a bad way, shit, actually don’t tell her that. Tell her that her intro classes are still making freshman wet themselves and I love it.” Sarah laughed.

“And the last one?” Sarah asked as she waited for Lotte to come back to her.

Lotte gave a snort, “Flip her off for me. Maybe subtly infer she’s been skipping arm day and is looking a little noodly. That would make my night. Over.”

Sarah chuckled deeply and it was hard for her to take it all in, she should be writing more down. She should be writing it all down. “You know,” Thoughts ran through Sarah’s head like a speeding stop-and-go traffic jam, “Are the rockets really not working? Because a simple continued jury-rig of the thrusters back to the navigation might, hmm, help.”

The response took longer than usual, “Don’t do this me.” Came the hushed reply, “I’ve tried, Sarah, don’t you think I’ve tried? Whoever you are, from wherever. Don’t do it.”

“Sarah Reyes.” She repeated slowly, blinking into the dark. “I’m from Minneapolis.”

Lotte hummed, “Oh…I’m from Belgium. Ghent. Nice to meet you.”

Sarah’s insides felt like they were turning all over the place, “I’ve been to Belgium, it’s very beautiful.”

“Not underwater yet?” The other girl joked, slightly off time due to the time lapse.

“They’re trying their best,” Sarah said with a sniff, “And they never invented a statute called ‘the Twinkie Law,’ so they did better than my city.”

She heard a strange groan from the other end of the line which made Sarah sit up straight, “I would honestly give anything right now for a twinkie. Anything.”

Sarah ended up laughing, “Alright, top ten food goos and then worst goos, go.”

Lotte made a choking sound, “Nooo, Sarah Reyes, all I want right now is some ripe cherries, a medium rare steak, fuck it, a rare steak, and ten twinkie’s, one for every finger. No goo.”

Sarah was snickering, “Well I want a nice hamburger and maybe a salad with ranch dressing. Kleenexes. Running water.” She smiled to herself, “And a proper toilet.”

The silver sound of a laugh came back from the other end, “Wrong answer! The whole reason I went to space was for suction toilets.”

“Oh no, no, no, come. On.” She said emphatically.

“What we all really need is at least one beer each.” Sarah snorted and Lotte bemoaned, “A margarita, two loggers, some vodka, good vodka, the kind the Russians would give to their moms.” Lotte lamented and Sarah shook her head.

“Why did you go to space then?” She asked fondly to the other end, “It’s the last dry county in humanities jurisdiction Dutch girl.”

Lotte huffed another laugh on the other end, “We’re getting personal now? Well, you first, why are you in space hurtling above the earth developing poor bone mass?”

Sarah let herself float up a little higher and used the next minute to think about her answer, she leaned toward the speaker, “Height.”

The five minutes passed and all that came back was a confused, “What?”

“I gain two and a half inches every time I come up here. Eventually, I figure I’ll hit five feet.”

A loud guffaw came back, “Taller! Of course, but what is that in human measurements?”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “Old habits. 6.3 centimeters and 1.5 meters, happy?”

“Woof,” Lotte barked back cheerily, “They really do bring them in smaller each year. Over.”

Sarah exhaled dramatically, “Back to you then Miss Lotte. How tall are you? And, I don’t know, what’s your favorite, hmm, tea?”

Two minutes, three, four.

“Tea? Boring. Do you know how close Jupiter’s atmosphere is to me right now? Ask me about my childhood nightmares and favorite sex position.” Sarah opened her mouth to respond with a dismissive sniff, but Lotte added quietly at the end, “…it’s mint by the way. Peppermint.”

Sarah smiled and she squeezed her eyes shut for a full minute, “Well, my childhood nightmare was Santa having literal claws and strangling me.” Sarah said good-humoredly as she drummed her fingers on her leg and counted the seconds.

“Is that your favorite position as well?”

“Lotte,” She said with a warning tone and considered turning back around toward the communication hub. The next five minutes left her contemplating if it was a crank call-- Houston did have some annoying interns.

“Strangling is perfectly natural, no need to be ashamed. I did it to my barbie dolls and everything.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “They really do send them up crazier each year.”

Lotte laughed and it was a strained sound with a tin undertone. Sarah pursed her lips together, “Sarah?” Lotte said, barely audible over the static this time.

“Yeah?” She waited.

“Can you see earth?”

Sarah’s shoulders slumped over and she nodded meaninglessly before taking her finger off the feedback button and floating back over to the observatory. Two hours had passed.

She looked out over a deep brown storm cloud over China, a few glowing tendrils of cities and roads, and the textured darkness of the earth side of the sun. She went back to the transmitter, “We’re over the Bahama’s. It’s blue right now, very, very blue.”

She heard the softest of sounds over the radio, “My haul is made of titanium.” Lotte said carefully, “But I’m not sure if the radio waves will be disturbed by the planet’s magnetic field.”

“Oh.” Sarah said back, squeezing her eyes shut, knowing Lotte was still talking.

“And then the radiation will begin anyway,” Lotte made something that was almost a laugh, “remember those numbers okay? Tell my mom. You know. Tell my teacher I wasn’t going to make it without her, but not in this way. And tell Karen to, you know, fuck off.”

“Wait,” Sarah said breathlessly.

“I’m about to be sucked into the atmosphere, wait a little for me, k? We can see if this mess of a radio might hold up. Just wait a little. Then go tell the world I went out fighting. Fighting aliens or a space octopus, tell them that there are definitely space octopuses and the Argus went down swinging.”

“Okay,” Sarah rasped, holding the button down until the tip of her finger bleached white. “Okay!” She racked her brain for what to say, what eulogy’s people ended with or final lasting sentiments that maybe meant something, “I’ll eat some twinkies for you. Ten. One for each finger.”

Sarah waited. Two minutes. Three minutes. Five. Sarah was shaking, this isn’t what she expected when she woke up that morning. The station orbited into the sun side of the planet. What was she even going to tell Houston? How do you start that report?

Sarah rubbed her stinging eyes, “I’ll put them on my fingers too. Eat them in some Dutch coffee shop and kick your ex in the shins.” She pushed her palms into her eye sockets, “Oh God, oh my God.”

Numbness ran up and down her legs and she floated away from the feedback button. She was still glad she didn’t believe in ghosts-- she really didn’t need this one.

She turned back to exit the room and float to somewhere far away and cold and curl up for a little bit.

Shhh–What’s up loser?!

Sarah jumped and turned around instantaneously, “Lotte?!” She jammed her finger on the transmission button.

“Can you hear me? I can’t see out my window right now, but the magnetism might not be messing with my radio as much as I thought. More discoveries for science, yay. Have them name a cockroach after me or something. Unless, of course, you can’t hear me and this is just, you know, the death chasm I’m speaking into--”

“I can hear you!” Sarah yelled as her finger cramped on the switch, the red light flared like a fog horn. “I can hear you, it’s still working!” She didn’t know why she was excited; this girl was entering into one of the most radioactive places in the solar system, Sarah kept her eyes on the speaker.

A tired exhale answered, “You waited after all.”

Sarah bit her lip, “Yeah. I waited.”

The four minutes felt excruciating, “I figure I have around forty-five minutes… Anyway, if you’re curious, it is incredibly hot. If I didn’t have any decency left I would be naked right now.”

Sarah sniffed, “No one can see you, you know. And I imagine it’s burning up.”

The next transmission was garbled, but she could still make it out, “Dying in the void of space is one thing, dying in the void of space butt-naked is another.”

Sarah couldn’t get herself to laugh this time, but she tried, “Well, I’ll tell everyone you were wearing a full suit of armor. Pearls. Evening gloves. The octopus didn’t stand a chance.”

Lotte made a soft sound, “That’s really all I ask, heels too, I miss heels. I felt tall, like one of those small dogs on top of tables? Or the fact you enjoy getting 5 centimeters taller in space?”

Sarah made an exasperated noise, “I don’t suppose you mock all the people you share last words with.”

Lotte gave a soft chuckle, “Just you darling.” A long pause followed and Sarah didn’t move to fill it; Lotte took her time with another slow hissing breath, “Tell me about something.”

Sarah blinked, “I have a collection of coins from the Ottoman empire.”

“Okay,” Lotte sounded faint, “Who was your first crush? Besides 16th century Sultans or something I mean. What was your first book? What's your favorite kiss? Come on,” Lotte snickered weakly, “I’m dying here.”

Sarah’s skin felt too tight, itching in the dark, “My crush was Martina Rodriquez. Fifth grade, she punched me in the face once after I told her that her that her nose was crooked. I learned to read when I was three so I don’t really remember the books, accelerated learning and all that. I learned to speak in full sentences when I was six. My first kiss was,” Sarah sighed, “Don’t laugh okay? In my college’s chemistry lab, age 23.” She said all of it quickly with pained breaths, time was measured in fours and fives.

A laugh came back from the other side of the universe anyway, “Chemistry lab? God, you’re the one giving astronauts a nerdy name.”

“Hey!”

“And it’s cute. You sound cute. I’m sure you’re very smart too, can probably name way too many numbers of pi.” She could, “I guess I was like that too…Why I’m up here.” Lotte trailed off.

“Why are you up here?” Seven minutes passed.

“I saw Cassiopeia one night… my grandpa told me they hung her upside down in the night sky to punish her. I fell in love,” Sarah clenched her jaw tight, “I guess you could say that’s how it happened. Love or whatever.”

“Lotte--” Sarah put her face next to the speaker.

“You know, I always thought this is what I wanted to do.” Lotte was faltering, “And it is.” She repeated with a slight hysteria and frantic-edge to her words, “I think it was always what I wanted to do. Always.” There came a pause and Sarah heard a strangled retching noise on the other side.

“Lotte!” She yelled into the intercom, “Lotte, are alright?”

It took a very long time before she got a response and then she was back to waiting, “Yeah,” A voice finally said hoarsely, “Just…puking. You know, when you get to see food goo all over again? That feeling.” Lotte sounded like she was trying to laugh, “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Who was this first kiss?” Lotte asked quietly before sniffing, “Was she cuter than me? I hope not… And then, what’s, what’s your favorite tea?”

Sarah squeezed her free hand closed, balling it up into a painful fist and digging her nails in, “No. She was a PhD. student and thought that Potato Poots was a good pet name. She…” Sarah snorted, “Wasn’t cuter than you, promise. My, my, favorite tea is Black tea. I used to drink it with my aunts.”

Two minutes. Three minutes. Six.

“Potato Poots? Take that back, that is a wonderful pet name and now I’m going to date this girl that was your first kiss,” Sarah chuckled, “Black tea is a good choice. The closest one to coffee. My brother owns a coffee shop,” Lotte was talking quickly now, “Visit him too. Tell him…I’m sorry. I’m sorry we fought so much, God, for everything.”

“Yes, yes, I mean--”

“Tell all of them I loved them. Dammit, even Karen, tell her to get her shit together. None of this…none of anything else. Nothing else matters.”

Sarah sighed and her entire body was shaking, “I can do that, yes. Lotte, we won’t forget.”

“That I died naked in the void of space?” Lotte returned back after seven minutes, “Because that’s a thing now.”

“Naked, fighting an octopus, right?” Sarah said with her face straining into a smile.

“Yeah.” Lotte was panting on the other end now, but her voice came through. “Who was your first love, Sarah?”

Sarah felt her mouth go dry, she hadn’t drunk anything in hours. Houston would be furious. “I’ve never been in love.” She whispered back, “I just wanted to do…this.” She flinched at the wording.

Lotte took eight minutes to respond, “Yeah?” She said breathlessly, “Well. Do that for me, k? Being in love is nice. It’s like this, except no one is riding into the next layer of Jupiter’s helium.”

Sarah gave a weak smile, “It’s like this?”

“It’s like this.” Wheezing, “Go do that for me.”

“How’re you feeling?” Sarah tried to get her to keep talking and Lotte told her that she threw up again. Sarah could hear audible strained audible breathing through the speaker, she was gasping.

“We weren’t really over the Bahama’s, were we?”

Sarah frowned and she looked toward where the window would be, “It was dark out, yeah. But the cities were bright. Like stars, we always liked stars, right? People like us.”

“People like us collect Ottoman coins and cover their hands in Twinkies Sarah.”

She smiled, “Good. I hear that’s what being in love is like.”

Lotte coughed, a deep gurgling sound that filled the air, “Sounds dumb.”

“It is.”

Sarah could hear her fading out, “Lotte? Lotte how’re you--”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck--” A sob shook the speaker.

“Lotte.”

“FUCK, I don’t want to die.”

“Wait, wait, no, it’s going to be okay.”

“Quick, tell me something nice to say, something good, God, GOD, I wish I had been good. I wish had been better.”

“Wait! Wait, no.”

“Sarah,” She could hear the crying now, the sickly wet tremor in her voice, “Sarah I can’t see anything. It’s so hot, oh my god, I can’t do this, SARAH-”

Sarah screamed back into the mic, “I’m here! I’m here! Wait!”

No sound came back from the other side, Sarah’s eyes went wide, and she counted up to a thousand. She couldn’t feel her teeth.

“One thousand and four, one thousand and five, Lotte? Lotte De Vos, can you hear me?” Five minutes. Ten minutes.

Sarah curled up into herself and pulled on her hair, her other finger still on the transmission button and the room bathed in the one red light, “Lotte," She blared, "Lotte!” It was a wretched, animalistic scream, but it wasn’t for the radio, it wasn’t for her.

She wished she believed in ghosts.

-----------------

Sarah Reyes went back to earth within the fortnight. She told them she wasn't feeling well. She told them about the Argus. They told her to take some time off, she told them she wasn't coming back.

Sarah went to Belgium, she gave a very nice older woman a hug, she got a lifetime’s promise of free coffee, and she looked at painting after painting done by people she realized were now dead. She smiled at the nice young woman across the street that sold flowers and she didn't say hi, but she did wave this time. It was a place to start. Lotte would have wanted something like that.

FIN

Hey! All my hours were cut at my job bc of coronavirus, if you enjoyed my writing please, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or becoming a patron I could really use the help!

[dorizardthewizard]

So I watched the Eurovision movie

Uh, I have a lot of thoughts because this is the closest we’re gonna get to the real thing this year ;^; First, the positives!

What they got right:

Overall, I like that it wasn’t really taking the piss out of the competition – whether you agree or not with how it was portrayed, the creators do have a lot of love for the show and that is reflected in how much it means to the characters. I think it was fitting to start with the kids watching and being inspired by ABBA’s win (I’m always up for showing people where the group’s fame started), and making it their life goal to perform in the contest. Just like Lars and Sigrit, many musicians in Europe grow up with Eurovision being an annual tradition and it’s their big dream to one day perform on that international stage, so yeah I think it decently showed how important ESC is here.

They got the overall vibe right too – most of the songs really felt like Eurovision songs (maybe a little dated but still), from the Viking-Europop opener to the Lordi-aesthetic one to whatever the hell Russia was doing. I don’t think Greece’s song was something they’d ever send though; it fits the character but not what the country typically sends. Then again, Estonia have sent an opera song in Italian and Romania sent yodel rap so actually, I take back that statement. They were missing a Balkan ballad though! Staging was on point – I think it was filmed at the Tel Aviv stage so that’s obviously a factor, but big angel wings and hamster wheels also bring a lot of familiarity :P No pianos being set on fire though, which, in a movie with so many on-stage disasters, is honestly surprising.

Of course there’s also the past contestant cameos, for that I’ll say one thing – needs more Verka. Maybe some contestants from earlier years would have been nice too, at least we did hear Céline Dion’s song in the song-along. Would also have been nice if the whole mashup was Eurovision songs, instead of throwing in some other ones just to make it more recognizable for non-Eurofans. Otherwise, the mashup was really seamless and sounded good.

Another thing the movie got right was European’s attitudes to Americans, not sure how I feel about it since the movie was made by Americans, but it’s self-aware and pretty funny :P There’s also the funny gag about countries not wanting to host because of how expensive it is, not sure why a guy working for the national broadcaster would care about that but looking at Iceland’s population size, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also an economist for the government or something.

What they got wrong:

Of course, there were some things they didn’t quite get right. First of all, did the UK win for it to be hosted in Scotland??? Unless Australia won, or some other country that didn’t want to host or something. They actually made a joke about UK getting zero points, but they said it’s because no one likes us, when in reality we just send the blandest songs :/

There were also a whole lot of technical inaccuracies like Sweden breaking the rule on number of people allowed on stage, big five countries taking part in the semi-final (come on, how can you not get that right? Maybe they were afraid Americans wouldn’t recognise half the flags? :P), the contestants were just sitting by themselves in some room like it’s The Voice or something, their delegations nowhere to be seen, and then there’s the total lack of security or planning around the competition, with Lars just running around doing whatever. The countries presenting their votes in the semi-final stood out as well, but since we didn’t get to see the final I can brush over it, just so we experience the voting somewhere in the movie. Wonder why they didn’t use past contestants for the points announcements? They also had the French one speaking in English but you know what, they remembered to make sure he was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower so I’ll let them off :P

One thing that did bother me was how hard the movie tried to make us think the Icelandic song was a failure, except the song wasn’t even bad so they had to resort to all the incidents on stage. They even had that complete silence after the hamster wheel incident, and there is NO WAY that would ever happen – even the null points songs get cheers! In fact, people would cheer harder, and I don’t think Graham Norton, or anyone for that matter, would be that surprised that people remembered the song and actually gave it points (oh yeah, great to see him in this!).

Okay, some of those inaccuracies were nitpicks, but they’re just fun to point out. I don’t think they quite nailed the portrayal though, but more on that later.

The movie itself:

Judging the rest of the film, the humour really didn’t do it for me- it was just kind of jarring that one half of the movie felt like your usual light-hearted music contest film that was fairly rooted in reality, then the next there’s a dismembered ghost of Demi Lovato and a guy getting stabbed by Elves??? I know it’s classic Will Ferrel random comedy but honestly, those parts could have been cut out of the movie just fine, it’s like half an hour too long anyway and you can tell by the way the humour drags. It can basically be summarised by the ending scene where Lars is yelling at the Americans and then just keeps going, and I know that’s the joke in that scene but they do this throughout the whole movie – something will happen and the characters will keep reacting back and forth and it’s honestly exhausting. That might just be me though, maybe I’d prefer more witty and self-aware humour in a Eurovision movie but I guess non-fans wouldn’t get half the jokes so they went for over-the-top ridiculousness ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for the characters, Sigrit was great; she’s a good mix between cute and weird. Lars is… annoying tbh, maybe I just don’t care for Will Ferrel's character type but when Alexander asks Lars what he can possibly offer Sigrit I was like “yeah Lars, what CAN you offer?”. Their relationship was cute though and his arc about caring too much about winning was decent, it does kind of resonate with Eurovision because yeah, lots of countries will revamp their songs to have English lyrics and the style is increasingly converging to Americanized radio-friendly pop music. I do wish they’d focused more on this conflict, rather than bringing in a love square (?) with Alexander and Mita.

Speaking of Alexander, I actually liked how they portrayed the Russian character; he wasn’t a villain, he was fun to watch and was genuinely happy to see Sigrit succeed. I did not expect them to go there with the whole “there are no gays in Russia” thing – I laughed but also actually felt for the guy, and his friendship with Mita was peak mlm/wlw solidarity, it was sweet.

The ending:

For me, this is where it goes American Hollywood style and kinda reminds me of Madonna’s speech about everyone being winners. Felt like I was watching Camp Rock for a second then (which is funny since Demi is in this movie) – all the other acts are fun songs but we’ll just change ours to a ballad so it must be more heartfelt and resonate with the audience, as if a good chunk of ESC songs aren’t ballads already!! To be fair, they do well in having it be a personal song about her hometown and adding in parts in Icelandic (although I’ve heard it’s so butchered you can’t understand what’s being said), it’s a sweet ode to one of the best parts of Eurovision – celebrating where you’re from and making your country proud.

Wish they’d focused more on that tbh, we really could have done without Lars speaking to the audience – that’s the more Hollywood moment for me and kind of reminds me of acts that try to connect with the audience like it’s a concert. Sorry but we don’t do that here :P Instead of the “music is feeling”-like message, it would have been nice if the movie was more directed towards celebrating why the contest is so big and important even decades after it began, and how it literally brings an entire continent together for one night. This would have been nice especially because of all the cynicism towards ESC and its dismissal as just a dumb, campy event with no quality music whatsoever.

Huh, I just remembered there are no live instruments at Eurovision so how everyone can hear the piano at the end is beyond me, also the instrumental kicks in despite the fact that that song has never been recorded in a studio, let alone able to be played out loud onstage. But I’ll just imagine that’s for us to see, the audience actually just heard her singing and nothing else. I don’t think it would have been that impressive, so Iceland probably won everyone’s hearts through memes instead :’D

Overall, I don’t think the movie was terribly offensive or anything, just some silly fun that missed out on the potential of better portraying the Eurovision spirit. I might eventually watch it again, but with skipping out half the comedy :P

[stephinsshortstories]

Story 2.1: Student Lounge Smoothies

(Part 1, I hope?) A confession from one athlete to another, and all the anxiety that comes with it. Sometimes you just gotta swallow that lump in your throat and shoot your shot!

Like 1.1, this story is one of my most “realistic” premises. That means a believable setup, and no magic or plot tomfoolery! Themes include wlw crushes, the dynamics of asking someone out, and other beautifully human experiences.

This is another fairly early work of mine, and it’s written from a perspective I have only partially experienced myself, so it’s a bit of an experiment! Please share constructive critique if you’ve got it.

While the following story doesn’t contain overtly sexual content, I still ask those under the age of 18 to pass on it. Also, be warned, it can take up a lot of space on your dash!

The locker room flooded with bodies quickly. It was Friday, everyone was desperate to get changed and get out, and Coach Theresa always made Friday workouts the worst. “To make sure nobody gets lazy,” she’d say. The atmosphere hung heavy with sweat and a generally ubiquitous urge to not be there longer than necessary.

         Like most of the university lacrosse team, Kate was in a hurry to split.

         “Dammit…” she whispered to herself, seeing the line forming for the showers. She hadn’t muscled her way in enough in the initial rush; most of the team beat her to the stalls. Still, she decided with a groan, they were faster than going back to her dorm.

         Not being able to do much before a proper shower, Kate waffled for time. She hang restlessly at her locker, watching small pockets of conversation ripple through her teammates. A couple of her friends passed her on the way out, and she resolved with them to hang out in the student union tomorrow night, and threw in a few jovial complaints about their Molecular Bio lab project. Kate watched a majority of the girls trickle out over ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and silently castigated herself for not pushing more every time someone left. How very freshman of her.

         Nineteen, and still can’t grow a goddam spine, she thought.

         By the time Kate finally got in and out of a shower, only a few of her teammates remained. Trish, Gina, and Dana were discussing something by their lockers, Yasmin was tying her shoes to leave, and someone whose name she tentatively thought was… Verdana? Verona? Whoever. She was stuffing dirty clothes into a drawstring bag.

         Nobody’s really focused on me… I think I’m okay to get changed, Kate reported to herself. Equal parts social anxiety, shyness over changing publicly, and shyness over her outfit made her tense and hyper-vigilant. Today even more than usual. When she’d first arrived on campus in the fall, some new friends had quietly and coyly recommended her a certain club downtown. Now was finally the Friday night Kate had mustered the courage to go out, and really experience nightlife… her parents had been pretty strict, and while she’d had her fair share of boyfriends (and a few very secret stints with some girls, as experiments), the hot, neon, underground appeal of a real nightclub represented a whole new level of tantalizing freedom. Dances, drinks, the like…

         Kate shook herself from the daydream and began to quickly put herself together. Along with clothes and shower gear, she had a makeup kit and a brush with her - she planned on meeting her friends downtown right after practice. However, after just a few minutes, less than half dressed…

         “Hey. Katelyn, right?” a voice over her shoulder asked. Kate jumped. Wheeling around quickly, she was met face-to-face by the toned, imposing figure of Quinn Baker, the team captain, standing over her. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

         “Yeah! Uh - yeah. Kate. What’s up?” Kate stammered, finally regaining composure halfway through.

         “Quinn. Captain Quinn. Yeah, yeah, good to meet ya - can we talk for a minute?” Quinn was still wet, and was wearing a t-shirt and a towel on her waist - she must’ve been in the shower when Kate had scanned the room.

         “Yeah, uh - sure, what do you need?” Kate was startled sick, which turned to heavy nervousness; the only reason she could think of for a captain to be pulling aside a random freshman on a team dozens strong would be for a chew-out. Kate’s mind was racing, but she was utterly sure that that would be the last thing she could handle right now.

         “I just wanted to ask you a few things,” Quinn, noticing Kate sweating bullets, tried to ease back. “Nobody’s in trouble… but for starters, thanks for picking lax, always good to see new recruits and all.”

         “Uh, yeah, I played it through high school, wanted to stick with it here. Nice to meet you… what did you need to ask me?”

         “Well, kinda a lie, I more want to talk to you than ask you stuff. First of all, I take it you have plans tonight? You seemed to be getting dressed up in a hurry. Most people don’t wait long for shower here.”

         “Yeah, meeting some friends at a restaurant downtown. The walk back to the dorm would’ve taken longer…”

         “Fair enough. But Kate, you don’t need to bullshit me. It’s not a restaurant, is it?

         Kate began to sweat again. She didn’t mean to lie, but saying she was going clubbing to the team captain wasn’t a good plan. Quinn continued, as if reading her mind,

         “Probably clubbing or something, right? That seems a bit better fitting for a sleeved tube top and jeans. Don’t worry. Everybody’s played the fake-ID game at some point. I’m not gonna cut you from the team or anything for it. But I also take it from how buggy you are right now (and the outfit) that this is gonna be your first time. Nervous and shit, right?”

         “Right. Going to a place a few friends whispered to me about,” Kate blushed. Quinn seemed cool, anyway… she was standing really close.

         “Yeah,” Quinn leaned against the bank of lockers and folded her arms. “And I also figure you’re interested in more than drinks… you may want to stuff those in a zip pocket.”

         Kate blushed much harder, pushing the two condom packets deeper into the coin pocket on her jeans and averting her gaze. Arms folded under the chest, she couldn’t help but think, was a good look for Quinn…

         “And-“ Quinn lowered her voice, speaking subtly- “you didn’t zip your bag all the way. Those pins on the jacket in there… you’re interested in an overnight, not necessarily with a guy… aren’t you?”

         “Uh! I dunno-! I-“ Kate’s face flared red and she began to panic, eyes darting around. She clenched her bag to her chest nervously. She wasn’t comfortable pinning down a sexual preference yet, and had hoped the club excursions would help her find out. The pins on her jacket were a plan to attract anyone she could - now, mortifyingly, she was found out. By the captain of her lacrosse team, no less.

         “Listen. Calm down, or you’ll out yourself before anyone else. Don’t freak out, I’ve been there too. Most people have. I’m not gonna repeat it. But I am gonna tell you this - the age restrictions on clubs are there for a reason, and it isn’t just the booze. As a senior, let me tell you to steer clear of those joints until you’re more acclimated to the area… and maybe have a bit more confidence, with friends you’ve known longer, too. Most people there are normal, but there are creeps, and they can smell green from across the floor. Don’t worry. There are other ways to find a good time.” Quinn patted Kate on the shoulder, and left for her locker.

         Kate was numb. She was still terrified, a bit traumatized by suddenly meeting an upperclassman like that, but also… relieved. For every bit of curiosity and desire for freedom in her head, there had been three huge chunks of nervousness. Subconsciously, she’d already known what Quinn said, but it was nice to hear it from someone else. It gave Kate a justification to herself to cancel, and breathe a sigh of relief. Other ways to find a good time, Quinn repeated in her mind.

         She called her friends, getting out with the excuse that Coach had held the team after practice for a meeting, and resumed getting dressed. Torn jeans, sleeved tube top… yeah, kind of clueless attire for clubbing, she supposed. Then, the jacket… Kate pulled it out of her bag and looked at it for a moment. Leather the color of dark chocolate, cut to the rib line, the right lapel sporting a handful of pins including the pansexual pride flag. She did honestly consider herself pansexual… but she did still need to experiment, too. Kate stared at the pins. She gulped down a bold idea, steeling herself. On the bright side, at least Quinn had already broken the ice…

         Most of the girls had left the locker room by this point. Quinn herself had her bag slung over her shoulder and was headed out.

         “See ya around,” she waved as she passed Kate.

         Gulping, slinging the jacket on, and grabbing her bag, Kate started after Quinn. Her nerves were freezing over, but once she was in motion she couldn’t stop. She grabbed Quinn’s shoulder just as she exited out into the main athletics hallway.

         “Hey, um…”

         “Yeah? What’s up?” Quinn responded brightly, amazing Kate with her relaxedness.

         “Well, I really appreciate what you said. I… I needed to hear it. And you’re really cool, keeping things low-key.”

         “Yeah, uh, no problem, I mean-“

         “Do you want to get a drink with me?” Kate’s impulses pulled the trigger, for better or worse, before her anxiety could get in the way. Her heart stopped.

         “Weh- uh, uh… y-yeah. I guess so,” Quinn stammered, dumbstruck. Kate barely noticed her own amusement at the towering senior’s break in compsure, given the crushing tightness in her chest. Her heart began to pound - Quinn had actually said yes! She honestly hadn’t thought this far ahead.

         “We - uh, we could get smoothies or something from the student lounge… guess I technically shouldn’t get actual drinks with my captain right now,”

         Quinn giggled a bit. “Yeah, totally. It’s… uh…” she paused.

         Kate’s chest could barely expand for her to breathe.

         “…It’s on the way to my apartment.”

[highladyluck]

I've taken a bunch of self-reporting Autism Spectrum tests and I always come out borderline (like, just under whatever the threshhold is, or just under half of a list of items) but I'm really starting to wonder... (detailed thoughts under the cut).

I guess really the most practical thing to do about it is continue to lurk in autistic spaces and maybe see if their tips for alleviating masking stress/communicating with others are useful to me? Idk I just really felt like a space alien who does not know how to human at work this week, and it's starting to get to me. 

One of my autistic friends has said that the way I think makes sense to her, which means I must be non-neurotypical, because she doesn't get how neurotypicals think. It's possible that I'm just open-minded and empathetic towards others, and that reads as non-neurotypical to autistic people because they're used to hostility or confusion from neurotypical people. My therapist told me a story about a straight female friend of hers who kept getting hit on by wlw, and when she finally asked why she was pinging everyone's gaydar, someone explained that this straight person wasn't homophobic /at all/ and that was so rare in straight people, in their experience, that they'd assumed it meant the person was queer. So like. It could just be that. But this year I feel like I've accumulated a lot of little hints that maybe it's more than just the bare minimum of drinking my respect autists juice?

There seem to be a lot of triggers in common between 'what makes me anxious' and 'what triggers autistic burnout', as well as symptom overlap. I find descriptions of what happens when you stop masking (in terms of emotional/social consequences and anxiety about that), or what masking looks/feels like, uncomfortably relatable. I once got really excited talking about something I love with a stranger at a party, and they were really supportive and nice about it and in fact were like 'wow you're so genuine and interesting, I never have conversations like this with strangers' and on the way home and at home afterwards I felt so anxious about having someone see me unfiltered- and recognize that I was unfiltered, and point out that I wasn't following a normal social script- that I had anxiety nausea afterwards thinking about it. The experience was completely positive in the moment, and the feedback about it was totally positive, but being *seen* and *called out* like that really shook me afterwards in a way that I found very difficult to understand. But it sounds *a lot* like what happens if you're afraid someone's caught you being your real self when you are normally always masking.

Another thing that seems masking-related is that I'm really good at cover letters (and explaining how to write them to both my neurotypical and autistic friends) because I have developed a script for them and know what they are supposed to accomplish and why. I've had people tell me after an interview that I wasn't actually qualified for the job, but they brought me in because they liked my cover letter so much. Which like... what. Who does that? And friends who adopt my cover letter formula have gotten more interviews afterwards. I'm also suspiciously good at writing to a set structure and aping a set style, once I can see an example to imitate, which tells me that I'm pretty analytical and have a vested interest in mimicry.

I've had employers tell me that I picked up on the house writing style and content rules much quicker than other people in my role, and my creative hobbies tend to involve parodies and riffing on other people's ideas (filk music) or surrealist or part-to-whole juxtaposition (collage, mosaic). In both cases I'm kind of jamming existing structures and ideas together to make something new, that has direct and inescapable relations to what it came from, but is also internally coherent. But the fact that I need referents for both content and structure, and that exploring part-to-whole relationships is incredibly key to my creative experiences, suggests that on some level my creative practice is 'arranging things I like in an idiosyncratic, complex, and pleasing way', which also seems somewhat characteristically autistic?

I have also always felt like my friends 'rub off on me' and that I absorb their beliefs/mannerisms/skills etc. I feel like I can't control the fact that I'm porous at all, but I can control what I absorb insofar as I pick who I hang out with pretty carefully and with an eye to self-improvement. That could have other explanations than 'I'm conciously or unconciously imitating people who seem to have their shit together', but it seems like part of a pattern when I put it with all of the other things.

Also in my professional life the stuff I get told I need to work on and the stuff I'm good at seem to be autistic-coded things. I tend towards systems thinking (good and bad, I can grasp complex systems, but can't always turn it off and I feel like people call out that I always want to put stuff in context.) I need a lot of preliminary information about a task before I can do it, but I'm also pretty reluctant to get that preliminary information if it involves actually talking to someone else, especially someone I don't interact with regularly. I tend to assume I have the information I need about their motivation up front, and it's just the technical details that I might need to follow up on, when often it turns out I was misled about what they wanted. That's either because I wasn't aware of something about their context (and didn't think to ask), or because they used a technical term that is very meaningful and specific for me, so I assumed they knew what they were talking about, but it actually means something totally different to them and maybe wasn't the correct term for what they really wanted.

I also want to stick to past precedent/established routine/previously used patterns and formulas in a professional context so strongly that I've been chided for my lack of flexibility when new situations come up a couple of times at my current job, although in my super-chaotic toxic former workplace it was a huge asset, because it was my job to develop the standards and make people stick to them and not use 3 different formulas 3 different times to calculate the same metric. I have tendency to infodump on technical stuff that sometimes gets me in trouble, because I feel like I'm providing all of the info needed to explain and contextualize my decision, but it sometimes comes off as overexplaining, which can make you sound less confident/authoritative, or it can just confuse people because all they really need is your decision. It's especially bad in person or if I'm writing a response fast and don't have a chance to edit for that specific audience (or I misjudge what my audience is).

One thing that gives me pause on any kind of self-diagnosis (beside the fact that it seems you have to be traumatized to really fit any of the formal diagnostic criteria fully, which is horrifying and sad) is that I've never had much of the sensory stuff as far as I can tell, and most autistic people I know do tend to have unequivocal sensory neurodivergence. I do really like textures, tend to talk with my hands, and am usually unconsciously jiggling my legs when left to my own devices, and my anxiety results in nausea, but that's about it for sensory stuff.

[wetalkinboutbooks]

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron

Summary: Magic has a price—if you’re willing to pay.

Born into a family of powerful witchdoctors, Arrah yearns for magic of her own. But each year she fails to call forth her ancestral powers, while her ambitious mother watches with growing disapproval.

There’s only one thing Arrah hasn’t tried, a deadly last resort: trading years of her own life for scraps of magic. Until the Kingdom’s children begin to disappear, and Arrah is desperate to find the culprit.

She uncovers something worse. The long-imprisoned Demon King is stirring. And if he rises, his hunger for souls will bring the world to its knees… unless Arrah pays the price for the magic to stop him. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:  

 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️

Overall: Kingdom of Souls is full of worldbuilding and characters that draw you in, thought sometimes their actions want to make you rip you hair out. BUT! We really loved this book and are excited to see where this trilogy takes us! Oh also, we should mention there are a few trigger warnings that Rena Barron has listed on the goodreads. 

Spoiler-full review below!

The Good:

→ The Worldbuilding

Geena: So, one of the best things about reading this book was the amazing worldbuilding, which she based off of West African mythology. The kingdoms are complex, and the separation of the different people and their faiths was super easy to follow too. I’ve read so many books where they have some wildass worldbuilding that leaves you scratching your head but this author did a good job at making it easy to understand. Also, Rena Barron did such a good job at describing the magic system? When she introduced the witch doctors in the first few chapters I could just visualize how they were and it was like watching a movie in my head. Like I’m still thinking about that one witchdoctor and her tribe that came down on clouds….. Poetic cinema… 

Kae: OK, so! I really enjoyed reading the differences between the tribes and how they are distinguished from each other. Some people had their bodies covered in tattoos others were known for their tall and lean figure, light eyes, etc. it was very wonderfully written and I always knew who Rena was talking about when she was mentioning the characters or introducing new ones.  Sometimes others don’t do a very good job of separating characters by looks and they expect the reader to remember everything based off of personality, which is quite annoying. Rena did a wonderful job of giving all of the characters their own individuality so we wouldn’t have to struggle and figure out who was who even if they weren’t mentioned by name. The way she wrote the big city (which I cannot remember the name), was very well done and you could easily see the differences between the city and the tribal lands.  I also love the way she incorporated the religious ties to magic in this world and the origin story of how they got their magic. There was a war between the gods, and the God of gods gifted humans with his magic. There are even mentions of fallen angels technically. It was just really interesting altogether. 

Geena: Yesss, the origin story was also one of the coolest components of the book. Also, Rena Barron does this cool thing of interspersing chapters throughout the book that are from the perspectives of different gods and their opinions on whatever is going on in the book. I really enjoyed that even though the first time I read it I was lowkey confused.

→ Arrah

Kae: Arrah!! My sweet summer, very cursed child. Arrah is the daughter of two of the most powerful witch doctors in this world. Her mother, Arti,  comes from a tribe where she was known for being the next in line to be the chief and a high witch doctor. Her father, Oshhe; who is the son of the high priestess/witch doctor and his tribe, making him one of the highest as well. This lineage from which Arrah comes from, left many to have very high expectations for her and her magical abilities. Unfortunately for Arrah, no matter  how many magical rituals she went through, was not blessed with magic. She often beats herself up about it because she feels she has let her family down, and truthfully the only person she let down was her mother. Her mother is The high priestess, and I mean THE HIGH PRIESTESS The entire kingdom. So she often waves her daughter off and is not home most of the time anyway because she is fulfilling her duties at the temple. So our main character is very close with her father who is honestly everyone’s dream dad.  oshhe is the epitome of a perfect father. 

Geena: Reading about her relationship with her dad, I was like “it’s just not realistic.”

Kae: LMAO BUT HONESTLY THO!! So when the children start to go missing in the city people begin to worry. Arrah’s Self-proclaimed a little brother ends up going missing as well. This leads her to sell small pieces of her life in order to use magic for a short period of time and figure out who is stealing the children.

Geena: LMAO Kae’s “sweet summer, cursed child” is so accurate. All she wants to do is become a powerful witchdoctor so her mom will love her :(  Despite everyone around her saying that her magic (or lack of) doesn’t define her, Arrah lives in a constant state of anxiety where magic is on her mind. She isn’t the most perfect protagonist and I liked that about her, she made dumb decisions and recognized they were stupid… but did them anyways 💀 A big fucken mood… But then again a lot of what she does throughout the book is driven by her need to help others, like finding her self-proclaimed younger brother or selling more of her lifespan to find a way to free her father from her mother’s spell. Her personal relationships are a wreck too like this girl had a crush on Rudjek, the future royal vizier, it was very much a two way crush but the whole time Arrah was like “Idk does he :////” like u absolute dumbo… EVERY SIGN POINTED TO “YES”  AND SHE WAS STILL LIKE “I’m imagining things.”

→ Arrah’s Squad

Geena: Barron also wrote Arrah an amazing group of friends. Primarily, Sukar and Essnai, both her friends from the city who would travel to the tribal lands to visit their own tribes for the yearly magic ritual. Sukar was very much a himbo (like almost every guy in this book lmao) and Essnai was a wlw QUEEN who was the oNLY ONE WITH A STEADY RELATIONSHIP THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK. Barron really said lesbian rights by giving Essnai the most wholesome relationship. Sukar and Essnai didn't turn their backs on Arrah even after her family was banished from the kingdom for crimes that Arrah had nothing to do with, and even accompanied her when it was revealed that Arrah would have to die to set the world to its original state. Also…. Omg when Sukar, Essnai, and Rudjek found out that she gave some of her lifespan for magic they were literally that meme:

Arrah: So I did a thing

Them: What?

Arrah: Sold my life for 3 hours of magic

Them: 

Kae: LMAOOOOOOO BINCH 

Geena: I JUST LOVED HOW THEY WERE LIKE “U DUMB BITHC!!!!! I GUESS NOW WE ALL GOTTA HELP U DEAL WITH THIS” I loved their friendship so much :’) 

Kae: IT WAS REALISTIC AF. I’d also like to mention how everyone and her friend group was basically like “Did you and Rudjek finally kiss yet? No? Typical.” And they would tease Arrah and Rudjek CONSTANTLY. Arrah’s friends had her back through literally everything and were ready to die by her and Rudjek’s side. They were some real ride or die friends when it came down to it. THEY WERE WITH THE SHITS. 

Arrah and Rudjek: *standing near each other* 

The homies:

→ Arrah’s Dad

Kae: OK so we have Arrah’s father, Oshhe, who is honestly the kindest man that I have ever encountered. He is such a wonderful father to Arrah and does everything in his power to let her know that she is loved and that she does not need to possess magic in order to be loved. He is constantly showering her with the reassurance that she needs to have two accept who she is. Arrah is in love with the stories he tells her. He also allows her to hang out with Rudjek when they both know that Arti, Arrah’s mother, would forbid it. (Rudjeks father did some foul shit to Arti when they were young and she isn’t over it… which is understandable, considering he had her tortured.) sadly, Arti curses oshhe and he is under her spell. He tried to fight it, but his magic just isn’t as strong as hers. He is complicit in whatever Arti says while he is under her curse, but he is often sweating or staring off into the distance, because he is still trying to break free. He’s basically under my control, knows he’s under my control, but is stuck behind magical, mental bars watching everything go down well he can do nothing to stop it. It’s really fucked up.

Geena: Kae summed up Oshhe really well. We learn about how he met and married someone as unloving as Arti and it’s so sad. He’d always been in love with Arti from their time at the tribes, and he still loved her when she came to the kingdom and fell in love with the King. And he was the one there after Arti was freed from her torture, even though he knew that Arti would never love him back and that she wasn’t the same woman he’d fallen for. Also, when he tells Arrah something along the lines of that when she was born he knew she’d be the love of his life bc he loved his daughter so much it’s unREAL. He went to a dangerous forest and killed a mystical animal for her. And he would have killed the gods themselves if it had come to that. And like Kae mentioned he was under Arti’s mind control but was aware of the torture she was putting Arrah through, and when he finally gains back control at the VERY END… AND DIES RIGHT AFTER?????? BRO????? I WAS LIKE THE FUCK!!! HE DID NOT DESERVE THIS!!!!!

Kae: I WAS SILENTLY SCREAMING AT MY DESK 

Geena: GIRL RIGHT… IDK BUT HER DAD JUST WARMED MY HEART. HE DIDN’T DESERVE HIS DEATH… 

Kae: THAT SHIT HURTED. 

The Bad:

→ Arrah NOT CATCHING A BREAK  

Kae: So, I’m going to backtrack just a little bit. But when Arrah sells some of her so for magic, she does like this magic phantom walk and finds out that her mother is the child snatcher. Her mother discovers that Arrah knows this and curses her so she can never speak with ill intent against her mother. So whenever Arrah tries to get help or tell someone what’s going on she literally cannot talk. It’s pure agony for her. So her mother curses Oshhe, gets pregnant by a demon via possession of him, and is exiled from the country. So they take a boat and travel to this small town that is known for its unresting spirit activity. Time also doesn’t exist in this town so it’s very hard for her to keep track of minutes, days, months, etc. they get to like this hidden Temple where Arti gives birth to Efiya, the demon baby. Efiya grows rapidly. She is born, then she’s like 5 the next day, then she’s 10. Then she’s Arrah’s age, 16. Efiya is a SUPER powerful girl who has the power of actual Gods, and she is completely unstoppable. Arrah escapes, returns home to her friends, and they’re on a mission to try to stop Efiya. Rudjek dies, comes back, she and he ditch the homies because they don’t want the homies to get hurt. WELL!!!!!!!!!!!! Gotdamn EFIYA shape shifts to look like her sister, waits until Arrah leaves for a moment to collect herself after it gets a little HOT with Rudjek, and goes to take some herbs. OUR GIRL SAID I'M NOT GETTING PREGNANT. comes back and boom. She sees him having sex with her sister. She’s shooketh. And PISSED. And hurt. Then the homies find them, blah blah blah. And long story short, they find the temple of the Gods, she fights and Efiya and they  basically kill each other. BUT Arrah comes back and learns her and Rudjek can’t be together. BUT THEY KISS ANYWAY. THEY WERE LIKE FUCK IT. I'M HERE FOR A GOOD TIME NOT A LONG TIME. Oh, yeah… and Efiya killed her parents. That happened. And her grandmother. And all the elder witch doctors because she wanted to steal  their magic. 

Geena: Poor girl was just knocked around like a ping-pong ball. One tragedy to another 🤕 First, she can’t do magic for SHIT and her mom doesn’t love her because of that. Second, the guy she likes is her mom’s nemesis’ son. Third, every single person she cares about is taken from her one way or the other, from her adoptive lil bro to her dad. Like I thought the book couldn’t get any worse when she saw her dad be possessed, but then Rudjek dies? And when he comes back to life he ends up sleeping with her evil sister thinking it was Arrah. Right, we gotta mention… in an attempt to free the demon king Arrah’s mom has a half-demon half-god baby, aka Arrah’s sister 

Kae: SHE FUCKS A DEMON!!!!!

Geena: A DEMON IN HER HUSBAND’S BODY TOO… AND ARRAH WATCHES THIS HAPPEN IM SCREAM .. AT LEAST I THINK SHE DOES BC I HAD TO RE-READ THAT CHAPTER LIKE 2 TIMES

Kae: GIRL THAT SHIT WAS SO WILD WHAT THE  F U C K 

Geena: AND YEA…. TO TOP IT ALL OFF TURNS OUT ARRAH IS  THE REINCARNATION OF THE DEMON KING’S SOULMATE…. SO THERE’S THAT, NOT TO MENTION SHE AND RUDJEK ARE ILL-FATED BC TOUCHING EACH OTHER SAPS ARRAH’S MAGIC (which she acquires permanently after some wild rituals her grandma does before dying at Efiya’s hands). THE LIST OF EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG WITH ARRAH’S LIFE IS SO FUCKING LONG OH MY GOD I FORGOT HOW SHIT SHE HAD IT

The Ugly:  

→ Arti and Efiya

Geena:  The ugliest villains can be found in this book. We have Rudjek’s dad that had Arti tortured, which broke her mind and twisted her into an unloving and terrible person. Hearing Arti’s story pulled at your heartstrings, but did it justify her killing 12 underprivileged children to resurrect a demon with whom she’d have a baby with JUST so she could resurrect the demon king. In my opinion… no. Not even just that, but treating your own child like shit and basically ignoring she exists until the very end of the book where suddenly she feels regret for neglecting Arrah for 16 years. Overall, on a scale of 0-10 Arti is a -5 when it comes to the mom scale.  Also, Arti is a powerful witchdoctor, and she cant feign ignorance because I’m pretty sure she would’ve seen the future at one point and seen everything that goes down. The only good thing she did do was kill the man that tortured her and countless other women. I feel like I’m too harsh on her given what she’s gone through, but she essentially puts Arrah through the wringer by cursing her and forcing her to watch her dad lose his own body. I’M LIKE I DONT WANT PPL TO BE LIKE ‘UR JUS BEIN A BITCH, ARTI SUFFERED TOO’ LIKE yes she did suffer, but rather than taking action against those that put her through hell she chose to ruin the lives of innocents ju kno. 

Kae: YES!! Arti was on some bullshit and I get she got fucked up and the love of her life was against her. But like… don’t take that out on your daughter because you can’t use her to get back at your enemies. I think that’s exactly why she treated Arrah the way she did. Arti married Oshhe for his power in hopes to have a powerful child. When that didn’t happen, she was pissed and started planning for that damn demon baby. Her actions are all based on revenge and power and in the end, they kill everyone. Including Arrah, though she doesn’t stay dead for long. She literally is like “Nah, I got shit to do.” And the gods are like “Mmm ... we can’t let our sister be reincarnated into you again… soooo, no?” And Arrah is like “Too bad bitches!” And zooms back into her own body. 

And then there’s Efiya. Efiya is described as beautiful and looks much like their mother. She starts off as a sweet little girl who just likes being around her big sister. But once she learns human things, like playing and being a child, she gets interested in that, and begins to abuse her powers. 

Geena: I was kinda disappointed on how the Efiya storyline went because like Kae mentioned, she had started off as a sweet girl who loved Arrah. And I had thought Arrah would run away with Efiya and train her against Arti but bOY WAS I WRONG. Efiya is powerful and she knows it, she kills countless gods and absorbs their power, and when she kills Arrah’s grandma she tries to take her power too but for some reason it doesn’t take. Instead, Arrah ends up taking her grandma’s magic (along with every other powerful witch doctor). This annoyed the fuck out of Efiya, bc she’s supposed to more powerful than Arrah, prettier than Arrah, and just generally better at everything. So, Efiya is like ‘I can’t take your powers or see your future so I’ll fuck your man instead” …… very much 0-100. Near the end of the novel I still couldn’t tell, did Efiya really love Arti and Arrah? Because on the one hand it seemed like she hated the prospect of killing them, but on the other hand Efiya didn’t care about skewering Arti. She was a complex villain for sure, kinda in the same way Arti was. 

Kae:  OH. AND THE DEMON KING GAVE ARRAH SOME OF HER PAST LIFE MEMORIES BACK. So like, now a piece of Arrah feels torn because she loves everyone in her current life. But she was married to the Demon King in a past life and he is determined to have her love him again. And I feel like a very small piece of Arrah does. The Demon King wants her back so they can resurrect demons, kill the remaining Gods, and take over the world like they originally planned. SO. THERE’S  THAT. A big whammy for ya there. But yeah. Shits crazy. 

Geena:  KJDNFDS RIGHT THE WHOLE ‘MARRIED TO THE DEMON KING IN A PAST LIFE’ SCHTICK…. THE POTENTIAL FOR ANGST???? GOD I CAN’T WAIT. This is a love triangle I CAN get behind because it’s gonna be MESSY 

Kae: He also mentioned possibly trying to kill Rudjek. 

Geena: Oh yea oh man.... Wait... there is a meme for this 

Arrah seeing the Demon King and Rudjek throwing hands:

Conclusion

Kae: SO! In conclusion, we loved this book. The story was WILD from  Start to finish. Rena is such an amazing storyteller and her descriptions that were vivid without being overdone. You know how some others like to go on for 10 pages about the smell of the wind and the bark of a tree. But Ren does it right! My favourite part of the book has to be Arrah and Rudjek . being so awkward around each other and dodging the fact that they’re both in love with each other. It was really cute because neither of them wanted to ruin their friendship and I think that was very realistic. The friendships are also beautifully written as well. And the way Rena differentiates the cultures of the tribes from one another is amazing and I felt like I was there. 

Geena:  I agree to everything Kae said above, Barron does an amazing job in (like what we mentioned before) worldbuilding shit. AND YEA my favourite part was like when Sukar purposely hangs around Arrah to make Rudjek jealous JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SO FUNNY TO ME. But honest to god I’m so excited to see how it’ll go from here because it’s supposed to be a trilogy right, so there is SO MUCH that can happen and there are SO MANY paths this can take. 

[northernscruffycat]

Fandom: She-Ra! (Don’t worry about spoilers I spoiled myself already!) ...Ship: Mai/Ty Lee ...Character: Inko Midoriya, best mum ...Two fandoms: She-ra and Steven Universe! ...5 Characters: Catra, Zuko, Peridot, Jean Descole and Disney’s Stitch. (All the redemption characters!)

Thank you for giving me a lot of topics to write about! You’ve made my morning: She-Ra: (Disclaimer that I love this series so much, I just have a lot of mixed feelings in my opinions) Favorite character: SPOP has a great cast of characters who I love, but my fave has to be Scorpia. I was so endeared by her and rooted for her happiness the whole way through. Least Favorite character: Hesitant to post this, but I never... really cared for Catra that much. I can see why she’s an important character to a lot of folks and the wlw representation she brought is so important, but I didn’t really gel with her character personally. 5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Scorpia/Perfuma, Entrapta/Hordak (either or both), Seahawk/Mermista, Bow/Kyle and Catra/Glimmer Character I find most attractive: Scorpia haha Character I would marry: Scorpia again, she’s like the perfect wife. Character I would be best friends with: Kyle, because he needs some good friends who treat him nicely. The “Shut up, Meg” attitude that the rest of the cast had towards him made me kinda uncomfortable tbh, even though I know it was intended as a joke. a random thought: There’s so much potential for this series to carry on and I’d love to see an official comic or something pop up that expands the universe. An unpopular opinion: I actually thought they were hinting towards Bow/Kyle with that one scene back in s1 and was surprised to hear that Kyle hooked up with the lizard guy off-screen haha my canon OTP: Scorpia/Perfuma Non-canon OTP: Adora/Huntara (just for something I haven’t already listed) most badass character: Adora, my fave jock pairing I am not a fan of: I already posted about this in that Glimmer character thing recently, but Bow/Glimmer as a romo ship character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): I feel unfair answering this one, since I’m sure the writers were being restricted by what they could include in the show. But I guess it’s fair to say I’m not a fan of that Bow’s siblings thing that happened, if that counts. Since it’s something that wasn’t revealed until after the show wrapped up and could’ve been completely avoided if there had been more black writers on the team. favourite friendship: The main trio - Adora, Glimmer & Bow. I also got super invested in Catra & Scorpia, so I wish they’d had more of a resolution at the end, since they kinda built that up and then dropped it in the last season. character I want to adopt or be adopted by: Bow’s dads Mai/Ty Lee: when of if I started shipping it: It was sometime after watching the series when I went on deviantART and saw cute fan content of them. my thoughts: They’re a nice ship involving two characters who’d be supportive of each other and help each other heal. Which after all these characters have been through, is what I want for them. What makes me happy about them: Their dynamic is so darn cute! Just seeing these two together makes me feel glad. What makes me sad about them: I mean, they’re probably never gonna be canon. Even if Bryke keep being vague for all eternity about if Zuko is still with Mai, that sadly locks Mai off from being able to be with anyone else by proxy, since she always needs to be at least considered an option for Zuko. things done in fanfic that annoys me: I’ll have to confess that I’ve never read any fics for them. things I look for in fanfic: Same again. I love ATLA, but it’s not a series I’d seek out fic for. Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: I guess I’m not entirely opposed to the Mai/Zuko thing? Maybe? I’m not sure about Ty Lee tho, just someone who’d treat her well, I think. My happily ever after for them: They seek each other out for comfort after everything that’s gone now and just kinda realise they’ve been in love with each other all along. who is the big spoon/little spoon: Ty Lee is the big spoon and Mai is the little spoon. I hope there’s fan art of that. what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Training together, maybe? I’m so rusty on my ATLA knowledge that I need to brush up, so I can answer this better. Inko Midoriya: How I feel about this character: She is perhaps the greatest anime mum I’ve ever seen. I love her, I would die for her, I would marry her. All the people I ship romantically with this character: Mostly just All Might. I guess technically also Aizawa for the OT3, but I don’t think we’ve seen them interact yet. My non-romantic OTP for this character: Obviously I love how supportive she is of Deku, it’s part of one of my favourite moments in the whole show. My unpopular opinion about this character: I’m not familiar enough with the fandom to know what the unpopular opinions are. I hope that everyone likes her. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I just want her to be happy knowing that her son is safe. my het ship: All Might/Inko my fem/slash ship: I don’t really have one, since we haven’t seen her interact with any other milfs my OTP: All Might/Inko my OT3: All Might/Inko/Aizawa (also, Aizawa bottoms) a head cannon fact: It is a fact that I blew her a kiss and wished her a good day. She-Ra & SU crossover ship: Hmm... how about Pearl x Huntara? I mean, Pearl seems to have a type when it comes to women and Huntara fits into that type. 5 Redemption Arc Characters rankings: 1. Peridot 2. Stitch 3. Zuko 4. Catra 5. Descole

[stilwaterskeeter]

Lin/Playa Headcanons

This has been a top priority post since I made this blog believe it or not. This will also be specifically a female Playa/Boss character because I personally headcanon Lin as a lesbian

This post also goes out to @syndicateau because wlw Lin rights

Lin had pretty low expectations of The Playa when they first met, she shared Johnny’s opinion of the new girl. Doesn’t look like much and a little bummed out she got stuck babysitting the new girl instead of working with a more experienced Saint

That being said, Lin was however relieved that the new kid was a girl. There’s not many in the Saints at the time and Lin was getting real sick of some of these asshole dudes and their gross comments so The Playa is a breath of fresh air, even though they’re pretty quiet most of the time

Lin was pretty quickly impressed with The Playa. She was efficient, skilled, and followed Lin’s plans, never tried to outshine her or do her own thing because she thinks her plan is better than Lin’s or some crap

And even when The Playa went off the plan, it actually helped the plan instead of just derailing it and putting them back at square one

Not to mention she was also pretty cute and Lin certainly wasn’t going to complain about working with someone easy on the eyes

Lin was also one of the first people in the Saints to hear The Playa talk

She made some witty comment when they were scoping out Donnie’s garage and it took Lin a moment to process it was The Playa who said something next to her

Lin tried to coax more out of the girl be joking how she didn’t know she could even talk but she’s met with more silence and a shrug

She doesn’t have an explanation for replaying that dumb joke The Playa made in her head and ruining her focus after that

It wasn’t even that funny, what the hell

After that, Lin tries to get The Playa to talk more in various different ways. She says it’s just to prove she’s not crazy and that the girl definitely can talk, but in actuality she just liked their voice and wants to hear it more. And the fact that she could in theory have Actual Conversations with her and make excuses to talk to her more was a Big plus for Lin

Her “plans” to get The Playa to talk consist of just leaving extended pauses between certain sentences when she’s talking about her plans to leave her a chance to speak up. And also of directly asking her random questions when they’re hanging out that aren’t as simple as yes or no

The questions plan works a few times. Asking why she’s in the Saints or trying to ask anything about her past really will usually coax a comment about how it’s “not worth the time” or how it’s “in the past so what does it matter?”

The Playa also starts chiming in with more witty comments as time goes on, all of them about as funny as a piece of wet cardboard usually but Lin laughs anyways

She doesn’t have an excuse for that and Johnny makes fun of her for it relentlessly because “Damn, Lin. I didn’t know you had such a shitty sense of humor.” And other wise comments

Speaking of Johnny: He and Aisha both act as (albeit shitty) wingmen for Lin and The Playa because they know Damn Well what’s going on between them even if neither Lin or The Playa will admit it

Johnny gets a rise out of The Playa by always making random comments about how “Hey, you seen Lin today? She’s lookin’ pretty hot—“ and then continues to describe Lin in literally just whatever clothes he thinks of first because he really doesn’t pay attention to Lin like that ever but The Playa does

She always corrects him with an added comment about how weird it is that he was looking because she’s kind of gullible and she doesn’t catch on that he’s just messing with her

Aisha and Johnny both repeatedly try asking Lin about The Playa like “The Playa’s kind of attractive, and you work with her a lot, you thinkin’ about making any moves?”

Lin always responds with the same eyeroll and dodging the question. “I don’t really have the time, Eesh, I’m busy” or “You work with her a lot too, Johnny, you sure you don’t wanna try anything?”

That’s not a no, Lin

Lin starts taking The Playa to Freckle Bitch’s and to street races she’s competing in when she doesn’t need to be hiding or undercover from Rollerz

She says it’s just because she wants to talk business with her or that she wants The Playa there “just in case any Rollerz show up to ruin the fun”

But we all know she just wants excuses to spend time with her and maybe show off a little

Girls totally dig street racers right?

She also starts taking the time to help The Playa learn how to race better and offers to help her fix up her cars for racing

Lin’s actually pretty private about her work when she’s working on her voxel, but she never minds The Playa hanging around when she’s busy with the car

It’s another chance to show off for her of course she’s totally okay with The Playa’s presence

The Playa literally couldn’t understand less about what the fuck Lin is saying when she’s talking technical about all the guts of mechanic work but she listens intently nonetheless

If Lin cares about it then shit so does she

Not to mention Lin’s kind of hot when she’s working on the car and gets all passionate and into it

The Playa is reasonably a little touchy and jealous about Lin stringing Donnie along even for the mission

Lin actually seems to enjoy the time she spends with Donnie and starts mentioning unrelated pieces of information from their time like shitty jokes Donnie made or Donnie being a klutz

The Playa is starting to think she had Lin pegged all wrong and misunderstood all the signals because it’s starting to look like Lin is actually into Donnie and even if she had a chance before she probably missed it now

Johnny and Aisha think that’s absolutely ridiculous because They Know Lin doesn’t swing that way but they aren’t about to be the assholes who out her, even though Johnny comes close one time when The Playa is trying his patience with all this “woe is me” crap

When Mr.Sharp has Lin in the pool hall, it takes him a painstaking anount of time to get Lin to comply and lure The Playa there

She was not about to get her stuck in this situation with her. It’s her problem and whether she’d ever admit it out loud or not, she doesn’t want her to get hurt. Especially not because of her own mistake

Eventually she only complies because she thinks that if anyone could end this with Sharp dead and neither of them severely injured, it’s The Playa

Jokes on her, I guess, huh?

Oh Boy here’s where it gets fun. I’m gonna split the rest into 2 different versions. One where Lin lives and one where she dies.

Lin Dies

The Playa doesn’t even think for a second that Lin needs her to get her out of the water

Lin’s too fucking badass, she doesn’t need help, she can handle herself

The Playa was too blindsighted by her anger at Donnie and Sharp to think twice about it. She gets out of the water and fucking bolts for the first car she can grab and races off because she’s going to fucking kill Sharp and she’s really going to teach Donnie a fucking lesson for betraying Lin’s trust like that

Lin loved him and he just left her and The Playa to fucking drown? Oh, he’s going to fuckin’ get it

She doesn’t find out until the next day that Lin drowned...she drowned because she didn’t help her

She was so caught up in killing Sharp and how Donnie betrayed Lin that she didn’t think for a second that she was ultimately the one who put the last nail in Lin’s coffin. She is the one who betrayed Lin the worst

Johnny and Eesh do their beat to keep The Playa’s spirits up but Johnny is Johnny and isn’t much comfort or help and she’s not the most comfortable with confiding in Aisha at the time

They do take her to tag along on some of their smaller dates though and Johnny starts putting time into trying to find where Donnie ran off to because “revenge is the best medicine”

Donnie and The Boss really get into it in SR2 when she finds him throwing the flowers into Lin’s watery grave

Donnie’s really fucking confused at first when she’s yelling at him for betraying Lin’s trust and love like he did. He manages to get in a few words that makes The Boss pause for a moment because Donnie definitely just established that he thought Lin and her were together

“You what? What the fuck made you think that?”

“I-I don’t know! She really liked you a-and I just kind of assumed—“

The Boss originally was just interested in revenge but now she’s going to get Donnie to rig some Brotherhood trucks so she isn’t just wasting time while she interrogates him about Lin

Whomp whomp whomp, turns out he and Lin talked about cars, her, and Joseph and there was never anything romantic there

“I can’t believe you thought me and Lin— We were both gay, what the hell, man. I thought you knew about her.”

The Boss also decides then and there that she’s not done with Donnie yet though, she wants him to hurt like she hurt for so long

Lin Lives

When Lin wakes up in a fucking ambulance she’s really fucking confused because she should be dead

She used what breath she had left to get The Playa out, what the fuck is she doing alive and on her way to the hospital?

Lin absolutely cannot believe for a second that The Playa wasted precious time to save her. She didn’t think they cared about others that much, let alone her

She hates being cooped up in the hospital and hates Julius’ babysitters waiting with her while the Rollerz are still around, but honestly she doesn’t mind when The Playa shows up between missions to tell her in detail how she killed Sharp and later Joseph

And after the Rollerz are out, while The Playa still doesn’t have a ton of free time, she still visits as much as she can just to talk

She talks a lot now

Jokes about how much money she’s being forced to dosh out on mechanics while Lin is out of commision

Talks about that one time Mr.Wong hired her to kill a hot dog mascot and about how she fucked up bad enough that it took her $500 at Forgive & Forget to get the cops off of her ass

Tells Lin about how Johnny is ever the classy guy and got his knee blown out with a shotgun from Big Tony because he couldn’t help from making a sex joke about Tanya and how Dex and Troy are constantly at each others’ throats with The Carnales

It’s like the new girl just doesn’t shut up ever now

And funny enough, Lin finds that she really doesn’t mind. She really likes talking to this girl

Oh no, Johnny was right

Lin thinks for a while about date ideas she can ask The Playa on after she gets discharged but they all sound annoying, lame, and way too cushy for her tastes

Ultimately she invites The Playa to her place because “Fuck it, after all the shit we’ve done I don’t care. I almost died and I’m not about to miss my chance again because I can’t think of something like a date idea.”

The Playa is very confused at all the increasingly obvious passes Lin is making towards her when they’re at her crib because they’re still pretty sure she was into Donnie and not her

Lin has the patience of a rock and gets frustrated and gives up within the first hour or two, “How are you this stupid?! How am I still attracted to you?! I’m trying to get into your fucking pants, do you wanna fuck or not?”

In SR2, it turns out Lin had the same idea as The Boss and they ran into each other at the courthouse both trying to break Johnny out.

They work as well together as they always have, it’s like almost no time has passed at all

“You get Johnny, babe. I’ll meet you two outside. Same old voxel but it’s purple because fuck the Rollerz.”

“Meet us up front, no point in going the long way if they already know we’re here.”

“And don’t get blown up again, okay?”

“Fuck, I missed you.”

[kinkymagnus]

🔥 side ships in shadowhunters or like, non malec ships

ldkfgj okay uh im assuming you mean like. i’m just gonna go with some random canon non-malec ships. they’re not all side ships technically but we all know malec is the main ship lmao

also i’m not doing literally every ship just ones i have sort of strong unpopular opinions on

(also i’m censoring the ships i don’t like so it doesn’t show up in their tag!)

i hate r*yhill sorry not sorry

seriously lorenzo had zero redemption and while i am more than okay with the idea of him getting a redemption arc he DIDN’T they just went “he’s queer now and he isn’t completely evil so totally likeable :)” 

also i don’t like underhill oops

h*line bored me

i have nothing against them and i love that there’s a canon wlw ship

but they just…. idek i just didn’t really care about them. i find a lot of the non-canon wlw ships a lot more interesting and to have more chemistry?

cl*ce is not good and i liked exactly like one scene with them. not sure how unpopular that is but

i hate s*zzy like look. technically i’m not really against the idea of them being together but like 

one: they would be better with other people though

two: the way they get together is garbage on so many levels, such as how they vilified maia for no reason 

three: putting “recovering vampire venom addict” with a vampire is a bad idea

four: they only did it to save the book fans, which… why

saia was gorgeous and beautiful tbh i loved it. unpopular(?) opinion they shouldn’t have broken up

isabeliorn was good and i’ll fight everyone on that. i think it had a lot of potential. 

raphael/izzy could work if it had happened literally any way then how it did

well not ANY but you know what i mean. it could have been an okay ship but they just did it in like, the WORST way then framed it as romantic

luke/jocelyn was boring and i didn’t care about it at all. 

jocelyn was kind of terrible a little bit as well so?

luke/maryse was like. i liked it alright. but i didn’t love it. it was sweet, i guess, but i wasn’t crazy for it.

jace/maia was like. on one hand i kind of liked it for some reason? but on the other hand i really hate jace and she deserves better lol

simon/clary wasn’t as bad as people said. 

it wasn’t amazing because clary seemed to sort of be like, doing it cos she needed the support and getting over certain other people, but like. honestly they were kind of cute. not endgame material probably, but like, i didn’t mind it. 

ollie/sam. look. i didn’t LOVE them. but i kinda liked the whole “mundane friend of one of the cast stumbles on shadow world” thing 

and it was cool they added a wlw couple while they were at it

[vrronica-sawyer]

Like the whole “can bisexual women reclaim the d slur” discourse!!!! PLEASE tell me. explain to me. Where is your mindset coming from. THe ONLY argument i’ve heard is “technically, originally, the d slur was created to mean lesbian”. Guess what buddy?? Technically, originally, the only WLW term that existed was Lesbian. We didn't come up with “bisexual” for like eons. And then “pansexual” even later. We were all just fucking lesbians. The creation of terms like “butch” and “femme” predate the separation of wlw into “lesbian” “bi” and “pan”. The d slur can LITERALLY be traced back to when there were fucking pirates. It was coined from something someone said about crossdressing female pirates.  but even if that wasn’t the case, if you think the only thing that matters in reclaiming a slur is the technical dictionary definition, you’re reclaiming that slur for the wrong reasons. Because bigots don’t look up dictionary definitions for the terms they’re about to throw at you. I was still called a dyke when I kissed a girl for the first time and word spread around my entire middle school. I was still called a dyke by the girls who later that year with that information lied to my gym teacher and said me and my lesbian friend were taking pictures of them changing in the locker room because they didnt as they told us “want dykes watching them change”. My sophomore year after explaining to a classmate what bisexuality was he still told me I’d “grow out of that dyke shit once I met the right dude.” Still heard it shouted across the street while I was holding hands with my (pansexual) girlfriend on our walk home from the library. Still had it whispered by two boys behind me in my film class in college this year after I shot them a dirty look for calling an actor they didn’t like the f slur.  It has affected me all my life as a bisexual woman. I still flinch when I hear it, I still need to block the tag because just reading the word gives me anxiety. So what about that is any different than a lesbian. The dictionary definition? You’re gonna look me in the eye and tell me that’s what matters most? Because if that’s the case then you clearly don’t understand the reason these words are being reclaimed. 

[musingmycelium]

ship-a-thon

thanks for the tag @allisondraste <3

and i’ll tag @goblin-deity @dirthara-mama ​ @my-da-phase ​ @mocha-writes ​ and @sulevinblade ​ <3 no obligations of course <3

1. First ship you ever wrote fic for:

uuuuUUUHH fanfic would be dorian x bull x lavellan because i have a massive soft spot for polyships and i never ever ever get to see content for them in canon spheres and rareeeeeeeeely in fanon circles so i decided to make my own

2. Ship you write the most now

zevran x ellanis tabris

by like, a lot. ellanis has absolutely dominated my muse energies for a while now and i love him so much so most of my time is writing about him and zevran

3. Ship you read the most now:

i wish i had more time to read! gaaaah! with grad school maniacally stealing all but a handful of my spoons i generally have to choose between reading and writing and generally choose to write. BUUUUT i am reading (slowly, so slowly oh my god) @trvelyans amazing hawke x quizzy fic, fire on fire,  @veridium-bye ‘s superb cassandra x f!quizzy fic, fire in her mouth, and @dalish-ish ‘s beautiful lysette x adan fic, see fire and go towards light all of which i cannot reccomend enough

4. Newest ship:

anders x surana

listen, listen. i have no excuse noure just kinda sprung into being and drop kicked me in the head hollering about mage rights. i didn’t mean for them to end up with anders, originally they were going to be a morriganmancer, but getting to know them and exploring their backstory i found out they’re in love with anders and boy howdy its been a wild ride

5. Rare ship you wanna read more of:

i need more awakening ships in my life -non hawke andermancing, nathaniel howe ships, VELANNA X SIGRUN LIKE HELLO?! i love love love love the awakening crew and anything i can find with them in it has me absolutely catatonic with pleasure

6. Your taboo ship:

uuuUUUH one that i ship or one that i find taboo? i guess a ‘taboo’ ship i think could work if done with utmost care is fenris x anders but honestly the way fandom takes both of their characters and twists them i don’t think i have ever nor will ever see it done the way it needs to be handled in order for it to be a) not fetishistic b) not abusive and c) healthy/growing/loving

a ship i find ‘taboo’ that many others ship [and that can be done well if handled well but it just doesn’t sit too well with me] is any templar/mage ship [especially templar/mage elf looking at you cullavellan] just because there are inherent power imbalances involved and most of the time they’re either overlooked or portrayed as nothing and that unsettles me

7. They never met in canon ship:

HMMM i guess technically anders x surana? noure doesn’t have the, uh, typical origins storyline so their canon is batshit and even if they would have met in awakening if ellanis hadn’t been the warden they still didn’t meet canonically in the circle technically

8. Your unexpected ship:

oh definitely anders x noure -like i said noure took their creation and ran and i’ve been playing catch up ever since

9. The ship you always forget to give love to:

ALL OF MY DA2 SHIPS HOLY FUCK

wren and galahad are so forgotten in my writing hachi machi. i love them and their stories but woof i always seem to put them on the backburner. galahad and fenris have a fuckin sweet almost romance until they gt their shit together and commit and grow and wren is a fucking trainwreck of a lesbian and her relationship with merrill and isabela is something i want to explore in depth but don’t have the spoons to do at the moment

10. Ship your OC with a canon character (if applicable):

literally all of them lads, literally all of them

11. Ship you’re embarrassed to ship:

well. since allison mentioned it in hers i guess the single most embarrasing thing i’ve evr posted and unironically enjoyed to write and partake in an evening of endulging was a sosie [solas x josephine and no you read that right] piece called wicked grace -i’ve even thought about continuing it because it actually had some interesting dynamics and i’m lost in the sauce of appreciating good seduction romance juice

12. Your most romantic ship:

i thought this was going to be an easy answer of ellanis x zevran but honestly? my lavellans are all so romantic? idrilla and solas are all about soft romance, da’ean and bull and dorian show their affections in little things that add up, and linayel romances cass who is the single most romantic character in dai so like, the boy knows what’s up catch him reading her poetry or kissing her forehead or holding her hand 24/7 just because he can

13. Your sexiest ship:

oh fuck probably ellanis x zevran because they have an electric connection and, after they admit it, a strong caring relationship.

14. Your most tragic ship:

i see your solavllan and raise you suranders -idrilla and solas at least have end goals and aspirations and big grand arcs. noure and anders get ash and brands and shattered souls

15. A ship you want more content for:

hoooOOOOOO boy i don’t know i’m starved for like all content but if i had to pick probably more f/f content because my wlw ass is desperate to see other women and feminine-aligned people falling in love and having happy endings

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Whales Aren’t Real, Ch2

Genre: sci-fi, wlw, series

Words: 5.5k

Summary: An Earth Restitution Team goes diving into the ocean to look for what remains of ocean life

The young RT member finds one of the few humans who adapted to the destruction of the planet, she asks her if whales are real or not.

Lesbian soft-apocalyptica.

Support the work:

Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress  

Chapters: One, Two (REWRITE!)

tw: for freaky fish and danger

Chapter Two: The Depths

“Do you think she eats kelp?” Remy kicks her feet back and forth, barely scuffing the floor each time as she swings them.

Kel glances at her flatly, “I don’t know.” He looks ready to put his head on the table and fall into a coma.

They sit in a large dark room surrounded by windows the size of trees to their left and plain plastic grey walls on the other side. The sky is black and almost starless beside them. “I mean, not kelp-kelp, but something like that, algae? There’s a lot of algae,” she holds five cards loosely in her hand and says.

“There is a lot of algae,” A distant, watery voice repeats, as if confirming some universal truth. The doctor reshuffles her cards as she stares off into nothing. “So much.”

Dr. Agatha was a petite woman with soft grey curls and deep wrinkles forming delicately around her mouth and eyes. She wore floral patterns that looked better suited to curtains and always had the air of someone lost at the grocery store.

She is their head scientist presently.

“Do you think she found her clothes at like, a Deadciv, can nylon last that long? It looked like nylon,” Remy says with a curious look on her face, “can you sew nylon?” Shang gives a disgruntled sigh and turns to her, “are you going to fold or not Remy?” Remy drags her eyes back to her cards, “oh, uh, nah, three chips in.” The table eyes each other apprehensively, “three?” She nods quickly, “you can all fold of course. I’m happy to just take home the pot now.” Shang rolls her eyes, “okay, she’s definitely bluffing.” Shang pushes his chips forward, “all in.” He gives her a victorious grin, as if it was already over.

Shang was a tall boy with jet-black hair and a mouth that quirked upward lightly whenever he spoke, he was technically the youngest crew here, but he didn’t show it. His clothes were always a sharp black and his eyes followed people’s faces like he was memorizing indiscernible mountains there.

Remy pushes the rest of her chips in too, “Do you think I could ask her about her shiny scale-freckles, is that rude?”

“Remy, I swear,” Shang looks like he might pop a vein.

Kel gives a smooth weary smile, “why don’t you go talk to her?” Remy shrugs, “it doesn’t exactly help that I’m still on probation.” Dr. Agatha chuckles, “your lab work is very helpful though.” “If only it wasn’t so boring,” she mumbles at the ceiling, “do you think she would ever talk me again?” “Can we stop talking about your fish-fiance? We aren’t even supposed to chit-chat with them,” Shang sits up straight and pushes his cards forward, “and I’m calling.” Remy sticks her tongue out at him, “fish-friend, better than a commander-crush.” “Shut up,” Shang almost growls.

“Anybody with a rank and suddenly it’s kiss-kiss, what can I get you?” She teases lightly, Shang turns away. “Five in a row crunchers!” Shang threw his hand down for the table for all to see. “A straight!” Kel frowns deeply and shows his three cards, “three fives.” “Boo,” Remy says as she bounces in her chair, she places her cards down, “four of a kind honey!” She whoops and threw her four tens down with a smack.

Shang pulls at his hair, “oh come on.” “Can’t take down the master,” Remy winks and starts doing her victory dance.

Dr. Agatha looks between all of them, a mystified look reflected in her round owl-eyes, she places her cards down one by one. Remy freezes mid booty-shake.

“Ah,” she whines.

Dr. Agatha nods, “deuces I think.” Remy hangs her head, “ah, come on.” She huffs and sits back down, “you were barely playing.” Remy pouts over her shoulder and Kel chuckles.

“I guess that’s a win,” the doctor pulls the chips towards herself and looks like she accidently walked into a studio and won a free car she didn’t know how to drive.

Kel starts collecting the cards again, “next round?” They all nod hesitantly, it was getting late, but their ‘Poker Crew’ was founded on the fact none of them were great sleepers.

Kel turns to Dr. Agatha, “though,” he hums deeply for a moment and pauses to study her, “you seem a little distracted doctor, anything wrong Aggie?” Remy cocks her head to the side curiously, she hadn’t actually noticed anything different about the doctor’s normal bird-trapped-in-a-warehouse behavior.

Dr. Agatha looks up and purses her lips, a dent forming in her brow.

“Well, first that nickname is definitely wrong,” she says astutely and adjusts her glasses, the table laughs softly and Dr. Agatha drums her fingers on the table. “But… well, it’s nothing much.” Shang puts his palms on the table forcefully, “what is it? I remember you didn’t even freak out when the lab was on fire last week.” “Oh, that was nothing.” Remy and Shang share a look.

Remy clears her throat, “is it the water filtration system? Jennison has been bugging the mechanics about it all month.” Dr. Agatha shakes her head, “no, I fixed that problem, any mico-toxins will now be thoroughly removed.” Shang blinks slowly, “were we drinking micro-toxins before?” “Don’t think about it too hard,” Remy mutters back.

Kel focuses on Dr. Agatha completely, his sunken eyes almost knife-sharp.

“What is it?” Kel asks slowly, “is it for the projects?”

Shang gulps, “is it the Planetsiders? I knew we needed to keep better track of their movements, I saw those blinking dots come close to The Observatory.” “It’s not that,” Dr. Agatha says loosely and Remy tries to catch her eye, try to discern something. Dr. Agatha frowns, “I’m missing vials of plant samples.” “Oh,” the whole table exhales and slumps down a little bit. Remy reaches for her cards. “Maybe check the last place you saw them?” She offers weakly. Dr. Agatha shakes her head, “they are The Shallows, near sector five. The trekker forgot to bring them back.” “Oh?” She had Remy’s interest again.

“Was it Steve?” Shang asks quickly, “it’s always freaking Steve.” “Hush,” Remy puts a hand in his face and Shang tries to snap at it.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Agatha says slowly, “they said there was some water bug anomaly I should see. I thought it would be quite interesting.” “Right, water bugs,” Remy sighs and looks at her two cards. A two and a four, nothing good. “Hit me.” She reaches for another card.

Kel was still watching quietly, “and then what?” He asks in a soft voice and Remy raises her eyebrows. Kel was always the observant one. There was something else.

Dr. Agatha takes a long second to respond.

She doesn’t so much as look up, but instead find the red angry scar marks on her hands very interesting. She plucks at the burn tissue and speaks into them, “when I mentioned it to Coronel Jennison… he said there was no reason to go fetch them.”

Kel’s eyes go a little wider and Remy senses Shang tense beside her, lowering his cards so he can look between them all. A stressed hush covers the table.

“What?” Remy finally asks and they all seem to be focused elsewhere, lost in their own thoughts. “Why should it matter if Jennison doesn’t want some vials back?” Dr. Agatha rearranges the cards in her hand again, “the Council… isn’t very happy with our results right now.” “Oh,” Remy blinks. “Oh, right.” Her stomach drops a little bit and she looks back at her cards, “Right. I fold.” She puts them back down.

Shang makes a face, “Already?” She just nods, “I better make this my last game.”  She snaps her fingers, trying to get the attention of the large lump snoozing in the corner near the dark windows. “Come here Delaware,” she calls softly, “let’s get back to my room before the Chiv’s spot you.” Delaware turns over, his large paws sticking up in the air before he pulls himself up and comes trotting over on his big Basset Hound feet, waiting patiently for Remy to rub his ears.

“You’re… turning in early?” Shang comments with a slight annoyed twitch to his eyebrow.

Remy stands up straight and turns to her compatriots, “yep,” she gives a little salute, “I’ll need all the sleep I can get if I’m going to get up early to go get Dr. Agatha’s samples tomorrow.” “Uh,” Shang squinted his eyes at her, “aren’t you on probation?” “Just from official missions!” She sings and Kel shakes his head at her.

“Remy,” he says in a warning tone.

“Don’t worry,” she turns before they can try and talk her out of it, “I’ll take the ship out and be back before Jennison can even get his slippers on.” She waves, “cadets get visiting passes to topside,” she shrugs, “I’ll just use mine now.” They all are still eyeing her, but Dr. Agatha hums deeply, “if you have time, I could use some more gray algae samples as well.” “Can do!” She started to run off with her dog at her heels, Kel is mumbling something about not being paid enough to watch kids and something about reckless abandon.

But at least she knew none of them would turn her in. She gets ready to sneak out in the morning.

-----------------

Remy rubs the crusty gook of sleep out of her eyes and yawns widely, her limbs are rocks attached to her body and her eyelids tug back down. Five hours was not enough. But the train would have to leave the station whether she was well-rested or not. She wipes blurrily at her eyes again and teeters down the second bay corridor.

She turns the corner and her mood instantly drops as she sees a figure standing in front of the bathrooms, Remy internally groans.

“Tara,” she says bitterly and tries to shuffle forward with a nod, “morning.”

Tara was the other cadet on the mission, a certified pilot and trekker that made most everything her business. She was at least a head taller than Remy and had fluffy orange hair that tied back in a ponytail at her back.

Her expression is a remote mask that reminds Remy more of a cold stone wall that actively tried to crash into visitors. Tara doesn’t exactly look at her as she approaches.

Remy tries to slip past the stalk-still girl and make her way into the lavatory, unfortunately for her, Tara had other plans. The other cadet steps in her way.

“Yes,” she says in her flat tone, a smarmy smile filling her face, “morning to you too.”

Remy’s shoulders fall, “isn’t it a little early for you to be Medusa-ing the bathroom?” She makes a face, “some of us need to pee.” Tara shakes her head, “waking up at dawn for once are we?” Tara says slowly and her gaze seems to smack Remy in the face as she examines her.

Remy just nods stiffly, “out for a morning stroll.” She says cautiously and Tara rolls her eyes.

“You can’t just… go on a trekking mission by yourself,” Tara says hotly and crosses her arms over her chest, “it’s ridiculous.” “Were you spying on the monitors again?” Remy puts her hands on her hips, “So uncool.” Tara wags a finger in the air, “it’s against regulation to open the hanger without permission.” Remy scrunches her face up, “I do have hanger permission,” she tries to side step her, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to piss- which I also have regulation permission for.” Tara was being extra difficult this morning and thrusts her arm out to block Remy’s path, “it’s not like it matters you know.” Remy sniffs loudly, “Dr. Agatha needs the samples.” Tara’s eyes go cool and remote, “you really stuff that much cotton in your ears? It. Won’t. Matter. The Council has already made up their mind.” Remy clenches her fists and finally ducks under Tara’s arm, managing to open the lavatory door and turn toward her, “stuff it Tara. Some of us are going to actually do our jobs.” “I’m telling Jennison about this!” She sings loudly and Remy ignores her.

“You do that.”

Remy’s blood was boiling by the time she furiously started to brush her teeth, the poor enamel probably scrubbed clean off as she rapidly got ready for the day. “Doesn’t matter,” she mutters and gargles some water, “already over.” She angrily spit and imagines Tara’s face when she finally meets the whales. That would shut her up, hopefully sooner rather than later.

--------------------------

Remy gives Kel the thumbs up as he enters the hanger control room, he normally wouldn’t go to all this trouble- he liked his sleep and also liked to be in the Observatory’s good graces. Remy has a feeling he’s getting ancy too though.

She bounces around the hanger, picking between different models: the sleek 144-J with it’s speed and agility, the military grade bomber I-22 with it’s fierce density, or even the long-haul ship, Hv-88. The ship for napping in when you didn’t want to be found.

Eventually she just settles on the faithful Wb-77 as Kel bangs on the glass to tell her to hurry up. She jumps into the cockpit and gives him another wild grin as she secures her helmet.

He just presses the gate button and they both watch the thick doors below glide open with an impressive gust of air. Remy holds her breath, she always held her breath at those moments- the moment between falling and flying.

The engine hums and Remy’s fingers dance over the controls, Kel yells something nonsensical at her and she just waves. The horizon calls her as she guns her thrusters into the pale blue skies and takes off.

She whoops into the rising sun, there was nothing else like this.

Remy is still grinning throughout her twenty minute flight to The Shallows, it was a very pleasant day after all and most of the Observatory wasn’t even awake yet. The weather remains a lovely blue when she arrives at the the sandy banks of sandbars.

The samples had luckily been left in a secure box floating next to one of the many metal poles that stuck out.

Remy collects it quickly and surveys the surrounding area, it was as empty as a blank page, not even a Planetsider ship for miles. And for once that was a bad thing.

Remy takes a deep breath, she knew what she needed to do.

She streaks off across the deeper ocean, scanning and raking the waters with her eyes for any signs. The best sign would be a giant shadow underneath the waves, but she would take anything at this point.

Remy’s nerves are almost fried when she spots it, her entire body relaxing as she sees another living being- and just the one she wanted to see too.

She maneuvers a turn near the Deadciv building, gliding carefully around the area- right where she had met the girl before, Remy’s heart leaps. This had to be her sign.

She gently lands the plane a little ways from the ruins and covers herself in protective jelly from head to foot, she had brought her swimming gear just in case. It feels tingly and a little heavy as the adhesive drys.

Remy quickly finishes and makes her way over to the tops of the tall decaying buildings and starts waving furiously, it’s only a little disappointing when she sees no one there.

“Dang it,” she swivels around in all directions, looking left and right for any signs of life. She is cursing and splashing in the water when she turns and faces a sharp spear pointed in her face.

“Are you following me?” The girl, Callisto, had found her after all.

Remy’s eyes light up, “I knew I would find you again!”

Callisto’s lips curl back, “What do you want? I don’t need stalkers.” Remy frowns slowly, “not stalking! Just… finding. Again.” Callisto lowers her spear slowly, eyes still shifty and narrowed, “I was hoping you had a little more common sense than that.” Remy tries to give a winning smile, “me?” She chuckles, “never.” Callisto’s face seems to soften, “I haven’t seen your sea monster or anything if that’s what you’re looking for. I told you before, there isn’t anything here.” Remy snorts, she adjusts her helmet, “it’s a bit of a different venture this time.” She mutters, “are you hunting?” Callisto holds her long sapphire spear up, “yes. And you really aren’t helping.”

Remy swims a little closer to her, “I was actually hoping we’d meet again. Maybe we could help each other!”

Callisto makes a face at her, “I don’t need any… body gunk, or whatever it is you’re wearing.” “Protective jelly! It’s water based,” she sings happily, “and I was thinking of something a little more practical.” Callisto tilts her head to the side, she turns around, “one second.” Callisto starts swimming and climbs onto one of the Deadciv roofs so she can stand up, Remy follows after.

Remy struggles to her feet and realizes how much taller Callisto is then her, she shifts from foot to foot.

“I’m listening,” Callisto says slowly, “but I’ll have you know it’ll have to be good. I don’t go around making deals with Deserters often, it’s…. Dangerous. You must know that.” Remy hums at that and tucks that bit of information away, she grins, “yeah, but I don’t follow the rules, I make ‘em!”

“Okay?” “Yeah,” Remy itches her wrist nervously, “or uh, play with them. Just a little bit.” Callisto shakes her head, “and all to find some giant sea-beasts? There are easier ways to get eaten.” Remy lifts her chin, “whales eat krill! Isn’t that great? They don’t eat people, though I’m sure they could swallow you whole if you’re not careful.” “Alright?” Callisto was still looking at her like Remy was attempting to grow a second head. “Listen, little Deserter-�� “You really can call me Remy.” Callisto gives a shallow smile, “You don’t want to meet most things down there, whether they eat ‘krill’ or not.” Remy perks up, eyes going wide, “have you seen living things down there then?”

Callisto rubs the back of her neck, “it’s not like it’s empty. But it’s not friendly either.” Remy dives to grab Callisto’s arm and shake it, “take me!” She begs, “I have my camera, my gear, it’s still only morning.” Callisto’s face screws up into a scowl, “why would I take a stranger to the most dangerous place in the ocean?” Remy sets her jaw, “I’ll trade you, like I said, we can help each other.” Callisto eyes her thoroughly for a moment, “what will you do with the creature?” “Just take a picture,” she snorts, “we don’t have to fight it or anything.” “We would lose anyway,” Callisto says off-handedly, “and these aren’t ‘whales’ though, none of them sing. They’re...” She shivers, “different.”

Remy gulps but lifts her head up, “I’m willing to take the risk, they don’t need to be whales, they just need to be… big,” she looks closely at Callisto, “I just need a guide.” Callisto meets her gaze, “what do you have to offer?” Remy taps her chin, “Money?” “No.”

“Seeds.” “Nope.”

“Tech.” “What kind?” “Water purifiers, air purifiers, hand-held blasters-” “We have those,” Callisto says in exasperation.

“Uh, fresh water?” “Don’t need it.” “Salt water?” She raises her eyebrows, “really don’t need it.” “Labor.” “No.” “Other, kinds of labor?” Remy tries to strike a sexy pose.

“Definitely not.” Callisto just shakes her head and looks ready to take off again, Remy puts her hands up. “Meat,” She says loudly, “dried fruit, medicine, proteins.” Callisto stops in place, her lips tugging down and her large dark eyes turning back to Remy, she looks her up and down, “what kind of medicine?” Remy exhales slowly, “any kind. Shots, penicillin, pain killers, uh,… band aids.” Callisto’s eyes shrink down, “can grunts get access to that sort of thing?” “I’m not a grunt,” she says defensively, “and yes. I have free reign of the medical bay. And I can also get,” she strikes a pose, “sneaky.” Callisto has an almost-smile, “well,” She says loudly, “I do need Xanim. It will be a clear liquid in a large vial, get me at least three.” Remy pumps her fist in the air, “alright!” She doesn’t mention the fact she doesn’t know where or what that is. She figures that’s a problem for her future self.

Callisto straightens her back, “right. I’ll meet you tomorrow at-” “Wait,” Remy focuses on her, “we need to do it today. Now.” Callisto looms over her, “you don’t have the medicine now.” “It’s a promise though,” Remy says quickly, “a huge promise, and you can take like, my shoe as hostage until I get it to you. We just…” She bites her bottom lip, “really need to do it today.” Something wasn’t smelling right at the Observatory, Remy knew she needed data, evidence, and she needed it now.

Callisto seems to consider her for a long, long second, her gaze curving over Remy’s small frame, her choppy brown hair and tight ponytail, the Jelly covering every inch of her body. Remy stiffens slightly.

Callisto lifts her chin up, pushing her long braided hair back, “I want the most expensive thing on your ship. You’ll get it back when you give me the Xanim.” “So you’ll take me?” Remy’s eyes sparkle. Callisto shifts in place, “I make no promises of finding anything.” Remy gives a wide, pleased smile, “no guarantees necessary, just take me to where you’ve seen them before,” she reaches for her camera, “I’ll do the rest.” Callisto shakes her head, “crazy Deserter madness.” Remy just laughs at that, Callisto looks over her shoulder, “you really want to go?” Remy nods enthusiastically, “as soon as possible.” She was technically running on a limited amount of time, Jennison would only tolerate an ‘unofficial mission’ for so long.

Callisto turns toward the dark waters, “follow my rules then. One, I lead. Stop when I stop, go when I go and don’t touch the buildings. Not all of them are sound. Two don’t make a sound, in and out. Three, don’t… flail around, if you see danger, stay still.” She blinks, “and Remy?” “Yeah?” “Don’t get eaten,” she says in her deep grey voice, “I’ll do the rest.” Remy shivers a little bit, if her mother could see her now, making deals with Planetsiders, she would never hear the end of it. Good thing her mom wasn’t there.

She doesn’t have a moment to collect herself as Callisto quickly dives into the dark with a small ripple. Remy jumps in after her with a much bigger splash, the world descends into a thick choppy bleakness.

Lost buildings stand on either side of them and pale streaks of light filter in the water all around them, Remy adjusts her helmet settings so the glass doesn’t steam up. The water is thick with clouds of dank water here and there, but still mixed with patches of clearness.

Remy can’t help but staring: crumbling dark buildings on all sides of her and a profound stillness. Most had large empty windows and concrete walls that were falling into themselves.

Tiny fish glimmer here and there, Remy is sure there must be bigger ones somewhere for Callisto to hunt, but there was nothing now.

She feels a tug on her leg and Remy remembers that she has someone to follow, she quickly turns on her shoulder light and Callisto points toward their feet. Remy turns herself around and starts swimming,

Down, down, down. They sink slowly, using the currents to swim toward the darkness below.

Callisto makes several corrections as they go, leading her first straight toward another tall building and then right and down again, Remy has no idea what this does.

It’s quiet and eery, it helped not being alone down here at least. She focuses on the back of Callisto’s head as the minutes tick by, memorizing the shape of her outline, the sleek limbs cutting effortlessly through the water and long floating hair.

Remy’s heavy air tank helped her sink into the depths, though she wandered how Callisto descended so easily, a swim bladder? Was she denser than other people? Force of will? These questions would have to wait.

The light starts to disappear as they swim against the currents, slowly dropping toward the ocean floor, Remy’s ears begin to pop and she hopes she thought this through enough.

Remy gulps as Callisto drops directly down into the complete darkness. The other girl looks over her shoulder to make sure she’s following and Remy hurries after her, she can just make out that the other girl’s irises then. They are the size of quarters, large and unearthly.

The pamphlets from her schools awareness program comes back to her: No longer human.

Remy pushes that thought away and tells herself to quiet down, she had things to do, she takes a deep inhale of oxygen and lets herself be consumed.

There is more rubble down here, piles of discarded concrete and jagged metal poles sticking up from nowhere, Remy dodges them and keeps her shoulder lamp pointed at Callisto’s back. They were still nowhere near the bottom it seemed.

Remy purses her lips as a thrum of unease goes through her system, she tries to remind herself why she is there: the project, the project, the project. You can’t find whales if there’s no project.

That doesn’t stop the hairs on the back of her neck from standing on end. Nothing is ahead but darkness and the glare of her own flashlight.

She’s staring off at a distant rubble pile when she runs headlong into the back of Callisto, bumping softly into her and being jostled backward for a second. She opens her mouth to ask what gives but then remembers she’s not supposed to make a sound.

Callisto turns to her slowly, eyes sharp and huge in the glare of her flashlight. She mouths something, her lips moving silently to form indiscernible words.

Remy puts her palms up and shrugs at her, she tries to mouth something back, such as ‘what?’ and ‘huh?’

And then she sees it. Something in the bleakness ahead, a sparkle of light just in front of them.

Remy’s eyes go wide, she reaches for her camera around her neck, Callisto dives over and grabs her, shaking her head violently, Remy struggles away. This is what she came for.

Callisto in turn tries to cover Remy’s shoulder lamp with her hands and the world descends into an absolute darkness- all except the oscillating sparkle of light in front of them. Remy’s eyes go wide and she can’t tell if she’s breathing anymore.

Callisto pushes them back, slowly, easily, but Remy knows, she knows something is over there- and she can’t go back now. She lunges forward faster than Callisto can catch her, Remy dodges left and wrenches her shoulder light away from Callisto’s outstretched hands.

The light blares ahead and Remy lifts her camera up as fast as she can, she doesn’t click. The sparkle is a light blue, forming a long electric ribbon in the inky darkness around it, Remy can make out that they are aligned against a long, sleek body, immense and shimmering.

Against her better judgement, Remy pauses to grin, something lived here, something lived! Ancient, bright, larger than a minnow, something colorful and powerful in her flies up from her center toward the sun. It lived. And then the creature turns.

Remy didn’t know about nightmares, she always was the kid that jumped off monkey bars and begged to be told ghost stories at midnight. Remy wasn’t sure what she was seeing now, something primal heaves in her.

It’s face was as big as she was, spiked and covered in flaking scales. It had two sightless white eyes placed against a blunt forehead and misshapen jaw, all leading to a mouth that took up everything else. Rows of teeth stuck up out of its bottom jaw, caught in the gleam of her single headlight.

Remy doesn’t have a moment to scream, the creature’s body lights up, glowing in the dark and tensing to lunge. Remy clicks her camera.

This would have been the moment she felt the teeth dig into soft, puny body and break it in two, the last thing she ever sees. Instead, she feels an arm loop around her chest and violently yank her back and behind a rubble pile.

“Ah!” Remy manages a yelp and tries to take another blurry picture as the thing bobs after them, turning quickly and letting off an electric glow.

Callisto makes some deep sound in her chest, rumbling and fearful. Her whole body clenches and then she’s propeling them off the rock pile, lifting them high into the waters and ‘up.’

Callisto reaches over to wrangle with Remy’s shoulder light and tear it off, but Remy slaps her hand away.

“One more picture!” She gasps, “they have to see how big it is.”

Callisto yells something back and rows of teeth come gasping toward their feet up from nothing, long jagged tendrils ready to rip them apart.

Remy reacts quicker, she yanks at the long spear in Callisto’s belt and jams it forward. The shark-electric creature crashes its nose into the pointy end and a burst of thick blood fills the water.

Remy manages to wrench the light off her shoulder then and drop it. They creature turns and follows the bright glare, it’s powerful tail whipping around to jerk it toward the moving target.

Remy exhales, nothing is left. They are left with a quiet darkness- Callisto holding her around the chest as they fled. The spear and light disappear below them like a dream.

Callisto rises like a hot air balloon (swim bladder?). Remy is light-headed and every part of her is heavy and tense, the adrenaline pumping freely in every vein she had.

She checks on her oxygen tank and then has a sense of utmost relief when she sees the inkling of light up above, she was clutching her camera in her hands. She had made it.

Remy is shaking from head to toe when they burst up into the midday light and gasp for air, Remy collapsing onto the rooftop and Callisto giving a hacking cough. Her legs are boneless jelly underneath her as she tries to stand.

They both take a moment to collect themselves, Remy raking her hands over her helmet.

“Heheh,” she starts laughing, her mouth falling open and a rumbling, manic laughter bubbling up from her center. She rips her helmet off and spits her oxygen mouthpiece out. “Oh my God!” She laughs again and opens her arms wide to the sun, “Oh my fucking God.” She tries to stand up again and fails, spinning around on her knees and praying to some unknown force that protects idiots and sea-dwellers. She whoops, “Callisto!” She calls, “Callisto, Callisto, fuck.” Callisto was covering her face and holding her side, breathing heavily, “you, you,” she heaves and her face jerks up, “you crazy bastard! I should kick your ass.”

Remy laughs again and falls over, “True!” She spreads her arms out wide, “Crazy enough to save the projects though!” She crows, “and you,” she points, “you saved my life.” Callisto growls, “not on purpose.” Remy pushes her sweaty hair back, “you are going to get so much medicine.” Callisto blinks a couple times, “You’re lucky I’m too tired to drop kick you off into The Salts, did you even try listening to me?” Remy sheepishly scratches her nose, “we’re alive?” Callisto shakes her head, she wobbles over toward her and bops her on the head with her knuckles.

“Ow!”

“Crazy bastard,” she mutters, “you’re lucky I’m faster than death himself.” Remy blinks a couple times as she covers her head, “cocky much?” Callisto snorts, “grateful much?”

“Right, okay, I can kiss your toes or something,” she tilts her head up, “thanks. Yeah, thank you.” She flexes, “We made it! Alive and everything.” Callisto exhales slowly, “I’d keep it that way,” she grey eyes go hard, “You got what you’re looking for, you shouldn’t come back.” Callisto blinks a couple times, “but… I will be back? That’s the whole point.” She lifts herself up into the light, “so we can return to the earth.” Callisto’s eyebrow twitches and she seems to clench her fists, she opens her mouth and then closes it. She looks away, “you should get out of here.” She rasps heavily.

“Can’t I give you a hug or something?” Remy smiles, “I can’t believe we made it-” “Get. Out.” Callisto takes a menacing step forward, “or I’ll take your camera.” Remy frowns deeply, “hey, we’re in this together.” She tries to say lightly, “we just fought death himself, remember? And… it will be good. After this.” Callisto growls, “so you can all come back here muck it up again? So you can take our water and food? Get the fuck out of here.” Remy takes a step back, “We’re not like that, it’ll be different this time.” Callisto jabs a finger in the air, “Go. Get your silly dreams crushed somewhere else.” She scowls and spits at Remy’s feet, “no good deserter in the first place.” Remy scrambles away from her fury and hits the ‘Summon’ button her helmet the whirrs the engine alive on her plane. She scowls, “Jeez, stuff you too.”

Callisto’s angry eyes follow her as she backs up and jams her helmet back on, fleeing the scene before Callisto changes her mind about saving her. Remy doesn’t look back this time and swallows her bitterness.

It would be different after this, she would make sure of it- even if Callisto couldn’t see that now.

She takes off back to the white pillar in the distance with a round sphere on top, back to the Observatory and the future she would make herself.

<======= Chapter One

[kosegruppaa]

need to vomit some of my feelings about stranger things 3, sorry!

will continues to break my heart, he just wants to play and be a happy kid, to go back to a more uncomplicated time and i’m just like OH :(((( i saw lots of people complaining that he didn’t get a bigger arc, but honestly i’m kinda relieved he was relatively okay for most of this. 

el and max spending time together and becoming friends!! i love that for them! also a+ for having eleven spy on the guys with her powers. i mean it’s not “the right thing” but like i think every narrative about people who have special powers that don’t include the person using them for petty/personal/emotional reasons are WROng. 

I LOVE that they brought back erica in this, and in such a significant way!! also love the way they developed her character and her and dustin together were priceless. the “my little pony thesis” and then dustin giving her the box with d&d at the end. PRECIOUS. 

steve and dustin continue to be great, and i thought the additions of robin and erica were great! the four of them were my fave squad to follow for most of this season tbh! truly four very different but very nerdy nerds who i adore.

ROBIN !!! a confirmed wlw!! i cried so much the whole scene with her and steve in the bathroom was lovely and i love their friendship and also hope she’s back in season 4 and gets a girlfriend.

hopper cannot be dead right?? he just cannot be dead?? i cried for joyce and for el but i refuse to cry for hopper cause he just cannot be dead right???? if he were he would get a more spectacular death scene and we would see the body etc.? RIGHT?

also hopper.. man did he annoy me this series, like he needed to calm down in pretty much all of his scenes until the action started. but then the letter at the end was lovely and he’s presumed dead, so i guess i forgive him for now.

idk what i feel or think about the whole billy arc this season. like does it make logical sense that 1) el would see all those memories, and 2) that it would be enough to snap billy out of it and fight the mind flayer. wasn’t he technically a part of it. like all those other people just melted. hm. also he was a racist asshole last season who tried to beat up lucas (a 12-14 year old kid, probably??) and then later attacked steve. all of it for no other reason than he’s a racist and an asshole. and yeah he has a sad back story and an asshole dad. but idk if i’m meant to feel bad for him.. i just don’t. but well acted! i’ll give him that, the actor was very good this season.

in general. there are some things that don’t make sense to me. i feel like the whole show makes less and less logical sense. idk if they will ever go more in depth about what the upside down and the mind flayer and demogorgons etc actually are. but i feel like they’re making it more and more difficult for themselves. also HOW did no other people see that thing. also what do the russians want (maybe this was stated and i didn’t pay attention enough..). 

i don’t care too much though. i love the characters and it’s fun and entertaining and touching and a good time regardless.

the whole goodbye scene. the song. the hugs. the tears. god my heart, these kids <33