#breaking: old man and lesbian burn down the Family

[manleytea]

buddies🍺

[gender0bender]

Steel closets : voices of gay, lesbian, and transgender steelworker by Anne Belay, available on the Internet Archive

Transcript:

Miles began working in a steel mill in 1999 as an out lesbian, but he quit about eight years later because of repeated shoulder injuries and general exhaustion. He says it's not really accurate to say that he transitioned while working at the mill, since "we never really have a transition. We'll always be transgendered because our past experiences and history go along with us. So I'll always consider myself transitioning." I met Miles at the Cornwall Iron Furnace just outside of Philadelphia. It's a National Historic Landmark, pre- serving a nineteenth-century ironmaking complex and documenting the ironmaking process, as well as its effect on the area around the furnace and the workers' lives. Miles had suggested this meeting place, noting that he had always wanted to see the exhibits. He was curious about the history of the steelmaking process, and tickled by seeing his huge, powerful, mascu- line job echoed within this seemingly fragile incarnation made of bricks, and described for us by local elderly ladies.

For example, once the iron in Cornwall was molten, it was poured into one central branch, from which it flowed into a row of troughs pressed into the sand, which we were told resembled baby pigs nursing a sow-hence the name "pig iron." Miles noted that his job used many of the same tech- niques, since "I was a spruer. Parts will come out of a didion [a brand of metal separating equipment], which shook off the sand, and my job was to break the pieces apart. You see them come out on that long bar, they were lying them into them troughs, that's called a sprue tree, OK, as it goes down along, now in modern times, we have machines that press sand blocks together if you're work- ing on small parts. 'Cause we don't work on really big stuff, we work on cou- plings so it was smaller stuff. It would come down and this didion would spin it around, and little stars inside would clean off the material, but it still wasn't fully clean. It put them down on this table, which would shake up and down, and they were split in half, and the stuff would go and be remelted and what we wanted to keep for good pieces would go down and be cleaned and checked. I would stand there with a lead hammer and whack those pieces off the sprue tree. Separate the sprue tree from the good stuff." Seeing the shape of the sprue tree pressed into sand on the floor in front of a gigantic, prehistoric ladle made this whole process more comprehensible to me. And though the scale was much smaller than that of the big production mills still in op- eration, it was nonetheless vast-the blast furnace was about three stories high, with tap holes at the bottom from which the finished product ran.

The human component of steelmaking similarly remains fairly constant. After we examined a replica of a nineteenth-century steelworker dressed for work, Miles showed me his respirator, noting "The kerchief on the man's face? This would be more of a modern version of the kerchief." He also showed me his leather apron, adding that "they still use the [wooden] shoes, by the way. Nothing has really gotten up to date I guess you'd say. It's really an old art form. I would call it an art form." His burn clothes are made of Kevlar but oth- erwise duplicate the old patterns. This continuity is part of the cultural and historical context crucial to understanding how masculinity gets defined and shifted within the mills. The work remains the same, even though the larger culture's definitions of gender and masculinity are shifting. Count- less published accounts document the struggles of steelworker families when the man of the house is laid off and the woman has to find work. Though this shift occurred well after second-wave feminism, when most American women were in the paid workforce, the consistency of steelwork, and the corollary consistency of steelworkers' gender roles, made it hard for these families to adjust. Miles attributes his fascination with the consistency of mill work and mill workers over time to his experience with occupying both genders while working in the mills. Though he became a man, he did not change his tasks, his garments, or his self-presentation at work-he had always been masculine. Which parallels the "enormous struggle within the gay male community to come to terms with the stigma of effeminacy. The most strik- ing result has been a shift from effeminate to masculine styles" (Newton, Mother Camp, xiii). An exaggerated masculinity linked, if only rhetorically, to working-class culture, reinforces traditional gender roles, even as it sug- gests that only one gender is really worth doing.

[ilivemydreamsthere]

Meeting

Hey dears ,

This fic is about Larisa Weems and Mortica Adams. It's from Adams point of wiew.

I just need to write this. Way of self healing. Have fun.

Meeting someone you lived with entire time at school shouldn't be unpleasant or making you uncomfortable.  It also shouldn't feel you with such a joy as it fill me. I should be over this alredy. 

Bur I weren't. I did waited and waited. Nervous thinking of Larisa as she let me wait in room before her office. 

I even wondered how she became headmistress of Nevermoore.  I should know it. I should be here for her. But I weren't. 

"Tish come in!" Her strong voice called from inside and I supres shiver. I should keep my composition.  I walked inside office. 

"Thank you for meeting me principal Weems "  

"Oh come on you can still call me by mine name Tish " she said and I finally found courage to look at her. She was beautiful.  She in her creamy dress and blond hair and blue shinning eyes. 

"Larissa "I breath out. "You are beautiful " 

She laughed.  "Why are you here?" 

"I wanted to ask you about something " I smile little too. 

"Yes?" 

"Yea. I would love to send my oldest kid to Nevermore "I said slowly.  "Would you admit her in ?"

"I might " She said and gesture to seat. I sit down and couldn't help to stare on her. 

"Thank you "  i put on desk papers "these is Wednesday file " 

I waited nervously when she look through it. But in all honestly I didn't think of Wednesday not now. All I thought about was to kiss my old roommate. 

"Were you so happy to find some partner ?" I ask slowly to break silence

 

"No Tish also I am not loking for a man. I am lesbian  " She smirked and her burning eyes make me gulped. 

"Oi…" 

"Any problem with it?" 

"Me no …bur" I had very hard problem to wrap own mind about what I wanna say and her eyes on me didn't helped. 

"I would never had problem with it. But my family. My mother would disowned me if I would admit I…" i get up going to window loking out. 

She didn't lisent to me and i was so relived. I stare from window of her office and bite own lips hard. "I love you " these words leave my mouth slowly but they did it anyway. 

I closed eyes tightly like if I would like to not be here. Like if I could disappeared her burning eyes. 

"Me?" Her voice is quite but I can hear it. I know it's now or never. I took deep breath and turn to face her. 

"You all that with Gomez…"

"No Tish!" She tried to stop me but I just shaked head. 

"For now lisent okay ?" My voice raised a bit. "When we were roommates there all I could think of was you! I was catching myself thinking of you more then of any guys and when mum asked who I am dating I just for single moment say not a guy and she was furious.  Completely furious make me suffer entry summer. Do you remember summer before our final year there. That was when I tell her. I end up tortured. Beaten , humiliated. But still all my bering and soul wanted to see you ", my voice broke.  I looked down blinking tears away.  

"When we come back you had been angry with me for not coming to meet you during summer I couldn't.  I just couldn't! But I also couldn't tell you. I feel so humiliated I couldn't. "  I feel like I am crying now and cross my arms to calm down. "That's why I married …."

I didn't know what I expected when she get up of her seat and pull me in her strong arms. 

"I am so sorry " her voice was soft resuring "I am sorry " she spoke holding me close and I sobbed "no I am we could be together " 

"We still can be " she said softly and loked to mine face "we can make you happy again we can " 

[cameronxwhite]

( maya hawke, 25, cis woman, she/her ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that CAMERON WHITE is a 25 year old CONVENIENCE STORE EMPLOYEE/HACKER that’s been in Chicago for FOURTEEN YEARS. According to the file, they’re a mutant on LEVEL 3 with the power of TEHCNOLOGY MANIPULATION. That must be why they’re RESILIENT and RECLUSIVE. If you ask me, they remind me of the pattern of microchips, music playing off of forgotten headphones, the smell of a soldering tool. They are affiliated with THE KAPPA RUNAWAYS. 

BASICS

Name: Cameron Etta White

Nickname(s): Cam, Cammy, Camcorder (Hacker alias)

DOB: April 12th, 1997

Age: 25

Zodiac Sign: Aries

Sexuality: Lesbian

Traits: (+) Intelligent, self-sufficient, cunning (-) Awkward, high-strung, intense

Occupation: Convenience Store Employee/Hacker

Family: Stephanie White (née Cook) – Mother (Deceased), Patrick White – Father (Deceased), Robert White — Uncle (Living, Estranged)

APPEARANCE

Height: 5′7

Eye Color: Blue (Silver when powers are in use)

Hair Color: Blonde

Ethnicity: White

Nationality: American

Aesthetic:

Tattoos: None

Piercings: Double Lobes, Nose (stud)

BACKGROUND

triggers: death, car accident, kidnapping, abuse

Cameron was born into a household that was all about living life to the fullest. Adventure, exploration, and discovery was encouraged deeply by her parents, and she took that and ran with it, taking life by storm. She thought that was what life would always be. Of course, reality has a way of creeping in on a person, no matter how young they might be. And, in Cameron’s case, she was eleven. Months away from going into a middle school, her parents died in a car accident. It was sudden, and unexpected. The car’s breaks just failed on the way home from a camping trip, and little Cameron was left alone in the world. 

It was her Uncle, her Father’s Brother, who was chosen to take her in if anything ever happened to her parents. Contracted in the will, Cam had no room for argument, and no agency to make that choice for herself. Her Uncle Robert was a good man at his core. He loved Cameron, and wanted what was best for her, but helping a child through grief with no experience was an impossible task, and it left their relationship estranged. His attempts to keep her safe, happy, and healthy were attempting to keep her in a box. The girl who had been reared with the spirit of adventure and purpose was being pinned down. Little did her Uncle know, he was simply crafting her into an icarus. 

Teenage rebellion was inevitable, but Cameron’s stemmed past sneaking out and underage drinking. She started learning the inner workings of technology. Computers, laptops, and phones, breaking and coding them so her Uncle couldn’t go through them— or at least if he did making it so he couldn’t find anything incriminating. She was impressively skilled at it, too, managing to sneak around him for years with only what she learned about from library computers and school books tucked in the back of the library. But, it was inevitable that she would trip up at some point. Or, at least, she thought she had.

Cameron was fourteen when her Uncle finally clocked her behavior after she had lapsed on getting rid of school emails that exposed her skipping class, and she was sat down for a chat about it. She doesn’t remember exactly how it happened, but she recalls the way panic swelled in her chest as she watched him reach for the laptop, ready to ground her for life no doubt. But, as his hand reached for the computer, sparks emitted from the bottom, the screen going blue, and then snapping to a black, unresponsive state. Uncle Robert received a few, unexpected burns on his hand from it, and the way he stared at Cameron, her usual vibrant blue eyes glowing a silver until they dimmed back to Blue burned into his memory. He hadn’t signed up to raise a mutant teenager. Hell, he had barely signed up to raise a teenager. 

From that moment, her Uncle seemed to shut down on her. There wasn’t any true rejection, but there was a disconnect. It was as if the moment he learned she was a mutant, he had given up on her completely. She was four years from being out of his charge, anyway, so Cameron saw that as permission to do as she pleased. 

Acts of rebellion turned into work she did for extra cash, her new skills for hacking becoming impressively helpful in getting extra cash. It started small. Changing letter grades here and there, deleting emails, and other ways to help kids get around punishments from their parents. But, things got more intense as time went on, Cameron learning how to bring her newfound ability into her hacking skills. She could plunge classrooms into full technology breakouts to delay tests, alter scantron machines from a distance to read test sheets wrong, and speed digital clocks up to get out of class early. Each use of her powers meant glowing silver eyes and the occasional nosebleed, but if it got her out of things, she couldn’t care less. 

Things escalated at some point from getting out of school work to causing real problems. Hacking ATMs for extra cash, frying the electrical in fences to make it easier to break and enter, and messing with digital records at the police station to keep her and her friends out of trouble. It all came to a head when Cam turned Sixteen and her antics caught up to her. Not by the police, of course, they weren’t savvy enough to catch her in the act. But, the AMMOs was another story. 

They had caught on to Cameron at some point, tracking her moves carefully until they finally managed to catch her red handed, tampering with yet another ATM to pay back a friend who had spotted her for alcohol. She had barely made it out the back of the library when she was grabbed and shoved in the back of some van. 

Frankly, she doesn’t know if anyone noticed or tried to look for her. Her Uncle barely clocked when she was home anymore, or if she didn’t come home for extended periods of time. As far as Cam’s concerned, he just assumed she ran away for good. Little did he know, she was a hostage of the government, treated like a lab rat. She spent eight years watching people come and go, be tormented, and watching some go and never return if they fought back too much. The details sometimes remain fuzzy for her to date, but she knows that the nightmares that keep her up at night, and the phantom pain that courses through her on occasion is a product of her time there. 

It was a no brainer to join the escape when it was planned. They had created their own worst enemy in strengthening Cameron’s powers, and she might not have been able to hack everything, but she could sure as hell fry a circuit board in her sleep thanks to them. 

It’s been a year since she escaped, and she spends most of her time in the warehouse that she and the others had claimed for themselves, getting the first job that wouldn’t ask questions about her forged paperwork and the fake last name she plastered on the documents to keep herself under the radar. Of course, working at a shitty convenience store doesn’t rake in the money, so Cameron found herself falling into her hacker lifestyle once again, taking any job that crossed her path on the grayest parts of the internet to make extra cash. All she needed to do was stay afloat, and if that meant walking the line of immorality to do so, then so be it. It wasn’t as if anyone else in the world was all that morally upright, anyway. Even the ones who claimed they were. 

CONNECTION IDEAS || MORE INFO

[octaviasdread]

any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)

SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.

Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember

Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

1950s Women’s college

Art professor! Julia Roberts

She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world

Feminism vs. Tradition

Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.

Does not end how you expect

Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)

MY FAVOURITE!!!

Free on YouTube under one of its various names

Comedy

1960s all girls boarding school

Young Kirsten Dunst

Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own

Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)

girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme

TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark

1930s girls school in Edinburgh

Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals

Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist

Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1970s movie or 2018 mini series

Never watched either but I plan to

Wild Child (2008)

00s romcom every UK teen girl loves

Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school

Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her

And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no

ICONIC SCENES

Everything! Goes! Wrong!

omg she burns the school down

Feel good, comfort, nostalgia

St Trinians (2007)

English girls boarding school

The kids are all criminals, no joke

So are the teachers

CHAOTIC

gay awakening for british girls

Art heist pulled off by school girls

Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers

Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag

Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...

embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'

St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure

omg Shakespeare was a woman

girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school

Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene

Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood

like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???

The Falling (2014)

1960s all girls school

best friends! but its unrequited love

Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues

Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls

Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)

TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault

READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST

The Book Thief (2013)

Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak

set in 1940s Nazi Germany

Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls

Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window

Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war

TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism

Mary Shelley (2017)

Overall good & roughly biographical

Pretty costumes and aesthetic

Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period

So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth

Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams

The Secret Garden (1993)

Based on a fave childhood book

1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England

Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside

Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens

local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes

Happy ending!!!

Hidden Figures (2016)

African-American women as mathematicians for NASA

1960s space project

Women balancing a career and family obligations

Deals with racial & gender discrimination

Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians

Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)

Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)

Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo

Small town & school years comedic drama

Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers

Inspiring new woman teacher

Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™

Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀

Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics

Collette (2018)

biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victorian & Edwardian era France

More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him

Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels

Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting

Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)

Enola Holmes (2020)

Netflix book adaptation

Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes

Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes

Mother-daughter focus

Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown

Ginger & Rosa (2012)

1960s England

best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years

poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger

off the rails but also catholic! Rosa

Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want

family troubles 

TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old

Testament of Youth (2014)

based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain

young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University

abandons to become a war nurse

romance, tragedy and war trauma

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)

Little Women (2019)

Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy

Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics

the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*

champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood

Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on

set in 1860s America

ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice

Lady Bird (2017)

coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California

all girls catholic school

writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'

Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!

I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction

school theatre program

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein

Another Greta Gerwig gem

Beguiled (2017)

Virginia, civil war era

Girls school with only five students and two teachers left

Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside

Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him

(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)

Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze

TW: violence, death, underage

Legally Blonde (2001)

No questions will be taken

Elle Woods was the blue print

TV series:

House of Anubis (2011-2013)

I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it

ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!

Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)

Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life

Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff

new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au

Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism

The Alienist (2018 -now)

Mid 1890s, New York

Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)

Serial killer mystery

Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime

TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Woman chess prodigy

1950s & 1960s

TW: drug & alcohol abuse

Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)

Based on the diaries of Anne Lister

Victorian Yorkshire, England

Upper-class lesbians

Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker

Business woman! Anne running the family mines

Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)

TW: violence

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter

bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college

Small town drama is comedic gold

Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references

Comforting & nostalgic

TEAM JESS

Anne with an E (2017-2019)

Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!

Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community

Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation

Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher

Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart

TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school

Victoria (2016-2019)

Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life

Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life

Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)

Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite

Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics

TW: bury your gays trope

Derry Girls (2018-now)

1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles

Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long

English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin

✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher

Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles

Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)

Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon

Main Character! Erin Quinn

Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool

Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire

Dickinson (2019-now)

Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life

Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US

Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY

gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems

💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕

Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2

Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage

TW: opium use

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Based on great childhood books

Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth

Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune

Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES

Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes

Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point

Killing Eve (2018-now)

Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down

British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team

Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion

Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section

Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation

‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'

🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨

Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)

Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid

Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in

Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists

girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!

UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!

Gorgeous costumes and set

Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up

TW: abuse, violence, death

Outlander (2014 - now)

haven’t watched yet but plan to

Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743

Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war

Time jumps between 18th & 20th century

[quillfeather21]

Genshin Characters as Stupid Things I’ve Done

Amber: sprained my ankle but continued to run on it anyways because ‘it’ll stop hurting in a little bit’

Aether: put a tin cup in the microwave

Albedo: mixed all of my old paints together to create ‘Franken-paint’ and accidentally drank the paint water as I surveyed my creation

Ayato: impulsively bought a fox squishmalllow because ‘I was sad’

Ayaka: started to cry on the beach when I realized my bucket was too small to carry all the shells I wanted to take with me

Beidou: drank a month old soda I found in my room because I was thirsty

Bennett: held a paper towel over a candle and was surprised when it caught on fire

Barbara: fell down the stairs after my solo in the church Christmas program

Chongyun: squeezed myself into the corner of my closet to take a nap and shut the door, causing my family to lose me for several hours

Childe: Threw my cousin off of the top of the playhouse and nearly caused him to break his leg. I then convinced my grandma that he had fallen and that I had nothing to do with it

Diluc: took too many pain meds at school and passed out in my study hall due to having over half of the lethal dosage in my system (I had just had foot surgery)

Diona: hissed at a man after he called me ‘girly’

Fischl: Yelled at a boy because he forgot that Lewis Carroll wrote The Jabberwocky (he thought the teacher just made the poem up)

Ganyu: took really nice notes only for the teacher to tell us it would be a ‘no notes’ test

Gorou: Won a capture the flag game single-handedly by putting the flag in my mouth and booking it through the woods towards my base

Heizou: told the teacher ‘the wind hit him’ after I hit a boy for taking my toy away before I was done playing with it

Hu Tao: chased my cousins, laughing maniacally, with a pair of tongs going ‘snappy snappy’ as they screamed in horror

Itto: Got chased by a dust devil after my grandma sent me out into the cornfield to go get the dogs

Klee: hid an aerosol can in my dad’s burn pile to see what would happen

Kaeya: refused to take off my jacket in 80°F weather because ‘it completes the look’

Kokomi: took three weeks to organize my bookshelf because I had to find another book shelf

Kujou Sara: Made a Junior in high school call me ‘Ma’am’ after yelling at him as a 7th grader

Lumine: got hit on by a lesbian in front of a Barnes and Noble

Noelle: watched in horror as a little boy stuck his finger into the cake I decorated for the fair, which was meant to go to the state fair a week later

Paimon: ate an entire bag of chips for the sole reason of so my father couldn’t have any

Qiqi: left my phone on the counter and started to cry because I couldn’t find it

Rosaria: dropped my Bible in church and said ‘Damn it’ audibly loud

Raiden Shogun: Ate an entire cake by myself in two days

Shenhe: threw a pencil at the back of a boy, aiming for his skull with the full intent to cause him harm

Shinobu: Did an entire presentation by myself because I didn’t trust my group to do it

Thoma: cried as a cradled a kitten because it put its paw on my nose

Venti: drank a six pack of ginger ale and then wondered why my stomach hurt, so I drank another one to settle it

Xinyan: forgot the words in the middle of a song, so I made random stuff up until I got to the chorus

Xingqiu: Made my friend snort salt and laughed when he started to cry

Xiangling: Ate an entire bag of dehydrated marshmallows and then started to cry because I felt sick

Xiao: smacked a boy across the head with an empty Pepsi bottle because he was annoying me. The teachers watched and did nothing

Yae Miko: Told the freshman class of my school that “Caesar thought he was the best too and look where that got him” and made them cry after they got open campus taken from the High School for a month.

Yelan: Had a deal with several boys in my class that I would supply them with wire and other hardware if they wouldn’t tag me during games of tag. I reminded them every time they tried that if they tagged me, they would get any more washers or copper wire to mess with

Zhongli: Co-taught my senior year history class with the history teacher because no one else paid attention to him

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

What will be in my bag? Pre-ordered Manga. Straight and Lez edition.

Here’s a list of English-released manga I’ve currently got on pre-order, and manga series I ordered before but won’t be continuing with the series.

As a note: Some of these titles have been released but I have not received them yet due to a issues with covid backlog effected how things are released.  I personally find that if you pre-order it tends to get you manga quicker.  It seems there is more pressure to keep up with the new release schedule than chip away at the backlog.

I’m starting with the stuff I’ve already read some of and confirmed enjoyment, then stuff I’m shooting in the dark for, and finally series I have tried recently and have discontinued.

Heteros

My Androgynous Boyfriend

Story & Art by: Tamekou      Publisher: Seven Seas

It is rare for straight shit to end up in my library but My Androgynous boyfriend is an exception that will surprise no-one since it’s pretty queer adjacent.  This story is mostly a couple being lovey-dovey between jokes about sexuality and gender but (so far) isn’t problematic at all.  The female lead is quite enjoyable as she’s well-balanced and has agency throughout. There’s even ace representation! It’s very low-stakes, wholesome, and sweet so far. (Volume 3 is set to release in November.)

My Excitement Level: The gentle about to sink into a bubble bath variety

Yuri/Lesbian

Even Though We’re Adults

Story & Art by: Takako Shimura  Publisher: Seven Seas

Takako is also the creator of Sweet Blue Flowers and Wandering son.  I have dipped by toe in to both those series.  I overall find their writing kinda meandering and tepid (might just be me) but technically pretty solid.  I am hopeful for this series since it features adults....if the title didn’t make it obvious.  I was intrigued by the one character being married but the man finding out about the affair quickly and reacting more realistically and interestingly than the average male love interest in a Yuri.  I also found myself relating at bit to Akari’s angst about being unlucky with relationships with women.  I also do enjoy the artwork! This one is the most likely of my followed series to be dropped at some point. (Volume 2 of this manga was set to release in June this year.)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

For more click the jump!

Kase-san and Yamada

Story & Art by: Hiromi Takashima  Publisher: Seven Seas

This is a series I keep going back to.  While it is the very typical low-stakes bubbly, cutesy School age Yuri...it is a very good version of that.  Just warm bubble bath vibes. (Volume 7 is set to release in February of next year.  I think it was originally supposed to be released this May but was bumped back.)

My Excitement Level: The gentle about to sink into a bubble bath variety

NOW ONTO THE SERIES I HAVEN’T READ BUT I’M TAKING A CHANCE ON!

Adachi and Shimaura

Art: Moke Yuzuhara Story: Hitoma Iruma  Publisher: Yen Press

This, as I understand it, is a slow-burn romance about two delinquent girls.  I have heard good things about the novel and the anime series!  However I prefer manga to novels and don’t have a funimation account so I went to snag it in manga form. (Volume 1 was set to release in February this year and 2 in September)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

The Girl I want is so handsome!

Story & Art by:Yuama     Publisher: Seven Seas

The premise is a young lady has a crush on a handsome older girl who’s oblivious to her advances.  When she tries to confess she instead gets roped into being the club manager of the basketball team that her crush is a part of.  So it feels like it may end up cycling through 2 jokes and be so deep in the stereotypical manga bullshit you can easily-predict its beats volumes in advance. HOWEVER that is also a premise that is similar to Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun which is legitimately a hilarious series. Also I fucking love butch/stud/masc-presenting women/AFAB people.  So I’m willing to risk “The same Anime bullshit” for good jokes and a cute lezzy romance with a beautiful butch.  (Volume 1 is set to release of December of this year.)

My Excitement Level: Pretty nervous actually.  I hope it works out!

Monologue Woven for You

Story & Art by: Syu Yasaka     Publisher: Seven Seas

A woman gives up on a career in theater gets tangled in a relationship with a woman passionately pursuing theater.  Since it is set between college age women, and appears to be about more personal and mature themes I am interested. (Volume 1 I BELIEVE is supposed to be released in February of next year.)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

Mizuno and Chayama (No page yet so far as I can tell.)

Story & Art by: Yuhta Nishio     Publisher: Yen Press

Two daughters of feuding families meet in secret.  This is by the same author of After Hours.  I read a bit of After Hours and found it fine but boring since it seemed without conflict.  Conflict doesn’t seem to be in short supply with a story like this!  While I enjoy the sugary-sweet high school lesbian romances...those are not in short-supply. So I am always hungry for something darker, meatier, more mature. (Volume 1 is set to release next February) 

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

5 Seconds Before The Witch Falls In Love

Story & Art by:  Zeniko Sumiya     Publisher: Seven Seas

It appears to be a playful fantasy about a Witch and Witch-hunter who’s antagonism turns romantic.  This may end up one note and stupid...but I’m always hear for queer romances set in high-fantasy and I haven’t read a Yuri where rivals turns to lovers. (Volume 1 is set to release next February)  

My Excitement Level: Low-key

Catch These Hands! (No page yet so far as I can tell.)

Story & Art by: Murata     Publisher: Yen Press 

A former delinquent runs into her high school rival.  After losing a fight to her she agrees to her terms...her terms being to go out on a date with her.  I mean the title alone makes me want to pick it up!  It may run afoul of bad anime humor, but I’m hoping with the fact that it’s full of gay adult delinquents that it’ll be a little different.  (Volume 1 is set to release next February)  

My Excitement Level: Medium-key

Series I have discontinued:

I’m in love with the Villainess

Art by: Aonoshimo  Story by:  Inori   Publisher: Seven Seas

A woman gets reborn into her favorite Otome game but she wants to romance the villiain!  I had heard a ton of great things about the novel but I picked up the manga version. (If the novel is totally different I can’t speak to it.)  For me, the writing is ham-handed, the jokes flop 90% of the time, and the fact the lead’s only personality trait seems to be ~obsessed with a bully~ really dampens this title.  Her advances are so aggressive and unwanted I honestly started feeling bad for a spoiled rich bully.  I will say it’s saving grace is the fact that the lead is masochistically into the villainess’ tsundere abusiveness. For me I hate tsundere romances if framed like, “I like you DESPITE your insults.” It is only tolerable if it’s instead, “I like you cause you tell it like it is. I’m a dirty little pig. Please step on this bad little piggy!”

Our Teachers are Dating

Story & Art by: Pikachi Ohi      Publisher: Seven Seas

Well one reason I stopped the series is that cover you see up there.  The sex in this series is fade to black but FOR SOME REASON the 3rd cover has them both butt naked.  But on a less superficial note, the story is about two teachers who start dating.  And while cute at points, I was just underwhelmed.  I think a part of it, is the fact that this behaves like a stereotypical high school romance...and while set in a high school...these are grown ass women not 15 year olds.  So I have less patience with the, “Gosh when will I get to kiss my girlfriend?” bullshit.  I mean, I would hesitate to call it bad...but it’s just not a good version of it’s brand of bullshit.

Breath of Flowers

Story & Art by: Caly                       Publisher: Tokyopop

Absolute train-wreck, this is hands down the worst Yuri I have ever bought.  The story is nonsensical and all over the place.  There is a love rival who’s trying to break the two of them up so she can get with Gwyn...but then switches mid-gear to put in a lot of effort to bring them together intentionally...but she also still wants to hook up with Gwyn...it’s very ????????????  The main conflict of Gwyn is hiding their gender so they can play basketball on the boy’s team (not well explained) is built up hugely and resolved with a hand flick.  There is a melodramatic moment where a school nurse says more or less, “GIVE IT UP YOU’LL NEVER BE A BOY!” And it’s like “OH SHIT! The fact that Gwyn is on the basketball team is cause he’s a transboy trying to live life as a boy! Oh gosh it makes so much more sense now!”  But the author seems to not even know that trans people exist cause the story bumbles along as if that scene never happened.  The closest we get is at the end Gwyn is like, “Look I’m learning to do make-up on myself to make you happy lawl!” Which is I GUESS supposed to be, “NO NO DON’T WORRY ALL OF GWYN’S GENDER STUFF WAS JUST THERE TO MAKE THE MAIN CHARACTER SEXUALLY CONFUSED WHEN SHE DISCOVERS GWYN’S TRUE GENDER!  HER TRUE GENDER IS 100% CIS WOMAN CAUSE SHE DID MAKE-UP ONCE! IT’S FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!” Like whaaaaaaaaat?  And it ends on a very random scene which doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story.  Ugh just very bad do not interact!

A White Rose in Bloom

Story & Art by: Asumiko Nakamura    Publisher: Seven Seas

At an all girls catholic school a young woman falls for a mysterious foreign student.  I grabbed this cause it’s gay and I overall like Asumiko Nakamura’s work (she also does Doukyusei, double mints, and others.)  However I was just not grabbed with this title.  I just felt like I wasn’t getting what was making the MC pants on head obsessed with Steph.  Also the lead’s mother tells her that she’s getting divorced and therefore will no longer have money to pay for the university and she’s framed like a super bad person for this.  Like I get why the MC (a teenager) would think that something like that is THE END OF THE WORLD! But I remember them really framing the mom like a selfish bitch for this...when like...it’s well established that her mom and dad’s relationship has been toxic for YEARS and that they TRIED SO HARD to fix it.  OH WELL!  This might be good but it just didn’t grab me in the 1st volume.

I’ll make a post on the BL titles later! Take care and Stay Rotten!

[rise-above-the-grave]

[smashes down door] who is Bail and why do you like him? I could look it up but I'd rather you gush over him

OH BOY.

So first off, a quick (canon) history lesson: Bail Organa was the Senator and Viceroy (aka Prince Consort) of Alderaan. If you don't know what that means (because old titles are Weird - I'm not judging the only reason I know this is because of this very character), it means that Breha, Bail's wife, is ruling Queen of Alderaan and was the heir to the throne. She married Bail, making him a ruler by marriage, though technically she still held the crown. He, at some point, was also elected Senator of Alderaan, and was Senator leading up to and during The Clone Wars (and after, but we're getting to that).

So Bail, we come to find out, became (best) friends with Padmé Amidala. We see him in a couple of scenes in Attack of the Clones with Padmé, just kinda vibing and making the occasional commentary. We know he stood with her on the Opposition bill (the bill Padmé was nearly killed over at the beginning of AOTC, which was against the formation of a Republic military), though we don't learn much about the rest of his politics until later.

So he's kinda...there, but obvs isn't the focus of the story, and is really just a minor background character. The first real insight we get into Bail is, actually, a really tiny character moment right at the end of AOTC, when Palpatine and some of the Senators are looking down at the Clone troops loading up onto the ship, watching their new military gear up for war.

Bail looks away. While everyone else is staring down at the (slave) army, some of them smiling (like Sheev), some of them just serious, Bail looks away from them and makes this tiny little hand gesture: a simple, closed fist knocking against the banister of the balcony.

It's this, I think, that first piqued my interest in this character. He was the only one not triumphant in that situation. He was the only one who saw things for what they were: a tragedy, and a horror, and that this wasn't something to celebrate but to mourn.

Then we come to Revenge of the Sith, and boy howdy. The man may have like 10 minutes of screen time, but does he make those 10 minutes count!

A quick bullet point of the Important Things Bail Does in ROTS:

When the Jedi Temple is burning, what does Bail do? He flies to it to figure out what's going on and see if he can save anyone. He then watches as a youngling is shot and killed by Clone Troopers, and manages to escape because he's a fucking badass.

Please note, to our knowledge, Bail is the only one who actually goes to check on the Jedi Temple.

As soon as he escapes the Temple, Bail immediately - like immediately - takes his ship and goes to find any surviving Jedi. He is almost certainly the reason both Yoda and Obi-Wan don't walk into the trap that is the Jedi Temple, or are captured - and even if that's not true, he most definitely is the reason they manage to sneak safely onto Coruscant and figure out what happened.

He's the one who rescues Yoda (again) after Yoda's failed duel with Palpatine in the Senate. Which, let me rant about the SYMBOLISM of that for a second please. Because holy shit, the entire duel between Yoda and Palpatine takes place in the Senate, with the Senate building and pods. Here Palpatine proves to Yoda that yes, he is the Senate, he controls it, the new Empire is under his control and no one can stop him. But then - but then - Yoda escapes, and who saves him? Bail. Bail sneaks in with a speeder, saves Yoda, and gets him back to safety. Which is such a huge fucking metaphor for the fact that Bail will be the one who, ultimately, is responsible for Palpatine's defeat. But, more on that later.

Bail is there when Padmé (remember, his best friend) gives birth to Luke and Leia. Bail is literally one of 3 sentients in the galaxy who canonically knows about both Luke and Leia.

Bail instantly offers to adopt one of the children, saying "She will be loved with us." (And then she absolutely is.)

And he does all of that in line 10 minutes of screen time.

He shows up again briefly in Star Wars Rebels, and again in Rogue One, but I'm going to take a trip down a side alley here into a territory that is grossly unused in the SW EU: the founding of the Rebellion.

So we don't actually know much about how the Rebellion got started. What we do know is that Bail was one of the (if not the main) Founders. Bail was the mastermind behind the Rebellion, by all accounts knowing...everything about it: who was who, who did what, where they were located, etc. He knows (and controls) Fulcrum in Rebels, as just one example, and Fulcrum is considered by that text to be one of the most powerful Rebel operatives at the time. In Rogue One (regardless of whether you liked what they did with the Rebellion which, side note, I did not), we see he certainly has a position of great authority and power. People respect him, and listen to him, and he's on an even footing with Mon Mothma (or Mom Mothma as my autocorrect tried to say) who is canonically one of the most powerful people in the Rebellion, according to ROTJ.

More than what he did, though, we can look to his character as a reason I love him. He is a good, kind, honorable man who does (or at least tries) his best. We see again and again, throughout all of SW media he's in, that he consistently chooses the right path, regardless of whether or not it's the easy one. He fights corruption, fights for justice, fights for freedom, fights against tyranny.

He is also, canonically, an amazing father and (according to EU content, since Breha literally doesn't have a spoken line in any media content) an incredible husband. We know he's well-loved by his people, and by the Rebellion, by the extraneous texts and mentions about him in the wake of his death on Alderaan. He's also respected by many Senators during his time in the Clone Wars (Padmé makes a comment in a TCW episode about how he's the best and most respected speaker and Senator she knows), and regardless of how people felt about him after the Rise of the Empire (which is, unfortunately - or fortunately maybe, because I don't trust Disney to do it right - up to headcanon), the fact remains that Bail played an incredibly tricky position as an Imperial Senator, having to balance fighting for his people, the people of the galaxy, and setting up the Rebellion, with not making himself too much of a nuisance, or too much of a traitor, that Palpatine straight up had him executed.

Which, speaking of that, can we also take a moment to appreciate the fact that Bail knew almost every single secret that Palpatine and Vader wanted??? He knew where Obi-Wan was, and possibly where Yoda was. He knew where both of Anakin and Padmé's children were. He knew everything about the fledgling Rebellion. Like...that man, had he been captured and interrogated (and had he broken) would have damned the entire galaxy. Yet he never was. He played his cards perfectly, and was either never suspected, or was able to somehow hide all of the information they wanted to know from being found. Personally, I suspect a mixture of the two.

Furthermore, Bail Organa is a great father and husband. He is directly responsible for Leia being the amazing woman we know and love. The one shot we get of Breha, you can practically see and feel the love and adoration Bail has for her radiating off of him through the screen. Literally the most unproblematic ship in Star Wars. I have never seen a single person say they aren't amazing (unless they just want to break them up to make Bail gay? Which, come on, bisexual and polyamorous people exist, y'all. But that's a talk for another time).

If you're still not convinced, the only thing left that I can say is: I'm a raging lesbian and like, while I definitely wouldn't fuck him, Bail/Jimmy Smits (his actor) is handsome. Have some pictures that I have saved on my phone for when I'm feeling sad.

Tl;dr: Bail Organa is singlehandedly responsible for putting into motion the events that secure the galaxy's freedom, not only by being one of the founding fathers of the Rebellion, but also by reaching Yoda and Obi-Wan before the new Empire can, and getting them safely to Coruscant. He is a good, kind, and noble man who does his best in shitty times, and even if he has to make hard choices, he always makes them for the right reasons. He is a loving father, husband, and ruler, who does right by his people and his family. He fights for what's right, even when that fight is nearly impossible. He's a badass, and arguably a literal genius (you'd have to be, to do the kinds of things he does in canon).

Anyway, Bail Organa is great and I love him - and you should too.

[pocketramblr]

I've noticed after a while (and many posts) that you include Fuyumi-trying-not-to-resemble-her-mother in many of your tags, and I really want to hear your thoughts on that whole character dynamic. Or how you headcannon Fuyumi in general, I'd just like to know more and I haven't seen a lot of people delve into her character. It's always one of the brothers.

*vibrates at a totally normal speed* I would love to talk about Fuyumi yes

Warning: the following headcanons contain a decent bit of projecting. Is it me being a teacher? An eldest daughter? My complicated relationship with the idea of a "traditional family"? Probably all of it

First, if you don't mind a plug, I wrote a oneshot that has like 90 percent of all my fuyumi headcanons in it, The Walls Are Thin, and so. Obvious my headcanon that she's Touya's younger twin has been disproven but I like it a lot so,,, I don't care

So, there are some things about Fuyumi that didn't make it into the anime- manga!Yumi has blue eyes like Enji and Touya, and her arm was also bandaged in the flashback soccer scene when Shoto is talking about their abusive childhood which is very interesting to me.

Now, as for Fuyumi and Rei- I don't think Fuyumi hates her mother. I don't even think she hates her mother but is ok with full reconciliation like she is with her father. But I do think they have a very complicated relationship. Rei was institutionalized when Fuyumi was eleven, and from that moment on Fuyumi basically had to take over the raising of her brothers. Fuyumi lost her mother at eleven and then had to become one herself, because Rei burned her littlest brother.

Fuyumi was a child- and here's the thing. Rei's breakdown was sudden, but not surprising. She looked bad in the flashback right before it, she was begging her own mother for help. She looked sleep deprived and skittish. So even before Rei was sent away, I don't know how much she was actually mothering Fuyumi. Shoto can't really tell us that, and Fuyumi... Doesn't seem to want to think much on her past or give flashbacks to the two of them. So when Fuyumi is eleven, is ten, is nine- she's seeing this happen to her mother as a process. Rei is fading away, and Fuyumi is right at the age to actually begin to sort of understand it and be scared.

Shoto is aware that the marriage was motivated primarily to get a quirk like his. I see no reason that Fuyumi would be unaware of this ether, even when she was younger.

A lot of mental health problems can be hereditary- I remember my mother talking to me about her health history and her own mom's health history bc there's a looooot of problems there lol but Fuyumi didnt get that. She got to see her mother stuck in a hospital for a decade for a breakdown. She got to learn in school that those kinds of things can be passed down to children just like quirks. I'd bet anything that Fuyumi is terrified of having a breakdown like that. Of being like her mother- someone who cared for children that she couldn't protect from Enji for ten years or so, then being locked away when she finally snapped.

There's also her status as only daughter- besides the fact that all the wifely duties were put on her, there are still more expectations. Touya is dead, Natsuo is so ignored he didn't need to be disowned, Shoto is primed only to be one thing: the number one hero. Fuyumi, who has been mothering since she was eleven, would be looked to first for grandchildren.

This isn't to say that Enji ever expressed a single care about that- I doubt he did. But Fuyumi's grandmother was seen in some early flashbacks. I'm not sure if that was Rei or Enji's mother, but either way... Well, she'd certainly talk about how pretty she was. How sweet. How good to her brothers now that her poor mother is away. How obedient a daughter. And even if this grandmother doesn't talk about a quirk marriage explicitly, Fuyumi knows that she either raised a man who looked for one by the age of twenty, or was wholly complicit in her daughter getting one.

Even if, logically, Fuyumi knows her father wouldn't arrange her one- either because she's more useful at the house, or he doesn't pay enough attention, or he's going through a post Kamino character development- there's the fact that she also knows It's Not Impossible. She knows that if her family is as high up as it is and utterly rotten inside, there could be lots of people like that in their social circles. There could be someone who has that sort of interest in her.

Anyway, all that gives Fuyumi some very, very complicated feelings on motherhood and marriage. I don't think she wants either. Ever. She's a teacher, so she likes to work with kids- but we know a part of that is to make up for not being able to help her little brothers. She's full of guilt. I don't think she'd ever be interested in romance or anything else with a man, after seeing how it turned on and utterly broke Rei. And while I do sometimes have Fuyumi as lesbian, I also really think she might be aroace. This adds fun spice where she asks herself things like "wait is this just my trauma or my actual identity" and haha same I'm sorry I project on her a lot anyway sorry Fuyumi,,, you deserve a happy life. A normal life. But you don't get one ♥️

And the normal life thing- that's because Fuyumi is tired. She's tired of being a mother to her brothers. She's tired of having the responsibility of parenting without any of the power or control. She wants to be treated like a normal daughter and sister. And that can't happen if her brothers, esp Natsuo who she saw even more, keeps fully crediting his raising to her. Even if it's the truth, and even if Natsuo loves their mother and had no problem with her- he certainly wouldn't claim Rei influenced him more than Fuyumi did. That's why she's so desperate specifically for him to reconcile.

And she did see Natsuo more- but I think Fuyumi is also very close to Shoto. Closer than he thinks. Not just because her first two appearances are just her trying to protect Shoto by warning him when Enji is pissed off or when he will be, though that certainly helps- she's rather attuned to that stuff, and at least sorta used to Shoto sometimes listening to her about that kind of advice. But Shoto is being shaped deliberately to basically be Enji 2.0 . He has no choice but to be a hero. He has no choice but to train hard and get strong. He's supposed to beat All Might in a rivalry. All that stuff. Fuyumi, likewise, is shaped to be Rei 2.0. Take care of the children. Be soft. Not cut out for heroics. Not able to stop Enji from doing anything. Support Shoto. Cook. Clean. Take over when the housekeeper leaves, because why hire another one when there's a fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old who can do it? Don't go to anyone for help, because no one who can help you will believe you or want to help you.

Shoto is supposed to succeed where Endeavor failed against All Might.

Fuyumi is supposed to succeed where Rei failed in going against Enji.

And all this, in a house where "like Rei" is an insult that her father shouts- to have her mother's constitution is a terrible thing. It's why her first two brothers were failures. Being "like Rei" means you are weak, and useless, and going to break down, going to be sent away.

And Fuyumi is supposed to be "like Rei", but without any of those bad parts.

Anyway wow this is such a long post.

That's why I think Fuyumi has a complicated relationship with her mother and with her appearance! If Fuyumi had been a boy, there always would have been a housekeeper there. She could have been a big brother- a big brother overly relied on, yes, but not a father. Fuyumi is not a boy. She is "like Rei." She is like Rei, who poured boiling water on a child because he had red hair, and a blue eyes.

So I think Fuyumi looks in the mirror, and sees red lines in her hair, and blue eyes behind glasses that neither of her parents need. And I think she keeps her hair shorter than Rei, and doesn't let it hang long like her mother prefers. And I think Fuyumi looks in the mirror, and sees that she's not just exactly like one or the other of her parents- and I think she says "thank God"

[rrickgrrimes8]

Come Clean ~ Dylan x bi!reader

*homophobia is NOT tolerated here at all so piss off if you are thanks ☺️*

This is it.

Today is the day I finally come clean about who I am. Well not fully come clean I still have to tell my parents after this which I kid you not will be a shit show. Today is the day I come out to my boyfriend Dylan.

Now I can hear you guys confused thoughts through the screen. Yes I have a boyfriend. No I am not a lesbian. No I am not straight. Now for the grand reveal... I'm bisexual. I like boys and girls and I'm insanely proud of that. You probably wouldn't think that knowing I haven't told anyone for the first 24 years of my life but I can assure you I am. I've dated girls in the past and I've dated boys. Just because I'm not out to my family and friends doesn't make me ashamed of who I am and who I like.

And the reason that I'm so scared of telling people is because I don't want to lose them. Which I know is something one I can't control and two I should assume that I would lose them if I told them but I know for sure that telling my parents wouldn't end well because let's just say they are massive homophobic assholes and I know that because when I was a freshman in highschool my mom caught me kissing my best friend who is also a girl. My mom immediately kicked her out and called for my dad. She and him were screaming hestrically. Ranting and raving all sorts of bullshit. One being 'im never going to have grandkids. Oh my god I'm never going to be a grandma' but that doesn't beat the beautiful - note the sarcasm - words of my father 'I can't believe I've raised a dyke daughter oh what a disappointment she is'. So let's just say I had a traumatic childhood. As soon as they finished there screaming I just decided it was better to tell them that I was straight and she came onto me then the truth of that I had a massive crush on her. They soon got over that and we never spoke about.

But enough about my parents the real thing I wanted to say is that I'm terrified of losing Dylan. I don't know if Dylan is like my parents - god I hope not - or if he'll support me.

We've been together for almost 3 years and you know the story. Boy meets girl. Girl spills coffee all over him causing him to get severely burned and sent to the hospital prompting girl to be incredibly sorry but boy found her hot and asked her out. You know the usual stuff.

"Hey baby you okay?" Dylan asked snapping me out of the trance I had no clue I was in. I turned to him quickly and looked upon his concerned face. "U-uh fine j-just thinking" I mumbled adjusting my position in Dylan's arms. "Thinking bout what?" He said wearing his insanely adorable smile. "Umm nothing. No one. Nothing" I stumbled over my words causing Dylan to cock his eyebrow at me.

"You sure gorgeous?" I nodded but almost instantly stopped myself. "No actually I'm not okay" I said changing my mind and suddenly finding a rush of courage. "Okay baby what's wrong?" His hand ran through my hair gently combing out the knots in there.

"W-we need to talk" I hummed. Dylan immediately stopped what he was doing and pulled his hand away. His face contorted into a look of sadness and fear. He thinks I'm going to break up with him. "A-about what?" He stuttered clearly anxious to know what I was going to say. When I pulled out of his arms and positioned myself facing him his eyes started to build up small tears but he refused to let them fall.

"A-are you b-breaking up with m-me?" His voice cracked as he spoke and his tears fell freely. "Oh my god no Dylan I'm not breaking up with you." I assured him. "But you might after I tell you this." I whispered to myself sadly and his fearful look left his beautiful face and he whipped his tears away but his face soon turned into a look of concern and worry.

"What is it baby?" He said softly moving his hand to my cheek. "U-um well I need to tell you something." "You can tell me anything" Said the man.

"Uhh well let's see um how can I- Uh I don't know how to" I rambled but was cut off by Dylan's deep chuckle. "Spit it out baby" he teased stroking my check. "I LIKE GIRLS!" I bellowed. The words slipping away from my tongue without my consent. Dylan's hand left my cheek leaving behind a cold feeling and missing of his warmth.

"Y-you like girls?" He questioned more then stated and I nodded my head closing my eyes wanting this moment to be over. He cleared his throat causing my eyes to shoot open. "W-what about me?" Dylan's voice shook slightly his fear of me breaking up with him took control.

"Oh shit" I mumbled under my breath moving onto his lap and straddling him. "I like girls a-and guys Dyl" He furrowed his eyebrows at me inquisitively. "I-I'm bisexual. Bi. The big old bisex as no one calls it" He laughed at my stupidity and I felt myself untense. His laugh calmed by of the scale anxiety filled nerves and I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding.

"So what's the big deal baby? Why are you so nervous?" His hand gently rubbed my knee in a way to comfort me. "W-well I-I was kinda scared that maybe just maybe that you'd you know" I said attempting to draw away from the subject knowing he'd just get hurt by it.

"I'd what (y/n)?" "B-break up with me" I spoke shyly and I could see Dylan's face fall. His eyes were consumed by hurt and new formed tears found there way to his cheeks. "Y-you thought I'd break up with you because you're bisexual?" I nodded sadly looking away from him. "I'm sorry" I whispered feeling a pang of guilt in my gut.

"Hey baby there's nothing to be sorry for I-if anything I'm sorry" He reassured me moving closer towards me the process. "W-why would you be sorry?" I cried my head falling down to look at my shaky hands. "Because you're upset about this and that you'd think that my feelings towards you would change if you told me"

"you're feelings haven't changed?" I said a spark of hopefulness ignited inside of me. "No of course not (y/n) I do and always will love you till the day I die. I love every part of you. I love you voice. Your laugh. Your beautiful (y/e/c). Your lips. Your sexy little butt." He joked while moving his hands to my butt squeezing lightly causing me to giggle like a school girl. "I love everything including the fact you like girls. You're sexuality doesn't change anything and I'll love you no matter what." He added igniting a huge undying smile onto my face ignoring the tears that were plastered over my red raw cheeks.

"You mean that?" I asked just wanting to make sure. "More than anything. I've loved you since the first day I met you." "But the first day I met you I put you in the hospital." Dylan laughed while taking my cheeks into his hands lovingly.

"Yes you did but I still knew that one day I'm going to marry you." I was taken aback from his confession. We'd never spoken about marriage or anything a long those lines so him saying this now is quite the shocker.

"But at las that is for another day my love. I love you (y/n). I love you forever." Dylan mummered against my lips before kissing them lightly. "I love you forever and more" you confessed causing Dylan to grin into your passionate kiss.

He loves me no matter what. I thought to myself happily. And I love him too.

[violetwolfraven]

Peace and Joy

@spot-king-of-brooklyn I’m your secret Santa! @newsies-secretsanta

You said your favorite ships are sprace and/or javid and you’re good with pretty much anything so I’m gonna write two separate vaguely holiday-related oneshots in the reincarnation AU. Don’t worry though nothing heavy, just fluff. No COVID because I’ve had enough of that dude and I say so. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!

Tw: referenced past period-typical homophobia.

...

Spot couldn’t remember being this happy... ever. Not in the early 1900s or in the early 2000s.

Well, the closest he could think of was 1902, when he and Race moved on from being newsies and from being leaders of their respective boroughs and rented that old apartment in Brooklyn together. But that had been muted by the need to be careful. They couldn’t be normal young people in love because they always had to hide.

And that was fine at the time because it was expected. It was them doing whatever it took to be together not knowing they’d ever get the chance to do it another way.

Now, in the bright, beautiful, forward-thinking 21st century, they could be safe. They could be in love without fear of the consequences. They could go out Christmas shopping together, and Spot didn’t know if that counted as a date, but it kind of felt like one as he watched his boyfriend bop a little to Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You as he looked around.

He ended up having to look away before he started blushing too hard. Even if he wasn’t the King of Brooklyn this time, he still had a bit of a reputation as a stone cold badass. For all he knew, one or more of their more mischievous friends could be spying on them right now. And besides, this thrift store probably had stuff he could get the few Brooklyn kids who’d come back, too.

He was still deciding if Hotshot would think it was funny if he got him a tank top that said ‘hot stuff’ on it. The others would find it funny, but Spot honestly wasn’t sure if it would make his former second uncomfortable.

“Hey, Spottie, ya think my little brother would like this?”

Spot turned back to see Race holding up a bright purple worm on a string, but a giant version of one. One that was big enough to be a scarf.

“Knowin’ your family,” he admitted, “I think any of ‘em would be happy to get one of those.”

It was true. Honestly, the most sensible Larkin brother was the second-oldest, Crutchie, but Spot could still see him proudly wearing a worm-on-a-string-scarf to school after winter break ended.

Besides him, Medda, Race’s mom, tended to embrace whatever unique fashion choice she could find. And Jack, of course, didn’t let being the oldest of four stop him from being a theatrical little shit who liked drawing attention to himself.

And Romeo was somehow even more eccentric than Race, so he would definitely like that thing.

Race grinned, “I’m gonna get Ro a worm scarf for Christmas.”

“Your family is ridiculous.”

“Thank you. So, what’re ya gettin’ for Denton?”

Oh, shit. Spot had completely forgotten about getting anything for Denton.

He really should get something for him. After all, the teacher hadn’t even known Spot when Jack asked if he could stay with him. All he’d needed to know was that Spot needed a place to hide from his terrible parents and couldn’t stay with the Larkins, mostly because Medda had a strict rule about her boys’ partners sleeping over unless it was absolutely necessary. (it was also because Spot couldn’t think of anyone he’d want to live with less than Jack Kelly, but Denton didn’t really need to know that, did he?)

So far, Spot’s parents hadn’t shown any signs of missing him, and Spot couldn’t decide if that hurt or not, but it barely mattered anymore.

Because Denton didn’t really have any rules beyond ‘do your homework’, ‘take a shower occassionally’, and ‘if you leave the house, let me know where you’re going.’ He helped Spot pick out a Halloween costume, let him spend Thanksgiving with Race, and gave him money for Christmas shopping. He was fine with Spot being gay and having a boyfriend, even if there was an added rule with that of ‘you can’t have the door closed if you’re alone in your room with Race.’

He gave Spot space, but also made it clear that he could come to him for anything he needed help with. He never hit him, never pushed when Spot wanted to be alone, never even raised his voice unless they were in an already-loud room and he needed to get his attention.

In short, in only a few months, he’d become the best adult Spot had ever had in his life. He wasn’t his father, but he was closest thing Spot had ever gotten to a dad.

The Denton they’d known in their last life had been kind of like that, too. He’d helped as best he could whenever one of the newsies got into trouble, always being there for anyone who needed him since Kath first introduced her new reporter friend to her newsie friends. Of course, Spot hadn’t been living with Denton then, so he’d never really thought about it.

“What do you even get a middle-aged man for Christmas?”

Race shrugged, “Power tools?”

The idea of getting Denton power tools was so ridiculous that they both laughed.

“Uh... he’s a writer,” Race pointed out, “So... fancy pens?”

“Fancy pens? We’re at a thrift store, Racer.”

“Well we don’t gotta stay here forever. There’s a Barnes and Noble across the street.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, but Spot wasn’t sure about the whole ‘fancy pen’ thing. It seemed a little generic.

“Yooooo! Spot, check this out for Jack!”

He was holding up a bright blue sketchbook that said ‘Sketchy Bitch’ on the cover.

“Oh yeah, ya definitely have to get that for Cowboy.”

Spotting (no pun intended) something else on the shelf behind him, Spot grinned.

He had the perfect thing to get for the man who’d taken him in.

...

“This is gonna be so fuckin’ awesome.”

Davey snorted, “You’re way too excited ‘bout this, Jackie.”

He loved his boyfriend, but he had a tendency to get overenthusiastic about things.

Well, he loved that about Jack, too. And he loved being able to call him his boyfriend, now. That they didn’t need to hide this time.

He and Sarah had both been a little worried about their parents’ reaction, but it had turned out to be for nothing. They’d each gotten a t-shirt with their respective pride flag for the first night of Hanukkah, and Jack and Kath were always welcome to come over as long as at least one parent was home.

Davey loved Jack just as much in this lifetime as he had in his first, but it was different, not having to hide it. It was good different, but definitely different. Being able to be who they were and be in love and knowing that it was generally frowned upon to be homophobic now, at least where they lived.

And being able to do random shit that was romantic and fun as hell, but not something would even occur to most people to do.

After a sleepy conversation once Crutchie, Race, and Romeo had fallen asleep watching White Christmas (which Davey appreciated for the choreography in the dance numbers) one time about how there weren’t really any Hanukkah movies, Jack had collaborated with Kath to write a lesbian Hanukkah musical romcom to post to YouTube.

Objectively, it wasn’t that great. It was good for a movie made by a bunch of high school juniors, but they couldn’t afford good cameras or microphones or anything. Plus, it was appealing to a very niche audience, so Davey doubted this movie would get more than twenty views.

Still, it meant a lot that Jack was so excited about it, that he was working so hard on props and editing in the lighting and music for it so Kath and Saz could play Jewish lesbians fake-dating at a holiday party who fall in love. It was cute.

“It ain’t gonna win any awards,” Jack admitted, “But I think we’s got somethin’ good here!”

“We do,” Davey agreed.

Was he actually talking about the romcom starring his sister and her girlfriend? Partially. It was a pretty good movie for something produced by teenagers.

But they had something good there that wasn’t on the screen of Jack’s laptop, too.

Jack seemed to share those thoughts, with the way he was smiling.

“What’s with the look, mi amor?”

Davey rolled his eyes as the other boy put his arm around his waist.

“Like you don’t know, love,” he chuckled, “Remember the last time we did somethin’ like this? And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you.’”

“Shh,” Jack shook his head, “Nope. We don’t talk about the latkes incident.”

“You mean when you almost burned down our tiny little kitchen trying to—“

“We don’t talk about it!”

Davey laughed. It was funny, how Jack couldn’t, in any lifetime, cook anything more complicated than like... chili or stew. While he could make something edible, he couldn’t make anything that was really considered good.

“Davey, love, luz de mi vida, it was literally over a hundred years ago, so stop. Bringin’. Up. The. Latkes. Incident!”

He punctuated the sentence by hitting Davey with one of his mom’s throw pillows.

“Okay, Jackie, I get it! Stop hitting me!”

“Fine,” Jack grinned, “I ain’t almost burned down a kitchen in over a century, babe. I thinks that’s a good record to have.”

“Most people never almost burn down a kitchen,” Davey pointed out, “I know I—wait, did you just call me ‘babe’?”

Jack was definitely not meeting his eyes to try to hide how he was blushing, “Uh... is that okay?”

Davey smirked. Jack didn’t get flustered that often, but it was adorable when he did.

And even if he had almost burned down their apartment, it had been cute back then, how he’d tried so hard to try to do something nice for Davey for the holiday season. It was cute now, too.

That was one thing that hadn’t changed through the decades, he guessed.

“It’s definitely okay, babe.”

...

“Spot, is this a... ‘Best Dad In The World’ mug?”

“...if you cry, I’m outta here.”

[thefandomlesbian]

WIP tag: thank you @scandinavian-punk for tagging me!!

Brace yourselves because I am about to word vomit on your screen—

(not including WIPs that are currently posted, since you can explore those at your leisure)

To Rule and Guide: The sequel to To Light and Guard, Lana and Mary Eunice go forward in their relationship, but they encounter hiccups along the way as old enemies rise, friends twist beyond recognition, and the church tries to call back the nun it released so recklessly.

Break Rank: John Laurens was shot down off of his horse and dragged away from the Battle of Combahee River, believed to be dead. A mutilated corpse was buried in his stead, but he awakens in a warm cabin to a middle-aged lesbian couple who nurse him back to health. Now disabled and with everyone believing he's dead, he has to try to make his way back up to New York, as there is only one person who will believe him.

Lead Me Astray: Spencer receives a diagnosis of malignant cancer behind his eyes, the first-line treatment being removal of both eyes. He quietly hands in his resignation to Strauss and earns a deal for medical retirement, and he intends to spend his remaining days setting things up to survive life alone as a blind man. However, when the team receives word of his decision to leave without telling any of them, Aaron hunts him down and demands answers. Convincing Spencer of his worth, both as a person and as a member of the BAU, is not easy, but it's necessary for the upcoming case they will face.

Like Minor Gods: Spencer lost a high-stakes bet with Derek. Now he's training for a triathlon. It's not exactly a fun time, seeing as his athleticism peaked when he was the basketball coach in high school, but with a little help from his unit chief, he may have a chance of crossing the finish line.

Shipwrecked Souls: After taking his leave from the BAU, Aaron struggles with Jack, who has developed increasingly concerning behavioral and psychological issues. Jack is riddled with anxiety and PTSD, and no matter what Aaron does to try to help, they wind up yelling at each other. Desperate for some help, he attends a seminar for parenting a troubled kid, where Spencer is surprisingly guest lecturing after earning his PhD in adolescent psychology. Aaron asks if Spencer will help tutor Jack—though Jack's failing grades are just the tip of the iceberg in regards to his current string of issues—and happily, Spencer agrees.

Singing While Rome Burns: After Foyet's escape from prison, Aaron has lost all of his coping skills. His family fell apart for his job, and he's apparently not even good at that anymore. He gets blackout drunk and wanders around lost in Rock Creek Park until he intends to call Rossi to come get him. Inadvertently, he calls Spencer instead. Spencer rescues him, and this act of mercy ignites a spark between them. But they walk a path ripe with trepidations, as Foyet is still on the move, Haley is busy settling the divorce, Strauss battles corporate challenges, and Spencer struggles to find where he fits in all of it with his new role in Aaron's life.

Spencer & Aaron: Dharma and Greg AU. Hotshot federal prosecutor Aaron Hotchner sees the most beautiful man he's ever met on the subway on his way to the office. He tries to go after him, but the doors slide closed, and he's left with a sense of longing—until he arrives at work to find the same man sitting on his desk. "You're Aaron Hotchner," he says. "You appeared in the Washington Post five months ago for putting away the Freeway Butcher. Your building security is weak. I was able to guess the passcode in two tries. I'm Spencer. I remember everything I read." On an impromptu first date, they recklessly decide to get married. On the days after, they bring together two incredibly different families and groups of friends, slowly teaching everyone that any relationship can work if there's enough love and compassion involved.

The Good Place: The Good Place AU. Corporate lawyer Aaron Hotchner was an asshole in life. In death, he awakens to find he's been placed in the Good Place by mistake. Partnered with his "soulmate," Spencer; a former nun, Emily, and her soulmate, Penelope; a spiritual vessel of knowledge, JJ; and two so-called angel-men, Dave and Derek, they find themselves dragged into a war which could challenge the very foundation the afterlife is built upon.

The Landscape After Cruelty: Spencer drives Aaron home from Quantico the day of Haley's death. Over the following days, he orchestrates everything from behind the scenes. He works with Jessica to care for Jack; he cooks meals for Aaron; he calls funeral homes to arrange services; he makes Aaron's appointments and then drags him to them by force. He makes himself indispensable. It only leaves Aaron wondering—why?

Insects in Amber: inspired by @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety Whumptober prompt, infection. The team has split to handle two different cases. Spencer finds a breakthrough in the case he works with Aaron, but Garcia is busy with the rest of the team, so they go with no coordinates and no warning. When Aaron gets into combat with the unsub and they both fall down the stairs, the chamber doors seal behind them, trapping them inside. The unsub is dead, his neck broken in the fall, and Aaron's femur is protruding from his body where he landed. He's in an agonizing amount of pain, and Spencer knows the statistics for infection of an open fracture are bleak at best. No one knows where they are. They only have the hope that the team will find them soon—or else there will only be one of them to rescue.

Call Me Home: Cordelia Goode has finally escaped the oppressive home of her mother and has landed a job at the local animal rescue, Starfish, where she becomes fast friends with the quirky woman who works dog side, Misty. As shelter drama picks up, they learn together how difficult saving lives can really be.

Minor Bird: Acclaimed pianist, Misty Day, has decided to step away from her career and take an early retirement. Amateur Cordelia Goode wants to find out why. When her teacher makes arrangements for her to meet Misty in person, she learns that soon, Misty will not be able to perform any longer. In a crunch for time and desperate to learn more, Cordelia begs for Misty to teach her. In the process, they grow closer together than either of them ever dreamed.

The Sister Act: Lana Winters witnessed a horrible crime and has been placed in witness protection in an abbey for her own safety. She repeatedly butts heads with the Mother Superior, Jude, as she struggles to survive the trauma of what she witnessed. With the help of Sister Mary Eunice, she begins to appreciate the quiet spirituality of the place. But criminals are still pursuing her, eager to silence her before she can testify.

I've Got Your Demons (They're Crying Out for Love): Lana Winters aids Briarcliff in the exorcism of Sister Mary Eunice. Both are pregnant from crimes committed against them and against God. Lana places her son up for adoption; Mary Eunice's daughter is stolen from her, dumped on hospital steps with no note by Monsignor Howard who will not be held accountable for his actions. When Mary Eunice is well enough, she leaves Briarcliff with Lana, desperate to reconnect with her daughter, but it's years before they catch up to young Billie Dean Howard, and they find that demons still continue to touch them at every turn.

Autumn Hands: Audrey saved Shelby's life, but she couldn't save her mutilated vocal cords, permanently damaged by her attempt on her own life. All sorts of trials await them—criminal, medical, social—as they try to look past their fraught history and come together as the sole survivors of Roanoke.

On the Pyre, Before the Hearth: Lana Winters gets lost in the Louisiana swamp after she tries to find herself in the wilderness. There, she encounters a lonely hermit woman who has spent the past decade living in solitude and subsisting off the land. A flood forces her and Misty into one another's company for several days, but when it's time for Lana to leave, she finds she doesn't want to life with Misty ever again. Misty has her own secrets and reasons for hiding, unbeknownst to Lana, who writes and publishes about her experience in the hope of drawing Misty out of the woods. She has no idea the ramifications of her actions.

That... Should be everything 😳😬😐 I'm tagging @reidology @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety @its-a-goode-day @honeyvenable and whoever else feels motivated to do it!

[songofsoma]

OTP QUESTION MEME

I was tagged by @knightava​ to do this :-)

tagging: @blightning​​ @megan-the-canadian​​ @fruitjuucy​​ @aelwen​​​ @rosejellyy​​ @ritsusohma​​ @stella-minerva​​

CECILIA BECK X AVA DU MORTAIN [ art done by blightning ]

DISAGREEMENTS.

Who is more likely to raise their voice?

Ava 100% — she’s the hot-headed one whereas Cecilia hardly ever raises her voice

Who threatens to leave but never actually does?

I mean as a joke? Cecilia, but she never means it lol

Who actually keeps their word and leaves?

Neither, unless you count Ava continuously pulling away at first

Who trashes the house?

Cecilia, cleaning is not her forte. She’s so used to living alone so she gets to it when she gets to it

Do either of them get physical?

Physical?? Like fighting or sex? Fighting, no, unless they’re sparring. Sex, yes lol

How often do they argue/disagree?

Oh man, often. Ava is lucky her hair doesn’t grey because of Cecilia’s impulsive behavior, which is the subject of the majority of their arguments. That and Cecilia’s safety.

Who is the first to apologize?

Depends on what the argument was about. Usually, it’s Ava though.

SEX.

Who is on top? Who is on bottom?

Lmao Ava is a top, she gives me service top vibes. Cecilia is a bratty bottom <3

Any kinks?

Ava likes to be in control and Cecilia likes to be controlled in bed. They’re not above using restraints like handcuffs or silk ribbons, in fact, Cece really enjoys it.

Who has the strangest desires?

Definitely Cece, kinky bastard.

Who’s dominant in bed?

Ava, hands down. There’s only a handful of times Cecilia completely takes the lead.

Is head ever in the equation?

Always.

If so, who is better at performing it?

Cecilia until Ava gets back in the swing of things. She had a 900-year break on sex whereas Cecilia is sexually active...often.

Ever had sex in public?

Cecilia has with others but Ava hasn’t. The farthest Ava would go is probably car sex deep in the relationship.

Who moans the most?

Cecilia, Ava loves it.

Who leaves the most marks?

Ava does, she especially enjoys leaving many in places only the two of them will see.

Who is the more experienced of the two?

Cecilia, I say she’s a whore and I mean it.

Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’?

Both, just depends on the day and what mood they’re in. 

How long do they usually last?

I mean they’re gay women and then you have Ava’s seemingly endless stamina (poor cece)

Rough or soft?

Switches off, but usually it’s on the rougher side.

Is protection used?

When necessary

Does it ever get boring?

Ha, lmao, I doubt it.

Where is the strangest place they’d have sex?

Cecilia’s office, the car, maybe the training room.

FAMILY.

Do they plan on having children/or have children?

Absolutely not

If so, how many children do they want/have?

N/A

AFFECTION.

Who likes to cuddle?

Both, although Cecilia is definitely the one that is clingier and more touchy/affectionate.

Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places?

Cecilia

Who struggles to keep their hands to themself?

Honestly, Ava. She likes to always be touching Cecilia. You go 900 years being lonely, it can be hard to keep your hands to yourself. Cecilia loves it.

How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable?

A good couple of hours, Ava especially can’t sit still for super long.

What is their favourite non-sexual activity?

They enjoy sparring and reading together while drinking wine.

Where is their favourite place to cuddle?

In Cecilia’s bed or on the sofa with Cecilia in Ava’s lap.

SLEEPING.

Who snores?

Neither

If both do, who snores the loudest?

N/A

Do they share a bed or sleep separately?

If Cecilia had it her way, they would. When Ava does sleep, they do.

If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart?

Snuggling, always. Ava is a Cece magnet whether she likes it or not. Although, I don’t think she would have it any other way.

What do they wear to bed?

Cece likes her lacey nightgowns and Ava’s t-shirts. Ava wears pajama pants and a t-shirt or tank top.

Are either of them insomniacs?

Does Ava count as one?

Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside?

No.

Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side?

Cece either snuggles into Ava’s side or is practically on top of her.

Who wakes up with bed hair?

Cecilia

Who wakes up first?

Ava, Cece is a heavy sleeper and often sleeps in when she can.

Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other?

Ava :)

What is their favourite sleeping position?

Cecilia likes to be curled up on her side next to Ava and buried under blankets.

Do they set an alarm each night?

Cecilia does. Sometimes Ava is her alarm when they both have to work, but usually she just uses the one on her phone.

Who has nightmares?

They both do, but Cecilia’s tend to be worse from the recent trauma from Murphy.

Can a television be found in their bedroom?

Nope

Who has ridiculous dreams?

Cecilia

Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed?

Cecilia, only because she snuggles up to Ava no matter where she moves to on the bed.

Who makes the bed?

Ava, Cecilia doesn’t care to.

What time is bed time?

On a good night, midnight, unless Cecilia is working late. Ava hardly ever sleeps so who knows.

Any routines/rituals before bed?

Nothing other than Cecilia’s skin routine. Sometimes she enjoys reading before bed.

Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up?

Cecilia is always grumpy when she wakes up. She needs a solid twenty minutes before you mess with her.

WORK.

Who is the busiest?

Both

Who rakes in the highest income?

Ava probably, getting that good government money.

Are any of them unemployed?

Nope

Who takes the most sick days?

Cecilia since Ava doesn’t get sick.

What are their jobs?

Cecilia is the lead detective of Wayhaven and human liaison to the Agency.

Ava is the Commanding Agent of Unit Bravo of the Agency.

Who sucks up to their boss?

They both do. Ava does more though. Cecilia and the Captain just get along.

Who is more likely to turn up late to work?

Cecilia, it drives Ava nuts.

Who stresses the most?

Ava probably, Cecilia jumping headfirst into everything and her lack of concern for her own safety stresses her out.

Do they enjoy or despise their careers/occupations?

They both enjoy their jobs.

Are they financially stable?

Yes!

HOME.

Who does the washing?

They do it whenever it needs done. Really it’s whoever gets to it first.

Who takes out the trash?

Both do

Who does the ironing?

Cecilia since she wears pressed pants and pretty blouses so she has to iron them to avoid wrinkles. She wouldn’t be caught dead in wrinkly clothes.

Who does the cooking?

Cecilia does. I KNOW in my heart Ava’s English ass cooks the blandest food LMAO

Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying?

Cece, not from cooking but more so forgetting she has a candle burning or something.

Who is messier?

Cece, but it’s not in a way that’s out of hand.

Who leaves the toilet roll empty?

Cece.

Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor?

When she’s exhausted, Cece will leave her clothes on the floor at night and eventually pick them up.

Who forgets to flush the toilet?

Ew? Neither.

Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere?

Cecilia is horrible with losing things, especially keys.

Who answers the telephone?

They don’t share a cellphone.

Who mows the lawn?

You really think Cecilia is going to live in a house in the suburbs with a lawn to mow?

Who does the vacuuming?

Cecilia mostly

Who does the groceries?

Cecilia does, Ava tags along to carry the bags to show off how strong she is.

Who takes the longest to shower?

100% Cecilia. She likes to take her time, usually putting on her very own concert.

Who spends the most time in the bathroom?

Cece. The struggles of being femme.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Is money a problem?

No

How many cars do they own?

Cece’s car. I know she has an old hatchback in canon but in my heart she has an old, red Subaru like the good lesbian she is. 

What’s their song?

Hmmmmm You’re Gonna Miss Me by Connie Francis, Hold You in My Arms by Ray LaMontagne, and Lost Without You by Freya Ridings.

Do they live in the city or in the country?

I don’t know what you’d classify Wayhaven, but it’s a small town.

Do they own their home or do they rent?

Cecilia rents her apartment whilst Ava lives in the Warehouse.

Do they enjoy their surroundings?

Very much so.

What do they do when they’re away from each other?

Cecilia spends her free time hanging out with Tina or Farah (her bffs) or working. Ava works and probably trains.

Where did they first meet?

Rebecca, Cece’s mom, introduces her to Unit Bravo.

Who spends the most money when out shopping?

Cecilia, she’s big on fashion and enjoys clothes.

Who’s more likely to flash their assets?

Cece would, mostly with jewelry.

Any mental issues?

Nothing other than Cecilia’s anxiety.

Who finds it amusing when the other trips over?

If Ava ever tripped in front of her, I think Cecilia would lose her mind laughing. Ava thinks it’s amusing when Cece trips when she knows she’s safe.

Who’s terrified of bugs?

Neither of them.

Who kills the spiders around the house?

Neither of them like to kill them. Cecilia mostly lets them be and Ava will put them outside.

Do they have any fears for their future?

Ava is constantly scared for Cecilia’s safety, and although she wouldn’t admit it, she’s frightened of being alone for another 900 years. Cecilia is terrified of losing Ava. There’s nothing she wants more than to spend eternity with Ava.

Their favourite place?

They enjoy spending time together in Cecilia’s apartment. It’s a place where they can be alone with no interruption.

Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner?

Ava would surprise Cece

Who pays the bills?

They don’t share bills

Who’s the tallest?

Ava towers over Cece by 8 or 9 inches.

Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other?

Oh, Cecilia. Ava is quick in the shower so Cecilia needs to plan accordingly. She enjoys jumping in the shower with her.

Who wanders around in their underwear?

Cece likes to lounge in her underwear and a robe. Ava finds that out the hard way when popping in for a visit lmao

Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio?

Cecilia and it’s almost always songs that drive Ava nuts.

What do they tease each other about?

Ava knows how to get Cecilia flustered and does it every now and then by making an innocent enough move before dropping it altogether. Cecilia teases Ava for being grumpy and wound up so tight. Also her clothing choices.

Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times?

Cecilia’s mortal enemies are Ava’s cargo pants.

Who crushed first?

I like to think they’re both romantics and follow the love at first sight trope. Cecilia was just more forward about her feelings.

Any alcohol or substance-related problems?

Nope

Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am?

It’s happened once or twice to Cecilia after a night with Tina.

Who swears the most?

Ava doesn’t swear really, Cecilia thinks it’s spices conversations up.

[eternaliax3]

Just For Show

One Shot | AO3

Fandom: Frozen (Disney Movies) Relationship: Kristoff/Anna, Elsa & Kristoff Friendship Rating: T

Words: 10,647 Notable Tags:  Fake Dating, Coming Out, Lesbian Elsa, AU - College, Slight mention of mild eating disorder, Ice Bros, Kristanna end game

Summary:  Kristoff meets someone he becomes infatuated with at first sight, and wants to be with her. Too bad he was dating her older sister. Well, fake dating.

“I need to ask you for a favor.”

The hulking man sat in the library with textbooks open in front of him on the table, peacefully working on his coursework. He looked up to see his best friend Elsa look down at him, biting her lip. Kristoff leaned back and put his arm on the back of his arm with one eyebrow raised. He had never really seen her this nervous before.

“Yeah, sure. What is it?” he said nonchalantly. He actually really needed to get back to his work.

“I need you to be my boyfriend.”

“Excuse me?!” Kristoff’s indignant yell echoed through the library, the two being met with awkward stares and glares from the people scattered about. His amber eyes were comically wide as he stared at Elsa. “Last time I was aware, you weren’t even into guys,” he whispered harshly.

Kristoff and Elsa had always been friends once they met in college. He was studying business management to take over his adoptive parent’s ice trading business and Elsa happened to be preparing for law school. They had to take a general education course in their freshman year and got partnered up in a group project for which they had two other useless people who didn’t do nearly as much work as them. They bonded over the fact that they were generally anti-social, except for a select few in their lives. They both were diligent, but he always knew Elsa had more ambition than him. He appreciated her silent but fierce personality and they usually studied together.

He didn’t think much of her not dating throughout the years, even though she had a lot of attention from other guys. He thought she was stunning as well, but he never felt drawn to her romantically. So it became a normal habit for her to reject men on the daily. She was dubbed the “Snow Queen” for that very reason.

So it came as a surprise that she came out to him as a lesbian. Well, sort of.

“Well, that explains a lot.” Namely how she seemed to blush uncontrollably around a special person who went by Honeymaren.

And he nodded and they both went back to work. Elsa had a relieved smile on her face and he knew that she appreciated his nonchalance as a reaction. He wondered at her secrecy throughout her depression that she had during her teenage years and if that was how she and her sister had drifted apart. Kristoff had ever met her, even through all of these years. But Elsa had talked about her fondly and with so much love that her eyes glittered in the light.

Now two years later and they are both in their junior year. And he found himself in this strange predicament.

“I know, I know,” Elsa shook her head, the blonde tendrils that escaped from her braid drifting about. “But there’s a family gathering soon for Thanksgiving, and my family has been hounding me about getting a boyfriend. I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t go with someone.” She nervously twirled a strand of hair. He didn’t think he had ever seen her this nervous before. Was she really that afraid of her family?

“And you know, they don’t really know about…that. And I’m afraid of telling them. They’re not really the open and accepting type. They’re really old school.”

“Elsa, this is a lot to ask.” He leaned his head back and sighed. Even though he felt bad for her plight and how crap her family members are, her sister possibly not one of them, he just didn’t think he could do it.

“I know, I’ll make it up to you though. You can use our family’s cabin in the mountains as a little getaway during winter break.”

“For how long?” Kristoff’s interest was piqued. He did love being in the cold woods, away from people and just with his dog, Sven.

“As long as you want,” Elsa smiled sweetly, knowing she almost had him hooked. “And afterwards, I’ll just tell them we broke up. No big deal, and you would never see them again. It’s just for two days.”

Kristoff pondered for a few moments. Nothing could really go wrong, could it?

“Ok, deal.” They both grinned. 

                                          _____________

Kristoff drove with Elsa back to her home. He knew they had money, but geez, a large home in the middle of the woods was really expensive. It was like they owned the entire forest.

“So, how much longer?” he asked curiously.

“We’re about a half hour away,” Elsa replied. She held up her head on the windowsill, watching the trees fly by.

“Hey, everything’s going to be alright,” He knew she was worried. “I’m not gonna care about what your family thinks of me.”

“And you shouldn’t,” Elsa’s stern gaze was fixed on him. “They can be a bit much, but I’ll try to handle them as much as I can.”

“Hey, I’m not worried. I’m doing this for you, Elsa.” He smiled at her.

“And for that, I owe you so much.”

“I know, that cabin is gonna be mine for the winter!” He thumped his fist on the steering wheel triumphantly as Elsa laughed and shook her head.

The rest of the ride was drowned in companionable silence. They both weren’t ones to talk much, and for that they were good friends.

He finally reached the estate. Whoa, it was really that big? What, you guys have a lake too? He put the car into park and got out, opening the trunk and starting to unload his and Elsa’s luggage. Elsa came around to help.

“Elsa!”

They both turned around to see a fiery redhead bouncing up to them.

“Anna!” Elsa exclaimed, and the redhead almost literally jumped into her arms.

“Oh, I’m so glad to finally see you again.” She had a bright smile, which Elsa returned. “Oh, and is this the rumored boyfriend?”

She turned towards Kristoff, who towered over her and she stared up at him, and wow. Her blue eyes were bright and shiny and seemed to pierce into him. He didn’t think he had ever seen eyes so blue, and Elsa’s were pretty much like ice. Her sister’s however, were like the comforting blue sky during summer. Kristoff had no words for a moment, and he coughed into his hand. He didn’t want to admit it, but he might have just simultaneously developed a thing for redheads. Her face was adorably dusted with freckles and seemed to smile with her as she waited for him to answer.

“Uh, yeah. I’m Kristoff.” He held out his hand for her to shake, and he couldn’t help but notice how small her hand was in his. He almost engulfed it.

“I’m Anna, Elsa’s little sister. It’s nice to meet you!” He smiled back at her. Her energy was somehow infectious.

“Elsa, you really have to tell me how you met him! He’s so handsome!” She gushed excitedly, and Elsa couldn’t keep the smile off of her face. He could tell that Anna had a very special place in her heart, the fondness in her eyes told it all. And he couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride at the fact that she found him handsome, but also a sinking dread. He almost forgot he was supposed to be Elsa’s “boyfriend” after all.

“I will, I will. Let’s go inside first.” Elsa took her hand in hers and lifted up some luggage with the other. Kristoff helped her to take the rest in, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that was growing.

This just got a whole lot more complicated.

                                         _____________

“Hi mom! Hi dad!” The energetic redhead seemed to never be lacking in excitement as she ran over to give her parents a big hug. The tall blonde and brunette looked at both Anna and Elsa with happiness, and welcomed them back into their home.

Kristoff lumbered in after them, a bit of nervous dread building in him but mostly nonchalant as he stood behind Elsa. Was it bad to say that he wasn’t afraid of embarrassing himself in front of her parents but instead more of Anna?

“Oh mom, dad. I want you to meet someone,” Elsa said quietly. Kristoff could tell the slight tremor in her voice was from nervousness, and he tried his best to stay calm. “This is my boyfriend, Kristoff.”

He could feel their appraising eyes on him and he tried to match their stare. So these were the parents who Elsa were afraid of telling? He didn’t really understand how Anna could ever be so unaccepting of Elsa, she seemed to love Elsa unconditionally. He could feel the redhead giving him an encouraging and welcoming smile, even if their father was trying to burn a hole through him with his glare. Somehow it didn’t feel as biting as Elsa’s though. Maybe she got that from her mother.

He tried to not look at Anna throughout the ordeal.

“It’s very nice to meet you.” He tried to give a charming smile but it felt unfamiliar and awkward on his face.

The tall blonde man (who was glaring at him) stepped forward and held out his hand, now giving a smile.

“My name is Agnarr. And this is my wife, Iduna.” He gestured to the elegant brunette next to him who welcomed him with a kind smile.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Kristoff. We’re so excited, Elsa finally has a boyfriend!” She gushed.

Elsa groaned and put her hand to her forehead, and Anna laughed. It sounded like bells.

“Well let’s just go in and get you guys settled.” Anna saved the day and Krisoff mentally thanked her for ending the semi awkward (for him and Elsa at least) first meeting with their parents.

Just two more days to go. What was he thinking agreeing to do this? Oh yeah, Elsa was one of his best friends. Who had a beautiful younger sister—ok stop there, Kristoff. He thought to himself. At least break up with Elsa first.

He brought in his luggage and gaped at how expansive the house was, it somehow looked even bigger on the inside. How was that possible? Elsa and Anna walked inside, arm in arm, while Anna gushed about her classes. His ears picked up the fact that she had a new boyfriend, and he felt his stomach drop in dejection. Of course she would have a boyfriend. One that treated her like a princess, he would bet.

They sat at the dinner table and chatted amicably. He explained how he was doing in his classes, very well he might add, much to the impressed Agnarr. And they explained how they had met in class and started to spend more time together, which blossomed into their “relationship” now.

“Wait,” Anna stopped them. “This is Kristoff? Your best friend, Kristoff?” her eyes widened.

“Yes, Anna,” Elsa said coolly.

“Oh my gosh, why didn’t you tell me you guys were already dating? We could have had double dates with me and Hans! I had no idea, I mean, Elsa you had told me about Kristoff lots of times but you guys have been dating for a few months already!”

“Well, you know-” Elsa struggled to find the words as Kristoff mentally tried to catch up with her chattering.

“We’re pretty private people. We just didn’t want it to be public for a bit,” Kristoff supplied. Elsa looked at him gratefully.

“Oh, I see.” Anna nodded. She seemed to know her older sister very well.

“Where is Hans, by the way?” Iduna asked.

“Oh, he went back to the Southern Isles to visit his family,” she said, “But he’s been texting me everyday.” Her smile was bright with affection.

Kristoff and Elsa both sighed in relief as the conversation shifted over to other topics. Anna was studying psychology with the intent to become a therapist, which Kristoff thought was very fitting to her personality. Anna kept the tone of the conversation light and happy, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Kristoff and Elsa were walking back to their rooms, their separate rooms, and Kristoff wondered about the relationship with Anna.

“How come you haven’t told Anna yet?”

Elsa stopped in her tracks, her shoulders tense. She knew exactly what he was referring to.

“It’s hard, Kristoff. We haven’t...had the best childhood growing up. I was always isolated and didn’t want to spend time with her. I was so depressed I just locked myself in my room. I always felt different, and couldn’t bear to tell her in case she didn’t accept me,” she whispered.

“I don’t think she’ll be like that at all,” he said gently.

“I don’t want to ruin what we have now. I finally fixed our relationship together and we’re acting like sisters again.” Her stubbornness on the matter was clear through the set of her shoulders and he sighed.

“I think you should explain. I don’t think she’ll react the way you think she would.”

Elsa pondered his words, and he left her standing in the hallway to go into his room after wishing her a good night, to which she didn’t respond.

                                        _____________

The next morning, he woke up bright and early. The mattress he was sleeping on was downright heavenly, and the sheets were so silky. He didn’t even want to know how much they cost.

Anna had joined the rest of the family for breakfast much later, yawning adorably along the way. Elsa had teased her mercilessly about her sleeping habits, and Anna stuck out her tongue. Kristoff couldn’t help but smile at their exchange, to which Anna smiled back at him and he swore his heart skipped a beat.

“So what’s the plan for today?”

“Well, we have to prepare our Thanksgiving dinner, of course!” Iduna answered and Anna clapped her hands in excitement.

“And then we’ll play charades after!” She said, her eyes bright.

“Ugh, do we have to?” Elsa said with a groan.

“Yes! It’s our tradition, you can’t back out of it!” Anna retorted. “Besides, you just don’t want to play because you’re so bad at it.” She leaned back in her chair with a smirk.

“I’m not that bad at it.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Girls, that’s enough,” Agnarr laughed.

“I’m actually excited to play,” Kristoff said, sending a smirk at Elsa, who glared at him indignantly.

“Ugh, fine,” Elsa relented and Kristoff and Anna shared a triumphant look.

Cooking dinner with the family was much like cooking with his own family, chaotic and fun, and full of laughter. Mostly from Anna’s antics. She would chuck ingredients at others and at one point her and Elsa almost had a full blown food fight. Anna seemed to draw out Elsa’s competitive streak. It was Iduna who made them stop with a single glare. Ah, so that’s where Elsa gets it from.

The day was mostly enjoyable and he couldn’t help but laugh with Anna most of the time. She was the life of the party, it seemed. He didn’t mind that at all though. She had a way of making things seem easygoing, and like the world wasn’t so bad. Whoa, that was pretty sappy, he thought to himself. He reminded himself that she had a boyfriend. One that apparently was two years older and was studying political science. He tamped down on the jealousy that arose in him at the thought of this “Hans.” He sounded like a pretentious jerk from what Anna had said about him.

Elsa seemed to relax as well, enjoying the time around her beloved family. Kristoff felt a bit out of place, although Anna did her best to include him in their activities, as much as he wanted to be on the sidelines.

They sat around the dinner table, lit up with candles and the turkey as the centerpiece. Elsa and Iduna were the main chefs of the house, Anna and Agnarr seemed to have no culinary expertise. But they had done a great job, and the food looked, and smelled, delicious. Kristoff and Anna proudly presented their salad and mashed potatoes. They said they typically have a live-in chef, but Thanksgiving dinner was their own tradition.

“Agh, I’m absolutely stuffed.” Anna smiled and leaned back in her chair.

It was so endearing watching her eyes sleepily regard the rest of her family, as she tried so hard not to fall asleep there. Kristoff gave a small smile at the sight. He would miss her after this, although this charade he was doing with Elsa seemed to be falling apart anyway. They both tried their best to be “couple-y” and hold hands and hug each other, but it felt really awkward. He found himself wishing that it was Anna that he was doing that with, she would take his hand without hesitation and drag him along wherever she wanted to go, and he would follow.

Kristoff could see it so vividly, and it scared him.

Anna amazingly perked up with energy again once they cleaned up the dinner table and sat in the living room to start their game of charades.

Since they had an odd number of people, they decided to forgo making teams.

“It would always be Elsa and I on one team, and mom and dad on the other,” Anna had explained to him. “But this makes it more fun! It’s like a free for all!” Her smile was bright and happy.

He couldn’t help but laugh at Elsa since Anna was right, she was kind of bad at this game. Her actions were a bit awkward and stiff, and it took a while to get what she was doing guessed correctly. But it was fun nonetheless, as Anna was so enthusiastic. She had guessed his turns correctly most of the time.

“A bear! Oh, setting a table? Riding a horse!” Though her guesses could get more and more wild, he learned.

It was her turn and she made a grand show of arching her hands and arms and growling loudly. Almost like a roar. He was pretty impressed, she seemed like she was having loads of fun, and he was too. Even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“Beast! A bear!” He yelled. Anna shook her head.

Iduna guessed next. “Wolf?” Anna shook her head again. But the buzzer went off, signaling her time was up.

She let out a breath. “Villain!” she said.

“Oooh,” they all said in unison.

She went and sat down, giving a smile to Elsa as they sat next to each other. They played a few more rounds, and they went to retire for the night, as they had a long drive back to campus in the morning.

Anna would be going back in her own car a bit later, as she liked to sleep in. Kristoff realized it probably would be the last time he would see her, unless it was around campus. He hoped that she wouldn’t be angry with him once Elsa told her they “broke up.”

In the hallway, Anna got to her room first, but turned to Elsa and Kristoff to wish them a safe trip.

“Kristoff, you have to come back here for Christmas break!” she said, and he didn’t have it in him to turn her down. Not when she was looking at him like that—like she was so happy that he was there.

“Alright,” he said dumbly, and Anna’s grin widened as she said good night. He ignored Elsa’s quizzical look at him.

                                       _____________

The next week then passed without event, Kristoff not seeing much of both Elsa and Anna, as exam season arrived with a vengeance. He himself had a bunch of presentations and papers to sift through as well as research for them so he was also pretty busy. It happens.

As he was walking back to his apartment near campus he felt his phone ring in his pocket. He pulled it out and was shocked to see Anna’s name flashing across the screen. But he answered.

“Hello?”

Gaspy breaths and a sniffle came from the other side.

“Kristoff?”

“Anna? Oh my god, are you alright?” He couldn’t help but feel an enormous wave of worry for her as he heard her obvious crying, despite her trying to hide it.

“Yeah I’m fine.” A lie. “I was just wondering if you knew where Elsa was?” Another sniffle, but quieter this time.

“Uh, no sorry. I think she usually stays at the library until late at night during this time to study. And she usually keeps her phone off to not have distractions.”

“Oh.”

Kristoff’s worry for her grew as she stayed silent.

“Thank you for letting me know, Kristoff. I’ll see you around.”

“Wait!” He exclaimed before she could hang up on him. “Where are you?”

There was a small pause from Anna as she seemed to be taken by surprise by his tone.

“I’m outside of Elsa’s apartment,” she said quietly. “I thought she would be there.”

Kristoff immediately turned around to start walking quickly to Elsa’s.

“Alright, I’m on my way over.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, really.” He quickened his pace. “Just stay there, alright?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Kristoff hung up and started to run, it was just a few blocks away and getting there as fast as he could was his first priority.

He reached the large apartment building and ran up the stairs to the fourth floor to where Elsa’s apartment was. He found Anna slumped against the wall wearing a black dress and heels. She lifted her head up to look at him and he took note of her blotchy eyes and red nose.

“Kristoff.” She mustered up a smile for him despite her crying.

“Anna, what happened?” He frowned at her demeanor and was mildly horrified at the fresh onslaught of tears that question evoked.

“It's Hans.” He made out from her soft sobs.

“What about him?” He felt his own voice become low and threatening, but Anna didn’t notice.

“I found out he was cheating on me with some other girl.”

“What?” Kristoff exclaimed. “That asshole!”

Anna couldn’t keep eye contact with him and stared at the ground. Kristoff didn’t usually do any of the affectionate things, but he felt compelled to try to cheer her up.

“Come here.”

Anna tilted her head at him and he engulfed her petite frame in a hug. He tucked her head underneath his chin, the heels that she was wearing managing to make her tall enough to fit perfectly in his arms.

“Hans is an asshole, alright? He didn’t deserve you.” And he meant every word.

They stayed in that hug for a while, at least until Anna’s frame stopped shaking and her sobs subsided and her sniffles became less frequent.

She pulled away first and gave him a smile. It was at that moment he knew he was taken with her, for good.

“Thanks, Kristoff.”

“Hey, no problem.” He smiled back. “Come on, let’s go.”

“To where?” Anna followed him as he started walking down the hall to the elevators.

“I know just what you need to cheer up.”

                                        _____________

“A diner?” Anna stares up at the blinking sign and then at Kristoff who was smiling. By now she stopped crying and only had the slightly red face to show as evidence of it.

“Hey, they make the best breakfast dinner here, hands down.”

Anna couldn’t help but giggle at his enthusiasm. He must really like breakfast for dinner.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go!” She was the one to go inside first and she heard Kristoff chuckle as he followed her inside. The smell of delicious waffles, fried chicken, and something like doughnuts wafted into her face and she breathed in deeply.

“Wow, it smells so good!” She felt her stomach growl in response. After all she was supposed to have dinner with Hans today, but that wasn’t ever going to happen again.

“Told you.” Kristoff smirked at her. “Come on.”

He led her over to a table by the window and she sat across from him. She felt horribly overdressed in her dress and heels, but Kristoff smiled at her and she relaxed. There weren't many people in the diner at this time of day anyway, and it was near closing time.

“Is it ok to be here so late?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh yeah. It’s no problem.” He shrugged and handed her a menu. His own menu laid unopened in front of him.

Anna took a look at the delicious options in front of her and she couldn’t help but feel an urge for curly fries but she shut it down.

“Kristoff’s here!” A loud voice came from behind her and her eyes widened as she saw Kristoff slump back into his seat. He had an endearing smile on his face though as a woman came up to their table. Her smile was wide and kind as she looked down at Anna, and turned towards Kristoff.

“You didn’t tell me you had a date!”

“Hey, ma.” Kristoff said. “It’s not a date, this is Elsa’s sister, Anna.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Bjorgman.” She hoped her face wasn’t blotchy still and that she still looked presentable. It turns out she had nothing to worry about as she watched her face brighten with happiness.

“Oh dear, none of that now! You can call me Bulda.”

Anna giggled. “Alright, Bulda.”

“Now what can I get ya?”

“Oh I’m not sure.” She bit her lip. “There’s just so much to choose from.”

Kristoff regarded her through pensive eyes and she looked towards him.

“Is there anything you recommend?” she asked him.

“Sure, the waffles and chicken are great, they’re my favorite.” He looked towards Bulda and she winked at her.

“I do make them pretty darn good, if I say so myself.”

Anna smiled widely. “It sounds delicious, I’ll get that then!”

Kristoff laughed. “Same for me, ma.”

“You got it, hun. Two waffles and chicken, coming right up!”

She grabbed the two menus and went into the back in order to put the order in.

“You mom is so nice.” Anna said.

“Yeah, she can be a bit much but she definitely is welcoming.” Kristoff grinned.

They both stared out the window, watching the cars drive by and people walking in the street.

“Thank you again, Kristoff.” she said quietly.

“It’s fine, Anna.”

“No, really. I don’t know of anyone’s boyfriend that would do so much for their girlfriend’s sister.”

Anna smiled brightly at him. She was still really sad at what had happened with Hans, and extremely angry, but she didn’t think she was going to burst out into tears randomly anymore. The sneer that Hans has given her when she found him kissing another woman at his apartment was enough to make her want to explode during the moment.

But being in the soft and inviting diner made her more relaxed. Kristoff was such a nice guy, despite his tough and quiet demeanor when she first saw him.

Now, watching him devour the waffles and chicken made her giggle, but when she took the first bite of it she moaned and dug in, shoveling bites and bites into her mouth as if she was starving for a year.

“Hey, slow down there. There’s a lot to eat and it’s not going anywhere.” Kristoff’s voice held a hint of laughter but she didn’t want to stop, it just tasted so delicious!

“I can’t, I haven’t had this in a few months!” she said with her mouth full, and she didn’t really think Kristoff understood her with it being all muffled by the food.

“Wait, what? You haven’t had waffles ever?”

“No, pay attention. I haven’t had it in a few months.”

“Why?” His face was quizzical and she found it kind of adorable.

“Well, I wanted to watch my figure.” She paused and remembered all the salads she would eat and while they were good, she remembered feeling hungry sometimes.

“Is this because of Hans?” He asked, his quiet voice coaxing her to slowly meet his gaze.

“Well…” she hesitated. “Yes. He said I wasn’t skinny enough.” Now that she admitted it to Kristoff, she realized how absurd she was being.

“That’s bullshit. Anna, you’re perfectly healthy.”

“I didn’t realize it when I was with Hans. I thought it was normal.” She felt her face fall, and she frowned. “No more of that though!” She shoveled more food into her mouth.

“Hey, I want some curly fries too!” Her eyes were probably wide with excitement and she thought Kristoff would be weirded out by being excited about some measly curly fries, but she hadn’t had them in so long and they were her favorite...along with BLTs, steaks, and so many others. Her mouth practically drooled with the thought of all these foods that she had kept away from.

To her surprise, Kristoff only laughed and shouted out to Bulda for an order of curly fries. An exuberant “you got it!” was yelled back to them.

She practically bounced in her seat as the delicious curly fries were set down in front of her. And she took a bite of them and absolutely melted in her seat. And another, and another. She was in curly fry heaven.

And when they were finished eating (she took the rest of the food to go in order to eat later), they walked in companionable silence back to her dorm.

“Thanks again, Kristoff,” she couldn’t help but say.

“How many times do I have to tell you, it’s no problem.” He jokingly scolded her.

A light laugh escaped her. “Let me know how I can make it up to you.”

Kristoff smiled and she felt her heart beat a bit faster. Oh no.

“Just go and have a good rest. You deserve it after today.”

“Alright. Good night Kristoff.”

“Good night.”

He didn’t leave until she went through the door.

Later, her phone rang as she settled into her bed, after a relaxed bubble bath and in her fluffiest pajamas.

“Hi, Elsa!” she said cheerily.

“Anna?” Her sister’s regal voice sounded into her ear, laced with worry. “I have four missed calls from you and three texts. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was looking for you earlier at your apartment.”

“I was at the library studying, I’m so sorry I won’t leave my phone off anymore. What happened?”

“Oh…” Memories of him with the other woman floated back and she was hit with a wave of sadness again at the reminder. “I found out that Hans was cheating on me.”

“That piece of shit!” It was funny how similar Elsa and Kristoff were. No wonder they were dating.

“It’s alright, I was going to his apartment to meet him before our dinner so we could walk to the restaurant together, and I saw him with someone else.”

“I’m going to kill him!” Elsa growled in her ear.

“I’m so sorry, Anna, do you want me to come over right now? We can have a movie night and ice cream.”

“Nah, I’m good now,” she said happily. “Actually I called Kristoff to find out where you were and once he heard me crying he rushed on over and took me to a diner to cheer me up!”

A pause on the other end. “He did?”

“Oh, it’s totally fine though! There’s nothing to worry about, there wasn’t anything romantic about it at all. He was just being nice to me, please don’t be mad!” This whole thing sounded absolutely terrible and she didn’t want to be the other woman, especially since she knew how it felt. The pain was still there of the very recent heartbreak, even though it was a dull fade at the moment, but it was there nonetheless. She wouldn’t ever do that to Elsa.

A light laugh floated out of her phone and she relaxed. “Anna, it’s fine. I’m totally okay with that! I’m just glad he cheered you up.”

“Yeah, he’s a really good guy. I’m really happy you guys are dating.”

There was a slight cough on the other end.

“Elsa?” she asked in concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Well if you’re sure you don’t need me to come over…”

“I’m fine now, Elsa. You just concentrate on your exams.”

“Alright. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Okay! Night!”

“Good night Anna.”

She hung up and set her phone on her nightstand. She stared up at her fairy lights that twinkled and blinked at her and thought about how lucky she was to have good friends in her sister and Kristoff.

Exams came and went, and Anna didn’t see Elsa or Kristoff at all during then. She texted Elsa in order to find out where she was and remembered that she was typically in the library.

Walking down the aisles of books she passed by people with their heads down, either scribbling furiously or typing furiously on their laptops. She searched for a hint of blonde hair.

She reached the end of the library and found a table, with a familiar looking light blue tote bag. It was definitely Elsa.

Anna was about to call her name, but stopped as she heard furious whispers. She rounded the corner and spotted Elsa glaring at Kristoff, who was doing the same. She froze.

Elsa spotted her first and her eyes widened.

“Anna!”

“I’m so sorry if I’m disturbing you. I just wanted to see if you two were up for a little late lunch? But I see that you guys are busy! I’ll just go now you guys can continue or I don’t know, try to fix it—” she spitted out in a ramble while taking slow steps back from the awkward situation.

Kristoff broke her tirade.

“Hey Anna, wanna hang out with us?”

There was no way that Anna missed the glare that Elsa sent him as she asked that. Uh oh. She knew Elsa was mad at her for going to the diner with Kristoff!

“No, it’s okay, I was actually just gonna go! Yeah, I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on for one of my classes and I don’t wanna disturb you, so I’ll see you guys later!” And she booked it.

It was such an awkward situation and she did not want to escalate it further. She liked that Elsa was happy with him and didn’t want to do anything to disturb that. She made the resolve to no longer try to see them together.

                                           _____________

Kristoff glared at Elsa after he watched Anna twirl around and leave. He was met with one of her own and he rolled his eyes.

He didn’t think today would start off like this and he knew it looked like they were having a lovers’ quarrel. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. Although Elsa was happy and grateful for him cheering up Anna that one night, he brought up the idea of just telling her the truth. He was immediately met with an ice wall that was both chilling and stubborn. Typical Elsa.

“I mean, she’s your sister! She thinks the world of you and she would never judge you.”

“We’re not going to talk about this.”

“I can’t keep being your fake boyfriend forever.”

With that, her eyes softened and she looked down guiltily.

“I know,” she said quietly.

Kristoff felt his anger cool. Just a tad though. He didn’t like the situation she was in, but then again it was her idea in the first place. He won’t lie and admit to himself that he was angry because he felt himself more and more drawn to her little sister by the day.

“Listen, you have to go and tell her. Or I will.”

“You’d tell her my secret?!” she hissed, blue eyes flashing in indignation.

“No!” he started. “Just the fact that this is all fake.” He wouldn’t ever tell her that Elsa was a lesbian. That was Elsa’s business and Elsa’s business alone.

Elsa closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

“I know. And I will.”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll tell her the entire truth.”

Kristoff waited anxiously for Elsa to give him the news that she admitted to everything. This fake dating thing was only supposed to be for a few days after all. But then Anna, sweet Anna came along. The cabin up in the mountains didn’t even matter to him anymore. He just wanted to see the two sisters happy and knowing the truth about Elsa’s secrecy and motives for the whole shenanigan.

But he knew it was ultimately up to Elsa. And he would stand by her decision no matter what. No matter how sweet and pretty Anna was. He groaned.

How did his life become like this?

Elsa texted him later that day. He was already studying for finals and he wanted to get a head start. Looking at her text saying we need to talk, he called her.

“Elsa?”

“Hey.” Her voice sounded troubled.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Is this about Anna?” he asked.

A sigh. “No. And yes.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Elsa?” His tone held no room for her hesitance.

“Okay! So my parents and Anna want you over for Winter break.”

“Winter break?!”

“I’m sorry! Anna just started rambling and I couldn’t get a word in since it was a video call with my parents in it. And I just wanted to tell Anna, not them so I just went along with it.”

“Ugh.” Kristoff ran his hand into his hair. This was just great. For all the times he thought about cool and nothing-fazes-me Elsa, he thought she sounded like Anna just then.

“How about I come along, and I help you tell the truth to everyone. That way it’s not just you. We don’t have to talk about you not being interested in guys, but we can just say that you weren’t looking for a relationship or whatever.”

“You’d do that?”

“Yeah. It seems like you’d need the support.”

“I do. I— thank you, Kristoff.”

“Anytime.”

Time to focus on final exams and then to a daunting winter break. Yay.

                                      _____________

Anna resisted the urge to text Elsa. She didn’t want to meddle in her affairs too much but she was absolutely dying to know if Kristoff and her made up.

She gasped with a smile. Of course! She could text Kristoff and give him some tips if he hasn’t won her back yet. She ignored the quizzical bump of pain in her chest as she pictured him bringing her older sister flowers and chocolates.

She shook her head as she shot Kristoff a text.

[Anna] Hey Kristoff! Just wanted to see if you made any progress in your lovers spat with Elsa?

A moment later her phone jingled, and she rushed to look at it.

[Kristoff] Nah, she’s still a bit mad at me. But it’s not something I can just ignore.

Oh man, it must have been big in order for the two most level headed people she knew to argue like this.

[Anna] Ok, so you guys need to talk. When you do though, she’s more receptive to you if you bring her something she likes.

It’s like you thought of her and want to make her happy even when you’re angry at her.

[Kristoff] yeah?

[Anna] Chocolates! Definitely chocolates. Dark chocolate truffles are her favorite!

Oh and an apology of course.

[Kristoff] Lol how do you know I’m in the wrong and she’s not?

[Anna] Excuse you sir, this is my sister you’re talking about.

[Kristoff] Ok feisty pants, chill out.

[Anna] I’m kidding!

In all honesty I think you both will get through this and I’m rooting for you!

It was a few minutes before his next text came in, and she waited anxiously.

[Kristoff] Thanks Anna

[Anna] Anytime!! Ask me for advice on Elsa whenever you want! Good night!

[Kristoff] Good night

Anna smiled at her phone and turned back to her open textbook. Now to finally stop procrastinating…

The next day brought a genuine smile of surprise and an excited wiggle as she saw that Elsa and Kristoff were sitting at their usual library table studying. She held the bags of takeout carefully as she went towards them.

Yeah, they weren’t supposed to eat at the library but this was a desperate time of cramming and they needed all the time they could get.

“Hey guys!” she greeted cheerfully.

Elsa gave her a tired smile in return. Whoa she must have really been crammed.

Kristoff’s was bright and wide as he saw her. He was probably happy she got them food, she thought. He also looked haggard and tired. But still good, as the sleeves of his shirt clung to his strong biceps—whoa, Anna. She felt guilty even thinking that, especially since she’s been thinking that a lot more lately.

As they munched on the takeout and poured over their books—or at least Anna tried to, she was never the type to learn from reading, she thrived on auditory learning and hands on training, she snuck a glance towards the two.

They seemed to be on good terms again, since they’re sitting next to each other. The tiredness is probably from just stress.

She found her chance to find out more as Kristoff excused himself to go to the restroom.

“Pssst, Elsa!” she whispered.

“Yeah?” she mumbled back.

“How did things go with Kristoff?”

Elsa stopped writing, her eyes frozen on the page.

“What?”

“You know! After your argument. Did he bring you chocolates like I said?” Anna gushed excitedly. She wanted all the details.

“Chocolates?” Her eyebrow twitched.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Yes! C’mon Elsa, don’t leave me hanging here. I wanna know everything! And is he coming to stay or winter break?”

Elsa leaned back in her seat.

“Yes, we apologized to each other and he gave me chocolates. The end.”

“Elsa!” she pleaded for more detail.

“And he is coming to stay for winter break.”

“Yes! It’s gonna be so fun!”

“Not for the whole time though. He has to go back to visit his own family too,” she spoke in a guarded tone.

“Of course, of course.”

“Just focus on finals for now, Anna.”

“Okay!” She was just so excited for the two.

                                           _____________

Kristoff sighed as he packed his things for this winter break excursion. Who knew that this charade would go on for this long? Well, it was ending soon. And he wanted to get home quickly after telling the truth to everyone.

It might mean that Anna hates him forever, but he hoped not. He really hoped not.

She was just so earnest about him and Elsa that he felt guilty for playing along with being the fake boyfriend. The text messages they shared when Anna was giving him advice about Elsa was almost too painful and awkward. He thanked god that he wasn’t in front of her in person when that happened, there’s no telling what expression he would have made throughout the ordeal.

He trudged onwards to his truck and mentally prepared himself for what was to come. But he knew that whatever he was feeling was nothing compared to Elsa.

The whole car ride was made in thoughtful silence and when he arrived he had no idea how to face Elsa. He decided to go with a supportive smile, and she returned it gratefully. Their friendship was stronger than this and he was thankful for that.

Facing Anna was easier than he thought it would be, seeing her cheerful face again made him happy. Elsa gave him a look that he did not want to decipher at the moment, but he definitely knew that she knew what he thought of Anna.

Her parents greeted them all with hugs and happy smiles, which he tried his best to return. He knew Elsa was on edge so he tried to make the focus on him so she could gather her thoughts and courage.

That was how he found himself being thrown into conversation with everyone at the dinner table. They had a chef prepare the dinner this time instead of them making it, and while the food looked absolutely delicious, it tasted bland and dry in his mouth.

“So, how did your semester go?” Agnarr asked.

Kristoff has food stupidly stuffed in his mouth and he coughed. Anna started talking in place of him.

“Oh, I’m sure he did great! Him and Elsa were always studying together and he was always working hard.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said in between coughs. He threw Anna a grateful look. “It was pretty good. I did better than expected with my finals and I ended up getting good grades.”

Agnarr nodded in approval. “That’s wonderful to hear. After all, Elsa needs someone smart and strong next to her.”

Wow.

“Actually dad, there’s something I…”

“But it’s absolutely wonderful that you’re able to spend winter break with us. We have a lot planned for tomorrow and we should turn in early tonight.” Elsa was cut off by her father’s suggestion.

Dinner ended shortly after that, and the topics of conversation went by too quickly for Elsa and Kristoff. She headed off to her room in silence, and Kristoff wished her good night.

He went off on his own to the backyard, which is absolutely huge if he should say, and he sat down on the bench. There was a cozy little bonfire lit up in front of it and watching the flames dance drew him into his own thoughts.

“Hey, you look a bit troubled. Did something happen?”

He turned to look into blue eyes that were gleaming with worry, though Anna smiled at him encouragingly.

“Nah, nothing happened.” He tried to smile at her.

“So what’s up?” she asked cheerfully.

They went into a nice conversation, talking about their semester, aside from Hans, though she did mention that she wanted to go back to Bulda’s diner again. “Those curly fries were so good!” she had exclaimed.

He told her about Sven, and she cooed and awed over photos of him on his phone. She made him promise to let her meet him sometime. He knew Sven would absolutely adore her. After all, she could make even the coldest of hearts warm.

The evening air grew more crisp and biting, and Anna had wrapped her arms around herself in order to be a bit warmer. Coincidentally, they had started to inch closer and closer together, so that their knees were touching. Neither seemed to mind. Kristoff knew that he didn’t.

The little bonfire had slowly grown smaller over time, and the embers lit up their faces with a dim glow.

Kristoff noticed her tiny tremors and the shake in her voice, and he took off his jacket and laid it across her shoulders. Her eyes grew wide as he did so, and a blush bloomed across her face.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“No problem.”

His arm was still around her from when he put the jacket on her.

Their faces were so close, and Anna’s eyes were locked with his, wide with wonder and a hint of something else. Desire? He saw her eyes dart to his lips and he so badly wanted to kiss her. He vaguely wondered if she wanted to too as she licked her soft lips.

Then, she pushed him away.

“Oh my gosh, it’s so late already!” she said in a rush. Her eyes held the gleam of tears. Fuck.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Good night!”

“Anna, wait!”

But she was long gone, her footsteps pattering on the cobblestone pathway, and past Elsa who stared at them with bewilderment.

Oh boy.

                                          _____________

Elsa knew that whatever had happened, it wasn’t good. Well, it might have been good for the two but since Kristoff and her were still “dating,” technically it wasn’t. How did things get to this?

She spotted Anna’s tears as they rushed down her face, and she turned to Kristoff with a glare.

“What did you do?” she hissed.

“Nothing!” She continued to glare at him.

“Okay, so maybe not nothing, we were getting closer and I gave her my jacket because she looked cold and our faces were just really close.”

“So you guys almost kissed?” She didn’t know whether to be elated for them both or to just smack him into next year because her sister was under the impression that they were dating. The latter. Definitely the latter.

“Ow!” She rolled her eyes.

“You deserve it.” She turned around and walked off to the stairway.

“Where are you going?” His voice called out after her.

“Something I should have done since the beginning.” Her voice was resolute, and she knew that he knew, that she was finally ready to tell her. Anna didn’t deserve this. Kristoff gave her a look of worry, as if to ask if she was sure about this. Her own stare said it all.

“Anna?” Elsa knocked lightly on her door. She winced as she heard her soft sobs from inside the room. It was funny how she herself had locked people out when she was younger, and now she found herself on the other side of the door. She didn’t like the feeling.

“It’s me, Elsa.” Anna didn’t answer. “I’m not angry, you know.”

Soft footsteps followed her words, and stopped in front of the door. Slowly, the door creaked open just a bit, and Elsa smiled softly at Anna from the small crack.

“Why not?” Anna asked. “I’m a terrible person.”

“No you’re not, Anna.”

The door opened fully now.

“Yes, I am!” Her face was full blown and crying. “I’m terrible because I wanted to kiss Kristoff and he’s your boyfriend! I’m the other woman and I hate that!”

“Oh, Anna.” Elsa pulled her in for a hug. She didn’t realize that this would happen, but that was life, wasn’t it?

“I mean it. I’m not angry at all.”

“You should be.”

“Maybe, if this relationship was real in the first place.” Anna went still at that.

“What?”

Anna pulled away and Elsa looked at her. She knew that she would never do that to Elsa and the fact that she was so torn over it meant that she felt so, so guilty. She didn’t have to be.

“C’mon. I’ll explain everything.” Elsa shut the door behind them and led Anna over to the bed where she snuggled underneath her arms, just like how they did when they were younger, and before Elsa had shut her out.

“I asked Kristoff to be my fake boyfriend in order to get mom and dad off of my back. They’ve been asking if I had a boyfriend for so long that I finally caved and asked him to come over for Thanksgiving.”

She took a deep breath and continued. Anna listened with rapt attention.

“The truth is, I was never interested in men.”

Anna turned towards her, to see her face. Her face held wonder and awe, but there was no judgement. It was funny to see how those few words were so easy to form mentally, but so hard to physically speak. She regretted keeping it a secret from Anna for so long.

“That...explains a lot, actually.” She finally said, and Elsa chuckled.

“Yeah, doesn’t it?” Memories of playing with figurines and dolls had sprung up, and Anna had always been the romantic one, wanting to have a prince or handsome rogue marry the princess. But she had always found it off-putting.

“But, I understand why you didn’t tell me, Elsa.” Anna smiled softly. “And it’s okay. I’m really glad you told me.”

Elsa wrapped Anna up in a warm hug.

“So, you see? You don’t have to be angry at yourself for almost kissing Kristoff. I’m actually glad that you did.”

Anna looked at her quizzically. “Even if he was your fake boyfriend, wouldn’t you still be angry?”

“We both knew it was fake. I honestly was going to let him stay at our winter cabin for free with his dog during this break if he went through with it.”

“Wow, the one up in the mountains that no one goes to?”

“That very one.”

“Somehow, it does fit him,” Anna said after thinking for a bit.

“Doesn’t it?” They both laughed. Elsa was delighted to see that Anna’s face was getting less red from crying. She lifted up a finger to Anna’s face to wipe her tears from her eyes.

“Kristoff is crazy about you, you know.”

“He is?” She blushed.

“Oh yeah. You should have seen him whenever you would show up to study with us or to bring us food as a surprise. He was always so happy to see you.”

“He is sweet.” Anna admitted. “But actually, I have a lot of questions for you.”

Elsa looked at Anna, the latter had eyes that were excited and filled with delight.

“Alright, Anna. I’m ready.” I’m finally ready.

And they talked throughout the whole night, laughing and gossiping and feeling themselves grow closer than ever before. It was when they were both almost asleep and yawning, that Anna had asked another question.

“Are you going to tell mom and dad?”

Elsa bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Well, whatever you decide, I’ll be there to support you. Okay?” Elsa smiled down at her. Her support was all she needed.

“I know.”

Anna hummed happily and snuggled into her arms, finally falling asleep. Elsa rested her head on top of hers, and even if it was uncomfortable, she was more than happy to stay in that position.

The next morning, they awoke with the sun heating up their faces, and although Elsa was up and ready to get out of bed, Anna rolled over and put a pillow over her head. Elsa laughed quietly and pulled the blanket up to cover Anna’s shoulders.

And she walked out of the room to see Kristoff leaving his, with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. She raised an eyebrow at that and crossed her arms.

“Leaving so soon?”

“I just feel awkward around here now.”

“Yeah, I understand.”

They both stood in silence for a beat.

“I told her.” Kristoff looked at her.

“Yeah?”

“And you were right. She didn’t judge me at all.”

“I’m glad you did.” Kristoff smiled.

“Me too. Now I’m going to tell my parents.” Elsa looked at him resolutely. Kristoff looked really surprised, but Elsa wasn’t going to back down.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Come on, I’m going to tell them in the study.”

Kristoff followed her and they both made their way to the study. Telling them was much more difficult than telling Anna, and that had technically held more weight than them as she had effectively shut her sister out for most of their teenage years. She had to go through a lot of therapy to get to where she was now, but now that they all know, she felt like she could be herself. Agnarr was, for what she expected, perplexed. But Iduna took it more in stride, saying that it doesn’t matter who she loved, just that she would be happy with whomever it was.

Elsa smiled gratefully at that, while Agnarr had coughed and awkwardly tried to change the subject. Iduna and Elsa shared a look that only women would convey, and Elsa knew that her mother would make him accept it. Or at least, not make degrading remarks or ask stupid questions. Thank god for moms.

Kristoff had apologized for deceiving them, and while they were perplexed and mildly angry that they were lied to, they still invited him to stay for the rest of the break. He politely declined, and Elsa knew he felt uncomfortable.

She followed him out to his car, and watched as he helped to load up his truck.

“Have a safe drive back home, Kristoff.”

“Yup, I will.”

“You sure you don’t want to see Anna and say goodbye?”

Kristoff looked back at the mansion, and after a moment shook his head.

“Nah, I think she needs a break from me. We did almost have a moment, I don’t want her to be confused or anything.”

“I don’t think that’s the case at all.” Elsa also looked back towards the manor, hoping Anna would bound down the steps to the car in order to talk to him.

“But seriously, get away from here and take a nice long break. This charade has gone on long enough.” They both laughed.

“You feel better after telling them?” He asked seriously. She knew that he was looking at her with worried eyes, that he would honestly throw hands with her dad if he felt that he needed to.

But she could honestly say that she did. Deep inside, she felt free, and that she could be herself now. Something that she couldn’t say she was for most of her life.

“Yes.”

“That’s all that matters.” He smiled as he shut the passenger side door of his truck. “I’ll see you next semester, Elsa.”

“Bye!”

And he went around and drove off, the dust trailing behind him. She walked back into the house and went back to the bedroom, smiling at Anna who was still in a deep sleep. She would tell her to meet him when they were back on campus, when she woke up. But for now, she felt a bit tired. So she was going to rest some more.

                                         _____________

Kristoff walked around on the first day of the new semester, finally sitting at the usual library table again. He didn’t really look forward to the new semester of classes, but it was a challenge and he wanted to get ahead. As per the norm lately, he wondered how Anna was doing. Was she back on campus yet?

He waited for Elsa to show up as she always did, she had let him know she would be free sometime in the afternoon. So he opened up a book, ripping off the plastic. God, he hated buying textbooks, they were so overly expensive. He turned the pages to the first chapter on macroeconomics and started to read.

But a brown bag was placed on the side of the table across from him. The smell of fries wafted over to him and he drooled. He didn’t realize how hungry he was.

“Oh man, you brought food, thanks Elsa!” He smiled, but when he looked up, he was met with Anna’s shy gaze.

“Anna.”

“I thought you would like it, I got it from your mom’s diner.” she said quietly, looking at him through her lashes and Kristoff coughed, a blush rising.

“I do, thank you.” Somehow Anna seemed even prettier today, her hair in waves and a cute blush showcasing her freckled cheeks. He couldn’t stop staring at her.

“Do you want to have a seat? Share the food?”

Anna smiled and nodded. “I got you a burger if that’s okay.”

“That’s more than okay, it’s terrific.” He munched down on it greedily and Anna laughed. She nervously picked at her curly fries.

“So…” she started.

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?” Anna asked, her eyes wide and excited, and also scared.

“Like a date?” Kristoff couldn’t help but smile. He was absolutely ecstatic that she asked.

“Like a date.” She nodded.

“I’d love to.”

Anna’s delighted smile warmed his heart, and he started to checklist potential restaurants in his mind. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he looked at it to see a thumbs up from Elsa. He looked up to see her peeking out from behind a bookshelf with a wave and a small wink.

A second later, another text popped up.

[Elsa] Bring her sunflowers. Those are her favorites.

He smiled to himself. What a stroke of luck that being a fake boyfriend for someone would lead him to someone that he would be a real boyfriend for. They snuck glances at each other from across the table and he knew that he would treasure her forever.

FIN

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! :D

[karaslluthor]

supercorp fanfic masterpost pt.2

this has been in my drafts for over a year so here ya go and hasn't been updated since then but if u haven't read these then ur welcome. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

its literally a big ass list jsyk and i did all the tumblr tags back then so idk if they are still the same users but hopefully lmao. 

original part 1 is here boysss

MULTI FICS

somewhere i have never travelled (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9268886/chapters/21008012)

kara and lena visit all different places lenas lived and then they find a home together and its super cute and fluffy I cry

Paranoia Incarnated - @justmickeyfornow

mickey is my fucking supercorp spiritual guider with the best fucking fic and ive read it about 322934 times and still is sooo good. Also the whole heartbeat thing KILLS me. SO MUCH ANGST but literally its worth the death u go through trust me

Transcendent Interactions 

Kara and lena share this bond thing from birth and can feel each others emotions and they finally meet and its so great like im actually fucking in love with this fic and kara gets herself off all the time thinking lena doesn’t know idk just read it u wont regret I stg

Closer and Closer (Until We Collide) - @hallow777 

Im a slut for bed sharing tropes and this is so CUTE like lenas all freaking out because she keeps waking up cuddling kara and alex is oblivious to everything and its just soooo good

So, This Happened?

Drunk kara leaves drunk alex for a more suitable cuddle buddy aka lena lesbian luthor and lena sleeps in a supergirl t shirt bc of course

Sojourn 

Holy mother of fuck as if this fic didn’t absolutely ruin my fucking life??? Lena has to go to London for a month so she invites kara to come with her and lena has a gay awakening and realises shes in love with kara and its SO FUCKING GOOD

just one wrong move (baby, baby)

lena is having karas baby from this alien tech accidentally! And lena is so loved and its so cute like honestly and obviously they fall in love bc duh

hold me, my dear (and don't let go)

kara is a professional cuddler and lena hires her services bc shes a sad touch starved young lady and deserves to have some hugs in her life hello fluff my old friend discovering the moon 

alex and lena brotp and holy fuck does it deliver!!!! Alex is like a wingwoman we all need and kara and lena just need to communicate tbh but AMAZING

Focus on Something You Love, and Breathe

Lex is a little shit as always and wants to kill lena bc he thinks shes in love with supergirl (which she is) so kara says she can stay with her and obviously the angst is juicy and ruined my life. So. Good. Read. It.

Offstage 

College theatre au but like literally one of the best college aus ive ever read!!!! Lenas just a big lesbian and karas confused and they bang secretly and its glorious

it's a boy!

lena takes in a super powered alien baby that falls from the sky and gets a weird neighbor in the form of kara danvers and theres not many chapters yet so im not sure whats happening with kara yet but im super excited for this!!!

Break My Fall 

Kara dates monel but kisses lena as supergirl and its angsty and smutty and all round a good fucking time

carefulness can be damned 

Post 3x7, literally smut with some plot need I say more??

A Foolish Wit - @seabiscuits-us​

if you haven’t read seabiscuits fics are you even a supercorp fan?? Lena needs a husband and Clark Danvers is positively charming and also actually disguised as a man, I mean.. quality content

In My Veins

im soooo excited for this fic because the lena/alex brotp is written so well!!! Basically lena and alex become really good friends bc they both deal with their issues by drinking obvs and kara thinks they are secretly dating and gets upset and im SO READY FOR THIS ANGST

Would You Catch Me If I Fall For You ('Cause I'm falling) 

This is absolutely amazing and so captivating and I was honestly on edge the whole time kudos to the author!!!!! Kara goes back in time to warn lena about her dying on the venture and lena falls in love with her but she disappears and then when real kara and lena meet, kara doesn’t remember knowing lena and ughsalkdhsla its so good.

We Need a New Song

Oh my good golly gosh this fic ruined my life. Ballet au that has barely any ballet and an abundance of GAY and I had to take a moment after reading this to collect myself tbh

and stick it into someone else's heart 

Rhea infected lenas boobs in a cage dress with some weird alien stuff and her and kara have to bang or THEY’LL DIE pretty much but they love each other

The Laws of Fate 

soulmate au where everyone has a red string and lenas points to the sky and shes confused af but it’s a gay slow burn and the angst is good for ur soul

My Sun 

Lena gets into a car accident and kara thinks she died but lex is a maniac and wants lenas help and fdjsaklfs it’s a rollercoaster let me tell you

Mercy on Me 

lena falls under black mercy and in order to bring her back karas has to break her poor little gay heart bc lena thinks her and kara are in looooove AWWW heart shatters

Be your own Hero 

Collection of supercorp one shots!!!!!! Quality content lemme tell yaaaa

pick a blossom and hold it to your breast (honey, you know that’s my love bursting loud from inside) 

kara and lena rely on their late night phone calls with each other and get the feels and go on a date and they are just cute adorable dorks that are nervous  

your voice is pretty, baby (but i’d rather have your pretty skin instead) 

part 2 of pick a blossom ^^^ still adorably cute and a smut chapter I mean come on, treat yoself

Firsts 

kara and lenas first told in the cutest wayyyyyyyy

Whispers 

lena works with lillian to save supergirl and its oh so angsty and kara always believes her girl bc that’s canon

My personal Santa in heels 

Kara loves Christmas almost as much as she loves lena, almost

Timer 

Soulmate AU where everyone can have a device installed to tell them the time until they meet their soulmate, kara and lena love each other but kara cant have a timer installed obvs kryptonian skin and its so cute and soft and angsty

The Fatal Flaw 

Super cool and different fic and keen to see more chapters from this!! Kara doesn’t have her powers (yet) and she meets lena at a party at college and then clark tells her shes actually an alien ooooo im keen

Stay the night 

Lena inherits the national city womens basketball team and star player kara danvers is a muscly babe and they try not to fall in love BUT ITS JUST TOO HARD BECAUSE THEY ARE SOULMATES also I love jack in this such a wingman

1865 

MATTTTTTTTEEEE lena is the daughter of the governor and shes a little rebel. She falls in love with kara but her family has arranged her marriage to monel BUT LIKE THEY JUST LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH btw they are aliens but like in 1865 so cool. Pls update I love this so much

All Our Bodies in the Grass - @seabiscuits-us​

fuckkkkk this fic honestly, amish au and lena knows nothing but kara is down to help her out while also sharing lovely girl mags ;)

B.F.F.W.E.B

Kara and lena are friends with benefits but feels get involveddddd, lenas a useless lesbian

All the little lies 

Kara comes to earth and falls in love with lena but she has to go back to krypton and breaks lenas heart in the process, but she comes back and its only been like 7 months but its been like 3 years for lena!!! (I cant remember exact dates don’t judge me)

half melted m&m's 

lena needs a fake wife to stay in the country so kara is ever so helpful and agrees to be her wife, oh I do love a fake wife trope and this delivers!!!!

The Wrong Superhero 

Lena gets saved by batwoman and supergirl thinks she is super jealous because of superhero-related reasons but shes just in love with lena

We'll Take on the World 

College au, just useless fools in love that need to communicate and make out more

And they call me from beyond the stars 

Omg I LOVE THIS FIC SO MUCH ok so kara is a ghost (still from krypton and stuff) but no one can see her except lena so lena works on trying to get her back into the physical plane of existence so she can find alex but they FIND LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER oh my god so angsty let me tell ya be warned

Wait for me to come home 

https://lostariels.tumblr.com/

idk where to even start on this fic honestly, im pretty sure most people have read this bc it’s a rite of passage but fuck it gets me everytime!!!! Army au and there is so much angst and I love it

An Unexpected Surprise 

supercorp baby au!!! Kara and lena bang and kara ends up preggers. Iconic  

Days in a Lifetime 

Kara and lena grow up together, massive slowburn but worth the wait!!!!! ACTUALLY GO AND READ ALL OF STENS BECAUSE I JUST REALISED HOW MANY I PUT IN HERE AND THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GREAT

Do you wanna (like you know I do) - @seabiscuits-us​

another seabiscuit, I couldn’t not put this in!!! CAPE COD and sharing of bunk beds!!! Pls update this my soul is withering away

Purple and Black are my Favorite Colours 

Kara gets in contact with kryptonite that makes her gp! And her and lena b a n g    

ONE SHOTS

danishes and other sweet treats 

oh my fuck this is so cute and its like a long one shot so I mean get on it because kara and lena go to a conference and share a hotel room need I say more  

Sun Kissed 

Kara takes lena on a roadtrip to the science museum for her birthday and my good golly gosh its so cute I could ascend to heaven

Only Human 

A one shot with two chapters in different POV but lenas jealous of monel and then supercorp bang and its all angsty and lena protects kara and tbh they need to communicate but happy endings and love all round

The Right Thing 

Lena freaks out because lex knows her and supergirl are dating and does the most dramatic thing (of course) by distancing herself from kara and did I say angst???/ also I cried multiple times in this

funny how the stars crossed right 

Kara and lena keep meeting at parties and have super dorky costumes and fall in love (literally love anything written by you btw, im going to go ahead and say I would have all yours bookmarked so everyone just check them ALL out)

Accidental Text

kara accidentally sends a love confession to lena and its short and cute!      

Unspoken Promises

supergirl and reign battle and lena finds out about kara being supergirl and supercorp are just obliviously in love

Green (Kara loves it and hates it in equal measure)

Im a sucker for a jealous trope and boy does this deliverrrr. Karas hella jealous of lena having other friends but realises its because shes super in love with her

Crush

Karas jealous because lena is flirting with supergirl but lena knows kara is supergirl so shes actually flirting with kara, nice!

My Donuts

Karas really jealous of sam and lena spending heaps of time together and then kara walks in on them having donuts and she fucking loses it because its their thing duh.

when we get there 

Lena invites kara to her beach house to chill and they obvs fall in love because they are cute af

Have a Break 

Lena is determined to work out how to use a vending machine to get kara her candy and kara and winn are watching it all unfold via cameras in catco, basically lena vs. the machine (himym singing voice)

Self doubt and comforting talks 

Drunk kara, comforting lena fluff and adorableness

Shopping carts and a beautiful girl 

Kara crashes into lenas car in a shopping cart and they go on a date and its SO CUTE

Distractions 

lenas oblivious to kara being supergirl even though kara slips up all the time!!! #nicehalloweencostumekara

Lip Bites & Long Gazes 

lenas a big gay flirt and kara gets frustrated and flustered and calls her out and they make out

Off the Record 

kara spots lena at a gay club and they dance and make out *lizzie mcguire voice this is what dreams are made of*

Not so secret 

the superfriends take a weekend away and kara and lena bang pretty much smut but its cute

come be my lover, be my getaway car 

How many amazing tropes can you fit into one fic (aka the fic that made me lose my fucking mind oh my god its so good, had it include)

A one time thing

Kara and lena end up banging in a motel and kara has an internal meltdown its great

This is Home 

Listen here, this is the most adorable thing my two eyes have ever witnessed. Lena doesn’t really have a home kara the sweet soul she assists her in finding a home with her (aka its kara, kara is her home get it)

Her Biggest Fan 

lena is apart of the supergirl fandom, aka shes me

Drunk Puppy

kara being a drunk gay mess wanting to hunt seashells with lena

Act Natural

kara and lena have hickies and try to hide them on a beach trip with the gang  

Like a date, date 

kara asks lena on a date and lena has a gay panic attack pretty much

Datable 

everyone thinks kara and lena are dating so they just start dating? Amazing

Stop following me, creep 

Please clarify 

Lena tries to tell kara she loves her and wants to date but karas an alien and just doesn’t get it, so cuteeeee

Fate is Written in the Ink (part 1) 

Fate is Written in the Ink (part 2)

Soulmate au!!!! Any ink on your skin appears on your soulmates and omg its so cute like kara draws all this art on herself and lena gets to see it too!!!!!

Muddle my heart (then add a dash of lime) 

Kara keeps going to the bar because punk/bartender Lena is a babe and she has a big lesbian crush on her

be hopeful, don't get broken (stay caught up in the moment) 

angsty dog au and I mean PUPPIEs and SUPERCORP need I say more?

The makings of a family 

Clark is the one who arrives after being stuck in the phantom zone and kara has to look after him and lena helps her out and wow new baby for supercorp

Let Your Guard Down 

Lena in a DEO uniform sparring with kara and its so angsty because lenas mad at kara for not telling her the supergirl secret and then they bang and did I already mention lena in a DEO uniform???  

Do you not like the service here?

Thirsty kara and waitress lena, lenas jealous of alex l o l

here is where time is on our side (part 1) 

our corner of the universe (part 2) 

long oneshot but fuck me its so good. Post daxamite invasion/mon-el coming back and both are healing from everything and go on a roadtrip just wherever the map takes them and oh my fuck its so cute and everything u want in a fic. Part two is the follow up

The Uncanny Valley 

cadmus replaces real lena with a robot version and kara didn’t know but then kara finds lena and its cute  

put these battered bones to rest 

soulmate au (you should know by now im a sucker for a good soulmate au), lena has a foreign name on her hip (its kara btw)

pain

another soulmate au hhehehe soulmates feel each others pain obvs both these babies have a lot of paiiiiiin in their lives

Love is Garbage 

Literally a garbage truck au, im not even going to say more

i know you're out there somewhere waiting (i know the stars can hear us praying) 

Whats this??? Another soulmate au!!! Classic lover one arm, enemy on the other, honestly lena deserves more and just waits for kara to love her and I love this fic, also they help sam!!  

Monster in the Mirror 

Supercorp reveal in the middle of the lena/edge poisoning children episode oooooooh so angsty but happy love ending

Safety 

Supercorp first ever sleepover!!! This is so cute stop

Please Clarify 

Lena tries to ask kara out in every single way possible and kara is an oblivious alien

love is a flower, you gotta let it grow 

Unrequited love makes u grow flower petals in your lungs but when ur love is returned it clears up, this was dope and I love ur work

where our hands hurt from healing - @seabiscuits-us​

its seabiscuit do I need to say more?????? I will tho. Alex and lena match on tinder and become besties and I live for alex/lena brotp so….

blessed be (the mystery of love) - @seabiscuits-us​ 

*dj Khaled voice* ANOTHER ONE, look I love every single fic this one does not disappoint and nothing like a good light hearted first date fisting hahahahahaha

The Luthor and the Super That Saved the World 

Fit it fic for the season three finale where there is more supercorp and less shit writing, LOVE STENS WORK

Kara Danvers and the Brown Belt of Lesbianism 

Karas gay brown belt that she always wears that makes her look like a big ol lesbian drives lena mental bc she so gay

SIN

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING BY JAZZFORDSHIRE IM NOT FUCKING JOKING LET YOURSELF FALL INTO THIS SMUTFEST AND LIVE UR BEST FUCKING LIFE AND IF YOU HAVENT READ THE CAMPING AU UR NOT EVEN A SUPERCORP STAN

Pleasure 

like sweat dripping down our dirty laundry 

What Happens in the K Room Doesn't Stay in the K Room 

green-eyed monster

Kara shows Lena what makes her Super 

Supergirl, Kara, and a Luthor walk into a bar... 

Late Night Heroics 

Good Vibrations 

Two Lena Luthors and a blonde walk into a bedroom... 

Her perfect match 

Girls' Night 

Happy Halloween, Supergirl 

What She Wants 

make the rules then break them 

an animal within an animal 

THE WILDEST THING IVE EVER READ, STRAP THE FUCK IN (youll understand my pun when you’ve read it)

[letterboxd]

Pride: 25 Queer Films To Love.

Dating Amber writer and director David Freyne introduces our London correspondent Ella Kemp to 25 of his favorite LGBTQIA films.

A coming-out, coming-of-age film, David Freyne’s Dating Amber follows “baby gays” Eddie (Fionn O’Shea) and Amber (Lola Petticrew), who act as each other’s beards in order to stop speculation about their sexualities. Released on Amazon Prime Video in the UK for Pride month, it’s winning praise from Letterboxd members as a “charming” and “gentle” comedy-drama “full of loveliness that extends beyond the Irish accents”.

Lola Petticrew and Fionn O’Shea as Amber and Eddie in ‘Dating Amber’.

As the number of films by and about the gay and trans community expands, we asked Freyne if he could narrow down a list of ten favorites for us. The answer was no—instead, we got 25!

“There are so many extraordinary queer films beyond this list, but all of these films just really affected me when I saw them. Some were the first time I saw queerness on screen, while I deeply identified with others. And, as a filmmaker, each of them makes me braver to fight to tell stories that aren't always easy to get made.

“They are in no particular order because I don’t want to bump into Barry Jenkins (which is obviously going to happen) and have to explain that he is number five on that list (that he will definitely read) for no specific reason. It’s just a technicality.”

David Freyne’s 25 Favorite LGBTQIA+ Films

My Summer of Love (2004) Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski

Paweł Pawlikowski’s film feels like a dream that sweeps you up along with it, helped along by incredible early performances from Natalie Press and Emily Blunt. The hypnotic use of Goldfrapp's ‘Lovely Head’ is probably my favorite use of a song in any film ever. Their drug-fuelled dancing was a massive inspiration for Eddie and Amber’s baby steps into Dublin’s gay scene in Dating Amber.

Weekend (2011) Directed by Andrew Haigh

I never fail to cry buckets at the end of this heartbreaking gem. It’s small in the best sense of the word. Two people fall in love over one intimate weekend. Their gayness is both incidental and totally fundamental. It’s so delicate and moving. Andrew Haigh is a master.

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Directed by Jamie Babbit

Jamie Babbit’s debut is a brilliant, campy comedy about a cheerleader sent to a conversion therapy camp. I love it for all the reasons many critics (at the time) disliked it. It is subversive, quirky and defiantly upbeat. And it stars Natasha Lyonne and Clea Duvall. Enough said.

Paris is Burning (1990) Directed by Jennie Livingston

I’m not saying anything new when I say that Paris is Burning is necessary viewing. It’s a hilarious, moving and eye-opening look at the (mostly) Black trans women in New York’s ball scene. It is a glimpse into the lives of these extraordinary people who risked everything to live authentically, for themselves and each other. And at a time when our trans family is so under attack, it is vital to see such iconic figures from our community. You’ve probably seen it. Re-watch it. Also those end notes will make you cry.

Happy Together (1997) Directed by Wong Kar-wai

As with all Wong Kar-wai’s work, it is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. It’s a tough watch, a portrait of a toxic, failing relationship. But it looks beautiful. They’re miserable and co-dependent. It’s abusive and awful. But it’s great. It really is a great film. I’m not selling this one well. Just watch it.

Moonlight (2016) Directed by Barry Jenkins

Definitely worth watching after Happy Together. Not just because it will make you feel better, but because Barry Jenkins has noted it as a big influence. Also, Moonlight is a masterpiece. You know that, of course. Side note: I realize I’ll never be able to create a hand-job scene as powerful and tender as Jenkins did here, but, in Dating Amber, I made three comedy hand-jobs. Take that Jenkins!

God’s Own Country (2017) Directed by Francis Lee

You can feel Francis Lee in every frame of this film. It’s personal filmmaking at its very best, with wonderful performances from Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu. And it has the most beautifully romantic ending that you only realize we lack for LGBTQ characters when you see it laid out so wonderfully. When we were trying to finance Dating Amber and people suggested it was too Irish, I’d just reference God’s Own Country, which is so defiantly Yorkshire, and they’d shut up. Also, Secăreanu’s jumper with a thumb hole is my style icon. Bring on Ammonite!

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) Directed by Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller is such a brilliant filmmaker. This film is based on the memoir by Lee Israel who forged letters by famous people to sell. It’s a genre piece that feels like it could have been made in the 70s. But what I love about it the most is that it is a rare example of a film that centers the friendship between a lesbian and a gay man. Why do films usually treat us like we exist in totally separate worlds? Anyway, it’s a joyous watch.

Tangerine (2015) Directed by Sean Baker

I’m obsessed with tightly plotted films and Tangerine doesn’t waste a frame. It’s 88 minutes of pure wit, charm and entertainment in line with the best of old-school Hollywood. You instantly forget that Baker’s film is shot on an iPhone and just get swept up in the extraordinary performances of Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. It’s such a mystery they don’t work more. (Reader: it’s not a mystery. It’s because they are Black trans women, and the industry is shit.)

Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) Directed by Céline Sciamma

We all bow at the alter of Céline Sciamma. This film is perfection. The sparse-but-powerful use of music, exquisite photography and extraordinary performances that burn beneath the stillness. The final shots of Adèle Haenel will feed your soul for a year. (Side note: face masks have never looked so stylish.)

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Directed by John Schlesinger

This was John Schlesinger’s follow up to his best-known film, Midnight Cowboy. A middle-aged gay doctor (Peter Finch), and a divorced woman (Glenda Jackson), are both in an open love triangle with a younger, bisexual sculptor (Murray Head). It’s quite low-key and far tamer now than when it was released, but it’s a beautiful film and Schlesinger’s most personal. He was one of the few openly gay directors of his time. And Jackson’s performance steals it.

Far From Heaven (2002) Directed by Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes’ stunning film will make you immediately go out and discover all of Douglas Sirk’s glorious technicolor melodramas. Julianne Moore’s performance as a wife who discovers her husband is gay will break you. Dennis Quaid is also terrific as her closeted husband.

The Watermelon Woman (1996) Directed by Cheryl Dunye

Cheryl Dunye’s low-budget debut is a seminal queer film. A video store worker and documentarian (played by Dunye) starts a new relationship while becoming obsessed with ‘the watermelon woman’, a Black actress forgotten by history. It’s lo-fi, funny and a, far too rare, film about race and sexuality.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) Directed by Stephen Frears

It may have been the first time I saw gay characters on screen and, at the time, it petrified me. But what an amazing film about love, acceptance and the power to change. Fun fact: Daniel Day-Lewis spent a year as a tumble dryer in preparation for his role.

Beautiful Thing (1996) Directed by Hettie MacDonald

Hettie MacDonald’s coming-of-age film is so lovely, honest and tender. James Harvey adapted it from his own play of the same name. The soundtrack is almost entirely The Mamas and the Papas. I am surprised some cigar-smoking West-End mogul hasn’t attempted a musical adaptation. Or maybe they have, I don’t know.

Pride (2014) Directed by Matthew Warchus

Such a purely entertaining film while being urgent, political and deeply moving. Beresford’s script is a masterclass in plotting and if you don’t cry at the end then you are dead inside. Sorry but that’s just science. Also it has the most emotional postscript coda since, well, Paris is Burning.

Love is Strange (2014) Directed by Ira Sachs

Ira Sachs is one of my favorite current filmmakers and criminally underrated. I mean, he’s appreciated, but he needs to be lauded. Love is Strange is such a charming and quietly devastating love story about an older gay couple who lose their apartment and have to couch surf with relatives. It’s one of the most effective films in dealing with the rental crisis in big cities, something he does equally brilliantly in the follow-up, Little Men.

A Fantastic Woman (2017) Directed by Sebastián Lelio

Sebastián Lelio’s film is a beautiful story about one trans woman’s grief after the unexpected death of her older partner. But what makes this film so spectacular is the captivating performance by Daniela Vega. We need to see more of her on screen.

BPM (Beats per Minute) (2017) Directed by Robin Campillo

It’s a film about the AIDS activism of Act Up in 1990s Paris. What makes this so incredible is how joyous it is. Strobe-doused dance scenes punctuate this film that will make you want to take to the streets and fight for your rights.

The Queen of Ireland (2015) Directed by Conor Horgan

This documentary by Conor Horgan follows Ireland’s most famous drag queen, Panti Bliss (aka Rory O’Neill). It’s about his life, a legal battle (a bunch of homophobes sued Rory for calling them homophobes on national TV) and the staging of a show in his hometown. Central to all this is Ireland’s historic vote on marriage equality, something that Panti was a powerful figure in. If you want to laugh and have your heart soar in seeing confirmation of how a once painfully conservative country moved to love and equality, watch this.

The Kids Are All Right (2010) Directed by Lisa Cholodenko

Lisa Cholodenko’s feature is a warm, witty and realistic look at a lesbian couple and their children. Every performance is pitch perfect. I can’t believe it’s a decade old and that we have had so few similar films since.

Booksmart (2019) Directed by Olivia Wilde

We need more joyous films with queer leads and Olivia Wilde’s debut is just that. Set over one night of belated partying, we follow best friends Molly and Amy (Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever), one of whom happens to be a lesbian. It is just so much fun to watch.

All About My Mother (1999) Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

I mean this list could just be an Almodóvar filmography, but All About My Mother just happened to be the first of his I saw and it blew my little gay mind. It’s simply about love in its truest sense. Almodóvar said it best with his dedication, “To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother.”

Female Trouble (1974) Directed by John Waters

You can’t have a queer film list without John Waters, and this 1974 classic is my favorite of his. It follows Dawn Davenport (played by the legendary Divine) from teen delinquent to the electric chair. It’s hilarious, irreverent and distasteful in the ways only Waters can be.

Saint Maud (2019) Directed by Rose Glass

Rose Glass’s debut film isn’t out yet and so technically shouldn’t be on the list. But I saw at a festival last year and loved it, so there. It’s a horror film about a private nurse (rising star Morfydd Clark) who tries to save the soul of her deviant and lesbian patient (the always-brilliant Jennifer Ehle). It’s eerie, stylish and the sort of debut all us filmmakers wish we had. Shut up, you’re jealous!

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