#retail butch blues

[babsaros]

oh boy i love the panopticon

[batmannotes]

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two   

Available on Digital on April 23

4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray also arriving on April 23

Based on DC’s iconic comic book limited series ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, join DC Super Heroes from across the multiverse in the second of three parts in DC’s new animated film Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two, which continues the trilogy that marks the beginning of the end to the Tomorrowverse story arc.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the all-new, action-packed DC animated film features some of DC’s most famous Super Heroes from multiple universes including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, who come together to stop an impending threat of doom and destruction. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two will be available to purchase on digital and on 4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray on April 23.

Fans of this superhero adventure will also be able to indulge in a range of bonus features including interviews with the filmmakers on how they created a comprehensive universe across seven films.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One is available now on Digital, 4K UHD and Blu-ray.The final part of the trilogywill be available later in 2024.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two features returning popular voice cast members: Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, The Boys, The Winchesters) as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Emmy winner Darren Criss (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Glee) as Superman & Earth-2 Superman, Meg Donnelly (Legion of Super-Heroes, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,) as Supergirl & Harbinger, and Stana Katic (Castle, Absentia) as Wonder Woman & Superwoman.

Aside from the returning voice cast, the star-studded ensemble voice cast includes Jonathan Adams as Monitor, Gideon Adlon as Batgirl, Geoffrey Arend as Psycho Pirate/Charles Halstead & Hawkman, Troy Baker as Joker, Zach Callison as Robin, Darin De Paul as Solovar, Ato Essandoh as Mr. Terrific & Anti-Monitor, Keith Ferguson as Dr. Fate & Atomic Knight, Will Friedle as Batman Beyond & Kamandi, Jennifer Hale as Alura & Hippolyta, Aldis Hodge as John Stewart, Jamie Gray Hyder as Hawkgirl, Erika Ishii as Doctor Light/Dr. Hoshi & Huntress, David Kaye as The Question & Satellite, Matt Lanter as Blue Beetle, Liam McIntyre as Aquaman, Lou Diamond Phillips as Spectre, Matt Ryan as Constantine, Keesha Sharp as Vixen, Harry Shum Jr. as Brainiac 5, and Jimmi Simpson as Green Arrow.

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two is produced by Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau and executive produced by Butch Lukic, Sam Register, and Michael Uslan. The film is directed by Jeff Wamester from a script by Jim Krieg. Casting and voice direction is by Wes Gleason. The film is based on characters from DC and the graphic novel “Crisis on Infinite Earths” by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two will be available on April 3 9 to purchase digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more. On April 30 23 the film will be available to purchase on 4K Ultra HD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-Ray Discs online and in-store at major retailers. Pre-order your copy now.

SYNOPSIS:

An endless army of SHADOW DEMONS bent on the destruction of all reality swarms over our world and all parallel Earths! The only thing opposing them is the mightiest team of metahumans ever assembled. But not even the combined power of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and all their fellow superheroes can slow down the onslaught of this invincible horde. What mysterious force is driving them? And how do the long-buried secrets of the Monitor and Supergirl threaten to crush our last defense?

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

Physical and Digital

Voices in Crisis

The Bat-Family of the Multiverse

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three Sneak Peek

Preorder now at Amazon.

[schrodingers-lesbian]

i wanna be someones blue collar butch boygirlfriend so bad but im disabled and the closest i get is working truck at a retail store 😔

[sharkface-daydreams]

I gotta ask what you think about my blorbo... Agent Florida/Butch Flowers for the character thingy pretty please

hello!! sure thing ^^ i was pulling old ones out of our ask tag but i love doing these so i found the old meme lol

he's such an odd bird and we don't think about him a whole lot but he's very interesting. passes himself off as a kind protective leader sort but once we get to freelancer we realize this guy... there's something wrong with him lmfao

i once described him as a "terrifyingly polite hippie" and i think that still stands. i personally think he's a very pretty dude under that helmet but there's something about him vibes-wise that most people find very off-putting. he's smiling so kindly but your body knows you are for real in danger. it's very fun

i haven't gotten to the part of my modern retail au where he's managing the blue half of blood Gulch Walmart but I'm looking forward to it lol

thanks for asking!

here's the blank if anyone else wants to do these

[fungaldeity]

i think we should start making the stone butch blues-type retvrn queers romanticise like. service industry. like get them to wear shoes for crews nonslips and an apron because it’s sooo chic and, like, our queer ancestors were working retail didn’t you know!

[mcbastardsmausoleum]

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One (2023) arrives on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray 1/23

Heroes from across the multiverse team up in one of the most pivotal DC stories of all time in the animated film Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One

Available exclusively on Digital on January 9

4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray arriving on January 23

Parts Two & Three of the Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Trilogy to debut later in 2024

Based on DC’s iconic comic book limited series ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, join DC Super Heroes from across the multiverse in the first of three parts of DC’s new animated film Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One, which marks the beginning of the end to the Tomorrowverse story arc.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the all-new, action-packed DC animated film features some of DC’s most famous Super Heroes from multiple universes including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, who come together to stop an impending threat of doom and destruction. The film will be available to purchase exclusively on digital on January 9 and on 4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray on January 23.

Fans of this superhero adventure will also be able to indulge in a range of bonus features including interviews with the filmmakers on how they created a comprehensive universe across seven films.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three will be available later in 2024.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One features returning popular voice cast members: Emmy winner Darren Criss (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Glee) as Superman & Earth-2 Superman, Stana Katic (Castle, Absentia) as Wonder Woman & Superwoman and Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, The Boys, The Winchesters) as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Aside from the returning voice cast, a star-studded ensemble takes shape including Matt Bomer (White Collar, American Horror Story: Hotel) as The Flash/Barry Allen, Meg Donnelly (Legion of Super-Heroes, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,) as Supergirl & Harbinger, Jimmi Simpson (Star Trek: Prodigy, Westworld) as Green Arrow and Zachary Quinto (Heroes, Star Trek) as Lex Luthor.

Additional cast includes: Jonathan Adams as Monitor, Ike Amadi as J’onn J’onzz/Martian Manhunter, Amazing Man & Ivo, Geoffrey Arend as Psycho Pirate & Hawkman, Zack Callison as Dick Grayson/Robin, Alexandra Daddario as Lois Lane, Alastair Duncan as Alfred, Matt Lanter as Blue Beetle & Ultraman, Ato Essandoh as Mr Terrific, Cynthia Hamidi as Dawnstar, Aldis Hodge as John Stewart/Green Lantern & Power Ring, Erika Ishii as Doctor Light/Dr. Hoshi & Huntress, David Kaye as The Question, Ashleigh LaThrop as Iris West, Liam Mcintyre as Aquaman & Johnny Quick, Nolan North as Hal Jordan, Amazo & Homeless Man, Lou Diamond Phillips as The Spectre & Owlman, Keesha Sharp as Vixen and Harry Shum Jr. as Brainiac 5.

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One is produced by Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau and executive produced by Butch Lukic, Sam Register, and Michael Uslan and directed by Jeff Wamester from a script by Jim Krieg. Casting and voice direction is by Wes Gleason.

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One will be available on January 9 to purchase digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more. On January 23 the film will be available to purchase on 4K Ultra HD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-Ray Discs online and in-store at major retailers. Pre-order your copy now.

SYNOPSIS:

Death is coming. Worse than death: oblivion. Not just for our Earth, but for everyone, everywhere, in every universe! Against this ultimate destruction, the mysterious Monitor has gathered the greatest team of Super Heroes ever assembled. But what can the combined might of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern and hundreds of Super Heroes from multiple Earths even do to save all of reality from an unstoppable antimatter Armageddon?!

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

- Physical and Digital

- Crisis Prime(r): The filmmakers reveal in detail their intricate plan to create a comprehensive animated universe across seven films, concluding with the events of the three-part adaptation Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths.

- The Selfless Speedster: Explore The Flash’s legendary role in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” comic series, the creative process that brought him to life in the animated adaptation, and the vocal performance behind his heroic and romantic story.

Digital Only

- Silent Treatment – Film Clip from Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two

PRICING AND FILM INFORMATION

PRODUCT SRP

Digital purchase $19.99

4K Ultra HD Steelbook + Digital Version* $47.99 US

4K Ultra HD Steelbook $54.99 Canada

Blu-ray + Digital Version* $29.98 USA

Blu-ray $39.99 Canada

4K/Blu-ray Languages: English, Latin Spanish, Parisian French

Blu-ray Subtitles: English, Spanish, Dutch, French

Running Time: 92:39

Rated PG for action/violence throughout and brief language

*Digital version not available in Canada

https://mcbastardsmausoleum.blogspot.com/2023/12/release-details-justice-league-crisis.html?m=1

[emcon-imagines]

Hiya may I request a pride month headcanon with Wanda (mcu) please!!! Where she meets some of my family members for the first time, like over a bbq or something similar? It's literally a dream of mine considering their ages and worried I won't get a chance to if you know what I mean (specifically my dad, aunt and uncle etc, not my mum cause they are divorced tho I live with her and granparents died before I was born so lol) I identify as lesbian, she/her.

A little bit about myself, I work in retail, I'm chubby, I wear glasses and have blue eyes. I guess I consider myself a soft butch? I don't wear dresses or skirts, much prefer shirts with words/images on them. Love reading reader fics online and playing on my playstation and daydreaming. I have similar hair to carol in endgame but the sides and back are buzzed short. I don't have any friends so I'm a very very lonely person and easily get depressed momemnts over it. I'll be 28 this year and I haven't even held a girls hand let alone been in a relationship, I get moments where I think I never will and be alone forever. I'm introverted, lazy to a point, I have many selfish moments also. But I hope I can consider myself nice and a person someone can easily go to to rant about things. But I'm also someone who easily gets spoken over or ignored so I'm used to keeping many things to myself tho I wish to share it with someone. I have other things to say but I guess you could say I have two sides of myself.

I hope this isn't too much or long, sorry I got carried away, please and thank you :) ❤

(first of all this gif is so soft I just love it)

also first of all I just know Wanda would love your buzzed hair, especially when it’s freshly buzzed and she can run her hand over it

She would definitely be really sweet about introducing herself to your family, super friendly and warm

I feel like Wanda just has that way with people, even if she’s nervous about new faces

She immediately feels like part of the family

Also idk if you have a little family members but they would absolutely adore her because she’s amazing and so funny with kids

Wanda checking in with you, knowing that you may have been nervous about introducing her to your family for the first time, asking “you all right?” and squeezing your hand

“I’m perfect.”

All the loneliness you once felt is a memory

the food is good, the music is chill 80s tunes, the whole world just seems to amazing at this moment

[inappropriatestork]

@gingervivilou tagged me in a thing! Thanks :) do you make your bed? Not really. I kind of spread it up so the comforter covers everything, mainly so my cat won’t track dirt or litter into the sheets and/or puke on them. But I don’t actually make it properly and neatly. No one ever sees my room and you’re just going to undo it again every night.

what’s your favourite number? 8. Don’t know why.

what’s your job? I’m a paralegal for a solo lawyer, it’s completely unsuited to me and I am bad at it and I hate it and it gives me panic attacks 🙃 But it pays twice as much as retail and I simply have absolutely no idea what else to do or to study or pursue, or how to figure that out.

can you parallel park? Nope. Not unless it’s an open space with several open behind it so you can just drive in. I’ve lived in several cities that had lots of parallel parking downtown but I’ll park blocks away in a garage or something and walk to avoid it. Thought it might be easier with a backup camera on my car now - it is not. I failed my drivers test twice - the third time I got everything except parallel parking perfect, so I passed. 

a job you’ve had which would surprise people? I’ve only really done retail and my current job, tbh. Retail might kind of surprise people because I’m fairly shy, but was actually fine with customer service and even pretty good at dealing with nasty customers. But I’m shy in social small talk/idle chitchat situations - when there’s a purpose like in retail, so you know what to say, I’m fine.

do you think aliens are real? Not really in the little green men sense, but the universe is huge, it would be crazy to categorically say there isn’t any form of life anywhere else in the universe.

can you drive a manual? No. My first car was a 66 Thunderbird but it was automatic. My parents both like manuals but we haven’t actually had one in years, so there was nothing to learn on.

what’s your guilty pleasure? I dunno, I like lots of things but don’t feel particularly guilty or ashamed about them.

tattoos? I like them on other people but I get anxiety about using stickers, I could never decide on a tattoo design and commit to it for life.

favourite colour? Light blue/turquoise

things people do that drive you crazy? Loud eating, hugging/touching me without asking, repetitive loud noises (tapping, whistling, etc), interrupting me, not listening when I’m talking after I specifically get their attention (Me: Hey, so about the Smith case. My boss: Yes? Me: [longish explanation or question] My boss: ...wait, what did you say, I wasn’t listening. Me: 🤬🤬🤬)

any phobias? Don’t like spaces I can’t see (my bed is definitely against the wall), but weirdly probably my biggest thing is breaking nails? Someone talking about it will make my skin crawl and make me shudder and sometimes I just get awful visions of breaking a nail badly that make me cringe and won’t get out of my head? It’s weird.

favourite childhood sport? I guess you could say horse racing, I definitely had a Horse Girl phase and was obsessed with the Thoroughbred book series and for a few years my friend and I would watch the Triple Crown races and racing movies and such. But otherwise I was never into sports at all, grew up in a family that did not care in the slightest about sports, then got into F1 and then MotoGP in my late 20s, and hockey in my 30s and now am completely obsessed (although I still don’t really care for any of the mainstream sports like football and basketball).

do you talk to yourself? In my head all the time, but only sometimes out loud and mostly just if I’m trying to keep something straight or work through something.

what movies do you adore? Near the top of the list in no particular order: All About Eve, Walk the Line, How to Steal A Million, Mamma Mia, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Dirty Dancing, Roman Holiday, Dear Frankie, Mulan, Anne of Green Gables, The Mummy, The Parent Trap (1998), The Princess Bride, The American President, Much Ado About Nothing, Tangled, You’ve Got Mail

do you like puzzles? Yes. Jigsaw and also crossword and logic puzzles (but not sudoku, never could get into those).

favourite kind of music? Lots, but especially stuff with good harmony. Classic country, folk/traditional, bluegrass, and also classic rock/oldies.

tea or coffee? Tea, preferably Lady Grey, lots of sugar

what’s the first thing you remember you wanted to be when you grew up? Weirdly, when I was little, I wanted to be a nurse because my mom is one. However I grew up to be a touch-averse, squeamish person who is deeply uncomfortable with other people’s bodies and people being in my space, and handing people money across a cash register is as close as I want to get to most people. There is not enough money in the world for me to be a nurse!

Not tagging anyone right now but feel free!

[erinptah]

Super Drags review (tl;dr Show Good)

The post where I do my best to spread the Good News, that there exists a saucy gay drag-queen magical-girl animated comedy and everyone should watch it.

Okay, not everyone -- I'll give some caveats at the end -- but definitely a heck of a lot more people than Netflix has bothered to advertise it to.

Look at this! Why did nobody tell me about this??

What is Super Drags?

Fast facts:

It's a 1-season, 5-episode adult animated comedy series, released in November 2018

Here's the official page, with a free-to-view trailer

It packs more explicit, unashamed queerness into those 5 episodes than any other cartoon I can think of

The only possible competitor would be if you took the whole 5000-episode run of Steven Universe and pared it down to a supercut of Just The Gay Parts

This in spite of being produced in Brazil, which (in my broad understanding, as a total non-authority on the subject) is more oppressively, dangerously homophobic than the US

The original is in Portuguese

There is an English dub, fabulously voiced by contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race

It's wrapped in "for adults only!" warnings, not because the content is any less child-friendly than (say) your Bojacks Horsemen or your Ricks and Mortys, but because Brazilian authorities tried to get it shut down on the grounds of this much gay being Harmful For Children

It was (heartbreakingly) not renewed for a second season

Here's a promo video, in which the main characters (Portuguese, with subtitles) play Drag Race judges for Shangela, who ends up voicing Scarlet in English.

And here's a beautiful flashy music video of the big musical number! (Also Portuguese, no subtitles, but the melody and the visuals stand on their own.)

Plot and worldbuilding stuff!

The elevator pitch is "What if Charlie's Angels, but also drag queens, with superpowers, because magical-girl transformations?"

In this universe, all LGBTQ people have magical energy. The Big Bad is an evil magical-drag-queen nemesis who tries to drain our energy for her own purposes. It's like if Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a first-season Sailor Moon villain.

...sidenote, in case you were worried, the representation isn't "cis gay men and nobody else." There's a butch lesbian in the recurring cast, a genderfluid person (in that specific word!) as a one-off love interest, and all the ensemble scenes are wonderful collages of different races, body types, and gender presentations.

Our heroes also fight non-magical everyday homophobes, who get written with scathing realism.

The moment I knew the show wasn't pulling any punches was in the first episode, where a newscaster complains about being Silenced by the Law of Political Correctness, then chirps "however, we have a special guest who is thankfully above the law!"

According to the reviews I've found from Brazilian viewers, it's also pitch-perfect when it comes to local queer culture, community dynamics, slang and speech patterns, even memes. All of which flies right over my head, so here's a post (with no-context spoilers) about one viewer's favorite details.

The handful of reaction posts on Tumblr have a dramatic split between "Brazilian viewers fiercely defending the show as culturally-accurate, uplifting, and brave in a terrifying political moment" and "American viewers complaining that the show is problematic because it's a comedy about drag queens with no perfect role models and lots of sex jokes."

As the Super Drags tell their nemesis (and this is also in the first episode): "How dare you try to turn the LGBTQXYZ community against each other? We do enough of that on our own!"

In between missions, our girls work sitcom retail jobs and deal with other everyday problems. All of which are written in amazingly nuanced and thoughtful ways for a show that also features "defeating an orgy monster with a lip-sync battle."

Detailed character stuff!

Our heroes are Color Coded For Your Convenience!

The Super Drags themselves go by "she" in-uniform, and a lot of the time when out of it. Like the Sailor Starlights, only more so. I'll roll with that.

In blue: Safira Cyan, or Ralph by day, an excitable college-age kid who's built like a football player and squees like a fangirl. (She's an anime fan in the original, and for some reason all the otaku references were replaced in the dub, but you can see them in the subtitles.)

Ralph lives with her younger sister (they play video games together!) and their dad, comes out to them mid-series, and is very shippable with another young guy who starts out reciting the homophobic beliefs he was raised with but whose heart clearly isn't in it.

Safira's weapon is a classic magical-girl wand that casts protective force-fields. Which are shaped like condoms. Because of course.

In yellow: Lemon Chiffon, aka Patrick, the oldest of the group and generally the smartest/most strategic. In most cases, the other two treat her as the de facto team leader -- unless she pushes it too far.

By day she's a single guy with thick thighs and thinning hair, who has some body-image insecurities on the dating scene. And this show has Things To Say about unrealistic beauty standards within the community...not to mention, about masc guys who look down on anyone too flaming or femme because straight people disapprove.

Lemon's weapon is a fluffy boa that can be used as a whip or a lasso, especially when there's a bondage joke to be made.

In red: Scarlet Carmesim, also Donizete, the loudest and most aggressive teammate with the most cutting insults, who refuses to suppress that attitude in an attempt to appease racists. (But will give it a shot when trying not to get fired.)

Donny still lives in her religious/homophobic mom's apartment, and I'm pretty sure it's because neither of them can afford to move out. Her rock-solid sense of fierce self-confidence is the reason it doesn't bring her down.

Scarlet's weapon is a fan that she uses to throw shade. Yeah, you knew that was coming.

The Charlie to these angels is Champagne, who runs operations from a cool magitech compound and breaks the fourth wall at the end to petition for viewers' support in getting a second season.

...we let her down, folks :(

So here's a thing. The show never draws a sharp line between "people who become drag queens because it's a way they're driven to express themselves as gay men" and "people who become drag queens because they were trans women all along." That's consistent with how South American LGBT+ culture works. (Again: best of my knowledge, not personally an authority on this, etc etc.)

Many of the characters, including Champagne, never describe themselves in ways that translate to one of our sharply-defined Anglo-USian identity categories. And I'm not going to try to impose any English labels on them here.

But I can say (in contrast to Safira, Lemon, and Scarlet), Champagne never switches out of her "drag" name/voice/presentation, not even in the most candid off-duty scenes, and still has the same bustline when naked in the tub. Make of that what you will.

You Should Watch This Show

If you have a Netflix subscription, watch Super Drags!

If you ever do a Netflix free trial month in the future, make a note to yourself to watch Super Drags!

It's one of their original productions, so there's no risk of missing your chance because the license expired. But it's absolutely not getting the promotion it deserves. Which means potentially interested viewers won't find it, which means Netflix will think there's no interest, which means they'll keep not promoting it...etc etc etc.

No idea if there's any chance of getting it un-canceled, but maybe we can at least convince them to release it on DVD.

And the sheer gutsiness it took for a group of Brazilian creators to produce this show in the first place -- that deserves to be rewarded with your attention.

In spite of various anti-discrimination laws that sound good on paper, the country has serious problems with homophobia, transphobia, and anti-LGBT violence (warning, article has a violent image which is only partly blurred).

Maybe the creators could've gotten a second season if they made this one softer, less sexually-explicit, more restrained...but honestly? I bet that wouldn't have helped.

Consider Danger & Eggs, an Amazon original cartoon. It was made in the US, thoroughly child-friendly, and restricts its LGBT+ representation to things like "characters go to a Pride celebration...where nobody ever names or describes the quality they're proud of."

And it didn't get renewed past the first season either.

(Note: it had a trans woman showrunner and a queer-heavy creative staff, so I blame all that restraint on executive meddling, not the creators themselves. The showrunner even liked the tweet of my review that complains about it.)

So there's something very satisfying about how Super Drags went all-out, balls-to-the-wall (sometimes literally), all the rep explicit and unapologetic, packing every 25-minute episode with all kinds of queer content that would be censored or muted elsewhere -- but here it's exaggerated and celebrated and just keeps coming.

(...as do jokes like that, and I'm not sorry.)

Okay, there are a few legitimate reasons to not watch this show

Some caveats.

None of these things are Objectively Bad Problems that the show itself should be shamed for...but maybe they're genuinely not your cup of tea.

It does have actual Adult Content beyond "the existence of gay people." This show loves to swing barely-clothed cartoon genitalia in your face. There is, as mentioned, an orgy monster. If that kind of humor is going to bother you too much to appreciate the rest of the show, give it a pass.

I wasn't kidding about how realistic the homophobes are. Opening of the first episode has a guy trying to murder a busload of people while shouting slurs at them. If that level of hatred on-screen is gonna crush your soul, even in a show about sparkly queens flying to the rescue with dick-shaped magical weapons, don't push yourself.

Any fiction with this much crossdressing and gender-transgressing is going to hit some trans viewers in a bad way. Because trans people are such a broad group, with so many different experiences, that Every Possible Trope Involved pushes somebody's buttons. (See also: "some trans readers complain about a storyline that turns out to be drawn from a trans writer's actual life experience".) If this show goes does gender things that turn out to be personally distressing for you...or even just distressing for this specific time in your life...don't feel obligated to keep watching.

It has aggressively-sassy queer characters making jokes and calling each other things that are affectionate in-context, but would not be okay coming from straight/cis people. If you can't wrap your head around that, go watch something else.

Other Than That, Go Watch This Show

For all its big heart, big ambitions, and big gay energy, Super Drags is tiny enough that I've binged the whole show 2 times in the past 2 weeks. Thankfully, it's highly re-watchable -- lots of fun background gags and subtle foreshadowing that you don't catch on the first round.

(Pausing one last time to appreciate that a show with elements like "the high-tech robot assistant is called D.I.L.D.O." can be subtle at all, let alone be this good at it.)

I've also paged through all the fanart on Tumblr and Deviantart, looked up the single fanfic on the AO3, and started brainstorming plans to request it in Yuletide next year. Someone, please, come join me in (the English-language side of) the itty-bitty fandom for this ridiculous, glittery, over-the-top, fabulous series.

[babsaros]

“the customer is always right” really actually means “the customer is a sucker and as long as they have money to spend, we’ll do whatever we can to take it from them”

[queernuck]

Retail is so fucking hellish, is such a series of ordeals that it reveals itself as a sort of work purpose-made to disillusion and alienate those within, is part of neoliberal apparatuses of capture which make the factory in the first world unthinkable, a "good union job" like Feinberg mentions in Stone Butch Blues a thing of the past, creates a kind of service worker subset that is actively kept from class consciousness by their own experience as a worker. I want to fucking kill myself.

[wlwfiction]

hello! i just saw a post you reblogged about racism in femslash fandom. and i was wondering if you could give me some recommendation about tv shows with diverse lesbian chararcters??

Here’sthe post 

I’m presuming by diverse you mean non-White? Thepost lists several shows already, including Queen Sugar (which I’ve seen andhighly recommend), Rosewood, The Fosters and NoTomorrow.

Others I’d recommend include:

RevolutionaryGirl Utena: A weird anime about duelling and so much more. Almost everycharacter is LGB+ and since it’s an anime almost all are Japanese. The maincharacters are a Japanese woman and an Indian Hindu woman who become a couple.However, major warnings for abuse (including rape) and incest. They’revery much shown to be wrong within the show but are examined in graphic detail.Here is a very helpful warnings guide(contains spoilers).

The‘Other’ Love Story: A webseries about two Indian girls falling in love.There are twelve episodes which go for approximately ten minutes each, so youcan binge the entire thing in about two hours. It also has a happy ending!

BlackMirror: ‘San Junipero’: With the sci-fi show Black Mirror, every episode is aseparate story, so you can watch any episode without needing to have seen anyothers. San Junipero centres around an f/f couple including a biracial Black/Whitebisexual woman and a White lesbian.

BrooklynNine-Nine: Police comedy show. In season 5, main character RosaDiaz comes out as bisexual. She’s Latina and her actressStephanie Beatriz is also bisexual (Beatriz is of Bolivian and Colombian descent). Her love interest is played by Gina Rodriguez, who is Puerto Rican American and attracted to multiple genders. The main cast also includes an AshkenaziJewish man as the protagonist, a Cuban American woman as his love interest, andtwo Black men, one of whom is gay and married. However, I can understand anyonenot wanting to watch the show due to the police themes - it’s absolutely cop propaganda.

TheLegend of Korra: A fantasy cartoon and the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender.All characters are Asian and/or Indigenous American. The protagonist is an Inuitbisexual woman and her love interest is a Japanese bisexual woman. Theirrelationship is made more explicit in the comic sequels, where the artist isIrene Koh, a Korean American bisexual woman. A couple of other characters havebeen revealed to be a bisexual woman and an unspecified WLW in the comics.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Side characters Spinerella and Netossa are an f/f couple and Netossa is Black. It’s hoped that a few other characters, particularly the protagonist, will be canonically LGBTQ+ in future seasons. 

SailorMoon: The classic magical girl anime and again, since it’s an anime almost allcharacters are Japanese. Season 3 introduces two new main characters, Harukaand Michiru (Uranus and Neptune), who are a butch/femme lesbian couple.

How toGet Away With Murder: I’m unsure if I’d really recommend this one anymore sinceI loved the first season and the first half of the second season, but I feelthe show’s really gone downhill since then. However, the protagonist Annaliseis a bisexual Black American woman and a fascinating character.

Black Sails: Show about pirates in the 1700s. One of the main characters is a biracial Black/White lesbian. The main cast also includes a White lesbian (her love interest), a White bisexual woman (another potential love interest) and the main protagonist is a White gay man. I was spoiled on who dies and who ends up together, so I’ll just say that one out of five LGBT characters dies but the others end up in happy relationships. Message me if you’d prefer to be spoiled as the bury your gays can certainly be harmful to viewers.

Easy: ‘Vegan Cinderella’ and ‘Lady Cha Cha’: As with Black Mirror, each episode of Easy is a standalone. These two are about an f/f couple, one of whom is biracial Black American/White. She’s played by Kiersey Clemons who is a WLW.

Dimension 404: ‘Bob’: As with Black Mirror, each episode is a standalone. In the episode Bob, the main character is a Taiwanese American woman married to a Black American woman. They have a child together.

Black Lightning: DC show about a Black American superhero family, including a lesbian daughter whose love interest is a Chinese American bisexual woman.

Sidetrack: A webseries about eight WLW, including a Japanese American bisexual girl, a Black American nonbinary lesbian, an Indian American lesbian, an unspecified Latine lesbian and a Muslim lesbian of unspecified ethnicity as well as three White lesbians. It does end on a slight cliffhanger and unfortunately there’s no season 2 :/

Shadowhunters: Aline Penhallow is a biracial Chinese British/White lesbian but she’s only appeared in one episode so far.

Some I plan to watch include:

One Dayat a Time: Comedy show about a Cuban American family. The teenage daughter is alesbian and her love interest is a White nonbinary lesbian. However, this is US military propaganda in the same way that B99 is cop propaganda.

AmericanGods: Based on the book of the same name by Neil Gaiman about gods in themodern world. The protagonist is a Black man and the main cast includesBilquis, a Black bisexual woman.

Brujos:12 episode webseries about LGBT Latine witches. The main characters are fourgay guys but there’s also some WLW characters.

BrownGirls: Webseries about two female friends, a Black American girl and aPakistani American and Muslim WLW.

Dyke Central: Webseries about WLWOC.

Couple-ish:Webseries about LGBT romance and friendship. One main character is a Black WLW.

195Lewis: Webseries about a Black f/f couple, one lesbian and one bisexual.

TheNewtown Girls: Webseries about four WLW, one of whom is Asian Australian.

Leslieville:Another webseries, but I couldn’t find much info about this one.

TheSlope: Webseries about an Iranian American bisexual woman (played by DesireeAkhavan who is also an Iranian American bisexual woman) and a White lesbian.

Entangled With You: Webseries about an f/f couple who I thinkare both Black American.

That’s My DJ: Webseries where the main character is an AsianCanadian lesbian.

Retail Rejects: A webseries about being a retail employee,with no straight main characters. A few of the leads are Asian Canadian.

Pot Luck: New Zealand’s first WLW webseries, with three maincharacters, one Maori and one Samoan.

The Peculiar Kind: Webseries about WLWOC.

That’s What She Said: Webseries about Asian American WLW.

Strangers: Webseries where the main character is a biracial Chinese American/White bisexual woman, as is her actress Zoe Chao.

CardcaptorSakura: Another magical girl anime. Protagonist Sakura is Japanese and bisexual,her male love interest is Chinese and bisexual, her best friend is a Japaneselesbian with a lesbian mother, and her brother is gay and in a relationship. Warning for m/f pedophilia with some of the side characters though.

Other f/fanime on my to-watch list include Sweet Blue Flowers, Maria Watches Over Us, ToMy Dearest Brother, Bloom Into You and Whispered Words.

SeonamGirls High School Investigators is a Korean show about five girls solvingmysteries. One episode involves a lesbian couple and featured the first f/fkiss on Korean TV.

Vida: Two Mexican American sisters mourn the death of their mother, who was a WLW and married to a woman. One of the sisters is a WLW too.

Others (I don’t know a huge amount about these so Ican’t say how good the representation is):

The Bold Type: Contemporary drama about three female friends who work for a magazine. One of the trio is a biracial Black/White bisexual woman and her love interest is an Iranian American Muslim lesbian. However, read this on how good the Black representation is.

Degrassi:Apparently has some WLWOC characters but there’s so much info about the show Igot confused quickly.

DoctorWho: In Season 10 the Doctor’s companion is Bill Potts, a Black Britishlesbian.

The GoodWife: A main character is an Indian American bisexual woman.

Grey’sAnatomy: Callie Torres is a Mexican American bisexual woman, a recurringcharacter in Season 2 and a main character in Seasons 3-12. Her actress Sara Ramirez is also bisexual.

Lucifer:The main cast includes Mazikeen, a bisexual Black woman. In addition, the maincharacter is a White bisexual man.

Master ofNone: A main character is a Black American lesbian, played by Lena Waithe whois also a Black American lesbian. Obvious warning for Aziz Ansari though.

Person ofInterest: Main cast includes an Iranian American WLW.

She’sGotta Have It: The main character is a Black bisexual woman.

StillStar Crossed: Romeo and Juliet retelling, about Rosaline and Benvolio afterRomeo and Juliet’s deaths. Rosaline and various other characters are Black.Unfortunately the show was cancelled after one season of seven episodes, butone of the main characters, Isabella, an Iranian woman, was confirmed to be a lesbian by heractress andwould’ve had a love interest if the show hadn’t been cancelled.

From Dusk Till Dawn: Main character Kisa is a Mexican American bisexual woman.

I’ve left off shows which kill off WLWOC or are blatantly racist in other ways (Pretty Little Liars, Orange is the New Black, Sense8, The Catch, Riverdale, Glee, True Blood, Scream Queens, The Magicians, Empire, Scream, The Handmaid’s Tale, Gotham) though I may have missed some.

[saskwildrose]

Tory Butch Designer Black Dark Blue Studded Heels Size 9 Retails $349 via eBay https://ift.tt/2LhXMLp

[queereldritchgalaxyprincess]

6' tall, blue sideshave, butch goblin woman, for a first date we'd probably just get coffee and hang out together, I'd info-dump about old video games or tell goofy stories about working retail

i would happily exchange infodumps and stories on both of those topics

also your hair sounds very cute

you can goblin with me any time

[hasbihallarcomebackhome-blog]

About women fashion

coloration in between the strains with this negative Place nail artwork design featuring two-toned blue shades. This is a superb look for black Guys who are tired of very low major fades. It truly is a great way to showcase your curly hair, while continue to sporting a fade haircut. The best part is that you can switch this take a look at a Mohawk by permitting your hair improve out a bit much more. Spot a dab of nail glue or nail gel with your nail. Put it large to the nail, toward the idea, or inside a lower corner. Contemplate in which it is going to glimpse finest. In the event your to start with perception of this design includes Jim Carrey in a particular film, rest assured a Caesar Slice can get to considerably further than mediocre comedies and ancient rulers. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicaprobus/lazy-girl-nail-art-ideas-that-are-actually-easy and style is ideal for boys who have extended faces and/or broad foreheads – the brief bangs convey the equilibrium. • Start with largely neutral colors and increase splashes of bolder shades here and there. Such as, curtains and window solutions, painted Wooden trim and throw blankets can all make a space pop. find a concealed gem with this particular geode-impressed nail artwork structure employing a rainbow of purples and blues with a touch of glitter. Curly hairstyles, straight hairstyles, purely natural hair, updos, braids—you identify it: We’ve received you coated with the latest hair trends and ideas on All Issues Hair Clear away the sticker when the paint remains damp, so You do not pull of chips of paint with it if you get it off. Getting a cue from 80s and 90s hairstyles passed by, this fashionable punk Slash features spiked hair on top rated with shaved sides. Get a robust Keeping gel to keep the height all day extensive. deco your fingertips in contrasting shades of pink, purple, crimson and deep violet for a party deserving nail art design and style perfect for any celebration. From straight, curly, and wavy hair varieties to thick and skinny hair textures to short, medium and extended hair lengths, the images below showcase the preferred haircuts for guys in 2019. You can use objects round the household to produce types. If you chop a stencil out of paper, You'll be able to tape it above your nail and paint it. You can get an excellent final result for your fraction of the value. Before the metrosexual trend, the punk subculture also utilised the black nail polish in a “filthy” way to point out how rebel they have been in opposition to social guidelines, also the nail polish in a job of exhibiting their disdain to any guidelines and intended to shock the Modern society. Media[edit] If your outrageous curls are taking up, it might be some time for a more Experienced limited haircut for guys. read more may nevertheless retain your texture, incorporating the composition to the appear.

The smart Trick of food recipes That Nobody is Discussing

When new music artists were being requested who they have been seeking forward to seeing in the purple carpet pre-exhibit to the 2019 MTV VMAs, a single identify stored coming up once again a Based on your wardrobe, this haircut can skew preppy or hip. To keep it seeking easy, use a light-weight pomade on air dried hair. The "similar styles" cost famous is our researched retail value at some extent in time of similar type of aesthetic product at Yet another retailer featuring home décor items. Because of the switch of the ninth century, nails were tinted with scented red oils, and polished or buffed having a chamois fabric, rather then basically polished.[four] During the nineteenth and early 20th centuries, folks pursued a polished rather than painted look by massaging tinted powders and creams into their nails, then buffing them shiny. If you'd like bangs but you are not ready to cut your hair and easily scared of hazard to wanting seriously undesirable, check out bogus bangs! ✔ Would like to submit your films? Mail us your online video inbound links by using email and we are going to place them in our compilations! Electronic mail: morisonmori@gmail.com A butch cut is not pretty the same as a very brief buzz Lower. It’s developed with clippers guards from three to five. It guaranteed is a popular boys haircut go, as a result of its reduced servicing. Long and position Slice for cool texture, this hairstyle indicates plenty of hair solution to hold it in position. Get the sides shaved to provide the emphasis to the top of the head. Keep your facial area cleanse shaven for this one particular – any facial hair can distract in the awesome trick of hair defying gravity. Whilst you could find sharp-wanting blazers with coordinating pants and button-down blouses On this part, you can also come across much more relaxed appears to be for laid-again offices in order to feel snug and properly dressed regardless of the you do. Lecturers, warehouse staff, company executives and business people alike can pick Qualified outfits models that accommodate their requirements in our Function Apparel part. Curly hair doesn’t suggest you have to shave your head – take the bravery to increase it out a bit and find out how great you're feeling. Really quick cuts are perfect for warm weather and advantage, but increase some length, if you’re all set to Select a completely new seem. If any person is certified to work as a hairstyle psychic, It is really Marjan. The professional (who operates with Khloé Kardashian and Ashley Graham) will make a lazy very low ponytail glam by simply introducing a handful of rhinestone bobby pins, and is also a wiz at developing waves applying flat iron. Prepared to modify up your hair ahead of the new calendar year rolls in? The next 5 hairstyles are likely to be 2019's biggest developments. Movie: Splendor School: You have Overcurled Your Hair ...Now What? If you need a quiff haircut that feels new and various, go While using the combed back pompadour that’s absolutely trending upward. In regards to haircuts for guys that insert duration to these kinds of deal with styles as round and square, this 1 is a nice, highly-encouraged choice. Apply https://beautyholo.com for your nails. Unfold petroleum jelly on the skin all around your nails and on to your fingers. Meticulously spot your nails in opposition to the look that you choose to created and then submerge them a little bit. For this, you need a black nail paint and a few corn starch (In the event your black nail paint is glossy. Mix The 2 to produce a matte end polish and border the nude painted nail with this black polish. Either make use of a dotting Software or simply a toothpick to generate the polka dot result.

[glittership]

Episode #76 — "Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons" by Jennifer Lee Rossman

Direct download here.

And here’s the RSS feed: http://glittership.podbean.com/feed/

Episode 76 is part of the Autumn 2018 issue!

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

  Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons

By Jennifer Lee Rossman

They weren’t real, but they still took my breath away.

The model dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties lived on and swam in the waters around three islands in Hyde Park. Enormous things, so big that I’d heard their designer had hosted a dinner party inside one, and so lifelike! If I stared long enough, I was sure I’d see one blink.

I turned to Samira and found her twirling her parasol, an act purposely designed to bely the rage burning in her eyes. She would never let it show, her pleasant smile practically painted on, but I’d spent enough time with her to recognize that fury boiling just beneath the surface.

Befuddled, I looked back at the dinosaurs, this time flipping down my telescopic goggles. The craftsmanship was immaculate, the color consistent all along the plesiosaur’s corkscrew neck, and the pudgy, horned iguanodons looked structurally sound, what with their bellies dragging on the ground.

Dinosaurs were Samira’s everything; how could seeing them practically coming to life not give her joy?

  [Full story after the cut.]

  Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 76 for June 24, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, which is available in the Autumn 2018 issue that you can pick up at GlitterShip.com/buy, on Gumroad at gum.co/gship08, or on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and other ebook retailers.

If you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them.

This is a great deal, so if you want to take advantage of it, go to Storybundle.com/pride soon! The deal only runs through June 27th, depending on your time zone.

    Today’s story is “Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons” by Jennfer Lee Rossman, but first our poem, “Shortcake” by Jade Homa.

  Jade Homa is an intersectional feminist, sapphic poet, lgbtq sensitivity reader, member of The Rainbow Alliance, and editor-in-chief of Blue Literary Magazine. Her poetry has been published in over 7 literary magazines, including BlazeVOX, A Tired Heroine, The Ocotillo Review, and Sinister Wisdom (in print). Jade’s work will be featured in an exhibit via Pen and Brush, a New York City based non profit that showcases emerging female artists, later this year, along with being featured in a special edition of Rattle which highlights dynamic Instagram poets. In her free time, Jade loves petting dogs, eating pasta, and daydreaming about girls.

    Shortcake by Jade Homa

you called me your strawberry girl / and I wondered if it was / the wolf inside my jaw / or the red stained across my cheeks / or the way I said fuck / or that time I yanked your / hair / or every moment / you swallowed me whole

    And now “Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons” by Jennifer Lee Rossman, read by April Grant.

  Jennifer Lee Rossman is that autistic nerd who complains about inaccurate depictions of dinosaurs. Along with Jaylee James, she is the co-editor of Love & Bubbles, a queer anthology of underwater romance. Her debut novel, Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freakshow, was published by World Weaver Press in 2018. She tweets about dinosaurs @JenLRossman

April Grant lives in the greater Boston area. Her backstory includes time as a sidewalk musician, real estate agent, public historian, dishwasher, and librarian. Among her hobbies are biking and singing.

    Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons

By Jennifer Lee Rossman

They weren’t real, but they still took my breath away.

The model dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties lived on and swam in the waters around three islands in Hyde Park. Enormous things, so big that I’d heard their designer had hosted a dinner party inside one, and so lifelike! If I stared long enough, I was sure I’d see one blink.

I turned to Samira and found her twirling her parasol, an act purposely designed to bely the rage burning in her eyes. She would never let it show, her pleasant smile practically painted on, but I’d spent enough time with her to recognize that fury boiling just beneath the surface.

Befuddled, I looked back at the dinosaurs, this time flipping down my telescopic goggles. The craftsmanship was immaculate, the color consistent all along the plesiosaur’s corkscrew neck, and the pudgy, horned iguanodons looked structurally sound, what with their bellies dragging on the ground.

Dinosaurs were Samira’s everything; how could seeing them practically coming to life not give her joy?

“What’s wrong?” I asked quietly, so as not to disturb the crowds around us. Well, any more than our mere presence disturbed them by default.

(It wasn’t every day they saw a girl in a mechanical chair and her butch Indian crush who wore trousers with her best jewelry, and they did not particularly care for us. We didn’t particularly care what they thought, which really didn’t engender ourselves to them, but luckily polite society frowned on yelling at people for being gay, disabled, and/or nonwhite, so hooray for us.)

“It’s wrong.”

“What is?”

She gestured emphatically at the islands, growing visibly distressed. “It! Them! Everything! Everything is wrong!”

If Samira’s frustration had a pressure valve, the needle would have been edging toward the red. She needed to get out of the situation before she burst a pipe.

I knew better than to take her hand, as she didn’t always appreciate physical touch the way I did, so I gently tugged at the corner of her vest as I engaged my chair. The miniature steam engine behind me activated the pistons that turned my chrome wheels, and Samira held onto my velvet-padded armrest as we left the main viewing area and took refuge by one of the fountains in the Crystal Palace.

She sat on the marble edge, letting a hand trail in the shimmery water until she felt calm enough to speak.

“They did it all wrong, Tilly. They didn’t take any of my advice.” She rummaged through her many pockets, finally producing a scrap of paper with a dinosaur sketched on it. “This is what iguanodon looked like.”

Her drawing showed an entirely different creature than the park’s statue. While theirs looked sluggish and fat, kind of like a doofy dragon, Samira’s interpretation was nimble and intelligent, standing on four legs with a solid but agile tail held horizontally behind it. And its nose horn was completely absent, though it did have a large thumb spike, giving it the impression of perpetually congratulating someone on a job well done.

It certainly looked like a more realistic representation of a living creature, but these things lived, what, millions of years ago? Even someone as brilliant as Samira couldn’t possibly have known what they were really like.

But I couldn’t tell her that. Girlfriends are supposed to be supportive, and I needed to do everything I could to gain prospective girlfriend points before I asked her out.

“What evidence did you give them for your hypothesis?” I asked instead. “All we really have are fossils, right?”

Her face lit up at the invitation to delve into her favorite subject. “Right, and we don’t even have full skeletons yet of most of them. But we have limbs. Joints. And if we compare them to skeletons of things that exist now, they don’t resemble big, fat lizards that could hardly move around. That makes no biological sense, because predators could just waltz up and eat them. They had to be faster, more agile. They wouldn’t have survived otherwise.”

“So why wouldn’t they have listened to you?” I asked, perplexed.

“Because they don’t understand evolution,” she said, though she didn’t sound convinced. “Or they don’t want to be shown up by a girl. A lesbian girl with nonconforming hair and wardrobe who dares to be from a country they pretend to own.” She crossed her arms and stared at her boots. “Or both. But there’s no excuse for the plesiosaurs. No creature’s neck can bend like that.”

I wasn’t sure exactly how I was supposed to respond to that. Samira never complained about something just to commiserate; she expected answers, a solution. But I couldn’t very well make them redesign the statues, no matter how happy that would have made her.

So we just sat together quietly by the fountain, fuming at the ignorant men in charge of the park, and I schemed for a way to fix things for the girl that made my eyes light up the way dinosaurs lit hers.

  Every problem had a solution, if you tinkered hard enough.

After my accident, I took a steam engine and wheels from a horseless wagon and stuck them on a chair. My mum hadn’t been amused to lose part of her dinette set, but it got me around town until I could build a proper wheelchair. (Around the flat parts of town, anyway. My latest blueprints involved extending legs that could climb stairs.)

And when Londoners complained about the airship mooring towers were ruining the skyline, who figured out a way to make them retractable? That would be me. The airship commissioner hadn’t responded to my proposal yet, but it totally worked in small scale on my dollhouse.

It was just a matter of finding the solution to Samira’s dinosaur problem.

I spent all night in my workshop, referring to her sketches and comparing them to promotional drawings of the park’s beasts. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider breaking in and altering the statues somehow, but the sheer amount that they had gotten wrong precluded that as a possibility. This wasn’t a mere paintjob or moving an iguanodon horn; they needed a complete overhaul.

I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration.

The day they announced that they were building realistic, life sized dinosaurs in Crystal Park was the day I fell for Samira.

I’d always thought she was pretty—tall, brilliant smile, didn’t conform to society’s expectations for women—but the pure joy radiating from her… It was like she’d turned on a giant electromagnet inside her, and the clockwork the doctors had installed to keep my heart beating was powerless against her magnetic field.

So I listened to her gush about the park, about how the statues would make everyone else see the amazing lost world she saw when she looked at a fossil. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I understood her passion.

The grand opening was supposed to be the day I finally asked her out, but now it would have to be when I presented her with my grand gesture of grandness…

Whatever it was.

  I woke abruptly to the chimes of my upcycled church organ doorbell and found a sprocket embedded in my face.

Groaning, I pushed myself off my worktable and into a sitting position. “Did you let me sleep out here all night?” I said into the mouthpiece of the two-way vibration communicator prototype that fed through the wall and into the kitchen.

A moment later, my mum picked up her end. “‘Mum,'” she said, imitating my voice, “‘I’m a professional tinkerer and nearly an adult. I can’t be having a bedtime!'”

“Point taken. Have I missed breakfast?”

The door in the wall opened to reveal a plate of pancakes.

“Thanks!” I tore a bite out of one as I wheeled over to the door. My crooked spine ached from sitting up all night.

Activating the pneumatic door opener, I found George about to ring the bell again.

George, my former boyfriend and current best friend. Chubby, handsome, super gay. We’d tried the whole hetero thing for two whole days before we realized it wasn’t for us, then pretended for another six months to keep his father from trying to matchmake him with one of the Clearwater sisters.

I wouldn’t have minded being with a man, necessarily, but ladies really sent my heart a-ticking, so it was no great loss when George told me he was a horticultural lad.

(You know, a pansy. A daisy. A… erm. Bougainvillea? I must confess, flowers didn’t excite me unless they were made of scrap metal.)

George raised an eyebrow. “I take it the declaration of love went well, then?” When I only frowned in confusion, he pointed to my face. “The sprocket-shaped dent in your cheek would suggest you spent the night with a woman.”

“Samira isn’t an automaton, George.”

“No, but she’s got the…” He mimed having a large chest. “And the, um… Scaffolding.”

“Do you think women’s undergarments are made of clockwork?” I asked, amused. I mean, mine were, but that was just so I could tighten the laces behind my back without assistance when I wore a corset.

Which wasn’t often. My favorite dresses were the color of grease stains and had a lot of pockets, so it should come as no surprise that I didn’t go anywhere fancy on a regular basis.

George blushed. “So… it did not go well, then?”

He came in and tinkered with me over pancakes while I told him about my predicament, making sympathetic noises at the appropriate times.

When I was done with my story, he sat quietly for a moment, thinking while he adjusted the spring mechanism in an old cuckoo clock. “And you can’t just go over with flowers and say, ‘Hey, gorgeous, wanna gay together?’ because…?”

“Have you met me? I don’t do romance. I make things for romantic people.” I gestured to the wind-up music boxes, mechanical roses that opened to reveal a love note, and clockwork pendants scattered about my workshop. All commissions from people who were better at love than I was.

“Then pretend you’re a clueless client like Reverend Paul. Remember what you did for him?”

The reverend had come in wanting to woo Widow Trefauny but didn’t know a thing about her except that she liked dogs and made his heart smile. I thought my solution was ingenious.

“I built a steam-powered puppy.”

George held his hands out, prompting. “So…”

Suddenly, it all clicked into place, like the last cog in a clock mechanism that makes everything tick.

“I need to build a steam-powered dinosaur for Samira.”

  Dinosaurs, as it turned out, were huge. I mean, they looked big on the islands, sure, but that was so far away that I only truly got a sense of scale when I started measuring in my workshop.

Samira’s notes put iguanodon, my dino of choice, at around ten meters in length. Since a measuring tape required more free hands than I had, I tied a string around one of the spokes of my chair’s wheels, which had a one-point-eight meter circumference, and measured five and a half revolutions…

Which took me out of my cramped shop and into the street, forcing horses and their mechanical counterparts to divert around me.

“Don’t suppose it would do to detour traffic for a couple weeks, eh?” I asked a tophatted hansom cabbie, who had stopped his horseless machine to watch me in amusement.

“Reckon not, Miss Tilly,” he said with a laugh, stepping down from his perch at the front of the carriage. He pulled a lever, and the cab door opened with a hiss to reveal a pile of gleaming metal parts.

“Ooh!” I clapped my hands. “Are those for me?”

He nodded and began unloading them. My iguanodon was going to be much taller than me, and even though George had promised his assistance, I needed to make extendy arms to hold the heavy parts. “Is there somewhere else you could build him?”

I supposed this wouldn’t exactly be stealthy. I could stop Samira from going in my shop, but it would have been substantially more difficult to stop her from going down an entire street.

But where?

  I got my answer a few days later, when the twice weekly zeppelin to Devon lifted off without Samira on board. She was usually the first in line, going not for the luxury holiday destinations that drew in an upper-class clientele, but for the fossils.

The coast of Devon was absolutely lousy with fossils. The concept of extinction had been proven there, Mary Anning herself found her first ichthyosaur there, and all the best scientists fought for the right to have their automata scan the coast with ground-penetrating radar.

Samira’s life revolved around trips to Devon and the buckets of new specimens she brought home every week.

“Why aren’t you on that zeppelin?” I asked as we sat in her room, sorting her fossilized ammonites. She’d originally had the little spiral-shelled mollusks organized by size, but now thought it more logical to sort by age. Me, I thought size was a fine method, but I didn’t know a thing about fossils and was happy to do it however she wanted.

She didn’t answer me, just kind of shrugged and ran her thumb over the spiral impression in the rock.

“Is it because you’re upset that they didn’t take your advice on the dinosaurs?” I knew it was, but I had to hear her say it.

“I don’t see the point of it if no one will care about what I find.” She sounded so utterly despondent. Joyless. The one thing that gave her life purpose had been taken away by careless men.

They probably only cared about whether the park was profitable, not if it was accurate.

I couldn’t make them change their statues, and I couldn’t make the public care that they were wrong. But I had to fix it for my best girl, because there was nothing sadder than seeing her like that.

“Can I hold your hand for a second?” I asked quietly. She gave the slightest of nods and I took her hand gently in mine, my clockwork heart ticking at double speed. “You’ve got a gift, Samira. Scientists have to study these bones for months just to make bad guesses about the animals they came from, but you can look at an ankle joint and figure that it was a quadruped or a biped, if it ate meat or plants, and what color its skin was.”

She gave me a look.

“Okay, I’m exaggerating, but only a little. I don’t agree with the way they’re portrayed, but this world is going to love dinosaurs because of the ones at Crystal Palace. People are going to dig for fossils even more, and they’re going to need someone amazing like you to teach them about the new things they unearth.” I tried to refrain from intertwining our fingers; just touching was a big enough step. “I need you to promise me something.”

Samira pulled away, and I had to remind myself that this didn’t necessarily mean anything more than her just being done holding hands. “What is it?”

“A week from today, be on the zeppelin to the coast.” The coast, with its ample space and no chance of Samira discovering my project before it was ready.

She made a face. “I don’t know.”

“Please?” I begged. “For me?”

After a long moment’s consideration, she nodded. “For you.”

  George and I caught the midweek zeppelin. Lucky for us, most tourists went down for the weekend, so all of our metal parts didn’t weigh us down too much. We did share the cabin with a few fancy ladies, who stared in wordless shock at Iggy’s scrapmetal skull sitting on the chair beside us.

I’d named him Iggy. His head was almost a meter long. Mostly bronze and copper, but I’d done a few tin accents around the eyes to really make ’em pop.

When we arrived at the shore, we had to fight a couple paleontologists for space on the rocky coastline. Not physically fight, fun as that might have been. Once they realized we weren’t trying to steal their dig sites, they happily moved their little chugging machines to give us a flat stretch of beach.

Which just left us with three days to assemble Iggy, whose hundreds of parts I had not thought to label beforehand.

Another thing I neglected to do: inform George of the scope of this project.

“Matilda, I adore you and will always help you with anything you need,” he said, dragging a tail segment across the rocks with a horrific scraping. “But for future reference, the next time you invite me to Devon to build a life-sized steam-powered iguanodon? You might mention how abysmally enormous iguanodon were.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” I teased, my voice echoing metallically as I welded the neck together from the inside. I’d actually gotten out of my chair and lay down in the metal shell, figuring it would be easier to attach all the pneumatics and hydraulics that way.

I should have brought a pillow.

At night, because we were too poor to afford one of the fancy hotels in town, we slept on the beach beneath a blanket of stars, Iggy’s half-finished shape silhouetted against the sky.

“Samira’s a fancy lady,” I said to George as we lay in the sand. “She doesn’t wear them, but she has expensive dresses. All lacy and no stains. Her family has a lot of money. Could she ever really want to be with someone like me?”

He rolled over to face me. “What do you mean, someone like you?”

“Poor mechanic who can’t go up stairs, whose heart is being kept alive with the insides of a pocket watch that could stop at any time.”

I didn’t try to think about it a lot, but the fact was that the doctors had never done an operation like mine before. It ticked all right for now, but no one knew if my body would keep it wound or if I would just… stop one day.

The fear tried to stop me from doing things, tried to take away what little life I might have had left, but I couldn’t let it. I had to grab on as hard as I could and never let go. In an ideal world, Samira would be part of that.

But the world wasn’t ideal. Far from it.

Was I too much to put up with? Would she rather date someone who didn’t have to take the long way around because the back door didn’t have steps? Someone who could give her jewels and… fine cheeses and pet monkeys and whatever else rich people gave their girlfriends?

Someone she knew would be around to grow old with her?

Maybe that’s why I’d put off asking her to be my gal, because even though we got along better than the Queen’s guards and ridiculous hats, even though we both fancied ladies and wanted to marry one someday, I couldn’t stand to know she didn’t see me that way. I cherished her as a friend and didn’t see romance as being somehow more than friendship, but she smelled like cookies and I just really wanted to be in love with her.

“Hey,” George said softly, pulling me closer to him. “She loves you. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I guess,” I said into his shoulder. He smelled like grease. A nice, comforting smell, but too much like my own. At the end of the day, I wanted to curl up with someone like Samira.

“You guess. You’ve held her hand, Tilly. She’s made eye contact with you. That’s big for her. You don’t need a big gesture like this, but I know she’s going to love it because she loves you.”

I hoped he was right.

  I saw the weekend zeppelin from London come in, lowering over the city where it was scheduled to moor. Samira would be here soon.

And Iggy wasn’t finished.

He towered over the beach, his metal skin gleaming in the sun, but something was wrong on the inside. The steam engine in his belly, which was supposed to puff steam out of his nose and make him turn his head, wouldn’t start up.

George saw me check my pocket watch for the umpteenth time and removed the wrench from my hand. “I’ll look into it. Go.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

My wheels skidded on the sand and rocks, but I reached the mooring station just as the passengers were disembarking. The sight of Samira standing there in her trademark trousers and parasol combo made my clockwork heart tick audibly. She came. I didn’t really doubt that she would, but still.

She flashed me a quick smile. “I don’t want to fossil hunt,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

“That’s not why we’re here,” I promised. “But I do want to show you something on the beach, if that’s okay.”

She slipped a hand around my armrest and walked with me. When Iggy’s head poked up over the rocks, she broke into a run, forcing me to go full speed to keep up.

Laughing, she went right up to Iggy and ran her hands over his massive legs. “He’s so biologically accurate!”

But did he work? I looked to George, who gave his head a quick shake.

Blast.

Samira didn’t seem to mind, though, marveling at every detail of the dinosaur’s posture and shape. “And the thumb spikes that aren’t horns!” she exclaimed, her hands flapping in excitement.

And she wasn’t the only one who appreciated our work. A small group of pith-helmeted paleontologists had abandoned their digging and scanning in order to come and admire Iggy.

“It really is magnificent,” one scientist said. “The anatomy is nothing like what we’ve been assuming they looked like, and yet…”

“It’s so logical,” his colleague agreed. “Why should they be fat and slow? Look at elephants—heavy, but sturdy and not so sluggish as their size would suggest. There’s no reason these terrible lizards couldn’t have been similar.”

A third paleontologist turned to George. “My good man, might we pick your brain on the neck of the plesiosaur?”

George held up his hands. “I just did some riveting—the real geniuses are Matilda and her girlfriend Samira.”

“Mostly Samira,” I added, glancing at her. “And I’m not sure if she’s my girlfriend or not, but I’d like her to be.”

She beamed at me. “I would also like that.” To the men, she said, “I have a lot of thoughts on plesiosaur neck anatomy. I can show you my sketches, and I saw a layer of strata that could bear fossils over here…”

She led them away, chattering about prehistoric life with that pure joy that made her so amazing.

That girl took my breath away.

  END

  “Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons” is copyright Jennifer Lee Rossman 2019.

“Shortcake” is copyright Jade Homa 2019.

This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.

You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, leaving reviews on iTunes, or buying your own copy of the Autumn 2018 issue at www.glittership.com/buy. You can also support us by picking up a free audiobook at  www.audibletrial.com/glittership.

Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen” by Jenny Blackford.

Episode #76 — “Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons” by Jennifer Lee Rossman was originally published on GlitterShip