#Order: Look either Gay goes or I go!

[boobachu]

Dude (spoiler below)

They literally defeat Order with a rainbow

UNLIMITED COLORS!

SEX!

LIFE!

HEALING!

SUNLIGHT! (tumblr doesn't have yellow? whaaa)

NATURE!

SERENITY!

SCREAMING REALLY LOUDLY!!!!!!

FINAL COLOR BLASTER!!!!

okay buddy try telling that to her

[space-blue]

Disappointed in the Vander backstory

I fully expected that it was coming, but I'm disappointed in the timeline all the same.

The "Vander got upset because a fight against Piltover Silco instigated killed the woman he loved" was literally my first draft for my longfic Fathers and Daughters, and I ended up scrapping it because I felt it was too cheap and wouldn't justify the violence of his actions against Silco.

"When she died I lost my head" he says in the letter.

But when she died you actually dropped your gauntlets and picked up the girls and everyone has been assuming this was the moment you swore off violence...

The fact she goes on to let Vander name her kid, and seems to be thick as thieves with them, and ALSO tells them of the pregnancy before she builds up the courage to tell her partner... Tells me that surely... SURELY by the time Vi is 10-11, whatever she is on the bridge in season 1, she would KNOW SILCO as her mom's bestie, no??? Not just Vander.

It feels like this entire angle is pulled under the rug to simplify the conflict in act 1.

I do appreciate being right on the money with Silco knowing and being friends with the mom, and having known Vi as a baby. I think it makes sense, especially if he was an important community leader.

I just hate her death being the catalyst of Vander's actions against Silco. It means that the timeline actually like this:

Mom-Silco-Vander are best friends. Silco is "Bozo 1" and has been leading the transformation of the Lanes with Vander's help. He's already planning his nation of Zaun. His notebook is literally saying "NZ" for Nation of Zaun.

At an ONGOING confrontation with enforcers, Silco throws a molotov cocktails that doesn't seem to even kill an enforcer (Powder and her innefectual bombs parallel? The entire scene is intercut with the monkey bomb clapping so... The scene leading to a friend's death also parallels the events of Jinx's birth.)

As the smoke clears/the POV looks down, we have the reveal that the girls' Mom is dead.

Vander admits the blood was on his hands as well, meaning he either started this confrontation with Silco, or fought just as badly/increased the violence (and we see him murder enforcers later on). Anyway he admits to carrying the blame, and apologized in person to Silco for the dubbed "betrayal".

Then he went home, shaved, dragged Silco into the Pilt, and tried to drown him *because their common friend died at the failed uprising*.

He's then haunted, seemingly, by visions of Silco being dead:

To me it's sort of weaker and sadder, as it establishes Vander as someone more flawed and less ruthless. It's not that he wanted the Lanes, it's not that Silco was getting in the way of what he wanted.

Vander was out there happy with everything they were dishing out, right until their actions cost the life of a friend, and he broke, emotionally, and BLAMED it on Silco, going so far as to kill him (or try).

He surrendered his gauntlets, picked the children up, tucked them in at home, shaved (I cannot stress this enough), then took Silco into the fucking river and brutally attempted to murder him.

Then he massively regretted it and left little breadcrumbs of apologies in case Silco found them and returned to him.

So, canon couple, first off lol

Fellas, is it gay to hang your jackets inside each other's in your secret hideout? Is it gay that all your core hidden memories begin with your mate smiling at you?

Yes, yes it is. Zaundad is canon and I'm not taking commentary.

Secondly, that means Vander was an emotional ticking time bomb who wasn't ready for the price to sacrifice in order to gain their freedom. I really wonder what the alternative reality would have been like, were Silco the one dying on that bridge.

Anyway, it brings some twisted sadness to the situation, because the mom wanted Zaun "no matter what" for Vi's sake, her child's future. But Vander decided that lives weren't worth spilling over that dream and tried to kill Silco over it, before teaming up with Grayson to continue enforcing a status quo.

So that means that Silco, even as he raises Jinx, is continuing her mother's dream, of building Zaun, a country that's safe for her children, "no matter what".

But very sadly the show also acts like Silco doesn't know the kids, and like the kids don't know him. Powder, sure, but Vi not knowing Silco is just downright stupid. Not even knowing him by name? When her mom was out fighting alongside him??? The mom is ALSO a miner, very clearly working with Silco and Vander, alongside the nameless poor husband.

I feel like this doesn't really solve the issues that were already raised when we speculated about act 1. It just clarifies that Vander was truly, willfully a force of oppression inside the fissures, working against the revolution necessary for Zaun becoming possible.

But it implies Silco didn't recognise Powder and Vi, and that Vi didn't recognise him or understand how he knew Vander. It's a disservice to the story, because that tie, that old bond, could really have worked to dramatize the sacrifices Silco is ready to make, as well as the depth of Vi's hatred for him.

But the show acts like they're strangers and that Vander's death is the core beef between them until Jinx enters the picture.

And then there's the Benzo scene, when Vander holds his wound from Silco's knife, and says "we both know there's worse than enforcers out there" WHO ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT??? Yourself? You seem to be the worst thing around here! It seems clear he knew Silco was alive but had nothing to blame him for by then.

I'm left with holes that take the shape of "shock value" and "plot twist".

"Ooooh Silco knew the mom, twiiiist, but please don't think about the implications, because we wrote season 1 without taking this in consideration."

Feels like another job for fic writers, but IDK if I have the strength for it. I just like my own version better.

At least now we know that Silco did not IN FACT DO anything to "deserve" what he got. I'm sorry, but throwing a molotov at enforcers when fighting for your freedom is based and Vander was dishing death right there next to him.

The base violence necessary for change, eh? Vander just delayed the price being paid for Zaun's creation.

[rosemariiaa]

~Caffeinated Crush~

𐙚- pairing: Paige x Azzi

𐙚-synopsis: Paige works at a bookstore, and Azzi is the girl who comes in every day but never buys anything. When a spilled coffee incident occurs, she learns Azzi is sketching her in a nearby cafe.

𐙚- this is so cuteeeee, yes i am still currently working on chapter 3 of RMH so you’ll have that soon, but for now enjoy these cuties! happy reading lovelies 💌

𐙚-themes: fluff, au

𐙚- taglist: @thaatdigitaldiary @makethemhoesmad @sierrale8ne @ohbueckers @juspeaks @imaginespazzi @pbaz7 @bueckersbitch @xxloveralways14 @d3arapril @lupinqs @pazzilover101 @ashortyluvsports @absolutelydreadful

enjoy!!!

I should’ve never let Nika get in my head.

My thumbs hover over the screen of my phone as I scroll through yet another endless TikTok, airpods blasting maybe the best R&B playlist handpicked by the queen. Anyway, the store is empty—of course it is. It’s barely 10 a.m., and no one is running to a bookstore this early unless they’re sixty or a morning person.

Not me, though. I’m here because Nika decided to call me lazy last week and the whole team agreed. Said all my NIL deals made me too comfortable, like I didn’t just have the Big East Scholar of the Year award, not to be cocky or anything but doesn’t that mean i’m smartest to ever exist? Exactly. But no, she just still had to run her mouth, so now I’m working this dumb part-time job at “Bound and Brew,” where the only exciting thing is the smell of cinnamon wafting in from the café next door.

Speaking of which, I mentally add a bagel to my lunch break checklist. Asiago, toasted, extra cream cheese—don’t judge me.

I glance at the clock on my phone. Still early. My chin rests in my palm as I lean on the counter, half-heartedly refreshing the store’s Instagram page. No new likes. Big surprise. God, I have practice tomorrow, and for what?

My earbuds buzz with a notification, but before I can check, the door chimes.

My eyes flicker up, and there she is. The girl with the brown, coily hair.

She’s been coming here for weeks now. Never buys anything, just walks around, poking through shelves like she’s on some personal treasure hunt. I’m pretty sure she works at the café next door—I always see her there, either taking orders or perched by the window with a book in one hand and a green matcha latte in the other. Matcha. It’s alright, I guess, but I can’t help the silent judgment. gatorade > tea.

Her eyes meet mine as she steps inside, and I clear my throat, pulling out one earbud. “Hey, what can I do for you?”

She smiles softly, the kind of smile that’s more polite than warm. “You’re fine. I don’t need help yet.”

Her voice is quiet, soft enough that it almost doesn’t match the confidence in the way she carries herself. She’s bundled in a gray puffer coat, her pink sweatpants tucked into winter boots. The UConn shirt under her jacket catches my eye.

She goes to my school? Weird. I’ve never seen her on campus.

I nod, going back to my phone, but I can’t help the way my eyes track her as she moves through the store. Her hands graze the spines of books, pausing occasionally to pick one up, read the back, then put it back in place.

She doesn’t rush. There’s something careful about the way she lingers in each aisle.

I shouldn’t be looking (staring) at her like this.I really shouldn’t, but her hair is just…nice. Thick curls that spring with life, framing her face like something out of a painting. And her skin? Smooth, glowing, the warm tone almost golden under the soft overhead lights.

Wow. I’m really gay.

I snap my attention back to my phone, pretending to scroll. My heart’s doing that annoying thing where it skips.

When I glance up again, she’s at the door. Leaving already. She didn’t pick up a book or anything again.

The door chimes softly as it closes behind her, and I’m left staring at the empty space where she just stood.

She’s really, really pretty.

And just like that, I’m shaking my head, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Get it together, Paige.

This is supposed to be a job, not some secret queer daydream.

By the time my lunch break rolls around, I’m practically counting down the seconds.

The café next door is my safe haven. Warm, cozy, and always smelling like cinnamon and espresso. It’s everything the bookstore isn’t. I step inside, stomping the snow off my sneakers, and head straight for the counter.

There’s no line, which is a small miracle, but then I see her pretty face again.

Brown curls, her same shirt, pink sweats, and those same bright eyes. She’s standing behind the counter, tying an apron around her waist.

Oh.

I knew she worked here! Scholar of the year i told you.

“Hi,” she says when she spots me. Her voice is just as soft as before, but there’s something about the way she looks at me that makes my stomach flip.

“Hey,” I reply, trying to sound casual. “Can I get an asiago bagel, toasted? Extra cream cheese.”

She nods, her hands already moving to jot down the order. “Anything to drink?”

“Just a black coffee,” I say. “Simple.”

She glances up briefly, the corner of her lips quirking like she’s amused. “Simple’s good.”

Her gaze lingers a second too long, and I feel the faintest heat creeping up my neck. There’s something about the way she’s looking at me, like she’s trying to figure me out but doesn’t want me to notice. I definitely noticed.

I glance at her name tag, needing some kind of distraction. “Azzi,” I murmur under my breath. It suits her.

She catches me looking, her cheeks tinting the slightest pink as she fiddles with the pen in her hand. “It’ll be ready in a minute,” she says quickly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Thanks, Azzi.” Her name rolls off my tongue easier than I expect, and the way her eyes widen just a little makes it worth it.

Azzi ducks her head, pretending to check the order screen, but I can see the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips. She’s shy, reserved even, but there’s something so genuine about the way she carries herself. It’s almost refreshing.

As I wait, I glance around the café, the hum of chatter and clinking mugs filling the space. A few students are hunched over laptops in the corner, and there’s an older couple sharing a slice of cake by the window. The atmosphere is cozy, intimate, like something out of a movie.

“Bagel and coffee,” Azzi calls softly, placing my order on the counter.

I step forward, and for a split second, our hands brush as I reach for the tray. Her fingers are warm, a stark contrast to the cold outside, and I swear I see her inhale sharply before quickly pulling away.

“Thanks,” I say again, trying to meet her eyes.

“You’re welcome,” she replies, her voice barely above a whisper. She hesitates, like she wants to say something else, but instead, she bites her lip and busies herself wiping down the counter.

As I turn to leave, I catch her glancing at me again, her gaze lingering on my face before quickly darting away.

I smirk to myself, holding back a chuckle. So she does notice me.

Sliding into a seat by the window, I take a sip of my coffee, my eyes drifting back to Azzi. She’s leaning against the counter now, flipping through what looks like a notebook, nah definitely a sketchbook. Her curls bounce slightly as she moves, and there’s a faint smile on her lips, like she’s lost in her own little world.

For some reason, it’s hard to look away.

I finish my bagel way too fast, but instead of leaving, I sit there for a while, pretending to check emails on my phone while sneaking glances at her. She’s busy now, taking orders and chatting with customers, but every once in a while, her eyes flicker over to me.

It’s subtle—barely noticeable—but it’s enough to make my chest tighten.

When I finally get up to leave, I make a point to walk past the counter.

“See you around, Azzi,” I say, letting her name hang in the air.

Her head snaps up, her eyes wide with surprise. “Yeah, uh—see you,” she stammers, her cheeks flushing as she fumbles with a stack of napkins.

I chuckle to myself as I step back into the cold, the warmth of the café lingering in my mind.

This job might not be so bad after all.

—

The next morning, Paige finishes practice, her muscles aching but her mind buzzing with anticipation. She now knows Azzi works morning shifts, and though she tells herself she’s just stopping by for breakfast, there’s no denying the extra pep in her step as she drags Nika along with her to the café.

As they walk in, the comforting aroma of coffee and freshly baked goods fills the air. Paige’s eyes scan the room, immediately finding Azzi at the counter, focused on a stack of receipts. Her heart skips a beat.

Paige shrugs off her hoodie, tossing it onto the back of a chair at an empty table by the window. She and Nika sit down, glancing over the breakfast menu. Paige tries to act casual, but Nika, ever observant, leans in.

“Calm yourself down and find something to get.” Nika pipes up.

“Shut up,” Paige mutters, burying her face in the menu.

Just then, Azzi glances up and notices them. Her expression softens, and she waves, a shy smile spreading across her face.

Paige beams back, her cheeks tinged pink as she waves back.

“Hi,” Azzi greets, approaching their table. Her soft voice makes Paige’s heart flutter.

“Hey,” Paige responds, a little too quickly.

“What can I get you guys?” Azzi asks, pulling out her notepad.

“I’ll have eggs and a croissant,” Nika says, glancing between Paige and Azzi with a knowing smirk.

“I’ll take some pancakes,” Paige says, handing Azzi the menu.

Azzi jots down their orders and looks up. “What would you like to drink?”

“Orange juice,” Nika answers.

“And—” Paige starts, but before she can finish, she and Nika both say in unison, “Coffee, black.”

They burst into laughter, and Paige sneaks a glance at Azzi, whose dimples appear as she smiles.

“Got it,” Azzi says, gathering the menus and walking back toward the counter.

Paige’s eyes linger on her retreating figure, her gaze drifting downward until Nika snaps her fingers in front of her face.

“Yo twin, is that the girl you keep talking about in your sleep?”

Paige’s head snaps toward Nika, her eyes wide. “What? In my sleep?”

Nika leans back, smirking. “Yeah, I heard you last night saying her name over and over again. ‘Azzi, Azzi,’” she mimics, feigning a dreamy voice.

Paige’s face flushes. “Shhh! I don’t—whatever, I just say random stuff when I’m sleeping.”

“Sure, sure,” Nika says, winking. “But you keep staring at her. And she keeps looking over here.”

Paige shrugs, slipping into her usual cocky demeanor. “Well, I mean, it’s me. Can you blame her?”

Nika rolls her eyes. “Cocky ass.”

A few moments later, Azzi returns with their food. She sets Nika’s plate down first.

“Thank you,” Nika says with a grin.

As Azzi places Paige’s plate in front of her, she hands her the coffee. But before Paige can grab it, another worker bumps into Azzi from behind, sending the coffee spilling onto Paige’s shirt. Azzi stumbles forward, gasping as she falls right into Paige’s lap.

“Yo!” Paige snaps, turning to the worker. “Can’t you watch where you’re walking? You just made her fall.”

The worker mumbles an apology and scurries off as Azzi scrambles to her feet, her face burning red.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Azzi stammers, her voice shaking.

Paige brushes it off, trying to calm her down. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. But I do need a new shirt now.”

Azzi looks stricken. “I—I think I have an extra one in the back. Come with me to the bathroom?”

Paige stands, turning to Nika, who is smirking like the Cheshire Cat.

“Shut up,” Paige warns, flipping her off as she follows Azzi.

In the bathroom, Azzi motions for Paige to wait while she fetches a shirt. As soon as she leaves, Paige peels off her stained hoodie, leaving her in a sports bra and sweats. She grabs a paper towel, wets it at the sink, and wipes the remaining coffee off her stomach.

When Azzi returns, she pauses for a moment, her eyes widening slightly before she quickly hands Paige a black t-shirt.

“Sorry again,” Azzi murmurs.

Paige grins as she pulls the shirt over her head. “You’re good. Thank you.” She smooths the fabric and gives a playful twirl. “See? Good as new.”

Azzi giggles, her dimples deepening.

Paige’s expression softens. “You have a really pretty smile.”

Azzi ducks her head, her cheeks flushed. “Thank you,” she says softly. “We should probably head back before my boss notices.”

“Lead the way, Miss Azzi,” Paige says, motioning dramatically toward the door.

As Paige returns to the table, Nika raises an eyebrow. “Everything good?” she asks, smirking.

“Shut up,” Paige mutters, sitting down.

Once they finish eating, Nika and Paige pack up to leave. As they’re about to walk out, Paige glances around, hoping to catch one last glimpse of Azzi. When she doesn’t see her, she sighs and heads for the door.

Just as she steps outside, she feels a light touch on her back. Turning, she finds Azzi standing there, holding a folded piece of paper.

“Hey,” Azzi says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I just wanted to say sorry again about your shirt.”

“I told you, it’s okay,” Paige says, smiling. “Things happen. And I love my new shirt.”

Azzi smiles nervously, then holds out the paper. “Okay, um, don’t think this is weird, but it kinda is? but it’s also- anyway I wanted to give you this.”

Paige takes the paper and unfolds it, her eyes widening at the detailed sketch of herself.

“Woah,” she breathes.

Azzi shifts on her feet. “It’s okay if you don’t like it. I just did it for fun.”

Paige fakes a pout. “And here I thought you did it because you liked me.”

Azzi blinks, her cheeks flaming. “Well… that too,” she admits quietly.

Paige grins, her confidence swelling. “This is so good I could literally kiss you right now.”

Azzi’s voice drops to a whisper. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

Paige steps closer, her hand cupping Azzi’s cheek as she leans in. Their lips meet, soft and tentative at first, before deepening into a kiss that leaves them both breathless.

When they pull apart, snowflakes drift around them, settling in their hair. Paige grins. “So, if I asked you on a date right now, would you sketch me again?”

Azzi laughs, her dimples showing. “Maybe.”

“Pretty please?” Paige pleads, pouting dramatically.

Azzi rolls her eyes playfully. “Fine fine. Since you’re begging.”

Azzi glances over Paige’s shoulder, spotting Nika in the distance, pumping her fist in the air and yelling, “Go gays!”

“Isn’t that your friend?” Azzi asks, raising an eyebrow.

Paige groans, dragging a hand down her face. “I don’t know her.”

[stonedstr8]

TOKE 'N STROKE

"Ads are getting so damn invasive." Lucas thought to himself, clicking skip on yet another pointless car commercial interrupting the video essay he was watching. "You think the algorithm would know its audience by now, I'm too gay to drive!"

He laughed a little bit at the joke, running a hand through his soft, bleached blonde hair. He was the epitome of a high-maintenance twink, with his smooth, hairless body and perfect sense of style. He was smart too and liked to boast about it, with a scholarship for his English Lit degree and being made President of his university's LGBT Chapter, which he was hoping to use as a stepping stone to become Student Body President next year.

Leaning back again in his chair he reached for his cellphone, seeing a text from his boyfriend Alex.

Alex: "Hey cutie, still busy with finals this weekend, but have time for a dinner date Sunday night?"

He smiled to himself, giving an eager text back to set it up, and to wish him well on his upcoming exams. "Ugh, I need to start studying too, Monday's going to be one hell of a final... I'll focus on it and head to the library after this video and-"

Just like that, his train of thought was interrupted again by a stupid ad, this time some obnoxious psychedelic visuals and a bad electric guitar riff blared out of his monitor. It startled him so badly that he seized up for a second, accidentally clicking the ad and being brought to their store page. "Broski's Bud's, one stop ship and shop for weed strains to fix your brain..." He rolled his eyes at the cringe marketing, getting ready to close the tab when a pop-up opened trying to tell him all about a deal he 'wouldn't want to miss out on'. "No thanks, stupid site, you can keep your Bro Buds or whatever to yourself." but every time he hit X on the popup another would open, being more and more insistent each time about new deals, until finally a desperate '90% OFF AND SPECIAL STARTER KIT AS A BONUS WITH YOUR FIRST PURCHASE' filled his screen. "FINE," he scoffed at his computer, "I'll take a look at the stupid site. My therapist suggested I try out weed to help lessen my anxiety anyways, so might as well get a good deal on it..."

Clicking the pop-up added the 'starter kit' to his cart, it was a pack of pre-rolled blunts and some sort of mystery box, but the description didn't help him understand it much either. "Get ready to step into the zone and open ur mind with this one bros, Broski's Buds bestselling strain, Toke 'n Stroke, is sure to change your life by stimulating a high never felt before! This isn't your sissy uncle's strain, this shit puts hair on your chest like a real man!"

"God this is so cringe, I bet they get all kinds of business marketing to the dumb jocks in town, no wonder their brains are mush. Still, it's just weed and for $20 I might as well give it a try, I probably won't find it cheaper anywhere else..." sitting in thought about it for a few seconds, Lucas finally filled in his payment info and placed his order, getting a free upgrade to same-day delivery since they seem to have a storefront a few miles from his apartment.

"Well, there goes my library plans I guess, I'll have to wait around for delivery since my package will probably get swiped otherwise..." Lucas sighed, turning off his computer and plopping down onto the couch, picking up his Switch to play Animal Crossing and kill time.

A few hours passed and the sky got dark before finally a long buzz came from his intercom. "Took them long enough, it's nearly 9pm!" he complained, putting his jacket on to head downstairs. When he got down there the delivery guy had already gotten into his car again, driving away and leaving Lucas to carry the package back upstairs all on his own. It was bigger than he expected, taking both hands to lift it and keep it stable. "Jesus, this thing must weight like 40 pounds! What did they put in here?"

After a bit of struggling and the occasional break to catch his breath, Lucas pushed his package into the living room, collapsing on the floor next to it for a while. "After that workout I'm surprised I don't look like the douchebags around campus." he laughed to himself, bouncing up to get a box cutter and pry his package open. After taking the carton of pre-rolled blunts out, he started into the box with a bit of confusion and disgust, pulling things out one after the other.

"A sleeveless tank top that says 'Toke 'n Stroke Bro'... A pair of douchey sunglasses... Some red gym shorts, socks and slides... Ew, a snapback saying 'Who ate all the pussy?', why the fuck would anyone wear this!... And 2 dumbbells, no wonder this thing was so heavy! All of this is useless shit that's gonna end up in a donation bin now, I'll have to drop this trashy stuff off tomorrow on my way to the library... But hey, at least the weed seems fine, smells... potent." He said, tossing everything back into the box and taking a whiff of one of the blunts.

Kicking back on the couch again, he played with the blunt in his hand for a while before finally having the courage to light it up, taking a hit. Immediately he started coughing, not used to the sensation, but it did make his brain start to feel... fuzzy. "Damn, okay I need to push past it and get used to it." he said, lighting up for another hit of the blunt, this time barely a cough escaping his throat, feeling suspiciously more used to it. Then another, and another, until finally the whole blunt was gone. Sitting in his daze for a while, he enjoyed the sensation of his mind drifting around experiencing the high, his anxiety melting away as if he didn't have a care in the world. Eventually he decided to try and get up, but his body slumped over off the couch and hitting the floor, the room fading to black...

...

When Lucas finally came to again, the first thing that hit him was the strong smell of weed floating around in the air. "Damn bro, did I smoke the whole set or what..." he laughed groggily, getting ready to stretch out and get back to laying on the couch before he was startled by the sound of moaning blasting from his TV, eyes shooting open in confusion. On the screen, two busty lesbians were making out, them taking turns groping each others boobs and fingering each other. "What the fuck bro, how long has this been on?" he cursed, nervous that the neighbors nextdoor might have heard it playing as he started desperately looking for the remote.

When he couldn't find it in the cushions, he got up from the couch only to be met with his feet kicking a bunch of empty beer cans. "Dude, there's gotta be 2 dozen thrown all over the floor, did I have a party or something? I don't even know anyone who drinks beer..." he mumbled, going to scratch his head in confusion, but was even more confused when instead of his hair he felt a hat on top of his head. "Huh?" he thought, as he looked down at the floor again, noticing that instead of his skinny jeans and converse he was now wearing the socks and slides from the box, along with the sleeveless tank top and the shorts too. He stumbled his way to the bathroom door still baked out of his mind, mouth dropping open at his reflection in the full-length mirror in front of him.

"Broooo, am I dreaming or what the fuckkkk is going on" he said in disbelief. No more was the cute, pale twink he used to be staring back at him. Instead, a douchey bro he didn't recognize was standing face to face with him. Tanned skin, pillowy muscles, his once blonde hair turned into a brown buzz cut and with that stupid "Who ate all the pussy?" hat slapped over it. He touched his face, feeling along his chin where his once smooth skin now had a rougher texture, and a trashy chinstrap sprouted from his jawline. He slapped his face a few times in his daze, trying to wake up from the dream and growing more confused each time nothing changed.

Turning around and staggering back to his living room to try and make sense of what's going on, it hit him that he barely recognizes the room anymore. His apartment used to be perfectly maintained and well-decorated, now there was beer cans all over the floor, along with dirty socks and cummed-in underwear, greasy pizza boxes and chip bags all over the table and counter, the decorations on his walls had been torn down and replaced with posters of chicks in bikinis and sports teams, his Switch replaced with an X-Box and a stack of COD games next to it, DVD cases of trashy bro-comedies were thrown around near the TV too... Then the smell hit him, it STUNK in here, like a sickening mixture of weed, cheap body spray, and sour BO wafting in a heat around the room. "Bro, it fucking reeks in here... Or wait..." he mumbled as he gave himself a whiff, "I fucking reek!"

After a bit of stunned silence he finally started to process things in his brain again. How the fuck did he get like this, was any of this even real, and how does he get back to normal? He plopped back onto the couch, picking up his phone to see he had a handful of missed texts and calls from his boyfriend before noticing the time... 2:00pm. On Sunday. He had somehow been blacked out for 2 whole nights, with no memory of anything that had happened. While getting ready to call his boyfriend back, Lucas felt his insides rumbling and at first he thought it was from the munchies because of all the weed, but then he realized "Oh bro, all that double-cheese pizza is really gonna fucking..."

*PHRRRBBBTTT!*

His body instinctively lifted its leg as it pushed out the loudest and most obnoxious fart he'd ever ripped in his life, as his body seemed to react on its own, letting out an immature laugh and wafting the air before muttering "Fuck yeah bro, smells like victory!" He leaned back into the couch, remembering he needed to call Alex, but the loud moaning on the TV caught him off guard again. This time he locked eyes with the screen, the cock in his shorts immediately bulging and straining at the sight of the lesbian porn before him. "I really need to turn this shit off and get whatever's going on sorted out..." he thought, but he realized he couldn't move his hand to reach for his phone, instead it reacted on its own, reaching down his waistband to pull out his cock and start stroking for the busty babes on TV.

"All I do is Toke 'n Stroke, bro..." a voice in his head seemed to say, except it didn't come from within, he spoke it directly out of his own mouth.

"Wait, I didn't say that bro, it's-" he tried to talk, realizing that his thoughts echoed around stuck in his own head, not even leaving the lips of his own body. He was just stuck there, watching in a dazed horror as he went on autopilot.

"Toke 'n Stroke bro, I'm such a loyal customer Broski's Buds will HAVE to take me as a hype boy this time haha!" his voice spoke again, continuing to stroke for the porn on TV, Lucas's eyes stuck fixed on the screen. Suddenly though, he was interrupted by his phone vibrating, a text from his boyfriend coming through.

Alex: "Hey cutie, I hope everything is alright? You haven't answered my calls or texts in a couple days, I know it's busy with all your studying but we do still have dinner planned for tonight. Still on for me to pick you up at 5?"

"Oh thank God," Lucas thought, reading the message, "I can tell him what's going on and have him come over to help me fix this shit!" Unlocking his phone, Lucas let out a sigh of relief as he got ready to reply, only for his body to still be taken over by whatever douchey daze it was stuck in.

Lucas: "dont u ever come around me u faggy creep, if me or my bros ever catch u within 100 feet of us we'll give u the beating of a lifetime! fuck around n find out if u dare to show ur face here."

Lucas screamed internally as the message was typed out and sent in front of his very eyes, before his hand moved to block his boyfriend's number and turn his phone off. "Something is seriously fucking wrong with me bro, I need to-"

*PHHRRRRBBBTTTTTT*

Another obnoxious and sickening fart blasted out of his ass, filling the room and breaking Lucas's thoughts down into a daze again, as he felt around under the couch for something before pulling a sweaty, well-used fuck toy of a girls ass and pussy up from the mess.

As Lucas once again locked eyes with the TV, he took another hit from his dwindling blunt stash, finishing up the last one. After throwing what was left onto the floor, he prepared the fuck toy and slid it right down onto his cock, starting to bounce the toy up and down as he edged himself closer to finishing.

"If I can't figure out a way to snap out of this, I'm so fucked..." he thought, as his voice spoke again. "Toke 'n Stroke bro, this chick is soooo getting fucked!" He moaned, as he shot his thick load into the toy, feeling some of his braincells permanently shoot out with it, sloppily wiping the mess on the cushion next to him as he laid back, feeling his insides start to bubble again.

Lucas had a lot of Bro Time to catch up on, but luckily his new favorite weed strain was making sure that he was a captive audience until he was fully converted and assimilated into just another Bro.

[triptychgardener]

i saw you mentioned that transfem!calliope was practically canon, could you maybe elaborate on that? (im not dissing your hcs btw im just confused on where its suggested in canon)

Hey so it took me a while to get to this just because I wanted to solidify some thoughts about it! Won't go into as much detail wrt my other posts, but we can at the very least start with her handle: uranianUmbra

Uranian is an old-fashioned term, generally used for gay men, though also used in different ways to describe other-gendered people or ways of being, occasionally used as a catch-all similar to how Queer is used today. Its history is complicated and occasionally uncomfortable, as a lot of queer history can be, but notably, one potential root of this idea came from Urning

Now obviously conceptions of gender and sexuality were a lot different then, and I don't want to simplify this, but in Homestuck, it's pretty undeniable that Calliope is a woman stuck in a man's body, and this is likely why Hussie used that very specific word in the first place: to foreshadow the eventual Cherubian Twist.

And not that framing: a woman trapped in a man's body. Cherubs (at least as we are told) have two equal halves who can predominate. But the framing of their entire dynamic makes it very clear that this is Caliborn's body, not Calliope.

Callie's ideal self, in Callie Ohpeee, her Trollsona, is positioned as something to be taken off to reveal her true self. She feels that she needs to conform her exterior to match her interior self, something Caliborn never has to do.

Hell, even as she goes to sleep for the last time, she removes her jacket to reveal Caliborn's shirt underneath. It's his body, not hers.

Not only that, but throughout the story, we see that Callie experiences something close to either dysphoria or body dysmorphia. She hates the way she looks, and affects an especially sweet demeanor in order to not scare people away. She sees herself as a monster because her body becomes the most hideous masculine monster the story has ever known! Literally Lord English.

And shockingly, even though it (in my opinion) handles it poorly, the Epilogues do give us a brief insight into cherub gender, where it basically illuminates that Aranea was kind of talking out of her ass about cherub reproduction, and that Cherubs have no actual biological sex or gender. Meaning that somewhere along the way, Caliborn and Calliope CHOSE their genders, likely influenced by the human and troll internet they were permitted. Callie perhaps forming her own gender in opposition to her brother. This also probably created the ouroboros through which gender became a thing in the first place but thats besides the point. Point is, Callie was likely not a woman until she chose to be a woman. I.e. transgender.

Now the epilogues took it in what I find to be a kind of boring direction, i.e. "well cherubs have no real biological sex so that means I have to be nonbinary now" which is just such a lukewarm take on the imposition of gender but whatever. Point is that Callie is transgender end of story goodnight!!!!!

[explaininghellaverse]

Everyone’s obsession with trying to justify Stella’s behavior is sooo icky to me.

“Well why they write her like that just as a prop to make Stolas look better.”

Has it ever occurred to you through the process of making a story certain characters exist to be a foil to the main protagonists. That not all characters are meant to be sympathetic or to be sympathized with and that’s not a fault in writing.

Someone being a villain character isn’t bad writing, and not having a character entire story before a show is over and claiming how under developed a character is- well a little idiotic.

Events have to happen in a certain order in a story for it to make sense, I’m sure we’ll find out more about Stella as the show goes on.

And there is also the huge can of worms of people trying to justify Stella’s actions. Male victims of abuse are hardly ever shown. Why are you trying to make Stella seem like the good person in this?

Yes it was an arranged marriage, yes it’s fair to say Stella was unhappy about that. That does not justify Stella abusing Stolas. Guess what Stolas was never happy about the arranged marriage either. Not to mention he is literally a gay man, but he didn’t become abusive.

“Oh but he cheated on her.”

Yeah after almost two decades of being abused and in a loveless hollow marriage. That’s hardly the same as being abused. Also that’s pretty common to happen to people being abused it’s behavior of someone trying to get out of a bad situation.

Y’all keep saying there is no depth and then try and take it out the messy nature of these things.

Legitimately if Stolas was a woman and Stella a man you’d all be praising Stolas. Support male domestic abuse victims and stop justifying abusive woman.

And of course that’s not saying you can’t like Stella as a character, just stop trying to make her seem like the victim. Stop saying you love her as a character and then going “well why did they write them like this, why didn’t they write them as having a friendly relationship.” Because that’s not the story being told.

And while I’m at it I know some people hate Octavia but she’s honestly great from what we’ve seen of her. “Why does he hate her more than he loves me?” As someone who grew up around this situation in my older teen I felt that. I felt that hard, these things are complicated for all people involved.

[girlbossblackbeard]

THOUGHTS AND LAYERS

i spent literally an hour analyzing this trailer at 0.5 speed. this post is long af and these thoughts are in no particular order and are poorly organized:

-there's a big storm (which I think was already confirmed), and ed gets swept overboard by a bucket on a rope:

he then crawls up out of the water onto the beach

then goes into the forest, creates a hut, has a journey of healing and self-discovery, meets hornigold (or his ghost??)

and kills him thus killing the part of himself that he hated the most (his violence) as a parallel to stede finally getting rid of nigel's ghost by accepting and believing in himself

-in the stede/ed split screen, the stede shot is from the first ep of s2 right after stede finds the marooned crew at the end of ep 10 in s1 (you can tell bc his hair and clothes are still clean, there's no gay bandana around his neck, and that's his lil dinghy buttons is rowing)

-they go to shore and wind up at the merchants shop where "susan" overhears they're tracking down blackbeard

and she invites stede's crew onto her ship, cue the outfit change in the BTS photos:

-the way stede makes that little swishy turn in the red coat -

makes me think this may be first time he's been in fine clothes since his "death" and i hope we get a moment of him reflecting on how he gave up everything for ed only to have him hate him :( but then obviously realizing that ed is worth it and he'd do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant getting a chance at spending the rest of his life with him

-izzy and stede team up, and izzy is clearly training either himself or stede on the revenge (?)

soooooo many questions: what caused him to leave ed and join stede's crew? is he fighting with ed and is training to take him out or is he just done having his love be unrequited so he leaves and just so happens to stumble into stede? is izzy thinking that if he can't cut out the longing he has for ed he has to kill him instead so the pain will go away? what, pray tell, the fuck is going on in here on this day

-wee john in the mermaid costume (and olu in a bunny or donkey costume?):

a fuckery? or just a weird acid trip? OR IS IT THE TALENT SHOW THEY NEVER GOT TO HAVE??

-ed really does force everyone on his crew to wear war paint

-all the tally marks scratched into the walls - is that the number of days since stede bonnet broke ed's heart?

-ed in the forest in PEARL NECKLACE HELLOW????????

-the tear in ed's eye as he moves the cake toppers closer together which he also painted to make the lady look more like him he literlaly is in love wiht stede so bad wht the FUCJ

-ed's crew is murdering SO MANY PEOPLE at the wedding wtf (pic not included bc scary)

-delusional moment but i hope anne bonny on stede's lap is looking at calico jack off screen

-stede and ed are running towards each other on the black sand beach (thank you @sluterastede for pointing this out to me wtf!!!!!!)

which evolves my theory that ed in the forest goes through his healing journey and realizes he wants to openly love stede again but then the navy attack and stede just so happens to have found ed at the same time and they're fighting to get to each other and taking out everyone in their way (what if that was okracoke lmao)

-the swede and spanish jackie hooking up in the trailer

makes me think the bts shot of ed and jackie is them looking at stede and the swede, and ed being SO in love with stede obvi but jackie is watching the swede do some weirdly hot shit so she's gotta have him (what if they got married and he became her umpteenth husband in a drunken vegas-like shotgun wedding where she wakes up the next day to realize what has happened lmao)

-also this pic is DEF from the reunited/make up era bc ed's half-up hair, no makeup, soft eyes, and buttons' clothing. i am weeping

-stede in pain - is it an injury or a tattoo? or torture as @sluterastede posits?? he looks down at his lower body before screaming so maybe he knows what's about to happen to him??

-ed in the forest wearing the pearl necklace (see above), ed saying "fuck you stede bonnet" wearing the pearl necklace (see below)

does he pick it up at the wedding??? (theory credit to @sluterastede!!!! can u tell we watched the trailer together 400 times) i can't tell if he's wearing it in the one wide shot of him in that scene:

but regardless of when he acquires it, does he take it bc he remembers stede said he wears fine things well???? and he starts to believe he may deserve them??

-side note about a LACK of something: ed isn't wearing the cravat at all in the trailer near as i can tell, and he's not wearing the pearl necklace when throwing knives at the wall (at least from what I can see, which is not much) which leads me to believe that scene is in the earlier part of the season

-lastly, the most important song lyrics from the trailer (the beautiful ones by prince):

and that's my dissertation on the ofmd season 2 teaser trailer thank you

[sitp-recs]

hi liv!!! what are your favorite underrated 8th year fics? any hidden gems you'd recommend?

Hi anon, always! I was gonna start off by saying that I haven’t read 8th year much, but this list is evidence to the contrary so maybe I should stop saying that 😂 here are some recs for you, I’ll also highlight two personal favourites: Matched Set by astolat and Like Lightning at Your Fingertips by potterwatch, while not exactly underrated I don’t see them recced often enough. Enjoy!!!

Snug by @moonflower-rose (E, 6k)

Potter can't keep his hands off himself. Draco can't look away.

The Pensieve Project by curiouslyfic (T, 7k)

Of the 116 Hogwarts students who took part in the final battle, only five are officially invited to the Ministry's first annual memorial. For everyone else, there's the Pensieve Project.

Champion by @shealwaysreads (T, 7k)

Harry thought his Eighth Year would be simple and easy. And it sort of is, though not in the ways he expected.

What Country, Friends, Is This? by khalulu (M, 8k)

When Harry and Draco are paired up for a nebulous “capstone project” in 8th year, Draco suggests they use it as an opportunity to take a free Grand Tour of Europe. Harry isn’t interested in being grand, and they soon veer off the beaten path.

Good Company by Greenflares (T, 8k)

With Hermione and Ron always together, Harry's return to Hogwarts to complete his education isn't exactly fun. Somehow, it's his unlikely friendship with Malfoy that keeps him sane.

swallow your words by icarusinflight (E, 9k)

The truth is, not many things are known about the magic that is behind soulmarks. They'll turn up when they want and not before.

Heliomancy by Leela (E, 10k)

A teasing mirror that came from Grimmauld Place and the emphasis on inter-house relations during his eighth year at Hogwarts change everything for Harry.

warmest part of the winter by warmfoothills (T, 11k)

It’s not even a balcony, it’s just a window with a bit of a ledge, and Draco’s read Shakespeare anyway, he knows how this one ends.

Said and Unsaid (or, The Value of Knowing When to Stop Talking) by bryoneybrynn (T, 15k)

When the Interrogator asked if he had anything to say on his own behalf, Draco shook his head, his lips pressed tight in a thin line. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like an excuse.

Find The Balance by lauren3210, Obliviate_Amores (M, 15k)

After Harry gives Draco his wand and goes back to using his own, they both start having trouble making them work. Finding out why is a lot simpler than fixing the problem.

Equally Cursed and Blessed by @moonflower-rose (E, 18k)

Harry's back at Hogwarts to attempt his final year, again. This time he's sure there'll be no shenanigans. Well. Maybe there'll be a few.

Edificabo by @doubleappled (E, 18k)

Numb and exhausted after the war, Harry returns to the only real home he’s ever known. Hogwarts needs help, too.

Silver Linings by @sorrybutblog (M, 21k)

Or: Harry's gone back for eighth year at Hogwarts and nothing is quite the same, save his inability to leave Draco alone. But then he finds that Draco isn't what he expected either, as they spend the month of December stuck in each other's orbit.

Colloquy by @dracoladon, @lazywonderlvnd (E, 30k)

Harry's not gay, Malfoy just smells good.

On Our Way by evils (E, 30k)

Draco is trying to spend the summer keeping his head down, but a repair project and a certain snowy owl have other plans for him.

All Things Go by @sorrybutblog (E, 32k)

Draco’s back at Hogwarts by court order. Harry’s back for no particular reason at all. Some things change, some stay the same. Neither expects to spend eighth-year living in close quarters, playing rugby (poorly), staying up late, sneaking around, and finally figuring it all out.

Eager for the Sky by @oknowkiss (M, 35k)

It was announced, just as the Triwizard Tournament had been, at the start of term feast. A year-long, international Quidditch varsity match — the inaugural Wizarding Academy Cup.

Inside Your Mind by @lazywonderlvnd (E, 36k)

Goyle's taken it upon himself to act as Malfoy's personal, one-man guard and Harry can't help but feel like it's only making the bullying worse.

Seeker, Chaser, Keeper by VivacissimoVoce (M, 59k)

Rumor has it that a wealthy investor is starting up a brand new professional Quidditch team and he’s looking for players. Harry and Draco both want to make the team, but there can be only one Seeker. Will competing for the position bring them closer or drive them further apart?

Inertia by @cavendishbutterfly (E, 83k)

It’s three months after the war. Harry has already mucked up all his plans. Draco is no longer the prince of Slytherin house. And they sure as hell didn’t both mean to go back to Hogwarts at the same time. Cue snarking, long conversations…and unexpected snogging.

Reparo by amalin (E, 85k)

Voldemort's final defeat does not mean Harry Potter's troubles are over; far from it. In the aftermath of war, he returns to a Hogwarts that is fractured and divided, but this is no break that can be fixed with a spell. New owls, fading scars, surprising alliances—and along the way, the hardest task of all, to live with it.

Bonus: Harry/Draco/Theo 😌

just call this what it is by queens_crown (M, 27k)

Upon returning to Hogwarts after the war, Harry can't sleep. He's not the only one.

[burnednotburied]

Chapter 5: The Aquarium

AO3 Link | Masterlist

Pairing: Abby Anderson x fem!reader

Fic Synopsis: Abby goes looking for Owen and ends up on the wrong end of your knife.

Tags/CWs: angst; slowburn; enemies to friends to lovers; talks of purity culture/ideals and “sin”; internalized homophobia and some comp-het feelings (they’re both so gay but so dumb about it); animosity between WLF and Seraphites; blood/gore; descriptions of being hanged; religious/cult-like ideas; sorry (but not that sorry) to any Owen fans, but he’s kinda a huge asshole in this

Note: I added chapter titles and finally figured out exactly where I’m going with this story lol. Hooray for having a plan!!

(Sorry it took more than two weeks to get this chapter out! End-of-semester craziness, ya know? I hope this chapter being like twice as long as usual makes up for it!)

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

Abby realized too late that she probably should’ve warned you about the life-sized whales on the ceiling.

By the look on your face, she could tell you’ve never seen anything like it.

Which made sense. She hadn’t either before she and Owen found this place three years ago.

She paused to watch you for just a second, taking in your amazed expression as you marveled at the enormous hanging sea creatures above you.

Abby could easily remember what her first time here was like. How incredible and other-worldly this place felt. She imagined it must be even more overwhelming for you, this fractured piece of a world you were not a part of and knew little about. A world where humans built a place where they could go to look at fish for no reason other than that it was entertaining. A world where people did things just for fun.

Of course, Abby had also never been a part of that world, but at least she knew about it. She’d caught glimpses of it, carefully and intentionally gathering bits and pieces. She watched films and documentaries. She read novels and history books, newspapers and magazines if she could find them.

Knowledge was power. And, to Abby, having power was important. Having power meant being able to keep the people she cared about safe.

And if you had enough power, no one could ever take it away from you.

So she dedicated herself to becoming powerful, both of mind and of body. It’s all she had known and cared about since she lost her dad.

It’s why she lost Owen.

She still wasn’t sure if that had been a good thing or a bad thing, but she knew she felt guilty about it.

Three years ago, Owen had quickly claimed the aquarium as his own. He cleaned it up, made it feel as homey as possible, and spent as much time here as he could get away with. Abby didn’t tell anyone, not even the rest of the Salt Lake crew. It was right around the time they were breaking up. She felt like she owed him her discretion at the very least. Not that it really made up for anything.

Yesterday morning, when Nora told Abby that Owen was missing, she assumed he’d come here.

God, she hoped she was right.

Abby shifted the injured Yara in her arms, her muscles burning from carrying the girl for so long.

It was early in the morning now. The sun had just begun to rise as the four of you had been making your way into the aquarium.

“Owen!” she shouted, leading the way down one of the hallways off the main entrance. Abby thought he would most likely be out on the boat, either sleeping or continuing in his never-ending attempts to get the thing in working order.

“Owen!” she called out again. “Owen! Are you here?”

She paused for a moment, listening. Nothing.

“Owen—”

“I’m here.” She heard his voice just before he rounded the corner, stopping short when he saw the whole group of you. “Are those Scars?” he asked, genuinely surprised and definitely confused as hell.

Abby ignored the question. “I need whatever medical supplies you have.”

Before Owen could respond, Alice came barreling around the corner, barking aggressively at the perceived enemies.

The next few seconds were chaotic to say the least.

You screamed and jumped back. Lev reacted quickly, his bow drawn and an arrow notched.

“Alice, no!” Abby yelled out.

Owen grabbed for the German Shepherd, holding her back as she continued to lunge forward, trying to attack.

“Put the bow down! It’s okay!” Abby shouted.

Owen gripped the dog’s harness tightly. “Put that down!”

“Alice, shut up! Lev, put the bow down!”

“Alice, stop—Abby, what the fuck?!”

“Lev, listen to them! Put it down!” you insisted, putting a hand on his shoulder as you tried to push him behind you.

All of this happened simultaneously, muffled by the sound of deafening, echoing barking.

“Alice!” a new voice, one that Abby knew belonged to Mel, shouted. To her, the dog listened, sitting down obediently with one final bark.

Mel stood next to Owen and Alice, staring.

There was a moment of silence.

Abby turned to the young boy. “Lev, lower the bow. It’s okay.”

Reluctantly, he listened.

“Abby, who are these people?” Mel asked.

“They saved my life,” she said, hoping that would be enough of an answer for now. “Can you take a look at her?” Abby looked down at Yara, who seemed to be barely conscious in her arms.

Mel dropped a hand on Alice’s head, instructing her to stay, as she slowly stepped closer, eyeing you and Lev cautiously.

“This is Yara,” Abby said before nodding over to the kid at her right, “That’s Lev. And that’s—” She stopped short. She wasn’t about to introduce you to them as Prophet.

Behind her, you spoke, offering up your name. Abby and Lev’s eyes both swung to you, widening for two entirely different reasons.

Abby’s because she was hearing your name for the first time. It was your name. It was like she discovered a brand new piece to this puzzle she had been frantically trying to assemble since the moment she saw you.

She wasn’t sure why Lev looked shocked, but it seemed like a big deal, for you to use your name in place of the title that had been forced upon you by the other Scars.

Abby quietly repeated the name, committing it to memory.

Mel gave a small nod, unaware of the mini revelation that was happening right in front of her, instead focusing on Yara with a concerned look on her face.

“What did this?” she asked, looking down at the girl’s mangled arm.

“A hammer,” you said, stepping forward until you were standing right next to Abby.

“It wasn’t me,” Abby quickly added. Guilty, despite her innocence. She was ashamed that she needed to make that clarification. Worried about what you would think about it.  

Mel hesitated, regarding each of the Scars one by one again before sighing. “Alright. Let’s lay her down.”

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

The pregnant woman—clearly someone Abby knew but wasn’t exactly friendly with—decided that Yara had compartment syndrome, which apparently meant they would have to cut her arm off.

While everyone else argued about the best way to accomplish that task, you stood off to the side, feeling sick. If you had been able to stop Emily’s men last night, this wouldn’t be happening.

It shouldn’t be happening.

Yara was going to lose her arm or die because you failed her.

You were trying not to spiral. Trying to be helpful now. (Too little, too late.) Trying to pay attention to the Wolves’ conversation.

They didn’t have the supplies they needed to perform the amputation safely. Yara didn’t have time to wait the couple days it would take Abby to travel all the way to the hospital and back.

“What if we could get you there in two hours?” Lev asked, hands grasping the metal table where Yara laid in the center of the room. “The Wolf hospital, right? On the west side?”

The man—Owen—stood, interested. “How?”

“The bridges,” you said, realizing what Lev was getting at. All eyes turned to you. “Our people built them. High up.”

Lev nodded. “It’s how we get around the flooding. And… you people.”

After a quiet moment, Abby stepped forward. “Can she handle two hours?”

The woman considered this, her hand comfortingly placed on Yara’s shoulder. “Probably, yeah.”

Abby nodded. “Then make a list of what you need.”

Owen stepped closer, joining the circle the rest of you had formed around Yara. “Wait. Are you serious? Abby, these bridges are used by Scars.”

The fact that he was arguing against the plan frustrated you. Yara didn’t have time for this.

“They only send in small groups at a time,” Lev said.

“You heard that? Small groups.” Abby said, watching as the other woman jotted down the supplies on a loose piece of paper and handed it over.

“This isn’t a joke.” Owen looked only at Abby, trying to catch her eyes. She seemed to be actively avoiding making contact.

Instead, she turned to you and said your name, followed by, “Let’s go.”

You looked up at her, at a loss for words. It was sad that something as simple as hearing your name could have this effect on you, but it had been eight years since you’d heard it… And this was already the second time Abby had said it.

You wanted to turn and walk right out the door with her, happy to follow her anywhere, but reality set it.

“I can’t,” you said. “I don’t know where the hospital is. And I don’t know our bridges well enough to guide you. It will have to be Lev.” It looked like Abby might argue with you, or at least tell you to come with them.

You wanted to. The idea of letting Lev go back out into danger without you made you sick with worry. But, foolish as it may seem, you trusted Abby to look out for him. And you didn’t understand these other Wolves and the strange dynamic at play here. You certainly didn’t trust them to be alone with Yara.

“Someone needs to stay with her,” you said, holding Abby’s gaze.

She nodded, grabbing her backpack off the floor. “Alright. Lev.”

He looked to you, taking your hand in his. The group splitting up must’ve felt wrong to him, too.

Almost on instinct, you did what you had been trained to do. You offered a bit of comfort.

“May She guide you,” you said quietly, giving him a small, encouraging smile as you squeezed his one hand between both of yours.

The words were familiar to you both, a common Seraphite mantra. He reciprocated your tight grasp and finished the line, “May She protect you.”

When you released his hand, he placed it on Yara’s shoulder, as if to tell her goodbye as well. She was unresponsive.

You felt a hand fall on your own shoulder and looked up to find that it was Abby. She nodded her head to the opposite end of the room, impatiently taking your wrist in her hand and leading you over there when you didn’t immediately catch her meaning.

She didn’t let go.

Abby stood close, speaking quietly so that no one else could hear. “We’ll be back as soon as possible. Yara’s going to be fine, okay. And I’ll keep Lev safe.”

You couldn’t help the slight upward curve of your lips. “I know,” you said. “I trust you.”

She blinked, caught off guard, but continued. “I wouldn’t mention the whole you-being-the-Prophet thing to Owen and Mel if I were you.”

“I’m not a prophet,” you deadpanned.

She let out an exasperated breath. “Okay, sure. Well I wouldn’t tell them that the Scars think—”

“Seraphites,” you interjected.

“—Seraphites—Just… you get the point. Don’t mention it, okay?”

“What if they ask questions?”

“Dodge them. Be vague.”

“You don’t trust your friends?” you asked, more serious now.

“No,” Abby said. “Not with you.”

You couldn’t begin to guess what she meant by that.

“I trust them… for the most part.” She glanced at them over your shoulder before meeting your eyes again. “I just don’t know how they would react to that information. It’s not exactly a small thing. I don’t know what they would do with it.”

You looked at her for while longer, then nodded your head. “Okay. I won’t say anything.”

“Abby?” the man’s voice came from behind you.

She let go of your wrist immediately, as if she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

You turned around to find the woman—Mel—and Owen both looking at you like they were witnessing something truly insane, instead of just two people having a conversation.

Lev stood on his own by the door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eager to get moving.

From behind you, you felt Abby’s hand wrap around your wrist again, squeezing lightly and then letting go.

“We’ll be back,” she said, this time at a normal volume. She joined Lev by the door, opening it and leading the way out.

“Abby!” Owen said again, moving to follow them out.

Mel groaned, frustrated. “God! Owen, just let them go.” When he ignored her, she went after him, the door slamming loudly behind her.

You stayed behind with Yara.

She was blinking slowly, barely awake, her shallow breaths too few and far between for your liking. You felt helpless, knowing there wasn’t much you could do other than sit and wait.

You pulled up a chair.

Just outside the door, the two Wolves were arguing. Although, you only caught bits and pieces of it.

Something about Abby and Scars and a cloak… Something about someone who looked like she just stepped out of The Lord of the Rings. You didn’t know what that meant, but it was clear they were talking about you.

Again, you unfastened the cloak and freed yourself of your top layer. Whether that was due to embarrassment or a sudden recognition of the uncomfortable warmth of the room, you couldn’t tell.

“Did you see how she was looking at her?” “Owen, why do you care? Why does it matter to you?” you heard through the door.

The dynamic here was becoming more and more confusing.

You’d assumed that Owen was the father of Mel’s child, just because they seemed to live here together. But that didn’t explain Mel’s rather apparent unfavorable opinion of Abby. And it definitely didn’t explain Owen’s preoccupation with Abby.

Their conversation continued for several minutes, volume rising and falling periodically. There wasn’t much you understood and even less of it seemed important or interesting to you.

Eventually, the door swung open again, making you jump in your seat. Mel reentered the room, offering you a strained smile as she checked on Yara. You quietly watched her work.

“There’s not much we can do for her until Abby and your friend get back,” she said to you, eyes still focused on Yara. “If you want, I can get you set up with a place to sleep while we wait.”

“No,” you said, too quickly to be polite. “…Thank you. I’ll stay with Yara.”

Mel pulled her lips into a tight line and nodded, leaving the room again. She came back a few minutes later with water and a shiny red apple, offering them up for you to take.

“Sorry. I know it’s not much. Owen isn’t well-stocked on food right now,” she said after you’d accepted the snack.

You smiled. “Thank you. You’re very kind to be helping us at all.”

Mel didn’t really answer, instead gesturing to the door as she walked toward it. “Well, we’ll… be around. If you need anything. And I’ll come in and check on her periodically.”

You nodded, quietly thanking her again. The discarded cloak that you’d left on a table by the door caught your eye. “Oh. Wait.”

She turned to face you again, eyebrows raised in question.

“What is The Lord of the Rings?” you asked.

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

An excursion that was supposed to take two hours ended up taking nearly all day.

But hey, Abby had done the best she could.

She faced her deeply-rooted fear of heights on that sorry excuse for a bridge. She fought off Infected and Scars. She was, let’s say, detained by her fellow WLF soldiers at the hospital. And then she had to fight and kill what must’ve been the biggest, gnarliest, freakiest blob of cordyceps infection to ever exist.

She barely got out of there alive, but she managed to leave with the medical supplies in hand. Plus tons of new material for her future nightmares.

Mel had started operating as soon as they got back to the aquarium, with Owen assisting her.

You and Lev sat just outside the door the entire time.

The surgery had gone well. Yara was doing okay, all things considered.

After, Owen handed Abby a pile of sleeping bags and blankets and walked off without saying a word.

Abby handed them off to you and carefully lifted Yara again, this time to move her to a more comfortable spot to rest. She led the way to the next room, you and Lev trailing behind.

There was a long couch in the new room. You motioned for Lev to lay down on one end while Abby set Yara down on the other.

She stepped back and watched, amused, as you fussed over the two of them for a few minutes, using most of the blankets on your young friends.

When you were sure they were both as comfortable as possible, you left them to rest and walked back over to Abby. In your arms, you held the two sleeping bags that you hadn’t used on the kids.

You offered one of them to her.

She shook her head, motioning to the space on the floor in front of the couch where there was an old, worn-out rug.

“Lay mine out for me? I have to go do something before I go to sleep.”

“You’re leaving?” you asked, looking concerned.

“I just need to talk to Owen. I’ll be right back.”

You studied her face, like you were trying to figure out whether or not she was being truthful.

Abby doubled down, pointing again. “Go. Get some sleep. I’ll be back.”

You sighed but went where she had pointed and began laying out the two sleeping bags.

One for you. One for her. Right next to each other on the floor.

You had been doing a good job of hiding it, but Abby could tell you were exhausted. She couldn’t blame you. Hell, she was exhausted. And the sooner she touched base with Owen, the sooner she could come back.

She turned and went out to track him down.

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

You didn’t know what was wrong with you.

You had been awake for almost forty-eight hours, but you couldn’t fall asleep. Your mind was racing. Filled with worry for Yara, concern about her condition, guilt for having been unable to prevent the injury from happening in the first place. Thoughts of your own people hunting your friends with the intent to kill them. Fear that, despite your desire to keep them safe, your lack of knowledge and experience in the world outside of Haven would make that impossible.

You thought about the woman you killed yesterday. How she’d so tenderly and earnestly called you her Prophet just moments before you snuck up behind her and ended her life.

You wondered if you too were now an apostate. If the Seraphites had found the bodies of Emily and her men and assumed you were dead, or if they somehow knew that you betrayed them all the very moment you were given the chance.

You wondered if your mother knew what you had done. If she would be punished for your sins.

You thought about Abby, hoping that your faith in her was not misplaced. Hoping that your attraction to her hadn’t clouded your judgment.

This was crazy. All of it. It was too much.

You had tossed everything and everyone you’ve ever known aside, thrown the first twenty years of your life to the wind like it meant nothing at all, and run off into the forest with a Wolf without a second thought. And now that you, Yara, and Lev were finally (seemingly) not in immediate danger, you had time to think things through. Contemplate what you’d done and try to figure out where it left you.

By your own hand, your life had been irreparably changed forever. It was done. There was no undoing it. No going back.

You would stay with Lev and Yara. You would stay with Abby if that’s what she wanted.

But where would you go? It wasn’t safe for any of you to stay here.

That wasn’t a question you could answer. You didn’t know of anywhere else. You wouldn’t know how to find a place that was safe.

All of these thoughts bombarded your mind at once, taking turns at the forefront. Contradicting emotions swirled, adding to the chaos.

There was a sadness, a sense of loss for the people you had always belonged to.

Guilt and shame. Two feelings that were not at all foreign to you, but you had never felt as strongly as you did now.

A lightness. A happiness. Almost a thrill. A hopeful nervousness for the freedom you had claimed for yourself, the agency you had uncovered, and the possibility of what was to come.

Sadness, again, for the mother you would miss, and the realization that you had already been missing her for a very long time.

Frustration—simmering anger—for your childhood that was stolen and the shame that did not originate within yourself. The unrelenting voices that lived in your head, weighing in on every thought and critiquing every action. But those voices were not your own. You would take your dagger and cut their presence from your mind, carefully carving them out of your head and disposing of them yourself if you could.

And, amongst everything else taking up space inside of you, demanding your attention, it felt stupid and frivolous and wasteful, but you couldn’t keep Abby from your thoughts. She kept appearing, in the middle of it all. This was something that you truly did not have time for and should not be putting energy toward.

But you had never felt intrinsically drawn to someone in the way you were drawn to her…

Behind you, you could hear slow, heavy breaths coming from either end of the couch. You were glad that Lev and Yara were getting some rest. You’d do your best to make sure they got their fill of it this time.

You got up quietly, trying not to disturb them but feeling like you needed to move. You shook out your arms, rolled your neck around, wiggled your fingers, stretched your legs.

Honestly, you wanted run. Or hit something. Or scream. Loudly and for a long time. Until you ran out of air and your voice was ragged.

But you didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, you went to look for Abby.

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

“Seriously? You’re telling me Isaac’s top Scar killer just… turned over a new leaf? Decided to befriend and help three Scars?” Mel was staring into Abby’s soul, her words dripping in disbelief.

Abby had found her and Owen upstairs, in the same room that had once housed the boat man’s skeleton and the couple’s Christmas stockings (not at the same time, of course).

Owen was angry. Exactly what she had done to earn his anger, she couldn’t say. He held a jar of his homemade moonshine. A jar that was somewhere between three-quarters and one half full. Abby assumed it had been filled to the top just a few minutes ago.

He had apparently decided to be a silent, brooding drunk tonight, so Mel had been the one to interrogate her.

Abby tried to explain everything, albeit keeping things pretty vague. She didn’t want to give them too much information about you specifically, and she didn’t want them to get the wrong idea about you, so she made sure to omit the part where you nearly gutted her. And the part where you were the new Scar Prophet that Isaac was after.

Mel wasn’t buying the part where Abby simply had a change of heart.

She shot Owen a cautious look before she said, “Abby, do you—I thought you might—Is it possible that you’re…” Mel stopped, gathering her thoughts, trying to find the best way to word it. “It’s not… like… a problem that she’s a woman. It’s just… it is kind of a big deal that she’s a Scar—”

“Abby isn’t into a fucking Scar,” Owen interjected, his knuckles white around the mouth of the jar. “And she’s not fucking gay.”

Then he started chugging the jar’s contents, forcing down swallow after painful swallow.

The women were both silent for a second, surprised by the anger in his words.

Abby didn’t know what to say. She knew she was into you—and she’d be lying if she said that wasn’t at least part of the reason why she was helping you and your friends—but she had never considered if that made her gay.

She honestly didn’t really care to label herself as anything either way. It felt stupid—in the honest-to-god post-apocalyptic hellscape that they lived in, where they had been engaged in a never-ending war since they were kids—to care about that kind of thing.

Why should it matter—when her family was dead, her friends were constantly in danger, and there were enemies closing in from every angle—if she was romantically or sexually interested in men or women or both? Wasn’t that almost guaranteed to be the least important detail at any given moment? And why should she waste any of her time or energy trying to define herself in that way?

This was all really new to her. She hadn’t really let herself be interested in anyone since Owen, and she honestly wasn’t sure if she had ever been into him for the right reasons. Again, she remembered how uncomfortable it made her feel to kiss him, to be touched by him…

She couldn’t imagine that it would feel like that if you touched her. And just the fact that she hoped one day she’d find out was probably telling enough.

So maybe, in the Old World, people would’ve called Abby a lesbian. Maybe she would’ve identified with that title if things were different, if her life was lower stakes, and if she’d had more time to explore herself and her interests.

What-ifs didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was here now. You were with her—and she needed to figure out a plan of how to proceed from here—so she could make sure to keep it that way.  She could figure out the rest later.

Mel was the first to speak, annoyed, but addressing him calmly, like she was talking to a rabid animal. “Owen—”

He didn’t even let her get a word in.

“No. This is bullshit! Abby—” He looked past Mel to meet Abby’s gaze, insistent. “I’m going to Santa Barbara to find the Fireflies. If you’re smart, you’ll ditch the Scars and come with me.”

Mel slammed her hands on the table, causing both Abby and Owen to jump. “What the hell do you mean, you’re going to Santa Barbara?! We are going to Santa Barbara!” They weren’t used to seeing violent outbursts from Mel. She was the queen of passive aggression, but she rarely lost her cool. “What is wrong with you, Owen? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? This is all so seriously fucked up.” She turned away from them, clenching her fists at her sides, looking like she might cry. Or hit something. Or both.

But for the first time in years, Abby wasn’t on the receiving end of her disdain.

Guess all she had to do for her old friend to stop seeing her as a threat was get entangled with the Scar Prophet. No big deal.

Owen, in a moment of clarity, seemed to realize how huge of an asshole he was being to the mother of his child. He set down his jar, stood, and walked over to Mel, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her into him, her back pressed against his front. He was swaying on his feet, his cheeks flushed, hands clumsy. If he hadn’t been drunk before, he definitely was now. “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. We are going to Santa Barbara. Of course it’s we. Hell, the Scars can come too for all I care. We’ll make it a party.”

Abby rolled her eyes at his quick switch-up and turned to go. Clearly this conversation wasn’t going anywhere productive tonight, with Owen drunk, Mel upset, and all of them exhausted beyond belief.

There was a creak by the door, and all three of them turned to look, Owen’s reaction far more delayed than Abby and Mel’s.

You stood there in your long white dress, hesitant to come in. Shy, having clearly interrupted a tense conversation.

Abby wondered how long you’d been standing there unnoticed. Her instinct was to meet you in the doorway and take you back to bed, away from Owen’s rude drunkenness and Mel’s inquisitive eyes.

“Hey! Scar! How the hell are ya? Come join us! We were just talking about sunny California. Ever been?” Owen pulled away from Mel and plopped back down on the couch, finding his jar again.

“Umm…” You looked to Abby for guidance, but she was just as unsettled as you. “No. I haven’t… Sorry, I was just looking for Abby.”

“Yeah, I bet you were,” he mumbled under his breath. Abby wasn’t sure if you caught that, but she wasn’t interested in having you hear any more of this.

“Let’s just go,” she said to you, moving toward where you still stood in the doorway.

“No! Come! Sit! Let’s talk,” Owen insisted, slapping the spot next to him on the couch.

You gave Abby another hesitant look before walking past her to join Owen. Mel sighed and lowered herself into a nearby chair. When it became clear to her that retreating with you wasn’t an option right now, Abby walked back over. She stood right across from the couch so she could see you, leaned against the wall behind her with her arms crossed over her chest.

You sat next to Owen, although not so close, putting as much distance between you as possible.

“Atta girl,” he chuckled. Abby wanted to punch him.

All of this was out of character for Owen, but she knew that he was always kind of unpredictable when he got drunk. With everything that had happened and emotions running so high, everyone really should just be going to sleep.

With that in mind, Abby would continue to stand nearby until you were ready to leave. She wouldn’t let things get out of hand.

“So… Scar—”

“Seraphite,” Abby corrected him. He scoffed and took another swig.

You smiled softly at her, looking grateful.

“Scar,” he said again. “Can I perhaps interest you in some hooch? Made it myself.” He offered up the jar for you to take, tilting it towards you with unsteady hands.

“No,” Abby immediately answered on your behalf. “She does not want any of your hooch.”

“Well give the girl a chance to answer,” he slurred. “What? Your little girlfriend can’t speak for herself? She can’t make her own decisions?”

You glanced back and forth between him and her, reaching for the open jar of clear liquid, properly baited by his taunting words.

Abby tried to remember that Owen was her friend—her best friend—and that he wasn’t usually like this.

“What is… hooch?” you asked, staring down into the glass jar suspiciously.

“It’s moonshine,” Abby said. When that didn’t clear things up for you, she added, “Alcohol.”

“Like wine?” you asked, tentatively sniffing it.

Owen laughed. Abby nodded, “Kind of, but it’s much stronger. Seriously, you won’t like it.”

There was a flash of something that looked like defiance in your eyes, offense taken at the idea that you wouldn’t be able to handle something that others could.

You put the jar to your lips and tilted it back enough to take in a generous mouthful.

Abby watched as your eyes went wide and you struggled to swallow it. Honestly, she was impressed that you didn’t immediately spit it out. You managed to choke it down before breaking out in a harsh coughing fit.

Owen laughed, accepting the jar as you shoved it back into his hands. Your eyes watered as you tapped on your sternum, taking a second to regain the ability to speak.

“You made that?” you wheezed in disbelief.

“Yep!”

“On purpose?”

Abby laughed at that, leaning back against the wall again once she was convinced that you weren’t dying.

“Hey, that’s prime hooch! You should be thanking me right now.” Owen took his own swig of it, lounging back against the couch with his arm resting along the back.

“Thank you?” You squinted your eyes but tried to be polite.

“I was kidding, princess. You don’t have to thank me.”

Abby, again, resisted the urge to punch him in the face.

“So,” Owen began, “tell me. How is it that you’re a Scar… but you’re not scarred?” He chuckled to himself, as if he had made a joke.

Your eyes shot to meet Abby’s, clearly unprepared to answer that question.

“Not every Seraphite has facial scars,” you said, keeping things vague.

“Every Scar I’ve ever seen does.”

“You’ve seen me, haven’t you?” you shot back.

Abby let out a surprised laugh. Owen clenched his jaw.

“Every Scar has face scars. It’s like your defining thing. It’s why we call you Scars.” He was adamant, unyielding. And the playful mask was starting to slip back into anger. Abby could tell this wasn’t going to end well.

“Well I guess you don’t know as much about Seraphites as you thought you did.” You were frustrated now, pressing yourself further into the far end of the couch to put more distance between the two of you.

Owen opened his mouth with a rebuttal, but Abby jumped in. “Lay off, Owen.”

He threw his hands up in surrender, leaning back against the brown cushions. “Fine, fine. Whatever. Forgive me for having questions. Fuck me, I guess. I’ve just never seen a hot Scar befo—”

Before he could finish the sentence, Mel was on her feet. “Alright. That’s it. You’re done.” She had been sitting silently up until then, ready to intervene if things got out of hand, just as Abby had been. Apparently, Owen calling you hot was where she drew the line.

Abby was glad Mel was saying something. Because if things had gone much further, she really might’ve hit him.

“Get up,” Mel instructed firmly, standing over him. “You’re going to bed.” He let her take the jar out of his hands and, with much effort, pushed himself up off the couch and started walking toward the door. Mel was right behind him, hands hovering on either of his sides in case he lost his balance. He was grumbling under his breath the whole way, like a toddler whose bedtime was being enforced.

Abby watched them go.

Once they were out of sight, she looked down at you, only to find that you were already looking at her.

“Sorry,” she spat out. “About him. He’s not usually like that.”

You nodded, but you didn’t seem sure that you believed her.

“So you guys are… friends?”

Abby cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah. We’ve known each other for years. Joined the WLF together. Me, Owen, Mel, and a few others.”

You considered this for a second before responding. “Where were you before?”

“Salt Lake City,” she said, looking down at her feet. “Utah.” Abby didn’t know if that would mean anything to you.

“Mel doesn’t seem to like you very much,” you said, observant, not trying to offend. Abby smiled, despite the meaning behind your words. You added, “And Owen doesn’t seem to like me.” You stated it like it was a fact, like it was neither good nor bad, just true.

“He’ll get over it. He’s just drunk.” Abby didn’t know if that was true, but she wanted to comfort you in that moment, not that you actually seemed to care all that much about Owen’s opinion of you.

“Can I ask you a question?” You were looking up at her, eyes wide and vulnerable.

Anything, Abby thought. Out loud, she said, “Sure.”

She pushed away from the wall and came to sit next to you on the couch, filling the spot where Owen had been.

“Why do you people keep calling me princess?” you asked. Abby laughed quietly under her breath, turning her body to face you.

“I don’t know. There’s something about you that’s very princess-like I guess.”

You made a face at her. She smiled wider.

“It’s not a bad thing. You just come across as soft. Delicate. I don’t know… Graceful.”

“I am not delicate,” you said, defensive.

“I know.”

“I’ve killed.”

“I saw.” Abby was being serious, although she did find the conversation amusing. “You’re very skilled with a knife.”

You nodded, satisfied with her response, and fully turned to face Abby. “And what does hot mean? Why did he call me hot?”

“Oh—” Abby stuttered, “Uh—He meant… He was saying that you’re very pretty.”

“Oh.” You considered this, eyes wandering away. “Earlier he said I look like The Lord of the Rings.”

Abby smiled again. There was something about you that felt like it might’ve been taken straight from the high fantasy genre.

“Do you know what that is?” she asked.

“Yes. Sort of. I asked Mel. She said it was a film about a magical land. With fairies and stuff.”

“They were books first.”

“Have you read them?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you read a lot of books?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“I try to read as much as I can. Whatever’s available.”

You nodded, thinking, letting the conversation die down.

After a moment, “Abby?”

“Hmm?” she hummed. She liked the way you said her name. Just the sound of it made her heart beat a little bit faster.

“Owen also called me your girlfriend.” You were studying her face, trying to read her reaction.

“Yeah. He did.” Abby said, looking into your inquisitive eyes.

“Does that just mean friend? Or is it something else?”

“He was just trying to piss me off.”

“So it does mean something else?” Your eyes were on her lips now, and you were ever so slightly leaned forward. Almost subconsciously.

“It doesn’t matter,” Abby said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

She was pushing you away, and she didn’t know why. She could’ve answered that question so differently. Maybe she should’ve.

Abby wanted you. And she was almost certain that you felt the same way. At the very least, there was a curiosity. A hesitant attraction.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong. That anything with you would be something she wasn’t good enough for.

Something she didn’t deserve.

Something she would ruin if given the chance.

So tonight, she didn’t give herself that chance.

Was that noble or cowardly? She wasn’t sure.

You pulled away, turning to face forward as you let out a long breath, puffing out your cheeks.

“I’m tired,” you said, standing. “And I should check on Yara and Lev.”

“Yeah.” Abby nodded. “Okay.”

She remained in place, ready to mentally beat herself up some more and stew in her thoughts alone for a while.

You cleared your throat lightly, swaying on your feet. “Umm… I’m not sure that I can find my way back to the room. Can you… please—?”

“Oh.” Abby hopped to her feet. “Okay, yeah. I’ll… I guess I’ll go with you.”

She avoided eye contact, leading the way into the dark hallway.

[rainydaypaperback]

My mother recently passed away after a long period of fighting several chronic issues. She was 84. I lived with her as caregiver while also running my bookstore.

That took rather a toll on finances because I often needed to close unexpectedly on short notice to care for her. Plus her final expenses. Everything will be fine in six months once estate is settled but right now, OOF, that is a cash crunch on me. It's basically drained all my savings so if one more thing goes wrong, keeping store running becomes difficult.

I've run this store for 23 years, come February 1st. While I carry all types of books, my specialty is queer books. That Pride flag flies year round!

So I could use some support right now and as all The Everything is happening.

Come visit me in person! I'm at 81 Greenwood Ave. (route 302) in Bethel, CT. 11-6PM Tuesday through Friday. 10-5PM Saturdays (exvept Sat. feb. 8th 2025) I'm also within walking distance of the NYC Metro-North train station, Danbury line. There's two other bookstores within walking distance, so you can spend a whole day looking at books!

If you're not local, but have friends in the Southwestern Connecticut or New York/Connecticut border area, please let them know I exist!

If you want to recommend me to a friend or family member in area that doesn't use Tumblr I also have a Facebook account and an Instagram. I also send out a weekly email with some featured books, events going on in the Bethel & Danbury area, and a featured adoptable pet. See a sample email and signup.

If you're not local, I have my inventory online and you can get lots of weird, out of print queer books from small presses. Order some books!

If you need audiobooks, I also have a Libro.fm account. I get a small commission when you get your audiobook downloads or subscriptions through the link. If you're doing a new subscription, you get two additional books through the affiliate link.

I also am on Bookshop.org if you want to buy new books that I don't have. If you go through the link, OR set me as your "local" store, when you buy new books I get a little commission.

I run the book club for Pride here and you can see the upcoming picks on either the front page of the store or on the Bookshop.org page with the club picks. We alternate fiction and nonfiction each month and do a hybrid model where you can either come to in person on 3rd Saturday of month OR do a text only chat on that 3rd Friday & Saturday via Bethel Pride's discord. For text chat, just hop in and post in bookclub whenever your schedule allows! and respond to other folks.

I also host a monthly plant swap with Pride here on the second Saturday. EXCEPT THIS FEBRUARY 8th. I am away at a conference for running Pride events! I am off working on the gay agenda! So plant swap resumes in MARCH.

For plant swap, you can bring plants or take plants. You can drop off without taking more home and pickup without having brought any. It's indoor plants only til May, and then its time to get wild with outdoor pals.

And I really appreciate reblogs! you never know where your followers live and this may make them shriek like a pterodactyl because they never realized how close by a queer bookstore was to them! ROADTRIP TIME.

[pinkgy]

okay, ignore the previous ask, i can't be more blind and stupid (💀).

so, if it isn't a bother, may you write some headcanons about the kings (satan, mammon, beelzebub and leviathan) with a reader who's slightly chubby and dislikes their (reader's) body.

thanks in advance, dear.

–☕ (wishing to end myself after this one.)

Hi ! Thank you so much for your request and congratulations for being the first request that is not about sex lol I needed a break.

Here it is! I loved writing this request and I hope you like it ♡

It's a bit OOC in some parts (Leviathan), but in my defense, it's not easy to write fluff about them.

Also, I'm sorry if I didn't focus much on the body type part, I'm not a great fan of specifying the reader's body type, race, and sometimes even height, but it's okay! I tried my best.

Also, this is my contribution to the soft and sweet Mammon HC.

𝗪𝗛𝗕

𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦

"𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗙 𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘 𝗜 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨"

♡

𝗦𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗡

✮ He’s in denial, Satan has you on a pedestal and he genuinely cannot believe that you think this way about yourself, simply because it’s a completely different opinion than the one he has of you.

✮ If you dare to mention any discomfort with your appearance in front of him, he will laugh in your face telling you to stop joking about such things, and when you look at him completely serious he might realize that he was wrong.

✮ Satan genuinely doesn't have any specific body preference, in his eyes you’re perfect, all he cares about is that you’re healthy both physically and mentally. 

✮ Once he fully realizes, you won't EVER hear him joking about it, and if someone else dared to they’re dead within seconds. The same goes for you "jokingly" mistreating yourself, that's the biggest offense for him and the lecture your life awaits you.

✮ This situation would become a priority for satan, he's capable of leaving aside all his work just to do the impossible to make you feel better about yourself. 

✮ He gets very frustrated every time you talk negatively about yourself, and he feels sad every time he notices that you feel insecure about your body, Satan somehow puts himself in your shoes, and that makes him take everything too seriously.

“Stop looking at yourself like that, I know what you're thinking and I don't like it” He hugs you from behind "Let's talk, you're too pretty to be thinking those things"

𝗕𝗘𝗘𝗟𝗭𝗘𝗕𝗨𝗕

✮ He might believe that you’re joking if you tell him, and he also might jokingly tell you something like “Yeah, I don’t like your body either” Clearly no offense intended, he would genuinely think that you’re not being serious.

✮ Beelzebub won’t realize that his “Harmless comment” made you feel bad unless someone else tells him that he screwed up, probably many days later he will approach you and actually apologize.

✮ Don’t expect any elaborate apologies from him, he will tell you what is necessary. But after he has taken a long time trying to remember everything you said to him that day, he will subtly start looking for ways to make you feel better about yourself. 

✮ Believe me, Beelzebub is going to make sure you hear every chance he gets about how perfect you are, and in case he forgets to tell you, Bael is under strict orders to remind him. 

✮ He’s really supportive but he sucks at showing it, his main goal is to distract you from your insecurity by at the same time trying to not distract himself, and somehow, it works.

"And who said that being yourself is not okay? As long as that beautiful body of yours is well-fed and healthy, you are the hottest person out there"

𝗠𝗔𝗠𝗠𝗢𝗡

✮ He would get offended, but like, really offended, the moment he notices or when you tell him about it he acts like those Latina grandmas when their grandchild tells them they're gay,

literally him.

✮ He's never seen anyone more ethereal than you, how do you even dare to dislike yourself?

✮ He genuinely doesn’t care about your body type, your weight, etc, as long as you’re healthy he’s going to love every part of you.

✮ He’s an amazing listener, Mammon will encourage you to vent to him while he slowly caresses your hair, and every time you say something he’s not okay with, he kisses your forehead.

✮ He wouldn't think you're joking, the opposite, Mammon would take this really seriously, but like, too seriously, to the point where you’re not getting out of Tartaros without loving your body as much as he loves it, and believe me, that’s a lot. 

“How can you hate such a beautiful body like yours? Every inch of you is perfect and just looking at you feels like a privilege, so don't overthink too much please”

𝗟𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗔𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗡

✮ Leviathan will genuinely get mad at you, if he finds out, he will ignore you, and if you tell him, he will leave and ignore you too, but it’s temporary, he will get over it in a few days. 

✮ He kind of sucks at comforting people, but he can and will try his best with you, just don’t expect much from him, and know that he’s genuine about it.

✮ He will make an annoyed face every time you comment something negative about yourself, and trust me, you will notice.

✮ Leviathan has a very good memory, and he’ll make a mental note of every part of your body that you mention that you don’t like, and every chance he gets he will make sure to kiss or caress that part. He won’t be very obvious, but somehow, he will find a way to discreetly improve your opinion of yourself.

✮ He would hang anyone who dared to make jokes about your body, and would also hang anyone who complimented you, only he has the right to do that.

✮ And on those days when you feel particularly bad about your body, Leviathan will be sure to find a way to distract you with something else, he’s very observant so he wouldn’t need to listen to you to know how you feel, he’ll just suddenly leave his work for a few hours and take you to one of your favorite places, even if he hates the place, he hates more that you have a bad opinion of yourself.

“Get those thoughts out of your head, people should be jealous of how you look, okay? Don't be ridiculous”

[capseycartwright]

tagged by @livingincolorsagain to do a 2024 fic roundup and i am v late but hope u forgive my tardiness i have been enjoying a new year rot of the highest order. anyway apparently i wrote a whole heap of fic this year and didn't realise it until i made this post.

april

every little thing the sun shows, well it’s worth it 

Buck should – he should be freaking out, right? He’d lived thirty-two years of his life without coming close to kissing another man, and it should be making him freak out that tonight, he did – but Buck felt flooded with the oddest sense of calm he’d ever experienced in his life.

He’d kissed a man.

or - after his kiss with Tommy, Buck goes to Hen.

stay close, little brother

hen and maddie share a quiet moment of pride about their little brother at the buckley-han wedding.

may

all roads lead to eddie diaz

Eddie inclined his head slightly. “He is,” he hummed in response. “But it sounds more like you’re wanting to pick a fight here than discuss our mutual appreciation for how great a person Buck is.

Tommy, at least, looked slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before,” he admitted. “The way you feel about him.

or - eddie and tommy have a revelatory conversation about the buck of it all.

july

a sky full of stars

Christopher Diaz had always loved fireworks - the pop, and bang, and the way they would light up the sky with bright colours. His dad didn’t like fireworks though. His dad was afraid of them.

or, even in Texas, Christopher worries about his father spending the Fourth of July alone. So he texts Buck.

can't ignore the crazy visions of me in la

Margarita-drunk Buck ruminates on how beautiful Eddie Diaz is while his best friend is dancing to Chappell Roan. That's what LA pride is for, right?

- or, alternatively: Eddie spends his first pride as an out queer man in a gay club, and Buck is in love with him about it.

october

oh what a terrible honor it's been (to learn that my blessings are things you call sins)

Hey God, it's me, Eddie. I hope you don’t mind that I’m sitting in your house thinking gay thoughts.

Eddie couldn’t help but giggle to himself as he thought the words. If he couldn’t be a bit silly while having a sexuality crisis in a Catholic church – when could he? 

Christopher leaves for Texas, Eddie goes back to therapy, unearths an emotional lockbox he had been fourteen years old when he buried, and has a lot of thoughts about how Buck is sunshine incarnate. In hindsight, it probably should have been obvious he wasn't straight.

knowing damn well i haven't been touched by you

Buck’s been having a really weird year. Buck died, and he realised he was bisexual, and he got a boyfriend, and Christopher left and went to Texas after he walked in on Eddie kissing his dead mother’s doppelganger, Eddie had grown a depression mustache, and Gerrard was back at the helm of the 118 and Buck felt like he was starring in a Netflix Original about how a perfectly normal, functional, member of society was driven to commit murder.

- or, Buck's got a boyfriend, Eddie comes out and starts dating men, and Buck loses his entire mind, actually.

november

miss me, but let me go

“I have - I’ve carried this grief, for you, for so long, and I know I can’t let it all go, because a part of me is always going to grieve for you,” Eddie paused. “But I can’t feel like this forever, Shannon. I don’t think you’d want me to, either. So - I need to let some of it go. Okay? I need to - I need to be myself now. For me, and for Christopher. I want to be me.”

On November 1, Eddie builds an altar for Shannon and finds a way to let her go.

you're my sun, my moon, my guiding star

“Fine, let’s have it your way then,” Eddie slammed his phone down on the kitchen table. “You set me up a dating profile then – Hinge, Grindr, whatever you fucking want, Buck. Set me up a dating profile, and you pick which random man I need to sleep with to make it so you feel okay about wanting me.” 

in which evan buckley gets dumped, gets drunk with his best friend, realises he's in love with said best friend, and lets his abandonment issues get the best of him. because your first is never your last, right? so buck can't be eddie's first: he needs to be his last.

december

i'll be home for christmas (if only in my dreams)

It was a silly thing, Buck had started, right when Eddie first got to El Paso – we’re looking at the same sky, he’d quipped, on one of their nightly Facetime calls.

Even when they were far apart from each other, they were still able to look up at the same stars, and if they just remembered that, maybe the distance between El Paso, and Los Angeles, wouldn’t feel so cavernous. That’s what Buck had promised him.

simply having a wonderful christmastime (maybe)

Eddie's family were about to arrive for the first Christmas they were hosting in LA as as couple, and, well, Buck felt like he was on the verge of a panic attack so great it would be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the destruction it was liable to cause.

or - the buckley-diazes are hosting christmas for the first time, and buck is freaking out, a little. he has a good reason, he swears.

see the lights, hang the stockings

Eddie finds out that Buck has never ever had a Christmas stocking of his own. He's very determined to change that and share a few Diaz family traditions.

everyone has probably done this already so apologies but tagging @doeeyeseddie @thatbuddie @clusterbuck @hattalove @mellaithwen @sibylsleaves @piningbuddies @eddiebabygirldiaz @hotshotsxyz

[barksenji]

I posted this on reddit, but I've seen some gnarly posts about Venezuela here, so I'll post it here too.

"I'll try to answer all of them. I don't know if I can explain like you're 5 because I'm autistic af and English is not my first language, but I hope I can make myself understood.

I condemn practically everything about the government. In Venezuela, on average, only four out of 10 operating rooms in the country's main hospitals are operative, and the shortage of supplies in emergency rooms is around 37%, while in operating rooms it reaches 74%. As for my own experience, I have Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I had a shoulder subluxation and I still do, and I went to the Victorino Santaella hospital in my country, there's little personnel, to the point that in the area for traumatology you could see dry blood on the floor because there just wasn't enough people to clean it up. Not a little bit of blood, but a lot. If you want decent medical attention, you will have to pay a bunch of money.

I had a strangulated umbilical hernia, which again, is something that commonly happens with the EDS. My dad had to spend 4000$ dollars on the operation, which for us, is a unachievable amount of money. He had to sell his car, and beg his job for the rest of the money, because the car was old asf and only covered about 200$.

Many people say the government is progressive, it is not. In Venezuela the LGBTQ community has absolutely no rights, it's incredibly difficult for trans people to change their documents or access hormonal treatment. Abortion is not legal here, not even in rape cases, gay marriage isn't legal either, and domestic violence largely goes unpunished.

The minimum wage is around 3 dollars, my dad works in transit so he earns minimum wage, because I have so many medical emergencies he has to make illegal driving licenses in order for me to get treatment. It is incredibly hard for my mom to find a job.

If you want an overview of the whole political situation, this thread can explain it better than I can:

This also explains many of the faults with the government, really, there are too many, I can't count them all.

There’s also no freedom of speech in Venezuela due to Nicolas Maduro’s oppression. All the news channels that are available are on his side. CNNE was removed from Venezuela after doing a documentary on Maduro and also was DW. Our only way to inform ourselves are socials, and most venezuelans are speaking through there.

Maduro's government is not a socialist government anymore, it paints itself that way to outsiders, but it is not. Money that should be going to public institutions is not going to those institutions, hence why the hospitals are in such dire state and you have to pay for private clinics in order to get appropriate care. I don't know if you're familiar with the CLAP bags, The Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP) is a distribution program of some basic imported foodstuffs promoted by the Venezuelan government since 2016 in which the communities themselves organized in committees supply and distribute priority foods through a modality of delivery of products, house by house at first, later distributed in a local of the community. The problem with these is that they're frequently infected with weevils, maggots, and even if they look "good" on the outside, they can be infected with bacteria and give you food poisoning. Worse is, some people are entirely reliant on these.

They're supposed to protect our indigenous people, but a Venezuelan indigenous leader who opposed the incursion of armed groups and illegal mining was shot twice while in a neighborhood in the capital of Amazonas state. Maduro is also the richest man in Venezuela.

In the protests that occurred in 2017, around 150 people died thanks to the armed forces and colectivos (paramilitaries on the side of the government), police came out with tanks (idk the name exactly in English) and ran over people who were peacefully protesting. Right now, I believe there has been 11 people confirmed injured, though there's probably more, since hospitals are asking for resources to treat the injured.

I think most of these payment methods are only available in Venezuela, but I saw a Paypal here and there, if you can help I'd thank you so much:

As for the self-sufficiency, I don't know. As I said, I'm 17 and heavily reliant on my parents. This country's also really not accessible for disabled people, I cannot go down stairs and have to walk with a cane, there's rarely a place where elevators are functioning properly: ironically, especially in hospitals. In the hospital Victorino Santaella, my dad has to carry me through a bunch of stairs, he has a bunch of hernias in his back so that's obviously no good for him. I'm also at heavy risk of fainting, so yeah.

Also: I don't know how the housing situation is in Venezuela statistic-wise, but for the young adults, is impossible to get a house. Houses can cost up to 100.000$ and more, the average job will pay enough for you to eat, buy toilet paper, basic needs and that's about it.

My friends, who were studying university, couldn't finish cause they had to get a job in a supermarket or bakery in order to be able to support their parent economically. It's horrible.

We also have no running water, when we do it's brown, our power goes off all the time and I have no health insurance"

Do I support María Corina? Or the opposition? I'm skeptical about them, they're still politicians, and Machado is a Zionist. I'm worried about idolizing these figures, deeply. But there's no alternative guys.

For gringos saying that we are supporting fascists, and whatnot. We have literally no other option. This didn't start with US sanctions, it just got WORSE with them. But these sanctions are a symptom, not the root of our problem.

Please, listen to venezuelan voices. If you're really a leftist, just a bit of research will be enough to convince you that this is NOT even a socialist government anymore.

[thenextdawn-temporarilyclosed]

Soul Secrets

Word count: 2.9K

Summary: the not so typical soulmate mark AU. You own a bakery, and your mark goes famous without you having no idea why or even who has it.

Warnings: bad writing. That’s it.

Pairing: Jenna Ortega X Fem!Reader

Started writing this a month and a half ago and finished it now on my laptop, I think it came out good? Idk you guys let me know!

———

Having a bakery was by far one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do in your life. You had inherited this shop after your parents died in a tragic accident, and ever since you had been struggling quite a lot. Your shop was famous in Los Angeles, you had a lot of orders from celebrities and famous people, and you had enough money to pay the shop bills and pay for your nice dream house where you lived on your own. You also worked on your own, the shop had always been handled by the family, so you had to keep going on your own. It wasn’t a simple bakery where people come and go just to buy orders, you also offered bar services, where you wold sell donuts, cake pieces and whatever you could come up with.

Your parents always told you ‘when you find your soulmate, you’re gonna work here together and continue the family’s legacy’ and you were always up to that, if it wasn’t for the fact that you had one of the rarest soulmate marks in the whole world. A piece of braided hair on your right collarbone, just under your visible bone. Usually your soulmate mark represents a part of you, a part of your life… but you couldn’t find it a meaning, no matter how hard you tried. You never hid it, but you weren’t trying to show it either, and your friends… well, you didn’t have any. You dedicated yourself to your shop, it was the only thing you had left from your parents and you wanted to make it worth it, you wanted to keep the name high. So you never knew if there were other people around with your same soulmate mark.

On this particular day where the bakery has been less busy than usual, you were turned around listening to some music on the radio and singing along, when the door to the shop opened. “Hello and good afternoon! How can I help you today?” You said turning around and looking at who had just entered, it was a short brunette, shoulder-length hair and chocolate colored eyes, freckles all over her nose and cheeks… she was marvelous. You gulped as you met her eyes, silently gay panicking as you waited for her to speak. She smiled at you before speaking. “Hey there, I would like-“ she stopped when her eyes travelled from yours to your collarbone, where she saw your soulmate mark. Her shoulders slumped, and you gave her a confused look.

“You’re one of those people.” She sighed and looked away. “…what people?” You asked, “yeah I have a rare soulmate mark, is that weird?” You asked her again and she chuckled, was she mad? You didn’t know. She shook her head. “A lot of people had that soulmate mark tattooed because it is incredibly famous. Can’t believe there’s someone that would get to this point just for attentions” she seemed upset, but you weren’t gonna let a complete stranger talk to you like that. “Uhm excuse me? I have no Idea what you’re talking about. I was born with this mark, I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, hell I even have baby pictures of me with it! I don’t have social medias, I don’t go to the movies and I definitely don’t know why it even is famous. If you came here just to talk to me like that, then there’s the door, turn around and leave”

You pointed to the door, and the girl in front of you, who didn’t even introduce herself, looked at the door before moving to sit down at one of the tables, waiting for you to go get her order. You sighed and shook your head, you were about to close up actually because it was closing time, but something inside of you told you not to. Something inside of you told you to wait, get her order, her name and just get to know her. So you finished up what you were doing, and headed towards her, to take her order. “Sorry about… that. I just don’t like when people talk to me like they know me or they have an idea about me” you said and she nodded, seemingly understanding but she seemed distraught. However you didn’t know her, so you couldn’t interrogate her about that. “What can I get for you?” You asked, notepad and pen in hand as you flashed her a smile.

“What have you got? I’ve had a lot of coworkers tell me about this place and how good they eat whenever they come here” she said and that made you smile brightly. “That’s really good to know” you said “uhm, I don’t have anything fresh out of the oven, but if you wait a bit more I’m actually working on a new recipe fresh out of my mind” you said, “that is… if you’re not in a rush” you said and shrugged “isn’t it closing time?” You nodded “yes it is, I can still close and let you stay to try it?” You watched the girl think about it for a moment before she nodded, and you nearly jumped excitedly and went back to the kitchen. To the girl… this was actually really weird. You didn’t know who she was, you didn’t know that she was Jenna Ortega and that she was a famous actress and that she was your soulmate. You didn’t know that she had the same mark as you and that it was leaked in her new upcoming movie’s trailer.

She wanted to get to know you.

Soon enough you were back at her table, a piece of cake in a plate and the whole dish itself looked amazing. It was perfectly done, perfectly decorated… and she knew that it would taste just the same. Perfect.

And it did, it was perfect. You sat on the chair directly in front of her, watching for any sign of a reaction. The girl let out a grunt/moan of pleasure, and you couldn’t help the smile that forced its way on your mouth. “How is it?” No reply came out of her yet, but she took another bite. “God, this is amazing” she said and kept on eating it “what are the ingredients?” She asked and you smiled “it’s a vegan cake actually. I’ve had people ask me some but I’ve never tried anything, until now.” You said and watched as she went wide eyed “you’re telling me that this is not actually made out of milk and stuff?” She watched as you nodded “damn. You must be a really good chef” she said and smiled “thank you thank you. I uhm… I Don’t think I caught your name?” You said smiling.

“I’m Jenna” she said and held out her hand. “Well nice to meet you Jenna, I’m (Y/N)”

That, is how you met your mother- no wait. That is how you met your soulmate. Only… you didn’t know it was her. The more time passed, the more you two got to know each other and let me tell you, there was a connection that both of you felt immediately. You were just so at ease with each other, you made each other feel safe and happy and it was by far the best you’ve felt after your parents’s death. You had learned about her that she was an actress, that she had a new movie coming out soon and that she was now having a break, just being with her family and making time to relax, coming to your bakery especially at closing time and you let her. You knew how hard it must be being famous, if she ever came during the day she would be surrounded by fans so you let her come past closing time, you closed the shop and let her stay in so she could relax and try your new recipes.

It had now been a couple months and On this other day you had closed the shop, waiting for Jenna as you sat down at her usual table, managing the bills while a new recipe was cooking in the oven when you heard a knock on the door. You smiled brightly when you saw Jenna, unlocking the door to let her inside. She immediately smelled around before sitting down where you were just sitting. “Making me something new?” She asked and you smiled, nodding. “Yep! You seem like the cinnamon kind of girl so I’m making something cinnamon based” you said as you made your way to the kitchen, where a sweet cinnamon cake had just finished getting ready. “You know me well” she giggled and sat down, soon you brought her the sweet before sitting back down in front of her, eyes on the bills again.

“Managing bills?” She asked as she saw you nod and sigh, hands in your hair. “Yeah. I’m not really good at this stuff. It takes me hours and I’m glad I have company now” you said and tapped your pen on the table “don’t you have anyone to help you? Parents, friends, soulmate…” she said as she looked at you “well,” you sighed “parents are dead and I inherited this shop, friends I don’t really have any and soulmate… unknown” you shrugged “soulmate marks usually have a meaning in your life, but what does a piece of braided hair mean? I’ve never even braided my hair!” You chuckled at yourself before going back on your bills. “Random question uh, you remember that I told you I have a movie coming out?” You nodded at her. It was the movie where her mark was leaked, the same mark you had on your collarbone and that you didn’t know she had.

“Do you want to come with me to the premiere?”

———

Unlike your expectations you agreed. You were going to a Movie premiere, Jenna’s new movie. You didn’t usually get out of your eyes if not to go open your shop, you didn’t go to the movies as you had no one to go with but now you had her… and it wasn’t just a movie night… it was a freaking premiere. That day Jenna had her stylists and after you were given your dress for the night, make up artists started working on you, and you noticed that the first thing they did was use a really dense and strong foundation to cover your mark. “Why are you covering it?” You asked, looking at the woman holding the sponge. “Trust me, you don’t want anyone to see it” you didn’t know why that would be a problem, so you decided to stay quiet and not argue back. It took them A LOT both to cover the mark and actually apply normal make up, you had a very light skin color so it was hard finding a foundation color that even matched your skin.

When you were all ready and you got out of your apartment, you found a car that was already waiting for you, you were confused at first, but then you remembered Jenna telling you that she would come pick you up, so you quickly got in the car, where you saw her already smiling at you. Your Jaw nearly dropped seeing how pretty she looked, and you could see a small blush forming on her cheeks “you look… gorgeous” you said and took in her appearance and she giggled, gently punching your shoulder “shut up, have you seen yourself?” She said, making you blush “yeah I know I’m very pretty” you smiled and soon enough you had arrived at the premiere. You were about to get off the car when Jenna stopped you. “Wait, did the make up artists cover your mark?” She asked slightly moving your dress away from your shoulder so she could see if it was covered.

“Yeah yeah, they covered it, why is it so important?” Jenna wanted to reply, and you saw her hesitate, her mouth opening and closing continuously before she eventually sighed and shook her head. “Nothing, you’ll see later” you nodded in confusion and got off the car with her, flashes and cameras immediately pointed at the both of you as pictures were being taken. Surprisingly enough, you didn’t mind all this attention. You knew that this would be a great occasion to sponsor your bakery, even though it was already known pretty well. A few of the actors recognized you from your shop and form the TV spot and instagram posts about your bakery, you were more than happy to hear their opinion on your shop and you politely invited them to come over some times to try your specialties for a lower price. You were thriving anyway, so a lower price would mean nothing.

After Jenna was taken A LOT of pictures, it was finally time for you to get into the theatre and actually watch the movie. It started off amazing, Jenna’s acting was fantastic and you were stunned by both her beauty and how good she was at acting. She often turned around to see you with your jaw dropped open at her job, or maybe at how pretty she looked, or maybe both?

However, at one particular point of the movie, Jenna pur her hand on your arm, her eyes not trailing away from the screen. “Here it comes, look look” she said, it was the scene where her soulmate mark was getting revealed. A piece of braided hair on her right collarbone… same as you. As soon as it was revealed, she looked at you, only to see you… asleep. You had fallen asleep, and Jenna didn’t know how to react. You didn’t see her mark, you didn’t know she was your soulmate.

Jenna woke you up at the end of the movie, she didn’t speak a word to you if not just to tell you “we’re leaving” and “get in the car.” Admit it, you were kinda scared and felt like you were a kid who had just gotten in trouble and waiting for your mother to scold you. You didn’t know where you were going but you assumed you were going back to her apartment when she took out the keys to it from her purse. “Jenna, will you tell me what’s going on?” You asked her for the thousand time in 15 minutes. “Will you be quiet for just a minute?” Jenna asked, she was mad, but still being polite. “Are you seriously mad because I fell asleep? Jeez, I was exhausted! It’s not like I decided to fall asleep” you chuckled and didn’t even realize that you had gotten into her apartment.

You tried to complain yet once more after she didn’t give you a reply, but suddenly you were in her arms and you felt her lips on yours, it was all so sudden, so fast. You liked her that way, you really did but she never gave you any sign of liking you back… well, until now. “Jen-“ you said in between kisses, your hands on her waist and you didn’t know if you should bring her closer or push her away, ask her for some kind of explanation. You had questions, you really did and that’s why you pushed her away. “Jen, what’s the meaning of this?” You asked, you were still relatively close and the smell of her perfume was filling your nostrils, “(Y/N)… you’re my soulmate” she nearly whispered, and you looked at her in confusion. “What? But in the movie you had another mark-“ “the movie, (Y/N)” she interrupted you “there was a scene that you didn’t see, because you had fallen asleep, where my real mark was revealed”

You were even more confused now, your thoughts weren’t making any sense, and the only wan that had some was “show me” you said, in a few seconds Jenna took your hand and brought you to her bathroom, she took some lotion and wipes and cleaned the make up away from her collarbone, a piece of braided hair appearing as a soulmate mark. You were shocked, you were processing too many things at once and you were confused, considering that you had woken up not too long before.

“You’re my-“ you gulped. “I’m your…” Jenna giggled and you furrowed your brows. “Yes, we are soulmates” you took a few more seconds to process the new pieve of information, but when you did you walked closer to her, brought her close to you from her hips and pressed your lips against hers, and you felt a really satisfying cry come out from her. You were finally hers… she was finally yours. Nothing else mattered now, just the two of you.

You wished that the kiss could last forever, but eventually air was needed and you pulled away, being just a few inches away from each other you just smiled lovingly. “Why a piece of braided hair, tho?” You asked, your hand gently caressing her cheek. “I didn’t know until a few days before I met you… I got a new role, for a Netflix show” she whispered and looked at you. “And what is it?” You asked her.

“Wednesday Addams”

[etherealspacejelly]

ok so i just watched star trek the motion picture for the third time and this time it was the directors cut with the extra scenes, and i have some Thoughts™️that may or may not be entirely coherant but i need to share them

here is my in depth literary analysis of why star trek the motion picture is the greatest queer love story ever written (/hj). buckle up because this is gonna be a long one

so our story starts (after the klingon cold open ofc) with spock on vulcan, during the final ceremony in which he is supposed to acheive kohlinar, the purging of all emotion. now, right off the bat, i want to make a comparison to conversion therapy/being closeted/repressed here. spock is trying to repress an entire side to himself, a part of him that is inherantly different to those around him, in order to be accepted in society. spock is already a very queer coded character, and i think reading this scene through that lens is a valid interpretation, especially considering everything else that happens in this movie.

the ceremony stops before its completion. because spock has Not purged all of his emotions. a consciousness calls to him from the sky. now, i think this line could be interpreted one of two ways. either this 'consciousness' is v'ger, or its jim. i think the writers intended it to be v'ger, but in the context of the scene it sounds a lot more like jim. of course jim would be the one preventing spock from purging his emotions: jim is the reason for many of spocks emotional slip-ups throughout the series. he fears for jims life when he is in danger, he feels friendship for jim but also shame about those feelings (that shame is also queercoded, but thats not the point of this post so i wont get into it here). he feels compassion for jim. he feels loyalty and a sense of duty to him. these feelings are so strong that he cannot purge them fully.

so what does spock do? he off goes in search of something that he feels will help him achieve his goal. he wants peace within himself, to find a balance between his two opposing mindsets, that of logic and that of emotion. purging all emotion was unsuccessful, so what else can he do?

he feels that v'ger is a being of pure logic, and wants to understand it, in hopes of achieving that for himself. in the process he meets up with jim again. now, you would think, that a vulcan nearing kohlinar who has been training for years to purge all of his emotions and act purely logically would not stop to change clothes and cut his hair when on his way to acheive LITERALLY HIS LIFE GOAL that is super important to him. and yet. when spock turns up on the enterprise hes wearing his nicest black robes and has his classic bangs back. why is that mr spock?? why would you take the time to do that?? especially when he then immediately changes into his uniform.

and while we're on the topic of clothes, what does jim do immediately after spock boards the enterprise? thats right folks, he changes into a shirt that shows off his arms and has a v-neck to show off his chest. any. particular reason for that jim? when you said just a moment ago that every minute counts and the earth is in danger? hmm. interesting.

and then of course we get that exchange between jim, spock, and bones. where jim 'needs' spock. just like he needed bones. theres a desparation in his eyes, he wants HIS spock back, and hes not seeing that spock in front of him. the conversation ends with jim looking dejected, since spock only seems to be there out of convenience and not because he Wants to be. wonder why that is...

of course then spock mind melds with v'ger. and to do so he has to. go through a very sphincter-like opening. and says he has 'penetrated' the next chamber. now im just saying. if anything is a metaphor for gay sex, this has to be, right?

anyway.

spock mind melds with v'ger and is flung back into jims arms. because of course he is. and what did he learn from the whole experience? that v'ger is pure logic, and therefore cannot experience beauty, imagination, and "this simple feeling". wait. hang on. what simple feeling would that be, spock? the one you're talking about while holding jim's hand (HANDS?? VULCAN HOLDING HANDS?? HELLO???) and staring into each others eyes? what feeling would that be, i wonder?

and then. SPOCK CRIES. for v'ger. he 'weeps for v'ger as he would for a brother". v'ger is 'empty', as spock was when he came aboard. "incomplete, and searching. logic and knowledge are not enough," he says. bones asks if spock has found what he needed, and v'ger hasnt. spock says that v'ger wants to know what it was meant to be, to reach out and touch its creator.

spock is crying because he empathises with v'ger. v'gers journey parallels his own. they were both empty beings of pure logic. spock found his fulfilment in... what exactly? its not explicitly clear. but if we continue the spock/v'ger parallel to its conclusion, what do we find?

v'ger has taken ilia's form, and decker decides to merge with v'ger not only to save earth, but also to reunite with the woman he loves. v'ger becomes satisfied only when this happens. so... spock found his fulfilment by reuniting with someone he loves? if we take this in context with the 'this simple feeling' scene, the queer subtext is right there.

at the end of the movie, spock is offered to return to vulcan, and he refuses, stating that his business there is finished. he has achieved his goal of finding peace within himself. not by purging all emotion, but by embracing emotion, alongside logic, and allowing himself to feel what he has repressed his entire life. he resumes his place at jims side, which, as edith keeler stated, is where he belongs.

this movie is a queer story, and i will die on this hill. all of the evidence together stacks up that way. it is a story of repression, self acceptance, and love.

ALSO THE POSTER IS A RAINBOW-

[mjldx7]

Fengqing × Epic the Musical???

*PARTIAL SPOILERS FOR TGCF*

Okay so here me out on this AU idea, Feng Xin goes missing after the battle with Jun Wu. Now, this might sound simple but let me just set the scene.

After the Battle against Jun Wu the Heaven Realm is in shambles, this is right after Hua Cheng fades away too. Now Heavenly Officals are going through the rubble and trying to rebuild, you know, the normal things to do when all of Heaven falls. But no one can get in contact with General Nan Yang or find him?

Communication Array? Nope, something is blocking everyone from him. So everyone is busy minus a select few which includes... Mu Qing! (And his Junior Officals) So Mu Qing sends out some of his Junior Officals to go looking for Feng Xin and he goes along as well because, well you know. Gotta look out for that annoying god who you have been with for 800 something years.

Days later, still no sign of Feng Xin. Opp but here is something coming through the communication array? One of Mu Qing's Junior Offical's telling him to come to thier location quick because they found something?

No Mu Qing looking ever calm but actually having an existential crisis rushes over to where his Junior Offical said to go and finds Feng Xin's bloody (Like covered in blood) bow and his stupid hair ribbon! So panic, shock, dismay. Mu Qing tells his Junior Officals to all search the area while grabbing the bow and hair ribbon before searching himself. Whole area and all nearby towns searched and absolutely so signs.

Now, along with all the crisis of the Heaven Realm being rebuilt the Martial God of the Southeast is missing and none of the prayers of his temples are getting answered fast enough due to his few Junior Officals now trying to take over all of them without thier god.

Come months later and while the Heaven Realm is starting to be somewhat rebuilt successfully Ling Wen suddenly contacts Mu Qing through the communication array.

Ling Wen is now telling Mu Qing that since the God of the Southeast is missing and has been unable to fulfill thier duties for too long Mu Qing will have to find a replacement either permanently or until General Nan Yang himself returns.

GREAT TASK TO GIVE TO THE PANICKED GAY LING WEN! GREAT TASK!

So Mu Qing stalling decides in order to hopefully give Feng Xin, his crush- I MEAN FELLOW GOD HE HATES! Some extra time in the hopes he returns. So he sets up challenges with his Junior Officals for followers of General Nan Yang that test thier Knowledge, Wit, Strength, etc. Ending up with five remaining people possibly fit to become the new God of the Southeast.

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So at this point you might be asking where the hell Feng Xin is? Well after the battle with Jun Wu he exhausted far to much spiritual energy and got injured pretty bad so as such was stuck in a cave for months (bro just don't ask how he got in that situation, I don't even know)

So Feng Xin at some point dragged himself out of his cave still lacking spiritual energy due to some problems with him getting it from his temples or whatever once he got all healed up and found out about the new god stuff and challenges from some passing rumors. So obviously he is like, "OKAY WHAT THE FU-?!?"

So Feng Xin decides to sneak up to these challenge grounds which at some point of sneaking around and looking for Mu Qing or whoever he runs into... drum roll please, Pei Ming!

So Pei Ming hears Feng Xin's story out of what happens and then decides to lend him some spiritual energy. Deciding for the sake of his own amusement telling Feng Xin just to wait a bit before talking to Mu Qing and tells Feng Xin to disguise himself as one of Mu Qing's Junior Officals. (ALL yall Epic fans just wait a moment we bout to get the banger coming up)

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Now come the final challenge, Mu Qing is sitting in a tent on the challenge grounds which is a open grass plain surrounded by trees, targets, weapons, arrows and other tents for the final challengers, his Saber nearby and Feng Xin's bow hung up against the tent. So now, Pei Ming goes ahead and tells Mu Qing rather crytiptedly that Feng Xin is back but to get through with the final challenge and make it an interesting show in typical Pei Ming Fashion.

So come the final challenge, all the participants are standing on the grass, stretching, getting ready for whatever challenge may come and out comes Mu Qing from his tent. Carrying Feng Xin's bow unstringed, and Feng Xin's same hair ribbon tied around his wrist.

*On comes the music... "The Challenge" from Epic the Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, Anna Lea, and the cast of EPIC: The Musical*

[MU QING]

I'm supposed to choose a new God of the Southeast

I said I would choose as soon as I weave this shroud

They don't know

That every night

I unthread all the work I've done

Cause I'd rather lie

Than allow them to think they've won

Though I never thought I would resort to this

Just know I'll be here

But I don't know how much longer I'll last

Since we saw that storm

And though it was so close to our kingdom

It was far from the norm

Unless

Oh, could it be some kind of sign

That my world is all about to change?

Is it finally time for the challenge I arranged?

Though I never thought that it would come to thisJust know

I'll be here buying you time

[THE PARTICIPANTS]

Time is fleeting, it's running out

Time to be the new God here

[MU QING - To Feng Xin's Communication Array Now Knowing He Can Hear Him]

Oh! Buying you time

[THE PARTICIPANTS]

Time is fleeting, it's running outTime to be the new God here

[MU QING - To the Participants]

Whoever can string my ^husband's^ old bow

And shoot through twelve axes cleanly

Will be the new god, sit down at the throne

And rule with me as a Heavenly Offical

[MU QING - Looking at the badly disguised Feng Xin]

Let the arrow fly

Once you know that your aim is true

Cause I'd rather die than grow old without the best of you

Though I never thought that these would be the lengths we'd go for love I would not have it any other way

And though I never thought that it would end like this

Just know, I'll be here

Waiting, waiting

[MU QING - To Feng Xin's Communication Array Now Knowing He Can Hear Him]

Waiting, waiting

Waiting, waiting

Oh!

(Yes I did write all of this from listening to this one song and getting the Fengqing vibes from it 😌)

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So all the participants try, blah, blah, blah. None of them are even able to string Feng Xin's bow as it is a spiritual weapon and Mu Qing is well aware of this and by the end while Feng Xin standing off to the side in his disguise is having a gay crisis about Mu Qing referring to him as his husband finally grabbed his bow from the final participant having enough of thier painful to watch attempts and completes the challenge in seconds.

Mu Qing sends off the participants walks up to Feng Xin now rid of his disguise and... *SLAP, TEARS FORMING*, "A-XIN YOU WERE GONE FOR MONTHS WERE THE HELL WERE YOU!? MONTHS AND YOU DIDN'T TRY TO REACH ANYONE! MONTHS AND ALL YOU LEFT FOR ANYONE TO TRY AND FIND YOU WAS YOUR BOW AND STUPID HAIR RIBBON!"

*THE END, IT IS 1:45AM AND I NEED SLEEP AT SOME POINT!*