#all I want is to make Sappho proud

[hag-lad]

Crazy that I’ve had this damn tumblr account since I was 15, and I’m still here now at 30, posting about my wedding! My GAY wedding! We did everything ourselves. I altered my own suit and built the canopies out of thrifted bedsheets and told all my friends to dress up like hobbits and THEY DID and it was so special. A lot went wrong and I feel a lot of mixed emotions about the day itself, but I don’t want to remember all that. I just want to remember the beauty, love, friendship, romance, and tenderness of the day. I’m glad we did it!!! And we’ll do it again soon!

[rain-dere]

10,000th Fanart Reblog

Hello everyone! I just reblogged my 10,000th piece of fanart!!! I wanted to say a quick thank you to all of the artists over the years whose art has inspired me so much. I'm so grateful to be a part of these fandoms and get to witness all of the love, joy, and creativity each one of you pours into your work. Categorizing, tagging, and archiving all of it has been something I'm incredibly proud of. If you see this post, make sure you let the artists in your life know how much you love them and their work.

And to the artists, even if you think no one is going to see your art, they will. I've loved fanart with 10 notes just as much as I've loved art with 10,000. You matter and what you put out on this platform matters. There is someone out there who will forever care about what you've done long after your account has been deactivated and you've moved on. Man, what a dream it is to be here with you all. Can't wait for the next 10,000!!

P.S. Here's a fraction of the artists I've reblogged in my sideblog's short life. I wish I could tag them all. Give their art my love and yours.

DSMP and/or QSMP: @cyani07 / @andhyssops / @blufox234isadumbname / @jvzijianghaochi / @copepods

More DSMP and/or QSMP: @mobimientoputo / @unit-ssn0va / @sapphos-ruwumate / @routeriver / @rachelsquill

Karmaland: @melierinrin / @pistachio0 / @ffolty / @peeco / @miapi-draw

Dimension 20: @pirateknight / @starkju0 / @alphabetsoupforamidnightsnack / @hollow-ground-underneath / @septembersart

House of the Dragon: @taivyart / @malaquitesgallery / @fallenrosepettals / @wweskywalker / @dalberadiata

Worlds Beyond Number: @yeehawpim / @dogfennel / @rebe-draws / @paunchsalazar / @jacodraws

shitty quality but satisfying screenshot:

[hornkerling]

As you wish, @jadesabre301

My fics for stray gods mostly come in sapphic, particularly Calliope/Persephone because they're so angry and messy and delightful and writing Calliope soothes my inner menace. The first I ever wrote was Kore Enterprises, filling in the missing scene of Persephone visiting Calliope's apartment.

I expore Calliope and Persephone first getting together in Firewater, which probably still has one of the better opening paragraphs I've managed recently.

Calliope is used to Persephone on the edges of things. A cautionary tale for late night drinks and the bluer days of late autumn, when the city parks are full of crows fighting over the night’s scraps amongst raw and jagged trees, their final leaves are just the shed skins of their livelier, younger selves. A fragile song through tiny bones.

I wrote You caught my voice and listened as a response to @kshaar's Earworm, which is such a good drabble istg. Everything they write is incredible, whether for stray gods or dragon age, you should read all of it. But Earworm was the one that had me seeing if I could remember enough Greek to mangle some Sappho. It's also, like most of my fics for these characters, full of extravagant eidolon lore.

I have one Calliope x Grace, Calliope x Persephone, eventual ot3 everyone lives AU called Sing all your questions to sleep, which was quite fun. Comes complete with a rant about The Symposium!

The two fics I'm probably the most proud of, however, are The seed that grows without the sun (complete) and Monsters of the old world (one chapter to go).

Monsters of the old world came about because Hephaestus's fate in the game haunts me. He is one of my favourite Greek gods, and because I'm me I was tangled up on the crip potential of it all, and also the idea of Medusa on a very particular rescue mission. I'm trying to close off the final chapter, but it keeps running away from me because I get caught up in the absolute mess that is Aphrodite's choices re: Venus. But it's nearly done!

Hephaestus is blowing glass the first time he hears about the snake-haired bitch in the compound. It is only training and muscle memory that stops him from swallowing and ruining this body’s throat, and frankly the body is built more for war machines drawn up in CAD than the construction of delicate, physical parts. But Hephaestus has always worked better with a prototype, and while you can take a smith, lock him in a server room with a wall of screens, and he’ll make do, he’s always preferred to bother his captors with these specific, ‘old fashioned’ demands. A workshop. Bronze and coal where they want radium. Glass blowing, when a single wrong move would fuck his lungs beyond repair. Even he’s got to live, and showing the bastards just how much their discards can do is some extra stolen joy. When Hephaestus has to pass on, the higher ups throw the infirmary at him. Why waste an able fighter on the crippled god? Hephaestus’s eidolon tends to lead to injury, and well—that path is a dark one. But he is sure the tales of Medusa’s arrival are something he’s dreamed up in a crucible, and it’s not till he’s in the compound’s refractory and a hooded, writhing figure is shoved into a chair opposite him that he believes it can be true. Medusa stares at him, eyes hectic and flaring in a single, surprised moment before she ducks her head, the snakes around her face extending flickering tongues into the air between them. Chains hold her arms at her sides, and a corporal slams a bowl down, glaring at Hephaestus as the known quantity. “You feed her,” he snaps. “Not like the snakes will get you.” For a moment, Hephaestus and Medusa, two who have not spoken in millennia and rarely even then, meet each other’s eyes in perfect accord, amazed that this child-human thinks snakes are the problem

Seed is...it's about Persephone meeting the woman she would become in the late 1940s. It's one of the most personal stories I have ever written, despite being in a time and place I have not lived.

If you read any of them, read this one.

“—I can help with that.” Chastity wipes sweat from her eyes and blinks at the woman leaning against her gate. She’s seen her around. Hard not to, when there’s only one good place for bread in the village—though if there’s any more rationing or prices go up again, she’ll have to start making that, too, and God only knows where she’ll find the flour.  But that’s future, and presently Chastity has a stocky, slouching stranger smiling at her, and she’s got a spade. And the spade's not covered in rust like the one Chastity found in Sal’s shed. Hers has an edge to it, and Chastity, a married woman for nearly a year and imagining it cutting through the dirt she’s barely managed to scatter, is pretty sure this is what lust feels like. Turns out, Sister Immaculata was wrong.

[cypressandviolets]

To Sapphic Love

There is something about love

That I do not understand.

And perhaps it is too much to ask.

But nonetheless,

What do I want out of love?

I want to be desired.

I want to be wanted,

Down to the bone,

To the marrow,

Through and through.

Make me something,

Make me yours.

Make Sappho proud of the passion to be found in us.

Make me write poems in her honor.

Make me write poems in yours.

I want to worship you like a goddess,

One most scholars don’t talk about

Because they fear your vigor.

I will speak your name,

Say my prayer,

And love you until the heavens fall and the hells rise.

I don’t even know who you are yet.

But you are holy to me.

I will love you more than all the clergy;

I will work my hands bloody for your shrine.

I will love you.

I will desire you.

I will want you,

Down to the bone,

To the marrow,

Through and through.

Just a little thing I wrote that I wanted to share.

[chocobugz]

gearrán flag, designed by me! created for day 3 of @pawfuu's 100+ event!

gearrán: a word in the gaelige language that literally translates to a gelding, or a pack-horse, but can refer to a "strong-boned woman; a drudge; a jade" as per Ó Dónaill (1977). a strong euphemism for a butch lesbian, this term is sometimes also translated as "dyke" or "masculine lesbian".

flag symbolism:

deep purple: purple has been long associated with lesbians and sapphics, especially in the shades of lavender and violet. purple may also reference sappho's musings about beautiful women wearing crowns woven of violets. this color represents lesbianism, now and historically.

pink mauve: mauve is a color that evokes feelings of romance, love, and passion. this color represents lesbian love and passion, however that looks and/or is expressed.

light orange: orange is a color associated with pleasure, enjoyment, optimism, warmth, and pride. it is also a core color in the irish flag. this color represents pride in being a lesbian, specifically an irish lesbian.

creme white: white often symbolizes purity and peace. this color represents unity amongst lesbians of all kinds, and nonconformity to gender and sexual expectations.

green citron: citron and the color green are associated with vitality, prosperity, and good fortune. this color represents not only the vitality of the irish spirit, but the prosperity and rich history of lesbians.

light shamrock green: shamrock green is associated with playfulness, nature, and life. it is a symbol of ireland, and frequently used in relation to celtic heritage. this color represents pride in being irish, love for the land, and the connection between heritage and spirituality.

dark spring green: dark spring green is also associated, as other shades of green are, with nature, vitality, and prosperity. this shade in particular symbolizes harmony, growth, and vibrancy. this color represents the strength and resilience of irish peoples, particularly in relation to liberatory struggles and queer identity.

celtic horse symbol: this symbol shows a horse whose body becomes wrapped upon itself, creating celtic knots and beautiful curls, ending in a fish-like tail. the horse is represented with the intention to emphasize the connection between the literal translation of the word gearrán as gelding or pack-horse and the associated meaning of a jade (a broken-down, "worthless" horse and/or a disreptuable woman) and of butch lesbians. the celtic imagery ties into the relationship of celtic heritage to irish history and identity, especially prior to colonization.

author's note: i put a lot of care and thought into this flag and i am particularly proud of it. thank you to the irish-language blogger kevin-ar-tuathal and their post on LGBTQ+ terminology in Gaeilge for introducing me to this term! i hope my flag honors your understanding of the term. additionally, i want to make clear that while i am irish-american, i identify very closely with my irish roots and i practice a form of celtic paganism which i value deeply. these things inform how i came to make this flag. [image id: a rectangular pride flag designed by user lemonkinds representing the gearrán lesbian identity. the flag has seven horizontal stripes. each stripe except for the middle most stripe, which is thickest, is of equal width. the colors are, in order: deep purple, pink mauve, light orange, creme white, green citron, light shamrock, and dark spring green. in the middle, there is a celtic horse symbol in the shape of a circle. the second image displays the same flag, but without the symbol in the middle. end id.]

[sequinsmile-x]

Allegiance - Chapter 3

It was nice to finally have someone who was on her side, someone who would always put her first.

A Young Hotchniss story with a twist.

Chapter 3 of 3

Chapter 1, Chapter 2

-x-

Hi friends,

3rd and final part of this fic for @sapphoe-sun <3

Thank you so so much for all the love for this version of them. It was originally only supposed to be one part and now it's over 13k words overall!!

I really hope you enjoy this final part and I can't wait to know what you all think!

-x-

Warnings: Pregnancy, mommy issues, complicated mother/daughter relationship

Words: 5.1k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

September 1995

He finds her in the nursery. 

It wasn’t decorated yet, but they’d started to put furniture, a crib that needed building, a set of drawers and a large comfortable chair, in the room. There were piles of clothes everywhere since Emily seemed unable to walk past the baby section in a store without buying something. Tiny little outfits that neither of them could quite believe their baby would wear, so small that it seemed almost impossible. 

She’s sitting in the chair, staring at nothing as she rocks the chair back and forth a little, her hand on her bump, absentmindedly rubbing circles up and down on it. She was six months along now, close to the point where she was often uncomfortable. The baby moved a lot, a feeling both Aaron and Emily never tired of, and he can tell from the way she smiles that the baby was currently shifting around inside of her, 

“Hi, sweetheart.”

She turns to look at him, a soft smile spreading over her face as their eyes meet, “Hi, honey,” she says, reaching her hand out towards him, “I missed you.” 

He walks over and kisses the top of her head before he settles on the arm of the chair, “I missed you too,” he says, placing his hand over hers on her belly, “And this little one.”

He’d recently joined the BAU, and the time he now spent away had been an adjustment for both of them. Emily was so proud of him, something she told him as often as she could but she missed him, so used to spending most of their time together. 

She chuckles, leaning against him, her head in the crook of his arm, “She doesn’t feel so little when it’s your bladder she’s sitting on.” 

A little girl. 

They’d found out just before he’d gone away for the last few days on a case. They’d barely had time to discuss it, to celebrate, before he got called away. 

She was happy about it, just as she would have been if they were having a boy, but he’d seen her delighted smile slowly slip away as they drove home from her doctor's appointment, her hand firmly pressed to the top of her bump as she looked out the window. It seemed typical that he immediately got called away on a case, pulling him from her side so she had to process this latest development alone.

They hadn’t heard from Elizabeth since the day after the party that changed everything, the final threads holding the mother and daughter relationship together snapping, the frayed edges giving way after one disappointment too many. It upset Emily more than she’d admit even to herself. She’d never had a conventional relationship with her mother, but the closer she got to having her own child, her own little girl, it made her ache for the relationship she’d always wanted.

The one she’d strive to make sure she had with her daughter. 

“Are you ok, Em?” He asks, running his hand up and down her arm.

She sighs, curling into his embrace even further as she finally says what she’s been thinking ever since the nurse told them the baby was a girl. “What if I can’t be what she needs me to be?” 

He hears what she hasn’t said. The thoughts he knows she’s been having ever since they found out they were having a daughter, no matter how much she claimed she was fine whenever he asked. It was inevitable that she would make the comparisons, that knowing they were having a daughter would make her think of her mother, of the relationship that had never been what she wanted it to be. 

What she needed it to be. 

He watches for a moment as she looks down at her bump, her eyes fixed on it as she tries to picture their little girl. It was something they discussed a lot - what their baby would look like. Whose nose she would have, both of them joking she was screwed either way, whose eyes. What she’d be like, wilful and loud like her, or more thoughtful and reserved like him. They’d laugh as they agreed she’d be stubborn as hell regardless. 

She loved their daughter so much already, she’d sacrificed so much already, and she wasn’t even born yet. Aaron just wished she’d believe him, but he’d assure her for as long as she needed him to. 

For as long as he lives. 

“Sweetheart,” he says, kissing her temple, pulling her even closer, “you’re going to be so good at being her mom,” he assures her, his lips back against her skin, “you already are.” 

She smiles sadly at him, her lower lip trembling, “I love her so much already,” she says, linking their hands on her stomach. 

“I know you do,” he replies, kissing her forehead, “I love her too. Both of you.” 

It was moments like this he itched to pull out the ring he’d bought her, the one he already had before they found out she was pregnant. He’d had to hide it again when they moved, even though he knows she knows about it. He was waiting for the right moment, and as much as he wanted to call her his fiance, and then his wife, he knew this wasn’t it. 

“Do you want me to get started on dinner?” He asks, moving to pull away, but she holds his hand tighter and shakes her head. 

“Not yet,” she says, looking up at him, “Can we stay here just a few more minutes?”

He nods and kisses her forehead, “Of course, sweetheart.” 

___

She’d never liked this house.

When she was young, it symbolised everything she wanted. A home, a permanent place to belong, but she was only ever there for weeks at a time once several months. Her room always seemed to have a fine layer of dust over everything despite the fact her mother carried on paying for staff when they were gone. It was as if the house knew it was empty, abandoned, and rejected any attempt to make it feel liveable. 

As she got older, a teenager and then an adult, she resented it even more. It didn’t feel like home, it didn’t feel familiar, and she couldn’t relate to college friends who’d talk excitedly about visiting home. 

The only redeeming factor this place had was that it was where she’d met Aaron. A strange of fate from the universe, a dose of irony that she would gratefully accept, that the place that had never quite felt like home had brought her the man that would. 

“Right back where it all started.” 

She turns to look at her husband and smiles, grabbing his hand as he reaches her side, both of them standing next to their car in her mother’s driveway, “Who would have guessed we’d end up with everything we have now.”

Aaron winks at her, “I would have.” 

She narrows her eyes at him, fighting a smile as she looks at him, “Really? You would have guessed that a summer of secret, mind-blowing sex would have turned into us getting married and having three kids?”

He nods, “Yes.” 

She chuckles and squeezes his hand, leaning in to stamp a kiss against his lips, “Liar,” she says, kissing him once more and smiling at him, silently thanking him for making her smile today of all days, of briefly making her nerves disappear, feeling nothing other than this love. 

He presses a kiss to her cheek and then stands back, gently tugging her towards the front door, “Come on sweetheart.” 

The house looks the same on the inside and it makes Emily feel like she’s stepped back in time. It makes her feel unsteady, as if she was in her early 20s again, or even a teenager, wondering what she had to do to have her mother’s attention. They barely have time to settle onto the couch. They sit so close to each other that Emily is almost in his lap and her mother walks into the room. It makes them both stand up, and Aaron puts his arm around his wife, giving her the support she needs but would never ask for. 

“Emily,” Elizabeth says, her face tight, unreadable, “I’m glad you came,” She looks at Aaron, “Aaron, it’s been a while.” 

He nods at his mother-in-law, “Ambassador Prentiss.” 

Elizabeth sits in the armchair near the couch and Emily and Aaron sit down too, their thighs pressed together. Emily reaches for Aaron’s hand, linking their fingers together and squeezing tightly. Elizabeth smiles as she looks at their linked hands, the two rings on Emily’s shining in the light in the room. 

“You should probably call me Elizabeth, Aaron,” she says, “Seeing as you are seemingly married to my daughter,” she clears her throat, the awkward, stilted nature of their conversation making her words catch there, “How long have you been married?”

Aaron briefly looks at Emily to see if she’s going to answer, but she’s simply sat next to him, her hand tight around him as she stares at her mother. He looks back at Elizabeth and places his spare hand on his wife’s knee, squeezing it to remind her that he is there, that he wouldn’t leave her side. 

“Coming up on 10 years now,” he answers, “Our anniversary is in May.” 

“Oh,” Elizabeth replies, “That’s-”

“What do you want, Mother?” Emily asks, finally finding her voice, her eyes meeting Elizabeth’s.

She sighs, “Emily-”

“It’s been over 12 years,” she says, cutting her mother off again, “I haven’t seen or heard from you in 12 years and four days ago you just…showed up in my office. What do you want?” 

Elizabeth swallows thickly and leans back in her chair, her hands tight in her lap, “If I remember correctly, you asked me to give you space. And you never called either.” 

Emily scoffs, “I’m your kid, I would never…” She drifts off and shakes her head, “Just tell me what you want.” 

They fall into silence, and Emily sees an expression cross her mother’s face that she doesn’t recognise, something she can’t quite place with an edge of shame that chases it. 

“I…” Elizabeth clears her throat, sitting up so straight Emily thinks her back might snap, “I need to apologise.” 

Whatever Emily had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. She feels the fight drain out of her, causing her to sag into Aaron’s side slightly. “What?”

“I need to apologise, about what happened the last time we saw each other,” Elizabeth says, looking down at her hands, “About our conversation regarding Robert Collins.” 

It takes a moment for the pieces to fall into place, and a humourless laugh escapes Emily and she shakes her head, “Oh my god…something’s happened hasn’t it.” 

Elizabeth clenches her jaw and nods, “There is a…scandal that is about to break, it will be in the press in the next few days. It has come to light that he has a habit of…hitting on young interns in his office. A series of young women who have worked from him over the last few years have come forward with allegations,” she shakes her head, “It is quite the DC scandal.” 

The room falls into silence, thick and heavy and cloying as it lays over them all, and Emily is the first to break it as a strangled noise escapes her.

“This is damage control,” she says, shaking her head, “You knew I’d see it and you wanted to get ahead of it.” 

“Emily, I really do want to apologise.”

“For what?” She asks incredulously, her voice loud, sharp and full of pain, “For not believing me then, or for walking away and never looking back?” She asks, carrying on before Elizabeth can have a chance to respond, “You even said ‘Robert is a tactile man,’ you knew even then that there was something. You made a choice that day,” she says, swallowing thickly, “You chose to believe him over me, to pick your career and your prospects over me. I would never do that to my…”

She drifts off, stopping herself a second too late, and she watches as Elizabeth picks up on it. 

“Your what?” 

Emily looks at Aaron who nods at her, a silent confirmation he was happy with whatever she wanted, “My kids, Mom. I’d never do that to my kids.” 

“You have…children?” Elizabeth asks, her eyes wide, sadness reflecting in the dark pool of them. 

“Yes,” Emily replies, “We have three. Two girls and a boy.” 

“How old are they?” 

Emily squeezes Aaron’s hand, and he squeezes back before he answers, well aware it was what his wife wanted him to do, “Oliver is 2, he’s our youngest. Then we have Rosie who is 6, and Ivy who just turned 12.”

They both watch as Elizabeth’s eyebrows raise, a look of understanding washing over her face, “You have a 12-year-old? You were pregnant the last time I saw you” 

Emily scoffs, closing her eyes as she shakes her head, the lack of surprise in her mother’s tone like a slap in the face, “Yes I was,” she says, and she looks back up at her, “You knew, didn’t you?” 

“Not for certain,” she admits, “You were sick, you didn’t have wine, and we both know you’ve always needed it to get through an evening with me. I suspected you might be but…I was never a good mother to you Emily, I recognise that. If I went back I’d do some things differently, and I am sorry that you didn’t feel as if you could tell me you were having a baby.” 

Emily stares at her, and she knows she couldn’t describe how she felt if she wanted to. Emotions raging a war in her belly, making it turn in a way she hadn’t felt in years, feelings only her mother could bring out in her making a vicious return. 

“I…I don’t know if I can forgive you for that,” she says, her voice shaking, “If any of my children came to me and told me what I told you about Robert Collins I’d be in jail,” she shakes her head, “I love them so much that I’d tear the world apart if someone hurt them. Fuck, Aaron once had to talk me down from going down to the school when Ivy was being bullied in the 3rd grade.” 

“Emily-”

“I need time, and there might not be enough of it,” Emily says, quickly wiping a tear from her cheek, “But I am willing to try.” 

Her words shock her just as much as they shock Aaron and her mother, but it feels like a weight has lifted off of her shoulders, something she hadn’t realised she’d been carrying around for years. 

“Really?”

“Yes,” Emily replies, squeezing Aaron’s hand again, “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

Elizabeth nods, pressing her lips together to suppress a relieved smile, “Can I meet your children?” 

“No,” Emily says quickly, the word escaping her so fast she almost trips over it, “No. I’m not going to be comfortable with that for a long time. If ever.” 

Elizabeth looks like she wants to argue with that, but she stops herself, “Ok,” she says, I can live with that.” 

It’s not a resolution, it’s not an answer. If anything, Emily feels like she has more questions than she did when she arrived here.

It’s not a resolution, but it’s something. And for now, that would have to do. 

___

When they get home it’s chaos. The kids running around and driving their sitter a little crazy, something Aaron slips her another $20 for as he shows her out. 

He finds his wife on the couch, curled up in the corner with a cushion pressed into her chest, her eyes fixed on the wall of photos they had. A gallery of their life together, of their family. A museum of memories they were forever adding to. 

He checks on the kids. He’s grateful that they are all distracted. Oliver and Rosie were in the den, Rosie keeping an eye on her little brother as they played together, and Ivy was upstairs doing some homework. He takes the opportunity to sit next to his wife, his hand on her knee as they sit in silence, his patience for her unending, just like his love.

“She didn’t know we were married. Or that we definitely had kids. She never even looked me up, Aaron,” she says eventually, shrugging sadly, “We both know if she wanted to she has the resources too,” she sighs, a steady breath escaping her as she looks at her husband, “It’s almost as if I gave her the out she’d been looking for when I asked her to give me some space that day.”

“She does love you, Em.”

“I know, I know she does,” she says, resting her head on the back of the couch, “And that’s the worst part. It would almost be easier if she didn’t,” she sighs, “If…i this whole thing with Robert hadn’t come out she would never have got in touch.” 

They fall into silence and he wraps his arm around her, pulling her into his side, “You don’t have to make a decision about anything now, you know that right?” 

She nods against him, “I know. Part of me thinks I should try and fix it, the other part thinks it’s not my place to,” she tilts her head to look up at him, “I…I’m not even that sure I really missed her,” she says, and she shakes her head, “And I know that’s awful-”

“It isn’t awful, baby,” he says, running his fingers through her hair, “it’s understandable. She was never to you what you are for our kids.” 

She smiles at him, the compliment on her parenting making her feel warm from the inside out, “I just…don’t think I need anything other than our family.” 

He opens his mouth to say something, to assure her if that’s what she wanted, that’s what she would have, but he’s cut off. 

“Daddy! Ollie took my toy.” 

They both chuckle at the sound of Rosie yelling and Aaron leans in to press a kiss to Emily’s lips, “Duty calls.” 

She nods and watches him go, content to be alone for a little while, knowing he’d get dragged into whatever game they were playing. Her solitude doesn’t last for long, it hadn’t ever since she’d Ivy, who as a baby had always been all about Emily. 

“Mom?” 

She looks up and sees Ivy standing in the entryway to the living room, her arms crossed over her chest, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. 

“Hi honey, are you okay?” 

Ivy nods, “Can I join you?” 

“Of course,” Emily says, patting the couch next to her, “You can always join me.” 

Ivy smiles and joins her on the couch, her eyes fixed on her mother, “Is everything ok?” 

Emily sighs, “Ivy-”

“What are you and Dad being so secretive about?” Ivy asks, not giving her the chance to deny it, “He just gave me the ‘be nice to your mother’ speech and the last time I got that you were pregnant. Oh god you’re not pregnant are you?” 

She chuckles and shakes her head, “No, honey. I’m not pregnant.” 

“Then what’s wrong? I get hiding it from Rosie and Ollie,” Ivy says, leaning back on the couch as she looks at Emily, “But I’m not a little kid. You can tell me.” 

Emily smiles, and she thinks about it, looking her daughter up and down and she nods, knowing she could give her the truth. Or at least, a watered-down version of it. 

“You know you’ve never met my mom?”

It was something that had first come up only a couple of years ago. Ivy had innocently asked why she had never met any of her grandparents as she put together a family tree for a school project. Emily knew it would come up eventually. That, whilst there was no absence of love in her children’s lives, there were gaps in their family when it was compared to a more traditional one. In a macabre way, it had been easier to explain that both of Aaron’s parents had passed away, and that her father was gone too. Elizabeth had been the difficult one, the tricky missing piece of the puzzle that Emily had struggled to reveal to her daughter. 

“You said that your mom hurt your feelings a lot, and that you needed to protect yourself, and us, from her.” 

Emily nods. Hearing her own, simplified, explanation of the situation repeated back at her makes her heart skip a beat, the mixture of innocence and confusion in Ivy’s tone making it seem impossibly sadder. 

“That’s right,” Emily says, “Well, she came to my office a few days ago. It was the first time I saw her since before I had you, and your dad and I went to see her today.” 

“Oh,” Ivy says, tilting her head, “Was it…weird?” 

Emily laughs, Ivy’s simple choice of words making something ease in her chest, and she nods, “Yeah, honey. It was…really weird.” 

There’s a moment of silence and Ivy slides slightly closer to her, leaning her head on Emily’s shoulder, craining her neck so she’s looking up at her. “Will ever I meet her?” 

Emily sighs, the mere thought of it making her chest tight, “Well, you aren’t a little kid anymore,” she says, tucking some of Ivy’s dark hair behind her ear, “But you are my kid, and it’s not something I’m comfortable with for now, it’s something I might never be comfortable with. But if I decide I’m happy for her to meet you and your brother and sister, I’ll leave it up to you.” 

Ivy nods, her eyebrows knitting together, “If you decide I can…do I have to?”

“Of course not, sweet girl.” 

“She made you sad,” Ivy says, “I don’t think I want to meet someone who makes you sad.” Emily pulls her daughter into a hug, wrapping her arms tightly around her, hiding her face in her hair in a vain attempt to stop her from seeing she’s crying. “I’m glad I have you as a Mom.” 

Emily sniffs and pulls back a little to look at Ivy, no longer caring about the tears shining in her eyes, “Yeah? Why is that baby?” 

Ivy smiles at her and wipes a tear from Emily’s cheek, “Because I know no matter what, I’d never not want to speak to you.” 

Emily chokes on a sob and pulls Ivy in, grateful when her little girl hugs her just as tightly as she hugs her, “I love you, sweet girl.” 

“I love you too, Momma.” 

___

January 1996 

Emily hears crying from the bassinet next to her bed, and she instinctively shifts in the bed to pick up her daughter. She winces as the movement makes pain flash through her, and she makes a mental note to ask the nurse to bring her fresh ice packs when she next comes along to check on them. 

“You a did a real number on me, sweet girl,” she says as she settles back down comfortably in her hospital bed, Ivy secure in her arms, “You’re worth it though,” she looks over at Aaron and smiles at the sight of him fast asleep on the couch in the corner of the room and she looks back at Ivy, “Daddy was so worried about us, he loves us both so much.” 

She watches as her daughter nurses, staring at her face, memorising everything about her, and she can’t help but think about those early hours of her own life. Unable to stop herself from wondering what her mother said and did, what promises she made that she ultimately didn’t keep.

“I’ll always be on your side, Ivy” Emily says quietly, well aware it was something she would stand by, a promise she would keep for the rest of her life. “No matter what happens, you’ll always have me on your side.” 

She hears movement on the couch and she looks up to see Aaron sitting up, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the last remnants of sleep. He’d been her rock all day, nothing short of perfect as he supported her in any way she needed, holding her hand and letting her squeeze his so hard she was surprised it didn’t break. Despite his strength, and his unrelenting love for her and their daughter, she could tell he struggled to see her in pain, a slight desperation in his eyes that he couldn’t hide from her. 

“How are my girls doing?” He asks as he stands up and sits on the edge of her bed and kisses the top of her head before he looks down at Ivy. 

“We’re trying to get the hang of nursing again,” she says, grimacing at the sensation, “It hurts, but I think she’s actually getting something this time.” 

Ivy pulls away, already full, and Emily smiles as she rests her against her shoulder, gently patting her back. 

“I can’t get over how much she looks like you,” Aaron says, tilting his head to look at Ivy’s face, transfixed by her. He’d known the very first second he saw her that she’d hold the same power over him that her mother did, that he was already wrapped around her tiny little finger. 

Emily smiles as Ivy burps and looks at Aaron, “We made a damn cute baby, huh?” 

“No cursing in front of her,” Aaron jokingly chastises, and Emily rolls her eyes at him.

“She’s two hours old, honey. I think it’s going to take a while for her to pick up on what we’re saying,” she sniffs and turns her nose up, looking at Ivy, “I think we have our first dirty diaper.” 

“Come over here, princess,” Aaron says, lifting Ivy into his arms, the baby impossibly small in comparison to him, and he kisses the top of her head before he walks over towards the set-up the nurses had left them to change her, “Daddy will change your diaper.” 

“I might need Daddy’s help to change mine later,” Emily says sarcastically as she shifts in the bed, her entire lower half burning as she moves, “I don’t think I can bend down.” 

Aaron briefly looks over his shoulder at her and smiles before he has all of his focus back on Ivy, “Mommy can have help with whatever she wants forever,” he says, his voice low and quiet, the same tone he only ever used on Emily previously, but she doesn’t mind sharing with her little girl, “She can have whatever she wants forever because she gave me you.” 

He half pays attention to Emily’s response, as he changes Ivy’s diaper and takes the chance to put the tiny onesie, which was somehow still slightly too big, that he’d bought and hidden from Emily weeks ago onto her. He smiles down at her, his heart in his throat as nerves take over. 

“What’s taking so long?” Emily asks, “I want my baby.” 

“Coming sweetheart,” he says, straightening up as he holds Ivy delicately, as if she was made of glass, “Let’s get you back to Mommy.” 

Emily gratefully takes her daughter back into her arms, unable to understand how she’d missed her when it had only been a couple of minutes and she’d never left her sight. She frowns in confusion as she realises Aaron has changed her out of the lion-covered onesie she’d been in before to a white one with printed, flowing script on the front.

‘Mommy will you marry Daddy?’

She chokes on a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob as she reads it again before she looks up at Aaron, who was now sitting on the edge of her bed, an open ring box in his hand, a gorgeous ring shining at her. 

“This is the moment you’ve been waiting for? Your perfect moment?” She asks, her voice thick with the same emotion that had been lingering in the air all day. 

He chuckles, the sound catching in his chest as he shrugs, “Can you think of a better one?” 

There’s a beat of silence as she looks back and forth between him and Ivy, who is now fast asleep in her arms, and the answer is obvious. “Yes.” 

“Yes you can think of a better moment-”

“No, you idiot,” she says, cutting him off as tears slip past her lash line, “Yes, I’ll marry you.” 

Aaron leans in and kisses her, his lips firm yet gentle against hers as the hand not holding the ring box tangles in her hair. She’s sure she should care that her hair is greasy, that it was messy and unclean from the hours she’d been in labour, thrown up in a loose bun on top of her head, but she doesn’t. All she can think about is him. Their daughter. The life they were going to have together. 

He pulls back and looks at her, and he smiles, “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” she replies, kissing him again before he sits back just far enough to slip the ring onto her left hand as she offers it out to him. Ivy makes a noise, as if she was grumbling that she was no longer the centre of their attention even though she was mostly asleep, “Did you hear that, sweet girl, Mommy and Daddy are getting married.” 

Aaron wraps his arms around them both and helps Emily shift over just enough for him to properly get onto the bed next to her, “And, you’ll get to be there,” Aaron says, trailing his knuckle down the baby’s soft cheek, “Something you can hold over your younger siblings one day.” 

Emily scoffs and tilts her head to look at him, “Can you at least wait for me to regain the ability to walk properly before you think about getting me pregnant again?” 

He laughs and nods, kissing her, “Of course, sweetheart. Are you ok?” 

“Yeah,” She says, as she relaxes against him, content to stare down at her daughter, “I’m really happy,” she says, her voice shaking a little, “I’ve never been this happy.” 

She didn’t know it would be possible to be this happy, to feel so content. She knew there would be hard days ahead, that life would never be simple, but if she had her family, the one she’d built herself, she’d be okay. 

She had everything she needed. 

-x-

Tag List:

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[1dastroficfest]

Round 2 is officially finished! Thank you to all our amazing authors and everyone who's supported them! It's been a pleasure to bring the astro fest back for another round, not only to explore different parts of all the wonderful mystics in the world, also to see how people interpret them differently. We learned so much in just a few months and we hope this is a collective feeling. Thank you thank you thank you. We intend to do a round 3 next year, again with different themes. Stay tuned, the sun travels fast through the signs.

Under the cut are all our round 2 fics, please check them out! 🌙🪐☀️

Lullaby Garden by rockstarlwt28 / @rockstarlwt28 Harry/Louis, 29k, prompt: the Moon Tarot reader Louis Tomlinson and fortune teller Harry Styles, better known as the Tomlinson's, are the proud owners of a children's home, Lullaby Garden; in the heart of the hilly town of Scarborough. With eight children to keep them on their toes, the pair aren't short of good-hearted family fun.

I Don't Have A Choice (But I'd Still Choose You) by Wishingforloushair / @wishingforloushair Harry/Louis, 31k, prompt: Pluto Louis Tomlinson is the captain of The Dagger, a pirate ship so wicked his reputation as the Spectre precedes him into every quay, dock, and tavern. When a mysterious package arrives for him seemingly giving him the last pieces of the puzzle to find the treasure of the mythical Nymphaea Islands, he sets the ship on a course to find riches that amount to more than the grains of sand on every beach. The men discover a stowaway on the ship, and to Louis' utter shock the man is Lord Styles, the man who broke Louis' heart years earlier and drove him out to sea in the first place. Loyalties are tested as the past comes back to haunt Louis in a way he couldn't imagine.

we don't fight fair by HelloLovers13 / @hellolovers13 Harry/Louis, 2k, prompt: Mars “What, you think I'll just roll over for you now?” The smirk on Louis’ face was almost devilish. “Yes,” He breathed against Harry’s lips, cocky and sure, like it was a fact of life. It sent all kinds of shivers through Harry. God, but he wanted to. Wanted Louis to have him right against this wall, let everyone see how he fell apart under him. But not tonight. Harry fixed his posture, standing up straighter and trying to get himself under control. “I don't think so, omega.” Or: Nothing like a little chase to start off Louis' heat.

Catching A Partner by berzerkshires / @berzerkshires Harry/Louis, 24k, prompt: Uranus This documentary follows the story of two people who fell in love in the last place you'd expect. Louis is a detective at the Boston Police Department investigating a trail of recent murders. Harry is the latest victim who survived an attempted murder and is sent to live at a safe house with Detective Tomlinson as the killer is still at large. This is their story.

It's Only Sunny Cause The Planet's Dying by LetTheMusicMoveYou / @letthemusicmoveyou28 Harry/Louis, 13k, prompt: Sappho The man leans back in his chair and looks down at the tarot cards in front of him. “Wow, that was really impressive. How long did it take you to memorize all this bullshit?” He raises a brow and that challenging look is back on his face, but he’s not even bothering to mask it this time. It makes Louis’ blood run cold. “I beg your pardon?” The man chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “If you take a peek in my wallet that you just stole, you’ll see there’s a detective’s badge in there. Why don’t you come on down to the police station with me and you can explain your methods to me there?” (Or the one where Louis is a thief and a con-artist who’s used to getting what he wants, using any means necessary. And Harry is is the straight-laced detective who might just be tired of always doing the right thing).

a little party never hurt no one by Kikiberoski16 / @larrysballetslippers Harry/Louis, 3k, prompt: Eros “I did! But now you only want them to be your personal toys. So you get more men to touch you!” Louis pointed at Vang, the one who always wanted to be close to Harry. Harry threw his arms up. “Maybe because I do enjoy their attention, Louis! Maybe I like having them around.” “If you like their attention so much, maybe they should replace me completely.” Or, Louis wouldn't call himself a possessive boyfriend, but can't stand it when the mates touch Harry.

The Heart's Home by homosociallyyours / @homosociallyyours Harry/Louis, 10k, prompt: Chiron Louis is alone in the world, working long hours at a restaurant job that barely pays his bills, when he's roped into helping his bosses with a scheme. All he has to do is guard the special catch they've brought in, the one that they expect will bring them unbelievable wealth. But there's a problem: the creature they've caught is definitely half human, with the heart and soul of a human and the voice of an angel. Louis knows immediately that he can't let this mer-squid, Harry, become a wealthy person's dinner. As they spend more time together, growing ever closer, Louis realizes that he's got to find a way to get Harry back to his home-- the sea --even if the thought of losing him hurts and doing it means risking everything.

Make Me Your Aphrodite by LiveLaughLoveLarry / @loveislarryislove Harry/Louis, Zayn/Liam, Niall/Shawn, 16k, prompt: Venus “I just – I don’t know." Harry sighs. "I go on so many dates, and they’re all just… nothing. The guys are boring, or they’re terrible in bed, or there’s just no chemistry. It’s just so frustrating. Enough to make a girl want to give up on men altogether.” “I mean, I did give up on men, like a decade ago,” Louis says, laughing. “Have you tried dating girls?” It’s meant as a joke, but Harry looks thoughtful. “Maybe I should,” she says. “I’ve considered it, but never actually tried – I mean, goodness knows it can’t be any worse than some of the guys I’ve gone out with.” Louis blinks. “Wait, do you – are you serious?” “Why not?” Harry says, pulling out her phone. “I’ll change my Tinder settings right now, look.” She taps the screen a few times, navigating through the pages. “If it doesn’t pan out, then oh well, I’ve had some nice conversations with some nice girls – not the worst thing. Maybe we can even be friends. And if it does…” She smiles. “Well. You know.”

(Gimme a Solution and) Watch Me Run With It by lululawrence / @lululawrence Harry/Louis, 21k, prompt: Vesta This second, this minute, this hour, this day... hell, this week the trend was for Harry to feel overwhelmed. He was having a hard time not drowning in all of the responsibilities he had heaped upon himself and it had exhausted him. Beyond that, really. He had gotten to the point where he didn't even remember why he used to be so focused on getting back on stage every night. Fine. Maybe this trend had been going on for even longer than a week. It might have even been months. Harry is getting dangerously close to his breaking point, and that is when things start to change, starting with a favorite childhood sweet a member of the touring crew leaves for him in his dressing room.

Daylight by ReynaLovegood2 / @reynalovegood2 Harry/Louis, 18k, prompt: the Sun The change in Harry’s behaviour was subtle for the most part, Louis decided. More eye-contact, more upright posture, and the casual ease with which he handled his words and his fingers—a lot of it could be chalked up to late-adolescence induced confidence. He was a teenager after all. Surely they were all still finding themselves and growing into amazing, mature adults with every passing day. And then school started. ~ Or Louis opened up to Harry more than usual when he's in London and it causes Harry to act different. He expects Louis be vulnerable all the time, and Louis has to choose between shutting away his best friend or letting people assume they're romantically involved.

lost in the silver sea by you_explode / @nobodymoves Harry/Louis, 42k, prompt: Echo Non-AU. From MSG 2012 to MSG 2018; or, Harry and Louis keep having their voices silenced, and they keep finding ways to speak.

Thanks again! See you next round! ✨

[15-lizards]

Giving you quotes based on the ASOIAF family you feel most connected to

Baratheon: “If you’re raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. You will find him even when he is not there”- Catherine Lacey

“Isn’t all that rage so ugly? And isn’t it mine, still? Good god, isn’t it mine?”- Ashe Vernon

“There are teeth marks on everything he loves.”- Yusef Komunyakaa

Targaryen: “I am homesick for a place I am not even sure even exists. One where my heart is full. My body loved. My soul understood”- Melissa Cox

“The relief of giving in to destruction”-Franz Kafka

“I didn’t feel at home in life”- Anne Sexton

Greyjoy: “I was never a child / I was pulled right out of the sea / and the salt, it never left my body”- Chelsea Wolfe

“I’m abandoning everything! Everything! And that way I won’t be abandoned.”- Clarice Lispector

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”- George Orwell

Stark: “I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, to wanting.”- Margaret Atwood

“What I sometimes mistake for ecstasy is simply the absence of grief.”- Sarah Kane

“Suffering feels religious if you do it right”- Chelsea Hodson

Tully: “Memory is punishment.”- Frank Bidart

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”- Emily Dickinson

“What cannot be said will be wept”- Sappho

Lannister: “Many things interested her, and nothing satisfied her entirely.”- Ivan Turgenev

“Mother / Eat me and give birth to me again/ This time around I’ll make you proud”- Maia Baia

“My rot is as hungry as me. & when God asks me about love, I will always respond with cruelty.”- Yves Olade

Martell: “You are addicted to what you cannot possess.”- Frank Bidart

“When are you gonna get over that? When When When?”- Kara Walker

“But he, that dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose.”- Anne Brontë

Tyrell: “Come on, dance with me. The earth is spinning. We can’t just stand on it.”- Dino Ahmetović

“I never again shall tell you what I think. I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly.”- Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Lust is so inadequate, and loving exhausts me.”- Anne Sexton

[lucythornwalter]

1.2 - Felicity Learns a Lesson

Last time, we had horse thievery and crossdressing. This time, we’ve got loose teeth and tea ceremony drama. Oh, the world of an American Girl contains multitudes.

Felicity Learns a Lesson is subtitled ‘A School Story’, but the lessons she learns aren’t only academic ones. This is pretty normal for the Lesson books, actually – not all the girls are in school or are in the same kind of school, and there’s equal value being placed on learning from your community of peers and mentors and learning from books. Strap in, people. We’ve got nothing but class and gender commentary ahead.

The bare-bones plot of this book is that Felicity is sent off to semi-private lessons in how to be a well-bred lady. Think finishing school meets homeschool coop. She wants to go to the College of William and Mary and learn Greek and Latin with the boys, obviously, but her parents inform her that instead she has to learn penmanship and music and embroidery and etiquette instead. (I love this girl. Learn Greek! Learn Latin! Read Homer and Sappho and Lucian! You’re not actually that queercoded compared to other girls from this original eight but I believe in your capacity to find your inner dyke!)

She’s not too thrilled with this, but acquiesces when she realizes how proud her mother and father are of how she’s growing up, and it gets a lot easier to sit still for a few hours a day when she learns that her schoolmates are a pair of English sisters newly come to Williamsburg. One of them, Elizabeth Cole, is her age, and they become best friends. The other, Annabelle Cole, is a sullen teenager who hates being here and thinks the whole colony is beneath her. At first it doesn’t matter that she teases and mocks Felicity, but when Mr. Merriman refuses to sell tea in his store as a protest against the tea tax (and in solidarity with the colonists who’ve been throwing tea into harbors) Annabelle’s insults turn venomous. She accuses Mr. Merriman of being a traitor, Felicity protests that he’s not, and Elizabeth is caught in the middle.

Felicity’s family stops drinking tea at home, joining the protests against the taxes personally as well as publicly, and this means Felicity has to decide how to handle the daily teatime at her lessons. If she refuses too rudely the Loyalist Coles will perceive it as an insult, and if she doesn’t refuse at all she’s betraying her family’s political stance. Notably, she doesn’t really have an opinion one way or the other about the King and about taxes, but she does want to stand by and defend her parents and especially her father. She resolves this by politely refusing tea as she was taught to, and her split with Elizabeth is mended when Elizabeth stands up to Annabelle’s bullying. For a while, at least, they can continue to be friends despite their families’ opposing views.

There’s two lessons Felicity has to learn in this book, one about her own blossoming womanhood and the other about class and politics. For a plot where not much happens, a lot happens. I’ll try and give my thoughts in a more or less coherent order –

More than anything, at the start of this book Felicity feels completely alienated from her own labor. She hates the amount of work it takes to run a household, because even with one full-time domestic servant her mother still needs her two girls to pitch in and help with food production and mending and laundry and all the other things you need to do to live. She expresses frustration that so much effort is put into things no one sees or appreciates, and we see the first glimpses of some kind of awareness of labor and class stirring within her. Of course, this doesn’t extend either to her father’s indentured apprentice or her family’s slaves, but that’s the fault of the narrative for not making her ignorance clear and not really the fault of a fictional nine-year-old.

It’s her mother who manages to connect with her for the first time in the whole series, explaining that women’s work and housewifery are the tangible things she can pass down to her daughters. There’s something very poignant here about “well-behaved women rarely mak[ing] history”, as Mrs. Merriman shares that these were techniques and lessons she received from her own mother when she herself was young and frustrated, and Felicity understands for the first time that her world exists in a broader context beyond her own experiences. As the books go on, we see her grow more and more connected to her work and its impact on her life and the lives of her family and friends, but it’s nice to see this acknowledgement here that yeah, actually, lots of women’s labor is invisible and undervalued, but it’s ours and it’s what we have to cling to.

This is carried forward into the lessons and the feminine presentation, too. Felicity finds out she likes being elegant and graceful and (gag, ugh, I hate that this word has been ruined) demure. She likes commanding respect through her good manners. It’s a kind of power and influence she’d previously been robbed of, and it’s one she doesn’t want to give up. Even if having her hair pomaded with hog fat and cinnamon and having her skin bleached with lemon sucks, the experience of being allowed into womanhood through etiquette lessons doesn’t, and again she finds herself connecting with this separate feminine knowledge. It’s still unfair that she can’t also get an academic education or work as an apprentice to a tradeswoman, but there are at least things she can genuinely enjoy on their own terms.

I have to be a downer again, unfortunately, because for all this lovely and beautiful commentary on women’s work and women’s labor there’s no acknowledgement of how Rose (if she is an enslaved woman) and the free black women of Williamsburg, and the working-class white women, and the enslaved women belonging to other families and to Felicity’s grandfather, view their labor and their legacies that can be passed down to daughters and granddaughters. What we have is a very narrow white landowner’s perspective, and despite its beauty and its applicability in multiple circumstances and the ways it can speak to different readers in different circumstances it’s obvious that the writing team was thinking of white little girls in middle-class or upper-middle-class families whose relationship with women’s work is defined by the expectations of 20th century patriarchy.

Felicity is also unusual because of this absence of perspective. Samantha, the other truly wealthy girl in the original eight, is defined by her relationship with a very poor Irish girl named Nellie O’Malley and the things Nellie has to say about class and child labor. Kirsten is poor as pioneers go, but she still has a friend in the even-poorer and less stable Singing Bird, and Singing Bird’s tribe experiencing starvation as a result of European colonization defines their relationship. Kit’s father is unemployed and her family have to pinch every penny until it squeaks, but they have a home and can feed themselves, as opposed to the hobos she befriends. Addy’s mother makes enough money as a seamstress to support herself and her daughter and they contribute to mutual aid for even poorer members of their community. Molly’s family and the other families in Illinois on the home front deal with financial stress and rationing. Josefina’s family is reasonably well off but they’re farmers, and so they’re agriculturally vulnerable. Even Kaya has to deal with raids between different tribes and the “poverty” of food insecurity as a nomadic hunter-gatherer sometimes. Felicity stands alone as someone who never has to confront her privilege, and never has to examine what she has as opposed to what someone else has.

(And before somebody goes “Changes for Felicity! Changes for Felicity! Debtor’s prison!” – Felicity’s family are able to smooth over all problems in that book. Her grandfather pays Jiggy Nye’s debt, and restores him to his position as a working man with some respect, and Mr. Cole is imprisoned because of his politics and not his economic status. This girl never has to acknowledge that poor people exist as a class, or that people can be persecuted or targeted more when they’re marginalized. We get one singular comment in Happy Birthday, Felicity! and I will absolutely be talking about it when we get there but it never seems to sink in for her. If I didn’t know for a fact that Pleasant Company were smoothing out as much as possible to make her as inoffensive as possible I would think she was the dumbest child who ever lived.)

I’m spending all this time talking about Felicity’s class blindness because the entirety of the plot with the Cole sisters is inextricably intertwined with themes of class differences in the white residents of Williamsburg. Annabelle Cole, the older sister, judges Felicity for being a shopkeeper’s daughter – presumably, she and Elizabeth are or were landed gentry in England. They were also slightly richer than the Merrimans in England, with the girls being taught privately by a governess while Felicity and her siblings are taught to read and write by their mother. Felicity is keenly aware of the fact that Annabelle judges her for being a colonist as opposed to a resident of England, too, and this is unspeakably funny to me because I am also judging Felicity and everyone in Williamsburg for being a colonist as opposed to staying in England. My reasons just happen to be very different.

Anyway, Felicity is already struggling with fitting in and being accepted by people who are above her socially when the mess regarding tea tax happens and her father is ostracized by the Loyalists within the town for his boycott. Something that this book (and really all American history books about this period written in the 90s) fail to talk about is the long history of English peasant revolts and political protests against the monarchy and attempts to curtail the absolute power of the crown, and when viewed through that lens the protests against tea taxes and against other kinds of taxes make significantly more sense as part of a broader historical context. It actually makes opposition to the tea tax seem a little more ridiculous, because it’s definitely a loyal English subject activity to argue that the king should maybe have less direct power over you. Still, despite the social fallout, Mr. Merriman stands firm in his convictions, and this drives a wedge between Felicity and Elizabeth.

This comes back to gender in an interesting way. Felicity spends the latter two chapters of this book attempting to figure out her position on the tea boycott and how to navigate pleasing her friend and pleasing her father simultaneously, and has to go to great lengths to subtly signal her allegiances to both sides and pick neutrality as often as possible, and this is all because her father can do whatever he likes on his own terms and dictate the direction of his household. He makes the choice to object to what can hilariously be called government overreach, and this has an immediate impact on things like his daughter’s social status as she nears adolescence and her debut into society and his family’s ability to bring in money and earn an income, and the women of the house have to shrug and sigh and carry on while adapting as best they can.

Felicity in this case stands in contrast to Ben, who’s as outspoken as he pleases and who makes his support for the colonists’ grievances clear – again we come back to how even while being indentured and apprenticed, Ben has more social capital than Felicity does. Ben can get away with being hotheaded and loudmouthed. She can’t. Instead, she carefully stitches a Virginia cardinal onto her sampler and politely refuses tea, and endures the consequences of Edward Merriman’s actions. She has to rely on both her own skill at etiquette and manners to navigate the world he’s thrust her into.

And manners and etiquette as a powerful social tool are a less-important but still present theme. I didn’t mention it in the summary, but the reason I brought up loose teeth is because Felicity loses a tooth while biting into a tea biscuit, and even though Annabelle tries to tease her for it, their teacher/mentor smooths the situation over with clever conversation and warm acceptance. She also hands the teacup containing Felicity’s tooth to a servant of unspecified ethnicity, thus cementing that the manners they’re learning are for rich or well-to-do women who exist in a class of society that can utilize domestic help or even unpaid slave labor, so I’m just never going to get away from this, am I? I’m never getting away from it.

All the Felicity girls are going to hate me for this, I’m sure, and I don’t like it, as a Felicity girl. I went to Colonial Williamsburg prior to COVID and I walked the same streets that she did in her books, I visited the governor’s mansion just like she did, I saw the powder magazine she hid by to watch for the marines, I went to a general store like her father’s, and as a thirty-one year old woman I cannot look away from the obvious fact that while Colonial Williamsburg has worked incredibly hard to reform how they talk about history and encourage their reenactors and their guests to discuss slavery and discuss class and discuss free black residents of the city, Felicity’s books are running as fast as they can in the other direction.

I liked this book. I thought that it was a really cool examination of political and class divides that can be bridged by mutual desire for friendship. I also can’t ignore that these are girls who are very close to being the same class, who are of the same race, and who hail from the same country originally (Felicity’s grandfather emigrated from England when he was a young man, so she has a direct familial tie to residence in England – she’s not far removed from the Coles) and that’s why they’re able to agree to disagree. If Felicity were poorer, or if she weren’t white, or if she weren’t an English Protestant, the entire situation would be different. Of course, she also wouldn’t be Felicity, but one must ask why the colonial-era girl is so very white.

Sorry for the negativity, I guess. Next time, we’re talking about Christmas! I think I’ve gotten all of the screaming out of my system at this point.

[ladycharles]

I wanted to share my city's winter festival. They have ice sculptures from around the world, art installations, and drag (!) What with all the hate these days it really did make me feel proud of how far my country has come.

Song -

(available with bonus tracks now at ladycharles.bandcamp.com )

[sapphic-courtship-for-dummies]

Hey sorry if this isn’t the right kind of ask to be sending but you seem like the right person to go to.

So I’ve been with my partner who is a girl for a while now but I’m so worried about her ex who is a boy, like I’m convinced their going to leave me for him because some people just don’t seem staying with a women forever really as an option even tho they say they do. Idk is it normal as a lesbian to be so scared of the ex being a man?

Hi Anon, this is a perfectly okay question to ask! And I’m very glad you did.

Although I’ve been lucky enough to not encounter it myself, I have certainly heard of this specific concern, usually as a result of bi/panphobia. People who don’t understand that women can love women in the same deep, long-lasting, and devoted manner that women can love men (and vice versa) tend to dismiss and belittle WLW relationships over MLW relationships. They’ll write off WLW couples as “just a phase” or “experimenting,” instead of accepting them as real, significant, and committed relationships. 

Now, I don’t want to normalize this kind of ideology (as common as it is, unfortunately) because of course it is incorrect and queerphobic, but I want to acknowledge that if people you know or have encountered expressed this ideology, then it’s quite likely that you have internalized it. This is not to condemn you, because these beliefs are pervasive and eat away at our insecurities--like fear-mongering claims that debase lesbians and WLW as all predators (which they are not!!). So it’s natural to fall prey to harmful beliefs such as this. 

The good news is that you already took the first steps, by questioning those fears and asking for advice, and I’m really proud of you for doing so. Being in a relationship is scary enough as is, and being in a queer relationship can seem to make things even more complicated. But despite what the homophobes and naysayers claim, queer relationships are more than capable of being successful and long-lasting. I have read many a success story, and can promise that good things do happen. So I hope this assures you that you have nothing to fear. 

(And if, even after diluting the internalized fears, you still feel insecure in your relationship, then it may be time to do some deep introspection and take an objective look at your relationship. At that point, I would also recommend communicating with your partner about it. It’s always better to talk out an issue to resolve your fears than to bottle them up! Trust me on this one. (Another thing therapy is good for.))

I hope this is helpful, friend. Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. ❤️

Lovingly,

Sappho 💓

[luciferfemme]

Hello beautiful.

I just watched your Enemies to Lovers + yearning video, and I felt so...seen.

The thought that someone would see me at my worse, and still want to be around me seems so far from the realms of possibilities. But I also know I have some trauma to work through so... I'll go unpack that.

It was very poignant to see that feeling be put into words so wonderfully though. I'm glad I checked your channel out. You're a beautiful orateur.

As for the yearning... Bestie I don't know what's going on at Casa di Sappho but it feels like all the girlies are getting cabin fever. Like The Mother herself is walking around with her specialized 2x4 bonking every single sapphic in the head with the gift of Yearning™.

I was doing so good for a while.

But girls are so pretty... And so handsome🤤

Anyways, happy to know you☺️

Thank you so much. I'm glad it spoke to you. Honestly I've been having so much fun with making these videos and doing makeup. I don't always feel the most poignant when I'm getting sidetracked by a million thoughts at once but I'm glad to see it resonated. That's the point after all.

And yeah maybe Venus is in whatever the opposite of retrograde is and all the sapphics are chomping at the bit.

Also I'll say this, I believe in you. No matter your trauma you are not unloveable. It's absolutely going to happen. I'm proud of you for working to unpack it though that's all we really can do.

Thank you for the support.

😊😊😊😊

[fujo-shinji]

i feel so bad for the queers who weren’t having sleepovers with butches in middle school like u didnt listen to studio killers? and make out? and watch jennifer’s body??? with your galpals?? these r my best childhood memories, my mom literally knew but she has a butch mom gf so she couldnt do shit, all of my siblings are flaming homos???

[leneemusing]

SEXUALITY AND GENDER IDENTITY THEMED PROMPTS FOR PRIDE

❝  i guess i always kinda knew?  it just wasn’t that important until i got older.  ❞

❝  it never mattered to me like,  what form people came in.  i love souls,  the body is just kinda like pretty packaging.  it’s nice but it’s not what’s important to me.  ❞

❝  oh yeah i did the whole ‘massive crush on my best friend’ thing.  wouldn’t recommend it.  ❞

❝  today my gender is kinda of ‘meeehh?’  ❞

❝  yeah of course i’m only into women,  have you seen them?  ❞

❝  i think i had a harder time accepting myself than my family ever did.  ❞

❝  i’m pretty sure everyone else knew i was gay before i ever realized it.   ❞

❝  i have a hard time talking about it,  even now—i’m not ashamed or anything like that.  i just,  don’t really know...how or what to say i guess.  ❞

❝  i think i’m ready to actually come out to them.  ❞

❝  i really want to tell them but i don’t wanna do it alone...could you help me with it?  ❞

❝  the ‘am i gay’ quizzes are a gateway drug.  ❞

❝  would you mind using [insert pronouns] for me now?  i’m trying to see how it feels.  ❞

❝  they’re right actually,  i’m gay and i do have an agenda to make everything gayer.  ❞

❝  ever since i told them i’m gay they keep pointing to every slightly attractive man and asking if he’s my type.  ❞

❝  me? no i don’t think i’m—i mean.  yeah sometimes i think about what it’d be like to kiss girls/guys but i’d never...come on,  everyone thinks about it a little bit right?  ❞

❝  at this point the closet is literally made of glass.  ❞

❝  actually,  i’m [insert identity].  ❞

❝  it’s all ‘i wish i was into women it’d be so much easier’ until you find out about the lesbian drama.  ❞

❝  i’m bisexual and confused.  not about being bi,  though.  just like...in general.  about life.  ❞

❝  i just need a nice bear to throw me around for a few hours,  i think it’d do more for me than therapy.  ❞

❝  i would trust any stone butch with my life.  ❞

❝  sappho would be so proud.  ❞

❝  i’m still figuring myself out.  i know i’m not straight,  that’s a start.  ❞

❝  i finally figured out my sexuality and then boom here comes a gender identity crisis.  ❞

❝  i’ve just...never really been interested in the whole sex thing.  ❞

❝  anyway,  if neither of us find our true loves in the next five to ten years,  wanna have a lavender marriage?  for the taxes.  ❞

❝   you wanna come to pride with me?  ❞

❝   this is my first pride actually,  i’m kinda nervous.  ❞

❝   well,  this seems as good a time as any to come out.  ❞

❝  no one can know about this—it’s just between us okay?  ❞

❝  i’d never tell anyone.  ❞

❝  you don’t owe anyone ‘coming out.’  it’s personal,  do things at your own pace.  only tell the people you want to.  ❞

❝  you’ve always made me feel safe so,  i just knew i could tell you about it.  ❞

❝  everyone’s hot and i’m a disaster who doesn’t know how to ask anyone out.  ❞

❝  i’m not sure i wanna fuck them or be them.  ❞

❝  i’m just experimenting i guess,  trying to figure out what i like.  ❞

❝  she said she didn’t see us working out but then she brought me a potted plant so i guess it’s still up in the air.  ❞

❝  i want to be one of those bold,  unapologetic people but i’m still just terrified.  ❞

❝  she’s so pretty i think i’m gonna die.  ❞

❝  oh,  no he’s got a great smile too.  i’m in deep this time.  ❞

❝  how did you know?   like for sure that you were into [gender]?  ❞

❝  do you mind if i ask you a question about being [identity]?  ❞

❝  thank you for trusting me with this.  ❞

❝  it’s okay,  take your time to put it into the right words.  i’m not going anywhere.  ❞

❝  wait,  you think i’m [identity]?  what makes you say that?  ❞

❝  i’m here,  i’m queer,  i wanna leave.  ❞

[rjshepherd]

Hi! What do u think the lords' sexualities are? 👀

hI DONT MIND ME IMA GO FERAL FOR A MOMENT. ok so i KNOW i mentioned in my big ass head canon posts for donna and karl that i dont hold a particular sexuality for them because that means i can write them as freely as possible but lik i kinda do. i know im sorry, sometimes you cant help such things. people give you VIBES and these guys are NO different so here are some of my thoughts.

5 Lords Sexualities headcanons

Miranda - straight...ish.

So i don't really write for miranda, nor do i intend to . as such i feel like she's the ONLY lord i can honestly say i don't hold a sexuality hc for. Obviously at one point in her existence she was attracted to men, or at least enough to have a child with one. But that was a long time ago and sexuality can be a fluid thing that changes or adapts over time. I would say she's mostly straight but given her other issues i genuinely don't see her caring too much about the gender of her partner. If she likes you, she'll let you know, if she doesn't like you, she'll use you as experiment fodder. easy as. Mother "my sexuality is science" Miranda lmao.

Alcina- Lesbian

I mean i think as a collective we've all decided she's a lesbian, which is fine, i can see that and i can get behind that. I think maybe when she was younger and outside the village she was kind of a Bambi lesbian but now she's older and more confident in herself, she's hella proud of her interest in women. Castle dimitrescu is filled with female centric art, a lot of it by queer artists. Her library is filled with Sappho's collected works , Charlotte bronte and Alison Bechdel comics for her girls. I don't think she has any sexual interest in men but i can still see her dominating them or maybe doing something with them before eating them like a black widow spider. Its not about the sex but more about the power.

Donna- asexual- bi/pan demiromantic

So i said that donna has big Ace vibes and i stand by that. however i think she might be Bi/Pan romantic or Demi-Bi/Pan romantic. i usually dislike the overt sexualiszation of child like characters but i also dislike the overt desexualisation of characters with autistic or neurodivergent traits, like theyre too uwu innocent to have such thoughts. I canon donna as ace bc she reminds me of me, not just because of who she is as a character. She can fuck if she wants, she'd just usually prefer not to. She seems like the kind of open sort who literally wouldnt care about your gender one way or the other, as long as you loved her bc thats what she really wants.

Salvatore- Gay

i have no idea why this was the first thought that entered my head when i asked myself "who does sal like?" i guess as a human i have this mental image of him being a sophisticated old queen with a new york accent, giving out sage advice to all the young lgbtqia+ folks in the village. Unfortunately, hes not a sophisticated fellow but a scraggly gross fishman with the mind of a neglected child. Because of that i have a hard time imagining him in sexual situations. again, maybe when he was human, maybe in his teenage years before miranda mutated him, he liked men and was shunned as a result. maybe that made him an easy target for miranda ? this is all speculation so feel free to ( politely) disagree with me on all of this.

Karl - Bi/pan demisexual/demiromantic

Karl has big "why is everyone so hot" vibes to go with donnas "global warming" vibes. Karl is the only one i could look at and go "you know this man would have squishes over crushes". i know in the fandom we have this thing about making him really sexual, wanting to fuck and fuck hard at every given opportunity but my personal headcanon is that he really doesnt care that much about sex. If you were his partner he'd do what you wanted to make you happy; he's a sex favorable ace and can have a libido to match yours. but he just doesnt feel that much sexual attraction to you, regardless of how much he loves you in other ways. He's a pretty shameless flirt with anyone he finds aesthetically pleasing but the moment someone reciprocates or starts flirting with him he just forgets how to talk. Remarks about his attractiveness fly over his head and he really doesnt get alicna's obsession with having titty art all over the place. hes one to talk: not a single soldat is wearing a shirt

thank you for letting me ramble nonnie!

[neopronounsmybelovaed]

Pronoun and name validation time! Shai does so many pronoun checks for people that it’s only fair that sea get zayir names and pronouns validated as well. I mostly want to give ster a big thank you. A pronoun check ne did for me really helped me out and I’m sure ze has helped many others with hyr checks.

Also, Saturn has so much information about neopronouns. I’m a little jealous of thim. Pendos survey was really well done and quoi should be proud of bitterself for collecting all that data. Ara posts about sess findings are always fascinating to read.

Another important service Stav does for the neopronoun community is the fine art of pun-making. I especially enjoy glitches header, where tey squeezed four puns into five words. Jades puns are delightful and I’m always surprised to see just how many words thon can turn into pronoun puns.

Well, that’s all I have to say for now. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get around to all of Sappho’s names and pronouns, but I hope bu is happy to read some of the pronouns that might not be used for um very often. I hope xx has a wonderful day, keeps up the good work, and takes any well-deserved rests that π might need!

I don't exactly have words other than JFSDJFKDSJ but I'm having a pretty bad night and this helped a lot. So. Thank you and I love you.