#did the useless lesbians' job for them

[stealingpotatoes]

If Baylan is traveling the galaxy looking for cool Force stuff, does he ever meet Bendu? If so, how does that go?

omg can you imagine if he said he wanted to do that in front of thrawn tho

[myceliacrochet]

I feel so overwhelmed. I have no income, no stable place to live, and hundreds of people coming to me who need thousands of dollars each to avoid getting incinerated, starved, tortured. I make crochet -- when I can get supplies -- and I'm trying to make stickers, when I can get supplies... I'm not very employable and everything is so expensive and it's all falling on my roommate.

I need to hold a fundraising event

Everyone is either stretched to their limits helping or can't be bothered

I'm doing my best to reblog, follow, and react every single campaign I can that is either vetted or has a clean RIS. I'm telling myself that I'm doing enough by contributing art and promoting these campaigns, but the reality is people need money and I'm giving them condolences and things that may not help much.

I had a bit of success promoting Omar's campaign and foolishly believed I could get those kinds of results again. Tumblr staff is being beyond ruthless, attacking even the critical and dangerous vetting work people are risking their lives for on the ground.

I don't know what to tell people who are coming to me for help in what may be their last moments and I'm like "hey here have a shitty art I made that might make a miniscule difference but probably won't. All the best!" I try to respond through my actions instead of words because like Kurt Vonnegut said there's fucking nothing to say about genocide because no one's meant to say anything they're just meant to get blown up. So then I'm ignoring the people who most need help in the world, coldly turning away. So I say sorry and offer these small useless things as if it means anything and every day I lose more sanity and meaning in my life because doing less than what I can to help people not get genocided takes all the color out of my world. I can't imagine truly relaxing or enjoying anything until there's no genocide happening anymore, and I don't see that happening. I feel hopeless like I did in 2016 but this time there's no back door out.

Every time I start to work on something I feel hopeless like it won't work

I have to get my ass into gear, which means I need to:

- pick up my prescription for strattera, I guess I have that now. That will help me focus

- get back on my antidepressants as soon as Fatima's campaign hits $10,000. That will help me keep moving

- talk to other organizers so we can work together.

I am drowning, I am burning in this hxll created by my own culture. Every day they torture the children and the adults come into my DMs and scream help us please please someone help us.

All I can do is do my best every day. I'll keep moving forward

Doing something is better than doing nothing, gxddammit, which means I'm doing a good job I guess, it's just little comfort as I watch the children get engulfed in flames.

Like, I know I can't end all genocide on my own but there's got to be more effective things that I personally can do.

I guess I'll check out one of those lists of things you can do other than donating money

If anyone has yarn to donate and/or could cover shipping or help me find free yarn in my area, that would be so helpful. Because there's nothing I'd rather do than tune out and crochet most of the time and sell it for myself and others.

Please talk to me about how we can work together to help these precious people!!! I need to do more

@monstermashpotato @sylvianritual @gazavetters @determinate-negation @dlxxv-vetted-donations

@gaza-evacuation-funds @gazagfmboost @fly-sky-high-09 @90-ghost @nabulsi @halalchampagnesocialist @huzni @hussyknee @notallmensheviks @neechees @fuckyeahmarxismleninism @fayruz0-blog @gothhabiba @radicalgraff @marxism-transgenderism @marxist-lesbianism @voyagerprobe @workersolidarity @cheezbot @gayspacemonk @bogleech @slitherbop @butchniqabi

I guess I just need to work on my small business... Idek if I'm even helping by reblogging all this stuff, I'm just spending hours a day spreading stuff around to other people who can't really donate. I just seem to be wasting people's time who are going through genocide, I might even be only adding to their suffering. I don't know if I have the moral fibre to do this work, idk I just seem to cause bad things to happen to myself and everyone around me by dedicating so much time to reblogs instead of just securing an income, paying my bills, and being content to give a "reasonable" portion to genocide relief. I can't do that, I have to give all or most of myself but then I'm just a burden to my roommate and others. Or going all out and doing something really big that could really bring in the money they need

I'm sick but people need me

I guess what I'm seeing here is that I need to switch gears to working on crochet more and that will help me be able to help people and it will also be better for my mental health. I'll work on getting the supplies I need to continue. But idk I'll come back to this later and figure it out.

Thank you for listening I wish I could just let my brain scream to death but like people need me to keep it together so I can actually help but I'm at a loss as to how to help

I'll do it gxddammit I'll fucking get it done I'll crochet for this and it will make a difference and I don't have to suspend happiness until this is over I have to maintain some of that light of happiness within. It's not all on me we are working together

Hey 🩷 So I wanted to let people know that I am safe now. I'm back on my most necessary meds, I've applied for SNAP and general assistance, and I'm feeling stronger after having some more success promoting campaigns.

We are living during multiple holocausts. I take comfort in doing the work. We're making a difference in people's lives.

Thank you for helping me keep my head up. Let's keep going.

[clitorphosis]

SEEING YOU HERE AND NOW

title is from ‘Seeing you here and now ’ by Rosegarden Funeral Party Jill Valentine x reader |AO3 18+ MDNI. smut, lesbian sex, female reader, Jill is mean, degradation kink, humiliation kink, boot humping, oral sex, spit, dirty talk, obsessive behavior(from reader), boot licking, light masochism, mouth fingering, face slapping.

⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹˚ ₊‧────

Living with someone has always sucked for you, but there are no other options at such rent prices on the market and you could end up with a much worse roommate. Your younger sister is… cute and lovable. Like really lovable. She always had time to take care of herself, go to the gym, using various cosmetic products and procedures and she always smelled like something nauseously sweet. She is always in relationships, people are easily attracted to her and you were never sure if she was acting dumb, not noticing anything or just playing along with flirtations. Cute, attractive, lovable and charismatic - a bingo. You have always considered yourself as an ordinary one, really different from your little sister. You do not enjoy spending too much time on excessive procedures (never understood the appeal of it), quickly preparing yourself in the morning without thousands of cosmetics products applied on your skin. You work part-time in some small store, which is exhausting. Thank God, the store is not so far away from the apartment. Clients were often… weird, making uncomfortable comments or just telling you should find a boyfriend and not wasting your time on useless job. Sounds good in theory, but in reality, imagining a touch from a man makes you want to kill yourself. At the end of the day, you are into girls clearly, which was always a headache for you. To find a girl who isn’t playing with your feelings or just trying something ‘new’ is hard. Or you are just unlucky and you attract those kinds of people.

So you have endured for a long time, ignoring any weirdos bothering you during your shift, until you caught yourself on swings in your behavior after a pretty woman visited the store. She was nice and respectful, but not really talkative so you had your time observing her while she was distracted by other products. Short-haired brunette with a sexy bump on her nose (clearly will feel nice against your pussy) and her slightly buffed arms, which are emphasized nicely by a blue top, make you already salivating at the idea of being manhandled by her. So there is no wonder, after her many visits, something obsessive began stirring in your chest cause of the woman in blue. You are curious, of course, so you found her socials; which wasn’t particularly hard to find, and since then your phone has become an extension of your hand. You got to know her name, Jill Valentine. Before work, - you check her social media, during the break - you check it, again before bed - still checking it and trying to dig for more information. And she haunts you, every night thinking about her, wondering if you are going insane and you know it is wrong, you shouldn’t stalk a stranger, and you shouldn’t touch yourself while your mind is filled with images of Jill. But you are already deep in this and even worse, the realization hit harder when you noticed and recognized Jill as your sister’s friend.

That was unexpected, but you would be lying if it didn’t make you hopeful, after all, you could get to know her better and stop being a little obsessive stalker over a stranger. You tried to talk with her or make a small chat, but she didn’t seem to recognize you nor did she seem interested. Instead, your sister was the center of Jill’s attention, hugging her by the waist and listening to her complaints. Your sibling has always enjoyed inviting her friends over, so some of them would sleep over your shared place and Jill wasn’t an exception in this case too. Which was dreadful, and even worse, it was arousing too. The lack of attention while she is here started to make you envious of your sister, but hope was burning stronger. After all, you are related so with some makeup and other adjustments, maybe she will go after you, right? Jill’s perfume is intoxicating, woody floral musk with a light hint of spiciness in it. It wasn’t hard to discover the name after many visits to perfumeries; Chanel Sycomore. It lingers in rooms after every her stay over, after which you also get lucky.

Sometimes you can find some of her stuff, like a keychain or handkerchief which she would forget while visiting the apartment. This is a nice bonus, a rare one though.

On one of these days, your sister was out while Jill wasn’t, explaining she was going to join her later. A trouble emerged quickly, you couldn’t find your dress which was probably snatched by your sibling. Some noises coming from the bathroom, Jill is clearly preparing to join your sister, so passing by the room, you notice there is no one, by eliminating any of your concerns, you decide just to get in and take back what you need.

It smells nauseously weird, your sister’s perfume and Jill’s mixing together making your head hurt a little bit. Finding the dress you needed wasn’t hard, so the trouble was dealt with quickly and you could leave if your attention did not turn to the laptop. The light is illuminating your face and inviting you to put your nose where it doesn’t belong. Being indifferent towards everything related to Jill isn’t your forte, you have been already checking her media quicker than it is possible, so no wonder your curious mind started looking through files and finding Jill’s old photos you have never seen on her Instagram.

“What..? You?” Jill’s voice echoes in the room, looking confused at your presence in it and catching you doing something you shouldn’t. There is a weird silence, her eyes observe you before shaking her head and scoffing. “No wonder that’s you, a creep” She is wearing the same outfit; a blue tank top but this time with a black cardigan and jeans with a belt, hugging her hips and toned thighs well, you would salivate at the sight if the situation was different. It seemed Jill was about to leave the place to join your sister until she saw you rummaging through things.

“You think I didn’t notice how you were eyeing me every time like a fucking puppy?” She hissed, looking at you with a frown and crossed arms. She looks much hotter when she gets so angry. Her hand cups your chin in a rough and unexpected motion “I do know you, you were stalking me like a creep for months. You are not so good at it, you know?” The only thing you are able to mutter is ‘Uh-huh?’ from an unexpected turn of events, embarrassment combines with arousal, and your pussy is already wet and throbbing for attention. “I-I am sorry…” “Just shut up” She rolls her eyes at your pitiful apology, clearly not caring or buying it at all. She pushed you away when her hand uncupped your face, so now you are on the floor.

“Come on, what did you expect?” Jill hissed with a frown on her face, looking down at you, observing how pathetic you looked while her arms were crossed across her chest. “You think I am into you?”

Your legs are spread, wearing only a big shirt and underwear beneath it. Like a dumb bitch, you are not changing your position, there is no point in trying to appear not desperate for her. Your clit throbs so needy and aching for attention from you or anything, the thin fabric of your underwear is useless right now cause the slick is sipping through and it is visible to her gaze, your desperate and pathetic need for a woman who seems to not like you as much as you do her. Her tone makes you bite your lower lip, before shifting closer to her leg, her leather boot is in between your thighs. Jill can almost see tail and puppy ears on you, it would suit you well.

“Please? I don’t care, I want you” You say breathlessly, you press against her jeans more and she raises her eyebrows for a moment, clearly enjoying the sight under her, but also not expecting such behavior. The tip of her shoe raises, pressing against your pussy. “What a desperate slut…” She sighs, looking like she is already tired of your bullshit. The corner of her mouth tugged up at the sight of your hips flinching when the cold leather connected with your hot arousal, provoking wet sounds. Jill tilts her head, her boot. “Ride it and beg, maybe I’ll consider it.”

She doesn't need to tell you twice.

Yes, you ARE desperate and needy for her, but you are not dumb and listen well to orders! Jill watches your body, how your face changes expressions and there is something hot in your behavior; humping her boot and whining like a little desperate puppy for little attention that may come from this. It is cute and pathetic at the same time, her hand cups roughly your chin to tilt your face and get easier access to it to enjoy the show.

“Please, p-please.” Your clit is rubbing against the leather fabric of her boot, leaving traces of slickness as your hips keep rocking back and forth, making more moans. “Oh shit, can I taste you? P-please?”

“Open it.” Jill orders dryly, her thumb traces down your lower lip. She parted hers, letting a string of spit fall on your face, missing your mouth. Not the plan she had, but still she is satisfied with the view even more now, watching the drop of saliva rolling down to your chin. Still, her two digits collect the spit, before shoving them down into your mouth. Your hips jerk from unexpected intrusion, almost coming cause of clit hitting suddenly the rough spot.

“Yeah, like that, be a good fucking slut for me.” she whispered, her blue eyes set on your messy face, as her digits are moving against the wet and warm muscle, pressing against it before sliding deeper to explore your mouth. “Taste good, right? You asked for this, after all”

Your attention shifts as Jill makes you choke on her fingers by not removing them, before accommodating to the feeling of her fingers. Your mouth is wrapped around them, knuckles pressing against your lips and you started sucking them while your pussy is still humping her boot, increasing wet and squelching sounds in the room. It is intense, your hips start rolling harder and faster making you look drunk on pleasure, forgetting to swallow, and it feels a little bit hard while you are focused on sucking two digits and on riding her boot. Drool starts dripping down from the corner of your mouth to the chin, slowly moving lower to your chest.

If someone else would enter and witnessed what is going on, one would think they are recreating a scene from a weird porn movie.

Your hips keep jerking back and forth, sliding across the leather and pressing your clit harder against it, feeling your body start tensing up in every fiber of your muscle. Dirty sounds amplify and it only makes you eager for an incoming orgasm. After two or three jerking of your hips, your thighs tense tightly while your back arches and you moan like a cat in heat. Your walls clench around nothing, slick gushing down on the leather of the boot.

“Fuck, that was quick.” Jill exclaimed with raised eyebrows, clearly not expecting the show to finish so quickly. Her fingers left your mouth, making a loud ‘pop’ sound and she wiped away the drool from them on your cheek. Your body shifts so her boot is not in between your legs, sitting on the floor and your gaze darts down to the leather fabric which is covered with your slick, glistening, and inviting to you, this won’t go unnoticed by Jill and she nods, pointing with her head to the boot. “Come on, would be a shame to not clean your mess.” she coos, the corner of her mouth tugs up, and you know, for you, she doesn’t need to tell you twice. Your tongue presses on the wet leather material, tasting yourself on it and moving around, licking away the remains of your wet arousal, until her fingers grab your hair and tug it up to meet your gaze. She wants to have her own fun too, cause it would be really not fair to let you come, although she doesn’t really want to feed your desperate self with her attention. While keeping eye contact, her other hand creeps to unbutton quickly the belt and zipper of her jeans, until she notices a sparkle in your eyes, so why not indulge you? She lets you pull them down to her ankles. You can feel your own hands shaking like crazy, heart is beating fast and you can’t believe this isn’t a dream when you pull down her underwear too.

She is sitting on the edge of the bed, so her both thighs are on your shoulders now, while you are on your knees, feeling like a hungry animal and you are more desperate than ever. Her pussy is on display, pubic mound has some dark hair, trimmed in a v-shaped style, and her folds are glistening with wetness, which was unexpected but clearly a good sign. You decided to take your sweet time. Your tongue slowly glides across her drenching slit combining with some light kisses, tasting her arousal which made you a little bit happier, after all your pathetic appearance turned her on. “Are you going to do a good job or what?” Jill grunted, her hand tugging on your hair and she pulls you away from her cunt, making you whine in disapproval. Seems she didn’t approve of your choice of action. “Please, please, please!” you beg, looking at her, your face fills with worry at the idea of being denied from eating her out. “I am going to be good, I want to taste you more, I want you to—“ You didn’t get to finish your sentence. Her hand connected with your cheek, making a loud sound of flesh getting hit and you flinched from the burning pain rushing through, which makes you let another whimper and you felt your pussy getting wet again. “Stop being a dumb slut!” She rolls her eyes, before giving another slap and pulling you back in between her thighs. Not wanting to risk anything, your tongue parts her folds now and presses flat, moaning at the taste of her slick returning on your buds and making you salivate more. Delving in, you start working to bring her over the edge; lapping on the wetness, flicking in rapid and light movements on her clit, not interrupting eye contact, observing how her face covers with a light blush. Her teeth play with her lower lip, letting moans as her hips buck against your lips more, clearly a sign she is enjoying your mouth on her. Jill’s head hung, and her gaze didn’t drift away at all, watching you lapping like a hungry animal. This is clearly an encouragement, so you don’t lose any time; tongue slides along the slick and fleshy pink folds, playing with her wetness and not being afraid to bump your nose against her clit, pressing and rubbing at every little movement of your face. Her pussy gets wetter, coating your taste buds more, giving more to lap on. You are getting sloppier with every minute, wanting to memorize the savor of her arousal like this depends on your life. The tip of the tongue traces up teasingly to reach the clit, now starting to play with it; flicking and making circles in quick motions. Her hole clenched around nothing for a brief moment as you kept playing with her sensitive bud until you felt a light pull in your hair, your head shifted slightly lower, not wanting to forget about her hole too. You slide your tongue into it, moving in and out quickly, fucking Jill’s pussy, enjoying the sound of wet noises filling the space around you both. The slick has already mixed with your drool and it drips down to your chin, making eyes roll back into your head when inner walls clenched down and her moans only invited you to be eager. You flatten down your tongue again, lapping on the dripping cunt faster and harder now. Sliding up and down across her wet folds, suckling on the clit and flicking on it. She tugs your hair more and you can feel her thighs tensing at your head’s sides, hugging tightly. The center of your entire attention is being surrounded by her heat, as she starts rocking down slowly onto your mouth.

Orgasm started to approach quicker than she expected, leading to her hand in your hair tightening its grip, now guiding your face roughly and taking the upper hand. Her hips started to grind against your face more, riding your face in quick motions, chasing her climax, and her dripping cunt smears more with wet arousal on your skin as you try to keep up with the intensity of the moment. Jill doesn’t hold back moans, the grip feels stronger in your hair, tugging roughly which provokes a painful sensation, but it quickly gets overwhelmed by the urge to please Jill.

You are so deeply involved in this, not noticing how moans escape from you and send a rush of vibration through her body, which only strengthens her pleasure. Jill climaxes hard; her pussy clenched around nothing for the last time before she goes still, her back arches and she bites down on her lip. Her thighs squeeze you, her skin is so hot and your taste buds fill with her leaking mess which drips more and you lap on it like your life depends on it, as Jill reaches her orgasm.

The space around you is empty and silent from other sounds other than your heavy breathing and the smell of sex and sweat. Her hips pull away from you, leaving you exposed to the chilly air of the room. Your mind is still processing what happened, trying to imprint the taste and sensations into your memory. “Useful at last.” she mumbles under her breath, not looking at you anymore as she adjusts her pants and belt. You didn’t notice how quickly she dealt with it and her fingers grip your chin, tilting you up to look into her face again. “Smile, dummy!” Jill says with a smirk on her swollen lips from biting she did earlier, the camera of her phone is directed towards your face. You didn’t react quickly, hearing a loud ‘click’, flash hitting your face and blinding you for a brief moment. Jill pulls away, looking at the photo with a grin. A mess; you are looking up into the camera, squinting your eyes, hair is disheveled, strands in front of your eyes while the lower part of your face is mixed with her slick and drool, glistening and dripping down. There is even a lightly visible red mark on your cheek, which Jill hit. She doesn’t show you the picture, her fingers quickly tap on the screen for a brief moment before turning to leave the room and putting away her phone. “Don’t forget to clean the mess.” Jill says, running her fingers through her brown hair before leaving you alone in the room, processing what happened and with the taste of her lingering on your tongue. You don't know what to say back, nor did you have time to answer.

You wish it was possible to relive this again and again.

[omgthatdress]

Apparently, Molly is low-key a major gay icon, and honestly, I get it. After all, Molly did *really* like her pretty teacher, Miss Campbell. If you think about it, it makes sense that lot of future lesbians would absolutely love Molly. Most dolls in the 90s were hyper-feminine princess dolls, and Molly was... not. I’d imagine the market for girls who want to play with dolls that aren’t pretty pink princesses is pretty large and the supply is pretty small. Just like there’s plenty of boys out there who want to play with something other than GI Joes. Molly (and AG in general) fits neatly into that market, which I’m sure is why she was so successful.

Last year, with its re-launch of the classic dolls, AG put a post on it’s instagram, “To all the Molly girls in the world, we see you and celebrate you,” which a lot of folks on Twitter took to see as confirmation that Molly was gay. When asked if they just outed Molly, AG gave a very non-committal reply. AG has always had a distinctly feminist slant, but it’s only ever toed the line of actually being LGBT inclusive. So far the only actual inclusion we’ve seen from them is a Girl of the Year with a pair of gay aunts. Even that tiny whiff of queerness was enough to set off a frothing horde of angry conservative moms screaming for a boycott. Since Mattell is only motivated by profit, I doubt we’ll get more representation any time soon, but we can dream.

Anyway, World War II was pretty gay to begin with.

A lot of historians point to WW2 as the starting point of the modern gay rights movement because before it, you had very many people living on isolated farms and never going very far from home in their lifetimes. With mass recruitment of men into the military, gay servicemen were able to find other men like themselves and build a community. It was much the same way for women who went to work in factories, joined the WAC or WAVES, and joined women’s baseball leagues. That’s right, the league of their own was gay as FUCK.

As far as Molly’s fashion goes, I love her lack of pink. I’m glad there’s a doll out there that isn’t hyper-gendered, and I wish there were more dolls like her out there.

With sweaters coming into fashion in the 1920s and 30s, the sweaters of the 40s started to see more complex and colorful knits coming into style.

Much of the fashion of this era was dominated by frugality. Europe’s couture houses were shut down, and fabric was rationed. Hems were shortened and baggy cuts and useless frills were done away with. Britain introduced the “Utility Scheme” which hired designers to make chic ensembles using as few resources as possible. Because of this, separates and outfits that could be made with scraps of fabric were very popular, and at-home knitting and sewing continued to be highly popular.

“After the United States entered World War II in 1941, companies began to experiment with various materials in anticipation of rationing and shortages. This example is a prototype from Nina-Fay Foundations, which uses plastic for closures and stays instead of the usual metal. Although metal was not ultimately rationed, the company was experimenting with alternatives to metal zippers and hooks in the event that it was needed for the war effort.”

(The Met Museum)

Women were taking men’s jobs and taking on masculine roles

But they were still expected to maintain a certain level of femininity, “To give our boys something to fight for.”

Because of all of this, the gender politics of the 1940s are really complicated and interesting.

[saleemb]

Sabtja; Sabine came back after the altercation with the Soul Riders and MC. (she grumpy guys) I'm so sorry I struggle with drawings recently, so uh... Have this little food, I may draw them soon tho <3 (happy bday lesbians, have two lesbians) --- Katja was lazily running her hand over her violin, the clouds passing and Mortifa peacefully grazing making a good distraction as she patiently waited for Sabine to come back with the fireworks. Katja wasn't really reassured when Sabine told her about MC, her blatant flirting with them, it was... Unusual. She knew Sabine, she'd never have thought of the Dark Rider Malumi being openly flirting with someone, like this. It's after two hours of long wait and battle of thoughts that she finally saw Khaan and Sabine approaching her. "Took you long enough-" She started, a scowl on her face. But she quickly noticed that something was off. Sabine looked a bit... Off, exhausted maybe ? "What in the world were you doing ?!" The Ice Witch suddenly said, standing up from her spot in the grass to force Sabine to get down from that horse. "Hey, hey, calm lil weasel." Sabine snorted, dismounting Khaan gracefully. She quickly took care of the fireworks before making a disgusted face as she touched the sticky cardboard. "Fucking- Those Soul Riders..." She growled, throwing the box away, now totally useless. Katja tried to grab it but quickly understood what was the problem, seeing the soda spill everywhere in the grass near them. "Good job ! I waited 2 hours for you, only because you were flirting with that-" "I wasn't flirting." Sabine cut her immediately, giving her her most intimidating look. And even if it didn't work on Katja anymore, she knew she'd say the truth, at least. "Well, we don't even have the fireworks ! Good job Miss 'I think I can handle everything alone' !" There was a silence before Sabine reached for her saddlebag, rummaging for a few seconds before taking out multiple small bricks of juice, tossing one at Katja. "Shut up and drink, it could've been worse." She rolled her eyes, sitting near the grass spot where Katja was seated a few minutes ago. The other Dark Rider quickly followed and sat besides her, too busy opening her juice to be mad. "I wasn't flirting." Sabine repeated, in a much softer voice, laying in the grass. She had the straw at the corner of her mouth, mindlessly chewing on it. "Does it bother you ?" "... Nah" Katja replied without much hesitation, sipping her juice like a small bird. "Who am I to be concerned about your love life ?" She mumbled, laying besides her. "Who you are..." It actually made Sabine think, her red eyes shifting from the clouds to Katja's face. That damn face, she could pinch those cheeks for hours. She stared at her for a few seconds before looking back at the sky. "Maybe more than a friend." "A best friend ?" The other woman asked. Sabine shook her head, letting out a sigh she didn't know she was holding in. "Do you even believe in love ?" Katja asked curiously. "Dunno" The muscular woman started, but quickly noticed that it wouldn't be enough of an answer. "I did everything, everything that led us to this, that was for you." Malumi added, Katja fell silent, sipping her juice. "So you love me ?" "Mhm" Katja let out a little laugh before finishing her juice, satisfied. She won, again.

--- (plaise forgive ma bad enlissh :c)

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 8: The disaster

The officer who’s been talking turns on a flashlight and shines it through the window of the door into the rest of the cafe and swings it around, squinting. I look away before the light passes over me. There isn’t much point to what he’s doing, because the shop lights are on, but he’s clearly doing it to be an asshole.

Then he states, “We’d like to interview the others in your establishment.”

“I’ll ask them if they’ve seen him,” Kimberly says. Then she turns to the rest of us and shouts, “Have any of you seen [deadname] or know where he is?”

We all shake our heads. 

I don’t look back to acknowledge while I do this, just in case my retinas are reflective. I am in my human disguise, but that only works if one of my tells doesn’t give it away.

“Nope!” Kimberly reports back to the police officer.

“We’d like to search the premises.”

“You’ll have to come back with a warrant to do that.”

“We can do that,” the officer says with a bit more volume and irritation. “What are you all doing in there?”

“After hours staff meeting, sir,” Kimberly reports.

Nathan is doing a great job of looking official and imposing, without looking exactly threatening, while standing next to Kimberly. He’d normally be the one to talk to the police like this, and he’s usually very good at it. But Kimberly beat him to the punch.

The officer scowls and says something to his partner, then asks, “What about?”

“The dragon,” Kimberly says, looking a bit more serious and earnest. “We need to figure out what to do about her. She’s turning out to be a real disaster.”

That does not go over my head, and I cannot believe she just said that with an even tone of voice.

Miriam smirks and stifles a snicker.

Jill shushes her.

And it’s at that the officer relaxes.

“That’s understandable,” he says a bit less audibly. Then louder again, “You let us know if you see him again. You call it in, you hear? We’ll take care of him. Have a good night, and don’t stay here too late.”

“You got it! Yes, sir!”

As the police go about leaving, Kimberly and Nathan make their way back to our circle.

And Ptarmigan puts her sketchbook away and says, “I can do that all night, every night.”

“Do what?” Kimberly asks.

“Subtly keep the authorities from really bothering you.”

“Why were they here in the first place, then?”

“Extreme circumstances, and I slipped up,” Ptarmigan replies. “Fixed it, though. This probably works out better, anyway.”

“How so?”

“They came, they saw, and they feel like they did their job,” the Artist of Nightmares explains.

Cerce leans forward, “So, now Meg is wanted on suspicion for causing a car wreck?”

“Anurak says she didn’t even come near it,” Caleb speaks up, looking at his phone.

“I didn’t,” I type. “That was Anurak. I was in the sky, though. Circling. Everyone saw me. Interested.” It’s so much easier for me to report facts now, but I think I’m coming back to myself from being stunned by the onslaught of “observations” from my friends.

It’s weird. The shock of adrenaline from the police makes it easier for me to think. It’s washed my other emotions free of my mind.

Rhoda really did invite me to spend the night with her, if I get really serious about something.

She said that if this was just a story, then what she’d been doing was something she never wanted to do. The role she was playing. And it doesn’t occur to me right away what role that was. So I consider her next statement that I remember, which was that if it all wasn’t just a story, she wasn’t doing everything for just me.

I thought we were doing everything for each other. Well. OK, for all the dragons in the city, originally, which is basically for me, yes. But once we’d identified just who and what Säure is, then it became clear the scope of things.

Except, it kind of starts to hit me. Probably because of the whole useless lesbian disaster thing.

What was Rhoda doing just before she left? She was telling me who and what I was.

That’s all she did in this meeting. And I wasn’t really ready to hear it. Which is pretty typical of the hero of a sto – Ah.

I start to sink in my chair, I feel so fucking embarrassed.

I think I can puzzle this out so many different ways in the framework I’ve made for myself.

Like, if I’m a story and a myth, like I’ve come to believe thanks to Wentin, then maybe I can’t be the hero. The hero would be someone else.

And I think I can make that fit a lot of the point that Rhoda might have been trying to make, but not all of it. Except she explicitly said, she doesn’t see me as a story or a myth. And the others agree.

Maybe I’m the story of a dragon who’s become a person. A story who’s become a person. Like Kim, Cerce, and Kimberly were saying. But then, that means I’m just a person now. Like I’d been striving to believe and fight for a few weeks ago.

But, if that’s the case, then how can I break physics with the power of narrative like I’ve done?

Do I have to choose? One thing or the other? The solidarity and comfort of being a person, or the power of being a myth?

I think I know which one I’d rather have, honestly, but the consequences scare me shitless.

As everyone is settling back down while talking about the encounter with the cops, and my brooding thoughts are dragging me further into my seat, Wentin makes a spooky whistling noise behind me and then speaks up.

“I am also done here,” it declares. “Meghan, I have more training for you. When you are ready for it, find me in the places you fear the most.”

And then it’s gone before anybody looks.

And I have a full body flashback.

—

Something small and hard hits me in the back of my right shoulder as I’m crouched over the Tonka tractor in the school sandbox. It bounces off me, stinging, and I see the rock arc over my head and land in the dirt.

It’s noon, of course, being lunch, and there’s enough sun that my shadow is stark against the ground beside me.

When this happened, I had turned to face my assailants, four of the boys. And the big sandy blonde one had been yelling at me. And nothing after that went down the way I would have liked.

But this time, out of the corner of my eye I see my shadow transform and unfold as I crouch forward onto all four legs, stretching wings, tail and neck out, to work out the kinks, and screech.

And this time, when I turn, my vision widening as I do to encompass the entire schoolyard as it should, what I see are children desperately trying to turn and run fast enough to get away from me.

My prey drive kicks in and I chase them down, just as I did in my imagination a hundred times over that day.

The visit to the nurse’s office will be different this time.

It won’t be my blood.

—

I may have snarled, but I’m surrounded by friends in my favorite coffee shop.

“Hey, Meghan,” Bri asks, “Are you OK?”

Chairs are knocked over and I’m no longer disguised. I’m fully me.

No one’s hurt, but I probably should have gone to counseling today.

I look around and find my tablet on the floor below my chest, so I draw it out and type, “Startled. Wentin did something. I think.”

I think.

“Yeah, it does that to me too,” Nathan says.

“I go,” I say. “Need alone.” Then I pick up my tablet and start putting it into my purse.

But Kimberly comes forward and says, “Hey, it’s OK. You just had a fight today with the biggest dragon anyone’s seen. We’re all jumpy. Have a sit down and I’ll make you some tea. I think we’ve got more planning to do after you’ve calmed down. Like about how you’re gonna go up and see Rhoda.”

“No,” I say.

I mean, she’s right. That’s what I need to do. But I’m not ready to do it. And to get myself ready, safely, I think I need my rooftop, as dangerous as that might be.

It’s way past sunset.

But I’ll be awake, pacing. I’ll be ready if Säure tries anything.

“No,” I repeat and finish what I’m doing. “Me. Go. Now.”

Cerce leans over to look Kimberly in the face and says, “Let her go. I think she knows what she needs. We’ve got this.” Then to me, “Meghan, we’ve got this. We’ll figure this all out. We’ve got all the knowledge and the tools. You take all the time you need.”

“It’s true,” Ptarmigan says, and Chapman looks at her.

“Hold up,” Chapman says, and rushes over to my side as I’m headed for the door. Sie looks me in the eye. I don’t even need to turn my head. And sie says, “I’m gonna come up there. Just for a few minutes, OK? The roof, right? I want to make sure you’re safe. Then I’ll leave you alone.” Then she turns to Bri and Miriam, “Can I use the chalk you use for your menu boards?”

Miriam gestures to the front, “There’s a tub of it under the counter. Use as much as you need. We’ll get more before we need to change the menu.”

“Thank you.”

—

It’s interesting to watch as Chapman wordlessly scrawls out the pattern of an esoteric and intricate circuit around me.

In the dark, the chalk glows.

But, I’m already left to my thoughts, and the company isn’t at all distracting.

I have so much to consider. So much to review and re-examine.

If my childhood is really where I began to learn to be a person, then not only is it part of my story, so is the rest of my adolescence and adulthood.

I was never who I was back then, but I was there. It was still me.

I know of trans people who were more dissociated than I was. Who, in their transition, the shell of the person they’d been pretending to be either shattered and took huge swaths of memories with it, or turned out to be a whole other person sharing their body with them. Maybe they’d have DID for a month or so until they worked it out. I definitely know some of them did that, worked it out, made peace with their old selves and reintegrated. And, of course, there are others who didn’t, who are still two or more people sharing a body.

I idly wonder if there are any people with DID who aren’t technically trans in some way.

I wonder if Astraia is trans, not for the first time. But that’s beside the point.

That didn’t happen to me.

The shell, the act, the way that I presented myself through my egg years was so thin. I did know what I was, at least in terms of being a dragon. And I guess I just leaned on the basic trauma responses of freeze and fawn, most of the time, to get through everything. There was definitely some fleeing. And a lot of daydreaming.

I was dissociated from my body and the world around me, not from myself.

Not that that makes me better than anyone else. It’s just what happened.

I’m pretty sure, at least. I can’t think of any time where it felt like I was a different person or someone had control of my body that wasn’t me.

But it still feels right to say that I was never the person a lot of other people wanted me to be, for the longest time. And I wasn’t fully present.

And in time, I ended up running away from everyone who hurt me just by looking at me, and I found myself in this building, with these neighbors and this coffee shop.

I haven’t been naming the shop because I can’t bear to give it a fake name like I’ve been slowly giving everything and everyone else. It’s too important to me. I want the truth of it to shine as brightly as possible.

The staff and the regulars there are people, apparently, who saw me before I finally got to see myself. And I’ve already said that in so many ways, but it’s amazing how incredible that is. It’s amazing how rare.

And then here was Rhoda, maybe seeing something even more in me than that.

She literally gave me my voice.

She didn’t make it.

It wasn’t an enchantment or spell or Art.

She just found it free in the app store and then paid a little bit for the pro version, and gave it to me.

Maybe she had to look hard for it, though. Because, out of curiosity, I’ve looked at a bunch of other AAC apps that are out there, and so many of them really suck. Or, at least, they’re not suited to me and my needs. Rhoda found just the right one.

She’s also invited me regularly back to her apartment for a nightly evening of tea and conversation, despite how I’d been attacked in my own by Joel that day she gave me my voice.

And that’s the same day I met Chapman, who’s doing what sie can to take care of me now.

Chapman, whom I still goofily enamored with, when I think about it. But sie has said we have all of the time in the world to figure that out, and now I know what sie means by that, and I don’t feel so rushed to get to know hir.

We can put a pause on our friendship, or partnership, or whatever we’ll be, until I’ve worked things out with Rhoda. Which is nice, because Rhoda is clearly uncomfortable around Chapman to the extreme.

They’ve worked together. They’ve cooperated. They haven’t really even fought. But Rhoda’s drawn her line, and Chapman’s on the other side of it.

And I thought I was, too. But apparently, I’m not? Maybe I’m right on the line.

I look off toward the East, where we all last saw Säure flying.

I’d really like to see him destroyed. And everyone like him. But, honestly, I always have. Mostly, I need him, specifically, out of my hair.

Which is an interesting need, because I don’t have hair.

Eh, it’s an idiom.

What is it that Rhoda sees in me?

I’m not such a disaster that I can’t see, at this point, that she wouldn’t have given me this chance if she didn’t feel like she needed me in her life for some reason.

Maybe I already give her something without even knowing it.

Maybe it’s time for me to go and find out what that is.

Chapman’s just finishing up hir work, and when sie’s done sie comes over to me and says, “If Säure comes anywhere near this building, this will give him a huge, distracting surprise. And it should give you time to escape. Just jump off the side and hide in the alley, or run. On the ground. You know the idea. And, when you’re ready to leave, if he hasn’t shown up yet, try not to smudge it. It’ll still be useful for the night. There’s a path to the hatch, and I’m going to take it now.”

I do wonder how other cities are handling their big fucking billionaires. If any of them are also dragons. Do they have their own Artists of… what? Doing whatever it is they do to protect them?

If the Artists are in control of everything, they’ve let the billionaires exist. And if other billionaire dragons are as big as Säure, it is kind of on them, then, isn’t it?

Säure’s the only one who’s intimated that’s how it works.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You have a good night, Meg. And good luck,” Chapman says. “I need to go keep an eye on Ptarmigan. And Cerce is right. We’ve got this. It’s a complicated knot, but I happen to make knots. And Ptarmigan unravels them, in her way.”

I bow my head.

“Your family cares about you,” Chapman says. “That’s what anybody really needs.”

Kind of a weird thing to hear from one of the Artists, actually. But probably true.

And then sie leaves.

My family.

Did I ever mention I have a younger sister? Four years younger than me. And she’s doing pretty well for anyone living in this world. Raising her own family down in Seattle.

My parents visit her pretty regularly.

I haven’t been, because I didn’t have the money or the means.

But it occurs to me now that I could just fly there now. And if I’m quiet and respectful about it, I could probably avoid fights with any of the dragons down there now.

Heck. They might even have a Seattle message board or Discord server that puts mine to shame. Just pop on there and let them know when and where I’ll be, visiting family who I’m not sure even really wants to see me, and I’d probably be OK.

But that’s not the family Chapman was talking about.

I stand up and fold myself into my magical girl faerie princess outfit and start walking toward the hatch while I adjust my purse to hang crossbody.

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

how is it possible to be this delusional about a ship? And that too so confidently? I really hope jks relationship gets revealed. This useless cult needs to die.

https://www.tumblr.com/bookscandlesnbts/731816881332387840/i-really-dont-get-it-he-just-arrived-yesterday?source=share

People keep forgetting about late August last year when Jimin went back to Korea after spending a couple of weeks in NYC. He arrived in Korea and a couple of hours later Jungkook was having dinner, alone. It was that time Jungkook went out to eat literally everyday, I think trying out different meat restaurants. Well, Jimin arrived back in Korea after weeks and they didn't even get dinner together lol.

Once or twice might be a coincidence, but if it keeps happening every single time... Wake tf up!!!

It's also so deranged to think two people who are, on the record, FRIENDS have to hide and can't hang out like normal friends do. Literally anyone who's ever been in a gay relationship can tell you that you go out and have a normal life like everyone else does. I get livid everytime I have to see cis straight women talking about being gay and making it sound like it's a Tarantino movie. Newsflash: gay people live normal lives!! The two females friends next to you at that restaurant last week? Probably lesbians! Probably bisexual! The guy bagging your groceries yesterday? Probably gay!! Was there a sign over their heads? It's not like Jimin and Jungkook or any gay person has to go and sit on "Reserved For Gay People" part of a public space.

I think very confidently that Jimin is gay, and that several people around him know that. Did that stop Jimin from having men hug him in his choreography or is it stopping him from getting on all fours and showing his butt to the camera? Is there a flashing sing on his head because of it? No. He just lives his life normally.

"They see each other at home" ALL THE TIME? Girl.... Nobody survives a relationship like that. Even couples have to go out and do regular stuff, regularly. That's what healthy is.

And that's allegedly people who've been married since 1950. Yeah, anyone can survive a relationship when you have jobs and children and you go out and live your life like any normal human being. Now I'd like to see them try to survive a relationship like the one they've made up in their heads about jikook. Scared, lonely, secluded, constantly lying to the point they can't even talk about food. Let's see how long they last.

Even more so, months passed and Jimin said Jungkook didn't cook that meal for him. If they spend SOOOO much time together at home, they would've had time to have a meal together.

Somehow they spent so much time together at home with nothing to do, but Jimin was just informing Jungkook about letter when he arrived at the studio. So much time together in private and somehow Jungkook was wondering who wrote the second verse in SMF2. He didn't know Jimin was doing fan calls. He didn't know when would Jimin be recording for music shows.

Forget about seeing each other. That's all stuff you can literally know by texting someone.

Anyways. This is so boring and I can't keep making lists of all the times they didn't see each other for weeks or probably months.

From here on to two years there'll be more Jungkook once again filmed with women and people will still be acting insane. Larries still act like nothing has changed between Louis and Harry and they've been hiding a gay relationship since 2011. That's exactly the kind of life taekookers and jikookers are headed to.

[stargazingellie]

lazarus is risen

chapter five: the theseus problem

(masterlist) (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)

hello beautiful people! here's the fifth installment :)

synopsis: After deciding to let Abby live, Ellie has returned to Jackson. But given everything she's lost, it no longer feels like home. She's sad, she's confused, and above all else, she is so, so very lonely. So when a group of strangers shows up and offers her a second chance, she might just take them up on that. Ellie must decide between staying in Jackson – and living with the ghosts of her past – or leaving in search of new meaning. Whatever she decides, her choice will have far-reaching consequences �� not just for herself, or for Jackson, but for all of humanity.

Or,

Ellie saves the world, maybe?

(ellie williams x reader, post-tlou2, useless lesbians, slow burn, cross country road trip, lots of references to greek mythology, etc.)

Theseus: Legendary Greek hero known for his many deeds, including slaying the Minotaur in the Labyrinth of King Minos.

[Lucy]

As she packed their belongings next morning, Lucy noticed the large water jugs in the back of the truck bed were beginning to run low.

“Hey, is there a river or something around here? We could use a refill,” she said, motioning to the jugs.

Alvaro pulled a map out of the glove compartment and held it flat against the side of the truck. He pointed to a spot near some intersecting highways and said, “We’re right outside of Cheyenne. Looks like there’s a big lake a few miles north of the city. Some kind of nature reserve, maybe. Could be worth checking out.”

Within a few minutes, they were on their way. Lucy settled into the middle seat with her feet propped up on the armrest in front of her. To her right, Ellie let out a wide yawn.

“Hey, no yawning allowed,” Lucy teased. “How’d you sleep?”

“Alright,” Ellie replied, trying to stifle another yawn. “Just haven’t slept outside in a while.”

“Well, we’ll have to find you some coffee or something.”

Ellie scrunched her nose in disgust. “God, no. Anything but coffee.”

Lucy laughed. “Okay, not coffee. How do you feel about tea?”

“Better than burnt bean water.”

Lucy looked at her inquisitively. “You know tea is just leaf water, right?”

Ellie shrugged and smiled, looking out the window. “I said what I said.”

A short drive later, they got their first view of the lake in question. A large building with a glass roof stood on its shore with tall trees and long vines growing out of holes in its shattered roof. On the side of the road was a weathered sign whose letters were still barely visible:

Cheyenne Botanic Gardens Visitors Entrance

“A botanical garden! Alvaro, did you pick this just for me?” Dr. Reynolds teased. Alvaro stayed silent as he drove, but in the rear view mirror Lucy could see a small smile creep onto the officer’s otherwise stern face.

When they got out, Alvaro and Jacobs immediately retrieved the large jugs from the back of the truck. As they made their way to the edge of the lake, Lucy asked, “Can we help at all?”

Keeping his back to her as he dipped the first jug beneath the water, Jacobs said flatly, “No, we’ve got it under control. We’ll get going after an iodine treatment. Just sit tight.”

Lucy shot Ellie a knowing look and rolled her eyes. “That’ll take at least half an hour. Can we walk around at least?”

“Sure, just don’t wander too far. Stay within earshot,” Jacobs replied.

Dr. Reynolds pointed to the path skirting around the lake. “It looks like there’s a nature walk along the shore. There are signs posted about local flora and fauna.” He began down the path to the right without bothering to see if anyone was following. “You know, plains wildlife is incredibly fascinating due to its…” His words became unintelligible as he walked away, leaving the two girls standing alone together.

Lucy looked at Ellie, who seemed amused by the older man’s behavior.

“He really loves his job, doesn’t he?” Ellie asked.

Lucy watched her father as he became engrossed by the leaves on a nearby tree. “Yeah, he does.” She looked around, taking in their surroundings. “There’s a sign that said ‘Labyrinth’ that way,” she said, pointing down the path behind them. “That could be interesting, right?”

Ellie shrugged. “Yeah, I’m cool with whatever.”

Lucy gave the other girl’s arm a playful nudge. “Well don’t sound so excited.”

Ellie laughed. “Sorry, sorry.” She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “I have literally never heard something more interesting in my entire life. Is that better?”

Lucy grinned. “Much. Let’s go.”

As they walked, they came upon the large building with the glass roof. Around the back, a large door stood ajar, revealing the overgrown foliage within the building. Lucy stopped and peered at the towering plants inside. 

Coming up behind her, Ellie motioned to a sign just inside the entrance pointing towards the gift shop. “Think there’s anything good in there?”

“If you’re in the market for a souvenir t-shirt, maybe,” Lucy replied.

“You wanna check it out?” Ellie asked.

Lucy suddenly felt her pulse spike and palms start to sweat. As much as she loved the idea of getting lost among the dense greenery, the enormous plants blocked most of the sunlight coming from above, making it especially dark in the shadows.

“Oh, uh, I don’t know, Jacobs said not to wander,” she said uneasily.

“Okay, no worries. We can keep walking,” Ellie replied nonchalantly as she turned back towards the path.

Lucy’s eye caught on the faint scars lining Ellie’s arms from past encounters. She looked at the worn backpack slung over the other girl’s shoulders, and at the canvas shoes which seemed on the verge of falling apart. Everything about Ellie indicated that she had lived a long life outside the protective walls of a QZ – exactly the opposite of Lucy. Lucy suddenly felt incredibly insecure, and – though she couldn’t quite explain why – felt like she needed to prove herself to Ellie. Impress her, even.

“No, wait,” Lucy blurted out. “We should look around. There could be some useful stuff in there, right?” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

Ellie casually reached into her belt and pulled out a pistol. “Yeah, could be. You have a gun?”

Lucy reached in her bag to retrieve her weapon. “Oh, uh, yeah.” But I’ve never needed to use it, she thought to herself. 

Ellie stepped through the door and said, “Alright, c’mon.” Lucy took a deep breath, then followed Ellie inside.

From what they could see, the main room was empty. The only noise was the sound of a light breeze rustling the impressively large leaves of the overgrown plants. As they quietly made their way through the aisles of the exhibit, Lucy became transfixed by the girl in front of her. Her strong arms, the tattoo on her wrist. The way the green light of the foliage brought out the green of her eyes. Lucy shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts.

They came to the wide entrance of an adjacent room whose contents were completely obscured by the thick offshoots of a low hanging tree. Ellie stood to the side and pulled back a branch to make a small hole. “Ladies first,” she said with a playful smile.

Lucy met her gaze and felt a sudden warmth rush to her cheeks. She returned a shy smile and ducked under the branch. When she stood up, she noticed a large fern to her left. She pointed to the plant as she turned around and whispered, “Look, you’re matching!”

Ellie made her way under the branch and rolled her eyes. “Ha-ha, very funny,” she whispered back, flashing a grin.

Suddenly, Ellie’s grin disappeared as her eyes caught on something over Lucy’s shoulder. Lucy spun back around and saw exactly what Ellie was looking at. Lucy almost let out a small cry, but before it could escape her Ellie’s strong hand clamped over her mouth. Ellie kept a strong grip on her as they watched a clicker pass just a few feet in front of them.

Lucy’s heart was beating so loud she was surprised the infected didn’t attack them right then and there. Lucy felt Ellie’s chest pressed against her back, and noticed the other girl’s heart beating just as hard. They stood there, frozen, until the clicker was far enough away and Ellie could loosen her grip.  Ellie quietly replaced her gun with a knife, and gave a stay here signal as she moved away from their hiding spot. Lucy watched Ellie silently follow the clicker,  put it in a chokehold, and sink her knife hilt-deep into its neck. She slowly lowered it to the ground as it gave a few final twitches. Once it lay still, Ellie gave the O.K.  for Lucy to follow.

Lucy made her way over to where Ellie stood, heart still pounding. “Thanks,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Don’t mention it. Look,” Ellie whispered as she pointed across the room to a doorway labeled Gift Shop. “Almost there.”

“Almost there,” Lucy repeated, more to herself than to Ellie.

After carefully making their way through the overgrown aisles, Ellie slowly pried one of the Gift Shop doors open. Lucy flinched as the door gave a loud creeeeak, but nothing stirred. On the opposite wall, glass doors leading back outside allowed sunlight to spill in and cast a warm glow around the room. Ellie investigated the wall to their right as Lucy wandered to the left, letting her fingers trail over the racks of clothing. She made her way to a display near the register, which held packs of wildflower seeds organized by climate region. She found the packets labeled Southeastern United States and tucked them in her bag.

A voice came from right behind her and made her jump. “Find anything good?” it asked. Lucy spun around to find a pair of green eyes looking down at her.

She laughed at her own jumpiness and replied, “Yeah, I found some wildflower seeds. What about you?”

Ellie held up a t-shirt that read:

I SURVIVED  THE CHEYENNE LABYRINTH

“I win,” she said with a smirk.

“Woah, okay. Didn’t realize it was a competition.” Lucy took the shirt and held it up to inspect it. “Guess we really have to see this labyrinth now, huh?”

“You know, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this.” Lucy frowned.“I mean, they could at least have a Minotaur statue or something.”

She and Ellie walked along the edge of a circular clearing. In front of them lay concentric rings sandwiched inside of each other, forming multiple circular paths. Knee-high strips of grass formed buffers between the cracked cement walkways.

“A Mino-what?” Ellie asked.

“You know, the half-man, half-bull who lived in an underground maze. The Athenians had to sacrifice kids to it until some guy named Theseus killed it.”

Ellie winced. “Oh, yikes.”

“Yeah. Its mom fell in love with a bull and gave birth to a monster. There was nothing else to feed it so it just ate people.” Lucy shrugged. “The Greeks were unhinged like that.”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” Ellie thought for a second, then said, “You think it knew what it was doing?”

Lucy furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if it’s half-human, do you think it felt bad about hurting other humans? Like was it aware of what it was doing?”

Lucy pondered her question. “I guess I’ve never really thought about it like that. I hope not. I mean, he didn’t choose to be born like that, right? It just happened to him. It’d be kind of horrible if he was just stuck watching himself do those things without being able to control it.” She shook her head. “I can not believe you’re making me sympathize with a cow right now.”

Ellie held up a finger. “Half-cow,” she corrected.

Lucy rolled her eyes and gave Ellie a playful smack on the arm. “You know what I mean.”

As they meandered their way through the rings, Lucy stopped abruptly at one of the cracks in the pavement. Weather and time had worn away at its edges and loose pieces of cement lay scattered around the seam. She crouched down to inspect a golf-ball sized chunk in her palm.

“That’s some interesting, uh… cement,” Ellie said.

Lucy remained silent for a moment as she gazed at the object in her hand. Memories of her brother floated around her head. “Do you think people are like that?” she asked, almost inaudibly.

“Like… what?”

She tore her gaze away from her hand and peered up at Ellie. “When people get infected, you think they’re still in there?”

Ellie’s face fell as she understood what Lucy was asking. “I don’t know. Maybe for a little bit, but I hope not.”

Lucy looked back at the object in her hand. “Yeah, me too.” She placed the piece of cement in her bag as she stood up. “I hope I never have to find out.”

Ellie pursed her lips and nodded in agreement. As they walked back towards the truck, Lucy felt Ellie nudge her shoulder.

“Sooo… what’s with the cement? You building a road or something? ‘Cause you’ll need more than just that piece, you know.”

Lucy smiled to herself. “No, it’s for, uh… it’s for a collection.”

“A… cement collection?”

Lucy laughed. “No, wise guy. A rock collection. I know it wasn’t really a rock, but it’s close enough.” She paused before continuing, “My brother… he used to collect them around the QZ and from little research trips our dad took us on. Said it was a reminder of everywhere he’d been. After he died I started doing it to feel closer to him and I just… never stopped, I guess. It sounds dumb when I say it out loud, though.”

Ellie shook her head. “No, it’s not dumb. It’s… sweet.” She smiled warmly. 

Lucy felt herself blush and quickly averted her gaze. “Thanks,” she smiled.

They rejoined the rest of the group just as the water jugs were being loaded back onto the truck. Dr. Reynolds smiled at them as they approached. 

“You missed out on some very cool trees. Did you see anything interesting?”

Lucy looked at Ellie, who raised her eyebrows as if to say, You wanna tell him? 

“Uh… no, pretty uneventful,” Lucy said. “Visited the Labyrinth over there. Pretty underwhelming.”

“Ah, bummer. Did they at least have a Minotaur statue?”

“No! Can you believe that?” Lucy laughed.

Alvaro locked the gate on the back of the truck. “Alright, we’re good to go.”

They all climbed back into the cab of the truck and took their usual seats. As they pulled out of the parking lot, Lucy resumed her usual position with her feet on the middle console. And, as usual, three people squished into the back seat meant her and Ellie’s bodies were forced to touch. 

Un-usual, however – and slightly unnerving though not entirely unpleasant – were the butterflies Lucy felt in her stomach because of it.

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here my friend, only mildly hung over but still severely disappointed, just coming into your inbox to share my random finale complaints that have been stockpiling.

Already been said many times but why Marisol again?? Just why??

You know what the awkwardness of the daddy talk reminded me of?? Remember in RNM 3x01 when Alex came back and told Forest "a man has needs" or some shit and we all collectively cringed away from our screens?? Its was sooo weirdly out of place and character and that's exactly what the dinner scene is. Also notably written by a former showrunner who won't stop fucking up storylines at every opportunity.

How exactly is the Chris leaving BS supposed to last more than like, 1 week tops??? When Helena (and Ramon) tried to take him 7 years ago and get their redo he was just a kid, but now he's a teenager whose been raised by Eddie Diaz. Not saying he's ready for college or to make his own housing decisions or anything 🙄, but his personality and preferences are not going to change much. He's not the moldable little kid anymore, and the moment Helena realizes that and Chris realizes that's what they wanted him for wouldn't jump on the next flight?? I know there's so much about that arc that's utter nonsense but did the writers put any thought into the characters at all??

Anyway, I probably should do my job for a few hours before I go completely off the rails, hope your own recovery is going well!!

Hey bestie! If it seems like you haven't heard from me all day, that's because I girlbossed too close to the post limit sun reblogging every petty, irritated, frustrated, what-in-the-actual-fuck-was-that post. I scheduled a bunch too do drop after the doors open on the post limit jail cells, this one among them.

I'm sitting here with my twisted peach tea, fresh off of work and a trip to the store (it was awful and full of people and only one lane open that could sell alcohol, AND they didn't have the honeycomb ice cream I specifically went there to get and try out with my earl grey tea ice cream because the universe hates me), just still so SO frustrated that once again they let KR swoop in at the last minute and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the finale. Not even anything Buddie related, just in making literally ANY storyline all season have a good narrative payoff that felt like we went somewhere. Even the most watchable part of the episode (the Mara reunion) fell flat because we didn't see Hen and Karen putting up the fight they set up with the councilwoman, and Maddie and Chim had time all season to talk about maybe having another child, or fostering to make them able to swoop in at the last minute make sense but instead it just came out of the blue! (And don't get me started on the whole "this lesbian couple can't have a kid but the straight couple runs into no issues despite Chim being involved on scene in the death of the councilwoman's son).

ANYWAY. Let's talk about your bullet points please, because I have THOUGHTS.

1/3. Marisol was literally less than useless and if they HAD to avoid an off-screen hiatus breakup (they didn't need to, no one remembered her, it would have been fine) they easily could have ditched her in 7x05 and it would have affected absolutely nothing.

IMAGINE Buck is the one taking Chris to the movies and walks in on "Shannon" and Eddie? We get some Buddie angst with them having to talk out what happened because Buck was worried before but now he's WORRIED, and we could have gotten a more heartfelt resolution with Chris by allowing Eddie and Chris to have one single conversation this whole season, and maybe deciding together to go to therapy in a couple weeks when he gets back from his pre-planned summer vacation to Texas.

Then start s8 with Chris having delayed coming back all summer, and Ramon and Helena facilitating getting him into camps and stuff so he "couldn't" come back and Eddie starting to get fed up and maybe being ready to go to Texas himself to get Chris when whatever disaster the opening is strikes. Cue Chris seeing it on the news and panicking and demanding to go home and see his dad. It would be satisfying to watch, and would tug on the heartstrings without ripping them out for no good goddamn reason and punishing Eddie so severely while also NOT actually dealing with his issues about Shannon!! *screams into pillow* If we never see or hear about her again it will be too soon. They have drug this out past the point of any purpose and it needs to be put to fucking rest, 25ft down so it can't crawl back up. Doused in holy water just in case.

It really feels like they had a plan for Buck with the whole Natalia thing fizzling out and breaking up which I actually am glad we didn't see because as this season proved, it is LONG past time to leave Buck withering away in unfulfilling relationships he don't know how he got into in the first place, but once that was gone he got the coming out bit and....nothing much else all season and even that was one episode and then a couple minutes of screentime sprinkled throuout that used those precious seconds to show us how incredibly ill-matched they are. While Eddie, who was SUPPOSED to have the coming out arc (that was maybe more in-depth and planned to ACTUALLY deal with the Shannon of it all), was also left with a "well what do we do with him now" arc. Spoiler alert, it was NOT THIS. So no, I don't think they had the time in the shortened time frame they had to put literally ANY thought into what to do with these characters.

Point 2. My friend. Not only are you EXACTLY right about the tonal issue matching that cringe AF scene from RNM, but I will raise you that, AND everything about 2x06, including fandom swooping in to claim everyone who didn't fall all over themselves about that scene being amazing was a) homophobic and b) puritanical, pearl-cultching, and uneducated. Oh! and c) just needs to learn how to fucking multi-ship and be happy with whatever is on screen because it couldn't POSSIBLY be better, and you should just accept it now. 😒😒😒

It's gonna be a loooooong fucking hiatus but here's hoping Timmy got all the Lone Star brainworms out and can not just pack a punch in the disaster opening (RIP to everyone who didn't like the cruise ship disaster, I had a great time and it was the best opening in YEARS), but can actually follow through on storylines and emotional beats all season. And maybe get more calls??? On the weewoo show?? It was always and issue on LS too which I thought was Rob Lowe syndrome an all the "Owen things firefighting is boring" stuff but maybe it's budget constraints? Yo! ABC! Give us the cash for good emergencies! And of course, they need to get Kristen the FUCK out of the writers room. Please, literally ANY cop show out there, we are literally BEGGING you to take her off our hands!

Bright side, I have been working on my Countdowns fic (I posted a little bit last week and I want to try and work on it more now that all my shows are on hiatus), and while *I* may be the worlds slowest writer, I just know the Buddie fandom is going to come through with some BANGER canon-fix-it fics. So cheers to that, and lets pray the muse smiles on me astronaut!Buck/medic!Eddie so I can actually contribute something. I'm gonna go make a flatbread spinach and artichoke pizza, watch something, literally ANYTHING else, and oggle my d20 Bad Kids dice that arrived today, my Ayda pin, and my Jawbone quote mug and not think about 911 for a little bit. (until I'm allowed out of post-limit jail and can go back to being a petty bench on main).

Take a breath, we can get through this hiatus together! At least we know we have Oliver and Ryan on our side, so let's make some Buddie content for them to send to each other to help THEM through this rough time.

[xoxoladyaz]

AU-gust, Day 8: Robots and Androids

WARNING: THIS IS A CROSSOVER WITH FNAF. (Listen, I told you things were about to get weird so please fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a wild ride 🩷)

“This might be the stupidest job we’ve ever had.”

“Are you kidding?” Robin yelled from across their homey two-bedroom. “These outfits are so much better than Scoops!”

“First of all, that’s saying literally nothing, and second of all, you’re not the one wearing safety cone orange!” Stevie yelled back as she examined her reflection in the mirror. Her new work uniform consisted of a long-sleeved bright-orange shirt with the Fazbear Entertainment logo in bright blue on her front breast pocket, paired with fitted black trousers that had bright orange piping running up and down the edge.

(Whomever worked in the staff uniform design department of Fazbear Entertainment definitely had it out for her.)

“Oh shut up, that color looks great on you,” Robin retorted as she strolled into Stevie’s bedroom. She was dressed in the Roxanne Wolf version of her outfit – lilac and lime green which was so, so much cuter in Stevie’s opinion. “Besides, you have those lightning bolt earrings from our Bowie party that match perfectly.”

Stevie sighed and started flipping through her jewelry box. “Ugh, I guess. I still don’t know why we took this gig though.”

“You mean aside from the fact that Argyle got us these jobs in a literal day?”

“Uh, yeah, Robin! We’re working at the robot capital of the world and you hate robots.”

“Okay, first of all the Glamrocks aren’t robots, they’re animatronics,” Robin started numbering off on her fingers. “Secondly, Roxanne Wolf is a lesbian icon to whom I owe my allegiance and I see that eye-roll Stephanie Harrington, don’t give me that sass, and thirdly we’re working in the gift shop, we’ll, like, never see them in person.”

“Famous last words,” Stevie muttered, but Robin was already speeding into the hallway.

“Now stop stalling, dingus, it’s time to hit the Pizzaplex!”

/////

Stevie had to begrudgingly admit that working at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex wasn’t the worst job in the entire world. She got to spend all day with Robin (and make faces with her behind the backs of the really crazy parents) while staying warm, dry and ice-cream free. Which, speaking of, they also got free food with every shift which meant lunch and/or dinner breaks with Argyle (who worked in Chica’s Pizzaria and loved it, the maniac) and that was awesome.

(It was really hard to keep track of everyone now that they’d all been relocated from Hawkins and spread across the state of California; if Stevie thought about it too much, she’d get emotional, so she tried not to think about it.

Or about the fact that Eddie hadn’t texted her in a few weeks.)

Stevie even got to pick-up a few overtime shifts in the daycare on her off days which, hey, the faster she makes money, the faster she can get to cosmetology school.

(Did she have problems with the fact she was sharing babysitting duties with a glorified robot? Not really.

Did she understand how the toddlers weren’t scared by Eclipse when he was in his Moon phase? No, not even a little bit, that fucker was creepy.)

That didn’t mean there weren’t drawbacks to her job, of course. She and Robin averaged about twenty upset and entitled parental encounters daily combined, not to mention all of the crying children who were either upset that they weren’t getting exactly what they wanted or were upset that they weren’t getting what they wanted fast enough. Their all-time high of screaming kids was 41 and they drank a fuck ton of wine that night.

But the biggest problem about working at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex? Those goddamn animatronics. And not because Stevie was scared of them, oh no, no, it was because Robin was full of shit. Anytime one of the Glamrocks came within twenty feet of the gift shop she ducked for cover, and if it was Roxy? She was useless for a solid fifteen minutes afterwards every single time.

(“I think this officially qualifies you as a furry,” Stevie said after one particularly close encounter. Roxy had stopped to take pictures in front of the doorway and Robin had catapulted herself through the Montgomery Gator sweatshirt rack and crashed into Roxy’s plushie display and got absolutely buried.

“It really shouldn’t be that big of a surprise, Robs, this is how you always act when a pretty girl comes around - ”

“Stevie? Shut. Up.”)

It wouldn’t have been a problem if Robin and Stevie had remained posted at the gift shop, but no, the gods forever frowned upon Stephanie Harrington.

/////

“Harrington!” Her manager Roger barked as he power-walked past her, three weeks into her tenure at the Pizzaplex. “We’re running low on Freddy plushies out front, so I’m going to need you to go and get the next shipment from storage. Here,” he said, tossing her a new keycard that she (barely) managed to catch. “Second floor storage area behind Fazer Blast. There should be a dolly there for you to use. Thanks!” Roger hollered, and then he was off running after a mop-bot that was spreading paint around in the main atrium.

Stevie turned to look at Robin who was already shaking her head. “Nope, no way.”

“Aww c’mon Robin, please? I always go with you when we walk around the Pizzaplex.”

Robin rolled her eyes and was about to reply when the melodic voice of Roxanne Wolf echoed throughout the plaza. “Thank you, I am the best,” the Glamrock crooned, and Robin flushed bright red and threw herself into the gift shop.

Welp. Looks like Stevie was going to have to handle this solo.

/////

Question, why was Stevie handling this solo again? Because she’d passed about twenty janitorial bots on her way to the storage area, all of whom were just scooting around with nothing to do. 

Whatever.

There was a dolly back in the (dark and creepy) storage room, so she loaded up a brand new box of Freddy Fazbear plushies and made her way to the main elevator bank.

“Sorry, excuse me, pardon me,” she said on repeat as she walked past scores of rowdy children and their stressed parents. As she rounded the corner, she saw the elevator doors begin to close and she moved faster.

“Please hold!” She yelled, and the elevator doors stopped shutting. “Shit, thank you,” Stevie gasped as she rolled the cart in and wiped her eyes.

“No problem, superstar!”

Fuck.

Stevie whipped around to look at the other occupant of the elevator and – yep, it was the man (err, orange bear) himself, all 6’3” of animatronic rockstar Freddy Fazbear gazed down at her, his signature smile on his perfectly polished face.

Stevie barely noticed the elevator doors slide shut behind them, barely heard the tinny elevator music play as they started their descent.

“You’re - ”

“I’m Freddy Fazbear, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the animatronic intoned.

“Hi, yeah. I’m - ”

“Stephanie Harrington,” he interrupted, his eyes scanning her form with a bluish light. “You work in the gift shop.”

“How did you - ”

“I have access to the Pizzaplex’s employee directory. For security concerns.”

“Oh. Cool.”

She stood and stared at the bear, who stood and stared back at her. And then wiggled his ears.

(It was kind of cute.)

“Well, I - ”

The elevator suddenly screeched to a halt and Stevie barely managed to stop herself from tumbling to the ground – mainly because a pair of oversized orange paws gently caught her.

“We’re sorry,” an automated voice spoke over the elevator intercom, “but it appears that our elevators are experiencing a technical difficulty. Please remain calm and our staff will be with you shortly.”

Stevie groaned, slumping back against those orange paws. “Oh, great.”

“Not to worry, superstar!” Freddy said, and Stevie barely suppressed her flinch at his booming voice. “Our staff is highly qualified and perfectly capable of fixing any and all technical issues that may take place at the Pizzaplex. We will be out of here in no time!”

(Stevie had seen how long it took the staffbots to fix the soda fountain when it exploded; she didn’t share Freddy’s faith in this at all.)

“Good, glad to hear it,” she replied drily. She stood up and waved Freddy’s hands away (or, err, paws. His paws. Paws that followed her to make sure she wouldn’t fall again which wasn’t sweet, for fuck’s sake!)

“Well, Stephanie, how about we play a game?” Freddy asked as she Stevie slumped against the far wall. (No way she was going to stand for this.)

“Sure, Freddy. What game do you wanna play?”

Freddy’s ears wiggled again as he hummed (or made a humming sound; he couldn’t actually hum, could he?) “How about we play the Question Game? I always like to learn more about my friends!”

Aww, he thought they were friends. (Or he was programmed to say that, or think they were friends? Just how intelligent were these things? She should text Dustin later on and ask what he knew about Fazbear Entertainment.)

Still, Freddy continued to smile as he waited for her reply and yeah, okay, that was cute. “Sure, Freddy,” Stevie sighed, but she made sure to smile back at him. “Let’s play the Question Game.”

/////

They were in the elevator for a total of forty-five minutes, which gave Freddy and Stevie plenty of time to play the Question Game. Stevie learned all about Freddy’s favorite things to do at the Pizzaplex (play music with his friends, try to beat his old high score in Fazer Blast, dance at DJ Music Man’s shows whenever he had the chance), his best friend (Bonnie, who had been banged up pretty badly and was getting fixed somewhere offsite), his other best friend (Chica, they liked to do Jazzercise together), and his favorite thing to do in his free time (which was read, apparently? She wasn’t sure how the animatronic bear got his hands on copies of “the classics” and honestly wouldn’t have pegged him as a Dostoevsky fan but hey, apparently even orange animatronic bears can have depth?)

In turn, Stevie told him about her favorite things to do at the Pizzaplex (visit Argyle at Chica’s Pizzaria, laugh at Robin when she hid from Roxy), her best friend (Robin, who worked with her in the gift shop), her other best friends (Argyle and Nancy and Eddie and Jonathan and Chrissy), her family (well, Dustin and the Hopper-Byers’ at least), and her favorite thing to do in her free time (watch movies with Robin, which then led into a long conversation about what movies she’d seen and would recommend because while Freddy knows about movies he hasn’t seen a whole lot of them).

He also asked her questions about the world outside the Pizzaplex: where she was born (Hawkins), why she moved from Hawkins (an earthquake, which was the official cover story), what her dream job was (being a hairdresser, at which point Freddy said she should talk to Roxy and start training at her salon which was, again, very cute), and all about the places she’d seen and where she wanted to go next.

(“Probably down to Malibu,” she’d said, lost in thought. “I’d like to see those beaches. What about you, is there somewhere you’d like to go?”

“I – well.” Freddy paused, and for the first time, he appeared troubled. “I cannot leave the Pizzaplex.”

“Oh,” Stevie murmured and wow, that really fucking sucked, didn’t it? Sure, she was talking to a robot bear who was literally built to be children’s entertainment but he wasn’t really feeling like just a robot bear anymore, especially the more they talked and played the Question Game. And this might have been one really, really long con or programming thing but – what if it wasn’t? What if he was fully intelligent and he was really stuck here?

Like El and the lab, she thought, and then she was barely able to stop herself from tearing up.

“But if I could go somewhere else,” Freddy continued, unaware of Stevie’s inner turmoil, “I would also probably choose to go to the beach. I would like to see the sun on the water,” he finished quietly.)

Stevie didn’t know what to say, but thankfully the elevator started up again, so she was spared any sort of deeper introspection.

“See?” Freddy said, no trace of sadness in his voice at all, like it had never been there. “Good as new.”

“Yeah, you were right about that,” Stevie said, pushing herself to her feet. It was a little tricky to do so while the elevator was moving, but Freddy held out his hand and she grabbed hold without a second thought. “Thanks, Freddy.”

“You’re welcome, superstar,” Freddy replied with an ear wiggle. “Can I assist you with transporting your cart to the gift shop?”

Stevie grinned. “You know what, Freddy? That would be great.”

/////

“EVIL,” Robin hissed from behind the sales counter, her white knuckles gripping onto the laminated wood for dear life. “You are evil.”

“Hmm, what was that?” Stevie asked as she watched Freddy unbox (and gently stack) the plushies on the main console table. “I can’t hear you, Robin.”

Robin hissed an unintelligible reply but Stevie ignored her, watching instead as Freddy stepped back and clapped his hands together. “Perfect!” He turned and alighted that bright electronic smile towards Stevie. “Thank you for letting me help, superstar.”

“No, thank you for helping, Freddy. Come back and visit any time, you hear?”

“Absolutely.”

Stevie waited for Freddy to leave, but he didn’t; he just stood there and stared at her, letting the seconds pass them by.

“Uh, Freddy, sir?” An acne-riddled teen with “Benny” on his nametag cleared his throat. “We need you in Superstar Row for some Meet and Greets.”

“Oh, yes,” Freddy replied, like he wasn’t thinking, like he’d forgotten.

(He was still looking at Stevie.)

“It was nice talking with you, Stephanie,” he finally said, and with one final wave he thundered out of the gift shop, Benny at his heels.

Stevie turned to look at Robin, who was looking at her with confusion. “Huh.”

“Huh,” Stevie repeated, and she could practically feel herself blush the longer that Robin looked at her. Robin who, of course, sensed a perfect opportunity for revenge.

Robin who suddenly had a shit-eating grin on her face. “You know, I think that officially qualifies you as a furry, dingus.”

“Oh, fuck off, Robin.”

[ao3feed-piltovers-finest]

You've got a Nine to Five, so I'll Take the Night Shift

by VirgoFrog

Vi just wants Powder to be happy. Even if that means barely speaking to her and just letting her drown herself in her drawings and her strange engineering projects. But there's no way in hell she will give her up. Even if that means taking the weirdest job at the weirdest pizzeria, surrounded by the weirdest people. But this place has secrets, and she suspects the people around her know more than what they're letting on. Especially a certain police officer. God, how did her life get this weird?

Words: 1299, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), Five Nights at Freddy's (Movie 2023)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F

Characters: Jinx (League of Legends), Vi (League of Legends), Caitlyn (League of Legends), Silco (Arcane: League of Legends)

Relationships: Caitlyn/Vi (League of Legends)

Additional Tags: Jinx goes by Powder, Good Sister Vi, Powder as abby, Vi as mike, Caitlyn as vanessa, Vi Needs a Hug (League of Legends), basically their whole family is dead, Just like in canon, five nights at freddy's au, Caitlyn Needs a Hug (League of Legends), I'm terrible at tagging, decent amount of death, A lot of child death, which is to be expected, powder is a little menace, but i love her, vi and caitlyn have some issues, but they'll work them out, Useless Lesbians

Read on A03. from AO3 works tagged ‘Caitlyn/Vi (League of Legends)’

[ezra-iolite]

Unnamed Colony OCs: The "Goth" Moths

(Feel free to correct me on anything you feel off about as you read this, JJ! ^w^ This is your world, after all, and I am merely a fan of it, while secretly hoping to add a little to the background of it all through my goth moth bebes~ And hopefully I'll be able to draw them both... One day. ;3;)

Name/s? Amber Cecropia [She/Her- Lesbian] Aurelio Cecropia Styx [He/Him- Bisexual]

Age Level? (How long did your character exist?) Both Amber and Aurelio are in the equivalent of their early 30s, as they're identical twins.

Alternative-Form/Vehicle Mode? Amber is a Cecropia Moth Bugformer. Aurelio is the same species of moth Bugformer as his twin, but paints his entire body to look like a Lesser Death's Head Hawkmoth.

Where do they come from? Amber lives on the outskirts of the capital city of the underground colony, in the nocturnal district; a sector of the city where others like her who operate mostly at night all dwell. Aurelio travels a lot for his job, but he mostly lives in the aristocratic district of the capital and operates during the day more due to the demands of his lifestyle, even if it’s against his instincts.

Fraction? Since there aren't really any factions in the colony world (as far as I'm aware), Amber can be best described as lawfully good as she deeply respects (sometimes worships) the Titan and looks up to the Cityspeaker and their Titan’s Guard... While her twin brother Aurelio is chaotic neutral and has no love or care for the Titan or her acolytes.

Caste? Amber is an upper-middle class citizen while her brother is a high class celebrity. Aurelio mostly wears jewel necklaces, antenna chains and long sleeved blouses to express his high class status, while Amber wears glasses and a handmade shawl that fits her simpler tastes.

Personality traits? The twins are the exact opposite of each other due to their differing personalities and lifestyles, and as such Amber often stays away from her brother as much as possible due to his more toxic personality, but she still loves him despite his abuse towards her. Amber is calm, a little timid but very warm and loving to those she feels safe with, a very fitting personality to her "whimsigoth" vibe. She adores collecting shiny and broken things she finds while on her walk to and from the library she works at, or during the night parties that happen every other night for nocturnal citizens like herself. Her trinkets are always the more useless and misshapen things that are abandoned and buried, like broken brooches, shattered jewelry pieces and weapon heads from the ancient past, and you can usually find her fixing and polishing them during her days off, whenever she's not knitting in her reading chair by the window. Once her trinkets are fully fixed and looking as beautiful as they were in their prime, she'll usually give them away as gifts to those she cherishes most. In turn, if something shiny that holds a deep meaning is given to her, she'll wear it or treasure it forever. (She totally doesn’t fix broken beautiful things for any metaphorical reason relating to her trauma… ¬3¬’ I hope.) Aurelio, however, is the type of person who is in his element in the spotlight, even more so as a singing idol. Booze, drugs, a new partner in his bed each day and night, he's the epitome of a celebrity that let fame get to his head and ruin his life as a result, as his velvety voiced talents only furthers his coffers and ego the deeper he goes into the rabbit hole of fame. Due to the obsessive love of his new high class lifestyle, he took on a more edgy and regal appearance and repainted his frame to look like a Death's Head Hawkmoth to fit his stage persona, only adding to this obsession by bedazzling himself in ununtrium necklaces and chain antennae rings to show off his wealth wherever he goes. Whenever he returns home to the capital, he will often try to visit his twin sister to verbally degrade her and brag about his lifestyle compared to hers, before he occasionally steals one of her trinkets or breaks them when she's not looking. Amber has tried to kick him out on multiple occasions but he knows she feels compelled to let him visit due to them both being the only family the twins have left.

What did they do before and during the civil war/War for Cybertron? What was their past like? The twins were raised by a pair of moth Bugformers named Dahlia and Io, who the twins were told to call their Aunt and Uncle due to their original caretakers being unable to raise them, as their father figure died in a cave-in while their mother figure, the one who first took them in from the spark pool they emerged from, disappeared when the twins were barely a month old. Aurelio often copied everything Amber did while they were very young, despite him being the oldest by a full minute. Some of these shared interests he gained from Amber included their shared love for music, the more enchantingly macabre things in art, history and media, and of course singing. His mimicry game soon led to them both finally gaining their own individual preferences through a shared experience at a music festival for the nocturnal citizens of the colony, where Amber found her love for the darker forms of music and its themed attire from one of the performances at it, going for a more whimsical look with black shawls and makeup inspired by the Titan's art depictions, due to her love for history and the Titan herself. Aurelio, meanwhile, became more inspired by the attire of some more macabre themed bands at the same festival. And during one such performance, Aurelio found his first celebrity crush and career goal awakening... a Pine Hawkmoth singer named Rhapsody, for through his music did Aurelio find his own appearance style and his dream of becoming a singer just like his crush. Once the twins reached their late teen years, Aurelio formed his own band with some childhood friends, who mostly played violin, wooden flute and the lute, and with Amber joining in as a singer too in order to support her beloved brother, and soon with their uncle's help they began to perform at parties and festivals across the colony as a band named Death's Head, due to the band consisting mostly of Hawkmoths, with Aurelio choosing to paint his own body to appear like a Lesser Death's Head Hawkmoth... thus creating his stage persona when he became the leader and head singer of the band, gaining the new full name Aurelio Styx. (And for anyone curious, this is what the twins sound like when singing together: https://youtu.be/pAjYbmRvNb4 at 1:03~) After the eventual passing of their aunt and uncle from old age, the band finally began to play at bigger festivals as Aurelio and Amber soon grew more famous across the colony, even more so once they began performing in the capital more often and upgraded their instruments to the more electrical kind now that they could afford it, but that was when things began to go downhill. For the more wealth Aurelio acquired with his newfound fame, the more he began to fall into the wrong crowd that skittered in the darkest cracks of the city walls... Drugs, drink and bedfellows replaced his time rehearsing with his bandmates, and no matter how much Amber tried to reason with her brother and best friend to make him stop his habits, her words fell on deaf audials. After their third year of touring, the band split and Aurelio became an independent singer as he rose in caste status and gained the good life he was chasing... Even if it meant sacrificing the person he was to gain it. After cutting all ties with the band and giving up her singing career, Amber chose to remain in the capital to study her passion for history and become a librarian, gaining a quiet life as her fame and the drama her departure caused faded into memory, leaving nothing but mental scars and a deep longing for the family it took from her.

Did they experience a moment of great tragedy or trauma that haunts them? The first time a drug cartel came looking for Aurelio due to him owing them money, they targeted Amber when the band was doing their final tour and promoting their second album release, as they mostly stayed at city inns during this time. Breaking down her door and trapping her in her own room, they tortured her for the info on where her brother was, before they left after taking what they deemed rightfully theirs, from both the room and from Amber…

No one came into the room until the next morning, when Aurelio came back hung over and covered in lipstick marks, a clear sign on where he spent the night. Seeing the room in a chaotic mess and his twin sister on the floor, covered in dent and scratches along her arms and legs with some of her own blood under her, Aurelio simply knelt down beside her and asked, “Did they take the money?” With barely enough strength to be able to nod, Amber could only watch as Aurelio scoffed and muttered at how useless she was before he left the room, completely ignoring Amber stuck on the floor. Once she managed to finally call for a doctor and reported the physical assault to the guards, she immediately left the band three days later, who soon properly split once word got around about the assault… A tale that was told across the newspapers and filled the gossip of every citizen across the city, all against her wishes. Amber still remembers the fear and humiliation she felt upon seeing the cropped photo of herself from her band’s handcrafted album cover being used for the newspaper's front page headline, with the rest of the article going into detail about the cartel being spotted outside her room and why no one stopped them… as a fangirl of Aurelio was seen pointing them to the inn Amber and the band were staying at.

In comparison, the darkest time in Aurelio’s life was long after he began his career as an independent singer, when one day he was walking through the market square of the capital, eager to replenish his stock of wine and nectar for another night of partying. However…. The moment he followed the glimmer of orange and black that caught his eye, the world seemed to suddenly freeze in time when he spotted a familiar reflection…

Not noticing him at all, after the year since the split, Amber walked right past him on the other side of the path, looking much healthier, more mature and with a sense of control in the life she seemed to be leading all on her own… a life, Aurelio realized in that moment, that he forced her to have without him. Remembering how his daily life was now filled with nothing but addictions and empty music about jealousy and lust, he watched as his twin sister walked away, his spark heavy with envy and guilt for the parallel lives they now lived. Deep down, Aurelio knew his twin sister would never be able to trust him again.

Anger then began to fill his spark at every resurfaced memory of her, leading to him tracking her down and meeting her properly, this time managing to be invited into her home. What was intended to be a rekindling of their bond as family ended up with them having a massive argument about that day, with Amber screaming at him with tears in her eyes about how he abandoned her when she needed him most, before Aurelio left and began his endless habit of “friendly visits”, a way he deemed cathartic for his anger towards Amber by gaslighting her, teasing her and breaking her trinkets that he felt were just useless shiny junk, a habit he continues to this day, despite Amber’s desire to forbid him from entering her home but fearing losing her only family again.

Did they experience a moment of great joy that´s still in their memory as a precious moment? While Amber still felt scared of her past catching up to her, she finally did get out and enjoy the nocturnal parties that led to her first discovering her love of dark yet flashy makeup and music so long ago. In memory of the happy girl she lost to the cartel's lust, Amber attended a nocturnal party with the intent of just relaxing and mingling, now that no one seemed to recognize her from her past.

There, while Amber was drinking and explaining to a curious Silk Moth how she made her knitted dress out of two shawls she repurposed, she spied a Titan’s Guard stationed nearby watching over the party… And her spark fluttered faster than her wings ever could as she found herself drawn to the beautiful beetle guard, realizing only after she remembered to breathe that the guard was a femme... The most beautiful femme she had ever seen~ Sadly, she felt far too timid to approach her, and instead chose to try again when the nocturnal party would be announced once more... only to realize that the guard wasn't there when she attended the next party. That moment still drives her forward each night to be more social and attend the parties once they come back around, hoping to find that guard again and finally see if she can talk to her or perhaps one day find her in the library she works at… Which has often caused her to daydream during the quiet moments in the library, allowing her to sneakily read some knight themed romance novels at the front desk, wondering between the pages what it would be like to be protected by a true knight of the Titan's Guard~

For Aurelio, the happiest moment of his life was simply the day he saw his very first album on the shelves of the music café in the capital, of seeing his name for the first time on something people could listen to at home, to hear his voice and his life’s work, all while knowing that he was finally going to be a star like he always dreamed of. His joy was shared with Amber on that day, even while he failed to see how worried she looked as he began his chase for his toxic life.

Is your character able to drive any vehicles? Where did they learned it? Amber and Aurelio have no need, since they can both fly to the very ceiling of any city or town within the underground colony, in both alt-mode and their bipedal forms. Aurelio, however, prefers to travel by monorail or on a steed, all to prevent his painted wings from being ruined.

Did your character meet the figureheads/leaders of their home? No, even in all his fame or during their band’s prime, Aurelio and Amber have never met the Cityspeaker or the Titan. The band split before they could even consider the possibility of the Cityspeaker attending one of their shows, and Aurelio isn’t exactly a favourite amongst the higher class musicians or aristocrats for obvious reasons.

Best Friend(s)? Amber is best friends with another librarian she works with, a Common Gray Moth Bugformer named Pearl, who is more like a little sister to her that supports her and gives her advice whenever Amber feels stuck, but she has no idea about Amber’s abusive situation with her brother. Pearl does, however, know about the love story of the Titan’s Guard member Amber fell hard for and eagerly wishes to help the taller Moth find her lady knight… at least for the sake of going to a party with her and gaining some gossip for the librarians.

Aurelio mostly just talks to his manager and some of the other singers of high class society, but none of whom he would dare to consider even trusting his drink with, let alone turning his back to. He often considers his bodyguards his friends, despite the verbal abuse he throws their way when he's drunk or in drug withdrawal.

Greatest Enemie(s)? Amber's enemy would be her own brother, for obvious reasons... Despite her fawn trauma response making her hold onto him in fear of losing the only form of family she ever knew.

Aurelio, meanwhile, has too many enemies to count, all of whom are within drug cartels or fans who have grown to hate him and send .

Preferred weapons? Amber can’t really fight, but due to her past trauma, she now carries a dagger everywhere she goes, hidden in her arm plating so that she can use it even if she’s pinned down.

Aurelio has hired bodyguards but doesn’t feel the need to arm himself with anything.

Do they have a team/partner, or someone that´s often with them?Beyond Pearl and her co-workers, Amber actually has no one she spends her free time with… But she does have a flower houseplant named Tina. She deeply dreads the day she finally has someone over and she lets slip of casually saying “And that’s Tina” towards her plant baby, who she luckily hides every time her brother comes to visit.

Aurelio spends most of his free time alone or partying, so between those activities he’s more often at his bodyguard's side or with his latest hired escort for the night.

Do they have sibling(s)? How´s their relationship to them? I think we all know the answer to that…

Do they have a sparkmate? How did they get to know each other?The twins are both single, but compared to her miserable toxic brother, Amber is attempting to find and get to know the Titan’s Guard she saw at that party more intimately, all for the sake of following her heart’s desire~ Pearl has since jokingly dubbed the ship "Maple Knight" and will always ask the next day after a nocturnal party, "Has the knight found her Maple Maiden yet?~"

Overall Look?

Amber~ A female of the Silk Moth species of Bugformers, she’s skinny and taller than the average moth or colony citizen by an extra head in height, but a lot shorter than Captain Kabula as she reaches only the beetle’s chest. As a Cecropia Silk Moth, she has large black wings with white tips all along the edges with a large black dot on both primary wings, an orange and thinner white stripe in the middle of both wings, and white crescent moon shapes outlined in orange on the inside that show when they are folded on her back. Her torso and the biceps of her four arms have round, orange fur coated plates that reveal her grey exoskeleton underneath, but only on the belly, underarms, clawed hands, and between her upper pairs of shoulders where her wings are, while her forearms, waist, thigh and calf plates are orange and white striped to show what forms the thorax of her alt-form. Her legs are very thin and slightly digitigrade in shape, which are grey from her two-toed feet to her knees, as they're made of the harder metal forming her exoskeleton, and as such are split into sections just like a moth’s legs. Her neck is hidden by a thick collar of white fur that trails into a heart shaped ball of fluff covering the middle of her chest, which gives it a bustier look, the rest forming a mane or high collar behind her orange head. Just at her helm’s brow line, Amber has two, black, long fuzzy antenna that curve over her head and down to the middle of her shoulders. She tends to keep them twisted like a braid at the ends to keep them out of her ruby eyes and pale white face, which is usually decorated with large, black winged eyeliner leading down to her nose with tiny diamonds on the corners of her eyes, designed to mimic the Titan’s decorative look, alongside black painted lips and, counting on her mood for the day, a tiny black heart on her left cheek, sometimes a rose when she misses the Titan’s Guard she wishes to properly meet. When she’s working, Amber is never without her beloved black knitted shawl, crafted to bear intricate flower patterns, that covers her shoulders, half her wings when folded, and her chest floof, alongside her square black glasses on an obsidian beaded chain to help keep them on her. She can see just fine but is a little short sighted, so she needs them more for work than daily life.

Aurelio~ Without his performance makeup that he rarely takes off, Aurelio looks perfectly identical to Amber without her shawl, glasses and makeup. The only true difference between them, in fact, are the volume in white chest fluff, how his antennae curl more upwards and aren't braided together behind his back, and their eyes.

While Amber has ruby red eyes, Aurelio’s are golden, hence his name. His chest fluff, while slightly less heart shaped and more rounded, is flatter or less fluffy than Amber’s, due to the affects of the drugs within Aurelio’s body, which have since made his black and grey body much lighter and more faded in hue, his orange now a sickly shade of rust. He can hide all this when he becomes Aurelio Styx by painting every inch of his body in speckled brown and coating his legs, forearms and secondary wings in yellow, while adding the infamous skull shape onto his back as befitting a Lesser Death’s Head Hawkmoth. When out and about in public, he always wears a white, half unbuttoned blouse that just reaches halfway down his torso and puffs up his brown and yellow speckled painted chest fur. His beloved short blouse covers just his back, via a long train that reaches his hips, and all four arms, which have long draping sleeves that give him a regal appearance…. and never is he without his two to four jeweled necklaces on the finest chains and pendants of ununtrium, all in his efforts of proving his status and wealth to the colony.

Bonus: What´s the song that represents your character the most?

For Amber... I also think this could be her voice claim~

And for Aurelio... May as well stick with his voice claim and name inspiration~

(The Unnamed Colony belongs to @cuppajj. I own nothing but the OCs)

[astra-galaxie]

Victoria Holt

Biographical information

Full Name: Victoria Holt

Alias(es): Nerium Nightshade

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

Status: Deceased

Age: 60 (season 1)

Birth: 1953

Race: Human

Cause of Death: Electrocution

Nationality: Dutch

Origin: Holland, Netherlands

Residence:

India (formerly)

Holland, Netherlands (formerly)

Profession(s): Scientist

Affiliation(s):

Switch Laboratories

SOMBRA

Profile

Height: 5'4" Age: 60 (season 1) Weight: 137lbs Eyes: blue Blood: A+

Hailing from the Netherlands, Victoria Holt was the owner of Switch Laboratories. She had strawberry-blonde hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. She wore a simple red dress, an orange lab coat, and a DNA pattern scarf.

Synopsis

Victoria was the victim of A Shock to the Team.

She used to own Switch Laboratories, a lab that, on the surface, was working to cure diseases. But behind the scenes, they were creating custom poisons to kill people. Victoria and Gustave were the only ones aware of SL's true intentions; the rest of the employees thought they were doing good work.

But unknown to Gustave, Victoria worked for SOMBRA, who also funded her operations. SOMBRA was using Victoria's poisons to "weed out the weak" but killing their enemies. Because Victoria's poisons were so unique, it would appear like people died of natural causes, such as a heart attack or stroke. She also sold her poisons privately on the black market, and no one traced these murders back to Victoria.

But Nathan eventually discovered Victoria's devious plans. He learned the truth while autopsying one of the volunteer test subjects. After realizing that Project Elysium was killing people on purpose instead of saving them, he contacted his grandfather, the Director of U.N.I.T at the time. With the agency's help, they destroyed the lab and research, arresting many of the employees.

But Victoria fled with SOMBRA's help and vowed revenge on Nathan for his betrayal. She couldn't believe after everything she did for him; he would stab her in the back. She gave him his sight, helped with his education, gave him a job at her lab, and that was how he repaid her?!

She stayed a free woman for many years as she evaded U.N.I.T. Victoria tried to recreate her work, but without the data, she couldn't do it. And then she realized that Nathan would be the key to helping her. He helped U.N.I.T. confiscate her work and was sure he would have remembered the formulas and know how to recreate them.

So, Victoria contacted Gustave, who was now out of prison, and the two tracked Nathan down to Grimsborough. They also found other old employees of SL, but no one wanted anything to do with them. But the two were persistent and tried to restart their work in a secret lab hidden underneath an abandoned iPear store Gustave owned.

Victoria even went as far as to threaten Nathan's son Avi. The coroner agreed to go with her to the lab so that she wouldn't hurt the boy, but once there, he attacked Victoria, knocking her out. He tried to destroy the work inside but found no files, so he fled before she woke up.

But Nathan knocking Victoria out would make it easier for Gustave to murder her. Gustave was angry when he saw that Victoria had failed to get Nathan back. He knew he could get the coroner to cooperate with the right incentives, and if she were going to be useless, he wouldn't risk her ruining his chances at a better life.

Gustave strapped Victoria to a chair and hooked up jumper cables to it and the shop's electric panel. With a flick of a switch, he turned on the shop's sign and electrocuted Victoria in the process. He left her burnt corpse inside and began formulating a plan to escape Grimsborough, taking Nathan with him.

Story Information

First appeared: A Shock to the Team

Trivia

The name of the case she was a victim in, A Shock to the Team, is a reference to the pilot episode (A Shock to the System) from the cartoon Static Shock

The SOMBRA connection was a change I made after I edited my first story, The Case of The Criminal, in 2021

She sold her custom poisons on the black market under the disguise of Nerium Nightshade

She wore a mask when making sales; the most common ones looked like skulls

Disclaimer: Character design was created using Rinmarugames Mega Anime Avatar Creator! I have only made minor edits to the design! Background courtesy of CriminalArtist5

Links to my stories:

The Case of the Criminal (Ao3/Wattpad) Killer Bay (Ao3/Wattpad) Where in the World are the Killers? (Ao3/Wattpad)

[ashe-draws]

Fresh out of college I got a job at a country club with chairs kind of like this poorly drawn one from my memory. My brain called them captain’s chairs—for what reason I can’t tell you. No captains around for miles. They had these wings on them with rungs on the legs that made them difficult to stack. And they were all wooden so they were really heavy. Clearing out the bar with 50 of these chairs gave me my lesbianic shine I continue to hone today. These chairs are ugly. Everyone hated them. They tripped waitresses, busboys, and patrons alike. My terrible drawing of this chair may look unhinged—but it perfectly captures this kind of chair’s existence. If I have to exist and be this ugly, useless, and heavy–then everyone will know about it. 

Rewinding the clock about 20 years back to when I was a 7 year old, I got into a fight with my mom. I received a Game Boy for Christmas in 1992–one that came with the game Q*bert. “What’s your favorite game?” she asked me. “Qwerbert,” I replied, haughtily. It’s right there on the package.

After she got over her laughter, she asked me to repeat what I said. When I did, she corrected me. “The game is called Q*bert, like Q-Tips,” she tried, helpfully. I picked up the game box and showed her, as if it were plain as day and she were the one being ridiculous. “Qwerbert, right here see? It says Qwerbert on the box mom. His name is Qwerbert.” Indeed. So I combine my 7-year-old confidence in being wrong with my hatred of those fucking captain’s chairs at the country club. These drawings may not be great, perfect, or anything worth posting to the internet—but I made them up like Qwerbert and I’m damn proud of them.

[hislittleraincloud]

I'm supremely tired today even though I passed out early-ish for me. (Maybe 3AM? That's early for me.) I did it without taking my full meds, so I woke up sick and had to take them anyway...and now I can't keep my eyes open. Idiopathic hypersomnia is a real fucking bitch (and I've had it most of my life; my mother also has it).

This sucks so gd much bc I have things to write. I want to write. But right now there's so much fatigue that I'm just useless atm. I couldn't even find the energy to put together my Wednesday sticker album with its stickers.

If you know me, I am a huge, huge cards and sticker collector...when my ex dumped all my stuff, I had a very extensive collection, sports and non-sports; I had a thing for Mets Mike Piazza and had a collection of his rare inserts (including a mistake print that was the only one in the world...and #001 — and a couple of #031 — inserts as well, and an early online friend was nice enough to gift me his Bowman Dodgers rookie card, which isn't worth shit now but the rare inserts and the mistake printing still sting). I mostly did non-sports, and had a bunch of TV show inserts and special sets. I didn't have any of my Paninis though, those are still back at the house in Massachusetts.

Speaking of non-sports cards, where in fuck are the Wednesday cards? Where the fuck is Cryptozoic, and why haven't they made a Wednesday set yet? I'm sure that that would make big bank...I could see the Wenclairs going insane over having a piece of the rainbow film that NC Wednesday/Ortega scraped off of her side. In fact I can think of a million different screen-used "pieces of" Season 1 that would make perfect insert cards. The rainbow film, pieces of Donovan's cork board (like the map of Jericho), a piece of one of Xavier's drawings or paintings, piece of one of the Nightshades's robes, piece of one of the Poe Cup cat suits, piece of one of Tyler's Lesbian Plaid™ shirts (😘), piece of Wednesday's novel, etc. (Ooo, piece of the Rave'N dresses, since there were multiples made.) So many opportunities for inserts there. Cryptozoic isn't terrible (they're the ones who put out the Sons of Anarchy set, through which I have Donovan's autograph). This Panini thing is pretty fucking terrible though, with the worst artwork. I love me some Panini, but I suppose they're only good for animated works rather than live action since any number of fan artists could've done a better job with the art in this. Why do companies settle for such mediocrity? This is terribly simplistic and unappealing art, looks like it was done in less than 5 minutes/with autotrace for the vectors (and the most pathetic part is that it was likely done by someone with an art degree)

Anyway. I'm so tired. And horned up because of my testosterone shot. God damn it.

ETA: Happy Birthday, Wednesday. And uh...tomorrow is technically ABW's birthday (just after midnight, LOL). She is 18 today/tonight! ...✨🫠✨

[privilege-rpg]

RILEY JULY

☆ FULL NAME: Riley Matilda July ☆ GENDER: Ciswoman ☆ PRONOUNS: She/Her ☆ AGE: 36 (May 1st, 1988) ☆ TYPE: First sibling; solo ☆ HOMETOWN: New York City, New York ☆ JOB: Sports Science Professor at PSU ☆ SCHOOL: Other ☆ SEXUALITY: Lesbian ☆ FACECLAIM: Alicia Vikander

ABOUT RILEY

tw: alcohol addiction

The big apple, bright lights big city, the city of dreams and whatever other bullshit people call New York. It should have been a magical place to call home, but Riley hated it and everything about it. If you make it here, you can make it anywhere? Alicia Keys was talking out of her ass.

And it pretty much started off that way. Riley was born as the only biological child of the Broadway and TV star Cassandra July and her one night stand, producer Joseph Campbell. But it's not like Riley saw much of her parents. Joseph was gone well before she was born and Cassandra? Well that was another story completely.

If you were to ask Riley if Cassandra July was a good mother than the answer is simple - no. In a class in first grade when the children were asked to describe their parents as best as they could, Riley was sat there with a blank sheet of paper. What did her mother look like? What did she do? (Other than drink). What were her hobbies? Riley had no idea. Because she never saw her, never spent time with her, always with a nanny or her grandmother, while her mother was either out at a bar or in rehab and occasionally on stage. So Riley grew up alone, resenting her mother's entire existence.

But then all of a sudden in some sort of flurry of fame, her mother was back. Claiming that she loved her daughter (never actually stating her name during the interview, presumably forgetting) and announced she would be having more children. Adopting three more kids to hand straight over to her nanny. As Riley watched this happen she knew things needed to change, she needed to step up and became the mother that these kids deserved. Okay she was only a couple of years older than them, but she didn't care, they needed the love and attention that she never got. So at a young age she was a surrogate mother to three children, when they scraped their knees she was there, when they failed a test she was there, when they had a broken heart she was there. Even when Cassandra deciding to make an appearance, Riley always took charge.

However doing all of this kind of puts a back burner on your own existing life. Riley was, and still sort of is, a loner. At school she kept her head down and focused on her grades and then as soon as she was done for the day she headed to pick up the others from school and got them home and began dinner. The nannies were useless in her opinion so she always took charge. Luckily she didn't have to bring any money in because there was always plenty. So with all this on her shoulders, she didn't think they'd ever be time to achieve anything for herself.

But it was nice to dream right? Riley loved soccer, it was her main passion in life and she would do anything to become a professional player, but she knew it would never be possible. So she was shocked when she was offered a scholarship for UNC, the same college her hero Mia Hamm went to. But she couldn't, going to North Carolina meant leaving her siblings behind and she couldn't do that, the youngest was only six, and they needed her. So she declined the offer and decided to attend NYU instead, staying close by to her siblings and making sure she was home every night to tuck them into bed.

However halfway into her sophomore year to her absolute surprise she was scouted by a team know then as Sky Blue FC. She didn't understand how she could be scouted so easily, but the team was new and was looking for young exciting talent and apparently Riley was that. There was so much guilt and various other emotions that she was going through, but she couldn't spend her whole life looking at her siblings, she needed to think about herself right? So she said yes, travelled back and forth from New Jersey for training and tried to be home for her siblings whenever she could. Even if it made her feel like a bad sister all the time.

The years passed and Riley kept herself busy. She enjoyed playing soccer, working hard to get as much playing time as she could and scoring goals along the way. With the 2015 World Cup just around the corner, Riley was determined to get called up to the US National Team and represent her country at her first major tournament, although she was now 26 she was hoping that a call up would come. That was until disaster struck in one of her matches and she was forced to come off injured from a bad tackle. She knew right then what had happened, her ACL was torn. The injury happening right before the tournament messed with her head, and with a long recovery time and another injury quickly after she came back, Riley spiralled, giving up completely and hanging up her boots.

Then she wasn't sure what to do, working job to job and never satisfied, totally bitter at the world and all the pain it had caused her over the years. She'd briefly debated cutting contact with her siblings, but she knew that was a bad idea, she needed them to keep her going, even if they were all spread out over the place. But then she started to drink to numb the pain, trying to do anything to forget the hurt and especially to mask every time she felt an uncomfortable twinge in her knee.

However things started to look up more once she met her ex. They were the sunshine to her rain and taught Riley how to appreciate life more, got her to stop drinking and helped her feel those emotions she never thought she would feel again. But sadly, their relationship wasn't perfect. Communication was a big issue, and so was jealousy and many other things on both of their ends. After around two years together they broke up and Riley went back to her "being bitter at the whole world" ways. Thing is though, she could never keep her away from her ex and was always ending up back in bed with her whenever they would see each other.

After the breakup, Riley could have easily hit the bottle again and gone back to old ways, but there was still something in the back of her head, and also in her heart, her love for her ex still there. So instead she went to the root of all of her problems, her injury. There was so many athletes who suffered with ACL injuries and the rate was very high in women's soccer, more research needed to be done. And while doing all of her research and several other courses, Riley took the plunge to become a Sports Science professor.

And now she's in LA. She had never been a PSU alumni, but her siblings said that it was a great place and when the job opportunity came up, she jumped at the chance to go. Plus this was her chance to get out of New York once and for all. It clearly wasn't her place to be. So now in her first year teaching at PSU, she's excited about what this new challenge is going to bring.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Cassandra July, the biggest rising star on Broadway and tv in her twenties, met Joseph Campbell, a producer, in a drunken stupor at a bar in New York City post her Broadway break down in “damn yankees” - a one night stand turned into a pregnancy and suddenly Cassandra was navigating on her own with a child on the way. Once the birth of her first child Cassandra would leave them with a nanny or her mother while she was away at rehab. After, she went on to star on the Masked Singer after reclaiming her sobriety. She then decided that being a mother was her greatest joy and went on to adopt 3 more children.