#grumpy dark complicated lesbian

[chichichi-blue-blog]

I think Katara has a type.

It's Azula, period.

[kattahj]

The next half-dozen queer Thai shows I have watched! This time around, it's not just boys' love, but also girls' love and polyamory. Also, there's a lot more action-adventure this time around, with three plot-heavy, rather violent shows! Those are the ones I like best of the bunch, btw. :) And don't worry, they still have happy(-ish) endings!

Manner of Death

What's it about? City doctor moves back to a small town and immediately gets involved in a murder mystery. Also, the prime suspect is really hot.

Genre: Crime drama

Watch if you enjoy: Plot-heavy stories with twists upon twists upon twists. Seemingly nice towns being dens of corruption and vice. (Shit gets pretty dark!) Speedrun romance – no need to wait until the end for a kiss here!

Gayer version of: Somewhere inbetween Blue Velvet and L.A. Confidential

Recommended? Yes! Just make sure you can stomach onscreen murder and offscreen rape. Truth be told, I was a little iffy on it at first, but then it ate my brain, and now it's among my favourites.

Watched on: Dailymotion

Trailer: https://youtu.be/a4b-d_XyLV0

I Told Sunset About You

What's it about? Teh and Oh-Aew are childhood friends, but their love for acting causes some friction when they're competing first for the same part, and later for the same university position.

Genre: Coming of age

Watch if you enjoy: Low-stakes drama. Heavy focus on the central pairing and its romantic complications. Genuine, emotional acting (lots and lots of crying). Characters making foolish, selfish decisions that nevertheless make perfect sense for them to make. Very nuanced secondary love interests.

Gayer version of: My So-Called Life

Recommended? Yes, but I actually ended up NOT wanting these two to be together.

Watched on: Dailymotion

Trailer: https://youtu.be/KIylNdQuR-w

GAP the series

What's it about? Mon idolizes Lady Sam and is thrilled to start working at her company. Her dreams are soon crushed, though, when it turns out that Sam is a cold and demanding boss. The truth is that Sam is under pressure from her grandmother to uphold the royal image.

Genre: Melodrama

Watch if you enjoy: The grumpy one loving the sunshine one. Supportive girl gangs, including a butch lesbian hottie. Tentative attempts at a first relationship. Gossip mills in action.

More lesbian version of: Starts out as The Devil Wears Prada, quickly moves into Young Royals territory.

Recommended? Kind of? It's nice to see some lesbians for once, and the leads have good chemistry. I also really like Sam's catty girl gang. The story is a bit weak at times, and I wasn't always convinced that these two were right for each other. The humour isn't my style either. So it's a bit of a mixed bag, but definitely worth the effort if you want some girl loving!

Watched on: YouTube

Trailer: https://youtu.be/f7Kso0QOaiE

Together With Me

What's it about? Best friends Korn and Knock have a drunken one night stand. Afterwards, they try to forget all about it. After all, Knock already has a girlfriend. Meanwhile, their friends have relationship troubles of their own.

Genre: comedy (mostly)

Watch if you enjoy: More MaxTul after Manner of Death (but in a vastly different genre). Lots of double entendres and also single entendres. Bitchy girlfriends and sassy girl friends. (Yiwha and Faii ftw!) An ensemble cast where everyone makes terrible decisions and no one has even heard of boundaries.

Gayer version of: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Recommended? I would say it is highly entertaining trash. :) It takes a while to kick into gear (but no time at all before sex), but then becomes kind of addictive. Just be aware that every single person in this is some flavour of Problematic (tm).

Watched on: YouTube

Trailer: https://youtu.be/lxX9UkhTCO0

Triage

What's it about? Young doctor Tin finds himself in a time loop. In order to make it stop, he has to save the life of a specific patient. His only help is an annoyingly cryptic angel.

Genre: supernatural mystery/medical drama

Watch if you enjoy: The same writer as Manner of Death. Plot-focused show. Lots of tense medical situations, and even tenser interpersonal situations. Social issues. Assholes learning to be less assholish (except the ones who are just irredeemable). Romance that is simultaneously slowburn and speedrun, and also folds in on itself.

Gayer version of: Russian Doll

Recommended? Yes! More for the plot than the romance, though. Also, if you're anything like me, you'll need tissues for episode 10. (Knowing things will turn out okay doesn't prevent the sad stuff from being sad!)

Watched on: Dailymotion (search for Triag3)

Trailer: https://youtu.be/QeXnXV3FStg

3 Will Be Free

What's it about? Male sex worker Neo has been sleeping with the wrong woman – namely, a mob boss's wife. Now he's running for his life, along with club hostess/pickpocket Miw, who has killed a hitman by sheer instinct, and the mob boss's son Shin, who... well, he just happens to like Neo better than his dad, is all.

Genre: Action/thriller

Watch if you enjoy: Canon OT3. Nuanced trans representation on the side. Chased by the mob. Very high death count. (Don't get attached to any guest characters!) Moral greyness all around, and some sympathy even for the bad guys.

More polyam version of: ...I can't currently think of a chased-by-the-mob film that isn't a comedy, and this is very much not a comedy.

Recommended? Yes! With a warning that all the cliffhangers makes it hard to stop watching, so you may just as well pause in the middle of episodes. (Sidenote: the YouTube comments are more annoying than usual.)

Watched on: YouTube

Trailer: https://youtu.be/ct9fPlMJSDw

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: December edition

hi all! while I already did my roundup for every book I read in 2022 and included the books I read in December, they still haven't gotten their own special little recap because the last few days of 2023 were crazy hectic and I didn't have the time. now that I'm back in the office (barf, gag) with hours to kill, let's rewind and look at the year's last batch of books!

what I read:

The End of Policing (Alex S. Vitale, 2017) - excellently concise and thorough breakdown of why policing simply is not beneficial or even practical for the communities it allegedly serves. strongly recommend, I highlighted so much.

Glitterati (Oliver K. Langmead, 2022) - a book that was so infuriatingly close to being one of my favorite books of the year, until it shot itself in the dick in the last quarter. Glitterati starts out as a Vantablack-dark comedy absolutely skewering ultrawealthy celebrity influencer paparazzi aesthetic culture, and for most of the way Langmead does an admirable balancing act making out protagonist, Simone, utterly reprehensible in his alienation from anything human and sincere while also making clear that Simone and people like him are fundamentally hollow, miserable shells. (one detail that sticks with me so clearly is the mention that Simone loved playing the cello, but gave it up because he was too afraid of getting calluses.) when I say that Langmead fumbled massively by (spoilers) writing a happy ending pseudo-redemption arc for Simone I'm not saying that out of some asinine belief that it's Morally Wrong to show bad people growing and changing because that encourages readers to emulate their bad behavior; I just think this novel really seemed like it had something to say and then balked at the last minute in order to conform to a more conventional narrative structure. it's disappointing, reader. I'm disappointed.

Bruce Wayne: Fugitive (Greg Rucka et al, 2002) - Fugitive isn't as strong as the preceding Murderer by a country mile - it feels much less tightly organized, and meanders on a bit too long - but frankly all of that is worth it for a scene of Bruce Wayne sincerely apologizing to his family for being an insufferable bitch who's unpleasant to be around 99% of the time. while I was reading Murderer I made a post about how I can't fuck with much of Batfamily fanon and Wayne Family Adventures-style writing that posits the Bats as generally well-adjusted, endlessly supportive, and excruciatingly aware of their various troubles, and I think this is why: the moments of emotional vulnerability feel so much more satisfying when they're extracted from a rotten mess of misunderstandings rather than the default.

Even Though I Knew the End (C.L. Polk, 2022) - C.L. Polk is one of those authors who has my attention immediately whenever they drop something new, and this novella did NOT disappoint. a crisp and stylish noir murder mystery following a lesbian couple navigating the forces of heaven and hell through mid-century Chicago, this story begs to be devoured in a single sitting.

Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice, 1976) - I wanted to like this book so much, and I do like parts. but the high highs are contrasted with low lows, and sometimes Louis' incessant whinging had me skimming for pages at a time. I'm afraid that my love of morbidly depressed bisexual vampires with complicated family dynamics won't be enough to keep me reading, Anne.

The Sandman: A Game of You (Neil Gaiman et al, 1991) - this isn't my personal favorite Sandman arc, but I think it is maybe the most iconic and honestly? deserved for Wanda alone. much like Season of Mists, there's a compelling point to be made here that some of the best Sandman stories are the ones with as little of the actual Sandman as possible. love the grumpy bastard, but sometimes you need a nice long break from his shit.

America Is Not the Heart (Elaine Castillo, 2018) - a last minute entry that stole my whole heart. you may recall me absolutely swooning over Castillo's essay collection, How to Read Now, that was released earlier this year, and I'm so glad I decided to seek out her novel so promptly. America Is Not the Heart is a gorgeous coming of age for a 30-something doctor from the Philippines remaking her life after being released from a prison camp and moving to California to live with her uncle's family. she bonds with her baby cousin, she develops a big fat crush on the local faith healer's granddaughter, she remembers how to have friends. it just painfully beautiful in a lot of ways and got me so good; I can't recommend it enough.

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color (Ruby Hamad, 2020) - a lightning-fast, brilliantly organized read that dives DEEP into the impact of racist colonial laws around the globe and how they contribute to misogynoir and other forms of racialized misogyny today. there's a particular motherlode of information about the sexual politics of interracial sex under colonialism and slavery - the dehumanization of Black and brown women considered perpetually sexually available to white men, the demonization of Black and brown men seen as sexual threats to white women and white supremacy by extension, the difficulties of knowing if any interracial relationship could truly be considered consensual under such conditions. I've got several books on the intersection of sex, sexuality, and racism on my to-read list for the year, and this felt like as good a place as any to start.

what I'm reading now:

Jade Legacy (Fonda Lee, 2021) - I'm so excited for the conclusion of the Green Bone Saga, even though this book is like 700+ goddamn pages long. I truly cannot extend enough thanks to the person who ruined my reading poll by doing the exact thing I told everyone not to do and complaining about one of the options; it made me read Jade City immediately and I've loved every second of the series since.

Shit Cassandra Saw (Gwen E. Kirby, 2022) - very cool short story collection, one of my favorite covers ever

what's next:

Catwoman: Lonely City (Cliff Chiang, 2021) - Cliff Chiang's striking art was one of my favorite parts of Paper Girls, and I'm beyond excited to see his illustrations for a one-last-heist story about Selina Kyle

Where It Rains in Color (Denise Crittendon, 2022) - splashy new sci-fi and one of the only 2022 releases that I couldn't get my mitts on before the year was over!

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (R.F. Kuang, 2022) - I'm going to be so real: I've had R.F. Kuang's Poppy War series sitting on my TBR forever and wasn't in any particular hurry to get around to it, but seeing white bookstagrammers complaining about this book's """"reverse racism""" made me more interested in reading it than literally any actual marketing campaign could have.

[despisydraws]

Part 1/3

Here's to the one (1) person who asked:

An elaborate list of my Space OCs in alphabetical order, using the aesthetics from the quiz results because I have yet to draw all of them (pictures used in those aren't mine!):

1. Ace (she/her)

So, here she is, the green haired engineer with a smoking problem who probably went a little nuts by now after inhaling brazing fumes for hours every day.

Ace is definitely the genius but only on the brains level (she sucks with emotions). She's an engineer, she designed and built the fastest ship in the solar system all by herself as well as a robot so humanoid it started thinking it was a human (see: Lorelei). So yeah she's a big name in the engineering community. Big family fortune which made it possible for her to get all the equipment, but she rarely tells anyone about it, in fact, she rather waits for people to consider it themselves. So, she's a genius, but what else? She's grumpy, moody and just wants some goddamn peace. Will she get it? Certainly not, at least not with that incompetent crew of idiots that stole her ship and her all along.

Also she's a lesbian and low-key has a thing for Lorelei, but keeps reminding herself that she's literally a robot without real feelings, even though Lorelei keeps telling her she can feel. It's... complicated

2. Berenger Lambert (he/him)

Ah yes, it's the "I'm too old for this but someone has to care for these children" space dandy

He keeps saying his best days are over. Well, his wild days are over, but his best certainly not. He was pretty much of a gangster back then but he left it all behind to become a barkeeper in some really fancy bar who still occasionally likes to gamble but shhhh. His best friend is Sigrid Eichenlaub (more on her later) and the two just kinda gossip the day away whenever she visits the bar. She reminds Berenger a lot of himself when he was younger so he wants to keep her from making the same mistakes as him... instead all that happens is Sigrid pulling him with her into all kinds of risky stuff. Such as... trying to abduct Virgo Di Marcelli to get a nice sum out of it... just to basically get trapped with his "friends" on the ship.

They all start getting along tho and he cooks for all of them because he's the only one that wouldn't burn the entire kitchen down.

But he misses his husband at home a lot... I swear those two are cute af :(

3. Cassiopeia Di Marcelli (she/her)

Space goth. Likes wearing suits and works as a model. Super bisexual. Still debating if I should make her trans or not she kinda gives the vibe

She's the cousin of Virgo. That means she had to deal with that boys bullshit for all her life so far and that made her tired, to say the least. She likes him, it's not like that, it's just... well they don't get along a lot. Deep down they do but to the outside they absolutely don't. Still, Cassiopeia offers her help to him and to this day she thinks that was the worst mistake she ever made. She is in general the most competent one on the ship (after Berenger) but her chaotic energy doesn't make it seem like that sometimes. She naturally became the captain somehow? All in all she just wants stuff to be over and in the meantime she prevents most of the people coming along from getting themselves killed because "what would happen if I yeeted myself out the air lock" apparently is a big question among them

Also she likes snakes and scorpions a huge lot and she definitely has a pet snake.

About her family... so the Di Marcellis are absolutely loaded right? I'm talking among the 10 richest families of the solar system-loaded. And she's having none of that capitalist bullshit, so she distanced herself from the family under a lot of huge arguments and even some lawsuits, so this makes her kind of the problem child of the family and they don't like to see her around. Except for Virgo, who is still trying to get her back into the family, which definitely always resolves into a huge fight because Cassiopeias and Virgos view of the world are like day and night.

Almost forgot: she wears dark blue contacts because she thinks her brown eyes are lame and don't fit her aesthetic

Part 2 (Echo, Indigo, Lorelei)

Part 3 (Neil, Sigrid, Virgo)

[got2ghost-archive]

ten ships and why!! I was tagged by @alienfuckeronmain AHH THANK U I LOVE TALKING ABT THIS SHIT

Half of my list is childhood best friends to lovers let's GOOOO

1. drarry

*deep shuddering inhale* I have thought abt draco and harry being foils before I even reached double digits. they could have saved each other and had so much potential to even just be FRIENDS!! if j*r wasn't like that, then she could have actually made a meaningful impact on draco early on. abt how you don't have to be your parents! and how to heal!! anyway I love them any way shape or form. I love reading dark gritty fucked up stories about them just as much as I love reading domestic silly fluffy stuff for them. draco would NOT put up with harry's bullshit and harry would NOT go easy on draco either but they're ultimately just two lonely boys who grew up in fucked up households who have much more in common than they realize!!! LIKE!!

2. wangxian

yes they're a new one but God their love extends so deeply. yes they r basically Chinese fantasy Kirk/spock!!

lan zhan is so in love w wei ying and is so devoted and everything he does is action or acts of service which js very much my love language!! but he also feels a deep sense of obligation to the rules and codes he's learned?? and wei ying loves lan zhan but it takes him a long time to accept it bc he DOESNT BELIEVE HE IS DESERVIG OF LOVE despite being so GOOD. AND THEY NEVER TALK TO EACH OTHER OR COMMUNICATE THEY WAY THEY SHOULD!!!! AND HE DIES and LAN ZHAN IS JUST. REPENTENT FOR 16 YEARS AND RAISES HIS SON AND IS SO INCREDIBLY SAD AND MISERABLE BUT THEN WWX comes BACK TO LIFE and they get to try again AND THEY GET TO BE HAPPY???? ANYWAY ACTS OF DEVOTION I!!!!

3. soriku

I've genuinely thought abt them since I was TEN when the first kingdom hearts game came out but it didn't solidify until KH2 came out when sora has to search for riku the entire game and when he finally does RIKU DOESNT EVEN LOOK LIKE HIMSELF BUT SORA STILL RECOGNIZES HIM ANYWAY AND HOLDS HIS HAND AND CRIES. THAT SHIT MADE ME GAY! I had never witnessed such tenderness and they are so inherently queer and subtle that it's one of the first stories I ever saw myself in. on top of that I also read that doujinshi that I consider Canon and it's so!! childhood best friends! with big complicated feelings of jealousy and betrayal and possessiveness when you start to grow apart from the person you care about the most!! and in game they're slowly... circling to become end game? the entire story revolves around them saving each other and RIKU LITERALLY CALLING SORA HIS MOST PRECIOUS PERSON? AHHHHHH

4. sterek

I will never forgive what the show did but the Fandom and the writing from that fandom is incredibly important to me. they're like my comfort pairing and I just love that Derek is sad and grumpy but it's because he's fucked up and needs to go to therapy and stiles is also kind of fucked up but happier and he's smart and beautiful and!!! they were obviously attracted to each other!! almost all of their stories involve CONSENT or Derek hale getting better slowly. they mean a lot to me bc my mom was dying while I clung to this fandom and wrote my grief fic and I always associate them with that time in my life. I could and did read like 30 stories abt Derek doing laundry and buying wooden spoons and trying to move on and be a healthier happier person.

5. taagnus

rarely have rare pairs but this is one of them and!!! look. I didn't ship them until the last two arcs of the show revealed that instead of only knowing each other for a few years and being idiots they in fact knew each other for 100 years+ and DIED A LOT together and saved each other. BUT COULDN'T REMEMBER IT YET THEY STILL KIND OF... FALL IN LOVE AGAIN? they balance each other so much. magnus is magnus - brave and GOOD. taako is so closed off, careful abt trusting people so when he acted on gut instinct to LITERALLY THROW HIS SOUL OUT OF HIS BODY TO SAVE MAGNUS I was hooked. I know that taako ends up w kravitz but bc we didn't get to see Krav much I couldn't grow attached to him? I love the thought of first love and exploring that - how it never goes away, really but you can still love other people!! plus! I love writing them as lesbians! they're butch/femme to me!

6. ruth/debbie

UGH. UGH!!!!! they're so obsessed with each other and it's so filled with repression and anger and betrayal thst has nothing to do with Ruth fucking her husband and everything to do with the trust of their friendship. it's such a complicated weird fucked up intense 'friendship' that I love to see and like!! sometimes my friendships w women FELT like that. the times I have felt the most hurt is when I lose a friend bc a part of me is in love w them in some way!! Ruth and Debbie are just. in love. though. and Ruth is never gonna admit it and she's gonna... be in a comp het relationship even tho she thinks Debbie is smart and sexy and she idolizes her GOD.

7. gene/finny

YES MOST OF MY PAIRINGS ARE SAD WHAT OF IT? I read this book as a sophomore in hs and I simply could not stop thinking abt how gay and in love they were. FIRST OF ALL THE metaphors!!!!!! gene as winter and finny as summer!! and how codependent and weird they were even tho finny KNEW gene broke his leg. he didn't want to believe it bc he WAS IN LOVE WITH HIM. THEY WENT ON A DATE TO THE BEACH? THE PINK SHIRT? finny being the embodiment of childhood innocence and Gene literally breaking that? and killing it? once again I just love reading abt how complex jealousy is and where it comes from and also REPRESSION!!!

8. forrden

yes I'm including my own OC with @dosalesbian

I wrote abt them for FOUR YEARS. they're childhood best friends who fall in love and marry and are in love no matter what universe and are so soft and tender and healing. forrest goes thru a lot of gender exploration and aiden is just the partner I want to be!! he's goofy and LOVES HER SO MUCH AND SUPPORTS HER SO MUCH GOD!!!!

9. kuroken

they r a new one and yes once again childhood best friends but in a FUN NEW WAY that I want to explore. kenma is like disinterested in most things except gaming and whatever kuroo wants to do and has a hard time socializing bc he's SHY and is too observant! and kuroo is big and dumb and passionate but was also a stupid anxious child. I think they're those friends who are dating but don't even know they're dating or their relationship is so indescribable to themselves and others that it's hard to take any step forward or backward bc theyre SO codependent and yes. I want to explore that and read abt them more.

10. don't look at me yes im putting ryden on here

THEY WERE IN LOVE BUT COULDNT ADMIT IT AND THEN BRENDON WROTE 3 BREAKUP ALBUMS ABT RYAN? AND RYAN RELEASED A SONG THE SAME WEEK BRENDON GOT MARRIED? they're never gonna be friends again bc they can't just be friends

okay!! I tag @scottspack @dosalesbian @pattern-pals hehe

[mollymauk-teafleak]

I will love you if I never see you again (chapter two)

Huge thanks again to my beta readers, @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian whom I love very much

Please consider leaving a comment on Ao3, it takes two seconds, is completely free and it’s hugely motivational and helpful to fic authors like me!

Chapters: 1, 2

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It had been four hours, not even half a day, and Juno was already losing his mind.

He had called in sick at the crack of dawn, unsure of what else to do or what he was going to say when that excuse ran thin, putting the phone down sharply on Rita’s protestations that Mistah Steel never voluntarily called in sick. As often happened when he talked with- or rather shouted at- Rita, he immediately regretted being so sharp and so curt, the second it was too late to take the words back. It just always seemed like he couldn’t control himself in the moment, like someone else, much angrier and snappier, took the reins when he opened his mouth.

Which didn’t bode well for his new job.

He walked away from his comms and stared balefully at the tiny, wrinkled peanut of a baby lying in the middle of his hastily cleared and aired out bed. How such a loud and relentless noise could come from something so small, he didn’t have the faintest idea but she’d been going at it since the ten seconds after Nureyev had walked out of the door.

Not that Juno could blame her. He would scream his head off too, if he’d been abandoned in some stinking, cramped little apartment with a stranger with a scowl like his own. He understood why but good god, it was getting painful.

Every time he made an attempt to soothe her, picking her up or talking to her, she’d just rev like a little engine and the screaming would kick up in pitch until Juno was wincing and fighting the urge to clap his hands over his ears. He’d tried everything he could think of, even zipped open the bag Nureyev had left and pulled out the cloth cat he’d talked about. He had to admit it was cute, the compound eyes done in little sequins and everything.

And when he’d held it out in front of Bianca, she had kicked it out of his hand furiously and sent it across the room.

Juno sighed, feeling a headache root itself in the very base of his brain, “Are you hungry? Is that it?”

She gave no answer but to ball up her little fists against her face, now red as the planet she was trapped on. Juno was getting apprehensive, that colour couldn’t be good to maintain for an extended period of time. Would she just burst if she kept on like that? What would he tell Nureyev then, when he came back?

If he came back.

That thought had gnawed at his brain stem since he’d seen this new, exhausted version of Nureyev with his hair growing a little too long and the shadows under his eyes. He tried to marry it up with the Nureyev he’d known, the man with the sleek, predator’s smile and poise and the heart underneath it all and he couldn’t make a man who would do something like this. Like any of this, having a kid, protecting them, upending the life he curated so carefully for something out of his control.

And if that was true, what did it mean? Had Juno set himself up as neatly as he’d done for Rex Glass? What if Nureyev had no intention of ever coming back?

He didn’t know this new Nureyev, with the broken heart and the tired eyes. He couldn’t say what he wanted, what his plan was. If he acted only in his own self interest, what was he trying to achieve by leaving him with this squalling little noise maker that had been cursed with half Steel DNA?

A hundred different anxieties sat in the pit of his stomach and clawed at it’s walls, making him feel sick and intensifying his headache. He couldn’t puzzle it out, like a mass of string that grew more complicated as a tugged at it.

Groaning, he tugged at his curls and said, “Fine. Food. Let’s try that.”

Making a bottle was far more complicated than he ever could have imagined, especially with Bianca balanced in one arm and screaming. He had to wrestle with the tub of formula to get it open then was greeted with a nauseating burst of artificial milk smell when it finally popped open, as well as a large amount in his hair and his good eye. It had to be measured out just right, he had to wash his hands, he had to boil the kettle then leave it for a full half hour, all while tiny little fists flew and a tiny little tantrum raged. Finally he had gotten it stirred all together, ran it under the water to cool it, even splattered some on his wrist to see if it was too hot like people did on streams.

He was proud of himself for five seconds until he sat back down on his bed, trying to angle Bianca so he could feed her. She made an indignant chirp sound as he tipped her, suddenly finding herself staring up at him. She seemed to ignore the bottle in her face, spluttering like a struggling engine, just looking at Juno. There was a moment of pause there, like they were both holding their breath as near identical pairs of eyes seemed to see each other for the first time.

And then her foot connected with the bottle and the top joints of his fingers where it hurt the most, sending it out of his grip and into his lap, where the top burst off and soaked him in lukewarm formula.

“Okay!” Juno burst out, startling them both. He jumped up, setting her down firmly on the covers, frustration making his cheeks burn, “Look, I know you’re in a strange place with a strange lady and you don’t get what’s going on but there is no need to make it this difficult! This sucks for me just as much as it does for you and it’s only going to get worse if you insist on being such a little mons-”

Juno stopped himself, sucking the word back in like a vacuum had opened up in his throat. But another voice finished it for him, a voice he’d expected to have grown hazier in his mind with the years between the last time he’d heard it and now. But no, it stayed sharp and clear as ever, like it lived on in a dark corner of himself.

And god, it terrified him.

He took a deep breath, tugging his hair, trying to keep himself grounded. It was a fight he was quickly losing until he realised that the room had become quiet. Quiet in a way it hadn’t been in for four hours.

Bianca wasn’t crying. She was looking at him, her little chest heaving like she might start again any second. Her round cheeks were wet and her fists pulled tight to her chest, fingers working nervously.

She needed him. She didn’t like it, he didn’t like it but it didn’t make it any less true. And Juno found himself looking at the exact same choice Sarah Steel had faced, one he had never wanted to have land in his lap.

He could fall apart and let down this tiny little person who was depending on him. Or he could not.

Juno had seen the consequences that one of those paths lead to, he lived with it’s scars every day of his life. And he couldn’t bear to take that road himself. It would be hard. He might still fail with every new step. He may well be doomed to tip and fall to the other side, it might be written into every cell of his body.

But even if it was, he could still fight it with a clenched jaw and split knuckles. And damn it, he was going to.

Sighing, Juno crossed over to his wardrobe and kicked away his now soaked sweatpants, exchanging them for his only other pair, the ones that were from his slightly slimmer HCPD days but would suffice. Then he came back over and picked up Bianca, carrying her back to the kitchen.

The steps were easier to follow this time, now he’d done them once. Wash the hands, pick up a fresh, sterilised bottle, two scoops of powder, fill with cooled boiled water up to the line. Test it on his wrist.

While he waited, he looked down at Bianca and regarded her, really looked at her. He couldn’t think of her as his daughter, not yet, that would be asking too much too soon. But he could see the resemblance even with one eye. She had his skin colour, his eyes, even the grumpy set to his face.

Suddenly, he was certain Nureyev would come back. She clearly missed him so much, what would there be to miss if he hadn’t given her love from the moment she was born? He’d meant every word he’d said about how precious she was to him, even if Juno couldn’t make sense of it with the man he’d known Nureyev to be. Why he’d made the choice he’d made, how he had come to shift his whole motivation, his entire driving force to include her, Juno didn’t know and maybe he’d lost the right to know. But it was what it was and he’d made a promise.

“Listen,” he eventually said, voice raspy with the lack of sleep, “I know it’s Nureyev you want. I know you miss him. But he can’t be here right now so you’ve got me instead. And...well, I’m no one’s first choice, never am. But I’m gonna try, kiddo. Alright?”

Bianca just blinked, opening her mouth for the nib of the bottle when Juno tipped it towards her, latching on quickly and feeding greedily.

“Alright,” Juno nodded, with a grim satisfaction.

One step taken.

“HCPD, Captain Khan speaking, how can I help, citizen?”

“Oh good, Khan, it’s you. I really didn’t think McCluskey was going to put me through after he chewed me out for ten whole minutes…”

“Wha...Steel? What the hell have you gotten yourself into now? What the hell could be worth giving me another goddamn aneurysm?”

“Little rude, Khan, I could be calling to report a crime for all you know.”

“Oh, you usually are, Steel. You just don’t realise you are and that you’re turning yourself in.”

“You’ve never been able to make any of those charges stick and you know it...but I’m really not calling about that, I’m calling to do some...research. For a case.”

“What do I look like, a library?”

“For crying out loud, I thought you guys were supposed to help citizens. Look, it won’t take five seconds, I just need to know if there’s anything you can do to get a baby to sleep through the night.”

“If...Steel, what in the hell is this case you’re working?”

“Not important! I just need an answer and well...you got kids, right? I thought you might know?”

“...Steel, you are by far the strangest individual I have ever had the misfortune to-”

“Khan, do you have an answer or not? This case is...time sensitive.”

“Well...I mean, lots of different people have different ideas on the subject. But I’d say the main concern is two fold, establishing a firm routine and then teaching the kid to self soothe. Kids love a schedule, y’know, helps them get into the rhythm of things. Same time every day, dinner then bath then tuck in. And put them in the crib when they’re drowsy but not fully asleep, that way they learn they call fall asleep on their own. The wife had to be very firm with me on that one, I can tell you, just too tempting to let them fall asleep in your arms-”

“Okay, that all sounds great. Thanks, uh, Captain. This will be very useful for my...my case.”

“I still don’t see what kind of case this could possibly be useful for, Steel…”

“Oh and wouldn’t you know it, that’s my client awake...um, I mean, calling. Got to go, Captain, thanks again!”

“Is that...crying?”

Juno had to remind himself he wasn’t getting any less sleep than he had before. But there was something about the fractured, broken glass snatches of sleep he was getting versus the low, barely awake fog he’d existed in before that was just leaving him feeling more drained than he ever had. Maybe it was the waking up to screams he couldn’t decipher, a loud and angry puzzle he couldn’t solve, rather than to a silent apartment and silent ghosts.

But there had been some small wins in the last three days. If he wanted to be optimistic, something Juno only was in his most desperate moments, he would say those wins were getting closer together.

He’d managed to wash Bianca’s dirty onesies in the sink with newly purchased detergent so she’d have clean ones to wear, rather than just burning through the pile of new ones she’d been left with. He’d bought a steriliser for her bottles and had actually set it up without anything exploding. He’d gotten her to accept the cloth cat, rather than brutalising it when he suspected she probably wanted to aim those tiny fists with their incredibly sharp nails at him.

And just now he’d managed to change her diaper without getting them both in a worse mess at the end than when they’d begun. He was actually starting to anticipate when she would try to roll off the table, able to snag her before she could.

Juno set her down on her blanket in the middle of the room, “Right...stay there and try not to be gross for five seconds. I just got the stains out of that little suit you’re wearing.”

Bianca answered as she usually did, with an indignant burble and a scowl she seemed to be perfecting. She was clearly still confused and bitter that he wasn’t Nureyev and Juno couldn’t exactly blame her. It was probably for the best that she saw him as a temporary annoyance.

“I’m gonna go get Kitty, you stay there and don’t roll anywhere or pull anything down or barf on anything,” he instructed as firmly as he could, pointing at her for emphasis like that was going to make any difference.

Bianca replied exactly as he’d expected, which was to stare at him like he was an idiot. It was eerily similar to Nureyev’s.

Kitty was where they’d been left, in the moses basket Bianca slept in beside the bed. Juno tried to imagine it in the corner of whatever hotel room Nureyev was staying in on whatever complicated and history book worthy scheme he was pulling, under whatever elaborate, flowery name he’d constructed. At least he’d found someone to see the stars with.

He snatched up the toy, holding it awkwardly by the poison stinger, admonishing himself for thinking about stupid stuff when Bianca could be losing his security deposit and pissing off his landlord in any number of inventive ways.

Which was when he heard the door open. And his heart leapt into his throat.

He flung himself out of the bedroom, hand groping for a blaster he hadn’t been wearing for three days and couldn’t even use, other hand forming a fist, ready to just throw himself at whatever threat had just walked through the door if he couldn’t shoot it dead.

Fortunately, a second before he could do that, he heard her voice.

“Well, hello there! Who might you be, little bean?”

Juno’s shoulder slammed painfully into the doorframe as he skidded to a halt, all his momentum and panic turning into a rush of air that sounded vaguely like, “Rita?”

“Mistah Steel!” Sure enough, his secretary was standing in his living room, peering curiously at Bianca, though she’d turned to give him her kilowatt grin as he’d entered, “Where’d you get this cutie from?”

“Rita,” Juno managed a clearer though no less stunned attempt at her name, “What are you doing here at this hour, it’s…” he realised then he didn’t actually know what time it was.

“I’m here cos you aint been in the office for three days!” Rita exploded, a worry she’d clearly been distracted from by Bianca flooding back into her expression, “You called in sick the first time but then you didn’t answer any of my calls and I thought maybe you’d dropped your comms in the toilet again cos it was never right after that first time when the screen went all wibbly…”

“Rita,” Juno groaned, slumping against the doorway. A lot of conversations with his secretary turned into just repeating her name to punctuate her long, rambly monologues until she clicked on that he was trying to talk to her. It was like paying a toll to cross a bridge.

“But, Boss, my goodness but you haven’t answered my question! Why on Mars is there a baby on your living room floor?”

Juno scrambled for a lie, he hadn’t decided yet what he’d tell anyone if they asked about Bianca. He hadn’t been anticipating having to tell anyone, really. He had no friends after all and he didn’t have the kind of face that invited casual conversation in the street.

And he’d never been any good at lying to Rita. Which is why he avoided telling her anything she wouldn’t want to know.

“I’m...I’m watching her for a friend, while they’re out of town,” he eventually coughed up, “Just for a little while.”

Rita turned back to her, studying her face. Her face, so similar to the one looking at her nervously, minus thirty eight years and an eye.

Eventually she grinned, “Well, I can see why ya offered to watch her. She’s a real cute little madam.”

Juno gave a rough, strained smile. That was why he never lied to Rita. She always believed him without question.

“But, Mistah Steel, I gotta say, this apartment is not set up for babysitting duty! You could’ve called me, cleaning this place is a two person job for sure. Probably six or seven. But we’ll work with what we got.”

“Oh, Rita, no,” Juno groaned, “You don’t have to do that…”

“Well, with all due respect, were you gonna look after her all by your lonesome? When you...well, forgive me for saying so, Boss, but when you forget to look after yourself sometimes?”

Juno flinched, “I’ve been doing fine!”

“I mean...sure, Boss,” Rita ducked her eyes and he saw just how much her owlish glasses magnified them when they slipped down her nose, “But...I mean, as long as I’m here, I could maybe stick around? Sure has been lonely at the office without you. I promise I won’t clean nothin’ if that upsets you...”

Juno closed his eye and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose where he could already feel a tightness brewing, “I wasn’t trying to...yeah, fine. Hang around if you want to but no later than...I still don’t know what time it is…”

“It’s six in the afternoon, Mistah Steel.”

“Right. Well, no later than eight, Bianca has to have a bath before bed. I’m trying to get her into a routine.”

“Bianca?” Rita’s face lit up, her hair frizzing out the way it always did when she was excited, like the emotion was an actual electric current running through her body right to her dyed purple tips, “That’s such a sweet name!”

Juno winced internally. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, given her a fake name or something. But it was Rita, after all. Nureyev didn’t have a Rita.

So Juno just crashed onto the sofa and watched as she made cooing noises to Bianca, earning smiles and interested looks that he hadn’t managed to earn with three days of feeding her and changing her diapers. It was enough to make his lip turn down on one side. She’d never made those happy bubbling noises for him or stretched her hands out to be picked up by him.

As he said. It was probably for the best.

After a while, he felt his eyelid growing heavy and things started to turn fuzzy around the edges, a yawn pulling at the edges of his mouth that he refused to let go. He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against the broken springs that had somehow become misshapen enough to hold him with some comfort.

“Rita…” he mumbled, voice turning vague.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Mistah Steel, me and Bee Bee will have a good time, you get some shut eye.”

Juno tried to say something, maybe to protest that it wasn’t her name or maybe to tell her that the stuffed cat on the floor was her favourite, but whether he managed before he fell asleep, he couldn’t have said.

Juno had been thinking a lot about what Rita had said, when she’d asked him if he’d really thought he’d be able to do this on his own, in a voice like he’d been a complete idiot. Because with a week gone since he’d been involuntarily paired up with Rita, he was realising that she was right.

She came over every day now, to walk Bianca’s silly little cloth cat across the back of the sofa and put on elaborate pantomimes with the other parts being filled by her toys with lower billing and, when the cast grew thin, Juno’s shoes. Juno himself would scowl at any parts offered to him and sleep on the side of the stage. Or else, pretend to sleep while keeping his eye half open so he could follow the story. He found making bottles and doing laundry were far easier when he could use both his hands and he wasn’t sleep deprived and, yes, it was nicer to have time and brain space to actually make proper food for himself rather than eating take out all the time. And, well, if he accidentally made too much and Rita was there and they ended up eating at the same time at the same table while Bianca napped in her moses basket then, well...that was nice too.

But sometimes he would find a bitter taste on his tongue and find a thought in his mind to accompany it.

Nureyev had none of this.

He’d done everything on his own and presumably, in another few weeks, he would come back and take her away and continue to do it all on his own.

Tonight though, Rita was visiting Franny who’d apparently had a fall or maybe it was her birthday, Juno could never follow any story about that woman. And Bianca was clearly realising that she wasn’t getting any entertainment or cuddles that night, given how she was fussing and kicking her little legs and getting that grumpy look that Juno used to think was his own but he’d definitely seen that expression on Nureyev’s face many times. Definitely after Juno bounced the balled up doodle of a cat off his nose.

Juno sighed and regarded her, chewing on her fist and cycling her little legs in the air, lying on her back in the middle of the bed. Every attempt to lie her down in her own had resulted in a shriek. Even after a bottle, a bath as full of bubbles as Juno could make it and one of the stories Nureyev had packed for her, she was wide eyed and full of subdued fury as ever.

“Well,” Juno frowned at her, mimicking her expression just to amuse himself, “We can’t sit around and gripe all night, can we?”

Bianca seemed to agree for once, grabbing her ankles and attempting to put those in her mouth as well.

“Yeah,” Juno rolled his eye, folding his arms, “How about a walk then? If you really won’t let go of any of that energy.”

He’d realised a long time ago that walking without purpose through the streets helped him to settle his mind when he felt it getting out of control. It had been Ben’s suggestion, back when they were teenagers, that if he tired out his legs then his brain might follow suit. Well, his brother’s actual suggestion had been to dance his feelings away but he’d made it clear what he’d thought of that. Walking had been a compromise.

Some of his best case cracking ideas had come about when he was marching along some no name street of Hyperion city, alarming the passers by when he would suddenly flap his hands and jump and punch the air in his eureka moment.

And it had occurred to him that Bianca might feel the same, not that she had any cases to solve apart from why things stopped existing when they weren’t in her field of vision.

She seemed to like the motion if nothing else, as Juno buttoned his coat around her just in case she got cold and set off into the evening just starting to tip into twilight. He didn’t set off with any particular destination, he never did, that was a one way ticket to undoing everything he was trying to accomplish with the walk. Once you decided you were trying to get somewhere, then things got tricky. One foot in front of the other was so much simpler.

It was a nice night, all things considered. The dome overhead was catching the sunset in a pretty way, the electric veins of it highlighted in the gold of it so it all looked like a fancy jewelled hair net an Earth socialite would wear. The tops of the palms were dusted in it too, making the leaves shine all glossy, and even the tops of the buildings looked sharp and striking, like cut outs of black paper against the watercolour sky. Things could be beautiful in Hyperion, if you cracked your neck far enough back.

There weren’t too many cars out, there weren’t too many people airing grievances on the sidewalk. There weren’t too many reasons to not want to be here. A pretty good night.

Until he realised where his feet were taking him.

Bianca shifted against his chest at the sound of the birds. This was the only place in Hyperion city where you could hear birds in the trees and see the boughs of the palms bend with nests and find feathers on the ground to pick up and realise they were always softer and had more colours in them than you’d remembered.

The gates were just up ahead, black iron stark against the sunset so the words Halcyon Park stood out bold and bringing memories he’d rather forget, memories of other nights like this. Warm, golden nights that had seemed endless and beautiful and had ended up meaning less than dirt.

That was one thing Juno hated more than anything else. It wasn’t just the bad memories, it was the way they poisoned even the good ones, their roots cracking through the few sweet moments of his childhood and reminding him of the horrors that had been just around the corner that he’d never seen coming. In the end, the good memories hurt all the more.

Everything in Juno told him to turn around. But Bianca was poking her head out of his coat, looking around with wide, curious eyes, at the sounds of the birds maybe or the scent of the flowers that grew in thick, crowded rows along the stone paved paths. Maybe she’d never seen anything like this before? It seemed cruel to give her a glimpse of it now and then take her away.

And besides, she’d pitch a fit if he turned back for home now.

So, resigned, he walked into Halcyon Park, turning Bianca around so she could blink and burble at everything they passed, seeming more content than she had all day. Everything in the park centred around the fountain so that was where they ended up, hearing the soft whisper of the water before they saw it. Juno sat heavily down on one of the light wood benches, styled after the old parks of Earth, the ones that now only existed in picture books like Bianca’s, with their well dressed people in long dresses and tall hats and fresh air.

It didn’t take him long to realise he was sitting exactly where Sarah would sit, while he and Benzaiten would run rings around each other, more often than not tumbling into the fountain itself and getting soaked. And sometimes he would look up, through his dripping curls and see her staring off into space, like the two of them weren’t even there. And sometimes he would see her watching them with such intensity and an emotion he’d been too young to name and couldn’t remember now. And he would never be sure which he preferred.

Bianca had been watching the falling water devotedly, awed by how it split the fading sunlight and sparkled as if a handful of stars were tumbling from the darkening sky into the fountain like pennies for good luck. But now she yawned, resting her head on Juno’s chest, putting all of her weight against him.

Juno looked down. He hadn’t held her like this since she’d arrived, just cradling her because he could. Whenever he’d picked her up before it was always to move her from place to place or to balance her awkwardly while he put a bottle together as hastily as he could to stop her shrieking. He couldn’t remember just holding her for its own sake, feeling her warmth and weight and her little heart beat going like a hummingbird against his own.

And he knew why he hadn’t.

But now he was, Bianca had settled into it so easily, almost as if she’d been waiting for it, crying for it since she’d arrived and not understanding why he hadn’t listened. She was resting against him and patting her little starfish hand against his chest softly, nodding off to the sound of the birds and the smell of the flowers and whisper of the water and the rhythm of his heartbeat. Eventually she reached one of those hands up and patted around his ear, maybe looking for a golden cuff earring. Instead her fingers found the curls of his hair, where they were tighter and closer around the arch of his ear. Almost immediately she fastened on, stroking and petting and grasping where it had been getting longer than he was used to. And she fell asleep, content. So easily, she pillowed her head in the comfort that Juno was there. She trusted him.

Juno realised he was crying just in time to wipe away the tears that were sliding down one side of his face, catching them before they dripped onto Bianca’s head. And he felt like he could name the emotion he’d seen in Sarah’s eyes on those broken, golden nights of his childhood.

[sportsintersections]

16 Awesome Queer Sports Books: Books with LGBTQIA+ Athlete Representation

Image: Daniela Porcelli/Getty Images.

In some ways, the last few years has been a golden time for LGBTQIA+ athletes. The 2019 Women’s World Cup was a record tournament for LGBTQ+ visibility, with at least five players on the U.S. women’s national soccer team being openly queer (Ali Krieger and her now-wife Ashlyn Harris, Megan Rapinoe, A.D. Franch, and Tierna Davidson), as well as coach Jill Ellis, and another player coming out in the moment captured in the photo above, kissing her girlfriend in celebration. Rapinoe’s girlfriend, Sue Bird, another out lesbian athlete who plays in the WNBA, wrote an open letter to the President of the United States. A blockbuster movie told the story of iconic out lesbian tennis star Billie Jean King. Jason Paul Collins came out in 2013 (but retired the following year). Michael Sam was the first openly gay man to be drafted into the NFL in 2014 (but he has since retired).

But, according to the Human Rights Campaign, 70% of LGBTQIA+ people don’t come out to their teammates while still playing a sport, and 82% of athletes have witnessed homophobic and/or transphobic language in their sport. It is still more common, especially for male athletes, to come out after they have already left their sport (TW for homophobic slurs/statements and suicidal ideation), and many athletes who are still playing face backlash (TW for misgendering & general transphobia).

These books, from memoirs by professional queer athletes to YA romances with LGBTQIA+ athlete protagonists, explore these issues and more. 

Books are YA fiction unless otherwise noted.

Spinning, by Tillie Walden (graphic memoir)

This beautiful graphic novel memoir captures Tillie’s experience with figure skating and why she eventually decided to give it up. Full review here.

Girl Crushed, by Katie Heaney

Quinn thought her senior year would be perfect: college scouts recruiting her to her dream school for D1 soccer and her best-friend-turned-girlfriend at her side. But then Jamie dumps her, a month before the school year begins, and it’s getting a little late to have heard back from schools, if she’s going to end up on one of the top teams. Over the course of the school year, Quinn learns that her binary black-and-white, gay-and-straight, success-and-failure ways of seeing her world could stand to be a little more complicated. This book is about identity, self-esteem, friendship, crushes, and soccer. There are also many fun USWNT references! TW for some (challenged) bisexual erasure.

The Reappearing Act: Coming Out on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians, by Kate Fagan (adult memoir)

Kate was thrilled to be playing basketball for a nationally-ranked school and to have a close-knit group of teammates. Her best friends were part of Colorado’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and she tried to join them and learn about their church, but she started to realize that she might be one of those people whose “sinful lifestyles” they talked about. She had to figure out how to come out without losing her friends, and her team.

Check, Please! Volume 1, by Ngozi Ukazu (graphic novel)

This adorable graphic novel (which was originally published as a popular webcomic) follows Bitty, a former junior figure skating champion and enthusiastic baker, who somehow ended up on the Samwell University hockey team. He’s terrified of checking (what if he gets hurt??), trying to figure out if he can win over the guys with pies, and also feeling some kind of way about the hot but grumpy captain.

Keeper of the Dawn, by Dianna Gunn

Lai wants to become a priestess, like her mother and grandmother were before her, but first she must prove herself in the trials she’s been training for her whole life. Nothing goes according to plan, but she can still depend on herself and her skill as a fighter and a horseback rider and take matters into her own hands. This fantasy novel features an asexual protagonist and a f/f romance.

The Passing Playbook, by Isaac Fitzsimmons (2020/2021 release)

This book hasn’t been released yet, but there are so few (if any) own voices YA sports books with trans characters that I decided to include it anyway. A queer, biracial, trans soccer player is benched, and has to decide whether to fight the ruling, even though that would mean coming out to everyone…including the Christian teammate he’s falling for.

Running with Lions, by Julian Winters

This coming-of-age novel follows Sebastian, a bisexual rising senior who’s excited for his last summer at soccer camp, where his teammates are great and the coach doesn’t expect anyone to stay in the closet. But then Emir Shah, a Muslim British-Pakistani new recruit, shows up. He also happens to be Sebastian’s former best friend, and they left things on pretty bad terms. So why is he finding himself attracted to Emir all of the sudden?

None of the Above, by I.W. Gregorio

I am hesitant to recommend this non-ownvoices intersex representation, but it’s the only book I know of about an intersex teen athlete, and, while it is imperfect and seems geared towards a non-intersex audience, there are certainly some good things to be said about it. It is informative, well-researched, and moving. Kristin, a homecoming queen and champion hurdler with a cute boyfriend, seems to be having a great high school experience. But a doctor’s visit reveals that she’s intersex, and, while she’s still coming to terms with what that might mean for her and her identity, her diagnosis is leaked to the whole school. TW for transphobic/anti-intersex slurs and bullying.

Forward: My Story, Young Readers’ Edition, by Abby Wambach (memoir)

U.S. Women’s National Team soccer star Abby Wambach tells her story with honesty and vulnerability, sharing how she came to lead her team to a World Cup win in 2015. She is open about her sexuality and romantic life (including a named mention of a certain pink-haired teammate, who also happens to be her ex-girlfriend) and how it affected her career.

We Ride Upon Sticks, by Quan Barry (adult fiction, with teen protagonists)

The 1989 Danvers high field hockey team finds themselves winning…a lot. Is it because they all wrote their names in a mysterious notebook with Emilio Estevez on the cover, and pledged themselves to dark forces so they could make the state championships? This darkly funny story explores friendship, sportsmanship, and what means to find power and sense of self as a teen girl.

Beautiful on the Outside, by Adam Rippon (adult non-fiction)

In his comedic memoir, Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon shares his journey from poverty and uncertainty to success and becoming a self-professed American sweetheart. He opens up about anxiety attacks, coming to terms with his sexuality and coming out, and some enjoyable behind-the-scenes gossip. He also narrates the audiobook.

Ana on the Edge, by A.J. Sass (middle-grade, fall 2020 release)

Twelve-year-old Ana-Marie is the reigning U.S. Juvenile figure skating champion, but that doesn’t mean everything feels easy or figured out. When Ana meets Hayden, a transgender boy, at the rink, Hayden mistakes Ana for a boy…and Ana doesn’t bother to correct him. In fact, it feels good to be seen as a boy. Now Ana must decide which identity feels the most right, in time for a big competition coming up. This book isn’t out yet, but it’s due to be released in fall 2020, and it is written by a non-binary (and autistic) author, who is also a figure skater.

Heartstopper, Volume 1, by Alice Oseman (graphic novel)

Charlie is neurotic and openly gay (after he was outed last year and bullied for months), and hoping that Year 10 at the British all-boys grammar school will be better. He meets Nick, an upbeat, sweet rugby player, and they become friends. Soon he finds himself hoping that their friendship turns into something more.

Fearless: Portraits of LGBT Student Athletes, by Jeff Sheng (non-fiction)

This is a memoir of an American artist who uses his story as a closeted high school athlete in the 1990s as a jumping-off-point to depict hundreds of photos of other LGBTQ+ high school and college athletes in the U.S. and Canada between 2003 and 2015.

Amateur, by Thomas McBee (adult memoir/non-fiction)

In this memoir, Thomas McBee describes grappling with the meaning of masculinity, violence, and sports. As a trans man, he has noticed since his transition that the world treats him completely differently and expects different things from him. But what does he want, and how does he want to define masculinity and strength for himself? He decides to train for a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden as a way to find out.

Dryland, by Sara Jaffe

Julie is a cynical teen in Portland at the height of the grunge movement, struggling to define herself and her sexuality. No one in her family is willing to talk about her older brother, who at one point seemed destined for the Olympics but then fell off the map. Julie has never considered swimming herself, but then the swim team captain convinces her to join. Is this what she’s been looking for -- a way to get closer to her brother and maybe herself?

[All book covers belong to their respective publishers].

[les8ean]

Who are these OCs of yours?

lesse here we got...

Alliya (picrew used)Gardener, Cryptozoologist, Conspiracy Theorist, Alien Hunter, and all around cutie

Alyren (picrew used)Master Restoration Mage, Ex-Psijic, Effectively Immortal (through her masterful restoration magic (and some stolen Psijic knowledge)), and your local trans lesbian

Corvo (picrew used)My first real OC, i made her as a HUGE coping mechanism while i was going through some really tough shit. she’s got the most tragic of tragic backstories and has also been through a lot of trauma but!!!! as i’ve gotten into a better place so has she!!!!! she’s now a happily married lesbian who studies entomology in her spare time and works at the local animal shelter and library

E-K (picrew used)Homeless Wandered, Friends with Everyone, genuinely one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, kinda a himbo. He’s Fish’s dad

Fish (picrew used)Feral Goblin Baby Supreme. jus a littel creachur

Junnaya (picrew used)Immortal Dark-Brotherhood Assassin. Cicero is the only motherfucker in the Skyrim sanctuary that she has any respect for. has a love-hate relationship with the Night Mother (it’s complicated). she’s actually a khajiit but.......... i haven’t made her in many furry picrews yet sdhfksdjahgfshglhdk

Ketiit (picrew used)another khajiit OC, Ketiit used to be a child-slave on a small remote island in Summerset, along with @69420coolman‘s OC Har-Kanain (an argonian). the two escaped when they were teens (Ket 14, Har 16) and Junnaya found them and took them in. Ketiit has a lot of pent up anger from her years of being mistreated, and is using adventuring to help her get through it. she’s also a werewolf, and a member of the Companions, and is a pretty damn good alchemist. she killed her bitch-ass master and freed all the other slaves there. She and Har have a really complicated backstory involving Hircine and reincarnation and ancient khajiit and argonians fighting the invading imperials, but i won’t get into it right now skjghksdfhgk

Llelewyn (picrew used)another of my first real OCs!!! along with Corvo, they were made around the same time and both helped me deal with different stuff. Llel is also Corvo’s wife now!!!!!! the two both went through HELL cause of me so i figured i might as well give them a happy ending UwU

Magpie (picrew used)Corvo’s older sister, Magpie is a punk-rock rebel girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone. she’s in a rock band that’s just one big happy poly relationship. they have a cat named Titan, he’s a deaf maine-coon they rescued and sometimes he’ll just wander on stage during gigs. all of her bands songs are either: - fuck the government- there can be no ethical consumption under capitalism- yeah i’m queer you wanna fuckin fight about it- i’m gonna scream my emotions out in the car at 3am while doing 90 down the highway

Marren (picrew used)grumpy hacker who’s always tired because they stayed up for 3 days straight trying to get a program to work. built a robot with a self-aware A.I when they were 8 because they couldn’t make any friends. is dating Alliya and cannot believe she puts up with their bullshit (and is constantly questioning whether Alliya is just dating them out of pity because they had a p difficult childhood (dw, Alliya genuinely loves them, and they love her)). they probably watch Rick and Morty

Nova (picrew used)ghosty boyyy!!!! he can see ghosts and talk to them! he’s trans and gay and has lesbian mums! he’s Corvo’s cousin and cares for her deeply. his bf (E-K) is the love of his life and he wishes they got to spend more time together (dw, they get married one day ;3)

Oberonn (picrew used)the middle child in between Corvo and Magpie. he’s a college drop-out who runs an illegal chemist/apothecary out of his garage where he sells people medication that they need but can’t afford to get elsewhere (anti-depressant, adhd meds, etc). there’s a 90% chance at any given time that he hasn’t left the house in a week and hasn’t slept that entire time. insomniac “““doctor””” who just. needs to learn some self-care. please. go take a shower.

r0bb1e (picrew used)Marren’s robot friend! he’s an asshole. but really, he’s very much like Marren (also an asshole (kinda, they tend to push people away so they can’t get hurt)). will download your favourite show and spoil the ending. had to spend a month as a roomba once when his body broke and Marren had to fix it. 

Raven (picrew 1 - picrew 2)is she alive, living with witches and also amnesia? is she dead, haunting her twin sister? who knows! it all depends on the AU baby!!! Corvo’s twin sister who may or may not be dead. schroedinger’s Raven

Urndresi (picrew used)Dark elf mercenary. can and will steal your girl. dating Junnaya. ex-communicated herself from House Telvanni because she can’t fucking stand them, the slavery, the manipulation tactics, the magic (she sucks at magic and is petty about it), the “we’re better than you” attitude. goes around freeing slaves (mostly those owned by Telvanni) in her free team. is immortal, but is a lot less angsty about it than Junnaya (just kidding haha she’s actually internalising enough emotions to kill a dragon)

[nebris]

Hating Valerie Solanas (And Loving Violent Men)

by Chavisa Woods 

My fourth book, and first full-length work of nonfiction will be released by Seven Stories Press in June. 100 Times (A Memoir of Sexism) is a 240-page memoir, written as in-scene vignettes, telling the stories of one hundred experiences of sexist discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence I have personally experienced and witnessed, beginning at age five, through the present day.

I recently shared an excerpt of this book on social media, and immediately an old friend who I’d long ago lost touch with, a man from the Midwest, began arguing with me, and compared me to Valerie Solanas. I could tell from the tone of his comment, he expected me to recoil at the mention of that name — Valerie Solanas — the direst of insults; queer female hysterical violent “femi-nazi” insanity personified. This name was meant to summon shame in me, like invoking some Goetic demon to bate and restrain my crazed feminism.

He’s not the only one who sees her that way. When so many people think Valerie Solanas, they think, “bat-shit crazy, violent, murderous, ridiculous, woman.”

In a recent season of the popular television show, American Horror Story, for instance, Solanas was depicted by Lena Dunham as a demented serial killer who led a cult of murderous feminists to kill heterosexual couples — kids hooking up in cars, happy newlyweds and such — in a bloody, nationwide feminist murder spree. This, of course, is a completely fictional narrative, and for the purposes of this show, Solanas’s epitomal work, The Scum Manifesto, was interpreted as a literal, earnest text. Dunham portrayed Solanas as a frumpy, grumpy, clownish homicidal lesbian.

In the mainstream media and collective consciousness, Solonas has been written off as a worthless artist, and remembered only for her violent act against Andy Warhol.

All of this got me thinking about unconscious bias, and what it takes for us to denounce a female artist’s historical worth, versus what it does for a man.

William Burroughs shot and killed his wife while drunk and high, playing a game they called “William Tell,” wherein his wife placed an apple on her head, and he shot it off. He missed, killed her, and later wrote about it, implying it was possible he subconsciously wanted to kill her, because he was gay and resented having a wife. He served only two weeks in jail for this slaughter. Because the homicide occurred in Mexico, and through a combination of bribery and fleeing the country, he avoided serving any prison sentence.

Burroughs, of course, is still widely celebrated as a great author. I, in fact, had a poem published in a literary magazine a few years ago, the cover adorned with a photograph of him holding a rifle. This image was considered darkly humorous.

Almost every other author I’ve spoken with about the ethics of celebrating Burroughs and his art points me in the direction of compassion; he had a drug problem, he and his wife were “in it together.”

After the murder of his wife, he served as a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. His body of work still remains relevant, is widely taught in English and Writing curriculum in colleges, and is written about reverently in current scholarly articles and in major media outlets worldwide. He is generally thought of as good man. In his bio on Wikipedia, the slaughter of his wife doesn’t even come in until the sixth paragraph. (I am citing Wikipedia, because it represents the most current, popular, collective opinions of the general public, not as a scholarly reference.)

Valerie Solanas, on the other hand, shot Andy Warhol, not killing him, but severely injuring him. He died twenty years later from health complications possibly exacerbated by the injury, as well as a speed addiction.

Solanas and Warhol had a documented horrible working/personal relationship, rife with insult. She saw Warhol as constantly demeaning her privately and publicly, even after featuring her in one of his films.

Warhol agreed to look at a play she’d written, possibly to produce it. She gave him the only manuscript to read, and he (claimed he) lost it, though she believed he threw it away to spite her. This was the catalyst for the shooting.

Pablo Neruda raped a servant while he was visiting her country as a diplomat. He wrote about it quite matter-of-factly and unapologetically in his memoirs (I Confess that I have Lived, first published in 1974, in English in 1977):

One morning, I woke earlier than is my custom. I hid in the shadows to watch who passed by. From the back of the house, like a dark statue that walked, the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen in Ceylon entered, Tamil race, Pariah caste. She wore a red and gold sari of the cheapest cloth. On her unshod feet were heavy anklets. On each side of her nose shone two tiny red points. They were probably glass, but on her they looked like rubies.

She solemnly approached the toilet without giving me the slightest look, without acknowledging my existence, and disappeared with the sordid receptacle on her head, retreating with her goddess steps. She was so beautiful that despite her humble job, she left me disturbed. As if a wild animal had come out from the jungle, belonging to another existence, a separate world. I called to her with no result.

I then would leave some gift on her path, some silk or fruit. She would pass by without hearing or looking. Her dark beauty turned that miserable trip into the obligatory ceremony of an indifferent queen.

One morning, I decided to go for all, and grabbed her by the wrist and looked her in the face. There was no language I could speak to her. She allowed herself to be led by me smilelessly and soon was naked upon my bed. Her extremely slender waist, full hips, the overflowing cups of her breasts, made her exactly like the thousands year old sculptures in the south of India. The encounter was like that of a man and a statue. She kept her eyes open throughout, unmoved. She was right to regard me with contempt. The experience was not repeated.

No one remembers him for this.

Charles Bukowski is on video kicking and punching his girlfriend during an interview about his writing, and was said to have been physically abusive to multiple female partners. He is still celebrated worldwide as a great poet.

Louis Althusser strangled his wife to death in an act of cold-blooded murder. In his Wikipedia bio, he’s described as, “A French Marxist philosopher, whose arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism.”

As I write this, the murder of his wife doesn’t receive mention until the last paragraph, and then it simply says, “Althusser’s life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her.”

He is widely celebrated. The murder of his wife is mentioned only in the context of his mental illness.

Valerie Solanas suffered from Schizophrenia. She was also a victim of childhood incest. Her father repeatedly raped her, and then she was sent to live with her grandparents as a teenager, and then her grandfather raped her, and then she ran away from home and became a sex worker.

The shooting of Andy Warhol is currently the first sentence of her Wikipedia bio. She is widely regarded and repeatedly portrayed as a worthless, angry, bat-shit crazy piece of human garbage. Where is this compassion that we are asked to have for male artists, for her?

She was a brilliant artist. The SCUM Manifesto is a masterwork of literary protest art, which is often completely misread. Much of it is actually a point-by-point re-write of multiple of Freud’s writings. It is a parody.

In his essay The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman, Freud suggests that a good treatment for lesbians would be having their (most likely already hermaphroditic) ovaries, and genitals removed and replaced with grafted “real” female genitals.

Freud’s exact words:

The cases of male homosexuality which (have) been successful fulfilled the condition, which is not always present, of a very patent physical ‘hermaphroditism’. Any analogous treatment of female homosexuality is at present quite obscure. If it were to consist in removing what are probably hermaphroditic ovaries, and in grafting others, which are hoped to be of a single sex, there would be little prospect of its being applied in practice. A woman who has felt herself to be a man, and has loved in masculine fashion, will hardly let herself be forced into playing the part of a woman…

In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas posits that a good “treatment” for straight men is to get their dicks chopped off: “When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman (males as well as females think men are women and women are men), and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw (or to do anything else, for that matter; he fulfills himself as a drag queen) and gets his dick chopped off. He then achieves a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from ‘being a woman’. Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female.”

Freud’s texts are rife with suggestions of female castration and hysterectomies as treatments for all sorts of psychological troubles suffered by women, and in response, The SCUM Manifesto is infamous for suggesting castration might improve the behavior of men.

Freud posited that heterosexual women are sexually passive, engaging in sex only because they want children. He invented the theory of “penis envy.” He claimed that because girls do not have  penises, girls come to believe they have lost their penises, and eventually, seek to have male children in an attempt “to gain a penis.” He believed women, on some deep, subconscious level, viewed themselves as castrated males. In his theory of psychosexual development he posited that for women, sex (with males) may also be a subconscious attempt to gain a penis.

In his essay, The Taboo of Virginity, Freud writes: “We have learnt from the analysis of many neurotic women that they go through an early age in which they envy their brothers, their sign of masculinity and feel at a disadvantage and humiliated because of the lack of it (actually because of its diminished size) in themselves. We include this ‘envy for the penis’ in the ‘castration complex’.”

Solanas, replaces the envy of the penis, not only with envy of the vagina, but most often, with women’s emotional openness, complexity and individuality as the focus of men’s envy. She writes of men: “The female’s individuality, which he is acutely aware of, but which he doesn’t comprehend, and isn’t capable of relating to or grasping emotionally, frightens and upsets him and fills him with envy. “

At the time of the writing of The SCUM Manifesto, Freud was a celebrated figure in psychology, and his theories were being widely touted in academic and popular spheres alike. Solanas took issue with this, and wrote The SCUM Manifesto as a parody, mocking the popular, sexist, and hetero-centric thinking on gender and sexuality at the time. But the text is a reversal. In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas directs everything Freud said with an equal amount of vigor and confidence back at men. So, instead of “female motherhood” being a primary drive, she reverses this to attack/analyze the “male sex drive” through the same line of thinking as Freud.

In his essay, Leonardo Da-Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, Freud hypothesizes that homosexuality in men stems from their relationship with their father and mother. He proposes that homosexuality (which he assumes is a bad thing) is caused by a relationship with a mother who is too tender to her son (as in all his texts, he repeatedly states that children are naturally sexually attracted to their parents of the opposite sex), and a mother who is, at the same time, too assertive and independent in relation to her own husband (the boy’s father.) This causes the boy to see his mother figure, who’s also an object of his  sexual desire in childhood, as a man, not a woman. And this makes the boy gay. He writes:

In all our male homosexual cases the subjects had had a very intense erotic attachment to a female person, as a rule their mother, during the first period of childhood, which is afterwards forgotten; this attachment was evoked or encouraged by too much tenderness on the part of the mother herself, and further reinforced by the small part played by the father during their childhood. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers on his homosexual patients were frequently masculine women, women with energetic traits of character, who were able to push the father out of his proper place. I have occasionally seen the same thing, but I was more strongly impressed by cases in which the father was absent from the beginning or left the scene at an early date, so that the boy found himself left entirely under feminine influence. Indeed it almost seems as though the presence of a strong father would ensure that thee son made the correct decision in his choice of object, namely someone of the opposite sex.

In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas takes this analysis and flips it on its head through an extreme feminist lens, where becoming a “real (straight) man” is already assumed to be a bad thing. She writes: “The effect of fatherhood on males, specifically is to make them, ‘Men,’ that is, highly defensive of all impulses to passivity, faggotry, and of desires to be female. Every boy wants to imitate his mother, be her, fuse with her. So he tells the boy, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, not to be a sissy, to act like a ‘Man.’ The boy, scared shitless of and respecting his father, complies, and becomes just like Daddy, that model of ‘Man’-hood, the all-American ideal — the well-behaved heterosexual dullard.”

While Freud accuses the mother of being to blame for the horrible fate of a boy becoming a homosexual, Solanas accuses the father of being to blame for the horrible fate of a boy becoming a straight man.

As you can see from the above, The SCUM Manifesto in many places is an almost line-by-line mockery of Freud’s writings on women and homosexuals, and was never meant to be read as a literal, earnest text throughout. This does not mean it is intended as a joke or to be taken lightly, though. As some may have noticed in the above text, it is not without serious, meaningful and resonant critiques of patriarchal institutions. There is a lot of truth in this parody. It is a political satire. It is simultaneously dead serious, yet written with a nod and a wink. In keeping with the protest art of the time, if you didn’t get it, she wasn’t going to explain it to you. She was happy to make cocky comments, like, “I mean every word of it,” knowing, and indeed, hoping that the “squares” who didn’t understand the sarcasm inherent to the foundation of the text, would be that much more shocked at her effrontery.

Valerie Solanas just said, in a modernized (now dated) vernacular, exactly what Freud had said about women, only about men, and everyone freaked out, because when we talk about men the same way men have talked about women for centuries, it reads as grotesque and insanely violent, un-compassionate, and shocking, which was exactly her point.

Her work is still misinterpreted as a literal text by many to this day.

After shooting Andy Warhol, Solanas turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and pleaded guilty to “reckless assault with intent to harm,” serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital. In a darkly ironic twist of fate she was subjected to a nonconsensual hysterectomy during her hospitalization. Shortly after her release from prison, she became homeless, and never published another work.

Michael Alig, known for being a famous party promoter and club kid in the 1980s (in the film about his life, Party Monster, he was played by Macaulay Culkin), brutally murdered his friend, Andre “Angel” Melendez, over an argument about a drug debt.

Alig cut his friend up into pieces and threw him in the Hudson River. He’s been released from prison and is currently working as a club promoter in New York City.

Since his release, he’s also appeared in an indie film with artists I know personally, called Vamp Bikers, in which Alig plays a homicidal sociopath who slowly, brutally murders his friend.

I accidentally watched this at a film screening I attended in Brooklyn years ago, having no idea what I was getting into. It made me want to throw up, seeing him happily take part in a campy fictional portrayal of a murder so similar to the one he actually committed, and being celebrated for this. Many people around me were excitedly saying they hoped that Alig might attend the screening.

His website, michaelalig.com describes him as an “artist, writer, curator.” You can hire him to produce your party, or buy one of his many pop art paintings for $500 a pop.

I think this is all abhorrent. I’ve had debates with friends over this, and have been asked, “Well, he served his time. Shouldn’t we have compassion? He was young and on a lot of drugs when he did that. Don’t you think he should get a second chance?”

Perhaps. Perhaps a chance at living as a free person again, yes, perhaps that, but definitely not a chance to be celebrated for being the famous club kid who murdered his friend. And it’s not lost on me that the person he murdered was a poor, lesser known gay man of color, and I wonder if he would have gotten out of prison so early if he’d been the one who murdered Michael.

Perhaps more shocking than this, is the life and reception of essayist and novelist Norman Mailer. When speaking about feminism and women’s liberation Norman Mailer said: “We must face the simple fact that maybe there’s a profound reservoir of cowardess in women that had them welcome this miserable, slavish life.”

In his book Advertisements for Myself, Mailer claims that a writer without “balls” is no writer at all:

I have a terrible confession to make — I have nothing to say about any of the talented women who write today. Out of what is no doubt a fault in me, I do not seem able to read them. Indeed, I doubt if there will be a really exciting woman writer until the first whore becomes a call girl and tells her tale. At the risk of making a dozen devoted enemies for life, I can only say that the sniffs I get from the ink of the women are always fey, old-hat, Quaintsy Goysy, tiny, too dykily psychotic, crippled, creepish, fashionable, frigid, outer-Baroque, maquillé in mannequin’s whimsy, or else bright and stillborn. Since I’ve never been able to read Virginia Woolf, and am sometimes willing to believe that it can conceivably be my fault, this verdict may be taken fairly as the twisted tongue of a soured taste, at least by those readers who do not share with me the ground of departure — that a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.

I would argue that Norman Mailer spoke and wrote just as violently, grotesquely and shockingly about women as Valerie Solanas did about men. But he was not saying any of these things or writing his sexist texts as a parody or protest of his own subjugation.

Norman Mailer is still widely celebrated for both his fiction and essays, including numerous works that take a stand adamantly against feminism and women in general. In 1968 and 1980 he won the Pulitzer Prize. In 2005, he won the National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 1960, he attempted to murder his wife by stabbing her multiple times in the chest, barely missing her heart.

While his wife lay in the hospital in critical condition, a day after the stabbing, Mailer appeared in a scheduled interview on The Mike Wallace Show, where he spoke of the knife as a symbol of manhood. He was briefly arrested two days later, though his wife refused to press charges, saying that she feared for the safety of their children if she did so. She did, however divorce him once she recovered.

The parallels between Mailer and Solanas are as astonishing as their differences. The only reason I can find for the differences in how they are popularly viewed is that Mailer was a man, speaking and acting violently against women in a sexist society, and Solanas was a woman, doing the reverse in this same society.

I can’t help but conjure Solanas’s legacy when looking at the current questions that keep popping up on the subject of violence, art, and who we celebrate today. Do we forgive Louis C.K. for serially masturbating on countless women he worked with? What does forgiveness mean? Does it mean he continues to enjoy the same level of reverence and celebrity as before? Can we still enjoy Michael Jackson’s music knowing that he had ongoing sexual relationships with what seems to be an endless stream of young boys? Should we still be patronizing Woody Allen’s films? Is it alright to feel heartbroken over the loss of the Bill Cosby so many knew and loved? What of the beautiful works of so many beloved male authors I have spoken about above?

I do not have clear answers to these questions, nor do I think there is one rule of response that is correct for every situation, but I do know that the social hammer has come down hard on women who commit similar acts of violence, especially when those acts are directed at men. I do know that sexist bias has judged one of my artistic heroes much more harshly than her male counterparts.

I do not condone or celebrate Valerie Solanas’s shooting of Andy Warhol. But when people bring up Valerie Solanas as if she is a horrendous, murderous, bat-shit crazy, worthless, hysterical, violent criminal whose literary artwork is as valuable as the ramblings of a madwoman, suggesting that she should be written off as nothing more, I always think to myself, “Well, that’s exactly what she would have expected from this society.” Much less has changed since she first released the book in 1967, than I would have hoped. Those opening lines still remain eerily significant: “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore, and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.”

http://www.full-stop.net/2019/05/21/features/chavisa-woods/solanas/

[therealdragonpost-generator]

! ! ! NEW DRAGON ALERT ! ! !

A normally-sized dark-red and neon-yellow Dragon (Western type) with creme fangs named Peng. Peng is lesbian and uses She/Her. She has green eyes, wears glasses, and has straight timberwolf-colored hair. Peng's wings are butterfly-like and gray. Peng has quite a happy personality, and likes hoarding gems and hoarding friends. She also likes playing the saxaphone, and will talk very fondly of it. Peng drives a bread route for a living, and they loathe it. Peng is usually aggressive in public, and more grumpy with friends. Speaking of friends, Peng has one friend; a dark-purple pastel-red pidgeon. Peng is in a complicated relationship with Mareesa, a neon-yellow nonbinary-flag cockroach. One time, Peng fist bumped Mareesa, who hated it. Peng has no disorders or handicaps.

[sheusedtobesassier]

Day 10,785

172 days until I hit my thirties.

So. An assortment of 172 good memories from my twenties.

001. Addey hype mumbo jumbo singing along with Moana before she was really talking.

002. Being asked to say the big thank you at SOE graduation.

003. Isaac’s face when he peeked at Omar’s new shoes at the East Towne Starbucks.

004. Drinking Mike’s honey moonshine while we played Euchre in his starry cicada humming backyard.

005. Taking Mama on the water taxi rides when she visited me in Chicago.

006. Grandma Kathy calling me, “My pink haired granddaughter.”

007. Sneaking into camp with the Hines girls to write up collaboration glass bottle poems in the Prayer Chapel.

008. The slow and steady hike up to the Hollywood sign.

009. The night I kidnapped Mini Farm kittens to snuggle for a movie and accidentally left the gate open releasing the rest to the Wisconsin wild.

010. Sunday afternoon sipping Stella Artois in the perfect sunny front room of our Albany Park apartment.

011. Zoë giving me all her wallet cash so I could buy bare minimum groceries.

012. Taking turns reading The History of Love aloud in our Winter Staff Forest Springs apartment.

013. The Halloween/Hillside round of Murder in the Dark with All Stars only.

014. Acting a fool in the unfinished Lodge room filled from floor to ceiling with Tempur-Pedic mattresses.

015. Doug lounging in the giant crate of laundry bags in the laundry room.

016. GUBS INSIDE JOKES.

017. St. Patrick’s Day 2021, hahaha.

018.  Beyoncé: Lemonade in the empty downstairs apartment with Mary.

019. Accidentally getting kayak drunk from a backpack bottle of Ménage à Trois.

020. Daylight skinny dipping with Amber to inaugurate the new pool.

021. The perfect stray cat that came around the second half of 2018.

022. Renate being the first to cry with me post breakup. Bill supplying sparkling water to prevent dehydration.

023. Doing drag makeup in Bekah’s bathroom while her and Marissa giggled at each other in the tub.

024. Every kitchen island conversation I’ve ever had with Steve Hines.

025. The perfect colors the night we snuck up on the helicopter landing pad on that Dallas hotel.

026. FACILITATING THAT SAME WEEKEND’S GAME OF ASSASSIN, BEFORE IT GOT UGLY.

027. Becoming buddies with all four Williams brothers.

028. When Mercy told me I’m her favorite Williams brother.

029. Hahaha the Camp Clean Up I put Elliot on my crew for my own amusement and told him his only responsibility was to walk around with me the whole time.

030. The time Blaine and I were avoiding the long lunch line together and Nimanim was like, “Wait so this is like an actual friendship huh?”

031. Tanner enthusiastically reenacting Gandalf’s YOU SHALL NOT PASS as I came up the path.

032. Will realizing I’d Facebook stalked him without sending a friend request.

033. Magically finding Pop Rocks the morning of my perfect 22nd birthday.

034. My perfect 26th birthday weekend in Minneapolis with my dreamy local girl gang.

035. Tauri’s blossoms on the Sky Lodge trees in the spring.

036. Encountering and becoming completely enthralled by the Enneagram.

037. OLIVIA FUCKING GATWOOD APPRECIATING MY PINK HAIR.

038. Clementine von Radic writing that Greyhound always loses her luggage too.

039. My stretch of obsession with Hemingway’s love interests.

040. Becoming friends with Fat Boy Tucker pup.

041. Becoming friends with rescued best dog Star girl.

042. The night Doug was my ride from the airport and he pulled his truck over so we could take a good look at the gigantic moon.

043. That hilarious flirtatious moonlight wander of the horse trails with Omar and Edith and Caleb.

044. Jake Nelson giving me a surprise scoop of chocolate custard as a peace offering after his grumpy bedtime attitude.

045. THE DISCOVERY AND CAPTIVATION OF HADESTOWN.

046. Getting to have Alia in every day for a while there.

047. Les Mis at Overture Center because Ally bought our family tickets.

048. Pat Coakley telling me I don’t know how special I am.

049. Spit handshake with Janelle swearing we’ll never think any boys are cooler than we are.

050. Marissa picking me up without explanation to take us on a quiet sunset drive of her favorite county road.

051. Jayden imagination playing with Blue, Guy, and a motorcycle for a whole night then waking me up with them the next morning.

052. Genevieve asking to borrow my lavender romper for her rehearsal dinner.

053. Getting to be Cali’s sidekick the week leading up to her wedding extravaganza.

054. Houston YMCA hallway phone call from Justin’s dorm room asking me clarify which of the boys was Nick, Schmidt, and Winston.

055. The absolutely ludicrous old woman I got drunk with in the Amtrak dining car.

056. The absolute ludicrous glass skull light up cocktail I drank at Freehand’s hotel bar.

057. When Dan Hartke told me I’m a mother hen.

058. When the most beautiful Sora from Korea told me, “You always flowers.”

059. Hannah’s hand me down Steve Madden sandals.

060. Runaway trips with Amber Bamber to watch Shakespeare in the woods.

061. Storytelling with Jack Thomas.

062. Drunk bar darts after Corn Fest with Marissa’s gang.

063. Leaving the reception with Emmy to go curl up in Amber’s bed and giggle about how it was the last place she slept as a virgin.

064. The night Riana and Zoe and I took turns putting our heads out the car windows to howl like wolves.

065. Falling asleep on the couch with Zelina and Chelle beer buzzed watching Jersey Shore.

066. That perfect little basement Thai place a couple blocks from Emmy’s apartment dorm.

067. When Dan forced me to get out of his car and left because I’d annoyed him too hard on our library trip.

068. Vicki suggesting we go live together overseas.

069. Depop photoshoot with Taurilyn.

070. Mykenza bluntly declaring true things I couldn’t confirm or deny.

071. Norm announcing to the full room he was teaching that I was a rascal.

072. Zochella.

073. Noah Gundersen and Brett Dennen at The Majestic.

074. Every damn time we ate beautiful food at High Rock Cafe.

075. The nights I felt capable at TOCHI.

076. LENA DUNHAM’S GIRLS.

077. Jordan suddenly ballroom dancing Genevieve around the kitchen.

078. Staying up late crying to my mom about trying to take good care of the lesbian teenagers at Sky Lodge.

079. The night Caleb very suddenly showed up with a bowl of sangria then tried to leave a dozen times but we convinced him to stay.

080. Rachel swearing that the man in the Wrigleyville bookshop had love at first sighted me.

081. Making the list of how many musicals I’ve been affected by.

082. Discovering weirdo La Llamada then driving straight to Carlsons’s to immediately watch it again with them.

083. Writing heartfelt correspondence back and forth with Kat for a few years.

084. All the funky cards I’ve received from Amber.

085. Finding that PERFECT dress at Goodwill for Tauri’s Winter Ball.

086. An actual friendship with Paul Bierdeman.

087. COUNSELOR MEETINGS.

088. The night Emily Holverson and I stood outside the Lodge trading sincerity about Sky Lodge and the complications of ministry.

089. Blunt conversations with Josiah, hahaha.

090. The Lower Lakeview round of Murder in the Dark when I killed every single person playing before anyone could call, “Dead body!”

091. When I suddenly caught him listening to my singing in the tunnel.

092. Putting together outfits from Lolita’s wardrobe.

093. Driving into such an unexpectedly lush part of Missouri.

094. A nighttime surprise of Big Ben and The London Eye and Buckingham Palace and St James Park in the falling snow.

095. MY PERFECT ABODE IN ST. LOUIS, MO.

096. OUR PERFECT ABODE IN ALBUQUERQUE, NM.

097. Becoming one of Steve’s best friends.

098. The evening Elorine and I didn’t go with and REALLY talked.

099. THE UNDENIABLE INHERENT GOODNESS OF MERRY’S KIDS.

100. Farrell’s crying apology on the sidewalk outside of Maple.

101. Alex’s irregular sudden extreme compliments.

102. The females I’m close with over the internet due to mutual admiration.

103. Lars from Hinge, hahaha.

104. Sitting at the end of a long table with Janelle making a napkin list of our all time favorite manic pixie dream girls.

105. The handful of LotR marathons we’ve accomplished.

106. When Kat told me she understood the Harry Styles crush but that maybe he wasn’t right for me.

107. Reading so many Donald Miller books and getting others to read them too.

108. Kisses on the cheek from Esther.

109. Getting raspberries for Mike’s turtles as an apology for making death threats.

110. Tipsy dancing alone with my eyes closed for like a hundred songs at Sheryl’s Club on New Years 2021.

111. The flattering comparison to the wonderful Harley Duke.

112. Aw omg, our happy hammock stacks at Observatory Hill. 

113. Telling slumber party stories on stage for Women’s Retreat.

114. BEING THE MIME FOR LIFE GROUP’S FAVORITE.

115. Fatigued watching The Kissing Booth and laughing harder than ever.

116. Spastic goofing around with Ashley AND Brittany the day we moved Amber into her new home.

117. Sitting on my closet floor showing crying Riana baby videos of singing piano playing Janelle.

118. Giggle running through Piggly Wiggly parking lot at closing with Rene with like $400 of alcohol on Ally’s birthday.

119. Fireball shots ALL NIGHT with Jeremiah and his uncle on Christmas Eve.

120. Listening to the delicious details of Emmy’s Europe romance.

121. Zion giving me his Adidas crewneck as sentimental goodbye gift.

122. Arguing with Austin over our differing zombie apocalypse ideologies.

123. Drunk Discord/Among Us with Hunter and Bekah and Nick and Marissa.

124. How soft Kenny’s absurd speeches made my heart.

125. MINUTE LONG VOICE MEMOS STACKS WITH ROSIE. ♡♡

126. Listening to Lizzy McAlpine in an afternoon candlelight bath.

127. Listening through John Mayer’s The Search for Everything mowing the ball field.

128. Emotionally painting my old house in Birmingham.

129. Being really damn good at that Heads Up game with Omar.

130. Compiling worthwhile stuff for Foreman training.

131. GROWING MY PLANTS.

132. The stretch when Bryanna was usually wrapped in my blanket.

133. Talking about going to Colorado with Alex.

134. The notorious reputation of knowing everybody at CCCA.

135. GETTING ALL DRESSED UP FOR DINNER THEATER.

136. Calling Ally from a parking lot at Emmy’s bachelorette party because I was SO CONFIDENT I was a hot person that I had to talk to her about it.

137. Playing the stupidest laughingest game of The Floor Is Lava with Jackson when I came to visit them all in Dallas.

138. Feeling really really really at home in my apartment at Sky Lodge.

139. How Ryan Boon would struggle to talk through his laughter.

140. Belonging to myself at Fiddleheads Coffee in Cedarburg.

141. THE UNDENIABLE IMMEDIATE CHEMISTRY BETWEEN ME AND COURTNEY HART.

142. Big Falls County Park. Every time.

143. Kayaking down Blue River with Duke, Jeremiah and Addey, Hunter, and Hunter’s friend.

144. That perfect burger at Pier Burger in Santa Monica.

145. Riding The Brown Line down to The Loop and all the way back up.

146. Aw. Welp. Every lengthy truthful phone call with Sam.

147. The four seasons I was compiling four second videos.

148. Ashley’s and my perfect roommates stretch, featuring our perfect couch.

149. The night we forced so many to come to our Blackfish showing then sign our petition opposing Sea World. Hahaha. #emptythetanks

150. The night Ben and I sat in the corner giddy burning through TriBond cards.

151. The night I showed up at Doug’s and Lueck’s door losing my damn mind over The Dress.

152. Community Soccer at the local elementary school gym.

153. Frigid stranded in the Chequamegon National Forest with Mary and Caleb on our return drive from our nightmare trip to Duluth.

154. The final night of being “cats in a bag” sleeping in Janelle’s bottom bunk.

155. Filling up the broomball courts under a negative degrees meteor shower.

156. Getting another wonderful summertime of Delala.

157. The Sunday service the pastor wouldn’t quit snapping his fingers and a bunch of us were txting each other like, “OMFG NO AHHH HOW DO WE MAKE HIM STOP????”

158. Oomph. The perfect veggie omelette (no cheese) at Sparks.

159. Dad’s soft voicemail about his admiration for Adele.

160. Their neighbor lady Maddie’s outfit for the Christmas cantata and her disappointment with the unfamiliar song selection.

161. Raquel’s completely irresistible fun streak.

162. Listening to folklore with Jayden and the girlies first thing when I woke up every morning for a while there.

163. Going through Met Gala looks cuddled up with Omar.

164. The way it felt reading Anthropology of an American Girl.

165. The giant primary colors crochet blanket mom made for me.

166. Noah scooping me up in that hug in the Waterloo parsonage kitchen.

167. When Omar completely surprised me with what he can do to a piano.

168. Deciding I am a Pinot Grigio girl.

169. Omfg, the Nest Night we intensely debated our way through a Staff Wives wrestling bracket.

170. Dismantling multiple purity talks and dress codes like it’s my calling.

171. Laying on blankets in the middle of many fields in different places for the sake of being very very very very sunkissed.

172. Regularly running into Bill at Kwik Trip.

[therealdragonpost-generator]

! ! ! NEW DRAGON ALERT ! ! !

A very tiny lavender and light-red Dragon (Eastern type) with yellow fingers named Chamroeun. Chamroeun is lesbian and uses Hx/Hix. Hx has light-red eyes, and has frizzy yellow-colored hair. Chamroeun has quite a sad personality, and likes swiming and hoarding. Hx also likes making, and will talk very fondly of it. Chamroeun is a god/goddess for a living, and they despise it. Chamroeun is usually grumpy in public, and more lonely with friends. Speaking of friends, Chamroeun has two friends; a yellow brown snake and a dark-yellow Dragon. Chamroeun is in a complicated relationship with Lenzy (a brown brown spider) and Melchizedek (a light-green kobold). One time, Chamroeun went to school with Lenzy, who absolutly hated it. Chamroeun has no disorders or handicaps.

[therealdragonpost-generator]

! ! ! NEW DRAGON ALERT ! ! !

A tiny pastel-red and neon-blue Dragon (Western type) with dark-blue breasts named Gurpreet. Gurpreet is lesbian and uses He/Him. He has gray eyes, wears contacts, and has no hair. Gurpreet's wings are moth-like and pastel-pink. Gurpreet has quite a angry personality, and likes programming and browsing. He also likes building, and will talk very fondly of it. Gurpreet draws art for a living, and they despise it. Gurpreet is usually lonely in public, and more grumpy with friends. Speaking of friends, Gurpreet has two friends; a dark-blue lastel-purple frog and a forest-green lizard. Gurpreet is in a complicated relationship with Karman, a neon-blue pan-flag roach. One time, Gurpreet went to school with Karman, who liked it. Gurpreet has no disorders or handicaps.