#i may be gay but i make exceptions for middle aged women

[noclassnowitnosoul]

First of all Lotvonens mom is a milf im sorry but its true and second of all i believe in toxic old woman yuri gunplay with her and colonel Dokken and if you dont agree you are a coward and a fool

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

HIIIIII HAPPY MIGUETRI MONDAY!!! It was only a matter of time before my post-S6 shitposting about them started, I fear ^^;

ANYWAYS I was thinking about this mlm-ass hoodie everyone is talking about, and I need to yap about my own headcanon about it. Bear with me!!!

So tbh this seems like...a really weird wardrobe choice to me. Miguel is, imho, the closest thing this cast of characters has to a Token Straight Guy™️. (Like I know I kinda ship him with Demetri or in a poly Miguetreli arrangement, but I'm mostly clowning! It's kind of an AU for me because to me he doesn't actually read as queer in canon.)

But this hoodie is just. Undeniably the gay mlm flag??? Plain and simple??? Out of all the characters to put in this article of clothing, this is baffling me the most. Especially showing him in it while he trains with his long-term girlfriend who he loves very much???

(Side note: I feel like Miguel is aware of what the mlm flag looks like. Moon told him about all the pride flags! Although him accidentally buying a gay pride flag hoodie would in fact be very funny, it doesn't strike me as particularly likely.)

So here's what I'm thinking: This is not a hoodie Miguel Diaz bought. It was a gift from Demetri.

If anyone's been following me for a while, they might have heard me talk about how I think queerness runs in Demetri's family. He seems to have a single mom, and he's never once mentioned his dad. It's very much giving "lesbian woman who didn't realize her sexuality until she already had a kid with a man, for better or for worse." And Demetri's dad being gone...maybe he left Demetri's mom because he was gay??? Or left her FOR a man, perhaps??? I think Demetri's parents 100% had him during a lavender marriage they may or may not have even REALIZED was a lavender marriage.

Anyways, these are just my wild little headcanons, but I do think Demetri's mom has always known he's gay. She sees a lot of herself and Dem's dad in him, and she doesn't want him to make the same mistakes she did and wait until middle age to finally accept his sexuality. SO, naturally, she starts trying to nudge him toward...Realizing Some Things. Including buying and gifting him a fucking gay flag hoodie. Because, like her son, Mrs. Alexopoulos lacks any and all subtlety.

Demetri realizes what she's trying to do, but he pretends he doesn't. He's all "Wow! Thanks! I love the colors!" and then proceeds to never wear this item of clothing to school ever because the poor man gets bullied for enough already. He wears it in private and maybe to the grocery store or something, but not where he'll be around other kids (except maybe Eli, who he has definitely bitched about this at length to. "UGH, why does everyone think I am gay, I am NOT gay!!! I like women, Eli!!! I totally want Yasmine to spit in my face!!! I also want to make out with and exchange handjobs with women, I promise!!! No, I'm not getting defensive!!!"). Hence why we have not seen The Gay Flag Hoodie until now.

Flash forward to The Karate Wars. Demetri has started training on the regular and has grown MASSIVELY, especially his fucking shoulders. Tragically, they are now too broad and jacked and he is too much of an Absolute Unit to fit into the mlm flag hoodie anymore 💔 But it's still perfectly good!!! Quite comfortable and honestly barely worn! So what does Demetri do????

He gives it to his bestie like the generous closeted hero he is.

Miguel is aware he's wearing the mlm flag, by the way. He is okay with this. This is his way of showing he's an ally! Although it WOULD lead to a very amusing conversation with Sam when they first meet up to train.

Sam, eyeing the mlm flag hoodie dubiously: Miguel, um...is there something you wanted to tell me? Miguel: Oh! It was a present from Demetri! Sam, who also absolutely knows What's Up here: ...no explanation necessary, actually.

[nat-1-whump]

🌈 Pride fantasy prompts

Pride writing ideas no. 1

(Little to no angst or whump here, I wanted to focus on happier stories this time around.)

Mages use transformation spells as a magical method of gender-affirming surgery. One mage who specializes in such magic travels across the land, helping anyone from tiny fairies to gigantic dragons be their true selves. Nothing brings them more joy than giving their client a mirror after the spell is done and watching their face light up. And when someone needs that spell, the mage will find a way to do it, no matter who or what they have to challenge in order to do so.

Asexual succubi and incubi find non-sexual ways to seduce their targets. A character hears a noise in the middle of the night and goes to the kitchen to find a demon-like creature baking them a cake that reads, "Come to the darkest pits of the underworld, please? 🥺" With the layers upon layers of chocolate fudge, how could anyone resist?

A gay mage learns a teleportation spell to bring their crush on a date without anyone else seeing, because they are worried about what people will think. However, the spell backfires and ends up teleporting them to the wrong place. As they work together to find their way home, the two overcome challenges for each other and realize that their love really does conquer all.

A trans character finds out that they're trans by accessing some sort of magic that only another gender is supposed to be able to access. For example, a transfem sailor thinks she's a cis guy until she is the only one on the ship who can see an island that is magically hidden from everyone except women. She had always felt a bit "off" but kind of pushed it to the side, attributing it to literally anything except being trans. The island beckons to her and confirms the feelings she had ignored for years. (I thought there was an island like that in the Odyssey but I can't find anything about it so I may be wrong.)

When a gay couple adopts a child, they weren't expecting to bring home a dragon egg. But, that won't stop them from being the best adoptive parents anyone could have. They spend nights deep in the library, set on learning everything they need to raise their dragon child. (Or, alternatively, a dragon couple ends up adopting a human or otherwise non-dragon child.)

Due to their association with rainbows, magic, and self-expression, unicorn derbies become widely celebrated events during pride festivals. A particularly clever unicorn escapes right before the derby, and magical shenanigans ensue.

While others their age are asking their crushes to dances and peeking at raunchy magazines, an aroace teen is busy training swordfighting with a dragon that they keep hidden a little bit away from their house. Their parents find some evidence of their teen sneaking out and assume it's with some romantic partner. When their teen reluctantly agrees to introduce them, they weren't expecting to come face to face with a gigantic reptile. They said they wanted their teen to be with whoever makes them happy... But this is awkward.

Immortal characters who've been around for centuries don't necessarily understand the newer labels and identities, but they're excited that their children are able to express themselves in ways they weren't able to a few hundred years ago. They do their best to support their kid's identity... Possibly to the point of embarrassing their kid with their enthusiasm. They mean well though.

A genderfluid character who can shapeshift uses their ability to transition on the spot whenever and however they feel like it. They kind of take this ability for granted, until their non-shapeshifter friend wants to transition and can't just do so by snapping their fingers. This shapeshifter does their best to help their friend find clothes and hairstyles that might have the same effect. They end up having to be a bit creative with what they have, but it's a lot more fun than either expected.

To represent the strength of their relationship, a gay swordsmith forges a sword as a surprise present (or proposal, like a ring but cooler) for their beloved. They decide to gather gemstones from the place they first met (or some other place that is significant to them), but getting the gemstone proves to be a difficult quest. They end up asking for their partner's help, all while keeping it a secret why they need it. When they finally get the gemstone and forge the sword, the colorful pieces in the hilt tell a story of their journey together.

Elves and other androgynous creatures completely demolish outdated standards of what each gender is "supposed to" look like. Some people are frustrated with how hard it is to assume an elf's gender, but lots of trans and nonbinary people are inspired by the magical genderfuckery. (I know I am, lol. Legolas was my first gender envy.)

(Feel free to add on!)

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Glass Onion (2022): Mixed company, mixed feelings

This movie is very Current Year, even though it finished shooting in 2021 and is set in May 2020. One minor joke early on; Blanc plays Among Us during lockdown, because he's so bored.

I am not making that up.

I had the same issue with the first movie. I wasn't sure what all the Topical References™ added to the movie. And I know we love to say that great art is timeless.

But as someone who actually does read a lot of old, public-domain, popular books, many  had topical social issues in them. Heck, the first Doc Thorndyke book is about fingerprinting, which was cutting edge science at the time, and even makes a self-depreciating joke about it's inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

I've enjoyed the odd Clancy or Connelly or Cussler or Cavanaugh or Patterson thriller. And those tend to be pretty topical. (obnoxiously so, in one case) Not to mention my love of the Vorkosigan Saga, which was so progressive in the 80s it's still progressive now.

I've also seen stories that had poorly integrated topical issues and much better-handled ones in the same show. The same episode, even.

So I don't know why the political stuff in the two movies rankled. I'd say my issue is "politics I disgree with", but I just mentioned enjoying a book series which is clearly waaay to my left.

Heck, both movies are blatantly inspired by Agatha Christie, and I distinctly recall topical stuff in my mum's old copy of *Third Girl*.

Like, literally the whole plot.

I read it a long time ago, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

Other, less important criticism. And spoilers.

-Blanc intially felt like a caricature, which was very different from the way he appeared in the first movie. turns out that's deliberate. He later says he was playing up the folksy Southernness.

Even though he's an internationally famous detective who lives in a $10,000,000 Park Avenue penthouse.

Don't ask me about the high-waisted pants, the cute little scarf around his neck, or the 19th century bathing costume he wears to the pool. Apparently his style in this movie was partially Daniel Craig's idea.

Also, he's gay.

It's not made explicitly clear during the film, and the guy he's living with could be a roomie or friend or assistant, but Johnson confirmed it. I'm not sure what it adds to the film, except an explanation for the scarf.

And also some irony when Birdie flirts with him, even though he's famous and probably publicly known to be gay. Heck, just his visible discomfort in those scenes would be irony enough, whether or not he liked women.

Miles Bronn -possible shallow Elon musk parody --he’s fooling people w/ fake genius, when he's really just a charismatic idiot. And one who gets swindled, possibly. -There's one bit of irony. Early on, Miles guests on his private island get a COVID vaccine. It later turns out Miles is an idiot.

Since the movie takes place entirely in May 2020, the implication is that Miles should know it's basically impossible to develop a proper vaccine in just a few short months.

Cough.

The actual main protagonist isn't Blanc, it's Cassandra "Andi" Brand and Helen Brand. Andi is a tech genius who Miles ripped off. And also murdered. So her twin sister Helen, a teacher, steps in.

Anyone familiar with the Trojan War is probably going "hey, wait a minute..." Did I mention that this takes place on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea? Which has Troy on its borders?

And the first things we see in the film are tantalizing wooden boxes?

Helen poses as Andi with Blanc's help, so they can investigate the murder and figure out which of Miles friends, “the Disruptors”, killed Andi.

Both Brands are played by Janelle Monae. A famously left-wing singer and actress, whose biggest film role was in the movie Hidden Figures, where she played one of a team of black women in STEM forgotten by history.

And in this movie, Monae plays two hidden figures, eclipsed by white men. One maliciously, one charitably.

Birdie --Birdie is an idiotic middle-aged singer who keeps getting cancelled because she does dumb stuff. -She sexually harasses Blanc. This is possibly why Blanc's gay, to make it extra ironic. -She's introduced at a party during lockdowns. When she arrives at the island, she wears a completely decorative facemask.

-Birdie prides herself on her honesty. In this case, it means she's inconsiderate and narcissistic, with no filter. Which makes it kinda ironic (or something?) when the day is saved in the end by a combination of lies and truth.

Duke -Dave Bautista plays an alt-right mra. Supposedly.

-He supports a girlfriend and his mother, who abuses him. He's  three or four times mom's size. He goes "Mom, I told you not to interrupt when I'm recording!" and she physically slaps him. Not even any ramp-up, she just does it.

She also tries to disrupt his call with his friends by "helping" him solve Miles' puzzle box, right up until it's done, and she stops caring.

So the show decided to mock MRAs by...making one a male victim of domestic violence and emotional abuse from a woman.

And from what I saw on Youtube, plenty of people didn't notice the irony. In fact, I found an official Netflix short of the scene, and the comments were glad he was getting "put in his place" because he politely asked him mom to let him do his job.

Also, remember when I mentioned how Birdie sexually harasses Blanc?

This movie includes two examples of the exact sort of issues MRAs talk about all the time.

-I know he's supposed to be a parody, but of who, exactly? jordan peterson? andrew tate? Pewdiepie? All of the above?

I think they even got some alex jones in there when they mention how he sold pills. Specifically, "performance" pills for men, made from rhino horn.

-Duke carries a gun near his crotch at all times for most of the movie. Specifically, an underpowered Tokarev, I've read. On top of the abuse, he also self-cucks himself so his GF can try and pillow-talk Miles into supporting Duke's next endeavour.

Subtle.

And while I was looking up the gun, I found someone on /r/liberalGunOwners saying "well, maybe it's supposed to look Russian because he's pro-Putin like a lot of right-wingers?"

That's possible, but it would be a really obtuse reference in a movie chock full of really blatant references.

-Also, there's something a tad ironic about a supposedly (alt-)right influencer being a large, muscular, tattoo'd Hispanic man. Unless that's supposed to be a tan.

Claire -Claire is a left-wing, environmentally friendly politician. She wears beige, and always looks terrible (to Katheryn Hahn's frustration). She's also a hypocrite.

Some TVTropes editor: it's about progressive politicans that gradually turn conservative.

No, the message here isn't "conservatives bad". It's "hypocritical left-wing politicians are bad". And I'm not sure about the "left-wing" part.

Duke is a hypocrite because he self-cucks for advantage, and is also physically abused by his tiny little mom. Claire is just a straight up liar, as politicians often are. There's a contrast between his performative peacocking in every aspect of the way he presents himself, and Claire's beige cold mess.

I'm not kidding. That was the stated intent of her costume and makeup.

-claire calls duke an MRA. I'm not sure if the writers were wrong, Claire's wrong, or Duke actually calls himself an MRA in-universe. He's certainly a traditionalist, which MRAs usually aren't. He also wants women to get back in the kitchen, which MRAs usually don't.

And finally, there's Miles’ No 2., tech wizard Lionel, who spins Miles' straw - or napkin ideas - into gold. In fact, he spends most of the movie with a gold wishbone pin on his lapel. GEDDIT?

Duke is a right wing tradcon MRA who cares about physical appearances even though he has a bad social rep, Claire is a left-wing progressive with a terrible physical appearance and a good social rep, Birdie is an idiot who keeps saying un-PC things, and Lionel is the smart guy, who is apparently more or less apolitical.

Also, the movie has obvious inspiration from Christie's "And Then There Were None". And maybe Clue. Or Among Us.

Or all three.

[riverofrainbows]

Thoughts on religion.

Just because you've been raised in a religion doesn't mean it's real. Most of the core principles of modern Christianity, the ones that brought the most harm to people, have been additional stuff added in later centuries by some guys. There are conflicting information in the bible because it was essentially a big discussion club with people putting out what they thought was right about it, because you couldn't do much else in the iron age i suppose. Revelation is an apocalyptic rpf fix it fic about emperor Nero. Christianity, from the beginning, was an apocalyptic cult. Paul was entirely celibate because he thought Jesus was coming back any day so what's the point in procreation, except that then he didn't come back. A lot of things how Jesus fulfills prophecies from the old testament was because Matthew (who wasn't actually Matthew but they assigned him several hundred years later) put them in to make it sound cooler and more connected to the old testament. Several of those were misunderstandings of his about the meaning of the stuff he quotes which is where we get the Virgin Mary (she wasn't virgin in the prophecy). God being omnipotent and omnipresent and almighty is an invention of those later christians in the middle ages, he wasn't in the old testament. He also wasn't the only real god in the old testament, they thought the other gods were real too just that theirs was better. Hell wasn't mentioned even fucking once in the bible. Slavery is fine with the old testament, but it says fuck all about homosexuality (and so does Jesus) because they basically had ancient roman homosexuality going on. All the stuff that gives so many people the religious trauma is made up later additions that Jesus never once even implied. Jesus just wanted you to be kind and help the needy. God being omnipotent, omniscient, almighty, reading your every thought and throwing you in hell for it is not in the text. The trinity is made up in a council a few hundred years after Jesus. Jesus doesn't blame women for "men's uncontrollable sexuality" so modesty lest the priests get urges is bullshit. Jesus doesn't value virginity over a person's inherent value. He is friends with prostitutes. The way the garden of eden story about hereditary sin and god's all-knowingness create an absolutely fucked up horrible god is baseless because god in the garden of eden isn't all-knowing. God punishing people for executing their free will when he created them with free will knowing what they would do with it is baseless because he isn't omniscient. He just gave people free will, went "well shit" and then intervened to enforce his rules. And he doesn't intervene anymore because he isn't omnipotent because he never was. Also it's ancient texts where people needed an explanation for stuff like natural phenomena. This doesn't mean religion is stupid (and i really respect modern judaism) but that most of Christianity has fuck all to do with the bible and with Jesus especially. It's made up and reinterpretated in later times in ways they thought best that turned into this thing that tells you it's righteous to tell gay and trans people that they're abdominations and will go to hell but Jesus loves you. How their love is contingent on stuff made up in the middle ages but they cite the bible to take away human rights. How throwing out their own child is love because you save them from sin so Jesus may love them but Jesus already loves them because he loves every single person including the sinners, and the only sins he cares about are being cruel and kicking the needy to the curb so who is the sinner in this. The pope declares he is Jesus representation on earth but he says "love the sinner hate the sin" and trans people are an abdomination. Evangelicals say that helping someone is doing a sin because satan is nice and deceives people but satan isn't even in the bible and they are a death cult built on revelation. But the end will never come because revelation is not about us it's a contemporary piece of literature about the roman empire.

[transgymbro]

So some things about me real quick so that you have context for my situation: I am a Chinese binary trans man who is queer (mostly attracted to men, with the exception of my current partner who is transfem), living in the US. I grew up in an upper middle class family, who supports me and up until now has been able to support me financially. I do not have trauma (to the best of my knowledge) and I am not disabled.

I was not raised with strongly enforced gender roles. The most they were enforced was "you're a girl, you can't do that" which got less and less over time. I was allowed to cut my hair short (though I did not start doing so until I was 12) and I was allowed to wear boys' clothes or at least, choose whether I wanted to wear dresses/skirts or not. I was encouraged to play sports (which, surprisingly given my blog, I didn't enjoy growing up).

Because of all these circumstances, I have been fortunate enough to experience very little transandrophobia in my life. In general the most I see/experience of it is "all men suck" comments online. However, there are a few times where I did have to deal with it more directly.

Being accused of "perpetuating toxic masculinity" when I was in fact. Not doing that. Both cis and trans women have done this to me. Two instances come to mind: The first is when I had a roommate accuse me of this when I expressed that I did not enjoy emotionally deep conversations and wished I felt things less intensely (before T). This has never come from a place of "men don't show feelings" for me, this has always come from a place of not easily trusting other people and finding getting emotional embarrassing in general. The second instance was literally just for being myself, and who I am is loud, assertive, and intense. Does that make me difficult to get along with for some people? Yeah, sure, I can admit that. But that's not in and of itself toxic masculinity.

Oh by the way did I mention one of those roommates, during a conversation about sex, refused to use masculine language for my body because I wasn't on T? As if that should fucking matter when someone asks you to refer to their body in a specific way?

There's a gynecologist in the same office at my primary care doctor and they had a separate check in table. Because I didn't know what the table was for, I approached it to see and got told it was for "women only". I shrugged it off because at the time, I was just happy I passed and I didn't need the care. But I look back on that and wonder, if I had needed to see the gynecologist, would my identity be respected? Would they take me even though I have M on my license? Who fucking knows, but I don't think I want to go to any gynecologist and have to find out

Just. Every single time I had to fight my insurance on my medical transition stuff. Most notably, the thing that has delayed my top surgery until August. My insurance approved me for a hospital that the surgeon works at, but the hospital is a Catholic hospital through which all procedures had to be approved by an ethics board, else they could not happen. Because yknow. Catholic hospital, trans surgery, they rejected my fucking procedure and we had to resubmit shit all over again. Deadass I could've had top surgery in May if it weren't for these motherfuckers.

Okay so. My parents' friends have a son who's about my age. The last time I saw him we were about 20 and I told him I was trans, because he was coming onto me (again) and I felt it right to let him know that he was no longer dealing with a girl. I insisted that it was gay of him to be attracted to me and he insisted he was still straight. Tbf I brought it up first so that might have been him getting defensive. Confusing situation tbh. Probably counts, but who knows? Not sure if he took me seriously or not but I think at least his parents did. Granted I wasn't on T at the time, I bet he'd be real turned off if he heard my frat boy voice now lol

I've said this a couple times on my blog before but haven't experienced it directly, but the fact that I'm east Asian means that dudes like me are generally really feminized, and I feel that a lot of my masc presentation, while still genuine to who I am, also serves the purpose of making sure that I'm perceived as undeniably masculine, regardless of whether or not people know I'm trans

Also consistent paranoia of people not seeing me as a real guy even when they don't know I'm trans wooooo

Not to mention a very strong skepticism of other people to where, as much of a horny bastard as I am, even if I was currently single I hesitate to attend hookup/kink events and clubs because I think everyone upon knowing what parts I have would pressure me into bottoming which I really don't want to do because of dysphoria, basically I don't want to be seen as a girl or just as "guy with a pussy". Not to mention I have to get a prosthetic first.

Having to tell people to refer to my (currently hypothetical) dick as a prosthetic and not a strap on, and to not refer to me fucking someone as pegging because I AM NOT A WOMAN AND THIS IS NOT A KINK THIS IS JUST HOW I FUCK AND TOP BECAUSE I'M NOT BOTTOMING UNLESS I CAN TRUST THE OTHER PERSON WITH MY LIFE AND KNOW DAMN WELL THEY WON'T SEE ME AS A WOMAN AND AREN'T TREATING IT LIKE A FUCKING PRIZE

Just paranoia thoughts of "would I have to misgender myself for this" and "would people misgender me for this" and "do the guys around me see me as one of them or am I an outcast to them because I'm not a 'real' guy with a dick and balls"

Anyway so I attempted to register with selective service (results pending) not because I give a fuck about the military but because I shouldn't have to disclose I'm trans if I end up getting a government job while having an M on my ID stuff, pay me the cis man wages federal cunts

❗️❗️ This is asked entirely in good faith. This post is intended to open dialogue and help with solidarity and understanding. ❗️❗️

I would like to hear specifically from trans men and trans mascs how the system of [whatever the fuck you call the intersection of transphobia, misogyny, and specifically your gender- whether transandrophobia, isomisogny, antitransmasculinity, transandromisia, transmisandry, or any that I have missed as there are a lot of words to describe similar concepts] uniquely targets and affects you. Things that you feel other demographics do not experience. Reblogs and replies are very encouraged! If you would prefer, you could dm or send an ask to be added anonymously by me.

This is in the spirit of wanting to understand. I am listening. I encourage all non-trans-mascs to not speak on this topic and let trans mascs and trans men do the talking here. Reblog the post to spread it, but please say nothing.

Any and all people who identify as trans men and/or trans mascs are encouraged to participate.

This is not bait to start a fight. I will block without hesitation anyone who is actively being a shithead on this post. I want to hear and uplift your voices by getting it directly from you.

Click this to access the trans fem and trans women version of this post.

[akajustmerry]

top tv show recs? i trust ur taste ty!! <3

thank you! idk a lot about you but if you like my taste (shucks!!), here's some shows I think u might like that I don't see reccomended a lot:

Preppers (2021) - comedy series about a 20 something Aboriginal talkshow host who has a personal breakdown and runs away to live on her nan's land only to find a bunch of hapless doomsday preppers living there.

Soulmates (2020) - scifi anthology like Black Mirror, except the premise of each episode is that there is now a test people can take that matches them to their DNA-determined soulmate.

Hitmen (2020-21) - British comedy series about two middle aged women who are high school besties that work together as hitmen but they're literally terrible at their job so chaos always ensues

Snowpiercer (2019-?) - the movie is great don't get me wrong, but the series is greater. If you loved the film, but wanted more, it's perfect. but you also don't need to have seen the movie to have seen it. It's brilliant!

Sort Of (2021) - comedy-drama about a first gen Pakistani-Canadian trans 20 something navigating their mid 20s. Heart-warming and gay as hell

Clarice (2021) - based on Silence of the Lambs, this show follows Clarice 2 years after she worked with Hannibal Lector and how the trauma and fame of that is affecting her. Probably the best crime series of the year. If you liked nbc Hannibal, but wished it was a little less racist, sexist, etc check it out.

Creamerie - this show is a little batshit but I promise you won't be bored. Comedy-drama set in a version of Aotearoa New Zealand where all the men have died of a virus and only the women are left.

We Are Lady parts (2021) - my fave show of the year. It's a comedy about an all Muslim girl punk band coming together.

Bojack Horseman - this is my favourite show probably ever. I rarely go a day without watching an episode or thinking about it.

Mr Robot - this show is THE fuck capitalism show. A perfect story told over 4 seasons.

Total Control - fictional Australian political drama about an Aboriginal woman becoming a senator. One the best shows on Australian TV rn.

The Living And The Dead - this show ends on a cliffhanger because it was cancelled, fair warning. BUT it is the best period drama ghost story EVER. Follows a Victorian psychologist dealing with the hauntings and possessions of people in the town.

Some Girls (2012-14) - British high school comedy following 4 girl besties. if you liked Derry Girls but found it painfully white, try this series. To this day one of the funniest shows I've ever seen.

High Fidelity (2020) - if you liked Fleabag, loved Michaela Coels Chewing Gum, and want to see bisexual zoe kravitz... Perfect show for you.

The Third Day (2020) - do you like shows about isolated islands with creepy cults that may or may not be an allegory for how grief makes wastelands of man? Go watch The Third Day!

Idk these are the first things that come to mind atm!! lmk if you want others, but also anything I post about in my TV tag is a safe bet I'd recommend 🥰

[dandelioncrownns]

random grishaverse facts/trivia (mostly tgt/kos, tbh), because i love useless details. Also, attempted organisation, because i like order too. + ft. my unwanted commentary

the darkling

has a sweet tooth

loves animals and nature in general

for those of you who have read demon in the woods, he got to meet the white tigers :)

his bedchamber walls are carved into trees bc he loves the woods

his favourite trees in particular are pine trees (or just evergreen trees in general)

he used to be afraid of the dark (many possibly worrying? interesting? implications to this; i won’t get into it here tho)

he likes bright colours, but wears black all the time basically for the aesthetic

he met his younger half-sister, Ulla, when he was a seer’s apprentice in Fjerda 

the darkling is a musician! He plays the fiddle, and growing up, he played the balalaika and oud (i wonder if he can read tablature,,) 

His father was a very powerful heartrender (maybe this is why the corporalki are valued so highly by him?)

genya

she got an amplifier between the end of R+R and the start of KoS (kestrel bones)

Genya used Dekora Nevich, the Ornamental Blade, to poison the King

It smells like cinnamon and is a warm golden colour

the royal family / nikolai’s bio family 

the King once cut himself on his own sword

genya named the queen’s dog 

until she was like 11, Genya was like the daughter the queen never had (omg i really wonder how Nikolai and Vasily felt about that? ik it’s not really mentioned, and Nik kinda acts like he just met Genya is S+S, but they must have been a lot closer, right?? I mean genya was almost always at the grand palace with Queen Tatiana, and nikolai just really wanted his parents’ attention, there must have been some kind of maybe one-sided jealousy/sibling rivalry thing, right?? I digress- for now)

also the queen in a dog person

p. sure Nikolai is a mommy’s boy

(possible explanation:) he looks exactly like his real father (except for his eyes). Nikolai even has the same laugh as Magnus

the queen was also fed up with Vasily and his horses

Vasily rides a white gelding horse and Nikolai rides a speckled grey horse (called Punchline)

speaking of, vasily is definitely a horse girl, but like... just the worst (darkling 🤝vasily)

Queen Tatiana’s letters to Magnus Opjer were “very racy” 

 She doesn’t approve of women in trousers

Linnea is ~1 year younger than Nikolai

she is good at math + studies engineering at ketterdam (I wonder if maybe she and Nikolai crossed paths when he was at uni- they’re around the same age, so maybe?)

The King and Queen hired a clown for nikolai’s 10th birthday (the worst birthday party he’d been to, inclusive of the night Vasily died, according to Nikolai)

Nikolai is afraid of spiders (and also clowns???)

nikolai:

he can juggle

Nikolai sucks at learning languages 

he once spoke Fjerdan so badly a man named Knut offered him a ruby to stop

his Kerch seems pretty good tho

Nikolai met The Darkling when he was 14

Nikolai is a baritone (as is Jesper!)

In his free time, Nikolai writes bad poetry (remember that time he got stabbed w/ a letter opener bc his poetry sucked?)

he went through an emo phase/ existential crisis before becoming sturmhond.

during said emo phase, he wrote rhyming poetry pretty much exclusively

He also took philosophy classes at uni (PPE?)

alina:

alina tried on the same rose dress that the Queen watched vasily die in

Nikolai gifted Alina a VERY low-cut cobalt lace gown (In the words of Nadia, “The bodice might as well be cut to the navel.” )

Alina hates herring, but Zoya and Nikolai love it

She is VERY sarcastic and snarky!! I feel like this gets glossed over so much in the fandom, and just why?? (she’s so gloomy and over everything 90% of the time, i love it so much)

So this isn’t technically a fact-fact, but there is no way Alina wasn’t at least a little bit into women. Did you read how she talked abt genya? Zoya? there’s no way she wasn’t into them

Alina doesn’t really like hard cheese

zoya + zoyalai:

Zoya’s horse is called Serebrine

Zoya can use her lightning as a defibrillator (I’m sure other squallers can do this too with the right training)

Zoya likes Nikolai’s hands (and Nikolai likes Zoya’s feet lmao)

she has ‘weird (long?) incisors’  

she definitely had a crush on Nikolai since Ruin and Rising

kaz:

Kaz grew up on a farm in Southern Kerch, in Lij

Kaz is a both a cat and a dog person  (he just likes strays)

Matthias is a dog person, obviously

All the other crows are cat people 

He likes hot chocolate

both he and nikolai like brandy

hates cereal

Kaz is obsessed with magic + likes puzzles

actually very funny if he wasn’t terrifying (honestly?? at leat 70% of his dialogue is just witty quips/jokes)

Kaz’s right leg is the one he broke, and the dregs usually get their tattoo on their right forearm

the other crows:

Jesper has been known to go line-dancing (and would like country music) 

Mal and Jesper were friends in S+S!! (Probably) Jesper has a not-really-secret crush on sturmhond. 

He also had a VERY not secret crush on Kaz before wylan, ofc

Matthias’ middle name is Benedik

Nina would win in an arm wrestling contest against Jesper

Inej has a thing for Kaz’s eyes

Nina was at the orphanage with the other grisha kids in R+R

In the opening scene of CK, Jesper was wearing a navy waistcoat with little gold stars (his fashion is just top tier honestly)

grisha- powers, etc.:

A solar eclipse would have no effect on the Darkling’s powers, but it would make it harder for Alina to summon.

Fabrikators can make flowers bloom

The twins have shark teeth amplifiers

Adrik and Leoni are saints

general world stuff:

Gay marriage is legal in Kerch!

there was a landbridge connecting Shu Han and Kerch but the council of tides covered it

Antimony is used as mascara

kruge is pale purple paper currency

ravkan currency has Nikolai’s face on it (ig not anymore tho?)

Hringkälla is celebrated on March 20th

the distance between Ivets and Os Alta is only about 100 miles? (i’m just going to willfully ignore this, because thats,, so small?)

Mermaids and dragons exist(ed) in the grishaverse

misc:

the daughter of the duke of ivets has a daughter who can play the harp

there is not fourth tale of krigi

The baroness Natasha Beritrova is fifty (as of KoS) and has lands near caryeva

Elke Marie Smit is from one of the most powerful Kerch families and is just 16 in KoS

Oncat is an orange tabby

Anya liked Joost a lot :( (I got way too attached to them at the start of SoC and was so sad + confused when they died lol)

david eats hard boiled eggs for his working days in the shops

‘Malyen’ is the Ravkan version of ‘Malcolm’ (very fitting)

Nikolai brought the kids at Keramzin toy boats + frequently sends Alina and Mal gifts 

The triumvirate would also visit them every feast of Sankt Nikolai too :)

star signs / birthdays (ik the gv constellations aren’t the same as ours, but idc):

Inej: Cancer (june 21st - july 22nd)

Kaz: Capricorn (december 22nd - january 19th)

Nina: Leo (july 23rd - august 22nd)

Jesper: Gemini (may 21st - june 20th)

Matthias: Taurus (april 20th - may 20th)

Wylan: virgo (august 23rd - september 22nd)

Kuwei: aries (march 21st - april 19th)

Darkling: aries

Nikolai is most likely either a gemini or cancer (but he could also be a Leo or Taurus). Whatever it is, he is a summer baby.

Alina and Mal have the same birthday (they were given the Duke’s birthday when they came to the orphanage)

heights:

Jesper is 6’2” - 6’3”

Kaz is 6′

Matthias is 6’4

Nina is 5’9”-5’10”

Inej is 5’3” - 5’4”

Alina is ’short’ (5’3”?)

Mal and the Darkling are ‘tall’ (tbf, like all the characters are tall >:( I want my short people rights)

Nikolai  (well, stumhond, but i think they’re the same height) is described by Jesper as tall (so 6’2”+?? why is everyone so tall??? I-)

Zoya is several inches shorter than nina (zoyalai height difference lets go)

Kuwei is slightly shorter than Wylan (who is about 5’8”?)

there’s definitely more, so if you made it this far and have any more, pls add to the list!

[werewolfcave]

It should be noted by point in bringing up Cheleanor wasn't to say "oh it's hated on" (because as someone who only watched TGP after it ended I never really encountered hate about it so I can't really speak on that? I'm sure there is some, especially considering it's a biracial relationship and people always get so pissy about white queer women being in love with black guys but that's a topic for a whole other post) or "oh we shouldn't call them this or that" (but I do prefer for them to be called m/f BECAUSE of the rampant bi erasure in fandoms, so calling them het leaves a bad taste in my mouth but that is literally personal opinion)

It's to say that I have seen Cheleanor referred to as if it is an exception. (And that often times Eleanor's bisexuality is erased within referring to it as an exception)

I bring it up because of the attitudes that go around of "oh all m/f ships are boring EXCEPT this one" or "the only m/f ship I respect" and Cheleanor was the first prominent example I could think of, where it's that good m/f ships are thought of as some "exception"

In general the whole point of this post is that:

A.) people will pass off other biases that may be present simply to say that "oh it's boring because it's 'straight'" rather than, say, "oh it's boring because the female lead is being written in such a way where the author is sanding her down to make her more 'appealing'" (this is my point about media literacy)

B.) this idea that there are only a "few good ones" or "m/f is inherently boring" or even "ew they're straight" bounces back onto people who are in those relationships in real life!! This is not just a commentary on fandom!! This is a commentary on the amount of legitimate biphobia that exists within the LGBTQ+ community because there are sections that legitmately believe "the straights" to be our enemy! And we pass that vitriol onto the next generation!

It doesn't matter if it is a joke! It gets normalized for younger members of the community and it creates this genuine idea that a bi person dating someone of the opposite gender, or a straight aro and/or ace person is inherently betraying their community!! This even harms nonbinary people who are in what are perceived as "straight" relationships or even transhet people! There are parts of your community that are legitimately hetero in some way! Saying "ew the hets" JUST HARMS THEM!! THERE ARE MEMBERS OF YOUR COMMUNITY WHO ARE CISHET!! BUT SOME PART OF THEIR IDENTITY LANDS THEM IN THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY!!!!

Even then! There are fucking allies! And we need to understand that these allies can be VITAL at times! We cannot act like these people are inherently our enemy!!! Its systems of systemic oppression that are our enemy!!

C.) The amount of blatant misogyny that creates this phenomenon!! There is a very specific reason I brought up specifically yaoi ships! Because there is an unwillingness to engage with female characters!!

That isn't to say that this biphobia isn't present within yuri shippers, I've been in the warrior cats fandom! I've fucking seen people be fucking weird about Fernsong because everyone hced Ivypool as a lesbian! There was a lot of biphobia there! Biphobia is present in so many different spaces!

But my point with bringing up yaoi is because I will see certain male characters (I made the original of this post about Goro fucking Akechi) who will have absolutely fascinating relationships with female characters BUT THERE ARE LEGITIMATE SECTS OF THE FANDOM THAT ACT LIKE THE MALE CHARACTER IS "SO GAY" THAT HE WOULD DIE IF HE HAD TO TALK TO A WOMAN?????? There are people who just create the most misogynistic bitchy gay boys for their, half the time, bland ass yaoi ships and its infuriating!

Or there is the fucking age old behavior of hating a woman character (OFTEN TIMES IT IS A FUCKING BROWN WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE OF TWO WHITE MEN) because they "got in the way" of their gay ship. Which then leads to some insanely vitriolic shit about that woman and half the time towards the fucking actor who plays them if it's a live action media!!

This post is first and foremost about the idea that a queer person dating someone of the opposite gender is betraying their community and how that plays into fandom spaces but the misogyny is also very much a KEY FACTOR HERE.

Sometimes. The "het" ship is more compelling than the yaoi. I know. It's crazy. But it's true.

[singharit]

A Not-So-Quick and Dirty Rundown on Queer Thai TV

Have you ever thought to yourself, "wow, I love how queer-romance oriented fanfiction is. I wish there was something that level of ridiculous but profesionally made so I don't have to survive on the crumbs of Western shows."

Yes?

Boy, have I got an industry for you.

Over the past few years Thai TV, and Thai queer TV in particular, has somewhat exploded in popularity not unlike Korea’s Hallyu wave of yesteryear. It’s new on the scene, it’s got its own little quirks that set it apart from Korean or Japanese TV, and to many people it seems a bit more exotic. It's really not that dense of an industry to break into, but I am nothing if not pedantic about literally everything ever, hence this post.

Contents

An Industry Overview

Language & Cultural Notes

What To Watch

Links & Resources

◇   ◆   ◇ 

An Industry Overview.

Production companies in Thailand are not dissimilar to K-Pop record labels, or perhaps a comparison to '30s Hollywood might be more apt. Actors sign to a company as young adults -- the primary big hitter being GMMTV -- and that company produces dramas almost exclusively featuring actors from its on-call stable.

Now, a few years ago some higher ups at GMMTV realised that shows with queer characters were getting way, way, more views than their solely straight ones. Solution? Make more, except focus on solely on the queer characters this time. Thus an industry was born.

These shows are referred to internationally as either BL or GL, boys’ love and girls’ love, and within Thailand as Y-stories. I fucking hate the terms BL and GL so will not be using them, but that seems to be the “””official””” way to refer to both the industry and fandom.

They also tend to be a few things:

Very male heavy. Things have started changing lately, with more female characters in general being written, but you can still expect many women to be either the protagonist’s sister, mother, ex-girlfriend, or first love.

About light-skinned, Thai-Chinese origin, middle-class characters from Bangkok. This is also slowly changing with some shows set in e.g. Chiang Mai or Phuket, but those are the exception rather than the rule.

Character-driven and focused almost entirely on romance. Any other type of plot that happens is a side effect, not an intentional stop on the road to getting these guys to kiss.

Based around more than one couple, and not just in a side-plot kind of way. There’ll be at least two, more commonly three, pairs that share screentime with something like a 70/30 or 50/30/20 split.

Single season shows, where a season can be anywhere from eight to fourteen 40-minute episodes. Second seasons do exist but are rare.

Full of fanservice. Cutie Pie recently had thirteen minute make-out scene, and guys will frequently be shirtless for no reason other than to show off their pecs. You get used to it after a while.

Common tropes & things you’ll see a lot of:

Engineers! Why is Thailand so obsessed with engineering students? I have no idea! But you’ll see at least one in 90% of dramas, so you’d better get used to them.

What Westerners might consider to be strange ethics, e.g. booze blurred out and scenes with guns having big “don’t try this at home” warnings emblazoned on top, but sexual assault explicitly shown.

Painfully obvious product placement. It’s a necessary evil for these shows to get that sponsorship $$$.

A baffling insistence on refusing to hire sound engineers, which is made all the more egregious by the equal insistence on featuring live singing.

Coming-of-age stories.

Cringe. Cringe. Cringe. The secondhand embarrassment is soooo real sometimes.

Friend squads to die for.

Happy endings!

Now, one thing I can’t gloss over is gay-for-pay. It’s a thing. It’s no use pretending that it doesn’t exist, especially when it’s so prevelant. When these types of shows starting becoming popular, a few actors realised that by giving another guy one single, painful to watch, peck on the lips, they could build up a legion of fans ready to scream, “he can’t be homophobic, he was in a gay show!”, and that they could make bank while doing so. I’m not going to name names here, except I absolutely am. Krist Perawat, God Itthiphat, and Mean Phiravich are shitty people and should be ashamed. But bottom line, unless an actor is proven to actually be an ally or queer themselves, don’t trust them.

Related to the above: RPS and actor pair-ups. When casting actors, production companies tend to focus on casting a set couple with both marketability and potential long-term chemistry. The idea behind this is that pair two actors up for a significant amount of time and it’ll allow them to be more comfortable together, thus allowing better chemistry and more complex storylines. Gun Atthaphan & Off Jumpol, for example, in their first appearance together had a very chaste questioning-your-sexuality storyline, whereas their most recent work, after a partnership of six years, featured them as gang members explicitly shown to be sleeping together. These actors build up a rapport, develop a certain dynamic that suits them, and fans watch a new show for them rather than the plot. For some, like OffGun, this works great! They’ve been together a long time, are good friends as a result of that, and they’re now old enough to know to set boundaries with fans. For others, for a variety of reasons, this system crashes and burns. When I talk about the shows themselves a bit further down, this is why I’ll be noting the actors. Watch a few shows and you’ll notice that actors are important to understanding the dynamics you’ll be getting.

But! Despite how dire this industry can seem from what I’ve been talking about above, there are many queer actors and creatives supporting each other and using these shows as a vehicle to express themselves, producing content that wouldn’t otherwise be welcomed on TV. In the last two or three years alone, the environment has become much more open and welcoming, and it’s been a really beautiful thing watch the industry and all of the people involved flourish.

Kings Tul Pakorn & Max Nattapol

◇   ◆   ◇

Language & culture notes:

Thai romanisation is not standardised. At all. There’s multiple systems in use and depending on the system, and the translator, you could have three or four ways of romanising one name, e.g. Mes, Met, Med, or Mate. Another particular recurring point of confusion I see often is Kan vs Gun.

Thai full names are long and too unwieldy for everyday life. Every Thai person goes by a nickname instead of their given name, which can be basically any word in existence. Surnames are only used for formal occasions and official documents and such. Also, every family’s surname is unique, so you can immediately tell when people are related.

Name order is Nickname Forename Surname, while actors are referred to as Nickname Forename. E.g. for Max Nattapol, Max is the nickname while Nattapol is the forename. His surname, which I just had to google, is Diloknawarit.

The exception to this is actors who are mixed race and those who’ve spent time abroad, e.g. Jeff Satur and Perth Nakhun, whose legal names are Worakamon Satur and Stewart Nakhuntanagarn Screaigh, respectively.

It’s not uncommon for Thais to change their legal names, mainly either for auspicious reasons or to emphasise a new phase in their life. This is why you have people like Fiat Pattadon suddenly becoming Fiat Patchata

Thailand uses both the Gregorian and Buddhist calendars. They both use the same days and months but the Buddhist year reckoning is 543 years ahead, making this year, 2022, 2565.

Any shows set outside of Bangkok will usually have Thai subtitles since the Northern & Southern varieties of Thai are full dialects, not just accents. You can’t get rid of the subs so just ignore them.

Honorifics & vocab:

P’ - precedes the first name of your elder. E.g., P’Sean, P’Kit. Pronounced literally as the letter ‘p’. Sometimes used as a term of address on its own, in which case it tends to be romanised as phi. Gender neutral.

Nong - precedes the first name of your junior. E.g. Nong’Yo, Nong’Ram. Sometimes shortened to just ‘N’’. Also used as a term of address on its own. Not strictly required to be respectful, so comes across more as affectionate. Also gender neutral.

Ai’ - precedes the first name of a man. Quite rude, so using it implies either disrespect or, with a friend, real closeness in the same way that an English speaker might call a friend “bitch” or “dickhead”. The female equivalent is Ee’.

Hia - precedes the first name of an older close male friend or relative. Used within Thai-Chinese families, or towards a person of Thai-Chinese descent, meaning literally “older brother”. Implies much more closeness than phi. The female equivalent is Je.

(Can also mean “fuck” when said in a different tone, just to be confusing.)

Nu - diminutive literally meaning mouse, used mainly by parents and for very young children.

Khun - Mr/Mrs/Miss. A general use polite term, can be used either on its own, preceeding a first name, or preceeding a title. When preceeding a title tends to make words more formal. E.g. por = dad, khun por = father. Gender neutral.

Khun Nu - Mr mouse? Nope! Young master. E.g. Tankhun in Kinnporsche is a Khun Nu, and Kuea in Cutie Pie is Nu Kuea.

Faen - gender neutral term for significant other. Often times when you see the term boyfriend or girlfriend used it’s actually this instead, so worth remembering. Incredibly useful for conversations with a double meaning.

Krub and Ka - sentence enders, essentially a politeness marker. Can also be used on their own as an acknowledgement or an “excuse me?” kind of thing. Krub is male while Ka is female. Also romanised as khrap and kha.

Want a video about this from someone actually Thai? Perth Nakhun has gotchu.

◇   ◆   ◇

THE SHOWS

Most of these shows are available, legally, for free on YouTube with subtitles. For those that aren’t, or if any links have since died, message me. Fansub teams are scattered around a bit haphazardly so it's hard to know where to look sometimes but these (drama)s are very (cool) so you should definitely give them a go.

I’m focusing solely on TV here; films are a whole other area which I don’t have much experience in. For a list of like, literally every show and film ever, see here.

Key ✨ - Personal recommendations 🏳️‍🌈 - Openly queer cast and/or crew involved in the show Title, with a link to the listing on MyDramaList Synopsis, including notable cast members. Notes, aka gossip & triggers. Links

Summaries my own, because my own may suck but the official ones are even worse.

◇   ◆   ◇

The Classics.

Note: quality on these shows tends to be a lot lower than recent ones. These are the very start of the industry, and so show a time before they’d found their footing. They're messy, kinda cringey, and filled with teenagers, but on the other hand, there’s a certain charm to them because of that? They feel more genuine for their amateurish production, like they've been made for love rather than money, and there’s a real sweetness to a lot of the couples.

🏳️‍🌈 2 Moons

After Wayo enters the same university as his longtime crush Pha, he joins a competition to be crowned the campus moon (think prom king) in an effort to get Pha’s attention. As the former moon Pha is in charge of mentoring the new crop of hopefuls, but he seems to have a strange dislike for Wayo. Meanwhile, Wayo's best friend Ming attempts to win over a taciturn senior, Kit.

Note: this show had drama. Note the lack of actor's names. After Pha's actor, God Itthipat, revealed himself to be a homophobe that auditioned for the show solely to boost his modelling career, the author of the original novel took the opportunity to reveal she didn't like the cast and fired everyone. A reboot with a new cast — very imaginatively named 2 Moons 2 — was produced with plans to finish out the rest of the series, but that also crashed and burned via one of the producers coming onto and then being rejected by Wayo's new actor, Earth Teerapat. The producer fired Earth from any promotional stuff and the next season and then blacklisted him, the rest of the cast quit in protest, and season 3 has been languishing ever since. Last I heard the production company were refusing to admit any fault and going through a new round of auditions with little success. Actually a pretty sweet show on its own merits, so has quite a few fans despite all of this. General consensus is that 2 Moons 2 is the better series but it also moves a lot faster and I prefer the cast of S1. Watch either; you get more plot with S2 but it doesn't matter in terms of continuity.

(🏳️‍🌈 applies to the original 2 Moons only, with Kit’s actor aka Copter Panuwat being nonbinary.)

S1 Trailer ♦  S2 Trailer  ♦  Watch S1 and S2

🏳️‍🌈 Love By Chance

Pete (Saint Suppapong) is a shy student who keeps to himself to hide the fact that he’s gay after previous experiences with violent homophobia. A chance encounter with the hotheaded and outspoken Ae (Perth Tanapon) brings him out of his shell to the point where he takes a chance on not just friendship, but also love.

Note: another one with drama. The short version is that a) only one of the cast (Earth Katsamonnat) is out as queer, resulting in many of the gay-for-pay actors belittling and bullying him on set, and b) Perth’s manager at one point started talking shit publicly about Saint, implying that he gets acting roles via selling himself to producers. Seemingly owing to age and industry inexperience Perth basically ignored the entire thing was happening, and what started as a few snide comments blew up to result in what looked like a very real and very public breakup. Earth and Saint both reject any association with the show now.

Note v.2: TW for rape and pseudo-incest (step-brother romance), but both are side storylines that are easily skipped with no impact on the rest of the show. Skip any scenes with Kengkla, Tum, and Tar. Despite [gestures] everything, the AePete parts are incredibly sweet and worth watching.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

✨ Love Sick

Student council member Punn’s (White Nawat) father wants Punn to date his boss’ daughter, never mind that Punn already has a girlfriend. The only thing that could sway him from the idea is if Punn had a boyfriend instead. Punn’s target for the farce? Noh (Captain Chonlathorn), president of the school music club who is desperate to get more funding for their activities.

Note: This is the show. The one that paved the way. I watched this show in 2016 and still think about Punn and Noh today. Skip any scenes with the girls, since their storyline is waaaay lower quality and also something that was written just to fill the time.

Trailer ♦  Links  ♦  S1 Playlist

Make It Right

After his girlfriend cheats on him, Fuse (Peak Peemapol) gets drunk and sleeps with a friend, Tee (Boom Krittapak). At the same time, Frame (Ohm Pawat) and Book (Toey Sittiwat) also sleep together. The story revolves around these four and their attempts to rationalise that night with their previous straight identities.

TW: consent issues.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

Puppy Honey

When their school club for looking after stray animals is threatened with disbandment by the dean, best friends Porsche (Kang Korn) and Pick (Off Jumpol) try to recruit the dean's neice Emma (Cherreen Nachjaree) and her best friend Rome (Gun Atthaphan) to help change his mind. There's just one problem: Emma is terrified of dogs.

No trailer :( ♦  Watch Here

Sotus

Engineering student Arthit (Krist Perawat) is known for his hazing of incoming first-years, but he meets his match with the arrival of new student Kongpob (Singto Prachaya). The two don't want to like each other, but are drawn together nonetheless.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here (Sotus S is S2. Ignore that.)

✨Together With Me

Reunited for the first time in years at university, best friends Korn (Max Nattapol) and Knock (Tul Pakorn) drunkenly spend the night together. Afterwards they try to work out if they’d work as a couple, and if it’s even possible to go back to being just friends.

Note: this is actually a prequel to another drama, Bad Romance, but that isn't required watching for continuity.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

◇   ◆   ◇

The New Blood.

Now we're getting somewhere! These are the post-2019 releases, which, as the industry was starting to get established in its norms, marked a significant uptick in both quality and quantity.

🏳️‍🌈 2gether

With an admirer making unwanted advances toward him, cheerleader Tine (Win Metawin) decides that the perfect thing to do to get him to back off is be in a very public, fake, relationship with the campus hottie, Sarawat (Bright Vachirawit).

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈✨ 3 Will Be Free

What do a male stripper (Joss Way-ar), a pickpocket conwoman (Mild Lapassalan), and a gang princeling (Tay Tawan) have in common? Being bisexual, accidentally murdering a man, and going on the run together, of course.

Note: Polyamory and also a major trans character!

TW: attempted rape.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈✨ A Tale of Thousand Stars

Rich kid Tian (Mix Sahaphap) spends his time gambling and drinking the days away; he has a terminal heart condition so it's not like it's his life is worth anything, right? Wrong. After unexpectedly recieving a heart transplant from a young teacher killed in a car crash, he abandons his life in Bangkok to move to her rural (aka lacking in electricity and running water) village in an attempt to find some meaning in his life, and to keep a promise she made to a forest ranger, Phupha (Earth Pirapat).

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈✨ Bad Buddy

A rivals to lovers comedy where two university students, Pat (Ohm Pawat) and Pran (Nanon Korapat), who’ve grown up next door to each other, and whose families are feuding a la Romeo and Juliet, decide that generational trauma has had its turn; they’re gonna fall in love instead.

Note: F/F side pair!

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 Dark Blue Kiss

Pete (Tay Tawan) and Kao (New Thitipoom) are a couple and generally happy together, but that happiness is threatened by Kao’s reluctance to come out to his mother, something that Pete can’t understand. Kao, on the other hand, is tired of Pete’s possessiveness and jealousy. The two of them try to work out whether they care about each other enough to work through their issues.

Meanwhile, coffee shop owner Sun (Podd Suphakorn) takes in and employs bad boy Mork (Fluke Gawin) in an attempt to reform him.

Note: This is actually the third part of a series, following Kiss and Kiss Me Again, but those aren’t required watching afaik. There’s an official cut of all the PeteKao scenes Kiss Me Again for people who don’t wanna slog through Straight Nonsense, but I haven’t seen it so can’t say anything for the coherency.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 The Eclipse

Suppalo is a prestigious all-boys high school known for being unyielding in its standards, which fall to its prefects, including Akk (First Kanaphan), to enforce and maintain. On the outside, everything looks fine. On the inside, students protest daily about restrictive uniform rules, the administration tacitly encourage the bullying and osctracism of nonconforming students, and a beloved teacher recently committed suicide. New transfer student Ayan (Khaotung Thanawat) couldn’t give a shit about Suppalo’s rules. What he cares about is finding the truth behind his uncle’s death, what drove him to that point, and what it is about the school that inspires such blind compliance in Akk.

Note: this show has an interesting backstory in that the director, Golf Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, originally worked in the film industry before becoming Thailand’s first openly trans MP. When they lost their seat due to the military cracking down on pro-democracy protests and ousting anyone from parliament they deemed too liberal, Golf returned to filmmaking with a focus on subversive and anti-establishment media, including this show!

Trailer ♦ Watch Here

Enchanté

Returning to Thailand after spending time in France, Theo (Book Kasidet) is quickly bored by his change in surroundings and lack of friends, so turns to writing in a library book to someone he refers to as “Enchanté”. At his friend Akk’s (Force Jiratchapong) suggestion, the two of them start searching for his penpal. The problem? Not one, but four guys step forward.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 ✨ He’s Coming To Me

Amnesiac ghost Met (Singto Prachaya) waits for the day that one of his relatives will visit his grave so he can leave Earth and reincarnate. He spends 20 years like this, until one day he encounters a boy, Thun (Ohm Pawat), who can not only see him, but who also says his death was not accidental. Leaving the graveyard together, the two of them try to unravel the mystery of who Met was and why he’s been forgotten.

Trailer ♦ Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 ✨ I Told Sunset About You / Last Twilight in Phuket / I Promised You The Moon

After a childhood falling out, close friends Teh (Billkin Putthipong) and Oh-aew (PP Krit) ended up as bitter rivals. Now in their last year of high school and preparing for university entrance exams, the two of them are thrown together again by a Chinese language class. Oh-aew is failing miserably. Teh grew up speaking the language. What starts as tutoring in an attempt to repair their relationship quickly turns into something a lot more as they try to cope with the return of their friendship and feelings.

Note: whatever the Thai genre equivalent of arthouse lgbt cinema is, this series is it. It’s so real.

ITSAY Trailer ♦  Watch Here (VPN to the UK required)

🏳️‍🌈 ✨ KinnPorsche

After saving a man being attacked behind the bar where he works, Porsche (Apo Nattawin) finds out that that man, Kinn (Mile Phakphum), is the heir to one of Thailand’s biggest crime families. Faced with debt, a younger brother to put through university, and the family patriarch’s gratitude, Porsche takes a job as Kinn’s bodyguard. All he has to do to survive is swallow his morals, keep Kinn safe, and try to ignore how much he wants to sleep with him.

Trailer ♦ Watch Here (First 3 episodes available for free, full uncut 18+ ver. available only through subscription).

(Also has a bangin’ theme song in both English and Thai.)

✨ Manner of Death

Returning to the small town where he grew up after moving away for university, one of coroner Bun’s (Tul Pakorn) first cases when he arrives is the supposed suicide of a childhood friend. It doesn’t matter that she was drugged prior to her death, nor that there were signs of a fight in her home, the police want her case buried so that’s what he’s told to do. Bun refuses. After being backed into a corner by threats and violence from an unknown source, he's forced to team up with mysterious bar owner Tan (Max Nattapol) to find out the truth, who all the evidence seems to point to as her killer.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

✨ Not Me

Identical twins Black and White (both Gun Atthaphan) grew up to have completely different lives after their parents divorced. When Black is beaten within an inch of his life by an unknown assailant, the pampered White goes undercover in Black’s anarchist gang as his twin to try and find out who did it, and forges a connection with Black’s rival, Sean (Off Jumpol), in the process.

Trailer ♦  Watch here

TharnType

Type (Gulf Kanuwat) is generally known to be very friendly and outgoing, except for one thing: he's homophobic due to being molested by a gay man as a child. When he enters university and finds that his new roomate, Tharn (Mew Suppasit), is out and proud? He wages a campaign to get Tharn to move out, of course. Tharn stands his ground, and so starts their life of constant push and pull.

Note: This show had a less than stellar reputation from the get-go due to the storyline, and it didn't help matters when Mew was cast. During promotions of his previous show, What The Duck, Mew at one point came onto his costar, Art Pakpoom. By Art’s account Mew had trouble separating the show from their real lives, thought they were actually dating, and became incredibly controlling and possessive over him. This all came out via Art having a breakdown on I think an instagram live? Fans, typically, rallied behind Mew in this, saying that Art had led him on with their contractually obligated public affection and was the worse party of the two of them for the fact that he was airing their dirty laundy in public. It became a whole Thing for a week or two, Art’s mental state and career both took a nosedive, and now everyone ignores that it ever happened. There was a whole push of MewGulf as a fanservice couple afterwards to try and make us forget about Art, which for a lot of people seems to have worked :/ Apparently people watched this because the kissing is good? Idk I didn’t watch it.

Note v.2: This is a spin-off of Love By Chance, so same warnings apply wrt Tum & Tar.

(I guess it qualifies for 🏳️‍🌈 considering Mew, but god, at what cost?)

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

Theory of Love

Film student Third (Gun Atthaphan) decides it's time to get over his years-long unrequited love for his oblivious best friend, Khai (Off Jumpol). Taking cues from his favourite films, he confesses in one last ditch attempt that goes nowhere. And then, just as he starts to pull away, Khai starts his own chase.

Trailer ♦ Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 Until We Meet Again

After a tragic end to their romance, lovers Korn (Kao Noppakao) and Intouch (Earth Katsamonnat) are reincarnated as Dean (Ohm Thitiwat) and Pharm (Fluke Natouch). Meeting for the first time again when Pharm enters university, Dean and Pharm are instantly drawn to each other. They grapple with the concept of fate and falling in love so quickly, while flashbacks show the course of Korn and In’s relationship.

Note: big suicide tw for this!

Trailer ♦ Watch on YT or on Viki

Why R U?

Aspiring writer Zon (Tommy Sittichok) finds out that his sister has been using him and his rival, Saifah (Jimmy Karn), as fodder for her own romance novel. He demands that she take it down and she agrees, but only, she says, if he can prove that a) he’s a better writer than she is, and b) there’s absolutely nothing between him and Saifah.

Simultaneously, rich boy Fighter (Zee Pruk) tries to win the heart of a poor student, Tutor (Saint Suppapong), while chafing under his father’s expectations of a girlfriend and a career in business.

Note: this show is really lopsided. It’s also a hot mess. Initial plans were for the SaifahZon story to take centre stage, however they were filming each episode as they went and Covid happened partway through production and put a halt to everything. Trying to salvage whatever they could, they took what they’d already shot, aka the FighterTutor storyline, and finished the show with that, resulting in a mess of timeskips and general weirdness. I find the dynamics interesting enough to still be in invested, but obviously ymmv.

Trailer ♦ Watch Here

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The Pulp.

Like I said, post-2019 we've been getting a lot of new releases per year.  This is a selective round-up of stuff from smaller studios, shows with prominent actors, good stuff that just didn't reach the right audience, and the low-quality fluff.

Cutie Pie

The sons of two prominent families, Lian (Zee Pruk) and Kuea (New Chawarin), have been engaged since they were young. When an argument splits them up, Kuea is determined to use it as an opportunity to be himself rather than the doll-like image of a fiancé that he had portrayed for Lian. Lian, on the other hand, decides to pull out all the stops to win Kuea back, making sure that this time there's no obligation attached to their love.

Trailer ♦ Watch on YT or on Viki

Cupid’s Last Wish

Win (Mix Sahaphap) and Korn (Earth Pirapat) are close friends until Win's father dies and bequeaths Korn shares in the family business. Convinced that Korn was only using him for his family money, Win cuts off all contact. When a car crash somehow results in Win swapping bodies with his sister, he’s told that to turn back he must travel to four different temples scattered across Thailand in seven days, and that he must do it alongside Korn.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 Diary of Tootsies

When a friendship group of three gays and a lesbian all get dumped on the same day, they vow to each other to find love before the year is out.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

🏳️‍🌈 Gen Y

Hearing that there's one particular senior at university who's hard to approach, playboy Mark (Kimmon Varodom) makes it a personal mission to find, win over, and date medical student Kit (Copter Panuwat).

Note: I would be tempted to call this a redemption series if it weren't such a mess. After everything that was the first 2 Moons cancellation, fan favourite actors for Ming (Kimmon) and Kit (Copter) stuck together. This is supposedly what their season 2 would've been, if it existed, right down to Wayo (Bas Suradej) also being present as Mark's best friend, called Wayu here. Everything is much the same, both the Mark/MingKit dynamic and Wayo/u mooning over Pha, whose face is consistenly not shown and who also at one point dies so that the writers can pair Wayu up with the winner of a fan poll instead. No, I am not making this up, and yes, it is exactly as funny as it sounds.

✨ Great Men Academy

Hopeless romantic Love (New Chanyapuk) makes a wish on a unicorn (I know… just go with it) to turn into a guy (James Teeradon) so she can attend the same all-boys school as her crush. Gender bender shenanigans and rom-com situations occur as she tries to fit in, and when her male form instead catches the eye of another senior, Tangmo (JJ Kritsanapoom).

Note: I... actually really enjoyed this. James Teeradon in particular is phenomenal, as always, but the whole cast are great.

Trailer

🏳️‍🌈 Lovely Writer

Gene (Up Poompat) is a successful BL writer, never mind that he’s desperate to break into another genre like fantasy. His work is so successful, in fact, that his most recent novel gets turned into a TV show. As producer of the show and present on set everyday, he forges a bond with his leading man Nubsib (Kao Noppakao), but their blossoming relationship is soon threatened by the industry environment, fan expectations, and the very show that brought them together.

Note: this has a lot of meta commentary on the industry as a whole. Even if it weren’t good, which it is, it would be worth watching for that alone.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

My Engineer

Bohn (Cooper Patpasit) is a self-acknowledged shitty person who forces an underclassman, Duen (Poy Kritsanapong), into bringing him a red rose everyday in an attempt to weird hazing thing. It starts as a joke, but Bohn stops laughing when their forced proximity actually brings them together.

Meanwhile, extrovert King (Lay Talay) attempts to win over serious introvert Ram (Perth Nakhun).

Note: BohnDuen might be the primary couple, but RamKing is the highlight of this drama. We're supposedly getting a S2 centred on RamKing... eventually.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here (...and the fanmade RamKing cut here.)

My Ride

Medical student Tawan (Fame Chawinroj) and motorcycle taxi driver Mork (Fluke Pongsakorn) meet by chance one day when Tawan hires Mork to drive him across town. This one ride turns into many, and their feelings turn into love, regardless of the class difference.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

My Secret Love

Kimhant (Earth Teerapat) is a conscientious student who cares a lot about maintaining both his own and the university’s reputation. Mek (Fluk Chatchawan), on the other hand, cares more about his youtube channel than his degree. When a prank of Mek’s goes awry, the two of them are forced to first work together, and later fake date, to save themselves from suspension.

Note: this show has absolutely no business being as good as it is??

Trailer ♦ Watch Here

Secret Crush on You

At the beginning of his university life, Toh (Seng Wichai) falls in love at first sight with third-year basketball player Nuea (Billy Patchanon). Drunk on his first love but lacking the confidence to confess, Toh turns full-on stalker. When fate throws them together regardless of Toh’s wish to keep his distance, will he take the chance he’s given?

Note: This show is all about taking the characters who are typically the butt of jokes in Thai dramas and showing that they deserve love too. We have openly weird, chubby, and trans characters all having their own storylines and it’s incredibly sweet. Also, Saint Suppapong has seemingly aquired a flock of baby gays to guide.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

✨ The Stranded

After a tsunami strands a group of teens on their island school, they divide into groups as they try and work out not only how to survive, but also how to leave.

Note: Fair warning, the first season ends on a cliffhanger and we’re unlikely to get another due to the death of the lead actor.

Trailer ♦ On Netflix

✨ Triage

Losing a patient is nothing new for A&E doctor Tin (Tae Darvid). What is new is pronouncing that patient, Tol (Tee Thanapon), dead from a car crash, and then, the following day, seeing him be wheeled into the emergency room again. And again. And again. The same day loops over and over, and as Tin tries to learn how to escape, he gets closer to both Tol and also to a hospital conspiracy that threatens to consume them both.

Note: the broadcasters were doing this weird thing where the episodes were only available legally on YT for a two-hour window after they aired in Thailand. Ordinarily I would say to support the legal upload, but I feel like at that point it’s almost a moral obligation to encourage piracy.

As a sidenote, this and Manner of Death are by the same author. They’re only tangentially related though (ie Bun shows up to do an autopsy) so you don’t need to watch both for continuity.

Trailer ♦ Short film ♦ Ahoy!

Vice Versa

Talay (Sea Tawinan) is ecstatic when he lands his dream job, except that when his friends take him to the beach to celebrate, he drowns. Waking up in an alternate universe and the body of a rich boy, Tess (Ohm Pawat), he's told to find someone else, essentially his soulmate, who has also crossed over so that they can go home together and Talay can get back to his life. Whoever it is (Jimmy Jitaraphol) in the body of Tess’ friend Tun (Nanon Korapat) may fit the bill, but he has zero intention of leaving this world that he likes more than their original.

Trailer

You're My Sky

Thorn (Suar Kritsanapong) and Tupfah (Tae Chayapat) are both basketball players, but while Thorn is determined to turn professional if possible, Tupfah has put his own ambitions on hold. As they spend time together, and Thorn tries to convince Tupfah to return to the sport they both love, they, of course, fall in love themselves.

Trailer ♦  Watch Here

YYY

When one of Nott's (Yoon Phusanu) inventions goes haywire and wreaks havoc in his apartment building, he's on the verge of being kicked out. Luckily, prospective tenant Punn (Lay Talay) arrives just in time. Preying on the landlady's sympathy, the two of them concoct a plan to fake date in exchange for Nott’s continued residence.

Note: big flashing lights tw for the first minute of episode 1. This entire show is like someone’s acid trip come to life.

Trailer

◇   ◆   ◇

Currently Airing

Between Us (Aka Hemp Rope among fans)

A spinoff of Until We Meet Again, focused on Pharm and Dean’s friends Win (Boun Noppanut) and Team (Prem Warut) as they start a friend-with-benefits relationship that morphs into love. Win helps Team with his insomnia, and Team helps with feeling wanted.

Trailer 1 | Trailer 2

Ghost Host, Ghost House

A recent returnee to Thailand form the US, Kevin (Tod Techit) is fascinated by ghosts and Thailand’s cultural prevalence of them. Disregarding the warnings of his extended family and the local handyman, Pleum (Boy Nattapon), who he may have just a tiny crush on, he happily goes ghost hunting and exploring abandoned buildings in search for them, not knowing that there are some much closer than he thinks.

Trailer

Love in the Air

When Rain’s (Noeul Nuttarat) car breaks down one day and a handsome stranger fixes it for him roadside, he doesn’t expect that stranger to be Phayu (Boss Chaikamon), notable faculty alumnus and the object of his crush’s affections. Being an idiot, Rain hatches a plan to make Phayu fall for him in an attempt to get one over on him, but soon enough he’s the one catching feelings.

Simultaneously, Rain’s best friend Sky (Peat Wasuthorn) has a one night stand with rich boy Prapai (Fort Thitipong). Having recently left an abusive relationship, Sky isn’t looking for anything serious, but that doesn’t deter Prapai who fell in love at first fuck and makes it his mission to both win Sky over, and show Sky that he’s someone to be treasured.

Trailer ♦ Watch for free cut & on subscription uncut. (Note: the uncut ver. isn’t legally available in Europe.)

◇   ◆   ◇

Upcoming excitement.

Gap

Mon (Becky Armstrong), a fresh graduate, starts working as an intern in a big company because she admires the chairwoman, Sam (Freen Sarocha). She soon learns that Sam is nothing like her media persona, but is drawn to her when their paths cross anyway.

Note: Girls!!! Holy shit!!!!! So this is actually the first major F/F production that I’m aware of, and it came into existences at the behest of Saint Suppapong. After Saint starred in Love By Chance and Why R U he realised how skewed the industry was in favour of men, and actually founded his own production company to try and combat that. (Secret Crush On You was another of his productions!) This show is hopefully the first in a looong line of upcoming F/F dramas.

A few little teasers.

Moonlight Chicken

Jim (Earth Pirapat) is the owner of a Hainanese chicken restaurant. He values a simple life of making good food and looking after his customers. One night when looking after a drunk customer, Wen (Mix Sahaphap), they end up sleeping together, which quickly turns into a relationship that threatens the tight-knit little community that Jim has built.

Trailer

Never Let Me Go

Following the death of his mobster father, Neung (Phuwin Tangsakyuen) is the one left to pick up the pieces and take over the family empire. Unused to trusting people, he initially shuns the new bodyguard, Palm (Pond Naravit), that his mother assigns to him, but tensions quickly get the better of them and they start to fall in love.

Trailer

Wish Me Luck

Rak (Fiat Patchata) is somehow holding his own while juggling two jobs, one at a supermarket, the other as an intern for a small advertising firm. The supermarket is the least demanding of the two, but the advertising firm has the bonus of his very hot boss, Chai/Shine (Na Naphat), who takes it upon himself to personally oversee Rak’s vocational training. But as the work piles up and Rak struggles to hold his head above the water, he has to decide which is more important to him, and whether he’s going to let his emotions get in the way.

Trailer

Wish You Luck (yes, these two are named very confusingly.)

After a devastating event leaves cities empty and countless people dead, Ken (Tonnam Piamchol) survives by living alone in the wilderness, where his bad luck can’t jinx anyone he cares about. Q (Title Teshin), a strange boy he comes across one day, is trying to make his way home to Chiang Mai. Thrown together by the road, the two try to survive and make what they can of the new world.

Note: Tonnam lead role!!! Tonnam has been in a lot of dramas lately, including Triage, Cutie Pie, and Love in the Air, in supporting & background parts. He somehow manages to be a great actor even when he has literally 2 lines in a scene to work with, so we’re all really excited to see him as a lead 🥰

Trailer

◇   ◆   ◇

Links

Networks: @/asiansapphics @/asianlgbtqdramas @/lakornet @/asianlgbtnetwork

General where to watch stuff legally:

GMMTV YT

GagaOOLala (subscription service)

Viki

iQiyi

WeTV (finnicky depending on your region)

Viu (need to vpn to Southeast Asia or Middle East)

◇   ◆   ◇

@yilinglaozus​ @dekaja​ @sp8sexual​ you all liked my previous post so now you have to deal with this one too <3

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hello Steph 😊 Do you have any BAMF Molly or just some good fics that feature Molly? I need some Molly love at the moment because I just read a fic where she "turns to the drak side" so to speak, and my heart 😭😭😭

Hey Nonny!

Ah I did a few comm. recs lists recently with Molly, but here are what I can offer you from memory, LOL. PLEASE add your fave Molly fics, guys! PLEASE NOTE these are fics I’ve read, and please check the sub-headings for a TONNE of stuff I haven’t read!! Big title so I can find it later LOL.

MOLLY PLAYS A ROLE

See also:

COMM RECS: Coming Out To Molly

COMM RECS: Molly with Women

COMM RECS: Molly and Greg Push John and Sherlock Together

COMM RECS: Molly as a Villain

Santa Knows by Itsallfine (T, 1,719 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas Party, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Fluff, Matchmaking, POV Sherlock, Pining Sherlock) – Sherlock and John both get exactly what they want from the Yard's secret Santa exchange. Pure holiday fluff.

What John Doesn't Know (Won't Hurt Him) by blueink3 (NR [T], 4,392 w., 1 Ch, || S3 Fix It, Pining Sherlock, Snippets of Life, Hurt/Comfort, Scars, Fluff and Angst, Five and One, Hopeful Ending, POV Sherlock) – Five people who see Sherlock's scars before John Watson. But Sherlock's secrets were never something he could keep from his blogger for long.

Thirty Three Hours Without John Watson by Bookaholic, mybrotherharry (M, 6,232 w. || First Kiss / Time, Pining Idiots, BG Mystrade, Crackish) – Sherlock can SO TOTALLY survive without John Watson. It should be a piece of cake. AKA the time when Sherlock braved grocery store lines for milk, purchased and gave away a box of tampons and figured out what the X-Factor is. Greg and Mycroft didn’t sign up for this shit. Next time, they are going to the Bahamas.

Wonderful, Etcetera. by VictoryCandescence (T, 16,955 w., 3 Ch. || Wonderful Life AU || Alternate Timelines, Brotherhood, Homophobia, Suicidal Ideations, Mentions of Drug Use, Friendship, Different TRF, Sherlock’s Past, Victor Trevor is Past Boyfriend, Depression, Hallucination, Love Confessions, Christmas, First Kiss) – Sherlock thinks everyone would be better off if he had never existed, including and especially himself. When he finds himself in a world in which his wish has been granted, he begins to think perhaps even he could be wrong – but it takes an unlikely chaperone to make him not only observe, but understand.

Insanity in the Middle by DotyTakeThisDown (E, 28,010 w., 8 Ch. || Equestrian Sports AU || Alternate First Meeting, POV John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Clueless Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Passionate Kisses, Hand Holding, Caught Making Out, Bed Sharing, Spooning, Blow Job) – John is a world-class eventing rider with a gold medal and several four-star wins to his credit, but he's never won at Rolex. Sherlock is an up-and-coming rider taking the sport by storm.

Love or What You Will by miss_frankenstein (T, 31,987 w., 11 Ch. || College/Uni AU || Professor John, Ph.D Student Sherlock, Pining John, Poetry, Falling in Love / Slow Burn, Light Angst, Happy Ending) – John is an English professor who specializes in War and Post-War Literature and Sherlock is the brilliant yet impossible Ph.D. student assigned to be his TA because no one in the Chemistry Department is willing to put up with him. And - somewhere between Waugh and Plath, e-mails and takeaway, novels and villanelles - they fall in love.

The Wrong Wagon by DancingGrimm (E, 35,663 w., 20 Ch. || Alternating POV, Molly/  John [Molly pines for John], Public Sex, Casual Sex, Obliviousness, BAMF!John, Awkwardness, Angst & Humour, First Time, Virgin Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock) – Molly sees John in a new light and realises that she may have hitched her horse to the wrong wagon...or something like that. John pines for Sherlock and worries what he will think if he ever finds out. And Sherlock doesn't know what Molly's up to...but he knows he doesn't like it.

The Pieces That Fall to Earth by Itsallfine (M, 49,513 w., 84 Ch. || S4 Fix-It, Epistolary, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Parentlock, Past Abuse, Coming Out, Internalized Homophobia, Questioning Sexuality, Mental Health Issues / Therapy, Angst, Happy Ending) – John and Sherlock have hit rock bottom, but with all their armor stripped away, they can finally speak honestly, seek healing, and find the truths that matter most. An epistolary post-s4 fix-it fic. Now complete. (This fic is rated T except for one very clearly marked and easily skippable chapter, which is rated M.) Part 1 of The Pieces that Fall to Earth

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w., 15 Ch. || Notting Hill AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant -- but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

This Thing All Things Devours by cypress_tree (E, 63,844 w., 15 Ch. || In Time AU || Science Fiction, Dystopian Universe, First Meetings, Action / Adventure, Romance) – In 2169, time is money—literally. Humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, when the numbers on their arm start counting down from one year. When that time is up, they die. The only way to get more time is to earn it, borrow it, or steal it.John Watson lives day-to-day in the crowded slums of Zone 13. He never imagined living any differently—until he meets the practically-immortal Sherlock, and helps him on a case to track a local time-thief...

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

The Stars Move Still by BeautifulFiction (E, 96,022 w., 5 Ch. || Magical Realism, Demons, Slash to Pre-Slash, AU, Happy Ending, Souls) – "What could I want so desperately that would make me sell my soul? What could possibly compel me to surrender the part of myself that makes me who I am: the source of my magic, my self-control, everything?”

Definitions by siennna (T, 101,528 w., 12 of ? Ch. || Dev. Rel., Pining, Fluff and Romance, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Fluff, Cuddles, Girl’s Night, Texting, Virgin Sherlock, Drunk Sherlock, Background Mollstrade, Hair Petting, Laying on Lap) – Sherlock’s journey in defining his flat mate and stumbling through the muddled world of emotion. {{This feels complete; the chapter count is listed as ? but I feel like it is done}}

between each beat are words unsaid by darcylindbergh, hudders-and-hiddles (T, 107,998 w., 215 Ch. || Epistolary, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Angst, Happy Ending) – On their wedding night, John and Sherlock gift each other with the things they each said when the other could not hear, the things they each put down where the other could not see: a collection of writings that illustrate the way their love for one another has grown over the years. Part 1 of between each beat

The Burning Heart by May_Shepard (M, 119,150 w., 21 Ch. || Canon Divergence, Post-TRF, John’s Sexuality, S3 Rewrite, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, POV John Watson, John’s Gay) – When Sherlock dies, John Watson feels like his life is over too. He’s completely shut down, until Mark Morstan, a new nurse at John’s medical clinic, catches his attention, and helps him uncover the long buried truth of his attraction to men. Although he’s certain he’ll never get over Sherlock, John plans to move on, and build a new life with Mark, unaware that Sherlock is not quite as dead as he appears, and that Mark is hiding secrets of his own.

A Further Sea by i_ship_an_armada & ShinySherlock (E, 125,492 w., 23 Ch. || Historical Pirates AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Doctor John / Pirate Captain Sherlock, Sailing, UST / RST, Masturbation, Action / Adventure, Mild Angst & Peril, Romance, Shaving, Molly/Janine, Bottomlock, Hand / Blow Jobs, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Mild Violence, Facial Shaving, Happy Ending) – Here be a tale of adventure for both body and soul, but beware if ye be not of stout heart, for this be piratelock, ya savvy? Luckless ship's surgeon John Watson takes a chance, and finds himself eye to eye with The Ghost, the scourge of the seven seas and a definite thorn in the side of the blaggard, James Moriarty. But when John finds there's more to this most cunning pirate than be meetin' the eye, he has to choose... is it a pirate's life for him?

The Horse and his Doctor by khorazir (T, 129,003 w., 13 Ch. || Horse / Vet AU || Magical Realism, Horses, Vet John, Horse Sherlock, Implied Alcoholism) – Invalided after a run in with a poacher in Siberia, veterinary surgeon John Watson finds it difficult to acclimatise to the mundanity of London life. Things change when a friend invites him along to a local animal shelter and he meets their latest acquisition, a trouble-making Frisian with the strangest eyes and even stranger quirks John has ever encountered in a horse.

Performance In a Leading Role by Mad_Lori (E, 156,714 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Hollywood / Actor AU, Secret Relationship, Falling in Love, Slow Burn, Romance, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Pining) – Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world? Part 1 of Performance in a Leading Role

Mise en Place by azriona (M, 161,004 w., 28 Ch. || Restaurant (Kitchen Nightmares) AU || Sherlock is Gordon Ramsay / Celebrity Sherlock, Restauranteur John, Harry Plays Prominent Role, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, Cranky Sherlock, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn) – John Watson had no intentions of taking over the family business, but when he returns from Afghanistan, battered and bruised, and discovers that his sister Harry has run their restaurant into the ground, he doesn't have much choice. There's only one thing that can save the Empire from closing for good – the celebrity star of the BBC series Restaurant Reconstructed, Chef Sherlock Holmes. Part 1 of Mise en Place

[fitzrove]

btw this is a fancy way of saying that (controversial😂😭):

(Nobody cares about this but I started writing and couldnt stop xD)

Romance things I (generally) like

- When they're women, and men exist preferably only on the outskirts of the narrative (not at the center of it) (I can only tolerate central or pov male characters when they could reasonably be my self insert sorry) (/hj)

- When they kill each other and/or other people (usually each other is better) (slower the better... or if they grapple with the guilt and consequences...)

- Gaslighting

- Manipulation

- Entrapment

- If one character tries to get the other to [redacted] themselves

- [Censored because I got shy]

- When they're BOTH messed up (even if one appears much "weaker" or more submissive, they're just as wrong in the head on the inside and it's kinda delicious if/when this is revealed slowly or as a twist. Like in thr*ll me 😭)

- Unhappy ending

- Bittersweet ending

- Bad ending (especially if springing from the messiness of the relationship)

- The relationship having Implications (for the plot, for the people around them, for the world at large, concretely or as a symbol) that may or may not be catastrophic

Romance things I (generally) don't like

- straight people (PERSONAL OPINION, NOT MORAL JUDGEMENT)

- Reductive character archetypes (mostly: sex roles defining personality unsubvertedly)

- Repetitiveness

- Soft and tender cottagecore wlw (sorry........ Growing up Finnish ruined the cottage for me its just too hot, improper sanitary facilities, pollen, boredom, dead bugs on the floor & alive bugs that crawl on you and give you unsexy skin reactions /hj) (Ajfkdkd but excessive softness is a plague in wlw romance fr)

- Cartoon villainy or cartoonish abuse/violence (not to diminish it or anything, those portrayals can be important for some people too, I just don't see the appeal for myself)

- Soft and tender anything tbh. Maybe it's fine in small doses...

- Lack of agency

- Too much agency (the girlboss effect)

- This is controversial and probably a can of worms I shouldnt get into but I dislike explicit modern terminology for identity and sex stuff in historical fiction. Like I'm maybe okay with it if 19th century characters have a safeword but they BETTER not use the stoplight system 😭😭😭 And I feel like explicit declarations of identity feel ahistorical a lot of the time, I prefer it when it's left messy or done with a lot of care to make it feel seamless

- Codependency or other messed up stuff (manipulation, gaslighting) that is treated as normal/doesn't have any [even implied] narrative or mental repercussions for the characters

- Age g*ps (doesnt count for immortal characters, I'm mostly talking middle-aged human x younger human, or older adult x young adult - I just don't see the appeal once you go over 10 years or so. Though this is entirely personal and probably because I'm young myself. DISCLAIMER d*nvich is an exception to this because my preferred headcanon danny is marle and she's young 😭😭😂😂🤡) (the clown is me) (other exceptions will be made for other hot women though................ yeah idk maybe danny just doesn't count full stop)

- I'm not sure its a thing in written stuff or only on gay social media but tall women treated as a f*tish is an instant turn off for me

I want to write a romance subplot (in [original project]) but I have this problem where I straight-up disagree with most people online on what is appealing in a romance story or romantic subplot (ie. a lot of common tropes are unappealing to me, I usually need it to be Full of Symbolism And Themes [but only like... wider themes, usually sexual liberation and self-discovery which are pretty common ones arent really my cup of tea ajks], I don't usually find much appeal in a mundane romance being at the center of the narrative & it has to be wlw OR i have to delusion it into being so in my head...)

Like legit the target audience for the kind of relationship I would write would just be me and like 3.5 of my gay friends rip

[jesuisgourde]

gay/queer references in Peter’s journals

Again, I have probably missed stuff due to going through pretty quickly and also due to having stared at this document for so long, everything has kind of blurred together.

Sometime close to the day that Carlos & I watched 'Love And Death on Long Island' (and afterwards paraded through the tea rooms of Picadilly) we both filled in application forms and were tres excited to be invited to the same group 'interview' - twas more like an audition though. I got the part. Carlos never. This did not bring any animosity - we both know that success for either of us is magnified a million times if it is shared by us both.

from 'A Diamond Guitar' by Truman Capote "Except that they did not combine their bodies or think to do so, though such things were not unknown at the (Prison), they were as lovers. Of the seasons, spring is the most shattering: stalks thrusting through the earth's winter-stiffened crust, young leaves cracking out on old left-to-die branches, the falling asleep wind cruising through all the newborn green. And with Mr Schaeffer it was the same, a breaking up, a flexing of muscles that had hardened. It was late January. The friends were sitting on the steps of the sheep house, each with a cigarette in his hand. A moon thin and yellow as a piece of lemon rind curved above them, and under its light, threads of ground frost glistened like silver snail trails. Tico Feo had been drawn into himself - silent as a robber waiting in the shadows."

Then a meet with Bounds Green's African prince outside whitechapel tube, rugged lookies at I in military attire & to a ruptured Albion rooms tidied in hours and now lids drawn heated on the eyes. A young looking fella has a crush on me.

Jackie/Camillia/Marie/Kate/Chris/V. churchill Jackie/Evelina/Jasmine/Sachi/Dalston/Sussie Sandra/Carlene/FP/Jay/Dalston/Kraut

There sat a young black man, perhaps in his early or middle twenties. He looked for all the world like the archetypal rude boy. Clean, cheap reebok, nike, adidas variously rolled, laced & zipped about his lean, spreadeagled body that hung loosely about the waiting room chair. Gold & tattoos adorned his person, and a blank animal look was attached to his clear face. He sat before me in a row of four empty chairs, staring at polished floor or the mundane television. A balding white man minced in & all perceptions were suddenly proven to be false as they embraced and snuggled up to each other, giggling & whispering & touching each others noses.... very much in love, fingers crossed for the blood tests.

[Image: an article from Gay Times of an interview with Peter. For some reason, the portrait included alongside the article is of Carl wearing a grey and black t-shirt.] Name? Peter Doherty Age? 22 Where are you? I'm on the motorway just north of Southampton. What kind of day are you having? (Vaguely) Erm... quite misty. Something's waiting around the corner, but there are no corners on the motorway, so we'll just have to wait and see what lies ahead. Maybe something will happen tonight.... What's this we hear about you once being a rent boy? Well, when times are hard, duty calls. How long ago was it? When I was 19, about three years ago. How do we know this isn't just a Shaun Ryder-type lie? 'Cause if it was, it would make me a complete scumbag and I'm not, and I'm not interested in that kind of pantomime. It wasn't a very happy time. I didn't really enjoy it. Why did you give it up? (grimly) Well, certain people disappeared... and anyway, ultimately I found myself no longer in such a vulnerable position anymore. Dawn broke, and I realised that it was a beautiful world after all. Have you done any other dodgy jobs? All of us in the band have tried to deal, but it's not good if you like the drugs too much. You just end up using them yourself! I once was a gravedigger. I used to do it with my mate in Willesden Green cemetery. We didn't actually do the digging, a machine did that, but we used to have to fill them in. It was pretty grim work. So are you gay then? Love is love, wherever it comes from. I'm not anything, really. I am a very sexual person but... I dunno, I believe in liberty... The Marquis de Sade has a lot to answer for... Do you get a lot of gay fans? Yeah - well, there's one guy in particular. He's very shy and he follows us around. He brings in letters and cards and stuff, but he's very quiet. I think John (the bassist) is the main pulling power in the band. Are you jealous about that? Nah! I've known him too long.

You know I'm alright i dont even care i like it when they stare & stare call me queer, dear oh dear a million things & what I wear He's real hard when he's with his mates but I'll saw him again & he was too late

Dear NME I'd have thought after the Gay Times piece, the interview with Rapture fanzine & our recent gig at the Slum Club everything would be clear. No it still remains to give a big hearty fuck off to all these twisted suburban types calling me a liar. Vulnerable young men & women all over the world find themselves victims of circumstance.

she was dressed in suit & tie & lightly etched-on moustache. 'I've always wanted to kiss a bird in the back of a taxi.' she says, running her hand up the fishnet ladders of my thigh. Stepping onto the front line in Bow puddles, elevators, buzzing doors,

[Image: the original page in the book has been preserved. Two paragraphs have been boxed off with biro. They read:] “...cast Richard Burton and Rex Harrison as bickering queer barbers and then much more uncompromisingly in William Friedkin's adaptation of The Boys in the Band (1970), which introduced some of the plainer four letter words in the English language to the screen for the first time. 'Who,' asks Cliff Gorman, in his brilliant portrayal of the most effeminate of the homosexual group as they gather for a soul-searching party, 'Who do you have to fuck to get a drink around here?' Other homosexual manifestations to occur in movies around this time included an elliptical but unmistakeable male fellatio scene in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969) when Jon Voight, as a broke and disillusioned Texas stud importunes in a New York cinema....”

[Image, top left: a blurry photo of John onstage, playing bass. Image, top right, sideways: a photo of the band onstage. Carl and John are on the left, sharing a mic. Peter is on the right, playing guitar and singing into his own mic. Image, centre left: a torn photo of Peter sitting in a chair, shirtless, playing guitar. Only his bottom half from the chest down is visible. Image, centre left: a torn photo of Peter sitting in a chair, shirtless, playing guitar. Only his top half from shoulders up is visible. Image, bottom left: a torn fragment of a photo. What looks like a denim-clad knee and a yellow carrier bag are visible. Image, bottom middle: a photo of someone's knee in torn jeans, taken from under a table. Image, bottom right: a torn photo of Carl in a black sleeveless shirt, posing with his fingers in his mouth.] [A paragraph from the original page of the book has been left exposed and boxed off with black biro. It reads:] “The Boys in the Band was displaced by an immeasurably more powerful portrayal of homosexual groups, Fortune and Men's Eyes (1971). Set in a Quebec prison, this disturbing, factually based drama vividly recounted the corrupted of a heterosexual convict trapped in a tough, potentially vicious homosexual society. In one horrifying scene, a weak, put-upon prisoner is gang-banged by his fellow inmates; in another, the 'hero' is blackmailed by his cellmate into accepting him as his lover for the duration...”

Like a cat on a hot tin roof Like a macho man in a roomful of poofs I have tried in my way to be free.

[Written in Peter's handwriting] Jerome... is that how it's spelt? [Written in someone else's handwriting] Yes it is [Written in Peter's handwriting] Can I read you something? [Written in someone else's handwriting] Yes please.....

I insist, new book of Albion, befuddled by drugs I may yes about 2 but I do not miss out entirely on the subtleties of the inhuman relation ships that are this the mainstay of my stay here in one bounce of a loaf. Boys are fooled into fooling with boys. [...]

More general references/some extra explanations:

“The boy looked at Johnny” is a line from Patti Smith's song “Horses,” part one of a three-part song called “Land.” In the song, a young man named Johnny is assaulted by another man in a locker room; he then mentally journeys to other fantastical lands and visions. A lot of people interpret it as being about gay sex, although some people interpret it as being about a stabbing.

Peter quotes and references Jean Genet's writing and works about Jean Genet many times. While Genet's works are nearly all about crime and prison (one of Peter's main interests and points of fascination), all of his works are very explicitly gay. The Thief's Journal is more about Genet's various lovers than it is about his criminal history. Our Lady Of The Flowers is about a drag queen and her criminal lovers, and is also extremely erotic.

(“Jerome” is Jerome Alexandre, vocalist of The Deadcuts, who was friends with Peter and Mark Keds.)

[ashenpages]

Current Projects & Emoji Voting Key

Quick disclaimer: I’m a romance writer in all aspects of the term, so most of my works will contain mature content. Engage at your own risk, you know the rules, you’re responsible for curating your own experience of the internet, blah blah blah.

This post serves as a current mock up of fic ideas I’m either actively working on or considering working on next. You can drop me an ask about any of them, or just vote via the emoji combo I’ve assigned them.

Voting lets me know you’re excited about an idea and makes it more likely I’ll actually work on it. You can vote anytime, there’re no deadlines or winner announcements, just me gauging your interest by what I see in my ask box most often.

You can also ask me about the original stuff I’m working on currently. The current WIPs are Medusa centric and the emoji for them is: 🐍

Support my original work on Ko-fi and Patreon.

- Lupin: 🤑🤠💍  These are all oneshot ideas, between 5-15K each. If you want to vote for a specific idea, send me the emojis and the number of the idea.

Born from the idea that Goemon and Zenigata probably couldn’t be an item, my brain decided to come up with how I could write for them. Goemon’s teaching an ikebana class as part of his training, and Zenigata shows up as a student on forced recreational leave for his health from the ICPO. Zenigata wins the samurai’s heart through flowers. But what happens when Lupin and Jigen find out? (Only good sexy things, I promise. These beans are in a healthy polycule--be gay, do crimes) (WIP)

Jigen/Lupin, but it's Jigen deciding to seduce Lupin while wearing his own Lupin disguise. The thief is waaaaay too into it, and some artistry is taken with the sex so that they don't mess up the disguise too much during their encoutner.

Jigen/Zenigata/Lupin where Jigen has some fantasices about Zenigata, but is pretty sure they'll never happen. Tells Lupin about them. Suddenly the fantasies are coming true, in the middle of a heist, and Jigen doesn't what to do except get swept up in the moment and enjoy. Plot twist, it's Lupin dressed up as Zenigata granting all his gunman's dreams. Plot twist again, Zenigata catches them at it.

Zenigata/Lupin, where Lupin keeps doing good things in illegal ways and Pops has to find a way to punish him for it. Good thing for Pops Lupin's a masochist?

Trans!Lupin and Trans!Jigen premise: Jigen cares for Lupin after the master thief has top surgery, since Jigen has Been There and Done That. Caring, sweet, and a little sexy. Lupin is a much better patient than Jigen.

The one time Zenigata caught Lupin in an alley and kissed him and it was Jigen in disguise. Things get sexy anyway, and Zenigata has crushes on two thieves now. Lupin and Jigen "kidnap" him later for an evening of taking care of their inspector.

The background plot of Jigen's Gravestone where we see Jigen think he's done for and try to leave Lupin. Our thief has none of it, and we get to relish in the inherent eroticism of Lupin sitting in sniper fire, knowing Jigen's got his back. This is the moment I think Jigen finally believes he can be with Lupin forever.

I love the idea of something longer and more plot driven like a Lupin special where Lupin ends up in hot water and Jigen and Fujiko have to work together to save him. Jigen and Fujiko have such an interesting relationship. They're both partners of Lupin, they don't really like each other, they constantly screw the other over, but when it really matters they take care of each other. I'd like to see that highlighted a little more and also give them space to call each other out and bicker. Nothing sexy between them, but maybe a really interesting threesome with Lupin and Fujiko in a strap on once they save their boy.

- Sonic Vampire Novelist Coffee Shop AU: 📚☕💐

Shadow is an immortal vampire who has seen the world change for the worse too many times. These days it feels like he only lives for his coffee dates with Rouge, another immortal who loves each new era they encounter, warts and all. He has to admit that the book series she got him into speaks to him, at least. If someone in this era can understand him without meeting him, it can’t all be bad. But he hardly expected the goofy blue barista at the new coffee place to understand him the way those books do.

This is a novel length romcom romp with some big feelings about what it means to watch as things change, grow, and die. Expect lots of Big gothic feelings from this one, emotionally charged kissing, and overly-adoring sex. But also expect shenanigans from everyone in the coffee shop, which include Rouge, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, and more.

- Sonic Blazamy, "Like the Sun": 💖🌸💎

Amy Rose has been in love with Sonic for a while.

Or has she?

When the Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver are trapped as the fuel sources for Doctor Eggman’s newest evil scheme, Amy teams up with Blaze, Rouge, and Cream to save them. With Sonic out of the picture and Amy fulfilling his role, was she ever really in love with him? Or did she just want to be like him?

This is a novel length epic romance with lots of competent women and lots of romantic Blazamy content. Expect flowery hopes and dreams, badass self-actualization, and glancing hand touches that give way to cuddly and sweet sex.

- Persona 5: 🗡🍛☕

After bringing down the Metaverse twice, Ryuji didn’t think graduating high school and figuring out what to do with his life would be so hard. Akira’s back in town, and the gang’s more-or-less all in Tokyo, but everyone else seems to have a plan while Ryuji just floats. How’s he supposed to change the world when he’s not a phantom thief anymore?

This is a novel length fic that addresses how powerless one can feel being just one person in the face of all the corrupted systems and bigotry the world has to offer. It’s about holding on to what you believe in, working through the doubt, and fighting your way to a better tomorrow with the power you do have. The whole gang is queer, featured relationships being Mako x Ann, Ryuji x Akira, Futaba & Yusuke as platonic life partners. Akira is polyamorous and omnisexual, Futaba’s asexual and aromantic while Yusuke is demisexual and very romantic, Makoto’s a lesbian, Ann and Ryuji are bi, and Haru’s pansexual, demisexual, and aromantic. They’re one giant band of queer Phantom Thieves, and even if they’re not really doing the Metaverse thing anymore, they’re still gonna save the world!

Also, I’m gonna make Makoto not a cop. That super didn’t age well. Zenkichi and his boss can work on making them better/abolishing them for other better organizations.

- Hades Game: ❤️‍🔥💀

Oneshot. I just really need to elaborate on the threesome you can have with them in-game, okay? Healthy and canon poly relationships are so few and far between, so often I have to do a ton of groundwork to explain why it’s working in the fic, but NOT WITH THESE KIDS!

Get ready for Meg helping Zag and Than be better at expressing their feelings, lots of kissing, and probably pegging.

- Castlevania Animation Trevor/Sypha/Alucard: 🧛🏰🛌

Castlevania gave Alucard a threesome last season, and I just really need S4 to give me him being taken care of by his partners. They’re probably not going to give it to me, so I’ll need to do it myself. This is just an everybody loves Alucard oneshot, with the gang’s signature banter (to an extent), Sypha being sexy, and Trever being remarkably sincere. This fic is gonna feel like that Ann Hathaway picture with Trevor kissing Alucard and Sypha holding the end of Trevor’s whip while she leans her head on Alucard’s shoulder adoringly.

- Devil May Cry Nico/Lady/Trish: 💋✨😈

Nico’s gay, okay? Like really, really gay. And Lady’s bi and not into men who make her pay bills, but very into women who make amazing guns for her and demonesses with hearts who fight by her side. Trish is ace, but loves people and is pretty attached to Lady at this point. Plus it’s cute when Lady blushes and says nice things like they’re insults. I don’t have super solid ideas for them yet, and I envision these more like a polycule where Lady’s with Nico and with Trish but they’re not with each other more than seeing it as a threesome, but who knows what might happen. This is probably 1-2 oneshots depending on ideas, but might turn into a series of oneshots if people are interested (or I can’t control myself and inspiration strikes).

- Post FMA:B Blind Roy & No Alchemy Ed: 👀👑🙏

This is actually an old novel-length fic I wrote ages ago and didn’t post that didn’t turn out well because I was new to writing sex when I first wrote it. The plot is good, and is all about Roy learning to work with his blindness to reclaim his ambition of being Fuhrer and changing the system to something that actually cares for its people. He and Ed reconnect, fall into bed, and both set about working through their respective traumas about being “useless” having lost their sight/alchemy. They go to Xing as an ambassadorial party to offer Amestris’s collaboration on Al and May’s Alkahestry experiments--and uncover a plot that might threaten both kingdoms.

- Age of Calamity continuity Mipha x Revali: 🦚🐟💘

The first time Revali noticed Mipha, it was in the heat of battle. She stole his mark, taking them down with a flurry of quick blows from her spear. Violence rained from her like water--and then she healed him on her way to her next battle. No questions, no conditions, just pure kindness. The usual need to measure himself against those around him was quiet in her wake. And Revali couldn’t understand it. But how to get to know more about her? A fish and bird may fall in love, but where would they live?

This fic could be a oneshot or novel length depending on how far down the hole I fall. I need it to cover time, but it could be done in linked vignettes or with actually covering events in detail. I may elect to do a oneshot just to get it done and out of my system faster. So much fic to write, so little time.

Expect trans!Revali, polyamorous Zoras, scary competent Mipha, songbird Revali, love confessions that are made up entirely of berating Link for not loving Mipha the way she wants him to, and breaking these characters a little outside of their assigned roles in BotW and Age of Calamity. Background Link x Zelda, and Urbosa x Zelda’s Mom.

- Epic desert romance about Urbosa and Zelda’s mom: 🏜🏝⚡

I just think Urbosa should kiss women and Zelda’s mom should get more development and maybe a name or something. Also, lightning imagery/metaphors/play.

It also went way over my head that Riju wasn’t Urbosa’s daughter the first time I played BotW, so now I want to write about the Gerudo queen who refused to produce an heir. The Gerudo are fascinating and have a very interesting cutlure, but I think it could be examined from a nonbinary perspective that rejected pregnancy and wanting to find a husband. Not in like a hateful way, but in a way that examines if that’s really right for everyone. There’s that shop in town that sells Voe armor, after all. Maybe finding a husband and having children isn’t something you have to do if you don’t want to. And Urbosa really doesn’t want to.

[twomanyideas]

Through the Spyglass

A collaboration by @mdelpin and @oryu404

Gratsu Weekend 2021 Prompt: Secret Pairing(s): Gray x Natsu, Sting x Rogue For @walkinginfiction

AO3 | Next: Ch 2 Summary: 

“You little pervert!” Sting teased, “You’ve been watching him, haven’t you?” 

 “I haven’t!” 

 “Bullshit! How else would you have known that?”

 “I -,” Natsu tried to think of any other way he could have discovered that little fact, but came up empty. “It’s only been a few times, I swear! I was just trying to find an excuse to approach him.” He hid his face in his hands, embarrassed at being found out. 

 “Well, lucky for you, I’ve got just the thing!

Chapter 1

“Nghh, that’s soooo good!”

It mattered little to Natsu whether his housemate Sting was fucking his new boyfriend Rogue or just eating. He’d already discovered the hard way that it was impossible to tell the difference from their sounds. Each one a reminder that while Sting was feasting, Natsu was very much in the middle of a famine.

“You like that?”

Natsu scowled in response. Did they have to be so fucking loud? He turned his stereo on, determined to drown out the noises that were coming from the room next door. It helped a little, but not enough to distract him from what may or may not be happening. And it was late enough there’d be nowhere for him to go.

Where were those comic books he’d been meaning to catch up on? A quick glance around his room was enough to let him know there was no way in hell he was finding anything. Clothes, both clean and dirty, littered the floor and just about every other available surface except his closet. Sealed boxes lined up the walls, waiting for him to get his shit together and finally unpack.

Fiine.

He grabbed as many clothes as he could carry and made his way to their laundry room, also known as the bathroom.

Lalala I can’t hear you, he thought as he walked past Sting’s closed door, although of course he could, and now Rogue was joining in, expressing his approval at what must arguably be the most delicious ice cream sundae ever fucking made.

Why had he agreed to room with Sting again?

Open the washer door, chuck clothes inside, pour detergent in the dispenser and hit start. Great, ten points for adulting. Covering his ears with his hands, he hurried back to his room, grabbed the nearest box and sat down, using his pocketknife to open it up. Might as well get started on some of those now that he could walk around his room again.

That was his intent, but in the end he couldn’t help but examine the items one by one, fascinated by what he found among them. To be fair, even he would admit most of it was junk. He had no recollection of how he’d ended up with most of it, but that’s what made them so fascinating.

Score!

Finding a container of spicy jalapeño cotton candy, age unknown, he shoved some into his mouth. It was a little stale, but perfectly edible.

He placed the textbooks on the floor without a second look, having already seen more of them than he ever wanted to. There were some more clothes, the exercise ones he’d been searching for, for quite some time.

He scratched his head, wondering who the hell had packed this box. A set of three sex dice, a gag gift from Loke, were next. Maybe he should give them to Sting. He’d certainly get more use out of them.

Knit Your Own Boyfriend, another gag gift from Sting this time, joined the textbooks on the floor. Porn for Women, a book which had pictures of guys doing household chores and shit, almost joined it until Natsu realized some models in it were pretty hot. He’d keep that one.

101 Ways to Annoy Your Roommate

He glared at the wall between their rooms. Yep, keeping that one too.

Next came decision dice with messages like Fuck it, Fuck that and Fuck If I Know, followed by a nose flute, a bottle of Maybe You Touched Your Genitals hand sanitizer, a tube of bacon lip balm, and a bar of Uranus soap. Every item he pulled out was more entertaining than the last.

He positioned the flute over his nose and mouth and breathed out, having a great time attempting to play along to the music while he continued unpacking, bursting into giggles and some rather interesting sounds when he realized how terrible he sounded.

It was only when he took out the last item, a pair of binoculars Igneel had gifted him when he’d been a boy scout many, many years ago, that he realized all he’d done was clutter the floor again by spreading out the box's contents.

In no mood to do even more cleaning up, he examined the binoculars carefully, worried they might have broken in the move. He should probably test them out.

Picking a random subject- the dragon poster hanging above his bed, he aimed the binoculars on it and looked through them. They seemed in great condition, outside of some smudges and dust on the lenses. He grabbed a microfiber cloth off his desk and used it to wipe the lenses clean.

With nothing better to do, he pulled his curtains back and held the binoculars up to his eyes, searching for anything that might hold his interest for a few minutes. He’d settle for a trash-digging raccoon at this point.

What he found, however, was much more interesting. The house across from theirs, which had sported a For Rent sign for as long as he could remember, had a moving van in front of it, and the lights inside the house were on. He was a little curious why someone would move in this late at night, but that thought ceased to have any importance as soon as he got a good look at his future husband- uhm, new neighbor.

The guy had dark hair that stood up in unruly spikes. His skin gleamed in the moonlight, so much so Natsu wondered if he might be glittering like a certain gay vampire. He can absolutely bite me! Yum! And if that wasn't the sexiest fucking glower he’d ever seen in his life, Natsu didn't know what was.

He couldn’t make out the guy’s eyes, but he was almost willing to bet they were blue. This was all great, but it was his chest that Natsu kept staring at because for once in his life God had been merciful and the guy was shirtless, giving him the opportunity to ogle every one of his taut muscles.

“What are you doing?”

Natsu jumped at the sound of Sting yelling behind him, almost losing his grip on the binoculars. His hand moved to his heart as the nose flute squeaked loudly from his rapid breaths. He removed it, tossing it on his bed, and glaring at his roommate who stood laughing at him. “Jesus Fucking Christ, Sting!”

“What? I tried calling out to you, but your music was too loud.” Sting tiptoed his way around the mess on the floor to get to the stereo, lowering the volume so they could speak without having to shout at each other.

“Well, if you and Rogue hadn’t been having a food orgy next door, I wouldn’t have had to play it so loud.”

“Yeah, nice deflect. Wait, are those your scout binoculars? What were you looking at?”

“N-nothing, yep nothing at all.” “Ah, so you like listening in and spying on people, huh?” Rogue stood in the doorway, still licking what Natsu only hoped would be sundae off his fingers.

“I do not!” Natsu spluttered, “You guys are loud enough the new neighbor probably heard you!”

Fuck.

“There’s a new neighbor?!” Sting jumped over the box, grabbing the binoculars, which were still hanging around Natsu’s neck, and pulling them up to his eyes. “Oh, I see what you were looking at, alright,” he snorted.

“You’re cho-king me,” Natsu gasped out. “Whoops, sorry about that-” Sting pulled the string over Natsu’s head and continued to observe the scene across the street. “You should go over there and offer to help him out.”

“Hell no.” “Why not? He’s cute.”

“Because it’s like 11 o’clock and he’ll think I’m a weirdo.”

“It’s not that late. If we were still at the dorm, you wouldn’t think twice about it,” Sting pointed out. “You could take your shirt off too.”

“Yeah, cause that’s normal,” Natsu didn’t like the way Sting’s eyes seemed to twinkle. Not one bit.

“Man up, Dragneel,” Rogue dared, joining them at the window to get a look at the guy they were talking about.

“Look, I get you guys would like nothing more than to get me out of the house, but I’m broke and I’m not about to go make a fool of myself just so you can get it on. Besides, newsflash, not everyone is gay.” “Your point? Not everyone’s straight, either,” Rogue countered, crossing his arms. “Yeah, and I hate to break it to you, but we’re gonna get it on regardless,” Sting snickered, earning himself an eye roll from Rogue when he used the binoculars to zoom in on him.

“Right, well, don’t let me keep you,” Natsu said, grabbing the binoculars from Sting before he shoved both of them away from the window and closed the curtain.

“Ooh, sex dice!”

“You want them? Here, take them,” Natsu said, offering the dice to Sting and then throwing them out the door as hard as he could.

“Hey!”

“You don’t really expect him to chase after them, do you?” Rogue chuckled, unconvinced, but his laughter died abruptly when Sting hurdled over all the crap on the floor like some kind of Olympic athlete. “Suck, toes, 50 seconds!” “You were saying?” Natsu’s grin was smug as he shooed Rogue out of his room, locking the door behind him and collapsing in a tired heap on the floor. Those two were fucking exhausting.

A few moments later he realized he was wasting precious time and dragged himself back to the window, hoping to find his new neighbor still out there lifting boxes out of the van. Sadly for him, he was not. Although the lights were still on, the doors to the moving van were closed and despite his best efforts, Natsu wasn’t able to see him anywhere inside the house either.

He had to admit that Rogue was right. It was stupid not to even try just because he was afraid of a negative outcome. That had never exactly been the Dragneel way of doing things, although of course that might also be why he crashed and burned much more than he scored.

His cheering squad, however, was about as dangerous as a firing one, so if he was going to make a move he’d have to keep it a secret from them for as long as he could manage it.

He’d just have to watch a little longer, at least until he found an opportunity to introduce himself. Satisfied with this plan, he set his music on a timer and climbed into bed, already looking forward to learning more about his neighbor in the coming days.

0-0

“He’s so not straight,” Rogue called from the bottom of the stairs, closing the front door behind him and announcing his arrival a moment before coming up.

“Yay, you’re back,” Natsu muttered, not even bothering to look up from the magazine he’d been reading.

“Who’s not straight?” Sting came out from the kitchen, holding a bowl of chips and plopping on their living room couch.

“Your new neighbor,” Rogue said, looking incredibly pleased with himself as he took off his shoes and jacket.

Natsu flipped the page, refusing to take the bait even though he was itching to know more. “Fascinating, and how would you know that exactly? Did he show you his membership card?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Well, that caught his interest. Natsu waited for him to say more but the sonofabitch knew he had him and now he was going to force him to ask. Sadistic asshole.

He stayed strong, willing Sting to ask for him, but the bastard just kept shoving chips into his mouth and watching the two of them with interest.

Natsu turned the page of his magazine slowly, attempting to wait Rogue out.

“I saw him arrive when I got here, so I thought I should introduce myself,” Rogue explained, keeping Natsu waiting while he joined Sting on the couch, greeting him with a kiss.

“You talked to him?!” Natsu threw his magazine on their coffee table, dropping all pretense of disinterest. “What did he say?!”

“He said his name’s Gray Fullbuster, and that he moved in a few days ago. So then I said, yeah, I know, we watched you through a pair of binoculars.” Natsu could feel all color vanishing from his face, while Sting almost choked on his chips. “Kidding,” Rogue snorted, smacking his boyfriend on the back a few times. “I asked him where he’s from since he has a bit of an accent. Turns out he’s from Isvan.” “He’s got an accent?” Natsu groaned. He was so screwed.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Natsu has a thing for accents, always has.” “And you have a thing for assholes!” Natsu retorted, tossing a pillow at Sting’s face, hoping he’d stop laughing. “I mean, don’t we all?” Sting caught the pillow and put it behind his head. “Oh, speaking of which, how do you know he isn’t straight?” “It wasn’t hard,” Rogue shrugged, shoving his hair back away from his face, “His backpack had a bi flag pin on it. Oh, and he asked me if there was an art supplies store downtown, so I figure he’s an artist.”

“Yeah, he is.” Natsu blurted out, recalling the night he’d spent an hour watching Gray sketching a cat, fascinated by how lifelike he’d made it seem. The sudden look that passed between his friends made him realize his mistake.

“You little pervert!” Sting teased, “You’ve been watching him, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t!”

“Bullshit! How else would you have known that?”

“I -,” Natsu tried to think of any other way he could have discovered that little fact, but came up empty. “It’s only been a few times, I swear! I was just trying to find an excuse to approach him.” He hid his face in his hands, embarrassed at being found out.

“Well, lucky for you, I’ve got just the thing!”

Natsu peered at Rogue from between his fingers, not sure he liked the way he’d said that, especially when he looked like a cat who had just swallowed a canary whole.

“What did you do?”

Almost as if by magic, several envelopes materialized in Rogue’s hand.

“I may have liberated some of his mail.”

“Are you out of your mind?! You can’t just take someone’s mail, Rogue. That’s illegal!” “Says the stalker. Besides, it’s only illegal if you get caught,” Rogue smirked, examining the envelopes in his hand before setting them on the coffee table. “These were just delivered to the wrong mailbox, that’s all. They look important, though. You should make sure he gets them back. We wouldn’t want him to get in trouble.”

Sting had the decency to look shocked, but that only lasted for about a minute, replaced by what Natsu could only interpret as admiration. “That’s perfect!” And next thing he knew, they were in full scheming mode, mumbling to each other as if he wasn’t even there. “He should open up a few buttons, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Maybe fluff up his hair?”

"On it!"

“Oh, no. I want no part of whatever it is you two are thinking!” Natsu made a show of grabbing his magazine and opening it back up, but Sting had already gone off to his bedroom. The ominous sounds of him rummaging through closets and drawers traveled through the walls, and soon he returned holding a bunch of items. A comb, a tube of hair gel, some fancy-looking body spray, one of his infamous crop tops, and… was that Natsu's bacon lip balm?

"Did you just steal that lip balm from my room?"

"It's not stealing if I'm using it on you, dumbass. Now be still."

“Get away from me with that crap!” Natsu stood up from his chair, ready to bolt and lock himself in his bedroom.

“You wound me,” Sting sighed. "I even grabbed you my best one-" he held up the top and pouted at it.

“I am not putting on one of your stupid shirts.”

"His shirt's fine," Rogue sided with Natsu for once, “it just needs some re-adjustments.” He straightened the collar of Natsu’s button-up, pulled down the sleeves so he could roll them up neatly again, and opened up the two top buttons.

“Pucker up!” Sting made kissy faces as he approached him with the lip balm, and although Natsu refused to purse his lips, that did nothing to dissuade him. He still managed to apply a generous amount of it on the general area of his mouth.

“Ugh, that tastes awful!” Natsu complained, wiping the excess off with his hand.

“It’s bacon, man. All dudes love bacon, am I right?” “On my plate, yes. But on your face?” Rogue looked like someone spit in his socks.

Sting didn’t let Rogue’s response get him down, cheerfully moving on to the next item in his arsenal. A bottle of body spray that had little bits of something floating in it. Was that-

“Glitter?! No way, no how. I’m going to look ridiculous.”

“You’re going to look and smell awesome.”

“It’s glitter.”

“Which of us has a boyfriend?”

Okay, Sting had him there, but did he really need to be primped up like some schoolgirl about to go to Prom just to say hi to the guy? It was humiliating. If he went through with this ridiculous ploy, and that was still a big if, he wanted to at least make a good impression.

“It smells nice, and Gray’s an artist. Maybe he’d appreciate the glitter,” Rogue said, grabbing some chips from the bowl and moving over by Sting.

“He doesn’t make kids art projects. He draws beautiful, realistic looking pictures.”

“Oh, sorry,” Rogue fake apologized, holding up one hand next to his head while feeding Sting chips with the other.

Sting took advantage of Natsu’s distraction, spraying him before he could protest further.

“Hey, watch the face!”

Natsu had to admit the spray smelled nice, but in his rush to do a sneak attack, Sting had sprayed very liberally, covering not only Natsu but the coffee table, which had Gray’s mail on it.

“Oh, great. How am I supposed to explain that?”

“Will you chill? By the time I’m done with you, Gray won’t care about some stupid glitter on his mail,” Sting promised as he set the spray down and opened the tube of hair gel, squeezing some into his hand and moving to pluck at Natsu's hair.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Natsu grumbled.

“Oh, come on, have I ever steered you wrong before?” Sting grinned, brimming with confidence, only to wince as he paused to think. “Okay, maybe don’t answer that.”

Natsu chuckled, thinking back to some of Sting’s more hare-brained suggestions over the years. He had this habit of getting carried away, but Natsu had never regretted going along. Even when things went sideways, they always had fun, and he knew his friend’s affection for him was genuine. So why was he fighting him so much now, when he was only trying to help?

“Fine, fine, do your worst.”

"Pftt, please. I perform nothing but miracles."

Rogue grabbed a stool from their kitchen island and brought it into the living room, gesturing for Natsu to sit so Sting could get started.

He let Sting fuss over his hair for the next ten minutes, his fingers sculpting it into well-defined spikes away from his face.

“Done!”

“Not bad,” Rogue said after giving him a once over. He grabbed the mail from the table and handed it over. “Now get going.”

“What, now?”

“No, next week. Yes, now!”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Natsu hedged.

“On that note,” Sting stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out an object that he placed on the coffee table. “Roll.”

Natsu recognized the decision dice he’d left on his desk. "Seriously?! What are you two, kleptos?"

“Just roll.”

“Okay, but if it says no, we’re done here, right?”

Natsu picked up the dice and studied them, unsure of what he wanted the outcome to be. He shook them lightly in his hands and tossed them on the coffee table.

“Fuck in’ a?” “Fuckin’ A!” Sting cheered and raced to his room again for more digging through drawers, and this time he returned with only two foil packaged items that fitted between his fingers. Both things Natsu easily recognized but had no intention of using during his first meeting with Gray. “Oh my God!” he backed away, “I’m just gonna go return his mail and introduce myself!”

“You were a Scout, weren’t you?” Sting grinned, extending his hand to offer the packets. “Didn’t they teach you to always be prepared?”

“I’m just gonna go drop these off,” Natsu rushed out of the room and down the stairs, hearing Sting and Rogue’s laughter and a warning to not be back soon.

@fuckyeahgratsu

[destiniesfic]

i hate everybody (but maybe i don’t) 1/3

This is my @jurdannet​ & @jurdannetrevels​​ Secret Snusband gift for @sevenfreckles-for-sevenloves​​! You tapped into a story I’d been wanting to write for ages, so you get three parts and three POVs (Vivi, Cardan, and Jude). Happy Holidays, I hope you like it. ♥ Thanks to @xdarkofthemoon​ for betaing!

This fic is rated E. Content warnings this chapter for excessive alcohol consumption, references to alcoholism, and (prescribed) antidepressant use.

Read on AO3 or read below:

Bars in Barcelona are not especially different from bars in the US. It’s a discovery Vivi has made over the course of her study abroad tenure: everything is different on the outside, but on the inside, not so much. She does like the outsides, though. She likes the tidy streets, the way the buildings don’t rise to blot out the sun as they have a habit of doing in American downtowns. She likes the cozy sameness of the facades, broken by the whimsical surprise of the odd Gaudí contribution. Like a lot of the European cities she’s visited there seems to be some unifying design principle, some common understanding. At home it’s anyone’s guess what the next office building or apartment complex might look like, a mishmash of styles as the cities clamor to reinvent themselves, modernist or postmodernist or deconstructionist or whatever.

Heather could name them all, if Heather were here.

But Heather isn’t here. Tonight, Vivi is out on the town with her two younger half-sisters, Jude and Taryn. Her twin baby sisters, although they hate it when she calls them that. The twins’ spring breaks overlapped by happy accident, so their adoptive dad, Vivi’s biological father, had sent them off on an all-expenses-paid Barcelona trip for a mini family reunion.

Taryn had been thrilled to go out. “I’m so excited that we can drink here,” she’d exclaimed, as she touched up her makeup in the AirBnB’s living room mirror. It’s a two-bed, two-bath apartment with an updated kitchen and certainly beats the dorms. Vivi was forced to give a silent, resentful thanks, Dad, but not out loud.

“You drink at home,” Jude reminded her from the bathroom, where she was trying to wrangle her hair into some style Taryn had sent her from Pinterest. “We have fake IDs.”

“It’s not the same,” Taryn had huffed, applying another coat of mascara. Vivi got that. It had not been the same when they came to Europe before, either, because they had been with Madoc, Oriana, and little Oak. Somehow parents at the table makes the glass of wine with dinner much less daring.

Jude had eventually settled on a high ponytail, and off they went.

Now they’re out at a bar not far from the AirBnB, with each of the twins perched on stools and Vivi leaning against the bar between them. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen them for so long except over FaceTime, but Vivi is shocked to notice that her little sisters aren’t kids anymore. They haven’t been little for a while, not since they overtook Vivi in height when they were twelve, but it’s one thing to not be little and another to be an adult. Taryn, who’s been yearning for adulthood since her tweens, finally looks more at home in the role. And Vivi doesn’t know how Taryn got Jude into that dark purple halter dress, which dips low in the front and lower in the back, but the way she wears that and her lipstick is a stark reminder that Vivi’s sisters are in fact nineteen, and no longer chubby, soft-faced children. It’s weird, and Vivi doesn’t like it.

Vivi gets hit on sometimes—with her undercut and piercings, mostly by “alternative” men and curious women—but the novelty of good-looking twins means Jude and Taryn shouldn’t need to pay for their own drinks. And they wouldn’t, except anytime a guy gets too close to Jude or Taryn, Jude adopts a laser-eyed glare and says, “No,” which is thankfully the same in both languages. Otherwise she might start speaking with fists.

“I don’t know why you won’t let us get free drinks,” Taryn pouts.

“The drinks are on Madoc,” Jude points out, nodding to the credit card Vivi puts back in her pocket. “They’re basically free.”

Taryn mutters, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“You guys are such sisters,” Vivi says, taking a swig of beer.

“What does that mean?” they demand in unison.

Vivi grins and closes her eyes, shaking her head. For a second she just stands there, between the twins, and lets everything wash over her: the sibling bickering, the pungent smell of beer and whatever syrup is in Jude’s cocktail, and the music. Music is a strange experience in bars here. First there’s a Spanish song Vivi’s never heard, and then there’s Halsey, crooning over a Chainsmokers beat, and then back to Spanish with perennial favorite “Despacito.” It’s total whiplash. Vivi loves it.

It’s only because she’s listening so hard that she hears Taryn give a tiny gasp.

Vivi opens her eyes. Jude has gone very, very still. Her shoulders, which had been hunched up around her ears as she leaned over the bar, roll down her back, and the muscles there tense. Vivi is not sure Jude is remembering to breathe. She and Taryn are both staring at some fixed point across the bar, so Vivi looks too.

“Oh, hell,” she says.

On the other side of the bar—of the small space they are all crammed into—are four familiar figures. Three boys, one girl. Vivi has to blink to place them, because it seems absurd that four kids they went to high school with would show up in Spain while they, the Duarte sisters, are also in Spain, and also because they weren’t in Vivi’s grade. She knows them, though. Everyone knows Cardan Greenbriar and his trio of hot, mean friends, but Vivi knows them particularly well because of how her sisters have tangled with them over the years.

Taryn whispers, “What are they doing here?”

“I can go ask,” Vivi sighs. That group of kids has no quarrel with her. She and Cardan were friendly back in the day, meaning “ten years ago when Vivi would go hang out with Cardan’s older sister.”

“No,” Jude says, voice firm. Without taking her eyes off the interlopers, she picks up her cocktail and downs the rest of it.

Vivi doesn’t know exactly what happened, but Jude shed her fight-or-flight response sometime in high school. Now, she only has a fight response. Maybe Vivi took her flight response, because it was Vivi who was the terror until she turned eighteen, when she got the hell out of dodge. Taryn has always been in the middle, trying to keep the peace.

“We can go somewhere else,” Taryn suggests.

“No,” Jude repeats, setting her glass down on the bar a little too hard. “I’m not going to let those jerks keep me from having a good time.”

“Which I respect, and more power to you, but also, like, there are plenty of bars in Barcelona,” Vivi points out.

Jude glares. “I’m fine.” And then she holds up one finger in the bartender’s direction.

“You know those are really alcoholic, right?” Taryn says. Worry begins to seep into her voice like melting snow through cracks in a sidewalk.

“I know my limits.”

Vivi and Taryn exchange a wary glance. Jude might know her limits, but she has no problem blowing past them. Jude may not think Vivi remembers the tae kwon do tournament she sat through when Jude was eleven and Vivi was thirteen, but oh, Vivi does. Vivi remembers how her sister volunteered to spar until she had tired herself out to the point where she could no longer stand. Vivi also remembers Jude driving to school on a single hour of sleep after staying up to finish an extra credit essay in a class where she already had an A. Jude somehow didn’t crash her car, but she had been unbearable the entire day. Jude is a danger to herself and very occasionally a menace to society.

But Jude is also an adult and it’s not Vivi’s business.

“Suit yourself,” Vivi says, with a shrug. “It’s dear old Dad’s money.”

A few minutes later, Jude is nursing her second cocktail, and Vivi and Taryn are trying to carry on a conversation as though everything is fine. Any normal person would be well loosened up by now, but Jude retains that unnatural stillness like a dog who’s noticed a squirrel on the other side of a yard. Or, more accurately, maybe like a deer who’s spotted a human hunter approaching over the ridge.

Jude is no defenseless herbivore, but Vivi knows half a lifetime of being bullied has made her feel like a target.

“Hey,” Vivi says, jostling Jude with her elbow.

“What?”

“Tell me about your freshman year misadventures. Taryn won’t open up.”

Jude snorts. “What misadventures?”

“You have to have a few,” Vivi says. “I didn’t raise my sisters to be boring.”

“You didn’t raise us at all,” Jude mutters at her cocktail.

Vivi has never seen her sister anywhere near drunk before and is not sure she likes her like this. “What about boys?” she asks, gently elbowing Jude again. Then she raises her eyebrows. “Girls?”

“No. Nobody.” Jude finishes her second drink and, glaring across the bar, apparently makes the decision to switch to shots. “Vivi, is vodka still ‘vodka’ in Spanish?”

“I’m not answering that.” Vivi sighs. “What about you, Taryn? Anybody?”

“Huh? Um, no.” Taryn had been looking at their erstwhile schoolmates too. One of the boys, the redhead, is looking back. Locke. Vivi exhales. Bad news. There’s history there, the kind of history that shouldn’t repeat.

“Reeeeally?” she asks. “Nobody? Not one boy?”

Taryn blinks back to herself. “Vivi, I go to school for fashion design. They’re all gay.”

“Well, that can be fun.” Vivi gestures at herself. God, she wishes her sisters had brought Heather along. The hot lady bartender with the gorgeous tattoo sleeve keeps trying to catch her eye, and Vivi and Heather had established a “what happens in Barcelona stays in Barcelona” policy before she left, but Vivi doesn’t want a hot lady bartender. She wants her girlfriend.

“Yeah, they’re cool.” Taryn glances back across the bar. Now the blue-haired girl—Nicasia, Vivi recalls—is looking back, along with Locke. Not good.

Since Jude is negotiating for a shot of vodka with hot lady bartender in competent enough Spanish, Vivi lowers her voice and asks Taryn, “Are you feeling especially homesick?”

“We’ve kept in touch.” Taryn doesn’t meet her eyes.

Vivi would hold more of a grudge if someone had tried to sleep with her and her sister, but that’s very much not her circus or her monkeys. She asks, “Did you know he’d be here?”

Taryn shakes her head. “He said they were doing a European tour for spring break, but, like, it’s a big continent.”

“Good news,” says Jude, holding up a shot glass. “It’s vodka in both languages. Cheers.”

“You are going to be sick,” Taryn says.

Jude gives her a sarcastic shrug and then downs the shot. She coughs a little, which somewhat ruins the impression she’s trying to make, but swallows it all down.

“Jude,” Vivi says, beginning to worry, “we really can just leave.”

But Jude is looking at her old high school nemeses again. Cardan had been a particular thorn in her side, or he in hers; Vivi never made sense of that conflict, of who had started what. What she does know is that they’ve definitely been spotted now. The blond boy—Vivi doesn’t quite remember his name—seems to make a move to walk over to them, but Cardan reaches out and grabs his arm, shaking his head. Valentine? Valentino? looks sour, but doesn’t approach. Jude stares them both down.

“I have to use the bathroom,” Taryn announces. “El baño.” Taryn had taken French in high school.

“But—” Vivi begins.

Taryn has already vanished into the crowd. Vivi puts her elbows on the bar and cradles her head in her hands. “This is all going great.”

“Not how you pictured our night out on the town?” asks Jude, who has obtained another shot of vodka from God knows where.

“Yeah, not really.”

“Well, I can fix it.” Jude drinks her second shot and does not cough this time. “I’m going to go talk to them.”

Vivi picks up her head. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“So what?”

“Dad’s going to hold me responsible if anything happens to you.”

Jude fixes a level stare on her. “Dad never holds you responsible for anything,” she says. She slips a little when she gets up off her stool. Vivi wonders if she’s really thinking about fighting someone in those heels.

“You’re mean drunk,” Vivi tells her, trying to grab her arm. “Don’t go.”

“I’m mean sober, but nobody notices,” says Jude, which doesn’t make any sense. She shakes Vivi off. “Besides, I have a few things I want to say.”

And for the second time that night, Vivi watches as one of her sisters pushes her way into the crowd of people, unsure if she should follow or not. Maybe it’ll be good for Jude, in the end, to get some of this out of her system.

The guys across the room are watching Jude approach. Cardan especially. The blond guy is sneering, but Cardan watches Jude with the same strange stillness with which she’d watched him. Like he’s holding his breath until she gets there. Unlike Jude, he doesn’t seem that drunk at all, which Vivi notices because, well, it’s a rare day that Cardan Greenbriar isn’t drunk.

But he is too busy watching her and not his blond friend, who decides that he’s going to intercept Jude before she can even reach Cardan. He pushes over to her first and bars her way, and although Vivi is too far away to hear what’s said between them, she notices the squaring of Jude’s shoulders and the widening of the blond guy’s sneer. Because she is watching closely, she sees that Valerian is the one who shoves Jude first.

Valerian. That’s his name.

It clicks right before Jude punches him in the face.

The bar erupts. Cardan springs to his feet and tries to pull his friend away from Jude. A couple of nearby patrons try to save Jude from herself—Vivi could have told them it was a fool’s errand—by holding her back, not knowing Jude has sharp elbows. Valerian struggles hard and manages to break away from Cardan, only to find himself being grabbed by more pairs of hands. There is shouting in Spanish. Even the hot lady bartender is drawn away, trying to signal her coworkers.

The most Vivi-like thing to do would be to leave Jude to it and keep her nose clean. But Vivi remembers asking Madoc on the day of that fateful tae kwon do tournament, while they revived Jude with sips of Gatorade, why Madoc hadn’t stopped Jude when it became clear she was flagging. “Your sister needs to learn for herself when to stop fighting,” he’d said. “If I make those calls for her, she never will.”

Vivi has a lot of qualms with Madoc’s parenting style, and Taryn is nowhere to be found.

“Oh, hell,” Vivi says again, and she dives into the knot of drunk brawlers to pull her sister from the fray.

---

“I can’t believe you got us kicked out,” Vivi says.

Jude, drunk, hapless Jude, is sitting on the curb with her head between her knees, presumably trying not to barf. There’s still enough anger left in her to flip Vivi off.

“Unbelievable.” Vivi folds her arms and looks left, then right. It seems like a good quarter of the bar spilled out onto the sidewalk with them, a crowd of people chattering about what just happened. Forget kicked out, Jude’s lucky she wasn’t arrested. “Do you see Taryn anywhere?”

“What do you think?”

Vivi pinches the bridge of her nose. Taryn will be fine. She has the AirBnB address and a phone she can use on WiFi. Besides, as far as Vivi knows, she ran off with Locke. Vivi hasn’t seen the two of them come out of the bar yet, and she would not be surprised. She knows a bad decision when she sees one.

“You keep sitting down,” Vivi tells Jude. “I’m going to figure out a ride home.”

“Your face should keep sitting down,” Jude mumbles spitefully.

“Hey, guys? Vivi?”

Vivi cringes as soon as she hears the voice, because she knows the voice, and because in this situation the owner of that voice will only make things worse. Vivi doesn’t have any personal grudge against Cardan Greenbriar—they’ve even sometimes been friends—except for how her sister feels about him. Taryn’s always said he was kind of a dick, but Taryn doesn’t hate him like Jude does. Nobody hates anybody the way Jude hates Cardan. Vivi wonders if Jude has something to prove.

Sure enough, Jude’s head swivels at the sound of his voice like the kid’s head turning around in The Exorcist. “You,” she snarls, and then stumbles to her feet.

“Jude,” Vivi says, trying to catch her sister’s dress to pull her back, but Jude is already out of reach. With another sigh, Vivi stands too.

“What are you doing here?” Jude demands of Cardan, openly hostile. It would be funny, because Jude is a full head shorter than him, if Jude was anybody else’s sister. “We were all having a great time until you showed up.”

“It’s anybody’s city,” Cardan says, but he doesn’t seem to be mocking her. He holds up his hands to show her they are empty.

“Go the fuck home!” Jude yells, and shoves him, sending him back a couple of steps.

Vivi shouts, “Woah!”

“It’s okay,” Cardan tells Vivi over Jude’s head. “She’s not hurting me. Let her get it out.”

With a little cry, Jude pushes him again, and this time he only stumbles back a half-step, but he keeps his hands up and his stance somewhat grounded. The next time Jude shoves him he doesn’t budge at all, and Jude lets out a grunt of frustration, fisting her hands in his jacket.

And then she bursts into tears.

“Oh,” says Vivi, but Cardan doesn’t seem that surprised. She wonders if he’s used to people behaving badly while drunk or just being drunk himself.

“You’re so a-awful,” Jude says between sobs. “Everything’s awful all the time.”

“I know, Jude,” Cardan replies. He gently pries the jacket out of her fists so he can remove it and drape it over her bare shoulders. Jude grabs onto his shirt instead.

“Why do you hate me so much?” she asks, with a small hiccup.

“I don’t,” Cardan replies. His hand rubs circles between his shoulder blades. “But I hope you’re too drunk to remember that.” He looks up at Vivi, and Vivi feels a brief flash of embarrassment, like she’s intruded on something intimate, before she remembers that they’re in public and, also, she has no shame. “Were you going to get a taxi? I can keep an eye on her while you do. I don’t think she should walk back.”

“Oh.” Vivi blinks. “Yeah. I’ve got it. Where’s your ‘friend?’”

“Sent him packing. He’s back at the hotel, or he should be.”

“Well… good.”

But Cardan isn’t listening. He’s already looking down at Jude again.

It turns out Vivi has, carelessly, let her phone die. She isn’t anal about things like that. Taryn’s the one who keeps a charger in her purse at all times, but Taryn has vanished, and Jude’s phone only works on WiFi outside of the States.

So they hail one of Barcelona's bumblebee-like taxis the old-fashioned way, and Vivi is the one who climbs into the passenger’s seat and tells the driver where to go in Spanish that’s fluent, if definitely not Spain-Spanish. It is deeply ironic that Vivi, the only sister without a drop of Duarte blood in her veins, is the one who speaks Spanish the best. But Jude and Taryn were only seven when their parents died. Vivi had been nine. Two years makes a big difference with these things, especially because memories are shaping and re-shaping themselves in the minds of children that young. As far as the twins’ brains are concerned, they only had their parents for a short time.

Vivi remembers more. She remembers sitting on the counter in the old kitchen, legs swinging, as her dad cooked on Fridays—the special day, the end of the week day—and pointing at things in the kitchen so Justin could tell her their names in Spanish and she could echo them back. Cebolla, onion. Queso, cheese, of course. Cuchara, spoon. The words had a favor of their own, different from the English words she learned in kindergarten. She remembers the smell of toasting coriander seeds, the bright songs her dad would hum, the vibrant melodies bursting from the CD player Vivi leaned her elbow on. When she got far enough along in school, she threw herself into Spanish, hoping the words would pave a road that would lead her back to the man who shaped her.

Sometimes Jude gets in a sulk about their awful twist of fate, or Taryn gets weepy, and Vivi just wants to yell Justin Duarte was my dad, too! She feels like her throat is raw from screaming it her entire adolescence. It was easier in the end to just move away for college.

She ended up in Spain because Madoc and Oriana weren’t keen on her going to Mexico. Oh, sure, they’d been before on vacation no problemo, but as soon as Vivi wanted to go alone it was game over. No matter how much Vivi told them it was very racist of them and a total double standard. Apparently Oriana didn’t want her getting kidnapped. Vivi, who has in fact seen the movie Taken, knows she can get kidnapped in Europe just as easily, thanks very much. That had not been a persuasive argument with Madoc.

So here she is, in Barcelona, where familiar words can have entirely different flavors, and that’s even before getting to Catalan, which she can now speak a little but not well. Most of the time, she’ll be honest, she does love it here. At this moment she’s not feeling charitable toward anything.

Cardan helps load Jude into the backseat of the taxi. The driver, looking in the rearview mirror, asks, “¿Su novio?”

“¿Qué?” Vivi asks reflexively. She cranes her head around to see Cardan sliding in next to Jude, his arm around her shoulder. She switches to English. “What the hell, dude?”

“She won’t let go,” Cardan says simply. It’s true; Jude is clinging to him like a very weepy barnacle, her shoulders still shaking.

“Alright, well.” Vivi turns back around. It’s good to have the extra pair of hands. She wishes again that Heather was here. “You’re the official Jude wrangler now.”

“Copy that. I just—” He sighs, and in the rearview, Vivi sees him rub his face with his free hand. “It’s my fault.”

“Sure is.” The taxi begins to pull away from the curb, and Vivi checks her anger. She amends, “Actually, no, it’s not your fault that my sister’s a lightweight and an angry drunk. But from what I hear, the years of prior psychological damage are totally your fault. So, credit where credit is due.”

Cardan nods. Jude sniffles forlornly. Vivi is intrigued by how gentle he’s being with her, how tolerant. His shirt looks like a regular cotton tee, but knowing him it probably costs about the same as a single night in their very nice AirBnB. He doesn’t seem to mind that Jude’s getting snot and tears all over it.

“Hate you,” Jude mutters, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Hate this.”

“I know.” He pushes a lock of hair that’s escaped from her ponytail. “What are you on?”

“Huh?” There’s a pause. Vivi is watching the road now, but she can imagine Jude’s confused blinking. “I don’t… drugs.”

“Meds.”

“Oh, um, fuck.” Another pause. “Zoloft. I switched this year.”

“You’re not supposed to drink on that stuff,” Cardan says, but it almost sounds like he’s teasing. “It messes you up. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

Jude sniffs. “It’s not like I’m operating heavy machinery,” she says, slurring slightly.

Cardan chuckles. “I did the Zoloft thing, too. I’m not on it anymore, though.”

“‘Cause you couldn’t drink?”

“Like anything would stop me.” He pauses, and Vivi looks into the rearview mirror to find him biting his lower lip in an exaggerated way, so drunk Jude is sure to get the joke. “No, there were... personal reasons.”

Jude is utterly nonplussed. “What?”

“Ah, you know…” He leans over and whispers something to her. Her eyes widen, and then she lets out a small, nervous chuckle. “Oh.”

“Yeah, I was like ‘If I can’t have sex, won’t that just make me more depressed?’”

To Vivi’s great surprise, Jude giggles. A totally surreal sound. She hasn’t giggled like that in years, if ever.

“There we go,” says Cardan, weirdly indulgent. “No more crying. Or, well—oh, okay,” he adds, as Jude turns her head and begins quietly sobbing into the sleeve of his shirt. “I guess some more crying.”

“You seem very sober,” Vivi remarks.

“Yeah, I’m trying it on. Just club soda for me tonight.” He leans over to rest his head on top of Jude’s. “It, cómo se dice, sucks.”

“Like your accent.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Vivi is beginning to get vaguely suspicious. She says, “But you are handling this well. Just used to dealing with a lot of drunks?”

“Huh? Oh.” Cardan’s dark eyes flick up to meet Vivi’s in the mirror. “This isn’t the first time. Jude got wasted at prom, after the stuff with Locke and Taryn came to light. Completely trashed.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You were finishing up sophomore year, right? In like, Massachusetts? And it’s not like she would have told you. If she’s lucky, she doesn’t remember it. I loaded her into the Uber that took her home.”

Vivi’s stomach twists, but she channels the newfound sister guilt into suspicion and narrows her eyes. “Decent of you.”

“Yeah, I was trying that out, too. Got puked on for the trouble.” Cardan leans his head back against the headrest now. Jude’s sobs have quieted down. “But I still remember the Four Phases of Drunk Jude Duarte.”

“I’m glad somebody does,” Vivi admits. “What are they?”

“Angry, weepy, horny, sick.”

She snorts. “Basically Snow White’s shittiest dwarves.”

“Basically,” Cardan agrees. “But you’re not in danger of her getting sick yet, because we haven’t hit—ah. Um. Well.” He clears his throat. “Never mind.”

Vivi looks up into the mirror again to see Cardan plucking Jude’s hand off of him and returning it to her. “Did we just hit horny?”

“We just hit horny,” he says, his voice strained. Jude has her face buried in his neck again, but this time for entirely different reasons. The hand he had returned to Jude is already sliding back down his shirt. “Okay, hands above the waist. No, above—”

“Oh my God.” Vivi covers her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“Great. Very helpful, Vivienne,” Cardan says, grabbing Jude’s wrist and holding it still. It speaks to their relationship as nearly family friends that he can use her full name without invoking her wrath. “Your sister is outright molesting me and you can’t even tell her to knock it off?”

He doesn’t sound totally panicked, though. “I think you might want my sister to molest you,” Vivi guesses, turning around in her seat to look at him. Somehow, Jude has managed to thoroughly drape herself across him, but Cardan is showing admirable and frankly uncharacteristic self-restraint by keeping her from doing anything that can’t be undone. “Just a little.”

“When she’s sober. Jude, don’t bite my ear. Jude—”

Vivi snickers. The rest of the short ride passes like that, with Cardan deflecting Jude’s advances and Vivi deflecting the taxi driver’s questions about what exactly is happening back there and whether Jude is going to be sick all over his floor mats. They are lucky enough to not hit “sick” until Jude is out of the car and walking up the five stairs to the door of the apartment building. With Cardan’s warning in mind, Vivi is able to jump back in time.

Cardan, who is nearer to Jude, is not so lucky. She leans against the railing and doubles over it, but his shoes and the bottoms of his jeans are still caught in the splash zone. “Okay, great,” he says, gathering her back up. He does not sound entirely tolerant now, but he also doesn’t sound as angry as Vivi might expect. “That’s over. Feel any better?”

“No,” Jude mutters.

“You might in the morning.” He moves them both so Vivi can pass and open the door. “Man, is this really only the second time this has ever happened to you? I have to say, I’m jealous. Not of you in this moment, of course. Just in general.”

“We can’t all be charming teenage alcoholics,” Vivi says, propping the door open so Cardan can help her through.

“You hear that, Jude?” Cardan asks. “Your sister thinks I’m charming.”

“Uh-huh,” says Jude.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Vivi warns. “She’s almost out. Let’s get her upstairs.”

Jude doesn’t make it into the bedroom she and Taryn are sharing. They put her to bed on the couch, on her side, with Cardan’s jacket draped over her. There’s no laundry machine in the AirBnB, but Vivi finds some detergent in the cabinet and they fill the bathroom sink with lukewarm water so Cardan can wash his jeans. Vivi is not sure the right time for the conversation she should have is now, when Cardan is standing in his boxer briefs and Jude is passed out in the next room, but on the bright side, there probably isn’t a worse time.

“You know, I didn’t think we had this level of friendship,” Cardan remarks, dunking his jeans in the sudsy water. “Dealing with your sister must really be a bonding experience. You always liked Rhyia best.”

“Well, Rhyia’s cool.” Vivi folds her arms and leans in the doorway. She kicked off her boots when they got in the door, so Cardan now looks even taller, although certainly not very intimidating in his underwear. “Calvin Klein. Nice. You always struck me as more of a boxers guy, I have to say.”

“Sometimes. These jeans are pretty tight, though.” He looks over at her. “Do you need something?”

She shakes her head. “Oh, nothing. I just can’t believe you’re trying to fuck my sister.”

“I’m not trying to fuck your sister,” Cardan says, massaging his jeans in the sink in such a way that Vivi is forced to wonder whether he’s ever done his own laundry. “She’s wasted. And she hates me.”

Vivi frowns deeply.

Cardan asks, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Vivienne Leigh—”

“Don’t you pull out my full name for this. You’re playing some game here and I will figure out what it—oh.”

“What now?”

Vivi squints at him. “Are you in love with my sister?”

Cardan lets out an exhausted sigh. “Taryn isn’t really my type.”

They both know they aren’t talking about Taryn. “What the fuck. How long?”

“Like a year. Or maybe my whole life. I’m not sure.”

“Does she know?”

“I really hope not.” Cardan grimaces at his reflection in the mirror, and then looks past himself to see where Jude sleeps on the couch. “She’d never let me live it down.”

“Okay, well…” Vivi pauses. This is more older sibling responsibility than she signed up for. “What are your… intentions?”

“I don’t have any.” Vivi purses her lips, and he adds, “I really don’t. I wasn’t expecting to see her tonight. I kind of thought I’d never see her again after we graduated.” He pauses and looks down at the sink. “I think, someday, I’d like to be a person she likes. That she’s capable of liking.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Huh.” He has it really, really bad. Vivi can’t imagine what Jude said or did to make him feel that way about her. Maybe it was her total lack of regard for him? “Is this why you bullied her for years?”

“I hope not!” Cardan exclaims, in a way that suggests this thought has occurred to him before, and moreover, that it actually bothers him. “I don’t know! I don’t want to be that fucking cliché, Vivi.”

“We’re all cliché in our own special ways,” Vivi says, glancing back at Jude. A vague plot is beginning to take shape in her brain. Jude is the plotter, Taryn the planner—there is a difference—and Vivi the pantser, normally. But there is something here that she thinks she can exploit. “Seeing as you have no pants, you should probably stay over. I don’t think any of our clothes will fit you.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. You can have one of the twin beds.” After a beat, she adds, “I’m not telling you which one is Jude’s.”

“Darn,” Cardan deadpans. “Now I don’t know which one to jerk off in.”

Vivi pulls a face. “That’s the idea.” And then, because Cardan is hopeless, she reaches forward and yanks the plug from the drain. “Rinse off your jeans in clean water. Otherwise they’ll dry all stiff and soapy.”

“Thank you for the advice, oh wise one.”

She rolls her eyes and leaves him to it. After checking on Jude, whose coloring and breathing are both normal, she heads back to her room and looks at her phone. Nothing from Taryn, even though it’s later than Vivi thought, but Vivi isn’t worried. Taryn’s kind of like a cat in that, somehow, she always manages to land on her feet. Vivi fires off a quick text to her, then stares at the glowing screen, thinking about the way Cardan had rested his head on top of Jude’s in the back of the taxi.

She texts Heather: sisters are a lot of work

And:

i wish you were here

It’s much earlier in New England. When the three dots pop up to indicate that Heather is typing a reply, Vivi smiles.