#i am yet to see accidental lesbian lions this way though

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

when I look at western media depictions of Chinese things I always look for gay lions

so lion statues have a male and female lion pair, male lions have a ball to play with and lionesses have a little baby to take care of (lion patriarchy)

Lot of westerners don't know this so they accidentally draw Gay Lions

look at them. love wins

[fruitcoops]

Guess the Two of Us

Hey folks! I’ve been watching Cut videos recently to get inspiration for more Lions social media fics and have found several wonderful ideas. This is based on the video where someone has to match up couples from a group people they’ve never met--I love O’Knutzy, but seeing as they’re not out yet, I did not include them in this.

Sweater Weather credit goes to @lumosinlove, but Grace is mine! Let me know if you’re still enjoying the social media fics :)

“Do I just talk to the camera?” a young woman in a yellow dress asked. Someone offscreen nodded and she smiled. “Hello, hockey fans! I’m Grace and I’ll be doing a video for the Lion Pride channel today.”

“Grace, do you keep up with the hockey world?” Marlene’s voice was a bit muffled behind the camera.

“Not at all, I’m more into softball, baseball, that kind of thing.”

“Do you live in Gryffindor?”

“Nope! I’m visiting family and I was in the coffee shop across the street when someone offered to have me film a video for the network.”

“We’re going to bring ten people out and you’re going to match the couples. Sound good?”

“Oh, god, this is going to be hard,” Grace laughed. “Sure, I’ll give it a tryrst.”

“Alright, the rest of you can line up behind her. Grace, I’ll tell you when you can turn around and start guessing. You can ask them to hold hands, kiss, dance, whatever will give you a better idea of their relationship.” Ten people walked out from behind the camera into a loose semi-circle. “Ready? Go!”

“Whew, okay, no pressure.” Grace turned to face them. “Okay, first one.” She bit her lip and scanned the group, then pointed to Lily and Natalie hesitantly. “You both look very nice and very intimidating. Could you come here for a second and hold hands?”

“Are you using new moisturizer?” Lily asked as she twined their fingers together; Kasey covered his mouth in the background. “Your hands are so soft.”

Grace looked between them for a moment, narrowing her eyes. “As much as you two would make an absolute power couple, I think you’re just really good friends. Who’s the guy that’s laughing over there?”

“I’m Kasey,” he said around his laughter.

“You’re her boyfriend, aren’t you?” She gestured to Natalie; he didn’t answer the question, but she nodded anyway. “Yeah, I’m calling it.”

“Nat, Kasey, you guys can stand over to the left,” Marlene said.

“I’m feeling a little better now, this is good!” Grace said as she faced the others again, bouncing on her toes a bit. “Tall guy and slightly shorter guy, can you come up?”

“Since when am I ‘slightly shorter guy’?” James grumbled as he walked over with Sirius.

“Since we met! I’ve always been taller than you.”

“The banter is a good sign,” Grace mused. “Hmmm. If you’re comfortable, could you give him a kiss on the cheek?” Sirius leaned down and planted one on James, who grinned. “This is tough. You’re either dating or just, like, peak best friends.”

“You can ask them to say, ‘I love you’,” Marlene suggested out of frame.

Grace turned back to them. “Could you?”

They faced each other and James took Sirius’ hands, looking deep into his eyes. “I love you.”

“Love you, too—” Sirius caught himself at the last second and Grace sighed.

“You were going to finish that with ‘dude’ or something, weren’t you?” she asked; his poker face broke immediately. “Damn it. I thought I had that one.”

“She’s good at this,” Lily commented from the line.

“Can you come to the front for a second? Sirius, you can head back.”

Lily stuck her hands in her pockets as she stood next to James. “I get the slightly shorter guy. Nice.”

Grace paused. “At first I was almost positive you were together, but now I feel like you would step on him. Is that rude?” Everyone else started cheering and she smiled as James flushed. “Sorry, you just have a presence!”

“Thank you!”

“Alright, I can’t decide. You can both go back,” she finally said. Remus gave Lily a nudge as she returned to her place and Grace’s eyebrows rose. “Sweater guy, can you step up to the plate?” Remus obliged and she tilted her head to the side. “So, I was going to say you were Lily’s boyfriend because of the little moment back there, but there is no way you’re heterosexual.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose as the rest of the group burst out laughing. “I mean, you’re right, but holy shit that was fast. Twenty-five years of pretending to be straight, wasted.”

“Hey, same!” They high-fived and she surveyed the other seven people. “Hmmm. Can the guy in the red shirt come over for a minute?” Talker walked over with a wide grin on his face. “Oh, the vibe is definitely there. I feel like he steals your sweaters.” Out of Grace’s sightline, dawning horror overtook Sirius’ face. “Can you hug?”

“Yeah, sure.” Talker held his arms out and Remus settled into them, giving him a tight squeeze around the chest.

“I can see it, I can see it,” Grace said, nodding. “Yeah, I think you two are a couple.”

“Three pairs left,” Marlene said.

“How are all of you so pretty?” Grace sighed as she turned back to the group. “Can the lady in the purple shirt and the one who looks like she could bench-press me come forward? What do you two do for a living?”

“Professional hockey,” Noelle said.

June grinned. “I’m a mechanic.”

“That’s so cool. Hmm. Could you slow dance for a second?” June wrapped her arms around Noelle’s waist, leaving a decent amount of room between them as they swayed. “You’re so cute together, oh my god.”

“Is that a yes?” June asked as they separated.

“Absolutely.” Grace blew out a long breath. Only James, Sirius, Heather, and Lily were left. “This is so difficult. How did it get harder with fewer people? Well, the lovely lady in the jacket has a rainbow pin, so I’m going to say you two are together. I am a hundred percent sure those two guys aren’t dating because of the ‘bro’ thing, but there’s nobody else left.”

“Do you want to do a rematch before your final decision?” Marlene offered.

Grace looked over at the group of already-paired couples on the left. She hesitated, then shook her head. “I know I got at least two wrong, but I don’t want to mess everything else up.”

“In that case, you’re going to face the camera and close your eyes. Everyone, get together with your real partners and put rings on if you have them.”

“Rings?” Her jaw dropped. “Some of them are married?”

“There’s one married couple and two are engaged.”

“If I accidentally ruined someone’s future, please know that I am so sorry.”

“There’s a very low chance of that,” Sirius said as he slid his ring on.

“Okay, Grace, turn around.”

Grace turned and covered her mouth with both hands. “Awww! How many did I get right?”

“One.”

“One?” Kasey and Natalie waved, and she sighed. “Please tell me you’re at least engaged.”

“Nope, sorry.”

“Shit.”

“Let’s start with this end,” Marlene laughed. “Pots, Lils, go ahead.”

“For the record, she could definitely step on me.” James grinned and kissed Lily’s temple. “We’re the married ones.”

“Wait, that’s so cute,” Grace said softly. “I totally see it.”

“So, why didn’t you pair them up?” Marlene asked.

“I don’t know! It seems so obvious now. How long have you been together?”

Lily leaned her head on James’ shoulder. “We met about eight years ago, had a baby last winter, and got married this past summer.”

“Congratulations!” June and Heather walked up next, hand-in-hand. “Well, at least I didn’t put either of you with one of the guys.”

June shrugged. “Noelle’s a cutie. If I wasn’t already engaged to the love of my life, I’d go there.”

“I put you two together because you had the jock-for-jock thing going, but this right here is couple goals.” Grace sniffled slightly. “Is it normal to get emotional about other people’s love?”

“You have three other couples to get through, you can’t cry yet!” Heather teased playfully as they moved to the end of the line.

Natalie winked. “You had us figured out right away.”

“Your boyfriend couldn’t stop laughing!”

Kasey snorted. “Sorry, it’s just that there’s a running joke among our friends that Lily and Nat are the true power couple. Even I didn’t notice the hand lotion, and we live together.”

She gasped as Talker and Noelle took their place. “Wait, what?”

“Surprise, I’m not a lesbian!” Noelle said, doing jazz hands. “Very flattered, though.”

“How do all these make so much sense?” Grace shook her head in disbelief. “At least I wasn’t wrong about the jock-for-jock vibe for one of the couples.”

Marlene stepped slightly into view. “Why didn’t you put Thomas and Noelle with each other?”

Grace shrugged. “They both had such good chemistry with the other people in the group. I’m sure I would’ve paired them up if I had seen them together, though.”

“Alright, final couple.” Talker and Noelle joined the back of the line; Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus’ waist as they stepped forward.

“You were right about the jock thing for two of the couples, actually,” Remus said with a grin. “Very impressive.”

“How did I miss this?” Grace looked at the camera crew, then back at them. “How the hell did I miss this?”

“Don’t worry, we were all oblivious for about three and a half months,” James said ruefully.

“Are you all friends?”

“All the guys play for the Lions, Gryffindor’s hockey team,” Marlene explained.

“The hockey questions make a lot more sense now. Does that mean you two play for the same team?”

“Literally or figuratively?” The corners of Sirius’ mouth twitched up as James rolled his eyes. “Yes, and yes. I’m the team captain.”

“I play wing,” Remus said.

“Did you two meet through hockey?”

Remus made a ‘so-so’ motion. “Sort of. I was the Lions’ physical therapist for two years before I was a player. We started spending more time together after Sirius broke his ankle.”

“Are you the other engaged couple?” Sirius beamed and held up his left hand. “Yeah, I thought so. Congrats, you’re both adorable!”

“Merci.”

“Do you want to sign us off, Grace?” Marlene asked as Sirius and Remus rejoined the rest of the group.

She turned to the camera and waved. “Thanks for watching, everyone!”

[jerek]

[[MORE]]

i mean for gods sake in canon garrosh calls sylvanas a bitch and implies shes no different than the lich king but in my version she was killed by a misogynistic warlock, literally demonized after her death, and mourned in a Cringy but to my younger self quietly poignant scene by a version of garrosh that only truly comes into her femininity in remembrance and admiration for the woman who she feels alienated from in both nature and values but also spent so much time with, giving an honest ear to her cruel, world-taught views.

I mean for gods sake how did i write this. I accidentally wrote Garrosh as a nonbinary lesbian with a crush on a homophobic woman. Half of what i just detailed was a metaphor for things I would later go on to experience.

And i know this was some lesbian shit because it didnt end there. My version of garrosh was a physically imposing masculine lesbian, but she herself had an alternate version.

The alternate version was smaller, more normatively feminine, and drawn as an animal. In some branches of the story, she’s a reincarnation of the main lesbian garrosh, in a world where everyone else is reincarnated as a symbolic animal version of themselves, but in the main branch she never spoke, never interacted with anyone, and haunted Nagrand like a ghost.

Also let me talk about Nagrand. Fucking nagrand. When she got there is when the REAL feminist theory started. There were three main plot points.

1. it was revealed here that sylvanas lived on in a sort of afterlife. Not the empty blank void that Blizzard sent their favorite misogynist caricature to, to reflect the way they wrote her, but a dreamlike world that floated between the lines of the universe’s rulebook— surrounded by a perpetual rose-gold haze.

Sometimes it was a grassy floating island, with a single tree and a little pool of water, sometimes it was a modern driveway and a street and a park based on my own neighborhood, and then.

Sometimes they’d travel to the furthest edge of the afterlife, and there would be no great gate. Instead, there would be a silver strip, like a metal tightrope, and Sylvanas would walk her down it on their tiptoes, with only one of each woman’s arm extended for balance because the opposite hands were holding each other.

it was a dreamlike world, and until she gave up her life and met her there, she could only ever dream of it.

2. She did, eventually.

it was for garrosh. not my female version, because she had a different name that i would randomly change, but the male garrosh, the canonical garrosh, the garrosh who was meant to escape into the timeline she found herself accidentally in.

she saw him as a big brother, but at the same time, not. he was worse than her, and she knew that, but much like sylvanas it itched in the back of her brain that she could change him, that she could show him a new way like anduin tried to, that if this giving calm existed in her it surely rested dormant in garrosh.

because after all, like a nb lesbian and her favorite male character, she and garrosh were the same person.

garrosh was killed, and she sought revenge. wielding two axes— her own, and that of garrosh, she strode up to thrall and thrust her heart to the sky as she was struck down.

she went to the afterlife, and there sylvanas would sleep atop her chest, under the tree.

3. but before that…

you know how i joke about anduin being a lesbian??

i also used to have a virulent hatred for varian, from my version of anduin— another extended metaphor, this time for how neurodivergence affected my school life and my online life back in 7th grade.

and anduin snuck off.

almost every other day, he’d sneak off; sometimes to the animal world, where instead of being reincarnated he emerged from a dark, underground labyrinth in elwynn to a world that had never heard the words “prince of stormwind”— and unknowingly, he emerged transformed into a wild, half-maned feline.

sometimes to nyalotha, where he could rest, where he could recover, where in a single psychic scream he could eliminate the pull of duty and become not what he perhaps should have been, but what he was nonetheless happy to turn into.

sometimes back to veiled stair, sometimes he would burn the valley of four winds in his black-hole suspicions— he would drink too much of something shadowy purple— and he would sleep well knowing High Queen Proudmoore would understand that though destruction is a choice, one far easier than creation, sometimes the only real choice is whether to do something stupid or just stand by.

but this time, it was him and my version of garrosh. him, and her, and varian back in stormwind.

and he would ask her— why?

she would be silent, and keep bandaging his wounds from the local wildlife. they would heal eventually.

but he wasn’t the only insane, stupid one around. like a child younger than himself, sometimes she would leave their makeshift tent, and sit in the bushes, and sulk.

does it matter, one dream showed me her asking; my thinking, if it only lasts a moment?

he didn’t understand yet, but this wasn’t the branch where he ran from the same problem— a mix of his upbringing and the failures of his brain.

she would ask— “if i feel nothing for any longer than a few minutes,” in a tone i eventually thought betrayed who she was meant to represent— “how do i know that this momentary despair, this momentary rage even matters?”

“does it matter why, if i can do good only because i forget so often my evil nature?”

she would plead— smite her, burn a hole through her eyelid as was done to sylvanas, and remove what makes her this way. what makes her any way.

perhaps when she was redeemed, honorable by both orc and human standards, she would allow herself to die.

only one tear a night fell from my version of garrosh, and though they were both unstable, anduin learned from her. she was his mentor, his aunt, his idol, and his replacing parent.

when the si:7 found him, he was alone. he was scratching in his sleep at reddened pustules around old wolf-bite scars she had helped to close, and they took him back. as they do in every branch where he survives, by trap or by net or by silent cooperation.

through the fevers, he traveled back to stormwind. through the nausea, he embraced his father.

relishing the pain of red pox all over, pain body-wide that had never let itself exist without hellscream, he stabbed his father in varian’s own throne room.

this is how it must end with wrynn kings.

he didn’t know whether the guards slew him or arrested him. he saw only a thin strip of silver, splitting the evening sky, and knew soon he would be there with the woman he felt was truly worthy of being his family.

he experienced what she did. the weight on his heart, closing his throat as he tried to get people to see why he does what he does— why he sees the world the way he does, why it doesn’t mean he’s just a naive idealist waiting patiently for reality to beat it out of him. why it doesn’t make him stupid.

being haunted by himself. the dark face of the moon she was to him was small, and spindly, and though it was striped, unlike a lion, it wore a thick, soft mane from the top of its head down to its chest. he didn’t think the dead could laugh, but here he was— because what stalked him wherever he went was so much like her. big, and strong, and when he was alone daydreaming instead of performing for the crown, he imagined it free from the alliance.

dreaming of what could be. even with his own garrosh, he felt a familiarity that ate at him— how deep and warm his voice, how bright his eyes, how quick his temper— and how breakable he felt, from the moment his father woke every morning, to that moment in draenor where he saw another towering figure in solid stance, with hair long and tied, stare down at him and ask— who are you?

and with her, he could answer that.

i am what i am, he would tell her, the moment his soul untangled from his form, and there are no words in my language to describe me.

except for one, if his new mother would see fit— if orcish surnames could pass the grave he might feel around him were he able to move.

she had once called herself garrosh, because she thought she was him.

now, though it would take courage, as all things seemed to take when done her way— he would ask if he was a hellscream yet.

honorable to orcs and humans alike.